Title: Fragments of Memories
Author: AznSage
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
Pairings: Sanzo/Goku, Hakkai/Gojyo
Archived: FF.net, Still Time (gmsaiyuki.topcities.com). If you wanna archive, ask and it's always a yes.
Rating: PG-13
Note: Goku POV. This can get very confusing very fast, so if there's anything you wanna ask, you can e-mail me. The fic starts off in 664, the actual year that the real Sanzo died. Yeah I know that screws up the rest of his years, but big whoop. I didn't really want Sanzo to die at only 62, so I took a bit of artistic license here.

We all knew this would happen sooner or later, but when the moment actually hits you, you can never be prepared enough for it.

"Ne...Goku...I'm gonna be outside with Hakkai. I'll give you a few minutes alone with him, but after that, we have to put him to rest." Gojyo took another puff on his cigarette before leaving the room silently, allowing me some quiet with him, some time to say my final goodbyes.

"Sanzo...I..." I couldn't bring myself to say anything. There were no words which could sum up everything we've been through. There was just too much that was left hanging in the air though. I brushed the blond locks away from his face, using a towel to dab off the moisture still on his skin. The heat of the air did nothing to him, he was still calm, still serene, still dead. A part of me wished that he would just jump back up to life and hold me and say what I wanted to hear, but that would be selfish of me. It was his time to go and I had no way of stopping him.

On this day, Genjo Sanzo had passed on to the next world, rejoining the rest of the mortal souls that had outlived their life energy in the cycle of reincarnation. Cause of death? Old age.

I think maybe that was what hurt me the most. Because it was all part of a natural cycle and I had no power to stop it in anyway, no way to protect him in anyway. It had pained me to have to see him getting progressively weaker every passing moment while I still retained my vitality and my youth. It pained me even more when he had shoved me away and said that he didn't need me to help.

But he was gone now. And there was nothing I could do about it. There was nothing I could say to him. Because dead people don't say things back.

I left the room quietly, the smell of the burning incense teasing my senses. Gojyo and Hakkai were waiting for me on the steps of the temple, sitting calmly as if nothing happened. Their two heads swiveled back to look at me at the same time, glancing at me only momentarily before getting up quickly and towards the jeep. Behind me, a monk approached me and handed me a pack with the few things that could be called Sanzo's worldy possessions. Taking it and then thanking him, I made my way over to my remaining companions. We would return again anyway. Tomorrow, they were going to cremate Sanzo and we were coming, welcomed or not.

Piling into the jeep and setting down the pack gently next to me, I sighed deeply. Gojyo had taken Sanzo's spot in front of me. But what's lost is lost.

I stared out into space while Hakkai began to drive back to the inn that we were going to stay at before we returned to Hakkai and Gojyo's place. Which would now also be my home.

The three of us had not grown older by much in the last seventy or so years. We were youkai, unaging, unchanging. Hakkai still looked like his handsome twenty-two year old self, but we had decided that every fifty years should be considered an aging for us. So technically, we called Hakkai twenty-three now. I still looked the same, growing only a little bit over the years, still the youngest, still the most childish, but my hunger had died down and evened out by now. Gojyo was the same as well, but we didn't know if his human blood would affect his aging at all. It probably wouldn't since he still was the way he was when I had first met him.

We pulled up to the inn and Hakuryuu turned back into his dragon form. The three of us made our way up the stairs towards our room, each of us with a grim expression on our faces. Placing the pack carefully on the floor, I then proceeded to flop on the bed, not even glancing to see what was going on around me. There was nothing left of interest anyway.

"Goku..."

"I just need to be alone for a while, okay?" I jumped and went into the bathroom, locking it soundly behind me. I think even Gojyo knew that it would not be wise to bother me.

Climbing into the shower, I turned it on and sat under the spray. I would not lie to myself. I do admit to the fact that I was crying. The emotions were just all backlashing right now and I couldn't take it. Hopefully, the noise from the faucet did overlap the noise I was making; I don't really want to worry Hakkai any further than I did already.

But the water just stopped suddenly. No one had come into the bathroom, there was no way they could have gotten in without me noticing. I peered cautiously around me, whirring my head around to see clearly. The figure of one smirking Bodhisattva greeted me and I scowled.

"What do you want?"

"Goku, let me ask you something."

"What?"

"Sanzo is a mortal correct?"

"Yes."

"But yet Sanzo was reborn last time correct?"

"From what I know, yes."

"So don't you think that he'd be reborn again, silly child?"

That most certainly got my attention. "Are you serious?"

"I'll be the one asking the questions here. And yes. Every five hundred years. Can you wait that long for your sun, Goku?" She brought my face close and stared me down, grinning slyly at me like a cat about to catch a mouse.

"I'll wait for all eternity if I have to."
-TBC-

Notes in Part I.