Honest Answers

By: Cece Williams

((Disclaimer: All righty. Once I said I don't own YYH, I don't own YYH. There, I said it.))

Cece: Finally the sweetest chapter in the world…

Yusuke: She's really in love with herself, isn't she?

Cece: I heard that, Yusuke Urameshi!

Kurama: (laughs nervously while he sweatdrops) Well, you'll have to read it for yourself to see what she means by that. And Cece is doing wonderful now.

(Cece hums "Wonderful" by Everclear)

Kurama: Um, read on.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It was yet another fall November day in the hospital. Though the leaves were changing colors, the nurses changing shifts, and the doctors changing patients, one thing still remained unchanged: Andrea was still in a coma, and Kurama was, once again, at her bedside. Kurama had literally tried everything imaginable: talking to her, holding her hand, staying with her, even watching the same programs she usually watched, but nothing seemed to work.

Not even the doctors were holding out much hope for her. Since it had been a month, he was told, that she could have some brain damage. As much as he wanted her to come back, he didn't want her worse off than before.

"I can't believe you still haven't woken up yet," Kurama said to her still form, listening to the machines' rhythm. Almost as soon as he felt the side of her face, he heard a strange noise. He looked at the machines, which were beeping normally, but as he looked back at Andrea, her seemingly closed eyelids started to flutter.

Andrea's head started to move very slowly, almost as if everything were in slow motion. Her heavy lids started opening, and a fuzzy yet familiar image appeared in front of her. She blinked, hearing a distorted voice saying her name.

"Andrea? Andrea, can you hear me?"

When she blinked again, the image was nearly clear. It was a comforting yet it was also a startling sight. The slight sight of red hair stood out against the white walls of wherever she was at. "Where … where am I?" she asked, her voice cracking from just waking.

Kurama's emerald green eyes widened at the sight before him. Andrea was finally awake, although she looked tired, she was awake. "You're in the hospital," he answered, his once-worried features giving way to relief.

Andrea blinked again and had a sharp intake of air at hearing where she was but was stunned at the familiarity of the answerer's voice. She turned her head to the side. "Kurama?" Her blue eyes blinked in surprise at the visitor.

Kurama smiled as he ran a hand through Andrea's bobbed tresses. "I'm right here," he answered in a tone to not startle her.

Andrea's blue eyes, however, widened and looked around as if she were a frightened animal. "Oh, my God," she said, starting to sit up in her bed, only to feel two sharp pains: one from her arm where the IVs were and the other from her head.

Almost out of instinct, Kurama jumped out of the chair he was in and settled her gently back down. "Just take it easy," he answered in his calm voice. "You just came out of a coma."

"I just what?" Andrea asked in disbelief. "How long?"

"It's been a month," he replied. "The rest of the team was worried about you."

Andrea's gaze continued to meet the ceiling. "They were?"

Kurama nodded. "Indeed," he answered, taking his hand and smoothing her bangs. "Keiko, Botan, and Yukina held a candlelight vigil for you for the whole time you were under. Of course you know Yusuke; Keiko made him come."

A somewhat tired giggle came from her throat, the first one Andrea had since she was safe in her apartment with Kurama the night before she was attacked. "That's Yusuke; you have to make him do something," she answered.

Then, there was silence except for the machines still beeping. "I should get the doctor in here for you," Kurama said, breaking the silence while he started to stand up. He didn't even make a step before Andrea's hand grabbed his wrist. "Don't worry; I'll be right outside the door." As she let go, he walked out the room to find her doctor, who was talking to a nurse. "Excuse me?"

Dr. Yamaguchi looked at him. "Oh, yes," he said, smiling. "What can I do for you, Minamino-san?"

"Andrea just came to a few moments ago," Kurama answered. "I'm probably reading her mind as she would likely want those IVs out of her."

The doctor chuckled as he followed Kurama to the room, where Andrea still looked at the ceiling. He knocked on the door. "Andrea-chan?" he asked and was greeted with a tired yet awake Andrea. "I bet you're ready to get these out of you, right?"

"I've been ready," she said. "Plus, I look like I'm being tied to a bed."

The doctor let out another chuckle as Kurama lowered his head and covered his mouth with his right hand, trying not to laugh too loud. Andrea was slowly coming back.

The doctor tried to be as gentle as he could in taking out the main ones she didn't need anymore. "There," he said, discarding the needlepoints used in her arm. "You don't need those anymore."

Andrea blinked and looked at her arm, where only a few IVs remained. "Thanks, but when's the rest coming out?" she asked the doctor.

"When your strength returns," he answered, bowing at both Kurama and Andrea as he started to leave with the equipment. He looked at Kurama. "Don't let her get too excited, or her blood pressure would rise out of control."

"I understand," Kurama said as he bowed to the doctor as he left the room. "Domo arigato." After he left, Kurama turned back to Andrea and smiled. "I told you I'd be back."

Andrea smiled lightly at him, but then her face turned saddened as she looked down at the IVs that were still in her arm. Knowing full well that Kurama would probably ask her what was wrong, she said in a low voice, "I had a weird dream last night."

Kurama walked back to her bedside when he heard her voice. "You did?" he asked her.

Andrea nodded. "Though it was unusual," she answered.

He sat down on the bed at the foot and looked at the walls. He had a strange feeling this conversation was heading in a whole new direction. Something he wasn't sure he was ready for. "What was it about?"

"Well, I was walking down this hall... and there was a light."

Kurama blinked. "A light at the end of the tunnel?"

Andrea nodded slowly, as she didn't want her head to hurt any more than it did. "But I was about to go there when someone stopped me."

"Who?"

Andrea swallowed a possible lump in her throat as she looked at her IVs. "Youko."

Kurama blinked in confusion. How in the world did Youko enter Andrea's dream? On second thought, maybe he didn't want to know.

"I don't know how he got there," she continued, "but he stopped me from going to that light."

"Why?"

Andrea looked at an imaginary speck on the hospital floor. "Because if I had walked into that light... I'd be gone." When Kurama looked at her, she finally felt like her heart would explode. "That light meant death."

Kurama could barely believe it. Did Andrea really want to give up on life, the one thing she craved? "Did you want to die?" he asked her.

The question he asked her made her blink and lower her eyes back to her arm again. It was something some people had asked her already. "Part of me did," she answered. "I didn't want you to suffer..."

Kurama was growing more confused. What was she talking about? "Suffer? Me?"

Andrea struggled to take a deep breath to explain what she meant… if she could, that is. "Staying in here, worrying over me, almost getting an ulcer..." She felt ashamed with the stress her coma had probably done to him. "I wouldn't want that on even Yusuke."

Now it made some sense to Kurama. She was worried about him and what happened did to him. Although he barely slept at night, he was fine. That is, until he saw how embarrassed she was with her answer. "Andrea..."

Just hearing her name made Andrea close her eyes and lower her head silently. She didn't want him to see her like this and was about to tell him to leave until…

"Andrea, I was worried about you, yes," he continued. "You had a very bad concussion and the doctors weren't sure if you would survive. But had you died, I would have hurt far more then I did before."

Andrea dared a small split-second look at the redhead before looking back down.

"I don't know what would happen to me if I lost you," he finished. "I would be lost myself."

After hearing Kurama's answer, Andrea swallowed another lump in her throat. "You'd go on, wouldn't you?" she asked, hoping the answer was yes.

That was a question Kurama didn't expect out of Andrea. Sure he'd have the countless fangirls still trying to get him to go out on a date with them, but then again… it just wouldn't be the same to him. "I might, or I might not. I do not know," he answered.

Andrea sniffled and took a deep breath. "Almost two months ago, Shizuru asked me something I never thought she would."

"What did she ask?" Kurama could feel his curiosity piquing.

"If Toguro had pointed at you rather than Kuwabara..." She paused for a second and then finished her answer. "I didn't know what to think."

Kurama blinked in surprise. He expected the question from Shizuru, but the answer from Andrea was a stunner. "You said that?" he asked her.

Andrea nodded, answering with, "I'd probably cave in inside."

If her first answer didn't surprise him, the second one sure did. "Andrea... if Shizuru asked me that question, I would have said the same answer," he answered.

This time, Andrea had to blink in surprise while continuing to look down at the bed. "What?" she asked him.

Finally what Youko had been telling him for a long time was starting to come out. The question in Kurama's mind was: What if she didn't understand? He looked at the tiled floor as he answered, "I would have said the same." He looked at Andrea, who had her fist clenched with her obviously longer nails digging into her hand, and stood up, knowing the answer. "I am sorry. Forget I said anything," he said, facing the wall.

Andrea honestly didn't know what to make of what Kurama had just said. He would have given up his life for her, but there was something off with his last statement. Maybe she was scaring him with her clenched hand. "It's okay, really..." she said, loosening her hand back to normal.

Kurama looked back at her when her hand relaxed. Maybe she thought she scared him. Not that a fox demon would be scared of a girl's clenched fist. He sure wasn't afraid of her last one. He braced himself mentally for what she was about to say.

"I've already lost most of the people I loved," Andrea said, continuing to look down. "My parents, my adoptive parents, and most of my friends..." She looked up at him, tears starting to form in her eyes. She braced herself for the truth as it came out of her. "And I'm not going to lose you either."

Kurama watched the tears slide down her face for a second, and that was when he had remembered Andrea saying something like that during his first fight with Karasu. He walked over to her, sat down on the bed next to her and wrapped his arms around her, letting the girl cry against him as long as she wanted.

Andrea blinked as the tears continued. Usually it was she hugging him, but now it was the other way around. Something must have come out from within him. She hugged him back as much as she could with the IVs still in her arm as she swallowed another lump in her throat. "I couldn't live with myself if I had to lose you, too."

Kurama couldn't believe it took her almost dying to realize what she was really feeling. He heard her sniffle, knowing the truth had come out. "You will never lose me, Andie," he said.

Andrea let out a small choked laugh at Kurama using her nickname. She hadn't heard that name since she had been in the hospital. She buried her head in his shoulder and started sobbing lightly as Kurama rubbed her back soothingly, trying to calm her down. She could hear him shushing her as the tears fell into his shoulder. "I want you to know that I love you, no matter what you are," she said, taking a deep breath and a sniffle. "It doesn't matter whether you're in your demon form or now. I just love you."

Kurama let his other hand glide through her hair, although it was now tangled and had grown slightly longer in the past month. Of the other girls who merely loved him for what he looked like, she loved him within. And it was one of the things he wanted to feel for someone anyway. "Andie, I love you too," he answered.

Andrea blinked, frozen in place. She couldn't really believe it; he had said it, too? It had literally taken her a good long year to finally say what it was she wanted to say. Now she was like a statue in a museum.

Kurama looked down at her, a smile so soft spreading across his lips that it would melt butter with a hot knife.

"You know, I thought that if I said that, you'd probably send me to the psych ward," Andrea said after a good five minutes of silence.

Kurama shook his head, chuckling. "No, never," he replied as he let go of her and helped her pull her bed up into a couch-like thing.

Andrea scratched the back of her head. There was yet another question left unanswered. "Um, how long have you known?" she asked him.

Youko couldn't resist. "Since Shuichi first looked at your sexy figure," he said mentally, while he let out a purr.

Kurama turned his mental Youko half into a piñata and then turned back to Andrea. "Since I first saw you," he answered. He looked at Andrea, who blinked and looked at him in shock. This made him look at the floor. "That's... That's how long I've liked you."

"Before you knew?" she asked him, thinking of before he knew her as a Tantei. When he nodded, she looked at the floor and mumbled, "Before I knew…"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," he said, trying to make a joke to Andrea as he looked at the light in the room. Andrea let out a small laugh and covered her mouth with her other hand. Though it felt wonderful to hear Andrea's laugh, he felt plagued. "I'm sorry I lied to you."

Andrea's laughing ceased when she looked at Kurama in confusion and blinked. "Lied to me? What about?" she asked him, turning on the TV to drown out the silence and the consistent beeping of the monitors.

"My feelings..." Kurama started to say, but Andrea had clamped her hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"We've both been through a lot, you know?" she said, feeling her hand slip off of his shoulder. "And with..." her voice grew silent.

"Don't even mention him. He doesn't deserve it."

Andrea looked up at him and blinked. "What do you mean?" she asked him.

"Nobody deserves to be remembered after what they had done, especially him and what he did to you," he continued.

Andrea let out a small smile until she looked at the TV, where her eyes widened in a horrific shock. Kurama looked up as well to see what was it that stunned her.

A female reporter about the age of 28 was on the screen, delivering the news with a picture of Jason in his prison outfit. "Jason Westbrook's escape from jail was short-lived as he was found at Mushiyori Memorial Hospital dressed as a doctor and was about to murder 17-year-old Andrea Stone last night. The teenage girl was in critical condition and was rescued by 18-year-old Shuichi Minamino…"

Andrea saw Kurama's picture on the TV and looked at him, her face still stunned but now added shock. As she saw Kurama look away from her, she asked, "You stopped him, didn't you?"

Kurama looked back at her. Now she knew what had happened while she was unconscious. "I couldn't let him hurt you," he answered.

The rest of the broadcast died away as Andrea lowered her head. "You could've gotten hurt..." she started.

"I'm a better fighter then he was," he answered her. "I overpowered him easily." Hearing Andrea sniffle, he looked at the girl as she had looked away. He took her hand, which made her blink and her hand twitched, then relaxed after a second. "I will always protect you, Andie."

Andrea turned her lowered head around and looked up at him as she blinked.

"I promise I will."

Andrea was about to answer when a low growling rumble noise came from her stomach. Feeling her face growing pink with embarrassment, she covered her face with her free hand.

Kurama chuckled at Andrea's embarrassment. "I'll call the nurse for some food. How's that?" he asked her.

"Wish I had a Big Mac, a banana split bigger than Youko's ego..."

"Hey!" Youko said from within Shuichi.

"I don't think anything's bigger than Youko's ego," Kurama answered, and when Andrea gave him an odd look, he chuckled somewhat nervously.

"Or a hot dog the size of a truck," Andrea said. Who knew being in a hospital would make her so hungry?

"If your girlfriend kissed you right now, the shock'd be bigger than the size of a truck," Youko said in Kurama's mind, which earned him a well-deserved kick.

"I'll go get that food," Kurama said, starting to stand up.

"Okay." Andrea blinked, remembering something. She had only done this the day she left Japan, but she wondered how he would take it this time. "Oh, and Shuichi?" When he looked at her, she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Thanks for saving me."

Kurama blushed as his Youko side was starting to tease him yet again. He saw Andrea blush as well and lower her head. That must have embarrassed her, he thought, but as he turned to walk out, he looked back at Andrea. "Uh, Andrea, can I ask you something?"

"Um, okay," she answered, leaning her head against the pillow.

"When you're out of the hospital, and you've recovered, do you want to go out?"

Andrea blinked as her face turned even redder. It was a surprise, no doubt, being asked out on a date. "All right," she answered.

Kurama smiled another of his platinum smiles. "Thank you."

Andrea looked up, the blush still on her face as her stomach growled again. She looked at her stomach. "Oh, shut up down there," she said.

"I'll, uh, get that food now."

"Okay."

"Did you bring the wine and roses?" Youko asked his human form.

Kurama sighed. "Youko…"

"What?"

"SHUT UP!"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yusuke: Awwwww….

Kurama/Cece: Shut up, Yusuke!

Hiei: Review here.

Kurama: (takes a gulp of mint-flavored water) And don't forget the water.

Cece: Shuichi Minamino! That was the last bottle!

Kurama: Oops. (runs from author)