InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Lucky Ones ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5

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 5

Morning came and Kagome greeted it slowly. The baby had woken her twice the previous night by pressing against her sore breasts and she hadn't gotten much sleep. They had been so sensitive that he hadn't even had a chance to squirm under her top before she woke up.

She sat up, bleary-eyed, and looked to see that the others were already awake and that Sango had started breakfast.

"Morning…" she managed through parched lips. She was desperately thirsty again.

"Good morning, Kagome-chan." "Good morning, Kagome-sama." "Goodmoring, Kagome." Sango, Miroku and Shippo greeted from around the fire.

She rubbed her eyes, then reached down to pick up the baby, and was surprised to find him not there. Coming fully awake in a sudden panic, she looked around for him.

"I've got him," Inuyasha's voice said from beside her.

She turned to see the hanyou sitting with his back to a tree. The baby was in his lap, awake but being quiet.

"Oh. Ummm…"

"He woke you twice already, so when he started fussing I took him," Inuyasha explained.

She reached for her water bottle and drank half of it before she felt wet enough to speak.

"Thank you."

"He's been fed and changed already," Inuyasha informed.

She blinked at him. "Did you change him?"

"No, I did," Sango replied.

She looked at her friend. "Thank you."

The older woman shrugged and patted her abdomen. "I'll be doing it for my own baby soon enough. I need the practice."

She nodded and stretched a bit, yawning. In that moment Inuyasha's haori fell from her shoulders and landed on top of her sleeping bag. She shivered and was suddenly cold without it.

"Thank you for letting me sleep in this last night. I forgot I had it on," she said, offering it to him.

He reached out and took it from her, slipping it on with the baby still in his lap; he just didn't tuck the ends into the waist of his hakama.

"I hope you weren't cold," she added apologetically.

"Keh! I'm made of tougher stuff than that!"

"Mmm, I know you are," she sighed, moving to slide out of the sleeping bag.

Suddenly, Inuyasha's head whipped around and he was staring intently at her.

"Huh?" Kagome said, noticing his sudden snap to attention. "Inuyasha?"

His eyes narrowed and he sniffed at her, scenting the air.

"What? What is it?" she asked worriedly.

"Your scent. There's something different about your scent."

"What do you mean?"

His golden eyes focused on her chest and his nostrils flared. Blushing under his scrutiny of her breasts, she grabbed them and turned away, hiding them from his view, but then quickly dropped her hands.

`Owww. They're even more sore than last night…' she complained silently, putting her hand under her shirt to feel the tender skin. Her fingers came back damp.

"Huh?" she said, looking at her hand. She put it back under her shirt and felt again.

"What is it?" Inuyasha questioned.

"I… I'm wet…" she breathed, confused.

"Eh? What do you mean…"

With her back still to Inuyasha and the others, she slipped her hand into her bra and was shocked to find the inside of the cups to be moist. She ran her hand over her nipple and felt a new wetness on her fingers. Drawing her hand back out, she looked at the drops of pale white liquid on her fingertips.

"What?... Inuyasha…"

"Kagome-chan?" Sango's asked. "Kagome-chan, are you alright?"

"I… I don't know…"

"Kagome?!" Shippo cried moving to hop onto her shoulder. Inuyasha grabbed him in mid-leap.

"Oi! Stay off her. We don't know what's going on."

She stared at the liquid, then felt her nipple again. More wetness came onto her fingers and she checked the other breast and found the same thing. With shaking hands, she reached out to her side.

"Inuyasha," she whispered. "Hand me the baby."

"Kagome, what is it?" he asked, his voice worried.

"Just… give him to me, please."

He did as she asked, gently placing the infant in her trembling hands. Once he was in her arms, she brought him to her chest, lifting up her shirt and pulling down the soft cup of her bra, and offering the wet nipple to his mouth. As usual he latched on, but sucked half-heartedly as if he had come to expect disappointment, and for a moment Kagome sighed with relief.

`So I was wrong…' she thought. `Ow, this hurts…'

Suddenly, however, the infant's attitude changed and he began to suck a little harder. He turned his head to further face into her breast and increased his sucking even more, almost ecstatically, as if to say `Food! There's food here!' She gasped at the strength of it, and increase in pain. He was nursing hard and not letting go.

`Oh… oh my God…'

"Kagome…" Inuyasha asked, a hint of panic in his voice.

"Kagome-chan?" "Kagome-sama?"

She turned just her head to meet Inuyasha's worried face with a shocked face of her own.

"It's… it's milk. I'm… I'm making milk…"

"Milk? Kagome… are you sure?" Sango asked.

"He's not letting up, and he's definitely getting something. I… I can feel it…" `It's also getting less and less painful… was the pain just from me being… full?'

"But that's impossible. Kagome-sama this infant is not yours. How can you be making milk for him?" Miroku questioned.

"How should I know?!" she snapped back, a hint of hysteria in her voice.

She looked to Inuyasha hoping he would have some explanation. Maybe he would tell her it was some inu-youkai thing, that pups had a way of pulling milk out of dry breasts... But his face was a picture of shock and awe and… something else. He was speechless, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

"Inuyasha?"

"You're… you're feeding him?" he asked in a voice so soft she almost couldn't hear it.

"Seems so," she replied just as softly.

He took off his haori and draped it over her shoulders. "Here, so you won't be exposed…"

`Like a nursing blanket…' she thought, pulling the red material over her breasts and the nursing baby so that only the lower half of his blanket-wrapped body peeked out.

"Kagome… may I… smell? I promise I won't peep."

She nodded and slowly turned around. He knelt before her and put his nose to her chest, sniffing. He pulled back a moment later, his eyes swimming with some unnamed emotion, but she would swear his hands were shaking.

"Inuyasha?"

"You'll need meat," he murmured, then looked at her with wonderment. "I'll get you meat."

He didn't even wait for her to answer before he was gone. She stared at the others who stared back.

"Kagome-sama, this is… this is…" Miroku began.

"Ouch," she blurted as the baby suddenly bit down with a toothless mouth on her tender nipple.

"Kagome-chan?" Sango asked with concern.

"I think he's finished with the one. Hold on. Let me switch him."

Working under the haori, Kagome pulled him from her breast and turned him around so he could nurse from the other. He latched on immediately and began sucking.

"It… it's not very much, is it?" she commented, once he'd settled into a rhythm. "I don't think it's enough to feed him with how much gruel he eats."

"If you just started making milk it might take a day or two to make enough for him," Sango offered tentatively.

"At least now we know why you have been so thirsty recently, Kagome-sama," Miroku added.

"I just... I just don't understand why this happened," she said forlornly.

"You have strong miko powers and a pure and loving heart, Kagome-sama. Perhaps that has something to do with it."

"Maybe..." she trailed off.

"It's because you're so loving and good, Kagome!" Shippo enthused, hopping into her lap.

She smiled softly at him then frowned.

"Ouch!"

Shippo jumped off her lap as she looked under the haori, pulling the baby from her.

"Hey! Look, I know you're excited to get milk and all, but you have to stop biting me like that. It hurts!" she scolded the infant as she tucked him into her arms. "Sheesh, and he doesn't even have teeth yet."

The baby, unhappy at being pulled away from his teat, began to fuss. Kagome patted him comfortingly.

"I'm sorry. I don't have anymore. You ate it all. You're gonna have to wait."

"There is some gruel left from this morning, Kagome-chan. Do you want me to warm it up?" Sango offered.

She gave them a suffering look. "Yes please." `If he'll still eat it...'

He would, although with not as much gusto as he did the milk. Shippo commented that he probably knew the difference by smell alone and preferred the milk if he had a choice. Kagome replied that she didn't know how long it would take her to make more milk, if she was even going to make more. Because she didn't know why she had started to lactate in the first place, she had no idea if it was going to be a continuous occurrence.

The infant had just finished eating the remainder of the gruel when Inuyasha returned carrying a dead boar and two dead carp. He saw her feeding him from the surgical glove and raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't have that much milk and he was still hungry. So...," she explained.

He nodded and dropped his burden on the edge of the camp ground, then he used his claws to slice open the boar and drew out its liver. He offered it to her with a bloody hand.

"Here."

She shrank back. "What?"

"Liver is very good for you. It's full of nutrients. Eat it," he replied.

"I'm not eating raw liver!" she shrieked.

"Why not? You drank it when I made the medicine for your cold that time."

"What? THAT"S what was RAW?!" she yelled, horrified.

His ears twitched. "Well, not completely raw. I did put it in the boiling herbs."

"So that's why Souta... Oh god, I think I'm going to be sick..."

"Kagome-sama, Inuyasha is right. Liver is very good for you," Miroku tried.

"I am not eating raw liver!" she insisted. "I don't care how good it is for me!"

Inuyasha tossed the liver towards the cooking pot on the fire. "Fine! We'll cook it, but one way or the other, you're gonna eat it because your body needs the nutrients."

Miroku caught the liver with his fast reflexes and put it in the pot. Sango added some water for boiling, and Inuyasha gutted the carp to add their livers to the pot.

"The rest is meat," Inuyasha said, butchering the kills with amazing efficiency. "We can take this with us. I'll make the boar hide into a carrying sack. You should eat lots of meat and drink as much water as you can. If you are making milk for the baby, you will need twice as much food as normal."

They stared at him, but he wasn't paying the least bit of attention to them. He performed his task with a single-mindedness that unnerved them, his face serious and intent. Before they were even really aware of what was happening, he had skinned and sliced off the choice cuts of meant from the boar and gutted the carp. All of this he placed on the laid out skin and wrapped up, then he took vines from a nearby tree and used them to lash the bundle together into a carrying pack.

"Oi! Monk, is that liver ready?" he asked from over his shoulder.

They snapped to attention, looking into the pot.

"Yes," Sango answered.

"Kagome, eat it."

"What? You think you can just order me around..." she seethed.

"Kagome-sama," Miroku interrupted her. "Inuyasha is right. We don't know why you started making milk, but until we understand better what is happening, you must make sure you take care of yourself. Inuyasha is just looking after your health and well-being in his usual straight-forward way."

The monk offered her the pot with the boiled liver.

"But I hate liver..." she complained.

"It doesn't matter," Inuyasha argued forcefully. "If you don't eat enough and give your body what it needs, it will take it from reserves you can't spare. I've seen what happens to breeding females who don't get enough to eat. I'm not about to let that happen to you."

Kagome looked down into the pot and grimaced. The boiled liver looked even less appetizing than when it was raw.

`Does he really expect me to eat this?'

"Oi! Will you stop staring at it and just eat it already!"

His insistence that she eat the liver made her angry. She was confused and frightened and the last thing she needed was some macho-hanyou pushing her around. She set her jaw and dug her heels in.

"I don't want it."

"What?" he questioned, his eyes glinting.

"I said I don't want it."

"I don't care if you don't want it, eat it anyway," he ordered gruffly.

"Just who the hell do you think you are ordering me around like that? Who died and made you my master?" she snapped.

His eyes opened wide in shock, then narrowed in rage. "I told you, you need the nutrients. It doesn't matter if you don't like it, your body needs it. So shut up, bitch, and eat the fucking liver!"

"Osuwari!"

Inuyasha ate dirt, then growled. "Stop doing that, bitch!"

"Ouswari! I told you not to curse in front of the baby!"

"I wouldn't curse in front of the baby if you didn't fucking piss me off so much!"

"Osuwari! Osuwari! Osuwari!"

"Arrrggghhhhh!" Inuyasha screamed, then snarled when the spell released him. "If you think slamming my face into the ground is going to get you out of eating that liver, you've got another thing coming. We aren't going anywhere until you eat it!"

The baby let out a distressed wail.

"Oh great! Now look what you've done. You've made him cry!" Kagome accused.

"I've made him cry? You're the one screaming at me to sit!"

"I wouldn't be screaming at you if you'd stop being so stubborn!" she yelled back, trying to quiet the baby. "Shhh, shhhh. It's okay, baby, don't cry."

"I'm being stubborn?! I'm not the one putting myself and a helpless pup at risk! I'm not the one who suddenly started making milk for no reason for a pup that isn't even mine! I'm not the one refusing to eat the meat brought to her so she'd be healthy! I'm not the one acting like a spoiled brat!" he replied, furious.

She opened her mouth to yell, but he cut her off.

"Stuff it! I've had enough. I told you we weren't going anywhere until you ate the liver I brought you. Call me when you've come to your senses," he hissed, then leaped into a tree.

She drew a deep breath to give him the `sitting' of his life, when Miroku spoke softly into her anger.

"You shouldn't punish him for worrying and trying to take care of you."

She turned her head to look at the ex-monk, still shushing the baby who was now sniffling and giving off tiny mewling cries.

"I know how he feels," Miroku explained gently. "My wife is pregnant and soon we will have our own baby. She will need me to provide for her and protect her while she and the newborn are vulnerable. But I will have months to prepare for this. Inuyasha fell into this suddenly without any warning. Now he has an infant to care for and a milking female to provide for and protect.

"He is just as confused and frightened as you are, Kagome-sama. You should not fight with him or take your anger and fear out on him. Fate has chosen you to be this child's mother. That is evidenced by your milk. You need Inuyasha now more than ever, and your baby needs the both of you. Now is not the time for power struggles between you."

"Miroku's right, Kagome," Shippo added. "Inuyasha smells of worry and fear. He's scared and you know that makes him cranky. Please forgive him for being so mean and rude."

"He's only trying to look out for your well-being, Kagome-chan, like any good partner or mate. No matter how it might seem, Inuyasha's heart is in the right place," Sango said.

Even Kirara gave her a plaintive mew and rubbed against her.

Kagome frowned, hearing their words of reason, and looked down at the baby's face. He was quieting now, but his cheeks were still discolored from his crying, and he was chewing on his fist in the way she had come to associate with him being upset.

`This… this is my baby. And he needs me,' she thought sadly, feeling ashamed. `He's already lost two parents and been in mortal danger. His mother sacrificed her own life to carry him to safety, and he spent the last four days of her life, smelling her blood. He shouldn't have to suffer or lose any more people who care about him. He needs Inuyasha and me to be his new parents. He needs me to be strong and healthy so that I can take care of him.'

Cradling his head in one hand, she drew him close to her, holding him tenderly and kissing his brow. He snuffled and nuzzled into her neck, mewling, and she patted his bottom comfortingly.

`Don't worry, baby. Kagome-kaa-san is here,' she promised.

She ate the liver.

A/N: Does this actually happen in real life? YES. It is called `induced lactation' and it is a documented phenomenon. I'll explain the hows and whys in a later chapter.