Disclaimer: No own InuYasha.

His Past, Her Present, Their Future

Epilogue

"And that was that," Kagome said with a smile to her two person audience, carefully uncrossing her legs. The story had been long and she was afraid her limbs might be asleep.

"Hey!" the smaller of the two shouted, placing chubby hands on her hips and attempting to look fierce. Being only seven years old and in pigtails didn't help the little girl's cause, though, "Nuh-uh, Gramma! There's lots more, cuz you didn't even have Uncle 'Sei yet!"

"Well, duh Reijin," her older counterpart said, rolling his golden-brown eyes. "Grandmother just stopped once the exciting stuff was over. Jeez, you're such a baby."

The brunette glared. "Shut up, Sai, you big jerk!" SWhe huffed at her preteen brother, balling her small fists.

Kagome laughed and patted both their light brown heads. "Now now, guys, calm down. Of course there's a lot in between the end of the story and now, but I don't think I have enough breath to tell another three hundred years of story! How about we go get some lunch, huh?"

The two smiled, Sai's considerably smaller due to him trying to pretend he didn't care. Kagome hid her grin; she remembered when her sons had been his age. It was all defiance and neutrality for at least another decade.

Reijin and Sai were the children of the younger of her two sons, Kouhai; she loved spending time with her grandchildren, even as she expected her third child. A fond smile played over her lips as she separated the two quarter-youkai, their human appearance only belied by the speed at which they were able to chase one another down, or the sight of Reijin picking up her older brother to toss him away from her.

Kouhai and her older son Tenrousei managed the new colony of Koden, which had been established a little over two hundred years prior. The humans had begun another World War not long after Kagome had left the human world, and youkai from all over the world had begun flocking to Iwaku for sanctuary. Unfortunately the island could only hold so many people. In the end, some of the more wealthy Kodaijin, or so the older and more powerful youkai were referred to as, had ended up purchasing a large southern island not far off Iwaku's shores to accommodate the youkai who sought refuge.

Iwaku had become more private, with only those approved by Sesshoumaru living there. Travel to and from both isles were monitored and secrecy was treasured above all else amongst the youkai who lived there; humans had a terrible habit of hating that which they did not understand. Many societies in the human world had been destroyed because of and since the Third War, but humans still vastly outnumbered youkai. With the advances in technology that seemed to come about every day, they would be wiped out before they could even fight back.

"Gramma! Sai pulled my hair!" Reijin screeched, breaking Kagome's reverie.

"Sai…" Kagome sighed in exasperation, "stop instigating your sister."

"But Grandmother!"

"What are you two doing to my Momma?" a voice interrupted, drawing three pairs of eyes to the kitchen door. Shippou grinned at the three and snatched a triangle of sandwich from Sai's plate, taking a seat.

"Shippou!" Kagome cried, delighted. It had been a few months since she had seen her adopted son; he had chosen to return to the human world after the war had ended. He had finally begun dating again, youkai and human girls alike, but refused to ever take a mate again after Rin. Though he had fun, he said she still held his heart, even after all the centuries without her. "What brings you here?"

"Ah, I was doing an errand for Sesshoumaru-papa, and I thought I should come to see my favorite girl. Jeez you're huge!"

Kagome laughed and patted her rounded stomach. "Only a few more weeks to go!"

"Girl or boy?"

"Girl."

Shippou smiled widely. "Little Rin, then?"

"Of course," Kagome said with a sad smile, "I remember my promise."

And she did. Despite the hundreds of years between then and her current position, she remembered everything so clearly. She remembered Rin's smiles, Sango's voice, her mother's scent. She remembered her bedroom at the shrine and the feel of InuYasha's haori. Despite the new people that had entered her life, the new experiences she had, her original adventures held a special place within her. Once every few years InuYasha still contacted her, sometimes with Sango and Miroku, sometimes with Mattaki and Kaori.

The first years after her reunion with Sesshoumaru had been difficult. Despite the fairytale-like relationship they had shared, the reality of their story spanning a thousand years had led to many problems. Trying to reconcile the picture of one another they held in their hearts with the actuality of there being hundreds of years to change in between meetings had been difficult, and several years were spent in near-constant arguments. There had been times that Kagome didn't think they would make it, that they had both changed too much to be compatible… but they had worked it out in the end.

Just as Kagome had always known he would be, Sesshoumaru was a wonderful father. Both the boys idolized their father and sought to emulate him even long past their younger years. Both had insisted on being trained by their powerful father, despite the lack of combat situations in modern times, and badgered him for years to divulge all of his adventures.

Years had gone by, and Kagome had lost her mother first. It had been so hard to watch her age and go grey, knowing that she would have to watch her mother pass on. That had happened twenty years after her reunion with Sesshoumaru. Sota had gone only a decade later, then Ayumi a few years after that. Kagome was still unsure how it happened, but the two had ended up married. They had several children who were aware of the existence of youkai, having met their cousins and uncle. But after the loss of Ayumi, Kagome had begun to distance herself from the human world, she and her family rarely visiting.

It had been a hundred years now since she had ventured out into Japan, and she wasn't sorry. The last time she had it had very nearly sickened her - the attitudes the humans had, treating everything as beneath them and forming pointless wars. Since the previous war, the world had been segregated by race and social status, leaving little interaction and only setting the stage for further wars. Kagome knew it was but a matter of time.

The afternoon went on easily enough, Shippou tormenting his niece and nephew while Kagome did the finishing touches on the nursery. She had had a bad habit of delivering early with her two boys, and she didn't want to leave it to the last minute this time. She laughed as Shippou held the bickering siblings apart at an arms length, sending big eyes over to her. "Ma, how do you deal with these two? Holy crap, they're hellions!"

Kagome shook her head and winked. "Very carefully."

Shippou continued grousing as she prepared dinner to the point where she had to send him out, telling him to call Kouhai and find out how much longer he would be. He had left sulking, leaving Kagome alone to her musings.

'The more things change the more they stay the same,' she thought to herself as she nudged a cupboard closed with her hip, one hand continuously swishing the pan back and forth across the burner on the stove. She had retained the appliances of the twenty-first century even as more conveniences had been invented, used to what she had grown up with. She was glad for the foresight she had had in procuring several replacements for all of her favorite appliances.

The curry powder was on the top shelf and Kagome grunted as she tried to get close enough to the counter to reach it, annoyed at her round stomach. It bumped against the counter and prevented her from utilizing her full height to reach the spice. Just as she was ready to screech for Shippou, a body pressed into hers and a pale hand reach past her own, lowing the bottle to her hand. Kagome grinned and spun in the grip, immediately nuzzling Sesshoumaru's chest. "Welcome home, love."

The youkai gave her a small smile, leaning forward to catch her lips in a chaste kiss. "Miss me?"

"Yes. The bed was cold this week."

Sesshoumaru looked upwards in his own subtle way of rolling his eyes. "So you missed your space heater and not me?"

Kagome giggled and sighed contentedly, feeling the strong arms of her mate wrap around her shoulders, "You know that I missed you. Did both boys come home with you?"

The question was answered when the door burst open, Reijin and Sai tumbling into the room with Kouhai and Tenrousei following closely behind, Kouhai scowling at his children while Tenrousei just looked amused. Kagome pulled away from Sesshoumaru's arms and after shoving his hands onto the pan to make sure he would tend it, she ran to greet her sons. "Welcome home, boys."

Kouhai smiled, brushing back a bit of his short dark hair behind the hanyou puppy ears on his head. "Hello Mother."

Tenrousei, the much less reserved of the two grinned and began patting her stomach. "Hello little sister! You're sure taking your sweet time, aren't you?"

Kagome laughed and shooed the two towards the table. "Set up for dinner, boys. It's almost done and I don't trust Sesshoumaru with it for much longer."

Kouhai went immediately to do so, while Tenrousei tugged on his shoulder-length, silver ponytail. "Aww but Ma, I've got some presents for the brats that I'm aching to give them…"

"You'd better not have given them more pranks, Sei, because I swear if they use them in this house…"

The silver-haired hanyou laughed and waved his arms maniacally. "No, Ma, I promise! Honest!"

She didn't believe him for a moment. Shippou had had too much of a hand in raising him, as he had been around almost constantly in those years, and he had injected much of the personality he had gained from InuYasha into the hanyou from birth. Her heart still ached a bit when he smiled softly, as his resemblance to her long-dead friend was quite pronounced. They had named him after the Dog Star for that reason.

"It can wait until after dinner. Now either help Kou with the table or go fetch Shippou-chan. Dinner is…" she glanced over at Sesshoumaru who was glaring harshly at the pan as he moved it, "pretty much done. Now go!"

She laughed as she bumped Sesshoumaru away from the stove, giving him a thankful smile. "Sorry, love."

He sniffed. "I do not appreciate being left as cook, woman."

A dark eyebrow rose but Kagome only smiled and stretched up on her tiptoes, pecking him on the lips. "But you love me."

"I do," he said softly, returning the kiss.

Kagome felt a warmth permeate her very soul, reverberating through her heart and outward to fill the house. Her family surrounded her senses and she could never wish for anything more than all she already had.

Though problems would always arise, Kagome could ask for nothing more in her life than what she had.

Somewhere beyond any living being's sight or senses, a group of six people stood watch over the rather rowdy dinner. They all smiled in amusement at the interactions of the group, still surprised at the easy camaraderie they managed to share.

"Everything turned out well, didn't it love?" Kaori said with a smile, leaning back into his embrace.

"It really did," Mattaki answered, smiling down at the reflecting pool that showed their family. "And someday we'll all be together again and it will be even better."

Though InuYasha, Sango, Miroku, and Rin didn't speak in reply, they were all aware of the agreement. They all looked forward to the day they could be together once more, even if it meant the loss of their friends' lives, for even death couldn't keep them apart. Their bonds had already transcended time and space, why not life and death as well?

"I want Ramen," InuYasha spoke suddenly, slightly drooling as he eyed a bowl of homemade noodles on the table within the pool.

Mattaki sighed wistfully. "Me too."

"Oh, you damned pervert!" Sango screamed, knocking a grinning Miroku into the viewing pool and disrupting the image, causing the bickering to increase.

Rin covered a smile and rolled her eyes to Kaori over the tangled, arguing group, sure she and the former Lady of the West were the only sane ones.

And again, the more things changed the more things stayed the same.

7/28/10 - My revision is complete. Thank you for reading.

This story is still flawed in its horrible cliches, soppy OOCness, and stilted flow, but as I finish rereading and revising 5 years later, even without any of the passion I once had for this pairing, I am content. For a first fic, I didn't do too badly, and it serves as a reminder of how far I've come.

I thank you all for sharing this with me, very much.