InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Miracle ❯ Chapter 3

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Hello again!  Third chapter for “Miracle” here.  Just as a note, the chapters in this story are much longer than I generally post.  (7-9 pages in Open Office as opposed to 4-5)  That more than likely means that the overall story will be relatively short chapter-wise, though still as long as one of my usual stories.  It was far too long to be a one-shot (obviously) and it's really too short to be anything too substantial, so we'll call it a short story and be happy with that.  I'm glad that many of you are enjoying the story, despite finding the premise strange.  Thank you to those of you who have found the time to review!
PS. Are any other writers not getting review notifications from MediaMiner anymore?  I stopped getting e-mails a while back and didn't even realize it.


Several weeks passed and the new couple were still somewhat awkward around one another in public.  The others had been let in on the secret in a rather eventful meeting.  Sango had made an attempt on Inuyasha's skull.  No one was really sure if it was for not telling them sooner, not owning up to Kagome's pregnancy from the start or for being from an alternate dimension.  Miroku had choked and Kagome had been forced to make some sort of rescue attempt.  Shippo had sat back, amused and collected through the whole thing.  By the end, the married couple had said they understood, but still gave Inuyasha skeptical looks most of the time.  

Kagome was still trying to get used to the changes she was going through far too quickly.  She had the strangest cravings, most of which required trips through the well to run to the twenty-four hour convenience store for onion potato chips and strawberry snack cakes or American kosher dill pickles and chocolate pocky.  Luckily the throwing up had ended rather quickly, though Inuyasha was positive the things she was eating should have made it worse.

Unsure if it was the eating or the baby, Kagome had noticed that her skirts and pants didn't fit like they had and made Inuyasha walk with her all over the place.  "Are you planning on actually arriving somewhere or are you just going to walk all over the damn village?" he would grumble.  He didn't understand the principle of exercise the way she knew it, but strolled with her anyway.  When he got too bored he would often find Sango to replace himself as a walking companion.  While both women liked the time to spend together, Sango didn't appreciate being more or less abducted from her home and carried halfway across the village by a frustrated hanyou.

"Next time just tell me you're bored and I'll walk over to Sango-chan's and get her myself!" Kagome would growl, her temper rising.  Sango would pat her shoulder consolingly, Inuyasha would snort a "keh" and bound off and Kagome would fume for a few minutes before they found other things to talk about.  Sango was fascinated by Kagome's new lot in life, especially the rapid succession of changes she was going through.  Her complexion had become rosier and her face slightly fuller.  She was doing what Kagome had told her was called "nesting" as well, cleaning every nook and cranny in the hut and finding things she swore they needed that Inuyasha couldn't seem to understand what they were for.  Nothing was ever clean enough and Sango had been forced to remind her several times that the floor outside the genkan was in fact dirt and would remain that way no matter how much she swept.

Unsure how to bring up some of her more pressing worries, Kagome chewed her lip, walking alongside her friend at a more sedate pace than usual.  “Something's bothering you Kagome-chan.  What's wrong?”

“I...  Sango?  What do you know about hanyou?”  Her friend gave her an odd look.  “I mean... well, about youkai?  Oh... I'm not making any sense.”  She took a deep breath and prepared to try again.  “Have you ever heard anything about youkai pregnancies?”

Sango frowned a moment before realizing what Kagome was asking her.  “You mean about human women carrying hanyou.”  Kagome blushed faintly, nodding vigorously.  “I'm sorry Kagome.  Nothing that might be very useful... or comforting.”  At that her friend paled, stopping her slow walk forward.  The tajiya sighed deeply, motioning her friend after her.  The two women found a small hill just beyond the village and had a seat in the grass.

“What do you mean it isn't comforting?”  The young miko gasped, looking at Sango with wide eyes.  “Is it dangerous?  Is that why you were so upset with Inuyasha?”

The elder of the two took a deep breath, not wanting to have this conversation, and yet knowing it needed to happen.  “Not exactly.  I have heard... seen some hanyou pregnancies go very wrong.”  Resting a hand on Kagome's shoulder when she opened her mouth to ask a question quieted her.  “That was only if the woman had been taken against her will and usually by certain kinds of youkai.  Insect youkai, lesser youkai certainly, and sometimes youkai whose other form is too large for the human woman's body to handle.  Bear youkai and human pairings, given that they are caring parents on their own but are very large creatures, can go either way.”  She looked down at the grass between her knees for a moment.  “As I said, the willingness of the mother has a great deal to do with the success of the birth, as well as the time leading up to it.”  She saw Kagome nod out of the corner of her eye.  “I don't know about inuyoukai because Inuyasha is the first inuhanyou I've ever met or seen.  If his mother survived his birth, I am sure that you will be fine.  I was worried though.  When you came to us, not knowing what had happened to you...”

“You though that he had...”

Sango nodded sullenly.  “The thought had crossed my mind.  I couldn't help it.  I know he would never hurt you, he cares too much for you.”  Sango finally met the eyes of her friend.  “But when you told us everything, that he wasn't... isn't the same Inuyasha...”

“I understand.  It crossed mine too.  But I told myself it wasn't possible.  That he would never hurt me was so natural, a given, that I was only thinking about how he would never want me that way.”  Tears filled her eyes suddenly and she ducked her head, scrubbing at her face.  “I'm sorry, Sango-chan.  I'm such a mess these days.”  Sango smiled softly, reaching her arm around her friend to hold her in a loose hug until she stopped crying.

“Don't worry Kagome-chan, I'm sure you'll see everything will be fine.”

From the roof nearest the hilltop where they sat, a pair of golden eyes watched, hurt and angry.  She doubts me.  She really thinks I could have...  The slayer I get, but Kagome?  He snarled.  He'd thought they were getting through that.  He held her every night, kissed her almost every chance he could get her alone.  And still she thought he didn't want her!  He wasn't sure how else to prove it to her.  Being with her completely was not an option.  Not right now.

“I guess... the question I really had,” he heard her say, “was how long they usually last.  I mean... Inuyasha thinks that we're going to go out and find the last shards.  But I'm blowing up like a blimp as it is.  I'm barely going to be mobile in a few weeks at this rate.”  He saw the slayer's confusion at her analogy and smirked faintly when Kagome was forced to show her how much the kimono she'd borrowed from her mother was hiding the growth of her middle.  Every night he gently felt the distention of her stomach, trying to judge how much she'd grown since the night before.  It seemed minute to him, but he could imagine why it seemed like so much to her.  She had gone straight from being a virgin to being four, almost five now, months pregnant.  Her body was trying to keep up with the rapid change as well as make space for the pup.

“Kagome-chan!  I didn't know you were showing already!”  Inuyasha rolled his eyes at Sango's barely hidden delight.  Ten minutes ago she was contemplating how big a bastard he might be for endangering Kagome's life, now she was thrilled at the young woman's progress.  Kagome's face showed the lingering doubts she had.  Sango caught on, calming herself and thinking critically.   “I'm not entirely sure really.  I imagine you're growing fast right now to catch up...  I mean, this just happened last month, and the other you...”

“Was almost four months in.  But even so, a human baby wouldn't show like this for for at least another month in.”  Inuyasha licked his teeth in thought.  He hadn't considered that.  He had been a little surprised  too, but he'd thought that was normal.  He didn't really know what was normal for humans, or youkai for that matter, now that he thought about it.  He'd never encountered a pregnant youkai before.  Not surprising since most species, including humans to some degree, hid away their breeding females to protect them.

He, like Kagome, had thought they would have more time and then the time they'd had they'd wasted here, worrying about her cravings and how quickly everything was happening.  But that's just it, isn't it?  Everything's happening so fast.  She's right.  She's already too far along to go anywhere.  It's too dangerous.  Inuyasha waited as the two women got up, Sango helping Kagome to her feet, and headed back into the village.  The two split and he followed Kagome at a distance before racing ahead of her to beat her home.  He slipped through the door, pretending to have been lounging near the bedroom door waiting for her.  “Oh.  Inuyasha,” she said, smiling lopsidedly at him.  The unease had not left her scent nor her demeanor and he rolled to his feet, taking her hands and helping her up the small step.  She grinned more genuinely this time, easily allowing him to pull her into his arms.

“Good walk?”

“Yea.  Not that it's doing me any good.  This isn't just pudge like I thought,” she sighed, patting her belly and melting down into one of the tatamis in what was more or less their main living space.  He went into the other room to grab a pillow, pulling it behind her back to support it as he took her into his lap.  He felt her relax by degrees, her head finally resting back against his shoulder.  “Inuyasha?  I don't think I'm going to be able to go with you to look for shards.  If the baby..”

“Pup...”

“Pup,” she agreed with a tiny smile, “keeps growing like this I won't be able to travel at all in only a few more weeks.”

He sighed against her, resting his chin on her shoulder.  “I don't want you traveling at all now, forget a few weeks,” he told her resolutely.  “I didn't know things would move this quickly.  I don't know anything about pups,” he whispered.

“Neither do I, not really.  We both know this is... unusual.  We have to take it as slowly as we can, I suppose.”  He nodded slightly.  “You said you think you know where the other shards are.  If you know that, you don't really need me to help you find them.”

“I'm not leaving you here alone.”  She moved to protest.  “No.  That's final.  I'm not going to risk leaving you here unprotected while me and the monk go off on a wild goose chase.”

“Shippo could stay here with me, or go with you and I could stay with Kaede-obaachan.  Miroku's capable of...”  Kagome broke off when she saw the look on Inuyasha's face. He wasn't going to listen to any other ideas.  “Fine.”  He nodded sharply, closing the issue.

….

Growing rounder by the day, Kagome was forced to reduced her walks to a few times a week.  Sango came by of her own accord when she had time, mostly because someone had to help her up and down.  “I can't believe this.  Inuyasha's not a big guy, but I swear this baby makes me think his father must have been a basketball player!”  Sango listened to her friend's explanation of the American ball game then laughed at her irritation, unable to help herself.  Poor Kagome was as big at two and a half months – six and a half if one wanted to get technical – as most women were at nearly eight and a half.  She wasn't showing any signs of stopping either.  

Inuyasha looked worried most of the time, which wasn't entirely uncalled for, but Kagome was in good health and fairly mobile despite her size.  On days when she wasn't staying in the hut or walking with Sango, he took her home to see her mother.  The whole trip was usually a big ordeal, but Kagome insisted that they visit while they still could.

“Has Inuyasha agreed to take you home tomorrow?”  The inuhanyou was getting more and more reluctant to take Kagome through the well, nervous about the forces that resided in it and what they were capable of.  “He doesn't still think something will take you or the baby, does he?”

Kagome sighed heavily.  “I thought I'd convinced him that if I went through the well pregnant at the beginning, there's no way the well could cause me to lose the baby now.”  Kagome offered up a small prayer to the kami just in case.  “I feel like he's worried about something else, but he doesn't want to say so.  He agreed to take me this time... but I'm not so sure about next week.”  Sango nodded silently, musing about what could cause the hanyou's fear if it wasn't for the baby.

What neither woman was aware of was the silver-haired figure that followed them at a discreet distance, listening in on their conversation as usual.  He wasn't spying... not really.  He was making sure nothing happened to his woman while she enjoyed time with her friend.  He had every right to be wherever he wanted and if he heard them by accident, well then it was no fault of his!  At least, that's what he hoped to tell Kagome if she ever caught him.  He knew the likelihood of that working was nil, but it made him feel better as he trailed them.

Inuyasha didn't like that they were so aware of his fear of the well.  He had never been afraid of the rickety old thing in the past, but every time they went through, something felt wrong.  He felt like his mind was being plucked like a chicken, little pinpricks of pain all over.  He always had a headache afterward, glad to let Kagome stay with her mother for a few days while he camped out in Goshinboku to sleep whatever it was off.  The longer between trips through the well, the better.  He sometimes lazed in the shade of the tree's branches to get away from the heat of summer, relaxing enough to take off his haori while he lounged.  Sometimes he would stay up in Kagome's room to take advantage of the cooling system in the house and listen to her talk to her mother down in the kitchen.  Occasionally he got roped into playing a video game with Sota or helping the old man with a shed that he swore he'd helped organize and dust the last time he'd been there.

It didn't seem to matter if he went through minutes later, or days.  He could have Kagome with him or go through on his own.  Day, night, hanyou, human.  Nothing made a difference to the prickling pain that affected him every time he went through the damned well.  Inuyasha couldn't help that he felt like the well had it out for him since Kagome seemed to suffer no ill effects at all.  

The thing that terrified him more was the fact that on either side of the well, no matter where he slept, he was dreaming vividly of things he didn't remember.  He always felt that he was fighting something lurking in his dreams.  When he woke feeling exhausted, he didn't remember anything about the dreams other than knowing he'd won a battle somehow, but that the war was far from over.  It was a strange sensation that was forcing him to avoid sleeping whenever possible.  Being hanyou made that fairly easy, but even he needed sleep sometimes.  

Laying beside Kagome at night often made it impossible for him to stay completely awake as well, her scent and warmth lulling him into a doze.  At least once he'd woken lashing out at the dream and found he'd almost struck Kagome.  He would have stopped sharing the futon with her to keep Kagome safe, but she'd been so hurt that he could even think about letting her sleep alone that he'd relented.

“Kagome know you're spying on her?”  Inuyasha jumped slightly at the voice, turning to glare at the kitsune that had caught him by surprise.

“You tell her anything, brat, I swear...”

Shippo waved off his anger.  “We're all keeping an eye on her, not just you, baka.  She looks like she could pop any day.”  Shippo seemed uncertain of something, like he wanted to say more, but he didn't, sticking by Inuyasha as the two trailed after the women.  “She's pretty big,” he said finally in a casual tone.

“That's my mate you're talking about,” the hanyou growled.  Not that it was untrue, it just wasn't nice to say.  Lifting his hands in a conciliatory gesture, Shippo eyed the older hanyou again as though waiting for him to realize something.  “What?  Alright, she's bigger than she should be, I get it.”

“Why do you think that is?”  Inuyasha just shrugged and Shippo let it drop.  He didn't know why the inuhanyou seemed unaware of what was right under his nose, but he knew something wasn't right.  Shippo mused over what it was that was making him nervous about the whole thing.  They already knew that this was not the Inuyasha they had all come to know, that he had different memories and experiences...  But he should have the same senses, smell and hearing in particular.

….

Inuyasha bolted upright in bed in a sweat, feeling like his head was splitting.  He'd been getting headaches like this for days now, even though he hadn't been through the well in over a week, waking him out of a dead sleep.  Kagome shifted on the futon beside him, reacting to his distress but not waking fully.  “Shh, sleep,” he whispered through gritted teeth.  Kagome was so exhausted most days that he couldn't bear her losing more sleep over his problem.  

He slipped carefully out of bed, going into the other room to sit and try to breathe through the stabbing pain in his skull.  Like the last few nights, he tried to reason through the pain.  Was it a side effect of the switch?  Was it because he hadn't mated with Kagome and his youki was trying to surge forward to force the bond because of the pup?  Was it a human illness that had managed to latch onto him despite his youkai blood?  Should he stay away from Kagome?  None of that made sense.  Of course, the fact that his skull was pounding meant not much of anything made sense to him at that moment.

“Inuyasha?  What's wrong?”  Her soft whisper helped to soothe his pain, her fingertips brushing through his hair only increasing the affect.  “Inuyasha, koibito,” she breathed, “why didn't you tell me you were getting headaches?”  He refrained from shaking his head as that only made things worse.  He latched onto the endearment she had murmured to him, holding it close to his heart as he felt like the rest of him was being torn apart.  Kagome moved away for a moment, coming back with a roll of herbs in her hand.  He heard her struggle to kneel beside him.  He was able to focus long enough to help her down before taking the proffered herbs.  Chewing them was a bitter experience, but they did help the pain.  He let out a tiny sigh, holding Kagome's soft hand in his own.

A flash of light behind his closed eyelids made him flinch.  Something more was wrong than just the headache.  He was getting memories.  Memories that didn't belong to him and certainly not to the other him that had died by Naraku's hand.  Kagome in her time in a pair of pajamas with a dog print on them, asleep on her desk.  He didn't remember that until now.  Other images of time spent with Kagome, their friends and even with her weird friends from the future that he could have sworn he'd only smelled, never seen.  This was the other Inuyasha, the one she had known.  Something was wrong!  “Kagome, his memories are...”  He didn't hear her response as a full flood of all the things he'd thought he'd known about himself narrowed to one tiny point.

He was not the Inuyasha he'd thought he was.  

He was her Inuyasha.  He'd been suppressed this whole time, sleeping in a way, while the “foreign” Inuyasha dominated.  That Inuyasha, that reality, had tried to go with Kikyo, leaving Kagome behind.  Why... I wouldn't...  His awareness was fading.  Of course he would have.  Kagome had always expected it of him and had been too afraid to love him.  He had been lost without that love and he'd thought that going with Kikyo would mean happiness in some form.  Being with Kagome in some way.  But it was all a lie.  He couldn't go with Kikyo because she had to be reincarnated into Kagome eventually.  He would be all alone in the afterlife.  Midoriko had saved his soul from that fate by uniting him with this Inuyasha.  Take care of her, she needs you to love her more than anything! he shouted to the consciousness taking control as he faded.  Feeling the acknowledgment from the other him, he was able to fade quietly into darkness.  He would be alright.  Kagome would be alright.  Their pup would be alright.

“Inuyasha!” she was crying softly.  Shippo stood in the doorway to the other room, watching them with wide frightened eyes.  Inuyasha was clutched in her lap, her tears dripping down the side of his face.  “Inuyasha, you can't leave me,” she whimpered.

“Hush wench, I'm right here,” he rasped in response.  He felt like he'd been sleeping for months, which wasn't completely untrue.  The other him from the other reality had been much stronger than either he or Midoriko had anticipated.  “I'm back, and I'm never leaving again.”

Kagome's dark brown eyes shined with tears in the faint moonlight.  “Inuyasha?”  Her hands hadn't untangled from his hair, but he didn't protest.  Feeling the connection with her was a more than welcome anchor for his reality.  He had tried to fight his way to her through his other consciousness, but that Inuyasha had clung to the love and warmth the other Kagome had never been able to give him  He cocked a tiny grin at her.

“Yea, it's me.  Been trying to get back here for months.”  Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her breaths.  Letting her help him into a sitting position, he held her hands in his afterward, not willing to stop touching her yet.  She stared down at his hands before looking into his eyes.  Inuyasha was able to take her in for himself for the first time since before they'd gone through the well almost three months before.  His sensations of her had been muted by the the filter of his other consciousness running things.  She was gorgeously pregnant and round, filling out her sleeping yukata just right.  

Seeing the kitsune, Inuyasha nodded that he was alright, that he needed time with Kagome.  Shippo nodded in understanding before returning to his room.  Inuyasha slowly explained to her what had happened.  That Midoriko had explained to him what needed to change, that the other Inuyashas' souls would be joining him briefly, that the plan had been that they would fade quickly and he would have learned from their mistakes.  When the second consciousness hadn't faded he'd begun to panic but there wasn't anything he could do at first.  All his struggles to regain control of his own body were pushed aside.  The other Inuyasha had forgotten that he too was dead, had suppressed it in favor of a second chance with the Kagome who loved him more than he could have imagined.  He slowly broke down the other Inuyasha's defenses, breaking his way through.  “You belong with me, wench, just me,” he murmured, leaning forward to nuzzle her cheek.

In the soft moonlight of their hut, he was able to calmly explain what had really happened to the Inuyasha she had been living with for months.  “Why didn't the other me stop him?  Even if she didn't love him, she couldn't have stood by and watched him...”

“She didn't know he was going to do it.  That's why Midoriko tried to warn us... me.”  He ran a hand roughly over his face.  “Going with Kikyo to hell would have pulled her... your... Kagome's...”  He struggled with the pronouns trying to describe the awful possibility they hadn't thought of.  “Whoever's soul from you and then we all would be dead.  Everything would have changed.  I might have stayed pinned to that tree forever.  You wouldn't have been born to come back to me...”  Too many memories were running through his head and he fought to push them away until he could get a handle on himself.  At least the headache hadn't lasted.

Kagome felt blown away.  While she was happy to have her own Inuyasha back, seemingly just as happy to see her, she couldn't help grieving for the Inuyasha she had been spending the last couple of months with.  He had shown her more affection and caring in the short time she had been with him than her Inuyasha had ever been capable of in the years she'd known him.  Slowly pulling her hands from where he gripped them, Kagome bit her lip.  She couldn't cry now.  Getting upset was not an option.  Her Inuyasha was back, just like she'd originally wanted.  She should be happy.  “I'm glad you're alright,” she mumbled. Unfortunately she was too ungainly to get up on her own at the moment so she was stuck until she was controlled enough to touch him again without trying to melt into his arms.

Startled when she felt his index finger under her chin, Kagome gasped but lifted her eyes to his.  “You don't look that glad,” he told her softly.  “Why are you so upset?”  She tried to shrug off his concern but had to fight back tears instead.  “You think I don't feel like he did about you.”  It wasn't a question.  Kagome tried to look away to avoid seeing the truth in his eyes.  His finger remained steady, his golden eyes boring into her.  “That couldn't be any further from the truth.  I spent months trying to get back in control, to be the one holding you,” he whispered.  He didn't hesitate to show her what else he'd been fighting to be in control of, his lips pressing hers softly.  Kagome couldn't help but respond.  Recalling what Midoriko had told her, she tried to remember that they were “all her Inuyasha” and that regardless of the memories, their souls were meant for one another.

“You knew everything that was going on,” she suddenly gasped, pulling away.  He gave her a confused look but nodded.  “And you... you aren't mad?”

“Mad?  Are you kidding, Kagome?”  His incredulous look made her mouth twitch with a smile.  “The way I feel about you is no different.”  Golden eyes softened and one large hand came to rest on her very rounded tummy between them.  “These little guys are going to change things, but in a good way.  I promise Kagome.”  The seriousness in his gaze didn't leave room for doubt.  He was making sure she understood that he had every intention to follow through on the promises he had made to her almost from the beginning as well as those that the other parts of his soul had made.  “I can't believe you're going to have my pups,” he breathed in the awed tone she should have expected but still felt overwhelmed by.  That he would be so floored by the idea that someone would mother his child pulled at her heart while making her give him a watery smile.  His gaze became serious again.  “You don't know how long I've wished for this.”  Voice soft and shaky, Inuyasha tried again to make her understand how much it meant to him.  “My whole life I was sure I would die in a battle, at the hands of some youkai, long before I could even think about mating.  I never dreamed I would have someone like you to protect.  A family to protect.”  Kagome's tears trailed slowly down her cheeks.

“You deserve a family, Inuyasha.”

“I have a family, thanks to you.”  He leaned forward and kissed her again, relishing the taste of her on his lips.  She returned his kiss eagerly, her hands grabbing onto the fabric of his sleeping pants.  Inuyasha growled low, but managed to pull himself back.  She was near the end of her pregnancy.  He couldn't afford to lose control with her.  “As soon as the pups are born and you're healed...”  He couldn't even finish the thought aloud.  Kagome's face flushed, a tiny shy smile on her lips.  He wanted to ask her to be his mate right then and there, but he wanted to get her used to the idea of him being himself again before pushing their relationship forward.  She wasn't ready yet and they could do nothing until after the pups were born anyway.

Kagome let him carry her back to bed, snuggling into his warmth beside her.  She was mostly asleep when she realized what he'd said.  “Pups?  As in, more than one?” she murmured, drowsy.

“Keh, 'course.  Didn't he say anything?”  Kagome shook her head softly.  “Two, boys.”  Inuyasha's tone implied he was just as tired.  His body had been through a great deal and since the other him had been afraid to sleep while he lurked, waiting for his opportunity to regain control, his body was worn out.



Just so there are no complaints in this regard: No, I have never had a kid, and yes, most of the things Kagome is feeling constitute stereotypical pregnancy stuff.  I'm aware of this, now you're aware of this.  Yay, look how aware we all are!  Awareness is fun.  Now, make yourselves aware of the review button and go for it!  Thanks.
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