A Sudden Tomorrow

Summary: Kagome swallowed hard, biting back the words on the tip of her tongue, she glanced around at the strangers in her living room. "Can you please repeat that last part?" Her mother smiled back at her. "I'm getting married." Yeah, somehow, life was about to get ten times more complicated than Demon Hunting and Time-Traveling ever was.

Genre: Family/Romance/Humor

Pairing: Kagome/?

Rated: M

-x-x-x-

"Kagome, when will you be back?"

Turning as she finished packing her bag, Kagome took Shippou in her arms and smiled, "after my end of term exams. I need to focus on studying for college."

"I don't understand why you're so worried, aren't you going to stay in the past anyway?"

That thought had certainly crossed her mind, but she hadn't really settled on it. "InuYasha, it's not that simple. My time is still in the future, so I need to be there."

"Keh," crossing his arms, he pouted openly in front of her, but she only smiled sadly at him.

"I'll be back before you know it."

"Right, whatever."

Shippou snuggled into her arms a bit before she finally placed him on the ground next to Sango and Miroku who watched her fling her bag over her shoulder. "I'll see you all soon!"

-x-x-x-

Climbing up the rope ladder that had been placed against the well a while back, Kagome fixed her backpack on her shoulder, her eyes catching the hem of her skirt. "Hm..." Running out of the well house. "Mama! Mama, I need a new skirt for school! Mine got torn during the last fight against Nara—ku... who?" Slowing to a stop in the living room, Kagome quickly took in the number of unknown faces in her home.

"We have guests!" Rai smiled, her eyes bright with humor as her daughter dropped her bag behind the couch.

With faux excitement, Kagome matched her mother's tone, "yes, yes we do!"

"We'll talk later about your uniform. Why don't you sit next to Shuusuke and your brother, and I'll go ahead and pick up where I was. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything. They only just got here too."

She sat down beside her brother, who was sitting against the arm of the chair, and who she could only assume was Shuusuke.

Souta leaned into her and whispered, "Moms been really hush-hush about what this is all about, but she said it was too important to start without you. Good thing you showed up when you did."

"Souta," the disapproving tone had both Kagome and her brother sitting straight. "First, Kagome, this is Akihiko, and these are his children. Yumiko, Shuusuke and Yuuta, Shuusuke is actually the same age as you!" Smiling in excitement, she cleared her throat as she realized her daughter wasn't quite sharing in it. "I know this is going to probably be a shock for, well...at least the two of you," her eyes dancing over the other four uncertainly, "but Akihiko and I," holding her hand out, a tall and slender male took it before joining her standing up. "We have decided to get married."

"Really?" Souta asked in confusion.

Kagome elbowed him in the side and he recoiled into the arm of the couch.

"What?" He cried out, "I wasn't even aware mom was seeing someone, did you know?"

She didn't. "Nope..."

"Well, originally, I didn't want to distract you from what you were doing, and so I had thought to wait until after... after you were done. Things got serious, and here we are."

Nodding, Kagome understood, sort of. "Well, I guess I'm happy for you?" Standing, she walked to her bag and lifted it, making her way upstairs while her mother stared after her. She wasn't really mad, just a bit...well, no, she was mad. She was really mad, actually. Finding out that her mom was getting married, and never even knowing that she'd been dating someone? It was a bit numbing.

"Ah, sorry about that. I hadn't had a chance to tell her."

"If you will excuse me, this is the first I'm hearing of this too, so I can relate to how your daughter might be feeling."

Kagome faltered on the top stair, leaning against the rail, she listened.

"Only having one parent bring you up, you trust in them completely. It's hard for me to think that something this extreme was kept quiet about up until the last second. Your daughter and son, myself, Yuuta and Yumiko... we are expected to feel happy for you, but we were never given the opportunity to get to know you or prepare ourselves for another family. It's not like winning a vacation. It's an entire reconstruction of one's life."

'That's right...there is no way all of us will fit here... we'll have to move from the shrine. So then...what about the well?' Dropping to her knees, she fell forward and her hair curtained around her. Carefully, long, black, lush locks of hair, concealed her tears as she cried. How could she be happy for her mom, if it most probably would mean she'd have to say goodbye to her friends and family in the past?

-x-x-x-

Me: It's a short chapter, for a new adventure. I need to recapture my love of writing while going through and rewriting Drink Mayhem. Let me know what you all think, I'm going to go start on the next chapter. At the moment, I've got 5 chapters for Drink Mayhem re-written, I'll finish up to the point I left off before posting anything because it'll be re-read by most of you and I want it all to be a fresh take of my story.