Author's Notes: Once again I reach out my hand toward my muse. And once again she slaps me in my face. '- So sorry if it sucks.

Disclaimer: Remember seeing this before? Yeah, neither do I. Don't own, never will, wish I did. There.


Four Seasons: Summer: Chapter 2

"Wow, she gave us cakes!"

Kikyou exclaimed and picked up one of the small individually wrapped packages of pastry and smiled brightly for Rin to take her mind off who had handed them the gift. Mitsu was not pleased to find that she had a step-daughter of sorts and Rin herself wasn't exactly overjoyed to have a new mother when the one she wanted as her mother was Kikyou.

Rin looked down glumly at the small identical package in her hand as Sesshoumaru watched from afar.

"Jaken, don't you agree this gift is delightful?"

Even Jaken seemed to not agree with Lady Mitsu being around his "lord."

Kikyou looked hopelessly between Jaken and Rin, finally turning to look down at the cake cradled in her hands. Giving up with a sigh, Kikyou's face twitched for a quarter second before tossing the cake back into the opened box and settling back into a more comfortable and familiar facial expression.

"Well, she's a bitch. But her cooking isn't so bad. That's about it."

Rin looked up at Kikyou and giggled, Sesshoumaru unclenched his fist and sighed as well. Kikyou's bluntness, as harsh as it was at least it wasn't a lie even if her words were crude.

As Sesshoumaru stood up to stretch Kikyou looked up at him to test his bond with his wife.

"Sesshoumaru?"

"Hmmm... I agree."

They were currently outside a waterfront town deciding which presents from Mitsu to discard and which to sell. As nice as the gesture had been it was nothing but a layer of deceit for Mitsu to hide her true feelings about Sesshoumaru's companions.

Sesshoumaru looked up at the setting sun. The dwindling light doing nothing to ease the heat and casting harsh shadows against the ground. The ocean breeze carried with it the scents of sea salt and frying fish as the night settled in. The area teemed with life.

"This is annoying."

"Hmm, what is?" Kikyou looked away from the piece of candy she had her eye on to look up at Sesshoumaru. She seemed to be the only one looking through the packages. She was even stashing a few trinkets within the confines of her robe or munching on a few before tossing the rest of the box away like a child. Introducing Kikyou to the world of sweets had been a mistake. It was not as if her body needed the nourishment anyway. The thought of a chubby Kikyou seemed to linger in his mind despite this fact.

"You, pretending if you're happy. All of you."

Kikyou looked from him to her sticky hands and licked an index finger. "I am not lyng. You're just grumpy because of the heat."

Sesshoumaru's left eyebrow twitched. This woman... Her keen sense of observation could become annoying sometimes.

Sesshoumaru had always hated the summer. Mainly because of the heat, but also because in the summer large amounts of time seemed to just disappear and idle days like this one lasted forever. Wasting time like this was unbearable for someone like him.

Grabbing the hand that reached for the next brightly wrapped box, Sesshoumaru dragged Kikyou off of the porch they were on and into the twilight lit depths of the inn.

Stopping in front of a basin of water in the hall, Sesshoumaru dipped her hand into it, muttering: "You're a mess."

"Thank you mother," Kikyou replied. Her voice seemed softer, making the bite of her joke diminish.

"Stop trying to act as if you're strong."

"Wha?" Kikyou's startled reflection in the water and voice expressed surprise at Sesshoumaru's concern. Astonishment that Sesshoumaru felt at his own actions. Why the hell was he taking care of her anyway?

Kikyou's wrist was cold in his hand and her pallor matching the white china of the bowl. Her wrist went limp in his hand, resistance forgotten. The ripples in the water distorted her face like the truth they both vainly tried to conceal.

"I'm not... I'm not acting strong. I'm just acting."

Sesshoumaru looked over his shoulder at her, Kikyou's face seemed relived. Her shoulders lowered from a burden that he hadn't noticed.

"I'm just acting. I don't know how it is to be my real self."

"You could start by trying not to make light of the situation. I'm married, Rin's unhappy about it, leave it at that."

As he released her wrist and returned to Rin, Kikyou stayed behind. Only her words followed him.

"I wasn't trying to help her, I was trying to help you."


The unexpected summer storm, the last rage of spring against summer, stirred the waves about. The white sand was made soft by the sudden rain and turned dark and the beach was suddenly empty. In this new found silence Sesshoumaru sat once again in the rain.

'It's always raining,' this was the first thought that came to him since he decided to meditate here. If you could call staring off in to space meditating. It's become a habit for Sesshoumaru to seek out quite places to be alone when troubled.
It is not that he felt anything from Kikyou's words, it's just that sometimes the noise became too much for him to handle. People, demons, they're hard to handle for someone who has relied on himself for so long that the silence is comforting. The silence doesn't ask anything from him, it doesn't need him to be strong or admit anything. The silence doesn't look up to him or speak to him at all, it just exists.

The silence doesn't try to help either.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and laid back against the sand. The dampness of his clothes a testimony to how long he'd been there. Letting his mouth open the tiniest bit he tasted the rain. Salty, like the ocean. Or tears.

Despite her happiness at being with Sesshoumaru again Rin had cried once he explained his married status. And Kikyou had been indifferent. It wasn't Rin's tears that had disturbed him, Sesshoumaru had expected those tears. If Rin hadn't cried that would have threw him off. Even he had cried when his father had remarried, but not in front of others.

But Kikyou had just smiled. A soft smile to herself by while down at the small urn that held the burnt remains of his hair and Mitsu's necklace. A smile that wasn't different from any of her other smiles. But her eyes had been cold. Cold and impossibly emotionless, as if something had broken down, started up, and broken down again. A candle blown out. Yet, even though her eyes held indifference (and maybe) sorrow, the smile had been there, as if saying: "You can take his body, but I have everything else."

But those were just his feelings, not hers. The smile was probably for Rin.

Those were his weak feelings. It seemed Kikyou could care less.

"What's wrong with me?" Sesshoumaru said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

"You still sitting in the rain? You keep this up and not only will you catch a cold, I wouldn't be surprised if you became so depressed that we'll be hearing you sing about your dead father or something." Kikyou stood over him. No umbrella in her hands this time. The rain had cleared up.

Sesshoumaru opened his eyes and looked into Kikyou's eyes. The coldness was still there, it had never left. But there was also honest concern. Kikyou always seemed to appear when he need her the most.

"Hmph, as if you haven't anything to sing about."

"No one wants sad love songs anymore, they all want rhymes about sex. Which I have little experience in, unless you want to help." Kikyou smiled, it was slow to spread across her face and seemed to settle in with the ease of a spider spinning a web. Slow and beautiful at the finish.

A faint warmth was raising on his face, hopefully faint enough that she wouldn't notice and disturbing because this was the first time that something like this had ever happened to him outside of childhood. Angered by his feelings, Sesshoumaru glared and sat up, shaking the sand out of his short hair.
"Aha, I'll take that as a no?"

"Why are you here?"

Kikyou sat besides him and laid her head on his shoulder. The waves crashed at their feet and the fading sunlight highlighted her brown eyes. With one hand on his upper arm, she intertwined her other fingers with his. The feel of her fingers and palm was strange. For someone so strong her hand was small and delicate.

"It's always raining when I'm near you. Maybe we're just meant not to be." The soft tones of her voice masked her anguish.

No, Kikyou wasn't emotionless. He could see that now. Like himself, Kikyou masked her feelings behind false cheerfulness or detachment.

Sesshoumaru looked off into the sunset, watching the sea reflect the violent and orange colors of the fading light. Or rather they both tried to be indifferent but failed. Somehow, some part of him wished it was her and not Mitsu he had married and another part wished that all of this had never happened. Meeting Kikyou, going back home, part of Sesshoumaru wished that his life would return to the way it was. That Inuyasha had just stayed asleep and Kikyou had stayed dead or that the both of them had stayed together and the hell away from him. That they were faraway and Kikyou didn't know of his existence. They would be happy now wouldn't they? Children, probably. And every girl would look like Kikyou.

But reality was cruel. And she was here, intertwining her fingers with his and not Inuyasha. And though Sesshoumaru was grateful that it was him and not Inuyasha Kikyou chose he still hurt. Not physical pain, but some old wound inside him was being peeled open and there was no way to stitch it back together anymore.

"I'm not going back."

Sesshoumaru turned to Kikyou as her voice startled him from his thoughts.

"I'm not going back to the way I was. I'm not going anywhere either. If you need me-"

"You'll stay with me?"

"Yes."

And all at once he was laughing.

"You stay with me? You don't even know who you are. And I'm not about to tell you."

Kikyou looked down and smiled sadly at their overlapping hands. "It's okay." She closed her eyes, the blackness of her lashes falling against her pallid cheek stood out vividly. And her brief smile reminded him of the last light of the day. "It's not so bad to just accept what I am. But when I'm with you I want to be human, demon, anything but this. I can't even feel your handand that scares me."

It had never occurred to Sesshoumaru that Kikyou couldn't feel, physically and emotionally, but his words reminded him that despite her beauty, or her softness, she was clay, ashes, and stolen souls. Kikyou didn't exist. Rather or not she could feel the texture of his hand, his warmth, or even the cold water at her feet or the grit of the sand she was not alive, and never would be again.

'And yet you want to help me. Why not help your self, idiot?' Sesshoumaru thought. He couldn't fathom why she was so concerned for him instead of herself.

Instead of speaking his thoughts Sesshoumaru just sat there and watched her face contort, holding back frightened tears. Before, when they barely known each other, she had said that she hated everything living because it was alive. But that wasn't true, she was afraid of the living and envious because she was dead and they were not. While the living could feel and smile so easily, she had to fight for it. Fight against the very thing that was keeping her alive yet consuming her: hate.

"I don't need you to stay for my sake. I'm not that weak to ask for help."

Kikyou broke their contact and wiped at her eyes and then opened her mouth to take in air like as if she were drowning.

"Stupid, I know that," She managed to say. "I just want to stay anyway. You and Mitsu..."

Ah, so this was what this was about.

"You and Mitsu...Your face then. It seemed as if you wanted to cry."

Sesshoumaru's face betrayed his astonishment for once. "You were watching...the ceremony..."

"Yes, and that's when I decided. That I want to be besides you, always." Kikyou stood up and held out her hand toward him. White as a lily and hopelessly fragile, only her heart seemed to be strong and even that was breaking.

"If you can't cry, I'll cry for you. If you're angry, I'll sooth that anger. If you can't smile, I will. That's what it means to be a friend."

Friend, not lover. Just friends.
"Idiot, I don't need friends. You and Rin are nothing more than aids in my fight. And who would cry over something so stupid. It's not like I'm a father, it's not like I believe in love. So stop speaking nonsense."

Kikyou stood in front of him, unmoving. That smile on her lips was waiting for him to admit something that he had known all along but never voiced.

"It's not like, I care if I become one or not. A father."

"Mitsu's child, he would be cute, wouldn't he? And every boy would look like you. We should get back to Rin and Jaken, they are probably tearing themselves apart by now."
Her smile wasn't comforting. It was beautiful, breaking through the mask she was forced to wear and the shields around Sesshoumaru's heart.

Sesshoumaru looked up at her and brushed off her hand, standing on his own two feet. "We should prepare for tomorrow."

"Yes, thanks for letting me stay with you. It's not so fun to act alone, a play is better with two."

Kikyou turned around and started back with out him, heading towards the light of the inn and the two figures arguing on the porch. She didn't look back.

To accept a feeling and not look back on it. Free of guilt or shame. Because of that freedom Kikyou was a little stronger then himself. She was accepting things for the way they were, while he could not. Maybe it was because she knew that every moment she spent with him, Rin, and even Jaken was precious and just feeling something, regardless of whether or not it brought her pain, was better than feeling nothing at all. Even if that feeling was fear.

Why did things have to be the way they are? Is every being on the planet just moving in a circle, fighting a losing battle against destiny? These questions filled Sesshoumaru's mind as he watched Kikyou walk away.

Did it matter either way?

Sesshoumaru shook his head again, grains of sand falling like stardust.

They were actors in a play. An ancient fairytale that had no end in sight. The waves crashed against the beach, soothing the warm night like feelings to a heartbeat.

(Summer: Chapter 2 End)


Author's Note:This is one of the strangest chapters I've wrote. The theme was "the finality of friendship." Yet there didn't seem to be anything final about it. What about you, what do you think of this chapter?

I like the part where Kikyou intertwines her fingers with Sesshoumaru and the surprise ending. Well hopefully surprise. Sesshoumaru wasn't just unhappy about the marriage and not being with Kikyou, but about the fact that Mitsu could become pregnant. Given his history no wonder he would be just a little worried about how he would raise a child. Sesshoumaru's not exactly a role model parent, yet I think he would do fine. Kikyou is cute in this chapter because she not only senses his unease but cures it by going to talk to him and taking his mind off of it by talking about herself a little. And of course by asking to stay with him. I thought that was really cute. "If you can't cry, I'll cry for you. That's what it means to be a friend." Maybe a little corny, but I think that's what it means to be a friend. Friends are there for you, they laugh for your sake and cry for your sake too. Friends are selfless. Like a beach to waves, they take your abuse when you're upset, (who hasn't bitched at a friend for no reason?) and then make you smile.

Um... Yeah, we went off subject didn't we? And isn't this suppose to be romantic? Well, friends first romance later.

And to answer an (unasked) question. I like rain. I love rainy days. So that's why I added rain in this chapter yet again. It's romantic to be held in the rain. And it rains in the summer, so yeah, that's about it for including rain in many chapters.

Yet rain in a novel added with romance can signal a doomed romance. Hmm... Isn't' that Interesting if applied to this fan fiction? The brightest light is a dying light after all.

Well enough about that.

If anyone enjoyed this chapter, or just wants to write something about this series in general, please write a review or email me.
Thanks in advance. See ya later.