Note: This is, actually, the second part of the first story in the Quiet Life AU series. It makes a lot more sense if read after the first, but either way here´s a short summary of the situation. Tomoe did not die. After the Bakumatsu, she and Kenshin went to live in retirement in a village of the mountains and had a child.

Warning: This is not a heroical story. Maybe the sequel will be, but that will come later. In fact, it´s a rather boring thing if you´re looking for adventures…sorry, sometimes I´m too introspective for my own good. (And no, I´m not proud of it most of the times)

Second warning: You will notice I´m following the stereotype of the seasons to publish the stories, but upside-down. They will be four, and they will end in Spring. This one has two chapters.

And, finally, thanks to Margit for beta and to all who reviewed. It´s stereotypical too, I know, but you made me happy.

Quiet Life II: Harvest Time (1873)

I: Nightly Watch

Alas, it was cold again, so soon. She would never grow accustomed to the weather, Tomoe thought as she put her carefully folded robe aside, shivering as she had to face the night breeze with her thin yukata alone. Her eyes, half consciously, half unconsciously, turned once more towards the window next to her, through which some distant noises of music and laughter that came and went with the wind could sometimes reach her ears.

"Mother, I´m cold!"

Supressing a sigh, and leaving her sandals alongside of her other garments, she walked towards her futon, and had to gasp as her feet made contact with the floor with only her tabi to protect them. Miyoko was curled on one of the sides, like a little ball covered with blankets.

"This bed is too big for you, little one," the mother smiled as she blew the candle off and got inside the bed next to her daughter. The first thing she felt was the difference of temperature to the still unwarmed bedcloth, but, when the girl snuggled closed to her to find warmth, she felt it coming in waves to herself too. Without losing any time, she embraced her closely, and let her head rest under her right arm. "Better?'"

"Much, much better!" Miyoko nodded fervently. "Mother...why isn´t it summer all the year? I hate the cold!"

Tomoe smiled again.

"In fact, do you know something? That´s a question I ask myself very often as well."

"Really? And do you think we could make it summer all the year if you knew the reason why it isn´t?"

 "Uh? Well… I suppose…"

Profoundly impressed at her daughter´s reasoning, Tomoe stopped in mid-sentence, unable to find a way to end the answer. It was not the first time that this happened; sometimes, she could not help but wonder who had taught a five-year-old child to think this way. True, she remembered some similar things in Enishi… and if she only could remember about herself…

And Kenshin must really have been a bright child, too, so our child would be some kind of an explosive mix. she mused proudly to herself. What a pity that he had to use all his talents for swordsmanship until now…

She had already taken him under her care, of course. As something to start with, she had made it her first goal to teach him to write correctly, for months now. Though he never had much spare time, she lent him her help in his struggles to improve his calligraphy and learn all those signs he didn´t know whenever he had, and if there was something she had grown to be sure of during those sessions, it was that if he didn´t have so many other things to do he would already write like her or better. In fact, she thought ruefully, that would probably be an accurate description of her husband´s life. He had always had way too many things to do, and they had most unfortunately prevented him from living. That had roused her pity since the first months they had lived together, maybe being the first thing that really did, and even at the present moment, in that very night, she sincerely hoped that he was having fun with the villagers at the harvest feast down there…

"Will Father return soon?" Miyoko resumed her assaults.

"Uh? Not until you´re asleep, I believe."

"Then…" The expectation and sudden excitement was easily perceivable for her mother, mainly in the slight shift of position of the tiny body. "Then I can sleep here!"

Though not an open or demonstrative person, even Tomoe had to laugh softly at this.

"Yes, you can. But only tonight," she warned. She knew only too well that, if she had left it in the air, Miyoko would have spent all the time feigning she was asleep, which would have prevented her from falling asleep in truth. Once she was snoring placidly, it would be easy to tuck her into her own bed.

"Father can sleep in my bed when he returns," the girl conceded in a show of magnanimity. "After all, he will return drunk and he will be useless, won´t he?"

"What??" This time, Tomoe´s puzzlement amply surpassed the mask in her face. Even though her frown was a visual gesture, and therefore lost in the darkness of the room, Miyoko could feel her body tensing up. "Where in the world did you… hear that?"

"Yumiko-san said it," the girl explained, innocently surprised at the effect her words had had on her mother. "She said that they all return drunk and useless for a week."

For a while, Tomoe could do little else than swallow and breath, several times. Sure, in that village the people were good-natured, but their manners… And in front of children!

"Listen now, Himura Miyoko," she said at last, in the most serious voice she could muster. Of course, the real truth was that the thing had some comic attached to it, but she wasn´t going to look amused now. "If Yumiko-san utters such a remark, do not gainsay her. She probably has her reasons, and you should respect her. But as for you, don´t say such things about your father again!"

"Is it bad?" the girl muttered, sounding a bit downcast. Her tone faltered for a second. "I... I promise I did not know…"

"Of course you didn´t know, Miyoko-chan," Tomoe reassured her, caressing her dark hair. "That´s why I´m here to tell you. And still…" The long overdue chuckle had to come at last, as a fitting end for the seconds of tension. "You could have guessed that to be useless for a week would be bad!"

Miyoko´s brow furrowed.

"But, Mother… will he?"

"Of course not!"

"Oh…" the girl nodded, accepting the answer with a sigh of relief. "I´m glad. But why did she say it then?"

Such an inquisitive little girl…

"I told you that little girls did not ask many questions," Tomoe reminded her, matter-of-factly. Miyoko, however, was not to be so easily deterred.

"But it´s only the second!"

Tomoe gave a long, very long annoyed sigh.

 "Miyoko-chan…," she started after a while, when she had put her ideas in order. Sometimes, she had to confess it, that girl was too much even for her. "She said it because this may be true for other people. When someone drinks too much sake, he feels like you when you´re playing and you begin to spin around yourself.

"He falls down, too?"

"Yes." Tomoe said. "Exactly. And he stays like that for hours. The next day, he probably feels very ill, and with a headache."

"Ah." Miyoko nodded again, enlightened. Then, as if she didn´t have anymore to ask from life, she turned back towards the opposite side, and curled herself once more in thoughtful silence … that is, until curiosity got once more the better of her.

"And why do they do it if it´s so awful? Did you get drunk sometime, Mother?"

"Third and fourth, Himura Miyoko!" At that moment, Tomoe was terribly glad of the darkness that hid the fact that she was red to the tip of her ears. "And besides, you should be already asleep."

"You got," the girl stated.

"Shut up."

"If you tell me about it, I promise I won´t tell anybody," she tried to bribe her mother. "You know how good I am keeping secrets. I never told anybody about…."

"Oh, all right, all right, enough already!" Tomoe surrendered. The woman of the expressionless face and the enigmatic past, the spy who had lived among her enemies for long without giving them the slightest clue of her intentions; even the elusive figure whose intentions were a mystery and whose silence was unreadable… all this tended more than often to be completely trampled under Miyoko´s small feet without the slightest difficulty. "If you stay quiet and still until you fall asleep, without asking even one more question, I´ll tell you a tale about the day when I went with your grandfather and your uncle Enishi to the wedding of your grandaunt Kaede…"

*     *     *     *     *

Hours later, with the little girl´s sleeping body warmly pressed against her, and the sounds of the feast still coming in waves from the distance, Tomoe was wide awake and lost in her musings. The tale, as in every occasion that her curious daughter managed somehow to wring information about her past from her, had made her remember some things that she shouldn´t have, and now she felt the unavoidable melancholy.

She had tried before, tried so hard to forget about all this. But, to what use? The memories would always be there, of her kind father as well as of the dear brother she had raised, and of course of the man who had died in Kyoto, and their presence would always add a touch of bitterness to her choice. Just as when Kenshin had to leave and free himself from the oppression and the longing by practicing his moves, while at the same time hating himself for it, sometimes a part of her still yielded to Miyoko´s requests in spite of her promise, because she was willing to unburden herself and be heard by someone. Another part of her, though, in the meantime and afterwards, felt guilty for doing this again, as well as for not having the decency of being wholly happy after all Fate had given back to her. Her family was well, wasn´t it? Kiyosato had forgiven her. Kenshin had forgiven her.

Why did an innocent party where she ended up tipsier than she should have got tear at her heart even more deeply than the remembrances of Kiyosato´s death?

I hope they have all forgiven me,. she thought, for the hundredth time. Or at least that they will one day…And I´d wish…I´d wish…

…That she could meet them…

Pulling herself back in time, the woman smothered her thoughts at once and shook her head with sadness. Why project any more unfulfilled wishes on her daughter? Miyoko had been a great comfort, and she had been able to keep her mother's secrets admirably, but she had been too young to understand many of the things Tomoe felt. She could still remember that time when the girl had asked her mother why she couldn´t tell those tales to her father… and the face she had made when she had been told that Tomoe had had to choose between the people in her tales and him, and that if he knew that she missed them he would feel sad and guilty.

"But why can´t we live with them all?" the girl had pouted, no doubt considering her very stupid for not even thinking about that. Tomoe had swallowed hard, and after some awkward moments decided to turn to generalization for help.

"If you married someone who didn´t live in this village, you´d have to leave us, too," she had explained.

"I will never marry someone who doesn´t live in this village," had been Miyoko´s answer, so terminal and heartfelt that her mother hadn´t been able to keep down her sudden urge to smile.

"You sound very sure," she had teased her. "Already in love with someone?"

To her surprise, Miyoko´s glance had contained a tinge of guilt when she had shook her head negatively.

"Not yet. But I promise I will, soon!"

It had taken long to make Miyoko understand that she did not have the duty to fall in love with someone in the village, at least not yet, and that her mother's remarks about taking it easy and not think about those things did not mean that she did not care whether her daughter would have to leave or not. After that, Tomoe had felt profoundly guilty for having burdened her innocent child with her secrets and problems, and had sworn to herself that she would never, ever, tell her anything anymore until she was a woman. And overall she had been pretty constant in the fulfilment of her oath… if she excepted certain occasions, when a little harmless tale escaped her mouth. She had to get that into her head: Miyoko was her own person and not a part of herself.

Hadn´t she already committed that mistake once?

Shut up, Tomoe, she reprimanded herself yet another time, now shaking her head even with more violence than the others. There was no use whining about that anymore. She wasn´t that weak, was she? She didn´t have to share those things with anyone. Kami-sama knew she was able to keep her feelings to herself, and she even had Kenshin beside her, who comforted her whenever she was sad even if he didn´t know – couldn´t know- why. She had to comfort him, too.

She loved him, now.

"A better spouse than what I was once, and a better mother, too," she muttered to herself in an almost inaudible voice. "That´s what I told myself I would be."

Maybe slightly disturbed by her abrupt shifting of position, the girl lying besides her gave a soft whimper, and rolled over again to bury her face under Tomoe´s breast. Her mother lifted her arms to allow her freedom, and when she saw that she was sleeping again she let them fall softly on top of her once more. Quietly, as to avoid waking her up, she bent over her and kissed her forehead.

One day, she thought, you will forgive me while having the power to deny me forgiveness.

*     *     *     *     *

In line with those small ironies life was normally full of, it was just when Tomoe had at last indulged into her first nap when the long awaited noise came from the shoji, and made her eyes snap wide open.

"Welcome back," she whispered tentatively, afraid to wake up her daughter. Kenshin did not answer, but covered up the distance that separated them with no hesitation and sat down on the side of the futon. Even after all those years, Tomoe could not cease feeling creepy by how his body was perfectly trained to keep moving as if he was sober whenever he drank. As if it wasn´t a thing of his brain anymore.

"I´m going to put Miyoko to her bed," she intervened before he could open his mouth. As she was already gathering herself to get up, however, he put his hand on her shoulder, and motioned her to stay.

"Do not wake her up. I have enough space for myself," he muttered, just a tiny bit dizzily. Tomoe nodded, surprised, and laid back to wait while he fumbled with his kimono and then with his yukata.

"Did you have fun?", she asked when he was at last done, helping to arrange the covers on top of him. He rolled towards her, and surprised her with a sudden passionate kiss.

That´s the main effect alcohol has over him, then?, she thought, making some effort to prevent her face from showing any evidence of the instinctive ladylike shock that a part of herself felt at the action. He´s just like another normal man, now…

 "I missed you."

"Really?" With great care, she shoved Miyoko a bit away from her, and smiled. "Well, your girl is still too young to go partying, and I´m not going to let her stay at home alone, yet. Maybe in some years... But, tell me about it, you must have had fun to return that late. Other years, you were back here in  a couple of hours."

"I had to bring Hachiro-san to his house," he explained, caressing her face and kissing it now and then. Tomoe could smell the sake in his breath, but surprisingly enough she did not dislike it as much as she should. How could she, when he looked so unburdened, so easy-going? "He couldn´t see the ground under his feet anymore."

"Drunk and useless for a week," his wife paraphrased in amusement. Kenshin chuckled mischievously.

"Or two!"

"And what about you?" Tomoe continued, fingering a strand of red hair with her free hand. "Useless for a night, at least?"

Slowly, Kenshin got to his knees, and from that position he responded by kissing her fiercely once more. For a moment, and seeing the light in his eyes, she even thought he would yield to her provocation, and cursed herself for having consented on Miyoko sleeping there. It would be terrible, if they woke her up in the worst possible moment…

However, it was Kenshin himself who seemed to realize soon enough, as soon as he had to put one of his hands next to the place where his daughter´s face lay. Somewhat ashamed, as if he had just realized his alcohol-induced rashness, he tore himself away and started to breathe heavily.

"I´m…I´m not exactly well," he groaned, as a confession. "Be… better leave it for other moment."

"Oh, do not worry," she reassured him, letting sympathy smother and overrule her disappointment as much as it was possible. As soon as she embraced his lean frame with one of her arms, he snuggled close to her as if in search of warmth, in a similar position as the one that Miyoko had adopted a while ago. This actually brought a smile to Tomoe's lips, and she intensified both embraces, feeling the last yearnings of her body for the unsatisfied desire subside in an aftermath of quiet tenderness for her two children. "We have a lot of things to do tomorrow."

(to be continued)