thelinebetween | Saitou/Chizuru for Sam

Years of cooking (and cleaning, nursing, bathing, etc...) for the Shinsengumi had done Chizuru a great service she learned, as she continued into adulthood. Compared to the fist-fights she had to break up between Harada and Heisuke, the tantrums of Hijikata, and the pranks of Okita...having a child was a cakewalk!

She knew she had little to worry about regarding the actual childbirth. While she'd never really taken her ability to heal for granted, per se, she was especially grateful that it would mean she could be worry-free about the baby growing up motherless as she had. If not for her healing, then for the protection she rested in with the baby's father.

...which was the biggest challenge of all, when it came to the pregnancy and the rearing of their child once she came. It was enough that she couldn't walk two steps without Saitou nearly scooping her up to make sure she reached her destination safely, but once the baby was born and she was bed-ridden for a day or two, the father hovered over her, asking twice, if not three times, that he was doing things properly.

At first it became endearing, but quickly Chizuru put her foot down and taught Saitou proper--not because he was doing anything incorrectly, only because formal instruction on anything was the only way to get the man to stop second-guessing himself on anything that didn't pertain to blades.

Of course, it all started over again when Chiharu started to walk...then said her first words...

Chizuru lay in bed that morning, recalling the years that felt like forever ago. It was just a few years now, though how long has it been since they first crossed paths? The sun started to peek over the horizon, a warm stream of light leaking into their bedroom.

She rolled over in the futon they now shared, pressing up against his back and spooning him. She pressed her lips into the back of Saitou's neck, nuzzling up into the warmth of their bed. "Good morning."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

iaijutsu

If Saitou seemed a bit overzealous in his concerns about looking after his family, and whether he was doing things right, it wasn't without reason. There was, after all, very little that Saitou Hajime did without reason, even if not everyone might agree whether his reasons were always good ones.

But however good or bad his reasons for anything else he did might be, there was no doubt in his mind that his reasons for being so protective, of stressing over doing everything just right, were absolutely good ones. Chizuru had brought him hope and given him a reason to keep going when he'd felt that seeking an honorable death was the only thing left for him; she'd helped him find purpose when he was sure the world had no place for him.

Saitou knew what it felt like to lose everything, and that was a place he was adamant about never returning to. If Chizuru got a little impatient at him sweeping her off her feet and asking for triple confirmation about whether he was tying a diaper properly, so be it.

When he felt the warmth of her against his back and the brush of her lips on his neck, he had to smile.

"Did you sleep well?"

From:

cannotcrossdress

"Yes..." Chizuru whispered softly in answer, pulling the covers up past their shoulders to muffle their intimate words. "...and so it seems...Chiharu-chan is sleeping soundly also..."

She tightened her arms around Saitou's waist and pressed her face into his back. When was the last time they'd had a simple moment of silence together like this? They'd spent most of their time in courtship between conflicts and battles...maybe they were crazy to go so quickly into having a child without taking something of a breather first.

"Were you staying home today?" There was a faint up-tick of hope in Chizuru's voice. She knew it was a short-lived dream to stay in bed like this all morning, but if he wasn't to hurry out the door, then..."Chiharu-chan wants to play with her Papa too, you know~"

From:

iaijutsu

Saitou was nothing if not efficient about the work he did, but unlike his Shinsengumi days, he was less prone these days to overdoing it and filling nearly every waking second with something productive - which wasn't to say he'd in any way grown lazy; his work ethic was as strong as ever. But back then he'd worked for the good of the Shinsengumi, and when Chizuru - and later their daughter, as well - had replaced that as his purpose, he'd found that for once, his efforts were good enough. He could only do so much for the Shinsengumi, no matter how hard he'd pushed himself and how much he overdid it. Things were simply always stacked against them.

The idea that working too much was worse, not better, had been a strange one to adapt to, but one he'd been happy to accept nonetheless. He didn't just want to protect Chizuru's smile - he wanted to see it.

Or perhaps, in this case, feel it, in the gentle pressure of her face against his back. He'd have plenty of chances to see it later, though, since -

"I plan to, yes."

From:

cannotcrossdress

Chizuru happily sighed into him, cherishing the softness of his voice. With Chiharu now walking, running, talking...quiet times were rare, as she was exuberant and inquisitive. She was quite the handful, lacking the bashfulness of both her parents and not yet adopting a sense of propriety that the adults had always shared.

"Thank goodness..." Chizuru lightly laughed, pulling back and reaching for Saitou's shoulder to turn him to face her. "I think she could use the distraction. I could finally get some work done."

Chizuru was guilty of frequently indulging their daughter, if only because she wanted her to have the closest thing to a normal life as possible. Her own life taught her that normalcy had to be cherished while it was there, for you never knew when it would be taken from you. She was too often distracted with playing with her daughter and entertaining her. It was easy to squeeze in chores when it was only for three people you had to care for, but there were still the bigger chores that were being neglected.

...and, of course, there were other things being neglected...

"Should we test and see how long she'll stay asleep?" Chizuru softly smiled, a knowing blush creeping onto her cheeks.

From:

iaijutsu

If there was one thing Chiharu could always use, it was a distraction. Sometimes Saitou wondered what on earth their daughter had inherited from him, because her talkative nature, her tendency to poke her nose into everything around her...surely that was all from her mother's side.

Although considering that it had been Chizuru's own sense of the same that had brought her to the Shinsengumi in the first place - and that had led her to keep pushing her way into Saitou's heart no matter how much he resisted her efforts - he wasn't inclined to judge too much.

Hopefully Chiharu's inquisitiveness would at least find her a less rough path to happiness, someday.

Or hopefully Saitou would at least still be alive to make any Kazama-types in her life think twice about causing trouble.

...was he supposed to be thinking about these things when she was still so small? Was that just one of those things that being a father did to people?

Chizuru's touch at his shoulder was enough to bring his thoughts back down to earth, however, and he rolled over obligingly, reaching over to smooth her bangs out of her face. That blush on her cheeks was all the more obvious to see, without her hair to get in the way. He'd grown very fond of that blush, he'd found - fonder still of when he managed to cause it.

Which made answering that question easy enough, didn't it?

He leaned forward, the hand in her hair moving behind her neck as his lips met hers. There wasn't any more his answer required than that...and anyway, if they wanted to see how long she'd stay asleep, clearly less talking would be better.

From:

cannotcrossdress

Chizuru didn't need verbal acknowledgement to slide herself closer into the shape of Saitou's body, fitting into his arms with a familiar ease. It was a combination of touch, taste, smell...she could close her eyes and feel the cool winter moon of years ago beaming down on them, blessing their union and lighting the path that would lead them to the rest of their lives. Perhaps it was the nature of their memories that made her so sentimental, or the absence of the familiar that had defined so much of their young lives.

They only had themselves to serve as catalysts to the past, and though they cherished the events that drew their fates together, there was an unspoken understanding that they couldn't look back. Not with yearning, though fondness was acceptable. They had built a life together, with nothing but themselves to serve as the foundation.

It'd felt like so long since they'd taken a moment to examine themselves and enjoy the moment like this. They'd long hung up the mantle of being a page and a captain, and along with their country, their roles had evolved. To protector and protected, rasetsu and donor, companions, spouses, parents--

--lovers through it all.

A shaky exhale betrayed her emotions, though she'd long given up keeping them to herself with him. Her eyes opened slightly, pulling back to breathe and stare back at him. It was moments like this that needed to be seared into their memory, as they were all too often short-lived.

From:

iaijutsu

He should probably have known better - it wasn't like he didn't catch himself staring, every now and then - staring while he wondered how he'd been so lucky; a word he didn't like to use, because "luck" had too often struck him as an excuse to ignore the logical consequences of one's own actions.

But he really couldn't think of anything he'd done to deserve her other than luck. She'd kept prying and kept looking for what was in the depths of his heart, no matter how many times he'd given her plenty of reason to stop; she'd stayed with him when if any of a hundred little things had gone even a bit differently, they might never have made it this far.

Saitou didn't know what else there was to call that, if not luck.

But no matter how many times he'd stopped and stared and found himself lost in his own thoughts about what she meant to him - thoughts that were nothing but flattering to her - he could never help but second-guess himself whenever she did the same, and the hand behind her neck moved forward again to cup her cheek.

"Is anything wrong?"

From:

cannotcrossdress

Smiling comfortably, Chizuru shook her head. "Are you on-edge because it's so quiet?" It was unusual, for Chiharu to not be out of bed and all up in their business by now, but Chizuru wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"I can't remember the last time we had a peaceful moment alone like this." Her hands pried beneath the fabric that clothed him, indulging herself in the heat of his body. She looked up to him and, with what little strength she had - negligible in comparison to his - she pulled him close against her, offering a reminder of what should be familiar, but perhaps not recently visited. "Who knows when we'll get one like it again." There was no hiding the suggestion in her tone, and why should she? When these occasions were so rare.

From:

iaijutsu

A smile came to his face in turn - faint, but unmistakable - as he slipped one arm around her waist, pulling her tightly against him (and sneaking in a gentle squeeze of her rear, as long as he was there). "It has been a long time."

His other hand brushed her bangs from her face, traveled down to her neck, to slide along her shoulder, beneath the fabric of her own clothing. He leaned in close, his breath hot on her ear as he whispered. "We should make the most of it."