A/N: I've been in writer's block for Average honestly, and now that I'm out of it, I hope you all enjoy the chapter. I sure hope it'll be long enough.

"For a long time, I always thought there was nothing that Mr. Himura could do wrong. But then, I always saw the good side of all the guys, even Sanosuke who had some of the most wild streaks I'd ever encountered. But, I guess everyone in this business has a little bit of infamy to them, some more than others.

"There was no reason that he meant to get caught, and I knew that after then he would make sure to watch himself. I wonder if maybe that was when he started changing back to Average Joe."

-Yahiko Myojin

16.

Sanosuke didn't tell me what job we had to do immediately. All he told me was that we were taking a roadtrip to Philadelphia, which told me that we were after someone who had taken money and tried to run thinking that he was safe from the family. After a few hours in the car he told me that the guy was a numbers runner and that he had gotten a big winner and didn't feel like giving the winner their money. Which, really, upset us the most. We were at the service of the public, and the only thing that was worse than stealing from us the family directly, was to steal from the client.

We arrived in Philly late, and knew that it would be easier to get this guy under the guise of the night.

As we sat there, I couldn't help but think about two things: one of them was why I was here in the first place. Sanosuke was a top notch hit-man and didn't need my help to get this done quickly and silently. I knew, however, like so many times before, that I wasn't here because I was whacking the guy, but because I was influence.

The second thing I thought about was Tomoe, and how Hiko had denied me the right to know if she was dead or not. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was better that I let it slip away since it was screwing with me physically, but it was hard for her face to not haunt me. It seemed that when I least expected it, an apparition of her appeared before me, smiling, tilting her head to the side, walking towards me like she was ready to caress me, and then falling away just as her hands touched my face.

"'Ey," Sanosuke hit my arm, drawing my attention forward. We were parked outside of some sort of warehouse, or at least that was what it looked like. The most uncomfortable part was that it didn't seem like we were alone. I mean, I knew that the guy was going to be here, probably gambling away the money. At least he was smart enough to not head straight for Atlantic City of Las Vegas.

Sanosuke got out of the car. I followed shortly behind him, the both of us hidden in the shadow of the warehouse. The door opened. I heard Sanosuke cock his gun. Whenever it came to a true hit, something that he was paid exceptionally to do, Sanosuke always went for a semi-automatic handgun, something that could shell out the rounds, but could also be taken apart and thrown away so he wouldn't have something that incriminate himself.

Sanosuke didn't stop to catch his target off guard. Instead he kept walking until he could hit the man in the gut, the gun still in his hand. The man sputtered, but didn't scream, even as Sanosuke had him on the ground. I came closer and helped Sanosuke as he put the man in the back of his car, telling me to drive as he kept the gun shoved into the guy's side.

We went somewhere more desolate, somewhere that would should have been easy to beat the guy around and then dump him. I helped Sanosuke pull him out of the car, and watched as Sanosuke began to beat him within an inch of his life. Sanosuke had him backed up against the railing near the Delaware River, no doubt the place we were going to dump him when Sanosuke finished him off.

I got closer to Sanosuke, looking at the man's pleading features. "Himura..."he muttered out. I could barely understand him where blood was gushing from his nose and mouth. "I'ma...I'ma sorry...tell Hiko I'm..."Sanosuke hit him hard across the face.

"You already fucked up, don't go apologizing to Hiko. He wants nothin' to do with ya," Sanosuke pushed him harder against the railing, the gun in his stomach. That was when we heard sirens. "Fuck me."

"We need to go Sano," I said quietly. Sanosuke was very reluctant to do so, but understand that we needed to. He pulled back from the guy, shoving him hard against the railing, taking the wind from him. Just as it seemed like the guy had gotten off the hook, Sanosuke shot him in the knee, a cry of pain breaking through the air. I started toward the car, sitting in the passenger seat. I didn't know what Sanosuke said to him, but the man was cowering even more. No doubt Sanosuke threatened to kill him after the police were off his trail.

He got in and sped off, the police siren fading the further away we got. Sanosuke handed me the gun. "Break it apart."

I didn't need to be told twice. I proceeded to pull the gun into several pieces. We were still a little desolate enough. I rolled down the window and threw out the smaller pieces every mile or two until we reached town. I was left with the largest part, looking at Sanosuke curiously as he pulled into an all night gas station.

I got out, handing Sanosuke the piece. We went into the small shop. I watched Sanosuke lean against the counter, handing the man behind it five hundred dollars and the piece of the gun to get rid of. The man was more than happy to take the money.

I came up to the counter with two Cokes, paid for them, and left with Sanosuke, handing him one of them. It seemed like we had just gotten away with it. We drove home, getting back at the break of dawn. I wandered into my home, my wife and son still asleep. I collapsed on the couch, the empty Coke bottle in my hand.

I wasn't woken until sometime after noon. Kaoru seemed to understand that I had been out late and didn't see the need to wake me, even to go climb into out bed. I was awoken by the sound of a car door. The house was empty, so I could only deduce that she had left with Kenji, as if to let me sleep longer.

After I got up, I lingered around the house for a little bit before leaving to go into the city. I stayed out until seven o' clock, taking numbers. After I was finished I turned the numbers and the money I had taken in, coming home to find that Kaoru had just gotten home with some take out. I hadn't eaten since the night before (unless you count the Coke).

"Kenji's about to start kindergarten," Kaoru said in a whimiscal voice as we sat around watching television. She was nuzzled up against my chest, her nose in my side. "It's so strange how time goes by so fast." I didn't say anything to her, but flipped the channel instead. In response she tried to grab for the remote, and we ended up fighting over it. At the end of it, we ended up on the floor laughing at each other.

This was typical of anyone in the family. We didn't go out and do dangerous things like getting into gun fights or whacking members. We didn't do that sort of thing all the time. Yeah, occasionally it happened, which was what the movies often showed, but most of the time we sat at home watching television with the family. Then again, you can't make a movie about a guy sitting on the couch doing nothing, so I understood Hollywood stretching the truth a little bit.

Sanosuke came to me the next day. We sat around in my place, laughing and acting like nothing happened the night before. In the least, I didn't want Kaoru to know what had happened. She knew all the things that happened in the family, and she understood that sometimes these things had to be done, but I didn't want her to know that I was sometimes involved with those sorts of things.

When she walked away, Sanosuke batted my arm and said: "We gotta hit 'em tonight. We got him located and everything." Which didn't surprise me. I was about to ask a few questions when Kaoru came back in with lemonade. Sanosuke just gave me this look. I shook my head and laughed it off.

That night I got the surprise of my life. I was waiting for Sanosuke to come pick me up so we could finish the job. I didn't understand why I was needed the second night, but in the least I was with Sanosuke, and it gave me something to do. I told Kaoru that it would be the last time for a while, and swore on it. She kissed me good night and went to bed.

Just then someone knocked on the door. I didn't think anything of it. Sanosuke had said he was coming. When I opened the door, my heart sank through my chest.

The words 'you're under arrest' don't seem too real on television, but when you're lying on your stomach with one cop cuffing you and the other one reading you your rights, it becomes very real. That time I resisted. I didn't know, nor did I ask why I was being taken in. I just writhed to try and get away from them all the way until they put me into the car and started to take me away. I looked back, able to see Kaoru in the doorway. I imagine she was crying.

I was arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail faster than I could blink. They had me and Sanosuke on assault charges. The man who we'd beaten up, a former member of the family, had a brother who was a Fed, and he ran to the Feds as quick as he possibly could. He had seen our faces.

We had our day in court of course. Sanosuke represented himself, naturally, but I had a good lawyer as well. At first, I was worried. The man had seen our faces, which was all the proof that they needed. But then, as I sat there thinking and talking it out with my lawyer, I came to realize that there was only so much the man could say. He sat in the comfort of a hospital bed (a place that Sanosuke cursed him to be in forever, since it was the closest thing to a coffin) all the while knowing that there was only so much he could say.

The thing about an assault charge is that the severity of the punishment all depended on the circumstances of the assault itself. When it was done, how badly the person was beaten, if it was planned or not, if there was a weapon involved, and much more. Sadly for us, all of that seemed to play against us. But Sanosuke seemed to be able to fight his way out of it, and my lawyer used the same defense that Sanosuke did. For one, the crime took place at night. Though the man said that it was we who beat him, there was no way he could be so sure. We looked close to what he thought, but there was always chance for him to be in the wrong. Secondly, even if he had a bullet wound, neither of us had a gun that could have caused the wound, and the police hadn't found even one piece of the weapon. Lastly, he couldn't say that he was associated with the family, so he couldn't incriminate himself while he incriminated us. It was an isolated incident, or so it seemed.

That being said, there was one thing that went against all the circumstantial evidence-that being that we were part of an "organized crime syndicate" to quote the prosecution.

The jury had time to hand on these things. I prayed that I would be let go, but there was something in me that wasn't going to happen. Despite the circumstantial evidence, I had a feeling that both my and Sanosuke's association would work against us. And it did.

We were sentenced to five years. Of course, that didn't bother me as much. we had the corrupted system on our sides. Sure, we would be in jauk for a few years, if that, but after some time, if we played our cards right, everything would lighten up.

While we waited, however, we were plagued by the fact that we were in with some of our worst enemies, especially the Yukishiros. I'm not saying that they fucked with us, or we fucked with them, but in the end there was a man who ended up dead. It wasn't for sure who did it, and honestly, the guard at the prison did little to investigate, but I could smell Sanosuke all over it. Someone had pushed him a little too far.

While incarcerated, Kaoru visited as often as she possibly could and she brought Kenji with her. She would bring in some contraband under her coat, but the guards never really cared. And even if it was serious, I had curried enough favor with them that they wouldn't mess with me. During those meetings, Kenji would babble to me about things that were going on. The one thing I was ashamed of was the fact that I missed the chance to take him to his first day of school, and then be able to go pick him up and ask him how his day was. Instead I got a summary of it when they came next.

Kenji would sit in my lap and tell me about school, and about the other kids. He didn't seem to be very good at dealing with other kids. He was small for his age, something that he had gotten from his Daddy. I told him that if anything happened that Daddy would be on his side. He seemed to settle after that.

I got out after two years. They said it was because of "good behavior" which said to me that it was a lot of good leverage.

Kaoru was waiting outside for me, Kenji in the back seat of the car. I hugged her like I hadn't been able to see her during the entire stint. I hugged her so tight I was afraid I might have cut off some of her circulation. Afterward we got in the car.

"How's Sano? she asked me like she did every time she saw me.

"Fine," I replied. There was no one willing to stand up to Sanosuke, even if they thought about doing. "He'll probably get out soon too," I said, not knowing that he would get out a week after I did.

"You hungry?" she asked. "We haven't had lunch yet. Thought maybe you'd want something."

"A burger sounds wonderful," I said, laughing. She nodded and drove on.

She wouldn't stop talking, as if I hadn't been listening to her when she was coming on a weekly basis. She told me about the job that she had gotten (and now quit) since I'd been gone. I knew that she had a lot of reserve money in our bank account, but knowing Kaoru, she was unwilling to touch it unless it was an emergency. She got a job as a receptionist instead of using it.

All the while, as I sat listening to her, I couldn't help but think about some information that I had learned. I hadn't asked anybody any questions, certainly not the questions that I wanted answered, but somehow it just came up. I ended up learning about Tomoe, and how she died. She didn't quite die in the fashion that Enishi had said, but I was still left to wonder. Instead of pining away, she was a slave to her own desires. She kept going on her habit, trying all the new things that came out. She ended up dying on her high, or so it was believed since they found so much in her system. I could only wonder if maybe it was a response to that one night. My hand ran over the scar on my cheek. Tomoe was once such a beautiful woman. She had class, and seemed so perfect. In her time she was had fallen madly in love, twice, and lost it both times. She had a child that she couldn't keep, and ended up dying living off what she believed she couldn't live without. It was strange to believe that she once was so powerful that she could have anything she wanted. All she had to do was point and it was hers.

"You alright?"

"Huh?" I looked to Kaoru. We had pulled up to a drive in eatery for something. "Oh, fine. I was just thinking is all."

"You probably haven't had a burger in a while," she said, "at least not one this good."

"All American," I said, smiling.

It went quiet for a few moments before she asked: "Nothing happened did it?" This was one of those questions that sh easked me everytime she came in. I shook my head.

"No, nothing happened."

Kaoru, appropriately, was concerned about me becoming sodomized by somebody, and then ending up being their bitch for the length that I was in there. "No one's ballsy enough," I added. It may have sounded like me being a little too prideful, but I knew it to be true. No one ever approached me with that kind of proposition, but I knew it they did, Sanosuke would have ended up killing the person who did. It was the one good thing about having him one your side.

It was 1980. I had missed two years, and it seemed like the air on the outside had changed. It was already June, and was getting close to my birthday. It seemed like my world was crumbling around me. There hadn't been anything bad happen to our family while I was gone, but it seemed that others were having trouble.

Henry Hill had been arrested in May for drug possession charges. He was part of the Lucchese family, you might know him for his partial association with the Lufthansa heist. Earlier in the year, a don in Philadelphia, Angela Bruno, had been killed. It seemed like things like these were more publicized than before. It seemed like the outside world was ever more interested in what we were doing, the problems that we were having, and they wanted to know what they could do to find a way to get rid of us. I wondered why the public, who always came to us when they wanted to cut corners, was now trying to do us in. It crossed my mind that they were trying to make themselves seem more noble than they actually were, but it also crossed my mind that while they pretended that they were going to do something, they were instead going to make it look like they were doing something, and in the end it'll have been too hard for them, so it's easier just admit defeat and then reap the reward. After all, we weren't going to deny them.

Kaoru threw a grill out for my birthday, which meant that the entire family was over. Sanosuke got out just in time for it to be a whole gathering. For the most part, I sat in a lawn chair and watched everyone else. I just wanted to relax. It felt like every nerve in my body was harried, like I could do nothing to lay low and feel normal.

Hiko came up to, offering me a beer. I took it. He sat next to me, looking around at all of the people as if to warn them not to come near.

"You alright?"

"Fine."

"You look awful."

"I'm just tired," I said. "I found my answer."

"Figured you would," Hiko said. "Does it make you feel any better?"

I had to look at him. He chewed slowly, a hot dog in his hand, and he seemed to examine the world. He always did this. He was fully committed to your conversation, and at the same time, looking at everyone else. "I don't know. It's good to know she's resting somewhere I guess."

"It's not your fault."

"I know."

"Then why are you blaming yourself?" he asked taking another bite of the hot dog. He looked at me this time. He looked seriously, but he seemed to have this playful look on his place, like he had the answer. "You shouldn't. You didn't know where she was, what she'd been doing unchecked. She just died. It happens," he shrugged.

"How did it feel when your son died?" I asked, wondering where it had come from. I remembered back to seeing the picture on his mantle. The one where he was with his wife, his baby son in his arms. It was next to my high school graduation picture. He sighed. "It feels about like that. Whatever it was, it wasn't your fault. But you feel like you could have done something to stop it. That's how I feel. Except maybe not as strong. It's dull, in my heart. But I have Kaoru, just like..."and I paused when I looked at him. "Just like you have me." I finished. He took the last bite of the hot dog and wiped his hands.

"Yeah, I guess." He said in his usual stoicism. "Look, you might want to lay low cause of all this."

"I know."

"The guy's been dealt with by the way. He had way too much information, too close to the Feds."

I nodded. As I stood up, Kaoru calling out that I needed to open presents, Hiko stopped me, his hand on my chin. "You haven't been doing anything have you?"

I was confused. "Doing?...what?"

"You're nose is bleeding," he said. I pulled out, taking out my handkerchief and wiping the blood away.

"It's been happening for over a year," I said. "Started sometime last spring. And no, I'm not doing cocaine, if that's what you're asking."

"You should see a doctor then," Hiko suggested. It was unlike him to suggest anything like that, unless he had reason or actually gave a damn. I went for the later.

"It's probably just frequent nose bleeds or something. The air in there was stale, and the air outside is stiff. I'll be fine," I said, wiping it all away. I didn't mention that my heart was racing. Hiko nodded, pushing me along toward the patio where Kaoru had all the presents lines up. People started singing to me off key, and I laughed like old times. They clapped me on the back, telling me I was a great guy. Inside I knew I had some sort of credit with them now, for serving my time and coming out in one piece.

That night, before me and Kaoru got busy, as we seemed to be doing anymore, she came up to me out of the bathroom. "I've been saving my present," she said to me. "I think you'll really really like it."

"What's that?" I asked, a wily smile on my face. She blushed a little, looked down to her feet, and then back up at me.

"I'm pregnant."

A/N: Dun dun duh! Heehee...again sorry for the wait. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Till next time, KenSan out!