A/n: Hi. So, here's the thing: I try to post new chapters in Invictus and Vaster Than Empires on Saturday so that I have a weekend off to recover and bask in your glorious reviews before I start writing the next one. But sometimes, to keep my hand in, I write silly little drabbles and one-shots off of prompts that, well, usually Alina feeds them to me. Alina thinks I should post them, so I am. Because I am really, really bad at resisting flattery.

Enjoy.

There are scars on his back that no sword ever made: thick, broken lines like fractured ice. They're pale, long-healed, and stretched across his skin. He had been very young.

Kaoru's hand traces over them, wondering, and he shudders. She stops.

"Kenshin?"

He tightens his grip around her waist. He's lying, shirtless, with his head in her lap. She is clean and warm and welcoming and safe, but even her touch on those scars makes him remember.

"It's nothing," he lies, and she sighs a little, exasperated. So many secrets, she doesn't need to say, and it's not that he wouldn't tell her, if she really wanted to know, but he can never quite bring himself to break this peace with old blood and bad dreams.

She strokes along his spine again, and she's not tracing the old scars anymore but he remembers anyway, and wishes that he could stop.

It had been a hot day, the first time. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd done to anger the slavers; it had been such a long time ago. He might have tried to run away, or done something small and human like bothered them too many times. But it doesn't matter why: what matters is the remembered taste of dust in his mouth as they forced him to the ground and stripped the shirt off his back. What matters is the men's laughter as he fought, snarling, and the explosion of pain in his side when they kicked him. What matters is the whistle of leather through the air and his child's fierce resolve not to scream; the tearing impact that ripped straight through him and the scream that wrenched itself from his throat, bloody and shameful.

He flinches away from her hands, not meaning to, and tries not to make a sound like the child he was. He fails.

The sun beats down, drying the ground, and the air crackles with the static of late summer. There is a dry, sweet smell in the air, of dust and flowers blooming.

She gathers him up, her kimono's silk soothing against hot skin, and he studies the embroidery on her collar as he rests his head on her shoulder. He realizes, abruptly, that she doesn't need to be told. Without words, she understands. His eyes close; he holds her like a child and is not ashamed.

The tree's leaves shield them from the worst of the heat.

A year ago would also have found him stretched out under a tree on a day like this, when the heat made the road shimmer and sent him reeling in search of cool water and shade. Except now there's no need to search: there is respite freely given, and Kaoru's gentle hands.

It's a good change.