Hello, stardustfalling here. I'll be posting a lot of stories in quick succession currently because I've been writing without a FF account for a while.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or its characters; those belong to Kubo Tite. However, this story does belong to me, and therefore, you are not allowed to take it.

Without further ado: enjoy! Only review if you feel moved to. Flames and criticisms are appreciated because they help me improve and they heat my house.

G'bye, Ran-chan

Her eyes opened slightly, and she saw him, illuminated in the window. He cast a shadow, and his clothes... His clothes? His shirt was white and edged in black, His pants and shoes were like those of a Shinigami, but they were reversed, white on black instead of black on white.

"Gin?"

"Yo, Ran-chan."

He crossed the room silently and sat beside her on her bed.

"How are you here, Gin? Is this a dream? It must be a dream, if you're here..."

"Yeah." He replied softly. He leaned back against her headboard and swung his feet up onto her bed.

"Why are you here in my dream?"

He pulled her head into his lap and started stroking her hair, playing with the tendrils and twisting them around his fingers.

"I came t'say g'bye, Ran-chan."

"Why?"

"I have a secret," he leaned in and cupped his hand around her ear. "I'm not really a bad guy." He pulled her sheets over himself and shifted her head onto his chest.

"Then why did you leave?" Rangiku was still half-asleep, and she asked the question that never would have graced her lips otherwise.

"I had t'protect you, Ran-chan."

"Idiot," she seethed, eyes closed. "How many times do I have to tell you that you don't need to protect me, now." She now lay comfortably against him, relaxed and more content than she let on.

"It was the only way t'protect ya."

Rangiku didn't comment, but her the muscles across her brow tightened slightly. The moonlight spilled over the windowsill, collecting in puddles on the plank wood floor and in the soft folds of the sheets on Rangiku's raised bed.

Rare in Soul Society, but it suited her. She had even gotten Hisagi to make her a canopy once long ago, and red sheets were draped over the simple structure.

The moonlight left slivers of silver in her beautiful hair, and Gin found his eyebrows contracting downwards as well.

"Beautiful Ran-chan."

"Why do you have to say goodbye?"

Another forbidden question, revealed in the silver light that muted colors and made her innocently beautiful. Her face was tired, soft, and lovely in the moonlight. She never let others see that face, but sometimes, rarely, he caught a glimpse of her looking wistfully off into the star-land, where comets danced, rare as her tears, and the spaces in the night sky faded to an inky black, like the secrets he could never, but might someday, tell her.

"Because I'm not really a bad guy, and I never told ya g'bye proper before."

"Gin..." Her face crumpled, and he feared he had woken her too much. Tears traced silver gleams down her cheeks, and Gin stopped playing with her hair to wrap his arms around her.

"You mean everything might not turn out alright this time." Her voice was childlike and desperately sad. Gin sighed and tightened his arms around her, then slowly eased himself away from her and the simple quiet and beauty that he would have to leave soon.

"You're leaving." It was not so much a question as a defeated, sad statement.

"I've caused ya so much pain, Ran-chan."

Her hand wound around his, and she turned her face to his, eyes still closed.

"I love ya, Ran-chan." He kissed her cheek softly. His eyelids felt full, and he knelt beside her bed to hold her face on his shoulder one last time. Her hair curled and tangled around his face and neck, and he breathed her Ran-chan smell.

"I love you too, Gin." She kissed him back, the other cheek. The tears wanted to fall and pay homage to her face, which would crumple like paper to find him gone, again. "As always..." The whisper barely escaped his lips and he knew she hadn't heard.

"Do you really?" The weakness in his voice broke him. Always a grin and a smile, always a mockingly playful voice, his mask had fallen, and he lay exposed and raw in front of her. A single, perfect teardrop fell on her face, and it was quickly followed by more, which mingled with those still left on her cheeks and rolled away to be absorbed by the soft fabric of her sheets.

"Yes." And with a word, she shattered the final fragments of his mask.

"I love you." He said it again and kissed her lightly on the lips which had uttered the words that he loved and hated, and he slowly stepped back to watch her, one last time. Then he silently slipped away,

out the window,

and into the star-land.

~O~

A Hell Butterfly slowly lilted through the office window to alight on his outstretched hand. After a moment of silence in which the ethereal creature relayed its message to him, Hitsugaya's frown deepened.

"Matsumoto will be in late? And she sent me a message to tell me?" He wondered aloud. Normally, she would just come in late with a hangover-induced headache and an apology. But it was the last part that worried him the most.

"Important personal business?"

Matsumoto had not taken time off without telling him, ever. Come to think of it, it was rather early in the morning for her, anyways. Hitsugaya sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Though the paperwork was piling up already, this was more worrisome. He sat his brush down on the tray and stood up, pushing his chair back.

He walked at a normal pace, but with a particular urgency that dared someone to interrupt him. He arrived at Matsumoto's door and knocked.

"Taicho, I thought I told you not to come." Matsumoto's muted words could be heard through the door.

"You did nothing of the sort, you just managed to tell me just enough to let me think I should come, Matsumoto." His subordinate did not respond, and the sound of a muffled sob reached him through the door.

Hitsugaya opened the door to see Matsumoto, still in her yellow nightdress, sitting up in bed with her sheet clutched in her shaking hands.

Her face had crumpled like paper to find him gone, just as predicted. Her face was wet, and miniature droplets were trapped in her lashes.

"Matsumoto! What's wrong?" Hitsugaya's normally icy eyes were wide and confused. He had never seen Matsumoto like this, ever. Drunk and depressed was common, but he had never seen her tears.

"He was here," she whispered, her voice so soft her almost couldn't make out the words. "He was here... It wasn't a dream..."

"Who was here? Who?"

Matsumoto patted the sheets beside her and lifted the one in her hand to her taicho. Hitsugaya walked over and put a finger to the sheet, knowing before he was close enough to reach it who had come and left and not been a dream.

Ichimaru Gin's reiatsu still clung to the sheets in traces, Matsumoto's hair was drenched in it, and his presence still lingered in the air. Sad, and regretful.

"He came to say goodbye. He told me it was a dream, and..." she lifted her eyes to the ceiling I'm sorry Gin, I won't tell anyone else and looked back at her taicho. "And he told me a secret..."

"You can never tell anyone this, taicho."

"Of course not, Matsumoto."

"He's not really a bad guy."

Hitsugaya was immediately wary, his previous experience with Hinamori and her denial of Aizen's horrible nature making him suspicious of this statement.

"No, it's not like Hinamori... He did it to protect me..." Matsumoto cast a bitter glance at the sheets beside her, pulling the sheet back to her heart; her tears fell faster now.

"He came to say goodbye because he didn't think... he didn't think he..." Seeing her start to lose control, Hitsugaya tensed slightly.

"He wasn't sure everything would turn out okay, this time." Matsumoto started clenching her free hand on the sheets. Hitsugaya's hands hung loose at his sides. He wasn't sure what to do with them anymore.

The morning light was beautiful, he noticed absently. It cast stark shadows and softly illumined the colors of Matsumoto's room with a distinctly morning glow.

"He said—" Matsumoto cut herself off abruptly. Hitsugaya watched closely as her face buckled and she tried desperately to keep the vague semblance of control she had now.

"He said... he said he loved me."

Hitsugaya started, and then his face fell into lines of sadness and sympathy for her. "Did you say you loved him back?"

Matsumoto nodded sharply, and Hitsugaya gently laid a hand on her shoulder. She grabbed it in her free hand, and slowly, slowly, she began to recover.

"His tears fell on my face," she said, her complexion gradually resuming its normal shade. Her face began to smooth itself out, and her death grip on his hand released slightly. Her voice returned to its normal volume with that statement, but it immediately dropped again as she whispered, "He said he loved me."

~O~

Matsumoto and Hitsugaya stood on the crest of a hill and watched as the sun detached its lower curve from the horizon of Rukongai. Each was lost in their own thoughts, one of the man she loved and couldn't seem to forget, the other of his fukutaicho, a stronger, deeper woman than she appeared at first glance.

Gin... I love you.