InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon a Time ❯ Family Matters ( Chapter 43 )

By the first week of April, the last vestiges of the winter had disappeared. Despite the addition of Kenji, the villager who had since become an apprentice to Kohaku, the household had grown smaller by three. Sango and Miroku had finally married and built their own home nearby, taking Kohaku and Kirara with them. It was soon learned that Miroku was going to receive his second fondest wish, after the removal of his curse: Sango became pregnant almost immediately after they were married.

By now, walking any distance was difficult for Kagome, so the healing classes had been moved to her house for a while. Even when she had resumed her lessons over the winter, she had been carefully escorted both ways by a very watchful and protective hanyou--there would be no second chance for an enemy to touch her.

Still, he thought smugly as he watched her sorting the first herbs of the spring in her workroom, the time certainly hadn’t been wasted. Not only had he learned a little more about medicine than he had expected, but he had taken the opportunity to pass along his mother’s cold remedy--the one that he had once made for Kagome and would eventually become her grandfather’s “secret family recipe.”

He watched her tense up for a moment while reaching up to hang a bundle of herbs. “When were you going to tell me?”

She shook her head. “It’s only the second one in an hour. There’s plenty of time--remember what the books said?” She smiled with unmistakable pride at the speed with which he had learned to read and write. “This could go on for a day or more.”

He watched as she went about her routine of sorting and preparing the herbs for drying. How the hell could she be so calm about this? He moved to her, placing a light kiss on the back of her neck as he passed by. “I’ll be right back.”

He moved back to the library in which the household records were kept. Taking a sheet of paper from the drawer in the large desk, he quickly scribbled a note. “Wolf?” As he was sealing it into the bamboo tube the animal sprang up from its position by the door. It was an especially attractive specimen of its kind, the young adult son of the one who had been killed trying to protect Kagome. Handing the animal the tube, he said simply, “Take this to Kouga.”

Walking out into the gardens, he found Kagura sitting beneath one of the blooming sakura trees. Giving her the message, he sent her on her way, first to the village, and then to Sesshoumaru. Taking a few of the blooming twigs with him, he returned to his mate in the house.

Since she was no longer in her workroom, he searched until he located her in the large kitchen. She looked up at him, a certain amount of strain visible on her features, and said, “I may have been wrong.”

He started water heating, watching her carefully all the while. “Where’s Jinenji’s tea?”

“The center drawer of my work table.”

He was returning with the bag of leaves when the first real contraction hit. She yelped in pain and surprise, clutching at the edge of the table. “We may not have days after all.”

“Then,” he said, alternating between smug and worried, “It’s a good thing that I sent out the messages--the mikos should be coming before long.”

She sipped at the tea, a little surprised at the soothing, pleasant taste. Most of the medicinal preparations she had encountered to date had ranged from slightly bitter to downright nasty. She rose from her seat by the table, wandering aimlessly around the room. “Should you be moving around so much?”

She smiled a little, deciding that this “mother hen” routine could get old in a hurry. “From what I’ve read, walking around a bit should help things along.”

He was a little surprised when the three mikos from the village appeared in less than an hour. “I didn’t expect you until later.”

Kaede shook her head. “A first delivery is often a little more difficult than later ones. Kagura didn’t follow your instructions exactly--she stopped at Miroku and Sango’s first, before heading to inform your brother. They came for us, and should be here soon. They wanted to stop at their home first.” Helping the younger woman rise awkwardly to her feet, she assisted her to the bedchamber so that she could determine exactly how far things had progressed. After a few steps they paused, waiting for the pain to pass before continuing the brief journey to the room that had been prepared.

As the hanyou followed closely behind his mate and the elderly miko that he had come to respect over the years that he had known her, the old woman turned to him with a grim expression. “You,” she said sternly, “Will wait out here. I’ll tell you when you can see her.”

The two younger mikos, never having attended a delivery before, set about bringing in the medical supplies they had brought and heating more water. Though they would be of relatively little actual use, the experience would be a valuable part of their training. Besides, the old miko thought, the girl’s muscle tone and general health were well above average--she should have a relatively easy time of it.

As the day faded into evening, Kagome would have disputed that description. The pains came faster and harder, and she whimpered a little as a particularly fierce contraction seized her. Although the sound was faint to the human ears in the room, it was easily picked up by the now-frantic hanyou waiting outside. The door flew open and he raced into the room. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Babaa? She’s in pain. Can’t you give her something for it?”

The old miko looked up calmly. In her experience, things were progressing nicely and should in fact be over within the next few hours. “There’s nothing that can be done at this point. Any medicine strong enough to dull the pain would slow or even stop the labor, and might even harm the little one.” She sighed in frustration as he barged ahead to the bedside and grabbed his mate’s hand. He didn’t much like the way she looked: the light film of sweat that coated her skin and the fatigue in her eyes worried him.

He shook his head. “I didn’t know it would be like this--I’m sorry.”

“Baka,” she smiled. “Why do you think they call it ‘labor?’ I’ll be fine--Kaede-baachan says everything’s going exactly like it should.”

That didn’t entirely satisfy him. He sat down on the floor, prepared to wait out the ordeal, when the old woman raised her voice slightly. “Miroku!”

The monk entered the room, leaving his staff standing in the hall outside. Taking in the situation with a quick glance, he reached into the front of his robes for a sealing charm. With a flick of his wrist, he slapped the charm across the back of the fuming hanyou, immobilizing him. Dragging the inert body out of the room by the back of his haori, he said, “Don’t worry, Kagome-sama, I’ll keep him safe for you until this is all over.”

Kagome smiled a little--she had wondered how they were going to handle him when things started to get involved. “Where is he taking him?”

The old miko laughed. “We’ve been putting wards on Kohaku’s workshop for a few days now--I think he’ll be safe enough in there for a while. We’ve been through this before, you know--when he sent you back through the well without the Shikon no Tama, after he was injured by Sesshoumaru. We had to seal him into a shed to keep him from fighting before his wound healed.” She shook her head slowly. “It didn’t help much--Rouyakan, who was being controlled by Naraku, attacked us to break the concentration that was maintaining the barrier around the shed.”

“That was the time he tried blocking the well with a tree, wasn’t it?”

The old woman laughed at the memory. “That’s right. That’s when Shippou took the Shikon into the well and managed to let you come back through. You probably saved his life that day.”

They were still caught up in talking about the old times while the search for the Shikon fragments was going on when Momigi, one of the apprentice mikos, stuck her head in the door. “Is Kagome-sama up to a visitor?”

At the two answering nods, the girl backed away, allowing Kagome’s mother to enter the room. With a nod to the old miko, she asked, “How are you feeling, dear?”

There was a brief pause as an especially strong contraction hit. The old woman nodded in satisfaction. “A few more like that, and we could be done.”

“Every once in a while one takes me by surprise, but it hasn’t really been too bad. Jinenji made me a tea that’s supposed to make it a little easier, and I think it’s working.”

“Jinenji?”

“He’s a healer who lives a few days away from here. He’s a hanyou, but not like Inuyasha. He’s really huge, and a lot of people are scared of the way he looks, but he’s very sweet and really gentle once you get to know him.”

Another strong spasm hit then, and the old woman looked at her counterpart from the future. “I think this is it.”

The hanyou cursed fluently as he stormed around the interior of the taijiya workshop. “Damn you, monk, you have no right to keep me here!”

Miroku looked at him calmly. “If you kill me, you’ll have to wait for Kaede-sama to come here and take the wardings off so you can get out.” He shook his head. “What you don’t realize is that there are times when women neither need nor want a male presence around. I think it safe to say that this is one of them.”

The irritated hanyou snorted in disgust and continued his endless circuits of the room, pausing now and then to glare at the monk lounging near the door. He stopped suddenly as his sensitive hearing picked up a long wailing shriek. He sank to the floor, slumped in a corner, numb to everything around him. The monk heard the sound as well, although somewhat less vividly, and thought to himself that that had sounded very much like progress.

The old miko held up the tiny form for the others to see. “He’s a bit small, but seems healthy enough.” Wrapping the infant in a blanket, she placed him in his mother’s arms. “Your son.”

The young woman panted slightly. “Son? I’ll never live it down--I told him it could be a girl.” She looked down in wonder at the tiny figure. She was not entirely surprised to see a thin coating of dark fuzz that would someday be hair like her own on his scalp. She was, however, absolutely delighted to see the two tiny flaps of skin that would one day be adorable triangular ears pressed against the top of his head. “Well, he’s definitely his father’s son,” she said. She writhed as another great spasm took her, leaving her mother to hold her son for the moment. “Mama--I think there’s something wrong!”

As the older woman looked at the miko who was attending her daughter, the other woman said, “No. Nothing’s wrong--just a little surprising.”

The door to the workshop opened, and Botan gestured to the two men inside. “You can come out now.”

The first thing the hanyou noticed upon entering was the blood scent. Still, it seemed reasonably faint, and came from a pile of discarded bedding on the floor rather than from his mate. Listening carefully, he could hear the slow, steady beat of her heart. Moving silently to the bedside, he brushed the damp hair away from her face. “See?” she mumbled, “I told you--nothing to it.”

“You had me scared half to death, woman.” He brushed his lips across her forehead. Suddenly noticing the other two women in the room, he asked, “Is it over?”

Kaede held out the bundle of blankets she held. “It’s over. Meet your son.”

He found himself grinning like an idiot. “I have a son?” He peered at the yawning face inside the blankets, inhaling deeply to imprint the scent on his memory. “He’s pretty little.”

Kagome’s mother laughed. “There’s a reason for that. Come over here and meet your daughter.”

“NANI?!?”

“She didn’t stutter, baka. That’s why your son is so small.” Kagome smiled up at her mate. “Have you thought of any names?”

At his blank look, she continued, “What about Anshin for your son and Nozomi for your daughter?”

“Isn’t that expecting quite a bit from such little pups? ‘Peace’ and ‘Hope’?”

“They won’t be so little forever, you know. And they have some pretty big footsteps to follow in. I think they’re pretty good choices. If you have better ones, let’s hear them now.”

He smiled down at her, watching her eyes slowly sag shut. “No, I think those will be perfect.”