Hello all. How are you? Good? Good.

Well, I've been very busy, (hahahahahaha right. As busy as sitting on one's butt can be.)

So. Here's my penultimate chapter.

…

Oh no.

Penultimate chapter… only one left to go….

Aww, man.

Now I'm all sad, and my I-finally-updated-high is ruined. Thanks a lot, jerks.

I'm barely aware of anything. Minutes, hours, or days may have passed…. I'm floating on whiteness, dizzy and sick and tired. Sometimes I think I hear voices when I sleep, but I wouldn't bet on it, they're all so faint and unintelligible.

The first thing I'm aware of as I begin to regain consciousness is that I am warm. It takes me a while to understand why this is good… it means I'm not in a well and sleeping in cold mud. This could mean Kagome found help, but, after thinking about it for a while, I realize it might mean I'm in Naraku's hands again. My eyelids are heavy, and I don't know if I'm strong enough to open them. I decide to wait a while and see if it's easier then.

My brain begins to un-fog. I begin to notice other things as well, the smells of the place I am in, the feel of crisp bed-sheets against my pajamas, a hot, uncomfortable stiffness around my arm.

I take this to mean that I am somewhere safe. Something inside of me relaxes, and I almost fall asleep again, except just as I'm drifting off, I feel the steps of someone else's feet in my room.

I find that my eyes are much easier to open now, so I do, squinting at the bright light. The person swims in and out of focus, but seems familiar. Dark hair, tied up behind her head, sophisticated clothes, rectangular glasses with thick dark brown rims. Sango?

I turn my head, still marveling at how unpleasantly bright the world is. She smiles maternally at me.

"You're awake." She signs slowly, close to my face.

I grunt, not hearing it of course, but understanding the vibrations will make a noise in the affirmative.

"I'm glad. How do you feel?"

I grunt again, hoping my meaning to be understood as, 'Crap, how else should I feel?'

She smiles, "I'll go get your parents."

I force out a half-grin and close my eyes as she fades out of focus. Just a little nap… then I'll deal with all the visitors.

When I wake again, I am much stronger. It also occurs to me that more time has passed. So much for a little nap.

I blearily open my eyes, lifting my healthy arm to wipe the sleep from my eyes.

I blink.

I am in a hospital room, tiles on the floor, a small table at my left and a large armchair on my right. I'm attached to a drip-thing, with a bag of blood at the top, a grisly red tube snaking down and biting my wrist. The ceiling is that cardboard kind that you find in public schools and office buildings, and the lights are the yellow florescent ones that make your skin look pallid and half dead. Not very flattering.

I yawn, and sit up a little, feeling my back rub against the cheap fabric of the hospital pajamas and the clean cotton sheets.

So, I'm safe.

This is nice.

I wonder about Kagome then, assuming she's alright based on the fact that I'm safe and unharmed. I hope she's fine and happy somewhere.

I think about her then, her deep, almond shaped eyes, her soft lips the shape and color of the little rosebuds Mother likes delivered to her hotel room whenever she goes out of country. Her soft dark hair that smells good even after days of not washing, her pale skin clear and rosy, her happy smile, her exuberant nature, her wide-eyed look of excitement.

I hope she comes and visits me.

A nurse waddles in, a pear-shaped woman with dark eyes and a huge grin when she sees I'm awake. She says something, I have no idea what, and I give her a puzzled look, hoping she'll get the hint.

She consults a piece of paper and gives me a huge, toothy smile when she recognizes her mistake. I am thrilled to realize that she signs a few words, not fluently, but enough for me to understand.

"Hello," she signs, waving, "I… name… M-i-k-o-t-o."

I smile, showing that I understand. She returns the gesture. I decide I like Mikoto, she seems comfortable and sweet, and she makes the effort to sign what little she knows. She hands me a cup full of water and a few pills, miming that I should take them and then drink the water.

I put three different colored pills on my tongue and swallow. It's somehow satisfying to swallow pills, I have no idea why. I feel like this way I'm getting a step closer to feeling better, even though I don't feel particularly crap right now, just a sort of numbness in my upper arm. I suspect I have been given painkillers or something like it.

"How long have I been asleep?" I ask, signing the words very slowly and clearly.

She gives me a puzzled look. Ah well, I suppose I was pushing my luck.

I point with my good arm to a writing pad she has in her pocket. She takes it out of her pocket and puts it on a little tray that she pulls up to the bed.

"How long have I been asleep?" I scrawl with a bic she lends me.

She leans over me to read it. She smells like old people and hospital. "About two and a half days. You lost a lot of blood, so it's a very good sign you woke up when you did." Her handwriting is loopy and swirly and slightly hard to read.

"How is Kagome?" I ask, trying to make my writing more legible.

"I don't know who that is, sweetie. I have to go and finish my rounds now, but you can watch TV or read until the meds kick in. You should probably sleep. It's twenty to three in the morning."

I nod, slightly disappointed. "I'm hungry." I write quickly before she goes away again.

She nods. "I'll bring you something." She smiles at me and slowly walks out of the room.

I relax a little bit and reach for the remote. I press the SAP button and get captions on, the begin flipping the channels.

There's one of those crappy late-night talk shows on, and I drum my fingers against the tray in vague frustration at the lack of interesting things on.

I change the channel after a while, bored with watching a man I don't know talk to some celebrity I don't know, to an infomercial about a brand new exercise machine that will apparently make really fat ugly people into extremely attractive, buff-and-tan bodybuilders with models fawning over them. I roll my eyes. Not likely.

I yawn and change the channel again.

Whoa.

There are naked women with big boobs doing naughty things on this channel.

I didn't know they had porn on hospital TV sets…

Interesting. I didn't know women could comfortably cook bacon without any clothes on.

I turn the boob-tube off with a flourish, and settle back into the pillows, tiredness enveloping me like a soft warm blanket.

Mmm. I'll eat in the morning.

I am woken by the scent of my mother and father. Yawning, I open my eyes, and as I do, Mother practically jumps on top of me, sending a jolt of pain through my otherwise-innocuous arm.

I grit my teeth, but hug her back. When she pulls back, I smile at her.

"Hello, Mother." I sign with my right arm. Luckily those signs can be managed without the use of my other one.

She kisses both of my cheeks in response. She then begins to sign what seems to be a practiced tale, with real signs. "We…so worries. You, Kagome, disappear. You lost. Kidnap. Hear you get back money need. Then hospital you, Kagome at. Happy, worry. Glad you wakeful today morning."

Ah well. At least she tried. I smile encouragingly. This is much better than fingerspelling everything out.

We improvise for a few minutes, me fingerspelling, mother fingerspelling, and father miming. I particularly enjoyed his rendition of the ransom. It was like playing some bizarre version of charades, but with a paraplegic.

Then they had to go to work, so they left me with a few hundred-dollar bills and a new playstation, which they kindly plug into the TV and insert "Mega Kill-Death IV, Extermination."

Senseless violence party time!

I am just at level three of the gut-spraying, blood-spurting, brain-bashing fun when breakfast comes. Pausing the game, I am horrified to realize that there is more carnage on the plate than on the video game: the food is prepared that badly.

I do manage to choke it down, but it takes major effort and skill to force my teeth to chew the slimy, rubbery sausages, the wet, greasy, watery yellow scrambled eggs, and the cardboard 'flapjacks.' Suppressing the instinct to vomit, I gulp at the chalky orange juice and lean back on the pillows, feeling sick but less hungry.

I silently make a promise in my head never to have to eat this crap ever again.

I go back to my carnage fest, happily, beating a few levels until I reach the SUPER SECRET LAIR where I can select from the best weapons to kill even more pretend people, except with artillery that the government hasn't even invented yet. My video-guy picks out a combination bazooka/flamethrower/grenade launcher and together we shoot, incinerate, explode, and, if all that fails, we karate-chop him to the death. HA.

Adrenalin rocks.

A knock on the door stops the blood-soaked goodness, and I put down the console as Miroku walks into the room.

"Hey." He signs, grinning.

"Hi." I reply. I want to ask him how the rest of the holiday passed without me, whether they've caught Naraku, what Kagome's doing, and a billion other questions all at once, but I internally curse my left arm and just smile like an idiot.

"How are you feeling?" he asks after a short pause, "You look pale."

I do a sort of half-shrug and reach for the notepad, "I feel alright. I have been better, of course, but I could be a lot worse."

He smiles, "I'm glad."

I pause, and after a while I tentatively reach for the pen, "Where's Kagome? Is she alright?"

He grins, "She's great. Never been better."

I sigh in relief, "That's good. I was worried."

Miroku's eyebrows raise as he holds the pad, reading what I scrawled on the notebook. When he puts the notebook down, he has a knowing (and very irritating) smile on his face. "I can see that you, my friend, that you have developed somewhat of a schoolboy crush on our mutual acquaintance, Kagome."

No, duh.

I grin, and shyly nod.

"Sweet." Miroku signs, a very frustrating expression gracing his features, that of smug aloofness and condescending knowledge of my situation.

I grab the notepad, "Obviously, you have no idea about what you're talking about, as you have yet to win Sango over, so come back to me with your 'schoolboy crushes' when you've scored." I reach for the pad again, wanting to write down some more choice words that might wipe that look off his countenance, but he begins signing again, and I am forced to watch.

"I'm sure she'll want to tell you the exciting details of her odyssey in search of help for you herself, but I thought you might want to know Kagome spoke, for the first time in three years, two nights ago when she was looking for help." He smiles again, this time he is not patronizing or arrogant, but happy for me. "She obviously cares for you a great deal."

She spoke?

Kagome? But I thought she couldn't? I thought she was mute because of the damage to her vocal cords? I thought it hurt her to talk.

Kagome… she did that for me?

Miroku continues, "I think she's visiting you tomorrow, so if I were you I would take a shower."

I suddenly am aware of the greasiness of my hair.

"Oh, and Inuyasha?" Miroku signs as he gets up and starts to walk out of my room, "Who's to say I haven't won Sango over, eh? Certainly not me."

And, with another extremely irritating smirk, he leaves me to my thoughts. Jerk.