--------------

Soujiro was seated beside the hospital bed, arms folded, head bowed. "Ken-nii," he said, without looking up. It had been the first time that Soujiro had ever called Kenshin 'Ken-nii' though half the rest of the world did.

Kenshin stood hesitantly in the doorway. Carrie was asleep, or drugged, or both. She had a tube down her throat and IVs taped to her arms, and she was alive and she didn't have the buzz of an Immortal about her. He exhaled a breath he hadn't known he had been holding.

"How is she?"

"She'll survive." Soujiro finally looked up. There were dark circles under his eyes. "Akane told me what you did. She's asleep -- the doctors gave her a sedative. She was pretty upset about the whole thing. I've managed to keep the realities of what we are from Akane, until now."

Kenshin didn't know what to say to that.

"Thank you, by the way. For saving her."

"Do you know why he was coming for your head?" Kenshin asked. It was important that Soujiro know, and understand, that this tragedy was caused by his past actions. He hoped it would cause Soujiro to hesitate in the future; Soujiro wasn't hunting now, but Kenshin didn't know what Souji would do in the future.

"I didn't kill his wife." Soujiro shook his head, denying it. "I killed a lot of men but I've rarely killed women."

"Rarely?" Kenshin prompted.

"The last one was in the 1980's. She came after me, I wasn't hunting her." Soujiro sighed and stretched his legs out. "Hideo was here earlier -- he said Ren's wife died in 1992. Hideo wants you to know that he's not after my head -- or yours -- and that Ren was an idiot for Challenging me. He said, and I quote, that it was Darwinian Principle at work. He apparently strongly cautioned Ren against this."

Kenshin flinched again. "Soujiro-san, we need to talk."

"So talk."

"Away from ... her."

"She's out cold," Soujiro said. "Carrie's got enough morphine in her system right now to trank an elephant. Before she passed out earlier, she was telling me that there were spiders on the ceiling and they were playing golf with a Wii. We can safely talk in front of her, I think."

Kenshin smiled faintly. "Please, Soujiro-san. I don't feel comfortable discussing this in front of your daughter."

Soujiro nodded slowly. "Very well."

-----------------

Kenshin led the way to the hospital's parking garage, and then up to the rooftop level. Soujiro followed, hands in his pockets, an uncertain smile plastered across his face. Once they were alone, and far from anyone who might overhear, Kenshin said very quietly, "I'm out of control."

"So you're leaving?"

"Something like that." Kenshin looked sharply away from Soujiro. "Soujiro-san, I'm dangerous."

"We all are," Soujiro gave him an uncomfortable look.

"I acted without thought. I reversed my sword and I took Ren's head because he frightened me. Souji-san, I could have reached him. I've done it before, with others." Kenshin hung his head, arms folded, shoulders hunched. Soujiro thought he didn't look like Kenshin at all -- Kenshin was a proud, strong man. This person was broken and beaten.

"You don't know that ..." Soujiro said.

"I could have broken his neck and stopped him that way. I've done that before, with other Immortals. And yes, I could have reached him. Soujiro -- I reached you and that was a good bit harder than reaching Ren would have been." Kenshin met his eyes and his tone was frankly honest, not teasing. Something terrible filled Kenshin's expression. "He was not a bad man. He wasn't evil. He was angry, and he was hurting, and he believed -- rightly or wrongly -- that you were behind the death of his wife. There was no evil in his soul."

"Even so," Soujiro said, "he tried to kill Akane. He nearly killed Carrie, and she's just a kid. It's far too soon for her to die. He got nothing less than he deserved."

"Nobody deserves to die," Kenshin spat out, "and I, of all people, do not have the right to execute anyone!"

Soujiro frowned. He didn't quite understand why Kenshin was so upset. "Kenshin, nobody is mad at you for what you did. Hideo came by specifically to make sure that we knew he wouldn't be hunting either of us. And he was Ito's sensei. Even he thinks it was justified."

Kenshin looked sharply away. "Soujiro, I know you don't understand but ... this has to stop. When I took Marshall's Quickening something in me died. I am not the man I was. I am ashamed ..." he swallowed hard. "I swore I would protect all those within my sight, all those who I consider friends and family. I think ... I think to protect them, maybe I need ..."

Soujiro's eyes widened as Kenshin suddenly knelt before him, neck exposed, motionless. It was an absolutely vulnerable position and Soujiro knew what he was asking. "Soujiro, I ask you to help me protect those I have sworn ... I cannot trust my own instincts and reactions anymore. The next person I kill may not even be Immortal. It may be someone I care about."

Soujiro's fingers twitched. Kenshin's Quickening would likely be one of the most powerful he could take. Kenshin was young, but he was wildly talented. Soujiro knew full well he would be unstoppable with Kenshin's abilities added to his own.

"No," he said, turning sharply away. He resisted the very real temptation. He was surprised to realize it was his own choice, also; it was not because Akane would disapprove. "I won't."

"Soujiro-san, please."

"Find someone else." Soujiro glanced over his shoulder. "I don't want your Quickening. And I don't want you dead. Kenshin, you're wrong. You're not evil."

Kenshin looked up at him. He swallowed, and his adam's apple bobbed. "Soujiro-san, please."

"No." Soujiro said, turning back. "I won't do this. And Ken-nii, I'm going to throw your own words back at you: Nobody deserves to die."

Kenshin rocked backwards, falling onto his butt, as if Soujiro had kicked him. He stared at Soujiro, eyes wide. Then he looked away, and then scrambled to his feet, and said, "... what ... what am I thinking?"

"I think," Soujiro said, "that you're not thinking at all."

"I have to stop." Kenshin backed away from Soujiro. "I have to stop."

"Do you?" Soujiro challenged. "Maybe you're what you should have been all along. Ken-nii, there is evil in the world. Sometimes, evil is mixed with good -- but for the sake of everyone, the best choice is to eliminate both the good and the evil together. Ren was willing to kill an unarmed woman -- a mother, a wife -- because he wanted to make me hurt like he did. If that's not evil, I don't know what is. Even I, at my worst, have never killed a mortal for revenge. I've never killed for revenge."

Kenshin backed another step away. Soujiro continued, mercilessly, "Ren had no proof that I killed his wife. He only had the word of others, who hate me, and who are willing to lay the blame of every death of every Immortal in San Francisco on my head."

Kenshin shuddered. "He was not ... irredeemable."

"Neither was I, but if you'd killed me in the 1800's there would be a couple hundred people alive because of that." Soujiro folded his arms. "Sometimes you're a fool. A likeable fool, but a fool all the same."

Kenshin sucked a sharp breath in, obviously stung. "That's a false argument, Soujiro-san. You might live a thousand years more and balance the scales out with lives saved and good done. It's your choice how you live your life. I haven't the right to take away that choice from you, and I cannot predict the future."

"Perhaps." Soujiro shrugged, thinking it an overly idealistic argument. "You yourself claim there's no way to atone for those you've killed in the past."

Kenshin looked sharply away again. Soujiro knew he'd scored. Still, Kenshin persisted, "I cannot predict the future for you, Soujiro-san, but I am deathly afraid that I can predict it for myself. I am ... unable to control myself."

"Bullshit." Soujiro crossed his arms. "Bullshit. You chose to kill Ren, and you made the right decision, and now you just won't admit it."

Kenshin flinched again like he'd been struck. The eyes that met Soujiro's gaze were full of naked pain. "I do not have the right to make those decisions!"

"Ask yourself this, Kenshin: If a man were to try to kill Akane in front of me, out of spite, and I were to take his head off, would you consider it a crime or justice served?"

Unhappily, Kenshin admitted, "I would say that the best course of action would be one where nobody died. But I would not fault you for using lethal force, no."

"Then what is so different about you?" Soujiro raked his fingers through his hair. "Sometimes, Kenshin, I just don't understand you. You're holding yourself to a standard far higher than you would for anyone else in the whole world!"

Very quietly, Kenshin said, "With great power comes great responsibility."

"Oh, fuck that. Don't quote pop culture at me, Battousai," Soujiro snapped, genuinely irritated. "I'm as good with a sword as you are, and you know it. If you don't believe it I'd be happy to demonstrate. I'm annoyed enough at you at this moment to have a strong desire to kick your butt. -- So that's a false argument. Because you're not holding me to that standard."

Kenshin blinked at him. Sounding almost bemused, if anyone in that black of a mood could be described with that emotion, he said, "I never thought I'd be getting a lecture on ethics from the Tenkan."

Soujiro snorted a laugh. If Kenshin could joke, Kenshin, he thought, was perhaps emerging from the depths of his black mood. "I never thought I'd have to give it. You're one of the best of us, Ken-nii. Even if you're an idealistic idiot most of the time, idealism works for you."

Kenshin shook his head slowly from side to side. "Soujiro-san, I ... thank you."

"Feh. Turn about's fair play. I owed you. And that's the second time you've offered your neck up to me, Ken-nii. I'll have you know that if you do it again I may just take your head."

"I thought you would," Kenshin said, honestly.

"It was tempting," Soujiro said, candidly. He reached a hand out, intending to clap Kenshin on the shoulder, and saying as he did, "but Carrie wouldn't speak to me for the rest of her life if I did. You realize that all we heard on the flight over here for eighteen hours was 'Kenshin this' and 'Kenshin that'. It'd break her heart if anything happened to you."

Kenshin stepped quickly away from Soujiro's attempt to touch him. "Souji-san ... I need to go. Tell Carrie ... tell Carrie ..." he trailed off, somewhat helplessly, and, after a long moment, said, "I need to go. Give this to Carrie."

Kenshin's hand whipped up and an object shot through the air to Soujiro. Soujiro caught it reflexively and found he was holding a sword. At first he thought it was Kenshin's sakabatou, but it was a different sword -- one with a fancy hilt and an elaborately enameled sheath.

"What?" Soujiro said, startled.

"Tell her it's an early birthday present. She'll need a sword someday." He smiled, a ghostly expression. "She's got a package coming from me too -- it should arrive in America in a few weeks. Hopefully she'll be out of the hospital by then, and home. But the sword ... was mine, too, a long time ago. I gave my sakabatou to Yahiko but found myself needing a sword afterwards, when I discovered what it meant to be an Immortal. That sword was given to me by a man named Iori, because I had saved his life as an infant. He was the son of the man who made my sword. Eventually the sakabatou came back to me, however, and I've had this in reserve ... Carrie should have it. It's a good sword for a lady. Though you might want to have the hilt and sheath changed out."

"This is worth a fortune. I know of the swordmaker you speak." Soujiro pulled the blade. He was unsurprised to find that the edge was also reversed on this katana. A cursory but experienced exam told him it was a very good blade despite the flashiness. "A hundred thousand, at least, Kenshin. Swords of this caliber ... and the jewels ... Gods, Kenshin, we can't accept this ..."

Kenshin smiled, a genuine smile. "It appraised at significantly more than that, Souji-san, because of the provenance. Though they do not know it was me, it can be proven that Iori gave the sword to the Hitokiri Battousai because he wrote it down in a journal and the journal still exists. And it's worth every penny if it keeps Carrie alive someday. Swords of that caliber are few and far between."

"I ..."

"Don't offend me by refusing it."

"Thank you," Soujiro said, simply. He hooked the sheath on his belt and it disappeared from view. "Where will you go, Ken-nii?"

Kenshin turned away again, then looked over his shoulder. Soujiro was struck by Kenshin's expression -- he looked lost, and terribly sad. "I don't know."

"How will we reach you, if we need you?"

Silence, from Kenshin. Then, quietly, he said, "As I said, I need to go. I do not trust myself to help anyone right now."

Kenshin left, then, hurrying away. Soujiro watched him go, struck again by how small Kenshin looked.

------------------

Kenshin wandered.

No responsibility, no family to place demands on him. Alone, he simply wandered.

From Tokyo he caught a ride on a cargo steamer, working for his passage. He knew that the crew found him eerily quiet and 'spooky' and he didn't really care. Once, he would have been intrigued by the multicultural and multinational lot of sailors ... but not now.

They didn't offer to continue his employment when the ship came into port in Australia. He didn't care.

From Australia he made his way to South America on a cruise ship where again he worked for his passage. This ship offered to keep him on -- his quiet demeanor and efficient abilities with a mop had made him popular with the ship's management. He unnerved the other employees but nobody could fault his behavior. He declined politely, and disembarked. There had been another Immortal among the passengers -- the woman had avoided him, and he her, but it was enough to convince himself that a cruise ship was not a place to avoid the rest of the Immortal world.

He traveled in no particular direction deliberately. By foot, by motorcycle, by bus and by horse, he covered both wild country and bustling cities. Purely by random chance, he found himself moving north. He crossed mountain ranges, waterless deserts and deep green jungles.

November saw him in Panama. He purchased an old pickup and started to drive with more purpose, northward, but slowly. There was no hurry. He traveled a few hours each day and stopped to talk to people. He was wandering, and he was alone.

By December, he was in northern Mexico.

He didn't think much, but time quieted the turmoil in his soul. He found that he was enjoying the sun on his face, the wind that tousled his hair as he traveled. The truck didn't have air conditioning, but it was winter and he often drove with the windows open.

He stopped often. Not since he had been in his twenties had he traveled with no responsibilities, worries, or goals. It was interesting to visit little mountain communities, seaside villas, and enormous cities. He spent a month in Mexico City, exploring, then two weeks on a remote desert beach where he sat and watched the waves roll in and the waves roll out.

He rescued a small crab from a pair of local boys who were being cruel, and he tried to toss it back into the surf -- but a gull swooped down and grabbed the crab out of the air when it was inches from the surface of the water. Somehow, this was a catalyst for the emotions in his heart and alone, that night, for the first time, he sat and he thought long and hard about who he was, what he wanted to be, and the meaning of right, wrong, good, evil.

January found him crossing the US border at a tiny crossing in Arizona -- where he was amused to discover that the guards didn't even stop him to ask him for a passport, they just waved him through. With his red hair he supposed he'd pass for a Westerner -- or, at least, he didn't look Mexican.

He found the contrast between the third-world ambience of Mexico and the modernity of America jarring. There was a line on the border; south of it was poverty and north, wealth, and the transition between the two was immediate.

He had not been to this part of America in almost a century. The last time he'd been through Arizona, it had just become barely become a state and he had traveled on horseback with Kaoru. Now, he covered the same ground on smooth blacktop highways with wide shoulders and clearly marked road signs.

Randomly, he continued to drive. When the pickup threw a rod on a remote dirt road -- he established by trial and error that there were still remote dirt roads in Arizona -- he sold it for parts and purchased a Jeep in Phoenix that needed brake work and a clutch. He spent the next two weeks making the Jeep drivable, getting grease under his nails and scraping his knuckles. He had always liked working with his hands and fixing things was an extension of cleaning things.

February found him driving through San Francisco.

He didn't stop. He wasn't even sure where Soujiro, Carrie, and Akane lived and while he certainly could have figured it out he didn't really want to face their sympathy or concern.

Kenshin didn't have clothing for the winter. Cold drove him northwards, shivering, as the Jeep's heater struggled and sputtered. The thought of a warm hotel room at his destination -- and now, he did have an end to his travels in mind -- caused him to hurry. However, the heater completely quit in Oregon and, while a simple fix -- a valve had likely stuck, and when he briefly popped the hood, he discovered the part was easily accessible -- he found it more expedient to drive even more rapidly north. He had a destination suddenly in mind, and people.

Sano, he thought, and Tomoe.

Or some incarnation thereof.

----------------------

It was dark at six PM, when Kenshin pulled into the dojo's parking lot. Snow sifted down from a velvety black sky, visible as drifting flakes under the street lights. He was glad he had made it before the bulk of the storm struck. Without a heater, his Jeep would be undriveable because the windshield would ice up.

Earlier, he had been by Richie's apartment. The apartment had been empty; he had tried to call Richie, then, only to discover that he had not paid his cell phone bill and his phone was disconnected. It had seemed simpler to swing by the dojo first, to see if Richie was there, before trying to sort of the problem with his phone.

There were lights on inside, shining through the frosted windows. Kenshin felt the buzz of another Immortal as he approached.

Richie was there, to his relief -- though he was the only Immortal present. And there was only one other person in the building; a boy, dark haired, slender, short, probably latino.

"Oh, you again," the boy said, as Kenshin entered. The child's tone was dismissive.

Kenshin had seen this kid before -- he had been the boy that had challenged Atsuko, who had thrown a punch at her, and whom he had so shamefully pulled his sword on, several months before. For the first time he gave him a good look, though.

The kid's ki was calmer now than it had been then -- it was a basic change in the core of his personality for the better -- but it was still definitely the aggressive, confident aura of a warrior. And it was flaring in response to seeing Kenshin enter. He was about twelve, Kenshin thought, but -- despite his lack of height -- he seemed far older.

Richie's eyes had lit up at his entrance, at odds with the boy's unfriendly greeting. With a broad grin and what sounded like relief in his voice he said, "Ken!"

"Good evening," Kenshin said, "Richie-san. And -- Daniel-san, was it?"

A scowl, from Daniel. "Yeah."

"Danny," Richie reached a hand out and tousled the kid's sweaty hair. The two of them had obviously been sparring; they stood in the middle of the practice matt, both holding bokken. Richie's shirt was tucked into his belt, baring a torso that had no scars or marks on it, but lots of tough muscle. Daniel's t-shirt was soaked through with sweat, sticking to his back.

It was the way the kid held the bokken that made Kenshin look up at his eyes. Daniel was relaxed in the way he held that wooden sword, and confident, as if he was willing and able to use it as a primary weapon. He was balanced, light on his feet, hands gripping the hilt with ease. Kenshin had seen that stance before, that body language, and that mix of wary mistrust and assertive confidence that wasn't -- entirely -- braggadocio.

Familiar brown eyes looked at him, with a familiar soul lurking behind them.

Yahiko, Kenshin realized, with a shocked thrill of recognition.

"Got a problem?" Danny demanded, obviously unhappy about Kenshin's scrutiny.

"N-no. I am very sorry, Danny-chan."

"You've been missing since August!" Richie put his bokken on a rack. "Danny, go hit the showers."

"Awwww ..." A whined protest.

"We've already gone a half hour over the time I promised you," Richie reached a hand out and ruffled Danny's hair again. "Kenshin's a friend I haven't seen since last summer."

"Some friend," Danny muttered, as he exited the dojo.

"Sorry." Richie watched as Danny disappeared into the shower area.

"Don't apologize for Danny, for he is correct to mistrust me," Kenshin frowned. He had made an enemy of the boy -- and he knew from long experience with Yahiko that his almost-son was slow to forgive, at best, and he had a stubborn temper. He said, after a moment's contemplation of just how difficult it might be to win Danny's trust if he was anything like Yahiko, "I had no right to pull a sword on him, that I didn't."

"The twerp tried to punch your wife." Richie snorted. "He had it coming. I will say that you taught him a lesson that day that I think he needed to learn, too."

"Perhaps."

"So," Richie said, after Danny was out of earshot, "the wandering samurai wanders my way. What brings you to Seacouver?"

Kenshin hesitated, then admitted, "I don't really know, Richie."

"Well," Richie shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot for a second, then reached in his pocket and pulled a key chain out. He gestured at the elevator. "I'm dojo sitting for Mac -- he's on a buying trip to Europe. Want to come up for a beer?"

"Sounds good," Kenshin said, surprised at just how good it felt to be talking to a familiar person. He had spent the last several months barely talking to anyone at all.

Upstairs, Richie handed him a Guinness from the back of the fridge and then flopped on Mac's couch. "So. Your family and your friends have all been pretty worried about you -- even your watcher called Joe. We figured you'd lost your head somewhere; Souji said you asked him to give you a hair cut just below the chin because you felt bad about killing some nimwit."

Kenshin sighed. "It might have been better if Soujiro had taken my head, Richie."

"Don't say that!"

Kenshin was simply silent for a long, long moment. Then he drained half the bottle of beer in one long gulp and said, "Richie, how are you doing?"

"Doing?" Richie blinked.

"Your life," Kenshin prompted.

"Umm. Okay, I guess." Richie hesitated, then said, "If you don't mind me asking, where have you been?"

"Wandering." Kenshin scratched his chin. He needed a shave, he realized -- he never grew much of a beard, but it had been two weeks, and the orange peach fuzz sprouting in irregular patches on his jaw was itchy. His hair, however, was growing out -- it was a currently an untidy mop, too long to slick back with gel and too short by a few inches yet to pull into a pony tail.

"That's a very informative answer."

"I just drove from Phoenix to here, non-stop," Kenshin offered.

Richie's eyebrows rose. "That's a bit of a drive."

"Heater on my jeep's busted," Kenshin elaborated, after a moment. "The weather report said there'd be storm. I wanted to beat it here before it started to snow."

"Oh." Richie considered that. "I can help you fix it."

"I know a bit about cars," Kenshin waved away the offer.

"Mm. I just closed on a condo, though. It's got a garage. Might be easier to work on it inside, out of the bad weather." Richie's offer was genuine. "Heater on a jeep's dead easy to get to, anyway."

"I think it's the valve."

"That, too."

Kenshin considered the offer. Before he could answer, Richie added, "You can pay me with the recipe for that french toast."

"French ..." vaguely, Kenshin remembered fixing breakfast for Richie, not so much because he'd wanted to do something nice for the young man but because he had been missing Atsuko so terribly much and it had been one of her favorite foods. "Yeah. I can give it to you. And congratulations on the condo."

Six months had dulled the pain, a bit, at Atsuko's loss. Sometime around Panama he had realized he no longer habitually thought, Wait until I tell Atsuko about this ... "this" being whatever had struck his fancy that he thought Atsuko would like. Instead, his thoughts had turned to, Atusko would have liked this. And mixed in with the "Atsuko likes" were "Kaoru likes" and even the occasional, This reminds me of Tomoe.

Atsuko was a part of his past now, and quietly, and with a great deal of grief and loneliness, he had accepted that.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You looked like you were thinking dark thoughts there, for a second," Richie said, easily.

Kenshin nodded. "That I was. Richie --" he finished off the bottle of beer, "-- the boy, Danny. He's your friend?"

Richie gave Kenshin a surprised look, startled by the abrupt change in subject. "Yeah. He's a good kid. His folks are dead. He's being raised by a cousin -- who's an ass in all sorts of ways. I know he's got a bit of an edge to him, but there's potential there, I know there is. He reminds me of me, a bit."

"You're right, about his potential." Kenshin spun the empty bottle of beer between his fingers. "Is he planning on college?"

"He gets straight A's, believe it or not. And he's got scholarship potential as a wrestler. Probably, yes."

"Hmm. In what?"

"He wants to be a cop." Richie smiled faintly. "Which takes a surprising amount of college; I never realized that."

"And he'll be a very good one." Kenshin folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, beer bottle still dangling from two fingers. The alcohol was hitting his system and it felt good just to relax. "Richie, I'm not going to stay."

"My new condo has two bedrooms, if you wanted to crash for awhile. It would be no trouble," Richie said, sounding confused that Kenshin would come and then go so quickly. "Unless -- are you going home?"

"I'm not sure I really have a home, anymore." Kenshin closed his eyes. "I have an apartment, of course. But a home? I don't know."

"Your family misses you. They've been calling, wanting to know if we've seen you."

"My family." Kenshin's eyes opened again. "Who is calling?"

"A rather large assortment of people."

Kenshin didn't ask for more elaboration. He assumed that meant at least George Trevor and Ikuko, Akane, and perhaps a few others. "Richie, I truly do not trust myself anymore. I -- my sword's in my Jeep, you know. I won't even carry it around people I consider friends, that I won't."

"Kenshin?" Richie questioned. "What do you mean?"

"I'm afraid it will happen again." Kenshin bowed his head. The beer made it easier to confess, "Something in me is broken, Richie. The Quickenings I've taken ... have changed me. I know who I was, but I cannot find my way back. I've been wandering, but I wasn't lost in the real world -- I was, and am, lost in here."

He gestured at his head with one small, callused hand.

"I don't trust myself at all anymore. Not my reflexes, or my instincts, or my perceptions."

"Soujiro told us what happened," Richie said. He hesitated before adding, "Kenshin, I killed a man once simply because I didn't like his attitude."

Kenshin looked up, sharply, at Richie. Richie grimaced. "It was stupid, and wrong, and it keeps me up at night sometimes, and the fallout from it was hell and ended up hurting Mac, but there you have it: you're not the only person in the world who's done really stupid things."

He smiled, a bit, because he was remembering some of the really stupid things a certain rooster-headed warrior had done as well. Richie almost certain shared his past reincarnation's tendency to hit first, think next. And this time around, Richie was a heck of a lot better with a sword. And he was simply in a better place. He wasn't in trouble with the law. Far from being a penniless brawler, he had just purchased his own home. He had good jobs -- as a mechanic, Kenshin was given to understand, and as a martial arts instructor on the side, for Mac. Richie had done very well for himself. And he would continue to do well for himself.

"What's that smile about?" Richie challenged, both curious and a little worried.

"I am very sorry, Richie. It is just that you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago." Kenshin set his beer bottle down on the floor at his feet and then leaned back against the couch cushions. The basic difference, however, was that Sano had needed him. Richie had his own circle of friends that Kenshin really wasn't a part of.

Mac is Richie's Kenshin, Kenshin realized. He's taken my role.

Except that it wasn't any sort of "theft," and for all he knew, destiny had intended for Richie and Mac to come into each other's orbit while he remained a periodic comet, just occasionally swinging by for a visit. It hurt, though. Once Sano had been his closest friend -- his brother in arms, his trusted ally, his family. In the end, Sano had given his life to save Kaoru and the children. And even though Sano was back he ... wasn't. Sano was lost to Kenshin forever, he thought. This man was looking at him with Sano's eyes, with Sano's soul, and he was not Sano.

What part was there for him in Richie's life? Other than that of an occasional visitor. It wasn't the same. It would never be the same.

Gruffly, he said, "So how's Tammy doing?"

Richie shrugged. "She's okay, I guess."

"You're not dating her?" Kenshin was honestly disappointed by that.

"Nah. She and Adam hit it off." Richie snorted. "I should have seen that one coming a mile away ... what?"

Kenshin was startled by the anger that surged in his chest. Adam. He didn't like the man; didn't trust him; found his morals and his approach to life to be repugnant. All you had to do to tell that the man was a coward and a sneak was to stand in range of his ki for a bit. Kenshin would not be the slightest bit surprised to find that Adam had a long history of repugnant crimes.

"He's dating Tom... Tammy?"

"They just moved in together." Richie seemed oblivious to the want to kill now anger that was tingeing Kenshin's vision red. "They're cute together ... ohoh, look at you now! I thought you liked her."

Richie belatedly recognized Kenshin's anger and in response he was teasing him, likely because Kenshin knew his expression had to be murderous.

"He's just using her," Kenshin bit out. Moved in together. Tammy had deserved a fairy-tale wedding and the perfect wedding night, not shacking up with some ... with Adam!

"I highly doubt he's 'using her' -- Adam's a serial monogamist at worst, and we're all taking bets on when he's going to pop the question," Richie said, placatingly. "Look, Adam's an annoying ass, and I've got good reason to not like him much myself, but he's not a jerk. And he's fallen in love with Tammy, and she with him. If you were interested in the woman -- pardon me for saying this -- you should have come back sooner, Ken. 'Cause she's only got eyes for him, now."

"I cannot believe ... that ... man loves her." Kenshin rose. He was outraged that Adam would dare.

"What is she to you, anyway?" Richie said. "You barely know her."

"... I know her," Kenshin answered distantly, not even aware that he had spoken. "from a long, long time ago."

He shook his head. His ears were buzzing, and he couldn't think clearly. The fog that had followed him on his wanderings, the not thinking haze, seemed to be closing in again. "Richie, I have to go. I'm sorry."

He didn't even hear Richie's answer as he headed for the elevator. He just left, hurrying out of the dojo and into the steadily falling snow.

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