"I'm cold."
"Hush, Misao-dono. We're all cold de gozaru yo."
"But I'm COLD!"
"If you don't stop whining, girl, I'm gonna make sure ya got somethin' to whine about!"
There was a brief silence in which the three crammed into the tiny backseat attempted frantically to smother their amusement, waiting eagerly for the pronouncement from the passenger side.
"Sano, don't threaten the children de gozaru," came the fond warning.
"I-I'm not- Hey!"
The five puttered along in the rattling car, more cold air pouring from the vents than heat, Misao grumbling under her breath and occasionally elbowing Yahiko, who grunted and shoved her back. Kaoru sat as far to the window as she could; peacefully pretending she was the only one in the car. It was either that or there would most likely be bloody carnage the next time Misao complained. With that in mind, neither Yahiko nor Misao tried the slightest to get her attention.
Kenshin fiddled absently with the radio, not expecting anything but faint bursts of static, his fingers stiff with cold. It wasnt as though the lack of car heat was new to the family, but neither was Misao-dono's love of complaining. They just had one more passenger crammed into the back seat. And he didnt have to drive. Just give directions every now and then.
"Sano- turn left de gozaru," he said calmly.
"Oh." The dark-haired boy blinked and started to slow down, obediently hitting his turn signal.
"Your other left, aisuru."
"Dammit!"
"Maybe you should paint l's and r's on his shoes," Misao-dono suggested, leaning up from the back seat, voice too serious to truly be serious, dark blue eyes sparkling. "So he'll never forget."
"So yer sayin' you've never messed 'em up?" Sano snapped, cheeks coloring slightly, eyes avoiding anything but the road as he turned.
"Yup. I never forget!" Misao-dono said proudly, smugly.
"That is what they say about elephants, Sanosuke," mentioned a dry voice from the backseat. "So of course she'd never forget."
Sano guffawed, and Kenshin looked quickly out the window to hide a smile. It was no secret where Yahiko had picked up the tendency towards using insults as humor, but his caustic wit was quite advanced for a fifth-grader. In fact, hed been surprised at just how intelligent the boy was. Because no matter how much he loved Sano, and how much that emotion clouded his judgement at times, he knew as well as anyone that he wasn't, as Misao-dono would say... the sharpest tool in the shed... the brightest bulb in the box...
"Are you calling me an ELEPHANT?!"
"I'd certainly know. You've been sitting on me for half an hour."
Kenshin shook with restrained laughter. Even if it was an obvious falsehood, since Misao-dono weighed much less than she should... He couldn't help but...
"This is it, isnt it?" Sano nudged him.
Kenshin jumped, blinked rapidly, swallowed his mirth, then nodded quickly. "Hai. It doesn't matter where you park de gozaru."
"They bring us back on a wagon!" Misao-dono interjected cheerily, momentarily ignoring Yahiko's slight in favor of childish excitement. "And they cut down the tree, and they'll wrap it for you, and sometimes there're dogs runnin around, an-"
"Misao. Out of the car," Kaoru-dono interrupted, speaking for perhaps the first time in the entire trip. "My legs hurt."
Kenshin held the door open as the three children popped out of the cramped backseat. Once Kaoru-dono had exited with only a minimal amount of tripping and banging her forehead against the interior walls, Kenshin locked the door and pushed it closed.
"Letsgoletsgoletsgo!!!" his youngest daughter cried in excitement, then without any further warning, grabbed onto her sister and somewhat-adopted brother and tore off with them in tow.
Kenshin smiled after them, the warmth in his chest enough to combat the chill in the early winter air, then met Sano at the gravel driveway that led into the fields of evergreen trees, pulling his scarf tightly around his face, taking special care to hide the long scar on his cheek the best he could.
He felt dark eyes following his movements, and Kenshin blinked up into his lover's visage, feeling strangely... self-conscious? It was silly to feel that way around Sano, about anything... especially something he saw every day, something he brushed his fingertips across with familiar gentleness, something his lips had pressed to with quiet reverence in the middle of the night...
And even now, a gloved fingertip traced the first few inches, Sano's bottomless eyes puzzled and a bit a contemplative. "You never did tell me how you got this," he said softly. "Must be quite a story."
Kenshin caught his hand, pulling it gently away, shaking his head only minutely. "Not now," he whispered, the short words a barely spoken plea. "I'll tell you later, Sano. Later. Let's... Let's just go help the children pick out a nice tree de gozaru."
"O-okay..." The concern in the teenager's voice made him smile, and Kenshin squeezed his fingers. "I-I didnt mean to- uh..."
"I know. You didn't de gozaru na." He lifted that smile up to his beloved's face, and he saw the boy relax. "Daijoubu de gozaru na."
"Kay. Lets go, then!" Sano's face brightened into a cheerful grin, and he tugged on him, pulling Kenshin close to his side as he began to walk. Kenshin fell into a quicker step beside him, seeing as Sano's regular stride was almost twice his, then noticed with the smallest of flushes that the boy hadn't let go of his hand.
This was... new...
Well, not new, so much, as, well... just... It wasn't something they had done in public before. There had been many times at home, when Sano had taken his hand and just squeezed it tightly in his fingers, in reassurance or even in teasing, but... It wasn't as though they did the regular things that two people did when they were...
Well... they weren't dating, in any real meaning of the term. They didn't go anywhere alone or do anything, really... nothing that new couples would do. They... they just spent time together. With the children... and alone... but it wasn't as though they went out to movies or such.
Four months.
That was really all it had been, four months... Was it conventional for two people who had been together four months to already be living together?
Well, it hadn't even been four months. He had known Sano for four months. It had been somewhat less that they had actually been... together... And it had only been a few days after they had first confessed to any real feelings for each other that they had... well, that they had...
It had been one day.
It hadn't even been two days after their first kiss that they had first slept together.
"What're you angsting about, sweetheart?" Sano inquired.
"O-oro?" Kenshin blinked, startled out of his brooding thoughts by his deep voice. "Angsting de gozaru ka?"
"Yeah, angsting. I know that look. 'Sides, Ive been talkin' at you for the past two minutes and you haven't heard a word Ive said." Sano scowled down at him, squeezing his hand briefly. "Somethin's botherin' you and I'd like t' know about it before you get hold of a saw."
Kenshin chuckled faintly, unable to shake the thought of his tiny, skinny little self on a rampage with a rusty coping saw. Why can't my life be normal de gozaru kaaa?! he would be screaming... "I... I was just thinking de gozaru na."
"You? Thinking? Naw." Sano grinned at him. Kenshin scowled in return, and his face softened. "Seriously, though, what's up?"
Kenshin craned his neck to look up at him, his feet carrying him along the familiar path without need for direction. "How long do you want this to last de gozaru ka?" he asked seriously.
Sano blinked at him, eyes large. "Forever," he answered, without the slightest pause for thought. "Rest of my life and whatever's beyond, too. I thought you knew that."
"I-..." Kenshin considered him silently, wondering how to phrase this, then sighed. "The rest of your life de gozaru ka? Are you sure? Imagine, Sano... decades down the road, you'll be in your thirties and I'll be past forty de gozaru. By the time you can legally drink, I'll already be thirty de gozaru yo. You're willingly giving up the rest of your youth for a man who'll be dead a decade or more before you de gozaru na. And not only that, one who is more likely to commit suicide than roughly ninety percent of the world population. One whose shell is stained with the blood of uncounted souls. You know what you've been put through these past few months... do you want to endure that for the seven or more decades you have left to you de gozaru ka?"
"Kenshin..." Sano looked stunned, perplexed even, nearly tripping himself on the gravel. "Mataku... what brought this on? I thought we had worked this all through already... I know what I'm doing, and this is what I want."
Kenshin nodded, something inside him more relieved than he could ever express, but wordless anxiety still eating away at him. "I just... Sano, you know how much I love you de gozaru... Shikashi... I think that somehow, this has moved a little quickly between us de gozaru yo."
"It's been a long time!" Sano protested, almost laughingly. "We tiptoed around this for a while, y'know..."
"A long time?!" Kenshin laughed aloud, barely believing. "Sano, twenty years is a long time. Even one year is a long time de gozaru yo! But four months...?"
"All right, all right." Sano lifted his hands, indicating his concession. "But still... Kenshin, I already feel perfectly comfortable with you, so I-"
"That's the problem!" Kenshin interrupted, spinning in front of him, halting their walking with a palm to his chest. "Sano... We've been together for less than four months de gozaru. If our relationship has already gone beyond where it feels new... I don't know if..." He trailed off, unwilling to speak the sentiment that lingered at his lips.
"If it's gonna last?" Sano completed soberly. Kenshin nodded, unable to meet his eyes.
"Look..." Gentle fingers lifted his chin, and Kenshin nearly shied away from his touch, afraid of what this conversation would bring, regretting having started it in the first place... "Im not sure I ever felt like this was new between us, koishii," Sano whispered softly. "There was never... never any of those giddy butterfly things, y'know, that everyone always talks about...? I just always felt like it was right for me to be by your side like this, like... Oh, I dunno..." His cheeks were beginning to darken slowly with obvious embarassment. "Like... dammit, this is gonna sound really stupid."
"Like what?" Kenshin returned, eyes locked to Sano's dark ones, lips parted in anticipation for something he couldn't name.
"Like I was just finding what Id been looking for," he completed with a soft sigh, blushing deeply. "Like... like you were a part of me that I had been missing since I was born, or even before, and I wasnt so much meeting you for the first time as I was just... just finding you again."
Kenshins eyes stung with sudden tears, and he looked away, his heart fluttering in his chest, a warmth spreading through his veins. Why did he always have to say things like that... Things that were so unbearably sweet and yet came from his lips and his soul as the unshakable truth...?
"So... I guess it was just what we were both looking for," the boy said awkwardly. "I mean... you seem happy, the way things are... And I know I am..."
He nodded quickly, biting his lower lip and blinking tears away. "We both wanted to find security in each other de gozaru," he said softly. "Is that what you're saying de gozaru ka?"
"Yeah. I think it is." Sano squeezed the hand he still held tightly, then pressed it in one smooth motion to where his heart beat, beneath the heavy fabric of the winter jacket they had bought him last week. Then he smiled, and Kenshin couldnt help but smile back. "Lets get movin', huh? Im sure they've already got fifteen trees they want by now."
"Hai," Kenshin smiled, then pulled his beloved after him as the groves of Christmas trees enveloped them. Holidays were a time for reaffirming love and family, after all...
So, if all went as it seemed it would, this would be a wonderful Christmas.

" Nee-chan- You go that way, Ill go this way, Yahiko-kun can go that way, and we'll canvas! We'll canvas! And find the best tree on the lot! Remember-" Misao struck a pose- "It's gotta SPEAK OUT to you! It's gotta STAND OUT amongst all the other ratty ones! It's gotta be TALL! It's gotta be FLUFFY-"
"It's gotta fit in the living room," Yahiko interjected dryly.
Misao waved a distracted, gloved hand. "Yeah, yeahyeahyeah. So GO!"
Kaoru shook her head and set off, burying her face deep within her scarf and peering over the floating threads. Trees... Trees. So many scraggly trees. It really didn't matter if she looked or not. Inevitably, Misao would find this year's "dream tree", and refuse to accept any other. Then they would all buy it and go home. And 'tou-san would decorate it and sing and they would watch cheesy movies until New Years. It was how it went every year.
Well, Misao got more and more insistent on hanging the mistletoe everywhere to "trap" Shinimori-san. And she was less successful every year. Shinimori-san was no fool.
And the movie collection grew larger and larger. They were never necessarily Christmas movies... just silly things, like old musicals and comedy routines and made-for-TV sentimental movies. And 'tou-san would watch them and weep into his popcorn. Christmas... It was always a big production, this time of year.
Kaoru sighed, huddling deeper into her thin coat. She knew that 'tou-san did the best he could, but... there had to be a little extra money in the budget to get her a decent coat! She was going to catch a terrible cold in this thing, and there wouldn't be money for her hospital bills... Between everyone in the house, there were seven jobs being worked. Admittedly, all but one of them were part-time, but still! There never seemed to be any extra money...
All the money went into 'tou-san's medication. It was horribly expensive, and he took so much of it... Two pills a day... He did need it, but...
"You must be terribly cold, miss," a quiet, smooth voice observed.
Kaoru jumped, scrambling back over the frosted ground, eyes flying wide and searching wildly for whoever had addressed her. The voice had shocked her... There was never anyone in this tree farm when they came. Especially not someone who sounded so young...
Her gaze settled on a well-tailored grey suit, stark against the subdued evergreen of the trees that surrounded them. The strands of hair that floated along pale cheeks were the same color as the snow that carpeted the cold ground, eyes a sharp blue, the unnatural shade of contacts. He stood a few yards from her, arms crossed over his chest, head cocked to the side as though he were considering her very carefully.
Kaoru stood dumbly, staring silently at the handsome young man as his gaze took her in. There was such an air about him, one that shivered along her spine, the feeling of... difference... What was it, in those cold eyes, that captured her? It wasnt the fluttering of girlish infatuation... That feeling, she knew all too well.
It was almost like... recognition...
"Are you all right, miss?" he inquired softly, taking a step towards her, eyes narrowing slightly.
"O-oh! yes, I- I'm fine, sir, thank you, my coat's just fine..." She reddened in embarrassment at how her words fell over one another. It was bad enough that he must think her desperately poor. He didn't have to see her as an idiot too. Even if she was...
"That's good to hear," he smiled slowly, casing her figure with one cool glance. Kaoru shivered, taking a step back, the snow crunching beneath her booted heels. There was something in those eyes... something that...
"Kaoru-dono! There you are de gozaru- aah-"
She started at the familiar husky tone, whirling around to see her father's pale face poking out from between two evergreen trees. The feeling of relief that swept her was choking, and she merely stared at Kenshin for a few moments, blessing his existence for reasons she couldn't name.
"Oh, hello..." Kenshin said awkwardly, stumbling over his English. "Miss Kaoru, are you group known with each other?"
Kaoru furrowed her brow, then smiled faintly at the lapse in grammar. Her father must be flustered, for him to do that... He didnt show that English was his second language very often, but when he did, it was horribly glaring.
"Not really," she said soothingly. There was a dark worry on Kenshin's face, an expression she wasn't very used to. He was a very calm man, but when he was worried, he showed it dramatically... just like everything else about him, really. "We just met."
"Eric Snow," the blond man interjected, the undercurrent to his voice one that shivered along her spine. "I'm Eric Snow."
"Kenshin Himura," her father said softly. His amethyst eyes were narrowed to glittering slits, lips tight and white against his flushed skin. The suspicion that darkened his face was one that was eerily familiar... that winter so long ago... "This is my daughter Kaoru."
"Its good to meet you both," Eric said politely. With that, he turned his back to them and vanished into the rows of would-be Christmas trees.
Kaoru watched him go, dumbfounded. The prickles that bit at the back of her neck only intensified until she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped and turned to look into her father's glittering eyes, shivering in the cold and the unspecified fear that still coiled in her thin breast.
"Who was he?" Kenshin said softly, gazing into her eyes with a curious intensity.
"I dont know..." she said honestly, blinking. "I just now met him..." She furrowed her brow, staring worriedly into her father's darkened face. "Whats wrong, 'tou-san?"
Kenshin was silent for a long time, then smiled weakly, squeezing her shoulder and then backing away. "I once knew someone named Snow," he said with an obviously false lightness. "Thats all de gozaru."
"'Tou-san..."
"Let's go find Misao-dono!" he suggested brightly. "I'm sure she's already found us a tree de gozaru yo."
Kaoru stared after him, unable to identify the worry that was beginning to gnaw at her.
Something wasn't right.

The building was dark and quiet this time of night, no cars parked out front, no children running about excited about their lessons or adults conversing beside the front door. The atmosphere here was always a peaceful one, but never stifling.
Or so he had noticed, on his surveillance trips.
One gloved hand paused at the door, tracing the grain of the wood carefully. Outside, it appeared to be nothing more than a regular apartment building, a bit rundown, but nothing that indicated disrepair. Quite unassuming, for a structure that housed so many dark secrets.
He let the door creak open beneath his fingers, knowing that the intrusion would not go unnoticed, but not worried in the slightest. He came without intention of harm, after all, and the warrior who resided within was widely respected for his honor.
Unless, of course, the reports of his mental decline were true.
The click of his boot heels was softened by the worn carpet beneath them, his breathing echoing in the utter silence of the entry hall. It was a remarkably peaceful atmosphere, one he appreciated, considering the events that led to his visit.
In a simple gesture of respect, he slid out of his footwear before venturing onto the practice mats, inclining his head in a shallow bow to the fore. It was a comfortable feeling to be surrounded in the practices and decoration of his far-away homeland. He looked forward to the day when he could go back there... America was nothing compared to his Japan.
He simply stood by the wall, waiting for the dojos lone occupant to acknowledge his presence.
"What is it that you want, officer?" a cool voice murmured.
"The same thing you do," he answered with similar detachment. "The same thing brought us from Tokyo and Kyoto, you know that as well as I."
The black-haired man was silent to that, contemplating his crossed legs.
"Shinimori Aoshi," Saitou said quietly. "Commander of the elite forces of the Tokyo Police Department."
"Not anymore."
The response was sharp, cold, and Aoshi stood abruptly to stalk across the white mats, back to Saitou. He watched the young man silently in his pacings, arms crossed over the dark blue of his uniform. The man hadnt changed a bit from his days in Tokyo... not one muscle had lagged from inaction. If anything, he seemed twice as powerful as he had been ten years ago.
"It is hard to be a commander when your strike force is dead," Saitou mused aloud, head cocked to the side as he watched cautiously for a reaction.
Aoshis back stiffened visibly. Saitou bit back a smirk. It was just as well. Shinimori would be of no use to him if he retained that collected logic of his days in Tokyo. He had, after all, been a prodigy... So many praised his skills without knowing how being a commander at fifteen would affect him.
And it was them who had paid for it, and who would be paying for it long after they were retired. The force could have been something to respect with men like himself and Shinimori at the fore. Instead... They had become nothing more than the pawns of corrupt politicians.
Possibly the depth of evil... causing others to suffer just to fatten your paycheck.
"What was it they were called? The Oniwabanshu?" he mused, keeping one eye on the dangerously tense muscles along his lean back.
"You don't have any idea what brought me here," the man hissed, whirling to face him, eyes hard chunks of blue ice in a face that was as beautiful as it had been as a boy, if not even more. "You don't know the half of it, Saitou Hajime. So stay out."
Saitou blinked amber eyes in mild surprise. "Shinimori... Its not like you to get so riled up..." he observed. "One would think that such a fire burning in you would have brought your revenge about so much faster than this."
Aoshi glared at him venomously, saying nothing.
"Surely, living beneath the Battousai all these years, allowing him to rent from you... You must have had some sort of plan." Saitou moved across the mats soundlessly, under the pretense of examining a hanging ink painting. "He must be no match for you in his current state."
"He has no idea who I am in his current state."
Saitou paused, then cast a glance over his shoulder. "Curious he recognized me, then," he said dryly.
Aoshi whirled about to meet his gaze, eyes unnaturally bright, nearly crazed. "Youve made contact with Battousai?" he hissed, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "How? When?"
Saitou dismissed his questions with the wave of one hand. "That's not important. All that is important is that this task be carried out." His eyes bored into Aoshis. "It's impossible to make a count of the innocent lives that were ended by his hand, to measure the blood that stains him. Any interpretation of justice demands he be made to answer to his actions."
Aoshi said nothing, but looked to the floor as though avoiding his gaze. Saitou eyed him silently, then felt his thin lips twist in a smirk.
"Perhaps there is something else that holds you back...?" he insinuated slyly.
Aoshi merely padded up to the door hidden artfully in one wall, seeming to ignore him.
"Perhaps a little girl...?"
Saitou smothered a nasty chuckle, noticing how his shoulders drew up and shuddered just before the door closed behind him.
"I supposed my purpose has been met here... at least for now," he observed aloud, kneeling to slide back into his shoes before leaving.

The flickering of the computer screen was the only light in the room as Aoshi closed the door to his office behind him. It was gratifyingly silent in the room, save for the slight buzzing of the monitor.
The desk was spotless, all papers ordered in their respective folders and placed in their respective drawers. Newspaper clippings, Internet printouts, pictures... All things he could gather to remind him. Because... without that tether... he would go mad.
If he hadn't gone mad already.
It had been one thing to wish for his revenge. He could have lived with that, taken care of it easily. It was true that Battousai never would have suspected him.
He still remembered that day, when hed first met with the man who so desperately wanted to rent the spare apartment above his dojo. The stilted English he'd heard over the phone had led him to the absolute knowledge that the applicant was a Nihonjin, like himself. But in meeting the man... seeing the shock of red hair... at first, he'd thought he'd been wrong.
But then... the violet eyes... the pale skin... that scar...
He'd been thrown by the horizontal slash that had made it a cross. Even then, he had doubted what he had been so sure of. But when the man showed absolutely no sign of recognizing him... only smiled with that genial cheer... He'd had no idea what to think.
But he was Battousai. He had to be Battousai.
The strike force he had commanded had been formed to track down that infamous assassin. Everyone on the force had been sure that their success was only weeks away.
And then they had all been slaughtered.
It had come in the form of three snipers, all government operatives, he was to learn later. Government operatives assigned to protect Battousai. To protect him because he was in the employ of the government itself.
It had been that day that a bright new recruit had been escorting them to their briefing. He'd been enthusiastically showing them pictures of his baby in the taxi. And as he had lain dying on the sidewalk, hed caught Aoshis sleeve and begged her to take care of his baby girl. Her mother had died in childbirth, he'd said. She had no one left in the world, he'd said.
And he had no one left either. And no stomach to stay under a government that would deceive and kill brave souls who dedicated themselves to the protection of others just to save their political careers.
So hed taken the girl, resigned, and come to America. America, where Battousai had been sent to live out his life. The man who had caused the death of his comrades, and the girl's father. And he'd given her to the best orphanage he could find, knowing that a life dedicated to revenge was not one a child should grow up amidst. Not a child with those bright laughing eyes.
That little girl he had saved, who would be adopted by Himura Battousai.
"Misao..." Aoshi whispered, staring blankly at his latest tally of the teaching profit.
How could he take Battousai away from her...?

The tree was beautiful.
Kenshin leaned against the door to his and Sano's bedroom, watching the lights sparkle in the darkened living room. The girls had already gone to bed, and Yahiko had been persuaded fifteen minutes ago that he needed a few hours of rest if he was to actually get up in the morning. Sano was washing dishes for him, the darling.
The chill that had clutched him that morning had not yet fled his heart, the trembling worry still racing through his blood. Those eyes... no matter how altered they were with either physical surgery or enhancing contacts, he knew them nevertheless. He would never forget those eyes, that smirk... Though it was on a bigger face now, that chilling, crazed glare would always remain the same.
It was strange how eyes that looked almost the exact same could wear so different expressions.
Kenshin entered the bedroom, pulling the top drawer of his dresser open. The mess of papers and books there was carefully pushed aside, and trembling fingers pulled a faded photograph from the darkness.
His fingertips smoothed over the pale face framed by luxurious black hair, sly and knowing eyes winking at the camera.
"Tori," he whispered quietly, the familiar pain lancing through his heart again.