Mirror, Mirror
Acceptance

Kagome knelt before her mirror, her face streaked with the tears of her nightmare. Her mind was a jumble of broken images, but each was frightening in its clarity. Though she still did not fully understand all that she'd seen in her dreams, but there was one thing she was certain of.

"We shared a life together," she whispered, tears falling more quietly now.

"Yes," he murmured in agreement.

"But it was not in this life."

"No."

She felt long fingers cup her jaw; a thumb swept across her cheek in an attempt to remove her tears.

"Who was I?" she asked, closing her eyes and leaning into his gentle touch.

"Then and now…you are the same," came his low reply before she felt the brush of lips just behind her ear. "You are mine; I am yours."

Shivers ran through Kagome when she felt the brush of silky fur against the side of her neck, his pelt once again making its way around her. Breathless, Kagome trailed fingers over body, tracing the path of that illusory fur across the contours of her form. Kagome gasped when she felt his touch on her leg. Slowly, seductively, long fingers trail up her thigh, around the curve of her hip. Unbidden, a moan escaped her lips when she felt those fingers glide under her shirt, gradually working their way under her top to ghost up the smooth plain of her stomach.

"Tell me what you want," he whispered against her ear.

"I-I don't…I can't…"

Fighting her way through the fog of desire he was arousing, Kagome stood, walking to her window, breaking his contact with her. Pulling back the curtains to look out over the rooftops of the neighboring houses, she tried to calm her racing heart and pull her thoughts together. How could she feel this way about someone she'd never met?

The visions in her dream were from another woman, another lifetime. In this life, she did not know this creature. She desired him, longed for him, but was it because that's what she wanted or was it because of those memories?

"Kagome…" His deep voice cut through the tangle of the thoughts.

She shuddered at the sound of her name. It seemed like she had never before heard it spoken until it rolled off his tongue. Turning, she looked on him again, and in a moment of stunning clarity, the pieces fell into place and she knew.

It didn't matter that she'd seen him for the first time only last night. It didn't matter that the memories were from a different lifetime, they were still her memories, ones that belonged to her soul, not her mind. Those memories bound them together, beyond death…beyond time.

"I loved you…" she whispered.

His face remained impassive, but Kagome saw a fire light behind that golden gaze.

"What is it that you want, Kagome?" he asked, repeating his earlier words.

"Come back to me," she answered, this time without hesitation.

A pulse of energy shot through Kagome's hand where she touched the mirror, the shock causing her to pull her hand back. Kagome watched in horror as cracks appeared in the glass, splintering and spreading in their jagged web across its surface, fracturing Sesshoumaru's image.

The mirror exploded into a thousand shards of sparkling glass and silver. Kagome ducked and covered her head as the pieces rained down around her. When she looked up again, she saw only the mirror's empty frame.

He was gone, and Kagome felt her soul rip.

"Sesshoumaru!"

A/N: Written for the LJ community dokuga_contest's Oneshot prompt, Rooftops. I am proud to say that it placed first in that week's contest. Length was 500 words minimum - my entry stands at 588.