Events in this chapter are synced with events in the movie Avengers: Endgame

Rocketing back to Avenger's Compound was slightly less brutal to Kagome's stomach than her last trips in the fast moving ship.

Apparently she was getting used to the feeling.

'Either that or I'm too tired to notice anymore.'

Since being forced back to Earth, there had been almost no time to rest since leaving Wakanda, and she'd hopped from one emotional upheaval to the next.

Reuniting with her human family had been a strange mix of things, a lot of which left her feeling guilty and uncomfortable.

She was certainly glad to see them, even if they did feel a lot like strangers now.

500 years was a long time to live apart from someone. She'd never expected to see them again, so she'd mourned their loss and done her best to move on and now that they were back, it was proving to be a process to feel totally comfortable around them again, to not feel like she had to revert back to who she was the last time she'd lived with them so they wouldn't feel uncomfortable around her. She could tell it hurt her mother that there was some distance between them, that she hadn't been able to slip right back into the role of beloved daughter, and that made her feel bad, but there was just so much going on.

She felt a little guilty that getting comfortable with Inuyasha again took much less effort than feeling back at home with her family, but there were almost no expectations there, no old standards to uphold. He'd lived through the last 500 years as well, knew how much growing and changing took place. They were both different people and he could understand that in a way her family didn't and that made all the difference.

She also felt guilty for Thor. It seemed cruel that he should lose everyone in his family save for her and then watch her get her long lost family back, and even though he assured her he didn't hold any ill feelings because of it, she still felt uneasy.

Maybe she just needed some time to process everything. She'd just lost too much, had too much to try and grieve and sort out before she could be alright feeling too happy or relieved.

It was easier with the Asgardians.

There were precious few of them left, and they'd been so happy and relieved to see her, and miraculously her old friend Dala had made it through everything. Their tearful reunion had been a blessed balm on both their souls, as Dala's husband and two of their children had been lost to Thanos when he'd attacked their escape ship. She was so thankful Dala hadn't lost her youngest child, who was still barely more than a toddler, to the stones.

They'd worked tirelessly over their two days there getting everyone else settled into homes in a little coastal village that was a far cry from the sparkling shores of Asgard, but was safe and solid regardless. Inuyasha had come with them and had proved invaluable with his demon strength and stamina. Thor was still reluctant to trust him and could be distant and a little frosty, but Inuyasha simply gave him space and another set of hands and they'd come to an understanding.

It was yet another thing to get used too, the way her past and present were colliding.

But now was not the time, as they still had much to do. They were all three back on their way to the United States to meet up with the Avengers and begin tracking down Thanos.

Kagome sighed, letting everything that had happened over the last few days roll through her mind again. She looked over at Thor occupying the seat next to her and frowned at the blank look on his face.

"Thor?"

He glanced over at her, and despite the emotionless mask he wore she could feel the weariness in his aura.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to help save more of our people. By the time Thanos came for the tesseract, he was barely letting me out of my room... I had no idea he was even targeting you."

Thor closed his eyes and dropped his head. He took a moment to collect himself, to control his still wildly fluctuating emotions and then looked back up at his sister with a sad but thankful smile.

"You know Loki is the only reason we got away with as many people as we did."

Kagome's eyes widened and her heart stuttered for a moment. She pressed a hand to her chest and swallowed the knot that formed in her throat. There still hadn't been time to really hash out every last thing that had happened, and she was so desperate to hear more about her lost husband, but also so desperately afraid it would just break her further.

"What did he do?"

"When I left Sakaar, I was certain I would never see him again, or at least, not for a while. He was looking for you, you know. I kept accidentally ruining his plans, but everything he'd done since the moment he discovered you weren't on Svartlfheim was to get beck to you. I had hoped... but I was still surprised when he showed up on Asgard with an enormous ship to evacuate everyone away from Hela. If it wasn't for him... I don't know if any of Asgard would remain. I'm... I'm sorry I couldn't keep him alive just a little longer. I could have brought him back to you." His voice broke and tears fell down both their faces. She reached over and clasped his hand, then leaned her head back against her seat. She squeezed her eyes closed and clutched her locket with her other hand, breathing out a shaky sigh.

He had been looking for her. He'd been let out of his prison, he'd been told she was missing. He'd worked hard to find her and bring her back. He'd died because he'd gone back to help his brother save their home.

She felt so much lighter, so much freer, knowing he hadn't been left in the dark, had known she hadn't abandoned him, and she was so proud that he'd chosen to protect their home and their people.

She felt the edges of unconsciousness creep up and decided not to fight it. They still had a good hour or so until they arrived and she could use the nap.

"Thank you Thor. Thank you."

—————————-

Life at Avengers Compound was busy, but it was the type of busy that Kagome, and probably the rest of them, desperately needed. They were anchored in one place, which gave their minds and bodies a chance to actually adjust to some of the things they had experienced, but there was a lot to do, so they had a distraction if they needed it.

And they absolutely needed it.

The carnage that had been wrought by the Stones was incalculable.

Not only were seemingly half of the people gone, but have of the birds, bugs, fish, dogs, cats... anything that breathed, half of it was gone. The world was blanketed by an eery quiet and an apocalyptic emptiness that kept them all inside as much as possible.

Which came with its own strange tenseness that Kagome could feel was largely centered around her.

Inuyasha had been enveloped into the fold just fine; he impressed with his demonic abilities and provided an excellent sparring partner for a bunch of supped up super heroes, and even Rocket, the Raccoon with the rancid attitude was treated with camaraderie.

But aside from her friendly rapport with Inuyasha and Thor, the rest of them seemed a little wary around her.

She had a feeling she knew what the problem was.

'Not only was I married to someone they only know as a villain, but I also technically worked for Thanos for a while, too, just like Loki did. Well, if we're going to work together to bring Thanos down and get the stones back, then we'll all need to be much more friendly than we are.'

She spent a morning working with the very helpful operating system that ran the compound and made a little ice breaking presentation that she hoped would help put their angst about her to rest.

After lunch they obliged her request to file into one of the meeting rooms, sitting around the table and facing the glass screen she stood quietly in front of, waiting awkwardly for whatever it was she wanted to say.

With the little remote she held, she clicked on the screen behind her, and several images of Loki in New York that she'd found on the internet, a wild place she'd only just barely begun stepping into, flickered into life and she watched as certain members of her little party winced a little.

'Bingo. I was right.'

Kagome turned and ran her eyes over each picture, over the unfamiliar expressions darkening Loki's face, and the tell-tale sign that Thanos had, indeed, been telling the truth about his torture and mind control.

She straightened her spine and gestured at the photos.

"This is not my husband."

Confused auras and shifty looks spread across the table, even Thor sitting up a little straighter than he was before, curious as to where she was taking this.

"None of you here save Thor really knew him so I doubt you would notice, so if my dear brother would please take a closer look at these photos and tell me what he sees? That would be very helpful."

Thor stared at her for a moment before nodding once, and she enlarged one of the close ups of Loki's face. She knew the moment Thor realized what it was she was asking, the dawning look of horror and understanding on his face was unmistakable.

"His eyes..."

"Yes. His eyes. What color are they here?"

"They're blue..."

"And that's wrong because..."

"Loki has green eyes. But... what does this mean Kagome?"

"When I was Thanos's prisoner, he told me he'd found Loki. After his 'accident' on the bifrost, he landed right in front of Thanos's ship. Thanos took him and used the mind stone to torture and control him. Earth had an infinity stone, you see. He made Loki go after it."

Thor knew immediately what Kagome meant by "accident on the bifrost" and a fresh wave of sadness washed over him.

Loki hadn't had an "accident" on the bifrost, he'd thrown himself off of it entirely.

It hadn't killed him like he thought it would. But instead of going off to conquer a defenseless planet like they'd all believed, everyone save Kagome, he'd been made an unwilling pawn for the universe's biggest evil.

He sat back again with a defeated slump.

"That's what Barton's eyes looked like after he'd been possessed by the scepter. Why didn't we notice that Loki's eyes were glowing too?" Natasha asked, and Kagome noticed the immediate shift in her aura from wary and unsure to curious and investigative. She may have a new friend here yet.

"Well you didn't know what his eyes looked like before. But I knew."

"You don't stare into someone's eyes for 400 years and not notice when they've changed."

Inuyasha spoke for the first time, and Kagome gave him a small, grateful smile.

"Exactly. Now back to my point. This was not my husband. This was."

The pictures changed to her wedding portrait, the one she'd memorized every last inch of. It had been no trouble getting it copied from her necklace thanks to the hyper advanced technology in the compound, and it eased some of her tension to watch Loki's face change from a dark sneer to his relaxed, proud, dignified smile.

Thor choked up a little, and she nodded as he wiped some moisture from his eyes and met her gaze. A small gesture of forgiveness for the fact that, while the Avengers had no basis for noticing such a change in Loki, as his brother, he should have noticed.

Kagome turned to Inuyasha who had stood up and crossed to the screen for a closer look.

"Woah... is that...?"

"An Uchikake? Yes. He surprised me." She smiled softly at the rest of the Avengers who she could tell didn't quite know what to make of her little speech.

"I'm not trying to excuse him or absolve him of anything in your mind. I'm certainly not trying to make you like him. Truthfully I think he'd enjoy it immensely to know you all dislike him so much, he loved to be disliked. The purpose of this little display was to assure you that I was not married to a homicidal maniac, and that I am not a homicidal maniac myself. So if you could all stop being so damn weird, then that would be great."

She clicked off the screen and the change in atmosphere was immediate. She grinned and sighed, feeling much more comfortable with their more relaxed auras and ready to get back to their previous work and distract herself away from talk of Loki and her rapidly darkening mood.

But her goal had been more than achieved with her little PowerPoint, and things between she and the Avengers morphed into true friendship, and this time she found her grief at losing Loki much less of a weight with so many others around and no one pretending that nothing was wrong.

There were no feasts, no parties or celebrations, just a menagerie of people all walking their own paths of grief and it colored everything they did.

They scanned relentlessly for evidence of Thanos moving through the cosmos, and since all the technology went right over her head she trained with the bow she'd brought from the shrine and demonstrated her shields, barriers and healing abilities, dusting off all of the skills she'd put away for safe keeping from Thanos.

Inuyasha's Tessaiga was especially popular, and when he wasn't putting himself through his paces with it, he allowed Bruce to poke around on it and examine its inherent energies in his lab.

She got used to texting and used it to communicate with her mother over the time difference, assuring her that she'd be back again just as soon as they figured out what to do with the biggest threat that the universe had ever known, and allowed herself to slip into the busy, comfortable rhythm of things in the compound. It did her sore heart good to not have any surprises for a while, to not be isolated from people she cared about, to not have to always be anticipating death or destruction, and for a short while, things seemed almost like they'd found a steady groove she could function in for a time, and then another wrench was thrown in the status quo.

The sensor alarms on the security system blared a shrill warning about the arrival of an unmarked, unanticipated visitor.

They all rushed outside, nerves fraught and muscles tense to watch the ship land in the grass and they held their breath as the door opened and two beings stepped out, thin, bedraggled and tired.

"Nebula?!" Kagome rushed forward with Steve and Pepper, who immediately took over helping a man she'd never met but recognized from some of the computer files as Tony Stark, the man Pepper had been hoping hadn't been lost to the Stones. Once they had him off the ship ramp and headed inside, Kagome launched herself at Nebula, surprising her with a tight embrace.

Nebula hesitated, and then wrapped her arms around Kagome's back, startled by the unexpected affection and the feel of her shaking in her arms.

"Oh Nebula, you're alive! I can't believe this! I can't believe you're here!"

Kagome pulled away and grabbed Nebula's hand to pull her inside after the rest of the group, ignoring her fresh tears.

"I'm so glad Neb. So so glad. I thought I'd never see you again! How did you even end up back here?"

"It is a long story. I ended up with Gamora and the people she abandoned us for. You would be glad to know we reconciled before... before Thanos killed her."

Kagome stopped with a horrified gasp and tears began burning her eyes.

Realistically she'd known that Gamora was likely dead. The odds of her escaping the power of the Stones were minimal, after all.

But that Thanos had killed her himself, his favorite daughter? His darkness had truly known no bounds.

She squeezed Nebula's hand and led her inside.

—————-

Things went from weird to bad to worse, leading a weak, distressed Tony to collapse onto the floor. His aura had been so battered and bruised with hurt and guilt and loss and it called to her and her compassion.

She left Thor with a stern warning not to leave her behind if they went after Thanos that night, but she left the rest of the group to hammer out the details with the other newcomer Carol and tracked down the room they'd placed Tony in to recuperate.

Unsurprisingly, she found Pepper by his side. The poor woman's face was pale and wane, resting on the mattress of Tony's bed.

She knocked lightly on the doorframe and Pepper's eyes slid open and she sat up from the worried slump she'd been in before.

"Oh, Kagome! I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

Kagome waved off her attempt to stand and stepped into the room, walking to Tony's side. She took in his emaciated form and the nodes and wires and tubes working to return his strength and health.

Unconscious, his aura was quieter, repressed, but she could still feel the way it churned darkly, and the state of his body was not helping his mind and heart to heal any faster.

"I'm glad he's been returned to you, Pepper. I know how worried you were."

Pepper closed her eyes again, a tear falling down her face as she sighed out weeks of fear and tension.

"There so much relief and worry all of a sudden I don't know what to do with it. I'd hoped for this, but after so much time I assumed... its like he's back from the dead."

Her words hit Kagome in a way she couldn't describe.

'Like he's back from the dead. I get it.'

She certainly knew what that felt like.

"Would it be okay if I try something? My powers have healing abilities."

"Of course! Thank you Kagome."

She smiled in thanks, and Pepper sat back trustingly. She brought her reiki to the surface of her hands and eased it gently over and into Tony's skin, through his veins and bones and blood, prompting it to leave strength, vitality, and a little bit of hope.

The readings on the many monitors shifted, adjusting a little, reading a little more stable, so Kagome withdrew her power and smiled at Pepper who stared at the readings with awe.

"I don't dare do too much too soon, reiki can be overwhelming and I don't exactly have regular reiki anymore, I don't want to do more harm than good. But after a little rest I can do some more."

With a fresh wash of tears, Pepper walked quickly around the bed and crushed Kagome close, sobbing into her shoulder.

"No, thank you. Thank you. This is already more than I dared hope for."

She squeezed her back and excused herself to go catch back up with the others, leaving Pepper to her bedside vigil once more.

———————-

With her troubled heart keeping sleep at bay, Kagome tossed and turned to find a measure of comfort in her bed.

Having to travel into space again, see Thanos again, have him look on her and speak to her as the divine gift he'd always thought she was had been revolting, and her skin was still crawling.

The crushing blow of finding the stones completely gone and unusable had been the poison icing on the whole shit cake.

She was glad Thor had gotten the chance to hack his head off for whatever closure he thought it might give him, but the whole excursion had left them even more listless and hopeless than before.

But something else prickled at her heart, kept her awake.

'It's like he's back from the dead.'

She'd known what pepper had Meant, and had, in fact, been in that position before when it turned out Loki hadn't died when he'd fallen off the bifrost.

But right now, those words were speaking a different message.

'Back from the dead. Back from the dead. Back from the dead.'

Round and round and round those words circled in her head, clanging around, demanding to be heard, refusing to be ignored.

'Back from the dead. Back from the dead.'

They forcibly dug up ancient memories, dusting off the cobwebs of long retired feelings, pushing them back into the light.

'Back from the dead.'

They glowed a suspicious pink, a familiar pink, a sign that got her attention, made her look and listen closely.

A name.

A name that had died so long ago.

A name she rarely said anymore, a name that something inside urged her to speak now.

'Kikyo.'

She stared blankly at the ceiling of her room as that name began flitting around her brain with Pepper's words, and something tantalizing and forbidden tickled at the back of her mind.

'Kikyo, Kikyo, back from the dead, back from the dead, back from the dead.'

Many voices spoke at once in her head, a multi-voice she'd heard before.

'The jewel. I was going to use the jewel... to bring Kikyo... back from the dead...'

She gasped and sat up, triggering the in-room computer system to light up the clock on her wall. She stared at the neon numbers unseeing as several parts of her began fighting all at once.

'Loki. I can bring him back.'

Her hands clasped over her mouth to stifle her sob.

'But I cant do that, I can't use the jewel that way.'

Her heart broke again as she crushed her own hope under her own heel.

'Why not?'

She stopped.

Yeah, why not? It would be selfish.

'...you will not unravel for one moment of self indulgence.'

How many times had Loki taught her that, that she was entitled to take things for herself sometimes? That the world would not stop spinning because she didn't constantly give all of herself all the time and indulge in a little selfishness once in a while.

'But the jewel is unreliable. I can't trust that it will do what I want it to do. It had a will of its own...' she thought rationally.

'Your will is mine, my will is yours.'

Her eyes widened and everything stopped; her heart, her breath, her thoughts all snuffed out between one second and the next.

'We ARE you.'

'OH.'

She was the jewel, the jewel was her. She wasn't just guarding it, she... she was it.

This power was hers.

She could do with it what she wanted.

'And what I want... is Loki.'

She fell back into her mattress, suddenly feeling all 500 of her years. She closed her eyes and began falling into unconsciousness.

She had much to ponder, but a road began to carve itself out of the murky mire of helpless grief.

She has a path, she had a plan.

Her work would begin with the sunrise.