Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin and the characters thereof are the sole property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Viz, Shonen Jump, Shueisha, Sony Studios, Studio Gallop, Studio Deen, ADV, Fuji TV and Media Blasters. I am only borrowing for entertainment and am not profiting. In other words, bite me!

Glossary: hibachi - small, portable heater (means "fire bowl" in Japanese)

Betad by: Nite-Mare-Chan

February, 1880

Kamiya Dojo

The night air was cold, so cold that a glass of water would freeze in five minutes flat. The moon and stars were obscured by grumpy gray clouds. The snow raged outside in a thick blizzard of white, buffeting the dojo's strong walls.

In the bedroom, lit only by the light of the crackling fire in the hibachi, Himura Kenshin lay half-awake, listening to the sound of the storm raging outside. His belly full and his bare skin warm and tingly after the dinner and hot bath he had shared with his wife, the redhead was glad to be inside and warm on a night like this.

As he snuggled further into the warmth of the futon, under the large, thick quilt they used as their winter covering, his memories went back to his time as a wanderer. Well did he remember spending many a cold, dark night outside, clad in rags, trying in vain to keep a small fire burning as his only source of heat. If the fire had gone out, he would surely have died of exposure. He nearly had a died few times. Always though, it seemed like luck was on his side. He would be found by a kindly stranger, taken in and nursed back to health.

It had never lasted though. In the end, he had always left to wander again. The people who took him in had usually bade him farewell and wished him luck on his journey. One or two had even asked him to stay on with them, but during that turbulent decade, he couldn't. As a young wanderer, he was still confused, still hurting, still running from the darkness of his days as Hitokiri Battousai, and as the killer of his beloved Tomoe.

Kenshin gazed into the flames that lept and blazed in the hibachi. If he had never met Kaoru, had never come to live at the Kamiya Dojo, where would he be right now? Would he still be a rurouni, sleeping under the stars, seeking shelter from the elements under bridges, in abandoned buildings and caves, living hand-to-mouth? Or as Hiko had prophesied, would he have finally snapped and killed someone, thus reverting back to his hitokiri nature? Perhaps he would now be dead.

Kenshin abruptly chided himself for letting his train of thought take such a dark bent. Instead of worrying about what might have been, he needed to be thankful for what he had now. Indeed, he was! The redhead was glad that those days of sleeping out in the cold were done forever. After so many years of wandering, he had found the home his soul had craved with the lass who slept at his side, Kaoru, the first person in years to accept him just as he was with no reservations.

To unconditionally accept seemed to be Kaoru's very nature. She had opened up her dojo without question to an assassin, a freeloading street brawler, a foul-mouthed pickpocket and an opium maker. In the Kamiya Dojo, there was no judgment, only a second chance at life. Although it had been Kenshin himself who had plucked each of them off the streets and set them on their new paths, it was Kaoru who had provided these strays with a safe hide away from a world that still saw them for who they had been. If Kenshin was the one who formed the group known as the Kenshin-gumi, Kaoru was the red thread that bound them together.

During the Hell of Enishi's Jinchuu, the group had fragmented when they had believed her dead. Kenshin had rotted in Rakuninmura and Sanosuke had split for parts unknown. Without her presence, the Kamiya Dojo had ceased to be a home and was just a building. When Kaoru returned, the spirit did, and it was home once more.

Kenshin glanced at his wife of 13 months, sleeping blissfully by his side. He smiled at her, even as his eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Sleep was calling to him. Kenshin stretched out comfortably and snuggled close to Kaoru, answering sleep's call.

~~Owari~~