Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own the rights to Bleach nor do I own the rights to the characters found therein.

Dolente

Prologue

Rukia sat amid a circle of papers – letters, to be more precise. She still could not believe her findings in that library.

'Who would have thought that brother would…' It was hard enough to believe; even harder to admit either mentally or verbally.

'Love letters…' she added in disbelief.

Glancing back at the window hanging behind her, Rukia stretched and let out a yawn. She had been reading the "contraband" since late that afternoon.

'Wow,' she mused, 'I've been reading for that long?'

She turned back around to her readings. 'The last one,' she noted somberly, eyeing the folded sheet of paper with hesitance.

Rukia plucked the letter from its place tucked neatly between the worn pages of the old tome. With a gentle touch, her small nimble fingers unfolded the sallow-colored page. 'What?' she asked herself, brows furrowed. 'This is not brother's calligraphy.' Her eyes widened on inspection.

She made a cursory examination of the letter and its contents. The handwriting was quick, careless even. Some of the words and sentences had been scratched out. It was clearly a rough draft… Perhaps it contained sentiments too private that the sender had decided against sharing it with its intended audience.

"Hisana," she spoke aloud, reading the signature. She must have reread the name at least ten times before she fully comprehended it. Indeed, the letter had not been written by her beloved brother; it had been penned by his late wife.

Rukia's grip on the paper softened. Realizing the author, she now held the sheet as if it were made of gold leaf. 'I wonder if he knows about this letter?'

Part of her truly believed that little escaped his attention. 'Brother had to have known where his wife kept his letters to her. He just had to have. He must have come across this book and discovered her stash if nothing else.'

The other more cynical part of her brain was of the opposite opinion. 'How could he know? Wouldn't he have taken them? Placed them in safety or burned them? Surely, if he had known they were here he would not have left them in this book for anyone to find in their spare time… And her letter, it looks as if she had not meant for it to be sent. Perhaps, she died before she had the chance to give it to him?'

Rukia narrowed her eyes as she tried to focus her attention on the words written before her -- words of love, death, pain, sorrow, regret… The former Lady of the house had been near death when she had written the letter – of this Rukia was positive.

Her brows knitted and her heart strummed a heavy tune inside her chest as she digested the material she had just finished. Rukia's quiet contemplation, however, was short lived. The once soulful rhythm of her heart was replaced by a frantic drumming the moment she heard Byakuya Kuchiki's voice sound from nearby.

Panic-stricken, she scrambled to gather the sheets of paper sprawled around her on the floor. Collecting the papers with as much speed as she could before he made it to the room had proven to be quite the challenge. Hardly a breath escaped her lips as she cuddled the letters against her chest and scanned the room for the nearest escape route.

'He's drawing closer,' her thoughts screamed inside her head. Seeing his inky silhouette through the shoji door, Rukia sprinted toward the room's only closet.

She was lucky that she had a diminutive frame for the closet was cramped. Hunched down with knees pressed firmly against her chest, she slid the door back, but much to her chagrin it caught. She cringed, repressing the urge to scream. Struggling, she managed to draw the door back only an inch more -- just enough as not to rouse suspicion.

After her battle, she made a quick assessment of the items in her possession. 'Letter, letter, letter, book.' She paused in horror. 'Book? Where's the book?'

She leaned forward; her left eye was only a few millimeters from the crack in the door. 'Oh, no!' She could have cried as she saw the book resting closed on its side in the middle of the room.

'Even worse,' she observed grimly, 'is that one of the letters is sticking out of the bottom…'

Her eyes immediately widened upon realization that she had missed one of the letters. 'Oh, no!' She tore the letters out of her kimono, and tried her best to discern which one she had missed. Using the rectangle of illumination escaping into the closet for reading, Rukia felt a chill sting up and down her spine. 'His wife's letter!'

She was just about to yank back the door in front of her when she was stayed by the sound of her brother entering. 'Maybe he won't notice,' she chanted inside her head.

Byakuya turned to spy a book lying in the middle of the floor. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the room suspiciously. The book was too far from the shelves to have accidently fallen to the floor. No, indeed, its placement appeared quite purposeful.

He wafted across the floor and bent to collect the tome.

'It's slight – so very, very slight. There's no way he'll see it…'

The book was heavy and unwieldy in his hand. Unable to stabilize its weight and size single-handedly, the book tipped slightly. The back and front covers separated, and, from Rukia's position in the closet, she could see the shimmer of pages as the book opened. Byakuya hastily corrected the tome's balance in his hands before it had a chance to escape him.

'No!'

With graceful ease, the sheet of paper fluttered unfettered to the floor.

Glimpsing the movement out of his periphery, Byakuya turned his attention to the innocuous paper resting face downward. Plucking the sheet from the floor, he quirked a brow. He was just about to stuff the letter back into the book, mistaking it for a loose page. However, a cold realization washed over him as he scanned the page before replacing it.

His whole body stiffened as his eyes probed the letter.

Rukia cringed as she watched her brother's slow but sure metamorphosis. He went from reticent to mortification in three seconds flat.

"Hisana…" he murmured softly to himself as he read the message to its completion. Once finished, his eyes disengaged from the letter. His gaze was distant as he stared absently into the bookcase in front of him. He ran a tired hand through his hair.

He looked pained as he stalked towards his desk. The book hit the desk with a heavy "thunk." He sat stiffly and reread the note once more. This time his eyes trailed the page slowly, hungrily. Every stroke, every character was thoroughly inspected to ensure that he had not been deceived.

'I'm so sorry, Brother.' Her wide eyes took in every minute feature of his countenance – from the tightening of his jaws to the sloping of his mouth, she did not miss a detail.

Once he had painstakingly probed the sheet – making sure to commit every character, every phrase to memory – he opened his desk drawer. Carefully, he withdrew a stack of worn sheets of paper bound only by a single red thread. He gently tugged the pages free and added the letter to the stack. Placing the contents safely inside the desk, he bowed his head in somber meditation.

A deep, penetrating sadness washed over the room.

"I am so sorry," Rukia whispered.