Disclaimer: I have been very, very good this year, so with any luck, Santa will give them to me.

Author's Note 1: I apologize for the amount of time it's taken to update. The computer here at home is in the same room as the Christmas tree so it's pretty much a given that anything done on it is fair game for everyone else to see. In the past week, every single member of my family has, without shame, read my email over my shoulder. So, I've had to write when everyone is either out of the house or sleeping. exasperated sigh Is Christmas over yet?

Lily Thorne, Crimson Yuki, DogEars22, Seine, and Netsirk33090: Thank you for your reviews! They encourage me to actually try and finish this story.

Fred the Mutant Pickle: I was guessing your name was an interesting story. Just so long as it didn't start with, "Well, my dad's a mad scientist . . . " and end with, "Now I'm dating a nice cucumber who's willing to convert once we find a big enough jar and enough brine." I hope your finals went well.

Aamalie: I'm updating, I'm updating. And I think the Chapter 5 (the reason I wanted to write this story to begin with) may even top the last one in WAFF.

Addicted to Inuyasha: I feel sorry for Miroku, too. But I also take a lot of pleasure in torturing him. What can I say? Maybe I'm evil.

Spam Chan: Kohaku? I never even considered bringing him in! It would be very interesting, but it took me forever to figure out how to get rid of Inuyasha, Kagome, Shippou, and Kirara. I think that Sango and Miroku need some alone time, you know what I mean? Maybe in another story. :)

Holy-Psychic-Valpix: You're right! He didn't apologize! Which is strange because I'm huge on apologies. Huh. I guess he'll just have to show Sango how sorry he is.

Groping

By Starzki

Chapter Four: Teamwork

Ever mysterious to me, Sango remained silent, finally sighing and releasing my hand. "I'll get breakfast ready," she said. Was she blushing? Angry? Pleased? I wondered if her face was more expressive, less composed now that I was prevented from reading it. I wished I could peek at her when she thought I couldn't, to get at the truth of what she really thought of me. It seemed that I was only really sure what she felt when she was angry with me.

I heard the dry rustle of ashes stirring and coming back to life as Sango stoked the dying fire, reviving it. She moved about, readying for the morning routines. Then, she did something that I had never heard her do before. She began to hum.

She did this for me, I knew at once. I could follow her sound. There was no real song behind the notes she trilled, just a mellifluous and nonsensical mixture of sounds that alerted me to where she was. And when she would near me, she would reach out and touch my shoulder, my arm, my back and give me some kind of reference to where she was since I couldn't track her with my eyes. It was nice, but confusing since I knew that Sango wasn't normally a touchy kind of person. If I knew nothing else in the world, I knew how non-touchy she was.

"How do you know to do that?" I asked her.

"I'm sorry? Do what, Houshi-sama?" she replied.

"You're so kind in letting me know where you are by humming and doing other things. It's helpful and was curious as to how you know to do that."

"Oh," she stopped her morning preparations and whispering sounds on the ground near the crackle of the fire told me she was kneeling next to it. "I had an uncle. In his old age, he went blind and we went to visit him almost every day. He was always shouting at us to stop being so quiet and sneaking up on him and scaring him. He was always so grumpy." Sango paused and I heard a kind of short laugh through her nose, entertained by her memory. "I learned that humming would keep him from yelling. I also learned how to best lead him around his home and the village."

"And here I thought that it was the special connection between us that made it so easy for you to lead me around," I teased, hinting at the truth I had thought I had felt. I would have traded anything I owned to see her face, how my words affected her just then. Instead, I had to listen to her silence.

"Well, it is a lot different with you. It's a lot easier. And you are more cheerful about it than he ever was," she finally said. My mouth dropped open in shock. I was the furthest from cheerful than I had ever been. "When he went blind, he was so devastated. His blindness was a part of his growing older, of growing sick and dying. While we all knew that the end was coming, even before he was blind, not being able to see is what took all the fight from him. He just seemed to fade and grow meaner and more distant when he had always been one of our favorite uncles."

I let this information sink in. "It's so much harder than I thought it would be," I admitted. "I wish I could be more brave and dignified and appear to be handling this better than I am. I would have been completely lost without you here."

Sango sighed. "You'd have been fine, Houshi-sama." Her voice was bordering exasperation. Her modesty was refusing to let her accept what she thought were too-effusive compliments, no matter how truthful they were. I didn't want to argue with her and make her begin to doubt I was being anything but sincere.

I moved on. "I should still thank you, though. Thank you."

She began to move about again. "You're welcome. You would have done the same for me. Also, we need you well. I'll do anything if it means that we get closer to defeating Naraku."

"Sango, what if I can't get well? What if I stay blind?"

Something dropped, making a dull thud against the grassy ground near the fire. "Houshi-sama, what are you saying?"

"I can't fight Naraku like this. I can barely get around. I'm just saying that maybe we need to think of what will happen if we can't fix this."

"No!" she exclaimed. "We'll find a way. Something happened to you. We'll find out what and you'll see again."

"But maybe this is something that doesn't have a cure. We need to prepare ourselves . . . I need to prepare myself to the possibility that this is the end of my time with all of you."

"But we need you," Sango argued. Then she was quiet for a long time. I could hear flies buzzing in the warming grass, the jumping grasshoppers, the rustle of the foliage in the breeze while she thought about not having me around. Then, she returned to stoking the fire again. "No, I won't consider it, now. First we'll try everything. Then, we'll see about what to do if we fail. Maybe you would be able to continue with us, anyway. Despite what you think, you've been adapting wonderfully. Maybe there's a way . . . "

I felt surprised. Sango wanted me around even with all of my questionable behavior and my new disability. Yes, I was good in a fight and had my own personal stake in our shared goal of taking out Naraku, but that could all be ending. Continuing with them while blind? It was something new to consider. And if you pardon the play on words, I was also beginning to see Sango in a new light. I had never thought that she was an optimist or that she liked me enough to have to work harder, herself, to have me around. But there would be a cost to that, too. I would be the weak link that might result in someone getting hurt or worse.

"What's that face?" Sango asked.

"What face?"

"You're making a face. It looks like worry. I've never seen you look worried before. Are you?"

I fought to make my face more impassive, with my usual aspect of considerate thought, good humor, and appreciation for whatever female form might be around. I had grown accustomed to using other people as a mirror for my own expressions, fiercely controlling my face to reconfirm whatever those around me thought I would be thinking and feeling. People don't ask many questions if they thought they knew what you were thinking. If I look happy and lecherous, people assumed I was happy being a pervert. While this wasn't exactly untrue, it wasn't what I felt every second.

While I was never shy about expressing my thoughts and ideas, I didn't like people being able to read how I felt. Those darker emotions, the sadder ones, were more personal to me and I possessively held them close. It was almost like admitting a weakness and I felt exposed and vulnerable that Sango had caught me showing my anxiety.

I cleared my throat to make an answer. I wasn't sure what I was going to have to admit, when I felt an incoming demonic presence that I almost felt grateful for. I stiffened and moved to stand, grabbing my staff and holding it out defensively in front of me.

"You feel that, Sango?"

She was at my side in two steps and hustling me away from the fire. "We'll fight them. You and me," she told me. "Now's as good a time as ever to see if it can be done. Do exactly what I say exactly when I say it."

"Trial by fire," I confirmed. "I'm at your command."

"We're in a clearing on the plateau. The demons will be coming from above us. I don't see any uneven ground or anything that could get in your way. Keep your back to mine and duck when I tell you to."

"Got it," I said, adrenaline pouring through my system, chilling and warming me at the same time. Sango linked her left arm through my right and we stood back-to-back, waiting for the fight. Hiraikotsu to her right and at the ready and my staff poised to ward off anything in front of me, we were as prepared as we were going to be.

Briefly, I wondered if it might not be safer for Sango to do the fighting for both of us. But remembering the sounds from the last attack, there was no way, even as strong as she was, that she could take on so many at once. And there were more this time.

I felt them coming. Sango and I took a couple of steps, turning in a circle so that Sango could survey the entire field and so that I could situate myself in this three-dimensional space. The ground was even, grassy, and soft. A slight breeze that had been sweet was growing more foul with the coming demons. I licked my lips to make them more sensitive to the moving air.

"Duck Houshi-sama!" cried Sango the same instant I felt an aura from behind me, slightly to my left. I dropped to one knee, slipping my arm out from hers, but catching her elbow as I waited for her to catch the returning boomerang.

Sango's muscles sprang back to life behind me as the screaming air that was beaten by the boomerang pounded against my ears as Sango made the catch. I was instantly to my feet again, arm through hers. We made another circle.

"Did you get it?" I asked.

"Yeah. But there are more."

I didn't need to be told as much. I felt them and they were going to attack all at once. Circling again, Sango called out the precise positions of the forest demons getting ready to charge us. "Duck!" she screamed as she released the boomerang again, "On your feet! Coming at you, from your left!"

Muscle memory took over. Even with our arms linked, I was able to wield my staff with ease and strike out against the demonic aura hurtling at me at breakneck speed. Sango stepped lightly with me as I lunged and felt the satisfying resistence of a demon's body coming into contact with my staff. "Duck again!" she called as she made her second catch. "Well done, Houshi-sama," she complimented me.

Our fighting became a kind of dance with an easy give and take of movements. We were perfectly in step and never struggled or strained against the other. Within a few minutes, Sango no longer even needed to give specific instructions. A simple "At you, left, above," and her guiding me into a good position to strike with slight movements of her own body helped me fend off some demons and even kill a few.

"How many more are there?" I asked her.

"I don't know. They keep coming from over the hilltop above us."

I closed my eyes and focused my remaining four senses to the hilltop. The rustle of the long grasses, the stink of the demons, the taste of the air, and the movement of the atmosphere against my skin combined to help me visualize the coming fight.

I had been taught to seek one-ness with my environment through meditation and peace, but I was always surprised when there were times I felt more connected to everything around me in instances of great exertion. At that time, even blind, I felt like the earth, Sango, the grasses, trees, and forest life were all extensions of me. I realized I had been fighting with my eyes closed, yet could see, could almost predict every movement to be made as if it had already happened.

Soon, I was making moves independently. Sango stayed with me and made her movements compliment my own. "What . . . " she asked as I swung my staff into the side of another demon. Sango gasped. "Another invisible one! I didn't even know!"

"It would appear that Kagome was right," I said, catching my breath as the demons began to regroup for their next attack. "I may be in a better position to fight any more invisible demons. Be sure to call out all the ones you see and I'll fill you in on the ones that you don't."

"Right," she agreed. And our fight raged on. Sango and I held our own. I'm not sure how it would have looked from the outside. It wasn't perfect. I whiffed more than a few times, failing to connect with a demon, but I managed to at least scare them from me before they could inflict damage. I also was clipped by the boomerang once when I failed to duck when Sango yelled. But it was no worse than a knock to the head Sango would give me when she thought I was being too forward with some village girls.

And Sango was no more graceful in taking out the invisible forest demons than I had been in dealing with the ones she could see. More than once I heard her curse as she failed to take out the ones I had announced were coming. But we did astoundingly well for our circumstance.

With that last invisible demon, we sustained our only injury. I don't know if it was broken concentration or battle fatigue that made us misjudge his trajectory, swerving to come at us low rather than high as we expected, but it barreled into Sango's legs, flipping her off of her feet. With an awkward move, I managed to right Sango by tightening our elbow grip, catching her on my back, while I brought down my staff on the dreadful youkai.

As Sango touched her feet to the ground, she yelped in pain, recovered, then unsheathed her katana and dispatched the now-visible demon with a vengeful stroke. It was over. We had survived. It was amazing. One blind man and one demon slayer had been able to take out several forest demons and some more strangely cursed invisible demons and come through intact, for the most part. I don't think there was ever a time I was more proud of an accomplishment (in battle, anyway). I couldn't gloat too long, though. Sango needed some attention.

- - -

A.N. 2: This chapter went nothing like I had expected. I don't know. All the WAFF that I've already written got pushed into the next chapter to try and give this story some more plot and action. I'm not happy with the dialogue, either. I fixed it as well as I could in my short interludes of solitude at the house, but it's still off. One more chapter, and the story is done. Is Christmas over yet?