Disclaimer: This fanfic is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham. Neither "Inuyasha" nor the "Painted Veil" belong to me
The small alcove on the west wing of the convent offered a little bit of seclusion from the chaos that was the infirmary, a welcome change after six hours of uninterrupted work. He had just finished his small lunch of boiled noodles and vegetables, with a poached egg on top - a local luxury given the resources available at the order.
Sesshomaru could not help but be touched by the small gestures of the nuns and their dedication to the sick, even if he privately despised their efforts to convert and baptize the young children and work the young women to the bone. Life in Paibi was a hard one - one full of poverty and ignorance, and for the many families that were living at the brink of starvation, sending their young daughters to the convent was a better alternative than having an extra mouth to feed. Cholera worsened all things - families were deprived of their breadwinners, farms suffered without no one to tend them - and the solution, which was clean water, was literally being poisoned by the populace, so intent in burying the bodies close to the shore of the river to ensure their passing into the afterlife. That would ensure that all of them did as well.
Boiling water was not a solution except for the most wealthy. The cost of coal would be astronomically high for a town of poor peasants, and the colonial governor's response when he asked for just a cart-wagon of the material to supply them for a month was almost a written laugh. The order had a small well that tested clean, but it was barely enough for the needs of the convent, and solutions such as chlorinating the water were well beyond his expertise. The last thing he needed was to poison an entire village.
He despaired, as he normally did, but did his best to keep his unflappable facade. Showing weakness was a liability with the small garrison, full of men with little education but with an enormous eagerness to use a gun on a foreign man, even if he were the sole medical doctor in hundreds of miles. After dropping his plate at the common kitchen, as he normally did during his break, Sesshomaru made a beeline for the nursery, where the sweet smell of the babies made him forget the stench of the infirmary and their innocent laughs gave him hope for a new day.
Seshomaru heard her before he saw her, when a soft voice ringed, sonorous, in the old stone room:
'Teru-teru Bozu, Teru Bozu
Do make tomorrow a sunny day,
Like the sky in a dream sometimes.
If it's sunny I'll give you a golden bell'
For a moment, he thought she was an apparition, a goddess with blue cotton dress cooing at the two year old boy who had soon become the favorite of the young nuns, and for the first time in weeks, his heart clenched at something other than rage. He remembered the last time he had heard her sing, round belly sitting in the veranda, trying to convince him to feel the child kicking inside her womb. But he was too worried and stressed to enjoy her pregnancy: he had used most of his savings in setting up their home in a decent home on the outskirts of the peak. The rest was used in helping Inuyasha pay for his trade school - so he could eventually work (and hopefully buy) Totosai's ironworks. His position at the Royal Society paid well - but not enough to maintain a wife and a child in the way she had been accustomed. So when Kagome asked him to feel the baby kick, he did the cowardly thing and demurred.
Seshomaru would never admit it, but he was secretly relieved when she miscarried. 'Maybe in a couple of years we can have a child' he thought back then, and it was too late when he realized that his wife's heart, already reluctant, froze in a glacial storm. He noticed it in the way her body tensed when they made love, in the way that she had stopped asking about his day, and how she simply smiled blankly when in his desperation, he resumed his old tokens of love: flowers for her room, small lemon cakes for her tea, silk ribbons for her hair. She accepted them graciously, with that same bland smile that exasperated him, and he would often see the flowers in the hallway, the servants eating the cakes in the kitchen, and the ribbons unused in her drawer. It was then that he decided to do something that was so uncharacteristic of him, and bought tickets, for a party. He sadly chuckled when the thought struck him -'and see where that got me'.
The sound startled Kagome, and she saw him, tired and wearing an impossibly immaculate doctor's coat at the entrance of the room.
"What do you think you are doing?" - asked Seshomaru, sternly "Why didn't anybody inform me that you were in here?"
"I asked Mr. Myoga to bring me here" she responded, with a slight tone of insolence "and I did not inform you because it is clear that you don't care where I am or what I do, except to go insane in that old cottage".
Sesshomaru did not expect that response and could only Hmp a response.
"I asked the nuns for a job" - Kagome continued, defensively. "I had nothing to do, and I offered to help care for the babies. Don't worry" - she continued "It seems that I am as useless to them as I am to you, but at least I have made a friend in this God-forsaken place" she smiled at the young boy and tickled his belly -"his name is Shippo".
"His name is inconsequential" - Seshomaru bluntly said, and looking at Kagome's face he immediately regretted it. Changing his tone for a softer one, he said "his parents died on the ward less than a fortnight ago. He is all alone in the world".
Kagome smiled, in ways he had not seen since they were in London, and after holding the child and putting him on her hip, she said: "Well, he is not alone anymore".