Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin nor it's characters. This story is not written for profit of any kind.
Once widowed and twice a mother, Ayame was no spring chicken by any means. That's why Megumi's insistence that she dive back into the dating pool seemed horribly ridiculous. She had to choke her laughter back, laughter which would have left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"Why not, Ayame-chan? You're still a beautiful woman, and with such a promising future!" Megumi would always exclaim, raking back her charcoal hair now streaked with gray. Ayame would only roll her eyes and turn her attention back to scrawling patient records, as if Megumi had never spoken. Megumi had never been subtle about anything and it seemed to grow worse as she grew older. Any illusion of propriety she had ever had had disappeared when her first child had been born. Or maybe it had begun to slip from the very moment she ended up with Sagara Sanosuke.
Inoue Ayame, after the death of her beloved grandfather, had found herself married to everyone's surprise. She had exclaimed vehemently that marriage was not for her and medical practice was. Everyone had shaken their heads and clicked their tongues in disappointment, remarking on Ayame's beauty and how much of a shame it would be to waste it. Ayame had always controlled her anger somehow, although shakily. Once in a while she had had to bite her tongue until a tiny drop of blood would assault her senses.
It had all been so fast that Ayame hadn't had any time to settle into the marriage home before she found herself in a family way (of course she would never utter to anyone that she had gotten herself into the mess before Inoue Hiro could propose). But he had been sweet, generous, and perhaps in love with her. She might have fallen in love as well if she had had the time. That hope had been cut short when a thief botched his robbery and Hiro had ended up dead on the road, an innocent bystander. Before he left the world he had given her two children, both of them dead before birth. Ayame fancied her husband cursed. Two years ago it had happened, and now Ayame was fast approaching her twenty-fourth birthday (in two days to be exact), and for the life of her she could not come up with a reason to celebrate. She hated her birthday anyway. What was it but a paltry excuse to get drunk on sake? What was it but a celebration of a person who had done nothing but avoid death for another year?
Despite her bitterness the younger men and the older (much older) men still came to call, and always left disappointed. Often she would find her male patients either blushing furiously or turning pale when she lifted their yukata to apply a bandage or had to rub a joint and ask them if it hurt too much. Not long after Hiro died, an old man had grabbed her hand and pressed it roughly to his erection, gazing at her imploringly. Sickened, she had prescribed his medication and had nearly shoved him through the shoji and out of her sight. The thought of anyone, even the nice and handsome men, inside her the way Hiro had been offended her. And so she had found herself celibate for two years and that had suited her fine. She didn't need to see another midwife snipping off the umbilical cord of a baby who would never breathe or touch the soft skin that was only warm because her blood still covered it. One boy and one girl who should have been walking happily by her side through the market were dead and buried and she, alone, who had never heard their cries still lived.
Oguni Ayame and Inoue Ayame were two completely different people.