Author's Note: Okay! I know that bits of this chapter may seem a bit confusing, such as why I would bring twentieth century liturature into play, but I promise, there IS a reason! LOL

It took me a while to find just the right quote I was looking for, and although I am sure there are better ones I could have used, I don't have an actual copy of the book (and it has been ages since I last read it even), so I had to do an internet search and that was the best I could find.

As such, I have to give a posthumous shout out to Mr. William Golding. Without his macrabe, yet astute,view of the human condition, this story might not be possible! Well, okay, it would be possible, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun! ;-)

And now, back to the story. Have fun!

Ormandria

"I'm just saying man, that it's his own damn fault," Cannon repeated wearily. "If he hadn't been so stupid as to try to fix the plant himself, he wouldn't have gotten blown to kingdom come!"

"Cannon," Mac said in a low-tone as he helped Cannon carry the heavy crate of survey equipment off of the ship. It was no use though. Cannon was on a tangent and was not to be diverted from it. Most of the people had been awoken from their deep sleep, and had already been put to work stripping the ship and setting everything up to try to make the desert planet they had landed on inhabitable.

The damage to the ship from screaming through the atmosphere unprepared, coupled with the one missing plant and three injured plants had been enough to stop the crew from even thinking that they could take off into space again. Apparently they weren't the only ones having trouble either.

Most of the remaining fleet had already been in contact with each other and it was the same story everywhere. They had all received the same remote landing command and those that hadn't been destroyed upon entry, or by crashing into the planet, had received a halt command from the same woman. Rem Sevram. And none of the ships were capable of leaving the planet at this point. They were all stuck, and had to make the best of it. Out of seventy-six ships, only forty-eight had been lucky enough to survive. The only exception to the story was that none of the other ships had ended up with a missing plant.

They had decided quickly to keep in contact with each other as best as possible. The first order of business had been to awaken everyone that had been in stasis. The second had been to start stripping the ships so that they could start building towns and cities. Since they had plenty of food and shelter on the ships, they didn't see much problem with any of this.

The crew of the "Hyjeita" was different though. They had Jack's death to contend with and the added fact that the one person who knew the most about the plants had not spoken a single, non-essential word to anyone since his death.

All Eleesa did was work, eat and sleep. And the eating and sleeping were only sparingly if at all. This worried her crewmates, and Cannon, even though Jack had been his best friend, was no exception. He had taken to ranting and raving about Jack's stupidity every chance he got, given that Eleesa was not around at the time. It was easier for Cannon to act as though he was merely angry at Jack for Eleesa's sake then to admit that the real reason he was angry was that he felt like his friend had abandoned him.

"It was Eleesa's job, and he knew it. But he just couldn't sit by. It was that puppy dog crush that did him in you know. The man would have jump out into space without a suit if it would have gotten Eleesa to notice him."

"Cannon," Mac tried again, just a little above a whisper this time. He stopped in mid stride about thirty feet from the loading ramp they'd just come down. His eyes were focused behind and to the right of Cannon.

"He should've known Mac. He should've known that if the Cap'n had asked for Eleesa, there had been a good reason for it." Cannon shock his head as he peered at the crate in their hands. "He should've known…"

"Cannon!" Mac finally said aloud, nodding behind him.

Cannon looked back into the wide and startled eyes of Eleesa. She stood there staring at the both of them.

"Oh, shit," Cannon breathed under his breath. "Eleesa, I …."

Eleesa put a hand up to stop him in mid-sentence. It was the only time anyone had been able to stop Eric Parks with a mere gesture. She quickly turned around and began striding purposefully up the ramp and into the ship. Only those closest to her could see the panicked hurry in her footsteps.

Cannon screwed his face up in a look of self-disgust. "Fuck me," he muttered.

"What was that all about?" asked a concerned voice. Shawna, who had noticed the commotion from a distance was now standing beside the pilot and medical officer.

"Me, and my size 12 foot stuck in my size 10 mouth," Cannon replied.

"He was on another Jack tirade," Mac commented in response to the look of confusion on Shawna's face.

"I'm sorry Shawna, I didn't realize she was standing there," Cannon said.

"It's alright Parks," the Captain sighed. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. Now we just have to figure out how to deal with it."

"Let me go talk to her. After all, I'm the one that screwed up. Let me be the one to fix it."

Shawna nodded at Cannon. "Go ahead. Maybe you'll have better luck with her then Mac or I have had so far. You were Jack's best friend, maybe she'll actually listen to you."

Mac and Cannon put the huge crate of equipment down and Cannon turned and ran up the ramp.

"Here," Shawna said to Mac. "I'll help you finish moving this thing."

Eleesa stood in the middle of the large room. Wires and pieces of metal were still dangling from the ceiling and jutting out from the walls, but all power to the room had been cut off since she and Jack had originally been found. Luckily enough light filtered in through the door that Eleesa had no trouble seeing.

The empty glass containment unit stood at the far side of the wall. Glass still lay scattered all over the floor from where it had broken. Eleesa closed her eyes for a moment and took in the utter feelings of loss and emptiness that permeated the room. In a strange sort of way it was comforting to feel that loss. She had spent so much of her time lately avoiding other people because every time she got close she was suddenly filled with dozens of raw emotions filtering through her body.

It was bad enough that she was ready to go to Mac and be checked for possible development of schizophrenia or manic-depression, though neither ran in her family. Not to say it wouldn't be possible for her to have developed one of them with everything she had been through lately. What was the proper term that Shawna and Mac had used to cover her odd behavior lately? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She had heard of that before. It was often mentioned whenever there had been some story on whatever soldiers had come back from whatever war they had been fighting in at the time.

If Eleesa remembered correctly, many of them could develop other mental illnesses if the PTSD was severe enough. Some even claimed to develop multiple personality disorders, an illness that until recently, Eleesa had always thought was just a ruse used by people who didn't want to take responsibility for their own actions. Now she had reason to believe it might exist, though it was the one thing she was loathe to talk to anyone else about.

Still, she knew on some level that she couldn't keep avoiding people forever, locked away in her own little world. Sooner or later she was going to have to face the music, so to speak, and when that time came, it was not going to be easy.

Opening her eyes, Eleesa stepped forward and reached her hand out to the broken glass sphere. A sharp pain issued through her index finger as the glass pierced the skin, cutting deep. Pulling her hand back she stared in wonder at the blood welling up from the wound.

"Eleesa?"

Eleesa jumped and turned around to see Cannon standing in the doorway. She had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts and growing depression that she hadn't noticed him come in.

"You're hurt," he walked to her and grabbed her hand. "Here, let me fix that for you." Tearing off a small piece of shirt, he gingerly wrapped it around her finger to stem the bleeding.

He paused only briefly, thinking of what to say next, while Eleesa continued to stand in a daze.

"I'm … I'm sorry," he finally sputtered out. "I shouldn't have said all those things back there."

"It's alright," Eleesa whispered.

"No, it isn't alright." Cannon looked his crew mate directly in the eyes, grabbing her shoulders as if to shake her, though he merely held her still. "It hasn't been alright since the accident, and neither have you. It's not your fault Eleesa! You have to stop blaming yourself and get past what happened!"

"Jack made his own choice and nothing any of us said or did would have change that. No one knew that this was going to happened. No one," he continued on. "It was a stupid mistake!" Tears started to well up in his eyes.

Eleesa felt a rush of pain and sorrow push against the wall of emotions that she had spent the last three weeks trying to suppress. It was no good now though. The damn burst and the once strong woman broke into tears of her own. Cannon pulled her close to his chest as her body shudder under the emotional release.

A bitter, metallic taste entered her mouth, twisting her stomach into knots as she got the sudden impression that Cannon was truly afraid of what was to come. Not because they were stranded on this back-water desert planet with multiple suns and moons, but because of Eleesa. He was afraid of what she might do to herself. He didn't blame her at all for what had happened. Nor was he nearly as angry at Jack as he pretended to be.

For an instant, everything that Eric Parks had been feeling, everything that had upset him, or worried him, became a part of Eleesa. It was as if the fibers of their very beings had intertwined, making it almost impossible to distinguish herself from her fellow crew member.

It was there, as strong as any emotions she had ever felt, only it was coming from him, adding to the barrage of other indistinct emotions that had been plaguing her. She didn't know how she knew this, or where it had come from, and that scared her more then anything else in her life ever had before.

Long ago Eleesa had trained herself to awaken before dawn so that she could get an early start to the days work. Today was no exception. Pulling her clothes on, she lightly stepped out into the hallway and began walking toward the stairs. The only change in her routine was a slight look toward the room that Knives was occupying. She could tell that he was awake. Probably had been for most of the night. She didn't let that worry her though. There were going to many more sleepless nights in store for Knives by the time she was through. She'd make sure of that.

Eleesa made her way downstairs where she grabbed her watering can and started the day by tended to the plants inside the house. It took time for her to finish that, but it was always time well spent in her mind. When she was finished, she would then head out to the barn to feed and tend the livestock she kept back there. Though the word livestock was a bit of an overstatement. In actuality her animals consisted of several hens and one milk cow. It wasn't that she needed the animals, since she was always capable of getting supplies from New Maine. It was just that they made a nice background noise of emotions so that she didn't feel completely alone.

She had a tall, barb-wire fence that surrounded the barn so that she could let the animals out, without actually letting them loose. Inside the large barn, she kept most of her gardening tools, as well as her more mundane carpentry and wood-working tools. Eleesa was anything if not capable. She had built her house, and everything around it herself, and she kept it all up herself. If something broke, she fixed it. If it couldn't be fixed, she used the parts to create something new and if that proved impossible, the offending item or items made their way to her junk room. It had been years since that had happened.

After feeding the animals, Eleesa walked over to the large workshop area of the barn. It consisted of an in-ground fire-pit that could be used for metal-work, clay firing, or glass working, among other things. On a table next to it was a bowl full of broken pieces of glass. She debated starting it up so that she could make a new glass front for her picture, but decided against it for the moment. It was a painstaking process, and there was no way she could give it the concentration she needed to when she had Knives to deal with.

Grabbing her gardening tools, Eleesa headed out into the dawning sun to get some yard work done before breakfast.

Knives sat up in bed as he heard Eleesa pass by his room. It was still dark out, and had he not been paying attention, he might have missed her. He had not been able to sleep at all that night. As desperately as he had tried to clear his mind his thoughts kept returning to the delectable Eleesa and all the wondrous torture that he could inflict on the human race with her at his side. It sent shivers of delight coursing through his entire body.

Normally Knives would want nothing more then kill any person who had the audacity to think that they could take him on. But then again, normally, that person wouldn't be able to do so, while Eleesa had already proven to be more then a match for him so far. Of course, it had only been one day and Knives still had plenty of tricks up his sleeves.

Realizing just how much time he would be wasting if he didn't get some sleep, Knives forced his eyes shut, his mind closed and his body relaxed, when an image of a bright light, once again flashed across his mind, along with thoughts of leather restraints and probing hands. Knives eyes flew open in an instant as he sat straight up, his arms automatically moving into a defensive position.

'Damn it!' he cursed himself mentally. She got in his head once and now he was acting the part of a paranoid loon, just like …. Knives' body tensed under the thought that had begun to percolate at the back of his mind. It had been over one hundred and twenty years since he had last thought of that man and he would be damned if he was going to think about him now. His hands clenched at the bed sheets as the killer forced his rage back under control.

Several minutes of breathing deeply and Knives still felt the uncontrollable urge to go rip someone's heart out with his bare hands. Deciding finally, that this wasn't going to work, he pushed back the covers and left his room. Looking around downstairs, he realized that Eleesa had already headed outdoors, most likely to attend to the small parcel of paradise that she had bred out there.

He toyed briefly with the idea of going outside to "assist" her, but thought better of it. In the mood he was in, he was just as likely to spoil any chance of making decent progress with the woman today. Instead he allowed his feet to lead him back into the study. Walking over to the tall lamp by memory, he quickly located a small book of matches near it and lit it up. He then proceeded to light the lamp on the desk so that he could get some decent light in the room. While it might be bright during the day, it was equally as dark during the night.

Once the room was adequately lit, Knives once again turned his attentions to the books in the room, this time taking care to pay a bit more attention to the material. After short time, his eyes fell on one that looked particular worn and beaten, but had tenderly been pasted back together. Carefully removing it from the shelf, he noted that the cover showed nothing but trees and plants. He scanned the faded name at the top of the book, William Golding.

Curiosity played at his mind. Eleesa obviously cared about her books, but this one seemed to have received a bit more of her attention then some of the others. Sitting at in the plump chair behind the desk, Knives plopped his feet onto the desk and began flipping through the book. Somewhere in the middle he stopped to read a random passage.

"… Then Jack found the throat and the hot blood spouted over his hands. The sow collapsed under them and they were heavy and fulfilled upon her. The butterflies still danced, preoccupied in the center of the clearing…."

Knives smiled coldly and, turning the book back to the first page, began to read it from the beginning.

BOOM!

Vash ran as fast as he could.

BOOM!

It was no good though. He knew there was no escape.

BOOM!

It was catching up to him.

BOOM!

He turned down an alley only to find a dead-end.

BOOM!

Vash turned around, cowering against the wall in fear as the giant red ball, the size of a small building bounced slowly toward him.

BOOM!

Vash jerked awake to an incessant knocking at his door.

"Mr. Vash!" came a small voice from the other side as the pounding continued. "Mr. Vash!"

"Coming," Vash called drowsily. He stood up, wiping the sleep from his eyes and grabbing his shirt, which he quickly donned. With that he walked to the door, and pausing to run his fingers through his thick blonde hair, almost as an after thought, he opened the door to find a wide-eyed Kalla on the other side. Behind her were some of the slightly older children from the ball game the day before, each one smiling up expectantly.

Kalla held up a tray laden with food. Smiling she pushed past Vash to put it on the large table inside. "I brought you some breakfast, Mr. Vash."

"Why thank you," Vash smiled. "That was very nice of you."

"Actually, our mom suggested it," said one of the boys at the door, as the troupe of kids filed into the room. "She figured you'd be hungry and she supplies most of the food for guests around here anyway."

"Well tell your mom I said thank you," replied Vash as he sat down to eat. The kids, there were about eight in all, gathered around and all watched him in amazement, unnerving Vash severely.

"This is my brother Thomas," Kalla rolled her eyes as she pointed to the boy that had spoken.

"Pleased to meet you, Thomas," Vash nodded toward the boy in question.

Another of the boys, a bit taller and scruffier looking leaned forward, a look of utter awe on his face. His mouth was wide open as he held his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the table mere inches away from Vash's food.

"Are you really Vash the Stampede?" he asked in wonder. "I mean the Vash the Stampede?"

"Well, um, yes, I am."

"Where's your gun?" Another kid piped up.

"Well it's …."

"How many people have you shot?" asked another one.

"I don't actually …."

"Do you do your own stunts?" broke in a third.

"What?"

"I heard he took out the Nebraska Gang with only one bullet."

"It was six actually."

"My daddy told me he can bring down whole buildings just by looking at them."

"Well I wouldn't say …."

"Oh yeah? Well my dad told me that he once stopped a runaway sand-steamer with his bare hands, from the outside."

"I didn't …."

"I heard he's a bagillion, million years old!"

"I'm not that old …."

"My mom's cousin met him once and said that he was a lothario."

"What's a lothario?"

"I don't know, but I bet it's lethal!"

"It's not …"

"He tames Typhoon's ya know."

"He does?"

"I don't …"

"Well yeah, that's why they call him the human voiding Typhoons."

"That sounds dumb!"

"Does not!

"Does too! Besides it's the Humanoid Typhoon! Isn't it Mister?"

"Well, yes …."

"See?"

"But that would make him a Typhoon!"

"He doesn't look like a Typhoon to me."

"Come to think, he doesn't look like a stampede either."

"So what is he then?"

"I'm a man …"

"Yeah Mister, what are you?"

Heaving a huge sigh, Vash sank despondently into his chair as he looked at all the expectant faces around him, his breakfast forgotten. Something told Vash that it was going to be a long day.

Light washed over the small house and vibrant land surrounding it. The suns had been up for a good two hours, and a slight rumbling in her mid-section informed Eleesa that it was time to go back in and eat. Content with the job she had done on the garden, Eleesa put her rake away and made her way to the house. She had noted earlier that the lights in the study were on when she had come out of the barn, which meant that Knives was up and about.

She entered the house the same way she had left earlier, stopping by the study to see what Knives was doing. Much to her initial surprise, he was leaned back in the chair, his feet propped up comfortably on the desk reading a well-worn novel she had first read in junior high back on Earth. He appeared to be about half-way through the book.

"Enjoying yourself?" she asked as he chuckled aloud at the scene he was currently reading.

"Quite," he replied, looking up at her in amusement and waving the book in her direction. "This is a very amusing book. A little boring at the start, but it does get better."

"Funny," Eleesa said in a mystified voice. "I've heard a lot of things in my life, but this is the first time I've ever heard anyone describe The Lord of the Flies as amusing."

"And yet, it appears that you can't seem to stop reading it," Knives waved the battered book in the air while Eleesa shrugged.

"A study of the human condition as civility gives way to savagery with a touch of insanity?" Eleesa walked over and took the book from Knives hands and turned it over, raising her eyebrows as she did so. "Actually, I prefer the works of H.P. Lovecraft for that. Still, I can definitely see where this book would appeal to you."

"Are you saying that I'm insane?" Knives questioned.

"I'm saying that your view of the world, as it were, could use some serious re-alignment. If you want to interpret that as insanity, that's your choice." She tossed the book down onto the desk. "Anyway, I'm going to get breakfast going. I've got a long day ahead of me. When you're done with whatever you plan on doing today, I could actually use your help around here. That is, if that won't cause you too much trouble?"

"Yes, ma'am," Knives replied in mocking tones as he stood up, stuffing the book into his back pocket for later reading.

Vash wasn't quite sure how he managed to finish his breakfast with all those kids around, but he did. That was when the kids really pounced on him. They quickly dragged him from his room to the outside street where they proceeded to explain to him that they would be playing a game of Catch That Outlaw. They assured him though, that he would not be one of the outlaws in this case. That privilege belonged to Thomas and three other boys, who both smiled grandly at the honor. Vash, they had decided would be the heroic, yet emotionally distant stranger, come to town to save it from the dastardly outlaws. Kalla would play the lonely, spinster woman with a crush on the stranger while the others would play townspeople, sheriffs and deputies.

They whole plot was so well thought out, that Vash wasn't sure there was anything left to actually play out. Though he soon realized that the kids brought a lot of improve to the game. It was, of course, fine with him, as it kept him from having to answer another barrage of questions.

Currently, he and Kalla were hiding behind one of the large trees near the hotel's fountain. They had just escaped from the clutches of the "villainous outlaws," as Kalla liked to call them.

"So how did you guys come up with this game?" Vash asked Kalla, now that they had a few moments to rest. They had been at the game for quite a few hours now.

"Oh, Miss Eleesa stays in town sometimes, and when she does she'll tell us stories of some strange place called "The Old West." Apparently it existed in another world, but was a bit similar to this one, only with a lot more villains, cows and gun fights. Best of all was that the good guys always won!"

Vash laughed. "So you like Miss Eleesa's stories then?" he asked.

"Yeah! She's got all sorts of cool stories, but it's the ones about "The Old West" that we like the best." Kalla giggled at her unexpected rhyme.

"Kalla!" A voice sounded from the other side of the fountain.

"Uh-oh. That's my mom," Kalla said despondently. "Here mom!" Kalla got up and stepped out from behind the tree, with Vash behind her.

"Kalla, time for you to go in and eat your lunch." The small woman turned her attention to Vash.

"You must be Mr. Vash," she smiled, reaching out to shake his hand as he drew near. "I hope the kids haven't been running you ragged."

"Oh no," Vash laughed. "They've been great and I love playing games, so it all works out."

"Well, you should still be careful. They are a rowdy bunch," she sighed, watching them all run off to their respective homes for lunch.

"Believe me, I've seen worse."

She turned her attention back to Vash, her smile as bright as ever. "Yes, I suppose you have. Would you like to come to our house for lunch Mr. Vash? We have plenty of food."

"Would I ever?" Vash exclaimed in excitement, following Mrs. St. James back to her house.

The first thing that Eleesa had Knives do after a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs, was to help her move the table he had broken into the back barn, so she could begin repairs on it. While she did just that, she set Knives to his next task of collecting water from the well so that the plants could be watered. Surprisingly enough, Knives complied with all her instructions without so much as a murmur of resistance.

This was mostly due to his general lack of control in the situation he was in. If he made the conscious choice to be of help and do what Eleesa asked of him, then in his mind he still retained some control over what was happening around him. Not to mention that it put him in a better position to get to her later.

What he hadn't quite expected though, was how back-breaking true labor could be. He had never been interested in the mundane aspect of living and working. His was always a life of survival, manipulation and low-key appearances.

It wasn't often that any heavy work needed to be done, and even then he always had other people to do the real manual labor for him. Eleesa did watch him very closely though, and a few times a day she would pull him aside, insisting on checking his bandages. It surprised Knives, and disappointed him quite a bit, that she seemed to care so much about what happened to him. It made him wonder if Eleesa was more soft then he originally thought. That is, until she finally made the comment that Vash would be very upset if she were to let Knives work himself to death, no matter how much she might enjoy it. Knives couldn't help but feel better after that.

When all was said and done though, while he was in more pain then he would admit, he was actually a bit greatful. After that first day of assisting his "keeper" with the various chores around the acreage he was so tired that he fell asleep that night, almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. There were no images of bright lights and probing hands or unwelcome thoughts of idiot pilots long dead.

What there was, was the cool, comforting blackness of dreamless sleep.

Meanwhile Eleesa lay in her own bed smiling. It had been an interesting day. Or more importantly, an interesting morning. It had been in those early morning hours, as she left the house, that she had felt it. It was small, almost imperceptible, but there nonetheless; a quiver of friction in Knives emotional state. If she had paused to listen, she might even have heard the ever so slight sound of a crack. It was a small crack to be sure, but a definitely a crack. And if there was one thing Eleesa knew, it was that small cracks have a tendency to grow.