Chie: This is the last of the reader prompts I got this time, hope you enjoyed this batch of drabbles!

Drabble Fifty-Five – In the Pain There Is Healing

Prompt: "I'm not going anywhere" + Smitten

Setting: Canon Divergence, modern era reunion

Genre: Hurt&Comfort

750 Words

The all-too-familiar youki coiled around Kagome, enveloping her tightly before the train stopped moving; before they even announced the station Kagome would get off on.

When the train did pull to halt he was standing there on the platform, waiting for her.

As he had been doing every day since their paths had crossed once again.

Kagome stepped off the train, offering him a smile in greeting. When she reached him, Sesshoumaru immediately took her hand in his.

As always, the grip was gentle but firm.

Unrelenting.

Kagome swallowed a sigh as he slowed his steps to match hers.

More than anything, she wanted to enjoy it, this simple pleasure of walking home from the station together with Sesshoumaru, hand in hand.

But her heart was aching for him.

She, too, had suffered from their separation. When the well had closed, her heart had been broken and it had been agony trying to settle back into her own life and trying to go on without him.

But her pain had only dragged on for five years, not five hundred.

Kagome couldn't imagine how much Sesshoumaru had suffered, even though by the time the well closed their relationship was barely in the very early giddy and tentative stages.

But Kagome could venture a guess or two.

Because it was clear to her that Sesshoumaru still bore the scars.

He kept wrapping his youki around her every chance he got. He barely let her out of his sight and would walk her to the train station in the mornings and be there waiting for her when she came back in the afternoon. The hand holding too was just further proof, because every chance he got he would be touching her, as if to reassure himself she was still there. He didn't sleep much and when he did he often had nightmares. And she herself had woken up more than once to find him watching her sleep.

Kagome couldn't let it go on like this.

It hurt her too much to see him so haunted still, even though they'd found each other again.

So when they got home and shut their front door against the world, Kagome kicked off her shoes and dragged Sesshoumaru to the living room by the hand he was still clinging to.

"Please sit," she told him in a tone that brooked no protests.

He quirked his eyebrow at her but readily obliged – although he did pull Kagome beside him to the couch.

Perhaps it was just as well, Kagome decided with a sigh.

She climbed into his lap and cupped his cheeks, looking him in the eye.

"There is something I need to say and you are going to listen, okay?"

"Speak your mind, miko," he said, a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"I'm not going anywhere," Kagome told him, her voice firm, her eyes grave.

That small smile vanished and beneath her, Sesshoumaru stilled. She could actually feel his spine stiffening.

"I'm not going anywhere," Kagome repeated. Tears pricked in her eyes and damnit she didn't want to cry.

There was an entire war of emotion waged in the depths of his golden eyes. He was holding her so tight his claws were actually pricking Kagome's back.

But she didn't mind.

She leaned in to rest her forehead against his and closed her eyes.

"The well is shut and the jewel is gone. And we're both here and now." There was a lump in her throat, making it hard to swallow.

One of her fingertips, still resting against Sesshoumaru's cheek, caught a tear that had silently slid down.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said one last time, in a soft whisper.

His shoulders shook. His arms clamped tighter around her. More of her fingertips were getting wet now.

And his lips crashed against hers. She could taste his desperation in that frantic kiss and she relaxed against him.

She kissed him back, eager to offer proof beyond the words she'd spoken.

The hurt he'd tried so hard to conceal was finally out there, in the open. She'd coaxed it out. And with that, the healing could begin at last.

Even if it would take the rest of her life, Kagome resolved that she would prove to Sesshoumaru, day after day, that she'd meant what she'd said. It might take him a while yet to really believe her… but she'd be there every step of the way, to convince him that she would stay.