Things You Need To Know:

1. This is an Alternate Universe fiction. So please do not come complaining to me later on about how: a) it's not possible b) the CANON is not like that c) it's different from the anime/manga! This is FanFICTION, and to be different from the Canon is the point.

2. This has an alternate pairing, as indicated in the summery, so if it's not your cup of tea, turn back now instead of reading it and then complaining, which just makes you look stupid since I put a warning here.

3. As the title of this fic implies, there is a time cross with the characters. If you don't like those kinds of fiction, please also turn back now. If this is a bit confusing with the jumping around in time and non-names, don't worry. There will be a time line for this fic out in chapter 4 or so, after the events have happened.

4. There is spoilers here for Kenshin's past if you have not read/watched that part about Tomoe yet. I tried to stick as close to the original as possible, but once again, please take the above Note 1. into consideration.

5. If something really, really, really doesn't make sense even with your imagination on full run, then please leave me a note with your email then I will either a) fix it, or b) email you and explain.

6. I do not have a beta and I do writing in my free time, it's too inconsistant for me to have a steady beta, also since I drabble in many different fandoms. I try my best but I can't guarantee that I caught all spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

7. Good reviews help. Objective criticism helps. Biased flaming that I am not writing your favoured pairing does not. I appreciate any feedback you might have.

8. This is dedicated to all the supports and fellow fans of the alternate pairing in this fic.

: - :

On another note, I am not a mean writer nor am I unapproachable. I am friendly, and female (I put that there because I am mistaken as a male writer many a-times for some reason), and very open minded. Feel free to read my other fictions and visit my Livejournal to leave other feedback.

Enjoy the story :)

PROLOGUE

She felt like liquid, and she was slowly melting into the deep dark chasm that was the world beyond her closed eyes. Her mind felt fuzzy, and her whole body felt like it was slowly dissolving as it moved her from one place to the next. From one second to the next.

: -:

Carpe diem, the poet had said, quad minimum credula postero: Take the present, don't put any faith in the future

: -:

Edo 1861

The streets were muddy, and the rain fell heavily onto the ground. The droplets splashed painfully against the rooftops, windows, and the barren Earth. As if the attraction between the Heavens and the land it overlooked had become too much.

It obscured everything from view: the rain, the gloom, and the dark clouds had shut away the sun. As the time of night that it was now, the sun no longer even hid beyond the grey floating masses in the sky, and the moon had yet to shred a single light upon the lowly plain that the race of Men walked on.

Like a broken anthem, the beat of the rain crashing down on the many objects created it's own music. Rapid. Melodic. Haunting.

Inside the curtain of rain, in an alleyway of two houses that had seen better times, but were still quite hospitable, laid a bundle on the ground. Wet, silent, and pale. Nothing moved from inside that alleyway, nothing that most would have ventured in for to check, but one person did.

Had.

He stood over the bundle. Getting soaked. Water running down the entire lines of his body. His fine silk clothes on the verge of being ruined beyond repair.

He stood still with wide eyes staring down at the bundle, hope and light shining in his eyes. And the most gentle smile on his lips as he knelt down and reached out towards the dark and pale bundle.

" Nee-san?"

: -:

I saw light that day
And I still can't remember enough to describe how bright it was

: -:

She blinked awake, her eyes fluttering open as shakily and nervously as the wings of a butterfly. Delicate. Fragile. Beautiful. She stared up at the small boy, crouching down close to her, his fingers gently shaking her form awake.

" Nee-san?"

The little boy smiled, dimples appearing at the sides of his cheeks. His dark eyes and dark hair faded in and out of her vision.

She wanted to sleep more.

Much more.

She wasn't sure if she ever wanted to wake up.

" Nee-san." The boy said again, his voice almost a whine now. " Wake up, Nee-san. I finally found you. So let's go home already. I don't want to play hide-and-seek anymore."

She didn't understand him, she understood his words, she understood the language, but she couldn't understand his meaning.

She didn't remember this little boy. She didn't remember her home. She didn't remember playing a game. She didn't remember anything.

The little boy slid his hand up to her cheek, and cupped her face towards him. He spoke with a solemn face.

" Nee-san. Let's go home." He dimpled again. " Kaa-san and Tou-san might be very worried by now."

He stood up, and she followed him, pushing herself up on shaky hands and standing on shakier legs.

The child looked up to her in approval. " That's it, Nee-san. Let's go home now. I hope you don't get sick, you've been in the rain for a long time."

The deep black cloak, which had been on her shoulders, slid to the ground in a heavy slop. Before it reach the ground it snagged at her hair, but she didn't react at all as the clip holding the longs strands of her dark hair together, came loose and fell as well. The once warm exterior was soaked through with the old rain, and dirtied now by the ground. She stared down at the boy, waiting.

He bent over and picked up the heavy garment, slinging it awkwardly over his arm as he had seen his father do with such clothes in occasion. He ignored that it was too heavy, wet, and large for him to carry. He also picked up the clip and stuck it into his pocket. He simply smiled up at her and reached out to take one of her hands into his.

" Let's go home now, Nee-san." He said softly. " You've been away for too long."

She didn't care where he was taking her. She had no idea where the 'home' was at all. She let him lead her out of the alley and down the empty, raining streets. Her long hair, which had been kept bound in a style she forgot the name for, slowly came loose as she walked. The long, wild strands threatened to bellow out behind if the wind became any fiercer.

" You're going to have to cut your hair." The boy said from in front of her. " It's way too long."

She did not respond. She did not give any indications she heard. She simply followed him.

: -:

I wanted to see the moon
Shining in all its glory
Beaming with it's borrowed light

: -:

For the next while, she was like a doll. When they reach 'home', a big and luxurious mansion, she simply followed his instructions. Take of her shoes. Take a towel from the maid over there. Don't fuss if she comes to help you. Say " Tadaima." And smile for okaa-san and otou-san.

The lady and the man that came to greet them at the door stared with solemn faces and worried eyes. They greeted her with a nod and glanced worriedly at the dimpling boy. She stared up at them with blank eyes.

Over the next few days, inquires were made about her. She knew that, but couldn't really get herself to feel anything for the situation at all. She knew questions were being asked: where had she been in the last few days? Where had she been found? How had she ended up there?

No answers were forthcoming, and after a few days, the household settled into a more lax air. The okaa-san and otou-san had decided life went on, and sending the police away, they went to talk to the two children alone.

They found them in the nursery, the hairstylists had come and gone earlier, and now she had a new hairstyle. Shorter than before, but not too short, it framed her face and tied loosely down her back with a ribbon.

She was like a living doll, simply breathing and doing nothing else. The doctor had come and gone as well, and had pronounced her physically well as she could be after spending a few hours in the rain. She simply needed to eat and exercise to gain back her strength, and to sleep.

She looked up from her perch at the window seated in a chair, donned in a beautiful sakura themed kimono, with the sunlight shining down on her. On her lap sat the little boy, seated sideways and toying with a book, barely interested in reading as she turned it in all angles in front of him.

He dimpled at the couple in front of him, and they smiled unsurely back. The man told them that the bad period was over, that everything was fine now. Now they wanted to share their first family dinner for a while now together with their son. And their daughter, they added as they looked at her.

She simply cocked her head in reply, but joined them for the meal all the same.

It was a start.

For over the next few days, they sat with her at the dining table during meal times, and in the nursery at odd hours during the day as they played with the son. As they stared at the boy, they would speak. To her, about their daughter.

The okaa-san would talk about how willowy and graceful she had been. How close they were, how no secrets has ever come between the two of them. The okaa-san would speak about the childhood years and what had been happening recently that she needed to know about. The okaa-san would often, try to make conversation.

The otou-san would come later in the day, in the night hours after he could get away from his desk and all the paper work. He would talk about himself, the okaa-san, and the little boy. He would speak of the summer days before, and the times they had spent happily as a family. The otou-san, told her they wanted their daughter back.

The little boy, her younger brother, would smile at her and talk to her all day about nothing and everything. He would look up at her and tell her jokes and memories, and all the things she couldn't remember because that night in the rain, he said. He would play with her, teach her games she never planned to participate in, and crawl all over her. Sitting in her lap, tugging at her skirt, napping in her arms because he refused to nap elsewhere. And the whole time calling her "Nee-san."

Weeks passed and the events dragged on. Slowly the household adjusted and things settled into an - if not comfortable than - predictable timetable. The okaa-san started to go out again, to shop, to see her friends, to apply her hours elsewhere outside of the home in which security wasn't needed to be as tight anymore.

The otou-san started to go on trips, a day or two each time, for political reasons and gatherings for his career. He was a politician and he wanted to show his support, to which side, she never asked or remembered.

The boy tagged at her footsteps, tripping over his own clothes as he ran circles around her. He laughed and giggled, ran and sprinted, jumped and tumbled. He lived his life within her sight every minute of everyday.

And slowly the void didn't feel consume her whole anymore, the emptiness was slightly filled up, and the seconds weren't desperately counted as she waited for something she did not know. The chains around her heart slowly unwound just a little bit.

Slowly she began to smile again.

Tentatively. Hesitantly. Miraculously.

The first time she smiled in the vicinity of the okaa-san, the older woman cried. So overwhelmed that she was, she ran out of the nursery choking on sobs as the boy continued playing while she kept smiling down at him. Both unaware of the absence of another.

The otou-san was better prepared, his wife had told him of the event. He had come silently, stealthily, hiding behind the curtains of his room as he watched the two walk in the wide protected garden on his property. His heir was laughing, the girl smiling gently.

And his throat felt raw, and dry. And he thought maybe they were getting their daughter back. Somehow, they might have the chance to recover what they had lost.

Months came and went, a year passed. They had a party for the son as he turned another year older. A month later they had a surprise party for her, telling her she was 14 now. Her younger bother was 5.

She did not argue with them about her age, because it felt right, and since they were her family, they should know. They lived for the rest of the new year in bliss as a family.

But then the war got worse; he family was in danger because of it. The otou-san didn't want his family endangered if he could help it. The okaa-san and him stayed up late nights arguing about plans and what to do. In the end, it settled into a mutual agreement.

The little boy was sent off to a province in the east, away from the fighting, and was to be schooled there to be able to take his father's position when he inherits. She was to be sent equally far away and safe, to be schooled in manners on how to be the perfect lady, for she must become a bride in the future.

She and the little boy didn't want to be separated from the family and from each other, but after many assurances that the separation was to be brief, and that they could always talk to each other by mail (the son could get someone else to write his letters), they left still a little unsure.

The son's journey was long and tedious, and at one point he felt like something was wrong and he wanted to run back home and to his Nee-san, but he convinced himself that would make him appear weak and he continued on with the journey. When he reached his destination, he was so tired he slept for the first few days. And after that he was very busy with his studies, he did not get a chance to have a letter written until a month later.

Half way on her journey, her head started hurting. Flashes of light appeared before her closed eyelids, and she often felt weak and faded in and out of consciousness. She wasn't sure what was happening, and once she felt so weak she had to stop the carriage to go and heave on the side of the road.

It was during that time that they were ambushed. Bandits jumped out from the bushes and attacked her procession. She ran into the forest, leaving the belongings behind as she ran in fear. She was never sure if she had been running from something or to something at that point, because everything started to get blurry, and she left like she was melting into liquid. And she vaguely seemed to remember feeling like this once before but she couldn't recall.

When the schoolmistress standing outside her school waiting, never saw the carriage come over the hill, she dismissed it. Highbred ladies ran away and back home all the time halfway into the journey. They didn't have the heart or courage to be separated from their families. She simply walked back into her office and scratched out the Lord's name whom the child was sired from.

The little boy waited for a reply from his sister but a month passed and no mail came. His teachers told him that it might take a month's time just for the letter to reach the lady, and then another month to get a reply. So he waited, and in the mean time, wrote and received letters from his parents. Whom when he asked, replied that letters get lost all the time, and especially in such upheaval times, it might take months for it to simply reach the daughter.

So it wasn't until 6 months later when the parents and the son received a letter, written and sent by the schoolmistress telling them that the girl never arrived at the school, did they panic. And they did, severely.

And it was another 2 weeks before the otou-san found out that the carriage had been attacked by bandits, robbed, and all the servants killed. The okaa-san cried in despair, but the otou-san said to hope, because the daughter's body was not among the dead. The son held out desperate hope, because he refused to let himself believe otherwise.

They organized search parties and the otou-san used every resource he could to try and find the daughter. They search long and hard, and after another 6 months, they finally found her.

She lay on the roadside: frail, weak, and pale, trembling from the cold. She was brought into town and the runner who found her was heavily rewarded. She was checked by the doctor again, had her hair cut, and was set to recover.

When asked what had happened to her in the past year, she responded that she remembered nothing. She only remembered running into the forest, fear, and then...the sinking melting feeling and the nothing.

The family didn't like it. It took her another 3 month's to recover fully, but the family felt insecure. They were afraid they would lose her again. This time they tried to tie her down.

They gave her a name.

The otou-san and okaa-san had a name.

Her younger brother had a name.

And in the months she was sick, a gentleman came and went to visit her. He was nice. He was kind. He made her smile. She in turn, tried to do all the same for him.

One day, he came to talk to the otou-san, and the family, grateful for another tie to keep her here, agreed to his request for her hand in marriage.

The gentleman had a name.

And Kiyosato came to see her every day afterwards.

: -:
And in the moonbeams so elusive
I threaten to disappear completely

: -:

END PROLOGUE