Niara: (looks extremely pissed) Can you people not take a hint! Review this story, please, or the next chapter (whenever I get it written) isn't getting posted! Get it?

Summary: When someone dies, all people have to fight to move on with their lives. But when the person who died is someone like Kagome Higurashi or Serena Tsukino, how can three people, so bound up in their friends' deaths, let go of the past and move on with their lives? (RH/I)

Disclaimer: I own the messed up plot, any OCs that appear, but not Inuyasha and Sailor Moon.

That's Life, Folks

Chapter 2: The Cemetery

He had to get out. The apartment that Inuyasha and Shippo were living in, while actually being rather spacious and open, was closing in on him, cramping him. Inuyasha couldn't stand being inside, not today. Dark, purple-gray clouds swirled across the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon, even with his demonic eyesight, the promise of rain heavy in his nostrils, clearing the air some. He stuck his head in the door of Shippo's room and saw that the kit had finally gotten to sleep.

An uncharacteristically soft smile slipped across his face as he closed the door to the young demon's room, the sad look that never left his eyes just a little more prominent. He knew that Shippo believed that Kagome was ashamed of him, but he, Inuyasha, knew that she was as proud of their son as he was. If the dead priestess was ashamed of anyone, really, it was Inuyasha himself.

Throwing another glance at the clock and then out the window, he decided to take a walk, needing the fresh air to clear some of the fog that was always around his mind these days. With one last glance at his adopted son's door, he left, locking the apartment behind him, and slipped out the complex, his baseball cap pulled low to hide his tell-tell ears. Then he began to walk, his feet guiding him to wherever it was fate was determined to lead him this time.

It had often crossed his mind, after her death, that maybe that old saying about destiny and fate was both right and wrong; instead of 'Fate is cruel, Destiny is kind,' it should be 'Both Destiny and Fate will be cruel to those they chose to be.' To him, it seemed as if they had singled him out to suffer so much in so short a time: first, with Kikyo's death, and now, with Kagome's. In short, he'd been thinking too much, too often, about his life and the road that had led him to meet the reincarnation of The Tragic Priestess Kikyo.

"Papa! Papa! Slow down!" The little voice of the fox demon cut through his thoughts, drawing his feet to a halt, right in front of the very cemetery that he visited every month. He turned and knelt down, catching Shippo as he ran into his arms, tears streaming down his face. Inuyasha felt his once stony heart contract at the smell of the child's tears, knowing that he had unintentionally brought them there.

"Shh," he whispered. "It's alright. I'm not leaving you alone. Not ever."

Shippo offered a tiny hiccup in response as he burrowed into his father's green jacket, determined to never let go of him. "C-can I s-see her, t-too?"

Though the question was muffled, Inuyasha knew just what the kit was asking to do. "Yeah. But we're gonna have ta leave soon. That rain's gettin' closer every minute."

Then he turned and continued into the cemetery, this time with the only other person who knew just why he had become such a shell of his former self. They passed stone after stone, each one topped with a different guardian, each with its own special message about the one it marked. At last, Inuyasha stopped and set Shippo down before Kagome's, both of them staring at the bleak, gray stone as if it could somehow grant them a miracle.

Shippo bowed his head, praying that his mother could somehow bring Inuyasha back to who he was, could fix all the world that was crumbling apart around him, even though she was dead. That she could find some way to help his father keep on living. The wind picked up, carrying a soft sound.

Crying. A woman, crying.

Shippo's eyes grew wide, his gaze locked onto his mother's grave. Then he ran, his short legs pumping, even as Inuyasha yelled out his name. The kitsune didn't stop until he reached the sight of the crying, just as thunder sounded over their heads. A woman, almost a head shorter than Inuyasha, with long raven hair, dressed in a black dress, was kneeling on a grave, trying to muffle the sound of her weeping.

Shippo's eyes grew wide. Could it be? "Mama?"

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Rei looked up at the sky as clouds began to gather overhead, matching her misery today. It was going to be a long, miserable day. Her suicide attempt yesterday hadn't helped her to get ready for her visit to the cemetery today, only to make her more miserable than ever. She turned her purple gaze back down to the ground and began to walk once more, a dark, silent specter on a street filled with color and chatter.

The iron gate that surrounded the cemetery broke her steady pace, leaving her to hesitate right outside the entrance. The sound of a child yelling for his father broke her from the stupor that she stood in, gazing blindly at the black, uncaring metal that stood as a sentinel for the dead.

Her steps were slow, precise, each one measured as she approached the angel topped grave in the center of the sea of gray stone, a beacon of snowy marble that glowed in the dwindling light. The white roses in her arms seemed heavy as she stared at the gentle face of the seraph that so resembled the woman that lay at her feet.

Falling to her knees, uncaring if she stained her dress, she laid the flowers in the guardian's arms. For several minutes, she just knelt there, fighting back the tears that stung at her eyes. Slowly, they began to crawl down her face, leaving tiny, wet paths down her cheeks as she stared at the words carved into the stone, wishing that it wasn't Serena she was doing this for.

The dam that held back so many of her tears finally broke, sending them burning down her pale, drawn face with the fires of guilt to fuel the flow. Strangled sobs escaped her dry throat as she threw her arms around the angel, wishing that Serena could still be alive, that there was still some good left for Rei to do. Good that she believed had flown from her three years prior.

She didn't register the sound of tiny feet hitting the ground, not until they had stopped right next to her. Thunder sounded, reminding her that she needed to head home soon. Then, one tear-choked voice broke through her daze.

"Mama?"

She turned her head, her eyes red from the tears that had already passed and the tears she was now holding back. The boy was young, barely more than eight, ten at the most, with shiny auburn hair and sea green eyes filled with sorrow and wonder. He stared at her, something akin to a faint sparkle of joy beginning to glimmer in his tear soaked face. She stared back, confused as to why this child was talking to her and why his voice was so familiar. "What?"

"Shippo! Come here, kit!" The voice was older than the child's, betraying the fact that the child was with a grown man. The owner appeared from the same direction the child, Shippo, his very aura drawing her attention. Sad, golden eyes met haunted violet as the two stared at each other, their senses almost overwhelmed by what they were telling them. The man broke the gaze first, turning to the little child. "C'mon, Shippo. We need to go home."

The child's eyes grew wide and he turned his eyes back to Rei before darting out of the silver-haired man's reach, a feat that spoke of much practice, and over to where she was kneeling. Shippo took one of her hands and held it in his much smaller ones. "I'm Shippo, miss. This is my father, Inuyasha. What's your name and why are you so sad?"

Inuyasha let out a strangled sound as he approached them, stopping once he reached them. He picked up the boy and bowed to her before he offered his hand. "I'm sorry about this," he said. "He's usually much more behaved than this."

Rei smiled and took the offered hand. "I don't mind." To her relief, her voice was much more even than it had been. "Children should be happy, not sad."

Inuyasha groaned softly as he smelt the change in the weather just before the tears of heaven fell, drenching the ground and them. The woman that Shippo had led him to, on purpose, he was almost certain, sighed in defeat and turned away, trudging through the dirt that was fast becoming mud. "Miss!" The raven-haired woman turned, her tear-stained eyes meeting his once more. He caught up with her, Shippo keeping up with him. "How about I walk you home? It seems only fair, considering…"

The woman smiled. "Thank you, Inuyasha. I would like that."

The rain kept falling, growing ever heavier, as the three of them made their way from the silent cemetery, their shapes blurring, then, at last, fading, as they disappeared into the city.

The rain pounded upon both graves that had been visited, drenching the guardians and soaking the ground, penetrating to where the coffins lay resting. Two sets of ghostly hands held the bouquet of roses that remained dry, despite the driving rain, as two souls watched the new paths they had set their loved ones upon unfold.

Niara: Well…four pages of type…yeah, I guess…Anyway, please review! Now that the two of them have met, we get to have EXPLANATIONS! Very soon, I promise. Oh, what fun…REVIEW!