Love and Responsibility

I understand that it seems like forever since she's lost her memory, but if you think about it, it's only been four chapters. Her memory will be coming back soon. Thank you for your awesome reviews!

Warning: Sexual Content; Offensive Language; Violence

Rating: M for Mature

Couple: Inuyasha and Kagome (Based)

Sango and Miroku

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters associated with the series.

"Talking"

'Thoughts'

Recap: "You should ask your family. They know you better."

"Do they?" Kagome faced him once again. "Maybe, but I don't think they'd say anything more than "Just wait, Kagome, Dear, it will come to you soon enough". I wanted more than that. This is terrible. I just want to know who I am…" End Recap

Chapter 9: Mother Dearest

Kagome noticed something immediately as she entered the kitchen that morning. It was quiet and it smelt of last nights dinner. This gave the girl a distressing feeling. Her mother was meant to be here, cooking their breakfast, just as she usually was. Why was she not? Had Kagome awoken to early?

Sota entered the kitchen next, dressed and prepared to go to the first day of the last week of his school year. Like Kagome, he was surprised to see that Mrs. Higurashi was no where in sight. He said nothing, but merely exited the kitchen and headed up the steps. Kagome presumed he was going to her room. She followed close behind.

Opening the door as quietly as possible, Sota was faced with the sight of his mother's sleeping form.

"Mom…?" The thick air in the room revealed that something was not right. Sota's felt nauseated with worry as her neared his mother. She shuffled in his sleep, as he closed in.

"S… Sota… is that you?" Mrs. Higurashi squinted. "Oh, my dear. I'm so sorry. Am I late?" She tried to pull herself out of bad, but the effort was wasted. She fell back in a dizzy haze, causing Sota to jump forward in concern.

"Are you alright?"

"Oh my, I'm a bit dizzy."

"Should I call a doctor?"

"No, no. I'm fine." She made another failed effort to leave the bed. This time Kagome came forward. Without a word she pressed her forehead to her mother's. Pulling back she bit down on her inner cheek.

"You're running a fever. I think we should call the paramedics." A helpless feeling rushed through the girl.

"No, I'm sure it's just a small cold. I hate to ask this of you, but would you mind making breakfast, Dear?"

"I wouldn't mind." Kagome frowned. "But I'd rather you get to the hospital…"

"Please, just bring me some orange juice and Tylenol. I'll be back to my old self in no time."

"K, I'll go bring some of that up." Kagome exited the room, heading for the medicine cabinet.

"This is ridiculous…" Sango sighed, resting her head against the wooden hut. She inhaled the exotic smell of the herbs, in which Kaede was mixing for her sake. They seemed to be the only thing that didn't make her sick.

"Are you sure you've only got a flu?" Miroku questioned in worry, kneeling down beside the girl. He pressed his forehead to hers, causing her to blush furiously.

"M… Miroku!" She pulled back, slamming her head into the wall behind her. Moaning she began to rub the emerging bump. Miroku chuckled out an apology.

"You don't have a fever…" Miroku commented, taking his seat a few feet away from the demon slayer. Confusion budded within him. "Yet your vomiting…?"

"It's just a flu!" The slayer seemed much more defensive than usually. She stood abruptly. "Kaede, I'm going for a walk."

"Alright. Ye be safe."

"Of course."

Struggling not to burn her omelets and sausages, Kagome had to be very hasty in readying the table for breakfast. At this point the others had already made their way down from their rooms and taken their seats at the table. Sota and Gramps chatted amongst themselves, mostly about Suteki.

"Ouch!" In a flash Kagome's thumb was in her mouth. She'd slightly burnt it. This event did not bring any of her brother's or grandfather's attention onto her, not that she should expect it to, her mother was a much more important matter at the moment. This is why she was somewhat taken aback when Inuyasha gently grabbed her wrist and took a moment to inspect her stringing thumb. He than turned the faucet on and pulled her hand under the cooling liquid.

"Hey Sota, go get something to cover this burn." Inuyasha ordered, continuing to hold her hand under the running water. Kagome wanted to thank him, but she just couldn't find the courage.

It took a few minutes, but Sota had brought down a band-aid and handed it to Inuyasha. The hanyou used a paper towel to dry around the burn and then applied the band-aid. Kagome winced at the pain of removing her burn from the cold water, but she understood that the longer she kept it in the cold water, the longer it would take to heal.

At this point, the miko realized she had nearly burnt their breakfast. She rushed around the kitchen, turning of the stove knobs and pulling out the plates for the meal. Scurrying, she was able to have everyone's food neatly on the table in minutes.

"I'll bring up a plate to mom." The priestess removed her apron and grabbed a tray, in which she had placed a few plates of different types of food, two Tylenol pills, and a glass of orange juice.

Her mother had accepted all of it and kissed her daughter on the cheek as a thanks for working so hard. Kagome smiled, feeling accomplished.

"He's gathering some firewood at the moment, but I think ye'd be better off telling him the truth sooner than later." Kaede analyzed the demon slayer as she reluctantly gulped down her antidote. She was relieved the woman was cooperative and that she would not have to force her to drink all of her medicine.

"I can't, Lady Kaede." Sango frowned, handing the old woman back her bowel. "If you were in my position, what would you do?"

"I'd do what I had to do, I suppose." In this moment Shippo and Kirara came toppling through the bamboo door, nearly pulling it from it's thick strings that kept it hanging. Kaede shook her head in a disappointed fashion.

"We…we've got to hide!" Shippo spat out, jumping to stand on the heel of one foot, to the heel of another.

"Why? What's going on?" Sango quizzed, blinking. She knew the matter was nothing serious.

"We're trying to hide from "it"." Shippo responded. When the adults made no gesture to show that they understood just what "it" was, Shippo explained. "We're playing 'Hide-and-Seek'."

"Wouldn't it be unfair for ye to hide inside a home?" Kaede began to grind green leaves and white flowers in a wooden bowl. As fragile as her hand seemed to be, it was perfectly steady as she pushed down on the herbs.

Shippo sighed, feeling a sense of defeat. "But we've got no where else to hide…" Kirara meowed in agreement.

"It's not fair to the others if you cheat. Now scoot." Sango ordered, waving them off with a callused hand. They gave a few unhappy gripes, but chose to follow orders and headed outside to play the game fairly.

"Now where were we?" Kaede was careful with the steaming pot of water as she brought it over to the bowl and poured slowly. She watched it interweave with her mixture of herbs. This would be the second batch of medicine she had concocted for Sango this morning alone.

"We were talking about Miroku…"

"Oh yes…" Adding a few final touches to her remedy, Kaede handed it to the demon slayer, whom did not seem overly pleased to accept it, but she was fast to gulp it down. After all, it was best to get it over with. "Ye have to tell him sooner or later, I believe it would be safer to tell him sooner, for multiple reasons."

"I understand that." Sango groaned, feeling as if her serum backing up on her. "It's just hard."

"Child, I can't give ye anymore advice than I have already offered."

"Y.. You're right!" Sango arose, feeling a sense of determination. "I can do this. I have to do this." She paused. "This is something Kagome would do, don't you think?"

"I'm sure…" A smile began to play across the elderly woman's lips, but it disappeared after only a second. "About that. There's something I'll be needing to speak to ye and the others with later on, preferably at dinner. Make sure ye are all here."

"Of course." Sango exited, feeling a sense of worry, both for what she was about to do and what Kaede would be telling them at meal time.

Inuyasha made his way down the steps, his nose coming in contact with the small of salty tears. His first notion was that something had happened to Kagome. He leapt from the stairs and into the living room, where he found Kagome.

He was taken aback to see her sitting with her face in her hands and her elbows on her knees. She was whimpering softly to herself. Inuyasha's first instinct was to comfort her and find out what she was sobbing over, but considering that Kagome was not herself, he found he had a difficult time doing such a thing.

"What's up?" The hanyou simply questioned, hoping she would give him some insight. Kagome's head flew up and she almost urgently wiped away her oncoming tears. She briskly patted down her clothes to get cleaned up, so as not to appear to be completely disheveled.

"I… I was just dusting. I stopped for a break." She let out a fake cackle. Of course, Inuyasha was not so easily fooled and Kagome could see that. She sighed. "Alright… sit."

THUMP

"Oh my god! Are you okay!?" Kagome bent down, lending a helping hand. "What happened? You just suddenly… so suddenly…"

"I tripped." Inuyasha refused Kagome's helping hand and stood on his own. He than moved to take a seat on the couch. Kagome sat a cushion away from him, preparing herself for an explanation.

The woods did not seem as dark as they usually did. The didn't even seem to be quiet. Animal could be heard scurrying all about. For some odd reason this gave the demon slayer a reassuring feeling in the pit of her gut.

"Miroku!" She called out throughout the trees. From a distance she could hear him hollering back to her, signaling his position in the forest. Sango said no more, heading the direction of his voice.

Walking, Sango was so out of it that she nearly tripped over a thick and molded tree stump.

"Sango, my dear, what brings you out here?" Miroku halted his gathering of wood. Although Sango would normally be able to ignore the monks flirty accent, she found that slightly more difficult today.

"We need to talk."

"I don't mean to put this all on you, Inuyasha. It's just that I don't know who else to talk to." Kagome clasped her hands together even tighter, if such a thing was even possible. "It's just…" She forced herself to continue, even as tears began to drop. "It feels like I'm doing something immoral. My mother… she's sick and in bed…"

"I brought her some of my special cold serum. I'm sure she'll be back to normal by tomorrow."

"Thank you for that, but that's not it… It's… I'm supposed to care more." She faced Inuyasha with pleading, nutmeg eyes. "She's my mom and she's sick and she's old. I should be really worried, but… but I'm not! If… if I had my memories back, I'd be worried, wouldn't I?"

"This isn't like you, Kagome." Inuyasha crossed his arms over his chest. The miko seemed surprised by his comment. "You're stronger than this."

"S… stronger…" The word, unlike most words, seemed to have a special meaning to it in Kagome's mind. She could hear it echoing over and over in her head. What was so special about such a simple eight-letter word? The woman struggled, trying to recall this memory that seemed so close to being unsealed.

"Kagome… Kagome please don't cry…" A woman leaned down and onto her knees. Everything in the dim-walled room seemed depression, everyone in the room seemed just as dim. Arms that were neither strong, nor weak wrapped around the little weeping girl, in an effort to comfort her tiny, broken spirit.

"Momma, I want Daddy!" Falling into her mother's arms, Kagome could feel that this woman did not have the same strength she had only a couple weeks earlier. In the young priestess' ear, she could hear her mother tell her that she also wanted "Daddy", but "Daddy" was "in a better place". "What do you mean? What better place!?" Kagome pulled back, which took some struggle for the frail child. "W… why didn't he bring us along with him!? Daddy would leave us. He wouldn't!" The miko did not notice the eyes that were all on her. She barely realized that her grandfather was pulling her away and out of the dark room. She was to wrapped up in her own tears and her own emotions.

"Kagome, please understand." The man told her calmly.

"Gramps! Gramps bring Daddy back! Momma won't, why won't Momma?"

"Kagome…" The man bent down, giving the child a sincere smile, even though him, himself, was crying. "I understand that you miss your father, but he is in a better place. I know you wish you could go with him, but he took a special train that could only fit one person. One day, you'll be old enough to go on that train too, but for now you've got to be stronger. You have to be stronger so that your mother doesn't go on the train right now. Do you understand?"

"Momma…?"

"Yes."

"S… Stronger…?"

"Yes."

"She'll go on the train if I'm not strong?"

"Yes."

"But… but wouldn't she want to go on the train with Daddy?" She stuttered, her tears seeming to dissipate.

"She wants to be with your father, but right now she wants to be with you and your baby brother, Sota. She wants to be able to protect all of you for as long as she can. So help to protect everyone and be stronger for her."

"F… for Momma…" As difficult as it would be to stop crying, Kagome understood what her grandfather was telling her, well in a sense she did. She finally nodded. "I will be stronger to protect everyone, cause Momma wants to stay with us…"

"Yes, now that's a very good little girl."

And so, the first thing Kagome did when she went down those steps to her father's funeral was give her mother a warm embrace. She than patted the woman on the head and promised to be the best daughter she could be.

When Kagome was released from the memory, she found herself crying a whole new set of tears. They were tears for her father, whom she felt she terribly missed, yet could not even remember his face.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha leaned over, trying to get a good look at the girl's face. "You okay?" He questioned. She simply nodded.

"Sorry about that. I zoned out for a second." Kagome breathed out heavily. Her tears seemed to stop as the memory seemed to go back into a corner, with her other retrieved recollections.

"Kagome." Inuyasha stood tall. "You might feel like you can't love your mom as much as you need to right now, but…" To tell the truth, the hanyou felt extremely uncomfortable talking like this to Kagome. It was not his usually way of going about things, but he knew perfectly well that the only thing he had for Kagome right now was words. "You do. You're still Kagome."

"I'm still Kagome?…" This seemed like a fresh phrase to her. No one had said this to her since she'd awoken with memory loss and she felt like it was something she'd needed to hear. She wanted to thank Inuyasha, but she just couldn't bring it out. She simply smiled.

"Y… you see, Miroku… I… I'm pregnant."

I thought that would be the best place to end the chapter.