[ D i s c l a i m e r ] nope

[ A u t h o r' s N o t e ] This is a one-shot Inuyasha x Sango drabble that I wrote. When you get down too it though, it's more like all the reasons they should be together, as opposed to the canon, just in really fancy words. Oh well, I rather like it, it was a chance for me to air out my opinions on why the canon pairings in Inuyasha positively suck.

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They stand alone in the moonlight. Tears stream down her cheeks. He is flustered because he doesn't know what to say. He has never been good with words.

She is hurt because she does not understand.

He loves her not because of what she is, but because of what she is not.

She is neither the past nor the future but the present. When he looks into her eyes memories do not haunt him. When he moves to kiss her, it is only her that he sees. It is liberation from pain that has long haunted him. It is fresh air in his lungs, replacing the old air that is dead and spent and can no longer offer nourishment to his body. Without her, he cannot breath.

He knows it is cowardly and wrong to abandon his past but her offer of a new beginning is to promising to pass up.

With her he is truly happy, something he hasn't been for his whole life, something he could not even be in those days of peace with Kikyou in her village living in the inadequacy of knowing he was not acceptable to her unless he was fully human.

To Sango, it doesn't matter if he is full demon or full human or anything in between. To her he is beautiful inside and out. She cherishes the good in him and even more she cherishes the bad, acknowledging that it is both that make him the man that she loves.

And he loves her as well.

He loves her because she is not quick to anger. He loves her because she realizes that he would never purposely hurt her. He loves her because she sees the real meaning behind his words, buried deep behind his eyes, waiting to be dug up. He loves her because to her he is not a prize to be won. He loves her because she is not his destiny. She is not his fate.

For the first time in his life he is making his own destiny, sealing his own fate. With every passing second he can feel his past slip away from him. It feels like he is getting lighter. Weight is being lifted off of him by some unseen force. If he were not Inuyasha, he would admit to feeling giddy.

His mind drifts to Kagome. He is selfish and he knows it but he is sick of his pained existence. Since birth he has never lived without pain whether it be from ridicule over his half demon body, indecision over which of two women to love or curses thrown over himself and his companions straight from Naraku's own fingertips.

Naraku. Naraku who could kill all of them at any second. Naraku who holds the almost completed Jewel of Four Souls. Naraku who they toil and waste away over.

Inuyasha is sick of waiting. He is sick of waiting for the Jewel to be completed. He is sick of waiting day after day in meager attempts to search out shards. He is sick of sitting back and waiting for his own death. He is sick of waiting for fulfillment that is promised but that he knows will never come.

For once he will live in the present. He will ignore his past. He will ignore his future. He is not going to spend his precious remaining life devoting himself to something that will not matter in his dying moments. He is not going to devote himself to something that will not make him happy. He is not going to devote himself to something that wishes to kill him slowly from the inside.

He reaches across the distance between them and brushes the tears from her cheeks with care. His gaze pierces her own. She looks into his eyes. She looks into his soul in the way that only she can. She sees. She understands. She is happy.

He kisses her. She kisses back. They live together in the present. Each day could be their last, but to them it doesn't matter because in each other they have found fulfillment.

He smiles against her lips. She is his hope. She is his savior. She is everything and nothing at the same time. She is his happiness.

She is not his past. She is not his future. She is his present.

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THE END