It was happening again.

His mind had lost track of time, and it had seemed like a moment after he and Yumichika had left the graveyard together to find the post office, Ikkaku's dimension shifted and fast-forwarded, allowing him a glimpse of the rest of his life without letting him live it. He assumed that this was what Yumichika's ghost had meant about him having a hard time holding onto his memories, as if he'd awoken from a dream and was desperately holding onto whatever he could.

He'd died, old and surrounded by his children, having fixed everything that had gone wrong in his first life and had lived as happy a life as he could've hoped for. Ikkaku saw it like it was a video tape of someone else's life, still retaining the consciousness of a twenty-eight year old man who had lost his only love in a car wreck and had found out he had another chance. In that life, he'd forgotten his spiritual awareness and had let everything slip, and here he was again, reminded of what he'd lost.

Something that bothered him was to see what had happened to his friends. It had been such a shame that Renji and Ichigo hadn't made it out of that housefire, and his one regret was not making the idiot leave that place before it had been too late, but it wasn't as if he had control over that now. He'd done a lot of thinking, and had realized that by being thrown back into his old life, he hadn't traveled back in time at all, rather his consciousness had traveled through space. All that had happened was that he'd remembered another of his lives, which had allowed him a chance to alter his reality, and now it was happening again. History wanted him to repeat a certain moment and change it again in another way.

All he could do was try to cling to his soul and drag his awareness with him as he left his earthly body yet again. He wanted to actually live this time, instead of just viewing the consequences like a bystander.

Some sort of shock ran through him as his soul slipped back into his body, which seemed the same as before, young and fresh. He jolted back to awareness, and it seemed like only a moment ago he'd been letting a ghost pull out his soul and follow him into death. Just a few days ago, he had purchased a music box and sat by his friend's grave, he had moved to the town and started a grotesque line of work. It was all still so fresh, as if that whole extra life had taken up only a second of his mind's time. He was already starting to forget what his do-over had been like, the faces and names of his children fading away, only thinking of his original life and what he was supposed to fix. Yumichika. Yumichika's death. This was the climax of his life and he was here again to change something.

There he was again, breathing heavily and staring at those fucking bushes that he had to replant again. The universe had brought him back to this day, and the prospect of starting anew with Yumichika alive was exciting to Ikkaku. He would have a whole lifetime to enjoy Yumichika, who was still young and unchanged throughout all of this. He had the rest of his life to build a friendship and get to know him all over again. He had another chance to fall in love. He had another chance to see that pretty face before it had been warped by death and the hardships of being a ghost.

He had been given future knowledge, and he would not let that go to waste.

Ikkaku wiped his brow, taking a slow breath and a moment to relax, just enjoying the feeling of being back on earth, even though he'd only been gone a moment. Sixty years had passed in the blink of an eye, and suddenly it dawned on him just how much time he had. There was no time - if things were to keep happening in this way - and therefore, he was living in 'forever'. What was the rush?

Man, he loved that cooling breeze, the grey skies and the green trees that peppered the town. It smelled like moist earth and summer flowers, and the streets were perfectly shaded to balance against the humidity. Even the crows were docile, landing on the wrought-iron posts nearby and looking at him as if he had something for them.

After whistling a little tune and leaning against the fence, Ikkaku glanced down at his watch. It was four- wait, four o' clock?

"Oh shit," Ikkaku said, heart dropping, his serene attitude fleeing as mortal fear overtook him again. Forgetting everything else, he ditched his work supplies and sprinted across the street, diving across some poor citizen's hood as they drove a mere fifteen miles an hour.

"Sorry!" he shouted, frantic as he ran back to where he knew Yumichika had been hit. He'd been dropped back into this life, back into this reality, back into this day, but only minutes too late to prevent the accident. Yumichika had already been run over; he'd already been hit, pulverized, torn to pieces, and he was dying somewhere.

Oh god, please let him not be too late. He couldn't live with the guilt if Yumichika were to die again because of him.

Halfway over there, Ikkaku remembered that the collision had happened maybe at three or three thirty. Half an hour had passed since the accident. If Yumichika was still laying at the scene, then he'd already be dead, but someone had probably called nine-one-one, right? He shouldn't head to the intersection where the accident had occurred; he had to get to the hospital.

Immediately, he stopped dead in his tracks, doing a panicked little dance as he looked around desperately for a clue as to where he should go. Where the frick was the hospital?

He vaguely remembered that the newspaper had shown Yumichika's cause of death and the signature of a doctor; maybe the name of the clinic was there too. After scaring a paper-boy half to death trying to get directions, Ikkaku abandoned the kid in favor of grabbing someone he recognized in the parking lot of a nearby mini-mart.

"Kaa!" he shouted, tackling the guy in his frenzy.

"Woah! Uhh," Kaa muttered, staring at him, perhaps feeling bad that he didn't know or remember his name. Ikkaku remembered that he wasn't supposed to know who he was and that there was no earthly way he could know about Yumichika's passing or the accident beforehand, but damnit, he didn't care. There was no time to explain, there was no time.

"We've gotta' go to the hospital right now, Yumichika got hit by a car!"

"What? Who are you? How do you kn-"

"No time! Do you want him to die? He got run over! Do you think you can drive fast?" Ikkaku asked, dragging Kaa back across the parking lot to the car he'd just gotten out of.

"Uh, yeah, but-"

"Good, c'mon!"

Kaa started to panic a little too, seeming to believe him because he was so upset and insistent that Yumichika had been hurt. Luckily, the cops were on their donut break so they didn't see them speeding probably thirty to forty miles over the speed limit, pulling into the nearly-empty lot of the small hospital and throwing the car into park, not even caring if it was in a designated parking spot or not.

Ikkaku burst through the doors of the emergency wing, asking the receptionist if a man had come in with injuries from getting hit by a car. She was pale in the face and seemed to wonder how he could know that if he wasn't the person who had run him over, but she nodded all the same. Kaa was stricken, asking several times if they were serious and if it was really Yumichika they were talking about.

Ikkaku was seriously close to crying because he knew that they would be too late. He didn't know what had happened last time, whether Yumichika hadn't gotten an ambulance in time, or if no one had called the hospital to help him, or whether he'd died before getting there. There was nothing they could do, right? He couldn't change what had happened. He didn't have control over these events, but he could still-

"Oh god," Kaa gasped, hands clapping over his face as his body clenched up. He bit his lip and turned away a little, pacing. "Shit, shit, shit, he's dying, right? Fuck," he choked out, breaking down and flopping into a chair, freaking out. Meanwhile, Ikkaku practically dove over the desk, grabbing the poor girl by the shoulders and shaking her. None of these people got that he wasn't overreacting, but he didn't have time to explain. He knew one hundred percent that Yumichika had no chance if they didn't do something different.

Things hadn't been like this in his other do-over. Last time, Yumichika hadn't died. He'd changed things beforehand and hadn't had to deal with this. Ikkaku felt helpless; he didn't know what to do.

"What, what does he need? A blood donation? Insurance? What?! Tell me, or he's gonna' die!" He probably almost gave her a heart attack, but still she managed to speak back that they didn't know Yumichika's blood type since he'd only recently moved here. They didn't have a copy of his medical records, and besides that, they were low on blood donations.

Kaa suddenly jolted up, hope returning. "I have type O. Please, this is my fiance! Let me donate, please!"

"Yeah!" Ikkaku said, concerned and worried that they would run out of time. This place was so small that they probably didn't have enough people or resources, and besides that, in such a peaceful town, they probably didn't get a lot of cases like this. They weren't prepared, and the workers probably hadn't gotten any experience with horrible accidents such as these, but the nurse's face still went steely as she nodded in agreement.

"Of course, let's hurry."