Author's Notes: This story would not be possible without the contributions of fellow user dori4n, who's fellow love of this smaller "Heroes" ship, chatting about head canon, and Skype roleplaying helped to inspire and create this story. So if you like it please, make sure to check out their page and stories as well.

[Please see bottom of each chapter for translations to Japanese words or phrases used by the characters.]

This was becoming something of a habit for the time traveler the blond thought as he heard footsteps approaching the grave that had become his prison once more, trying to decide whether to be flattered, or disgusted by it.

"Things are going crazy. I don't know why I keep coming, I don't even talk to my father, I talk to a man who killed him, the one who wanted to end humanity." Apparently the time traveler, and the real Takezo Kensei was angry today. Good the immortal thought bitterly, with the tiniest hint of amusement. So am I. "What were you thinking Kensei? That you had the right to commit genocide? That you could just... Get rid of every person on earth? And everything would be good?" He was pacing now, the ageless man could hear his footsteps back and forth at the foot of where he was buried. But then his voice became somber once more, and any entertainment or pleasure the immortal might have derived from his suffering was gone just as quickly with his words. "I trusted you. I've always believed in you. Even after you... You sold us to White Beard. I thought... I hoped you could be saved again. I'm not sure I still do."

And why on Earth should the little man trust him? It wasn't as though any incarnation of himself since he had sold him to White Beard had done anything that even approached being worthy or selfless enough to redeem him. He was an angry, lonely, selfish, bastard. Hiro shouldn't trust him, not as far as the little Japanese man could throw him. But as he heard the footsteps retreating once more, leaving him alone, he had time to ponder his words, and his own thoughts. Lonely. When had he become lonely...?

.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.

Sometimes, the immortal wasn't sure if he was actually hearing his one time companion's voice from six feet above him, or if he were simply imagining whatever it was that he thought Hiro Nakamura would have to say to him. His last visit had hit him far harder than he had expected. Up until now he had done his best to keep a tight grip on his anger. Convinced himself that this was all he had left, his hate and need for revenge. But now such emotions seemed to be slipping through his fingers like grains of sand, or even water. He simply couldn't continue to hold on to it. Not even now, while he was trapped in this too small box, dying over and over again, because somewhere, some small part of him knew that he deserved this. That he deserved far worse than this fate that Hiro had left him to. At least now and again he came to see him, talked to him. It was one of the few things that kept him from going completely crazy. Unless of course he already was, and he was now simply imagining the man visiting, saying what he most wanted to hear.

"Remember, last time I said I wasn't sure I still believed in you?" There was a sigh, followed by a rustling of clothing, and of the grass as the time traveler took a seat at the foot of the grave-site. "I was wrong. I still do. I don't know why, even you don't believe in yourself anymore. You've lost yourself in darkness so deep it scares me. I wanted... I wanted to make you who were meant to become. But... You had so little faith in yourself. You still don't have much. In yourself, in the world. My heart bleeds for you Kensei. I wanted to show you you were wonderful and... I screwed it all up. Sometimes I think it's my fault if you turned out to be a villain." There was a time, the blond thought listening to the younger man speak, when he would have believed this. When he might have been only too happy to point the finger at the meddlesome, idealistic and well-meaning, time traveler. But now... something had changed since the last time his friend had been here.

The first of which being that he didn't loathe thinking of Hiro as his friend anymore-it came as naturally as it ever had when he had first met the strange man, but he no longer resented it. He was more disappointed in himself that Hiro probably couldn't still think of him this way. He had been his friend. And so much more. He had still cared about him in spite of himself, even after Yaeko.

Yaeko. Now and then he had dreams- were they dreams? Nightmares? Hallucinations? Did he sleep anymore, or was it just time spent in limbo while his body regenerated? He couldn't be sure, and it didn't seem to matter every time he closed his eyes he was back in Feudal Japan, reliving it over and over, and over again, wondering how or what he might have done differently that wouldn't have ended with him in this too small pine box. But astonishingly enough the swordsmith's daughter of legendary beauty was never the focus of such visions. It was Hiro. And if the immortal was truly honest with himself it had always been more, or rather all about the small man who was sitting at the foot of his grave.

It had still killed him not to reach out for him when he tried to save him from the explosion. He'd not been sure if he would be able to regenerate from such a thing. Being blown to pieces? That seemed pretty fatal even for him, but he had resigned to his fate. He'd let Hiro go. And despite the way he had gone about showing it, he'd regretted it every day since. And every day for 335 years.. that was an incredibly long time to bear the weight of such a regret.

It made him bleed, more than he wanted to acknowledge: the thought of having failed to live up to the ideals of bravery, honor, and courage, that was instilled in Hiro from a young age, and that his older incarnation had believed him to represent. He'd never cared about such things before meeting him. He'd been a self-proclaimed and happy drunk. But somehow it mattered to him what Hiro thought about him. Somehow it always had.

The rustle of fabric and grass, and fading footsteps mark the time travelers departure, and for the first time in a long time, the immortal Takezo Kensei and Adam Monroe allows himself to cry.