Time.
Kagome hated the word.
How could she not? She'd returned to the feudal era with the big, silly dreams of an eighteen year old that still thought love would fix everything. After all, why wouldn't it? She'd carried her love for InuYasha all through the end of junior high and into high school, and it was her love that made her strong enough to fight and defeat Naraku with her friends.
But that almost twenty years ago. Kagome had already past thirty, and those big dreams had proved to be nothing more than silly girlish fantasies. She still loved InuYasha, but time had changed the love they had.
Now she sat on a wood bench outside her home, watching the kids play a feudal version of hide and seek where the "it" child pretended to be a yokai hunter after the others who were the "yokai."
But none of the kids were hers. Some were Miroku's and Sango's youngest children, and others were other children in the village by the well, but none were hers and InuYasha's. They'd married not long after she'd returned, but it was a marriage in name only. InuYasha had continued his travels while Kagome had stayed and learned her craft from Kaede. When Kaede had passed, Kagome had followed Kaede's path further still and had begun training an apprentice, Yoko.
InuYasha didn't even seem to notice that Kagome hadn't aged. Nearly twenty years had gone by and Kagome had stayed the same, physically. She'd seen her reflection enough in the nearby river to know she still emanated a timeless age of twenty to twenty-five, despite the fact that she was in her late thirties. Sango and Miroku had aged visibly, and their oldest daughters had already married themselves. One even had Sango's and Miroku's first grandchild on the way.
Even Kohaku had married, to a young woman who was eager to start a new village with him where they could continue the traditions and practices of Kohaku's and Sango's family—but only to hunt the yokai who endangered or harmed others. His last visit to Sango had been accompanied by three of his children, all of whom looked rather adorable with their miniature slayer weapons.
Rin, too, had left years before, and Kagome found herself alone. Sango and Mirko were there, of course, but as the years went on, their focus shifted to their ever-growing family, and who could blame them?
Sango had done her best to try and help Kagome, but her suggestions fell flat. Sango felt Kagome should talk to InuYasha, try and settle the hanyo down so they could start a family of their own. Kagome had tried, but InuYasha spent more time with Miroku when he was back then he did with his own wife. Miroku had encouraged the hanyo to attend to his husbandly duties, to his credit, but InuYasha's idea of sharing a bed was passing out—sometimes sober, sometimes not—in bed next to her. More often than not, he was restless and kept Kagome herself from sleeping beside him.
Whereas once InuYasha had slept on the floor during their travels, now it was Kagome who slept on the floor whenever InuYasha was around. In the beginning she'd been upset, and then angry, but now she simply was numb.
She wasn't sure when she started, but Kagome began going on walks. At first it was just around the boundary of the village, but gradually she found herself wandering father and father away. Sometimes she visited the well, but more often than not, she wandered.
"What do I want?" she asked aloud. "And what does InuYasha want? Maybe," she reasoned, trying to be as considerate of the hanyo as she could, "this is what InuYasha figured married life is like? It's not like his father was around to set a good example."
She dismissed the idea a moment later. Even if he hadn't known, Miroku and Sango were perfect examples of married life. They bickered, they played, they flirted, and even after twenty plus years, they were still madly in love. Miroku might be a colossal tease, but not once did he leave Sango feeling unloved. He remembered every anniversary, every birthday, and celebrated them so vibrantly it left no doubt about his feelings.
"Sango's lucky." Kagome sighed loudly. She no longer dreamed of pretty flowery words and silly anniversaries of first dates and kisses like she did as a teen, but she still wanted romance. A husband who was both lover and partner.
Kagome was so focused on her thoughts she didn't notice Jaken's sudden appearance until she tripped over the yokai.
"Oh!" The force sent both of them to the ground.
Kagome scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, and sympathy had her pulling Jaken to his feet a moment later.
"I don't need your help," he crowed, but he let her pull him without stopping her. "A vassal of his mighty lordship doesn't need human aid!"
Kagome immediately looked around, expecting to see the inuyokai. To her surprise, Sesshomaru was nowhere in sight. "Where is Sesshomaru, anyway?" She rarely saw Jaken without Sesshomaru in tow, not since Rin had grown.
Jaken sniffed. "Sesshomaru-sama, lowly human!"
Kagome resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Did something happen to Rin? Or Sesshomaru?"
Jaken began squawking loudly. "Rin-sama," he correctly loudly, "is expecting her first child, and—"
"Oh!" Kagome clapped her hands together, ignoring her momentary sadness at the news that someone else she'd known was now happily married. And with children, no less. "I didn't even know she was married! Congratulations!"
"She is ill!" Jaken bellowed, cutting off Kagome's next words. "The healers have looked at her, but all feel she will lose the hanyo, and—"
"Hanyo?" Kagome could barely wrap her head around the words, but the logical conclusion about who the father might be had her stomach in knots. "I—she married Sesshomaru?"
Jaken stabbed the Staff of Two Heads at the ground with a violence that took her aback. "Foolish, irritating human woman! Rin-sama is married to Suzaku-sama." At Kaogome's blank look, Jaken elaborated, "the Southern Lord's eldest son."
"Oh," Kagome said, "I see." She didn't know why Jaken would have expected her to know, but she'd more or less grown out of her need to always be right.
"She asked for you." Jaken gripped his staff tightly and Kagome could see the worry in his eyes. "Sesshomaru-sama fears Rin-sama will be lost along with the child, but Rin-sama thinks you can help."
Kagome nodded. "I'll need a few things from my home, but we'll leave right away."
.
Purpose.
It had been so long since Kagome had felt needed. The village had Yoko, who had finished her training a few years before, and it was time Yoko took on an apprentice of her own. The village only needed a miko; who the miko was didn't matter.
But standing in Rin's bedroom, watched closely by Rin's anxious husband and a silent Sesshomaru, Kagome felt needed. From the few remarks Jaken had made on the back of Ah-Un as they'd raced to Rin's side had Kagome guessing that most yokai healers simply weren't knowledgable about hanyo children or human mothers.
Suzaku, to Kagome's surprise, and turned out to be a brilliant red and white crane yokai. His hair started off red and ended in white tips at his hips, and he had brilliant crimson eyes. He still had the unearthly beauty of most yokai, but there was a gracefulness to him that most yokai lacked. And compared to Sesshomaru's devious sense of humor and general disregard for life, Suzaku was gentler, though more than a little overprotective of his wife.
Rin had aged, but appeared no older than her mid twenties just like her husband, and Kagome wondered if Suzaku had found some way of extending Rin's life after their marriage.
It would be nice if he had, Kagome thought wistfully. At least then I'd have the promise of one friend.
Kagome gently brushed Rin's bangs from her sleeping face before straightening to eye the expectant father to tell them what her aura had observed.
"Please," Suzaku said before Kagome could speak, bowing to Kagome's astonishment. "Please save my mate and child."
Kagome smiled faintly. "Children," she corrected him gently. "Part of the problem is that she's carrying triplets. It's hard enough on any human mother, but when you add yokai energy to the mix..." She shrugged.
Suzaku beamed, and then his face fell. "Is there no hope?" he asked quietly.
If anyone doubted his feelings for Rin before, there's proof right there.
"There's hope," Kagome held up her hand when Suzaku began to thank her profusely, "but it's risky. She's only seven months along, and if she doesn't give birth now, we'll lose them all. But the babies will be early, and that's always risky."
To her surprise, Sesshomaru dropped a comforting hand on Suzaku's shoulder. "Do what you must," Sesshomaru ordered firmly, but Kagome wasn't fooled by his stoic act. The tightness of his mouth told her all she needed to know.
Sesshomaru was suppressing his feelings, but he cared, deeply.
Kagome nodded and got to work.
.
Life.
Kagome spent the next sixteen hours at Rin's side. She'd woken Rin up and given Rin medicine to induce labor and ordered Rin to push. Suzaku had stood on Rin's other side, holding her hand comfortingly as Rin had pushed, but it wasn't long before Rin began weakening. Rin struggled to push with the same force, and Kagome was afraid that Rin might be bleeding internally.
If that was the case, not only would Kagome lose the babies, she'd lose Rin.
In the end, in an act of desperation that Kagome was in no way fully trained for, she'd performed an emergency c-section on Rin.
She never once stopped to consider Sesshomaru's sword. In her mind, it was never an option. She would save those children and Rin, no matter what.
To her relief, the c-section had been successful. All three children were safely removed from Rin's abdomen, and with the help of the yokai healers Suzaku had initially tried to banish, she'd managed to stop the bleeding and stitch Rin back up. Rin nearly hadn't made it, and Kagome was convinced if she hadn't have done the c-section when she had, Rin wouldn'thave survived.
The cause of Rin's turmoil was the babies themselves. All three had little tiny wings on their backs, clearly inherited from their father, that had spread within Rin's abdomen, making vaginal birth impossible. With three of them and their wings taking up so much space, carrying them to term would have been impossible. Their wings and little claws would have unintentionally torn Rin to pieces from the inside out. As it was, they'd damaged her enough that Kagome wasn't sure if Rin could heal enough to bear children again.
All three had been cleaned and handed over to their father, two little daughters and one little son. Suzaku had been torn between the children and his wife, but Kagome had convinced him the children needed him more. Without his protection and aura, their fleeting auras would douse. Now that Suzaku was tuned to his children, he'd be able to detect any changes to their health before anyone else.
Or so the healers had told her; Kagome hadn't enough experience with yokai and hanyo babies to know either way. It was Sesshomaru's suddenly relaxed demeanor that had convinced her the worst was over, and she'd asked for a bed so she could pass out.
And as she tumbled off towards her room, she stumbled around with a smile on her face.
She'd saved the babies and the mother when no one else thought it was possible, and it felt amazing.
.
Need.
Kagome sat outside in the shiro gardens. She still wasn't entirely sure if she was in Sesshomaru's or Suzaku's castle, mostly because she hadn't bothered paying attention with the direction they'd traveled to get there. She'd spent too much time listening to Jake recite as much as he could recall about Rin's condition.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting out there, but eventually she was joined by Sesshomaru. For a time, he didn't speak, but stood beside her.
Finally, he said, "Do you not wish to return to the hanyo?"
It took her a moment to realize he meant InuYasha, and not Rin's children. "I don't know," she said finally. "I'm not sure what I'm returning to."
To her surprise, Sesshomaru didn't end the conversation. "Are you not his mate?"
Like she had with Suzaku, she took that to mean Sesshomaru was referring to their marital status. "In name, we are. But after twenty years, I'm not really sure what we are. I don't even know if he wants to be married."
Old insecurities came back, as they always did. Perhaps in the end, InuYasha had wanted more. Perhaps he still preferred Kikyo. Perhaps he wasn't really ready to settle down. Perhaps he was too restless, too lost in his past adventures. Perhaps time moved slower for hanyo. Perhaps he didn't know how to make the first move.
Perhaps he didn't love her.
But she didn't say any of that, because Sesshomaru was Sesshomaru and he was nobody's confidant.
To her surprise, he said, "You want more."
It wasn't a question, but she answered him anyway. "Yes. Maybe I'm too greedy. After all, I'm not aging and neither is he, so why rush anything?"
So quietly she almost didn't hear him, he said, "This one had wondered."
She jerked her head up to see quiet surprise in his face, as though he'd finally solved some mystery, and she wasn't sure if it was about her relationship or something else entirely.
Before she could form a question to find out, he said, a little louder, "You are welcome to stay here."
Her eyes widened. "Is this your home?"
He inclined his head. "Hnn."
"T-then Rin lives here?" She found it hard to believe; wouldn't the Southern Lord's heir reside with him, in the south?
Sesshomaru's lips twitched and he seemed to read her mind. "The Southern Lord's heir is Chizuru. She resides with him in the south, but Suzaku moved into this one's shiro after the mating."
It took Kagome a moment to process that, because it was generally the woman who moved into her husband's home and not the other way around. "Oh," she said softly. "Why?" He raised a brow, and she explained, "Why ask me to stay?"
"Rin benefits from your presence," he said simply.
She thought about that, and nodded. She had no reason to go back to the village right away, and perhaps she should stick around until she was sure Rin's children were healthy.
She ignored the faint twinge of jealousy at her own lack.
.
Hope.
Megumi and Airi, Rin's two daughters, and her son, Hisao, took a turn for the worst the next night.
All three had begun coughing, struggling to breathe, and it was only thanks to their father's speed in dragging Kagome out of bed to care for them that they made it through the night at all. Kagome spent the next three days in a sleepless vigil as the babies nearly lost their lives to a cold Kagome simply hadn't been prepared for.
Fortunately, her yellow backpack now served as her pharmacy, and she had the medicine prepared on hand, but she'd had to guess at the dosage. She hardly trusted herself to judge the right amount for babies so small and premature, and hadn't allowed herself to sleep so she could monitor their condition.
To make matters worse, Rin had developed a fever, and Kagome'd had to battle the fever as well. It had lasted for twelve hours before it finally broke, and Kagome was concerned about the impact it could have on both Rin and the babies. She'd kept them separate, despite Rin's feverish protests, until Rin no longer showed signs of illness.
By the end of Kagome's vigil, Rin had recovered enough to want to hold her babies. They'd been relying on milk from a yokai wet nurse, and Rin wanted to feed her own children herself. Her husband had dutifully carried her into the nursery where the children had been sequestered, and laid down Rin on the prepared bedding before bringing the children over to her to hold.
To Rin's horror, she'd produced no milk. Whether it was the fever or Rin's biology or something else, Kagome didn't know, but Rin had begun crying.
"I want to be a good mother," Rin sobbed into her husband's chest as the realization set in. "What kind of mother can't feed her own babies?"
Suzaku held her gently. "You're still their mother, Rin." His voice was soothing.
"But this is my only chance!" Rin wailed, focusing on the news Kagome had given her the day before. From what Kagome could sense with her healing aura, Rin had suffered too much damage to her feminine organs to ever be able to conceive again. "It's my only chance to feed them, and I can't! I'll never be able to hold my baby to my breast and feed them, Suzaku!"
Suzaku tilted his head to the door, and Kagome followed his direction and left him to console his wife.
As she stepped outside the room, she saw Sesshomaru waiting quietly outside the room. Though she was fairly certain he'd heard everything, she filled him in on Rin's status, anyway.
"She will need your help," Sesshomaru said after she'd finished. "Her mate cares for her, but he does not understand a woman's concerns."
Kagome heard the request he didn't voice. "Of course I'll stay," she whispered, because how could she leave? Rin was both emotionally and physically distressed from the birth, and it would take considerable time for her to fully heal. In a shiro full of yokai, Rin needed a human woman to support her.
Sesshomaru nodded, and turned on his heel.
"Wait!" Kagome called out after him as he began to walk away.
He turned around, brow raised in that silent question.
"Can you have someone find InuYasha for me?" she asked quietly. Sesshomaru's brow raised higher. "I-I need to tell him what happened. We're still married, after all, and he might come looking for me once he realizes I'm gone."
Sesshomaru seemed to consider her request for a moment. "Hnn."
She took that as a yes as he walked away.
.
Change.
It was three months before InuYasha appeared at the doors of Sesshomaru's shiro.
By then, Kagome was no longer sure what to expect. She wasn't the same person Jaken had found outside the village. She'd become more confident in her abilities, more determined to help Rin and others like her, more firm in her belief that she'd found a place she could call home—Sesshomaru willing, of course, but even her relationship with him had changed.
Though she was here to help support Rin through her depression and despair, she also knew when to leave and let Rin's family bond to help Rin heal. During those times, she found herself talking to Sesshomaru. At first, it was just to update him on Rin's and the babies' conditions. Against all odds, the little family was beginning to pull through, and they were slowly moving out of the danger zone. The babies were growing stronger, and though Rin still struggled to accept what she saw as her failures as a mother and wife, the growth of her babies and the love of her husband was slowly healing her pain.
But as time went on, Kagome found herself discussing other topics. At first, it was Kagome's own loneliness that propelled her further and Sesshomaru had said little. However, as days turned into weeks, Sesshomaru slowly began responding. His conversations were light at first, but slowly he began speaking about himself.
She'd learned he'd been given his first sword, a tiny little wood sword he'd named Mighty Fang, when he was the human equivalent of a three year old. She'd hidden her giggle at the name, but the corners of Sesshomaru's lips told her he was as amused by the memory as she. She'd also learned he'd had his first crush just as the full force of yokai puberty had hit him, and the girl had been one of his mother's handmaidens. The crush, as Sesshomaru told it, had ended with her reciprocating his feelings—and he was beautiful, so who wouldn't—but only after several years. Nothing major came of it, because after Sesshomaru had dallied with her for several years, he'd been taken into battle alongside his father to fight against an army led by snake yokai, and that battle turned into a war. By the time he'd returned, the girl had moved on.
In return, she told him of her childhood, her family, and finally, of her marriage to InuYasha. This time, she'd unburdened all her feelings, though she'd been embarrassed to tell him things she hadn't even told Sango. But Sesshomaru had listened, and if he'd been bothered by her failed attempts at intimacy with his half-brother, it never showed.
And once she'd said everything she could think of to say, Sesshomaru drew her into deeper conversation. He gave her scrolls to read and asked her opinion. He sought her out for her thoughts on this issue or that that his lands or he himself were facing. Somewhere along the line, he stopped looking at her stoically, and she swore she saw a hint of inexplicable softness in his expression when he looked at her.
But what did it mean? Why did Sesshomaru continue to seek her out? What did he want? What did she?
For the first time, she was seeing a future, a place here in the shiro, that didn't involve the village or InuYasha or the monotony of the life she'd lived before.
By the time InuYasha's presence was announced in the shiro, Kagome felt lost as to how to approach her husband.
She went to the grand receiving room where InuYasha awaited, and was surprised to see Sesshomaru sitting upon a grand chair as his brother screamed obscenities at him.
"What the fuck did you do with her, you bastard?"
She paused. Had he stayed the brash, arrogant fool he'd been twenty years ago while she'd matured—and why hadn't she noticed before?
"Hnn."
In the past few months she'd begun to develop an understand of the nuances behind his 'hnns' and the clever humor he kept well-hidden. This one, she knew, was not amused, but tired of his brother's antics.
"I'm right here, InuYasha," she said before InuYasha could start another tirade.
InuYasha glowered her. "I hoped you packed your bag because we're leaving here. I ain't staying another minute in this bastard's place. I don't know why the fuck you came here, K'gome, but it's not going to fucking happen again."
"The priestess is this one's honorable guest," Sesshomaru said, cutting off his brother's rant. "You, however, are not."
Kagome barely managed to recover from her surprise before InuYasha spat, "Like I fucking care if you want me here." He rolled his eyes for dramatic effect.
"InuYasha." He didn't even look at her when she said her name. "I'm not leaving. Rin needs me."
"Then she can come visit you at the village like anyone else." InuYasha folded his arms across his chest. "But you're not staying in the asshole's home and that's final."
She folded her arms across her chest in perfect mimicry. "And why not? I'm a priestess, InuYasha, in case you forgot, and I'll stay where I'm needed."
"You're needed in the village!" he snapped. "Ever since Kaede died, you've been the village priestess. Who's going to take over if you're not there, huh? You just going to let Miroku and Sango and everyone else die so you can sit here? In case you forgot, he," InuYasha waved his unsheathed sword at Sesshomaru, the movement so quick she never saw him draw the sword, "hates humans!"
Kagome didn't even hear his last bit. She was too focus on his previous statement about the village having no priestess. Had InuYasha seriously forgotten Yoko—or had he never even noticed in the first place?
She found her voice as he began ranting about her poor choices. "That's enough, InuYasha," she snapped, not caring if she sounded waspish. "I've made my choice, and I'm staying here. Rin needs me, and the village has Yoko. Maybe you forgot, but she finished her apprenticeship. In fact it'd be good for Yoko to have some independence and take on an apprentice of her own."
"Are you just going to fucking abandon your friends?!"
His words went right to her heart. "No!" She clenched her fist. "They're my friends and I love them. I'll visit once Rin is a little better, but—"
"And what about me?" InuYasha continued, speaking right over her. "I'm your husband. If you're not there, who's going to cook for me? Your cooking ain't as good as that ramen, of course, but I guess it's edible enough—"
Kagome saw red. For the first time, she wished uncharitably that she hadn't taken off InuYasha's beads. She wanted to sit him until he found himself on the other end of the world, sitting on the east coast of Canada. Preferably in the middle of winter. In the middle of a blizzard.
"That's enough, InuYasha!" she snapped, and the dam finally broke on her feelings. "Did you ever stop to think that I wanted more when I married you? Did you ever think about what I wanted? Did you notice how I looked enviously at our happily married friends and their children? That I tried to so hard to have that with you and you kept turning me down? Do you even care that I spent the last twenty years miserable because you were never really there? Why is everything always about you!? Do you even love me? Did you ever love me? Or am I just some paragon of Kikyo that you can worship when you feel like it?"
She took a deep breath. "In my time, InuYasha, women can leave their husbands. And it's not just because they hit them or abuse them; they can also leave because they no longer love them."
Could she say this last bit? Did she truly want to?
InuYasha opened his mouth, his face an angry red, and she realized he was about to yell again. That gave her the final push she needed.
"I'm leaving you, InuYasha. I don't want to see you, not for awhile." She made herself meet his eyes, saw the moment he realized what she said, but she didn't expect him to launch himself at her.
"You're my wife!" InuYasha shouted as he launched himself forward.
Sesshomaru apparently did. He stepped forward, unsheathing his own blade to hit InuYasha over the head with the hilt. InuYasha immediately crashed to the ground.
"You have not mated her," Sesshomaru growled. "She dissolved your union in front of your kin's alpha, and he has recognized the dissolution. You no longer have any ties to the woman, and at her behest, this one banishes you from her presence."
He sheathed his sword and nodded to two of his guards Kagome hadn't even noticed were in the room. "Remove him."
The guards immediately tackled InuYasha, pulling his arms behind his back, and Kagome winced. She wanted her husband gone, but she didn't want to see him hurt, no matter how he'd treated her.
"You're not my fucking alpha!" InuYasha bellowed, struggling against the grip of the inuyokai. "You can't fucking do this!"
Sesshomaru didn't even bother to acknowledge his half-brother as he was dragged out of the room. Instead, the inuyokai turned his golden gaze onto Kagome. "He will not return," he promised her.
"He still thinks we're married," Kagome said, feeling tired as she stared down at the floor. "He'll be back. After all, in this time, I really can't leave him, can I?"
To her surprise, Sesshomaru reached out and gripped her chin, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. "You already have. This one has witnessed your rejection of him. That is all that is needed."
She could hardly believe the words. "You're sure?"
To her surprise, he nodded and gave her a soft, reassuring smile. "You are now free to choose another path for yourself."
"Then..." She hesitated. "What next? I can't stay here forever."
"Rin still has great need of you," Sesshomaru reassured her, and it was his next words, so quiet she scarcely believed he'd said them at all, that took her breath away. "And she is not the only one."
The heat in his gaze confirmed it.
She reeled from the heat as much as she did from the promise in his words. The other path he'd suggested moments before was now clear and bright ahead of her, but part of her objected before she could stop herself.
"B-but it's too soon," she protested half-heartedly. "I just left InuYasha and—"
"And you are free." He traced his thumb idly across her lower lip. "Unless you do not wish this."
He began to pull away, and before she could stop herself, she reached up and grabbed his hand and forced it back.
"No," she breathed. "I just... I didn't know, Sesshomaru. You never said anything."
"You were not free," he said simply. "As useless as the whelp is, you made a commitment you were bound to honor. How could this one ask you to disgrace your oaths and your loyalty?"
She felt the first tear roll down her cheek, but neither of them made any move to wipe it away. "Sesshomaru, you—"
"You'll stay," he interrupted her, reaching out with his other arm to pull her closer.
She nodded. "Of course I'll stay." She felt all the anxiety and depression of the past twenty years fall away. "After all," she told him with an impish smile, "Rin needs me."
"Hnn."
That one, she felt positive, was teasing.
"And maybe I need you," she added, delighting in the quiet way his eyes widened. Evidently he hadn't been expecting a confession so soon.
"I would mate you," he warned her, suddenly dropping all formal language.
She delighted in it as much as she thrived in the heated promise in his eyes. There was no false pretense there. He'd mate her, impregnate her, and soon she'd have the fluffy eared babies she'd always wanted.
"That's what I'm expecting," she said, reading up to pull his head down. But though he moved to kiss her, she didn't let him, not yet. Instead, she moved to kiss one pointed ear before she whispered, "Want to see who mates who?"
He pulled her into a kiss as she laughed. It was deep and passionate and everything she'd never had with InuYasha. And though he didn't say the words aloud, she felt it welling up within him as he pulled her closer.
Love.