Look Away, a bleach fanfic

A/N: I love GinRan to death and I really like the tragic feel it always has to it! It gives you so many possibilities for them. It sucks that Kubo-san just won't haul ass and write a chapter about the pairing's relationship!

Please enjoy, my first ever fanfic! R&R please!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo, because if I owned it Gin and Rangiku would get much more involved in the story.

Look Away

When she saw the sky, wide, eternal and far above her, she felt anger.

Wild anger and maddening hate.

Because under that sky's very gaze, she meets him. And she believes it a miracle, with his glistening ruby eyes, sleek silver hair and lean muscled body that seemed smothered in jasmine. She truly thought the sky was blessing her, sending her a savior from her emptiness.

No, quite the contrary in fact, the sky was mocking her.

The silver boy drowned in corruption, in a time she would like to think as not too long before, but she knew--it was probably long, long, before.

Perhaps, the sky's winding joke was over, she thought, and the sky took the boy back. What a cruel cold joke. Did the sky expect her to forget? The sweet kisses in the wasteland, the tangle of hair--did it truly expect her to forget?

Because if it did, Rangiku seriously wished the sky would've killed the boy long ago. So she would never meet him, so he could've escaped the darkness.

Instead, the sky seemed to have turned on the boy as well.

Why else then, would she be sitting in his cell, watching him slowly waste away?

"You have fifteen minutes." the guard rumbles in a perfunctory voice.

She nods pointlessly, because they both know she will stay for hours.

It wasn't so much as to see him, but to punish herself. Still, after all that has happened, she knows that she is still clasped onto his sleeve. She is still following him. He, himself, was nothing more now but broken life, slowly withering away. But his pale grasp, tight on her heart, was stronger than ever before.

"Here you go, Fukutaichou-dono." the plump guard places the metal chair in front of the cell. She nods in thanks and seats herself down in it once again. The guard's smile is full of unconcealed pity, and it stretches his lined cheeks, and wrinkled forehead. "I'll wait outside."

The heavy tower door clangs loudly, vibrating the walls. Soon, it stills but the room now echoes with awkward silence. She sits and wrings her hands, though she never says anything. Because even after everything, the memories of their time was never erased. It was murky nowadays, but never was it gone.

They use to be able to talk about anything, anything at all, and make it a lively conversation of happiness and laughter. He sat at one side of the fire and she on the other, talking about everything, talking about nothing. It didn't matter as long as they heard each other's voices.

It continued deep into the night, until the next morning she finds herself in Gin's embrace and somehow on the other side of the fire.

The noise filled the air and the loneliness became more bearable.

Now was the same, but she sat at one side of the prison bars and he on the other.

There were no words anymore, and he didn't even spare her a glance. He sat in the far corner, staring blankly at the chipped walls.

Rangiku sees the smile upon his face even now, mere inches from death. A distracting sound comes from his throat.

He was humming; his voice smooth and unbroken. Rangiku feels the urge to close her eyes and sink back into days of baking sun, laughter, dry air and wet kisses.

The sound carries her back and beckons for her to melt in the memories, to just leave it be. The scent of jasmine swirling from his hair to tickle her nose and the brush of his cold fingertips around her warm breasts.

But she resists and stops herself from folding to him like a piece of paper. Frustration bubbles in her stomach. Why? Why was she still buried within his palm? She gets up and leaves without so much as a word to the surprised guard.

His palm crushing her breathe, his voice embedded in her head.

She visits again, a week later. Blood coating her arms and sweat shining on her chest. She came back to him after the slaughter, because she felt she could become clean. His skin was pure white, but oh so dirty.

She liked to sit and marvel at how unbothered and sane he was about the sins corrupting his mind.

Gin sat at the edge of the cell, impassive and uncaring, still staring at the wall. Rangiku felt like he was disappointed in her for something. Like she was being shunned for his own mistakes.

Rangiku remembers the terrified whispers that beat through her eardrums, begging to be spared—begging for life. She had no right to take their lives, but yet she did anyway. The guilt was as corrosive as acid, eating away at her mind.

So she returned to him after killing and reminds herself that she was pure compared to him.

Rangiku visited time and time again, but he never paid her any mind. Not even acknowledgement for her existence. She hated to admit it but it was starting to seriously annoy her.

And one day something inside her snapped.

She had walked in again and sat upon the same chair, but felt herself standing up again, the chair falling backwards.

"What the hell is wrong with you bastard? You think you can just blame this all on me! You have no right to ignore me, none at all!" she screamed at him, furious enough to go in and snap his neck herself. Rangiku couldn't become any more tired of his aloofness; Gin wasn't born to be aloof.

"You jackass, you lying jackass! How dare you do this! Who the hell gave you the right?" she realized that she was blaming him for things that he hadn't done, but she didn't care. Her frustration, anger, and just pure discomfort comes rushing out and pinning him with the fault.

Rangiku panted hard, her lungs bursting from fire. Tears were indignantly welling up inside her eyes.

"What the fuck have you done?" she hissed, unable to keep her anger welled up any longer. Do you know?

The room engulfed in silence.

She didn't care; the silence should've been his problem. Why was she always the one to explode in the end? She felt it was too unfair, how Gin could so effortlessly glide through life like it was more insignificant than the dirt under his shoes.

And she hated herself even more.

Rangiku hated how she always gave in and bended to him. She'd never forget how many people she had to step on, how many lives she took, to get to where she was now.

But as soon as he had left she felt incomplete. A hole ripped through her chest and that was when she realized how large a presence he had held within her heart.

Did he know what he had done? Did he know what he had done to her?

She turned to leave, ignoring the way her heart wailed to turn back. Rangiku wanted to stop trying and if she wouldn't stop thinking about him then she would stop seeing him.

A brush of coldness slipped her arms and a scent rushed to her nose. Jasmine.

She didn't want to look back, he didn't deserve her attention. He didn't deserve anything. Rangiku wanted to just walk away from him and forget him. She wanted him to be just another tragic chapter of her life. She wanted her heart to stop bursting with desire.

His hand was encircled weakly around her wrist. She couldn't help noticing how bony they felt. Rangiku wanted to forget, but she could still read the words through his movements.

Please don't leave.

"Ran-chan," he began hesitantly, a voice suddenly lonely and small, "I'm sorry."

Lies…

As if reading her mind, he began again his voice showing a hint of panic. "Believe me Ran-chan. I didn't mean ta hurt ya." I really didn't.

His hand was shaking against her skin. Rangiku almost sighed; she was too sentimental about these things.

She turned around and saw him pressed against the bars, his arm reached through them. Rangiku wasn't sure how he had moved without a sound, but she was sure she wouldn't have noticed anyway. She feels immense relief flood through his system and into hers as she kneels before him. They laced their fingers together again, just like before.

Rangiku could hear his tearless cries intertwine with her as they connected like wires. Don't leave me all alone. She knew now it would be even harder to let go afterwards.

No surprise, the next time she comes, he's waiting faithfully for her. Rangiku gives him a steady look and Gin looks like he wants to smile but doesn't. It pisses her off for an unexplainable reason and she grins, softening the edges ever so slightly.

"What's with the terrified look? It's just me remember?" she says it like he wasn't dying in a jail cell, like he hadn't been imprisoned there by the hands of his own people, like he wasn't going to disappear from her life forever.

Gin takes the hint and slowly lets the smile crawl on his face. It's the goofy, carefree one that she only remembers seeing in her past and in her dreams. Now, she only sees it again when he's locked away and about to be executed any day. Suddenly, she feels like crying.

"Yes, it's just you."

She used to fuss over his health a lot; she couldn't help it really. He had done more than half if not all the chores that were required. He came back in at night so utterly exhausted that Rangiku had to end up feeding him so he wouldn't get food all over his clothes. Sometimes he would just pass out in the middle of the day, Rangiku still remembered the fear and panic that had overwhelmed her the first time it happened.

He had been too pale; the pearly glow of his skin worried her. It hadn't been natural, especially since he was always outside, the hot sun scorching his back. She tried to put some color into him once, but that had just ended up with a severe sunburn and four days of shunning.

Gin had been an unnaturally thin boy, only a few pounds more than her, who had been half a head shorter than him. She rarely saw him eat and the only times she did was when she had refused to sleep without seeing him eat first.

He stayed out too long sometimes and always came back with healing wounds and suspicious new scars. When it rained he would stand in it for hours at a length and she thought it was a simple miracle he hadn't caught pneumonia.

Rangiku looks at the Gin of today, a full-grown man that somehow seemed even frailer than before. His skin was even paler, taking on a more sickly yellow. His clothes from Hueco Mundo were shredded near the arms; she could tell the cloth was once pure white too. His face and hair are stained with crusted blood.

She can tell he isn't eating much either, from his sunken cheeks and swallowing robes. Rangiku doesn't say anything though. Even if she did, he wouldn't listen. He never has before.

There was some sort of sick beauty to the way blood spilled from Gin's colorless lips. Rangiku can't look away, as the crimson envelopes translucent lips that she knows feel soft and sharp all at once.

His hand comes up quickly to block the spray from his cough. Bony fingers create a web that the liquid gets cupped within the white palm, as he coughs on and on and on...

On and on until Rangiku isn't sure if the sharp feeling in her stomach was from concern or plain lust.

When he finally stops, he looks too drained. Too drained to be clinging to consciousness, to be clinging to life.

Rangiku reaches through the bars and licks the blood from a corner of his mouth. She's devouring his lips hungrily, desperation mingled in her taste. A second later, his tongue slips into her mouth and she can sense the fatigue in his simple movements.

She takes over for him, opens herself slowly, and breathes more life into him.

Rangiku only notices recently how long she spends at his cell. She wouldn't have at all if it hadn't been for her captain.

"You're getting too close to him," Hitsugaya says, tone icier that she's ever heard it, "If you open up your past relationship again, you'll just end up hurt."

She feels a sudden swell of irrational anger and offence. Her captain's words were justified and completely natural for all the things Gin has done. Yet still, she feels the disturbing urge to defend him.

"Are you sure, taichou?" she can't resist the slight mockery in her voice, "I was thinking he might come screaming and charging at me and trying to slit my throat."

Hitsugaya's teal eyes freeze into cold ice blocks and for the moment, looks ready to strike her. She hopes he does.

But instead, he turns and starts walking away, without even sparing her a glance. Rangiku closes her eyes to his back and leans into the couch. She didn't want to see anyone else walking away from her.

"I saw the sky falling apart last night."

"Really now?"

"It's true, I felt like the world was ending."

He gives her the tenderest smile she has ever seen.

"It is ending."

Word travels like a speeding bullet in Soul Society, and Rangiku is someone who knows this better than anyone. Now every turn she makes, eyes bore into her head, and whispers fill her ears.

To make it simpler, they questioned her, for almost everything.

They questioned her loyalty, and she couldn't blame them; she was fraternizing with the last remaining traitor of all people.

They questioned her trust; her hands weren't fit to be entrusted with other lives if she couldn't even keep the one she desired most from slipping away.

They questioned her sanity; he picks her up like a lost kitten and nurtures her gently, then he drops the cat in the dirt and abandons her without a word.

They questioned her heart; everyone already knew they were childhood friends, but what they wanted to know if they had ever been pass that, if they still were.

She ignores all the hidden cruelty and doesn't offer even a flinch to sate them. Rangiku steps into the prison room again and find the flickers of life in his eyes answer enough.

When Orihime visits, it's no surprise to Rangiku that her friend knows. They sit opposite of each other, both holding a bowl of mint ice cream with fudge on top.

Rangiku pretends to gush over the taste, though she can't even feel it in her mouth, while secretly waiting for Orihime to bring it up. The younger girl stares into her lap and prods at the ice cream with her spoon.

"Rangiku-san, it's been so long since we last talked like this." she starts off gently, and her eyes are brimming with the fake happiness.

It reminds her of Gin, and that is sickening.

Suddenly, her grey eyes are much too blank, "Has anything happened recently?"

Rangiku shrugs and says nothing, continuously shoving ice cream down her throat until her brain feels like it will split in half.

Orihime didn't believe her; it was as plain as day. In a strange way, Rangiku feels a resounding pride for the girl as she sees through masks that took her years and years to read. It would've been a disappointment if she had believed her.

But Orihime is too kind and too sweet to bring it up again. And Rangiku is too tired and too selfish to feel guilty for lying anymore.

"What was it like?" she asks, while he gently nips at her ear.

He gazes at her curiously, "What was what like?"

Rangiku licks the edge of his pale cheek, "What was it like to spend those years with a monster?"

The nipping immediately stops and he slowly pulls back into the bars. Gin's smile is suddenly very wide and she catches the slits of crimson from underneath the silver strands.

"You talkin' bout Aizen-taichou, Ran-chan?" he looks ready to laugh out loud.

"Did you depend on him?" she continues calmly, folding her hands in her lap.

The dangerous thing quickly starts surfacing in Gin's eyes, though no one thought they would ever see it again.

"I don't depend on anyone."

This time, Rangiku is the one that almost laughs. An icy smile crawled up her lips and she fiddled slightly with her pink scarf.

"Then why?" he realizes his mistake and she almost sees the anger hidden deep underneath the smile.

"Why do you still call him Aizen-taichou?"

People once said that nothing could bother Ichimaru.

Rangiku thought it a bunch of bullshit.

Because the next time she visits, he's not pressed against the bars waiting for her. He's leaned against the wall, his head tucked just so to the left and it tells her the whole story. She sits as close to the bars as possible and waits patiently.

There weren't many times when she saw Gin perturbed, to say the least she is curious.

A long moment passes without another sound from either of them. Finally, Gin starts moving toward the bars.

She waits and tries not to appear too eager. But as he draws closer she can't resist reaching her arms out toward him. He touches them lightly and she can feel the moist of blood on his pale fingertips.

"Go ahead," she finally says, frustrated and slightly concerned, "What's bothering you?"

His fingers leave two red streaks on her arm. Gin bores into her, his eyes wide and sharp and filled with fear. Silently, he retreats back to the wall.

Leaning on it, he smiles blindly at the ceiling, "I dreamt of flying."

Something inside Rangiku stops functioning.

"I dreamt of flying far away."

"I called him that because he was that to me."

"What?"

"Aizen-taichou."

"So he was always your captain?"

"No," he shakes his head slowly, "He was like me."

If she knew anyone else completely devoted to Gin it would be Kira. The boy acted nonchalant and apathetic to what was happening, but Rangiku could see it.

She could see the slight flicker in his stony eyes when Gin's name was mentioned, she sees the slight clench of teeth when voices insulted him, and she sees the inescapable pain as his execution draws closer.

For his vain bravery, Rangiku had to admit she admired him.

She tells him this the next time they meet. Kira gapes at her in confusion, "What are you talking about Matsumoto-san?"

Rangiku waves her hand around nonsensically, "You know, still pining for someone who's long forgotten you."

His eyes widened for a moment before his face straightens and he stares at the floor between them. "How is he?" he whispers to the floor, voice filled with shame.

Not well, she thinks."He's fine."

Kira nods stiffly, but she catches the sudden relieved sagging of his shoulders.

He wrings his hands, looking unsure of whatever it was he was about to say.

"Even if he's forgotten me," he starts quietly, but without hesitation, "I will never forget him."

Kira is suddenly transforming into something too meek before her eyes. Never... There's too much heaviness in the words to leave any room for lies and doubt.

Rangiku pities the boy, very deeply.

She claps a hand on his shoulder and tells him firmly, "That makes two of us."

Rangiku bores into Unohana's placid azure eyes and hears the faint crashing of thunder outside. The doctor is unaffected and too calm when Rangiku herself was being unraveled at the seams.

"Matsumoto-fukutaichou, it would be within your best interest to stop your visits with Ichimaru Gin," her voice is reproaching when his name rolls on her tongue, "His execution will not be much longer."

The older woman blinks slowly, once. "And even if the date was to be postponed again..."

The unsaid words bounce on the walls of Unohana's office like light beams that blinded her and made her feel so very vulnerable.

His body will kill him eventually.

Lightening flashes through the window and into the room, before it resumes the violent colors of purple and indigo. Rangiku feels the compassion coming from Unohana in slender waves.

She's been feeling those waves all her life. They grasped at her throat and threatened to choke the life out of her.

"I'm sorry." She says it in the only way she could, plain and simple. She remembers her mouth creaking open and hears her voice, but can't feel the words.

Unohana lets out the tiniest wisps of a sigh, like she was fully expecting this from the beginning. "It is not me you should be feeling sorry for, Matsumoto-fukutaichou," her eyes suddenly fill with such an overwhelming understanding that Rangiku has to look away.

"It is you."

Rangiku manages to step out from under the shielding roof of the Fourth Division, before letting the raindrops swallow her whole.

Like Unohana said, or didn't say, she sees the subtle death infecting him like cancer.

Each day, she notices a small part of his soul dies, and also notices the patch of sky that's no longer there. Each day, she ponders why she simply can't turn away.

Why couldn't she leave him here, to a fate that he honestly did deserve? Why couldn't she stop seeing him like everyone kept advising? Why couldn't she walk away from him, when he had so easily done it to her?

And like any other day, she can't figure out the answer.

She rubs circles on his back as he hacks and dry heaves and paints more blood onto the white floor. Gin is...just Gin.

"What did you do to Kira?" she's compelled to ask, while he lay on his side on the floor, too weakened to do much but talk.

His reaction is something that she didn't expect, as at the sudden mention of his former lieutenant's name, his head snaps up and she's drowning in crimson pools all over again. His mouth is gaping slightly, the surprise and shock written plainly on his face.

And as soon as the expression is there, it's gone.

His head softly lands back on the floor and he's chuckling. Soon the chuckling morphs into laughing and then the laughing to demented howling, until Gin's true nature slowly appears under his many layers. The cold, manipulative, lying man.

"Izuru?" he questions incredulously still laughing in a strangely shattered way, "My cute little Izuru? How's he doing? Been moping around again?"

Rangiku nods, a emptiness surrounding her, "He's doing fine."

Gin nods too, though he looked like he really wasn't expecting an answer and giggles. Rangiku can't give him the fearless look that she wants to.

"What did you do to him?"

He shrugs and looks every bit of mockery that he was molded into. "So many things..."

She comes in wasted, with alcohol sweetening her mind into obliviousness. He stares at her in foggy weariness and actually smiles when she collapses against the wall of the prison. She holds up the sake she had snuck in from within her sleeves.

"It's so damn cold in here, how the hell do you sleep at night?"

"Do they even feed your skinny ass?"

"Your mouth is always this funny purple color..."

He smiles some more and nods and acts like they were just chatting and making idle conversation. She continues to babble incessantly and he continues to listen, until he feels a little tilted sideways himself. It's going to kill him quicker and she realizes it, but she hands him the dish anyway.

They make promises that are foolish and pointless and just begging to be broken.

He touches her hands and tells her they're smooth and wonderful, even though they're rough, callous, and he thinks belong more to a farmer than anyone else. She touches his silver blood-crusted hair and says it's silky and beautiful, even though it's dusty, oily, and reminds her of a tarnished blade.

He promises he will live to see the day her hands are plagued with wrinkles.

She promises she will stay to see the day his hair turns the fresh white of snow.

They promise and promise until slowly they forget what their words mean. Until the bitter taste of reality bleeds away with their drunken laughter.

Rangiku keeps sneaking in all different kinds of alcohol. Champagne, vodka, brandy, sake, bourbon, anything she could get a hold of.

She's addicted to the electrocuting taste of liquid burning in her tongue and the blissful nostalgia that follows. It's killing Gin slowly, but she can't stop and he won't stop her.

She's sure he doesn't even want to.

The truth always flowed easier for him when he wasn't aware.

"I hate the world." he whispers, and lies face-down, drowning in himself.

She giggles and hiccups slightly, "The world or what's in it?"

"Ya remember Ran-chan? When ya asked me 'bout Izuru-chan?" his cheeks are flushed red and interrupts her randomly.

Rangiku puts a finger to her chin and wants to say she doesn't. "Course I do, stupid."

He's smiling again and too inebriated to mask it into anything. "I fuckin' hate him." He grabs the dish to his side and splashes more of the wine into his mouth, most of it dribbling down his chin. He's beyond caring and only leans against the wall, feeling wetness crawling down his skin.

"He was suppose ta be someone I could break. He was suppose ta be someone I could use, my perfect little puppet," even the drinks can't forestall the shivers than ran up and down her spine, "I was suppose ta be able to throw 'im away easily."

I fuckin' hate him.

Gin nods to himself, looking satisfied for reasons unknown, "You know what happened instead, Ran-chan?"

She didn't answer, because he wasn't looking for a reply anyway.

"He clung ta my back like shittin' glue and he wouldn't get the hell off." he paused and ponders over his words, "I didn't even want him ta get off."

I didn't even want to hurt him.

"He's clinging ta my memories and I can't throw 'im away." he closes his eyes, the air suddenly leaving his lungs, "I can't even fuckin' walk away."

I can't even forget him.

She finds Kira and touches his bony shoulders.

"You were wrong," she wants to smile, but in a strange way she wants to cry more, "He remembers you."

Rangiku turns before she sees Kira's expression.

A few days later, she carries a carefully folded up note into Gin's cell. It's small and bores Kira's neat, precise handwriting.

She passes it through bars and he doesn't react at first. Rangiku watches in a fascinated way as he reaches towards the paper.

He slowly unfolds it and she can see the ink clearly through the practically translucent parchment. Taichou, what do I do?

Gin stares at those five words, like he doesn't understand them, like he can't comprehend. And he opens his mouth and whispers one word like the dying man that he was.

She heads to the Third Division courtyard and just as she suspects, Kira is seated on the stone bench waiting. He looks up at her and doesn't acknowledge her, but only the news that she brought.

She starts walking closer and he can see a small trickle of sweat slither into his pale blonde hair. Rangiku stops about a foot from Kira and the boy is practically shaking from desperation and the frenetic hunger for guidance.

Rangiku opens her mouth and then decides it's cruel for her to say his captain's words.

Taichou, what do I do?

She lets his voice slip into her tongue. "Live."

The tears that run down his face and the regret in his eyes are too predictable. She watches for but a moment, before smiling and walking away. They wouldn't mention Kira again.

His health deteriorates until he is left like a mere shadow. All they do now is sit in silence, and she wonders how they ended up back at the beginning.

His hollow chest rises up and down slowly through the bars and she tries to reach him and fails. She calls for him but he can't hear. She cries for him but he can't see.

And for the first time as she watches him sleep, Rangiku wonders if Gin had ever known she existed at all.

Rangiku forgets the time and days and months as she once again engrosses herself in Gin. It was a strange effect he had, as he ebbed away at her other thoughts and drenched her within him.

She doesn't remember what kind of position she is in until one day she looks at the sky and finds half of it gone. She asks her captain for the date, all the while wondering why she never noticed how much older he looked.

Hitsugaya stares at her for a moment with youth less teal eyes and speaks to her for the first time, since what seemed like eternity, "Three days."

He looks half dead and his eyes don't even flicker anymore.

But he talks to her, whenever he isn't pulled into sleep by exhaustion or hindered by bloody coughs. He almost rambles to some degree and she listens to every word.

"I feel incapable," he whispers to her, "So incapable."

She's puzzled and asks, "Of what?"

He opens his mouth but then his eyes abruptly snap close and he falls hard onto the floor. She watches with a tearing at her heart as his breathing slowly smoothes into sleep and not into death.

Gin must've realized he was dying soon.

He gives out his fears, likes, dislikes, his family, his memories, his feelings, and Rangiku almost feels special as she holds them each as he entrusts them.

But she realizes Gin was once again, only being selfish, and wanting someone to carry a bit of his load, so he didn't drown in his own secrets and unanswered questions.

"I've realized only recently," he says to her, "That you can not escape your fears."

"Your fears?"

He nods.

"I first feared death," he speaks ironically, "And I couldn't escape it." He gestures weakly around him for emphasis.

"You first feared?"

He nods again.

"Now I fear loneliness," his voice is toneless, and she knows the faulty accent will never be there again, "And I still can't escape."

"What do you fear?" he asks randomly on the second day, and she's surprised when she actually has to think about it.

She wasn't a coward like him that feared death, but she wasn't brave either. Rangiku looks out the small window and into the deep, dark abyss above.

"I fear the sky falling." she says finally.

"Ah," he doesn't move from his sprawled position on the ground, "So you couldn't run away either."

On the third and final day, she almost can't enter the room anymore. Her brain tells her she can still turn away, which she found absolutely hysterical. She was in far too deep to turn back now.

Hadn't she known from the start after she'd accepted him back again?

She goes in.

He has managed to crawl to the bars and is almost passed out against them. She walks toward him though her legs feel like giving out.

"You are nothing like him." she whispers into his ear, "You are much better."

It was a hazy truth, bordering on lie and she was sure he heard this time. She closes her eyes to his face and his lips find hers.

They've kissed countless times before, but this time they kiss for real.

He's finally lying on a white bed and she feels strange. She's grown accustomed to seeing him behind the bars and sitting in the moon and sunlight.

Her captain, now a few inches taller than her, places his hand on her shoulder and squeezes. It's okay.

She nods to him, even though it wasn't okay and wouldn't ever be again. Everything she's been through with him seems like a dream and she grabs feebly at the fragments.

Unohana hovers over Gin's form and beckons Rangiku over with a slight nod of her head. I've warned you. And Rangiku knew it would hurt.

The fourth division captain disappears into the back room as she draws closer to the bed. She stands above his still form as his half open eyes look back at her lifelessly.

Rangiku reaches through...no bars...reaches through nothing for his bony hand. It still feels like a blade wrapped in human skin and the smell of jasmine still lingers.

"Gin," she whispers so quietly, even she isn't sure she said it, "I'm going to fall apart."

The whisper enters and fills his ears and his eyes shine momentarily in the white hospital light. His fingers twitch slightly before wrapping around her warm palm.

"This bed," he says meaninglessly, "Feels so soft."

She nods and bends down toward him. Locks of her maple hair touch his pallid sickened face.

"Your hair feels so soft."

She runs her fingers gently through his hair of bloody silver, "You too."

He glances up at her, his eyes a little wider, a little glossier, "I'm dreaming again."

She nods, and somewhere inside feels like she's been doing that way too much lately. You've been dreaming all your life.

Rangiku hears Unohana coming back, a small needle in hand and feels a sigh brush through his lips. A sigh that was filled with acceptance.

She stares at him, cerulean to crimson, "Do you still fear?"

You cannot escape your fears.

Something that seemed like surprise graced his features, "No."

Without really thinking, she raises an eyebrow at him. A wry smile forms again on his lips that bring back all the memories that are best left forgotten.

Unohana gets closer and she lays the tip of the needle upon his heart. His beating heart, no matter how slowly.

He squeezes her hand with all the strength that he could muster now.

"Rangiku..."

Rangiku is shocked, and is shocked that she is shocked. She thought she was too old for it, too jaded for shock, but here the only man who could do it was shocking her again. The first time he had ever said her real name, was when he left her. Not Ran-chan, but Rangiku.

The needle slides through his skin like it was mere cotton.

"Gin." she returns, and caresses his face.

She could feel him weakly lean into her touch and the smile never leaves his face.

"If you don't want to see, then simply look away." He sounds like he's weeping.

The needle comes out and his eyes silently close and hide away his rubies. Rangiku looks down with vague horror at his still chest, and nonexistent heartbeat.

Rangiku. Now he was leaving again, this time forever.

And the world ended around her.

Five days later, Soul Society wasn't the same. Ichigo noticed, Ishida noticed, Chad noticed, and Orihime noticed. The sky was duller, the people were quieter, and nothing moved in quite the same way since they'd last visited.

Orihime is confused and frightened, so she asks Rukia what has happened. The other girl gets a distant look in her eyes and it may have been the scared frown on Orihime's face that made her reply at all.

"Something. Something has happened."

Orihime doesn't understand until she sees Hisagi and Renji both drunk out of their minds on the street. They laugh at each other's predicament, while she frets.

She tries supporting them both, but her delicate body isn't meant for carrying two full-grown men. So she can only haul them to a nearby wall where they won't get run over.

"It's funny really," Hisagi says loudly to no one in particular, "All of us wanted it to be over."

She looks back at them, puzzled.

Renji nods, a stupid grin on his face, "Who knew everything would die afterward?"

Orihime suddenly feels like a train has hit her. She turns away from them and starts running toward the Tenth Division.

When she walks pass the gates, a young man with her back to her is cleaning a katana blade in the courtyard. Orihime hesitates for a mere second before tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

He whirls around and Orihime half-wonders why she had missed the white hair.

"Hitsugaya-kun!" she exclaims despite herself.

The young man scowls, "It's Hitsugaya-taichou," and then starts mumbling about taking his captains' haori for refitting.

She doesn't hear as she takes in his sinewy muscles, narrower teal eyes, broader shoulders, angular face, and how she has to look up at him now.

Orihime's grey eyes are wide, "What has happened?" she asks again for the millionth time.

A stubborn silence draws up that both refuse to break. Finally, Hitsugaya brings up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Ichimaru Gin, the last of the three traitors, was executed five days ago."

Then he points towards his office in a silent answer to a question she didn't even have to ask. She heads towards the direction without a word.

Rangiku is doing paperwork, when she comes in. Paperwork.

"Rangiku-san?"

Her friend looks up and she almost gasps at the cold emptiness of her cerulean eyes.

Orihime walks in quietly and pads over to her desk. Rangiku glances straight ahead at the door where she had been standing just a moment before.

A silence passes through them and stretches.

Finally, Rangiku creaks open her jaw, "Orihime."

Orihime didn't have to hear anything more. Her arms engulfed Rangiku like she vaguely remembered she had done to her, a lifetime ago.

Rangiku doesn't reciprocate the hug, not until she feels wetness falling down her neck. Orihime cries quietly into Rangiku's strawberry blonde hair, until Rangiku remembers how to.

And when she finally does, she can't stop.

"Kami, he left me. He left me all alone." she shakily whispers into Orihime's bosom, clutching onto her pink scarf. For all five days, she hadn't felt anything but a vibrating emptiness. It stung a bit every once in a while, but otherwise left her completely untouched.

Now all the pent-up emotion spilled out of her in an unstoppable torrent. The pain, the hurt, the betrayal, the simple regret came out in cries and poured out in tears.

The fact that he was gone and not ever coming back, hit her again and again. One moment a blunt object and the next a sharp straight blade. Until her heart was bruised, stabbed, and almost irreversibly broken.

She couldn't smell the exotic jasmine, she couldn't see the pretty silver, she couldn't feel the pale skin, or taste his bittersweet loneliness.

She can't handle anything she couldn't do.

Orihime hugs her closer and lets her cling onto something stable, because she can.

And out of the corner of her blurry eye, Rangiku sees the black sky, unchanging and indifferent to her.

If you don't want to see, then simply look away.

She does.