A/N: I come to you now, at LONG last (and for that delay I do apologize), as a graduate of Northern Michigan University, Bachelor of Science—English Writing was my major and Biology my minor. Before that finals were insane and I was nearly out of my mind! Ugh. Then graduation, trouble with my mom because my littlest sister's prom was on the same frikin day as my college graduation and she wasn't sure she could commit to both, and if one had to suffer, it was my ceremony which represented 30,000 something dollars and four years. Anyway…and then a week ago today my boyfriend of nearly 4 years now proposed to me with a gold band with seven little oval cut diamonds. I was suspicious he would but it was still a bit of a shock. Then he had his wisdom teeth taken out Monday (which was the next day after he proposed) and I spent the first half of this week visiting him and taking care of him…So yeah…I apologize!

Also, I am typing on a new laptop, a graduation present from my very generous father. So my typing is sucking a little as I am still getting used to this new keyboard and it's slightly larger keys.

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Last Chapter: Shiroihana killed the rogue inuyoukai army leader from the North, Kanseninu. Shimo met up with Ginrei and had a much needed talk, agreeing not to take Hanone from her. The physician visited Saya again and woke her while the fox Aojiroi assured them that the white stone Shiroihana passed to Shimo to give to Saya would actually help her rather than harm. IY and Miroku gave it to her. Jaken is babysitting the hostage inuyoukai boy Boroya, son of Yamome from the north. And Miroku is concerned, rightly so, that Inuyasha is a little too protective of Saya. Sess is mostly recovered and we didn't see him last chapter, but he was bathing.

A Place Beside Him

A sudden pain pierced Rin's side, scattering her dreams. She had existed in a gentle world of escape, flitting through Jouka palace with Saya in her arms as an infant. She saw Sesshomaru round a corner and gaze at her, felt the weight of the liquid gold in his irises, thrilling and alarming at once.

Then the pain tore into her, startling in its sharpness. The dream images around her cracked and warped, trying to change to accommodate the pain, to weave it into an illusion that would keep her brain occupied. It didn't work.

She jerked out of that other world of soft colors, impressions, and sounds. Rin found herself staring into a fox's knee. She knew with absolute certainty that it was a fox, but just how she knew that escaped her. Rin couldn't see his face, only the green fabric of his pants and the tawny hair and fur on his paws as well as the fluff of his tail beyond that. She saw his clawed toes digging into the sheets and fabric of the mattress she was lying on and realized that he was exerting force on her shoulder, grunting as he kept her still. Her own muscles were straining, fighting against him.

Rin blinked, baffled as her mind and body gradually rejoined.

More pain pierced her side and with sudden clarity, Rin realized fingers were digging into her flesh, increasing the pain. Wet, sticky warmth oozed from her side onto her back and stomach. She let out a yelp and raised her arms to fight her attackers, but found that the fox was blocking them on one side. Rin turned her head and, as her vision sharpened with wakefulness, she made out the black hair and white ears as well as the distinctive scent of Tsukiyume.

"Tsuki—" she choked.

"Keep her still!" a male voice ordered, gruffly.

The fingers were in her flesh, digging into her. The pain was hot and breath-stealing, but not as intense as she would have expected. Rin's hands curled into fists. She tugged half involuntarily against the restraining grips of both Tsukiyume and the fox—who was also familiar to her but in the stress of the moment he was impossible to place…

"I've got the blade."

Something moved in her side and the disgust that swelled within Rin at the sensation, like parasites twisting in her gut, incited an unthinking rage. She struck out at Tsukiyume, sensing the greatest physical weakness from her as opposed to the full-blooded fox. Her fist and her arm broke free from Tsukiyume's grip when she clobbered the hanyou girl at the base of her neck. The blow knocked Tsukiyume backwards, skidding over the wooden floorboards. The fox boy cried out after her with alarm and Rin felt his hold on her waver. She struck at him as well while simultaneously slashing at the other presence, the man's voice, the thing digging into her side.

As the fox fell away, hopping with all of the speed of his pureblooded ancestry, Rin saw the human man, thin and wiry and absorbed by his work. His hands and fingers were coated in her sticky, half-clotted blood, but there was a fresh flow of it too, bright, hot, and crimson. With an animalistic instinct of self-preservation, Rin struck him in the shoulder. The man screeched with pain. His hands withdrew from burrowing into her side.

Rin sat up, kicking at the sheets and blankets around her, at the towels and cloths that had been laid out to catch her blood. She clutched the open wound at her side and hissed with pain as her palm felt the hardness of the obsidian blade. She pulled at it without hesitation, stifling the desire to cry out at the brief spurt of agony. The blade tumbled out of her hands, slick with red-brown blood. It fell onto the futon mattress, staining the sheets, and then clattered to the flooring closest to the fox.

Voices competed around her, reaching her as the pain, disgust, and animal instincts faded. She saw the fox propping up Tsukiyume, the hanyou girl's white ears flicked and twitched. The physician moaned on the floor and held his shoulder, his face creased with pain while Rin's own was already diminishing.

She took a deep breath and winced slightly at the flex it caused in her wounded side. "What's going on here?"

"You were stabbed," the fox said. Rin gazed at him, recalling with a jolt just who he was.

"Shippo?"

He gave a weak nod. Tsukiyume groaned, her voice laden with pain. She was using the shorter Shippo as a crutch. "My shoulder…"

Rin knew by the way the girl held herself, by the fresh rush of stress hormones in her scent, that her blow had probably broken Tsukiyume's collarbone. Heat swept up over her face and she swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"That's okay," Tsukiyume muttered through gnashing teeth. "It could have been worse. I'll be better in a few hours."

Rin let out a shaky breath and her hand clutched harder at her side where the wound burned, trying already to close and begin healing. "How long was I sleeping?"

The physician, who had managed to avoid the brunt of Rin's blow to his own shoulder, was able to answer her. "It has been a night since Lady Shiroihana brought you to Lord Shimofuri's castle."

"You woke up once," Shippo said. "Do you remember?"

Tsukiyume added, "You said that Jishin was dead. She possessed your body, but Lady Shiroihana used the knife to purge her presence from you." The hanyou girl's ears swiveled backward and her eyes, already clouded by pain, narrowed with what Rin interpreted as suspicion.

Jishin would have come to kill Sesshomaru. Though Tsukiyume's suspicion disturbed Rin, it also pleased her. She recalled Sesshomaru's illness, the dullness of his skin, the dampness of fever-sweat, and the gaps between his teeth where his transformation had robbed him of canines. He had been decrepit, nothing short of on his deathbed. If Jishin had succeeded in her mission it would have surely resulted in his death. Even so, Rin wondered if Sesshomaru would ever recover. Had she been transformed into an inuyoukai in the other realm only to find out that Sesshomaru would never be able to produce pureblooded offspring after his own unnatural illness?

There was yet another reason for concern. She remembered the weight of Saya's limp little body in her arms and suddenly the pain in her side vanished, overwhelmed by something much more important. She reached out for Shippo and Tsukiyume with bloodied hands. "Has Inuyasha come here? Have you seen Saya? Is she safe?"

Shippo leaned back, avoiding the groping, bloody fingertips. "Yeah, Inuyasha and Miroku are here with Saya. The doctor was already there treating her."

"Did Inuyasha see Sesshomaru?" Rin demanded, holding her breath. Inuyasha had insisted on his suspicion that Rin was a shape-shifting fox, out to steal Saya. He had only been willing to trust her if she could bring him to a very much alive and recognizable Sesshomaru. Had he found that?

"Yeah," Shippo muttered, darkly. "Saya didn't recognize him."

Rin withdrew her bloodied hands and shakily wiped them on the clean sheets around her. Her eyes had glazed over. She didn't see the mess she was making. Her thoughts circled on Sesshomaru, on how painful it must have been for him to have his daughter reject him. Hanone hadn't done that—why had Saya? She already knew the answer. Saya had been traumatized by Jishin's attack and by Inuyasha's assumption that Sesshomaru had died. Rin's fingers curled up in the sheets, her claws tore into the thin fabric slightly. How can she ever recover? Since the fire and the earthquake at Jouka Palace the whole world had shattered for all of them, Sesshomaru, Rin, and Saya alike.

And yet Rin had suffered as a young child, losing her parents and her brother first, then struggling for every morsel of food before the wolves had killed her and Sesshomaru had resurrected her into her second life, a life she had vowed to share at his side. Saya had the strength of both her parents within her veins. Surely she could overcome and perservere…

"Take me to Saya," she ordered abruptly.

"You should rest," the doctor murmured roughly. He was still breathing hard, recovering from Rin's attack. The sight of both the doctor and Tsukiyume uncomfortable with pain that she had caused them by being unable to control her own baser instincts sent Rin twitching. She wanted to escape the room, in spite of the pain in her side and the sticky, clotting blood of her wound.

"I've seen Lord Sesshomaru suffer far greater injuries than this and move on seconds later. I've already wasted too much time sitting here."

"You shouldn't go covered in blood," Shippo told her. "Saya won't like it and Sesshomaru won't either."

"Is he recovered?" Rin asked. "Lady Shiroihana counseled me not to reveal my transformation to him before he had—"

"Lady Shiroihana deceived you," Tsukiyume snapped, grimacing, distracted by the pain in her shoulder, aching deep in the bone.

Rin was silent, unsurprised by the news. She had suspected it from the beginning but could see no reason why Shiroihana would do it. "How do you mean?"

Tsukiyume's ears had flattened onto her black hair. Her face was wrinkled heavily with pain. She flashed her teeth in a facsimile of a smile brought on by her pain. Shippo spoke for her, still acting as her crutch. He gestured at the physician. "Get the maids to clean this stuff up and take care of Tsuki. I'll take Rin wherever she wants to go."

Confusion followed Rin like a cloud of insects, buzzing about her head. She held her side, stifling the last of the oozing blood as maids entered, stripping away bloodied cloths, sheets, linens, and covers. The physician urged her behind a screen where he opened the folds of her filthy robe—covered in dirt, mud, blood, and grass stains—and began to bandage her side. Rin listened with her acute hearing to the steps of the maids, and to the whispered conversations between Tsukiyume and Shippo. The fox was still acting as Tsukiyume's crutch while they waited for the bed to be cleared and the linens replaced. It would become Tsukiyume's place to rest again.

"I'm always getting hurt," she whined lightheartedly.

"If you hung out with Inuyasha it would happen all the time! He has a knack for finding trouble. But you'll be better real fast too, just like him. Sesshomaru punched a hole through his stomach once and four days later he was running around with Kagome on his back again. I bet he got a real kick out of seeing Sesshomaru so weak."

"I had the impression he was more worried about Saya than Lord Sesshomaru."

Shippo's reply was lowered, but not quiet enough for it to escape Rin's ears. "He has it in his head that Saya's like his own kid. It's going to be really hard for him to give her up. And Sesshomaru—"

Tsukiyume interrupted him, also in a low whisper, trying to keep Rin from overhearing her where she was hidden from their sight by the screen, being bandaged by the doctor. "I am afraid of how Lord Sesshomaru will act when he sees Lady Rin. I don't know what's going to happen."

Shippo answered her casually. "I wouldn't worry about it."

"But Lady Ginrei…"

Shippo made a hushing sound, as if he understood that Rin could hear them suddenly. Rin realized that the physician had stepped out from the screen carrying the bowl of water that he had used to cleanse his hands. It was colored pink now. Rin pulled her filthy robe up and held it shut with one hand, following the doctor out. She forced her expression to be distant and impassive.

The maids were mostly finished with the bedding. One of them came to stand on Tsukiyume's other side. The doctor bowed to Rin before she had time to notice and excused himself, begging her pardon in quick, overused words before moving to wrap Tsukiyume's shoulder and arm to set the collarbone as best as he could. (A/N: It's still impossible to set a collarbone without surgery. You just can't do it. Basically you just keep your arm and shoulder as still as possible for like…6 weeks. In Tsuki's case it's more like 6 hours or so but still. My fiancé had a broken collarbone when we were in high school.)

As Tsukiyume accepted the maid's help and support, Shippo left her, smiling a silent, short goodbye. A different maid, an elderly woman that Rin recognized from a previous visit, dropped to her knees before Rin. Shippo approached her as well, but the fox didn't bow. His tawny, fuzzy tail flicked like a squirrel's. "Where do you want to go, Lady Rin?"

"The lady must have a bath first," the older maid said. She was plump and kindly. Rin remembered liking her at her last bath. It was when she had arrived in the Nanka from the North and met Shiroihana again for the first time as an adult. It seemed so long ago, but Rin could remember the stress of having Sesshomaru's mother watch her in the bath, the weight of Shiroihana's gaze. A childhood memory flitted past her brain, the first time she had seen Shiroihana. "Are you going to eat them?" Shiroihana had asked Sesshomaru when she'd seen his human companions.

Rin would have shuddered if not for the pain it would have caused her. "There's no time for a bath," she snapped.

Shippo shook his head. "Saya will get scared if you go to her covered in blood."

It was sound advice, but Rin had great difficulty accepting it over the pounding of the bone deep instinct to hold her child and see her living mate with her own eyes. She felt her side and squared her jaw. "No bath. Please," she addressed the maid, "get me a clean robe. I'll wash up a little and change but nothing else. No delays." Shiroihana had delayed her before, had deceived her somehow…

As the maid left, Rin stared at Shippo and cleared her throat. "Tell me what I've missed. How did Lady Shiroihana deceive me? And what were you saying about Ginrei?"

The fox made a face and sighed reluctantly. "I don't think I even know all of it."

"Then tell me everything you do know."

Shimofuri retired to a room he used as a study and summoned the scribe. He was uncomfortable, filled with a tenseness that he didn't understand, and a desire to rectify any wrongs he had committed within the last few days. His mind stayed preoccupied with thoughts of Ginrei, who was bathing with Hanone on the castle's lower level. The noise of the scribe grinding the ink, mixing it, and then gathering his brushes, was distant and disturbing. It was like listening to mice nibbling in the walls. Shimofuri fidgeted and tried to clear his mind and focus on just what he wanted done.

Messengers had caught him in the hall to tell him that word had come from the generals, Oushi and Daken, that Shiroihana had successfully returned with Kanseninu's head. His armies were disbanded. There would be peace, but at a high cost for the clan, just as Shiroihana had always known.

Thinking of the Mother of the Western Lands perturbed Shimofuri. Her manipulation, her foresight, her constant scheming…he could suddenly pity Sesshomaru and understand him. In a way, he and Sesshomaru were more alike in that way than they could have ever guessed. Shimofuri's mother, the albino Taikokajin, had been nearly insane toward the end. Her manipulative schemes had tried to steal Inuyasha's son from him, and it had cost her life. She had been a loving mother, but somewhere along the line it clouded her judgment. When Tsukiyume was kidnapped she had lost most of her sanity.

Was Shiroihana the same way? Shimofuri found himself despising her, but doubting that she would ever succumb to insanity like Taikokajin had. Shiroihana's actions had all been done with an eerie, cold intelligence. He prayed he would never come under her influence or be part of her manipulating schemes ever again, but somehow he doubted he would be that lucky.

"My lord," the scribe said, interrupting Shimofuri's rumination. "I am ready to begin. What must be done?"

Shimofuri threw a quick glance at the parchment lying on the scribe's little desk. Characters jumped out to him, scrawled in the human's sharp calligraphy. Annulment. Betrothal. Alliance. Middle Lands. Kosetsu. Shinkumaru Shiroihana. He sighed and tapped the claws of one hand on his knee. Shiroihana was right about the clans splintering, dying out. Shiroihana's plans would spread out the genes; preserve the lines in the north with new marriages and alliances. The clans could prosper…

I made a promise to her.

"There is a note in the record about Sesshomaru's daughter, Hanone."

The scribe nodded without looking. "Yes?"

"It concerns her adoption in name to a specific province of the Western Lands and to Lady Shiroihana." He paused for a moment and let himself imagine the aforementioned inuyoukai woman sitting before him. She would be most displeased with him. "Scratch it. Blot it out."

"Yes, my lord." The scribe selected a brush and dipped it into the ink. As he set the ink down to the paper, the scribe, a middle aged man with a crooked back, asked, "Is there anything else?"

"A betrothal to Boroya, of the Northern Lands. Take that out as well. And anything else pertaining to Hanone."

The scribe was working fast, but reading before his brush made each stroke—it would be painful to make a mistake. It meant hours of recopying the parchment. "There is a note on her inheritance." He quoted from the manuscript, "In the event that Lord Sesshomaru should die without a proper male heir, Hanone will inherit the Western Lands."

"Scratch that as well. Sesshomaru and Lady Ginrei can work that out at another time."

"Is that all?" the scribe asked while his brush still worked.

Shimofuri clenched his jaw, thinking. Ginrei had told him that her marriage should be annulled, but she did not say she had approved the idea of aligning herself with him. Shimofuri sighed and muttered a last order to the scribe. "There is also an arranged marriage between myself and Lady Ginrei. Strike that."

"That makes this document very bare," the scribe commented. "It is really only a marriage annulment now."

Shimofuri nodded. "I know. That may change later. I may have need of your skills again later today." The action of destroying Shiroihana's record, made in deception and lies, which he had knowingly taken part of, was more cleansing than it was practical. He would be certain that Ginrei was treated properly, the way she had deserved from the beginning. She wouldn't be tricked into marrying him. He would seek her agreement and go through any and all tradition ceremony to please her and show his devotion.

He had the ominous feeling, almost a precognition, that she would need it. He had removed every part in the document that pertained to Hanone at all, but somehow Shimofuri knew that ink would not change what Shiroihana had planned. She was too smart, too calculating. One day Ginrei would find herself parted from her precious Hanone against her will, against everyone's will because none of them were a match for Shiroihana. Not even Sesshomaru. She was the woman that had outlived and even outdone Inutaisho himself.

Rin climbed the stairs to the upper level where Sesshomaru had been housed within the Nanka castle for the duration of his grueling illness. She clasped her side, pressing against it to hold back the pain and keep it from reopening. Her discomfort was minimal considering how deep the wound had gone, how much blood she had seen on the sheets and on her fingers, and by the fact that the doctor hadn't stitched it because it was already closing. It was no longer bleeding actively, but it was weeping onto the bandage, making Rin feel damp and sweaty.

She had changed into a white robe that she was fairly certain belonged to Tsukiyume. It was simple and loose, tying only with a baby blue sash. The maid that was still following her had combed out her hair while Shippo talked with her, filling in everything that he could. As Rin washed her hands, arms, neck, and her face, she realized that Saya was safe. Saya was protected. She had not been flattering her mate's half brother when she called him the finest guardian Saya could have. It was true. She had little doubt that Inuyasha would die for Saya unquestioningly if he had to.

But while Inuyasha was playing father to her daughter, Rin felt increasingly aware of Sesshomaru, Saya's real father, alone and probably infuriated with heartbreak. She had learned since her first visit to him when he was ill, completely human in his sickbed. Now scents not only stood out to her, but auras as well. Sesshomaru's had been increasingly potent. Even as Shippo described Sesshomaru to her as being mostly human when he had seen him mere hours ago, Rin knew the fox was wrong. Sesshomaru was changing fast. As a human he might have tolerated Inuyasha's presence with Saya, but now he would be stewing, angry, and ready to slash his brother's throat to get Saya back.

She was not at her prettiest or her most ornate, but Rin was determined to meet her mate in her new form and take her place beside him. Perhaps, as one unit, they could convince Saya that they really were her parents and not shape shifting imposters. Underlying that concern was her mounting frustration with what Shippo had told her about Ginrei. Husband and wife had probably bonded, and apparently they were united in disgust for the grand deception that Shiroihana had orchestrated. Would her change from human to inuyoukai prove disconcerting enough for Sesshomaru that he would choose to keep Ginrei as his wife?

When Shippo had discussed this with her, Rin unwittingly revealed her own uncertainty as to just how Sesshomaru would react. The kit had cocked his head and laughed at her expression. Rin held onto that laughter. It is silly for me to think my transformation has changed anything. It has almost certainly only strengthened his decision to give Ginrei to Shimofuri.

The maid, trailing behind her, puffed on the stairs, racing up and around Rin to open doors for her. Rin herself was not winded from the climb, but her face was contorted with the stress of the fresh wound in her side. She had not had the lessons in stoniness that Sesshomaru and many of the other inuyoukai had received from birth.

The maid knelt and slid open the door to Sesshomaru's room. It was bright inside with the windows open. The day outside was warm and cheerful. Songbirds were singing somewhere distantly, and above them humans were walking, talking, and going about their daily routines. Rin could hear them and smell them before she had even walked into the room, the information floating to her on the humid afternoon breeze. Sesshomaru's scent overpowered all of those underlying details, blotting them out so that Rin was only peripherally aware of them. The maid was still knelt on the floor, but even she was invisible to Rin now as she stepped into the room.

There were multiple layers of scents in the room, a dizzying array. Rin's nose focused on the present only, blocking the others. Sesshomaru's scent was powerful like wood smoke from a fire, impossible to ignore. There was food in the room, a raw fish of some kind and some stewed vegetables. Rin smelled it before she saw it: an afternoon meal laid out on trays, three of them. Sesshomaru, Ginrei, and Hanone were sharing a meal.

The little scene, distinctly domestic, nauseated Rin immediately in spite of herself. Sesshomaru sat with his back to the door, a show of confidence on his part, a silent proclamation that he was well enough and strong enough to turn and slash through any threat that could come for him now. His robes were clean, as were Ginrei and Hanone's. They sat beside one another, facing the door. Ginrei looked up when the door opened, as did Hanone. Sesshomaru was alert, Rin could tell from the straightness of his back and the stillness of his hands, but he did not turn at once to look at her.

Ginrei's silvered eyes widened. "Lady Rin," she murmured a halfhearted greeting.

"Rin!" Hanone repeated, not using a title. She grinned. Her fingers were slimy with fish oil and her tray was a mess. "Where's Sister?"

Rin struggled inwardly to find her voice and was surprised by how confident and quick the words were. "That's something you can help me with, Hanone. Saya's afraid to come and see us right now. She's with your uncle." Even as she spoke she was still taking in Sesshomaru, gauging how recovered he truly was. His scent told her he was nearly pureblooded again, but physically he had not completed the transformation. His hair was white but only fell to his shoulders. His claws looked short and stubby and the splashes of purple-red color at his wrists were paler than she thought they should be.

"You are wounded," Sesshomaru said, speaking for the first time.

Rin held her breath as he twisted his neck to look at her. The marks on his cheeks were pale like the ones on his wrists, but the crescent moon was its normal deep purple. His eyes were the full golden of the hawk that had always thrilled and unnerved her.

She wanted to reply shortly with sarcasm, to say: I see your sense of smell is back! But she restrained her impulsive comment, knowing her irritation was because of Ginrei's presence, the threat she felt. Was it warranted? Was Ginrei trying to replace her? The desire to be angry and aggressive was hard and sharp, difficult for Rin to contend with. She remembered lashing out instinctively at the physician and Tsukiyume and held herself in check. It was difficult for her to distinguish between powerful instinct and legitimate emotions now. How did Sesshomaru and the others contend with it their whole lives?

"I'm fine," she murmured.

"You're hungry," Ginrei observed, also using her sense of smell. Hunger was a particularly sharp smell, metallic or sour on one's breath. Rin could smell her own scent and knew she likely reeked of it now that she had been awake for more than a few minutes.

Hunger overpowered her discomfort. "Yes. I can't remember when I ate last."

Ginrei got to her feet and smoothly came to her side and touched her arm with a motion that couldn't be anything but affection. "Take my spot." The two women locked gazes and Rin saw Ginrei's darkened eyes, troubled but not truly hostile. It was an unreadable mixture that only increased Rin's nausea. She was about to pull away and accept Ginrei's offer when the other inuyoukai woman whispered, "Lord Sesshomaru has been waiting for you…"

There was something unspoken in Ginrei's sentence that Rin didn't miss. She paused a moment longer and felt her body's tenseness starting to fade. The circumstances between Ginrei and Rin had often pitted them against each other, but Rin had always known that underneath it they had the potential for great friendship. There had been many times when Ginrei was jealous of Rin for her exalted position, but she had never looked down on Rin for being merely human or for holding Sesshomaru's heart.

It was not ambition or jealousy that Rin saw now, but a distant sadness. Even if Sesshomaru had been willing to keep her, Ginrei had never really had any designs on his heart. There was affection between them, more now than perhaps at any other time, but it could not compare with what Rin had.

Rin realized that what Ginrei had meant to say was Sesshomaru has been waiting for you all his life. Ginrei was only keeping the spot warm.

She sat down where Ginrei had been and found the food almost untouched. Apparently Ginrei hadn't been hungry or had already heard that Rin was coming when she'd had the tray laid out. Hanone grinned up at Rin and held out a hand with a roll of raw fish meat on it. "Want some?"

"No, thank you Hanone." Rin shook her head and then slowly lifted her eyes to look at Sesshomaru where he sat across from her. First she took in his tray and his lower body. His food was mostly gone but he still held chopsticks in one hand idly. The skin of his hands and arms, what little she could see poking out of the sleeve, was flawless and smooth. Then her eyes flew to his face, only the second time she had seen him since coming into the room.

He was staring at her unblinkingly, searching her face with an open longing that brought the heat rushing into Rin's cheeks. "Lord Sesshomaru," she greeted him, whispering.

A subtle change took place in his amber eyes, a lightening. His lips twitched and parted slightly. The new expression, although tiny, was one of awe. The last time she had seen that awe had been when he came to visit her after leaving her at Jouka as a child. He had left her a child and returned to find her a young woman of marriageable age, riding a horse, painting her face to be fierce like a youkai warrior. It was the same look that had marked the moment he had realized on a deep, primal level that he could not give her away as a daughter, but had to take her as his mate.

Hanone laughed and started to sing a rhyming song of nonsense about the weather, a little song that Rin had taught Saya and then Saya had shared with Hanone. The moment, the stare between Rin and Sesshomaru faded. The world rushed back in.

Ginrei was standing by the door, watching them with a distant, melancholy stare. She cleared her throat after a moment and approached Sesshomaru. She dropped into a bow and began excusing herself. "I would like to go and speak with Lord Shimofuri. I would also like to take Hanone with me."

She was asking permission—but at the same time it was not a question, it was a statement. Rin sensed an underlying conversation that she had missed, a change between them of some artificial separation.

Sesshomaru nodded to her. "Go."

Ginrei scooped Hanone up after wiping at her little clawed hands and her smeared face. Rin ate slowly while she watched the mother and daughter leave, distracted by warring imperatives. She was with her mate, but still uncertain of her place officially—and more so she was worried about Saya. Inuyasha was a fine protector but the longer they delayed in getting her back into their hold again, the harder it would be for Saya to adjust. Rin could only wonder at the implications that the current situation would have on their young daughter.

As soon as the door slid shut behind Ginrei and Hanone, Sesshomaru dropped the chopsticks he had been holding in one hand. Rin felt his eyes boring into her as she scooped rice, bits of meat, and sipped on the vegetable soup. When he was ready to speak, she knew he would do so, but her hands shook as she held her own chopsticks, waiting.

He let out a long, sharp exhalation that startled Rin, nearly making her choke as she swallowed some broth. His words only further put her at risk of choking. "I missed you." After a small pause he added, "There was a time when I thought you had died. At Jouka, in the earthquake."

His chin wrinkled and his brow furrowed, clear signs of his distress, but he surprised her by finishing almost jokingly. "Obviously I was mistaken."

Rin laughed, small and quiet. Her shoulders bounced as her body trembled around her. Sesshomaru continued watching her avidly. There were unanswered questions he surely had for her, but that was unimportant at the present time, as was explaining them. It would all come later.

He reached out to her, touching her chin with blunted claws. Rin lifted her face and stared into his eyes frankly letting him get a clear view of the marks on her cheeks, two jagged shaped ilnes colored turquoise like Shimofuri's. Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed with concentration and he made a short sniffing sound, perhaps rechecking her changed scent. A baffled look crossed his eyes and he pulled his had back from her. It was the first negative reaction he had had to her transformation and Rin sighed, biting her lip as anxiety returned to her.

"My senses are not what they were," Sesshomaru admitted. It was a startling show of his vulnerability. Rin directed her gaze away from him down to the food. She released her chopsticks and flexed her hands, snapping the joints.

"Lord Sesshomaru will recover," she reassured him though her voice was thin and distant.

"Yes," he answered, dully.

Rin plunged forward, eager to bring Sesshomaru's mind to more pressing matters. "We must get Saya back."

A full-fledged frown spread over his lips. "My brother has corrupted her." It was spoken with anger but not with passion.

"It's not his fault. He has been an excellent protector. Saya has been very safe under his care." She leaned forward and let her voice take on a hard, deep intensity to make it clear she was giving him an order, not a suggestion. "He should be commended, not punished."

The corners of Sesshomaru's mouth and his eyes stayed pinched. "He is undeserving of any—"

"He saved our daughter!" Rin raised her voice, nearly shouting. "You are indebted to him, as am I."

Sesshomaru sat back, gaining some distance from Rin. His face had blanked of all expression but his hands were clenched into tight fists. "I am indebted to everyone," he bit out. "I have been reduced to nothing."

Rin stared at him, startled again by his words. She felt the wound in her side stinging and had a sudden flash of insight. I am hearing the man within him speak, not the inuyoukai. They are one in the same but one speaks with a free tongue. One was openly vulnerable and less likely to act; the other was cold and immovable, determined and violent. It was the inuyoukai that would have Inuyasha imprisoned for his offence and forcibly take Saya back to the Western Lands. It was the human that would mourn weakness, illness, death, pain, and grief. This was as emotional and open as Sesshomaru could ever be.

"Nothing?" she whispered. "I didn't know the great Lord of the Western Lands could feel sorry for himself!"

Sesshomaru snorted and lifted his chin, affronted by her comment. "How dare you—"

"You have been gravely ill," Rin murmured. "You are still recovering. I am here to make sure you make the right decisions while you are reduced to nothing." The last word she added sarcastically, scolding him.

He didn't like this either. "I will not have you as a replacement for my mother!" he hissed.

"I'm not deceiving you, only telling the absolute truth. You cannot attack Inuyasha for protecting Saya while we couldn't." She swallowed, suddenly feeling her throat swell with emotion. "And you cannot blame either of them for bonding. They're kin. If you came upon Inuyasha's children, surely you would protect them too?"

"His offspring are only further insults to our father's blood…" he spat.

"You wouldn't protect them?" Rin asked, leaning closer. "Is that really what Lord Inutaisho would have wanted? They are his grandchildren, just as Saya and Hanone are. Saya herself is an insult to his blood by your reasoning."

"What do you want from me?" Sesshomaru asked, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Patience. We have to be patient with both Inuyasha and Saya to get her back. We must prove to her that we are really her parents, that we love her." She blinked and sniffled, trying to control the sudden tears that came into her eyes. "She thinks we are shape shifting monsters individually. Seeing us together now that you've mostly recovered, it might change her mind."

"My brother has taken her as his own," Sesshomaru growled. "He will not help us."

Rin drew an unsteady breath. "Perhaps he would be more eager to do so if we honored him for his help."

"I never asked for his help!"

Rin let out a short laugh that was more of a bark. Embarrassed, she covered her lips and closed her eyes. Sesshomaru waited for her to speak with a heavy angry silence. Finally Rin spoke past her hand, through her fingers. "Lord Sesshomaru cannot actually believe that Saya would still be alive without Inuyasha's help? And because we did not ask for his help it is all the more important that we thank him for it. He has done it out of true kindness without expecting anything in return."

Sesshomaru was staring over her shoulder with sunken shoulders, weighed down by bitter defeat. "And what would you suggest I give him in return?"

Rin smiled lightly, relieved that she had reached him. "I have an idea."

A/N: Well more to come...I bet none of you can guess what she plans to give to Inuyasha. I will say this much, it isn't physical. If you really wanted to know before the next update, Chapter 21 of Innocence has the answer. Also, to those of you who have also read Innocence you may be able to see Shimofuri's accurate precognition about just where and who Hanone will be with. Chapter 35 has an example of that, as do other chapters after that. Innocence and Return are very interconnected and I have done my best to have the stories intertwined and for the continuity to be accurate. Basically any chapter in Innocence that involves Sess's family in some way means there will be hints about this story.

So for more Shiroihana action, read Innocence. I just love her. She's always a thrill to write too.