He holds out his hand, all lazy grace, eyes half closed with drowsiness or amusement or some other emotion she can't discern; and, hang it all, she goes to him, like she has always gone to him, to be wrapped in the thin, the sturdy, the bony, the comfortable-in-its-familiarity embrace that she still dreams about every night. Oh, he isn't perfect; not by a long shot; and she has more reason than most to hate him, to loathe him, to reject him with every cell of her body. But unlike others, she has never been repulsed to look at him, scared to touch him, reviled to be in his presence, let alone let him hold her and stroke her hair and say-well, he never says anything, but she hears the words all the same.

Even though he's a little messed up, and even though it sometimes hurts her to have even known him; despite every niggling worry she has about him, he is still hers. And as long as he's hers, she knows she doesn't have to worry. She knows that she can trust him. Despite the fights, and the disappearances, and the stupid passive-aggressive behavior that makes her want to throw him off the highest peak in the Seireitei, despite the fact that some days she can barely stand to look into those blue-green eyes without popping him one in the jaw, she can trust him. She can love him, and she does love him, and she lets him ensnare her in his web, and she goes willingly to what will most certainly be her destruction because even as she is in love with him, she's in love with a ghost.

He feels real, she thinks, and rests her cheek on his chest. He is not a big man, not an intimidating or threatening or even particularly manly man. But his arms encircle her in a way that encircles her heart, and the way that they are nearly the same size makes her feel pleased, as though they are two halves of the same whole. Gin and Ran; Ran and Gin. Linked together, with a chain that holds through the suspicious behavior, the wandering, the not-joking-enough-jokes and the not-serious-enough fights. In her mind, he is not a ghost-but that doesn't change reality. He's already gone. She will speak to him, and though his mouth forms replies, his eyes will be far away, his soul, pardoning the impossibility of the phrase, somewhere else. That's when she can feel the time running out, ticking away, though no one saw fit to let her in on the countdown. All she knows is that there is only so much longer that she can reach him with a well-placed word, distract him with the trail of her fingers across his shoulderblades in the hall when her captain isn't looking. There's only a little time left that he can be hers.

People can sense when the end is coming. Jokes stop being funny, words start being chalky and empty; and she's tired. Tired of loving him, tired of putting up with everything he comes out with, everything he throws at her and doesn't throw at her. She's tired of feeling as though everything that could possibly matter about her is summed up in him, while nothing in him can be found in her. And out of everything, Rangiku is most tired of not mattering.

But he holds out his hand, as authoritative as a lord claiming his birthright, and while she toys with the idea of not going, while she wonders what might happen if she throws the words burning inside her into his face, she soon gives up on these notions and goes. She will probably always go; because when she is so tightly bound by his body that they feel like one, she is whole. He doesn't feel like a ghost. He doesn't feel a thousand miles away from her, or like a stranger. He feels like he belongs to her, and if she had a choice, it would be how she spends the rest of her life.

She shares this with him, and he laughs, careless fingers tripping up her spine, teasing through the layers of her robes. "But your life would then be very short." he says, breath whispering on her neck. "Are ya sayin' you wanna die with me?"

No. Maybe. Probably not, but maybe. If she has to die at all, wouldn't it be better like this? At least then she wouldn't be alone. "No one's dying." she says, crossly, her arms folded around his neck as if he's about to drag her off of the Titanic. They've known each other for so long that it's no longer strange to spend time like this, to have conversations like this. It used to be strange-she used to be uncomfortable, unsettled, and that reminds her how it began.

At the start, she wasn't the one who needed to be wrapped in strong arms to keep her insides from fluttering away in little pieces; she wasn't the one who needed to be kept together to survive. That was his problem. He was the one who needed her, ever so long ago, once upon a faraway time-back when it was still Gin and Ran, Ran and Gin, and nothing and no one else in the world had any significance. He was the one who would press his cheek against her shoulder to nap, who would seize her hand in crowded places so that they weren't separated, who would come to her to be stroked and soothed and comforted.

"Maybe I'll die." he says now, musing, probably teasing, but it isn't funny. It never is. She's so used to ignoring his comments, but today it strikes the wrong chord. She draws back and retorts sharply, "Maybe you will. So what?"

If she ever hurts him with her words, her comments, or even her actions, he's never let it show. Heaven knows she's tried, but no matter what she does, he never reacts the way she would like. Half the time he never reacts at all; like now, when his only response to her callous words are a complacent smile.

His nose is brushing hers, and even though they've been this close before, and so much closer, even though she feels most days as though he is her own being, the proximity still causes her cheeks to flame up. He's looking at her, and it isn't in mockery, and it isn't in contempt, and it isn't even in that half-hearted, you're-mine-and-we-both-know-it way that he had just a few minutes ago. He's seeing her, and she remembers now why she fell in love with him in the first place. Under all of the garbage, and the sulks, and the weird sense of humor-behind the careful indifference and facetious manner-he feels everything that she does, and just as intensely. He understands her mind, how she works, what she wants and how not to hurt her. He isn't oblivious to her feelings or her presence. She matters.

And while it's a relief, in a way these times hurt worse than before, because in these moments she knows that while he does care, he is hurting her on purpose.

He hasn't had to say a word, and she's already both angry and sad with him. And because there's really nothing else she can do, she brings up one hand to run through his silver hair, ruffling it, feeling the softness that covers the skull that she oh-so-carefully applies pressure to, drawing his head to hers. Affection can't be shown too much, not with this man. Not even when she finally makes contact with his lips and it feels like coming home. Too much of anything, and he bolts like a spooked horse. He only wants life on his terms, which is why she was barely shocked about his talk of death. One day, he may just try it, if only to relieve the boredom.

It's the thought of that, the knowledge that one day she's going to lose him, that drives her to smash herself against him-a wave cresting against an unyielding rock-and let him know, just once, how much she cares. She probably should just leave things the way they are, but, if only for a second, she is in control as her arms tighten and her body crushes to his.

She feels the desperation as he draws her to him like a life preserver. She feels the way that his heart speeds up, and his hands clutch at her, and, no, he doesn't cry, but it's pretty damn close. She feels the tension that cords through his body, and even though she doesn't know why he's in such pain, she feels that, too. She runs her hands over his face, his shoulders, wanting and needing to remember this moment in every detail.

People know when it's the end.

She can't let him go just yet, and he doesn't want to step back either-she knows this, she knows it for a fact, because even as he sees her, she sees him, too-but his fingers tighten around her upper arms in restraint, not love, and he bows his head, breaking their contact and thrusting her away from him. Too much, of course it was too much.

And not nearly enough.

When he lifts his head, though, he's normal, the same lazy smirk, laughing eyes, and nonchalance. "Even if I was dead," he goes, "That would'a brought me back fo' sure."

Even though it hurt, she regrets when his grip on her arms slackens and falls away. There's only a split second of hesitation, when his eyes lock on hers, before he turns on his heel and strides off down the hall, leaving her to belatedly wonder if anyone witnessed their peculiar exchange.

It hits her that he's gone, that he left yet again and, dammit, he still managed to swipe her heart back from the cleverly locked cell that she hid it in and take it with him down long, sweeping corridors to trail behind him for perhaps eternity, bobbing and bleeding with every affection or torment he sends its way. Rangiku wipes at her bottom lip with her thumb, feeling the absence of his hot mouth and the dance of his tongue.

For all his bravado, he tasted of death.