InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Aiji: A Blanket Fic ❯ Kagome ( Chapter 4 )

Part 4

It was unlike any movie that she had ever seen, and that included the one she'd been made to watch in her seventh grade sex ed. class that was designed to scare teen girls away from the situation she now found herself in. She marveled at how miserably they had all failed at an actual depiction of what seemed to be so commonplace, how woefully short of reality they fell. There was no grim-faced yet determined doctor perched between her upright knees, no kind, helpful nurses to wipe her brow and cheer her on, to tell her that she was doing great, almost there and "Push, Kagome, push!" There was no father by her side, beaming with pride through his anxiety, holding her hand or feeding her ice chips, all while whispering sweet words of encouragement into her ear. No, there were no comforting clichés in that dark and dusty little room. Instead, the pains hit, she screamed, and the only member of her cheering section looked only slightly better off than she did, the expression on his face anything but comforting. He had tried to hold her hand at one point, but she had dug her fingernails so forcefully into his flesh that she had drawn blood, so she hadn't accepted it again.

Nothing had prepared her for this. Not the countless books with the cute little titles or the stupid Lamaze training which she now realized had been a total waste of time, just as Inuyasha had predicted. Even Kaede's well-meaning advice had been driven out of her head by a white hot 'What the hell does she know?! She's never done this!' the moment the first real contraction had claimed her. All the kiegel exercises in the world could not have prepared her for this pain.

It did not feel like a wave, that would wash over her and away again, as some of the books had suggested, nor the severe cramps that Sango had guessed at. Even her mother's dire warnings in which she comparing it to being run over by a MAC truck didn't quite measure up. With each new exhausting, excruciating contraction, Kagome was rapidly becoming convinced that hers was an entirely original sort of pain, unique to herself and her situation. She was fairly certain that if any other woman before her had been privy to what she was experiencing now, the human race would have ended a long time ago. This was a sharp, shining new pain, the feeling that she had been slit from her groin to her breast with a hot, dull knife and now someone was trying to peel back the layers of skin and muscle and turn her inside out.

And it was not over quickly, as those same faulty movies had suggested. For hours she had been at this, and hours still dragged on in the dim light and the stale air of the nest. How had her own mother survived this? And then gone on to have Souta, no less? Perhaps she really hadn't felt what Kagome was now feeling? Was this pain a special sort, reserved only for foolish young women who had gone against their own species and mated with youkai? Had the gods seen fit to punish a young miko for giving her heart and body to the very same monsters she was sworn to protect against? For creating a new sort of hybrid beast, neither human, youkai, nor even hanyou?

What a ridiculous notion. She couldn't imagine an infant being any more wanted by its parents than the one inside of her, now struggling to come out.

Granted, they'd been a little shocked at first. She had honestly thought that taking the same precautions that one would take with a human boy would work just as well with Inuyasha. She had been mistaken. Only a few brief months after they had become lovers, she had found herself standing in her bathroom at home, face to face with the inescapable truth of a pair of light blue plus signs. She hadn't even needed to wait the full minute.

But after the initial shock had passed, and once they had managed to coax Inuyasha down from Kaede-bachan's roof, she had to admit that she'd never been happier. She was a little disappointed in herself for not having finished high school, but since she had ultimately decided to stay with Inuyasha in the sengoku jidai, she supposed it didn't really matter all that much. She often missed her family, but Inuyasha and the others were good to her, and when he sensed that she was growing a bit too sad with longing to see her mother, he would take her back for a visit. No one knew for how long they'd be able to continue to shuffle back and forth between time periods, which made every visit more special and complicated than the last.

It was during one such visit that her mother had begged them to stay, at least until after the baby was born. Kagome had found the offer quite tempting, and had said as much, but Inuyasha had been adamant in his refusal. For every logical reason that Kagome's mother could come up with for them to remain, he had countered with his own brand of "logic." "Proper prenatal care" was countered with "This village stinks. The smell is bad for the pup," "Better medicines" was met with "Meat is better for you when it's fresh, like right after I kill it," and to "Over here, we have actual doctors!" he responded with a resounding "Keh!" and an overly sarcastic "Amazing I'm still alive!"

As much as she hated to see them arguing, and as tempting a prospect as the availability of an epidural at the time of birth seemed, Kagome ultimately found herself siding with her mate, though not due to his fallacious reasoning. Arguments aside, it all boiled down to the fact that it was far too dangerous for her baby to be born in a modern hospital. If there was even the slightest chance that the child resembled Inuyasha in any way… The thought had made Kagome shudder, and she had wrapped her arms around her then tiny mound of a belly protectively as she imagined what the fate of her child might be if that were the case. Being part youkai may have been frowned upon in the sengoku jidai, but in a modern world were spirits and monsters were now a part of make- believe, a youkai child would be considered a freak, or a horrible birth defect. She could envision an endless parade of drug tests and social workers, as the saintly doctors tried to figure out just what exactly she had done to herself to create a child that looked so inhuman. And while all of this was going on, where would Inuyasha be? The anachronism of Inuyasha in a hospital was so bizarre that she couldn't even summon the picture in her mind, never mind the fact that he'd raise too many suspicions and would probably refuse to go in the first place.

No. She would not take that chance for the sake of some physical discomfort.

Of course, that had been back before she had learned what a labor pain actually felt like.