Many thanks to paperclipchains for beta-reading.

Gin —
Now that Rukia Kuchiki has been located and returned to Soul Society, our schedule for the overthrow of Commander Yamamoto and the Gotei 13 has been advanced by—

"GIN. YOU SQUASH-HEADED, FOX-FACED, SQUINTY-EYED SCARECROW."

Gin looked up from his reading.

"Lieutenant Matsumoto," he greeted his visitor with pleasant professionalism, tucking the note into his sleeve. "You're looking less than vibrant this morning. Are you not feeling well? A little hungover?"

"No, the problem is I am not hungover," Rangiku answered, slamming Gin's office door in Izuru's anxiously protesting face. "I've just come from Division Four. I'm pregnant."

"Oh. I'd forgotten about that," Gin said, quite honestly. "Ah… Congratulations?"

"Not only am I not hungover this morning, I cannot drink for eight more months."

"Really?"

"You never mentioned that part!" Rangiku growled, banging her palms against his desk. Gin scooted his chair backward. As kids, he and Rangiku had participated in their share of knockdown, drag-out brawls, and he knew from painful experience that she fought dirty. Gin may have killed a man by the age of seven, but Rangiku Matsumoto pinched.

Rangiku stopped dead. She paled and gripped the edge of his desk with one hand, her mouth with the other. Her cheeks bulged.

"Izuru!" Gin squeaked, scooting further back and rescuing his waste paper basket. "Izuru!"

A week later…

"Can we name it Shinsō?" Gin asked, for the second time.

Rangiku was perched atop his desk, her attention on the pages of a book.

"Idiot. We are not naming our child after your dick."

In the doorway, Lieutenant Kira fainted, unnoticed, beneath an armful of replacement floor matting.

"That also happens to be the name of my Zanpakutō. I like my Zanpakutō."

"I like Little Rangiku. Rangiku is such a nice name." She beamed.

"It's hardly original," Gin said, sulkily.

"The Fourth Division's Pregnancy and Child Rearing Guide for the Unwed Shinigami Mother suggests naming your baby 'after a strong warrior you and your partner respect and admire'," Rangiku read aloud. She paused thoughtfully.

"Kaname Tōsen?" she suggested.

They locked arms and burst into laughter.

"Oh, I'm really gonna miss ya, Rangiku," Gin said, wiping the tears from his eyes and patting her arm.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," said Gin, smiling very slightly. "Are you going to Rukia Kuchiki's execution tomorrow?"

Eight months later, a thin white figure glided among the shadows of the Fourth Division Maternity Hall in the wee hours of the morning, pausing to read the patient names above the doors. Locating the correct one, the figure stealthily opened the door and slipped into the room of a single occupant whose icy expression made it clear that the visit was neither unexpected nor welcome.

"You'd better not have hurt anyone getting in here," Rangiku warned as the figure stepped into the light.

"Of course not," Gin lied. He peered into the bassinet beside her cot. "He looks like me."

"She."

"She?" Gin squinted. "Really? It's so hard to tell."

Rangiku shot him a withering glare.

"How did it go?" Gin asked. He poked experimentally at the swaddled bundle in the bassinet.

"Another reason to want you dead."

Gin rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"My captain is going to be her godfather," Rangiku informed him.

"Well, I don't like that at all, Rangiku." Gin crossed his arms in disapproval. "I should have been consulted."

"Delighted to hear it," she glowered and pitched a box of chocolates at him.

"Can I bring you two anything? Milk? Do babies drink sake?" Gin asked, unsuccessfully dodging and attempting to change the mood of the conversation on the off-chance Rangiku had stored her Zanpakutō in the delivery room. "I really would like to be helpful. Can I order Izuru to do something?"

"Eh, don't worry about it," Rangiku said, waving her hand moodily and falling back on her pillow. "I put Renji, Kira, and the Eleventh Division on a feeding and diaper schedule. Do you have any idea how often babies wake up?"

Gin opened his mouth.

"All the time!" she answered, sitting up again. "I guess motherhood is okay for unattractive women, but how am I expected to get my beauty rest? What's the use of having bigger boobs if they're saggy from lack of sleep?"

She bounced them up and down several times to demonstrate her concern and a lack of sagginess that Gin noted keenly.

"By the way, Aizen agreed to deduct child support from your monthly paycheck."

Gin snapped back to attention. "Aizen did what?" His grin faltered.

"She does have your smile," Rangiku continued. She regarded the bundle with a hint of begrudging affection. "The nice one. Not the weird, low, evil fucking traitor one."

"Right!" said Gin. He snapped his fingers. "Decent reason Number Five!"

"Huh?"

Gin Ichimaru dangled his pinky finger fondly over the little silver head.

"We are going to have so much fun together," he whispered, leaning over the bassinet with a heartwarming leer that caused Rangiku to sniff sentimentally and which, had she seen it, would have sent Rukia Kuchiki screaming into the 80th District of the North Rukongai.

Sōsuke Aizen was a reflective despot.

He acknowledged that, in the course of two centuries of nefarious evil doing, he had (occasionally) made mistakes. There had been some unfortunate choices, learning experiences, a smattering of mildly embarrassing missteps. Sōsuke Aizen even had regrets.

At the moment, he regretted never having the foresight to summarily ban Take Your Daughter to Work Day when he took over Hueco Mundo.

"I'm sorry, Aizen-taicho," Gin said, sounding distinctly un-sorry to Aizen's ears as he shrugged his shoulders in his best what-are-you-going-to-do? expression. "But I did promise. Her mother is very insistent about these things."

Aizen frowned. His Second-in-Command was a ruthless, duplicitous, downright creepy individual. Aizen approved of those qualities. But there was something about seeing his blood-soaked Second-in-Command standing next to an identical but smaller, equally blood-soaked version with an equally ghoulish smirk that raised the hair on the back of even Aizen's well-washed, well-exfoliated, and well-moisturized neck. Especially when one of the smirks was coated in pink lip gloss.

"It is important to encourage young girls," approved Tōsen from his position behind Aizen's throne. "Women have been unjustly excluded from management roles in the workforce. As a society, we must take care to encourage our children and not confine them with narrow gender roles." In sync, Gin and the smaller version swiped blood off their noses with their sleeves.

The Lord of Hueco Mundo and future Supreme God in Heaven dropped his forehead into his palm.

"Kaname, shut up. Gin, just clean up."

"Right away, Aizen-taicho!" said Gin cheerfully, reaching for his doppelganger's hand.

"You're going to kill him someday and take over, right?" the smaller version chirped, as they proceeded down the length of the throne room.

"Princess!" reprimanded Gin. "Aizen-taicho is Daddy's boss. How could you say such a thing?"

"Can I help?"

"Well… maybe," he reconsidered in a low voice, proudly patting her on the head. "If you promise not to tell Mommy," he warned.

"You can trust me completely," she assured him, eyes scrunched into half-moons and lips curved into one of her father's sweetest, most convincing smiles.

Fin.

Update: HUGE additional thanks to paperclipchains/ghostwitch for drawing this perfect pic of Gin and Ran's daughter: http : / img [dot] photobucket [dot] com [backslash] albums [backslash] v634 [backslash] ManonLeChat [backslash] 4g16qx [dot] jpg