I knew Kensan wouldn't think any less of me for showing my fear as I put my hand on the door.  Though it had been a year, the place was abandoned.  It seemed to me, however, the house was still full of the ghosts of the Oniwa Banshu and other, more fearsome creatures.
    The Banshu had been fearful fighters, seemingly cruel men who cared nothing about anything save their own strength.  The truth was, they had had their own peculiar sense of honor despite working for Kanryu, and from what I had been told, they had come to stand by their leader, Shinomori Aoshisan, when Kanryu had promised them death beginning with that of Aoshisan.  I could almost feel them still in that house, as full of hatred in the end for the sick bastard who'd kept me captive as I was.
    Yahikochan had seemed almost proud of them when he'd told me how they'd thrown themselves between Aoshisan and Kanryu.  I pictured them all in my mind, but I knew they hadn't been what had tormented my dreams.
    I stood in the hall.  So far it wasn't so bad, and Kensan boosted my courage greatly just by standing behind me.  I walked up to the second floor.
    Yes, here it was harder.  Here was where they had fought, where so many had died.  "For my sake..."  I whispered.  I didn't realize Kensan had heard until he answered with a whisper as soft as my own.
    "Hai."  But we both knew it wasn't only me.  I was only a catalyst.
    I caught my thoughts rambling along paths I didn't need to take.  I was still cold, leaving a trail of rain behind me, the mud squishing in my shoes.  There were only two rooms in that house that I didn't want to look at, and those were the rooms I had to face. 
    I took a deep breath and started for the tower; the place I had almost ended everything, but instead had begun a new path.  Still, I had been about to take my own life at the moment that Sanosuke had burst in ahead of Kensan, Kaoruchan, and Yahikochan.  I had been sure it was the end, then.
    Kensan followed me silently up the stairs to the third floor tower, bare but for a bench that surrounded most of the room.  I was torn as I put my hand on the door, afraid of what I wasn't sure, when a particularly loud thunderclap shook the windows of the room, so close after the lightning that I screamed again as I had by the door, collapsing in the middle of the floor.
    Kensan was there before I even hit the ground, his arms around me, supporting me as I let the tears flow.  I buried my face in his chest and a tiny part of my mind marveled that he could be so warm already.  He rocked me as gently as if I had been no more than an infant, soothing me with sounds more than words, humming a lullaby I didn't remember but guessed he must have heard in his own childhood.  I doubted I would ever ask him about it.
    I knew he must think me a little silly to be so afraid of a simple storm, but then he also knew why I was so afraid.  Once my breathing had slowed and I felt I could speak again without tears, I rose and spoke, half to myself.
    "There's only one other place I have to go."
    Kensan looked at me curiously, obviously wondering what I meant.  If I hadn't been so afraid of what part of my mind told me could not possibly hurt me, I might have even smiled at his confusion, but I only walked out of the tower and back down the stairs.  He followed me, bewildered until he realized where I was going.
    I stopped outside the door to what had been Kanryu's bedroom.  I heard Kensan's own steps hesitate, and that tiny little bit of my mind that was still rational thought it was quaint that he would still be aware enough of his moral conviction not to go to a woman's bedroom when she was not his wife.  I stopped paying attention to him and leaned my head on the doors.
    Silence.  Not that I had expected anything else, but somehow I was still startled.  I almost thought I should hear my own screams behind the thunder and wind outside.  Another crack of thunder startled me, but this time I only whimpered.
    "It's now or never," I said softly, and opened the door.
    One of the windows had been broken by a tree branch that had been knocked down in an earlier storm, and I wasn't sure if it was the room that was so cold or if it was my own terror.  As I looked around, abruptly I felt calm, as if all my emotions had crawled into a back corner and the little rationality I thought I'd had left came to the fore.
    The bed was on the far side of the room from the broken window, but enough rain had blown in to get it wet.  I shivered again and took slow steps towards that bed that had been my rack of torture for so many horrible nights.
     The storm seemed to be abating, just a little but enough to be noticed, as I sat down on the edge of the bed and gasped.  Feeling a little ridiculous, I realized the shadow in the doorway was Kensan, and that I wasn't feeling as calm as I'd thought.
     "Megumidono?"
     "Iie, gomen, Kensan.  I'm just a little unnerved.  I saw you standing in the doorway and I didn't realize it was you and I guess I panicked."
     I heard him sigh with relief.  Was it relief?  I couldn't be sure.  All I did know was that he decided then to come in.  The room had no ghosts for him as it did for me, but I had already been looking out the broken window, watching the storm raging into the room.  I jumped again when he sat down on the bed, at the end opposite me, and gave a nervous little laugh again.
     "It's all right, Megumidono.  It's only me.  I'm right here."
     Yes, maybe he was talking down to me a little bit, but in the frame of mind I was in I think I needed it.  I sat quietly, still for several minutes, letting my mind wander where it would.
     "Kensan.."
     "Oro?"
     I took a deep breath.  Until now I'd only told him the essence of what Takeda Kanryu had done to me, that I'd been forced to his bed.  What I had never been able to tell anyone was how often he'd done it, or how he'd hurt me.  "Kensan, I...  I'm afraid."
     I felt him moving closer to me but I still wasn't prepared for it when I felt his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped again.
     He pulled away and I apologized again, turning to look at him for the first time since he'd stood in the doorway.  "I'm sorry, Kensan.  I'm not taking this very well, am I."
     "It's why we're here, isn't it?"  His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him over the wind.
     I nodded. "Kensan...  When I told you he'd forced me...  I didn't just mean that he would coerce me."
     "Megumidono, you don't have to tell me."
     "No, Kensan, I need to.  I have to face it all, or I'll never get past it."  He nodded in the darkness and I looked away, ashamed for no reason.  "He used me to make his drugs, and to treat his men, but he liked using my body for himself most of all.  He liked it best when  there was a storm like this one, because then he didn't think anyone would hear me screaming.  He..."  I couldn't continue for a moment, choking on the fear and hate I still harbored.
     "Are you sure you want to talk about it now?"  Kensan had come around to sit next to me, putting his arm across my shoulders in what must he must have thought was a friendly or perhaps a brotherly gesture.  I nodded and took a deep breath again, coughed as I inhaled rain.  Took another deep breath.
     "He used to tie me up so I couldn't get away.  He would gag me so I couldn't talk, and he would use a knife on me if I tried anything.  Sometimes even if I didn't.  He liked pain, he liked hurting things, he would give me rope burns just to see me cry, and then he'd make me heal them so could do it again sooner.  Once, he tried to force me to take the drugs he used me to make.  In this room he did it.  All of it.  And sometimes he would give me a knife and tell me what he would do if I tried to kill myself with it, and he would leave me for hours with it but I knew he had me watched..."
     I couldn't talk anymore.  I broke at last, years of pain bursting out at last into tears that wouldn't stop.  Kenshin held me protectively, looking out into the night, his expression sealing a death sentence for Takeda Kanryu should he ever emerge into daylight.
     I could almost hear Sanosuke's voice coming up with new words for the demon in human form, declaring not only were existing words not vile enough but that the sick bastard would pay a thousand times for what he'd done.  I could see Kaoru's face full of shock and disgust and hatred for anything who could do such things to a woman.  And Yahiko would be following Sanosuke's less than stellar example, had any of them been there to hear it.
     But they weren't, and Kensan said nothing, only held me as I cried and looked out into the distance with that look in his eyes, the one I found so compelling and yet so terrifying.
     "It's over now, Megumidono.  You're all right now, and he's locked away," Kensan said as I cried into his chest, as the tension so slowly faded out of my shoulders.  I felt his chin resting atop my head then, and slowly the storm began to lessen.
     I'm not sure how much time had passed when I finally pulled my head away to look up at Kensan.  He looked down at me, curled up in his arms soaking wet, and he smiled encouragingly.
     "I must look horrible."  I didn't move though, paralyzed by his eyes locked on my own, and I knew that I wasn't afraid anymore.  Not of him, not of Sanosuke, not of any man.  Not even of Kanryu.
     "No, Megumidono.  You look wonderful."  He didn't move either but suddenly I knew this was it, this had to be it, that it was now or never, nothing else mattered but this moment.
     And so it was that in the dark stormy room that had once been a torture chamber for me, I willingly kissed someone for the first time.  Kensan's arms were strong and warm and safe around me as I leaned up towards him and felt him leaning towards me.
     In stories, people talk about kisses that shook the world where their knees turned to jelly and the entire universe vanished except for the pair kissing.  Some people believe that by kissing, a couple shares a part of their souls with one another.  Whatever the stories say, I don't know that it was the same way, only that while I was kissing Kenshin I felt safer and more at home than I ever had before.  His lips were gentle yet firm on my own and I felt him playing with my hair even as I ran my fingers through his.
     It may only have been a few seconds, it may have been much longer when we finally pulled away and I looked at him.
     His eyes were troubled, though not by regret.  I wondered if Kensan had ever kissed a woman like that before, but I didn't want to ask.  He knew I never had, and I didn't really care about such a pointless matter.
     "Thank you, Kensan."
     I thought I heard him whisper, "Oro?" but I wasn't sure.  The storm I hadn't noticed for minutes was making a last-ditch effort to frighten me, but I didn't feel afraid anymore.  I lay my head back against Kensan's chest and closed my eyes.
     Neither one of us would ever tell anyone else about this.  I knew he would say absolutely nothing even of my reasons for coming, and I would only tell them that I had faced my past.  Yahikochan and Kaoruchan were too young and basically innocent to really know the details, and Sanosuke too hotheaded; I was afraid he might go to the prison and kill Kanryu out of hand.  That wouldn't do anyone any good; maybe a lot of people would feel better but Sano would end up in prison himself.
     As the storm continued to ease off, I gathered my strength.
     "We're only going to risk getting sick if we just sit here.  I guess we should go back; I have a lot to apologize for."
     "No, I know they'll understand, Megumi.  But we should get back."
     Megumi.  He didn't say Megumidono, he said Megumi.  I pretended not to notice save for the small smile I sent his way as I disengaged from his embrace, not without regret.  He rose and walked alongside me as we left the house that had haunted me.
     We hadn't been walking long when I realized I felt lightheaded.  The rain was definitely slacking off, but the ground was muddy and full of deep puddles.  Kensan and I walked in silence back towards the dojo, doing out best to avoid the deepest spots.  I wasn't paying much attention to the road, however; my mind was full of images.  I saw the house itself, cold and abandoned and without menace, of the storm, of Kensan standing in the rain laughing, of Kensan holding me in the tower, of him kissing me...
     Finally the dojo came into sight, though I had to restrain myself from asking why it kept moving around.  I stopped, swaying a little.
     "That was my first kiss."  I don't know if I said it aloud, but I did see Sano, Kaoru, and Yahiko running towards us just as the ground rushed up and everything went dark.
     I thought I heard Kensan calling my name and wondered why.  After all, he'd already found me, hadn't he?  I heard him telling Yahikochan to et Genzaisensei immediately and I wanted to protest – wasn't I a good enough doctor if someone was sick?  But then it was so nice where I was, drifting in a dark, comfortable ocean and so far away that it didn't seem worth the effort.
     Kaoru later told me that I had been sick for many days, and that Genzaisensei had gone to extremes to try to push down my fever.  The doctor himself later filled me in on some of the details, informing me that my fever had been high enough that I might have died.  He had seen patients in conditions not as bad as mine who had not survived their illnesses.
     The few memories I have from the time I was sick are hazy and pale.  Most of the time I was ill enough to be completely withdrawn.  What I do remember is Kensan, Kaoru, and Yahikochan taking turns nursing me.  I don't remember Sano sitting with me during those dark days but I remember once, Kensan asked him why he hadn't slept or eaten, or even so much as moved from his post by the door to the dojo since we'd returned.  I think Kaoru told him to eat something, but not even Yahikochan teased either him or Kaoru's cooking when he refused.  I tried to say something but I couldn't form the words.  Nothing seemed to have any form.
     I remember hearing Genzaisensei saying that my fever seemed to be breaking, but that I was not out of danger yet.  Kaoruchan wanted to know what else could be done but I don't remember if Genzaisensei had answered.
     At last the haze started clearing up.  I opened my eyes slowly and found I couldn't see anything.  I tried to speak but couldn't find the strength for more than a gasping croak.
     If I'd been healthier, I might have been surprised to hear Sanosuke's voice.  It barely sounded like him, as his usual deprecating tones were replaced by something almost soft.  "Oiy, onna, you've kept us on edge.  Keep your eyes closed.  I'm going to take the cloth off but you shouldn't be exposed to too much light."  I felt something being lifted away from my face, and could see some faint light through my eyelids.  I knew Sano was right but wondered how he'd know.
     "Genzaisensei said you should take it real slow.  You've been real sick."
     That explained it.  I desperately needed something to drink, and it took all the strength I had to croak out for water.
     I heard him moving around, pouring the water, coming back.  "You'll have to sit up."  When he saw I couldn't, I heard him take a deep breath. "Here, I'll help you."  He slid an arm behind my neck and lifted me slowly, supporting me enough to hold the cup to my lips, giving me slow sips as no doubt my colleague had instructed.  His hands were strong and sure and yet I was glad I was not permitted to open my eyes, to see his face.  When I had drunk about half the cup, he set it down and shifted around, so that my head rested on his knee.
     "Kenshin made soup.  You should have some."  Sano sounded like he was groping for words, trying to do the talking for both of us.  I wondered what was on his mind, but there was no way he was going to tell me without it being pried out of him.
     I felt him holding a spoon to my lips and smelled something warm and bland and no doubt wholesome, and I took a small sip.  It was actually very good, and still warm, so I guessed it was close to late morning.  Sano kept the spoon coming slowly, feeding me like an infant.  I might have teased him about it myself if I had been able to speak.
     "It's good, isn't it.  Kenshin's a better cook than jouchan any day, but not better than you.  Kenshin told us where you went but he wouldn't tell us what happened.  Said it was your place to tell if you were ready.  I can guess though.
      "Meguchan, you're an incredible woman.  Crazy, maybe, but incredible.  I don't know what possessed you to run out like that.  Kaoru was convinced you were gonna try to kill yourself but I told her not to be stupid.  I don't know what we would have done if you had though.  That's why Kenshin went after you.  None of us thought you really would, but we were scared you might.  He didn't say anything when he went out either, only that he was going after you.  I was gonna go too but he made me promise to stay here until he came back.
     "Meguchan."  He stopped giving me broth, and I heard the spoon clink in the empty bowl before he brushed the hair away from my face, over and over again.  "Meguchan, I shouldn't be saying any of this, but I don't know what I'd do if you hadn't come back.  Who else fixes me up like you do anyway?"  He sighed.
     "Sano..."  I was actually able to speak above a whisper though not by much.  He stopped me, laying a finger across my lips.
     "Iie, Meguchan.  Don't speak.  Just get better."  He slipped his hand behind my neck again and moved away, lowering me gently back down to the pillow.  Suddenly he sounded nonchalant and arrogant again.
     "Just croak if you need anything."
     I heard footsteps outside.
     "Oiy, Kenshin, jouchan.  She's awake."
     Yahikochan let out a whoop, followed by the thud of Kaoru's fist on his head.  "Be quiet you idiot!"  For once, he actually listened to her.
     "Megumidono!  Ahh, did you like the soup?"  Kensan must have seen the empty bowl which Sano no doubt had left lying around.  He also sounded almost as socially adept as Sano had before his diatribe.
     "Don't make her talk yet."  Genzaisensei seemed to be the only one who didn't feel awkward around his patient.  "She's been fighting very hard and needs to rest now as much as ever."  He laid a hand on my head, noticed a faint sheen of sweat on my cheeks.  "The fever's broken completely now but you've sill got some time to go yet."  I could almost hear him smiling down at me reassuringly.  "You just rest and let us do the work."
     No one even complained.  I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or worried.  Someone fixed my blanket, since when Sano had fed me it had slipped, and covered me with another.  Thus fed and warm, I drifted off to sleep with the sounds of little girls playing in the yard as my lullaby.

---

Go to  Part III        Go back to my  Fanfic homepage       Go back to my  Main homepage