~*~ Where Did You Go? ~*~

~By: Lauren~

-Chapter 3-

"His Reality"

"Mommy, what's this mommy?" A five-year old Inuyasha crawled next to his mother. She was laying on a large futon, cuddled under white sheets and a single pale pink blanket. She lifted up the covers, allowing Inuyasha to snuggle in next to her.

"It's something very important. You must never lose it." She smoothed back his wild black hair by licking her finger and then wiping it.

Inuyasha squirmed, giggling. "Don't do that mommy!!" He laughed as she tickled his sides. "MOMMY DON'T! I-I'm a big boy so you can't fix my hair any more, ok? I can do it all on my own, ok?"

His mother smiled warmly, bringing a warm pink color to her pale cheeks. "Remember Inuyasha, your destiny is a great one. You must keep this with you always." She lifted up a thin, silver chain that had a golden ring dangling from it. She leaned forward, taking in quick breaths as she clasped it around his neck.

"But it's a GIRL'S necklace!" Inuyasha struggled to get free but she held him down, smirking at her son.

"It is not a girls necklace." She scolded him. "And you won't ever take it off, ok? Promise your mother that?" She leaned back into the cushion, letting her body relax.

"Ok mommy, ok." Inuyasha promptly replied. "Don't get too worked up mommy. Daddy said you can't stress yourself, remember? Right mommy? Right?"

His mother smiled. "Yes my little Inuyasha." She closed her eyes, taking in quicker breaths.

"Are you ok mommy? Mommy?" Inuyasha shook her trembling figure with his tiny hands. "Mommy?!" Tears filled his eyes.

"Don't worry, my sweet child." With her thumb, she stroked away his tears. "Mommy is going up to heaven. She'll watch you from there because she loves you so much." Slowly, she dozed off into a peaceful sleep. One she would never awake from.

"MOMMY! No! MOMMY!" Inuyasha sobbed into her now still chest.

~*~

Inuyasha awoke soaked with a thin layer of sweat. His breath was coming in quick tiny gasps as he sat up in his bed, holding a hand over his heart. Through his shirt, he could feel the ring his mother had given him during her last moments. "Why did I dream of that...?" Inuyasha asked himself out loud, finally calming down from the dream. He glanced over at his alarm clock and noticed that he was supposed to be getting up right about then for work. Yawning and stretching, he stood up and slowly pulled himself into the bathroom where he proceeded to splash cold water on his face. Why had he remembered his mother's death so suddenly and out of the blue like that? He didn't understand but he didn't think about it much more as the dream began to fuzz and fade in his mind. Inuyasha wandered into his tiny kitchen where he turned on his instant coffee maker.

The young doctor lived alone in a fairly small apartment. He had moved out of his home when he was eighteen years old for he couldn't stand to live with his older brother, Sesshoumaru, and his father. The three were a rough pair to live together. After his mother's death, Inuyasha's father had become extremely upset. He would go out for days at a time and often he would return home drunk. It was like the poor man was nothing without his love. It hurt Inuyasha to see his father like this, but the boy would never admit to it. His father still had two sons, so why didn't he care for them? Inuyasha didn't know the answer to that question. It was funny, the young doctor could help solve millions of people's problems but he couldn't work out his own. Then there was his older brother Sesshoumaru. For some reason Inuyasha just COULDN'T get along with him. Maybe it was the fact that they were half brothers or just brothers in general. Inuyasha's father had been married before his mother and his first marriage produced Sesshoumaru. Sesshoumaru mother had left after his birth and his father met Inuyasha's mother and the two were married. Inuyasha was the result of their marriage and he thought his brother was probably jealous that his mother had stayed with him. After Inuyasha's birth his mother had grown ill and she never really recovered fully from it. She had lived until Inuyasha was five years old before she passed away, the illness finally claiming her life for good.

Inuyasha had moved out when he was eighteen and he attended college although he wasn't really sure about what he wanted to do or become. For some odd reason, he felt he never really belonged in society. For a year, he wandered around the world, looking for a place where he felt he belonged, looking for a place to start a new life. He was looking for his place in the world. What he found he hadn't really expected but it was enough for the time being. He had discovered the tiny clinic with the melancholy girl staring out the window. At that instant, he knew what he wanted to do. He knew where he wanted to be.

And so, he settled down in the bustling yet tiny town. He quickly earned his psychological degree and gained his job at the clinic but by then, the girl was gone. He had no idea who she was so he stayed there, working with people each day.

By now, Inuyasha was climbing the stairs that led to the main level in the clinic where he worked. "Stupid stairs...they need to get a elevator." He grumbled to himself as he nodded a hello to a few live-in patients who were being led to the outside garden. He spotted a large spider crawling in a shadowed corner of the stairs. Inuyasha HATED spiders. He absolutely HATED them. He didn't know why, he just did. With a satisfying smirk, he promptly stomped on the bug until it was no more. When he finished this, he flung open a cream colored door and wandered up to the receptions desk.

"Try not to look too happy." Kikyo commented sarcastically with a chuckle.

"Bite me." Inuyasha snapped back at her while he filed through some papers. "Anyone here to see me yet?"

"Hmm...let me see. People who want to see you, nope. People who are forced to see you, nope." Kikyo smirked. "The files for your new patient arrived." She handed him a sealed brown folder. "And Sango should be arriving for her appointment later. So you have some free time to look over the papers."

"Yeah, thanks." Inuyasha picked up the folder and stared at it with amazement. It was HEAVY. Letting out a grunt of annoyance, he wandered up another flight of stairs until he came to the large cafeteria for patients and doctors. He quickly bought a coke and settled down at one of the empty tables. After fumbling with the metal clasp, he finally got it opened and he pulled out as many papers as he could grip with his fingers. They spilled out on the table and he began to flip through them.

He widened his eyes. "Jeez. She's got everything it seems from hallucinations, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, to delusions. What else have they got written down here?" He opened up the pages randomly and read over a few. Most of them were blank or scribbled and photocopied so quickly that they were barely readable. He filled through some more. "Half of these are crap!" He threw them on the table angrily. Growling, he picked them up again and tried to read it. "Ok...so she claims to be having some kind of hallucinations or delusions about something. The only other really tragic things she's had in her life was the death of her father and later her grandfather. But she wasn't put into therapy for her father. Humph, this is strange." He tried to make out some more words but they were just too blurred from him to figure it out.

"Who are you talking too?" Kikyo smacked him outside his head with a rolled up stack of papers.

"Myself. Got a problem with that?" Inuyasha shuffled the papers together, shoving them into the folder quickly. He'd look at them a bit more later on but...something was weird about them. They didn't seem accurate or right. Every psychiatrist the girl had been to had diagnosed her with something different it seemed.

"No but I came here to inform you that your new patient has arrived. If you want to her see, she's being taken down to room C-11 but she's unconscious right now. They said she was a bit of a wild one." Kikyo turned, leaving Inuyasha to sit alone.

Inuyasha frowned. She was staying in C-11? The C-section of the clinic was for dangerous patients. He got up and proceeded to wander around the stairways and hallways until he reached a large metal door with the letter "C" and the number eleven imprinted on it in bold black letters. He shivered. Inuyasha had never been down to this part of the clinic before and it was a bit morbid and frightening compared to the normally bright and perky area of the clinic that he worked in. In fact, this was only his second patient that actually lived at the clinic and the patient before her only lived there because they had no where else to go for the time being. Plus, they hadn't been a 'wild' or dangerous patient either. He bit his lip. Why was he so nervous?

Hesitantly, he leaned up towards the door and peered through a tiny glass window that was made above the "C-11" sign.

There, in the middle of the room, sat a girl. She was laying spread out on the floor in a pair of pale blue pajama like clothing. Her left ankle was wrapped up in bandages while she slept soundly. At first Inuyasha thought the girl was Kikyo but when he did a double take, he noticed the differences between them. He felt...drawn to her somehow. It was weird to explain and it almost scared Inuyasha.

The girl involuntarily shivered, curling her frail body up a bit to make more warmth. Inuyasha felt his heart wretch. He stepped back then looked through the window once more as the girl began to stir.

~*~

The weakness that had greeted Kagome the night before was still with her and the pain in her ankle was making it worse. Slowly, she somehow managed to get to her feet, forcefully ignoring the unbearable pain. She stumbled as she almost fell but quickly caught herself by grabbing onto the iron bedpost of a warm bed that sat in the room. She yawned, letting her guard down briefly. Finally, she took in her new surroundings. Soft walls. There was a small window at the back of the room and when she glanced out of it, she could see an in-closed garden below her. For once, the bed in her room looked warm and welcoming and the atmosphere was almost sunny. Even if the room had some differences, it was still much like the one she had left behind. It was much like all the rooms she had stayed in before. Fear and anger gripped at her as she sighed, collapsing on her bed. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be back with her friends, running through the forests, fighting demons, visiting hot springs, telling off Miroku for hitting on Sango and arguing with Inuyasha. She clenched her fists as she bit her lip. Slowly, she began singing the song that soothed her soul.

"As we live on,

We lose a little bit more.

Shrouded in falsehoods and lies,

We stand frozen to the spot, unable to cry out

The days pass by and change,

Without us even realizing how blue the sky really is."

~*~

Inuyasha stared at her silently, his stormy eyes almost hidden behind the strands of his hair. His smile was still there, but now it seemed frozen, as if he had just smiled at someone and forgotten to take it off. There was something about it, something in her eyes. It was as if he could see straight into her heart and what he saw...Inuyasha saw unimaginable pain. Pain that led to self-destruction. Pain that left one awake at night, crying silently. But with the blink of an eye, it appeared as if that window had disappeared- as if it weren't true what he saw. Inuyasha thought that he was imagining things, that he was inventing this pain when there was none. But no. He had seen it. He was sure now, more than ever. He just didn't understand why she felt such pain. How she could hide it behind her graceful movements. And her song...it sounded...so...sad.

Right then Inuyasha decided he would do everything in his power to help this girl.

~*~

Kagome froze midway through her song. She felt someone watching her. But that was impossible, right? She glanced about the room again but this time, she looked closer at the metal door. A little above the middle of the door, there was a square window. Peering through the window was a pair of golden speckled eyes staring right at her.

She knew those eyes.

She would recognize them anywhere.

Kagome swore her heart stopped at that very moment.

~*~

Lauren: Wee, four day weekend!! Which do you know what that means? More time to write!! YEAH!! Wow, it has been raining all day yesterday, all night and it is still raining!! I LOVE IT! Oh and in the last chapter, the voice wasn't Naraku. It was mostly just Kagome going crazy...or...something like that *evil smirk* It could be important, it might not be. You'll just have to wait and see!! D Thanks for all the great reviews and I hope you enjoyed it!

Next chapter- "Close The Door, Put Out The Light"