After changing Nicky's diaper, and handing her back off to a rather nervous Carrie, Kenshin found Morgan in the loft of the old stables -- which had long ago been converted to a garage. She was crying helplessly, leaning against a worn oak timber, and rocking back and forth.
"Hey."
She didn't answer.
Kenshin sat down next to her. "My kids used to come up here, you know. It's a good place when you're feeling blue."
A man had died up here at Chiyoko's hand, as well, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He didn't think the stables were haunted by that particular ghost -- the man was long dead and gone. And so was Marshall. And Chiyoko was alive and well and he'd see her after Christmas break. He'd promised her and Tammy brunch at Denny's.
"I can't do it." Morgan wrapped an arm around the beam and pressed her face against the old, worn wood. "I can't do this, Ken. I can't be a mother. I can't. I'm sixteen! I can't deal with the baby and my mom trying to kidnap him ..."
"I don't think she's trying to kidnap him, exactly," Kenshin said, judiciously. "I think she is hoping if she takes him home you'll follow. She probably doesn't see it as kidnapping because she'd give him back when you agreed to move home. She loves you, she's just being rather ... dysfunctional ... about how she shows it."
She started to protest. He stilled her with an uplifted hand. "Wait, allow me to finish." Kenshin sat down cross legged next to her, and said, "Your mother is very wrong in what she is doing. As is your father. I do not agree with them, and candidly, just because someone is your parent, doesn't mean they are right."
"What were your parents like?" She asked, suddenly. "You're so ... so special."
Kenshin sighed. He only had dim memories to go on. "They died when I was small. I don't remember much. My father was a gentle man who never raised his voice, and who carried me about on his shoulders. My mother had a silly sense of humor and would sing funny songs and play the fool to make me and my father laugh."
She exhaled a deep and ragged sigh. "Remember when you mentioned adoption to me? I wanted ... I wanted to give the baby up. But I'm a minor. My mother and father wouldn't let me, they said they'd just get the baby if I tried. I'd rather raise her myself than let them do it. They'll hold her over my head for the rest of my life, and anyway, I think they're just after the money in the trust fund."
Kenshin grimaced. "There might be a few ways around that, legally. They'd have to pass a homestudy and if they did, there are some objections that my lawyer could bring up in court if they tried to get custody. He's very good; he's been a lawyer since Roman times. However, you may not like those objections."
"What, that my parents let me run wild and unsupervised, then beat me when I screwed up? Feel free to object if it keeps the baby out of their hands. I wish they'd been firmer with me, really."
"Then you'd never have met Jeffrey." Kenshin reached a hand out and rested it on her shoulder. "My parents died when I was small, and I was raised until my early teens by a man named Hiko. He was many things: rude, overbearing, arrogant, irrationally demanding, unsympathetic, and verbally and physically abusive. However, he laid the seeds for me to become who I am today. And I am quite happy with who I am today."
"And your point is?" she said, in irritation.
"That we learn from adversity."
"I don't want to be a mother."
"Are you sure?" Kenshin asked. He put his hands on his knees again and regarded her with concern.
She sighed. "I don't. If ... if I could give the baby up and see it went to a good family, I would. I'm sixteen, Kenshin. I want to finish school, and go to college. I want to hang out with my friends, go to the mall, go to raves, be a kid. I don't want ... I don't want to devote my entire life to a little baby. It's selfish, but I don't want this."
"She's Jeffrey's."
Morgan shrugged. "I'd like to see her grow up. Send her birthday gifts and see her on holiday. She's mine. She's Jeffrey's. I'd like to know her. See how much she's like Jeffrey -- and even if she is a little slow, so what? I loved Jeffrey, and it wasn't for his brains. It was because he was kind and gentle and fun to be around."
Kenshin was silent for a moment. "She's got an eighty million pound trust fund. With that sort of money, you could hire a full-time nanny to take care of her while you went to school, and to watch her while you went out with friends. The fund is set up to provide for her care, and a hiring a full-time nanny would be well within the scope of that."
Morgan made a face. "Then I have to deal with the nanny. Nannies quit, or sometimes you have to fire them, and then I'm stuck with the kid again. I don't want to have an employee. Besides, it seems like ... cheating. Like doing it halfway. I just don't want the responsibility."
Kenshin considered her thoughtfully. Not only was she offering to give up her child, she was giving up a fortune, as well. And her argument about the nanny was thin, at best. His conclusion was that she truly didn't want to be a mother. "Okay."
"Okay?" She blinked at him.
"I'll help you find her new parents."
She leaned her cheek against the old oak beam for a moment. Then she said softly, without looking up, "Do you want her?"
"Oro?" He stared at her, dumbfounded. He had, of course, had nebulous plans to adopt children again. Now, however, was not a good time, and it had not even occurred to him that she might offer. Her strident cries of, "Mine!" in regards to the baby were still strong in his memory.
Morgan shook her head. "I like you, Ken. I trust you. And if you take her, I know I'll see her, and I know you won't be mean to her, or raise her with weird religious beliefs, or, or, or give up on her if she does something stupid. Because I did lots of stupid things with you, and you didn't give up on me."
"I ..." He stopped and simply stared at her. His mind was spinning, and he couldn't seem to form a coherent thought.
"Also, the money."
He wondered if she was going to ask for a share of it. He wouldn't be surprised.
"You have a fortune of your own, yes?"
"The equivalent to several hundred thousand pounds. And an apartment in Tokyo. It's not a fortune. I live on the interest."
"But you've managed it well, for decades. Whoever gets the baby gets control of her money. I want it to be her fortune to be there for her when she's old enough to handle it herself. I think you'd see to that."
"Don't you want part of it?" He asked, mostly because he was curious what her answer would be.
That earned him a snort. "Money is what got Jeffrey killed, and it nearly got me killed, and it got Sasaki shot, and you hurt, and Richie hurt, and ..." she trailed off, then added. "I'm smart. I can go to college and get a good education and then have a career that will make me plenty of money, enough to live well on. Why the hell does anyone need more? Too much money's more trouble than it's worth."
"I see you've thought this through." He agreed with her, at least, on the money. With almost a century to grow it, he could have had much more sizable fortune if he'd put more interest back into investments. However, he liked helping people, and he liked travel, and old cars, and gadgets, and books, and movies, and a thousand small expenses that all added up. He figured that as long as his home was paid for and his nest egg kept up with inflation and was conservatively invested in safe things, he didn't need anything more.
She ran a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her eyes. "At three AM, when the baby's been crying since seven in the evening? I have lots of time to think."
He nodded. "I'll need to discuss it with Carrie, Morgan, and I don't know if I'll say yes. But I will promise to help you find good parents for her."
"Carrie'd be a good mother."
"She was ... would be." Kenshin stood up, and offered her his hand. "Come on, let's go back to the house."
--
Kenshin stepped into library, and said to Carrie, "Morgan's lying down to take a nap. I said we'd watch the baby. I don't think she's had much sleep in the last month. How's Nicky?"
Carrie glanced down at the baby in her arms. Blue eyes blinked back up at her, and then the baby smiled. She was wrapped in soft cotton blanket that was the same color as those eyes; Carrie thought blue was a good color for this little girl. "She's okay, I guess. She stopped crying."
"You're calm." Kenshin held his arms out, and she passed the child to him. This prompted a hiccup and a few wails that quickly faded when he cradled the child to his shoulder and gently patted her back. "She's a tough baby. Some babies are easy and some are hard. This little girl is going to grow up to have a quick temper and a lot of personality, I believe. But babies respond to calmness, and Morgan just becomes frantic when Nicky starts crying, and they're feeding off of each other's mood."
He walked to the library window and watched out it, for a moment, hand stroking the infant's back. She smiled, watching him. Kenshin's hair -- bleached and dyed back to its original red -- was coming loose from his pony tail, and it tumbled down around his face and across the baby's bare head. The child snuggled happily into his bony shoulder, tiny fists clutching at the silk of his green shirt. And the morning sun shone through that window, lighting both of them with slanting golden rays.
"Morgan's put me in a bit of a tough position," he said, voice low.
"What did she do, proposition you?"
"Huh?" Kenshin looked up at her. Then he shook his head. "No. I think we've established clear boundaries there. And she's seeing me as an elder now, not a potential boyfriend. -- No, Carrie. She doesn't want this baby."
"How can she not want her baby?" Carrie said, stunned.
"She is both extremely intelligent, and extremely self-centered. She sees that the baby will be an obstacle to living the life that she wants. She doesn't see the joy this child could bring her, she just sees the dirty diapers and the screaming and the sleepless nights." Kenshin turned around and leaned back against the windowsill. He crossed his ankles, cradled the baby to his chest, and fell silent. Now his red hair seemed to glow as it was lit from behind by the sun.
A ghostly memory surfaced: Kenshin, sitting on a bench in the garden below, the sun turning his red hair to fire.
Kenshin continued, in a soft, thoughtful voice, "Had she told me that she wanted to give the baby up for adoption because it would be best for the baby, I would have tried to convince her to keep the child. If she was thinking only of the baby's best interests, I would do everything in my power to talk her out of giving her up."
Kenshin stroked the baby'sback. "Sixteen is more than old enough to be a good mother. I've known many young mothers that age -- some married, some not. Some modern, some not."
He looked down at the child's fuzzy head and caressed it with one callused hand. Carrie smiled at the expression on his face. Kenshin's love of children never ceased to amaze her -- and they immediately responded to his affection for them. Somehow, if there was a baby around, Kenshin would end up holding it. Random preschoolers would run up to him and start conversations. Elementary aged children invited him to join their games. Awkward teenagers saw him as a peer, even if they knew the truth of his real age. College kids turned to him for advice, wisdom, and a video game partner.
It was just part of who Kenshin was.
He sighed. "The thing is, she's not thinking of the baby's interests. She's thinking of hers. It's purely selfish, Carrie, and I am not sure that she's even capable of changing. If she is, it won't be for years -- she has a lot of growing up to do. Because she wants to give her baby up for selfish reasons, I support her in that choice."
"But ..."
"Carrie." Kenshin met her gaze. "You've met her parents. Selfish people too. I am sorry that they are my descendents, and there was a reason I stopped contact with that side of the family. I was not pleased with how they behaved, and they haven't changed. There are those I am proud to be related to -- Saito comes to mind, which is something I never thought I'd actually say ..." he trailed off. Grinned briefly. She resolved to get the story there later. And he continued, "And George has a cousin who is one of my favorite people in the world -- he lives in Dublin, and we'll have to make time to meet him. But I digress. Morgan's parents are selfish people."
Kenshin stroked the baby's back. "Being a parent is about giving, to a large extent. You receive, too, but, particularly when they are small, you mostly give. You give your time, and your labor, and your emotional energy. And lots of money. You worry and you plan and your life revolves around the little one's every need."
His stroking turned to patting. The baby's eyes were closed; Carrie wondered if she'd gone to sleep. "And your reward? Is this." He pointed a finger at his armful. "It's a contented baby, or a preschooler's squeal of delight. It's hugs and kisses and a little one who calls you Mommy or Daddy and who grows up happy and healthy before your eyes. That's your payment. And for someone who's selfish, who is primarily concerned about their own needs ... it's not much of a wage for their labor. And so they find themselves resenting the child, and growing angry, and demanding things that are impossible for the child to do as a form of compensation for the care they give to the child. Perfect behavior, perfect grades. And this is not a healthy environment for the child."
Kenshin frowned. "Children have needs. They need consistency, and lots of labor, some of it unpleasant. Selfish parents aren't particularly good at meeting those needs -- and so their babies grow up to be demanding, and unpleasant, and manipulative children. These are traits they learn in order to make sure that their very real needs are met. And it's not merely material needs; it is emotional needs that they manipulate others for -- attention, praise, affection. Or, if that fails, negative attention -- it's better to be yelled at than ignored, sometimes."
Kenshin walked to the couch and sat down. "I strongly suspect the reason Morgan was with Jeffrey was that he met her need for love and affection, or at least, what she thought was love -- she's probably never known real, unconditional, love in her life and Jeffrey offered that to her. She could think circles around him, and keep him wrapped around her finger, and he worshipped the ground she walked on without ever knowing he was being manipulated, and she ate it up. It wasn't a healthy relationship -- she describes him as 'mine' like he was something to be possessed. But it worked for them, in a weird sort of way."
Kenshin leaned back against the couch. "Carrie, Morgan's asked me to take the baby, and even that is selfish on her part. She wants me to adopt her rather than a stranger so that she can continue to see her -- but only when it is convenient for her."
Carrie blinked.
Kenshin smiled down at the baby. "I always thought I'd have a family again, children and a wife. Someday."
She blinked again.
Kenshin exhaled a long, ragged breath. "I cannot tell you how much I want this child -- she is in my arms, now, here. She is a descendent of my son. She needs me. Everything I've ever learned tells me that Morgan will not be a good mother, not at this point in her life, and that I can be the parent this child needs. Today. Now. I wasn't expecting this. I wasn't looking for it, that I was not. But here we are."
He tickled the child's cheeks. Nicky kicked her feet and smiled. Then he looked up at Carrie. His eyes were troubled. "You, on the other hand, are also not looking to be a mother right now. You have medical school. Soon enough you'll be a student doctor, working impossibly long hours under very stressful conditions. I am not sure that adding a baby to our relationship is wise at this time. And -- you come first."
"You could drop out." She saw the agony in his eyes. He wanted this child. He wanted children, really -- this baby would not be the last. "School's not that important to you, is it? You'd much rather be a daddy than an employee. You have enough money in savings for all three of us to live on until I have my degree, then I can support us ..."
"Money's not a concern." His lips twisted up into a smile. "Not for this one, anyway. My primary goal for school was to give myself some skills that I could use if anything ever happened to my money. But for now, the money isn't important, no."
"You'd be happy staying at home with a baby, being Mr. Mom. I can see it in your eyes, Kenshin."
He nodded. "Well, that, and the occasional bit of travel, but yes. I enjoy children."
"So what's the problem?"
"Do you want this?" He unwrapped the blanket from around the baby, spread it out on the floor, and set her down on it on her tummy. Under the blanket she was just wearing a diaper and a tiny ruffled t-shirt, but the library was warm enough to be comfortable. It had been one of the warmer rooms in the house since they'd installed an extra radiator in the room in the early 1900's for Byron's comfort. He walked again to the window "Carrie ... I had thought we would have time for just us, for a bit."
She followed him to the window and wrapped her arms around him from behind. "I love you, Kenshin. Whatever you chose, I will be happy with."
Kenshin snorted. "You know what I want. In this, however, I want to know what you want." He twisted around to face her, and rested his face against her shoulder for a moment. "There's no wrong answer here, but I'm asking you to make a decision about your future. Take your time."
He stepped away, then, and looked up at her. In the sunlight streaming through the window, the scars on his cheek glowed white against his olive skin. His amethyst eyes were bright, and a smile played around his lips. "There are many good parents in the world who want a child, Carrie. If not us, then I can find someone who truly wants the child, and will love her and care for her and cherish her. Say yes only if you want to become a mother."
He turned, obviously intending to leave her with the child.
"Where are you going?"
"Christmas lights," he said, pointing roofward. "I am only about half done."
--
He was a good bit closer to completely finished with the lights on the roof, and was standing on the edge trying to decie on the best way get lights out to the trees -- an extension cord hung from the roof or an extension cord across the lawn -- when he heard footsteps on the shingles behind him.
He turned, expecting Carrie (who wasn't particularly scared of heights) or perhaps Morgan (he had no idea of her attitudes towards rooftop excursions.) However, it was George, leaning on his cane and making a cautious way across the shingles.
The loose, weather beaten, cracking shingles. Slippery shingles. On a steeply pitched roof.
"George," Kenshin said, "If you fall to your death, you realize that you'll traumatize me for life?"
George flashed him a denture-laden grin. But the smile faded too quickly. He said, "I have a letter for you."
"You came out here to give me a letter." Kenshin scowled at him. Until now, he'd never suspected George of dementia.
"No," George said. He eased himself down to sit on the shingles. "Well, yes, but it's about sixty years overdue. I came out here because I wanted to talk without little-girl-ears listening in. The walls in that house are too thin."
Kenshin held his hand out. The letter that George handed him was folded and tucked into an unsealed envelope, and the paper was as thin as tracing paper. It was yellowed with age. And on the front was the kanji for Yukio's name, and Yukio's precise handwriting.
"What's this?" Kenshin sat down on the aging shingles. The letter had his address on it -- an old address in Tokyo, at a row house that had been destroyed by Allied bombs during the Second World War. If he closed his eyes, he could still picture that home, with its shabby, sparse furnishings. A neighbor on one side had been a drunk, and on the other, a very old woman living off her late husband's pension. He'd avoided the drunk, who tended towards mean, but had spent many hours playing Go with the old woman.
Both had died when the bombs fell. He'd lived, of course, and they had called it a miracle when they had dug him out of the rubble, thought him dead, and he had woken among the corpses being prepared for burial later. Later finding a few keepsakes of his life with Kaoru intact had seemed a bigger miracle to him though, admittedly, he was glad to have revived before being buried.
"I promised him I'd mail it." George sighed. He wouldn't look at Kenshin. Instead, he broke off a crumbling bit of asphalt shingle and flicked it out into the garden.
Kenshin slit the tape holding the letter open. "Kaoru said you'd met him one time when I saw her, in the afterlife. But you denied it. I thought perhaps you'd run into him in passing and never known who he was."
"I ... didn't know right away." George sounded miserable.
Kenshin scanned his late son's words. A lump rose in his throat. "He says ... he says he's sorry we argued. He says he's been captured by the British and to come rescue him. Why didn't you give me this, George? I never knew what happened to him."
"He died." George wrapped one boney, age-spotted arm around his leg. "I'm sorry. You could have come for him, but he was already dead. We ... we killed him. I don't think they meant to actually kill him, but he got sick and died during interrogations."
In the Japanese he hadn't spoken for seventy years, George added quietly, "I'm so very sorry."
Kenshin exhaled a ragged, harsh breath. He had known, consciously, that Yukio was dead. Probably, long dead. It was 2014 and Yukio had been born in the late 1800's. Still, it hurt to hear it confirmed. "How?" he said, raggedly.
"I was in intelligence." George shuddered, and Kenshin realized he was talking about the war. "Because I spoke Japanese, and I'm good with numbers, they put me to work code-breaking. I was seventeen, Ken. I told them I was eighteen when I joined, but I enlisted when I was fifteen and this was just after I turned seventeen. They sent me to India to help with the war effort there -- remember, we Brits kicked the Japanese out?"
"I remember." Kenshin had been on the other side of that war, and he had counted himself lucky to find himself a position as a translator himself, and not a combatant. If his superiors had only known the identity of the "boy" who transcribed English-language newspapers, magazines, films and radio broadcasts into Japanese for them in search of intelligence they'd likely have been stunned ... but those hard times were thankfully long past, and as long as China and North Korea continued to behave themselves, Japan wasn't likely to go to war again in the near future.
People who were completely fluent in both Japanese and English were still rare, even after seven decades of peace between the west and Japan. In the 1940's, they had been vanishingly rare. His less-than-complete fluency then had still been enough to earn him a valued position that didn't involve killing people.
George shuddered again. "Mostly, I did code breaking. I didn't see a lot of combat. I was too valuable to put out on the front lines. But sometimes I translated for interrogations. One of the men they brought in to our camp was a Japanese gentleman who was caught sneaking away from enemy territory. They thought he was a spy ... he was tall, for a Japanese man, and very athletic even though he walked with a limp. I thought he looked familiar, though I didn't know why."
Kenshin recalled, "He was shot in the ankle as a teenager, and badly burned as well. He nearly died of blood poisoning."
"I saw the scars." George confirmed. "Anyway, when the men caught him, they found he had a British passport hidden in the lining of his coat. They -- they thought he was a traitor of some sort. I mean, he was caught leaving Japanese occupied territory by dark of night. And he spoke absolutely fluent English, the King's English. It was clear he'd been raised in Britain and not Japan. And he was caught in enemy territory."
"They thought he was a spy." Kenshin closed his eyes. Easily, he could picture the British command assuming that a Japanese man, a British subject, caught in enemy territory, would be a spy. Hell, America had put a huge chunk of its Japanese citizens in interment camps for the war, out of concern they might be traitors.
What in the hell was Yukio doing in Japanese-occupied India, of all places?
He could answer his own question: tilting at windmills. Likely, he'd gotten some grand notion he could make a difference there. And it had gotten him killed.
George nodded. Miserably. "They asked me to translate some letters he had in his possession. They were from friends in Japan and a wife -- I didn't connect the name at first, I mean, her name was so common. And his name, too -- there's a thousand Yukio Himuras out there. I saw the name, but it didn't mean much. There were two Yukio Himuras that I knew of just among the command structure of the Japanese in India. It's a common name. And he looked younger than he really was. I would have guessed thirty, not almost fifty."
Kenshin nodded.
"They ... interrogated him. When I first saw him, he was in pretty good shape. Then ... he wasn't. They were holding him in a cell." George shivered, and Kenshin didn't think it was because of the damply cool afternoon air. "They didn't need me to translate for him, of course, but there was an officer that they were also trying to get information out of. I had to walk past his cell to get to the interrogation room."
George exhaled out, sharply. He'd gone very pale.
"They were torturing him. Oh, it was nothing official, but the officers were looking the other way while their men took all their anger out on him! And I thought it was right!" George slammed his cane against the worn shingles. "I thought he was nothing more than a traitor myself. I thought he was a spy too, and it infuriated me! And -- and he begged me to get word to his family where he was and I told him no. I told him he needed to confess to spying and tell what damage he'd done. And he cursed me out and told me I was a fool. He said he was British, and I said, if was British, why wasn't he fighting on our side? And he said ... I'll never forget this, but he said that choosing sides in this war was like choosing between his brothers. I didn't know he meant that literally."
Aki had fought -- literally, fought -- on the Japanese side. He had been sent to the South Pacific, again as that ever-popular choice of translator, but had seen plenty of action. And he had been willing and ready to fight. Kenji's sons and grandson -- George -- had gone to war on the side of the Allies. Kenshin recalled this with real grief.
He himself had supported Japan not because he agreed -- or disagreed, precisely -- with the issues that had brought them to war, but because Japan was his home, and the Japanese were his people, and what else was he to do? He'd grieved, but he had helped in his own small way, through the war.
George was shaking. He said weakly, "It wasn't until much later that I realized he was a much taller version of my uncles."
"They tortured him." Kenshin didn't have to ask what had happened, exactly. Such things occurred during war. He didn't want to know the details. They didn't matter. His son was long dead now.
"It wasn't right. The British were the good guys." George was shaking. "We were the good guys, Kenshin."
Kenshin thought of his people: among them friends, family, neighbors. They had fought and died in that war. They had been good people too. He didn't correct George, however, because he knew what George meant: it was a shock to find that the good people you knew as your own could commit terrible crimes. And that was equally true regardless of which side of the war you fought on.
George continued quietly, "But you have to understand -- we'd been blown to bits. Our families were dying back home during the Blitz. We'd seen atrocities ... the Japanese were not exactly innocent of torture themselves."
"Aa." No, they weren't
"And here was this man -- this man who spoke English with a cultured, beautiful accent; who claimed to have attended school in London; who claimed he was a British subject; who we caught not half a mile from the Japanese front line. Hell, yeah, we thought he was a spy. He certainly wasn't fighting on our side, and what other reason would he have to be there but as a spy or a traitor? There's some logic flaws there, mind."
"Yeah, a few."
"But it was the middle of the war."
"Aa, it was."
"And ... and when I saw him next, he was very ill. I was on my way to translate for an interrogation with another man. Those were brutal, mind -- I knew what they'd done to him. And he was feverish. He had an infection, and pneumonia. He said he was afraid that he was going to die. Usually it didn't go that far, but I suspect the boys thought the same way I did: that he wasn't just an enemy, he was a traitor. And I told him good that he was going to die, and I walked away. And he called after me in Japanese that I was his nephew. I guess someone had told him my name."
George had tears rolling down his face. "I told him I didn't have an uncle who was a traitor. I told him that in Japanese."
And after the war, Kenshin recalled, George had never again spoken the language.
"Did you realize ...?"
George shook his head. "He looked so young. I had it in my head that he was about thirty. You Japanese don't age, even when you're not Immortal, I swear. I just thought he was delusional. He was that sick. Or maybe I was delusional. Maybe I didn't want to believe, all along, that this was my uncle."
George exhaled raggedly, and continued his story. "He ... during the night, he wrote the letter you're holding. I don't know how he ever expected to mail it, but as I said, he was pretty sick. They asked me to translate it. And ... and I saw your name on it. And your address. And I knew. I had written letters to the same address as a child. And I kept that letter. I knew then he was my uncle. I knew he was exactly what he said he was, because you bitched about it constantly: a shiftless wanderer who shirked responsibility."
Kenshin sighed. "Yes. Unfortunately. There's more to it than that, unfortunately, but yes."
"I could have told them, Kenshin. If only I had listened, or asked the right questions. He knew who I was and I told him he was a traitor. He wasn't a traitor, just a fool." George ran a battered hand over his balding head. Half his fingers were still splinted after his encounter with Dall, four months before. "If I'd listened, if I hadn't been such a judgmental idiot, I would have known he was no spy."
"It likely would not have made a difference." Kenshin wrapped an arm around George's shoulders. "At least I know what happened now."
"I thought you'd be angry at me. For not recognizing him."
"I'm angrier at Yukio, for being such a fool." Kenshin rubbed his eyes. He wasn't really crying, but they were damp. This had happened a long time ago, and he'd always thought Yukio might have died of misfortune, anonymous and alone, rather than old age. They had traded angry words, but he had been unable to fathom why Yukio hadn't contacted his wife, children, or siblings after that.
"George, you could not have changed anything. If you had recognized him, and spoken for him, it would only have cast suspicion upon your own honor. Under the circumstances, I would have thought him a spy as well -- and it's distinctly possible he was, depending on your definition of spy."
"What?"
Kenshin grimaced. "Yukio had a streak of -- shall we say -- righteous indignation. For better or worse, he sided with Japan during that war. It's part of what we fought about -- I didn't raise him to be blindly nationalistic, and he refused to even admit that he was being so. He said he wasn't choosing sides, simply helping people who needed it and making sure the truth got told ... He had been badly treated in America, and became bitter, resentful, and suspicious of Westerers ... So, if he said he wasn't a spy, he might have been telling the truth or he might have been lying. I don't know. Most likely, he was working for a paper as a photojournalist. He was a rather good photographer, and that's often how he made money."
Kenshin contemplated the past for a moment. War was never as simple as good versus evil, no matter what the winner's historians would claim later. After a moment, he said, "I suspect he was sending his photographs and films to the Japanese media, and it's entirely possible he was giving them to the Japanese command, as well. I've found films and photographs in old archives that were credited to Himura Yukio, but, as you said, it's quite a common name. I was never sure if they were his work, or someone else's.
"He might even have been attached to the Japanese forces in the area. With his ankle, and his burns, and his damaged hands, he would not have been able to fight ... but I suspect he would have helped in what ways he could."
"Oh." George looked dumbfounded. Kenshin wondered if he'd gone all these years thinking Yukio was some poor, innocent traveler caught in the middle of a firefight. Hardly. Yukio was more than savvy enough to stay away from the front lines of a war unless he had a reason to be there.
"I gave Atsuko a camera that was Yukio's, in fact, as her first camera. I've always liked journalism." Kenshin shook his head, as if that might shake his scattered thoughts into order. "There is, however, a somewhat blurry line between spying and journalism, when the journalist doesn't work for your side of the war, and the command on the enemy's side benefits from their work."
"Heh." George let out a rough, shuddering breath, then, and said. "You're not angry at me at all?"
"Merely sad. I wish you'd told me this sooner. It would have saved me years of wondering. But not angry. I ... have kept dark secrets myself, George. I can't fault you for this. Though I will observe that the guilt must have eaten you alive over the years, and it needn't have. It wasn't your fault."
George blinked at him. And sighed. "I always thought you'd be angry at me. That you'd blame me."
Kenshin asked gently, "Do you know where he's buried?"
George bowed his head. "There's a mass grave of war dead in India. I think he's there, unless the Japanese took them home later, after the war. I can give you directions, if you want to go."
"Later." Kenshin knew he would leave flowers, and pay his respects. Seventy years had passed, however, since that war. A little more longer wouldn't matter. "George, I am grateful that you did tell me this, even though so much time has passed."
George shrugged. And looked away.
Gently, in Japanese, Kenshin said, "We've all made mistakes. I was never forgiven for some of mine. And so I give forgiveness, because this, too, is a way of atoning."
"Oh." George blinked at him.
"You needn't keep secrets from me, Georgie-kun. Even ones like this."
George scratched his jaw and then said dryly. "I suppose I should confess to stealing a bottle of mead from Darius when I was fourteen, too."
Kenshin blinked at him. George giggled. Kenshin said, with a sigh, "George, why didn't you just take some wine from the house's cellar?"
"Because it was a dare? And anyway, I wanted to know what mead tasted like."
"Gods. Your grandfather would have had your hide." Kenshin pinched the bridge of his nose. "For that matter, so would Darius, if he'd known."
"Oh, I think he knew, actually. At least, he gave me a bottle on my wedding night with a note on it that he hoped I enjoyed this one as much as the first."
George had married at fifteen. Kenshin winced. He hadn't known about that. But then -- he'd learned to drink sake a lot younger. And at fifteen, George had been a lot more responsible than many so-called adults that Kenshin had known. Theft of mead notwithstanding.
George smiled. "My daughter was the result of that theft and all things considered, I have never regretted that. I, umm, learned about the effects of mead on lessening the inhibitions of girls that night. I swear I didn't plan to seduce her. I just wanted to share the loot! But anyway ... the stuff is rather potent."
Kenshin snickered. "It is a shame, I suppose, that you never knew your uncle Yukio. I suspect you two would have gotten along splendidly, that you would."
George gazed out across the landscape, pale blue eyes a bit distant. "A shame. Yes. -- Has Morgan spoken to you?"
"About adopting her baby? Yes, she has."
"What have you told her?"
"That I'd think about it."
"You want that child, though. And it would be the best thing for everyone -- for the baby, for Morgan, for you. Kenshin, you love children. And I know that you want little ones of your own. You will be very, very happy with babies of your very own again."
"But there's Carrie." Kenshin ran a hand over his face. "George, once upon a time, I'd have shoved the baby into Carrie's arms, and said, 'here, take care of her for a bit ...' and then after a bit had passed, a few weeks, a few months, I would have said, 'do you want to give her up now?' and watched Carrie latch onto that child with the ferocity of a mother lion and tell me she'd take my head off herself before giving her up. But that was once upon a time, and I have grown wiser."
George nodded.
"It needs to be Carrie's choice. I ... pressured Kaoru. Hell, I dragged Yahiko home by the collar, literally, slung over my shoulder. I handed him to Kaoru and said that they would be student and teacher, because I knew they needed each other. And I was right, and they became the closest of family. And then there were the Himura children, and Chiyoko, as well. Each time, I brought them into our home without discussing things much with Kaoru. I knew she would say yes, and come to love them, and she did."
"So what's the problem?"
It was his turn to stare out at the countryside -- or what had been the countryside once. He watched a steady procession of cars on the road in front of the manor house. It was late afternoon, close to rush hour, and people were starting to return home from their work. "Kaoru suffered a lot, because of me, and because of my desire to have a family. And then she was torn away from those she loved more than once, because she had to chose between them and me. She hurt, sometimes desperately, because she was missing family scattered across three continents."
He found a pebble on the roof and studied it for a moment, wondering how it had gotten up here. Had a bird carried it aloft? Then he sent the pebble sailing over the edge and onto the circular drive, far below their feet. "As well, it means commitment -- and I don't think I need to elaborate to you what creating a family means to Immortals. Assuming we don't lose our heads, and assuming that your children have offspring of their own, it means you will be involved in a family for generations to come. Or -- it means the pain of walking away, because over the years the descendents of your children have become so unfamiliar to you as to be complete strangers."
Kenshin shook his head. "I see Kenji in you, George. You have his sweet temper. And a good bit of Jessica as well -- her logical mind, and a bit of her humor. But in Morgan? I see nothing, no resemblance at all. And sometimes I wonder if I have any sort of familial responsibility to them. They mostly do not even know who I am. I promised Sanosuke and Yahiko I would look after their descendents ... and yet even Richie questions my sanity when I carry this promise to its logical extremes. Perhaps there's some absolution there, if even the reincarnation of those friends think I'm being a bit silly."
George snorted a laugh. "You never were one for doing things halfheartedly. Kenshin -- can I point something out to you?"
"Aa?"
"By looking out for each and every one of your descendents, and those of your friends, you cling to the past. It's as if you don't want to leave your history behind you."
"Oh." George was right, and he'd never really seen it that way.
George's smile was gentle, and somehow distant. "We both need to move forward and leave our pasts behind."
Kenshin glanced over at him, and a cold chill ran down his spine. He'd seen that expression before. George looked at peace -- he knew, then, that George had confessed his sins because he was tying up loose ends. And it hurt, because he would miss the old man. But it was his time.
He reached out and rested his hand over George's. "I'm proud of you, George. Thank you."
"Do you think we will meet again?" George asked quietly.
Kenshin's lips twisted up into a smile. A real one. "I'd be delighted if that happens."
And then something occurred to him. "George, I've wondered why I am finding so many friends from the past here, now. I thought perhaps fate sent them to me because I would need them. Perhaps there would be some great disaster we had to avert -- some big, bad villain we had to stop -- or something of that nature. But -- but perhaps I've got it all wrong. Maybe they somehow chose to meet again in this lifetime, because they simply like each other. And me. Or perhaps the fates sent us together because we need each other, as friends and allies."
George nodded. "It's a good a theory as any."
Kenshin's slid his hand into his pocket. He found the little wooden box and pulled it out and flipped it open to show George. "I've been living in the past for too long, Georgie-kun. It's time I joined the present. Want to be there when I ask her?"
George took a pair of bifocals out of his shirt pocket and peered at the ring. "That's a pretty stone. Certainly, I want to see this!"
--
He found Carrie downstairs in the library. The baby was asleep on the blanket on the floor -- and not old enough to go anywhere yet. Kenshin judged it was safe enough to pull Carrie outside onto the patio behind the house. They could hear if she cried.
George, grinning like a fool, followed, but stopped in the doorway. He had a camera in his hand.
Carrie, after a suspicious glance at George, said, "I was thinking about what you said about the baby ..."
He held his hand up. In Japanese, he advised her gravely, "Regardless of your decision, I want to marry you."
She fell silent. And stared down at him, brows drawing together -- then mouth opening in a startled, gorgeous smile.
A long time ago, he'd tried to propose to Kaoru and had totally botched it. She'd ended up in tears, because he hadn't been confident enough articulate what he was thinking in plain speech. He had promised himself there wouldn't be a single moment of hesitation now. He knew what he wanted, and he was confident enough in himself to know he was worthy of her. And equally, he knew she loved him, and wanted him right back.
Did she chose
? Kenshin wondered, of Kaoru. I think she did. Despite everything I put her through, she chose to come back to me.When he opened the box and showed Carrie the ring, she squealed, and grabbed it, and said, "Yes! Yes, Yes!" sounding rather like she'd found a winning lottery ticket in her wallet. The ring fit perfectly, and then she was grabbing him and spinning him around in a most undignified fashion. George's camera flashed repeatedly.
"Oro!" He protested, a bit dizzy, and finally she set him down and kissed him, and then pranced -- pranced! to George to show her ring off.
"I've seen it," George said, with a tolerant smile on his face. "It's very pretty."
Morgan was standing behind George, hugging Nicki to her chest. She'd woken the baby up to pick her up, Kenshin noted. A little too loudly Morgan said, "I'm happy for you both."
Softer, and not looking at anyone, she said, "Really happy."
Carrie suddenly reached out and hugged Morgan, stretching over the baby to do it. "You're coming to the wedding, right?"
Morgan's eyes lit up a bit. "Yeah! Yeah, I'll come. Ooh, can I see your ring?"
Carrie held her hand out. Morgan inspected the ring. "Wow, what a rock. Girl, you're so lucky."
"I am." Carrie flashed Kenshin a smile. "That, I am."