Days seemed to flicker by here like the snowflakes outside--drifting, falling, melting, but always more where the others came from, gathering up to cover what used to be the ground in a thick layer.

Long ago, Gojyo had learned that when Mom was in a good mood, you shouldn't wonder why.

Things moved sluggishly slow, even with the sharp frost creeping in through the gaps in the walls. The air was thick as water, and he was walking through it, breathing in it. Something was supposed to be bothering him, he was supposed to be figuring something out. It whispered at the edges of his thoughts, but in the end--he didn't care. It didn't matter enough to make him want to wonder. Mom was acting like she used to in the dimmest and best memories he ever held... and there was a stranger in the mirror.

The first time it had happened, he'd thought he'd gone insane, and there was a window where the mirror used to be. He stared. It stared back. His fingers crept up to rustle in short, raven-black hair. The image gave him a wobbly grin. That won't cut it, he thought at it. Two more tries and he was looking at a damn handsome I am Sha Gojyo and I fuck your ladies smile.

In the mornings, it was him and Jien and Mom and they had breakfast with chipped plates and mended mugs, and Gojyo laughed without scars tugging tight and Mom laughed with him. He smoked sometimes, watching the smoke rise right there in the house to mingle with roof, and he left the cigarettes right there on the table when they died. He felt warm the same way he did when he used to have the luxury of lying in bed and not thinking, only moving to breathe.

Later on, there wasn't much Jien around even though his voice was clear and strong as steel, ever present the way it used to be. It was just him, and just her, and he stretched his feet onto the table and soaked up her smiles and it never rained, just snowed, endless until everything was white.

At first, he had been afraid to touch her.

Her doom in every dream always lurched forward like a terrible behemoth, spilling up from his depths, born from and denied by his fear that he could never stifle. It happened because he was afraid it would. He was afraid it would happen because it always did. And she would end up clothed in blood that seeped into his heart.

But not to touch her was a waste of the dream, and he wanted it down to the hurt in his bones, even though he knew how it would end.

He pushed his nose into her hair, pulling out the scents that flared to life in his memory.

She didn't die.

He crushed her into himself, soaking all of her into his empty spaces.

She didn't die.

He shuddered in her, around her, surrounding her, her surrounding him, and...

She didn't die.

The pale, soft skin beneath his hand remained warm and pulsing, interwoven with so much life that it was growing hard to remember the look of it torn open. Her mirroring hand found his stomach laid bare and smooth.

And he saw her with both eyes open, not the dead eye that his dead half saw with, but both, here now everything and vivid beyond all reason.

Weeks must have passed, and he wanted to know why, why this was happening, what snag in time had slipped to allow him to come here, but he was afraid to touch it too and it wasn't alluring like her and so he left it there in the corner. Let it be what it was until it forced itself into his mind and brought its fate with it. All he could feel was her her her and I'm alive. He felt as though it had been her and him together, from the beginning until the end, repeating endlessly like the resurrections of summer flowers, forming a perfect circle where the end of time met the beginning.

Cho Gonou nestled his face into Kanan's shoulder and wept without knowing why.

He refused to sleep.

Nothing would make him sleep, not with this happening. There was a youkai plot, or a drug, or just something gone bad in his mind but it could not possibly be real.

For one, nothing ever happened without the annoying monkey tripping him and badgering him and asking for food an hour after he'd eaten dinner.

He ignored gently tossing leaves and the pleasant wind they rode on. He ignored the calls of birdsong that lifted every fucking memory he ever had with their sweet voices. The hum of sunshine fell fractured and bitter on his skin, just the way that he felt.

Most of all, he ignored this thing called Koumyou Sanzo.

A refusal to sleep came with a refusal to stay still, and so he tore through the temple grounds over and over again, crushing spring saplings and stalking through serene buildings with all the ferocity of a storm. He never found the gun or sutra, but he felt confident that this cacophony of feeling tangled in his chest would make him a terrifying opponent enough for anyone, no matter what they were armed with.

By the third day, he was reeling unsteady from the constant movement without food, and his body felt like something far away, but he still moved. While he was still alive he would move and whatever it was would show itself and he could tear all this down and pack it far, far, deep where it belonged again.

After a week, he must have slipped on a stain of leaves, because he found himself hunched into a shadow in the angle of two buildings, covering his head with shaking arms. A slight sound alerted him to it, that persistent follower, and he launched up with strength he didn't have, and closed his fingers around his Master's throat.

Beneath his hand, twin pulses of life beat a slow rhythm and it made him shudder at how warm this skin was and how hot the blood on his face had been and how he had never, ever been able to touch him again, only stare at the cooling blood. The face was looking at him, so calm, one eyebrow crinkled in a silent question and unspoken concern.

Something in him broke.

The page had been worn, and some of the words grown faint, but he knew it by heart: "A flow of electricity is called an electric current. It is often important, particularly for safety reasons, that one side of a circuit be electrically bonded to an earth terminal. An electrical network or electrical circuit is an interconnection of analog electrical elements such as resistors, inductors, capacitors, diodes, switches and transistors. A circuit is said to be open when a break exists in a complete conducting pathway."

"But if there's no branch for them to return to," sounds of rustling feathers tangled with his voice, "they might regret having wings, don't you think?"

Jien swept up the toy from clutching fingers. "It won't work without all the parts in it, little brother."

"Hakkai, what is it?"

The driver had stopped, calm as could be. He paid no mind to the startled expressions of his companions, and only looked down at the map in his lap for a very long time.

"Hakkaaai?"

Wind ruffled through his hair, and as he handed the map to Sanzo, the corner of a smile flashed into view.

"Saanzoo!?"

The monk gave a huff that was almost a laugh, and tossed the map to the back seat, hitting Gojyo square in the chest with startling accuracy. That same smile possessed the half-breed's mouth even while he held Goku away with an outstretched arm.

"Stupid cockroach! Tell me! Tell me, you guys!"

"Please wake up," a woman said.

Goku awoke.