I watch, as he picks up his child- our child- with both his gentle hands.
Little Kenji wiggles unwillingly, but his struggle is to no valid as Kenshin holds him tight with no effort at all.

No effort? I realize how misleading that remark was. His hands- if anything else- has only strengthened through endless endurance; a pair of hands that has carried out more efforts than anyone else has.

Numerous times I had seen him sitting on the hallway, silently staring at his hands.
"Kenshin..." I would approach him and call his name, and he would not hear until I sat right next to him, " Kenshin!"
"Kaoru-dono…"
Yet as he spoke he would still be staring at his hands, as if something was wrong with them. I would then hand him a cup of tea from the tray I was carrying, only to find that as he took the cup, his hands were shaking.
"Kenshin," I would say, "Is something wrong?"

He would take a sip of his tea, and says nothing except to close his eyes and smile wryly, or sighs a little.

My hear aches to see him sigh. For I know when he sighs I can do nothing to comfort him. He sighs for things I do not understand. It pains me to see him suffer; and it was painfully obvious to see when he was indeed suffering. His eyes would be an opaque shade of purple, his loneliness shown in his wryly smile.
I so desperately want to help him, to help him ease his pain; but Kenshin is someone who hides his emotions well, and even now I must admit I still do not understand him.

The truth is that I would never fully understand him. It is his past; I know when he stares so upsettingly at his hands, it is his past haunting him. No matter how hard I try, I did not live the time he had gone through, and can only guess the affect it had on him.

"My hands are cover in blood," he once said, "I can not wash it off. I can not clean them."
He had said it in such a desperate tone I retreated my hand, which was halfway through reaching out to touch him. He didn't seem to notice my hesitated movement, for he continued:
"I can still feel the weight, the heavy weight of death when I hold my hands out."

He clutched his fist firmly, and my heart tugged. I knew he was in particular referring to Tomoe, the woman he once and always will, love. I feel ashamed to say, even though I'm thankful for everything she has done, more than grateful towards her, a part of me am terribly jealous to her. Not jealous of his love to her, I know the love I receive from him is pure and true; but jealous of the place she holds in his heart. A place I'll never be able to replace. But moreover, I envy her: her bravery, her loyalty and most of all her ability to understand this man we both love.

"These hands of yours," I remember I replied him, "are powerfully dangerous."
I paused to touch his hand. It felt warm.
"But is it not the same hands which had saved and moreover, enlightened so many lives? …Is it not your same pair of hands that had hold me… that loves me?"

I smiled, for that was the least I could do.

Kenji has somehow free himself from his father's grip and is now hanging tightly on to me, with his arms wrapped around me, giving me a tight squeeze.
"Mama!" the three-year-old chirps, "Mama!"
"Yes Kenji?"
He holds up his hands, to reveal his two open palms, gesturing he wants to be pick up and carried. I smile and hold the child in my arms. His father, in his famous pink gi, is standing a few meters away, watching and smiling. I smile back, and walks across towards him.

Your hands, Kenshin, had once been a killer's hands- nothing can change that- but now of a greater importance are your hands of a father, of the pair of loving hands of the man I love.

I hold you, and feel the warmth of your hand holding me back.

~owari~

The idea of this fanfic came very suddenly, and I wrote it at night next to the fireplace… (This is one of the few fics I actually wrote out on paper) When I started I thought of writing from Kenshin's POV, but didn't quite know how to get around it… so it ended up from Kaoru's POV, ending up quite differently from what I planned. Since it is from Kaoru's POV, I couldn't include bits like little Shinta's hands when he buried all those corpses or when he was learning from Hiko or in details the hitokiri's bloodied hands… but I did get to include Kaoru's feelings towards Tomoe, which I had always wanted to write…

I did a poor job of tenses here (future-past tense, I think that's what I used…and mixing it along with present and past tense too @.@)… so I'm sorry for the mistakes (which I'm sure there are a lot…)!

Please give me some feedbacks!