It was usually around one in the morning that he came down. She was always awake around this time, so she really didn't mind it. The first time it had happened, it had been a little awkward. But, somehow, she had known just what he had wanted. Now it wasn't so odd; she had come to expect it even, at least once a week. Living among humans hadn't seemed to make a difference. And now he stood in the doorway, in gigai and pajamas—blue flannel pants and a tight fitting black tee embroidered on one sleeve with a small white dragon, courtesy of Ishida—wearing that same expression. It was the same expression he wore when he had a nightmare, or when he was delirious with fever. It was the same expression he wore whenever he had seen Hinamori after the Aizen incident.
It was the expression he wore when he was looking for comfort.
She put her book on the table beside the couch and held her arms out for him. Slowly, he came forward and settled himself into her lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned his head on her shoulder. She held him close, once again playing mother. Yes, she was really more of a mother to him than anything else. His age and his cold indifference made him very unlike a captain, just as all the horrors he had seen and the creatures he had killed made him very unlike a child. He was simply himself and that was what she truly loved about him. Long ago she had decided that, when she wasn't trying to cheer him up, she would simply be herself. It just so happened that, around him, she was very motherly. There had just been something in his eyes that first meeting that made her want to protect him from whatever she could.
She began to hum softly, a quiet, melancholy tune that had become his lullaby over the years. He sighed with both contentment and exhaustion clear in his voice. It was no wonder that he couldn't sleep with all that had been happening. Her poor taichou was in charge of leading the only force on Earth that stood a chance against the Arrancar. He had been under a lot of stress recently.
Gradually, his breathing slowed and evened out, and the hand that held a fistful of her pajama shirt began to unclench. The Shinigami smiled to herself and rubbed her small captain's back, still humming quietly.
In the shadows off to the side, completely unnoticed, Inoue gave her own smile. She would keep their secret. After all, a little insomnia was no big deal.