Author's Note: So, yeah – this chapter has been mostly done for awhile, but unfortunately I've been a bit bogged down by life lately, so it kept getting put off. Sorry! But it's here now. Voila…

To any history buffs who may be reading, I apologize in advance for any and all anachronisms and/or incongruities that may appear in this and all other chapters. The thing is, I'm just barely going to manage to finish this story as it is (swamped as I am by actual schoolwork and classes these days – I've just started college, and I recently moved from the Midwest to Manhattan, so that's a whole other bundle of stress), and I really don't have time to do the research necessary to get everything right. I'll do my best to keep things as true to life as possible from here on out, but be warned, I will definitely make guesses, and therefore make mistakes. But it's the difference between this story getting finished or getting put in a drawer until I have the time, energy, and motivation to go back and overhaul the entire thing (to fix all the earlier mistakes), and then finish it. In other words, it's pretty much the difference between it getting finished and not getting finished.

Oh, and in case you're interested, I posted a new oneshot the other day. It's called "Good Dog," and in my personal opinion, it's some of my best work (as oneshots go, at least). Go on, give it a try – you know you want to…

Missing in Action

Chapter 18: Coming Home

Henri took another sip of lukewarm tea – which was really little more than water with a few herbs mixed in, since things like tea and coffee were hard to come by these days – and shuffled the papers on the table before him, reviewing the information they'd gathered from various sources and compiled onto these maps. Finally the puzzle was beginning to make sense – and he'd sent word of Naraku's apparent plans back to the Allied High Command in London with Inuyasha, for the information was too sensitive to be transmitted in any other manner. He was due to rendezvous with an American unit within the next couple of days, and they would see him safely back to Britain, if everything proceeded as planned. With any luck they would know for sure that he had made it by the end of the week.

He settled back in his chair, releasing a sigh that seemed to him to belong to a much older man. It was difficult to imagine that it had only been four years since the beginning of the occupation – four years since he had last seen Christine and their daughters, Bernice and Lisette. He supposed he would hardly recognize them now. Bernice, the older, must be at least twelve, which would make Lisette eight. Eight years old – she'd been barely four when she and her mother and sister had boarded that ship bound for England, just before Paris fell. He had planned to join them just as soon as he could, but once the Germans had taken over the north and the Vichy had control of the south, the piers were closed and he had been trapped. For awhile he had continued to entertain the possibility of slipping out – perhaps traveling southward and smuggling himself out through Casablanca or one of the other French North African ports – but before long it became clear to him that that was not an option. He couldn't turn his back on the land of his birth, not as long as there was anything he could do to help. Soon after he joined the Resistance, and quickly ascended to a position of leadership.

Did they remember him? He prayed that they did. Bernice must at least, for she'd been eight when they'd left, and smart as a whip. She was quite a precocious child, impertinent even at times, but good-hearted. He remembered watching her play in the churchyard with the other children, her hair in two tight braids behind her ears, her skirt rumpled and dirty at the edge as she confidently explained what she perceived to be the workings of the world to the others – since, of course, she knew everything there was to know about everything.

Lisette on the other hand had been just the opposite of her sister – quiet and inclined to move at a much slower, more measured pace. She'd been intelligent as well, for she'd learned to speak at a very young age, but she chose her words carefully and used them sparingly. She'd been a very affectionate child, always willing to be held and comforted, and she'd always had a talent for getting right to the heart of the matter without really realizing that she'd done so, in a way that only a child's innocence can.

Henri retrieved a cigarette from the box on his desk and brought it numbly to his lips with slightly trembling fingers. Striking a match, he lit the end and inhaled just enough to help it to catch, then taking a deep draw as he shook out the match. He could feel the smoke filling his lungs, feel it seep into his bloodstream and collect in the creases that had begun to form in his forehead and around his eyes. Christine, he thought, the name slipping silently out of him on a trail of smoke. He could almost see her face swimming before his very eyes in the haze that was collecting on the air. I know I promised that I would follow you, he told her, as he had on countless occasions before now, I'm sorry I wasn't able to keep that promise…

We'll be together again someday…in Heaven, at least, if not here on earth…

Once again, Inuyasha found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Identify yourself," a voice demanded in American English, and for a moment he was thrown off by how strange it sounded to hear his mother tongue spoken once more in the accent of his homeland. Between living in London and being lost in Occupied France, he'd gotten used to hearing it with a European slant of one kind or another.

Soon he realized that the voice was still waiting for an answer, so he snapped himself back to reality and obliged. "Lieutenant Inuyasha Montague of the U.S. Air Force," he replied. "Who're you?"

"Private Joe Ryan," the man answered, lowering the gun to a resting position. "The Commander's been expecting you – come on." And with that, the man set off through the trees in the opposite direction at a brisk pace, leaving Inuyasha to follow.

Geeze, I've been walking for a day and a half – can't I get a break? he thought to himself, but didn't bother to protest. He'd just as soon get into camp and away from this rather jumpy and over-eager private anyway – he supposed the guy was probably a newbie, which was why he'd been given a crappy job like scout duty. Though from the looks of things, the guy could have used a bit more training – he hadn't even bothered to ask for any sort of identification. Hell, Inuyasha wasn't even wearing a uniform – all he had was a name.

Before long, Inuyasha found himself in a makeshift little camp, not much more than a collection of soldiers who happened to be occupying the same space. The private led him across the clearing to where a small cluster of important-looking men were huddled around a set of maps, conversing seriously.

"Commander Hawkins – this is Lt. Montague," Ryan announced, and a man with a rather craggy, angular face glanced up.

"Good, you're here," the man said, nodding to the other men to indicate that they should continue without him before stepping away, grabbing a water jug off a nearby stump and taking a quick swig. "There isn't much time – you'll be flying out with the supply plane. Jenkins!"

Another man, headed off in the direction of the forest, paused and looked over at the Commander expectantly. "Here's your cargo," Hawkins explained, indicating Inuyasha, and the smallish man with round, wire-rimmed glasses smiled briefly and nodded in understanding.

"Great – let's get going."

And thus Inuyasha, feeling somewhat like a hot potato at this point, found himself following the other man into the woods. As they walked he realized that he had rather forgotten the pace of the army. In fact, even in the Air Force things hadn't been quite so brisk – sure they'd had to be fast at times, and flying itself was all about speed, but the general demeanor of the Air Force had always seemed much more laid back. They saw themselves as the cowboys of the armed forces, and they acted like it. And especially having basically been a Resistance agent for the past couple of months, the regimentation and definition of the army chain of command was a bit startling. All of a sudden he was back above ground, part of the overt war rather than the covert one.

Soon they reached an open field, at the nearest edge of which was parked a medium sized plane – larger than the type he had flown, but with minimal weaponry, apparently built to hold cargo rather than for air strikes.

"They supply troops by personal air delivery now?" Inuyasha asked incredulously.

"You've been out of the game for awhile, haven't you," the man replied with a swift grin. "Luftwaffe forces are running thin – they're being redistributed, and they've left a gap up in this area. And what with all the submarine activity these days, it's really the only way."

"But what happened to parachuting supplies down?"

"That wouldn't be very useful for getting you back to London now would it?"

Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. "This is because of me?"

"Your safety is top priority at the moment – I was part of a convoy, but they had me land here to pick you up, and I brought supplies in on the way. We're rejoining the convoy on its way back out. That's why we've got to hurry."

"Right," Inuyasha replied, still trying to get his mind around the idea. A plane landing in enemy territory just for him? It was beginning to look like this mission was more important than he had first anticipated.

Inuyasha climbed into the cargo hold and strapped himself into one of the flip-down emergency seats mounted along the wall. Before long he heard the roar of the engine coming to life, felt the pull of gravity as they gathered speed, and at last they were airborne.

There were few things in the world that he loved as much as flying. Of course, it was infinitely better when he himself was at the helm, but after spending so long with his feet planted firmly on the ground, he wasn't complaining. It felt good to be above the clouds again, regardless of who was doing the driving.

All at once a memory surfaced in his mind – rough stone, carved with a picture of an airplane sailing through the sky. It had been just after they'd taken her away, and after he'd realized that screaming for her would get him nowhere. Of course, inevitably, that memory of her led to another – this one much more recent.

"I've never flown in an airplane," she said quietly, breaking the silence, her breath warm against his bare chest.

"Hm?" he murmured, his eyes still closed as he simply reveled in the nearness of her.

"In fact I've never even left France, come to think of it," she continued, almost as if to herself. "I've lived in Asile all my life – it's the only home I've ever known, and for a long time it seemed it was the only home I would ever need. I don't know exactly when that changed, but somehow it did. Now one of my homes is being destroyed slowly from the inside out, and the other…is leaving me in just a few short hours…" Her gentle voice trailed off into the darkness, and she pressed a kiss to his abdomen, lingering a bit as though to savor the moment.

He felt her weight shift as she moved up so that her face was level with his, her knuckles grazing his cheek ever so slightly, and he could just barely see her eyes reflecting the dim light that seeped into the room beneath the door. "I'll take you someday," he said softly, lifting his free hand and lacing his fingers with hers. "You and I, we'll go flying one day together. It's like nothing else in the world – you'll see."

"I'd like that," she whispered, and her lips met his softly, gently, lovingly, and they savored each other's company once more. It didn't matter that it was an empty promise – for they both knew that it was, of course – because as long as they were together right now, anything could happen. Hitler could surrender, the war could end, the world could right itself – they could be free. They could go flying.

It was hard to believe that it was over – that the memories he had of her would be all that remained for him, and that before long he would see the past few months as no more than an interlude between the two halves of his life. It was difficult merely to get his mind around the idea – and Inuyasha preferred not to do things that were difficult in that manner. So he did the only thing he could – he put it out of his mind.

Instead he concentrated on the soothing hum of the airplane, the dual feelings of incredible speed and absolute stillness taking turns filling his awareness.

It was a relatively uneventful flight, especially under the circumstances. Apparently Jenkins hadn't been kidding about that gap in German air coverage. Maybe the Axis was in worse shape than Inuyasha had thought – after all, they hadn't shown any signs of weakness or panic back in Asile. But then again, Asile wasn't where the fighting was, and as far as he knew, the German High Command wasn't exactly in the habit of delivering accurate reports of their situation to all of their followers without consideration for the consequences. Theirs was a regime built on propaganda and boosted confidence, and "Holy shit, they're beating the crap out of us…" wasn't really the sort of message that would inspire loyalty and solidarity.

Before long, or so it seemed to Inuyasha, he could feel the craft beginning to decrease its altitude, gradually sinking down beneath the clouds and at last sailing in toward the runway. There were a few light bumps, a bit of swaying from side to side before the plane finally found its feet on the ground – but all in all, it was considerably smoother than Inuyasha's last landing had been.

When he finally disembarked from the aircraft, setting foot on the tarmac of the London Allied air base for the first time in what seemed like forever, he was utterly surprised to see a small group of finely pressed young officers standing at attention beside the plane. It wasn't until one of them approached him, addressing him formally as "Sir," and instructed him to follow, that he realized that they had been sent to escort him back to Headquarters. He wasn't used to this kind of formality, and he especially wasn't used to having it directed at him. It felt as though he'd spent six months floating in a life-raft on the ocean, and was only now experiencing the shock of solid ground beneath his feet – everything still felt slightly off-balance somehow, like it was too safe, too secure, too calm. He caught himself watching the shadows for signs of something sinister, feeling strange simply strolling about in broad daylight without worrying that there might be a German scout standing just around the bend or an officer watching him from the window. The security of the whole situation simply felt unnatural and irrationally impossible.

He was ushered into a black sedan – an officer's vehicle – and soon they were trundling through the streets of London, avoiding the areas that had been most damaged in the bombings a couple of years back, which they had not been able to make much progress on rebuilding, the country's resources still tied up in the ongoing war. The Headquarters looked much as he had remembered it, though he had only ever visited the building once or twice, his responsibilities largely confined to the air base itself. The building was an imposing combination of Georgian and classical styles, a large, brick structure with a stone façade meant to evoke the stately beauty of the ancient Greek and Roman halls and temples. As he was led up the front steps and into the lobby, he took in the dark, weathered wood-paneled walls and scuffed floor. The man escorting him paused briefly to confirm his identity with the receptionist, who sat behind a boxy wooden desk in the middle of the hall, and then they were off again, ascending two flights of steps and proceeding down a hall that was decorated in a similar manner to the entryway, with dark wood covering the floor and the walls half way up, and the upper half of the walls painted a bluish-gray that made Inuyasha think of a county kitchen. The paint was chipping a bit at the edges, and every so often there was a pronounced crack visible in the wall itself, a testament to the age of the building.

The floorboards groaned jadedly beneath their feet, until finally they came to a stop in front of a closed wooden door, and the young officer rapped sharply upon it with his knuckles. Inuyasha noticed with a start that he was holding his breath. Despite the lack of identification of any kind upon the door, he was absolutely positive of who must be behind it.

"You may enter," a familiar cool and quiet, yet perfectly clear voice answered.

Yup.

Crap.

The officer opened the door and stood aside to allow Inuyasha to pass, which the hanyou did with some reluctance. There, sitting behind a large desk covered in neat stacks of official-looking papers, as well as several fountain pens and other measurement and writing implements, sat Inuyasha's older brother, the Great General Sesshoumaru Montague.

With the slightest of gestures, the General indicated the chair opposite his, and Inuyasha took a seat, hearing the door shut behind him with a snap. He distracted himself with glancing around the office – which was relatively small, considering the man's rank, and papered floor to ceiling with complicated maps detailing troop movements, terrain, climate, strategic locations, and anything else imaginable – determinedly avoiding his brother's penetrating stare. He hated it when Sesshoumaru looked at him like that – he had this way of making his expression go hard and yet completely blank, leaving Inuyasha no clue as to what the other man was thinking.

"So," the older man said at last, breaking the silence, "You've managed to return alive, Inuyasha. That is either a testament to your bravery or an indication of your cowardice."

The hanyou's eyes snapped to meet his brother's as years of hatred came screaming back to him. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?" he demanded hotly.

"Either you found a way to make yourself useful and have risked life and limb to bring us valuable information…or you found yourself for the first time in a truly difficult situation, and you took the first opportunity for escape that presented itself. Which is it?"

Inuyasha glared murderously back at the other man, whose demeanor remained nevertheless unchanged. "For your information, I didn't want to leave – I left because I had to. I had orders…to bring you the info the Resistance has collected on Naraku."

The General nodded once to acknowledge this. "I am aware of that – but it remains to be seen whether or not that information will be of any use to us."

Apparently that was Inuyasha's cue to begin explaining, so he ran a hand through his hair, readjusted himself into a more comfortable position in his chair, and dug in.

"Maybe I'd better start at the beginning: Do you remember Kikyo?"

Sesshoumaru's brow furrowed only the slightest bit. "The woman you were involved with – she worked in the air base if I recall correctly. She disappeared not long after you shipped out."

The hanyou gave a wry breath. "Yeah, well I found her – turns out she was a double-agent. She defected and ran off with the German General Naraku."

Inuyasha went on to recount his experiences over the past couple of months – well, at least those that were of military significance. By the end of the story he was pacing back and forth across the narrow office as he tried to recall every last relevant detail. When at last he had finished, the General settled back into his chair with his usual air of complete authority, nodding slightly in consideration.

"You seem to have had a rather interesting couple of months," he commented with a hint of irony, "probably even more interesting than you realize, from a larger tactical perspective. This information should prove to be extremely useful in the months to come. There's only one thing I'm curious about."

Having been momentarily surprised at receiving something resembling a compliment from his older brother, Inuyasha then returned the man's gaze warily. "What's that?"

"This agent you mentioned – the one who resembled Kikyo. You never mentioned her name."

It was true – he'd been hoping his brother wouldn't notice. He had very carefully avoided mentioning Kagome's name, trying as hard as he possibly could to distance himself from her, from what had happened between them. It wasn't that he was trying to forget her, because he knew he'd never be able to do that; but he also knew that he wouldn't be able to do his job if he let himself moon over her like some sort of pathetic teenager. He needed – for the time being, at least – to remember only the agent, and not the woman. Besides, he wasn't about to discuss his love life with Sesshoumaru of all people. "I didn't think it was all that important," he replied, by way of explanation.

The other man didn't buy it. "I see. Well, if you wouldn't mind, it would help us to keep things straight."

Inuyasha shot his brother an irritated glare, but he knew that protesting any further would only confirm the man's suspicions. "Her name was Kagome."

"Kagome – a lovely name," the general mused. "You know, listening to you speak, I almost had the impression that perhaps she was something more to you that you implied."

The hanyou merely grunted.

After a brief silence, Sesshoumaru tried again. "I take it then that I was mistaken."

Inuyasha glared at him resentfully. "Do you have a point? Because I don't see how the fuck any of that is your business."

The General lifted his chin slightly at that – not, it seemed, in contempt, but rather in a sort of amused consideration. "I suppose it isn't. But I am your brother after all."

Confusion replaced spite in Inuyasha's gaze at the uncharacteristic response. "Since when have you ever been a brother to me," he replied, perhaps in a vague attempt to hold onto that comfortable resentment. It wasn't working.

Sesshoumaru merely continued to regard him, his expression unchanged. "She's someone special, this Kagome of yours, isn't she."

A wry hint of a chuckle crossed Inuyasha's face, and in spite of himself, he found himself answering the not-quite-a-question. "Yeah, she's someone special; but she's not mine."

It was exactly like he'd remembered it. Maybe a little neater than he'd usually kept it – probably because she'd continued to live here for several months after he'd left – but it also possessed the stale, dusty scent of an old broom closet, rarely opened and filled with ghosts and skeletons of all shapes and sizes.

He stepped carefully into the apartment, feeling almost like an intruder, an invader of a past that no longer existed, and closed the dark wooden door behind him. The main room was rectangular and relatively narrow, with a window overlooking an alley directly across from the door and a little sitting area made up of a couch, a chair, and a coffee table sitting just beneath it. In the far corner was a small kitchenette, and directly across from that, next to the couch, was the door to the bedroom. The floor was made of dark wooden boards, roughened with age, and covered in part by a dark scarlet rug with an intricate pattern of golds and blues dancing around its edges.

Inuyasha turned on a lamp, and continued his almost detached perusal of the space. After spending the last two years devoting nearly all of his energy to the quest of returning to this place, it was undeniably strange to actually be here at last. In a way, a part of him had almost come to believe that he had imagined it all – that he had built the place in is mind out of sheer loneliness, and that this place, this time in his life, had never really existed. He'd seen it happen to other guys, heard them talk about a woman with such detail, such reverence, that at a certain point they started to forget that she was no more than the cover of an old magazine, or a figment of their collective imaginations. But now, he was here. It was real.

And it was empty.

He moved on into the bedroom, coming to stand in the doorway. There was the same bulging, lumpy mattress on the same old metal bed frame. The evening light that managed to slip into the space between this building and the next slanted in through the dingy curtains onto the faded yellow and blue quilt that covered the bed, which had seemingly gone untouched since Kikyo's departure.

He could see her there, sitting on top of the coverlet, propped up against the bedstead with a book on her knees; he could see her moving quickly about the room in search of some missing piece to her uniform, her heels clicking smartly against the wood floor; he could see her lying beneath him as they made love, her usually neatly kept hair fanned out messily over the creamy pillowcase.

"I love you," Inuyasha murmured into the soft blue darkness, his head pillowed against Kikyo's chest, his arms wrapped around her waist.

She lifted a hand to gently stroke the side of his face, hesitating only a moment before replying in a whisper. "I love you too…"

At the very least, now that he thought back on it, she had hesitated slightly before telling so blatant a lie to him. It didn't change anything, of course, but it showed that perhaps she wasn't entirely soulless.

Something that had been nagging at the back of his mind ever since his meeting with Sesshoumaru now came to the forefront: Why had Kikyo sent him the letter? She obviously hadn't really needed to, since he'd been out of the country and unable to stop her leaving no matter what. And since she'd been leaving in order to defect to the enemy, telling anyone anything about her plans – however unspecific – could only have been a risk. What did she have to gain by telling him anything at all? Why not just leave and let him discover her absence upon his return? By then she would have been long gone and completely out of his reach.

Was it possible that he had meant something to her after all? That she had sent him the letter as some sort of small courtesy, to at least spare him the disappointment of returning only to find her gone?

Too much – just too much. Inuyasha's brain was too tired to think anymore. He barely managed to shrug off his coat and kick off his shoes before crawling up onto the squishy surface of the bed. He was asleep by the time his head reached the pillow.

A/N: Okay, I'll admit I was getting a little punchy when I wrote most of this chapter. I kept putting in little jokes (mainly to myself – dunno if anyone in their right mind would find them nearly as funny as I do), like naming the guy who met Inuyasha in the forest "Private Ryan" (as in Saving Private Ryan), and giving Inuyasha the last name of "Montague" (which is, of course, the last name of that legendarily tragic romantic icon: Romeo), and giving the other two officers the semi-rhyming names of "Hawkins" and "Jenkins" (which I did completely by accident, actually, but it made me laugh…).

So yeah…other than that, what did you think? (--grin--)

Oh, also, about Inuyasha's name: I was about to fall back on the standard "Takahashi," just for simplicity's sake, when I realized that I couldn't let him be of Japanese descent. Considering the fact that the US was at war with Japan, and as a result all Japanese Americans had been put into internment camps for the duration of the war, the likelihood that a man of Japanese ancestry would have been allowed to fly in the US Air Force (much less become a high-ranking general, like Sesshy) would be slim indeed. Granted, I am far from an expert, and it's been awhile since I last studied WWII in school (as a matter of fact, the last time was right around the time I started this story…lol…), so I may be wrong about this, but that was my reasoning…