I've been meaning to finish this story for ages, but I only managed now, for which I'm terribly, horribly sorry. Review if you like it, review if you hate it, you'll make me happy either way =).

Unwritten Pages of Our History

He thought he could watch it silently and feel happy, but not like this. He thought he would be prepared when the day came, yet that day had arrived and he was helpless, his smile frozen in a grimace and his eyes slanted with an embittered stare. Him?…. It had struck him only a few moments before, while turning his head to catch something Rukia had said, his ears deafened by the sudden wind, but his childhood friend had already fallen silent, a small pale hand smoothing a rebel strand of hair, in a gesture so familiar. Her eyes had a new look, one unknown to him, one never seen before, mysteriously longing, and her eyes were following him. The day he had always been dreading was this very day, but the waiting had not prepared him for his captain. For her adopted brother.

There had been a shift in the wind to announce it, but one endowed with as little subtlety as Renji had not been aware of it. There had been a softening of his captain's voice whenever he spoke to his sister, but Renji could only think "Ah, finally, that pompous bastard has come around". There had been smiling on Rukia's face whenever she spoke to her brother, but she had always been blushing and flustered in his presence, so Renji had thought "Ah, finally, she's no longer intimidated by him". And together they had been moving away all along, leaving him alone and mislead in his ignorance. A fool.

A blind fool. Looking at it made him want to pick up a stone from the dirt and throw it at them, point fingers and cackle madly, because, after all, how obvious and predictable was all that? A lonely man with a dead wife on a pedestal, the uncanny resemblance of her sister, his promises and pride, his keeping her at bay, the torture of seeing her face, the temptation... Ah, how mistaken to think him above all that, a man of higher morality and demeanour, how foolish. Every man battles his demons, but not all are victors. And Kuchiki Byakuya was nothing more than a man, made of flesh and pain, made of loneliness and loss and subject to his flawed humanity.

Renji was mad. Because in Rukia's eyes the same damned nature was mirrored. Renji was furious. Because his captain was not perfect and pure as he had led him to believe. Renji was desperate. Because the world as he had known it until only a few moments before was being torn down and the reality he deemed solid was nothing more than grains of sand blown into the wind.

And because he had lost before even trying to fight this battle. Nothing had ever been fair to Abarai Renji, why would this be any different? He trailed behind Rukia, as always, ever since that hateful day when she was made an official Kuchiki (damned day that was!) trying to asses the damage. Because he could not imagine she was whole and sane feeling those things for her brother, there simply had to be something wrong. She looked the same, he thought warily, small and pale as ever, eyes too big, as if her soul would pool in them and threaten to spill over, admittedly faint dark shadows under them, but then again she had always had a rather sickly air about her. As if her looks betrayed her, going against her strong personality, and stating that yes, she did need protection after all, because yes, she was indeed absurdly fragile. No, there was nothing there to speak of sins of the flesh or soul and Renji grit his teeth because his mind started to wander dangerously to a place where Rukia was the Rukia of their past and that one assured him he was an idiot for imagining she would even dare to look at her brother for more than five seconds without wanting to run in the opposite direction. Because that was the natural order of things in Renji's world. An order which Rukia was intent on upsetting by stealing glances at his captain, blushing and secretly smiling, unknown even to herself, because, obviously, there was no place for Renji in their world. And Renji's hand would itch for stones to throw at them, sinners, because if he could not have Rukia, then certainly neither could Kuchiki Byakuya, since he already had too many of the things Renji treasured, such as, for instance, his respect.

But this Rukia was obviously not his own and Renji realized he barely knew her at all anymore, for she had never looked at him that way, of that he was perfectly certain. Because if she had then no Kuchiki clan in all the hells would have snatched her away from him.

So he grudgingly trailed behind her, because, unfair though as it was, that was where he belonged – in the past. And this strange Rukia, who, Renji noticed with a silently breaking heart, actually trembled a bit when her brother brushed past her, was a misguided fool who pretended not to see that no good could come of this. No good at all.

There was a time when Renji had been a misguided fool as well, and it was not far behind this very moment, he thought ashamedly. A time when he blissfully imagined that he would prove himself worthy of Rukia, whatever that meant, and his captain would respect him, because, damn him, he had worked hard to earn himself that precious sentiment, and all would be as before and even more, because distance did make the heart grow fonder. Fondness apparently made the heart grow distant, he thought with a bitter smile. And it was hard to stand aside and look at it.

How much time had passed since his... epiphany? Moments, hours, lifetimes? How many steps had Rukia taken, before straying inexorably in her brother's direction, as if pulled by an invisible thread? Two, three perhaps? How many desperate thoughts had crossed Renji's mind, such as "What if I took her hand?" or "What if I killed him now and be done with it?" or "What if he breaks her?" Too many...

He glared at him, the one on both their minds, walking in front of them, long strides and firm steps, head high and mouth set tight. Looking only ahead. Nothing different about him, no softening edges, no mellowing smiles (could he even smile at all?), nothing to reassure Renji she was safe in his hands. And right behind him, ghostly pale but decidedly following, his Rukia. Or rather his now.

Where were hollows when you felt murderous? Renji needed desperately to slay a dozen or two right about now, and hope that he would be avenged. None in sight though, only a man with a cold stare and a girl with her soul in her eyes, ambiguously gravitating towards each other, yet stubbornly looking away. And with each step slowly leaving him behind.

Thank you so much for reading!(if anyone read it at all).

I think this qualifies as a happy ending? I know I meant it to be one, but I have a hard time imagining Byakuya and Rukia beyond this point, they're too angsty. I'm rather limited that way :).