AN: Whew! So, that was a pretty big break. I've got finals this week, which aren't too bad. All the really busy stuff is out of the way, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to writing in a more normal fashion. I just had the two months from Hell, especially the last three weeks of it, so writing will be a nice change of pace for me.

Anyways, here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 16

The night was darker than most as she stared up into the sky… at least she thought it was night. Somehow, the world appeared to be stuck in some warped form of twilight, the sky looking as though covered by a dark, artificial film that was characteristic of looking through sunglasses, while still managing to seem almost metallic to the eyes that gazed upon it. The air was thick with the feeling of what she had always associated as the cover of night, and yet something still nagged at her mind, telling her that this was not so.

She turned, trying to take in other aspects of her surroundings that might confirm or reject her assumptions, finding herself in the middle of what she thought to be a park. She was standing upon a stone walkway: the bike and walking path that most people used for their daily exercises before or after work. The smooth stone felt cool beneath her bare feet – where were her shoes again? – and there was an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility in the spot where she stood beneath that strange sky. There was no one else around that she could see, and nothing of the city sounds that she expected to hear. It was almost as if… as if… what? …What had she been thinking about again?

Her mind blanked, leaving her groping after the fleeting thoughts.

How strange…

Suddenly, a streetlamp beside her flickered in the half-night, catching her eye and forcing her to turn towards the source. She realized distantly that she was actually standing in the midst of the shaft of light, her skin all but glowing with the artificial rays. Had she been standing here a moment ago? She was not sure…

The lamp flickered again, and this time what caught her attention was movement down the pathway from her: bodies twisting and turning amidst each other. They were all but shadows from where she stood, but she could swear she recognized a familiar flash of red and silver as the leaping figures flitted beneath their own lamp farther on. There was no one else around that she could see, so she decided to quench the sudden curiosity that gripped her body by approaching the moving shadow-people.

"--------?" Her voice sounded hollow to her ears, as though she were underwater. As soon as she spoke, she could not remember what she had said, but continued to move forward as though nothing were wrong. In the back of her mind, something was screaming.

She moved closer, but the shadows did not clear. Suddenly, she was running towards them, frantic but silent. One of the shadows stopped and called out to her, telling her to stop, to stay back, but she kept running, trying to reach him. –Him?—Everything inside of her told her she had to reach him! She had to touch him, see him!

The images were becoming clearer as she ran, at least one of them was. Where had the other shadow gone? It did not matter, as the promise of a red-clothed figure waiting for her, face ablur and arms outstretched in anticipation. She felt joy and relief wash over her, even as the black of the night suddenly solidify and crashed down around them like a tidal wave. In a second, the figure was washed from sight and she was alone again.

"--------! Where are you? --------!" Her throat was hoarse from screaming, her voice a vain rasp. Where had he gone? Where was she? "--------!"

Panic gripped her chest and squeezed. She was alone. She was alone again, on her own, and he had not come. He had always said he would come! Where was he? He had always protected her before! He had always been there! He had always come to get her when she was gone to long! Where was he?

Tears were coursing down her cheeks now, feeling hot against her cheeks where nothing else registered on her skin.

She was alone. He had left her all alone. …No, wait, that wasn't right, was it? She had left him. Oh God, oh God! What had she done? It was all her fault! It was her fault! Oh God, oh God!

"--------!" Her voice was silent to her ears even as she screamed herself mute. He couldn't hear her from so far away! She had wandered too far! How would he ever find her? HOW?

Without warning, the world around her went white. For one agonizing moment, she was blinded with the light.

And then it cleared, and she could see him before her, smiling that cocky, arrogant smile. The others were with him, smiling as well, though something was peculiar about them all. There was an unease that came with those smiles.

She tried to clear the tears from her eyes, but they just kept falling: an eternal cascade. Instead, she moved closer, reaching for them; reaching for him

And then there was red; Bodies, surrounded by red, flooding past her feet and staining her shoes. There was someone else in the distance, standing over the corpses and watching her with cruel, mocking eyes. She could have sworn she heard laughing. Amidst it all, a pair of golden pools stared up at her from the floor, lackluster and glazed over so that they would never again shine just for her.

She screamed.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome all but threw herself from her bed with the force her body exerted in waking from the dream. The scream that tore from her lips scored her throat as soon as it was rendered, leaving her gasping and coughing even while tears blurred her vision to the point where she was unable to see anything. She noted that she was on the floor, tangled in her blankets, but the knowledge was pushed aside in light of the strangled cry that she next uttered as she doubled over, sobbing bitterly into the carpet.

"Idiot." All at once she was in his arms, crushed against his cotton-clad chest in a gentle but firm embrace that held her, blankets and all.

"Inuyasha…"

"I'm here. Go back to sleep, it's late."

She had not dreamed like that in a long time; not since she was a teenager, just finishing high school and mourning the loss of her family back in the feudal era. Back then it had taken months before she could sleep completely through the night without dreaming of gruesome deaths for her friends, but since then her sleep had been mostly without incident. This dream, however, was worse than any she had encountered before, and far more puzzling. Kagome could only grope for the fabric of the hanyou's t-shirt and attempt to calm the tremors in her body.

He stood and stepped up onto the mattress of her bed, turning his back to the wall and sitting down cross-legged before lowering her into his lap. Unbidden, he cradled her against him and she settled there without protest, content to leech on his warmth and presence. It did not even occur to her to ask why he was in her room so late at night, or where he had been that he had come to her so quickly. There was only the smell of him and the feel of his body so close to hers. She missed nights like these, and only wished they were sitting beside a campfire, weary and upset from a battle with Naraku, or perhaps an argument they had endured over Kikyou. All at once, she realized how very far away those days were now.

She had endured four years of crippling loneliness of her own making, and yet here he was, undeterred. He was the one constant in her life.

"Inuyasha?"

"What, wench?"

"I'm glad you're here now."

"…Keh."

Kagome smiled lazily, the memory of the dream slowly fading in her new reverie, and slowly drifted back to sleep.

Inuyasha stirred as the first of the sun's rays brushed across his eyes, flexing stiff muscles as his mind readjusted itself to the morning. His eyes opened slowly, gazing across the room languidly and eying Goshinboku from his seat against the wall of Kagome's bedroom. He felt relaxed for the first time in… years. Not necessarily healthy and bursting with life – he had just spent the night locked in a sitting position against a wall of plaster, unable to fully move and shift throughout the night due to the human still nestled in his rather numb arms – but calm and content nevertheless. Those eyes that had moments before looked upon the godtree shifted to gaze down at the bundle of blankets and hair that resided against him.

She had worried him. Worse then ever before, he had been concerned for her (not that he would ever admit it). The previous night had simply seemed to go from bad to worse for the young miko in his arms, and Inuyasha could not help but blame himself in part.

"That first week when she was suddenly home all the time, I was so worried. She refused to eat, and she only slept when she was so exhausted from crying that she was unable to stay up any longer, only to wake screaming in the night from nightmares. At the same time, she would not tell anyone what had happened, and she refused to go to school. It was Souta who first suspected that something had happened… back then. He realized that you, Inuyasha, had not come by for a visit in all the time since she had returned. When I asked her about it, she just broke down and cried even more until she fell asleep in my arms."

Kagome had suffered because of him and he had been too blind to see it at the time. That knowledge alone hurt him.

He had spent some hours after that initial conversation with her mother discussing many things, from Kagome's work as a physical therapist to the Higurashi family itself and what had happened with the family in the time since he had last spoken to them intimately. He had learned a great deal. Souta was coming close to graduation and looking forward to the prospect of college, perhaps in America like Kagome. He wanted to work in criminal investigations, particularly on cold and unsolved cases involving the supernatural. Apparently, the younger Higurashi had a sharp eye for the youkai cover-ups that plagued the current Japanese society.

Kagome's grandfather was still a resident in the household, but was getting on in age and was more often than not (supposed to be) confined to his bed in current days. Of course, that only meant that he tried to be even more active than when Kagome was fifteen and often suffered the consequences that came with that activity. Buyo, the overweight cat inhabiting the Higurashi household, was also still lolling about, as fat and lazy (and irritating; he had almost tripped Inuyasha five times that night alone) as ever.

He had also spoken some about his own situation, describing and trying to explain all at once his relationship to Sesshoumaru and his current work underneath his older half-brother. Of course, he had made it quite clear that he simply took charge of one aspect of the business, and was certainly not answerable to the taiyoukai in any way. He was showing pity and filling some free time, nothing else. A hanyou had to do something in such as crappy world as this one, after all, and if Sesshoumaru insisted on playing around with his little corporation—Er, well, anyways…

A clawed hand rose to brush back strands of black hair from the face of the sleeping miko, his eyes softening as he looked upon her.

No matter what had happened, it had been far too long and Kagome had suffered more than he could have ever imagined. Even now she was not free of it, if her dream had been any indication. After her mother had gone to bed he had escaped up to her room and sat in the windowsill to watch over her. It had not been long before she had started to mumble and turn in her sleep, putting him on alert from the beginning. When she had screamed and tumbled from the bed, he had been off the sill and at her side in an instantly, holding her before he even knew what he was doing. It was pure instinct that had led him to let her fall asleep in his lap, protecting her like he had always promised to do, and he had been happy to have her there. He had spent the rest of the night in a half-sleep against the wall, watching over her.

He had not wanted these things for her. He had thought that in sealing the well she would find happiness in her world, perhaps a human husband that would not force her into danger at every bend and who could provide a life in her time instead of a split between two. He had hoped that she would be happy to put the strife and heartache of the Sengoku Jidai behind her; imagined that Naraku's absence would somehow ease her mind and allow her to move on. Kagome had always been the strongest of them, at least in his own mind, so it had seemed only logical that she continue on without her life as thought it had never been interrupted.

That had apparently not been the case, and he had not seen it until it was too late to take it back.

Inuyasha sighed quietly, running his hand through her hair one last time before gently lowering her from his lap onto the mattress. She murmured sleepily to herself in response and rolled over in order to hug her newfound pillow. He rose and stepped from the bed silently, pulling the covers up around her and making sure she was warm before allowing himself the pleasure of stretching, popping out the kinks in his back and neck as he stepped stiffly towards the doorway. He paused at the doorway, unwilling to simply leave her there alone to wake up without him.

"Inuyasha?" Well, that solved that problem…

She looked up at him from her pillow, brown eyes bleary in the morning light as she wiped at them with one hand. He smirked to her.

"Yeah?"

"…Did you stay with me the whole night?"

"…Yeah." A small, sweet smile crossed her lips, the gesture accentuated with her state of exhaustion so that it made his entire face soften, just for her.

"I'm so glad…" she mumbled, falling back to sleep as quickly and quietly as she had awoken. That was the second time she had told him she was glad for his presence, and Inuyasha could not help but feel a swell of pride with those words.

"Me too."

He retreated from her room, closing the door dutifully behind him and heading down the stairs towards the front door. Years ago he would have simply taken the window and gone to perch in Goshinboku until she woke, but for once he brushed away the instinctual habit, opting for the path by which he had entered the house. He was surprised to once again find Kagome's mother waiting for him at the foot of the stairs.

"Good morning, Inuyasha."

He glanced around the hall nervously, looking for something to focus on besides the older woman. In the back of his mind, he realized he had just spent the night in Kagome's room. With Kagome. Alone. Though that had never been an issue back in Sengoku Jidai, he had learned over the years that it was not considered proper or conventional for a boy to "sleepover" with a girl unless they were married… Whoops.

"'Mornin'," he muttered, averting his eyes as she smiled warmly at him. Inwardly, he scowled. The entire family (accept for the crazy grandfather) shared that stupid, disarming smile that always made him worry for some vital part of his body. Smiles like that had once preceded a viciously hated word that had forced Inuyasha face-first into all kinds of surfaces. Not that Kagome's mother had the power, but still…

"Would you like to stay for breakfast? Kagome has an early day with work, I'm sure she would like the company." He blinked. He had not expected that.

He explored the possibility in sincerity for a quick moment before shaking his head. "Nah, I've got things to do before work." She nodded gently, understanding, and turned from the hall, apparently finished. What she had been looking for, he could only fathom.

He headed towards the doorway without another word and slid it open, about to leave when he heard her voice again.

"Inuyasha." He halted and glanced back, one hand on the doorframe. She was smiling kindly at him, all traces of mischief gone for an expression he could only explain as motherly. "I'm glad that my daughter had the chance to meet someone like you."

Unsure of what to say in response, the hanyou merely nodded respectfully to her before closing the door behind him and taking off towards home. He ran with all his strength, feeling suddenly revitalized and energetic, taking the rooftops three at a time across the city. For once in a long while, he enjoyed the feeling of the wind whipping through his hair and past his face, the way his feet barely had to touch the surface of the roof before he was off again. It was true he could not fly upon a cloud such as Sesshoumaru, but he found this far more relaxing and exhilarating than using any other form of transportation.

He had never imagined the night would turn out the way it had. For the first time in five hundred years, she had needed him –wanted him there. She had curled into him as though they had never been apart, content to sleep in his arms and let him chase away the nightmares. It was a better drug in his system than any he had ever seen a junkie take, making every nerve in his body tingle with the afterthought of her.

For a few, short minutes it felt as though the world were right and he was back in the feudal age of his lifetime, running to see Kagome at her school and steal her away from the plague of that 'Hobo' guy and his stupid gifts. In spite of himself, Inuyasha smirked, landing just then in front of his ocean-side condo.

He entered with little pretense, throwing his keys down on the countertop and glancing around for any signs of Shippou within the rather vast apartment. His nose told him the kit had not returned last night, leaving him to conclude that he was still playing the cold-shoulder game and hiding out at Sesshoumaru's. Well, that was fine for the time being.

He glanced over at his answering machine, sitting on the opposite side of the counter. The red light was blinking with the number '3', telling him someone had called since the previous night. He scrutinized the machine, considering checking the message, before shrugging and neglecting the modern contraption. Instead, he headed for his bedroom, stripping off his clothes and tossing them haphazardly aside as he went. By the time he had reached the bathroom, he was able to step into the shower without pause and turn on the water, soaking himself beneath the fine spray of indoor plumbing. He stood that way for several minutes, letting the water fall across his skin in waves while reveling in the feel of it.

He had found out many new things about himself with the coming of the modern age: he hated baths with a passion and had often refused to even bathe Aya as a baby due to the pool of water he was supposed to put her in. However, he adored standing showers, especially the kind with high pressure and water that could scalding a human's skin with ease (or freeze it, depending on his mood). He disliked buses, but could handle them when he needed to, but absolutely loathed cars (one reason why he was so averted to Sesshoumaru's collection of them). Hairdressers scared him, and the first one that had tried to coax him into a haircut while in hanyou form had almost lost her scissor fingers in the attempt.

Telephones was convenient to him, and let him insult people without having to deal with the consequences of saying it to their faces, namely when it came to Sesshoumaru. Cellphones were even better, though it was easy for him to crush the small devices when he became angry over a conversation. His answering machine was the bane of his existence. Dishwashers were surprisingly helpful to own, and he liked to cook for himself when no one was around and then use said dishwasher. Washing machines fell in the same line as dishwashers, though were less helpful for his clothes, which were often too torn of bloodied to rescue with a good cleaning. For the rips, he had Shippou, who had learned to sew from Sango and Kaede back in the feudal era. Inuyasha often teased him for it, but he was silently grateful for the kit's expertise.

He was a good father. Or, at least Shippou had survived the years alone with him. After Kagome had left, he had raised the kit in her stead, watching out for him and teaching him the things youkai should know. He had brought Shippou on his first hunt, showed him how to use his claws, and even helped him discover his own unique talents as a youkai. The first time Shippou had transformed into full demonic form, Inuyasha had felt a fatherly pride like no other. Shippou was, essentially, his son. At least it felt that way to him. Sure, he fought with him as much as he ever had, but at the end of the day it had been he, Inuyasha, whom the kit had run to for help and comfort, especially after Sango and Miroku had died. Shippou was his responsibility, and he was prone to think that he had done a rather decent job in raising the kitsune.

He reached for the unscented shampoo and began washing his hair, carefully avoiding his ears so that the soap would not run down into them.

What else?

Sesshoumaru was still an asshole (not that he really had to learn that part). But he was a useful asshole. Grudgingly, Inuyasha also admitted that he was a rather ingenious asshole. The taiyoukai had quick, effective solutions to most everything while Inuyasha was still pondering the problem itself. However, part of that was only because of Rin. The brat had grown up strong and intelligent, quiet but sharp, and almost sickeningly kind. She did not have the explosive attitude that Kagome had, but was instead subtler with her threats and feelings. Often, Inuyasha had seen her bottle and restrain her feelings until she had suffered moments of insane emotional breakdown that came and went a quickly as one could blink. They were few and far between, but they were there. The hanyou often hypothesized that it was Rin's humanity that brought Sesshoumaru down the earth and forced him to relent when he normally would not have. The two balanced one another, read each other without ever saying a word. He would never say it or even hint at it, but Inuyasha was envious of the relationship. No one had ever looked at him the way the brat looked at his brother. No one except Kagome…

He wiped those thoughts from his mind as he washed the shampoo from his hair. Whatever Kagome had felt back then, and whatever he might have felt for her --it was all something they now had the time to figure out. They had a lifetime, and he would be damned if he would waste it.

Shutting off the water, he wrung out his hair into the basin of the shower before opening the glass door and stepping into the steamed air of the bathroom. He retrieved a towel from a rack near the shower, shaking off as he did so, before wrapping the soft fabric around himself.

Oh, yes, that was another thing: cotton towels and silk sheets were a blessing.

He dressed quickly, ignoring the layer of moisture that caused the modern t-shirt and jeans to stick to him, and once again headed out into the kitchen area and living room, this time making a beeline for the answering machine. He pressed the button and turned away from the evil contraption in order to draw a glass of water from the tap, listening with one ear.

"Yo, dog-turd, I heard about you fucking around with Kagome. I should come over there a beat the shit out of you for making my woman cry like that, you bast—Ayame! What are you—Hey! Hey!"

"Inuyasha?" The hanyou smirked to himself as he heard Kouga cursing in the background of the message, Ayame's voice taking over. "I'm sorry to hear about the fight between you and the miko. Don't worry about anything over here, Kouga won't interfere with YOUR woman, WILL he?" There was a pause, most likely a moment where Ayame was eyeing her mate dangerously. Finally, he heard a mumble of defeat and snorted. "Sorry again. Hope everything turns out good for you guys. Later!" Inuyasha all but died laughing as the machine beeped and switched over to the next message.

"You will remove your kit from my household before the end of this day, half-breed." Beeep. Ah, yes, Sesshoumaru's exciting messages. Apparently, Shippou's sulking was starting to annoy the taiyoukai. Distantly, Inuyasha considered leaving the kitsune there for another night, then decided against the idea. He would never hear the end of it if he left Shippou there after a direct call from his brother. Inuyasha sighed and took a sip of his water, listening for the final message.

"Mori-san, we have some problems." Suikata. Shit.

Growling and not even bothering to listen to the rest of the message, Inuyasha slammed down his glass and was out the door in no time, summoning up Shippou's illusion charm as he went so that he was soon Mori Kawa once again.

Well, there went his good day…

Next Chapter: 17, Puzzle Pieces, Life falls into a routine for Kagome finally as she is able to move into her new apartment, but there are other factors working against her now that even she is unaware of.