Author's Note: I've had this idea forever, and well, the thought hurt me too much to write a true story, so have this one scene that was always dancing in my mind instead.
Word Count: 356
a missed lifetime
She laughed heartily from her bed, the wrinkles on her face crinkling in amusement. Pillows were propped up behind her, the thick bed cover lay over her chest for warmth. She was the very image of frailty, being so timeworn and close to the end.
She was that girl from so long ago, though if he was going to be true to the definition, she had long passed the age when she was truly a girl. She had moved on from that past—from her youth. After the adventure had ended, she was returned to her time to live out her ordinary life.
She had gone to college.
She had married a kind human man.
She had children.
It was all so very ordinary and uninteresting.
She had lived out her mundane life and now she lay here in a hospital bed, old and frail, just waiting for the end. Whatever had transpired in her youth was now nothing more than an old memory, though to anyone but the two of them it seemed more like a whimsical tale of an old woman.
"It's so good to see you again, Lord Sesshoumaru," her voice was so gravelly, befitting the woman she was now, but a jarring distinction from his memory of her.
"Likewise," he forced the word out, unable to reconcile reality with memory.
"You look older," she remarked, and he did not miss the irony in her words, "but still so young."
Her eyes crinkled kindly at him, and he wanted to hate her.
She held out her hand for his, and he took it, feeling the wrinkled, leathery skin against his own soft palm.
"I'm sorry," he said slowly, and she shook her head.
"I'm not."
"Was it a good life?"
She pulled her hand back and her eyes closed.
"More than this old woman deserves," she answered with a sigh. She heard his chair creaked, and she asked, "Will you stay a bit longer?"
She opened her eyes to see his nod and she smiled again.
He wondered why he felt remorse as he listened to her reminiscing about her very mundane life.
