AN: I felt like it was time for this.

Thank you to my readers and reviewers. I'm going to be sending response messages and thank yous in the next chapter! This is short and sweet and I wanted to say thank you for sticking by me through all of this.

The balls gonna be rolling. Expect updates this week.

~love always

Jiru

Streaks of lightning illuminated the skyline as InuYasha joyously lead Kagome back to the inn. The hospital visit had completely drained the girl, leaving her as shallow as the puddles of melted snow.

Miroku, he had cried when the man answered the phone, showering him with the same emotion InuYasha had bestowed, in a more poised manner, to him. She had stared in bewilderment at the wily gleam in his eyes, as he smoked his cigarette, telling tales of what he had done and places he had been.

It was then that Kagome understood the blood, that vagabond spirit, that coursicated in his veins. He took the painful edges of the night and smoothed them down like whittlers carving away at wood. She could see him when he spoke to that man. InuYasha was not burdened by his stony facade, but the piousness of a boy with their friends.

It was honest.

Yet, she knew of Miroku, knew of the things that he was connected to, but held her mouth shut for this fleeting moment of happiness InuYasha felt. Questions still lingered as they crept into the confines of their sleepy home. Kagome could barely wrap her head around the things closest to her heart, and there he was; smiling for her, telling her things that he would have normally hidden.

Her grandfather was becoming a ghost, and she was erasing lines that she had drawn so many years prior. Her world was becoming colorful amidst the darkness where she resided.

This foreign feeling captured her as she slid off her muddy shoes and packed up her belongings. She had fought for this place. Fought tooth and nail to return here, and to what result? Her heart was pulling her towards this frightening territory and blank pages she had to write. Yet, as she was sulking over the fact that InuYasha had a child, a life outside of her...

Grabbing her head in her hands, Kagome sucked back a tight breath and tried to calm herself. She wanted to cry and let her emotions devour her, but chose to suppress them. The sheen in her eyes called out to the light and sparkled in the low light of her room.

InuYasha was reluntantly waiting for her beside the door, watching her fight with herself. She was going to have to let go and accept what life she chose. A small, sad smile creased his lips as he watched her fumble with her minute collection of belongings into a duffle bag.

She looked so soft beneath the light, but he knew that she was rigid.

Clearing his throat, he saw her head shoot up in surprise. She swallowed and brushed a hand through her long hair and sat upright with her bag zipping as she moved. "I guess I'm done." She said, scanning over the musty room with a want that she couldn't suppress. "That's all there really is of me, after all."

InuYasha furrowed his brows and dropped on his haunches in front of her. Looking into her eyes, he saw the lingering questions and the uncertainty she'd tried to hide. He absently licked his lip and fell deeper into her fathoms. "Do you trust me now?" He asked.

Kagome flashed an audacious smile and recoiled. "That is honestly something that I can't understand, how can you ask me that?"

InuYasha brushed his ragged bangs from his eyes. "You don't want to let me go." He said poignantly, searching for the answer she would never utter.

Steadying herself with her palms on the floor, she leaned closer, eyes never leaving his. "How can I let you leave me? You've been some sort of fucking saint for sticking around this long. I'm a mess and I don't know why you say all of these horrible things to me; I don't love you. I can't have feelings for you. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't..."

She paused to see his narrowing expression and clenching jaw.

"If you wanted to let me stay here and rot like the rest of my life, you would have been gone. You can't leave me. You don't want to have feelings for someone as fucked up as me, because you're not any better. I'm watching my world plummet and I can't do it anymore. I want to live!" Kagome hissed, erupting violently as her hands trembled.

"What do you have to say for yourself? Huh?" She asked, quivering from the violence in her veins. "You know I can see through you. I can see through all of this..." She spat, gesturing with flailing arms, like she had when they first met. "You can sit and look at me like I'm crazy, or pity me because I've gone through something worse than you... But how dare you assume that I am defenseless."

Leaning back, her heaving chest was alive with tattered breaths. Everything she had held in and the urge to lash out and express the things that she had so willfully repressed...

They came flooding out of her mouth as the rain pelted the the inn with its howling voice and turbulence. Kagome felt the fire spark and there was no turning back. InuYasha could do as he pleased, but at least she was free of one burden.

Anything else that she had to think about was cast aside, only for that moment as she tried to read his calculating facade. He looked like he had been stabbed through the heart and was bleeding on the floor before her.

InuYasha brushed a hand through his salty hair and bit his lip as he devoured the words in his head. The formulation as complete and the answer was obvious to him. Kagome had finally reached within herself and threw away the essence of her youth and replaced it with something far more raw.

She was far from whole, but her admittance and vigor set his teeth on edge. He itched every time her voice lacerated the layers of safety he'd built. He wanted her. His resolve was blinded by that want and whether or not it was a good choice, to hell with it.

Jutting a hand outwards, he captured the back of her head, pulling her into him, violently kissing her. Kagome froze for a moment before she let her trembling hands wind into his hair. He fell ontop of her, dragging his knees across the floor.

He didn't want to think of her like this, or feel this strongly about her.

Yet, he did.

Every move grew more intense, spreading like untamed fever. Kagome was sweltering as she struggled to remove the barriers of clothing between them. She had to feel him, experience what it was like to be devoured by her emotions.

InuYasha victoriously tore his jacket and shirt over his head, barely missing the warmth of her mouth as he absorbed her sweetness. The floor cooled his palms as he hovered above her small frame, indulging in the quiet gasps when he rolled his lips across her jawline.

Her breasts pressed into his chest as he fought with the buttons on her jeans. She stared at him as he slid his own pants down, revealing himself to her. She flushed darker as he captured her mouth as he thrust into her, holding her weight with one arm.

Kagome felt hazy, disillusioned, as she arched into him, her hair crawling along the old wooden floor. InuYasha grunted into the crook of her neck as he thrust into her, feeling her walls clenching with each stroke.

He was blank, completely consumed by her. Kagome ran her fingers over his teeth, curling them over his lips until she dug them into his shoulders. She had yearned for this so many times and dreamed that he would give himself to her.

She had been timid, but as her legs coiled around him as he lifted her back against the bed, she could see he had wanted nothing more than this. Her heavy lashes couldn't keep her from imprinting this memory into the forefront of her mind.

They were erupting, just as the the rest of the world shut down.

Each breath, each frantic thrust, they all built up for that one final moment.

InuYasha wrapped his arms around her and cradled her as he jerked and fluttered against her body. Her heart was crying for him as he pulled out of her, tensing at his absence. Spilling himself on the floor, he gasped, panting her name into the quiet.

Kagome grabbed him as she caught her breath. Her body spasmed, not remembering a lover before him. If she never had him again, at least she had tasted him, loved him.

InuYasha fell upon the cold floor and soothed his burning skin, hazily watching Kagome's half-naked body slump against the bed. Instinctively, he grabbed her and pulled her into him. She listened to his uneven breathing and rapturous heart, beating out of time for her.

A calloused hand ran through her hair, staring vacantly at the rickety fan.

"I'm sorry." He swallowed, not having the courage to look at her flushed face.

Kagome sighed against him, wrapping her body around his. "You mean something to me. I don't know what, but I don't want to lose it." She said in a whisper.

He nodded against her hair and felt his body relax. "I don't either."

"Where do we go from here?" The woman asked, toying with a strand of his hair.

"We need to go to Tokyo. I know you didn't want to talk about it, and probably don't now." He responded tiredly, "We have people to see." Was all he said, pulling a sheet from the bed as he hid the woman from the draft.

Morning would take away the magic, as it always did. Places would be real and her heart would still be uncertain, but that's how the world works, isn't it?

Sweetness is few and far between.