The morning came with swift vengeance. Or well, Inuyasha was that vengeance, and he woke Kagome up way too early.

"Kagome, our shards, they're gone!" He had shaken her so violently that she snapped up. Their foreheads came together, banging so hard that it made a noise. Inuyasha grumbled as he brought a hand to his head. Kagome had tears in her eyes. Clanking heads upon waking was truly one of the most rude of awakenings.

"Inuyasha!" She hissed.

"Why are you in my face!?" Understandably, she was quite irritable. She brought her hand up, trying to rub the sting out of her forehead. Inuyasha's eyes settled on her and he looked much too serious than she was used to.

"The shards aren't in your pack," he muttered. Kagome huffed a soft sigh and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay Inuyasha, I sleep with them now, for safe-keeping," she explained as she pulled the small jar that was attached to thin twine that was tied around her neck from under the hem of her shirt's collar-line.

She had started to do so every night for some time now. There had been too many close calls. If something attacked in the middle of the night and getting her pack was not a possibility, it was better to have the shards on hand. She watched as Inuyasha visibly relaxed.

"Wait, why are you going through my bag anyway?" Kagome asked. Inuyasha gave her a deep frown and rubbed the back of his head.

"Well, it sounds stupid," he gazed away, seemingly trying to avoid the subject. Kagome narrowed her eyes at him, which didn't help his cause.

He huffed a sigh.

"I had a dream that Naraku came and took the shards and you guys were screaming for my help, but I couldn't get myself to wake up," he spoke in a low tone, and Kagome softened her expression after hearing him out. She gave a small, comforting smile.

"Well, it was just a dream, we're all safe," she said. He gave a nod.

"I know, I just—I worry sometimes," he admitted. Kagome gazed at him, a little confused as to where this was coming from. It must have been a bad dream. Inuyasha sighed again and looked almost as if he were arguing with himself.

"Inu... Yasha?" After a long moment of silence, Kagome knew she would have to coax him to tell her. He didn't always like being vulnerable, well, honestly, he never liked it. But sometimes when he was with her, he would, and every time he did, she felt like she knew him a little better. Every time he did talk to her about these kinds of things, she felt that they became closer.

"Keh, if you get hurt, that's on me, and I know I can be harsh to you, but I have to be," he gazed away, looking off into the distance. Kagome followed his eyes, but he didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular.

"I'm my own person, if I get hurt, that's on me, not you," Kagome corrected, but he gave her a look. It was a serious look, one that confused Kagome, well, what confused her was the strange look of pain in his eyes.

"No Kagome, I'm supposed to protect you, if you get hurt, I'm to blame," he stated. Kagome shook her head while pressing her eyes shut for a moment.

"Listen Inu, I'm really tired. Try to get back to sleep, it's gotta be like four a.m. or something," she muttered as she slowly lowered herself back into a laying down position.

Inuyasha watched her for a good long moment before he tucked his hands into his sleeves and closed his eyes. Kagome took a small peek at him. She thought he was going to go to sleep right there, but then his eyes snapped open and he stood up.

"Get back to sleep Kags," he said before turning and walking a bit away and hopping up into a tree. She slowly closed her eyes.

A month or so ago, this talk with Inuyasha would have made her happy. Very happy. But then the thing happened. The bad, horrible thing. The thing where Inuyasha had told her they would never work out or be a thing or anything. Because of Kikyo.

Kagome felt heat rise up her chest and all the way to her cheeks. She clenched her eyes tightly, holding back tears. Every time she thought of that day, it made her feel so down. She had cried enough over it though. She was done feeling sorry for herself. If Inuyasha didn't want her, then that was the thing that was on him.

And she couldn't wait forever. But so far, she hadn't really met anyone who seemed any better either.

'Miko, if you do not shut your mind up, I will find you and make you do so,' Sesshomaru's voice in her head physically shook her. She had forgotten he was there in her half-asleep state. Not only that, she had half-hoped it was all one weird dream.

'Not a dream at all Miko, but you are disturbing this one from mine,' Sesshomaru muttered in her head. He sounded even grumpier than Inuyasha had been about his headache the previous day.

'Sorry...' Kagome felt bad. Did she wake him up?

'Yes, you did, so how about you go back to sleep so that I may do so as well,' he sounded more annoyed the more he spoke.

'Sorry, sorry,' she was getting tired of being sorry for thinking. But it was early. She would give him a free shot on this one. She was sure she would be unhappy too if someone just kept talking and talking as she tried to sleep.

She turned onto her side, cushioning her head with an arm. she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. However, that was harder than it would seem.

'Did you find anything out?' She finally asked. She hoped so. She at first only received silence. Maybe it annoyed him more that she decided to ask, but she couldn't help it.

'The orb is some sort of magical container. How it has brought about our connection of thoughts, I am unsure of and still searching for answers,' he explained. Kagome frowned.

'A container for what?' she asked.

'For what, indeed,' he answered.

'So you don't—,' she began.

'Miko, sleep,' his voice in her head was soft this time and melodic. So she did her best to calm her mind, but it was still difficult.

Her thoughts were jumping around. It kept popping to the orb, and the dark priestess, and Inuyasha, and most of all, Sesshomaru.

'What if we can't fix this?' Kagome finally thought, obvious in directing it to the demon lord with how she worded it.

'There is no we, Miko,' he thought back. She sighed inwardly.

'I'm not useless, you know,' she thought.

'Tell me, Miko, how do you intend to rectify the situation?' he asked as if asking her to prove him wrong. Her gut twisted.

'I guess I could try to talk to Kaede,' she thought. He didn't answer.

'And you have nothing to say about that?' she wondered.

'Hn?' he seemed to not hear her thought all that well. Maybe... Her heart sped up. Maybe the spell was fading with time?

'Miko, chatter on, please, this Sesshomaru definitely wants to hear your every useless thought, I can hear you fine,' he sounded slightly annoyed or maybe even sarcastic.

'Oh,' she answered, frowning as she turned onto her back to stare up at the sky. It was still mostly dark, but the first rays of sunshine were breaking through the treeline. She closed her eyes once again, but then snapped them open. She was too awake to fall back asleep now.

'I have been up now for several days Miko, trust this Sesshomaru, I'd have slept yesterday if I knew this was to happen,' Sesshomaru thought with some sort of masked disdain, except that mask wasn't all that fortified at this very moment.

'So you're just tired?' She asked.

'Hn,' was his only reply.

She sighed aloud. She slowly sat up, biting her lip. She felt a chill run down her back. She couldn't tell anyone, but she was afraid. What if it turned out that they were stuck like this? Forever... She didn't like that thought one bit.

How could she even steal away the time to talk to Kaede alone? Inuyasha would wonder why she couldn't say it in front of him.

'Girl stuff I guess, just say it's about that,' she thought to herself. And then, what if Kaede hadn't a clue what to do?

Then there was maybe Myoga, but who knew where he was at. Plus, Myoga was Inuyasha's faithful servant, he probably wouldn't keep his big mouth shut.

Then the idea of Inuyasha finding out made her uneasy. There was no way he would want to listen to her explain about this. He would be angry and irrational. She understood why, but she was already dealing with enough as it was.

'Rin,' she had stupidly forgotten that Sesshomaru was there, even though she was literally stressing about the fact that he was there.

'Rin?' she wondered idly. It sounded familiar for some reason.

'Quiet Miko, I've not the time for this,' his reply was harsh and—panicked? She had never heard such desperation in his tone, not once in any of the times they'd met.

'Come on Rin, breathe!' his thoughts went off again, sounding more than worried. Kagome sat up very suddenly.

'What do you mean come on, breathe?' Kagome snapped inwardly. Two and two connected together, Rin was the little girl that traveled with him.

'Sesshomaru!' she thought. If Rin wasn't breathing, then that meant... She was dead.

'Not dead, water is trapped in her lungs,' Sesshomaru informed in a snarky remark.

'Well, do CPR!' Kagome was quick to think.

'What?' he questioned.

'Are you positive that she is not breathing?' Kagome asked.

'Miko, are you questioning my—?' he began to angrily retort, but she didn't let him finish.

'Get her on her back and tilt her head back to open her airways, and check to make sure she is still not breathing!' Kagome knew that if Rin was in really big trouble, now was not a time to be arguing. A quick moment went by before Sesshomaru thought again.

'She is still not breathing,' he responded.

'Put one of your hands on top of the other,' she stated.

'Miko...' he sounded almost furious.

'Oh, that's right,' he didn't have two hands.

'Well, you're a demon anyway, so maybe you should only use two fingers anyway,' she thought. He let out a noise in their shared mind, a strange one to hear in her head. It was a growl, he sounded deeply unamused.

'Sesshomaru, you need to do thirty chest compressions, at a rate of one hundred per minute, or if you know the song—actually forget that, you don't know it, anyway, thirty and then you must deliver two rescue breaths and then thirty more compressions and so on,'

'Miko, this is no time for all of this nonsense,' he sounded very upset, downright hostile in his tone of thought.

'No, you listen Sesshomaru! I know what I'm talking about, I'm a licensed lifeguard, and I'm pretty good at first aid—or healing, I mean. I am a Miko after all!' she thought it quickly, there was no time to waste.

'And a desperately bad one at that,' he was too angry and panicked to perfectly control what thoughts he allowed to enter his mind.

'Sesshomaru, if you really think I want a little girl to die... Please, I know what I'm talking about, please save her,' Kagome couldn't stand the thought of knowing she could help, and if he wouldn't listen, her knowledge would be in vain.

'Okay Miko, but if this doesn't work, I will end you,' he stated.

'It might not, but it's the only thing that will give her a chance of waking up again,' she stated quickly.

'Okay, tell me then, what are chest compressions?' He asked.

'Press two fingers to the center of her chest, press hard at a rate of a hundred per minute, but only do thirty, and then pinch her nose and breathe two breaths into her mouth,' Kagome explained.

'One, Two, Three, Four—,' he began to count, '—five, six, Rin!' he stopped counting to exclaim her name.

'Is she okay now!?' Kagome asked quickly.

'She coughed up water, she's breathing,' he responded.

'Thank the kami, good,' Kagome let out a long breath. She had been really worried for a moment there.

'Miko,' his voice was deep in her head and she couldn't place his emotion, but it was laced with something.

'Yes?' she wondered.

'Thank you,' he responded almost instantly. She was shocked, to say the least.

He had never thanked her for saving his own life, but thanked her for this?

'Don't worry about it, as long as Rin is safe now,' Kagome answered.

'Thank you, Miko,' he said again and she creased her brows at that. It was really strange hearing that from him.

'Rin is really important to you, isn't she?' she asked. Sesshomaru was silent for a long moment.

'Miko, I will answer that I suppose, but later, I truly do not have time to exchange thoughts at this moment,' he explained.

'Oh, yeah, I get that, just, ya know... Thank you too, for listening, and um, you don't have to be so thankful, I would never let anyone drown or suffocate if I can help it, anyone at all, so, just, yeah,' she kept going and going.

'Miko,' his voice became stern.

'and I'll shut up now,' she said, and then she firmly tried to reel her thoughts in, or well, away.

'Okay, now to make something you can lay on—Jaken can get leaves and I'll put my haori on top,' was his first thought and then there was a pregnant pause.

'Kagome imagined it was because he was speaking, ordering Jaken to get the leaves she supposed.

'And she's cold—I'll get wood and Jaken can start a fire,' and so he went on, voicing within his mind every action he would take before he would do it. Kagome frowned, he sounded stressed if his tone was anything to go by, and worried, which seemed so out of place for him.

She had so many questions now, but she did her best to shake it all away. She understood that Sesshomaru needed to think right now, she felt like he was panicking.

She didn't really know how different the biology of demons were to humans. Yes, they had powers much more beyond humans, but perhaps the influence of cortisol into the bloodstream wasn't all that different.

'Miko, I much wonder what that even is, but for now—,' he began to think.

'I know, be quiet, sorry, I didn't mean to,' she sighed.

'Shutting up again, right now,' and then she tried once again to force her thoughts away.

"Hey, Kagome, are you okay?" Inuyasha came back over to sit by her.

"Oh, um..." He scared her, breaking her from her mind. How long had he been here? She probably made so many faces.

"I thought you would have went back to sleep," he stated.

"At least by the time I came back," he added. She heaved a breath of relief. So he went somewhere and didn't watch her reactions to Sesshomaru's plight.

"Oh, I just couldn't fall back to sleep, but where did you go?" She asked. She eyed him curiously. He smirked at her and held up two rabbits and what looked like some wild carrots.

"I got breakfast," he stated.

"And since your up, maybe you can help me get some wood? Or you could skin them," He asked her. She shook her head and held out a hand.

"I say we flip a coin, heads I clean the rabbits, tails you do," she stated. He huffed a sigh and plopped down into a criss-cross position.

"Okay, okay, but I want heads for the cleaning, it's been tails so much lately," he complained. She smirked at that. They both hated cleaning the kill. Sango was the best at it and didn't hate it as much, but they weren't about to wake the slayer up just for that.

"Okay, let me get one," she unlatched her bag and pulled out a little coin purse. Originally she hadn't meant to bring her modern era money to the feudal era, but they got into the habit of flipping coins for decisions.

"Okay," Kagome said as she got one and then flipped it. Inuyasha was the first to look.

"Aw! Come on!" He went off. Kagome looked now as well. She smirked.

"Well, heads it is, see you soon Inuyasha," she said as she quickly began pulling on her shoes. Inuyasha grumbled as he grabbed the rabbits.

"Thanks a lot, Kagome," he said sarcastically.

"Anytime," she gave a wink. He grumbled some more and went to fish out the carving knife from Sango's bag.

Kagome pulled on a jacket from her pack as the air was a little nippy and then she wobbled into the forest. She still had the sting of sleep in her eyes.

As she continued walking, she tried to clear her mind. Sesshomaru was still there, thinking of his tasks, and talking to Inuyasha without much thought was easy enough. It was when she was by herself that it became difficult.

'Okay, get wood, just get wood Kagome and stop thinking about it,' she told herself.

'It's fine now Miko, Rin is asleep,' Sesshomaru thought.

'Oh, well, good, I'm glad she is okay,' Kagome thought back.

'Hn,' that sound of his. It made her smirk for some reason. It seemed to be his catch-all sound, if anything was. He used it as acknowledgment, a question, a sound of amusement, among other things as well it seemed.

'You had questions Miko?' he broke her out of her musings. Perhaps he didn't like her thinking about it, it was probably weird to hear someone thinking about the things you say all the time.

'I do,' she answered.

'In return for saving Rin, I will allow this, unless I deem your prying to be unnecessary,' he thought.

'Meaning?' she wondered.

'I do not wish to speak of my childhood or my parents,' he answered.

'Or Inuyasha?' she wondered.

'Hn,' it was used in agreement this time.

'Okay then, well, I can work with that,' she thought, although she'd be lying if she said she wasn't disappointed. She always did wonder exactly what the demon lord had against Inuyasha. Surely it couldn't just be that Inuyasha was a half-demon, they were brothers after all.

'Miko,' he warned.

'I know, I know, but I was just thinking about it for myself, not asking you,' Kagome defended herself.

'Perhaps we could stray from that subject altogether,' he stated inwardly.

'Okay, okay, okay...' Kagome grumbled inwardly as she bent down to start picking up wood. She had come out far enough to be alone and she found an area littered with decent-sized sticks.

'So Rin, what's that all about? You really care about her, but she's a human,' Kagome decided to ask about that. That is what she was wondering before.

'Rin is my ward,' he answered.

'Okay, and? You sounded like you were really worried earlier,' Kagome thought.

'I tested Tenseiga on her, she is alive because of my doing and she believes me to be the strongest in the world,' Sesshomaru explained.

'Would it not be dishonorable to allow one to come to harm's way when it is your doing that they are even still here?' he wondered. Kagome shook her head physically.

'I don't know Sesshomaru, I think you might see her kind of like you're her... Dad,' she couldn't help the thought. He was totally freaking out earlier, reasonably enough, but at the same time, he claimed to hate humans all the time. She never once heard him complain about Rin and she knew that he traveled with her and Jaken often. She had heard an annoyed thought about Jaken every once in a while, but never Rin.

'Perhaps somewhat, but as she is a human, it is obvious that I would never make a good father to her,' Sesshomaru stated inwardly.

'But I think she probably sees you like that too,' Kagome thought.

'And what of it Miko? Do not think it makes me weak,' he sounded almost defensive.

'It doesn't make you weak at all, actually, that kind of thing, it makes you strong,' Kagome thought.

'Hn,' he sounded, and if anything it was a sarcastic one.

'Hn, what?' Kagome thought back quickly, a little snappy.

'Nothing Miko, I am not the one asking questions right now, you are, so you can either continue or be done with this conversation,' he thought. Kagome huffed a sigh, picking up another piece of wood. She knew she was taking way too long out here, but she couldn't help it.

Sesshomaru was obliging her with any information she wanted, well within limit. Admittedly, she was kind of curious. How could one turn their nose up at that?

Plus, maybe they would get along a little better for it. Maybe. Well, it did seem easy to be complete enemies with someone you didn't know at all. So long as they were stuck with each other, being enemies was far from ideal. She only hoped that he could perhaps see her as more of a friend, well maybe not a friend. An ally perhaps?

If he didn't hate her or dislike her or whatever, then maybe he wouldn't be so callous with his wording. Maybe he wouldn't throw her under a bus for every little thing.

'Under a bus?' Sesshomaru didn't mean to think it. But it was difficult to not think at all when he had already cast aside his thoughts so much.

'And cortisol, these words have no meaning to this one,' what were the meaning of the weird words she said? She said something about the future before, but even if that weren't the case, and most definitely it couldn't be, she could not be from around here.

'Wait, what? When did I say that?' Kagome inwardly freaked out.

'When you were half-asleep, I assume that it's nonsense?' he asked her.

'Yes, complete nonsense, you got that right,' she sounded nervous. However, she did save Rin.

'Do not mind my musings, continue your own,' he thought.

'Oh yeah—so, how did Run get hurt earlier?' Kagome had avoided the question thus far, but she did want to know. Sesshomaru had been trying to go to sleep when it happened.

XxX

Review Replies:

To LucyKatherine25: Thank you very much! I am glad you are excited about it, I hope that this chapter was a good read. Thank you once again. :)

To Chiaztolite: To your first review, thank you so much! I've actually been thinking about writing this story for a couple of years now, but I was worried it would be difficult to write their thoughts. I try really hard to keep Sesshomaru in character, so it makes me very happy to see that you thought I did a good job on that. I too thought it would be intriguing to see a story where they can hear each other's thoughts, or well, any pair of characters I guess really, but Sesshomaru is my all-time favorite. Even if you are not a sess/kag shipper, it really flatters me that you would check out my story anyway. Thank you so much once again.

To your second review, thank you once again, I know I just said that, but I cannot help it. I think really hard on chapter titles to try to summarize the chapter as a whole and I really like to make them be hopefully clever. Also, your compliments are deeply appreciated. It made my day, or rather my week to read your reviews. I hope that this chapter is good, it brings me joy to hear that my writing is enjoyed.