I do not own Inu Yasha. I'm just a barely talented hack who can't come up with an original idea but must instead take the works of others and go "What if..." Thanks for making me admit it. Jerk.


Kagome adjusted the strap on her backpack and shot a dark look at the hanyou in front of her. Knowing he couldn't see it did not improve her mood. She was hot, sticky, tired, and she had a rock in her shoe. But did they stop? 'Oh no! Not Inu Yasha! He doesn't need to rest or sleep, just replace the titanium rod in his spine!' she thought uncharitably. She sighed the sigh of the long suffering and trudged after her friend. Sango came up next to Kagome and nudged her. When she saw she had her friend's attention, Sango let Kirara out of her arms. The fire cat transformed into her larger form.

"Inu Yasha!" Sango called out "Kagome and I are going to ride on Kirara for a little bit." Inu Yasha looked over his shoulder at them and nodded in acknowledgement. Gratefully Kagome climbed up on the fire cat and positioned herself near the shoulders. Sango climbed on behind her and they took off into the air.

"Now that we're alone.." Sango said as they gained altitude, "you seemed kinda down lately, wanna talk about it?"

Kagome sighed again. "It's Kouga." The Priestess could feel Sango's smile.

"Go on." The Slayer urged her friend. "You've been thinking more about him?"

"It's been four days Sango. Four days! Kouga hasn't shown up once!"

"I thought you weren't quite ready to talk to him. You should be thankful for his absence until you figure out exactly what you are going to say."

"Not to mention that gives you more time to plan what you are going to do once Miroku finds out about that night?" Kagome twisted around enough to see the guilty look on her friend's face. "I was thankful. Now I'm worried."

"Worried? About what?"

"It's been four days. You know how Kouga is. I can not, CAN NOT, believe that four days have passed and he hasn't come to see me. I had my hand up his fur wrap. I touched him…there! I wrapped a ribbon around him for crying out loud! You'd think he'd be all over me by now!"

"Sounds like you want him all over you."

"…."

"I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't catch it." Sango leaned forward.

"I said I'm not sure I am entirely adverse to the idea anymore." Sango nearly fell off of Kiara.

"No entirely adverse anymore… oh come on, just admit you want him!"

"Follow your example perhaps? I think I missed the moment you told Miroku you want to sex him up!" Sango had the grace to blush at the comment. Kagome decided to take pity on her friend. "Seriously though, I would've thought Kouga would have been here by now. Why hasn't he shown up? What if…what if he really doesn't want me?"

"Doesn't want you? How could you even think that?" Sango looked incredulously at her friend.

"My hand up his wrap, four days later and I haven't seen him." Kagome heard the beginning of a quaver in her voice and hated herself for it. She took a deep breath and tried to get a grip on her emotions. A certain wolf demon had thrown them all to the wind. She still loved Inu Yasha, but with his continued emotional distance, her thoughts turned more and more to blue eyes and a fanged smirk. A thought streaked across her mind, so painful and sharp that Kagome actually gasped and glanced down at herself to see if there was a wound.

"What? What's wrong Kagome?"

Kagome wiped tears away from her eyes and swallowed hard. "I.." she took a deep breath "I've thought for sometime that the reason Inu Yasha has feelings for me is because I am Kikyou's reincarnation. What if the reverse is true?"

Sango frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I fell in love with Inu Yasha when I first saw him. What if 'I' didn't fall in love with him? What if the part of me in my subconscious who remembers being Kikyou, what if that was who loved him? I hold most of Kikyou's soul. What if I hold her love for Inu Yasha?" Kagome turned her head to look at Sango. The Slayer saw the uncertainty and fear there. "I always wondered, will probably always wonder, if Inu Yasha's feelings for me are because I was Kikyou. Now I wonder if my feelings for him are because I was Kikyou."

Sango nudged Kiara with her knees, signaling that the fire cat should land. When they were on the ground Sango pulled Kagome into her arms. "You are NOT Kikyou. Inu Yasha may be confused about that, but you ARE your own person! Your feelings are your own, not hers!"

"How do you know that? How could you know that?" Kagome started to cry. The realization that her first love may not be HER first love was painful. She felt Sango tighten her embrace. Kagome spilled tears onto the shoulder of her friend. "That's part of why I want to give Kouga a chance. He deserves it, and I know my feelings for him are MY feelings for him. I don't have that with Inu Yasha anymore. Maybe I never did. Maybe only Kikyou did."

Sango wished fervently for the words that would ease her sister's heartache. She opened her mouth and closed it again. The Slayer wanted to reassure Kagome but found she couldn't. Kagome was right. Kikyou and Kagome are different but with Inu Yasha the lines always got blurred. Who was Sango to tell Kagome about her own feelings, if they were her own? That Kagome herself, as herself, had some feelings for Inu Yasha; Sango never doubted. That those feelings were fleeting; nothing more than young love, first love she was also coming to conclude.

"Maybe, maybe you did love Inu Yasha. Your first love, right?" Kagome nodded. "Maybe you love, or loved Inu Yasha as a girl."

Kagome pulled back from Sango a little. "Are you saying you think my love for Inu Yasha was a.." she smiled "A puppy love?"

"While young for one of demon blood, Inu Yasha is no puppy."

Kagome laughed. "Puppy love is an expression in my time. It means your first love, a more pure love, because it is given with a pure heart of one very young. As you grow older and more mature, you grow apart and out of love."

She smiled at Sango, perhaps a little sadly and stepped away from Sango completely, settling herself on the ground. "Young love is so very black and white. You think you are meant to be and your love will conquer all. You'll always be together and all that matters is you'll be together." Kagome sighed. "It's like a story. You know you're going to be together forever so there's no point in planning the future. You don't talk about it and you don't envision it. You just see yourself a little older, smiling into gold eyes while watching him play with your children. You don't see where you live or how. You don't talk to him about it either."

Kagome looked at Sango and the slayer felt a squeeze on her heart at the expression on her friend's face. "I never talked or planned with Inu Yasha about our future. I just assumed one day he'd wake up, realize how much I loved him, we'd defeat Naraku and live together here in the past raising dog eared quarter demon children. I never thought of the details on how this came about. Maybe because deep down I knew I was dreaming and only thought my eyes were open."

Sango knelt next to Kagome. Very gently she asked, "Do you see the same thing with Kouga? Staying here raising wolf tailed hanyou cubs? Without knowing how?"

"No." Kagome bit her lower lip. "I see nothing; it's a big uncertainty with Kouga. I have so many questions for him. I'm not even sure of my feelings for him." At Sango's look she continued "Oh I know I want him. It's like I said before, do I want him for keeps? I don't know him well enough for the answer."

Sango's voice still was gentle as Kagome had ever heard it "You do know one thing." Sango met and held Kagome's questioning eyes. "You know whatever you feel for him you feel as a woman. You know it's not puppy love, it's not a story. Whatever it is, it's real."

"Tangible."

"Like other parts of him."

"You just have to keep bringing that up don't you?" Kagome glared at her friend. "You're just jealous you didn't get to touch him." Inwardly she was grateful for Sango's teasing. It was much easier to deal with than her feelings and she had quite enough of them for one day.

"That I am." At Kagome's startled look, Sango smiled. "I'm not going to bother denying it. It was a wondrous sight."

"We could always try to peek at the boys bathing and see if Miroku is as 'wondrous' himself." Kagome's eyes sparkled mischievously at the blush over Sango's cheeks.

"You must really and truly be over Inu Yasha if you didn't even think of peeking at him."

"Who said I didn't? I've often wondered if the hair would be white like on his head or dark like his eyebrows."

"Kagome!" Sango stared at her friend shocked.

"I lied when I said I didn't see how Inu Yasha and I lived together and had kids. I've seen THAT in dreams for some time." She looked positively impish. "Besides, even though I've more or less given up on Inu Yasha, doesn't mean I can't take a look at what I've passed up."

"Aren't you afraid that would make it that much harder to get over Inu Yasha?"

"I don't think so. Inu Yasha can say what he wants about Sesshoumaru being emotionally constipated, but he's not too much better. What's wrong with looking if I know he's too emotionally stunted for anything but looking?" Kagome smiled but it turned sad as she truly thought about what she had said. "Inu Yasha really needs to work through some of his emotional baggage."

"He's young, give him time. He's come a ways since I met him and I'm sure that means he's made lots of progress from when you first met him."

"He has." Kagome frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just wondering what will happen once Inu Yasha gets over this Kikyou thing. I've felt like I was in reserve, you know? Like maybe once he figured things out with her, it would clear the way for us. What if he thinks that? It could undo all the progress and growth he made if he gets over her and then finds out I am no longer an option for his future happiness."

Sango put her arm around Kagome's shoulders. "Let's not borrow trouble. We'll slay that demon when it comes at us." Sango nodded to Kirara who transformed once more. "We should instead catch up to Inu Yasha before he comes sneaking up on us."

"To catch us in the midst of drunken debauchery." Kagome giggled.

"I wonder if he's simply not jealous that we don't invite him." With that the two girls took to the sky on the demon fire cat laughing.