Chapter 4

About an hour later, Kagome half carried the still-drunk man through her door, talking to him constantly to keep him conscious and somewhat focused on getting somewhere he could lie down. "This is my apartment," She told him. "Since you can't remember where you live, you can stay here tonight. I just hope we can get you to the couch before you pass out…" She grimaced as he leaned heavily against her, wobbling his way to the couch he could now see, and desperately wanted to reach. "Oh… Sleep sounds good… Maybe I'll stop seeing her if I go to sleep… Yeah," he mumbled, clinging to Kagome's arm for balance, and reaching out with his free arm. As soon as he had a grip on the back of the couch, he simply spun into a fall, so that he landed on his back with his feet hanging off the arm of the couch. Unfortunately for Kagome, he didn't let go of her arm, so she fell and landed on the floor next to the couch. Her head cracked against the worn floor, and she accidentally bit her lip. "Oh brilliant," she muttered, tasting blood. She rolled onto her stomach and used the couch to pull herself up until she was sitting on the sliver of space left on the edge. "What's your name, anyway?" she asked.

She glanced down at the man on her couch, who was staring at her with a strange mixture of pain and longing in his eyes. She asked again to try to make him not look at her like that. "You do have a name right? You're not just a homeless puppy?" she added with a smile. He blinked and his expression cleared again. "Uh, yeah… I'm Inuyasha…" She nodded once and said "Well, Inuyasha, nice to meet you, but I'm going to go to bed now. You need a blanket or anything?" He shook his head slowly, his eyes drooping. Kagome figured that he'd pass out as soon as she left him alone, so she went into her bedroom and shut the door. She paused, and then re-opened the door just a crack, so she could hear him if he fell of the couch or something. As she changed into pajamas and crawled into bed, she couldn't help but remember the look on Inuyasha's face. She decided to ask him why she made him hurt so much, in the morning.

As the sun rose, Kagome's living room brightened slowly. Wooden horizontal blinds on the windows kept most of the direct light out, although thin stripes of sun fell onto the sleeping Inuyasha. He reveled in the warmth, not quite awake yet, but awake enough for his senses to start working. His ears swiveled this way and that to catch the sounds around the room, and his nose sorted the unfamiliar scents. He could hear some of the city bustle outside, but not much else, apart from Kagome's soft breathing in the next room. He could smell the normal scents of the kitchen, like coffee and bread, and the warm smell of the wooden blinds and floor where the sun touched them, and a thin draft of scent from the bedroom; girly smells and clean sheets. Beneath all the other smells was a constant honey-like smell that he decided must be Kagome's own scent. He breathed in deep and marveled at the comfort he felt in all the warmth of the scents and the sunlight. And then he heard Kagome yawn and the rustle of her sheets. Oh shit…I wanted to get out of here before she woke up! He thought with alarm.

Inu leaped off the couch and raced for the door, trying to be quiet and light on his feet. He tried to quietly unlock the door to leave the apartment, but before he could even slide back the safety-chain, something soft and fluffy hit him in the back of the head. He turned around to find a pillow at his feet, and a rumpled and annoyed Kagome standing in her bedroom doorway. "So you wake me up to have me drag your sorry ass out of that bar, cry on me, knock me on the floor, and then you're just gonna leave without any kind of explanation?! Not even so much as a thank you?" She narrowed her eyes at him, challenging him for an answer. "Uh… Well, yeah," he admitted, not really knowing what else to say. He looked at the pillow on the floor so he wouldn't have to look into those intimidating and hauntingly familiar eyes. Silence and seconds stretched between them. He slowly bent to pick up the pillow, and walked over to hand it back to her. "Uh… Thanks for… Everything," he mumbled, and turned back to the door to let himself out, carefully avoiding eye contact.

He could practically feel her indignation as he opened each lock. Is she really paranoid or what?! The girl has seven different locks! When he got to the final lock, a simple deadbolt, it stuck, and he couldn't make it budge. As he struggled, he heard her chuckle and walk away. She went to the kitchen and started to make coffee. He growled and called out "Uh, your lock is stuck…" She laughed and called back "I know. Been that way since just after I moved in. Looks like you're stuck here until you explain yourself. Want breakfast?" He grumbled about conniving women under his breath, but as the coffee smell grew stronger, he was reminded of his drinking spree and he became aware of his hangover. She came over with a mug of hot, black coffee, and pointed at the couch. "Sit. Talk," She commanded. He decided to chance looking up into her face, and was surprised to see not anger or irritation as he expected, but real concern. He was also surprised to find that, surrounded by the warmth and comforting smells, her similarities to Kikyo didn't hurt so much. He decided to start looking for differences instead.

They settled on the couch, Kagome at one end, her arms around her knees, and Inuyasha at the other end sitting in a slump with his coffee in his lap. He knew she wanted him to talk about Kikyo, but he hesitated; he was already embarrassed that she'd coaxed tears out of him, drunk or not. He was surprised that she had even gotten him to think about talking about it. She spoke suddenly, startling him.

"That lock worked fine the first week I was here. This was about a year ago. It was the only lock on the door at the time, but I thought it'd be enough."

Her voice went very calm and quiet, and she was staring into her coffee cup. "I came home one night, and I always lock the door right behind me, so as I turned to lock it, somebody grabbed me from behind. It was some drugged out creep who'd been watching me for a while I guess, and he'd come in while I was gone. Anyway, he told me that he was going to rape me and kill me, and I started struggling like mad."

She paused and looked up at him. "Did you know that the elbow is the strongest part of the body?" He shook his head. She went back to staring at her coffee. "Well it is. I knew that. I nailed him in the ribs with my elbows until he let me go. That didn't really help me much considering he was in my way and I had nowhere to run… All I did was get myself turned around before he grabbed me again. I kept fighting though, kicking and clawing whatever part of him I could reach. He started beating on me, I think to either knock me out or get me to stop hitting him. Since he had me up against the door, when he was hitting me, I'd get pounded into the doorframe. All the pounding warped the frame. I think he must have hit me really hard in the head, because I can't remember much for a while after that, but next thing I know he'd dragged me out away from the door, and was trying to tear my clothes off. I tried to fight back again, and I kicked him once, really hard, and he got really mad. He punched me until I blacked out for good."

She paused and took in a huge breath. "When I woke up again, I was mostly naked and I was so bruised it hurt to move, but I heard him banging around in my kitchen, so I decided to try to get out of the apartment. I didn't have a phone yet so I couldn't even call for help. I tried to get to the door, but the frame was so warped that I couldn't get the lock open. He heard me and came out of the kitchen with a knife… I guess he hadn't thought about how he was going to kill me so he had to go look for something to use. He saw me and started yelling at me to get away from the door, and then he rushed at me with the knife. We went right through the door… ripped it right off the hinges." She swung her feet onto the floor and set her mug down on a table in front of the couch. "We fell right down the stairs, and the knife got me in the side." She lifted up her shirt to show him the huge, ragged scar right below her left breast. She looked down at it and ran her finger over it. "The sharp edge was facing up, but his weight pulled it down against the dull edge. That's why it looks ripped instead of sliced. I'm lucky it missed everything vital." She sighed and pulled her shirt down. She glanced up at him, and saw that he was watching her with an expression, almost like he expected the story. As if he were thinking I knew you were going to say that…

He lowered his eyes to his untouched coffee, and then set the mug down on the table. "What happened to the guy?" he asked softly. She attempted a grin but it came out more of a grimace. "Oh, he broke his neck in the fall. Somebody finally heard the commotion and found us on the stairs. He was dead when they got there, and I was out cold." Inuyasha scowled. "Bastard got off easy… You still live here after that?" He was surprised when Kagome laughed. "Well it turned out that he was the live-in landlord for the apartment complex… The guy who owned the building offered me all kinds of money and formal apologies. He covered my hospital bills and wrote me a rent-free contract as long as I wanted. I guess they were related or something and he didn't want the whole mess to get out…" She rubbed her eyes and took a huge gulp of coffee.

"Wow," said Inuyasha. "I guess I Have to tell you my story after that…" Kagome smiled at him and said, "That's what I was hoping for…"