Changes, Chances
by waterways

Chapter 3

Sanosuke awoke near dusk to an empty stomach and a buzzing headache. He had fallen asleep where he'd decided to while away the hours since the doctor had kicked him out, which meant he was currently in a bulrush-overridden riverbank, a respectable distance from the clinic. He sat up, massaging the headache away from his temples, and wondered what he ought to do.

He knew there was no use in confronting the Fox at the moment, or in the near future for that matter. What she'd call a 'damage to her reputation' would surely haunt her for weeks. He sighed. The damned woman ought to loosen up a bit, to not take herself that seriously. That much was clear—except the uptight woman had needed to 'loosen up a bit' even before he'd left seven years ago. He had hoped that she would have improved on that in those seven years, but instead it seems as if she had gone in the opposite direction.

Sanosuke found himself sighing again, and paused to consider if he was being selfish, expecting things like that from the Fox.

Seven years was an awfully long time, seen from the way things were going now. But those same years oddly felt like months to him, where he'd been scaling the globe for whatever reason seemed sensible at the moment. One reason, one day, and when the course was run, it was easy to convince oneself that the next challenge was a non-negotiable matter of life-and-death, and thus, on to the next reasons, down the list, until a day became a month and months became years. Whatever he thought he'd learned out there seemed not to make sense here, or was it everyone else who needed to change?

The journey back to Japan had been the most difficult leg of his travels. When elsewhere, he had been free to the point of irresponsibility and passivity, the trip home held a challenge of the opposite nature, one that he was beginning to see he was unready for. Things were expected of him now, he was sure. How much he'd actually lived up to those expectations upon his arrival, or what those expectations were in the first place, is another matter. He had also come home having vague expectations in mind, which, if he were to be honest with himself, were starting to look less and less sensible now. It involved a vague picture of home, and an even vaguer picture of what that home might actually look like and who might be in it. The old Kenshin-gumi was done for, how could he deny that? In its place was a new family, a new context, years of history which there was no way for him to have been a part of—and entirely different people from who they were seven years ago, who he had once childishly believed they would always be. He wasn't particularly expecting to be welcomed with open arms and no questions by the people he had so unceremoniously left behind, but even without the physical aspect of a home, he had hoped to find at least an inkling of that feeling which he had never found in his seven years of wandering.

There was a reason things weren't working up to be how he'd imagined them to be, and he had better do something about it. He had come back for a reason, no matter that those reasons started out from the misinformed longings of a homesick vagabond. He could learn. He wanted to.

Sanosuke got up, dusted his hands against the back of his pants, and stared at the quiet creek as if it ought to give him some sort of affirmation. It didn't, but he'd made up his mind, for whatever that was worth—he had never really been much of a thinker, but when his mind was set, even a good Futae no Kiwami to the head couldn't change it. Winging this return was no longer an option. He had work to do, and a place to earn here. The time for wandering was over.

Two weeks had gone by and Sanosuke had not once been sighted near the premises of the Takani Clinic, and talk of him had not reached Megumi's ears once she had made it clear to a particularly brave patient who had asked her about it that no, she was not 'consorting with the strange-yet-handsome man', and that he was just an old friend from Tokyo, kindly refrain from asking personal questions when in the clinic's premises, thank you.

The same patient once tried to pry something out of her by informing her that the 'dreamy man' had set himself up living in the inn near the river, and taking up with the landlord by giving all sorts of design advice for a western-style house that he was planning on building as an annex to the inn. "Oh, and, he also does all the heavy construction stuff that the other workers can't do, like lifting all those things all at once. He's amazing, isn't he,ne, Sensei?", which Megumi replied to with a shrug and her coldest, "He's a brute, of course he can do things normal people can't," and no one had dared ask her more since then.

While thankful for the near-dead silence around her clinic in the past week, Megumi could not shrug off the feeling that it was becoming stiflingly quiet around the place, as if all the patients knew that they should be tiptoeing around her. Near the third week she was ready to bite the head off of any patient who so much as looked at her with an unvoiced question in their mind.

It was infuriating to an inexplicable degree, that she sometimes caught herself on the edge waiting for an explosion of news or gossip or whatever, or an explosion of Rooster knocking down her gates, or an explosion of anything, really, because his infuriatingly western-style bag was still laying there in her spare bedroom and every time she passed it, her eyebrows would twitch in annoyance. She wished he would just show up and claim it, leave, and go back running across whatever jungle he liked best as long as it wasn't in Aizu.

Remembering Yahiko's words was not helping her ignore thoughts she would have liked kept in a box and filed neatly away, such as her nagging suspicions about why Sanosuke had come to Aizu at all. It was clear that he didn't just drop by for a random visit, with him needlessly setting up camp in the town inn after all this time. His arrival had brewed a storm in her, one that she didn't need and didn't see any good use for. It was a hassle, frivolous, childish, and disruptive—everything that she remembered the Rooster to be from before he left, even if he had shown signs of having changed since.

Whatever the Rooster was thinking was as inaccessible to her as ever—she never understood what made the man tick, why he did stupid things like constantly break his hand, drink to a stupor, gamble, or show up on her doorstep and cook dinner for her and keep her bath warm, and staying in the fringes of her life without any good reason to. Except, at the back of her mind, she knew that she was the reason, but not why he thought it was even worth all the effort, or to what exact end his tiny Rooster brain was working towards. This Sanosuke was a stranger, and it frustrated her that she could not keep his sudden appearance filed at the back of her mind without its lumbering and insistent presence driving her insane.

She would definitely not seek him out, however, no matter how on-edge it drove her. It was probably only a temporary nuisance, anyway. There was no satisfaction to be had in trying to decode the stranger, nor were there benefits for her to convince herself otherwise. Indulging the illogical whims of a vagabond (no matter how mysterious or intriguing) who would probably get bored sitting in one place for five seconds was time-consuming, and she simply did not have the time. There were patients to attend to; she was too old for frivolities and seeking out troubles that could be resolved with a no-nonsense attitude in the first place.

Megumi closed up the clinic early that Sunday. Less-pressing medical concerns would have to wait for the next day, and emergencies could be attended to if they were indeed emergencies. She refreshed her cup of tea and set about the remainder of her daily routine: a quick soak in the bath, an even quicker supper, one last cup of calming tea, and then bed.

Before she had even slipped into sleep, however, a series of thundering knocks shook her out of her daze, followed by alarmed shouts of, "Sensei! Sensei!"

Not waiting for further details, Megumi ran to grab her doctor's smock and put it over her evening kimono. A flustered young man, possibly in his late teens, was looking out of his depths and inexpressibly glad to see her step out to meet him.

"Sensei, I'm so sorry to disturb you like this," he said, while trying to catch his breath. "I'm from the next town. The doctor there is away right now and this was the next clinic I was pointed to. Please—me wife is 'bout to give birth I think—I dunno what to do,"

Megumi was already out of the gate with him even before he finished explaining, and locking up. "Did her water break? Was she having contractions? Is someone with her now?"

The poor young man stood there looking embarrassed to not know how to answer her questions, but she ploughed on nonetheless. "Never mind; just calm down and take me to her. I suppose this is your first child?" she added, sending him a comforting smile in the hopes that it would get him to relax.

Nodding but looking too wrought with nerves to say much else, the young man prepared the horse he had brought to have Megumi sit side-saddle. He hopped on the bare back of the horse to keep a respectable distance away from her, apologizing repeatedly for her having to ride this way but assured her that the destination was not too far. He explained that he had had to borrow a horse just to get here, and since he couldn't bring his hysterical wife on horseback, he was left with no choice but to bring Megumi to her.

Megumi kept asking him questions to keep him distracted and calmer. The last thing she needed while birthing what she assumed to be a young, inexperienced mother, was to have an equally frantic and nervous husband looming about. She learned from him that her water had broken but they hadn't known what it meant until she started having contractions, and that that was when he took her to the town's clinic only to find out that there was no doctor there at the moment, and that he had to leave his wife in a nearby inn because she could not walk all the way back to their house which was further off in the rice-growing outskirts of town. He told Megumi that he had left his wife in the care of the landlord's wife and a fellow guest who had suggested to him to borrow the inn's horse and find the Takani Clinic.

"Was a big mess. I was. Think we woke the whole inn. Hey, come to think of it, I coulda asked the fellow to fetch you instead so I could stay with me wife. Guess he sent me 'way on purpose to keep peace there 'n all that," he added, laughing nervously. With Megumi's steady questioning, the young man considerably calmed down when they arrived at their destination.

To her surprise, the inn was actually her town's inn, the one her patient had described to be where the ex-gangster was currently working and staying. The Mimura clinic was indeed only a little ways off of this path, though formally being part of the next town.

A small gathering of curious neighbors had formed near the entrance of the inn, with confused whispers following the arrival of the doctor. A woman's screams could be heard renting the night air, which Megumi guessed had roused the neighbors.

"Oi, move aside, the doctor is here!" shouted the young man, but he didn't need to. Everyone in this town knew who Megumi was, and the small crowd was already parting as soon as the expecting father had helped her off the horse.

He led her through the corridors to a nondescript room near the back, where the inn's other awakened patrons had congregated trying to get the pregnant woman to calm down. She was thrashing and screaming for what Megumi assumed to be her husband's name, "Kikujiro", peppered with random threats as to what she would do to him if he wasn't there soon. The Kikujiro in question sprinted ahead of Megumi into the middle of the floor where his angry, laboring wife lay, and the circle opened to let Megumi pass.

The first thing she actually took notice of was the big form of Sagara Sanosuke sitting cross-legged on the opposite side, with his left hand trapped (or offered?) to the soon-to-be young mother as a squeezing stress-relief tool. By the looks of his reddening hand, she had been at it for a while, although she didn't seem to be taking much notice of any potential damage to the ex-gangster.

On the other side was who Megumi assumed to be the landlord's wife, who was wiping the forehead of the young woman with a washcloth. Megumi nodded in approval, and asked her for a fresh basin of warm water and some more washcloths, and asked Kikujiro to herd everyone else away from the room. She pointedly looked at Sanosuke, who, for his part, seemed unwilling to witness a live birthing, but the woman would not let his hand go until Kikujiro replaced his role of being a squeeze tool, which later turned out to be too much to ask of him due to the unexpected strength of his wife's squeezing.

With everyone apart from the couple and the landlord's wife out of the room, and Megumi's administered mild sedative effectively taking root, the entire process was over in a few hours. It took longer than was usual, as it was difficult to instruct a slightly drugged patient to push properly, but it seemed the better choice to keep the young woman from wasting too much energy on screaming and thrashing and squeezing the life out of poor Kikujiro's hand.

When Megumi handed him their tiny, wailing, prune-faced daughter, Kikujiro burst into tears. His wife was still spaced-out but was able to mutter her gratitude, falling fast asleep with the newborn in a matter of a few minutes while Megumi and the landlord's wife were cleaning her up. With Kikujiro's profuse promises of gradually paying Megumi back in kind with rice (as it was their only livelihood), and Megumi having assured him that it was quite alright, the long night was ended.

Megumi stepped out of the room intending to ask for a room of her own (she refused when Kikujiro offered to bring her back to the clinic; it was unthinkable to keep the new family apart on their first night together, and dawn was just a few hours away anyway), she was met by Sanosuke who seemed to have waited the whole time on the engawa at the end of the corridor.

"You were great back there—as usual," he began, a big, rather nervous smile on his face. "I was listening to you reasoning with the wailing girl before you drugged her," he chuckled. "The little thing's got a lot of spirit, huh. And the guy was a right mess, so I sent him off to find ya. He was all over the place when he brought her here, didn't have a clue what to do. Knew you would do a good job of it."

"It was good of you to have thought of that," she said. "You know, I now have a little girl named after me, if that's any consolation for the ruckus that that young family made tonight."

Sanosuke let out a hearty laugh. "You serious? Well, that seems about right, doesn't it? Mouthy little girl named after a sharp-tongued doctor, wow, now that's a lot to live up to for the little devil," he said, voice sounding a little too loud, belying a nervousness that was too obvious for Megumi to ignore and not feel a little sorry for.

She chose to ignore the comment, feeling rather tired from the long day and not in the mood to milk his sudden nervousness around her. She glanced at him, seeing him awkwardly fidgeting with his hands in his pockets, waiting for a reaction from her by which he could judge his next moves.

"Sano," she said, seeing the tall man stiffen a little bit at her serious tone. "I'm tired—really tired. Would you mind walking me home instead? I'd originally planned on staying the night here but I much prefer my own futon, to be honest."

Sanosuke seemed taken aback by the honest and plain request, and after a quick lapse in his scripted composure, he visibly relaxed, sending a half-smile towards her. "Don't worry about it—I was going to offer to anyway," he said, beginning to walk towards the road. Megumi followed wordlessly, falling into step beside the tall man. She let him lead the way so she could relax and enjoy a mindless stroll on account of her sleeplessness, and when she took notice of their surroundings, she appreciated that he chose to walk along the river road, away from the main road where the night houses and drinking dens hosted the only people who were still awake at this hour, despite it being the shortest route to the clinic.

The walk passed without incident, and neither talked. Megumi noted that it was a nice change, them keeping silent. It never occurred to her that a silent walk could be enjoyed by two people, each with their minds to their own world of thoughts, yet not be entirely alone all the same. She appreciated the familiar memory of him walking her home on nights like this, although the past ones seemed like a lifetime ago and by two very different people. He'd walk her to and from emergency calls like this one back in Tokyo, when he happened to be in the Oguni Clinic at the time of such calls. Without exceptions, he'd also always been the one to walk her, Ayame and Suzume when gatherings at the dojo ended past dusk.

It was one of the things she missed most when she came up to Aizu to start her own practice. Granted, Aizu was a much safer, sleepier rural town compared to the busy Tokyo, but she had never made friends here to share private moments with such as this. Compared to Tokyo, Aizu was a cold and lonely place, and the town looked up to her and her family too much to get any friendlier than was necessary; or was it because she never let herself?

"Megumi? We're here," he called, and when she snapped out of her reverie, she found them approaching the Takani Clinic's gates.

"Right, thanks," she said, trying in vain to stifle an ungracious yawn.

"You're looking pretty beat up. Have a good rest tonight, Fox. I'm staying at that inn if you need help tomorrow with anything around here—send someone to fetch me and I'm yours," he offered, a weak smile lining his stubbled face.

Megumi felt the comment passing over her head much slower than usual, emphasizing to her just how tired she really was. Dawn was only a few hours away, and she absently counted the few hours' nap she could afford before it was time to open up the clinic again.

"Your things are still here," she noted, eyes heavy with sleep.

Sano scratched at the back of his head, unsure of what to make of her words. "It's fine, most of it's for you anyway," he said. "I'll swing by some time to grab what's left of them. You go and have a good night. We don't want our doctor sick," he added good-naturedly, holding the gates open for her.

The next day, Sano found himself hanging about the area surrounding the Takani Clinic, although he didn't stop by the clinic itself. Through this, he learned that compared to that one day he helped out at the clinic, the traffic here was much, much less than what it was in Tokyo, which made him feel marginally better about Megumi not overworking herself like she used to. He thought better of revealing himself to her; he thought that she might appreciate a quiet day to herself after the previous night.

He'd continued to room at the inn, working during the day in the construction of the inn's annex wing. It kept him busy for a good twelve hours of every day, working much more than any other worker, to cover the expense of his lodging and pocket money. He was no stranger to this kind of work, as he had spent a good portion of his trip to the Americas surviving on wages for constructing odder buildings than the simple, wooden ones of his home country. In fact, he appreciated the mindless labor for what only people like him could call 'therapeutic exertion', which earned him the sweet soreness of a body worked to the ground and a mind too tired to think of much else but food and sleep.

The landlord had taken to him and adjusted his wages accordingly, earning him further popularity among the townsfolk. Soon, other people were vying for his labor, and his knack for coming up with inventive designs that incorporated exotic, western touches to traditional establishments was proving just as popular a selling point.

It was in this manner that Sanosuke had kept himself from the constant nagging temptation of seeking out the lady doctor, until they ran into each other last night. For what reason he avoided her exactly, he didn't know, but several things had become increasingly apparent despite every minute he spent keeping ridiculously busy with his work:

The first was that he could not go back to Tokyo even if it meant several free meals a day and a free bed, and good company on the side. He wouldn't be able to live with himself taking off for Aizu so abruptly without having accomplished anything here.

The second and more alarming thought was that the term 'accomplishment' had something to do with the lady doctor. In fact, it almost exclusively had everything to do with her. He wanted Megumi; being away for seven years and having his idle thoughts randomly end up involving her during all that time seems a good reason as any to be convinced that he wanted the damned woman. The problem was that the Fox that had lived in his head for all those years, kept him company through his worst days, and simultaneously represented a hope and a dream that was all at once radical yet beautiful, nostalgic, impossible, and at some parts vague and then crystal clear, was being challenged by the Megumi he had come across a few weeks ago. She was now somber, embittered, and lonely, the way he never thought the Megumi he had left behind could ever be—or was it only because he was an idiot for not seeing that she had always been headed in this direction?

He wanted to make her happy; gods only knew how much he wanted to see that foxy face light up in a smile. It made his blood simmer to think that he probably could have seen to that if he'd never left, but he knew that to assume that role was presumptuous, selfish, and intrusive of him. He wondered if she knew how much it bothered him to see her caging herself up, if she even realized that she was doing it, and for how long she was going to let herself do so.

There was nothing for it—he needed a good, long, drink.

And so Sanosuke spent the remainder of his afternoon downing jars of sake with his landlord, who was very ironically named Saitou, who had begun to chant out folk songs in his drunkenness.

"You know, if I think about that other Saitou I know singing like you do, I wouldn't be able to sleep," Sanosuke said.

Saitou gave his rounded belly a hearty slap and said, "Why, he must be a charmer, that man! Only fine men are called Saitou!"

"Sure, if you count that he's the Shinsengumi Saitou who very nearly snuffed me out, that right bastard," Sanosuke said, recalling his old days in Tokyo with an inappropriate fondness. "If it wasn't for Megumi, I wouldn't be sitting out here listening to another Saitou singing," he added, chuckling, then chugging down on his liquor jar.

"Megumi? You mean our Megumi? Aizu-Megumi, the Takani—that one?" Saitou asked, surprised.

"Unless you know another Megumi that can stitch through flesh like she would a kimono? Yeah, that Megumi. We had a history back there in Tokyo, she and I," he smiled, remembering fondly the time from when they'd rescued her from Kanryuu to their various, daily banters. He raised his jar. "Cheers to that foxy doctor!"

But Saitou only half-heartedly met it, turning his attention to his next question. "What kind of history, eh? Word 'round here is that she hasn't married because she was waiting—if you ask me, you seem to fit that bill, son, traveling for seven years and then showing up on her doorstep like tha'—what are you doing here drinking when there's a fine lady to be marryin'?"

Sano was prepared to answer, "By history, I mean that she attempts to kill me as often as she treats me—"

"Killed ya with love, you mean—" he said in a singsong voice.

"—Hey old man, isn't it way past your age for those jokes—"

"Not when I've never seen me a nicer-looking couple, you betcha," Saitou barked out a hearty laugh, and downed the remaining contents of his jar. Sano could only grin ruefully at the older man's antics. "Think fast, boy, second chances don't always come for everyone…" he trailed off.

The sound of a shoji door sliding announced the arrival of Saitou's wife, a tray of tea in tow. "I think it's time to head to bed, dear, you're beginning to make the old-man speech," she said, to which she and Sanosuke shared a chuckle.

"But the night hasn't even started yet! Nine in the evening, tuck me in next, will you, dear? And me and Sano'd just had three jars each; back in the day I could do five, no problem!" he announced, laughing.

"That was some ten years ago, now, yes? You'll thank me tomorrow for stopping you now, I promise. That's two jars more than you've had in the entire year put together, love," the old lady said, sending a conspiratory grin at Sanosuke.

"She's right, old man," Sanosuke piped in. He got up and announced, "I think I'm headin' out for a walk, anyway." Taking the last two remaining sake jugs and casually slinging it over his shoulder, Sanosuke stepped out into the humid night, making for a quiet drink by the river.

It wasn't until Sanosuke had reached a bend in the river that he fully realized that his aimless stroll had taken him on the path to the clinic.