"When you next go through the well," Sesshomaru said, his voice low, "it will be the last time. You will not be able to use it again."

Kagome processed that. At first, she'd always assumed the well would work indefinitely, but once she'd lost the jewel shards and couldn't return until Shippo had saved her, she'd realized its power was limited.

At some point, she would become stuck on this side of the well—or the other side.

"So once I'm in the past, you won't be able to help," she guessed, realizing then why he was taking the situation so seriously. "Well, this version of you, anyway."

He nodded. "The 'me' you meet when will be just as you remember him, Kagome, though you will find that he has made some changes in your absence."

She could already see there was differences between this version of Sesshomaru and the one she'd known in the past. She couldn't imagine, for example, the version she'd known before coming close to marriage.

He'd always seemed so aloof, determined to blaze a path for himself on his own.

"What sort of changes?" she asked, curious. "It's not like this is really a spoiler, Sesshomaru; I'll see what's changed the moment I get back," she added when he raised a brow.

"A fair point," he conceded with grace. "You will find Rin in the village by the well, under the care of the miko there. Jaken and I visit from time to time."

"She didn't keep traveling with you?" Kagome asked in surprise.

There was a small smile at his lips. "Rin has been at that village since you left it," he said, surprising her further. "It has been left up to her to determine her own course for her life."

Kagome sighed. "But you already know, don't you? How she's going to choose?"

Sesshomaru's expression suddenly went blank. "I do," he said flatly, "but I did not know then."

"You don't sound like you agree with her choice," she pointed out, both amused and concerned.

"It was never her choice that concerned me, only the ramifications of it," he said cryptically. "And no, I will not tell you what that choice was."

She sighed. "Spoilers."

"Spoilers," he agreed easily. "There have been other changes made in your absence, but those you will need to discover on your own so that you don't need to explain how you came into knowing them."

"I can't just tell past-you that I met future-you?" she said and then immediately felt silly referring to Sesshomaru as if he was two different people.

But Sesshomaru shook his head. "If you follow my plan, you will have no choice but to tell me, but your companions would not all be as understanding."

She digested that and hazarded a guess, "InuYasha?" She paused as he nodded. "I married him, didn't I?"

One of Sesshomaru's fingers twirled his wedding ring idly as he drove on. "I have said—"

"I know what you said!" she said, more sharply than she'd intended. "But dammit, Sesshomaru, you can't just send me back without knowing a damn thing about what I'm supposed to change so that I don't die."

"You married him," he confirmed as if the words had been torn from him, pulling over the car to the side of the road.

She opened her mouth and then shut it at the ferocity of his expression then, though he tried to hide it from her. She reached out without thinking and turned his head back to meet her gaze. "Just what are you hiding from me, Sessshomaru? This is my life; it's not a game. I don't care about a plan—I just want the truth. What happened after I married him? How did I die?"

Sesshomaru tried to pull back but she moved with him, uncaring that she was practically in his seat before he had nowhere to retreat.

"Kagome—" he began.

"Sesshomaru," she said, mimicking his exasperated tone. "I have traveled back and forth for months between that era and my own. I brought future items to the past to feed and help my friends and I met people I probably shouldn't have. I didn't set out to change anything, but defeating Naraku probably did change how things ended up. After all, before he died, there were no other yokai in this era. None. It was only after I went back that things began to change."

She lifted her chin. "So stop hiding the truth from me, Sesshomaru. What are you hiding?"

To her surprise, she felt his yoki rise as she tried to keep him pinned to his seat, though, true to his words, it wasn't as strong as he remembered.

"You think you can force my hand?" he ground out. "I have been examining what happened and making plans for centuries, Kagome. I will not risk your life nor anyone else's for answers that might change something."

She sat back as she threw her hands up in the air. "You want me to make changes, Sesshomaru!" she reminded him. "I can't change what I don't know needs to be changed!"

Sesshomaru opened the car door and stepped out.

Kagome hissed and opened her own door and followed him as he moved to lean against the guard rail at the side of the road. There was a forlorn look on his face and at once, her ire vanished.

"Sesshomaru." She put her hand on his arm. "I want to help. I do. But I need you to trust me."

He turned his face from her. "Would you still say that, I wonder, if you knew that the plan I have requires you to turn away from InuYasha...and to me?"

Kagome suddenly felt like the ground had fallen away under her.