Words: 3,067
Disclaimer: THE ONLY INUYASHA THING I OWN IS VOLUMES 1-3 OF THE MANGA I NEED MONEY
Notes: I … have been in a rough place for the past few days and this is the result. I'm happier with this than I am with under this blessed rain and The Kids Are (Gonna Be) Alright, but writing is a process, and it's one I have always enjoyed (no matter how painfully frustrating it can get). I tried to channel my personal angst, depression, and cynicism into this and aimed to turn it into something beautiful or at least something as close to beautiful as possible. Please share your thoughts, I'd love to know what you think!

you'd be home

Every night was the same.

The same set up, the same stage. The same lighting and the same exact symphony. He tried to change things up as much as he could. Sometimes he made his way over to the well using the trees; sometimes he'd just walk, most of the time he'd run. He would even take off the top half of his Fire-Rat on particularly muggy and humid evenings, when the cicadas had gone quiet for the night, the echoes of their summer song still buzzing in the shell of his ear. He did what he could - he did everything his helpless mind and hopeless heart could think of to distract himself for the entire short journey to Kagome's well.

But every night was the same.

x-x-x

He had a lot to learn, sometimes too much to learn, and he didn't know if he'd be able to figure it all out on his own. He needed to learn how to forgive - how to forgive himself - and how to forget, instead of live and regret. He knew he'd done his best and fought his hardest but it still felt like receiving the short end of the stick. Orphan boys never got their happy endings after all.

Miroku and Sango spoke to him constantly, not just with words but mostly with soft eyes and understanding touches that he honestly appreciated. He might've been dense but he wasn't dumb - they missed her too, they just hid it better so he could mourn her in his own special way. Those two - they still inspired him to bring out a good smile every once in a while. The smiles were rare, don't get him wrong, and each one forced him to reach a little too deeply into his already tender heart, but they would appear sometimes. Real ones.

And Shippo - Shippo was a trooper, a real fighter. Shippo was special. He knew in the aching crevices of his heart that Shippo wanted her back more than anything. From his protective perch outside Miroku and Sango's hut, he heard the kit cry every night for an entire moon cycle. The kid's sniffles sent such shivers up his arms that one evening when he couldn't take it anymore, he jumped down from the roof and crept into the hut to pick Shippo up by the cloth of his jinbei and kept the startled fox-kit clasped against the warmth of his breast until the sun started to peek over the horizon the next morning.

But the miracle with Shippo wasn't about what he had done to help Shippo deal with her departure - it was what Shippo had done to save him from himself. The fox chatted his damn ear off whenever he could, wherever he could - in the fields, during dinner, in the middle of demon attacks, while Sango was giving birth to the twins, you name it, the kid was there - and he never loved the little brat harder than he loved him those three years.

If Shippo hadn't provided the ultimate distraction, he might not have been around to pull her out of the well.

x-x-x

Occasionally he wondered if he were growing delirious or possibly even crazy with his nightly routine of camping out next to Kagome's well.

One evening about a year after she'd left him, he thought that maybe he'd finally snapped. He sat there in his personal sanctuary, back resting against the wood of the well, his head upturned towards the deep, black sky, the crescent of the moon so bright it stung his eyes. (He blinked rapidly to try and ease the pain.)

(Nothing happened.)

Midnight had already passed and the moon had crept to its coveted position at the highest point in the evening sky. He was content to sit there, watching that luminescent sickle glide slowly across the heavens, torturing his irises and waiting for the best thing that ever happened to him to come home. Then, all of a sudden, the stars also seemed to be moving, but in a strange dance he'd never witnessed before. They stuttered across the dark canvas like languid, unsynchronized fireflies, twinkling on and off as if to tease his gaze, drawing his attention and then losing it as easily as child's play. This seemed to go on for an entire hour until all the stars formed a single constellation that elicited a gasp from his mouth, dry and unbelieving.

He would recognize that form anywhere, and in any life.

He leaned forward, fascinated, curious, and above all, desperate.

Was it a sign? Were the gods trying to tell him something? Or was this some kind of sick joke?

The constellation was still moving, its dazzling, star-speckled skirt fluttering the way hers used to whenever it caught the wind. Its hair, with her distinctive shape, twirled and sparkled against the moonlight, drawing from him another agonizing breath. Its uniform shifted and he swore for a second that the constellation was alive, that it was actually her.

But what did it mean? Did it even have anything to do with her?

Honestly, was he going crazy?

In some functioning part of his mind, he realized bitterly that even this breathtaking and sparkling phantom was taking him by the hand and leading him along with promises of his name in her eyes, the flash of her teeth with every smile, and her warmth in his palms.

But that was clearly asking for too much.

The reconstruction of her petite form wasn't even facing him but still its head would tilt and turn left and right as if swaying to some unheard music, revealing the line of her jaw and the apples of her cheeks - he even managed to catch the slender point of her nose - but never turning around to actually face him. He was left with a tantalizing view of the length of her slender legs, the soft curve of her bottom, and her small back. The image nudged at the corners of his subconscious, triggering a series of memories like stacks of those strange shiny paintings Kagome had shown him back in her time (she called one a fo-to or some other odd, futuristic term).

Eventually, her memory grew to be too much for him to handle, but he'd been expecting as much. That was just the way things were. He remembered, he hurt, and he closed his eyes, unable to do anything but deal with the sharp stab in his gut and wait for it to fade into something bearable.

When he opened his eyes, the beautiful constellation of Kagome was gone and all that was left was a twinkling memory in a dark, quiet, and perfectly lonely land.

x-x-x

He stopped going to the well after the strange hallucination with the starry apparition of The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Him (sometimes when even her name would shut him down, he'd refer to her in those very wordy terms in the hopes that it would calm him down).

(It never really worked.)

He assumed his position as the village's resident protector and accepted the role with few complaints and fewer qualms. Of course he'd stick around. The rest of his pack still lived there.

He spent most of his days (avoiding the well) ridding the premises of stray demons and threats to the village and his half-brother's precious ward. He spent days with Miroku on the politics and well-being of the village and weeks with Shippo on journeys to explore what they hadn't yet seen of Japan's lands. He trained with Sango and Kohaku to keep both them and himself in shape, even after Kohaku started to grow into his own body and after Sango had given birth to the twins.

Sometimes he forgot that in certain aspects, his friends were far, far stronger than he'd ever be.

He never understood how they managed to face their tomorrows with such confidence while he ran around feeling much too light for a half-demon of his strength. In all his years, he'd never felt so weightless, almost ephemeral, with nothing to ground him to the very earth that raised him.

He suspected that it had something to do with the disappearance of the person who'd been able to do just that with a single word.

x-x-x

But after two full years and she still hadn't popped out of the well with her loud mouth and louder soul, he started going back.

He couldn't help it.

His Fire-Rat was losing its traces of her scent. Everything she'd ever touched, held, stepped on, or sat on had lost her very essence and the day he realized that, he almost destroyed the forest in his frenzied panic.

He would not forget her.

Then he remembered the one place where he still might catch a whiff of her, perhaps if he tried hard enough. He dropped his bowl of rice haphazardly onto the mat of Sango's hut, startling his friends but not stopping to explain, choosing instead to dash over to Kagome's well as quickly as his demon half could take him.

When he got there, to his dismay, he found the well's outer walls covered in small vines and leaves that had started crawling their way closer to the well's opening. The prospect of the vines sealing the time portal and keeping Kagome that much further away from him urged him to frantically rip the vines off the walls quickly, even pulling out some roots in his attempts to protect her only path back to him.

After he was satisfied that he had gotten rid of all the vines and hadn't completely disrupted the surrounding ecosystem, he slumped onto the ground, tired and a little stunned at his aggressiveness. Then he smirked bitterly. Even without being there physically, she still brought out the most ferociously determined and protective parts of him.

The only difference this time was that he had no one to protect.

x-x-x

He made a big deal out of constantly checking on the Bone-Eater's well, cleaning up any persistent roots and vines, and ensuring the sturdiness of its structure. He didn't visit it as religiously as he used to, what with his increasing roles as protector and liaison for Kaede's village. If Kaede wasn't asking (or forcing) him to help the farmers with particularly difficult tasks or to assist Sango with her daily chores, he was with Miroku and other village officials, overlooking the expansion of the community and the trade agreements with other villages. And that didn't even include his regular job of maintaining a safe perimeter around the village. But one way or another he managed to make enough time to visit the well every week, never going more than a few days in between each visit.

He needed that well.

Unfortunately, it too had lost her scent in the three years she'd been gone but he still went if only to quiet his mind and feel closer to her. Plus, he had a whole routine. He'd clean the well if necessary (and most times, it was), mope around in the vicinity for about an hour, inspect the well just in case he'd missed something - a hint of magic, an article of clothing that might still smell like her hair, anything - and for the rest of the time, proceed to take up his apparently eternal post as the well's guardian. Sometimes Shippo had to come by just to pull him futilely from his seated position to convince him to quit his sulking.

Today was one of those instances. The sun had barely reached its peak in the sky, and the day hadn't even hit noon yet but he found himself begrudgingly tolerating the twins' constant harassment on his precious ears while their parents went about with their chores and Shippo avoided their playful chaos at a safe distance. The two girls clambered up his Fire-Rat unsteadily in a race to see who could grab both ears at the exact same time, completely unfazed by his annoyed twitching, his slight irritation something they either missed or ignored.

He was in the middle of pondering various excuses to escape the crowd in order to be alone again when he was suddenly struck by the strange sensation of familiarity. Sweetness of a foreign yet recognizable tinge tickled his nose, and his eyes snapped open in urgency.

Immediately he deposited the twins onto Shippo who cried out in annoyance.

"Hey, what was that for!" Shippo twisted his head to glare at the hanyou but the spot next to the fox was empty.

He ran.

And for the first time in three years, he was grateful for the emptiness in his body and the lightness of his feet.

This scent… there's no mistaking it.

He was like quicksilver, moving mercilessly yet gracefully over the grass, not stopping, not even breathing properly until he got to his destination.

He stopped a few feet from the well and approached it almost hesitantly, unsure whether to trust his nose despite the fact that he'd been listening to it faithfully his entire life. If he looked over the lip of the well, would he be disappointed, just like every other time? He'd spent three years aching from the dismay of looking into that dumb hole in the ground, feeling a blow to his chest every single time he stared into the very dark and very empty depths of the well. There was never anyone in there in the past three (long, exhausting) years so he tried his damnedest not to get his hopes up. After all, every night had been the same for three years, right?

Not today.

Today the orchestra was singing a different song; there was a key change, a pickup in speed, a surge of noise and energy, and he heard it the instant he looked into the Bone-Eater's well. He stared in utter disbelief - he could believe his nose but he honestly could not believe his eyes. He didn't dare to move lest he shatter the image of The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Him - she looked so real; the folds in her clothes, the perspiration on her temple - making her way slowly but steadily up the well.

When she got close enough, he decided fuck it and reached down to offer her his hand, fingers quivering in the shock of the moment.

She was real.

He gasped, three years of loneliness, discouragement, and fruitless yearning suddenly seeping out of his body with a single touch. It was absurd, quite honestly, the power of this girl, but that didn't matter because she was here.

She was home, and the idea inspired him to pull her upwards, the force of his tug drawing her high above the well then down safely into his arms. He couldn't stop his claws from curling firmly but gently around her biceps. Even if (gods forbid) this wasn't real, he wouldn't be letting go of her without a fight.

And then The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Him opened her mouth – "Inuyasha, I'm sorry."

He could only blink.

"Were you waiting for me?"

The sound of his name on her lips, the flash of her teeth behind a small smile, and the gracious warmth of her arms under his palms all brought him back to his sweet reality and he found his voice, fighting to keep it from trembling but not quite succeeding.

"Kago–"

Apparently her name was still a little difficult to say out loud.

"You idiot," he said endearingly instead to cover up the emotion in his voice. He pulled her tightly to his body which was bubbling with something he could only describe as relief, an overwhelming kind that pushed against the cavity of his chest as his heart pulsed its strongest beat in a painfully long time.

He didn't answer her question, nor did he really have to. He was there when she'd come home, and that was good enough. His biggest concern for the past three years was waiting for her - of course he was waiting for her - and he would've waited three hundred more lives just to be there to pull her out of the well when she'd come home.

He whispered a mumbled prayer of thanks that she didn't quite catch.

At least she didn't make him wait any longer.

x-x-x

Shippo, Miroku, and Sango seemed less shocked and more surprised at her arrival, as if she'd come home early and they hadn't been expecting her until another few hundred years.

He didn't even spare them a look; they'd had their time with him for three years and he wanted to be hers from here on out.

They followed their friends back to the village, lagging behind on the path away from the Bone-Eater's well, a path that had seared itself into his memory at some point in the last few years. He kept some part of his body on hers the entire time - her waist, her arms, her shoulders; he couldn't keep his hands off of her. Three years ago, he was all about personal space, but three years was a long time.

Three years could change people, like turn a man in love back into a boy in love.

A glance at Kagome - The Absolute Best Thing That Ever Happened to Him - showed that she was also watching him relentlessly and that was enough for him to confirm that she felt the same way, but just in case - just in case - he stopped walking and dragged both of his hands down to lay gently on her waist, holding her in place. She looked at him curiously but her eyes still shined - glowing with an overflowing supply of love (a love for him, he thought blissfully).

He hesitated for just a second before closing his eyes and leaning down, his forehead coming to touch hers automatically, as if his body remembered exactly how to find hers even after years of being separated. He whispered the words firmly but his nervousness was tangible, practically melting her heart, and elicited a smile - apologetic, penitent, affectionate - from her. She didn't answer him straight away, trying to communicate her response with just her touch before she broke out into a full grin and leaned up to whisper her answer against his lips.

Yes, I'll stay.

fin

Notes: The title is derived from Owl City's spectacular song "If My Heart Was A House" but my soundtrack for this song was actually Hemenway's "Will You Stay?" because of how perfectly it aligns with Kagome and Inuyasha's whole "Can I stay with you?" thing. I am all for cheesy OTPs and heartbreaking soundtracks, are you with me on this?!