AN: Ah! I can't believe how long it took us to update this fic! I am ashamed! ::cries:: Well… it's not our fault that between Emily get sick, me getting sick (how we both get each other sick when we live in two different countries is beyond me!), work getting in the way on both our parts, boyfriends, and me being in school and having exams… it's sad when you can't even find time to talk over AIM. Hopefully, our next date won't take months. (Ahh! Months! So ashamed! ::cries harder:: )

Kumiko, Hayai, Fearless, New Moon Night: Um…. Yeah… ::ducks in case things get thrown because she hasn't updated in months::

Aamalie: Wow. You must really love us. Reading a fic that has Inu/Kag… ::gasps and then giddily glomps you::

Lily Thorne: Emily and I ware working hard on this one! Harder than normal! And I think that we're finally getting the hang of anticipating each other and making things flow easier. But what do I know? I'm rather biased.

Ritsuki: Yay! Someone else who says that stuff rocks socks!

Enjoy!!

::continues with the ducking until the next update… then it'll be safe…::

Chapter One

Inuyasha awoke with the morning light, as he always did. He stretched on his thin mattress, and yawned, and debated going back to bed. He had dreamed about her again. Kagome. Just thinking her name made everything stop for a moment or two, all thoughts settle in his mind. And then it was followed by a crash of bitterness.

It had been years. Two long, arduous years, of everyday going to the well and hoping that she would be sitting there in her green and white school uniform, thinking of something wonderful. Two years of he and Shippo, working at trying to lift the rocks from the well and reshape it into what it was.

The others had helped out at first, but then there began to be problems. Kaede's health was failing, and Miroku spent many hours with her, helping her to face each day in the hopes that they could find someone with the power to replace her. Kaede was training a young priestess already, but she didn't have the dedication or the power, and often a whole day would be wasted as she went to fish or play, or worse, to visit with friends of the male sex.

Of course, there were always the demons that were coming in to attack the village, still thinking that some Jewel shard lay hidden in the shrine or in the village—Inuyasha doubted many of them knew it was he who still carried it.

Sango usually took care of the demons, and if it was too hard for a girl born and raised as a demon slayer, then she always called upon Inuyasha or Miroku, more often than not the monk.

Their relationship had been deepening to the point where Inuyasha felt he was going to be sick if he stayed with them any longer. So, one day a year ago, he had grabbed some wood and some tools, and had gone out to Inuyasha's Forest, and had not come back. He still loved Sango and Miroku, but when he saw them understand each other, or finish each other's sentences, he felt lonely.

And so, in the end, two years later, Inuyasha had a house by himself in the forest of his name, where he could always see the well, watching and waiting for the day when he would have fixed the well enough for Kagome to return.

There was a knocking at the front door to his little hut. I guess the means I can't return to bed, Inuyasha thought grumpily. He hollered for him to come in, knowing that it was Shippo bringing him some food from the village. Shippo always brought food with him whenever he came, and he never complained about the weight of the rocks he helped Inuyasha move. In fact, there was something about Shippo being near that always made Inuyasha feel that Kagome might be closer.

Shippo stood outside and waited patiently, his fox tail swishing back and forth in anticipation. In the past two years, Shippo and Inuyasha mostly managed to get over the whole brotherly-love-is-pain bit they had going when… Shippo, didn't want to think of her. He and Inuyasha had grown close. Of course it was nothing like what he and Kagome—there, he thought of her name—had felt or had. Inuyasha was in no means a parental unit replacement like she had been. But he was like a close brother, and now with more in common than simply a foe or a girl… They shared a loss. A loss that was deep for both of them.

Oh sure, Shippo was still a little boy even though he had grown a lot in the past two years. But he knew, already back then when he had stuck with Kagome like an imprinted puppy, that she and Inuyasha shared something special together. That's why he always wanted to beat the crap out of Inuyasha and would toss acorns in his hair when he wasn't looking, after Inuyasha had run off with Kikyo.

But after Kikyo's soul found peace, or so they at least presumed, and when Shippo and Kagome were alone he felt finally like he had gained his lost family. But then when that god damn earthquake… "Come on! Inuyasha! This pot is heavy!" Shippo's cracked voice heaved. "It's time to try those new spells…" he whispered, looking over to his left and the rebuilt well. It wasn't like that was the first time something had happened to it… It just must've been one time too many.

"Oy Inuyasha! The new moon is tonight; don't take your time! Flea bag!" Shippo shouted, figuring if there was one way to get Inuyasha going it was to piss him off.

Besides, Shippo really didn't want to go back to the village. Sango and Miroku decided it was baby season making—again. 'They're in a rut.' Shippo thought with mild disgust. Adults were so stupid. "Come on Inuyasha!!!"

Inuyasha opened the door, his pants still in his hand. He growled something about young demons and their impatience, but he smiled when he took the pot Shippo was holding over his head. It was Miroku's home-made stew. It was actually pretty good. Inuyasha just wondered if the men in the village would ever stop teasing Miroku for being a better cook than his wife. Inuyasha set the pot by the small hearth to keep it warm.

"Don't call me flea-bag," he growled, giving Shippo a poke.

Shippo grinned and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Well, take a bath once in a while and I won't," he replied nonchalantly, but he quickly sobered up. "Inuyasha... today is two years."

"I know," he sighed, starting to get dressed. Inuyasha, from his perspective, had more to lose than Shippo. Shippo might have been losing a mother-figure, but at least he had a brother-figure in the older demon. Inuyasha, on the other hand, was losing the woman he loved, the same soul that he had loved from a lifetime ago, for the second time. He would have found it funny if he didn't find it so distressing. He leaned down, his hand landing on Shippo's shoulder. "But she always came back to us, didn't she? No matter how many times I pushed her away, she always came back to us. She will again."

While Shippo had barely aged in that time, Inuyasha had fallen victim to time's bending scythe. It had done him good, by all accounts. His face had become smoother, his eyes more direct. His hair was slicker than it was before, and he had grown slightly in height and in the breadth of his shoulders. Those who had met his brother were not quick to mention to Inuyasha how obvious the connection was now that he had matured a bit more. Their sanguinely relationship was blatantly obvious now, but Inuyasha had a tendency to bite—sometimes literally—at people who brought up Sesshomaru.

Shippo grinned. "Oy, you want to kiss her don't you?" He then barked out a cry of help when Inuyasha pulled the sword out on him. Throwing his crying mushrooms at him, Shippo fled the hut towards the well. "I shoulda known better then to lighten the mood!!" he screamed turning into a pink floating ball.

Inuyasha sheathed his sword and walked out into the world, closing the door to the hut behind him. The bright morning and the smell of fresh, wet grass was enough to lift his senses. "Hey, Shippo," he called out. "You can go ahead and stay here, okay? I want to go and get Miroku to help!" Inuyasha began to leap off towards the village. So what if Miroku had just gotten married the night before? He had let them enjoy their wedding night. Now it was time to make Miroku help him. He always helped him on the third day of every week; it was Miroku's fault if he had planned the wedding on that day!

-

Miroku looked down into Sango's eyes, his hands pouring the silk kimono off of her shoulders and slowly moving her back onto their mattress. "Sango, I love you," he whispered kissing her neck gently. Sure, they had been going at it since the wedding and hadn't left their hut since. Sure, the whole place stank of sex and they had no clue what day it was, but damn it all, Miroku just couldn't get enough of her!

She giggled, stroking his dark hair as she tried again to sit up, his hand on her stomach and keeping her pinned to their more than wrinkled futon. "Miroku," Sango purred, "I have work to do. You'll see me tonight. Can't you wait until tonight, and give me a chance to recuperate or something?" She hadn't expected that Miroku would grab her as they came through the doorway of their new house and not let her get more than an hour of sleep before waking her up again with sweet words and arousing her enough so that she was more than willing to relinquish her thoughts of sleep. Sango knew, however, that she should have been expecting it. "I'm your wife, Miroku."

Miroku grinned. "A dream come true indeed—and I won't let you forget it soon," he purred right back, and even though she did put up resistance—a hand. He took it and kissed it, his lips working over her knuckles, licking the thin scar there. "I put up wards all around the village, Sango... I've been waiting for this since the moment I've met you, and I have not yet sated my uncursed hand with your lovely curved derriere... and... I want a son."

His kissing made her sigh slightly. She really wouldn't mind staying with him for an hour or two longer. She narrowed her eyes at him briefly, letting him know she was mad, but she was also curious. "You've been waiting to have sex with me since we met? But if you waited all that time, why not wait a few hours longer?" She watched his mouth move across her skin, feeling her breath start to become irregular. He really did have a wonderful mouth… for being a pervert…

She watched as his moved down to her exposed breast, slowly moving up and down as she tried to regain herself. His tongue danced across her hand, and she wrapped her leg around his waist. Throwing her weight on him, she pinned him to the bed, pulling her hand away and capturing his mouth with his. She kissed him soundly, and rubbed her nose against his when she was done, basking in his presence. "Mm, Miroku…"

His hands cupped her beasts, massaging them for a moment, and when he trailed his hands down to her waist, she grinned. Sango kissed him lightly, and gave his neck a tiny lick. "Hey, Miroku, close your eyes."

The monk looked at her, but she looked so innocent that he was intrigued, and complied. Sango giggled childishly. She had never thought, not even in her wildest dreams, that she would find a man who made making out or sex itself like playtime, teasing each other and egging each other on to trying new things all in the name of fun. She raised his hands to her lips and she sucked on his fingers lightly, suggestively. "Now, put your hands above your head."

She wiggled down his body, placing light kisses on his warm skin, biting at the muscles he had hidden in his robes. Miroku moaned, and laughed when her long brown hair sometimes struck a ticklish spot. Sango grinned, running her fingers through the hair at the base of his penis, and then she bolted from the room.

Miroku was quick to leap up and grab her, swinging her around in the air. Sango gasped in surprise, and wiggled against his arms, only half-heartedly trying to get away. She pouted. "Damn it, I thought that would work…" She yelped when he playfully bit her ear and then tossed her back down on the bed.

"I'm sorry, Sango, but now you're going to need to be punished."

Her brown eyes widened a little at his words and serious expression, leaving her wide open to a giggle attack when he suddenly blew a raspberry on her stomach. She laughed, shrieking with amusement, as he moved to the other side of her belly and gave her yet another one. When he stopped she was still shaking with laughter, her brown eyes warm, and he could tell that he had erased all thoughts of leaving from her mind. "Pervert."

Miroku grinned. "I love you too."

Sango pulled out his wedding gift to her, and opened up to the last page they had been on. "We were here, weren't we?"

"MIROKU!"

Before the monk could answer, Inuyasha burst into the room, pissed off beyond belief. He opened his mouth, probably to demand why Miroku wasn't at the well as usual, and then saw that both of them were naked. He threw up his hands and turned around to give Sango some privacy. "Fuck! Sango, when the hell did you become as perverted as the monk?"

"When the hell did you forget to KNOCK before entering?!" Miroku yelled and quickly draped Sango in a blanket. Something had sure fucked up in Inuyasha's head after Kagome's... Miroku's anger ebbed. He couldn't keep it when he knew the reason for Inuyasha's "visit". "Can you wait till evening?" Miroku asked Sango softly, knowing she would understand. It was his fault really, he had an oath to keep... He had to help Inuyasha and... Miroku grabbed his staff and bonked Inuyasha on the head. "Get out. I'll be right with you. Don't you dare open your eyes."

Inuyasha's eyes flickered back slightly but only to see Miroku. He rubbed his sore head. "There's only one person I want to see naked," Inuyasha grumbled. "I'm not as much as a pervert as Miroku is…" He kept grumbling to himself until feminine arms gave him a hug, and he found Sango smiling up at him, wrapped in the blanket Miroku had given her.

"Can you really deny Miroku what he wanted for so long? Can you really deny me wanting to have a family again, Inuyasha?" she asked softly. He just leaned his head down on hers quickly, and left. Sango turned to her new husband and leaned up on her toes. She gave him a kiss that left little to be desired. "You know where to find me if you finish early. Try not to wear him out too much. At least I know that you have a back up supply of energy."

Miroku kissed Sango's cheek. "Bless Buddha for giving me such a wonderful angel as you," Miroku whispered in her ear before he followed Inuyasha out. "There is power in the air, Inuyasha. Perhaps you should bring the shard."

He held up the tiny jar, the completed Shikon jewel glowing brightly inside. "I already picked it up before I came to see you. I don't know why you're apprehensive about it, Miroku." They started walking down the street, people greeting them, and they dipped their heads and waved politely in return. "I smell the air and it feels like spring is returning again. But Kaede said the same thing as you. How… How is Kaede?"

Miroku's face looked grave. "We better head to the well."

Inuyasha was a little surprised. He had known from Shippo that Kaede wasn't doing well, but…

At the well, Shippo was dangling his feet over the side, and Inuyasha tapped him lightly on the head when they reached the well. He smiled at the younger demon. "Did we scare you?"

Shippo's reply was a spray of stick and stones games he carried in his pockets. "INUYASHA YOU JERK!!!" Shippo yelled at the top of his lungs as nearly falling in. "Oh! Hi Miroku! You got a bite mark."

Miroku narrowed his eyes at Shippo. "Shut up. Now, Inuyasha, we need the shards for the chant... ? Inuyasha?"

Inuyasha was already down in the well, knocked unconscious by a well-placed rock that Shippo had thrown.

Apparently, some things never changed, and some did. Which is why Shippo had finally succeeded in knocking Inuyasha out.