Sorry about the delay.
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Knives walked into the kitchen, startling Meryl and Vash. They had been sitting next to each other at the table, intent on their whispered conversation. From the guilty look on his brother's face, it had something to do with him. He smiled at the two of them and took one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table.
He loved watching the slightly panicked look on Meryl's face when she searched for a new topic of conversation. The quick change in thinking, the quest for something so different that he wouldn't be able to guess whatever topic had held their attention a moment before. It was such a transparent effort to keep him placated, and he wondered what she thought he would do if, just once, they continued their conversation. Was she afraid that he would take umbrage, that their words would anger him so much that he would leap over the table and start attacking them? Probably. Maybe. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was just habit by now, the task of keeping him from rage.
He let his smile reflect his thoughts, and enjoyed the flutter of panic that crept into Meryl's eyes. Then a veil of shame was drawn over his thoughts, and he wondered why it was so enjoyable to make his brother's wife afraid of him. Or, no, not to make her afraid of him, but to see that fear. To revel in her uneasiness around him. To take pleasure in the fact that she still, after all these years, viewed him as dangerous.
Then she spoke, and he left those thoughts behind.
"So, what are we going to do now?" she asked, forcing a note of brightness into her voice. "Did Mark say anything important? Is she coming back, staying away?"
"She isn't coming back. She has decided that working for the plant, and for the plant-haters, is much more important and enjoyable than anything to do with us." He traced a lazy pattern on the tabletop. "I suspect some murderous plot, with suicide at the end for her. Something big and dramatic to take care of the human's fears."
Vash looked up at him, startled. "Anne? Anne is going to do that?"
Knives lay his hand flat against the table. "I don't know for sure. But it seems likely. Fits her personality quite well. You know she is filled with self-loathing, you know that she has suicided before. It seems likely she has affixed on the fact she is a plant as the focal point for everything that is "wrong" with her, and that if the plants can die, that her evil will be redeemed."
"That's crazy. She didn't look, I mean, she didn't act like that was what she was planning yesterday."
Knives sighed. "I'm afraid that when she learned about Ace and I, well, it sent her a little over the edge. Mark implied that she had been fighting these plans, but that now she just wants to see us all dead." He made sure that his voice was pitched loud enough to carry into the living room, then began to trace patterns on the table again. "Likely, we'll be seeing some actions against us soon." Lie, he traced out, again and again. "Where is Alex? He's in danger as well; he should be here to listen to this."
"He's resting in the bedroom," said Meryl. "I'll go get him."
"Do." Knives looked at his brother, and saw Vash's nod.
Knives nearly sighed in relief, biting it back only because he didn't want Ace to know what was going on. Vash might not know yet, but he knew that what Knives was saying wasn't the truth. And that the only reason he would be lying now was to fool Ace.
"We are going to follow Anne, as much as we can," he started as soon as Meryl and Alex had returned. "Starting tonight, we're going to find her where she's singing, then follow her to wherever it is she is staying. We need to know what she's doing, and who with. We need to know our enemies."
"Why not just go back to the ship?" asked Ace lazily from the doorway.
"Our enemies are here, not at the ship. Anne knows how to get in and out of my ship, knows where it is. If we wait and let her plan some way to kill us there it will be much harder to stop her." He shook his head. "No, here is where we need to be, to stop this now. She might begin to harm our sisters in the bulbs before she comes after us as well, and that cannot be allowed."
"I'm not looking for her," Ace said sullenly.
"Fine," agreed Knives, letting a twinge of asperity into his voice. "You just sit here. You do that so well."
"I will," she sniffed, then returned to the living room and flopped down on the couch.
Knives sighed. "Vash. You, Alex, and I will go looking for Anne tonight."
"I can come, too," protested Meryl.
Knives shook his head slowly. "We don't need you with us," he said coldly.
Vash put a hand on his wife's shoulder. She turned and met his eyes. Vash looked quickly towards Knives, nodded, then said, "We shouldn't leave Ace alone. What if they want to retake her? Anne isn't going to rescue her again."
Meryl looked between the two, slightly bewildered. "I'll do what I can, but, frankly, she's the more dangerous of the two of us."
"Just watch her back, ok?" asked Vash, his eyes pleading with Meryl to stay.
She nodded, slipping one hand up to cover his on her shoulder. "I can do that," she said, beginning to understand just what wasn't being said. "No one is going to get past me," she affirmed, glancing at Knives.
He nodded, glad that she seemed to understand.