InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Remember Me ❯ Eclipse of the Heart ( Chapter 2 )

Eclipse of the Heart

~Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you never come around~

Loneliness. That was something Kagome knew, something she understood.

Staring at the computer screen and the college application she was attempting to fill out, Kagome wished there were other things she knew, other lessons she could have learned. Like math or science. Important things, painless things, ordinary things.

But it seemed she was destined to live an abnormal life. Because here she sat, unmotivated to fill out the application, something that by all rights should have been the most important thing in her life right now.

But she was not an ordinary girl.

Inu Yasha. As that one name came to her mind unbidden, she fought to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. She hated that he still had this effect on her, hated that he could still hurt her.

She remembered the first time she had met him. He had called her by another's name. That should have been her first clue, her first hint at things to come. But she had been too naïve, too blinded by the love she developed for him.

She had studiously ignored the signs that followed. The name that never ceased to fall from his lips, the mysterious disappearances, the secret meetings, and the kiss she had witnessed with her own eyes.

It had been painfully obvious really, she had just refused to see it, refused to acknowledge it, hoping that maybe, just maybe, if she ignored it, then it would just go away.

There had been times when he had looked at her with affection, when she would see something in those eyes that hadn't been there before. She had survived on these, the small tokens and scraps of love that he threw her way every once in awhile. A pathetic existence, but she had believed.

Maybe her sheer force of will would make it happen.

But she had been a fool. Every time he looked at her he saw Kikyou. She was nothing but a shadow.

And it was that realization that finally broke her heart and shattered her dreams.

He would never love her. It was a harsh reality, but one she had to accept.

Slowly, but surely, she had begun to change. It was nothing dramatic, just a few things here and there. A little less laughter, a little more tears.

Everyday she found it harder to come back. Everyday she had to find the strength to return to the world that had betrayed her.

Everyday a small, microscopic piece of her died. The pieces so minuscule they left unnoticed and unmissed.

Do you know what its like to die an invisible to death? To waste away inch by agonizing inch? To realize too late what you had lost?

She did.

~Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all my years have gone by~

She had spent so much time there, 500 years in the past, so much time in a world that had never really been hers. She had gone back, everyday, for him. And in the end she had lost him.

Was this her fate? Had she been doomed from the beginning to love one who could never love her?

Even if it was, this wasn't what kept her awake at night; this wasn't what haunted her dreams.

No, every night, in those fitful moments before sleep claimed her, she wondered if she would ever love again. She feared that all the love she had to give had been wasted on an unwilling heart.

Would she ever feel it again? Would her day ever be brightened by the presence of one person? Would she smile for the happiness of another?

Would love ever color her world again? She knew the tired clichés, but love had made the roses redder, the sun brighter, the air sweeter.

She was terrified, because she had tasted its beauty once. It was too much to ask to hold it in her hands twice.

A miracle, that's what she needed.

But she wasn't sure she believed in them anymore.

~Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes~

The touch of his hand, it was still so real. She could recall in vivid detail the way it felt to be touched so gently by such a lethal demon. Who would have thought that such tenderness existed within him? He had seemed just as surprised as she, just as confused, and just as lost.

Sesshoumaru.

How much sadness had shadowed his life? How much pain had he been made to endure…alone? No matter how much power he amassed or how much authority he wielded he had always been alone.

And that was what had sparked her sympathy…that was what had changed him in her eyes. Was it so inconceivable to show compassion for a heartless demon who had attempted to kill her so many times?

She had once done it for him, for Inu Yasha.

She remembered the shock that lighted his eyes when he saw the sympathy that filled her own. A shock he thought no one could see. But she had seen it because she had been looking for it.

Too many people accepted that cold mask of his; too many people believed his icy demeanor was real. Had anyone ever taken the time to look past it all?

She had touched him as well. She hadn't believed the coldness he exuded. And she had been right. His skin had been so soft, so warm, so real. She had idly traced one magenta stripe that lined his cheeks. The mark of privilege, the mark of nobility, the mark of his pain.

He trembled, or had she? She couldn't remember, but it didn't matter. That moment had been pure, a crystallized moment in time that belonged solely to them.

His eyes, the brilliant golden depths of them had raged. At what she wasn't sure, but they raged with an emotion she couldn't decipher, and he couldn't understand.

But when he turned those magnetic orbs on her she had shivered, the intensity of his gaze overwhelmed her.

For the first time in her life she knew what it was like to be seen.

He had been the first to really, truly see her as Kagome and not the shadow of someone else.

~Every now and then I fall apart~

She still remembered that day, not too long after she had returned. She still remembered the desperate insanity of her actions.

She had been numb, merely going through the motions of her old life. She had existed in a coma-like state, not seeing, not hearing, not feeling. But all that time it had been growing inside of her, feeding off of her neglect, the longer she ignored it the bigger it grew, until one day she snapped.

It hadn't taken much really, just an offhanded mention of his name; after all, her younger brother had worshiped him. And that had been enough.

She had snapped back into the real world, snapped back into feeling. And it hurt too much. So she ran, blinded by the tears that were streaming down her face she had ran back, back to the well, back to the place that had started it all.

In her hurry she hadn't felt the stabs of pain as she cut herself on the rough ladder, and she had ignored the jarring impact of the ground as she forcefully fell to her knees.

In a panic ridden frenzy she had wildly dug at the ground. It had to let her go back because she couldn't live here anymore, she couldn't live alone.

With every handful of dirt the fog of desperation lifted until she sat there, bleeding, broken, and alone.

It had been hard, unbearably difficult to realize that one truth. There would be no going back.

So she had calmly walked away from the well, quietly left it behind, and never looked back.

It held too many memories that even now she couldn't bring herself to face.

~And I need you now tonight and I need you know more than ever~

~If you only hold me tight, we'll be holding forever~

She wished he could have been there to hold her, to comfort her. Because he had once. Beneath the cover of the night he had held her while she grieved, soothed her in silence.

And she longed for him again, longed to feel the heat of his body as it warmed her, yearned for the touch that didn't judge, and yearned to look into those eyes once more, that amber hue that saw so much yet revealed so little.

It was ironic really; ironic that she felt the first stirring of life in her broken heart for a demon, a man who was reputed to have no heart.

But her heart was not hers to command, it did not obey her wishes, it had proved to have a mind of its own.

She had often heard that God worked in mysterious ways. But perhaps they had gotten it all wrong. God didn't invoke powerful emotions within her and it wasn't God she wished for at night.

No. Love worked in mysterious ways.

It wasn't him that she remembered in her dreams, it wasn't him that made her sigh at what could have been. It wasn't Inu Yasha, with him it was the sorrow and the infinite sadness. But with the other, with Sesshoumaru it was the tenderness, the mystery, and the regret.

Regret, a bittersweet thing. The world she had left behind had been dangerous and it had been tragic. Towards the end he had been her brightness, her happiness. What if she had stayed, what if she had taken the time to figure out the multitude of feelings jumbled inside.

What if she had looked at him as he had looked at her? Would things have been different? Would they have been better?

Regret, so many possibilities, so many what ifs.

~I don't know what to do and I'm living in the dark~

~I really need you tonight~

Kagome shook her head sadly and walked away from the computer that sat uselessly in front of her.

She wasn't sure she could do this anymore. Walking outside she took in the peaceful surroundings of the shrine. A place of serenity, a sanctuary. All this was lost on her as the turbulent storm raged on inside of her.

Somewhere along the way she had lost herself. Somewhere along the road she traveled her eternal optimism had turned into a sort of tragic pessimism, somewhere along the way her smiles had become less frequent, and less warm. Somewhere she had she lost her heart, left it on the road, shattered in a thousand pieces, and hadn't stopped to pick them up again.

Somewhere she had lost hope.

Hope had once given her strength and courage to live. Hope had allowed her to steadfastly believe that tomorrow would be better, that tomorrow the sun would shine brighter, the sky would be bluer, and the flowers sweeter.

But somewhere on that road she had left hope behind also. Another piece of herself, another fragment of the girl she had once been left behind for another aimless wanderer to find.

Or maybe one day she would travel the same road again and find them herself.

~Once upon a time I was falling in love~

~Now I'm only falling apart~

It had become a distant memory, a forgotten dream, that magical time when everything had been new and she had been in love.

A fairytale, a tragic one.

Did she want it again? Did she dare open her heart to the pain again? Could she trust? Could she love?

She didn't like who she had become. If she kept losing these parts of herself she would become the shadow Inu Yasha had once seen her as, she wouldn't be whole, she wouldn't be Kagome.

And then she knew. She knew with an absolute certainty that she wanted it again. She wanted that magic.

Yes she wanted love again. Love, brilliant as a star yet just as elusive.

Did she have the courage to reach for it once more?

~There's nothing I can do~

~A total eclipse of the heart~

Maybe.

But just now her life would have to go on, she would have to go on.

She needed time. Time to rebuild, time to rediscover, time to heal.

She glanced over to the house behind her remembering what she had left there unfinished. Her future was waiting.

But something prevented her from walking to it, something held her back, something forced her to look back, to look at the well. Where she had left her past.

~Once upon a time there was light in my life~

~But now there's only love in the dark~

Then she felt it, that irresistible pull that she had long forgotten.

Cautiously she approached the well, hypnotized by its call.

She stepped down the ladder and fought back the memories that threatened to overwhelm her. Strangely enough it was a pair of golden eyes that kept her sane as she stood at the bottom once again, the remembrance of a soft touch that kept her from running away in panic.

As her eyes adjusted to the black world that surrounded her, a black world that had come to suit her far too well, she saw it.

There it laid, at the bottom of the well, a glistening shard, a beacon in the surrounding darkness.

A piece of the Shikon no Tama that should have been destroyed, that should have ceased to exist with her wish.

But there was no denying that it was there, she could see it, she could feel it.

Why? She wondered. Why here, why now?

Looking up the ladder that had once led her to the impatient arms of Inu Yasha, Kagome realized that the past was not done with her yet. Her journey wasn't over.

Her pulse began to quicken and her heart began to race faster. Anticipation ran rampant through her body.

Reaching out a trembling hand, she grasped the shard. The power was familiar, the warmth welcoming.

With the determination of the girl who had walked this path so long ago, Kagome strode back to the house. She had a lot to do.

She was nervous, apprehensive, she was scared.

But this time, this time it would be different.

She was going back, 500 years into the past, going back to a world she thought she had left forever.

And he would be there. The demon she couldn't forget and the man who still haunted her.