Disclaimer: Nope, most of these guys aren't mine. But I can hope!

Alrighty folks, another short chapter (don't kill me!), but it does give some insight into Kagome's past and her mysterious illness. Kudos to anyone who can figure out where I'm going with this! Anyways, it's short because my family is in town and I don't have much time to write, and this doesn't fit well with the nex part, so combining them would be awfully silly of me.

No reviewers. I am sad

Chapter 6 – Troubled Pasts and Incurable Ills

Inuyasha finally caught up to Kouga as he was laying Kagome down on his bed. Her eyes were closed and her body was shivering uncontrollably. A large tear escaped from the corner of her eye, and she hastily reached up to brush it away.

"I….I'm sorry you two had to see me like this…I truly thought I was better, that this was behind me…" she sniffed tiredly and opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling, "…but I guess I was wrong."

Inuyasha surprised all of them by wordlessly taking her up in his arms and cradling her to his chest. Kouga opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it and resigned himself to stroking Kagome's left hand.

"Can you…tell us what happened back there?" Kouga asked softly as Inuyasha started up a soft rumbling in his chest that could be likened to a cat's purr. Kagome smiled faintly and burrowed in closer.

"It's the illness that I was telling you about earlier." She began haltingly. "Random muscles in my body would suddenly freeze up and go numb, and I'd have no use of them for hours or even days. I once lost control of my legs for nearly a month." She laughed slightly at the looks on her rescuers' faces before continuing. "The most devastating – which also happened to be my first sign of this illness – was when my heart stopped on the third day of school in my senior year. My mother told me afterwards that I was clinically dead for about three minutes before they brought me back." She shuddered at the memory, smiling again when both boys tighten their grips on her.

Neither Kouga nor Inuyasha really knew what to say to the frail girl. Both had dealt with death before, but never with someone who had come so close to death and had been brought back. Her next words startled them out of their musings; not just the words themselves, but the venom Kagome managed to put behind them.

"Mom also said that Kikyo was the one who saved me. She said she had been whispering prayers under her breath so frantically as they drove up to the hospital, and hadn't stopped until I was alive again. But…" she faltered again, closing her eyes, that horrible time coming back in one fell swoop…

She was cold and alone, in a very dark room. The harsh stone bit into her bare back as she lay spread-eagled on the rough floor. Patterns and face swirled above her, even darker and more menacing than the terrible blackness that surrounded her. Cold laugher pierced through her ears, and the smell of rot combined with the rank odor of what she believed to be her own blood clung to the inside of her nose. Her limbs felt weighted down, useless and broken. A thick mist wafted in from an unknown location, covering her naked body in a sheen of sweat and damp. She flinched when the voices started.

"It's useless to try and get away, my dear."

"You cannot escape."

"You were given to us."

"You were the sacrifice."

"You have nothing to gain by struggling."

"No escape, no escape…"

"Your sister…your sister…your TWIN…"

"Great things…great things she can do…"

"But you must be gone…you must be gone…"

"YOU WILL NOT INTERFERE!"

A scream tore at her throat, but refused to make itself heard. Her tongue seemed frozen in her mouth, her voice box clamped shut by the dark mist that had settled over her. That voice, that last horrible, angry voice…

That voice was Kikyo's.

Kagome shook herself out of her memory and looked up at her rescuers again with a slight grimace.

"…the only thing I can remember from when I was…dead…was high, cold voice saying that my sister was better off without me, that without me, she could do great things. All I had to do was get out of her way and let her learn from the experience. I was…" she swallowed hard, "I was a sacrifice."

"Kagome…you don't have to tell us all this if you don't want to." Kouga said shakily, disturbed by what he was hearing. He patted her hand awkwardly, disliking that it had gone cold and clammy. Inuyasha merely grunted and wrapped his arms tighter around Kagome, resting his head on top of hers. Their presence warmed her to the core, and she squeezed Kouga's fingers.

"Thanks, guys, really. I never told anyone, not even Mom. I was too afraid that it was real. That it was going to happen again, that sooner or later, I would actually die for my sister's benefit. Then my other muscles would lock up randomly, and I was steadily getting weaker. I hardly had any friends to begin with, and those that I did have distanced themselves from me, thinking I would drop dead at any moment and not wanting to get close." She shook her head and buried herself further into Inuyasha's chest, shaking again as the tears began to flow.

"I thought I was better! I thought I could go to school again without being afraid! I thought I could be happy!" She clutched at Inuyasha's shirt as he started rocking her, trying to calm her with that rumble of a purr in his chest again. Kouga watched for a moment, then let Kagome's hand go, not surprised when it automatically joined the other in clenching Inuyasha's shirt. Inuyasha shot a glance over her head to Kouga, motioning to the bathroom, and Kouga caught his drift. He got up and padded into the bathroom, only to return a minute later with a cup of water and a box of tissues. Kagome's wails had burned down to harsh sobs, and she had yet to disentangle herself from Inuyasha. The hanyou sighed and poked Kagome's shoulder gently.

"Hey, Kagome, sit up and have a drink. Can't have you getting dehydrated, can we?" Inuyasha chuckled softly and gave Kagome the best smile he could muster as she raised her head to look at him.

"Yeah…thanks, Kouga." She twisted so she was sitting with her back to Inuyasha while still in his lap and accepted the cup from the wolf prince. She sipped at it as she passed a hand over her eyes, smiling slightly when Kouga sensibly offered the box of tissues. She murmured her thanks again as she dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose, leaning back into Inuyasha and allowing him to rest his hands on her knees.

"I'm sorry I broke down like that on you guys. I know how much you dislike crying." She managed a small smile as Kouga chuckled and Inuyasha keh-ed. She shook her head and stared out the window for a moment before her mind registered what the slowly sinking sun meant. Almost frantic, she glanced around for a clock before settling her gaze on Kouga's alarm clock. 5:50. "Oh crap, guys. We're gonna be late for dinner."

As if on cue, all three stomachs rumbled in varying degrees of frustration at lack of food. They all stared at each other for a moment before bursting into side-splitting laughter. It took a couple of minutes and Kouga rolling off the bed before they calmed down, and by then Kagome was back to her cheerful self.

After a couple of quick touchups in the mirror and running Inuyasha's brush through her hair, the three set down the stairs in their now familiar style, Kagome in the center, flanked by her rescuers.