22 weeks or 10 months

Inuyasha Fanfiction

By Kittyonnails

"Going somewhere?" Kagome jumped at the sound of Inuyasha's voice. Of course he had caught her trying to slip back to her own time.

"I'm going home. Just for a day or two. I'll be back soon, I just need to, study." She held up the floppy shell of her canvas backpack, "I'll bring potatoes chips and ramen. Just don't make a big deal, Ok"

Inuyasha smirked. "Like hell. You know we have to have you here to get anything done. Just 'cuz you haven't been feeling well..."

Kagome sighed. She had known it would probably come to this. After all they had been through lately, she hated to do it, but he was really pushing her.

"Sit!" She hollered and leapt down the well.

It was embarrassing, really. She was only a week away from her sixteenth birthday and buying a home pregnancy test. Her cheeks were so red now, she wondered how she would ever explain this to her family. "please let it be some awful disease." she silently prayed.

Freed from the convenience store, Kagome ran home. She had to take the test to put her mind at ease. It had been too long since her last period. She thought someone had told her that stress could cause a missed period, but she knew that wasn't the only possibility.

"How could I be so stupid?" She asked herself. She was a modern girl, she knew all about contraceptives. Somehow all that had faded away when Inuyasha held her. Their moments alone were so rare and life so fleeting in the feudal era, "at the time it seemed like the right thing to do." She told herself. They had only been together twice, how could this be happening to her?

Kagome burst in the front door, pausing only briefly to shed her shoes in the entryway. Immediately she locked herself in the bathroom. This was it. Time to find out if she was worrying over nothing. God, she hoped she was worrying over nothing.

The instructions seemed easy enough. In Japanese and simple English, they told her where to pee, and what to look for in the windows. One line for not pregnant, and two for pregnant. "Here goes nothing" she thought to herself.

The waiting was unbearable. Kagome kept glancing at the cursed stick sitting on the counter next to the sink. The seconds ticked away on her watch slowly. She didn't dare leave the bathroom. What if her mom found the test sitting there? No way, she was going to be sure before she got herself into any of that. As far as anyone knew she was still a virgin, and that's how she intended on keeping. Unless she had no choice. Kagome sighed as her watch began ticking away the seconds, counting down the last agonizing minute she had to wait.

Two lines. Two very clear lines and one in the control window. She was pregnant. Kagome's heart sank into her knees. "How am I going to tell Inuyasha?" She wondered. "There's nothing to be done." she sighed. It was clear to Kagome that she would have to get an abortion. Sixteen year old girls just don't have babies. Especially time-traveling, jewel shard detecting, high school students. Kagome shoved the packaging into the trash and picked up the test. It was time to talk to her mom.

"Really, Kagome. I thought you knew better." Her mother sighed, looking at the test. Kagome hung her head. "Sorry mom." was all she could say.

"Well, there's nothing to be done." her mother said as she picked up the phone. "I'll make you an appointment with the abortionist. We won't verify the pregnancy at the regular doctor if we don't' have to." She gave her daughter a stressed smile and petted her head. "It'll be ok, Kagome."

Kagome nodded at her mother's words. "I have to go now. If I don't get back, Inuyasha will start looking for me." Her mom shot her a stern look, but said nothing. Kagome winced, but began stuffing her backpack.

Kagome put her hand on her abdomen, right where the baby was growing. She looked down into the well. "I wonder if I'll have to keep that appointment. Life in the feudal era might cause a miscarriage." she thought. Anything seemed possible. She was so out of her element with this. She held her breath as she jumped into the well.

"Kagome!" Shippo cheered as she climbed out of the well.

"'bout damn time." Inuyasha grumbled, lifting her out. Shippo began pulling at the backpack, searching for the snacks and sweets she always brought. Kagome shrugged out of the backpack, letting it fall to the floor.

"Inuyasha, I need to talk to you." He looked at her, his intrest peaked. Shippo paused too, waiting to hear whatever it was Kagome was going to say.

"alone." she added, steering Inuyasha away from the well, and the kitsune. Inuyasha sneered back at shippo as he followed Kagome into the woods.

Kagome's cheeks were on fire again. It was time to let Inuyasha in on what they had done. She would need to go home for almost a week to have the abortion, and there was no way she could excuse herself with another lie, not to him.

"So what's up?" he asked, looking curiously at the blush on her cheeks.

"Inuyasha, remember, a few weeks ago... when we... and then, once before that..." she stammered, not really sure where to begin.

"Yes." he said, softening at the mention of such intimate moments.

"I'm pregnant." she blurted, finding no artful way to say it.

"What?" Inuyasha frowned, "that's impossible."

"Why?" Kagome looked up at him for the first time. "Why would it be impossible, we did have sex."

"Because. I'm half demon. It's almost impossible for a human woman to bear my child."

"Well, your mother was human, and I'm pregnant." Inuyasha looked away at that.

"I guess. What are we going to do? You can't go looking for the jewel until after the baby. Ten months without getting anything done. Naraku will have it all by then."

Kagome shook her head. "I'm not letting that happen. Next month, I have an appointment. I'm getting an abortion. There's just no way I can have a baby. I'm only sixteen. There's nothing to be done."

"What's an abortion? Will that help?" Inuyasha frowned at the foreign word.

"It ends the pregnancy."

"What about you? Won't that hurt you?" Inuyasha had never heard of such a thing. Sure, people tried to do it all the time, but most of the time it killed the woman as well as the child. For exactly that reason, most unwanted childeren were killed after birth. He wondered how Kagome would end her pregnancy without harming herself.

"No. I'll do it in my time. It will be painful I think, but I'll be fine."

"Kagome, are you sure about this?" Inuyasha looked at her intensely, trying to process all the information and emotion that had suddenly hit him.

"There's nothing to be done." Kagome answered and walked toward the village.

"For you." Miroku handed Kagome a small heavy bundle wrapped in a cotton cloth. "Thanks" she answered as she unfolded the wrapping. It was a stone Jizo. The patron of aborted, miscarried and stillborn children. Tears filled Kagome's eyes.

It had been a week since she returned to the feudal era with news of her condition. She hadn't intended on telling anyone but Inuyasha. Secrets were hard to keep though, and everyone seemed to know what was going on. It had, apparently, been too much for Inuyasha. He hadn't been seen for five days. Kagome hugged Miroku tightly. His understanding meant a lot. She thought about her friends' reactions. Sango and Kaede had insisted that Kagome was old enough to have a child. Shippo had cried. Inuyasha had left. Miroku seemed to be the only one who understood. "thank-you" she whispered.

"It will work itself out." Miroku said as their embrace ended. "Buddha is merciful, and Jizo will see to it that the little one gets another chance." Kagome nodded.

"I am just surprised that this is a problem. Doesn't your time have some way to prevent this?"

Kagome sighed and nodded. "Five years ago we got birth control pills. You take them, and they keep you from getting pregnant."

"Then why don't you use this potion?" He asked, wondering if perhaps the abortion she had spoken of was the potion.

"It's expensive, and only for party girls. Insurance doesn't cover it and you have to go to the doctor every three months. I'm only sixteen, so I shouldn't be needing them. Besides, I just don't have six thousand yen to spare each month. My abortion will be paid for by my mom's insurance."

Miroku frowned, thoroughly confused. "what is insurance?" he asked, not really sure where to start with the many questions her story had raised.

"Just something from the future. Don't worry about it Miroku. Thanks for the Jizo. I really do appreciate it." Kagome smiled at him as she walked away.

Talking to Miroku made her wonder why she had stayed here all week. Her appointment wasn't for another month, but she was beginning to want to go home. "Maybe with Inuyasha gone, this is my chance." Kagome thought as she slipped into the cottage. Quietly she wrote a good-bye letter and set it on top of her things. She would be back, in a month. Until then she could go home and catch up on her schoolwork. Hopefully Inuyasha would be back by the time this was all over.

"I wonder where he is." Kagome murmured, just before dropping into the dry well.

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Author Notes:

I've got another chapeter coming, and it will be up soon.

I have always been intrigued with the Japanese attitudes toward abortion and birth control. This story started forming in my mind in 2003 when a friend of mine asked my help getting her friend, a froreign exchange student from Japan, to an abortion clinic. I met another girl from Japan and learned a lot that uncomfortable afternoon. Please remember that what I am striving to discuss with this story is not the moral question, it is the attitude of the Japanese with regard to abortion and how that might play into InuYasha.