Water crashing against the rocks in a nearby waterfall and spring mixed gently with the sounds of the night. The occasional lark would sing, crickets would chirp, and the howl of a wolf in the distance only enhanced the song of the night. While the day was considered hot and muggy, after dark, it was a camper's paradise as a cool breeze blew gently through the fields. It was warm enough to stay out without having to add layers to retain heat, yet cool enough that she wasn't uncomfortably sweaty.

She stretched out on her blanket, a new pink, fuzzy bread spread she had bought on her last trip home just for nights like this, and stared up at the sky, lost in her thoughts. Where was she to go now that it was all over? Naraku was gone, defeated after an intense battle where she would have lost her life if it weren't for her knight in shining armor, or, perhaps better described as her white knight. Just when she had thought it was all over, as she saw her friends lay on the ground bleeding to their own deaths, Miroku pale as he fought the poison in his system, and Inuyasha fighting blindly as he was losing strength, in came Sesshoumaru, looking as pristine as ever, with the coldest eyes ever. It gave her the strength to go on and with one arrow straight and true, she missed the dark hanyou, but struck the jewel, purifying it until nothing was left of it but a memory.

For all of a minute she had thought they were going to have to start from scratch again, collecting shards until the jewel was whole again, as she never forgot how the jewel shattered the first time. Maybe it was her intent though, as this time around she was seeking to destroy it, not retrieve it, which caused it to purify rather than shatter. Regardless, without the jewel Naraku was nothing more than a lowly demon easily killed.

Just last month she lay on the battlefield, struggling to catch her breath as she nursed her friends back to health, and mourned the loss of her beloved kit. Everyday it hurt more and more to think of him, and know she couldn't save him know matter how hard she tried. She had begged Sesshoumaru to use tenseiga on him, sat before him on her hands and knees and pleaded for her kit's life, but the spirit was already passed, she was informed. There was nothing he could do.

In one week, her life as she knew it had changed irrevocably. Inuyasha had run off. Where, she didn't know, and she didn't care. In the past year he had estranged himself from her to the point where she had trouble calling him a friend. Sango and Miroku healed nicely, and were off to marry in the exterminator's village. She was thrilled for them, but she couldn't follow them despite their invitation. It wasn't her place, it just didn't feel right.

Home was her first thought. Her mother and her welcoming arms would ease the hurt greatly, and suddenly she couldn't make it to the well fast enough. She didn't take the time to say good-bye to her friends, it would only be one more hurt she couldn't bear, and she ran. She ran blindly knowing that she didn't need to see to know where home was and how to get there.

And if she wasn't hurt enough as it was, the well rejected her, the power laying dormant now that the jewel was gone.

Here she was, an untrained miko, with no family, and no home.

Solitude had become her solace. As hectic as the days were, learning what she needed to know from Kaede, the nights gave her time to reflect on everything that took her to this point in her life, and everything that could take her beyond this point. For one month she hadn't seen him, and she missed him. She missed their chats, the way he would hold her hand in comfort, or understanding, or just as a way of saying he's there whether she needs him or not. He let her know that he was somebody she could count on whenever she needed to.

She needed to count on him now, but he had stayed away. It left her wondering if he moved on as well now that Naraku was gone.

It was perhaps two nights ago when she was sitting under the Goshinboku that she noticed lights moving across the northeastern sky. Too uniform to be sporadic, and given the time of year and weather, she knew them to be the perseid meteor shower. For the first time in a month and a half, she pulled out her blanket, the one she had bought for nights like tonight, and sat watching the stars.

They were a comfort to her, something that doesn't change between her time and here.

And so she lay there again, tonight, feeling lost and alone, taking comfort in the night sky, and missing him desperately.

"Twenty-two," she murmured under breath as she saw another meteor flash by.

She was jarred out of her thoughts by a deep baritone voice. "What are you counting?"

She moved her eyes from the sky and saw him in the distance, looking regal as ever, and just as cold. "The meteors. We're in the middle of a meteor shower." She sat up and cocked her head to the side. "What are you doing here?"

He didn't answer, but instead dropped his armor at the edge of the clearing and moved to sit next to her. "What is a meteor shower?"

Slightly flustered at his close proximity, she pointed up to the sky. "Meteors are remnants of old comets, blocks of ice and gas that fly through the sky. So every now and again, we'll see the small pieces flash through the sky. Sometimes we see only one, sometimes we see many. When there's a lot, it's called a meteor shower."

She lay back down on her blanket looking up, occasionally pointing when she'd see one, hoping he'd catch a glimpse of it too. "It doesn't look much different than your shooting star," he commented as he lay back next to her.

"It's not. When you see a single one, then it's commonly known as a shooting star. They're quite common, but you have to look up at just the right time."

"Are there any legends or stories for meteors?"

She chuckled slightly. Some things never changed, including his constant thirst for knowledge. While he would never openly admit, she knew he enjoyed the myths and legends behinds the stars. "They're known as the tears of St. Lawrence. It's probably a story you would enjoy as he was killed slowly, and painfully by the Romans."

"Slow and painful torture certainly sounds interesting."

"Yeah. He was roasted over an iron grill and fire almost two thousand years ago, er, 1,300 years ago," she amended, forgetting for a moment that she could no longer go back to her time. "It is read that instead of screaming in pain and agony, he turned to the crowds and said something along the lines of 'I am already roasted on one side and, if you want me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other.'"

"A very strong man indeed." He didn't laugh, but she could sense his amusement. "Have you made many wishes?" he asked after a time.

"Twenty-two," she whispered, and took a chance and moved closer to him. She smiled slightly when he didn't pull away, her first true smile in a month.

"And you still won't tell me what they are," he mused.

"No, then they won't come true."

The sounds of the crickets continued to fade in and out as they lay there, looking up at the sky in silence, both making a wish upon every meteor they saw. Occasionally she would point up, or he would trace something in the sky. She guessed he was continuing to figure out the constellations.

"Hey," she nudged him before resting her head on his shoulder. "Where were you?"

"About." He didn't give anything away.

She took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't screw things up but needed to get everything out. "I needed you."

He turned his head to look at her. Her sad, brown eyes was eating him up on the inside, and he longed to see them sparkle again, much like the first night they sat out staring into the sky. "I wanted to give you time to grieve," he replied honestly. "I couldn't save your kit, so I did what I could, I gave you time instead."

"Everybody's gone. I didn't need time. I needed somebody to talk to."

He nodded in understanding, acknowledging he was wrong in his assumption. "I'll be around when you need me," he said as he wrapped his single arm around her, pulling her tighter to him, not so much for her, but for himself as well. He needed the contact.

"I missed you." He could feel the tears running down her face as she snuggled into him, and, although he didn't know how, he knew they weren't tears of sorrow. It touched him that she would care so deeply for him. As to when she became so important to him, he wasn't sure, but somehow, over the past few years, she had managed to ingrain herself so permanently into him, it nearly drove him insane to stay away.

"I missed you too," he whispered into her hair.

"Stay with me." She didn't ask, she demanded, but he knew he would never refuse her.

"As long as you like."

END

AN

Okay, so this is perseid version 2. On the morning of the 13th, at about 2am, I was out in my backyard looking up at the sky, and despite the terrible Toronto skies, I managed to catch a glimpse of a few meteors. I had the dog tied out back with me hunting the evil bugs that would think of flying near me. But it was beautiful and exciting and I came in and started writing as I was definitely feeling inspired, and never mind the fact that I had to be at work at 7am, or the fact that my workload for work has quadrupled this week. Anyway, I opened it back up after work that day to edit and all I could think of was 'this is terrible'. It really was, no flow, certainly didn't fit in with the feeling and tone of the rest of the series. So I scrapped it. I very rarely scrap my work. I'll edit and re-edit and edit some more and it may be completely different, or I'll read something and be tempted to scrap it but find something I like in it, so then I post before I get tempted to scrap it. But there was nothing I liked in this. So it sat for a long while, a word file titled perseid that was a blank document. I had given up on it today and said 'well I'll write something when something comes to me' and was about to delete the file when bam, my fingers did the talking and this is end result, something so completely different to what my initial thought would be.

This takes the series full circle and I could safely say that this is a good spot to end the series on. However, I'm not going to stop writing if I'm inspired just because this vignette is a good vignette to end on. So if it stays here, I'm happy, and if I get inspired to write more, I'll be happy then too.

I must send a thank you to ElegantPaws who inadvertently put a thought in my head that worked well in this vignette. I'm sure she didn't even realize what she was doing, and I certainly didn't until I had written it, and I had checked back and sure enough, it was a paraphrase on something she had said to me.

Thanks to everybody who reviewed.

On ASS: Phoenix Wolf (I hope you had more luck seeing them in Toronto than I did. I saw about five, was thrilled at each one, but they weren't easy due to the light pollution), Suicide, orchid, Alyana, reina, Wiccan (I hope you had a fabulous time watching them and had good skies in Michigan. I think next year I'm booking the weekend off and taking off to a conservation area 40 min away, set up my tent and just spend a night watching them), Jean, and ElegantPaws. rachelandthecupcakecrusades, denise134, IceGoddess92, elemental573, Amaya Mishugosha, and ingi-doo (I think we all need our own personal Sesshoumaru to run away to the moon with;))

Oh, and for anybody interested in meteor showers, there is another coming up on September 1, the Aurigids.

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and company don't belong to me. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi.