Disclaimer: Not mine. Nope. Uh-uh. . [shoves shakujou under bed] Eheh.

Notes: Whoo... I'm having fun with this fic... And I'm glad you all seem to like it! [glows]

Chapter 3: A Ride

"Er, Sango?"

The woman didn't even lift her head. "What?" Her voice was slightly slurred, her right hand wrapped around a glass. Her left hand pinned a bendy straw to the countertop, leaving it no chance to escape from her madly spinning world.

"I don't think I can let you drive like that." Miroku was wiping up the bartop, sporadically crossing to the sink and dropping a few glasses in. All of the patrons had left, save one, who was sitting in a corner. Tendrils of smoke rose from that corner occasionally, but other than that, they were seemingly alone in the bar.

"What do you mean by that?" she muttered, lifting her head. "I'm in perfect condition." She leaned to the side slightly and Miroku caught her sleeve and pulled her back upright.

"Well, I'm closing up here. And I told you, you can't drive like that."

Sango let out a pitiful moan. "Can't I sleep here?"

The person in the corner moved to the cash register. With an apologetic look at Sango, Miroku went to ring up the transaction. Once the door had shut behind the smoker, he returned to her, holding his coat. "Come on," he sighed.

As a bartender, Miroku had found himself in this position more times than he cared to count. Inexplicably, however, he found himself actually caring whether or not Sango got home safe. Usually, if it took him this long to talk someone out of driving, he'd give up. If they agreed, he'd call a cab. For Sango, however...

"Where're we goin'?" Miroku guided the young woman to the door, shutting off the lights and stepping outside.

"I'm taking you home," he stated matter-of-factly, approaching the only car in the parking lot other than Sango's. "Where do you live?" When Sango either ignored him or couldn't answer, Miroku sighed, drawing on information that he had gained from overseeing her payment in the bar-

-and plunged his hand into her back pocket.

"HENTAI!" Sango screamed, coming out of her drunken stupor long enough to crack her hand across his face.

Miroku just blinked for a second, then held up his hand, clutching her wallet. "Driver's license. I'm going to take you home and you seemed unable to tell me your address." Rubbing his cheek, he sighed. 'Well, I could think of worse places that she could have hit me...'

"Guh... I feel like crap..." Sango muttered.

Miroku sighed, peeking at her license. 'At least she doesn't live too far away...' "I'm going to take you home. I'll pick you up in the morning to come get your car. Until then, try not to empty your stomach on the upholstery."

He unlocked the passenger side door and slid Sango inside. "What gives you the right to drive me anywhere, bud?" she grumbled irritably.

"I have a Good Samaritan complex." Miroku slid into the driver's seat. "I see a psychiatrist twice a week, but I can't seem to stop helping people."

Sango gave a weak, inebriated chuckle. 'He's insane. Charming, but insane.'

When Miroku turned into Sango's driveway fifteen minutes later, she was deeply asleep.

"Urrrrgh," was the most intelligent sound that Sango could force out of her mouth. Her head was throbbing, her throat was inexplicably sore, and the sun was beaming agony through her eyelids and directly into her brain.

Snuffling, she pulled the covers over her head. She was secretly glad for the relatively gentle awakening, though. Every day, she was roused either by the alarm or by the ringing of her phone.

Speaking of which, why hadn't she been awakened by the alarm or her phone?

Oh. Of course. She had been awakened by a pounding headache and a sudden urge to have a little confrontation with porcelain.

Making another semi-intelligent noise, this one of disgust, she semi-vaulted from the bed and scrambled for the bathroom, making it just in time. As her body told her (in a very noisome way) that it hadn't appreciated what she'd done to it the previous night, Sango's temples pounded stakes of pain into her head.

After her stomach was seemingly emptied, she slumped to her floor, trying to force her brain to think. 'Okay. Obviously I got very, very drunk last night...' she concluded, reaching up and flushing the toilet.

Grimacing, she pushed herself back to her hands and knees and tried to collect her jumbled thoughts and ignore her churning stomach. She looked down and was mildly surprised to see day clothes in place of her normal large T-shirt that she usually slept in.

'Why am I still in my clothes?' She raised her head enough to glance at her bedside table and continued to question the situation. 'Why's my phone off the hook? Where's my cell? Where's my GUN?'

"Okay, think, think..." She pressed her palms to her temples (then dropped them as her headache intensified). "I threw my phone in the dash when I stopped at that club... I went in... met Nakano..."

She gave a cry of terror. "My car's still at that damn club!"

Sango leapt up from the floor - or tried to. All she managed was a half-hearted lurch. She groaned. 'How am I ever going to get through work like this? I'm late... I haven't been answering any calls... I'm going to have to listen to The Bastard rant... Arrrrgh!'

After a few minutes had elapsed, she pushed herself to her feet and made her way to the shower without falling once - a commendable feat, in her opinion. She washed herself quickly but thoroughly, then wrapped her hair and her body in towels.

The shower hadn't magically erased her hangover, but she did feel better once she was clean. The nausea had receded, but she still felt as though small children were playing dodgeball in her brain - and weren't very good at it.

Scrubbing her face with one hand, she yanked open the medicine cabinet... which was empty of anything to alleviate her headache. Remembering that she sometimes kept medicines in a drawer in the kitchen, she exited the bathroom-

-and noticed a certain bartender sitting, quite calmly, on her bed.

Her eyes widened. "What in the HELL are you DOING in my HOUSE?" Her head immediately protested. 'Ow. Yelling bad. No more yelling.'

Miroku rubbed the back of his head. "I honked the horn for ages! When you didn't answer, I came up to see if you were all right." He held up her keys and she snagged them, fuming.

There was a pause. "Uh, Sango?"

"WHAT?"

"Would you be interested in bearing my child?"

A small child dropped a pin outside on the sidewalk and it echoed through the house as Sango turned beet red, realizing that she was wearing little more than a towel. Yup... she was wearing two towels. Joy.

She practically threw him from the room, slamming the door behind with with a decisive 'whack'. "You - downstairs - wait - painful death!" she raged, before giving herself over to the task of dressing.

Miroku climbed to his feet. Choosing to employ his selective hearing, he tuned out the 'painful death' and concentrated on the fact that Sango hadn't negatively responded to his question. Humming, he made his way down the stairs.

Meanwhile, inside the room, Sango had just discovered two painkillers and a glass of water on her bedside table.

As soon as Sango was fully dressed, she replaced the phone on the hook - and it immediately rang. She sighed. Kagome had probably been sitting on the redial button for hours. She lifted the phone to her ear with trepidation, glad that the medicine had already taken effect; Kagome was sure to make it worse...

"Hello?"

"Sango! Did you get the papers yet? Naraku wants them signed and in his office by noon! Where have you been? Why haven't you been answering your phone? Do you know how worried we've all been? I-"

Sango hung up with a sigh. There was a moment of silence before the phone rang again. "Yeah."

Kagome's voice sounded sheepish. "Sorry."

"Forgiven. Just don't go ranting at me again. Just because you're my friend doesn't mean my temper knows that. Papers - noon - gotcha. Anything else that I have to know, work-wise?"

"Hm. Not really."

"Good. I'll sign the papers and bring them over once I pick up my car-" 'Damn... I walked right into that one...'

"Why don't you have your car?"

Sango thudded her head against the headboard, wishing for her steering wheel. The leather had such a nice indentation in it. She stopped abruptly, however, when her headache threatened to intensify.

"Sango, you're going to kill lots of brain cells that way."

"One can only hope," Sango returned. "Long story. Short version: Me. Drunk. Bartender. Drove. Home. Bed. Bye!" She dropped the phone back on the receiver and, when it resumed ringing, she resolved not to answer it again. Snapping a ponytail holder around her wrist so that she could pull her hair up on the way, she put on her game face and stomped downstairs.

Miroku was waiting on her couch, and jumped to his feet as she entered the room. Sango pointedly ignored him, snagging the papers from the fax machine on the desk by the kitchen door and skimming through them. There were quite a few; consent forms, cover sheets, all waiting for her endorsement. It felt odd, knowing that the papers that she was holding in her hand were part of an application to kill the person who was, at that moment, breathing her air. No, not odd; it was unnerving.

She slid the papers into a folder from the desktop and tucked it under her arm. Maintaining her professional game face, she pulled the front door open and stepped outside. When Miroku - Nakano - followed, she shut and locked her door. 'I have to stop thinking of him on a first-name basis,' she decided. 'He's a target, not a friend.'

She turned, facing his car, and held out her hand.

There was a pause in which her palm remained suspiciously empty.

"Your keys," she grated. "There's no way you're driving this Miss Daisy while I have a say in the matter."

Nakano chuckled. His laughter wormed its way into Sango's façade and made her shift her weight a little. Couldn't he stop being so delectable? 'Wait. Delectable?'

"It's my car," Nakano returned, finally ceasing that irritably intriguing laugh. He unlocked the doors with a press of a button and dropped into the driver's seat. "Your carriage awaits," he called, grinning.

Sango stood there in shock for a moment. Never had someone gone up against her will and caused her to change it! Never! Didn't he know who she was?! Oh, wait. He didn't. Right then.

She climbed into the car, huddling as close to the door as she could without putting herself in danger of being sucked out of the window. "You are an arrogant bastard, you know that?"

He just grinned in a manner that said 'no' without leaving room for argument. Sango grumbled to herself and sunk lower in the seat.

'Three weeks. Until then, I won't have to approach this guy ever again. Three weeks, and I'll be seeing him for the last time through the sight of my revolver.'

Fumbling her hair into its normal ponytail, Sango realized that she wasn't considering that a happy thought.

Review Responses:

HMPrune: =D I agree! As a matter of fact, when I first started writing fanfic, I was oblivious to the joy that comes from Mir/San! Thanks for reviewing!

shigromia: Thank you! I guess I intend for it to be a bit humorous, seeing as how things are eventually going to get quite serious. [blushes at the 'applauded' line] Aww...

Demon Exterminator Barbie: [takes a moment to fall off her chair laughing at your username] LOVE IT! Okay, moving onnn... . Yeah... I don't think Sango's going to be so fond of it either... Ohhh... 'Twisted Mind' was deleted for 'chat-style dialogue' or something of the sort... [sighs] We all know how ff.net likes to be nitpicky. As for why Naraku wants Miroku dead.... [shifty eyes] Well, you'll just have to keep reading, huh? [winks]

Kyoko Kasshu Minamino: =D Interesting, yes yes! And Sango wouldn't dare attack me for the modeling thing... after all, it is I who holds the power in the keyboard! Muahaha! XD

the littlest dinosaur: You're silly. A good kind of silly, though! . I can't wait to see how Sango gets though it, either... XD See, I write what I want to read, and I find myself rereading some parts for the heck of it... Hee... ranting now. Thanks for your review!

Irasuto: I knowww... she has it bad... [looks at this chapter] Ah. She has it WORSE... XD I agree when you say that there will be no problem with her getting close to Miro-kun... it's just a matter of writing it out!

keiran311: Aww... thanks so much! Awww... o.O Say... that predicament sounds a little like mine... Mou... . Heyyy... I'd never flame a reviewer! That's like ASKING for trouble... Thanks for your review!

Lily Thorne: XD I'm glad that something can amuse you in the morning... Frankly, the only thing that amuses ME in the morning is someone telling me to get up... XD Thanks!

Soli-chan: I think that's the first time anyone's ever told me that they can 'relate' to Shippou. How... interesting... Heeeeh... I didn't really think that this fic was that funny until people began to point out certain lines, leaving me going "Oh, yeeeeah..." [blushes] Yeeeah!!! CHASMS rawks! Now I need to provoke Aamalie into updating it for us... [stares at you for a second] XD Okay, the 'optical' line made me laugh. You are truly insane... but cool! Nee... hope you passed your final! [throws hope your way] Thanks for the extra-long, delicious review!

E. Marie: Hee... I'm glad the update saved me from getting marshmallow-whacked...I'm very glad that you like this! If I remember correctly, you were one of the FIRST people to ever respond to me here... [hugs you tightly] I'm glad you like the way I'm working the plot, and yes, foreshadowing is supreme. [puts up little cartoon umbrella] Marshmallow ahoy, eh?

DayDreamerz: I know... that's going to come back later and haunt us all.... or just be a very fun plot point... thank you for reviewing!

Sango'n'Miroku4ever: XD I'm glad it was timely, then... I must admit, I couldn't imagine Sango modeling either... until I came up with a little loophole that I'll disclose at a later date. And yes... Miro-kun IS a bish... [sighs and hugs him] Thank you!

Killer Goldfish: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I annoy my own friends frequently about fanfics... but most of them are ignorant and just stare at me blankly until I burst into tears and run to the Internet to drown my sorrows in Mir/San... XD

Aamalie: [dances] Modeling RULES! I STILL haven't seen HP3... [dying... dying... dead... revives] I have a movie gift certificate and I STILL haven't seen it! [thumps self] Since I just sent you the next chappie... I'll assume that you now want the 'next next' chappie.... . Uhr... [runs]

Thank you, reviewers! You all motivate me so! [starry-eyed]