This is my first InuYasha based fanfic! As such, I feel that Sess can be a little OOC but I am endeavoring to fix that!

That being said, this is AU with Rin all grown up… mostly.

Let's just get this out in the open now - YES there will be lemons and limes and all the other forms of citrus available. But, NO they won't happen right off the bat because I enjoy creating a plot. Hope you're willing to wait for the smut because I promise it'd be good and in copious amounts when the time is right.

Enjoy!

"No! Stop! Don't call me that again!"

She tried to yell at him but her throat was too raw; it came out as a harsh whisper.

"But you are Rin," Sesshomaru began only to have her silence him yet again.

"No! She, she is Rin. She was Rin. I am not. I can't be her! Why can't you see that? Why can't I be me?" She whimpered and stumbled back, her hand pressed against her corseted stomach.

Immediately, he rushed to her side and guided her back into a chair.

"I have caused you pain," he said matter-of-factly.

When she didn't respond, when she didn't tell him he was wrong, he placed a hand on her head. She didn't stiffen under his touch, which gave him some small comfort, but it wasn't enough.

He let his knuckle graze her soft cheek, wet with tears. He would try again. He would let this Rin go and find her in another lifetime. Here, she would not have him.

As he began to walk away the sound of his name gave him pause.

"Mr. Tashio. Do you understand nothing?"

Under normal circumstances, he would have caused great pain to whoever questioned him in such a manner. But this was Rin. She was an exception to everything.

"I wish I could be her. I see how she has affected you. How she shaped your past, how even now, she is the force that shapes your future. Why wouldn't I want to be that, my love?"

He turned to look at her but she wouldn't meet his gaze. Her eyes were trained on her lap. He thought about calling out to her but the urge to say Rin was too great and that would only make matters worse. Instead, he walked back and stood in front of her.

She made no move to acknowledge that he had approached but nevertheless began to speak again. "I want to affect you. I want to matter to you. But I will only mean something as her not as myself. I…. I want to mean something, as I am, not as who I might have been. Don't you see, Sesshomaru?" She looked up at him, her eyes searching his own.

He knew that her lack of formality meant something. He knew that she was pleading with him to say that she was wrong.

"Can you only love me for her? Am I not enough as I am?" Her voice quivered as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.

Sesshomaru found himself torn. It would be easy to console her, to let her believe that the past didn't matter but it would have been a lie. He was with her because he had gone searching for the soul she possessed; they would never have met otherwise. He could tell her this. He could explain to her that their entire relationship hinged upon her bearing Rin's soul, but it would probably make little difference. Sesshomaru had long since learned that humans were anything but rational.

She looked down at her lap again, her head bent forward in what once would have seemed like submission to Sesshomaru. But she wasn't submitting to him, not in the way he wanted. No, she was accepting that she would never hear the answer she wanted.

He would give her silence and let her interpret it as she so chose. If she took as a yes then he would stay with her for the remainder of her life, careful not to call her Rin but unwilling to apologize if he did. If she took it as a no, he would walk out the door and wait another forty or fifty years for her to be reborn again.

In the past it would have been hard to swallow but after losing her so many times, the wait wouldn't be impossible.

It was unfortunate that this reincarnation wanted nothing to do with her past self. He knew that on some deep level, she would always be the woman he had grown to love. Just as he knew that a part of her remembered him and always would. Even with this knowledge it was pointless to stay if she couldn't accept the simple fact that she was Rin.

The sound of her skirts rustling as she rose reminded Sesshomaru that his Rin was still here, she had not left him yet.

"Mr. Tashio. Sesshomaru. I wish I could understand. The things you speak of, the life you claim I have led. Pardon, the lives. But the plurality of this, it goes against everything I know, everything I've be taught. God does not grant us many lives, just the one."

"I am sorry." He could offer her no more, no less. It was a hard thing for the great Sesshomaru to say sorry. But he was not admitting defeat nor was he acknowledging that he was in the wrong in any way - neither were true. Instead, he was simply making it clear that he was sorry she was hurt by the truth and more so, sorry that she couldn't accept the facts.

His words seemed to have caught her off guard as she stared at him with slightly widened eyes before regaining her composure.

"As am I. This is good bye, isn't it?" The tremble in her voice caused something to snap inside Sesshomaru. Rin, in any life, in any form, would be the death of his sanity.

He closed the distance between them and wrapped one hand around her waist – pressing her against him – while his other hand gripped her hair, tilting her head back.

She gasped but did not struggle. Her lips parted and her tongue darted out to wet them.

Sesshomaru growled softly and kissed her. He kissed her as though it were the last time he would get to. In truth it was. At least it would be in this lifetime.

He kissed her until he knew her lungs were screaming for oxygen.

He savored the feeling of her against him for a moment longer before breaking away completely and heading out the door.

This time he did not stop when she said his name and he said nothing in return. He disappeared into the darkness of Victorian London's streets and never saw this Rin (Rhiannon this time) again.

Sesshomaru looked down at his watch. His sleek Movado Serio gleamed back at him. It's simple black watch face was broken up by 2 thin slivers of platinum designated as minutes and hours. The only other adornment, aside from the thin band of diamonds around the case was a single concave circle marking noon. It was a minimalist watch. It was graceful, elegant. It was Sesshomaru as a watch.

3:34P.M.

It had been 127 years, 5 months and 3 days since he had last seen Rhiannon-Rin.

It had also been 23 years, 7 months and 12 days since he had last spoken to any reincarnation of Rin, not that he was counting.

He was a daiyōkai and he would never stoop so low as to pine. No, he was just very aware of time, of the space in between events, to be exact.

He knew that it had been almost 24 years since she had died in his arms, to be reborn again.

The last time Sesshomaru had met her, she had been 17. It was 1954 and she was French, living in Paris.

It seemed that as the world grew and expanded and as globalization became the norm, Rin's soul was no longer tied to her ancestral lands. Over the past 500+ years, Sesshomaru had found her on every continent - minus Antarctica - but who knew what the future would bring.

Sesshomaru held back a sigh and continued to drink his coffee. He stared out the café window at one of the many buildings on the vast college campus he found himself haunting of late.

It was snowing. Fitting for December.

For whatever reason, December 15th, 1954 was about to be the day he spoke to Rin again.

He had been watching her for the past few days and she was his Rin for sure; her soul reached out to him with such intensity that it caught him by surprise the first time he had neared her. But now it was finally time to make his move, to reinsert himself into her life.

He approached her; he had decided that he would bump into her and play it by ear from there.

As he drew close, she looked up and saw him. He tried to avoid making eye contact but it proved to be too difficult to do since she was staring right at him.

Figuring that now he would look like a fool for running into a woman who was looking so intently at him, he quickly changed his tactics and stopped a few paces from her.

"Can I help you?" He asked. His French was prefect, if not a little clipped for the romantic language.

"Excuse me?" She replied, startled that he was speaking to her.

"You were staring."

"Was I? I am terribly sorry, sir. You just look, well… it will sound silly now. I am sorry." She chewed on her lip for the briefest of moments. It didn't go unnoticedas Sesshomaru's inner demon growled.

Deciding that it was probably a worthwhile line of questioning, Sesshomaru asked, "Who do I look like, madam?"

"Well, ah. A man. A man from my childhood dreams."

Sesshomaru took a step closer. That meant she was remembering her past lives through her dreams.

"How so?"

"You're hair, like crisp, fresh snow. And your eyes. They are so golden. Like the sun and moon. In my dreams, you said…" This new Rin blushed and looked away. "I mean, he said that I was the warm sun to his cold, hard moon but I always said that he was whole all by himself. He never seemed to believe me."

Sesshomaru inwardly smiled. She was right; he wouldn't have ever agreed. Rin had been his better half since the day he had saved her soul. Though if he looked back now, it was she who saved him.

"I see."

"You don't say very much, I can tell. He didn't either. He used to visit my dreams every night when I was a child but I remember. I did most of the talking. Sorry, I seem to be doing that now too." French Rin's cheeks were growing redder by the second and it wasn't just because of the cold weather.

"You don't dream of him anymore? Not as an adult?"

"Well," she stammered, clearly not prepared for him to continue questioning her. "Yes. They are not the same, however."

The urge to ask if she remembered the more intimate details of their relationship was strong but Sesshomaru squashed it down. She was not prepared to discuss that with him, nor was he prepared to control the beast within him that craved Rin's touch.

"Sir, can I ask your name?" She smiled at him with a dazzling warmth that made him all the more sure that she was his Rin, though she looked nothing like the Original-Rin.

He stared into blue eyes that sat prettily on a heart shaped face, surrounded by blonde curls, and knew that under this different visage, in this foreign country, his beautiful lover was waiting.

"Tashio. Sesshomaru Tashio."

"Not from France then. I was wondering how I had never seen you around before. You are hard to miss Mr. Tashio."

He didn't respond so French-Rin spoke again.

"I'm Renee and it is a pleasure to meet you. I hope this isn't presumptuous of me but would you like to get something to drink?"

He nodded his consent solemnly. He was elated but his stoic persona would not allow him to show it.

Rin's soul knew that he was always cold and aloof even when it didn't portray his inner thoughts and feelings.

Apparently, outward Renee-Rin knew it too.

That would be her identity to him from now until Rin died again, Renee-Rin.

She smiled but hid it by looking away; he didn't miss it.

"It's just around the corner. But you don't seem very cold."

"It doesn't affect me."

"Lucky you, ," Rin joked as she pulled her coat tighter around her.

Sesshomaru instinctively reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She didn't shrug him off or move away. Instead she looked up at him with wonder and unmistakable happiness.

She didn't speak as she began to walk, leading him to their destination.

It felt so good to have her close again.

Renee-Rin had been so even-tempered when Sesshomaru finally told her that he was the man from her dreams. He had explained that her dreams were actually memories of her past lives with him, three years after they had met when he felt she was ready to know. Sesshomaru had waited until she said he was the 'man of her dreams'. Though he knew it was a figure of speech, he also knew there was truth in it.

Sesshomaru growled as a man attempted to sit near him by the window. The young man quickly got the idea and scampered to the other side of the café, sitting on a plush couch and occasionally eyeballing Sesshomaru. The couch was the same color as the one he and Renee-Rin had owned.

They had been sitting on their couch in their tiny apartment in Paris. His arm was around her and she was pressed into his side. Their new television had just been installed and both were rather impressed with the technology; Sesshomaru significantly less so however since he constantly witnessed the advances of humanity.

Some rather uninspired commercial was on and Sesshomaru shifted so he could see her face. Renee-Rin looked up at him and smiled.

She asked him what was wrong and he had told her.

He told her everything.…

Sesshomaru tilted his head to the side.

His mind always seemed to leave the present day when he thought of Rin. Hundreds of years of memories had a way of sneaking up on a person. Sesshomaru may have been the Great Demon Lord of the West but even he wasn't impervious to time.

Over the many times that Rin had been reborn, each reincarnation of his beloved believed less and less of what she remembered. It seemed that as science developed, her ability to believe in anything beyond it was stunted.

With that in mind, he wasn't sure if Renee-Rin had ever really believed him. But regardless, she had loved him as deeply as she always had and even if she hadn't, she always smiled reassuringly and let him have his way.

The day he had told her, she kissed him and said she was glad to have spent so many lifetimes with him and they had gone back to watching the television like he hadn't just admitted to something utterly impossible.

He wouldn't have minded being back there again instead of sitting alone in this plebian place of gathering. The TV mounted on the café wall was turned down low but with Sesshomaru's keen hearing he heard the anchor man prattle on about this and that, the economy being "down the tubes" and the Presidential election coming in a few short weeks; Sesshomaru cared little about such things so long as they didn't effect his life, business-wise or personal.

He took another sip of coffee and continued to stare at the building across the street. It looked like every other old building, like every lecture hall on any campus in the Northeast of the United States.

Sesshomaru put his coffee down and closed his eyes.

He saw Rin (Renee-Rin) as she had been in 1993.

Renee-Rin looked so fragile. He wouldn't touch her for fear of her crumbling beneath his hands. Humans were so easily broken.

She was sleeping now and looked so peaceful. Moments ago she had held his hand in her tiny ones and told him that she wasn't afraid to die.

Sesshomaru didn't fear death - he knew he would probably never die - but she was only human. Her death was inevitable. How could she not be afraid of her own mortality? She was only 56, which by human standards was solidly middle-aged. She shouldn't have been waiting at death's door.

But how could he deny her?

She'd looked up at him with her big, bright eyes that always seemed to have a secret smile for him. She had smiled even though her body was rebelling against her. Even though cancer was working its way through her system and taking her away from him, she had smiled so happily at the sight of him every time he walked into her private hospital room.

She had told him that she would find him again.

He didn't know if she believed in her own words but it was enough. It prevented him from waiting another few hundred years before trying to find her again.

Every once in a while, Sesshomaru let one of Rin's incarnations go on without knowing him because he didn't want to watch her die again.

He would never confess it out loud but he wasn't so weak as to not admit his flaws to himself. He knew that seeing Rin die was never easy and simply put, sometimes he wasn't in the mood.

It wasn't as though he was 'in the mood' now either but Renee-Rin and he had been closer than most of Rin's previous reincarnations.

He brushed his fingertips along her forehead, painfully aware of her bald state.

He would stay with her until the end, because he loved her, because she was his Rin.

The question, asking her if she would become his mate, was dancing on the tip of his tongue but he knew she would turn him down. She would say she wouldn't want to live on, knowing this pain, especially now that she had accepted her own transience.

More so, she wouldn't truly have faith in him if he offered. She would think he was humoring her. Renee-Rin thought the truths he told her were just stories to make her smile, stories to make their love seem epic, that it had lasted ages.

In truth it had….

If past experiences were anything to go off of, the Rin of 2016 would think he was a lunatic if he went up to her and point blank told her who he was. That was why he didn't plan to tell her anything. That was why he was going to force a clandestine encounter and slowly worm his way into her life. He was going to make her fall in love with him with or without Rin's prior memories.

He knew it would be slightly more difficult but not impossible. After all, nothing was impossible for him.

And of course, it helped that they were soul mates, always destined to be together through time and space. Not that he believed in fate; he was his own master. He simply didn't mind if such things as 'fate' occasionally sought fit to intervene and lead him to his lost love every once in a while.

It was getting harder and harder to find Rin with each rebirth. So many more places to look and sometimes she didn't even look like "Rin." Renee-Rin had been blonde and blue eyed, but he had recognized her soul in a heartbeat.

Her constantly shifting appearance wasn't the only problem. He had never officially mated with Rin and as such, had no actual mate-bond with her.

But even without being mated, it didn't change that he and Rin were connected. He was as much a part of her soul as she was of his.

Sesshomaru looked down at his watch. Rarely did he allow his thoughts to wonder so much. He was a firm believer in having complete and utter control over every aspect of his life. He would not allow himself to be distracted by meandering thoughts.

3:45.

Students began to spill out of the front doors and Sesshomaru watched them go. He scanned the crowd. His demon eyes were able to see every detail even from this distance.

He found her with ease as she made her way down the stairs.

Her hand went up to her face as she slipped of lock of hair behind her ear. Her tongue slipped past her lips, wetting them as she looked around - presumably for someone. She smiled and hurried over to her friend, hooking arms and began walking down the street.

Even in this body she still bounced as she walked.

Some things never changed…

I know this was short but don't worry, there is plenty more coming! I'm having a bit of trouble deciding what order things will happen in but fear not! It shall be updated! DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW!