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“He’s being weird.”
Kagome’s presence thankfully spared Rin from needing to reply to Inuyasha’s observation. Still, as she worked alongside the others washing their clothes in the river, Rin hated that she agreed.
Lord Sesshoumaru was being weird.
Not in a way that was bad, or even a way that was immediately obvious. His behavior hadn’t changed the landscape of her relatively peaceful life in the village - at least, not any more than it ever had. It was just that his routines had become so familiar over the years that her heart was practiced in the months that would pass between his visits.
But those periods had dwindled since last summer. Now, as spring gently slid into summer, his visits were every other week. Just yesterday he had visited after being there the week before.
Rin loved seeing him so often, and whatever surprise was there in the moment he arrived always dissolved into giddiness. Lord Sesshoumaru had never been particularly talkative, but there had been a shift in their time together, almost an intimacy in the thoughts he chose to share with her. While he had never spoken down to her, even when she had been a child who would have warranted it, their interactions now made her feel like an equal.
It had been a dizzying realization, that she could warrant that level of regard from him. He listened to her, considered her opinions, remembered her comments. The latter often became obvious when he would show up with gifts that addressed small inconveniences she mentioned, like the new knife for when she went to collect plants, or the cloud-like futon that was stuffed with cotton instead of straw, or the pair of zori to replace the ones she kept trying to fix.
Even when these gifts were practical, there had been an increasing lean toward luxury. The futon had been one such case; Lord Sesshoumaru would probably be displeased with how often she convinced Kaede to use it when her joints bothered her. He had always provided her with kimono as she grew, but now there were added details, like the embroidery on the collar of her juban. Earlier that year he had given her a painted porcelain vase, apparently to address her comment that she wished she could display the flowers she always picked. Most recently, there had been a lacquered mirror followed by a collection of three hairpin with silver and coral and jade.
All of it added up to a level of care Rin had not expected. Lord Sesshoumaru had certainly cared about her, and for her, in his way, but his behavior over the past year made his attention feel different, softer and less pragmatic.
Which complicated things when Rin had accepted that she not only loved him but was in love with him. As fragile and unreasonable as it felt, when he was like this it was hard to extinguish the ember of hope that perhaps he could return her feelings. Every time he left she told herself the next time he visited would follow their usual routine, and every time he returned sooner.
But as much as hope might try to grow in her heart, there were things that helped temper it. Until recently, Rin might not have agreed with Inuyasha’s observation, but there had been a strange undercurrent in his visits lately. It almost seemed like restlessness, his usual calm ruffled into something more distracted, less settled. She had never known him to demonstrate any of those traits before, and the complete lack of an obvious cause had been worrying.
She had tried to watch him, sifting through any of the comments he made, but nothing revealed what might be going on. It had weighed on her to the point that she had even broached the subject with Jaken during one of the visits when he was present. He had quickly told her off for both assuming that anything was wrong and thinking she could tell if there was.
But she had become increasingly certain that there was something serious running in the hidden depths of Lord Sesshoumaru’s emotions. The well of her questions was slowly but surely flooding, and she knew that soon they would overflow and spill from her lips.
“What do you think, Rin?”
Rin glanced up at Saho. They were both the same age, and the other girl had been more curious than wary when it came to the visiting demon lord.
Kagome and Inuyasha were still bickering — their conversation had steered completely away from Inuyasha’s initial observation, which meant they weren’t listening. She took a breath. “I think something is weighing on his mind.”
Saho brushed the hair back from her face. “Just because he’s coming so often? Isn’t that a good thing?”
“I am glad to see him,” Rin agreed, returning to her work. “But I’m just worried about the reason why it’s so often.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
Rin made a face without looking up. “You say that like it’s easy.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Saho laughed. “I’m pretty sure you have him wrapped around your finger. He seems to make concessions for you all the time. A question seems little by comparison.”
It might have only been a few sentences, but it was enough to leave Rin gaping. “He isn’t really known for offering much of his thoughts,” she finally said. Her face felt warmer than the afternoon sun and the work warranted. Was his consideration of her clear enough that other people could notice it so easily?
“If he isn’t just going to offer his thoughts, that’s a good reason to ask,” Saho reiterated, as though Rin were being difficult on purpose.
Try as she might to ignore Saho’s words, they had lingered throughout the rest of that day and into the next as she went about picking and hanging herbs or accompanying Kaede to see villagers. When Lord Sesshoumaru returned, appearing in that moment between twilight and dusk without Jaken, Rin decided.
She made pointless conversation as she walked with him to the edge of the village. It was never difficult, regardless of how little he provided in return, and she almost wished they could linger in this peaceful space where things were easy and comfortable.
“You seem content,” he eventually observed, looking down at where she had flopped in the grass to regale him with her latest bland updates.
“I suppose I shouldn’t complain,” Rin evaded. It was true enough, and she tried to tell her heart there was no point in dwelling on fanciful daydreams. The reality he had provided for her was more than the girl who found him in the woods could have ever hoped for. “I have shelter and never need to worry about my next meal. People have been kind here.” She swung her hand through the grass as her lips pulled into a grin. “I imagine there might be some incentive to not anger the demon lord who checks on me.”
“You have earned their regard through your own merit. The priestess has said as much.”
That got Rin’s attention. “You talked to Kaede about that?”
“I needed to ensure that my continued presence had no bearing on your place here.”
The words settled slowly, edges pricking against the moment. Rin stood, feeling implications within his words slot into the questions she had meant to ask him. Suddenly his behaviors and comments had a new, unconsidered light. He had been visiting so often. He had seemed so restless lately. He had noted that she had a place there, and had ensured that it would remain without him.
“When are you leaving?”
He looked at her sharply, but it couldn’t have been a surprise. Of course he was leaving. That had always been part of his ultimate plans, hadn’t it? She knew the legacy he had to uphold, and there was little ability to do that if he shackled himself to a small village and an even smaller human girl. It was unavoidable that eventually he would go, regardless of how she had avoided thinking about it.
“Why do you think I will leave?”
“You’ve been visiting so often. Since nothing in my routine has changed, it must be because of something in yours,” Rin reasoned, feeling the pieces continue to fall into place. She wondered why she had not been able to see it before; in retrospect, all the clues had been there. “With all the gifts, Kaede thought you might be helping me prepare a trousseau. And just now you said I seem content.”
As practiced as she was with Lord Sesshoumaru’s silences, she struggled to wait through this one. His eyes, still so strangely bright even in the gathering dark, pinned her until drifting to the side. “You did not agree.”
“What?” she wondered, her confusion helping her force the question around the growing tightness in her throat.
“You said that you should not complain. You did not say you are content.” He looked at her again, his gaze strangely guarded.
Rin was the one to look away this time. She caught the seam of her sleeve between her fingers, toying with the fabric that was too fine for a villager.
She knew how she should respond. She should insist that she was happy, because she had already been given so much. And it was not as though she were unhappy . It was true that she had everything she needed. It felt like childish greed to want for more.
“It is a very nice life,” she stated slowly. “But it’s not the same as the life I had when I traveled with you.”
There was a long pause. “Your life was harder then.”
“No harder than it had been before,” Rin countered. “And I had your company.”
“You have the company of a whole village now. Surely that is better suited to you.”
It was strange that something so practical could strike her heart so deeply. There were so many divides between them, and she had tried to avoid betraying her feelings for him, but somehow she had thought he understood her better than that. “Do you really think that’s what I want?”
The careful blankness of his expression fluttered, emotions she could not pinpoint slipping into his eyes. His focus in that moment was unfamiliar and strange; her heart thrummed under the intensity of it. “What do you want, Rin?”
“Nothing I would ask of you, my lord,” she said honestly, forcing a smile to her lips. “Especially when you need to leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Confusion settled over her like a cloud. “You’re not?”
“No.”
“Then… why have you been coming so often? And what about the gifts?” she blurted, shock scattering any of the restraint she had learned to utilize over the years.
“It has come to my attention that you may leave.”
Rin stared at him, feeling even more bewildered. “Leave? Where?”
“To a husband’s home.”
The statement was so blunt and so surprising that Rin laughed before she could stop herself. She clapped a hand over her mouth even as she failed to smother it. “I’m not aware of any such arrangement,” she said behind the cover of her fingers.
“You have peers who have wed,” Lord Sesshoumaru replied, unfazed by her reaction. “Should I not expect that you will follow suit?”
While her laughter had been reined in, Rin was still smiling as she lowered her hand. “I would need somebody to wed, first.”
“You have no such person?”
Any lingering lightheartedness retreated. With his eyes trained away from her, she was free to watch him, to take in the vividness of his markings against his pale skin, the brightness of his hair against the gathering dusk, the elegance of the planes of his face. Of course she had somebody she wished could fill that spot. But… “Nobody I would burden in such a way.”
“How would it be a burden?”
The truth was there, at the edge of her tongue, ready to tumble into this strange moment. Lord Sesshoumaru so rarely pursued answers she evaded giving immediately, and it compelled part of her to answer. But answering was terrifying, because while he might want to know, she couldn’t imagine him accepting what she said.
As she struggled with her thoughts, pulled between the freedom of honesty and the safety of secrecy, Rin felt a touch upon the hand she had woven into her sleeve. When she started, grip jumping from the fabric as she glanced down, she watched Lord Sesshoumaru gently take hold of her fingers.
“Rin,” he said again, soft and hesitant in a way she had never heard him sound before, “what do you want?”
And because she was too bewildered by everything — his nearness and his touch and the wholly unfamiliar fragility of the moment — her reply stumbled past any of her remaining defenses.
“You.” It spilled into the small space between them. She smiled hopelessly. “To be with you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
It was a relief that the words were no longer trapped within her heart, but she felt painfully vulnerable with the truth so bare between them. As the lengthening silence had fear burning through her frail relief, Rin hurried to soften her words. She hoped she could hold onto some edge of their relationship.
“I would never ask that of you, though,” she said in a rush. “What I want and what I am happy with are two different things. I truly am happy for what—”
“I am offering.”
It took a moment for his statement to break through her growing panic. Rin bit back her continued justifications and explanations as she watched him, trying to understand exactly what he was saying before she let her heart run away with her.
His hand was still warm around hers as he spoke again. “You said you would not ask. But I am offering.”
He could not be offering what his words implied. There was no way. He had made concessions for her before, providing her with a privileged place beside him, but she had never imagined that he would yield to her wishes in this.
“You cannot mean that,” Rin breathed.
“Have you known me to lie?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “But it’s what I want. I don’t want you to act on my feelings.”
He was silent for another long moment, but his features held that strange softness again. It was mesmerizing, distracting her so that she did not notice he had lifted his other hand until it touched her cheek.
Rin’s breath stuttered in her lungs. His gaze drifted over her features, and his hand followed its path from the swell of her cheek to the edge of her bangs to the curved shell of her ear. When his fingers settled beneath the line of her jaw, a cautious almost half-touch, his eyes again met hers. “You are so certain that what I want and what you want are not the same.”
“Is what you want the same?” she somehow choked out, and it was impossible to keep her wildly blossoming hope from filling her voice.
Lord Sesshoumaru did not answer. He did not need to; after all the kindnesses he had bestowed upon her that had been done with few or no words, Rin knew how much he could express through his actions.
And when the fingers at her jaw urged her to raise her head so that he could kiss her, the soft press of his lips uncertain only in practice and not in intent, she had all the answer she needed.
====
Sesshoumaru was still sleeping when Rin woke up.
It was not an unheard of thing. During their travels together there were times when nightmares had awoken her while he still rested and Jaken oversaw their camp, and there had been more than one occasion when he had spent time off by himself, eyes closed, after they had settled following some misadventure.
But this was different.
It was different because she was waking up tucked against his side, warm under the weight of the cover of their futon. It was closer than she had ever been to him as he slept, a new vantage point she was only allowed because they were now married.
The thought burned through her lingering sleepiness like sunshine through fog. Rin grinned to herself as she tried to hold still, attempting to balance the overwhelming press of her joy with her conflicting desire to not disturb him.
Her happiness felt impossible. Surely one person was not meant to contain this much joy? She felt it swelling in her heart as she looked at him, relaxed and untroubled. There was no tension in his features, the often severe line of his brows smoothed and relaxed. She could never remember seeing him at peace like this before. That it was around her that he could be this unguarded pressed an aching sweetness into the fullness of her heart.
She was content to watch him in the watery light of early morning, listening to the soft sound of his breathing and feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath her hand. When he eventually shifted, she held her breath as she waited to see whether he would drift back to sleep or awaken. She wasn’t sure which one to wish for.
The stillness was suddenly sharpened by alertness before his eyes slid open, shifting so that he could look at her. Rin smiled at him, somehow feeling shy regardless of how they were tangled together. “Good morning, my lord,” she said softly, trying to push through any potential awkwardness before it could take root.
The warmth in his gaze was something she had gotten to see so frequently over recent weeks, but it still made her breath catch. When his expressions were usually so reserved, even such subtle changes were remarkable. He settled again, his eyes slipping shut as the hand wrapped around her back began a lazy sweep against her spine. It tugged at her attention so that she almost missed his response. “You do not need to address me like that here,” he said, eyes still closed.
Rin forced herself to focus on pulling together his meaning. “My lord?” she tried to clarify.
He made a soft sound of agreement.
It was a needlessly indirect way of going about this, and Rin felt her lips curving in a grin. She looked at the profile of his dear, beautiful features, all of him now hers, and felt the smile grow. “What should I call you, then? Just Sesshoumaru?” she wondered. The lightness of the conversation made her feel bolder, but she still spoke her next word in a near-whisper. It felt so fragile and new, as though speaking it any louder would shatter this beautiful dream that she somehow had the audacity to call reality. “Husband?”
That caught his attention enough that he opened his eyes again, and it was thrilling and dizzying that she could so readily read his own happiness in his face. His free hand lifted to card through her hair, his eyes following the movement before sliding over her features again. “Wife,” he returned finally, his voice as quiet as hers in the space between them but certain, full of conviction.
It didn’t change anything. They had made their troths, and they had bound themselves to each other, and if Rin could call him husband then of course she was his wife. But somehow regardless of how she understood all these pieces and their consequences, hearing him say it like that — like he was ready to fight any challenge to this title he had bestowed on her, like he was proud that she was his — twisted at all of her emotions.
Rin leaned in to kiss him before the moment could overwhelm her. “Thank you.”
“We are married,” he said, tone warmed by a rare edge of humor. “Calling you what you are hardly deserves thanks.”
“I wasn’t sure if that was something I would ever be called.”
He considered her. “The priestess said you had many suitors.”
Rin frowned. “When would she have mentioned that to you?”
“When I asked about your place there. She said my visits were scaring away those who may wish to offer you a more solid standing in the village.”
It was impossible not to laugh, imagining what that conversation must have looked like. “I should thank you for sparing me that ordeal, then.”
“You said you had nobody to wed.” There was a question between his words, a curiosity he would not voice directly.
“I said I had nobody I would burden in that way,” she corrected. “Because you were the only one I wanted to marry, and I did not want to say anything about it to you.”
“Why would none of them suffice?”
She quirked a smile at him. “Do I really need to explain their shortcomings to the magnificent Lord Sesshoumaru, greatest of all demons?”
There was something wry in the look he shot at her, but he did not rise to her bait. “I am curious why you were set on something you were convinced was impossible.”
Shifting, Rin snuggled closer to him while considering her response. It was something she had considered herself, when her heart was heavy after he left and she would watch her friends blush and gossip about who they were interested in or who would make a good match.
“A lot of my memories of my family are… blurry. But I remember that my parents loved each other,” she started, letting the soft recollections unfold in her heart. “It was so clear in little things. Simple things. The few times I got to accompany my father to sell what we made during the winter, he always lit up to talk about my mother’s craftsmanship. And whenever the village women complained about the men in their lives, my mother would avoid answering and then brag about my father. I always thought it would be nice to have somebody to talk about the way my parents spoke of each other.”
Sesshoumaru considered her words for a long moment. “And you could not have found that with any of those suitors.”
She shifted to touch his cheek, gently tracing the markings there. It was still remarkable that she had the privilege of touching him whenever she liked. “Do you think anybody else would ever manage to have the impact on me that you have? You were the reason I started talking again, so who else would I want to brag about?” she smiled. “I wasn’t going to settle for some village boy just to have somebody at my side.”
“It would have been easier.”
He had turned to face her fully at her touch, his nose nearly brushing hers. His eyes were darker in the shadows of early morning, but the gold — bright and inhuman — was still unmistakeable. He didn’t say anything further, but he did not need to. Rin could sense the edges of the things he left unsaid.
It would have been easier if she had married one of the boys who had fancied her, the ones who Kaede had clearly wished she would steer her heart toward. Her life would be simple and straightforward, just as the life of her parents had been. She could have had somebody who would have worked beside her in a field or in a shop, and she would not have had to fear those who may attack her to get to her husband or simply because of her choice to wed him. The most she would have risked were some grudges for picking one suitor over another, rather than the suspicion or disgust that would now follow her.
Those parts might have been easier, true.
“It wouldn’t have been easier in the way that mattered,” she said finally. “I only wanted to marry if it meant I had a husband I could love completely. And even if other parts might be difficult, loving you is the easiest thing in the world.”
When he kissed her, his fingers gently wrapping around her hand against his cheek, it took no effort on Rin’s part to sense the weight in it. Her marriage would not be ordinary; there would be dangers and threats that other couples would not need to consider, and they would be lucky for the few who would accept them against the tide of those who would not.
But when they parted and he looked at her, the love he might not speak of out loud still so clear, Rin knew the precious things that had been shared between her parents were there for them to share as well. She needed nothing more.
====
Rin was exhausted.
That summer felt especially hot, the humidity turning the air liquid. Even lying on the tatami in their room, fully shaded from the sun, she felt heat clinging to her.
She tugged absently at her obi, loosening it enough to open her kimono to the juban beneath in the hope that one less layer might help. When Jaken returned with her drink he might have some choice words about the behavior expected of the wife of Lord Sesshoumaru, but then again perhaps not. He had been remarkably accommodating recently.
Maybe it was because she had been so, so sick and was just starting to recover. Sesshoumaru had been gone a few days when it started, and they had more or less panicked together as she threw up everything she tried to eat for days on end. Her body had felt all wrong and her head had been splitting from the headache burrowed there with the force of her retching, so perhaps Rin could be forgiven for how long it took to place the significance of what was happening. The realization had only come as she missed her cycle not long after.
A child. She was carrying his child.
Her joy had quickly been chased away by the anxious realization that she could not imagine Sesshoumaru’s reaction. He tended to be reserved, and while he was revealing new layers of his thoughts and feelings to her, it was in soft and unpracticed ways that she was still learning to read. When simply navigating so many facets of their relationship was new, discussing children had felt like a conversation for the future. She had thought there would be time. They had scarcely been wed for a handful of months.
But apparently they wouldn’t have time, because now Rin had his child, his hanyou child , growing within her and he was gone and she could not ask what he thought or what he wanted.
When she had traveled with him, she had never understood the animosity others had for him. Regardless of his coolness, he had cared for her more than any other had since she had lost her family. It had only been after living in the village and hearing Inuyasha’s stories that Rin finally understood that the Sesshoumaru she knew was not the one others were familiar with. Considering his history, the fact that she was his wife was surely close to a miracle.
But if making the concession of not only being with a human but marrying one was already a miracle, was it too much to hope that he would concede to having children who were part human, too? Or would the resentment he had held for Inuyasha’s heritage leave too much bitterness behind to overcome?
Rin had tried to convince Jaken to find Sesshoumaru and bring him back. She had danced around the reason why, too ashamed to admit to her fears, but she was desperate to know what Sesshoumaru thought. Surely this wouldn’t be a surprise to him? Surely this had not even been an if but a when ?
But could she really assume that?
What if, when faced with the reality of this, he did not want the child?
Rin had just needed him to be home so that she could talk to him. When she had been so ill, though, Jaken had been unwilling to leave, especially when she would give no better reason than that she was nervous. “He is gone to keep you safe from the threats that have been made toward you now that news of your union has spread. With a child, his efforts are even more important,” he had reasoned. He had awkwardly patted her head even as she hunched over the pot holding the remains of her attempted breakfast. “Lord Sesshoumaru’s bloodline is very powerful. And you are surprisingly resilient for a human. Everything will be fine.”
The sentiment had been so sweet but so misplaced that she had only managed to jerk a nod even as she cried. And even though she could not fully believe him, Rin had clung to those words. She could do nothing about the fact that her husband was gone. For now, all she could do was care for herself and the child within her.
It had been difficult. Sesshoumaru had been gone for over two months now, and the majority of that had been filled with constant nausea that had made eating difficult. She had eventually found a few foods that she could consistently stomach, and blessedly in the last week or so the nausea had finally subsided.
Rin still felt drained and weary, regardless of her ability to truly eat again, and the rainy season giving way to summer had not helped. Wryly, she patted her stomach. “Bad timing, little one,” she complained half-heartedly.
The whisper of the fusuma opening made her sigh, preemptively grateful. Jaken must be back with water, bless him. Even at this time of year, the river at the edge of the gardens ran cold from the mountains. She wondered how much trouble she would get in for just dumping the water across her face.
When Rin turned her head to look, though, she instead found her husband.
She froze, echoing his stillness as her emotions flooded her. He was home, finally, filling her with both relief and dread. She took a breath and tried to relax the press of her fingers over her stomach.
But Sesshoumaru’s eyes were already directed there, lingering just as her hand was. She tried to find her voice, but it was stuck in her throat as he stepped closer.
“Welcome home,” she said finally, forcing a smile to her lips as she turned to sit up and greet him properly.
In one fluid movement, he was kneeling at her side with a hand at her shoulder gently urging her to lay down again, but his attention was focused elsewhere. She tried to search his expression as he looked at the gentle swell that had replaced the slope of her stomach. It was still subtle enough to hide within the folds of her kimono and obi, but she had pulled away those barriers. Beneath just the juban, the way her figure was changing was already clear.
“Did Jaken tell you?” she asked quietly.
“He tried,” Sesshoumaru said distractedly. “I could smell a change in your scent when I arrived.”
Rin desperately wished that she could read something of his feelings from his face. There was nothing there that she could decipher, and with every passing moment she could feel the tightening of her anxiety. He would be displeased. He would regret this. He would not be able to accept it.
“Are you angry?” she whispered, the words pulled from her almost against her will.
His eyes immediately snapped to hers, betraying confusion that was surprisingly easy to read compared to how carefully blank he had just been. It settled into an open question, wordlessly waiting for her to explain herself.
“About the baby,” Rin continued. Now that she had started, the weight of all the words she had tried to bite back pressed past her lips. “We never talked about it. About having a family. I know you used to hate humans, and you hated Inuyasha—”
Sesshoumaru scoffed. “I hated Inuyasha because he was a stain upon my father’s legacy.”
Her voice felt impossibly small. “Because he is a hanyou.”
Waiting for him to put together what he wanted to say had never been so difficult. He released her hand before carefully settling his across her stomach. Against all her worries, the weight was reassuring. “That was part of it, at one time,” he eventually allowed. “I have ceased to mark his shortcomings by that measure. There are plenty of others.”
Sesshoumaru looked at her again, and she tried to place the expression that sat softly on his features now. This was something new that she could not identify, a reflection of some emotion she could not pinpoint. “Unlike him, our children will be strong and capable. They will be able to carry the weight of their heritage.”
Her throat felt tight. “Our children.”
“Yes.”
“You will accept the children I bear you?”
With his free hand, he carefully brushed her sweat-soaked bangs from her forehead with a gentleness that she knew he saved for her alone. “I thought that had gone without saying.”
Relief swept through her like a joyful flood. Rin tugged his hand down from her hair to press a kiss to his palm, hoping to hide the way tears pricked her eyes even as she laughed.
Sesshoumaru let her hold onto him while his other hand swept against her stomach again. “How far along?” he asked.
Rin hummed. “Between two and a half to three months, I think. So maybe six until we can meet her or him.”
“Them.”
She paused. “What?”
“Meet them,” he said, looking at her again. “There are two heartbeats, in addition to yours.”
Even though she couldn’t see it, Rin could feel the shock settle on her features. “Them,” she echoed.
Her shock must have looked as obvious as it felt; there was a subtle quirk at the corner of Sesshoumaru’s mouth. The rare reveal of his amusement eased something in her chest; maybe that, colored over the softness of the way he looked at her, showed his inner thoughts best. If he found any levity in this situation, he truly must not be upset.
Rin let out a sound that was half-laugh and half-sigh as she tried to process this new information. “Well, I hope you can stay now,” she admitted, trying to sound casual and completely failing with the plaintive note that snuck in. “You might have to pry me off if you try to leave.”
“I will stay,” he assured her. His gaze shifted back to her stomach, and Rin sensed the change in the air, the sudden weight in that moment. When he spoke again, his voice carried the solemnity of a promise. “I will be here for you, and for them. Always.”
Oh, and she had just managed to avoid crying and now he was going to undermine that. Before she could overthink it, she sat up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, ignoring his armor and the awkward angle and how she was definitely too sweaty to be doing this to him. As she pressed her cheek against his, she smiled. “Thank you,” she said, unsure of what exactly she was thanking him for. There were too many things, too many gifts he had given her: her very life, her place at his side, their children to come.
After a moment she felt Sesshoumaru’s hand settle against the back of her head, his cheek pressing more firmly against hers. He did not say anything further, but everything in the way he held her was confirmation of his earlier words. He was there for her, and would continue to be there for her as he had always been. And now he would be there for their children as well.
With him, there might be many things that went unspoken. But as his other hand slipped around her waist, shifting her to better avoid his armor while holding her closer, none of it went unfelt.