by Sarah Pearson
Whew, sorry this took so long!! For some reason this filler part took me forever; I hadn't really expected it to be so long, let alone a chapter in itself!! The next part should be easier, at least the second half of the next part. :) Between FF.net being down, my internet connection being beyond screwy, and my having way too many things on my plate as it is this part took longer than I'd planned and I'm sorry. Anyway, here it is in all its wondeful goodness...or at least I hope it's goodness. *g*
2
"Hey, I think she's coming around!"
"Oho, you're right. See boy, the Chant of the Cerulean Mystics works every time. This should teach you not to look down on ancient traditions!"
"Jiji, all your 'sacred' chant has done is annoy those around us. Although, that costume has made quite a few people laugh."
"Harumph. Kids today."
"Ojiisan, Souta, hush! She's waking up, I don't want it to be with you two bickering."
Kagome moaned softly and shifted slightly beneath the covers. She tried to open her eyes but it seemed difficult, as if her eyelids were heavier than they should be. Forcing them apart, she blinked and focussed on the shapes beside her bed, easily identifying each. "Souta, jii-chan," she murmured, trying to focus her eyes more. Turning her head to the other side, she saw her mother standing stiffly beside her bed. She had a look on her face that was both expectant and fearful, one that Kagome didn't understand. Trying to alleviate any worries, Kagome attempted a small smile. "Hi mama."
Mrs. Higurashi let out a sob and threw her arms around her eldest daughter. "Oh Kagome," she sobbed on her daughter's shoulder, "we were all so worried about you, so very worried. When you didn't wake up..."
Kagome brought her arm up to embrace her mother back, and only then noticed the IV and tubes connected to it. A slow, steady beeping could be heard somewhere behind her and the steady sounds from outside the room began to come through. "Mama," she whispered, staring at her arm and slowly becoming more aware, "what happened to me? Why am I all hooked up like this?"
*
"She looks as good as can be expected," the doctor announced, sitting up and putting his stethoscope back around his neck. "Better even. She's fully lucid, certainly remembers you all. I'd like to keep her here an extra day, just to make sure all is well before she goes home."
"Thank you so much Dr. Himura," Mrs. Higurashi stated, bowing deeply. "You've been so good to us."
He just smiled and waved his hand. "It was nothing, I'm just happy that your daughter is back on the road to recovery. Anyway, I'll leave you all alone but do remember that visiting hours for this wing end in less than half an hour."
"Yes, thank you again doctor." Heading to the door, the doctor paused in front of Kagome's mother and looked like he was going to say something. Mrs. Higurashi blushed and looked out the window as the doctor glanced at Kagome. He smiled slightly and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
"What happened to me?" Kagome immediately demanded the minute the door clicked shut.
Her family looked surprised for a moment then Souta piped up, "Dr. Himura did say that there might be some memory loss."
Recovering first, her grandfather nodded. "You had an ... accident at the shrine. The building you were in seems to have exploded somehow. It apparently happened when, well, when you were exiting the well to..."
"The well... The well!" Memories flooded back suddenly and Kagome struggled to get the covers off her legs. "I need to get back there, they all need me. Inuyasha!" Inuyasha...
"Kagome, no!" Her mother rushed to her side and tried to hold Kagome still. "Honey, it's gone, there's nothing to go back to."
"That's not true, he's still alive," she yelled in her mother's face, misunderstanding Mrs. Higurashi's statement. "I need to go save him, I have to try!"
"Kagome! Kagome, it's been five weeks." Mrs. Higurashi moved so that she was face to face with her daughter, who was still trying to get out of bed. "I don't know what went on but... It's been five weeks now. The well is destroyed, it's been five weeks."
Kagome stopped thrashing. "Wha...?"
Tears began rolling off her mother's face. "It's been five weeks since you came back. You've b-been in a coma the wh-whole time since then. After the explosion..." She couldn't finish but drew Kagome into a tight embrace. For her part, Kagome didn't have any idea what to say; a million questions floated around in her mind but she didn't know where to begin.
Her grandfather took over where her mother left off. "I was in the house sorting through several of my more precious artifacts when I heard this loud noise. I looked outside and saw a huge billow of dust come from where the well was at, then the building around it collapsed. I-I'd forgotten whether or not you were there at the time, and I raced to get you out if you were. We had to- to dig you out; a few others in the shrine helped me pull the beams off of it and got shovels to get you out. You luckily weren't too far down, but you had stopped breathing and had such a bad head wound..." He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, remembering. "When we brought you here they told us they didn't know if you'd ever wake up, and that if you did you might not be the same, you might not remember things. It's been five weeks since then, almost six, but you're back to us now. You're back."
"Oneesan!" Souta cried out suddenly, rushing to hug Kagome. "I thought I'd never see you again."
Everyone was crying, but Kagome was still in shock. "But, but, what about the well? Hasn't it been dug out like it was before? I need to go back ojiisan, I have to know."
Her grandfather looked away, his face sad. "We've decided not to change it. It's going to stay the way it is now, filled in and open to the air."
Kagome jerked at this news. "What," she whispered in shock.
Her grandfather sighed. "When I first became came to this shrine," he began, his voice carrying the way it did whenever he told a story, "I was so young. To me it looked old and run down, as if it had seen its golden years long ago and had long since fallen to ruin. I wanted it to be perfect - home to the greatest artifacts, the most authentic, simply the greatest. I convinced the caretaker to allow me to restore parts of it that had been damaged over the years, make them like new." He cleared his throat, still not meeting Kagome's eyes and continued. "The reconstruction kept going when I became the caretaker and started a family of my own, but eventually stopped as I grew older. I've since come to regret changing that which should have been left alone; it was the original marks that made it authentic. The well was among my first attempts at reconstruction. At the time, it was in sad disrepair: caved in, open to the elements, the wood around the edges broken as if something huge and round had been wedged inside the hole."
Kagome remembered Inuyasha jamming the well's entrance with the huge tree to keep her from coming back. Recalling this brought Inuyasha back to her mind, causing her chest to constrict painfully but also adding credence to her grandfather's story: she had never told anyone in her family of that particular event.
"I dug it out, repaired the edges, built the construct around it, added the plaques explaining its history. It was an open part of the shrine until your grandmother had me close it up because she feared her children playing around such a deep hole.
"I knew the history behind it, had heard all of the legends surrounding it, but never had I known a granddaughter of mine would be part of it. Never had I thought the well would be involved in this time as well as that one."
Silence reigned for a moment, then Kagome asked quietly, "So you're saying that..."
"The well was filled as it is now from the time you travelled to the past to approximately fifty years ago today. Because of this, there is very probably no way back."
He had been right. It hurt to admit it, but her grandfather had been right.
She had stayed in the hospital for two more days before being allowed to go home. Still unsteady on her feet, she had insisted on going to the bone-eater's well first, and her family had reluctantly helped her there. What she saw there made her want to weep again: the well was filled with debris and dirt and looked much different from the well she was used to seeing. The same blast that had swept her into the well had carried over into this world; the force of Naraku's destruction had blasted not just the well back then but this one as well. The building that had once surrounded the well was gone, apparently destroyed by the explosion that had served to cave in the well. Work crews had already been there to haul away the planks and beams that had been part of the well's old surroundings, and the well looked a great deal like it had back in Inuyasha's time.
That last thought had sent Kagome back into a fit of tears and her family had settled her back into her room.
It was another week before she could go to school again, but it had taken less time than that for Kagome to realize there was no way she would be able to continue. She had missed four weeks of schooling, plus all the rest of the times in which she'd been in a different timeline altogether. There was a good chance that even cramschool wouldn't alleviate the problem, although her mother had hopes it might work.
Try as she might, though, Kagome couldn't find it in herself to study. She'd sit at her desk with the books open, her pencil ready to write...and unable to think of anything but Inuyasha, Miroku, Shippou, and Sango. A week after her release from the hospital she had raided her grandfather's library for any possible clues on their lives, what had happened to them after she had left, but found nothing. No mention of a wandering houshin, or a youkai-huntress, or anything about specific youkai. Deep in her heart she had known she wouldn't find anything, but it still hurt. It hurt really badly.
Days passed, then weeks. Kagome eventually had to get on with her life and once again threw herself into her schoolwork. She told Hojo once and for all that she couldn't date him, that school was too much a part of her life; even he got the point, as it was hammered very coldly into his head by a blunt Kagome. Her friends were shocked at how she'd ended it, and in her better moments even Kagome felt a bit of remorse over how she'd obviously broken his heart, but it never lingered. For her, school was all that mattered; she had to do a great deal of catching up over the many, many months she'd been forced to go back to the past to retrieve shards of the Shikon jewel by Inuyasha.
Inuyasha... It still hurt unbearably. Had he really died? Would she ever know the answer to the question?
Months passed as Kagome got on with her life. She eventually ceased having the nightmares, which had begun after departing the world of the well and consisted of a replay of Inuyasha's death albeit with a great deal more blood and pain. They had been a constant companion, at least twice a week, but she hadn't had one in a while and hoped never to again. Cram school, and the sacrifice of any personal time she might have had otherwise, succeeded in getting her past her grade and she had one of the highest test scores in her school - a surprise even to her, as she hadn't quite realized how much studying she'd done. Her life had dwindled to occassional calls to friends, afternoons and evenings in cram school, and nights working on homework while munching on her mother's dinner. She'd lost weight as well, but it wasn't drastic enough that anybody got worried, although her family did try to get her away from schoolwork. She just brushed them off, saying she still needed to catch up from...then.
Seven months, three weeks, and four days after the incident (but who's counting), Kagome was returning home alone when she had the peculiar sensation of being watched. She stopped suddenly and peered around, but saw not a soul. A little worried, she quickened her pace back to the shrine and slept that night with her windows closed and locked.
The next afternoon was the same, but she was heading towards cram school with two of her friends when she felt it. She darted a look around yet again, but didn't see any eyes on her specifically. Trying to push it aside as insane paranoia, she started a lively chat with her friends, who remained silent the whole time in stunned disbelief - Kagome hadn't been like that in months. Neither one complained, however, nor commented on that queer fact as they were afraid she might revert back to what she had mysteriously become.
Two days later Kagome was again walking home in the late afternoon, taking a different route than normal, when she felt it again. It was as if someone was focussing every bit of energy on her, and the hairs on the back of Kagome's neck prickled. The road was deserted, even of cars, but Kagome had had enough and whirled around angrily. "Where are you?" she said angrily, looking all around. "I know you're there, where are you?" The last bit was yelled, if not at the top of her lungs, then enough to carry.
A low chuckle came from the garden behind her, and she turned sharply to see a figure emerge from the shadows. A white fur ruff came into view first, followed by long silken hair and eyes which seemed to glow even in the daylight.
"We meet again, my brother's mate."