Eventually by Azaria

Eventually

"Than I am nothing?" His voice was quiet. Barely a whisper.

This wasn't right. She wasn't supposed to feel guilty. It was his fault. She shouldn't have to deal with the emotions that were now rushing through her head.

Kagome looked up at him, now torn. "No!" She pleaded for him to understand. "It's nothing like that. You were never nothing."

Now confusion merged with the already lost look in his eyes. "Than I do not understand why you leave."

"You knew we couldn't continue on like this forever. I want to go back home." Sesshoumaru continued to stare. "I need to go home!"

"If you leave," Sesshoumaru started, amber eye locked with her own. She couldn't believe how much weight they seemed to carry. Yet his face remained completely blank. "You know you can not return."

Kagome felt the first sting of tears fill the corners of her eyes as she took in the truth of his words. She took a step back, head slowly moving back and fourth. "I need to go home." And it was true. The well had fully closed off baring one final venture back. She could return home. Back to her grandfather, brother. Back to her mother.

However, returning home came with a very steep price.

Kagome had wanted to travel back to the future months ago. She had been ready to move on with her life. Still, fate had not seemed quite done with her yet. A chance encounter with the Silver haired demon at the site of the then closed off well had been her undoing. He had shockingly offered her shelter in respect for his deceased half brother, who had died in the final fight against Naraku. It was a gesture of kindness Kagome had thought Sesshoumaru incapable of. She had thought he hated Inuyasha. Why look after her after his death?

And so, with no home left, she had accepted his strange, yet kind, offer.

And had fallen in love.

Three months after the day of his offer, the well reopened for one last passage. And now Kagome was torn between the world she was born to love, and the man she had grown to love.

"I need to go home." She repeated. As if trying to convince herself along with him.

"I do not want you to go." And she was suddenly in his arms. And her tears fell.

His chin rested lightly atop her head, his arms wrapped warmly around her. "You do not have to leave."

Kagome reluctantly let her own arms slowly wind around his back, resting her cheek against his lightly clothed chest. "My family is there."

"You have family here."

"Sesshoumaru, please." She attempted to push away from him, however, his arms remained firmly encasing her. "Sesshoumaru, let me go."

"I will not." In alignment with his words, his embrace tightened. "You would abandon Rin?"

A vision of the young, energetic girl raced through her mind. Her encouraging smile, her infectious laugh.

Sesshoumaru's voice sounded lightly in her ears. His breath warm on the side of her face. "You would abandon me?"

"Don't make this about you!" Kagome's anger got the better of her. As long as she was angry, she wouldn't have to feel anything else. "You're the one that got us into this mess in the first place! If you would have left me alone at the well, none of this would have ever happened!" She shoved harder, her fury giving her the strength she needed to finally push far enough away from him to duck under his arms and out of his reach. Of course he could have held on. But she didn't want to think about that.

"If I had left you alone, you would be dead now." He stated simply, crossing his arms against his chest, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Yeah? And how would you know that?" Kagome retorted.

"A lone woman with no shelter and no allies fares poorly when darkness falls." Sesshoumaru countered easily. "Moreover, I am not making this about me." He was suddenly inches away from her again, his hand sliding lightly over the side of her face in a caress. "I am making this about us."

The room they were in was small. Sesshoumaru had rented out a room at a local inn for them, despite Kagome's relentless protests. She had told him she was used to staying out under the stars. He didn't care.

Her back hit the far wall, preventing her from retreating any farther away from him. "Sesshoumaru..."

"Just give me one last night, Kagome." He spoke her name with such passion, she forgot her anger. She simply wanted to melt back into his comforting arms. Forget about her dilemma. If only for the night...

But if she spent one last night with him, she wasn't sure she would be able to leave. And he knew that.

"Kagome." Her name was a soft caress against cold skin. A promise of, if not love, than a passion deeper than any. She could lose herself in that voice. Deep, calming. Safety and danger in one. Her wildest dreams and desires all at her disposal. All she had to do was give in.

And why not? She was about to dive into a future without him. There was no turning back. Why not indulge in something that was going to be lost to her forever while she still had the chance?

When Sesshoumaru finally leaned in to claim her lips, she let him. What came next was a fury of madness that Kagome had thought impossible. Her senses seemed to intensify as well as dim out at the strangest moments. Soon, she could feel his warm skin beneath her fingertips. Simply touching him brought her pleasure in it's own way.

Sesshoumaru's lips trailed devilishly from her lips down the length of her neck, to the delicate flesh between there and her shoulder. When his hand found the clasp at the back of her bra, she did not protest. Nor did she stop him when they moved from the hard wall to the comforts of the bed.

There would be no regrets, Kagome told herself as she lay beneath him for the last time. She would love him through the night, and when she awoke the next morning, he would be gone, and she would leave. They would continue on with their lives. She would move on. And she would be happy again.

Eventually.