I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi

One Spring Afternoon

InuYasha stood on the rock edge, overlooking the ravine below. A stream flowed down in its channel, swollen with the spring melt. He could hear the sound of the rushing water from where he stood. Somehow, it pleased him to watch it push all the obstacles of rock and wood that would block it out of its way, running free in its channel.

"Free," he muttered. The stream reminded him of how his life had changed. For the first time, in a long time in his life, he knew what freedom, what independence was. No jewel. No sense of obligation to the woman who had died for him, and had finally found peace. And most important, no more bondage to the loneliness and loss that came from being separated from the one he most loved.

"What's so interesting?" came a soft voice walking up behind him.

He turned and looked at the woman standing in front of him. Dressed in the white and red of a miko, Kagome stood there, warm and alive, her ebony hair stirring in the breeze. She had grown a bit in the three years they had been separated, but her blue-gray eyes still gazed at him with all the warmth they ever had, and even more. And now he was free to be with her, all the days they had together.

"You are," he said. InuYasha took a step closer, and caught her hand from where it was hidden under the length of her white sleeve and laced his fingers between hers.

Kagome's smile was like the sunshine. She lifted her other hand up, brushed his cheek with her fingers before running her hand into his silver mane. "You think so?"

"I know so," he answered, and wrapped his arms around her.

Here, now, away from everybody who might interfere, he was free to let her know exactly what she was to him. Tilting her chin up with a claw-tipped finger, he let his lips brush across hers, felt her arms circle his neck as she relaxed into his embrace, and her own lips part to the gentle caress of his tongue. Together they explored each other's taste and texture, a lingering dance of tongue and lip and hands sliding over warm body. They broke contact reluctantly, meeting together for several smaller but lingering kisses until InuYasha loosened his hold enough to take a step back.

Kagome, not yet willing to let him go, kissed his chin. "I brought lunch," she said.

"Yeah?" He ran his fingers through her dark hair, and thought about the place he had picked out for later, near a hot spring far off the beaten path, and what he hoped might take place there. Food was not exactly what he was hungry for.

She laughed, and reaching up, tweaked his ear. "I made noodles," she said, laughing.

"Noodles?" he replied. Perhaps, he thought, maybe the hot spring could wait just a little while.