Disclaimer: I don't own Inu-Yasha.

The Most:

First Love

          There was no moon and the night was impossibly darker for it. Even the stars were muted, though they always were on her side of the well. They had always been diamonds beneath the brightest sun, but from the grounds of the Higurashi Shrine they were merely shining glass. He didn't appreciate the change.

          Diamonds and Glass.

          One worth infinitely more than the other – a contrast in rarity and function. Diamonds were beautiful, yes, but far too rare to be put to any use no matter how long they lasted. Glass was more common and more useful, but it was also too fragile to be of any help. He shook his head, banishing the stray thoughts. It wasn't really stars, or diamonds, or glass that was on his mind.

          From a window he knew to be hers the soft glow of lamplight dusted the leaves of his living perch. Without that light, he was acutely aware, sight would be lost to him. Leaning back against the trunk and letting a leg dangle from the branch he had chosen, he raised a hand before his face to study it curiously. It was the same, yet not the same. It was real, yet unreal. It was a perfectly human hand, pale skin glowing in the starlight. It was his own, and yet… he was a stranger in his own body. Or perhaps he was himself in the body of a stranger.

          He stared at the hand that was not quite his own.

          This was not the hand that had torn apart so many demons with its powerful talons. This was not the hand that had hung limply at his side as he slept, pinned against the Go-Shinboku. It hadn't carried the remains of his mother's corpse to a waiting grave. It hadn't tugged uselessly at the rosary that still hung around his neck. It hadn't gripped the Tetsusaiga unconsciously as he lay awake at night. And yet… it had…

          It wasn't so terribly different, really, on the outside. Not so terribly different from the hand that was his own.

          "Good night, Mom, I love you." Her voice wafted through the nearly closed window. He only faintly heard the answer and the odd click of a door closing and then he knew she was alone. Bare feet padded across the branch with a feral grace he still possessed and leapt onto her roof – a feat that would have been effortless on any other night.

          From there it was simple to ease open the window and slip into her room. She looked up at him, from where she sat at her desk, visibly startled. I wouldn't be able to tell if I couldn't see it on her face…

          "Oh, you came," she smiled. "I'm glad."

          She had asked him to come here on this night, but for what reason he could not be sure. It was possible, likely even, that she believed this form too weak to fight off an attack. That didn't anger him as it should have. Maybe because he new it for true. Silently, he cursed his human body.

          "I have no better place to be."

          She faltered. "Well… I guess that's true…"

          He cursed himself twice more, once for the loss of her smile, and again for caring about such a thing.

          All words died on his tongue, and he settled himself on the floor near her bed and watched her with melancholy eyes. The sounds of paper beneath her fingers only barely reached his ears. She was looking through a book, a large, thick one. He contemplated her, watched the way she chewed her lip absently, the way the light shone on her raven hair, the way her odd night clothes moved as she breathed, turning it all over in his mind. Her rare cobalt eyes continuously darted from the open book to his still form, and he didn't bother to look away – he couldn't find any reason to. Finally, she turned in her chair to face him.

          "What is it?" she asked, and the response flew from his lips before he could call it back.

          "Why do you say that?"

          She only looked at him for a moment, and when she spoke next her voice was slow and thoughtful. "Why do I say what?"

          "You know," he shrugged. Human he may have been, and curious too, but he could not repeat those words. Not to her. Not now. "What you said to your mother. Before I came in."

          "You mean 'Goodnight'?"

          "No…. The other thing."

          "You mean…" she paused and glanced at her feet. "You mean, 'I love you'?" She looked rather embarrassed as she said the words, a blush staining her cheeks an attractive pink.

          "Yes. That."

          "I've never really thought about it… just so she knows, I guess." She cocked her head just slightly, her hair falling like spun silk across her shoulders. He was struck, not for the first time certainly, by the sudden urge to touch it. Violet eyes, so different from his usual gold, landed briefly on the hand at his side. It curled into a fist. "Haven't you ever said that, Inu-Yasha?"

          "Why would I?"

          "Because it's how you feel… you really haven't told anyone that you loved them? Not anyone?" It was amazing how much 'anyone' sounded like 'Kikyo' when she said it. He met her eyes and thought that maybe… just maybe… she was a little bit jealous.

          "If I have," he told her truthfully. "I don't remember it."

          She regarded him for a moment. "That's so… sad," she finished lamely. He only shrugged as she turned back to the book, darting glances at him every so often. He didn't meet her eyes. If there was one thing he didn't want from her – from anyone – it was pity.

          For a long time they sat that way, silence settling over them like dust and age. The only noises were the gentle sounds of their breathing and the intermittent flipping of a page as the house slept around them. And surrounded in darkness as they were, with only the glow of her lamp like rosy morning's light, time seemed to stop and take a breath to preserve the quiet moment forever in the pair's minds.

          A soft thump broke the silence and the ethereal spell. She had fallen asleep, head resting on the open page of her book. His eyes trailed automatically across her form, lingering on the hair spilled across a page of black and white. He shook her, just slightly.

          "Kagome, wake up."

          She raised her head an inch or less and blinked sleepily before dropping back down over the book. It was a hopeless cause. He knew from experience.

          Hesitantly he forked an arm beneath her knees and lifted her from her chair. Even in this form her slight weight barely hindered him. A sigh escaped her lips and she leaned into him. He snuck her hurriedly beneath the covers, his skin on fire where he had held her. She was warm.

          "Inu-Yasha…" she murmured shifting. Suddenly he found himself staring into her half-lidded eyes, obscured by the haze of sleep. She blinked slowly, and he sat again by her bed. "Inu-Yasha…?"

          "What?"

          Though he could not see her, he heard her shifting beneath her blankets. The sound of moving cloth subsided and she spoke. "Wha – who… do you love…?" The drowsiness was gone from her voice. He glanced at a hand. "The most?"

          "Are you going to answer first?"

          "Not this time…"

          "Why are you asking this now?"

          "Because you're less likely to scoff at what I say."

          "Would you mind so much if I told you in the morning?"

          There was a pause. The air stilled around him. In the silence he imagined he could hear her heartbeat. Any other time he would not have to imagine. Then the moment, like so many others before it, was broken. Time, that had slowed in their minds alone, continued, and in the room that sheltered only them – in a time when the truth they shared was eternally chaste and a blatant lie would mar that perfect chastity forever – she breathed a simple word.

          "No." 

          And he relaxed, unaware when he had become otherwise.

          "Then go to sleep."

          He leaned back against the wall, taking up the seated stance he was accustomed to. It was long after he thought her asleep that she whispered to him: "Goodnight." And without thinking he answered in kind.

A/N: I've had such horrible writer's block lately!! You don't understand how hard I've been trying to write this – I know, I know it seems like the end is coming too soon, but this is where I originally planned to end it and I seriously need a break from the… uh… serious…ness of this fic… There will be One more chapter, I promise!! Originally, I was going to combine the other chapter with this one, but I couldn't do it. It just didn't seem right… the moods were too different. I'll try to get the next part up soon, and I've written at least a quarter of it already, but I have to majorly revise it to sound like a stand-alone chapter rather than the continuation of this one. Thanks sooooo much to everyone who reviewed! Without you, this story would _Never_ get finished! I'm so motivated by you all! Special thanks to ActingRogue, without whom I would have posted much later. See? Begging gets you everywhere…

 Well, I'm putting off studying to get this up, so I gotta go – See you next Chapter!!