Work Text:
Sometimes when Inuyasha dreamed, he dreamed of Kikyou.
And Kagome knew.
She could usually tell what nights they were, restless ones, nightmares of blood and death and failing to protect her, or dreams of happiness fifty years ago, with little cottages and children (all human, not three quarter parts as theirs would be - sometimes she wondered how that would work, genetically), or old memories that his subconscious was reusing. Sometimes it was easy to tell, and sometimes it became easy when he woke up and she looked into his eyes.
Look at me, she would silently beg sometimes. Look at me. And frequently he did. But there were still moments - most frequently when they had just woken up, curled together on their little bed - when she would see him look over at her, and for a moment his eyes would be confused. Then they would go through an old, familiar cycle - remembrance, then pain, then sorrow, which would take the longest to fade, and usually hadn't by the time he looked away.
It was an old pain by now, one that had faded dramatically from those old days when she was a 15 year old school girl with her head full of fairytales and romance novels, and she had learned to live with it. It wasn't, after all, as though she was simply Kikyou's replacement. Inuyasha knew that they were different, and loved her as well as Kikyou. And they had a good life. She was, however, second place. The second born, the second choice - and that was something that she lived with.
Sometimes she thought it was a curse, to love with the man who had loved her previous incarnation.