A Heavy Burden; Rebirth, Remain – Chapter 1

Status:
  • Rough Draft
  • Work in Progress
Content Rating:
  • PG-13
Fandom(s):
Inuyasha, Stargate Atlantis

Relationship(s):
Kagome Higurashi/Brendan Gall, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard

Warning(s):
  • Death - Major Character
  • No Beta
  • Violence - Canon-Level
Genre(s):
  • Action Adventure
  • Crossover
  • Het
  • Pre-Relationship
  • Slash
Word Count:
1070

Author's Note:
Set just before and during Stargate Atlantis Season 1. May contain spoilers for the entire series of Inuyasha, but is canon-divergent in that Inuyasha dies prior to the story and Kagome does not return to the past.

Summary:
Years after losing Inuyasha and returning to her time, Kagome Higurashi joins the SGC. Volunteering for the Atlantis Expedition, she finds more to live for than an endless search for the truth. She’s about to discover that her long lost friends have been reborn--including the boy who stole her heart so long ago. For Rodney McKay, the Expedition promises a new beginning, a journey, and an adventure at his fingertips. If he tries hard enough, he just might be able to reach it. He doesn’t know what, but he knows that there’s something important there for him, worth waiting for.


We are made by our experiences as much as our souls.”

It is late, the sun long since set. She doesn’t know the time. It would be easy to find out, but she doesn’t think she cares enough to.

It is late, and she is tired down to her very bones.

But she doesn’t dare sleep.

There’s a nightmare in her head, something banging about between her ears in her sleep. It is dark, and bloody, and sad.

Some days, most days, she can avoid it. She can think of a million other things that aren’t those last few moments in the rain, still high on their victory when everything fell apart.

But some nights, like tonight, in the dark solitude of her quarters in Antarctica, all she can think of is the moment he died.

She cannot mourn him as she should, as she wants to. There is no finding that shallow grave, even if she had known where to look. Time and the very being of humanity would have worn the gravemarker long before she stumbled upon it.

And no one quite understands it either. Her family, she knows they had tried. Her mother, especially, knew what losing someone you loved left you with. But there was more than that she had lost, more than just Inuyasha and all he was and should have been.

She had lost Shippo, who she loved as surely as any mother did her child, She lost Sango and Miroku, who she loved as wholly and deeply as she did Souta. She had even lost Lady Kaede, who was just as much her family as any of them.

He died for her. Died to protect her, just as she always knew he would.

There were years, long drawn out years, where all she thought about when she was alone in the quiet of night, was that she should have died instead.

But now, now things were different. This expedition–this dangerous foolish expedition–it was a second chance.

Still, at night, she misses him the most.

-x-

Dr. Beckett is her boss, but she doesn’t really connect with him. He’s a good man, a fantastic geneticist. But… there’s not enough there to build any lasting kind of relationship, camaraderie or otherwise.

She’s… not happy about her lack of lasting friendship going into the expedition but it’s not as if she was truly expecting otherwise anyway.

She feels terrible about it, even now, but somehow those friendships she had built before Inuyasha and the ones she had built after he died somehow pale in comparison to the ones she made with him. Eri, Ayumi, and Yuka–they had tried. They had been her friends since she was young, but somehow in the time she had spent with Inuyasha and the others, Kagome had changed enough that relating to them just… wasn’t the same. She didn’t like that, still doesn’t. But she doesn’t know how to change that, if she can.

There’s a part of her, that wild adventurous part of her that she locked behind doors of science and knowledge, that thinks that maybe, now, in the Pegasus galaxy, there’ll be something that will connect her, finally, with someone else again. Something exciting and dangerous and important enough for her to finally feel at home again.

She hopes, even though the rational part of her is screaming that people in danger is never a good sign.

She hates herself, a little, for hoping anyway.

-x-

The first time she actually meets Rodney McKay is three days before the expedition is due to leave. She knew who he was–it was impossible not to–but most of her experience with the science staff outside her departments had been limited to those who had no control over her position.

It isn’t even related to the work either one of them regularly do, when she meets him for the first time. Instead, she is sneaking into the commissary in the early morning hours, hoping for something sweet to accompany her last-minute experiment.

The long tables are empty, but a light from the kitchens beckons her welcomingly. She follows it without thinking, curiosity, and hunger pushing her forward.

“Hello,” she says when she sees him, digging around a cabinet full of mass-produced cookies. He jumps, nearly dropping a bag of chocolate animal crackers in his haste to turn around.

“Oh… Uh, hi,” he says, obviously not recognizing her. It doesn’t surprise her; she isn’t directly under him and most of his experience with the geneticists and archaeology staff was limited to the higher ups. She, mostly, only recognizes him through varied warnings from those same higher staff.

“Late night snack?” She asks him, amused by the situation.

“Well, yes. They really should run the place all night as well. The science staff–”

“Tends to work through the night?”

“Yes… who are you, exactly?”

“Doctor Higurashi. I’m also going on the Atlantis expedition, under Doctors Beckett and Johnson.”

“Oh, you’re the… multidisciplinary geek they hired last minute, aren’t you?”

“I suppose you could say that, Doctor McKay. I don’t imagine you’ll have much use for me singularly in Pegasus, but from what I understand, it’ll be an honor working under you.”

“… an honor? Yes, well, I am a genius.”

She barely caught herself before an unexpected laugh followed his announcement. Somehow, she thinks in that moment, he makes her feel at home.

“I have an experiment running in my office, so I must be going. It was a pleasure to meet you, Doctor McKay,” Kagome says, holding out her hand.

When he takes her hand, she feels the faint tingling of her spiritual powers recognizing something in him. Their joined hands glow briefly, faintly , pink before dissipating. McKay doesn’t seem to notice it at all.

“Yes, same to you, Doctor.”

They separate, Kagome snatching a plastic bag full of leftover vanilla wafers as she goes.

She doesn’t see what he ends up with, or if he watches her leave.

She feels something though, a warmth in the pit of her stomach.

-x-

She means it, that first meeting, when she tells him that she doesn’t expect to come under his direct supervision. She’s not the smartest geneticist or the most knowledgeable on Earth ancient cultures. She fits into the expedition because she has varied experience in both and nothing to lose.

Of course, things have a way of shaking things up in the end.

About writerdragonfly

Ky: 26. writer. librarian. wife. daughter. sister. gamer. lover of cats. fangirl.

6 Comments

  1. I’m incredibly curious to see how all this plays out 🙂 What a fascinating start!

  2. Initially I did a double take when I saw the pairing due to the Brendan’s actor being Inu Yasha’s English voice actor. For that reason, I look forward to Kagome’s meeting Brendan in your fic.

  3. Oh, this is a very very new crossover idea to me. I’ve seen Kagome crossover in many many fandoms but never SG or SGA. THis is so exciting.

  4. greywolfthewanderer

    I love this!! two things I enjoy blended together, yowza!

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