Hitori ni Sasenai

By Lady Mac

Chapter Two

Father

[Awright! This should be a good one - it's really angsty towards the end, so get the tissues ready! Warning: Very brief lemony content in one of the flashbacks, but it's necessary to the plot, I promise.]

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, though I wish I did. Rats.

[Flashback]

The couple reached the village shortly after dark, but Inuyasha excused himself right away, apologizing hastily, and hurried off to the forest nearby.

"What were you doing?" Kagome asked when he returned half an hour later.

"Taking care of myself," he answered simply, settling into the corner next to Kagome's futon.

"What? What do you mean?"

He looked around to make sure everyone else was asleep. "Once I get started," he said softly, "I have to finish, no matter how it's done. You wouldn't let me, so I had to take matters into my own . . . hands."

Her eyes widened. "You mean you were . . ."

"Jacking off, yes."

"Oh." She looked down at her hands in her lap, embarrassed.

He smiled at her. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine, I do it all the time. Nobody needs to know. Why don't you get to sleep, though?"

"Okay." She slid under the blanket and he kissed her forehead gently. "Good night," she said.

"Sleep well."

The group started traveling again the next morning, and the tension between Kagome and Inuyasha grew steadily. He obviously felt very repressed, and started excusing himself almost nightly. Occasionally Kagome and the others would hear a strange, muffled howl from the forest where Inuyasha had hidden himself. Miroku and Sango would exchange an understanding look, but the kitsune was confused.

"He'll tell you if he wants to, Shippou," Kagome explained several times.

Several weeks later, Kagome was bathing in a cold pool when she heard a rustling from the bushes behind her. "That had better not be you, Inuyasha!" she called out, not turning around.

"How did you guess?"

She whipped around. She hadn't expected him to actually reveal himself. "What are you doing?!?" she demanded. "And where's your shirt? What's going on?"

He started to turn pink. "Just . . . uh . . . satisfying some . . . uh . . . masculine needs."

Blood rushed to her face. "You . . . you were . . ."

"No, not yet," he said, stepping down to the edge of the pool. "Still got my pants on. See?"

She saw. "How . . . how long were you planning to keep them on?"

"Not long, actually. But I was going to leave before that happened." He looked at her, then down at himself. "Actually, um, I think I'm going to go right about now, if that's okay with you. I'll . . . meet you back by the rest of the group a little later."

"Wait," she said suddenly.

He turned and stared. She was halfway out of the water, and her wet body glistened in the midday sun. "I . . . I want to come with you."

His jaw dropped. "A - are you sure?" he stammered.

"Yes," she said slowly. She didn't know why, but she did. Maybe it was the way the sun reflected off the warm, lean muscles in his arms, chest, and abdomen. Maybe it was the thin sliver line of hair that ran south from his navel and disappeared under the waistband of his pants. Maybe it was the look of utter longing in his eyes. Maybe it was the utter longing in her heart, in her mind, in her whole body. "Yes. I . . . I need to." She took a deep breath, then pulled a towel around her and climbed out. Inuyasha watched her hungrily as she walked toward him. She kissed him once, and then he took her hand and pulled her into the nearest grove of trees.

[End flashback]

Kagome woke up late the next morning, dressed quickly and went downstairs. "Leaving again so soon?" asked her grandfather.

"Hai." She forced a smile.

"All right then. Have fun!"

"Don't make up too many strange excuses!" she called as she walked out the door and headed to the well.

She crawled out in the Sengoku Jidai and looked around. No one was there, but that made sense since she was back a day earlier than she had said she would be. She ducked into the woods and pulled one of the testers out of her backpack.

[Flashback]

It was only afterwards that Kagome realized what she had done, and managed to hold the hanyou at bay by explaining to him the tremendous implications of their actions. But her cycle came and went, with not so much as a missed day.

This confused her. It was the right time, and there had been no protection. But somehow . . . somehow they had escaped. She mentioned it to Inuyasha.

"I think I know why," he said slowly. "When . . . when Kikyo was alive, we would sometimes talk about that, and she mentioned that since I'm a hanyou - instead of full human or youkai - I'm . . . well, infertile."

Kagome suddenly understood. "It's like mules."

"Nani?"

"Mules. They're half horse and half donkey. They have all the parts and stuff, but they can't . . . produce offspring."

"That makes sense." He looked up into her deep brown eyes. "And you know what that means, don't you?"

"That you're only fertile on the new moon?"

"Yes, and what else?"

She thought for a moment. Then it occurred to her. "I have my . . . bleeding on the new moon."

He grinned. "And when you put two and two together . . ."

Her eyes brightened and she smiled at him, and he laughed and hugged her. "You've finally got the dirty part down! I don't have to explain myself all the time anymore!"

[End flashback]

Inuyasha smelled Kagome before he saw her. He was sitting in his favorite tree in the middle of the village, perched on the highest branch. From there he could see everything for miles. He remembered how when he was younger he would sit there and pretend that he was a king and everything he saw was his kingdom, that he controlled everyone and everything he saw. He was staring off at the horizon when the familiar scent wafted its way up to his nose. But then, right after it, a slightly different smell. Like Kagome, but not quite.

He peered down through the foliage at the girl. She was alone, and he wondered what the other smell was. "Kagome!" he called.

She looked up and smiled at him. "I thought I might find you here! Come on down!"

As if he needed an invitation! Three quick jumps brought him to the ground, and he took her in his arms and hugged her warmly. "You're back early! You said you'd be gone for five days!"

"I know," she said. "But I finished what I needed to do, so I figured I'd come back right away."

He looked closely at her. Her eyes were slightly red around the edges, and from up close he could smell the faint odor of dried salt tears. "Kagome, have you been crying?"

"What?" She blinked quickly. "No, of course not!"

"Yes, you have. What's wrong, Kagome?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them a vivid change had come over her and her eyes were filled with tears. "It . . . it happened."

[Flashback]

The sun was beginning to set as Kagome and Inuyasha ran together into a thick grove of trees and shrubs. Inuyasha pulled off his haori and threw it on the ground, then thrust himself onto Kagome, kissing her with more intensity than usual. It had been several months since their first encounter and they had realized that the new moon coincided with her bleeding, so it was impossible for them to conceive. They had had sex on every possible occasion in the interim, but it had been nearly a month now since the hanyou had "gotten his mac on," as he liked to call it.

Inuyasha felt his climax approaching as darkness fell, and he knew Kagome was nearing hers, too. She moaned breathlessly as he forced into her harder and harder, again and again . . . and suddenly felt an all-too-familiar tingling sensation course through his body, and he knew instantly that they had made a horrible mistake.

He tried to hold back his crest, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Using every ounce of willpower in his body, he wrenched himself away from Kagome. But it was already too late - he had felt the hot liquid surge from deep within him, and he knew it was now deep inside her. A loud, strange cry escaped his human throat, a howl-like combination of utter pleasure and all-consuming terror.

"What is it?" Kagome gasped, still lying down.

He was shaking so hard he could hardly speak. "Ka . . . Kagome . . ."

She sat up with an effort, and she saw the starlight reflecting off his now raven-black hair. She paled visibly in the half light. "Oh no."

[End Flashback]

It was as if she had said "Osuwari," instead of simply "It happened." Inuyasha's knees suddenly gave out, and he found himself sitting on the ground, shaking and lightheaded. His mouth opened and closed for several seconds before he could make a noise. "A - are you sure?" he croaked. His throat was raw and dry.

She knelt softly beside him and gripped his haori tightly with both fists, and then the tears began to fall. "I - I - I'm sure," she sobbed into his shoulder. "I - I - I did the test, a-a-and it came up p-p-positive."

Inuyasha's brain scrambled for something to hang on to, but the unfamiliar smell that came off of Kagome made his head spin. "What do you mean, test?" He took her forcefully by the shoulders and pulled her off him, his heart beating wildly. "You have some sort of test?"

She nodded and the tears streamed down her face. "T-there's these things that - that you use a-and they tell you if you're p-p-pregnant."

He felt physically sick and fought back the rising lump in his throat. "C-could it be wrong?"

Kagome shook her head. "I-I tried it twice, and I missed my p-p-period."

He realized then what the smell was. It was because of the child -- it made Kagome smell different. His outstretched arms began to shake violently and he felt lightheaded. He stood up and turned away.

"I-I-Inuy-yasha . . ."

He turned and looked at her. She was sitting on the ground, her face was a mess from crying. His vision blurred and he bit his lip, then he turned sharply on his heel and ran away.

"Inuyashaa!"

[Sniffl Oh no! Inuyasha left Kagome! What will happen next? If you write me your predictions in reviews I might use them . . . otherwise it might take a while before I get the next chapter up! Plz R&R!]