Challenge Collection by Sessylove219 by Sessylove219

Timing is Everything

Title: Timing

Rated: K

Words: 1218

Prompt: Blossom, including fluff

I am not sure exactly when it happened.

One day, Inuyasha was talking about hunting down the last of the shards, and how it was so much harder now that Naraku was dead, and how his hated older half-brother was a constant thorn in his side, and the next, he was much more moderate on the subject of Sesshoumaru. One day I was afraid of the inu taiyoukai, and the next, I no longer found him frightening. One day I hated him, the next, I respected him. One day I respected him, and the next...I loved him.

I am pretty sure that I am not casual about giving my heart to someone. I don't just fly from one "love" to another like my girlfriends in my own time. I fell for Inuyasha, but after a time, I realized that he loved Kikyou, and I could never be first in his heart. I have enough self-esteem and confidence to know that I deserve to be the first and foremost love in the heart and soul of the person I give myself to. I will not shortchange myself, and that is why I soon gave up my romantic notions towards him. I still love him, like a best friend and brother, but it is not the same thing.

When I love someone, I give everything I have to them. I don't know how to do anything half-way. It is all or nothing. I expect this from others as well. If you are not passionate about something, you shouldn't be doing it. I was pulled into the Sengoku Jidai by a following a fat cat on my fifteenth birthday, and ever since then, I have been fighting against things most would never imagine to save the world. I know what it is to be passionate about something.

One day, I found myself passionately in love with him.

As I said, I don't know for sure when my respect blossomed into love. It could have been the day he saved Shippou from the locust youkai. He didn't have to; he just was in the area and heard a familiar cry. He saved Shippou's life and returned him to me. Perhaps affection bloomed then, who knows? All I can say is that when I saw him, with my son in his arms, with his white clothes shining, his fluff waving in the breeze, and his face heartrendingly beautiful, my heart skipped a beat. Perhaps it was then.

I never wanted him to know about the feelings I had for him. I thought that once the Shikon was complete the well would close and I would never see him again. I would find someone my own age; someone of my own species, and this love that I held in my heart for him would dim over time. I was as shocked as anyone else when I jumped into the well one ordinary Tuesday afternoon and remained in the past. Not only remained in the past, but broke my ankle in the fall. I sat at the bottom and cried. Cried over the pain that was radiating up my leg, cried over the shock of it, cried over the loss of my time, the loss of my family, and the loss of my former life. I sat in there, waiting for someone to find me, even though I knew that Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, and Shippou thought I would be gone for a few days and therefore would not think to look for me at the well. I eventually decided that the only way I would be able to get out of the well was to climb out on my own, and then decided to start. I crawled up just far enough so that when I fell down again, the pain from jarring the broken bone knocked me out.

I don't know when it happened, but I woke up in his arms. He was holding me against his warm, fluffy pelt, holding my broken, dirty, and bloody body against his pristine white silk, sitting against a tree with me cradled in his lap. He was holding me so gently, using his newly recovered left arm to brush back the hair clinging to my dirty and sweaty face. I looked up at him and could not think of anything to say except, "Lord Sesshoumaru?"

"Why were you in a well, Kagome?"

That's right, he didn't know about the time travel. How strange it seemed to have someone so intimately connected to our group not know about something so important.

"I am not from this era, Lord Sesshoumaru. I was born nearly 550 years in the future. I live on a shrine that in the future stands right here. I was near the dry well on my fifteenth birthday when I was pulled down by a youkai named Mistress Centipede. She ripped the Shikon no Tama right out of my body, where I never knew it existed. I freed Inuyasha the same day. I never knew that youkai or hanyou existed...they are nothing more than myths in my time."

He listened to me with a blank face, asking no questions as I told my tale...all of it. I started crying again when I told him about my family, and that I would never be able to see them again. He took it all, and showed no emotions. It was unnerving.

"Why do you think the well has stopped letting you traverse the gap between our time and yours?" He asked.

It was a good question. Unfortunately, I had no good answers. "It could have been many things. Perhaps the well has decided that my place is here. It could have been tampered with. The physical well could have been destroyed in my time. It could be a hundred other things I cannot even imagine."

"Do you wish to be returned to your friends?" Why was he being so nice to me? I knew that we were on better terms with him, but why go so far out of his way to help me? He had never showed much interest in me before. I am not surprised; I did give his brother the sword that he thought of his birthright and shoot him with my arrow.

"Thank you, Lord Sesshoumaru. I would appreciate it," I was so thankful he offered. I didn't know how I would have managed to get back on my own.

He stood up gracefully with me in his arms, careful not to jostle me. A thought popped into my head, which I voiced to him. "Where are Jakken and Rin?"

He looked down at me, and there seemed to be a slight softening of his eyes. "They are back at the Western Citadel. They did not join me on this trip."

"May I ask why?"

He looked down at me. "I was coming to see you, Kagome."

This startled me. Then I caught it. He called me Kagome. Not miko, not wench, not girl. Kagome.

I could barely breathe. Why did him calling me by name mean so much to me? Why did hearing my name being spoken in that smooth, deep voice send tingles up and down my spine?

"Why?"

He gave me a slight smile. "I am not sure exactly when it happened..."