Coming Home

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Her life wasn't supposed to end like this. Her life wasn't supposed to start like this. His life wasn't supposed to be like this.

"Mama, can we see her?" Asked one of the brunette twins as they gazed up at their mother with the new baby. Sango cleaned the side of the infant's mouth where milk had dribbled out and glanced over at the baby's father.

"Is it alright, Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha's eyes lifted vaguely from where he had been staring at the wall. His gaze traveled over the form of his friend, and settled on the baby girl she held. He grunted, pushing off his knee and coming to stand. Sango sighed when the hanyou man crossed the room, staring down at her and speaking softly, absently.

"Is she done?"

Sango nodded as the new father stooped before her and she gently handed the newborn up to him. She shushed the girls' whining as the man crossed the room to sit back against the wall, staring down at his daughter as he cradled her to his chest. His beautiful baby girl. His only girl.

He knew that a human woman could die giving birth, and that's why he stayed by her side when Kaede urged him out of the room. She was being so quiet throughout the day—he had heard Sango from halfway across the village during her deliveries. He could tell though, when she panted after every contraction that this wasn't one of those lucky, easy births he wished would happen. When she finally sobbed after a set of contractions, he let her squeeze his hand for the next. When he could hear her teeth grinding together, he offered her his arm to bite into. The red cloth wouldn't tear, and the flesh of his arm wouldn't damage her teeth.

Then finally—finally, the baby was shrieking and Kagome's pain was over. A baby girl! They had a baby girl! The baby was placed on Kagome's chest, and the new mother regarded the infant with a weak smile and a hand on her back. She had his ears, and a wild mess of black hair that had to come from her mother. Inuyasha was so happy. He glanced to Sango, beaming, and the mother of five smiled back at him as she washed her hands beside the elderly woman.

When he looked back to Kagome, her eyes were closed. Her hand dropped away from the infant's back.

"Kagome?"

His hand held her cheek.

"Kagome?"

His hand fell to the pulse in her neck.

"Kagome?"

It all got fuzzy from there. Sango pushed him aside and thrust the flailing newborn into his chest. Her hands were pressing down on the center of Kagome's chest. Pressing. Easing off. Pressing. Easing off. Why was she doing such a thing to his wife?

"Kagome?"

He made no move to stop Sango. He couldn't move. He held his baby and sat there watching on as his mind slowed to a crawl.

"Kagome?"

Sango was the only one that could help him. Her own baby was still nursing, and she took to the hanyou's infant immediately. She wouldn't survive without mother's milk. He had heard the milk wouldn't be right for a newborn. Sango's little boy was a few months older, but what could he do? It didn't matter so long as she stayed healthy, right?

But it did matter. It should be Kagome nursing their little girl, not Sango. Sango shouldn't have to nurse her friend's baby in addition to her own. That was a lot to handle, but Inuyasha had no other choice.

"You forget that I nursed twins, Inuyasha. This isn't hard on me at all," his friend would tell him. And his daughter seemed to be getting enough. She was gaining weight. She seemed to be getting all the proper nutrients, too. Her eyes were bright—that warm amber color that looked so much like his own—and she was so smart. He set her on her back the other day, and took his eyes off her for two seconds. When he looked back, she was resting on her belly with her little chest held off the blanket by her arms. His baby was—

Izayoi. He had to get in the habit of calling her that. He and Kagome had disagreed on the name, Kagome wanted to name their first daughter after his mother, and he didn't feel right about that. Hanae, Michi, Akane, weren't those beautiful names? It was the husband's job to name the children, wasn't it? He should decide what to name the baby.

They argued up until the day she went into labor, and he had almost won…but…when their daughter was born…without Kagome left to argue her side…he gave the child her name. Izayoi.

She was six days old when he stumbled back into Sango's house. He was dirty and worn, and he hadn't slept in those six days, but finally he had had enough of avoiding it. He had a child. If she couldn't have a mother, she shouldn't be without her father.

"Izayoi," he said softly. It was the first words he had spoken since he bloodied his knuckles on one too many tree trunks. When Miroku helped him out of his filthy clothes and into a sleeping robe, Sango placed the baby in his arms and he just stared at her.

She was so quiet. So much different from when he had seen her six days ago. Her color was more even, her hair was dry, soft, and sticking up in random directions. He realized how much he had missed when he had left her behind.

He was such a fool. Why the hell had he run away? Why was he still running from every problem he couldn't solve with brute force, like—like some scared little boy! He wasn't a boy anymore. He had…he had responsibilities here. He had someone…he had a very tiny, delicate someone who needed him. It was well past time to man up and now…he was a father. He had to be there for his little girl.

"Sango…" He started hesitantly.

"I'm…taking Izayoi out."

He wondered the forest for some time, not really going in any particular direction, but he…he found himself…it was a small house, hidden in a grove of trees. Before he knew what had come over him, he shoved the sliding door aside, and peered into the darkness of the one room hut.

Kagome had her back to him, reading out of the worn pages of her notebook as she brought down the herbs she needed. She slowly turned her head and greeted him with a smile. 'How was your trip?' She asked. 'Did you remember the cloth I wanted?' Of course he had. It was the only thing she asked him to get. She crossed the room and threw her arms around him when he nodded. He kissed her and she giggled when his hand slid down to her thigh. 'None of that. I've got to be down at Kaede's in fifteen minutes.' He chuckled. It was a two minute run if she rode his back. He could work with that.

The baby whimpered, her nose twitching from the new smells. He could understand that. He had never much liked the scent of herbs either. He stroked her back.

"What d'ya think kiddo?"

A timely sneeze answered his question. Inuyasha scoffed. Everything was untouched from the day Izayoi was born. The futon was folded among some pillows in the center of the room, the wood stacked high against the back wall, the yukata Sango had set up to dry…Inuyasha paused on that. That was what Kagome had gone into labor wearing. When his wife's water had broken, Inuyasha stripped her out of it, in favor of her kosode. When Sango had rushed in, she was annoyed to see it wadded in a pile. She went out to wash it before the stains could set it…stains on a yukata…it seems like such a trivial matter, but both women had been concerned about it at the time.

He pet down the baby's soft hair, fingertips lingering on the fuzzy black ears.

"Yeah, well I liked it. It was a helluva lot better than sleeping in trees." Though as he looked about the room, he noticed the dust that had settled into the house. Dust on the floors, Kagome's shelves, the very yukata she had been so worried about staining. Nothing was sacred to the dirt that settled about the room. Inuyasha had avoided coming back here for so long because he was afraid it would bring up bad memories…and it did, but there were so, so many good memories as well.

One of the floorboards was discolored. That was where he had knocked over the tea when he was startled by Kagome's scream the first time she saw a mouse inside. That scratch in the wall was from his claws when and Kagome made love against it. That dent was where she had thrown the cup at him—admittedly scary when they both realized how violent the action was. That awkward extra hole in the wall was from where he had to bring the pot rack down when he realized Kagome was too short to reach.

This place with so many memories of him and Kagome, three years' worth of them. It was their home, after all. It should be his daughter's home, too.

He couldn't keep his eyes off his daughter as he ran out with the furniture. She seemed to be ahead of the curve from other babies her age. He might turn his back for a second, and she'd learn to crawl away from the blanket he'd laid her on. He could leave her with Sango and Miroku, yes, but that would mean he had to be separated from her, and he didn't want that for a second.

He laid the musty futon over the garden fence—the garden had gone to hell, he'd have to spend an entire day weeding to see if any of the vegetables were salvageable. He pulled the rag down from his nose and mouth, smiling at little Izayoi.

"How you doin' baby girl?" She kicked her legs and laughed at the sound of her papa's voice. He crouched down and presented her with a colorful little mouse toy.

"Look what I found? Your mama made this for you, do you like it?" He dangled the little toy in front of her, and the baby followed the movement. Then she reached one chubby little arm out for it. He let her take it before he ran back into the house to get started on the floors. He glanced out the open door every chance he could. He didn't want to leave her unattended, but he also didn't want to have her breathing in all this dust he was stirring up. He could barely handle it, and he had a rag over his nose.

He took her back to Sango to nurse, then strapped her back to his chest and started getting on top of the laundry. Even the clean items smelled musty and he wouldn't be happy until that smell was gone. While the laundry was hanging to dry, Inuyasha put up with his baby's crying, and his own watery eyes as he ran the last of Kagome's herbs down to Kaede. They wouldn't be useful in a house with someone who knew jack shit about medicines—they would only stink up the place.

If he was going to raise his daughter here, he wanted the house as comfortable as possible to live in. He would make a new home out of his old one.

...

Don't ask me what possessed me to write think, I don't know.