A/N: Hey everybody, back for chapter four! Hope you enjoy, and, as always, please review!
STILL IMPORTANT: LOOK AT THE DATES! THINGS WILL MAKE SENSE EVENTUALLY!
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June 4, 2004. 5:12 PM. Inuyasha.
Inuyasha softly wiped at Kagome's brow and took her hand again.
"You want some water?" he offered gently.
Kagome shook her head to the negative.
She looked so deathly pale, lying there in pain, no expression but misery on her face. This damn hospital room was doing nothing for her.
"Kagome," he began, but didn't know where to go from there, and instead dropped his face to her pillow, to kiss her cheek and look at her profile. He fought for words, but only found a few. He tried them out to see if they'd work. "Things will get better." They didn't work at all; they crashed and burned.
Kagome didn't say anything; she hadn't spoken much at all in the past few days but her eyes told him that she didn't believe him, that she no longer trusted him.
Inuyasha's stomach churned. The throb of his heart was painfully strong. He wanted to hold his son in his arms, to look upon their firstborn child. Now it was just a dream. Where could they go from here?
February 12, 2004. 11: 29 AM. Kagome.
"Are you a happy boy, now that you have me all to yourself?" Kagome teased, setting down the last of the light boxes. Those were the only ones Inuyasha would let her get her hands on. The moment he'd found out she was pregnant, he'd gone into protective mode, and the only boxes he'd let her pick up weighed less than three pounds.
"Yep." Inuyasha tugged her confidently into his arms. His brazenness never got old. It was actually rather adorable, really. "It certainly took you long enough to move in here though."
Kagome grinned up at him. "I was practically living here anyway."
"It's that 'practically' part that got to me," he informed her.
"Oh I see. So now what? You wanna break for lunch?"
"Hmm, how about we try out the bed?" he suggested slyly, kissing a line down the side of her neck. It felt delectable but Kagome did have a point to make.
"Inuyasha, it's the same bed you've always had," she told him dryly.
"Oh really?" he murmured distractedly. "Well let's go make sure it still works."
Giggling, Kagome let him lead them into the bedroom. How could she possibly refuse an offer like that?
June 1, 2004. 2:16 AM. Inuyasha.
Inuyasha spared a moment to simply stare at Kagome.
He loved how angelic her face looked when she was sleeping, like nothing could ever bother her and all was right with the world. Just as much as that, he loved the sight of her very rounded belly, holding up the covers as if Kagome was harboring a small beach ball under her shirt. He was glad that he'd insisted that she go to bed; she could obviously use the rest. The girl had been dead to the world within seconds.
Inuyasha silently crept to the bed and rested one hand against the swell of her stomach. He whispered to his son that everything would be fine, soon they would be free.
Hastily, he returned to packing. He would have everything ready to go within an hour or two. Granted, they'd have to leave a good bit behind, but that was plenty of time to get all that they needed, and go. Inuyasha hated the fact that they were leaving behind the beautiful room they'd painted and decorated for their son right after Kagome had moved in with him. He didn't want to leave this apartment; not now that he'd finally learned how to create positive memories within its walls.
Inuyasha winced sharply at the pain in his leg and side. His body felt like a wreck. The bulletholes were long-since scabbed over but the two of them hurt like hell and the various fading bruises and scrapes didn't help much either. He had to keep moving though, or they'd never get out of there.
He returned to zipping up the last clothing bag and staging it by the door.
Suddenly, he froze, every nerve and muscle in his body frozen and wary.
There was someone in his house.
Two seconds passed. Three. Four. Five.
Whoever it was knew that he was awake; it was a demon, and they were masking their scent and hiding almost all sound. They were most definitely professionals. That could only mean one thing: they had been sent by Naraku.
With a deafening mental curse, Inuyasha dove for Kagome and threw his body over her, shielding her with the only thing he had: himself.
He had moved not a nanosecond too soon. The door burst open, splintering with the impact it made against the wall, and then the firing began.
Infinite pain raced all over his body, and Inuyasha gasped and gritted his teeth against the pain.
He clutched his hands in the sheets below him, waiting for the firing to stop. Finally, there was silence.
Within the blink of an eye, two demons were lying dead on the floor; before Inuyasha had consciously realized what and how many there were, he had killed them, claws ripping viciously to slit their throats to a point which surpassed any chance of survival.
His fear in that moment, after he'd killed the two men who had attacked him and his mate, was more intense than every other feeling he'd ever felt. His breath was a living thing, shaking and vibrating and generally being uncooperative in his throat. It caught on everything and stuck to the sides of his windpipe. The smell of Kagome's terror reached him like a head-on collision with an eighteen-wheeler.
What he saw after that infinitely long half-second it took him to turn around made his entire body clench and his legs give out. He stumbled to Kagome's side.
Blood was blossoming on the left side of her abdomen, slowly seeping outwards. Unconsciously, Inuyasha's hand drifted to the same spot on his own body, a gaping hole where one of the bullets had gone all the way through.
Kagome had her hands over the spot. "Inuyasha?" she whimpered almost silently.
"I'm here, Kagome," he told her, and shooed her hands away to apply pressure to the wound. "I'm going to get you to a hospital, and everything is going to be just fine. Okay, Kag? It'll all be fine." His voice was quivering almost as much as his hands as he wrapped her in the bed sheet and gathered her gingerly into his arms. He shoved away hysteria, needing to stay lucid enough to properly take care of Kagome.
"You promise?" she whispered, eyes glazing over as she winced from the pain.
"I promise, love." In seconds, he was running faster than he ever had in his life, Kagome's head cradled safely against his shoulder. Tears threatened to blur his vision, but he kept his hold on Kagome and kept going, pushing himself faster as he spackled the city below with his own blood.
Then he was somehow in the hospital, not really remembering getting there, and he was stepping through the emergency doors, screaming for assistance.
The ward was set into motion, and they quickly had Kagome on a gurney. Inuyasha gripped her hand as they wheeled her down a hall. She wouldn't let go of his hand, and he kissed it softly, and placed it onto the gurney. He only watched as they wheeled her away into some mysterious room, and out of his sight.
Finally, his knees gave out, and he sank to the floor.
"Sir, you've got to come with us, you've sustained multiple bullet-wounds; even for a demon, it's amazing that you're conscious with as much blood as you've lost."
Inuyasha looked up at the young nurse. "You have enough doctors to take care of me and her at the same time?"
"Of course we do. Here, let me help you." She bent down to him and Inuyasha almost let her help him, but jerked away at the last minute.
"No! Go help my mate!"
"Sir, we can-"
He growled fiercely and grabbed the woman by her upper-arms, staring into her eyes with murder written on his face. He could feel his youkai side struggling to emerge. "I've trusted you people with her life and if anything happens to her, I swear I'll make every single goddamn one of you pay."
The nurse hurriedly retreated out of his grasp as he sank to the floor, and fled from the room. There wasn't any merit to his threat. If anything happened to Kagome or his son, he was the only one to blame.
Inuyasha slumped over a chair and reached to his back to begin pulling out the bullets still inside his body. He dug the claws of his free hand into the hard plastic of the chair below him, but didn't stop until all the bullets were out and blood was sliding in sickening waves down his back.
He could think of nothing but Kagome.
He would die without her and he wondered if that was exactly what was happening as he slid down to the floor and into blackness.
June 10, 2004. 6:20 PM. Kagome.
"Every night, in my sleep, I…I hear him crying for me, and…"
Kagome broke down in tears. The pain was so extremely acute, like her very life had been stolen from her. She could feel physical pain, sure, as getting shot actually hurt quite a bit, but it was less than nothing compared to that tearing, aching, screaming feeling she felt when she thought of her son.
"Inuyasha," she hiccoughed, "you have to promise me. If I'm ever going to be able to stand being in the same room as you, you have to swear to me that you'll never go back to being an assassin. You have to swear to me, Inuyasha!"
"Yes," he nodded, looking so very broken. His eyes, ordinarily so electric, were sleep-deprived and bloodshot and so very pained. "I promise you, Kagome." He took her face gently in his hands. "I love you. More than anything. I promise, I'll never go back to it."
It was so easy to accept that, to let things fall into place and at least pretend that they could start over, that they could move on and be together. Inuyasha held her securely. Even though the sensation of his arms wrapped tightly around her didn't ease the pain of mourning, it somehow made life seem a little more…right.
May 31, 2004. 9:12 PM. Inuyasha
Inuyasha clenched his jaw in anger. He couldn't believe Kagome had managed to keep this from him all day. How could she have been so stupid? Didn't she know that she could have been killed! He was actually amazed that she hadn't been.
Inuyasha stood abruptly, ready to put an end to that which made him even more mad: Naraku had struck his mate.
"Inuyasha, where are you going?" Kagome asked, sniffling through her tears of guilt, hands on the stomach of her maternity sundress.
He didn't respond and instead went into their bedroom. He pulled his gun from the drawer of the bedside table and shoved it under the hem of his jeans.
"Inuyasha, what are you doing with that! You can't be thinking of using that! I saw how many guards were in that room; you'd be dead in a split second!" She grabbed onto his arm. "Don't go, Inuyasha."
He spun on her, a growl erupting fro his chest. "Kagome, sit down," he ordered sharply.
Surprised, she sat, plopping onto the edge of the bed, and he bent down to look her in the eye, as if he was disciplining a child. His expression was fierce.
"You're carrying our child. You are almost seven months pregnant; the last thing you need to be doing is going around putting yourself in dangerous situations. It was a stupid, irresponsible thing to do and I wish to God that you hadn't done it, because the thought of you alone in a room with those people terrifies me. But the fact that he struck you, when he knew that you were my mate, and he knew that you were pregnant, is unforgivable. Now, you're going to stay in this apartment until I get back, and you're going to be relatively still; you've had enough action for one day."
"Where do you get off telling me what to do like that?" she demanded angrily.
He gripped her chin softly between his thumb and the knuckle of his forefinger. "Kagome, don't fucking question me, alright? You've probably caused a hell of a lot more trouble than you know, and now I'm going to go take care of it. Stay here." With that, he kissed the top of her head and turned to go.
"Inuyasha, stop! I'm not letting you leave this apartment until you tell me what you're going to do!" She came after him, clutching her belly.
Inuyasha sighed. "Koishii, I'm going to talk to him and tell him never to touch you again. I'm not going to get myself killed, I promise."
It was clear that she didn't believe him, but Inuyasha wasn't sure if he believed himself either. He brushed the backs of his fingers softly against her cheek before he spun on his heel and left.
Inuyasha could have run the route to Headquarters blindfolded and he was there within minutes. He headed straight for Naraku's office. The room was filled with black marble and within its walls, guards and assassins were sure to be found milling around, at Naraku's command.
"Naraku!" he yelled, anger blazing once more as he burst into the room.
"Ah, Inuyasha. I've been expecting you."
"You fucking bastard!" Then Inuyasha had him by the collar of his suit, and, blindingly fast, he had the gun leveled to Naraku's temple.
There was a massive noise of clicking as every guard in the room cocked their gun and leveled it straight at Inuyasha.
"Inuyasha, this is hardly necessary."
"Naraku, I swear if you ever touch her again, I'll rip your dirty fucking fingers off," he hissed.
"Now, aren't you forgetting which one of us works for the other? I believe it's you under my jurisdiction, no the other way around. Put the gun down."
"I should kill you for touching her, you pathetic bastard."
"Inuyasha, it was that kind of anger that got your mate in trouble."
Inuyasha snarled venomously. "From now on, you're never going to see her, so you'll have no excuse. Leave her the hell alone, or I will kill you." With one final jerk, Inuyasha shoved Naraku away from him and backed up a few steps.
Naraku finally stood and he studied Inuyasha for a moment before lashing out and striking him across the cheek with the back of his hand. Inuyasha stared at Naraku in astonishment.
"You deserve the same treatment as your pitiful bitch."
With a growl, Inuyasha tackled Naraku, and started punching the twisted asshole in the face, as hard as he could. He had only gotten in a few good hits before he was dragged off and physically thrown out of the building.
Inuyasha raised himself up from the ground and rubbed his knuckles. This was it; the time had come. He jumped to his feet, realizing for the first time since seeing that scratch on Kagome's face that his numerous bullet-wounds still hurt horribly. The hanyou sprinted home and flung open the bedroom door. Kagome was sitting there, an image of worry.
"Kagome, we're leaving."
She blinked. "Inuyasha, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, but we have to leave. Before sunrise, we have to be out of here."
"What did you do?"
"That's not important. Start packing up the bare essentials, and then go to bed. You need your rest and I can pack up everything else by myself and have it ready to go before sunrise."
Kagome stared at him for a moment. "We're really leaving? Once and for all?"
"Once and for all."
Kagome rushed into him in a hug and he stroked her hair and held her tight. "Now," he murmured, kissing her forehead, "let's get packing."
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A/N: I'm thinking of revising the summary. If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should include, or even any help at all, I'd appreciate it!
I had a lemon scene at the beginning of this chapter, but it bugged me so I cut it. No one has hinted at particularly caring about that sort of thing, so if that's the case, I'm just going to leave it out. However, if you want to see it, it's just floating around in my hard drive doing nothing, so I could slip it into a different chapter.
Speaking of chapters, IAWA is officially more than half over! The story is seven chapters long.
Reviews!
i-luv-the-cat-sohma52: Thank you!
XAmiX: Thanks, i'm glad you read it too!
SilverSqueakyInuEars: I'm so glad (SO GLAD!) that someone likes the out-of-order dates! Thank you! Haha, you probably hate Naraku even more after this chapter, huh? thank you soooo much!
Inuyasha'sChic: Thank you very much!
ErrorDexis: Well, the erratic timing...oh jeez. Okay, so i had this cool idea for a story, but it was just a sequence of events, flashes of these really miserable characters. So i tried to put it into some kind of logical order, and it kind of lost its appeal. So i thought it would be really fun to do something all out of order and confusing. It definitely wasn't my intent to make it unreadable, but i thought it was something cool that i'd never tried to do before. And i've never really been sure whether it was a good decision or not! But anyway, thanks so much for your review!
The more you review, the faster I update. I know everybody says that, but…it's true. So…REVIEW PLEASE!