Title: I'll Be Home For Christmas

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: AU. Set in the 1990's, in a large city.

Couple: YAHIKO x TSUBAME

Disclaimer: Wish I may, wish I might! Please give me Kenshin tonight! :::voice from above answers, "In your dreams, girlie!"::: Oh, well, you heard the man upstairs. No deal...

Author's Notes: Shorter than the first three, but still very good!

I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

The paper that laid over the corpse's face was dated December 24th, 1998, but it was really the twenty-fifth. The deceased wore raunchy, skimpy clothes, all black with silver trimming and gray zippers. Oh, she must have only been around ten years old. Judging on the thick coat of plaster make-up on her soft face, her occupation was more risqué than most. Knock-off pearls were strung around her neck. Her bronze hair had been roughly chopped off at her shoulders. The temperature of her body suggested that she had slept all night in the blackening city snow. Tragically, she wasn't ever going to awake.

He had stumbled upon her during the early morning. Like some fairytale princess, she laid in the deserted children's park, underneath the neon-yellow slide. First thing he did was remove the newspaper that covered her tired face. Her lips, chapped and blue, were parted slightly, as if she was still breathing. But she wasn't... He had checked. At first she seemed like she was sleeping. But her blue fingertips suggested something else...

He just sat next to her, watching her with amount of disgust and curiosity. This was his fate. He was a homeless pick-pocket and this was his fate. And the fate of every other parentless child in this city's pathetic streets.

The boy's plastic wristwatch was broken, but he could still hear the minutes tick by...

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

"I'm Yahiko," he told her, running a sandy hand through his ratty, ebony hair. It ruffled under his grimy hands. Somewhere, far away, a gunshot rang out. But he didn't acknowledge it... "My dad died before I was born. My mom died only a couple years ago. Granny passed away too. When the neighbors told me that, I didn't understand what 'passed away' meant. But they never explained. They took me in. And I lived with them 'til I turned nine - I'm twelve, y'know - and when I asked, 'When's Granny coming home?' they told me that she was never coming back..."

He sighed, lightly brushing the dead girl's hands. They were cold and clammy.

"'Passed away' means never coming back, but I didn't know that when I was six," he sniffed, eyes watering. "For three years I thought her and mommy and even dad was coming home..."

He slumped down, curling up on the ground, head on her shoulder. "I thought... they'd come home...," he whimpered, burying his face in her cold skin. And he cried.

Years of repressed tears, poured on to the skin of a dead child. The warm, salty streams streamed from his brown eyes and on to pale, blue skin. The painful liquid cleansed the departed soul's husk. And the snow began falling, covering them both in the depressing froth of this city....

"I want to spend Christmas with them!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME? GRANNY...! MOM...! DAD...! WHY CAN'T WE SPEND CHRISTMAS TOGETHER? WHY - DID - YOU - LEAVE - ME - ALONE?"

He stood up, still sobbing. "Why...? Why...? WHY...?"

Then the broken heel of the girl's trashy pump caught his eye. His gaze was pulled up to her face. Peaceful, yet strained. Calm, yet miserable...

He knelt beside her and whispered, "Do you miss your folks too? Did they die too? I bet you wanted to spend Christmas Eve singing carols and hanging stockings and junk like that... 'Bet you never thought that you'd be here, dead in the stupid snow..." Tears dropped on to the cold girl's face.

"I can understand your wretchedness, kid," he told her, brushing her hair out of her closed, painted eyes.

Digging in his pockets, he pulled out the only thing he had on his person: A stick of mint chewing gum. Popping it in his mouth, he gnawed it into a sticky mess. Then he silently pulled it from his mouth and began to roll it in his hands. A soft, warm wad of gum laid in his palm when he stopped rolling.

Taking one long look at her face, he pressed the gum into her left hand and then curled the hand into a fist.

"That's all I have," he muttered. "Merry Christmas, from one brat to another."

I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

"What's your name?" he wondered, drying his swollen eyes. The red, puffy orbs glanced at the metal bracelet on her wrist.

It was made to look like silver, but was really just some old, twisted aluminum. Carved into the pliable solid was the inscription "TSUBAME."

"Tsubame...," he whispered, stroking her lips with chilled fingers. "Is that your name?"

Silence...

"I'll remember that..."

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

The paper that laid over the corpse's face was dated December 24th, 1998, but it was really the twenty-fifth. The deceased wore raunchy, skimpy clothes, all black with silver trimming and gray zippers. Oh, she must have only been around ten years old. Judging on the thick coat of plaster make- up on her soft face, her occupation was more risqué than most. Knock-off pearls were strung around her neck. Her bronze hair had been roughly chopped off at her shoulders. The temperature of her body suggested that she had slept all night in the blackening city snow. In fact, the only warmth that radiated from the limp body was a ball of used gum in her hand. Beside her, a young boy sat.

On his right hand was a broken watch and his left hand was a bracelet, engraved with a forgotten name.

If.. only..in..my...dre...ams...