Chapter Text
Sango didn’t know why this night was so different.
She knew if she didn’t move now that meant she wouldn’t be on her feet for any other night. She had been afraid of what might be on the other side of that silence.
Miroku was sitting quietly.
“Sango,” he said. “I’m sorry to wake you.”
“I wish you had,” she said.
“So,” he said. “It is safe to say it now. No one is coming. But I don’t want to be unwary. I thought to take shifts with you.”
“I should have known,” she allowed. “You have your life in front of you, Miroku.”
It was blunt. But she thought her armor had become rotten. For she was not the same woman at the end of the fight. Her incident with Rin. That near temptation. That final mark upon her by Naraku.
“As do you.”
“No,” she said.
“No?” he asked.
“I’m not the same woman,” she said.
What had been exposed by that creature in the end–
“I’m not quite the same man,” he said. He looked at his hand. “What’s troubling you, Sango? I know my woes, but I have not asked you yours.” He scoffed. “That was stupid of me.”
“I wanted you to live,” she said. “But I wonder– can you live with such a woman who chose to do such evil? You don’t owe me your life. I wanted you to know that.”
He reached out quickly–and they both looked as it was his freed hand.
“You don’t owe me your love, and yet somehow…it was there when I needed it most. And I did. And I took it, knowing what that most cost you.”
Sango could not breathe.
“If we think about it for a moment, it was your love for me that made such a decision take place.”
“And I am such a woman.”
“And I am such a man,” he said. “Sango. I am sorry. I should have known what that would do to you. But there is no change in my heart for you..for I changed what was between us, knowing death was all around us at any time. I knew what kind of enemy that we were facing–and yet I did not want to lose something so very precious.”
“Don’t, monk.”
“Share your burden with me,” he said, his usually calm voice ragged. “It is as much mine to bear.”
Relief. Guilty relief. She sank to her knees.
“We are both different now, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” he said, considering. “Yes, we are. But we are, together. I would be nowhere else.”
…
This was the real first touch of his hand.