Chapter Four: The Morning After

Day Two –

Today I learned a whole new meaning for the word ‘tired’. The baby cried once every hour or so last night. I don’t think I got any sleep at all. My head feels fuzzy and is beginning to hurt.

I’m beginning to seriously doubt my capabilities as a mother, and it is only the second day!

Kagome yawned. Would they be able to survive having a baby with them? At first it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. But now she wasn’t so sure.

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Mikomi spent a good deal of the night crying and it was eerily realistic sounding. Kagome tried everything that she could think of… feeding, playing, singing, changing diapers, burping, and rubbing it’s back. Eventually the baby quieted down, but only for about an hour. Then it was time to start wailing again. Around four in the morning Kagome began wondering if perhaps she had been given a defective baby. Maybe it was missing a vital microchip that enabled the thing to sleep.

Needless to say, everyone was a bit tired and grumpy by the time the sun rose.

“It is certainly a… vocal child.” Miroku grumbled as he stood up and stretched. “I think I will go wash up before breakfast.”

“I’ll go with you!” Sango volunteered a wee bit too quickly as she followed him out of the clearing.

Kagome wasn’t fooled. They just wanted far away from the noisy baby. Then again, if she thought she could get away with it, she would be dashing off as well. But what kind of mother would that make me?

“Some mother you are,” Inuyasha scoffed from the tree up above her. “You let that thing cry all night.”

Her fingers froze as she was lifting the electronic baby into her arms. Did he just call me a bad mother? She glared at him as she hugged the child close.

“What. Did. You. Say?”

Shippo squeaked and ran off after Sango and Miroku, followed closely by Kirara.

Unfazed by the fire seemingly emitting from the young miko, Inuyasha dropped down in front of her.

“I said that you let Mikomi cry all night.”

“I didn’t LET Mikomi cry, you idiot!”

“You didn’t stop her!”

“I TRIED!”

“THEN YOU DIDN’T DO A GOOD ENOUGH JOB!”

The fire in her eyes died, replaced by an onslaught of tears that made Inuyasha jump backwards in fear and confusion.

“I know…” she sniffed, dropping her head down. “I know I’m a bad mother! You don’t have to rub it in!”

She shoved Mikomi into his arms and took off running. When she reached the stream she dropped to her knees and sobbed. I should have known I wouldn’t be a good mother. I should have known… I can’t do this!

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Inuyasha stared blankly down at the bundle in his arms. What just happened? One second they were having their usual morning fight, the next second she bursts into tears, shoves the kid at him, and takes off. Inuyasha replayed the conversation in his head, but couldn’t figure out what in the world he could have said that would make her respond like that. Why would she say that she’s a bad mother?

Tucking the plastic baby in the front of his fire rat robe, he took off after his companion. His sensitive nose led the way.

It only took a couple of minutes to find her. His heart lurched as he saw her sobbing at the edge of the stream. Her knees were drawn up with her arms wrapped around them. Her head was tucked down between her arms. She was taking up as little space as humanly possible and she was rocking herself back and forth slowly.

Nervously the dog demon sat beside her, taking out the baby from his robes. It began to bawl, which made Kagome cry harder. He didn’t know what to do. Whenever Kagome cried he felt completely useless. It was so much easier to slaughter an enemy that was threatening her, but how do you protect a girl against something you couldn’t see, like emotions? It made him feel like he was failing her somehow. It made him feel guilty.

“You’re not a bad mother,” he told her as he patted the electronic baby awkwardly, like he had seen Kagome do many times over the past two days. “Why would you say something stupid like that?”

“You said it.”

Inuyasha’s jaw dropped open. “I DID NOT!”

Glaring she turned her head towards him. “YES YOU DID! You said I wasn’t doing a good enough job being a mother to Mikomi!”

“I SAID that you weren’t doing a good enough job of shutting the kid up!”

“Same thing!”

“IT IS NOT!” He glared at her. “Keh, you are stupid.” The baby did not stop crying, so he started bouncing her instead.

A soft sound caught his attention. He turned to find Kagome smiling at him, looking amused and trying to stifle another giggle. When he realized that she was watching him trying to quiet the baby he blushed and shoved the baby into Kagome’s arms. He hated it when she caught him doing something stupid and embarrassing. He hated when she saw weakness. Sure, she never said it was a weakness, but he knew. And he couldn’t afford to be weak. Not with Naraku still out there. Not with this pack of his he had to protect. And definitely not with that stupid wolf out there trying to steal Kagome from him.

From the corner of his eye he watched Kagome hug the baby. The tears had dried (thank the stars above) and the sniffles had stopped. With a sigh she leaned against his shoulder, wiping her eyes on his fire rat robe.

“You don’t think I’m a bad mother?”

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. “Kagome, you’ve had that baby for two days. TWO! You’re stupid if you think you are going to be perfect after two days. Look how long it took you to learn how to shoot an arrow, and that is a whole lot easier than being a mother.”

“Sooo… you’re saying I am a bad mother… but with practice I could be a good one?”

Sigh. “I’m not saying you’re a bad mother. Stop saying that I said that! It’s a lie!” He pushed her away from him and stood up. “Let’s get back to camp. We need to keep moving if we are ever going to kill Naraku, wench.”

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“Shippo… can you ride with Sango or Inuyasha?” Kagome asked softly. “Carrying you and the baby and the pack is… well…. It’s just that…”

“Get off Kagome, brat! She’s just a weak human.”

“Gee, thanks Inuyasha. Helpful AND insulting.” All the same, she was glad to have the extra weight off of her shoulders.

Shippo apologized to Kagome before insulting Inuyasha. Kagome apologized to Shippo for not being able to carry him too. Then she gave him candy. She watched as he bit his lip, looking from the candy to the baby in her arms.

“No thanks, Kagome.” Then he scampered off to Sango.

The group was surprised that Shippo turned the candy down. And it wasn’t just any old candy either. It was pocky! His favorite. Shippo never turned down candy.

Kagome worried about hurting Shippo’s feelings. But the extra weight was killing her. Her back felt like it was on fire. Ever few feet she would try to stretch it out without anyone noticing. After about an hour, Inuyasha took her pack from her without a word. She was grateful.

Unfortunately, carrying the baby was still a problem. Besides the fact that carrying the extra weight in her arms caused her arms to ache and stiffen up, it also made her back hurt. It was different carrying weight in the front than carrying weight from a backpack. To make matters worse, having the baby in her arms meant that her arms were no longer free to do such things as help her keep her balance when walking across stones in a river or brushes branches out of her way. At least the baby wasn’t programmed to be squirmy and wiggly, that would have made matters even worse!

By the time the group stopped for lunch, Kagome was ready to burst into tears again. She set the baby in Shippo’s arms after he sat down, then she stood up and stretched her arms high over her head. She leaned from one side to the other, trying to stretch out her back to relieve the pain.

“Um... Kagome…”

“Yes, Sango?”

Sango blushed. “Perhaps you should take a short walk down to the river, beyond the cover of trees, to do that…”

At first Kagome didn’t know what in the world she was talking about, then she noticed Miroku’s eyes following the hem of her shirt. Then she saw the exact moment when Inuyasha noticed what Miroku had been looking at.

Poor Miroku.

“Perhaps we need to find a different way for you to carry the baby,” suggested Sango as she sat down on the grass, ignoring the cries of the monk when the hanyou added a few more bumps to his head.

Kagome took her bag from where Inuyasha dropped it and began pulling out bags of potato chips and nutrition bars. “That’s a good idea Sango. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Where’s the ramen?” asked Inuyasha when he was handed a nutrition bar.

“That’s for dinner.”

“I want ramen!”

“Tough luck! You would have to make a fire to boil the water for the ramen. And since you are in such an all fire hurry to get moving, then we don’t have TIME to stop for ramen!”

Grumpily Inuyasha jumped into a tree, leaving the bar on the ground, but taking his potato chips… and Kagome’s.

Sigh. “Do you have any ideas on carrying the baby?”

“Just stuff it in your sack.”

Kagome glared. “Yeah, great suggestion Inuyasha. I’m going to stuff the child into a backpack where it can’t breathe and gets stuff falling on it.”

“I thought the child was not real,” said Sango as she opened the package to the bar and began to eat. “Can it breathe?”

Kagome blushed. Oh yeah, she mentally smacked herself in the head for allowing herself to forget it was just a doll. A technologically advanced marvel of a doll, but still just a doll. “No, it can’t breathe. But the sensors in the doll can tell if there is enough air circulating around it. And it can tell if things fall on it. Besides, it just seems wrong to stick it in my backpack. I’m supposed to be treating it as if it was my real baby.”

“Fascinating,” Miroku comments as he regains consciousness. Luckily for him he didn’t say it sarcastically. Kagome gave him a smile. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how different their worlds were from each other.

“I could carry her,” offers Shippo. “She’s not that heavy. I’ll do it!”

Kagome smiled gently as she opened up his package of food for him. “Thank you, Shippo. That is a very sweet offer, but I’m afraid that even though she’s not heavy now, she’ll seem very VERY heavy after a little while.”

He thought about it for a moment. “We could take turns.”

“Well… I suppose we could.”

“I’ll take a turn carrying her too.”

Kagome beamed at Sango. “Thank you! That will be a huge help.”

Miroku put his hand on Kagome’s shoulder. “You can count on my help as well. I would not mind taking a turn holding the baby.”

Before Kagome could say thank you, she was ripped away from the monk and found herself facing a wall of red fabric. She rolled her eyes. When is Inuyasha ever going to trust Miroku around me? After all, these days he never touched a woman other than Sango. And any flirting he did really couldn’t be taken seriously. Anyone could see that the demon slayer was the only one he was interested in. Well, anyone except that demon slayer… and apparently a half dog demon…

“Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it!”

It was the absolute truth too. She really did appreciate it. If she didn’t have her friends to help her through this, there would be no way she could do it. How were other kids going to make it when they had to take care of their electronic babies alone? Of course, most of the other kids weren’t traipsing around Feudal Japan fighting demons.

“Can I carry her first?” Shippo asked, scarfing down his food then holding his hands out for the baby. When Kagome gave her to him he sat down and opened a jar and found the little plastic spoon.

“Sure.” Kagome watched as Shippo fed the electronic baby the special food that was supplied for it. He was really enjoying this.

Lunch was over quickly. Kagome picked up the wrappers and put them in her bag. She took the bag and put it on before Inuyasha could reach it. It wasn’t fair to make him carry it all the time. And now that Shippo was taking a turn at carrying the baby, it would make things a lot easier.

Except it wasn’t going so well for Shippo. The baby wasn’t all that much smaller than he was. But he didn’t drop her. It was awkward, but he was taking carrying her very seriously. Kagome was worried about her being dropped, but she didn’t want to take her away from Shippo. How could she make it easier for him without hurting his pride? What they really needed was a stroller.

“Oi, brat! You’re gonna drop her!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“AM NOT!”

Suddenly the kit was engulfed in red fabric. It was the fire rat robe. “What’s this for?”

Without an explanation, Inuyasha took the baby away from Shippo and put it on the fabric. Even though Kagome was watching, her eyes couldn’t keep up with his movements. Before she knew it, Shippo was standing there with Mikomi strapped to his back in a comfortable looking cocoon.

A very proud Shippo began walking again behind Sango and Miroku. Kagome stayed where she was, looking at Inuyasha incredulously.

“You’re amazing,” she whispered. Only when she saw him turn red and started heading towards the front of the pack did she realize that she actually say that out loud. At first she was embarrassed that he caught her complimenting him. Then she shrugged and smiled. Sure he has a big head… but he really IS amazing. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to let him know once in awhile.

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Babies require a whole lot more than just feeding and playing. Finding a way to carry the baby was a bigger deal than I anticipated. Carrying Mikomi around in my arms all day just wasn’t an option.

I have also found that sometimes you can get the baby to make a cute cooing sound when you rock it. It’s cute!

It’s only been two days and I’m already beginning to feel like a mother. I think that I can do this! I can’t wait to have a child of my own someday.

Kagome Higurashi