A/N: Thanks again to those who reviewed! Actually, thanks to those who read, with or without reviewing. This chapter may be a bit sentimental—I tried my best not to make it too bad, but…

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and company are still not mine. Which is, I know, a big surprise to all of us.

3. Looks Like Someone has a Past

Sango frowned thoughtfully at the screen in front of her. It looked like they were talking; they were facing each other and seemed to be on friendly enough terms for the moment. At least, no one was doing any strangling. She grimaced, if her boss found out that she hadn't noticed the intruder inside the room for about fifteen minutes, her job would be on the line. Damn Miroku and his roving hands. She sighed, probably she should be used to it by now.

With practiced ease, she put the earlier incident out of her mind in order to focus on the monitor. This friendly behavior on Inuyasha's part was highly unusual. He appeared to be holding an actual conversation, with actual words, not grunts, with another person. Sango looked closer at the small female figure seated composedly across from him.

"What do you think, Miroku?"

"Hot," he replied, sprawling comfortably on a swivel chair, "I wouldn't kill her either."

"Pervert," Sango said, "Should've known I wouldn't get anything useful out of you." Miroku grinned and saluted her with his mop.

"Just trying to keep you young."

"Ha. You know, the other day I was looking in a mirror, and you know what I found? A gray hair. That's right. I choose to blame this on you," Sango replied, "Now aren't you supposed to be posing as a janitor here? I suggest you go do some emergency cleanup in aisle two." She gestured vaguely towards the monitor that was currently showing an unusually talkative dog boy.

"And let you be the only one to hear what's going on behind door number one? I don't think so."

"I want someone on hand in case he gets violent again."

"Fine, but at least give me a portable. And a good-bye kiss," Miroku held out his hand, and proffered a cheek. Sango slapped a portable headset into his palm and gave him a pointed glare. "Now go," she said, pointing at the door.

"As you wish," Miroku replied, with one of his famous cheeky grins, as he ducked out the door.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

"I've spent my entire life in government labs like this one," Inuyasha was saying. Kagome nodded and made sympathetic noises, leaning slightly forward in her chair. She'd like to see someone call her a bad listener now. She had skills, damn it! She had done more than her fair share of peer mentoring back in school, and she just knew that all that "active listener" training was going to come in handy.

"A couple of decades ago, the government was experimenting with human/animal DNA crossovers. They were attempting to produce a select group of super-humans—that is, human to all extents and purposes, but with enhanced senses like those of certain animals," Inuyasha stopped, one of his ears twitching.

"What is it?" Kagome asked, fascinated by the way the two appendages seemed to move independently of one another. Currently, one was facing to the side, while the other was facing her.

"Someone's coming," Inuyasha answered, head cocked towards the door opposite to the one that Kagome had come through. After a moment he heard the noise of a mop and bucket and relaxed, "It's ok, just the late-night janitor. He's a pretty cool guy... Now where was I?"

"Enhanced humans," Kagome supplied, assuming she had just gotten a demonstration of the guy's so-called super senses. She couldn't hear a thing from outside the room. Either that or he was crazy. Kagome frowned, not entirely comfortable with the idea that she was locked in the room with a guy who thought some government conspiracy had genetically altered his body. Oh boy.

Then she glanced back at Inuyasha. The dog-ears were still on his head. The eyes were still an inhuman shade of yellow. If this was all just some crazy fantasy, then he'd gone through a lot of trouble to make it appear real. Unless things had drastically changed since the birth of her younger brother, most human babies were not born with ears on the top of their heads these days. Or claws, she added, looking down at his hands. With a mental shake, she focused back in on what he was saying.

"Oh right. Apparently we were supposed to be some sort of elite task force: you know, stop crime, promote world peace"

"Advocate for reasonable consumer packaging?" Kagome interrupted. She hated those stupid pillboxes that were impossible to open. The last thing a person with a migraine wants is to struggle with a small plastic bottle. Plus all that packaging was a waste of resources.

Inuyasha gave her a pointed look before deciding to ignore her comment in favor of continuing his own story. "Right... Anyhow, things got out of hand. We were too strong, too unpredictable. There was an uprising, led by my older brother. It failed, and those who weren't killed were put into isolation like yours truly." He made her a half bow, somehow managing to make the gesture look graceful despite his seated position and the fact that he was not wearing anything more than his pajamas. Or maybe it looked so good precisely because he was wearing only his pajamas. Focus Kagome, she ordered herself.

"Can you guess my animal?" he asked.

"Um, a pigeon?" Kagome replied. "What do you think I am, stupid? Considering that you called yourself a dog-boy earlier, add in the ears and claws, that sounds like a pigeon to me."

Inuyasha snorted at the girl's blatant sarcasm, but supposed he deserved it. For a moment, he wondered why he was even sharing his entire life history with a virtual stranger. He didn't usually have actual conversations with other people. Although, he thought, almost killing somebody does seem to smash through the initial ice with an efficacy that few techniques can rival. Problem, of course, being that most people tended to resent having their lives threatened and almost dispatched of, although this girl seemed to have gotten through it without the usual revenge-oriented reaction. Plus she was almost as good a listener as the shrink that they'd made him see for a brief period after the uprising (for brainwashing, he suspected). She was leaning forward, her lips parted and her hands occasionally reaching up to toy with her hair, her attention obviously focused completely on what he was saying.

Or maybe it was just that he was lonely. It had been a really long time since anyone new had come into his room and expressed an interest in him or his past. Inuyasha shrugged. "Anyhow, I got locked up in a little room, they move me from lab to lab once every two years or so, and that's basically what I've been up to. I don't know where everyone else is, and I don't know what their future plans are."

"Alright, then," Kagome said. She paused and eyed him for a minute. "So, how are you going to escape?"

"What? Escape? What?" Somewhere along the way, Inuyasha had missed a step. "Do you not see how dangerous I am? I would be a menace to society." Inuyasha puffed out his chest.

Kagome gave him a withering look. "No one deserves to be raised in a prison. Unless you honestly like it here?" She swept a hand around the small, barren room. "Don't you want your freedom?"

"Well, yeah," Inuyasha said, "but I'll never get it. There's no point wasting time in useless speculation." The bitterness in his voice was evident even to himself as he slumped back against the wall.

"But you'll never have a chance to find out what happened to everyone else if you stay in here," Kagome said. "And I know that everyone deserves a chance at a normal life, regardless of who or what they are." She was leaning so far forward that, for a second, Inuyasha was afraid that she was going to fall off the chair. He was a struck by her compassion. Despite the threats and his status as a stranger, she seemed to be genuinely concerned about him.

For a minute, he stared into her eyes, seeing there her absolute conviction in what she was saying. She did think that he deserved a normal life, and she didn't think that he was somehow sub-human. She was different from the technicians who were usually around him. She did not act like the nurses who constantly poked and prodded him, who refused to meet his eyes, and who jumped if he so much as made a sudden movement. Their fear around him had been palpable and he had picked up on it. He had felt lacking, inferior. After all, normal kids, he knew, were not raised in cells cut off from all contact with other people. Very briefly, his confidence in himself was ignited by Kagome's conviction, but it was long enough.

"But how can I get out?" he asked. "In case you didn't notice, I'm pretty securely locked up here."

"I'll think of something," Kagome promised.

"Where will I go? Where can I go?"

"I'll think of something." Kagome repeated. "We'll work out the details, somehow. As long as you want it badly enough, we can work it out." What was she doing, she asked herself. She was promising to help him escape, after having just met him, she answered. That was easy enough. Oh course, she really hadn't thought her offer through. It had just seemed natural somehow. Natural to want to help him. Anyhow, she had to repay him somehow for his trust in her, his willingness to share his vulnerability. It couldn't have been easy; despite his tough-guy exterior, there had been moments in the telling in which she would have sworn that she saw repressed emotions words shimmering in the depths of his inhuman eyes.

"Besides," Inuyasha mumbled, realizing, even as he said it, that it was his last-ditch excuse and perhaps the real reason that he felt so panicked at the thought of leaving his cell, "I've been isolated for so long that I won't even know how to act. And everyone'd probably be scared of me anyways."

Rejection, Kagome thought, peer mentoring skills kicking back into gear, what teenager isn't scared of it? But best to deal with that now.

"Nah," she grinned reassuringly, "Just charm them the way you did me."

Inuyasha snorted. Then gave up and grinned with her. Co-conspirators, he thought. It was nice to finally have someone on his side.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sango frowned. Who did this girl think she was? She'd known Inuyasha for what? All of half an hour? And already she was trying to arrange a jailbreak. "Kids today," Sango muttered under her breath. "No hope for them. Apparently they feel an unreasonable desire to free innocent dog boys who've been locked up and isolated for their entire lives." Okay, maybe Sango was a just little bit on the girl's side.

In any case, it looked like they were going to need to have more information on her. "Miroku" she whispered into a mic.

"Yeah?" Came the reply through her headset.

"What was the name of that girl again? You said you met her earlier in the hallway."

"Kagome Higurashi," was the immediate reply, "Never forget a name."

"Yeah, assuming it belongs to a pretty girl." Sango muttered, typing the girl's name into the computer in front of her. "Bingo," she said as a file popped up.

Let's see, hired two weeks ago. High school senior, honors student, one brother in junior high. Mother divorced, lived about ten minutes away, so far no complaints about her, except for a tendency towards occasional absentmindedness. "That's not very helpful," Sango said aloud, "Looks like this is going to need a more personal touch."

"I'm on it," was Miroku's instant reply. Oh crap, thought Sango, I forgot to turn my mic off.

"Wait, Mir--" but it was already too late, and Sango turned her attention back to the screen as the door to Inuyasha's room suddenly opened. She hoped Miroku didn't take that "personal touch" comment too literally.