"You don't have to stay," Kagome said.
Inuyasha started. He'd been looking at the sky, at the streams of white that could be clouds, could be smoke, could be Kikyou's shinidamachu—
He looked at Kagome. The light from inside Kaede's doorway haloed the young girl's silhouette, but he could easily see her face. A stark white bandage spread across her cheek, covering nearly the entire left side of her face. There was a dark bruise under her left eye. The light flickered off the coarse priestess garb she wore, and she looked thin and frail in it. What was left of her uniform had been burned—it had been too bloody to save.
Kagome was staring at the sky too, her expression still and empty. Inuyasha frowned, and then winced as his upper lip burned white with pain. He licked it, tasting blood, then rubbed his face on his sleeve. When he turned to Kagome again, she was still staring at the sky.
He limped toward her slowly, carefully. The dust stirred under his feet, following him until he stepped up the few steps onto Kaede's house platform. He stopped next to Kagome, eyes darting all over her face.
"You all right?" he asked. His voice was raw and low—he coughed to clear it.
Kagome wouldn't look at him. "You don't have to stay," she repeated.
Inuyasha straightened and leaned back. He studied her—not her injuries this time, but the droop in her shoulders, the slack in her jaw. He wasn't always smart, but he wasn't stupid.
"Don't I?" he asked, and maybe there was more meaning in that then there had a right to be. His eyes darted inside the house. His ears twitched. Kaede and Miroku were talking in quiet, hushed tones. He couldn't hear Sango. He took a step forward.
Kagome shifted slightly, blocking the door. Maybe it was subconscious. "You don't."
Inuyasha paused. Then-and oh he wished he could control it-he looked at the sky. It was an impulse: uncontrollable, instinctual. He could feel it in his bones, the clawing need to find her. To make sure he wasn't being called. To make sure she was okay, because that last battle had been rough and no one had been left untouched. His eye was partially swollen and his leg limped a little, but it didn't matter; he itched to take off, to follow—
"What are you going to do?" Kagome asked quietly.
Inuyasha bit his lip uncertainly, feeling as he always did that he was walking a field of unforseen traps. With it came a burst of fury. He shouldn't have to feel ashamed. His fist clenched tight and he wanted to punch something, to rip something apart. He wanted to yell. All he could manage was a angry look at Kagome's profile.
Kagome was safe. They were safe. He had made sure of it; it had been the first thing he had checked. He had carried, he had hovered, he had guarded for hours. What did she expect of him? What more did she want?
The thought doused Inuyasha's anger like cold water. Enough to make his weak leg tremble. No, that wasn't right. That wasn't fair.
He knew what she wanted. And she wasn't thinking of what she wanted.
He hated it, hated it, hated it but—he wasn't thinking of what she wanted either.
Inuyasha lifted a hand and gently touched a strand of Kagome's hair. She didn't look, but he felt it, through her hair—the finest of tremors. What was holding her up, he wondered. Loyalty? Faith?
Then she could understand.
"I'll be back," he whispered.
Kagome flinched, and the pain of it was unbearable. He had never given much thought to his longevity, but when he was with her in these kind of moments, he became painfully aware of the age lying like a disease beneath his skin. In the span of moments, he could watch the birth and death of hope, longing, love and he cursed at its futility. Cursed that he saw it for what it was and could do nothing, neither accept it or decline it. Because it was, and had always been, her choice. Because sometimes the choices you make in the name of others result in other people's choices you have no part in.
Because he had made a choice too, though it had grown and grown until sometimes it felt like he hadn't really had one at all. In fact, he could not choose any more, only settle with increasingly bitter compromises. In the grey landscape of his obligations, Kagome's choice was a bright flame, warming him, comforting him, and yet burning him, because it illuminated all his ugly truths. She loved him and he couldn't give himself to her. He failed her, again, again, again. Everything else was irrelevant.
He feared and loathed the day that light would dim and disappear, and yet…for her sake, how could he not also wish it?
The moment passed into one somehow more torturous as Kagome worked through her thoughts. He watched each one die a slow, quiet death until nothing but a blank sereneness encompassed her face, and damn it—she had never looked more lovely. A second passed, and then she shrugged heavily.
"Okay."
Burn, burn, burn. After a moment, Inuyasha dropped his hand.
"Just...for a bit," he said uneasily, because he had to try. Hurting her was becoming too close to second nature.
She shrugged again.
Inuyasha sighed and turned away. He hesitated for a moment, then trotted down the few steps of Kaede's house. It was only when his left foot touched the ground that Kagome spoke up.
"You don't," she paused, and he could feel the feeble flame, hope in infancy, "you don't have to leave, either."
Life was too cruel. Inuyasha didn't turn around. His leg wavered, but he gritted his teeth against the pain.
"Don't I?" he asked, and it meant more than it had any right to. And then as gently as he could, because he did love her and loving someone meant putting them before yourself, "You don't have to stay either."
He didn't need to look to see the light die in her eyes. Death, death, death. He closed his eyes against it, and the birth of his own longing, this vicious cycle they traded between them, this intricate web and dance.
Because he would come back. He always did. He didn't think he had a choice anymore.
There was only Kagome's ragged breath, in tandem with his own, when he continued walking again.