Disclaimer:  Rurouni Kenshin t'ain't nu'tin o' mine.  You get a cookie if you say that right.  ^_^  (I don't own any of Third Eye Blind's songs either)

Author's note:  *bows apologetically* Gomenasai!  I haven't updated in so long- I'm very sorry.  I only realised a few days ago, and then I discovered (with much annoyance) that I had a writer's block on this story, so I had to work hard at this chapter.  Fortunately I came up with a couple of ideas that had things going well again.  *breathes a sigh of relief*  Well, back to the lives of Aoshi, Misao and co.  Enjoy!

Ice and Chaos

 Ninth

    "Jump in!  Let me take you on a wild adventure!"

  Misao winked as she spoke, and grinned outrageously at her friend as Tem leapt into the passenger seat.

  As the sandy-haired girl slid into place, and clicked the seatbelt in, she turned and flicked the air just in front of Misao's nose.

  "An adventure?  At North Kelston High?  What, have aliens landed and turned the place into Ibiza overnight?"

  The two girls laughed and Tem turned up the radio at the familiar sounds of Third Eye Blind.

  "I love this song!" they cried simultaneously, and laughed together as Misao pulled suddenly away from the curb, making the tyres squeal a little. 

  The wind blew their hair in crazy, erratic directions as the sun shone down from the bright blue sky.  The open-top car was pure bliss on days like these.

  The two girls joined in the song as they set off down the road for school.

  "How do I get myself back to, the place where you say, I want something else, to get me through this semi-charmed kinda life, baby, baby, I want something else!  Not listenin' when you say…  Goodbye!"

  The girls belted out the song in unison, lyrics dissolving into laughter on the final word of the chorus when they both shouted the 'goodbye' at the tops of their voices, regardless of the few staring passers-by. 

  The car sped onto North Kelston North.

  Aoshi wandered into the kitchen with his hair still tousled from sleep, and he ran absent-minded fingers through it as he started looking in the various cupboards for food.

  "Morning," came a feminine voice.

  Aoshi turned, still a little bleary-eyed, to see Maree stood leaning against the counter, breakfast bowl in hand, a spoon halfway to her lips.  She was already dressed, still in black, this time in a more casual outfit, black jeans that snugged nicely around her hips and went baggy and wide from the thighs.  Her simple black cotton top's wide, high neckline and slashed sleeves afforded glimpses of smooth pale shoulders and arms.  Her hair was back in its twining plaits of the previous day.

  "Hey," Aoshi grunted after a moment.  "Where can I get some?" he asked, glancing at the bowl in her hand.

  "Oh, have mine.  I'm not hungry anyway," she said suddenly, pushing herself away from the counter and shoving the bowl and spoon towards Aoshi with a bored expression.

  He glanced at it briefly, not really caring what kind of cereal it was, and started eating.

  He hadn't realised how hungry he was.  Travelling on low food intake had really built up his appetite.

  Maree watched him as he made short work of the cereal.

  "So, what does the new day bring?"

  "Hm?"  He looked up at her, chewing and then swallowing.  "What?" he amended.

  "I mean: do you have anything in particular to do today?"

  "Oh.  No, not really."  Aoshi thought about that for a second.  It was true: he had absolutely nothing to do.  He'd already given up on his journey, for the time being at least, and this was a town he wasn't too familiar with.  He didn't really know what to do with himself.

  "Ven's gone out to test drive his new, improved bike, and he'll doubtless stop for a visit at Matt's on the way back."  Maree rolled her eyes.  "I have nothing to do.  Want to go somewhere?"  Her hazel glance swung up to meet Aoshi's cold blue gaze with amiable, though shielded, eyes.

  He set down the bowl and spoon in the sink behind him.

  He honestly didn't have anything else to do.

  "What did you have in mind?" he asked bluntly.

  "Well, there's one place near here that's always good to visit," she said.  She walked past Aoshi, picking up his car keys from the hooks on the wall as she entered the giant hall/living area.

  He followed belatedly, his glance involuntarily taking in the slight sway of Maree's hips as she walked with a light step ahead of him.

  As she reached the door, she turned with a graceful twirl that sent her shining plaits swinging, throwing Aoshi's keys to his chest in the same motion.  His hands flew up reflexively to catch them against him.

  "You can drive," she said, with a playful smile.

  Aoshi just reached for the door handle.

  "And as you can see, the years of erosion have resulted in what we see today: all detail on the faces of the carvings has been lost for years, though some archaeologists have speculated that the figures represented armies, with spears in their hands.

  "Yes, Misao?"

  "Can I go to the bathroom?"

  The teacher held out a hall-pass with a long-suffering expression.

  "Me too," said Tem suddenly.

  The teacher sighed and offered another pass.  The two girls picked up their small bags and took the passes with alacrity, almost skipping out the door.

  Moments later, two girls could be seen chasing each other past the window, attacking each other playfully with their hall-passes.  Their squeals of laughter fell quiet as a teacher passed with a reprimanding frown, though the moment the teacher vanished around a corner, they resumed their game, running off out of sight.

  Sou watched them through the window of his math's classroom with a slight smile on his ever-peaceful face.

  Maree slung a wide, flat bag into the backseat of Aoshi's car before she swung herself into the passenger seat.

  Her familiar ease in an unknown car with a relative stranger reminded Aoshi of Misao.

  The face that turned suddenly to his looked more openly matured, more obviously learned in life than that of the blue-eyed sprite who'd found her way into his life the week before.

  Aoshi set the observation aside and reached for the ignition. 

  "Turn left from the drive," said Maree.

  "Where are we going?"  Aoshi started the engine and eased the car into gear.

  "Wait and see."

  The sun glowed in the endless blue sky in a haze of thick, honeyed light.  Miles below, in a small spot on the vast earth, a tree grew in a car park, and in the overgrown grass around its trunk and within its boughs were gathered a small group of students.

  The air was unusually still that day.  It was quiet and soft with treacle-like daylight.

  The laughter of a girl was gentled and easily absorbed into the expansive air.

  The unmoving air was so warm just then.  Misao felt as if she were laying in gold-coloured water, time held in suspension, the world a faraway reality that lay hovering above the perfectly still surface of this light-suffused ocean.  The dark-haired girl searched along her limbs and nerves, finding that her entire body was devoid of tension, muscles slack and trusting the grass and moss covered earth to support her.  She gazed thoughtfully up through the gold-green boughs overhead, feeling the water-like air around her make gentle contact with her skin, waiting to see a bubble rise past her up into the sky.  Life seemed so far away for the moment.  Everything seemed far away.

  Misao was prodded out of her distant reverie by Tem, who held her half-coloured nails up in front of her friend's face, and gestured to the green highlighter in Misao's slack grip.

  Misao stared for a second, before the treacle-like ocean drained and evaporated around her, and reality flooded back into existence.  She bent her head over her friend's hands once more, the soft expression in her eyes hidden behind her glimmering blue-black hair.

  "Are you going back to class?" Tem asked, as Misao went carefully back to the task at hand.

  "Nah.  It's so boring," came Misao's answer from behind her hair.

  "I hear ya," agreed a male voice.  Misao looked up but could see nothing of the speaker but a dangling leg and one shoulder.  The wide branch he was lying on blocked the rest of him from view.  Gold sunlight danced in wandering speckles over Misao's dark hair and smooth young face.

  Tem spoke again.  "Wanna go to the beach?"

  Misao turned her head to glance at her friend.  The dancing sunlight slipped over her and away.

  "Sure.  Beats sticking around here."

  They rose and headed for the car, as Tem blew on her bright green nails.

  The sand was warm and fine, and clung to Aoshi's bare feet as he walked alongside Maree down a wide, shining stretch of beach.

  The waves rushed up with a hushed murmur to the right, and far-off cars thrummed by to the left.

  On the sand, the air was light and soft, and everything seemed quiet and peaceful.

  Aoshi turned his head slightly to view the shorter girl at his side.  Her plaits shone with soft natural auburn highlights in the bright sunlight, and somehow her skin seemed less pale.  He wondered why she would want to wear black in weather like this.

  Maree suddenly stopped walking, and stretched like a little cat, lifting her arms up over her head and flexing her fingers like a kitten flexes its tiny claws.  The action revealed extra slits in her loose cotton top that ran halfway up her sides, offering Aoshi a brief glimpse of the smooth skin above her hips.

  Maree dropped easily to the ground in the next moment. 

  "Here is good."

  Aoshi suddenly noticed that Maree had found one of the very few shady places on the beach, under the wide fronds of a pair of leaning palm trees.  He shook his head with the hint of a smile.

  He preferred the shade himself anyway, and so seated himself on the sand next to Maree.

  The rushing waves filled the agreeable silence that fell between them, providing a soothing whispering in the background that reminded Aoshi of days spent on the beach as a child.  The sand was warm yet oddly unyielding against Aoshi's tired body.  The girl at his side sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, gazing out over the sparkling azure ocean, the flickering diamonds on the waves reflected in her green-flecked eyes.

  She began with a simple question.

  "How's things been?"

  Aoshi paused a moment, teetering on the edge of decision.  Maree's guileless, yet understanding, hazel gaze turned to rest lightly on his face as he hesitated.  He hadn't spoken about the past in so long, and it was good to be with someone who was connected with it to talk to.

  With that, Aoshi succumbed to the question that hovered patiently in the air between them.  Aoshi absently laid back on the sand and stretched out his legs as they talked, catching up on all the years that had passed since Maree's childhood, and since the day when they'd last seen each other, so long ago.

  The sun crept across the sky, slipping discreetly over Aoshi's legs, and then his stomach, as the pair exchanged stories and memories.

  Somehow, the warm sun and quiet rush of the tide made Aoshi feel relaxed and open.  The conversation released much of the tension he'd been carrying around in the past weeks, and helped to take his mind off things he wished to forget.  He hadn't expected to talk about these things with Maree, and though he still had no intention of talking about the past couple of months, he felt calmed and peaceful by the sharing of the simple recollections that so easily left his lips.  Maree's manner told him she wouldn't ask about his more recent past: something about her told Aoshi she'd already guessed enough, and knew enough of him, to know not to ask.

  The relaxed mood and warm sunlight gradually made Aoshi feel sleepy.  His blinks grew longer, and the soft sun on his stomach and chest pulled gently at his awareness.

  He didn't even notice when Maree's voice fell quiet, and the soft orange light behind his eyelids went dark.

  Misao was about to reach for the car door handle when someone spoke in an authoritative tone behind her.

  "Misao, I hope you aren't planning to leave in the middle of the school day."

  Misao cringed a little as she turned slowly to come face to face with her form tutor.  "I was just…"  Somehow she couldn't come up with any plausible excuse to follow on with.

  The teacher interrupted her, saving her the embarrassment.  "Well, whatever you were doing, it'll have to wait.  The principal wants to see you, as soon as possible.  Which means right now."

  Misao held back a sigh, and followed her tutor with lagging steps.  She threw an apologetic look over her shoulder at Tem as she entered the school building.  Tem just leaned back against the car with a wearied and anxious expression, the way she folded her arms signalling to Misao that she'd wait for her friend.

  The principal's office was too hot, despite the open window, and Misao felt immediately oppressed by the heat alone, regardless of the less-than-easy atmosphere ready and waiting for her as the door closed quietly behind her.

  She was left alone with the principal, who sat back in his chair with a worn-out look all over his face.

  "I'm sure you know why I called you here," he said, eyes on his clasped hands and absently shifting thumbs.

  "Yes."

  "Your father wants me to talk to you about the absence.  Though, to be honest with you, I'm sure you already know what that kind of thing does to your education, and the kind of disruption it creates in your courses."  He glanced up at his student, who just looked at him with a blank face.

  "I know."

  The principal sighed to himself.  He sat up straighter in his chair.  "I'm sure you've already spoken to your father about this, but I feel obliged to remind you that this school has a very capable and experienced psychologist.  She's at the disposal of all of our students, any time they feel the need to talk."  His glance returned to Misao, more pointedly this time.

  Misao just stared back, perfectly calm, her voice completely toneless.  "I know."

  The principal reached for a piece of paper on his desk.  "This is a report sheet I passed around your teachers.  All of them are concerned, Misao.  And I am concerned, looking at what is written here."  He perused the sheet briefly, as if reconstructing his first encounter with it.  "However, there is something I couldn't help but notice.  Your lack of enthusiasm for your schoolwork does not seem to extend to your photography class."

  He looked up at Misao, as if waiting for a reaction.  He got none.

  "Though I would, obviously, prefer it if you were doing better at all of your subjects, I appreciate that a creative outlet can be very helpful to anyone going through difficulty."  Misao stiffened.  The principal continued without pause.  "Your photography teacher has suggested to me that you be allowed access to the photography rooms at any time within the school's open hours.  I have agreed to this request."

  Misao blinked, her face still completely blank.

  "Do we have an understanding?"

  Misao paused just long enough to make the principal feel as if he were being made to wait.

  "Yes."

  "Fine," he sighed decisively, shuffling his papers and laying them back down on the desk.  "You may return to your classes now.  I will call your father and tell him that we have reached an agreement."

  Misao nodded, and with that, she was dismissed.  She turned and walked stiffly from the room, coldly ignoring the gentle lift in her heart as the opportunity she had just been given sank into her tensed senses.

  Aoshi woke gently, his returning awareness slowly taking him back to the orange and yellow world behind his eyelids.

    He let his eyes remain closed as he mentally felt out the relaxed muscles of his arms, legs and back.  It was so warm and peaceful…

  As he lay quietly, he became aware of a small sound by his side.  It sounded like a pencil scribbling on paper.

  He turned his head and opened his eyes to see Maree gazing at a pad of paper that lay in her lap, a pencil in her hand.  It looked like she was writing something.

  "What are you doing?" he asked sleepily.  The sun's warm rays were trying to persuade him back into a doze.  He blinked slowly, letting his sleepy eyes rest on Maree's face, on the wisps of hair that framed her cheeks, swaying gently in the soft sea breeze.  As she leaned forward to look closely at what she was doing, one plait, and then another, slipped over her shoulder, swinging slightly against her cheek and wrist as she worked.

  She pushed the plaits back absent-mindedly.  "Drawing," she said, after a moment.

  "What are you drawing?"

  Aoshi's sleep-slurred, and utterly contented, voice drew Maree's eyes away from the paper, to the face of her companion.

  She smiled at the slightly dozy look on his face.  He simply oozed sleepy male contentment, from his half-closed eyes to the gentle rise and fall of his breaths in his chest.  Maree was starting to wonder if Aoshi was always sleepy.  But then, he had come from what seemed to be a fairly long journey, and from things that would wear down anyone, as far as she could guess.  Somehow, she got the impression that in actual fact, he was rarely this open and relaxed.

  "I draw lots of things.  Anything that interests me, or I think is worth drawing," she said evasively, eyes going back to the lines of grey beneath her hand.

  "Oh.  Are we going soon?" he asked suddenly, alertness returning to his voice.

  "We don't have to.  We have all day: though we should go and get something to eat at some point."

  "Mm," agreed Aoshi.

  Maree added a little more shading and emphasised a certain line on her drawing with a gentle stroke of her pencil.  She leant back, as if checking the drawing, and snapped the pad shut without a word.

  Aoshi sat up.  At Maree's mention of eating something, he'd realised he was actually pretty hungry.

  "Want to go now?" asked the girl knelt at his side.

  He nodded.  "Yeh, sure."

  "Okay."

  The pair wandered back along the beach, sunlight still pouring softly down on them, like a golden curtain of no more substance than the warm breeze that rose to greet them back to their lives.

Author's note:  Hope you liked this chapter!  I spent longer on this one than on any so far, so I hope that paid off and you enjoyed it.  ^_^

 Important note: I'm just gonna mention that I'm not planning to give out any spoilers or future plot details- a lot of people have wondered/asked, which is fair enough- I know that sometimes it's meant rhetorically!  But I don't intend to ruin the story for anyone, myself included, by giving out info on future chapters.  This includes ongoing wonderings about the A/M thing: all I'll say is, this is advertised as an A/M fic, and there's a good reason for that! 

  Hope that makes sense to everyone!  Not nastily meant by any means, ok?  ^_^  Thanks!

  I'll be back when I can with the next chapter!  (exam time makes it pretty hard for me to update as frequently as usual, sorry)

Notes to reviewers:

Thank you to Kmye-chan (Glad you're liking it!  Don't worry, there won't be any long-term cause for your displeasure!), Lady E (Sorry for the late update- glad you enjoy it.  As for Maree- wait and see, ne? *wink*  I'm already quite enthusiastic about her character!), FlameSolo (No worries, I'm chuffed that you spoke at all!  *grin*  Yes, sleep is good…  *zonks out*), bee (*happy dance*  Thank you so much!  Your review was so lovely, it made me really happy, really!  *grins*  Hope you like this chapter too!), Cat H (*grins*  I didn't realise that myself, about the 'M' Maree thing…  *laughs*  Don't worry.  Trust your instincts, ne?), koala4u (^_^  No spoilers I'm afraid!  Your questions will have to be answered with future chapters… I'm cruel but there's a logic to my cruelty.  *smile*), sophomoric genius (Yep, he's Soujiro.  I called him Sou cos I didn't want it to be a big focus, the fact that's he's the only other RK character in this.  I just love him so much, I wanted to get him involved, and his character suited what I wanted… so there you go!), len (Thanks!  I'm quite proud of my name choices.  ^_^  Took me a while to think of them though!  And your questions don't annoy me.  ^_^), lebleuphenix (Thanks!  I really wanted Maree's character to get involved fairly swiftly, glad you liked it.  ^_^  And yes, I love putting in those little touches that remind us who's really in ice-man's heart… *wink*), TwinBakaNekos (Thanks!  Watch and wait for the A/M reunion…), eLoQueNCe (*zips up mouth*  It's a secret.  Glad you like it tho!), EK (Sorry I made you wait!  Suspense is a must though, surely?  *wink*), Noa (Watch this space…  *grin*  Hope you liked this chapter, anyhoo…) and Kitten Kisses (Thank you so much!  *big grin*  Your lovely comments made me do the happy dance in fact…  *does happy dance again*  Hurrah!  ^_^)!

Please leave your thoughts!  I'll be back as soon as pos with more! *kisses for all*