.
This is how it was with Kaoru:
That winter had been full of cold and lonely dreams.
She didn't remember, exactly, but she knew a few things.
She knew that she had had a father.
She remembered... She remembered what he had been like.
Strong. Kind.
She knew she had lost him.
She knew she had been cold and desperate and angry.
So cold...
Some nights had been nothing but empty and hungry and cold.
She knew there was something next to her, something inside of her, something that wasn't her. Something she could never escape.
She knew that in the daylight, in the sunshine, that Otherness melted away.
With Kenshin - Shinta - beside her, the road before them, the ripening summer - each day that was theirs, how could she do anything but rejoice?
.
Genzai and Kohaku welcomed her like a long lost child. Kaoru felt ashamed. Her time with them had been so short, she hadn't realized how much they had missed her. She embraced them and called them grandparents, smiling and weeping.
Shinta was still quiet, but he stepped forward firmly and begged Genzai's pardon for marrying his granddaughter without his permission. A formality. He was greeted warmly, and he took his place as family.
Kaoru couldn't remember ever having a family before. Days and weeks and months at the shrine, swept away in illness, fever dreams... She remembered Mirine, Sanosuke, Katsuhiro, the old woman and the children... If she ever saw them again, they would be her family, too.
She thought of going to visit, but... A shudder, remembering the shrine. The snow. The cold.
No, her life was here now. Perhaps the others would visit some day.
.
Yahiko had been splitting his time between weaving and farming Genzai and Kohaku's land, but now with two adults helping, he could go into the village more often, enjoy being young.
Kaoru and Shinta moved into a small hut near the house. Shinta hid away his sword and took up the plow.
Dark thoughts still lurked in his memories, his muscles and his sweat, but they melted away when he looked at her.
.
Heavy storms that summer.
Sometimes the thunder seemed to be calling her name.
Kaoru let him go on calling.
She was content.
.