Noble House

Tsuki walked down the hallway carrying her writer's block busting hammer and her lazy writer's motivational whip in the other. She unlocked the door to Ali's cell, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the used tissues that littered the floor and the overwhelming scent of menthol cough drops.

"Jeez you are a slob," Tsuki remarked. Ali coughed, raising bleary bloodshot
eyes.

"I'm sick." Tsuki rolled her eyes.

"Yeah. Waaaa. Where is the story," Tsuki tapped her foot.

"Over there," Ali pointed to the laptop. Tsuki glanced over the stor
"
"Sick but you still managed to pull it off. I guess I will let Fay-chan
visit you. After you clean up."

Da rulez:

Have an open mind. Enjoy the chapter. Post a review as you leave. Remember a
kind word goes a long way.

No flames. Seriously. All that does is piss her off and it does not help to
inspire creativity except to launch an attack back at you.


At last! The next chapter is complete! *insert eveil mad-scientist like cackle here* Seriously guys, I'm soo very sorry it's taken me so long to do this... between the head cold from hell *shakes her fist at the evil pollen bearing oak trees outside*, my mother falling off a ladder, and my grandmother starting to act absolutely bizarre (the woman was flapping her arms like a bird and singing in the middle of dinner at an upscale restaraunt, before she started a food fight with the crab and artichoke dip), and the fact that my muse has been wandering around parts unknown fo the better part of a month, I haven't had much time or inspiration to write. I will try and update on a more regular basis, but i make no promises at this point. Many MANY thanks go to Fay-chan, Youkaitsuki, Delkaiden, and MomOfFluffyAndFluffier (hope i got the caps right there) for their help and inspiration. I'd still be stuck on this damn chapter if it wasn't for them.

Inu Yasha reclined against the battered wood of the dry well, the mid-morning sun beating down on his tired body. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the lip of the well, the old, rough wood biting slightly into his scalp and back. The sunlight warmed him, making it near impossible to remain awake for much longer. He only slept for about two hours at Sango's side, before waking in a tangle of limbs. He'd pulled away before the feel of her naked flesh could affect him physically, and then gone to bathe his body and fire-rat kimono in a cold stream to remove the smells of his earlier activities. The sights, smells and sounds of their lovemaking still lingered in his mind, tantalizing his body and enveloping his heart with guilt.

"Kagome" he whispered, his voice weak and breathy from exhaustion. He loved his wife, with all his heart, mind and soul, and at that moment he questioned whether he deserved to be married to her. Being forced to take another wife was one thing, but to enjoy bedding her was another. He could not deny the degree of physical pleasure he'd experienced in Sango's arms, the encounter they shared too intense to ignore. 'Should I feel that way? If I love Kagome so much, should I even be able to take pleasure in Sango's body?' The exhausted hanyou shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. 'No, I love Kagome, completely. It must be the fault of my demon blood that I was able to enjoy bedding her... no..' he thought, squeezing his eyes shut to hold back unwanted tears. 'I was human last night... I have no excuse.'

His mind slumped further into remorse and sadness, guilt over having to betray his beloved wife threatening to consume him. He knew that while Kagome loved him deeply, she never fully trusted him after the time he left her side to follow a rumor of Kikyo, his absence leading to her capture by Naraku's detachments. Now, while she felt most insecure about herself, he took another woman, her best friend in this era no less, to a marriage bed. The deaths of their unborn children only complicated matters further, and Inu Yasha watched helplessly as his beloved slipped further and further from him with each passing day. Kagome's spirit was in turmoil, and no word, no action, of his seemed to soothe her. 'Would she fear that I'm replacing her? That I took Sango out of anything other than obligation?'

Kikyo died twice due to his inability to protect her from the chaos of his life, and now Kagome suffered as well. He repeatedly cursed his demon blood, Sesshomaru, his father, himself; anything that he felt was even partially to blame for this situation. 'Gods, I really am a bastard. She'll probably leave me for good when she finds out.... but I had no choice. I don't know if I would be able to kill him, and Sango wouldn't be safe any other way.' This way, there would be no risk to his family's safety. This way, they could live full, healthy lives without the constant threat of an arrogant taiyoukai bearing down on them.


Kagome felt so uncertain of herself in recent days, her mood rapidly shifting and her speech becoming more and more self-depreciating. Maiya referred to it as the "baby blues", something some women go through during their pregnancy and possibly afterwards for a period of time. Despite Maiya's constant reassurances, he still felt as if he wasn't doing enough to show how much he truly loved Kagome. He saw her glances in the mirror laced with disgust, her self-depreciative tone that tainted her speech about her body. He stood by her as she struggled to both deny and accept her miko heritage, torn between her duties as wife and mother to youkai and her instinct to purify any demon that neared the shikon no tama.

He tried to reassure her throughout her pregnancy; that he didn't care about any extra pounds she put on, as she was carrying the product of their love. When she became dopic and uncoordinated, he assured her it didn't alter his opinion of her. He still desired her physically as much as the moment he first realized he loved her, and it drove him mad the distance she placed between them. Even if he could not bury himself in her heat, he could still please her, but until the other night, she would not allow it. 'Doesn't she understand how much I love her? Have I not explained things correctly to her? I really don't have much of a choice in this matter.'

Inu Yasha lifted himself tiredly from his position to stand facing the well. "Damnit, Kagome, you know I have trouble finding the right words..." He planted a calloused hand on the lip of the well and pushed off, propelling himself forward into the musty darkness. He landed gracefully on the hard dirt of the well floor, and turned his gaze skyward. Blue sky and rustling leaves met his gaze instead of wooden beams, and the hanyou fought the need to howl his grief and rage into the humid summer air. "What if you can't come back koi.... what if you're trapped there, in your era, just as I'm stuck in mine?" He forced back tears, not allowing himself that perceived weakness while in his hanyou form. "What if I can never hold you again, Kagome? What if I can never see our child? Are you and the baby even safe?"

Images raced through his mind of the countless demons he knew hid in her era. Kagome took the shikon no tama with her to the modern age, and youkai could easily track it. In a world almost devoid of sources of magical and spiritual power, the tama was a beacon. The Noh mask was the first of many to come after the miko in her time. Images of Kagome, broken and bleeding, filled his mind. 'Why do you always run to where I can't protect you... why can't you just stay here, where it's safe... with me.' Inu Yasha reminded himself that his wife was no longer the frightened child who released him from Goshinboku all those years ago. She was strong now.. stronger than perhaps even Kikyo had been in life. There were few youkai in sengoku-jidai that were a match for her power, even while she remained restricted by her pregnancy. Her family's shrine was made into a veritable fortress of ofuda and seals, nothing malevolent could even dream of breaking through. He would have to trust in her power for the duration of their separation. "She'll be fine.... she.. she just has to be...."

He leapt from the well, landing gracefully in the tall grass beside it. He turned momentarily to glower at the dilapidated structure, as if it were solely to blame for his current predicament. "I will see you again Kagome.. you.. the baby.... you are a part of my life that I will not let go." The weary hanyou yawned loudly, his body's need for sleep finally overpowering his restless mind. Knowing Sango and Shippou were safe within his home, he jumped the short distance between the well and the sacred tree, landing with ease on a favored branch. He leaned his back against the warm wood of the trunk, his legs stretched out in front of on on the thick tree limb beneath him. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, falling into a light sleep haunted by troubling dreams.

**************************************************************************************

"I can't believe you would... how DARE you insinuate... there is nothing WRONG with my baby, and I will not give it up!" Kagome's angry, tearstained face turned from her startled obstetrician. The doctor had feared this reaction from her... the girl had lost two children in two years, and the genetic anomalies hinted at in her current lab work only implied future problems. To be honest, he and his colleagues never in all their years of practice saw such a strange deviation from the healthy human DNA code. At first glance, the children this girl carried inside her appeared fully human, but upon closer inspection, parts of the protein chains and coding resembled that of a something well... else.

He and his colleagues were convinced of lab errors, thinking some sloppy individual contaminated the samples. However, sonogram and x-ray results from Higurashi-san’s emergency room visits betrayed a further anomaly... the ears of the child did not appear to be developing in the correct location. The hospital called her obstetrician, intending to let her own doctor, not some nameless, faceless hospital employee break the harsh news to her. Perhaps the father or mother possessed some kind of genetic anomaly, a recessive trait passed down for generations. Perhaps the father’s family was exposed to some kind of chemical or agent that would affect inherited DNA. ‘God knows we saw enough of that here after Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ the doctor thought sadly to himself.

After extensive discussion, they had all felt it would be in the young mother’s best interests to explain to her that she should have a late term abortion. Her psychological state was less than stable after two miscarriages, how would she handle a less than normal baby? Now the young girl sat across from him, her eyes blazing angrily and her fingers gripping the edge of his rosewood desk so tightly her knuckles were turning white. “Higurashi-san, please, I know this is difficult news to take, but you must understand our position. You’ve had two miscarriages, both of those babies had the same genetic anomaly as this one. You’ve made it much further into this pregnancy, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to carry that child to term. Last time, you almost bled to death as a result of losing the baby, we don’t want to see you risk that this time. For all intents and purposes, it seems to be healthy, but do you really want a baby that doesn‘t look normal? It could be plagued by health problems its entire life, really, this is the humane thing to do.”

“I don’t care!” she practically growled at him, through gritted teeth. “It’s my child, I don’t care what you say it’s going to look like! You said it yourself, the baby is healthy! That’s all that matters!” Kagome’s mind was in an uproar. She understood that some of her husband’s youkai features could be passed down, and it wasn’t a problem to her. Inu Yasha was beautiful to her, and so too would be their child. ‘How dare some old quack of a physician tell me my baby should die because it looks different!’ The young miko stood awkwardly, having to push herself up from the chair with her arms, propelling herself belly-first into a standing position. “Humane.... humane my ass! This is a living being, a life my husband and I created, and you will not take it from me!” She wrapped her arms around her stomach protectively, and fled from the sterile office.

The doctor watched as the young woman fled from his office, and released a weary sigh. “Well.... that certainly didn’t go very well...” His gaze slid to the now empty chair in front of him, his vision registering a small black handbag crammed against the arm. Shuffliis pis papers, he chuckled morosely, pondering how long it would take the young woman to notice she left her purse behind. After tow minutes passed, one of his young nurses knocked and opened the door, peeking her delicate face inside the office.

“Ano..... Yamahiro-sensei... Higurashi-san left in an awful rush... is anything wrong?” The young woman knew full well what was wrong, the whole office did. The poor girl had been shouting loud enough to wake the dead, and her exceptional hearing picked up on the full conversation. ‘The poor thing... I saw her husband bring her here before... I know why their child looks the way it does... ’

“Aaah, Midori, Higurashi-san... received some troubling news.... I’m afraid she left her bag here... perhaps you could...” He smiled brightly at the young woman, hoping she would take the hint. This nurse was something special, always seeming to have the right words to say to a patient, always charming the fussing babies that wandered in and out of the office. She was sly though, always having a clever response for any statement and her eyes full of mischief. ‘Maybe Midori could calm her down a little, talk some sense into her..’

The nurse’s hazel eyes softened, and she nodded solemnly as she stepped into the room. She snatched the bag from the chair, and swiftly strode out into the waiting room and out the front door. She spotted the young mother-to-be fumbling with a set of keys in front of her car, and she carefully approached her. This young woman was especially strong of will and hot of temper, and Midori didn’t want to be on the receiving end. “Higurashi-san.... ano... you left your bag..” Her sentence trailed off as the young woman turned towards her, her eyes and nose red and puffy as seemingly endless tears fell down her cheeks. She resisted the urge to embrace the young woman, the gesture considered too inappropriate in the culture between strangers. ‘Stupid propriety.’ she growled to herself. “Will you be alright, Higurashi-san?” The raven haired woman before her seemed too distressed to be driving home, and Midori doubted she could persuade the girl back into the air-conditioned office to calm herself. Her powers of persuasion would not work on one such as she. ‘Guess I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way...’

Kagome grabbed her bag from the nurse’s out-stretched hands, immediately fumbling for the pack of tissues she knew would be inside. She sniffled for a few moments, trying desperately to calm herself. “Ari... arigato, Midori-san. I... I couldn’t.... go back... in there, I won’t go back in there... My baby... isn’t a freak... an anomaly...” Kagome broke down in tears again, this time having to lean against the car to keep her knees from ng ong out underneath her. Kagome felt a pair of slender arms wrap around her shoulders to steady her, and she felt her miko powers flare to the surface. Something was wrapping around her mind, making her hazy, tired. As exhausted as she was, Kagome was unable to fight it, and succumbed to unconsciousness.


tbc....

yeah... I'm a bitch.. I know it... but its SOOOO much fun.....