LXXV

Aegri Somnia

The dream keeps her at a distance from reality. Kagome knows it is a dream, because this has happened before, though never as intensely as the first time. Aware, but without her own body, her own senses, her own frame of reference, Kagome drifts behind Kikyou's point of view. White glare divides her perspective, one side in safety, one side in the shadow of death. Sparks fly away from her, give a shocking halo to the beast standing against them, red eyed and furious.

She draws back the bow string until the tension might snap the bow or cut her fingers, aiming for the hollow of his throat. Kagome cheers her on, silent and unknown though she might be, but the Inu rears back and instead the violet flare of Kikyou's arrow burns its way deep into his breast. It's enough to make him howl, but his movement is uninterrupted. Sesshomaru's head comes down, jaws open wide, the great fangs glinting green with poison. He ignores Kikyou like she's not worth a glance, all his attention on his brother. Inuyasha lunges to the side, a black and white streak with Tessaiga outstretched before him – and then the great jaws snap open and shut.

The scene does not dissolve, but Kagome is suddenly divorced from it, caught up in a wellspring of feelings not her own, the excoriating self-examination of Kikyou's soul. Love and agony. Rage and regret. Grief and hope and an endless nightmare…and an unfulfilled dream. The air lights with pure fire, and Kagome feels herself adding to it, awakening the gleaming shard that lives in Kikyou's breast. Kikyou's love is just as pure, just as uncomplicated, as Kagome's own feelings for Kouga. The expression of it, too, is the same - just as confused, as difficult to come to terms with. This road between human and yōkai is so hard to walk, and Kikyou doesn't deserve the fate that's been given to her. Sympathy wells in her, but though she wants to share it, wants to help, she isn't sure how.

Don't they share a soul? Doesn't that mean something, no matter how time has divided them?

The pressure between them echoes and rebounds, emotions building to some inescapable conclusion. Once, they were one. Now, they are two, but when they share power, when they share a purpose, even a daiyōkai might tremble. The instant before it happens, a thing Kagome can sense even if she doesn't know what it might be, some other power erupts between them. In an instant of clarity, Kagome recognizes that it comes from the sword, but also that it has nothing to do with Inuyasha. His face is blank and empty; like a ronin in a samurai movie, he's leaning on his sword, unconscious but still standing.

Waves of yellow lightning strike the great beast in the chest, blasting him out of the way with gaping, bloody wounds across his back, but Kagome can't help thinking that Inuyasha has still suffered the worst injuries. His arm, his eye… And from the way Kikyou runs to him, the other woman obviously feels the same. What a mess. What a horrible mess.

Something makes Kagome move restlessly in her sleep, and Kouga wakes beside her, knowing only that the natural movements and noises of the night have been disrupted. Kagome turns again, fingers clutched against his chest as if there's something there for her to hold on to, and he blinks at her drowsily, wondering what she dreams about when she's like this. There are unhappy wrinkles in her brow; her lips part and tighten, and the line of her back draws tight as if under a heavy weight.

When the tears start to flow, wetting his chest and their furs, Kouga lays a hand on Kagome's cheek, bending close to wake her gently. Her eyes fly open, and as soon as she sees him she gasps and starts upright, smacking their foreheads together. "Ow –"

"Ow! Oh… you've got such a hard head, In… Wha… Kouga? Kouga…" Kagome stares at him for a long moment, one hand rubbing the spot on her forehead where she knocked into him. He catches her fingers as she squints at him, moves them aside and touches the red spot gently.

"Did I hurt you?"

Kagome's snicker is interrupted by a yawn, but she waves him off. "I was going to ask you that. Sorry, I didn't mean to sit up like that, I was just… I was dreaming again. I was surprised when I woke up and saw you instead of Inuyasha."

"Inu…yasha?" The name takes a moment to hook onto other information, and then he scowls. "That hanyō mutt." Kouga can't stop his eyes from narrowing, his lips from thinning. "Is it because of Kikyou again? Are you seeing things she's seeing?" Her hesitation goes on long enough that he knows she's going to give him an answer he doesn't want. "I don't like this, Kagome."

"It's not my fault, you know. I can't stop it, I don't even know why it's happening."

"I know you can't help it, but that makes it worse. For now it's just while you're sleeping, only sometimes… what if that changes? What if you start to lose yourself?" Frustrated, Kouga sits up, roughs up his hair with both hands, scratching at his scalp. When he turns to her, he sees hints of fear and some of his own frustration reflected back at him, and sighs. "I don't want to scare you, but there's too much going on and I don't like thinking I might not be able to protect you. From any of it."

Her arms make a loop of warmth around Kouga's body, and she nestles against his chest, making an encouraging noise when he returns the embrace. "You shouldn't worry so much, you know? I can take care of myself much better now than when you found me. I have my bow, and my power, and the more I meditate with Miroku the better I can use it. I can run as fast as you can, now, and talking with Ginta and Hakkaku caught me up on current events. Shiori even promised to spar with me when the snow melts and show me how to fight. "

Kouga can't help smirking, just a little. "All that, huh? My woman will be a little Alpha soon enough, then. But what if I said it doesn't matter? I'm still jealous."

"Jealous –"

Gently, but with sharp teeth, he worries the curve of her ear. "He doesn't deserve to be spending the night with you, not even in your dreams. I'm offended, really offended." But he can't keep the grin out of his eyes no matter how he tries to frown, and Kagome pokes at his ribs, fully aware of it.

"Offended, you? The great wolf Alpha?" She snickers, and then goes quiet, brow knit with guilt. "It's not funny, though. I shouldn't laugh. He was badly hurt, Kikyou's really worried about him. That's probably why…"

With one hand, Kouga strokes her hair, and with the other holds her closer, giving her the comfort she desires. "How much detail did you see? When you say badly hurt…"

"He's lost an arm, and I think an eye. I don't know how he's still alive, it doesn't seem like anyone could survive a fight like that. And even though I know it was Inuyasha, he didn't look like he did when we met him. He had black hair, like…like mine, or any other human." She looks up at him, her eyes glistening with dark emotions. "And Inuyasha has a brother, Sesshomaru. He's yōkai, not hanyō, and he - he turned into a giant beast and bit off Inuyasha's arm."

She shudders, a violent convulsion of her whole body that draws her closer to him. Her skin is too cold, her breath too fast, and though Kouga likes it when she clings to him, this is not the way he wants her to do so. Has he made a mistake asking her to remember what she saw? "You don't have to tell me if it's hurting you, that's not what I -"

"I have to tell someone. I don't know what to do, I don't know if Kikyou is sending me all this on purpose, or if it's just something about who she is…was… Who we used to be." She winces as she looks up at him. "It sounds weird, right?"

Kouga shrugs. Weird is a meaningless word in circumstances like these, but there's no way for him to brush her concern aside. "Do you…really remember her whole life?" He's curious, but more than that, he wants to know how to help her. In many ways, Kagome is exceptional, but to have the whole life of another woman several years her senior weighing down her mind might be too much for anyone.

"Not really. Not – not all the time. Maybe if I focused on it, like when I meditate and focus on my power? But I don't want to. It was hard enough to keep myself myself when we first met her, and I don't want to deal with that again, so I stay away from remembering." She flushes, and suddenly won't meet his gaze. "Besides, isn't it wrong? Wouldn't it be a breach of privacy? Some of it is so personal, all her thoughts and feelings, things people don't share… And I got it all in a second!"

"It wasn't just a second, Kagome. I wish it had been, I was so afraid that –" But he stops himself. Since when does he indulge in maudlin thoughts? She's fine. Fine. Has been for weeks, since the moment she woke up after that first unexpected meeting. But he holds her a little tighter, reminded of things he would rather forget. Exceptional, my woman, but maybe in too many ways. If he's honest with himself, it's not just the hanyō he doesn't like. This connection, inexplicable as it seems, between his woman and the unwoman, both out of them out of time in their own way…

Kagome squeezes his arm with gentle fingers. "I did say I wouldn't leave you. Don't forget our courtship promise, Kouga. I didn't make it lightly, you know?"

The words are warm, for all that they're quiet, but they can only soothe him halfway. "I don't. But I haven't forgotten either that we don't know how or why you came to be here in the first place."

"I was just trying to get my cat out of the well house, and then that centipede thing… Well, I guess I purified it, but I told you all that before. I'm sorry there isn't anything else, but I guess… I don't know. I can't be glad, but I can't be unhappy about it, either. I miss my family, but I care about you and…" Her lip trembles, before she hides her face against his chest, in the shadow of her hair. "It's really hard, Kouga. I've been trying not to think about it, but even when I do, I just…. what am I supposed to do? Jump back in the well and hope I don't die when I hit the bottom? Try jumping in all the wells of Nihon, hoping there's one that goes to the future, like the one that brought me to the past?"

Kouga's shaking his head before she even finishes speaking. "No. You can't do that, it's too dangerous, and…" He hesitates, then shrugs. "I'm too selfish, Kagome. I wouldn't let you do that to yourself." Selfish. I'll keep you away from that well, and that unwoman, and the hanyō too. As far as I can, for as long as I can, in case there's some power near it I didn't see when I found you. In case whatever brought you snatches you away. He holds her tighter, tighter, until she lets out a little gasp of air and he must loosen his grasp. "Woman, my woman, I told you. I won't let you go unless you tell me you don't want me. Even then, I'd do everything I could to stay at your side, however you'd let me. But sweet as you are, I can't let myself get drunk on you and forget everything else I'm responsible for. To lose you might break me, and that's a terrible thing when you have as many others relying on you as I do."

He can feel her resolve in the line of her spine and the strength of her fingers on his arms. "They can rely on me, too. Isn't that the point of everything I've been learning?" Faintly, she shrugs. "Anyway , if it's up to me I won't go home unless I know I can come back. It's been so long… Not just weeks, months. Spring is just around the corner, and it was my birthday and school just starting for the year when I left. I miss my mother, and my idiot brother, and grandad's ridiculous stories. And I'd love to tell them where I am, that I'm safe and happy and they don't have to worry."

A little at a time she wiggles out of Kouga's grasp, and he lets her go reluctantly. "I suppose they've given me up for dead by now." Her voice shakes in a way that tells him part of the reason she's standing is to keep her expression hidden.

He will have none of that. "I was trying to cheer you up but look what I've done instead. I'm an idiot, ignore everything I said this morning, Kagome."

"It's not your fault, don't be silly!"

Shaking his head, Kouga waves her words away. "No, it was me. I've got a problem with keeping my mouth shut, I know it, you know it-"

"Do Ginta and Hakkaku know it?"

Kouga grabs her from behind, and she yelps, but lets him pull her back onto the furs so that he can answer closer to her ear. "Better than anyone else. Terrible woman." Her giggles relax him, and he lets her go again after a long moment, when it feels like she has relaxed, too. "Now, tell me why it's barely dawn and you're so eager to get out of bed?"

"Kouga..."

He is pleased with the breathlessness of her response, the instant flush of warmth across the tops of her shoulders and the back of her neck. "Kagome."

"Be good! Now that I'm up, I might as well get up." She wiggles out of his arms, then turns to nuzzle the side of his neck. "Besides, we've got things to do, you know that. It was your idea to leave today, and Shippou's been tense ever since we decided. Anyway, you know it'll be harder for him to find landmarks once the snow melts."

That is…not as pleasing, though she's right. They've spent the last several days planning the specifics of where they're going and what should be done first. More than that, Kouga made the kit a promise, and he intends to keep it. Waiting around for dangers to accumulate in the north, where this Naraku is, and then throw themselves in their direction isn't to his taste. The Thunder Brothers, on the other hand, have control of something that shouldn't be in their hands. Something that belongs to his woman. Vengeance, too, is a worthy goal, especially for something as cruel as stripping the pelt from Shippou's father.

Yes, after so much effort spent making plans, it would be wasteful to discard it in pursuit of mere pleasure.

Kouga keeps back his sigh, swings his feet over to the floor and joins Kagome in getting dressed. The temptation is there still, but that's mostly because she is there, bending and stretching in enticing ways. For now, he feasts his eyes on her, thinking about the things he will do to her later. When they've won their battle, and Shippou has his vengeance…when they are home again, before they make further plans, he will do all the things he can't do now. He isn't worried in the least about the upcoming battle; neither, it seems, is Kagome. Since she found out what it was that had driven Shippou across the winter mountains to find them, a flinty light has gleamed in her eyes.

It's enticing, like everything else about her, and he thinks he'll be sorry to see it go.

A/N: And so we're back in the thick of things! This chapter's title, Aegri Somnia, means Troubled Dreams. Slowly, events conspire to drag Kagome back to the general vicinity of the well (sorry Kouga), but first there's revenge for Shippou to collect, and a few more jewel shards. Next time: Choices have been made, but can Kagome live up to their promise? And of course, Naraku isn't just sitting around waiting for them to come to him…