A/N:

So… here's the promised last chapter. I don't have much more to say other than that.

Hope you like it

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Kagome sighed in relief when she realized it was five minutes to seven. She had been doing her math homework up till now, and while they were not impossibly hard, they weren't fun, either.

Getting ready took no time at all, and soon enough, she was out of her room, only to be stopped by Mama's questions.

"Where are you going, Kagome? Dinner's almost ready."

Kagome paused, the lie – that she was going to see a movie with Eri, Yuka and Ayumi – already on her tongue. But she had already told her mother she remembered the past, would it matter if she told her how? She didn't really have to lie anymore.

Still, it was a habit hard to break. "Off to meet a friend. And I'm not that hungry." She said, deciding on somewhere in between; the lie itself was about her state of hunger. Small lie, really, and she could manage without dinner. She put on her shoes and got out of the house hastily to avoid anymore questions.

Sesshoumaru was already waiting for her at their meeting place, smiling at her as she approached.

"Kagome. I trust you're well?" he asked as she got into the car, and she nodded.

The car ride was mostly silent, Kagome too busy pondering her earlier thoughts about him to bother with a conversation. Those thoughts that whispered to her that she wouldn't really mind if her memories were lost to her forever, as long as he was there and she could be lost in his. She had tried ignoring them, until now, busying herself with other things, like she always did when she started thinking about something she didn't really want to think about. Now, however, she had nothing else to busy herself with, and so was left to ponder. She had never felt that way before, that everything would be ok as long as she was with this one person. At least, she didn't remember feeling so. She wondered if it was something gradual which she had skillfully ignored until she couldn't ignore it any longer. After all, that feeling seemed, to her mind, very close to love.

She did not want to think about the possible consequences of that.

"So…" she started, trying to banish the thoughts lodged in her mind. "Where are we going?"

"There is something," he responded slowly, his eyes trained on the road. "Another artifact, which I did not lend to the museum. I keep it with me when I travel. It's in my hotel room."

Kagome felt her eyes go wide, suddenly glad Sesshoumaru was busy looking at the road ahead. They were going to his hotel room? That was even less than unhelpful for trying to dissuade possible thoughts about love and Sesshoumaru. Her stomach twirled a little at that, a small happy dance that ended in a large rumble. Sesshoumaru spared her a glance, then, and she felt herself blushing.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I haven't eaten since noon."

"Hn." He replied, and she hoped it would be the end of it, but then he added, "Do you want us to stop at a restaurant? Or we could order from the Room Service to save time."

She nodded, still embarrassed. The idea of being in his room for an even longer time made her feel… odd, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't anxious to see that artifact he had mentioned.

"Room Service it is, then." He said. It didn't take them more than ten minutes to reach the hotel.

Kagome gaped, looking around at the huge room she was in. When Sesshoumaru said hotel room, he made her think of the hotel room her family once stayed in when they went on a trip to Kyoto for a week. A small thing that had beds and a small desk and that was it. What Sesshoumaru should have said was hotel suite, because there was really no other way to describe the enormity of the place. She should have remembered by then that Sesshoumaru never did anything 'small'. Everything was huge, and expensive.

"Choose your pick," Sesshoumaru told her, handing her the room service menu that was conveniently placed by the phone.

After they had ordered, Sesshoumaru motioned her to sit on the sofa while he brought out a wooden box that had been sitting on the huge desk, next to his laptop. It wasn't big, and she wondered what could be in it. Maybe letters? She thought.

She found out soon enough, when Sesshoumaru took the box and handed it to her as he sat down next to her, telling her to open it. The inside of the box was padded with a red velvety fabric, and on it laid a rosary, made of black round beads and white fang-like ones.

Kagome gasped, and in the distance she could hear the voice of an old woman, telling her to "say the word to subjugate him!" and she looked at the demon she had just released from his sleep, sealed to the Goshinboku, looked at his gold eyes and silver hair, and the triangular furry ears on top of his head, so she said the first word that came to mind…

Kagome blinked, suddenly back at the hotel, still holding the rosary that had been on Inuyasha's neck from that moment on. What was the word she used? She wondered for a second, but not more than a second, because there was really only one option.

"Osuwari," she whispered, and she felt a pull from the necklace, and, surprised, she let it go, watching as it hit the ground with a purple light. And she stared at it, remembering the many Inuyasha-shaped craters she had left all over Japan for the past three years. She smiled sadly at one time in particular, when the rosary was still a new thing for both of them, when she had intentionally pushed him on a bridge, walked back to the grass, and osuwari'd him into the water.

And she blinked, and when she opened her eyes, Inuyasha was carrying her bridal-style.

"Inu…yasha…" she mumbled, and Inuyasha froze, looking down at her.

"Kagome?"

She put her hand on his chest, and he winced.

"Inuyasha, you're hurt!"

"I know."

"Where… Where are we going?"

"You're going home, Kagome."

"But… why?"

"So you won't get hurt like this anymore."

"What about… Naraku?"

"He's dead. And the Shikon no Tama is complete and purified, thanks to you."

"Where is it?"

"In a safe place."

"Inuyasha… what are you not telling me?"

"Kagome, please…" he took another step and winced again. Kagome felt his arms shaking, as if he was carrying something too heavy for him, and she was never heavy to him.

"Inuyasha, please, let me take care of your wounds…"

He smiled sadly. "There's nothing that can be done about them now, Kagome."

"So does this mean…?"

"It doesn't matter as long as you're alive, Kagome."

"You can't die, Inuyasha… I… I need you with me…"

He jumped into the well, and Kagome felt her eyes closing, and she tried to fight it, because otherwise, Inuyasha would die, and she couldn't let that happen.

"This is your time, Kagome." Inuyasha told her when they were surrounded by the time vortex. "This is where you should be. Promise me you'll live a good life. Move on. Study hard for your school thing. Find a husband, have lots of babies."

She had started crying during his short monologue, and wanted to respond, tell him that she didn't want anyone but him as her husband, that she didn't want anyone else's children, that her tests didn't matter that much anyway, not if she could be with him. But she was tired, and her eyes were closing, and her head felt heavy, and she couldn't find any words.

When she opened her eyes again, she was sitting on the sofa next to Sesshoumaru, still crying, and she could see Sesshoumaru looking at her worriedly.

"He told me to move on," she explained. "To live a good life. It's not fair! After we had finally beaten Naraku, and Kikyou was finally resting in peace, he died, without getting to see the fruits of what we had worked so hard to achieve!"

"Naraku?" Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrow at her. "Kikyou?"

"Yeah, you know them." She answered, slightly bewildered by his question. "Naraku, the evil hanyou who was after the jewel, who caused Kikyou and Inuyasha to hate each other… he gave you a human arm and a Shikon jewel so you could use the Tessaiga to kill Inuyasha. And Kikyou, the priestess that sealed Inuyasha to the Goshinboku, and died from the wounds Naraku inflicted on her, only to be resurrected later on by that scary mountain witch, Urasue. I'm her reincarnation."

"I know who you are talking about, Kagome." He said softly. "But – correct me if I'm wrong – none of your memories recovered thus far were about them."

Kagome blinked. Some part of her told her he was right, but another part found it odd. Of course she knew who they were! Finding and killing Naraku had been the main goal in her life for the past three years! And Kikyou had also been a constant then; the first time she saw Inuyasha awake, he thought she was Kikyou, and ever since then she knew he kept comparing between the both of them. Forgetting about Kikyou and Naraku would be like forgetting about her friends – Inuyasha, and Sango, and Miroku, and Shippo…

And here Kagome paused, because she hadn't remembered Shippo until now, hadn't remembered Kikyou or Naraku, even though now it was so obvious she could understand how she had forgotten about them, and she looked at Sesshoumaru in awe, only to see him smirking at her.

"I take it that I am correct in my assumption?" he asked, and she nodded, feeling a huge smile spreading on her face, because for the first time in what seemed like forever, when she tried to think about her past she could actually conjure up images, and voices, instead of the huge blackness. She remembered the demons Naraku sent after them, Kagura, and Kanna, and Goshinki, and Hakudoushi, and that creepy little baby of his. And she remembered those they met along the way, Kouga, and Totosai, and Jinenji, and Shiori. And Kohaku, Sango's little brother, and Kirara, and Hachi, and little Myouga, and Kaede – how could she forget Kaede? That woman was like her own grandmother, and a mentor to boot. She taught Kagome so much about her miko powers and about herbs. She was the one who made Kagome and Inuyasha travel together, the one who tended to their wounds.

"Thank you, Sesshoumaru!" she said, hugging him, still smiling, and she could see a small smile tentatively spreading on his face.

Their food arrived soon after that, and they spent their dinner reminiscing about the past.

It didn't take long for Kagome's happy, excited little bubble to burst.

Sunday she spent helping her family in the shrine, per usual, only this time she didn't feel resentment towards her mother for keeping the past a secret. In a way, she understood her. And now, with her memories back, she could remember how helpful her mother had always been, always welcoming her with a smile, making sure she had enough food for everyone, and even setting her own bicycle seat so it would fit Kagome's height, as Kagome had taken hers to the feudal era. Kagome figured that seeing her daughter half dead might have been the straw that broke the camel's back for Mama, and now she could understand where her mother was coming from. They had a long conversation that night, talking about the past, a conversation that ended with smiles on both parts. There might have been some bumps on the road, but Kagome felt that now all was well in her little world.

And then came Monday.

She had been so excited about the return of her memories, she couldn't wait for lunch break so she could tell her friends all about it.

Only, when she set her lunch tray on the table and sat down next to the three girls, she realised that her past was not something she could talk about. She remembered the many illnesses her grandfather invented to explain her many absences from school, and the lies she had told her friends instead of telling them that she was travelling through time to Sengoku Jidai, fighting demons on a regular basis. She now knew why lying to them had been relatively easy for her.

Is this what I've become? She thought to herself, suddenly saddened. A girl who lies to her friends so easily, who lives in a different world than anyone else, so different that I couldn't even talk about it?

And now, with Inuyasha dead and her quest finished, what kind of person will she be now? Could she ever go back to the normal girl she had been before she fell down the well?

No, she thought sadly. There is no going back anymore. The well has closed – there is no magic there anymore. There is only forward, now.

Her friends had been chattering between them, their words going over her head, and she realised she didn't really care who was going out with whom, and who had broken up with whom, and all those talks her friends enjoyed so much. Kagome had outgrown that. Having to fight for your life and your friends' lives tends to do that, she thought to herself wryly.

It was a depressing thought.

"Kagome chan, are you ok? You've been sighing every few minutes, looking as if you are in a different world then the rest of the universe." That was the ever observant Ayumi, cutting off Kagome's line of thought with the mention of her name. In a way, Kagome felt grateful for the interruption.

"I'm fine, Ayumi chan."

Of course, that didn't fool any of them.

"Kagome chan," Yuka and Eri leaned closer to her. "Are you sad that Kiyoshi san is leaving soon and you won't get the chance to say goodbye?"

"Of-of course not!" she denied. It was definitely not the reason for her constant sighs. Besides, he said he'd stay as long as there was a reason for him to, Kagome thought.

And then she blinked. She had gotten her memory back. The reason for him to stay here was to help her remember. And now that she did… will he leave, now? The only person she felt she could truly be herself with, the only person who knew her, knew who she really was, knew it even when she didn't – and he would leave her now.

"Kagome chan, don't move!" Eri said suddenly, urgently. "There's a huge wasp next to your head!"

Saimyushou, Kagome thought immediately, her hand instinctively rushing over to her neck, to where she kept the Shikon shards, to protect them. Only, her hand found nothing, because Naraku was dead and the Shikon was purified and had lodged back inside her body, back in its rightful place. And she turned to look at the wasp – slowly – and it was just an ordinary wasp, because there was no one to control the evil, poisonous ones. And thank Kami for that.

She turned back to her meal to find her three friends staring at her in shock.

"Aren't you scared, Kagome chan?" Yuka was practically trembling, as were the other two. None of them could take their eyes from the wasp.

"It's just a wasp, girls. I'm pretty sure it fears us more than we fear it." Though, she added to herself, looking at her friends, who were still staring at her in shock, every once in a while sneaking a glance at the wasp to make sure it didn't move closer, it's a pretty close competition.

The bell rang soon after that, and the girls hastily left the table.

"Kagome chan, look who's here!" Ayumi said when school was over, and they were leaving the building to go back home, pointing at the gates.

Kagome's face broke into a huge smile. Sesshoumaru was leaning on his car just in front of the gate, looking as if it was the most normal place for him to be.

"I thought you said you two weren't talking anymore, Kagome chan!" Yuka said, her tone accusing.

"We weren't," she told Yuka, not really caring to tell her friends what had happened over the weekend. There were too many things in that story that she just couldn't explain to them.

"You like him, don't you?" Ayumi asked her with a sly smile.

Kagome blinked. And blushed. "N-no!" she answered, hoping it sounded enough like the truth for them to believe her. Unfortunately, it was an outright lie, and they saw right through it. Kagome didn't mind much that they did, because at that moment, all she could think about was the fact that Sesshoumaru's hearing was good, even better than Inuyasha's. She hoped that the rush of so many people leaving the school and talking amongst themselves would make it harder for him to hear this one conversation.

"You do!" Yuka exclaimed.

"We're just friends." Kagome informed the three. The walk to the gate had never seemed longer.

"Say… doesn't he remind you of someone?" Ayumi asked suddenly, tapping her forefinger on her cheek as if it would help her remember. "Not so much in the face as in the colours." She continued, and Kagome blinked. Her friends had met Inuyasha, if just once. She was surprised that they had made the connection – and it would be Ayumi who did it, because the other two usually spent their time ogling boys rather than thinking about anything else. Eri and Yuka were also looking at Ayumi, their brains working to catch up. "He reminds me of—" and here Ayumi stopped, looking at Eri, rubbing the place the other girl's elbow just hit her ribs.

"Why—?" Ayumi started, looking at Eri in question, before realising that the other girl was sending her pointed looks towards Kagome's direction.

"Oh. Um, it's probably nothing, just my imagination working overtime." She mumbled eventually.

Kagome was hard pressed not to laugh outright at her friends' antics. But then, they didn't know she had already recovered her memories, didn't know that the ban of talking about her past had been lifted. Didn't know, because Kagome didn't know how to tell them. With a small shake of her head, she continued walking towards Sesshoumaru. After all, the great and powerful Sesshoumaru sama was not to be kept waiting.

"Kagome." Sesshoumaru greeted her with a nod as the four of them drew near.

"Se—Kiyoshi san," she replied, minding the fact that her three friends were still there, hanging on every word.

Not that there were many words for them to hang on, because after that greeting came a long silence. At least, it seemed long, to Kagome. She was busy trying to think of what to say that would be past-proof for her friends, but she couldn't really think of anything.

"May I offer you a ride home?" Sesshoumaru asked eventually, and Kagome nodded with a smile. Saying good bye to her friends, Kagome sat in the car, waving to them as she waited for Sesshoumaru to do the same.

"So," Kagome started. "Have you really come all this way just to give me a ride home?"

He glanced at her. "I wanted to talk to you."

"I'm glad – I wanted to talk to you too."

"Shall we go somewhere to talk?"

She nodded. "How about that park we went to on the first day?"

"That sounds good," he replied, turning right towards the park instead of continuing straight towards her house.

They were silent for a while, and, surprisingly, it was Sesshoumaru who started talking first.

"Have you told your family yet?"

"Yeah."

"Are you still mad at them?"

"No," she replied with a smile. "Now that I know what happened, I can actually understand my mother. I don't agree with her methods, but at least I understand where she was coming from."

"What about your friends? Have you told them?"

"My friends…" she sighed. "They didn't know much of anything to begin with. There is nothing to tell them."

"Why didn't they know?"

"Come on, Sesshoumaru. I travelled in time. They would never have believed me if I told them."

"Hn."

"Say, Sesshoumaru…" she started after a while. "Was Shippo the friend who had given you the Shakujo and the Hiraikotsu to put in the museum?" She really couldn't think of any other option.

"Yes, it was he."

"Where is he now?" And why didn't he come to see me? She added silently.

"He's in France."

"Oh."

They arrived at the park soon after that, sitting on the grass in the shade of one of the many trees in the area.

They sat down in silence, Kagome fidgeting with the hem on her skirt, trying to stall the inevitable conversation. The thought of Sesshoumaru leaving was not one she liked to entertain.

However, Kagome had never been one to be able to sit in silence for long, especially if she had something on her mind.

"So," she started, her eyes carefully placed on a bunch of grass near her legs. She started pulling at it, her hands leaving her skirt to bother something else. "You said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Hn." He replied, and she decided to take it as a 'yes'. "You said you wanted to talk to me as well."

Kagome sighed. She had a feeling Sesshoumaru was not going to begin the conversation anytime soon. Maybe he's also stalling, she thought to herself, and had to stop herself from snorting. Sesshoumaru stalling? As if.

In any case, he dropped the ball back on her, which meant that she was going to have to go first. Or wait till he decided to talk, which might take forever, and then some. With another sigh, she decided to go for it. She hated the silence. "Will you be leaving soon, now that my memories are back?" She asked him, her hands still busy plucking innocent stalks of grass from the ground, then tear them apart to tiny, tiny pieces.

"That is what I've wanted to discuss with you, as a matter of fact." Sesshoumaru had replied slowly, and Kagome raised her head and looked at him, for the first time since they had sat down, her hands suddenly still as if unable to move.

"What do you mean?" She asked, feeling her heart leap to her throat, because if he wanted to talk to her about him leaving, there might still be a way for her to make him stay here, with her.

"Do you remember the question you asked me when I took you to the museum?" He asked her, and she felt her eyebrows twitching, because it was not what she expected him to say.

"When I asked you why you were helping me, right?" she replied, looking at his face for hints as to where he was headed with this change of topic. He nodded.

"Do you remember my answer?"

"You said that helping me was the most fun you've had in a while." She replied with a slight shrug, still confused as to the relevance of this new topic to the old one.

He nodded again. "This answer – while truthful – was not the whole truth." He explained, and Kagome felt her heart, still lodged in her throat, start beating madly.

"The truth is…" he paused, as if taking the time to word himself just right, and Kagome felt herself holding her breath, as if her entire existence depended on his next words. He wasn't even looking at her, his eyes staring at the distance, reminiscing the past. "You had sparked my curiosity, ever since I first saw you at my brother's side. You pulled out the Tessaiga, and survived my acid – feats I thought impossible. But it wasn't just your actions – it was your behavior, your kindness. You didn't make sense. I thought of you as a puzzle to be solved."

Kagome blinked, too scared to talk, feeling that if she did, he would not say any more. It was obvious by the way he talked that it was not something easy for him to say, and knowing him, knowing who he had been, she didn't doubt it was so; Sesshoumaru never seemed to her like one who would talk about his feelings and thoughts so easily. Some part of her felt cherished that he chose to share even that small bit of himself with her.

"Over time, when I saw you more and more, you became something else. I didn't know how to describe you anymore. I kept telling myself it was just because I was curious about you and your origins, tried to deny that there was something more. When you disappeared," he continued, "I thought you were dead. I considered it as a failure that I didn't manage to solve the puzzle that you were before you died. I dislike failures."

Kagome had to smirk at the last sentence. It was such a Sesshoumaru-ish thing to say.

"I told myself that the regret that I felt was because of that failure." He went on. "When you asked me for help, I agreed, telling myself that I could now finally solve the puzzle. Being around you was, as I told you, the most interesting – or fun, as you had put it – thing I did in a while. But it wasn't because of the puzzle. It was because I was near you."

He stopped, looking at her, and Kagome had the feeling that he was waiting for a reaction of some sort from her, but she didn't know what to say, how to reply, was too afraid to talk anyway, afraid she might say the wrong thing, afraid she might do something that would scare him away. But she couldn't help the slow smile that had spread on her face, couldn't stop it, didn't want to stop it, because now she knew that if she could just find the right words, he would stay with her.

Apparently, that smile has been enough for him, or else he simply knew that getting a spoken reaction from her might be too much to ask, because, once again, he was the one to break the silence.

"I've told you before, I will leave only if I have no reason to stay. The question is – will you be that reason?"

And Kagome felt her smile growing wide, and her breath that she had been holding ever since he had started talking had escaped her lungs with great relief, and she nodded, informing him that yes, she will be the reason, but a nod wasn't enough, it needed the confirmation.

"Yes." She said, still smiling, and threw her arms around him, hugging him with all her strength, knowing that if it was up to her, she would never let him go.

But a few seconds later, she could feel him draw away, so she released her hold on him, not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable, because she had a feeling that even after 500 years, Sesshoumaru had not change so much to become used to contact with other people. But he didn't draw back all the way, just far enough that he could look at her face, and before she could think anything else, he leaned back in, and this time, it wasn't for a hug.

Kagome felt her heart, still beating madly, return to its rightful place in her chest, and then Sesshoumaru deepened the kiss, and that was the end of all coherent thought.

A/N:

Well. This is kinda sad. I knew this day would have to come, but it always makes me sad when a story I've worked so much on and practically lived in, at least for a while, ends… but at least it's a happy ending with lots of fluff.

So, I hope you enjoyed reading this story!

I might post a one shot or two before I leave for Japan, but I can't promise anything. However, I have another chaptered fic I'm working on and hopefully I'll start posting it when I get back, so stay tuned!