Tell him that, just tell him that. That your heart has already broken and that it's been residing in some sort of preserving goo...that it is hanging suspended beneath your ribcage, all of those nice little dreams floating around with no protective encasement. No scratch-resistant surface, not anymore. She couldn't die of a broken heart, she was long since gone. Smiles were easy, laughter was easy – she could give him happy, she could give him bloody ecstatic if it would wipe the look off of his face. That was her skill – that she could be all grins and giggles and inside be shattered, held by very thin wire only visible if you looked just closely enough.

She didn't like knowing that she could let herself drop so far.

That she could allow herself to become so vulnerable.

"Oh, iie."

No, stay in the water, keep your distance. Don't look at what your shard detector has become, just because she wanted to squeeze a bit more time out of what was an already exceedingly limited warranty. Of course she knew nothing lasted forever, but she wanted more. To pretend that she could be strong enough to say what she was supposed to say. Or, was it to forever remain thrown to the side, collecting dust and moths and little nests of daddy long-legs? It would be nice if she knew the way that things were supposed to happen, rather then allowing all to go remarkably awry. Stay in the water, keep your distance. I don't want to see what you've turned into, even before you made your wish.

How could you die of a broken heart?

Was it your actual heart that did it? Did it break and the shards embedded into your kidneys? Your lungs? Your very /soul/? Did it pierce all...and without an antidote mutilate everything within? How painful, how exquisite, how nice to know what had hurt you so deeply already killed you in the end. Or did your heart merely shrivel up? Into nothing, into crushed /nothing/. Her eyes panned to the side, to the roots of another gnarled tree, not to the dripping hanyou that she didn't want to see. Not now, not for a few more minutes, or millennia.

The ruined puzzle was so hard to smash together after years of misuse, soggy and torn. Bending the pieces till they fit – always bending those damn pieces – and pretending that everything actually worked once you got some tape and super glue. Kagome felt so horribly tired.

He sounded like they were in school together – she had asked him for tutoring or something, and he had forgotten what she'd needed in the first place. Almost as if he wanted her far away, weary and tired. Did she sound like that? Oh, Kami, was her resolve breaking? She wasn't going to falter. She would hand him the tama...and that would be that. As always.

"Genki desu ka?"

She didn't really hear what she asked. It was a machination of her mind, the wheels turned and out popped the question. How are you doing? One thing down, handing him the demonic tama over yet to go. Oh, why did it feel so very heavy? It would be funny in a sickening way if the jewel actually broke through her pocket despite its diminutive weight, all gaudy and obvious on the earth. Funny in retrospect, but not at the actual time. For if it happened, Kagome would fade ever so immediately.

Hah. Wanted him for something?

Of course.

Piece me back together, why don't you? Make me not feel like this. Make me believe that I am as horrible as I sense I am. Yell at me, argue with me, call me names, /hurt/ me for all I care. Make me feel something other than the fabricated bits of nonsense my conscience is cultivating so I don't spin into utter oblivion. Let me not believe that once you get the tama, you will disappear. Do what you want, but just don't leave me be. Not after you let me care so much.

Her fingers twitched.

He looked off to the side, his hand automatically moving to his head to scratch a non-existent irritation. What was he supposed to tell her? The truth, or just an empty lie to make her feel a bit better? He could say he was fine, but the lie was be so totally obvious it would just be an insult. But how could he tell the truth? Things are okay, you know? I just can't find it within myself to live without you. Every beat of my heart reminds me over and over that without you, I'm a shell. Oh, yeah, that was the way to go. Just lay out his heart for her to walk across, informing him with pitiful eyes that she just didn't feel the same.

"Er..."

It wasn't really the heart that killed you. The heart broke, and something else would finish you off. Like AIDs; it wasn't the virus that killed you, it was the sickness that you just couldn't fight after it came. He couldn't raise that iron barrier to protect his heart from pain when it was virtually shattered. No, he had to just stand there while it was battered and bruised, crushed under the heel of every day life.

The trouble was that he cared too much. It would've been so much easier if he didn't give a rat's ass if she was happy or not. Couldn't give a second glance if he shoved the jewel in his hands and ran like there was a fire. She'd melted his heart of ice, the heart that had become cold after Kikyou's supposed "betrayal." But a melted heart was an exposed heart these days. If only he was as selfish and arrogant as people said he was. If only.

A half crazy, half stupid idea formed in his mind. Maybe, just maybe....

"Kagome...Can I....hold you?"

It would've been an insult, but, alas it would've been a comforting insult. It would be Inuyasha acting like himself, not this new mannequin that could talk and walk with all the human annotations, although desperately lacking in other senses. It would make her able to say, 'No, you aren't fine.' And allow her to fight with him like she used to, that easy, mildly comforting sort of fighting that would only go so far only so often, and then, of course, the rosary was always there.

When she gave him the tama, would the rosary be destroyed for lack of necessity? He wouldn't be able to come to her, and she unable to come to him...unless she kept the tama.

Their tether would be cut.

Oh, am I the one that is hurting you? Aren't you the one who kept me here all along? I could've stayed away...left you shardless...but I never did. You aren't piecing me together, you realize. I am a thousand fragments now, and you've just been staring at them for the past two weeks. Has it been so long that I've been lying? Pretending? Does everyone know? Have they been merely been humoring me? Splendid, marvelous.

I lied for my sake. I am selfish -- I am not half so holy as others make me out to be.

We had something in common now, didn't we? Kikyou and I...we wanted to keep you, so we put our hearts on the line.

Doesn't it make you feel special?

Callous, hard, cruel -- that was how she felt inside. That was how she was probably /making/ herself feel. A pause -- a break in her internal rant. She blinked at him as he asked, wondering if it was a strange sort of joke made by some odd hallucination in her mind. A hologram, or something. No. The way in which the question was stated told otherwise. And she wondered rather blankly as to what she was supposed to do.

She would do what she wanted - in the rare moment that she did happen to know what she wished. The young miko took a few small steps toward him, seriously expecting the ground to cave in.

Thump, thump, the jewel against her leg.

Thump, thump, the bedraggled beating of her heart.

If only both of those thoroughly annoying noises would stop.

"Hai, Inuyasha."

How odd of him, to ask that kind of question. Why had he? There was no regret, no wave of emotion that told him to laugh and tell her he was joking. There was no hesitation in his movements as he reached out to her, pulling her closer and holding her like he had nothing to lose. Secure, yet still relaxed. The hanyou came to the realization of how much smaller than him she was, how much shorter. His arms encircled her, the overlarge sleeves nearly making her disappear. His head bent down, inhaling the strong scent of her hair and whatever it was she used to wash it.

No, no regret at all. As he sank in, letting the knowledge that he'd have to let go eventually, golden optics closed. His heartbeat was as hollow as ever, the cracking as it split in half almost lengthening. He could end it all right here, steal the jewel and run off, never have to see her again. The fragile string that held them together would be severed, and she'd never have to see him again. But what would he do with it? He'd seen what the tama could do; all who used it ended up dead or tortured, no matter how they tried to justify its use. He couldn't just drop it somewhere; someone, anyone could pick it up and they'd be right back to square one. He couldn't keep it; it would take him over, like it had done to everyone else. A risk he couldn't take.

Tell her, right here, right now. Tell her everything, something inside him said. It wasn't one voice; it was a mass of voices, of all the people who knew them. Sango, Kaede, Shippo, Miroku. Even a bit of himself was talking with the others. How did they expect him to say it? Kagome, I've been in love with you for....I don't know how long. Every time you leave, I die a little bit more. Then he'd be lost. He couldn't ask her to stay; that would be too selfish, even for him. She had a life that Sengoku Jidai wasn't a part of. He knew that. And he had a life here. Not that his life here meant anything anymore; the taijiya and the monk were together, and happy. Shippo was content to live with Kaede. He just stood on the sidelines, trying to fit in like a donkey in a herd of horses. He only half fit, but not quite enough to stay.

Inuyasha took a deep breath, clearly feeling his lungs fill and empty. He couldn't cry anymore; his eyes were dry, devoid of anything to cry. He'd done his share of weeping before hand. It wasn't the sobbing kind, like what you saw in movies or read in stories right before the weeper was rescued and they lived happily ever after. It was the silent crying, the kind you did when you couldn't find it in you to sob, or like when you stared at the moon and it was just so beautiful you couldn't say it. The kind that fell down your face slowly, but never seemed to end either.

"Gomen," he said quietly without letting go.