Summary: This is a true story about real struggles, sacrifices, and love. When Kagome faces the worst, who will help her? Why the Mighty Sesshoumaru of course!

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. I do however own this stories plot.

Title: Sexual Healing

Part Ten

Notes: Divorce, murder, help….

I always liked Christmas, it was all warm, full of family and tradition. After I had entered high school Christmas stopped being fun. Christmas junior year, my parents and my aunt Kaede had the biggest fight. My parents thought she was influencing me to much and pushing me to become a religious fanatic. What they didn't see was how much I really relied on religion to pull me through these trials, how much I truly loved believing in something, and the fact that my aunt felt the same way. I was banished from seeing my aunt for 5 months.

Do you know how that made me feel? The one person I actually respected, who had helped me through some of the trials of my life was suddenly banned from me. I could see her at church, but how can 10 minute sessions make up for the hours we could have had all those months. I was so pissed truly amazed that my parents honestly didn't believe I could think for myself. After 5 months my aunt came to my parents frustrated with the banning law and apologized for talking to me so much about religion and her ideas of the world. I was pissed.

My mom took me out to dinner and told me my aunt had apologized. What she didn't know was I had talked to her earlier and I already knew, and I had 5 months of stored conversation and it was coming out right now. I fell short of just yelling at my mom. My voice was dead pan and I let her see just how pissed I was in my eyes. I told my mother everything that was wrong with the whole fight, how the whole thing was just bad timing because it was Christmas and how really the whole thing was stupid because she was embarrassed we (my aunt and I) called her out on it. I told her how it wasn't anything at all to do with me and really my mom was just jealous of my aunt's relationship with me. I told her everything I had analyzed and thought over the 5 months of separation, and by the time I was done I'd left my mom speechless. Yes it was harsh, but I think for the first time my mom respected me for it. She actually saw my own brains that I showed her all along, but she had always believe was really my aunt's teachings shining through. My mom never questioned my belief's again.

That weekend I went back to my aunt's house. It was awkward. We didn't know what to say, what was safe to talk about or discuss anymore. Our relationship had died and paid a huge price for it. We slowly reestablished our relationship over the next few month, relearning ourselves, but it was never the same.

By Christmas my junior year my aunt and her own husband were having problems and finally she announced to us she was getting a divorce. My heart stopped for a moment. She called my dad and told him she was kicking my uncle out and he wasn't taking it very well. I heard police over the phone, I heard my dad call him bad names, I heard a lot and I was confused. Why? Why was this man that I loved like a father being shoved out of my life?

Later that night my aunt came to see me and she filled me in on what had happened. My aunt had found out that my uncle had not only been cheating on her, but had signed up on a dating site saying he was divorced and all kinds of other lies. I sat I stunned silence. My uncle had come into my life when I was nine. He's been there most of my life ad no he was just gone?

The next 6 months were horrible. My aunt moved in with us and I being her closest confidant got to here ever detail about the divorce. I watched my aunt pick up pieces that were left and try to make sense of them. I comforted her, counseled her and did my best to help with things I didn't understand. I mean, I was never married or in love or anything, so what could I tell her? The divorce was messy. Arguing over petty things in court, trying to get him to show up, signed the papers, who got the house, who got the dogs, etc. Never once did he call me. Never once did he even say hi to me or look at me when he stopped by to deliver paper or get mail. It was like I had never existed in his life, and it hurt. My family constantly talked bad about him, trying to help my aunt feel better, but I couldn't. He was my uncle, the only good male figure I my life for a long, long time. I was confused and hurt. I was mad, I mean I had trusted him with my aunt's heart and he broke it. Yet, I couldn't hate him, I even defended him to an extent to my family. They turned on me. They couldn't understand why I couldn't dislike him either. Depressed I gave up and listened to their ranting, sinking further and further back into my dark hole.

That Christmas was very empty. The space my uncle had feel was gone and there was one less person at the dinner table. There was one less person to share Christmas pranks with, to bake cookies for. I missed my uncle bad, but I know I didn't want him back to hurt us again. I mourned the loss of my uncle, even though he wasn't dead.

I again denied and pushed aside my feeling to try to have a good time and thought once again that I would think about it tomorrow, until I forgot. It wasn't brought up again until I started my senior year and started preparing for college.

I decided to clean out my closet to make room for boxes that would fill it in the next few months. As I unburied a box from my shelf I looked inside. Inside were picture of my aunt and uncle, one of my favorite pictures of us together, some old Christmas toys we had shared as jokes, and a shirt with saying he had written on it for me. I sat down on my bed and held the pictures, the shirt wrapped in my hands and I cried. Tomorrow had caught up with me.

I released my love for my uncle and finally took time to accept that he was gone and not coming back. I cried for everything. I cried for my aunt, I cried for my dad, I cried for myself. I cried for everything I had denied myself. I cried for having to grow up to fast, for the lonely darkness that threatened to overtake me day by day, and I cried for everything I had refused to cry for. I realized I was just like Ayame, in denial that I needed help. I didn't want to turn out like her. After an hour I stood and staggered to the living room, tears still on my face, shirt still in hand. I found my mom ironing in the living room.

"Mom." She turned to look at me, concern flew over her face as she saw me.

"What is it, what's wrong." I wiped at my face with the shirt I held.

"Mom I want to get counseling." My mom froze in place.

"What?"

"I want to get counseling." I repeated, trying to get myself together.

"Why?" If I hadn't been so worn out from crying I would have been offended.

"Because." I held up the shirt, one she knew from my uncle. "Because I can't handle this and I want to talk to someone, someone outside the family."

"Okay baby, we'll see what we can do." I nodded and returned to my room, collapsing on my bed and finished my own cleansing before falling asleep.

A week later nothing had come from my talk with my mother so I took matters into my own hands. I went to my preacher and talked to him about everything. About the divorce, about my dad, about the abuse. I don't remember much, just sitting there staring at my shoes, shaking as I told him everything, waiting. Waiting for a harsh word, or blow, waiting to be condemned, or damned for feeling the way I did. He never got up and hugged me or consoled me, but he listened and that's what I really needed. He suggested a counseling center and helped me set up an appointment with them. I thanked him and left. I can't thank him enough for that.

I gave the information to my mom and told her I wanted them to go with me for my first visit. Monday morning at 3 in the afternoon I went to my first counseling visit. They had me fill out a questionnaire, and then waited for about ten minutes until a nice lady named Kirara. Kirara was a short, sturdy woman who aged gracefully, but was always a quiet, perceptive type. She sat at a computer chair in a small room with one big window and a huge brown leather couch. We all sat down, my parents on either side of me. She asked some basics questions like, was it my idea to come to counseling, etc. Finally she asked if I would like my parents to be in the room for the session. I shook my head no, she asked them politely to go wait in the waiting room. As soon as the door closed I felt myself relax. The psychologist noticed it to and gently asked why I had asked to receive counseling. I told her about my uncle, and my dad. I told her about how I was abused and how I honestly didn't even know where to begin. She sat there in stunned silence, saying "wow." Too much to fast maybe? We started from the beginning, much like this story, and the hour was over in no time, with only the barest of my emotions having been examined. We made an appointment for next Monday. I felt better, good to know someone was finally there to listen to me, to help me.

About 4 weeks into counseling when I suffer another shock. I was getting ready for school and I flicked on the news to see what the weather was like. The breaking story for that morning was a murder, and not just any murder, a murder of a friend from school. I raced to school to find out what her friends knew. The girl was a friend and classmate; I had her in at least one class every single year of high school. She was a intern at an elementary school, like me. She wanted to be a teacher. Apparently her mother and stepfather were getting a divorce and in a rage her father had burned down the house, her trapped inside. The seniors gathered together and raised funeral funds for the family, made them cards and in general tried to comfort each other.

Sesshoumaru held me as I too joined the student mourning the loss of a good friend. No one should have to go like that, especially not a girl as nice as she was. The scary part was how eerily close it was to my own situation. The family was divorcing, so was my aunt. The divorce was messy, so was my aunt. I was the only child in the family my aunt was living with us. Would my uncle lose it and burn us down too?

I saved these questions for counseling hoping to get answers to so many questions and problems I didn't understand.

Chapter ten complete. :O

In memory of Destini Barron, R.I.P.