Hello there.

My first fanfic about Hitsugaya and Hinamori. Reviews appreciated!

I don't own bleach.

Memories

Hitsugaya-taicho did his work quietly in his office. No sound can be heard except for the occasional swish of the papers or the brush.

Matsumoto yawns and stretches. "I think I'm done, taicho." she announces brightly.

"Good. You can do some of mine."

"Taicho!" she grumbles. But she gets up and removes half of his papers from his desk. Hitsugaya looks up, but she was already walking back to her table. Dutifully she takes her brush and starts writing the papers.

Hitsugaya rubs his eyes tiredly. The clock in the room reads 5 minutes to 1.00am. In the past, there had been no way of telling the time, as Soul Society insisted on candles, until Kurosaki introduced the clock into their lives.

Kurosaki, he mused. Who knew that someone like him would eventually bring the downfall of Aizen? Accordingly, Hitsugaya showed him slightly more respect, but it always irked him how Kurosaki treated him like old friends and called him 'Toshiro'.

A breeze blows in through the open window, and a Hell Butterfly flutters in. Hitsugaya raises a finger, and the butterfly lands on it.

Hitsugaya-taicho. Unohana-taicho's voice spoke clearly from the butterfly. This is Unohana-taicho. May I suggest that you quickly head to yon-bantai barracks? It concerns Hinamori-kun's condition.

In a second Hitsugaya-taicho had abandoned his massive mountain of paperwork and had shunpoed to yon-bantai, Matsumoto close behind him.

"What's wrong, taicho?"

"Hinamori." was his only reply.

They land lightly at yon-bantai. It might have been past midnight, but the lights were still on and shinigami were bustling about, rushing here and there. Unohana-taicho is waiting for them at the entrance.

"Hinamori-kun has woken up."

"That's wonderful!" cries Matsumoto.

But there is no usual sparkle in her eyes. They were dull, and looked as if she was delivering the worst news possible.

"There is a but." Her voice was impossibly soft, but it took all hope and excitement out of Hitsugaya and Matsumoto.

Unohana-taicho doesn't continue, but instead leads them down the corridor, the same one that Hitsugaya had been walking on ever since Hinamori was hospitalized. She brings them to a room, and slides open the doors.

Hinamori Momo was sitting up on her bed. Abarai Renji was already there, but his facial expression was anything but happiness. On the other hand, Hinamori was giggling.

"Hitsugaya-taicho. Matsumoto-san." he mumbles incoherently.

Hinamori notices Hitsugaya and Matsumoto. "Who are they?" she asks Renji.

Matsumoto frowns and tilts her head to one side. "But…"

But.

Hitsugaya's breath catches in his throat. He stares at the scene unfolding in front of him. Impossible. He thought. No, she couldn't have-

Gently, Unohana-taicho takes the two of them out of the room. "She's …" blurts out Matsumoto.

"Lost her memories." finishes Unohana-taicho.

"All of them?!" Matsumoto's voice rises slightly.

Unohana-taicho's eyes were sad. She nods carefully.

Hitsugaya stares at her eyes. They were sad, but they were used to it too. Unohana Retsu has lived for so long, she probably dealt with other similar cases before. Dealt with them, experienced them, and lived through them. Abarai Renji steps out of the room. His eyes were sad and confused.

"Excuse me, Hitsugaya-taicho, Unohana-taicho, Matsumoto-san." Bowing respectfully, he strides quickly down the hallway, fists clenched, not turning back once.

Wordlessly, Hitsugaya slides open the door once more and heads back inside. The second he did so, he instantly regretted it. Hinamori's brown eyes were wide open. They weren't afraid, they weren't tired.

Instead, they were free of troubles and curious about him.

"Who are you?" she asks again.

Hitsugaya swallows. "Hitsu-, no, Shiro-chan."

"Shiro-chan! Is that your name?"

Hitsugaya laughed, but it was a short, dry, empty laugh. It wasn't a happy laugh, it was a hopeless laugh. As though the stupid name that she gave him, that she had called him, as though that would make her remember anything.

"Are you alright?" she asks tentatively. Now her eyes were concerned. Slowly, Hitsugaya nods, forcing a smile on his face. Hinamori visibly relaxed, and asks again, shyly this time. "Is Shiro-chan your name?"

"Yes." Funny how he would actually acknowledge that stupid, annoying nickname.

"Hello, Shiro-chan!" Her face lights up in a bright sunny smile. "My name is... my name…" In an instant the smile is gone, to be replaced by confusion. "My name is…"

"Do you know my name, Shiro-chan? That's funny! I don't even know my name!" She laughs at the silliness of it.

"Hinamori Momo." Six syllabus, and that was all he could managed. Her face swam, and he excused himself. Brushing pass the two women waiting politely outside the room, he sprinted down another hallway - this one in the opposite direction as the one Abarai had taken. He ran, taking abrupt turns, never stopping, until he came into a vacant room. The white, blank walls gave him a nauseous, claustrophobic feeling. Bloody wall. Clenching his right hand into a fist, he lands a punch in the cement wall. Once, twice, thrice – and he skin tears. Another time, and there is a cracking sound of his knuckles. Two more times. Another three. Blood forms on his raw hand, some on the wall, some on the floor. Until the pain becomes unbearable in his right hand, he switches to his left hand, which makes a new crater beside the old one.

Someone pulls at his left arm, and numbly he lets that someone pull it away. Matsumoto. Deftly, she wipes away the blood and begins to wrap a bandage around his right hand. Something wet falls out of his right eye, into his bandaged right palm. Matsumoto stops. Another tear joins the first, and together they make a heart shape.

"Hitsugaya." she whispers. Then she pulls him into a tight embrace.

Under normal circumstances, Hitsugaya would have pulled away and threaten to kill her for calling him by his first name and then daring to hug him, but this isn't normal anymore. If it was normal then Hitsugaya wouldn't be crying. If it was normal his knuckles wouldn't be bleeding by his own will. If it was normal Hinamori would be alright. If it was normal then she would still have her memories.

"Everything will be alright, Hitsugaya. I promise. Everything will be alright, Hitsugaya…" Matsumoto strokes his head over and over again, repeating the same words over and over again.

~*~

"You freak! What the hell are you doing here in our school! This is a school for normal people, not for freaks like you, freak!!"

Hitsugaya turns around and walks away, trembling from hurt and anger. Someone calls his name but he doesn't turn. Maybe Takahashi was right, and that he didn't belong here after all.

It was during a Zanjutsu lesson. Today instead of the usual sparring lessons, their Sensei made them meditate with their katanas instead. And so he had meditated, as with everyone else.

But the last thing he expected was to be drawn into that icy landscape again. The scary, cold place, with that ice dragon roaring at him. Hitsugaya never quite understood what that dragon wanted. He was either roaring at Hitsugaya to hear his name, or he was screeching at him to prove himself. Or he couldn't be heard at all, over the even louder rush of the wind.

That very day, the ice dragon had unfurled his wings, gave an earth-shattering roar that shook the very core of Hitsugaya's bones, and asked him, over and over again: "Are you fit to wield me, boy?"

But Hitsugaya was scared. Scared of the dragon, and of the icy landscape. He was the only one who had these weird dreams, the only one who managed to communicate with his zanpakuto spirit, a feat which the other sixth-year students didn't quite manage to perform.

Hitsugaya never told anyone about his weird phases with the dragon, but Sensei seemed to know whenever he had them. In their last meditation lesson, he had openly praised Hitsugaya about his capabilities. But as soon as the lesson ended he was jeered at by the other boys in class. They made fun of him, about his eye color, his hair color, his icy demeanor and how he tired to be 'cool' when he wasn't really, and above all, about how he had no friends.

When the dragon appeared and started to talk to Hitsugaya, he got scared and tried to back out. When he finally opened his eyes and managed to drag himself away from it all, his whole body felt hot and sweat covered his entire face.

But he was the only one sweating. The rest were all shivering. Hitsugaya's eyes went wide with disbelief. It was the middle of summer, and yet the whole place was freezing over?

Then it all dawned on him that it was his fault for all the ice. He had caused it all; brought winter right in the middle of summer, and the people sitting next to him were either frozen or shivering. One of them was Takahashi.

"You freak!" screamed Takahashi, who was shivering violently from the cold, and crouched protectively over a sniffling girl. "What the hell are you doing here in our school, freak?! This is a school for normal people, not for freaks like you, freak!!"

Hitsugaya swallowed hard, and willed himself to stay calm. He turned slowly and walked out of the class, walk out of here. "Wait, Hitsugaya-kun!" It was Hinamori voice, he realized.

Another thing he realized, too, that she was the girl Takahashi had crouched over. That realization only made him walk even faster to get the hell out of the damn place.

If only he had stayed a second longer; he would have seen Abarai Renji Punch Takahashi in the nose, and Izuru Kira shove him a good few meters, away from Hinamori and Hitsugaya.

~*~

That very night, Toshiro Hitsugaya made the decision to leave Shinoreijutsin for good. He packed his few belongings: the letters that Ba-chan sent him, some food. He slung his katana on his back and shunpoed out of the boy's dorm.

The night was dark and cool, and he had draped a coat over himself for protection. Using kido, he hid his reiatsu and appearance, snuck pass the drowsy shinigami on guard duty and fled out into Seireitei.

He ran on and on and on, never stopping, never pausing. Seireitei was foreign to him, and everything looked exactly the same, so he never knew where he was getting at. He choked back his tears and headed towards the West, where his only safe sanctuary was located. He knew Jidanbo, the West Gate Keeper, and Jidanbo was a loyal man once you got to know him. He wouldn't tell on Hitsugaya, and after he passed the West Gate, he will be on his way home, home at 1st District Jurin'an, West Rukongai.

He paused for a moment in his flight to get a good view of his surroundings. Getting to the very top of a high building, he could make out the distinctive shape of Jidanbo sitting in front of the West Gate. His heart hammered in his chest. The unspoken word: coward.

Coward.

He could actually hear someone saying that. Either the dragon or his imagination. He hoped it was the latter. But that very word seemed to suck out the air that he was breathing in at that moment, and he fell to the ground, breathing hard.

"Going somewhere?"

A female's voice shocked him out of his thoughts. He already recognized it.

It was the blond shinigami who knocked him down the day he went to get some natto. The blond shinigami who told him of his reiatsu, and brought him to Seireitei, then Shinoreijutsin. The one person that Hitsugaya would have thanked for giving him a life, until Shinoreijutsin let him experience just how much life could suck.

He unsheathed his katana and held it out in front of him. He made sure that the katana didn't wobble.

"I hate you." A soft whisper, but she heard it. Her ice-blue eyes grew sad.

He didn't know how long he'll last fighting a shinigami fukutaicho with a katana, but it was worth a try. He brought his katana down for her neck just as she unsheathed hers.

It wasn't much of a contest, though she'd let him try. By the fifth contact of their blades, she sent it spinning out of his hand. Before he had the chance to perform a kido spell, she grabbed him around his waist and hugged him tight.

"Let me go!" he screamed. Kicking, clawing, he fought her with all his might, which was a lot, but she never let go. Getting tired of it, he started sobbing. When the realization that he wasn't going to get anywhere crashed down on him, he cried his heart out.

Hitsugaya was never one to cry, but when he did, he well and truly cried.

"Oh, Hitsugaya." she murmured. She hugged him and stroked his head. "Don't give up now," she said. "Don't give up. Everything will be alright. Please don't give up."

She kept on repeating this until his tears stopped coming, and he eventually stopped sobbing.

"Are you alright now?" she asked.

"Yes." he had replied, a little shamefully.

She held him by his shoulders and looked at him in his eye. "You're different, kid." For once it wasn't an insult. "You'll do great things one day. Like becoming a taicho in Gotei 13. I'm sure of it. But always remember, Hitsugaya. Never ever give up on hope. You can hope to get good marks, you can hope to become a taicho." A smile slid onto her face for a while. "You can hope to find your home. You can hope that everything will be alright."

Her name was Matsumoto Rangiku.

~*~

"AHHHHHH!"

A wailing cry broke the taicho and his fukutaicho from their moment alone. Matsumoto dropped her embrace and Hitsugaya turned to the source of the sound. It was a female shinigami.

She had cried out because she was overjoyed. He watched as she threw her arms around a male shinigami. The assisting yon-bantai division member smiled. It was obvious that they were a couple.

Hitsugaya felt his entire being grow sad, but a Hell Butterfly flew in. Stopping in mid-air, it announced in Chojiro Sasakibe's voice: "To all taichos and fukutaichos, please head for a meeting regarding Gotei 13's vacancy. To all taichos and fukutaichos…"

Hitsugaya's heart dropped even further. Now they were talking about vacant seats. This means that Yamamoto-sotaicho finally got tired of waiting.

Lovers are supposed to be together. Hell Butterflies are supposed to be heard. Seats are supposed to be filled.

Memories are supposed to be remembered.

He can only imagine one good thing that comes out of this, and that was that all sad memories: about Aizen, his betrayal, the Winter War, the Espadas… things like that were all forgotten. Hinamori Momo had been wiped clean of them. She was now blissfully happy, and ignorant of oncoming pressing matters.

Memories.

A word, a curse, and a hope all the same.

Memories.