A/N: This story is a side story of The Parent Trap, and a companion piece of Kidnapped. This time it's about Momo and Rei.
This is a request from SilencedAtMidnight. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I do not own any Bleach, except Rei, Sakura, and Yuki.
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Burning Hearts
He came closer. There was no stopping him. Once he set his sights on something, absolutely nothing in his path survived. He always got what he wanted. After all, he was the Captain who had fooled every single Shinigami in the Soul Society, including the Protectors of Karakura Town.
He was Aizen Sosuke.
A grown up Hinamori Momo woke up with a scream. Even after all these years, she stilled dreamed about her former Captain, but not in a good way. It had taken her a great deal of time to accept it, but Aizen was never the Captain she thought he was. He had betrayed her, stabbed her and tricked her best friend to stab her too.
But, he was there for her. Through thick and thin, he was there. He was her shoulder to cry on. He once told her that he never liked the way she looked at Aizen, how all the attention seemed to be on Aizen, how all her affections were directed toward Aizen. But, he never told her that before that moment. He always warned her about Aizen. She never listened to him though, but Hitsugaya Toushirou was usually always right.
She had to admit, he had really good instincts.
Then again, he wasn't a Captain (and a prodigy at that) for nothing.
But was he still a Captain? Was he even still a Shinigami? Was he living at his grandmother's now? Did Yuki die of that fever that she had when Momo left? Or was she still alive?
Five years ago, when Momo arrived in the world of the living with a 10-month-old Rei, she had told Ichigo, his new wife Orihime, Uryuu, Chad, Urahara, and Yoruichi what had happened and thought about putting Rei up for adoption, but after Ichigo's advice, she decided against it. She decided that at least one of her daughters deserved to know their mother's true identity.
With that, Momo kept Rei and bought a house a couple blocks away from Ichigo's house. He told her that if she needed anything to either call or visit them.
Rei quickly became friends with Ichigo and Orihime's daughter, Sakura, and Keigo, who was looking for work, became her butler. A couple years later, Kon was having problems with staying at Ichigo's place because of a certain toddler constantly messing up his day, and thus went to live with the Hinamori's.
However, when Rei and Sakura entered the third grade, they both discovered their Shinigami powers after helping a ghost find peace. Although Ichigo had managed to control the size of his spiritual pressure, the constant hollow attacks started up again because of Rei and Sakura's awakening powers. Therefore, Sakura and Rei learned of Shinigami and hollows.
After training at Urahara's Shop for a few years, the two became fully fledged Shinigami. While they were there, Urahara asked Rei to pass a message on to her mother: Yuki was okay. Rei, though, was confused as to who this 'Yuki' was. Urahara was under oath not to tell Rei anything about her younger twin sister, so he merely said "Forget it", and so Rei forgot to pass the message on to her mother. That's why she's still worried.
Yeah, well, that was yesterday.
Today, Urahara had called Momo on her Soul Pager and told her to come to his shop and to make sure that she was alone.
Now, she was on her way to Urahara Shouten. Jinta and Ururu greeted her at the front door and opened it so she could go inside.
"Urahara-san? You called for me?"
"Yes, I did. Sit down, please. Tea?"
"Yes, please?"
Once the two had their tea, Urahara took a deep breath and started.
"Don't worry, Hinamori-san, there is no trouble. First of all, your daughter is very skilled at kidou, just like you. She seems to excel in everything you do. It's like she's your clone or something."
"She is my daughter."
"I know. But…be honest with me here…were you afraid that she was going to turn out like Hitsugaya-taichou?"
Momo paused and thought about it. Was she afraid that Rei would turn out like Toushirou?
"To be honest…I'm not sure…"
"Do you love him?" That was a sudden question.
"Huh? Who? Ichigo-san?" Momo, again, was completely clueless. But she was also startled.
"No, Hitsugaya-taichou." Urahara was speaking the truth. He wasn't fooling around.
"What about him?"
"Do you still love him?"
Momo paused again.
"Let's go at this from the beginning, shall we?" Urahara suggested. "You two were childhood friends. You two cared for each other a great deal. But then there was the deal with You-Know-Who." Momo hung her head. She never liked to hear Aizen's name any more. She was afraid of him. "But with each other's help, you two got over it. Yes, Hinamori-san, you did help him get over it." Urahara cut in before Momo could.
"How?"
"By averting all your attention spans to him, by letting him help you, and by talking to each other. That's how."
Momo paused again.
"Anyways, you two then realized your feelings for each other and thus got married and had Rei and Yuki."
Momo nodded, smiling at the memories.
"But then, you two had a fight. Now recall. What exactly was that fight about?"
Momo reminisced. What was their fight about?
Her mind went back to that night.
*Flashback*
"Shirou-chan! I just put Rei down for her nap. Is Yuki feeling well?" Momo asked her husband.
"She's not better, but she's not worse either," Toushirou said.
"Well, in that case, I'd better go get her medicine."
"We're out of it."
"What?"
"Her medicine. We're out of her medicine."
"Oh. Well, I'll go get some more from Unohana-taichou," Momo said.
She was putting on her traveling coat when something Toushirou said caught her attention.
"This is all my fault," he said. "If I wasn't sick last month, with Paperwork Overdose only to make it worse, this wouldn't have happened."
"But you got better," Momo said. "Besides, it's not your fault. Ukitake-taichou babysat her two weeks ago when we both had to go on one of those top-ranked missions."
"He was babysitting Rei. And Ukitake's illness is not contagious."
"Oh that's right, Unohana babysat Yuki. And you know she's dealing with all these patients with all those infectious wounds."
"What are you trying to say, Hinamori?"
"I mean to say that it's not your fault. It could be someone else's."
"It's hard to tell, Hinamori. Shinigami don't normally get sick."
"I know that!" Even after giving birth to the twins, Momo still felt the hormones go crazy sometimes.
Toushirou was silent. When Momo yelled like that, it meant that she was mad. And that was his signal to start apologizing for whatever he did.
"My apologizes, Hinamori…"
She took a deep breath and continued. "Stop beating yourself up over everything! Blame it on someone else except you for a change!"
"You never know, Hinamori. It could be all because of me."
Momo groaned in frustration and stormed out of the door.
It was finally midnight when she came back, but she merely put the new bottle of medicine on the coffee table and packed her bags.
*End Flashback*
"Well? Do you remember?"
Momo slowly nodded. "I was so angry at Toushirou for always blaming himself for everything."
"She's fine." Momo looked up. "Yuki's still alive and the fever is out of her system." Momo sighed in relief. "It turns out that Yuki is more like her father than you first though. She, too, is an early bloomer, just like Hitsugaya-taichou. That fever was just the result of her awakening powers trying to choose their path: Ice or Fire?"
"Me leaving was a good thing?"
"Yep. You two had been arguing constantly before that night, though, huh?"
"Yes, but they were just simple arguments, and we made up quickly," Momo said.
"It actually turns out that her fever was the result of yours and Hitsugaya-taichou's constantly clashing reiatsus. The moment you two started your fights, she was sick. She just didn't show it until that day after she came back from Unohana's two weeks earlier."
Momo was speechless. She didn't know what to say.
"And so when you left, her reiatsu took the path of ice, because of her father's influence on her."
"I see…" Momo was tearing up. "It wasn't just his fault. It was my fault too. He was right. I was wrong."
"But it goes the other way around too. You her right and he was wrong. He realizes that now. He told me to pass a message down to you. He says, 'I'm sorry about everything. I don't expect an apology from you, nor anything else. But please know that I understand everything now'."
"Could you pass a message from me to him?"
"Sure."
"Tell him I said, 'I'm the one who should be apologizing, not you. But I also understand everything now.' Got that down, Urahara-san?"
"Yep."
"Oh, and one more thing…tell him 'And I still love you, Shirou-chan. I never stopped.'"
Urahara smiled.
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A/N: I may or may not write another chapter. Review or PM me if you want me to continue with this story. This is mainly intended as a HitsuHina one-shot.