i.

Between the snow and the darkness, the road seems to blur as they travel. Aoshi knows they won't get far, but they need to put at least some distance between themselves and this pathetic little town.

Misao does not have his endurance. The chill saps her strength sooner than his. Eventually, she stumbles to a halt and places her palms against her knees, trying to force air into lungs too frozen to cooperate.

"I can't," she gasps.

Alone, he could push another few miles. Tonight, he stops. He's the one to erect a windscreen. It will keep the snow off, at least. Misao curls up in his arms, pillows her head on his chest. He allows himself to rest a hand on her back before he tugs thick blankets over them.

Sometime that night, while he slips hazily in and out of sleep to check their surroundings, Misao begins to shake. Her skin is warm against him, so she isn't shivering from cold.

He says her name.

She looks up at him, eyes red-rimmed and not tired in the least. And he begins to realize that though he has drowsed, she has remained awake and surprisingly still this entire time.

He places his hand on her back again, to make sure she realizes she is not alone. She does not have to bear this alone, whatever it is that burdens her.

"I didn't expect monsters like Tanaka-sensei to cry," Misao whispers against his chest. "But now that I know... I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad I saw all of it. I needed to and I'm not sure why. It's just it finally feels over."

Shikijou whispers in his memory — fresh as if it were happening now, even across all these years — It's never over.

"I want to ask you if that's wrong, but you'll tell me it's not. I don't think you'll ever believe I could be really awful."

That last statement reminds Aoshi of all that she has forgiven him. There is too much history behind any reply he could make to it. It would be irrelevant, in the face of her greater worry.

"Misao. There is no wrong reaction."

She smiles for a moment, quick and fleeting. He misses it when it's gone. She settles in more closely against him, and within moments, he allows himself to drowse again.

ii.

The walk to Tokyo should have been two days. With the snow and cold sapping their progress, it takes four. They reach Tokyo's ragged edge just after the noon hour.

By that point, sheer stubbornness is the only thing keeping Misao walking.

Class is in session when they arrive, so it 's Himura who shows them to the guest room. He watches Aoshi closely, but then Himura has always been more watchful than his blithe manner would suggest.

Misao doesn't seem to notice. She flings her bag down and collapses wearily on top of it. She chatters near-incoherently about being glad to be indoors at last.

And Himura smiles gently at her. "I am sure Kaoru-dono will be happy to see you, that I am. And you are always welcome here, Aoshi, though I wonder why you did not write first."

That's a sharp-edged question. So Aoshi does not pause. "We were in the area. Misao wished to see Kamiya when our errand was done."

Himura raises a brow for an instant, but then he seems to decide he doesn't wish to pry. He turns his attention back to Misao, tells her that Kamiya should finish classes by late afternoon. Assuming her afternoon students even attend.

Misao nods along. Then her mouth curls into a mischievous smile.

"Would she mind if I watched? Just watched, I promise."

"I see no harm, that I do not," Himura says. And with that Misao heads out of the room, bobbing a quick bow to Aoshi and leaving Himura with a jaunty wave.

Himura turns to Aoshi. He waits to speak until they both hear the door close as Misao ventures out to the dojo.

"What errand could you have to run near Tokyo that would keep you from writing?"

Aoshi hesitates. Himura knows full well that Aoshi has always intended to keep Misao free of the Oniwabanshuu's activities, so he would not bring her here on any matter related to the Oniwabanshuu. But a full explanation is not his to make; he will not violate Misao's trust or privacy.

At length, he replies with a question: "Has Misao mentioned a farming village two days from Rakuninmura?"

"She has not."

"A matter there required her attention." He falls silent, knowing that Himura will hear his refusal to explain further.

Himura nods. But throughout the afternoon, until Misao and Kamiya return from the dojo, Himura's gaze drops every so often to Aoshi's hands. And Aoshi knows that he knows, but has decided not to judge. For now, at least.

iii.

Dinner is a noisy affair.

Kamiya and Misao team up against Myoujin regarding his apparent affection for one of the employees of the Akabeko. Myoujin, in turn, teases them both — referring to Misao as a weasel, an epithet Aoshi has never entirely understood — while Himura simply watches, apparently content not to become involved.

Ordinarily, Aoshi would let the name slide. He spent his time in Tokyo after the Yukishiro incident doing precisely that. Misao certainly seems no more bothered by it than anything else Myoujin does.

But he is uncertain of its associations. Now seems as good a time as any to ask. So he does.

Myoujin and Misao stare at him, startled. Myoujin's eyebrows rise in curiosity. He shrugs. "I don't know, Saitou and Sano call her that. It just fits."

"Saitou started it," Misao grumbles at the same time. "Don't ask me why, he just started doing it."

Myoujin rests his the back of his head against his hands, elbows up. "It could always be worse. I remember when Megumi was calling Kaoru here a sweaty kendo girl."

"We'd just met. Megumi was pretty attached to Kenshin back then," Kamiya says, tone mild.

"Ouch," Misao replies. She winces theatrically, then stands and stretches. "Ugh, I've been cold for four days."

"You've been outside for four days?" Kamiya's eyes widen. "What have you two been up to?"

"We had our reasons for coming up this way." Misao says it chirpily, easily, as if they've been up to something mischievous rather than illegal.

Kamiya raises an eyebrow, looking between the two of them before accepting the answer. "I'd have had the bath ready if I'd known you were coming. If you want, we can heat it up now?"

"That'd be fantastic." Misao pauses, then looks at him. "Aoshi-sama, why don't you go before me?"

He says nothing. If she wishes to cede the first bath, he won't gainsay her.

Misao flashes a smile in Kamiya's direction. "Besides, I kind of wanted to talk to you."

iv.

The truth of the matter is that Aoshi finds the weight of the debt he owes Himura uncomfortable. How does one repay the return of one's own mind and will to live? His involvement in the Yukishiro affair could not even begin to repay what Himura has done for him, for the Oniwabanshuu.

Himura would claim that friendship is its own reward. But friendship to those outside the Oniwabanshuu is no easier for Aoshi than obligation.

Aoshi upends a bucket over his head to rinse away the last of the suds, then ducks into the scalding hot bath. It's his first soak in over a week. The heat melts away some of the tension accumulating in his back — though not all; never all.

He emerges from the bath house to find Myoujin losing a spar with Kamiya, while Himura and Misao watch. Misao is smiling. Her eyes sparkle with her mirth, turned a darker shade of blue by the last light of early evening.

"Hey, watch your feet!" She calls to Myoujin, and smiles wider when Aoshi steps more fully into the room. He allows his expression to soften for a moment as he recalls the number of times Hannya told her to watch her footwork. From her expression, she must be remembering it too.

At length, Kamiya taps Myoujin on knee and shoulder with her bokken. She's gentle, but the strikes get her point across.

"You've definitely got room to improve on the strikes. The blade catch is useful, but you don't want to fall into the trap of using the same technique in every situation."

"I know, I know. Or else you end up like Henya." Myoujin rolls his shoulders, apparently sore from the advanced practice. Then he grins. "I call first bath, ugly."

"Brat," Kamiya replies, but there's no heat in her tone. She sinks onto the floor beside Misao, smiling. "You ready for that bath after Yahiko?"

v.

Misao drags Kamiya away, most likely to grab yukata and haori, the first instant Myoujin leaves the bath. They laugh about something as they go, but Aoshi is listening for subtle signs of distress from either of them, not to their conversation. He watches Misao disappear into the house, then turns his attention to Himura.

Himura takes a long, slow sip of tea. "I take it the weather slowed your trip from the village Misao needed to visit, that I do."

"Aa."

"I can't imagine you would kill near Misao-dono without need, that I cannot. Does either of you need help?"

If he were given to such expression, he might almost laugh. He has essentially murdered one man and condemned another to a life of terror and lies. And here Himura — who must never touch a blade again — offers him help? It's almost too ridiculous. Distantly, he's aware that his hands have begun to ache.

"Only a place to rest quietly for a while," he says, softly. "Misao needs time. And I should not be seen."

"You planned someone's death." Himura says it in a flat tone. It reminds Aoshi for a chilling moment of the tone Himura had once used with Takeda Kanryuu: Are you coming down, or am I coming up?

Aoshi does not say that the situation is more complicated than Himura makes it sound. The situation is complicated, but it condenses quite easily into Himura's version. So he says nothing at all.

After the silence stretches, Himura says: "You would not murder a man in cold blood with Misao-dono beside you, that you would not."

But flat and certain though the words may be, the tone asks for confirmation.

"No," he says, and is almost startled at the force of his own voice.

Himura seems to relax at his reaction. "Then you're yourself, that you are, and I can believe that whatever you have done, you did so for good reasons."

"You were worried I...?"

The former Battousai shakes his head. "Worried for anything but your and Misao-dono's saftey? No." A crook of a haunted smile. "But it never hurts to be very sure, that it certainly doesn't."

Aoshi spends a lot of time understanding Himura all too well, but there are moments in their uncomfortable friendship that Aoshi could swear he will never understand Himura so long as he lives. This is one of them.

vi.

Misao does not rejoin them immediately after her bath, though Kamiya seeks them out. A crease appears between Kamiya's eyebrows when she first sees him, but as she sits next to Himura — who seems completely at peace in Aoshi's company — she relaxes.

Misao told her.

Aoshi excuses himself to look for her. He pads silently through Kamiya's home, listening for the quick beat of Misao's heart. He finds her in their shared room, already laying out blankets for a bed. He shuts the door and watches her.

She looks to him when she finishes. After a moment, he joins her. He doesn't say anything; something is bothering her. But she doesn't talk about it. Instead she shares a few pieces of gossip she's picked up from Kamiya. He listens, cataloguing details, though he knows they're just a means for Misao to fill the silence,

They lie down, He rests a hand on her back again, allows her to settle so that her head is pillowed on his chest. She shifts as she settles, trying to find a place for her arm she thinks he will allow; the thought amuses him a little.

They take several minutes to find some way to fit together that satisfies his need to be able to get to his weapons and won't leave either of them stiff-jointed when they wake. It is not until they have finally found a comfortable position that she speaks of what bothers her.

The words come out abruptly, her voice faintly drowsy: "Kaoru-san didn't understand."

He goes still. After a moment, he asks, "What did she say?"

Misao sighs against his chest. He fights the temptation to place his hand on the back of her head. "It's not that she said anything. She wasn'tcruel about it. She just... didn't understand."

"Aa," he says. Despite the flat tone, it can act as a leading question for Misao.

Undaunted as usual by his preference for monosyllables, Misao adds, "She didn't even tell me that killing someone for revenge is wrong. She just seemed a little confused." Misao pauses a moment, corrects herself to: "Or maybe unsure. Like part of her was saying that it's never okay to kill, and the rest of her thought she understood why he needed killing."

"You think she did not?"

"I think she was startled by how intense the feelings were." Misao falls slient here. He can imagine her half-rueful, half-amused smile. As if she's quietly saying: o?Since when have my feelings not been intense? "Did you know, she's a year older than me and she's never even really been harassed?"

He's silent. That it seems so impossible to Misao that a woman could live her life in peace... Is this Oniwabanshuu training? Kunoichi cynicism finally taking hold? Or have her own experiences led her to believe a life without male harrassment is some kind of myth?

His hands begin to ache again.

"She's been attacked, of course. But it's been because she's connected to Himura or because she owns property that other people want. It's all been... differerent for her." Misao is quiet for a long, long time before she finally asks in a near-whisper: "Why couldn't it have been different for me?"

He has no answer for her. He moves his hand from her back to the back of her head.

Part of him wonders if Himura is having a similar conversation with Kamiya.

"I just wanted to know if I'd made the right choice." Misao says. "Poor Kaoru-san. Everything she teaches means she should tell us we were wrong, but she can't make herself do that. Because she thinks we might have been right."

Of course. As the assistant master and only living instructor of the Kamiya-Kasshin style, Kamiya would be expected to exemplify the values and philosophy of her school. Misao has placed her in a position that makes both the obligations of a friend and the obligations of the dojo master mutually exclusive.

He says nothing of the matter, only gently brushes his knuckles along the back of her head.

They're quiet a while before Misao speaks again.

"If I had asked you not to kill him — and I'm not saying I didn't want you to kill him; I did — but if I'd asked you to quietly take me home without hurting anyone, would you have?"

The impossible question. He freezes, half convinced he'd have an easier time smiling and meaning it. Would he have abandoned the justice Tanaka Ichiro and Tanaka Tadashi so richly, richly deserved, if Misao had asked it of him?

But would he have permitted Misao to travel home alone? Would he have abandoned her in Kyoto, breaking one obligation to uphold a lesser and hurting them both in the bargain?

"Aa," he says, softly. She relaxes against him. He waits a moment before adding, "But I would have killed him eventually."

"What? Why?"

"He lived two days from Tokyo, in a dying farming town. He would have ventured here."

Misao is silent a moment. He can practically hear the pieces clicking into place in her mind. The women of that restaurant Kamiya favors and other civilians in Himura's circle of protection might have been at risk. With Himura unable to fight, the task would have fallen to Aoshi regardless.

"Oh. Then... good, I guess." She gives a soft, sleepy sigh. "I know I've told you, but even if Kaoru-san or Himura didn't approve... I think it was the right thing."

"Aa," he says.

A few moments later, she is gone. Merely a warm weight on his chest, un-blooded hands curled against his sides.

vii.

A day later, while Kamiya is away sparring at another dojo — apparently trying to drum up students or support for her own — Misao drags out the uniform he'd worn when he killed Tanaka Tadashi.

She washes it again. The earlier soak helped, but above the basin, the water dyes her skin a rusty yellow. The stain goes all the way up to her elbows. He almost shudders at the sight of her hands dripping second-hand blood.

He almost stops her. But he doesn't. If Misao does not want these events — her assault, his own actions — to follow them home, then so far as he is able, he will make sure they don't. In that case, better that he or Misao do it here, amongst those who are aware of what he has done, than that they give the lie away in Kyoto.

The day is cold but sunny. The pieces of dark fabric dry before Kamiya returns. But surely she can guess why Misao might be stitching pieces of an Oniwaban uniform not her own back together.

It casts a pall over what might have been a lazy, friendly evening.

viii.

In the end, they stay in Tokyo only long enough for him to buy train tickets.

Misao and Kamiya are pleasant to each other, but Misao's glances flicker toward him and Himura, as if wondering why she and Kamiya must be so distant when he and Himura are unchanged. Himura is placid as ever, apparently untroubled by the invisible shoals that have suddenly separated Misao from the ideals he's comfortable with.

Himura has always understood that there are a multitude of paths to absolution. A multitude of ways to be ethical.

But there's a divide between Misao and Kamiya, thrown into sharp relief at the difference in lived experience. They'll cross it, he's sure of that. He still cannot help but watch their pleasantries with a sense of unease.

It should not be like this.

How can it be otherwise?

ix.

The change unsettles him, Worse, Misao seems to have stumbled upon an issue he can offer no aid in.

It isn't his place to intervene — nor does he have the words to do so even if it were his place — so he holds his tongue while Misao and Kamiya part. He bows to Himura and Kamiya, then steps aboard the train. He doesn't speak until they reach their car, though he listens to Misao's chatter with a distant sense of amusement.

When she pauses, trying to find something — perhaps anything — else to focus on, he places a hand on her shoulder. He's still careful with the touch, gentle. He suspects he always will be; the last thing he wants is for her to fear him, even for a moment.

She places her hand on top of his.

"It still troubles you?"

"I think a little bit of it always will. But it's easier now." She half turns, looking up to catch his eyes, and smiles. He receives the sudden impression that this little glimpse of joy is for his benefit — intended to be seen and known, intended to reassure.

He frowns. He wants honesty of her, not reassurances.

She sees his frown, and her smiles slips for a bare instant before warmth touches her eyes, making them glint with a sliver of humor. "I hear time helps, if you let it. And things have been getting better for a while now."

x.

There are questions both of them could ask but don't. How he knows what he knows — whether he's suffered as she and so many others have suffered — why she finds his touch comforting, why she sleeps easiest in his arms.

Neither mentions what they must do now. The Aoi-ya cell will be curious about where they could have gone, what they could have done. And surely this new habit of sleeping beside each other cannot escape the notice of the others.

Let them notice. Let them wonder. He will not compromise on this matter: he has found absolution and peace, has laid his ghosts to rest — even if they will never rest truly quietly — and Misao has found a way to move on, a way to silence her own ghosts.

Misao smiles when Kyoto comes into view. She rests a hand on his arm, which he allows.

He tenses his hands into fists, then relaxes them. They don't ache.

There is no use in turning back time.

Josephine
You're so good to me
And I know
It ain't easy
—The Wallflowers, "Josephine"

That's it for these two and this adventure, at least for now. Where Aoshi and Misao go from here is up to them, I think.

A thousand thanks to Leviathanmirror for holding my hand and correcting my characterization where necessary. Not only should any credit for my Aoshi voice go to her, she's been my touchstone for sanity with this project. The unsung not-quite-beta reader. We should also all thank her for the association of "Josephine" and Aoshi/Misao; without that association, this story might be vastly different (and worse off for it).

Lastly, thanks to everyone who read this far. I can't say I've given you a joyful or pleasant story, but it was important to me, and I'm glad we shared it.