Note: And this, dear friends, is the end! Thanks to all who reviewed, especially Finch, Wistful Eyes and Supernaturalove. You have been very inspirational from beginning to end. And thanks to Margit Ritzka for..well, or being very inspirational, also, asides from supportive and patient with the tedious process of beta-reading. ;)

As for the title of this last epilogue, I declare myself a new –ocassionary- member of the club of annoying authors who make obscure references to literary works just to see if people will spot them. Don´t hold it against me!

Wistful Eyes: "-dono" has no gender. If you watch the series in Japanese, you will get to hear Okina-dono, Shishio-dono and even Hiko-dono, among others. As far as I´ve been able to get , no Japanese polite/ honorific/ affective suffix seems to be specifical of one gender, with the possible exception of "-kun". The reason why people laugh at "Himura-dono" in the village is that it´s rather..archaic, apart from very polite. In the series, it´s used by people whoa re either very old (like Okina) or who have any motive to talk old-fashioned (Like Kenshin or the monk Anji).

Warning: This chapter has made me change the rating…sorry. Now it´s PG-13.

Quiet Life I: Winter Storm

Epilogue II: Tread Lightly

Kenshin put a hand over his forehead, sheltering his eyes to give a last glance to the disappearing red sun. Below his weary feet, the few scattered homes that formed the whole village in the valley were receiving its last caresses, and the hurrying tiny dots turned under his keen scrutiny into villagers who returned home after an unusually warm day. He could even hear their voices, some grave and some amused, some matter-of-fact and some yelling the last pleasantries before getting inside; all, of course, unaware that he was there, watching them with an intent, almost hungry stare.

As he turned back to put the weight of the various bags he had to carry once more on his shoulders, the red-haired man couldn't help but smile at that odd feeling he was experiencing. The air he breathed, the sounds he heard, as well as the sight his eyes were filled with to the brim were home. He could perceive it in the strange thrill in his heart upon that first view, and also in the way in which his limbs forgot the strain after the long journey to hurry down like mad things, burning in desire to return to a place that was much more to him now than a simple residence. It was there where his heart had belonged since long ago, maybe since the first time he had seen that girl watching him with curious eyes, but it had taken straining and dangerous situations for him to realise it. Knowledge came with sorrow, and awareness with pain, so had his truth been since very early on in life … and not for nothing.

Repressing a wince at the memories that the last thought was bringing to his mind, Kenshin shook his head and continued walking. Night would have almost fallen when he arrived. Maybe, he hoped, he would be able to see Miyoko still awake and have dinner with his family...

When he was close enough to the first lights, though, a weak luminescence still persisted, and he was able to slow down his stride, soothing his senses in the humid and peaceful feeling of the place. He had the secret hope sometimes that, in the future, he would be able to learn things just by living like that, and acquire a new kind of wisdom that didn't have anything to do with the awareness of how horrible things could have been. That hope, he knew, was vain and empty, for the very fact that it would always be entwined with the fear of forgetting. Eternal inner torture was ten thousand times better than false inner peace, and this he had firmly believed during a good part of his life as well. Most remarkably when he had had terrible glimpses on how calm could the conscience of an assassin come to be…

"Himura-san! You´re back!"

Snapped out of his musings abruptly, Kenshin lifted his head and looked into the direction of the voice. At one side of the road, kneeling among the bushes, there was the silhouette of a girl who looked as if she was searching for something… and, as she got up and walked towards him, his heart almost stopped beating at the sight.

"You're back! Oh, your wife is going to be so happy…"

It's Mayo, he told himself in a quieting whisper, forcing his eyes to look at the features of the village girl. Still, her very presence brought him such remembrances that for a while he was unable to say a word.

"I've heard lots of things… Did you have a good trip?" she asked, with a big smile in her face.

"Uh... yes," he answered, somewhat lamely. As she came to stand before him, dusting her clothes with a vengeance, he had to force himself to swallow the knot in his throat. "What a coincidence… you're my welcoming party once more."

Even though it was almost dark, Kenshin could have sworn that the girl had ceased to smile for a second. Belatedly, it struck him that she hadn't ever talked about that anecdote, and this made him think a bit for the first time.

"You could say so… As it hadn't snowed in such a long time, I was searching for the herb for my grandmother's concoction," she explained, her hands behind her back. "But uh, it's getting dark and now there aren't many chances anymore…."

"I see…" Discarding the whole heap of strange and vague associations that had come to his mind uninvitedly, Kenshin had to smile at the nine-year-old's gravity. Without a second thought, he laid his heavy bags on the ground, and flashed her an encouraging look. "Maybe I can help you."

"Really?" The girl couldn't suppress her relief in a first moment, though it soon died and turned into shyness. "Er… but Himura-san, you don't have to bother. It's… it´'s of no importance, and you, well, you have just arrived and…."

"Don't worry," he cut her short, already heading for the place where he remembered he had found the digestive herb in the past. He did not have to search for long, for soon enough the smell of the plant guided him towards the right place. As he crawled inside the bushes, his exhausted limbs gave some protests, but he ignored them.

"You see, there has been little time for them to grow. There are few, that's why you didn't find them. I'm going to cut half of them; the other half is necessary if you want them to multiply."

The girl knelt at his side, and watched his procedures with a solemn silence.

"Thank you," she said in the end, bowing once he laid his prize in her hand. "I'm so stupid…"

"Don't say that," he scolded her, struggling to his feet and helping her to do the same. "They are difficult to find, and less so in the night."

"I've been searching for long now, Himura-san," she sighed with a rueful smile. Kenshin acknowledged that point with an absent nod, and went back to take his things. Now it was really dark, and he could feel the cautious uncertainty in Mayo's stride behind him.

"I met a girl who reminded me of you the first time I saw you," he observed minutes later, as their faces were starting to reflect the first glow of the lights from Mayo's house. He didn't know very well why he was returning on this, and in the girl's presence, but somehow he couldn't help it.

"You did?" The answer sounded calm, almost uninterested. "And who was she?"

"I… I don't know," he replied, losing his gaze in fascination on the far-away translucent shoji. Maybe it was even the truth, he thought. "She was in the Ebei village, but I didn't see her again."

"Ah."

For a while, there was silence.  Lost in their own thoughts, both continued to walk through the night, until at last they stopped in front of the door. There, the man turned back and made a gesture with his hand.

"Well…you're home now."

"I… I saw a girl, too, that day. Running… she wasn't from this village."

"What?" Astonished, Kenshin advanced towards Mayo, who stepped back instinctively. "Did you say something?"

"N… no." The girl shook her head with vehemence, and walked a few paces away. "I'm sorry... It was nothing. Really."

Kenshin could perceive her growing uneasiness, and felt as if violently pushed away. Sighing in resignation, he willed himself to be calm, and drew back to the closest to a casual expression that he could muster in a matter of seconds.

"All right, all right," he said in a conciliating tone." You don't have to take me that seriously! Now, you'd better get inside, or your parents will start to be worried about you."

"Okay." Swallowing in a long gulp, Mayo bowed deeply. "Thank you, Himura-san. Thank you very much. And… welcome."

As he watched the girl's form walk towards the light in the door, Kenshin stroked his hair pensively. It wasn't until minutes later that he realised, ashamed, that he was staring into nowhere… and then, repressing a shiver, he turned back and set off once more for the remainder of his journey.

Rest in peace, Kumi-chan, he muttered to himself, in a soft tone. I promise I'll learn to look after myself alone from now on.

*     *     *     *     *

When Kenshin at last laid his hand on the shoji of his house, he felt his heart beating faster than normal. Maybe it was because of the prolonged absence, or maybe because this time, more than once, he had feared he would never return…

But no, what was he thinking? He would always have returned, no matter what. Always returned to the place where his heart lay, his home.

Always return to the place that she had chosen.

Giving a sharp intake of breath, Kenshin dwelt for instants in the warm feeling of happiness that crept across his body. Even if he did not deserve it, he had a home. He had people who waited for him, trusting him to be always what he had become for them and only for them. And this… oh, this made things so much easier.

So much worth the pain…

The ex-swordsman's hand grabbed the old wooden shoji, and pulled it open in sudden impatience with a single, clean movement. As the things he had carried were discarded on the floor, his eyes set out to scan the place hungrily, until they met what he was searching with such anxiousness.

She was sitting at the fireside in her usual elegant position, sewing as she hummed a tune that was brusquely stopped as soon as she felt a noise behind her. Miyoko had laid her head in her lap, snoring softly and oblivious of him and of everything. When her mother's body tensed up, she gave a tiny whimper of complaint, and rolled forcefully to her other side.

"Ssssh." he hushed his wife, who looked unsure between her urge and her duty to get up and greet him and the girl in her lap. For a moment, he had to stop and stare into her soft brown eyes, so full of quiet joy and the longing to embrace him as he would embrace her, until the very remembrance of his absence was totally erased. Sometimes, those eyes hurt him and made him remember the fate of that other man she had once waited for, but not today.

Today, he simply needed them.

Slowly, Kenshin knelt on the floor in front of his wife, and with utmost care he took the little body of his child onto his arms. Miyoko didn't complain now, but her hands grabbed his kimono securely. Tomoe nodded, and got up to unroll and prepare her daughter's bed without saying anything.

Have you missed me too, little one?, he thought while he waited, and as he stroked the girl's back with soft movements. He wanted to embrace her, too, but he had learned that small children were fragile beings who were subject to a wholly different set of rules. If she woke up now and excitement for unexpected arrivals got to her, she wouldn't fall asleep for long, and the next day…

"Here," Tomoe told him in a hushed voice. Kenshin got next to her, and laid Miyoko on her futon. Side to side with his wife and her clothes almost brushing his, it was difficult now not to perceive how she was trembling, and the emotions she was trying to smother behind a calm and composed exterior. He couldn't help a thrill that shook his own limbs as her beautiful face, which the light of the hearth was bathing in a golden hue, turned away from her sleeping daughter and towards him. A brief flash of that same face covered in blood, and with those brown eyes staring at him piercingly, cruelly, forlornly, passed through his mind, entwined with memories about that night when he had met her.

They had both changed…in so many ways.

"Welcome home," she said, almost managing to quench the tremor in her voice. For Kenshin, though, that slight hesitation was all he needed, and the walls of his restraint broke down as if they had been made of paper.

"Tomoe…" he whispered, embracing her with passion and running his hands over her back. Her body offered no resistance; it felt soft and pliant in his arms. Maybe she had felt it too; she had felt for a while that she might have lost everything she had.

"Eguchi-san sent a messenger, and Matsuo-san told me... that you had done it," she managed to utter between kisses. "I was so glad..."

"I needed to finish my trip," he explained. "By the way… I have brought things to put into the rice."

"Really?" With evident reluctance, Tomoe sobered and tried to pull away from him. Her efforts, however, were of no avail at all.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Leave the rice for tomorrow."

"But you need to have supper," she protested, unable to hide the half-heartedness of her complaint. As Kenshin thought then, they couldn't ever have agreed more: the slow and laborious cooking of supper and subsequent eating and washing dishes was very far from his mind now.

"I had food on my way," he lied, embracing her again and hoping that Tomoe wouldn't think she was a bad wife for letting that pass. To his relief, if she did, she was apparently resigned with the thought.

"But you must at least change clothes," she added, while she ran her hands through his red hair one more time. "Wait here, I'll bring you a yukata…"

Sighing in resignation, Kenshin accepted to let her go, though not before he had forced himself to bring all of Hiko's exercises on focus and concentration back to his mind. His master would laugh at him to no end if he just could see him now, he mused ruefully as he couldn't resist the need to follow her every movement with an intent glance.

"Here it… is," she hesitated, when she lifted her head from the clothes box and saw him standing at her side. Kenshin looked at her with an almost ashamed expression, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"I'll unroll the futon while you get changed," she announced with a smile still dancing on her lips.

Oh, yes, laugh at me indeed, he thought, going behind the screen and quickly putting his travel clothes off. They were smelly and dirty, and he couldn't help feeling good for getting into a clean yukata once more. By the way, it was remarkable that Tomoe hadn't asked him to get washed before getting in the same futon than her…good indicator of the need she felt.

We're both pitifully evident , he concluded, now smiling as well. Folding everything neatly, -a good way to recollect his wits-, he stepped out from behind  the screen, and almost at once his glance fell on the figure of his wife sitting on the now unrolled futon.

"Tomoe…" he breathed in awe. She had freed the scintillating dark masses of her hair over her pale back, and, though her pose was ladylike and restrained, he could have sworn that there was some red in her cheeks, and that she was smiling like a little girl while thinking he couldn't see her. Belatedly, he remembered the first night they had spent together in the same place, and how the hieratic white statue of the beautiful, mature woman who waited for him in sad apathy had made him feel so small and insignificant in his own house.

If there was something that nobody could have ever doubted, it was that she was a very beautiful woman. Everybody stared at her in the street, and made hushed comments whenever she passed by. But for him now, as he thought while he walked towards her, that beauty was nothing; it could not be compared with the love and the need shining in her eyes.

Need for him.

Oh, what had he done to deserve it?

"Let's try not to wake her," she said, rolling to the side so that he could take place on the couch. Kenshin nodded, and caressed the hand she was laying on the futon next to him.

"I knew you would come today," she continued. As he threw her a puzzled glance, she smiled, and leaned her head against his shoulder. "Yes, I did. Miyoko had asked me about you tonight before falling asleep. She said that you… that it was time for you to return."

"So my daughter is a seer?" Kenshin joked, unable to hide his pleasure at the girl's sally. Tomoe shrugged her shoulders.

"Maybe," she mused aloud, pensively. Her husband planted a kiss on her cheek, and both sank slowly onto the couch.

"Do you think that when she gets up and sees me there she will say "See? I told you so!"?"

"Who knows?" she smiled. Then, however, as Kenshin was about to give her another kiss, she drew back a bit, and her glance took a more serious tinge. "But I was worried this time. People… they talked a lot about what happened and what could happen during those last weeks. I heard you had taken an active part on the negotiations, and I'm sorry… I knew you would try to fulfil your promise, but I was worried. "

The red-haired man sobered somewhat at those words. Lying back on his side, he touched at her back reassuringly, searching for her eyes.

"You don't have to be sorry, Tomoe," he sighed." You were right, things could have gone wrong very easily, more easily than what I let you know when I left. I didn't want you to feel anxious…"

The woman's brow furrowed.

"Just because you don't tell me doesn't mean that I do not know what may be going on."

 "I know, I know," Kenshin said conciliatingly. Tomoe crawled a bit towards him again, and he used the occasion to pull her close. "But I did what I thought was best in every moment, for you, for me and for them. If I had to do it once more, and I had even less certainty about the outcome, I would still not hesitate. It's the truth, Tomoe… one of those few truths I've been able to achieve."

"I'm perfectly aware of this."

Sure that she was annoyed again with him, the red-haired man gave a long breath, and lifted his head to look at her face. As he did so, though, what he met was a pair of brown eyes swollen with pride. The warmth he felt inside then was far greater than everything he had felt before, and, unable to repress himself any longer, he pushed her against her pillow to kiss her deeply.

 "You are just… like that", she moaned, encircling his back with her arms. Kenshin did the same with hers, and each could listen to the other's ragged breath in their ears for a while.

"And you want me to be like that?" he asked, his tone light-hearted but with a certain seriousness unmistakeably hidden behind it. Tomoe became serious too, and the solemnity, the intensity in her features surprised even him for a moment.

"No matter what the cost," she answered, as he stared into her eyes and their glances met. Her husband stopped in mid- embrace, and stayed there for a while, waiting for a continuation to her vehement words.

 "My dear…"

But such continuation never came.

Somewhat more pensive than what he had been before, the red-haired man regained his smile slowly, and bent on his knees over the silently inviting woman.

(the end)