I got my first Christmas tree for all-by-myself-ness! Mmm, smells yummy!

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After the band had left the stage, Mark begged his leave from the table and ambled backstage. He was in time to watch Anne put her shoes on, and smiled slightly as he realized what the hem of her dress had hidden.

"Forget something?" he teased lightly, and she looked up and grinned at him.

"Seems like I'm forgetting everything today," she said wryly.

"Like the fact that you are supposed to wait for me?"

Her eyes went wide, then she nodded and did her best to look chagrined. "Sorry, Mark. I forgot. I don't know what's wrong with me today."

He laughed. "You could be just a bit preoccupied."

She forced a laugh in return. "With Knives? I've hardly thought of him all day."

"You've hardly thought of anything all day, you've been so intent about not thinking about him. Look, he was the first thing you assumed I was talking about."

She waved her hands at him. "Oh, and what else am I supposed to assume you would think I was thinking about?"

"Oh, I dunno. This gig, maybe?"

She sighed, then shrugged. A pensive moment passed, then she brightened up. "So, how were we? Were we any good? I think we did alright, and look!" She pulled out a tiny wad of cash. "See? We got paid!"

"Now you can pay your storage bill," he said calmly, then broke into a grin. "You guys were great."

"You're just saying that." She stood, finally done shoeing herself, and passed a round container over to him. "If you have to follow me, you get to carry the cymbals."

"But what if I wanted to help Tom out with his load?"

"Too bad." She hefted her bass, then waved to Dawn as she walked out the back. "See you at practice this weekend," she said as she backed out the door.

"You sure you're still going to have time for the band?" asked Mark quietly as they slipped into the alley.

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked, then shrugged. "It shouldn't take me that long to find a new apartment."

"That's it? That's your answer? Just pretend that they all don't exist?"

She shrugged again. "What do you suggest I do, Mark? Go back and pretend that I can stomach what Ace and Knives are doing? I'm not that good a liar."

Mark looked up and down the street as they entered it, then shrugged slightly in response to her question. "What about Vash, and Alex? Or Meryl? You going to just walk out of their lives?"

"They barely know me; it's not like they would miss me."

"So, you're going to go to the council and say that all the little plants need to be saved, but please don't make me talk to them? We're all great humanitarians and I can't stand the rest of them?"

Anne scowled. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Don't you? Doesn't it look a little odd, you trying, no, almost begging to save their lives, and you don't want anything to do with the lot of them? Don't you think the council is going to wonder about that?"

"What, that I may not like them, but I don't think that they deserve death?" She sighed. "Mark. I'm going to likely live an awful long time, and probably in the future will have no problem being friendly. Vash is a great guy, and Alex seems to be a good kid, but I just can't be around them right now, not because of who they are, but because they look too much like him."

"Like Knives."

She nodded slowly. "That's just not something I can bear to see. I'm human, Mark, and right now it feels like someone has been rubbing at my soul with broken slivers of glass. I was a fool to trust him enough to love him," she finished up softly.

"He was betrayed, too," Mark argued.

Anne snorted. "Oh, like that makes me feel any better. Sure, Ace says she used him, but he let himself be used. I refuse to feel sorry for him. Not even a tiny little bit. He deserves all the betrayal that she'll hand him."

"That's calm and forgiving of you."

"Please, Mark. I'm not a bloody saint. Let the bastard suffer a bit. Why should I be the only one?"

"I thought you said you weren't thinking about him."

"I'm not. You're the one who started this conversation," she whined.

"Ignoring things won't make them go away," he pointed out.

"But they'll seem to be away. Right now the seeming is enough for me."

"So you aren't going to think about Knives at all."

"Not in the slightest."

"You aren't going to miss him?"

"Can't, if I'm not thinking about him."

"Not going to respond to him in the slightest little way?"

"How could I?"

He shrugged. "You did tonight."

She froze. "I did not. He wasn't there."

"He, Vash, Alex, and Mr. Herman."

"No."

"And when Knives entered the room, that little worry wrinkle you get between your eyes went away and the music got really good."

"They were not there."

"Knives spent the entire night just staring at you. Vash and Alex were explaining to Mr. Herman how you do some of your magic."

"They weren't there."

"Vash was trying to drink a bit, but Alex wouldn't let him."

"They so were not there."

"They were there, Anne," Mark said softly.

Anne stopped and had to use the wall of a building to keep her on her feet. Mark grabbed her bass as it slipped from fingers gone lax. "I feel like a fool," she said softly. "They were there, listening to me?"

"You did a good job, Anne."

"I did a horrible job. And they heard it. Knives heard it. Heard me sing." She moaned softly. "He's going to think I was singing all about him."

"Weren't you?"

"Our play list is blues songs, Mark." Then she sighed, and continued less sharply, "But tonight it was a bit about him. He's just so self-centered that he's going to assume more than I want to say to him."

"What, that you miss him? That you have missed him?"

Anne straightened and reclaimed her bass. "No. That I want him back."