A/N: I know there's this whole other story I'm supposed to be writing. Here's this one-shot/drabble/hot mess instead. So very sorry.

Disclaimer: Ha! As if. I'd be rich!

"Lieutenant Matsumoto," says Byakuya as she enters his office, in her usual saunter, smiling at him.

"Captain Kuchiki," she returns, and then gives him a quick onceover that he pretends not to notice. Her gaze lingers though on the bandage that shows at one wrist, too thick for him to wear his tekkou and where she knows there is another at his chest. Still, her smile is steady as she replies, "You're looking well."

He turns his attention to his paperwork and replies, "I would not have been allowed to leave the manor if I was not. Rukia has become… manic in her concern for my health."

Her eyes widen slightly at the admission. There was a time when he would have simply ignored her questions as if she had never spoken. It had taken weeks—and each time he showed up at the tea house when she joined Captain Commander Kyouraku, Captain Ukitake and Nanao was a shock—for him to begin acknowledging her presence with a nod or grunt. Then there was the incident with the Hollow in District Forty-Four, when he had materialised out of nowhere to snatch her out of the way. The next time they met she got an actual sentence.

"Well you cannot blame her. She loves you more than anything in the world, so of course she would be worried," she replies, standing just a foot from his desk now. This close she can see that his complexion is still unhealthily pale, knows that the cause is that he has not exactly been cleared to leave his bed.

"I am a captain, I do not have time to be unwell," he replies, not looking up at her. His pen has not moved since he took it up again. She reaches down and plucks it from his grasp.

This time he does look up, though only his eyes show his offense and something else that she cannot name. His face may show little but the answers are always in his eyes. She does not know when first she realised this. Yet his tone is even as he asks, "What do you think you are doing, Lieutenant?"

She sets the pen back in the holder and asks, without looking at him, "Do you really have clearance to be here? See because I went by the manor earlier and everyone, including Rukia, assured me that you were at the dojo. So imagine our surprise when we went there and did not find you, nor in your office, nor in your gardens and not even in your room. Rukia very nearly fainted, so convinced was she that you had been kidnapped by assassins or something—you know, you really should screen what she's reading."

Byakuya reaches for the pen again and she lifts the holder away from the table. For a moment he sits in silence, staring at her. She feels his gaze on her skin like a burn but still refuses to turn to him. He sighs—another sound that she never expected to hear from him, ever—and sits back, then he replies, "I have work to do. I have to lead by example."

"You have Renji-kun," she replies, turning the tortoiseshell holder about in her hands to catch the sunlight streaming through his window. "And as a lieutenant I can assure you that when the captain pulls a stunt like this, it makes us feel like we're not trusted. Sure you want us with you on the battlefield but clearly we're not ready to run a division."

"You speak boldly for someone with a carefully cultivated reputation as a slacker. It leads one to believe that Captain Hitsugaya's concerns may have a solid foundation," he says.

Now she turns to look at him and she is smiling. She says, "I've never had trouble running the division when he's out. I wonder why?" She folds her arms at her chest and puts a finger to her chin, tapping it lightly as if in deep thought.

He gives a cough that may have been an attempt to cover a laugh and then winces. Her gaze falls on his chest again but when she looks up at his face he is staring back at her so intensely her breath catches. This time she can name what she sees in those charcoal depths and it fills her belly with heat at the same time that her blood runs cold. It is a dangerous look on any man but from him it is downright terrifying. In the past few weeks she has learned that he does not really need money and good looks to charm a woman, though it certainly helps. No, he's too smart to rely on that. She sets the pen holder back down immediately and takes a step back before she can stop herself, hands behind her back.

He stands abruptly, then stops as if unsure what to do next. She does not wait for him to figure it out; she turns and heads straight for the door. It is time to get out while she still has her wits about her. But in an instant he has her by the arm, with her back to the door while he holds it shut with his free hand. Of course this presses her uncomfortably close to him and she clenches her hands into fists at her sides. For a moment too, she is tempted to shake him off, to warn him that the last man who touched her without her permission spent weeks in intensive care in the Fourth. But when he leans in and kisses her she tilts her head to the side and responds.

The last man she let kiss her, she thinks as he loosens his grip on her arm to put his hands around her waist, while hers go around his neck, drawing him closer, was Lieutenant Hisagi. He had been only slightly tipsy but would not have approached her otherwise. She had not been drunk at all, only pretending so that no one could really see how sad she was. When he pressed his lips to hers in a darkened alcove she had let him and then almost immediately regretted it. That was not how she wanted to forget about Gin, not with a man she did not love. Byakuya on the other hand…

Before that moment when he came to her rescue—which pissed her off to no end for he made her look so weak in front of the men, as if she was some helpless damsel who could not take care of herself—she had not thought of him much. Well, yes, when they were in the tea house she had dedicated a lot of time and energy to getting him to talk to her, but that was only because she was curious. He had just showed up one day while they were having tea, said almost nothing throughout and then quietly left. Then he was back again the next week and her interest was piqued.

She had pondered for a long time the cause of his sudden interest. Was he bored? Lonely? Looking for a new hobby? Or were the rumours about his sister and Kurosaki Ichigo true and he just needed to get away from all that unresolved tension before something broke? He gave nothing away, at first through silence and then later by asking disarming questions about her or the others. And he had seemed genuinely interested in her answers too, so much so that she could not bring herself to lie after the first night. In no time at all, he had somehow gotten her to tell him her life-story from the day she met Gin in the Rukongai.

And then he winces when her wandering hand grazes his chest and she pulls away, pressing her back into the door. He looks her over wide-eyed, as if suddenly remembering himself and where they are and who they are and then immediately turns his back to her. Rangiku clasps her hands together at her breasts and steps off the door. A moment later, he says, "Forgive me… I think I should return to the manor."

But he does not move and, cursing herself all the while, she steps forward and puts her hand on his shoulder. He turns his head towards her hand and she asks, "What is this?"

He turns his head away again. Takes a breath and says, "I don't know."

"You don't know?" she asks, scoffing. "You kiss a girl like that and you don't know? Is this how you greet all the girls?"

At this he swings back around to face her, hands clenched at his sides, glaring. Surprised and more than a little alarmed, she backs away to the door again. He watches her, takes a breath and asks, "Did you mind it?"

She blinks and asks, "What?"

"Did you mind that I kissed you? Does it…repulse you?" he asks, eyes searching her face for an answer.

Did she? No. She was sure surprised, yes, but no, she does not mind it. He is an attractive man and even if he was not, he is not the stone cold monster he seems after you get to know him. She shakes her head, unable to find the words.

He turns away again and she wonders if that is the wrong answer. Then, "I am sorry. Forgive my impertinence but I…you do not know how long I have wished…This will go no further if you desire it."

It takes her a moment to respond on account of her brain short-circuiting at the realisation that this, all of it from the first night he showed up at the tea house, is because he has been, well, courting her. The tea, the conversation, the "rescue" was because she had somehow captured his interest. It would have been absolutely adorable if it did not send her into a mild panic. She was right when she decided that he was dangerous, because he has waited, biding his time until she is comfortable enough to approach him like she would any of her friends to spring the trap. And she is caught, hook, line and sinker. No she does not mind the kiss because he spent so much time before it getting to know her that it is quite easy to trust that his interests were not simply in her appearance…that or he is a very skilled actor.

She looks at his back. He has not moved since he stated his piece and probably will not until she responds either. Damn him for making her trust him. She sighs and replies, "If you are wondering, no, I am not going to file a sexual harassment claim against you." He turns to face her again, gaze searching. She continues, "And if this is somehow going to prevent me from dragging you back to the manor, you've got another thing coming, buddy…you don't just kiss a girl like that and then let yourself drop dead on her after…That kiss is going to cost you in other ways." Then she smiles.

It takes him a beat to kiss her again…until her hand brushes his bandaged chest again and she finally drags him back out of the office to the manor.