Author's note:

Before you read on, know two things: 1) Things aren't always what they seem, and 2) Sanosuke's thoughts and feelings don't necessarily reflect my own.

11
The Way Back

"Sano, are you an orphan?"

"Huh?" I murmured groggily, not opening my eyes. "What? Orphan?"

"Yes," Shino said, chuckling quietly. I felt her jaw move against my shoulder, her hair tickling my bare skin. "Are you?"

"Am I an orphan? Ah, no. Not exactly."

"Not exactly?"

"No…" I opened my eyes, squinting in morning sunlight I wasn't quite ready for. "I left home when I was really young. But I had parents. And a sister. And a brother born while I was gone."

I glanced at her, blinking at me where she lay on my shoulder. "Oh. From the way you spoke about Kenshin and your friends, I thought maybe they were all you had."

"Not really. I just kind of miss them the most is all," I said, sending sheepish, silent apologies to Sekiho army and my dad. But truth was truth. "I left my family to join an army. That army was important to me too. I was…one of the only survivors of it. After that, all I really had were some good buddies I'd meet in and out of the gambling houses, but never any real family-type deal until Kenshin and Jou-chan came along."

"Have you seen your real family since?"

"No…not in a long time."

She paused a moment, as if she didn't some note in my tone. "Are they…still around?"

I wasn't sure how to answer. My father and siblings were still alive, they were just in the other world.

She took my hesitation to mean no.

"Sano, you've lost three families?" she whispered, her face filled with sorrow.

That gave me pause. "I…I guess I have," I said quietly, though maybe it wasn't exactly true. Or maybe it was…from a certain point of view.

Her eyes filled, but I couldn't have her crying for me. I turned on my side and crushed her closer. "Don't do that," I said, pressing my forehead against hers. "Sure I miss them. Every single one, but, I was blessed to know them at all, you know?" I said, thinking back to the things Rei-baba liked to say about love and loss. "Besides, I've got you with me now, right?"

Her smile came back. "What were your brother and sister's names, Sano?" she wanted to know.

The images of my doting sister and the little brother she'd over-protected floated to mind. "Outa and Uki," I murmured.

She smiled slightly. "Their names sounds almost as silly with 'Sagara' as yours does," she teased lightly.

"Why you little--" I tightened my arms around her, I squeezed her so hard in mock punishment for the remark that she laughed. "Well, maybe, but their name wasn't Sagara. It was Higashidani. I took my name from the captain of my army. Sagara Sozo."

"How old are you?" she asked then.

I thought a second, counting. It had been a while since I actually observed my own birthday. "Twenty-four."

"What!" She didn't exactly shout, but the force of the surprise from her was enough to make me jump.

I tried to keep a straight face, but the look of utter incredulity on her face was funny beyond words. "What, what? How old do I look?"

"I…I thought you were my age…maybe older," she stammered

I burst out laughing, lying back and pulling her with me to lie across my chest. Well, it was funny, not just because she had only just now found out I was a handful of years younger than her. No, this was funny because even though we were lying out in the woods together, mostly unclothed and had pledged an intimate possession of each other the night before, and she was only just now finding out how little she knew about me.

"It's not hard to look older than you, Shiden-me," I told her, holding her gently against me and looking up into still slightly-dazed plum-colored eyes. "And don't worry. I've been around, had plenty of experiences. You're not quite a cradle-robber."

She lowered her head, shaking with laughter, hers a sweet and throaty sound.

I was perfectly comfortable to spend the rest of the day exactly where I was, there on the ground with her, but there kind of were couple of people who were worried and waiting for us. So by midmorning we got up.

Shino let me tie her clothes together again. She smiled, and I could almost hear an unsaid remark about a "mother hen streak" Kenshin had accused me of a time or two, but it didn't matter what either that silly rurouni or his equally silly twin thought. A man has to take care of his own.

Our reception at Rei-baba's wasn't that bad…at first. Kaoru was so relieved to see the both of us I thought he might faint for a moment. I guess he just hadn't known me long enough yet to know what I was usually more than capable of doing the things I said I would do, but it was a little irksome all the same that he had ever doubted he wouldn't see either of us again.

Shino was made a little nervous by Rei-baba, who had the charming personality traits of being blunt, foul-mouthed, and scrutinizing. Still, the old lady seemed to find Shino acceptable, whatever "acceptable" might in her mad old book, and backed off a bit, deciding to let the poor girl get used to the idea of having to stay in a very crowded, very small hut for the time being.

Then we made the mistake of telling the story of what happened. I wondered if I'd just left things unsaid, if they might have just came to his own conclusions and we could have left it at that, but no, I had to go and tell the truth.

Kaoru, propped up and holding a hand gingerly over his bandaged abdomen, and that infuriating old hag had the gall to laugh at me for my method of rescuing Shino.

"You bought her?" Kaoru asked when he could get a breath. "You actually bought her? With money?"

You know…I don't think Jou-chan would have laughed like that. She might have thought it was romantic or something. I don't know. But I do know that I was so surprised by the unexpected reaction that anger was slow to come.

But it did come. "Hey, shut up! It was your idea!"

"His idea?" Rei-baba had said, messing around with her workbench. She had a slanted, amused look on her face that reminded me so much of Saito it only irritated me more.

"Yeah! That stuff he said about the law and Shino being upset if I was arrested or whatever. It was a legal deal, wasn't it? The law's on my side now, right?"

The herb hag just rolled her eyes, that look still in place. I very loudly and very thoroughly damned them both to hell and, careful not to look at Shino, I stalked out of the hut. My ears were burning, and I think everyone was a bit surprised from my outburst judging by the silence that followed me.

I walked a little ways into the forest, wondering exactly why their teasing had made me so angry. But after a little thinking, I found the answer very simple: I was trying not to repeat history.

I'd never really had to be subject to the law if I didn't want. In fact, I went out of my way not to be. Anyone who's had three conversations with me knows how I feel about the government and their nonsense. I had not so much been chased out of Japan as I had simply left, by my own choice, mostly not wanting to bring trouble to those I cared about.

And still, somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to fix it so I wouldn't have to be in the same position again. I wanted to stay right where I was this time. Shino would have followed me, I think, if I asked her to. It wasn't exactly if the little, homeless, wandering girl had anything tying her down, unless feeding little clutches of dispossessed kids like "Dai-sama" and his group in every town she walked through counted. But I just didn't want to…

Also, even though I was pissed off at both of them at the moment, I liked Rei-baba and Kaoru. The old lady, for all her rough edges, had been pretty good to me. She worked me like a dog, but she paid me well. She was a little condescending, but I had a feeling that was just her way of being affectionate. She liked me. Had to, or else she wouldn't be helping me as much, right?

And Kaoru was steadily becoming a good friend when he wasn't being a jerk like now.

Well, maybe I was too hard on them. They didn't know how I felt, not really. Neither of them really knew much about me at all…

I felt a slender little arm snake around my waist and looked down to see a pair of sweet purple eyes and an equally sweet smile. I slipped my arm around her shoulders and pressed my nose into her hair. It had to be some kind of witchcraft or something for someone to smell so good… As always just being near her and breathing her in made me feel so much better.

I allowed her to coax me back to the hut, I saw Kaoru, pushing himself to sit up more when he saw me come back in.

"Sanosuke, I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I was really rude. Please accept my apology."

He looked sincere enough, abashed even, so I decided to forgive him. I slipped up the same way enough times myself.

I glanced over at the workbench to see what Rei-baba was doing, and found her leaning against it with her arms crossed over her chest. But her eyes were a little softer when she looked at me. The closest, I knew, that she would ever get to apologizing herself.

Oh, well. It was a start.

I'd just come back from the forest with the cherry wood Rei-baba'd asked me to cut for her to hear a loud argument followed by a lot of scraping and crashing sounds.

I dropped the wood and hurried inside to a sight that made a memory that to this day makes me laugh when I think of it.

My shy little Shino was behind one of the tall European tables Rei-baba kept in her house for work surfaces. The old lady herself was on the other side, holding a length of blue fabric over one of her arms. They faced each other, both red faced and determined-looking until Shino saw me.

Dashing around the side of the table while Rei was distracted by my presence, she threw herself at me. I barely had time to reach out and catch her before she latched on. "Don't make me, don't make me!" she said, forehead pressed to my chest, but there was a note of strained laughter in her voice. She wasn't afraid or anything. More like desperately exasperated.

I looked at Kaoru, still confined to bed, though it looked like he'd been trying to rise from it just now, then back to Rei-baba, who was glowering at Shino's back. "What are you guys doing to her?"

"I'm not doing anything, Sano," Kaoru said dryly, edging himself back onto Rei-baba's stuffed pillows. "But I believe Rei-baba was trying to get Shino wear that kimono, and Shino doesn't want to."

Rei-baba, who was indeed holding a kimono on her arm, placed it on the table. It was a bit faded, and had to look better than what she was wearing now. "Girl's more stubborn than you are," the old lady griped, as if it was somehow my fault.

"Hey, Shiden," I asked gently. "Why won't you wear that?"

"I don't want to wear a kimono, Sano," she said, breath warm across the bandages on my chest. "Don't make me."

"Fine, fine," I murmured, running my hands up and down her shoulders to soothe her. "And will you two stop trying to make her do things she doesn't want to do? When she says no, that means no!" I glared at Kaoru and Rei-baba in turn. Kaoru gave me a wide-eyed I-wasn't-doing-anything look, and the herb hag just rolled her eyes.

Ironic I had to be the "adult" in some of these situations. But Rei-baba had a matronly streak about her that suggested she always knew what was best, and Shino, while certainly not a child, was still an easy victim by her own timidity.

It was sweet that she ran to me, though. Maybe a bit counter-productive to the things I was trying to teach her, but definitely beneficial to my male pride.

She would do that, too, when I took her into town. Whenever she was nervous, she reached for me and I made sure I was right there. For now, it wasn't so important that she learned to be stronger in herself as it was for her to know I was there to keep her safe. All that other stuff was secondary. Still important, but not as important. Plenty of time to work on it later.

I never did find out why Shino didn't like to dress like a lady. Later I supposed it was because she'd feel vulnerable in those kinds of clothes, which weren't as enclosing as a hakama and far more restrictive to the legs. When we chose new clothes for her , she got solid colors of red and blue, just like Kenshin would have. I should have known. But then, there aren't but so many colors that go with the weird mix of their hair and eyes, I guess. They would know better than I would.

Yet even after that little problem was taken care of, I still had a difficult time getting the old lady to back off Shino. I knew that, like the rest of us, Rei-baba felt like Shino needed some toughening up, but she was too blunt in her own personality to be any kind of gentle about it. Like Kaoru had once tried, she thought that perhaps getting Shino angry a few times might bring out a dragon.

But, only a few days after that short trip into town, we were about to find out just how much of a dragon Shino had inside her. And it was neither Rei-baba nor Kaoru who brought it out.

It was my fault.

She was having another nightmare.

We lay on and under blankets on the ground, sheltered over by the trees. It was getting a little colder, but the nights weren't so cold yet that we couldn't seek privacy in the forest, away from our two temporary housemates.

She had a lot of bad dreams, but she was so responsive to touch (I had found her to be quite a sensualist) that I could usually soothe the bad dream away by stroking her hair or hugging her closer.

She calmed, never waking, and I lay looking up at what I could see of the stars through the trees. I wondered if Kenshin dreamed this much. If he did, he was quiet about it. Maybe quiet enough that, if she was now sharing his bed these nights, Jou-chan didn't know, wasn't awake to chase them away before they could begin like I could for Shino.

Well…that wasn't my business, and there was nothing I could do about it anyway. Jou-chan's area. Shino was mine.

She was still, I guessed the nightmare had passed. I rested my cheek against her hair, deciding I'd better get some sleep. Needed rest for whatever trees the old lady wanted me to shift, dig up, move, or chop in the morning.

But Shino wasn't quite finished with the nightmare. In fact, it was about to become my nightmare too.

She whispered a name. A name that nearly made my blood freeze.

"Tomoe."

I went very, very still. Not even my brain was working for several long seconds. Then, all at once, the wheels jerked and started turning again.

Excuse me? What? Tomoe? Like Kenshin's Tomoe?

There was absolutely nothing in all my experiences with either Himura that could prepare me for something like this. Both of them haunted by a Tomoe?

I grasped at ideas, trying to make sense of it. Okay, it stood enough to reason that Tomoe would have existed in this world…as a male. But then, his name wouldn't be "Tomoe" since that was, with no kindly exception, a woman's name.

I swore under my breath and absently moved my thumb over the scar on her right cheek. Damn, damn, damn.

I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself before I woke her up.

Shino hadn't killed anyone. I knew that. The look of pain, long-standing and thick, was something inflicted on her, not what she had inflicted on others. I knew Kenshin, and comparing the two together, I had seen the difference. Two very different kinds of pain.

I also knew that she had never been a willing lover to anyone but me. That she had pretty much told me, and also I knew it by her own inexperience, which I had found very endearing. She was someone I could teach, and she learned fast.

So it wasn't the same. It wouldn't be the same. Couldn't possibly even be the same person. "Tomoe" is a pretty common girls' name if you think about it. Maybe it was a friend she'd known, someone she missed. Someone who might not have met a good end, or parted company badly with her. Something like that.

It was a coincidence. Coincidences did still exist, even here.

I wanted to ask. Oh, how I wanted to ask. The questions trapped just on my tongue, kept trapped by clenched teeth.

But I held back. Best to let it rest for now. I would ask…later.

It bugged me, though. Even into the morning when Shino and I meandered our way back to the hut.

My mood didn't improve any when our hostess leapt out the door and chucked an axe at us. Shino and I dodged in differed directions as the axe flipped through the air, embedding itself in the space between us, the handle quivering impressively in the air.

"Late again!" the old lady yelled at us from the doorway. "Boy, the mating season's not until spring! Now knock it off and get back to work."

"Hey!" I shouted in indignation, but she'd already disappeared. "I swear you get more and more crazy every day, you old hag!" I yelled at the doorway.

Shino stood a couple of feet away, with a look that I supposed meant she didn't know whether to be nervous or to laugh.

I snorted, bending low to grab the axe's handle. "Yeah, she's nuts all right. I guess I'll go chop more firewood today, since she wasn't more specific."

"May I come?"

"Of course. Just stand clear."

When I chopped firewood, I chose large trees. I was stronger than most, and in the end, chopping up bigger trees for firewood took less time and saved me more work than chopping up little ones.

I chopped lazily at a good-sized one, keeping half an eye on Shino's whereabouts. She wandered nearby, well out of danger, examining small plants that grew at the tree roots that had more meaning to her and Rei-baba than they did to me.

My mind soon wandered. Back to that mutter that had floated out of deep dreams the night before. Maybe she hadn't said "Tomoe". Maybe she'd said something that just sounded like that…

But I just had this feeling…

I'd never thought much one way or another about Tomoe. She was Kenshin's wife, therefore important to Kenshin, and I felt sorry for the way that she died…but I had to admit, whether it was the right way to feel or not, I was mostly sorry because of how it affected my friend. I didn't know Tomoe.

She was also connected with more kinds of pain that even my stamina could deal with. Her crazy freak of a brother, Enishi, for one. It was still kind of difficult, even with a better understanding, to forgive him for what he put us all through.

It hurt most of all, I think, because it had been a time, just that once, that the genuine respect and admiration I had for Kenshin slipped. Not my love, though. No, he was my friend, even in those horrible days, in that wretched state, and nothing would ever change that. But, I had even hit him, back then. Didn't expect a reaction. Wasn't even doing it to punish him. I was just trying to get something, anything to him--my grief, my rage, my frustration, my confusion, my fear, my helplessness--in a way we could both understand.

"Sano?"

No, I really didn't like to think about Tomoe. Didn't matter if I didn't, really. There were other people to think warm and fuzzy thoughts about her.

"Sano! Sano!"

I hadn't realized the danger, so thickly lost in my own thoughts. I hadn't noticed I was sweating a little more than usual, that it was colder than it should have been. I hadn't noticed I was chopping away at the tree when I should have been getting out of the way.

Too late, I tried to move, but Shino was faster. A streak of indigo blue and white, she slammed into me. We flew back, out of the way, just as the world exploded in crashing, noise, and shaking that seemed to last forever.

"Damn it! God damn it, Sanosuke! Bloody stinking filthy pig-swiving hell! Have you lost your mind? What the hell is the matter with you?"

I opened my eyes, more from shock than anything else that that kind of language could be coming out of my Shino's mouth! I nearly eeped when I saw she was right in my face.

And she was angry. Oh, yes, very, very angry. I had succeeded where all others had failed. She was beyond mad. She was pissed. I had seen Kenshin that furious only a few times, and even fewer times angry enough that he would actually swear. Either I had taught her too well, or Rei-baba had more influence on her than we thought.

I blinked, not sure what to do or say as the earth still dipped and swayed around us. What did one say when he's just done something abysmally stupid and had to be saved by his girl?

Come to think of it, what was wrong with me? I've done dumb or careless things before, but nothing quite that fatal in some time.

Shino, once more leagues ahead of the situation than I was, slapped her hand to my forehead, searching for the answer before my brain had come to grasp it.

My eyes widened. Oh, no. The third day. The fever. Between my brooding over this mysterious Tomoe and Rei-baba chucking an axe at us when we got back, I had completely forgotten to drink that special tea. Again.

If I'd had any hopes that she would forgive me because I was sick, I was wrong. Dead wrong. Discovering I was feverish only seemed to make her angrier.

It's all my fault. I brought out the dragon.

"Tell me what's wrong with him! Don't you dare tell me that it's nothing! There is something wrong! Wounds that won't heal, fever and chills every few days, for weeks! There is something wrong! He nearly chopped a tree on himself!"

I sat as close to Rei-baba's fire as I possibly could without actually climbing into it. Would have been nice to ask for a blanket, but I knew better than open my mouth. Nobody had thought to hand over that fever-reducing tea yet, either, and I was starting to feel kind of bad…

Not as bad as Rei-baba or Kaoru at the moment, who were both looking at Shino like they'd never seen her before. Kaoru, to his credit, had not said one word the whole time. In fact, he'd scooted as far back on the bed as he could and stayed absolutely silent, like a man afraid to draw attention to himself.

Rei-baba wasn't so lucky. An initial dismissal of Shino's questions, which had at first been calm, had been met with a very violent outburst. Evidentially, she was out of patience after I nearly got myself flattened, and wanted answers. Now.

The old lady cast a nasty glare my way. This is all your fault.

I shrugged weakly. I'm sorry?

Yet even as bad and sheepish as I was feeling, there was a bit of subdued humor in this, which I was very, very careful to keep out of my face. I'd once called Kenshin the most frightening man in the world. I'd seen looks in his eyes and gestures from him that would make grown men wet themselves.

And here I was thinking that this girl, even smaller and more slight than Kenshin himself, could kick Battousai from one end of the hut to the other if he crossed her. Yes, that scary.

Abruptly she whirled back to me, and I flinched. I didn't think she'd hit me or anything, but her tongue, normally rolling words sweet and quiet, was sharper than the backside of Kenshin's blade.

I sat nervously still as she knelt in front of me.

"What. Is. Wrong. With. You?" she said, enunciating slowly and clearly, her smooth voice edged with danger.

I swallowed and smiled weakly. "Ah, Shiden-me…couldn't you have used some of this against Seiji?"

She leaned back slightly, the hard lines in her face smoothed back for a moment with surprise. She stared at me for a moment before turning her head to talk to speak to Rei-baba and Kaoru. "Would you leave us alone for a moment, please?"

Even if he was healing well, Kaoru still got up rather quickly for an injured man, followed Rei-baba's lead as she edged out of the hut and wandered into the garden.

I looked at the floor, wondering if I was about to get an earful when Shino's voice, completely different from just a few seconds before, rang soft and high through the silence.

"Sano, are you going to die?"

My head jerked up, making the world sway crazily around me. I slapped a palm to the floor, trying to steady it. "Wh-what?"

"Is that what's wrong? Is that why you won't tell me? Are you dying?"

My vision stilled enough for me to see her face. The anger had been covering up cold, pale fear, echoing over her face and her wet eyes.

"No, no, no, no!" I said quickly, reaching out and dragging her into my arms. "Shino, I'm not going to die, not right now."

She lay still in my hold, her body rising with a tired, frustrated sigh. "Then what's wrong? You're not healthy, Sano."

Despite my need to reassure her, my eyelids dropped heavily. She was right. This magic or whatever had taken me to this world had made nasty cracks in my overall health, stealing my strength away from me every third day or so, tea or no tea. I should have been paying attention. The last thing I should have been doing was chopping down trees.

"I'm sorry," I said, rather inanely. "Just…just let me rest for a while. Then we'll talk about it, okay? I promise."

She rose out of my gasp without a word, although she did spread out the futon we usually shared when we slept in the hut for me and made sure I was comfortable before leaving. I went to sleep wondering if I should finally tell her the truth.

I slept a pretty long time. All day, all night and well into the next morning. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was Shino's folded knees, where she sat beside me. I looked up into her face and nearly stopped breathing.

That old hurt look was back…and possibly worse than it had been before. If it wasn't for my heartbeat, suddenly frantic, I'd have almost stupidly wondered if I hadn't actually died in the night and was witnessing her looking down on my body.

I sat up quickly, but since she didn't jolt out of her skin when I did, it was a safe bet I wasn't one of the walking dead. She didn't change expression.

The old lady was in her customary spot by her workbench, grinding herbs in a absent way, not looking up. The lines around her mouth were sharp and tight. Kaoru was all right as well, sitting up on the bed, but he looked awfully subdued. Confused, but restrained, as if he wanted to yell "What's going on?" into the quieted room, but knew that he couldn't.

"How are you?" Shino asked, a bit hoarsely. I examined her carefully to see if she had been crying, but her eyes were dry and clear.

"I'm okay now," I said slowly.

"Good." She stood up. "Then come on. We've got to go."

"Go? Where?"

"Just go with her, Sanosuke," Rei snapped, her own voice hoarse and a bit ragged. "Don't ask questions, just go!"

Now scared as well as confused, I looked at Kaoru, who I had the feeling was the only one from whom I'd get any sympathy. He didn't disappoint me, but he didn't look like he knew what was going on either. Shino moved between us and out of the hut. Kaoru glanced after her, then jerked his head gently, as if to tell me I'd better follow her.

I moved stiffly for the door, but before I got there, Rei-baba's hand grasped my arm. "Remember everything I told you, Boy," she said in a low but firm tone.

She let me go and I hurried to catch up with Shino, glancing back to the hut once. But they were inside, hidden in shadow.

We must have walked for hours. Any attempts of mine to ask what was going on, what was wrong, or to start a conversation of any kind were met with dull resistant or one-word answers.

And just in case things weren't bad enough, the sky began to act up, rolling and churning up with a speed I had only seen once…a life time ago, back in Mongolia…

I sucked in a breath when Shino and I shouldered our way through shrubbery that had grown over a path that hadn't seen traffic in a long time…though it once had, judging from just had deeply into the ground it was indented. There was a gentle slope on the other side, leading down where a house, gradually falling apart, sat adjacent to the chewed, overgrown ground and leaning stakes that marked it as a place where someone had once kept a vegetable garden. But that wasn't what stilled my heart and drained the blood from my face.

A rumble of distant thunder rolled away the silence as I stared at a rounded, chipped stone with the word Byakudan scrawled clumsily across its flattish face.

Oh, my God…

"It's true then," Shino said, from behind me. She had stopped walking and I hadn't noticed. "I'm Kenshin."

That made me whirl around to look at her. God, I couldn't think of one thing to say. Not even something stupid, like asking her to repeat that in case I didn't hear it right.

I knew perfectly well what she just said.

"Rei-baba explained it to me," she said, turning her face from me to the stone with a spookily slow movement. "She said you're both from another world, just like this one, only with a few differences. You travel thought these 'anchoring stones', she said. And I'm an incarnation of your friend Himura Kenshin."

"Shino," I said desperately. "I…I couldn't tell you. How could you have believed me? You would have thought I was just crazy!"

"Maybe," she said, but it was in a distant tone as if that point didn't much matter. "Rei says that you have the worse burn she's ever seen, and your fevers are more violent and brutal than any she's ever experienced. She says that because you're not careful enough, it's possible one day that you could boil your own brain with the heat. She doesn't know exactly why you're so different, but there it is." In that same eerie slow motion, her head turned back to me. "She says this is the stone she used to get here and to go home. So you can use it to go home now."

"What? No, Shino, I don't--"

I took a step toward her, but she jerked back, snapping back to life.

"Sano, look at you! Almost half your body's got a great red burn on it, and I know it has to hurt! You nearly got yourself killed yesterday, because you can't be trusted to remember to do something so simple as drink a tea!"

"It's only this one time! I'll be more careful from now on! I'm just not used to having a…having a 'delicate condition.'" That was a bit of a blow to my pride, to say something like that. But it wasn't any less true.

She shook her head, eyes narrowing dangerously. "It's not good enough. It's not good enough, Sano! What if something happens? What if you get stuck or lost or trapped somewhere where you can't get a hold of the herbs and leaves used to make your tea? What then? What if you do let your fever turn into a full-blown brain fever? What if you end up damaging your mind because of it? What then, Sano?

"And you're weak when you're like that. How are you supposed to protect me when you can't even take care of yourself?"

"Shino--"

"No, Sano! I won't have it! I won't have this! I won't have you…" she said the last word in a whisper, her face paling, and her eyes widening, as if she'd just pulled out her own heart as well as mine. "So you're going to ride that stone home, or however it works. I don't want you anymore, Sano. Don't worry about me, either. Kaoru-san likes me, and he'll let me stay with him, I think. Maybe he'll keep teaching me. You don't have anything left here to worry about. So just…go home. And don't follow me. I won't have you anymore."

She turned away from me and fled down the slope, toward the old house with its memory of a garden. I watched her until she vanished inside it, some absurd part of mind wondering if it was safe for her to be in there…weak flooring and supports and all…

I looked at the shack for a while, then back to the stone. My stone with my anchoring word. White sandalwood, just like the way Shino smelled.

I felt numb inside and out, and there was a draining feeling, of slowly being emptied out. I almost laughed for just a moment, wondering if this was anything like what Jou-chan felt when Kenshin had tried to leave her behind, keep her away from him, trying to protect her when he left for Kyoto. Damn Himuras. If there are any more than just my two anywhere, damn every last one of them…

I closed my eyes against a rush of wet heat just behind them. Was she right? Was I really endangering myself, not paying careful enough attention to those fevers? The thought of actually harming my brain because of my own neglect was daunting all by itself. Lot of good I'd do Shino if I became some slobbering retard or something like that. Rei-baba had never said before that that fever was anything unusual, though she did say something like that about how large my burn was… I did notice she never had the trouble I did, though. And could I not protect Shino like I'd promised? I could be more careful. I just wasn't used to having to pay so much attention to my health, but I could do it again, for her.

The shadows moved around me, the sky still churning fitfully, but not doing anything. Like it was waiting for me.

An icy autumn wind moved over me. I shivered. It was at my back, like it was trying to push me toward the stone…

Maybe this was best, after all. Maybe it would be best if I went back to my original plan, for Kaoru and Shino to get together. Shino could forget about me in time, after all. And I hadn't missed that one-time, but very real wistful twist of Kaoru's mouth when he saw that she and I were really, truly together. That could easily grow into something more. He would take care of her even if it didn't. She would be all right…without me.

The wind hit my back again, and I found myself screaming crazily at the rock. "You brought me here, like it's supposed to make me happy, and now you want me to go back? What kind of sick dog-sucking bastard are you?" My voice sounded shaky and tearful, and I cursed myself for every kind of fool I knew of. God damn it straight to hell! When had I become so weak? I wanted yesterday morning back so badly I could almost smell Shino's sweet scent again, and the feel of her smooth skin against mine.

But she said she wouldn't have me if I followed her. I searched my memory, but I couldn't think of a time when either she or Kenshin had ever lied to me.

Three steps I took toward the Byakudan stone and it began to rain. All at once, just as it had in Mongolia. Three more and lightning flashed in the sky, making me flinch. So that's how it would be. Struck by lightning both to and back, huh? How bad would the burn be, then?

But at least it would heal. At least I'd have my right arm back…

Never mind that I would trade my right arm if I could still hold Shino with my left. I took another step, and thunder boomed. I shivered in the rain. I didn't want to go. Another step, and the hair rose on the backs of my arms. I barely felt it, only saw it. Another step, the heaviest and most difficult so far. Go home, she'd said. To what? I didn't have a home.

But I wanted one. One of my own. If I went back I'd never find my way home. If I went back…there'd be nothing.

I needed a place to call home. If I ran back to my Japan, back to my Kamiya dojo, that would be close, but their love wasn't enough. I needed more now, not just to cover me, but fill me too. I liked the way it was changing me, little by little every day.

God, please…please don't tear me apart again…I'm finally complete, finally whole. Don't make me go back to being what I was. I want to keep what I have. Don't take it from me. I need it, and I need…I need…

"Shino!"

I spun on my heel and ran from the stone. Only several strides and there was a great explosion behind me, one that shook the earth harder than the falling tree had only a day before. I stumbled, but I bounced off my hands and kept running. Every demon in hell could come out and pitch lightning bolts at me because nothing short of it would keep me from reaching that fallen-down old shack.

Only when my hands slapped on the rotting wood of the doorway did I stop and risk a look back. The stone wasn't there anymore, gone and leaving only a grassy hill, like it had never been there. I shivered again, and ripped my gaze away.

Lifting my wet, sloppy bangs out of my eyes, I squinted into the darkened house, looking for Shino. I found her easily enough, the only clean and bright thing in the room.

She had curled up on a flat, wide shelf someone had built into the wall. She was asleep, dried tear tracks on her cheeks.

I breathed out shakily, glad to see she was still here. Glad to see I hadn't been transported back when the lightning had struck. I moved to her on weak knees.

There was just enough room on the shelf for me to lie on my side beside her, so I stretched out there. As always, she slept like a rock, didn't even stir as I rubbed away at the tear residue on her face with my thumb.

I slept without realizing it and woke up later to a sharp gasp. My eyes opened, just in time to see Shino jerk back. Her sudden movement unbalanced the shelf we were on, and it flipped off its slats, dumping us both onto the ground. Shino landed on my chest, and the shelf bounced hard off her back before it fell with a flat thump on the dusty floor beside us.

Once all the impacts were over, she lay there, staring down at me like she couldn't believe I was real. Her body tensed, like she was ready to get off me, but my arm, almost of its own accord, moved around her waist, keeping her pinned to me.

I stared at her face. Her wounded eyes… I had made her so happy for a while. I chased away her bad dreams. I could do it again. I'd do anything…

Weak with tenderness, I reached up with my free hand and moved a lock of hair behind her ear. "Please," I whispered. "Don't send me away. I don't want to be alone anymore. You're my family now, Koishii. Don't ask me to leave another family. I want to stay here with you. I need to stay with you. Please… Please, can I stay?"

She trembled a little on top of me, her head dipping slightly so that her bangs hid her eyes from me.

"I'm sorry I wasn't more careful," I continued to plead. "I will be, from now on. It won't happen again, I promise."

Her head dropped onto my shoulder and she murmured something I didn't quite catch into the cloth of my jacket.

"What?"

She moved her head to the side, so I could hear her better. "You told me your heart would shatter if you had to leave me," she said, voice rough with tears. "I know what you meant, now…" She was trembling so now that I put both arms around her tightly, like I could use my strength to keep her from truly coming apart. "But I can't stand thinking of you in pain like that every day, Sano. You've got to go home, heal."

"No," I insisted, grasping her all the tighter. "It's something I'll endure, it's something I can endure. It doesn't hurt if I take good care of it. Keep it medicated and wrapped. I'll be so careful from now on, Shino, I swear."

There was a long pause, and I just watched her rising up and down gently with every breath I took until she lifted her head again. She had to scoot up just a bit to kiss me, and it was one of the longest, sweetest kisses we shared.

"Does this mean I can come home now?" I said, grinning crookedly.

She rested her forehead against mine. Her eyes were better again, her smile back. Weak, but it was there. "I suppose so," she said.

I laughed then, rolling us over so that I was on top. "Good! Because if you'd've refused me, I would've had to follow you around on my knees until you gave into me."

She blinked up at me for a few seconds before another one of her slow, beautiful smiles spread across her face. "Oh, Sano. I should have left you on the road where I found you, shouldn't I?"

"Maybe, but it's much too late now," I teased, leaning down for another kiss.

"It is," was the last thing Shino said.

After that, there was no more talking in the abandoned house. Not for a long time.

Later, after the rain passed, and we lay tangled up in each other, she said, "Sano? What do you think…um, what would Kenshin think?"

"Of what?"

"Of…you with…someone who was like him? With me?"

"Well. What would you think, if you were in his place?"

"I…wouldn't mind."

"Then neither would he, I think."

Author's note:

Hmm. Two more chapters and an epilogue and we're all done here. That will make it about three chapters longer than I originally intended, but no one's complained yet so I hope you continue not to mind. :)

Note to Filly:

I changed the summary again like you wanted. It's kind of mysterious again or whatever. It's the best I can do. Now, I'm sort of busy trying to write the fic without pouring over its summary time and again. It's fine, so just--leave it be! (-eye twitch-)