Disclaimer: I don't own anything Trigun, so don't sue me please, thank you!

Tying Up Loose Ends

Chapter Eleven

Fear and Loathing

After crying herself into exhaustion, Edy lay there, unable to move and too tired to speak. She felt like vomiting but it would have taken too much effort. Panic filled her mind, allowing no rest. Edy didn't want to think any more, didn't want to go over and over in her mind potential outcomes of this situation; none of them ended in her getting out of the cave alive. The sensation of something gently swabbing her back all of a sudden made her cringe but she was physically incapable of pulling away.

"Please…. No…." she whispered hoarsely, her words being the only thing she had anymore to fight against the dangerous man. The almost tender cleansing continued without a response for several minutes. The only sound she heard was the occasional sloshing of water in a canteen, probably being used to soak whatever he was using to wash her back. Fear and fatigue made her want to sob again and a few more tears managed to trickle down her face before her body said that was enough.

Knives wanted so badly to be able to do what she could, to heal. The cuts were ugly, so bright and angry and red, very, very red. Knives knew they would leave scars and he hated the thought; Vash's body had been so badly marred that one could no longer detect his perfection and even he himself had a few scars of his own. She looked so lovely, so flawless, but now he had ruined her smooth skin. Knives gently, slowly washed her back with the corner of the blanket and some canteen water, fighting off the fatigue that tried to overtake his mind. Knives' body screamed from the onslaught of consciousness but he ignored it, tending to this newly discovered female plant.

"What's your name?" he asked, speaking again at last, deciding conversation was needed at that moment. The poor woman was still stressed and very upset. His question elicited no reply and asked again.

Edy didn't want to answer, but she wanted to survive this to see her Isaiah again. She remembered learning somewhere that if you give yourself a human face you had a better chance of escaping from the attacker with your life. She didn't think he'd listen to her, though; nothing she had said so far had seemed to penetrate his skull.

"Edy…" she began, but speaking only made the terror well up to the surface and she began to babble in the rough whisper that her voice seemed incapable of rising above. She needed to stay calm, but that was asking too much at the moment. "Oh god, don't kill me! Please, I just want to see my brother again. Isaiah, oh sweetie, I'm so sorry! Isaiah, he's…. Isaiah, he's too young, he needs me! Oh god…. oh god…. please don't kill me…. Isaiaaah!"

Her words blended and burbled as she began to sob again with sudden and renewed force. All she could think about was what Isaiah would do, what he would think, how he would feel when he found out what had happened to her. She saw his face when he came across her dead body and could hear the breaking of his heart. Edy couldn't leave him alone, couldn't bear the thought of how much pain it would cause him. Her body shook violently with her weeping.

Knives paused in his washing, confused. This woman, Edy, she was so scared, far more than he even suspected. It also struck him that she mentioned a brother; was he the boy that had come before, the one that looked so much like Vash when he was young?

"I told you, I'm not going to hurt you any more," he replied, his voice little and quite shocked. "I don't understand, you're safe now."

Edy was so confused; she heard his words but she didn't believe them. What was going on here? Who was he?

A deep quiet fell over the pair again and Knives continued to wash Edy's wounds. He drifted into his own thoughts while Edy's centered around plans of how to get out of there and fast. Unconsciousness set in about a half hour later, minor relief for the scared, exhausted girl. She couldn't hold it off any longer, passing out before she could come up with a possible plan to escape. When, no, if she woke up she'd have her strength back, but so would he, and who knows what he would do to her as she slept. Still, there was nothing she could do until then.

* * * * *

Rodney was in a hurry. His boss had sent him to mail off a dozen packages of varying shapes, sizes, and weights right when he needed to get home; his wife had gone into labor only an hour before. Jumping out of the jeep, he left it running as he ran inside. As luck would have, only three people stood in line ahead of him and he was out within fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes turned out to be too long, because when he rushed out to hop in the jeep and hurry home, no vehicle sat their waiting for him. He just wanted to cry, the poor fellow.

* * * *

Vash looked unhappy in the passengers seat. Wolfwood glanced a few times at his friend's sour expression and quizzically posed the question on his mind.

"What? What's wrong?"

"We should have left the poor man some money or something; it wasn't very nice to just up and take some stranger's jeep," Vash said, going into full pout mode.

"Aw, come off it Tongari. We'll bring it back and drop it in the same place we found it, good as new. Think of it this way," he said with an almost mischievous grin, "if the guy was really Knives and if God wanted us to go stop him and rescue Edy, he would have provided us with a solution to the problem. Low and behold, he did."

"I don't think it works quite like that," Vash replied in his most disparaging voice. "I think we stole that man's vehicle."

"Well, no other option had presented itself until that point and not for our lack of trying, either. Of course, this all wouldn't have happened if that brat hadn't stolen my motorcycle."

"He probably put two and two together from the way we were talking and wanted to do something to help his sister. It was remarkably resourceful and brave of him; remarkably stupid, but brave all the same."

Wolfwood just shook his head and flicked a butt out of the jeep. Lighting up another one he decided it was time to address a pretty major issue that had yet to be resolved.

"So, if this guy turns out to be Knives, what do we do with him when we find him?"

"You'll get as far away as humanly possible and I'll take care of the rest," mumbled Vash in reply.

"You know it doesn't work that way, Tongari," the priest said, his temper slowly rising the more he spoke. "You pushed me and the Insurance Girls away when you needed us most. We wouldn't do anything that we didn't want to, and we wanted to help you. God, Tongari, you're such a selfish bastard!"

"I was just doing it to protect all of you!"

"And sacrifice yourself in the balance? Of all the people in the world, you're the one who deserves a break. You can't keep me from helping you and I'm sure if the girls were here they'd say the same thing."

Vash grew quiet and stared off into the distance. They drove along in a thick silence, neither speaking for a long time. They were about an hour behind Isaiah but they still had his tracks to follow on the amazingly windless day. Vash gauged the time to be about 1:30; if he remembered correctly, Isaiah said the cave lay about four hours outside of town.

Anxiety grew in his belly, gnawing at his stomach walls, trying to find a way out. If Knives was in as bad a condition as Isaiah said this man was, then the chance of catching up with him stood on the side of probable; that he wasn't too worried about, aside from what the hell he was going to do with his brother when he found him. If Knives had any strength, though, the chances of them finding Edy alive narrowed with each passing moment. How long had she been gone?

Guilt took root along side anxiety and began to sprout, winding its thick stems around his heart and squeezing tight. If he had only watched Knives a little closer, if he had stopped his brother years ago, if he had somehow kept Knives from destroying the SEEDS ships, if he had been able to convince his brother that Rem wasn't responsible for Tessla's terrible life and brutal death, if, if, if…. At that moment he felt responsible for the deaths of everyone Knives killed and planned to kill when the ships from Earth arrived. And he felt horribly responsible for whatever suffering Edy had to now endure at the hands of his brother. If, if, if….

The drive ended up mostly silent and uneventful; as the suns almost disappeared behind the horizon they came upon Angelina II parked next to a motorbike, both besides a small opening in the rock. This had to be the place. Both men got out of the jeep, Wolfwood a shadow in black and Vash a flash of brilliant red; before they set out Wolfwood had returned the coat to him, saying that he couldn't ride into battle without it. Both had their weapons and wills ready as they approached the cave.

The suns dipped down and out of sight, gone before they could witness the coming scene.

* * * * *

Myshkin: Sorry so short; next one'll be a doozy, I promise.