Lessons of the Father by Katie33h

Sticky Situation

Lessons of the Father

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha they are property of Rumiko Takahashi and co.

A/N

Hello. Welcome to a new fic. This was one of those plot bunnies that just eats at your soul until you put it out. I am still working on one that is out and one that I'm not putting out till it's done. If your reading the Best Kind of Friend. Don't worry its not being neglected. I got a beta and so while she is playing with some stuff I started working on this so that my muse will let me do other things. Anyway Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Sticky Situation

Kagome ran though the forest as fast as her heavy feet could take her. The darkness surrounded her, swallowed her. The clouds seemed to be mocking her plight as they covered the sliver of a moon that was her last visage of light, leaving her alone in an unforgiving world of black.

Another wave of pain overcame her, starting in her back and reaching around, ripping through her middle. This one was worse than the last just as the last was worse than the one before that. Falling to her knees on the forest floor she screamed out her pain into the darkness.

"Noriko-sama, what are we to do?"

Kagome listened to the two women talk about her from just outside of the room they provided for her. The younger of the two was at least speaking in hushed tones as to not upset her, the elder held no such sympathy.

"We will do what needs to be done." The elder spoke with so much sincerity, but her resolute tone was full of malice.

"What needs to be done?" Kagome thought to herself, what could they...

"Surely, there must be..."

"Saya fear not, for this is the correct path. Can you not feel the evil flowing form her womb? Can you not feel the magic binding the woman-child's own purity? We must save her from this fate; else this evil will surely taint her."

"But..."

"I will dispose of the abomination if it is the fear of blood on your hands that is making you so reluctant."

Kagome struggled to pull herself up from her spot on the floor and grabbed her bow and quiver that she had left near the door. They were not going to hurt her baby.

Wrapped in only a thin sleeping yakuta, she knocked an arrow and stepped determinately into the room where the women were talking.

"Miko-sama, you shouldn't be up, the baby will be..." The girl, Saya, spoke inching her way toward the angry miko.

"Back away or I will kill you. You will not hurt my baby."

"Girl, this baby," The word baby was spoken with so much venom that it sounded more like a curse, "Is an abomination of all things that one of your station should stand for. Purging its evil from this world will be doing us all a favor."

Kagome shook her head and backed away from the women to the door of the hut. "No, purging you from this world would be the favor." She was ready to release her arrow when she felt the beginnings of another contraction. Despite the pain, she gathered all of her strength and ran into the cover of the forest.

She could hear the old miko yelling at some of the village men who had gathered to follow her, so she ran faster and deeper into the darkness.

"Nnnngggg" She gritted her teeth through the contraction and wished, not for the first time, that epidurals had been invented.

As the pain receded she grabbed into a nearby tree and tried to pull herself to her feet. The fatigue from running and the extra weight she was carrying took gravity's side and she fell back to her knees.

"Stupid Inuyasha, stupid well, stupid bigoted midwives, stupid stupid feudal Japan." Once she was done cursing everything in existence, she cursed the only thing she had left to curse. "Stupid Kagome."

Another contraction hit overwhelmed her and she was left panting on the forest floor grasping for breath. As the pain receded she began to count, she made it to 134 before she had another contraction.

This was too soon; she was only 7 months along. She couldn't do this alone in a forest. She wasn't even sure if she could do this in a hut with a healer or a hospital full of doctors. Child birth may be one of the most natural things in the world, but somehow, in the middle of a dark forest, alone, Kagome figured she would have a better chance learning how to fly.

Another contraction. This time she counted to 200 before she lost her train of thought and started thinking of ways to sterilize herself, since getting your tubes tied hadn't been invented yet.

As the pain receded once again Kagome decided that the black boots inches from her face did, indeed, deserve some kind of recognition. Rolling onto her back she looked up to the boots owner. He must have came in the middle of that last contraction because she didn't hear or see him until he was stopped inches from her face and peering down at her. Some how the man had managed to perfect the art of looming and from her position on the ground he seemed even larger and more ominous than ever before.

Sesshoumaru was simply at a loss for words. He had been patrolling his lands, a good excuse for wandering aimlessly, when he heard a woman screaming. Traveling around the area the sounds were coming from took him down wind for a moment and he recognized the scent. His first impulse was to walk away, but curiosity got the better of him and he decided to investigate. Which he was currently regretting.

Kagome felt the silent stare down had gone on long enough. He either needed to leave or help her, him staring at her while she was in more pain than she had ever been in in her entire life was not helping.

"Sesshoumaru, what do you want?" She meant it come out politely, more like a 'where are you headed?' or 'Are you busy do you think you could give me a ride to the nearest non-bigoted midwife?' but that was not how it came out.

"What are you doing girl?" Sesshoumaru, for all he was worth, did not know much about the ways of women. Which he was becoming painfully aware of.

Kagome laughed, she laughed as hard as the pain in her stomach would allow. "Why, I am having a picnic my lord would you like to join me?" The expression on his normally vacant face told her everything. He really didn't know. A demon, who was, like what hundreds of years old, didn't know a woman in labor when he was looking at one.

"I'm having a baby, dough head!" The dough head part was supposed to be only added mentally but the feeling of another contraction beginning distracted her.

Sesshoumaru realized then that he had a few options. He could leave the girl here to her fate, and surely she would die. He could try to deliver the baby, but losing his arm again sounded more appealing than that. Or, he could take her to the nearest village and drop her off. Decision made, he turned in his heal to leave.

"Lord Sesshoumaru, Lord Sesshou....oh?" Rin ran up from behind stopping only inches from colliding with him. He cursed himself mentally, now he would have to take her to a village or he would never hear the end of it from Rin.

"Kagome-chan? What... oh you ... your... Lord Sesshoumaru what's...?" Rin was at a loss for words, for the first time ever.

Kagome gritted her teeth and tried as hard as she could to ride out this contraction with as much dignity as possible. Rin knelt by her head and tucked some errant hairs behind her ear, then used the hem of her kimono to wipe the sweat off of her brow.

"My lord, we have to do something we can't just leave her here, she's hurt." Aww, Kagome thought, apparently Rin had not had the talk about the birds and the bees yet either.

"I assure you Rin, we can leave her here." Kagome no longer cared if they left here there or not, just as long as they made up their minds and stopped staring at her.

"But, my lord!" Rin's protest was cut off as the demon lord bent down and scooped the laboring woman up in his arms and began walking in the direction of the nearby village.

He hated the idea of carrying her almost as much as the idea of having to walk her to the village, but he couldn't think of a safe alternative. If he used his energy form he might not be able to re-assimilate her and the unborn child's bodies correctly. Flying was out of the question because the speed might damage her somehow. She couldn't sit up on her own so that left Ah-un out.

Kagome recognized the direction they were headed in and began struggling in Sesshoumaru's arms.

"Stop." Sesshoumaru ordered the wiggling figure who was compromising his hold on her.

"No, I can't go back there! They are going to kill the baby! Please, no!" Tears or pain and frustration streamed down her face and she continued to struggle.

Sesshoumaru stopped his forward progress and the girl stopped struggling. He remembered passing a hut deep in the woods about half an hour ago.

"Can you last another half hour?"

Kagome wasn't sure. The contractions weren't coming at regular intervals. Her water had broken before she ran into the woods so she knew it would be soon. She tried to remember all the things she learned in health class about birth, but those classes were made to scare young girls out of having sex, not prepare them for actually giving birth.

"I think...I think I can." Gods, she hoped she could. She was sure Sesshoumaru would not appreciate her getting his white silk all bloody.

They walked the first few minutes in silence, which Sesshoumaru was grateful for. That is, until he realized the reason for the silence. He could feel the girl's heart beat with the arm that the back of her knees was resting on, it was erratic and uneven. He concentrated on her breathing and found the same inconsistency there as well. Looking down at her face he could tell that she was fighting to remain conscious. Reaching up with the hand whose arm was supporting her upper body, he flicked her in the ear with a single claw.

"Ouch! What was that for?" It was the result that he was hoping for, she was awake. Now to keep her that way.

"Where is Inuyasha?" It was the most pressing question at the moment, one he had been pondering since he first caught her scent alone in the woods.

"He...He left." She tried to muster as much courage as possible and not cry, she had to be strong now.

"He left? He left you alone, like this?" What kind of dishonorable cur leaves their mate alone, pregnant, and unprotected? Inuyasha maybe.

"No, it's not what you think." She could feel another contraction coming so she chose not to elaborate.

Sesshoumaru could feel the muscles in her body tightening as well as her heart and breathing pick up.

"Oh, then enlighten me. Why would he leave his mate like this?" He hoped that engaging her in conversation would help to keep her calm and regulate her breathing.

"His demon blood has been wrestles." She paused between words as the pain from the contraction made it hard to formulate a coherent sentence. "He has been changing a lot. That's now this happened." She gestured to her enlarged stomach. The pain began to ebb so she was better able to recount her tale.

"The Tessaiga has been ... struggling... to bind him for about a year now. After we ... well... uh, when he found out I was pregnant he went to Totousai to find a way to strengthen the bond. That was six months ago." She couldn't help the tears that were flowing now. She was sharing something very intimate with someone who was probably happy that the man she loved disappeared. No, she wouldn't entertain the possibility that he was dead; he was coming back.

So the whelp was not completely with out honor. Stupid, but honorable.

"Why are you here and not with your companions?" He knew where ever her and his brother were, the monk and slayer were always close.

"I stayed in Edo. There is a miko there and she was getting sick. Sango and Miroku are nearing the end of Sango's second pregnancy and with Inuyasha gone that left me to care for her. She ... she died last week. I was on my way to Sango and Miroku when the labor pains started."

Sesshoumaru was no expert on human pregnancies, but he was pretty sure that it was not smart to be traveling alone this late in pregnancy.

"Shippo was with me, he left after the miko at that last village agreed to take care of me. He went to go tell Sango and Miroku what was going on." She said as if she knew what he was thinking.

"I think there is something wrong. I still have 2 more months before the baby is due. I shouldn't be in labor yet." Kagome felt the tears flowing down her face faster now. She couldn't bring herself to look up at Sesshoumaru's face, knowing he must be disgusted with her lack of emotional control.

"I am ... uncertain...but, I believe Izayoi only carried Inuyasha for 6 months." Sesshoumaru wasn't sure why he was trying so hard to comfort the girl. And to be quite honest, he had no idea how long a human pregnancy was supposed to be. Hell, he didn't even know how long a demon pregnancy lasted. He was a demon lord not a midwife.

Sesshoumaru ordered Rin to engage the girl in conversation the rest of the way there. It wasn't until she started crying about wanting her mother that he paid any attention to what they were talking about.

He had figured the girl's family to be dead. Why else would they have allowed her to travel with an un-wed half demon lone when they were both of mating age? Then there was the way she spoke, broken and unrefined, like one who had been raised away from society like his brother.

Upon Rins' further questioning he came to find out that her mother was alive, but since she became pregnant she was no longer able to return home. Odd, that someone who did nothing to prevent the developing relationship would then discard her when she was pregnant. Humans were so fickle.

The whole party was beyond relived when the lone hut came into view. The location, along with the animal hides hanging outside, indicated that who ever lived there was a hunter. Sesshoumaru figured they were skinners who made their living by selling hides to the nearby village.

Disregarding all manners or social protocol, Sesshoumaru shoved the mat covering the door aside and stepped, uninvited, into the modest dwelling. He could smell a woman along with 3 males, none of which were present. Good, he thought, the males being gone will make this easier.

He followed his nose to the room where the woman slept and none too gently nudged her awake with his foot.

Naturally, upon being awoken by a demon lord kicking you in the ribs, the woman panicked.

"Silence!" Sesshoumaru barked to the woman whose screams were threatening to damage his hearing permanently.

Sesshoumaru waited, with all the patience he could muster, for the woman to calm down. Between her panicking and the in his arms agonizing cries he was beginning to lose his composure.

"You will calm yourself now and you will assist her." He ordered calmly, gesturing to Kagome.

"With all due respect, Youkai-sama, I am no midwife or a miko, I am but the wife of a humble hunter. There is a village not far from here ..." the woman was shaking from her position kneeling at his feet.

"You have children, do you not?" his voice was calm and relaxed, displaying none of the worry he was beginning to feel inwardly.

"Yes, but that hardly qualifies me to..."

"Surely it does not take much work on your part." Through the pain and contractions Kagome couldn't help but to find the humor in that.

"I assure you, Youkai-sama that, it is not easy there are many things that could go wrong..."

Again he cut her off. It really didn't matter if something went wrong. If the girl or the baby died he could always bring them back. "You will assist her or you and the lives of your family will be forfeit."

With that he stepped past the woman and laid Kagome down on the bed that the woman had just vacated. All the while listening to the woman grumble about men and their deranged views on how children are brought into the world.