A/N (edit): um, why was everyone so up in arms about the mistaken double-chapter-in-one thing? It honestly didn't seem like that big of a deal to me and it was 1 minute before sabbath soI had to run or not post. There was no nefarious scheme attached or anything.

i am correcting my terrible act! I repent! Put down the pitchforks and torches!

Enjoy the chapter!

A/N:This was written a long time ago and in no way or form reflects the intentions of the author to have a Mother's Day fic. However, the timing is kind of good.

I am dedicating this toall the mothers who have to go let their kids go out and save the world, as much as it may hurt them.

-

-

-

-

-

The Promise the Corpse Wrung:

Stretching his tight muscles, Inuyasha walked away from Kagome's door. Having sat there until her breath had slowed and evened had taken a bit of time but he had expected Kagome to have trouble falling asleep.

It had not occurred to him to wonder why he had waited for peaceful sleep to come over her before leaving. It had simply been an instinct, one he was unaware of heeding.

Stupid bitch, Inuyasha thought affably, so torn up over something as stupid as a dead body.

Adjusting his hakama minutely, Inuyasha clomped down the stairs toward the kitchen. Stopping for a moment, he looked askance at the photographs of Kagome and her family had hung on the walls. Souta and Kagome shoving sand into each other's faces at the beach in one photo, Jii-chan held a baby in his arms with a large grin across his usually dour face and another of a small Kagome standing on a stool, covered in flour and looking terribly surprised. One photo was of Kagome and Souta dressed in traditional clothing and smiling prettily.

At the end of the stairwell was one picture larger then the rest. In it, a woman who Inuyasha assumed was a younger Mrs. Higurashi held hands with a man, both blushing and smiling happily. Their clothing was incredibly odd and the hanyou could feel sympathy for the man in a black suit. How can anyone breathe in such tight clothes? Thankfully he looked down at his own comfortable pants. Peering closer at Mrs. Higurashi's outfit, he shook his head in confusion. "What the hell…?" It was white and obviously expensive but what was it? A cloud made out of fabric? Who would want that?

"It's a wedding dress," a sudden, sweet voice at his elbow said.

Squawking in surprise, Inuyasha leapt to the top of the stairs, dangerous claws at the ready.

Mrs. Higurashi looked up at Inuyasah and smiled gently. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Keh! You didn't scare me!" the teenaged boy denied though his actions called his words a lie.

She paused, raised her eyebrows but only nodded her head. "I need to speak to you for a moment."

Wordlessly he vaulted all the steps and elegantly landed next to Mrs. Higurashi from the top stair.

"Oh," she said wide eyed. "That was quite a jump."

"That's a stupid looking dress," he replied baldly, pointing to the picture. "What the hell did you wear that for?"

"It is ugly, isn't it?" she said cheerfully. "It was the Eighties. 'The bigger, the better' was pretty much the motto of that whole decade."

The boy with golden eyes stared uncomprehendingly at her and shrugged carelessly.

"I felt beautiful though," Mrs. Higurashi said almost to herself. "I felt so because he told me that I was…" Reaching up, she brushed loving fingers over the man's face and smiled shakily.

Inuyasha looked away quickly, the moment too intimate for a stranger to see.

Mrs. Higurashi swallowed and, gathering her composure, motioned the hanyou into her kitchen. "Come on. I'll make tea."

Unsure of her purpose, Inuyasha couldn't see any reason to refuse and followed her warily. "What do you want?" he asked rudely as he slouched in the odd thing Kagome had told him was called a chair.

Brown eyes locked onto his. "Do you like tea?" she asked, ignoring his question.

"I asked you what you want from me," Inuyasha repeated as his anger began to smolder.

Her mouth pursed but Mrs. Higurashi settled the teapot back onto the stovetop. "I see the social niceties aren't important to you."

He raised one sarcastic eyebrow and wordlessly pushed himself back and forth in tiny increments as he leaned back in the chair, balancing on the rear legs.

"Do you know what made Kagome so upset earlier? She…she wouldn't tell me anything." Looking away from the strangely astute eyes of the young boy across from her, Mrs. Higurashi ran her finger on the edge of her cup.

"She saw a kid who looked like Souta dead on the side of a road. She lost it."

The cup tipped sideways, spilling hot tea over the table. "What! Oh my goodness, poor Kagome!" Her maternal instincts screaming, Mrs. Higurashi stood up to go to her precious child.

"Hey!" Inuyasha snapped, still rocking in the chair. "She just fell asleep. Sit down."

"Oh…then I shouldn't wake her up."

"No shit," mumbled Inuyasha dryly.

Sitting down and feeling suddenly weak, Mrs. Higurashi dazedly found a towel and cleaned the mess of tea. "Do you often see sights like that?" she asked finally.

"She hasn't yet but yeah, dead bodies are pretty common." He grinned. "Not that I have any intention of becoming one or nothing. I'm too strong for most demons to even lay a hand on me!" bragged Inuyasha.

"Do you have what it takes to back up that bravado?"

Inuyasha blinked in surprise and the chair thumped as it landed on all four legs. "Wha...what do you mean?"

Mrs. Higurashi slid into the seat facing his. Her eyes were glowing with a fervor he couldn't understand. "That's my daughter you have in your hands. I want to know how safe she is."

Inuyasha glared. "Don't matter how safe she is," he snarled succinctly.

"That's silly. It matters quite a lot."

"No it doesn't," the hardened youth replied.

"I'm afraid that answer won't do," Mrs. Higurashi said firmly, her normally gentle eyes turning cold.

A clock announced the minutes passing by with a tick of the larger hand.

"How much has she told you about what we do in the Feudal era?"

"Not much," admitted Kagome's mother softly. "Just that she did something wrong and now needs to fix it."

"That's one way to put it," Inuyasha snorted. "She broke the Shikon no Tama."

"The…those keychains that grandpa sells?"

The hanyou knew she was being serious but he still wanted to shake her. "I'm talking about the real Shikon jewel. It's a long story but basically Kagome cracked the Jewel into a thousand really dangerous pieces. The entire youkai population has gone crazy, killing whoever may have a piece of the Jewel. It's even affecting the human scum. They're going on killing sprees, slaughtering everything in their way but don't even realize they're being influenced by the Shikon no Tama." He slouched in the chair and crossed his arms. "That daughter of yours started a country-wide massacre and she's got to take responsibility for that and finish it."

"Kagome is too gentle, too weak for this type of responsibility," Mrs. Higurashi said, shaking her head.

Inuyasha stared at the oldest Higurashi woman. "How well do you know your daughter?"

"Quite well."
"Not well enough. Kagome isn't as weak as you think," Inuyasha said seriously, leaning forward until he was close to her face. "She's killed a person. She didn't like it but she's used a bow and arrow to kill when someone attacked her."

"She killed someone?" Mrs. Higurashi asked in horror.

"He was attacking her." Inuyasha shrugged. "She blew him up with one of those spirit arrows."

"My Kagome wouldn't do such a thing!"

"Your Kagome isn't the Kagome she was before she fell into the well. She's different," Inuyasha attested quietly. "She's stronger. Forged in the fire of combat, you could say."

Mrs. Higurashi covered her mouth with a shaking hand. "Is it so…dangerous there?"

"Fuck yeah." Stupid bitch, what did you think? That we picnic all the time?

She breathed too quickly and her throat felt tight. Kagome, my Kagome…! Images of having to attend her own daughter's funeral assaulted her mind and Mrs. Higurashi gasped and felt a tear streak down a cheek. "I, I can't let her go do something so dangerous. She could get hurt!"

"Yeah and a bad mushroom during supper could kill her too," Inuyasha said callously. There was no room for pity in his hardened heart. There was too much at stake and nothing- not even a mother's tears- could outweigh that.

"She never told me it was so dangerous!" Mrs. Higurashi burst out, panic obviously shadowing her words.

Inuyasha said nothing, not bothering to try and explain the actions of someone he barely knew.

"What if she dies?" she whispered in dread and looked at Inuyasha, her eyes shining with frightened tears. "I…no, no, no. She can't die. I-" Mrs. Higurashi swallowed convulsively and her hands fisted where they rested in her lap. "I promised my husband when he was in the hospital that nothing would ever happen to our children. Oh god…! Kagome, what have you gotten yourself into?" She released a shaky sob, murmuring her daughter's name over and over.

Inuyasha looked away and ran a clawed hand through his hair. "There's nothing you can do," he said, his idea of comfort being that a quick, short pain was preferable to a long, drawn out discussion.

"I can make sure that she's safe. She's not going back."

Blinking, Inuyasha looked at Mrs. Higurashi's entirely serious face and felt unreasonable anger rising in him. "Yes she is."

"Kagome isn't going back to someplace where she has to kill or see dead little boys all the time. Our time is not your time," she stressed.

"Too fuckin' bad! Kagome has to come!"

"I said she's not going back there!"

"She's all that I've got!" Inuyasha shouted, banging his fist on the table. In the sudden silence, he panted for breath.

He didn't know why he was so adamant that the schoolgirl who was more of a hindrance then help should come back.

But his instincts wouldn't allow him to let Kagome go and never see her again. The instincts that had seen him through so many horrible times and kept him alive all this time were clamoring that he not let this girl escape.

"This is more then just your kid or about Kagome's era," he insisted quietly. "This is about saving the world."

If there had been even a hint of melodrama in his voice, she could have dismissed him and the entire situation her careless daughter had gotten herself into. However, his voice was hushed and intense. Mrs. Higurashi could see he believed that her little girl was the only option.

"…Save the world," she repeated, a sad frown on her face.

"There was once someone else who could have done it but she's dead now," Inuyasha said softly. "The shards have to be gathered and she's the only one who can see them. Kagome's the only one."

The clock was once more audible as the older woman twisted a dish rag in her hands and Inuyasha looked down at his lap and tapped his finger against his knee.

Suddenly pushing back her chair, Mrs. Higurashi walked over to Inuyasha. The hanyou titled his head up to maintain eye contact and almost clawed her when she grabbed his head.

He could feel the press of her fingertips against where a human ear would be and the exhalation of her breath fanned against his face.

"I need you to promise me something," she whispered intently.

"What?" he whispered, a little disturbed by her close proximity and more frightened by the powerful hold her tear-filled eyes had over him.

"I need you to swear on whatever you hold sacred that my daughter will be safe," she said intently.

He shook his head weakly. Don't ask me to do this…!

"I need you to promise me that you'll protect her," Mrs. Higurashi insisted strongly, her voice overly loud and desperate. "Now that I know what's on the line…there's no way she'd listen to me. She's going to go with you, I know she will! She's too much like her father…"

Inuyasha tried to pull his head from her grasp but all that accomplished was the tightening of her fingers.

"You need to swear to me that you'll protect her as best you can! Swear it to me!"
Inuyasha cringed away from her barely veiled hysteria. A distant and hazy memory of another mother begging a warrior to protect her hanyou child and being laughed at came to him.

"Please! He's my son! Give him protection!"

"Izayoi! He's a hanyou. I'll not sacrifice my honor by protecting such an abomination."

"Have some kindness!"

"I am," the shadowy, armored figure replied stonily. "I won't kill him immediately."

Inuyasha pulled away from her confining fingers and stood. Looking down at the petite woman in her frilly apron and fluffy house slippers, he nodded to an infinitesimal degree. "I will protect Kagome," he swore softly. "To the best of my ability, nothing will happen to her and, after we finish this journey…once the Jewel is complete and whole, you'll have your daughter back. I swear this on my mother's memory."

Her brown eyes searched his stoic gold ones and, when they saw the authenticity of his words reflected back at her, sighed a deep exhalation of relief.

"God bless you," she whispered, sinking into a heap on the floor. "I, I wouldn't be able to face my husband if I knew that I left Kagome with no protection when she goes back."

"I thought Kagome's father was dead."

"He did and I, I can't have another member of my family die on me. I didn't do enough then…" She grasped at Inuyasha's clawed hand and held on strongly. "Please do the best you can. Kagome's my only daughter and she looks so much like him…"

Inuyasha knelt at her side and repeated his promise. "I'll protect her, all right? Nothing will happen if I can stop it."

She nodded weakly, pushing herself off the floor and walking over to the stove. "Tea?" she asked softly.

Inuyasha shook his head and turned to escape into the Goshinboku. At the door's edge, he paused in indecision.

"Yes?" Mrs. Higurashi inquired softly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She stared at him and nodded. "Me too," she whispered as he escaped into the darkness.

-----------------

For a long while Mrs. Higurashi looked at her tea, sipping absently even as it grew cold. Eventually she got up and wandered around the house, checking on everyone, picking up Souta's toys and clothes and doing comforting, motherly things.

As she passed the living room window, with no little shock, she saw the boy from the past stare into her daughter's room from the branches of the ancient Goshinboku.

His casual stance was protective and his eyes watchful, already fulfilling his promise. Mrs. Higurashi looked out at the scene for a long while.

He never attempted to enter the window.

He never shifted nor blinked.

Inuyasha's hair shone in the reflection of the moon and his eyes glowed with a feral gold light as he kept watch.

What will be, will be. Mrs. Higurashi turned away from the window to head for her bed.

"Everything will be okay," she whispered to her dead husband as she past him on the stairway. He smiled gently out at her from their wedding photo.

A breeze curled around the nape of her neck, oddly comforting and feeling like a gentle kiss. Kagome will be just fine.

Mrs. Higurashi looked around at the windowless stairway and smiled back at her husband.