Absence

Chapter Three

Rebuilding took time, and it was sweaty, back-breaking work. Relegated to the sidelines—female—Sango helped Kaede and the women of the village tend to the ruined fields, salvaging and replanting what could be saved. They prepared meals for the menfolk who worked, dawn until dusk and then beyond, to erect new houses for those who had lost theirs, fixing broken roofs and rebuilding battered walls and sheds.

Inuyasha and Kohaku, on Kirara, ranged far and wide to track down the wayward horses that had escaped when Naraku had come to try to destroy the village. Shippou spent his time split between Sango and Miroku, clinging to them, as was his habit, in Kagome's absence. He hadn't spoken to Inuyasha since he'd retracted his statement that he hated the hanyou, but he was moody and gloomy.

On the third day after Inuyasha's return, Sango took a tray loaded with hot tea and sweet snacks to where Inuyasha and Miroku, the former shirtless, the latter in a stripped-down version of his usual dark blue robes, toiled to re-plough one of the vegetable fields that had been blasted into muddy, rocky hillocks.

"Take a break, boys," Sango called from the freshly rebuilt fence that her brother and some of the younger village males had put together just that morning. She balanced the tray on a post. "Come on."

Miroku was more than willing to take her up on her offer, but Inuyasha hesitated. "I don't need as much rest as you stupid humans," he muttered at the monk's questioning glance. Inuyasha hated being treated like an animal—he was, after all, still a hanyou—but he'd been willing enough to hitch himself at the front of the plough. He had better endurance for it than anyone else. Already they'd finished more than half the field.

"Give it a rest," Miroku sighed, but there was infinite patience in his voice as he slapped Inuyasha on the shoulder. He made a face as he pulled his palm away, sticky with sweat. "You could use something to drink, anyway."

They settled at the base of Inuyasha's tree, and for once he sat on the ground with them, bare shoulders braced against the rough bark as he accepted an oversized cup of tea and a cookie from Sango. "Thanks," he muttered, uncomfortable still as she settled next to Miroku. Kohaku was taking his break with the village boys, and for a moment it was only the three of them. Shippou was off somewhere, probably with Kohaku.

"Do you think Kagome-chan will ever come back?" Sango saw the wince that crossed Inuyasha's face and hastily apologized. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha. I didn't mean to speak aloud…"

He shrugged, but the gesture was as defensive as it was irritable. "Forget it." He stared into his tea, as if the murky depths held the answers to all his pain. Or relief from the weight of memory and the burden of responsibility.

"I wish I could." Sango rested her head briefly against Miroku's shoulder, then straightened with a snap. Her cheeks were suddenly bright pink, as if she'd forgotten they weren't alone. Inuyasha pretended to be so absorbed in reading tea leaves he hadn't noticed, but he couldn't pretend he hadn't felt the sharp pang deep in his gut at that fleeting glimpse of shared intimacy between his two friends.

He'd had his chance with that. He'd had more than his fair share of chances. The first was lost to mistrust and false betrayal—perceived betrayal.

The second was gone because he'd let her go. He'd had to let her go. He loved her, didn't he? He loved her, but he wasn't the only one who did.

"We owe Kagome-chan so much." Sango's voice was a murmur, and her hand sneaked into Miroku's, fingers tightening in simple union. "Our happiness…our lives. We'll never forget all she did for us." Her smile was brave as she looked at Inuyasha. "We'll keep her in our hearts, Inuyasha, even as you keep her in yours. And together, we'll always remember her."

Inuyasha nodded dumbly. He wanted more than to just remember. He wanted…He'd wanted her to be happy, but he wanted nothing more than to just hold her. Hold her, one more time. Not in the dark, but in the light.

His last memory of her, though, was neither in the dark nor the light, but the dusky half-light of the inside of the well house in her time, sobbing into her mother's arms. He'd known then, more than he'd ever understood before, that she was still just a child. Sixteen years old, and a precious innocent in ways he'd never been. By all standards of the world he knew, she was old enough to have children and raise a family, but in her time, she was still a minor, someone to be coddled and loved and cherished.

She had all that there, with her devoted little brother, that fanatical but harmless old grandfather, her fat cat, her mother, her friends, her tests and her studies and her soft bed in her pink room that smelled of her. If Inuyasha needed her, then Kagome needed all that.

Once, only once, he'd been able to put her first, put her before him. It was only once that it mattered. The only time that counted.

"…yasha? Inuyasha?" Sango was tapping him lightly on the arm. Inuyasha blinked, found that he'd lost himself in his thoughts once more. There was a wet stain on the knee of his hakama, and he realized that Miroku was holding his tea cup.

"Sorry," he muttered, embarrassed. "Guess I spaced."

Sango's smile was easy. "It's all right. We forgive you." She was laughing as she said it, and it lightened his heart. A little. Sango sat back as Miroku gave Inuyasha his tea cup again. "So the Shikon no Tama is gone forever? Really and truly gone?"

Inuyasha had told them bits and pieces about what had gone on after he'd cut the meidou to follow Kagome—fighting inside the completed Shikon no Tama, seeing Midoriko, fighting his way to Kagome's side. And the wish she'd made—the choice she'd made that wasn't a choice.

"Kagome wished it to disappear," Inuyasha said. His voice had that strange, strained note he'd heard in himself on the few occasions he'd talked about Kagome since. Like something had been jerked out of him. Sango eyed him, a little worriedly, a little sadly, but Miroku merely sipped his tea calmly. Either the monk was being considerate, or was just plain dumb. "I saw it…shatter…like dust, sparkling dust. And then in was like we were being pulled through the well—the light, the feel. And then there was her family, crying and everything."

"And you came back alone." Miroku could see the pain in his friend's face, but he didn't know when else they would get Inuyasha to a point of vulnerability where he'd be this open again. You took what you could get when you could get it. Wasn't Miroku an expert in that thinking?

Inuyasha's shoulders moved again. "I couldn't have stayed there. You don't know what it's like, but her world…" He frowned into his tea, looking for words and inspiration. "I don't belong there," he finally said simply, and drained the last of his drink before standing up. "I'm finishing this field before nightfall," he announced, and bounded off to grab up the handles to the plough.

Miroku and Sango watched him for a moment as he attacked the hilly soil with renewed vigor. "And that's all on that subject," Sango concluded with a hint of wry humor. She collected the empty cups, then heaved a sigh as she got to her feet.

She managed to present Miroku with a very fortuitous view of her behind as she half-turned. Reaching up from his seated position—never one to waste an opportunity when one presented itself—Miroku molded his hand, his right hand now unfettered by cloth and beads, over the soft, rounded bottom in front of him.

Sango colored but held back the screech—and the reflexive tightening of her own right hand. "Houshi-sama…" Her voice, though, held no small amount of malice.

Miroku let his hand fall as he stood, brushing off his robes. His smile was full of innocence. "Yes, dear?" Her blush deepened at the endearment, even as she cursed her inability to prevent the color that washed so easily across her cheeks. Miroku's smile only broadened at her flustered response, and he said calmly, "Inuyasha needs time to grieve. He's lost two women he held dear to him in such a short span of time—one, again, to the hands of his sworn enemy, one because he loved her too much to be selfish. He hasn't left us yet."

Her blush subsided as her own smile went soft for this perverted monk who had so long ago captured her wounded heart. "Houshi-sama…" This time his name was a whisper, her own endearment while the words in her heart remained unspoken. "You're too observant for your own good." Only Miroku would know how afraid she'd been that she would lose yet another—in this case, a friend and fighting companion, an equal. Afraid that he would walk out of her life.

Miroku hugged her briefly around the shoulders before turning back to the field with a groan. "Inuyasha's going to kill me, if he doesn't kill himself with the pace he's setting. At least it stops his nightmares," he mused as he clambered over the fence and trekked across the field to join the hanyou.

Nightmares? Sango watched her monk walk away, and she wasn't pure enough not to enjoy the way he looked with the bulk of his figure-concealing robes removed. Inuyasha, nightmares? It was hard to imagine the rough-edged Inuyasha having nightmares, but it did make only too much sense. The way he'd been pushing himself these past few days was obvious to anyone with a decent set of working eyeballs that he was punishing himself for a crime only he knew he'd committed. Sango was willing to bet her first child that he hadn't given himself a chance to rest after whatever ordeals he'd faced inside the jewel, battling to reach Kagome's side, for three long days of darkness.

He'd slept in Kaede's hut the past few nights, too, breaking his long-standing habit of camping out in a nearby tree. He still wasn't eating much, but after dinner, he would settle himself in the corner with Tessaiga propped over one shoulder, arms folded across his chest, and fall into an immediate, soundless, motionless slumber. Kirara had taken to curling up in his lap and napping with him, and Sango could sometimes hear her low purring late into the night. The cat, offering the dog comfort. It made her smile.

Sango caught herself as the smile slowly faded from her lips. It felt odd, sometimes, to be smiling. After all the whirlwind of battle, the exhausting fight inside Naraku's shapeless body, it felt almost foreign to be enjoying the sunshine and ease of 'normal' life. It felt odd not to have Kagome at her side. The younger, somehow brighter girl from the future, untainted as she was in so many ways, had been so much fun to be around. It had been easy to let herself daydream about the hazy 'someday' when this was all behind her, and they'd all be together.

It was ironic, and sad, that of them all, Kagome was the only one who wasn't here to appreciate the peace she had helped bring about.