This is how a heart breaks

A middle-aged woman with long silver hair watched her mother pace aimlessly back and forth across the small room at the assisted living facility. Muttering to herself about something that made no sense. Dementia was a cruel, cruel thing.

"Seventeen," Kagome muttered agitatedly as she wrung her wizened hands and furrowed her brow, "Seventeen. Something happens. Something happens. Important something. Needs help."

"Mom, you need to sit down," the woman with amber eyes sighed heavily as she stepped forward and tried to block the elderly woman's path. Kagome shook her head and stubbornly tried to step around her third oldest daughter, "No. No. No. Something happened. Seventeen. Seventeen."

A shuddering breath escaped the daughter's mouth as her eyes softened and she moved to sit on the edge of the bed. In a way, she was glad her father had died before her. He wouldn't have been able to handle her forgetting him and he'd always said he hoped he went first so he'd never have to live without her. He got his wish in the end. Cancer had taken him about ten years ago and that had been a hard pill to swallow. Dad probably had cancer for at least two decades before he finally went to the doctor to get people to stop 'bitching'. Six months later and *snap* there he went.

Mom...Mom hadn't coped well and shortly afterwards started her own decline. Maybe because she was human and mates could only outlive each other so long or maybe it was just the natural progression of things. Or maybe because Dad and her were inseparable and had been for nearly five hundred years. It would make anyone lose their mind to wake up one day to find the left half of their body missing. It got worse after Takai and his wife died. Mom started having these type of outbursts muttering and rambling to herself. She tried to break out more than once to go find Takai's children but he'd made it super clear that he was done with them all way before father had even gotten sick and even went as far as to get a restraining order against them. It all started after the second sonogram when it was suspected the little girl was a full blooded human.

Takai kept going on and on and on about how he didn't want his daughter to know the supernatural existed if she was human. Which was a problem when they couldn't even be sure the girl was truly human but that hadn't apparently mattered. He'd packed up his family and moved back to Tokyo and less than seven years later died in some stupid plane crash leaving that same daughter behind. Then, oh and then, his bitch of a wife's family got a restraining order of their own and what happened to the poor little one after that was a mystery. The family wasn't even told Takai died until a full six months after the accident happened. Her parents didn't even know their grandaughter's name, where she was or how to contact her despite nearly twenty years of search efforts. They sent money to the family. It got returned. They sent letters. They got returned. They tried calling. They got blocked.

Of course, Dad and Mom couldn't go over there to look for her themselves. Their health wouldn't allow it- although father did make it to the airport and was about to board a plane before they caught up to him. They'd sent Shippo up there once but…. Takai's wife's family was powerful in their own right and had taken cruel, extraordinary measures to make the little one impossible to track with demon senses. She was lost to them. Takai was lost to them. They all blamed Amber and her bitch self. She never did like demon-kind which was ironic seeing as how she screwed one and got knocked up but whatever.

While they hadn't written off the girl and hoped with all their might they might be united, the remaining twelve siblings had lost hope and stopped looking after the daughter must've turned eighteen. Second of all, the long time went on the more dangerous it became as the timeline rapidly came full circle. They weren't worried about the little girl in that sense. Her scent was enough like Mom's that Dad wouldn't have noticed back in the day. Although that always bothered him immensely for some reason and he'd constantly talk about how Takai must have had a little boy. He insisted and insisted and demanded they let him go so he could go find him. Which he was demanding anyway after Mom literally had to seal him in the hospital room because he wouldn't stay put and let the doctors administer chemo. Dad had always been something else.

"Jiro. Jiro. Jiro," Kagome muttered as she began combing her fingers through her long grey hair, "Seventeen. Yes."

"You don't know a Jiro," she sighed heavily as her attention was brought back to her mother, "You need to calm down. This isn't good for you."

Mom, of course, ignored her. She barely remembered who she was past the nice lady that visited. She barely remembered her own…

"JIRO!" Kagome proclaimed as her eyes cleared and she turned toward her daughter, "You need to go get him. You need to go get him now."

"Get who? This Jiro guy?" her daughter answered uneasily.

"Your nephew. Takai had a son. He had a son and he's in a hospital in…near the shrine. Yes, yes, it's…it's October, right? Him and his sister. He has powers, Hana. Spiritual powers that he can't control. Someone needs to train him. Someone…someone…no, no, I...I trained him. I did that, didn't I? Or...or..."

Her eyes glazed over and she began pacing again as her daughter sat there in shock watching numbly as her mother slowly disappeared again.

"Seventeen. Something happened when I was seventeen. Where is Inuyasha? He can always remember things like his," Kagome muttered and her daughter's heart absolutely shattered.

"Dad..." she tried thickly before clearing her throat and forcing a smile on her face, "I mean Inuyasha will be back soon. Why...why don't you sit down, hm? And wait for him."

Kagome stopped pacing and nodded uncertainly before sitting down.

"There you go," the daughter managed as she gave her obviously confused and distressed mother a pained smile, "Now wait here and I'll go get him, okay?"

Kagome nodded as she chewed on her bottom lip. She'd forget what she was waiting for in less than five minutes anyway. Sighing heavily, the woman left the room and fumbled with her phone with one hand while wiping away a stray tear with the other.

"Hey I know it's early," she began shakily, "I need you to check on something Mom said."

~o~o~o~o~o~

Another year passed, then another. The family built by a half-demon and a miko was once again whole. What was once lost found again and everyone was better for it. Well, almost everyone. The children were grateful that night that their mother's suffering had finally come to an end. She'd been asking for him non-stop. His name was never forgotten even when she didn't know her own. In their hearts, they knew he was waiting for her. It brought them some peace to know they were finally reunited.

As the darkness faded into soft summer sunlight, Kagome groaned and rolled into side before crinkling her nose and patting the area beside her with a little frown. She hated waking up in her sleeping bag without him. Now she knew what it was like to wake up beside him, waking up without him always felt wrong. It always felt like something was missing.

"I've been waiting for you to get here," she heard his snarky voice and she blinked up at him with a tired little smile, "Took you long enough."

"InuYasha," she hummed happily before giving him a cute little pout and reaching her arms up in a clear plea to be cuddled.

"Needy woman," he teased as he moved quick as he ever did and slipped in beside her with a soft laugh.

"I hope you weren't waiting too long," she sighed guiltily before sighing and trying to melt into him, "I lost track of time."

"I know," he murmured a little sadly as he kissed her cheek, "But it's alright. You're here now."

"Where is here?" she asked lazily as she curled into his loose embrace.

"You know, I'm not sure," he replied a little snarkily and her lips twitched upwards, "Where do you think we are?"

"Home."

"Home?" he repeated bemusedly as he nuzzled her ear, "I don't know about you but I definitely wouldn't call this place home. A weird vacation maybe but not..."

"Home is wherever I'm with you," Kagome hummed happily and Inuyasha looked like he just about melted into a puddle of goo, "I got lost trying to find it again."

"Well you found it," he replied as he propped himself to look down over her before leaning down to press his lips against hers, "Welcome home Kagome."

Pulling back, his clawed fingers gently brushed away a few stray hairs as his young face peered down at her with a look of pure adoration. Their lips met repeatedly as a white light grew around them until their forms and the world around them faded.

"Congrats," a midwife hummed as she presented a tearful exhausted new mother with a little naked life, "Its a girl."

A few rooms down a different mother and a different mid-wife had the same exchange but with a brand new little boy.

Two old souls new to the world ready for their next grand adventure. Since those souls had first bloomed into existence, they had been and would always be together. Two halves that required the other to be whole. The world could hardly wait to see what was in store for these souls that had lived a feudal fairy tale.

~o~o~o~o~o~
FIN

~o~o~o~o~o~