In the nearly three years since the chaos following Kensan's final duel with Enishi, things had been quiet, almost boring. I, at least, was fairly content with the way things were. Yes, I was lonely and would not mind a companion in my life, but perhaps things were better this way. I had returned from Aizu for an extended visit; my clinic was in good hands and I had felt a deep need to visit my friends. There was only one other thing I truly wanted fiercely, but I was not yet ready to face that particular road alone.
Sometimes I refused to accept it, entirely, but rationally I knew it was about as over as it could get, the more so for never having begun. After all, one of the best ways to drive home the point that you weren't interested in someone was to marry someone else. And he'd done a pretty good job of that; I'd been there.
Sometimes I wondered if he ever understood how deep my love for him really went. I think most people believed it was merely a cover, or at least a deception meant to make the silly country girl upset. But from the moment I met him, really met him as a person and not some random stranger with a sword, I knew I was already well on the way to handing him my heart all dressed out on a silver platter. Of course, he never indicated that he saw it, and certainly never wanted it. I was a friend to him. A good one, in truth one of his closest confidantes and his physician to boot - no one knows a person like that person's doctor - but nothing more.
None of that meant I had to LIKE it.
To make matters worse, even though I had eventually developed a friendship of sorts with his young wife and respected her, I could never resolve myself to truly like her as a person, or as a match for the man I loved. She was too needy, too overt, too raucous, and altogether too violent for the man he had become long before any of us met him. Who knew, perhaps ten years ago she might have been a match, but the intervening years had altered him from whatever sort of hotheaded youth he might have been to a sensitive, gentle, and mature man in control of his formidable abilities.
He was also a MUCH better cook than she could ever be, although not even he could hold his own in the kitchen against me. He could wield his sakabatou like nobody's business but it was I who could best him with a simple fish knife. Never in combat, of course. I'm not the combative type, and I'm certainly not foolish enough to even consider taking on the man who had once been known as the Hitokiri Battousai, foremost killer of an era.
He'd calmed down quite a bit since his younger days, but then, most of us do, eventually.
I shifted the child in my arms as I traveled down memory lane, marveling once again at the way his small hands were so perfect and so strong, or the way his still baby-fine red hair covered his head. Such a small, perfect human being! No amount of medical training could prepare one for the pure miracle wonderfulness of a baby. No amount of technical knowledge and skill could ever warn of how sweet they smelled or how soft and fragile they felt. A fierce wave of protectiveness washed over me and I kissed his smooth forehead. He sighed in his sleep and it was all I could do not to coo over him like a fool. That wouldn't do. Not for a medical professional of my standing. Neither would the momentary pain that clutched my heart without mercy, closing my throat and threatening to spill hot tears down my cheeks.
I wanted a child so badly. I wanted a family of my own. I wanted all the things that Kensan had given Kaoru, and the more I ached, the more frustrated I became. Things were coming to a head in my mind, and I knew I'd have to come to terms with the situation or go insane.
The latter was beginning to sound the more likely option. Most of the time, it wasn't so bad, but holding this child, their child… His child.
Kenji gurgled again and I closed my eyes, listening to his small, faint breaths with mingled joy and pain in my heart. I leaned back in my chair, letting him use me as a mattress, my arm in its voluminous sleeve serving as his warm blanket, safe haven and anchor. He felt so good lying there, this tiny little child, and I found myself wanting to doze with him. Indeed, my eyes were drifting slowly shut of their own accord as a wonderful contentment crept into me.
I couldn't say how much time had passed before I heard a slight, deliberate cough at the door of the clinic. Kensan was there, standing next to Genzaisensei, and both of them were grinning as proudly as if they'd just delivered the child (and at his age!) themselves. I couldn't understand why.
"What are you two grinning about?" I tried to snap quietly, but it didn't quite come out as harshly as I intended, and the men's grins grew bigger.
"Maa, maa, Megumidono. You just looked so peaceful and so happy, we didn't want to wake you." Kensan tried to look more reassuring, but I found it hard to take him as seriously since he hacked off all that glorious red hair. Now he just looked shaggy and a little dopey with the ever-changing newness of fatherhood. The latter suited him well. The former, not so much. "Kaoru sent me to ask if you wanted to join us for dinner."
"Gladly!" We both looked at Genzaisensei, then back at each other, and grinned. My mentor was always one for free food, even if it wasn't so well prepared.
"Well, in the face of such enthusiasm, I can hardly decline myself, now, can I?" I smiled. Shifting my hold on Kenji and marveling yet again at how delicate he seemed for such a sturdy child, I rose from the chair. Now it was my turn to grin as I watched Kensan's immense battle of will. I kissed his son's head again and, with no little reluctance, relinquished my claim on him to his father. "You used to be so good at hiding your feelings, Kensan." I tried to keep the flicker of pain from showing, but he still saw it and flinched. One protective arm encircled his son and held the child close to his chest as Genzai pretended to study the ceiling. Such awkward moments had become far too frequent since Kenji's birth. Not that they were commonplace, but Kensan and I had definitely felt the rift since Kaoru bore his child. I was beginning to believe that pain would never fade.
"Come on, there's food at the end of this jaunt," Genzaisensei grumbled goodnaturedly. Turning towards the door, we followed him out, Kensan trailing not far behind me as I caught up to my colleague.
"It's just not the same around here," he noted as we walked down the street. "Things at the clinic are so much quieter. Between your retiring altogether and Sanosuke's running off, it's almost TOO quiet!" We laughed at this, but he was right. While the clinic had always been busy, it was almost exclusively everyday situations, minor illnesses and the occasional accident. Rarely did we have any dramatic altercations, no one was abducted and recovered only half alive. All the excitement of the "old days" was gone.
And that, too, I missed.
I couldn't figure out why, since the most that had meant was more work and the risk of getting caught uncomfortably in the middle of some silly fight. Of course, the cause was usually just - at least on Kensan's side of it - but that didn't excuse the violence.
Once in a while, it was true that someone would wander through town, discover Kensan's identity, and ask him to teach them, or to spar with them, so that they might match their prowess against he who had once been the foremost killer of his time. His reputation had spread far; word of his revised status as a swordmaster and pacifist was almost as widespread. Fortunately, word of his location hadn't spread nearly as much.
Still, none of those had posed any threat, even the few that had wanted to do so, and the routine had begun to pall. Even I, who for a good part of my life craved the routines of family, friends, and steady work with positive reinforcement, was beginning to understand why someone might pack up and explore the world beyond Japan.
Sometimes it felt so tight in Tokyo that I couldn't breathe. I knew why, of course; it was hard to be good friends with the wife of the man you'd first fallen for. It was beginning to irritate me - not so much that I couldn't have him as much as that I KNEW that and still couldn't seem to get past it, to find someone else who could make me happy the way he did for his wife.
Wife. What a small, simple word, and yet how full of meaning. I wanted to add that to my list of accomplishments. It always seemed so simple, when I was young; of course, most things did. It was only age and experience that complicated things. Not, of course, that I had any intention of giving up my work at the clinic. First and foremost, I was a doctor. Neither would family take second place, but I did not doubt that I would find a way to make it work.
Assuming, of course, that I ever reached that point... Assuming that I could ever find someone to help me heal the hole left by Himura Kenshin's love. For yes, he loved me, but not in the way that a man loves a woman he would take to wife. Not even Kaoru knew it, but once, briefly, there had been a moment of truth between the man who would later become her husband and the woman she had always viewed as a rival. He had been so badly hurt after the "incident" in Kyoto that I had determined to give up before I lost him. But long after that had ended, there was another time, shortly before Kensan and Kaoru admitted their true feelings to one another. He still had his gloriously long hair, then, and things between us were not so strained...