Hakkai awoke.

Each of them would come to life in a different way. Sanzo, he liked to feign sleep while he slowly came to, rising out of his dreams and into awareness, opening his eyes only when he was complete and collected. Sometimes, Hakkai thought, the man would lay there listening to them, living a brief few minutes where he wouldn't have to react. Goku would drag himself forcibly up out of near-comatose sleep the best he could, warm and blinking fuzzily until breakfast turned him awake like a lightswitch. Gojyo slept as long as he possibly could, and only rolled out of bed, messy and crinkled, when he sensed that a) they were having breakfast without him or b) he was about to be shot for holding up the journey.

Hakkai was always thrown into awareness like a cymbal crash, a jolt of nerves slamming him from one moment of sleep into the next moment of wide-awake life, where memories all occurred at once. Still, somehow, today he had sensed something a second before waking, something that simultaneously drew him up from murky waters and made him bury his face in the pillow in some unnamed emotion.

It was a smell.

Before he even had a name, a place, a feeling for the smell, he knew it was deeply cruel. He curled around his stomach in a vague agony.

Cruel that he should have to smell that when it was gone. Smell her.

Kanan.

Sounds came to him. Soft footsteps of a phantom. Something simmering over a crackling fire in a dead hearth. A sweet song. The rough texture of their couch beneath him and her smooth pillow beneath his hands when he lifted his face.

Somewhere, he knew it was happening again. He was dreaming of her, and part of him screamed no no no while another part screamed please, please yes and still another part said I can't stop it, it won't stop until the end. I'll see her and she'll die again.

He didn't know why he opened his eyes. But he did. Everything was pleasantly blurry, a watercolor image from another life. He didn't need eyesight to recognize any of it, anyhow. He didn't have time to look at anything else but her.

Gentle. Soft, gentle movements and quiet, gentle voice, and sweet, gentle face. The light side to his moon that was swallowed up over and over again.

"Ah, Gonou, how was your nap?"

Hakkai didn't have the words to answer. Everything was spilling out the wound in his stomach to lay out in the mud, leaving him empty and filled and teased by this beautiful image he longed for every minute. He felt, rather than saw, concern blooming in her expression. She always knew. Her image resolved sharper and clearer with each step that brought her near, and Hakkai couldn't breathe. He was a body filled with ache as she curled her fingers into the long hair brushing against the back of his neck, as she let him bury his face into her warm, warm stomach. Not dead yet. Not bloodied yet. Not torn away from him yet.

As he drew his arms around her waist, Hakkai felt alive and dead at the same time.

Somewhere else, the delicate scent of someone's breakfast wafted into the air.

Gojyo rumbled to himself, wordlessly, as he kicked a twist of blankets off his legs. He smelled food, and smelling food meant Hakkai was awake to cook it, which meant the monkey was awake to eat it, which meant the monk was awake to be grouchy about the whole thing. But it was so good here. This bed, his bed, it was comforting and inviting and he wanted to sleep but even more than missing sleep he hated being left out. It was unsettling, sometimes, to find the rooms empty and everyone already gone, and that second's heartbeat of wondering why he hated waking up alone. Hey, without him around, the monkey would eat everything, swell up, and eventually explode in a mess that somebody would make him clean up. Plus, he valued the version of his head that didn't have bullets in it.

"Mmh," he mumbled at the too goddamn soft pillow.

Eventually, that wonderful smell reached right down inside him and tugged him awake with an insistent growl of hunger. Heh, he had the presence of mind to think, and with that he levered himself out of bed, stretching out corded, lanky limbs and peering around blearily. Sure enough, the other rumpled bed in his room was empty. Come to think of it, something about this place whispered at him in a place beyond reach. Tugged at him in an entirely different way than that food was currently tugging at his midsection. Hm. Probably just the fact that all these dusty inns look the same. He'd think about it after breakfast and his morning cigarette.

Barefoot, he padded across the old wood floor with sunlight laid across it in strips. He didn't remember getting to the inn last night, but he sure knew how to get to that kitchen and that smell.

"Oi, saru, save me--"

...It was not who he expected.

There, at the little round table with three worn chairs, sat Sha Jien with a satisfied grin, three plates, and...

His throat closed twice, rusty and terribly painful, before he forced the word out.

"Mother."

Sanzo was, any moment now, expecting some bastard youkai to peel up the corner of this illusion, like a beautifully painted tarp thrown over an ugly and stained reality. In fact, he hoped it would happen soon so that he could shoot it.

If he could find his gun.

One moment, he had laid his head back, and the next... there was an inexplicable, piercing, blinding light that threatened to shove his head open. He'd rocketed up to curse out Goku or probably Gojyo for shoving a flashlight or something in his face, when his hands met soft leaves and cool earth. Springtime air, the kind that held a bite of winter cold deep in its belly, entered his lungs and he opened his mouth and eyes in surprised reflex.

The sun.

Pure, bright, and warm sunlight had streamed into his eyesight and mingled with his breath. Sanzo had rarely stopped to think about it, beyond being irritated at its bothersome heat or noticeable absence. But today, a tree full of new, swaying leaves danced across its shining surface, and delicate patterns of shadows brushed soundlessly against his face. The brilliance made his eyes sting and water, but he wouldn't tear himself away from that natural dance. Its beauty drew him into a frozen stillness, and he stared like a child until a thought stirred the depths of his mind.

Where in Hell am I?

Even when they couldn't get to an inn, the four of them weren't stupid enough to camp out in the open, and they definitely weren't stupid enough to wander off and leave any of the party alone. They closer they got to their goal, the more cautious they would have to be. Sanzo hadn't woken up alone under this wide stretch of blue sky since he was young and scavenging for his own life. With a huff of air expelled through his nose, he rose swiftly to regain his feet, and with them some of his senses.

That was when he noticed the familiar weight, his dual shame and responsibility, had disappeared from his shoulders.

His hand rose up to meet his collarbone in reassurance the same way every day, but this morning, with its strange bright sun... his touch encountered a white sash, and beneath it, a smooth lay of black silk. He didn't have to look down to know what he was wearing. He'd seen it in the mirror time and time again.

He'd seen it in the past, the one that was supposed to stay firmly in the past.

And now, he was tearing a slow, vicious rampage through this godforsaken place in search of his sutra, his gun, his companions, Hell, even Jeep. A sick feeling wound into his stomach that said none of them would be forthcoming very soon. And it was hard to keep from admitting to himself that this was unmistakably and impossibly a temple. Chang'An, his mind supplied, while a quieter, more distant part of him whispered, Kinzan. It all tasted wrong, and he blinked defiantly up at the sun that had enchanted him a dozen minutes before, daring it to just give up and show him the real scene because he knew this couldn't possibly be real. Nothing flickered, and the leaves tossed as leaves always do, their every vein highlighted in the light, too real for dreams. He was finding it increasingly hard to keep his mind from falling to pieces.

It was especially hard when something that had Koumyou Sanzo's face was following him and calmly inquiring after his health.

With a yawn that threatened to split his entire face in two, Goku bounded down the inn steps in a loud clatter, still caught by traces of grogginess from his deep and satisfying slumber, but coursing with the kind of eternal, electrical energy anyone would expect from someone who spends every spare moment eating.

Eating was exactly what was on his mind at the time.

When he'd shaken awake that morning, he'd been dismayed to find that everyone else had already cleared the rooms and gone down to breakfast without him. A small whine of panic escaped his throat as he struggled into a shirt and pulled on half-laced shoes, speculatively eyeing the slant of light escaping through the window to determine the time. If it was too late, the kappa would have eaten all the good stuff, and then he'd have to last with a half-empty stomach until at least lunchtime, and possibly even later. That was something he definitely did not want to face today. It felt like the kind of day where there was a sharp hint of fight in the air, like the scent of autumn he can catch creeping into the depths of summer.

When he reached them, they were arranged as usual, settled into a corner table and forming a semicircle, leaving an empty place meant only for him. They never really talked about each other as a group, but Goku liked that mornings were like this, that Hakkai always found their shoes and put them at their bedsides and Sanzo and Gojyo tossed the lighter between them without word, and they all managed to get ready and out in Jeep at about the same time.

"Mornin'," he mumbled, part of Gojyo's breakfast already in his mouth, and therefore, all of Gojyo's fist in his side. He grinned around a mouthful of bread, dodged the next swing at his head, and collected more food from the plate.

From the looks of it, Sanzo had managed to find a newspaper at the inn, and was about as contented as he got, skimming headlines from far away events from behind thin-framed glasses and wafts of smoke. Sometimes Goku wished that he could pay more attention when Hakkai tried to teach him advanced reading, so that he could know what Sanzo was reading about and read with him. Hakkai would say that Sanzo probably wanted to read by himself, but Goku would say back that if he wanted to be by himself, he'd be up in the room.

Hakkai seemed just as contented, taking small sips of tea that curled a wet steam into his hair. He seemed to never really need a paper to think about far off things, and Goku knew that he was probably going over a dozen thoughts in his mind, invisibly tossing and sliding and turning in the air where just Hakkai could see them. That was okay with him as long as the smile on the man's face stayed in his eyes too, and he didn't curl his shoulders down in upon himself, and didn't startle at innocent touches and sudden noises. Goku thought that maybe the morning was Hakkai's favorite time.

Beside him, Gojyo had finally given up on his remaining breakfast, and resigned himself to testing his muscles against Goku's frame. After a few more bites, the boy reciprocated, diving in to struggle with Gojyo, and even though they both carried incredible strength on the battlefield, neither one of them ever really made so much as a dent on each other over breakfast. Crimson hair set the light aflame at the same time that Sanzo's fan took care of making dents on both of them.

It was business as usual.

"Heyyy, Hakkai! Where're we going today?"