AN: hey there readers, i'm ro. so uh this is a miroku/sango story... probably pretty angsty, may or may not actually go anywhere, who knows. anyway, hope you enjoy, rating is always subject to change.


In hindsight, it really shouldn't have surprised Miroku that Sango had nightmares.

Admittedly, there was something vaguely irritating about the fact that it took him so long to notice. They'd been traveling together for weeks now and this is the first time he'd witnessed it. Miroku prided himself in his powers of observation. He liked to think he had the whole group pinned, even this demon slayer, this girl, the newest addition to their ragtag group.

Sango. Leave it to her to surprise him.

It was wintertime. The night air was cold and black and silent. The barren, naked trees did little to stop the bite of the wind, and the light from the fire did even less to penetrate the darkness. Their makeshift camp seemed smaller and more pathetic in the wilderness now than usual… Kagome had returned to her own time, and Inuyasha, true to his character, had found some convenient excuse to follow her. Those two were easy to read. It was because they were honest; it was a trait that rendered them utterly transparent.

Still, their honesty gave them strength, and although Miroku had faith in his and Sango's abilities in battle, the loss of half their fighting force put him on edge, and more importantly, kept him awake.

He really had nothing to do but watch Sango the Silent cry softly in her sleep. She was curled up a few feet away in a makeshift nest of blankets from Kagome's bag of necessities. Kirara and Shippou lay wrapped up snugly beside her, their faces pillowed in each other's tails, their breathing perfectly, sweetly synchronized. They were far too exhausted from the day's journey to be roused by a few muted whimpers.

Sango's face was tucked protectively behind her arms, but still, he could see her expression twist with pain, and the tears leak from the corners of her eyes. Miroku rested his elbow against one of his knees, leaning forward, chin in palm, and watched her.

Her breath picked up, terror, and her body trembled and tensed and shifted restlessly, panic.

Miroku could only guess what she was dreaming about; her life, as far as he could tell, was one horror after another. And it was all Naraku's doing… the destruction of her village, the slaughtering of her family right before her eyes, the nasty incident with her brother. He clenched his cursed hand and listened to her whine. She sounded like a child.

Sometimes he forgot the girl was only sixteen.

It wasn't difficult to, considering the way she handled herself when she was awake. Her skills of stoicism were impressive (and that, coming from a professional liar, conman, and womanizer, was no petty compliment). In battle she was stone cold, strategic, ruthlessly persistent in her attacks.

Even when she shed her armor and donned the modest kimono she seemed to prefer, she had her guard up. She smiled with Kagome, a little shy in the face of such strange, unadulterated kindness, and she was patient with Inuyasha and Shippo, stern with Miroku…

But guarded still. There was a certain quality to her gaze, a detached quality, and it seemed it was always there.

Well, Miroku thought as Sango tossed her head with a strained gasp, perhaps not always.

He had seen her at her most vulnerable, after all, on her knees before Naraku, kept alive only by the intensity of her grief and the sheer power of her hatred. She had bared her emotions nakedly then, when she thought she might die.

Apparently some of those walls came down in sleep as well.

The realization was faintly satisfying, and Miroku wasn't sure what he thought about that. It wasn't like he enjoyed seeing the girl in pain… but at least her pain, unlike her perfect mask of normalcy, was honest.

Her body gave a violent lurch; she sat up suddenly with a quiet, strangled cry. Ah, she'd woken herself up. Typical. Sango wasn't the type of girl to ride out a nightmare passively. She'd fight a dream until the very struggle of it woke her up.

Her breathing was unsteady, and he could practically hear her heartbeat from where he sat, still observing in thoughtful silence. It took her a moment to notice his eyes on her (she always noticed him looking, and when she did her glare would burn back at him confused and indignant, but not as brightly as the heat in her cheeks), and when she finally did the silence between them turned to lead.

As per usual, he responded to the situation effortlessly: "Bad dream?"

He could tell she was still trying to regain her composure. He watched her struggle, taking note of the pale complexion and damp temples, the trembling in her fingers as she smoothed her hair down, the faintly wild look in her eyes before she lowered her gaze and hid her fear behind those long, dark lashes. Her eyelids were secret keepers, smeared war-paint red.

"Just a little… restless… I suppose."

To her credit she only faltered a little there. Beside her, curled up in the depths of her nest of blankets, Kirara and Shippou stirred. She rested her trembling hands on them and they stilled and sighed and turned over in their sleep. She did not look at Miroku.

"Shippou doesn't sleep as well either, when Kagome's not here."

Miroku would admit this conversational strategy caught him off guard. He made a faintly surprised noise in the back of his throat, and she continued: "She's very kind, that girl." Kagome probably comforted Sango often in times like this. She was good at that sort of thing.

…Unlike Miroku.

Miroku's problem was of course that he was curious, and that he had ulterior motives, and that Sango's tragedy made her inaccessible, which in turn made her an irresistible challenge. Miroku's fascination with beautiful, broken things was at times a nearly fatal personality flaw. Even now he found himself admiring the curve of her neck as she smoothed her hair over one shoulder, imagining the smooth white canvas of her shoulders, thinking about the mutilated scar tissue on her back (which he'd seen only once, when he'd caught her bathing).

Kagome probably gave him too much credit when she said he was really a good person under it all. He couldn't help it. Something about Sango just made him want to be cruel.

His voice, when he spoke, sounded appropriately concerned. "Were you dreaming about your family?"

She looked sharply at him watching her. Two calculating stares reached across the darkness and spat embers in the fire crackling between them. He wanted to see, he wanted to know about this girl.

"No," she said, and this time when she spoke her voice was smooth and somewhat defiant. "I dreamed I was buried alive." She tilted her head; he saw it in her eyes then, flashing in the firelight… a certain violent, crazy grief that he understood all too well. Destructive, murderous at times. It shook him, it unnerved him. It excited him.

He cleared his throat and folded his hands calmly in his lap, the picture of priestly good will and sincerity. "You're safe now, Sango." A very artfully crafted picture, indeed.

"Safe," she repeated dully, scoffing. She lay down and turned her back to him, saying coldly over her shoulder, "How's that cursed hand of yours, Monk? Safe? Who exactly are you trying to kid."