Vash exited the bedroom with blood smeared across his white, long-sleeved shirt, a wan smile gracing his lips. He wiped his hands off on his pants and looked upon the anxious plant awaiting his answer, standing with his back leaning against the wall, eyes locked first on the doorway and then on the person who exited it. Vash nodded his head slowly.

Mitayo's knees buckled and he fell to the floor, sobbing in relief and grief, his face in his hands. "He's alive," he whispered in reassurance to himself. "He's alive..."

~~~~~

Billy was not in a good mood - in fact, she was downright upset. When she had woken up that morning, Naoshi had been strangely absent. Great. The plant assassin had pulled yet another one of his disappearing acts, which were becoming more and more frequent.

She had loafed around the house all day, being lazy and playing with her son. Vincent had also been a bit irritable, not his usual quiet self. First he whined over where his dad was, then he complained about his cereal, and last of all, he was tired of the swimming pool and his current toys. He wanted new amusements. Billy could offer none for him or for herself.

Later that night, the front door banged open and both mother and son rushed to great Naoshi and welcome his coming home. However, they soon found that with him he had brought an unpleasant surprise.

"Hello, adoring family," he greeted, striding inside and dragging a little girl along by the hand. Her wide eyes were his own, full of fear and hate. "Look, we have a visitor. Her name is Faith and she will be staying with us from now on."

Vincent looked at his mother in shock and surprise, seeing she had been stunned into silence, jaw hanging open. "Where...did she come from?" Billy finally demanded when she found her voice. The resemblance the child bore to Naoshi was uncanny and disturbing. She was his - no doubt about it - but who the heck was the mother?

"This is my daughter," Naoshi stated the obvious, smiling at Billy. He must've had great ambitions for the future and a happy family, but none of them would ever amount to anything if the woman of the house had a say.

"Take her back," Billy said flatly. "I don't want her. I don't want to know how she got here. Just take her back."

"Why would I do that?"

Now Billy's hopes and dreams were being single-handedly torn down by one scared little girl. This was horrible - more horrible than she had ever dreamt. How could he just waltz right in with evidence that he had been with another woman?

"Billy, please, try to understand," Naoshi purred, shutting the door and ushering the little girl closer towards Vincent. Faith struggled briefly against him, tears dripping from her wide eyes, and a whimper worked its way up from her throat. "She's a little upset right now. Don't make it worse."

Grabbing Naoshi's hand, Billy jerked him into the kitchen and slammed the door. Placing her hands on her hips, gazing into his placid eyes, she whispered furiously, "You better explain where that little girl's mom is and you better explain quick!"

"Shh," he calmed her, hands gently resting on her shoulders. "She's just Stormie's daughter. I couldn't leave her with that woman... Come on, don't be jealous... This happened a few nights before I even met you."

"And just what was the whole deal with Stormie?"

At this he glanced back at the door, seeming to fear the two children outside were listening in, and leaned in to whisper in Billy's ear.

At his first few words, her fingernails dug into his shoulders, leaving indents even through his heavy shirt. After three sentences her stomach had twisted in knots and her knees were going weak. As soon as his explanation was through, she slammed the front of her palms against his chest and pushed him roughly away, screeching, "YOU DID WHAT?!"

The man stumbled back and crashed against the door, gritting his teeth against the hit. He looked genuinely surprised at her anger, sorely rubbing a spot just below his shoulder. "Billy, why are you being so irrational?"

Billy angrily wiped the tears glistening in her eyes, refusing to look at him. She sniffled, trying to rise above the hurt and the pain. Naoshi was a smart man - why couldn't he figure out how to be decent to her? Maybe it was all just a game to him. Either way, she had just decided that it was about time to cash in. "Alright, Naoshi. We'll play it you're way," she hissed, stalking out past him. "Go take your son out and do something with him. He's been missing you."

"Hmm? And Faith?" He eyed her warily. There was no reason for him not to trust her though; she had bent and twisted and nearly broke her back countless times just trying to conform to his way of life. No matter how much she complained, dragged her feet, or cried - Billy always did just as Naoshi wanted. This time felt a little different though...

Billy's gray-blue eyes flashed stormily. "I'll get acquainted with my - our - new daughter. Send her in. She must be hungry."

He turned and walked out, and she glimpsed through the slightly ajar door him picking up their son while Vincent giggled insanely at all the attention. Faith had pressed herself up in a corner, looking spitefully on, and at first refused when he told her to go in the kitchen. However, the girl was obstinate, but not unafraid, and did comply, and at the same time, Naoshi headed out to the green house for some alone time with Vincent. Billy wasted no time in putting her plan to action.

"Listen, honey," she said gently, kneeling before Faith and taking the girl's trembling hand, "I bet you miss your mother?"

Faith nodded. And started to sob.

"Shh...don't cry. Please don't cry."

"I'm...I'm scared," she blubbered hysterically. "I c-can't s-stop. W-why? Sh-she t-t-told me that h-he would never bother u-us! Sh-she said h-h-he didn't want me! I didn't want him to want me! H-he killed Eleven!" She rocked forward, fell to her knees, white hair streaming into her face. A low moan was expelled from her throat, one of agony and grief. "He killed Eleven! I just want to go home! I just want to...to go home! I miss - I miss my mom!"

Sitting on the kitchen floor, facing the bent over, shivering girl, Billy took the child's face in her hands. "My name is Billy, and I miss mine too," she said softly. "Let's make a promise. We're going to get out of here together, we're going to get back to our homes, where we belong. Ok?"

Faith looked unsure but at the same time, hopeful.. "Ok," she whispered, bewildered.

"Good. Now, Naoshi is intelligent - we'll have to leave very soon before he suspects anything. Tonight, I'm going to get Vincent and we'll all go together. You can trust me. Can I trust you?"

Instead of an enthusiastic yes, like she had expected, Faith stared at her warily. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand. Why would you help me like this?"

"Because," Billy said firmly, "this game we've been playing has gone on way too long."

~~~~~

Night had fallen, but he still hadn't seen his son. Sure, he'd heard him crying earlier from the bedroom, but Stormie had been the one to rush in and take care of that. Mitayo had remained in the kitchen, sliding out of his chair as if every bone in his body had just dissolved, which left him a limp mess on the floor, barely capable of curling up under the table and holding his head tight in his hands. Those soft, pained wails had torn away at his heart and mind until he found himself raking short fingernails at his scalp until it almost bled. In his sick, dizzy state, he remembered...so many things. He remembered how he had sat there with Eleven's mother and watched her bleed to death because the doctors just didn't care. Eleven was all they wanted. And for that, he had loathed his son. But now...

Now, he would just die if Eleven didn't get better.

So, there he was, staring out the window at the bulging full moon, somewhere in the corner of his mind thinking that it looked ready to burst while the rest of his brain was feeling guilty as all get out. He just knew Stormie was in that room with Eleven, been her motherly self even though her daughter was gone, and that was just another barrier in his mind. He didn't want her there. He wanted to be alone with his son and his guilt.

But, that wasn't going to happen, huh?

Tiptoeing along the corridor, Mitayo made his shameful way to the bedroom, slipping inside and letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Merely lumps and shadows at first, his gaze soon discerned that Stormie sat cross-legged at the head of the bed, Eleven's head resting in her lap as he peacefully slept. Bandages were wrapped around his midsection, arms, and forehead, gauze taped to one puffy, enflamed cheek. He was having trouble breathing, it looked like, breath rasping against the roof of his mouth. Stormie's skilled fingers were stroking through his blonde hair, smoothing it back away from his forehead in a comforting manner. She was aware of Mitayo standing in the doorway, but said nothing.

"Ya' know," he stated awkwardly after a while, "if he were awake, he'd be loving the attention. He never had a mother to sit up with him at night when he didn't feel well."

Stormie looked over at him emotionlessly. "Join the party," she invited flatly.

He held a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat behind it, eyes holding doubt and insecurity. "Alright." With careful steps, he approached the bed and sat down on the edge of it, feeling as if he didn't belong, not even beside his child. Eleven was so small and so frail - why had he never noticed? When he picked up his warm little hand, it could easily be folded and lost in his long fingers.

Stormie slipped out from beneath Eleven, consequently jolting the boy awake. He gave a soft little groan and then a displeased grunt. However, when she prompted him to look, and his hazy, blue eyes opened to see his father there, a lazy smile spread over his damaged face and he squeezed Mitayo's hand.

Stormie shot the man across from her a look that said, 'you better not disappoint this boy'.

"Are you...going to stay, dad?" croaked Eleven in a raspy voice, and it was the first time he had ever called him by that name. Dad.

"Of course," answered Mitayo before he could even think about it. And then, quite mechanically, he lay down and stretched out beside his son, turned onto his side. Eleven moved closer and nestled into him, needing warmth as well as his father, and Stormie made herself comfortable on his other side so that the boy lay between the two. Within seconds Eleven had drifted off.

Mitayo was left staring over the top of a head of tousled, near-white hair into the dancing azure eyes of an almost serious, almost curious woman. There was worry there too - she knew Naoshi would not harm Faith. How she knew that, she would not say, but earlier he had overheard her talking to Vash, lamenting how the only thing that scared her was that the plant assassin would whisk her child far, far away, never to be seen again.

"We'll find Faith," he tried to tell her, but she shook her head.

"No," she corrected, "I'll find Faith. I'm the only one who can now."

And somehow, both were reaching out their hands at the same time, tentatively, and grasping weakly at the other's fingers. The back of his wrist on the pillow over Eleven's head, her palm lying inside his. Connected. Mitayo wondered at the unfamiliar sensation of just holding someone's hand, and at how much smaller hers was. He realized he thought Stormie to be unusual and to be not only interesting, but simply fascinating, to be strong and to be innocent. Their eyes were locked again, just with simple understanding, a sort of pact that they would survive and so would their children.

And that's when Mitayo knew that he had fallen in love.

~~~~~

Knives sat with his back against the wall just outside the bedroom, face buried in his hands. He had peeked in earlier and he saw that Mitayo and Stormie were sleeping with 'their' son between them. Someone had yet to explain their relationship to him, for he had felt it would've looked stupid to ask, "So, you two together or what?" during the midst of the little boy almost dying and Faith turning up kidnapped. From the looks of it though, their fingers interlocked, gazing quietly into each other's eyes in contentment, they were most definitely in love. And so was he, but he could never have her the way Mitayo surely did.

So, Knives sat outside, feeling along and feeling empty, and shed silent tears into his cupped palms.