Author's Note: Even though I have a great deal of this story already written, I want to update a chapter at a time in order to be able to respond to feedback, as well as to pace myself. But it occurs to me that the prologue by itself gives the reader little or no idea what this story is about, so I'll add the beginning as well.

For the record—if you read my profile, you will notice that there is another story titled "Rewind, Play, Repeat" which would serve as a prequel to this. I have the events of that story planned out, though I have little or no intention of writing that story at present. I am trying to structure this story so that I don't need to explain in author's notes the events of that story, but please tell me in a review if I am too vague about some event (though, of course, there will be times when I am deliberately vague about events in order to elaborate on them later in the story). Remember, this is a story that's been in the works for six years—so I'm that much starved for feedback. Please review!

Lord of My Dreams

Chapter 0: The Beginning

The year was 1989.

"Go and play outside!" a man was growling as he pushed a little girl in a dirty dress out the door of his apartment. "People your age like playing outside!" Succeeding in shoving the girl out the door, he slammed the door in her face. The little girl, perhaps about seven years of age, raised her fist to knock, but lowered it before doing so.

Shoulders slumped, the girl began to walk away towards the stairs. Then she heard a slight sound to her right. Startled, she looked in that direction. There was a certain apartment—deserted due to disrepair that no one had yet bothered to fix. She had heard a rumor that it was haunted once, but was unsure whether or not to believe that. Brow furrowing, she stared at the door. When she heard another small sound from within, she edged towards the door.

She reached towards the handle, hesitated a moment, and then took hold and turned it. She opened the door slowly. It did not creak like the door of the apartment where she lived—this one was entirely silent. Tiptoeing inside carefully, she let the door close quietly behind her. She looked around cautiously, registering that it was almost identical to the apartment where she stayed, and the sound came again. She knew that it came from the bedroom. She opened the sliding door a crack and peeked inside. There lay someone, obviously injured—blood soaked his clothing and ran down his arms.

She hastily left the room, and the apartment. She knew what to do for injuries. She had watched her mother treat them when she had been alive, and had memorized what she could. When her parents had died, sending her to a distant uncle, she had brought a box of her mother's medicines and bandages, which she had hidden carefully.

The little girl ran down the stairs from the third floor, exiting the building. She ran around to the back, where balconies of each apartment jutted out from the building. The first floor was slightly above ground level, leaving a small opening, about a foot high, between the first floor apartments' balconies and the ground. The girl easily slipped under one of those balconies and began to dig. She soon pulled out a dirty blue box, which she carried with her as she crawled back out of the opening. This box contained her mother's medicines and bandages, as well as some of her own treasures.

She ran back up to the third floor, carrying the box that looked too large for such a small body to carry. However, the little girl managed. Reaching the deserted apartment, she cautiously entered once more. This time, when she slid open the door, she opened it all the way.

The person lying there snapped his head—for it was a he, she saw—around to look at her. His hair was white—she had never seen anyone with that color of hair before. Old people had grey or white hair, she knew, but he was definitely not old, and this was not that kind of grey or white—this was a white that shone; it almost seemed silver. His eyes were a stunning color as well—gold. Those golden eyes narrowed at her, glaring, and she heard a sound that was almost a growl.

She almost pulled back, but did not. He was hurt, and he had no one to help him. She was often hurt, but she had her mother's medicines to help her. It did not look as though this boy had anything at all.

So she edged forward, and once beside him, opened the box. She looked at his clothing. The blood was darker than usual. That meant that it was dry, and that meant that it would hurt to take off his shirt to look at the cut. But she knew that cuts got worse when they were not properly taken care of. So, placing the box carefully on the ground, she reached out and peeled up the once-white T-shirt. He lay on his side, so she had some trouble. However, she discovered that it was easier to remove from his back. So the cut must be on his tummy, she realized. As she continued peel the shirt upwards, she often glanced up at the boy's face, expecting to see pain or anger, or both. But he only continued to glare warningly at her, and she wondered if it was only she who felt such pain when something with dried blood was peeled off. For as she pulled up the T-shirt, she saw that she was pulling up scabs, and a large cut on his tummy was bleeding again. When she reached his arms, however, he refused to budge for her. The cut extended to his chest, too. The little girl knew that she had to get the shirt off to make the boy's cuts better. So she tugged insistently, glaring back at the boy. But the boy still would not move.

So she reluctantly sat and opened a bottle from her box. She then took out one of the cotton balls, and poured some of the liquid from the bottle on to it. When she began to dab it onto the boy's cuts and the cuts bubbled, she expected to hear wails of pain, and winced. But she heard nothing, and looking up, she saw that the boy's face showed no pain and the glare was gone. He was watching her, but she could not tell what he was thinking. She tried dabbing the cotton onto another cut, and though it bubbled as well, the boy showed no pain.

Suddenly, the girl wondered if something was different about the medicine. She looked at a cut on her arm that she had recently received when her uncle had had too much beer and cut her with a knife, and dabbed the cotton ball on to it. It bubbled, and she winced. She wondered why the boy showed no pain, but figured that he was simply stronger than her. She was about to dab the cotton on the boy's cuts again when he spoke.

"Fool." She looked up in surprise. "It shall be useless if you use that on both our cuts. It spreads infections, even if you do have peroxide on the cotton." The boy spoke elegantly—unlike anyone she had ever heard before, and she instantly fell in love his speech. But she did not recognize the words 'infection' and 'peroxide'. She recalled her mother using them, but could not remember what they meant. So she did all she could do—she put the medicine on another cotton ball and began to dab it on the boy's cuts once more. When she reached his upper chest, still covered by the T-shirt, she tried to pull it off once more, but the boy still would not budge. So she settled for pulling it up as high as she could and making do with that.

When she had finished, she pulled out a bandage and wrapped it around his stomach and chest. She could not do it as well as her mother could, but was nonetheless proud of herself when she finished.

"Rin!"

The little girl, Rin, jumped at the sound of her name, roared from the hallway. She hastily replaced everything in the box and closed it. However, she did not pick it up. She left it there, next to the boy, and ran off out of the room. The boy stared after her, even after he heard the front door shut. He supposed that whoever had been calling her had not been out in the hallway any longer, for he heard no more shouting for some time.

Sesshoumaru lay back on the old mattress where he lay and turned his eyes to the medicine box. Was this the girl's way of saying that she would come back?

Sure enough, a few minutes later, he heard the front door open and close again. Seconds later, the girl slid open the door and entered the bedroom, carrying something in one hand. When she approached, he recognized it as a leaf, on top of which lay small bits of food.

"Do not trouble yourself with me," Sesshoumaru told the girl coldly, turning his head away.

Rin did not know what to do. She knew that the boy must be hungry, and so had found some scraps of food that she hoped her uncle would not notice to be gone and placed them on a large leaf that she had found and kept in her hidden collection of 'interesting things' a few days before—she could not afford to use a plate, for there were not many and she knew that her uncle would notice at once if one were to disappear. But the boy did not appear to be hungry. Or was he just pretending?

Rin had to return before her uncle realized that she was gone. So she left the leaf there, next to the box, and walked out of the room once more. That night, she would hide some of her own dinner and somehow bring it to the boy.

And so the days passed. Rin treated the boy's wounds and left him food, which he always refused, but which nonetheless was always gone by the next time Rin came by. Sesshoumaru noticed that new bruises and cuts would frequently appear on the girl's face and body. The first time, he asked what had happened, but the girl did not reply; instead, to Sesshoumaru's bewilderment, she smiled as though she had just received the best gift in the world.

After that, Rin began to spend more time with Sesshoumaru. She would come three times a day to bring him food that she had snuck off her plate from a previous meal, but she would then sit there with him. There was seldom any talking, but she was comfortable with that. His wounds healed within a week, but he did not leave. He did sometimes leave the building to take a walk, but he always made sure that no one saw him and that he was inside by the time Rin arrived. The third week had just begun when he decided to leave.

"Rin," he said one day when she came with a handful of food. He knew her name from the man that sometimes shouted for her from the hallway, who was probably a father or guardian of some sort. "Do not come tomorrow. I shall be gone."

Rin suddenly looked terribly dejected, her eyes filling with tears and her shoulders slumping as she looked at the ground. Sesshoumaru's brow furrowed.

"School starts soon—I must return by the time it does." Rin looked up, her expression now showing confusion as well. "Do you not go to school?" Rin shook her head, still confused and dejected. "How old are you?" asked Sesshoumaru curiously. Rin held up six fingers.

Then she should be beginning first grade, thought Sesshoumaru. Is it because she is mute? But that would not get the man she lives with around the law. Perhaps the man would send her to school when it began, and had just neglected to warn her.

But even as he thought, the look of dejection and loneliness in her face somehow changed Sesshoumaru's mind.

"Very well," he told her. "I shall come here every afternoon once school ends." I despise that place that I call home anyhow. It is a good excuse to get away.

A smile lit up Rin's face, even more delighted than the first, though Sesshoumaru had not thought that possible.

And so a strange sort of friendship began.

"You have not been going to school, am I correct?" Sesshoumaru asked Rin one day. Rin nodded. "Did you know that that is against the law?" Rin's face showed only confusion—obviously the word 'law' was foreign to her.

Sesshoumaru thought for a moment, wondering what tactic he should use to understand her situation. He had spent the past few weeks coming to the run-down apartment building after school: on the first day, he had intended to wait outside until Rin came and found him—if she did not, that was that—but he had reached the building to find Rin waiting in the shadows of the entrance. Her face had lit up in delight and she had thrown her arms around his waist as though she had not expected him to come—but he knew that she was too trusting to ever doubt anything anyone said. (Or was it just him? He doubted it—what had he ever done to earn her trust?)

There were, however, occasions when she was not waiting for him. These were occasions on which she would eventually be thrown out of the apartment where she lived with that man, covered in more bruises than was probably healthy.

It did not take a genius to figure out that she suffered abuse, and apparently neglect as well, if her lack of schooling was any indication. But then why hadn't the authorities come after her guardian yet? School was compulsory, and the person who was unregistered in Japanese society was practically nonexistent. Still, the only way to explain this situation was that Rin was unregistered.

"Rin," Sesshoumaru began. She smiled up at him. "In this world, there are people—important people—who are supposed to ensure that everyone is treated correctly and has everything that they need. School is a place where you learn things that you need to know: reading and writing, numbers, history—how the world has come to be the way that it is… These important people are supposed to make sure that all children go to school. So why have they not come to take you?"

Rin just looked up at him, clearly bemused. Apparently, there had been no one whom she could recall pestering her guardian about her education. In which case there was only one thing left in Sesshoumaru's power.

"Would you like to learn all the things that people learn in school?"

Rin's eyes lit up with delight, and a grin covered her face. Sesshoumaru felt a smile cover his face as well—he would never have permitted it of himself at 'home', but smiles made Rin happy and were therefore acceptable here.

"Then I shall teach you."

He had had a feeling that this would be the result of this discussion that he had been planning, and so had brought his first grade textbooks with him.

Sesshoumaru and Rin sat side-by-side in the dusty, deserted apartment, and began their lessons.

"Nine times four."

Rin held up three, then six fingers.

"Five times seven."

Rin held up three fingers, then five.

"You do realize that this would be easier if you would talk."

Rin looked down, and Sesshoumaru experienced an uncharacteristic moment of doubt—what if she really could not speak? It could just as easily be a problem in the vocal chords themselves, rather than a problem with Rin's psyche.

"Literature, then. Did you read the story I told you to?"

Rin nodded vigorously, eyes wide and eager. She opened Sesshoumaru's third grade textbook to a page near the beginning, and pointed at one paragraph, then dragged her finger across the page to the end of a paragraph on the next page.

Sesshoumaru nodded and lifted the book: this reading aloud had become a tradition of theirs. Because Rin could not read the stories and poems aloud, Sesshoumaru would assign her a story or poem to read, and when she had read the assigned portion, she would point out the part which she wished to hear aloud. As Sesshoumaru began reading, he thought he heard a clatter somewhere. He glanced at Rin; her eyes were closed, and there was a contented smile on her face. He figured the sound to have come from a neighbor, and chose to ignore it and continue.

The next moment, the front door of the deserted apartment opened with such force that it bounced off the wall. Rin's eyes flew open, and even Sesshoumaru could not suppress a jolt of alarm that shot through him at the cry of, "RIN!"

There was no time, and nowhere to hide themselves or the books. A moment later a man with long black hair had slammed open the sliding door of the room, and was glaring down at them.

"So…found a friend, did you, Rin?" he purred in a manner that at once made Sesshoumaru hate him more than his own father, half-brother or stepmother. "Thought you'd learn to read? You don't need that. Legally, you don't even exist. The best job you'll ever get is selling yourself when you get older. Your body, your services…you'd be virtually a slave, but how could you object? You wouldn't be able to live otherwise. I could sell you now, if I thought you'd fetch a decent price."

"She wouldn't sell. She can't talk, and doesn't move a muscle no matter what you do to her. It would be like buying a dead body—no one would pay for that."

"How touching. Trying to defend my niece, are you? There're things you can do with an unresisting body that men would pay good money for—do you know what I'm talking about?"

Sesshoumaru did not. He also did not like not knowing things, let alone admitting to ignorance. So he said nothing. The uncle chuckled, seemingly knowing that Sesshoumaru did not know. "Why don't I show you now? She's a little small…but eight is a good enough age. Come here, Rin."

Rin was trembling. Sesshoumaru could feel the tremors as she stood beside him. She took a step forward. Sesshoumaru did not know what the man intended to do, and he wondered if Rin did. Sesshoumaru took hold of Rin's arm and pulled her to him. He saw Rin looking up at him with wide, startled eyes, but would be damned before he'd hand her over to that lunatic who was apparently her uncle.

The man's eyes had darkened. "Hand her over, boy. I'm going to let you be witness to the beginning of the loss of her virginity. You should feel honored. In fact, I could even let you do the honor. Would you like that? Then again, I suppose you haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about." The man chuckled as if this were the most amusing thing in the world. "A shame. You could have taken all of it—I'm just going to ask her to put that pretty little mouth to use. Don't want to ruin merchandise before it's ripe, after all."

Sesshoumaru, however, suddenly understood. He knew what it meant to lose one's virginity. He also knew what rape was, and realized that this man—no, this pathetic bastard made of scum—intended to do just that to Rin.

"I'll buy her." Sesshoumaru had spoken before he had thought, and belatedly realized that such a statement may be even more distressing to Rin. But she only relaxed in his arms, and he heard a small sigh of relief escape her.

The uncle stared a moment, then laughed. "I'm sure you would, when you got older. What kind of money have you got now, boy?" Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth—all he had was his father's money, except for that which his late mother had left behind in a trust fund that he could not access without assistance from certain adults.

"But that's not what you meant, is it?" the uncle purred. "You want her to leave me forever, do you? She could be a decent source of income in the future, you know. She legally does not exist—I can rape her, kill her, sell her, and the police would never find out unless someone squealed.

"So I'll buy her," Sesshoumaru repeated. "I'll give you all the money in the trust fund my mother left me."

"Trust fund?" The man raised his eyebrows. "Well, that's more than I would have expected of a homeless orphan. But unfortunately, I can't access it any more than you can, since you're not of age. A homeless boy's mother probably couldn't leave more than a few thousand yen anyway. Hardly a decent sum. Tell you what—give me a show, and I'll let you have the kid. No one'd pay to fuck a corpse anyway, and she costs a hell of a lot—eats like a pig." He shuddered.

Sesshoumaru wondered if it were possible to break something out of sheer rage, without ever touching it. He willed the horrible man to implode. "Show?" he inquired through gritted teeth, trying to make it sound as though he were just confirming, rather than that he honestly had no clue what the man wanted.

The man sighed and waved a hand. "Hit her, fuck her, whatever. Do something exciting."

Sesshoumaru saw red, and the next thing he knew, he was pouncing on the man. The man snorted and knocked him out of the way with little effort. Sesshoumaru tried again, only to the same effect. As he tried to stand again, Sesshoumaru felt something give out. Apparently, he had broken a bone somewhere. He saw the horrible man swing his leg up to deliver a kick that would probably crush Sesshoumaru's ribs. He'd probably die, Sesshoumaru thought, not particularly moved by the thought. It wasn't as if he had a family to miss him.

There was a shrill scream of alarm, and the next thing Sesshoumaru knew, he was hit not with a crushing, painful force, but with a soft weight collapsing on top of him. He stared at Rin's crumpled body, listening to broken sobs of, "Se- Se- Sess- Se…"

"Bastard!" growled the man. "That's going to be permanent! I'd have to pay hospital bills to fix those ribs—who's going to pay to fuck a deformed corpse? Forget it." The man left the room, but not before delivering half-hearted kicks to both Rin and Sesshoumaru. "Beer…bastard…" The man mumbled to himself as he left the room.

"Se-Sess," Rin was sobbing. "Okay? Hurt? Okay?"

"I'm alive," Sesshoumaru said ironically, crawling out from under Rin and inspecting her body. "He did break your ribs. Come, let's get you to a doctor."

"Sess," said Rin, clinging to his hand. "No—no….away…." Sesshoumaru understood that she wanted him to stay. So using his eleven-year-old knowledge of the human body, he made sure that all her ribs were aligned. There did not seem to be anything sticking where it should not have been, but he knew that there was a danger of bone fragments puncturing the lungs. Instructing Rin not to move, he carefully lay her on her less-damaged side on the floor.

"Let me just leave for ten minutes. I promise—just ten minutes. I'll bring something to make you better."

Rin was only semi-conscious, and just gave a low moan.

Sesshoumaru bolted out the door and to the nearest pay phone. Thanking ever deity he knew of and didn't believe in for the foresight of carrying around loose change, he hastily dialed a number.

It did not take much effort to get Rin to a hospital once Sesshoumaru called Jaken to the scene. Jaken, Sesshoumaru's personal servant, was very dedicated to the family and not very pleased to find Sesshoumaru doting over a little girl of no known lineage, and determined to blow his trust fund to put Rin in proper medical care. Of course, it did not take that much money to treat Rin. She had only fractured her ribs, and the only serious break was in her arm. Sesshoumaru, suddenly paranoid about the guardian that he had paid so little attention to in the past two years, never left her side.

The nurses, puzzled that Rin had no medical records, questioned Sesshoumaru and Jaken on the matter. Jaken ever the loyal servant, stuck to Sesshoumaru's tale of having found her abandoned with no identification. The police were contacted, and Rin was registered temporarily with the city hall. The police asked Rin questions which she refused to or could not answer; after a few questions Rin began to appear agitated, and Sesshoumaru began to display signs of rage. At this point Jaken timidly but firmly told the police that they ought to come back at a later date. Rin's fingerprints were taken and the police took their leave.

On the day before Rin was to be discharged from the hospital, Sesshoumaru told Jaken to rent a small apartment with space enough for two at a decent distance from his father's home.

"But sir, you are but eleven!"

"Then rent it in your name. You can live there too, so long as you don't get in the way. It'll be useful if the police come asking questions again."

"But-"

"Do it."

"Yes, sir."

That was how Rin and Sesshoumaru ended up living in a three bedroom apartment with Jaken. Jaken did the cooking and cleaning, with Rin' help. Sesshoumaru enrolled Rin in school—at this point Jaken was outraged, for all the expenses were being removed from Sesshoumaru's mother's trust fund. But he could not send her to the same school which he attended; instead he sent her to a small private school nearby, and made his own school day as short as possible so as to be near Rin as much as possible.

In stark contrast to Sesshoumaru's newfound paranoia, Rin had undergone a dramatic transformation from shy mouse to outgoing parakeet. She drove Jaken up a wall with her incessant questions and tireless chatter, yet Sesshoumaru never complained. He may have been not too subtle about his paranoia on Rin's behalf, but he was certainly not going to surrender even more pride by admitting that it was the incessant chatter of the previously mute girl that calmed him.

"For heaven's sake, girl!" Jaken exploded. "You've been going to that school for a good two years! It's about time you started bringing friends home!"

Rin looked at Jaken oddly. "But you're not even allowed to tell anyone that I'm here."

"You may bring any of your friends here," said Sesshoumaru, before Jaken could say a word. "This is your home."

"Yay!" cheered Rin. She then proceeded to tell them all about her day at school.

Yet Rin still did not ever bring friends to the apartment. Sesshoumaru began to look for signs, and once he began searching, they were so obvious that he could scarcely believe that he had missed them before. (Two years, he berated himself. She's been bearing all of this for two years!)

Rin spoke extensively of her day at school; yet she was never present in those tales. She spoke of funny things that had happened or people had said, but when she spoke of herself, it was always something interesting or funny that she had done alone. There were no bruises that suggested physical bullying, but Sesshoumaru found himself more concerned for Rin's mental state.

He skipped school the next day, and hung around the school—most notably during recess. He noted that Rin was always alone. There did not seem to be any bad blood between her and her classmates, but there also seemed to be no inclination on either part to communicate with the other.

That evening, he talked to the principle of Rin's school and had Jaken speak to the principle of Sesshoumaru's school. The preparations were final by Friday morning, and on Friday evening Sesshoumaru informed Rin that she would be starting at his school on Monday.

Her eyes lit up like the sun coming out from behind a thin cloud. Sesshoumaru wondered how he had missed that her school made her so sad.

"Then I'll get to see you at school too?"

"No," said Sesshoumaru. "You must not let anyone know that we know each other, let alone that we live together. You may invite friends over if you wish, but you must also tell me in advance so that I can plan to be somewhere else at that time."

"You don't want to be seen with me?" asked Rin sadly, and the sun hid behind the clouds again.

Sesshoumaru looked down at the girl around whom his life seemed to revolve. "I don't want them to remind the police that you're a homeless orphan, because the moment that happens you'll be taken away."

"Oh," said Rin, and the sun was out and bright again. "Okay!"

On Monday, when Sesshoumaru looked for Rin across the fence that separated the middle school area from the elementary school area he saw her happily playing with three other girls. By Tuesday, Rin seemed to be friends with her entire class. By Wednesday, she had fifteen best friends, and by Thursday, she wasn't coming home till dark.

When sitting in the quiet apartment alone, doing his homework in the afternoon, Sesshoumaru sometimes found himself wondering why he hadn't just left well enough alone. Then Rin would come home, smiling and bursting with tales to share of her beautiful day and wonderful friends, and he would smile and think that he had done the best thing after all.

So life went on. Then one night, when Sesshoumaru was 18 and considering going to the local college for the sake of being near Rin, he looked up at the clock and realized that it was past midnight.

Rin had never come home.