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She doesn’t come to visit.
It’s not that they’ve had any kind of discussion about it since that first night years ago when he backed her against the wall of his bedroom one early October night, said, I can’t fucking do this anymore, and slammed his mouth over hers.
(That wasn’t the night they started sleeping together; they stopped each other that time. He was with Orihime, and her belly was growing and growing and growing an obligation created out of a drunken one-night stand just after his birthday.
Ichigo thought of Rukia that night when he came with a shocked, hazy shudder, spilling into a condom that he shouldn’t have trusted.
The bride wore an empire waist dress and bright pink blush to hide the pallor from morning sickness.)
There’s no agreement, but there’s been a pattern since that first time years ago: she comes to Karakura, inventing some questionable pretext if she must, and he goes to Soul Society in turn, whether summoned by Kyōraku or finding his way through a Senkaimon on nights when he can’t sleep.
But this time, she doesn’t visit: through the rest of summer, which isn’t so unusual, but September comes and still Rukia offers only silence, even missing Orihime’s birthday. She always calls, at least, and each of them pretends that it’s not the wrong woman fucking Ichigo.
(Ichigo fakes sleep when Orihime leaves in the middle of the night two days later and doesn’t return to bed until dawn, smelling of soap she’s never bought. It would be the perfect time for Rukia to come, but she hasn’t answered his texts in two months.)
Torrential rain from an October typhoon floods Karakura and Ichigo loses days and days to the clean-up afterwards when their entire first floor fills ankle-deep with water. Suddenly it’s mid-November and the kitchen floor is re-tiled and new wood has been laid down in the rest of the rooms and the distance between them aches like a phantom limb. Orihime watches him like she’s waiting for him to leave.
He always waits until Kazui is asleep, or at least pretending; who knows what his son is really doing at night? He is getting stronger, Kurosaki-san, Urahara warns that night over a beer. Tell Kuchiki-san to be wary.
Ichika’s safety is a good enough excuse for him: Ichigo nurses a beer until Urahara’s lapped him twice over, and says his goodnights. Plausible deniability means stashing his body in another abandoned building before he twists Zangetsu just-so in the air and follows the fluttering wings of a hell butterfly into the Senkaimon and through to Soul Society.
Unburdened by his body Ichigo breathes easier, stretches muscles cramped from fitting into a too-small container for months. He lands just outside the Thirteenth Division with ease, red baldric settling against his chest and Zangetsu a comforting weight against his back.
Something’s not right, his zanpakutō rasps.
“She isn’t here, Kurosaki-san,” Sentarō says gruffly when Ichigo shows up at the gates as the crescent moon rises higher into the sky. “Captain Kuchiki is on leave.” His arm is still bare, still lacking the lieutenant’s badge. It’s been years; what is Rukia waiting for?
“On leave,” Ichigo repeats. Rukia hasn’t taken leave since Ichika was born. He seeks out her reiraku and finds nothing, not even a sliver of her power, and a chill spreads through his chest, dread building and building while his reiatsu grows, swamping Sentarō and then the guards.
Rukia’s third seat struggles to speak, to fight against the overwhelming power, and it’s only when Ichigo notices and lets up that he spits out, “She’s staying at the Kuchiki estate.”
He’s gone before Sentarō can say more.
The Kuchiki guards won’t let him through the gates when he lands on the stone path to the manor, but Byakuya himself steps past them, stone-faced and with one hand on the hilt of Senbonzakura. “Kurosaki Ichigo,” he says quietly. “My sister is not accepting guests.”
In the face of his reiatsu, of the storm swirling around him as Zangetsu howls for the Queen, for Sode no Shirayuki, Byakuya is steadfast. “Let me pass,” Ichigo demands, enough of Zangetsu’s voice in his that the guards quail. “I’m not a guest, I’m –”
What is he to call himself that won’t reveal to Byakuya what they do, whenever they are alone together?
Byakuya stares him down for all that Ichigo is taller now, stronger. “She will not see you.”
“What the hell, Byakuya?” The guards stir and mutter at his familiarity. “What’s going on? Why can’t I feel her?” he asks, his voice low and broken. Even this close he can sense only the faintest trace of her. Ice sweeps through him, freezing everything in its wake, as potent as if Rukia herself thrust Sode no Shirayuki through his chest. All things end, and their affair is no different: this is the way Rukia has seen fit to reject him, sending her brother in her place to chase him away, to send him back to a body that doesn’t fit and a life empty of the other half of his soul.
“My sister is not well,” Byakuya says, his voice coming from far away to pierce through the static that fills his ears. A hint of sympathy fills it, overpowers the censure. “I have placed her behind a barrier, on the instructions of the Fourth Division.”
Zangetsu snarls and chafes at the distance between them, pacing like a predator thwarted.
“Is she safe?” The words choke their way out of him.
Another softening in his expression, visible in the flickering flames of the lanterns hanging from the gates behind him. “Rukia is under my personal protection.” Byakuya’s eyes meet his. “You have my word, Kurosaki Ichigo.”
Then he says, “Go back to the gensei.”
He does not say, go home.
Ichigo said once, I can’t keep up with the speed of the world without you in it.
Months pass and the year turns over; he still can’t.
He’s gotten better at pretending, though.
The summons from Soul Society arrives with a warm breeze on Shunbun no Hi, finding him in the old Kurosaki home. Kazui has slipped off again; Yuzu is putting her children – twin boys – down for a nap; Goat Chin is holding court in the living room with his son-in-law and Orihime. Karin’s in the backyard, having a hushed conversation on her phone with the boyfriend she thinks she’s kept a secret.
Uryuu’s supposed to show up later, for dessert. Orihime won’t go home with him tonight, not like she did last week on White Day after Ichigo gave her marshmallows covered in white chocolate and a bouquet of bright yellow carnations.
Delicate and out of place, the hell butterfly is a fluttering darkness against the late afternoon sky. Ichigo catches it and listens for the message it holds.
(Rukia taught him this, long ago, before she bought one of Urahara’s videophones.)
Come to the estate. The butterfly bears the spark of Byakuya’s reiatsu.
He should be angry: Rukia’s been hidden away for months without a single word, not even a text. The Kuchiki estate has been barred to him, and not even his other friends in Soul Society would breathe a word about it. And now it’s not even her summoning him – it’s her brother.
Ichigo ditches his body in Karin’s bedroom and climbs out her window, running along rooftops until he’s far enough away from the house that his father won’t notice a Senkaimon opening over his head. Zangetsu chomps at his bit, seething and muttering curses at being stuck in Ichigo’s body for months without relief. And yet as quickly as Ichigo he loses himself instead in reaching for that which has been denied him for so long.
At the gates, the guards let him pass through without comment. It’s quiet on the grounds, far from the sounds of soldiers in training, the bustling of the Seireitei. Byakuya finds him before he has passed the first courtyard.
“Come,” he says, low and implacable.
Rukia’s power tugs at him, offers a guide, but Ichigo nods, once, and follows Byakuya past water features and weeping maples, past gardens full of green and growing things all tamed into serene perfection. Past the manor itself, in fact, and another expansive garden until they reach a lake much larger than the little koi ponds in the other gardens. Sunlight reflects off the little ripples created by the early spring breeze, and tall grasses sway along the shore.
He’s never been this deep into the estate. Ichigo breathes in, feeling Rukia’s presence more strongly here.
The house perched atop the lake is modest compared to the vast manor behind them. Pale plaster walls contrast with the ebony wooden mawari-en that stretches around its perimeter, sheltered beneath the eaves of the roof. A narrow, decoratively arched bridge leads from the shore to its front door. It reminds him of a tea house he saw once on a class field trip when he was a kid.
“I will leave you here, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Byakuya says. “And raise the kido barrier once more.”
Ichigo turns, but the fluttering of his shihakusho tells him that Byakuya’s gone already, vanished into shunpo. He takes a breath and looks back at the little house on the water. Rukia.
Under his feet the wooden boards creak as he walks across the bridge, but Ichigo barely hears it over the pounding of his heart. Why has Rukia been banished to this part of the estate? Why isn’t she in the manor, or in the house she shares with Renji and Ichika in the noble quarters of the Seireitei? The one that says Abarai on the door even though it’s Rukia’s salary – and probably some Kuchiki money – paying for most of it.
Face set in a scowl, he slides open the dark, slatted wooden door and closes it behind him, shoves off his waraji and leaves them in the tiled genkan before stepping up onto the polished wood floor. It’s a manor in miniature, he discovers once he pushes open the plain fusuma separating the genkan from the rest of the house. The pristine tatami floor beneath his feet and the pale plaster walls offer a spartan backdrop to the living area and the dining room beyond it.
Ichigo takes in the image and dismisses it; walks past the brown chabudai with gray zabuton arrayed around it and unlit sconces – the space is sunny enough, from the light spilling in from windows high on the walls – to the shoji door beyond. Pushes that open and follows the engawa, feet thudding lightly on the ebony wood, to a second set of doors.
Here – here is where Rukia is hiding, her reiatsu calling to him whether she wishes it or not; whether he wishes it or not. Water laps at the stilts driven into the lakebed below him as he stands before the doors. It must be soothing to listen to at night, hidden away from the rest of Soul Society like this.
It does nothing for the racing of his heart, for the anger that closes his throat and numbs his face. Like a dog he comes when she calls, drops everything for even a glimpse of her. For her he has let his marriage erode until Orihime is more roommate than wife; for her he has left his family on the first day of spring.
Ichigo pushes the shoji door. It slides open with only a soft whisper, well-oiled and maintained, granting him entrance.
“Ichigo,” she says. Rukia’s voice has the power to bring him to his knees even after all this time. She sounds so soft – and so tired.
He takes her in: sitting up on her futon with a duvet covering her to the waist, a simple robe wrapped around her and pillows to cushion her back. She’s left her hair to hang loose, and it’s longer than ever. Sode no Shirayuki rests in a sword stand by the futon. The room smells faintly floral; there’s a vase in the corner filled with a mix of purple and white flowers.
“Rukia.” His voice sounds hoarse in his ears, low and shocked. There’s a baby in her arms, wrapped snugly in a white blanket. Ichigo shuts the door and stumbles closer, automatically slings Zangetsu off his back, settles his zanpakutō beneath hers. Then he falls to his knees beside her. A baby. That’s why she’s been hiding from him; she didn’t want him to know that she was pregnant again, that she and Renji—
Ichigo tries again to swallow down the anger, the irrational burst of hurt and regret as he stares at the bundle in her arms. It’s so small, newly born and with the first signs of black hair covering its head.
“You were right,” she says while he is still staring.
“What?”
Settling the baby against her chest, Rukia reaches up to touch his cheek, a gesture so tender he can’t help leaning into it despite the ice in his chest, eyes slipping shut. “We should have been more careful.”
His eyes open. “What?” he asks again. Rukia is looking up at him, eyes dark and tired and with the slightest curve to her lips that tells him he’s kind of an idiot. Ichigo reaches forward, tugs the white cotton away from the baby’s face with careful fingers. The child opens its eyes, revealing amber brown flecked with gold. It’s a color that he knows well: he’s seen it in the mirror every day of his life.
“Rukia,” he whispers, eyes finding hers. This child is Rukia’s child. And his. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone.” The baby whines and Rukia pulls her hand back from his cheek, loosens her robe and pulls one side open. Her baby (his) latches onto her breast and quiets. “Except Nii-sama, when I couldn’t hide it any longer. He arranged everything.”
“He wouldn’t let me see you.” There’s heat in his voice, and his anger is burning bright no matter that Zangetsu hisses a warning. He should have been here for her, he had a right to know that she was carrying his child.
“Only one of the servants and a member of the Fourth were allowed to see me,” Rukia admits, wincing when the baby gums too hard. “You’re the first person allowed past the bridge, besides them, since I went on leave.”
Guilt swamps him, drowns out the anger. She was trapped here, pregnant, lonely, and in pain, while he was busy feeling sorry for himself. Zangetsu calls and Sode no Shirayuki answers, a faint hum that raises the hair on his arms. His sword missed hers; it always does.
Shirayuki helped, Zangetsu murmurs. She’s tired, too. He gets a flash of Zangetsu holding her, running pale fingers through pure white hair as she rests against him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you,” he says finally, around the tightness in his throat.
The baby finishes feeding and with a practiced gesture Rukia tugs her robe back into place. “Hand me a cloth; they’re in the cabinet,” she orders, and Ichigo obeys, grabbing one from the neatly folded pile he finds in one of the drawers. He watches as she settles the baby on her shoulder and lightly pats until they both hear a little burp and a gurgle.
It’s not a dignified sound. It chokes him up anyway.
Rukia holds out her hand. “Come sit with me,” she says next, and Ichigo settles himself beside her on the futon and slides his arm behind her, leans closer to cover her mouth with his, to kiss her with all the tenderness he wishes he could give her every day of their lives. It feels like a dream, the slight weight of her against him and the even slighter weight of the baby. This is everything he wanted, fifteen years after he gave it up.
“Are – are you in a lot of pain?” he asks.
The smile she offers him is still tired, but there is a lightness to it, if only for a moment. “Some,” she admits. “Would you like to hold her?”
“Her,” Ichigo breathes. “We have a daughter.” He takes his daughter from Rukia easily when she offers, settling the baby against his chest and instinctively supporting her head. “Rukia, she’s so beautiful.” In an instant he’s in love, would die for, kill for the child in his arms thrice over just to keep her safe.
“She is,” his lover agrees, and rests her head against his shoulder, the silk of her dark hair brushing his bare forearm. “I haven’t given her a name yet. I wanted you to have a say.”
It chokes him up again, and with his arms full Ichigo is left blinking back tears. They come anyway, sliding down his cheeks. “What are you going to tell – everyone?” he asks. She can’t stay here in this glorified cottage forever; she has Ichika, and Renji, too, who’s been told who-knows-what by Byakuya.
She’s silent for a long time. In his arms, his daughter drifts to sleep, her soft, huffing little breaths the only noise in the room. Against his shoulder, Rukia rests, her body worn out from bringing their daughter into the world. “Nii-sama suggested adopting her out to one of the branch families. They would care for her as their own.”
Ichigo stifles the explosive denial on his lips, but his reiatsu spikes, and their zanpakutō tremble in the stand against the wall. How could he abandon their child like that, leave her to others to care for, to be raised without knowing either of her parents? He looks down at Rukia; finds her with eyes red-rimmed. She doesn’t want this either. He adjusts his hold on the baby, tucking her in the crook of one arm and wrapping the other around Rukia to keep her close.
Happiness lies within his grasp, if he is willing to reach for it. Willing to bring down the wrath of the Quincy king on them all.
Lips pressed against the crown of Rukia’s head, he lets his tears dampen her hair; feels hers through his uniform.
“Let’s call her Ayuki,” he says roughly. Feels her nod against his chest.
Happiness.