A/N: Hey guys- sorry it's taken so long to update. I've been hella busy. I've been working a lot, and haven't had that much time to write anything, but here you have it. Have fun

Our Endings

Jin had gotten to the healers with barely a second left in Mugen's life; the medics were able to sew him up and sustain him, though he'd fallen unconscious as he was being rushed. Jin's heart had leapt up into his throat when his friend had fallen under- he had tried desperately to keep him conscious. He knew he wouldn't die though; he couldn't. Mugen wouldn't die a death such as this, even though he had bled all over his ronin friend. Even though Jin couldn't get the picture of himself, holding Mugen in the air, slipping the dagger into his best friend's vitals…Mugen was still at the healers, after three days, barely clinging to life.

Jin had returned to Fuu, mentally lost and in disarray; she'd never seen him so disheveled, but at first, she didn't care. She had greeted him with the warmest of welcomes. When he had returned home, she had lashed out at him, beating furiously yet futily onto his chest as he stood; berated with screams and sobs and foul names, arms limp at his sides. Finally he had grabbed her wrists, trying to calm her, his visage pale and lost. He looked into her face, his eyes scared as he told her, "Fuu…I don't know if he'll live…" in which she collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

In the course of the three days, the house was next to silent. There was little sleep between the two, and they barely ate anything. Fuu tried to avoid Jin at all costs; she couldn't look at the person who might become her lover's murderer without her eyes welling up with tears. However, one night, they sat down and Jin managed to relay to Fuu what had gone on with Jin that day, what had made him snap out of his fury and help Mugen like he had. He said he had remembered it vividly in his mind- how the moment the words "I love you" had escaped out of Fuu's lips, it was like Time had stopped; he saw, in a retrospect, all the things that had lead up to this moment. Everything that had happened in the past three years. Their parting at the fork in the road. Jin's travels, floating on the wind like a piece of dust. The first night he and Fuu had made love. All at once, it had rushed at him. He realized, as time was suspended, that if he truly loved Fuu, all he would want would be her happiness. He then suddenly experienced a kind of blissful detachment, as if he saw that enraged part of him break off and float away- he loved and hated it all at the same time. In that moment it was the equivalent as waking up- her happiness….

Mugen was her happiness.

Fuu didn't dare go see Mugen at the healers- she didn't want to see him dying. It would have killed her, literally killed her, sucking up the last remaining hope and will to go on that was inside of her. So she took to staying in her bedroom, pacing in the dark, sleeping only a few hours at a time. Jin had recalled thinking she looked like a lost animal, or one that had been cornered and didn't know how to get out. He knew this was bad for the child growing inside of her, but he didn't know what he could do. He couldn't touch her; she wouldn't let him, and Jin didn't think he could himself. At least right now. Just thinking about the child made him sick to his stomach. He didn't know how to console her. He was just as worried about Mugen as she was- neither of them had received any news, other than the fact that he was at least breathing. That was good...they thought.

Morning of the fourth day came with a cold light. Jin opened the door slightly to Fuu's bedroom and watched her for a moment- she was caught in a fitful sleep. She would probably wake soon. Jin was going to the healer's one last time- after that, he didn't know where he would go. All he knew was that he would not return here- something inside of him couldn't bare it any longer. This house had many memories; many dinners, laughs, tears, and nights where they had made love. Although Jin had forgiven them, he could not stay here any longer. Goodbye Fuu he said silently, smiling at the woman on the bed. He would see them again someday.

Without another glance, he turned on his heel and swept out, picking up his swords on his way out the door and into the sun.

It was dark; nearing sunset. Fuu was sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to the door when she heard it creak open and golden light spilled into the room. She could feel someone there, although there was no movement and stilled breath. She had known this would come; she had waited for these days in agony and anguish, hoping to never hear the words Jin was about to tell her, clinging on to that little bit of hope inside of her. She felt tears well up and spill over on to the bed, not daring to face Jin with his terrible, silent news. She already knew what he was going to say.

"Don't tell me Jin…He's dead, isn't he?"

There was a pause, an eternity of pain. And then,

"I don't know. I look pretty alive to me."

Her heart froze. She knew that voice. Suddenly a whole new presence, alike and yet so different from Jin's, filled her mind. She turned her head and her senses exploded. Standing in the doorway, leaning hap-hazardly against the doorframe, bandaged and slightly paler than what she remembered, was Mugen.

Fuu couldn't move- neither of them did for a long time. She simply sat, staring at him with an open, gaping mouth. He was shirtless, exposing thick bandages across his stomach, and she could barely make out the bruises on his neck from where Jin had nearly strangled him. He smiled at her- a smug kind of grin- and limped over toward her. He slipped gingerly on to the bed and pushed her frozen body gently down onto the bed. He crawled on top of her, wincing a bit, and settled, carefully setting his weight as he lay on top of her and stared into her face. When their lips met, Fuu melted and reality came to her.

He had lived.

When they broke apart, Mugen smirked, "Miss me?"

"More than you'll know…" she whispered.

He smiled and buried his face in her chest, deeply breathing in her scent and feeling more at ease and at rest than he had since he could remember. They lay there, in silent reverie melting into each other and into the earth all around them. And suddenly Mugen shifted, lifting himself slightly and coming to stare directly over Fuu's stomach. After a moment's slightly awkward pause, Mugen did something Fuu would have never expected- he laid his cheek against her stomach and began to talk, to mummer to their child inside of her.

"Hey kid…It's your dad. I'm alive now…so you can have a dad like I never did. And I promise I won't die on you, either."

He laid there, against Fuu's stomach, listening to her distant heartbeat like a beacon in a far-off harbor. Although he couldn't really see it, he knew it was there. He knew she would always be there. In the cloud that had comprised his last three days of half-existence, that bubble of unconsciousness he found himself floating in for what seemed like an eternity, he had only one that that kept him breathing, one thing that held him to the tiny strong of life before death- his unborn child. He didn't know why, but he knew that was the driving force. And there was no way in hell he would have died before his child was born.

There, Mugen fell asleep, into a deep, dreamless, quiet sleep that he hadn't experienced in years; one where he wasn't fighting for his very existence.

Maybe he was dead; when he thought about it, however, he didn't really care. Fuu was with him-Fuu and their unborn baby. And that was all that mattered to him.