Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach
A/N: This story was a christmas present for my bestest friend who here in resides under the beautiful name of Serania a'Vienje. She's been my friend and supporter for ages (yeah, we're that old!) so I wanted to give her something special, and because she likes the Rangiku/Gin pairing I started writing that. The only problem was that the story got a will of its own, so it's only one shot Rangiku/Gin, and two others that sprang into my mind. I will probably end these one-shot series with another Rangiku/Gin and she'll get it for ...Easter, or whatever holiday comes next. :-)
And my thanks go to Elithil for betaing this story and taking creative freedom with the word 'deadline'. :-)
Enjoy reading! It starts off between the known good-bye (or whatever) scene between Gin and Rangiku, but that's not the whole chapter
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
(Lord of the Rings, Eomer's Song)
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Chapter 1, Prologue, "At World's End We Meet Again" (RagikuxGin)
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Rangiku appeared behind him, her arm over his shoulder, her sword at his throat.
"Don't move."
For a moment, he tensed, his closed eyes narrowed dangerously.
Her breath hitched, and she couldn't decide what she would do if he turned on her.
Then suddenly the strain oozed out of him and he relaxed in his usual flippant self.
"I'm sorry, Aizen-taichou," he chirped innocently. "I went an' got caught."
Outwardly, she was on edge, ready to kill. And there was a part of her that even wanted to kill him.
The part of her that was true to her oaths as a shinigami and to her captain.
She, at least, was emotionally strong enough to oppose him.
Inwardly, she strangely was almost tranquil, and she felt her reiatsu slowly interweaving with Gins. They stood, twined in a deadly embrace, she her sword at his throat, but he could kill her with a twitch of his hand.
The instant when she had stopped his attack on Hinamori, his sword had spanned the distance between them. A soft touching of souls, in this moment intimate like a soft kiss. Through their swords for this unbelievably short amount of time, they had bridged the abyss that had grown wider each passing day.
A kiss of farewell.
He had known that it was going to end soon, because then the sky opened and spindly hands reached through, Pinocchio noses protruded from white masks.
Just the endless minute before, she had felt Gin's reiatsu in a contented, almost relaxed state, so very unlike the usual restlessness and recklessness that defined it, that she almost suspected that he had enjoyed their closeness. Only when the Menos' appeared dread tensed the harmonic flow of his spirit. He knew what was to come. For a short, unbelievable moment, she felt him wavering. Felt a tremor deep down in his soul, reaching towards her.
But it couldn't breach the walls erected around the cores of their souls. The lifetime of choices they had had to make to secure their innermost feelings. The choices that had piled layer upon layer of stone to protect their love for each other. Now they stood between them.
She felt desperation mounting in her, but when the negacion-light cut between them, she could only let go of him.
A sharp pain, when their connection was severed and she was thrown back into the real her. Tears stung in her eyes, as she desperately stared at his back. Again.
"I'm a lil' bit disappointed. I could've been held a little longer."
Her brow narrowed as she stared at him.
Why?
And the suppressed trembling of his shoulders, the desperate stiffness of his back.
Why did she see only now? What always watching his back should have told her before.
Why can I never hold him back?
Tears threatened to spill in her eyes.
"So long, Rangiku."
He turned around to her, his face caught in a small sad smile.
"Sorry."
Deep down in her, she knew they were the same. And they had made their choices a long time ago.
To protect their love, they had chosen different people they could die for. People who were stronger than them, people, who guided them, helped them not to lose themselves in what seemed to be a hopeless love.
As his form slowly faded away in the Negacion light, desperately biting her lips was all she could do from calling out, Where are you going, Gin?
For a fleeting moment, she even thought about following him.
But then, can a cat run after anything other than her prey?
If I were stronger, could I catch him?
Her thoughts reeled and her stomach responded. What had she done wrong? How could he turn out a traitor? She had suspected, of course, but only now she realised that deep down in her, she had always been convinced of his innocence. He was a neglecting bastard, not worthy of any affection, cold and abrasive, but in his own way he had always taken care of her.
"I'm a lil' bit disappointed. I could've been held a little longer."
What did he mean? Did he really mean to tell her that he cared? But then, why all of a sudden? He had had centuries in which he had let her suffer from her loneliness, prolonged only by the scraps of attention he had sometimes decided to throw at her, to sustain her through another long period of drought. It had taken so long for her to convince herself that he didn't care anymore, he hadn't shown himself to her in years. That she could let go of him that it had all been only a cruel game she could get over fairly quickly.
But only… his farewell had caught her unawares. In his few words, he had suddenly told her that he cared - if she didn't read it completely the wrong way. But why else bother? And why bother only now, when he was leaving.
Gin! She cried in her mind and her stomach clenched.
She held her breath, trying to get him out of her head and heart. She didn't succeed, naturally, but as she cleared her mind a bit, another thought entered.
She all too clearly remembered Isane's voice through the hellmoth. "Hitsugaya-taichou challenged the traitor Aizen, but lost, and is now under emergency treatment by Unohana-taichou."
The chilling thought of her captain on the verge of dying gripped her heart with a hand of ice. For a moment, she really could forget Gin. He couldn't matter.
It was her captain who needed her immediate help and support.
She suddenly knew again where she belonged.
She loved Gin, but it was her captain she would follow to World's End. Always.
There had never really been any choice.
Gin had followed Aizen to cause World's End.
As she sat at her captain's bed in the Fourth Division emergency building, she felt a sob build in her throat at the sight of his face so pale that the edge where skin ended and hair begun was barely discernible.
She tried to overlook the fact that Gin was jointly responsible for her captain's state of coma. Which was an impossible feat, since his betrayal was so blatantly obvious. She had always known that Gin was different, maybe a tad more cruel than the average person, but she had believed that at least they had shared a belief of what being a shinigami in soul-society meant, was supposed to mean.
She bent her head down and silently cried into the white sheet of her captain's bed.
And even when she felt his warm presence so near, her thoughts strayed to the other man that meant something in her life. The man who had gotten hurt, the man who had hurt. Both of them. If only she had been a little stronger, could she have prevented it from happening? The life-threatening wound, the treason? What if she had been stronger, and could have literally held Gin back? Would it have been possible? Could she have made him stay?
Would she have had to worry if that waxen figure in front of her would ever wake up, if she had been stronger and defeated Kira quicker?
World's end, truly.
She would not be anywhere else than she was now, it was who she was and where she belonged. But that didn't stop her from being so terribly lonely.
She helplessly started to giggle through her tears into the soft sheet.
Because for some reason the thought made her ironically happy and she almost wished for the world to end.
Because then she would meet Gin again.
A/N: Reviews make Gin smile... ;-)