A/N: This was just a short scene I've had on my mind and thought I'd get out.

Disclaimer: Don't own RK.

Wordless

By Nessie

Sometimes he wonders if he's getting old. All the men he knew during the Bakamatsu…the ones who were constantly lost in memories of better times…were usually getting on in years.

The difference is Himura Kenshin isn't thinking of better times. He's thinking of worse times. Not the worst because he has managed to force those memories to stay out of his everyday life now that he is a married man again. But there were years in the interim, those ten years of wandering, that cleansed his soul with pure loneliness.

He would see incredible sunrises and wish for a voice to speak of it to. He would notice the moon changing and have no one to watch it with him. Nights would come and days would go without a glance to his solitary figure continuing along the roadside.

But those times are over, gone to the past like miniscule specks of dust in the wind. He is a part of something now. Part of a heart; and it means everything to him that that heart belongs to her.

From where he lays on the futon he shares with his wife, Kenshin looks over and watches with a smile as she kneels before the low table with holds only a squat candle, a wide-toothed comb and a small mirror that had been a wedding present. She appears to be a goddess to him, and she rules warm summer nights of peace. The long, pale legs tucked delicately beneath her deceive the mind into thinking that she could never have the power she holds. Her hilt-calloused fingers reach for the comb and a journey commences from the roots of her hair to the midnight-dark tips.

Not content to just watch Kaoru go through her nightly ritual, Kenshin moves from the futon and sits behind her. He presses a brief case to the side of her neck while he manipulates the comb out of her hand. Holding out the long length of black tresses, he continues to comb until all the snags and snarls are gone. Placing the comb near her elbow on the table, where it will rest until morning, he begins to braid.

He doesn't need to see her face to feel the smile that spreads on it. It warms him more than the ember atop the candle. Kenshin is fascinated by the way Kaoru's hair shimmers as he twists it into three sections, and he is exhilarated by the softness of it, the smoothness of the skin his fingers brush on the back of her neck.

They say nothing to each other, and when he takes her hand and blows out the candle, they go to bed as husband and wife. Neither of them are alone.

And words are not required.

The End