The Heartache Begins

A/N: The other name I was thinking about using was "These Dreams" but I decided against it… I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll change the name if you all like it better… not that it matters. Whatever. Ok so this is finally the end of that huge chapter I kept on cleaving chunks out of. It's… um… kind of a mess. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: See the chapter instructed to see in the last chapter.

The Heartache Begins...

She was walking in a forest… somewhere… dappled yellow sunlight swaying gently over a thin path that had been treaded into the ground over a long amount of time. Walking a few steps in front of her was a man with long silver hair… it must have been Inuyasha. It was Inuyasha. She knew that somehow. As he moved, his silver mane swayed to the side, revealing that the back of his haori was covered in rusty colored bloodstains. But she found that she had already known that they were there, and she wasn't surprised.

They passed a patch of herbs growing on the floor and instantly she recognized them. She dropped to the ground, examining the new discovery like a child, excitedly listing their names and what they did to the man standing beside her, knowing that he'd stopped to wait.

"This is a great antitoxin, but boy, does it sting…" She cringed. "I'll brew some up for you later, ok?" She said as she fingered the light green leaves with her thumb and fingers. "It'll work really well, I promise."

She looked up and found that Inuyasha was smiling at her… gently. She felt her body shiver, though the image was growing milky.

"Kagome…" He said her name slowly, his golden eyes were warm, the smile that he was smiling, for once, was reaching his eyes as his face began to fade. "You've gotten a lot stronger."

And then there was a well. Standing alone in a column of dusty yellow sunlight, old polished wood gleaming in its clearing while thick ropey vines clutched at its lip, an occasional silver-colored flower blossoming up to look at her… Kagome didn't really recognize it… but at the same time it seemed like the most familiar thing in the world.

'The Bone Eater's Well…' The thoughts drifted lazily across her mind as she stared at it, captivated by something she couldn't find with her eyes. Things were happening that she couldn't quite remember. The dream was fuzzy and pieced together like an old puzzle, she knew some of the pieces were missing.

Inuyasha had moved past her so silently that she almost didn't notice, his red sleeve brushing against her white one gently. He sat at the base of the well, looking at her before casting his eyes down at the ground… she could feel him sinking away from her, distancing himself. But she didn't know why.

And then they were talking… about something… a battle with a man. As he spoke to her, tones of worry surfaced in his voice… making her feel badly about something. She fingered a lump on the back of her head, embarrassed. As she asked "Me?" She tried to meet his eyes for a moment, but they were trained carefully on the forest floor, as if making a point to not look up at her. Typical Inuyasha.

"I've got a little bump, that's all." She heard herself saying as while she looked at him. There were sudden flashbacks of hot yellow lights, crackling with energy and humming with power. They came streaking towards her, slicing through the ground, cutting up the dirt, racing like stretching fingers of lightening… no way to dodge. And something red crashed into her with the force of a freight train… knocking her backwards and out of the way… somehow it was Inuyasha.

The flashback ended and she was back in the forest. She looked down at the hanyou before her who was still studying the ground. There was silence. Thick and heavy and pressing down on her steadily… it felt like she was sinking in an ocean of noiselessness. For a moment she wondered if the whole thing was even real.

"I'm sorry." Inuyasha finally said, his voice low and quiet. "To put you in such danger…"

They kept on talking… he was thinking about danger. She was thinking about the blood smeared over his chest. At some point there was a little pang in her own chest, feeling as if someone had lightly tapped her on her heart. Pity. Pity for Inuyasha and his pain…

Things in the dream started to become clearer.

"Kagome…" The hanyou's dark brows knit together in a frown, his tone a little hard. "Aren't you afraid?" He demanded, his voice rising while his face hardened.

She realized that she was angry. It hadn't been the question that had offended her. It was the way he asked it. The way his tone seemed to be calling her stupid for not being afraid, as if he were trying to teach a lesson to an over confident child. Imagine… Inuyasha lecturing someone about over confidence…

Kagome opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off, leaning forwards a little to get confrontationally in her face.

"This time we were lucky!" he snapped, his anger clearly rising. "But who knows about next time!"

The dream was vivid now. She could suddenly feel the slight breeze in the air. Remember the way the grass had felt brushing at her ankles and the soft earth beneath her knees as she sat down in front of him. She could sense the soaking warmth of the sun. And her feelings were clearer too. Her thoughts as loud as anything.

She was outraged. There he was, sitting in front of her, bleeding through his stomach and telling her that she had been the lucky one. A bump on the head that was all… but he had almost died. He was still bleeding.

"I'm not afraid!" She said angrily, leaning forward to get equally up in his face, watching for his reaction to her rage, but not seeing any. He only stared at her stonily, his expression hard and blank, it unnerved her a little, but her eyes flashed to the blood on his chest and her resolve hardened as much as his expression. "Besides what does that matter compared to your injur-"

His hand closed around her wrist and pulled her forwards into his arms. She was caught in stillness… painfully aware of the clarity with which his gentle callused hand sifted through her hair and rested on the back of her neck, his other arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer… to him.

Her heart jolted as she realized… he was holding her. Bringing her into his arms like he cared about her. She could feel him tilting his face into her hair and inhaling lightly as something tightened in her chest. She wanted suddenly to cry. A strange feeling washing over her… a wonderful, bittersweet, aching feeling. She had never felt it before. In her dreams or in reality… it was something different.

Her body was rigid like a board in his arms. She couldn't think. She couldn't hold onto a thought long enough to understand it before it was ripped away and replaced with something else, more confusing. She didn't even notice that the silence had returned. Her ears were roaring.

"Inuyasha…" She whispered, her eyes wide and staring out into the forest. She wanted to ask so many questions: What do you think you're doing? Why? What's going on? What does this mean… Anything? Do you want it to? Do I want it to? But the words wouldn't come. She couldn't even remember them as his arms tightened protectively around her, cradling her…. She could hear him inhaling her scent again… he was being so gentle… and yet… she felt like nothing could break through that moment… or stop him from holding her that way…

He had told her once that he liked her scent… that he had been lying to her when he said he hated it. Granted that he had been poisoned and delusional at the moment, but it had her made her heart flutter a bit… now she it was pounding… her breath was shallow and shaky, her throat drying until she thought it might crack.

"I was afraid."

The whisper brought her a little to her senses… the same whisper. She listened to his soft voice slowly, trying to understand. Trying to be careful… but it didn't make sense. It did, however, pull her back into reality.

"I thought that you might die…" he pulled her a little closer, making her lose her train of thought again. She was wonderfully breathless… and he was holding her so tightly, his body was curled over hers as if he were shielding her from something. And all she could focus on was the way his body felt… pressed up against hers, holding her. "I thought I was going to lose you… I was terrified."

That brought her back to her senses. "What?" 'Inuyasha…' The sweet, aching feeling returned again in a wave, overcoming her in seconds, filling her body until there wasn't room for anything else. She didn't know what it was.

His arms suddenly loosened, and then he was throwing her to the ground, forcefully. She barely caught herself in time to keep her face from smashing into the well. "Hey!" She whipped around to look up at him. He was standing over her now, looking down at her with cold eyes. "What do you think you're doing, Inuyasha!" She said as she pushed herself up to a stand, embarrassed that she hadn't acted before… when he had been holding her like that… when that feeling had been there.

He stared at her grimly for a moment, expression deadly serious… just like his brother's. He lifted his hand to show her something, she gasped when she saw the ½ crystal glimmering from the chain in his hand. He tucked it into the side of his pants, and met her gaze again. His face just as stonily determined as it had been before.

"Go home."

"What?"

"Go home to your own time, Kagome!"

Without warning, Inuyasha reached out with his hand, and roughly shoved her backwards. She gasped as she felt her knee connect with the wooden lip, making her fall into emptiness. She saw her hand extend for his, automatically reaching out for the hand that never moved to catch her own. A vague feeling of betrayal pierced at her heart, where the sweet ache had come from, though by now it had disappeared. He hadn't caught her. He had pushed her.

She screamed while her body free fell into nothingness, her hand still reaching for him as his face came back into view. For a moment he was watching her quietly as she fell, his golden eyes so sad and longing, and the sweet ache returned as she felt herself hit the ground.

Kagome shot up from her bed with a start, her form rigid and shaking in the night. Her breath was hard and rapid, sending the warmth from her mouth into the chilly black air. She gripped at the sheets around her waist and tore them off her body. They had been pressing down on her like lead weights. Nothing made sense. But at least she wasn't falling anymore.

The room was dimly lit with candles. And a large fire crackled inside an open pit in the center of the room. Kagome stared at it, her eyes moving slowly around the hut. It was the same one she had been held in for the past ten days and from the look of it, no one else was around.

Then her eyes fell on the body. His body. For a moment she thought he was dead she was frozen to the spot, her breath caught inside her throat. 'Oh God… i-is he…' But when her eyes saw the way his form rose slowly up and down, steadily in a rhythm, she let out a breath of relief. He was breathing. 'He's alive.'

And it was a good thing too. Because Kagome didn't think she could handle finding another dead body in her room with her. Thoughts of Tetsuya flashed into her mind and she pushed them away, only allowing herself to linger on the thoughts of his dull green eyes…

She closed her own brown ones tightly against the thought before she looked back at Inuyasha's figure, lying flat on the hut floor a couple feet away, his body stretched out across the wood in front of the fire. His eyes closed and his face turned towards her. His back was bare, his haori peeled away and falling at his waist. Kagome frowned a little. That was weird.

There was a cloth lying over him, covering from his waist to the bottom of his shoulder blades. The corners, which rested on the floor, were weighted down with large gray stones and the cloth that was touching his back was stained heavily… with blood.

Kagome felt numbed as she looked at him. She recognized the position. It was an old fashioned way of trying to stop a wound from bleeding before the bandages were applied. Though how she knew that she had no idea. It was good to give a bleeding injury some air before you confined it with the wrappings, otherwise you might risk making the flesh rot. And even after you did bandage it, you would have to change them often. But she didn't know why she knew that either.

As she stared at him, she thought about the dream. He had been injured then too… but she couldn't think of what had happened to him. She couldn't really remember this time's injury either. But it must have been from the battle earlier that day.

She felt as if she weren't in control of her own body as she slowly crawled forwards to him. His figure illuminated and washed with the golden glow of the firelight. He looked so… peaceful…. almost angelic, for once. With his sleeping face and little silver-gold ears illuminated by the fire… She wondered vaguely to herself, what she thought she was doing as she watched her hand reach out and move the rocks off the corners closest to her. She became aware of smell… an awful coppery smell and she recognized it vaguely… from somewhere. But she didn't bother to try to remember what it was as slowly, her fingers grasped the thin, weathered fabric, and moved the sheet away from the wound. It stuck a little as she peeled it off… she wondered why.

Kagome heard herself gasp and her hand automatically flew to her mouth to cover it. It was awful. Blood was everywhere, caked over everything, which explained why the sheet had stuck so badly when she removed it. Four long gashes had been cut deeply into Inuyasha's back. Bloody, torn flesh hung from the open injury as little bits of white poked through the gaping red muscle, all angelic appearances about him were instantly lost.

She absorbed the sight slowly, unable to take her eyes away. He had been cut to the bone. Surely he couldn't still be alive. But she could see him breathing… watch his shallow yet steady breathing and she knew that he was alive. It didn't make any sense. But that didn't matter. Like she had said before… nothing seemed to make sense anymore. Nothing seemed to matter either.

She couldn't help herself as her hand slowly floated over the wound, barely not touching it, shaking a little in the golden-red firelight. The blood glistened beneath her hand. It was enough to make her sick.

"This…" She whispered softly, tears starting to burn into her eyes. "Is because of… me." She almost couldn't hear herself. But she knew it was true. Earlier that day when she had been trying to distract the ogre from the others… and he had…

She looked away finally, closing her eyes and clenching her hand into a fist over his back. She was still shaking as she put it over her chest. What could she do? She opened her eyes and stared at the dimly lit door. Was there anything that she could do? And why had he done that. Why? There hadn't been any reason for it. So why would he ever even think about…

Her eyes fell on an open container of salve. It was placed on the floor down by his lower leg, the white cream glistening in the firelight. She could see the disruptions where fingers had already reached in and scooped some of it out. It had most likely been for him. She stared at it for a while, feeling as if time had stopped for a bit. He was her enemy… and yet… She couldn't stand it. He had gotten hurt. He was bleeding. And a thin residue of that sweet, aching feeling she had felt in the dream was still coating her heart. Thoughtlessly she reached for the salve and held it in her palm, staring at it. "It's the least…. I can do." She said slowly, bring her eyes back to the wound and studying it… feeling numb. "I guess."

Carefully she dipped her fingers into the cream, its luke-warmth surprising her a little as she caked it onto her fingertips. And slowly, she moved her hand to his back. At first she was afraid to touch it… but… she had to. Carefully, she smoothed the semi-clear whiteness around the borders of the cuts, making sure not to be careless enough to let any go deep enough to touch the bone. She shuddered as she glanced at the little white teeth-like spots and wondered for the second time how he could even still be alive.

She didn't notice that Inuyasha had woken up.

His golden eyes cracked open slightly in the darkness. He couldn't really focus, neither could he see, his consciousness was drifting in and out of the thick, warm darkness inside himself… his expression was blank. But he could smell her scent, and knew she was sitting next to him. Sun-dried chamomile… jasmine and vanilla lilacs… honeysuckles… So he wasn't alone. She was there. She was safe, and alive. And that was all he needed to know to drift back into a peaceful sleep. She would never notice.

While she worked, Kagome began to feel a blanket of regret and sadness start to sink over her shoulders, mixing with the sweet aching feeling from the dream, and gradually pressing harder until she was on the brink of silent tears. She knew she shouldn't be feeling it, least of all for him. But she couldn't help it. "Inuyasha…" She said softly as she dipped her fingers back into the salve. "Why would you do such a stupid thing like this for…?" She couldn't finish the question as her fingers brushed over the edges of cuts with the white salve. He would have to be sewn up tomorrow. She would have done it then if she knew where she could find a needle and thread. It was a miracle that he was still alive. "You idiot…" She said softly as she blinked her tears away. "You stupid idiot…"

She found that while she tended to the bloodied tissue she was free to think… about anything she wanted. In particular she thought about him and the last ten days she had spent there… trapped. She thought about what had happened earlier that afternoon with the ogre and she thought about the way he had seemed to be relieved that she was okay as they began to fall. She thought about the dream and how he had pushed her… the way he had held her… the feelings it had given her, and slowly a thought began to form:

"What if… I am Kagome?" She asked quietly, her voice barely a whisper. "What if… I am? Would that even be… possible?" As she continued to spread the salve, she thought about what being Kagome would mean… and the possibilities started to surface in her mind. Horrifying, dark, possibilities, looming up to haunt her. She didn't like them at all.

What would being Kagome mean…? That she had been ignoring the truth… had been being stupid the whole time… would have to start all over… again. With no idea who she was… and… Naraku lying to her.

No. No.

That last thing was something she couldn't accept. She wouldn't.

Naraku loved her… he had given her her life back and showed her who she was. And if that was a lie… then everything she knew…was false. Everything she cared about… gone, empty, an illusion. Her world would fall out from underneath her, her reality, and all her hopes crumbling away on a rotting foundation of lies. The past that she had been trying to discover… her very identity, everything, falling through her fingers like sand.

She couldn't accept that… her hands were shaking… she couldn't deal with that. She wouldn't go down that road. She oculdn't. She took a ragged breath. She had to be Sayuri. She was Sayuri. She was safe… as long as she could believe that that was who she really was. It was who she wanted to be… she tried to convince herself that Kagome was the lie. She knew who she was. Of course she did.

But then., what about Inuyasha? Was he just insane? Why had he kidnapped her? Why did he insist on lying to her? Protecting her? Acting like he cared… and coming into her dreams… dreams that always seemed so real… memories. Like the last one.

God she was so confused. She pressed her lips tightly together as she re-closed the cloth over the hanyou's back. Why was this so hard? A few seconds go she had almost believed him. She had almost entered that dangerous world where she was Kagome and everything she knew to be true was a lie. It was because of him… him and that sweet, aching feeling that had come from her dream. He was breaking her, steadily. And she knew it. But the frightening part of it was… that a part of her had grown to actually want to believe in him. She had almost believed him. She had almost admitted to herself that she had started to … care about him.

She felt herself stop, her body numb with shock. Care about him? She looked down at Inuyasha's sleeping form, so peaceful, so sweet. Where had that thought come from? Was he really getting to her that badly? Was she really starting to…

Suddenly she started to feel afraid. She was Sayuri… and she had Naraku, a man who cared for and loved her. She was Kagome… and what did she have then? A false past. A lost dream. A harsh reality that she had fallen for something that wasn't real. The knowledge that she had allowed herself to trust the wrong person. That was all she'd have. She didn't want that. She wanted to be Sayuri. And that meant that she'd have to forget and destroy the way she was starting to feel about Inuyasha… before it turned out that she couldn't.

But that felt so wrong. A part of her didn't think she could. The sweet aching feeling from her dream… did she even want it to go away? Again her thoughts came back to the thought. 'If you feel this way about him… maybe he's telling the truth.'

She bit her lip tightly to try and stop the tears. No. Not possible. She couldn't… she didn't want to… did she? Every time she thought about Inuyasha she became afraid… and confused, she felt like she was being pulled into a hundred different directions, and she wanted to go every way… but she couldn't. And she was breaking under the pressure… there were too many pieces… to many directions… Everything was just so wrong. He was a liar. Why did she feel that way about him? Was it because of the dream? A memory? Why couldn't things have just turned out right for once?

"Just once…" She said quietly as she sealed the jar of salve and put it back by Inuyasha leg. "I wish I could know what I'm supposed to do…"

She still felt indebted to Naraku, the man who had been there for her. And she wanted to believe him. And Inuyasha had taken and held her against her will. Murdered Tetsuya's parents and was still Naraku's enemy. But now… these feelings… all from that one dream. She felt horrible about herself for even dreaming it. She felt as if just dreaming that dream was the same as betraying Naraku in the worst way. She didn't want to betray him. She wanted to be with him.

But Inuyasha had protected her today, and held her in a dream where she cared about him. Put his own life on the line for her… the proof was right there in front of her, lying beneath the bloodstained cloth. The price he had had to pay… she couldn't forget that. And she couldn't forget about the sweet aching either… no matter how much she wanted or tried to. Well… then she'd just have to try harder, and get back to Naraku sooner… right? She worried her lip, frustrated. She wasn't sure.

And the more Kagome thought about it, the more she became frustrated and confused, the more pieces she broke into, the more directions she as pulled… she was so tired. And a dull throbbing feeling was beginning to creep into her chest. She felt like she was missing something… like she was empty on the inside, and reaching for something to fill. She had been aware of it before… a little… but had never really paid enough attention it, dismissing it as a part of her missing her past. But now it was growing stronger. A needing feeling. An empty feeling. The exact opposite of the way she had felt in the dream with Inuyasha holding her. And she was tired to the point of tears.

Finally she gave in. She was tired of thinking. She was tired of being pulled on. So with a heavy sigh, she wiping her hands on her already filthy dress and laid her head down on the ground gently, her face beside Inuyasha's. Her body inches away from Inuyasha's. They were almost touching.

She didn't really know why she had decided to be so close to him… she guessed she just felt safer when she was next to him, no matter how wrong that was. So she stayed there. She knew she shouldn't have. But also… she supposed that somehow, she owed it to him. For saving her life. One way or another.

She lay there for an hour, staring at him, and the hollow empty feeling in her chest began to grow along with the sweet ache from the dream. The firelight eventually turned red as the actual orange-gold flames began to die leaving red hot coals in its wake, and her thoughts drifted back to her memories of earlier that day. She moved back to the faint recollections of the feelings in her dream… not examining them, just thinking about them. Just remembering. She missed being able to remember.

As drowsiness began to over come her… slowly dulling her senses, taking away her thoughts, she found herself watching his face. It was strangely handsome, barely illuminated by the now smoldering embers in the open pit fireplace. His silver-red hair was resting against his cheek, little silver ears drooping downwards, glowing a tinted orange-red color like his skin. His expression was blank but soft. For a moment she had to keep herself from reaching out to put hand on his face… or finger his little silver ears…

She was almost completely asleep when she saw his dark golden eyes barely flit open to look at her face, his lids were heavy and barely opened… but he was looking at her. His face filled her entire vision, and for one moment, it seemed like they were the only too people in the world. She smiled at him, softly, unable to stop herself. He just looked at her, golden eyes only half awake, cracks of deep brown stretching through the core of the golden, fire-illuminated iris to meet the rim… and then gently they flit closed again. All she could do was hope he wouldn't remember it in the morning…

A/N: I know its bad. And confusing. (Since Kagome's supposed to be torn it actually should be rather confusing because she is confused… but I think this is just plain overboard confusing) Anyway the point is I know it sucks but I'm afraid you're just going to have to deal with it, because I can't take trying to fix it any longer. I'm moving on to other chapters and greener grass and stuff like that.

Now… a few of you may be wondering why Kagome's memory isn't the same as it is in the TV show. Well that's because I'm not using the TV show's version this time, instead I've opted to use the manga's version (you know the book with the black and white pics? Yeah… that one).

Everything is true to that book except the line: "I thought I was going to lose you… I was terrified" that's from the anime. (I had to insert it, its my favorite line:D) and the memory was supposed to be kind of fuzzy anyway so you can't really tell. The only real difference being that in the manga they don't talk about Naraku being "a terrible demon".

Anyway the memories I use that aren't original (Yes there will be a few memories that will be original to me… I mean remember it's a long time now… Kagome's like what… nineteen? Eighteen? I'm not even sure anymore) to me will be a mish-mash between the anime versions of scenes (TV show versions) and the manga versions (black and white book versions) I'll probably pull out a mix of the best of both, if they'r not mine.Ok? If anyone really has a problem with that idea then just tell me in your review… but I still might not change my mind.

What I plan to have in the next chapter (emphasis on the word "plan" some of it might not fit in… some might just get deleted this is just my rough draft): Chapter 24 - "Tell me about her" – in which Kagome decides to dig into the past of this "Kagome" character Inuyasha keeps obsessing about, while the others plan to go on a search for Shippo and Kaede… will hearing about her real past help her remember anything? And how does she plan to handle her newfound feelings for Inuyasha? Also: Inuyasha figures out finally, why Kagome's so attached to Naraku. And he's not very happy. (The last part may have to be bumped to chapter 24… you never know)

Non-spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own the scene in Kagome's dream. It is a piece of the story line of Rumiko Takahashi's manga "Inu-Yasha" (and one line from the anime "Inuyasha") Neither do I own any of the original characters of Rumiko Takahashi's "Inu-Yasha"… Glad we have that cleared up