Epilogue

Sango could still remember the first time that Miroku asked her to bear his child. She remembered sitting on the steps of a small hut, and Miroku took her hands, and began to ask her that horrid question. Sango had been furious. Hadn't he told her only a few weeks ago that he would refrain from being flirtatious with her? Hadn't he promised her to be honest with her? She had been so mad that she had slapped him without thinking, lashing out.

He had taken it calmly, even laughingly. Since then, she had seen him rub his sore cheek with an expression almost bordering on pleasure. She sometimes wondered why, but always wrote it off as his base humor. He liked to grab her, and if he had to bear her retribution for those perverted gropes, then he would. There was little Sango could do about it, exept perhaps to remove the offending hands—it was something she had often considered.

But before it had grown to become almost a comical routine, it had worried her. She was agressive and snarly at times, and at others withdrawn and anti-social. She could still feel that she was not whole yet—that she was unbalanced. It was not until she laughed for the first time that she began to feel like she was truly herself, and that she first began to feel something for Miroku again.

It began slowly, and almost as it had before. She saw him hurt defending her. She helped him back to health. She exercised with him. She grew to respect him, even if she still glowered whenever he flirted with someone else out of disapproval.

As for Miroku, he thought that he would be able to let Sango go. He yearned so much for her to be whole again. He worried that the attention he showed her could still lead her astray; to cause him to become the string that held her together, and so he was sure to often flirt with women in front of her, to keep her from depending on him too much. So long as she thought his gestures that of a lecher, he was satisfied that she would not grow to love him while learning at the same time that hurt and scarred as she was, she was beautiful.

Meeting Kuranosuke had made Miroku think that perhaps the concept that Sango was beautiful would sink in more—that it wasn't just the lecher who found her attractive, but rich and powerful men. He had seen it as his chance to let her go, and he had, despite Kagome's attempts at intervening. But when he saw her fight the bear demon, had felt himself running before he had even thought about becoming involved, he knew that he could not possibly let Sango go. He was hers; his masterpiece, his partner. He had known then that he had indeed fallen in love with her, but he had not the courage to say it for months.

Then, one day, when he thought he was going to lose her, he told her. He asked her to live with him, to bear his children, this time with the honesty he had so long ago promised her. Her tearful, joyous acceptance had been worth waiting for. Miroku was happy; Sango was happy, and as he proved when he had failed to promise her that he would be faithful, he still knew well how to tease her.

Sango was fixed, or as fixed as she would be. She was stronger, more resilient than before. Miroku knew that hadn't done that; that had been Sango's own doing.

Spring had arrived again to Nippon, and with it Kirara, Miroku, and Sango had taken a well-deserved rest at the old site of the taijiya village. Sango wanted to honor her ancestors and neighboors by replacing the flowers on their graves. Miroku had been more than happy to accompany his affianced. As they lay side by side, in separate bed rolls as Sango had requested, they talked quietly to themselves.

“I couldn't have imagined having done all this without you, Houshi-sama.” Miroku loved her pet name. He smiled at her. “If you hadn't been there that night to convince me to do something... I don't think I would have made it. I was too busy wallowing in self-pity to think logically.”

He reached out to brush her cheek with his thumb. Sango leaned into her touch, lowering her eyelashes and looking fetching without trying. She confided in him sometimes that she thought the old Sango wasn't back yet, but Miroku didn't mind. He loved this new Sango, and he saw the things she didn't of the old blush and secretive glances he remembered from their first days together. For a moment Miroku thought he might kiss her, but she was still soft and tender and fragile. He knew he would have to wait, and he didn't mind waiting for her.

“Sango, if I hadn't taken the road that day, I am sure our paths would have eventually crossed. And I'm sure that eventually I would have wormed my way into your good graces despite my lecherous ways.” He grinned broadly. “Or perhaps even because of them.”

She rolled her eyes. “I doubt very much that I would have accepted your proposal if I didn't know of the sweet man beneath the lecher.”

“I guess we'll never know, Sango. I'm almost glad for it. I like the way things turned out.”

Sango didn't even need to tell him that she felt the same.

Fin