----------------------------------------------

L'Espoir Faux

Chapitre Deux: Les Larmes Mentissent

A fanfiction by May

Previous disclaimers apply.

Pour Wendy

-------------------------------------------------

"I feel stupid," she said aloud as the swing she sat on jerked back and forth awkwardly. The tips of her shoes made small indentations in the snow. "So stupid."

Bending down, she scooped a palm full of snow into her gloved hands. She observed the crystalline shapes, light, fluffy and cold. No two were the same.

Blowing did not scatter them. They had gathered the heat from her hands and had begun to melt together. Instead, she tossed them upwards, feeling them fall upon her hair, her eyelids, and her lips, in icy pinpricks.

"It's late, you should come inside . . . come home."

He was up to his ankles in snow and she was sure his socks were merrily absorbing the water. "You should go back inside, Miroku." She sounded dead. Now that the anger was gone, what else would be left? "I'm enjoying the cold."

His mouth was set in a grim line as he ignored the distance between them. "Sango, it's late, its dark, I don't want you to get - "

"Hurt?" she supplied. "I think I've reached my limit on hurt."

Standing beside her, he bent down and took her hands. "You're shivering. You're cold."

"I don't feel it. I don't feel anything."

Catching a snowflake on her fingertip, she let it melt away onto her skin. "You know when you're cranking a Jack In The Box? With each turn, you worry it will pop out and scare the living daylights out of you. Yet, you keep on cranking, trying to press your luck, if you can get one more turn out of that handle free."

She pushed his hands away. "Final turn."

"Sango, come with me. I'll worry about you."

"If you had ever worried about me before, for the right reasons, there would be no reason for us to be like this."

"And who says I didn't? You?"

Her lips tightened.

"Because things like this don't just happen, Sango. I don't just wake up one morning and decide to take a risk on something real. I worried about you, about us, and you never did let yourself see it."

"You do a great job of caring then. Thank you so much for all your overwhelming care," she sniped sarcastically.

When she spoke like that, it seemed to freeze him in an even more effective manner than the cold air did; he was still, silent -- ice.

"What you think does not become fact."

Compelled, she turned slightly towards him, standing ankle deep in the snow.

"I'll give you some things to think about," she challenged. "You lied, cheated, and went behind my back -- for months."

"You suspected me, and you did nothing." He stared at her. "I know you did. You knew, and you didn't confront me until it had gone too far."

"A real man wouldn't have done that at all!" she snapped. "If I came first --"

"But did I?" he interrupted smoothly. "Did I come first, Sango?"

She grit her teeth, and for the first time since stepping into the cold, her breaths came quick and harsh. "Don't tell me you'll actually -- that's pathetic, even for you."

"Well?" the snow crunched as he stepped closer.

She unknowingly jerked backwards as he approached. "Don't bring him into this! He's dead for Heaven's sake!"

"But he was always alive, for you, Sango," Miroku said quietly. "He was always alive, for weeks, months -- he was still living, still breathing, but--" his eyes clouded inauspiciously. "The day he died was like a dream for you."

"What are you talking about?" she sputtered. "I know he's dead! My brother is dead, Miroku. That much is obvious."

"You knew he was dying," he began, stepping away from the swings to sit at the bottom of a slide. "That he had only a few more weeks."

She dropped her chin and narrowed her eyes, a tiny prickle of fear shooting up her spine.

"But, there was a slight -- a very slight -- chance that he could be saved, right?" he looked up at her, resting his chin in his palm.

"No," she whispered. "No."

"But that little experiment, that developmental drug, did not come cheap, I believe."

Her bottom lip red from being bitten, she tried to glare at him, but it was received as a sort of cross between looking like she was going to break down and an expression of great pain.

"You could have asked me; we could have worked something out, Sango. Even if there was a what, less than ten percent chance? If it were like begging for a miracle? You could have asked me and we could have worked something out."

He stood up heavily, brushing snow off his back and standing before her. "And what did you say when you left that day, Sango? What did you say?"

"You have work soon," she whispered, as he mouthed the words along with her. "Go back to sleep, and I'll see you tonight."

"I think, " he said emotionlessly. "That you didn't trust me. I think that you believed me selfish. I think that a part of you always doubted. I found that . . . disheartening."

She looked at him, unable to say anything, snap at him, scream, even. She looked at him, and did nothing.

"That was the same part of you that went to visit him without me, that took off to the cemetery, that made rash decisions without me. That would cry and refuse to tell me what was wrong. There is a thin, blurring line between independence and deliberate unawareness, which we both crossed -- willingly."

"So I guess you 'shopped around,' huh?" she found herself asking, in order to accuse him and quell her own guilt. "Sango too antiquated for you? Found someone who wants what you want? Who wants to have your children?"

It was his turn to be silent.

"You didn't want a self-sufficient woman, did you? You wanted someone who would get bloated and pregnant by you, have many of your children and live in your fantasy land."

"That someone was you," the words were as cold as stone.

She slouched. "You aren't ready for children. The way it is, we are still children, damn it. Look at us, putting ourselves through all sorts of grief; coming up with ways to give one another pain? How raise another when we can't take care of ourselves?" she shot at him, her eyes penetrating.

"Your fantasy land was more like a drug hallucination, sorry to say," she continued. "Because children cost money, which we lack. Because children need to be loved and nurtured and disciplined. Because children need parents that love each other enough to bring them into this world." She looked squarely into his eyes. "No child deserves to be brought into a world coated with plastic emotions."

"No person deserves to dwell in a past happiness. No man needs to be compared to something he can't fulfil," he said to the air. "No two people with weaknesses so vulnerable to exploit, or loyalties so easy to disregard, should force themselves to love each other."

"And," she whispered, her voice delicately spun glass. "No two people, should claim love between them, when they don't even know what it is."

The chains from which the swing hung rattled as he gripped them, her slouched form continuing to be mesmerized by melting snowflakes.

"Sango," he let the remnants of her name melt with the snow upon her palms.

It hurt to leave her there.

But even if he remained, they would still truly be alone; two figures of tainted glass surrounded by innocence.

--

She was taken for granted and look where that got them.

So what if she was younger than he was? It was not by much, and she had a sweet, yet rugged, edge to her that he found enticing. But the mystery she left to be uncovered he was too lazy to decipher.

And so he fell back onto old habits.

Old habits die hard.

It wasn't as though he had grown disenchanted with her. She was beautiful, different; where others were smooth she was scarred, where others were sensitive she had developed a second skin. She was a girl who had lived life in extremes, and he knew that.

So why couldn't he accept her as she was?

The questions nearly killed him. On one side, there was Sango, teaching him things about human spirit, unbreakable shields and impermeable fragility.

On the other were his vices, his tempting, sensuous, tantalizing vices, and everything Sango was not. He fell to them. They brought him to his knees.

He was shivering as he came through the door, nearly dropping his coat as he brushed stray snowflakes from his shoulders.

The cold had followed him inside, reaching his very marrow and stiffening his joints. He sprawled on the couch and tried vainly to become warm again. All of Sango's things were still neatly stacked on the table, ready for her to leave for class tomorrow morning.

Coughing, he contemplated why his body wouldn't retain any heat.

Perhaps the breakdown of his body was coming full force with the breakdown of his mind. Still, he would stubbornly cling to his pride, like he was sure she was doing right now, sitting in the cold and unable to feel it.

He thought about what he was, what she was, and what they weren't, together.

What they were, what they could have been, what they should have been, if they weren't so flawed.

What he couldn't do, what he shouldn't do, and what Sango would not do.

It was too little too soon.

Because everyone was flawed. Some in more ways than one.

--

As soon as he had left, she had entered.

Working quickly, she snatched up what she could, the spontaneity of the entire action dictating what she did; what she chose to bring.

She hadn't really wanted to return at all; not for a while, or until she absolutely had to. However, luxury and necessity ran their course, and she knew she would have to work fast.

For being surrounded by that false dream, that frosted fantasy, that plastic castle of theirs, and remembering all their dreams . . . it was unbearable. It was being without oxygen.

She had to get out, back to air, back to clarity -- reality.

Upon making her exit, locking the doors and running outside into the courtyards, she collided with something. The weight of her bag dragged her down onto her bottom in the light layer of snow.

"I'm so sorry there," the voice wafted down to her in rich, musical tones. A hand was offered to Sango, which she accepted.

From the second she had seen her rounded, white tipped fingernails, the silver bracelet floating about her wrist, she had been filled with a sense of dread.

From the moment she had clasped her hand, she noticed the contrast of smooth and pale against rough and dry; of mediocre to superior.

Her eyes were a startling jade. The same jade that hung around her neck on a pendant. An average shaped nose, long dark eyelashes; hair with endless dark facets of colour, blowing about her high cheekbones as she smiled. Her lips, a daring red.

"Could you help me out?"

Even her voice was like the first chimes of midnight, reminiscent of the reminder that one should remember where they were -- what they were doing.

"Of course." She felt so plain next to her. A potato next to a pineapple. Which was more likely to be seen? Which was more exotic, more exciting?

"I'm looking for this address."

Sango took the little piece of paper in her hands, staring. The numbers, the letters, oh so familiar. She knew those numbers -- she had memorized them the first day she had arrived at that address.

She placed the paper back into the woman's hands stiffly. Yes, she was a woman, tall, alluring, attractive and exuding grace. Sango was merely a girl.

"This building right here behind me, stairs to second floor, first door on your left." Politeness is an important part of your manners, Sango. Every little girl has proper manners. She punctuated her sentence with an endearing smile.

"You are quite a pretty girl," the woman remarked. Of course. A pretty girl, in her party dress, patent leather shoes, and holding her teacup, clutching her teddy bear to her chest. "Thank you for your help." The return smile blew Sango's half hearted attempt completely out of the water.

"You're welcome." A small bow, low enough to show respect, and she turned, her hair loose and floating behind her. Her footsteps staggered, her breath froze into the air as she exhaled, and she slouched with the weight of her bag.

The way she carried herself, the charisma and charm oozing from that woman, was what she could never be.

A tiny, tiny, voice squeaked, and asked her if she believed that much was true.

Yes, she told it. This is all so real.