Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of it's characters, and neither do I own Bonnie McKee's lyrics...

Author's Note: My neck is really messed up today, I was up late (4:30AM!!!!) talking to a guy-friend of mine so when I did go to bed I musta messed it up something fierce. Both advil and Tylenol have failed to fix the pain in my neck...grrr...okay, this is the chapter where IY's mourning is seen most clearly...and Kagome begins to recover. For a more realistic feel I looked up a few Japanese words that I plan to use here, obake for instance means "ghost." Later I'm going to have the villagers call her "Sakana," which means "fish." Fish is b/c they pulled her from the river of course...next chapter has Kagome recovering...and we see why it is that in my Word file I call this story "Amnesia." hehehehe...once more I'm being lazy and not thoroughly proofreading...if you find errors you can tell me (grins) and scream...I'll deserve it...

Dreams in Reality

"Hope was a dream that I had of you

In the soft, warm slumber of dawn

I must keep in mind

That reality can be painful

If neglected too long…"

He could smell her. The scent, which was undeniably almost identical to Kikyo's, was one he'd never forget—couldn't ever forget. So it was that when he caught a whiff of it he felt his mind and memories flicker and awaken from whatever darkness had taken him. His heart pumped and thundered inside him abruptly. Why was the thought of her suddenly making him so nervous? Kagome was a given in his life, a rock, a place of stability.

He was in the God tree; the moon was high in the sky, a crescent moon, like the one that stood out so plainly on his brother's forehead. It intrigued Inuyasha, attracted his eye just as Sango's curves attracted Miroku's lecherous right hand. Yet below him somewhere he could scent Kagome, probably come with some food to comfort him. He pretended that he hadn't noticed her and kept staring at the pallid moon.

The minutes began to pass, and Inuyasha waited through them patiently until finally Kagome spoke: "Inuyasha?"

He looked down the length of the God tree at her, ears pricked and alert. In the moonlight her face was white and round and beautiful. She wore a small, nervous smile. In her hands there was a cloth wound carefully around some rice balls. Yes, she'd come to comfort him, just as he'd suspected. Yet although he was very pleased, the hanyou refused to show the emotion, stubbornly.

Inside him this time, however, right in his heart, something tightened and a lump formed in his throat. Why was it so hard to look at her now? There seemed to be something wrong, something just at the tip of his tongue, just outside the reach of his fingers…what was it? What was wrong?

"What do you want, Kagome?" he felt sick saying it carelessly like that—why did he have to be so tough? Why did he put up the false front with her? Why did he pretend not to care, not to be pleased with her coming to him? Why did he feel that it was necessary to play the deception on her? To hide his real feelings? But even though he asked these questions Inuyasha's coldness to the girl below him didn't waver.

"I was hoping that you'd eat something, Inuyasha. You can't just sit out here and sulk all night you know. What's bothering you anyway?" as she spoke she rose her hands into the air, as if Inuyasha might be able to reach over and grab them from her when in fact there was still ten or so vertical feet between them both.

"Feh." He turned to look back at the moon. Seeing her face made that place between his stomach and heart twinge and twist. He thought he might be sick…the last thing he wanted at that moment were Kagome's rice balls…but her company on the other hand…

Below him Kagome had lost faith and courage. She turned her back on him and started to walk away.

The moment she had turned from him Inuyasha looked at her backsides, eyes squinted in concentration, in deep, pensive thought. Again the place inside him stirred, but it was different now, he recognized it this time. He wanted to touch her. Just as Miroku was a lecher with a wandering hand Inuyasha wasn't completely innocent either. Kagome's skirt had always been more attractive, even though it was foreign, than Kikyo's priestess robes. Seeing the pale and seductive flesh of her legs had made Inuyasha sweat many, many times. Watching her walk away in the moonlight now he felt the same way…

The hanyou gulped and growled to himself, ears folding back against his head in frustration. I can't go after her…I can't touch her…but just as suddenly as he thought that the hanyou leapt from the tree, landing lightly, more like a cat than a dog, and rushed forward, ready to tackle her like a clumsy puppy.

Wham!

Kagome screamed, surprised, and a moment later she fell to the ground, Inuyasha's weight pulling her straight down. The cloth with the rice balls shrouded inside flew out of her hands and rolled rapidly away from their intermingled bodies.

"Inuyasha!" the girl squealed, and Inuyasha grinned, though he knew she couldn't see his face.

He sat up, releasing her, wiping the grin off his features at the same time, putting a scowl on instead, "And just where did you think you were going?" he crossed his arms, his hands disappeared into the red sleeves of his haori.

She looked at him as if he were crazy. "I was taking the rice balls back to…"

He started to shake his head, "No, I didn't say you could go."

Now she looked as if he'd hit her, she was surprised. But it was only for a moment. The expression quickly became one of anger, "You jerk! What do you think I am?! Your slave?"

Inuyasha snorted and got to his feet, frowning at Kagome in disgust on the outside and cursing himself inwardly. Wasn't there something nice he could say…? No, there wasn't. It'd be too awkward, she'd never be able to accept it, she'd turn him away, it'd ruin everything between them…he couldn't stand the thought of that comfort disappearing. The kind, loving words that lived just below him never emerged, his fear kept them inside, just as it had in the God tree, just as it had ever since they'd met…just as they always would it was likely…

"Well don't get hysterical! Women are impossible!"

Now she was fuming. "Women?!" she hissed, she poked at him aggressively, threatening, with one finger, accusingly. Inuyasha wanted to grab her hand and pull her into his arms, kiss her until the sun rose, but he remained still as stone, his face set in a deep scowl. "You pig-headed, stupid…" her hand lowered, her fists clenched…

"Sit boy!"

With a shock he fell face first into the dirt. It clogged his senses, he tasted dirt, he smelled dirt, it rubbed over his skin like sandpaper…suddenly he realized that his back hurt, his stomach hurt, and his face was stinging…he tasted blood abruptly…

Inuyasha blinked.

It'd been a dream. All of it.

He rolled over, breathing roughly, choking on his own blood. Sitting up he immediately clamped a hand over his mouth and nose. After a few moments he remembered how he'd come to be where he was. The night before he'd run through the trees, through the forest, running from the clearing where the pig demon had forced Kagome off the cliff…where she'd fallen to her death…

No! Don't think of it!

He'd fallen asleep, exhaustedly, in the highest branches of a huge tree miles away from that horrid clearing, miles away from his mourning friends. Moments ago, while dreaming of Kagome, he must've rolled over and slipped. The resulting impact with the ground had left him with the nosebleed. The ferns about where he'd woken up were covered with his blood, still glistening and fresh…he looked away from it—it reminded him too much of the pig demon's remnants, spoiling, putrefying in that meadow where Kagome…he felt as if he might vomit and looked up quickly, clearing his mind.

The sun was rising. He could see the rays of fresh light cutting through the canopy above him. The birds were chirping merrily in the distance. It was a beautiful day…beautiful…he remembered Kagome's face in the moonlight in his dream…his stomach, with a will of its own, leapt into his throat, but Inuyasha didn't throw up.

He began sobbing.

How many times did she come to me when I was sulking? How many times?! And I turned her away because I was too proud, too stubborn to accept her company, her sympathy, her help. What a damned fool I've been…

He'd have given his soul at that moment to be able to spend even a minute with her in his arms…but that was just a dream…

The blood from his nose trickling into his fingers…that was reality, blood, pain, and loneliness…

It'd been more than twenty-four hours since Shisuki and Toka had brought in the strangely dressed girl that they'd discovered on the banks of the river. She'd done nothing in that time but sleep, heavily. She was badly injured, and battered, as if she'd fallen a long distance, or endured a terrible war…

The village's healer, Mijai, had put salve on her bruises and cuts, and forced a little water down her when she'd first come and been conscious. Since then he'd kept her in one of the back rooms of his hut, checking periodically to make sure she was still alive. He didn't actually believe that the girl would pull through. She wasn't very old—only sixteen at most he guessed, and not the strongest thing he'd seen. Shisuki, the girl that'd rescued her, was probably stronger and was likely two years younger! More and more Mijai wondered if the girl was some sort of water being, a spirit, or perhaps a body without its soul…certainly the strange mournful cries from the mountains seemed to be foul omens…just to be safe he placed sacred symbols and prayer beads around her futon, hoping to restrain any evil she had within her.

When Toka and Shisuki had brought her in Mijai hadn't been impressed. She'd remained awake only for a few minutes before she'd fallen back into unconsciousness again, and hadn't woken since then. Physically the girl was the same as any other. Once she'd fallen asleep he'd clumsily stripped her foreign wet outer clothes off—but had left her strange undergarments intact. Then he'd treated her outer wounds and examined her carefully. It was when he was checking her eyes—for the girl seemed to be at least partially blind and unable to keep her eyes coordinated—that he'd noticed her pupils. They didn't change their size when exposed to light! Mijai had seen such a symptom before when workers were bumped hard on the head. It was a concussion.

Sure enough a few short hours later the girl had developed a fever to go with her strangely unchanging pupils. He'd watched her shiver under her fur covers over the next day or so, shaking his head in pity. In Mijai's experience concussions as bad as the girl's rarely recovered. He pitied her the terrible death she'd have, shriveling away, weakening, starving as sleep claimed her and refused to release her…had the healer lived 500 years into the future he'd have called this sleeping sickness a "coma." Yet the name of the illness did nothing to change the fact that the girl was sure to die from it…

Or so he thought.

At about 10 the next morning Mijai looked in on the girl. To his surprise she was breathing soundly, sleeping normally. Her cheeks were no longer flushed with fever and she'd ceased her shivering. Perhaps there would be hope for her yet.

The healer walked cautiously forward, picking his way through his circle of prayer beads and sacred scrolls to kneel at the girl's futon. Slowly he touched her forehead—it was cool and dry, as it should be. Then, with even more slow deliberation, he peeled the girl's eyelids up, trying to see her pupils…

Abruptly she moaned and one hand weakly rose and slapped his probing fingers away. Mijai pulled back, startled. On her futon the girl moaned again and started to blink, struggling to open her heavy lids. The healer stared at her, stunned. Was she somehow more than human? He'd seen others with injuries like hers, symptoms like hers, and they died…

Beneath her eyelids the girl sported average brown eyes. Looking at her the healer didn't think she was a raving beauty as he imagined most otherworldly beings tended to be when they weren't demons anyway…but then again she wasn't in the finest condition right now either. Her hair was a matted mess, her skin pale from her illness, and then there were the gashes and the bruises. If the girl recovered her vitality than Mijai thought it might be possible that she'd be a lovely little thing…but still only human he suspected, or so he hoped.

The girl seemed to blink away her sleep-induced fog for a moment, trying to focus on him. Her eyes seemed to work together and coordinate far better than they had upon her initial arrival. Mijai nodded at the improvement, pleased. Now to see if she was able to speak!

Mijai knelt beside her futon and carefully, tenderly, touched her forehead. "Welcome back to the world of the living, obake girl. How are you? Do you understand my words?" he stroked her forehead gently, and to his surprise the girl's eyes focused on his hand and followed the movement with little or no trouble. He didn't think she'd answer—she was probably brain damaged. She was lucky to wake from her terrible sleep; to be able to understand and speak would be simply miraculous, and therefore impossible…

Yet as he watched the girl parted her pale lips, her eyes rolling for a moment, working upward, seeking his face. Finally they focused and her lips moved more frantically now. Air passed through her lips, hissing like the wind through the grass in a summer's storm.

"Wh…wh…what…who…" not only could she speak but she could form words of her own! Mijai was astonished. He'd have to find a monk to bless his hut and the girl and the blankets she was sleeping in, eventhe bowl from which she'd sipped water before her long sleep…

"Miracle!" he laughed, "It's a miracle! The obake girl lives!"

Endnote: Okay for all that I got reviews from...SensesFail26x hey! Neat name! I like it! I hope this chapter pleases, thank you for reviewing and showing support...if you like this one I do have other stories, So Much for the Hanyou's Happy Ending is my favorite of course...it's lighter than this one in general, at least right now, this story may become exceptionally funny and good later, I plan on putting IY and Kagome into strange positions...(that's both physically and mentally...)...Emerald Ash hey! I know you! (huggles) this story isn't dead...but I will admit that Hanyou has taken up a lot of my time and my energy...even so I think that this one will be good. We're (my sister and I)planning on introducing a mortal suitor for Kagome...er...Sakana as she will be known...and then of course, IY will have to come in...(snickers gleefully)...but I wanted to tell a story and make a lesson with this too--we don't always get to say goodbye, so, as the lyrics to a song from a few years ago say, "I believe the sun should never set upon an argument." It's most true...just as the Tsunami, you're exactly right, proves. Life can play the cruelest tricks...as usual you're a joy to hear from (hugs again)....I know that there were other reviewers, but fanfiction's review system is like delayed or slow, so my email is screwed up...but I hope it will recover...

Next chapter Kagome-obake-Sakana speaks! It's called "Forgotten" for obvious reasons of amnesia...after that I paint a dark picture of the surviving IY group members...drop me a line and tell me how I'm doing...the sad stuff will let up a bit by chapter 5...I just have to get the message I feel needs to be layed out--as IY thinks in this chapter, when ppl are there for you don't turn them away! You never know when you might lose them! Hints for the future chapters:I'll tell you now that IY's going to be wild without Kagome, and crazy with grief, I have a quote I love that describes the way I think he'd be perfectly, as thought of by Sango...and Kagome will start life anew...for a little while...drop me a line! YAYS!