Absence

Chapter Five

He still missed her. The missing never faded and never got any easier to bear. Some days it was a weight that sat in the center of his chest, crushing, compressing his lungs until he was left gasping for air. Other days were…he hesitated to say 'better'. It never got better. But sometimes it was just a pang, like a distant tug at the corners of his consciousness, reminding him of a vague emptiness where a presence once was. But it was sort of warm, the hollowness.

Sometimes, still, he'd catch himself thinking—Kagome would have liked that, or I should show this to Kagome when—and he'd stutter to a halt, because when would he show this or that to Kagome?

Not in this lifetime. Not, likely, in the next.

But it was a stab, in the heart, a punch in the gut, and he'd deal with it. Every time. What else could he do? What else could anyone do?

He couldn't say he'd move 'on'. He wasn't really moving 'forward'. Because a part of him was very much stuck where he'd been the day the well sucked him through one final time.

Summer blanketed the village with a smothering, oppressive mugginess, dampened life and movement. Repairs of the broken village were finally over, and Sango and Miroku's modest hut, built close to Kaede's own home, was nearly complete. Their wedding ceremony, a simple affair, had taken place on the last full moon of spring, with Kaede presiding, and Inuyasha, Kohaku, and Shippou in attendance. Miroku's tanuki friend had flown in Miroku's surrogate father as well, with countless jugs of sake for 'celebration and congratulations'.

Sango had been…less that pleased described her reaction as damp would encompass the amount of rainfall during typhoon season. Inuyasha was half-surprised she didn't call off the wedding when she found Miroku a little worse for the wear after the night he and Inuyasha—not by his own choice—had put in, staying up way too late and drinking too much sake while Mushin-sama regaled them with tales of Miroku's wayward youth.

But the ceremony had gone well, and the happy couple was just that: happy. Every time Inuyasha saw them, they were happy. Hanging the laundry on the line, taking a walk by the river, teaching the village children how to defend themselves against an unexpected youkai attack. They had both been so much more serious in their travels before, each burdened by the pain Naraku had cast upon them. It was still so weird to see them smiling so much.

Sometimes it got so bad Inuyasha would leave the village. That, in turn, made him feel guilty, and unhappy, but he just couldn't stand it. He hated this part of him, the part that felt too much human, and all the emotions that went with it.

He hated that he was jealous of his friends. He hated that he was unhappy that they were happy. He didn't want them to be unhappy. He just wished…

He just wished he could be happy, too.

It was during one of his prolonged absences from the village when Kohaku, practicing his spear skills in front of Miroku and Sango's hut while his sister mended a pair of tabi in the doorway, brought the topic up. "Do you think it hurts Inuyasha-sama to see you and Miroku-niisan married, Ane-ue?"

Sango glanced up at her brother's back. He hadn't turn to address her; she had the feeling he was deliberately avoiding her gaze. It was still on the rare occasion that he looked at her directly, a sharp pang in her heart. But she'd learned to accept that he was dealing with the pain of his memories as best he could, in his own way. "Kohaku?"

"He never had that—Inuyasha-sama. He never had the chance to…" Kohaku paused, and Sango thought he was searching for the right words. "You smile a lot more than before, Ane-ue."

Thrown by the apparent change in subject, Sango lowered her sewing to her lap. "There was less reason to smile before, Kohaku. You know that. When we were chasing Naraku, trying to defeat him so we could break Houshi-sama's curse…free you from his control…" Sango fought back the tears, a sign of weakness. "For a long time, I thought only of seeking revenge on Naraku for everything he took from me. There was no room for smiles."

Kohaku turned the spear over and over in his hands, gazing into the distance. It seemed as if he could feel the answers to the universe in the smooth wooden stave between his palms. He felt older than he was when he spoke. It was a strange feeling. "I think…Inuyasha-sama had more reason to smile then than he does now."

Sango frowned. What was her brother getting at? "Kohaku, turn around and look at me." He did, and his dark eyes were, as they so often were, enigmatic. "What are you getting at?"

He sucked in a breath, held it. Sango couldn't help the smile as he puffed out his cheeks in concentration. Finally he released it, exhaling slowly and fully before answering. "At least when you were chasing after Naraku…At least then there was Kagome-sama."

A few short weeks after the wedding, Sango and Kohaku took Kirara and rode to the north to pay their respects to their father and their fallen comrades. It had been a year since the taijiya siblings had been drawn into Naraku's trap, and together they were laying to rest old wounds and painful memories.

"Do you miss her?"

Inuyasha sat on a rocky outcrop at the riverbank, watching the children splash in the shallows in the evening shadows further upriver. Shippou bulleted through the mass of youngsters, a wet, furry cannonball. Laughter sparkled like teardrops in the still, thick air.

Miroku had his robes hiked up over his knees—a most un-monk-like state of dress, but it beat the heat—and was wading in the river, enjoying the smoothness of the time-worn rocks beneath the soles of his feet. He cast a glance at the hanyou sitting on the rocks. One foot trailed in the water, and he'd shed his fire-rat haori, but he seemed otherwise impervious to the heat that choked the life out of the rest of the villagers.

Under other circumstances, Miroku might have been jealous of the fact that Inuyasha hadn't even broken into a sweat.

For a moment, Miroku wasn't sure if Inuyasha was referring to Sango or Kagome, but a glance reassured Miroku that his friend didn't have the pained, empty expression in his eyes that indicated he was thinking about their friend from the future.

"It's only been one day." Miroku dipped both hands into the water, watched the light bend and refract as the river ran through his fingers. "But I do. I miss her."

"I miss her." Inuyasha's voice was choked. His hair shaded his eyes from view, but his hands were fisted at his sides. "I miss her, Miroku. I just want it to stop. When will I stop missing her?"

"Do you want to forget?"

Inuyasha looked sharply over at Miroku. It would have been funny, Miroku thought, under any other circumstances, to see Inuyasha's mouth flap soundlessly a moment. But there was nothing funny about the grief in the hanyou's tortured golden eyes.

His voice was a hoarse whisper. "No."

Miroku's shrug was matter-of-fact. "Then you'll never stop missing her."

"Miroku." It wasn't anger in his voice, which Miroku had been expecting, braced to deal with. It was pain, pure and raw. Miroku swallowed hard as he watched Inuyasha force the words. "I can't deal with this. Missing them both. I feel so guilty. I miss them both so much."

"You're guilty for missing Kagome-sama?" Miroku's voice, in contrast, was mild. The emotions running through him, he was sure, were no less intense, but you couldn't always fight fire with fire. And in this case, Inuyasha would be the one who'd be burned. "Then we're all guilty of the same offense."

Inuyasha shook his head. The movement was sharp, frustrated…inadequate, somehow. Miroku had the feeling Inuyasha wanted more to rip something to shreds than to restrict himself to small movements. He rounded on Miroku suddenly, golden eyes intense, face contorted by inner torture. "Am I wrong, Miroku? I miss Kikyou, but it's like…that's like, faint. In the background. I miss Kagome, and it's like it's killing me, every time. Like I die, every time I think of her. Am I guilty for feeling like…like I can't do this anymore? Like I just want it all to end?"

His voice rose on the last, tipping towards a keening howl. Several children paused in their playing to cast over curious glances; after a moment's pause, they resumed their activities. Shippou handily diverted their attention, bowling over one of the boys in a new game of 'tag'.

Miroku waded towards shore, placed a hand on Inuyasha's arm. The hanyou was tense beneath his hand, poised to take off and run. Miroku had no delusions that, once set off, Inuyasha would likely never return.

He chose his words carefully. "It's the burden of those left behind to bear the weight of remembrance."

"I can't take it, Miroku."

It was an anguished whisper. The muscles beneath Miroku's hand tightened further. Miroku kept his touch easy, fighting the instinctive reaction to grip Inuyasha's arm in an attempt to keep him steady. Any sense of restriction would probably set him off like a rocket. "You handled it before."

"I had Kagome then."

"You had courage then, Inuyasha." Miroku sharpened his voice. He didn't like the grief and guilt Inuyasha was trapped in…like he was far away, someplace nobody could reach. For an instant, Miroku wished Sango hadn't left quite when she had; not for his sake, but for Inuyasha's. Sango would have been able to deal with the emotional hanyou. Inuyasha seemed to be able to handle himself around Sango—maybe it was the female presence that soothed his inner turmoil.

"You still have that courage now."

"I don't hardly feel brave."

"You loved her, you let her go. You understood she had other people who loved her and missed her, and you accepted that you're not the only one who would hurt with her gone. That was bravery."

Inuyasha lifted miserable eyes to Miroku's face, and there were tears glistening in those amber depths. "There are people here who love and miss her now. Was it bravery that caused that? When I saw her with her family, I was so relieved that she was safe, they were so happy…I chose that she stay, Miroku. Kagome…" The way she'd called his name, run to the well so the last thing he saw as he faded from her time forever was her face, peering down into the well with that look…fear and disbelief and denial…

He turned his face away. "I made the decision, and she had no chance to say if she agreed or disagreed. I didn't let her choose, Miroku. And I'll never know if where she is, is the place she would have chosen to be."

For a moment Miroku was speechless, and his fingers tightened on Inuyasha's arm—not out of fear the hanyou would run away, but out of sheer reflex to his own thoughts.

Miroku had known Inuyasha felt miserable because he missed Kagome.

He hadn't known the misery stemmed in part from guilt.

Author's Notes: I'm at the point in my story where I'm trying to struggle over the hump—things are different than I'd first imagined, and as the story takes its new direction, I second-guess myself at every turn. This chapter feels heavy-handed and disjointed, and is slated for reworking after I get a better handle on where I want to take our favorite hanyou. Comments, corrections, suggestions, constructive criticism are appreciated!