InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Patchwork Family ❯ A Disturbing Meditation, Unexpected Accounting, and Stealth Maneuver Nap ( Chapter 42 )

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

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 directly from another story I will do my best to make sure I give credit where credit is due. I will be pulling some material (ideas and inspirations) from Burn Notice, Leverage, Scorpion, Supernatural, and Lockwood & Co.


*** A Disturbing Meditation, Unexpected Accounting, and Stealth Maneuver Nap ***
03222015 (numbers are for my own purposes, don’t mind them)

Miroku dropped to sit in the sand at the edge of the lawn and look out at the water as he explained, “there’s not much to it. I just sit and make myself quiet a little at a time, until I’m calm, or as close as I can get. My father told me when I was very young that quieting your power, grounding it, and spending time with it was important; that the energy was like a sharp tool, and if you didn’t pay attention to it, and how you were relating to it, it was like running with scissors.”

Kagome sat down carefully in the sand also, leaving a few feet of space between them. She crossed her legs and let her hands settle in her lap. Miroku looked over at her and smiled a little, commenting in a wry tone, “though I expect if your response to Sesshomaru’s unplanned power flux is any indication… you’re dealing with something more.”

She cocked her head a little but her curious expression was still cautious. “What do you mean?”

Miroku thought for a second and said, “what I mean is… if dropping my meditation practice would be running with scissors, you might be hurtling along at 90 miles per hour with a lighter in one hand and explosive napalm in the other.”

Kagome snorted a little doubtfully, but when her head throbbed she winced. The man next to her moved to sit cross legged as well, setting his hands on his knees and straightening his spine. He closed his eyes and after a moment he said, “control your breathing, ten seconds slowly in, and ten seconds slowly out.”

She settled into her space and turned her eyes out to the water where it lapped at the sand. She did as he advised, breathing long and slow, falling into a rhythm. After a few minutes of mostly quiet breathing, Miroku said, “then… you just take some time to sort through your thoughts and let them go. Think of each distraction as a leaf and set it down in a stream. Let the current take it away and keep it safely for you to retrieve later. Do this over, and over, and over… until there’s nothing left.”

Kagome doubted it would be that easy, but when she peeked at Miroku, he seemed to be doing just that. He sat calm and still, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling regularly. With a small sigh she closed her eyes, sorting through her thoughts, and then deciding it would be easier to just start with her body, and not her torrent of potentially overwhelming problems. This was something her grandfather had taught her to do when there was time before heading out on business with a difficult spirit or creature of the DS.

It was a sort of meditation she supposed. He’d always told her that it was best to anchor yourself. If you were rested, well balanced, and stable, it was much less likely that anything that meant harm could break your focus. It also decreased the size of the gaps through which spirits who might be inclined to internal harm or possession might slip.

Kagome moved her mind from her head down, consciously relaxing each joint and muscle, paying attention to the places she found energy tugging or pulling, and smoothing the ragged tendrils of magic. She did her best to think of nothing but the task at hand, though this was a little challenging as she reached her hips and butt. Briefly, the memories of Inuyasha’s attentions that morning intruded on her efforts. She felt the slight soreness throbbing a little with heat, and the stiffness in her hip joints.

She swallowed and focused for a moment on the warmth of the late morning sunshine on her skin. It crept across her face and settled across her shoulders; a soothing presence that settled her thoughts. Inuyasha must have noticed her short distraction on his end of their link because she felt him at the edges of her thoughts. She didn’t turn to look at him, but brushed herself against his warm presence before gently pushing it away. She was trying to concentrate and having him there would only make her think about other things.

She returned to her meditation, relaxing the muscles in her lower back and moved on to her thighs, dropping her knees a little as she let the joints slacken, loosening her muscles all the way down to her toes. After that she found to her surprise that Miroku’s advice was actually rather functional. As each thought or trouble passed before her attention, she set it into an imaginary current, and let it float away.

This took some time, but finally she sat, faintly hearing the kids playing quite a ways down the beach, but not really listening as she sunk into the ebb and flow of the magic. As she’d been able to do years go with her father, grandfather, and with her grandmother, she could sense the power that moved in Miroku. His energy was calm and steady, if significantly dimmer than hers. The power that lay in his hand, however, was a different story. It was connected to his magic by a thin, razor sharp thread, and it maintained a sucking, void; a vacuum of power all its own. It felt cold and lightless, and she backed away from it instinctively.

She was able to alter or purify dark magic sometimes, but she knew better than to try and touch the curse in Miroku’s hand. It was a sickly, violent thing. She focused on herself again, centering the shifting mass of power in her head and chest, coaxing it into stillness. Slowly, the headache and nausea began to fade, and she found the process was easier when she shifted her consciousness slightly left of center, moving herself into the first layer of the Dead Space. She did this automatically. The spiritual powers she’d received from her grandfather’s side of the family were directly interlaced with those that came from the line of Shinto priestesses that had produced her grandmother.

Kagome sank gradually deeper into the cool, calm Dead Space. She’d never felt everything on this plane so still and quiet. There were always ghosts and spirits of varying levels, occasionally even layered on top of one another. Additionally, the landscape and environment sometimes held onto memories as well, which was sometimes a help and sometimes a hindrance.

Usually, the constant humming, crackling Dead Space enveloped her in its whispers, but this property was very near the mass of the ocean’s purifying salt water, well removed from even the small town of Eureka. As a result of its location and the fact that there had been few residents at the house besides the Wardens, it was almost silent. She slipped further over into the DS, and felt almost as if she were moving beneath cold water, staring at the world above through a clear sheet of ice.

She heard footsteps, but they were far away and somehow not relevant to her as she sank through the unprecedented stillness. She furrowed her brow, feeling a disturbance to her left. She cocked her head a little and opened her eyes to see that the world she looked at was a very different version of the place she knew.

The light was a pale blue-tinted gray, the ocean flat and nearly motionless. There was a static feel to everything that she surmised must be the natural state of the Dead Space with no spirits or memories to recall the constant movement of life… except for a single aberration to her left, down the beach on the far side of the stone ridge behind the house. There was a pale tangle of very faint disturbance. It lay shifting slowly, like a mass of knotted, glowing threads that sighed and turned in its sleep. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it didn’t seem out of sorts and wasn’t bothering anything, so she backed her energy away from it, leaving it in peace.

A feeling of warmth made her aware suddenly how chilled she felt. It took her a moment to identify the feeling as a warm coat of soft silvery fur pressing into her thoughts. With it came an impression of red and gold light swirling restlessly through its presence as it pushed its way insistently into her mind and curled against her heart, radiating heat and pressing at her with a demanding nudge.

***

Miroku opened his eyes as he heard Inuyasha coming up behind him. When he looked over his shoulder, he found his friend was frowning and he glanced at Kagome. All at once he realized her presence next to him felt very different than it had before. He’d been focused on his own internal world, and hadn’t noticed the sudden chill that had settled in next to him. He could sense her power was calm and still now, unlike the roiling mess it had been when they’d started, but it wasn’t quite right, not like anything he’d felt before.

“How’s it goin’ over here?” Inuyasha asked, stopping just behind Kagome. When she didn’t turn or indicate in any way that she’d heard him, his frown deepened and he circled around to face them, dropping to one knee in front of her. He’d felt a change in that space between them in his head as he’d been working on his motorcycle. Slowly she’d seemed to drift farther away until he could barely feel her at all. It surprised him how quickly he’d become accustomed to her being there at the other end of that gap between them. All his life he’d been alone in his head and had never thought a thing of it.

That she was suddenly almost gone from that place where she ought to be when he reached out made his breath catch in his throat, like missing a last, unexpected step on a staircase in the dark. It left a lonely wrongness in its place and as it had gradually grown worse, he’d wondered for a second if Sesshomaru had shared the same direct connection with Rhiannon. If their link through the blood exchange had been just as close, he suddenly understood on a new level why losing a mate was more than just burying a spouse. The uncomfortable stretch on his connection with Kagome was enough to make his chest tighten painfully, and he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like if it were severed completely.

“Uh… Kagome?” he asked slowly. He hesitated to touch her, remembering her grimace of discomfort in the kitchen. She didn’t open her eyes and he leaned closer, pulling her scent in and almost sneezing at the strange edge to it. The only thing he could compare it to was the smell of frozen iron or steel, but not even that quite described it. He turned his eyes to Miroku and demanded, “what are you having her do?”

Miroku looked perplexed as he held out his hands in a helpless gesture. “Just a simple meditation; whatever this is, it’s something different… she feels different. Kagome?”

The young woman still sat, unresponsive, eyes closed. Inuyasha waved a hand in front of her face. “No shit. She doesn’t smell right either.” He shook his head, wincing as he said, “and it feels almost like the start of a brain freeze.”

Miroku raised a curious brow, then leaned back in surprise when Kagome’s eyes opened. Inuyasha’s frown deepened and he exclaimed slowly, “what in the hell? Kagome… answer me dammit!”

Her eyes were no longer the vibrant blue-gray he expected to see. They were a dark silvery color from lid to lid. There was no pupil, no cornea, no whites, only a solid shifting mass of silver-white… shifting like shadowed mist. It was definitely among the creepiest things he’d ever seen and he felt the beginnings of fear clawing into his chest. Something had to be wrong.

Inuyasha glanced at Miroku but the monk shook his head, at a loss for any explanation. Miroku leaned forward on his knees to look into her strange new eyes. “Kagome… can you hear us?”

There was no response again and Inuyasha touched her knee. He shook his head in disbelief, laying his palm against her leg, feeling her cold flesh through the fabric of her green cargo pants. “She’s freezing…” he muttered.

Miroku reached out and touched a few fingers to her arm, withdrawing them again quickly with a sharp sound, as if he’d been electrocuted. When he’d touched her, his power could feel hers through her connection to the Dead Space, and the world around him seemed to shift and move in an unsettling manner, the jolt of her magic moving through him like an icy tide. Kagome was still breathing steadily, but the air that came from her pale, slightly parted lips fogged a little as it hit the warmer air outside her body.

Inuyasha’s eyes narrowed in confusion when he saw the cloud of super-chilled air and noticed a thin layer of frost crystals had formed on her skin, creeping along her neck and across her jaw, spreading across her hands. He glared at Miroku and demanded a little wildly, “what the hell is this? Don’t you know how to pull her out of it?”

Miroku looked at Kagome, frowning thoughtfully and shook his head, still holding the hand he’d touched her with. “Inuyasha, I don’t know what she’s doing, but I promise, it’s not anything I’ve ever seen. This is as bizarre to me as it is to you. When I touched her, it felt like…” He considered for a long moment before he explained, “her energy felt like the spirit world, not the magic of a human Miko. I mean, there was some Miko power there, but it was submissive to whatever else she’s doing.”

Inuyasha looked back into Kagome’s pale face as he asked, “but it is something that she’s doing?”

Miroku nodded and said, “yes, I’m sure of that.”

They watched as Kagome turned her head slightly to the left, cocking it to the side a bit as if she were listening to something they couldn’t hear. The frost along her neck and jaw began to thicken, thin crystals of ice blooming across her lips and around her eyes, traveling from under the sleeves of her shirt down her arms. Inuyasha cautiously set his hand on her wrist, watching the frost melt against his skin, just as normal frost would. He pulled his hand away, feeling to a lesser extent something similar to what Miroku had. The chilly electricity of her power crept through his arm all the way to his shoulder.

Inuyasha rolled the joint a little to disperse the discomfort and made a sound of frustration, not sure what to do. Miroku watched her carefully before he asked, “you can feel whatever’s happening through a bond created by the blood exchange?”

The half-demon said, “yeah… why?” He didn’t take his eyes off Kagome as her silver-misted eyes moved, as if looking at something specific. “It’s giving me a headache, kinda like someone’s holding an ice cube against my brain.” He wrinkled his nose a little and added, “and there’s a taste in my mouth like I sucked on a freezer burned piece of steak.”

Miroku considered this before he asked, “can you always feel her through that pathway? Is it her mind or her powers? It’s not like telepathy is it?”

Inuyasha shook his head and explained, “it’s just like there’s an extra space that wasn’t there before, and she’s on the other side of it. We can push and pull across that; mostly just impressions though…. not clear messages-- not like words and stuff.”

Miroku crouched next to Kagome, watching the frost settle over her wrist, and offered, “maybe you can pull her back that way? Clearly she can’t hear us out here… maybe she will in there.”

Inuyasha frowned at the unsettling swirl of her eyes and muttered, “can’t see me either.” He was alarmed to find that, though he could still see her plain as day, he could also faintly see the outline of his motorcycle in the driveway through her, as though her body was somehow growing less substantial.

Almost panicked that she might disappear somehow, he closed his eyes and reached out to take her hand in his, despite the discomfort the contact brought. He gritted his teeth against the ache and found the distant presence of her across what had become a mental canyon between them. He surged forward, throwing himself across that dark space, pressing a part of himself as hard and fast as he could manage across the gap to her.

It took a long moment, but he shivered when he reached her side, finding her smooth, strong, vanilla-and-rain presence cooler than usual. He was relieved when it seemed to warm quickly to a point he felt was closer to normal, and he curled himself into that feeling that was Kagome.

Miroku’s eyes widened in fascination as he saw his friend bow his head a little after a second, his teeth bared a little in frustration as his breath began to come in faint puffs of cold air as well, though nothing as cold as what Kagome was exhaling. Unconsciously, Inuyasha leaned forward, clenching his jaw against the chilly ache as he pressed his cheek to hers, sliding his hand up her cold arm to bury his fingers in her hair. The strands had still been damp underneath from her shower, and he found the water remaining in it had turned to a film of ice that flaked away under his touch.

Still he reached, fighting to push and tug her back to where she’d been before, where he could feel her mind near his, where it felt right for her to be. He whispered under his breath, “come back, Kagome, wherever it is you’re at… you’re kinda’ freakin’ me out here.”

***

There were voices.

Mens’ voices… they were so far away.

As she curled instinctively against that warm, silky, fur-coated presence, the voices became louder in her ears. She twisted a little in confusion, her focus divided in several directions as she heard her name. The voice that spoke it was one she recognized, a voice that meant something to her.

But he couldn’t be here. It wasn’t possible.

Her head throbbed and she closed her eyes, inhaling a deep breath of warm salty air. It filled her frosted lungs with a shock and she coughed, her mind and soul sliding back out of the Dead Space with a yank and tug that was much faster than she’d ever felt before.

Miroku breathed a sigh of relief when Kagome blinked a few times and her eyes returned to normal. Her chest heaved with a shuddering gasp and she seemed to cough and choke for a second. Inuyasha opened his eyes and searched her face, still kneeling in the sand in front of her. He shook out his aching fingers and coughed once himself, before he cupped her frost covered face in both hands, the contact of her magic no longer biting unnaturally into his bones.

Kagome coughed again and pulled back a little, surprised to find Inuyasha sitting right in front of her, looking like he was bracing for her to vanish at any second. She glanced at Miroku’s relieved face and back at the man in front of her. “Inuyasha… what… what’s wrong?”

He looked at her incredulously for a second before he closed his eyes in relief. She was covered in frost, but she seemed to be alright. He set his forehead against hers for a moment, his fingers still tangled in her hair as he held her face. She blinked in surprise again when he pressed his lips to hers in a quick, firm kiss. When he drew back, her mind was still trying to pull itself back into a cohesive functioning whole. She was still a little off balance from the slingshot experience her slide back from the Dead Space had been.

Inuyasha pressed his forehead to hers for another second before he fell back to sit on his butt, letting his hand slide down to rub her cold arm. “What’s wrong-- is one minute you were giving me a busy signal so you could work, and then you were a million miles away and turning into a human popsicle. What the hell was that about?”

She glanced nervously from the agitated Inuyasha to Miroku and back again, pulling her thoughts together. She brushed some frost from her cheek, looked at it with a slight frown, and suddenly realized what must have happened; what she must have done without meaning to. She’d been so relaxed as she rooted around in her own magic that she’d started sinking incrementally across the layers of the spirit world, headed towards a more ‘full immersion’ trip into the Dead Space. Inuyasha’s mind was racing against hers, twitching and turning restlessly, and for a second she thought he was angry at her.

When Inuyasha felt her shrinking away from him apprehensively, he shook his head and took her half frozen hands in his, rubbing her fingers to warm them. “Don’t do that. You know better,” he scolded, a little gruffly. “Now, tell me what the deal is. I thought I was losing my mind for a second…”

His shoulders seemed to relax a little as he studied her, finding that she was completely solid and seemed well enough. Slowly he admitted, “I thought you were starting to disappear on me.”

Kagome began to understand that he’d been confused and almost… afraid? Her heart squeezed at the way he looked at her. She took a second to appreciate that she’d started to see him as a man who wasn’t afraid of anything, and for him to feel something like fear at her unexplained distance was humbling. It made her feel important, like her continued existence meant something-- and more than just something pertaining to the retrieval of the Shikon no Tama.

After she’d found Souta’s obituary article online, she’d begun to feel like the jewel was all that was left of her life. Nothing else mattered. Kagome didn’t matter; only the Miko did. A part of her had begun to slip away. Nearly everyone her heart had been closely connected to was gone and then she’d been pretending so hard to be someone else for months and months on top of it. She gave his hands a quick squeeze, letting her fingers interlace with his. She shot the worried Miroku a tight, reassuring smile before she said, “I’m okay. I’m not going anywhere. I just…”

She tried to think of a way to explain what had happened… without actually explaining what had happened. She didn’t want them to know… not yet. They seemed to know about magic to some extent, at least magic as they knew it. But this was something else altogether. They would think she was a lunatic and she couldn’t make herself let go of what she was starting to have with them, especially with Inuyasha. It had to happen eventually, she knew that… but this was too soon.

Kagome chose her words carefully as she said, “I was meditating, sort of like Miroku said, and I was working on straightening my head and my magic out. I got distracted and I just sort of…” she paused, trying to find a way to describe what had happened. She didn’t plan on lying to them, even if she wasn’t giving them much of the truth. “Sort of … accidently… fell in,” she finished, lamely.

Miroku raised a brow in disbelief and said, “fell in my ass. You were gone, ghost eyes and frosty skin-- I’ve never seen anything like that. What were you doing?”

She glanced at Miroku sharply at the word ‘ghost.’ Why would he have chosen that word? Did he know something about the Dead Space? Did the work of the Homme de Sel? It was unlikely, there were so few like her, and her grandfather before her.

When Miroku genuinely didn’t seem to know anything, she decided it was coincidence. He didn’t know, and if she told them… well, it would sound completely crackers. Hojo hadn’t even believed her, after all; and rather than show him-- rather than prove it was true, she’d decided it was better to let him go. He’d been a kind, but simple guy, and he wanted a normal home someday, with a normal wife, and normal kids. She could never give that to anyone. But she wasn’t ready to be alone again.

Kagome closed her now completely normal eyes and seemed to shrink into herself, shoulders curving and shivering a little as the last of the frost on her skin vanished. Inuyasha sensed the surge in her anxiety, heard her heart beating faster in her chest as her scent spiked with a strange sort of reluctant dread and panic. He frowned and sat closer so he could slid his hands up and down her thawing arms, ducking his head to look her in the eye and adding his own verbal prod. “Whatever you did-- I could feel it, but I couldn’t tell what the hell it was… or where it was. It hurt just to touch you. You were gone and you couldn’t hear me. I had to come get you Kagome. Tell me you would have made it back on your own.”

She opened her eyes, frowning a little in thought as she remembered the soft warmth of Inuyasha’s consciousness curling against her in the Dead Space; his persistent tugging and pushing, and her light-speed return to the living plane. Suddenly it made sense and she was floored that such a thing was even possible. Inuyasha had followed her into the DS, if only in a limited way.

Kagome at him for a second in wonder, astonished at what he’d done, and fully grasping for the first time how scared he’d actually been that she was lost someplace where he couldn’t get to her. She almost laughed at the idea of getting lost in the Dead Space. She didn’t think it could happen, not the way her senses worked. But Inuyasha didn’t know that, didn’t even know that’s where she’d been going; disappearing a little more into that other place with every passing minute. Heck, most people didn’t know that the Dead Space existed.

‘I thought you were starting to disappear on me…’ he’d said.

Inuyasha had actually seen her physical body on this end beginning to follow the rest of her in a slow slide across the layers in the outer part of the spirit world. She could step almost completely into that plane, becoming nearly invisible on this side unless someone knew to look closely. That got complicated though, because when it happened she still wasn’t entirely insubstantial here.

When she was fully immersed she couldn’t hear this side at all, and could only see the living if she really tried, so she was essentially walking deaf and almost blind. It wasn’t generally practical for more time than it took to get a good look at something and then step back out again in the same general location. Once, when she’d first been learning how to use her magic, she’d nearly broken a kneecap walking into a low table in the living world that she’d no longer  been able to see.

How was she going to explain that away? ‘Oh don’t mind me Inuyasha, I just kind of ghost out sometimes when I’m not paying as close attention to life as I am to death,’ she thought.

Yeah… right... Kagome sighed to herself and said, “I would’ve made it back on my own. I never really left. I was here. It was just… sort of… a different part of here. I told you before-- my magic is a little… uh… weird. I just lost my focus, but it’s fine… really.”

Miroku arched a brow and said, “that was more than just a little weird. It was almost scary. What was with the eyes?”

When Inuyasha didn’t look convinced either, Kagome hung her head, almost ready to accept defeat. In a last-ditch attempt to retain her good standing in this world as a sane person, she asked quietly, “it’s the way my magic works. It’s complicated. Can you please… accept that? For now?” She met Inuyasha’s eyes, pleading with him as she said, “I’m sorry I worried you. I’ll try not to let it happen again-- but I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Inuyasha wanted to demand a better explanation, but he had a secret of his own… more than one actually, between his human transformations and the business with a sacred arrow that may or may not directly concern her. Though she’d been uneasy about it, she hadn’t pressed him the night before when he hadn’t wanted to tell her. He searched her face, trying to understand what she was so afraid of, because he could sense that it was fear that fueled her need to keep holding back.

Finally he asked, “is it dangerous?”

Kagome thought for a second and shook her head, qualifying her answer carefully. “What I just did wasn’t dangerous… no.” Sometimes her work in the course of her duties to the dead was dangerous. But not this, and not here, so her words were technically the truth.

He watched her for a long time, and Kagome was afraid he wasn’t going to let it go, but then to her relief, he nodded reluctantly. “Alright, fine… for now,” he added, holding her gaze to make sure she understood his agreement was conditional on her spilling her guts eventually. Her whole mind and body seemed to ease with the reprieve.

Miroku looked thoughtful and asked, “I don’t suppose it’s something you could teach me? It could make for a really great trick at Halloween.”

Kagome let out a rueful laugh and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Sorry Miroku.”

***

It took Sesshomaru nearly an hour after his altercation with Inuyasha to calm down. He’d moved to sit on the side of his bed in the dark room, doing some meditation of his own to get himself smoothed out. He wasn’t entirely certain why Inuyasha’s prodding had made his temper so explosive. The implications angered him, but far beyond the extent to which good sense found reason for.

There were the obvious deductions, which Inuyasha himself had already reached as possibilities, but none of those were justification for lashing out so fast and loose with his power. He didn’t think he’d lost it like that in almost six hundred years unless someone was actively trying to take his head off first. So he sat, head bent in the dark, eyes closed, until he felt reasonably sure he was in full control again.

Sesshomaru pulled on a loose, white cotton button-up shirt, rolling back the sleeves and fastening the garment halfway closed over his chest. The lightweight, gray pants, he decided, would serve well enough until he had to dress for a meeting late that night. He pulled his silver mane into several long, tight braided ropes to hang over one shoulder. After he washed and dried his face and hands, he made his way down the hall in search of food.

When he entered the kitchen, he found Rosalind there by herself. She was still wearing the red turtleneck, but had her threadbare pajama pants on under it. Her hair was wound into a haphazard twist on top of her head with a few pencils keeping it in place. She had her long sleeves rolled back to the elbows and was slicing cucumbers and carrots on a wide wooden cutting board. Her face was pale and her eyes red, dark circles staining the skin beneath normally brilliant green pupils that had almost dimmed to the color of stagnant swamp water.

Rosalind looked up when he came in and must have seen the disapproval in his face, because she paused her slicing and her shoulders seemed to stiffen. She began to ramble, automatically delivering a status update of sorts. “The wolves went into town, and I think everyone else is outside, except Gabriel. He left early this-morning for the race down in L.A. He said he’ll be back tomorrow or the next day, but he’ll come straight back sooner if we need him. Miroku, Sango and Kohaku are down the beach with the kids.”

Sesshomaru came to a halt at the end of the counter adjacent to her, carefully bracing his hands against the tile surface and trying not to let his temper flare again. Rosalind looked like she was ready to fall asleep on her feet, and for no apparent reason she was chopping vegetables instead. A large stack of sandwiches sat ready on a platter next to the cutting board.

If what Inuyasha had said was true, she’d never really gone back to bed that morning. He watched her fidget with the cucumber slices, stacking them neatly in a row as she said, “I’m putting together some lunch. I figured sandwiches and some veggies for dipping were easy enough to put out for when they wander back in. Then I’m going to start pulling together a pot of soup and some rolls for tonight… is beef and noodle…”

She trailed off as Sesshomaru took the knife from her hands and wiped the blade with a clean dish towel, laying the tool on the counter next to the cutting board. He took the cucumbers from her hands and replaced them with the towel, deciding that he’d gotten better results last night when he hadn’t told her what to do, but rather physically sort of herded her into it.

Rosalind looked up at him for a second, confused. But then she rallied, taking him off-guard when she asked, “how are you doing?”

The Dai-Yokai paused for a moment as her tired eyes focused on his, searching his face. He kept his voice even as he replied, “I’m well enough.”

Her brow furrowed a little in concern and she said, “I’m not deaf, Sesshomaru. I know Inuyasha picked a fight with you a while ago, and I know you were… upset.”

He stood speechless for a moment, doing his best to keep his expression flat and inscrutable as he asked, “what is it that you heard?”

If she was aware of the details of the conversation with his brother, he thought he might sacrifice his control all over again and find the whelp, if only to flay him to within an inch of his life. Rosalind sighed a little and shrugged. “Well… I heard the door slam so hard I bet the frame cracked…”

Okay… he thought. He was responsible for that… mostly.

She went on to say, “annnnnd when you did whatever you did with your magic, it made Miroku and Kagome both a little sick. Inuyasha came in wearing the face of a satisfied button-pusher—and it wasn’t rocket science to put the pieces together. ”

Rosalind wiped her hands on the towel and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning one hip against the counter, looking up at him as she said, “I know he’s not sorry… but I think he realizes whatever he did, he took it too far… if that’s worth anything.”

Sesshomaru considered this for a moment, nodding once, stiffly. He wasn’t sure if it was worth anything to him or not. His temper was still too precarious. His mind skipped back to something else she’d said and his eyes narrowed slightly as he focused on it. “The Houshi and Kagome?”

Rosalind nodded slowly, explaining, “they said there was an unexpected power surge or something from your quarters. Miroku looked a little green but Kagome got the worst of it. I made her some tea and they went outside. Shippo came in from the front yard for a bit. He felt it too and was sure he was in trouble for something.”

Sesshomaru found a very small amount of guilt in himself; an entirely foreign feeling except as it had applied to his late wife. He hadn’t thought for a second that his minor slip would have had such an effect. But then, he supposed he shouldn’t be terribly surprised. He was strong, and powers such as his were not meant to be used at random, much less in the confines of a house.

Rosalind was frowning slightly as she said, “Kagome mentioned part of the reason it hit them so hard is that you haven’t been using your magic, that you were compressing it in some way instead.”

The Dai-Yokai had meant to shuffle Rosalind to her bedroom and demand she get some rest, and now he was being prodded and examined. He wasn’t sure he cared for the turnabout, but had to reluctantly admire the fact that she’d managed it so smoothly. That being said, he realized-- also reluctantly, that she was right. He’d been so busy with business of one kind and another that he hadn’t exercised his yokai powers to any real extent in months.

Stiffly he said, “yes. I hadn’t considered it, but I suppose that’s true. I…” He paused, searching for the right English word for a moment before he went on. American English had always come easier to Inuyasha than himself, perhaps due to its predilections toward common vulgarity. It was a rare exception to the general rule. Usually Sesshomaru was very good with languages and their various dialects. “I regret… that it caused such difficulty. That was not my intention.”

Rosalind studied him for a long moment and asked softly, “what was your intention?”

Sesshomaru considered his answer and found he wasn’t quite sure. This also irritated him. He was not accustomed to making rash decisions based on instinct alone, and though he disliked the admission, that was precisely what had happened. He’d lashed excess power around like a petulant child, if only for a moment. Finally he said tightly, a nearly imperceptible growl in the underbelly of his tone, “to remove Inuyasha from my quarters as quickly as possible without resorting to lethal force.”

He was surprised when Rosalind’s lips quirked in a tired smile that hinted at laughter, and she sighed. “Well, I appreciate that. I’d like the both of you to remain alive and intact, if that matters. At least the house is standing. I suppose I can’t ask for more than that.”

A kernel of shame crept into the small amount of guilt rooted in his chest. Rosalind was looking at him with a fatigued smile, clearly forgiving him his tantrum. She couldn’t ask for more of him than to restrain himself from causing structural damage to the building? Did she really think so little of him? He stood stiffly for a minute before he braced his hands on the counter once more and said, “I will not allow such an escalation under this roof again.” If he had to kill Inuyasha, he’d just have to have the forethought to do it outdoors.

Rosalind stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm, just below the elbow. Still smiling a little, she said, “if the choice is damaging your brother or some unplanned construction on the house, I’d prefer you just take it out on the drywall.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and gave a slight nod of uneasy acknowledgement as she pulled the jar of green tea from a cupboard and filled the kettle. When she yawned into her elbow he demanded, “you didn’t’ return to bed this-morning. Why?”

She paused for a moment, then flipped the switch on the stove, turning the flame down beneath the kettle. “I couldn’t sleep, so I made some more cinnamon rolls. I grabbed a 30 minute nap on the couch. I’m just going to load up on some caffeine and keep going. I’d rather be cooking anyway, and I can get an early start on prep for dinner, maybe make some more to put away in the freezer.”

Sesshomaru considered the situation carefully. He was developing a strategy before he said the wrong thing and she shut down on him; as she had the first day she’d been back at Shore House. He was beginning to recognize after the events of the previous night that the strange reaction in her had perhaps been a mild anxiety attack. He’d have to do some reading on the subject. She was already frazzled and he didn’t wish to cause her further distress. The goal was to make her rest before she did herself harm. As she spooned tea leaves into her strainer he asked, “how is your breathing?”

Rosalind stopped what she was doing for a moment to pay attention to her own lungs before she smiled faintly and said, “it’s fine. Thank you again for everything last night.” She glanced up at him and her cheeks flushed slightly as she remembered being tucked up against his chest on the paddle board. That trip out on the water, under the stars was a memory she planned to keep with her as long as she could; always… if possible. She doubted he realized the effect he had on her. Sesshomaru calmed her, made her feel safe, and like she was something very valuable.

Sesshomaru nodded once and said, “if you wake with such trouble again, come find me or dial my phone, if need be.”

She looked up at him again, this time with a little surprise, and her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink before she shook her head and murmured, “thank you, but I’m sure it won’t be necessary. I shouldn’t be bothering you in the middle of the night. You didn’t get any sleep.”

He glanced at the clock and said, “I am often awake at that hour. In any case, it’s Sunday, and I’ve had sufficient rest.”

Careful to keep his tone even, he observed, “you have not. You should take some time to sleep.”

Her face tightened a little and she shook her head, not even considering it before she said, “I don’t want to sleep. I’ll make it until bed time tonight.” Rosalind tried her best not to look completely drained, but she knew she looked almost as bad as she felt. For a second she berated herself for not taking the time to go put on some makeup.

She was tired, but she was afraid if she closed her eyes she’d wind up back at square one. As if the bad dreams weren’t enough, waking up unable to pull enough air into her lungs had been more frightening than she liked to admit. She hadn’t had an episode that intense in a very long time.

Sesshomaru watched Rosalind, studying the flickers of emotion that crossed her face. His former mate Rhiannon had been a strong, capable woman, but she was prone to overworking herself, just as Rosalind was. Rhiannon had never had trouble with sleeping badly, but he’d been concerned that with the increased demands of a growing child in her belly, she was over estimating her strength before she’d gone into labor.

Despite all reassurances the doctor could give him, he still wondered if he’d let her do too much near the end of her pregnancy-- if perhaps his forcing the issue more would have saved her life. They’d told him that Rhiannon had suffered a pulmonary embolism within an hour of delivering their daughter. It wasn’t something any of them had seen coming.

He decided to employ a method he’d used for a brief time when Rhiannon had been carrying Rin. It had almost been a form of bribery with his mate, as trying to give the feisty woman orders tended to take more time and energy than it had been worth. He’d arranged things so that he was pointedly available to spend time with her and insisted he wanted to do things that were conducive to her needs, maneuvering her into a position to take some down-time.  The memory made his lips twitch for a moment in the shadow of a smile.
 
Rosalind glanced up at the silent man at the end of the counter and noticed the small movement of his mouth. She smiled a little as she closed the jar of tea and said, “penny for your thoughts…”

Sesshomaru’s gold eyes focused again on her and he released a small sigh. She diverted her attention more from her simmering kettle, turning the switch off. Rarely did she hear such unrestrained sounds from him, and she wondered what was on his mind; if perhaps maybe he was still upset. She also wondered again what Inuyasha could have said to wind him up so much.

He glanced around for a moment, seeking inspiration, and noticed the movie she’d put on the television earlier was still on the screen, paused when she’d returned to the kitchen. “What is it you’re watching?” he asked, feigning a slight interest. There were a number of other things he’d rather spend his time on and rarely did films turn out to be worth his attention. But the quality of a movie wasn’t the point right now.

Rosalind looked at him funny for a second and said, “it’s one of the Lord of the Rings movies.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment before he asked, “have you watched it before?”

Rosalind smiled and laughed a little as she admitted, “about two dozen times. I splurged and bought all three a few years ago. I love the story.”

Sesshomaru’s lips twitched once in a satisfied smile. This would do nicely. “We should start it from the beginning. I haven’t seen it.”

Rosalind arched a brow. “You…. want to watch a movie? Have you seen any of them? Return of the King is the last one in a series of three.”

He shook his head. “No, but I believe I read the books some years ago.” When she looked at him in surprise he grudgingly admitted, “I wanted to see what the fuss was about. They weren’t bad. As fiction goes the quality was actually rather decent. The politics involved are interesting.”

She smiled and bit her lip on another laugh before she nodded. “Yes, I suppose they are, but if you haven’t seen any of them you should really watch them in order.”

He nodded once in agreement and asked, “you have them?”

“Well… yes,” she said slowly. “But they’re about four hours long… each.” She couldn’t imagine him spending that kind of time watching television. It just wasn’t his style, and she knew it. This smacked of ulterior motives but she wasn’t sure what those might be, and her brain was too fuzzy from lack of sleep to care beyond a mild wondering.

Sesshomaru looked satisfied and dumped the cut vegetables into a glass bowl she’d set out, sliding it away from her as he ordered, “retrieve the appropriate disc.”

Rosalind just stood there and looked at him for a second, trying to figure out what was going on. Sesshomaru had never watched a movie with her, unless it was one of the rare occasions where almost all of them crammed together in somebody’s living room for a movie night. Even then she could only remember him actually watching maybe two films with them. He always left or did paperwork in another room.

When he just stepped back, waiting for her to move, she sighed and shook her head, padding down the hall to her bedroom to fish the DVD from her belongings. She just didn’t have the energy right now to argue or figure out how Lord of the Rings might fit into his plan for ultimate world domination. Despite the fact that she’d fully intended to keep busy, the idea of a lazy Sunday afternoon on the couch with Sesshomaru, if strange and nearly unprecedented, was appealing.

In her room she got a look at herself in the mirror and nearly cringed. She looked like a zombie. It was a wonder Sesshomaru hadn’t said anything about her appearance. She frowned a little and thought back. He had said something… she supposed… but he’d been pretty smooth about it… the sneaky bastard. Her mouth quirked in a bemused smile and she grabbed both the movie and the blanket from her bed.

Rosalind found Sesshomaru waiting for her in the hallway, leaning against the wall and finishing a sandwich. He waited until she passed in front of him, then followed her into the front room, taking the movie from her hands. Rosalind sat in the corner of the sofa, tucking the blanket around her. After she’d situated herself she spent a moment trying not to admire the broad muscles in his back and the way they nicely merged with his butt. This was becoming an alarmingly regular distraction for her, it seemed.

Sesshomaru had dropped to balance on the balls of his feet, loading the movie into the console kept on a low shelf beneath the large flat screen. The view was nice but she turned her thoughts to deliberately mundane things as he stood again. The last thing she needed to do was let her brain, already loopy from lack of sleep, get her into trouble by conjuring stimulating images for the rest of her body to enjoy.

She pulled the pencils from her curly red hair and tossed them onto the coffee table, trying to finger comb the worst of the tangles out as he sat down on the cushion next to her, facing the television. In a move unusually similar to his brother, he let his long legs rest against the table, leaning back into the couch and relaxing his normally stiff posture. She looked at him for a long moment, deciding it was nice to see him act so casual. He seemed to enjoy the novelty of it, and that made her smile. He deserved to relax a little. Everyone needed to from time to time, for the sake of their own sanity.

Rosalind flushed again when his glance met hers and she realized she’d been caught staring at him. She chewed her lip for a second and smiled, snuggling down in her blanket and curling up against a big couch pillow that sat between them. She thought she saw Sesshomaru smirk out of the corner of her eye and shook her head in amusement, turning her gaze towards the screen where a wizard was driving his cart-load of fireworks down a dirt path.

The movie hadn’t been playing more than 15 minutes when her eyes closed. She was warm and comfortable, and most importantly not alone. Her body couldn’t find a reason to stay awake, and so she slid down along the pillow, her head coming to rest near Sesshomaru’s knee. He’d watched her slowly fade into sleep with satisfaction, but at the angle she’d settled, he was sure she’d wake with a crick in her neck.

Once he was certain she was fully unconscious, he shifted her just slightly so that her head was supported by his leg. The pillow was far too large to fit between them under her head without some major rearranging. The last thing he wanted was for her to wake up after all the dancing around it had taken to get her here. Besides, he thought, as he leaned back again to watch the movie with the volume down very low; he didn’t have anything else that absolutely had to be done right now, and this was more tolerable than he’d expected.

Sesshomaru looked down at Rosalind’s sleeping face and indulged himself for a moment, running his fingers through her long hair, pulling the waving bright auburn curls away from her face. She adjusted a little against him, making a small, contented noise and sighing softly. Yes… somehow, he didn’t mind this calm that had settled around them at all.