wishful thinking of a hopeless romantic
She sits, muttering to herself, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, sometimes staring blankly into space. Whether or not she has her eyes closed, she can will still be able to see his bloody corpse, sprawled over the ground, taking his last breaths as her tears fell onto his skin.
Gone.
Just like that.
It took nothing, almost nothing. Just one stab and he was dying, dying, dead.
He lies there in front of her now. Bleeding still, though his face is so pale and devoid of color that she doesn't understand how he can still be bleeding. She skims a hand along his chest. Pulls it away. Watches, blankly, barely aware, as the wet blood inches, drips, worms down her pale wrist.
How did all that get on her hands, just from the cloth on his chest?
It means something, Rangiku thinks, shuddering at the thought. He died for her. He didn't kill her. He was there for her every moment. Though she didn't know, she believed she was being deceived - oh, she was being decieved. Made to believe in him as a sinner, not as one who sinned so others could live a happy, blissful, ignorant existence.
You should have let me help you, Rangiku thinks sorrowfully. I would have helped. I could have... she knows, though, that her efforts would have gone for naught. Maybe even hurt him. She tries her best to not look down, to not see the pallor of death she knows is sweeping over her life's love at this second.
Games she played, seducing everyone she met, were just that, games. Her one true love was always, had always been, would always be Gin.
She has sat her vigil here for days now, never moving, never speaking, only sobbing with anguish, laughing with madness, or the occasional breath of silence. He lies here. He has left her alone, far too alone, and all she can do is try to keep breathing until someone comes. Tells her it's all a dream. Tells her none of this ever happened and he's alive and he never betrayed anything and-
Eyes made blood-red by tears sweep over the body in front of her. She sees the blood, now drying on his white uniform, drying a deep brown, almost black.
She smiles a vaguely insane smile. He wears the dark stain as if his white uniform were changing back to the black of his shihakusho, slowly but surely. Returning to her side.
Days, days since she screamed out his name with a hoarse voice and wild pale-blue eyes that saw naught but him. Days turn to weeks. She keeps away those who want to touch him. Walks next to the stretcher he's carried away on, watching his ever-open staring red eyes, heart snapping strand by strand by strand by strand by
"Rangiku."
She sits up with a scream. A scream not unlike his, once, then.
Kira sits there, visible eye dark and pained. "Please stop screaming, Rangiku."
Rangiku only gives him a cold look.
"You've spent weeks sitting here," he begs. "Please. Please come home."
She's at a graveyard. Sitting in the grass next to a as-yet-unburied coffin made of wood. It will rot.
"He can't be buried," she mumbles, the first time she actually says something.
"Can't be..."
"He wouldn't want to rot in the ground. They have to...have to burn him," Rangiku says. She peers into the coffin. He is still in his bloodstained uniform. His eyes are still open. "Kira, I want to be the one to burn him."
"They figured you might say something like that," the blonde says. He hands her a matchbox. "I'll help."
They take him from the coffin and Rangiku strips him and drapes her own shihakusho over him, shivering in her thin top and hakama. Then she strikes the match, twice, with shaking hands.
"It's not lighting," she mumbles.
Kira takes the match from her, steady-handed, lights it with one strike. Hands it to her. Watches the match fall onto the corpse.
The flames consume him. Rangiku watches blankly, eyes glassy with pain, feels the urge to reach out to him but doesn't. He's gone. She has to get over it.
The fire licks up around his chin, catching his silvery hair, and the flames reflect in his eyes. Rangiku screams when she realizes that's wrong.
"What are you doing?" Kira yells.
Rangiku reaches into the flames, closes his eyes, barely feels the angry heat as it licks up her arm. His eyes, she thinks. He can't go with open eyes.
"Rangiku," Kira says quietly.
Rangiku withdraws her hand. She feels no pain. She watches the last of Gin collapse into ashes. She collects him, silently, Kira helping her, and then she scatters him into the wind.
She feels no pain.
Gin died the way he wanted. Helping her. Killing Aizen. Eyes closed.
All is right, as right as it can be, and for the first time in weeks, Rangiku sleeps in her own bed. She dreams of him but does not scream.
She feels no pain.
Not anymore.
A/N: I sobbed for days after he died. And I still have nightmares. I'm not sure if that's healthy, but...I will NEVER pair these guys with anyone else. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. Reviews?