Author's Notes: Another story in the "Rose Garden" series. I don't know how long this collection will be. I'll just add to it over time until I'm satisfied. I just keep starting new projects, huh? Anyway, thank you for all your support (those that did review/read) and I hope you will stay with me on this new project.
For this chapter, I really wanted there to be more of an emphasis on finding your own self rather than romance. I hope it comes through well in this story. Thanks for reading.

Rose Garden

2nd Story

Inuyasha/SM crossover

Title: While Walking Alone

Summary: This takes place during the first season of Sailor Moon: Kikyou runs a small shrine by herself, depending on the help of neighbors to prevent from closing down and giving in to a large corporation. While walking across a field pitted with holes from the company's previous attempts at tilling the land, she stumbles upon a "Sleeping Beauty" and learns to decide between what she wants, and what she needs.

"And I call myself a priestess."

Kikyou stood up and turned away from the small hand mirror set on a stand before her. Her lips formed the last words of her dialog, the trained speech to her supporters. The last speech to herself.

Come next November, the shrine would be officially closed. That should give her enough time to patch up things around here and sell off the rest of her belongs. She had broken ties with her family, her only sister, and broken up with the love of her life. Retreating here to waste away like a cowardly dog with its tail between its legs.

And now she was forced to leave, to go back to the world which hated her.

Kikyou shrugged off her priestess robes and left the shrine, a sketchpad under her arm. It wasn't too cold, or too late in the day, for the birds to leave. The sunset lit up her lonely profile. She walked away from it all, the town, the sea, and toward an empty patch of overgrown ground that tried to reach for the sky.

There were no buildings close to here, just the lonely howl of the wind. This was the beginnings of a new shopping center that would be built here soon. Newly plowed land as far as the eye could see. Kikyou stopped and watched the sunset, then continued on. There would be no birdwatching today. She had waited too late.

Just like everything else in her life. Waiting too late.

A pothole suddenly appeared before her. Kikyou tripped and fell into it face first, scraping her hands and face on the sharp rocks that caught her fall.

No, not rocks. Crystal.
Before her glowed the remains of a crystal casket.
Kikyou sat up slowly, watching as her blood was absorbed by the stone and a soft white glow fell around her. A beacon. What caught her eye was blond hair and an elegant profile. Sleeping, like the legend of the princess that lies in wait for a thousand years.

Then that would make her the prince, right? Throwing away such thoughts, Kikyou finally stood up and reached out a hesitant hand toward the man before her.

He was breathing. She could feel his breath on her fingertips. Faint, but there. What was he doing here? And his clothes, they were military? Or maybe this was some new sci-fi movie they were filming and she was interrupting? Short blond hair and long eyelashes

She looked up at the sky. No, it was too dark. She would have past a barricade if that was the truth.

He opened his eyes. They were blue.

"Ah...Um...." Her voice hesitated as his eyes fell upon her. Such a clear blue...

"Queen...Be—No. Who are you?"
Her voice was small. She was afraid of him? "...Kikyou."

He closed his eyes. Sadness then? For himself, or for her interrupting his sleep? "...Jadeite."

She housed him without complaint. A strange man and a young woman living in a secluded, almost abandoned, area by themselves. If the neighbors questioned her judgment, or her purity, they did not voice their opinions.

And he did not speak to her. Not about his time alone, or why he had been sleeping there. Or about whose name had been on his lips. Not his queen, but what he had said after and what was in his eyes.

Rei. She somehow knew that the name in his sleep was someone who had hurt him, yet changed him, as Inuyasha had hurt her. But she didn't peruse it. If she looked like her than at least it made her better equipped to comfort him.

"Do you want some tea?" The pathetic excuse on her lips died at the look on his face. Frustrated, she set down the tray and held herself back from the temptation within reach.
She wanted to embrace him. Out of everything in this pathetic world he had brought her back to reality by his suffering. Before Kikyou knew it, she had distanced herself from not only her emotions, but from others. And now because of him, this Jadeite, she could feel again.
All this because of a stranger...

"Do you always stare?"

"Pardon?" Kikyou backed away from him apologetically and tripped over the end table behind her. She fell back—

Into his arms. He was fast. It startled her. Just like everything he did.
But the most upsetting thing was ending up on the floor in his arms.
"Ah! (Slap!)"
They didn't move, as the echo of her hand across his face filled the space between them.
"I'm...Sorry?" She turned it into a question as he started to laugh.

Was he happy that he could feel pain, or did she amuse him? Kikyou had the impression that he wasn't human. A being that just laughed at her struggles. It angered her, but it attached her more to him.

She didn't protest as his hands moved toward her waist, not even when the named he called out during their love making wasn't hers.

"...I'm a pathetic woman."

Those were Kikyou's first thoughts upon waking up in his arms. She sat up and he turned over, giving her his perfect profile.

"Anyone would have done, wouldn't it?"

Yet she had opened up her heart, body, mind and soul to a complete stranger.

Maybe it was because they are similar. Two people who have been hurt as much as they have loved and who can no longer trust anyone. Not even themselves. So their feelings turn to hatred, to self-loathing, and they turn away from the people that they swore to protect because they can't deal with the pain. Can't take the hurt. Can't understand why they are still alive.

Yet they are alive. And struggling to live in this world.
"I am alive. I'm here. By your side. Not her." Kikyou whispered. Knowing that he was awake and not caring out of spite. It was the truth, but if so, it was a truth that she needed to learn too.

He was not Inuyasha. She was not Rei.

And he is no "princess."

"Are you sure about this? Can you change your mind?"

The factory man scowled down at her, his suit shining dully in the winter sun.
Winter, an early winter was coming. The end of many things. As well as the beginning of something new and tragic. Something beautiful because it wouldn't last. Yet she refused to think about the end. Not now.

"Yes, I'm sure. My family has owned this land for many years. I am the last of my family and this is my land, and my home. I am sorry."

He scowled down at her and Kikyou smiled back.

The wind chased her up the steps, blowing her somber skirt past her legs. Yes, it wouldn't last, but she was still hoping he would be there when she reached the end.

"You gave it up?" It was not spoken as a question.

Kikyou stared at him. Blond hair and cold blue eyes. The icy features that she loved. She could teach him to love again. If only it would not end, if only it would last. But he was a solider and she was a warrior among women who were just learning to rule again. To trust again.

She reached up and caressed his face, slipping the deed to the land into the inner pocket of his gray uniform.

"When your search is over, come find me again. You will, won't you?" It was not spoken as a question.

He chuckled, mocking her affection, but there was no malice in it. And he did not throw the deed or her love away.

For he would come back, and with it so would spring and everything would be wonderful.

But it would not last.

Nothing ever does. Sometimes you have to walk alone to realize this, and sometimes you have to walk together to realize love.

But more than love, Kikyou thought as she watched him walk away, the man she had stumbled upon and who had saved her from herself, sometimes you must walk alone to realize your own strength. And that is worth more than love.

(2/22/08—While Walking Alone, End)