An Inch, a rurouni kenshin fanfic

Author: Mandella-sama

Title: An Inch

A/n: This is a pivotal time in my life and I was feeling overwhelmed so I wrote this one shot. You see I am nearly 18 and today it struck me that I am losing my childhood. That scares me more than anything. So here is the result of tears, Grey's Anatomy, and V for Vendetta!

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also don't own Natalie Imbruglia's song "Torn". I would also like to say that I took a few ideas and lines form the movie V for Vendetta and that they are not mine.

Cleaning was how Misao dealt with her problems when they mounted upon her conscience like legos in a lego castle. She would vacuum instead of crying and dust instead of getting angry. In the end, sadness and tears would cure nothing. It had been months and yet she was still cleaning; if that was any picture of how much she needed to deal with "It". "It" was a good way to describe her nameless problem. She could see the look of curiosity and concern in her friend's eyes. They were not good at hiding their feelings. She could feel their need to ask what was wrong. They wanted to shake her till she spilled over the edges of her emotional barriers. She could feel their emotions surging when ever she saw them. So she had learned to avoid enclosed spaces with them.

Work wasn't much better. Not with the constant reminder walking around and smiling at her. She had grown to hate the work she had once lived for. Her only solace outside of cleaning her own home was her patients. They came in and out of the doors of the hospital she worked in and yet she loved each and every one of them. They could never let her down. Day by day the patients came into her sector and asked for Dr. Misao and everyday she would try her level best to cure them. Sure she lost some and healed others; to her she was merely trying her best to heal a hurting world. But now when ever she was out of OR she dreaded the long walk down the halls of the hospital. She could feel the stares and the looks passed between colleagues. She knew she would eventually have to face "It" but for now all she wanted to do was move on.

Currently she was scrubbing at her medical locker with a wet paper towel and listening to the radio. She could feel her co-worker Kaoru Kamiya watching her as she pretended to read her copy of Surgical Monthly. Misao merely held her head up a little higher and scrubbed harder.

"How long has she been at it?" asked a slightly thawed in persoanlity Aoshi Shinomori. Kaoru looked up at the normally stoic chief of staff whose warm blue eyes were dissecting Misao.

"About a half an hour. She seems to have a lot on her mind." Kaoru said after choosing her words carefully. Kaosu was sure that Cheif of Staff Aoshi didn't need to know too much about the normally loud physician.

"Aa." Was his response. Misao felt two eyes and her own slid towards the second pair and then quickly turned away. Not now! She thought with a desperate inner voice. Then the radio played the first strains of a pop song. It instantly caught and held Misao's attention along with Kaoru and Aoshi. It seemed, in seconds, to spin a golden web of sound that wrapped around the people in that small room and it held them there.

I thought I saw a man brought to life
He was warm, he came around like he was dignified
He showed me what it was to cry

Misao closed her sleepless night weary eyes and felt the music seep into her broken soul. She swayed to the music in a rhythm that only she could feel. Aoshi's eyes were glued to her. Something in the very air was changing around them.

Well you couldn't be that man I adored
You don't seem to know, don't seem to care what your heart is for
But I don't know him anymore
There's nothing where he used to lie
My conversation has run dry
That's what's going on, nothing's fine I'm torn

Suddenly Kaoru felt the need to leave. There was something deeply personal about this song and the feeling sweeping the room. She nodded to Aoshi and swiftly raced out the door.

I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real
I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late, I'm already torn

The words were perfect she realized when she opened her eyes mid song. They explained what she could never have the courage to put into words. She looked at Aoshi, who was in a daze, and she felt the irony that he was sharing this very moment with her. How cruel of fate to single her out for its own amusement.

"Aoshi."

So I guess the fortune teller's right
Should have seen just what was there and not some holy light
To crawl beneath my veins and now
I don't care, I have no luck, I don't miss it all that much
There's just so many things that I can't touch, I'm torn

Aoshi pulled himself out of the past he had spent so much of his life in and looked for the first time that day into her teal eyes. She felt the past tugging on the edges of her mind too.

"It is over. I was broken but I glued myself back together with the only glue I had. Over. So why can't I move on? Why are you still here? Caring? Being you and yet not you. I am tired, so tired I could faint. "

Aoshi stood in front of her with his normally calm face pulled into a frown.

"Misao I…."

"It doesn't matter anymore." She went back to scrubbing. Aoshi couldn't let it all go unsaid.

"Misao sometimes things just end. It is the natural way of things. You of all people should know that. I was no longer in love with you and you were not the person who fell in love with me. We parted ways."

Misao looked up into his warm blue eyes and thought back to when they had met. His eyes had been icy then; always with an edge of suspicion. She had loved that about him. He could never let himself go completely and she liked it. As crazy as that sounded to everyone; she knew that she trusted everyone she met and that she needed someone who could balance her out. She could remember being that small new intern Doctor who was fascinated with the cold superior doctor who seemed aloof.

There's nothing where he used to lie
My inspiration has run dry
That's what's going on, nothings right, I'm torn

When they had started their relationship both had been awed at the completeness they had felt. The stolen kisses between surgeries. For a year they had been up and down. In love and in a fight, but at the end of the day they had felt complete in each other's arms. It wasn't perfect but it worked better than anyone else they had had before was. Then it changed. So fast she didn't know whom to blame or how to fix it. One day his eyes lost the edge and become warmer. One day he stopped looking at her with that edge of sharp burning love. One day he stopped being aloof and opened up to her easily. Everything that had made Aoshi, Aoshi was gone. In his place was an open falsely warm man that was not Aoshi. This new man told her what he was feeling and this new man told her that he didn't and never had loved her. This new "It" was not Aoshi. This new "It" broke her heart. She didn't even get her own heart broken by the Aoshi she knew; but instead by some imposter in a white lab coat.

I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I am shamed lying naked on the floor
Illusion never changed into something real

Misao turned back to her worn and well scrubbed locker and shut it with a snap. Turning Misao gave her first seminormal smile.

"It," Misao said since this being was no longer Aoshi Shinomori, "I am not going to say that I am not hurt and heart broken. BUT. I can atleast say to myself 'the man you loved was not the one who broke your heart.' It's not much it is only an inch, but that inch is the only thing I have to hold onto and it is worth anything. And everything."

I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn
I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel
I'm cold and I'm ashamed bound and broken on the floor
You're a little late, I'm already torn

With a sad smile plastered to her face Misao Makimachi walked around Aoshi Shinomori and out the door into the halls that she no longer dreaded. She was not whole but at least she was alive. An inch and she would grasp it with all she was made of. In the back of her mind she noticed that the song on the radio had ended, fitting. If she had know it would only take a pop song she would have turned on the radio sooner.

Outside an ambulance drove through a puddle left over from that day's storm. Life had moved on and so would everyone within the hospital. Including a warm blue eyed doctor. An inch.

a/n: This means a lot to me so please review. I would greatly appreciate it. So Please Review!