A/N: I have a flu/cold and I've taken night time cold medicine just before writing this. Thanks for staying faithful and I'm sorry about typos and such. Peace, bitches

Sesshou retreated to his bedroom after the events of the day. Kagome had been returned home after meeting with the monk and slayer's descendant, and he would have been grateful for the silence on the drive home if not for the irregularity of her lack for words. It was a lot to take in, he presumed. He worried for her, he admitted.

He cared.

In the presence of no one, he granted himself a sigh. Undressing one handed out of habit alone, he undid the buttons of his shirt and began to untuck the restrictive dress shirt when he felt the aura of his mother close by. Turning towards the door, he was not surprised when she graced through the entry without so much as a knock.

"I was hoping you would have brought the priestess home tonight." Her demure smirk was painted a petal pink this evening, softening her humanistic features. It didn't matter how many times he had seen his mother's human disguise, it always perturbed him to see her black hair and hazel eyes. She was a snowy queen, regal and lethal, and he admired her for it. Clouded by her human concealment, she was no more than a pretty woman with his mother's face. "I wished to surprise her."

"She does not live here." Sesshou stated the obvious, ignoring any implications she had left hanging in the air. Buttoning his shirt up once more, he knew his mother would not be leaving any time soon. She liked to linger, if only to raise his hackles.

"I was hoping-"

"You will meet Kagome soon." He cut her off; exposing his irritation, "For now, you must wait patiently. The whole world wishes to meet her, Mother."

"Precisely, Sesshoumaru," She sat herself on the cushioned bench at the end of his bed, next to the tie he had already tossed aside before she had rudely entered. "She's a gem, and very desired by many, I've heard. What are we to do with her?" His mother pouted, crossing one leg over the other.

"Do?" Sesshou's interest piqued.

"Surely, she's to be mated." He rolled his eyes at her immediate answer. He'd heard enough already from her about mating. "But the question remains, who will we choose?"

"We?" Sesshou's frown deepened, "She will decide her mate, should she fall for another."

"Oh, son, don't you worry, there can't be anyone else." His mother's quick response was shadowed by his own line of thought.

"If she does not relinquish her desire for my brother, then there is no one else to be had, Mother." Sesshou's annoyance grew. Surely his mother knew too well the tryst that occured between Inuyasha and the single soul he loved, split by two bodies, and two times.

"Not Inuyasha," His mother waved her hand apathetically, as if swatting his name from her mouth like a bug that had flown too close to her face. "You, my son."

"That's preposterous." Sesshou exited his bedroom, knowing his mother would follow him to the kitchen. She did, but at a much slower pace.

"Think about it, Sesshoumaru," Her voice was light, and playful. Poking her cheek as she spoke, striding behind him with a leisurely pace, she said, "She's the Shikon priestess. You're Inuyasha's brother."

There it was again. The implication. As if he could replace his brother in the girl's heart simply because they shared the same blood, and for the most part, shared many features.

"I am not Inuyasha." His jaw flinched with the grinding of his teeth. His mother noticed.

"Does your bedroom not reek of her scent?" She teased, unaware of his qualms. "Do her things not lie about your home, as if it were her own?" She gestured to the spare sweater Kagome had left on the back of the couch from her last visit, and the hair ties on the coffee table.

"She is not mine," He spat out, but even still, in the back of his mind, he could see her flinching at his words. She would be hurt by his proclamation. "At least, not that way. I will protect her."

"And provide for her?" His mother circled the island of the kitchen, coming around to sidle up next to her agitated son.

"Of course." He answered without hesitation.

"When she falls sick, you will be there?" His mother leaned her dark head against his arm, hugging his elbow to herself. It wasn't often they shared physical affection, but she was growing soft in her old age. Anger and rage had left her in the times of war. Now, she wished her family tree to expand and continue. She wished her son happy. She wished she had done better for him.

"I will cure what ails her." His confidence was astounding.

"What if what ails her, is her heart?" With a sincerity he was unfamiliar with, his mother spoke. He hesitated this time.

"How should I cure it?" Sesshou asked this time.

"My son, you will soon find out." And with that, she leaned into his curious gaze and brushed a soft kiss to his forehead. "Take care, Sesshoumaru."

Sesshou spent hours turning over his mother's words. Lying awake at night, he wondered, how did this mess even come to be? How did the annoying priestess that trailed his half brother through time, become the ever present scent that permeated his bedsheets, the boisterous laugh he desired to hear consuming the silence around them, and the literal light that shone through the corners of his sight? She was an enigma, a strange being that was both gifted and cursed. Somehow, befriending her once enemy.

He only wished he knew what really brought her back to now. And why she couldn't live out her days with Inuyasha. She would have been happy with him, for all eternity.

So why did that weigh heavily on his chest?