Disclaimer: Ain't mine! Don't really have time to do a disclaimer right now, so if it sucks, don't sue. Now read!

A Brief Author's Note: Table 5 of LJ's ten-prompt series continues with number 2! I'd tell you a bit more, but I have to run to piano class!

2 - Darkness

Misao couldn't sleep that night. Matter of fact, she hadn't slept all the way through a night in several. The waning, and now new moon, seemed to be affecting her in ways they didn't normally. She hadn't been afraid of the dark since she was very small. This angered her – the Aoiya had been successfully put back together, Jiiya was up and about, and they'd gotten everything running basically smoothly! There was no reason that she should be staying up nights anymore! She smacked the shoji closed, heard a grunt from another room, and flung herself back down on her futon.

But she had been having nightmares when she tried to sleep. A blind man… The smell of sulfur and the shouts of a panicking Kyoto… Shining metal out the corner of her eye… Where had the monk come from? And why had he stopped the man wearing the shell? As these thoughts spun through her head, she could see Hannya's face floating in front of her again. Whether asleep or awake, she didn't care – a hand stretched out towards her old friend.

"Hannya?" she asked, still trying to reach for her. "Hannya, is that you?"

He faded away before her eyes. Misao cried for him – she wanted her friend back! But then she could see Shikijou, his big muscular grin… But why? Had Himura-san lied to her? Surely if he had, he hadn't meant to! He wasn't that kind of person! Shikijou reached out to pick her up as he had when she was still a small child. Of course, Misao reached back! But he faded away as well.

"Shikijou! Hannya!" she had started to cry, kicking at her blankets in the sticky, hot room. If she had thought right, she wouldn't have shut that panel. "Where did you go! Come back!"

Someone else had been sleeping rather light at the Aoiya as well. While Aoshi had enough training to control what would have been nightmares, his sleep had not been easy. Slight noises awakened him, and sometimes his blankets itched. He found it hard to find a comfortable way to sleep. Tonight, he had finally been able to get to sleep at a decent hour and had stayed asleep thus far. But something in the Aoiya had grown loud enough to awaken him. Whatever that something might be, he intended to get up and kill it, and then go back to bed.

Misao turned over in her sleep, tangling her legs in sweat-soaked blankets. She swiped at the hair stuck to her face ineffectually. All four of her friends kept appearing and fading away in front of her and there she sat, unable to reach out or communicate with them. Her jaw had gone a bit slack and she tried to kick off the oppressive blankets in her restless sleep. A soft almost-wail pushed out on her next breath, turning muffled as she pressed her face unconsciously into her pillow.

Grinding his teeth, Aoshi stalked along the halls of the Aoiya with a small dagger in hand. Surely no one was stupid enough to disturb this place in the middle of the night and make that much noise! This had promised to be his first restful night of sleep in weeks. For a moment, he looked almost as wild and unhinged as he had wandering the Japanese forests after the deaths of his friends. Narrowing his eyes, he continued his search for the source of the noise. It actually seemed to be coming from somewhere deeper within the Aoiya.

Now she could see all four of her friends again. They were so close she could have touched them, but as soon as she refocused, she wished they weren't. She wished she had never met Himura all of a sudden. A sick, horrible feeling crept up the back of her throat. Their flat, gray eyes stared back at her. Bullet wounds spilled a disgusting amber liquid. All of them lay still in a black room. Misao couldn't look away –she wanted to run, but she couldn't leave them! What was she supposed to do!

She didn't realize how she screamed in her sleep!

Aoshi heard the screaming. Yes, that was definitely screaming. He turned sharply on his heel and headed in the direction the sound. Briefly, he noticed that it seemed to be coming from the ladies' section of the house. It sounded like Misao. He sped up. If someone had broken into the ladies' hall, they would leave in pieces – he swore it. He would not have the Oniwabanshuu destroyed again! Did he realize he was probably overestimating the problem? Maybe – but he couldn't risk it.

The screaming had started to subside, but he could still hear softer vocalizations. Yes, Misao… she hadn't screamed in her sleep like that since immediately after her parents died. He must not have slept for months when she had first been placed in his care. He stopped at her door and, in case it turned out to be nothing at all, knocked twice and heard nothing.

"Misao?" he asked the closed shoji panel. "Is everything all right?"

Again, he got no response - he said quietly that he was coming in and nudged the panel aside with one hand, looking away for a moment in case she wasn't decent.

"Misao…"

She wasn't. But at the moment, propriety had to take a back seat. He knelt beside her and tried once more to wake her. No, she couldn't hear him. He heard her calling their friends' names. She stretched out her arms – yes, he remembered this from her childhood nightmares. Slowly, out of old habit, he reached out to her. Their fingertips touched for a moment, and then he gathered her flailing limbs and held her close. She continued crying, but her voice softened. He stroked her hair, smelling the familiar scent.

"It's all right, Misao," he told her, reaching over to turn out the light she left on. "I miss them too…"