Little warning: This chapter has some graphic descriptions of medical gore.

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Embrace the Silence

Chapter 9
The Will to Live

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Of course the first thing Kagome heard from everybody's mouth was, "Where's Sesshou?" when she arrived alone at work the next day. She kept repeating over and over that he had a bad night and needed to catch up on some sleep. The story ended up being repeated ten times, sometimes to the same people.

When Kagome awoke that morning, Sesshoumaru gave her the iciest look since he came out of his long coma. He helped himself to raw chicken from her fridge, managed to bathe unassisted behind a closed door and basically didn't acknowledge her presence at all. She felt like she'd been shoved right back outside the frozen prison surrounding his heart.

She spent the day short-tempered. Even sweet Ken, who never intentionally made a nuisance of himself, grated on her last nerve.

I thought last night would bring us closer. Huh, yeah right, if anything it threw us even further apart. Damn me.

"Kagome?"

"What?"

"Geez!" Akemi held her clipboard up like a shield. Then she flipped her hair, which was now a strange shade of bronze. "Ease up! I'm just letting you know Hakuo's bradying down and his wife is on her way."

"Hakuo, Hakuo...Hakuo Satsuma? Isn't he the four hundred pound call button jockey with coronary disease?"

"Mmhmm, isn't heart failure lovely?"

Kagome's pencil snapped in her hand. Stinging tears welled in the corners of her eyes. "No, it isn't."

"Kagome, I was just joking around with y- "

"Just go away, Akemi...leave me alone."

The next sound was Akemi's angry footsteps stomping down the hallway. Word traveled fast - pretty soon everybody gave Kagome a wide berth. Not that Kagome minded. At least she didn't have to explain her bad mood to every clueless person she passed.

Just when she thought the day would never end, Ishiro arrived to relieve her from her station. Tokyo's balmy night air greeted her with smells of gas fumes and smog. The walk home felt like miles. Then the elevator leading up to her apartment took twenty years to reach her and take her to her floor. She stepped out into the crisp hallway with her keys jingling in her hand.

Her door was ajar.

Oh God, if somebody tried to rob the place...

Images of dismembered human bodies and splattered blood flashed across Kagome's mind as she reached towards her door. Much to her relief the walls and carpet were still clean. Sesshoumaru was spread out on the recliner, dressed in his black samue with light from the TV flickering across his silver hair.

"Your friend went out earlier."

Kagome turned at the voice. It was her neighbor, Shinta. "What?"

"At about three this afternoon..." Old Shinta scratched his gray head and said, "I saw him leave. He came back an hour before you arrived. I just thought you should know, since I know he's not well."

"Yeah, thanks."

The old man just smiled and closed his door.

Turning to her door, Kagome took off her shoes and stepped inside. She closed her door while setting them down in their proper cubbyhole.

"If you wanted to go out, you could've told me."

She could only see the top of Sesshoumaru's head. His elegant crown of silver shifted, arms and legs moving lazily. He'd gone from staring at the wall to staring at the TV.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" she snapped.

Sesshoumaru still didn't respond properly. Kagome stomped over the recliner to stand over him. He looked up at her through puffy, glazed, out-of-focus eyes. Everything about him seemed heavy and sagged, even his ears. A thin line of drool pooled under his chin to darken part of his shirt.

"Oh my God, Sesshoumaru?" Kagome knelt by the chair. Her knee crunched painfully on something hard. She glanced down for the source of discomfort, her eyes coming to rest on an empty green bottle. The strong odor on his breath matched the bottle. "You're drunk!"

"Mm."

"Where did you get this sake?"

His eyelashes fluttered, "Muh...market."

"You walked all the way to the market?"

"Yes."

Her mind flooded with images of Sesshoumaru just walking blithely across busy streets without regard to traffic signals or signs, narrowly missing a collision with several cars and a semi. She just hoped he didn't start drinking until after he got back into her apartment.

"You idiot! That was a two mile hike!"

He ignored the insult. "I'm well aware of the distance."

She shook his shoulders, "Why did you do this?"

"I needed silence," said Sesshoumaru, his voice slurred, "I...needed the voices to be quiet..."

"Voices?" She gave him another shake when he drifted, his head flopping as if his neck lacked muscle tone. "Sesshoumaru? What voices?"

"The past...the dreams...myself." Most of his words ran together. She was amazed he was talking at all. No human she knew could down an entire bottle of sake and still be conscious afterward.

At least he only drank one bottle...I hope...I'll know when I find out how much money he took from my stash.

Then Sesshoumaru's face turned a weird shade of green. Kagome knew that look all too well. Before she could move, he rolled over, made a disgusting gurgling sound and vomited an entire load of gray-brown muck all over the front of her scrubs. He puked with such force she rocked on her feet. The scent of bile wafted unpleasantly towards her nostrils. He gurgled again, sending a second wave splattering across her white socks and the carpet. Some splashed back onto his clothes.

Kagome barely heard him mumble something about being too slow to move. She pulled off her socks and pastel scrubs shirt, exposing the plain T-shirt underneath.

A sigh blew past her pink lips. It was hard to stay angry with him when he looked miserable. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

Sesshoumaru shifted to his side and pushed up like in his first days of therapy. The poor demon couldn't lift his head. Kagome figured he wasn't going to walk so well either. She dragged the dusty wheelchair from the corner, got him into it and pushed him to the bathroom, leaving him just long enough to dab up the puke with a wet paper towel. She almost lost it when she saw a raw chicken heart, still undigested, lying on pieces of bone in the bile puddle. All her work life, Kagome had trouble handling recognizable items in other peoples' vomit. She finished cleaning up and washed her hands thoroughly before rejoining Sesshoumaru.

"This clothing is ruined." Sesshoumaru picked at his sleeves.

"It's okay. It'll wash out." She worked at the ties holding his samue shirt closed. "Let's get this off and I'll run you a bath."

Another gurgle. Kagome got his head over the toilet this time, holding his hair for him while he heaved into the bowl.

"Kagome...why do you bother -" he spat another load of sake-scented ichor, his voice emerging as a moan, "- caring for this shadow of Sesshoumaru?"

"Shadow of - " fresh moisture welled in Kagome's dark eyes. Cupping the back of Sesshoumaru's head, she let her forehead rest against his pointed ear. Its warm skin felt soft on her brow. "You're not a shadow, Sesshoumaru."

"Rin is dead." he said it like he just heard the news. "I never...I never told her she was...that she..."

Kagome stroked his head. "She knew you cared about her. You said yourself she understood the language of silence, so I'm sure your actions let her know."

Sesshoumaru said nothing more. Kagome retreated to run his bath. She only filled it high enough to cover his hips when he sat upright, terrified that he might actually try to drown himself. She pinned his long hair in a bun to keep it dry because, somehow, she doubted he could sit up long enough to have it brushed.

Ten minutes later she had him in the tub and worked at washing his face clean. He shivered as if violently cold even though the water gave off enough steam to fog up the mirror. His chattering teeth echoed off the tile.

Realizing he was in a state that let him say pretty much anything, she decided to ask, "How did you get those scars on your back?"

"Mm...lost my mind to my demon blood...transformed. Don't remember the rest." His speech slurred so bad she barely understood him. "I escaped...scarred...don't make me remember..." the hand dropped into the water with a soft plop. "There is no escape."

Coldness formed in her belly. "Oh, no. How long?"

He shook his head. "Don't make me remember."

Somebody must have done awful things to you.

A hot lump formed in Kagome's throat. Sesshoumaru was truly broken, in body, heart and mind, and she didn't know if she could help him. She actually missed his colder former self. At least then she had some idea of what to expect whenever she addressed him in the past.

"Whoever hurt you is dead now." She rinsed his cheek off. "They can't hurt you anymore and - " her nose twitched, "Did you just pee in the water?"

He startled and looked down at the yellow cloud forming around his hips. His face twisted between groggy and horrified. "That...was not my intention."

Kagome waved a hand, "Don't worry about it," She drained the tub and filled it back to its previous level. "Better in the bath than in your pants, right?"

"You should leave me." He still slurred his words a lot. The alcohol probably wouldn't leave his system until some time in the morning. "Leave a weak demon to die and find a real man...GO!"

"I'm not leaving you to die. I don't care how mad you get. You can't drive me away."

Sesshoumaru growled at her.

"Grrrr-ARRRR yourself."

He turned his face away and closed his eyes.

Kagome drained the tub and wrapped him in a towel to pat him dry. Sesshoumaru made no motions to assist or refuse her actions. She pulled his listless frame from the tub and helped him into a plain gray yukata. Not very fashionable, but it would keep him warm and covered for the night.

"Sleep..."

"Just another minute." Kagome wheeled Sesshoumaru out of the bathroom. Leaving him by the door, she filled a tall glass with water and brought it to him.

"What are you - "

"Alcohol dehydrates you. You're going to feel like crap tomorrow morning, but hopefully not as crappy as you would if I let you go to sleep without giving you something to replenish what you lost. Besides, with a screwed up heart it's not good to get dehydrated. I'm gonna bother you to drink water a couple more times tonight."

"Mmm. If you say so." Sesshoumaru was too blotto to do anything but sip from the glass she held for him. He hardly complained when Kagome let his hair back down and wheeled him into her room.

Kagome decided she'd put Sesshoumaru in her bed for the night. It was less than ten steps away from the bathroom and let her keep a closer eye on him while he slept. She struggled to pull him from the chair and swing him around towards the soft futon. To his credit he did help, bracing himself on the wooden platform and climbing under the covers on his own.

"There." She drew the covers up to his shoulder. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

A lovely white shape sparked to life in Kagome's left eye. It began as a dot and gradually grew more elaborate until she found herself staring through a bright frame of criss-crossed lines. The peripheral vision in her right eye dissolved to boiling "heat waves" that made her nauseous. Her head buzzed as if full of bees crashing against her brain. Then her entire skull rang. She got up to bring a bottle of aspirin into the room and thanked fate for the darkness.

Well, at least this migraine waited until after I got him to bed, Kagome mused darkly, looking down at the waves of silver hair splashed across the comforter.

As soon as her migraine passed she headed out to clean up the living room. Two hours later, she woke Sesshoumaru up to have another glass of water. He drank it and went back to sleep. She retired right after.

The next morning, Kagome awoke to find his side of the bed drenched, a yukata soaking in soap in the bathroom sink and Sesshoumaru sitting in the tub. He claimed he threw up all that water during the night. The smell suggested otherwise.

Kagome pretended to believe his lame excuse in order to spare his dignity, all the while silently kicking herself for not prodding him into the bathroom every few hours. She left Sesshoumaru to take his bath and stripped her bed to air the futon.

I'm so stupid...sitting right beside him and not even hearing it happen. I guess it's better he was asleep, the shame would have killed him.

"Those things I said earlier," the tiles amplified Sesshoumaru's low voice, "about leaving...I - "

"Don't," Kagome leaned on the bathroom doorway. "I know you didn't mean them. You were mad. You were drunk. You have a lot of...if you forgive the bad pun...demons to work out."

He rested his chin on his palm, his red eyelids drooping under the weight of his hangover-headache. His wet bangs stuck up in all different directions. He didn't seem to care. "You danced like a demoness."

"Hm? Oh..." Pink swelled into Kagome's cheeks. She pushed off from the door and sat next to the tub, assuming the same pose as him. Their faces were only inches apart. "Is that how demons...mate? By dancing?"

His lips curled into a mirthless smirk, eyes like amber droplets, "yes. Now I will pose you a question."

"Okay."

"Your scent never changes until your moon flux comes. Are you not fertile?"

Kagome grinned. "In these times, we can take pills that prevent pregnancy. Why? Were you trying to - "

"Don't be foolish. I was curious."

For just a moment, that fleeting moment, he sounded like the demon she knew back in the Feudal Era. The core of his personality was still there beneath the pain and scars surrounding his soul.

Sesshoumaru dropped his hand off his chin and clasped hers, interlocking their fingers. Then he leaned forward, brushed his lips over her parted ones and rested his forehead against hers. "I did enjoy dancing with you. You learn quickly."

Kagome's heart ached, and she wasn't sure whether it was pleasure or pain.

"I took some classes in college. I can tango and waltz." Her dark eyes stared deeply into his gold ones. "But I...I loved it when you tossed your hair. I've never seen you move like that. It was beautiful."

"The hair flick." Sesshoumaru's eyelids fluttered. His eyelashes were so long they almost touched hers. "In ancient times it was meant to frighten other suitors away. Now it's just an ornamental means to excite a woman."

"It worked." She chuckled at that, "And you have gorgeous hair. That gives you every right to show it off."

Sesshoumaru squeezed her hand and let go, his face deadpan. "This 'gorgeous hair' needs to be washed."

Laughing, Kagome picked up the shampoo. Sesshoumaru eased up onto his knees to give her full access to his glorious mane. He braced himself against the wall while she worked up a lather. The water beaded up on his alabaster skin like sequins on fine silk.

"There's one thing about you that's really been making me curious," she covered his eyes out of sheer habit and turned on the shower head to rinse his hair.

"Yes?"

"Your moon..."

"Oh, that." He sounded amused, "The mark of the firstborn. I was born under the third phase of the moon, so shortly after my birth the marking was tattooed into my brow. It was a very painful process...in order to mark my brow, the fur had to be plucked."

Kagome winced at that, her fingers seeking the mark they spoke about. Naturally she couldn't feel it. Like any tattoo the coloring was deep under the skin.

"Father was the youngest of two children, so he didn't have a marking. I know not of what happened his elder brother. But I recall my mother having the same mark as myself, as she was born under the third phase of the moon as well." His head tilted suddenly, "Finish washing my hair before my fingers wrinkle."

Blinking, she remembered herself and quickly shampooed the length of his hair, spraying it gently to rinse. "Sorry...if you get wrinkled, I'll put that rosewater lotion on for you to stop the dry skin."

Sesshoumaru just shook himself and climbed out of the tub. Water splashed everywhere. He calmly walked over to the toilet, knelt and barfed his demonic brains out. Kagome wrinkled her nose at the gurgling sounds and gently wrapped a towel around his shoulders to keep him warm.

"You all right?" She rubbed his back.

He just looked at her like 'you tell me'. "Human alcohol does not agree with me."

"Let's hope you remember that the next time you ponder getting wasted." She poured some mouthwash into its own lid, handed it to him and waited while he swished his mouth out. Fortunately, he spat the green liquid into the toilet instead of swallowing it.

"I knew exactly what would happen when I consumed that liquor. I chose to take the consequences as they came." His body stiffened as a wave of fruitless retching closed his throat. He let his cheek rest against the toilet seat and closed his eyes, lips barely moving when he whispered, "Kagome, attend to me so that I may sleep."

So much for having a moment. Kagome sighed. Sesshoumaru's abrupt changes from almost kind to demanding were still difficult to deal with. Sometimes she wondered if he knew any other way to ask for her assistance.

"Can you sit up?"

A few moments later found Kagome brushing Sesshoumaru's hair dry and dressing him in a clean brown yukata. The demon climbed into his own bed soon after, offering only a quick look as thanks.

He was snoring when she left for work and puking in the toilet when she came home. This went on for three days; the only things he could keep down were soup broth and grape-flavored Gatorade. Kagome only offered food when he requested it. On the fourth day he ate sushi on rice and drank orange juice without a single retch.

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"Car-di-ologist?"

"Right."

Sesshoumaru peered ahead at the poster on the metal door, which showed labeled images of the heart. He sat perched on the exam table with the sonogram machine on his right. On his left was a tray containing gloves, metal EKG cups and a tube of gel. Everything in the room looked pristine, white and clean.

"And this machine uses sound waves to peer at my heart?" asked the confused demon lord.

Kagome tilted her head with a smile. "Hey, you've been reading my old text books, haven't you?"

He smirked in silent reply. "As long as the tests don't involve shoving me back into that strange tube."

"Oh, no, you don't have to get an MRI again." Kagome shuddered at the thought. Sesshoumaru and tight places didn't mesh. "You'll like Doctor B. He's just about as patient as Yakamoto."

"Doctor B?"

"Oh! Sorry...his full name is Wagura Bessho." she grinned, "But he works with kids too so everybody just calls him Doctor B. He's seen more hearts than any doctor I ever met. I trust him. So, nervous?"

He snorted derisively and fixed his amber eyes back on the heart chart.

Ten minutes later the door swung open and Doctor B strolled in. He was a a short man of four foot eleven with almond-shaped brown eyes and sleek, thinning hair combed neatly back out of his round face. Under his white coat he wore a blue shirt and a pale red tie embroidered with pictures of Mickey Mouse. His stethoscope had a plastic Mickey strung between the ear pieces.

Doctor B bowed profusely and chattered, "Hello! Sorry I'm late! We had a little confusion over an appointment. Hello, Kagome! So this is Mr. Maru?"

"Sesshou." Sesshoumaru corrected brusquely, although he clearly didn't like his shortened "first name" much.

"Sesshou, right, sooooo I see you're our latest Sleeping Beauty. That was quite a nap you had, wasn't it? Oh, love the gold contacts, by the way. Cool tats, too. Kids and the goth scene, heh, heh! Cat eyes?"

"Dog." Sesshoumaru cut in.

"Right, right...what's an old fart like me know, right? So, how did you get your ears to look so pointy like-"

"Hn." The demon lord visibly struggled to remain calm. "Doctor, if you please, I would like to get this examination over with."

Kagome and Doctor B exchanged amused looks. Then Doctor B clicked his pen and started writing on his chart. "Okay, I can see you're the type who likes to get right down to business. So you've been having valve trouble, I hear...mmhmm," he lifted a few pages to read the copied notes, nodded once and shrugged into his stethoscope. "I'm just gonna have a listen."

Sesshoumaru unbuttoned his brown shirt and stared straight ahead while the doctor listened to his chest.

"Inhale slowly," said Doctor B.

Sesshoumaru inhaled and turned his gaze lazily to Kagome, looking mighty annoyed.

"And out, slowly. Good, good, breathe like that until I say otherwise." Dr. B moved the stethoscope around Sesshoumaru's sternum, using both the diaphragm and bell to pick out different heart sounds. His round face assumed a look of utter concentration. "Mm, nice job. Lie down please."

The paper on the table crackled. Sesshoumaru's eyes now stared a hole through the neon light in the ceiling. He ignored the stethoscope completely. A moment later he was instructed to lie on his left side. Then the doctor asked him to squat, stand up straight and then lay on his right side. His blood pressure and pulse were taken. The tests became tedious, but Sesshoumaru tolerated each one with an expressionless face.

Doctor B frowned, wrote something on his chart and turned to Kagome. "It's gone up to a stage three murmur with a big mid-systolic click."

Kagome's heart sank. She let a sigh pass her parted lips. I caused this...I hurt him by loving him.

"Stage three murmur, you say?" Asked Sesshoumaru boredly from his supine position. "So it has worsened."

"'fraid so," replied Doctor B. Putting on his gloves, he attached the metal EKG electrodes to Sesshoumaru's chest and reached for the white gel tube on the tray. "Well, let's take a look-see and see what's up with this MV, shall we? This might be a little cold at first." And with a splat he squeezed a zig-zag of clear jelly across Sesshoumaru's pecs. "Just look at the screen here and you'll see your ticker."

Kagome eased in next to the table on the side opposite to the sonogram machine. Doctor B sat down on a stool and reached for the transducer. He rubbed it back and forth on Sesshoumaru's chest to spread out the gel, flicked on the machine and started recording.

At first it just showed a moving gray mass. When Doctor B's hand moved upwards the mass suddenly split into four distinct, pulsating blobs of blackness outlined in shades of gray and white. He tapped a few keys below the screen and more detail came in. It went from a blob to a near-perfect image of Sesshoumaru's beating heart. Kagome easily made out the winking movements of all four valves. His tricuspid valve, which was normal, closed into a tiny straight line.

"Amazing," Sesshoumaru stared with wide eyes. As soon as he spoke the image blurred a little.

"Ain't it?" He shifted the transducer for an even clearer image and grinned. "Hey, did you know your heart is almost dead center in your chest? Pretty wild, most hearts tilt to the left. Don't worry, it's just a variation in how you're built."

"Hn."

"This is cool. Okay, quiet please." Doctor B moved the transducer device to the upper left a bit, tilted it and zoomed in for a better view of the mitral valve. It didn't form a straight little line. One side tilted up slightly, as if the valve wasn't even closing all the way. Doctor B asked Sesshoumaru to cough, which agitated his heart into beating faster for a few beats. The tiny line broke even further.

"So it gets nasty with sudden exertion. Mm...heart walls are thin too, but I think that's from the starving and it'll improve once we figure out how to deal with this goofy valve." Clicking another button, Doctor B activated the sonar. Blood moving towards the transducer appeared blue while blood moving away appeared red. Then he slid the device up slightly towards Sesshoumaru's collarbone and tilted it at an angle. A huge blue jet filled the screen, faded into red and disappeared. Doctor B held his position and watched the blue jet repeat itself.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and licked his lips. His heart beat faster on the sonogram screen. Kagome pressed a light hand to his shoulder and squeezed, trying to bring him some kind of comfort.

"That's some nasty regurgitation." Doctor B shifted the transducer and watched the screen from several angles. Then he turned off the equipment and handed Sesshoumaru a tissue to wipe the goop off his chest. "I'm amazed you're not on the ground gasping for breath right now. I'm going to be honest with you, Sesshou. If we don't do something soon, this thing is going put you in heart failure. You're already hanging on the edge. It's not a matter of if anymore, it's when."

The demon asked, "What exactly is heart failure?"

Kagome accepted the tissue Sesshoumaru somewhat rudely shoved in her face. At first she thought she'd be asking all the questions, but Sesshoumaru seemed to be handling it fine on his own. She half-listened while Doctor B explained, "It's when your heart doesn't pump as well as it should. Instead of roaring along like a Harley, it just kind of put-puts like a motor scooter. Or..." he raised a brow at the blank look Sesshoumaru gave him. "Uh...let's just say it will lead to death pretty fast if you don't stop it before it establishes itself. But I can stop that lickety-split with a new valve. You're a great candidate for a mechanical valve."

"So I need surgery." Sesshoumaru leaned forward to look the cardiologist dead in the eye. When he spoke, his voice carried deadly seriousness, "What kind of life will I live after this surgery? Will I be able to exert myself without fear of fainting or losing my breath?"

"Oh, sure! There's no reason why you can't! Hey...if you want a secret...I have an artificial mitral myself! A lovely little Saint Jude bileaflet...and I'm healthy as a horse! And you know what?" Doctor B smiled and fiddled with his Mickey Mouse tie, "With your naturally thin blood, I don't even think you'll have to take anticoagulants like most people."

He isn't 'most people'. Kagome mused.

Gold eyes turned to Kagome, a smile hidden somewhere in their depths. "If it means returning to full health, I'll do it."

"Cool. I'll have to call a few meetings together and discuss this in more detail. But if this works out, I'll even do the operation myself."

"Will Kagome be allowed to assist you?" Sesshoumaru's face was so serious it almost hurt. It also sounded strange, hearing him say her name. "She and I discussed the possibility of surgery, and she said she would be near me."

Doctor B raised a bushy eyebrow. He looked from Kagome to Sesshoumaru, blinked and smiled, "I'll see if I can get her signed on. My assistants might let her stay when they open you up and then boot her, but I know she'll be in the room with you for some of it."

"Good." Sesshoumaru's businesslike tone continued, "When will this take place?"

"I'll have a consult with you tomorrow and then run this by the board. You'll get a call when I know for sure." He clicked his pen, saying, "Until then, I want you to take it easy. No strenuous exercise, no sexual activity. Walking around is okay, in fact I recommend it. I want to see you back here right away if you have trouble breathing or your legs start to swell, that'll mean heart failure."

A grave nod followed by a smirk. For Sesshoumaru, strenuous activity meant fighting a battle. Running did no harm to him - he ran on treadmills just fine. But sex...that raised his pulse rate.

"Ah, thanks for dropping by. Gotta go, dozens of patients, so little time. Kagome, you have my cell if there's an emergency."

Kagome waved to the man, "Thanks a lot, Doctor B!"

Doctor B grinned and swept out. "Hey, Tai! What do you get when you cross a Bulldog with a Shi Tzu?" and the sound of a technician laughing echoed in the hall.

"That doctor is a very odd human." said Sesshoumaru after a brief silence. His fingers worked at the buttons on his shirt, and she realized his fine motor skills were almost completely back to what they were before his long coma. The shirt he wore just so happened to be the first shirt he picked out and bought all by himself. As usual it had long sleeves. He finished buttoning the shirt and turned his head. One lapel on the collar was folded in the wrong direction.

"There's plenty more weirder than that." Kagome eased her sweater back on and fixed his collar, "C'mon, let's get you home."

"By the way..." he peered at her, "what is a Saint Jude?"

"Um, I'll show you later."

"Of course." He ignored all stares directed his way. A few girls giggled and pointed as he passed. "And there is something I would like you to do."

Kagome blinked a few times. Had she heard right? Sesshoumaru rarely ever requested anything, usually he told her what to do and expected her to comply. She peered curiously at his face, "yeah?"

"Show me this world." He met her eyes, "All I have seen are medical facilities, the market and your home. If this is the world I am to live in, I must learn more, and your television is a poor teacher."

Laughter bubbled in Kagome's throat. She'd forgotten about that! All this time spent worrying about his health and she hadn't made a single offer to help him adjust to his new life. She couldn't imagine how cooped up, stuffy and lost he must have felt while being poked, prodded, manipulated and examined. Especially since it all happened with instruments he never saw or heard of.

"I'll tell you what..." Kagome pulled out her checkbook to observe her funds. She had some savings built up. A little downtime seemed in order. "I'm off this weekend. Saturday morning we'll get up early and I'll take you somewhere fun. How's that sound?" A hopeful smile curled her lips.

"That will suffice for now," the demon answered softly.

"Good." She pushed the exit door open and stepped out into the sunlight.

That evening, Kagome showed Sesshoumaru how to operate her computer and introduced him to the internet. Seeing him sitting there, moving the mouse and typing (hunt and peck) was strange at first. But once she explained everything he was set. Yahoo couldn't keep up with his hunger for knowledge.

He was still at the computer when she woke up at three in the morning to use the bathroom. The square of light from the monitor bathed the room in a soft glow. He was watching a Quicktime video of surgeons performing a mitral valve replacement procedure. The very same surgery he would soon undergo.

"I didn't know someone would pour ice over my heart to stop it."

Kagome yawned. "It cools and preserves the tissue. If someone goes under a frozen lake they'll live longer than someone who sinks in the ocean. Same thing here. Doctor B doesn't like using chemicals around hearts if he can help it. He also doesn't like going in through the middle of the chest. He'll probably work from your left or right side. Less visible scarring and no damage to your sternum."

"Hn."

Sesshoumaru watched the screen again. A scalpel cut away the pericardial sac surrounding the heart, spread it open like old gift wrap, then cut expertly into the heart itself. The same scalpel sliced right into the left atrium and another instrument reached in to retract it. Suction tubing came in to clean out leftover blood clots. Then the view changed to stare straight down at the diseased mitral valve, which looked like a pouty grayish-white mouth sticking its bottom lip out.

Kagome gazed at the operation as well. Live open hearts always reminded her of slimy pizza toppings covered in too much sauce. She looked over at Sesshoumaru to see if any of this had an effect on him. His expression remained deadpan, though he licked his lips now and then.

Don't tell me he finds this appetizing, she thought to herself, turning her attention back to the screen.

Simple sutures and pledgets were placed carefully around the remaining annulus tissue. Each "upswing" of the needle placed a stitch in the cloth ring surrounding the mechanical valve. Then the surgeon slid the new Saint Jude valve down into the opening, tied off his threads and snipped the loose ends with scissors.

The Saint Jude valve was a simple device. It consisted of a white sewing cuff surrounding a metal ring. The silver-black leaflets were like double doors with the hinge in the middle instead of on opposite sides.

"Your medical technology is amazing." Sesshoumaru kept on watching until the surgeons restarted the patients heart. Then he cut the feed and resumed surfing the site for info on the Saint Jude valve. He ended up accidentally pulling up a Medtronic Hall valve, which utilized a tilting disk on a curved guide strut instead of bileaflets.

"Perhaps this one is a better design than the Saint Jude. Less blood turbulence." He glanced at her.

"Ooh, somebody's been reading." She eyed the artificial valve on the screen. "Actually the bileaflets are better than tilting disks. They might create more turbulence, but they're more reliable. Disks can come off their struts, but leaflets stay put pretty good."

"If you say so."

"I know so." Kagome moaned when she saw the time. "Go to bed."

Sesshoumaru glared at her, his eyes lit by a weird blue sheen from the computer screen, "I will determine when I need sleep."

"Mm, whatever." She padded back to settle under the covers.

The next morning, Kagome took Sesshoumaru to Doctor B's slightly messy office for a surgical consultation. Doctor B believed he was a perfect candidate for a mechanical valve. Now it was just a matter of getting him approved for the procedure. Kagome hoped the review board wouldn't be stingy.

"We could give you a porcine valve, but that'd have you coming back every ten years to have it replaced. I hope they don't toss one of those at you. They suck for younger patients like yourself, but older people tolerate them better."

"Every ten years?" Sesshoumaru fixed his golden eyes on Doctor B's round face, "That is not an option."

"I know," Doctor B glanced at Kagome, smiled and winked. His attention returned to Sesshoumaru's serious expression. "It is possible you'll have to take anticoagulants so your blood won't goop up against this thing after it's in. But your blood tests have shown you have thin blood already, so anticoagulants may not be necessary for you. You're one lucky guy if that's the case."

"You're going to be cutting me open." the demon lord glared, "That does not make me feel very...lucky."

"Sesshou," Kagome interrupted, "He's kidding."

Gilded eyes silenced her. "I know that time is an issue. How long can I live without this operation? How long will I have to wait?"

Kagome waited in silence, mentally prepared to double the time of whatever Doctor B said.

"Well," Doctor B ran a hand over his slicked back hair, scratching at the few gray streaks creeping along his hairline. "I won't lie to you...at the longest I'd give you a month or two before your heart fails completely. I'm utterly amazed you're not swollen up like a balloon and gasping for breath right now."

"I don't want to live like this."

Kagome chewed her bottom lip. Those simple words struck a chord in her. She gazed across the room at the many photographs pinned up on the wall, each one a photo of someone whose heart Doctor B operated on. There were hundreds. All ages, shapes and sizes. She smiled slightly and focused on one blank spot where she hoped to find Sesshoumaru's picture the next time she entered this office.

"...and this is the little darling we'll be placing inside you." the doctor's voice was saying. Kagome glanced over to see him place a Saint Jude valve, which was about the size of an American dime, on Sesshoumaru's palm.

Sesshoumaru took an inconspicuous sniff of the material, then placed it on his other hand, grasped it in two fingers and turned it over, causing the metal leaflets to fall open.

And to think...a few months ago he couldn't even hold his head up.

"Interesting." He looked at the glass case beside Doctor B's desk. "And what is that?"

"This?" Doctor B pointed to a mechanical valve that consisted of a ring and a metal cage with a ball inside. "Ahh, the Starr-Edwards, the first ever mechanical heart valve. If nobody invented this baby, you wouldn't be holding what's in your hand right now." He gestured to a dozen other valves inside the display case - tilting disks, ball-cages, disk-cages and several bileaflets. "Over the course of my career, I've probably implanted at least one model of these in somebody."

Sesshoumaru placed the Saint Jude valve back on the desktop. The leaflets fell shut with a soft clank. He peered at it for a long time, his face a mask of pensiveness. "With this...I will survive indefinitely?"

"You will if you don't get hit by lightning or run over by a truck after it's implanted."

A smirk curled Sesshoumaru's lips.

Kagome started to wonder if she even needed to be there. She sat there utterly amazed at how well Sesshoumaru was handling the whole situation. He'd most definitely gone through all of her medical books and done reading online. Earlier that morning she checked her computer and discovered he'd watched videos of several surgeries. Bowel resections, gastric bypass, coronary bypass, heart transplants, brain surgery and amputations.

The only one that made him raise a brow was the radical cystoprostatectomy and penectomy. A procedure where surgeons removed the bladder, prostate and penis, then connected the ureters to a grafted piece of small intestine that acted as a conduit leading outside the body.

"Kagome?" Sesshoumaru's low voice cut in.

She blinked, "Sorry?"

"What do you think of this?"

Kagome noticed both were peering expectantly at her. Heat circulated into her cheeks. "It's up to you, Sesshou. I'll support whatever decision you make."

"I will undergo this procedure." Sesshoumaru stated it like an order.

"Okay, then," Doctor B typed something into his computer. "That's it. I'll try to put a rush in, so you'll probably get a call next week when I find out what the board says. I'm sure they'll okay it." he grinned at the demon lord, "Good luck."

Sesshoumaru stood and left the office without a word of farewell or thanks. Kagome apologized on his behalf before rushing to follow him. Doctor B had to be worried if he wanted to rush this surgery without even a transesophageal echo. She gazed up at Sesshoumaru's impassive face once they reached the waiting room.

"Are you mad?"

He looked down. "No. I'm tired of this weakness. I look forward to conquering it, though I loathe what I must do in order to achieve my goal."

"Right. The whole human aid thing."

"Yes."

"Time changes things."

Sesshoumaru's eyes burned through her. "It does, and far too much."

"Sessh-"

"No more words."

o0o END OF CHAPTER o0o

-Glossary-

Annulus - the ring-like structure on a heart valve where the valve leaflets are anchored.

Call Button Jockey - slang for an annoying patient that uses call button all night long for no good reason.

Coronary disease - hardening and/or blockage of the blood vessels on the surface heart.

Pledgets - small pieces of biocompatible material that are used as buttresses under sutures when there is a possibility of sutures tearing through tissue.

Porcine valve - the heart valves of animals, like pigs, which undergo several chemical procedures in order to make them suitable for implantation in the human heart.

Transducer - the device that emits sound waves which are translated to images on a sonogram machine.

Transesophageal echocardiogram - an echo taken with a transducer probe inserted into the esophagus(food pipe). This allows a doctor to see structures of the heart not visible through a normal echocardiogram.