A Matter of Choice

Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin was created by Nobuhiro Watsuki. I do not take credit for anything that is his.

Author's Notes: This story is based more off of the manga than the anime, in that I am taking what I know happened in Vol 28 of the Rurouni Kenshin manga and expanding on it. ~Manga Spoiler~ In it, Sanosuke leaves for America, as he is wanted by the government, leaving his friends behind. The story unfolds from there.

I know that Kenshin and Kaoru had a son, Kenji, and as much as I like him, I've decided to alter the future a little bit. Mostly because, if you've seen the Future OVA's...you know that they suck to all hell.

Dedication: To Clifton, for making me laugh, encouraging me on, and being the little brother I adore.

****

A Matter of Choice
by Kristen Elizabeth

****

Tokyo
The 16th year of the Meiji Era (1884 AD)

A train took him across the sprawling foriegn country. A ship took him across the vast sea. But it was a simple cart that took him back to the city he had once called home.

The sun was shining that day, as if welcoming him in its own, warm way. It assured him that not too much had changed with his city, despite the differences he could see just by riding through the streets. The people, the buildings....all familiar, yet strange.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the Tokyo air for the first time in so many years. It was unlike any air in the world. The unique scent of cherry blossoms and plums, only beginning to be tainted by such modern smells as gasoline and exhaust.

The cart stopped at the place he had requested. After paying the driver what little he could, he climbed out with his one bag that held everything he possessed in the world. The cart rambled off down the tree-lined street, leaving him alone in front of the old, familiar house.

It was as though he had never left. Only a new coat of paint had changed his dojo. He smiled wryly. *His* dojo? Although he had spent more time here than at his own room, he couldn't, with a straight face, call this place his.

Suddenly, he was hesitant. If he knocked, they would surely answer. What would they do? Welcome him back? Take him in? Maybe give him something to eat? They would all be so different. He was so different. Could it ever be like old times again? Was that asking too much?

Before he had even finished rolling the questions through his mind, the wooden doors to the dojo opened. A man stood just on the inside of the gate, his hand lightly resting on the hilt of his katana. His scarred face relaxed upon recognizing the visitor.

"I had a feeling it was you," the man with bright, red hair said warmly. "Welcome home, Sano."

Sagara Sanosuke shook his head. He never ceased to be amazed by the man's perceptiveness. "Kenshin, the game isn't any fun if you whip out that technique of yours."

"Then you shouldn't play with the Battousai." A sweet voice he remembered well spoke up from somewhere behind them. Himura Kenshin moved to the side, revealing his young wife. Her surname may have been "Himura" now, but Sanosuke knew her as Kamiya Kaoru.

He grinned broadly. "Jou-chan....I can't help it. I'm a gambling man."

On impulse, san fan forward as fast as her wooden sandals would take her and threw her arms around him. Her button nose squashed against his Western-style coat. After a moment, she pulled back and examined him. "You look halfway decent, Sanosuke. What did they do to you in America?"

"It's just a suit," he replied, calmly pulling at the tie around his neck. "All Americans wear them, all the time." He yanked at the tie again, ripping it off. "I can't take it anymore!!"

Kenshin knelt down and picked up the abandoned garment. He turned it over in his hands, as though he had never seen one before. "What does it do?"

"Not a damn thing," Sanosuke declared. "So, are you going to invite me in or do I just get to stand in the street all day?"

Kaoru pulled him into the dojo courtyard by the collar of his coat. "You're just in time for breakfast. Do you want some?"

"I cooked," Kenshin informed him.

The dark haired Kendo instructor turned on her husband. "And *why* would that affect his decision to stay for breakfast?"

Kenshin held up his hands. "It wouldn't..." His wife folded her arms over her kimono and stared at him menacingly. "Ah...I bet Ame is awake. I'll get her." He quickly escaped into the safety of the dojo's residence.

Sanosuke cocked an eyebrow at Kaoru. "Ame? Don't tell me you're a mom, Jou-chan."

"Yes." Kaoru's face shone. "For two years, now."

He grabbed her, swinging her around. "That's great!!" Setting her back down again, he grinned broadly. "I always figured Kenshin would be a great father. Too bad I wt het here to see it all happen."

Kaoru straightened her obi and tried to figure out how she could have forgotten how physical Sanosuke was. She had never realized that she would miss it when it was gone. Of course, she had no idea she would miss anything about Sanosuke when he had left for America five years earlier. Only now that he was back did she realize that some tiny, empty part of her life had been refilled. "You were here in spirit, Sano," she assured him.

His brown eyes scanned the dojo courtyard. "Where is everyone? Yahiko? Genzai-sensei?" He paused. "The fox lady?"

Kenshin answered his questions as he rejoined them, a sleepy two year old girl with red hair in his arms. "Yahiko is wherever Tsubame-chan is and Genzai-sensei has retired now. He spends a lot of time at home since Ayame-chan and Suzume-chan are in school all day."

Sanosuke found himself marveling at the little girl, afectfect product of the love between his two old friends. After a moment, he looked back up at Kenshin. "And the fox lady?"

The couple exchanged a look. Kaoru finally spoke. "Sanosuke...there's something I should tell you."

****

She had the dream again, as she had so many times after he left. It was funny; she could cure almost any ailment with modern medicine. She could sew a man back together, bring new life into the world...but she couldn't rid herself of the dream.

Not for the first time in five years, she cursed his name. The name she had woken up whispering. The name she couldn't get out of her head, no matter how hard she tried.

The pillow under her head bothered her. After a lifetime of sleeping on a futon, the Western bed still felt strange to her. But her world was becoming more modern every day...from her bedroom to her clinic. She even owned several Western style dresses with their full skirts and tight waists.

He wouldn't even recognize her anymore, she reasoned. She was not the woman he had known. The woman he had left behind.

"Megumi?" The man beside her in the gaudy, four-poster stirred as he woke.

Megumi Williamson, formerly Takani Megumi, looked down at her husband of six months, Gregory. She touched his tousled, blond hair affectionately and put her finger against his mouth. "Go back at sleep," she said in broken English.

He replied in his nearly perfect Japanese, a subtle reminder that he was capable of using her language. Anat sat she was less than capable of using his. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm fine." Leaning down, she brushed a kiss across his lips. "I ought to get to the clinic."

Gregory caught her chin and kissed her back. "It's barely morning..." His hands stroked through her silky black hair.

"There is no rest for the weary doctor," Megumi replied, shaking her head sadly. He tried to kiss her again, but she pulled back. Pushing the covers off her legs, she stood up. The hem of her nightgown reached the wooden floor; she shivered slightly at the loss of his body warmth.

She felt his eyes watching her as she poured water into the china bowl on the dresser, wet a cloth and proceeded to quickly wash up. When she was done, she went to their closet and glanced at the clothes she called hers. Not the dresses he had bought her, but the kimono she had paid for with her own, hard earned money. It was not a day to wear a dress, she decided, pulling one bright, silk kimono from the closet.

He continued to watch as she quickly dressed. After doing the last button on her medicinal apron, Megumi ran a comb through her hair. Blowing her husband a kiss, she left the bedroom.

There was something bothering her. She could feel a weight on her chest, different than the pressure put there by the dream. Today. Something would happen today. She could only hope it would be something she could handle.

*******

Sanosuke was silent as he stalked through the streets of Tokyo. Anyone, whether they remembered him as Zanza, the fighter for hire, or Sano, companion to the Hitokiri Battousai, or were simply seeing him for the first time, knew to stay out of his way. His hands were deeply planted in his white pants; his open gi, adorned with the kanji for 'evil', flapped in the breeze. Gone was the American suit he had arrived in. His old clothes felt like a second skin. They were the only things making it bearable to be back.

The path he took was painfully familiar. How many times had he walked it...or staggered, bleeding, along it? She had always been there at the end of the path with a sigh and an exasperated look. But she had always fixed him up. She healed him. He had needed her.

His fists tightened. The news Kenshin and Kaoru had given him...it was incomprehensible. He had to see for himself before he would believe it. Try as they had to get him to take his time, he was determined to see her today.

A line had already formed outside the clinic, but Sanosuke bypassed it entirely. Kicking off his black slippers, he entered the building. The outer room was also full of people in varying degrees of medical trouble. He felt no guilt as he slid open the rice paper screen that separated the waiting area from the examination room.

The woman he had returned for glanced up from the cut she was stitching up on a young boy's arm. Her black in blayes yes grew wide; her raspberry colored lips parted. The hand holding the surgical needle began to shake. "Sano..." she breathed.

His first words to her in five years were laced with bitterness. "I'm back, fox lady."

"Onna-sensei?" the boy asked, wincing in pain.

Megblinblinked and looked down at her patient. "I'm sorry..." Her slender fingers continued to shake as she tied off the stitch. She reached for a roll of white bandaging. As though nothing was wrong, she began rap rap the boy's wound. "Perhaps you could wait outside, Sano-san."

Her use of the formal ending sent a bullet straight through Sanosuke's heart. He scowle her her from behind his red bandana. "I think I'm fine right where I am."

She nodded and continued to tend to her patient. When the wound was properly bandaged, she smiled at the boy. "Come back tomorrow and we'll change the bandage. You can get the stitches out in a week or so."

The boy grinned and with Megumi's help, got up from the futon. Bowing, he backed out of the examination room, leaving the doctor alone with the tall man.

After he was gone, Megumi looked down at her still-trembing hands. "You're back," was all she could think to say to him. "When did you..."

"This morning," he answered before she could finish the question.

"Have you been to see..."

"Kenshin and Kaoru? Of course....you didn't think I'd actually come here firstd yod you?" Sanosuke's eyes were dangerously narrow.

Megumi delicately massaged her temple with the back of her knuckle. "Of course not. Why would you do that?" Rocking back on her heels, she stood.

A flash of gold caught his attention. He captured her wrist, bringing it to where he could see it.

"Wdo ydo you think you're doing?" she protested. "Let go of me!"

Sanosuke examined the ring on the third blood-smeared finger of her left hand. It was a piece of jewelry with which he was all too familiar. He couldn't even remember the number of times some American had picked a fight with him because of this sort of ring. He could hear their voices perfectly, even if their words didn't make sense to him until later.

*Get your slanted eyes off my wife!*

"So..." He released her hand. "It's true."
umi umi rubbed her wrist. She found herself unable to meet his eyes. "It is, yes."

"You got married," he emphasized, unnecessarily.

"Sano-san..." she began.

"Why are you calling me that?" he growled.

She looked down at her hands. "I just thought... I mean, it's been so long..." She finally looked directly at him. "Five years is a long time."

"I don't know." Sanosuke took a step towards her. "It passed kinda quickly if you ask me. So, don't call me '-san' again." As an afterthought, he added, "Please."

Megumi stared into the brown eyes she had been denied a glance at for five years. She saw pain there, new and old. But she also saw life. Emenating warmth. Passion. Sanosuke. She blinked. "All right. Rooster boy."

The heavy moment broke as he laughed. "Damn fox. You never change."

"I have, Sano. That's the problem, isn't it?"

He drew in a breath as his laughter faded. "Who said there was a problem? I'm just dropping in on old friends. Catching up. That sort of thing."

She watched him hide himself from her. It was a familiar game. "Right. No problem." She bowed. "Welcome home, Sanosuke."

There was a pause. Finally, Sanosuke stuck his hands back into his pockets and turned on his heel. "Bye, fox lady. Be seeing you around." As quickly as he had entered, he left.

Megumi kneeled before she fell. Her forehead pressed into the tatami; her tears wet the straw mat. "Sano..." she whispered. "I'm sorry...I couldn't wait for you."

****

The sun had begun to make its nightly descent into the far off west when Sanosuke finally found himself back at the Kamiya dojo. As he let himself into the courtyard, a tall, wiry body came flying at him, knocking him to the ground without warning.

"SANOSUKE!!!" Myojin Yahiko grinned triumphantly. "What the hell took you so long??"

Scowling, but highly amused, Sanosuke pushed the fifteen year old boy off of him and stood. "Hmm...you got taller but you didn't get any smarter, Yahiko."

"Bite me," Yahiko flipped easily, his smile still as broad. "Did you come for dinner? Kenshin cooked, so it's safe."

"Whew! But, I'll tell you what. After five years of American food, even Jou-chan's cookiouldould be good."

Yahiko's black eyes lit up. "America!! Is it huge?? Is there really gold in the streets? Can you speak any English?"

"Yes, no and yes." Sanosuke brushed off his pants.

"Teach me some!! Tsubame will think it's so cool!!"

Several minutes later, Kenshin found them still in the courtyard, reviewing a list of vocabulary words that would have made the most hardened sailor blush. Unaware, Kenshin smiled. "Your English sounds good, Sano."

"I try," Sanosuke snickered. Patting his flat stomach, he walked towards his old friend. "I don't suppose you made any extra food..." he broadly hinted.

"Will you stay for dinner, Sano?"

Sanosuke clapped the smaller man on the back. "This is what I came home for," he declared.

Kenshin's violet eyes looked at him with frank curiousity. "Are you sure?" A moment of uncomfortable silence passed. Kenshin looked at Yahiko. "Will you check on the fish, Yahiko?"

Grumbling, the boy dragged himself to his feet and headed into the kitchen.

The two friends stood in the darkening night air once he had gone. "Did you see her?" Kenshin eventually asked.

Sanosuke stuck his hands in his pockets and sniffed. "Yeah." He felt Kenshin waiting for him to go on. "She looks...happy."

Kenshin lowered his gaze to the ground. "You don't have to lie to me, Sano."

"All right....she looks fucking miserable," Sanosuke declared. Kenshin simply nodded. "When did they get married?"

"Six months ago," Kenshin replied. "She's only known him for a year."

"Who is he?" Sanosuke asked. "Is he American?"

Kenshin crossed his arms. "British. The company he works for exports silk to the West. He was a patient of hers. Dysentery...when he first arrived."

Sanosuke snorted. "Asshole," he muttered in English, before switching back to Japanese for Kenshin's benefit. "Hung around too many low-class geisha."

"Perhaps." Kenshin raised his shoulders. "I think he really loves her, Sano. Or thinks he does, anyways."

"Why wouldn't he love her?" Sanosuke snapped. "She's beautiful and smart and..."

"Married." The red-haired man unfolded his arms. "She waited, you know. As long as she could."

Sanosuke shook his head. "I wrote to you, Kenshin. Did you show her the letter? Did she know that I would be back for her?"

"Four years is a long time to wait on a promise that vague, Sano."

He wanted to be angryh hih his old friend, but found that he couldn't. Kenshin simply spoke the truth. He sighed. "Yeah, I guess it is."

The dojo doors swung open and Kaoru, back from having taken Ame to Genzai-sensei's for the night, let herself into the courtyard. "Kenshin?" She startled at seeing Sanosuke. "Sano...what are you doing here?"

"Aww...Jou-chan. Don't tell me there's not a little bit of rice to spare for an old friend." Sanosuke winked at the younger girl.

"You're always welcome, Sano," Kaoru assured him. Her gaze slipped to husband and then back to him. "It's just that...um...I kind of invited Megumi-san and Gregory-san to dinner, too." There was a pause. "They should be here any moment." The The before-amused look on Sanosuke's face darkened. "Well...in that case, I'm sure I can eat at Tae-san's."

"Sano," Kenshin chose his words carefully. "Perhaps it might not be a bad idea for you to meet Williamson-san." His gaze was sympathetic, but firm. "You won't be able to avoid him forever."

Once again, the former samurai was right. Sanosuke shrugged in a desperate attempt at apathy. "Fine. I'll stay. Just don't expect me to like him." *Or be nice to him,* he added to himself.

****

To say that Megumi was suprised to see Sanosuke as Kenshin let her and Gregory into the courtyard of the Kamiya dojo would have been an understatement. When she caught a glimpse of him, leaning against the open paper screen door leading into Kenshin and Kaoru's home, she nearly dropped the vial of sake she was carrying.

Sanosuke's eyes roamed over her body. She looked entirely different than she had looked only hours before in her clinic. Gone was the kimono he had only ever been able to picture her wearing. In its place was a very expensive-looking Western dress of navy blue cotton. Its collar came up to her throat, hiding the patch of skin that her kimono usually exposed. The patch of skin that played such an important role in so many of his better dreams. Her arms to the wrist were also covered; the dress brushed across the ground, hiding even her feet from his sight.

The only thing he could say about her attire was that the Western corset perfectly outlined and defined the curves of her body. Megumi found herself blushing...and longing for her much looser kimono.

Gregory was busy telling Kenshin about his company's latest sales reports, to which Kenshin was nodding politely...while secretly wishing he had not asked the man about his business; he barely noticed the tall man in white approaching them.

Kenshin waited until a lull in Gregory's speech to introduce the two men. "Williamson-san....this is our good friend Sagara Sanosuke. He's just returned from America."

"Ah....Sagara-san. An honor to meet you." Gregory held out his hand. His loud voice pierced the night air; Sanosuke found himself grinding his teeth at the man's heavily accented Japanese. He wanted to point out all the flaws in the man's speech, but in truth, his grammar was nearly perfect.

Not unfamiliar with the Western handshake, Sanosuke shook the man's offered hand, throughly pleased when the shorter man winced in pain. "I hear congratulations are in order," he said, tightening his grasp on Gregory's pale hand. His brown eyes left the man's face and settled back onto Megumi.

The British man laughed weakly, desperately trying to pull away from Sanosuke's bone-crunching handshake. "Yes...yes. I'm a lucky...man." Finally, Sanosuke released him. Gregory drew his hand back, tucking it against his suit coat.

"What about you...Megumi-san?" Sanosuke's tone was one of carefully hidden sarcasm. "Are you a luwomawoman?"

Her eyes narrowed just enough for him to notice. "Very lucky," she replied. Her voice was sticky with anger.

"That's just...great. We're all so lucky." Sanosuke folded his arms across his chest.

Kenshin cleared his throat. "I'm sure dinner is ready by now." He stepped towards Megumi and gently took the sake from her hands. "Would you lead the way, Megumi-dono?"

"Of course, Ken-san." Gi San Sanosuke one final glare, she gracefully bent down, unlaced and removed her tight black shoes and walked up the few steps and into the dojo.

Kaoru and Yahiko were waiting for them, seated on flat pillows around the low table. Yahiko jumped to his feet when they entered and let Kenshin take his place next to Kaoru. Out of force of habit, Megumi waited until Gregory chose a spot across from Kenshin to take her own seat next to him, something exceedingly difficult to do given her skirts and petticoats. That left an empty place next to hers.

She was torn. Half of her entire being wanted him to sit next to her on the off chance that even the tip of her elbow might be allowed to touch him. The other half of her screamed in outrat sat such a thought. He had left her for five years. He had never contacted her, even his letters...letter had been sent here to the dojo. Not to her. Grief and relief washed over her in equal amounts when Yahiko plopped down next to her. With a look she couldn't define on his face, Sanosuke took the seat next to Kaoru.

The dark haired Kendo instructor lifted the lid from a bowl of rice and began to serve. "Kenshin did all of the cooking, so I know you all will enjoy this," she said, giving her husband a wink meant only for his eyes.

Gregory accepted the bowl of rice she offered him and dug into his fish with his chopsticks. "Himura-san...you cook?" There was an air of disdain in his voice; Sanosuke wondered if he was the only one who caught it.

He wasn't. Yahiko's eyes glinted in the light from the paper-covered candle. "Kenshin is a great cook! He cooks almost better than he fights!"

Kenshin took a sip from his teacup. "I do anything that helps Kaoru."

"Yes...but cooking?" Gregory swallowed a bite of rice and shrugged. "To each their own," he said in English.

Sanosuke had been trying to ignore the man up until then, but his ears perked up as he caught the English. Not only was the foriegner being rude to his friends by speaking in a language they could not understand, he was *insulting* Kenshin by questioning his masculinity. And that was something Sanosuke wasn't about to stand for.

"He could kill you in a minute, you know," Sanosuke told Megumi's husband, praying to the gods that his English was correct.

Gregory blinked, a great indication that it was. "Really?" he replied in his native tongue. "And what about you?"

Sanosuke grinned at the pale man, ignoring the questioning stares from his friends. "In a heartbeat."

Megumi, having a feeling the English passing between her husband and Sanosuke couldn't be pleasant, desperately searched for an alternate subject. "Yahikn...n..." The boy looked up from his rice. "I wanted to ask if you could come by the clinic in the mornings starting tomorrow. I can always use some help...rolling bandages and that sort of thing. Ayame-chan and Suzume-chan are sweet, but I need someone who knows what he's doing."

The compliment had its intended effect. Instead of grumbling about being used for slave labor, Yahiko grinned. "Sure, Megumi-san. I was going to the Akabeko in the morning, anyways."

Kaoru grinned behind her chopsticks. "Are you sure Tsubame-chan wants you hanging around her all the time, Yahiko?"

"Stuff it," he snapped back, plopping a clump of rice into his mouth.

"Having trouble with the ladies, Yahiko-chan?" Gregory asked. He sounded anxious; Sanosuke smirked for knowing the reason behind the man's nervousness.

Yahiko's face turned visibly red. It was bad enough to have a Japanese person call him a child...but a foriegner? Fortunately, before he could raise too much of a ruckus, Kenshin reached behind his seat and produced the vial of sake Megumi had given him. "Will anyone join me in a cup?"

With the soothing aid of rice wine, the rest of the meal passed smoothly.

****

Sanosuke watched Megumi and Gregory leave the dojo an hour later with the same careful observation as he had given their arrival. His eyes might not have been trained to catch details like Kenshin's, but even he could catch the little things. The way Gregory walked through the dojo's wooden doors, not even letting Megumi pass first. The way he had sat before she did at dinner. He found himself wondering if the British man would show the same inconsideration to a British woman.

Kenshin's voice broke through his thoughts. "We've laid an extra futon for you in Yahiko's room, Sano. You're more than welcome to stay here for as long as you like."

"Thanks..." Sanosuke turned around and gave his old friend a cocky smile. "But I've already gotten my old place back."

"I see. Well then...another cup of sake before you go?"

Sanosuke put up a hand. "I appreciate what you're doing, old friend. But I'm fine."

Kenshin nodded and watched the taller man head out the dojo doors. "We'll see you tomorrow then."

"Count on it," he called over his shoulder.

****

Megumi breathed a sigh of relief as she undid her corset junougnough to wiggle it up her body. Pulling the damnable thing over her head, she tossed it across the room. "They should be outlawed," she said to herself.

Standing in her camisole and underdrawers, Megumi began to brush her hair with the silver comb Gregory had given her upon their marriage. It had the character of her name etched on the handle next to the English letters that she was told spelled her married name, Williamson. She set the comb back down onto the dresser and walked to the bed.

The door to the bedroom opened and Gregory entered. His hair was wet from his bath and plastered to his forehead. It was at moments like this that Megumi was reminded of why she married the man. He looked completely innocent.

He rubbed his hair with the towel around his neck and walked to the other side of the bed. "It was a nice dinner," he commented, flipping back the comforter.

Megumi sat on the bed's edge. "Yes. It was."

"That friend of Himura-san's...Sagara. What's his story?" He dropped the towel onto the floor and ran a hand through his golden hair, combing it back.

"Sano is one of Ken-san's oldest friends in Tokyo," she replied softly. "They've fought many battles together."

Gregory paused. "*Sano?* No ending?" He made a noise in the back of his throat. "How well do you know him?"

Megumi swung her legs around sli slipped them under the covers. "He's just a friend." She closed her eyes, hoping he would take the hint. When she heard him untying the sash of his silk robe, her stomach dropped.

He slid into bed, reaching for her. "Megumi..." She felt his wet hair against her cheek; his mouth nuzzled her neck. "Open your eyes..."

"Gregory." She squirmed as his hands ran up under her camisole. "I'm very tired. I have to get up early to..."

He pulled her towards him. "I said open your eyes." She did so, only to see his face looming over hers. "That's better." He kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth.

Megumi bore the kiss, making a half-hearted attempt at enjoyment. When his roaming hand found her breast, she pulled back. "I really don't feel like doing this, Gregory."

The hand on her breast tightened, squeezing to elicit pain rather than pleasure. Megumi bit her lip to keep from crying out. "I really don't think it's your decision to make, Megumi." His lips attacked her throat; she could feel his arousal growing against her inner t.
.

She closed her eyes, detaching herself from her body. As she had done so many times before. It was the easiest thing to do.

****

To Be Continued....