Kenshin hated the lounge’s coffee vending machine. It was far too sweet for his taste-- even when he selected ‘black’-- but it was better than nothing since his usual favorite brand was the one item on the grocery list he had forgotten to pick up.
He hated the breakroom. Always loud. Always clustered. Like now, there was a large group crowded around someone's tablet propped up on the table. But they were different today. They were quiet, whispering to themselves like ghosts. Even looked like ghosts with ashen faces drained of color, faces he recognized from his department that should be at work.
“What's going on?”
Several of the group brazenly shushed him without their eyes ever leaving the screen.
“Kenshin!”
He knew that voice. At least, he knew it under normal circumstances. Sasuke was always calm and rarely allowed emotion to show on his face or in his voice. Never had his friend called out to him with such anguish… Never openly through the hallway.
“Kenshin!” Sasuke called again as he skidded into the break room, resting a shaky hand on Kenshin’s shoulder. “Call your wife!”
He looked to his watch and shook his head. “She's on the train to work. She won't--”
“S-she’s not on the ten-eighty-two train, is she?” The nervous question came from a woman of the gathered group and a deathly silence filled the room as frost invaded his veins. A frost he thought he'd been freed of long ago by his beloved’s caring patience.
Without a word from his lips, Kenshin snatched the tablet from the table. The greeting sight was filled with the red and blue flashes of light from ambulances and police cars alike. It seemed impossibly bright, even for the number of vehicles depicted on the screen. The dark uniforms of emergency workers swirled in and out of view as they escorted the injured to wherever they needed be. All of the action seemed to revolve around a silver trailer of some--
The next shot was an aerial view from a helicopter that churned the frost of his veins into a blizzard of fury. It wasn't a trailer. It was a train. An overturned train.
Her train.
Tablet and coffee were falling to the floor as he bolted from the lounge, down the hall and toward the elevators-- no too slow-- the stairs. Never in his years was he so thankful for his family’s odd physical endurance practices as he was in that moment while he easily vaulted the handrails of the passage.
His phone was already dialing her number when he emerged from the building, running at top speed past other employees as they were arriving. Straight to voicemail… voicemail, again… and a third time.
“Uesugi!” Kenshin had just flung open his car door when a voice stopped him, glancing up he saw the familiar eye patch through the motorcycle helmet window. “There's no point going anywhere. An accident has every way blocked for miles.”
Damn! What to do?
The answer was in front of him.
“Date! Keys. Now!”
“Excuse me?”
“Ask Sasuke!” Kenshin snapped as he all but ripped Masa's riding jacket from his hands and slipped into it himself, easily finding the bike keys in the front pocket before slamming them into the ignition. The roar of the engine and whistle of the wind sailing past his ears drowned out any further objection from the One-Eyed-Dragon.
Kenshin spent more time on sidewalks than he did the actual road due to the blockage and made it to his street in record time… but it was being treated as an official detour for the backed-up traffic since they lived so close to the station. Police officers were directing the flow and prevented him from utilizing the sidewalk. Almost there… The plan was to check home first as it was on the way to the station and, if she wasn't there, the accident scene was the next stop.
He barely remembered the kickstand and caught the bike before it toppled onto the pavement. The growing ice in his blood made finding his house key difficult, taking him three tries until the deadbolt snapped open. Each step through the house sent icy tendrils of anguish down his neck, across his shoulders, until finally settling in the pit of his stomach as he scanned each room for signs of the Lady Uesugi in vain. She was nowhere to be found and the silence deafened him.
Until he approached the bedroom. Unlike the quiet of the rest of the house, soft curses could be heard with a rare vehemence and the ice within him began to thaw.
She was safe.
Seemingly furious with something on the other side of the door but home and safe and alive. He would happily take her anger.
She shrieked in surprise when he finally threw open the door and lifted her in his arms to hold her tight to him. “Babe! What are you-- never mind! You can take me to work!” She attempted to wiggle free of his grasp but he didn't allow her even a tenth of an inch to move.
“You missed the train…” Something in his voice must have caught her attention because she ceased all movement and blinked up at him quizzically.
“Uh, yeah, that same damn breaker flipped so my clock was off and, in my panic of realizing I overslept, I kind of killed my phone…” She nodded to the bed where the device lay miserably, spider webbed screen glistening ominously in the morning light. “It won’t turn on at all and of course it would happen on the one morning I forgot both laptop and tablet in the car so I can't message anyone. You know my dad will never let us live this down, if he finds out, and forever lecture us on why we should get a landline.”
Had he ever been so happy to hear her voice? Joyously, he trailed fevered kisses over her face while praising that faulty breaker they hadn't had time to replace yet. “You don't know.”
“Don't know what?” She giggled as he pulled her to the bed. He revelled in her warmth as he rested his head in her lap, melting the remaining ice of fear and trepidation. Her fragrance enveloped him in the same way his arms wrapped around her waist.
It was several long moments of her fingers tracing through his hair in reassuring strokes before he could answer her question. “Masa is getting a raise. And Sasuke, too. Oh, I need to text him.”
“Um, okay…” she mused while he typed out his message. “I'm still missing the part where that required you coming home from work early… and why I'm not rushing to get ready for mine?”
“It can wait.”
And it could. Everything could wait now. She was here. Home. Warm. In his arms and he was not letting her go until the next dawning sun.
Maybe not even then.
