A/N: After taking into account the number of arson threats I've had in the last few hours I'm retracting my demand for reviews before I post again and giving you the next chapter. There now no one can burn my poor precious floppies.

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Moments in Time

By: wolf demoness

Chapter Six: Confession Is Good For the Soul

Shuichi's POV:

The phone rang at eight o'clock. Shuichi and I were just finishing up breakfast. He got up and picked up the phone. "Hello…Yes…I understand." He hung up.

"You have to go."

"Sorry." He gives me an apologetic look.

"Be careful." I get up and kiss him. He walks to the door, picks up his coat and leaves. "If you don't come back, I'm getting another redhead." I yell after him. I can hear his laughter cascading down the hallway.

After Shuichi leaves I clean up the plates. It's Saturday. We were planning on going to the museum today. There's a new art exhibit we wanted to see, but who knows when he'll be back. I don't want to go without him. I know I shouldn't ask, but I really wish I knew where he goes. I worry, but then I don't know if I should worry. I think his job's dangerous. Sometimes he comes home in bloody clothes all bandaged up, but the thing is there's too much blood on his clothes for the wounds he has. I trust him though. I love him.

He's back after a little over an hour. He looks awful. "What's wrong?" I ask. "Do you have to leave again?"

"I…no, it was something different."

"Anything you can tell me about?"

"First, I have to show you something." He walks over to the closet and pulls out the chest we keep our photo albums in. He begins to unload all the albums. When the chest is empty he motions me over. "Shuichi, do you believe in demons?"

"Like demons from hell?"

"Something like that. Do you think there could be good demons?"

"I don't know. Religion tells us that demons are wicked and deceitful…"

"Deceitful," he interrupts me.

"…but I suppose anything's possible. Shuichi, what is it? What do you need to show me?"

He smiles sadly and looks at me, "What I do." He runs his finger along the bottom of the chest and the wood peels away from the side. He pulls the panel out to reveal a set of three hidden photo albums. He hands the first one to me. I open it to see a picture of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Shuichi standing on a ship next to what looks like a child wrapped in bandages. Yusuke is sound asleep, leaning against Kuwabara, but that's not the strange thing. Around them are scaly, horned monsters with fangs, claws, and myriad other nasty looking appendages. The caption reads "On the way to the Dark Tournament." I look at Shuichi. He turns the page.

The next picture is Kuwabara holding two transparent glowing swords facing off against a little boy. Then there's a series of pictures where said boy beats Kuwabara mercilessly with yo-yos. I keep going. Hiei engulfed in flame. Yusuke beating up a really big guy while they both have a foot pressed against a knife. Shuichi jumping out of the way of flying glass, or crystals, or something, I'm actually not to sure what that is. Yusuke laughing at a guy with wild red hair and a horn on his face, who happens to be floating. Shuichi, fighting a giant robot with a vine. Shuichi asleep, leaning against a tree in the forest, there's a red rose in his hand. Yusuke, firing a light out of his fingers up at the stars. Kuwabara tripping down some stairs. Hiei, with three eyes, watching his reflection in a window, which is looking out of the picture. There are more, but I stop.

"I work with a group that controls demon entry into this world. Whenever a demon slips through one of the portals we're called to capture the demon, kill it if necessary, or occasionally save it."

"Save a demon?"

"You've met Yukina." He flips to a page in the book that shows the demure girl. "She's an ice apparition, an ice demoness. A human merchant kidnapped her from her home. She was imprisoned and tortured to produce hiruiseki stones. When an ice apparition cries her tears harden in the atmosphere and become near priceless gems. My group rescued Yukina from the humans that were holding her. I wasn't involved in the field work for that mission though."

"You hunt demons for a living."

He sighs, "You don't believe me."

"How can a human fight a demon?"

"Some humans are able to manipulate their energy in a way that allows them to battle apparitions." I just look at him. "There are three principal types of energy, life energy, ki and youki. Life energy is the energy that every living thing uses to survive. Ki is the spirit energy that humans produce. A human can use their ki to produce an offensive of a defensive weapon. Youki is the same thing as ki, but it comes from demons."

"So, what you're saying is that you use your ki to fight monsters?"

"Um, not exactly, no."

I sigh. "How, not exactly?"

"I use youki."

"I thought you said only demons use youki." He nods. "You're not a demon!"

"I am."

"No, you're not. Your mother's human and so was your father. If this is a joke Shuichi, it's not funny!"

"I'm not joking. Please, just listen to me. If I show you something would that help?"

I get up, walk over to the couch and sit. "I'm waiting."

"I specialize in plants," he says. He goes over and gets one of the potted plants from its stand. He brings it over to where I'm sitting. When he touches the leaves, vines snake all over the coffee table, around me on the couch, across the floor, and wrap around his waist. He looks at me, then the plant and all the vines shrink back in, leaving the same little house plant. I look at him.

"Shiori has a congenital defect. She can conceive children and carry them for a while, but she'd never make it to term on her own. And the Reikai doesn't give babies that aren't supposed to be born souls. When I first saw Shiori I needed a body, she was pregnant, since her son didn't have a soul… Well, It was a perfectly good body and I didn't want to die."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have stayed?"

"I need to think." I got my coat from the closet and left.

******

I walked all day. I sat in the park. I went to the beach and watched the people walk by. When I came home it was late; he was asleep in bed. There were tear tracks down his face. I reach out to wipe them away. "Shuichi?" he whispers.

"Shhh. I'm here."

"I'm so sorry, Shuichi. I should have told you."

"Yes, you should have. But I understand why you didn't." I smiled at him. "I'm still mad at you though."

He smiled back at me and sat up, "And with just cause."

"I love you." I kissed him. "I won't stay mad for long." I crawled into bed with him. "So you're a demon in a human body."

"I was. The demonic energy I produce is changing me back into what I was. I'm mostly demon. I just look human, most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

"I can look like I did before I became human."

"Will you show me?"

"Tomorrow. I'm too tired tonight to transform." He does look very tired. Rather than push the issue I acquiesce.

"Tomorrow then. Sleep tight." We fall asleep in each other's arms.

******

My demon lover missed the sunrise. When he woke up he was still groggy. He went straight to the coffeepot on the counter; he always has coffee in the morning. But then he sighed put the coffeepot down and got some orange juice out of the refrigerator. I looked at him, questioningly, "Can't have anymore caffeine." He sits down at the table with me.

"Why not?"

"I've acquired a medical condition…"

I grabbed his hand, cutting him off, "What's wrong?"

He shakes his head. I can tell that he doesn't want to tell me. "It's a demon thing."

"Shuichi…" I started.

"Kurama."

"What?"

"My name is Kurama."

"He didn't even tell me his name! Okay, I can handle this. I can," I silently tell myself. I take a deep breath and try to stay in control. "Kurama, please tell me what's wrong," I ask him.

He's very nervous. He keeps glancing around the room and won't make eye contact with me for more than a few seconds at a time. "It has to do with the type of demon that I am." He looks at me; "I'm a kitsune."

"You're a fox demon!" I shout, he flinches. "Oh, sorry. Go on."

He studies my face, "I don't know if you're going to take this well."

"Well, I'm okay with the fact that the man I've been living with for the last three and a half years is a demon. I don't know what you could tell me to top that."

"I'm pregnant."

I dropped the coffee mug that I was holding. "Spoke too soon I guess. H…how pregnant are you?"

"Yesterday."

"That soon. Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay, that gives us nine months."

"Fourteen."

"Pardon?"

"Kitsune carry for fourteen months."

"That's over a year. We could get a bigger place and…"

"Reikai law prohibits me from staying in the human world while pregnant. I have five months to leave."

"Well then, where are we supposed to go?"

"We," he whispers and looks up hopefully. He actually looks surprised. "Did he doubt me that much?" I think to myself. "No. He was probably just that scared. I know I wouldn't have wanted to tell my lover if I'd been in his position."

I grasp his hand over the table. "Well, I'm not leaving you. So, where're we going?"

"Shuichi, I love you!" He jumps out of his chair and into my lap, where he begins to kiss me all over. "I have…" Kiss. "…a…" Kiss. "…den in…" Kiss. Kiss. "…the Makai."

It took a lot of willpower not to just let him continue, but there was something I wanted and there was no way I was letting him off that easily. He had been lying to me for as long as I'd known him after all. "You promised to show me what you look like, remember. Please, I want to see your face."

He hugs me tight and buries his face in the crook of my neck. He's so nervous, I want to allay his fears and the best way I can think to do that is to show him that I accept him, all of him. I love Kurama, not the body he's in. I love the soul. He's the same person he was when I met him. He hasn't changed. Once I figured that out it was easy for me to accept that he's a demon. And, after I thought about it, I could understand why he was afraid to tell me. When he pulls back I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes. He's so wonderful. I love him so much.

Opening my eyes I see yellow eyes with pupils silted, like a cat's, looking back at me. I take in the new shape of his face, the long silky silver hair, the gauzy garments, and of course those prominent fox ears atop his head. He looks so exotic. "Beautiful." I kiss him. "Oh, he has fangs!" I gasp at the unexpected discovery.

"I love you," he says. His voice is deeper, but not unpleasant. It's electric. I shiver under his touch.

"And I love you, Foxy."

He crinkles his nose up and his ears lay back against his head "Foxy?"

I laugh and run my hands through his hair, "Just wanted to see the look on your face."

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A/N:

1) Awww. Wasn't that sweet?

2) Yes, I did make some of those pictures up and I'm letting Kurama transform whenever he wants to. It's just more fun that way.

3) I've seen human energy called both ki and reiki in fanfics. I'm using ki simply because I don't know that there's a difference and many of the fics I've read also use ki.

Minamoto Miyuki & Rei Akita: Don't hurt me!!! I updated, see! Look, update! And I didn't even make Kurama terminally ill; don't I get points for that? I'm sorry, I didn't mean that! :::Author hides from angry Kurama fans.:::