Chapter 17

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Author's Notes: Short chapter here. More soon, I promise.

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"Mac?"

It was late -- very late, closer to morning than midnight and MacLeod had not come to bed.

Tessa regarded the back of MacLeod's head for a long moment, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Since retrieving the sword had sounded relatively non-threatening, she'd gone to sleep without him. His absence in the bed had woken her much later. She'd been relieved to find him home; dismayed to see that all was not right with his world.

He was staring into the empty bottom of a tumbler; a bottle of good bourbon sat on the coffee table with a level substantially lower than she remembered. His hair was loose, dark waves tumbling down around his shoulders. From years of experience, she knew that, generally speaking, MacLeod with his hair down meant MacLeod in distress. And by his posture, she knew things had gone badly somehow.

"Duncan?" Tessa said, quietly.

"Go back to bed, Tessa," he said, quietly.

"No." She sat down on the couch next to him. "What happened?"

His eyes were bleak when he met hers. "An accident."

"Did somebody die?"

"I don't know." His accent was thicker than normal.

She curled up against him. After a moment, his arm went around her, and he buried his face in her hair, and exhaled a long, ragged sigh.

"What happened?"

"Tessa, I love you," MacLeod murmured.

"I know you do. What happened?" She rested a hand against his cheek. His breath smelled of alcohol, just a little but not nearly as much as she'd feared.

He set the glass down with a clink on the coffee table, sighed, and said quietly, "Soujiro was raping Heather."

Tessa's drew a breath in sharply. "Did you kill him?"

"No." One word, and a world of pain in it. "I would have, and the bastard deserved it. Heather got in the way. I damn near took her arm off." He paused, then somewhat to Tessa's mystification, snapped, "Kenshin is a fool."

Bald words. MacLeod met her eyes, stark pain there. "I never even saw her."

"I'm sorry, Duncan. Is she going to be okay?"

"She won't be okay. That was a crippling injury. I don't know if she'll survive." MacLeod ran a hand over his face, and made a frustrated sound under his breath. "I'm going to take Soujiro out, but I need to be a better swordsman than I am to do it."

"You're good now," Tessa protested, alarmed.

"Soujiro is better." MacLeod had seen his own death while facing the man. He wasn't afraid to admit it.

"Mac ... Duncan ..." Tessa said, truly alarmed now, "Isn't there someone ... Conner maybe ...?"

"I'd ask Kenshin to help me train, but I doubt Kenshin will ever consider me a friend again after this," MacLeod said, with a good deal of self-recrimination in his voice.

"Well, talk to him in the morning. I suspect the guy may surprise you," Tessa said, sensibly.

MacLeod grunted something unintelligible. Tessa rested her head against his arm, knowing no more words were necessary for now -- though she fully intended to talk to Atsuko first thing in the morning. MacLeod slowly stroked her hair, and murmured quietly, "Tess, I love you. What would I do without you?"

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Late night television babbled inanely from the set in the hospital waiting room. Kenshin sat silently against the wall in one corner of the room, ignoring the chairs and couches, one leg tucked to his chest, the other extended out straight. He stared into space, expression very still. Atsuko glanced up from her magazine at him.

He'd been angry, earlier; she'd seen it the flat cold lavender in his eyes, though his posture had been the same as it was now. The anger had faded and now he was just thinking things through. There was more depth to his eyes, more gentleness there. Eventually, the thinking would be replaced with action.

Atsuko's sigh was strictly mental. She hadn't gotten the entire story from him.

She glanced back at the magazine. Cosmopolitan. A little voice in the back of her head wondered what would happen if she tried some of the tips in the magazine on Kenshin. I'll never get a chance to find out, alas. He wouldn't play along. Though she'd probably get at least a startled Oroooo! out of him if she suggested it. And plenty of blushing.

Ah, why am I even thinking about that with Heather so badly hurt? She felt a little guilty, and set the magazine aside in favor of a four year old National Geographic.

Kenshin rose suddenly, padded to the TV, stared up at it -- he wasn't tall enough to reach the buttons -- then turned the television off by simply unplugging it. For a moment, she thought he was going to return to his wall, but he eyed the spot beside her on the hard, uncomfortable couch.

She patted the couch cushion. "It's more comfortable than the floor, Kenshin."

"That's debatable," he grumbled, the first words he'd said since giving the police report. She'd handled the admission questions -- medical history and whatnot. She'd also been the one to call Japan, and had listened to Toshio rant for hours over the "accident" -- the official story was that Kenshin and MacLeod had been practicing swordplay on the pier and Heather had gotten in the way. MacLeod had stuck around long enough to confirm that story for the cops before suddenly disappearing.

Kenshin had remained painfully silent, arms folded, jaw set, eyes gleaming.

Toshio had blamed Kenshin. Loudly, and with considerable anger, and she was sure that Kenshin had overheard at least some of what the man said. And Toshio's fury was ironic, because Kenshin had only seen the very tail end of the fight -- he had said that MacLeod had been about to take Soujiro's head and that Heather had run forward to stop the fight and had gotten in the way when MacLeod swung the sword back. Because MacLeod had been using Kenshin's sakabatou, and had apparently forgotten which side was sharp, he'd been holding it correctly, the blunt end towards Soujiro, and he had hit her in the arm with the razor edge.

I've never understood why Kenshin sharpens that thing, Atsuko thought, sourly. It's not likely that he'll ever use the sharp side of the sword.

The fact that Kenshin hadn't been the one holding the sword or even party to the fight didn't stop him from feeling horribly guilty. She knew him well enough to know that at least some of his anger had been directed at himself and not at MacLeod or Soujiro.

As far as Soujiro went, Heather had indisputably saved his life. Mac probably would not have killed him with the first blow, given the way that Kenshin said he was holding the sword, but he would have certainly turned the sword around and tried again.

Kenshin settled onto the couch beside her, arms folded, staring up at the ceiling. He would talk, in a minute. He was working himself up to the point of saying something. She recognized the signs; first he glowered and then he brooded and then he would talk, if she waited long enough.

"Atsuko-chan, it is my fault if Akane dies, that it is."

She could have predicted those words. "I think there is a great deal of shared blame to go around, Kenshin."

Now, she could debate who was at fault with him for quite awhile, with Kenshin arguing the point in circles and growing ever more frustrated at her until he stalked out. That was not a result she wanted. Anyway, trying to stop Kenshin from feeling guilty was rather like trying to convince fire to burn ice cold. It didn't matter what she told him; hell, it didn't matter if he logically agreed with her points. He'd still brood. It was purely his nature.

He looked down, arms folded, expression dark and closed.

"Kenshin," she said, quietly, "Look at me."

Violet eyes met hers. She brushed his hair back from his cheek. He pulled his head away, caught her hand -- but didn't immediately release her fingers. Instead, he folded his other hand over hers, and met her eyes again. "Atsuko, thank you for coming here."

He was thanking her not for coming to the hospital -- that was a foregone conclusion -- but coming to Seacouver at all. For caring enough, about both Heather and him, to drop her life and help.

"You would do the same for me," she said, a simple truth.

"Aa, you know that I would." He released her hand, raked his fingers through his hair, and said in absolute frustration, "Maa, this is the biggest mess I've seen in years. You're right, there's a great deal of blame to pass around, that there is."

"Starting with one really stupid girl," Atsuko said, sourly.

"Soujiro was telling the truth when he said he wasn't trying to rape her," Kenshin said, "That much was obvious just from his voice tone. But MacLeod was equally convinced that he was guilty of it. I need to talk to both of them and see if I can't sort this out."

"Maybe Mac found them in a compromising position?" Atsuko suggested.

"I highly doubt it!" Kenshin snorted a laugh that actually held a bit of humor.

Atsuko glanced at him. Kenshin shrugged. Kenshin reads people's innermost secrets like I read trashy novels -- it's hard to hide anything from him. Sometimes I swear he's psychic ... But why would he find my suggestion funny? ... ah. Light dawned. She lifted an eyebrow at Kenshin.

Kenshin twitched one shoulder up in a bit of a shrug. He didn't smile now; he was too worried to have more than a brief flash of amusement. "Heather has a crush on him. And Soujiro is many things, but he's not a rapist -- he's not the sort to crave that type of power, that he is not."

"How do you know?"

"Because when Shishio made him an assassin, Soujiro coped by burying his emotions so deeply that even I could not sense them in his ki. He could not face what he was doing, otherwise. His nature is not that of a power-hungry or evil man; he would rather be peaceful, that he would. His smile, which he shows when others show anger, is a glimpse of what lies at the core of his soul. He has an innate goodness to him; I can feel it deeply buried within what he is now. Also, there is a very great strength to his soul."

Kenshin gave Atsuko a sideways look, violet eyes glancing her way from beneath his bangs. "We are much alike, you know, save that where Soujiro felt nothing for many years, I only had anger in my heartHowever, he finds rage, hatred and fear so very appalling that he did not allow himself to even feel them for a very long time. Atsuko, both of us were damaged as children, very badly. All these years and he's still carrying old scars."

Soujiro isn't the only one who's still hurting. She reached out brushed his hair back from his face again. This time, he didn't flinch away. He just closed his eyes, pain and grief lining his features. He looked old, suddenly -- old well beyond the perpetual youth of his fine-boned features.

After a moment, she withdrew her hand and said quietly, "The doctors did say they won't know anything until morning and that she'd be sedated for days. Maybe we should go home, Kenshin."

He blinked, looked at her without comment.

"C'mon," she stood up and coaxed him to his feet. He came, reluctantly, moving like he physically hurt. I can't do a thing for Heather, but Kenshin is exhausted and grieving and needs to sleep. And eat, possibly not in that order. He still hasn't had dinner.

Everything looks better in the morning -- even for him, Mister King of the Brooding.

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