Disclaimer and Author's note at bottom.
Warning: Alternate Universe plot.
Acceptance
By: Rinelwin
There are few things I remember clearly about that day, the worst day of my life. This is one of them.
The night was bright and Inuyasha felt alive. He had his wife in his arms, dancing to the tune of some song he didn't recognize. It was bliss being like that with her. Just holding each other and flowing to the music. She looked up at him then, and smiled that mischievous smile she wore when she was up to something, then all of a sudden a strong wind blew, causing a whirlwind of furniture and paper to fly around them. And instead of being in their living room, Inuyasha found himself in a forest. It was dark, and foggy, and one could hear night owls hooting from somewhere in the trees, but that wasn't what had Inuyasha frightened.
She wasn't there. Kagome had disappeared.
Inuyasha started to walk, and call out her name. At first it was silent, then he heard her call for him.
"Inuyasha! Inuyasha, help me!" she shouted.
"Where are you, Kagome?" he shouted back.
"Oh God, Inuyasha, please help me!"
"Baby, calm down and tell me where you are!"
And then it was silent again, and Inuyasha began to panic.
"Kagome! Kagome! Answer me, baby!"
Nothing, not even a cricket could be heard. It was like everything had died. Then all of a sudden Inuyasha sensed something behind him, and turned around and there was a car, just sitting there.
'I could swear that wasn't there a minute ago,' thought Inuyasha, now thoroughly confused. But then his eyes widened. 'I recognize that car. It's Kagome's!'
He started sprinting towards the car across the field - which had just appeared - and felt relief flood over him. "Kagome?" he asked as he got closer. Once he was close enough he saw that someone was in the car. "Kagome is that you?" he asked but stopped dead a few feet away from the driver's window.
Kagome was sitting in the car, her head gently leaning forward, her skin a sickly pale.
"Kagome?" Inuyasha asked softly. 'God please let her be sleeping,' Inuyasha prayed, but he had a sinking feeling come over him as he reached in to shake her awake. Her head lolled, lifelessly, to the other side, and there was a root-like tentacle protruding from her abdomen. Blood was coming out of her ear, and nose, and mouth.
He whimpered then, like a dog when kicked in the gut. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and then he started to sob.
He heard a maniacal laugh and all of a sudden somebody in a Baboon cloak appeared out of no where. He had those root-like tentacles coming out of his body, and speared with one tentacle-arm was Kagome.
Then he saw a root-like tentacle shoot through the air straight towards him. He saw it coming but he couldn't make his legs move. The tentacle was gonna spear him through the-
"Inuyasha!"
Inuyasha bolted straight into a sitting position in his bed. He was drenched in sweat and heaving as though he had run a marathon. He looked around as though confused, and then sighed in relief. It was only a dream.
"Inuyasha, what's wrong?" asked Kagome, quietly.
Inuyasha turned to her then, gathered her in his arms, and buried his face in her neck, taking deep breaths, like a drowning man. "Thank God," he whispered, desperately trying to not burst into sobs.
"Inuyasha?" Kagome asked, "Are you ok, baby?"
" It was just a dream. Just a dream. It was all a dream, you're still here. You're ok. I won't let anything happen to you, I'll die if anything happens to you," he knew he was babbling but he couldn't think straight at that moment.
"Inuyasha, what are you talking about?"
"I dreamt you had died."
"Oh baby, it's ok, I'm here."
"And I'm not letting you go."
I remember the lights, blue - flash - red - flash - blue again. And the crowd, the noise, the smell. The smell of death.
"Where is she?" he asked, desperation lacing his voice, but he didn't care about that. He wanted to see Kagome. At his question, the paramedic looked down to the ground. Inuyasha grabbed him by his shirt and yanked him so that they were face-to-face, nose-to-nose. "Where the hell is my wife!"
The poor man just pointed in the direction where she was, and Inuyasha promptly dropped him in search of Kagome.
When he walked around the ambulance he stopped dead. He thought about the weird dream he'd had that morning. He shook his head, as if to clear. It was just a dream.
He regained mobility in his legs then ran to the car, pushing some paramedics and policemen out of his way. Then he froze again. Sitting there, crushed between the steering wheel and her seat, her head leaning gently forward, was his wife.
"Kagome?" he whispered.
"Are you her husband?" asked one of the paramedics.
Inuyasha's throat was locked so he just nodded.
"She's been asking for you."
Inuyasha's head jerked in the direction of the paramedic then, his eyes full of hope. "You mean she's still alive?"
The paramedic nodded solemnly, "Yes, but not for long."
"What do you mean? Can't you save her?"
"Sir, her organs are crushed, we can't salvage her."
"Why you-"
"Inuyasha," whispered Kagome.
Inuyasha immediately rushed to her side. "Baby don't worry, I'll get you out of here. It's ok, you'll be alright, ok?" He said quietly.
Kagome just smiled through her pain. "I'm sorry... Inuyasha... I couldn't stop... he was going too fast..."
"Shh, don't worry about that, ok? Just worry about getting better for me-"
Kagome shook her head. "Inuyasha... I'm dying... I feel it..."
"Don't say that," said Inuyasha, his voice breaking, "You can't die, you can't leave me, not yet. I'm not ready yet."
She smiled again, "When... will you... be ready..."
"I don't know," he said, tears rolling freely down his cheeks, " I'm not sure I'll ever be ready."
She slowly reached up and touched his face, caressing his cheek, wiping the tears away. "I love you... Inuyasha... don't forget that..."
"I won't, and I love you too, with all my heart."
She smiled, and then she closed her eyes, expelling her last breath, her hand going limp.
Inuyasha caught her hand before it dropped away from his cheek, and kissed her palm. 'God, if you have to take a soul from this world, give me back hers, and take mine. Please.'
The wailing, I remember the wailing... and the hollowness, the numbness...
Inuyasha sat staring at one thing, and one thing only. The coffin in the middle of the room. Yesterday when the paramedics had tried to wrench him away from Kagome, he had turned wild, his demon blood becoming dominant. He had been given a sedative every couple of hours since then, his father and brother never leaving his side - just in case.
The news he had gotten later had made him shut into himself. Pregnant, she had been pregnant. They had been trying for so long-
A wail resounded through the room, by far louder than the rest.
"Kagome!" said a young woman running over to the coffin, "Oh Kagome, GET UP! WAKE UP! You can't leave me!" she wailed. The young woman was named Sango, Kagome's best friend, and as Inuyasha watched through drooping eyes, Miroku - Sango's husband, and Inuyasha's best friend - went over and started rubbing Sango's shoulders.
"Calm down Sango, you know it's not good for your condition," said Miroku, reminding his wife of her pregnancy, and - unintentionally - Inuyasha of his loss.
As he started to lead her out of the room they started to close the coffin, and that had her screaming again.
"NO! Don't bury her, she's not dead! She's NOT DEAD! She's asleep you bastards! ASLEEP! Kagome, wake up! GET UP!" she screamed, and Miroku picked her up and carried her out.
With the distraction gone they returned to the task of closing the coffin when Inuyasha called out, "Stop."
The men looked to Mr. Takahashi - Inuyasha's father- for confirmation. When he nodded they backed off.
Inuyasha slowly stood up, brushing off the hands of Sesshomaru and Inutaisho, and walked to the coffin.
Kagome lay there, still as stone, her skin unnaturally pale, but still as beautiful as always. He touched her cheek, and almost flinched. "So cold," he said quietly. All he could think about was their plans for the future. They'd had so many. Not in the least were the plans they had to try to have a baby. And when she had finally conceived she was wrenched from his life. She had only been six weeks along the autopsy said. Fate was so cruel.
"I won't forget you, my love, ever," he whispered in her ear, then he kissed her on her mouth for one last time, and stood up straight once again. He straightened his shoulders and looked down at his wife. God, he would miss her.
His knees went weak then, his body betraying how the death of his wife and unborn child had weakened him, and he slumped in a dead faint.
All that saved him from slamming face-first into the cold floor was his brother's demon reflexes. Sesshomaru locked his arms under Inuyasha's armpits, and Inutaisho picked up his feet. They both carried him to a couch where Izayoi, Inuyasha's mother, came with a damp cloth to tend to her desolate son.
In my dreams you are still here. Like you've always been.
The breeze blew through the branches of the ancient tree. Inuyasha sat down between the roots and looked to his left where a little shrine sat.
"Hey, Kagome," he whispered. He came out here to talk to her everyday; it had been 4 months since she had left him for the afterlife, and he still grieved as though it was yesterday that she had died.
The days weren't as bad as the nights were, with an empty bed, and no Kagome to talk him to sleep. Besides that, the nightmares plagued him, and when he woke up she was no where to be found. He needed her, a lot.
She had always known what to do when he needed help. He could still remember the Christmas party his dad had thrown about six years ago in his penthouse downtown. It was the first time he and Kagome had gone out as a couple, and when they were leaving the building, the lights went out. The whole city was in a black-out, and they had been so unfortunate as to have gotten stuck in one of those damnable elevators. Being claustrophobic, that was something that could classified in the "not good" section. When he had started feeling like he couldn't breath, and that the walls were closing in on him, she had known exactly what to do. Funny thing was, he couldn't even manage to tell her he was claustrophobic, but she had figured it out on her own. She had known that he had needed a distraction from the small confinement, so she had done the only thing, as she told him later, she could think of doing.
She had took his face in her hands and kissed him. And it worked because the only thing he could think of after that was the feel of her soft lips on his.
But now she wasn't here to help him, and he didn't know what to do to help himself. Or maybe the fact of the matter was that he didn't want to be helped. He wanted to feel the pain, he welcomed it.
Because he would never want to exchange the memory of her laughter, her voice, the feel of her fingers running through his hair, or the smell of her breath- even if it was her morning-breath before she brushed her teeth - for peace. He wanted to remember those things, always.
Since her death, Inuyasha always had the same dream, the one from the morning before she died. The one with the forest and the silence. It was always the same, with the exception of the night before.
Inuyasha sighed. "Kagome," he said out-loud as though she was really there, twirling the daisy around in his hand, "remember the nightmare I had that morning before you died?"
He paused as if waiting for her to answer him. "Well, I've had that dream every night since you left me; but last night after I found you in the car there was this blinding light, and there you were. Looking like an angel, walking towards me, holding our child in your arms. You held out your hand for me and said 'It's ok, Inuyasha, I'm here.' Then I woke up." He stopped and looked up at the branches above him, and the sunlight peeking through.
"I have this feeling, like your calling me... are you?" Again he pause as though she would answer him, "Or maybe I've finally lost my mind."
Inuyasha sighed once more and got up. He kissed the flower he had brought, then placed it on the shrine.
Or maybe I'll be seeing you both soon.
I died that night, and I'm not alone anymore. We're finally together again, and this time, I'm not letting them go.
"May they both rest in peace. The End," said eight-year-old Hokimuro.
"That was a nice story, Hokimuro. And who was the source of your real-life story?" asked Mr. Takemaru, the teacher.
"My grandfather, sensei. His name's Miroku and he was Inuyasha's best friend.
"Ah, I see. Very well, you may take your seat. Next up is..."
THE END.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha; Tim McGraws "Don't take the Girl" (the part where Inuyasha prays 'God, if you have to take a soul from this world, give me back hers, and take mine. Please'); Backstreet Boys "Siberia" ('In my dreams you are still here. Like you've always been'); or the character Hokimuro, I borrowed it from Izzy-sensei's comic. You can see the real Hokimuro at http/izzy-san. The part where Kagome's in the car just waiting for Inuyasha to come before she dies, I got that idea from the movie Signs with Mel Gibson. The title "Acceptance" is more of an abstract way of describing what happened between Inuyasha and Kagome in my story. In the words of my sensei "it wasn't destiny, it was more like acceptance."
Special thanks to Elizabeth "izzy-sensei" Mcnab for her constructive criticism and help with a suitable title (actually she gave me the title, hehehe); Arielle "lala-chan" Jackson for being a terribly, honorably great best-est best fan ever; and thanks to my latest crush for implementing himself in my dreams and dying, and therefore giving me a suitable funeral scene!