Author's Note: (I spelled it out this time! n.n)

Okay, this chapter might be a bit a weird. Ironically, this is because I wrote most of it while being sleep deprived myself. I'm trying not to pass out over my key board as I type. xD Thing is, I'm really trying to get this all finished up before Monday, because that's when I'm starting my Nano project, whether this story is done or not. And I'd rather get this done first; one less thing to worry about.

I don't think it's gonna happen though. D: It'll take more than one day to finish it...guh. SOrries. I'm trying, but you know...

Okay, no more talking. I'm done now. Read this chapter, be happy, enjoy life. Have a nice day!

Ish Going To Bed Now (Thank God),

Zzzzz...Zana


XII.

No. He couldn't be. It wasn't true.

He couldn't be dead.

Kagome's heart was beating wildly, threatening to beat right out of her chest and she suddenly felt her legs go weak, causing her to sag against the cell wall for support as she stared inside it.

Inuyasha would always wait for her right by the glass, every night without fail. But not tonight. No half-smile or rolling eyes or snide comments greeted her this time when she made her way to his cell. He always knew when she was coming; he could smell her. But tonight, she was greeted only with a heavy silence.

She knew immediately that something was wrong. Pressing her face to the glass, she peered into his cell and her eyes fell upon a stiff, still figure laying on the bed in the corner, a white sheet draped over it. Her heart skipped a beat and her mind automatically assumed the worst.

"Oh my god..." The vision before her blurred as tears welled in her eyes. "In..Inuyasha..."

"What?"

Kagome jerked her head up with a start and she stared with wide eyes as Inuyasha sat up in his cot, the bed sheet falling off his face, which looked mildly annoyed. But when he turned and saw who it was, his face split into a sleepy smile.

"Oh," he said, looking at her through half-lidded eyes. "Hey Kagome."

"You...you're alive?" she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Inuyasha blinked at her. "I better be. Hey..." he squinted his eyes at her. "What's wrong? What are you crying about this time?"

Kagome wiped furiously at her eyes and yelled, "You're such a jerk! Why would you scare me like that? It's not funny!"

"What the hell are you talking about? I wasn't trying to scare anyone," he grumbled. "Geez, can't a guy get some shut eye around here without crazy girls yelling at them for no reason?"

Inside, she swelled with relief that he was okay. Maybe she had jumped to conclusions. She realized now that it had been a rather silly idea and that if she had stopped to think it over beforehand, she would have seen this and saved herself the heart-stopping panic. Even so, she still intended to take her mistake out on Inuyasha. It was still his fault, in her opinion, that made her all worried in the first place.

"What kind of idiot sleeps with a blanket over his head?" she shouted angerily and making a very good point in her defense.

"The light was getting in my face," he told her. "I can't sleep like that."

"And since when do you...sleep..." Kagome's voice trailed off as she finally stopped yelling and got a good look at Inuyasha. Something strange was going on here. The first thing she noticed, right off the bat, was that something was missing...his dog ears weren't there. Instead, two normal, human ears took their place on the side of his head.

After she spotted this oddity, everything else that was different became clearly obvious. He had squinted at her–normally, Inuyasha's eye sight was perfect, and he could even see in the dark. Kagome figured that he hadn't smelled her coming either, which would explained why he hadn't expected her. And his hair...it was no longer silver, but the very same dark black as her own. And if she had been a little closer to him, Kagome would have also seen that his teeth and nails were not as sharp as usually were.

"What did they do to you?" she asked him in hushed tones.

Inuyasha wasn't sure what she was talking about until he noticed the strange stare she was giving him, as if he had sprouted wings from his nostrils or something. He absently grabbed a strand of hair in between his fingers and pulled it in front of his face, looking at the black locks with disdain."Oh, yeah, this," he said, as if he had just remembered. "No one did this to me; it happens on its own. Once every month. It's because of my human blood or something."

"Oh." That's right, she thought, Inuyasha is a halfling. Although Kagome hadn't known halflings changed like that. When it really came down to it, she didn't know much about halflings or demons at all. And before she came to the Facility, she had barely even seen more than a few demons throughout her entire life. It made her feel strange that there was so much she didn't know, as if a huge chunk of reality had been kept secret from her.

So. This was what Inuyasha looked as a human. It was an interesting sight, but the thing that Kagome found the strangest wasn't his normal ears or black hair, but tiredness shown on his face and the fact that she had discovered him sleeping on his cot for once. From what she knew, Inuyasha was mostly nocturnal, and only slept in brief, separated periods during the day. She wasn't sure why, but he obviously loathed sleeping and was good at avoiding it. He had never looked tired to her before, but tonight he was positively exhausted and was struggling just to keep his eyes open.

After a little thought, Kagome had deduced why. "They've been keeping you busy today, right, because you're in your human form?"

"Yup," he said, stifling a yawn. "Been going through tests since early this morning. Drew some blood, ran an obstacle course, did a couple simulations, had a physical evaluation, then a mental evaluation..." he ticked them off on his fingers and stopped when he promptly ran out. "Lots of shit," he said bluntly. "They always get so fucking excited, 'cos it happens just once a month, you know? And they just gotta compare and contrast my fucking human form to my normal form, even though they've done it a gazillion fucking times in the last seven fucking years and the results are always the fucking same: my human form is weaker. Well, no fucking duh!"

Yes, he was most definitely tired, Kagome decided. For one thing, he just dropped the F-bomb about a half a dozen times in just three sentences. Not that Inuyasha never cussed, because he did, and often. But not every other word. And there was the fact that he was now sitting up in his bed, looking slowly about the cell with dazed expression on his face, as if he wasn't exactly sure where he was or what he had just been doing, but could possibly remember if he kept his eyes open for long enough.

"Bunch of dumbasses..." he eventually mumbled to himself, but Kagome wasn't quite sure if he was talking about the Facility people or someone else. He turned and looked at her again and mumbled, "Oh, hey Kagome."

She smiled and shook her head. "Okay, you obviously need to get some sleep. I should probably go so you can rest."

"No, wait," he said, untangling himself from his blanket and getting up off the bed. "Don't go. I slept enough before you got here. See? I'm wide a-waaaaahh-ke now."

"No you're not," she said. "You just yawned."

"That's just because of a oxygen of lack," he tried, but obviously it proved Kagome's point more than his.

"Go back to bed. You look about ready to fall over."

"M'not tired," he said stubbornly. He did, however, slump back onto his cot despite his efforts. Kagome bit back a laugh; Inuyasha reminded her a lot of her little brother whenever he attempted to stay up past is bedtime. It was flattering, she supposed, that he wanted to stay up so he could talk to her, but he couldn't even keep his eyes open.

"Please go to sleep."

"Can't see you if I sleep," he protested, but he laid back down on his cot and pulled up the thin covers. His half-lidded eyes didn't leave her though.

"I'll come back," she said. "It's no big deal. We can see each other another time."

"But what if we can't?" he mumbled, his voice barely audible as the Sandman crept upon him. "What if this is it? Something bad'll happen, ya know. Sooner or later..."

"Don't be such a pessimist!" she scolded, not liking the unpleasant turn their conversation had taken. She didn't like hearing her worries voiced, especially by someone other than herself. "Just close your eyes and go to sleep, Inuyasha."

"Sleep. Feh. What a waste of time. I don't need no sleep."

"Inuyasha," she said, in a motherly warning tone.

"M'not tired," he said one more time.

Then his eyes finally closed, and he fell asleep.

XIII.

She had stayed by his cell and watched him sleep for a few minutes, as her earlier fright was still lingering in her mind. But he was fine and she needed to go. Kagome definitely did not want to spend the night in lock-down without Inuyasha to talk to and watch over her. So she whispered good night, and he quietly snored in reply.

She walked softly down the now familiar hallway. Usually, she kept to the middle, so she would see less of the insides of the passing cells. But tonight, as she was lost in her thoughts and not paying attention, she veered off slightly towards the left. Kagome didn't even realize that she was walking alongside a row of cells until a tiny voice called out to her.

"Mama?"

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to the face the nearest cell, from which the voice had came. Inside, a little kitsune boy stood in the middle of the floor and stared up at her.

Kagome felt a stab of pain in her heart as she looked back down at him. He was so young–just a little kid! But there he was, locked inside a glass cell, wearing a grey uniform similar to Inuyasha's, except his must have had a hole in the back for his bushy fox tail. He was little kid, yes, but a demon, and that's what counted in here. He was so young and so small, but they didn't care. He was still a prisoner. Kagome felt her eyes well up again.

It wasn't fair.

"Where's mama and papa?" the little kit asked. He looked at her curiously, but Kagome noticed that he also seemed only half-awake, and she remembered what Inuyasha had told her about the Facility staff giving most of the subjects sedatives at night. Or maybe he had had a "busy day" like Inuyasha had, and was simply tired. Either way, the kid wasn't entirely awake. When Kagome didn't answer him, he asked, "Who are you?"

She lowered herself so that they were eye level. "I'm Kagome," she told him, fighting back tears. "W-what's your name?"

"Shippo," he mumbled, and then yawned. "Are you making me go somewhere?" he asked.

Not entirely sure what he was talking about, Kagome told him no.

"Oh, that's good," he told her with a groggy smile. "That means it's still night and I'm still sleeping then. I like the nighttime. Although I kinda wish it were morning, 'cos then it be breakfast time."

"Are you hungry?" she asked uncertainly. It was awkward trying to have a conversion with people who were only half-awake, and it was especially hard with Shippo, who seemed to think that he was still asleep to begin with. Kagome, with no other idea of what to do, reached into her ever-present bag and dug out a wrapped chocolate malted milk ball that she had put in there earlier for a snack. Tossing the wrapper back in her bag, she got up and stood in front of Shippo's cell door, where the only opening was.

"Here," she said, and dropped the small chocolate ball into his hands. He looked at it strangely through glassy, half-open eyes.

"What is it?" he inquired, rolling it in his fingers.

"You eat it," Kagome explained, slightly dumbfounded by the question. "Haven't you ever had candy before?"

"Candy?" he echoed thoughtfully. "I think mama gave me a candy once. But that was a long time ago..." Without further concern, he popped the chocolate into his mouth and chewed. For a brief moment, his eyes widened and looked slightly more awake as a delighted smile spread across his face. He beamed up at Kagome. "Hey, that was good. Wow. I wish I had dreams like this more often."

"Dreams?" Kagome said, with a slight frown.

Shippo returned to his lethargic state. "Yeah," he muttered. "I am dreaming, right? I gotta be, 'cos they haven't taken me anywhere. 'Cos it's night. And if it's night, then I'm sleeping. Besides, good things only happen in your dreams. And you're a human, right?"

"Yeah, but...what do you mean by that?

"Well, that just proves I'm a dreaming," he explained conversationally. "'Cos you're too nice, and when you're not dreaming, humans aren't nice like that."

Kagome didn't know what to say. She stood silently and didn't bother fighting back her tears. Shippo, oblivious to his own semi-consciousness, curled up on the ground and closed his eyes, looking peaceful.

"I like this dream, mama," he sighed happily before going back to sleep.

Kagome's mind was still a dreadful blank and the soft, quiet tears ran down her face without sign of stopping. She didn't know how long she stood there like that. She didn't even seem aware of the time until her palm-com started vibrating madly in her bad, alerting her that it was almost one o'clock and nearing the start of the lock-down.

With one last glance at the sleeping kitsune, Kagome turned and fled.


(Q&A)

Tiffany, one of the reviewers, asked: What kind of tests do they put Inuyasha through?

The answer, Tiffany: Really hard ones! Let's take a look-see...

Scientist: Here's the test. It's mutliple choice. Remember to fill in the bubbles completely...

Inuyasha: "In what year did the French Revolution begin?" Feh, that's an easy one. -marks A- Okay, "Which biome covers the largest surface area?" Umm, I think that's B. Hmm.

"Which of he following postulates confirms that segment AB is congruent to segment CD?" Damn, I always forget my postulates...uh, let's go with D.

Some ten hours later...

Inuyasha: Here! I finished!

Scientist: Well, what a surprise! It looks like you got all of the answers correct!

Inuyasha: Really? HOT DOG!

Scientist: However, you used a pen on your scantron sheet instead of a number two pencil, so you get a BIG FAT ZERO. You fail the quarter.

Inuyasha: NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

Oh, wait, nevermind. It appears I have somehow gotten the Facility mixed up with school. Oh well, there's not much of a difference! xD