Title: Family (a birthday Giftfic for Knittingknots)

Author: landofthekwt

Genre: Introspection

Universe: Post Chapter 558 canon

Word Count: 958

Pairing: Inuyasha/Kagome

Warning: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KNITTINGKNOTS

Summary: Inuyasha considers what family means to him.

It had been almost two hundred years since he had been part of a family. He should have been part of the Inu no Taisho's family. That became impossible when his father died saving himself and his mother at the time of his birth. Sesshoumaru had turned his back on them He would not have allowed them in the Western Shiro even if his mother had wanted to go there. His father had made mistake. Humans and hanyou were not allowed in the palace of the Inu no Taisho .

She had tried returning home to her family in Satsuma. After all she was a princess in a obscure branch of the Shimazu clan. But there were was no place for her in their clan. No place for the whore of the Youkai and her hanyou spawn. They turned them away . It is small wonder that she died at such a tender age leaving the young Inuyasha to fend for himself. Though she might have been better off in long run marrying Takemaru, but she never regretted her time with Toga and treasured Inuyasha since he was all that was left of her time with the Leader of the Dogs.

He had not seen his mother's human relatives since that time. They had shunned his mother and left her to die. All he had left of her was her grave and the robe of the firerat.. His own brother had refused him entry to his family home and tried to kill him over his father's sword. He had never known his father. It was absurd of Myoga and Totosai to expect him to care about avenging his father or showing him respect. He only wanted to surpass his father. so that he would not have to live in his shadow. All that he left of his father was his sword which Inuyasha had made his own. He and his brother had an uneasy truce. They would never be family.

Being with the Higurashis had been so wonderful. They were the family he had never had. Mama Higurashi had made him welcome. She had treated him like her own son. Souta had called him his dog brother. But they were gone too. Five hundred years in the future. A place that seemed so near, but now was forever beyond his reach.

He had returned Kagome to her family at the end of the quest. She had her family three more years before the well had reopened to allow her to return to Inuyasha. He felt some guilt that she had chosen to return to him even though it meant that she would never be able to see her mother, brother or grandfather again. She had made a sacrifice that he might never have been able to make. If he had been faced to abandon his mother to be with the woman he loved he might have chosen his mother.

He had tried to give Kagome everything that he could. After she had gone away he had built her a house to show everyone how he felt about Kagome. The villagers and the Inutachi thought that he was foolish but he knew she would return. Somehow he had learned patience. He could have waited forever for her.

When Kagome saw the house she was overwhelmed Inuyasha had told her that he would always protect her and always be with her. He had never told her that he intended to marry her. He fulfilled that promise by marrying her as soon as Miroku found time away from his three children. She would have the home that he had never had. He would be there with her forever to protect her.

Kagome had conceived and would soon deliver a son. Being a hanyou he had told that he was not entitled to love, marriage or a family. Kagome had given him all of these things by sacrificing her world and her family for him. She and her unborn son were the most precious things in his life. He must ensure that unlike his own father he would always be there for her. They would never be left to face the world as he and his mother had. He would there to fend off the prejudice that they would face. He would there to ensure that they would have food when they were hungry. He would be there to show his son how to be a man. His son would have a mother who was there to dry his tears and teach him what Inuyasha could not.

As he gazed at his beloved sleeping so peacefully, he resolved his son would have the family that he never had. His son would have the love which he had lost. His boy would always have parents to protect him, to teach him and to make sure that he was prepared for whatever he wanted to do with his life.

He had never understood why Kikyou had been willing to sacrifice her position as a miko in order to be an ordinary woman with a husband and a family. Kikyou had not lived to her goal realized. Kagome had made him realize why these goals had been so important to Kikyou and why she had sacrificed so much to achieve them. Kagome was his wife and would soon be the mother of his children. She had sacrificed so much for him. He must ensure that he was worthy of her and the family that she had given to him.

Both of them had lost their families. With her love and his protection they would provide the foundation for a new family to replace the families that they both had lost. They would finally be complete as a family.. .