A/N: Hello all! Nice to meet you! I'm Vix, here with my first Bleach one-shot. Hope you guys enjoy it, and I'd really appreciate some feedback, if you're willing to give it. Now, this was mainly written because ByaHisa is my guilty pleasure ship, and there's not enough of them in this world. Besides, the idea of Byakuya and reincarnated!Hisana is so wonderful with such tragic undertones that I couldn't help myself. I really do hope you guys enjoy this one, though.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach!

Chances

It's pouring out.

The rain pounds against the synthetic material of her umbrella, and she holds it tight against her as the winds begin to pick up, as she feels herself go suddenly weightless, as if the wind itself could pick her up and blow her away.

She thinks she would let it, if it were only that strong.

The weather is so rough that she cannot see until she almost bumps into the man in front of her, stumbling to a halt with a mumbled "sorry" that he probably can't hear over all the wind, anyway.

The streets aren't too crowded in the rain, thankfully, so she manages to sidestep him and continue on her way, wrestling the wind for her umbrella and nearly falling into the street more than once. She is so focused on keeping herself upright that she does not notice another man until she actually does bump into him, nearly sending herself sprawling to the ground in the process.

She would have been sent sprawling to the ground on any normal day, at least. But slim fingers wrap around her elbow today, the person before her taking a moment to straighten her out before jerking his hand away as if burned.

"Sorry," she says again, a little louder this time, her eyes actually lifting to get a good look at the bloke. He is handsome enough, in an angular, traditional kind of way, dressed in a strange black outfit. He has no umbrella, and his hair sticks to the back of his neck, dark lashes heavy and hiding eyes she thinks are slate-gray. She can't see clearly through all the mist, but she is almost positive that they are gray.

He stares at her for a moment, some unknown emotion playing in his eyes. He shakes his head.

"It was my fault."

She doesn't think so, but the cold seeping through her bones keeps her from being polite. She nods quickly and continues on her way, sidestepping him like she'd sidestepped the last stranger. She is late for a meeting as it is, and she cannot afford to miss it because she'd opted to make small talk with a stranger in the rain.

She keeps walking, and she does not look back.

Perhaps if she had, she would have seen the aching sadness in his eyes, the return of that faint glimmer of don't I know you echoing in her head.

She meets him again, nearly crashes into him for the second time on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.

Perfectly normal day, Wednesday.

This particular Wednesday, she thinks, should be no different.

That is before long, graceful fingers wrap around her elbow to steady her when she teeters precariously to the side. He speaks, and his voice is familiar, like something from a dream.

Like something from a week ago.

"You certainly are a clumsy thing, aren't you?"

She jerks her arm back to her side and glares playfully at the stranger before her, at slate-gray eyes (ha! She knew it) and the amused curve of his mouth. He doesn't need to laugh at her. That damn expression of his says enough.

"I couldn't exactly see last time, you know. It was raining hard."

"And what's your excuse this time? The sky is the clearest it's been all week."

"The sun blinded me."

Her voice is teasing when she says it, coy and flirty in a way it hasn't been in years. Not since high school, at least.

She doesn't do boyfriends.

The amusement in his eyes is almost palpable at this point, the curve of his mouth leaning dangerously close to a smile. She has the strangest notion that if his muscles would just twitch that extra inch, the end result would be absolutely stunning.

She inhales sharply at that thought, shoving it violently away, to the back of her head where it can sit and rot. She does not think that way about strangers. Not her. Definitley not her.

"Are you following me?" The question tumbles, unwarranted, straight from her mouth without any conscious consent from her brain coming through. It's a perfectly sound question, in theory; bumping into a total stranger twice in two weeks just seems a bit too weird.

Remembering said stranger was even weirder. But it seems she isn't the only one guilty of that.

Shock hits his eyes for a moment, but his face remains neutral, sensible, as he regards her. "I am not," he says, in the closest thing to indignance she reckons he can get to. He looks every bit as confused as she is, and against every lesson that twenty-four years of being a woman living in a big city has taught her, she decides to believe him.

A stranger. A man whose name she doesn't even know.

"Do you believe in coincidences?" he asks her after a moment, a question far too personal for someone she's known for all of a combined ten minutes to be posing.

She takes a moment to reply, but when she does, she does it with nothing but truthfulness.

"I believe that the universe is hardly ever so lazy."

His name is Byakuya Kuchiki, she learns.

She gives hers hesitantly, still unable to shake the feeling of paranoia that comes with new relationships. That is, if you can call what they have a relationship. It's more a tentative acquaintanceship than anything, two people meeting up at the park for lunch every other day.

It grows, though, into a proper friendship, weeks in. He tells her things about himself, eventually, about the sister he seems to adore and her boyfriend, a man only referred to as "the orange-haired brat".

He never mentions names, and Hisana takes his lead, telling him about her estranged parents and her life at the law firm. Boring work, she says, and it's true. It's dead-boring, but it gets her fed with a roof over her head, and that's enough.

He is patient with her. Thoughtful and helpful, attempting to point her in the direction of an art school when she voices her distaste for her own job.

She laughs it off, that ridiculous solution to her so-called problem, but takes the pamphlet anyway.

Her parents would be furious.

She can't really find it in her to care.

Pink.

It's the last color she sees.

The color of the first plum blossom on the first day of spring, on their tree, just above the park bench. She stares at it for a moment before impact, the lonely little bud that had yet to bloom.

There was a rush of déjà vu, and then –

Well.

Then there was nothing at all.

A car crash. An unremarkable street corner, an unremarkable park. A truly remarkable woman, cut down too soon by some careless young man who couldn't be bothered to look up from his phone for more than a minute.

He leaves the gigai at Urahara's this time, and races to the park, Senbonzakura fairly humming at his hip. The zanpakuto spirit is restless in his domain, thinking of the young woman who had stolen his shinigami's heart, who had warmed his inner world and melted the snow that had taken all the cherry blossoms away.

He remembers, faintly, the image of a different woman, swathed in clothes from several centuries ago and cultures apart, fading in and out of existence on the edge of Byakuya's inner world. Too weak to properly manifest. Not enough reiatsu, too ill to truly speak.

He would very much like to meet her. Properly, this time.

Byakuya comes to a halt where the crash had taken place. The ambulances had all gone, the car long-since towed away, the body moved. Nobody lingers for very long in this place, the icy feeling of someone watching not entirely unprecedented.

The civilians come and go, murmuring and looking sadly at the sight as they pass.

All except one.

She truly is a ghost now, but one he can see, one he can touch and hold if he was so inclined. She is not just the shadow of a memory anymore; she is the woman he had fallen in love with, twice over now, the woman who had died, only to come back again.

"Hisana."

The sound of her name startles her, causes her to jump and twist around to look at him, her eyes as wide as a deer's in headlights.

"Byakuya-sama?" Her voice is soft and understandably terrified, but that's not what makes his eyes widen or his shoulders stiffen.

Sama.

Byakuya-sama.

This Hisana does not use honorifics – she doesn't know he is a nobleman, sees no reason to add the formality to their relationship, whatever it is in this new life.

This Hisana does not play with her ring finger like the way she is doing now, twisting an invisible band. This Hisana is prone to wringing her hands, cracking her knuckles and making him wince.

This Hisana does not look at him like the way she does now – with that much light and love, hidden behind those violet eyes.

This Hisana does not know him.

But she does, remarkably.

"I've died again, haven't I?" Her voice is as soft as ever, but there is a hint of dry annoyance in her tone. Hands on her hips, eyes rolling up, heavenward. "Oh, what a bother."

He stares at her for a good ten seconds, wide-eyed, until the look in her eyes turns worried and she begins to move away. "I'm sorry. I – I shouldn't have – I went and got myself killed, and I went and remembered, and I probably shouldn't have, huh? I probably should've – just –"

She doesn't get to finish her sentence. He doesn't let her. He flash steps forward, sealing his lips over hers, the death god and the ghost.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," he says when they break apart, finally, for air she doesn't really need at this point, "I never expected to find you. I just – I was on an assignment, but I couldn't, I just –"

She laughs and shakes her head, pressing her forgiveness into him as she pushes her lips back onto his. There is more to be said, stories to be told, but she thinks she can wait for all that.

Later.

She can wait till then, can't she?

Her soul chain rattles between them as he lifts Senbonzakura, performing the konso and refusing to let go.

"I'll find you," he vows, his lips leaving hers as the light around her begins to flare up, "Just wait for me."

Her smile is as blinding as the light from the soul burial when she looks up at him.

"Not if I find you first."

It takes her three days, which must be a new record, as far as he is concerned.

He is not quite sure just how she gets into Soul Society, but suspects Ukitake has something to do with it. The elder man had always had a soft spot for Hisana, before, and he doubts that's changed.

He is only two steps back into his barracks after nearly two months in the World of the Living. He aims to fill out a report and hopefully begin a search in Inuzuri, the place where it had all started.

Those plans go to pot when he catches the eye of the purple-eyed woman seated, cross-legged, on his desk in the captain's office. She is dressed in a borrowed shihakusho, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she drags a brush over a spare sheet of parchment.

She looks up when he enters, her eyes wide and just a little worried before they soften. Something passes between them, a sort of understanding, sparks that never left, not even with that half-century separating them.

"Hi."

"Hello."

He never does manage to fill out that report, come to think.