When

Part X

When they're twenty-one, Kagome invites Yuka out to lunch before the fall semester starts and cries the whole time. She's not sure why.

"Is it Sesshomaru?" Yuka asks, patting her hand.

"No!" Kagome croaks, pushing at her food.

"Is it the sex?"

"What? No!" She blushes, and laughs, and cries harder. The other diners are starting to stare. "How do you even know?"

"I know you. It's practically tattooed on your forehead!" She steals a piece of Kagome's tonkatsu. "Also, I can see the hickey on your chest."

Kagome pushes her food away, launching out of her chair and into Yuka's arms. She hugs her for a long time, feeling every muscle and every bone; she memorizes the smell of her hair.

Two weeks later, she knows exactly why.

It's a sunny afternoon when Naraku comes for them, dodging around their first attacks to grab Kagome and her jewel shards by the throat. Inuyasha, for once, doesn't curse. Out of the corner of her eye she can see that Sesshomaru's a second away from transforming. Kagome watches the sick smile that spreads across Naraku's face as the jewel becomes whole, and can only think one thing: we are so fucked.

But they're not. It's hours of bloodied clothes, and widening wind tunnels, and Inuyasha turning the air blue from cursing, but finally her arrow hits the mark. Kagome is incredibly proud that she, who six years earlier couldn't shoot at all, is the one to kill Naraku.

Then, the jewel is purified.

Then, the jewel is wished on.

Then, they go back to the village and find that the well is closed.

"No," Kagome says, scrambling up the vines and jumping in again. And again. And again and again until she bangs her elbow and skins her knee and Sesshomaru has to hold her to keep from jumping again. Her ears are ringing.

"I'm sorry, Kagome," Sango says.

"It'll be all right, Lady Kagome," Miroku soothes.

"Yeah Kagome, it'll…he's right, you'll…you'll be okay," Inuyasha stutters.

"We'll take care of you!" Rin declares.

"We love you!" Shippo crows.

"Kagome," Sesshomaru rumbles. She looks up at him; her head feels heavy. "We'll go to the village."

"And do what?" she asks hoarsely.

There's movement at the edge of her vision, light rippling through the folds of Sango's kimono, and her stomach jumps as she realises how threadbare it is. Inuyasha's face is thinner. Shippo is getting so tall. Rin, thirteen and getting gawky, looks nothing like the little girl she first met. So much time has passed; she wonders why she never really noticed before.

"Stay," Sesshomaru says.

It's not a proposal, at least not the kind she used to imagine. This isn't a restaurant steeped in candlelight or a beach at sunrise; there won't be champagne or dancing or a fat diamond ring. Instead it's just their family, bruised and beyond the well, and maybe that's better. They don't need all that stuff anyway; they're already raising two kids. Somehow, they skipped over the fairy tale and landed on something real.

"Okay," she says.

That night, she tells him she loves him. He says it back.

Author's Note

Uh…long time no see. I am so sorry for how long this took. Real life got in the way, and I rewrote the end probably a half-dozen times, and while I'm not completely happy with it I thought it was time to post. There will be one more chapter after this. Thank you, to all of you still reading!