A/N: Here's chapter three! A little note, though. On Inuyasha's first italicized memory, I am improvising about what was said. I can't remember off of the top of my head, so if I get it wrong, don't sue me. I'm trying more with this chapter to explore the emotional aspect of the memories rather than everything being dead on. In fact, I added things...That said, here it is, and I hope you enjoy it!

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Where You Are
Chapter Three: Her Mother's Tale

"A talk?" Inuyasha blinked. "What exactly is this about, Ms. Higurashi?"

She smiled. "It's about my daughter, Inuyasha. And you. I think that there is something you are going to need to know if my daughter has any chance of regaining control of her own body..."

Inuyasha gulped and nodded stiffly, shoving Manami off of him once more. "What is it?" he asked.

She sighed. "Inuyasha, Kagome's grandfather is very much a traditionalist. I'm sure that being from the feudal era, you know and understand what an arranged marriage is?" She waited, and after a moment, Inuyasha nodded, his eyebrow rising slightly. She took this as a signal to continue. "That is how Kagome's father and I came to be married. Didn't Kagome tell you about any of this at all?"

Inuyasha shook his head. "No," he replied, his obvious confusion dripping from his voice.

She sighed deeply, looking down. "I guess she wouldn't have. She has been afraid...terrified ever since she started middle school that she would suffer the same thing. Her father...I grew to love him...but I was not in love with him. There is a difference. Taro's father...Kagome's grandfather, he was the one who arranged it all. It happened when I was eighteen years old."

"What does this have to do with Kagome?" Inuyasha frowned deeply.

"I'm getting there," she promised. She sat farther back in her chair. "A couple of weeks ago, right before Kagome returned to your time, her grandfather arrived home with news that he had arranged a similar situation for her..."

At this, Inuyasha's eyes went wide with shock.

It was Kagome's mother's turn to frown. "I know, Inuyasha. I did not know about it at all. I was shocked, to say the least. But Kagome..."

Inuyasha had leaned forward in his chair.

"Kagome cried...sobbed, hysterically. I had never seen her that upset before. She wasn't herself. I have never seen her...well, I have never seen her stand up to her grandfather before...but that day, she certainly did..." she recalled.

"You did what?" Kagome screamed, allowing the bowl of milk she had intended to bring to Buyo to drop to the floor forgotten. She stared at him in utter disbelief.

"Kagome, you are coming of age now, so I thought it was time to set you up for the rest of your life..." he explained calmly, taking several steps toward her.

Kagome practically growled. "It's my life! You can't just go and make my decisions for me!"

"Yes, I can!"

"I am not my father!" Kagome screamed at the top of her lungs. "He is gone, gramps, and I can't let you do that to me just because he and mom let it happen to them and they couldn't speak up! I have other things on my mind right now! I...I refuse. I won't!"

His eyes widened. "What is that supposed to mean?" he challenged her.

Kagome suddenly lost her steam. She looked defeated. She looked up at him. "I'm just...I'm not doing it." she said simply.

"Why the hell..." her grandfather began, but she cut him off with her next sudden outburst.

"I'm not doing it!" she repeated. "I'm...I'm in love with Inuyasha!" she spat, dropping down into the nearest chair with her head hung in her hands. Tears spilled from her eyes. "Are you happy now?" she whispered hoarsely.

Inuyasha had paled considerably. This was all so shocking to him. His mouth hung open.

Kagome's mother nodded in confirmation. "Of course her grandfather would not leave it be after that. He assumed things...accused her of being...well..." she cleared her throat. It was obvious to Inuyasha that she was fighting herself internally to keep her anger from rising to the surface.

Inuyasha blinked. "He did what?"

"It certainly wasn't a pretty episode..." she admitted.

"What happened?" Inuyasha demanded.

Kagome's mother sighed, the look in her eyes calming down a bit. "Just what I said..."

"What have you done with him, Kagome? What has he done with you? This is absolutely appalling! You can not go to the feudal era and just abandon all of your morals like some common tramp!"

Kagome's eyes flashed with hurt, but it was replaced quickly with anger. "I have done no such thing!" she snapped at him.

"Oh, really?" he smirked. "And you expect me to believe that? Yet you just told me that you 'love' him! I'm sure he is an absolute perfect gentleman, isn't he, Kagome? He is half demon! I know that you know that...so don't expect me to believe that him or you have behaved yourself!

"Shut up!" Kagome screamed at the top of her lungs. "He's not like that, and neither am I! He hasn't even touched me! He...he doesn't even know how I feel..." she whispered, her voice cracking slightly.

Her grandfather's mouth hung open in surprise. "Did you just tell me to shut up?" he gasped. "You are telling me that you refuse to accept the arrangements that I have made for you...that you 'love' Inuyasha...but he doesn't know?" he scoffed. "Why must I even argue with you about this? This is ridiculous...!"

"I don't care!" Kagome retorted loudly. "I will not do it!"

Inuyasha's mouth formed a pronounced 'O', and he sat back against the back of his chair, looking defeated. He looked up into the eyes of Kagome's mother. "Ms. Higurashi...I swear, I didn't realize...I didn't know that Kagome..."

From behind him, Manami groaned. "You are boring me, Koji...although I do feel the girl squirming inside a bit..." she commented.

Kagome's mother glared at her in annoyance. "Sorry, Kags..." she whispered, unsure if her daughter could even hear her. "But I have to tell him everything. We both know that he needs to know all of this..."

Inuyasha gulped. "But Ms. Higurashi, I don't think I can..." he stammered.

"No, Inuyasha. You really need to listen to this. There is much more to the story than you realize." She held a finger to his lips, and he sighed in defeat.

She took a deep breath. "Kagome's grandfather left the shrine after that. He was so mad that his entire face was red by the time he turned to leave. He didn't say anything to her, but he slammed the door hard enough to break the glass on the family picture when he left." she shuddered, remembering. "At first, Kagome didn't do anything. She just sat very, very still in the chair...she wouldn't move...she just sat with her head in her hands..."

"Stop..." Inuyasha whined. "I don't like it when Kagome is upset..."

"You have to hear this, Inuyasha..." she repeated her statement from earlier.

He gulped, and nodded. "All right..."

"Kagome wouldn't talk to me for a while after he left. I'd never seen her like that before. It was like she was completely drained..."

"Kagome, dear...why don't you have something to drink, huh?" her mother suggested. "I've brought you some aspirin. It will make you feel better."

There was no response. At first...

"Kagome, I know you don't want to go through with this...I know you don't want to end up with the same fate as your father and I. We did grow to love each other...we had you and then Souta...even though I thought I could never have children with a man I was not 'in' love with..."

At this, Kagome whimpered, and drew her knees into her chest with a short sob. "I don't want to hear it, momma..." she whispered in a low voice.

"But Kagome..." she blinked. Looking at her daughter's saddened face. She frowned. "What I'm saying isn't really helping, is it?" She wrapped her daughter in a tight hug. "Kagome...talk to me...please? Just tell me everything. I won't even talk...I'll just listen..."

Kagome began to cry. Hard. The stoic expression she had reserved for the argument with her grandfather vanished suddenly, and she buried her head in her mother's neck and sobbed. "I just can't...do it..." she stammered between gasps. "I can't marry someone I don't love, momma. I'm not like you. I'm not that strong. I wouldn't be able to just deal with it like you and dad did..." she admitted to herself, and to her mother. "I have been through so much the last couple of years...and gramps can not just ask me to give all of that up...I won't do it..."

Her mother only nodded.

"I...I can't leave them, momma. Sango, Miroku, Shippo, Kaede...I can't leave them, and I especially can't leave him..."

Kagome's mother shot her a questioning glance.

"Inuyasha..." she admitted. "What I told gramps was true, momma. I...I do love him. I know it's hard to think anything about it...he really doesn't know. I just can't bring myself to tell him how I feel. But just because I haven't been able to tell him doesn't mean I'm just going to do what gramps tells me to do..." She paused a moment. "Momma...what do you think?" Kagome asked, sniffling slightly.

Her mother sighed deeply and shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, Kagome. You were right...your life is your life...and there are some decisions that you have to make yourself..."

Kagome blinked back her tears, which threatened once again to spill forth from her eyes. "I just...I have to know first. I have to know how he feels. Even if he doesn't feel the same way...I need to know...if only to make myself feel better..." she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

"I know, Kagome..." her mother nodded, squeezing her daughter tightly.

"You see what I mean, Inuyasha? Do you understand now how important it was that you listened to me?"

After a moment of silence, Inuyasha nodded slowly.

He looked down at the ground. "I've been so stupid..." he whispered. "I swear, Ms. Higurashi...I just didn't realize. I never wanted to hurt Kagome..." his head hung.

"But you didn't, Inuyasha..." she assured him. "Don't you get it? Kagome loves you, Inuyasha. She loves you. That is the only thing that pains her. I don't know what else is going on in the feudal era, but I do know that much."

"Inuyasha always runs after Kikyou when she shows up. It makes Kagome really angry. She cries when he does that," announced Shippo as he ran through the doorway.

"I don't mean to..." he whimpered.

"That's just another way that you're stupid..." Shippo chastised him.

Kagome's mother blinked. "Kikyou? I've certainly heard that name before now. She was..." she put her hand to her cheek in thought.

"She was the woman who died fifty years ago for Kagome to end up with the jewel. She has...she has the other half of Kagome's soul..." Inuyasha explained in a low whisper. "I...I thought that I loved her, once. I don't know anymore. She never really accepted me as I am...she wanted me to use the jewel to become human...but I didn't want to do that...and it got her killed."

"That's not your fault!" Kagome's mother snapped.

"I wasn't done..." he sighed. "When Kagome came along and broke Kikyou's spell over me..." he stared. "It was just hard to accept, you know? It still is hard to believe that someone...anyone..." he added, looking from Kagome's mother to Shippo, and back again, "could accept me for who and what I was. But Kagome...and my friends...they did that...and Kagome..." his thoughts trailed off as he remembered something that had happened long ago. "Kikyou...tried to kill her...and she wouldn't even be truthful about it because of me..."

"Kagome, are you all right? What happened? Where did she go?" Inuyasha looked around.

Kagome sat on her knees on the earth, as if rooted to the spot. She shook slightly.

"Kagome?" he repeated.

"She...she's left already, Inuyasha..." Kagome stammered, although she still did not stand.

Inuyasha dropped to his knees beside her. "Kagome, why won't you tell me what happened? How did you end up out here? What went on?"

For Kagome, his questions seemed endless...although she was not quite sure he really wanted to hear the answers. Her hands shook from her ordeal. She took a deep breath. "I...I saw her...and I did follow her..." Kagome admitted.

Inuyasha's eyes clouded over with confusion.

"I...I don't know what I was going to say to her...but she...I was so scared, Inuyasha..." Kagome looked up. She would have continued her story. She would have told him of the horrors that she had been through at the hands of Kikyou...were it not for the look on his face that told her that he didn't want to know what really happened.

Her voice broke. "No, Inuyasha. Just leave me alone," she sighed in defeat.

"No, Kagome. I want to know what happened..." he insisted.

"No you don't!" she cried, jerking away from him and falling back on her palms. "You don't really want to know what happened here, so why would you even ask me?" She began to shake again.

After a moment, she stood, wobbling slightly on the spot, and took a deep breath. "Just...don't worry about it." she snapped, her voice shaking. Having said that, she slowly stomped off into the forest in front of her, leaving a dazed and confused Inuyasha in her wake.

Inuyasha blinked, the memory having finally resurfaced. "She wouldn't tell me the truth. I think she was afraid of how I would react...or what I would do..." he admitted to himself. "But even after that, she never left..."

"Inuyasha...what are you going to do after we finally complete the jewel?" Kagome's big brown orbs locked with his golden ones. "Do you still wish to become a full demon when all of this is over with?"

He looked at her, his eyebrow raised slightly. "What is that supposed to mean?" he snapped at first. "Why do you even care?"

A blush crept into her cheeks. "Because, Inuyasha...I...I like you just as you are." she said quickly. "I like you as a hanyou. I don't want you to change at all."

"Keh. I wouldn't change. I would still be there for you guys. I would just be more powerful..." he answered her, although he himself was not really sure of it. He sighed deeply.

Kagome's next question caught him off guard. "Are you sure it would be like that?" her voice was low enough so that even he had a hard time catching what she had said to him. Again, she looked up and met his eyes with her own. "You once told me that it scares you to be like that...that you aren't yourself...you would kill anything that got in your way...that your demon side 'took over'. I...I think you're really powerful as it is. I like you like this. Why would you want to change?"

"I don't know anymore, all right? How about we focus on getting the jewel first? Why are we talking about this now?" he asked in a whiny voice.

Kagome shrugged. "I was just curious about it is all..."

Kagome's mother smiled. Shippo was now sitting curled up in her lap, sleeping contently, and even Manami had taken a seat at the Higurashi table...

Inuyasha sat deep in thought. "Ms. Higurashi?" he whispered.

"What is it, Inuyasha?" she asked, a smile still playing on her lips.

He gulped. "Was Kagome...was she being serious...about what she said?" His ears twitched slightly, and he glanced over, where Manami was sitting and staring intently at him.

Kagome's mother nodded. "Of course she was, Inuyasha. Why would she say such things if she did not mean them?" her mouth dropped open in shock. "Why...why is it so hard for you to believe that someone might actually love you, Inuyasha?"

His sad expression returned. "Because...I'm nothing..." he frowned. "I'm an in-between...a half-breed. Half demon, but not accepted by demons because of my human side...and half human, but not accepted by them because of my demon side. It's hard to believe anyone could fall outside of that mold. I've known things to be that way for hundreds of years..."

"But Inuyasha...that was them...and this is Kagome. Surely you have realized by now that she is different than everyone else?" Ms. Higurashi shook her head. She pointed to her lap. "Your friend here is obviously a full demon...and Kagome talks about Miroku and Sango all the time. They are all different, Inuyasha. You know that...I know that...and everyone else knows that. But this is Kagome we're talking about. We already know well of how she feels about you. The question is, how do you feel, Inuyasha?"

"She really...she really loves me?" Inuyasha repeated.

Kagome's mother nodded once more. "Yes she does, Inuyasha."

Inuyasha stood suddenly.

"Where are you going, Koji?" Manami demanded of him, grabbing his arm.

Her jerked it away. "Ms. Higurashi, I think I need to take a nap. I have...I have a lot on my mind..." he told her.

She waved. "Sleep in Kagome's room if you want. I'll keep Manami occupied down here," she eyed her with contempt.

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A/N: Oops, sorry guys...had to leave this one there if the fourth chapter was going to have any meaning behind it. Please review and let me know what you think! Chapter four will be up soon!