In the Classroom

Staying quiet was the hardest thing she ever had to do yet in life. If she couldn't calm down, her crying would be audible from the hallway, and she couldn't have that. But though her mind screamed at her to be brave, like Sesshoumaru had asked, her body just wouldn't listen. Small whimpers kept escaping despite her best efforts. A draft of cold air hit her from beneath the crack in the linen closet door, and she shivered. Swallowing another achy sob that threatened to bubble up, she decided to do something with her hands.

So she began to stack towels into taller piles that would reach the top of the closet's giant bottom shelf. She wanted to slide further back into the shelf and hide behind a wall of stacked towels, but sheld hld hto lto lie down on her side to do it. Her hands were hurried and shaky as she moved the towels around by touch. Feeling stupid for not starting this process earlier, she rearranged everything as quickly as possible. When her back was at the wall, she tucked her legs in as close as she could and pulled the tall piles of towels into place. Her hands checked the folds so that the piles didn't look haphazard, and then she fluffed up the piles. Probing with her foot, she dn'dn't feel any gaps at that end of the shelf to reveal her, and her hands couldn't find any gaps, either.

Wrapping her arms around her legs, she made her mind go blank. Only thinking about breathing as quietly as possible, she slowed her lungs down, slowed her heart down. It was hot in the closet since the towels insulated her body heat in that tight little space and blocked the draft from the door. She felt a trickle of sweat fall from her temple to the shelf beneath her, and for a crazed moment she thought that someone might have heard it hit the wood. It was another few minutes before she heard anything beyond the creaks and low howls of the wind pummeling against the house.

She tried not to think of what was happening downstairs. She hadn't heard Sesshoumaru's voice, and though she was certain that at least one person had been shot, she couldn't tell who, and she couldn't tell if he was dead or not.

Another sudden gunshot made her jerk where she lay, and she couldn't help the whimper that escaped her throat. A man's harsh cry and some laughter brought tears to her eyes, and she covered her ears. There was a sudden loud shout, and she thought she recognized the voice, but she couldn't remember where. Two more pops signaled the blasts of a handgun, but it was another few seconds before something fell down. Another yell, and this time she recognized it as being the sheriff. The sickening feeling in her stomach lifted, and she waited with bated breath to hear him say it was okay to come out. Footsteps attempted to race quietly up the stairs, but the house was too old for anyone to make it upstairs without raising a squeaky ruckus. She wanted to call out to what she was certain was the sheriff, but Sesshoumaru had made her promise to stay there and be quiet, so she didn't give in to the urge.

She heard the bathroom door open, and the heavy, nervous breathing of someone whose adrenalin wa. Sh. She could relate because her heart was pounding anew, and it was gut-wrenching not to tell the sheriff that she was there. She couldn't quite be sure it was him.

"Miss Ginta?" she heard. The voice was so similar to the sheriff's. It sounded a bit warped, though, and she wondered if the scary excitement had changed his voice. "Miss Ginta, are you in here? It's Sheriff Kurzwell...you can come out now, but be quiet, miss," he whispered. She almostted ted to cry again, but bit it back as she began to shove towels out of the way.

"In here, sheriff!" she softly called. She heard fumbling as if he were having trouble finding the knob, and then the door opened. He was decked out in his sheriff uniform and brandishing about his firearm, but she couldn't see his face too well. She reached out to grab his hand so that he could help pull her out, and he took hold of her wrist. She had never been so relieved in her life.

He yanked hard on her wrist, bringing her swiftly out of the closet. She gasped in surprise at the force he used, but didn't say anything of it. The bathroom was unbelievably cold, though. She could guess that several people had simply left the outside doors open, letting in the frigid blizzard air, but the temperature of the bathroom was enough to make her want to huddle into herself. When she was almost to her feet, she felt something cold and metal slapped onto her wrist, and heard the telltale clinks of handcuffs being applied. Now sorely confused, she asked,

"What's going on, sheriff?" He had put away his gun, and instead of answering her, he forced her to turn around so that he could handcuff her other wrist behind her back. Now breathless with dread, a horrible suspicion dawned upon her. "Sh-sheriff?"

"Shut up, you slut! If you make another sound, I'll blow your head off!" he snarled. Her suspicions slammed into place, and a cry of fear lodged itself at bas base of her throat.

There was no mistaking it, though. It was the voice from yesterday. She wasn't sure if it was his true voice or if it was simply his angry voice, but it was the voice of the man who had attacked her at school.

And he was the Sheriff of Loyola.

"B-but I trusted you!" she said, blubbering uncontrollably and wishing she didn't sound like such a wimp. But she was scared...unbelievably scared. He made a noise very similar to a growl and ly ply pressed the working end of his handgun to her temple.

"I said shut up!" he warned. She closed her mouth, stifling her sobs. "Walk in front of me. We're going downstairs," he said, his voice hard but no longer livid. She nodded even though the room was in almost complete darkness and walked forward, seeing the outline of the open bathroom door. She felt the gunpoint removed from her temple, and breathed a silent sigh of momentary relief. Once in the hallway, the light from the security lights in the backyard shown through the window at the top of the stairs, so the hallway was at least visible. She turned to walk toward the end of the hall where the stairs doubled back to go down, and the temperature dropped even more. She could see her breath in front of her, and her feet were starting to feel numb. A full body shiver rose goosebumps on her flesh.

A movement in the corner of the hallway near the top of the stairs ht hht her eye, and though the corner was empty, it looked like the air shimmered there, about four feet of it. Dismissing it as being a play of light and shadows, she looked at the floor and slowed down a bit in order to delay leaving the house. A tear fell down her cheek, and she wanted to wipe it away, but her hands were cuffed behind her back. Something jabbed into her spine, and she gasped in in sudden pain.

"Move faster," her captor said, his voice very serious. Shddeddded again and sped up. Another second and she was rounding the balustrade at the side of the stairs. A yell from behind her made her jump, and she was shoved against the wall that ran parallel with the stairs. Without her hands to balance herself, she began to tip towards the stairs, and to save herself she let her legs collapse. Her right knee fell to the first step, but she thankfully didn't fall any farther.

"I-Impossible..." the sheriff said loudly but shakily. She tried to turn to look to her left and behind, but the sheriff began to shoot his gun at the wall. The bullets landed solidly, and the popping sound made every muscle in her body clench with panic. She screamed and ducked herself into a little ball.

"N-no!! Get away! GET AWAY!!!" he screamed. She felt his legs hit her side and shrieked with fright, but the sheriff tripped over her and landed hard on the stairs, rolling all the way to the bottom. She heard several snaps and cracks as bones in his body broke, and finally a resounding thud as he hit the bottom. A man's shout from downstairs caught her attention briefly, but she was too distracted by a faint glowing light just over her left shoulder.

Panting, she didn't want to move, didn't want to see what had scared the sheriff so badly, but she forced herself to look--forced herself to see what she knew had been standing in the corner and waiting for them. Lifting her head and looking to her left, she choked on an incoming breath of air.

Standing there, looking as if not a single moment had passed by since the day she was stolen, Miki smiled gently at her, her being lit from within. She still wore her sundress, her hair in pigtails, and there were even bits of sand still clinging to her hands. She looked beautiful but faded. Her sundress was no longer as vibrant, her skin bluish ins instead of pink, her hair grayer than the black Rin remembered.

"Miki," Rin sighed, her eyes swimming with tears. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision, and her eyes never left the smiling visage of her childhood friend. To see Miki looking so peaceful and untouched...Rin could not help the tears washing down her cheeks. This ghost had forever preserved the unblemished image of the girki uki used to be.

"I'm so sorry, Miki." The little ghost in front of her shook its head, still smiling, and Rin hoisted herself up so that she was no longer kneeling on two steps. "It was you, wasn't it? All the times we thought there was a draft, all the times we thought the air conditioner was broken...you were here, somewhere in the house." This time the ghost nodded, her smile getting bigger. "I miss you, Miki...we all miss you."

Miki's smile faded only a notch, and she reached forward, her little hand curving around Rin's cheek. When she didn't feel the touch of skin, Rin was sad to realize that Miki couldn't actually touch her. It felt like ice was touching her face, though; Miki was that cold.

"Will it be okay now? Will you be okay?" she asked, hoping that Miki knew what she meant. The ghost took her hand away, giving her a tight-lipped smile and nodding vigorously. Rin blinked anew at the onslaught of more tears and said, "I'll never forget you..." Miki took a step away and touched her finger to her temple to signal that she knew this. Giving her a childish wave of farewell, she turned, and Rin squinted her eyes at the blindingly bright light that blasted in from the window at the top of the stairs. Gasping in wonder, she tilted her head down away from it. She couldn't see Miki too well anymore, but the outline of her friend faded into all of that light, and then Rin couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. When the light faded from behind her eyelids, she opened her eyes again, and was surprised that her pupils hadn't needed to adjust to the darkness. Everything was as it had been before. The security light was shining, snowing was falling, and no one stood in front of her.

That's when she fainted...

------
Thirsty...

That was her first thought. The second was that her head hurt, and the third was that she had to go to the bathroom...now. Opening her eyes was a little difficult, but leaning up was even harder. It took two tries, but she sat up, noticing that she was wearing a hospital gown, and looked around the room sleepily. Clearly, she was in a hospital, but she wondered who else had been brought here...

Her next thought was of Sesshoumaru, and she was instantly awake. Her hasty plan was to rush to use the bathroom and then find a nurse. There weren't any IVs attached to her, so she simply took off the finger pulse monitor from her left index finger and swung her legs off of the bed. An alarm immediately went off, making her wince. Hopping to the bathroom since her right knee was in a bit of pain, she shut the door and quickly went about her business. Just as she was about to flush, someone rushed into the room, and the door banged heavily against the wall.

"M-Miss Ginta??" a worried nurse asked. Ready to come out, Rin flushed the toilet and opened the door. There stood a young, pretty nurse, her face showing her relief. She had very sleek, long black hair, and Rin wondered idly if her own hair looked messy and wrangled.

"Where's my dad?" she asked worriedly. "And where's Se--, I mean, Mr. Hakkaku?" The nurse walked towards her with hands raised, obviously trying to get her to calm down.

"What's wrong?! Where are they?" she asked, extremely worried now. She heard footsteps outside the door, and looked quickly to see who was coming in. A man with a tiny ponytail poked his head in the door, obviously her doctor. He came in the room with that 'please-sit-down' look on his face. One more man followed him in, and she recognized him as being one of the other detectives that had come to the library yesterday.

"Miss Ginta, we can fill you in on what happened if you'll just sit down please," her doctor asked. The detective looked at her with some trepidation, and she almost fainted right then and there. If either of them had died, she didn't know if she could take it.

"Why do I have to sit down? Is it bad news?" she asked even as the nurse steered her towards the hospital bed. She suddenly felt a draft on her back, and, reaching around to make sure that her bottom wasn't showing ugh ugh the gap in the gown, she dow down on the bed, stealing glances at the detective.

The doctor nodded to the detective then, who sat down in a nearby chair, and the nurse left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Both Mr. Hakkaku and Mr. Ginta are alive, but Mr. Hakkaku is in serious condition, and Mr. Ginta is in fair condition after suffering a heartacktack," her doctor began. Rin gasped, tears immediately springing to her eyes as her hands came up to cover her mouth. "It seems that your father's depression medication interfered with some allergy medicine he was taking, making his blood pressure shoot up, and some stupid pharmicist somewhere didn't catch it. The scare he experienced last night triggered the heart attack, but it was only mild, and once we get him on the right allergy regimen, he should be fine. We'll probably let him go in a couple days."

"And Sesshoumaru?" she choked out, not noticing the slight reaction from the detective.

"He was shot in the side, and the bullet nicked his left kidney," he began. Rin bit down on her knuckles, hot tears sliding down her cheeks. "We had to perform surgery a few hours ago to stop his internal bleeding, but if his vital signs come within the normal ranges in the next few hours, then we'll downgrade his condition to fair. I think the surgery was a success, though, so you don't have to worry. He'll be fine," the doctor concluded. Rin sighed, her relief evident, her eyes slid to the floor as the adrenalin from the past five minutes ground to a halt.

"Miss Ginta, I would like to ask you some questions," the detective asked. She turned her head to look at him.

"Okay," she answered. He brought a small pad out of his coat pocket and clicked the top of his ballpoint pen. The doctor left the room at this point, obviously having said all he needed to and wishing to avoid overhearing her story.

"Firif yif you could recount what happened between you and...Sheriff Kurzwell...with as much detail as possible, I'll get the last questions out of the way as soon as possible and let you get some rest." She nodded in response, taking a few seconds to gather her thoughts. She told him most of the truth...but she left out Miki. No law enforcement officer would believe her about that.

"So...if he tripped on the upstairs carpet and fell down the stairs...why do you think four bullets from his gun are now lodged in the upstairs wall?"

"I think he was just skittish and saw a shadow that scared him. I really can't say why he shot at the wall. I wasn't about to stand up and look, sir," she said, faking a yawn in the hopes that he would take a hint and leave. He scratched the back of his head, and she could tell that his brain was having a hard time wrapping itself around her story. He was a good detective then, if he felt her story didn't add up.

"Would it be alright if I visited tomorrow if I have more questions?" he asked, standing up. She nodded, reaching out to shake his hand. He came forward, taking her fingers and noticing the marks on her wrists from the handcuffs that had been applied too tightly.

"I'm sorry for what the sheriff did to you and your father, Miss Ginta...the entire Loyola police department was shocked by this whole thing," he said. Rin was a bit taken aback, not expecting him to apologize for the sheriff. It was her turn to ask a question.

"Then...did he really kill all those girls?" she asked, still holding his hand. His fingers tightened.

"We haven't had the chance yet to search his home. But it's pretty likely," he answered.

"Did you find his accomplice?"

"We think that one of the downstairs officers shot and killed him. The accomplice was actually a fellow student of yours. I don't think you knew him personally, but he was in your history class. ...Glasses? Pretty tall?" he fished. An expression of shocked realization passed over her face.

The boy sitting at the table yesterday...

"That was Michael Kurzwell, the sheriff's son. When I looked up some records at the office early this morning, he was the boy who gave an account of the kidnapper during the first incident with Miki Ogai. I don't know how you can raise a child like that...but hopefully we'll find his motives for these crimes once we gain access to his home."

The boy on the swings...

She felt a full-body, mind-numbing shiver come over her, chilling her to the bone. To think that these two people were around her so long, watching her and the other girls...plotting for years. She was certain that there was nothing creepier. The detective thought she was getting cold, so he fetched a hospital robe from the closet and brought it back, draping it around her shoulders.

"Are you alright, Miss Ginta?" he asked. "Do you need me to get the nurse?"

"N-no...would you take me to my dad instead? I want to see him," she requested, suddenly needing to see his face desperately. The detective helped her stand up and then escorted her to a different ward. He peeked his head in the door first, but then opened it and waved her to go inside.

"I'll be leaving now, but I'll perhaps see youorroorrow, Miss Ginta. Have a good day," he said, zipping up his coat. She nodded, sliding her arms into the hospital robe. Turning to the bed, the door closed behind her, and she walked towards her father.

Her father looked peaceful enough. His hand sported an IV, and he seemed a bit too pale, but he was otherwise healthy-looking. She pulled up air,air, sitting close, and took his free hand. He didn't stir in reaction to her touch, but that was okay. He needed to sleep. His hand was warm, he was breathing on his own, and he was going to survive.

Looking out the window on the other side of his bed, she saw that the blizzard was still in full force, but the people of Loyola were going to work like any other day. Not even the snow was stopping many people today. Tonight, though, when they were watching TV over dinner with their families, the news would report the events of last night with as much sensationalism as they could get away with, and she would not be able to live with Sesshoumaru anymore without questions being raised by reporters that would undoubtedly follow her.

It was time to move home. But at least she was moving back in with the father she remembered.

"Miss Ginta?" the nurse called. Rin jumped, surprised that she had opened the door so quietly, and turned to look at the nurse.

"Dr. Miroku asked me to tell you that Mr. Hakkaku's condition was downgraded to fair. He thought you might like to know," she said, folding her hands in front of her. The relief on Rin's face made the nurse smile. "Would you like to come visit him?" she asked, motioning her hand towards the hallway. Rin's heart leapt at that, and she stood quickly, patting her father's hand as she walked towards the nurse.

The nurse closed the door behind her, and they walked down the hall to another room in the same ward. The doctor was still in there, along with another e. Te. The doctor turned and gave her an encouraging smile, motioning her towards a chair next to the bed. Rin craned heck tck to peek over the shoulder of the nurse smoothing the blankets over her patient, and saw that Sesshoumaru was very pale, but sleeping peacefully enough.

"Thank you for fetching Miss Ginta, Sango," Dr. Miroku said, picking up a chart from the foot of the bed and walking towards the door past Rin. "By the way, what are you doing after your shift tonight...?" he asked, his voice fading as he and the nurse left the room. Rin sat down, looking at Sesshoumaru's sleeping face. She had seen it so many times before, but his complexion had been so much healthier before. Looking up at the nurse, she gasped in surprise to see that it was Yukino's mother, whom she had only met once or twice over the past months.

"Mrs. Hanazawa?" she asked, a bit incredulous. She really had never asked where Yukino's mother had worked, but her strange hours made sense now. The nurse looked at her, blinking in surprise, and her mouth fell open.

"You're Yukino's friend, right?" she asked, leaning over the bed as if to get a closer look at her. "Rin?"

She nodded, standing up to shake Mrs. Hanazawa's hand. Rin understood so many more things now that she knew that Yukino's mom was a nurse. Her over-protective, paranoide nature was now explained. The nurse shook her head slightly, as if she were regretting something.

"I'm sorry to being seeing you under these circumstances, Rin. I know you and I met a couple of times when you stopped by, but I never really talked with you much." She paused then, looking Rin over. "I'm glad to see that you're relatively unharmed. You must be one of the group of people brought in early this morning then?" she asked.

"Y-yeah.rns rns out that some men were after me, and they got into the house last night," she explained, leaving out quite a few details. Mrs. Hanazawa nodded, looking a bit agitated all of a sudden.

"Is this man...uhm...a friend?" she asked, motioning towards Sesshoumaru and sounding unsure of their relationship. Rin looked to his softly breathing visage, and nodded.

"The same way that Robbie is Yukino's friend," she said, giving a not-so-subtle hint to the nurse. Mrs. Hanazawa gasped audibly, leaning up quite abruptly.

"But he's so much older than you, Rin!" she admonished.

"No isn isn't. Besides, women have been marrying older men for hundreds of years," she said easily, reaching out old old Sesshoumaru's hand.

"This isn't the 14th century!" Mrs. Hanazawa asserted.

"I love him," she whispered, her jaw hardening with a touch of anger. She wondered if anyone would ever understand how love really worked. Mrs. Hanazawa heard the angry tone in Rin's voice and backed off a bit, not wanting to upset her.

"I...I just--don't understand," she said. "Yukino is still upset over that...that--Robbie." She sighed, leaning her hip against the foot of the bed. "I hear her crying sometimes and all I can think is how I don't understand her. I mean, Robbie is too old for her."

"You don't think he's too old for her. You think she's too young for him. You think she and I are children, but only because you're comparing us to them. We're not children anymore," Rin said quietly. The words that came out were rehearsed, actually. She had been thinking of the misconceptions that the public would have of her for a long time, but it wasn't until that moment that she had to defend herself to someone. She was rather surprised that she spoke with little difficulty.

"I...I know she's legal and all," she said, somewhat defensively.

"Well...parents have a very difficult time thinking of their children as being grown up. Even when they've had children of their own," she explained.

"But girls your age are still so impressionable," she said, her voice faltering. Rin smiled a bit at that.

"When it comes to that, girls must beware men of all ages. How old a man is won't matter." When the nurse didn't respond for a while, Rin looked up to see Mrs. Hanazawa watching her with some amazem

"Thank you, Rin. Thank you for that," Mrs. Hanazawa said, nodding and giving her a small smile. She then picked up her stethoscope from the foot of the bed, hanging it around her neck. "I'll come back to check on him in an hour."

Rin nodded, waiting until the nurse closed the door to turn back towards Sesshoumaru. She knew he probably wouldn't be awake for a while yet, but she sincerely wished for him to wake up. She wanted it so badly that her eyes stung. Leaning down, she pressed her cheek to the back of his hand, consoling herself with his warmth.

------
When she woke up again, someone was pet her her hair, and she lifted her head. Sesshoumaru had opened his eyes, and was smiling at her. The relief that bloomed inside her chest was so powerful that she was instantly in tears, and his eyebrows came together in sympathy. He shushed her, holding her cheek in his hand. It wasn't enough for her, though. She quickly stood, jostling the chair, and gingerly set her hip next to his right side on the bed. Remembering to be careful, she leaned down, laying her upper torso over him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

"It's okay," he said, his voice scratchy. His free arm came around her, patting her back comfortingly. She cried against his neck, feeling stupid and ecstatic at the same time. She heard the door open, and the voice of Yukino's mother said,

"Now, Rin, you don't want to hurt him even more, hugging him like that." She didn't want to let go of him, but Mrs. Hanazawa was right. Leaning back up, she wiped at her eyes and sniffed a couple of times. Sesshoumaru smirked at her, wiping at her cheeks with his right hand. The other hand had an IV, so it was obvious that he didn't want to move it.

"Do you want to sit up, Mr. Hakkaku?" the nurse asked. He nodded, and Rin moved off the bed. The nurse brought out a control pad hanging from the back of the bed and pushed one of the buttons, bringing Sesshoumaru up to a sitting position. He winced once, but after a small adjustment, he was comfortable again. After handing him some water, the nurse checked a few of his vitals before leaving again.

"What time is it?" he asked, clearing his throat a couple of times. He set the plastic water cup back on a nearby table.

"About one o'clock, I think..." Rin answered, standing close to the bed. Her hands fidgeted restlessly, and she continuously shifted her weight from foot to foot. He took pity on her and held open his right arm, invither her back on the bed. She sighed gratefully, sliding down to him and holding him close.

"I'm assuming that you're relatively uninjured then, if you're walking around?" he asked, placing his chin on top of her head.

"I just have some bruises, that's all," she sighed, snuggling into him. She could hear his heartbeat under her ear, and sighed with contentment.

"Don't you want to know what happened? How I got shot?" he asked.

"Not today. I'm just glad that you're alive."

"Then give me a kiss," he asked, nudging her. She laughed lightly and sat up, leaning forward to give him a gentle, chaste kiss on the lips.

The door opened then, and Mrs. Hanazawa came in, followed by a new doctor who was directing an orderly to roll in a new patient to the neighboring bed in the room. Rin looked at the new patient. He was a young man with a long, black ponytail, and he looked very much like Sesshoumaru.

"Hey, that could be a relative of yours," she joked, focusing Sesshoumaru's attention on the young man. Another person came in, looking frustrated. Rin's eyes widened, seeing a girl a few years older than her who could've passed off as her older sister.

"I could say the same thing to you," Sesshoumaru said.

"God, I can't believe this! I ask you to shovel out the driveway so that I can pull out of the garage, and you stab yourself in the foot with the shovel!" the girl vented. The boy stiffened, crossing his arms.

"Heh...Kagome, leave it to you to be more concerned about the driveway than my foot," the young man said.

"When did I say that?" Kagome screeched. "I'm complaining about your cluminess, Inuyasha, not the driveway!"

The argument went on for a while, with Rin and Sesshoumaru listening on with a bit of amusement. The nurse eventually pulled a curtain between their beds and asked that they be quiet, but they didn't really listen.

------
For the rest of the day, Rin visited with Sesshoumaru and her father, who eventually woke up around dinnertime. She sat with him for about two hours, explaining her side of the story of what happened last night, including the ghost, but saying that she didn't tell that to the police officer. Her father, understandably, agreed to her adjusted story.

When she finally told him of her relationship with Sesshoumaru, his hands became fists, and his heart monitor revealed an accelerated heartbeat, but he didn't say anything. She tried her best to put their relationship in the best light, saying that she was old enough to make her own decisions, but her father would no longer answer her questions.

After returning to visit him the next morning, he acted as if nothing was wrong. Rin was tempted to ask about his change of heart, but decided to leave it alone.

The detective returned that day as well to get her father's story and Sesshoumaru's story. It turned out that either the sheriff or his son had shot the officer patrolling outside, and then the son ran into the house to assault the front officer, who was shot in the chest, collapsing one of his lungs. After the back officer called for backup, he tried to protect Rin's father, who had woken up with a start in the back room. The first assailant had disappeared, though. It was to the rear officer's surprise when the sheriff ran inside, answering the "backup" call. He ran to the rear officer, only to shoot him point blank in the head.

The sight gave Rin's father a heart attack, and the sheriff left him there, thinking he was dying. Sesshoumaru had snuck downstairs then, sliding down the railing, and was trying to help the officer in front. He didn't venture far to find some cloth, using a towel left downstairs a couple of days previous. The officer gave him a gun, though, telling him to protect himself rather than get shot trying to help someone already dying. Sesshoumaru had just taken the gun when the sheriff's son shot him in the back.

It had taken all of his strength to roll over and shoot the first assailant, Michael Kurzwell, hitting him in the chest twice. Then Sesshoumaru fell unconscious, not hearing the sheriff's angry shout. After that, Rin's story took over. The second assailant, Sheriff Robin Kurzwell, died from bodily injuries when he fell down the stairs, breaking one leg, two ribs, his neck, and his spinal cor
Wh
When the story broke, no one was aware of the media attention at first since the press wasn't allowed inside the hospital. But they certainly were aware of it when Rin's father was released the day after the detective's second visit. Rin and her father were dogged practically the entire way homut tut the press didn't come onto their property, especially since they didn't want to wait out in the snowy weather.

It wasn't very long before the media figured out than ann and Sesshoumaru had been much more than student and teacher.

Surprisingly, though, Rin's father was much more supportive than she could have hoped for, and the police department even thanked Sesshoumaru for patching up the wound on the front officer, who had managed to survive a very serious injury. However, Loyola High did have to fire him for a serious breach in school policy.

The next six months were rough for Sesshoumaru, Rin, and her father, but Sesshoumaru did find a job as a substitute teacher in Boston. Rin, having been admitted to Harvard, agreed to marry him, and they went house-huntinging ing her spring break. Rin's father came along, of course, wanting to give his approval first to any house they chose.

After the scandal died down, Sesshoumaru and Rin moved into their house that summer, and Yukino and her fiance Robbie stopped by a couple of times. Sesshoumaru found a more permanent job as a professor with a local college. He taught a couple of normal history classes, plus a class on paranormal history, which the college asked for after reading the research paper that he and his wife had published a few months beforehand.

August rolled around before they knew it.

Sesshoumaru's curriculum schedule at the local college was a couple of days behind Harvard, so Rin's classes started up first. Since they didn't have a second car yet, he was supposed to drive her to the campus on her first day. Her first class was at 10:00am, but they still overslept, waking up at 9:30, and it was a mad rush to get out the door e ite it was twenty minutes to campus.

Once in the car and on the highway, they breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do you think we'll make it?" Rin asked, checking her watch. She looked to Sesshoumaru and giggled at his messy hair. He took time to throw on pants and a shirt, but he hadn't done much else.

"Yeah, we'll make it," he said, smiling as he ran his fingers through his hair.

She smiled, thinking of how much could change in a year. Her perspective on the world had been drastically altered from that of an introverted anti-socialite. Now, she had friends, a loving father, and a wonderful husband. She pitied the girl that she had been a year ago. A girl who thought of herself as being unwanted and unnoticed.

But people had been noticing her, and she had been too blind to see it. Yukino had wanted to be her friend, and now, they still talked almost every night on the phone. Mrs. Roenstein had wanted her to join the track team, and now she was set to try out for Harvard's team, packing several medals under her belt. And lastly, Sesshoumaru had wanted to save her, which he did in more ways than one. He had repaired her relationship with her father, had healed her heart with his love, and had protected her from those who would harm her.

"I love you," she said suddenly, pressing her lips together in a bit of embarrassment. She looked to her husband, who raised an eyebrow at her.

"I love you, too," he said, falling into an easy smile.

She sighed, thinking to herself that she was being silly and sentimental. But it took her a long time to get to this point, really. When an answer is incredibly close, focusing on it can be hard, and putting it into words can be even harder. But what it boiled down to was that Sesshoumaru had been there for her--pushing her and supporting her. He had been in a place where she could learn to love again...in the classroom.

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I hope everyone liked this story! I worked hard on it, so please leave a review before you leave!