Chapter 3
Where Am I

Kenshin stood unmoving as Megumi leaned in to examine his scar. The one vertical streak crossing his face was the only reminder of what had happened to him years and years ago. He tried not to remember the details of that night, but ever since then he would wake up from dreams that left him half transformed and raging, blood on the pillow from the scar that would reopen at a moments notice. He didn't sleep much anymore.

"You're right, it does seem to be getting darker, more blood at the surface." She tilted his face away to get a better look, peering through some sort of lens that covered her right eye. "Energy is more active. Temperature stable. Pulse normal." She spoke in short clips, mostly for her own benefit. She walked over to the low table next to her patient's bed, and put up the thin notebook she had been writing in, taking out a much larger, much older, leather bound book. She opened where the last marker was stuck out of the middle, and began writing. She stopped and looked up at him.

"I will probably have to adjust your medication. Your energies are probably reacting to her energy. I can't be sure, but I will give you something to try." She moved to go back to writing, but then she looked up, not at him, not at the young girl on the futon, but just stared somewhere in front of her for a second.

"You haven't really thought your whole plan through yet, have you?" She turned and looked at him knowingly.

Kenshin quirked an eyebrow, "Oro?" His eyes widened as he said, "You said two broken bonds should be able to heal each other, that the energies would work in that way..."

"Yes Kenshin, theoretically the plan should work. But..." She trailed off, and looked down at her second patient she had been charged with keeping alive.

"But?" Kenshin's eyes had darkened a bit, and he crossed his arms, waiting for his healer to continue.

"Kenshin," She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. "The technical part of this should most certainly work. I've never brought this up before, because we've never gotten this close. And the reason we've never gotten this close is most dragons with broken bonds want to die. Or, they go insane with grief and then they die. I have very little research on how bonds affect humans. I am certain I can stabilize her, but I do not know, when it comes down to it, if she will want to be saved. Her scar is here," She made a movement across her own chest, right over her heart.

Kenshin nodded, and looked like he was about to respond, then movement caught his eye. He tilted his head towards the girl who was blinking, slowly, looking at the ceiling. It took her a minute to focus, and then process the information of a darker, stone looking ceiling. Then, a curious wrinkle formed between her eyes as she frowned and began to let her eyes drift around her. When their blue gaze finally landed on him, and then Megumi, and then back to him, she finally spoke.

"Where am I?"

-

When Kaoru first woke up, she didn't open her eyes. She had been having a dream, and was trying to remember it. There had been a red haired man at the airport. And there had been a wedding. No, that wasn't part of her dream. That was right before. The wedding had been in the dream too, but there had been something wrong. It had been frozen. She had to wake everyone up, but they were stone. She had turned them all to stone by looking at them, she tried to close her eyes but she couldn't and everywhere she looked was just more and more stone, and fire. There had been fire. And she had seen him. She hadn't want to. But she had seen him and then it was she who had turned to stone and the fire was coming closer and it would melt her. And then...

And then she had woken up. Something was demanding her attention. She had to focus on that something but she couldn't quite make her mind work. So she focused on what she could remember last. She obviously wasn't on the plane any more as she remembered the walk off the plane, through customs not having slept for two or three days and feeling just as bad. And she had walked through the airport. Here Kaoru frowned a bit, not remembering having her pack with her. And then... and then the red haired man had shown up. She remembered him asking if she was okay, if she needed to sit down. He had seemed disappointed to see her, but that didn't quite make sense. And then she couldn't remember anything except for a funny pain right over heart heart. Had she fainted? That would have been a first. But that left her with one frightening thought.

She had no idea where she was.

And then her mind grasped the important information she hadn't been able to process before.

She could hear people talking.

Doctor. Hospital. Her mind told her, and then just as quickly told her no. There were no beeps, no whirs. It was too warm here for that. The bed was too soft and those people were talking in hushed voices, not the normal, too loud voices of doctors or nurses who didn't care if their patient was sleeping or not. And it smelled clean, but cool. None of the harsh chemicals of a hospital. And before she could figure out what they had been saying, they stopped. Her head was starting to hurt. Caffeine.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see a bright, overhead light, but it took her a minute to focus on the dark ceiling in the dim light.

'Not a hotel either. Empty. Stone.' she frowned a bit. 'Oh my God, I've been kidnapped. Or something. Did I at least make it back to America? Am I still there?' she could feel her heart start to pound and tried to control herself by looking around the room she found herself in and taking things as slowly and methodically as she could. 'Door, open, that's a good sign.' Then she looked at the people in the room. 'Calm, non threatening, comfortable here. Red hair, same guy. Different clothes. Not wearing a suit this time. Blue tunic, dark grey pants, informal. Woman, Japanese doctor clothes. From a long time ago.' Her mind picked over their body language and details in snippets, looking for any attempt to jump her now that she was awake. Twitching her hands and feet, she realized she wasn't held down in anyway and she looked back at the man she could almost remember.

"Where am I?"

"I promise you are safe. Do you remember the airport?" Kenshin started softly. "You were quite sick."

"I remember meeting you, but not anything that happened after. Where am I?" Kaoru asked again, looking at the doctor sitting on her knees next to her and heating a kettle over a Bunsen burner on a low table, while writing something in a large ledger. Kaoru realized she was laying on a futon, She hadn't slept on one in many years. She hadn't sat up yet, and realized everything was quite comfortable. She was wearing some cotton pajamas from what she could see. She idly wondered where her clothes were.

"My name is Kenshin, you are in my home in Montana. I had to bring you here because you were dying. Doctor Tanaki is a specialist and was the only one I knew could help you."

"Dying?" Kaoru said in complete confusion. "Did I get food poisoning or something? No... I could have gone to a hospital for that." She turned to the doctor for an answer.

"I am sorry about your mate, John." She said, "It must be very painful."

Kenshin was watching her, and Megumi was only glancing at her as she continued writing and measuring.

Kaoru sat up slowly. 'Oh, I did get kidnapped, and by insane people, even if the red head is hot, he is insane. They think I know someone named John, and I haven't known a John in years. I could run, but RedHot's right there, couldn't get far. Just keep breathing, don't let them smell fear. Keep them talking and get information and then they'll leave you alone and then you can run. Very far away.'

"Mate." She said slowly, just repeating the word. Then, "Mate? What are you talking about? Like a husband?" Koaru didn't have to feign confusion. Megumi stopped what she was doing to look at her, and then she glanced at Kenshin who had walked in a bit closer.

"Did he not tell you what he was?" Kenshin hadn't stopped looking at Kaoru, and she shifted nervously.

"Who is John?" She asked. She did not like feeling nervous, and she could feel her control on her emotions draining. If they kept talking like this she was going to find some sort of weapon and smack both of them in the head until they started talking sense. She knew she hadn't been that sick. She didn't feel like she had just been dying.

She saw Kenshin's confusion.

"I am sorry, at the airport, you were asking for a John. You were speaking another language and asking for John. We have been trying to locate him for you."

"Mera Jaan." She said, the light bulb finally coming on. "I wasn't asking for a John, I was asking for My Jaan. That's what we called each other. I wonder why I was asking for him. That is odd."

"Who was he?"

"My ex-boyfriend, friend, my Lion man, I guess you could say he was my 'complicated' on facebook, though we couldn't exactly announce our... thing. His relatives are strict." She smiled a bit, and Kenshin watched her eyes sparkle with mischief, while noting she never said his name. "I think that was part of the fun."

"So when did he die?" Megumi ask and Kaoru gasped in shock. It took her a minute to process the information and she couldn't quite believe it she felt the amusement drain off her face, her mouth open in horror.

"Is he really dead?" She asked when she got control of herself again, "But he just got married! What did he die of? Did I catch it? I haven't seen him in months! Well, except for the wedding... but I promise I didn't go near him!" She looked upset, biting her lip and twisting her hands through the blanket that had bunched down in her lap when she had sat up. She glanced toward the doctor who was just gaping at her now, and then up into the eyes of Kenshin, who was much closer, having kneeled next to the futon. 'He's quick' she mentally noted in a detached way.

"He didn't.. explain anything to you?" Kenshin asked curiously, Kaoru studied his eyes a curious shade of light brown. Almost yellow gold, really. It took her a minute to register his question, and she nodded, working at keeping her tears back.

"I knew from the beginning that we could never be an actual couple." Kenshin nodded as if he understood. "He explained about his religion and his family. But he was so fun! I was always sort of uptight, good student, and I had way too much focus. I'd do what I need to, but when I met him, it was like I was a kid again. He was so young, even though we were the same age. And when I finally asked him out, despite what he told me at the beginning, he looked so sad, and that's when he explained we couldn't ever be together in that way. His culture was just too different, his family didn't approve of me. We were never more than friends, though he was my best friend. Is he really dead?" She asked again, swallowing resolutely, waiting for an answer.

-

Kenshin threw a quick glance to Megumi who raised her eyebrows and shook her head slightly to indicate she wasn't entirely sure what was going on either. He turned back to Kaoru, and Megumi picked up the kettle to mix up some medicine for her, glancing at the patient with a frown. This was different magic than she had been expecting, and the story was not making any sense to her from a bond standpoint. Kenshin just looked into those blue eyes, with tears threatening the corners but being held in place by that look of determination, Kenshin realized that she was very much in control of her emotions. It reminded him slightly of himself. Obviously this dragon she had encountered had bound her without her knowing, because nothing in what she said indicated she knew about Dragons or other kind, despite the energy radiating off her. She hadn't known how close to death she had been, and now he was unsure as to what to tell her. Finally he began he tried to put as much sincerity and comfort in the words as possible, he couldn't have her leaving and he couldn't force her to stay here if she were to help him. If it hadn't been for that, he would have just ordered her to stay.

"We had been going off what you told me while at the airport, we have no immediate information on his death." So this was a slight lie, she had been babbling and obviously didn't remember any of it. "We were under the impression that he had died, and you were about to be next. You were terribly sick, and Dr. Tanaki was able to stabilize you, quite quickly despite your being out for most of the trip here."

"What's wrong with me?" She asked, interrupting.

"Your heart." Megumi answered, holding out a cup. "I was able to moderate your rhythm and the palpitations have mostly stopped, but it will get worse without medicine and I've got to keep checking your vitals. There aren't many people in the world to have caught this. This set of symptoms are not much studied because everything sets in so quickly and there are very few survivors. You're lucky I've been working with Mr. Himura, Kenshin," She explained quickly, nodding at the red head at Kaoru's look, "On this, and that he found you and recognized what was happening. He's one of the few survivors."

He gave her a look that indicated he wasn't happy to have that bit of information shared. He was still touchy about it, but he was glad she was quick enough to steer the explanation away from Dragon Magic and what to her would sound crazy.

"Why do you think it has something to do my...my friend." She held her head at a definite answer, stubbornly challenging them.

Kenshin could have hugged Megumi for her quick thinking and fast replies to everything. By the end of it, Kenshin himself was almost convinced that the illness had something to with transmission of a pathogen through prolonged contact with one person. And Kaoru was slowly letting down her defenses. At least, he took it as a sign she was when she finally took the cup of medicine Megumi kept trying to give her.

"You will sleep a lot at first." Megumi said as Kaoru drank it slowly. "But you have done so well, I think you will be up quickly. We'll talk about this more after you get a bit of rest okay?" The dark haired girl nodded, and Kenshin could see her blinking slowly. "I will be staying with you at all times, so if you need something, I will be here. I'm afraid the medicine might give you weird dreams." Kaoru shifted so she was laying down, and she nodded once again, but she turned her eyes toward Kenshin, and kept them on him as she slowly fell asleep. As her eyes finally closed and her breathing deepened, he finally stood from where he had been kneeling next to the futon, and pulled her blanket back over her. It would be colder when he left. He looked down at her as she slept. She still hadn't told him the name of her mate, whether she knew that her friend was her mate or not, and he didn't blame her. It had been years before he could even bring himself to say his own mate's name to himself after she had died, not to mention saying it to anyone else.

"I am going to let the other know what we have learned, if you come up with anything else, send a message, stay with her if you can. We'll have to tell her what we are eventually."

Megumi nodded as Kenshin left, quickly and silently.

Their new little human was a big mystery.

A/N - I must admit I'm debating on who I want Kaoru's "mate" to be. I have someone in mind, but I'm not sure if it works really well within the Rurouni Kenshin cannon. I don't want to do an OC if I can help it. Next chapter the Kenshin-gumi figure some stuff out, Misao makes a mess of things, and Kaoru meets more people as she gets better. Kenshin works on gaining her trust and figuring out his enigma. Thanks for reading through this far, and I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!