Kagome released the taut bowstring with a grunt. It had been a week since she had first awoken, and though she exercised daily her strength was still slow in returning.

"Keade's right- you are getting pretty good with that thing."

Kagome lowered her long arms and smiled at the hanyou. Ever since she had awoken, Inuyasha refused to leave her side. He insisted that she was still too weak to defend herself if one of Naraku's demons came looking, but Kagome suspected that there was some other reason that he kept so close. "Thanks," she offered with a small smile. With tired steps she made her way over to where Inuyasha sat. For a moment she just stood there, her own eyes following his gaze. They were on a hilltop just outside the village, and Kagome could see the lazy smoke trails from dinner fires rise from the little huts below.

"Inuyasha, may I ask you something?"

"Hm?" was his only response as he watched the village below.

"What happened to me? The others told me that I was poisoned, but they don't seem to know anything else." She thought back to her conversations with Miroku and the others. They had been clueless as to who had wanted her dead. After a while she ceased to ask, because they kept apologizing for letting her be kidnapped. "It's all right, really," she kept insisting, but they still hung their heads in shame at allowing themselves to be drugged so easily.

The half-demon shrugged his shoulders, bringing her back to the present. "You were poisoned by someone who wanted to take over your body." He paused, hesitating as he tried to find the right words. "It was Kikyo, Kagome."

"Kikyo?"

Inuyasha turned to her then, his sad amber eyes locking with her chocolate brown ones. "She tried to kill you, Kagome. She wanted to destroy your mind and take over your body. She drugged the others and kidnapped you, but you managed to get away." His soft tenor voice faded, and he averted his eyes. Instantly Kagome knew that he wasn't telling the whole truth. "When I found you, you were lying in the snow. I thought I was going to lose you." Now he raised his eyes once more, and the sadness that shone there made Kagome's heart ache. "I just knew that I was too late...that you had lost the battle against the poison. But then you woke up. Shortly after that, the others came and helped carry you back to the village. The rest you know."

"What aren't you telling me, Inuyasha? Did something else happen that night, between you and Kikyo?"

He turned away from Kagome, who was now kneeling with her hand on his shoulder. "I'm not ready to talk about it, ok? So just drop it." He wasn't yet ready to tell anyone about how he had threatened Kikyo, or about the enormous guilt he still felt about letting this whole nightmare occur in the first place. If Kagome had died, Inuyasha knew in his heart that he wouldn't have been able to live with himself...

Kagome removed her hand and took a seat next to him. She wanted to yell at him for being so harsh, but instead she said, "You know, I didn't think that I was going to make it either."

"Huh?" Inuyasha stared at her as she looked at the ground.

"It so was horrible, Inuyasha. The nightmares just kept coming, one right after the other. It almost became too much..." her voice trailed off as the memories filled her. A single tear wound its way slowly down her cheek as she thought of the images she had seen.

"What happened, Kagome? Maybe talking about it would help a little." The hanyou's tone had taken on the soft quality that he seemed to reserve just for her. He remember all to well waking up in the middle of the night the past few evenings to the sound of her screaming. She had been having nightmares for the past week, waking up in a cold sweat with tears streaming down her frightened features.

She proceeded to tell him about some of the nightmares; about the first one in the forest, staring down at her own corpse; about the scene in Kouga's wolf den, and several others that were included in the constant parade of horrors. She kept out the last vision though, knowing that the memory was still too fresh in her mind to relive it quite yet.

Inuyasha saw the pain in her eyes and laid one of his clawed hands on her thin, delicate arms. "What else happened, Kagome?"

Kagome raised one hand and wiped at her eyes, banishing the tears that threatened to fall. "I guess I'm not ready to talk it about it yet, either."

Inuyasha removed his hand and stubbornly crossed his arms. "Feh. Fine, whatever." A moment of silence passed, and then she heard Inuyasha ask, "Kagome?"

"Yes, Inuyasha?"

"Look, uh...whenever you are ready, I'm sure Sango or someone else will be happy to listen to you, ok?"

Kagome smiled at the hanyou's characteristic 'don't bug me' attitude. She knew that he was really letting her know that he'd be there to listen. "I know," she replied, and then the pair fell silent once more.

They stared out over the village as the sun began it's decent. The giant orb was dressed in its finest robes of reds and oranges, which reflected brilliantly on the patches of snow that still lay strewn about the land. After a moment, Inuyasha wrapped one strong arm around Kagome's shoulders. Without pause the girl leaned into his embrace, finding a comfort there that promised to hold her demons at bay for at least a little while. The pair remained in that position, frozen in time as the sun bid one final adieu to the world and the gentle hearts that gathered beneath it. Peace settled over the darkening land, and for the first time since the attack Kagome suddenly knew that everything would be all right.

Fine.

Author's Final Note: Well, that concludes my first Inuyasha fic. Did I earn a cookie? Oh, and forgive me if my writing is a little rough around the edges...I haven't written anything of length in quite some time, and my style is a little slow in returning.

As a thank you too all who have reviewed my story so faithfully, I leave you with this...a summary of what I hope will be my next Inuyasha fic!

When the gang runs into a sadistic lord on the road, he offers to 'buy' Kagome! But when his offer is refused, he decides that he will have her anyway and kidnaps her later that day. Now Kagome must find a way to survive until Inuyasha and the others can rescue her. With a little help from an unexpected source, can she keep the lord from breaking her spirit, or will Inuyasha arrive too late to save her?