No Longer "Two" by Elizabizzle

Chapter One

Allow me, if you will, to paint a picture called "Kagome in Labor." Or, perhaps more accurately, "The Scariest Day of My Life, Wherein My Mate Threatened My Manhood and Told Me She Loved Me in the Same Thirty Seconds."

Kagome was wildly ecstatic with the onset of labor pains. Most women kind of panic when they realize that they've begun the early stages of labor. They tend to get nervous. Kagome was pumped. She could not wait to get the seven-pound basketball out of her tiny body. She was a week ahead of schedule, but boy, was she ready.

And it's funny – I like to drive fast. I have always liked to drive fast, and if I hadn't been a doctor, I think I'd have been a race car driver. And, frankly, I figured that if there were any point in time where it was OK to stretch the speed limit a bit, it would be when you have a deep-breathing, broken-watered pregnant woman in the passenger seat. But, as it turns out, I suddenly became a cautious driver. With my mate focusing on the first stages of her Lamaze breathing and assuring me that she was OK, I was suddenly adhering to speed limits and, wonder of all wonders, braking for yellow lights instead of speeding up to get through them.

When we finally got to the hospital – a trip that usually took me fifteen minutes, but this time had taken twenty-five – the nurses ushered Kagome into a wheelchair and gave me the paperwork to fill out as they wheeled her down the hall. Now I understand why people get so pissed off when hospital administration bothers them with mundane details like paperwork when they have a loved one in some operating room or delivery room in another part of the hospital. You would think, since they know me, and they know Kagome, and they're the ones who sign my paychecks, for Kami's sake, that they could get me to sign on the dotted line at a later date. But no. They're sticklers, these youkai's.

Now, I have often wondered what it's like to be on the other end of the doctor-patient equation. As a doctor, you rarely get the chance to experience it in its purest form because, let's face it, you're a doctor, and the doctor talking to you knows you're a doctor, and so you converse in doctor-speak. But I got a little taste of what it must be like when my mate's OB/GYN came in to examine my mate. It's surreal, talking doctor-speak and watching some guy's forearm disappear into the woman you love. Very bizarre, indeed.

Another thing about being a doctor – there's no anonymity within hospital walls. All of Kagome's friends had gotten wind that their friend was in labor and they paraded through periodically to check on her progress and, in more than one particularly bizarre moment, to gossip about various tidbits of drama in their lives. I've said it before and I'll say it again – my girl's a trooper. She managed to act interested in the irrelevant details of her friends' lives while something roughly the size of a watermelon was making its way out of something roughly the size of a lemon.

Thankfully, her labor was progressing relatively quickly, and before we knew it, the contractions were pretty much on top of each other.

What I also didn't anticipate, being a doctor and being a relatively level-headed guy, was that when the time came, it would scare the crap out of me. I mean, not only was it a day when my mate was actually on the patient side of the equation, but it was the day when we were becoming a party of three. No longer would we be a party of two. No longer were we a unit – now, we were a family. And we would be for the rest of our lives. And as thrilled as I was about it, there was also a tiny bit of anxiety over the whole thing.

Thankfully, my own fear didn't have time to really take hold, because Kagome – who had been cool as a cucumber and practically cheering for her contractions – began her own panic.

"Promise me you'll remarry."

"What?"

"Promise me you'll find someone else."

"What are you talking about?"

"If I die. I want you to be happy. Find another mate. Just, as long as she isn't prettier than me. I mean, don't mate someone ugly, just-"

"Kagome."

"What?"

"You're not going to die."

Allaying her fears did a great deal to put my own to rest, and by the time the whole thing really got started, I was pretty much over the "Oh my God, I'm going to be a father" bit.

So there we were, Kagome pushing and occasionally cursing at me for repeatedly telling her how well she was doing. There were doctors and nurses, machines and mirrors, pushing and pulling, coaxing and coaching, and then, awhile later, the doctor asked me if I wanted to see.

And that was the first time I laid eyes on my child. I mean actually laid eyes on my child, and not on some grainy sonogram photo that, frankly, could have been a picture of a rubber chicken, for all I could see. I glanced up at Kagome, her hair curling with sweat and sticking to her neck, her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth clenched as she winced in pain, and I was torn as to which one I wanted to watch more. I eventually tore my eyes away from my beautiful mate and watched my daughter come into the world. I cut the cord and repositioned myself next to my mate while they cleaned the baby off and then wrapped her in a blanket and placed her on Kagome's chest. She bit her lip as tears slid down her cheeks and she reached out a finger and gently stroked our daughter's cheek before glancing up at me and smiling. I leaned down and kissed her gently, then gazed down at the baby on her chest and gently touched her head.

Sesshomaru, party of three – your life is waiting.