A/N: I know I should be continuing (er, returning to) one before starting another, but life created a series of events that are making it difficult to mentally be in the right place to write the next chapter there. At this point, I don't know where this is going to go, but I needed to write tonight. It's AU, and there may be some odd familial connections, so I hope you can suspend disbelief. I guarantee no updating time frames.

Decided to change this to first person.

Disclaimer: Bleach & its characters are owned by Tite Kubo. Story is property of me.

-ND

1

My hands passed along the photo albums that lined the cherry-stained library shelves. Because I never could remember which one contained the beginning of my own life, my hand stopped on one I was positive recounted some year of my childhood days. Removing the album from the high shelf, I opened the cover to read my mother's handwritten notation: 2 ½-3 years old. A bittersweet smile graced my lips. This one will do. I carefully stepped down the ladder, toting the maroon-colored book under my left arm.

Quietly returning to my room, I avoided the creaking floor boards in the hallway as not to create a disturbance in the household. The last thing I wished to do was alert my parents to my movement. They had enough on their minds at the moment. My stealthy gait brought me to my safe haven without incident.

When I closed the door behind me, I noticed the pale pink walls of the room took on a deeper blush from the dull, sunless sky beyond the curtained windows. Even if it had been sunny, I would keep the curtains tightly drawn. With my present mood, it was too soon to allow any light into my life. The desire to let the darkness consume me was too great, too overpowering. However, that desire conflicted greatly with the need to do well on my upcoming exams. I almost made it through all four years at university, and I was looking forward to watching my family's faces of pride at commencement. The bad timing award goes to…

Which is why I tossed the album softly on my bed, the book slightly bouncing off the cream-colored quilt. My own body followed immediately thereafter. I needed something to keep my mind positive and alert. Even so, as I settled into the comfort of the bed, I was tempted to close my eyes and allow sleep to take over. How easy it would be to just cocoon myself inside that quilt and hibernate until the all the stress, all the emotion, all the feeling, all the sadness was over. A rueful sigh escaped my lips before I opened the book.

I did not necessarily recall any first-hand knowledge of the snapshots appearing on the pages before me. Obviously I knew it was me—I looked exactly the same, just younger and smaller. But these were not events I independently remembered outside of the photographs and stories my parents told me about them. The pictures captured images that felt like implanted memories of sorts.

There I was in an oversized shirt making a ridiculous pose, thinking I was a model or something. There I was smiling with my mother as I "helped" her make holiday cookies. My child-sized apron and face covered in flour seemed to show I was more of a mess than a help. Turning the page, I laughed at the one of me and my father building a snow fort in the backyard, our cheeks both rosy from the cold. My father was serenely smiling—a less common expression I encountered as I grew older.

Flipping to the next pages, I saw all of the photographs from my third birthday party. The mounds of toys I unwrapped. Squeezing tightly the plushie from my godfather. My wide smile dotted with my baby teeth caused my eyes to squint fully closed. My cheeks puffed up as I blew out the three candles on the snowflake cake my mother baked. And there it was. The photo I had been looking for. Sitting on my grandfather's lap, three of my stubby fingers pointed into the air. But it wasn't the childlike glee that caught my attention; it was the goofy grin on my grandfather's face. My usually gruff, stoic, grizzly bear-like grandfather couldn't look stranger to anyone else who knew him. Yet to me, I saw the overarching pride he felt in being a grandfather—in being my grandfather. And I couldn't feel more pride for him swell up in my heart. His fiery temper and bellowing voice were belied by this photograph. He was more a sweet, cuddly teddy bear than anything, and I loved him to pieces. Just as he loved me.

This frozen memory was proof of just how loved I felt whenever I was in my grandfather's presence. He may have never shown this side of himself to anyone else, but I never doubted his love for me. A single, cold tear cascaded down my right cheek. This is what is going to make today so difficult, so painful. My lithe fingers traced my grandfather's face in a silent reverie of days to remain locked in the past.

"Rukia," my mother lightly tapped on the bedroom door. "It's time to go."

Without responding to her call, I removed the photograph from the album and reluctantly lifted myself off the bed. I slid the edge of the picture into the wooden frame of my mirror. My lower lip slightly quivered as I preemptively considered it would be best to have a daily reminder of this image of him to replace the one I was about to encounter. Grabbing an embroidered handkerchief from the dresser, I exited the room, my black dress swaying loosely against my calves.