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

Tying Up Loose Ends

Chapter Twelve

Maternal Instinct

An hour before…

Angelina II rumbled to a halt beside the motorbike as well as the gap in the rocks. Isaiah hopped off and stooped to enter when he stopped; what was he doing? He had no weapon, no real way of fighting this guy. Edy refused to teach him how to shoot yet and they'd only just started a little hand-to-hand training. Isaiah was far from capable of protecting himself. Gritting his teeth in frustration, Isaiah shoved this from his mind, knowing the longer he hesitated, the longer Edy was in danger; she had already been gone for about nine hours now and a disgusting feeling of fear and panic had begun at the very base of himself and surged upward. His imagination terrified him as it jumped from scene to scene that he could possibly come to face inside the cave. Dammit, why'd he have to force Edy into something so dangerous?

Breathing in deep and fast, Isaiah ducked inside and halted, finding both Edy and the man asleep; everything seemed to have gone as expected and Edy was alright. He began let out a huge sigh of relief but it caught in his throat as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. A huge, dark stain marred the wall of the cave and the floor below it, as well as on the floor a few feet away. The blanket lay there, most of it torn away and the rest of it soaked, beside a filthy, gray t-shirt that had become a deep, primeval red down the front; the man now had Edy's huge canvas duster on, unfastened but wrapped around himself as best as possible, instead of the shirt. His face had bloomed into a brilliant mass of blues, purples, and reds that ringed the eyes and bridged the puffy, now-crooked nose. Isaiah stumbled to Edy's side to find the back of her shirt had been ripped way and he saw where the rest of the blanket went; it had been wrapped around her in wide strips that had already become speckled in blood.

"Edy, shit, Edy, wake up!" he whispered urgently, shaking her ever so slightly. She wouldn't open her eyes, no matter how hard he tried. Why did she had to be so damned stubborn? Holding his hand to her barely parted lips, Isaiah felt her breath upon his skin, light but existent; at least she was still alive. Isaiah sent up a thousand prayers to whichever god was listening. He tried to move her but Edy's body refused; there was no way he could lift her dead weight. His eyes frantically combing the cave for inspiration, they came to land on the gun still in its holster, the straps neatly cut.

Frantically Isaiah dove for the gun and pointed it at the bastard's sleeping form; it had to have been him, no one else could have hurt Edy and no one else but Edy could have hurt him. He paused, his hands shaking, knuckles white. Sweat threatened to loosen the grip of his hands on the heavy revolver. His eyes blurred as they began to tear up with rage at the man and at himself. Isaiah knew this guy was dangerous, that he needed to shoot him before he woke up, to get rid of the bastard, but he couldn't, he just couldn't. His resolve wavered when the man's eyes opened, causing Isaiah to snap the gun back to attention.

"You came back. Isaiah, wasn't it?" Knives' voice was calm and cool, tinged with curiosity. Edy called him her brother. Was he a plant too? They couldn't have come from the same bulb since they were obviously not the same age.

"You bastard, what'd you do to Edy?!" Isaiah shouted, his hands shaking, causing the barrel to waver uncontrollably.

"She called you her brother; are you her only family? You're the only one she spoke of when she was so upset."

Isaiah had no clue what was going on, why the man asked him these things. Try as he might to stop them, a few hot tears trickled down his flushed cheeks.

"Are you a plant or are you a human? I don't see how you could be her real brother if you were a either, but I want to make sure." He didn't dare consciously remind himself the reason why he felt such uncertainty, why he couldn't forget what his hallucination told him. Knives kept on telling himself that he simply didn't want to make the same mistake with Isaiah as he did with Edy.

"I… I don't understand," Isaiah stuttered, trying to play dumb, just like Edy taught him. She always told him to never say anything to anyone besides her that could possibly convey the fact that he wasn't human; Edy said if he did, they would take him away from her and she couldn't let that happen. Isaiah didn't want that to happen either.

"Of course you understand, you're not a moron; that much is obvious. No one growing up in a household that contains such expensive and ancient texts could possibly be stupid. It's a simple question that I know you have the answer for. Are you a plant or are you not?"

Knives shifted to get up and move closer but he was stopped by a sudden barrage of bullets. Isaiah fired three rounds, missing terribly but still managing to drive the man back. Even though the boy was a terrible shot and had fallen backwards from the shock of the recoil, Knives knew that even a monkey (an apparently less intelligent relative to humans, although he couldn't believe anything would be less intelligent that a human) could hit him if he was only a few feet away.

A stalemate had formed with Knives pressed against the back of the cave and Isaiah making quite sure he never shifted. Edy lay behind her brother, still unconscious. Time passed, slow and thick, weighing heavy on the gun in Isaiah's hands; his arms began to droop, but they shot back up every time Knives shifted ever so slightly. Most of the hour was spent in this particularly tense yet dull manner. Knives didn't even try to speak to him again until he noted Isaiah's strength was beginning to falter. They couldn't just sit there forever.

"You never answered my question."

"I'm a human, you sack of thomas crap, what else would I be?" Isaiah shot back, fed up with this ridiculous line of questioning. How did this guy know about plants and why did he care if Isaiah was one or not? He must be one of those bad people, the ones that want to separate him and Edy. He'd never let the guy take him away, never.

"Well now, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Knives said with a cold grin. Isaiah's marrow froze, chilling his very being. He knew he fell square into the deep end of the shit pool. The man's left arm shot out, shifting into a mass of blades headed straight in the direction of Isaiah's throat, heart, and gut. They would have sliced straight through the boy if it weren't for the fact that Edy had come around moments before to hear Isaiah's false confession and thrusted herself at her brother, knocking him to the ground. She felt the breeze caused by the blades as they rushed over her, just inches from her already torn backside. She lay on top of Isaiah, holding him down and refusing to let him up. Another draft sent her hair swirling as she felt the arm return to it's owner.

"Stop it!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, the sound ricocheting off the close walls, pounding all of their ear drums. Knives sat there, dismayed. He almost hurt Edy again; why did she have to meddle? Why did she have to have connections to this human?

"Edy, don't touch him. He's not worth your love or your life."

"Don't talk to me like you know me! Don't you fucking dare!" she seethed, fed up and in immense pain. Everything pounded relentlessly at her senses, her head, her back, her stomach, her legs, her entire body. Regardless she couldn't let this go on any longer.

"Well, how else do you want me to address you if I can't call you by your first name?"

"Don't call me anything; we're leaving right now and you'll do nothing to stop us. I never want to see your face again. If I so much as see you poking your crooked nose around me or the ones I love, so help me I'll screw up your spine next!"

Her face was livid and frightening; Isaiah had never seen Edy in such a state. She looked like a mother dog when her pup was threatened, an actual snarl curling her lips back in a particularly threatening and scary manner. If she had hackles, they'd be raised. She rose off of Isaiah, moving between the two males and then backing up, forcing Isaiah to follow suit. Knives couldn't believe the change that had come over this woman either. He could sense she was still in pain but she refused to show it, strength and fury flowing from her every pore and every trace of her fear gone. Edy no longer resided in a helpless position, holding more options now than just her words. She had the physical force to back it up.

Knives didn't want her to go yet, not without hearing her story and why she lived her life thinking she was a human; he didn't want to let the human with her to get away. The boy could be an excellent bargaining tool and then just as easily destroyed. Again he released his arm, sweeping Edy aside with the flat side of a blade and drawing Isaiah toward him with the flat side of another. It all happened so fast that before Edy knew it, she had to pull herself up, the wind knocked out of her chest when she hit the wall; that quick, Knives had his right hand wrapped around Isaiah's neck and his left ready to pierce his heart if Edy made the wrong move.

"No, no, no, don't you dare do that, you ass-wipe," Edy growled, taking as much of a ready stance as she could in the limited space, stooping low.

"Tell me the truth, then. You're a plant, aren't you?"

"What have you done to deserve the truth?! Why do you care so much?"

"I want to know who will live and who will die when the time comes. I had only been aware of my brother, Tessla, and I surviving outside the bulb but now everything's so much more complicated."

Edy's eyes widened, not knowing what this insane man could possibly mean. He talked of killing, and from the sounds of it, the body count would not be modest. She gave in, defeated; she couldn't allow Isaiah to be the first tally mark on the list. If he knew him to be a plant, Isaiah would probably live.

"If you even dare to harm my brother, you'll regret it," she spat out, her voice lower than the level of her eyes, which were trying to burn a hole into the ground at that moment. "Not only would you have to suffer from my wrath, your own conscious would eat you alive. Isaiah is a plant." She looked up to see the shock in Isaiah's eyes, and the disappointment. Knives dropped Isaiah, allowing the boy to once again stand in front of Edy, trying to play the protector despite the fact his terror had exploded from within his deepest self, causing his will to weaken.

Edy, limping, put her left arm beside Isaiah and moved him behind her, moving closer to the man and the fallen gun in the process. His face, no longer so calm and cool, was a picture of distress, unable to keep his expression passive; again he had almost destroyed another sentient plant.

"And you? How can you not know what you are if you know what he is?"

"I still don't know what I am. Maybe I am a plant, maybe I'm not. My mother never told me why we could do what we could," came the bitter reply. Edy's toe brushed the revolver; all she had to do was bend over ever so slightly and….

"You were…. born?" You knew your mother?" Knives' surprise awed him. How many other plants were walking around without his knowledge? How many had he slaughtered unknowingly?

* * * * *

Vash and Wolfwood had been squatting outside the entrance to the cave, trying to assess the situation, but then it turned into the both of them listening to Edy's confession. They sat there, unable to say anything.

"Huh…." was all the priest could say before he rushed in; from the sounds of it Knives was caught off guard and he had no plans to let that opportunity slip past him.

"Oh god, if it's true…. her hair," Vash whispered to himself; the dusty ground evaporated beneath him at the realization. Using all his strength he pulled himself together and followed closely behind.

Wolfwood moved awkwardly in the confined space to shift around the Gardeners and get at Knives, two of his smaller guns trained on the man's head; the Cross Punisher had to be left outside. Within an instant Knives had one gun out of his hands and then the other. A flurry of blades headed straight for Wolfwood when Vash thrust his own angel arm around in a burst of feathers, parrying his brother's blow. Knives backed off with the appearance of his brother.

"It's true, isn't Chapel? You sided with Vash?" Knives' asked, his infuriatingly cold composure having returned.

"With Vash and the survival of the Earth ships," Wolfwood shot back. "You bastard, you think you're a god, don't you Knives? What a realm you preside over, filled with blood, death, and the bodies of those few you supposedly want to save. Legato and Elendira are the only ones left alive in your kingdom and they can't serve you now. I should have come in with my guns blazing and torn your body to shreds!"

"Wolfwood," Vash interrupted, more calm than he should have been, "please don't. Please let me deal with my brother in my own way."

Edy and Isaiah had watched everything in quiet disbelief and utter confusion; not losing her senses, Edy took the opportunity to pick up the revolver and stood ready for an open shot. The tiniest sliver of hope that she wasn't a plant had dissolved right there, no matter how ridiculous and remote is was, and she didn't know what she planned to do at that moment.

She could lie to herself all she wanted that this man, the one Nicholas called Knives and the one that Vash called brother, was nothing like her; there were no feathers in his transformation and he most certainly couldn't heal with those blades. She could lie to herself that Vash was like her, his wing-like formation guarding his friend from the insane man. She could lie, and lie, and lie, but as soon as Vash said he was his brother she remembered all he told her about him being dangerous and all Knives had said about his own brother being another plant outside the bulb.

No, she thought, Knives is crazy. We're special, but we're not plants. Only Isaiah… Mother, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me that half of my being wasn't human? Her father had been a human, there was no question. Now enough of it made sense to make her lineage clearer; not much, granted, but enough. Half of what resided in her resided fully in Isaiah, Vash, and… in Knives.

The loud report from Edy's gun echoed through the still night air.

* * * * *

"What the hell are you doing, woman?" Wolfwood shouted when the dust settled.

Everyone's attention had turned to Edy who had shot into the very nearby ceiling of the cave, sending rock and dirt flying. This action also managed quite successfully to gain everyone's attention, as was the plan. Isaiah had fallen to his knees behind her and all he could do was stare. Wolfwood and Vash had shifted sideways slightly to turn and look at her. Knives had shifted just enough to the other side for it to work out just right.

Lowering her gun in a flash, Edy fired another round in Knives' leg, followed by the last bullet through the other. He collapsed in a sharp yelp of pain and blood; before anyone could surmount their shock, she pushed past them all and knelt over Knives.

"You're Vash's brother, so I didn't kill you. But you will come quietly and maybe I'll fix up those wounds; most certainly not with my hand," she said low and stern, flexing her right hand around the gun, "but I'm pretty handy with normal medicine."

"You… you," he sputtered, "what are you doing?! I'm like you, I'm your kin!"

"You're nothing to me, but I made an offer that I won't retract. You're going to be good now?"

Knives stared in confusion and pain, but mostly pain. He wanted to hate her so badly for what she had just done to him, but his ever-logical mind saw her reasoning clear as day at last. Still, he won't be locked away again; Knives spat at her feet.

Taking this as his answer, Edy pistol whipped him and caught his unconscious form as it fell forward. She began to drag him towards the entrance of the cave when she came up against the silent and stock-still young men who could only stare at her in wonder. No one could really process what the hell just happened.

"Look, you're going to help me or not? We need to get him bandaged up and back home quickly. I only shot his shins, so the risk of dying from blood loss is a lot less, but if they're not splinted properly, he may never walk well again."

Vash only nodded and situated a hand under his brother's arm, the two of them squeezing through the narrow space with much difficulty and weighed down by a third, rather unhelpful person. Wolfwood and Isaiah watched them go, stared at each other open-mouthed for a moment, and then followed behind.

Somewhere, off in the night, a Ravager called out to its pack beneath the soft, slivered moons.