Disclaimer: Inuyasha is not owned by me…cries

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So I had someone read this and they commented on how OOC Inuyasha was being…okay. I know he's not being his usual brash self, but consider the situation. The person that he is closest too is gravely ill; at that point all attitude is thrown to the wind and all the worry come to the front. So just keep that in mind when you read this.

I'm sorry that I didn't get around to writing this sooner. I got caught up in a Naruto frenzy (funny anime, check it out) and ended up writing a story for that anime and then I was in college and sort of just lost track of time to do anything. My sister has been yelling at me about getting back to this story because she wants to find out what happens.

Next, I've never had to deal with a situation like the one I am presenting. It's never happened to me or anyone that I know so if I get some of the details wrong, I'm sorry, just tell me and I will fix it.

Also, Inuyasha does not understand modern technology so keep that in mind during the descriptions that I give since most of them will becoming from his point of view.

So, when I edited the first chapter I posted this note but because my error was so stupid, it bears repeating. I realize that some people are going to skip write to this chapter and not look at the first because they have already read it so I'm going to post this note here too. TrisakAminawn found a major typo that was really kinda funny but kinda ruined the effect I was trying to have. Instead of 'blackness of SLEEP' I wrote 'blackness of SHEEP'. I have corrected it, but it was such a funny and stupid mistake that I now feel the need to tell all of you. I know there are other typos but I can't find them right now and that was the only one that was really REALLY bad…so yea that's been fixed. Hope you all enjoy the story, I swear I'll finish it soon. And thanks again to TrisakAminawn for pointing that out to me. Man do I feel stupid.

This chapter was really hard to write, and you might be able to tell the point at which I really started struggling but I did my best to make this chapter as good as I could.

This chapter is dedicated to my younger sister, look I wrote the damn chapter! Now would you get off my back!?

To See the Dawn - Part 2

Sammery

It had been hours since Inuyasha had placed Kagome on the gurney. Since then he had been pacing the waiting room over and over again, unable to sit down for longer than a minute at a time. Mrs. Higurashi sat after having filled out many forms, and talking to a seemingly endless stream of nurses and doctors, staring blankly at the floor and Inuyasha's feet whenever his path took him past her. What was happening to her little girl; what was happening to her baby?

Inuyasha meanwhile was currently lost in a torrid stream of memories. From the first time he had laid eyes on Kagome, thinking she was Kikyo, to the first time she 'sat' him, to when they met all their friends, to every battle when he had feared for her life more than any of the others, to that last night in the hut.

He smiled at all the fond memories and winced when he realized how mean he had been to her most of the time. Why does she keep coming back when I treat her so badly? What wouldn't I give just to have her sit me right now, then I'd know that she was alright? Please Kagome, just be alright!

He had sat down again, next to Mrs. Higurashi and did something that he had done more of in the last few days than he had in his entire life, he prayed. To whatever God that would take pity on a pathetic half demon, to please hear him and answer his prayer. Kagome is good and kind. She doesn't deserve something like this. She should be happy and healthy and smiling. Inuyasha winced remembering all the times that he had been responsible for that bright smile leaving her face. I'll do anything you want, I'd be a lowly human forever, I'd even give my own life in exchange, just please, please let her be okay.

Inuyasha continued his speech to the Gods with such earnest that he didn't realize when the doctor had walked up to them. "Higurashi?" the unfamiliar man in a white coat asked.

"Yes…" Mrs. Higurashi answered standing quickly with Inuyasha right behind her.

"Would you please come with me, you can see your daughter now."

He led them down a maze of sterile white hallways until they reached a darkened white-walled room. He stood next to the door and indicated for Inuyasha and Mrs. Higurashi to go in before him.

Inuyasha quietly followed Mrs. Higurashi into the stark white room, accosted by a somehow even more sterile smell and ears attacked with an incessant beeping. He shook his head once in order to clear it and quickly made his way over to Kagome's side. She had lots of weird looking threads connected to metal boxes where the constant beeping was coming from.

"Kagome…" He whispered, reaching out to touch her, but hesitating, afraid that he might harm the pale girl lying before him, her skin all the paler for the stark white sheets that she was placed upon. He settled for placing his hand gently over her own laying delicately on top of the sheets, careful not to hurt her. He sat down next to the bed, zoned in on Kagome's sleeping face and began softly brushing his thumb along her small hand.

A startled cry from Kagome's mother snapped his thoughts away from Kagome for a second, long enough to notice that Mrs. Higurashi was falling towards the floor and Inuyasha jumped up from his chair and caught her before the doctor had even had time to react.

Inuyasha looked down into the kind woman's face and saw that she was still conscious and seemed to be staring at nothing. Then he heard her mumbling, so soft that even he, with his extra sensitive hearing could barely make it out. "Not her…not again…" Over and over again she repeated this phrase.

"What is it?" He asked the man in the white coat, "What did you say?" He gently picked Mrs. Higurashi up and placed her on the arm chair placed in the corner of the private room, then turned around and faced the man who was responsible for Kagome's mother's catatonic state.

The man looked saddened and very tired. His graying hair was falling into his eyes and his slouching body spoke of increasing fatigue. He quietly walked over to the bed that Kagome laid on and looked at the machines connected to her, examining them for any changes.

"That's any mother's reaction to being told that their child could die…"

Anything the man said after that was lost on Inuyasha. His mind isolated that one word 'die' and just kept repeating it, flashing Kagome's image at him and screaming that horrible word.

'NO!' Inuyasha's mind screamed at him. This couldn't be happening. Kagome was brave and strong and kind. She couldn't die!

The doctor had continued talking, though Inuyasha had failed to here a word that he said. "What…" Inuyasha squeezed out in an extremely high pitched voice. He took a deep breath and seemed to regain some control over his vocal chords, "What do you mean she is going to die?"

The man sighed and removed his thin black-framed glasses from his eyes and began to wash them on his coat. "I have diagnosed Kagome with leukemia, stage 3."

"Wait…" Inuyasha interrupted, confused as to what exactly was wrong with Kagome. The word 'leukemia' held no barring for him. "What does that mean?"

"Well," the doctor began with a patient tone, like one who is trying to explain why 2 plus 2 equals 4 to a young child, "It means that Kagome has cancer."

Mrs. Higurashi made a choked sound from her chair in the corner and twisted herself into an odd angle, then she went silent again.

The doctor went on, "Kagome's body is not acting properly and is, in effect, attacking itself. There are treatments, chemotherapy and radiation but it that fails we might need to get her a bone marrow donation from her brother. With Kagome in the state that she is…well, I don't know what will happen."

At this point the doctor turned to the machines again and examined their readings, wrote something down on the chart in front of him while Inuyasha resumed his position at her bedside, once again gently holding her hand, fighting off the tears the were filling his eyes.

Kagome awoke from her deep slumber to a pounding headache. An incessant beeping assaulted her ears and the smell of industrial-grade disinfectant filled her nostrils. Hospital…I'm in a hospital…Inuyasha must have brought me back to the modern era, Kagome thought. Her entire body felt sore and she couldn't find the strength within herself to lift her own head. She felt a weight on her right hand and felt a light gusting of air on her arm. She somehow managed to shift her head down enough to see that Inuyasha had retained his bed-side station even in her own modern time. She smiled until she realized that it made the headache worse, so she simply watched him sleep. His brow was deeply furrowed, which she didn't like, and his body seemed even more tense then when he watched over her and their friends when they more often than not, spent the night in the woods.

He began to shift slightly and Kagome knew that soon he would be waking. But for now all was quiet and despite the pain and exhaustion she was mildly content with the present situation.

Inuyasha shifted again, and moaned slightly, his grip on her weak hand tightening and causing her to wince slightly and the contact. His eyes began to flutter a bit and then blinked themselves open, till he was staring into Kagome's open eyes. For a moment that was all that they did, merely gaze into each other's eyes then Inuyasha was standing and gingerly pulling Kagome into a hug, desperate for the contact with his ill Kagome. Kagome merely leaned into the hug, grateful for the strength and comfort that his arms provided her.

From that point on Kagome began to undergo rigorous chemo and radiation therapy in an attempt to dispel the cancer from her body. Inuyasha soon learned that it was in fact cancer that had taken Kagome's father from them when she was still small, at the time Souta was still a baby, and Kagome's mother now had to stand by and watch another member of her family go through the horrible struggle that a battle against cancer was.

Throughout the treatment Inuyasha only left her time once, while she was in a treatment session Inuyasha went back down the well to tell their friends what was wrong. Miroku shuddered a bit with shock at the news, while Sango gasped out loud, clasping her hand to her face and silent tears began to flow down her face. There was nothing silent about Shippo's tears, he screamed and pounded his little fists against the ground and it was all Inuyasha could do to not succumb to tears as well. Surprising them all, Inuyasha picked the kit up and help Shippo to his shoulder, letting him cry himself to sleep into the fire-rat hoari.

After he made his way back to the modern era, promising to bring their good wishes to Kagome, Inuyasha sat with her everyday, often violating visiting hours but the nurses never asked him to leave, they knew he was going to do no harm.

Inuyasha watched as Kagome got worse, her skin grew paler and sagged off her body and she lost large amounts of weight. The medications caused her to lose almost all appetite and what she did force down could not remain there long. Many times Inuyasha would hold back her hair while Kagome emptied her stomach contents, hair that got thinner everyday.

The first day Kagome woke up and saw tufts of her hair remaining behind her on the pillow, she cried. She didn't consider herself a vain person, and it wasn't her appearance that she was worried about, but rather thought it was a solidifying fact. It was the biggest visual reminder to her that she was sick, she had cancer. Everyone with cancer loses their hair, and now she was officially in that group. She soon decided to have her remaining hair shaved off, "If it's all going to fall out anyway I might as well get it over with." She had said.

Inuyasha comforted her in the only way he knew how, his presence. He couldn't fight off the cancer, though he wanted to. One day when Mrs. Higurashi made him go back to the shrine in order to bathe and change clothes he came back to find Kagome drawing a picture. She looked so small and child-like as he stood in the doorway. His strong Kagome, the girl who never backed down and fought with everything she had for those she loved, was reduced to this heavily weakened form.

With a sigh Inuyasha walked in the now familiar hospital room, "Whatcha doing Kagome?"

Kagome slowly raised her head, most of her actions were slow now, and gave Inuyasha a weak smile, a mere shadow of the one that used to brighten her face, "They brought in a therapist for me today. She told me that I could help with fighting my cancer by visualization." Inuyasha must have shown her a weird look because she gave a strained laugh, "Yea, I thought it was bogus too, but she said that I should picture the cancer cells and all I could think of were these green, radioactive looking blobs. And then she told me to imagine something, some image that makes me feel safe and protected. She said that I need to picture whatever makes me feel safe fitting off the cancer and then she told me to draw a picture of it."

She pushed the paper towards Inuyasha and he grabbed it, though unfinished it was clear what the picture was. An image of him with tetsuiga draw, fighting off the green blobs that Kagome envisioned as her cancer. He smirked a bit and glanced up at Kagome who cheeks held a faint blush, or at least the blush would have been faint had she been healthy but it stood out clearly on her now pale and thin skin. "If I could you know I would Kagome, in a heartbeat."

She smiled, "I know Inuyasha." She was quiet for a moment and then said, "Inuyasha, I want you to promise me something…"

"Anything Kagome." Inuyasha answered instantly.

"Promise me that if I don't make it…"

"You're gonna be fine Kagome. You're gonna get better and well go back to looking for Jewel shards and fighting Naraku…."

"But if I don't…just promise me that you'll be ok, and that you will take care of Shippo, we're the only family he has and he's already lost his once before…just promise me ok…"

Kagome drifted off to sleep as she was so prone to doing now and Inuyasha just stared stunned. He felt tears start to sting at his eyes. He wanted to punch something. He was so helpless, even Kagome was doing something to help fight this cancer, through her image therapy; he just sat there doing nothing. He was actually glad she had fallen asleep before he could answer, because he knew he wouldn't be able to be ok if she was gone. She had taken a life that had been on hold and starting it going again. And not just by awakening him from the spell on the tree, she had fully opened his heart from its cold shell, made him love and care for people other than himself. He could promise about the kit, he would make sure that Shippo would be safe and able to grow to an adult, but he could not promise that he himself would be okay. If Kagome was gone…there was no way he could ever be ok again.

He clenched his fists in the blankets of Kagome's hospital bed. He leaned his head down and felt the tears start to flow. "Please let her get better," he prayed to the gods, "I can't do this. I can't make it without her…" he looked up into her sleeping face, and gently placed his hand against her cheek, "I love her."

He stood up by the head of her bed and gently placed his hand atop her now bald head, and leaned down. With his lips poise just above her forehead he whispered, "I love you Kagome…" and then leaned in the rest of the way to lay his lips to her skin.

XXXXXXXX

I had so many problems with finally writing this chapter that I cannot begin to describe the anger I began to develop for it but I finally got it written and though its not the way I originally wanted it to be I happy with where it ended up, or really that it ended up anywhere at all.

So I thought this would finish the story but it looks like I've got at least one more installment to go. That isn't going to be happening in the next few weeks, I've got finals for college and a bunch of papers to write (which I should be doing now, but no I'm writing fanfiction) so the next bit is going to have to wait a while, but not as long as this bit took…God I hope not, if it takes that long my sister just might kill me.

FUNNY NOTE: I'm typing this in Word, and the spell check keeps wanting to change Shippo to Hippo…I just thought it was funny because Shippo's so little…and hippos…aren't….