InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages ❯ When Hell Froze Over ( Chapter 29 )

Well, this is it! The last (official) chapter of the story! There will be one more after this, but it is more of an epilogue or bonus chapter. And it is very, very close to being finished, so look for it soon!

 

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for sticking with me to the end. I love this story because it has given me a chance to improve my writing so much! And I'm looking forward to what I will be able to do in the future with everything I've learned so far. Your feedback has been invaluable and I can't even begin to make you guys realize how much fun it was to get such a wide variety of reviews from all of you! Strange ones, hilarious ones, flattering ones, constructive ones...I got a few others as well, but those I didn't appreciate in the least, so we'll just pretend they don't exist, lol...

 

Okay, enough of that before I start getting sappy or irritated. On to the chapter!

 

WARNING: A bit of coarse language, as usual.

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Disclaimer: I take full credit and ownership of the things you like about this story, (okay, except for the characters!) but anything bad wasn't my fault! I swear! Like the months between updates. That was...er...that was Inuyasha's fault! Don't ask me why, it just is, so deal with it.

 

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Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages

Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

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The next morning dawned bright and clear, much to the annoyance of at least one occupant of Inuyasha's apartment.

 

"Damn sun, go away and let me sleep..." The overly grumpy hanyou muttered as he covered his eyes to block out the sunlight seeping through the coverings on his windows. Someone had obviously stayed up much too late the night before, and now he was suffering the consequences of only getting a few hours sleep.

 

It took a few minutes of serious effort, but Inuyasha finally managed to start drifting once again into a land of blissful oblivion. It was normally much harder for him to do, but that morning he was just so comfortable and warm, and he was surrounded by a scent that just made him want to stay there and never move. His brain was far too fuzzy and sleep-muddled to question any of these things, though.

 

After that there was peace in the room for a while, until the sun managed to climb a bit higher. Then another voice spoke, breaking the silence and startling Inuyasha out of his relaxed state so suddenly that he nearly fell of the couch in panicked surprise.

 

"Sango, cover the window, would you? It's too bright..."

 

Now Inuyasha was wide awake and staring down at the other occupant of his couch in surprise. What the hell...?

 

Oh. That's right.

 

His mind slowly began to recall the events of just a few hours previous. Calling Kagome to his apartment, their talk, her reactions to everything he had to say, the kiss...

 

The kiss.

 

An unusually goofy smile broke out on his face at that particular thought. If he'd had any reservations about Kagome's feelings towards him before that moment, he wouldn't have afterwards. She'd been more than willing to meet him halfway, and the result was absolutely mind-blowing.

 

He glanced back down at the still sleeping girl next to him in a rather uncomfortable-looking position. After the kiss they'd spent another good hour just talking about everything, anything, and nothing, until Kagome had fallen asleep next to him with her head on his shoulder. And unwilling to wake her up and cause her to go back to her own apartment, he's managed to pull her legs up onto the couch and recline back, all without jarring her enough to disturb her.

 

If possible, his grin got even sillier. He couldn't wait for her to wake up and realize where she was. Perhaps she'd react like she had the last time they'd been forced to share a bed with one another, but perhaps not? The first possible reaction would be entertaining, though bad for his heath, but the second possibility might have much more promising results. He could only hope...

 

Not long later he got his answer when Kagome shifted, once again awake and annoyed because 'Sango' hadn't done as she'd asked and gotten rid of the annoying sunlight. She placed her hand beside her blindly to prop herself up when she froze, and someone near her let out a gasp and froze as well.

 

What in the world...?

 

Cracking open her eyes, she peered down at her hand and nearly fell over the arm of the sofa in her haste to get away from Inuyasha. Thankfully though, he managed to pull himself together just in time to catch her, though it was extremely difficult, considering where her hand had been moments before. Out of all the things he'd been expecting to happen when she woke up, that had NOT been one of them!

 

"I-Inuyasha!" She stared at his with wide eyes, horrified and turning redder with every second that passed as he continued to hold onto her arms. "I'm SO sorry! I didn't mean to do it, honest! It-it was just T-THERE!"

 

He couldn't help himself after the last thing she said. He laughed. Hard.

 

Kagome continued to stare at him as he laughed, until she too began to find some humor in the situation and joined him, forgetting about her embarrassment for the moment.

 

They were still laughing when the phone began to ring.

 

Making an effort to pull himself together, Inuyasha reached over a grabbed the phone. "Yeah? What do you want?" He answered, not caring how impolite he might sound since he was suddenly annoyed at the intrusion. All the humor was gone from his voice.

 

"Inuyasha, I am calling to warn you that I am at the airport and shall be arriving shortly."

 

As if a switch had been flipped, Inuyasha's expression darkened. "Great. Just the thing I wanted to hear first thing in the morning. You sure know how to ruin someone's day."

 

"Good to know. Make sure Rin's things are packed."

 

With that, the phone line went dead.

 

"Who was that?" Kagome questioned, though she didn't really need to ask after seeing the expression on his face.

 

"Who else? The bastard says he's at the airport, so I guess I'd better get the runt up and ready to go." He looked at the bedroom door. "I'm kinda surprised she isn't already awake after all the noise we just made."

 

Kagome began to blush again at the reminder of what had just happened. "Er, perhaps I'd better get back down to my apartment before Sango realizes I'm still gone...unless you want help getting Rin up and her things together first?"

 

He smiled at her, despite her darkening mood. "Keh. Don't you know I can't seem to do anything right without you?"

 

She smiled in return.

 

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~*~*~*~*~*~

 

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A little later that morning, the room was filled with a tense, foreboding silence.

 

Well, sort of...

 

"Papa Sess! Papa Sess!" Rin cried over and over, galloping around the room energetically. "Rin can't wait to see Papa Sess again! It's been sooooo long since Rin last saw him, and Rin is excited!"

 

The other two occupants of room watched the little girl expend more energy in five minutes than a nuclear plant might manage in a year. A REALLY good year, no less. One of the watchers looked faintly amused at the hyperactive display, while the other just looked downright grumpy and irritated.

 

"Oh, Inuyasha, stop glaring at her like that." Kagome scolded the hanyou next to her after Rin became preoccupied with pressing her face against the living room window. "She has every right to be so excited about seeing her 'Papa Sess', even if you aren't exactly thrilled."

 

A snort was the only response she received.

 

Sighing, Kagome turned back to watching Rin and wondered, not for the first time, why she was even there in the first place. She'd planned to leave that after helping him get Rin up, fed, and ready to go, but somehow he'd managed to talk her into staying. But why he wanted her to stay so badly, she still wasn't quite sure.

 

'Maybe he thinks he'll need someone to cover Rin's eyes while they try to kill each other...' she couldn't help but wonder grimly as her eyes followed the bouncing little girl. 'But seriously, what is going on in that little brain of his? I know that he told me a lot last night, and I managed to become closer to him that I ever thought I would. But still, it isn't as if we're married or anything, so I'm not sure I feel right about actually witnessing something private between he and his brother. Can't he just tell me about it later instead?' She glanced towards him. The expression on his face was very annoyed and antsy, as she'd expected. Maybe he really didn't want her here, but was pretending for her sake? "Inuyasha...really, I can leave if you want-"

 

His eyes immediately turned to glare at her. "Keh, you scared or something?"

 

"No! I just..." She bit her lip nervously.

 

His eyes softened as he stared at her, realizing why she was so upset. "Quit worrying about it, would you? I want you to stay, and if he says anything about you being here I'll set him straight." His determined expression surprised her.

 

'He must really mean it.' She thought, staring at him with wide eyes as he turned away from her with a sudden blush. 'But I still don't understand...' Actually, the way he was acting made her wonder if he wasn't over-compensating for keeping her shut out for so long by trying to involve her in EVERYTHING. That, honestly, seemed like something he would do, and she smiled a little at the thought.

 

Kagome turned and continued to watch Rin until the little girl suddenly plastered herself to the window and shrieked loud enough to wake the dead, or cause Inuyasha to go deaf, judging by the pained expression on his face along with the flattened ears.

 

"PAPA SESS!" Rin squealed, her voice muffled and her face deformed from the amount of pressure she was exerting on the window.

 

Inuyasha groaned internally, knowing that the 'talk' he'd been dreading ever since Sesshoumaru had called him several days ago was about to happen. And no matter how much he might wish for the whole situation to just disappear, he knew there was no avoiding it.

 

The half-demon suddenly glanced at the nervous girl sitting next to him. At least Kagome was here with him, so he wouldn't have to face it alone like he'd been trying to do for so long. No matter how much he thought about it or tried to reason it out, he was constantly in awe of the fact that she cared for him so much. When he'd first met her, he hadn't entertained even for a moment the thought that she might one day return his feelings.

 

At that moment there was a solid knock on the door and Rin went flying across the room to open it, stepping on Inuyasha's foot in the process and snapping him out of his unusually sappy thoughts.

 

"Oi, watch where you're going, brat!"

 

He was completely ignored.

 

"PAPA SESS!" Rin pulled open the door and nearly tackled the demon standing on the other side before he could even take one step into the apartment.

 

"Rin."

 

Sesshoumaru waited patiently for his young charge to let go of his legs, and when she did he gave her a once-over with his eyes to make sure she was in good health. After all, she HAD been staying with his brother for a good length of time, and there was no telling what kind of damage had been done. He had been half expecting to find her running around half clothed and covered in dirt, but she looked surprisingly clean and well taken care of.

 

But then something he saw made him pause.

 

"Rin, what is that on your forehead?"

 

The little girl smiled up at her adopted father proudly. "Rin wanted to do something special, so Rin decided to draw a moon on Rin's head just like yours!"

 

For once, the normally collected demon seemed to be at a loss as to what to say as he examined the mark on the little girl's forehead. It looked rather...odd...more like the mouth of a demented smiley face than a crescent moon. In fact, there was even what looked to be two little eyes and a nose...

 

He glanced sharply at Inuyasha, who was now standing in his usual crossed-arms stance and looking away guiltily.

 

"Proving your artistic abilities again, I see." Sesshoumaru commented blandly. "And here I thought that letter you drew obscene pictures on and sent back to me several years ago was your greatest achievement."

 

"Shut up!" He muttered weakly, not exactly sure how to defend himself. "It was the middle of the night and I was bored, okay? And any letter from you was worth about as much as scrap paper to me, anyway..."

 

Kagome let out something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, though to her credit she tried hard to quell it.

 

Sesshoumaru suddenly turned his attention to her, successfully squashing any humor she might have been feeling a moment before. "Who are you?"

 

"Um..."

 

"Kagome, this is my jerk of a brother. Jerk, this is Kagome." Inuyasha glared at Sesshoumaru, seeing the protest in his eyes. "I'm telling you this now. Kagome is important to me, and I asked her to stay, so she stays. This is my home after all, and if anyone leaves, it will be you."

 

Sesshoumaru silently contemplated Inuyasha's statement for a moment. "Fine. Her presence is of no concern to me as long as I obtain my goal."

 

Inuyasha snorted. "So what is your 'goal' anyway? You've been mentioning this oh-so important talk, but I can't imagine what you have to say to me that would matter. But if it's about rejoining the family because the way I live is a disgrace, then you can forget it. Nothin' you say is gonna change my mind."

 

"I have no intention of trying to talk you into anything, brother."

 

The suspicious look Inuyasha was giving Sesshoumaru was unmistakable. "So then what they he-" He paused, remembering that Rin was present. "What the heck do you want, then? Just to bug me?"

 

Sesshoumaru seemed faintly amused. "That would be a pleasant bonus, but no, that is not my main goal."

 

"Then WHAT do you want? Just say it!" Inuyasha growled, finally losing what little patience he had with the whole situation. His brother certainly knew better than anyone what buttons needed to be pushed to set him off.

 

Apparently that satisfied Sesshoumaru, because he finally decided to get down to business. "Rin, please sit quietly and do not interrupt."

 

Obediently the little girl sat in the floor next to his feet, happy to just be near her Papa Sess.

 

"It has been several years since the days you and I lived in the same house along with father and...your mother." Sesshoumaru stopped, already struggling with what he was about to say next, though it wasn't visible to anyone around him. "Those were not happy years for any of us, for I resented both you and your mother for the taint that a human and a half human would have on the family name. But...certain things have occurred that made me question and reevaluate my views of these things."

 

Inuyasha could do nothing but stare at his brother, flabbergasted at the unexpected words. Was he hallucinating...?

 

"It started the night I reluctantly joined father at the hospital when your mother went into labor. I did not want to be there by any means, but I went upon father's request. I think he was already aware at that time that something was not right, and I could not deny the request for his sake alone. And so I was there to watch as your mother passed.

 

"I did not understand father's reaction. Why would he mourn a human so completely? For days he would not eat or sleep. He could think of nothing but his lost wife, his lost child...and you. No matter what I said to try to convince him that he was being a fool for mourning a human and wasting away over a son that would have nothing to do with him, still I could not sway him."

 

Inuyasha's seemed almost stricken, and his voice was a near croak as he spoke. "He...was that worried about me?"

 

Sesshoumaru eyed his as if he were a bug. "Yes, though I still don't fully understand that. You left the hospital that night and refused to speak to him after that. You blamed him for your mother's death, did you not? You felt as if you hated him, am I correct? I believe he knew that, and still he couldn't bring himself to have any ill feelings towards you. I would have gladly struck you down at that time my anger towards you was so strong, but I knew he would not have wanted me to, so I refrained."

 

The room was silent for several moments as Sesshoumaru allowed Inuyasha to digest such painful information.

 

"It wasn't long after that when father himself ended up at that very same hospital. He was so far gone after your mother's death that he never managed to recover. Even with all his powers, his weakness towards a simple human managed to do him in." Sesshoumaru's eyes hardened as he recalled his feelings as he wondered the hospital halls that night. "After he died, I hated him for his weakness. He was no longer the father I had known, and it was you and your mother's fault. If humans were nothing to me before, you were now the scum of the earth for bringing down such a fearsome youkai."

 

Inuyasha bristled and made a move to speak, but Kagome laid a calming hand on his arm. He immediately backed down, though it took some effort.

 

"But as I wondered the halls, I came upon a child. At first I ignored her, but she spoke to me, and asked me what was wrong." He stopped to gaze down at Rin, who stared back at him happily. His hard eyes softened. "I was surprised that anyone could see through me like that, and I responded without thinking about it. I told her my father was dead. And she cried for my loss, even when I could not.

 

"I wondered, what would make a little human child cry for a stranger? And a youkai, no less. I could not understand it." He paused for a moment. "It was not but a moment later that one of the hospital staff came long and told her that her mother was dead."

 

"Oh, Rin..." Kagome whispered, and looked ready to cry herself.

 

"I questioned the staff member when I realized that no one was sitting with this child, and found out that the mother and child were homeless, and had been brought off the street that very night. She had no family, no home, and now no mother, yet she still cried for me when she had far more reasons to cry for herself."

 

By far the softest look Inuyasha had ever seen on Sesshoumaru's face was present now, and he could only sit and stunned silence as he listened to this near stranger standing across from him. What had happened to the asshole brother he'd always known and hated?

 

"I was curious about this child that had so suddenly appeared and distracted me from thinking about father. So I had Jaken make a few calls, and then took her home with me that night."

 

Unable to resist, Kagome burst out "Oh my God, you were able to take a child home with you just like that?!?"

 

Sesshoumaru turned to stare at her. "Money, prestige, connections and power go very far, and can get you nearly anything."

 

Now it was Kagome's turn to be flabbergasted.

 

"As I was saying..." He continued, a bit irritated with the interruption "I took Rin home with me that night, puzzled and wanting to understand this strange human child. And as months passed with her in my care, I half expected her to suddenly act differently at some point, as if she were only pretending to be so unselfish, but she never did. She continued to be the same child, and without realizing it, though I am loath to admit this, I began to understand to understand father's feelings, at least in some small part."

 

Inuyasha was sure he must be hearing things. "What did you say?"

 

Sesshoumaru gave a long-suffering sigh. "Listen well, Inuyasha, because I shall only say this once. I apologize to you for all those years of torment." He made a face, as if the words physically pained him. "There. That was my goal and nothing more."

 

A still breeze could have blown Inuyasha over, and Kagome finally had to speak for him, because he obviously couldn't find his own voice, or even a stray thought in his head. "Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama, for explaining these things to Inuyasha. I am sure he will accept the apology at some point, if not right now." She stood next to the frozen hanyou and bowed politely.

 

He nodded his acknowledgement to her. "Then that is all. Rin, are you ready to leave?"

 

"Hai, Papa Sess! Rin's things are all packed!"

 

There was a flurry of activity as Jaken was called in to lug her baggage downstairs, and then Sesshoumaru excited after him, instructing Rin to say her goodbyes.

 

She turned to the two adults, one looking ready to cry and the other still stunned speechless.

 

"Rin will miss you Aunt Kagome!" The little girl cried, latching onto the older girl. They shared a long hug as Kagome struggled to hold in her tears.

 

"I'll miss you so much as well! Please come back and visit soon, okay?"

 

Rin's eyes lit up at the offer, and she nodded so enthusiastically that Kagome worried for a moment that the little girl would hurt her neck. "Rin promises to come back soon!"

 

Kagome reluctantly released Rin, and the child then turned towards her Uncle Inu. She clung to his legs and that seemed to snap him out of his daze. "Goodbye, Uncle Inu. Rin will miss you soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much! Please come and visit Rin and Papa Sess, and Rin will come visit Uncle Inu every chance Rin gets!"

 

Despite himself, Inuyasha felt as if his heart had just dropped into his toes at the realization that Rin was leaving, and that he was going to have to say goodbye to her. How had he gotten so attached to her without even realizing it? "I...I'm gonna miss you too, runt. I don't know if I'll be welcome to visit, but you can come see me any time." He ruffled her hair, causing her to giggle.

 

"Okay!"

With that, she headed out the door with one final wave, and then she was gone.

 

The room seemed so much lonelier without her. And it hadn't even been a minute since she'd left. How was he going to stand it with his apartment so quiet?

 

He then glanced over at Kagome, who was wiping a stray tear from one of her eyes. And then he got an idea.

 

"Oi, Kagome..." He wrapped his arms around her in a hug, though for some reason the gesture didn't seem nearly as innocent to her as it was. Maybe because of the leer he had on his face...? "I think I'm going to be really, really lonely now that the runt's gone, and I don't know what I'm gonna do about it."

 

"You...don't? She wrapped her own arms around him, catching on to where he was going...or so she thought.

 

"Nope...wait, maybe I do. But I'll need you to help me." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

 

"Of course I'll help you." She smiled at him, amused by this new, very forward attitude he was sporting. "What should I do?"

 

"Well..." He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear, which caused Kagome's face to go so red that he thought she might pass out.

 

"I-Inuyasha!!!!!" She stared at him in embarrassed horror. Of all the things she'd expected him to say (spending a lot of time with him being the main one), she had NOT been prepared for Inuyasha to make a very Miroku-like offer. "I am NOT going to help you make a replacement for Rin!"

 

He pretended to pout. "Not ever?"

 

She paused, finally starting to recover from her embarrassment. "Well...not right now, at least." She smiled. "Maybe later."

 

Inuyasha laughed, and then responded to her with a kiss that easily rivaled any of the ones they'd already shared. And hopefully they would continue to share even better ones for a long time to come...

 

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Wow...I really struggled to get the first scene of this chapter started and written, but once I got passed that, it practically wrote itself in just a few hours! I had no expectations of getting it finished today, but somehow I did! I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I hope you guys are as well! Now you may look forward to the epilogue because it's almost finished! Better run now because it is started to lightening outside...