A/N: Thank you, once again, to everyone who is reading, and big smacky kisses to everyone who is reviewing! :D Just wondering - I have this almost completely written, so this isn't a poll or anything - but how would y'all react if this gets pushed up to an M rating due to, ahem, adult type touching and naked time? I'd just like to get everyone's thoughts...
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.
"This time when you come home," Kaoru can't look her husband in the eyes, not while they're standing in front of the complex gate and he's about to leave again. "Don't wait until you're wounded."
"I'll visit the doctor first." Battousai promises her, and she can hear the smile in his voice. Kaoru flinches when his fingers press against the underside of her jaw and chin, gently pulling until her face is tipped up and she is reluctantly meeting his gaze. He is smiling, and it somehow comforting and sad all at once.
"You'd better go," Kaoru needs him to leave quickly, because there is a bubble of panic in her chest and it wouldn't be fair to send him off with the memory of her crying. She has to be strong - he is strong enough to shoulder the darkest burdens of their entire country. She can be strong enough to smile as he leaves, promising that when he returns he will be greeted in the same way. "The sun is rising."
"Kaoru..." he says her name in the way he spoke to her the night before, and it is the reminder of a touch across her neck, sinking through her flesh to warmly cup her heart. She thinks it might make her knees knock together, certainly when he lifts his other hand and cradles her face between both of his palms, his expression so infinitely gentle that Kaoru can hardly stomach the knowledge that he is being sent out to kill.
Kaoru meets him halfway when he leans in to kiss her. The vast sum of her experience with kissing totals a count of two, now, but she makes up for her lack of knowledge and finesse with sheer willingness. She presses close against him, winding her arms around his neck and pouring out what she doesn't have the bravery to say, but mostly what she does not yet understand, into this language of bodies and emotions, rather than stumbling over words that would fail her.
She is light headed and sporting a pair of terribly weak knees when he draws away, her hair heavy down her back and soft on her neck, as he has pulled the confining ribbon from it, allowing it fall loose. He smiles - a smug, very masculine look; not his normal sort - and she watches as he tucks her ribbon away. She notes that it rests over his heart, and maybe it is because she is young and never felt this way for a man before, but it makes her flush, a surge of giddy pleasure erupting through her veins like soap bubbles.
"Goodbye, Kaoru."
"Goodbye, husband," Kaoru answers (he does not want, she is beginning to understand, his name of Kenshin to be blood soaked, and so she will not call him that when he walks off into war; but she does want him to remember that the war will end and he will have a home and wife to return to), giving him the best smile she can manage. "I'll be waiting."
Word Count: 518