Final Interlude
The Last Visit Home

I visited home just once, before I came back for good.

I'll admit…I went to see Kenshin, mostly. I was aching to see everyone else as well, but it was for him that I braved that uncertain journey back.

I'd promised them I'd come back, after all. Meant to go back a lot sooner, but…things happened.

I was late, but I made it. In the fall just after I turned forty.

I was half-afraid they wouldn't know me. Scared I had changed too much. But when I passed the open gates, and saw Jou-chan standing outside, swinging her shinai around…

For a moment it was…almost like I…had never left…

Then she turned to face me, saw me standing there.

Jou-chan…she hadn't changed all that much. She'd grown out a lot more, her hair a bit longer, with just three or four noticeable strands of white--which I made a mental note to tease her about later.

And she knew me. Without a skipped beat, or look of confusion her eyes flew open wide before she dropped the shinai on the ground and was running toward me, yelling my name loud enough to announce my arrival to all of the dojo. I grinned and ran out to meet her.

She crashed into me, a death grip going around my neck. I squeezed back, then picked her up around the waist and spun her around, our laughter mingling together on the autumn wind until it brought the sounds of footsteps with it.

The door of the house was thrown open, and there stood a strong-featured man in his early thirties with a very familiar-looking sword at his side. All the same, those simple observations didn't quite hide from me the little brat I'd once known and teased.

Yahiko lingered in the doorway a moment, looking stunned until he finally moved toward us. Nobody spoke as he approached, and he looked uncertain, like he wasn't sure how to greet me. A feeling, to be honest, I reciprocated. Though I could see the shadow of the brat still, he was not the boy I had left behind twenty-one years ago.

There was only a few seconds' more of indecision before his features softened in an "ah, hell with it" kind of way, and at the same moment, we pulled together for a hug.

"Where the hell have you been, Rooster Head?" he demanded when we let go.

"Very far away," I said.

Kaoru punched me, hard, in the arm. "Jerk! Twenty years and not one word! Not one damn word from you!" Her eyes misted dangerously. "Sano, do you have any idea how worried--"

I pulled her into another one-armed hug. A younger me might have done the same, and offered a sheepish grin or excuses in an appeal for mercy the same way he had bummed free meals and such in those days.

But I guess…I guess I was getting tired by then. I only said, "Forgive me, Jou-chan." And I meant it. I didn't want her to be upset because I had been away so long. I wished she hadn't had to worry, whether I was okay, dead or alive, or hurt or hungry or cold or jailed or anything else that might have brushed her worrywart imagination.

She seemed surprised, and even Yahiko was blinking at me, like he was trying to figure out just what had changed.

And then…there was Kenshin.

He came from the door Yahiko had left open. He moved slowly, looked like one of his knees bothered him when he walked. I wondered if it was from some injury he got while I was away, or if his joints had finally begun to give out on him.

I noticed the his legs first, anyway, because…just at first…I was afraid to look above his shoulders. What of it him I could see with my dropped eyes…it had already begun to hurt like hell.

He came to join us, walking with that light limp, and finally I looked up into his face, my heart speeding up.

An apprehension I had been trying to ignore faded back slightly when I looked on him. I could have even laughed. It had been over two decades since I last saw him--and the man was pushing fifty for crying out loud!--but he still almost didn't look any different than when I had slapped hands with him on the dock all those years before.

The biggest difference was that he had cut his hair, and the red, shoulder-length stuff was just a little bit lighter than it had been the last time I'd seen him.

The smile on his face showed many things. His joy, his relief, and the warmth, drawn together by the vaguest of crow's feet at the corners of his eyes.

Then his hands reached out, and the fear came back.

I was doing fine when he hugged me, though. At least I got that far. Just…thank God he didn't smell like sandalwood. He had a woody kind scent of his own, but it was more masculine and earthy.

I was still fine when I put my arms around him too.

"I have missed you, my friend," he said, voice strained with emotion.

And then…it happened. It just…happened. With no warning whatever, no warning whatever, I just…

I could feel the tears rolling down my face, and my shoulders trembling, but I still felt detached, somehow outside my body. I was conscious mostly of a mild amazement, one that was reflected in Kenshin's eyes when he pushed away from me a little to look at my face, realizing there was something wrong.

"Sano? Sano, are you all right?" he said, truly alarmed.

I heard the other two express their concern as well--heard that they spoke, but not really what they said. I couldn't see anything but Kenshin, whom I hadn't quite let go. And in him…

Kenshin's hands came up to press against my shoulders, as if he hoped that might steady me, but it only made things worse.

He looked like her. He looked like her! He looked like her!

With that, just as suddenly as I had been detached, I was back inside my body, hot and shaking, feeling the iron core dissolve in my tears.

Why? I thought desperately, unable to make it stop, unable to understand. I knew how much it might hurt, coming back, but I had never, never imagined this kind of reaction.

My strength gave out on me completely, and I began sinking to my knees. I let go of Kenshin quickly, so I wouldn't drag him down with me. He surprised me by holding onto me, lowering himself to the ground with me.

He moved to sit down beside me, slipped his arms around my shoulders, and I twisted my hands in clothes buried my face in the fabric, feeling like a little boy, lost and uncertain and desperately wanting this comfort he was offering, my pride crushed to dust and swept under a rock somewhere.

He didn't speak, just holding me together. I felt another hand touch me, probably Kaoru's, but he made a soft, negating noise at her and it withdrew. A few moments later, I heard a door open and softly slide shut. Kenshin had sent the other two away.

Back then, I was too distraught to examine my feelings on that, but he'd been wise to do so. It was humiliating enough breaking down like that in front of ones I cared about, let alone riding it out in front of all of them.

Kenshin stayed, though. Kenshin had a way of not making you feel ashamed. Or at least, he had a way of letting you know he wasn't ashamed of you. If you were ashamed of yourself, well…that was different.

A good ten minutes later found me still sitting in the same spot, but now with my face burning, eyes pressed against my fists, elbows on my knees. Kenshin still had an arm around me.

"I'm sorry," I said after a time. Sorry for what exactly, I wasn't certain.

"No need to be, Sano," Kenshin said softly. "This one, too, has had to bleed his wounds."

I looked up when he said this. That wasn't such a good idea just yet, maybe, because when I did, he seemed to study my face…and whatever he saw made his own crumble.

And he looked so…so hurt. Pain spreading across his face, in those large violet eyes. Just like she had looked once.

It was almost enough to break me again, and I turned away from him, digging my fists into my eyes.

"Sano," Kenshin said, squeezing my shoulder. "What has happened?"

I needed a moment before I could answer, and he gave it to me without complaint.

When I could speak again, all I said was, "My wife."

There was no need to say more. Not to him.

He was quiet for another moment before I heard him say, very, very softly, "Sano, I am so sorry."

Coming from anyone else, that might have been very empty sentiment. But from him… Well, I had not forgotten who I was talking to, and how many kinds of pain he had known. He knew what it was like to lose a wife. Technically, he knew what it was like to lose Kaoru.

"I came back to tell you," I blurted, raising my eyes to look at him. "I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. For Rakuninmura. For not understanding, not really, how you felt…for what I said, and for punching you. Because I understand now…understanding what it likes to want to…want to just…"

"Sano."

I was surprised when Kenshin lifted up a face cloth and quietly swabbed my wet face and the nose I hadn't noticed was so abundantly running.

It was a kind gesture by itself, but I could see what he was thinking from his sad smile.

Again I remembered, when I was nineteen, when we'd survived that shipwreck, how Kenshin was weak when he first woke up, and I had wiped his face for him after a messy sneeze.

He looked me in the eyes…and suddenly it was okay. He was…Kenshin. Himself. He wasn't…wasn't her. It stopped hurting so much to look at him. And I heard everything he'd just said to me without using any word other than my name.

"Thanks, Big Brother," I said.

"Always…Little Brother."

I would go back in a couple of weeks…because there were still reasons for me to stay in the mirror world. So that would be the last time I saw Kenshin and Kaoru.

But until then…Kenshin and I finally got off the ground and went back inside. There were several uncomfortable, uncertain moments (what could they think to do with me after I'd shown up after twenty-one years and then cried, anyway?) before I remembered to provoke Kaoru about those silver hairs, successfully stumbling onto what was taboo and finding myself being chased around the house by an "aging" woman with a shinai. Our laughter from then still rings somewhere in the chambers of my heart. It was like I had never left at all. Like I had always been there…

And I was. In many ways.

Later I met Kenshin's kid, who was, as far as I was ever able to see, just a slightly less polite version of himself. Good kid, though…I wish I could have been around…

…but I had good reasons not to be.

Kenshin didn't ask me anything more about my wife, and didn't mention her to the others. I'm glad because…by then I couldn't even say her name. I could only hold her face in my memory. I could remember the way her voice sounded, the tones and textures for each emotion, and all the things she had said. I could remember the way her skin felt, could name the place of every scar I brushed my lips against on her body, and every place on me she had touched.

But I couldn't say her name. Her precious name, held close and still shielding something within me she had fought so hard to protect while she was still alive.

It's strange…but that's how it was. I never told anyone about her…

My Shino.

Author's note:

Once more, not really a chapter, but something Sano just wanted to remember. He agrees this will be the last one. The next true chapter is nearly finished and will be up soon.