InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Lifetime Loving You Part 2; The Path to Osaka ❯ The Bog ( Chapter 16 )

Disclaimer; Inu-yasha is not mine!

 

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Hmmm…how long has it been now…?

 

Well, as it seems to me, Part 2 has only 9 chapters left, after this one there will only be 8. I really want to get to Part 3 so I'll leave Sesshoumaru's side of the story a mystery until then.

 

With that in mind, I have finally finished year two of college, and will no longer have anymore roommates, which is a blessing since my room will finally be open to me at all times instead of having to waste time outside while my roommate and her boyfriend have some of their own fun and I have to use my time to study.

 

Now this past semester, yes I did not have a roommate but I was also trying to get into a new major and also try and get my grades up after suffering a humiliating fall semester with a B-, 3 C's, and a D which left me with a 2.3 GPA. Luckily, with the roommate gone and her horny boyfriend, I got 3 A's and 2 C's which boosted my GPA to a 2.6.

 

Now, with that out of the way, summer is here, and Lifetime Loving You is entering the end of its second year since the first chapter in Part 1 was posted on FF.net (which it was booted off of due to “too much violence”). I think it's time I finished Part 2 soon and get to part 3, which like all trilogies, is the best part of the story.

 

Our story continues…

 

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Chapter 16; The Bog

 

(Inu-yasha)

 

Osaka was near; I could feel it in my bones. Though the weather wasn't on our side at all, we managed to trudge though the rain and the mud. Spring was coming and the snow was melting, but the rain made everything feel ten times harder to do, even for me.

 

Horses and carts carrying our food and water, and any items that we needed to survive the journey got stuck at the most inconvenient of times. Every time we thought we would make it through the day without a single cart getting stuck or breaking a wheel, it happened and then the rain would pour harder on our heads, like it was taunting us.

 

Men were getting tired, and the young wolf-dog males that traveled along side us from Polaris pack began to feel their own agony as the cold got to them. Though it has taken the human men first to begin to feel the first pain waves of pain from the rain and its endless trials, it took those of demon origin three days of endless rain before they were on the same level as the humans they traveled along side of.

 

Sickness began to spread, and the Kagome and Miroku worked nonstop to give medicine to all the children that suffered from colds and other ailments. Men and women would loose their balance in the mud and soon we have about five of our strongest men crippled.

 

The rain had set us back three days or more at the least, and I was no longer the look out for the traveling party. My strength was needed to aid those that fell behind, most of them being children.

 

I carried two on my shoulders that particular day; the rain had been somewhat more forgiving to us so far that morning. We had all taken rest on a flat part of a hill, and I brought the two children to their mother's side before looking for Miroku. The sound of his staff alerted me to his whereabouts and I didn't have to take more than two steps before he was at my side.

 

“Those two children, they have a bad cough,” I told him as I tried to catch my breath and shake off the feeling in my head. My nose was stuffed up and I couldn't smell anything, but I told no one because I was afraid they would loose hope. I didn't want anyone to think we had lost our way. I knew we were on track, even though my head was pounding, I knew in we were still on the same path.

 

Miroku nodded and took on step before looking back at me. “You should see Kagome,” he whispered as he put his hand on my shoulder. “You don't look well, Inu-yasha.”

 

I snorted and straightened up as I adjusted the front of my kimono. “I'm fine; this weather can't do anything to me. I'll survive.”

 

I looked at Miroku out of the corner of my eye, and saw that same face he always gave me when I said things I didn't mean. He didn't believe me.

 

“Then at least let Kitsumi know you're doing well…she's asked her mother and I about your health for the past three days.”

 

I watched as Miroku walked toward the two children and their mother and began to examine them.

 

My head then turned to the sound of horse hooves splashing in mud, as Tai came back from scouting ahead. He turned to Kagome and whispered something in her ear. She looked at him and they began to converse. If not for the pounding in my head, I would have been able to hear what they were talking about.

 

Instead I watched as he took a moment to sooth the worried look on her face that had suddenly appeared. His hand touched her face, her porcelain face filled with warmth and stained with only a few spots of mud on her cheeks. Her hand joined his as her face fell to look at the ground.

 

He wanted to kiss her, it was written all over his face. It was the look in his face alone that made me want to kill him. If only her hand wasn't touching his I would have. If only I didn't feel like if I did anything, I'd never see her face again, I would jump to it. I turned away to lean against a tree and look at the water that ran down the bark.

 

Rejection hurt more than it ever had up to that moment. Was she falling for him? Were her beautiful bluish brown eyes looking into his now? Would she find in him the one thing I can't give her? The one thing I want to give her so badly, but can't because I don't know if she wants it? The one thing I feared to give to anyone without feeling like I was at deaths door the next second?

 

When was the last time I felt this much pain? When? I know this pain, but where? When and where was the last time I felt it? When did it hurt this bad?

 

“Inu-yasha?” her voice came suddenly over the pounding in my head.

 

I looked at her, as her eyes seemed to glow in the grey surroundings. “Inu-yasha, Tai says he needed to come with him on the scout ahead. There's some trouble laying a head and he needs you to help figure out what we're all going to do.”

 

I nodded and began to wipe away the tears I suddenly discovered in my eyes that blurred my vision. “I'll meet him there then.”

 

I took one step before I felt her hand grip my arm. “What is it? You don't look well. Kitsumi's been worried about you. Have you seen her at all in the last few days?”

 

I closed my eyes and tried to gently pull her hand away from my arm, resisting the urge to tell her I wasn't well.

 

“I'm fine,” I said hoarsely, but I choked and a series of painful coughs escaped.

 

Kagome's hand left my arm and she gripped the front of my kimono and she pulled me to face her. My eyes opened halfway to look at her worried face only to close them again and try to clear my throat.

 

“I'm fine really, Kagome, just let me go so we don't waste anymore time.”

 

Her grip on my kimono didn't lessen and I had learned long ago that I wasn't to defy a concerned Kagome.

 

Her hand touched my face and then they other follow touching my forehead. “You have a fever,” her voice shook with fear, “Your whole face is burning up.”

 

My eyes met hers for a moment. “It's nothing really. It will pass. We can't waste anymore time here.”

 

She looked at me for a moment and put both of her hands on my cheeks softly. “Tell me…what do I smell like?”

 

I looked at her oddly, “You smell like herbs like you always do, why?”

 

She got closer to me. “I've been working with two herbs for the past three days. You could tell me those two if you can smell them on my hands.”

 

I looked at her as rain dripped from the blanket she had thrown over her to protect her from the rain. I groaned a little and looked down at her feet where mud had stained the skirt of her clothing. My mind wandered as I savored the soothing heat from her hands over the sting of cold rain. I would have given the world to smell her scent, truly I would, but I couldn't.

 

“You can't smell my hands…or me can you?” she whispered, her eyes filled with a sad concern.

 

I closed my eyes and gripped her wrists and pulled her hand from my face slowly. She protested saying, “You shouldn't push yourself. You need rest, or you'll only get pneumonia. Just because you're half demon doesn't mean you can't be exposed to the elements. I don't care how strong you are.”

 

I looked her in the eye, her anger started to show in her eyes along with a deep sense of fear.

 

“I'll be fine,” I whispered, and let go of her wrists to turn toward the path Tai had already headed down. I could still feel her eyes on me as I walked through the grey mists the rain had made around the woods and path over the last few days. I followed the path down to where Tai awaited me on his horse.

 

“What is it?” I groaned.

 

Tai drew his sword and pointed it towards me. I panicked and gripped my own sword, but he then turned the blade in the other direction pointing it through the mists.

 

“It's a bog. The rain and snow melt must have collected here from the near by mountains, making the earth muddy and slick.”

 

He dismounted his horse as the mists cleared for a moment. The mud that spread across the marsh was slick with what seemed more water than actual earth. Dead trees lay at their sides with their roots poking through the surface, and there bones of demon and other life clung to them as if trying to keep themselves from sinking. The mud would be soft at the top, too watery to stand on, which possibly meant that more solid earth was farther under and thick. The only question was how deep did it go?

 

“Should we go around?” Tai asked.

 

“No,” I said, “The path leads through this. Any other way and we risk more danger, or the chance of getting lost. We have to trudge through it.”

 

Tai looked at me wide eyed. “Have you lost your mind? This mud isn't safe for the children or the horses. Too many are ill as it is, and the elderly won't have the strength.”

 

“Then aid who we can,” I shouted. “Lead your horse and have it carry however many it can. Supplies can be carried and so can children. We have no other choice. I will not risk their lives in areas I don't know.”

 

“But you would risk loosing them in this? I would rather take the risk of being in danger than do this. This is suicide for us all.”

 

“And facing wild demons is any better?”

 

Tai grit his teeth. “I may fear them, but I do not fear you, Inu-yasha.”

 

“You should,” I threatened.

 

Tai glared into my eyes with mere inches between our noses. “There is no way to save the weak. You are so determined to not loose a single person on this journey that you have forgotten you're very sanity in the matter.”

 

“I will protect them in every means necessary. At least I protect them instead of pursuing unwed mistresses.”

 

“Stop this!” a voice cried from the mists, and Miroku appeared with some of the villagers and Kagome beside him with Sango and her children.

 

Miroku stood between us. “We will take whatever path Inu-yasha sees fit to take and is less of a danger to us all. He is the one who knows the way that is safest for us all to take.”

 

Miroku turned to the villagers. “Leave behind what can not be carried by human hands. Horses are to carry those too weak or too small.”

 

There was a groan amongst the crowd of villagers as pots began to move and horses snorted. Tai eyed me and turned away to go and aid those that needed help.

 

It took a little more than an hour to finally begin. Kitsumi took two large steps into the bog to look more closely at a small frog resting on atop a piece of wood.

 

“Kitsumi, come here,” Kagome called, and she responded. Kagome took a strap of cloth and tied her daughter's hair into a bun in the back of her head. “I want you to ride with Inu-yasha. Call for me if he suddenly begins to feel weak.”

 

Kitsumi looked at her mother. “Is he sick, Mommy?”

 

Kagome looked at me from afar as I helped little ones get on to one of the cart horses. “I'm not sure,” she whispered sadly. “Stay with him, for me.”

 

She ran to me and gripped my pant leg. “Mommy says she wants me to stay with you.”

 

I smiled down at her and picked her up, “Then stay with the children on this horse. I'll be leading this one through the bog.”

 

I placed her near the head of the horse. I took off my vest and covered her head with it, and then proceeded to take off my kimono and spread it over the five children behind her. I turned to the bog and took my first steps into the thick mud.

 

I sank to my ankles and after a few more steps I sank to my knees. Others began to follow, and by the time half of the traveling party was into the mud, Miroku, Kagome were up to their waists in it, while I on the other was in the front was up to my chest. The horse beside me stayed with me as a stead pace, as long as I kept the horse moving it most likely wouldn't sink with the children.

 

Soon everyone was in the bog, in a long caravan of villagers and wolf-dog demons. Polaris stayed close to any young child that was scared, and Kagome aided anyone that began to feel exhausted. Miroku sang to any crying child that wanted its mother, and Sango stayed close to her twins Kara and Kohaku.

 

It felt like hours had past, and it seemed the farther we went the harder it seemed. All of us were to our shoulders or armpits in mud trying to trudge through the murky mist and bubbling watered earth. It felt like there was no end in sight and the agony of having to push on was taking its toll on us all.

 

The cold was getting to us, and it was getting even harder on me. My mind began to fog from fatigue, my nose being out of use made it hard to breathe through my mouth. I was beginning to thirst and the cold began to take its toll on my legs.

 

I closed my eyes for a moment and when I opened them, the world began to spin and blur. I stopped and the horse snorted beside me. I closed my eyes and rested my head on the horse's nose.

 

Kitsumi and some of the children peeked over to the side. “Inu-yasha?” her tiny voice said.

 

I swallowed hard and began to trudge through the mud again. Kitsumi watched for a moment, before handing the red cloth to another child and slipping into the slick mud. She struggled to keep her tiny head above as she paddled through the top part of the mud. “Inu-yasha?” she whimpered. I turned to find little muddy hands and a half muddy face on my shoulder.

 

“Squirt…you need to stay on the horse,” I said trying to clear my vision.

 

“Let me stay here with you.” Her tiny arms wrapped around my neck. “Stay awake,” she commanded.

 

I had no strength to fight with her and I trudged on. “That's it, keep going. Don't give up,” she cheered.

 

Suddenly, my labored breathing hitched in my throat again and I coughed violently. My chest began to fill with pain. My head was pounding which drained out the frightened little voice in my ear that kept saying my name. I couldn't feel anything and my eyes couldn't take the spinning as they closed into darkness.

 

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(Kagome)

 

I heard my daughter's cries from a far. First they were screaming Inu-yasha's name, and they reached a shrilling pitch, the voice began to call “Mommy”.

 

I trudged through the mud trying to get by anyone I could as fast as the mud made it possible.

 

Villagers began to gossip, asking what had happened and other's saying Inu-yasha's was lost in the mud.

 

I panicked as Kitsumi's voice began to wail with weeping gasps, and as I began to think I would never make it to her, Polaris jumped from a dead tree branch and plucked my from the mud like an eagle catching a fish in its talons.

 

When she landed in mud again I scrambled to my daughter as she clung to the side of the horse. “Inu-yasha…he's drowning,” she said trying to speak as clearly as she could through her weeping.”

 

I took the horse's reins and untied the knot at the side as quickly as I could. I held my breath and closed my eyes tightly as I went under and began to feel. Kitsumi watched as bubbles burst at the surface in one spot, and how it was soon joined by another set of bubbles slowly bursting at the top.

 

They stopped and a second later I came up covered in thick clumpy mud with Inu-yasha coughing in my arms. His whole body felt like dead weight in my arms with his head tucked under mine. Even through the mud I could feel the burning fever against my breasts.

 

“Inu-yasha?” I whispered to him. “Please, say something?”

 

I weak muffled voice came through the mud as I pulled him to a tree. “Inu-yasha?”

 

Golden eyes opened half way for a moment as I cleared the mud from his face. He was trying to breathe, but it was heavy and labored. I whipped the mud from his lips, and pleaded as tears formed in my eyes. “Please…say anything?” I whispered desperately to his mouth.

 

My thumb lingered on his lower lip feeling the wet grit of earth on it. I looked at him feeling helpless and slowly pressed my body to his to keep him stable. I let my nose touch his and my lips take the place of my thumb in a soft touch as he breathed into my mouth. I whisper the first thing that came to my mind then, and it was the only thing I could think of saying at that very moment.

 

“Please…don't leave me.”

 

I pressed my lips to his to try and see if he would respond to anything, and his body shivered and his hand gripped my side. I pulled away and watched as his eyes opened slightly his breathing somewhat less harsh than before.

 

“Kagome?” his voice said hoarsely, and his head leaned in a little as if trying to find the warm that and brought him out of the darkness. He found them in a small kiss on lips that didn't return his slight pressure.

 

Polaris's voice came to me then. “Kagome, look!”

 

I turned to were she stood and found that she was only up to her knees. “The end of this bog must be near. This is solid ground from here with only a watery mud at the top. If we hurry we can begin to nurse him.”

 

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(Inu-yasha)

 

Two days had past.

 

Though at the time my head was dreaming of Kagome's voice calling to me, “Please…don't leave me.” and the feeling of a kiss pressed to my lower lip that brought me some how out of the dark hole I was falling into and into a foggy light. I felt warm and a live. I felt my hunger stop for a second and my body shiver as it found peace in a moment.

 

It made my head live the dream over and over again for those next two days as I slept on something soft. My body imagined it to be Kagome's since I was pressed against it in the dream.

 

Such a wonderful dream…so wonderful it couldn't possibly have been true. Though, the feeling seemed to make my hunger for her kiss subside for a moment.

 

I awoke to find myself in a tent made out of pelts, and a bed made out of sheep's skin. The first thing that came into focus was my hand which I clenched and flexed to make sure it was really mine. My body felt numb but at the same time not in pain either.

 

I sat up and ran my hand over my face as silk rolled off my shoulder on pooled in my lap. I opened my eyes to a small fire at the far side of the pelt tent with a hole at the top to allow the smoke to escape.

 

“How long have I been out?” I said to no one in particular.

 

I groaned as I pulled the silk out of my lap only to cover myself again. “Where are my clothes?”

 

A flap opened to the side and a tiny figure walked in humming a familiar tune. The voice then gasped in happiness. I of course had turned my head away from the bright white light that had hurt my eyes so it took me a moment to open my eyes again as the pain shot through my head.

 

“Inu-yasha!” the tiny voice cried for joy as I felt someone jump on to my side and cling to my arm.

 

When the pain subsided, Kitsumi's pink hair came into view along with her smile of joy. She was dressed in a lighter kimono with shorter sleeves and her hair was tied back in a bun. “Mommy and I were so worried you'd never wake up.”

 

I opened my mouth to speak, but Kitsumi's tiny hand touched my forehead first. “You don't feel so hot anymore. That must mean you're getting better.”

 

She hopped over to the fire a stirred a small pot before going over to another corner to look furiously for something. “You've been asleep for two days, but that's okay because traders heading toward Kyoto came through. Mommy and the villagers have been trading with them since and we were able to buy more supplies.”

 

I watched the small child as she squealed for joy as she pulled her rice stuffed dog doll from the mess. She then went over to a smaller sheep skin and curled up into a ball and pulled her mother's blanket over her.

 

“Mommy told me to go and take my nap,” she said with a little yawn. “The sun came out and it's been warm for the past two days.”

 

I looked at the tiny girl and quickly wrapped the silk around my hips before looking at Kitsumi. “Squirt, where's your mother?”

 

A little hand rubbed her eye. “She went to go clean her clothing and yours. Polaris told her she needed to get out of the hut since she's been sleeping next to you since you almost died.”

 

The tiny body rolled over and snuggled deeper into the sheepskin.

 

I looked around me for another sheepskin, only to find the leather bag that held Kagome's herbs and the mess of clothes in the pile Kitsumi had rummaged through only moments before.

 

`She slept beside me?' I touched the curly wool beside me feeling shivers go through my arm knowing she had been resting there only moments before.

 

I looked to the pile of clothes and rummaged through them myself before I found my old white cloth kimono and a pair of old hakama's I had worn sometime ago on Polaris's farm during Kagome's pregnancy.

 

I dressed cautiously and then slipped through the flap as Kitsumi's soft snores echoed through the tent. I smiled as I watched her sleep and then slipped my way into the wood.

 

“Inu-yasha, you're up?” a voice said from the trees. I turned up to find Polaris looking down at me.

 

I looked up at her then up the mountain. “Where's Kagome?”

 

She pointed up the hill as she continued to eat an orange. I followed and climbed through the wood following the growing scent of warm herbs. Steam from a hot spring came into view and when I got to the rocky edge I found my clothes lying on rocks in the sun to dry and on a low tree limb.

 

I looked at the dragon's mane kimono as it lay in the sun on the rock next to Kagome's ivory one. I let the scent of warm herbs surround me, taking pride in the fact my clothing would smell like her.

 

I my eyes drifted to the hot spring and there I found her, but the image was not the same as it once been so long before. Before I knew what her body had looked like from accidental glimpses. She was flawless, beautiful pale skin that hugged her and curves that seemed to last forever no matter what angle you looked at her from.

 

But now…now there was something different. Her girlish curves had grown deeper due to her hips being somewhat wider than before. Where flawless skin had been were now scars of discolored skin, stretch marks of where a child had once been. And her breasts, still somewhat spherical, but at the same time larger. Her arms and legs looked stronger and toned.

 

The girl I had always seen was suddenly erased from my mind, and replaced by the woman I had suddenly realized Kagome had become. She was left with finger prints of something she ever truly wanted. Marks of a burden she carried and brought into the world without a second thought. Her own child, her own daughter who had, in the end, never been burden to her, but merely another person, her flesh and blood.

 

Her back turned to me and it was then that I had realized Kagome was bathing. I turned my head around realizing I had just been looking as her, and for the first time, really studying her. Everything burned into my memory, every flaw that had suddenly appeared to the naked eye.

 

And yet…it was so strange that I didn't turn away from her in disgust at the very first sight of them. I actually turned my head and looked at her again. Now I truly watched her bathe with a white cloth in her hand that caressed her skin. She scooped up water and cleaned her body of herbal water. She then picked up a vile and began to drain it into her hair as she covered her chest with the white cloth and her sides.

 

Though the wet cloth left little to the imagination, it perplexed me. Did she think someone was there…or was she actually covering herself to hide herself from the world itself? An insecurity or shame perhaps that made her feel like her body wasn't worth being looked at by even her eyes.

 

She walked through the water to a stone where a trickle of water was. She sat there and continued to cover herself as the water cleansed her hair.

 

I watched as she clung tightly to the cloth that covered her as one hand drifted over the places it clung to. Tears formed in her eyes. “It's still the same,” she whispered, “I'll never be the same girl I was ever again. I'm sure even Hojo would think I was the ugliest thing, let alone…” her voice drifted into a silent sob. “Who would want some thing like this for the rest of his life anyway?”

 

I looked at her in disbelief, and out of anger I snorted. “You may think you're not the same, but you're still the stupid girl I've always known.”

 

I stood up and removed my kimono before stepping into the hot spring. Kagome's surprised look made her ball up to cover herself even more. “What are you doing here? You're supposed to be resting.”

 

“Sleeping for two days is enough don't you think? Besides I'm fine.”

 

I threw my kimono around her and a good humph as I pulled it to cover her breasts. “There you happy?”

 

Kagome's hands gripped the opening of the kimono from underneath. “Those things weren't for anyone else to hear, let alone you.”

 

“Quit it,” I said in a softer tone. “You act like you're the only one in the world with problems. Plenty of women have given birth to a child before and get over the fact they'll never look the same.”

 

Kagome groaned, “If you still had you're rosary I would so sit you right now.”

 

“Well, you've got no one to blame but yourself for that one now don't you?”

 

Kagome grit her teeth and then sighed and looked away. “Feh,” I grumbled, and slowly proceeded to pull the lower end of the kimono open.

 

Kagome's attention turned back toward me and she slapped my hand away. I yelped as she growled, “Just what do you think you're doing, you perv?”

 

I growled and she tensed up, and I snorted as I pulled the cloth away again. She surrendered a second later and let me look at the curve of her hip and belly. “They're stretch marks from my pregnancy, that's all. Just one of the many flaws left after--”

 

“I said quit it,” I growled. “Why do you have to be so stubborn about things like this? Why would you ever think you were ugly?”

 

Her angered face suddenly turned sad and ashamed. “You always told me who would want to look at me? Well tell me who would even want to look at me now? I've been used. I'm nothing now.”

 

I put my fingers over the scared skin and her face turned up to look right into mine, startling us both.

 

I narrowed my brow. “You're Kitsumi's mother.”

 

A tear rolled from her eye as she looked down where my hand was. “What are you doing?”

 

I lifted her chin to make her look at me, again. “You think marks like these are burdens. They're only burdens if you let them become that to you.”

 

Kagome's eyes filled with tears. “Then what else could they be?”

 

My eyes wandered to my hand and I stroked her curve. “A sign of life…that you have a power I can never have.”

 

I let my fingers follow the marks and I closed my eyes as my other hand joined.

 

“I've lived my whole life surrounded by death. I lost my father before I knew him and a mother when I was too young to know what kind of life I would have.”

 

I let my hands spread over the curves of her waist and move slowly upward, all the time watching her if she protested against anything. Yet, her eyes closed and her hands touched my wrists and ran half way up my arms.

 

“For fifty years I was pinned to a tree…death was around me even then…guilt, heartache…”

 

My thumbs brushed against the sides of her breasts making her gasp ever so slightly.

 

“You came and gave me life again, a second chance to see what life could really be. Ever since then all you've done is show me what life is, it's hopes it's sorrows,” her face fell to my shoulder and I whispered, “So, how can you say these things, when I've watched you make life? How can you think your ugly, when all I can see is the beauty you can make inside of you?”

 

I pinned her between me and the rock wall behind her then her hands flying up to keep me from getting too close. I let my eyes bore into hers, and for the first time in a long time I saw her hunger, her need, her want. I saw kisses pent up behind a wall I saw starting to finally break through. I saw her raw passion and all the fantasies she dreamed in her sleep or during the say.

 

I saw Kagome, the way I knew her. The way no one else could ever hope to know her. I saw Kagome for all that she was and all she could be, flaws and perfections.

 

“If you think all of these things are the flaws…then tell me…why the best part of you, is the one thing I thing is the most beautiful thing about you?”

 

I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to press my body against her and feel her sore to life in my arms. Just when I thought the walls had broken down, she stood between it all over again.

 

I leaned in to get closer to her, to feel her lips like I had in the dream.

 

Her fingers touched my lips. “It would be so easy wouldn't it?”

 

Her question made me stop in my tracks, and the world freeze.

 

“But the truth is clear isn't, Inu-yasha? Dead is what you ultimately choose in the end won't it be? Because…it's the one thing you can't live without that means…”

 

I pulled her hand from my mouth trying to understand what she was saying.

 

Tears formed in her eyes. “You made your choice, Inu-yasha. And I made mine.”

 

I narrowed my brow trying to understand. “You're not making any sense. You have the right to change your mind.”

 

“But do you?” she said to me.

 

I looked at her and shook with anger. “Why can't you just tell me straight out? Why do you have to hide this like its some big secret between us? Why can't you trust me for once when it comes to this? You could trust me before, why can't you now?”

 

Kagome's sad eyes looked at mine, and my anger melted away. All I could see was pain in eyes, and it killed me I gripped her hand and nuzzled her face. “Why?”

 

“I do trust you…but there's no room for me, Inu-yasha. How can I trust you with my heart? How can I trust you…with Kitsumi's…when you've already given so much to someone else?”

 

My eyes widened and I looked at her. “Kikyo…”

 

Her eyes closed and her hand slipped from mine. I watched as she walked away from me. My whole world, slipping from my fingertips.

 

“How can the most beautiful thing about me be the one thing you want so much, when you've already said you don't want it at the same time? Give me one reason, Inu-yasha. Just one. Why would you promise yourself to her, why would you want me when you've already…?”

 

Her voice stopped suddenly, and I looked at her. “When I've already what?”

 

There was silence. Nothing but deafening silence.

 

I watched as she merely picked up her clean skirt and my clothing and walked back down the hill, leaving me with questions still in my head, and doubts in my heart.

 

That night Kagome had gone to sleep long before me without dinner. I walked into the pelt tent late that night to find her sleeping with dried tears on her face. I turned to the far corner of the tent to see Kitsumi slightly restless. She finally sat up and rubbed her eyes before finding me.

 

“Inu-yasha, I can't sleep,” she whined.

 

I snorted with a smirk and picked her up to put her beside her mother. “You stay with your mother tonight, and I'll go sleep in your bed.”

 

As I got up her little hand tugged at my sleeve. “No, stay with Mommy. Mommy doesn't want you to go.”

 

“I'm not going anywhere, Squirt. I'm right here.”

 

Her tugs didn't let up and her pleas which now brought tears to her eyes didn't either. I sighed and stretched out beside her. Kitsumi nuzzled into me just above my stomach.

 

I let my claws comb her pink curls and run along one tiny flopped ear. Those would be standing up on their own soon.

 

I felt her relax beside me and I slowly began to fall asleep myself, until something nuzzled it's way under my neck and a warm palm pressed to my breast.

 

“Thank you,” Kagome whispered.

 

“For what?” I replied.

 

“For not leaving me.”

 

~~~~~

 

Going on vacation for two weeks, but when I get back I'll be updating Prince of the Dancing Gypsies and A Ride Called Kagome.

 

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