Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just use them for my own sadistic purposes...hehehe... -)

Note: My bestest best friend tells me there is an episode of Inuyasha where Kagome goes back to her own time and they all have amnesia or something. I wrote this story before I even heard about that episode and I still haven't seen it. I hope the story lines don't run too close together, but seeing as how my story takes place years later, I really hope that won't be a problem.
As always, reviews are welcome, appreciated and encouraged. Please, no flames. If you have a problem, e-mail me.
Enjoy!

P.S.: This one's for you, V.

Back To You

By Ashes

Chapter 1: Nightmares

Kagome woke, a scream tearing through her throat. She grabbed her chest, panting. Sweat drenched her body and bedclothes. Her heart pounded as she glanced at the clock.

3 a.m.

She had five hours before her first class, but the dream that had woken her made her fearful of closing her eyes again. Kagome threw the covers back and marched over to the kitchen area of her efficiency apartment. She filled a kettle half-way with water and pulled the tea down from the top cupboard. The kettle hissed and she filled herself a cup. The warm fragrance of green tea filled her nostrils as she inhaled the crisp, fresh scent.

She never really remembered all of her dreams, only bits and pieces. She remembered a terrible battle of some kind, usually with some horrific monster. She was always fighting along-side someone in the dreams, but could never really tell if he was human or something else… Something in between human and demon…

Yellow eyes, like bright, glowing jewels. That was always the last thing she remembered. The feel of soft, silver hair and…dog ears.

That was the part that always confused her more than anything. She knew that the silver-haired creature with gold eyes and dog-like features was a demon of some kind, yet she had never felt threatened by him. It was by thinking of him after a nightmare, in fact, that always comforted her.

Tonight, however, she had been particularly shaken up.

Three years ago she'd woken up at the hospital with no idea how she'd gotten there. Her mother, who had been so relieved she'd finally woken up she'd crushed Kagome to her and almost smothered her into another coma, told her she'd been sick with a fever so bad it had put her into a coma-like state.

The idea of being in a coma horrified Kagome. She didn't understand what had happened to put her there. At first she thought maybe that last battle with Naraku had injured her so badly that the only way to save her had been to bring her back to her own time. But when she had asked her mother where Inuyasha was, her mother hand only looked at her, puzzled, and asked, "Who's Inuyasha?"

Kagome had tried desperately to make her family remember about Inuyasha and her trips through the well, but it seemed as if a strange amnesia had come over all of them. She had never gone down any well, they told her. She had simply caught a bad flu that got worse. She'd been dead to the world for two years. She hadn't gone anywhere.

Worried when she insisted on her tales of Feudal Japan, Kagome's mother had taken her to a therapist. It was there that Kagome actually began to believe she'd been making the whole thing up. Maybe they really had just been fever dreams or tricks her mind was playing on her.

"The mind is a very fragile thing," the therapist had said. "Some people make up entire worlds all for themselves, with monsters and demons, to help them deal with stresses they couldn't have dealt with any other way. We don't know enough about the human psyche to say if a person dreams or not during a comatose state, but it appears that your mind was quite active. There is no such person as Inuyasha, Kagome, and the Jewel of Four Souls is just a story your grandfather told you before you got that fever. It's not real."

The therapy had helped and Kagome had forced out all knowledge of Inuyasha and the Jewel of Four Souls. Eventually, she'd been released and moved out of her house to go to University in Tokyo.

It was on her 20th birthday that the dreams started.

At first she couldn't remember any of them. She would just wake up shaking and sweating in the middle of the night, knowing she'd had a bad dream but not anything that had happened in it. Slowly she began to remember bits and pieces. The dreams would wax and wane; sometimes she went weeks without having a nightmare.

Tonight she remembered a the whole thing.

The battle had been a terrible one. She'd been fighting against a being of incredible power. She'd been knocked to the ground and someone had called out her name.

The dream moved forward. She was lying in a primitive looking hut, badly injured. Someone was lying next to her, pressing their body to hers, trying to give her their warmth. They nuzzled her neck, their whole body shaking with powerful emotion.

"Please, Kagome," a male voice said, caressing her like a lover and wrenching her heart with the fear in it. "Please, don't leave me. I…I need you, Kagome. I know it took me a long time to say it, but I-"

"Inuyasha?"

His head snapped up, relief and joy washing over his handsome face. His golden eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, his face streaked with old tears and dried blood. His clothes had been ripped in several places and his silver hair was tangled and dirt-streaked, elegant ears protruding from the top of his head. One clawed hand reached up and caressed her face.

"Kagome…I-"

She brushed a finger across his lips, silencing him. "Don't worry, Inuyasha. I'm all right. I won't leave you, I promise."

He leaned over and kissed her then, lightly at first, then with a strong possessiveness of half-starved hunger.

Finally, he pulled back to whisper against her lips, "I love you, Kagome."

She smiled and reached up to tweak his ear. "I love you, too, Inuyasha."

The dream began to fade as dark blue mist surrounded her. Desperate to hold on to the pleasant image, she reached for him. Somewhere in the mist a dark voice laughed, sending chills of fear through her body.

"Inuyasha! Inuyasha! NO!"

That's when she'd woken, still screaming for him. Kagome sipped her tea, silently brooding as she replayed the dream for a second time in her mind.

Inuyasha.

She'd been all but convinced the events she recalled so vividly in the Warring States Era of Japan had never happened. But when the dreams had begun 6 months ago, she began to doubt herself again. She'd tried to ignore it for as long as she could. But this time she remembered everything.

"All right, Kagome-girl," she said to herself as she glared at the couch. "You're going to school to study the Feudal Era of Japan. There's got to be something you can find on this jewel and this Inuyasha character. If these are just dreams your mind has made up, you must have read something about them to fuel your fantasy. Let's face it, you're not creative enough to have come up with it yourself."

She sighed and sipped her tea.

"Tomorrow you're going to go to your classes and then straight to the library to begin researching. There's got to be something useful I can find."

With that, she sighed and made her way to the couch. Maybe something good would be on late night.

Note: Well? What do you think? Interesting? Boring? I'd love to hear your comments-)