Title: Abstractions
Author: DawningAurora
Prompt: WANTED! Challenge – Armed and Dangerous
Genre:Romance, Adventure, Drama
AU/CU: Canon Universe; Post-series.
Rating: K
Warnings: Crack Pairing, sappiness, romance and Sessluv (something we are all afflicted with.)
Word Count: 642
A/N: This is part of the Dokuga WANTED! Challenge. I hope the scene is sweet and tender. Summary: An impulsive decision leads to unexpected consequences.

Chapter Summary- Kagome returns to where he thinks she belongs.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore

The palette of the sun swept the sky in long, languid strokes of tangerines, strawberries and mangoes. It seemed appropriate for what was about to happen.

They swept into view with barely restrained eagerness. Sesshomaru felt a wash of disdain for them. They should have been above wearing their emotions on their sleeve. That was before he remembered that they thrived on the emotional solidarity and that they didn't have legions of alleged allies at their doorstep. He pushed those feelings away. The silver of the hanyou's hair fanned gracefully behind him as he descended. The taijiya and the monk leapt and were running before the firecat hit the ground.

The kit was bawling and running. They collectively dogpiled on the miko. Crushed under the mountain of scattered limbs and muffled voices and their equally heavy emotional mountain, Kagome's eyes whirled comically.

Sesshomaru rose and quickly tossed the Inuyasha aside. The monk rolled off the Taijiya after which she rose too. She offered Kagome a fierce hug and a hand to help Kagome up.

Kagome rose, her balance still killed by the sudden mass compiling on her person. She smiled a little awkwardly at the woman before her. She still wasn't sure who she was but the wisp of memory that fluttered through her mind on invisible wings showed this woman laughing and a squeeze of warmth that rose in her heart told her of the closeness that her mind did not.

The sensation of a warm, comforting weight on her shoulder and the tickle of a bottle brush tail against the back of her neck, reminded her of the kit. She smiled warmly at him too.

Fingers threaded through her own, she started as she stared into the honey-dipped irises of the red clad boy before her. They were so like Sesshomaru's and so emphasized how unlike his eyes they were. Inuyasha's eyes were brimming with emotions like a cup trying to hold in a lake while Sesshomaru's were frozen in calculated ennui.

A hand found her free shoulder and squeezed it in a gesture of comfort. The monk smiled at her, relief and happiness shining in his sloe-eyed gaze.

She felt warm and oddly, safe. But something had changed. Her eyes strayed past those of the people around her, to the silver haired Byron who had been her steadfast companion for the past two months.

She saw him looking everywhere but at them, a product of his rearing. Displays of over affectionate gestures made him squeamish and invited a severe tongue lashing at each overture. Yet, with the sight of him in all his armed and dangerous glory, she felt his absence and those of the sweet Rin and the saturnine Jaken too.

It felt incomplete to be here without them.

Sesshomaru smelled the churn of emotions that drifted like lazy updrafts around him before being swept away by the wind. He turned his nose downwind to help ease the strain of the flux of emotions surrounding them.

The festivities and exclamations of joy were suddenly interrupted by the Taijiya.

"Is something wrong, Kagome?" she asked.

The purple smell of panic rose through the air and buffeted him. Sesshomaru turned and strode their way, it was his cue to intercede after all.

They sensed his coming and turned to him as one. It was rather disconcerting but Sesshomaru appeared unmoved. He stopped a few feet from them and after ascertaining that he had their full attention, he explained, "I found her badly wounded. She was taken care of but she remained, for most part, unconscious. When she awoke, she seemed unable to recollect her life here." He paused. 'Her life with you.' Went unsaid but weighed heavily in the air and settled around them like an icy stole. "She was rather perplexed about the events surrounding her entrance to the Sengoku Jidai and the subsequent quest for Shikon No Tama and Naraku. That is why you are here. You are to help her recollect her memories." He finished.

His soliloquy wet unapplauded as his brother's packmates, chewed over the implications of the revelation. Kagome though, was staring at him in unabashed shock. She could not have gleaned that he was capable of being so eloquent from the monosyllabic, terse replies she was able to wheedle from him on occasion.

"You don't remember anything?" Shippo asked, trying and failing to keep his sadness from his voice.

"Not right now," Kagome replied apologetically, "but I might if you help me."

There was a moment's silence before Sango took her other hand, smiled sadly and said "We will."

The rest murmured in agreement.

Sesshomaru turned away, intending to find Rin and Jaken before nightfall. Kagome saw him go, murmured an apology to her friends and ran after him. He was hidden by the curtain of green at the edge of the forest before she called out to him. He paused. She came to him, slightly out of breath and rather rosily flushed.

He expected a profound and grateful bow but the girl surprised him yet again. She stepped closed, wrapped her arms around him, rested her heated cheek against his slightly cooler armor before drawing back.

"Thank you," she whispered reverently, "For everything."

Sesshomaru, though thrown off balance by the hug, still maintained enough dignity to nod once, slowly in acknowledgement. He turned without waiting for a response and walked away. She did not stir from her spot until he was out of sight and then heaved a small sigh before she turned to her friends.

That was rather fun, ne?

I hope you enjoyed that.. I hope that was the right kind of affection and not just verez-my-tisoo sap.. XP

Also, For the shameless shippers.. A little extra.. XP

The fire that Jaken tended to was crackling cheerfully in paradox to the scent of sorrow saturating the air. Even Ah-Un seemed subdued. With his coming, Jaken puttered about him, dutifully commenting on every innocuous nothing he seemed to find. His heart wasn't in it though, that much was painfully clear.

Rin had turned away at his arrival, hurriedly wiping away tear tracks. Ah-Un nuzzled her by turns. She tried to greet him cheerfully but failed miserably, judging from the wobbly smile she gave him.

He did not like the expression on Rin's face. He sighed imperceptibly, the way Kagome had, and strode towards a tree trunk. He sat down and beckoned her and she came willingly.

He drew the child into his lap, eliciting a jaw drop from Jaken. Then his training kicked in and he managed to putter around apparently, aimlessly busy. Sesshomaru ignored the sly, incredulous glances Jaken stole at the two in favor of running his claws carefully through her tangled hair.

After a while, she fell into near slumber through the comfort of his claws. It was comforting to groom her as his own mother had once done for him. She would draw him into her lap with a token protest from him saying that he was too old for that. She would wave it away with a careless hand and nuzzle him saying he would always be her baby, drawing further protest from him.

He didn't notice or rather he didn't acknowledge the fact that he needed comforting in the first place. He did not need comforting because he did not miss Kagome or her ceaseless chatter or the way she managed to bond with Rin, despite her shy personality.

And he slept with vague dreams of silken fans of ebony ink and the smell of rain and sunlight that didn't survive the dawn.

The Real End.

Aurora.

Do review, they make my day. :)