InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Lucky Ones ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

The Lucky Ones

By Terri Botta

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. Sole copyright belongs to Viz and Rumiko Takashi. I'm poor so don't sue.

Rating: R for later chapters.

Pairing: Inuyasha/Kagome, Miroku/Sango

Summary: Sometimes Fate hands you a gift you never thought you'd ever get, and it's up to you to accept it for what it is.

Email feedback to: tci100@psu.edu

Webpage: http://www.wordsmiths.net/Botta

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Chapter Two

The baby screamed himself hoarse, proving that there was absolutely nothing wrong with his little lungs. Kagome rocked him and cried along with him, feeling utterly helpless to ease his pain. There was nothing anyone could do for him. His mother was dead, but she had died so that he would live. At one point during his screaming fit, Inuyasha took him and held him, pressing his teeth very very gently on the pup's throat in a mimicry of a bitch grabbing her pup by the scuff of its neck in an attempt to still him. It worked to lower the din from full screams to gasping whimpers, but only until Inuyasha eased up, then he would scream again, his face almost purple from the effort.

Finally, Inuyasha and Kagome took the wailing baby out of the village so he wouldn't continue to disturb everyone within hearing distance. They took turns walking with him and rocking him. Inuyasha showed her how to take him by his neck, cautioning her not to even press hard enough to leave a mark, but after a while not even that worked anymore because the baby figured out how to squirm out of such a light hold. Kagome resorted to cooing and singing softly, bouncing him the way she'd seen mothers do, all to no avail. Ultimately, they had no choice but to wait until the baby screamed himself unconscious- which he eventually did, after making sure they would both have hearing troubles for the next several hours.

They returned to the village with the restlessly sleeping baby. Every now and then he would whimper and squirm, and they would cringe, expecting him to awaken and start crying again. They entered Kaede's hut to find that the miko and Miroku had seen to the preparation of the body.

"Was there anything of the mother's that wasn't bloodstained?" Inuyasha asked.

"Only her head scarf and the baby sling," the monk replied sadly.

"Give them to me," Inuyasha said.

Miroku gave the hanyou the items he wanted. He took the baby, wrapped his dead mother's head scarf around him and placed him in his baby sling. Surrounded by something that smelled familiar, the infant finally settled down and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why didn't we think of that sooner?" Sango remarked.

"I think… we were all too shocked and hurt to think clearly," Miroku answered.

"I just thought of it myself, but I didn't want to put him in anything that had his mother's blood on it. It could have made things worse," Inuyasha explained. "Kagome…"

"Hai?"

He handed her the sleeping baby in the sling.

"I'm going to go dig a grave," he said quietly.

She nodded and put the sling around her neck.

"Take the scarf from your uniform and put it in with the pup. It'll mingle with his mother's scent so he starts to associate you with a familiar smell."

Kagome nodded and took the blue scarf from the collar of her high school uniform, tucking it into the sling next to the baby.

Inuyasha gave her an approving glance and left. Miroku followed, saying he would help the hanyou prepare the woman's resting place. Shippo came to perch on Kagome's shoulder as she sat down next to Sango and Kaede.

"I have such a headache," she admitted.

"I'll prepare a pain killer tea for you, child," Kaede offered.

"Thank you, Kaede-obachan." She looked down at the sleeping infant. "What are we going to feed you, baby?"

"We can make a soft rice gruel with water and milk. It won't be the best, but it will do. That's what we used to do for infants whose mothers died if there was no woman with a nursing baby who could feed two," Sango replied.

Kagome nodded. `I could go to my time and get bottles and baby formula. I'd have to keep it from my mom. She'd think the wrong thing for sure…'

She looked down at the baby's sleeping face, still discolored from all his crying, and felt a stab of pain right through her heart.

`Poor little lost baby…' "I wonder what we should call him."