Title: The Promise of Stardust
Chapter One: The Emergency Room Call
Summary: Sesshomaru Taisho was only three years old when held Kagome Higurashi for the first time, eighteen when they first kissed under the cherry blossom tree, and twenty-nine when they married. Everything seems to be going perfectly for the couple and that wasn't wrong, the only thing missing from the happy family was the child they'd always dreamt about having. But that option may become permanently unavailable for the young couple when an accident leaves Kagome brain-dead and Sesshomaru devastated. This is my own version of the story, "The Promise of Stardust" by Priscille Sibley.
Late that night–on our last night–we lay in pure amazement and awe, mesmerized once more by the shooting stars and meteor showers as they transformed stardust into streamers of beautiful lights. But their beauty could not even begin to compare to hers.
Her silky raven hair moved with her every movement perfectly while her hazel eyes stared in awe at the beauty within the sky. This was nothing new though, this was an anniversary of sorts for us. We would always come to this very spot, under our cherry blossom tree, and watch the show for hours. It was like a summertime event and Kagome and I had never missed one in all of our years together.
We would always fall asleep on the grass with one another and this time was no different.
My wife of four years, my beautiful wife, lay curled up beside me, her head resting in the crook of my arm.
If only I had stayed home in the morning–why hadn't I looked over to my wife and realized that nothing I could or would ever do was more important than keeping her safe. If only–kami–
In my many years of being a neurosurgeon I've heard patients' families play the "if only" and blame game. I've come to expect the five stages of denial and loss. But reality was cold and in too many cases, irreversible. I didn't stay home and apparently neither had Kagome.
'How much time could I buy this patient by removing his malignant tumor?' That thought kept running through my head as I studied the MRI that showed what I had already suspected was a glioblastoma, when suddenly my receptionist buzzed me. "The hospital is on line three, sir. They say it's urgent."
"Thank you, Sango." And while I was still staring at the cross sections of the temporal lobes, I picked up the phone. "This is Dr. Taisho," I spoke.
"Hi, Sesshomaru. This is Miroku Hoshi." The main emergency room doctor cleared his throat before he spoke once more. "You need to come over."
"Page Jaken. He is covering the hospital."
"He's already here. I need you to come in. It's your wife."
That sound in Miroku's voice. I knew that tone all too well. This was not good. His voice sounded as tight as screeching tires as he continued. "She's had an accident."
What had happened? Hadn't she stayed home today? The weight of his words kept many questions trapped down within my throat. If Jaken had already arrived, were Kagome's injuries neurosurgical? Or had he simply happened by the ER. Maybe he was standing there telling Kagome jokes to distract her from something trivial and minor. 'Please,' I thought. 'Don't tell me she's dead.'
"Is Kagome alright?" I asked.
Miroku cleared throat once more. "It's serious, Sesshomaru. Come here now. I'll see you in a few minutes." And then the dial tone sounded loudly but I could barely comprehend the sound.
Suddenly, it was as if everything popped into place and I leapt out of my chair and dashed through the waiting room, past a woman standing next to her wheelchair-bound son, barely turning to my receptionist to say where I was leaving to in such a hurry.
I quickly sprinted the four blocks to the hospital and arrived at the emergency entrance in a cold sweat. But it wasn't from the exercise. No. I was, for the first time since my mother's death, terrified and worried to the brink of making myself sick.
I pushed my way through the double doors and headed straight to the trauma area. My partner, Jaken Buaf, stood next to a red code cart with the drawers open. He wore sterile gloves, a gown, and a surgical mask. An IV pole, which was filled with may IV bags and pumps, stood against the gurney. Lines of all sorts sprang from the patient's extremities.
Not Kagome. Please, not Kagome.
The ventilator hissed its bittersweet wheeze as it pumped oxygen into the hose coming out of her body. The nurse stepped aside and I saw Kagome's face, white as the bed linens while dried blood caked in her raven hair. The only indicator that she was still breathing was the tracing across the cardiac monitor.
Her body was rigid and arched, her toes pointed, and her hands were curled under her palms. The position was known as decerebrate posturing and was an indicator of severe brain damage.
This was all too familiar to me. I dropped to my knees, not even caring for the other two within the room for the time being. I knew that whatever had happened had devastated her brain.
I can't exactly say what had happened next. Maybe someone dragged me back to my feet or maybe I staggered up of my own free will. Jaken said something about Kagome and a fall from a ladder. Something about a grand mal seizure in the ambulance.
Miroku was lingering and saying something about a full cardiac arrest and a Glasgow score of five. Something–about being down for only four or five minutes. Something–about her fixed and dilated pupils. Something–about her CAT scan Something–about surgery.
My face became hard and emotionless as I placed my hand upon Kagome's frozen one. People were staring at me, pitying me. People I worked with. People I couldn't give a rat's ass about. I pulled a small light pen from the chest pocket of my coat and checked Kagome's pupils.
'Come on Kagome,' I thought. 'React. Prove my gut feeling wrong. Prove them all wrong. Come on.'
I flashed the light over my wife's dull hazel eyes. They were all black instead of the natural color they should be. Her pupils were blown and big.
I checked her reflexes and found nothing but more truth behind my previous thoughts of the accident destroying Kagome's brain.
I met Jaken's eyes. Eyes filled with tears. "Let me show you the CAT scan, Sesshomaru. I just put in the ICP monitor. Her pressure's high. We started steroids and mannitol. I want to get her downstairs right now. I'll do everything and Onigumo is scrubbing in with me. The OR is all ready for her."
For but a moment, I thought I would scrub in as well, but then my sensibility returned. I could no more cut into her brain nor watch anyone else do it than I could turn into a superhero.
Jaken held up the CT scan that showed the bleeding compressing her brain tissue. I had to steady myself against the wall as I stared at the sheet once more. This could not be happening.
Less than twelve hours ago, Kagome and I had made love under the cherry blossom tree that we both had cherished so much. I must still be sleeping there, that's it. This is all just a nightmare that I seem to be having. I had to force myself to wake up.
But as I glanced around–taking in the pictures of the emergency room, the definition of lines on Jaken's face as his logical mind planned out his surgical approach, the axle grease on the gurney's wheels–I rejected reality in favor of believing it was all just a horrible nightmare. Powerlessness pounded my denial like a drum. I wandered back into the trauma room as the nurse I now recognized looked up from checking Kagome's tubes.
No, this was real and my wife, the woman that I had been in love with since I was eighteen, the woman whom I had loved as my closest friend for an even longer time, had fallen and cracked her head open.
Even the best neurosurgeon I knew, my friend and partner, would never be able to fix the damage.
For a moment I stood frozen, remembering how much Kagome didn't want to suffer through a hovering death like her father had endured for so long. Jaken presented a consent form on a clipboard in front of my face. "Sign, so I can take her to the OR. I don't need to explain this to you." he said.
"We should let her go." I turned and bolted into the bathroom, where I proceeded to empty the contents within my stomach into the scummy hospital toilet.
Jaken opened the door and found me throwing up. "Sesshomaru, I need to take her downstairs. Now. We don't have the time for bullshitting. I know this is horrible for you and you know as well as I do that she probably won't make it, but you'll hate yourself more if we don't at least try." And once more, he shoved the clipboard in my face.
I had promised Kagome on our wedding day that I would love, honor and respect her. I had to respect her wishes. She wouldn't want this. I knew the odds. I knew the consequences and yet I grabbed the clipboard and scribbled my consent anyway.
He disappeared through the door, leaving me behind to regret every betrayal I'd ever made of her. It was selfish to want her to live, I know that, but even so–I signed the damned papers anyway.
I knew that her brain would never truly recover from the devastating insult the neurosurgery would cause. That was the trouble with being a neurosurgeon–I knew her prognosis already.
I couldn't be lulled by the blind hope that normal patients' families come up with. Nothing and no one could ever save Kagome. But I needed her. I needed Jaken to save her from an impossible situation.
Splashing the cold water onto my face, I finally found the strength to return to the trauma room once more. The nursed was setting up the portable ventilator so they could move Kagome to the OR. "Can you give me one minute alone with her?" I asked.
The nurse walked timidly around the equipment and then touched my elbow lightly, like a stranger does to a beaten down animal. "We need to get her to the OR. Right away."
I placed my bigger hand on Kagome's smaller one. The damned IV was in the way. I bent down to place a kiss on her cheek since I couldn't kiss her lips due to the endotracheal tube that was sticking out of them.
"I love you, Koi. I always have, and I need you to understand that I can't live without you in this world. In my world–in my life. Come back to me. Please."
After those words left my lips and my hand fell from her's, I took a step back to let the other people in the room do their jobs.
Orderlies, a respiratory tech and two nurses came through the door and unlocked the gurney's wheels and began to push Kagome and the life-support equipment down to the OR.
Left behind at the elevator, I paced around in circles. I had to tell our family, her mother and my father, and I had no idea how to go about breaking the news to them.
I removed my cell phone from my pocket and stared at the flashing screen, alerting me that I had a voice mail from Kagome. And slowly, I held the phone up to my ear.
"Hey, it's me." She sighed quickly, had she just awoken? "Can we do something tonight? Maybe we could take a walk in the park? I know we made up afterwards, but I still feel bad about our argument yesterday. Let's spend a little quiet time together this evening, talking and hold hands and... I love you so much." She paused for only a second and sounded as though she were smiling once she continued. "Give me a call when you get this and we'll make plans for late, okay? I can't wait to see you! Bye."
I couldn't breathe, it felt as if there was a lump in my throat. Kagome. Kami. She had to be alright. Jaken would get in there and the damage wouldn't be as bad as the CAT scan presented it to be.
I started to mutter out loud. Kagome was brilliant. If anyone could recover from a brain injury, she could. I'd work with her and she was tough.
Maybe I was just misreading everything. I held the phone up to my ear once again to listen to the beautiful voice I may never hear again. The lovely melody rang throughout my head as I followed the flow of people back to the ER.
Miroku was staring at me as I appeared. I wanted to look at the CAT scan again. This was insane. 'Please, tell me. Tell me this isn't as bad at I think it is.'
"I–I am not sure what you said before. I guess I'm in shock, what exactly happened to her?" I asked.
Miroku rubbed his forehead as if sensing the oncoming headache.
"According to the rescue squad, they picked her up at her brother's house. He's out in the waiting room by the way. Evidently she hit her head on a rock after she fell about nine feet off a ladder. Your brother-in-law can probably tell you more about what happened though. She had a long seizure on the way in, maybe for ten minutes. She was in respiratory arrest when the EMTs got her here. They bagged her. We had trouble tubing her and she went into a cardiac arrest then, but we got her back fairly quickly."
"How long was she here before you called me?"
"Twenty minutes. We were busy trying to save her," he spoke.
I swallowed hard while trying to gather my thoughts. He wasn't saying anything encouraging and the false sense of hope from my denial disappeared. "Where's her CT scan?"
"Jaken took it with him."
'Right. I'm nothing thinking clearly.' "I have to talk to Kagome's brother," I said.
As I turned towards the waiting room, the hospital CEO approached me and stretched out his hand for me to shake. "Dr. Taisho. I heard that your wife is on her way to the OR. I hope it goes well." He hesitated a bit before adding, "I don't know if you're up to it right now, but the press wants a statement."
"The press?"
"The accident was on the police scanners," Miroku stated. "If Kagome Higurashi is rushed to the hospital, its news. She's a local celebrity, remember? Osaka is like a small island. They remember her from the epidemic years ago."
I was still at a loss of words, then I realized Miroku talking about the outbreak. Kagome was practicing to become an M.D. and was a college professor now. But five years ago she had actually come up with the medicine now known as osteopathy. She helped many people and is known world-wide.
Miroku fiddled with his stethoscope and nodded toward the CEO. "We can't tell them anything, HIPAA laws and all that, but when you're ready–"
"I can't right now. Excuse me." I had to speak with Kagome's brother.
I pushed my way into the waiting room and immediately locked my eyes onto just the person I needed to see. Souta stood with his back to me, studying the contents of a vending machine. I tugged on his shoulder and he spun around instantly.
"Sesshomaru, finally." Souta's eyes frantically darted between me and the double doors of the ER. "No one will tell me anything."
"What happened?" I demanded.
"Is she alright?"
"Not really. What the hell was she doing on a ladder?"
His mouth hung open for only a few seconds before snapping shut. "Kagome stopped by and Hitomi and I were washing windows when the baby was hungry so Hitomi went inside to nurse her so Kagome said she's help out and took over for Tomi. I went back inside, you know, to work on the same window and make sure there were no streaks–and then Kagome fainted. But she's going to be okay, right?"
'Fainted?' The word registered somewhere in the back of my mind. I tried to steady my voice and focus on the sign hanging above the door. I couldn't look Souta in the eyes as I pictured the CAT scan again.
She'd arrested. Given her appearance and the decerebrate posturing, she had significant brain damage.
I admitted the unfathomable to Souta and to myself. "No. I don't think she's going to be okay." The room's temperature felt like it dropped forty degrees. "Where's your mother?"
"Wait. What do you mean?" Souta asked.
"It's a bad head injury. Really bad. Where's your mother? Does she know she's hurt?"
Souta shook his head. "But she didn't even fall that far. She cut her head and everything but–you're a neurosurgeon. You can fix her, right? Did you see her? Did you talk to her?"
"She's not conscious," I spoke as I tried to keep my composure. "I saw her. I–Jaken took her to surgery. Call your mother and tell her to come in." I blinked a few times. "Souta–she probably won't make it."
"What?"
"It's bad." I turned around so my back was facing him and walked away before he could respond.
Maybe it was cold to leave him with the prognosis, but I had someone else to tell. My father. This would kill him. Or me.
My father was an obstetrical nurse–had been for almost forty years–but I didn't know if he was working that day. I took the elevator to Labor and Delivery, passed security by waving my hospital ID, and went to the nurses' station.
A couple of people recognized me and smiled hellos. One said, "Hi, Sesshomaru. Inutaisho's on break, but I think he's in the lounge."
I turned and hastily made my way past a woman in labor that was pushing an IV pole down the hall. She paused, clearly in the middle of a contraction.
Loud, booming laughter emerged from the nurses' lounge as I pushed open the door. My father sat at the table, holding a mug of the hospital-grade sludge called coffee.
He took one look at me and stopped abruptly. "Who is it?" He demanded.
"Kagome. She had a fall." And just like that, I was near tears as my father's strong arms wrapped around me instantly. Thirty-three years old and I might as well have become one of the newborns wailing his first sounds of life. Except this felt more like a silent death cry.