Standard Disclaimer: Inuyasha and all belong to Rumiko Takahashi...

A/N: Sorry about leaving this one hanging like that... RL came at me with a vengence and all that good stuff. LOL, at any rate, I know no one wants to hear details, so suffice it to say I'm hoping it doesn't happen again.

Utmost adoration to all my reviewers, you guys always make my days! And I hope you find the rest of this just as entertaining as you have so far. ^__~

Grey Eyes And Golden Nightmares

Chapter 5

Miroku stared at Kagome across the campfire, his expression set in characteristic blandness as he watched her roll out her worn sleeping bag to spread out on before she wrapped up in a blanket from this era. The entire scene was rather appropriate for the woman's own situation: no longer from one time or the other, but somehow suspended in between both… on a different plane of existence than the rest of them.

Sango had already curled up, facing away from them, but whether she was asleep or not was anyone's guess. She was always so much more withdrawn at night, barely saying two words to any of them before she wrapped up against Kirara and went to bed up until Miroku had begun to insist that he take second watch. On the every other night she traded with Kagome, the exterminator simply made herself scarce with patrolling until it was time to return and wake the monk for his shift. She was always asleep by the time Kagome jolted awake from her regular nightmares.

Poor Shippou was another story. The little kitsune had hit a growth spurt, and the group had learned the main reason for kits to stay with their parents nearly to adulthood. He could barely stay awake a full six hours without looking absolutely exhausted, and at night he slept so deeply that the time they did have fights, he hadn't so much as twitched. Since he'd hit the spurt, Shippou spent most of the day napping on Kagome's back, or on Miroku's shoulder unless Kirara was transformed and giving him that fuzzy, highly comfortable option.

'Although…' Miroku glanced at the snoring kitsune thoughtfully, sighing in resignation when he realized he was close to being too big for his latest set of clothes. He absently made a note to speak with the girls about getting the boy new clothing as he settled in to take the first watch, wanting Kagome to at least try to sleep tonight. 'If he had any idea of the hell Kagome suffered at night, he would be worried. It's probably better that he sleeps through them.'

Kagome was sighing, her eyes focusing on him for a moment as she curled her hands up under her cheeks, lost and even pleading as they locked onto his. He hated that look, but it was there night after night… and no amount of comfort seemed to take away her nightmares. All he could do was dip his head and let his eyes warm with loving reassurance that he would be there when she invariably woke up.

She relaxed slightly, smiling at him in silent thanks before she burrowed down in the blanket and rolled to put her back to the fire. He continued to watch her until he could clearly see the rhythm of her breathing change, but no sooner had it smoothed out to the deep steady breath, his view was obstructed by a familiar, blood-red hakama.

Miroku tensed, his instincts screaming a warning that for Inuyasha to be here, when his ritual for every night in the last four years was to be out searching, meant that whatever the hanyou wanted couldn't be good. That he'd obviously been waiting for Kagome to fall asleep, and come directly to him, made him even less inclined to be optimistic.

"Follow, bouzu," he growled out in a low whisper meant for Miroku's ears only.

Miroku frowned, lifting his eyes to Inuyasha's set expression and murmuring back, "Inuyasha, it's late and-"

"That wasn't a request," Inuyasha cut him off with sharp impatience. "Walk or I'll drag you, it makes no difference, but you are coming with me."

The monk swore under his breath, but nodded and rose to his feet, shooting a discreet, concerned look at Kagome's sleeping figure before looking at Sango and then off into the woods as though only checking their surroundings, "I can't go far, Inuyasha. It's my watch."

Inuyasha flinched, his attention intent enough on the monk to have caught the subtle difference in the way he was looking at Kagome. His fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white, and it was only by some miracle that he hadn't punctured his own palms with his claws. How could he have missed this? When had he gotten so distracted that he'd missed seeing the way Kagome had changed? The way she'd withdrawn? …Or turned to Miroku?

He turned on his heel before he gave into his urge to slam the monk's head against the trees until he'd forgotten his apparent infatuation with the miko, his miko. That could wait until they were far enough away to escape the notice of the others.

Inuyasha didn't have to fake the harsh, suppressed anger in his voice as he hissed out impatiently, "Move it. I haven't got all fucking night to waste on you."

Sango lay perfectly motionless, keeping her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm as she waited for the sounds of Miroku and Inuyasha to disappear into the woods before she finally opened her eyes.

Kirara's head lifted, blinked sleepily and rumbling a question when the taijiya slowly pushed herself up to a seated position. Sango reached out to stroke the youkai's cheek and soothe her with a whispered, "Easy… go back to sleep, Kirara. I'm not going out of the camp tonight."

The transformed cat watched her for another moment before sighing and laying her head back to the ground to resume her rest. Sango continued to pet her a moment longer, her eyes unfocused and introspective before they turned to find Kagome's slumbering form.

Sango moved silently, coming to her feet to pad around the soft grass and slowly kneel down beside the miko's head, reaching out to brush an overlong strand of her bangs out of her face tenderly. It wasn't often that it was just the two of them anymore, even if they were at a city or bathing, but Sango still couldn't say what she wanted to the miko's face, "Kagome-chan… I'm so sorry…"

Kagome shifted restlessly in her sleep, almost as though picking up and feeding off the uncertain guilt of the taijiya watching her with pain-filled eyes. Sango's eyes clenched shut when she rolled onto her back, but after a moment, she forced herself to turn her gaze back to the vicious scar marring her friend's face, 'If I had killed Kohaku… or if I hadn't stopped him all those times… Forgive me, Kagome-chan, you lost your family… your entire world… because of me. Because I couldn't let go.'

Sango's lips twisted in disgust as she shifted, tucking her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them to hide her face as she whispered, "I've got no right to be angry with Inuyasha for every time he's made you cry. I was always angry with him for hurting you… choosing a dead shell with Kikyou's face. But how was I different, Kagome-chan? Kohaku was already dead too."

Her shoulders shook as she fought to contain the pain slowly eating away at her soul, even after so many years. All she had to do was look at Kagome, see the changes and the scars and she was reminded. She owed Kagome a debt she could never repay for taking advantage of the miko's soft heart to feed her selfish desire to pretend her brother was still alive under Naraku's control... that she could find a way to save him. Naraku would have killed him anyway when his usefulness had passed, and still she had held pointless hope.

Her head lifted, shining eyes returning to Kagome's face, "You should hate me. Maybe I wouldn't hurt so much if you would just yell at me, Kagome-chan, if you would scream or beat at me. Why don't you accuse me of destroying your family?!" she demanded in a harsh whisper that broke as the tears finally slipped past her attempts to hold them in. 'Why couldn't you have yelled? Why did you have to apologize to me? It was my fault!! My responsibility!'

She swallowed hard against the feel of her throat closing, her stomach turning with nausea with every hated, disgusted thought, 'Why, Kagome-chan? It's my fault you lost them… Why couldn't you hate me the way I hate myself for what I've done to you?! After all you've done for me…'

Sango buried her head in her hands, shoulders shaking, "Why did you have to cry for me?"

~

Miroku eased down onto the rocky shore of the still lake beside Kagome's motionless form, unable to hide the concern in his eyes as he looked at her moonlit face, "It's late, Kagome-sama…"

She was silent for so long the monk was about to grab her shoulder, shake her, anything to snap her out of whatever daze she was trapped in. Yet just as he started to move, she finally responded… Nothing moved but her lips, her eyes grey and unblinking as she stared at the low hanging moon, and her voice dull, disinterested, "Is it?"

"Kagome-sama, what is happening to you?" Miroku closed his eyes; forcing himself to be calm when he wanted to scream at her, slap her, anything that would get a real emotion out of her. He wanted so very badly to banish whatever darkness held her soul and bring back the Kagome their group had come to love… but he didn't know how.

Not since she had healed enough for them to start searching again.

Inuyasha was absent more often than not, searching ahead for rumors or scouting for traps, but whenever he was near, she would pretend.

She would smile, laugh, yell…but if he were to really look close, he would have seen that the spark was gone from her changing eyes. Eyes that had once been vivid, sparkling blue-grey now dull and flat, steadily losing that unique blue to a thick rim of solid, unfeeling grey.

Miroku was the only one who had looked…

To his eyes, Kagome was playing her part.

It wasn't that she did anything wrong, just rather like everything she did had been rehearsed to perfection. The passion and fire that was so intrinsically Kagome had bled away with the magic that ruined the well and left this… this performer behind in her place.

Yet, Inuyasha was distracted enough that the change had gone unnoticed, or maybe the hanyou didn't want to see what was in front of him. Miroku didn't know, but whatever it was, Inuyasha showed no awareness or acknowledgement to the alteration, and with his habit of racing off at night, he was oblivious to the nightmares that plagued the young miko.

"You should go back to sleep," Kagome was saying softly, avoiding his question as a cool wind swept in off the lake. With the butchered kimono she was wearing, she should have at least shivered, but the only movement was the thick curtain of glossy hair, "The sun will be up in a few hours."

"You need rest more than-" Miroku broke off suddenly, letting out a slightly choked sound of pain when a twinge shot from his cursed hand up to his shoulder. His gaze dropped down to it immediately, clenching his fist mechanically and gripping the sealing beads as a wave of cold fear snaked through his stomach.

Kagome's head finally turned towards him, her brows lifting as she prodded lightly, "Miroku-sama?"

"I… I think… you should return to camp, Kagome-sama," his voice lowered harshly as he gripped his wrist, feeling it spasm and pulse until a tiny curl of wind seeped from the edge of his glove. 'So it ends with me…' his eyes were filled with regret as he looked up at Kagome's slowly focusing gaze.

Her brows furrowed in confusion, "The void…?"

"My time appears to have expired," he interrupted her quiet murmur, reaching over with his good hand to squeeze her closest knee. "I would have liked to seen the end to this, but at least-"

"Shut up."

Miroku stopped abruptly, his eyes filled with shock at the wealth of emotion in her voice… the most honest emotion he'd heard from her in months. The wind from his hand were gaining strength, tugging at their clothes as he watched her eyes fill with vibrant rage, "Kagome-sama…"

"That's it?" to his amazement, a spark of flame entered her eyes, and she leaned up to tangle her hand in his robes. Miroku winced and the way the air around her heated, the telltale traces of magic snaking down her arm and snapping across his chest.

His eyes widened when she came to her knees, the aura around her fluctuating suddenly, wildly. He had wanted her out of her desolation, but this…?! The ferocity of emotion suddenly blazing in her eyes was almost frightening, "You have to get away from here… if you don't-"

Miroku let out a startled shout when Kagome's hand slapped against his, her fingers lacing together with his and clenching fiercely. He didn't know how, but their palms stayed pressed together, Kagome somehow bypassing the effect of the air rip. All around the winds increased, nearby branches creaking as they started to draw towards them, "No."

"What are-?!"

"I'm finished, Miroku," Kagome cut him off with a low growl, the tracers changing from sporadic to a more focused stream down to where their hands met. She couldn't have explained it if she tried, but one minute she'd felt the same as she had for nearly a year, unfeeling, dead inside… going through the motions of living, but more from habit then desire.

The she'd felt Miroku's fear, felt the sudden rise of wind centered at his hand.

Something snapped.

She had seen everything from that day flash through her mind, again hearing Naraku's voice whispering in hear ear, mocking and sickeningly triumphant. Looking at Miroku's face as he stared at his hand, she'd felt that same sudden flash of power that had hit her that day, the instant knowledge of what she had the power to do.

"Naraku took my fucking family in the future, Miroku," Kagome's eyes sparked and began to glow as her rage deepened. "That bastard isn't going to take anyone else away from me!"

Miroku went taut when he felt the change in her magic, his hand burning from the inside of his palm, and the feeling slowly spreading out to the tips of his fingers before slowly making it's way up his arm, "Kagome-sama!?"

"He can't have you," her hand squeezed tighter on his, her other hand lifting to press over his heart as her eyes closed in concentration. The magic spiraled through him, in a dizzying rush that punched the breath from his lungs, nearly doubling him over the smaller girl as the searing heat expanded through the rest of his body.

'So this is what it feels like… being purified by a miko,' he thought distantly, gripping his forearm as though he could stop the painful sensation through that action alone. The wind from the kazaana added to the energy pouring off her gave Kagome a nearly wild appearance as she focused on him… on finding the corruption of Naraku's curse and purifying as much as she could.

There was a full frozen moment in time when Miroku thought not even Kagome's power was enough, but before the thought had fully concluded, his palm rippled and then began to pulse in a completely different way. Almost instantly the world around them went into a stagnant pause, but then the wind abruptly reversed, spiraling back into his hand... calm and quiet as though it had never been disrupted at all.

Miroku sat gasping, shoulders shaking as he continued to stare at Kagome's sparking figure, her jaw set hard as she stayed focused on smoothing a slightly subdued flow of magic through his body, 'She… closed the void…? It feels… so much smaller.'

Kagome didn't let go of his hand for a long time, determined to work as much of the kazaana backwards as she could. Her entire body started to shiver as the heat from her magic faded, leaving her cold all the way to the core of her soul. She crumpled wearily, bracing her weight on one fist while she clasped her other over her heart and fought to re-center her spinning head, 'Maybe I should start paying more attention to how to use my magic…'

Kagome was vaguely aware of Miroku staring at his hand, massaging his palm as though it ached, and with a deep breath to brace herself, she reached out towards him, "Miro-?"

She never completed to breathless question.

Miroku's hand snapped out and caught hers, yanking her forward and off-balance to fall against his chest while his mouth fastened over hers in a hard kiss full of desperate gratitude… and something else.

They broke apart in a rush, staring at each other with nearly identical expressions of stunned amazement.

Kagome lifted a hand shakily to her tingling lips before trailing it down to her racing heart, 'He… that…'

Miroku had opened his mouth to rush out a heartfelt apology for probably the first time in his life under these circumstances, when Kagome's fingers suddenly pressed to his own lips to prevent it, "My… first kiss." He couldn't prevent the way his eyes widened as he searched hers, seeing the old shy sparkle back in her eyes as she leaned close, a faint blush coloring her cheeks as she moved her fingers away and pressed a feather-light kiss to his mouth.

Miroku's hand tightened where he hadn't released hers, the other lifting to gently cup her face and turn it up for him.

~

"She isn't yours."

Miroku's thoughts snapped out of the distant memory, the faint smile that had been gracing his lips melting away as he met the banked rage in Inuyasha's golden eyes across the small clearing the hanyou had led him into, "Kagome-sama is not anyone's to claim."

"By human standards," Inuyasha's brows lowered dangerously, unable to stop the growl in his throat at the warmth still in the monk's eyes. 'You were fucking thinking something about Kagome…'

"She is human," he tightened his hold on his staff instinctively at the shiver of menace he felt roll down his spine. Inuyasha was looking at him with a deceptively flat expression, but his eyes were gleaming with something perfectly dangerous that had all his senses on alert.

Inuyasha shot forward before Miroku had the chance so much as flinch, closing his hand chokingly tight around the monk's throat to slam him back against the nearest tree with a violent snarl, "If you've touched her-!"

"What?!" Miroku's hands grabbed at Inuyasha's trying to pry his fingers open and make it easier to breathe. His own temper rose sharply, letting the frustration of hiding his growing care for the miko from everyone add to his resentment, "If I've touched her, you'll fucking do what?! Kill me? Yell at her? What?!"

"What happened to your fucking infatuation with Sango, hn?" Inuyasha hissed back his own question rather than answer, reveling in the instincts that had his anger feeding off the monk's, and pulling him away from the tree only to slam him back against it harder than before. "You have a bitch, you can damn well keep your perverted tongue out of mine!"

Miroku's eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp gasp, "What?"

Inuyasha leaned in close, his eyes narrowing to slits, "You kissed her… at the well."

He tensed, his eyes searching the hanyou's nearly feral expression, "You were spying on us?"

Inuyasha spun around and flung the monk to the ground, sneering and fighting against the voice in his head telling him to rip the man apart, "I was protecting my fucking miko, bouzu! MINE!!"

"You've never been there before," Miroku challenged, rising to his feet and holding his staff up in a defensive stance. "I fail to see how it's any of your business what she and I do."

For a moment Inuyasha was certain he was about to lose his control completely, but he managed to hold back a split second before he actually launched himself at the monk. His eyebrow was twitching rapidly with suppressed rage as he ground out in a barely understandable voice, "If you don't back the fuck off of Kagome, bouzu, Sango's going to have more than enough to cut your heart out over."

Miroku's eyes flashed with pain, his jaw clenching for a tense moment before he admitted in a subdued tone, "I have spent seven years being rejected, Inuyasha… as Kagome has been rejected. Sango is there, but not really there. My feelings have not changed, but there comes a time when one must move on to a more welcoming embrace."

Inuyasha's eyes widened slightly in disbelief before he caught himself and twisted his expression back into a scowl, his lip curling back off his fangs as he denied fiercely, "Kagome hasn't been rejected."

Miroku's brows rose, a glimmer of disgusted anger going through him as he challenged, "Is that so? What the hell do you call all those years of Kikyou? In your selfish goddamn mind, Kagome was only allowed to look at you or you'd fucking blow up. But you…? You could do whatever you pleased… You don't even look at her more than you have to since she was cut."

Inuyasha was on him again, this time slamming the monk to the ground with his knee braced on the staff and putting his weight into it; had Miroku not been straining against it with both hands, the wood would already have been slowly crushing his throat, "You have no fucking idea what you're talking about."

"It's clear to all of us," Miroku snapped back, forcing himself to keep his expression taunting, confident. "You don't even stay to protect her at night. You don't know that when she wakes up, I'm the one who's holding her and making her feel safe."

Inuyasha sucked in a hiss, his mind blanking at the thoughts that instantly flared to life at the smug smirk on Miroku's face… the challenging words. His voice was low and deadly as he leaned down and growled out, "You aren't going to have to be afraid of that fucking void much longer if you've done what you're suggesting, bouzu…"

Miroku readjusted his hands on his staff, readying himself for the hanyou's reaction to his next response, "If Kagome and I have chosen to be intimate, it's our own business, Inuyasha."