InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Of love and healing ❯ When life speaks you listen ( Chapter 1 )

When I was young I use to dream of romance and love. I was your typical little girl caught up in the fairy tale of prince charming and sleeping beauty. As I got older I began to realize that fairy tales don't come true and that you'll never really find prince charming no matter how many frogs you kiss. And trust me I've kissed plenty.

Life taught me valuable lessons in many cruel ways. At a very young age I had to grow up fast and forget any childish ideals of love and white horses. When I was thirteen years old my mother passed away. My father left when I was five and my brother Souta was two, so I was left alone to take care of my younger brother and aging grandfather.

You may think that I resented them and saw them as burdens, but the opposite is true. Taking care of them gave me purpose, it gave me something to work for. I've always been a natural care taker, even when I was little I would take care of wounded animals.

Besides they were my only family left, and you don't skip out on family.

So here I am twenty-three years old and working as a nurse in a small hospital unit that specializes in brain trauma. I love it really. It never ceases to amaze me what people are capable of. Relearning how to talk, how to move, how to live again. I've seen people go from giving up on life to finding a whole new reason to live. People are more resilient than most of us give them credit for.

Now that Souta is on his own, and grandpa has passed away, I find myself for the first time not responsible for someone else's wellbeing. So I seem to have thrown myself into my work completely, and spend most of my time tending to patients. My favorite is reading to the children. They are so filled with hope and untarnished enthusiasm it's refreshing. I spend so much time at the hospital I consider it a second home, and therefore know when anything is going wrong and immediately try to fix it.

My life and home were pretty stable and happy. Well at least they were until recently when I met a certain comatose patient by the name of Inuyasha Takahashi.

I'll never forget that day. I wasn't supposed to be working in the ER, but it seemed that fate had other plans for me.

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A girl clad in nurse's garb rushed down the hallway. She looked to be about twenty-five years old with long deep brown hair that was pulled into a high pony tail, with intense brown eyes lined with a soft pink that burned with worry. As she made her way to the brain trauma unit her own mind was racing with horrible scenarios of what this "urgent issue" concerning her brother's welfare was.

Sango remembered the day she had to check Kohaku into a permanent care facility. She was at her wits end trying to deal with her brother's severe autism. She had just turned eighteen and was relishing in her new found adulthood when her parents were suddenly killed in a car crash. She was left with an eight year old brother who she was not prepared to take care.

She was successful at first, for about two years. They lived in their old family home and were getting along fine living off the insurance money that was left to them when they're parents died. Until one day Sango came home from school to find the babysitter hiding behind the couch and Kohaku screaming and throwing things around the living room.

She tried to contain him, she tried to help him, she tried so hard to save him from himself. It got to the point where she couldn't control him anymore. He was becoming a danger to her and to himself. It was then that she decided it best for him to be put into permanent care with people who knew how to help him.

It broke her heart to watch him scream and cry for her not to leave him. That he would be good. She promised to visit every day and to always be there when he needed her. She knew that this was for the best, and yet she still felt like she was betraying him in some way.

Sango kept her promise and visited Kohaku every day. She even sold the old family home so she could rent an apartment closer to him.

Her brother's condition was what prompted her to become a nurse in the first place. She hoped that one day she would be capable enough to take care of him herself so that he wouldn't have to be alone anymore. So he could be with his sister again.

And that brings us to now. Sango running down the hallways, panicked, trying to find Kagome.

Finally she spotted the familiar girl standing at the nurse's station readying herself to go home.

"Kagome!"

Kagome turned around at the sound of the familiar voice, recognizing the hint of desperation.

"Sango, what's wrong? What's happened?"

"It's Kohaku, something's wrong but they won't tell me what, they say I have to come down there."

Right away Kagome caught on to the situation and cut to the chase before Sango had a chance.

"Right. You get going and I'll cover your shift. Please call me and let me know whats wrong. "

The relief on Sango's face was the only thanks Kagome needed but Sango being Sango threw her arms around her best friend and promised to make it up to her. Kagome shooed Sango off and made her way to the ER for another twelve hour shift.