Author's Note: I haven't written fanfiction in nearly a decade, and suddenly I find myself revisiting favorite stories and authors and getting sucked in all over. :D This story was written on my cell phone's memo pad and uploaded before I could regret it. After all, there's always a dire need for more canon flavored Miroku/Sango stories on the internet, right? Enjoy!
-o-O-o-
The first clue that he was was dreaming was, as always, his hand. Whole, unblemished, and exposed in a way that it hadn't been for over a decade in real life, Miroku's Kazaana-free palm caught the dappled sunlight of the forest as he approached the glade--and the girl in it-- before him.
She was the second clue, of course. While Sango was a regular feature in his thoughts, he rarely imagined her as a child except for in passing. Yet here she was, kneeling in the grass, studying something in the dirt with the same sort of focus and determination on her young features that he had come to love in his waking moments. She wrinkled her nose and made an expression with her mouth that was so *Sango* he couldn't help but chuckle.
They were alone, which Miroku found mildly surprising. This child was old enough to explore on her own, but young enough not to be trusted very long unsupervised. Four or five, perhaps? He wondered if the taijiya had different ideas about independence and supervision. Surely this little Sango would have had some education on weapons and demons simply by how ubiquitous they would have been throughout the taijiya village and homes. Yet Miroku found it difficult to believe that a father would really allow a daughter this young to roam unprotected for very long.
Miroku shifted his weight slightly and a twig snapped under his sandal. At that small distrubance, the girl looked up sharply and noticed him. Her violet eyes went from narrowed and defensive to joyful with recognition within seconds. As she ran towards him, Miroku's matching eyes widened in shocked understanding.
"Daddy! Look what I found!"
He knelt and she was there, something small and red in her pudgy fingers. It was a beetle.
"I see," he answered, though truthfully, the insect was being held so closely to his face that he was going cross eyed trying to focus on it. He held out his hand and she dropped the beetle into it, peering in closely. The insect was stunned for a few seconds before it righted itself and began to crawl. The skittery feeling of its feet tickled his bare skin.
"Is it the kind that makes ink or the kind that makes poison?" she asked, fidgeting with restless energy of childhood that made it impossible for Miroku to simply look at her. He felt as if he could study her for days, analyzing which of her features were his and which were his beloved's. She was perfect.
"Your mother would know," he answered finally. The little girl nodded and extended a poking finger towards his open palm. In his hand, the beetle's shell split down the middle and its wings flared. It quickly esaped into the breeze.
"Oh, DADDY," the little girl groaned in frustration. Yes, her eyes were his, but the accusing glare was all Sango. "You let it get AWAY!"
Miroku tried not to smile and instead wrenched his face into an exaggerated apologetic expression. "I'm sorry dearest. Can you forgive me?"
It appeared that their daughter was much easier to appease than Sango herself, for small arms flung around him in in an overwhelming hug. Miroku felt her wild heartbeat through the thin summer yukata on her back. Whisps of dark hair tickled his face as he inhaled her scent. Unexpected tears filled Miroku's eyes and he blinked, sending streams down his cheek. This wasn't real. He knew it, and yet his heart was filled with such fierce love for his daughter that it took his breath away. He would fight ferociously to earn this future.
"Hey Daddy," she whispered into his neck. Her fingers twirled around his ponytail.
"Mmm?"
"Do you want the baby in Mommy's tummy to be a boy or a girl?"
All his life, Miroku had thought he wanted a son above all else. A boy who would literally embody the eternal defiance of his family's quest to defeat Naraku. Yet, as he pulled back from this embrace and rubbed the tip of his nose against hers, he wasn't lying when he answered, "Another little girl just like you would be perfect."
Miroku wasn't expecting the intense attitude written across his daughter's exasperated face at his response, but once again he knew exactly who she had inherited it from. "Silly Daddy."
-o-O-o-
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of Miroku's nightmares involved the Kazaana. After great destruction and the excrutiating loss of his companions, he would inevitably be sucked into it's black maw and into the deathly darkness beyond. It was never long before he would return, gasping and sweat-drenched, into the waking world.
This was different. It faded gently as his conciousness wavered between the father in the grove and settled back into the body of a cursed monk on a doomed quest. The harder Miroku tried to remain in the dream, the more he became aware of the roughness of the ground, the chill of the night, the soft roar eminating from his own hand. Reluctantly woken, Miroku gathered his bearings and accepted that sleep would evade him for a while. As he often did on nights like this, Miroku shifted to a meditative stance and took stock of his companions.
InuYasha, slumped between the boughs of a tree high above them all. In his deep sleep, the scowl on his face was more pronounced than ever. Somehow it made him look sad rather than angry.
Kagome, restlessly tossing and turning within her sleeping bag. The time-traveling miko was used to softer things, and it was difficult for her to adapt to life on the road. The heavy backpack at her feet, stuffed with luxuries from the future, was a testament to the compromises she was making to join them.
Shippo, wimpering from the ground near Kagome. He had fallen off the sleeping bag sometime during the night, but Kirara had wrapped her warm little body over his. Miroku pitied the kitsune. He remembered what it was like to be an orphan at that age, burdened with the need to destroy a demon he was too young to truly understand.
And last of all was Sango, barely a body's length away and yet so distant from him across the glowing embers of last night's campfire. He had saved her for last, of course, to spend the most time studying her lovely features. Yet somehow he found it unbearable to look upon her right then. Something in the sad turn of her mouth, the grief etched on her forehead, and the emptyness of the arms clasped to her chest drove him from his bedroll needing fresh air.
A safe distance away from camp, Miroku found that he was crying again.
The worst sort of nightmare, he mused, are the ones where you're reminded that you can't simply wake from the horror of your real life.
Oh, how he had wanted to see her in that dream. The matriarch of the family they would create together, his radiant, pregnant wife. He yearned to see that future with the full range of soul sickness that was the true root of Naraku's curse. Their child had been so real to him mere moments ago, yet now was nothing more than a ghost of memory. How could he mourn for someone who didn't exist? How could something that had felt so right, so real, seem so impossible now?
The bushes rustled behind him. Miroku knew that this noise was for his benefit (taijiya are capable of impressive stealth, after all) and took the moment to wipe his tears before Sango appeared.
"Nightmare?"
"No, I'm afraid it was something much worse," he answered wryly. Sango's eyes darted to his hand in a sudden panic, but he chuckled and shook his head to reassure her. "No, not the Kazaana, either."
Hesitantly, she took his hand in her own and leaned into him, her cheek resting on his shoulder. Sango would never push, but her presence spoke volumes. I am here for you. If you do not have the words to speak, I will listen to your heartbeat and understand.
He sighed.
"She was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," he confessed in a whisper.
Sango stiffened, but somehow chose to refrain from physical retribution despite the understandable misinterpretation. Perhaps she was taken aback by his uncharacteristic sincerity or simply felt, as he did, that it was too late at night or too early in the morning for such teasing. Either way, Miroku quickly clarified.
"Our daughter. I saw her in my dream."
He didn't need to see her face to know that she was blushing furiously now. Miroku tugged Sango into a full embrace and gently kissed her forehead. The gesture was intimate but chaste, making it much riskier their usual grope/slap routine. There are different kinds of pain, after all.
Miraculously, Sango hugged him back, strong arms shyly snaking around his torso instead of clasping the front of his robes as usual. Miroku suspected that she was hiding her face from him in embarassment, but if she chose to do so by nestling into the crook of his neck, he would never draw attention to it. Indeed, he feared that she'd flee like a startled bird if he moved or said anything. For once he simply held her and let time stand still.
"I'm aware of houshi-sama's considerable spiritual strength," Sango said finally, her voice muffled in his robes. "But I was unaware that he also had the gift of prophecy."
Miroku chuckled. "You think so? Perhaps we've discovered another of my many talents."
Sango jostled him playfully, but did not break the embrace. Such intimate moments were rare, and she would stretch this one out for as long as Miroku's good behavior would last. Which, all things considered, would probably not be much longer. Another few hours of sleep would probably be a good thing for the both of them, as well. Reluctantly, Miroku pulled back, but only enough so he could see her face in the moonlight.
"I'm sorry for waking you and worrying you with my distress."
"Don't be," Sango answered before kissing him on the cheek. Her lips tasted the salt of his grief before breaking into a smile at his bewildered expression. To have her instigate such daring physical affection, even when it was something so small, took him by surprise. The taijiya took advantage of his brief daze to slip out of his reach, her shy and wary demeanor returned. Or so be thought as he followed her back to the campsite.
InuYasha, Kagome, Shippo, and Kirara were all there, unpreturbed. It appeared that their disappearance hadn't even disturbed the ever-watchful hanyou, though his sleep was as restless as ever. Sango settled back onto her bedroll across the glowing embers from him, but this time she did not look away demurely when he was caught staring.
"Houshi-sama, I hope to live to see you as a father," she whispered. His heart swelled. Despite a crimson flush on her cheeks, Sango continued, "I'm sure that parenting a daughter will be just the karma that you deserve...especually when she starts bringing home suitors!"
-o-O-o-
Little over a year later, Miroku fondly remebered that night and accepted his own karmic reckoning. His wife had just welcomed twin girls into the world. He was anxious and proud and so in love with his little family. He worried that he did not know how to be a good father, that somehow he would be unable to meet thr demands of his family. He hadn't been trained to be a family man. And twins! Girls! What a nightmare!
He smiled and caressed his daghters perfect faces, admired his exhaused, victorious Sango. The best sort of nightmare, he thought, are the ones that terrify, but make you never want to leave.