The Rain Falls by thetroll

Chapter 1

Kagome prodded the cooking fire in her hut, more to give herself something to do than because the fire needed it.

InuYasha had left again and she didn't want to bother any of her other friends just because she was feeling down. Sango had just given birth to their fourth child and she needed the space with her family to relax and recover.

She signed and wrapped her hands around her knees and tilted her head back, too emotionally drained to care about anything. She should be preparing her herbs to dry or prepping dinner or any of the hundred other tasks that awaited a human priestess but she couldn't bring herself to move to do anything.

I miss my mom, she thought to herself glumly, and Grandpa and Sota. I miss Buyo and my friends in the future. I even miss Hojo and his odd array of medical cures.

She loved her friends in the feudal era, but sometimes it was hard relating to them. No one here had her level of education, leaving her intellectually bored at times. Add to that the fact that her friends had found their own lives—without her—while she was gone and she felt bereft, out of place both past and present.

But this was my choice.

Outside, the rain began to fall and Kagome stretched out across the floor and pressed her ears to the ground and listened as she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself.

The sound of the rain grew heavier until it began to pour and she watched through the open doorway as the ground, too soaked with water, began to form puddles.

Her heart ached, soaking up the tears she couldn’t seem to cry. 

She didn’t have the right to cry, anyway. She had made her choice, had chosen her path, and so what if it hadn’t worked out the way she’d wanted? 

She was tired, so tired, but even sleeping took too much effort so she simply stared out her doorway, listless and alone.

.

.

”Rin is worried,” Rin blurted as she took the gift Sesshoumaru had brought for her.

He raised a brow and waited, sensing her distress as easily. Though she’d tried to conceal it, her lapse in language had given it away.

Rin was not the type to worry needlessly. If she was concerned, she had cause to be and so, if he could aid her, he would.

It was still odd, stepping into a human dwelling, but when he reminded himself that the hut was Rin’s, it no longer felt so out of place for him to be there.

“Lady Kagome isn’t herself,” Rin elaborated, fidgeting.

His eyebrow raised further. Why should he care about the priestess? She wasn’t his and she wasn’t pack.

But the priestess mattered to Rin.

“Why would Lord Sesshomaru care about a stupid human female?” Jaken waved his staff around. “You stupid girl.”

“He cares about me and I’m a human female,” Rin pointed out.

Jaken’s mouth snapped shut. “Well, she’s InuYasha’s problem now,” he said after a moment, ignoring Rin’s comment.

”So am I,” Rin said, reminding Sesshomaru that he’d deliberately left the girl in his half-brother’s care. Rin didn’t say it, but then she hadn’t need to. He knew he owed InuYasha something for that.

But he was reluctant to aid the priestess because he did not understand her nor the pull he felt when he was around her. And because he did not understand it, he’d chosen to ignore it.

He could not ignore Rin.

”Tell this one what is wrong with the priestess,” Sesshomaru said in quiet resignation.

Rin bit her lip. “She has been lying in her hut since the rain started. She has not eaten or slept. Rin thinks she is sick but Lady Kagome wouldn’t let Rin help.”

Sesshomaru’s gaze drifted out the window to the rain that had begun pouring last night. Given the frailty of humans, if the priestess hadn’t moved or eaten than it stood to reason that Rin’s conclusion was correct.

However, Sesshomaru was not a nurse and he refused to play one for a human priestess who was not his responsibility.

He opened his mouth to refuse the pleading girl as she clasped her hands together and waited.

What came out instead was, “This one will check on the priestess.”

Rin clapped her hands in delight as Jaken wailed in horror. “Thank you, Lord Sesshomaru! Rin will wait here with Master Jaken.”

Sesshomaru didn’t bother to argue. He might have agreed to help—though what possessed him to agree, he didn’t know or understand—but having Jaken witness the humiliation would be too much.

He simply nodded and left the hut, ignoring the rain as he used his nose to find the priestess’s own hut. 

When he found it, he would not let himself hesitate. He simply walked inside as if he had every right to be there. 

.

. 

“Priestess.”

Kagome turned in surprise at Sesshomaru’s voice but couldn’t bring herself to speak. It simply took too much energy—more than she had to spare, at any rate. 

She watched absently as his nostrils flared. “You do not smell ill,” he remarked, his tone almost accusatory. “Yet Rin said that you were.”

She was torn between talking so he’d leave and not doing anything and hoping he’d likewise leave. Either way, she didn’t want to see him. 

He was a reminder of everything she’d accepted about this world at the cost of her own.

”You will eat and cease worrying Rin,” he declared after a moment.

She scoffed. He wasn’t her mother so who was he to tell her what to do? She was an adult and if she wanted to lay down and do nothing then she would. “Whatever,” she said listlessly. 

His eyes narrowed. “You will do as you are told.”

“Whatever,” she said again, uncaring if she pissed him off. She knew she sounded petulant but she didn’t care.

He stared at her for another moment and then seemed to come to a decision. With sharp movements, he stormed over to her, pulling her up in spite of her protests and propping her up against a wall. He then moved around her hut before returning to thrust a cold cup of tea into her hands.

”Drink,” he commanded, his tone brooking no room for refusal.

She vacillated between following his orders so he’d leave and not wanting to extend the effort. After a moment, she capitulated, sensing that he would not leave until she followed his command.

He took the cup back and for a moment, she thought he’d leave. Instead, he returned with another cold cup that he placed beside her and then pressed a pouch into her hand.

”Eat.” 

She simply stared at the pouch.

He huffed and sat down beside her, taking the pouch from her and opening it before handing her some sort of jerky.

”You will eat. You have weakened greatly.”

She guessed that meant he’d realized she’d slowly stopped eating over the past few days; it had just seemed like too much effort to bother preparing a meal for one person so she simply hadn’t done it.

He looked ready to shove the jerky down her throat so she took it from him rather than risk worsening his bedside manner.

”Where is the hanyo?” he asked as she chewed.

She shrugged. She often didn’t know where he was since she’d returned, nor was she about to hunt him down. They were friends and she didn’t bother keeping tabs on her friends.

He handed her several more pieces of jerky in turn as she finished each one he handed her and then he nudged the cup so she drank.

After a moment, he seemed to make a second decision and evidently he expected her to simply agree. “Very well,” he said, rising to his feet. “If the hanyo will not see to your well-being then it seems that another must.”

Before she could react, he pulled her to her feet and slung her over one shoulder, leaving the hut behind. He slung her over Ah-Un’s back as the dragon grazed peacefully nearby. 

“Rin. Come.”

Rin and Jaken scrambled out of the hut Rin shared with Kaede. 

”Where are we going, my lord?” Rin asked as she fell into step behind Sesshomaru.

Kagome, sensing his distraction, moved to slide off the dragon but Sesshomaru turned his head to glare at her.

She froze and gave up. It didn’t matter anyway, she decided. Wherever he took her was the same as anywhere else.

Sesshoamru, however, felt differently. His instincts were screaming at him to see to her needs and since he could not kill her and be rid of the problem due to Rin, he would take her with him until the urges resolved themselves.

For now, that meant he would have to look after her and so he would. Perhaps later, when she recovered from whatever ailed her, she would be able to explain her illness to him but he saw no reason to concern himself about it now. She wouldn’t be allowed to worsen under his care.

And once she was healed, he was sure Rin would allow him to be free of the burden.

Part of his heart whispered that he wouldn’t wish to be free.

He simply pretended he hadn’t heard it.