Yay my first posted KHR fic. Considering that I've been writing miscellenea for it since summer of 2012, that isn't really impressive, but whatever.

Warning: Did you read the description? 1886. Minor swearing, tiny bit of adult content but mostly though implication? Does that even need a warning? Also, requisite sky/weather metaphors.

Disclaimer: If I owned KHR, it would have ended very, very differently.

Enjoy!

Tetsu was lying for him again. It should have been unsettling, how the larger man always knew exactly what Kyouya did or did not want the others to know. It would have been were it not so convenient.

And if Kyouya didn't have other things weighing on his mind. First and foremost being arranging the opportunity for him to take all his personal frustrations out on the younger Sawada Tsunayoshi, a prospect made ever more enticing whenever Miura Haru's voice reached his ears. She was spending far too much time mooning over the small boy, and while there was no way for her to know that not only was the Vongola Decimo taken but she was as well, it was still infuriating. As things were, every second spent anywhere near the Vongola base's domestic areas were acutely uncomfortable for the Cloud Guardian.

Despite being involved in the plan to begin with, Kyouya hadn't given much thought for the fact that the Haru they would be bringing forward had still fancied herself in love with Sawada Tsunayoshi. She had no way of knowing nor reason to suspect their relationship, and Kyouya himself had not expected to be so... jealous... upon hearing her dote on the young Tsunayoshi. He was furious with envy and utterly impotent.

Kyouya had returned to Namimori later than expected and not been able to contact his Haru before the switch took place. He had wanted at least one more day with her before they had to gamble everything on a fourteen year old boy's frail shoulders. Failing that, he refused to subject himself to the pain of witnessing his fiance swoon every time the Vongola Decimo smiled at her (or anyone else for that matter) and was as such avoiding the connected base whenever he could. The less contact he had with the junior-high-aged Miura Haru the better off he was—the more emotionally and mentally stable he was.

The Haru flitting around the Vongola kitchen didn't know anything. She was blissfully unaware that in a year's time she would be kidnapped and held for ransom by a local yakuza group. She didn't know that it would happen while Tsunayoshi was out of the country or that Kyouya would be the one to retrieve her. She certainly didn't know that during her recovery the two of them would become close. She didn't know that half a year after that horrific event she would realize he was her somewhat anonymous childhood friend 'Kyo-kun' or that he would learn to trust in and rely on her above all others. Haru didn't know that she would give him her virginity on Christmas Eve during her first year of high school. It would never have occurred to the girl that she would one day climb up into his hospital bed and sleep there without shame, hesitation—or, most importantly, fear.

And Kyouya couldn't tell her. The times they'd spent together were far too important for him to jeopardize for a moment's indulgent conversation. Besides which, she wasn't the woman he loved anyway. Not yet.

She was still afraid of him. He could see it in her wet eyes as she stared up at him. Keeping his face blank, he watched the girl where she was huddled against the wall, tear stains on the arms of her sweatshirt. She was absolutely petrified to see him and dropped her gaze immediately. Flushing a familiar and becoming shade of pink, Haru wet her lips and stood on unsteady legs.

"You don't have to be strong all the time," he found himself saying. "You're allowed to be weak when you need to." Especially considering the horrible circumstances he had landed her in. His Haru had never had to face the shock and trauma of being sent to the future against her will, and he wondered how this girl would be changed by the experience.

It was with no small amount of fear that he realized the woman she may grow to be might want no part of him. He was dark and complex, and circumstance had thrown them together anyway. As he matured he had only become more so in his heart of hearts; Haru had been his happiness, laughter, and light for well over five years now. He was the strongest of the Tenth Generations Guardians because he fought for fun but survived to see her again. Before they had become a pair he had been more reckless with his health; it had taken her punching him in the chest and threatening to cut ties with him to make him see that there was a better way to live and fight.

"... Hahi?" she breathed, and with a small, uncontrollable smile, Kyouya shook his head and stepped into the laundry room, shutting the door behind him. "Hi-Hibari-san?"

"Sit," he instructed, folding himself to the floor across from the girl's previous position. Slowly, wary, she sank back down, back pressed tight to the wall. It couldn't be comfortable, but she was so frightened by his proximity that she was unlikely to relax unless he gave her reason to. How was he supposed to do that without telling her why she could trust him, be herself with him?

He hated seeing her cry more than anything. Haru was supposed to be his light and air—the breeze that kept the Cloud moving within the massive expanse of the Sky. But this Haru was too small and weak for that, too lost within the sky herself to be able to push him onward. Still, Kyouya knew with absolute certainty that someday she would have the self-assurance to do so. She was his happiness and he was her strength; it was a give and take relationship that bordered on symbiosis.

"You're frightened," he murmured, and she was startled. Always so open and easy to read; the girl hid nothing (the woman was the same). He could use his understanding of her, developed over their years together, and write it off as simply being an observant man with passing familiarity with her future self. "I understand why; the situation in unfavorable and no one is telling you anything. Everyone is secretive and while you're working day in and day out to keep them happy and comfortable, they take you for granted. You're left wondering what is occurring around you and what part you're to play in it. Worse than that, you've been relegated to domestic tasks such as childcare and cooking when they are never pastimes you've had any interest in."

Haru's clear eyes, still shiny from the tears beading in her lashes, were now fixed on his face with a familiar, single-minded intensity. She had looked at him just that way when he told her his feelings all those years ago. Moreover, that sharp focus was very similar to how she watched him while they were in bed. Add the tears to that and it was the look she'd worn when she told him she was pregnant three years ago, then again after the miscarriage four months later. He had to remind himself that she was fifteen and he eleven years her senior—that no matter how ingrained the behavior was, he could not simply pull Haru into his arms and rock her until she stopped crying.

"It's not fair to you," he said instead. "I know that it isn't. But you will pull through this, Miura Haru. If there is one thing I've learned about you over the years, it's that you have an incredible ability to understand others. Draw on that now and be patient. Explanations will come in due time, I assure you." He had already written a letter to her explaining the Vongola and Millefiore affair and left it in Tetsuya's care. The man was to give it to her if she still had not been given a proper explanation by the time they were to be sent back in time. "Until then the best you can do is keep your chin up."

Sniffing, Haru bit her lip, then shook her head and spoke. The lack of her usual over-cute affectation showed him more clearly than anything how distressed she felt. "I don't understand any of this, Hibari-san. I haven't from the start!" The tears began to spill down her cheeks faster and Kyouya had to lean back on fisted hands to keep from reaching for her. Instinct, habit, and love all clamored for him to comfort her, but such a course of action would only unnerve the child more.

And she was a child.

Damn it.

"You will be alright," he said. "You're safe here, and what everyone is doing is being done to ensure that you, Sasagawa, and the children are safe and can be returned home."

In a sudden display of her more keenly observant nature, Haru wrapped her arms around her shins and set her chin on her knees. "Hibari-san, in your past did we come to the future?"

That at least he could answer. "No. Time is being changed; it's being rewritten as we speak." Which was why he was so frightened that their relationship would never come to pass. Maybe, though... just maybe... he was laying the groundwork for her to trust him in her future. Maybe this conversation would be what allowed her to view him as a lover in the future.

It was what he hoped, anyway.

"Every gesture, every action, taken by all of us here is changing the way things will happen. When you go back in the past, this will not be the future you will know as you grow. It will be vastly different because of what you and the others experience here."

"So your past isn't the future I'll grow to have?"

He was going to say 'no', but something... a slight, self-indulgent and selfish urge... stopped him. "Part of it will be the same," he told her. "For example, it's likely that you will still attend the same high school, receive the same grades on your tests. The things that your family and other friends do will still be the same as they would have been. Relatively small things in the grand scheme of things are likely to occur in every version of the intervening years. Who your teachers are, what cakes you buy—" Her eyes widened and Kyouya realized that he had slipped up, then chose to ignore it. His next remark should block that out, anyway "—and who you end up marrying... Those should still be the same."

Her shoulders rose from their sad slump and an excited shimmer entered her eyes. "Marrying? I'm married?"

"You're engaged," he admitted. "The you from this time has been engaged for almost a year." It was entirely his fault that she'd had to be so patient. Kyouya's search for information on the Boxes had delayed their wedding twice, and Haru had been infinitely understanding about it.

"I know that what you're doing is important, Kyo. Don't worry about me; I can be patient. You're worth waiting for."

She smiled impishly and rubbed away the tears. "Who to?"

"That is something you will have to learn for yourself."

She pouted at him, full bottom lip jutting out as her almost catlike eyes narrowed. How painful it was to see that expression and not be able to lean in and capture those lips. Though, Kyouya supposed, he could do so. But aside from appeasing his own (entirely controllable) urges it would only serve terrify the girl and potentially drastically change the course of her life—of their life. "Do you know him?"

"Somewhat."

"Is he handsome?"

He couldn't help but smile at the shallow question. Had he not known that Haru put far more emphasis on a person's heart than their personality and looks, he would almost be offended. She always was entertaining. "You think so."

Sighing a little dreaming, she rested her head on her knees. "Is he a heroic prince?"

He hesitated in his response, which caught her attention. His mind was racing, however, back to a conversation from years in his past. It had been the third anniversary of their... consummation. Their third Christmas together, at the end of her last year in high school. Laying together in bed, with his right arm heavy around her back and the left under his head while Haru lay across his chest, right leg slung over his. Tracing patterns on his left shoulder and pectoral with her fingertips, she had smiled.

"You're nothing like the man I thought I would love, Kyo. I was supposed to find a handsome and heroic prince who would sweep me off my feet and onto his white steed." Her words had made him scowl, and she dropped a kiss over his heart. "You're more of a solitary knight, the kind who appears in the eleventh hour and saves the day, then rides into the sunset alone. Only I don't want you to be alone anymore. I love you too much to let that happen anymore. The next time you ride off, and every single time after that for as long as you live, you have to promise to take someone with you."

"And by 'someone' I assume you mean yourself."

"Me, or Tetsu-san," Haru had specified, folding her arms over the expanse of his chest and setting her chin on her hands. "Someone. Anyone. Just so you're not alone."

"If I can't have you," he had said after a moment, "I'd rather be alone."

"Then I guess I'm it."

He'd reached up then, threaded his fingers through her hair. "I guess you are."

That had been so long ago, but the conversation had been so important, so vital to their relationship, that he could still remember every word. They had been devoted to each other before that, but it had been in that moment that they truly committed themselves to one another.

Kyouya stood. "No," he said quietly, offering her a hand up. She took it tentatively and while he pulled her to her feet Kyouya concluded, "He is not a prince."

Once they were in the hallway and had turned to go their separate ways, she reached out and tugged very lightly on the sleeve of his suit jacket. Smiling a little sadly up at him, she asked, "Haru isn't engaged to Tsuna-san, is she?"

"No," he repeated, and turned away from her. "Good day, Miura Haru."

"Good day, Hibari-san."

It quickly became obvious why Tsunayoshi had insisted that if the younger version of his girlfriend was brought to the future that Haru be brought along as well. The two girls were close, he had know that for years, but more than that it was the sense of absolute overwhelming dread that rushed through his veins whenever he thought of the consequences of failing to train the younger Decimo up to the levels of power he had to achieve.

Thinking back he could hear it now in the younger man's voice, those unspoken words: "If my love is going to be in danger, so is yours." It was the small streak of utter cruelty that existed in Tsunayoshi rising to the fore. Kyouya doubted he would be even half as impressed by it after the ordeal was over. In fact, it was becoming increasingly likely that the first thing he did upon seeing his so-called Boss would be to bite him to death.

If he could get past Gokudera Hayato and Sasagawa Kyoko, that was.

Regardless of what may or may not occur in the semi-distant future, Kyouya still had to take care of cleaning up the mess Irie had saddled him with. There was no denying that it was necessary that the Millefiore ambush of the Vongola Base occur, but it was still almost mind-numbingly boring to sit around waiting for the herbivores to get through the steel defensive wall above him. Legs stretched out in front of him, right hand in his pocket over his collection of Cloud Rings, Kyouya tipped his head back and thought of the reasons he was fighting so insistently.

Certainly there was Namimori to protect and parallel worlds to rescue and recover. It would be hard to forget that Byakuran had taken over innumerable other worlds and had his sights now set on Kyouya's own. He was chilled constantly by the thought that Byakuran had somehow bypassed hundreds of versions of Kyouya during his winning streak, and absolutely determined that he would be the one to put an end to that miserable record of losses and get revenge for his defeated selves. But that wasn't really it. Justice wasn't enough of a reason for him anymore.

To ensure that Haru was safe and happy. To see to it that when they married there would be no Mafia Famiglia strong enough to dare challenge the Vongola Guardians. So he could be confident that when they had children (which they had long ago agreed they wanted) those children would be safe under the name Hibari Kyouya of the Vongola. So he would be able to spend weeks at home without worrying about defending his family from life-or-death threats. Kyouya fought for a long and happy life with his one love.

Nothing else mattered even half so much as that.

The defenses gave way, and he rose to his feet with a viscous smile.

Kyouya was trailing after Tetsu and the children and Rokudo Mukuro's girl when the door next to him slammed open and a hand shot out, grabbing his arm and yanking him into the room.

If it had been anyone other than Haru, they would have been dead by the time the door closed behind him. Fortunately for her, he knew not only the shape of her hand but also the touch of her still dormant Rain Flames against his much wilder ones. More than that, she had hardly grown four centimeters in the intervening years, and there had never been anyone in his life who touched him as freely as Haru did. Altogether, she was easily recognizable. Blinking down at where he knew the girl stood, her fingers pinched ever so lightly around part of his jacket sleeve, he lit those violet flames now to illuminate the darkness of what he damn well knew was a pantry, because his Haru had pulled him in here no less than six times for a wide variety of reasons.

Considering that A) this Haru was middle-school-aged virgin, B) didn't know they were engaged, and C) knew perfectly well that something important was going down, he surmised very easily that she had not isolated him from the others to seduce him. This time.

This meant he was either to comfort her for some reason, or was about to be interrogated. It was exceedingly difficult not to smile indulgently at her, but he succeeded. Still, the determined set to her jaw, the shimmer of tears in her eyes, and the thin line of her lips told him that he was in for a rare treat: a combination of emotional outburst and an incoherent interrogation.

"You know where Tsuna-san is!" she said harshly, voice raw. He lifted a brow and her shining eyes narrowed. A reflection of his Flames danced in her eyes, capturing his attention momentarily. He blinked to break the spell, aware that his window of opportunity to make a difference as he was was steadily ticking away.

He loved her, but he did not have time for her. "Your point is?"

"You don't have to tell me where he's gone—" her voice caught, breath hitching. "Just tell me that he's going to come back. That all of them are!" Ice shot through him. Them, she had said. Not you. "Please, Hibari-san, I need to hear it even if it's a lie, and if it comes from you I might actually be able to believe it—"

"They will come back." Irie was to ensure that, and Kyouya's chosen Sky had faith in the man. That was enough for him to as well. Watching her closely he added, "But I will not."

He was sadistically satisfied to see the absolutely stricken look on her face in the instant before he snuffed the Flames. He reached for the door and slipped out, hurrying after the herbivores he was escorting, amused to realize, somewhat belatedly, that Haru had not been the least bit surprised to see the impossible fire dancing in his hand.

She always had been more observant than anyone else gave her credit for.

"Kyo-kun!

"Kyo-kun!

"So help me God, Kyo, if you don't open your eyes right now I will slap you across the face—"

Haru, he realized, then smiled darkly. What's more, this is my Haru. No one else would speak to him in such a manner.

"—spit on you, shoot you, and sell your ring on the black market!"

Needless to say, he opened his eyes.

While this was not my first time writing Hibari-senpai, it was my first time writing Haru. How were they? Did they seem in character given the circumstances? I hope so. If not, let me know...? Irrelevant sidenote: In my head this Haru can and does swear very extensively in Italian when she's angry.

So help me God, Kyo, if you don't open your eyes right now I will slap you across the face, spit on you, shoot you, and sell your ring on the black market!
It just kept building on itself. I let her run with it. It was either the black market line, or he would be condemned to sleeping on the couch for the first year of their marriage. (Also, RE: the word God being in there, I theorize that after spending as much time with as many irreverent Italians as TYL!Haru has, she can have picked up the habit of saying God in such a manner.)

Ja na!