InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Little Bits ❯ Keeping Watch ( Chapter 27 )

He didn't want pity. He didn't want to be told it was time to forget and move on.

So, day after every three days, he found a way to slip away from his friends and visit the well. With dogged perseverance he went, in rain or in snow, healthy or injured, or even while human. He went, to keep watch, in case the magic came back. In case she came back.

He never tried to jump down the well. It should be her decision, not his, to transcend time, and he knew he could never adapt to her era, with those huge, smelly, metallic monsters that swallowed up the hordes of humans, only to --bewilderingly--disgorge them again, unharmed. He feared that if the well let him through, it would not be what she wanted. And her happiness, her contentment, was what mattered.

Not his.

So he would kneel by the well, look down into its depths, and whisper stories that he thought she would want to hear, little events and big. Harvests and plantings, Sango's pregnancies, Miroku's bargains, Shippo's successes at the exams, Sesshomaru's visits to a growing Rin. What he never mentioned was his loneliness, his wistful desire that she would return. He would never burden her with his sadness, or the envy that sometimes took him as he helped with his friends' growing family.

And at the end of every visit, he told her that he hoped she was safe and happy.

Because that was all he truly wanted.

Author's Note: This was written for the Inuyasha Issikewa community on LiveJournal, for the "Dogged" theme. It was originally posted on January 20, 2009. It won first place.