I'll tell my story after you read this story. And it is interesting, so please do read...

Kagome was severely concerned for the survival of her mate.

He stood there, eyes wide enough for his pupils to hide partially behind his unruly bangs. Thick, sinuous veins protruded from the tense muscles in his arms and fists. A trickle of blood began to slip through his clenched fingers and his mouth hung open wide enough to show he wasn't breathing.

He wasn't breathing.

"Uh… S-Sesshomaru…" Kagome started, voice shaking, bewildered by her own minuscule sense of calm in a potentially catastrophic situation. She could feel the barrage of emotions emanating from Inuyasha, and the mixture of anger, shock, disgust, and a hint of fear was making Kagome visibly tremble. "I think… it would be best…"

"Let him go, sensei!" Souta exclaimed, a smirk on his face that opposed all other expressions in the room. "You're freaking both of them out! What are you thinking, hugging him like that? Are you trying to give them a heart attack?"

Sesshomaru chuckled, smiling a smile so unlike the one from 500 years ago. The smile that would most certainly be followed by torture and slow, painful death.

No, Kagome realized. This was a smile full of actual joyful emotion, with a mixture of nervousness and sadness.

Just the thought of Sesshomaru possessing any of these emotions, much less showing them, was enough to make Kagome's head spin.

Kiyomi was right. Sesshomaru… changed.

"I can't help it! I missed my little brother," Sesshomaru said, happily squeezing Inuyasha tighter, seeming to enjoy Inuyasha's discomfort as much as the hug he was forcing him into.

Inuyasha's face was starting to take a purplish-green shade.

His nausea seemed to develop two-fold in Kagome, and she wavered on her feet. "Sessh…" she said faintly.

Souta leapt from his seat, all humor gone. "Hey… Kagome, you alright?"

Kagome's sight blurred and she tried to tell Souta she was okay, but she wasn't sure the words came out correctly.

"Kagome!" she heard Inuyasha call, as well as exclamations from someone else in the room. She wasn't sure who.

Because she was falling, and the voices got quieter, and eventually all sight and sound were gone.

"Get out! Get the fuck out of my house!"

Inuyasha had shoved Sesshomaru off of him the moment he finally felt the unease of his mate. He was so absorbed in his own shock and desire to kill and destroy that he didn't notice that his intense emotions were affecting his temporarily fragile mate.

When Sesshomaru barged past Souta and his girlfriend and wrapped his arms around Inuyasha, he immediately went into defense. For most of Inuyasha's life, the closest Sesshomaru had ever come to touching him was using his acidic claws to rake across his skin in combat, or use those same claws to viciously impale him in the stomach.

But when his initial disbelief gave him enough time to realize Sesshomaru's aura was without any ill intent, Inuyasha had no idea what to do with himself. He had completely forgotten anything Kiyomi said about Sesshomaru (he wasn't really listening to that part anyway), so any contact with Sesshomaru shy of violence was a bolt of electricity to his senses. He didn't know whether to throw up or start swinging, and the possibility of both had been very strong until he sensed Kagome's dizziness.

He was sure he must have looked ferocious, eyes red and claws extended when he ran to catch her before she hit the ground. Hitomi looked positively terrified as she curled into the corner of the sofa across from him, and Souta sat on the edge of the cushion next to her, concern and a bit of his own trepidation clear on his face.

Sesshomaru stood nearby, hand behind his head, looking sheepish.

Sheepish!

And none of that mattered, none of that came close to mattering more than his unconscious mate lying in his arms.

Or the fact that it was all Sesshomaru's fault.

"I said get the fuck out!"

Sesshomaru smiled nervously. "I really do apologize, Inuyasha," he said, momentarily catching Inuyasha off guard with the use of his actual name. "I should have been more careful… too much excitement isn't healthy for her condition."

"You're damn right, ya' bastard!" Inuyasha couldn't help the malicious growl that erupted behind those words when he realized Sesshomaru was aware of her condition and didn't pay attention. He knew she wasn't seriously hurt, but the fact that Sesshomaru did anything to cause her discomfort was enough to enrage him into battle.

And although he knew he couldn't win a fight with Sesshomaru in the past, and 500 more years would only ensure he would never make it out alive…

"If I get out of this fucking chair I will kill you for hurting what's mine!"

He would sure as hell try.

And just like a puff of clean air blown into his haze of fury, Souta's words cleared his mind only a little.

"Wait… what… condition?"

Inuyasha glanced at the pup-turning-man and rolled his eyes, scoffing. "Damn it…" he growled.

Sesshomaru cleared his throat, turning to a visibly apprehensive Souta. "Your sister is pregnant."

Inuyasha's growling increased, "It was supposed to be a fucking surprise, you-" He paused, feeling his mate stir in his arms.

They all stilled as she moaned softly, frowning.

Souta broke the silence with a whisper. "Does… does she know?"

Inuyasha said nothing, shaking his head absently as he watched his mate's eyes flutter. He barely registered Souta's exasperated sigh, calming as Kagome's sparkling eyes finally met his.

Kagome looked concerned, and her concern only grew as she looked at her mate. "Inu… wha… what happened…?"

Inuyasha tried to smile at her, trying to ease her anxiousness. "You fainted, koi, that's all. You were just… overwhelmed." Inuyasha sent a searing glance in Sesshomaru's direction. "Too much excitement."

Kagome frowned. "Excitement…? That… that's weird. Why would I…" Kagome glanced around the room, her eyes landing on Souta. "What's wrong with him?"

Inuyasha looked up at Souta, who was completely slumped in the chair, Hitomi hovering over him trying to do anything short of shaking him to get him to calm down.

"I guess it was too much excitement for him too?" Inuyasha shrugged, dismissing it, but Kagome didn't seem to buy it.

She narrowed her eyes at her mate, scrutinizing his words and determining them false. "You're not telling me something…" She moved to sit up and Inuyasha allowed her to lift her head from his lap and lean against the back of the couch as he murmured about taking it easy. She ignored him. "You're not telling me something, and you've been hiding it for a while, Inuyasha. At least two days. You seemed like you were going to tell me, so I let it go, but now…" She glanced at the faces around the room. "It seems like everyone knows but me. What's going on?"

Inuyasha half smiled at his mate. "I haven't really been hiding it… just waiting for the right moment to tell you. I wanted to tell you this morning, but-"

Kagome suddenly gasped, hands flying to her mouth, effectively putting everyone back on edge after her first scare.

"Am... am I pupped?" she whispered, gaping eyes bearing her anticipation and hope, disbelief positively pouring from her aura.

Inuyasha completely smiled then, reaching a clawed hand to hers and gently guiding it from her cheek, cradling it in her lap. "Yes, mate. We're… we're finally having pups…"

Kagome's expression froze, and while her aura had shifted to match her new emotion, her expression seemed to be stuck with trying to figure out which emotion to exude first.

It chose pure joy.

Kagome pounced at her husband, wrapping her arms around his neck and squealing in elation, trembling again for an entirely different reason.

Inuyasha chuckled, feeling the happiness and relief that she carried all throughout his body, feeling delightfully weightless despite her form on top of his.

Neither knew why it took so long for them to get pregnant, but they were now certain it was because the strength of their bond had never in five years been as good as it was right then. Even in the short days before they left the Feudal Era, they had an amazing bond, but it was too new to be considered strong, and they didn't expect pregnancy that early.

But their bond didn't seem to strengthen much when they arrived in her time. The stress of dealing with a new, unfamiliar life often put Inuyasha on edge, and the boredom and disappointment that came with Kagome's new home life made both of them feel… lacking.

Their inexperience with mating and all it entailed made them believe that regardless of their relationship, a pup would be born. It wasn't like they didn't have plenty of sex; anytime during that first year would have made sense for Kagome to get pregnant. But when it didn't happen, they wordlessly determined that something was wrong.

Kagome went to a doctor to see if she may be the problem, but was given a clean bill of health. Inuyasha obviously couldn't go to the doctor, so hearing that she wasn't the problem made both of them believe that… he was. Kagome never blamed him or held it over his head; he did enough of that for himself. In his time, if they hadn't gotten pregnant for even a year, one of them would have been seen as not strong enough to be mated with, or simply seen as a mating that never should have happened.

And that frankly tore him up inside. It was months, almost years before he could let it go.

But when Inuyasha sniffed his wife and smelled… offspring for the first time, he knew it was never entirely his fault. He knew that it was equally their doing for trying to get pregnant without a strong enough bond; apparently the bond would refuse to let a pregnancy develop if the mates weren't strong enough to have one.

And that frankly… overjoyed him.

"Inuyasha…" Kagome whimpered, tears welling in her eyes, grin taking root in her cheeks. "We're finally having a baby… a family! I'm so happy, I could cry!"

Inuyasha laughed again. "You are crying, mate," he said, wrapping his arms around her trembling form, holding her as close as possibly, breathing in the scent of her happiness and his family in his arms.

It couldn't get any better than this, this perfect moment when he knew he was finally doing something right, that he was taking part in his mate's happiness and not the reason she was hurt. He felt giddy, amorous, excited…

"Congratulations, little brother!"

And suddenly, pissed off.

When Kagome jumped up slightly from Inuyasha at hearing his brother's words, Inuyasha leapt from the couch, anger blazing once again, ready to give Sesshomaru a piece of his mind. But Kagome's words stopped him.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, throwing a hand in the air and squinting at the taller brother. "Sesshomaru… were you just… hugging Inuyasha?"

Sesshomaru, still smiling a seemingly genuine smile, nodded and said, "Yes, Miss Kagome, I was in fact hugging my brother."

"Half-brother!" Inuyasha interjected.

Kagome's lips quirked into a tiny smile, appraising the statuesque male for the first time since he came through the door.

Though he was as tall as she remembered, not much else about him was the same. His hair seemed to be his own, but it was short and a bit choppy, as if it had been styled to look messy, but still be endearing. He kept his hair the shining, luscious silver that it always had been, but his eyes… he seemed to be wearing contacts. His eyes were a brown so dark that it could be black, and they stuck out rather contrast to his hair. He didn't keep his clothes nearly as neat as he once did, his royal blue button up shirt slightly wrinkled and his sleeves rolled to his elbows with the top two buttons undone. He was still gorgeous and regal, but... something was different.

His markings were all gone, his claws hidden, which was to be expected. Kagome couldn't help but wonder how he was hiding them, though.

Then she realized the largest change in Sesshomaru: his demeanor. He was towering over her from where she sat on the couch, but she didn't feel the familiar small feeling she would get whenever he was around, the feeling he seemed so intent on invoking in whoever he was in the company of. He seemed humble… happy… a lot less depressing and whole a lot more relaxed.

And instead of the pride and superiority that used to emit from his eyes, Kagome saw… wisdom.

And a bit of hope. For what, she wasn't sure.

"You really are different, Sesshomaru," Kagome said, softly, gazing into his knowing eyes for the first time. "You've changed."

The look in the elder brother's eyes became one of relief and happiness, and he grinned at his sister-in-law. "You always were incredibly perceptive, Miss Kagome."

Inuyasha, who had been watching from the sidelines, still steaming, could have gone into a fit of rage when he saw his brother and his mate gazing at each other in a way that could be mistaken for many different things if he didn't know any better, but that reaction would have been him 6 years ago when they were not mated. Now, he could feel his mate's slight admiration, joy and apprehension as she looked at his brother, simply noticing him for the first time. It forced Inuyasha to truly notice him too, seeing that while his appearance hadn't changed, there were differences in him that would have been noticed long before had he not embraced him.

And that was a factor he wasn't ready to let go of.

"Who cares if he's changed or not?!" Inuyasha exploded, effectively breaking the uncomfortably tender moment. "You come barging into my house, hu… hu… putting your hands on me, and making Kagome pass out 'cause you seem to have grown out of having any self-control-"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome exclaimed, cutting his tirade short before it really got started. "Will you get over it, already? I'm fine!"

Inuyasha frowned, upset that she wasn't on his side. "You were unconscious a few minutes ago! How do you expect me to react?!"

"I expect you to stop being so rash and see that your brother wasn't trying to cause any harm!" Kagome responded at equal volume and intensity.

"Like hell, he wasn't! He knew what would happen if he came in here and did that; he wanted to throw me off or something like he always did, the bastard!"

Kagome gasped. "Really, Inuyasha?! If you would just look at him for two seconds you can tell that wasn't his intention. You're always jumping conclusions and getting mad for no reason!"

"I jump to conclusions?!" Inuyasha mocked. "Wasn't it you that started jumping to conclusions when we talked to that woman? Wasn't that the whole reason we were fighting before Mei left? Because you were jumping to conclusions?"

Kagome gaped at him. "No, you baka! I wasn't upset about anything that didn't happen right in front of me in that office! So, once again, you are jumping to conclusions!"

The three other occupants of the room looked on as Inuyasha sputtered and tried to find a response, not really wanting any part of the argument, but wishing for it to end just as badly. Sesshomaru, who watched with discerning eyes, broke the cycle of hostility.

"Oh, I see…"

Kagome and Inuyasha swung to glare at him, irritation clear on their faces.

When Sesshomaru didn't continue right away, Kagome gave a polite, but slightly impatient, "What? What is it?"

Sesshomaru tucked both hands in his pockets and smirked at the couple, studying them for a moment before he said, "You two… have been having problems."

Kagome blushed and Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "Yeah, so what, smart ass?"

Sesshomaru moved to sit in the remaining spot on the couch next to Souta, then leaned back with his arms thrown over the back of the chair in a position that Kagome and Inuyasha weren't expecting of him quite yet. "That is why it has been so long and Kagome has not been pupped. You have yet to be fully mated."

That certainly perked their attention. "What do you mean, Sesshomaru?" Kagome said first. "We have been mated for five years."

Sesshomaru shook his head minutely, a slight crease in his forehead as he seemed to study them more. "No… no, you have only been bonded. You have yet to reach the final stage of your mating, and you've only just reached the middle stage. That's why you've only just gotten pupped."

Kagome and Inuyasha glanced at each other, surprise and sadness in their expressions.

Sesshomaru frowned further. "You… you were not aware of this?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "No, neither of us was. I sort of figured it out when I smelled the pups, but-"

"Pups?" Kagome interrupted, appearing as if she just realized something. "You keep saying pups… are… is there more than one baby?"

Inuyasha smiled softly at Kagome, noticing for not the first time that she had the ability to change his mood in an instant. "Yeah, mate. There's two of 'em."

Kagome bit her lip, gazing at her mate with watery eyes. "Oh, Inuyasha…" They both could sense the nervousness through their bond, but neither was sure who the emotion started with. Both were extremely happy and extremely worried.

Kagome suddenly flew from the couch. "I have to call Toshiko!" she exclaimed and she ran into the kitchen.

Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow and looked Inuyasha.

"Yeah… that's her best friend," Inuyasha muttered, a bit bitterly.

Sesshomaru's expression didn't change. "And… you dislike this woman?"

Inuyasha scowled. "She's kitsune…"

Both eyebrows shot up then. "And… you dislike kitsune?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "Naw… mostly just this one. She's a bit more… catlike than most I've met."

Sesshomaru nodded in understanding then. "I see." After a moment of silence only filled with the faint noises of Kagome's excitement in the other room, Sesshomaru spoke again. "I suppose… it is not odd that Miss Kagome would gravitate toward another kitsune. Was she not distraught by the passing of that kitsune child all those years ago?"

Inuyasha's eyes shot open in surprise, then narrowed in sadness.

Shippo…

The murder of Shippo had been a particular blow to both their hearts, one that took Kagome too long to move on from. There were many nights in the year after they moved to the modern era that she would call out Shippo's name in the night, reaching for him. She would usually find Inuyasha there instead, and would either stay asleep and be satisfied that she embraced a Shippo that wasn't there, or would wake up and proceed to sob for most of the night.

And while Inuyasha hadn't always gotten along with the kit, and he had seen and felt many types of grief in his lifetime, losing Shippo was like losing a little brother he never got to appreciate. And for a couple of those nights, some of his tears would join hers.

You never deserved to die like that, Shippo. You shouldn't have even been out there. No kid deserves to die like that…

The room stilled in silence, all others present seeming to understand the need for it. Souta, who was mostly confused, looked on at his brother-in-law and could almost feel the grief he still had.

A warm hand reached for his and he looked up into the comforting eyes of his girlfriend. She was just as confused as he was, but seemed to want to comfort him instead.

He smiled gently at her, then turned back to Inuyasha, sighing.

Souta then realized that there was much he didn't know about his own sister, and while he got to travel away and deal with his emotions, there was a strong chance that Kagome hadn't gotten over much of anything that had happened to her.

And for me to blame her for mother's death… that had to have been a particular blow that didn't help with the grief she was already dealing with, Souta thought.

Souta's eyes widened.

Kagome… she's lost almost everyone dear to her. All her friends from the past, mother, grandpa… she probably thought she lost me too. Inuyasha is probably all she thinks she has, and if the two of them were fighting…

Souta slowly shook his head, causing Hitomi to tighten her hand around his in puzzlement.

No, Souta decided. Kagome has always been so sociable and nice. Surely she has plenty of friends that she has made over the last few years that she can lean on and talk to when life is rough.

Souta peered toward the kitchen, listening to his sister talk about a baby shower to Toshiko.

Kagome has always been a solid rock. She couldn't have crumbled that much while I was gone…

Right?

Yes, I have not forgotten. I am back.

There is so much that has happened in my life that kept me from you all. I moved to another city, helped my mother move the same weekend, got my bachelor's degree, and had a birthday (and not a happy one). I found out my father, who has been divorced from my mother for three months, is now engaged to a woman he's been dating for three months. I don't have a car, so it took me three car rides from family to get my things to my new place. Oh, and I got two new hermit crabs to be friends with my first two, and they've been fighting with each other.

Looking for a second job and a place to live and then moving to said place takes up a lot of your mind space. And yes, my father's problems are not mine, but he really made me angry. You wouldn't have wanted to read about two angry, frustrated, sad characters in this chapter, would you?

Hm? Oh... they were angry, frustrated and sad? Oh my... I'm sorry...

My stories write themselves, and though they don't directly reflect my life, my emotion sometimes gets trapped in there.

The next chapter is almost finished, so be ready for that next weekend.

Thank you all that reviewed and took the time to tell me how you feel about the story. I really love to hear from you, so please review. Critique or words of encouragement, I love it all.

mew...