For Better or Worse

	This was it. 

	Outside the doors leading to the small wedding chapel 
where her fiancé was waiting for her, Dr. Mizuno Saeko inhaled 
deeply to calm her pounding heartbeat. As a successful heart 
surgeon, she had to deal with stressful situations all the time in 
the operating room, but not a single surgery she had performed 
came close to triggering the amount of nervousness she felt at 
that moment. She knew what to do in the operating room; it was 
second nature to her, almost like breathing. Success in marriage, 
on the other hand, was not something that came so easily to her.

	Even after her heart-to-heart talk with Ami, which had 
settled her nerves somewhat, Saeko couldn’t completely ignore the 
doubts swimming around in her head. She loved Ryoji and was very 
fond of his daughter Rei, who was one of Ami’s best friends, but 
she knew from painful experience that love was not always enough 
to sustain a happy marriage.

	After all, she and Ami’s father Yoshi had been madly in 
love, once upon a time. Back then, they had been college 
sweethearts: she, an ambitious pre-med major with dreams of saving 
the world, one surgery at a time, and he, the handsome, dreamy art 
student who stole her heart when he asked her to model for him. 
The two of them were as different as night and day, yet Saeko had 
found his relaxed attitude towards life refreshing, something that 
would ground her when she got too caught up in her work.

	Ironically, though, what had attracted her to Yoshi in the 
first place turned into the very thing that led to their downfall. 
After they married and Saeko got pregnant with Ami, she thought 
Yoshi would finally grow-up and become more responsible. She had 
only been an intern at the time, so Saeko had really needed him to 
step up to the plate. To his credit, Yoshi tried. He really tried. 
Despite the fact that he hated it, he got a job teaching art at a 
local school, and, while Saeko was working late nights at the 
hospital, he took care of Ami, leaving him little time to focus on 
his art. However, as time passed by, Yoshi became more and more 
resentful of the time Saeko spent away from him and their 
daughter, leaving him with most of the responsibility of raising 
Ami. He quit his teaching job once Saeko started making enough 
money to support them, but even that did little to help the 
situation, since his own art career never really took off, another 
point of contention between them.

	When he finally left them a couple of months after Ami‘s 
fifth birthday, it didn’t come as much of a surprise to Saeko. She 
knew he had been unhappy in the marriage for a long time and 
blamed herself for focusing more on her career than her family. 
For a long time, she wondered if things would have been different 
had she chosen a less demanding specialty, like gynecology or 
pediatrics. However, in her heart, Saeko knew she had made the 
right choice, even if she had lost her husband in the process of 
pursuing her dream. She never would have been happy settling for 
less for the sole purpose of keeping a man. 

	Which was part of the reason why she fell in love with 
Ryoji. As a member of the Assembly, he understood the importance 
of a person’s career. He was just as ambitious and just as much of 
a workaholic as she was, and they supported each other all the 
way. Not only that, he could empathize with her guilt over putting 
her career over her family, as he had done the same for many 
years, even going as far as to send his daughter to live at the 
Hikawa Shrine after her mother’s death because he felt he was too 
busy to properly raise her. They had a lot to make up for when it 
came to Ami and Rei, but they were both determined that this time 
would be different, that they would do things right when it came 
to their family without completely sacrificing their careers in 
the process.

	But could they? It was one thing to promise to change; it 
was another thing to actually do it. What would happen if Ryoji 
was elected Prime Minister, or she was named chief of surgery? 
Would they be able to keep their promise, or would their ambition 
get the best of them yet again?

	"Mama, are you feeling all right?" Ami asked, breaking 
Saeko from her thoughts. "You look a little pale."

	"Oh, Ami." Saeko took in another deep breath, then smiled 
at her daughter. "Your mama is fine. I’m just nervous about the 
ceremony, that‘s all. I‘m afraid I might trip walking down the 
aisle or messing up my vows or something like that."

	Ami giggled. "I’m sure that won’t happen, Mama."

	"I hope you’re right." 

	Just then, the music for the processional started up, 
meaning the ceremony was about to begin. Ami handed Saeko her 
bouquet of red roses as the doors to the chapel opened, then began 
her trek down the aisle to the altar where Ryoji and Rei were 
already standing. 

	The number of guests at the wedding was relatively small. 
As it was the second wedding for both of them and neither had much 
family, neither Saeko or Ryoji had wanted to make a big spectacle 
of things. Other than a few distant relatives and some close 
colleagues from work, the only other guests invited were a group 
of Ami’s and Rei’s friends -- one whom Saeko vaguely recognized as 
the famous idol Aino Minako -- who were all sitting together in 
one of the middle pews, smiling as Ami passed by.

	When Ami finally made it to the altar and took her place 
opposite of Ryoji and Rei, the music changed to the traditional 
wedding march and all the guests stood up. For one horrifying 
moment, Saeko felt as if she was frozen in place, her body 
refusing to obey the commands her brain was sending it. However, 
when she looked toward the front of the room and saw Ryoji 
standing at the altar, an awkward smile on his usual serious face, 
it was as if all her fears instantly melted away.

	She was doing the right thing. How could she have ever 
doubted herself?

	Feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted off her 
shoulders, Saeko confidently stepped forward.

	For better, or for worse, Hino Ryoji was the man she 
intended to spend the rest of her life with, until death do they 
part.

DISCLAIMER: "Sailor Moon" is the property of Takeuchi Naoko. 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was written for the sm_monthly community at 
Livejournal (Theme: Wedding).