Miroku opened his eyes and found himself in an unfamiliar building. He had the vague sense that this was not the first time he awakened since arriving here, and that he had been sleeping quite a bit over what must have been at least a day or two, but it was all vague and blurry in his mind. He did not think he would ever be quite sure how he got here after the fight with Kohaku and Kagura, but he was happy at least to find himself on solid ground. Solid, unmoving ground.
He shifted, testing to see if he could move around, and if that would ease the achy tension in his limbs. It helped, a little. But it was something else that caught his attention.
Sango was a silent presence at his bedside, her eyes downcast. Relief swept over him at the sight of her. He'd worried that Inuyasha might have been too late to stop her from killing her brother; he'd worried, too, about what she might do to herself if she was forced to kill Kohaku. Her words—I'm sorry—and the look on her face at that moment would haunt him for a long time.
He wondered how long she had been there, keeping watch over him while he dreamed his way through poison-fueled nightmares. He tried to speak: "Sango."
He sounded awful, his voice little more than a dry rasp, and supposed that was what happened after taking that much poison into the kazaana's void, and spending what had likely been days drifting in and out of consciousness while he recovered.
Sango gasped, her gaze flicking over to where he lay. For just a moment, their eyes met.
"You're awake!" She sounded as relieved as he felt. But that flash of joy didn't last long. She was abruptly contrite. "I'm sorry, Houshi-sama. It was for my sake that you were poisoned so badly."
The look on her face, like she might cry at any moment, was enough to break his heart. "Don't look so sad, Sango," he told her. It took an enormous effort just to speak, but he could not remain silent.
"What?"
"There's still hope for Kohaku—"
She would not look at him anymore, choosing to stare down at her lap again instead. "Houshi-sama…"
"—so you should smile."
He had meant to cheer her, but she only looked more distraught the more he encouraged her to focus on the fragments of hope they had managed to salvage. The last thing he wanted right now was for her to cry over him. He wasn't good at the whole selfless hero thing; he was much more comfortable with self-indulgence and even with being a bit of a scoundrel. He didn't think he could handle it if his unthinking sacrifice prompted a flood of emotion from her just now.
Well, if he couldn't distract her with kindness, there was one last trick up his sleeve. He fell back against his makeshift bed with a sudden sigh and she fell right into the trap, so to speak.
"Houshi-sama? Wait, hang in there—"
She cut off abruptly as she realized it was only an act and he had not actually passed out. Granted, the act would probably have been more convincing if he had managed to keep his hand from caressing her bottom… but the way he saw it, he had earned that caress. He'd taken in a lot of poison for her, after all.
She cuffed him on the head so hard that he saw double as Shippou came in with a bottle of water for him. Even so, he couldn't complain. Seeing Sango angry with him was infinitely preferable to the insurmountable sadness he'd seen in her eyes only a few moments before. If it took beating him up a bit to help her get past the worst of that sorrow, well, that was another sacrifice he was apparently willing to make.
Besides, the pain in his head helped distract him from the pain everywhere else. And that, in a way, was its own reward.