Disclaimer: I don't own Kenshin or Kaoru. I don't want to either…

Mail Order Bride

Chapter Five: Resonance of the Bells

By: omni82

The rustle of crisp sheets jerked Kaoru out of the restless half-doze she'd been slipping in and out of most of the night. She clutched convulsively at the arm of her chair, for a moment, feeling lost and falling into the endless night. After a moment, her eyes adjusted to the gray light of false dawn and her senses steadied.

Light filtered through the shutters, casting dark bars over the slight form crumpled on her marriage bed. She stood up, and moved closer, horribly aware that mouth her seemed welded together with a foul, thick paste, and her hair, still sodden with sweat, hung in thick, dull locks. Her skin positively ached for a bath and all she really wanted to do was to lie down next to the slender woman, whoever she was, and sleep until the Final Judgement.

Still, she stood up.

The figure was watching her with large, alert eyes as she moved closer, but didn't let her expression change so much as a hair. Kaoru paused by the edge of her bed, suddenly feeling self-conscious. She had meant to sit on the edge of the bed, to ask her how she was feeling, but... She pressed the back of her hand against the woman's forehead and straightened up.

"No fever," she noted calmly.

"No," the woman agreed in a soft, low voice.

There was something in her voice . . . a half-remembered sound, a feeling, a sight. She peered at the figure, suddenly curious.

"How do you feel?" she asked just to hear her speak again.

A soft, rueful laugh was startled out of the shadows. "Like I was just attacked by a horde of bandits."

"Oh, I wouldn't say a whole horde," she responded lightly. "At least not from what I gathered. Just a few scrawny ones."

"And my husband...?"

"His main concern was your well-being. He was quite frantic, which, I gather, is rather unusual."

There was a moment of silence, and then Kaoru felt, rather than saw the mischievous smile tugging on the other woman's lips.

"And the bandits?"

"He said he needed help burying them."

An irrepressible chuckle burbled into the morning. And it was then that Kaoru realized the sense of familiarity about this woman. It was in the soft drawl of her voice, reminding her of the sharp tang of ocean air, the stench of fish, the bustle of Boston. Suddenly Kaoru missed home with a fierce stab.

"You're from Boston," she stated.

"In the black," she agreed. She rose up onto one elbow, but then with a hiss of pain fell back onto her side. Kaoru moved closer, but the woman waved her away.

"I'm from Boston," she repeated, "Just as you obviously are. The question, though, is what a Boston-bred miss is doing out in the great savage West." There was no mockery in her voice, only curiosity.

Kaoru paused for a moment, her mind focused inward. A soft cough brought her back.

"You can sit down, you know."

She gave a guilty start and settled back into her chair. She had sounded so kind . . . well, why not? She couldn't despise her any more than her husband already did.

"To start with, " she said, resting her hands on the chair's arms, like a throne, "My name is Kaoru. I was married to Kenshin a few days ago, but before then, I had never left Boston…"

Then, suddenly, unwillingly, her entire life story was flooding out of her; all of her doubts, her fears, her shames. She talked until her voice was hoarse, and she could barely hear her own voice. Only when the last word croaked out and she couldn't convince her lips to shape another did she stop.

The figure on the bed was unnaturally still, and after a long moment, Kaoru began to wonder if she had fallen asleep, or worse - died. But no, her chest still rose and fell in steady even breathing, while her eyes peered into the dark room.

The sun began to climb in finger lengths, as Kaoru waited for a response, any response. First it hovered just above her knee, a strand of gold laughing against the dark. Little motes of dust danced inside it, caught in an iridescent arc from the morning light. Gradually, the beam began to swell, chasing the shadows away, reaching her thigh, her waist, and her chest. And still, neither moved. Kaoru was just swaying into sleep again, when Tokio spoke.

"My father was an Irish merchant, and my mother was a Japanese geisha," she began, "So when he brought her home, I was raised Catholic."

Kaoru stared at Tokio, as sun broke across her face. She had the blue eyes of an Irish girl, set in the almond frame of the Orient. Her face was narrow, with high, European cheekbones, but her nose was short and flat, and a dusky tone shaded the rose and pearl of her skin. Thick, black hair crowned her delicate features, and in the morning light, she looked like a dark angel.

"Papa was very devout when I was little," she continued, "But when Mama died, when I was eight, he stopped going to Church. Angry with God, I suppose. I went alone for a few years after that, but once he died, when I was fifteen, I stopped going too."

She paused for a long moment of reflection. "I never really missed it much. I was angry and rebellious against God, and frankly, I'd never really enjoyed mass. Oh, I'd gone, but mainly out of a sense of duty. I couldn't pay attention to the homily, and whenever I prayed, my thoughts were always loud in my head. The more deliberately I tried to think of one thing, or even nothing, the faster ideas rushed in to fill up the emptiness."

Kaoru chuckled a little, with the sympathy of someone who had spent far too many hours through dull homilies and long-winded gospels.

"No, I never really missed it," she repeated. "Not most of it, anyway. I took Papa's money, and became the leader of fashionable society. I was always busy - there were fashionable dresses and parties, and all the most beautiful men in Boston madly declaring their love to me. Everything was loud and busy, all the time. Those who knew me called me the Oriental Rose."

Kaoru let out a short breath, a number of things falling in place for her. The Oriental Rose, the leader of society. She had glimpsed her once, enviously, as a young girl. She had seemed so glamorous; sapphires always flashed on her fingers, and a crowd of beautiful men and women fluttered about her, like brightly bejeweled humming birds. And then, one day, she had vanished.

A question began to rise up, but a glance at her introspective eyes silenced her.

"No, I never really missed Church, except for sometimes, late at night, when everything kept racing endlessly through my head, always clamoring. At least when I had gone to Church, there had always been that one moment, when the priest is consecrating the Eucharist. I don't know if you're Catholic, or familiar with the religion, but what he says, translates to the words of Christ at the last supper.

"'Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, which will be given up for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.'" Then he raises the host over his head, and the altar server, kneeling beside him in white, rings a set of bells. In that one instant, after the priest has spoken, everyone is silent, and all you can hear is the resonance of the bells. And in that instant, everything inside me stops, and listens."

She aimed a sharp look at Kaoru.

"That is faith, Kaoru, and that is love. An all-powerful love, which sweeps away everything else, until all you need, in that moment, is to exist. It's a love so complete that it encompasses everything - self, others, God, man. And in all those years as the belle of society, I never once, was able to clear all of the other things out of my head, and figure out what really mattered. Until I met Hajime Saitou."

A fond smile pulled across her lips. "I looked into his eyes and for the first time in years, everything inside me slowed, and then stopped. I finally, finally, was able to listen, and I knew that the only thing important to me was him. So I left everything, and followed him."

Tears of frustration welled up in Kaoru's throat. Why did everything have to be so damned cryptic?

"But what does it mean?" she muttered, too low to be heard. "What does it mean?" she repeated, louder. "What does it mean?"

Tokio gave her an inscrutable look, then unexpectedly smiled - a sweet, sad smile of childlike innocence.

"It means this, Kaoru. I think that if you look into Kenshin's eyes, you will hear the resonance of those same bells. And in that moment, they will tell you that being together is the only thing that matters. Listen to them, forget the rest, and follow."

Kaoru took her bandaged hand, and gave it a squeeze in thanks, the first bud of a smile beginning to bloom on her face. A crash shattered the silence.

She jumped up, gathered her skirts above her knees and sprinted toward the door, her own problems forgotten. Shouting met her ears, rough, angry cacophony, like shattering crystal. She burst into the sunlit yard, the noon sun blazing over head, to a sight of complete chaos.

Kenshin and Saitou stood in the center of yard, jackets off, sleeves rolled up, and fists curled. Yahiko was hovering to the side, his chest swelled up in pride, placing noisy bets, with the farm workers like a real live man, about the outcome of the fight. Sanosuke, though, was hovering to the side, half amused, but half really, truly concerned and indecisive.

The two men were going at each other - not like boxers, with the jaunty, bouncing footwork of good sports, but with the grace of angered tigers.

Their eyes each burned with something black and wild. They circled each other slowly, stalking their prey until one or the other would leap into attack, without so much as the twitch of a muscle to give warning. Then they would attack, slugging at each other with scarred fists, so fast as to be a blur, unrelenting until one or the other slid out of reach like a spirit.

They were eerily silent, even though everyone around them was cheering or cursing, according to their temperaments. Kenshin had a split and bleeding lip, while Hajime Saitou had a dark bruise forming on his cheek and a cut slashed across his chin. Sweat slid through their hair, and both of them were breathing heavily, yet neither blinked, neither gave a sign that they even noticed their own weariness. It was so pointless - so completely, primally, brutally pointless, that something inside her snapped.

"Stop it!" she screamed. "Stop it now!"

Her voice echoed in her ears and she realized that she was screaming words she hadn't even realized she knew, sobbing angrily for air, mad enough to take them apart with a glance.

Everyone grew completely silent, yet still the two men didn't even blink.

"Stop it!" she screamed again, then leapt at Kenshin, all of her dignity gone. She just knew she wanted to hurt him, to make him pay for all the misery and pain he had brought her since her arrival. It was wrong, it was base, but the dull, sick anger was screaming in her ears, and she was on top of him, battering at him with bruised fists. She saw Saitou's fist draw back, she knew he would hit him, that it didn't matter she was in the way, that maybe she would get hurt badly.

Something startled flashed into his eyes. Surprise? Hurt? He slid his arms around her, and she felt herself flung to the side, just as a huge fist appeared, above them, about to connect with his jaw.

"Hajime Saitou!"

And miraculously, this cold, implacable man stopped.

Tokio was leaning against the frame of their house, a large robe, sliding off to reveal the white bandages around her shoulders. Her breathing was fast and uneasy, and she clearly spoke through a lot of pain. Yet her lips were quirking with that barely suppressed, irrepressible chuckle which seemed to perpetually hover about her.

Saitou straightened up, and smoothed the front of his shirt in nervous habit, oddly out of place in this big, self-assured man. Then, he pulled a slightly squashed cigar out of his pocket, lit it and began to smoke, turning his back calmly to Kaoru and Kenshin.

"Ah. Tokio. So you're awake."

His face was impassive, but for just an instant, Kaoru thought she saw something - a flash of wild joy which made her see, a little better, the man Tokio loved.

"Well then, shall we go inside?" He offered his arm to Tokio, politely, and her lips quirking upward, she accepted following.

Everyone began to disperse, fading shamefacedly into the dust, until it was just Kaoru, still sitting on Kenshin. His chest was heaving under her thighs, and when she looked down at him, she was no longer angry. A black eye was starting to form, but he stared up at her, unblinking. All she wanted was to go in, take a bath, and sleep. Her head was beginning to ache from all the sun, and whatever Tokio had said about bells and God seemed distant to her, part of one gigantic, muddled mess.

"Kaoru." A familiar voice said dryly. I see you're enjoying your time in the Wild West."

She didn't need to turn to recognize Aoshi.

TBC...