Twice Over

AN: I want to thank all of you who reviewed and favorited this! I appreciated sitting at my computer after I posted the first chapter and watching my inbox fill up with alert emails. Though it's by no means concrete, I will be trying to adhere to a weekly updating schedule. I'll be going back to college in August, so that might screw with things, but I'm gonna do my best to keep you guys satisfied.

oOo

"It's not going to work," Kagome muttered into Sesshoumaru's collar as Sesshoumaru alighted on the steps that led to the well house. "It hasn't worked since I left, and it's not going to work now."

She was still pressed against Sesshoumaru's back- he must've felt her shivering and thankfully he did not make her leave his warmth. Kagome, between shivers, wondered what had mellowed him out so much in the last three years.

"Have you tried?" he asked her, a hint of mimicry in his voice, at which Kagome rolled her eyes.

"No, I haven't."

Mounting the last few steps, Sesshoumaru stopped just in front of the doors. Kagome didn't have to see it to know that he was eyeing the heavy, iron padlock on the mildewed wooden doors; she'd installed it after she'd returned to deter herself from trying to do anything she would regret. Kagome had entrusted the key to her mother, who had hidden it somewhere in the house. Kicking the door in would cause too much noise, and surely wake up the rest of her sleeping family back at the house, so Kagome craned her neck to try to see what Sesshoumaru would do.

Slowly, he released her thigh, and once he was sure she was not going to slide off, Sesshoumaru brushed his fingers over the padlock, tracing all the contours carefully like a blind man would read brail. Kagome didn't know what that would accomplish until the acrid scent of burning metal wafted up toward her and she coughed violently as she accidently inhaled the fumes. Squinting over his shoulder, she was looking at what appeared to be an impromptu chemistry experiment; dropping to the ground in corroded chunks, the padlock smoked and sizzled- the intense smell of sulphur made Kagome's eyes water and she buried her face into the crook of Sesshoumaru's neck to avoid it.

After a moment or two, Sesshoumaru slid the doors open and immersed the two of them into a far more impenetrable darkness. The interior of the well house smelled strongly of mildew and seemed to radiate a sluggish, damp chill, which sent Kagome shivering all over again. Practically gliding down the second set of stairs, Sesshoumaru towered over the rim of the well. This time when he slid his hand from her thigh, Kagome knew he meant for her to get down; together, the two of them gazed silently into the well, Sesshoumaru passively and Kagome with a skeptical scowl.

"If I jump down there, and it doesn't work," she said to Sesshoumaru without looking at him, "I'll break both my legs and probably injure my spine somehow, which'll condemn me to a wheelchair for the rest of my life."

"You have hospitals, Inuyasha has told me as much."

It'd be foolish to mistake what he just said as a joke, because Sesshoumaru just didn't do that. Nonetheless, Kagome stole a glance at him from the corner of her eyes. Stoic and unreadable as ever. Returning her gaze back to the well, she said quietly, "I feel it, the well I mean, but it's weak."

"You are able to sense its magic?"

"Well yeah, I guess so. It's never been this blaring signal or anything," she added quickly. "But more of this tingle I get, kind of like how it feels when you get goose bumps when its cold or you're scared, or…" she trailed off when she noticed he was looking down his nose at her, an eyebrow arched.

"A tingle?"

Glad it was dark so he couldn't see her flush in embarrassment, she mumbled an affirmative. Suddenly, the splotches of blue-green lichen that grew along the rim of the well were much more interesting than they had been a minute ago, and Kagome concentrated on them instead of risking another glance at Sesshoumaru.

"Our window of opportunity might very well be closing by the second, if what you say is true," Sesshoumaru commented. "Jump."

Kagome said incredulously, forgetting the lichen and whirling around to face him, "What do you mean, 'jump'?"

"Into the well. Jump into the well," he told her impatiently.

Kagome knew for a fact that at the bottom of that well was solid ground. And even if it was still working, it's magic was very weak. She felt it, like a pulse against her skin that was getting slower and feebler. "I already told you its magic isn't as strong as it was. If we jump in, we may not even land in the past. For all we know, it'll take us to World War II or something!" Kagome exclaimed nervously, realizing the enormity of her own words. Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed, and though she knew he didn't know what World War II was, her whining was obviously getting on his nerves.

"Then hurry."

Lost in her own panic, Kagome pushed aside her inhibitions, pulled one leg over the edge, then another so she was sitting on the rim, teetering for a moment. Sesshoumaru had moved behind her, and stared intently at her. What was she doing? "What if it doesn't work? What if you end up a day forward or behind me when you jump?" she asked desperately, needing him to infuse her with the cool confidence that he had.

He did not answer her, but removed something from his sash, a dagger Kagome hadn't noticed, and handed it to her. Confidently, he told her, "This will ensure that you get to the past. Now go," he said firmly and pressed the dagger into her hands.

Clutching it to her chest, Kagome hesitated for a moment, and then slid off the lip of the well.

She held her breath as though she'd plunged into a pool instead of an empty, and hoped with everything in her that if she did land, she'd be knocked unconscious. Air rushed up around her, billowing through pajamas, which flapped wildly around her. On her arms gooseflesh rose, and the pulse of the well, so dim before, flared, beating furiously.

All the air had been sucked from her lungs, and Kagome choked in the endless darkness. Her fingers curled around the dagger, and the blade sliced into them as though her skin had been as thin and delicate as rice paper. Her hiss of pain was lost.

Then she was floating gently toward the bottom. When she touched down, her knees buckled and she collapsed at the bottom of the well, gasping and wheezing for air. Through her tear-veiled eyes, she could make out white shapes and as she swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand, she realized they were bones, covered in a soft dusting of snow.

It worked…

Floundering in the thin layer of snow, Kagome huddled in a corner with the dagger still pressed against her chest, feeling ridiculous for not dressing in something more appropriate for the weather that was drastically colder than it had been back in the present. Even without wind, the bitter cold cut through her thin flannel pajamas and bit viciously at her skin. Kagome bit her bottom lip and curled into a tighter ball. She'd wait for Sesshoumaru to materialize so that they could get to shelter.

She waited, and waited and soon not even her body heat could keep the blade warm anymore.

Kagome dozed, her mane of wild black hair hanging haphazardly around her face, lips tinted blue. Above the well, the moon drifted a bit farther toward the center of the sky, sliding behind layered grey clouds that began to sprinkle the land with fresh snow.

How much time had passed before she woke, Kagome did not know, but as she gradually unfurled herself her entire body resounded with a dull ache; her joints seemed to have been frozen in place and likely so her entire body had been covered with snow. Looking around the dim space, Kagome spotted a ladder that ran up the opposite wall, interwoven with withered, spidery vines. Dismally she realized she would have to climb it if she wanted to get out of this damned hole.

But she couldn't get out. Sesshoumaru hadn't come yet, and her body wouldn't stop shivering; her heart, beating wildly against her ribs, barely allowed her to breathe. Gasping, dizzy, and furious, Kagome struggled to stand. Her hands raked at the hard, packed earthen wall, dirt lodging under her fingernails. Her breaths came out in painful gasps, like sand scratching over rock, and she pounded the wall.

Where the hell was he? Dragging herself up, Kagome gritted her teeth against the strain and simultaneously cursed herself for listening to Sesshoumaru, for taking his hand and letting him talk her into this. For her goddamn legs that wouldn't support her, keep her standing. Fingers that could barely bend. Couldn't possibly grip the rungs of the ladder…

Sagging against the wall, Kagome decided that instead of trying to walk across to the ladder, she'd work her way around the edge of the well and use the walls as support. Cautiously, with her back against the wall, Kagome side-stepped her way around the perimeter of the well, moving a few inches at a time, stopping when her shivers turned into spasms. When finally she was able to run the tips of her fingers over a rung, though she couldn't grasp it fully, Kagome smiled through the tear tracks on her face.

Craning her head back, she gazed up through the flurry of flakes that eddied and swirled as they fell. Kagome hadn't remembered a time when there'd been this much snow and, looking at the ladder, when the well had seemed this deep. The ladder stretched on forever to her. A bone-rattling round of shivers shook her body again, and she coughed trying to catch her breath. Inhaling as deeply as she could manage, Kagome turned to face the wall, gripped the nearest rung, and mounted the ladder. As if made of rusted tin, Kagome slowly began to climb, raw determination succeeding where her muscles failed.

At last cresting the lip of the well, Kagome hauled herself over the edge and, unable to keep her balance on deadened legs, pitched forward into the snow. Just as her muscles had failed, now her determination fled her, bleeding out from her body into the frozen ground below. There was nothing left now, but to lay here, numb and exhausted. Nothing left now, but to lay her and wait for someone who wouldn't come, for death that would surely come…

Just across the meadow, she thought, was Kaede's village, where maybe Sango and Miroku and Inuyasha and Shippou really were waiting for her. Maybe Sesshoumaru lied. Maybe they were there, in Kaede's hut, waiting for her. Around a fire, she fantasized, and the thought of fire seemed to spark a sensation inside her that spread throughout her body and left her tingling with phantom warmth.

It felt good, nice. Like the fire would feel. Warm, comforting.

As Kagome slipped gently out of consciousness, Kagome smiled. An eerie smile. Almost like the smile of a corpse, blue-lipped and bloody from where she'd worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Underneath her fingernails, the black dirt stood out starkly against her colorless skin. At the bottom of the well, Sesshoumaru's dagger lay half hidden in the snow among the gleaming white bones.

oOo

Clearing the stone wall that surrounded the village, Sesshoumaru hit the ground running, flying over the snow like a large, white and silver bird. He cleared the meadow quickly and disappeared into the forest, darting around trees, sometimes taking to the branches when the ground became too cumbersome. In his hand flapped two thick garments, red and white, the only clothes he could find that would keep her warm enough. It had been easy enough to get them for despite their wall and their guards, the humans were still as unaware as they've ever been. Even as he had entered the shrine, full of sleeping shrine maidens and a priestess, he had met no resistance.

He remembered that she'd been a miko, reincarnated at least, and thought that the garb would be fitting. Dropping down to the forest floor, Sesshoumaru approached Ah-Un; they acknowledged him with a snort of smoke and from Ah a knowing look. He blinked his topaz eyes as Sesshoumaru peered down at her, simultaneously shielded and huddled, like a child burrowing into her mother's bosom, into their soft underbelly. They'd formed a sort of nest, encircling her completely so that the tips of their noses touched their hind flank. Around them was a circle of grass, the snow having melted because of the heat their body radiated, and the snowflakes that did drift down evaporated almost instantly after landing on their scales.

Fragile. Battered. As he looked at her, Sesshoumaru wondered how she hadn't died out there in the snow. By the time he had arrived and found her sprawled and almost completely hidden in the snow, her fingers and toes, as well as her lips, had turned a sickening blue and when he had picked her up, she may as well have been as cold as the ice she was covered in. For a moment, so fast that he would rather think he had not thought it at all, Sesshoumaru worried that she was dead. Though he held no personal attachment to her, she meant everything to what he intended to do, and her death would be on his hands. Her death would make things impossible.

Reaching down, he gently shook her shoulder. By no means would he be surprised if she did not wake up, but when she jerked up into his touch, he was momentarily taken aback. Turning her head from the crook of Ah-Un's front leg, she cracked one bloodshot azure eye open and looked at him. He presented the clothes. "They will keep you warmer." She blinked, and Sesshoumaru took that as understanding.

Kneeling down, slowly he helped her to a sitting position, and he could feel that though her internal body temperature had risen, she was still dangerously cold. Her head lolled back against Ah-Un's side, but Sesshoumaru could see her eyes flicker to him whenever he made a large movement. Her left wrist was badly sprained, and her right ankle was broken. While he had previously planned to let her keep her clothes on, they would now have to provide the bindings to keep the bones and joints in place. Brushing his fingers over her swollen ankle, Kagome groaned and both Ah and Un looked up at him briefly, as if voicing her annoyance. Sesshoumaru had never seen them protective of anybody, not even Rin, and it puzzled him how this girl, Kagome, had gotten them so enamored with her.

"Your wrist and ankle are injured. I need to wrap them," he told her quietly, noting with some satisfaction that her breathing had stabilized, and now her pulse beat at a slow, steady rhythm. She blinked, and nodded her head minutely. "If you allow me to, I will do this for you."

Seeming to comprehend what that meant, she sputtered suddenly and tried to lean forward, eyes opened fully now and staring at him with a look of desperate horror. Her body, though, was still too weak to manage movement on it own, and she grimaced as she fell back against Ah-Un's side. Sesshoumaru watched her quietly, and eventually, after a few contemplative moments, she looked away from him and nodded. A tear, he noticed, ran down her cheek and dripped onto Ah-Un's scales where it evaporated in a wisp of steam.

Perhaps she was worried that by undressing her, he would be violating her in some way. And he supposed that this was true to an extent, but his only concern was making sure she was warm and that her injuries would heal properly. Gazing at her, Sesshoumaru reached out and began to undo the buttons of her shirt, made of an odd, soft material and decorated with intersecting, perpendicular lines and squares. It was somewhat difficult to grasp the tiny disks with his claws, but eventually he got the hang of it and quickly undid them all.

He did not feel shameful as he stared, nor disgusted. She had pale skin, probably more so because of her lack of circulation, marred only by the tiny crescent scar below her left breast. As he went to push her shirt from her shoulders, the back of his hand brushed the swell of her breast and she shivered; her areolas darkened, became taught and she muttered something that Sesshoumaru could tell was dark. He maneuvered her arms out of the sleeves, feeling the solid muscles in her shoulders, her biceps and triceps as they contracted then relaxed again. Ah watched with interest while Un snorted smoke rings and watched them drift up until they disappeared.

"What," she croaked. Sesshoumaru looked up, having tried unsuccessfully to tie the strings of the haori. "Took you so long."

"I will explain it to you another time. Are you able to tie these?" he motioned to the strings that lay limp across the flat plane of her stomach, with only the slightest contours of her abdominal muscles. Glaring at him, she nodded. Nimbly she fastened the ties.

"I want to know now," she demanded in a hoarse whisper. "You were supposed to come… after me, right after me!"

Whatever else she said deteriorated into rasping coughs, and her shoulders pitched forward with the effort. Now that she'd been warmed up- Sesshoumaru could smell it, the musty sickness- her body was reacting wildly, trying to right what it thought was wrong. Placing his finger just underneath her chin, Sesshoumaru frowned. Her pulse was erratic, and alarmingly fast. She remained silent as he tore her shirt and fashioned it into a wrap that he applied to her wrist. Doing something similar to her ankle, Sesshoumaru set it with two relatively even sticks and then used the other sleeve, which had had artfully torn into one long strip of cloth, to make a soft cast. Satisfied with his work, he met her gaze.

"I was still wearing this," he removed a red piece of cloth and set it down beside him. He knew she would recognize it- he'd asked Inuyasha for it before he'd left. "I have figured that the well works differently now. I, Inuyasha, and you have created a temporal anomaly, and it remains open so that we may fix it," he explained. "You left items here in the past, and there are things you took with you to the future, and that has upset the balance of time, in simplest terms."

More conscious and less angry now that she'd been given some food for thought, Kagome gazed thoughtfully at the red bandanna. "So you're saying that my old school neckerchief was like some kind of passport to the future for you?" she asked, as if it was preposterous. "Only Inuyasha and I have been able to get through the well."

"Obviously that's not the case anymore, is it?" he said. "The well allowed me through because I had your neckerchief; it believed I was going to replace it and try to correct the imbalance."

"I can put these on myself," she snapped, swatting his hand away from her hip and snatching the hakamas. Allowing her to put them on herself, he reminded her, "Be mindful of your ankle."

Ignoring him, she shimmed into the billowing red pants, fastened them, and then patted Ah's neck. Obligingly he laid his head across her lap and his eyes drifted shut as she played with his coarse mane. "Temporal anomalies, passports to the future… what does any of that have to do with why I'm here? Screw fancy explanations, I want a goddamned answer," she said in a pleasant voice that belied her inner-anger and fear.

What would he tell her? What could he tell her? "You need to rest, you are trembling and your fever is spiking. I will explain further in the morning."

"No! You dragged me here and I want to kn—"

"Be quiet!" Sesshoumaru growled, cutting across her. Crouched over her, hand muffling her rant, he listened. There, he heard it again. From the east along the same way he'd taken to get here, he heard them. Below his collar, his hackles rose, and instantly his thoughts moved to her.

Protect her.

Kagome remained perfectly still, eyes wide and questioning him in their terror. What's wrong? they asked. Taking his hand away from her mouth, Sesshoumaru motioned for her to stay quiet. If they were to escape this, she needed to cooperate and not panic.

Or, he thought wryly, ask questions.

So low that she had to lean forward to hear him, Sesshoumaru said, "There are soldiers coming from the east, and they are armed. Stay quiet. Do you understand?" She nodded. Grimfaced, Sesshoumaru stood and pulled her up with him, making sure she could stand on her ankle without his help before he released her arm. Swiftly, he removed his armor and fastened it to Ah-Un's saddle. The dragon was as agitated as he was, and as they stood as well, Un let out a short burst of flame.

In the quiet of the forest, they could both hear now the clanking of armor and the talking. Abruptly, Sesshoumaru took Kagome onto his back and dropped into a low crouch. She was shaking against his back. In a trembling voice she whispered, "What are we going to do?"

Instinct told him that he was to stay and fight and kill, and his heart beat in anticipation of the battle, of the blood.

"Run."

oOo

AN: I didn't want to make the plot extremely complicated right off the bat by giving some elaborate, magical explanation for how Sesshoumaru got to Kagome's time. If you've ever seen the second Inuyasha movie, then you'll probably understand what I based the theory I used off of. Many of you are wondering what Kagome can do, why he brought her back, why her friends aren't waiting for her, and while there wasn't a lot about that in this chapter, next chapter should answer some questions.

And remember, some things are secrets for a reason. ;)

Leave a review on your way out! Please&thank-you.