Kirara's health improved with each hour that passed and slowly, in fits and starts, Sango's spirits rose in response. Her own steps were still slower than usual on account of her injuries, but it felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Even the hiraikotsu felt lighter than she had feared it might.

InuYasha and Kagome had come back. Kirara was, if not well, at least on the mend. And they were all on their way again, searching once more for shards of the Shikon jewel. If her wayward brother, in need of saving, and her enemy, in need of slaying, were still out there… well, at least she didn't have to face them alone.

During the past several days she had discovered a newfound appreciation for the friendship and support Kagome had been offering all along. It had been easier to keep her distance before, to feel like she wasn't really a part of the group, like she might leave them without a second thought if it turned out anyone from her village had survived its destruction. Now she knew that wasn't true, and she would have to live with that.

To pass the time as they walked, Kagome told her silly stories about her friends "back home". Eventually Sango found herself wondering if the strange things Miroku had told her about Kagome could really be true. Jumping through a well to travel through time? It didn't seem like it could be possible. Kagome was very different from the girls Sango was used to, but not so different that Sango was ready to ask for the truth about her origins. If Kagome wanted to volunteer the information, Sango would gladly listen, but she wasn't going to ask just yet. In the meantime she would just keep an eye out for indications that Miroku hadn't just been teasing to see what he could get away with.

As if Kagome could tell what she was thinking about, the other girl whispered, "Don't look now, but we're being watched."

Sango frowned. InuYasha was leading the way, which left Shippou and the monk to bring up the rear. There was no one else around. "The monk?" she ventured.

Kagome gave a curt nod. Sango wasn't entirely sure whether Kagome was annoyed or not.

"So he's just… always like this?" she asked.

"He has been ever since I met him, anyway," Kagome complained. "Always looking at girls and putting his hands where they're not wanted." She paused to glare over her shoulder. "You're sure he didn't try anything funny while InuYasha and I were gone?"

The monk had been nothing but kind during her recovery. This was entirely at odds with the other side of his personality, which Sango knew to be exactly as Kagome described – always looking to take advantage. Sometimes it was hard for her to believe he was just one man, and not two men with opposite personalities who just happened to look exactly alike.

"No," she murmured, knowing Kagome wouldn't believe it. "He didn't do anything like that. As weird as that may be."

"Well, he's definitely staring now," Kagome told her, her voice taking on a conspiratorial tone.

Personally, Sango figured he was more likely to be interested in the way Kagome's skirt left her legs almost completely bare than in whatever views she herself might offer, particularly with the hiraikotsu slung over her shoulder to block much of her body from view. It also seemed probable that he merely wanted to keep an eye on her, since she had been under his care only yesterday. "I don't think the monk is interested in me that way," she began. She wasn't sure she really wanted to go there, but it might ward off future awkward conversations.

"What are you talking about?" Kagome asked, far too loudly for Sango's taste. "He sticks closer to you than he does to me or InuYasha."

Did he? It didn't feel like it to Sango. And if he did, she could think of a hundred reasons why that had nothing to do with any imagined interest in her, romantic or… otherwise.

Determined to steer the conversation away from the increasingly awkward path it had taken, she asked, "Remember what you told me about how he asks every woman he meets to bear his children?" At Kagome's nod, she pointed out, "He never asked me. I think that settles it."

Had she sounded disappointed just now?

"He never asked you?" Kagome sounded shocked.

"As if I would want him to!" Sango protested, perhaps more defensive than she absolutely needed to be.

"No, of course not," Kagome murmured, suddenly subdued.

They walked in silence for a while. Sango let her mind go empty while she kept an eye on her surroundings, letting the repeated motion of walking calm her nerves. All she had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and everything else would eventually fall into place.

Finally, Kagome asked, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

She hesitated, as if she might still back out. "Does it bother you that Miroku might not see you as a woman?"

Sango shrugged. Did it bother her? Maybe a little, but this was something she'd had to learn to deal with a long time ago. "Some men can see me as a fighter or a woman, but not both," she explained. "Some women, too. I'm used to it."

"That's so… sad."

It didn't seem particularly sad to Sango. Occasionally frustrating, but not really sad. It was just how things were in the world outside the village where she'd grown up. All the women in her village had been trained to fight, so a woman fighter wasn't unusual or considered unattractive there, but she knew that wasn't the case elsewhere.

"It's not that sad," she assured Kagome. "And besides, I'd rather the monk not take that kind of interest in me. Not with those wandering eyes—and hands!—of his."

That put a smile back on Kagome's face and, happily, an end to that particular strand of conversation.