What if...?

Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, I wouldn't waste time writing fanfic about it. Moral of the story : I do not own Bleach

Ichimaru Gin's chair creaked loudly as he leant back. His hands behind his head, he looked up to the ceiling and, with a quick check to make sure no one was near, let his manic smile fade away to a more natural facial expression. The thing that was bothering him was that the roof was the same colour as the wall, as the floor, as everything and anything you could find in Las Noches. It was monotonous, it was boring, it was everything she was not. He briefly let a phrase escape from his mouth "What if...?"

"Get back Soi Fong!" The beam of light slammed down from the sky around Aizen Sousuke. Hisagi Shuuhei leapt away from his own captain as a similar beam of light descended on him. The negation fields protected Aizen as he began his ascent into Hueco Mundo. But something would be different this time. Matsumoto went to leap back from Ichimaru, but he caught her wrist, pulling her closer to him. The negation beam engulfed them, giving Gin the moment's distraction he needed to break free of Matsumoto and using a special binding spell, knocked her unconscious. The three of them left Soul Society, taking with them one uncalculated extra.

"Gin, what the hell was that?" Aizen asked, irritation finally showing on his real face.

"I don' know, taicho. Jus' felt a bit lonely." Gin answered as non-chalantly as possible.

Aizen's spiritual pressure immediately filled the room, crushing down on his subordinate. But this was not a situation he would back down on. Standing as tall as he could under the pressure, Ichimaru looked his captain in the eyes, opening his own eyes so it was possible to see just how serious he was.

"She's staying with me." The stare remained unbroken for several seconds until Aizen finally relinquished the energy from the air.

"Fine, she's your responsibility, I don't want to hear about it any more."

Rangiku woke up in a bed that was awfully white. The walls were white. The ceiling was white. The floor was white and completely devoid of sake bottles both empty and full. It was most certainly not her room, it was not her captain's office and it wasn't Hinamori-san's house, the only other place she had ever woken up where she shouldn't have. She tried to get up, but found herself bound down by a rudimentary binding spell. Or was it the sheets had been tucked in too tight? A quick test revealed the case to be the latter. Sitting up in the king sized white bed she couldn't help but wonder, as the Australian tourism industry suggested, where the bloody hell she was. The bed then creaked and she felt herself slide a little bit to the left as Gin sat down and caused a depression in the mattress. It took one second of looking at his face, sans smile, to remember everything that had happened.

"Don't." Gin said before Rangiku could say a word.

"But I didn't say anything, yet!" Rangiku answered, a little too much like her usual self for the situation, but it was by now a reflex to Gin's sometimes odd and pre-emptive behaviour.

"Whatever you were going to say, whatever you were going to do, don't." Gin looked unusually depressed.

"Gin, I..." Rangiku began

"I'm sorry, Rangiku. I've gone and done something naughty again." His face was genuinely apologetic. There wasn't anything in his features that belied how unhappy he was.

"Gin, this is too big, I... Where have you brought me?" Rangiku was having trouble keeping up with the unnaturalness of Gin's speech now.

"We're in Hueco Mundo, a palace called Las Noches. Aizen-taicho is mad at me for bringing you."

"Mad? Wait, Aizen, he tried to kill Hitsugaya-taicho! Oh my god, is taicho okay? Or Hinamori-san? What happened?" Rangiku was almost hyperventilating.

"Calm down, Rangiku. Unohana stopped Aizen-taicho, your captain and Hinamori-kun are probably okay. I'm sorry, Rangiku, I just couldn't leave you behind."

"Gin..."

Ninety years earlier

"Okay Ran-chan, you can open your eyes now!" Gin's smile, undying even as a young soul, shined upon a young Matsumoto Rangiku.

They were standing by a waterfall, surrounded by dense forest, how could Gin have walked her here? She'd only been blindfolded a half hour ago, she was sure. But there was no place like this, not even in the court of pure souls. The water poured down into the pool and it seemed to Rangiku that the cool of the water was calming down every particle of her being. Small butterflies rose from the bush appearing like little fluttering hearts, floating through the air.

Here endeth the chapter


A/N: Guess what! The only way for this story to progress is if I get some interest from readers, ergo, if I don't get reviews I will not write. This is a story I want to write, so don't let me down. You are the readers, the quality and length of this piece is dependant on whether or not you tell me you want it a certain way.

-JeanThine