Title: Echoes
Pairing/Characters: Hinamori-centric, AizenMomo
Rating: G
Warnings: Angst?
Word count: 301
Author's note: Written for the livejournal comm bleachhet's September drabble challenge -- the prompt "didn't say".
Afterwards, Momo can blame only herself. The words of recrimination lie unspoken on her tongue, sliding down her throat and into her stomach like anchors. They drag her down and down, and she wishes that they were dragging her back, too, into waters now far behind, so that she can lie again in that idyllic time (lie in his bed, lie in his arms, anchored by love).
Silence, pressing in through her ears, into her head, filling it with what she now knows is nothing.
They tell her, all her friends, that Aizen (Aizen-taichou! she wants to scream, Aizen-taichou!, but she stills her tongue) lied to her, she was a victim, she was used. There is no blame in being a victim to likes of him, they tell her, and she is a victim, and it's all right now, they say it's all right. She never says "yes", and she knows she never will. Sometimes she wants to ask them, what of those of us who want to be used and outlive our usefulness, and cannot define ourselves any more? but the words seem too fancy for her, and she always looks away and at the floor. They do not understand. He did not lie to her, he just didn't say. He didn't show her everything, didn't tell her everything, because she was not worthy of knowing.
She never asked, and he didn't say. It seemed, to her, idyllic, because after all, they already knew, they didn't have to talk about it because they knew—didn't they? Momo had thought they did. She had thought that was what love was.
Later, in a far-away sideways time, perhaps she come to will blame the world because nobody ever told her otherwise.