In the time after the dream and before reality, he awoke to starshine and wind--the gentle hum of power beneath him and the pulse of having no memory.

Then her voice grounded him, hard, and he turned his head down to see that usual sight of Jeep's interior, but it wasn't really like usual because he was curled up in the front and Hakkai wasn't driving.

"..um," he paused, trying to gather words, "..sorry, Yaone.. I'm awake now, I was just dreaming, I promise.."

"Don't worry," she smiled, and the words were meant as both a dismissal of his apology and a comfort. But she was worried herself, he could tell because he'd seen this kind of smile before. She drew in a sharp breath around the sound of a sudden jostle, and her fingers clenched tighter around the wheel. The fiery sun had already slipped past the horizon, and with it, all warmth. He pulled his cape closer around himself.

"Yaone...?"

"Yes?"

"Are they..." dead, he wanted to say, although the word wouldn't come and he wanted to reel the question back to his mouth. Two factors clashed ringingly in his mind--on one hand, if he turned his head to look, he would be able to see them awake and lively again. Hakkai would say good evening and Gojyo would tease him about something and Sanzo would move like an hour hand does, when you know it has moved even though it looks the same. But then, there was the heartsickening fear that he would look and there would be no one to say good evening, and that reality had the heavy pull of truth to it as soon as it was considered. So he waited, thinking that as long as he didn't look, they would be awake and safe in his mind.

Her soft breath and sadness stirred in his hair. "I'm afraid it's the same..."

The words tricked him into looking, and the faces in his imagination faded away.

Sanzo was beside him. Goku had insisted with a fierce emotion that the priest wouldn't be placed anywhere except his normal seat, and had carefully arranged Sanzo there just like he was only sleeping. He almost looked normal, except every now and then the motion of the jeep made his body sway forward, head bowing to the stars, and Goku had never seen him bow to anything before.

Wind flicked the ends of his hair into his eyes when he turned. There was Hakkai and Gojyo, all muted dark colors in the nighttime shadow.

"My, my," Hakkai's voice last night--no, night before last or maybe even longer--had been rich and warm in his ears. "We must cut your hair again soon, Goku."

"The pet needs grooming, hm?" Goku couldn't remember what Gojyo had looked like just then, but he was sure he'd been laughing. What he did remember was that Gojyo had shot Sanzo a devious look that said, Don't you want a haircut too? I'm sure we all could come up with something... interesting.

Sanzo hadn't even looked up from the paper to project his reply: The person who comes near me with scissors gets stabbed with them.

Looking at Hakkai and Gojyo laid still and silent in the back seat made his insides hurt worse than anything. He could hardly see them, but he didn't need to have light to know how they smelled. No Hakkai-smell, no Gojyo-smell, no Sanzo-smell. They had no smell at all, not even the overwhelming stink of death. The only traces left were wound within the threads of Sanzo's robe, but even that scent was fading fast into the rushing air. It was almost like they weren't even there, and Goku hated it.

He hunched his shoulders against the cold, and thought for moment about leaning against Sanzo since there was such little room in the front now and balancing was making his back ache. But then the idea that Sanzo was not-Sanzo, something there that looked like him but didn't really have him anymore made Goku pull closer into himself and lurch through a restless spatter of half-dreams.

Time passed. The only measurement Goku really used was a lot, and days passed by him in relentless monotony. It felt worlds different now than what it used to. Now all he felt was the lurch of bumps in the road, the dust that clouded his vision, the sharpevening air that made him cough when he breathed too fast. He slept. He slept as though every wearied bone his body was broken, although the wounds had long since healed and Yaone had mended the rips in his clothes with tiny, straight stitches that were not at all like the ones Hakkai made. He was aware enough to know he disliked when Kougaiji drove, because it seemed like Jeep wanted to bite him and he had red hair that looked familiar through the shade of his own eyelashes. The world was slipping closer into winter, and Goku frowned at the distant scent of snow, rolling down slowly and unstoppably from the bare wastelands.

They always drove until they found an inn, and Goku would struggle inside, dragging leaden feet. They tried to help him carry his friends inside, but he stubbornly did it himself without really knowing why. So, every night, they would carry Dokugakugi inside between them, someone would have to retrieve Lirin from chattering with their flying dragons outside, and Goku would have to keep hold of whoever he was carrying while trying to restrain Jeep from tearing into those same dragons.

Kougaiji had thought it better to stay all in one room always. Goku tried to imagine what Sanzo would have said to that. Lirin liked to play with him, so he played with her except when she tried to make him step outside the room. Kougaiji mostly stayed silent, even though sometimes he would play a scattered and distracted game of cards. Neither of them ever really won. Jeep remained stationed on Hakkai's chest, and only made a small and grateful piii when Goku offered him meat. Yaone spoke kindly with him, brought in their food to eat, and always found scratchy warm blankets for them at night. He didn't mind talking with her and smiling at her because she had a voice like river water.

Her eyes would be deep and dark after Kougaiji and Lirin went to sleep, and she would tell him with a strain in her voice to please be careful, not sleep too deeply, and her glance would flicker to Dokugakuji's silent form.

But she didn't have to tell him not to sleep. He never slept when they were inside.

At night, he sat and watched the still figures in the room with singular intensity. He wasn't afraid of slipping away, he thought he would have done it already with the others if it would happen at all. Instead, he was gripped by a heavy cloak of darkness and the fear that they would wake up without him or they would wake up with something else inside them, like what happened when that Hazel guy used to put souls in dead bodies and it would mess up. One night, his breath spread in a ghostly sheen across the window beside him. He peered through to find a fuzzy version of the world outside, starbursts of light in the town and colors diluted into splotches. Sanzo had told him a long time ago that Hakkai didn't have clear eyesight even in his real eye, and so Goku wondered if this was what the world looked like for him. He squeezed one eye shut. What is Hakkai looking at right now? What is everybody looking at right now?

Sometimes when it was very dark, he became angry that they had left him behind, and were keeping from him the biggest secret of all. But he promised to the unspeaking air that he wouldn't be mad anymore if they would please come back. Come back. Come back. The cold light of the moon cast a shadow of branches that swept across the room, back and forth and back and forth until it was morning time again and he was carrying them by himself outside again. They always made it out there together.

It was the same. Everyday.

Until the day it stopped.

Yaone looked down at her map in a ghostly echo of when it all began.

"I believe we've finally arrived."