Author's Note: I don't own any of the names of the characters or the source material. They are owned by Rumiko Takahashi and I acknowledge that fully.
This story is rated MA per guidelines for violence, adult themes like murder and sex, and language. There's not an excess of any of that in what I have written so far but there is some and I'd rather be conservative and not make people uncomfortable.
The first three chapters are all KagInu, because she did actually come back for him and I'm sticking with the canon there, but then the adventure starts in Ch4. We do eventually end up with KagSess but it takes a while so if you like slow burn, character development, and a little bit of angst; that's what you found.
Updated 20/03/2020: Rewrote the first section. Just wasn't happy with it before. Still not thrilled with it but it's better.
...
Reconciliation
Chapter 1 – Stuck on You
'Kagome!'
Her unique scent hit his nose on the breeze and Inuyasha was suddenly up and sprinting, leaving a confused Miroku and Sango in his dust. The familiar pulse of power from the well was a shock to his system. Disbelief followed by awe trailed by hope coursed through his mind as he raced to the weathered Bone Eater's Well.
'This scent… there's no mistaking it!'
The slope up the hill was nothing but the effort to push his hesitant and suddenly leaden feet was almost too much. He gave a fearful and tentative sniff of the air. He heard shuffling below in the depths of the well. Could it be?
Reaching a clawed hand down, he waited. Waited.
Then suddenly, a small but impossibly warm hand grasped his and he was hauling her up out of the future and into his arms. Her presence filled his senses. She was everything he remembered and more.
"Inuyasha, sorry… were you waiting for me?"
'Only forever, woman!' he thought satirically.
Her innocent and longing smile sent his heart thudding through his chest. Unable to resist anymore, he pulled her in. Warm arms wrapped around her and she melted into his chest.
"Kago- You idiot! What have you been doing?"
His voice cracked and became thick with emotions built up over the last three years. He felt the approach of their friends and hugged her that much tighter before they could see. She laid eyes on them first.
"Miroku! Sango! Shippou!" Her smile shone like the sun. She had missed them. All of them.
"Kagome-chan!" Sango gasped, smiling too.
"Kagome-sama!" Miroku echoed.
"Kagome!" Shippou yelled excitedly. His adopted mother had returned!
After a brief visit with Kaede and Rin, Kagome was invited to stay there as she figured out what to do next. The young woman knew Kaede was hopeful she would take over village priestess duties, at least in part, and truly it was a good idea. It gave Kagome direction and occupation and she would need those things in the coming months and years.
Sango spent that evening crying off and on and hugging Kagome, a rare show of affection for the retired demon slayer-turned-wife-and-mother. Kagome had returned them lovingly and whole-heartedly. She had missed her sister-in-arms. The women's laughter at stories of the past three years filled the room again and again.
Miroku had welcomed her back with open arms and embarrassing details about the behavior of the sulking inuhanyou sitting behind her. He left a few times to check on the children but they were sleeping soundly most of the evening.
Shippou had bounded into her arms once they entered the house and had yet to leave, snuggling as close as he could over and over again and telling her tales of school and Rin and minor youkai attacks. Kagome had cried over and over at their stories, feeling sorry for missing their lives when so much had changed, but when Shippou recounted how scared he'd been after she left, she'd felt the guiltiest. There was nothing else to be done, of course, and she had tried to come back so many times, she told him, but until now, the well had been ignoring her pleas. She allowed him to stay as close as he wanted and promised not to leave again. He was hers now and always and she would show him that from now on.
Inuyasha sat uncomfortably and silently behind her, hands in his sleeves, listening to everyone gabbing on about their lives in those few years past. His foot kept bobbing up and down impatiently. Though the hanyou had done his best to explain her return to the future, to them and himself, there truly was no good explanation as to why she was better off in that loud, smelly, gray place than here with them. When Kagome spoke up about graduating high school and leaving her family behind, his ears twitched forward.
"Mama knew I was leaving. We had talked a lot about what it was like here and the more I told her, the more I think she knew I'd be leaving one day. I don't know what changed but I thought about how much I wanted to see… you all and suddenly, there was the sky… at the bottom of the well. I can't explain it, really." she finished, smiling but looking down at her hands.
"So, are you staying here then, Kagome-chan? For good?" Sango asked hopefully.
More white-tufted ear twitching.
"I think so? I'm not sure how time travel works from here on out. Truthfully, I still don't understand the well. I'd like to be able to see my Tokyo family again but... That's a worry for another day. Mama doesn't expect me to come back so if I do, it'll be a surprise to us both." She waved it off but thoughts of her family would drift in and out of her mind forever, she knew.
"Indeed. Let us celebrate your return tonight, Kagome-sama." Miroku said, reaching over to hug Sango close.
At the show of intimacy, Kagome blushed happily for her friends and couldn't stop the compulsory glance behind her.
Tea and food were made and passed around as their tales of the past three years poured out. Soon, Kagome felt like part of the family again and caught up on the biggest events in their lives since her departure. Inuyasha, however, was quiet and offered little about his life in her absence. Kagome's curiosity grew about what he had been up to as the night wore on.
Later on, at Sango's yawn, Kagome felt like the party might be over. She politely excused herself.
"Well, I'd better get to Kaede's house. She said I could stay with her until I figure out what to do next."
"You know you are welcome to stay here." Sango offered.
"Thanks, but you have your hands full. I'm sure Kaede would be happy to have some help with Rin and her work. I'll hopefully start training with her soon but we haven't talked about it yet."
Sango and Miroku nodded and bid her goodbye. "I know our village is a small one but do not be a stranger, Kagome-sama." Miroku winked.
"Can't be any stranger than you!" she shot back. He barked a laugh in response.
Inuyasha stood up behind her. "Come on." he said gruffly. "I'll walk you back." he continued, holding out a hand.
Kagome set Shippou down on the floor, took the offered hand and rose. She felt her heart pound even with such innocent contact.
'Get it together!'
"Thanks, Inuyasha. Good night, everyone." she managed through her embarrassment.
Shippou leapt up from the floor to take his place in her arms but Miroku was faster, catching the kit in midair with both hands.
"Hey!" he squeaked, protesting.
"Let them walk there alone, should we not? I will take you to Kaede-sama momentarily." Miroku whispered in his small elfin ear. Shippou grumbled and crossed his arms in Miroku's grip.
Inuyasha nodded at the monk and led Kagome out of the house with a hand at the small of her back. When the curtain fell behind him, he took a deep breath of the night air before stepping off the landing and onto the packed dirt road that would lead them to Kaede's.
The village was quiet. The farmers and their wives and children had long since gone to bed. His ears swiveled around a bit, trying to find sounds of human movement in the night but hearing none, he turned to Kagome again.
Holding out a tentative and a hopeful hand to her, he waited. When she placed it easily in his and gave him a bashful grin, he returned it and started down the road. The walk was quiet except for the sound of crickets and the rustle of grasses as the night breeze washed over the valley. Kagome suddenly felt very aware of their clasped hands and the fact that they were alone. She cleared her throat before diving in.
"You were awfully quiet, Inuyasha, but I guess you knew all the stories, huh? I can't wait to spend some more time with the children." She heard him sigh but didn't understand why. "I bet they have-"
"Dammit, wench! Stop talking already!"
Her breath was stolen mid-sentence as his lips cut off her nervous babbling.
He couldn't think about being seen; he didn't care. She was here now and he'd endured hours of chatter in a warm, stifling house, trapped in the scents of her happiness and love and relief with no way to let her know he felt the same.
She couldn't stop the surprised squeak in her throat at the intimate contact but quickly relaxed and returned the kiss, closing her cerulean eyes and tipping her head to the side in acceptance and surrender. Her hands came up to rest on his chest as he pulled her closer, circling her waist with both arms. Surprising her as much as himself, he changed angles and deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue over her bottom lip lightly and uncertainly. She moved her hands up and wrapped them around his neck, returning his fervor. He was stilled, however, by the smell of salt suddenly in the air. He pulled back to look at her.
Kagome was crying but smiling. She removed a hand from his neck and wiped her eyes with her palms.
"Sorry. I know: I'm hopeless. But after being away, I wanted so badly to come back to you, to this," she gestured between them, "and I was just afraid that it would never be. Too much time had passed, too much baggage to carry. I thought you might have even found someone else by now." She tried to laugh but between the tears and ragged voice, it sounded more like a sob.
"As if." he snorted. "Leaving the past in the past, there's no one else. There never could be. I meant what I said back then. You were made for me and I was made for you. I didn't get the chance to tell you then, after it was all over, but I'm sure as hell telling you now. Promise me you won't ever leave again." He cradled her head against his chest then.
She was taken aback by his honesty. Three years apart had coaxed some candor out of him, it seemed.
A few more tears fell against his haori and she relaxed her head against his chest. "Mm mmm," she confirmed. "I'm not going anywhere. I meant what I said about researching the well to see my family but I'll make sure it's safe somehow first. I'm just- I'm so happy to be here with you."
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Wait. Tiptoes?
"When did you get so tall? We were practically the same height three years ago." She wiped the last bits of moisture from her face and glanced up at him. Up. At him.
He shrugged. "Guess I'm still growing then. I hadn't noticed." He looked down at himself. "Or maybe you shrunk." he teased.
"No, I actually grew too, thank you. I was afraid I'd come back to a teenager again and feel like a lecher…" she giggled.
"I noticed." His eyes roamed down her body and took in all the changes in her, too.
Her eyes were the same, he was relieved to find. Those blue eyes that haunted his dreams but returned with such hope and love. Her face was thinner and more defined, her hair longer and wilder than before. Her breasts were only slightly larger, but her waist and hips had become those of a woman. Long, lean legs squeezed together in nervousness at his heated look.
"Stop that! You're as bad as Miroku!" she playfully swatted his shoulder.
They resumed walking to Kaede's house, satisfied in their mutual desire to be together.
"Like hell." Inuyasha snorted. "That guy is an expert even if Sango has him on a short leash."
Kagome giggled, and he had forgotten how wonderful and light the sound of it was. Inuyasha took her hand again as they walked, squeezing it gently every few steps.
…
'She has gone then. Today was the day…'
He sighed lightly, allowing himself the pleasure since no one was around to see the small expression of discomfiture.
A lithe body strolled from the shadows of the shrine building and slowly entered the well house. Black hair and chestnut eyes caught the filtered sunlight as it blinked in and out of worn roofing of the well house eaves. The door was open, left by the girl's mother in her haste to avoid the now-empty well. He turned into the well house and slid into the shadows below.
The steps he took down echoed in the dusty, abandoned shed. Large, bluntly nailed hands touched the well on the Higurashi shrine with reverence. The wood was warm there where she had been leaning only minutes before. Her scent still hung in the air, waking slumbering memories in him. Rain water and camelias. The juniper of her excitement. The vinegar of her fear. The salt of her tears.
Her mother's scent was also there. He could hear Mariko Higurashi sitting down in the kitchen with a mug of tea, sighing and sniffling to make peace with her only daughter's decision to leave the future for the past.
The empty air shimmered to his right and there stood a red fox on four paws, emerald eyes pleading up at him. Six tails twitched with frustration and impatience.
"I don't understand why we couldn't say 'Hi.' She would still go. She loved him." Shippou wondered, silently changing forms to speak at eye-level. Well, shoulder-level anyway.
"Would she, indeed? I am less sure than you, and am not willing to risk what must happen for what could." his baritone rumbled in the darkness.
Shippou moved closer and peered into the well. He clenched his eyes shut and willed the sadness to stay buried. She was gone again. He knew how hard this next part was going to be for her. His heart broke for his adoptive mother. She didn't deserve what came next.
"Come. Let's leave for now. It will be many months before they return."
"They?" Auburn hair shuffled around his shoulders as his head snapped up to attention.
"Must I keep reminding you?" Sesshoumaru kept his eyes on the well.
"Oh right. I forgot they came back together that one time. I wasn't home then. We can't see them then either, huh?"
"No. It would not change the outcome but I will not tempt myself out of guilt."
"Have it your way. I just don't want to upset her." Shippou shrugged.
He knew she'd be back eventually and that had to be enough to keep him going. Sesshoumaru remembered her returning a few times and they could plan around those to move forward.
"I'm afraid her pain is inevitable but we must be here after the worst is over. She will need you."
'And she will hate me.' he thought. Anguish gripped his heart as her vengeful blue eyes flashed in his mind, but it wouldn't do either of them any good to dwell on that now.
Sesshoumaru turned around and left the shrine without a backward glance. Shippou gave the well several more pleading looks on their way out but followed the inu down the stairs and back home.
…
Author's Note: This is my first attempt at fanfiction. I've been an enthusiastic reader for many years but this story has been swimming around in my head for just as long. I'm so glad to finally get it down and share it. I'm writing mostly for myself. Because I enjoy it and the source material so much. I'm not writing for comments or encouragement but they're definitely welcome. I don't have a schedule down for updates but I will update when I can and as I finish chapters. This is gonna be a pretty long one, I think, if what I have written already is any indication.
Don't judge this first chapter too harshly. I've messed and messed with it but it's just a simple introduction to the characters and some setup for the future. It does get better and more involved, I promise.
Enjoy and thank you for reading!