Pairing: Ichimaru x Kira

Rating: M (Non pretty things)

Length: 20,000+ (Complete)

Summary: What happens after the fact, or at least a portion of it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any characters associated with it.

A/N: I was trying to come up with a nice way to say "I lied" but for once my thesaurus failed me. So, I lied. I'm not quite done, even though it says complete. To say that this is entirely unlike what has come before would be an understatement, but like authors, characters mature and sometimes demand weird things. I have left most of this purposely vague, so feel free to sketch in what you are looking for. Check for me after the break, I'll explain a few more things. I would love to hear from you, I might even be nudged into another one shot, the plot bunny is there Regardless, I hope you enjoy the epilogue to Antenora Smiles. Gryphalkon out.

Antenora Smiles

Epilogue

The motorcycle hit the semi head on. The bike crumpled under the rider and he was flung onto the windshield of the frantically swerving truck. The driver's desperate attempts to slow tossed the man from his windshield and onto the pavement. There he lay, frighteningly still.

Eventually, the truck's driver got his vehicle under control, though it required skidding across four lanes of traffic. Another two cars were taken out, their drivers tossed about like ragdolls by the truck's momentum. Air bags went off and car alarms started to blare as the vehicles began to settle on rocking suspensions.

The truck driver stumbled from his vehicle, the image of the young biker's face as he crashed playing over and over in his mind. The drivers and passengers of the other cars, at least those who could stand, pried themselves from the smoldering wreckages. The cries of pain and the tears of shock quickly followed. Fingers were pointed at the truck driver; cries of accusation, of grief, were thrown upon his deaf ears. But he stood, immobile, watching the motionless boy who still grinned at him in his mind's eye.

Eventually, cell phones were whipped out, and the emergency numbers dialed.

It took the ambulance nine minutes to reach the scene.

The doctor glanced at his patient's chart, and then back to the patient in question. The boy lay nestled in so many wires and tubes that one would be hard pressed to say where he ended and the machines began.

"I can't believe it. According to your chart, you should be dead. A fractured pelvis, collapsed lung, lacerations to countless internal organs, not to mention the double femur fracture and blood loss. Your heart stopped twice on the way here, but you clawed your way back to us. What's driving you? Why are you still alive, kid?"

The nurse looked up from the computer and upon seeing the rooms two other occupants, frowned. She was familiar with this doctor's need to talk, even if no one was around to answer his questions. The staff at the hospital said he was an escapee of the hospitals mental ward, and that he had turned out to be such a good doctor that they had never bothered to haul him back. She coughed politely. He started, as if he had not even noticed her since she had arrived fifteen minutes ago.

"Ah, I've been talking to myself again, haven't I?" He smiled at her sheepishly, a blush creeping across his pale face.

"Well, talking to him, but I doubt he'll hear you. He's so buried in the pain meds that I doubt he could hear a band marching right past his bed," she said matter-of-factly, pulling her paperwork together with a decisive tap. She made for the door, walking quickly past the doctor. Something about his blue eyes always made her feel like she was staring death in the face. She shivered as his hand closed gently on her wrist. She looked into his eyes, and behind the veil of the blue irises something ancient looked back.

"Coma patients, who have woken, report that they could hear things that people said to them. There's more to a person than flat-lining delta waves. Remember that," the serious, otherworldly expression faded from his face, replaced by his normal lopsided grin.

She shot him a nervous smile and pulled her wrist from his grasp. Wait until she told her fellow nurses about this, they would have a field day with it. The bipolar doctor had a religious bent.

As the nurse exited the room, the doctor let out a little sigh. He was always scaring them; he had no idea why when he tried to be the least reassuring, it came out melancholy and creepy. He turned his attention back to the chart in front of him, placing the problem in the back of his mind for another day. A younger him would have worried the problem to death, but his older self knew that sometimes problems could not be solved and just had to be endured. It was a lessons hard earned, and it had cost a life or two to learn.

No. He would not think about that, he had another patient, another person to save. It was his penance for not saving him. The boy in the bed groaned, and the doctor checked his morphine drip. Slowly the form on the bed dropped back into a drug induced sleep.

The doctor checked his watch, then back to the form sleeping on the bed. "I'll be back in a few hours to check on you, kid. Sleep well."

Before leaving the room, the doctor checked the chart once more, as if to appease old ghosts he could not shake.

The kid woke five days later, and the doctor was the first thing he saw. He then tried to empty the contents of his stomach on the doctor's tie, but fortunately, after five days there was nothing left to empty. The doctor quickly settled the young man back on the bed, checking to see if stitches had been torn or bones needed to be reset. Everything seemed to be in order, and the he let out a sigh of relief. The kid's – young man's – life was hanging by a thread as it was.

The man's eyes – the doctor finally admitted, that at twenty three, society would not consider his patient a kid, even if the doctor did – were glazed behind a fog of pain and drugs, but some level of clarity had settled into them. He looked like he wanted to get up and fight the first thing he saw, but had to settle with a surly glare. The trach meant he could not actually talk, but the glare carried volumes. This was a kid who knew what he was doing when he slammed his motorbike into a truck at seventy miles an hour. Right now, the only question on his mind was probably why he was still alive.

That irked the doctor, he had just spent the last five days and nights keeping the kid alive (including an emergency surgery to stem internal bleeding) and now he wanted to throw away all that work. Kids these days…

God, he was becoming old.

The doctor composed himself, and began to answer the unspoken questions.

"Yes, you're alive, despite your best efforts. You have a multitude of broken bones, lacerated organs, and you're just barely starting to recover from the blood loss. It won't be a pretty road, but you will recover."

The kid glared. Blue eyes met blue and one set looked away. At least the kid had the decency to look ashamed. The doctor hoped that was a good sign.

"What I want to know is what drove you to do it? You must have known it wouldn't be pretty. There are nicer ways to end it, but you chose the most violent, bloody end you could think of, didn't you? Then on top of that, you claw your way back to us after the fact. That takes some pretty good survival instincts, ones that must have taken a lot of pain to overcome."

The kid looked away, trying to swallow around the trach. The pain or the guilt of it made the kid's eyes water. The doctor's resolve broke. He usually tried to pull the information out of suicidal patients slowly, to drain the wound. It was as much a part of healing as setting a broken bone. But this kid was infuriating and confusing, more so than his normal patients, and he had not even spoken. First defiance, and now a pain so deep the doctor could feel it just being around the kid.

"Let me tell you something, it gets better." The doctor rolled up his sleeve, and brought his arm into sight of the kid on the bed. There are scars there, lines upon lines of ugly knotted tissue. This is why they give him these cases, he speaks from experience. "I lost the one man I loved, and I tried to kill myself. But life went on around me, and somehow I got caught up in it. I promised myself that, even if I couldn't save him, I could save others." And maybe even him next time, the doctor finished silently.

The kid on the bed went still, and refused to meet the doctor's eyes. Sensing that the kid needed time, the doctor got up.

"I know what you're feeling now, and another person's pain is the last thing you want to hear about. You are so mired up in yourself, in those same repetitive tracks that led you here in the first place. But you need to be the one to take the first step, or else there's no point in dragging you back. There's a button under your left hand, press it when you are ready to talk."

The doctor smiled at the kid, hoping that the kid will pull through, and press that button.

The kid pressed the button the night after his trach tube came out. It has been almost a week from the accident and the kid can finally breathe on his own. The doctor arrived with pen and paper, laptop, and a glass of ice water. He was willing to listen no matter how the kid chooses to communicate. The kid selected the glass of water, and the paper. The doctor settled in for an evening of Pictionary and hoarse whispers, but the kid surprised him.

The kid took the paper, holding the pencil in a bandaged, trembling hand, and only wrote one word.

Why

That was a loaded word, why did the doctor save him? Why is he here now? Why everything? The doctor motioned for him to continue, but the kid just glared at him stubbornly, finger pointing at the one word.

"You have to give me more than that. Why what?"

Shaking with the effort, the kid croaked, "Why do I…feel so guilty? Why…do I feel at h-home when I'm surrounded by b-blood?"

white, slowly soaking in red

The doctor jumped as the images pushed to the front of his mind. He pressed on his head with a hand, as if he can physically force the memories back. No, he would not remember. Not now, not when this kid needs his help. He cannot let the madness descend. Tonight, later, he could give in, but now he had to stay focused.

"That's a question I can't answer for you. Have you done anything to make yourself feel guilty?"

The kid tried to speak but with a frustrated grunt, returned to writing scrawling words across the paper.

Nothing. I have done nothing, but I still feel guilty. I have memories of a place where I failed someone, but nothing like that has ever happened to me.

The doctor paused, shock slowly forcing his brain to work. Could it be? If he was right, the kid was incredibly lucky that he came to him, the only doctor who has any sort of knowledge of what might be going on. Other doctors might see it as repressed memories, which in a sense they were, but not of this life. The kid was a reborn soul with memories of the Soul Society, rare, but it happened. He crushed the hope in his chest with a brutal hand. There could be no way it was the soul he was looking for.

"What memories to you have associated with that guilt?" he managed to croak out, sounding almost exactly like the kid.

Pain. Its dark. Angry faces. It's like some bad nightmare I can't shake.

"Who are you disappointing?"

Someone I love.

But it was the soul he was looking for, or at least the signs all pointed in that direction. "Anything else you can remember?"

The kid was growing tired now. Theatre, puppets, a name.

"The name?"

The kid frowned. The doctor could tell he was turning defensive. The name though, it could give him all the answers, whether he is right, or just lost, groping in the dark for a light he will never find. "Humor me, give me a name and we can see if your memories are anything more than that." A tenuous lie, but the doctor hoped it will hold.

Looked, nothing. Just a dream. Name's Kira –

"-Izuru." The doctor finished.

The world crashed down around Kira's ears. He really looked at the man in the bed, blue eyes, blond hair peaking through the bandages. He looked nothing like Ichimaru, he frowned too much and his hair was a sandy blond instead of silver, but the eyes that glared back at him were unmistakable. They are no longer hid behind concealing lids and emotion prowled behind them. This was Ichimaru stripped of his defenses, left flayed to the world. No sardonic smiles or mysterious silences, this was the Ichimaru that had danced with him that night on top the world. Only this version was even rawer than that, a kid who had no idea what chased him in the dark.

The kid – Kira cannot bring himself to actually call him Ichimaru – started scribbling madly on the paper, already filled with half formed words.

How? Never told anyone. What kind of freak?

Kira swallowed, pushing down the tears. He reminded himself he has changed in the past fifty years, and he now has to be the strong one. "Because that's my name. And before you shut down completely, just listen to me. You can call me a freak or a monster after I am done."

The kid stopped scribbling, and put the pencil down. His hand, trembling, pulled at Kira's nametag. There an assumed name rested. The question was obvious. Kira started to talk. Kira told him of the Soul Society, the circle of rebirth, and his own place in the cycle. He avoided the stickier bits, of Aizen's rebellion and the kid's past role in that process. It made the Soul Society unnecessary villains in the execution, but the kid could only take so much. He skirted around their relationship, only touching on the professional aspect. Of the past fifty years, he told the kid nothing. That belonged only to Kira.

By the end, the kid wilted, struggling to keep his lids open, but by the look in his eyes, Kira can tell that it all makes sense. Finally, the kid's formless memories have a home. The horror in the dark has been named.

The kid makes one last effort to scribble something.

Guilt was 'cause love. Did I love you?

The knot formed in Kira's throat unbidden, he felt like he was the one who had the trach tube in. "Yes."

Though it must have cost the kid some amount of pain, he reached out and grabbed Kira's hand. Softly, almost inaudible above the hum of the machinery keeping him alive, the kid whispered, "I'm sorry I left you Izuru."

The palpable feeling of pain that has been rolling off the kid for the last week lessened with those simple words. He was out like a light the moment the words are uttered, but – not quite a smile – there was a definite lessening of his frown. Kira watched for a moment, then gathered his things and quietly moved to the door. There he paused, watching the kid – watching Gin – sleep. For the first time in a long time, hope shone in his future.

The next time the kid woke, he said nothing about their previous conversation. In fact, he acted as if nothing had happened. Kira started to wonder, that if in the haze of drugs and pain, if the kid even remembered it at all.

The weeks passed, nothing more was said. Kira was replaced as his doctor as his injuries healed, and the doctors that came specialized in more emotional healing. He still walked by the kid's room, but always; the kid was either asleep or talking to someone. His parents had finally arrived a week and half after the fact. They were inconsolable, apparently the kid had run away and they had been frantic with worry. Kira found it odd to watch the reborn Ichimaru Gin interact with his parents. It was the same feeling he got when those blue eyes met his. A feeling of disconnect, as if the world around them were unreal.

Three months, and the kid was released. He found Kira before he left. Kira saw him rolling his battered body across the cafeteria of the hospital and immediately sprang to help him. The kid shot him a glare that froze Kira in his tracks. The wheel chair made it to his table, a soft thump as its wheel hit his chair.

"Hey," the kid's voice was still rusty, but on the way to sounding normal.

"Hey."

"I wanted to say-" the kid started but Kira held up a hand.

"Not here. We need a place where we can talk privately." Kira stood, gesturing the kid to follow him. He started to walk, but a hesitant cough stopped him.

"Uh…," the kid looked paralyzed, his face working its way deeper into a frown. "I might need some help if we're going very far."

"Sure." A faint smile appeared on Kira's face.

"Shut up."

"Sure."

They sat in the gardens, the kid pulling a part a branch of a shrub resting in his lap. It kept his hands busy and his eyes off Kira. Kira for his part was otherwise occupied. It had been a long time since he had done kido, but he felt that the need for privacy merited it. The spell would keep the sounds of their conversation from unwanted ears, such as the kid's parents.

After Kira had settled on the bench next to him, the kid finally spoke. "I wanted to say thanks. I know I still don't believe half the stuff you said to me that night, but I know it helped. Even if it's knowing that I'm not the only one that crazy, it helped."

"That's all I can hope for," Kira managed. The hope was still there, but he was starting to realize that the kid is not Ichimaru. The love may still be there, but it is buried so far that it only haunts the kid's dreams.

The kid swallowed, pushing his hair back with a hand and avoiding Kira's eyes. "I know that he, my past self, loved you. I know that those emotions are still bottled up in both of us, but with them come a whole mess of guilt and pain that I'm not ready for yet. I'm still too busy working on this life to deal with his, and from the sound of it, he's got centuries on me."

Kira nodded. He can understand, but that does not provide nearly enough comfort as his hope was ripped to shreds.

"I'm not saying that something won't ever happen. It's clear from the guilt I'm carrying for him that this is unfinished business." He sighs, and starts to pick at the bush again. "I just need time; time to sort through it all." He looks up, "And it's thanks to you I've got that time."

"I promised to try and save you then, I failed. So maybe the fates rigged it so it would work this time around," Kira shrugs, the lack of hope has left him hollow, it is almost like watching Ichimaru die again. He cannot blame the boy for wanting live his own life; life for each reborn soul should be a blank slate, else all life would be was working through the sins of the past. He should let Ichimaru live on in this life without pain, he just wished he would not have to assume it instead.

The kid smiled, surprising Kira. He has never seen that particular expression on the kid's face. It changed him. It was not the sardonic mocking smile of his previous life, but a generous open one. The smile he had always hoped to see on Ichimaru's face. The kid leaned forward and pressed his lips to Kira's, he held the sweetness there between them for a moment, and then released it. Kira collapsesd back against the bench, blushing, and the kid chuckled. "I think he wanted you to have that. Now I have to go explain to my parents why I was kissing my doctor, excuse me."

Kira muttered something, and the kid paused to catch it. At a look, Kira repeated it, "You can always plead insanity."

They both started to laugh, earning another reproachful glare from the kid's parents, who are quickly approaching along a walkway, intent on taking their fragile son from harm. He glanced at them, and then back at Kira, life back in both their eyes. "I think I just might."

The end.

F/N: There were a few things I couldn't shoe horn in without interrupting the flow of the piece, so I'm just gonna say them here.

On the subject of Kira. Fifty years is a long time, he's grown up essentially, or at least learned a little self reliance. He is in a gigai, which is how he is interacting and being a doctor. I would like to think that Urahara isn't the only one out there who sells them, or maybe Kira got it from him. Where it came from doesn't really matter, just that he is now living as a human. I never really figured out the age he was in his gigai, but he acts like an old man, calling everyone kid, (though I doubt he looks a day over thirty five). He was as the nurse said, a patient at the hospital, but it was there where he decided to go to medical school and help others. It was his epiphany out of the dark. He came back and was a doctor there, promising to help the people who face the same demons he did. I'm sure he also hopes he might run into Gin somehow, but that is really at the back of his mind most of the time. I based his career choice off of his small expertise in healing kido, also for some reason I don't quite see Kira as a lawyer or a crossing guard.

On the subject of the kid/Gin. Really, I tried to write them as two separate characters. The kid (who will never have a name) is much more open, and really just a kid (or twenty three year old man). He has no way to cope with the memories that his soul carries. He lacks Gin's certain sort of craziness to deal with it all. That destroys him, and what makes him to hop on that bike and drive it into the semi. He just knows he carries a huge amount of guilt, but he has done nothing to even merit it. Certain traces of Gin do pop through, the smile as he crashes, the puppet theatre, the why motif, the love of blood. But for the most the person who Gin was is dead. As the kid comes to grips with things, more of Gin will pop up, but it is more an amalgamation of the two forms. I envision that once things stabilize, he goes to seek out Kira, and they finally have the life they always wanted together. He is the person the Ichimaru told Kira to go find. Ironic, that it is himself in a way.

One long F/N later and those are my thoughts on the matter. I hope they don't seem so totally out of character now. It was my honor to write this story for you all. I hope you enjoyed it. I can't thank everyone who read, favorited and reviewed this story enough. It has meant the world for me. May you all have a wonderful 2011!

Sincerely,

Gryphalkon