Welcome to another episode of Disclaim the Fanfic. I do not own Inuyasha or company, nor do I own the song used between words. This particular song is called Reasons Why by Nickel Creek. Bow to me.

This is a bit of a lighter chapter to help you swallow this dark fic; don't worry.. I won't be evil and destroy the world when someone lands on a misplaced button; I will just make this a bit deep and dark. It strangely makes me feel better, so read and enjoy and REVIEW PLEASE!

Nightmare with a Silver Lining

Chapter 4

Reasons Why

"Where am I?" Kagome thought as she rubbed her eyes. The room looked familiar, but it was not her room. The she remembered. She wasn't home, at least, not really.

"For a second there I thought I was back in Idaho."

Where am I today? I wish that I knew
'Cause looking around there's no sign of you
I don't remember one jump or one leap
Just quiet steps away from your lead

Weekends are wonderful things. It is a time to: meet with friends, play pranks, party, and at the last moment, finish any school projects that are due the first day back. That sick person that came up the idea of tests on Mondays must be dead now, because they must have died of shame to create such a burden on the backs of poor unsuspecting teens.

I'm holding my heart out but clutching it too
Feeling this sort of a love that we once knew
I'm calling this home when it's not even close
Playing the role with nerves left exposed

Kagome's eyes fell from their deep blue shine to a dull gray. "I am here, not home. This place can never be home. Home is where your friends are maybe a few blocks away. It's where your family goes out to a movie together and then laughs and talks about what is going on for the week."

Her smile fell further when she saw the flicker of her mother's image in her own. It faded too fast. It was never really there.

And standing on a darkened stage
Stumbling through the lines
Others have excuses
But I have my reasons why

A young girl sighed as she put on a fake smile and asked the little old couple for their order. Then she offered her suggestions and wrote it down with a little green pen. It was a very small pen that she just grabbed without looking, and it had a distracting glob of orange feathers shooting out of the top; someone had fun with the feathers.

"If you need anything else, just ask for Rin," she said with her mechanical smile and turned to prepare the orders. Just two chocolate milkshakes, they didn't order anything special or complicated. For that, she was grateful. Other people all morning have had their little fits about the smallest detail; one lady even got mad that she didn't have a lemon on the side of her water. People are so temperamental.

We get distracted by the dreams of our own
But nobody's happy while feeling alone
And knowing how hard it hurts when we fall
We lean another ladder against the wrong wall

Rin stuck her paper on the rack as she grabbed the burger that the person at table three had ordered. "Rin, just think of that new laptop," she muttered as the man inspected his burger before taking a timid bite. She shrugged it off. 'There are too many weirdoes in this town.' Of course, she was rather used to it. In Florida, the tourists could be really weird. "There was that one guy that believed that aliens had landed in his neighbor's house. That was actually pretty funny." She said quietly to herself but stopped when she saw the stares that she was receiving.

As Rin finished adding the cherries to the tops of the elderly couple's milkshakes, a young boy with silvery-blond hair wandered into the diner and sat in the corner. Rin delivered the milkshakes and wandered to his little secluded corner.

"Can I get you something?" Rin asked with interest on her face. Not many people her age came here. She never questioned why, but this boy struck her as the brave one that walks into an older people joint and saves this poor damsel from boredom. 'Gosh, I need to stop role-playing in my head,' Rin silently thought and continued to study this strange boy.

"Just a strawberry smoothie," he said after hesitating, "and can I get a coffee for my...friend who is meeting me here?"

"Sure hon, how does he like his coffee?" Rin asked and laughed at herself. 'Well, no taking it back now,' She commented in her thoughts. Sad thing is, I've done that -M-sama

"Black."

And climb high to the highest rung
To shake fists at the sky
While others have excuses
I have my reasons why

Not too long after, another boy walked in and sat next to the one in the corner. Well, Rin would have called him a man. He was obviously older and stood with a sort of powerful, manly grace (A/N: grace is manly? Man...I need to stop drinking Sprite. I think it's spiked or something. Manly grace...snickers).

Rin walked over with the smoothie in one hand and the coffee in the other. It was bound to happen. Rin tripped on an invisible foot and found herself falling forward. She didn't feel the ground hit. In fact, all she felt was a strong hand on her arm which was attached to her hand which was holding the hot black coffee.

"You should be more careful, this is hot," the man who saved her spoke in his deep, bass voice.

Rin could only look at the floor in her embarrassment of being caught in a clumsy moment. He cheeks heated and she whispered, "Um, thanks."

The man reached down and lifted her name tag so he could read it while she continued to look at the floor, being completely supported by his hand on her arm. She squirmed under his scrutiny of her nametag. He didn't seem to notice.

"Well, Rin, you can go on and bring us our check. We cannot stay long," he said in his cool voice.

"Alright, sir." She looked quickly for an escape and nearly fell again before catching herself moving too fast.

"Just call me Sesshomaru."

With so much deception it's hard not to wander away
It's hard not to wander away, it's hard not to wander away.

(sorry that this chapter was short but, It was mainly a light thing to introduce 2 new characters... btw... here is a little thing to clear things up

Seniors: Sesshomaru

Juniors: Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku

Sophomores: Kagome, Rin

Freshmen: none yet .

Ok... Please review and tell me your thoughts.

Oh, and I just got good news, My cousins in Japan are touring the US! Dan (my cousin) and his Japanese wife Kaoru! They are soo cute!)

Editors' Note:

(M-sama) You know. There weren't too many changes necessary as far as spelling and grammar went. However, what I had a problem with was the thing where you type in an apostrophe or something and it sends as 3 weird symbols show up instead.

(Skitzo-chan) Gee, M-chan, you must be slacking some. I caught a lot of spelling errors, not so many grammatical errors, though. And, Blu-chan, when typing thoughts, please put single quotes instead of double quotes, it gets confusing to the reader when thoughts are in double quotes, and not spoken aloud. Also, that little blurb about your sprite was slightly confusing, but that's just me. So yeah. All of you, please take the time to review this fic, she's been working so hard on it, and it only takes maybe two minutes to type up a review.

Blu: Its odd, but I am gonna type here. Erm.. I guess I should warn you guys of a few things. 1) this is seriously not a cheerful fanfiction. I'm not kidding. I have the climax half way typed up, its long and not pretty. In fact, I kind of scared myself… 2) I am posting this chapter early for a reason. I will be so busy next weekend. I have GA Allstate chorus auditions so I really should pick up my music.. heh, and madi is coming so chances are, we will bug each other to death and have no time for silly typing. So sorry. Until I get on the computer again… feel free to send mail or reviews or flames even. It is nice to know I have an audience, even if they hate me. I have so much homework that I have been putting off all day so I guess I better post this. Until next time, bai!