**************** A tear for a tear ****************

The man (at least she thought it was a man) jumped up from the chair he was sitting in at the sound of her voice. But instead of running to her, he had leapt to the side of the bed. "Who's in the bed?" She asked her self wearily but never thought she would hear a reply.

"Kagome." Said the man in red. "Kagome.? Can you hear me?"

She tried to walk towards them, oh gods she tired, but her feet and arms just wouldn't budge.

"Kagome.?" He stroked the bangs out from in front of the person's face. She recognized this action, but who was he.

"Who is that?" She asked again.

"Kagome.?" Asked a softer more famine voice. "It's me, your mother. You remember me, don't you?" A fresh set of tears had welled up in her eyes and soon they began to fall like rain.

"Like rain. rain." Kagome's mind was off racing through flashing pictures of rain and thunder. "Something happened in the rain."

"Kagome? Please do you know who I am?" Her mother sobbed.

"Yea. I think I do. But. Who are you?"

"I'm your mom, Kago."

"No. Not you." Inu-Yasha's eye's glazed over as he spoke.

"You don't remember who I am?" He asked softly. His hand (by now instinctively) went to feel her forehead or brush away her bangs, that weren't there to begin with.

"I can't." Water welled up in her eyes as well and fell as she spoke. Who ever was on the bed must have had the same reaction because the "man" brushed the person who was in bed's cheek as if he were wiping away tears.

"Don't cry. I-It's okay."

"No. It's s-so cold and I. can hardly breath." By this time the sun was rising and morning light was shining through the window. It was creeping ever so slightly up to the chair tipped over in front of the window, casting a shadow on the tiled floor below.

"Kagome it is going to be."

"No! I can't move!" Mrs. Higurashi began to fumble with something attached the bed and soon the man began to help. Straps of leather began to fall under the bed.

"Can you move now honey?" Kagome place one step forward but as soon as she did so the room began to fog over.

"Now I can hardly see you! Help me. please!" She was so desperate that she would have taken any solution to get out that situation. "Mr. Please help me-e-e!"

"Kagome! What do you see?" Asked Inu-Yasha. "Where are you? I'm right here! Next to you!"

"Fog. White." Her words were so distant that he had to place his ear right next to her mouth to hear them.

"That's not enough, where are you?"

"Was in. room. bed. window. and chair."

"You were in here?!"

"Still. in. fog. hear birds."

In fact a few small birds had fluttered into the room seeing a crust of bread left over from a sandwich Mrs. Higurashi had eaten for dinner the other day.

"She's still in here." Inu-Yasha told Mrs. Higurashi. She franticly spread her arms out in front of her and walked all around the room searching for her daughter when there was a knock at the door. Inu-Yasha jumped out of the window and back into the tree he had previously occupied. "Damn!" He cursed.

Back in the room the doctor had come to check up on Kagome. He said that she was making some progress. Actually it was only the fact that she had gotten warmer because they had placed the blanket back on her. Kagome was now outside under a pine tree. She had taken a step back thinking that it might take her closer. Since her step forward had done only the opposite. However to no avail. She looked up to see a blazing half risen sun and clouds that where amazingly white. That man who was in the hospital room was now sitting in a pine tree she was currently standing under. He had leaned back and was 'sleeping'.? His eyes were closed and his chest heaved up and down in a regular pattern, but was he really asleep?

"Excuse me!" Kagome yelled up at him. The most outrageous thing began to happen.

Everything was black except for the tree, the man in the tree, and her self. It became violently cold again and she could see her breath on the still air. Kagome took a step forward and amazingly nothing around them changed. She placed a hand on the bark of the tree and called again, "Sir!? If you can hear me. I'd really like to talk to you!"

Inu-Yasha awoke to the freezing cold air and pitch black skies (well, not just skies but, everything.) Nothing was visible except for, Kagome.?

He sprang down from his perch and landed right in front of her. "Kagome?"

"How did you know my name? Do I know you from some where? You awfully familiar." Her hands flew with hand gestures from excitement that her could see and hear her. But she pulled them back when they finally got a whiff of the stiff cold air.

"Yes! You do know me from somewhere! Down the well! Remember?!"

"A well. down a well?" Her minded pulled her back to the day she fell down the well in the mine-shine. "Something. A bunch of. hands. Pulled me down a well once. Then I saw a. boy.? No, no." She shook her hear with disgust at saying such a stupid thing.

"You remember seeing a boy?" His eye's flickered with hope. 'She's remembering me!' "Can you remember what he looked like?"

"This going to sound so stupid!"

"Just tell me!" He was starting to get impatient, again.

"He. He had long hair and was wearing. all. red..." She looked up at him again seeing before her what she had just described. "It. He was you! Who are you?!" She screamed at him.

"Inu-." His voice was caught in his throat so he tried again. "In." it just wasn't working he couldn't say his name.

"Inu-in?" She put her head to the side and looked him over. 'His names not "Inu-in" at least that's not all of it. I feel like I should know this. What is his name?!'

"Ya." He tried to continue. But his voice wouldn't let him say his name in entirety. 'If I can't say it in whole I'll spit it out in bits and pray she puts them together.' ".sh.a." There he had said it all.

"What the.?" The ground had begun to rumble and was rolling like the waves of an ocean with a tsunami on the way.

"Not again!!!" She screamed. Inu-Yasha ran over and grabbed Kagome protectively as buildings of all shapes and sizes started to sprout out of the ground like wild flowers. 'This. I know this! His name it's. Inu. Ya. sh.a. Inu-Ya~sha. Inu-Yasha!' With that he began to fade. He was becoming transparent and his hands slid right through Kagome. He slowly looked from his hands back to Kagome's face that a fresh new set tears had begun to stain. Her head shaking back and forth silently she started whispering , "Don't go. Don't go. Inu-Yasha don't-go!!!"

There was a pull behind her navel and she flew backward and up passing right threw the now closed window to where her body awaited her return. She landed on top of her body slowing down to twist her self into the position it was then laying down back in herself.