Longing to Hold You

By Lady Callista

AN: No, I didn't die, I just haven't had time to write. I tried to write an Inuyasha fic, and that didn't work, so that got deleted and I'm gonna try to write another fic in my favorite genre before trying to branch out again.

I don't speak Japanese (although I'm slowly learning), yet I've done my best to research the words I've used, and to use them properly, or as they are used in the anime-manga. If I've used anything incorrectly please let me know, but please tell me why it's wrong and suggest a better option if you have one. Just saying it's wrong or I'm stupid doesn't help any. There is a glossary at the end of each chapter for anything that needs explaining, which won't be much. I trust that if you're reading this I don't have to explain things like -dono.

I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think of this story. Feedback always makes me write faster. And yes, I know it's short, but I wanted to see what people thought of the new idea. The next parts will be more my normal length, meaning at least a thousand or so more words.

This fic is rated M, cause I know it's gonna have K&K lime and lemon goodness. If you are underage please go enjoy some of the other wonderful stories on this site.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kenshin, or anything relating to it, and have the utmost respect for all the people who created these wonderful characters. Having quotes at the beginning and end of each part is kinda becoming a trademark for me, so I'm going to do it again, this time using quotes from musicals. Yeah, I'll admit it, I'm a huge musicals freak. I also don't own anything relating to any of the musicals I've quoted.

This story begins after the second to last chapter of the last manga book. (Sano, Megumi, and everyone else are gone. Only Yahiko is still around, and he's no longer living at the dojo.)

Chapter 1: The Two of Us

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"On my own, pretending he's beside me.

All alone, I walk with him till morning.

Without him, I feel his arms around me,

And when I lose my way I close my eyes

And he has found me."

Eponine in "On My Own" from "Les Miserables"

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"Good night, Kaoru-dono." Kenshin said quietly as they paused at the door to her room. It was only the second night of just the two of them living in the house, yet none of the changes Kaoru had hoped would happen showed any sign of coming about. She'd hoped that with just the two of them there he'd open up to her a little more, hoped she'd get to see more of the part of him she knew only she was ever allowed to see. Yet the past two days had been no different than the days when all their friends were there.

"Good night, Kenshin." She smiled at him, and although he smiled back at her it was only a shadow of the brilliant smile she wished she got to see more often. Then he turned and started to head down to his room.

Trying to find her courage, she caught his sleeve as he slipped away.

Kenshin turned to face her again, and although he still smiled his face and especially his eyes held the blankness she knew he hid behind when he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking. "Did you need something before we retire?" He asked solicitously.

'You to talk to me. You to hold me. You to love me.' Even as she thought these things, Kaoru knew she couldn't say them. Not to him. She always had words for everyone; had never been accused of being shy when it came to expressing her opinions or feelings. Yet for a reason she didn't understand she'd never been able to say those important things to him. The few times she'd come close she'd stammered and blushed and finally just closed her mouth or said something trivial. Even as her mouth opened to voice her thoughts, she knew they wouldn't come out. "No, I'm sorry. I just wanted to wish you sweet dreams."

Kenshin's face remained blank, yet she thought she saw pain flash through his eyes for an instant so quick she didn't know if she'd imagined it or not. Then his mouth smiled a bit wider. "This one wishes them to you as well." He replied, and this time when he turned and walked away she didn't stop him, simply retreated into her room and slid the shoji closed behind her.

Kaoru stood in the doorway for a moment, then with a sigh moved to the closet and got out her bedding. Setting out the futon and covers by rote, she let her mind wander, all the things she wanted to say to Kenshin flirting through her mind. Knowing she'd never get to sleep, she slid open her outer shoji and stepped out into the cool night air.

She was almost certain she'd seen the pain flash through his eyes, and it wasn't the first time she'd seen it since Kenshin and the others had rescued her from Enishi. Although she knew very little about what had happened while she was captive, she knew that everyone had thought she was dead. She could understand that must have been upsetting, but now that everyone knew she was alive the pain should have gone away. She was alive. She was back with Kenshin. She didn't understand the pain she kept seeing.

It was that more than anything that she wanted to talk to him about. Although she'd have loved to tell him that she loved him, to ask him how he felt about her, she mostly wanted him to talk about what had happened while she'd been gone. She wanted to chase that shadow from his eyes, but she didn't know how to because she didn't know its cause.

A few days after she'd been rescued, she'd asked Megumi why Kenshin was so hurt. She knew he'd taken wounds while rescuing her, yet they didn't seem to account for the amount of time it took him to heal. But Megumi would say nothing to her. Neither would Sano when she'd asked him the next day. Even Yahiko had been silent. All any of them would say was that they had all missed her, and that they were glad she was alive and back with them. She'd finally given up, sensing from their silence that they all thought Kenshin should be the one to tell her. But he would say nothing of what had happened while she was gone.

Sighing into the night, she sat on the porch and stared at the stars, imagining him sitting beside her. Kaoru let her eyes slid closed as she let her imagination take over. She felt the warmth of his arm around her, and let herself imagine leaning into him to ward off the chill of the night. His breath was warm in her ear as he whispered that he loved her. She could see the smile on his face, the one that actually reached all the way to his eyes, when she told him that she loved him as well. Yet her imagination halted as he leaned in to kiss her. She didn't even know what a kiss felt like.

With a shake of her head she opened her eyes and stood, then turned back into her room. Changing quickly, she slipped beneath the covers and prayed for sleep. At least while she slept she didn't think of him. Well, okay, actually she did, she admitted to herself. She'd had dreams so vivid that only the way he treated her when she next saw him convinced her that the dreams hadn't happened. Mentally relaxing her muscles and breathing into a kata meant for relaxation, Kaoru slowly drifted off into a restless sleep.

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Kenshin hadn't even managed a restless sleep. He lay on his futon staring up at the ceiling, his thoughts still revolving around Kaoru's last words. Sweet dreams. He'd only had one sweet dream in more weeks than he could count, and it had been when he passed out after they found Kaoru. He'd dreamed of holding her in his arms, dreamed of kissing her.

But even that dream had only stayed sweet for so long. For mid-kiss Kaoru had been replaced by Tomoe, and the memory of her dying in his arms. Then she'd been Kaoru again, but still dead in his arms. The demons that had been chasing through his head the entire time he'd thought her dead had come roaring back, and he'd woken screaming her name. Only Megumi had been there, and her first words had been that Kaoru was alive. That he had saved her. Although he remembered it, although he'd believed her, he still hadn't been able to fall back to sleep until Kaoru had come in.

He'd managed to hold on to consciousness long enough to whisper her name, long enough to feel her take his hand, but then his exhausted body had forced him back to sleep. To sleep, and dream of Tomoe's death again and again. To dream of Kaoru's death.

Even after he'd gotten better, even after he'd taken Kaoru to Kyoto to pray over Tomoe's grave with him, he hadn't been able to tell her. He'd told her he'd said goodbye to Tomoe, but the next words he'd wanted to say, the words that would have changed their entire relationship, hadn't come.

He wasn't even sure when he'd started loving Kaoru. He couldn't pinpoint a moment, or an event, or anything like that. It had been well before she was kidnapped, and some of the demons that haunted him had been that he knew she loved him, and she had died without knowing he felt the same. But once he knew she was alive he found he couldn't tell her.

He wasn't sure he'd survive her death again. In fact he was fairly certain he wouldn't. But he knew that if their relationship changed, knew that if they were together as a man and woman in love…well, if that happened, he knew he'd never survive her death.

The memories tormented him, and for the first time in his life Kenshin took the coward's way out. He let the person that mattered to him more than anything in the world think he thought of her as just a friend. He fell asleep dreaming of kissing her and knowing he never could.

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"I thought that dreams belonged to other men

'Cuz each time I got close

They'd fall apart again

I feared my heart would beat in secrecy

I faced the nights alone

Oh, how could I have known

That all my life I only needed you"

"Almost Paradise" love theme from "Footloose"

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TBC…..