"Tori..."
Kenshin contemplated the photograph, wistful memory clouding his vision. She had indeed been a beautiful woman... inside and out. A beauty that was now lost to this world.
He still remembered those days so well, the film of ten years not interfering in the clarity of his mind's eye in the slightest. And the pain had never dulled. It still ached deep within his heart whenever he had cause to remember her, the first kind face he had seen in America, the first person he could call a friend in all of his existence to that point. Admittedly, the young woman had been somewhat of an enigma to him while she had lived, and his perception of her was little clearer in hindsight. But no matter how she had confused him and still did, he owed her his life, his happiness... He wouldn't be who he was today without Tori.
The government of Japan had sent him to America soon after taking him into custody, proclaiming the action to be in the interest of his own safety. But they refused to simply set him free in the vast, alien world of the West. They'd promised him a contact... and that agent had been a beautiful young woman with coal-black eyes and luxurious long hair.
How she had come into communication with the Japanese government was a part of her past she hadn't deigned to divulge.
All they had given him was an address and the name "Tori Snow". When that address had been that of a house of ill repute, he'd had absolutely no idea what was going on, what on Earth he was supposed to do here. It had explained the reaction of the taxi driver, though. He had entered so bewildered, so confused, that every girl in the room had smiled and giggled. But when he had asked for her, and explained his business, Tori had become all business, sending her current "client" away and leading him upstairs.
She had taken her charge extremely seriously, schooling him every day in the things he would need to know for his citizenship test, quizzing him on his English, making sure he was ready to live in a world he had never seen before. Every morning, when the "traffic" was the least, he would meet her there in her loft and they would work. And work... and work.
It had been sometime within those months that Tori's manner towards him had begun to change. She had always been kind, and yet she'd remained aloof and distant in the early days. Perhaps it had been his childlike nature, perhaps the simple fact that he was someone in her life not expecting her to serve his whim. All he knew was that when his visa was in danger of being reviewed, with no background for the government to check, she had been quick to propose a marriage to protect his legal status.
And he hadn't been slow to accept.
It had been at the hasty marriage ceremony that he had met Tori's only family- a twelve-year-old boy with pitch-black hair and crazed eyes. Eric was already in a gang by that age, dealing illegal drugs on the side, and a constant source of worry to his older sister, with no parents to speak of. Kenshin had known from the start that Eric hated him, and probably always would. He was, after all, invading in their relationship... and he had gotten the distinct impression that the boy would not take well to that. As far as Eric had been concerned, Tori was his, and no other man would touch her. He claimed his drug sales were an attempt to save money to buy her out of prostitution, to "save" his elder sister.
To have her for his own.
He had voiced these concerns to Tori, but she had shushed them away, reassuring him that Eric was only trying to be a man before his time. She had promised that everything would turn out fine.
It was only a sad irony now, those soothing words.
If only the boy had known his rabid jealousy came to be baseless... The memory of the wedding night was a humiliating one, no matter how he looked at it. He had possessed absolutely no clue as to what he was supposed to be doing, and Tori, because of her "profession", of course knew far too much. It just hadn't gone right at all...
Perhaps in part because of that fiasco, the attempt at a romance had fallen flat on its proverbial face.
But Tori had refused to desert him. She had stayed right there, helping him study, keeping him company, stroking his hair when he had nightmares about things he could barely remember... She had been his mother, his big sister, his friend... And he had taken care of her the best he could. He'd cooked for her, cleaned up her room when she didn't have customers, bolstered her ego after... "work"... They had been there for each other, at a time when both had just needed someone to lean on.
Disaster had struck innocently at first. They had scheduled a last minute study session before he went to take the citizenship test the next day, and it had been then that Eric had demanded Tori go with him to a movie. She had turned him down, of course, telling him they could go anytime and Kenshin's test was more important.
The assassins had come that night.
He had been their target; he'd known that for sure. But Tori had taken the knife for him, staying true to her promise to look after him, as she had gasped in her dying breaths. With her last vestige of strength, she'd dragged the edge of the blade across his cheek, smiling through the blood that stained her lips, whispering that if he should see any reminder for the rest of his life, she'd rather it be one of her love for him- as a man, as a friend, as the child she would never have.
It hadn't been necessary... He would never forget her, and hed begged her to understand that as she lay dying in his arms. It was her influence that had made him the man he was today... and though he was by no means perfect, he was worlds better than whoever he had been in Japan.
Her influence, and Shishou's.
It had been Eric, at the tree farm. Eric Snow, brother to Tori Snow, the boy who was technically his brother-in-law still...
A man he wanted nowhere him again.
Nowhere near his daughters.
"Kenshin?"
He jumped, head snapping up from contemplating the photo, then relaxed almost immediately as his eyes met Sano's dark ones. "Are you done with the dishes de gozaru ka?" he inquired lightly, pushing up from the mattress and returning the treasured picture to the drawer.
"Yeah, yeah... What were y'lookin at?" Sano plopped down onto the bed, bouncing across to his side of the mattress and stretching out languorously with a blissful sigh.
Kenshin let his eyes wander over the teenager's sprawled figure, trying to subdue a smile. He looked so comfortable, so happy...
He was so beautiful.
"Just some old things," he said softly, resolving to tell Sano all this later. It might not amount to anything, after all... It would do no good to spread panic when he was perfectly capable of taking care of the girls if need be. He had done it before, he could do it again.
Christmas was only a week away. He would tell Sano after then.
He sat lightly beside his lover, then stretched out to curl up against his side. Sano murmured happily and cuddled him tightly to his chest, petting his hair fondly. Kenshin closed his eyes with a soft sigh, relaxing into his familiar arms.
It was times like these when he was sure nothing could ever happen to them.

*** *** ***

"The tree looks lovely," a familiar voice commented.
Kaoru started up from her English book, then coughed to regain her composure. "We decorated it yesterday," she explained. "It's the last thing we do, usually."
"I wish my apartment was big enough for such a nice tree..." Meg pouted, setting her bag down on the counter. "I can only get poor little twigs."
Kaoru blinked, then contemplated her book for a few moments while the dark-haired girl puttered about, making sure 'tou-san's pills and things were in order.
"Do you- uh..."
Meg's onyx eyes fell on her, bright with sly interest.
"Do you want to come for Christmas?" Kaoru blurted out, feeling her cheeks burning. "I'm sure 'tou-san wouldnt mind, and everyone should have somewhere to go for Christmas... uhm..."
There was a throaty chuckle, and Kaoru peered up at her almost fearfully. Meg smiled at her, eyes sparkling.
"Of course I'll come!" she chuckled, one delicate white hand patting her arm. "Would I pass up such a chance? I'm more intelligent than that, Kaoru-chan!"
A chance for what...? Kaoru considered asking her that, but in her long indecision, Meg stretched and picked up her bag again.
"I have to get back to the hospital," she informed, smiling obliquely. "Walk me to the door?"
Kaoru blinked in bewilderment, but stood obediently and followed the dark-haired nurse to the front door. There was silence but for the squeak of the floorboards beneath her feet, the crinkling of the rug...
"Well, I'll see you tommor-"
"Oh, look! Mistletoe!"
The sudden, unexpected kiss did so much more than take her breath away; it knocked her in the chest, crumpling her lungs and halting her heartbeat, exploding beneath her breastbone and sending so many stinging flares of heat along each nerve. It was fear as much as it was enjoyment, if not more, Misao's accusation ringing through the blood pounding in her eardrums- You think she's blazin' hot- What was happening here?! Like it was nothing out of the ordinary, just to lean down and take her lips and running delicate fingertips through her hair, very lightly, just little touches, nothing more than tiny, sly caresses that seemed to know and delight in the absolute havoc they were causing...
And when Meg drew back from her, after what seemed like both an hour and no time at all, Kaoru could do nothing but stand there and stare, lips still parted, heart thudding so violently it seemed it would burst from her breast and run away. The coal black eyes surveyed her, then the long eyelashes fluttered and she turned to the door.
"M-Meg..." She wasn't sure if the plaintive whisper even came out, her burning eyes locked to the slender back as it sashayed out her front door. She continued to stare after her long after the walnut door had clunked shut.

*** *** ***

The letter had come that morning.
He had ignored it until he had finished with the classes for that day, the last before winter break. It hadn't had a return address, and the envelope had been typed, so it hadn't seemed important at the time.
But it had weighed upon his mind more and more as the hours passed, and never being one to ignore his intuition, it had been the first matter attended to after the last student had straggled out his door.
The words themselves had been more than mildly worrying. And the very intention of the note had been a warning, and for anyone to be warning him anonymously about...him...
It had worried him all the more. And he didn't like being worried.
So, since he had vacation, and nothing better to do with his time, he had decided to eradicate the source of the worry. Namely, by observing the situation himself. Nothing escaped his eye, after all.
So he knocked on the door and waited patiently.
It was hard to find a student who had more in his brain than so much mush. So if it meant he had to watch after this one, then no one was touching his bakadeshi. Not while he lived.

*** *** ***

The room was stark and bare, darkened and silent as the snow fell innocently outside the loft window, blanketing the asphalt below. It was a total absence of sensation or stimulation of any kind...
He lay on his back, skin bared to the silk sheets, staring blankly at the ceiling. He couldn't even hear his own breathing, the quiet intake of air and exhaling through his thin, parted lips. There was nothing, nothing at all, nothing to distract him, nothing to take his attention away from whatever it was he wanted to think about...
And now... what he wanted to think about, more than anything...
His breathing roughened, but only a little. He still remembered those eyes, so gentle and yet so sensuous at the same time... The long, silken hair she had so often let him braid and toy with to his heart's delight as a small boy... She had let him sleep curled up next to her, head pillowed on her ample breasts, up until he got his first erection...
She had been frightened... and there had been something delicious in that fear, something that aroused him even in recollection. She hadn't understood what she had done to cause it. He had tried to explain how she made him feel, but she had refused to hear a word of it.
It was pure biology that made them siblings. It was fate that made them soulmates. He was sure of it.
He had been making headway, until that man had intruded. It had been so frustrating, that she would be willing to give herself to a man who barely looked or acted like a man, that daft redheaded faggot. They had been married, and she had ignored his protests.
It had been his fault. If he hadn't been in the way, he wouldn't have had to take out that contract on his head. And if he hadn't had her so under his sway, she wouldn't have taken the knife for him. It was all his fault she had died.
He'd spent those ten years planning his revenge. He'd wanted to hurt him as badly as he'd hurt him, all that time ago.
But in all his wildest dreams, he'd never imagined a chance as sweet as this.
He'd partnered with the Key Club because he'd known the man worked there. He'd encouraged his paranoid fantasies, knowing it would only help him. Anything that would hurt Himura, anything at all... And he'd kept tabs on him through his connections at the hospital, with Jim on the board. He'd even managed to arrange an early review by the Department of Children or whatever they were called now. But through all his careful planning, he'd never expected...
Himura had taken his sister away. And now he was going to take her back.

*** *** ***

The cell phone was cold in his hand, vibrating as it rang, the tone repeating forlornly, over and over and over and over and-
"Hello?"
"Oh! Hi, Tony?" Joe started from where he had been sitting on the sidewalk and sprang up. Apparently he did have reception here! "Hey, it's Joe. Are you gonna come down?" His voice shook a little, and he winced. It wasn't gonna do him any good to sound like a schoolgirl asking to be tutored by her crush. He was just inviting him to a friendly game of basketball at the Y. A little one on one. That was all. Not a big deal.
"Oh... I am coming, still. I got caught up in cleaning out the church basement."
Joe grinned to himself. That was Anthony for you. Everybody's typical Boy Scout. "'Kay, then. I'll see you in a little while...?"
"I'm on my way now." The familiar voice blended into static for half a second or so, and Joe winced away from the phone. "I'm on my cell, Joe. I'll be there in a few minutes." With a harsh beep, the connection was cut, and a dial tone sounded in his ear.
The blond shrugged and turned off his own cell, scuffing one sneaker over the cold cement. It was getting cold... it was December, after all. Almost Christmas.
Joe patted the bulge in his coat pocket, a grin pulling at his lips. Tony was gonna love his present, he really was. It had taken a crapload of work to figure out what he would like, but really, it had been there, staring him in the face! Great presents were always obvious, after all.
He merely paced back and forth, that silly grin widening his face, until headlights swept over him and the familiar truck pulled to a stop in the front row of parking spaces. The driver's side door swung open, then closed with a whoosh.
"Hey!" he called cheerily, loping over to Tony's truck with a bright grin on his face. "Glad you could make it in time, man!" He clapped one gloved hand onto the dark-haired boy's shoulder, pulling him eagerly over to the sidewalk. Anthony was stoically silent, but acquiesced to being dragged across the asphalt.
"You seem excited," he observed quietly.
Joe grinned at his best friend, then let him go and dug into his coat pocket with gloved fingers. Once he managed to get his bulky gloves around the messily wrapped package, he yanked it free and presented it with a goofy smile.
The surprise in Anthony's dark eyes was worth all the trouble. He merely stared at the package for a long moment, then blinked into his eyes, the uncertain shining in his own contagious enough to set Joe smiling. "You... that's for me...?" he asked softly.
"Yup!" Joe said proudly, thrusting it at him again. "Merry Christmas, Tony!"
Anthony took the present from him, blinked at him once more, then opened it carefully, pulling the tape from the wrapping paper and delicately sliding the bow aside. Joe watched impatiently, bouncing on his heels.
"A book...? Joe, that's unlike you." There was a gentle humor in his voice, and Anthony smiled slightly up at him.
"Yeah! It's a buncha' poems by that Cummings guy you were talking about." Joe stabbed a finger at the title of the thin book. "You seemed t' really like him an' all, so-"
"Thank you," Anthony interrupted, smiling a little more. "Thank you, Joe. This means a lot. I- I didn't get you anything, though..."
"'S okay!" Joe shrugged. "I wasn't expecting anything. You wanna go in and-"
"Wait."
He jumped and turned back.
There was a curious intensity in Anthony's dark eyes, something he had never seen there before. It was dark and bright at the same time, an anxiety, a fear, and yet... anticipation...
"Do you know about the plan?" he asked quietly.
"The wha'...?" Joe blinked at him, not understanding the look on his face, the frightening severity in those dark orbs...
"Then this is my present to you," Anthony said calmly. "The plan. This'll save your life someday soon, Joe. So listen well."

*** *** ***

The pure snow was dotting his long black hair, the tangled locks that fell carelessly in his face, shading pale skin and sharp blue eyes. When it all melted, he was going to be absolutely soaked...
Kelsey clucked in the back of his throat and brushed a gloved hand over Katsu's head, pushing the snowflakes away and pulling his hair out of his face. "You're like a little kid!" he scolded, fingers falling in a light cuff on his boyfriend's ear. "You'll catch your death one day, and then where will I be, hmm?"
Katsu blinked at him apologetically, then scratched at the back of his neck and scuffed one boot over the snow-covered sidewalk. "Sorry, Kelsey," he muttered obligingly. "I'll be more careful."
He smiled and tossed his hair, taking care to not alter the way his thin coat fell. "Good. Now, I have to get inside before I freeze to death, poor frail me." Kelsey batted his eyelashes and waited expectantly.
Katsu blinked, then smiled a little shyly and kissed him firmly. Kelsey found his fingers curling into the fabric that hung from his winter coat, eyes fluttering closed, Katsu's long hair tickling his cold cheek, and yet... warm...
"G'night... I'll bring your present by tomorrow," Katsu promised.
Kelsey watched him go back to the car, shivering in the winter's night air, the space in his heart he was so accustomed to by now feeling all that much wider, that much more painful, aching and stabbing into him without mercy.

*** *** ***

The figures added up nicely.
No matter which way he looked at it, the plan was flawless. There was nothing that would seem the least bit suspicious until the very moment it would be carried out... and that was only the beginning. There would be nothing to connect any of it back to him until he stood triumphant.
The supply of iron was right were it needed to be. The money was coming in perfectly, thanks to Snow. He would be the last appendage to cut away... He seemed so oblivious to everything! A reliable source of revenue even after he knew the full extent of what it would be used for.
Well, not the full extent. He could trust no one to know the full extent.
After all his planning... it was finally happening.
And no one would be able to stand in his way.
"Mr. Sherman?"
Mack raised his eyes from the paper, then cocked an eyebrow at the boy who stood in the door, typical smile fixed on his delicate features. "Yes, Sydney, what is it?" he asked patiently.
"It's eight o' clock, Mr. Sherman," he continued, the cordial expression not breaking in the slightest, as it never did. "Shall I call the others for the meeting?"
"No, Sydney..." Mack considered that for a few moments, tapping his pencil on the kitchen table. "No, Sydney. That won't be necessary for tonight."
Sydney nodded and vanished from the door.
He watched after him for a moment, then shook his head and returned to contemplating the papers. Sydney still unnerved him, even after all the time the boy had lived with him. Somewhere inside him still lived the little boy who'd run from the burning house covered with blood and screaming, eyes wild and unseeing... the killer still lived there within his mind. And it was for that he would be useful.
Sydney would always see the man who had rescued him from an abusive brother as his benefactor. The only way to live and prosper was to be strong, stronger than those who opposed you. The weak would die, the strong would live. That was the mantra the boy had been fed ever since that night. And it was that he would live and die by.
His own words...
The words the army had taught him. You had to be strong to live. And he had lived, while those others hadn't... and those who had court-martialed him never would have lived through that. Those who didn't fight were weak, were corrupt.
Weak... and they didn't deserve to live, or to dictate the lives of others.
One finger absentmindedly traced the long scar that ran the length of his jaw, one of many that served to remind him of that injustice, that travesty of so long ago. So very long ago...
But as they said, revenge was a dish best served cold.
And his would be sweet.
"Mr. Sherman..."
Mack pushed back from the table slightly, enough to allow the girl to settle down into his lap where she liked to sit best. One manicured hand stroked over his chest while her head laid on his shoulder, long dark hair spilling over his back.
"Yes, Aimee?" he asked softly, sliding an arm around her thin waist.
"Have you taken your inhaler this evening?" she queried. "You've been doing a lot of heavy work... you need to take care of yourself, not just worry about us..."
Mack closed his eyes and restrained a smirk. "Yes, I have. Don't you worry... You and Sydney take very good care of me. So I'm going to take care of you in return, make sure you get everything you deserve." Everything she deserved... Everything she wanted... If it served him.
The girl purred and snuggled into him, and Mack only smiled.
The day would come...
And that day wasn't very far away.

*** *** ***