NOTE: THIS IS A REVISED VERSION OF THE STORY! YOU WILL HAVE TO REREAD IT! PLEASE!
Title: Apostando (Betting)
Summary: AU She was the best player that the US Women's Team could ever want. But after a serious injury ends her career she disappears. Four years later an Arsenal striker finds her… can he pick her back up again? IchiRuki
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach…
Shalan's Say: Anyways… yeah… this is the actual beginning to Apostando… I lost it… so please remember… I'm sorry…
Prologue: La Historia De Rukia (Rukia's Story)
She was born on the streets of Hanshin, Osaka. Her family was poor as dirt… but they gave her everything she needed to play. And did she play… the woman was hardly walking before she learned to run, her beautiful body trained to its peak physical condition.
Their parents died in a car accident when she was 8 and from there her brother had taken care of her, constantly sending her to football practice. Soon it became like a second nature, her abilities on the football field were compared to a dancer's ability on the stage, her body movements so flexible and fluid that she could easily out maneuver the professionals.
Her brother graduated from college and was picked up by a huge and rising corporation. From there he sent her to live in a boarding school in New York, there she stayed until she was picked up when she was 16 by the American Women's football team. Her career took off from there.
Her first game on the reserves she won the game by herself, leaving the opposing teams players in her dust. That was when they moved her up to the leading striker's position. There she stayed, playing year after year for them.
Now she was successful, extremely so, she appeared on national television almost once a week, she did interviews with almost every big city star… to think that she had come so far, from being penniless to being famous. She felt it was a Cinderella story all over again.
"So… tell me about your life… how has it treated you?" Oprah Winfrey asked her.
"My life? Honestly I don't think you need to know…" Rukia blushed.
"I think we do… the people deserve to know all about you… but if you don't want to tell it's alright…" The kind hearted woman smiled.
"Well… I didn't have any money when I was a little girl…" Her face flushed.
"How did you get involved with soccer then?"
"Uhm… I once watched my brother play when I was 3 or 4 and decided that I wanted to play too… it was all down hill after that!" She laughed.
"You just got back from winning a game again Brazil's women's team… how do you feel about that?"
"I just have to thank the girls on the team… my wingers… and definitely the goalie and defenders… hey girls!" She waved at the camera.
"So tell us… your brother really inspired you didn't he?"
"Yeah… my brother and I… we're really close… we raised each other basically… my parents died in a car crash when I was eight… actually…" she paused.
"Go on… no one's judging you here…"
"Actually… their deaths were my fault…"
&&&
"WHAT? RUKIA!" Byakuya spat out his wine. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY??"
"Yeah… we were going to my football game and I… I had made us run late… but my parents didn't say anything… they just drove on… as we passed through an intersection a car t-boned us and crushed one half of my father's body and the car that came through the other side crushed my mother… we had driven through a red light… without knowing it…" She had tears running down her face and Byakuya slid his hand down the television.
"No… no no no… Rukia it wasn't your fault…" He watched then as Oprah said they were going to commercial. Byakuya picked up his phone and called to get a flight to California where his sister was staying at the moment and hung up after he did so. He was going to see her.
&&&
Rukia sighed as she drove through the streets of California. She sighed softly as rain began to smatter on her windshield.
'It was my fault… I'm the one who killed them…' She felt tears well up in her eyes again.
She drove through an intersection with a sigh and continued going. Her life was going so perfectly… she had to make her parents proud… she had to make her parents proud.
She was so focused on what she was doing that she never saw it coming… the driver that was speeding up the highway… the driver that plowed into her, smashing her car up against the wall, the only thing she heard was the rushing of blood in her ears and the screeching of tires too late to save her and her car was tin canned into the side of a mountain.
&&&
When she came to her brain was screaming with pain. "Rukia… Rukia…" She heard a soft voice speak to her and a hand was squeezing hers tightly. She heard the beeping of a heart monitor, the burning sensation of the tubes that were in her nose to keep her breathing.
"Byakuya?" She looked over at him.
"Hey baby girl…" Byakuya had tears in his eyes.
"What happened?" She looked around… "Where are mommy and daddy?" Her eyes searched his and he looked up at the doctor.
"She may have suffered a concussion… causing temporary amnesia…" the doctor told him.
"So when will she regain it?" Byakuya stroked her forehead gently as her eyes faded and she fell back into her comatose.
"Sometime in the future… I suggest that once she's out of the surgery she be taken somewhere where she can relax," the doctor patted Byakuya on the back. "I'm afraid her career is over…"
"What all happened to her?" Byakuya rested his hand on her now bald head. And he sighed lightly.
"Starting from the top, she suffered some minor head trauma… a broken neck, five broken ribs, a collapsed lung, some minor scrapes and cuts to her abdomen a broken femur and a shattered knee cap and shredded ACL…" He folded his arms. "It's amazing she survived…"
"She's a trooper…" Byakuya's tears ran freely down his face as he kissed her naked forehead.
&&&
Almost a week later Rukia was awake and was leaving the hospital… she was being pushed in a wheelchair out to the car by her best friend and fellow football player Renji Abarai. He wheeled her past the camera crews quickly before she could see them and ask what they were all about.
Her memory had come back up to a certain point but she couldn't figure out who all the girls were that pooled around her bed… she had no memory of being a famous footballer. Which was horrible for the press…
Renji slipped her into the car and got in after her, patting her thigh gently. "Everything's alright…" He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
"Thanks Renji…" She smiled but she couldn't help but feel confused… what was going on?
"You're very welcome… and guess what… you're going to Hawaii for an extended vacation…" Renji smiled and she blinked… she had no idea what was going on.
&&&
Four years passed… her memory only returning within the last few months of the fourth year… but by that time…
...the striker's career was long gone…