DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN INUYASHA!

Prelude

It was cold. Colder than Inuyasha remembered winter ever being, and darker, the clouds seemed to form a grey canopy above him, blocking out brilliant winter sun. But then everything seemed to be colder, darker, and crueler than it had ever been before. Time had not been kind to Inuyasha, but nothing ever was. After the defeat of Naraku, things did not go as he had hoped. He never really thought about what he would do once the jewel was completed, but this certainly was not it. He never imagined that he would end up alone in these cold and desolate mountains in the middle of winter.

Immediately after the completion, purification, and destruction of the Shikon no Tama, Kagome went home for a rest. Three days, she said, three days and she would come back to start her new life with Inuyasha. Inuyasha had walked her to the Bone Eater's well, hand in hand, excited for the break in endless fighting and the beginning of perhaps a time of happiness he had not had the fortune to experience since his mother was alive. She turned to him as they reached the well's edge and gazed into his eyes, the warmth and love that shown from them left him breathless, but he had to shut his eyes to them when she reached up and kissed him.

With a simple, "See ya later, Inuyasha", she turned and jumped into the well.

She never came back.

After the three promised days had passed and Kagome did not return, Inuyasha grew impatient, as always. He jumped into the well expecting it to engulf him in the waves of time magic, only to land on the hard packed bottom of the well. No. No, this could not be! He could not get through!

After five days, he accepted the fact of what he knew to be the truth. He was not able to go through to her time, but she was a powerful Miko. Everyone knew that. She could make it back. However…, what was she waiting for? She should have been back by now.

After two weeks, Inuyasha could not deny that something was very wrong. Where was she? Everyone was anxious, fearing the worst. Did Sango and Miroku loose one of their best friends? Will Shippo ever see the girl he thought of as his adoptive mother again? What was Inuyasha to do?

By the end of the month, Inuyasha did not even bother to come out of the well. He waited for her. Maybe today would be the day she would come back. Sometimes Miroku and Sango would come to the well to talk, plead with Inuyasha to come out, or bring him food from Kaede-baba. Sometimes Shippo came and sat with him, sharing in his grief, but he never stayed for long.

Inuyasha eventually came out, but he never strayed far from the well. As months turned into years, Inuyasha became a ghost. Would she ever come back? Had she ever planed to come back? Did she know the well would close? Did she ever really love him? He began to wonder, but he could not leave on the off chance she would return.

As time went on, Miroku, Sango, Shippo, and Kohaku decided to leave for Sango's old village. They would rebuild it. Inuyasha should go with them, start new life. Nevertheless, Inuyasha would not abandon Kagome, just as she would never abandon him. Would she? She had not known the well would close on her…right?

After seven years, Inuyasha could admit she was never coming back. He began to go to the well less and less. When he was not at the well, he haunted the trees of the Inuyasha forest, hunting, surviving, existing. Then, Kaede died. With his last link to the village broken, there was no reason to stay. He left.

Inuyasha could not go to the demon slayer village. The group had moved on. In the years, Sango and Miroku had started a family, having a whole brood of children. However, while Miroku and Sango grew older and became settled, productive, and valued members of their village, Inuyasha stayed the same. The half demon was still a wild and brash child, the appearance and temperament of a fifteen year old, and would be that way far after they grew old and died. Shippo, too, moved on. Having been- what he saw as- abandoned by a distraught Inuyasha , he left with the humans to the slayer village, leaving only to attend the Kitsune school they had once passed through on their journeys.

Inuyasha did not think too much about being alone at first. When the group was together, he had always needed to find time by himself, lounging in trees or scouting their camping area. After nearly 100 years of being alone, after the death of his mother and subsequent expulsion from human and demon society, it was hard to being with people all the time. Therefore, he figured that he could easily handle being alone again. He soon found out that was not the case.

He wandered the countryside as he had before his time with Kikyou, going from day to day surviving. He was quick to remember that life without the backup of humans to vouch for him that no matter what good he had done on his travels, he was still a hanyou. Half-Human or Half-demon neither one nor the other and belong to neither. Half, Half, Half, that was all that mattered and he was once again the filthy half-breed spawn of a human whore and a demon in everyone's eyes. Once again, he was completely and utterly alone.

Alone and now cold, Inuyasha was in the mountains, possibly the worst place to be in the dead of winter. The mountain valleys served to funnel in the whipping winds and building snow. Inuyasha's fur clad feet were buried up to the middle of his shins in the snow, in some places up to his knees, and walking on the ground proved to be more effort than Inuyasha needed to exert, so he took to the trees.

The trees were not much better. While there was less snow and jumping from branch to branch was much faster, up in the trees, the wind blew hard. He covered himself in a large fury hide of a massive bear youkai he had killed, constantly readjusting it to recover his puppy ears as it slipped from his head with each jump. Even so, the winds lashed at Inuyasha's face and left his cheeks, nose, and forehead red, burned, and dry at the end of each day. It was worse when he had to draw Tetsusaiga and fight. Fighting with both hands meant that he could not hold on to the bear hide and his hands and ears would go numb with the cold. It always healed by morning, but it was still painful.

However, today it was colder, noticeably so. All around him the snow swirled and billowed in the wind. The clouds were gathering in the distance with force, and he could smell more snow to come. The skies were gathering its strength and the air was just too dry and too cold. It seemed even Mother Nature had turned her back to the half-breed. There would be a storm coming soon, a big one.

Edited 2/16/11

Beta: serena122189