Golden Eyes
By Lady of the Ink
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Inu/Kag, some Kag/Hojo
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, but you knew that . . .I hope. But I do own this plot and all the twists that it takes.

x

x

Prologue
Flash: Back
x

x

She never got the chance to explain what happened.

By the time Kagome arrived home from her last trip through the well, she was already in tears. When Mrs. Higurashi asked her what was the matter, she had tried to answer but the sobs wracking her body had made the words impossible to understand. She had quickly given up and raced to her room where the sound of crying could be plainly heard for the rest of the night.

Since she had clearly been through something traumatic, Mrs. Higurashi hadn't been too surprised when Kagome didn't rise in time for school the next day. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully when she checked on her, and so she decided to let her sleep. Even without the emotional outburst, her last trip had lasted for more than two months. The first thing she always did upon her return was catch up on the sleep that she had missed while she was away. It was only to be expected that that she was worn out from all the work associated with collecting the pieces of the shattered jewel.

When she was still asleep well into the next afternoon, though, her mother started to feel the first tinges of worry. Since there was no sign of fever and the water glass beside her bed obviously been drunk from at least once, she decided to give it one more day. She also left a covered bowl of broth (frequently reheated) and some crackers on the nightstand she Kagome awake briefly and feel hungry.

The deadline she had imposed was fast approaching along with the setting sun when there was finally movement from the pink bedroom. The rest of the Higurashis has just sat down to dinner when Kagome appeared in her pajamas, her face still flushed from sleep. She shuffled towards the kitchen, yawning as she pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with juice. It wasn't until she sat down at the table that she noticed the concern, relief, and surprised written across her family's faces.

She blinked owlishly. "What?"

After a few false starts, Mrs. Higurashi had managed to get an answer out. "W-we were getting a little worried about you, dear. You've been sleeping for a long time."

Kagome's face had registered obvious shock. "I have?" Her brow had furrowed and it was clear she was trying to remember. Her efforts must have been unsuccessful because a moment later she had shook her head. "I don't remember. I don't even remember going to bed!"

She looked so distressed by this that Mrs. Higurashi had attempted to help. "You were very tired, sweetheart. I'm not surprised that you don't remember it. You were pretty upset at the time."

"Upset?" If anything, Kagome had looked even more confused. Her frown grew deeper. "I don't . . .I can't . . ." She looked up, tears welling her eyes. "I can't remember! It's like there's this huge blank spot in my memory. What happened to me?" She had started to panic then, forcing Mrs. Higurashi to calm her down before she could find out more of what was going on. Careful questioning revealed that the missing memories stretched back farther than either of them had imagined. It seemed to start right around the day of her fifteenth birthday and while she did remember a few events during that time span, there was one highly noticeable exception. Any mention of the Feudal Era or the people who lived there was met with a blank stare. It was as though that specific part of her memory was wiped clean.

Mrs. Higurashi had been faced with a dilemma. Should she tell Kagome all that she had forgotten? Or should she deliberately not mention anything that was missing from Kagome's mind? Each option had its upside and downside, and she didn't feel she had the right to choose between them. She decided to wait a few days before choosing a plan of action. During that time she kept a hopeful eye on the well house, ever alert for the familiar white-haired figure to come storming by. But at the end of two weeks, Inuyasha remained as absent as Kagome's memories.

By then Kagome had returned to school and settled into a sort of routine. In order to ease her fears, Mrs. Higurashi had told her daughter that the memory loss was probably due to a high fever she had suffered. While she hated to lie, she wanted to offer some sort of comfort that wouldn't risk exposing the secret of the well. This explanation would make perfect sense to all of her friends and teachers who'd thought she'd been ill for some time. It also helped Kagome relax into a normal life.

In the end, it was Kagome herself that made Mrs. Higurashi's choice clear. She seemed so much more carefree than she had for the longest time. Gone was the tired and old beyond her years woman; in her place was the happy and giggly girl that vanished sooner than she had have under the weight of worry and fear. This was the Kagome that would have been had the well never existed, Mrs. Higurashi knew, and for as long as possible, she would do whatever she could to preserve this newfound innocence. Not a word about the past or Kagome's travels there would be spoken. Everything from that stretch of time was removed from around the shrine and placed where Kagome would be unlikely to come upon it.

These actions were not taken entirely without guilt, though. She knew that for all of the bad things that Kagome's adventures had brought her, there were equal if not greater amounts of good. She spoke of her friends there with a level of love and camaraderie that would be difficult if not impossible to recreate under different circumstances. Mrs. Higurashi mourned those friendships, knowing what they had meant to her daughter. But the memory of friends she would never see again would be a painful burden for Kagome to bear, and so they became one more thing lost to the mists of her mind.

Had there been any doubt that Kagome's help was yet needed in the past, Mrs. Higurashi would have told her about everything at once, of course. Kagome had embraced her duties in the Feudal era and never shirked them, no matter how painful or dangerous they became. She would have wanted to continue doing that, even if it mean giving up a chance at a normal life. It was a testament to Kagome's true inner strength and determination, two traits that Mrs. Higurashi greatly admired in her daughter.

However, there were quite a few signs that that was no longer the case. The vial of jewel shards that Kagome never let out of her sight was empty, tossed into the wastebasket. Inuyasha hadn't come storming to collect Kagome as he had every other time she stayed home for more than a week. After a few weeks, Mrs. Higurashi had given in to her curiosity and done a sort of test to prove her theory. Getting Kagome to go into the well wasn't difficult, but she feared her daughter must have thought her a little bit crazy when nothing happened. Whether it was a good sign or a bad one, it seemed the well was sealed on their side, at least.

That revelation had brought to mind Kagome's state when she had last returned through the gateway. She had obviously been upset, crying so hard that she couldn't speak. It was likely that whatever had made her cry was directly connected to the closing of the well. Kagome had said that the end of their journey was approaching, which was why her stays in the village grew longer and her trips home fewer and farther between. She was certain that the final confrontation with Naraku was close at hand.

Perhaps the final battle had come and the results had been something other than the best possible one. Knowing Kagome as she did, she knew that she never would have come home had the threat not been eliminated. The length of time that she had been gone suggested that it had been a difficult fight, and just because the bad guy was defeated didn't mean he hadn't taken one of her friends along with him.

After a lot of careful consideration, Mrs. Higurashi arrived at two equally probable conclusions about what might have occurred. The first was that one or more of Kagome's friends was severely injured or worse and she had blocked it out to avoid feeling the pain of the loss. The second was that, quite simply, Kagome's job in the past was done. If she had managed to collect all the jewel shards, reform the jewel and purify it, then all that she had been working towards would have been accomplished. Having to leave her friends behind could account for the tears, especially if she had known it was unlikely she would ever get back to them.

The second theory also offered a valid reason for the memory loss. Time was not something to be tampered with lightly; people in the future being too closely connected with the past was likely to be just as dangerous as people of the past knowing too much of the future. Perhaps this was the ending that had been destined all along, kind in its own way. With no memories of the battles or the people she had fought them with, Kagome was unaware of what she had lost. It was saving her the heartache that she would have felt otherwise.

Whatever the cause behind it, as the months went by, Kagome's memory remained free of her amazing journey. Her grades rose steadily and she grew closer to the school friends she had become almost estranged from over time. And if Mrs. Higurashi sometime paused to see her daughter with her slim black book bag instead of the more familiar bulging yellow one, she knew that she would grow used to it in time.

But always in the back of her mind was a small voice questioning if that was really how it would all end. It seemed too great a story to some to so quiet a close. She had always thought there would be something bigger . . .and happier. And as thankful as she was to see Kagome enjoying her life, she couldn't help but feel that her daughter would never find a love so fiery or true as the one she no longer remembered.

To Be Continued . . .