Summary: In all his attempts to change the past, Takemichi finds one of the hardest things to change in none other than Kagome- the girl who Mikey is undeniably head over heels for. She's all things warm and pure, yet her future is so dim. How could he change her fate when there's no cure for a sickness brought on by the jewel?

Pairing: Mikey/Kagome

Disclaimer: I do not own either series. Each belongs to their rightful owners.

Chapter One

Fate was often so very unfair. Someone would always end up with the short end of the stick, no matter how unfortunate it was. Fate also often refused to bend to the will of the living, so trying to go against the current often yielded limited results. She was used to it. Probably far more than the likes of the rest of the world around her.

Favoritism was a curse, and she was nothing if not favored by fate.

000

"Okay, Kagome, take a nice deep breath for me."

The white walls of the hospital room seemed all the more harsh with the bright glow of the overhead lights. She instinctively tried to pull away from the cool metal against her upper back, but she caught herself before she could shift fully away. Instead, she did as the doctor standing beside her requested.

She repeated the same process a few times as he occasionally moved the ring of the stethoscope. After a moment, he pulled it away and stepped back to write something down on the clipboard on the counter.

"Everything seems normal, but…" he started to say, only to trail off towards the end. There was a look of genuine confusion on his face. Others would probably be concerned if their doctor looked at them like that, but not her. After all, she had a vague enough understanding of the root of her problems.

"Your bloodwork still shows otherwise," he stated. "Your health has deteriorated in the last three months since your last visit," he continued, dark eyes scanning over the documents available to him. "Do you have any complaints? Any pain or discomfort that you feel might result from the decrease in your health?"

As much as she wanted to shake her head and pretend it was all normal, she knew she didn't have that luxury. Just as much as she knew the underlying cause for all her steady decline. "Just… I've started to get a really sharp pain in my chest whenever I overexert myself," she responded. Her hand moved automatically to the place the pain originated from, a nagging thought forming in the back of her mind.

She knew the cause behind her failing health, but she couldn't just make it common knowledge. Her fingers tightened in her shirt as he clicked his tongue, thinking quietly to himself.

"For now, we'll do another appointment two weeks from now, all right?" he suggested. For the most part, she nodded blankly, his voice drowning out under the buzzing of the lights overhead. "We'll re-run some tests and do some more bloodwork."

Deep down, to her, all this sounded like a huge waste of time. That's exactly what it was, but she couldn't just back out of it all, could she? All the dread someone else would surely feel just felt numb to her. There was no reason to try and go against it, so why should she even bother with all this?

"I'll speak with your mother to settle on a date for your next appointment," he stated, jotting something down on the page he was looking at. "Does that sound all right to you?"

The question pulled her from her thoughts, and she tilted her head in a faint nod.

"Oh, yeah…" she responded. "That's fine."

This all felt like a losing battle to her, yet, despite that thought, she found herself reminded of the reason why she even let herself bother with all this.

Even if she explained it all to her mother, she knew that she'd never be content with the grim reality. If this appeased her, even if it was only a tiny bit, then what more could she do, truly? She didn't want to take what little peace her mother had gathered.

With a sigh too soft to be heard, she pushed herself off of the table and gathered her things so she could leave.

She had lived a mostly ordinary life until the day she got pulled five hundred years into the past. That moment had sealed her fate. Everything went askew, and she was left with so very little control over her own life. Even now, the impact of it all never once faded.

At the end of her days fighting for her life against the horrors that were demons, the jewel returned to her body. That should have been the end of it, surely. She should have been able to come home and resume her painfully mundane and human existence. The boringness of it all would be more than welcome after all the chaos and panic. Yet… that wasn't the case at all.

Her body rejected the jewels' presence, yet the jewel refused to be expunged from her. The deterioration of her health was the result of the conflict. There was nothing she could do in her power to make it stop, and no medical attention would ever get close. There was no way to remove what no longer had a physical form. It was poisoning her, slowly yet surely. She grew weaker as the jewel took whatever it could from her, and before long it would be the cause of a rather untimely and presumably unpleasant demise.

It was unavoidable. In the end, it was her fate. It left such a bad taste in her mouth.

The door of her bedroom opened, successfully jarring her from her own thoughts. She sat up in bed, pressing her palms against the mattress under her. The person standing there didn't surprise her, and, honestly, she wasn't sure if she could even pretend to be anymore.

There were no words exchanged as he stepped in, pushing the door closed with one hand as he all but invited himself into her room.

Dark eyes settled on her face in the silence that followed, and a wry smile flickered across her face at his unreadable expression. His face might've been devoid of what he was thinking but his aura painted a very different picture.

Without breaking the silence, Kagome crossed her legs under her, resting her hands in her lap.

"You had another appointment today, didn't you?"

The question took her by surprise initially, but she refrained from letting her expression fracture any. After a moment or two, she nodded.

"Ah… yeah." Kagome sighed, her shoulders slumping some as she exhaled softly. "Did my mom tell you?"

If not her mother, then she had no idea who could've possibly mentioned it. Kagome knew for certain that she hadn't.

"Well?" Mikey's response did not confirm her prior question, but she didn't think he would in the first place. He could have such a one-track mind when he got in his head about something.

Kagome glanced away from him with a shrug. "Well, what?" she countered. "I'm getting worse. It's the same thing as always. They don't know what's wrong."

Maybe if she feigned ignorance towards it all, then maybe she'd be lucky enough to forget it all.

She didn't miss the sharp stab of dread that lingered in his aura following her response. For a moment, she felt guilty about the blunt way she'd gone about saying it. There was a more tactful way to do it, but she'd let her own emotions get the better of her in that moment.

The silence returned to linger in the air as he made his way over to where she sat in bed. She wasn't looking at him, and he tucked a finger under her chin to direct her attention up to his face. Blue eyes clashed against his dark ones as they remained like that for several long seconds.

A heavy feeling hung in the air, and it weighed on her shoulders like an invisible burden.

"They keep telling you the same things," Mikey stated. "You should find another doctor who-"

Kagome sighed and raised a hand to swat his away. "It's not that simple." She noted the shift of annoyance that peppered his aura.

"Hah? What do you mean?" Mikey countered. "What good are they doing if they can't even give you a reason for your problem?"

His blunt questions made her sigh a second time. "It doesn't matter who I see, it'll be the same," she remarked. "Some things can't be changed no matter what you do, Mikey."

She felt the shift in his aura at her response, and she couldn't help but feel guilty yet again. She knew he meant well enough, but…

She scooted back on her bed, resting her head on the wall beside it. A second later, she pulled him towards her by his wrist. At a little bit of insistence on her end, he followed. The mattress dipped some under his added weight as his head landed on her lap. Silently, she carded her fingers through his blonde hair. For a moment, the heavy weight bearing down on her shoulders faded. A comfortable warmth replaced it. The simple sweetness that came with the bliss of calm.

In a way, this was her way of deflecting the conversation at hand. A faint smile appeared on her face when he seemed to melt contentedly into her touch, his eyes soon closing as she continued the soothing gesture. It was simple, yet it was effective on him.

"Personally, I'd rather spend my time in the moment than wasting time searching for something that may never happen," she murmured, her eyes closing as she continued to comb her fingers through his hair. "If I'm supposed to meet an early grave, then I'd rather leave behind lasting memories instead of letting all my time be wasted trying to fight what's inevitable."

It wasn't worth it in the end. Living her life to the best she could was, however.

"We all die eventually, after all," she remarked with a sigh. "I want to spend my time making the most of it."

There was a pause following her lighthearted remarks about the grim possibility of her no longer being around. Before anything more could be said between the two of them, he took hold of her wrist and easily swapped their positions.

A grimace briefly passed over her face as she was shoved down against the bed, her wrists pinned down above her head with one of his own hands. His other tentatively rested on her cheek.

"Don't…-" Mikey started, only to stop himself from saying the rest. It was intended as a warning, yet it didn't resonate like one to her. The message was clear enough either way. A flickering hint of panicked desperation lingered in his aura.

The heaviness had returned far worse than before. His grip on her wrists tightened before he lightened it up again.

Deep down, she wanted to say something to offer a sort of comfort, but she couldn't. The words felt so foreign to her.

"Don't… say that." He clarified after a moment of silence. She knew exactly what he was referring to without him outwardly stating it himself. It wasn't the first time it'd gotten some sort of reaction out of him, after all.

The mere mention that one day she'd be nothing more than a memory seemed to strike a chord deep inside him somewhere- triggering something akin to his fight-or-flight instincts. Or maybe it was something else altogether, but it was enough to cause a faint tremble to form. Whether it was from anger at the implication of him being so helpless in this situation or desperation to find some way to change it was lost on her, however.

His panicked expression faded as a forced smile replaced it. She saw through it easily, but she did not comment. "After all, you can't die," he stated. It sounded as if he was telling himself more than her. "I won't let that happen any time soon."

She didn't have it in her to argue against that claim. Instead, a faint smile appeared on her face as she sighed. "Well, when you put it that way, I guess I have no other choice."

His smile brightened a bit when she relented to agreeing. His grip on her wrists loosened fully and she moved her arms. She tangled her hands in his hair and tugged him down so he was lying against her. There were no more words as he settled against her, his face resting in the crook of her neck as she once more resumed her habit of carding her fingers through his hair.

Ignoring the sting of tears building up, she closed her eyes and sighed softly.

Some things really never did change.

Auroua-chan: Wrapping this chapter up here. The song Dark Paradise by Lana Del Rey is honestly the mood for this story.

Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoyed. Hopefully I caught all the errors before posting, but if not sorry.

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Bye for now~