Till The End Of Time

AN: This is the last chapter. This story has been such a roller coaster for me. Thank you so much Possessed for betaing it for me i love you. Thank you to every one who reviewed and Thank you Hikari Hime for you wonderful fanart. I hope you enjoy it. Until next time...

~Nobody

***()***()***()***()***

Kagome reached the ground at the bottom of the old well.

"What do I do now?" she whispered, gnawing on her lip. Her hand leaned against the stone wall. The miko looked at it, a thought on the edge of her mind. Soon she was digging out the stone. Behind it was a box. The woman stared at it, not sure what to do. She grasped it and undid the tie holding it together.

Inside it was another book like hers. She grabbed it and opened it.

Kagome,

If you have gotten to this point then you are already farther than we have come yet. It is time. Time to stop this ridiculous loop. Do you remember the places Sesshoumaru took you? IF not, there is a map in the back of this book. You must go to them and retrieve the things we need.

You are different, different than any other being caught in this time circle. You are born, every time. Every time this happens, you are recreated, you are not just the reincarnation of Kikyo, but of yourself. Do you remember Urasue? The demoness who tried to take your soul and put it into Kikyo? Your soul was massive... it broke Kanna's mirror. It was not always this large. Every time you die, you are reborn. Your soul encompasses all of our failures to this point. The memories are ours, the pain.

Kagome read on. "T hen why not just stay? If this is the p ain we suffer, why not just stay?" as if she was reading her own mind the letters on the page addressed her question.

...I'm sure you're wondering what I did, if I broke the promise... Kagome, you can't stay. If you stay, he will find you in this time. Three rocks to the left of this, remove it and look....

Kagome did as she was instructed. She wondered if it was still considered talking to herself if it was a different version of her. She moved the rock away and eight books fell out of the area behind it. They were just like the one she had in her pocket and in her hand, identical.

She picked one up and gasped as she read it.

...I know I was not supposed to go back. I promised, but you have to understand, I didn't have a choice. After he died and I refused to return, refused to break my promise, he came to me. He was a different man, one who had never known of the life we had lived and relived. He had never mated, never produced an heir, and would live for eons... alone.

And I resolved to let him, but he wouldn't. I never told him, I swear I never said anything. But something in him knew. The day the well opened up to let me back, he took me there himself. He said it was destiny or the well would have stayed closed.

I begged him to let me stay, he refused...

Kagome could not believe it. Sesshoumaru's plan to make her stay would only be thwarted by himself. How ironic. She skimmed the others there, all saying similar things. Then Kagome heard a voice.

"Sis are you down there?" Soata asked. His mother had told him to go to the well.

Kagome looked up to see her brother. She managed a weak smile and a nod. She watched, confused, as he walked down the ladder and stood with her. He sure had gotten taller.

Souta looked at the books all over the floor and smiled at her. "Did you know grandpa told me a story once that I was never allowed to repeat?"

Kagome shook her head.

"Well, I will tell you it then... promise you won't say anything?" he said, as he began to remove the rocks. More books fell out.

Kagome nodded as she watched him.

"There once was a well that was untouched by time. Inside the well, there are the accounts one woman's lives." As he spoke, his fingers moved rocks and more books fell out of the walls.

"She doesn't know, but eventually she too will be outside of time... and the fates will allow her the peace she deserves."

Kagome couldn't believe her ears. Her family connected more pieces of the puzzle in her mind, her mother had just let her go down the well all of those years. She let her go with Sesshoumaru. Tears began to stream down her face, it all hitting her like a brick wall.

Kagome continued to sniffle as she started to help her brother remove the rocks. The lives she lived before, falling at their feet.

The two sat in the well reading and learning, alternately laughing and being terribly sad. The sun came up before they felt they had learned enough.

Kagome looked at the hundreds of books scattered on the floor of the well. The weight of it all lay heavy on her shoulders. Souta helped his sister to her feet.

"Kagome, I will miss you so much, but I understand why you need to go. I love you and promise me, that no matter what happens, you will be happy... because I wouldn't be that good of a brother if I let you be sad."

Kagome hugged her little brother, and climbed out of the well to see Sesshoumaru's mother waiting for her.

"What do I have to do?" Kagome asked her hand roaming to her back to he abdomen as if to comfort the only link she still had to Sesshoumaru.

Sesshoumaru's mother smiled. "You have to do exactly what you instructed me to tell you, but first, do you have a map?"

"Yes," Kagome said, as she held open the first book she found in the well.

With that, the women took to the air. Kagome looked at the map. She knew these places.

These were all of the places Sesshoumaru had taken her. Somehow his soul had been impacted enough that the places he loved and thought he discovered, the places he had gone to after she had died, were not his own. These places were hers and they had a purpose. Next to the first designation on the map was a note.

"The water from this spring exists outside of time just like the well. Some refer to it as the fountain of youth. You'll need three cups from it."

Kagome smiled. Fine, if this was what she was meant to do, then fine, she would stop this once and for all.

The two women travelled for three days, collecting things. Snows that never stopped, desert sand that had no beginning or end. Her list was long, and when she finished it, she was back at the well.

Her mother was waiting for her. All of the books were packed up and waiting for her.

Kagome's mother handed her a stone from the well.

"For when you are ready come home. I love you Kagome, if you succeed, we will know nothing of what has happened, so know that now and forever I am so proud of you." her mother said, as she hugged her and sent her on her way.

"Where are we going now?" Kagome asked since there wasn't nothing left on the map.

"To Midoriko's cave," the older inu said.

"Why?"

"Because there is one more thing you need."

As they entered the cave, Kagome looked around. Still the same. The same as when she had come here all those years ago with her friends, the same as when she had came here with Sesshoumaru... in fact it was exactly the same.

The women began to walk to the back, to the room where the statues containing the forever battling youkai and priestess stood.

Kagome stared at the two. They were still as they had been, throughout time.

Something was guiding her now. She didn't know what, but she looked back at the demoness who had helped her so much.

"You can leave the things we collected, I think I know what to do now," Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru's mother smiled and hugged the girl. "You told me you'd say that." The inu handed the girl the bracelet off her wrist. "You'll need this too."

Kagome hugged the demoness back knowing that this would be the last time she would see her. At least in this era.

"Is this what you chose Kagome?" Sesshoumaru's mother asked.

Kagome thought for a moment. "Yes, thank you for everything," Kagome replied

With that the older woman faded, leaving Kagome alone in a very dark cave. She should have been scared, but she was too determined to finish her task to notice.

When Kagome came out of the cave, she felt the same. She remembered being alone in the cave but nothing else. All of the books she had brought, all of the items she had collected were gone. But to what end she was unsure.

She hiked down, thinking... wondering, if it had worked.

When she got home, her mother greeted her, her brother stuck his tongue out at her, and her grandpa handed her a broom.

'They don't know,' she thought. Not knowing what else to do, Kagome went to school. She lived each day and waited for the time Sesshoumaru would reappear... but it didn't happen.

She had done it. She changed the events. She graduated within a couple months and still nothing happened, the well did not open. She succeeded in stopping the cycle, but was she really happy about it? The morning sickness was a constant reminder, that is wasn't over.

Kagome spent as much time with her family as she could in this time, and then one day she felt it. The well. She went to it, looked over the edge, unsure of what to do, her hand once again roaming to her abdomen, to shield the doubt from her still small embryo.

Her mother came up behind her. "You know I once heard a story from my father, about a Miko who fell in love with a demon and battled time to be with him. Do you know how that story ended Kagome?"

"No... I don't." Her voice cracked, and her head fell as she tried not to cry.

"She became timeless, and found happiness with him, because of what she had become... a being that was no longer affected by the constraints of mortals and immortals."

Kagome looked at her mother, tears in her eyes. "Do you believe that story mom? Do you think it's true?"

Kagome's mom hugged her. "Yes, I know it's true. Now go, I love you so much," she whispered and left Kagome there to contemplate her next step. To decide if she would take the hand fate was offering her one last time. To go back and be with him.

Kagome looked into the well, and thought one more time. Thoughts of Sesshoumaru and her family swimming through her mind.

"If I we me, what would I do?" She whispered to the dark well house.

The miko smiled and jumped in.