Nocturne
Summary: Matsumoto Rangiku visits and talks to the unconscious Hinamori. Set after the SS arc.
"Hello, Hinamori," she said. The steady background hum of the ventilator formed a comfortable rhythm that Matsumoto Rangiku could almost doze off to. She stayed awake, though. Her captain had only entered the sickroom once. And then he had left, and politely requested Unohana to send word if Hinamori's condition had changed.
He might have been here, Matsumoto thought, shadows creeping into his pale eyes to match the dark smudges beneath them. He hadn't come in further than the door frame. He stood there, stock-still for a few moments. And then he had left.
She was his vice-captain, and sometimes he was still a stranger to her. It was as if those years they'd spent working together, understanding each other's weaknesses and strengths had meant nothing at all where Hinamori was concerned.
He knew about Gin, though. They'd never talked about him, but he'd always walked lightly whenever Gin was concerned.
"Taicho hasn't come to see you," Matsumoto continued, keeping her voice light. "He's been run off his feet. He'd have come if he had the time." The ventilator hummed. Hinamori's chest rose and fell. It was a lie, of course, but Hinamori didn't need to know that. "Kira's come to see you many times," she added. "He's brought you marigolds, you know. He waters them every day and changed them as soon as a flower decays. It's quite touching! You should wake up soon. He and Taicho are splitting the paperwork of the Fifth Division between them. Even Renji visited you, all bandaged up."
She fell silent. There was no moon tonight, and the only illumination in the room came from the small lamp by Hinamori's bed. The shadows lengthened and deepened. Matsumoto didn't know how long it had been, but it didn't seem right to leave Hinamori here, alone, swathed in bandages, dwarfed against the machine that was keeping her alive.
Hinamori had been a friend, of a sort.
She touched Hinamori's wrist lightly, wondering if Hinamori could feel that. "We all miss you," she added. "Taicho does, though he won't admit it. I think it's making him harder on himself. And Kira. He still can't forgive himself for what happened. You'll have to talk to him when you're better. I miss you too, you know. There are only so many people to talk to, and Nanao's trying to be the responsible one now."
In the darkness, and the silence, she thought of Gin. She could have talked to him, once, before time and different responsibilities had drawn them apart. That was Gin; he was as fickle as the moon, and half of their conversations had always been somebody leaving. And sometimes, he would come back and she didn't know what to do. The time had long passed, and sometimes she felt so alone. Sometimes, her captain was perfectly unreadable. This was one of the times when he withdrew into himself, and Matsumoto didn't know what to do.
She said as much to Hinamori. The words were important, Unohana had said. Not what they meant. Matsumoto hoped so, even as she told Hinamori about how she was sure Taicho was working himself to the bone for no good reason.
"I thought you would be here," someone murmured.
Blinking weary eyes, Matsumoto glanced up. But she knew who it was. How long had it been?
"Taicho," she said, by way of greeting. "I didn't expect to see you here." It was as close to a rebuke as she would ever come.
A faint sigh was the response she received. That, and a nod. "I know," he said. "I came when I saw the office was dark." She'd left a candle burning. It must have burned itself out.
"You didn't try with Kira?" Matsumoto said, lightly.
"I did," his voice was dry. "He says you owe him a cracked vase and three bottles of sake, by the way." He didn't need to say the words; his voice already carried the hint of a reprimand. She knew why he was holding back.
She glanced down, for a moment, and then at Hinamori. He knew, of course. Even though he'd been in Unohana's care the night Gin left, he knew she'd spent it in the office, staring at paperwork and then starting on the stash of sake she'd set aside for a rainy day. And finally, alone when the tears came.
He hadn't reprimanded her for the broken tea set, when he came back. He'd left a warm cup of hangover remedy on her desk, and then proceeded to set her to handling division readiness, which meant meeting with all the seated officers. He'd known she was drifting, needed people to anchor her. That said enough.
"Did I ever tell you," Hitsugaya murmured, "about the only time I was afraid?" He was not looking at her; he was a cool, distant figure, leaning against the door frame. The dim lighting of Hinamori's sickroom did not extend to the shadows by the door. He was not looking at Hinamori though. She may as well have not been in the room. His pale, glacial gaze was directed at her, Matsumoto knew.
"Was it the adjuchas?" she asked. Because most of the Tenth had heard about the adjuchas, no matter the intervening years. They had come to take pride in it, to think of it as part of the legend of their captain, as something belonging to the Tenth, even though he had been a young lieutenant with the Eighth at that time, injured and with no way of releasing his power limiter.
He made a face. "Are they still talking about it?" he demanded irritably and then shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm talking about when I fought Aizen. When I knew there was nothing—absolutely nothing—that I could do. You think you've got it," he continued bitterly, "that's the trouble with systems. Complacency sets in. You start to think that stability is an achievement, not a struggle. When it must be fought for and defended, at every single point in time. Because we were too complacent about pushing the Hollows back, the furthest we had in years, that we didn't see the people plotting to take it away from us."
He'd never spoken about that fight. They'd never really spoken, since the night Gin had left. He was angry, too, but it was a cold anger, directed inwards, at himself. And she thought she knew why. He had been complacent too.
Matsumoto said, "Taicho. I—" and then paused, because she didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to respond, though she knew instinctively that he was giving her something more raw and immediate than the competent captain he had been since returning to active duty. What she said instead was, "Do you think we can win this?"
And because it seemed a night for naked honesty and faint lies, Hitsugaya Toshiro paused, just a single moment, before he dipped his head in a nod.