Hello readers!

I'm not dead:waves arms:

Well, I should be dead. I ought to die for leaving you with such a nasty cliffhanger and not updating for more than a month.

But we have to celebrate

:hands out fake champagne:

I've hit 800 reviews.

:bursts:

Do you know how much I utterly adore all of you? Eh? EH?

:hands out candy, cookies, fuzzy animals, and lots of love:

Okay. Story. Here we go!

We're in the final stretch… I can't see this fic going past 25 chapters… so we're almost done, my little lovemuffins!

sugarsprite-

Wow. My head feels like someone just hit it with a rock.

Which isn't much of a surprise.

There's tape over my eyes. My hands are handcuffed to each other, and I seem to be lying on something soft. A bed maybe?

I sniff the air before moving. I have a rather good sense of smell, from having to rely on it for all those years when I had nothing but my nose and eyes and brain and hands.

I smell blood, my own blood, probably from the wound I received how long ago? An hour? A day? A week, even?

I sniff again, going around the metallic blood smell, seeing if I can smell someone else's breath or their scent.

There's someone in here… next to me…

I stiffen, before realizing that it's Kagome and not some mysterious attacker.

I move slowly, cautiously, realizing my incapacitated hands are not only handcuffed, but chained to something, a rod or a bedpost or something rather sturdy. But at least I can move.

The first thing I think of is getting this stupid tape off of my face. I don't intend on impersonating Helen Keller. Deaf and blind really isn't my style.

I claw at the tape. It's really well stuck to my face, hurting when I pull at it. I work at getting a hold of it and pulling, slowly and cautiously, in a way that'll cause the least pain possible. No good. I can feel every facial hair being ripped off. With one effort I pull quickly and rip the monster from my face.

…

Ow….

There's very little light in the room, but I am still blinking and squinting. First things first: I examine the tape. My tiny facial hairs cover it, and a few eyebrow hairs and eyelashes are there too. Massaging my face, I look around.

The room is bleak, gray, cement. I'm chained to a pole in the southernmost corner of the room. There are no windows. The dim light comes from a flickering florescent strip up on the ceiling, with two parts of it burnt out and the last one seeming to be well on its way to burning out itself.

So this is what its like to be kidnapped.

Its funny, I'd always imagined it would be more frightening. More painful. Like, having my ear cut off and put into a plastic bag to send back to my father.

My hand grasps my ear… maybe that's what's next.

I sigh and look about once more. I don't need my ears much anyways.

There's a table across the room from where I'm sitting with two plates of bread and cheese and two glasses of water. There's a slot next to the table where assumedly, food is pushed through. Above the bolt in the middle of the room, is a camera, in one of those little black orbs you see in malls and banks. A red door, bolted from the outside, seems to be the way we were carried in.

We.

Kagome.

I'm an idiot not to look at her first.

She lies delicately on the bed next to me, her black hair streaming across the bare mattress, eyes covered with duct tape as mine were covered, hands bound together by the handcuffs near her face. Her breath comes slowly and smells metallic. I notice a stain of dried blood running from a gash on her scalp down into the duct tape.

I haltingly put a hand on her shoulder. She jumps, apparently not as asleep as I thought. I let my other hand find hers, and I squeeze her hand. She knows my touch, and visibly relaxes.

I help her to sit up and remove the duct tape over her eyes. She blinks, rubs her eyes, and looks around. I feel compelled to talk to her, though there is very little to say.

"Are you alright?" I ask, looking at the cut on her forehead.

She nods, "I'm fine. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Just a bonk on the head and a bit groggy."

She leans back on the bed, "So… now what?"

I steal a glance at the camera. "Do you think they understand sign language?"

She scowls, apparently brooding over something I have no idea about, her pretty bloodstained brow furrowing in a pensive frown. "They understand a little." She glares at the camera and lifts her middle finger up at it. Universal sign language there. Then she signs slowly enough for a hearing person with little knowledge of signing to understand, "Thank you, N-a-r-a-k-u."

"Naraku?" I mimic the letters her fingers formed while spelling the name. "Who's he?"

She puts her head in her hand, cradling her face which has changed from an angry face to a mournful one. "Kikyo's ex boyfriend."

"What?" I ask, astounded, "You know this bastard who kidnapped us?"

She nods miserably. "You know how she sort of flirted with you a lot just before we all got to know each other?"

How could I forget? I nod yes, not quite understanding where this is all going.

"Well, we had moved here from Kyoto a couple of years ago, right before we started the clinic. It was her first real time out meeting people since we came here. You see, when she was in Kyoto, she had this boyfriend." She looks up at the camera, then turns her back to it, and continues, "He was like, five years older than her, and he was a real psycho." She signs erratically, with small gestures near her chest so the camera won't be able to see what she's saying. "His name was Naraku, and she thought the world of him at first. Kikyo really, really loved him…but he was crazy. He would hit her and accuse her of doing all these things and eventually, she had to break it off. But he wouldn't accept that as an answer…" she stops her rather intriguing story. "Did I ever tell you the real reason I don't talk anymore?"

Huh? I'm confused. I shake my head, and then sign with a question on my face, "I thought it was a car accident."

"It wasn't." she signs, her eyes not meeting mine, "I…" She breaks off.

While I watch, she extends a finger and scrapes at the side her pretty neck. Off comes a bandage-type thing, and, as she pulls at it, I see a part of Kagome I've never seen before.

There's a long, distinctive scar across her neck. Something that's too even to have been caused by an accident. It was a horrible wound. A terrible hurt. The scar is still vivid and red and angry. It goes all the way from one side of her neck to the other. I catch my breath, and she flinches, as though showing the imperfection in her causes physical pain.

"Kagome…" I manage to sign, eyes wide, "…Did he do that to you?"

She nods, no longer defiant and angry, but upset and vulnerable. "He did. It was meant to kill me, failed at that, but killed my vocal cords."

"Why did he do it to you, though?"

She shrugs, "He wouldn't do it to her. I think he might have blamed me for it." She gulps, and I see the awful mark on her neck move with her swallow. "Anyways, he had me kidnapped and then had a henchman cut my throat and… they dumped me in a ditch next to the highway to die. I ended up ripping off part of my shirt and wrapping it around my neck... It was scary, losing so much blood… almost all the blood I had." Her story seems to be an effort to tell, and her face is filled with sadness as she finishes, "I ended up crawling, half dead, to the road and someone saw me and called someone." She looks at me, "And now he's found us again…" I look into her eyes, so full of fear, and feel myself melt. I had loved her before, fallen for her wit and grace and beauty… Now all I want to do is hold her and make sure she'll be alright.

I reach out with my handcuffed arms and pull her into me, letting my chain over her head so I can let my arms encircle her and comfort her and bring us together. She stiffens, shocked by what I have done, but after a moment I feel her shift her body so she lies in my arms and allows herself to be held.

I can't say anything to her, my hands are occupied with the embrace, but I hope she understands what I'm trying to say… that I care about her and am so sorry. I keep her in my arms for a while, almost comfortable, her handcuffed arms pressed into me, her head resting against my chest.

We break away after a while, and I see that she has tears in her eyes. There really isn't much to say, but she signs a "Thank you."

Boldly and cautiously at the same time, I lean close to her and kiss her on the forehead. "I know there isn't much we can do in this situation," I sign stiffly after I pull away, "But I shall do my very best to protect you in whatever way I can."

She gazes into my eyes, and again hers fill with tears, "…I love you, Inuyasha." She signs, looking at me with such mournful tenderness I feel my heart flutter, even in the awkwardness and bad placement of the whole situation.

Wait…

Wait…

Wait……..

What's going on here? Why am I so calm in this situation? What exactly did Kagome just sign?

Okay, so first she brought her fist with an extended pinky into her chest. I.

Then she crossed her chained arms across her chest. Love.

Then she pointed at something in my direction…. It could mean You, but then again, it could mean Those handcuffs, or that bedpost, or that wall.

But the fact that she signed my name kind of indicates the first option.

Holy shit.

I resist the urge to tap dance all around the tiny room.

She loves me?

She… loves… me?

I mentally pinch myself. Dreaming shouldn't be ruled out as an option for what's going on.

Nope.

Reality.

She looks away, seemingly taking my complete surprise as an indicator that her feelings are not reciprocated…. They aren't. They're doubled.

"I…" I stop my signing, realizing she hasn't seen what I've been saying. I catch her eye, and try to smile as I sign, "I love you too."

Her eyes light up and we hug again.

…It's really, really hard to hug when you're wearing handcuffs.

But still…

Despite the fact that we're handcuffed, in a strange room far away from what I'm used to, kidnapped, and probably facing mortal peril in the next few days, despite all that…

I'm on cloud nine.

How messed up is that?