Master Hiko looked at him from across the room and sipped his tea slowly, savoring it. Kenshin shifted. His master's brows drew together.

"At least you can make a decent cup of tea," he said at length, and let the cup dangle from his fingertips. "Now then, student. Would you care to tell your master why the first I heard of this wedding was when I received the invitation last week?"

It had been Kaoru's idea to invite him, although they were both sure he wouldn't attend. He's your master, she'd said. You owe him your life. And he hadn't disagreed, so they had sent the invitation along with Misao's and Aoshi's and Okina's and the rest of the Aoiya's. They had thought no more on it until Kenshin had escorted Kaoru to the gate that morning and seen his master walking up the road, sake jug in hand and Kenshin had stared for too many heartbeats, forgetting to untangle their fingers. Master Hiko's sardonic gaze had rested on their joined hands and he'd said so it wasn't a joke after all as he sketched a bow to Kaoru. My condolences, young lady.

And Kaoru had left, because the wedding was the day after tomorrow and there were things to do, and he'd invited his master in for tea because what else could he possibly have done? Now they sat across from one another in the room outside the dojo, across from the courtyard, with the tea set in between them and Master Hiko's cloak spreading across the floor like spilled milk.

Kenshin exhaled. "Ah. Well. This one… that is to say, there was some uncertainty…"

"You thought I wouldn't take an interest in your future, was that it? That having passed on the final succession technique, I had no further investment in you?" Master Hiko snorted irritably. "Idiot."

Kenshin started to protest and his master quelled him with a glance. The older swordsman sipped his tea again, staring at Kenshin over the rim.

"You're not sleeping well, boy. Any particular reason?"

The wedding, he almost said, automatic and false. It's been a bit stressful. But even as he thought the excuse he could he hear his master snapping don't lie to me, you fool, and the words shriveled on his tongue. He lowered his head to study the tatami.

"…bad dreams, Master."

It sounded so petty by the light of day.

"Hmph." Master Hiko turned the cup, examining it dispassionately. "What about?"

Kenshin closed his eyes.

Smoke.

Smoke, and blood in his eyes, and the scent of white plum…

Too slow, always too slow, smoke and white plum and that high ungrown-boy's voice 'for the purposes of my mortal justice, I must have your life.'

Not even enough time to scream.

And her eyes, her eyes riveted on him even now trusting him to save her, to make it better as the blade slides home and she chokes and sputters on her own heartsblood even then she's telling him fix this, fix this I know you can.

And then –

Kenshin swallowed, hard, and did not look up.

"This one dreams… of Enishi's mortal justice, Master. Of… if he had not been so restrained… if Tomoe's memory had not served to guard Kaoru…"

The house is empty and that's wrong.

There should be laundry hanging on the line. Where was the laundry?

The air is thick, heavy – no, that was him – like syrup or deep water, dragging him down. She's here, somewhere. Where is she?

Why is the house empty?

He stumbles slow and clumsy across the porch towards the doors that gape open like a wound and follows the scent of incense, of incense and white plum.

She's there, beyond those doors and he doesn't want to go he doesn't want to see her why doesn't he want to see her? But his legs are moving slow and inevitable and the current is pulling him on.

And she is.

There.

Incense burning in front of her memorial.

Wrong. Wrong. It didn't happen this way this is wrong this did not happen she was alive, she was alive I saw her, I felt her she held me in her arms and I was forgiven –

But there it is, black marble crossed by white lilies and the thin smoke rising from her altar and

And then he'd wake with a strangled scream and lurch out of bed, falling tangled with the blankets.

His hands tightened where they rested on his thighs.

The first morning he had kicked off the blankets and scrambled to his feet as terror thrummed in his veins in time with his heart. He had torn the rice paper as he opened the shoji and not cared at all as he stumbled into the cold spring morning, searching for her, needing to know she was still real. He had found her, halfway to his room and concerned about the shouts she'd heard; he'd found her and clutched her to him like a child with a favorite doll.

She hadn't understood, not really, but she'd stroked his hair and murmured soothing nonsense until he finally relaxed against her, eyes shut tight, and convinced himself that it had only been a dream.

The second night he was better prepared, and did not scream. And the only sign that anything was wrong were the smudges under his eyes and the worry in Kaoru's face.

"Have you talked to your young lady about it?"

Kenshin looked up, confused. Master Hiko stared into his eyes for a brief moment and then gave him that look, the my-only-heir-and-legacy-is-a-mouthbreathing-meebling-moron look, before he sighed heavily and set his cup aside.

"Apprentice. Attend."

He straightened his back automatically, riveting his attention on his master.

"The day after tomorrow, that woman will be your wife," Master Hiko instructed. "You will be bound to one another for the rest of your lives. She will share your bed and raise your children. You will protect her and provide for her. You will cease to exist as individuals and become one whole unit: a family, duty-bound to one another and to this house until the end of your lives. Is that what you want, apprentice?"

Kenshin blinked, staring. His throat worked and his stomach churned and the weight of his decision – that he'd made almost half a year ago, that he did not regret, that he knew he did not regret – bore down on him.

"Master… this one does not…"

"Is that what you want or not? It's a very simple question."

"It is not a question of duty!" He was light-headed and hollow and torn with passions, like the intemperate child he'd thought he'd left behind.

His master raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"It is that…" that he had been perishing by inches, some cold-blooded creature trapped in deep frost and waiting to die until she had hurtled out of the fog on that cold morning, sudden as a sunrise, and warmed him down to the bone. Until she had demanded his name and given it back to him, and made him whole again. "She… this one… that Kenshin Himura exists now, neither vagabond nor manslayer, is because of her. She is…"

Even now, he couldn't say the words.

Master Hiko sat back. "She is what, idiot boy?"

Kenshin clenched his fists, thumping one futilely against the top of his thigh, and could not say it. His master shook his head.

"Idiot," he said, and drank some more tea. "How did I raise you to be so dishonest?"

That stung, although it shouldn't have. He was tired, tired and raw and scared of the day after tomorrow, and he knew he shouldn't be and he was anyway. The moment stretched out between them. Kenshin counted the weave in the tatami, struggling with himself. Outside, the cherry blossoms were a riot of white and pink petals, and somewhere under them Kaoru was laughing and preparing for a life with him; a life bound to him, with his nightmares and bloody hands that would never be clean.

Finally, Master Hiko finished his tea.

"Kenshin," he said, and his voice was strange; in any other man, Kenshin would have called it gentle. "Do you know why I gave you the Hiten Mitsurugi style?"

Echoes. I didn't teach you swordsmanship to make you miserable. Kenshin shook his head, suddenly exhausted.

His master seemed to sigh, then. Kenshin started to speak, to protest or argue or something, and his master raised his hand and stopped him.

"Think, before you say anything."

Kenshin remembered: bruises and sweat and hard work and the clean ache of muscle and bone growing stronger and surer every day. Master's voice, irritated and snapping: comb your hair, sit up straight, chew your food before you swallow. Hold that sword properly. Large hands over his small ones, adjusting his grip. Showing him how to bind the blisters. That same hand on his forehead as he lay shivering with fever. It's only a cold, idiot.

His master's eyes, watching him as he walked away, down the mountain into the world, and his master's hands that never made a move to stop him, never demanded that he stay.

Kaoru's eyes, darkened by shadow and lit by the fireflies.

Kaoru, standing framed in the setting sun. I want to stay with you.

Kaoru, holding out her hand in the doorway. Kaoru, smiling. Laundry fluttering in the breeze. Sano and Yahiko squabbling over the last bit of fish as Kaoru sat back, shaking her head. Kaoru, sitting pressed against him with their hands entwined as the sun rose. Her strong hands that sheltered his heart and offered her own in return, demanding nothing.

Welcome back.

I'm home.

Something was seeping in, past the old pain and the reflexive fears, past the doubt and he understood suddenly that this is what love is: to give the very best part of yourself away, expecting nothing in return.

"Master…" He swallowed, and then bowed his head. "…what if that isn't enough?"

Master Hiko snorted, getting to his feet.

"That's not your decision to make, fool," he said as he went to stand in the doorway, looking out into the courtyard, and there was no sting in his tone. "Now: answer the question."

"I love her," he said calmly, and realized it was the first time he'd allowed himself to put words to it.

"And?"

"And…" He thought of her eyes, lately, the worry for him that she did such a bad job of hiding, the hands that would rest lightly on his shoulder or elbow and then flutter away, afraid of overstepping. "…and we will be married, so we will."

"So?"

Kenshin recognized it for the prompt it was but couldn't quite follow through.

"So…" he started, and stopped. "So…"

His master waited, patiently, for him to say the words he already knew.

"So…" Kenshin said finally. "No more hiding, master."

Master Hiko seemed to shake his head slightly, then shrugged.

"It's close enough. Well, then, idiot apprentice, any more pre-wedding jitters? Perhaps you need some marital advice. How long has it been since you were with a woman?"

Kenshin shot to his feet, hair on end.

"Master! That won't be necessary, that it will not!"

"Are you sure?" His master's eyes gleamed sadistically. "Just remember: a true swordsman can make do with any length of blade, as long as he has excellent technique…"

They continued in this vein for a time, until Master Hiko felt he'd regained the upper hand, and eventually he took his leave, cloak swirling in the warm spring breeze. Kenshin saw him off, and when he said thank you, master he meant my father; and when his master responded idiot apprentice he meant my son.

After dinner, when he and Kaoru were sitting on the porch drinking tea before bed, he put his arm around her and told her about the nightmares. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his shoulder, and said I'm real, I promise.

He smiled into her hair.

He had the nightmare again that night; but when he woke up, he knew it had only been a dream.