InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages ❯ Completing the Puzzle ( Chapter 28 )

Forgiveness is a wonderful thing, lol...thank you for not getting on my case too much for taking so long with that last chapter! All the kind reviews have really been great for making me smile despite all the stress I've had in my life recently (believe me, there has been a lot because just when things settle down, something ELSE crazy seems to happen at work! Sometimes I think the patients are saner than the employees around my office). You really don't know how much I appreciate all of you sticking with me and being so understanding!

 

Now! Are you guys ready to move on to the chapter? Well, too bad if you aren't, because I'm leaving without you.

 

WARNING: Language alert. But what else do you expect when Inuyasha has to do a lot of talking?

 

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters; therefore I do not make any money off of what I write. Which should really be pretty obvious if you think about it, because if I could make money doing this all day, I'd quit my job (AKA the source of almost all my stress) in a heartbeat! Oh, the complete and utter unfairness of it all...

 

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Big Trouble Comes in Small Packages

Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

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“This had better be good,” Kagome grumbled to herself as she opened the front door to her apartment and stepped out into the thankfully deserted hallway. If it hadn't looked bad enough before with her going to see a single man every evening when she was helping with Rin, this would certainly do it!

 

`It would be just my luck if someone did catch me visiting Inuyasha's apartment in the middle of the night.' Kagome shot a paranoid glance at the apartment door next to the stairs as she started up the steps. `The gossipy old lady that lives there likes to frequent Miroku's café, and if he ever found out about this, neither Inuyasha or myself would ever live it down. It's like the pervert has spies everywhere…'

 

Shaking her head to rid herself of the disturbing mental image of what life would be like if that were true, she finally set foot onto the landing of Inuyasha's floor. Glancing around carefully, she realized that once again she had lucked out and it was deserted. At least something that night was going right!

 

“Why, whatever are you doing wandering the halls this late at night, my dear?”

 

Kagome nearly jumped out of her skin and just barely avoided falling back down the stairs in her haste to turn around and face the speaker. “N-nothing at all!” She laughed nervously and tried to smile at the older lady, but the expression came off completely wrong. “Er, good evening, Mitsuo-san…”

 

“Good evening.” She returned automatically, though polite greetings were obviously the last thing on her mind if the expression on her face was any indication. From her place on the landing below the one that Kagome was standing on, Mitsuo-san was peering up at the younger girl with a suspicious gleam in her eyes. “Are you feeling alright, Kagome-san? You seem a bit upset…”

 

“Oh, I'm fine!” Kagome responded so brightly that it sounded false, even to her own ears. “I'm just…looking for something I might have dropped the other day!”

 

The elderly lady was obviously was sharper than she appeared, and didn't believe that excuse for a moment. “In the middle of the night, dear?”

 

 Kagome resisted the urge to wince. “Um, well, it was something really important and I just couldn't sleep until I found it…”

 

Mitsuo-san nodded in a show of sympathy. “You poor thing. It must have been something very special indeed for you to lose sleep over it. Was it something your hanyou lover gave you?”

 

Kagome started choking, but tried to cover it up with a cough until she had enough control back to actually respond. “No, no! Nothing like that.” She waved her hands in an almost frantic gesture of denial. “And he isn't my…uh…lover…he's just a good friend! That's all.” By the time she was finished, her face was glowing a deep red, and Kagome wanted to turn and bang her head against the wall next to her at the knowing smile that appeared on the older lady's face.

 

“That's really too bad, my dear. You two would make such a lovely couple!”

 

“Yes…well…” Uncomfortable with the way the conversation was headed, Kagome quickly searched her mind for a good way to change the subject. “Oh, I didn't ask! What are you doing up and about at this hour?”

 

Mitsuo-san smiled. “Oh, you know. These old bones just won't let me sleep sometimes, so I decided to walk about a bit until I could settle down.”

This time it was Kagome's turn to see through an obvious lie, though of course she couldn't say anything about it. She just attempted to look sympathetic. “It must be very rough on you, not being able to sleep-“

 

“Oi!”

 

Once again, Kagome nearly fell down the stairs after being startled by a voice behind her, but this time a clawed hand was there to catch her.

 

“What the hell are you standing around out here for?” Inuyasha grumbled, still holding onto a shocked Kagome's arm.

 

“I-Inuyasha!” She stood staring at him several moments as she tried to gather her wits, and finally managed to find the presence of mind to pull her arm away from him. Or at least she tried to, but he wouldn't let go and she couldn't do anything about it without making a fuss in front of their audience. Kagome made a mental note to kill him later when they were alone… “What are you doing out here?”

 

“Keh! Looking for you, of course!” Inuyasha smirked as a dark look crossed her face, promising retribution. “I've been waiting for your ass so long that I finally got sick of it and decided to come find you!” He knew perfectly well that she was trying to hide the fact that she was headed to visit him from the old lady, but he didn't care anymore.  Let the old hag tell Miroku! Kagome deserved it after the `good friend' comment he'd heard her make a few minutes earlier.

 

“Oh, ho, so he's been waiting on you, has he?” The gleam in her eyes was back stronger than ever, and Kagome just wanted to find a hole in the ground and never come out. “I'm so terribly sorry! I certainly didn't mean to keep you from each other! I'll just go on about my business while you two go have fun. Good night, my dears!”

 

Before Kagome could even begin to protest, Inuyasha was dragging her by the arm towards his apartment door.

 

“You jerk!” She hissed as quietly as she could, well aware of how easily they could still be overheard. “Why did you have to go and do that!?! If you'd just been a little more patient, I might have actually been able to keep her for realizing anything!”

 

Inuyasha pulled her into the apartment and shut the door behind him. “Keh. Yeah right. Keep believing that if you want.”

 

He was right, of course, but that didn't mean Kagome had to admit it. Instead she just huffed and stalked over to the sofa where she made herself comfortable for their `talk'. “So…what was so important that you asked me to come see you in the middle of the night?” She crossed her arms over her chest and shot him a pointed glare.

 

Like magic, that one little question caused Inuyasha's cocky attitude to vanish, and in its place was his usual gruff awkwardness that always came out whenever he had to talk about anything remotely personal. It would have been amusing to Kagome under any other circumstances. Well, maybe it was still a tiny bit amusing...

 

She barely resisted the urge to smile over his fidgeting like a guilty five-year-old. “You can get started any time now, you know…”

 

Finally, with a defeated sigh, he plopped down on the sofa next to her and crossed his arms in a position similar to hers. He appeared almost sulky, as if she were the one that had set up their little meeting and was forcing him to talk, not the other way around. “I wanted to talk to you because I guess I owe you some explanations.” He finally muttered.

 

She raised her eyebrows at him. “And this was important enough that you had to drag me out of my comfortable bed in the middle of the night? Couldn't it have waited until morning?”

 

He shot her a glare as if she were being unreasonably difficult. “Keh! It couldn't wait because if I don't do it now, I'll probably never do it, okay!?”

 

“Well, then do it and quit beating around the bush!”

 

"I would if you'd quit yelling at me!"

 

"I'm not yelling!"

 

"Like hell you aren't!"

 

“Okay, fine! I'll quit yelling, if YOU stop yelling.”

 

“It's about damn time!"

 

If anyone were able to watch them as they fought, the scene would have been quite comical. Both sitting side by side on the sofa in a very comfortable, companionable manner, but with arms crossed and impressive glares directed at one another across the small distance that separated them.

 

The moment was ruined, though, when Kagome's eyes suddenly widened, and she immediately backed off.

 

“What's wrong?” Inuyasha questioned, sidetracked and puzzled at her sudden withdrawal from the argument.

 

Kagome cringed and glanced at his bedroom door. “I hope we didn't wake Rin up…”

 

His eyes widened as well, and he immediately focused his excellent hearing on the little girl in the next room, attempting to detect any signs that she might have woken up during the argument. But after several moments he relaxed, realizing that her steady breathing was the only sound coming from his room. “She's not awake, so don't worry about it.”

 

“Oh. Okay.”

 

Dead silence.

 

Once again they were back at square one, with Inuyasha not knowing where to begin and Kagome not knowing what to do with the exasperating, emotionally constipated hanyou sitting next to her. And if anything, the awkwardness was worse than before! Perhaps they were better off fighting…?

 

Or perhaps she should just give him a little push.

 

“Okay, if you aren't going to say what you want to say, then I'm leaving!” She threw up her arms in a gesture of surrender before pushing herself up and off the couch. This caused Inuyasha to stare at her retreating form in a near panic. “I don't see why I should stay here if all your going to do is sit around like a coward and twiddle your thumbs-“

 

Her rant was cut off suddenly by a very surprising move on Inuyasha's part, and the next thing Kagome knew, she was practically sitting in his lap, her nose smashed uncomfortably against his chest and two strong arms wrapped around her in an almost desperate fashion. Instead of fighting, Kagome could only sit there in a stunned silence, too surprised at his sudden forwardness to do anything but wait to see what he would do or say next.

 

“Dammit, just shut up and let me think for a minute!” He grumbled into her hair.

 

And so that was how they spent several strangely comfortable minutes. Kagome had turned to lay her cheek against his chest, and Inuyasha had his nose buried in Kagome's hair, breathing deeply and trying to gather his thoughts.

 

She was almost disappointed when he finally broke the silence.

 

“I want to tell you about my family, but it's so damn hard. I don't mean to be such an ass, but I've kept everything to myself for so long that it's hard to do anything else.” He tightened his arms around her. “Even though I'm such an idiot, and I probably don't deserve anymore patience, will you still stay and listen?”

 

Kagome could sense how vulnerable Inuyasha was at the moment, and in response she worked one arm free and wrapped it around the back of his neck in a half hug. “Of course I will. You know I couldn't walk away from you right now, even if I wanted to.”

 

As dense as Inuyasha could be, he still understood that she didn't just mean that she couldn't get up because he was holding her in place, and the heavy weight in his chest lifted just a bit. Maybe it would be a good thing to finally tell someone else about his mother, about the reason he still felt such a crushing guilt after all this time. He knew she wouldn't hate him for it. This was Kagome, and he trusted her more than he'd ever trusted anyone.

 

And that was just one of the many reasons why he loved her so much.

 

After spending another few minutes gathering his thoughts, Inuyasha began his story.

 

“When we were kids, that bastard Sesshoumaru always liked making my life a living hell…” Kagome froze, shocked that he had actually started talking for once. He didn't seem to notice her reaction, though, because he was already wrapped up in his memories. “Every chance he got, he would throw the fact that I was a hanyou, that I was tainted and imperfect, in my face. He never hesitated to point out that I would never live up to our family name, and that I didn't deserve a place with them.”

 

“That's awful.” She whispered into his shirt before pulling back to look at his face. “How could someone act like that towards their own sibling?”

 

“Keh.” Inuyasha laughed, but the sound wasn't happy in the least. “If you knew him, you wouldn't doubt it for a second. He's always been cold hearted and completely wrapped up in himself. The only times he would have anything to do with me at all was when he tormented me.”

 

Kagome remained quiet, suddenly understanding that even though the way Sesshoumaru had treated him as a child must have hurt him, his older brother wasn't the source of Inuyasha's misery. After all, he'd never had a problem verbalizing his feelings about Sesshoumaru, so his story must be leading up to something else entirely.

 

“My father always felt the need to play the referee between us in an effort to keep some kind of peace in the house. He never took sides, though he still did what he could to keep Sesshoumaru from terrorizing me too much. But more often than not, repairing whatever damage that had been done by my bastard brother was left up to my mother.” He paused, and Kagome could tell that he was starting to get uncomfortable. “No matter what my brother told me, no matter how rotten and worthless he made me feel, my mother was always there to remind me that there was at least one person that loved me unconditionally. She was the one person that I could always run to whenever I was upset, and I knew she wouldn't judge me or call me a worthless hanyou.”

 

The pain in his voice and face was unmistakable now, and when he fell silent Kagome placed a gentle hand on the side of his face. The gesture seemed to renew his determination.

 

“My mother was my world, and I always took comfort in the fact that she loved me more than anyone, except for my father. And it never occurred to me that I might ever have to share her attention with anyone else, so the day she told me…she told me that…” He swallowed hard. “The day that she told me she was pregnant again, I lost it. I felt betrayed. It was as if she'd decided to replace me.”

 

"Oh, Inuyasha..."

 

The sympathy and understanding those two simple words held was almost too much for him, but somehow he still managed to keep going, wanting to tell her everything.

 

"I know it was stupid of me, but at the time it was like everything bad Sesshoumaru had ever said about me had suddenly come true. I was worthless, tainted, and unwanted. So of course my mother would want another child. Someone better than me." Inuyasha stopped to take a deep breath, more hesitant than ever to continue because to do so would mean telling Kagome about one of the most horrible things he'd ever done. Turning his head to avoid looking her in the eyes, he plunged in before he could lose his nerve. "After that day, I never saw or spoke to my mother again."

 

Kagome was, to put it mildly, shocked. Out of all the scenarios that had gone through her mind as he was speaking, that was certainly not one of them. How could he have possibly just cut off all ties with his own mother over something so small? It was a ridiculous thing to completely avoid one's parent over, especially a parent you love so much. Surely he would have given in and spoken to her again eventually! It would have taken a while, she knew, but even someone as stubborn as Inuyasha couldn't hold out forever...

 

Forever.

 

No one really has forever, do they? In fact, sometimes the amount of time you have may be shorter than you realize...

 

As Kagome considered this, slowly, piece by piece, the puzzle that was Inuyasha's past started to come together in her mind. And as she finally understood the full magnitude of what must have happened to cause him to live with so much pain and guilt, Kagome began to cry.

 

Now it was Inuyasha's turn to be shocked as well as confused. Just moments ago he had been fully prepared for her to yell at him, call him an insensitive jerk, maybe even knock him upside the head a few good times...but CRY? What had he done to make her cry?!?!

 

"O-Oi, Kagome!" He stared at her with wide eyes and gently touched her shoulder with one clawed hand. "What's wrong?"

 

In response, Kagome threw her other arm around his neck to join the one that was already there in a chokingly tight hug and began to cry harder.

 

At that point Inuyasha completely forgot about what he had been talking about and focused instead on the crying girl in his arms. He was in a near panic over not knowing what set her off. "Oi, whatever I did or said, I didn't mean it, okay?!? You can hit me or yell at me, whatever you want, just stop crying and tell me what's wrong!"

 

In the midst of her crying, Kagome let out a hiccupping laugh while still hugging him tightly around the neck. "Y-You didn't do a-anything, you dufus! I'm crying b-because of what happened to y-you!"

 

"Huh?" Though her speech was a bit muffled and jumbled, Inuyasha still managed to understand what she was saying, and while it decreased his panic, it increased his confusion. "What do you mean 'what happened to me'? I was the idiot that left and refused to talk to my own mother..." His ears flattened as he suddenly recalled where he had left off.

 

Sitting up and releasing her death grip on his neck, Kagome wiped her eyes with her sleeve and made a valiant attempt to pull herself together. Once she was satisfied, her serious, though still slightly watery eyes focused on his. "Inuyasha...what happened after you left? I'm pretty sure I know, but please, I want you to finish your story anyway so that I can hear it in your own words."

 

Mystified by her request, Inuyasha hesitantly complied. "When I left that day, somewhere deep down I knew that I was being unreasonable, but I didn't want to admit it, even to myself. So to keep myself from thinking about it, I kept pushing away everything that reminded me of my mother. I had nothing to do with any of my family. She tried calling me several times and would write me letters, but I never responded. Instead I threw myself into my new job, and before I knew it, months had passed." Inuyasha stopped for a moment to smile slightly at Kagome, who had, it seemed, taken his hand and threaded her fingers with his without even realizing she'd done it.

 

"What happened then, Inuyasha?" Her soft question made the smile slip from his face.

 

"I...got a call, about six months after I'd left home. It was the middle of the night, and I was working the late shift at my job. The call was from my father...he wanted me to come to the hospital, because my mother was going into labor a bit too early, though not by much. But I refused to go." At this point Inuyasha's voice became rougher. "Several hours later it was almost time for me to take off when another call came. This time it was Sess. He...he told me my mother was dying from unexpected complications. The baby was already gone."

 

Inuyasha held Kagome more tightly, as if he were afraid she would leave after hearing what he'd done. But instead of moving to leave, she just settled more comfortably against him while rubbing a hand in soothing circles on his back.

 

"I tried to get there in time. I REALLY tried! But by the time I made it there, it was already too late. She died thinking I hated her..."

 

At this Kagome pulled back and stared at his incredulously. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

 

He stared back at her. "What else was she supposed to think with the way I acted?"

 

"I think she knew that no matter what, you loved her more than anyone else. Because if what you said is true about how your relationship was before that, nothing could truly break it. Not even an extended bout of stubbornness." Kagome took his face in her hands and pulled it down until they were nearly nose to nose. "You can regret not getting to see her again before she died, and you can regret your actions because it is only natural. But you shouldn't ever, EVER doubt your mother! Don't discredit her feelings for you by thinking that she would ever believe that, even for a second!"

 

The two stared intently into each other's eyes for several moments. Kagome's gaze was fierce as she tried to tell Inuyasha what she was sure his mother would have wanted him to hear, and he could only gaze back with amazement into her fiery eyes.

 

Kagome.

 

She was so much like his mother in so many ways. Loyal, caring, compassionate, understanding...if anyone could truly understand how his mother might have felt, she would. And hearing her say these things to him had an effect that no one else would have been able to achieve: For once he actually listened.

 

Not to say that he could ever forget his past or completely forgive himself, but perhaps he could finally move on and find happiness with someone that could be just as special to him as his mother had been, if not more so.

 

'And no matter what,' Inuyasha silently swore to himself 'I will never, EVER again make the same mistake. I won't waste any more time that I could be spending with the person I love. And there is no better time that now to make that decision a reality...'

 

Before Kagome could realize what was happening, Inuyasha moved in and sealed his silent vow with a kiss.

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Done! Aren't you guys proud of me? I wrote something serious and it is probably the longest chapter in the story! So now I just need to concentrate on writing part of the next chapter, and an even smaller part of the next one, and this story will be complete. I'm so sorry that it has taken me so long to get to this point, but hey, like they say, good things come to those who wait. (Yes, I'm in a corny, silly mood) Til' next chapter!