InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Patchwork Family ❯ Positives, Negatives, and Lumière Fantôme ( Chapter 24 )

A/N: All Inuyasha characters and references belong to the creator of Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi and published by Shogakukan. Any other characters are more than likely my own creation. If I borrow from another story I will do my best to make sure I give credit where credit is due. I will also be pulling some material ( direct ideas and inspirations mostly, rather than exact material) from Burn Notice, Scorpion, the Greywalker series, Supernatural, and Lockwood & Co.

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Kagome jerked awake with a gasp as a crash of thunder sounded above the house. She opened her eyes wide in the darkness. It took her a moment to remember where she was. The warmth of Inuyasha surrounded her and she took a deep breath, filling her nose with the smell of him, something woodsy and comforting, as the muted sound of rain filled her mind. He was breathing evenly, asleep. Kagome allowed a few minutes to put herself back together after her fall into the pit. She realized now, strangely, that this had been the first dream since she’d escaped.

Escaped? She almost snorted in derision at the thought. She hadn’t escaped; they’d beaten her to a pulp and thrown her in the river to die. But still, she reflected, as she’d lived- it would do. The dream hadn’t been a nightmare per-se, but it had been frantic and confusing in a way that approached a bad dream.

Carefully she slid out of bed and padded her way stiffly to the bathroom. She still felt like she was put together all wrong. As soon as she was strong enough, she told herself, it would be time to get her body moving. She needed to be stronger than this, with full range of motion. To be otherwise could get her killed in a number of ways; with or without considering the Anansi. With a quiet click, she closed the door and ran a hand through her long, sleep mussed hair. After a cursory look in the mirror, she got down on her knees and pulled the test from its hiding place. She let out a long breath and opened the box.

Inuyasha half opened his eyes and frowned, still a little sleep dazed. When he turned to the right, the bed was empty, and without thought he knew that shouldn’t be the case. He cursed and grabbed his phone, squinting at the dimmed screen to see what time it was. The display informed him it was almost 4:30 in the morning. Thunder rolled again in the distance, making his ears twitch once and go flat for a moment. He groaned and swung his feet out of bed.

When he didn’t find Kagome in the sitting room, his gaze flicked to the closed bathroom door and the thin strip of light that shone from beneath it. His ears twitched as he listened, only to hear nothing. He stood, and after a full minute passed with no sounds indicating anyone was in the bathroom, he knocked lightly on the door.

Something plastic clattered on the tile and there was a small startled noise. He frowned. “Kagome? Everything ok?”

Kagome sat on the chilly tile floor, still staring at the test strips when the knock at the door made her drop them. She scooped them back up and replied quickly. “Yeah, great.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. Her voice was several octaves higher than it should have been- a squeak really.

There was a pause and Inuyasha’s voice came through the door again, sounding more alert. “What’s wrong?”

Kagome cursed herself and tried to normalize her tone. “Nothing. I’m fine Inuyasha, go back to bed. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Inuyasha crossed his arms and paced the sitting room in the dark a few times. One minute passed, then two, then four. He gave her a full five minutes before he knocked again. “What’s going on?”

She didn’t reply at first and he twisted the doorknob. It was locked, but the movement provoked a response. “Nothing, I just need to think. Please…” Kagome dropped her head beneath her hands, onto her knees, muffling her words a little. “Just… go.”

Something in this went straight to Inuyasha’s chest; made it tighten painfully, and he couldn’t say a word. After a second he shook himself and leaned against the door frame on one hand. “I’m not goin’ anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

Kagome’s words were still muffled against her knees as she said, “just need to think. Nothing more to it, all good, bye now.”

“What kind of thinking requires you to be in the bathroom with the door locked at 4 a.m.?” he asked.

After all she’d been through, he wondered if he shouldn’t have watched her closer, but she hadn’t seemed inclined to self-harm or suicide. She’d been so determined to go after the jewel. Frankly he’d been more concerned she’d try to take off after Naraku again on her own as soon as she was able to walk. He inhaled a long breath, searching for any scent of blood. He was relieved to find none, and he knew the medicine cabinet was empty.

Inuyasha squatted down on the balls of his feet outside the door, elbows on his knees. He could tell from the direction her voice came that she was sitting on the floor. “Kagome, you have two options right now. You can come out here, or you can open the door and let me in.”

When she didn’t respond after thirty seconds his frown deepened. “Kagome?”

Her voice came, small and tired, as she almost begged, “no, please go away. I’m fine.”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. “Yeah… see, something about having a lock-in on the bathroom floor kinda makes me think otherwise. Call me paranoid.”

“You’re paranoid,” she muttered. “Go back to bed.”

He snorted a laugh. Well, she tossed out a joke… maybe. That eased his nerves a little, though her voice sounded thick and rough, as if she’d been crying again. “Okay,” he said, an idea occurring to him. “Third option, if you want I can go get Sango or Rose.”

“No.” she said at once.

He sighed, running a hand wearily over his face from forehead to chin. “It’s going to be one of those three choices and if you don’t pick one now, I’ll choose for you. I don’t have any problem breaking my bathroom door but you should know every demon here will probably come running if they hear wood being smashed in.”

Silence filled the space between them for a minute before Inuyasha prodded her again. “Kagome…”

“I’m thinking.” She let her head bang into her knee once, wincing a little and looked at the test strips again. If she talked to anyone about this, she thought, as Sango had one child of her own, she would be the best choice. But there was no reason to anyone else up right this second. It wasn’t as if the issue at hand would be any different in 12 hours. “I’ll talk to Sango later, after she gets back from work tonight.”

Inuyasha braced his elbows on his bent knees again. “Sure, if you come out now and show me you’re really ok.” Privately, he was trying to decide if he would really let it go at that, or if he would just use this as a ploy. He couldn’t make up his mind. He could almost feel her buzzing, confused anxiety in his own head, at the edges of his own thoughts. He shook himself a little away from the foreign feeling. Now he knew what everyone meant when they talked about the effects of a blood exchange.

There was more silence, then he heard her get to her feet. A moment later he heard something crumple and the door knob turned. He stood and squinted for a moment as the light penetrated the dark of the sitting room, then he saw Kagome’s silhouette. His eyes adjusted and he watched her carefully, inhaling her scent deeply as she stepped out of the bathroom. When he took a step toward her she stepped back quickly, running into the bathroom door frame. His frown returned and he held up his hands in the universal ‘I come in peace’ position, murmuring to her, “hey… what’s up?”

Slowly, he closed the distance between them to lay his hands on her slim shoulders. She was trembling, and he ran his hands down her arms. She’d taken her pajama top off. Her skin was bare beneath his fingers, and chilled, except where the thin straps of the black camisole looped her shoulders. His hands reached hers and he found one of her hands was curled around a crushed cardboard something. He tried to take it but she pulled it away and sputtered, “no. I’m fine, see?”

Inuyasha gently, but firmly grasped her wrist in one hand and used the other to pull the piece of rubbish from her fingers. She tried hard to hang on but he had it in under a second. She grabbed at it, her voice shrill and slightly hysterical. “Inuyasha stop!”

With a frown he glanced down at the twisted words on the package and realized what it was. Golden eyes cut back to Kagome, who stood with one arm wrapped around her middle and the other hand covering her mouth. She turned away and walked quickly into the bedroom. Inuyasha stood there in stunned silence for a second until he heard her plastic bags rustling. When he walked into the bedroom he saw her pajama pants on the floor and she was already pulling the pair of Sango’s jeans she’d been wearing yesterday around her hips and buttoning them.

His brain stalled, and he asked lamely, “what are you doing?”

Kagome didn’t answer, but started throwing her few belongings back into the plastic sacks. She sat on the edge of the messy bed, searching the floor of the dark room for her shoes. Inuyasha realized what she meant to do and dropped to sit on his heels in front of her, pulling one running shoe out of her hand. She let out a sound of distress that was halfway to a sob and grabbed at the shoe.

Inuyasha tossed it over his shoulder and pressed the mangled box into her fingers again, covering her chilly hands with his own warmer ones and demanding, “tell me what this is all about.”

Kagome just shook her head, closing her eyes and squeezing the box. Inuyasha reached over and turned on the small lamp sitting on the bedside table. A few tears leaked from her eyes and he slid a hand up to the side of her face, using a thumb to wipe them away as he asked, “what’s going on in there?”

She shook her head again, taking a deep, shuddering breath before she said hoarsely, “I… I’m pregnant.”

Inuyasha frowned and shook his head in confusion. “What?”

Kagome opened her eyes and repeated herself in a rough whisper. “I’m pregnant.”

Inuyasha looked up at her and shook his head again, her words at odds with his own knowledge. He dropped forward to stand on his knees and leaned in close, hands on either side of her hips. The abruptness of the action placed him between her knees where she sat on the bed. She tried to slide away but he held her firmly at the waist, burying his nose against her neck for a moment as confirmed his assessment.

The smell of fear had grown exponentially with this move, but he only pulled back enough to look her in the eyes, bringing a hand up to frame her face again. “Kagome listen to me. You aren’t pregnant.”

She looked confused, and somewhat tortured. “W… what? I don’t…”

He forced her to keep eye contact with him as he repeated himself. “You are not pregnant.”

She hyperventilated for a second before she got her lungs under control. “But… but I took…” she held up the crumpled box and he grabbed it, throwing it in the trash bin in the corner. “It’s wrong.”

She narrowed her eyes in confusion, reluctant to believe him, to allow herself that kind of hope. “How could you know that?”

He let out a relieved breath. “Demons, even half demons, can smell the difference between a woman carrying a pup and a woman who’s not.”

Kagome just stared at him uncomprehending. He followed it up with a little black humor, hoping to ease her tension. “If you were pupped, don’t you think that jerk Koga would’ve had a field day with that, rather than just the change in your general smell? He would have caught it right away. It’s a pretty distinctive thing.”

Her hands clenched and he took them in his again and stood. He got back onto the bed and pulled her against him to sit sideways in his lap, wrapping the comforter around her. She protested at first, but then relented and, doing quite the opposite, clung to him tightly. After a few minutes and a few relieved tears, she seemed to relax a bit. He ran a hand through her hair and asked, “better?”

She sniffed once and sat up a little to look at him. “You’re sure? Like a thousand percent sure?”

He tried not to laugh and nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Kagome breathed out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank the gods.” She took in a few more deep breaths before she said, “but then why would I get three positive tests?”

Inuyasha frowned and shrugged. “Like I have any idea. Surely those things can’t be perfect.”

She shook her head. “No… one false positive is possible, but not three… I don’t think.”

“Well… apparently it is possible,” he pointed out lamely.

“But three positives…” she muttered to herself, at a loss and unable to let it go.

Inuyasha sighed and asked, “how are those tests supposed work?”

“They detect certain hormones only present in the body during pregnancy.”

After a moment’s consideration, he asked, “Is it possible whatever drugs he had you on messed with it? It’s a chemistry issue, of sorts, right?”

Kagome was silent for a long time, searching her memory. Suddenly she grabbed his forearm where it sat across her knees. “The shots!”

“What shots?” he asked, completely lost.

“The shots,” Kagome said again, unhelpfully. “Naraku gave me a series of shots to make it more likely I’d conceive.”

Inuyasha’s expression went hard and his voice was a raw growl. “He did what?”

Kagome’s mouth snapped shut. She’d been working through it in her mind and the words had automatically come out as she reached her conclusion. Now Inuyasha looked like he wanted to rip off someone’s arms and beat them to death with the bloody appendages. She went very still, waiting for him to push her away, to be completely disgusted with her. Instead, Inuyasha asked carefully, “should I assume this was under duress?”

Kagome blanched, her face twisting in revulsion. “You don’t think I wanted to sleep with, let alone have a baby, with that… that… ugh…” she trailed off, covering her mouth with one hand, feeling ill and unable to find a word strong enough to describe her negative feelings. Inuyasha’s expression changed to one of anger, but now also of regret. “Then… he did... rape you. I wasn’t sure; there were so many other smells.”

She chewed her lip and nodded once, looking away from him and towards the open door. Her throat tightened in the face of those memories, that word, and she tried desperately to transfer her thoughts back to the life altering fact that through some divine mercy, she hadn’t conceived, despite Naraku’s efforts. Something in her seemed to thaw, melting her into a puddle of relief. Suddenly she felt very tired again, and comfortable, curled up against Inuyasha’s chest. He’d moved his hand to rest on her hip as he held her, and she found she didn’t much mind. Looking up apprehensively she asked, “can you please not tell anyone?”

Inuyasha considered the request, analyzing the information to make sure it wasn’t something Sesshomaru might need to know as well. Finally he said, “okay, but can you tell me why? What was Naraku trying to accomplish? Surely that lunatic didn’t just wake up one morning with the urgent wish to be a father.”

Kagome bit her lip, pulling away from him a little. She grasped the blanket to her tightly for a moment, looking uncertain. She studied his face for a moment, again wearing that ‘how much can I share?’ look, before she whispered, “you know I have Miko powers, but I mentioned that mine are a little different. It’s a long story, but…” she trailed off trying to think of a way to explain without going into the whole strange issue of her role in the society of the dead. She stared at the fingers of one hand in the dim light, then glanced at Inuyasha out of the corner of her eye. “This won’t burn anything.. so don’t freak out.”

Inuyasha raised his brows in question and she snapped her fingers. There was a flare of light that made him flinch, flattening his ears for a moment in the sudden visual discomfort. There in her palm, a small, rose colored flame, tinted with flickers of blue licked at her palm. It was as if the inside of her hand was coated in some flammable liquid. Inuyasha stared at it for a moment and looked back up at her face.

The small dancing light softly illuminated her features as well as the ceiling above them, throwing long shadows around the room. He stared at her face in the strange light and was struck hard again with a sense of familiarity. She stared at the flame, smiling a little, before transferring her gaze to his own. “Go ahead, touch it.”

Hesitantly, Inuyasha did so, sliding his fingers across her palm, through the flame. The dancing fire wasn’t disturbed in the slightest, and all he felt was faint, tingling warmth. “Okay…” he said slowly. “That’s a neat trick. I didn’t know Mikos could do that.”

Kagome looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “Have you known many Mikos? The only one I’ve ever met was my grandmother. My father had the magic, and did the job to some extent, but he always said it was silly to call him a monk of any kind.”

Something flickered across Inuyasha’s face so quickly she couldn’t be sure what it was, and then his expression became blank in a practiced way, reminding her of his brother Sesshomaru. “I’ve known a few Mikos. It was a long time ago.”

Kagome’s eyes focused back on the flickering flame and she explained, “my grandfather called it lumière fantôme, a ghost light.” Inuyasha frowned thoughtfully as she closed her hand, extinguishing the fire.

“What is that…,” Inuyasha asked. “Italian?”

“French,” she corrected gently.

They were silent for a moment, thunder rumbling overhead, the patter of rain on the roof filling the room. Finally Inuyasha said, “so… Naraku was interested in your magic?”

Her smile faded and she nodded. “Yes. He wanted to see what would happen in a child with both my powers and his own, rather more disgusting contributions. I got the sense he’s done some major experimentation to become what he is now, whatever that is. ”

Inuyasha grunted a small sound of acknowledgment, considering her words while his thumb traced small circles where his hand rested now against her knee. Kagome studied his face carefully. “Please promise you won’t tell anyone?”

He frowned a little. “About your powers? At least Sesshomaru and Sango, and probably Miroku know you’re a Miko.” She thought for a second and shook her head. “No, my magic isn’t necessarily a secret. Just the part about…” she trailed off, her tongue refusing to wrap itself around the remaining words as she pressed a hand to her flat belly. Inuyasha reached up and ran a hand into her hair again, replying quietly, “just the part about what he did to you. Yeah… I promise.”

She managed a thin smile and he pulled her back into his arms. Kagome came willingly, curling back up. After a few minutes he pulled his phone out and looked at the time. “It’s half past five. Do you think you can get some more sleep? I don’t have to be anywhere early.”

Slowly, she nodded, murmuring against his shirt. “I’m sorry I’m causing you so much grief. In my defense… I tried to keep it to myself this time. You made me share.” And now, in the relief he’d delivered, she was so glad he’d insisted.

Inuyasha shook his head, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, lay a kiss on the top of her head. “I won’t say it’s no trouble, but it’s not your fault. He’s an evil son of a bitch and his reckoning’s been a long time coming. Like I said, you aren’t the only one rowing this boat.”

‘No,’ she thought, ‘I’m just the one that might have equipped him with the power to hurt many more’. Kagome closed her eyes and tried not to think anymore, tried to let the constant ache of worry fade for the moment. Knowing she wasn’t carrying a child, Naraku’s child, went a long way toward making her feel more sane. She didn’t any longer feel like she might crack and fall into a million tiny pieces.

“Thank you Inuyasha,” she said emphatically. He just gave her a gentle squeeze again, murmuring against her hair in a voice that was warm and rough in the way of an old comfortable wool blanket. “Yeah- yeah, get some rest now.”