Beginnings

"So what did you want to talk about, anyway?" Several minutes had passed in silence where he had simply stared at her, but then, that wasn't really anything new with Kouga.

Startled out of his thoughts, the young wolf jerked his attention from her womb to her face and offered up a weak smile. "Sorry, I was thinking of something else." Shrugging, altogether uncomfortable with the idea of telling her how he felt after all these years, he almost changed her mind. Almost.

Smiling, she leaned back against the booth again, mentally making a list of all the final preparations she had to make for the party tomorrow night. She was content to let him take his time, and always had been. Kouga always seemed to be careful of what he said around her, even since they'd been children, where usually he was brash and full of energy.

"I love you." The words, spoken quietly and firmly, were not at all what he had intended to say. He had meant to start off slowly, maybe bring up that memory of high school when he had been her prom date because her own had stood her up. Or maybe even that time when they'd been children and she'd bloodied a neighborhood bully's nose because he had been taunting Kouga about the death of his parents. There any number of instances that he could name when he had lost his heart to her.

Those words, so simple and yet not, pulled her attention completely and utterly to him. She was stunned, and for a moment, the coward in her was tempted to return them the way she would with anyone else she considered family. But she wasn't blind, and the sheer amount of emotion in his blue, blue eyes was enough to tell her that he loved her in more than just the way family should. She didn't have it in her to be so thoughtlessly cruel, and he deserved so much better than that.

"I didn't mean to say it like that," he said, voice gruff. He was tempted to drop his gaze to the table and her hands, watch as those slim fingers twisted together in absent motion.

"But you meant it." She remembered to the minute when he had come into her life. As children, just days after his parent's funerals and her mother had taken him in; she remembered because it had been 7:05 in the morning and she had only ten minutes left to get to school. She remembered running past him as he walked up the sidewalk with a lone adult, and the way those pale blue eyes had seemed almost desperate in their aloneness.

"Yeah, I meant it." He cleared his throat and wished quite suddenly for something to drink. Maybe it would help clear out his thoughts. "I've wanted you for my mate for as long as I can remember, from the moment I understood what the word meant."

For the first time in her life, Kagome looked at him as she would a man, rather than family. He was tall, and broad of shoulder and decently in fit. She knew he had narrow hips and large, capable hands and eyes a woman could just drown in, if she chose to stare long enough. But aside from all of that, she knew he was kind, and loyal and intelligent. She knew she could count on him to stand at her side, if she wanted him to, and that they could, and would, protect each other.

Uncomfortable under her intense gaze, he fidgeted slightly in his seat and cleared his throat again. "I'm bungling this, majorly," he muttered. "I wanted to give you candles and romance, before I told you. You deserve candles and romance."

"What about the ba—"

He cut her off, and in this he was confident. "I figure any child of yours is as much you, as it will be of him. And I may not be a dog, but I've got the same instincts and skills, what with being a wolf. I'd take care of you all as if you were my own."

Something in her heart stirred, and Kagome relaxed, before gently reaching across the table and holding her hand out, palm up. "Then how about we start with dinner, tonight, and see where it goes?" She ignored the twinge in her mind about Sesshoumaru.

Startled at the easy acceptance, his mind reeling even as his heart raced, he almost hesitated. But he took her hand lightly, gently, as if she were the most fragile thing he was ever going to touch, or even hold, and really she was, in his mind. "I would like that."

o.O.o

Word Count - 787