A/N: This story has been rated T for language. Thanks to all who subscribed and favorite and reviewed, and once again to YoukaiYume who is to thank for the creation of this fic. Please check out her piece "Don't Go" on Deviantart. Support the original art!

The Bridge

"She's exhausted," explained the doctor wearily. "That's why she hasn't woken up."

Sesshomaru listened.

The doctor sighed and glanced around the empty halls before leaning in, cupping a hand to the side of her mouth. "And just between you and me," she whispered, "She's in bad shape. Really bad. She's got these marks around her body, like she's been bound up tightly with ropes… There are multiple lacerations, I've just barely manage to stop all the bleeding. And, for a fifteen year old girl, she's got the strongest legs."

The doctor held up her hands as if this was important.

"It's like she literally does nothing but walk and run. Granted, one of her legs has fractured, so that may be impossible to get back to for some time…"

Sesshomaru said, "Anything else?"

The doctor snapped her fingers. "She's malnourished. Hasn't had a decent meal in months. I've got her on a drip IV so she can get some of the vitamins back in her blood."

He waited, brow raised slightly, and the doctor blinked.

He blinked back.

"That's all," she said.

He nodded. "Thank you."

"I suggest you wait here till she wakes up," she sighed, patting him on the shoulder on her way out. "She looks like she could really use a shoulder to cry on."

Kagome's eyes were closed and her mouth open slightly when Sesshomaru went to see her. He closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed.

She looked like she had just gotten out of a battle.

Sesshomaru tilted his head a little and observed her. Her black hair was a mess. The cuts on her face had been cleaned and covered by bandages, but some of the bruises were larger than the white linen. His face trickled down into a frown.

He knew exactly how his half-brother would react if he saw his mate like this.

In fact, he reasoned, Sesshomaru knew how Inuyasha would act in any situation concerning his wife. He'd never tried to hide how very much in love with her he was. It felt like a millennia ago that Kouga had written his letter, but he recalled every word and detail with surprising clarity.

…sorry to be the one to tell you this.

Kagome didn't last long after Dog-Breath passed away. She was gone within three days. I'm not sure when this letter is going to reach you, but Ayumi insisted I try.

We heard you might be out of the country, but you could come back to visit their graves anytime you want.

We had them buried together.

It's what they would have wanted.

His brother's face intruded on his thoughts. Dejected. Hurt. Empty. Everything he had experienced while Kagome was missing for three years.

Missing here, he realized.

The reality of the situation struck him like a brick wall, and suddenly he felt cheap. It wasn't right. Inuyasha, the boy he had hated but come to respect, had cried over this human. He had cried for her absence and longed for her return. Sesshomaru was with her now, while his brother was alone.

It wasn't fair at all.

He swallowed and turned to go.

"…yasha," the sleeping girl muttered.

He contemplated. The Lord of the West felt torn. Should he stay and watch over the woman who was and would become his sister-in-law? Or should he be fair to the time his brother had lost and not see her again?

Slowly, he reached for his wallet. With a steady hand, he placed his business card on the tabletop next to her bed, turned on his heel, and left the hospital.

… … …

"The fuck have you been?" cried Kouga, hands on his hips.

The tall demon ignored his fowl use of words and took a seat behind his orderly desk. "I was enjoying my day off; I recall suggesting you do the same."

The wolf demon let out a sharp bark of laughter and slung his arm around Sesshomaru's shoulders. "You're just charming all the time, aren't you?" he asked. "I wanted a break too, asshole. But we've got a case to crack, recall it?"

"Get off."

"We're cops, Sesshomaru! We have duties to our country and our city to maintain a crime-free lifestyle… Now that I think about it, didn't you and I do our fair share of crime back in the Warring States?"

"Touch me one more time, Kouga, and-"

"Whoa, whoa!" he exclaimed, backing off, hands defensively flailing in the air. "Loosen up! I wouldn't exactly call us friends, but we've been working together for one-hundred and seventy-four years!"

"That doesn't mean you can touch me."

"You never change, huh?" chuckled Kouga. "Okay, look, I was talking to-"

He stopped. Sesshomaru's face narrowed into a frown. "Speak," he ordered.

Kouga stared at him.

The white-haired man said, "I grow weary of your silence, Kouga."

He shook his head. "I-it's nothing. I just… I thought I smelled…"

He looked away. "Who have you talked to?"

"Uh, this high school kid," he continued, shaking his head clear and pulling up a seat. "Says he thought he saw our guy lurking about his school grounds."

"Hnn."

"Hey, I trust him," he said. "Didn't smell like he was lying."

"So?" asked Sesshomaru.

Kouga looked confused. "So what?"

"So have you had the area checked?" he hissed impatiently.

"Not yet."

"Why are you coming to me before you've even investigated properly? How long have you been doing this job?"

"I thought it seemed important, Jesus!" he cried. "It isn't like you had plans!"

Sesshomaru quieted. "I did."

"Oh, did you?"

"I was going to see Inuyasha."

Kouga closed his mouth.

The man reached into his desk for a pen, and scribbled silently at the copious amount of documents piled up.

His companion pulled up a chair and sat, so they were at eye-level. "…Have you found it yet?"

"No." He had replied shortly, and Kouga flinched.

"I see. Um… Any progress, at least?"

He crossed a kanji sharply. "None."

"I want to help," he sighed. "Really, I do."

"If you had truly wanted to help me," Sesshomaru hissed, looking up from his paperwork, "you wouldn't have hidden my only brother's grave!"

"I have my reasons," he explained.

Sesshomaru sat back. "Enough."

A cell phone rang. He stiffened. Had the girl woken already? He had expected her to sleep for several more hours. The Lord of the West cursed in his heart – he had left his business card so she could call him if she truly needed him. He felt twisted, spending time with her in place of Inuyasha, but he would not deny her the company.

Still, this felt much too soon. He hadn't sorted out his mind yet.

Kouga jumped. "Oh, that's me." His cell phone withdrew from his pocket, flashing and singing loudly.

Sesshomaru exhaled.

"This is Kouga," he said. "Mm-hmm. Yeah."

The white-haired man checked his own portable phone just in case. The screen was dark. He flipped it open. 0 new calls, 0 new messages.

"What?" His eyes snaked in Sesshomaru's direction. Standing, he turned his back. "Hey… You're joking, right?"

He hardly believed he had been so convinced it was Kagome. Realistically, she was still asleep in the hospital, dreaming of nonsense and fancy.

"Look, I'm really not in the mood for this, okay? I swear to God, Shippou, if you're spewing some crazy bullshit-!"

He paused. Sesshomaru looked up and frowned. Shippou? He glanced at the clock. Six PM on the dot. The young Fox demon was supposed to be working. He listened harder.

Kouga's tan face went ashen. He sat down slowly, still listening to whatever Shippou was telling him. He didn't speak for a very long time. His Adam's apple bobbed hard as he swallowed. "Okay. No, we'll fix it. I'll come over with Sesshomaru first thing tomorrow morning."

More silence.

"I said we'd fix it, runt! Just…" He sighed. "Take care of things on your end. I…I'll draw up a report and see you tomorrow. No, no, he's here, I'll tell him myself. Okay. Be careful."

The phone snapped shut.

"Our witness is dead," he explained. "Teacher found him hangin' up in the girl's laboratory."

"…Hnn."

"Sesshomaru," he growled, "I don't think this was a suicide."

… … …

He hardly ever slept these days – Tokyo's crime rate was only increasing, and although he'd been doing this job for over a hundred years, the Lord of the West wasn't used to having to work to make a living.

It had been Kouga's idea to work with the law – they had been free once, where there were no rules and humans and demons alike lived by their trust and distrust of strangers. Once upon a time it had been fairly easy to tell who to avoid, but nowadays they found it impossible.

Anyone could be a murderer. Anyone could have motive to steal. Even wholly good people had no problem breaking traffic laws.

"Hey, Sesshomaru," Kouga had said, "Aren't you tired of wandering?"

He had stared at the man.

The wolf demon held out his hand. "Come to Tokyo with me. Humans don't believe in the Daiyoukai anymore, but they still need our help."

He considered this. "And what help could an outcast in his own world be?" he asked.

Kouga grinned. "You were known as the strongest demon in our era. Surely strength that enormous could help somehow."

He thought.

"Come on, Sesshomaru," he said. "It's time you put your strength to good use. Humans can't even defend themselves, but we can help. Isn't that something worth working toward?"

He had moved to Tokyo a week later.

Sesshomaru had found somewhat of an escape from his past in his work, which numbed the pain of living but gave him hardly any sleep. On any normal day when a witness had mysteriously died, he would stay awake, tossing and turning in frustration, but eventually fall asleep in the early hours of the morning.

He didn't sleep at all.

His brother's wife was on his mind. Surely she had woken by now? Seen that he was gone? Noticed the business card he'd left on the bedside table? He turned over, eyes wide open. Perhaps, he reasoned, she was still disoriented from the events of being locked out of the Warring States.

Perhaps she had been too dazed to notice. There was a possibility that she forget her chance meeting with Sesshomaru altogether. Stress had a funny way of working with the mind.

He rolled onto his stomach.

Didn't it seem a little odd, though? He frowned. What a surprising coincidence, that he happened to visit the Higurashi family shrine just as the Priestess returned to the present. It wasn't as if Sesshomaru had never been to that shrine before. Didn't it make sense that he would have run into the girl at one point or another?

He mentally corrected himself. The last time he'd been anywhere near that shrine was over twenty years ago, long before she'd been born.

Still… He flipped onto his back. Why now? If anyone found the girl, he'd have pegged it on Kouga or Shippou. He felt cheap, hiding his discovery from the wolf. It surprised Sesshomaru that he'd recognized Kagome's scent after five hundred years. If Kouga got suspicious enough, he would go out of his way to investigate it.

But all that aside, why on earth hadn't that woman contacted him yet?!

He sat up. "This," growled Sesshomaru, "will not do."

It was well past three AM, and dark enough, even for Tokyo, that he wasn't worried he'd be caught. He strode to his large window and propped it open. As he slung a leg over the side and the cool air hit his skin, he grimaced; he wasn't wearing shoes. It would only be a quick trip, he decided, and threw his other bare foot out onto the small ledge.

All he needed was to see her face, just for a moment.

He lived on the eleventh floor of the apartment building, and the height would have curled a regular man's toes.

But the Lord of the West was no regular man.

He leapt gracefully, quietly, off the window's edge and sliced through the crow black sky. The crisp air hitting his face was exhilarating; it had been decades since he'd last flown, and Sesshomaru found himself sorely missing it.

The visiting hours at the hospital most probably did not extend to three-thirty in the morning, so he arrived at Kagome's window after enjoying his trip and perched against the side of the building. He made quick work of getting inside, shutting the pane of glass as quietly as he could.

She was sleeping.

He glanced at his business card, still resting on the table and confirmed that she hadn't yet seen it. If he was right, she hadn't even woken up yet. Another woman he didn't recognize sat in a chair pulled up at the bedside, her hand grasping the girl's and cheek pressed into the covers.

He inhaled.

Her mother, he assumed by the scent.

So, she wasn't completely alone. He exhaled. Moving closer, he blinked at her peaceful face and grimaced. She slept relatively soundly, for a woman who had just been separated from the man she loved.

Kagome is strong, he recalled Shippou telling him several weeks after her disappearance. I'm sure she's just as sad as we are, being apart from everyone. But she's not gonna stay that way! She'll be happy for us, even if she cries at first. It's not her I'm worried about.

He smelled something.

Something like fresh pine and smoke.

He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. It was so familiar, but it had been so long ago… He stilled.

"Inuyasha," he whispered. Kagome stirred in her sleep, and his eyes snapped open. She smelled like Inuyasha. It occurred to him that while five hundred years had passed since he'd seen his brother, it had been barely over ten hours for Kagome.

Of course she would smell like him.

Sesshomaru had thought he'd never smell that scent again.

He looked at her face once more, then turned sharply on his bare heel and left out the window. Flying home didn't give him as much as a thrill this time; his mind was heavy, addled with memories and conflicting emotions. Sesshomaru didn't know what to do, and that had never happened before. The guilt he felt when he recalled Inuyasha, sitting for days and nights in front of the well, in the freezing snow, pouring rain, and scorching sun…the guilt that he was with his brother's mate was overwhelming.

Because, he reminded himself, Inuyasha was dead.

The bridge of time that Kagome had brought to him was unwelcomed. He didn't need a bridge to understand the past, and he didn't want a bridge to his old memories. Because, as much as he hated to admit it…

Sesshomaru had been hurt when they died.

His last relative, gone. The final semblance of his hated father's mighty bloodline, snuffed out. If only he could visit his grave, he would feel less guilty of stealing time. But Kouga refused to tell him where it was. He had to find it himself.

Sesshomaru had no idea where to look.

He reached his home, grinding his teeth in fury. He didn't want to feel guilt every time he looked at the Priestess. He didn't want to remember his half-brother's scent or search desperately for a grave. He had found a peace in ignorance, in the year 2001, and he would not have it taken from him.

If Kagome called him, he would answer.

But he would not submit to guilt.

Sesshomaru didn't sleep at all that night.

A/N:

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