AN:/ This story contains suicidal ideation, moments of alcohol abuse, as well as human trafficking, assault and mentions of rape. Any other triggers that come up I will update as the story progresses.

Imbalance

"All I have to do is jump…" the young woman slurred under her breath. "If I jump, I'll be free. If I jump, it's over. What's worse than working for him? To die… Dying would be… A relief. Part of her wanted to let those words slip out on the tip of her tongue, they were just there, but part of her wanted to ignore the voice at the edge of her mind coaxing her towards the edge of the building. She stumbled forward, her knees knocking against one another, partly in fear, and partly because of the fourth beer she was drinking at the time. It wasn't enough to get her drunk, but she certainly was feeling the poison in her bloodstream.

A cigarette in one hand, a beer in the second, her tight dress riding up her legs, the money stashed in the purse she left by the stairway, her hair falling in front of her eyes and out of the elaborate coiffure that she had put up for the party that night, the music still blasting away in the club below, but most importantly, the burn on her back… She knew that her life had hit rock bottom, and that no matter what she did, there was no way she could swim back up to the top: she was drowning in this life. For all she cared, she was already dead.

"I could take pills…" she muttered. "I'm already intoxicated… That should be enough to do me off." She set the beer down on the ledge of the building and turned around so that she could sit down on it, slowly twirling her legs around over the side. When she looked down at the street, she inhaled sharply, both awed and terrified of the concrete below her. The streets were quiet, it was three in the morning, after all, but they seemed so calm, so peaceful… So opposite to the turmoil that she faced every day when she had to head in for "work", when she had to earn back all the money that had be leant to her, when she was reminded that she was not her own person, but a pawn, easily expendable, and anything but free.

A gentle breeze caressed her face, almost as if it were kissing her cheeks, her salty eyes, her swollen red lips, whispering to her that everything would be okay, and for a moment, she felt at peace. The edges of her lips curled up to a small smile. She began to pump her legs, feeling slightly like a child again that sat on a swing, feeling the smack of the wall against her heels and watching as one shoe fell off and plummeted to the ground, which resulted in a small smirk.

"Damn, those shoes were expensive… If he knew that I lost one…" She shook her head and sighed. No, I won't think of him now. This is me trying to get away from him, I won't let him ruin this for me, too. She took in one last inhale from the cigarette, flicked it down into the streets, watching at the burning ember cascaded down, knowing that her body would be next. At least her soul, she'd be free. The tips of her fingers curled along the side of the edge, getting ready to push forward as she took one last breath. Get ready to fly, sweetheart…

"What are you doing?"

The young woman abruptly jumped in her spot, shocked by the appearance of a second voice. The initial thought was that the hounds she had managed to slip away from, his hounds, had finally caught up to her. Immediately turning around, she realized that the man's face was unrecognizable. Well, he seemed familiar, but she certainly hadn't seen him before, at least not in her work place. His soft features were offset by the callous hardness in his eyes, an intense stare that she felt in her core. She flickered her eyes on him, inspecting him from head to toe, he was wearing a jacket, and some slick dress pants, and some clearly expensive dress shoes: He wasn't wearing a wedding ring, so he couldn't have been married either, and he seemed to be quite young, perhaps his mid twenties, so he wasn't young enough to be a new recruit, he like to reel them in early: she decided he wasn't one of her boss's men.

"I'm… I'm enjoying the view," the lie felt forced. She wasn't exactly expecting company, and she could tell by the look on his face that he knew. The man walked toward her, calm and collected, as if the scenario was as simple as buying an ice-cream.

"Don't come closer!"-the man stopped in his tracks-"This isn't any of your business, so I suggest you leave now!" She scooted closer to the end of the ledge, biting her lip as she rocked forward.

"No. It's not my business," he responded, beginning to waltz over to her once more, far more slowly, as if she wouldn't notice.

"Then why are you here?" she barked at him, not bothering to turn around and see him fully.

"My shift finished early and some co-workers wanted me to come out with them. I don't do so well in crowded spaces so I figured I'd come out for some air." The man was almost at the ledge of the building, preparing to remove his jacket. "Didn't expect company."

"Wrong place to come if you don't like crowds," she chuckled.

"Normally, I'm able to head right home. I was unlucky in that one of my operations got rescheduled. I can typically use the babysitter as an excuse."

"A doctor, huh?" Kagura hummed. There was no answer from the man standing next to her. "And with kids. You should step out of this before it's too late. You don't want to get involved here."

"What are you doing in a place like this?" the doctor questioned, avoiding the woman's previous statement. Kagura stared down at the concrete beneath her, the quiet hum of a car passing by every now and then. "Do you work here?"

A flash of sweaty and drunken men flooded her mind. The low red light of the private room and the scratches on the floor where her nails had made their mark over time. The way they grabbed and prodded at her, the roughness at which they pushed her down and demeaned her, but worst the sight of a gun in the corner of her eye, and a gauntish figure strumming his fingers along the hilt of it with dead eyes gazing down at her as he made sure she did what she was meant to do. Every night, the same thing, the same barrel pointing at her as she earned the money for her boss. Work was the wrong word for it, but it was where most of her worst memories came from.

The desperate woman chuckled, still not turning to make eye contact with him as he brought himself beside her, his back to the ledge and his arms crossed over his chest. In her peripheral she could see the intensity with which he was studying her face, as if he was trying to place her face. Her gaze flashed to him momentarily before returning to the streets.

"You can't stop me," she whispered. "I need to do this."

The man glared at her, she could practically feel the heat of his gaze on her cheek.

"You wouldn't understand. This is… This is my only chance to get away."

"What's your name?" the doctor asked, looking down at his feet and then back out to the sky. The wind picked up again and she felt it all along her body, through her hair, and she smiled again.

"Please leave," the young woman looked at him, with pleading eyes. "Please. I need to do this alone."

"You don't want to be alone when you die," he seemed to hum the words, as if they balanced perfectly on his lips. The young woman shook her head, struggling to hold back a nervous laugh.

"You're naïve, aren't you," she finally looked over at him, bearing a smile on her face, but he seemed to be serious, with no change of emotion over his looks.

"No, I'm not. I've seen my fair share of people dying alone. I know what I'm talking about," the harsh tone in his voice caused her to look away. Her fingers pushed up against the edge, and she felt his hand wrap around her wrist. "They would've given anything for another chance. If anyone's naive here, it's you, looking for the cowards way out."

"Fuck you!" she snapped, twisting to meet his eyes as she cursed him and tearing her wrist from his grasp. "You don't know the slightest thing about me, about what I've been through. Leave me alone!"

The silence between them as the echoes of her voice died down was shortly stifled by the doctor's voice.

"Surely, you must have something," the doctor stated pointedly. Kagura continued to glare at him, and he let out a deep sigh before sinking back against the ledge. "Not one of my patients died today, at least, not yet. I suppose it'd get me out of this social event if you jumped, I could call an ambulance and work on stabilizing you on the way to the hospital, book an OR and work from there. I'll definitely outwork my shift, though. My housekeeper will not be happy with that call, and my daughter will certainly be disappointed. I suppose that is, given you survive the fall," his eyes gestured down to the street, "which will be painful. Guaranteed breaks in your arms or legs, doubtful you'd be able to use them again properly, but I have seen worse."

"The fall's too high for me to survive it," she snickered.

"I smell booze on you, so no, I wouldn't rule out survival entirely," he explained. "I doubt any amount of drinking will quell that pain, though."

It sounded like a lie, they both knew a five story drop would kill her, and he was simply trying to use scare-tactics to stop her, which only angered her. Even more so, the fact that it was working.

The smack of her lips resonated through the air, the hum of disappointment that rang off them pierced the surgeon's ears. Tears welled up in her eyes and she bit her lip as she turned away from him hiding her face in her hands as tears began to fall. Her mascara was running down the underside of her eyes, she was starting to dry heave, and her body was shaking from head to toe.

"You don't want to do this," he whispered, leaning in closer to her, attempting to make eye contact again. The calm in his voice seemed to run down her spine, the flavor of his words, but it couldn't change the movement of the wind as it brushed through her hair and along her skin, reminding her of her reasoning.

"...But I do want to be free."

She could see in her peripherals the change in his face, almost shock—at least she knew he had emotions, he seemed to be simply a calm beast.

"If you die, there's no guarantee that what awaits you on the other side will be any better than what you have now. Or if there will be anything at all," he stated matter-of-factly, "In fact, most patients when they wake up from a near-death experience say that they felt or saw nothing. So if freedom is your goal… I'm not sure how far you'll get with it."

"You don't know where I've been!" she twisted her head around and snapped at him, eyes burning with the fury of fire, teeth clenching in a continuous growl as she panted, her finger tips digging into the stone. "You don't know how I've been living. I'm trapped. There's no way out."

"I'm asking you not to jump off of that ledge tonight," the young surgeon explained. "If you really want to be free, as you say, you'll give yourself another chance."

She turned her head back to the street, glaring down at the road with a hate that seemed to roar from the inside. The surgeon held out his hand to her and she fluttered her eyes over to them, smooth and clean, before looking back up into his calm eyes, they were a dark brown, at least at the edges, growing lighter toward the middle with hints of gold resonating in the irises. She was drawn in by the seemingly unmoved eyes, as if his calm had somehow transferred over to her. Her eyes drew over his face, it was slim, his lips barely parted as he breathed in and out, his complexion seemingly fair against his sheen, dark black hair that was tied back to keep it out of his face.

"Come on."

Reluctantly, she placed her hand in his and he immediately drew one arm around her waist to help her climb off of the edge of the building; she stumbled upon making contact with the ground, holding onto him for balance. The young woman removed her remaining platform so that she would at least be level when she walked, handling the alcohol would've been hard enough. He proceeded to put the jacket he had taken off earlier around her shoulders, rubbing her arms as if she were cold.

"We should still get you to a hospital," the surgeon inclined. "You should be kept in a facility, until you're feeling better at least."

"No."

"Pardon me?"

"No, no hospitals." She began to shake again in his fingertips. "No hospitals, he'll find me… If I go to a hospital, he'll…if he knows what I did…" her statements gradually turned into fragments, which turned more into belligerent cries, her eyes opened wide, staring at him with such an extreme desperation.

"Fine, no hospitals," he agreed, and the young woman breathed in a sigh of relief. "But you'll come with me, then." This statement resulted in a glare, which he didn't bother to acknowledge. "My housekeeper has a small lot to himself on my property. You can stay there. He won't mind. I can make sure you stay… Alive," he paused before the last word, as if it made him slightly uncomfortable.

"I don't need a baby-sitter," she muttered, grabbing the jacket and pulling it tighter around her body.

"Really? Because you were about to throw yourself off of a five story building. You either go to a hospital-," panic returned to the woman's eyes, "-or you come home with me and I help you out until you wake up tomorrow. Your choice."

The two stood there for a moment, the young woman still gnawing at her lip in the process of deciding, before she looked up to him and nodded her head in agreement. He had mentioned a daughter, and by accompanying him, she was certain she wasn't just putting herself in danger, but his family as well.

"I already told you you shouldn't get more invol-"

The man reached for his phone and began to dial, Kagura instantly knew what the man was doing and quickly pushed his phone down.

"Okay! Okay! I'll come with you, just for tonight," she frantically compromised. The strange man nodded in agreement before walking off without her, she started over at him, almost awe struck by his behavior. Barely casting a look over his shoulder.

"Are you going to come?"

"Of-… Of course!" she commented, baffled by the statement, and proceeded to follow after him, feeling almost awkward about the interaction.

"You never told me what your name was," he stated as he walked through the door.

"I'm Kagura," the young woman introduced herself, she looked up at the stranger, almost questioning the fact that he seemed to pause for a moment before continuing his path down the poorly lit stairwell, the lights flickering in a eerie manner, not that Kagura wasn't used to living spaces as such, but the surgeon did seem slightly uncomfortable. "And you are?"

"I am Sesshomaru. When we get to my house, you'll meet my housekeeper and my daughter, although she is probably asleep… But then again, my housekeeper has never been good at getting her to comply. They are Jaken and Rin respectively, although, I would appreciate it if you did not address my daughter."

Kagura was immediately insulted by the statement, her nose scrunched up into a scowl, and she immediately went to shout at the surgeon that it'd be better if he just let her leave, but he quickly turned around and stared her down with his calm gaze.

"It's not meant to be offensive. It's just that she gets distracted easily and I don't want her to get any ideas about you."

That might've been worse. What's –that- supposed to mean?

"Fine," she growled. "I promise not to talk to your daughter."

"Unless she talks to you first, then she'll think there's something wrong with her if you don't involve yourself in a conversation."

Is it possible for this guy to seem any more condescending? She heard the thought echo in her mind, but part of her also knew that he was the reason she was alive, which made it nearly impossible to hate him (not completely impossible, though).

Kagura stopped in the stairway, looking down as Sesshomaru opened the door to the back exit. He stared back up at her with questioning eyes.

"Why are you doing this?" she questioned, tension quickly rising in her body. She knew better than to get herself into situations where she had to pay off a debt or owe anything, but for whatever reason, this man was able to gain her trust, or at least, seem like someone that would be the least of her worries.

"I already told you, no one died on my watch today. I didn't want that tarnished. Let's go."