Disclaimer: I'm too busy being heartbroken to point out I don't own Trigun.

Chapter Forty-Five: Don't Leave Me…

Why does my heart cry,

Feelings I can't fight?

You're free to leave me

But just don't deceive me

And please, believe me when I say

I LOVE YOU!

Ewan McGregor (Christian)- Roxanne (Moulin Rouge)

A/N: Knives acts a little OOT here, I think, but it's because the part at the end is a representation of what happened to me today…

The embers of the fire glowed red-hot, angrily snapping with heat and tension; reflecting tremendously the look of fury that clouded Knives' eyes. He gazed at them, the man whom he had called his brother and his kin, and the woman whom he had so foolishly allowed to enter his heart as they sat there together beneath his fiercely glowing gaze. He felt tears of pain as the stab of betrayal pierced his heart like an arrow so true and the flames of anger consume his soul in a fiery blaze.

The woman he had once called his rose shakily to her feet, and he could nearly smell the stench of guilt upon her; smeared across her face like the streaks of blood over her flushed skin. His brother's hand reached out to grasp hers, yet she pulled it violently away, glaring at him darkly before moving to him on unsteady feet. Tears cascaded from her eyes, reddened and ringed with blood, as they roamed up to his face and tried, in vain, to meet her gaze with his. Yet she could not, for the shame overwhelmed her and a stifled sob escaped her quivering lips as she attempted to again. But she could not, for so great was her pain and so terrible her shame that she could only focus on then mole to the right of his icy eyes, for each time she tried to look into his furious gaze her vision was clouded by tears of humiliation and unfaithfulness and she shook so violently that she half-wished Vash would help her to stand. But, focusing on that miniscule mole, she bit her lip and spoke her tear-ridden words:

"Knives, I'm-"

Yet the sting of Knives' hand cut off her words as it collided with her cheek, her head snapping back at the power behind the blow. "I don't need to hear your worthless excuses. I don't need your meaningless apologies or your attempts to reconcile with me for the things you have done."

"Knives, if you'll just listen to me" she started, moving to rise up to meet his eyes again; yet his hand collided with her chest and again she tasted sand in her mouth as she fell back. "I should have ignored you the moment my mind made contact with yours" Knives sneered "I should have ignored every work you spoke to me and every filthy lie you told me. You have never meant anything to me, and yet you insist upon calling yourself my woman and even then you betray those words which you spoke. You've soiled yourself with your lies and with his touch, and know that if ever you meant a thing to me, you do not as of this moment. I leave you Rhianne, wishing that I had left you to be buried beneath the sand."

His face, in her eyes, took on a handsome hard quality that she had only seen in the portraits of the nobles from long ago, his eyes as hard as polished steel and his mouth a slim line and through her tears and his undeniable anger and hurt, she thought him a man of the truest beauty; a thought that drew more tears to sear her heated cheeks. Ah, how she wished that she could have valued him in such a light when he had smiled at her, held her and spoken all with his tundra eyes. Yet those times seemed so hard to touch upon, so far away and so fine that they slipped through her fingers as she tried to grasp them. A plant of long life and a life that entwined with that of many others, she never tied herself to someone so strongly since her departed sibling. Blue and aqua, the ribbons of their lives had knotted deeply together and she had never dwelt upon the thought that it could ever really end. That, despite the innumerable fights and spats and whatnot, she would always love Knives and he her, and to have this ripped about, to have these intertwining ribbons of their lives cut apart and sheared with his sharp words cut her in the same fashion, hacked away at her soul which lay now before her, tattered and broken, in the bloodied sand and in Knives' eyes.

"Knives, please listen to me" her voice thick with tears she rose again "I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was doing… I didn't know you would follow me, please understand" a hand rose to her lips as she cried, staring silently at his angry eyes and awaiting his response with an ever-growing sense of dread that knotted her stomach like the ties she had once envisioned knotted them together.

"Oh I understand perfectly" he snarled, his voice dark and deep with rage "you thought that I would allow you to gallivant around my planet without my supervision, and you take that opportunity to betray everything you've said to me with my own worthless brother!". He could feel tears stinging his eyes, and blinked furiously to keep them at bay; he was not weak like the woman before him, who succumbed so easily and willingly to her emotions which lapped at her mind like an ocean tide, and there she stood, her feet soaked in that which had been her undoing, and had allowed it to wash upon her and drown her in a tide of sorrow and guilt. "No, I never meant to" she stammered, sobs wrenching at her words "I didn't want to Vash-"

"Yes, Vash" Knives cut in, in his voice thick with hate at this last word as he turned to face his twin "what about Vash? Vash who has prattled on for so many years about his idiotic morals and beliefs suddenly decides to go against them? Whatever happened to your precious Meryl, Vash?" he sneered at the blonde haired man before him, rejoicing silently in the tears that welled in Vash's eyes at the mention of his useless human woman. He had not thought of her yet, Knives smirked darkly, had not dwelt upon the consequences of his brash actions and how his raven-haired spider would take to his unfaithfulness.

"Knives" Rhianne started again, then stopped uncertain of how to continue. "Would you have told me?" the wheat-haired man before her sneered "or would you have led me to believe you had done nothing with him?"

"I didn't want to hurt you" she stated quietly, her eyes downcast and tearful "but Knives…I didn't want to have to burden you with something like that. I love you Knives… don't you love me?" she asked, her voice half-pleading.

"I don't know" came the response; sounding nearly as tear-ridden as the question. Yet she could not tell if he cried, for his face was turned to the shadows and all she could see of him was his wheat hair, crimson in the light of the fire. She felt a gasp escape her lips.

"What?" she asked, hoping against vain hope that she had misheard; that he lied just to hurt her. Yet the same words met her ears and tears sprung afresh in her eyes "what are you saying?" the words escaped her lips, the words that could lead to the end that was within his grasp, and she prayed that he would not grasp that moment and do what she feared so.

"I can't be with you" the words rung in her ears like sound echoes across the desert "Knives…why? Please, I'm so, so sorry! I wasn't thinking; I was hurt and I'm sorry! Knives please don't leave me!" she sobbed as he turned away from her "I wouldn't have told you, that's true. But I didn't want to hurt you, please, listen to me!" she reached her hand out to grasp his arm, yet he shook her off with a snarl.

"Knives!" the name fell out of her mouth, a cry of pain and anguish "I don't want to be without you! I love you and I'm sorry for everything I've ever done to you and I would spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you but please just give me another chance!"

"I can't"

The two words uttered from his lips shattered her; drove into her tender, bruised heart like a hot knife, shattering her hopes and her dreams with one fatal blow. Defeated, she fell to her knees upon the sand "why not? I…I don't understand" she buried her face in her hands, feeling the warm tears splash against them. She tasted the dusty air as she sobbed, her loud deep breaths echoing across the desert sand.

"I'm not expecting you to" Knives replied, inclining his head towards her "but I can't be with you. I want to be alone"

"But I don't want to be without you!" she cried after him, her voice pitching in her anguish "I'm sorry I've taken you for granted all this time; I fought with you and went against you, and I am willing to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. Don't you want me to be with you?"

"No"

One word. One word that echoed with such finality in her ears. One word that shattered what remained of her hopes and her spirit and her very soul. She felt like a piece of porcelain, cracked down the middle by his cruelty. At his words, however, a flare of anger arose amongst her sorrow, spurned by the anguish and terror she felt when thinking of life without him. Tears splashed against her flushed cheeks and she cried at him "how does it feel to know you've broken someone's heart?" she sneered angrily at his face, which was cast in a mask of placidness "to know that I have no reason to live anymore? I gave you my all and this is how you repay me, by leaving me to wake every morning with the smothering feeling that I can't talk to you if I'm upset, that I can't see your smiling face or hear you say you love me? I hope your conscience eats at you Knives, I hope it eats at you from the inside out. What is it like to break someone's heart Knives?"

He seemed stunned by her sudden spurt of anger for a moment, his eyebrows raised briefly and his eyes widened in the light. Then a dark look replaced the surprised light in his eyes and he chuckled angrily "perhaps it is I who should ask you"

With his statement said, he turned his back on her and walked away, and Rhianne was left upon the sand, tears in her eyes and upon her cheeks, sobs upon her lips and her heart shattered inside her chest, as she watched him walk away and into the waning night.

A/N: That (the dialogue) was what happened to me today. My love, the only person I've ever truly cared about, walked out of my life today. Here I am, left with a broken heart and a new chapter. Initially, this dialogue was not meant to be here, it was to be more eloquent and more 'my' style, but I wanted to capture exactly how I interpreted it and what was said without too much embellishment. The story will go on as planned, this was just my life influencing it directly. Sorry if you didn't like it, but anyone who has had their heart broken like that would understand that sometimes you need to share pain like this… LL