InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Lucky Ones ❯ Chapter Fourteen ( Chapter 14 )

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 Fourteen

The next two days passed uneventfully. Kagome had her tests to study for and take, and most of her time was consumed by those two things. Inuyasha stayed behind with Yukio when Kagome went to school, but he would bring Yukio to her during her lunch break. She had half an hour for lunch and she would sneak up to the roof of the school. There Inuyasha would give her his haori, her lunch and the baby, and sit next to her while she ate her lunch and nursed Yukio. When she was finished, she would change him quickly and give him back to his father, then she would return to her classroom and Inuyasha would bring the baby back to the shrine.

On Friday morning she had her worst test: math, and she came out of it feeling fairly confident that she'd done well. The test finished just at noon, and she hurried to turn it in and get up to the roof where she knew Inuyasha would be waiting for her. She was in such a rush that she didn't notice the older woman she passed in the hall; the one who frowned when she saw Kagome and followed her into the stairwell.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Kagome apologized breathlessly, crossing the roof and joining Inuyasha by the side of the utility room on top of the school.

He snorted at her and gave her his haori.

"How did the test go?" he asked.

She slipped the red garment over her shoulders, sat down, and reached for Yukio. "I think I did well."

He handed her the baby, who had already begun to fuss at the scent and sight of his mother.

"That's good."

"Mmm hmmm," she agreed, lifting her uniform top and undoing the nursing flap on the bra.

She didn't cover herself and the baby with the haori. Yukio's latest thing was to try to push and kick it away when she draped it over his head. It was as if he wanted to be able to see her face while he nursed and no longer liked being covered up. Now she took the sleeve of the haori and draped it over the top of her breast, hiding her skin from view, but leaving Yukio uncovered. The compromise kept Yukio happy, but didn't leave her feeling exposed.

"Your last test is this afternoon?" Inuyasha asked, sitting close and watching her feed Yukio the way he always did.

"Yes. History. Then I'm done."

He nodded, an odd gleam in his eyes. "Then we can go back, can't we Kagome? We can go back tonight?"

She sighed. So much for a couple of quiet days in her time. `Well, I suppose I really can't complain. He did give me five days here without too much fuss, and he's done a wonderful job of looking after Yukio.'

"We need to go shopping for supplies, but yes, after that we can go."

"Good. I want to get the pup back home. The air here is no good for him, and you're almost out of liver."

`And you want to get back to a place where you don't have to hide what you are,' she mentally added, noting the ball cap he wore to cover his ears. Yukio didn't have a hat on, but no one ever saw him because Inuyasha kept him in his baby sling and moved too fast for normal humans to see.

"I'm eager to get back too. I miss Shippo, Sango and the others. But I want to come back for my birthday."

"When is it?"

"Next month. I'm sure my friends will want to throw a party for me because I'll be seventeen."

He nodded and she saw him make a mental note of it. "Are these the friends I met that time?"

"Yeah, Ayumi, Eri and Yuka."

"And that guy… that Hojou guy. Him too?" he asked, his voice already holding a hint of jealousy.

"Probably. But I've told you before, I'm not interested in Hojou."

Yukio wanted to be switched so she undid the nursing flap on the other side and moved him over, draping the haori sleeve across her breast.

"Is he a threat to the pup? Will he try to hurt Yukio because I'm the rival male?"

She blinked at him, stunned. "No, not at all. We don't do things like that, Inuyasha."

He gave a grunt of acknowledgment.

"You wanted a week?" he asked.

She was shocked that he remembered. "Y… Yes. If I may."

He frowned. "I'll give you three days."

She frowned back. "Five."

"Four and not a day more!" he countered with finality.

"Okay, four, but you have to come with me to help take care of Yukio."

He nodded. "Of course."

"He's starting to teethe. I can feel the bumps on his gums," she commented.

Inuyasha agreed. "His fangs will come in first."

She nodded, looking down at the baby who was looking up at her, big golden eyes staring at her as he fed. She smiled at him and stroked his puppy ears.

"My little big dog," she cooed to him.

"Feh!" Inuyasha snorted, but then his head whipped around.

"What is it?" she asked, seeing the look on his face and getting worried.

"Someone's here," he replied.

As if on cue, a female figure came into view, walking carefully and obviously looking for something. The newcomer turned and saw them sitting against the utility room exterior wall. Kagome recognized the woman and gasped, her blood turning cold. Inuyasha, reacting to her obvious upset, began to growl warningly as she shrank back behind him, trying to shield Yukio from view.

"Higurashi Kagome," the doctor from Monday said coldly, coming towards them. "I came here to your school to make sure you were doing as ordered. I see that you are not. I will…"

She was cut off by an extremely pissed off hanyou grabbing her by the throat. He'd moved so fast that he'd been nothing more than a growling red blur before his inhumanly strong hand was wrapped around her neck.

"You!" he snarled. "I know your stinking scent. You're that bitch doctor!"

The cap had become dislodged in his leap to grab her, revealing his ears- ears that were now pinned flat against his head in fury. The older woman saw the dog ears sticking out from the mass of silver hair and her eyes opened wide, even as her face began to turn blue from lack of air. She scratched weakly at Inuyasha's hand and wrist, but her struggles were useless.

"You're the one who made Kagome cry! You're the one who hurt her and made her feel dirty for feeding a motherless pup. Just who the hell do you think you are, bitch?"

"Inuyasha," Kagome begged, standing and tentatively making her way over to where he was strangling the woman. Yukio had stopped nursing when he heard and felt the upset, and was now letting out little whimpers of distress that could easily graduate into his trademark wails if things didn't calm down soon.

`Please. If he starts howling, the whole school will come running up here and I'll be done for.'

"Inuyasha, please let her go."

The enraged hanyou just continued to growl and lifted the kicking woman off the ground by her neck.

"Inuyasha, don't make me subdue you. Let her go right now!" she cried desperately.

With a final snarl, he dropped the doctor unceremoniously to the rooftop. She crumpled in a sprawling heap, her hands going to her throat as she gasped for air. He stood over her, a menacing look on his face, and kept placing himself in her line of sight every time she tried to look at Kagome and the baby.

"What… what are you?" she rasped, she staring up at him, her throat raw.

"Your worst nightmare, bitch."

"Inuyasha," Kagome scolded gently, coming to stand beside him. She held Yukio close, but he was thankfully calming down now that she was relaxing.

There was an eerie silence. Kagome looked down at the terrified and shocked doctor, knowing full well that the older woman could see that Yukio had dog ears, and a strange calm came over her. Inuyasha stood at her shoulder and together they presented a unified front. A gentle wind blew through their hair as they stared the doctor down and time seemed to stop for a long, breathless moment.

Kagome knew she should be stunned, horrified and worried sick at the repercussions of what was happening, but she felt oddly detached from it. What was done was done and there was nothing she could do about it. Inuyasha was there and she knew he would protect her, and Yukio was safe in her arms. The doctor was helpless to do anything against them, and the knowledge brought her peace. She raised her chin proudly and lifted her son closer to her chest, allowing him to turn and look down at the woman as well. The doctor's eyes opened even wider when she saw the infant's golden eyes.

Inuyasha snarled and stepped forward, blocking the doctor's view again. She skittered backwards on her hands and rear end, her feet scraping along the rough rooftop.

"Quit staring, bitch. You don't have the right to even look at her, you worthless hag. If I had my way, I'd rip you to shreds for what you did to Kagome, and it is by her grace and kindness alone that I let you live," he seethed, sounding more like his half-brother than he ever had.

The woman stammered incoherently, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

"But I warn you. If you ever come anywhere near Kagome or my son ever again I. Will. Kill! You! Now get the fuck out of my sight, bitch, before I really lose my temper!" he ordered, backing up his threat with a vicious snarl as he drew Tessaiga and brandished it in front of him.

With a choked scream, the woman scrambled to her feet and ran, practically pissing herself to get away. Inuyasha gave a satisfied grunt and sheathed Tessaiga as she nearly threw herself down the exit stairs, the rooftop door banging heavily behind her.

"I should `s' you a dozen times for the language you just used," Kagome said as she rejoined him.

He tensed, waiting for the threatened punishment, but it never came. Instead, her head pressed softly to his shoulder and she sighed.

"But I'm not going to because I understand completely."

"Feh," he replied, putting a protective arm around her.

Yukio burbled and yipped.

"I need to change him and get back downstairs," she whispered, reluctantly pulling away.

He gave a short nod and walked with her back to the wall of the utility room, pulling a fresh diaper and a cleaning cloth from inside the chest of his kimono as she handed him his haori. They were back to the cloth ones because the `modern' disposable diapers gave Yukio a rash. Kagome changed him and wrapped the dirty diaper up in a plastic bag for later cleaning. Then she kissed Yukio's cheek sweetly and put him in his baby sling.

"I'll see you when I get home," she said as Inuyasha took the sling and put it around him, securing Yukio against his chest.

"Yeah. Come back straight away. No wasting time."

She rolled her eyes, but agreed. "Yes, yes. I will."

"We're going back tonight. I want to leave as soon as possible."

"I know. I know."

She moved to leave but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see him looking at her intently.

"Be safe, Kagome. Do well on your test."

She gave him a tender smile and a nuzzle. "I will. Thank you."

He snorted, but his eyes were kind.

With a final soft look, she headed back down the stairs, leaving Inuyasha behind. Little did she know that he didn't return to the shrine right away. As he hopped off the roof he caught a familiar disgusting scent and tracked it to the doctor's little white `auuu-tooo-mobile.' With a wicked grin, he cracked his knuckles and left four deep gashes down the length of her hood and roof. No sense in making a serious threat if you couldn't back it up with a little show of power.

********

Kagome did as promised and returned home as soon as school was over, ignoring her friends' invitation to join them for hamburgers. She knew that Inuyasha would be furious if she was late, and she didn't want to do anything to anger him. Besides, it had been more than four hours and she knew Yukio would be getting hungry soon.

Inuyasha was waiting for her at the top of the shrine stairs when she arrived. He was holding Yukio and the baby gurgled at her when she came into view. Kissing his little cheek, she took him from his father and he snuggled into her shoulder happily as she and Inuyasha walked side by side to the house.

"How'd the test go?" he asked.

"Great. It was the best of the three," she replied brightly. "I'm just glad they're all over. I have my assignments for the next two weeks and no more tests until next month."

"Then we can go?" he questioned eagerly.

"We need to go shopping first," she reminded him as they entered the house.

"Shopping." He spat the word like it was a curse.

"Tadaima," she called out and heard an answering "Okaeri" from her mother and grandfather in the kitchen.

"If we don't go shopping we won't have any ramen or potato chips."

He sighed. "There is that," he admitted. "Alright. We will go shopping right away."

"Just let me feed and change Yukio, then I'll leave him with Mama," she said, going up to her room.

"Leave him?"

"He'll be fine. He always naps after he eats. I'll wrap him in his blanket and sling and he won't even know we're gone."

Inuyasha snorted. "That's what you think. He'll start bawling the moment we're both out of scent range."

"You think?"

"You're joking, right?"

She sat on her bed and he gave her his haori as he sat next to her. It was a ritual for them now, and she was gathering up her courage to ask him what it was about her nursing Yukio that fascinated him so much and why he insisted that she wear his haori when she fed the baby.

"Well, he has to get used to other people taking care of him," she said, continuing the conversation as she went through the motions of feeding her son.

Yukio didn't care if his adoptive parents talked while he ate. He had all he wanted in his mouth and couldn't care less what the adults did so long as it didn't interrupt his food-time.

"Why?" Inuyasha asked.

"Because sometimes he's going to get left behind and he'll have to be okay with that."

"We are never leaving this pup behind," he replied sternly.

Kagome blinked at him. "Not even when he's older and harder to carry? Do you really want a toddler on a shard hunt with us?"

"It's too dangerous to leave him with anyone. Until he can defend himself he's a target. We'll just teach him to be quiet and not get in the way, but we're taking him with us everywhere we go."

Kagome sighed and reluctantly agreed. "Okay. We'll put him in his sling and I'll put a hat on his head, and we'll take him with us."

"Good."

She changed Yukio when he finished eating and put him back in his sling, then she put the sling on and carried him next to her chest as she and Inuyasha went grocery shopping.

Mama had dinner ready for them when they returned and by the time they had eaten, packed up their supplies and made their way through the well, several hours had passed and it was already nightfall in the Sengoku Jidai. Inuyasha carried the supplies and her bag out of the well for her as she climbed up.

"Ahhhh!" she breathed, stretching in the clean, clear night air. "It feels so good."

Beside her, Inuyasha grunted in agreement and she could see all the lines of tension and stress that always marred his body and face whenever they were in her time slowly fade away.

`Being there is really hard on him,' she admitted to herself, looking up at the sea of stars.

"Let's go, Kagome," he said, hefting the bags over his shoulder.

But she wasn't ready to go down to the village just yet. She wanted to stay in this peaceful forested place and be alone with Inuyasha for a little while before they had to join the others.

"Wait, Inuyasha," she said softly.

"Eh?" he replied, turning to look at her.

"Let's just stay here for a little bit, ne?"

He blinked at her. "Why?"

"Because… Because it's a beautiful night and I just want to relax for a few minutes and look at the stars before we have to go. We can sit here and I can feed Yukio and we can both recover from our trip."

"Keh," he scoffed. "I'm fine."

She gave him a tender smile and she saw him blush at the attention. "I know. But humor me, okay."

"Alright, but not for too long. I want to find out if there have been any shard rumors while we've been gone," he agreed.

She gave him another smile and picked a tree on the edge of the clearing to sit under.

"I know, but we can't go anywhere until morning anyway so a few more minutes won't matter, right?"

"I guess," he admitted, sitting down next to her.

Yukio was fussing in his sling, hungry and aware that something about his environment had changed again. Kagome drew him out of the carrier and changed his dirty diaper. Then she held him in her lap, humming softly to him as she began to lift up her shirt.

"Here," Inuyasha interrupted, holding out the haori.

She looked at him, her eyes soft, and offered her shoulder. He leaned over and lightly draped the red garment across her shoulders, drawing the fabric to drape down over her arms. She pushed it back and placed the huge sleeve across her chest as she brought Yukio up to the nipple. She sighed as he began to nurse, and let herself relax.

There was something deep and easing about sitting there with Inuyasha. When they were alone together, his gentler, sweeter side came out and she treasured those moments. He could be tender and loving when he wanted to be, and she knew a man of deep feeling lurked under his gruff exterior. There were many times she wished he would show it more, and not be so afraid to appear `weak,' but she knew many years of pain, loneliness and hardship had shaped him into the man he had become, and she could not expect him to suddenly cast off the defense mechanisms that had kept him alive for so long.

Still, there were times like these when she was alone with him, and he was watching her with a soft look in his eyes, that she knew her love was healing him and easing his lonely heart. They were times when she could forget about the Shikon no Tama, and her double life, and Kikyou, and just be Kagome, the one who loves Inuyasha with all her heart and soul (well, most of it at the very least.) Times when she felt closer to him than to anyone else, and she entertained dreams of a happy future with him by her side and their own children at their feet.

Sometimes she thought he had those dreams too. She could see it in his eyes when he thought she couldn't see: the hope, the longing. Often she'd wanted to reach out and touch him, to tell him that, yes, she felt the same way, and he didn't have to be afraid that she would reject him, but fear that he would reject her, fear that in the end she would lose him to Kikyou always stopped her.

But tonight, under the stars and trees and gently blowing breeze, there was no Kikyou. There was only her and Inuyasha and Yukio, and they were the only three people that mattered in the world for those precious moments.

"So many stars," she whispered. "You never see this many in my time unless you're out in the country, and even then I don't think you can see as many as I do here."

"Keh. It's all your lights and eeellll-eectrriiisss-iiteee. They drown out the stars."

"Your eyes can see perfectly in the dark, can't they," she commented.

"Mostly. I can't see in total darkness, but I can see well at night. Much better than your human eyes," he jibed lightly.

She smiled at him as she switched Yukio. "It's a good thing I'm with you then. You'll make sure I don't stumble or walk into anything."

"Keh!"

"What? Does that mean you won't?"

He snorted. "If it comes to that, I'll just carry you."

"You always carry me," she whispered. "In more ways than one."

He looked at her and she could see his blush even in the moonlight. "Feh, you need carrying, wench. With that weak, human body of yours," he scoffed, covering his embarrassment.

She didn't take offense. Nothing, but nothing was going to ruin this night and this perfect time for her. Not even Inuyasha himself.

"I'm better though, aren't I? I'm not as weak as I was two years ago."

He sighed and lowered his head, his ears drooping. If she didn't take his bait and argue with him, he never kept it up for long.

"No. You're strong. Much stronger than I ever thought you'd be, and you've got guts. You never back down from a fight," he admitted.

"I have a good role model," she teased.

"Feh. I'm no one's role model."

"You will be to Yukio."

"He should expect to be disappointed."

"I don't think so. I think you'll always be there for him, just as you've always been there for me."

"Not always..." he murmured softly.

"That doesn't matter. You're here now."

He was quiet, having no answer, and she looked at the nursing infant. She could tell he was almost finished. Soon Inuyasha would insist they go down to the village, but she didn't want their quiet time to end just yet. Besides, she was working up enough courage to ask him about the haori and her nursing. It seemed that he might be in the mood to talk about it if she could ask the right questions.

"Inuyasha..."

"Hmmm?"

"May I ask you a question?"

He bristled a little and her heart fell. "What kind of question?"

"A serious one."

"About what?"

"About Yukio, and me, and your haori."

"What about it? You need covering otherwise anyone can see your parts," he replied defensively.

"That's not what I meant. You want me to wear your haori when I feed him. Even when I have something else I can use, you always give it to me. And you always watch me feed him. There's something there, I can feel it. You get this look in your eyes... Will you tell me about it?"

He sneered and looked away. "Bah. What are you going on about, woman? There's nothing to tell."

It wasn't the answer she was looking for, and for some reason she felt horribly disappointed. She had hoped the feeling of closeness and love that she was feeling for him would be reciprocated tonight, and they would talk of his past and of their future. His cutting dismissal dashed all her wishful expectations.

"I'm sorry," she whispered faintly, unable to hide the sadness in her voice. "Forget I said anything."

"Huh? What's your problem tonight?"

She closed her eyes and held her temper. He was really trying to bait her into a fight, and it was making her more sad than angry.

`After all this time, and all we've been through, he still won't share with me...'

"Oi! Kagome."

She shook her head, burping Yukio because he was finished, and pulling her shirt back down.

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. I know you well enough to know that your `nothing' means something," he countered gruffly.

She sighed, patting her son and soothing him as she put him back into his carrier. He was already drifting off to sleep.

"I don't want to fight with you, Inuyasha. I just want to sit here with you and feel some peace. I was hoping you would share with me, but if you don't want to, that's okay. I won't try to make you."

"Fine! Be that way!" he snapped.

She didn't answer, just looked down at the sleeping infant, and smiled wistfully. Then she drew the edges of Inuyasha's haori around her to ward off the night chill. It was warm, and wearing it was comforting to her. After all, giving her his haori had been the first gesture of affection he had ever offered her, and the gift had saved her life more than once.

"It's because I want to be part of it," he said suddenly after a long silence.

She blinked at him, surprised, but remained silent. He looked at her with guilty eyes, his hands in his lap and his face contrite.

"If you're wearing my fire-rat, I know you and the pup are protected. That's important to me," he went on.

"Inuyasha..." she breathed softly, her heart melting.

"And I want to feel like I'm helping you in some way. That I can do something worthwhile for you and the pup: protect you, provide you with meat and liver. I want to know that I can give you something you need."

She gave him a tender, grateful look, and reached out to hold his hand.

"Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me."

He shook his head, accepting her hand in his and lightly grasping it. "No. I should be thanking you for what you did."

"Me?" she replied, blushing, but inwardly smiling at his soft look, his tenderness. "I didn't do anything..."

"And that's what makes it more beautiful. You don't see what you did as anything special when the rest of us are in awe of you. You asked me why I watch you when you feed him. I watch because I still can't believe it. I have to see it so I know it's real."

"Why?"

He let her hand go and looked away, his head down and his eyes dark with deep emotion. She waited, holding her breath, because she could feel the change in him and knew that he was going to talk, really talk to her.

`Inuyasha. Will you? Will you really...'

"Because no one fed me," he said quietly.

"What?" she repeated, uncertain that she had heard him correctly.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking again.

"No one fed me. When my mother died, no one fed me. No one cared if I lived or died. My mother was a noblewoman but no one gave a damn that I was her son. I was just a filthy half-breed nobody wanted. I had no idea how to feed or take care of myself. I scrounged food from the kitchens and the garbage, eating whatever I could get my hands on. They'd chase me out when they caught me and beat me for `stealing.' I was filthy and starving, but nobody cared."

`Oh my God. Oh, Inuyasha...'

"Eventually my brother came for me and he took me with him, but by then I was in pretty bad shape and he was furious at my mother's relatives. I think he even killed a couple of them. But even he didn't feed me or bring me food. He told me the extent of his obligation ended with his protection, and if I wanted to eat I had to find food for myself. Sometimes, though, when I was really hungry, he'd toss me a rabbit- raw. Most of what I learned about how to feed myself, I had to learn on my own because he never taught me. My first kills were messy and bloody, but it was either that or go hungry, and if I ate something that made me sick, I'd be punished."

He paused and looked at her to see if she would say anything, but she was just staring at him in shock.

`Inuyasha...'

He went on, his voice thick with old pain.

"There was an inu-youkai bitch with three pups on my brother's lands. I watched her for weeks, hoping that if she got used to my scent and I learned her ways, that maybe she'd accept me. That's how I know so much about pups. But she rejected me when I approached her, and my brother scruffed and cuffed me severely for even trying. I was sore for days from his beating, and I'll never forget what he told me that night. He said no youkai would want me because I was a lowly hanyou, tainted with human blood, and the dirt beneath a true youkai's feet. No one would ever accept me. That was when I understood my mother's tears that one time. Why she had cried for me. She had known what my life would be like, and she had wept for my sake."

He stopped and shook his head as if getting rid of a hurtful memory. Kagome waited, her heart pounding and breaking for this poor soul who had suffered so much.

`Inuyasha, my beautiful Inuyasha. You didn't deserve any of it...'

She wanted to throw herself into his arms and hold him until the pain went away, but the words stuck in her throat, and he was speaking again before she could swallow them.

"So you have no idea how it affects me to see you with Yukio, to see you feeding him. To me, it's a miracle. I don't care that it's normal. I don't know anything about hor-oh-moans or fizz-ee-olo-gee and women. I don't care if any woman he'd nursed from would have made milk for him. They wouldn't have. None of them would have even tried. They would have let him starve to death before any one of them would have given him a breast.

"You are the only woman I know who would allow an orphan half-breed to nurse from her dry breast just because she wanted to comfort him when he was missing his dead mother. You are the only one I know who would have cared that much, loved that much, given that much. To take a hanyou pup who was not your own and nurse him, to feed him from your own body…"

He raised his eyes and looked at her still staring at him with watery eyes. His own eyes were wide and filled with adoration, awe and love.

"So it doesn't matter to me if it's normal and would have happened with anyone. For me it's amazing and unbelievable. That's why the third meaning of `Yukio' is so fitting to me, why it means so much to me. To me… to me, I see you with him and I see God."

Finished and embarrassed by his own runaway mouth, he looked away, concentrating on his hands, his claws.

"Inuyasha…" she breathed, and he cast a glance up.

Tears were streaming down her face, her cheeks wet with them, and he knew she was crying for him. Unable to stand it, he looked away again, and almost stood to leave.

"Don't. Please," Kagome begged, one hand on his shoulder.

He nodded, still not looking at her and sat back down. A moment later a sleeping Yukio was placed in his lap. He touched the pup's hair with one finger, tracing the side of his little face. He smelled of pup and milk and Kagome.

There was a rustle of cloth and the sound of something falling to the ground, then Kagome's hands were on his head and shoulders, turning him to look at her. She'd taken off his haori and her shirt and bra, and her bare breasts were exposed to him, the nipples reddened from Yukio's earlier nursing. He blinked at her, confused and unsure of what she was doing.

"Kagome?"

She shook her head, her eyes still brimmed with tears, put one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his cheek, and pulled him towards her. Gently, she brought him to her breast and pressed his mouth to her nipple.

"I would have fed you. I would have…"

He let out a choked sound that might have been a whimper, and her hands tangled themselves in his hair, urging him to take what she offered. Opening his mouth, he let his lips surround the toughened nipple and began to lightly suck.

Kagome felt him start to nurse and put her arms around him as she let more tears fall down her cheeks. His sucking was so different from the infant's, his mouth gentle and his tongue softly licking. She knew she had only a very little bit of milk left, no more than a mouthful at the very most after Yukio finished nursing, but she didn't need milk to feed him. The very act of bringing him to her breast and letting him suckle was enough. Right now, she was feeding the abandoned orphan whom no one wanted, the little boy Inuyasha who had lost his mother and never known his father; the lonely, bereft child that still lived inside the adult hanyou and begged to be comforted.

Later she would nourish the man he had become, using a much different part of her body. With Yukio sleeping soundly and tucked in his sling hung from a nearby tree branch, they would kiss passionately for several minutes, and finally couple on the moss-covered ground. For years afterward she would remember and cherish that first time, not minding that it was awkward, and hurt a little, or that he had finished too soon. She would always remember how he'd held her wrists tightly as if he was afraid she would run away, then how he had clutched her to him with both arms wrapped around her as he moved desperately inside her. The look of stricken awe on his face when he first mounted and breached her was burned into her mind; how it changed to shocked bliss as he slid all the way in, and the tears that rolled down his cheeks as they made love- tears of old pain, of joy and of healing.

She would remember his face after his first climax, the way his eyes rolled back and his jaw dropped open, and how he had cried out her name in the final moment. Then the look of shocked embarrassment when he learned that women could climax too, and that she had been left unsatisfied. She'd asked him to help her pleasure herself and he did her one better, insisting that her pleasure was his responsibility. He'd brought his mouth to the juncture of her thighs, and she discovered that his tongue was the most amazing thing in the world.

Their second time followed shortly after her first climax, when she was still wet and open from the first, and relaxed from her orgasm. He mounted again, this time a little bolder and more self-assured, and never took his eyes off of her for a single second. Even when she closed her eyes in rapture and arched her back, when she opened them again he was still watching her intently. It was as if he didn't want to miss a moment, especially the moment of her climax, when her body jerked and she gasped and her passage clenched around him like a rippling vice that milked his own orgasm from him. Then he threw his head back and howled his triumph and victory as he emptied his seed into her with self-satisfied pride.

And little Yukio slept soundly though it all as if instinctively knowing that his adoptive parents were busy in the throes of passion and pleasure, that all was well, and that he was perfectly safe from harm. When they were finished, they retrieved him from his bough-cradle, and cuddled him between them as they snuggled together at the base of the tree. He rolled towards their warmth, never waking, and tucked his tiny fists under Kagome's breast as they fell asleep still holding each other.