AN-okay, I know, I haven't updated in god knows how long, but eh….I'm sorry, it was no fault of my own, well, indirectly…..it was, what the hell am I saying?? But the main point of this ramble is to apologize. And to say thank you to Suki, who so nicely complimented my work…but I don't think that this is pro stuff…yet. But thank you very very much anyway. And hey, Sailor Chibi Jupiter, I'll take the donut, thanks, but I'm not telling you what the stars mean yet. You will find out though, sometime… wow, I feel special^.^;;; thank you all, very, very much.

DISCLAIMER: ::tugs Sesshy's arm:: are you mine? ::jumps back as Sesshy growls:: guess not…

Day After Day

(btw, if you guys can guess where these songs are from, I'll give you cookies)

The cool night breeze stirred Kagome's hair as she leaned over the parapet that coursed the edge of the small balcony out side her rooms. Moon and starlight silvered the blackness of her hair and ears, streaming through it like mercury. A drop slipped down her cheek, liquid crystal under that pure light. Kagome's thoughts were stirred, mixed into a crazed cocktail. She missed the normality of her old life, her ordinary life. If she was by any definition, a 'normal girl' anymore, then she couldn't see it, at all. Most girls would be in their proper time for a start. Then, their normal cares wouldn't be anywhere as weird as hers were. They'd worry about when homework was due. What to wear out to that party. Who to call for the new TV show time. What color to paint their nails. How to ask their crush out. Things that normal, everyday girls would fret over.

Instead, Kagome was stuck here. Here, being 500 years in the past. The Sengoku Jidai. Now, normally that wouldn't matter as much. But she was a half demon!! Turned so by her usual companion's thought-to-be devil-of-a-half-brother. So what she was stuck worrying about was a hell of a lot different to any normal girl's concerns.

 Instead of worrying about her homework, she worried about the all powerful shards of a jewel that she splintered as the supposed reincarnation of the miko who used to protect it. Which in itself was a highly unlikely event in the first place.

Instead of worrying what to wear to the next party, she was stuck wondering what to wear when her uniform or borrowed kimono got trashed because of Sesshoumaru's 'training'.

Instead of worrying about what time a TV show was on, she'd have to figure out when it was going to rain, snow or hail, otherwise the all powerful master of the castle she resided at wouldn't let her back in, insisting that if she was even a lowly half demon, if she was of his blood, then she should be able to smell the weather.

Instead of worrying over the color of her nails, she was worrying over the condition of her claws. Sesshoumaru insisted that while she would have some form of energy or poison like his or his whip, her claws were always a primary defense, so their care and maintenance was of utmost importance.

With all these worries, Kagome was surprised she hadn't turned into a wrinkled old prune. One of the few benefits of demon blood, she supposed. Not that that was the only perk. Her hearing, eyesight and speed were all heightened beyond belief. She could hear a bird call over a mile away. She could smell out a hare's tracks after heavy rain. She could see what a fish was doing  hundreds of yards upstream, with the sunlight reflecting off the water and all. No, there were some benefits to this demonization of her body. but with all her heart, Kagome wished that she was the normal, 16 year old school girl who used to run around with Inuyasha still.

It wasn't that she was ungrateful to Sesshoumaru for taking her in, and training her, let alone for saving her life. It was just, he was so damned hard to read. Inuyasha was like an open book, but this guy…if Kikyo was the ice queen, then Sesshoumaru was the ice king. Kagome could decipher nothing from his glacial countenance, and it was driving her nuts! He'd tell her to do something, or compliment her if she did something well, but he never showed any emotion at all.

 Kagome pitied him. While he may insist that demons had no need for emotions, he couldn't see that others around him had. Poor Rin was practically emotionally starved before Kagome arrived, and had been lapping up what she got from Kagome with an undisguised thirst. That fact alone had earned Sesshoumaru another check in the negative list Kagome had been keeping. He couldn't see out past his own nose. He couldn't carry on a normal conversation. He was loved starved. He was inhumanly cruel. He kept trying to kill Inuyasha. He…had saved her life. He had helped her, taught her about her powers, kept her clothed, fed and sheltered.

But the one thing he could not teach her about were her miko powers. Since she had awakened after that first day, she had been exploring what she could do with her power. That had been a month ago. Now, Kagome had nearly total control over them. It seemed that her demon blood resisted the use of them, but that with that resistance, her miko side knew all the more what to do. Now, she could create barriers. Heal. Protect. Nurture. Grow. Build. Strengthen. And…kill. Kagome's miko powers had developed to the level that she could now fully purify, if not kill Sesshoumaru himself. When he had seen that, he had started treating her with more care, more respect. And she had reveled in it. To have respect from the great Demon Lord of the West was to have it all.

Yet nevertheless, Kagome was lonely beyond all measure. Rin kept her company, to be sure, but there was a hole inside Kagome that couldn't be filled. One that Inuyasha had been so close to filling, then had only torn it further open. The ache in her chest had been growing daily, and she dropped her cheek to the cool stones under her arms, drawing a little strength from their solidarity.

She'd heard nothing of Sango or Miroku for the past month, and no matter how far she searched, or how high she looked, it was as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth. Sesshoumaru had even tried to help. Yet with all his connections and allies, he had not been able to turn up any sign of them. In an uncharacteristic show of kindness, he had even gone out to look with Kagome, leaving Jakken in charge of all his matters. But not even the combined efforts of the two had turned up any sign of the missing taiyja or monk. Shippou and Kirara had gone too, vanishing along with Sango and Miroku.

  Slowly, but surely, her world was crumbling around her, and there seemed to be she could do about it.

~*~

Sesshoumaru slipped quietly from side to side the darkened forest, his senses all on high alert. His grounds were not right, some slight feeling out of whack. He had gone throughout the lands bordering his castle, yet he could find nothing out of the ordinary. What disturbed him more was the fact that the disturbance seemed to be coming from within his fortress, if not the grounds around it. Sesshoumaru snarled and cut a tree branch out of his way as he sped back to his home. This was not right, and he did not like it one bit.

He slowed to a halt at the edge of the forest, a scent flowing over the breeze to him troubling him. He halted his forward dash and slid quietly around to the side of the building where Kagome's rooms were. And there she was, propped up against the stonework. He sniffed again and found the scent he caught before, loud and clear.

Tears. Sadness. A hopelessness that cloaked the miko like the night's darkness cloaked the forest. He slipped out of the shadows and gazed at her, wonderingly, almost tenderly. The tear that had been trickling down her cheek dropped off the tip of her nose and fell towards him. He stretched out a finger and caught the drop, bringing it up to eyelevel. The crystalline drop hung on his finger for a moment, before sliding from his finger into the grass below.

Sesshoumaru looked back up at Kagome, a quiet understanding in his normally cold eyes. She felt the one emotion that had been plaguing him his entire life, one that her presence had started to cure, not that he could ever tell her that. A quick jump brought him up to crouch on Kagome's balcony, only to be welcomed with the crackling shock of her miko powers. The tips of his hair curled, and the violet power snapped around the startled hanyou-miko's hands. Cursing he stumbled back and Kagome let out a breath she had been unaware that she'd been holding.

"God's curse it woman! Do you always greet your guests like that?!"

Kagome's retort was quick and sharp. "Only the idiots who have the gall to jump up on my balcony unannounced in the middle of the night. You trained me; you should have known what my reaction would be."

Sesshoumaru said nothing to that, and smoothed out the tips of his hair instead. She was right, and he had made a stupid mistake. "My apologies"

Kagome's mouth dropped open. "Did you just…no, I must've been hearing things. Did the great Sesshoumaru really just apologize to a hanyou? Dear lord, the world's gonna end."

Sesshoumaru's lips twitched, which Kagome caught. She never knew what to make of that expression, she never knew whether he was smiling or snarling. She did what any sensible person who wished to keep their head around the Demon Lord would do, and promptly shut her mouth with a snap, jarring her fangs in the process. She let out a muffled curse and massaged her jaw, taking her eyes off Sesshoumaru for a moment.

When she looked back at him, he was watching her cautiously, looking her over like a prized possession. She quirked an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You looked sad before," came his quiet answer, "I came to make sure you were alright."

That caught her off guard, and it was a few minutes before she could answer. "I...I'm fine. What gave you the idea that I was anything otherwise?"

"You were crying." Sesshoumaru let that small fact hang in the air as he gauged her reaction. It was strange. First she bristled in apparent anger over the fact that he had obviously been watching her. Next came confusion as to where he was going with this conversation. Finally, a smiling bemusement settled on her features.

"No Sesshoumaru, I wasn't really crying, more like…remembering. Feeling. I guess it's a human thing, since you always insist that demons don't feel."

"Demons do feel, we just don't show it like humans do. Get some rest Kagome, we need to be up early tomorrow. It seems that Shippou is somewhere out to the north, if what that rat youkai told me was correct. We leave at dawn." And with that, he disappeared from her sight, leaving her to stumble over to her bed, and fall on it in a tangle of limbs. Her head reeled and she shut her eyes, one hand going up to rub her forehead. If Shippou was there, then what did that mean? Where were the others?

Tomorrow was going to be a very interesting day.