"Shuiichi?" Kurama's mother whispered.
The room was utterly silent. The night wind blew through the broken glass of a window. It was cold.
"Shuiichi?"
She hadn't moved.
Her body was shaking. Her eyes were opened and disbelieving.
What...what had she seen?
"Shuiichi!"
"Stop screaming, woman." A voice said.
Kurama's mother uncovered the hands from her eyes.
A familiar figure stood in front of her. His red eyes were the same as before, his face smooth, his mouth a downward seeking hook. But the look on his face was different.
"Hiei?" She whispered and stood.
"Hn." Hiei said.
"Hiei....Shuiichi....."
Hiei turned from her as she ran passed and crouched beside her son, brushing his hair away from his face. "Shuiichi?" she said. "Shuiichi, can you hear me? Please....Shuiichi..." She lowered her head and began to cry.
"What a surprise." Hiei said and Kurama's mother turned to him. She could only see a sillouhette in the dark. He was reaching up towards his forehead as he spoke. "He thought you would fear him if you discovered....What would he say now to see you crying over him, woman?"
"Hiei...?" she said, voice broken. "We have to get him to a hospital. Please, call the ambulance. Please....Shuiichi..."
"He will live." Hiei said and stepped into the light. "He has lived and lived. Perhaps that is all he knows how to do anymore."
Kurama's mother's eyes widened. "Hiei?" she gasped and pulled her unconscious son closer.
Hiei gazed down at her with a strange expression. Contempt and disgust there, but something else, a softness around his eyes, a break in the hard set of his features she had seen that morning. Sorrow. As she looked, something changed on his forehead, at first she thought it was a trick of the light. She was wrong.
Kurama's mother looked into the jagan. "Forget, woman. This night for you was nothing but a nightmare." The woman's eyes grew heavy and her hand reached out to Kurama and as she surreneded to Hiei's power, her hand curled around her son's hand.
...to be continued...