InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sachi ❯ Perpetual Check ( Chapter 17 )

Chapter 17: Perpetual Check

It was very, very late by the time Miroku finally returned to the Sachi—so late it was almost early. He was tired as he made his way around the side of the building, hunched against the cold, trudging through the snow with a heavy tread, and in an inexplicably bad mood. He shouldn't have been, not after what could arguably be described as one of the best sexual experiences of his life; he should have been whistling, lighthearted, content with his life in general—and he had been, until his lovely and mysterious partner shook him awake to kick him out of her hotel room. Oh, she'd done it pleasantly enough, with teasing suggestions and sultry kisses that didn't ruin the mood they'd maintained throughout the evening, but she had kicked him out.

It shouldn't have bothered him more than the usual regret at well-spent time coming to an end, but it did. He kept going back over the afternoon in his mind, the laughter, the sighs, the short stretches of talk interspersed with longer stretches of self-indulgence, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force it into the normal box of “casual pleasure”. She'd fallen asleep in his arms; she'd trusted him with secrets hidden deep inside her, and then he'd done the same, the progression so natural he almost hadn't realized he'd done it. Miroku had had his fair share of “casual pleasure”; from the moment she'd pulled him into her room, there had been nothing casual about the pleasure they'd shared. He had the feeling she'd sensed it too, so her cheerfully packing him off chafed at a deep level.

She'd never answered his question about leaving, either.

One of the best experiences of his life all right; it had left him with a strange, twisted feeling in his gut, as if he'd held something of irreplaceable beauty and value in his hands only to watch it slip through his fingers and shatter across the floor. As he stepped from the porch into the latent warmth of the kitchen and kicked off his dirty boots, he was in no mood for polite company.

“Hey. Guess you're still alive after all.”

For impolite company, either.

Miroku sighed and set his boots in their appropriate cubby by the door, then slipped on house slippers before he looked up to see InuYasha standing on the other side of the kitchen, arms crossed and shoulder propped against the edge of the doors opening into the hallway. Kagome had left the light over the stove on, as she usually did, and in the soft yellow light InuYasha's golden eyes gleamed. But he wasn't scowling, as Miroku had expected him to be. He had a peculiar frown on his face, as if he were puzzling out an oddity.

“You doubted me?” Miroku shoved his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “You're up late tonight.”

A grunt. “Couldn't sleep. Heard you drive in.”

“Oh? Worried about something?”

“You mean something other than my manager up and vanishing with the truck for a whole fucking day, leaving the rest of us to deal with a VIP old man that always smells like tobacco and medicine?”

“Ah...Tanaka-san,” Miroku said, his tone awed as he realized he hadn't spared one thought for one of the Sachi's most regular (and wealthiest) guests all evening. An uncharacteristic slip, and one that should have bothered him, but he waved it off with fatalistic shrug. “I'm certain you managed, but if you didn't, I'll see to the matter tomorrow.”

“The old man is fine. He's got some kind of crush on Kaede, so he almost didn't notice you were gone.” InuYasha's ears twitched. “That still doesn't mean you can just disappear without saying shit to me.”

Miroku was not particularly in the mood for a lecture from him. “Special circumstances.”

InuYasha snorted. “Yeah, I can smell your 'special circumstances'.” He paused, and his frown darkened, his attention focusing like a laser on Miroku. “Since that's not Koharu, I'm guessing you spent all this time with that tourist you've been chasing?”

So, he'd been with Sango enough over the past couple of weeks for InuYasha to take special note of her scent. Annoyance licked along his spine; damn that nose of his, anyway. Miroku had to make a conscious effort to keep his tone casual. “Since when do you take an interest in the women with whom I spend my free time?”

Another snort. “I'm just making sure. Paying special attention to strange women has gotten you into trouble before, and this time you could drag us all down with you.”

Miroku rubbed a finger along his brow, a conscious effort to keep it from ticking. He could feel his temper fraying, like the repeated sawing of a rope over a sharp edge. “That was once—and that poor, beautiful soul really did need help. Besides, this woman isn't a youkai, nor is she possessed by one.”

Skepticism flared briefly in InuYasha's eyes, but they remained steady, probing. “Yeah? Who is she, then?”

Someone who had fallen asleep in his arms with a vulnerability that her guarded demeanor and strength would never hint at. Someone who had kissed, licked, and studied the damage in his right hand, but who had never once asked him to explain it or made him feel the need to justify it with some white-washed story. “Never mind who she is.” Never mind that he wasn't all that sure himself. “It doesn't matter.”

InuYasha was watching him as if he knew something that Miroku didn't; it was a foreign look, disturbing in its rarity. “Why not?”

Still in his jacket pocket, his hands clenched around a resurgent feeling of loss. “Because today was her goodbye present.”

InuYasha's black brows shot up. “You're not seeing her again? But—”

Miroku was done talking about what he didn't want to talk about; it was the grumpy hanyou's turn. “This worry that's keeping you up. Does it have anything to do with Kagome asking us about Kikyou this morning?”

With a jerk of his body, a snap of his teeth, and a gulping sound, InuYasha shut up. Even in the dim light, he looked vaguely ill, as if he'd just eaten something slimy and decaying.

Don't have much to say now, do you? Miroku thought, taking a few steps toward his friend (who stood right in the path to his room and his bed) now that he was on much firmer territory. “Now, where, I wonder, did she hear that name?”

The frown morphed into a anger-laden scowl. Those golden eyes flitted away from his. “That's....” Guilt sulked across his features. “You didn't tell her anything.”

Miroku contemplated being insulted by that for a moment, but decided it was fair, given the way things had been going since Kagome had interrupted their routine. “No,” he said. “But that doesn't mean she's going to just give up. Kaede told her to get the story from you.” He paused. “She thinks its a good thing you talked about her.”

InuYasha's jaw clenched defensively. “I didn't. It...slipped.”

Slipped? Oh, yes, Miroku could imagine—had, in fact, especially when the kitchen door had remained shut tight for almost an hour after the Hidaka incident, and the pointed way the two had avoided even looking at each other for almost a day after that. He took a few more steps, skimmed his fingers along the table's edge. “Got carried away, did you?”

The ears at the top of his head flicked once, hard. He still wouldn't meet Miroku's keen gaze. “I didn't mean to—I was just trying to...stop.”

As sure a confirmation of his suspicions as Miroku would ever get, but this one had him taking a few mental steps back in surprise. He stopped moving at the edge of the table, a few feet away from the doorway, studying the hanyou still blocking his way out. InuYasha had uttered Kikyou's name, for the first time since they'd left Tokyo, as a deterrent to passion? The irony here was delicious, but it was the potential truth behind it that snagged his interest. “Did it work?”

InuYasha remained silent, but his quick, panicked glance was answer enough; it might have worked, but only just.

A few more strands frayed away from the considerable rope of his temper. Kikyou and that whole terrible mess was finally losing its stranglehold on him (to Miroku's mind, a Very Good Thing), and the moron was fighting it. Fate had dropped into InuYasha's lap a beautiful, kind-hearted woman who cared for him, was willing (possibly even eager) to indulge in the more pleasurable aspects of a relationship, and whose company so thoroughly engaged him that he didn't seem to remember or mind the circumstances that had brought him to the Sachi. And he wanted her enough, despite all the potential dangers, that he had to keep taking emergency measures to keep himself away from her.

What they had here was a perpetual check, one where not only did InuYasha hold the weaker position, but any move other than the one he'd been making would change the entire game. Usually, Miroku would sit back and enjoy the entertainment value of the situation, but tonight he felt only irritation. InuYasha didn't have to chase Kagome, wonder what she was thinking and feeling...worry that she'd leave before they could figure out what they had. But for some reason—guilt, a misplaced sense of duty, even fear—he was throwing up every block he could think of to keep himself from taking hold of this potential happiness. He was being handed something valuable and beautiful on a silver platter—and he wasn't even going to pick it up.

The ungrateful bastard.

The problem with perpetual check, Miroku thought with grim satisfaction, is that it's against the rules in shogi. And rule violation earns you a penalty. “In case you haven't figured it out, this is a problem. If Kagome happens to mention her curiosity to the wrong guest, someone who remembers or followed the situation, it could bring unwanted attention our way. And since this is a problem of your making, you're going to have to be the one to fix it.”

InuYasha's head whipped around, and his body straightened out of its casual slump. “Fix it! How the hell do you think I should fix it? It's not like I can go back and unsay it. And why would she mention it to a guest anyway? She doesn't know anything about Kikyou, so—”

“She knows Kikyou was important to you,” Miroku cut in, quietly. InuYasha winced and looked away. “It was obvious from the way she asked about her. And since you were idiotic enough to 'slip' in what is most certainly the worst situation to utter an ex-girlfriend's name, you hurt Kagome's feelings. It's not something she's likely to dismiss or forget.”

InuYasha slammed his arm against the door frame, curled his claws into the (thankfully) sturdy wood. “I didn't mean to,” he said, voice rough and low. “But I don't know how to fix it.”

Miroku stared at him for long moment, eyes dark, feeling more sympathetic to Kagome than he did to his best friend. He drew a deep breath, shoring his patience. “Fine. I'm going to tell you what to do. You're an idiot, so you won't do it, but at least you'll know I tried to help.”

He had InuYasha's attention again, a glare and a quick-tempered snarl. “Listen, you—”

“Tell Kagome everything.”

Shock pulled InuYasha up short, and he just stared at Miroku, mouth open.

“Tell her about Kikyou, Shippou, about our lives before Sachi, how we ended up in Hokkaido—hell, tell her about Naraku. Answer all of her questions, and don't lie to her, because you're terrible at it. Tell her everything she wants to know until she understands why we don't talk about it.” Miroku paused, eyeing the way his friend's expression was morphing from shocked into mulish resistance. He waited for InuYasha's mouth to open for the mandatory rejection, then cut him off. “And then, after she decides she's okay with being with a known murderer, move her into your room.”

“What!?”

Miroku's smile was an unforgiving reflection of his mood. “Everyone else will be happier, and she'll be warmer. The room we gave her is one of the coldest in the Sachi, you know.”

“It is not! That room—that's not the point!” InuYasha snapped back, sputtering. “We can't just.... Besides, that's none of your—the hell! I can't!” The wood beneath his hand cracked ominously.

Wry amusement turned Miroku's grim smile into a grin as he zeroed in on the objection that most interested him. “You can't? I doubt that. If that were the case, we wouldn't even be having this conversation because 'slipping' wouldn't be an issue.”

“You fucking bastard! You know that's not what I meant! I can't tell her about Kikyou! She might—” This time he cut himself off, his jaw clamping tight.

“What are you afraid of? That once she hears the whole story, you'll have nothing left to protect you from her?”

“Don't be stupid.” InuYasha pressed his thumb and fingers against his eyes for a moment; when they dropped away, and his eyes were hard, implacable. “I'm supposed to be protecting everyone. If what happened with Kikyou happens again, I might not be able to.”

Miroku's first inclination was to dismiss it as an excuse. But Miroku, more than anyone, knew how much Kikyou's betrayal had hurt InuYasha, because he'd been there to see it and had suffered along with him because of it. Her death and everything related to it had left a terrible wound, one that hadn't seemed to be healing properly until Kagome came along. As hard as it was for Miroku to believe the Kagome would, or even could, rip that wound open again, the suffering that would ensue if she did would affect all of them, not just InuYasha.

It was a gamble, yes, but not an unreasonable one, and the payoff had the potential to be quite significant. InuYasha might suffer in the future, but he was suffering now, too, and as long-lived youkai often forgot, life didn't deal in guarantees—all anyone could do was make the best play possible with the information available. As far as Miroku was concerned the current evidence was not in favor of InuYasha's position. Besides, Miroku had always been firmly of the opinion that suffering should only be engaged in if there were no other alternatives.

And, without hard evidence to the contrary, he didn't consider suffering in want of a woman to be a viable alternative to not suffering with her.

He sighed again, then studied the ceiling thoughtfully. “You're right. We can't trust her. We'll have to kick her out, then, move her along before she figures out anything more serious.” Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the way InuYasha's head jerked up. “I'll get get some cash together, and we can drop her off with the local authorities tomor—”

InuYasha's claws twisted into the collar of Miroku's jacket, choking off the rest of his words, along with his breath. His words tumbled out, barely discernible through a rough growl. “Are you crazy? You're not throwing her out!”

Slowly, Miroku let his gaze drop to meet InuYasha's, the gold narrowed and darkened to furious amber. The last few threads of his temper snapped. “It's the only safe and sensible thing to do, isn't it? After all, we still don't know anything about her—”

“We can't kick her out because of that!” Outrage.

“—and she's threatening us all with exposure—”

“She's never threatened anybody!” Indignation.

“—and she's nothing more than a glorified guest, anyway. Guests always leave, so we should hurry her—”

“She has nowhere else to go, you son-of-a-bitch!” Protectiveness.

“But Kagome probably doesn't even need our help. Imagine, with her body and sweet personality, she'll have men falling all over themselves to—”

Hands tightening, thinning his air supply. A vicious snarl. Jealousy as sound.

Miroku fought the urge to wheeze and kept going. “Besides, it must be terrible for you, being reminded of Kikyou every time you see—”

“Kagome's nothing like Kikyou!” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, shock chased away his rage. His eyes widened, and his grip on Miroku's clothes loosened. “Shit. You bastard.”

After a few deep, unobstructed breaths, Miroku reached up and pushed InuYasha's unresisting hands away. “I don't think she is, either,” he agreed. “So maybe we should stop treating her as if we expect her to be.”

InuYasha looked away, lips curled in a sulk. “Just because she's staying doesn't mean we can trust her.”

But Miroku knew from the disgruntled look on InuYasha's face that he'd made his point. “So don't trust her. Just tell her enough to satisfy the curiosity that you stirred up, and we'll all keep an eye on her. If you want to continue torturing yourself, that's your prerogative, but for the peace of mind of all the rest of us, you should at least tell her about Kikyou—now that she's heard the name and knows she was important, it's better for her to know than to wonder. At the very worst, she's an enemy and already knows what happened; if not, we'll still be safer with her understanding the whole story and acting accordingly.” Nor would it hurt InuYasha to get the last bit of puss out of that wound before it healed up completely; Miroku suspected that, if he'd just talk about it with her, Kagome would be able to draw out the important details, things the rest of them had never been able to reach.

Because, to InuYasha, Kagome was a beautiful and valuable thing, whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not.

“What about the asshole? Have they found anything yet?”

InuYasha's scowl was still more resistance than acceptance, and the abrupt change of subject meant he was done talking about it. Miroku hesitated, then let it go; he knew InuYasha was thinking it over and that was enough for the moment. Instead, he thought back to the response e-mail he'd gotten from Sesshoumaru's devoted little youkai assistant, who'd taken personal umbrage at his lack of respect for his lord and demanded a “less offensive” picture, and had to fight an unexpected grin. “Not yet, but that's to be expected. They don't have much to go on.” He'd sent them a picture of Kagome's necklace, too. Given the quality of the silver and the delicate craftsmanship, he'd thought it might provide a clue. “I'll let you know if and when they do.”

A grunt was the only thing InuYasha had to say about that.

Miroku shook out his sleeves, then frowned as he brushed at the small slices in the front of his jacket. “It's been far too eventful a day,” he said with finality, stepping around the still-scowling hanyou. “I'm going to bed. You figure out what you want to do about this, but you need to do something.”

Change the game, InuYasha.

“Nothing's changed from the day I brought her in, you know. We still don't know who she is, and we still don't know who left her for dead out there.”

“And she still needs our help because of it. After all, as long as she stays dead, no one will come looking to kill her, will they? Sound familiar?” Miroku paused in the doorway and turned to face InuYasha. “Besides, I think you're wrong. A few things have changed.”

InuYasha snorted. “Yeah, now she's figured out she's got the kind of power that can really hurt me.”

Miroku half-smiled, wondering if InuYasha even knew the meaning of the words “double entendre”. “I wasn't talking about her.”

InuYasha's brows twisted. “What, then?”

“Four.”

“Huh?”

“That's the number of times you said Kikyou's name within the last fifteen minutes. And it's almost as many years as it's been since the last time I heard you even acknowledge she existed.”

InuYasha looked so taken aback that any lingering resentment in Miroku's chest evaporated. Satisfied, he turned and left InuYasha to his thoughts.

*******************************************************

Miroku detoured for a hot bath, then went straight to his room, where he had every intention of collapsing into his bed. At the last moment, as his hand reached up to shut off the light overhead, a ghost of that clenching loss of the invaluable whispered through him. He hesitated, then went over to his desk and pulled out the phone that was tucked away behind some of the more important equipment. Cell phones were mostly useless in the mountains that nestled Sachi, since reception was spotty at best; they had a satphone that was reliable, but it was for emergencies only so they never used it. Instead, they'd run out a landline from Sounkyo, connected it to several strategic rooms within Sachi. There was a phone on the reception station, of course, but Miroku also had one in his room, since he often worked from there.

It was very, very late, so the clerk manning the front desk of the hotel sounded bored, but obliged him by looking up the room he requested. “You're in luck, sir. Suite one-ninety-three was just vacated about an hour ago. Would you like to reserve it?”

Miroku hung up, then sat there, staring down at his empty hands.

*******************************************************

Dawn was breaking, and Kagome paced in the kitchen. It had been a long, sleepless night for her, first sitting alone in her room, then laying in her pile of bedding, staring wide-eyed up into the dark; finally, after she'd had enough of the burning black silence, she'd adjourned to the kitchen (whose sign was rather oddly blank that morning, though a new sign next to the stove was labeled “comfort station”) for a little quiet contemplation in the light, and to wrap her cold hands around a steaming cup of tea. Anything to calm her raging thoughts.

The initial impact of Kikyou's picture had stunned her enough that she hadn't wanted to see anyone, so she'd tidied up like she'd told Shippou she would, then secluded herself in her room for the night. She'd taken a printout of the article and its picture with her, re-read it several times since; it was sitting in her pocket, burning her through her clothes. She'd read a few more of the articles before she'd left, but had only taken the one, and hadn't searched out any information beyond that. She didn't know why—maybe it felt wrong, sneaking around behind everyone's back to find information about them that they hadn't been willing to tell her themselves; maybe she'd just been afraid of what else she'd see. That first blow had knocked her down hard, and she hadn't quite recovered. The full weight of the implications hadn't dawned on her until late that night. It wasn't just InuYasha—Miroku and Kaede had obviously known about Kikyou, too. Had they been aware of the similarity from the very start? Had they all spent all this time looking at her but seeing someone else? It was a deeply unsettling feeling, as if the world she'd thought she'd known all this time had suddenly turned upside down and inside out.

Nothing had helped. Not only could she not reconcile that damn article, but she couldn't shake the horrifying fact that she was the spitting image of InuYasha's dead ex-girlfriend. The one he'd loved and supposedly killed. Even putting aside the disturbing and confusing pseudo-fact of murder, if she, Kagome, was nothing but a substitute....

That hurt. Her lungs ached with that tight, suffocated feeling, but her eyes were itchy and dry. It meant that everything she'd thought had been happening between them was a facade, a pleasant screen hiding the ugliness of a murky pond. All the quiet feelings that had been growing inside her, the heat in his eyes in those unguarded moments, the intensity she felt between them with every touch...it was all for someone else. She, Kagome, was someone else, but not really (because she didn't actually have an identity, did she?)—and for the first time since she'd opened her eyes and started making a life here, she felt it as a loss. She was no one, but she resembled InuYasha's important person so much that he couldn't help but give her affection in place of that other person.

She cringed away from the thought. No wonder he'd been pushing her away.

How did something like that even happen? How could she be sitting here, with almost the exact same features, the same powers, as a dead woman? And what kind of insane fate had placed her directly on the doorstep of the one person who'd been closer to that dead woman than anyone else? She didn't know, and she couldn't know, because the same fate had taken from her whatever ability she might have had to separate herself from the dead woman with a life of her own. Without that basic defense, it was almost as if she existed only as someone else's living ghost.

It was enough to have her sinking back into her chair, picking up her lukewarm tea and staring in miserable, horrified silence. She couldn't help but wonder what had really happened between InuYasha and Kikyou. She wondered if he ever really saw her, Kagome, with those eyes that were so good at making her skin tingle, or if it was always her, Kikyou. She wondered what was the right thing to do with this information now that she had it sitting so heavily inside her, weighing her down more because of what she didn't know than of what she did. She could just ask, she supposed, but would InuYasha bother to answer—and if he did, would she be able to take the truth, whatever it was?

And then she wondered if she didn't really belong in the Sachi after all.

*******************************************************

Even though she felt no closer to resolving all the questions running around in her head, dawn still meant the start of a new day, and the duties that went along with it. Kagome started the rice for breakfast, put on tea and coffee, and had already pulled out cooking supplies by the time that Kaede arrived down the path from the cabin with a surprise—a barely awake Shippou in tow. Kagome had recently worried aloud about the two of them being even so short a distance away with the nights getting colder and colder, but Miroku had assured her Kaede and Shippou would move into the Sachi for the most dangerous few months of winter; since they often didn't have any guests during that coldest part of the year, they always had plenty of room. The move would happen very soon now, but until then, Kaede stubbornly trekked her way through the early morning peace whenever she felt like helping with breakfast.

Kagome, calmed by the routine, had composed herself enough to return a wan “good morning” to Kaede's greeting. Shippou mumbled a slurred version of the same and did what he always did when he accompanied Kaede so early in the morning: he curled up on a small, unused portion of counter space somewhere near Kagome and dozed in the warmth and smell of cooking breakfast. Kagome knew Kaede had to have noticed her uncharacteristic quiet, but the older woman kept her counsel, and Kagome was grateful.

Since Tanaka-san was their only guest right now, and he had already warned her that he'd take his morning meal in his room, the only group they had to worry about feeding was the staff. They had everything set by the time Miroku made an appearance. He endured some good-natured teasing from both Shippou and Kaede, but Kagome thought his smile seemed strained. He also seemed more solemn and preoccupied than normal, as if he'd just heard some bad news and was having a tough time absorbing it. Kagome was worried, but left him alone out of empathy; whatever had happened, she felt a strange kinship with his struggle.

Kagome was standing at the stove, serving Shippou another helping of rice when InuYasha came in. She felt him enter; tension stiffened her back as she felt his eyes skim over her. Her hand froze mid-scoop, her heart jumping into her throat. Greetings from the table pulled his attention away from her and she drew a deep, fortifying breath, scooped up another bowl for InuYasha, and returned to the table. She kept her eyes fixed firmly away from him as she set his bowl down and handed Shippou his second helping. Praying that InuYasha would stick to his habit of the last few days of eating and leaving quickly, she bowed her head over her own bowl. She hadn't yet tied her hair back, and it fell over her shoulder, providing her with a wavy black pseudo-screen between them.

The article in her pocket prickled against her thigh, crinkled with every shift of her body. She picked at her food, afraid everyone could hear it. To her right, Shippou started telling Miroku about their evening with Tanaka-san, but it sounded oddly hollow and distant. To her left, InuYasha ate. Slowly. Even though she couldn't see him, not even out of the corner of her eye, she was so hyper attuned to him that she followed his movements with her entire body: every shift, every grumble, every quick glance in her direction. It made her chest ache.

He kept looking at her. She could sense it, his eyes flitting her way to hover thoughtfully for a moment before flicking away, only to return a few moments later. For the past two days, he'd been pretty much ignoring her, and now he wouldn't stop looking at her!

Because she didn't know how to take that, and because it still sent a shiver through her body, tied her stomach in those thrilled knots, made her skin tight and sensitive to be the focus of that much of his focus (Even though she couldn't be sure it was really her he was seeing!), she shoved up from her seat. Her heart was pounding so hard she had to swallow before she could speak. “I'm done,” she said, gathering her dishes.

Everyone stared at her. Shippou blinked. “But you hardly ate.”

She gave him a tight smile. “I'm not very hungry this morning.” The truth. The food she'd managed to ingest before InuYasha arrived felt like a cold lump of cardboard in her stomach.

“Oh.” Shippou looked concerned, but he eyed her food anyway. “Can I have what you're not eating?”

She handed him the remainder of her meal, then looked at Kaede. “I'm going to drop off Tanaka-san's tray, and then I thought I'd clean upstairs today. Is it okay if I leave this to you?”

Kaede was watching her with curious black eyes, but she nodded. “Shippou and I will take care of the cleaning.”

Kagome nodded her thanks, walked over to the stove to dish up Tanaka-san his portion of food along with a small, portable carafe of coffee, and turned to leave.

Came to an abrupt stop when she realized they were all still staring at her.

Against her will, her eyes touched on golden-hued ones, a mutual frowning, searching, studying. InuYasha was confused, worried, she could see that. They all were, but it was his concern that pricked at her conscience. She should just tell him, tell them all what her snooping had gotten her and let them be angry, get the air all cleared—even if that meant she'd no longer be welcome at Sachi. But it wasn't that fear (it was a small one, something she hadn't thought could happen until she realized they didn't trust her) that kept her mouth shut. It was the niggling possibility that if she pulled out that paper and asked all the questions that were burning inside her, InuYasha would tell her that the only thing he saw when he looked at her was a dead woman.

And then would that make her nothing but a dead woman?

She forced her gaze away from InuYasha's and blinked at Miroku. “Is something wrong?” Stiff. She sounded stiff, but she couldn't seem to help it.

“Ah,” Miroku's eyebrows shot upward. His gaze darted from her, to InuYasha and back again. “No? Unless you need help?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Finish your breakfast.” Then, knowing their eyes followed her, she left the kitchen with as much dignity as she could while still moving fast. Outside in the hallway, a new wooden sign greeted her, an arrow pointing the way to Tanaka-san's room with the words “Coward's Way” plopped mockingly above it.

She glared at the words as she blew by.

*******************************************************

Something was definitely wrong with Kagome; she was upset, and past experience dictated that it was going to have a negative affect on the whole place. InuYasha stared, baffled, disturbed, at the empty doorway she left in her wake. Then he turned to find every eye at the table focused on him, two parts purple and black inquiry and one part green-eyed accusation.

Oh, come on. Why was it always him?

He sat up straight, set his jaw defensively. “I didn't do anything.” New, he added silently under a stab of guilt.

“Besides what you've already done, of course,” Miroku said oh-so-helpfully. The bastard.

“Yeah!” Shippou jumped up so he was standing in his chair, a much better position from which to point. But the hand wavered as he shot a sidelong glance at Miroku. “What'd he already do?”

InuYasha scowled down at the little kitsune, irritation almost overwhelming his worry for Kagome. “None of your business.” He added up, at Miroku, “The last time I saw Kagome was last night at dinner, and she seemed fine. I didn't do anything.”

Kaede eyed him, her beady black gaze probing. “Kagome was rather quiet as we prepared the meal this morning. And she'd been cooking for a while when we came in, so she must have been up well before the sun. Whatever has upset her happened before that, I would say.”

Miroku frowned. “Who was the last person to see her?”

InuYasha thought for a moment, then narrowed his eyes onto the little red-haired demon who'd taken a sudden and intense interest in his food. “Didn't you say something about Kagome helping you with that shogi set?”

Shippou flinched.

“What shogi set?” Miroku asked, tone mild.

“The tournament one that Tanaka-san gave you,” Shippou said, eyes sparkling like miniature fireworks. “We played Tanaka-san with it last night. Kagome helped me get it, but she seemed all right when I...” Shippou frowned, “...left.”

“The shogi set that...you went digging around in my closet?” Miroku asked, tone still mild—stare, not so much. “You let her in my room?”

Shippou quailed a bit under Miroku's gaze, but InuYasha dismissed the issue with a wave of his hand. “The old man wanted to see it, and you weren't here,” he reminded him. “What's more important is what's got Kagome so upset.” He hadn't missed the way her back went up when he walked in, and her wariness of him had cut hard and deep. He deserved it since he'd been giving her the same treatment for the past couple of days, but it still hurt. It wasn't something he wanted to do, but it was necessary, especially after the way she'd melted into him after that whole stupid thing with that worthless bastard Hidaka.

Even InuYasha knew when he'd been an ass, and he'd done his best imitation of his brother that day. He'd hurt Kagome in more than one way; he hadn't needed Miroku to tell him that. But he'd had a damn good reason for leaving her, too.

Miroku thought he had what had happened that day in the kitchen all figured out, but if he asked for specifics, all he'd get was “a kiss”. InuYasha knew better—and so did Kagome. What had happened between them had been surrender, pure and simple. Hot, honest, pulse-pounding, body-humming, wave-the-white-flag-and-take-off-all-your-clothes surrender.

And the only thing that had stopped him was the memory of the last time he'd surrendered on such a deep level, of everything it had cost him.

That was why he'd been avoiding her. Because it was damn near impossible to walk back on surrender. It was a kind of hyper sensitivity; once you hit that tipping point, even if you somehow scrambled out once, all it took was a feather-touch, a soft nudge, to push you back over for good. Like a goddamned addict, he knew if he let himself stay too near her, it would only be a matter of time before they were both sweaty and naked in some secluded nook in Sachi. He could almost see it in his mind: the way her legs would wrap around his hips; the slick feel of her body closing around him; the rich, intoxicating scent of a female soaked with pleasure, just as it had been that day in the kitchen; the sounds she—

Furious, he snapped his hand into a tight fist, cutting off the thought and the growl that brewed in his chest along with it. He was the first to admit he wasn't very good at figuring out relationships, but one thing he knew for sure: his defenses when it came to Kagome were so flimsy it wouldn't take anything more than an unguarded moment for them to crumble. At this point, the draw of her was too strong; the want was that overwhelming.

And then everyone, all of them, would have to deal with the consequences, however harsh they had the potential of being. He couldn't risk putting everyone else in that kind of danger. He couldn't let himself be that vulnerable, not to her, not to anyone ever again.

But that left him at a loss. What the fuck was he supposed to do? It wasn't like he could keep avoiding Kagome forever. She lived with them, was important to all of them. Just look at how her moods affected all of Sachi. Look at how painfully it stung to have her treat him the way he'd been treating her.

Kagome is nothing like Kikyou!

InuYasha barely suppressed a cringe, gave his head a small shake. Holy damn, why couldn't Miroku stay the hell out of it? He just had to butt in and try to convince him the consequences wouldn't be that bad, didn't he?

“But,” Shippou was saying, “she ran away after you came in! We all saw it. It has to be you.”

They all looked at him again. He gritted his teeth, flicked an ear. “I. Didn't. Do. Anything.”

“Except mention Kikyou,” Miroku said, voice and expression a matching shade of dry.

Shippou's whole body twitched. His eyes got really wide. “Kikyou? Is that all?” He flopped back in his chair. “Well, that can't be it, then. She was fine when she asked me about—” He seemed to realize that he'd said too much, because he popped back up and onto the table, and reached out to gather his dishes. “Oh, look at that. I'm full, too. I'll just take these....”

Now the little guy was the one who had all eyes. Normally, InuYasha would be mentally gloating over the turn, but just then he had too many senses twitching with panic. He leaned over, clamped a hand around Shippou's fluffy tail before he could jump from the table, and lifted until his fox feet kicked at the air. He got right in the brat's face, his eyes dangerously narrow. “She asked you about Kikyou? When?”

Miroku sat forward. “No, no. More importantly, what did you tell her?”

Miroku had an odd look on his face, as if he heard something disturbing in the distance but couldn't quite make out what it was. It made InuYasha's ears itch when he looked like that.

“N...nothing? Because I'm not supposed to talk about it?”

Kaede broke her silence with a tired sigh. “Kikyou is a more delicate subject than you know, Shippou.”

Shippou bowed his head. “I know. But Kagome said InuYasha told her, so I thought she already knew about her being his girlfriend.”

InuYasha nearly choked.

Miroku's eyebrows went up. “Oh. That's bad timing.”

Kaede's eyes filled to brimming with amusement. The bitch. “From the mouth of a kitsune. How appropriate for Kagome to hear such a troubling truth from a natural trickster.”

Shippou's head came up. “But if Kikyou's been dead for—” He ended on a squeal as InuYasha's grip nearly cut off the blood supply to his tail.

His throat felt tight. “You told her that, too?”

Shippou hesitated, eyeing the way InuYasha's free hand fisted, opened, then fisted again, working at keeping some emotion at bay. “Uh...yeah....” He gulped, then shut his mouth.

InuYasha stood, unclenching his hand from around Shippou's pale puff; the little troublemaker hit the table with a plate-clattering thud. “What else did you tell her?” he growled.

“Hey! You didn't have to drop me!” Shippou sat up, rubbing at the red mark the table had left on his nose. He was scowling, but it slipped away as his eyes flitted from InuYasha's face, to his fist and back again, then rounded. He scooted back along the table, dislodging tableware and food. “N-nothing! I didn't tell her anything else! Absolutely nothing!”

Fine. That was bad enough. He couldn't even hit the brat in any fairness, because it was his fault Kagome had known to ask about her to begin with. About Kikyou. Fury bubbled in his chest with the hot force of molten rock.

Shit.

He didn't even know why he was so angry. Who cared if Kagome knew he had an ex-girlfriend who was now dead? Why would that upset her, anyway—everyone had an ex, right? It wasn't like she knew anything about the really bad stuff....

...like that last fight...her apartment...the handcuffs...the smell...

Blood. Everywhere.

He closed his eyes, pressed his thumb and fingers against his lids, trying to wipe the images away. He was remembering useless shit again. It was all useless, when there was nothing he could do to go back and change it, nothing he could do to make it right. All he could do was make sure it never happened again.

“I'm done,” he bit out without looking around. “If you need me, I'll be working outside today.” He couldn't, off the top of his head, think of anything that needed work since he'd finished with the roof, but the Sachi was an old bastard of a house. He'd find something.

******************************************************* < p>After InuYasha left, a few moments of silence dominated the kitchen. Miroku had his elbows braced on the table, arms propped hand-to-fist in front of him, a look of intense concentration on his face. Shippou shot a helpless, questioning look at Kaede, but she shook her head, waved him off.

Then Miroku sat back in his chair, amazement breaking like dawn across his face. “Shippou?” he asked in a calm, conversational tone. “You told Kagome that InuYasha was involved with Kikyou?”

“Y...yeah.”

“And then you told her Kikyou was dead?”

Shippou looked frightened. “Yeah...but she promised not to say anything to anyone. She promised.”

Miroku didn't miss the guilt on Shippou's face, but he just nodded. “And then you let her into my room?”

Shippou's brow wrinkled, and he stared suspiciously for a moment, as if sensing a trap. “Yeah, to get Tanaka-san's shogi set.”

Miroku continued nodding. “And was she alone with my computer for any amount of time?”

“Well....” Caution made Shippou dodgy. “Maybe a little. Why?”

“Because from what I can tell, Kagome wasn't truly upset until after you were in my room.” Miroku glanced at the closed doors that had spit InuYasha out into the day, torn between amused horror and real apprehension. “And she already knows we came from Tokyo.”

Shippou's face crunched in confusion for maybe half a second before the intelligence he'd inherited from his father asserted itself; realization spread across his face, widening his eyes before his shoulders slumped under the weight of the potential consequences. “Uh-oh.”

“Oh my,” Kaede said, drily. “You should be pleased, Miroku. Things may be about to get very interesting for all of us.”

“Most likely.” Miroku nodded, then shrugged. “No help for it. It was bound to happen eventually.”

Kaede, whose amused expression had only been growing more amused as the morning went on, lifted a brow. “Will you warn him?”

“Warn him,” Miroku murmured. “Why would I? That would just give him a chance to muster a defense.”

“Is that wise? Another incident like what happened before would destroy him.”

With a deep frown, Miroku sat back and folded his arms, his eyes turned inward. “Another incident like what happened before is likely to destroy us all. Naraku's not an enemy that makes the same mistake twice.”

Shippou's entire body jerked, trembled; his voice squeaked. “N-Naraku?”

Miroku ignored the kitsune and continued frowning for a moment before he drew a deep breath and sighed tiredly. “But sometimes you just have to wager on a good outcome.”

Kaede lifted both brows. “It's not like you to wager without favorable odds.”

“I know.” Miroku looked out the hallway, where Kagome had disappeared, then at the outside door, after InuYasha. “Maybe I just want to believe in Kagome.”

“You know,” said Shippou after a moment, scowling in a manner reminiscent of InuYasha. “I deserve to know everything that's going on like everyone else here does.”

Miroku affected a surprised look. “Why? So you can tell random strangers all of our life stories?”

Shippou gulped, then looked away. “Uh...maybe not.”

Miroku stood, stretched, and headed for the hallway. “Never mind—you're right. If we'd told you everything before, this wouldn't have happened. Finish helping Kaede, then come find me. I'll tell you about InuYasha and Kikyou.”

******************************************************* < p>After that quietly explosive breakfast, the day passed in relative mundanity.

Miroku spent most of the day with a jovial Tanaka-san, Kaede and Shippou cleaned the kitchen, then moved on to some of the common rooms downstairs, and Kagome spent her time secluded upstairs, dusting and scrubbing out rooms that hadn't been used for a while.

InuYasha spent his day outside, checking windows, weather stripping, old sections of wood, replacing anything that needed replacing (and at least one thing that didn't). And then, when he couldn't find anything else to fix or check, he spent several hours chopping up wood for the fireplace the boring and human way—with an ax. It was freezing outside, even for him, but it was better than enduring the silent expectation that practically oozed from the walls of the Sachi; it was as if the building itself were holding its breath, straining to see not if, not when, but which side of the status quo would crack first.

He managed to skip lunch entirely and barely made it back inside for dinner, where that old man Tanaka-san insisted on joining them for dinner in the kitchen (he didn't like the way the dining room echoed when it was empty, he said). With both Tanaka-san and Miroku at their most charming around the table, an easy-going facade glossed over dinner and kept most of them smiling.

But the ease was on the surface only, just solid enough to let them all pretend that nothing was wrong. Kaede flirted (and InuYasha gave an internal shudder at the sight) with their elderly guest, but kept a watchful eye on both InuYasha and Kagome. Shippou stayed cheerful, but was quieter than normal, and his worried peeks went mostly in Kagome's direction, while Miroku slid a measuring glance InuYasha's way every few minutes or so. It was a stupid fucking play, and all it did was put him in a bad mood because he knew they were all waiting, just like the damn house, expecting something to change before their eyes.

As for Kagome....

Kagome made him uneasy. She moved quietly, smiled gently at Tanaka-san's jokes, sat there as calm and undisturbed as if the whole world were fair and fine instead of screwed up and warped, but she never looked at him. He might as well not have been there for all she acknowledged him—but, strangely, he didn't think she was angry. It felt more like...she'd put up an invisible wall, one that held enough distance between them that he felt like a stranger. He should have been fine with it, because that stupid invisible barrier of hers was the most effective “hands off” reminder he'd ever had. Instead, ever since it had started, his predominant urge had been to break it, to put his fist through it and get her to be pissy with him again and quit treating him to this quiet fucking indifference.

And to top it off, he couldn't stop sensing her. When she dished up a happily flirting Tanaka-san an extra helping of meat, the whisper of her clothes against her skin made his ears twitch in an attempt to ignore the sound. She turned her head to smile at Shippou's question, and his eyes narrowed on, glared at, went without his permission to the curve of her mouth. She shifted in her seat, changed her breathing, sipped her fucking tea, and he caught it. Her scent was everywhere, dulling every other scent, tainting his food., tying him up in damn knots. He was so fucking aware of her it was downright ridiculous.

And because he was so aware of her, he noticed something else: the pulse in her neck? The tiny throbbing beat that should have been slow and steady if she were really as calm as she appeared? It was going about ten times too fast.

And for some reason, the moment he noticed it, his heart sped up to match. His fingers strummed against his thigh; nervous energy crackled through him for no fucking reason, building a static charge in what felt like every cell in his body. It was almost as if he were expecting something to happen, too.

All she was doing was sitting there, smiling at everyone but him.

It was. Really. Pissing. Him. Off.

The further along dinner went, the more furious InuYasha grew. Kikyou had suddenly become an invisible, unspoken presence between them, and he was angry because it was his fault it had even come up. He was angry because he'd hurt her more than he'd thought, and even more so that he couldn't do anything to fix it without following Miroku's advice and putting all their secrets (and himself) at her mercy. Mostly, he was angry that he was sitting there, in a stupid chair, without even the right to be angry that she was smiling at everyone but him.

By the time dinner had ended, the conflict had built up under his skin, a slow simmer in his blood that he needed to work off. So, without a word to anyone he headed outside and ran. It was dark, and the air itself seemed icy and unforgiving, settling deep into his bones and chilling his brain, but he didn't stop, because it was still better than not knowing what the hell to do about Kagome.

It took him fifteen minutes and the gurgle of water to realize where his feet had dragged him. He slowed to a stop at almost exactly the place on the rocky edge of the stream where he'd found Kagome. The water was still moving, though the ice was spreading, growing like fuzzy white moss over the rocks, clumping in small nooks along the banks, and creeping out into the flow. It was well on its way to being completely frozen—as everything, even the waterfalls that sprinkled throughout the Daisetsuzan—would be within the next week or two. Downstream just a bit, the large rock slab that had kept Kagome from drowning thrust out of the water, a natural “fuck you”—insulting, indifferent, and layered with a heavy mix of snow and ice.

InuYasha scowled at it, presented it one of his fingers in return, then turned on his heel, the crunch of thick rubber soles on snow the only sound as he walked upstream, studying the mysterious stretch of water that had spit out a woman from nowhere.

Except she couldn't have come from nowhere. There was an answer out here, somewhere, and if he could just find it, just understand her and what had happened, he'd know what to do.

The narrow stretch of liquid widened as he followed it, strengthened and deepened as he got nearer the source. The water had carved its way through the trees and down the slope of a mountain; it only took a bit of climbing for him to reach its source, a large pool at the bottom of a high, steep-sided canyon, fed by the rush of a minor waterfall. Eyes narrow, he tipped his head back, studying the craggy walls, the way the land cut back and away high above, forming a broad, tree-choked shelf before the mountain continued its rise in the distance.

Something alien, a wisp of the out-of-place, slipped across his nose.

Unease kicked at his gut, and his head whipped around, trying to follow the scent, but it had vanished as lighting-quick as it had appeared. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and turned a slow circle, ears and nose alert to every detail of the quiet nature around him. For several minutes he did this, primed and ready to go after whatever the hell had just pricked his sense of danger, but the trace was as gone as if it had never been. With a subsonic growl, he prowled the bank, sniffing at the air, straining to hear anything unusual.

Nothing. Nothing dangerous or even mildly irregular anywhere, not even that hint of something out-of-place to chase down and investigate. He couldn't even say for sure that it had actually been there at all, because he couldn't recall anything about it, other than the sense of danger—a passing predator, maybe, or a stray brush of decaying prey.

This deep into the Daisetsuzan, it could have been anything or nothing.

Frustration piling onto frustration, he stopped. Still alert to possible threats, but without any other recourse, he turned his glare back to the canyon, the water, the doubts making his life so miserable right now.

The disquiet deep inside wouldn't go away—something was wrong here; he knew it, he just couldn't find it. Somewhere between the waterfall and the rock slab, Kagome had managed to get herself shot in the head and nearly frozen to death in icy water. And she had to have hit the water quickly after being shot, because otherwise she would have lost more blood, and he'd have caught her scent easily instead of just barely.

He took a three-quarter turn, eyes following the gentle way the trees sloped down and away from the canyon, to a hilly portion of the land that stretched out in every direction. It was a decent hike, especially for a human in a nightgown in near-freezing conditions, but Sounkyo lay somewhere beyond the waterfall. It wasn't impossible that she could have come from that direction. But—into the freezing night with virtually no protection—why the hell would she?

Son-of-a-bitch.

It was just so unbelievable, all of it. There were just too many things that might have gone wrong. It had been mere chance that he'd gone running that night, nothing but a whim that had brought him in this direction, and nothing more than a damn wisp of a barely-there breeze that had brought the scent of her blood his way in time to save her. She'd been half submerged in freezing water; if circumstances hadn't been exactly perfect, he'd never have found her at all, and she would have died. It strained all credulity to think that she was some kind of plant or spy.

But so did her powers, the similar features—though it had been a while since he'd thought of her in those terms. When he thought of Kagome, he thought of the warm drinks she always had ready for anyone who wanted it, the cheerful way she went about her daily routine, how much fun it could be to irritate her, and how much he hated really pissing her off. He thought about how boring life had become before her, and how much more interesting it was now, with her.

He thought about the dressing room, the kitchen, that night in the attic; about her tiny little room after midnight, the look of her all rumpled and sleepy, and how her mouth against his had seared all the way into his blood, and then never left. He thought about the addicting taste of her, the blood-churning pleasure of having her her skin smooth against his, and the incredible temptation to indulge in it—

Every. Single. Day.

When he thought of Kagome, he didn't think of betrayal, loss, and death.

His teeth ground together, the impact rolling through his jaw, and he turned away.

He had responsibilities. They were the only remnant he had of his old life in Tokyo, and they were no joke. Shippou was a strong, smart kid—he had to be to have survived what he had—but he was still a kid, and he needed protecting. Miroku had lost his whole life because of his loyalty to InuYasha, and Kaede.... He and Kaede had a special relationship, and his obligations to her weren't something InuYasha took lightly. They had all suffered some terrible losses, and they had finally found a measure of peace in the Sachi.

Kagome risked that peace. As bright as she made everything, she had the potential to tear down the lives they'd rebuilt, and possibly cost them those lives entirely. He couldn't trust her, no matter how much he wanted to.

No matter how much he wanted to.

Chest tight, scowl furious, he dug his boot into the snow and kicked, sending snow and twigs and dirt spraying across the bank and onto the iced-over water.

Where had she come from and why had she come here? Why had someone shot her? Where had the shooter gone? How could she be so similar to, and yet so very different from, a woman who had been dead for five years?

So many questions. Why did none of the answers seem as important as he knew they were?

*******************************************************

He walked back. The sun was long gone by the time he reached Sachi, and he was tired—more from his own inner conflict than from any physical demands he'd placed on himself. He hadn't been sleeping well for several days, and he was certain (and deeply grateful) he would manage to get some that night. So he went straight to his room.

He was sure. He went straight to his room.

That was why he was stunned so incredibly stupid when he slid the door open to find himself in one of the front common rooms, the snap and sizzle of a fire in the fireplace blasting warmth through the room. And there, curled up in one corner of the couch, arms hugging her knees as she stared into the blaze with a face so troubled he felt an irrational (and stupid) stirring of fury at the person who'd caused it, sat Kagome.

He blinked at her and glanced at the hallway behind him, confused and half-convinced he was seeing things until—her scent. Warm and rich, a tantalizing balm to his near-frozen senses; it was painful in the way that cold-numb skin is painful at contact with heat; it hit him first with a tingly all-over sting, but the sting faded away, leaving only that gut-twisting tingle. It was Kagome, all right, real and heady and alone in front of the fire. And so, apparently, was he.

Even though he knew he'd gone to his room.

God. Damn. House.

“InuYasha.” She turned her head to look at him, and the fire cast her face in light and shadows, both so soft they almost blended into each other. She hesitated, as if she wasn't sure what to say. “You're back.”

He grunted, mostly because he couldn't think of anything to say.

Kagome nodded as if he had, but she seemed distracted. Her eyes kept flitting away from him, down and to the side where she had one hand tucked behind a jean-clad thigh. “Are—are you cold? Would you like something hot to drink?”

“I went to the stream.”

That got her eyes on him. “Stream?”

He watched her closely. “Where I found you.”

She looked startled, but all she said was, “Oh.” She seemed at a loss. “Sometimes I forget.... Did you find anything?”

“No.”

Yes. I want to pretend the past doesn't exist. I want to trust you so bad it hurts.

He scowled, pushed the thought away. “You're sure you don't remember anything?”

A strange look crossed her face, and she glanced away. Her fingers curled against her leg. “No. I don't remember anything.”

InuYasha felt a stab of guilt, but couldn't figure out why. That rubbed him wrong, made his voice gruff. “Make sure you let me know if you do.”

“Is it so important? Remembering?”

She still had her face turned away, towards the fire, but her voice was strained, and her scent had shifted, taken on shades of tension and anxiety. His scowl darkened, and he was a few steps into the room before he realized he'd moved. With effort, he stopped. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Of course it's important. Someone tried to kill you. Knowing who and why makes it easier to protect you if they ever try again.”

“Protect me,” she murmured. She rested her chin on her knee and fixed her eyes on the floor. “And what if I never remember who I am? Are you okay with protecting someone who is no one?”

Irritation prickled across his skin like an unscratchable itch, and he stepped forward again, deliberately this time, and didn't stop until he'd dropped to a crouch directly into her line of sight.

Her skin was literally inches away. Her scent was everywhere around him, soft and seductive.

A spasm ran through his fingers, and he pushed his hands into the cushion on either side of her body, caught her dark gray eyes and forced her to focus on him. “Hey. Quit being stupid. Just because you don't remember your past doesn't make you no one. If you were no one, I wouldn't have to worry about protecting you.”

Her eyes flashed at him, and she unfolded, sat forward. Her bare feet slapped to the floor between them. Something—a piece of paper?—crackled in her hand. “Oh really? Who am I, then?”

On a deep, visceral level, he approved of the quick way she challenged him; it sparked an intoxicating rush of adrenaline, a wrenching in his gut. That slow, coiled tension in his muscles.

He ignored it all. “You're Kagome.”

She blinked in surprise, hesitated, then brushed her fingertips along the wide scoop of her collar. The fine silver of her necklace arrowed downward, disappearing beneath the oversized blue drape of a pullover sweater that somehow both hugged and hid her body, caressing her curves all the way down to the tops of her thighs. “But that...might not even be my real name.”

With a hard, uncomfortable swallow, InuYasha dragged his eyes from her body, up to gray eyes that seemed very dark and intent in the light-and-shadows from the fire. “And a name is what? Something someone else gives you? You still work hard. You still cook the same damn food, sleep in the same damn bed, and you still boss everyone around as if you own the damn place. Who gives a fuck what name you use while you're doing it? How does what we call you change one fucking thing about you?”

Kagome stared at him, her chest heaving just a little with each breath; the uneven cadence of it made his ears twitch. “But...you just said remembering is important.”

InuYasha's gaze dropped to her throat, where her blood beat frantically against the delicate skin.

Oh, hell.

His body went rigid, muscles straining beneath the shock of arousal. His fingers dug into the couch cushion. He felt hot, burning inside and out. Focusing on what he was saying was suddenly difficult—his words came out low and primal. “That's not what I fucking meant. Protecting you is important. Letting something as stupid as a name define you is just stupid.”

“Protecting me,” she said again, her voice breathy and soft, and this time it sounded like a request. Her hand dropped from her chest, down to grip the cushion, so close to his own that he felt the warmth of her skin—his fingers so close to her hip that it would take only a subtle shift to have the curve of it in his palm. A soft nudge to have her sliding over the side of the couch and into his lap. Thanks to the fire, the room was warm; he could take his time peeling that sweater away from those curves, savor each tremor and moan beneath his tongue, confident that none of them would be from the cold.

His eyes narrowed at her hip. His blood thrummed thick and heavy through his veins, so charged with anticipation—with possibilities—he could barely think.

“Then....” She eased herself forward, slid until she just hovered on the edge of the cushion.

Her breath on his lips. Her taste in his mouth.

“Am I still me when I remind you of someone else?”

She was so sincere, so hot, so close, that it took him several long moments to put meaning to words. And then he remembered what had happened the last time they'd been alone together, the reason they'd been behaving like painful strangers for the past few days.

Kikyou, he'd said.

Fuck.

A chill razed him, and he shot to his feet

With a gasp, Kagome sat back into the couch. Her eyes followed him up, wide and stricken with dismay.

InuYasha took a few unsteady steps backwards, away from her, but he couldn't get away from the heat in his own body. He couldn't forget, either, that the last time he'd made her cry. Frustration crashed into his desire, knotted him up inside, curled his hands into fists at his sides. It was a dangerous feeling.

“You're you, no matter what you do.” He snarled at her. No other word for it. “So quit bugging me with stupid shit and get some fucking sleep.”

He didn't wait to see her reaction, just turned on his heel and made for the door.

“InuYasha, wait!”

He paused. He should have ignored her, but he caught the urgent note in her voice and checked automatically. Wary, he turned back.

She'd scrambled up from the couch after him, and that pulse caught him again, still thrumming like mad. She hesitated once more, fear a faint shadow across her face.

He scowled, but then she thrust out her chin and straightened, and that was all the prep time he got.

“Did you kill her?”

Her heart might be trying to bust out of her body, but his came to a dead stop. He felt his eyes widen, but didn't feel in control of the movement at all. “What?”

Kagome looked nervous, and her tongue came out to swipe at her top lip. His eyes followed it, so he missed the way she raised her hand and had to jerk his eyes away to focus on what she held out to him.

“Kikyou. Did you kill her?”

There she was, staring out at him from a photograph of pale ink, her smile soft and secretive, as if she were still alive somewhere he'd never be able to find her. The floor fell out from under him and he was free-falling.

*******************************************************

A/N: Okay, that's it for this chapter. I wanted to get the entire conversation that follows in this chapter, but it started edging into being too long. So, sorry for the cliffy, but I wanted to give myself the freedom to make it right. I've looked over this the best that I can, but I'm so tired that I'm sure I've missed something, so I'll have to come back and look it over again later.

I welcome all forms of communication, so don't forget to drop me a note with any questions, comments, or theories. (I do so enjoy theories. XD) You guys are the awesome for showing so much support for this story. Thank you so much.

And with that, Quill is off to bed. She is in desperate need of sleep. ^_^