Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin is not mine.  This story, however, is mine.  So ner! ^_^

Author's note:  Well, this chapter has been a little while in coming, but I wanted to get it right.  You'll see why.  ^_^ 

  For those who have wondered about pairings, I only ask that you have faith!  After all, part of the story is the 'who should be with whom?' thing.  ^_^

  Well, now we move back to our much-missed hero, and see what he's been up to since the Great Separation…  Enjoy!

Ice and Chaos

 Eighth

  Aoshi tried to ignore the lone figure in his rear view mirror as he drove away.  He knew that if he looked at her, he would stop the car and go back.  And he couldn't do that.

  He'd already resigned himself to what must be. 

  He drove on as a rain shower set in, covering his windscreen in swirling dots of water.  It distorted the world, making everything look softened: blurred and surreal.  The windscreen wipers slashed it harshly away.

  The journey didn't take very long.  He parked in the driveway, and switched off the engine with a blank expression.  He didn't really want to be here.  God knew he hadn't expected to end up here.  The fates were playing games with him again.

  He got out of the car, trench coat swinging about his legs, the light rain starting to dampen his hair.  The half-hearted shower was already letting up.

  The building looked as unlike a home as any Aoshi had seen before.  It was some kind of industrial structure, converted into a residential plot.  It was pretty big: Aoshi wondered if the inside had been divided into rooms, or if it had been left as one huge space.

  He knocked on the large metal door.  It made a dull, clanging sound.

  After a minute, the door opened a little.

  A girl stood in the narrowed doorway, gazing out at him curiously.

  She had long brown hair, some shorter wisps of which swept over her forehead and framed her face.  Her eyes were hazel and sparkling, and, at that moment, wide with a coolly inquisitive expression.  Black eye shadow lined her eyes, and a dark lipstick made her cheeks look slightly pale.

  "Are you Aoshi?" she asked suddenly, her hazel eyes looking him over in a couple of dark, darting glances.

  Aoshi wondered who she was, and how she knew about him.  "Yeh.  Is Vencentio around?"

  "Ven?  Yes, he's out back with his motorbike.  Coming in?"

  Aoshi nodded, and the girl opened the door wide to let him enter.

  At second glance, she wasn't quite as old as he'd thought.  Her dark make-up and abrupt attitude were deceiving: at discreet closer inspection, she looked about seventeen.  A little young to be hanging around with these kind of people, Aoshi thought.

  The inside of the building was huge.  Most of it had been left open-plan, but the sectioned-off office area had been extended to create a few private rooms.

  The girl led Aoshi through a couple of linked office rooms to another large metal door, and outside into a kind of large courtyard.  With her back to him, Aoshi was able to unreservedly take in the long, twining plaits that hung down her back, and her black skirt and black sleeveless top.  A lot of black.

  Vencentio was there with his bike, half in the shelter of a gaping garage-like structure, up to his elbows in grease and surrounded by various tools and bits of machinery.  A radio was sat near him, blasting out a heavy rock tune.

  "Ven, Aoshi's here," said the girl.

  Vencentio turned around and stood up, grabbing a raggedy piece of cloth from the bike's seat and rubbing his hands with it.

  "Hey, Aoshi.  I'm glad you decided to turn up."  He grinned slightly.

  "I didn't expect the offer, but like I said, I don't have many other places to go at the moment," Aoshi replied.

  The girl was watching the exchange with coolly veiled interest.

  "So you've met my sister, then," observed Ven with a glance in the girl's direction.

  "Sister?" asked Aoshi, a little taken aback.

  The girl offered her hand with an almost mocking half-smile.  "I'm Maree: Ven's my older brother," she said.

  Aoshi took her hand and shook it briefly.  "Good to meet you," he said abruptly.  He hadn't realised Ven's sister had grown up so much.  Last thing he'd heard of her, she was known as the cutest ten-year-old around.  He hadn't actually seen her since she was seven.  She wasn't exactly cute anymore: not in the way she had been, anyway.

  "Actually, she's Mariana, but don't let her hear you calling her that: she hates it," Ven said with a grin, reaching out to muss up his sister's hair.  She spun round, plaits flying, to face him with a pouting anger that was the very image of a girl being teased by an affectionate older brother.  Aoshi had a fleeting glance beyond the make-up.

  "Don't tell him that name!  It's ridiculous," she said irritably.  Ven just grinned at her.

  "It's the name mum gave you, so you shouldn't hate it so much," he said.  Turning to Aoshi, he added, "Mum had this thing about Shakespeare.  That's why she named us after two of his characters.  Kind of cool I guess, but I prefer Ven to Vencentio, same as Maree gets sick of Mariana."

  Aoshi nodded absently.  He vaguely remembered the story from when he was much younger, when he'd last seen the pair of siblings together.

  They certainly looked alike, if you looked closer: same hair colour, same brow line.  Though Ven's eyes were a dark brown, rather than hazel.

  "Well, I'm gonna finish up here.  Maree, can you show him around a bit?  He'll need a room," Ven said, already turning back to his bike.

  Maree looked as if she might toss her hair.  Instead, she just turned to Aoshi, wisps of hair floating round to settle on her cheeks.  "Come on, then.  He'll be out here for at least another hour, tinkering with that thing," she said dryly.

  Ven didn't deign to respond to his sister's provocation.  He'd turned up the radio another notch before she'd even finished speaking.

  Maree rolled her eyes, and stepped with an easy, balanced stride back into the house.

  Aoshi stood where he was for a moment, eyes focused within, before lifting his head and following the girl inside.

  "Here's your room," said Maree.  She waited in the doorway, leaning back against the doorframe, until Aoshi gave up and stepped past her.  He barely noticed her eyes on his cold profile as he brushed past.

  The room was good enough.  Not huge, but hardly a closet.  A bed stood out from one side, and a wardrobe in one corner.  There was a small set of shelves, as well as a dated-looking bedside table.  There weren't any windows, but there wasn't any ceiling, either.  The daylight that streamed in from the huge factory-style windows along the building's outer walls apparently lit Aoshi's room along with the rest of the building.

  Aoshi walked further in, and turned to face Maree.  She cocked her head slightly to one side, watching him.

  "What, isn't it good enough?" she asked indifferently. 

  "Why ask a question if you don't care about the answer?" he replied.

  Her eyes widened a little.

  "And there I was, thinking you were the silent type," she remarked.  "That was quite the pearl of wisdom, Aoshi."

  He just stared back at her coolly, letting the light, bantering sarcasm in her voice drift past him. 

  "No sense of humour, huh?"  She sighed, walking past him to perch on the end of his bed.  She crossed one leg over the other, and looked up at him quizzically.

  "You're very different to my brother.  But I can see why he wants you around."

  Her tone had no innuendo to it.  She was simply stating an observation.

  Aoshi wondered what this girl was all about.  She seemed…  almost to be suggesting things one minute, with her eyes and her body language.  But her direct manner and sarcasm seemed to belie that with a hint of cynical maturity that was beyond her years.

  Part of growing up in a life like this, Aoshi thought to himself.

  She was still looking at him.

  "I'll get my stuff, then," he said abruptly.

  She didn't move as he left the room, but when he got back from his car, she'd gone.

  The sofa was comfortable, and it was making Aoshi drowsy, despite the low blaring of the TV.  It had been a little while since he'd lived in anything resembling comfort, and the sheltered warmth of indoors- combined with the cup of tea he'd just finished, the large, well-padded sofa and the late hour- was starting to make him drift in and out of consciousness.

  "Aoshi…

  "What a strange name."

  Bright blue-green eyes were waiting for him when he slipped from the world of the waking.  Soft lips were waiting to kiss him.  Small, child-like hands were waiting to twine their way around him like gentle ivy, and draw him close.

  He could almost taste her on his tongue.

  "I can't believe he left me behind again!"

  Aoshi jerked awake with a suddenness that left him feeling disorientated.  He blinked a couple of times, and located himself in the living room part of the huge open-plan section of Ven's home.

  The voice was Maree's.

  "It's kind of insulting that he left you here to babysit me, Aoshi."

  Aoshi's level gaze met suddenly with black-encased, rounded hips, fists perched on either side.  He blinked again, and looked up to find a pair of irritated hazel eyes looking down at him.

  "I know you knew about it before.  Ven asked you, and you would hardly have refused.  I'm sure you weren't thrilled either," she relented suddenly.

  She sighed and dropped to sit beside Aoshi on the sofa.  He thought about sitting up, but couldn't be bothered.  He didn't have the energy.  Besides, Maree was kind of trapping his legs against the back of the sofa now.

  "Would you mind sticking around here for the evening?  I don't like leaving Maree on her own."

  Aoshi remembered the words, and finally nodded slowly to Maree, as he'd nodded to Ven.

  She sighed again.

  "Okay, I admit that I don't relish going along with him, but it's hardly the best thing in the world to be left back here."  She pushed her hair back from her face, looking frustrated.

  "I'm getting ready for bed.  And if you value your job as a babysitter, you'll wait here until I get back.  I feel like watching a film, and that's just boring when you're alone."

  She had risen and started walking as she spoke.

  Aoshi just shrugged, and settled back to watch some more TV.

  Maree reappeared about half an hour later, complete with a black cotton dressing down, closed modestly at the front and long enough to cover half her shins. 

  She flopped down on the sofa without a word, leaning back so that Aoshi's legs were against the base of her spine, and she was half-lying across his thighs.  She grabbed a cushion and clasped it to her chest, looking over her arms, forward at the TV.  Aoshi watched her for a moment longer, before switching his gaze in the same direction as hers.

  She looked different without all her make-up on.  Her hair was out of the plaits now, and hung in damp waves down her back.  She looked younger...  There was a stronger sense of purity about her.

  Neither of them were really watching the film that was on.  Maree was busy with her own thoughts, and Aoshi was trying not to fall asleep.

  The sounds of gunfire that rang out from the TV kept dragging Aoshi back to wakefulness.

  He didn't know when Maree had started watching him, but when he opened his eyes at yet another loud noise from the film, he found her eyes resting on his face.

  "What?" he asked, a little sleepily.

  "Oh, nothing, really.  You know, you have very cold eyes," she commented, absently, as if to herself.

  "Thanks," he said tiredly.

  "It wasn't necessarily a compliment," she added.

  "Doesn't matter."  Aoshi wondered if he was starting to sound incoherent.  Don't like being sleepy around people I don't know…  But they aren't really strangers, just haven't seen them in so long…  His thoughts were getting jumbled up with exhaustion.  He just wanted to sleep.

  "Okay, I can see you're falling asleep.  You should go to your room."

  "Yeh…"

  Maree sighed to herself.  It looked like she had another stuck-up, aloof, but typically- inevitably- dependent male on her hands. 

  She stood up, pulling at Aoshi's arm insistently.

  "Come on, off to bed," she said, smiling sardonically to herself at the motherly words.

  Aoshi dragged himself up from the sofa, and Maree guided him away, pausing to switch off the TV.  She managed to get him to his room, and over to his bed.

  He dropped gratefully onto the bed, falling back into a lying position.

  Maree looked down at him as he regarded her with half-closed eyes.

  "You're a mess.  Go to sleep," she said.

  Aoshi felt his head start to ache, and his eyes felt hot and sandy.

  In less than a gentle, silent moment, Misao's lips were touching his cheek, her hair brushing his neck softly, like silk and feathers.  Her arms reached up around him, and pulled him gently down into sleep.

Author's note: I know, this is not as long as a couple of my chapters have been.  Not ridiculously short though, so I'm not going to worry about it.  I think it ended pretty naturally (I hate spilling over into the next day- somehow, nighttime and going to sleep just feels right as a place to end a chapter, if possible).  I hope you liked it- and I hope you like the new characters.  In case anyone was wondering, they are 100% Akari originals.  This is meant to be pretty much an exclusively A+M fic, you see, so it's all good.  ^_^  That was my logic, anyway.

I'll be back when I can with more!

Notes to reviewers:

Thank you to TwinBakaNekos (Glad you like it ^_^), koala4u (*smiles* Sou is pretty sweet, isn't he?  ^_^  As for all the secrets… the way they come out is the way the story plays out, you know?  Glad you like it- it's fun to plot out the different secrets/ideas and bring them all together as I go.  ^_^), Cat H (You're welcome!  Soujiro is such a favourite character of mine…  But this is an A/M fic, so I didn't want to draw loads of attention to who Sou actually is, hence naming him 'Sou' rather than Soujiro.  I don't know if that makes any sense!  It did at the time…  *scratches head*  Ah well.  ^_^), Noa (Yes, you patience has been rewarded: more Aoshi!  ^_^  Hope you liked it.), Fuuko-san (Okay, I'll send an e-mail that pokes you with a proverbial stick.  ^_^  And yes, Aoshi's story gets a little more exploration in this chapter, so I hope that makes you happy!  Of course it wouldn't be fun if I let everything drop straight away, would it?  *grin* As for Sou and Misao..  Wait and see, ne?  You certainly can't say I've given up on Aoshi as a part of this fic, can you!  ^_^  He's very important. And thanks for the good wishes for college- it's hard but I'll live.  *smile*), EK (Indeed, then I will let you speculate to your heart's content.  ^_^  Nicely in the end…  But of course, with me behind the wheel, there's bound to be some turbulence along the way!  *laughs*), nekonomiko (*watches the angst draw ever closer with wide, staring eyes*  Yes, I think you're right about that angst…  *sweatdrop*  It just seems to sort of happen, not my fault!  And there will doubtless be more heartache before all is done.  *sigh* I'm sure Misao will cope in the end.  ^_^), lebleuphenix (*grin*  Thanks for saying that- it really cheered me up (I was having a bad day up until I read your review).  And yes, no more questions have been answered still- sorry about that.  Part of the tension and the plot though, right?  *wink* As for where Aoshi went- well, this chapter kinda answered that.  Well, sort of.  *laughs at evilness of self*), Kmye-chan (Yes, be crazy all you like!  It's fun!  ^_^  Yeh, Sou is gonna be a bit of a marmite character I think.. (love him or hate him, you know? ^_^).  I hope you love him in the long run though- he's a nice bloke.  Yes, more Aoshi in this part!  ^_^ I don't know about earthshaking- *grins and sweatdrops* I'll do my best!), Lady E (Hello!  Thank you very much!  ^_^  I'm trying for sweet and sad and deep, so it's very happy-fying to hear you say you think it is!  ^_^  *happy dance*  Hope you liked this chapter!), Argentum Draco (Thanks!  As for the pairing- well, aside from my author's note at the start of this chapter, it's a case of 'my summary did not lie'- that's the only clue I'll give.  ^_^  Angst is part of romance, is it not? *grin*), bee (*laughs happily*), Tiian (Thanks.  ^_^ Always nice to hear that you have a unique style- hope I can live up to that!  As to your comment on cars- yep, I've slept in a car before.  The backseat isn't that uncomfortable!  But I can see it might be for taller people.  As it is, Aoshi slept in the front, so it's all good.), Big Rikku Fan (Thank you- I shall, I shall indeed continue!  It's strange how much I'm enjoying writing this story, despite the elements of darkness in it and the angst.  Mind you, it's probably because of those things!  *sweatdrop*), len (*grin* If I answered all those questions, there wouldn't be much story left to tell!  ^_^  As for 'Sou'- you may have seen him before, though not from this story…  ^_^  He's Soujiro- I shortened it to Sou cos I didn't want attention to go to who he was ie an RK character, rather than the part he has to play in this fic.  Is that okay?  I'm glad you like the story, anyway! ^_^) and FlameSolo (Thank you. *grins* I'm a sucker for sugar is all…).

Leave your thoughts, make me happy!  *yawns and starts feeling more tired than Aoshi*  I need to stop waiting til after midnight to work on my fics…  *sleepy face*

  *zonks out on the floor*