Standard Disclaimer Applies.

Title: The Colorless Era
Pairings: None or Gintoki/Kagura, depending on how you look at it.
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Summary: Some things shouldn't be fixed. Should be fixed. He doesn't know anymore.
Notes: Comments are much appreciated.

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The days are spent filling her empty picture frames.

He remembers a time when the world didn't seem that bad, when life floated easily, before her smile was balanced on a knife's edge.

"Kagura-chan," he greets, and hands her a sweet chestnut.

She twirls her parasol and closes her delighted mouth over the warm shell. "Hello again," she parrots.

"Ready for another go?"

"Lead the way."

"Playground this time?"

"Sure."

Her hair is encased in two buns and she is rough and illogical, like old times, and he is dripping drawled retorts and feigning boredom, like old times. Only now they are two accidents waiting to be stopped.

Sometimes, he thinks time has slowed. His bokuto is twice as heavy and he falters, gropes for the words he had memorized.

"Does anything seem familiar to you? Anything at all?"

But her face is blank and her pages remain hidden within the scrolls of her dress, within the subtle flick of her wrist, behind the quirk of her lips and her blue, blue eyes.

"Have I eaten here before?" she stabs, and something in him breaks.

He grins weakly. "Let's try elsewhere…"

He forges on.

And sometimes, he knows time has slowed. He could feel his blood crawl but the transition of seasons has choked, crystallized in an unfamiliar form. Kagura dances, Kagura curses, Kagura steals, Kagura laughs. Her step is lighter than it has been in years and he is ashamed to feel upset.

The evenings are spent chasing faded ghosts.

"Do you want to meet everyone tonight?"

She cocks her head to the side.

She furrows her brow.

She frowns.

And then:

"I don't know. Do I?"

He should say no, you don't want to. He should say you're better off not knowing us all – us crazy idiots who do nothing all day but take stupid jobs and get a measly pay and keep the peace for strangers and fight a pointless war. He should say it's best not to associate with us dumbfucks with messed up lives who mess up lives and shove them back together. He should say you should go back to your family – your dad with the robotic arm, I mean, I don't know about your psychopathic brother, but at least you could straighten him out. He should say you want to be up there, don't you? Up in space, I mean. Planets to terrorize, alien ass to kick, money to steal, all that jazz. You always wondered what a space pirate's life was like. He should say so what the hell are you waiting for?

Instead, he says:

"Yes, of course you do."

He takes her stone hand, and shivers. He prays he's doing right.