The accommodations in the Wakandan palace were lush.

So lush that Kagome almost found them uncomfortable. After staying so long in that metal box with a metal platform for a bed, the luxury she'd been offered here, while not so different from Asgardian luxury, felt foreign and strange.

The bed was just about the size of the bed she'd shared with Loki for 400 years, and she felt the cold, empty space next to her with a crushing acuteness. Tears stung her throat and eyes and grief coalesced around her heart so solidly she couldn't breath.

She gasped rapidly, attempting to get on top of the mounting pressure of panic that sat on top of her, but she was falling into it fast.

She sprang out of bed and padded across the floor to the balcony door, yanking it open and stumbling outside. She swallowed great lungfuls of the sweet, clean Wakandan air, and then blinked up at the glittering night sky, attempting to stifle the tears still threatening to fall.

She fell back on an old tool of distraction she'd picked up the first time Loki had "died" and counted the stars, but tears fell anew when she couldn't find the patterns and constellations she was used to.

'I don't recognize these stars anymore. These aren't... these aren't MY stars anymore.'

She sobbed then, unable any longer to stifle the sharp pain of her many losses that had piled up on her tired shoulders.

She was startled harshly out of her spiraling when a dark shadow fell from the balcony above hers and landed on her railing, yellow, glowing eyes slitted open to regard her gravely.

She huffed and pressed her hand to her wildly beating heart.

"Inuyasha, what the hell is wrong with you?!" She whispered, and he slid off the railing to stand next to her, looking over the nighttime view of the Wakandan landscape.

"Heard you crying. Just came to see if you were okay."

She eyed him, taking a minute to really look at him for the first time in 500 years. So much had been going on earlier, but now she had no distractions to keep her from noticing all the ways he'd changed. Seeking out her tears for one thing, they used to make him turn tail and flee.

"You look older."

He smirked a little, though it didn't make his eyes less haunted.

"So do you."

She blinked, feeling awkward, feeling the massive stretch of 500 years gaping between them.

"Why were you surprised I'm still alive?" He asked with a tilt to his head, genuine curiosity lining his features. She shrugged and turned away, looking back up at the stars, unsure and nervous.

"Well, I don't know, I guess I figured you'd followed Kikyo to hell. The last time we really talked, we agreed I would use the jewel to bring her back for you and then that didn't happen."

"Holy shit you're right. That was the last time we really talked. Then you disappeared. What happened, wench?"

She sighed and closed her eyes again, remembering that time so long ago when she'd been ripped from everything she'd ever known and cast aside so carelessly. Those wounds had long closed up, cosseted as she was by the love of family and friends, but the memories were still ugly to look back on.

"The jewel decided it was tired of being tossed around, so it chose to use me as its permanent protector. It ripped my humanity away and fused with my soul. Then Mikoriko and the Kami showed up. They decided they were done dealing with the jewel and cast me out, warning me to find someone else who could protect me lest I be used by someone dark, so Midoriko helped me travel through all the pantheons trying to find some divine beings who would adopt me. Everyone said no until I got to Asgard."

"Aw shit, Kagome. I had no idea. I thought it forced you home. When I got all caught up with the time line and you weren't there... I didn't know what happened."

"It's alright," she replied softly, hugging her arms around herself. "It was scary and hard at first. I didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone. But it turned out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to me."

Inuyasha watched her stare wistfully at the stars with a sad smile, a bittersweet edge to her scent that was at once wholly familiar and entirely changed.

He cleared his throat and shifted his feet where he stood, slipping his hands into the pockets of the sleep pants he'd been lent for the night.

"So... married, huh?"

Her eyelids slid slowly shut and her smile grew wider and sadder, a thin, silvery tear snaking down her cheek.

"Yeah."

"How long?"

"We were married something like 200 years ago I think, but we'd been together 400 all together."

"Damn. That's a long ass time. I'm... I'm really sorry about what happened. I'm still not that great with this kind of thing but... I really am sorry Kagome."

She gave him a watery, tremulous smile and twisted at the sleeve of the pajama shirt she wore to keep her hands occupied. Before, when she'd been young, she would have hugged him for disregarding his own comfort to offer her some, but now she didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry too Inuyasha. Shippo and Sesshomaru? I don't even know what to say."

He stared down at his feet, concentrating on the rhythmic pull of air in and out of his lungs. There was a time in his life where he would have ripped his own arm off before he admitted that his brother meant anything to him, or the Fox runt for that matter, but 500 years was a long time, and he and his brother had worked together almost that whole time to ensure the survival of youkai, and had actually managed to forge a true, brotherly bond. And then he'd practically raised Shippo. They didn't call each other father and son, but it was in the background for sure. No matter what things, good or bad, had come in and out of their lives, they'd always had each other.

He was genuinely broken up, he wouldn't deny it, but he still could only do so much to show it.

"I raised him, ya know? Shippo? After you left, Shippo stayed with me. No matter what happened or where I went, I always had shippo. Shippo was... Shippo was mine Kagome. He's... he's never called me dad but... but the squirrelly little bastard was mine all the same."

She gasped at the tears that ran freely down his face and suddenly 500 years didn't seem so cavernous after all. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms gingerly around him. He stiffened, and then crumbled, sweeping her closer and crying into her hair.

She wrapped her aura around him, washing it over him in warm, soothing waves that helped calm his gasping sobs.

"I'm so sorry Inuyasha. So, so sorry. You should never have had to lose him like that. Either of them."

He stepped back and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"God's this is embarrassing. 500 years apart and I the first thing I do is blubber like a damn idiot."

"Stop it Inuyasha. This isn't exactly a very normal situation. We've all just lost a whole lot of people out of nowhere. No one is really holding it together. No one expects that, not even from big had Hanyou like you."

He stared at her for a moment, decided she was right, as usual, and that he was glad she could still somehow see passed his defenses. He nodded, and a strangled moan from inside her room startled them both.

"Oh! That's Thor, I think he's having a nightmare. I should probably go."

"They didn't give him his own extra large, way-too-fancy, super luxe bedroom like the rest of us got?"

She giggled, though the sound of it was spare and thin.

"They did, but he couldn't sleep alone. He's on my couch. Anyway, tomorrow is going to come way too soon. But Inuyasha? I'm glad you're back. Wish the circumstances were different but... I'm glad."

He hopped back up on her railing, prepared to launch himself back up to his own balcony.

"Yeah wench. Me too."

Kagome closed the door behind her and padded across the room to the plush couch that Thor had curled up on. He had the blanket from his own bed cocooned tightly around him, looking warm and cozy, but his sleep was fitful and disturbed. Kagome's heart clenched at the sight of his wet lashes, evidence he'd been crying even in his sleep.

"Oh, Thor." She sighed, kneeling next to the couch and leaning over to lay her head against the cushion, then grabbed his hand with her own, lacing her fingers between his. Her back would no doubt be a mess the next morning, but her brother needed her, she needed him, and she simply couldn't face the specter of loneliness that had taken up so much space in the large bed.

As sleep finally came to claim her, she wrapped her aura around her and Thor in a soothing, calming embrace, and drifted into oblivion.

——————

They were the first to the breakfast table.

Thor had immediately started crying again when he'd found her sleeping next to him, holding his hand, comforting him despite her own pain. He bowed his head and she scratched his scalp, quietly letting him release his pain in the one way she knew he'd refuse once they left their little sanctuary of misery, allowing her own tears to fall again despite feeling so drained and stretched by the grief.

When he'd found the strength to dry his eyes and stand, he waited while she changed into the clothes on loan from the Wakandan royal family while he phased into his own usual attire, and then he smiled gratefully when she grabbed his hand and led him to down the halls to the place they'd been instructed to have their morning meeting.

They took a seat next to each other at a long table that had been laid out with some simple, local breakfast foods, and they forced themselves to eat a few bites despite still reluctant appetites. Inuyasha came in next, taking a seat across from Kagome, and then the rest of the group filtered in and introductions were completed. Okoye, one of the famed members of the all female warrior team the Dora Milaje that Kagome found absolutely fascinating, informed them that the queen would not be joining them. Kagome couldn't blame her, she'd lost both of her children to Thanos when he'd snapped his fingers in that gauntlet, and this was her home already, she had no need to join them in trying to decide which pieces could be picked up and put back together.

Glancing around at ashen faces with tired, sunken eyes, she figured she could do a little something to lighten the load they already carried so that carrying on didn't seem so burdensome to start with.

She allowed her aura to swell out around her and the rest of the harried members around the table, wrapping them all in the same warm, soothing waves she and Thor had found enough peace to sleep in last night.

A few tears fell, but she alone could see some of the frayed ends of their souls becoming less jagged and raw.

"What's Uh..." Steve started, clearing his throat and wiping at his eyes, the relief he was feeling surround him like a solid embrace overwhelming him for a moment. "Who's doing that?" The feeling suddenly cushioning the room was unmistakeable, and he'd been up to this superhero nonsense long enough to know when something wasn't a coincidence, but a display of power.

"Kagome." Inuyasha replied, a little stunned. Though it had been a very long time, and her aura had sustained some significant changes, he'd still recognize the way it felt anywhere.

They looked to her, shocked and awed and grateful, and she blushed before looking down at the table and shrugging.

"No big deal, really."

"Nonsense, my sister's heart and soul are bigger and more powerful than anyone else I've ever known. She is our goddess of truth, purity and sacrifice, after all."

"Thor, please..." she hissed, cutting him a look, but he stared sternly back.

"Our people are decimated Kagome, and you and I are nearly all that remains of our divine order. I know you are modest but you should be proud."

"Goddess?!" Inuyasha gawped with wide, shocked eyes, "so that's what's so different about you. Holy shit wench! How did that happen?!"

Her face flamed red in embarrassment but Thor was right, there was no need to be anything but proud. She smiled sadly then, remembering the whole reason she'd been granted her token amount of divinity in the first place.

"Just a Demi-goddess, and barely." She began, picking little bits off of the paper napkin next to her plate. "Asgard accepted me into the fold when I married Loki, and gave me enough of her energy to connect me with the rest of the Asgardians."

"Wait... you married a god?!"

She smiled softly, sadly in the face of Inuyasha's astonishment, keenly feeling all the spaces in her heart that had been left empty and painful.

"Yes. Loki was the God of Mischief, Chaos, Stories and Lies."

"Goddess of Truth and God of Lies. Don't you think that's a little heavy handed on the symbolism?"

She glanced over at the man who'd introduced himself as Bruce, her expression frosting over a little.

"No. Just heavy on the love and devotion. But we aren't here to talk about my dead husband, so..."

"She's right, we're here to figure out what we're supposed to do now that... now that Thanos managed to do.. whatever it was he did."

Kagome shot Steve a grateful look and he nodded, effectively ending the horrid game of 20 questions she'd been enduring. She slumped down in her chair, leaned her head against Thor's shoulder, and listened passively, content to go along with whatever was decided if it meant not having to scrape up the energy to do much more.

Everything just seemed so heavy.