Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from the Inuyasha universe, but I sure do love playing with them. The rest is mine.

Chapter 2

"What the hell is going on?" Kagome demanded, slowly pushing herself off of the bed. She clutched the pillow to her chest as she approached the windows.

Maybe this was a really impressive TV and she was just being punked. That was still a thing, right? Ashton Kutcher was going to jump out of a closet any second now and tell her that this was all one very big unfunny joke.

"Do you not remember?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "I know that you were hit pretty hard on the head...does it hurt? Would you like something for the pain?"

"I just want answers," she demanded, angry and scared as tears pooled in her eyes.

He nodded and sat down on the couch under the windows, gesturing for her to join him.

Ha! Like that was going to happen.

He sighed and moved his hands back into his lap, looking up at her with concern. "I won't harm you," he tried to gently reassure her, but she wasn't feeling very reassured at the moment...especially when she saw his ears lower to his head.

Was he trying to make her feel guilty for making him feel bad? He had fucking kidnapped her!

"What do you remember?"

"Looking for my cat in the woods. And then I found your little group."

"Is that all?" he pressed, his ears tentatively unflattening.

"Yes," she confirmed, feeling her bottom lip begin to quiver. She would not cry. She absolutely would not fucking cry. She couldn't. Not in front of this guy. She had to be strong and find a way out of this crazy, shitty mess.

He tilted his head to the side in thought, as if he was trying to decide whether she was telling the truth or if there was another detail she was keeping from him. "What do your people call you?" he finally asked.

"Kagome."

"Kagome," he repeated, trying her name and feeling it pass over his lips and tongue. He seemed to roll it around in his mouth, savoring the syllables and tasting her name like a sweet candy. "Kagome...I am Inuyasha of Inusekai, second son of Touga, ruler of Inukuni."

"That's a very long name," she whispered, and she watched his face split into a wide grin before he smoothed it away.

"You can call me Inuyasha."

"Inuyasha," she nodded, squaring her shoulders. "Please take me home."

"I can't do that," he repeated with a sigh. "I wish I could, but that's no longer an option. If you hadn't found us…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but I can't. You're a liability, and we can't have that. My men wanted to kill you. I persuaded them not to, and this was the alternative."

"No," she whispered, shaking her head vigorously. "This couldn't possibly have been the only alternative. What are you even going to do with me now that you've kidnapped me?"

He glanced down in shame once the translator finished relaying her plight to him.

Oh god. He didn't have a plan. He had no fucking idea what her life was going to be like in the long term. He had just had her knocked unconscious, and whisked her off to his...his what? Spacecraft?

She shook her head and clenched her fists as her head began to feel light from panic. Fainting wasn't going to help her now. "I'm just going to be a problem for you. Simply take me home, and I won't be your problem anymore," she insisted, trying to reason with him.

"It would be easier to kill you than to take you home at this point, and it would give me the same end result," he replied wryly, causing her to clutch the pillow tighter and back away from him. He immediately winced at her reaction as he closed his eyes and his fists before opening them again.

"Kagome, I will not harm you," he stated firmly again, looking back up at her. "I will not let you be harmed. You're under my protection now, and I'll keep you safe."

"How do you expect me to trust in that when you were talking about killing me ten seconds ago?"

"I won't kill you," he insisted.

"How can I believe that?"

"If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it already," he pointed out dryly. "You have been unconscious for quite some time. I was starting to worry."

That would explain why he was hovering over her when she woke up.

"Just because you didn't do it before doesn't mean you won't change your mind about it now."

"That is true…" he agreed slowly. "But why would I want to?"

"I can be quite difficult - maybe even a pain to deal with. Why keep me around? You say you don't want to hurt me, but you don't want to deal with me either...so...wouldn't it be easier to just take me home and let me be?"

"I told you already...I can't do that," he sighed. "We're too far away for a pod at this point, and we can't turn around without running out of fuel. You're coming with us to Inusekai, and I'll figure out what to do with you when we get there."

She felt her legs give out as her head started to spin, and he leapt forward to catch her as she fell.

You're coming with us to Inusekai…

His words seemed to echo over and over again in her mind, and she felt like she was going to vomit. He carefully pried the pillow from her arms as he scooped her up and laid her down on the couch, resting her head on the pillow he had just taken from her. He gently moved her black hair out of her face, and she felt his fingertips linger on her cheek for a moment before he pulled away with a slight blush staining his cheeks.

"I had a medic look at you when we brought you aboard...He gave me macarons to help with your head when you woke up."

"Macarons?" she repeated, puzzled. She couldn't have heard that right...

He stood up and went to the small nightstand next to the bed, picking up a glass of something that was a clear liquid and a small bottle of something she couldn't see before he returned to her side.

"Macarons," he repeated, opening the small bottle and holding out two small pill-like objects in his hand. "It'll help with your head," he explained. "It'll make it stop hurting."

"Those aren't macarons," she smiled smally. "It's medicine."

"Medicine," he repeated, tilting his head. "Medicine…Kagome...Medicine..." He seemed to enjoy trying out English. This was good to know. Maybe that could be useful to her.

"Your translator isn't perfect."

"It's not. It will become more accurate the more you speak," he shrugged before offering her the pills and clear liquid again.

"No...Thank you. I don't want it."

"It'll help you feel better," he insisted, shaking his head and pushing them towards her for the third time.

"I feel fine," she snapped. His ears lowered and his eyes drooped at her outburst. "I don't trust it," she found herself explaining in a gentler tone. He looked back at her in surprise before his face softened into understanding and he lowered his eyes again.

"I see...but you are in pain?"

She looked away from him, unwilling to discuss her health with him since it was his fault she was in this predicament to begin with.

"Kagome?" he prompted, reaching out to her as she jerked away. Her reaction stilled his hand and made him retract it. He frowned in thought before nodding. "Kagome, look at me," he demanded, and she slowly turned her head and raised her eyes to his face. He placed the pills into his mouth and drank some of the liquid from the glass to wash them down.

"And that's supposed to prove to me that I should take your pills?"

"Yes," he replied firmly, squaring his shoulders. "Why would I take them if they would hurt you?"

"Because maybe they won't hurt you like they will me," she shot back, and she saw his jaw twitch.

"I am part ningen, too."

"Excuse me?"

"Ningen. My mother is ningen, like you."

"What the hell is ningen?"

"What you are," he replied in frustration. "The medic told me when I took you to him. You are of the ningen species."

"I'm a human," she disagreed. He tried the word again, repeating it.

"You are human...I am part human, too."

"You don't look very human."

"My father is an Inu Youkai," he explained. This time she tried the foreign word, and his lips turned up slightly in response as he nodded. "I look different because of him. I am like you, too...but I am stronger."

Her breath caught in her throat at that, and she shifted away from him. Was that a threat?

He seemed to understand her unease and sighed. "I won't hurt you, Kagome," he promised again, looking down dejectedly. "I want you to be safe and well. I will find you a purpose when we get to Inusekai."

"I had a purpose on Earth," she shot back, pushing herself to sit back up.

"Earth...Earth...Earth…"

"Would you stop doing that?" she snapped, and he winced. He then tilted his head up and to the side and let out a whimper-like sound.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" she asked harshly, and he closed his eyes.

"I...it's submission," he winced again, almost like verbally admitting that he was submitting to her was painful.

She just cocked her head to the side, pondering what he had said. He looked like a dog...whimpered like one...submitted like one. How interesting. Perhaps this could be useful to remember as well.

"Does that mean you will let me go home?"

"I keep telling you - I can't," he replied in exasperation.

"Because I'm a liability?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"You know too much."

"Because I saw a group of oddly dressed men walking around in the woods? That could mean anything," she scoffed.

"It doesn't matter. It's too late," he insisted, shaking his head.

"It doesn't have to be. You can always take me home."

"I told you. I can't," he explained as calmly as he could, but she could see from the look in his eyes that he was becoming annoyed with her.

"Ok...you can't. Because of the fuel, right? That's why you can't take me home?"

"And because you're a liability."

"What if I weren't?" she asked hopefully. "You clearly have technology well beyond what my people have. We have nothing like that translator. Is there a way to wipe this from my memory, and then you could take me home? There has to be," she pleaded, watching as he bit the inside of his lip.

"There might be a way…"