InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Stealing Heaven ❯ Wake-Up Call ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six

Wake-Up Call

Kagome awoke slowly, feeling as though she was moving steadily through layers of fog, each only a fraction less gauzy than the last. She tried to grasp at a memory- at what had been happening a moment ago, but she couldn't rightly recall. She remembered Professor Taisho . . . they'd been in the temple . . . ? Her brow furrowed as she fought to hang onto the image. What had they last been talking about? She couldn't . . . wait, why did she feel like something . . . inappropriate had happened? That couldn't be right . . . the Professor would never-

All at once the entire, impossible incident came back to her in a jumbled, discordant mass and she wrenched herself to sit upright, gasping loudly. Her eyes snapped open only to squeeze tightly shut against bright, pale light and she threw a hand up to shield her face. Something thin and stringy slapped her on the the tip of her nose and she again, cautiously this time, opened her eyes to see an IV tube dangling from the back of her hand.

Casting a squinty glance around, she realized the pale brightness was the white surroundings of the camp site's medical tent during daylight hours. This was, to her knowledge, the first time it had ever had to be used- for anything more serious than an infected insect bite, anyway. A long moment passed as she lowered her gaze, taking in the cot on which she'd been situated. Not at all far from her was another cot, empty save for the light blanket that was carefully folded and placed perfectly in the center. . . . This seemed to her like something the professor would do, which meant that until very recently he'd been here, too.

That awareness helped her mind to at last organize the things that had transpired into their proper order. Kagome remembered the professor collapsing . . . she remembered . . . and the very last thing she remembered was standing with Sango at the mouth of the tunnel and then everything just stopped until she'd woken up here. She could assume that the demon's possession had taken more of a toll on Professor Taisho's body than his system could really handle. But what about her? Had that . . . thing taken too much from her?

Morsel, my ass! Maybe she could corner him with that- make it seem that he'd not fully kept his word. But then, unfortunately for her, the demon was intelligent. He'd probably argue the point that she was still alive when no one else he'd ever taken one of his offerings from had been left alive before, so maybe that was really something she'd rather he not to decide to rethink. Biting her lip she turned her head, squinting to read the distant, tiny print on the solution into which her IV tube was connected.

"Hey," the word- though pleasantly spoken- made her jump and she immediately heard hurrying, shuffling footsteps. "Careful now," the RN was saying, smiling gently as he placed his hands on Kagome's shoulders and eased her back down in the cot once more.

She gave an exasperated eye roll- she was terrible and downright nightmarish at being a patient. "I feel fine."

"That might be so," he replied, checking her IV drip before sitting himself on the edge of the cot and withdrawing a pen light from his shirt pocket. "But I still need to check and make sure you actually are."

She couldn't help making a sour expression as he checked her pupils and then her pulse. "So . . . ." she began slowly, "what happened?"

He shrugged as he took a stethoscope from a cabinet drawer by her IV stand and listened to her heart for a few moments. "There were a few concerns floating around. That Taisho inhaled something when that section came down on you guys. But then," he gave another non-committal shrug as he stashed the stethoscope and prepped to check her blood pressure, "I thought it was just him, so that didn't seem likely. Then you did collapse . . . so I was right back to considering it might be an environmental factor, but I couldn't really explain why it would affect you later unless the professor had a compromised immune system, which wasn't the case. Both of your diagnoses turned out to be really simple, pretty text-book, it was the coincidental timing that threw me off, is all."

Kagome watched numbly as he unwound the Velcro-lined cuff from her arm and set it aside. " . . . And what were those text-book diagnoses?"

"Your professor's was exhaustion in combination with mild dehydration. You . . ." he rested an elbow on his knee and folded his hands under his chin as he looked at her, "when is the last time you ate something more than some sort of energy bar, or drank anything besides that crap-tastic coffee we're stuck with here?"

"I . . ." her head was a little fuzzy, still, she was sure it had to be because it sounded like he was just accusing her of not eating or keeping herself hydrated when she knew she had been doing both. "What?"

The RN's lips folded inward as he clasped his hands- clearly he thought she was just being difficult. "You were dehydrated and showing signs of malnourishment."

She felt her eyebrows shoot up her forehead- this was a surprise to her. "I don't under- . . ." her voice trailed off as she shook her head. She and the professor had both been dehydrated? That couldn't be a coincidence- it had to be something to do with The Thief's little visit, she just couldn't figure out what, yet, since she could understand her own system being depleted, but the professor's? How did that even . . . ? Sighing heavily, Kagome let her head roll back and stared up at the blank, white ceiling of the tent. How did she expect for any of this to make sense- that she'd just think it to death and the answers would magically pop into her head? "It was so bad that I collapsed? You can't be serious. And how long have I been out?"

"It's been about twelve hours."

She thought her eyes would fall out of her head.

"To be fair, I don't think it was just the nutritional deficiencies. It was probably made worse by the late hour, the shock to your system after a bad scare- like a wall almost coming down on your head- and the stress of the resulting situation. It's not . . . typical, but it looks like you were so worn out that after the initial fainting spell, your body just went into its natural sleep cycle."

Giving a slow nod, she figured that from his view point it all made sense, maybe it really had all been just a figment of her imagination . . . though if that was so, she was suddenly very worried about her imagination. "Did Professor Taisho say anything?"

The RN shook his head. "Not really, nothing you hadn't already told me. Except that he couldn't remember how he got across the chamber. He remembers getting somehow knocked back and hitting the floor and then . . ." he shrugged, "suddenly he was standing at the entrance."

Blue eyes went wide for a moment. She'd been kind of hoping he'd forgotten that. "Is that normal? To just . . . ya know, forget like that?"

He shrugged again. "Understand that we like to ignore things that make us uncomfortable. Taisho is a very organized and in-control person, unfamiliar with not comprehending his surroundings due to something unforeseen like disorientation. It's entirely possible he simply blocked out the feeling, only allowing himself to recall the moment when he regained his spacial orientation."

She heaved another sigh. There didn't seem to be very much at all she could do about things- at least not at the moment. She'd have to bide her time and . . . well, she didn't really know what then, but she'd figure something out. "Um, can I go now?"

He checked her IV solution again before giving a half-nod and standing. "Just give it until this one's finished. I'd like to be sure you've replenished as much of your fluids as possible. One last thing . . . you're positive that no debris hit you?"

"Yes, positive, why?"

"You have a bruise on the back of your neck that looks pretty recent."

She couldn't mask her confusion as she raised a hand to run her fingers lightly over the skin there. It was a little tender and she recalled suddenly- and quite vividly- the feel of The Thief biting down on her neck. She repressed a shudder and allowed her eyes to drift closed for a moment as she pushed the memory away. Kagome hated herself for actually feeling relieved that it had been mistaken for a bruise, and not recognized for what it really was. How would she explain a recent human bite mark on the back of her neck, after she'd been alone with Professor Taisho for an hour, without getting either of them in trouble?

She forced a small gulp down her throat, averting her eyes. "I-I . . . uh, honestly can't . . . recall anything."

"Don't feel guilty, what happened wasn't your fault," he said gently and again she found unbelievable relief in being misunderstood.

"Uh . . . thanks," she muttered slowly with a nod and he nodded in response before turning on his heel to exit the tent, leaving her alone.

For a long, quiet few minutes she simply stared after the man. What was his name? Hojo . . . ? Mojo . . . ? Something like that. She troubled herself with little thoughts- like what the RN's name was or how much work she'd already missed and why the hell in the whole of the Latin American countries did they not have decent coffee here- to drive away bigger, scarier problems; like what on earth was she going to do about The Thief? What if he was still around when they got back to Japan? What if he decided morsels weren't enough and he wanted her to . . . NO! Kagome shook her head vigorously, the corners of her mouth pulling into a deep frown.

She was not going to think about that right now. Whenever she pondered answer-less questions she teetered on obsessing to a point of insanity, this was something she'd understood about herself for a very long time. There were answers to this, she knew there were, but she didn't have them yet, nor any idea how to get them, so it was as good as said answers not existing at all. Her frown only deepened as she turned her gaze on her IV drip . . . stupid bag was still half-full, she was going to be here forever.

"Even if I were your boss," she heard and turned her head to see Professor Taisho at the tent's entrance- the sight of him forced an odd mix of warm relief and chilling fear to wash through her, "I still wouldn't know whether to thank you for not letting my head get caved in my a falling wall or fire you for being uncharacteristically dumb enough to not take proper care of yourself."

Not missing a beat, she pointed to the empty cot beside hers. "Pot calling the kettle black? You were diagnosed with dehydration, too."

A silver brow quirked. "Touche." He slowly strolled closer, pausing deliberately by her feet and she batted away the impression that he'd been worried about her. "This incident has made me think that perhaps . . . I should send you back to Japan."

Kagome bolted upright instantly, a dozen thoughts all colliding in her mind. What if the Thief thought she'd willingly abandoned her deal with him and took it out on Professor Taisho? What if it tried something with Sango or Ayame? What if it killed someone all because she wasn't here? . . . And oh, sweet gods, how bad would being kicked off the excavation look on her academic records? "Y- you can't!"

His brows inched ever so slightly up his forehead. "I most certainly can."

"But why? It'll look like I'm being punished and I didn't do anything wrong."

The professor's mouth pulled tight at the corners and she recognized that look- he was thinking it over. "That's true, but I'll smooth it over- see that you still receive full credits for the internship."

She couldn't believe that these words were coming out of Professor Taisho- suddenly it wasn't about anything to do with The Thief. "You can't be serious. That's like giving someone permission to cheat on their finals. Why would you do that? I deserve to be here, professor!"

He let out a short, quiet sigh of mild exasperation. "Yes, you do. But I am the one who is responsible for you. If I can't count on you taking care of yourself, then I can't let you remain here, I'm sorry."

Stubbornly ignoring her IV, Kagome folded her arms under her breasts. "Well fine, but if that's going to be how it is than you need to send yourself back home, too."

Again his eyebrows lifted, but this time it made for an eloquent expression from which she read- as easily as if he'd opened his mouth to speak the words- I beg your pardon.

"It would be only fair, since you got half the same diagnosis as I did. That being said," she pointedly used one of his favorite phrases, "if I have to go home based on the grounds that I'm not taking care of myself than you should have to go, too."

Professor Taisho made a lightly pained face. "Why didn't it stick in my mind that you already said that? What ever happened to confidentiality?"

"That's a doctor-patient thing, I don't think it applies to RNs."

Amber eyes narrowed just a hint at that. "Damn." A long moment passed before he let out a sigh, smoothing a hand against his tied-back silver hair. "You can stay on two conditions. The first is that this is never to happen again. You are to have a water bottle with you at all times."

She gave a quick, emphatic nod.

"Two . . . on our next resupply run you will have yourself checked by the town's doctor."

This time it was Kagome's eyebrows that crept upward. "That means you'll be seeing this doctor, too . . . right?"

The skin beneath his eyes pinched, wondering just when he'd become so powerless in this situation. "I suppose it does."

She nodded slowly and he nodded back, still wearing a mildly confused expression as he turned to leave, but then- almost angry at herself for it- Kagome remembered something. "Professor?"

"Hmm?"

"Before you collapsed, you were saying something . . . do you remember what you were talking about?"

He paused to glance at her over his shoulder. "Unfortunately no, not really. I think I was still in a bit of a daze at the time."

They shared another nod and then he was gone. She laid back in her cot again, her gaze fixed on that slow dripping of her IV. She felt a little more of that strange, misplaced-seeming relief, misplaced because she couldn't imagine that this sort of luck was going to hold out.

It might not have seemed as though she had any luck at all, but Kagome knew she hadn't seen the last of The Thief- and she didn't have the faintest clue when that would happen, either- and she couldn't help worrying that he was going to make another slip and she'd find herself scrambling for an explanation to something that shouldn't be. Like . . . the professor waking to find the taste of a woman on his tongue. She groaned at herself and buried her face in her hands. Thank the gods fate was being kind to her . . . for now . . . even if it was only on the little things.

* * *

It was the next evening when Kagome was sitting cross-legged on the forest floor at the edge of camp. Freshly relieved from her cataloging duties, she was busying herself with a sort of side-project Professor Taisho had tasked her with- rendering the strange jars that had been hidden behind that wall. His own memory he feared to be compromised and he wanted to see what they had looked like sooner than their painstaking reconstruction would make possible. Even before a shadow was cast across the page, she knew someone was slowly approaching her. She set her pencil aside and looked up, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the still-bright rays of the setting sun. Sango stood there, a distant and worried look on her face.

Quickly Kagome shuffled her sketchbook out of her lap and stood, hurrying over and grabbing her friend by the elbows. "Sango, what is it, what's wrong?"

For a long moment Sango wouldn't meet her gaze, but at last brown eyes lifted to meet blue. "Kags, we're close, right?"

Kagome felt her brow furrow. At first she thought Miroku had done something stupid and upset Sango, but what would that ever have to do with how close she thought they were? "Of course we are. Sango, I don't-"

"C- 'cause you'd tell me, right? You'd tell me if someone was like . . . hurting you, right?."

The words made Kagome's heart drop into her stomach. ". . . What?"

"If someone was doing something to you, you'd tell me so I could help you, wouldn't you?"

Finally, Kagome forced herself to lie. "Of course I would."

Slowly nodding, Sango averted her gaze again, lightly taking a hold of Kagome's wrist and turning on her heel to start toward the AV tent. "Okay, then . . . I am going to need you to explain something to me, 'cause I . . . don't understand."

Kagome felt numb throughout her entire body as she was dragged into the tent and lightly shoved into a folding chair. She didn't know what was worse, not knowing what had Sango so upset, or that Sango wouldn't look at her, even as she queued up something on the audio feed and took the headphones in her hands.

"Okay, um . . . I was going through some of the tape from one of the other altar rooms and I thought I heard something real low, like in the background, but it . . . it was during hours when no one was supposed to be at the site." Kagome's heart- still in her stomach- started to ice over, spreading a chill through her midsection as Sango set the headphones on her. "So I did a little tweaking and heard . . . something that must've been echoing over from that other chamber that you and . . . Professor Taisho were in."

Blue eyes closed over sudden, frightened tears as she heard the crashing of the wall all over again. She heard herself scream for the professor . . . there was muted conversation that she couldn't really decipher, but it wasn't as though she needed to . . . more muted discussion and then . . . the low but unmistakable sound of her own gasp. Kagome bit her lip to keep it from trembling as she heard the first distinct words, oddly clear despite the muffled effect of distance.

"All you need do . . . is come for me, little priestess."

The inside of her throat felt thick and raw and rubbery as she forced a gulp, unable to stop a tear that escaped at the sound of her own involuntary moaning echoing in her ears. More muffled talk followed, only a few scattered words audible, but it sounded . . . it sounded dangerously like Professor Taisho was threatening her.

The recording stopped and Kagome opened her eyes slowly and reluctantly as Sango pulled the headphones off of her. For a long time she couldn't look up, but at last she did, her blue eyes baring a watery sheen and beginning to show a tinge of red.

"I never thought Professor Taisho would be the type to . . ." Sango took a deep breath, pacing herself as she set the headphones aside and dropping her voice to a whisper. "I'm going to scrub this, and no one else will ever hear that again, I want you to know that. But . . . I just don't understand. I mean, if something happened with you two, fine, these things happen, but you didn't tell me and I always thought you'd . . . confide in me. But I see your face now and . . . Kags, please. Did he force himself on you or something?"

"What?" Kagome almost couldn't believe what she was hearing- questionable recording notwithstanding- whispering back, "The professor would never do something like that!"

"Okay then," Sango's expression became deeply wounded. "So then how long has this thing between you guys been going on? Is that why you really felt bad you got picked for the trip and not Kikyou?"

“WHAT?" Now Kagome really couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Sango . . ." she shook her head, breaking into a mournful laugh as she halfheartedly wiped at her nose and her cheek, "I'm not having an affair with Professor Taisho."

"Then what is going on, Kags, 'cause that is pretty damned sure what this sounds like."

"I know," Kagome muttered back miserably, folding her arms around herself and pulling her legs up onto the chair. "I want to tell you, I do . . . but," she paused, shaking her head, "I . . . don't think you'll believe me. Hell, I was there and I barely believe the mess I'm in myself."

Sango blindly reached back, pulling up a second chair and snapping it open to set it before Kagome and seat herself. "The mess you're in?" she echoed, leaning forward a little and resting her hands on Kagome's knees. "Look, just . . . please just tell me. I may not be able to help you, but . . ." she forced aside a sniffle- she'd never seen Kagome so very, very upset it was heart-wrenching for Sango to witness this from the girl, "but," she said again, "I promise that whatever it is . . . I'll believe you."

For a long, painful, silent few moments Kagome simply stared at Sango before giving into a nod and leaning close to whisper the entire story into her friend's ear.

After she was done, she leaned back again, looking into scared, confused brown eyes. "I knew it," Kagome said with another sad, humorless laugh as she shook her head, "you think I'm crazy."

"No, Kags," Sango replied, not even sparing a moment to think it over. "I do believe you, I swear it." She stopped to draw in a breath, looking suddenly on the brink of tears herself. "I just have no idea what we're going to do about it."

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