Iridescent

By: HalcyonMoments11

Lilac

Kagome smiled gently as she watched Miroku banter with her grandfather about the uses for certain sutras over dinner. She had introduced the houshi to her family hours earlier, the couple having just arrived to begin their winter break. Her mother had taken a liking to him immediately.

"He's a very handsome young man," she'd told Kagome as they watched Souta lead Miroku into the living room to play video games. The sight had made Kagome laugh – four years older and her brother hadn't really changed, save for the maturity of his features and his girlfriend that her mother said often came over for dinner.

Kagome's brown eyes had pulled away from the pair to meet her mother's then. A gentle smile curved the corners of her mother's lips as she moved to brush her daughter's bangs out of her eyes. "What I like most about him is how he makes you smile. It's been a long time since you've seemed so content."

Kagome had flushed in response and thanked her mother before following her into the kitchen to help cook dinner. The questions for Miroku from her family had soon followed after they sat down to eat. Where was he from? What was his family like? What was he going to school for?

Once her grandfather had found out he'd grown up on a shrine and was majoring in Theology, their bantering had begun. It was her mother that finally put a gentle end to it as she began to clear the table. "Leave the poor boy alone for now, Oto-san. You can ask him more questions later," she said with a laugh as her father grumbled.

"Kagome-chan, dear, why don't you show Miroku-san around?"

Chocolate brown orbs caught Miroku's amethyst gaze then and her breath caught in her chest. This was the moment she had both been desperately waiting for and yet endlessly dreading. This was the moment when she took him back to the Goshinboku, where he had so often followed her, offering silent companionship and comfort. This was the moment that brought them back to the well where it had all began and ended.

Hesitantly, her gaze turned back to her mother and she nodded.

"Good," her mother replied with a smile. "Off you go."

Kagome stood and met Miroku at the door of the room, grasping his hand gently to lead him out of the house and onto the grounds of the shrine. She pointed out small things along the way like the door to her deceased father's office – which her grandfather had insisted upon leaving exactly as he had left it for her mother when he passed – and the door to the storage closet that had once been hers and Souta's playroom.

They came upon the Goshinboku first and her grip tightened on his hand as they did. It had been years since she deliberately visited this tree, longer than the last time she had visited the well house. Miroku returned the gesture, offering her a small, reassuring smile. Kagome let him take the lead then and watched as he cautiously placed his hand against the bark of the tree, tracing the mark where their friend had been pinned for 60 years as she so often had years ago.

"I was 50 years old the last time I visited this tree…" Miroku said quietly, drawing Kagome's attention to him. "Occasionally I would visit hoping to understand why Inuyasha would leave us after all that we'd been through together…"

He met her gaze carefully then, a sad smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Other times, I would visit hoping that somehow I'd have the same connection with you through this tree as he did… hoping that maybe someday I'd feel your presence there too."

Kagome's breath shuddered slightly as a melancholy chuckle escaped Miroku's lips.

"But I wasn't Inuyasha… "

When she reached for his hand he let her take it, and watched as she interwove her fingers with his own. How he had craved her touch for years, decades. And now, here she was.

"The connection he had with you, your love that you unconditionally gave him… that was the only thing of his that I ever wished to be mine."

"Miroku-sama..."

He smiled gently and pressed her hand to his lips carefully. "Don't apologize, Kagome-sama. It seems that Fate simply had different plans for us."

Kagome smiled in response and tugged him gently towards the well house. The heavy wooden doors slid open with a squeal of protest, the hinges rusted slightly from lack of use as of late. Light poured into the dusty room from behind them, lighting the shelves lined with old relics and protective sutras. At the center of the room sat the old Bone-Eater's Well, a wooden lid nailed over the top and sealed with its own sutras – sutras that she had learned from her houshi friend 500 years in the past.

Kagome carefully lead him down to it and then stood back, allowing him to slowly examine the old well on his own.

Hanging from a lilac ribbon that dangled from nails around the edge of the well was a single sutra written in his scrawl. It was the first and only sutra he had written for her when he had taught her how to use them; it was not a protective or sealing sutra, but one that instead called for peace. He grasped the old parchment in his fingers gently and turned to meet her gaze. "I hadn't realized you kept this," he said quietly.

Kagome shrugged. "Of course I did," she replied. She moved closer to examine it with him. "Peace and happiness was the last thing I wished for, for all of you… It only made sense to leave it with well," she stated quietly.

The smile he offered her in response made her heart skip a beat.

"I've been meaning to thank you, Miroku-sama." Kagome said after a moment of silence, drawing his attention back to her.

Confusion furrowed his brow. "For what, Kagome-sama?"

"For preserving the well for me. For making my meeting you and everyone else possible."

Miroku smiled in response, violet eyes bright despite the dim lighting in the well house. He turned so that he could wrap an arm around her waist to pull her closer. "There's no need to thank me for that. We needed you in our lives."

He slowly brushed her too-long bangs out of her eyes as he had beside this well many times before. Her heart stuttered at the thought.

"I needed you in my life," he amended himself quietly.

Before she could respond he caught her lips in his own, pulling her tightly against himself with one hand, the other running back up into her hair. Her aura surged against his own as he did, warm, passionate, and loving. And just like it had 500 years ago in this very spot, her touch burned and lingered wherever her hands went, and she left him breathless.

This is how their last kiss by the well should've been, he thought. This is what he should've left her with, this heat and passion that he couldn't describe with words or thought or sensation, this love for her that burned bright and iridescent like her aura against his own.

When he pulled away from her, he pressed his forehead against hers gently. Smiling gently at the feeling of her hot breath on his lips.

"I love you, Kagome," he whispered.

She laughed when he did. How long had she spent wishing she had heard those words after she sealed the well? How long had she craved them before?

"I love you too, Miroku," she replied as her chocolate gaze met his amethyst.

He wondered how he had ever let himself go a lifetime without hearing those words and without the breathless sensation to followed. He thanked the gods that he would never have to go without it again.

- The End -

Vocabulary: Houshi – Monk, Oto-san – Father, sama – lord or lady (a respectful term), chan – term of endearment, Goshinboku – the God Tree (the tree Inuyasha was pinned to by Kikyou)

A/N: Well, I know this has been a very long time in coming and I sincerely apologize for that, but this is the end. I want to thank you all for taking the time to read this and for keeping up and putting up with me while you waited for the updates! You're all wonderful! It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to end this, and it seemed that taking them back to the well and their beginnings was the only way to do so after I thought about it for a while. I hope that this final chapter didn't let anyone down, despite how long it took me to update it. I'm not sure if I'll do an epilogue for this story, although I have thought about it. Keep an eye out just in case I suppose!

Other News: I'm writing a prequel. It will be called Evanescent and will most likely be much shorter than this one. I've decided that the flashbacks in this story don't sufficiently tell the background story I've set up for it, so I'll be putting the first chapters up soon hopefully! I'm also working on an AU Miroku/Kagome story called Tangible and I hope to start putting that up sometime soon as well. If you have any questions/concerns about any of this feel free to ask!

Evanescent

Summary: Evanescent: tending to become imperceptible; vanishing; fading away; fleeting. He's not sure when it happened, or even how or why, but he knows that somehow he's fallen in love with this girl. And he knows that not much can come from this love, that in time, the most prominent feature of this passion will most likely be its evanescence, but he still can't make himself deny what this woman means to him. She's his friend, a miko from the future, his betrothed's best friend, his best friend's lover, and the woman that stole his heart in a way that no other ever had. And he's just a lecherous monk with a void in his palm that threatens to consume him daily. He's just a man who's loosing hope and praying that she can be his salvation.

Pairings: Miroku/Kagome; Mentions of Inuyasha/Kagome, Miroku/Sango and if you squint you may find others.

Tangible

Summary: Tangible: capable of being touched; discernible by the touch; material or substantial; real or actual, rather than imaginary or visionary. Kagome and her family weren't the only occupants of the Higurashi shrine; it was something that Kagome had inexplicably known ever since she had moved into her Grandfather's home with her mother and younger brother when she began high school, but had never been able to prove. She had soon learned to put the strange happenings in their home in the back of her mind and ignore them. Imagine her surprise when the presence suddenly makes himself known to her a few years later, and she's the only one that can see or hear him; and as a result, she's the only one that can help him.

Pairings: Miroku/Kagome; Mentions of Miroku/Sango and slight Hojo/Kagome, and if you squint you may find others.

Thank you all for reading! Please review? Until next time! –HM11