InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Aiji: A Blanket Fic ❯ Bearing Down ( Chapter 6 )

Part 6

It was coming, though they didn't know it yet. Kagome shook her head sadly as she watched her mate watching her intently, wanting to assuage his doubts, but before she could even open her mouth to respond, the clenching pain of another contraction rolled up and devoured her. With her chin pulled into her chest, and her teeth gritted against the assault, she huffed and groaned as she tried to ride it out. Before long, she had thrown her head back in what could very nearly be described as a howl of suffering.

"Kagome, I'm sorry!" Inuyasha growled, his brow lowered in a strange, strained combination of furious anger and abject misery. He appeared seconds away from hurting someone, and Kagome suspected that that someone was her husband. The look of him tugged at her heart, and she genuinely wanted to assure him that she would be all right, that she didn't blame him for any of this. Unfortunately, she was not quite over the hump of the contraction, so any sympathy that she might have mustered for him at this late point was quickly soured by her own fear and discomfort. As wine gone off soon becomes vinegar, sympathy quickly curdled into annoyance. She glared back at him with flashing eyes and returned his growl.

"Enough already! It's nobody's fault!" It had been a long time since Keade's beads had been lifted from his shoulders, but he'd found that at times like this, when he could almost believe that he saw tiny licks of flame leap up behind her pupils, that his eyes still widened reflexively, and his right arm, followed by his right elbow and shoulder, through no conscious effort of his own, came around his body in a rigid, protective arc; what he had once considered the "last line of defense" between Kagome's anger and his cringing, cowering body. No matter how much time had passed or how many times he'd told himself that she couldn't possibly do it anymore, when she looked at him that way, his body still anticipated the "sit."

"But Kagome-" he breathed, silently willing his muscles to unclench. It was downright embarrassing.

"Stop it! Listen to me! I need you with me on this. I can't do it alone. If you're going to concentrate all of your energy on feeling angry at yourself, then I'm not going to make it through this! Now are you with me or not?" He wasn't sure himself, but there was something about the way she sat up and looked at him that made his uncertainty seem ludicrous. She was panting lightly now, her face glowing in the cast-off firelight with a fresh sheen of perspiration, but it seemed that the pain had passed for the moment. That wasn't so unusual. Discounting the large, swollen belly, he'd seen her wet and naked a thousand times before, and that wasn't counting all the times he'd spied on her in the bath before he'd taken her as a mate.

Mostly it was her eyes. Rarely had he seen her so determined while simultaneously looking so very frightened. Maybe once before; as she'd been preparing to pull the arrow out of his chest. Drawn in by them, he found himself almost unconsciously gathering his own resolved as he stared back, slowly exhaling an opaque, misty-white puff of moist breath into the chilled air of the room.

"Alright," he said in a low voice, "What should I do?"

"Wash your hands."

"What? Why?" He was beginning to regret that he'd refused to watch any of those "video" things Kagome had been so insistent upon whenever they'd gone to visit her mother. He'd obviously missed something important.

"Because I'm going to need you to look down there and tell me what you see," she said unflinchingly, "And dirty hands could hurt both me and the pup."

"Kagome, I can't-" he false-started, then tried again when he was met with a very displeased frown. "I don't know anything about…"

"I can't do it myself and there's no one else here. It has to be you." She stopped then, her eyes squeezing tightly shut as the pain crept up and overwhelmed, holding her in its grip once more. She had barely had time to recuperate, let alone prepare herself, and in the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware that there had to have been some sort of significant change, for barely a moment had passed between the end of the last attack and the start of the new. When this, too, finally passed, it occurred to him all at once that they may very well be running out of time. It was strange and startling, he thought, how it could happen so suddenly (though had he voiced this thought, his mate would have been all too ready to offer up her own opinion on how "suddenly" it had all transpired). Wasting no further time, he plunged his hands into the kettle, almost completely unaware of the grimace of pain he wore on his face, elicited by the scalding heat as he scrubbed his hands in the next-to-boiling water.

He perched himself between her open knees, and when she indicated that she was ready with a slight nod, her spread them further apart. He didn't look until he had taken a few deep breaths in preparation, essentially steeling himself. As it turned out, it was probably a good thing that he had. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting to see, but what was revealed to him was upsetting enough. The skin between her thighs was a raw pink, and the once beloved and lusted after core was swollen beyond all recognition. The sight made him swallow hard as the now-familiar cold sweat rushed once again to his skin's surface.

"Do you see anything?" she asked quietly, a sliver of apprehension in her voice.

"W-What…What am I looking for?" he finally managed.

"A head…or something?" She sounded as if she didn't know herself.

"A head?" he echoed, saliva pooling on his tongue.

"Or something?"

"I don't see anything, Kagome. Just…" He didn't finish. He couldn't finish. He didn't have the vocabulary to describe what he was seeing. The closest he would be able to come, if pressed by some sadistic mind, would be the word "carnage."

"You don't see anything?" she asked, sounding more concerned with each passing moment. He shook his head, looking back at her contritely.

"I don't see anything that looks like a head."

"I don't understand," she cried, "Something's going on! It has to be, because it just doesn't feel the same anymore."

"Well…how does it feel?" he asked as she struggled to sit back up, certain that he didn't really want to know. This was confirmed an instant later, when Kagome's eyes flew wide open and her jaw dropped, her mouth forming a giant, silent scream.

"Oh my god!" she mouthed overdramatically, though he had a feeling that despite the histrionics, she wasn't exaggerating in the slightest. "Mama was right, you just know!"

"Know what?! What is it?!" he cried, grabbing her hands. She squeezed back, trying to use his weight as a counterbalance and pull herself into a low squat.

"I have to push. Now."

"Now?"

"NOW!"

She grunted once, a single noise that she managed to sustain for the entire rise and fall of the contraction. The final lap had begun. Together they became the birth, and all conceptions of time and locality were lost to them. Their new reality was breath and sweat, screams and whispers. They lived within the pain, but more importantly, they worked in it. Kagome labored on her feet, squatting on the edge of the blanket. Inuyasha crouched down behind her, mimicking her stance, but while all of Kagome was intent on bearing down, Inuyasha bore her up, and when her strength wore thin and her knees began to buckle, he sat her on his knees. There was breath and sweat, there was water, salt, saliva and tears. And when they reached the end, there would be blood.

*Author's note - Sending Niamh mental margaritas and much love for being an appreciative reader and a world of help.*