A/N: I know that last chap migh thave been a bit short...or maybe you just hated the cliffhanger, so I plan to continue onward.

The Art of Pretending

Kenshin hadn't meant anything by his words. He should have known though that words carried a hefty price. It was with words that you could shrink a person to nothing, or even make them something much more than they were. Whether or not it was your intention when you said what you did, it didn't matter. It was said, and couldn't be taken back. And there was no one to blame but yourself.

He was on his knees, his hand falling from his face, ashen white. He was aware of his moistened eyes, but was too indulged in the warm blood that oozed from the cut on his face instead. Megumi and Sanosuke leaned over him almost protectively. They asked him a million questions, but he didn't feel like answering. His voice was now hoarse, his hands skinned from where he brought them down to take the blunt end of his stumble. Kenshin kept staring out into the distance, as if by just staring he could take his words right from the air; as if he could make the car turn around.

"He's not in shock is he?" Megumi muttered to Sanosuke.

"Well acourse he's in shock," the man muttered back, slinging his arm over Kenshin's shoulders, his other arm clutching him from the front as he attempted to bring him to his feet. "C'mon man. Get up; don' sit here an..."but there was a pause in Sanosuke over all. It wasn't just a simple lapse in thought, rather, a lapse in everything. Like his soul had been taken from him for a time. His face also went white, sweat forming on his brow. He didn't let Kenshin go, he kept a firm grip, even getting the man to his feet. Still, he was lapsed; lost.

"Sano?" Megumi shook him. "Sano, what's wrong?"

For a few seconds Kenshin nearly forgot what had just happened. The absent look that crossed his friend's face; the blank look that was in his eyes was almost mirroring the red head's present experience.

"Sano?" Megumi nearly yelled.

The brown haired man was broken from his endless gaze. "Wha?" he asked, blinking a few times.

"Are you alright?" Megumi asked. Kenshin had eased himself out of Sanosuke's grip. His legs bowed inward, his hand gripping his friend's elbow. It was a strange event, in the least. While the red head stood bleeding, his violet eyes darkening somewhat, both Megumi and he were transfixed at Sanosuke, who's lapse from the real world seemed to have a supernatural feel to it.

"Fine. Jus' fine. We need t' get him to a doctor," Sanosuke said, grabbing onto his friend again.

"No, I don't need a doctor," he said, turning his attention back to the road. Being that it was a near desolate area, the empty road seemed to almost hiss as the warm winds blew across it. "I need to sit down."

Kenshin wasn't expecting to be picked up by his friend, but it happened, even if it was against his will. Sanosuke went inside and put Kenshin at the kitchen table. Now a little less shaken, Kenshin looked around the kitchen, taking in the damage that it held. Megumi's small gasp and Sanosuke's cold silence told him what they thought of the look.

"Nice decor huh?" he asked sarcastically. There were shards of glass littered about, papers strewn on the floor. Kenshin knew that the cut on his face was accidental; a stray shard had caused it. Kaoru had thrown the cup at him without intention of actually hitting him. He was already forgiving her for her irrational actions. Who could blame her? She was angry, so she was throwing things. Really, she didn't hit him, but the way it spliced off the fridge it struck him without her noticing since she was already marching out the door.

"She didn't take her things," he said calmly, leaning back in the chair. Megumi was at the sink wetting a rag. Sanosuke sat in a chair adjacent his friend, his hand on Kenshin's knee. "She didn't take her purse."

He knew he was trying to convince himself that she was going to come back. This wasn't an intentional reason for her to run away. She was just doing it out of frustration. But then, Kenshin considered that Kaoru never kept her money in her purse, but instead in a seperate wallet that she kept in the front pocket of her jeans.

Megumi pressed the rag to Kenshin's face, him flinching away. "It might keep bleeding," Megumi said, "it looks pretty deep. You're probably going to need stitches."

"No, I'm fine," he said, pressing his hand his cheek. "I'm just going to stay here."

"Listen, buddy, ya can't think straight," Sanosuke's voice seemed shrill to him. Maybe it was the down-home twang it had to it. "What with all this junk, yer not gonna be thinkin' right. Ya need t' see someone, get it fixed up, then ya can lump around the house. It ain't like ya can't take yer phone with ya," he said.

"We shouldn't go to the hospital," he reasoned. "It'll take hours in the ER. We should just go to the urgent care...it won't take as long," he said, standing up. Everything blurred for a moment. Kenshin back up into the chair, holding onto it tightly. "I didn't mean what I said," he blurted out suddenly. "I just said it. That's all. I thought being honest with each other was what we were suppose to do."

Sanosuke grabbed Kenshin, hoisted him to his feet and led him toward the car outside. He sat Kenshin down in the passenger side, motioning for Megumi to come and rid in the too. Kenshin sat in his friend's truck, staring up at the ceiling feeling dizzy. His hand was shaking, his eyes moist once again. Sanosuke scooted him into the center of the truck, Megumi sliding in the passenger side, pressing the wet cloth to Kenshin's face again, wiping up the blood as best she could before she put a few Band-Aids on it. It was going to bleed right through, but there needed to be something done to stifle the bleeding.

"Get going," Megumi said. Sanosuke didn't need to be told twice.

The trio sat in the waiting room for a while before Kenshin was called back. It left Megumi and Sanosuke sitting next to one another in an awkward silence. Megumi brought her head up to look at the people around her, their dullness overtaken only by the fact that there was something wrong with them. She couldn't help but laugh at a man who was holding out his thumb because he had a fishing hook stuck in it.

The waiting room was a palate of dull grays and eggshell whites with a few paintings to break up the monotony. Megumi became bored of looking at the walls and went over to a magazine rack, grabbing Ladies' Home Journal that was at least three months old and sat back down in her seat, determined to deter her anxiety.

She'd hardly known Kenshin save for the times when Kaoru have spoke about him over the phone. From the way her step-sister spoke, Kenshin was a nice man from a well off family, though due to a "failure to communicate" as Kaoru had put it, Kenshin wasn't as well off as the rest of his family was. Somehow she found that hard to believe. Kenshin seemed humble enough to at least try and keep a steady relationship with his family, in the least. But then, she had only known him all of two days. There must have been a grudge or a fight, or maybe Kenshin was more spiteful than she thought.

"Hey, mind if I split for a few?" Sanosuke asked, tapping her on the shoulder. Megumi, entranced in ready through the magazine and lost in her own thoughts, didn't hear Sanosuke at first and he had to ask her again. "I'ma...not much into this antagonizin' waitin' thing." He left her in there, her lips curled somewhat. If they were friends, they were certainly strange.

Several hours later the three were at Kenshin's home once more, its rooms still empty of any occupants, the kitchen still messy and disturbed. Kenshin moved by it without consideration, lying in his bed, closing the door. Sanosuke was about to leave without saying anything to either Kenshin or Megumi. Megumi wouldn't have that.

"Sano," Megumi called out, following him out onto the porch. "Sano! Wait."

"What?"

His twangy country voice, usally soothing and somewhat rhytmic, at least to Megumi, had become harsh and cold, much like it did with earlier in the garage with Katsu.

"There's something wrong with you," she said, descending the stairs of the porch carefully. "Something just...plain wrong. Do you know something?" she asked, realizing that she had slipped into a tone that she used when she was cross-examining witnesses on the stand. It was a sweet, yet persuasive voice. Sanosuke obviously picked up on it. He turned away from her, pulling the car door open. "Sano, do you know something? If you feel like it's your fault..."

"It ain't," Sanosuke said. His voice lifted somewhat. "This shouldn' be gettin' all blown outta perportion like it is," he swung the car door like he couldn't decide if he wanted to leave or not. "Whatever he said t' her, he musta got his just punishment for it."

"But...you're his friend, how can you say that?" Megumi knew a bit of psychology when it came to dealing with people with deep pasts. In her job she constantly had to find a way to twist the truth out of somebody, whether it be asking the right questions, or saying it in a way that appealed to them. "You're throwing him under the bus."

"Look, I ain't in the middle of this melodrama okay? He is my friend, but I'm not gonna get in the middlea his marital affairs."

"Isn't that what friends are for? Stepping in the middle of two people to show them the good points."

"Have you ever known a soul to actually win that fight?" he asked, slamming his car door shut. Megumi had caught his attention, but maybe not in the way she wanted. "Sure, I get in the middle there. I tell 'em all this stuff that make 'em out as saints, an' then what? They look at each other an' make up? Ev'rything gets good?"

Megumi knew for a fact that outside forces could fix something just as well as the inside forces could, but the conviction that Sanosuke spoke to her with made her feel like she was somehow wrong. "Look, ya got a good heart in all this, I won' deny ya that truth," he said. "But there are just some folks who...even if they're starcrossed or starstruck or whatever it is, they just can't make it. They can't find a way t' make themselves mesh. Or maybe...just maybe it ain't suppose to work out. Maybe they ain't what they think they are."

"You said yourself they're the best married couple you'd seen," Megumi said, recalling the earlier conversation.

"Well yeah, till ya see this. I don' think this is quite the "happy" marriage, do you?"

Megumi sighed and crossed her arms. "You're planning on losing a battle before you've even started to fight it," she said. Megumi was known for her fire and charisma, but with this man she was trying to appeal to sympathy, or even better, truth. "You don't know the outcome of this at all. You just think you do."

His brows knit downward, not angry, but somewhat distraught. He looked like a strange mix of a lost lamb and a hungry lion. "No, I don' think so. Yer the one that don' know. You should especially stay out of it. For your own good. There are forces at work there that you don' know about." He opened the truck door, revved up the engine and turned out of the driveway, Megumi left to herself and her wounded brother-in-law.

Back inside she paced the living room, something she did so badly it was like her vice, and she peered toward the bedroom where Kenshin lie, an occasional moaning floating out from under the door. She walked closer, convinced that something was following the moaning.

Like a young girl, she knelt down tot he crack under the door, peering in, her ear partially turned toward it so that she could hear and see. Kenshin padded around the room, sitting in front of the window cross legged, a hand on one of his knees. Megumi was thankful for the wide openings under the doors so that she could see this much.

There was mumbling coming from under the door, a few incoherent words that she tried her best to decipher. His voice picked up, allowing her to hear. "I just try and try...I can't help that you wan't them and you don't," he paused. That was when Megumi realized who he was talking to. "I love you Kaoru, I really do, but I can't keep fighting over something like this. You want to move, you want to have a baby, you want this, you want this...what am I suppose to do? We can only work so much to get where we want to go." Another pause. It was agonizing long, like waiting for the next episode of a television show. "I just want you to come home, really I do. I just...we just need to find something. I promise that we can work through this. Really, I promise."

Megumi pursed her lips and rose from the door. She couldn't listen to it anymore. She couldn't listen to him truthfully console her, knowing that she was pretending that she cared for what he said. Megumi had seen these kinds of things cycle. He would convince her to come back, she would, and then they would end up getting into a fight about the same thing because they both walked around with the problem unresolved.

The problem that they let sit though, was a problem that they would never face. They would pretend they both knew what the terms of it were, and they would tip toe around it like they could actually touch it, but in the end they could never really bring themselves to face what was their ultimate fault.

Why was it that couples pretending that if they ignored something that it would just go away? Megumi surely couldn't answer that, at least, not while she was single. When you were single it made so much sense, but when you were with somebody, the pretending and the lying and the tip-toeing seemed almost like they were written in a manual. Like that was how you were told you were suppose to do it.

She sat down at the kitchen table, her eyes on the door. Kaoru would probably be home soon.

A/N: Yeah...I realize I've been uber lazy with this story, but I really do intend to keep up with it. I'm gonna get off school soon, so I can work on it a little more.

Well, till next time, KenSan out!