Disclaimer: The characters of Rurouni Kenshin don't belong to me.

Author's note: I actually did mean to post this sooner, but I got caught up with other things, plus I kept reading over and changing little bits and pieces of this chapter- I wanted to get it right.  I hope you like it.

  Oh, and- WARNING!  Lemony goodness ahead.  Though very modest lemony goodness.  ^_^  (this would be an R rated fic otherwise!)

  There, you're all warned and all set- no flames now, let's go!  Enjoy!

Ice and Chaos

 Thirteenth 

  I don't think there is such a thing as coincidence.  I don't believe in luck, either.  I think that most things just happen.  They just happen.  You walk out of the door not knowing that if you'd stopped to grab a tissue, you would've crossed the road a second later and been killed by a truck.  You accidentally push aside someone in the street, not knowing that your fleeting carelessness pushed them that tiny bit further, far enough for them to put a bullet in their head that evening.  You get home at the end of the day, not realising that you will enter the front door only to be told that someone you love is dead.

  Just like that, things happen.  There's no reason for it, no cosmic, godly explanation or excuse for it. 

  Things just happen.

  The room was too quiet.  The moonlight was absent for once: clouds hid its comforting silver glow away from human eyes that were yet open to the empty night sky, while the rest of the world slept in peace.  One such pair of open eyes watched the dark sky with an unreadable blue-green gaze, as a single tear dropped from black lashes to trace a mournful line down a pale cheek.

  Mother…  My mother…

  The girl's hand held a photo: a single old photo, showing a woman by the sea, her dark hair blowing in the salty breeze, a strange kind of smile on her face.  In her arms, she held a tiny child: a little girl.  Clouds had gathered on the horizon of the picture.

  The tiny slip of paper was in his hand, and he did the unthinkable thing that his mind had dwelt on for long enough to force anyone else to the edge of madness: he went to the phone, thankfully cordless, took it to his room, and, sitting heavily on the end of the bed, Aoshi dialled the number.

  She couldn't stay in her room.  It was too dark, too cold, too quiet.  It was too easy to cry here.

  As she picked up her jacket from the chair by her desk, letting the photo fall to the smooth, empty surface, she paused by the phone on her bedside table.

  It lay unmoving- it did not ring.

  If only I could talk to him…

  Misao opened one huge window, and slipped out into the cloudy night as the first few drops of rain began to fall from the melancholy night sky.  She pushed the window closed behind her.

  As the girl disappeared around the side of the house to the driveway, the phone began to ring in the empty room.

  Aoshi leant his forehead into the open palm of his free hand as he listened to the calling tone ring once… twice… thrice…

  It had rung five times before Aoshi realised Misao may not even answer, may not be there or be asleep.  The possibility of that hadn't even occurred to him before.

  As the answer service clicked on, Misao's unmistakable voice told him to leave a message.  Just hearing her recorded voice on the phone made something inside Aoshi's stomach go light and something in his throat tighten a little.

  He didn't leave a message.  He hung up quickly before the tone could beep and catch him in the act of the call.

  The phone was dropped to the bed, where it bounced slightly against the mattress, and then lay still like a broken toy.

  Aoshi didn't care that he could hear rain beginning to patter lightly against the tall windows of the old building, or that it was well past midnight.

  He was going for a walk.

  The streets were empty and the shadows too dark, the streetlights too bright.  Sheets of light rain sluiced through the heavy air to the unyielding pavements, striking the ground with a mournful, futile pattering.  The rain on the ground reflected the streetlights' brightness like thousands of tiny diamonds set into the tarmac.

  Misao walked slowly, her jacket hugged tightly around her slim frame, ignoring the way the rain had found its way to her pale cheek, or how it began to trickle slowly in a warm trail down the back of her neck.

  She just wanted this world to herself for a little while: this realm of dark and light, of lonely streets and falling rain.

  Yet somewhere within, a part of her wanted only to share this world with someone, someone who cared.  She missed her mother so much sometimes.

  Sometimes her sadness was beyond tears.

  Sometimes she almost couldn't breathe.

  Street after street welcomed her passively, barely noticing her passing footsteps on their cold pavements.  She kept walking.

  He hadn't gone far when he saw the small, hunched figure walking towards him from the opposite end of the street.  Small, with long dark hair slick with rain, and arms that were folded close around her slim frame.

  Somehow, he just knew.  He knew by the way his breath caught in his throat; by the way his heart skipped a beat.

  "Misao." 

  His voice carried strangely through the rain.

  The girl ahead froze, and her head lifted slowly, as if she couldn't quite believe what she'd heard.  As her face lifted, her eyes rose and suddenly, they were stood staring at each other.

  "Aoshi?"  The word sounded small and amazed as it fell from her lips.

  The plateau held as they kept gazing at each other, not even thinking about the thing that some would call a coincidence that had brought them together again at last.  Chance was too slight for moments like this.  Something else was at work, but not even that elusive force mattered to the pair in question as they watched each other through the falling rain.

  He hadn't changed.  He wore the same trench coat he'd worn before; his eyes were still pale and icy, his stance still tall and aloof, his jaw still set in the same proud-looking way.

  But he'd spoken her name, and she'd looked up to see the person she'd given up daring to hope to see again, the person she'd that moment been longing to be near again.

  And there he was, right in front of her, real as can be: he was no figment of her imagination; the rain had plastered his dark hair to his head, and it trickled down his face.  The elements had no such power against ghosts or images in our heads.

  He spoke again.

  "Can we forget it all for a while?"

  Misao heard her words of weeks past echo in his voice in a strange tone, a little strained, a little soft.  Her eyes widened at the question, then a gentle look spread across her face.  So: he has understood what she meant when she'd spoken those words before.  She found herself nodding slowly in reply.

  Further questions could wait.

  They both took the first step in the same moment.  And the second.

  Slowly but surely, the space between them lessened, and as they approached each other, the message within Aoshi's question became crystal clear, and they knew exactly the kind of need they had for each other at that moment.  It didn't have to be explained: it had been there since they'd met that first time, since Misao had first laughed while Aoshi first ignored her, since Aoshi had first melted in the face of Misao's blazing fire and they'd forgotten rules, boundaries and petty social requirements and allowed themselves the safety and glory of falling into each other's arms.

  And now, in the falling rain and the darkness, in the empty street of a sleeping town, they forgot those restrictions once more in their face of their mutual desires, and their mutual pain.

  Aoshi's fingers reached to touch Misao's rain-soaked cheek, while Misao brought slow-moving hands up Aoshi's sides, slipping them around to his back to urge him closer.

  They stood in silence, motionless, for a moment.  Misao closed her eyes briefly, savouring the warm solidity of Aoshi's embrace, and the comfort and strength it gave her.  Aoshi lowered his head to rest his chin lightly on Misao's dark head of damp hair, an almost pained expression on his face.  He'd wanted this so much…

  Misao's brows drew together as she pulled away, and her azure eyes gazed up into Aoshi's face with doubt and worry, even as she allowed his presence to slip past any barriers she may have thrown up about herself that night.  Aoshi allowed a rare half-smile to flicker across his face, letting Misao know that it was okay: he felt the same way.

  Her lips were too tempting.

  His eyes were too intense.

  Aoshi leant down to defeat the space between them, and to claim Misao's lips, which waited, slightly parted in anticipation. 

  As their lips brushed together with a feather-light touch, Misao felt a sudden spark of hot electricity flicker through her.  Her eyes fluttered closed, wet lashes dark and thick against her soft cheeks, rosy with rain and walking.  Aoshi's ice-blue eyes then closed, and the first, tentative touch was regained with fast-building desire.

  Cool lips met with cool lips, but inner fires rose in a sudden blaze and joined with the contact of their kiss, mingling together and joining with the rain, creating a sweet taste in their mouths, warming the indulgent touch they couldn't cease.

  Aoshi dipped his head lower to deepen the kiss, and Misao's response was willing and immediate, her hands on his back pulling him irresistibly closer until the curves of her body met with the solid planes of Aoshi's taller frame.  It was an inexplicable perfection that made their opposite shapes fit so sweetly together, as arms moved to allow fingers to interlock in wordless possession.

  Aoshi needed her, needed her as he hadn't needed anyone since the day he'd understood that his parents had left him alone in the world, since the day he'd been taken to the foster home and told, in words never spoken aloud, that he had to fight on his own now, live for only himself.

  Over the years, he'd found others to live for.  But they had died, just as his parents had died, though he couldn't take away the feeling of blame that he'd never had the first time around.

  Yet still, even so, he had again found someone else to live for, and she was holding him close at this very moment, kissing him with a warmth and passionate gentleness that Aoshi had never known he wanted so much, or needed so forcefully.

  Misao met the touch of Aoshi's tongue, and followed the contact with soft fervour, sucking gently on Aoshi's lower lip, and felt a tingling heat run through her again as the so-faint moan he could not hold in reached her ears. 

  She'd felt so alone, so desperately isolated…  In a room full of strangers, where no one heard her at all, and the floor around her feet was slowly breaking and dropping away, with nothing but black nothingness beneath to welcome her to the fall…

  Aoshi slipped one of his hands from their fingers' tangled touch to wrap his arm around her securely, and Misao knew then that whatever happened after this night, Aoshi would not let her fall.

  Aoshi would not let her fall.

  The rain began to ease as he pulled gently away from Misao.

  "Where do we go from here?" he asked, his voice low, his eyes as pale as ever but full of a sudden fierce emotion.

  Misao teetered on the edge of eternity as she made her choice.  The answer was simple, in the end.  "We go to my house."

  Aoshi paused, as if wanting to give her a chance to change her mind, but Misao said not a word.  Aoshi took her hand in his own again as their arms dropped back down to their sides, his fingers twining with hers and tightening possessively as Misao led the way through the empty streets.

  The clouds had thinned enough to permit a hint of silvery moonlight as Aoshi followed Misao across her room.

  She pulled him gently with her towards the bed without a word: words had become clumsy things, associated with the human world of pain and memory, things that had no place in that room that night.  That night, they'd create a haven from trouble and daily life in Misao's bed, a place of peace and comfort and passion in each other's arms.

  Misao lay back on the bed, using the touch of her hands on Aoshi's shoulders and neck to pull him down onto her.  They sank back against the covers with slow ease, Aoshi's hands moving over Misao's arms and shoulders as Misao ran a hand up from Aoshi's neck to bury her fingers in his thick, dark hair.

  The kiss that saw them onto the bed was deep and hungry, fanning the flames of their growing passion.  Misao's lips parted to allow Aoshi's entrance, and he caressed Misao's tongue with his own, in a dance so achingly, tantalisingly slow that Misao's breath came short, her sudden hot desire uncoiling with fierce, crackling speed within her.

    The feel of her running her hand through his hair intensified everything that Aoshi was already feeling.  He couldn't resist the yielding pliancy of Misao's soft, full lips, that moved so sweetly against his own, just as he was rendered powerless by the gentle, warm curves of her body beneath him.  The sweep of her tongue against his lower lip was combined with a swift stroke of her splayed fingers through his hair, and Aoshi found himself struggling to think at all.

  He needed more of her.

  Aoshi's lips were a charm against sadness as he kissed a pathway from Misao's mouth down her neck, leaving a line of slow-burning fire on her skin.  She threw away her melancholy thoughts under his touch, instead focusing on the sensations stirring suddenly stronger within her.  She pursued only that feeling which made her run her hands through Aoshi's wet hair, and squirm in pleasure beneath his body, as he ran his hands up her sides, slowly over her breasts and along her neckline to cup her face gently in a soft hold as he travelled up to capture her lips once more.  Misao vaguely registered the way she involuntarily threw her head back against the pillow, as Aoshi's hands swept down to trace the curves of her breasts a second time.

  As he began to pull her top up from her waist, she sighed out a quick breath of anticipation, feeling the cool night air of her room make contact with her skin.  Aoshi moved down to land a trail of kisses across her bared stomach, letting his tongue meet her sensitive skin.  Misao arched her back with a low, ardent moan, pushing herself up against him in response to his soft, tantalizing kisses, and he took the chance to lift her top all the way up, over her head as she lay back again, before casting it to the floor to join his trench coat and her jacket, already discarded.

  Misao sat up with Aoshi, and unbuttoned his shirt, still claiming his lips with her own in a deep, heated kiss, sliding her hands up his chest to gently slip the shirt from his broad shoulders.  He pushed the unwanted cloth away to the floor.

  Misao could feel the heat burning within her beginning to centre low in her body, with a yearning ache that made her press herself instinctively against Aoshi's bared chest.  Aoshi's hand swept up her arm, up to her neck, where he held her jaw gently as he kissed her yet more hungrily.  As his hand slid back down from her throat, he caught the shoulder strap of her bra and slipped it easily from the soft curve of her shoulder.  He pulled away from their kiss, dipping his head to press his lips to her naked shoulder, kissing his way down over her so-soft skin to the edge of her bra, where it still covered her breasts.  Misao was unable to prevent another moan escaping her lips, already parted to permit her quickened breaths.  Within another moment, Aoshi's hand had caught at the back of her neck to draw her into another kiss.

  As he lowered himself over Misao once more, coaxing her back against the covers with the movement of his own body, Aoshi breathed into their kiss, "Are you sure, Misao?"

  Her hands explored the smooth muscles of his back for a moment, and, never breaking the passionate contact of their lips, she whispered, "Yes."

  Everything else forgotten, they surrendered themselves to each other.

  The light of the silver moon crept softly through the fleeing clouds.

  Aoshi lay awake for some time, just gazing at the young woman lying, dreaming, beside him in the dusky silvered light.  His pale eyes travelled over her face as if intent on committing to memory an equally perfect image of her perfection, as she lay on her side, her head pillowed softly on his arm, her lashes a dark, soft contrast to the curve of her rose-tinted cheeks.  Aoshi dwelt on the gentle arch of her brows, the way her black hair swept with gently errant strands across her forehead, the way her lips were slightly parted to allow her soft sleeping breaths.

  He marvelled in silence at the beauty of her as she lay naked beside him, half-covered by the white sheets, her skin a soft, silvery-blue hue in the low moonlight.  In that light, she looked like an angel of ice and water, but Aoshi knew she could never be as cold as he was.  Yet he himself had melted, consumed by her undeniable, unconquerable fire, her enthusiasm for love, her desire to live.

  He wondered at the miracle that had brought them together, and given him the gift of sleeping beside this beautiful young woman- beautiful to him in more ways than one.

  Things might be hard- no, things would be hard.  But as long as Misao trusted in him, and even if she didn't, he would stand by her and be there for her, be strong for her.  He didn't know what the future would throw at them, or what may result of this night, but there was one thing he did know.

  He would not let Misao out of his life again.

  He moved closer, and slipped an arm protectively around her, fingers spread gently over the warm softness of her back.  Close and content, he fell slowly into the world of sleep.

Author's note: Okay, that was my first go at anything even mildly lemony, so I'm just hoping it didn't suck.  I don't know if it seemed OOC to anyone, but I honestly don't feel that it is, but hey *shrug* Obviously everyone has their own opinion!  ^_^

  Please leave a review!  Next chapter will be up once I've finished it.

  Also, please note I'm going away on holiday on Saturday the 26th of this month- so there won't be any updates for the two weeks following that date, okay?  Thanks all!

  ^_^  Yay for Aoshi and Misao being together again!!  *happy dance*

Notes to reviewers:

  Thank you to imaninz (*offers a banana* hee hee ^_^ Good simile!), ceres17 (*confused*  Well, yes, eventually it'll end, but not anytime soon!), nekonomiko (Oh no, Aoshi's not doing anything naughty with Maree!  *nervous* You'll find out why exactly soon…  I offered the ice-berg some angst time at the end, don't know if you caught that one ^_^), Battousai (Erm… pass the relish?  *grin*), NightSky (No spoilers I'm afraid, but hey, you should be happy with this chapter's developments! ^_^), len (Yeh, I do, don't I?  *sheepish grin* But it's true I kept adjusting this chapter, I've been pretty anxious about it, first lemon and all… Not that it was particularly graphic or anything! *grin* Hope you liked it.), sophomoric genius (*no spoilers, no spoilers* ^_^), Falling rain (I updated!  A little later than planned, but at least it's here now! Sorry for being so, er, evil… ^_^), lebleuphenix (*giggles appreciatively*  Yes, that was a pretty mean cliffie, wasn't it?  Sorry about that.  But you get all the outcome this chapter!  ^_^  Made it all worthwhile, didn't it?  Didn't it?!?  *big shiny eyes* ^_^), koala4u (I'd actually rather have a Sou than an Aoshi- he's gorgeous but he's just too darned angst-ridden.  *sighs piteously at Aoshi*  Ah,I wasn't cruel this time!  They met, hurrah!  ^_^), aiteane (Three weeks?!? *confused* When did I say that…?  Or can you not get to a computer before then?  If so, I feel bad for you- I'd go insane if I had to live without the internet for even three days, never mind three weeks!  Wait, I'm going on holiday for two weeks.. ARGH!), Queen of Shadows (Well, if you're nuts then we're as potty as each other- that's all I'll say. *big grin* And dun-dun-duunnn!  Someone who thinks Maree isn't after Aoshi besides me!  ^_^ You are a REALLY perceptive person overall, aren't you? *grin*), bee (Hehe, sorry for not uploading sooner…  Thanks for the compliments, too!  ^_^  You have no idea how happy your review made me!), MoonPhoenix (I can understand your protectiveness of Aoshi- so many fics work on the basis of any guy/girl pairs ending up fancying each other, though that isn't really what I'm trying to do here.  Ah well.  Yes, look forward to a happy ending! ^_^), Kmye-chan (*bows* Thank you for reviewing at all, I appreciate it!  *slaps own wrist* Sorry for the cliffie, I'm too mean for my own good…  *ponders this*), battousai rk8520 (^_^ I shall) and Avari Songwater (Hello hello!  I haven't got around to the fifth Harry Potter book yet- I'm saving it for my holiday, but I already knew about Sirius so it's okay.  I know I'm gonna cry when I read that…  Sirius is such a cool character.  Oh, I know what you mean about Misao- it was kinda amusing making her more sexy for this chapter!  But I think it came off okay…  Well, anyway, yes, Angel!  More of him in future, watch this space..  Hope you liked this chapter, anyhoo)!

Thank you for your reviews, they are muchly appreciated.  ^_^  Seeya all again soon!