Never Long Enough
Inuyasha has made Kagome many promises, over the course of the years he's known her. Most of them, he has managed to keep, although there are some that he knows he won't.
He vowed once to wait forever for her. But their forever is almost up.
She is an old woman now, frail and aged but her smile still lights up her whole face, and holding her hand – even though it is now chilled with poor circulation and the knuckles swollen with arthritis – makes his world brighter.
It's not long enough, he thinks, holding her as she sleeps. He doesn't sleep anymore. Sleeping would be to waste the time he has with her. It would never be long enough. Do Sesshomaru and Koga even realize how lucky they are?
But it occurs to him, as he holds his sleeping wife, that while Koga and Ayame have forever, Kiare does not, because her demon blood is diluted with that of a human. Not as much as him – she will outlive him, probably by centuries – but enough so that she is not truly immortal. And he thinks that it will never be long enough for Sesshomaru, either.
A bitter smile twists his lips. Perhaps he and Sesshomaru had something in common after all.
--
There is no fuss, no fanfare. One minute she is holding his hand, smiling at him in a vague way that is not surprising at her age, and the next minute, she simply isn't.
He kisses her hand, then her lips, and closes her eyes. He leaves the room, his back straight, his eyes straight ahead, picks up Tetsusaiga, and goes into the mountains. There is a nest of centipede demons there, and he has been waiting for just this moment.
They never knew what hit them.
He staggers back home, gets roaring drunk, and collapses into Kiare's arms, crying like a child. He is ashamed of his moment of weakness, but she tells him, gently, to shut up, and holds him while he cries, stroking his hair and murmuring in his ear.
It is – perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not – Sesshomaru who makes the arrangements. Inuyasha is almost, almost, surprised when Sesshomaru has Kagome buried in the tombs of their family, but then he realizes he shouldn't be. His brother, for all his coolness and distance, is doing the only thing he can for Inuyasha – it is a reassurance, of a sort, that even though Kagome was human, even though she was mortal, she was family. Even to Sesshomaru, perhaps.
Kiare is by his side while they lay her to rest, one hand woven in his. Sesshomaru stands on his other side, and Inuyasha has never been more grateful for his brother's presence. His children – his and Kagome's – surround him after the funeral, and though he would like nothing more than to follow his wife, his life, into the next world, he realizes his job here isn't done.
Later, as he holds his crying daughter in his arms, he looks across the room and meets his brother's eyes. He is still for a long moment, then he gives Sesshomaru a small nod – perhaps a reassurance, perhaps a thanks, but more likely a combination of the two. Sesshomaru returns the gestures and leaves the family to their grief, satisfied that his brother has made a decision.
He will tend his family, until his job is done.
End