Kagome rolled onto her side and blinked the sleep from her eyes. She frowned, trying to wet her lips and finding an unfamiliar taste. This was different than regular morning breath. It was…she couldn't describe it, but she had a feeling if she were more awake it might come to her. As it was, she really needed to pee. She attempted to sit up, but a massive weight was holding her down. It took some maneuvering around to find the source, and the moment she did, her heart seized.

Inuyasha.

At least…she thought it was Inuyasha. The face was that of her boyfriend, but the hair and the fuzzy ears weren't. Neither were the massive claws on the hand that lay next to her pillow.

She shifted and squirmed until she was able to slide out from under his body and off the bed. How in the hell had she managed to sleep at all underneath his frame?

'Inuyasha had passed out on top of me, after we…oh…'

It didn't take her half-awake brain to put two and two together. But that was a dilemma for her future self to sort out after she went to the bathroom.

Inuyasha closed his eyes against the glare of the sun, turning over to face the wall in the hopes that he could get more sleep. His eyes snapped open, nose and ears twitching.

Something wasn't right.

This wasn't his apartment.

The décor of the bedroom was too feminine to be his, and the scents were… Kagome. This was Kagome's bedroom.

Why was he in Kagome's bed?

He sat up quickly, clutching his head from the rush. There was a roaring in his ears like a high-pitched whine, his brain felt like it was going to explode, and his nasal cavity was slammed with numerous scents as he became more aware of his surroundings. He was in Kagome's room. In her bed. He could smell her everywhere, but it was especially strong in the bed.

Along with the stale scent of arousal and sex.

Inuyasha knew even before he lifted the blanket off his hips that he was naked, knew that his body was coated in old sweat and other fluids. The only thing that he didn't know was how he came to be in this situation.

The last thing he recalled the night before was the phone call. Kagome had called him, wanted to know what was going on. She had asked him if there was another woman. He had argued with her. She had started to cry. Told him that…that this was it. It was a goodbye that he had never wanted to hear. And then… oh god.

The hanyou swallowed thickly as he hung his head in his hands. Not once in his life did he ever consider suicide, but hearing Kagome tell him goodbye like that had broken something in him. It shut off ever logical thought he had when the phone call ended. His heart felt like it had shattered into a million pieces, so what did it matter if he lived to see sunrise? The claws that he had been abhorred by that had gouged into his skin in his sleep months ago had become the tool he needed to put an end to his suffering.

So…was this death? Was he dead? He drug a claw along the crook of his elbow, making a thin line of blood creep to the surface. 'No. Wouldn't bleed in the afterlife…I don't think anyway.' How had he gotten here? Kagome's apartment was a good ten minutes away if traffic wasn't an issue. More importantly, where was his clothes?

And where was Kagome?

Oh god, Kagome. Inuyasha felt his stomach drop at the thought of her. There were so many questions going through his mind that centered around Kagome, and none of them had answers he expected to like. 'But I'm in her bed. That has to mean that something happened last night, something to confirm that we didn't break up. Unless…'

Inuyasha began the slow process of getting out of the bed and had made it to the point where he set his feet on the floor when it dawned on him that something else was different.

The youkai voice in his mind was gone.

At least, he didn't think it was there, but he also didn't feel the presence as predominately as he had before. There wasn't this urge humming underneath his skin anymore. He felt…normal. Or as normal as one could feel being a hanyou, anyway. He felt like he had more control over himself than he had in weeks.

Then again, finally having sex could also do that to a person.

His stomach lurched at the thought, and his hands covered his face in shame. He knew he had done something with Kagome the night before, as much as he wanted to pretend that he didn't. The bedsheets were covered in damp areas, his scent mingled with hers, and if he was guessing right, they had made more than just one mess last night.

The worst part was, Inuyasha couldn't even remember it. The first time he'd had sex, and it was like he had blacked out. It didn't add up either! How had he gone from bleeding out in his apartment to losing his virginity to his girlfriend hours later?!

And there it was. That familiar rumble of energy. No words were said, but Inuyasha knew.

The youkai within him had –

He thought he was going to vomit.

The thoughts were swimming faster than he could blink. The youkai must have taken control of his body. That had to be it. It was the only way he could explain how he went from damn-near-dead to… to… Oh gods, where was Kagome? Not knowing if she was even still in the apartment was bothering him greatly. Her scent was making it hard to tell where she was, and a sick part of him wanted to lay back on the bed and breathe it in. Savor it like a treat.

No – he couldn't do that! He had to find her! He needed to make sure she was alright! He –

Inuyasha's foot knocked into something hard as he stood up. Without thinking, he reached down to pick up the object. Even in his panicked mind he still knew what he was holding. It was the glass dildo. The one Kagome told him about over the phone. The one he imagined her using on herself as he jerked off late at night. The one he had ordered her to use that night. The one –

The one the youkai had used on her last night.

But – no – that wasn't…entirely true, was it?

The longer he thought, the more he recalled, and the more he recalled the less he felt the pounding in his head. The fog was clearing, even if it was a mess. Inuyasha couldn't recall every detail exactly, or maybe it was that the pieces weren't in the right order, but they were coming back. He had been there, even if a part of him wasn't completely there. And that had been his fault, not the youkai within him.

As much as he hated to admit it, the youkai had saved his life last night.

Did it make it any better that he could barely relive the memories that he'd had sex with Kagome the night before? Did it excuse the youkai for taking advantage of the situation? Fuck no it didn't! He would only admit to being grateful that the youkai had taken control to heal his body, but that's where it stopped. He couldn't forgive the fact that the youkai had – he had –

"Inuyasha?"

"K-Kagome!" Inuyasha dropped the dildo in surprise and winced as it fell to the floor with a thud. On reflex he stopped to collect it and check to be sure it wasn't broken. Then he remembered that she was standing right there watching him handle her dildo and tossed it on the bed, praying it didn't bounce and fall off the other side. If it did, she'd have seen his bare ass dive across the bed after it.

At this point he had no dignity left to care.

"Don't worry about that," she sent him a reassuring smile. "It would sooner put a hole in the wall than break."

That didn't do much to assure him. All it did was remind him that she'd gotten off with that toy on multiple occasions before they – "Kagome, are you alright?" he blurted out suddenly. Inuyasha started to take a step towards her, but hesitated. Not because he was naked, but because he didn't trust himself. The anxiousness must have shown on his face, because a second later, her face crumpled and a tear rolled down her cheek.

"Inuyasha…" She didn't care that he was still naked and in need of a shower. Hell, she needed one too, so what did it matter. She'd cleaned up just enough and sought out her silk robe but hadn't been able to bring herself to leave Inuyasha by himself for more than a bathroom break. Kagome closed the distance and threw her arms around his middle, pressing her face against his bare chest as a few more tears escaped. "I know you told me it was alright last night, but I'm so sorry for what I said over the phone…"

Over…the phone? Here he was worried that the youkai had forced her into the bed and she was apologizing for the phone call?! Inuyasha wrapped his arms tight around her, dropping his chin to the crown of her head. It did ease his mind to know that that argument hadn't been intentional, at least. "I meant it," he said softly, recalling how the youkai had handled her upset. "I'm the one that should be making it right with you, Kagome. I shouldn't have shut you out like I did. You have every right to be angry with me."

Kagome sniffled and turned her head slightly to rest her cheek against him. "I'm not angry. You had me so worried. I felt so…crushed that I took it out on you when I called. And when I managed to calm down, I realized that I had screwed up. I didn't want to lose what we had, but I was so scared that if I tried to call you back, that you'd want nothing to do with me. I…turned my phone off…thought that if I waited until the morning, that maybe I'd have a better chance of reaching you. And then you showed up last night…"

He lifted his chin, letting her lean back to look at him. "I thought I had lost you when you hung up last night, but it wasn't your doing. I… I have a lot I need to tell you. But first, where are my clothes?" he asked weakly. The small smile that was spreading across her face wasn't encouraging. "Please tell me I didn't come over here naked?"

"No, no," she laughed lightly. "They're…in the apartment. I uh…picked them up off the floor. They were next to the dining table."

The youkai should have had the foresight to at least have put on a pair of boxers. That wouldn't have been too much to ask for. Inuyasha could almost hear the smug bastard crow "I saved your life, hanyou. Be grateful I didn't let us bleed out on the floor".

His eye still twitched all the same as be buttoned the fly, being mindful of where everything was hanging. He didn't bother to pull the shirt back on. There…there was a reason he opted to go without it, and it wasn't just for giving Kagome something to look at.

She had made a pot of coffee and poured a mug for each of them as he'd pulled the jeans on. Kagome wasn't sure what it was that Inuyasha wanted to talk to her about, but she had a feeling that this was going to be a long talk. "I have so many questions," she started, carrying the steaming mugs to the dining table. "but I'd rather wait and hear what you have to say. I think that might be better, right? To just…get it all out without me interrupting?"

Inuyasha turned to her, seeing the nervous look in her expression. She was afraid of pushing, of knowing that this was a talk they'd been dancing around for months, and not knowing what to expect. "I think," he replied. "I won't hold it against you if you can't wait. Some of it…I wouldn't blame you if you cut me off." He sat down in the chair next to her, taking her hand in his. "All I ask is that you don't think less of me for what I'm about to tell you."

"I won't."

He smiled ruefully. She had said that so quickly that he had doubts. Once she knew… "The reason I started canceling our plans… well, you can see," he started, motioning to himself. "It started with me waking up to these claws. I'd scratched myself up badly in my sleep. Woke up covered in blood."

The grip on his hand increased, and he could see Kagome's eyes drop to his chest, looking for scars.

"Had me freaked the hell out. Thought I needed to go to the hospital until I noticed that the scratches were healing right before my eyes. Tried cutting my nails down, but they grew back within a day. I was pushing our plans back, and later having to cancel them, when I couldn't find a way to keep my nails short." Inuyasha frowned. "I thought that was the worst of it. Then the morning that my mom called to yell at me for ignoring you, it wasn't just the claws I had to worry about.

My hair had changed color. My eyes had become sharper, no longer brown. All of my senses had increased tenfold. And we won't even discuss these," he pointed to the fuzzy triangles hidden in the silver hair. "This didn't feel normal at all, and I was getting scared. So I hid all of these changes and drove to my mom's. I figured if anyone would know, it'd be my mom, you know?"

Kagome could only nod. Her head was still trying to process how this tale had started. Inuyasha waking up in his own blood? The idea was horrifying. The changes that he was talking about didn't make sense. His features, aside from the ears, all screamed traits of some youkai she had encountered in her life. But that couldn't be, could it?

Was it possible for a human to transform into a youkai?

"When I showed my mom, she told me that she never expected this to happen. That if she had, she could have prepared me for this." Inuyasha took a steady breath. "I'm a hanyou, Kagome. Neither human nor youkai. My father, as it turns out, is a full blooded inu youkai."

Silence passed, and he figured she was letting that sink in. Kagome's mouth opened and closed a few times, like she was getting ready to say something, so he waited. It wasn't a long wait, because she hadn't been able to help herself.

"So those ears are real!"

He choked on his spit. "Out of all of that – the ears are what you focus on?!"

Kagome shrugged, pink tinting her cheeks. "They're really soft," she commented. "like your hair."

Now it was his turn to gape like a fish.

"I mean I've been following what you said, but I didn't know hanyou would take on traits of their bloodline differently than full youkai."

"I didn't either," he admitted. "Getting a text from my old man wanting to meet up shortly after was probably my mom's doing. But I met up with him. Got some of my questions answered. Why he wasn't around growing up, stuff like that. This," he motioned to himself again, "this is my new normal, with the exception of new moon nights. I'll return to my human form for those nights only."

"Does this…bother you?" she asked quietly. "I mean, isn't that the whole reason why you were avoiding seeing me? You don't like what you look like now?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "You're not entirely wrong," he admitted. "I was avoiding seeing you because I thought you would be repulsed by me. I was still trying to come to grips with what was going on, and not knowing how to even begin to talk to you about it. Waiting ended up biting me in the ass in more ways than one."

Kagome didn't like that he wasn't meeting her eyes anymore, or that his hold on her hand had slackened, like he thought she might pull away. "What are you not telling me, Inuyasha?"

The words came out so softly that if she hadn't been sitting so close she might not have heard them. "I almost died last night, Kagome."

Her blood ran cold as the words sunk in. instead of pulling away, her grip tightened out of fear. Her eyes pinched shut and she took deep breaths as the panic tried to overwhelm her. He didn't have to explain. She already knew. The phone call. The goodbye. Coupled with the knowledge that he had already cut into himself with his nails in his sleep, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together.

She had hurt him far more than she realized.

"Inuyasha…"

"It's not your fault," he told her firmly. "You didn't do that. That was my choice. The guilt of letting you go for months without being told anything made every bad decision so much worse. I couldn't think straight – wasn't thinking straight – and I regret everything about last night before I came here." Inuyasha looked up and wasn't surprised to see fresh tears running down her cheeks. He hated that he was making her cry. "C'mere."

Kagome felt herself being tugged forward and allowed herself to be pulled across Inuyasha's lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his neck and tried to calm herself down again. He was alright. He was here, with her, right now.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, rubbing her back. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"I'm sorry I pushed so much," was her mumbled response. "If I'd have waited –"

"Hey – you waited plenty. I'm the ass that made you wait so long." Inuyasha wasn't able to relax until he felt the small shake of laughter from her. He still felt the occasional tear drop onto his skin, but as long as he didn't hear her try to take the blame again, he could deal with the tears. He kept rubbing her back, trying hard not to think about the fact that he couldn't feel anything under the thin material. Not a bra, or even a flimsy tank, and he wasn't about to let his hands go further south to test those waters. He still had things to tell her.

"So," she sniffed, wiping her cheeks. "You're a hanyou. What all does that mean, exactly? You have traits of both your parents?"

"And then some," he replied, deliberately twitching his ears. "My senses are heightened. I have more strength than I did as a human, more…uh…endurance…" It wasn't that suggestive, but he'd happened to glance down at her gaping robe and well… at leas the jeans were stiff enough to prevent him from poking Kagome too much…

"Oh really?" Kagome felt her face get hot again. She didn't have to wiggle to know what he meant. Inuyasha was acting just as flustered, and she couldn't resist. "I suppose last night was a good example of that endurance, huh?"

"Oh fuck –"

"Mm, we certainly did," she replied, biting down on her lip.

Inuyasha grunted, and he wasn't certain if he was frustrated by the need to finish the talk or the need to plow Kagome right then and there. He took a deep breath. "About last night… I… I... wasn't myself. Did I hurt you at all? Do or say anything to make you uncomfortable? My memories, they're out of order. I don't know what happened when, and I'm scared out of my mind that I forced you –"

"You didn't force me into doing anything last night."

"I…didn't?" He didn't care how dumb he sounded just then.

Kagome shook her head, cupping his cheeks in her hands. "Nope. You were very careful with me, even when you took charge. And before you start in on that, I want you to know that I liked it. The only thing that did confuse me about last night, it was your eyes…and the purple marks that were on your cheeks. I asked you if you were alright, and you told me that you were fine…but now your eyes are gold."

He winced. "Right…that…that was my youkai side. When I…uh… when I hurt myself," he swallowed, not wanting to say that he tried to rip his chest apart. Kagome didn't need to ever know that much. He wished he could forget it. "I passed out. The youkai side, he took control. Healed my body. I vaguely recall seeing him in the mirror in my bathroom. Those eyes, the marks – those were the youkai side of me. Things I never thought I'd say before, he brought out in me. Made me want to do things I'd never done before. So…when I woke up in your bed, when I realized what had happened…I was terrified…"

"It was still you," Kagome reminded him. "and I don't regret a moment of it. Neither should you. It was hot as hell, I'll admit, watching you lick that dildo clean after you got me off with it –"

"I did WHAT?!"

"Like a popsicle," she grinned, but when Inuyasha wasn't laughing, it fell. "You don't remember that?"

He shook his head again.

"Inuyasha, was there anything else we needed to talk about?" She didn't like that he looked troubled. It was probably more to do with not having been awake long, why his memory was shaky, but she didn't think that he'd agree.

"I think we covered months of my fuck ups – Kagome? What are you doing?" Feeling her slide off his lap had Inuyasha's warning bells going off immediately, but the moment she took his hand and pulled him to his feet, he started to calm down.

Kagome simply smiled, tugging him along until they had reached her doorway. She hooked her fingers in the belt of her robe, loosening the knot until it and the robe slipped off her shoulders. "This won't be exactly as it happened last night," she hummed, turning and playing with the button on his jeans. "I mean I was naked under the robe and you had already kicked these off…" Her hand slid down the fly, languidly rubbing his cock. How quickly he was getting hard and the groan she pulled out of him made her bite down on her lip. "I was thinking… since neither of us have anywhere to be… that I could help you get your memories of last night back in order."

A/N: Only one more chapter to go! Now, before you yell at me, I never anticipated this story to be very long when I started it. It was a dumping ground for brain suck, and I knew there were only a few big points I wanted to touch on when I outlined it. There wasn't a lot of drive to really go into deep detail with this fic because the focus was meant to be on Inuyasha, Kagome, and the situation that was the barrier between them. I feel like the final part rounds it off nicely, and when it comes out next Tuesday, I hope you feel the same.