Author's note: Yet again, I am indebted to Atolm2000 for her help with Sanzo in this part…never mind that she helped me with it just over two years ago. It still wouldn't be done if not for her help.
It's been three days since we came back to this town, three days since Sanzo almost died under my hands. I've been in this room almost the entire time, waiting and resting, trying to restore my depleted life-force. Goku and Gojyo are constantly in and out, never leaving me alone with Sanzo's unconscious body for more than a few minutes. They're afraid I'll kill myself trying to finish healing him; they saw into the dark corners of my heart and know that I would probably do that…but I won't. Sanzo needs me to live. And I… No. That thought is cut short with practiced ease; it is a well-worn path and I know where it leads. I exist solely to atone for my crimes, I remind myself sternly. I have no right to assert my selfish, petty desires.
I'm sitting on Gojyo's pallet with him, eating and listening to him chatter on about the cute girl he saw while getting food. He's complaining jokingly about not being able to bring her back because the four of us are in the same room. Gojyo's not really complaining, though. He's exaggerating and acting the clown in his own way, trying to cheer me up. I look over at Sanzo and sigh. Gojyo falls silent.
"Hakkai." He puts his hand on my wrist, reminding me to finish eating. He bites his lip, looking between me and Sanzo, who hasn't stirred at all. "How are you doing?"
"I've started replenishing my life-force," I say quietly. "My reserves are full and I've replaced some of what I used…" I stare moodily at the dumplings Gojyo brought me and mechanically resume eating. I've read books on chi, but none of them quite describe the way my chi seems to work. The chunk of my life-force that was used when I healed Sanzo three days ago is still like a chunk of flesh missing from my body. But rather than repair that, the chi my body is generating from the prodigious amount I've been eating goes straight into my reserves. That metaphoric pit is filling itself slowly, like ice forming under the weight of layers of snow. And if monitoring my chi hadn't been the most convenient way to distract myself from brooding on Sanzo, I never would have noticed the tiny bit of progress my life-force had made. I'm going to be a long time getting my strength back from this, but it will be worth it if Sanzo recovers, too.
Gojyo is watching me brood and eat. This isn't a new train of thought for me, and he's heard the explanation about my life-force. After the first night here, when he practically interrogated me on my condition and what I would require while we waited for Sanzo to recover, he's watched me like a hawk. There is a sudden motion as he flicks his hair over his shoulder, and I look up. Gojyo seems to have come to a decision, clapping his hands together and leaping to his feet. "Stay here," he tosses over his shoulder as he leaves the room, leaving the door ajar in his haste. "Hey! Goku!" I hear distantly. "…mumble mumble mumble Sanzo mumble mumble tomorrow mumble mumble mumble Hakkai….."
Goku and Gojyo come back in and sit down in a little circle with me.
"Here's the plan," Gojyo announces. "If Sanzo doesn't wake up by tomorrow morning, we'll let you finish healing him. But!" He fixes me with a stern look. "You are NOT to drain yourself once your reserves are gone!"
Goku nods, a determined look on his face. "Uh-huh! You can pull from us again if you need to."
My spirits rise a little at the thought of returning Sanzo to health and wakefulness, and while it's not a smile, my expression becomes less gloomy. The other two smile at me in encouragement, and I feel guilty for how much I must have been worrying them. I haven't smiled at all since we found Sanzo like that. Between my seriousness and the glimpse they got of my dark secrets…it's no wonder that even Goku has been subdued the last three days. Gojyo and Goku put up with so much: irritation and surliness from Sanzo, chiding and mothering from me. And now, when they don't have to deal with any of that, they have stepped into my role as caretaker. Gratitude wells up in my heart for all they've done in the past few days, banishing the guilt momentarily before it flows sluggishly back at the reminder that they've had to do anything at all. I decided long ago that I would do my best to be helpful rather than an imposition, and I'm not living up to that. With an effort, I gather the shards of my masks and force my face into a parody of a smile.
"Well then," I say in a voice that sounds fake to my ears. "I should eat a bit more and rest up."
"Yeah, yeah!" Goku's enthusiasm for food rekindles. "Miss!" He dashes out of the room. "Can we get a double order of…"
Gojyo turns serious eyes on me. "Are you really okay?"
My fake smile vanishes. "No. I'm not. I'm worried sick about Sanzo. He doesn't eat enough to begin with, and now it's been three days…his energy is static. He's not healing naturally, but his health's not deteriorating yet, either. If he doesn't wake up soon…" I bite my lip and focus on Sanzo's slow breathing. I can't lose him, he can't die. It would kill me.
"Hey," Gojyo's voice pulls me back from the brink of despair. "If you heal him, he'll wake up, right? Like you did."
I nod. "His body will demand food."
"Then either way, he'll wake up tomorrow." Gojyo pats me on the shoulder and points to the forgotten dumplings. "Now finish those."
Night falls. Under the covers, I am still and silent. My right eye is closed, scarred lid pressed into the pillowcase; my left ear throbs faintly in the chill draft as my inhibitors grow colder and colder, until they feel like they're sucking the heat out of my ear. With one eye I watch Sanzo, unmoving in the darkness. I don't sleep. It rains, and the sound ties my stomach in knots. Time distorts as I lie there, past horrors and future fears colliding with the sound of the rain against the window behind me. I must have passed out at some point, because I am suddenly aware of the sound of Goku and Gojyo arguing about food just out of my line of sight, and the room is much lighter.
"But why not?" Goku whines, backing into my field of vision.
"Because he'll need to eat when he wakes up, you stupid monkey!"
Goku moans and grumbles, then notices me looking at him. "Hey, Hakkai, you're awake!"
I lever myself into a sitting position and find a plate of honey-glazed barley cakes under my nose.
"Gojyo says you need to eat these. But they look so good!"
Faced with Goku's honest enthusiasm and the knowledge that Sanzo will soon be completely healed, I find a genuine smile spreading across my face. I take the plate and give Goku one of the cakes, eating the rest of them quickly in anticipation. By the time I'm finished eating, Gojyo has uncovered Sanzo and taken off most of the bandages. He gives me an encouraging grin as I come over, and I take stock of what I'll be working with. The cuts and wounds are clean, but open and slightly dry. That's going to make them scar. I spread my hands and hold them half a hand's breadth above Sanzo's skin and start closing the wounds on his legs and feet, working my way up his body. The physical world grays out, and all I see is the green of my chi and the red-and-grey of Sanzo's energy system.
My chi reserves have never been this full before, but the number of wounds and the state they're in are making this hard. By the time I get up to Sanzo's chest, I'm bathed in sweat and my hands are trembling with the strain of intense, prolonged concentration. There is pressure on my shoulder, and then I can feel Gojyo's chi. I look at him in surprise, and he gives me a challenging look.
"Pull from me," he says quietly. "You look like shit."
Through our mingled chi, I express surprise and confusion that he would want to do this, after seeing the darkness in my heart. Gojyo replies in the same way that he doesn't care. No one's perfect, he communicates to me. What wrongs you've committed don't matter as much as what you do to make them right. Grateful, I pull from Gojyo's chi reserves, and am able to heal the last wounds without draining him too much. The concentration and energy loss are doing a number on me, but before I stumble back to the other bed, I stir Sanzo's chi to make his bodily needs wake him.
The next hour passes in silence. Sanzo slowly shifts from coma to deep sleep, and from deep sleep to light sleep. Goku and Gojyo sit on borrowed chairs and watch him, and I do the same from where I have collapsed onto the other bed. My reserves are gone again, reminding me sharply that my life-force is still depleted. My entire body feels dry, shriveled, and almost sandy. I should be eating – with a chunk of my life-force missing, my chi will regenerate only slowly – but we have no food in the room. Even if we did, I wouldn't be able to eat. My entire body is trembling from the stress I've put on it twice in four days. Time slows to a crawl, and each minute becomes an eternity of agonizing suspense. Will my desperate healing be enough to bring Sanzo back? Will the damage his body took prove to be too much for him to recover from? I know I didn't neutralize all of the poison; perhaps it has done him some irreparable harm. Perhaps, as he lay dying, his brain was suffocated and he will never wake. Perhaps—
Sanzo's chi shifts from deep red to blue. His breathing does not change, and there is no visible sign, but—
"He's awake."
Goku and Gojyo turn at my statement, more a sigh than words. Sanzo's chi flashes red and white.
"How can you tell?" Goku looks back and forth between me and Sanzo, but there is no motion to lend truth to my statement.
"I can always tell when he's awake and faking it, or when he's actually asleep." Anticipation, fear, and exhaustion have stretched my nerves to the breaking point, and I don't have the mental energy or patience to humor Sanzo's pride.
"And you never told us?" Gojyo's torn between indignation and amusement.
"I always let Sanzo…hide for a bit and gave him time to come to terms with things without forcing him…" Black streaks shoot through Sanzo's chi. "I'm sorry, Sanzo! I just-" My voice breaks and I have to take a sobbing breath to steady myself. "I just need to know that you're going to be okay…" I close my eyes then, because I know I'm about to break down. But as I do, I can see white streaks flaring through Sanzo's chi, erasing the black.
There is a shuffle; feet moving and muffled voices. I'm focused on regaining composure and don't know what was said, but after a moment someone sits on the edge of the bed and then Sanzo's hand rests on my shoulder. His chi flashes blue and white, and for a few minutes the only sound is my broken breathing.
"I'm sorry, Sanzo," I finally gasp out. "I'm sorry…"
Still blue with white, but the blue softens to teal. Sanzo murmurs quietly that it's all right, comforting babble that I focus on and cling to, dragging myself out of the dark spiral my thoughts had fallen into. I narrow my world to the sound of his voice and his hand on my shoulder, and force my thoughts into a straight line again.
"It's been three…four days since we found you. You were so close to dying! I was – I thought –" Deep breath, eyes still shut. Focus. "I had to draw from Goku and Gojyo to save you. I couldn't do it by myself, and even then…" Another breath. "I came so close to failing..." I almost choke on the words.
Sanzo's hand tightens its grip on my shoulder, and his chi turns a heavy purple like his eyes. "Hakkai…" There is a pause, a flash of blue that leaves his chi a slightly more grey-purple when it passes. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to bother the rest of you with killing scavengers. I didn't stop to look enough to realize what was going on."
"I don't care about that," I reply immediately. A streak of sickly yellow followed by dirty white runs through Sanzo's chi; worry and guilt. Normally, an admission like this would touch me deeply, and having wrestled an apology out of Sanzo, I'd let the issue drop.
"I did something stubborn and stupid and hurt the rest of you." The words are like glass shards in Sanzo's mouth, and his voice is full of pain. The purple of his chi darkens like a brooding storm at sunset.
"I can forgive that." I dismiss this deeper apology and admission of fault as though it were of no importance. I feel as though my soul has been stripped bare and trivial things like foolish mistakes and admitting fault are meaningless compared to the single need that beats within me stronger than my own heart.
The resemblance between Sanzo's chi and a stormy sunset grows stronger: against the hazy violet background there is a core of pulsing red pain/anger partially hidden by the dark clouds of despair and self-loathing, and streaks of worry/fear/guilt flash through the whole mess like lightning. I can feel my coherency slipping slightly.
"You told me once that as long as you were still alive, I had to live, too." My quiet words bring Sanzo's attention back, and the black clouds stir slightly as though whipped by winds of the soul. "You made me promise," I whisper almost distractedly.
"I never meant for you to worry about me." Sanzo's voice is tight, trying to control itself. It is the third apology within the space of a few minutes, filled with helplessness and pleading. His chi brightens as the self-loathing is replaced partially by vibrant, warm colors, and in that instant I understand that even before he gave me my name, Sanzo had grown to care about me as much as he had cared for his predecessor. He's been trying to deny it to himself, afraid of what would happen if my fate ever mirrored his mentor's.
"Then you should never have worried about me," I reply. My voice is firm and slightly accusing, point the metaphoric finger directly at what he's been trying to avoid for over three years.
There is a babbled apology; he's not thinking about what he's saying, he's just stringing word together while his thoughts swirl together like the colors of his chi. Guilt chases hope which swirls together with fear and martyred responsibility while other colors and emotions whirl by too quickly to be identified. The kaleidoscope effect destroys the anchor I was using to keep my own thoughts straight, and I can feel my control slipping.
"Sanzo." I use his name to pull both of our trains of thought back together. "Promise me."
"….Promise what?"
I'm still slipping. The world around me is blank; I can't see Sanzo's chi anymore, can't tell if he knows what I'm asking and is pretending he doesn't, or whether I've lost him and he has no idea what I'm talking about. My hand locks onto Sanzo's wrist in a burst of movement, and our chi mingles through the skin-to-skin contact. He can see into my heart now, as I've been looking into his.
"Promise me!" Consciousness is dribbling away, and desperation colors my voice. "I need to know that you're going to live…" The words are somewhere between a hiss and a sob. I didn't think there was anything left in me that could break, but something did. Or maybe something in Sanzo? The boundaries between us are blurring more, and it's all I can do to not slip into unconsciousness. There is a long pause, or perhaps it just seems long because I'm trying to refocus on the physical world.
"I promise." The words are barely audible, but they send an unmistakable vibration through our shared chi, like a silent earthquake.
"Thank you," I sigh, as that ripple sends me into the smooth blackness that's swallowed up the rest of the world. I'm barely aware of my hand and arm going limp as I give in to exhaustion, but relief joins it and cushions me as I sink into their combined embrace.
