a/n: This story is the product of 'Oceanic 815' from the soundtrack Lost (now available in stores). Once I heard it I sat down and started to write. Enjoy this pointless pseudo-fluff.
Standard disclaimers apply.
Midnight Musashi ---
The whisper came quietly from the ground but loud enough for the hanyou's sensitive hearing to pick up in the top of his favorite tree. He opened his eyes and peered down to catch this expected sight of Kagome standing at the base of the tree with her head tilted up to look at him.
"It's late," he called down. "Go back to the hut and get some sleep. We're leaving at sunrise."
The stubborn girl put her hands on her hips and refused to move.
"Come down here," she commanded in a tone that left no room for argument, "or I'll bring you down here myself."
Rolling his eyes at the threat, the obedient hanyou jumped off the branch on which he had until then been so comfortably perched. He landed with a dull thud on the ground beside Kagome.
"What do you want?" he asked irritably.
Kagome took a hesitant step toward him and put even more hesitant hands against his chest. She gripped his haori tightly in her fingers and looked up at him with nervous eyes.
"Kagome…" The words were lost to Inuyasha with Kagome's unexpected behavior.
"Lift me up," she said. "I want to sit with you in your tree."
"Oh," he said curiously, lifting the girl into his arms. He held her tightly as he jumped to the top branch, steadying himself before relaxing his hold. She moved to sit beside him to better look at the darkened Musashi under the light of the moon.
"It's so much different at night," she commented to no one in particular.
Inuyasha took in more deeply the sight of the countryside that he more often than not took for granted. In the future things were so crowded that it seemed there were more buildings than trees. He couldn't picture himself living in a world without trees.
"You didn't come out here to talk about the scenery," he said.
"No," she confessed, shaking her head. There was a quiet pause that seemed to allow her to collect her thoughts. A melancholy sadness overtook her usually cheerful face. "We're going to face Naraku soon."
"You knew it would happen," Inuyasha said.
"It just seems like everything has happened so fast, as if the jewel had only been broken yesterday."
"Better to get it over with as soon as possible."
Kagome looked down at her feet as they dangled freely. Inuyasha couldn't help but feel his words had done damage that he hadn't intended. He frowned.
"There won't be a happy ending, you know," she said as though she had resigned herself to a terrible fate.
"Don't talk like that," he scolded. "You don't know everything."
A chill wind blew through and rustled the dead branches of the bare tree. Impulsively, Kagome rubbed her arms to warm her skin. Inuyasha, in a moment of thoughtful consideration, grabbed her and pulled her tightly back against his chest.
Shocked at Inuyasha's consideration, Kagome was at a loss for words. She opened and closed her mouth several times before it was apparent that coherent speech had escaped her for the time being. The warmth of Inuyasha' body called out to her and she buried her face against his haori.
As she warmed herself up to his touch, Inuyasha wondered when the feelings that he had saved for Kikyou for so long had become Kagome's. The woman that he had held in his arms decades before had stirred within him feelings that felt so right to share with the woman in his arms now. He held on tighter.
"This will be over," he growled. "I'll see that it gets done."
Kagome lifted her head and looked at his narrowed, amber eyes.
"And then what, Inuyasha?" she whispered. "Then the well closes? Then Kohaku-kun and Miroku-sama die? What happens?"
Heaving a deep sigh to help alleviate some of the frustration that her questioning caused, he grunted out a short, "I don't know."
Laying her head against his shoulder, she wondered how many more nights there would be in the Sengoku Jidai. Things were so peaceful at that moment, tucked away in the tree with the only person she had ever truly trusted to protect her.
"Stop thinking so much," he said, laying his head against hers. "Things are going to happen and there's nothing we can do to change that. There's always going to be an ending, even if it's not a good one."
"What if our ending is an unhappy one?"
"Then we start a new story to make up for it."
Inuyasha's hands had idly begun to rub slow circles on Kagome's back. Both seemed content with this.
"You've had a lot of bad endings," she remarked wryly. "It's time that you had some happiness."
Thinking back over his life and all of the misfortune that he'd endured through the years, it didn't come as a surprised that Kagome was right about his luck. There was a lot to be unhappy about. But sitting with Kagome high above the village, he realized that there were still chances to make up for all the strife.
"I'm happy right now," he said quietly.
"Then let's stay like this a while longer," she yawned.
He nodded, rustling her hair in the process. It didn't matter, though. Kagome was comfortable and in the beginnings of sleep. Inuyasha closed his eyes too, and tried to put all thoughts of wells and time slips and death and suffering out of his mind.
"This'll be my happy ending," he murmured. "Even if things get worse, this is what I'll hold on to."
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a/n: More Inuyasha-themed stuff on my author's page. Enjoy!
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