Disclaimer: Inuyasha and co. belong to Rumiko Takashi. The story idea belongs to me.

Contemporary

Long before Kagome and my son were cruelly forced to re-enact his worst memory, I watched over Kagome's family, unaware of the role she would play in my son's life.

I had thought him dead, sealed for eternity.

It seemed fate had relinquished me to the role of mother in every form. I watched over my own son even as he disintegrated in his slumber. I watched on as the nearby village expanded and more children appeared and used my trunk and branches as modes of entertainment.

I was revered as a central point of communion for the village, and eventually they decided to enshrine a local deity near me so I became a holy tree in every sense of the word.

The status meant nothing to me. What could anything matter when I had been forced to watch my son die alone? When I had been given the role of holding him into his final moments on this world, without his knowledge? When my consciousness and maternal feelings lingered inside a form that could not express them?

Moments blurred. Time past. My heart continued to weep.

With the passing of time I came to be a part of the Higurashi shrine.

I alternated between cursing the gods for having my son sealed in slumber to me, and cursing them for being forced to watch another woman's happy family.

Kagome's mother lavished her children with tenderness and love from the very first days of their existence. She bore her husband's death with the same determination I had: to ensure her children's well-being.

It physically hurt at times to see her and her son playing in the yard. All I could do was pretend that, in another life, that would have been Inuyasha and myself playing, and letting the sting of reality fade for a while.

Souta, as I learned the boy's name was, adored his older sister. They bickered occasionally, but for the most part managed to live harmoniously to the relief of their mother.

Their eccentric grandfather, their late father's father as I later found, was enthusiastic and energetic for a man his age.

He often spoke of things from the past that everyone else discarded as myth and folklore. I was shocked at how much information he had managed to preserve in the shrine.

Kagome had been a most adorable little girl with a small lisp, a big smile and an even bigger heart. Seeing her always brought a warmth to my heart I could not explain. Perhaps it was because she came and talked to me, and her little anecdotes and musings always managed to bring a smile to my heart. Or perhaps it was the fact that when her beloved father passed she came and hugged my trunk, her small arms digging into the bark, and prayed amongst sobs that I look after her father.

"You are nice tree spirit...you look after my daddy...you will, won't you?" she had hiccoughed and had I not been a tree, my eyes would have been drowning in tears. I had to settle for swishing my leaves and offering her a small leafy branch, my only possible comfort. She had picked it up, looking around for the person who had picked it for her, then yelling "thank you" to no-one in particular and giving me another hug before running off to show her mother.

One fateful day, something felt different. My son felt...alive, which was odd because he had disappeared many centuries earlier.

I felt a pull, and the well opened, dragging Kagome into a past I had long wished to forget.

Still, I watched her interaction with my son. Her curiosity for his form. Her lack of discrimination or disgust towards him.

When she removed the arrow from Inuyasha's heart, I felt alive!

My son! My son! You live! You live!

I wanted to dance and sing for joy, but I contented myself with the sway of my leaves in the wind.

It was most decidedly peculiar to be part of my son's past, present and future at the same time. Still I was happy, for he seemed happy.

Days passed the seasons and I saw their bond get even stronger, despite the occasional shadows of his past love I saw linger in his eyes.

The betrayal had hurt, and he would never completely be healed, but he was learning again, and for that I was thankful to the girl.

I decided Kagome's time was as suffocating as it was interesting. The air was so filled with miasma I was surprised to become accustomed to it.

She was a loving and strong-wild child, well grounded if a bit impatient. Her tenderness and compassion slowly began closing the wounds of my son's heart.

I could see it in his eyes as he looked at her. He had found a person who would love him truly, as he was.

His kind heart, scarred from years of rejection and the cruelty of demons and men alike, had not changed in essence.

He still thought of others before himself, still placed honour above his own good.

He was so much like his father in many ways.

His face, too, had taken on many of his father's features.

On his human nights, however, he looked like me. I recall than even as a child he had felt everything deeply, much as I had, but unlike me he was forced to disguise his emotions and dissimulate his humanity.

My dear son. Forgive your mother for bringing you into such a cruel world.

Kagome's ability to see the unseen translated into her life: she had an understanding of my son's thoughts and feelings which became keener with each passing day.

She began to recognise his bluffs, to see past his uncouth mannerisms, to see his heart behind the bravado and short-tempered facade he tried to shield himself with.

Not only this, but she encouraged him to discard them. She accepted him, with all her heart.

I could see this.

He could not.

Caught in the twisted web of the demon called Naraku, their hearts wandered even as they called out to each other.

Kagome's affection was strong, but my son's pain was often stronger.

Kagome loved with all the power and passion of an unbroken heart: a first love filled with energy, innocence, naivety as mine had been for Inuyasha's father.

My son's heart had been so thoroughly shattered previously, that even Kagome's feelings couldn't fully undo the damage.

She continued to try.

He continued to be weary.