Chapter 23 The Consequences to Stupidity

Author's Note: Drugs are bad.

Back at Kaede's guest hut, Kagome was a cyclone. She charged into the hut just as Miroku and Sango were waking-up with the new day, and grabbing her huge duffle bag, dumped the contents out all over her bedding and the surrounding floor with the accompanying sounds of crashing and clanging. After doing this, she lit her camping lantern, causing the still bleary eyed demon exterminator to look at her friend through squinting, mildly annoyed eyes.

"Ooh Kagome. What are you doing? It's too early," Sango complained.

"It's got to be here," Kagome answered, distractedly. She didn't even look up. When Sango asked a follow-up "What's here?" Kagome ignored her, her mind set only on the task of hunting for her lost ring. Miroku threw some blankets over his head and tried to ignore the assault taking place across the room.

She sacked her belongings, shaking and tossing clothes, medical supplies, and everything else she brought with her. She scrambled along the floor, lifting her layers of blanket, frowning and looking more desperate as each new possibility lead to another dead end.

Inuyasha stood at the doorway and watched her for a few minutes, glaring at her back. It was a good thing Miroku's head was under the covers. The way Kagome's body looked as she crawled around, supple on the floor, she shape of her lovely, perfect buttocks, visible through the thin material of that long shirt she was wearing–Yes, Miroku would have to be hit hard right now if her were watching.

'Stupid wench! She's tearing the room apart looking for that ring. Why? She doesn't really love that man–Paul, does she? What a stupid name Paul. Ha! I bet he's short. Short and wimpy with a really small–"

His thoughts were broken off by the scent of new tears forming in her eyes. Her eyes watered so damn much. He hated it when she cried. Weak human emotions. He turned and left her to her search, running off some distance to get away from her racket and her scent. He needed some time to think.

Almost two hours later Kagome was dressed in jeans and a work-out t-shirt and frantically searching the grounds around the hut on her hands and knees. Shippo was helping her, sniffing everywhere for the ring, enjoying the game as he bounded round trees and into patches of high grass. Miroku, Sango and Kaede sat round the kettle, enjoying a breakfast of salted fish, bread, and hot tea.

"I wish she'd join us," Sango said.

Attempting to gain Sango's favor, Miroku called to her, "Lady Kagome, shall I come help you search?"

Wack!

"Oouch!" He said, rubbing his well-bruised head and looking puzzled at Sango. "But Sango, I thought if I offered to help she would take a break and come eat," he said, and this time he was truly innocent.

"Pervert!" she replied, turning her head away.

Kagome was oblivious to the scene and sounds behind her. She was listening to "My Immortal" by Evanescence on her MP3, trying to concentrate on finding the ring, but her mind kept replaying the sensations of the last kiss with Inuyasha over and over, as if her mind had a will of its own. She had to find Paul's ring. In her heart she knew she was going to give it back to him, and last night she had accepted the finality and inevitability of it. She didn't love him, but she did respect him. He didn't deserve to be treated poorly, and he certainly deserved his ring back.

Kagome knew exactly how much it had cost. He had showed her the Zales receipt. She remembered he was proud of the fact that he bought it on sale and wanted her to be impressed with his shrewd bargaining abilities. Kagome was far-less than impressed by this, she was bored and annoyed, mildly insulted even. Still, he had given it and she had accepted it willingly, sealing an engagement. Now she going to do what was right, she was going to end it the first chance she got to get home.

No matter what happened here or in her own time, she knew Paul was not what she wanted. He needed to find someone to give this ring to that would look at him with all the admiration he deserved. She felt bad enough using him to distance herself from Inuyasha, but at least this wasn't hurting Paul anymore than she already had. The only one she was hurting now really was herself.

'But what about Inuyasha–doesn't lying to someone, even when you think the reasons are noble, always hurt them in some way?' she asked herself. She knew the answer. What Inuyasha wanted from her was a kind of truth that laid her open. He had a way of making her feel so guilty every time she gave him any less than this, it was like he was asking her to always bear her soul, and her soul cried out to answer him. But what did she get back for this honesty? She knew he was always truthful with her, but there were no need for questions. She knew his feelings because she had heard him speak them, and knew they hadn't changed. Knowing how he felt, was it really fair to tell him how she felt. Oh yes, she could see it now, herself on her hands and knees like this, holding the hem of his red coat: 'Inuyasha, please don't leave with Kikyo. Please, choose me instead. I loved you then and I love you now. I will never stop loving you and wanting you. Please, choose me! Choose me!'

Crawling in the grass, she sneered in disgust with herself at that mental picture. "Yes, that's the look, desperate and pitiful. I'm sure that will win him over!" she mumbled.

Shippo bounced over and shouted in her ear loud enough for the entire camp to hear, "Who are you going to win over by looking desperate and pitiful Kagome?"

Kagome blushed at the kitsune's question and laughed as she said. "Nobody little one! No man is worth that, ever!" Shippo gave a small shrug and bounced happily away, back to his task of pretending to help her look for something shiny in the grass.

She was so distracted by the music and her own thoughts that she didn't hear Inuyasha's approach.

Before Kagome looked up she could feel him. He was standing over her, arms crossed, looking down at her. She realized with a start that this scene was almost exactly what she was picturing only seconds before.

'Whatever he wants I will NOT be grabbing onto the hem of his coat!' she thought.

Frowning, she shut off the music and looked up at him about to ask him what he wanted. Before she could voice a word she was pulled by her arms. Standing face to face, he locked her eyes in a staring contest as he stood silently assessing her.

She knew him long enough understand this gesture meant he was engaging her in a battle of will over something, but she baffled as to what. She was tired, her knees hurt from crawling around and she really didn't want to argue with him anymore. The group just watched in surprise as four tense minutes passed. Finally, unable to take his unyielding, unblinking stare longer, Kagome broke.

"Inuyasha what's wrong with you?" she said.

"What's wrong with you?" he mimicked.

"Oh honestly Inuyasha!" she said exasperated. "I don't want to play some kind of game with you now, just tell me what it is and be done with it!"

"That's what I want you to do, wench," he said, and, holding out his hand meaningfully he looked at her and said again "I want you to tell me what it is."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, raising his voice now. "What's wrong with you? Why did you take THIS last night?" He opened his hand, holding one tiny, white tablet.

His yellow-orange eyes never blinked, never left her face. His look bore into her, questioning, accusing.

Kagome could feel the panic rising in her throat and Inuyasha could smell it as he watched the pulse at the cave of her neck rise and fall in rapid, tiny movements..

All eyes were on the pair, watching Kagome, waiting along with Inuyasha for her answer.

'Stay calm Hirugashi. Hold it together.'

"It's pain medicine," she said, trying to sound nonchalant. "I had a headache."

He gave a deep, menacing growl and clenched his hands tightly at his side. The sudden change in body language not to mention the growl startled her.

Sango didn't know what was going on, but was concerned by Inuyasha's overly- aggressive behavior too.

"Inuyasha stop it! There's no need to growl at her!" Sango said.

He whirled round on her, his eyes flashing with threat "This doesn't concern you, bitch! Stay out of it!"

Miroku instinctively came closer to her and wrapped his arm around her. "You have no reason to treat Sango this way. I must insist you apologize immediately to her," he said.

But Inuyasha was in no state of mind to indulge the monk. In fact, Miroku couldn't have picked a worse-time to take a stand.

"Are you all fucking deaf!" a red-faced hanyou reeled back round. "This is between Kagome and me and I'm warning you," he said meaningfully, shooting a glance round the clearing, "all of you, to shut up. That means you too fox-brat." The only person he didn't directly threaten was Kaede. Somehow he felt she at least would have the good sense not to get involved now.

Everyone felt miserable and sorry for Kagome. Inuyasha was on some kind of tear, and no one knew why.

Kagome pushed back the rising guilt she was feeling and grabbed hold of the anger she felt for the way he was treated their friends. "Inuyasha, you should thank the fates you don't have the rosary anymore. I'd sit your ass into oblivion for being such an obnoxious jerk!"

He didn't answer, but continued to glare at her, growling some kind of a warning she didn't understand.

"For Gods-sake Inuyasha!" she yelled "What's wrong with you?! Stop looking at me like that and stop growling at me–you're giving me the creeps!"

Inuyasha stood straight and stopped growling, but kept his eyes narrowed and focused on her keenly. "What's wrong with me is you are already braking your promise Kagome. You promised you would never lie to me."

She looked stricken "I haven't lied to you about anything! I don't know what you're talking about!" she said, genuinely confused by his verbal assault. In his tone she heard that underneath the menacing look there was genuine hurt.

"I know," he said in a voice that was both low and harsh, "this is not pain medicine. I saw pain medicine from your time last night, remember." he gave this a moment to sink in and watch her pupils expand with the knowledge he was giving her. "This smells nothing like those small white things in the bottle. I want you to tell me now what this is for, and honor your god-damned promise."

She closed her eyes and wished for an earthquake to swallow her where she stood. This is why he was growling, acting so crazed. She had made a vow to him, and just now she broke it. As small a thing as it was, she knew he felt betrayed. He had her emotionally trapped, and there was no escaping it.

As she thought about it, she knew she had made one of the biggest mistakes of her life in making that promise to him. 'Is it even fair to demand someone to be TOTALLY honest with you, whenever you want them to? I haven't asked this of him–I wouldn't. Why should my every thought, action, and feeling, be exposed to him?!' She thought defensively.

With a calm demeanor, she tilted her chin up to meet his eyes and said in her most clinical voice, "It's a psychotropic medication that was developed for acute pain management in the treatment of oncology. It's an experimental drug developed by Paul's research team."

He looked at her blinking. He could tell that she was not lying, and he could tell by her too-calm manner that she was almost gloating over the fact that technically she wasn't lying to him. He was going to shake the calm out of her if that's what it took to get a real answer.

"If I can't understand a damn word you say then it still counts as a lie," he said, in a voice calm and low, now matching her tone. She felt immediately humiliated again.

Kagome sighed and looking down said, "It's a new drug to help with the pain in dying cancer patients. Paul and some other doctors developed it last year."

He looked at her unable to breathe. He was suddenly ashen, and with his heart constricting in terror, he asked her, "Kagome, are you dying?"

Sango uttered a little gasp and the rest of the group waited, tense for her answer.

Kagome's eyes grew wide with a horror of her own, seeing the undeniable pain on his face. "Oh no! No! I'm fine. I don't have cancer. You asked me what the medicine was for and I told you. I don't have cancer and I'm not dying."

His eyes were like touchstones, changing with mercurial speed. He lashed out, and grabbing her in fury said "Listen you little bitch! I didn't ask you what the fuck the damn thing was for, I asked you why you took it! Stop playing games and tell me now!"

Shocked, her breath caught in her throat. She looked at him and in an angry tone said, "Let go of me and top calling me names or I may not be able to control this protection charm, you big jerk!"

He released his grasp but did not back away. "I'm still waiting Kagome," he said. "Now tell me why you took this."

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "When they did case-studies at the university lab, the drug revealed some unexpected side effects. In addition to pain management, it seems the drug acts as a mild neuro- stimulator. A significant percentage of the test group reported experiences of psychic phenomena and the individuals who claimed to have some natural telepathic abilities described an increase."

He was so angry, he wanted to shake her, hard. He yelled so close to her face that fine spit from his bared fangs flicked on her hot cheeks.

"DAMMIT KAGOME! IF YOU DON'T TELL ME THE TRUTH AND STOP SPEAKING GIBBERISH I'M GOING TO –"

It was Miroku who interrupted. "Lady Kagome, did I understand you correctly that this medicine gives you the ability to read others' minds?" Kagome locked eyes with Miroku across the yard for just an instant before dropping them to the ground and nodding mutely, indicating a "yes."

She knew he was going to be angry, but she just didn't know how angry and she didn't want to find out. 'God!' she thought, swallowing and trying to stop her angry tears from coming, 'Why is this happening! I did it to try to protect him, the big jerk! Now he's accusing me and making me feel like I did something terrible to him when I didn't!'

The look on his face was hard to describe. She had seen him look hurt, angry, but never, ever like this. Only once did he give her a look even close to this. "Almost the way he looked at me when he first woke up on the tree," she thought. "I know this look though. This must be the same look he had on his face when he thought Kikyo betrayed him and shot him."

It was Sango who spoke next, wanting to divert the conversation away from Inuyasha for a couple of reasons. First, he was evidently so angry with her that the scene could become a battlefield at any instant. Second, she had a question of her own now that she wanted answered.

Carefully, she approached the pair as she spoke.

"Kagome, this is what you put in your mouth last night at the springs shortly before you fainted in the water, isn't it?" she asked gently.

Kagome heard Sango but could not make eye-contact with her. Inuyasha was standing in front of her, hackles raised, and was not about to let her move.

"Yes," she called around his body.

"Then is it possible that this pill is the reason you lost consciousness and almost drowned?"

'Shit,' she thought, 'I feel like I'm drowning now, or at least I want to!' She answered Sango in a low voice, "Possibly. I'm not sure."

"Why Kagome? Why did you do this?" Sango said, her tone careful, but terse.

If Sango was hoping to help, this line of questioning wasn't working.

"That's exactly what I want to know," Inuyasha growled, his amber eyes still fixed on her.

Kagome felt as if her back was up against a wall with a small group of predators closing in. Presently, she was standing eye-to-eye with the Alpha male.

'Think Steve Irwin now. Don't show any fear. Look him in the eye. Be calm.. . .' "Look, I had my reasons and I don't feel like discussing them now so–"

"SO NOTHING, BITCH! I want to know now why you took that damn thing!" Inuyasha barked back.

"I needed to try something–an experiment. I was in the water, and I already charged it with energy. Water is a natural conductor, and so I thought if I took the pill in the water and focused my energies it just might be enough to help me make contact."

"You wanted to contact someone through your mind?" Miroku joined in, the interest evident in his voice. "And this medicine enables that?"

Kagome shook her head. "Yes, but I don't know exactly how it works. It's compound is based on a mushroom some Native American tribes use to experience visions and enter dream states in religious ceremonies. The drug acts sort of like a booster to a person's senses."

"I don't give a shit about the HOW!" Inuyasha interrupted. "What I want to know is WHO! Who were you trying to talk to without talking last night Kagome?"

Kagome tried to stop her fear, willed it back down, but the Alpha male was closing in, intimidating her. Looking into his eyes, she felt the opposite pulls of strong fear and strong attraction to his power all at once.

'What does it mean, that he can paralyze me like this? Why do I fear him and want him all at the same time? Whatever's going on here, it can't be healthy. Who knows, maybe I'm kinky.'

"ANSWER ME KAGOME!"

But before she could answer, Miroku asked another question, buying her a little time to recover her control.

"But–"Miroku began startled, a blush suddenly rising on his cheeks, "your powers do not NORMALLY include the ability to read minds, do they?" he asked with fearful eyes.

"What?" she asked, shaking her head and blinking to clear away the Inuyasha- induced trance.

"No. I can't. I mean, I don't think so."

Miroku was relieved and turned round to Sango only to find her with fire in her eyes and a raised boomerang hitting him on top of the head.

"WHO?" Inuyasha said. He wanted to hurt her now, hurt her for her distance, her damnable lies, and for her ability to hurt him like this without remorse.

"Tell me Kagome," he said in a cruel, mocking voice, "who was so important that you almost drowned for if I hadn't been there to drag your sorry ass out of the water?. And what about after that? All of us fought to save you and bring you out of that damn dream--Do you remember that? We all went through hell last night to save you TWICE!"

She could only give the slightest nod and bring her downcast eyes up to meet his for only a moment from under their thick veil of black lashes.

He started speaking again before she had a chance to even form a viable thought. His voice was deeper now, somehow more menacing, as if his very words occupied physical space, shoving her, pinning her against an invisible wall.

"If it's not too much of a bother for you, will you lower yourself to tell us, even though you seem to think we don't deserve your honesty, who the hell was worth that much to you that you almost died!!?"

She glanced past him and saw the truth of his sentiment reflected in Sango and Kaede's inability to meet her eyes. Miroku, who was sitting on the ground and rubbing his newest lump, quickly looked away from her too.

Shippo cried out "Kagome? It's not true is it? Kagome would never do anything like that to us! She cares about us and wouldn't hurt us like that, right mother?"

Shippo's words were like a knife to her heart. She chanced a glance back up to Inuyasha's face and found a cold mask of righteous indignation glaring down at her from a pair of crossed arms.

"Shippo, she said, "I'm sorry. Everything Inuyasha just said I did is true." Hot tears left trails on her cheeks as she stood straight and tried her best to just face it now. She had done something truly thoughtless and because of it, she had almost killed herself and put her friends through hell.

She gave a rueful laugh. "I've always been embarrassed when my friends do stupid stunts in my time like drinking and driving. I used to always think I was smarter and better than that. I guess I'm no better after-all, "she said, the tears flowing freely now. "I didn't even think about affecting anyone else when I took the pill, I didn't even stop to think what might happen. I really am so sor–"

"YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T HURT ME ANYMORE! I HATE YOU FOR THIS! I HATE YOU!" Shippo yelled. She felt her heart stabbed again at the little kitsune's words, and watched, horrified, as he ran away into the woods.

"Shippo! She called out, "Please wait! Please I am so sorry! Please let me explain!" She tried to run to him, but got nowhere. Inuyasha's held her against him in an iron grasp, pressing her small body against his so she could barely breathe. She couldn't activate the spell if she wanted to. It could only repel those she didn't want to be near, but right now, the only one she wished she could repell was herself.

"The kitsune will be fine. You will leave him and explain to me," Inuyasha said. He didn't want to be comforting her now, he was still furious at her, enraged. But seeing the pain she was in from the child's words was almost too much for him to bear. He wanted to hold her, to possess all of her, even her pain.

She cried into his chest not caring anymore about her dignity or lack of control, just breathing in the scent of him, wanting to loose herself in it.

He grabbed her face under the chin, forcing her reluctant eyes to meet his demanding ones. "Tell me now who you did this for. Whose head did you want to get into?"

His eyes searched hers and demanded absolute surrender. She felt heavy, completely lost. Even her fear was gone. There was just dull pain.

"Michael, "she said. "I needed to talk to Michael."