A/N: To everyone who's reviewed, thanks. It's nice to feel appreciated.

And to Queen of Blades: sorry. This is a concept fic. 11 angst-filled chapters, one to each angst-filled song on the CD Fallen by Evanescence. Consider it my attempt to purge the songs that have been living in my head for the last month. :P

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nothing, you hear me? Not even the lint under my bed.

***

My Immortal

Inuyasha had smelled her scent even before he returned to the camp after the fight with Kagome.

And so, exhausted by the day's trouble, he went to her.

I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

Kikyou was standing in a clearing, the moonlight shining down on her, making her look like an angel. His angel.

He remembered their first kiss, on a night much like this one, in a clearing near her village.

He still loved her. He thought that maybe he always would.

This wasn't Kikyou. He knew that. But she looked like her, shared all of her memories. And when she came to him, when he stood in her presence, he couldn't help but remember. The joy and the pain. The love and the loss.

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

He knew that his love for the once-dead miko hurt Kagome, something he regretted with every breath he drew, but the presence of Kikyou's walking image made it impossible for him to forget what they had once shared.

How could he forget, with such a vivid reminder in front of him.

Some memories can't be forgotten. Some things time couldn't heal.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

He stood and watched the image of his dead lover as her soul-stealers drifted into the clearing, bringing her the fuel she needed to keep her magically animated body living.

His Kikyou would never have done such a thing. She would have been appalled by the thought. She had been so determined to purify the Shikon, to render it harmless, to place it forever out of the reach of the demons she fought on a near daily basis. She would never have volontarily become a demon herself.

He remembered comforting her after one battle. Kikyou had accepted her duty as a miko, as guardian to the Shikon no Tama, but she had never managed to fully abandon the dreams of a young woman: dreams of love and family, dreams of peace and comfort impossible for one such as her. Some nights, she would cry despairing tears and force herself not to use the Shikon to wish herself anywhere but where she was.

He had thought to save her. To wish himself human and save them both.

You used to captivate me
By your resonating life
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts
My once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away
All the sanity in me

She had been the first person since his mother to love him, to treat him as anything other than a monster. Behind her duty and her power she had been full of life, and laughter, and love.

She had captured his heart with her courage and gentle laughter, and he had loved her beyond anything he could have imagined. Had dreamed of making a home with her, of happy, laughing children with her soft brown eyes.

And then Naraku had deceived them, and she had killed him. And followed him into death rather than live without him.

And now she had followed him back into life.

He wondered sometimes if the pain would one day drive him insane. If it already had.

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

Naraku's cruel act of deception had caused so much pain. Was still causing it.

Kikyou.

Kagome.

Inuyasha.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

It would be easier if he didn't love them both.

Kikyou, his first love, for whom he had been willing to become human. Who had died for him.

Kagome, his new love, to whom he wished he could give himself wholeheartedly.

He wished he knew what to do. How to give both of them everything they deserved. He wondered if even the all-powerful Shikon no Tama could manage that.

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

He was trying to accept, truly accept, that the figure before him was merely a shade of the woman he had first loved, a distorted shadow that he needed to destroy to save the other woman he had come to love.

Because as much as he wished he could believe otherwise, he knew Kagome had been telling the truth.

This Kikyou-not who stood before him had tried to kill her.

And deep in his heart, Inuyasha knew it wasn't the first time.

Kikyou, his Kikyou would be appalled by what she had become.

Kagome was in danger from this living representation of her previous life. His previous life.

And he teetered between them, torn between the memory of the past, and the possiblity of a future. Hurting both. Capable of choosing neither.

But she looked like Kikyou.

And he still loved Kikyou. Even though she wasn't really here.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
I held your hand through all of these years
But you still have
All of me

"Kikyou."