Coming Home

Chapter 1

This was the worst thing.

The worst thing was finding out InuYasha had died in battle just a few weeks before her return. She had not been able to return to the Feudal Era for three years. The well hadn't worked for three years and she finally got back, and InuYasha was dead. Perhaps it was naïve but she always believed that he was invincible.

Kagome learned that day, as she hugged Shippou to her chest for dear life, that anyone can die in battle, even InuYasha.

Just a few weeks before. If only she had been a month earlier, she would have been able to see him again. Perhaps things would have turned out differently. Perhaps they could have loved each other.

But now…

Unable to staunch her grief, Kagome returned home and didn't visit the well house for 5 years.

In fact, she hadn't planned on visiting the well ever again. The pain that laced her heart after learning of InuYasha's passing was but a quiet pricking in her chest now. She supposed the pain might not have been so bad if she hadn't loved him… or thought she had. She had only been 15 at the time and incredibly naïve, but she was certain… She had spent 3 years pining to see him again, only to find he wouldn't be there to greet her at the well ever again. She spent the first year mourning his death as she navigated university, and spent the next handful turning away the advance of every male who crossed her path. I'm not seeing anyone right now. Or I'm focusing on my studies. Which wasn't a lie; Nursing school was difficult. She just couldn't see life intertwined with any boy or her tangled heart any more complicated than it was now.

She filled her off time with archery and reading. She got up early and ran before the sun rose and on nights when she couldn't sleep, she painted or baked bread to share with her friends.

Yet she struggled even in her studies to find meaning in any of it. She had gone to school to become a nurse, finding this to be the perfect distraction and use of her talents. How she would have yearned to have this knowledge back in the Feudal Era. Still, Kagome graduated with honors and on time.

Kagome laid her certificate of graduation on her bedside table. She had moved out of her grandfather's home after finding it to be too stifling and the well too much of a temptation.

After everything, Kagome had plenty reason to feel proud of all her accomplishments and adjusting to regular life after her time in the past. However, she could not shake the unease in her stomach nor the feeling of emptiness. Of longing.

She was freshly out of nursing school, young and accomplished, yet she felt something missing from her life.

Kagome thought about the well frequently and her time spent in the Feudal Era. Would the well even work anymore? She felt sick with nervousness and buried it.

As she rested her head for sleep, she did her best to calm the excitement in her heart.

She was decided.

It probably won't even work.

When Kagome visited her family, nobody was even home. So Kagome left a note.

Mom. Be back later. Went to visit some old friends. Kagome.

She walked down to the well house that held the family well, she felt sweat on the palms of her hand. Bravely, she hitched her quiver of bows and arrow on her shoulder and backpack and opened the door to the well.

The door creaked as it revealed the well just as she remembered it.

Miroku and Sango's children will be older.

Miroku and Sango will be older.

And Shippou.

Kagome bit down on her lip and leaned over the lip of the well. She felt the brush of magic blow against the threads of hair that had escaped her low braid pleated against her shoulder.

And without thinking about her family or thinking about school or finding a job, she let herself fall right into the well and didn't look back.

I'm going home.