Chapter 7: Question

He never expected it when he walked down the hall with plans to meet his brothers. Yet as his mother had always told him, life and fate loved to throw the unexpected into your path. Still, he would have preferred to fight invading monsters than to find Kagome crying.

He really wasn’t expecting to see her crying over a severed arm at that.

Saburo was quick to go to her side. He went to his knees beside her on the floor but he dared not touch her. Her power was like a caged animal, ready to strike at the slightest touch. “Kagome…what’s wrong?”

“I should hate him,” she whispered with an almost haunted look in her eyes. “I should hate him but I can’t. Why can’t I hate him?”

“Hate who?” He asked though he felt he already knew. He had always felt that she had every right to hate Sesshomaru but Kagome had been so different. He was sure that the feral woman that she had once been had hated Sesshomaru. The Kagome before him though was completely different from that woman.

She was a wounded woman just as she had been before. She was healing despite those wounds, becoming the person that she had once been before. Still, it was not an easy one for her and he knew that.

Seeing Kagome work towards healing for the last month showed him that she wanted to move past everything. Seeing Kagome like showed Saburo that Kagome nowhere ready to return to her realm.

“Is this his arm?” He asked softly.

She said nothing but nodded in answer.

“Okay, I’ll see about getting rid of it then…but first, why don’t we go back to your chambers?”

“No…no, the babies are with your lovers and I don’t think I can be alone right now.” She looked so vulnerable that he knew that he could not leave her alone. It also felt wrong to leave her alone when she needed someone by her side to help.

So Saburo did the only thing that he could do.

He picked up Kagome and continued down the hall, all the while Kagome buried her face in his chest. She had been so quiet when she had been crying on the floor yet now it was like she couldn’t anymore.

Her quiet sobs grew in sound as if even she knew not the pain that filled her. Holding her as she cried, hurt something inside of him. Saburo was a protector and caregiver by nature, Kagome’s pain called to those pieces of himself. He was unable to do anything about it; he was incapable of changing the past.

It was beyond his power to save her from the wounds that continued to harm her.

“I…I just don’t…understand…should I hate him? Why…can I not hate him?” It was a question that he could not answer for her since she was the only one that knew why.

He needed something to make her stop, to have her calm down. So he asked her something out of the blue. “Do you have any siblings?”

The question was completely unexpected to her, he could feel it in the stillness that fell upon her. It was a few minutes so he just kept walking with her in his arms. “I have a baby brother…He would be around fourteen or fifteen by now.”

“Almost a man then,” He muttered.

Kagome gave a watery laugh at that. It was a welcome sound to him. “He’s just a little kid still…long way off from that.”

“They grow up faster than you would expect, trust me. I got more brothers and sisters than anyone you know,” he informed softly. If you were to ask him, he would say too many but then again, he wouldn’t trade a single one away. He was lucky to have the large family that he had been born into. “Your parents didn’t want any more kids after you two?”

“My father died…my mom never remarried after.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. It just meant that Kagome had survived through more than he or anyone knew.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he whispered.

“Don’t be…my dad was amazing and he set the example of what a father and husband should be.”

oOo

He wandered aimlessly, allowing his feet to be his guide. Wandering the land had once been so soothing to him like holding Mizuki until she fell asleep in his arms. He ached for the endless walk to be as soothing as holding his child but he knew that it never would. He had been so weak before.

He needed to be strong again as he had been when he travelled the land looking for Naraku. He had gained so allies but they were not the true allies that he had during that final battle. They would turn on him in a moment for gain and survival.

He needed those that were loyal to Kagome and their children. Her friends were his only choice; they would likely turn on him the moment that his family was safe. That meant little to him, he was more than willing to die for her as well as their children.

She deserved his loyalty and his life after everything that had happened between them. He had wronged her, he needed to make amends to her for it.

“Lord Sesshomaru?” Rin’s voice called out.

He turned, finding himself in his brother’s forest and Rin walking towards him with a basket of mushrooms in her arms. He stared at her, barely recognizing the child that had travelled with him years ago. She had grown a great deal since he had last seen her; he was reminded of Kagome.

They looked so alike at that age but Rin could never have that sparkle of defiance in Kagome that refused to die. It was that sparkle that he now realized had made him fall in love with Kagome in the beginning.

“Hello Rin, you appear well.”

She smiled at him with such happiness as she had always done. Would she had been happy if she had been in Kagome’s place for the last two years? He had always thought of her as a daughter in ways but as he stood there, he thought of the differences between her and Kagome. Kagome could read, write, play music and was well educated…everything that Rin was not.

Was that difference why Kagome had never been happy with him? There were so many questions within him that would not gain an answer. The answers that he sought were within himself as well as Kagome.

“Lord Sesshomaru, it is so good to see you, my lord. How are Kagome and your daughter? Have they been well?” Rin asked.

“No…that is why I’m here.”

Chapter 6  Sesshomaru’s Mate Chapters Chapter 8