Sango can hear the tone of Miroku's voice as she sits outside the hut. Kirara is with Kohaku, exterminating a minor demon in a village two days' flight from here; at the river's edge Rin is patiently teaching Shippo to fish. Inuyasha is lounging in the tree above her, and with his superior senses could no doubt give her a full accounting of the conversation going on behind her. She doesn't ask. They'd been gone nearly two months, she and Miroku and Kohaku, putting to rest the ghosts of her massacred village. And though she knows she could settle there and with love and laughter and the healing power of time make it a home again, her second family is here. Shippo, Rin, Kaede – their delight at her return is obvious. Inuyasha is less demonstrative, but some strain has eased inside him with his friends together again under his watchful gaze, and it shows.
Inuyasha opens one eye as Sango starts toward his tree. Though she could scale it on her own, his proffered hand simpifies the task; he pulls her onto the branch beside him as if she weighs nothing at all. For a long moment they are silent, sitting side by side, shoulders companionably touching. She's comfortable with him, with the quiet; would be equally at ease fighting alongside him in battle. Kagome was – is – his heart, his soul. Miroku is his best friend. And if he had a sister, he would wish for one like Sango. Though she will never know the whole of him, as Kagome does, she knows the warrior. She knows that particular tension in him when he's scented danger, she knows the fluid swing of his sword nearly as well as she knows her own weapon. She knows the protector, the alpha who sacrifices himself for the sake of his pack. She knows the burden of leadership, had seen the weight of it some nights in the slump of her father's shoulders. Inuyasha, too, wears it well; has guided them through a war and seen them out the other side.
She's watched his eyes fade since Kagome left, her absence eroding his strength and spirit like water over granite. She doesn't want him to give up; she doesn't want him to go. She just wants him to know that if he has to, it's okay.
She takes his larger hand in her smaller ones, tracing a curious finger over the sharp tips of his claws, the calluses Tetsaigua has made on his skin. The deep scars on his palm are from his nails, she knows; he puts more effort into controlling his temper than he would have them realize. A story is written across his hands, a life begun in love and lived in misery. He is strong, to have survived so long alone. She admires that strength, and silently promises never to let him feel such loneliness again.
"I know you miss her, Inuyasha."
He doesn't lie to her, as he would to everyone else. The pain runs deep, the wounds too jagged to heal cleanly. At worst, they cripple; at best, they still leave scars. He doesn't have to explain himself. Sango understands how cruel love can be; the deep gouges in her back tell their own tale of Naraku's hate and a family divided.
"So do I," Sango finishes on a sigh.
Inuyasha shrugs a little. He doesn't like to talk about it. Instead he seizes on the one subject that will still turn aside her attention. "Can't believe you married that lecher."
She laughs softly at the disbelief in his voice. "Some days, neither can I. But I love him. And he's behaving himself, mostly."
"Good. He shouldn't be upsetting you." There's a peculiar tone to his voice, a growl of warning underlying the words. She blinks at him curiously, and he shrugs again, disturbed by being the object of her intense focus. "Can't go wandering after another bitch when you're havin' his pup."
The strange phrasing throws her for only an instant before she grabs his arm, her face lighting up. Her heart is in her eyes, and he huffs out a breath of what might have been a smothered laugh.
"I can hear it," he explains. "The second heart beating. Kirara already knows, I'm sure. Shippo wouldn't know what to listen for."
"Thank you, oniisan." Her arms wrap around him in an impulsive hug. Remembering his dislike of close contact, she immediately starts to release him. And then his hand lightly touches her back in an uncertain attempt to return the gesture, and she squeezes him so hard that if he were human she might have broken a rib.
"Inuyasha." She waits for him to look at her, really look at her, those golden irises gleaming in the failing light of dusk. "I'm honored that you shared this moment with me." She squeezes his hand, and his fingers curl around hers. There's life in his eyes again, and she thanks kami for this baby, a new life to wash away the remnants of Naraku's taint.
"C'mon, then," the hanyou gruffly replies, but she can see the pleasure in his expression. "Let's go tell the bouzu he finally got a woman to bear him a child."