"So, a month had gone by from Sango's declaration before you met me?"

"Yes. She told me later that she had to make an appointment- I was living with her at that time, by the way. Supposedly, you were over run that month and they even had to call in another man to take some of your newest patients, but she wouldn't allow another man to prod my mind. Said it was fragile and precious, which made me bawl even harder than usual."

"She was right, you know?" the man asked rhetorically. He leaned over to place a kiss on her forehead. "And I'm glad she didn't let that idiot Kouga take you in."

"..."

"Sorry, I forgot."

"I wonder how Ayame is doing... I guess me cutting myself in front of her traumatized her pretty bad."

"Yeah, but Kouga can't thank you enough," the silver-haired man chuckled, capturing her lips. She reveled in the joy, the magical feel of his mouth against her own, the touch of another human being who loved her the way she needed to be loved, to be cared for, to be wanted. He pulled away for a breath. "Kagome..."

She blinked, her eyes shining. "I thought you wanted to hear my story, Inuyasha..."

He grinned. "Of course. Continue."

"It was on a Saturday, a week before my 18th birthday. I had been tossed out of the orphanage at 16, and I was in the Mental Clinic for a little over a year. We, Sango, Miroku, and I, were in the car before I was ever told where we were going. I suppose Sango was smart with her way of telling me after it was too late. After all, I couldn't not see a person when they were taking an hour out of their day just to talk to me...

Then I found out- lucky me- he had let Sango schedule four hours, back to back, just for me.

Here I was, being thrown away by someone I knew. I didn't think she'd come back for me... and when she pulled out of the parking lot with Miroku in the seat beside her, I met Acceptance again and I folded. I gave up hope.

After all those years of no one caring and me still hoping, it took someone who cared leaving me for hope to finally mean nothing anymore.

I wished... for the first time... that I could find someone that wouldn't throw me away.

That wouldn't throw me away...

That wouldn't throw me away...

That would care.

I found a piece of glass, probably a broken beer bottle, and pressed it to my wrist. However, my wish was granted just before the razor like glass broke my skin.

Hands wrapped around my wrists, separating them and retching the glass from my grasp. I gasped in surprise and looked up to find golden eyes... Golden like the sunset I watched from my window before Daddy had thrown me away, before Mamma got pregnant, before Grandma forgot me, before Grandpa stopped caring... I saw silver hair forming a river of silk like that of Mamma's birthday dress she wore when I was five, when everything was right in my life and everyone cared for someone, for me.

Then I saw the red of the person's shirt.

Blood red.

And, in my mind, I saw it.

My blood.

It hadn't changed.

I hadn't changed.

... And I knew, in my soul, that the blood didn't mean anything at the moment...

This person, this man, was the beginning and the end of my change, of my sad story. He was what I hoped for, what I wished for...

And I turned to praying right then and there. I prayed to God, the same one that I for so long forsaken, that the feeling in my soul was right, that this was where I'd finally find what my heart was craving for. That he was what I needed to make my shoulders rise and squelch the need for human contact.

He must have heard the prayer I sent Him, because, gradually, I saw it happen. When we were in his office and he was showing me the pictures all psychologists had... His eyes were dull... He didn't want those answers...

What else was I to tell him?

Mama had a miscarriage one day.

Daddy had a stroke when he learned.

Grandma died of a heart attack that morning.

Grandpa of a broken heart that afternoon.

I was thrown away in the evening.

I was thrown away.

I was thrown away.

I was thrown away.

The words just repeated themselves, over and over and over...

That night, when I was back at Sango's, I cried myself to sleep. First, Sango had come back for me.... and second... I couldn't tell him. What would he think of me? That I was a disease to society!? That I wasn't worth his time!?

... But, then again, I wasn't... I felt I wasn't worth anyone's time...

It continued, the sessions. Though, they were only an hour long.

A month had gone by before everything I knew was destroyed.

'Kagome, why are you still lying? You've been here for a while now, and you still-'

'You don't care, so don't pretend!' I wasn't giving up my belief that no one cared. I couldn't!

Even with my soul screaming and my prayer sent to God, I couldn't let it go... It was all that I knew for certain about everything else... 'I'm so sick of all these lies! All these lies! I don't want to hear them! No one cared, no one cares!'

'Sango and Miroku do...' he said calmly. 'Why can't you believe I do, also?'

'Because! I know people like you!' I had shouted, looking for something to throw...

Where was Chaos to help me? She seemed to have vanished.

Where was Calamity to quiet me? She never showed.

Where was Confusion? She had taken time off for once.

And I knew this because I understood he was telling the truth and I wasn't mad, I wasn't sad, I was lost. I was lost in his words. I had nothing to comfort me, because everywhere I looked, I only saw foreign things, foreign feelings.

Compassion met me again... or so I thought.

I fought her this time. I didn't want her. I wanted Chaos, my oldest prominent friend.

'People like you don't care to hear the truth! They want to hear what they think is the truth, they want to hear what's easiest for them to understand and cure! Ha! Cure!' I laughed humorlessly. 'Some cure! The only thing that every helped me was the sight of my own blood, the feel of extraordinarily soothing pain! Excruciating pain! Unbearable pain! It's all that let me know I was alive, I was a human who bled like any other, I was a person with feelings!

'I cared for myself- myself!- and no one else did! I bled my blood by cutting my own arms! I bled my blood and cured my wounds! I bled and no one cared! You aren't any different- you with your sick ways of 'healing' a person. Oh, yes, sure- tell them you care to hear and disregard what they say, you mangy bastard, but you'll collect the money all the same!'

He just looked at me. I could see him gritting his teeth for the duration of my tirade... until my last sentence.

'... I'm not getting paid for your sessions.'

'He's lying,' Chaos screamed, returning at last.

'He's like all those others, lying to hear what he wants to hear,' Calamity whispered. 'He's using you for the money he's lying about.'

'He's telling the truth. Look in his eyes. You can see the honesty... and pain... and anger.' Compassion began to possess me, pushing Kagome out of the way. 'He's like you. He's had pains in his past, you've angered him like he angered you. Yet, do you think anyone heard his story?'

I couldn't answer her. I was wrapped in the feelings in his eyes... They held me so close and told me so much, I was speechless. Chaos and Calamity sighed and left and I sank to the ground beneath me, still locked in his gaze of molten gold.

'I doubt anyone cared to listen.'

'What happened to you?' The gentle words left my throat before I could hold them back.

'What?'

'Your eyes... You were hurt in the past.'

'If I tell you, will you start telling me the truth?' he asked after a few minutes' worth of deep thought.

I blinked and nodded. And he told his story for the next three weeks.

On the fourth week... I walked into his office and found him laying down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. It didn't surprise me, but his voice did.

'Kagome... How do you tell if you're in love?'

The day before, he had told me of Kikyou, his ex-wife. His words were passionate to the point we were both spilling tears onto the soft earth-tone carpeting. He had loved her, that much I was certain of. I knew something of love, right then when I thought hard and long about it. I had been loved once. Once upon a time, that is.

'You are asking the wrong person,' I replied, taking my seat in his chair. 'I don't remember the feeling...'

He looked at me with alarm written on his face. 'How is that possible? Everyone has someone to love them.'

'Not an orphan. Not a suicidal, homeless woman.' I had spoken with no feelings in my words, but inside, those words hurt. 'Not an orphaned suicidal former mental hospital resident. Not me.'

'That's ridiculous. Someone loves you.'

'God?'

'No. I mean flesh and bones. There is someone out there that cares enough to love you,' he said, sitting up and reaching for my hands. 'Sango loves you as a sister, Miroku as a brother...'

My eyes swelled with tears as I realized he was right. I could feel it- love. I could feel it from them. It was that sense of belonging that I felt. It was there to comfort me when I was near them. Sango's eyes told me. Miroku's attitude told me- I think I'm the only woman he never touch inappropriately...

I couldn't believe I'd been so blind...

I looked up to meet his gaze...

How could I have been so blind?

'... How do you know if you're in love...?' my mind repeated his question.

'You just do... You just do,' I whispered. 'You just know it...'

And I saw it in his eyes, too. I saw that sheen of light and life glaze his eyes in a misty way, leaving his feelings both clouded and vulnerable. There it was... waiting for me to give Acceptance a chance to speak...

'... Is that so?' he implored, a smirk lighting up his face.

'... Yeah, that's so, Inuyasha.'

And, as you know, I got my first kiss... I got my first kiss at the age of 18 by a 25 year old man I loved... My first kiss of any form by anyone in more than 11 years...

And in my mind...

I saw it.

My blood.

It had changed.

Now it pulsed from a heart learning love again.

I had changed.

And with my change, the world and its' people changed.

I cared.

I was cared for.

I was caring for another.

I was loving another.

I was being loved.

I loved.

My only friends found a balance and were finally put to rest- Chaos, Calamity, Confusion, Compassion, Comprehension, and Acceptance- and Insecurity and Rejection, they slowly lifted from my shoulders and faded away... The abyss in my soul slowly healed... and it's still healing...

But I can live with that. I can live with that."

"Kagome..."

Said girl shook off her images of the past, focusing on the voice calling to her. "Yes, Inuyasha?"

"I... Thank you."

"For what?"

"For telling me... trusting me..."

Kagome lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? Nothing else?"

"And for listening to my story..."

"... and?"

Inuyasha glared. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"

"You haven't yet," she giggled, finally able to breath again after reciting her life's story.

He grumbled and shook his head. "And loving me."

"Keh." She smiled. "Thank you for everything, Inuyasha."

In the silence that followed, Kagome breathed deeply, inhaling the love swirling about her from the man sitting in the chair he had earned from many years of listening to others' stories and having no one listen to his. She felt the sliver of pain within her breath that was his past, and exhaled it, sending it to the heavens in a silent prayer that the man never feel such things again.

Perhaps the heavens received it... Maybe not... But she still held on to the hope that it did.

Her love sighed and stood, smiling down at her. She rose beside him and wrapped her arms about his waist, loosely for she knew he'd be there for her always. She didn't need to grasp on tight to reassure her. Love was enough.

Love was enough.

"'Mama had a miscarriage'... You know," Inuyasha began, gathering the woman at his side as they walked out of the room and passed the empty waiting area, "this would make a great story."

Kagome frowned and twisted her head to look up at the man she loved so strongly. "I believe I said the same about your past."

"You did," he chuckled. "And you're right. They'd both be wonderful stories..."

"Well, perhaps we'll have to write them down some day, in detail."

"Yeah..." he breathed, gazing at the stars while Kagome focused her eyes upon his handsome profile. She loved him in every way possible... and with the stars outlining him with his silver tresses and golden eyes... "Perhaps."

... She knew her sad story was at its end.

And her fairytale had just begun.

Mama had a miscarriage one day.

Daddy had a stroke when he learned.

Grandma died of a heart attack that morning.

Grandpa of a broken heart that after noon.

I was thrown away that evening.

I was thrown away.

I was.

I was thrown away that evening.

I was thrown to love.

} { [ ] } { [ ] } { [ ] } { The End } { [ ] } { [ ] } { [ ] } {

A/N: I want to thank all of my reviewers. You were all wonderful! All of your opinions, no matter what they were, were deeply appreciated and I wish you would know that. Honestly thank you, but this is the last chapter- sorry to say. I had fun writting it, after all. I hope you enjoyed reading as much I enjoyed typing it out.

Again, thank you.