Kaoru told him she was pregnant in mid-summer.

It really shouldn't have comes as a surprise; it was one of the better-known consequences of being unable to keep your hands off your wife for more than a few hours at a time. He'd thought that his desire might become manageable with time – just as the flutter in his chest had grown less distracting as he had become more accustomed to her smile – but instead it only grew stronger with every touch and embrace, every soft cry and each moment when he came apart in her arms.

He'd tried to explain it to her, once, and fumbled over the words. She'd pinned him on his back and glared, holding his shoulders down and demanding to know if this was another one of those I'm-not-worthy things.

He'd protested, laughing, and she'd kissed him long and slow and sweet and had nearly driven the topic of their conversation right out of his head when she'd finally broken it off, touching her forehead to his and had asked him what he meant to imply about her, when she loved him, and he kept insisting he was unworthy?

Do you really think I'd give myself away so lightly?

He'd wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down against him, trying again to explain: that it was like the terror of breaking something fragile given into clumsy hands that had never touched anything so precious.

I'm not fragile, she'd muttered, indignation sparking in her eyes, and he'd had no response except that it was how he felt, and he couldn't help it, and she had pushed him down on the futon again and called him an idiot. You're the first thing I ever wanted just for myself, you know, she'd said, and his breath had caught at the tenderness in her eyes.

His hands had run up her back, over her shoulders and down her arms and he'd held her small hands in his and kissed her knuckles and her calloused palms, feeling her heartbeat in her wrists and tasting the salt of her skin.

You were my first selfish wish, she'd murmured again.

Now he took her hands in his, again, and his heart fluttered in time with hers.

"…You're sure, that you are?"

She nodded. "I – it's been two months since I last had my courses. So I went to Dr. Oguni, and he said it's probably almost definitely a baby. I mean, he says that it won't show for a while, but there are other signs. I've been so tired, and my breasts are sore…"

"They are? You have?" He sat up a bit straighter, stung. "Why didn't you say so, that is?"

She blushed. "I thought it was – for other reasons. It didn't occur to me until I missed this month's…"

If that was intended to mollify him, it wasn't working. He frowned and opened his mouth to say something – she should have told him, even if – especially if she thought it was because of him. Although it seemed it was his fault either way, and at the thought (which wasn't even that funny, to be honest), he felt a slightly hysterical laugh try to bubble up and had to stomp it down. He must have made quite a face, because she looked suddenly aghast and tried to pull away.

"Do you… not want it?" she asked, and the hurt in her eyes was too much to bear.

"No! That is, yes – this one – I want children, Kaoru. It's only – this one thought it would happen later, and we'd have more time to prepare, and – " he swallowed and tightened his hands around hers, pulling her closer. "…and I don't know what to do, that I don't."

"Me neither." She squeezed his hands back, face bright again. "I think it's one of those things we're supposed to figure out together."

He cleared his throat. "What else did the doctor say, then?"

"Well, he was a little worried because I didn't realize it for so long. He wants me to be very careful for the next month, until it's safer. I'm supposed to avoid stress and cold foods and strenuous activity, anything that might disrupt the baby. And other than that…" she shrugged. "He said that I'm young and healthy and strong, so as long as I avoid strain and stay positive, everything should be fine."

She smiled, a little tremulously. "I suppose I'll have to close the dojo, again."

And then, quite unannounced, she burst into tears and toppled into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, murmuring in dismay.

"It's fine, my Kaoru, everything's fine, so it is, please don't cry …"

Kaoru wailed something incoherent about babies and Yahiko and the worst teacher ever, and he had no idea what was upsetting her so all he could do was hold her and rock gently, stroking her hair, until her weeping subsided.

She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. He smoothed an errant strand of hair from her face and kissed her tear-stained cheeks, keeping her close.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"Oh… I'm not sure, I just – the dojo's been closed so much, first for the wedding, and now for this, and I promised Yahiko and I've been neglecting him and I just suddenly couldn't stand it and – I don't know why I started crying like that."

"Ah." He thought for a moment. "Well, what if you only watched him practice and gave corrections? Surely you can teach him without having to do anything yourself, at least a little, so you can."

"I…" She rested her head against his chest, her hand digging into the cloth of his kimono. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"You have a lot else on your mind, so you do." He leaned back on his hands, letting her sprawl against him from her seat in his lap.

"So I do…" she echoed. He cleared his throat.

"On that note… Kaoru, what should this one be doing, that is? With regards to announcing the news, and so on. You shouldn't have to worry about such things in your condition, you should not."

She hummed against him, fingers tracing over his skin through his clothes in a very distracting way.

"Well, we shouldn't tell anyone until the third month is over, it's bad luck… we have to go to the shrine during my fifth month for the belly-wrapping ceremony. And, um…" she looked up at him, with that heart-rending expression she used when she wanted something and wasn't sure it was alright to ask; the one that made him want to promise her the moon and stars. "Could I have your spare kimono to wear around the house? It's silly, but I remember Tae saying that if you wear your husband's clothes in the third through fifth months, the baby's more likely to be a boy… and I'd really like a son."

"You would?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and began to nibble. "Mmm-hmm. A son. With your hair. I've been thinking about names, too. What do you think of Kenji?"

"It's a very fine name, that it is." Although right now he would have agreed to name the child anything, if it meant she would keep doing what she was doing.

"…and Kasumi for his sister… a boy should have a little sister to look after, don't you think?"

"That sounds fine, so it does." He weighed the feasibility of getting indoors against the odds that anyone would be happening by soon, and rapidly decided that if someone did, it would be their own fault if they forgot to knock.

"…I think two little sisters might be a bit much, but brothers can be so envious of each other. What do you think?"

"…oro?"

Kaoru started to show in autumn.

They had made their announcements a week ago: to Yahiko as soon as superstition allowed, because he was closest to their hearts and he most deserved to be the first one told. Then they'd sent letters to Aizu and Kyoto, and couldn't send one to Sano because only he knew where he was, but they'd lit a stick of incense and kept him in their prayers. Next had come Tae and the Uramuras and the Maekawas, and assorted other neighbors who stopped by as the news slowly spread. He had been surprised, again, by how many people knew them; by how he had become part of the landscape of so many lives, all unknowing. When he'd told Kaoru that night, over after-dinner tea, she'd smiled and asked him what he'd thought would happen, exactly, when he decided to make this place his home?

He'd taken a long, silent sip. I don't know, he'd said at last. I've never really had a home before.

There had been no more talking that evening, just her warmth curled into his side, his arm around her, and the taste of salt on the wind.

A few days later he was doing the laundry while Kaoru sat sewing on the porch, humming some lullaby, his spare kimono wrapped around her shoulders. He looked up as she murmured something disgruntled and stood, stretching her back. Her rounding belly showed under her summer yukata and it suddenly hit him: that was his child.

The sheet slipped from his hands and fell back into the laundry basin with a wet slap.

"Kenshin?" She turned to look at him, puzzlement in her eyes, then abruptly jolted forward and sat down hard.

"What's wrong?" He was on the porch before he finished the sentence, crouching in front of her and lifting her chin to examine her face. Her body said: pain. But her face was lit with joy, and she raised a hand to cover her mouth in shocked pleasure even as she hunched over again.

She grabbed his hand and pressed it against the swell of her stomach.

"Kaoru, what is it…?"

And then. Under his hand. A flutter and a press against her skin, against his hand, and then a healthy shove and his eyes widened as he realized what it was. That he was holding his hand against his child in her womb. There was the rabbit-beat of her heart and their child just underneath it, a second soul inside her brightness, soft counterpoint singing and growing and reaching for the sun, and part of it had come from him but there was nothing unclean about it.

She wrapped her arms around him, pressing their joined hands against her stomach as the baby fluttered.

"…I didn't know," he said at last, resting his head on her shoulder. "I didn't know."

"Neither did I." She was crying, and he wasn't, and he couldn't think why that was.

Carefully, he brushed her tears away. His wife, wearing his clothing, holding his child within her womb. He'd never thought he'd be the type – had never thought he'd have the chance to find out – but it filled some deep, hollow place inside him that he hadn't known existed. Her, the child, this place: they were his, and he was theirs, and he was allowed to feel that way.

His child kicked once more, for emphasis, and finally stilled. The small life settled under his fingers.

"…he's sleeping," Kenshin murmured, irrationally afraid of waking the child even as a smile broke across his face, so ridiculously huge that his cheeks ached with joy. "Kaoru, our child's sleeping."

"I know," She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it, "He's awfully jumpy, isn't he? I guess he gets it from you."

Not much laundry got done that day.

His son was born towards the end of winter.

He woke, nose cold, to Kaoru shaking his shoulder and blearily pulled himself out of sleep. She was hunched over, one hand pressed against her swollen belly, and as he opened his mouth to ask what was wrong she cried out and bit her lip so hard it bled, and he barely had time to squeak out a surprised oro? before understanding hit him. The next second he was up and pulling on his clothing, heart pounding in his chest.

Dr. Oguni had takenone look at him – man with a pregnant wife looking like he'd been run over by a horse standing at his door in the middle of the night – and grabbed the little bag he kept by the door, calling for his assistant to fetch the midwife as he'd begun to stride towards the dojo.

The doctor and the midwife had muscled him out of the bedroom as soon as they arrived, ordering him firmly to bring a tray of food – Kaoru would need the energy. He'd let himself be muscled, fleeing to the kitchen with shaking hands as he'd tried to remember what he was supposed to bring her. Warm foods, strengthening foods – mochi and eggs and rice and weren't green vegetables supposed to help or was that only afterwards? He should start making some now, to have it ready when the time came. And the doctor would want tea – should Kaoru have tea? Well, there was tea if she was allowed. Water, he should bring a jug of water, too.

The dishes clattered together as he put them haphazardly on the tray. It was so silent. Straining, he could just make out the low murmur of voices and Kaoru's labored breathing. Was that good or bad?

He walked back as quickly as he could without spilling anything. The door slid open as he arrived; the midwife had been watching for him.

"Mr. Himura!" she gasped in surprise. "Oh, that's so much! Here, let me."

She took most of it, set it down, and then the rest.

"That will be very much enough, Mr. Himura; now just try to stay out of the way," she said, not unkindly, and went to shut to door over his protests.

Kaoru's face was contorted in pain. As the door slid shut, he saw her fall back on her elbows and struggle her way up. She let out a low, anguished moan.

He pulled the door back, unbalancing the midwife. She nearly fell and he caught her apologetically, setting her back on her feet before he knelt behind his wife and draped his arms around her shoulders, catching her hands in his. Kaoru collapsed gratefully against him, panting, and he looked up at Dr. Oguni and the midwife, challenge filling his bones and flaring in his eyes.

"Forgive this unworthy one," he said mildly, as another wave hit Kaoru and she squeezed his hands until his bones creaked. "But I will not leave her, that I will not."

The hours that followed blurred in his memory: Kaoru's face, bright with pain as she struggled to ride the rising tide, her grip tight on his hands and later, his arms. Wiping the sweat from her face and helping her drink and eat, so that she would have the strength to bring their child into the world. Shouldering her weight as she walked in slow circuits around the house and every step made her wince, because she insisted she that she needed to and the midwife concurred. Dr. Oguni's absolute serenity and the midwife's calm encouragement, the two things he clung to as her labor wore on and on and panic started to bloom inside him, because the human body – Kaoru's body – couldn't possibly bear this relentless pain. But they kept saying that everything was fine, there was no problem, she was doing beautifully, and he repeated the words to her in a daze as she went somewhere he couldn't follow.

And then, at last, the midwife nodded to Dr. Oguni and he took her place at the end of the futon.

"Ah, here the little one comes now," he said, entirely too jovial even with his tired eyes. "Only a bit longer, Kaoru my girl, just a few more big pushes…"

"When I say," the midwife said, kneeling at Kaoru's side and placing a hand on her stomach. "Look at me, Mrs. Himura. Push when I say."

She stared at the midwife, blank-eyed and bewildered, and he knew that look; she was holding on by a thread, and that thread was fraying.

"It's almost over, Kaoru-mine," he whispered in her ear. "Look at Ms. Yamada, love, just do what she says."

"Almost… now, push. Now, Mrs. Himura!"

Kaoru's head fell back against his chest. Her eyes closed and he felt her tense, pushing hard against the futon and her body's own reluctance.

"Again!"

Another massive contraction, and she was weeping now. Her hands clamped down around his arms, bruising him straight down to the bone, but it was still only a fraction of the pain he could see written in her face.

"Again!"

"Nearly there," Dr. Oguni said from somewhere very far away; Kenshin's world had shrunk to Kaoru, to her anguished face and her grip on his arms.

"It's going to be alright," he told her, believing it was true because he had to and because if it wasn't, Dr. Oguni and Ms. Yamada would be panicking, and there was nothing in their faces or the marrow of their souls that told him anything was wrong. So it would be alright; it was unthinkable for it to be otherwise.

"Once more, Mrs. Himura!" the midwife said sharply. "One more time! Now!"

Kaoru screamed – one time, the only time in her entire labor – and he sensed in the shaking that went straight down to her core that this was it, the end, she had nothing left to give. Her body went rigid as she howled, bearing down –

And then she stopped, collapsing bonelessly against him. But the wailing continued in a higher pitch. He looked up from her slack face to see Dr. Oguni cradling a small red human who was kicking and waving its fists, shouting indignation at the lightening skies.

"Ah, so healthy." Dr. Oguni smiled, the corner of his eyes crinkling as he wrapped the child quickly in a blanket. "Very good, very good indeed."

"Doctor…" Kenshin's throat was dry, and the words stuck there. He swallowed and tried again. "Dr. Oguni. The baby…"

"Congratulations, Mrs. Himura, Mr. Himura," the midwife said, taking the bundle from the doctor and carrying it gently to the head of the futon. "You have a healthy son."

Kaoru's eyes fluttered open when she spoke and he realized that she had only been dazed. He felt her preparing to sit up before she actually tried and wrapped his arms around her waist, scooting forward to push her up so that she didn't have to exert herself.

"Let me see him," she said, and even in her obvious exhaustion there was a calm steel there that he had never heard before. "I want to hold my son."

"Of course. Here," The midwife slid his son gently into Kaoru's arms, and she took her baby as if she had always known what to do. "You should let him nurse…"

But Kaoru was already pulling at the collar of her robe. Kenshin lowered it for her, and the rest of the world faded into so much background noise as his wife put their son to breast for the first time. He was such a little thing, red and wrinkled with his eyes pinched shut, groping for her nipple and quieting only after he'd latched on. She winced.

"Oh my, he's strong…"

One of Kenshin's hands drifted up from where it had been spread across her hip, hesitating over their son's small head.

"Kaoru, may I…?"

"Of course," she said, laughing a little. "He's your son."

He touched the very tips of his fingers to his son's forehead. The boy's skin was so soft, fragile, like new rice paper or the surface of a still pond. Kenshin's chest ached and his eyesight blurred. He rested his arm along Kaoru's, cradling their son with her, keenly aware of the lives he held in his arms – the lives that trusted him beyond reason and measure – as Dr. Oguni and the midwife politely averted their eyes from the tears on his face.

About a week after Kenji was born, it rained. It was the first rain since last fall, and it heralded spring: a warm, cleaning rain that washed away the snow and prepared the cold soil for the growing seasons. Kaoru was sleeping, so he took their son and sat just inside the living room, door open to let the clean rain-scent in and little Kenji carefully bundled to keep him from catching a chill.

He sat there with his son in his arms – the small, clean life that he and Kaoru had made – and thought this is the first rainfall since my son was born.