Chapter 19: Good Intentions
& Bad memories.

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Kagome paced around the room, from the wet bar to the end of the living room and back again... it was nine thirty at night, of the next day, and Inuyasha had yet to come out of his room.

Repeatedly her eyes drifted to his side of the building, clouding over as she remembered the state in which she left him in. But his temper was so unpredictable that there was no telling what kind of mood he'd be if she went to check in on him.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Kagome thought about the slashes all along his back, the infected 'X' across his chest. But when she thought back to the slash; the one that started at the top of his head and ran down almost to his left eye.

How it had looked like it was singed so bad, the cut refusing to close, that had pushed her to a decision.

Kagome didn't want to admit she nearly ran to his room, didn't want to admit that when his annoyed voice didn't ring out as she entered, Kagome began to panic.

She just took the spiral stairs two at a time, leaving the reason as to why she felt fear gnaw at her insides to go unanswered.

The sight he made relaxed her, ending her stream of 'what ifs' the moment she spotted his restful sleeping face. With a relieved sigh, Kagome inched her way to his side, staring at his tussled brown hair and boyish features.

His eyebrows were thick and oddly enough black, a contrast between silver and brown. She pictured him how she first saw him, on her bed, his long silver mane creating a veil around his sleeping form. One fang had poked out from his upper lip, making his relaxed features a tad feral.

Kagome had taken the time to study his hands, they had been rough and callused, with the deadliest talons she had ever come across. But her undoing had come at those sets of ears, his deadly edge vanishing as Kagome had sat and played with his furry appendages.

It brought a smile to her face, picturing them now, she could just see them twitching and turning as they stayed aware; even through his unconsciousness.

The image was ruined when her blue eyes landed on the bandage over his eye, it took her a minute to realize it was giving off a green haze. Gasping softly, Kagome scrambled up on the bed, hovering above the sleeping man with shaking hands.

It was awkward work, how he could hear her from the other side of his house, but not now, she didn't know. She sat not inches from him, slowly taking the surgical tape off, peeling each layer of wrap off, all while battling her thundering heart.

Kagome held her breath when the last layer stuck but released it with a gush as she exposed the wound.

It had stopped bleeding, although the flesh around it was still a bit crisp, but that wasn't what caused the air to wheeze out of her lungs. The ominous bright green haze seeped out of his open wound, as if someone had lit a small fire inside of him.

She sat there for a long moment, in his large balcony-style room, the only noise was his soft breathing verses her labored one.

Kagome felt a familiar tingling sensation beginning to form, her hands were doing the thing again. And she knew, just knew, that if she reached over-

Her hand rose on its own, slim fingers stretching out towards the haze. In turn, the green smoke began curling away from her incoming touch, reacting to her just as she was reacting to it. Kagome felt the familiar warm wash that spread from her center to the tip of her fingers, the heat from his wound felt like the warning sensation before touching an open fire.

Not comfortable but not painful either, warming her body from the inside out.

She could do it, just like the first night, Kagome could close the remaining gap and-

The yelp was squeezed out of her, his fingers coiled around her wrist before she suddenly found herself on her back, head whirling at the speed at which he flipped them.

Just like the first day when he awoke, Kagome found herself staring at his snarling face, except now it was brown eyes instead of gold that glared down her form.

"How could you!" Inuyasha snapped furiously, his hard eyes were glazed as if he wasn't fully awake yet. She wanted to stay still and quiet, but her breath had yet to return, and his weight on her did not make it easier.

"Wha?... I didn't- Ugh, Inuyasha you're heavy!" Kagome cried pathetically, tugging weakly at the wrist he pinned down on the bed.

He snarled down at her, forcing a whimper from her lips; then he blinked, his ears registering her sound of distress.

Slowly he softened before her eyes, the hand around her wrist was no longer cutting off blood flow, and the furrow of his brow relaxing. He was slowly easing off her, no explanation forthcoming.

"What-" he panted, hand coming up to lace through his hair in distress "-What just happened?"

Kagome shot up out of bed, her other hand was massaging the wrist he had held. He could see the bruise wanting to form in the shape of his fingers and was confused by the self-abhorrence he felt staring at it.

"I don't know; you tell me!" She snapped and, in a very uncharacteristic way, he flinched in response.

Inuyasha struggled to bring the boiling inside him down, she couldn't see it, but he could feel it; and if she were facing his true self, it wouldn't have been gold that greeted her.

She watched him as he panted, clutching his fist into tight balls that left his knuckles white. Kagome eased herself on the bed next to him, he was on edge and now so was she, so she waited till his breathing regained rhythm, it surprised her when he answered her question instead of blowing her off.

"Just a nightmare... can't remember... Sorry 'bout that"

Kagome bit her lip, the worry eating away at her insides again. Why did he have to go and give her that lost look? Scooting closer, it was impossible to deny the need to make it better.

"Hey, it's okay. Keeps me on my toes, who knows, maybe I'll flip you over one of these days."

It worked. With a soft chuckle, the look faded, and in its place his signature cocky smirk took over.

"Good luck with that, human"

They shared a soft laugh together; he was calmer now and she was hard pressed not to bombard him with questions. It was especially hard when she reached up, trying to remove the last hanging bandage from around his head, when he flinched away from her.

"I was just-"

"Leave it." Inuyasha cut her in, the remains of his nightmare making him jumpy and paranoid, seeing that questioning stare developing on her face; Inuyasha jumped off his bed, ignoring the worry in her eyes.

"I'm going to jump in the shower, so don't go bothering me."

Inuyasha needed to shake off the dream, escape the feeling of nausea that followed his usual blurry-monochrome nightmares.

He walked towards the edge of the balcony; the railing was metal and wire fencing so that he felt he was reined in. Jumping over it was easy, landing on his foot on the bottom floor was easier. He slid the door to his restroom open, his hands busying themselves with his leather belt.

"Oh, and Kagome." He shouted at her over his shoulder, able to hear her soft yelped 'Yes'

"I want you out of my room by the time I'm done!"

He grinned at the sound of her stomping footsteps, he could picture her pouting face, the human girl was so quick to bouts of anger. It was the most infuriating aspect about her, but also highly amusing at times.

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It took time to lower himself down onto the tub, the heat pierced his cut flesh like a branding iron, still the demon did nothing but snarl softly at the pain. He didn't scrub, unsure if that would be what pushed the aches from mildly barrable, to intolerable.

He did, however, pass a washcloth over them, begrudged; Inuyasha could see that the sprays and lotions the girl insisted on did help. Still, he couldn't fathom why she'd care in the first place, it's not like she liked him or cared for him, most interactions with the human girl were often them butting heads.

Yet once more she had rushed to help without so much as a second thought.

They clearly didn't get along, not that Inuyasha got along with people easily, the two were constantly at each other's throat. It was a shock to him that after all the fits of anger and less than civilized vocabulary, that she would still go through all the trouble for him.

Even on that first night. She admitted to saving him on purpose, somehow, she had felt Naraku's aura and followed it. Not that Inuyasha could complain, he was alive because of her, and in turn she was alive because of him.

For some unfathomable reason, the girl had sensed evil and gone searching anyway, she had seen the demon and still chose to save him. It made no sense and Inuyasha found, no matter which way he looked at it, he couldn't make heads or tails of her.

In thirty minutes, the half demon was out, dressed in a simple gray shirt and a pair of overpriced faded jeans. He didn't bother drying his long mane, simply throwing his concealment spell on, not caring that his hair was leaving a dripping trail on the wooden floors.

Finding her had been easy, if the girl could do quiet, he had yet to see it.

As it were, she was making a racket in the kitchen, pulling pots and pans noisily. She was dressed for bed, wearing another pair of short black shorts, matched with a long-sleeved blue shirt, ironically with a white cat and the words 'Meow' written in English.

It still seemed comical for him to see her in his kitchen, she hadn't stepped foot in his kitchen since the day they fought.

The girl had stubbornly kept to herself, even when he had left her alone, his hope was that without him there she'd loosen up.

Of course, she would be annoying enough to prove him wrong in this too.

In the days she spent, alone in his impressive home, she'd done it curled up on the couch. Or moping by the window, and if not that, she'd sleep the day away. It was not uncommon for humans to go through a depressive episode when forcefully uprooted as she had, and for a while there, he'd feared she wasn't going to snap out of it.

But the girl was stronger than he'd taken her for, she had done it after all, proved him wrong again and again. With all their armed security, and top of the line monitoring system, plus the barriers in place and trained demons; given an opportunity, she still had escaped the tower without so much as an eye batting.

"Hey" her soft voice drew him to her, or more directly, the food she had laid out on the counter.

"What are you doing?!"

Kagome smirked, getting used to his gruff manner, besides she was far too busy dicing a set of scallops into small cubes to pay attention to his attitude.

"What's it look like, Genius?"

His soft growl had her biting her lip, she wanted to laugh at his expense, that much even he could see. But instead, Kagome turned to him, shoving a purple thing into his arms. "What the hell?!"

"Calm down, just go wash that for me will you."

The growl rose, it sounded an octave deeper, but it wasn't the same tone he used when he was really pissed off. Peering at him from over her shoulders, she saw the look of confusion cross his face as he stared at the item in his hands, realizing what this growl meant she went on.

"It's napa cabbage, just head over to the sink and rinse it, make sure to spray it all around."

His response was a rough, "I know how rinsing works!" but to her delight the growl had stopped, in its place took over his ridiculous rambles.

"Anyone can rinse a damn vegetable... this is a vegetable, right?"

Once again, he scoffed, bringing the dripping vegetable over to her, she peeked at it before shaking her head.

"Nope. Go shake it off, it's too wet"

His soft growl returned, this one she realized was just a grumpy sound, his way of showing his annoyance. Just as effective as his continued grumbles, "Too dry, too wet, damn woman making me do spins in my own damn kitchen..."

This time when he came back, she accepted the veggie, making quick work with the knife and carrying on a conversation as if it were next to nothing.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Well, I figured you'd want to eat something after being asleep for more than twelve hours. Hand me those mushrooms, will ya."

If he wasn't interested in what she had up her sleeves, Inuyasha would never have gone to retrieve the mushrooms for her, he told himself this over and over till it stuck.

"Why even bother- Here." He handed them over and she got to chopping, "-If you already know how to call the staff in, why not just have food made if you're so hungry?"

Kagome rolled her eyes, "Yeah, No. That's super creepy by the way, I don't even know where they come from, the food just shows up out of thin air. Bad enough I had to ask out loud for these ingredients, next thing I know, in the fridge like freaking magic."

"Idiot" Inuyasha leaned across the counter, eyes on her quick work, "Magic doesn't work that way, the work is done by demons whose specific purpose is to be undetected."

"Whatever it is, it's still creepy. I'll be making my own food from now on, thank you very much."

He rolled his eyes her way, but had to turn to hide his involuntary smirk, secretly pleased with her decision.

"In that case I might drop by for lunch here and there, if you're planning on cooking anyways, might as well make sure you don't burn the damn kitchen down."

Kagome scoffed at him in feign annoyance, hiding the giddy way in which her smile bloomed by tilting her head down, allowing her curtain of hair to fall over her shoulder to shield her shy response.

"Suit yourself, we'll see if I remember to make enough..." She took a pause, her next words coming out softer than she had meant them to, "I thought I wasn't up there on the priority scale."

The girl had tucked her face away, thinking for a second that would keep him out, if the tinge of embarrassment he could scent wasn't enough, Inuyasha could practically hear the pout in her voice.

"You're not... but a man needs to eat."

She whipped her head around, her edge softening at his teasing smirk, she rolled her eyes and pushed him gently with her hip. "Baka!"

Inuyasha allowed himself to chuckle at her expense, the girl was easy to tease and the longer he stared at her busy hands, the stronger he felt the itch to keep bothering her.

"You done with that yet or you just trying to starve me to death?"

Her last chops were done with a bit more force than was necessary, it took a great deal of effort not to laugh at her upturn nose and agitated huffs.

"Well, if you're in such a rush, here-" Bending down, she grabbed a medium pot and handed that to him as well. "Get some water in that, just about-" her finger pointed to an invisible line, "-there."

Inuyasha took this from her too, and while his mind was occupied in their conversation, went on to do as he was told without a second thought.

"You gonna explain how this" he indicated to his current task with his head, "Is better than being served banquets of food at a moment's notice?"

"It is when it's creepy, besides-" She walked over to him casually, turning the hot water he was using to cold, before going back to her cutting board. "You can't honestly tell me you like half the things that get served, I have no idea what I'm putting in my mouth most of the time."

"How is it creepy?"

"Think about it, they see you but you don't see them." Kagome shuddered at the thought, her chopping interrupted as he came back with the pot for inspection, "That's good, just put it on the stove please, medium heat"

"Feh, and who says I can't see them? It must be, you're so weak, that you can only see the dead and slow"

If she could, Kagome would've growled at him with the same level of volume that he could, some frustration could really only be best expressed through that gravely feral sound.

"You think you're so funny." Kagome chided, abandoning her chopping less she stabbed a certain arrogant demon.

Instead, she came over to the stove, asking him to hand her this and the other. Soon the water was bubbling, and he watched with mild interest as she added her chopped ingredients. His nose helped as he listed off the ingredients in his head, she had chopped up carrots and orange slices, those went in and mixed with the rest of the chopped vegetables.

Once more he found himself hovering above her, and once more Kagome went on, as if his presence there was not at all unwelcome.

"What you doing now?" Inuyasha asked, the scents in this one pot stirred a long-banked memory, leaving him with only bits and pieces of what once was.

"Just adding some ginger-"

An image of flicking firewood emerged as he inhaled the fresh ginger, he was but a boy then, so the flames had looked large and alive as they danced in the night.

"-don't leave it there for long, cause of how strong the taste is. Okay now some scallions-"

The pot she stirred smelled of onions, maybe the ones they had picked earlier in the afternoon, his hands were still muddy.

"-lemon juice is my trick, with a little cilantro, oh it just-"

He reached up with both his hands, palms up, showing his dirty little hands to the woman who smiled kindly.

She leaned down; her long black curtain of hair falling gracefully around her, the top of her face was masked by a ray of light he couldn't quite place the source of. But her lips, those red painted lips parted, so that the woman now was beaming down at him.

"My sweet boy... Are you hungry, Inuyasha?"

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The air wheezed out of him, hand going out to catch himself on the counter, he was back once more in his kitchen.

"Inuyasha? Are you?"

Inuyasha strained to see her in front of him "...what?"

The human turned fully towards him now, face etching into concern, once more misdirected at him.

"I asked if you were hungry?"

Inuyasha could almost hear her voice ringing in his ears, an echo of memories he long thought dead.

"You okay? You look a little pale..."

He turned away from her and Kagome was forced to just stand there, watching as he slowly stopped shaking, the air around him was a stunning cold front. She wanted to run over to him, just check that it wasn't one of his wounds, but something stopped her.

When he turned back around, it was the sophisticated and restrained master of his own universe that greeted her. Feebly she tried to bring him back, clumsily grabbing his bowl and bringing his attention down to it.

"Hungry?" Kagome repeated, her breathing paused as she watched him study the object in her hands. Pushing a little further, she went on. "It's one of my favorites, super yummy"

She was aware that she was holding her breath, but when his distant eyes had focused on her, on the food, and what she was offering...

It was a slow process, and Kagome held still until he was finished. When he walked up to her, taking the bowl and fixing her with a lopsided smile, Kagome could breathe once more.

They sat on the counter, each focused on their meal and inner turmoil, they finished their meal with not much said between the two. He was turning to leave, escaping into his void to tune her out, and in a desperate attempt to keep him here- with her, Kagome shouted.

"And just where do you think you're going?!"

He turned to her, an arched brow his only reply.

"You didn't really think I'd wash all these dishes by myself, now did you?"

Inuyasha faced her fully, she had that arms-crossed-hip-out pose, the one that often meant a very loud argument.

"Kagome" his voice was both annoyed and slightly amused, "I don't do dishes; I pay people to do dishes for me, leave them there."

"I will not!" Kagome crossed the space between them, tugging on his shirt to get him to move. "Come on Inuyasha, we cooked, we should be the ones that clean. You don't want your staff going on a strike cause of your snobbish ways, now do you?"

His soft growl returned, and although he clearly didn't want to, Inuyasha allowed the girl to move him closer to the sink. She had already stacked all their dirty dishes on the far-left side and was fishing out two pairs of gloves for them.

"Feh, my staff would not go 'on strike' as you say. The pay is extremely well."

Switching tactics, she handed him the gloves as she filled the far-right sink with warm water.

"Did you like the food?"

His raising growl showed that he was not all that unaware of what she was doing, but surprisingly, Inuyasha went on to put the gloves on.

"Yeah, it was good. Why'd you put the lemon juice in the Udon?"

Kagome grinned from ear to ear, starting to scrub the plates, then handing it to him for rinsing.

"You can do it without, but when Sota and I first made the batch, we left the ginger in there for too long. We tried everything to get the taste back to something normal. Then my brilliant little brother pours half a bottle of lemon juice in it.

Well, it's only fair to say that it was the most horrible thing I ever tasted, Sota couldn't even finish a bowl, the wimp!" Her laugh flowed as the memory replayed in her mind, a sound that eased his anxiousness, if only slightly.

"But next time around, we made it right, and just added that small amount of lemon since then. I guess the recipe just wouldn't feel complete without it."

She expected a snide remark, maybe have him tease her for something, but he just smiled at her. A smile she didn't understand, one that had that urge to go to him pulse through her.

But once more she stayed, watching him as he finished his job in silence. No grumbling, or cursing, not even a single pout. Sooner than what she would've have liked, he was done, and without another word, he walked slowly towards his side of the large home.

Kagome wanted to say something, but what could she say given the fact that she was still very much confused as to what had happened. One moment she was showing him how to add the simple ingredients to freshen the soup, and then the tofu without overcooking either. The next thing she knew, he had looked so lost.

Gone in that place where Kagome couldn't reach him. How could she help, when she was just a clueless girl, with no knowledge of what demons chased after him. As his pace continued, and he got closer to his destination, Kagome suddenly shouted out.

"Okay, see you in the morning. I'll make breakfast, if you do the dishes!"

He paused, she could see the tension in his shoulders, and just as Kagome was starting to think she should've just kept quiet. His stance changed, his being relaxing before her eyes. All he did was throw a wave over his shoulder, before locking himself away, but it eased her jumbled mind.

Absently, Kagome walked over to the large window-wall, staring into the cloudy dark skies. The house was always set to a perfect temperature, but staring into the windy morning, Kagome wrapped her arms around herself even if the outside could not touch her here, she still felt that unnatural chill.

Inuyasha pressed his forehead against his window, the email on his desk left open, daunting as it glared his words back at him in his darkening room.

His mind grasping at the fading images from only moments ago, the gentle smile, the feel of her many kimonos as her hands wrapped around his small body.

The shudder that racked his body had the demon pushing away from the window, circling his desk like a caged animal. It had to be the human girl, he knew she was responsible, even if he didn't know how.

Everything inside of him urged him to push her out, shut this down before she had a chance to probe deeper, stir demons he long thought dead.

Sitting down on his office chair, Inyasha scanned the words once more; his hand coming up to rake down his long hair, the battle inside his head starting all over again.

He needed her gone, but he did not want her to go.

Everything about her was both drawing him in and pushing out parts of him he'd rather stay hidden.

His growl echoed off the space in front of him, the same agitation growing that had him pacing all over again. It didn't matter why now, through all this time, he chose to remember her face.

The girl would be dealt with and he'd be free from the ghosts of his past.

The argument began all over again, doing nothing but give him a migraine, till with one final glance. Inuyasha steeled himself, pressing send before shutting the computer off, he walked away before it had fully shut off.

Leaving the small ray of light from the monitor and the words there casting a faint shadow on the wall.

Let's strike a Deal, the girl for the weapon.