GODSPEED

Chapter 04: I'll Remember You


Inuyasha's appreciation of Linh's ability to open unseen doors was steadily decreasing. She had used it once or twice, but the small group had still spent much time traversing everything from fields and forests to ball rooms and shopping malls (which was a concept that Linh had accepted the responsibility of explaining to the two demons---she also pointed out the difference between it and earthly shopping malls. You didn't actually buy anything at these; people merely went for the social aspect, for browsing around through shelves and racks, generally enjoying each other's companionship and nothing more but the pleasure of imitating something they had enjoyed doing during life). It was impossible, or at least difficult, to tell how much time had lapsed during their voyage, as well, since the sun firmly remained low in the eastern horizon, but Inuyasha knew that they had wasted many hours caught in what seemed like menial voyaging that he felt could have been avoided if Linh was more competent at opening unseen doors.

"We should stop now, if we're going to stop tonight," Linh said, interrupting his brooding. "There's a boarding place nearby here that's easy to get to, and I'm not sure where the next resting place will be."

"No, we can't---" Kouga started before Inuyasha could.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Leilani said as she disregarded the the two protesting males. While Kouga and Inuyasha spluttered, she yawned widely. "I'm getting tired, plus it'll be really suspicious if we keep wandering around all night long."

"How can you tell if it's night or day?!" Inuyasha snapped. "It's morning all the time! We have to keep going, or we won't get to Kagome!"

"We won't run out of time," Leilani assured confidently. Linh, meanwhile, swept her hand through the air in a gentle gesture, combing her fingers through something entirely invisible to Leilani, Kouga, and Inuyasha. Where Linh's hand passed, the air parted.

"We do not want to exhaust Leilani," Linh added after the difficult part of her job was finished. "She is your guide here."

Inuyasha and Kouga grumbled but conceded to Linh's explanation as she stepped through the opening in the air. Leilani skipped after her and the two demons straggled along behind them, barely paying mind to the temporary door as it sizzled shut behind them---they had seen such a display earlier in the day. Most of the time, Linh opened doors out of nowhere that seemed as if they could belong to any house; some slid, some swung outwards, some simply parted. However, some seemed liked rips in the air that fizzled and popped. This had upset the two suspicious canine demons the first time they had seen it, but they had gradually accepted the unnatural doors.

While the door disappeared entirely behind them, Inuyasha and Kouga slowly followed after the two girls and observed their new surroundings. They were walking in a meadow soft with pale moonlight made sharper only by the darkness of an unlit, empty world. There were trees at the far end of the meadow, heavy with shadow, that swayed softly in a saccharine breeze. They, themselves, were approaching a small wooden hut that looked much like Kaede's, but that it had a Western-style door. When they reached it, Leilani pulled open the door of the wooden structure. They stepped inside and the moonlight illuminated the sparsely decorated room---it was larger than it had seemed from the outside, with four plain beds and no more. Leilani crawled into the first of the beds, not even taking the time to snuggle under the quilts, and was immediately asleep. Linh cast the men a hesitant glance before claiming the second of the four beds. As she drifted off peacefully and quickly, Kouga sat on the edge of his bed. At once, a sleepy look overcame his otherwise alert features and he leaned back against the mattress.

"Do you think angels dream?" he asked speculatively. Before Inuyasha could insult him for what he felt was a dumb inquiry, the wolf demon was sleeping soundly. Inuyasha snorted and walked past the fourth bed, pausing at the window to look up at the moon---his constant comfort in the deep nights spent camping in the woods of feudal Japan.

His features relaxed from the scowl they had been in.

"Why would an angel dream?" he asked uselessly, glancing up at the pearl in the sky as it cast a sheet of white light to the dark ground. "This is heaven...what else could you dream of now?"

He shook his head, cursed Kouga and his current situation, and retreated to the remaining empty bed.

He had thought that he would not sleep that night---he had decided he would not---but as soon as he touched the bed a wave of exhaustion overcame him. Before his eyes closed, he concluded that the beds were enchanted to grant easy, peaceful slumber. Even Kouga would not have fallen asleep so easily otherwise, and after all---it would be terrible to come to heaven only to contract insomnia when you wished to rest.

He closed his eyes and stopped worrying about it as he fell asleep.

Inuyasha might have been convinced that angels did not dream, that they had nothing of which to dream, but he himself did---or rather, he remembered something while he slept. He remembered Kagome, days after they had returned from hell and days before she had gone to heaven. He remembered one of the times of peace they had captured between everything else.

There was one simple question that he wanted to ask her. It had been tugging at his mind since they had returned from hell, but he could never find the courage to ask her. He had excused it for a number of things---the others were always around them, Kagome was too busy resting or working, or it seemed like the wrong time to ask it.

But those excuses would not and could not work now---it was late evening, just after a supper of his favorite cup noodles, and he and Kagome were alone for awhile. Their conversation had already tapered off slowly and peacefully as they had watched the sun set---now the moon was part way up its journey through the sky and they had stayed silent for some time.

Finally, he swallowed. What kind of coward am I? he asked himself. Just do it.

"Why did you come for me, Kagome?" he asked her in a flustered, ineloquent rush.

Kagome looked over at him briefly in some surprise after she was able to discern his words, and then went back to looking at her knees. Her legs were folded beneath her and her hands had been sitting in her lap, but her fingers moved to toy with the fabric of her uniform skirt uneasily at his words. Inuyasha instantly regretted opening his mouth.

I should've asked it different, at least. Come on, that sounded really desperate, you dummy! She probably thinks I'm looking for reassurance or some crap...he thought with several curses. He just wished to know the truthful answer, but he had mangled the chance.

"Why wouldn't I?" she replied after awhile as she shrugged weakly. Her voice was quiet, uneasy, but as she resumed her answer it gained strength. "Inuyasha, I don't know how I can answer that. I think it would be best if I didn't try to..."

Inuyasha glanced over at her. Her fingers had moved from her skirt to plucking short strips of grass up from the earth, but her face was marked by a thoughtful expression that meant she was attempting to figure something out.

"Why?" he asked, cocking his head in curiosity. He wondered if her answer would make her feel uncomfortable around him.

Kagome hesitated for a moment. "I don't think I could find an answer that would satisfy the question," she said eventually. "I could say, you've done so much for me that it's only right I did the same for you. But that's not why I did it. I could say, because you would do the same for me. It's true, but that's not the reason I did it. I could say, I did it because I wanted to or needed to, or that I felt guilty, or that you're that important to me, or that I---that I love you, but that's not exactly it, either, even if all that's true, too. I just did it. Inuyasha, I didn't even think about it when I begged Kikyou to open the gate...I don't remember what I said to her. I just begged her to do it. And I sure don't remember what I was thinking." She looked puzzled and a little upset as she concluded her thought.

I just did it. Inuyasha considered those words. The same way I jump in front of you when you're in danger, he thought. The same way I would take any injury for you, the same way I would do anything just to see you happy.

"I wish I could offer a better answer, but I just can't," she said quietly. "I apologize."

"Don't say that. I understand," Inuyasha insisted, swallowing thickly. "I understand what you're saying." Clumsily, he collected her small hand in his much larger one.

"Inuyasha, I..."

"Kagome, you can't do that again," he whispered to her hoarsely. "You can't. I'd rather be dead than have you in that kind of danger again, alright? Do you get it?" He bit his lip as Kagome's features turned into a small scowl. "Nothing..." he stared again, "nothing...Kagome, when I couldn't do anything...when that devil was in the prison cell, and when Susumu had you...nothing is worse than feeling that fear...so just don't do it again."

Kagome shook her head. "I don't understand how you can ask me to do that."

"Kagome, I can't explain to you why," he said. "Any more than you can give me a reason for what you did, but I can try." He unfolded his hands from hers and laid it palm-up in her line of sight. "Look. I have these scars, these calluses, because I protect you." He picked up hers and compared it. Kagome seemed puzzled for a moment. She had always known and accepted that she was physically weak compared to Inuyasha---he was a half-demon, and he had lived a life of battle. She was new to it. She was largely protected from it by Inuyasha, Miroku, and Sango. But she had never realized what stark difference separated them---how much Inuyasha actually did for her.

"Inuyasha..."

"Listen, I'd do anything, anything, to keep you alive. I'd do anything to make sure your hands always stay this way." Soft, undamaged, and as unfamiliar with pain as possible. "But that means if I'm not here anymore, you can't do stupid things like go into hell for me. I'll find a way on my own, Kagome. Promise me, Kagome, promise me you won't do something like that again."

Kagome shook her head once more. "I understand what you're saying, but I can't make that promise," she said. "I wish I could, but I can't. But I can promise that I won't ever let you go so easy, ever again. I'll be more careful, I won't ever let Naraku trick me like that again." She yawned and slowly moved closer to Inuyasha as he tried to decide upon a response. Before he realized it her, her head was leaning against his shoulder.

"I hope this is okay..." she mumbled, looking up at the gathering the stars. "It's kind of cold tonight."

"Keh," Inuyasha replied, realizing the unsatisfying end of their prior conversation. Blushing, he dropped his arm around her shoulder and let his previous thoughts fade.

"Still," she said, turning her face so that she was pressed against him. "I'm glad it's all okay now."

"Yeah..." Inuyasha agreed. Her breathing evened out, shallow and peaceful. "I promise I'll never let anything hurt you again...I'll protect you, Kagome."

"You already do that," she answered sleepily. Inuyasha's face heated up with a blush of embarrassment---he had thought she had fallen asleep.

"Yeah, but..."

She laughed lightly against him. "I know you will. You always do," she said. "Through heaven or hell or anywhere between, you'd save me from anything...chase away any guy that comes near me...make me fail every test at school...prevent me from going home to visit my family...jee, it's a good thing you're so great at this body-guard thing," she joked.

Inuyasha grumbled wordlessly as Kagome drifted to sleep. Painfully, he recalled everything that they had been through in the past several days and his arm tightened around her of its own accord.

He had once said that being with Kagome made him happy, and because of that, guilty as well. But in his heart, there was a growing joy of simply being in her company that was overcoming the guilt, and sometimes, while the others were all asleep, he put his problems far away and imagined a life where that happiness was something he was allowed to have without remorse, without owing himself to anyone for anything, without revenge to find, without anything at all but the pure peace of being with Kagome.

She mumbled against his shoulder in her dream as Inuyasha felt his thoughts drifting to that life again.


Comments: I know some people were unpleased that I didn't have much fluff in BH&H, so for all of you who've stuck with me, here you go. I'm terrible at WaFF, particularly canon WaFF, but there's my shot at it. ^_^