okay sorry it took so long. temporary block. 5 reveiws please! Thanks for reading hope you guys like this chapter!

-Readinlots


Chapter 3: Lavender Feilds

Tear after tear continued to fall down her cheeks as Kagome's friend gently guided her out of the pool area. She was numbly aware of the people staring at them as they exited, and who could blame them!? She hadn't exactly been acting in a low-key manner. But Kagome had been shaken to the core with what could have happened. "Shippo…Shippo could have died!" she sobbed into Rin's shoulder as the normally giddy girl comforted her while trying to weave them threw the parking lot to the car they had taken.

They soon arrived at the car, (once Kagome had invited them, she had taken Shippo to her house to change and drove to pick everyone else up). It was a hideous thing, that was once a beautiful red sports car and was now splattered green, pink, orange, and blue. The girls all had decided to paint it as the beginning of summer but couldn't agree on a color. In the end they had agreed each of the four sides would be covered by a different person…which worked out, until Ayame slipped in the heels she had been wearing, and drenching Sango in dark green paint. Sango in turn had attacked Ayame. And when Kagome and Rin tried to protect the car they had been pushed into it instead which, of course, landed them right against the wet paint on the car already. One thing led to another, and the whole ordeal had inevitably turned into a huge paint war.

The car was absolutely hideous but the girls all treasured it. Kagome had never been able to bring herself to by a new one. It was proof of all the many different reasons they were friends and symbolized how diverse they're relationship had grown over the years.

Rin slowly moved Kagome so she was leaning less on her and more on the car, then Ayame and Sango rushed to comfort her as well. "Kagome? Are you okay? Shippo is fine, see look at him!" Rin tried to calm her down and it was visibly working. Slowly Kagome stopped sobbing and was whispering over and over, "he…he could have…di…di…" Sango, Rin, and Ayame all knew why she was so upset.

'Her parents…I knew it was more than she was letting on…' Sango thought, "Kag… this is different Shippo's okay! Not even a scratch, look!" Shippo grabbed her hand and stared straight into her eyes. 'Oh my god…he looks like he blames himself! I really need to get a hold of my emotions so everyone will stop worrying about me…' Kagome bent down and gave Shippo a tight hug then pulled away and wiped at her face.

She offered a small smile and the girls all returned it in relief that she could smile this quickly after an experience like that. They all loved Shippo and all, but Kagome treated him like her brother or even her child. Those two had been together since Shippo first arrived! Suddenly Ayame burst out laughing.

"Kags… that was a beautiful show you put on back there."

Now Sango Rin and Shippo joined in and Kagome was left with no choice but to laugh as well. It was contagious!

"I agree! Everyone other than us was shocked that you managed to knock that guy to the floor!" commented Rin.

"Totally, he complete deserved it though! Who jumps into the water without looking first!? I mean, it's not like you can miss our little Shippo's bright red carrot top without being blind! If Kagome hadn't railed into him, I would have." Sango ranted.

"Oh, and he most certainly wasn't blind. Did you see that jerk eyeing her when she first went over there? He was totally interested in you girl!"

"Yea, right. Maybe before I punched him! Besides, who in their right minds would want to date an arrogant egotistic bastard like that any ways?" Kagome retorted with her nose in the air.

This sent them all into another fit of laughter that carried on for a while, taking away the last of the traces of sadness in Kagome for the moment. She was so lucky. Her friends always knew how to make her feel better even when it's something as serious as death that's plaguing her mind.

"Oh my god! I feel so bad! I completely forgot about hitting that innocent life guard! Ohhh and he hadn't even done anything to make me mad…now I just feel terrible! I should go apologize…" Kagome remembered with shock. She really did regret hitting him. He had never done anything to bring on her wrath.

"Don't worry about it Kag, the only thing hurting him is that ego of his. Doesn't he know how to mind his own business?" Ayame scoffed.

"Yea Kagome, really you shouldn't worry about others so much. He'll get over it. At least he was able to hold his ground…now that I think about it…that's pretty impressive! He must take martial arts to be able to stand up to Kagome like that! Awesome! Maybe you've finally met your match with him!" teased Rin.

Kagome and Sango had been taking Martial arts together since 5th grade, this year they were finally able to enter the adult tournaments and were extremely excited! They had been the state's undisputed champs 3 years in a row and held the title proudly! Both Ayame and Rin were more creative people and had each won many art contests all over the country.

"Like he would stand a chance against either one of us in an official match let alone a free play one!" said Sango as she opened the car door and started to get in.

"Well no point in us loitering around the parking lot, we should head home if we can't swim." She pointed out.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Kagome was cut off by everyone telling her it wasn't her fault.

"We probably would have had to leave soon anyways. Some of the girls were getting really mad about us taking their guy's eyes off of them. As if we can stop them! Men can be such pigs!" Ayame complained.

"Any ways you were just worried about me Kagome. Thank you for helping me get out and for hitting that mean man. It made me feel a lot better to see him fall to the ground." Shippo spoke up with his crooked grin. This once again started everyone laughing as they piled into the car. And Kagome pulled out her keys.

As soon as the car started Ayame started screaming for music, soon accompanied by Rin, Shippo, and Sango. Laughing at their yelling Kagome put in one of her home-made CD's and immediately after, the song 'Let's Get it Started in Here' started playing. Sango turned the music up so you could feel the seats rumbling and they started singing along and dancing the best they could in their seats. (Excluding Kagome of course, as she was driving. Although she was singing along with the song too.) She dropped everyone off one by one, ending with Shippo at the orphanage. Finally alone with her thoughts, she turned the music down and began to drive one of the routes she knew by heart.

About 20 minutes later she finally arrived. She pulled off of the single lane road into the grass and got out, turning off the music then the car as she did so. For a second it was quiet then the sounds of nature started to become more noticeable. Finding herself becoming more peaceful than she had felt for a long time, she relaxed and walked to the crest of a steep hill. A wistful smile crossed her face as she looked around at all there was to see.

Directly in front of her was a field of the most stunningly purple Lavender flowers anyone had ever seen. To her left was a huge oak tree and several other types of trees were scattered throughout the little seclusion. A deep lake filled the majority of the area reflecting the sky and the flowers of the field. It was simple the most stunning landscape anyone could imagine.

But if you looked at it with a more cynical mind you could see it was also pretty dangerous because a bit further to her right was a much steeper area that a car could easily fall down completed with dense tree's in that area, rolling and killing whoever was inside. While eventually dropping them into the lake, drowning them if the hadn't died in the fall.

A wave of sadness fleetingly passed through Kagome at the sudden remembrance of her own parents deaths that this place always brought to the front of her mind. She wanted so much to hate this place, but no matter what she did she couldn't forget how her parents had treasured it, and taken her to it every weekend, hiring a babysitter for her little brother. 'Mom use to tell stories about dad proposing to her here and how, for their first date dad had also brought her here for a picnic out in nature. The memories have gotten fuzzy but then again, it's been nearly 11years…'


It had been a Saturday, early September and they were in the same field. They were packing up the picnic because their mini radio had been giving warnings about flash floods and violent storms in the area and it was already raining pretty hard. They had been camping often during rain storms so none of them had thought this would be any different. Mom had begun to get worried though when it started coming down hard, like bullets. It actually began to hurt when they hit you, so she turned on our portable radio to listen to the weather reports. It kept loosing connection and was beginning to fade completely so dad had begun to pack, soon joined by mom and then me.

As we got in the car I couldn't get my seatbelt to buckle and dad pretty much immediately started heading up the hill and away from the water and the trench area in general. The rain was soon riling the wind up against their attempt to leave by flinging branches and mud all over. It became extremely dark because most of the windows where repeatedly being covered by mud and the sky had gotten even darker.

There was a loud crashing sound several slapping sounds hitting the top of the car. By now I was crying compulsively into my mother's side. She had pulled me to her as soon as the crash had been heard. She was screaming repeatedly something about trees falling and them being to far off of their normal route if they were this close to the trees.

Suddenly the car wasn't moving. We could hear the storm raging and the engine roaring but all motion had stopped and layer after layer of mud was being thrown up onto our front window. Dad pressingly continued to try and restart the motor as it spluttered more and more out of life with each passing second. Mom was holding onto me smothering me with her body to the seat as the rain stormed and banged around the car holding their small terrified family.

Suddenly the car was once again in motion… but was rolling down the hill in the midst of a full out mudslide. The car slowly turned and continued facing sideways. Her mother gently let go of her and leaned forward to give her husband one brief kiss, as it seemed the moment their lips met the side of the car rammed into a huge object causing many branches to break through the windows and skewer both of her parents. She saw flecks of blood flying through the air right before the impact sent her streaming through the opposing window, which an earlier branch had shattered partially. Her small body broke through the remaining glass, scratching her arms, legs, back, and face but her coiled up body managed to protect the front of her body fairly well.

She landed about 12 yards uphill of the car, which had again begun to slide out of the huge tree's path and towards the river. Her vision grew bleary and as she watched the car hit the water and begins sink lower and lower into the shallow depths. Just before the top of the car sank below the surface she passed out.

What must have been hours later, she woke up to find a woman looking over the desolate surrounding in pure horror. She tried to stand and call out for help but her throat seemed so completely destroyed on the inside it made her gasp in pain, which in turn only caused her more pain. Her body was so ragged with injuries that, despite her attempts, she could barely move. Her breathing became shallow and labored and she became sure that she would die. She suddenly remembered her mom and dad and let out a throat wrenching cry, scaring the woman out of her mind.

The lady for the first time noticed Kagome, who once again had tears flowing freely down her face. She ran over toward the noise and was horrified at what she saw. A small girl, no older than her own daughter at home, huddled up behind a huge tree crying and so thoroughly ravished by the storm that tears came to her eyes immediately.

Kagome cried for a good long time as the woman quickly pulled out a cell phone and demanded an ambulance giving directions and hysterically shouting to hurry.

'so…so…' "tired…" rasped Kagome as she once again lapsed into unconsciousness.

She vaguely remembered being at a hospital for a really long time, and meeting Sango for the first time. (It was Sango's mom that had called the ambulance; she had run out of gas and had to park near that area on her way to work.) She clearly recalled the doctors being amazed at her luck in landing beside the large tree which had protected her from the rain and gales and given her chance at survival.


A single tear drifted out of the corner of her eye as the memory passed. She had blocked emotion of her past out a long time ago and it definitely wouldn't do to dwell on it now. Before she left she wandered over to one of the largest trees in the area and placed a soft hand on it saying a quick blessing to it. The first time she had come back after the accident she had decided that it must be the Gods favorite tree and had called it the God tree ever since. She climbed into its branches, higher and higher until she got to her favorite perching spot. It over looked the whole area and now as the sun was setting she decided it truly was the most fantastic thing in the world to see. Unfortunately, she had not been able to let go of it enough to reveal it to anyone else.

She decided then and there that she would take Sango, Rin, Ayame, and even little Shippo here sometime in the following year. She sighed to herself as she got down from her perch and drove home. After she had some food and was getting ready for bed the phone rang, it was Rin, Sango, and Ayame.

"Hello!"

"Hiya!"

"Hey!"

"…Hi guys… why do you all sound so…hyper?" asked Kag.

"We decided to go shopping for our school things tomorrow! You're gonna come, right Kags???" exclaimed an extremely excited Ayame.

The other girls started laughing at her energy; impressed she could talk that fast at 9 o'clock at night.

"Sure I'll come! Sounds like a blast! I still need to get a few more things any ways." agreed Kagome readily.

"Awesome! Well…"

"Good night!" they all said together hanging up laughing at there compatibility.

"Well operation 'Get Kag to Cheer Up' is a go!" proclaimed Sango proudly as they all hung up with Kagome and recalled each other.

"Yea! Hopefully a shopping spree will brighten up all our moods." Ayame added.

"We can only hope! Well I'll see you guys tomorrow then, 'night!' Rin finished for everyone and they hang up after another round of goodbyes.


Remember 5 reveiws please.