Author's notes: Yep yet another chapter for this fic, I'm starting to wonder where it will end. Each time I think I'm finished I end up writing another chapter, which considering Snowfall started out as a one shot is rather odd. My one shots generally stay just that, but oh well never mind. Not quite sure how well done this is in relation to the earlier chapters so I'd love some constructive input.

This chapter was written for the Meiji tales October challenge. Please read and review.

Yori trudged beneath the dark, bare, trees, their roots still buried in mounds of snow. With each step her wooden geta cut through the soft snow and down to the frozen road below. The cold, snow-laden air swept beneath her hastily arranged ponytail and up the sleeves of her kimono. Yet only that morning, the air had been warm enough for the deep quilt of snow to soften and thaw. The wind that now bent the interwoven canopy of branches, promised a return of the snowfalls from the week before. Yori paid no heed to these warnings. Her dark brown eyes followed the twisting weaving path of the two boys who ran back and forth across the road ahead of her.

Shino, his black hair sticking up wildly, dashed back and forth. His hands outstretched as he lunged at his best friend. The welfare of the red haired medicine seller lying in their back room, the farthest thing from his mind. Yori however had left the young man only with the greatest of reluctance. It was only the lack of fresh food that had sent her into Otsu dragging the two reluctant boys with her. She hurried, hoping to make it home before the young man awoke. The boys, darting back and forth in amongst the trees soon found themselves left behind. They stared for a moment standing flatfooted and surprised in the road watching the back of Yori's steadily receding brown kimono. The branches above them groaned painfully dumping a load of soggy snow next to them. Shino jumped. He caught Yoshi's eye and grinned guiltily, before tearing up the road after his mother, his feet slipping in the slushy snow with each step.

Yori pulled the woven basket a little closer to her chest, and increased her speed. The ground rose up as they left the village and headed further out into the country. She had no intention of dropping the river fish she'd purchased for dinner on to the slushy ground.

In the warmer weather, the snow had begun to melt but since they had left for Otsu, the sky had steadily darkened. Now the clouds had become a dark rather ominous gunmetal grey. Yori watched as Shino ran past her and swung around a tree, one bare and rather dirty hand gripping the trunk. Pushing off to run back out across the road, he slipped and dived face first into a pile of muddy, dirty snow. Yoshi laughed. Shino spluttered and scowled. Yori sighed, her face breaking into a faint affectionate smile as he scrabbled to his feet and lunged at Yoshi. She really had been landed with a clumsy child for a son. Glancing up at the ominous sky, she chivvied the two boys along.

The wind picked up, it tugged at her sleeves and at the single ribbon in her hair. The silk one, her only silk one that she kept for going into Otsu. Her long black hair fluttered and twirled out sideways and her geta slipped and scraped in the snow.

The wind shook the shoji in its runners. The house groaned, and the small flame in the rice paper lamp shivered uncertainly. Kenshin woke with a start, shaking, his chest searing with heat and pain. His breathing, short and quick as if he'd been running. His tongue dry and clumsy. Agitated he sat up trying to erase the unpleasant after-image of his dream from his mind. The ice cold wind trailed faintly across his skin. Vaguely he wondered, if, now that he was alone again, that he was loosing his grip. The angry groan of the wind interrupted his thoughts as it rattled the shoji vengefully. In another gust the lamp's small dancing flame vanished plunging the room into darkness.

From behind the deep red curtain of his hair he shivered but it was the strange distorted dream that made him tremble. Half from the adrenalin surging in his blood, half from a terrible disquiet and fear. It was as if his mind was firmly pointing out the error of his ways. Kyoto, Tomoe, the blood of each bathing him in a warm, bright, unending river. He blinked and glanced around him, to his relief he was where he expected to be. He scratched at his chest, his eyes roving over the walls. Not in Kyoto, not in the house he had shared with Tomoe, but in his neighbour's home. The room was quiet, only thin chinks of light penetrated the gloom. The faint scent of smoke and burnt herbs hung in the air. There was a vague rather unpleasant thought hovering at the back of his mind that only made his head ache all the more. He snatched his hand away from his chest as the itch erupted in to a sharp pain. His hands came away bloody and greasy. A sharp familiar smell that made him look at his nails all the closer filled his nostrils. It was the familiar scent of the herbs that Hiko had once slapped on all his injuries.

Annoyed with himself, he tried to rise but his legs, weakened by blood loss, exhaustion, exposure and their recent lack of use refused to comply. They buckled throwing him face down on to the tatami. He lay there for a moment amazed at the way his breathing quickened. It hadn't been so long ago that he'd been fit and strong. Strong enough to carry out all the orders that Katsura had concealed in those small ominous black envelopes, yet now he had all the strength of a day old kitten. A soaking wet day old kitten. He was young, proud, and quite infamous in his way and there was something distinctly demoralising and frustrating about being unable to rise. He dragged himself back up on to his knees and gazed around the dark room.

The darkness didn't bother him. Even on the darkest of Kyoto nights, he'd never had trouble navigating. Somewhere in this darkened house or more likely outside it, was Tomoe's body. With the snow and the frozen ground, there was no way they could have buried her. He bowed his head. His breathing was still slightly quicker than it should have been, his arms were covered in goose pimples, and still he was trembling. He should have been preparing her for cremation and saying his last goodbyes not laying here in a neighbour's house shivering like a half drowned kitten. The cold air slipped through the small cracks in the walls and through the tiny gaps where the shoji didn't quite sit flush with the wall and trailed around his bare skin leaving a path of raised hairs in its wake. He closed his eyes and listened, to the soft creaks and groans as the huge timbers that supported the roof settled against each other. The low moan as the wood slowly began to contract again with the dropping temperature.

He kept his eyes closed and quietened his breathing, and attuned his hearing to his surroundings all the while attempting to blot the after-image of the dream from his mind. Time dragged, seconds became minutes that marched on relentlessly. The wind caught the tangled strands of his hair brushing it against his face and neck. Kenshin sat very still, and very silent just as Hiko had taught him. His skin grew cold and his hair finally found its way over his face. Slowly perversely, the image of Tomoe standing there her head tilted slightly to one side pushed its way into his mind. The look of surprise in her eyes as she stared up at him from where she'd tripped in the snow. The feel of her small slim fingers cold from the winter air in his. Kenshin shivered for a moment he opened his eyes and gazed out into space. He looked down at his hands and clenched his fists. The shoji rattled and then softly through the gloom came the faint sound of snow falling lightly to the world below.

He felt the warm patch on his chest slowly expand as the wound bled out into his yukata. Somewhere in the gloom, he heard children's voices and the steady clop of geta shod feet.

Yori rushed up into the house, out of the snow pushing the two boys ahead of her. The flakes swirled down out of the dark sky with so much force that soon the ground would be covered in a fresh layer of snow. She gazed back down the road hoping to catch sight of her husband, but through the shifting curtain of falling snow, it was hard to see anything.

Yori paused, one hand pressed lightly against the shoji a candle in the other. The flame flickered caught by the faint drafts of cold air from the other side of the door. She hesitated a moment longer feeling foolishly uncertain before pushing the shoji open and stepping inside. The room was very dark. The lamp she'd left burning had gone out and left the room cloaked in darkness. She paused on the threshold while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Her skin prickled as her eyes scanned the room, the tea tray with its now cold tea still sat untouched just inside the door.

She felt oddly nervous as if she was being watched. The timbers above her groaned and her heart fluttered anxiously in her chest. Subconsciously she pressed her hand hard against her breast as if to prevent her heart escaping. Then from the depths of the gloom, she caught sight of the glitter of a pair of eyes staring out at her. The breeze caught her candle and the flame flickered. Yori took an uneasy step back before she recognised the fall of red hair and sharp violet eyes. It was Kenshin's eyes that had glittered with such piercing coldness from the darkness. Her husband's words came back to her, 'our medicine seller's a swordsman'. He was sitting up, half in the futon half out, in the cold and darkness watching her, apparently innocuous but the cold sparkling glitter of his eyes stayed in her mind.

He blinked a little, the glassiness slowly leaving his gaze and stared up at her. She sighed with relief and stepped towards him.

"Do you have a cloth?" His voice was hoarse and rough from lack of use and his tongue felt dry and clumsy against his teeth.

Yori jumped, her heart still beating a rapid tattoo in her chest. 'How piercing his eyes are!' She crouched down and peered at him, her hand still pressed hard to her chest. She looked at him closely drawing the candle in closer. He was trembling and his arms were white and covered in goose bumps. Her eyes trailed worriedly over his arms and up his shoulders. Then widened as she caught sight of the blood on his yukata.

"Oh your chest." She sprang to her feet and rushed from the room the candle still gripped in her fingers. She moved quickly her mind busy, oh how she wished she hadn't washed the linens that morning. 'What can I use? And, 'how, how did he reopened that wound?' The tall dark man who had come asking after him had stitched it up so neatly. She ran towards her cabinet only to see Shino disappearing around the corner with the very last piece of clean dry linen in the house.

"Shino! I need that!"

Her son paused his hair still standing on end from the wind and stared up at her curiously. Feeling flustered she plucked the square of cream linen from his hands and rushed off for a bowl of water. Leaving Shino staring after her in surprise for the second time that day.

Kenshin remained where he was staring at the open shoji. Belatedly he realised he'd scared the poor woman. He closed his eyes and sighed. His fingers traced over the wound. Someone had stitched it very firmly closed but his rough scratching had torn the stitches through his already fragile skin leaving a row of bloodied intact stitches dangling from the top of the wound. He needed a tanto or a knife, a small one like a silk knife to remove them before he tore the edges of wound still further. He ran his hands though his hair raking it back to where it belonged and noted with some annoyance that his hands still trembled.

The hollow thud of rapidly moving feet came back into his consciousness. Yori appeared her kimono-clad body briefly silhouetted in the doorway. She stepped quietly into the room, a bowl of steaming water, a single square of cream linen, and a jar of wound salve in her arms. She looked brisk and organised but her kind brown eyes were anxious. Kenshin wriggled his dry tongue around his mouth as a prelude to another query but Yori had already gotten up and turned to leave.

"A silk knife…" He croaked out his fingers against the wound across his chest.

"Do you have one?"

Yori looked at him still silhouetted in the open doorway.

"I don't think I own one of those" Her voice was soft and apologetic.

"Gomen, I'll see what I can find." She spared him a faint worried smile and hurried from the room. He closed his eyes that soft tone reminded him strongly of Tomoe. How kind and gentle she'd been. He sighed and drew his cold arms down onto his thighs. 'What will happen now?' Soon word would get back to Katsura. Then what would happen, for what use was a hitokiri who stood out. Worse, still if he had to go on, as surely he would, what would he do with out Tomoe?

The snow blew against the shoji and in through the gaps. A thin white veil of it settled on the tatami. Kenshin closed his eyes. He could almost see Tomoe standing in a shower of pink cherry blossom, just as she had in his dreams. He still had blood on his hands, and still he found the phantom scent of white plum on the air just as he had in Kyoto. Yet everything had changed and nothing could be erased.

(2005)