Diagnosis by thetroll

Chapter 1

A/N: Those closest to me already know that today we’ve received terrible news personally. It’ll be a rough go of things for a while, but my family and I are all doing the best we can. This is my way of coping with the news, I think.

TW: Cancer

.

.

Cancer.

The phone falls out of her hands as the word echoes in Kagome’s mind.

The test results are clear. The proof is irrefutable, though it is temporarily hidden from her eyes by the phone now facedown on the floor.

The rest of the words cycle through her mind.

Inoperable. Metastasized. Poor prognosis.

She begins crying as she struggles to breathe. 

What will they do? How will they tell their children? How will their children handle the news?

How will Sesshomaru?

Sesshomaru and Kagome had believed they’d have forever.

Now it’s clear they’re living on borrowed time.

She’s still a mess when Sesshomaru walks into the kitchen.

“The biopsy came back,” he guesses at once as he moves to pull her into his arms.

“It did.” Her voice is shaky and hoarse from the tears she can’t stop crying.

She may never be able to stop crying.

He doesn’t tell her it will be alright. He doesn’t lie and say they will move past this, or that it will be okay. 

Sesshomaru says nothing at all. All he does is hold her as she breaks down in tears again. 

“What are we going to do?” Her voice is breaking as she thinks of their children.

She doesn’t even know how to begin to tell them.

“We do what we have always done,” he murmurs gently. “We continue on as we can for the time we have remaining, Kagome.”

“How do we tell them?” she whispers, her voice cracking. “Should…should we even tell them now?”

Takahiro is wedding planning with his soon-to-be mate while his twin brother, Hiroshi, is preparing his thesis for his second doctoral degree. Ichika is expecting her first child. Their youngest, Kunihiro, has only just left home for college.

All of their children have their own lives. So much is ahead of them. 

And now they will have to continue that journey without both of their parents at their side.

“We will tell them this as we have informed them of other items of importance,” he tells her, pulling her against his chest. “We will tell them together, mate.”

She bites back another sob as she wraps her arms around his back—the same back that has helped support her through so much already in all their years together. “Right. Together,” she manages, wishing for a different outcome. 

Wishing that it hadn’t come down to this.

“But we will tell them tomorrow, Kagome,” Sesshomaru says then, lifting her in his arms and then wincing slightly as his aging body protests.

He’s in no better shape than she is.

“Tonight,” he continues as though he’d felt no pain at all, “is for us, mate.”

The kiss then is full of tears, but it is all they can manage as he carries her back to bed to cuddle. 

Tomorrow and the future awaits will come soon enough.