Okay guys I know these chapters are a little late and that the themes are in the past but I didn't have internet for a while so thats why these are very late. But I still love you and I hope you still love my stories!

~Q

Christmas Is Almost Here!

1 Week Before Christmas, 1 Month After First Date

"Daddy?" A small girl with big dark golden eyes said with a shy smile on her tiny face.

Sesshomaru looked to the little girl in question and crouched down to her level so he could look her in the eyes.

"Yes, my princess?" He cooed softly to the child. "What is it?"

"Can Ma-" The small girl stuttered. " I mean, Kagome, stay here tonight?" Rin asked with a twinkle in her eye as she hid her face half way behind the stuffed white dog she held, to hide her blush.

Sesshomaru looked in the direction in which said woman was attempting to help him by wrapping presents in the guest bedroom. He was surprised at her question, but dared not show his daughter that. He turned back to the girl and gave a soft but tender smile. "You will have to ask her yourself-"

"Ask me what?" That smooth and succulent tone could only come from one person he knew that was in his house...Kagome. He looked at her and he thought his jaw would hit the floor. She stood there in a 'one-size-too-big' sweatshirt and a pair of black sweat pants that seemed to hug her hips and flared after the knee. (Yoga Pants... He's a guy and a young father... I didn't think he would know what those were.) Her hair was down and had a few natural curls her and there framing her mature face. To him she looked better now than when she had, had all of that make up on and dressed up during their first date almost one month ago. In his daze he hadn't realized that Rin had clumsily made her way over to said woman and begged to be picked up. He watched as Kagome picked up the small child and rested her on her hip, cooing and babbling at the child.

If one did not know it, they would assume they were mother and daughter. Both had bright round eyes and long eyelashes that seemed to flutter to their cheeks. Their noses were small and had no ridge; they both had high cheekbones and the same blue-black hair that seemed a little lighter on Rin's part, the only difference they held were eye color, Kagome's a bright crystal blue, where Rin's were a dark honey colored gold with flakes of bright amber. A memory of Kagome, Rin, Shippo and himself made a small smile pull at his lips.

~FLASHBACK~

Kagome and Sesshomaru were walking in the neighborhood park, Rin and Shippo between them. Shippo holding Kagome's hand while Rin held Sesshomaru's and the children held each other's hand. Sesshomaru and Kagome were lifting and swinging the children off their feet while they laughed with them. They had shared a content smile as the children ran to a snow-covered playground and began building forts for an impending snowball fight that both adults knew would come either way. Sesshomaru gave her a smirk as she twined her arm around his.

"You realize that they will drag us into this, right." She laughed as they watched from a frosted park bench.

"Of course. Exactly why I will be taking Shippo's side in the matter." He stated matter-of-factly.

Kagome had snorted very unladylike. "Then you will loose."

Sesshomaru had raised a brow as she stood and began to make her way over to Rin and her large wall of snow.

"And why is that, miko?" Sesshomaru inquired with a chuckle. Kagome turned her head to look at him.

"Because," She winked. "I was a softball pitcher in high school, not to mention I was a thrower in track and field."

With that she ran to Rin and began whispering in her ear. Sesshomaru had used his demon speed to get to the kitsune kit quickly and they began making a plan of action.

Snowballs had been thrown and the women had turned out to be victorious in the curse of a twenty-minute fight. But because they were much more fragile than the other two, they had quickly lost feeling in their fingers and their noses had become redder than cherries.

"Rin, how does some hot chocolate sound?" Kagome had asked while holding the toddler on her hip, who shook her head from where it was hidden in Kagome's fluffy white scarf, an early Christmas present from Sesshomaru and Rin herself.

Kagome gave Sesshomaru a small smile. "I will be right back, me and Rin are gonna go get some hot chocolate from the café up across the street. Do you want to come with?"

Sesshomaru hoisted Shippo out of the snow and placed him on his shoulders. "We will most definitely accompany you, how about we stop in for lunch, its almost noon?"

Kagome nodded and laced her gloved fingers into his bare ones as they crossed the street to the quaint little café. When they entered Sesshomaru removed a disappointed Shippo from his shoulders and placed him on the ground. Kagome put Rin down as well and removed the children's coats, hats, mittens and scarves.

"Shippo, honey why don't you and Rin go find us a place to sit, Sesshy and I will be there in a minute ok?" Kagome cooed to the five year old.

"Ok Mama." He then grabbed Rin's little hand in his own. "Come on Rin-chan. Let's go find somewhere to sit for lunch." And like that they went off, but not far enough that Sessh and Kagome couldn't see them.

Kagome placed the kids' coats on the small coat rack and began removing her own after she removed her gloves and loosed her scarf a bit. Sesshomaru was already behind her though and slipped the coat off her shoulders with ease, slowly removing her scarf in a teasing matter and kissed her shoulder and cheek softly. Kagome turned to face him and gave him a quick little peck on the lips before twining her fingers with his and going to look for the children. They found them in a somewhat large booth, both sitting on opposite sides. When they got close enough Rin reached for Kagome in a begging matter, Kagome release her grip on the Inu Youkai's hand and scooped up the little girl, sliding into the booth and sitting her on her lap just as a waitress came to serve them.

"Aw, what a precious little girl, what's your name sweetheart?" The waitress had pink colored eyes and a lightly tanned skin color, yet she wasn't all that tall.

Rin buried her head into Kagome's chest, trying to hide from the new person. Kagome stroked the girl's head and smiled at the waitress. "Her name is Rin, she's a little shy around strangers."

The waitress nodded and gave a bright smile. "Well, Rin is an adorable little girl, she obviously gets her looks from her mother, someone would have to blind to not realize where she gets her pretty looks from."

"Thank you, but-." Kagome began but was then cut off as the waitress began to introduce herself.

~END FLASHBACK~

Sesshomaru snapped out of his daze when Rin began to ask Kagome a question.

"I wanted to know if you could stay, Miss Kagome?" Kagome was shocked at the question. She didn't want to say no and hurt the child's feelings after all. Kagome and Sesshomaru had agreed on only staying the night when they would go to the club or go and have a party with their friends. So she wasn't sure if it was her place to say she could or couldn't, they'd only been dating for a little less than a month. In fact their one-month was on Christmas Eve.

"Oh, Rin, honey, I- I'm not sure." She nervously choked out, and then added quickly when she saw the girls dazzling smile turn to an ugly frown. "You have to go ask your Daddy. It's not my decision if it's ok or not."

Rin looked at her father who now stood barely three feet away from them. "Please Daddy? Can Shippo Oni-San stay too?"

Sesshomaru saw the slight tensing of Kagome's muscles as Rin called Shippo her brother. He felt his own shoulders tense and the muscle above his eye twitch with the realization that his daughter, Rin, thought that Kagome and himself were going to be together forever. He didn't want to crush Rin's hopes, even though he had high hopes of them being together for a very long time too, he agreed to it.

"Really Daddy?" Rin squealed.

"Yeah," Kagome smirked. "Really Sesshy?"

'Damn,' He thought. 'If Rin were not here, this woman would be in my bed at this very moment, screaming my name.'

'Master.' The beast within smirked. 'You know that our intended would fight you every step of the way.'

Sesshomaru smirked, answering both beings at the same time. "Absolutely."

Kagome's cheeks flushed at the devious smirk on her boyfriends face. She forgot that if she stayed, she would be sharing his bed for the night, due to every Christmas present being in the guest bedroom.

'Tonight will be interestingly long….' She thought with slight worry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Page Break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dinner had just ended ten minutes before hand and now Kagome stood at the sink washing dishes as the children sat on the couch watching a Christmas special of some sort. Sesshomaru had headed to the guest bedroom not long ago and it had Kagome wondering why.

She sighed. "He is probably just making sure everything is well hidden."

She continued to scrub and rinse the dishes. She did not notice, however, that Sesshomaru was now walking into the kitchen holding a small, black, velvet box in his left hand. He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, planting sweet kisses on her shoulder, neck and then cheek.

"Oooh, what did I do to deserve such attention from you?" Kagome smiled leaning against his chest and closing her eyes as he nibbled lightly on the juncture between her shoulder and neck.

"Must you have to do something to deserve my affections, my sweet Kagome?" He whispered against her skin, sending goose bumps and shivers throughout her body. He dragged a fang across her flesh lightly, eliciting a strangled moan from her lips.

'She responds so well to me.' He thought, smirking against her shoulder. He grabbed her hips and spun her so she was facing him; her blue eyes were hooded and fogged with a deep desire that even he couldn't name.

He leaned down, his silver hair falling over his left shoulder, obscuring their faces from the two little sets of eyes peaking into the doorway to find out what was going on. Deep green and dark gold eyes narrowed as the father to the owner of the dark golden eyes' hair blocked their view.

Sesshomaru kissed her softly, putting every emotion he had into that single kiss they shared before little giggles coming from the doorway made them break apart and turn to look at the chortling children holding their stomachs they were laughing so hard.

Both Kagome and Sesshomaru lifted a brow in the same fashion, both disappearing behind a mass of hair. The Inu cleared his throat and the giggling turned into two short gasps and the thundering of footsteps as they ran away from the adults.

Kagome grabbed his chin in her right hand and brought his lips to hers, once again into an earth-shattering kiss. They pulled apart some time later gasping for some much-needed oxygen. Kagome giggled as he began nibbling on her earlobe. She playfully pushed him away and gave him a kiss on the cheek before rolling her eyes, about to turn back to doing her dishes.

But Sesshomaru would not let her turn around. She went to grab his left hand so she could remove it, but before his skin could touch hers, she felt the velvet box that was still in his hand.

"Sessh-?" She choked as he pulled the now open box up between them. There, in the mass of inner red, lay a small silver band with a single indigo, princess cut, diamond. Kagome was so mesmerized by the ring, that she hadn't realized that Sesshomaru now held her left hand in his and… was on his knee… in front of her. She choked back tears as the sweetest words she had ever heard in her life left his lips.

"Kagome, my sweet Kagome. I have found that in this last month, I have never felt happier, nor could I be happier with anyone else. You give me a reason to do silly things like I am now. I love you with every fiber in my being and that is something that will never change. You make life brighter and I find myself smiling when I think of your beautiful smile or magnificent blue eyes that no one could hold a candle to."

He looked deep into those same eyes. The eyes that held so much love and excitement, the eyes he knew belonged to the only one who held his heart.

"I am not asking for your hand, not yet. I ask for your heart. I ask that you give your heart to me, seeing as you have already stolen mine."

Kagome choked back a sob and nodded her head vigorously before throwing herself at the unexpecting Sesshomaru and kissed him frantically. Each kiss only assured him of her answer and made her realize that she never wanted to leave his arms. "Sessh, you didn't even need to ask me, ever since the first time you brought me here to meet Rin and your family, I knew you had stolen my heart, and there was no way I was getting it back."

He smiled and slipped the modest, yet gorgeous, ring on her left hand. He kissed her hand and then her wrist, up to her shoulder, neck, cheek, forehead, and nose, then finally left a small peck on her lips.

"I love you." He whispered as he rested his forehead on hers and looked deeply into those blue orbs.

She smiled. "I love you more than you'll ever know."

They shared a few more kisses, every one sweet and slow. But little did they know that two very intelligent children, who just happened to know how to work a camera and camcorder, had taken multiple pictures and recorded the whole thing.