A Walk in the Park
A/N: A lighthearted possible future for Aizen and Orihime if she heals him after he is imprisoned. Could be a follow-on piece to my story Nocturne. Sweet and fluffy AiHime inspired by GonGin's fanart on dA:
GonGin. deviantart art/ Happy-Family-211731504 (remove spaces to follow link).
Warning: Fluff, sweetness and light. OOC. I've been depressed lately, so I needed this to cheer myself up.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.
(Originally posted 7/3/2011.)
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"Please can I have a popsicle, Daddy? Pleeeease?" The little girl shook tousled brown hair out of her eyes and gazed up at her father. She widened her large, deep brown eyes beseechingly.
Her father looked down at her indulgently out of matching deep brown eyes. "All right." He steered her towards the ice cream stand, where a line had already formed.
"Pick me up, Daddy!" the girl demanded imperiously as she reached her tiny hands up the legs of his black slacks, tugging on the smooth fabric. With another smile, he scooped her up in his arms, making her shriek with delight.
Orihime, pushing the baby in his stroller, smiled fondly at her husband as he tossed his squealing daughter up into the air and caught her. He nuzzled her face in his, rubbing his nose against hers. "Daddy!" the little girl squealed again. "Your hair is tickling me!" Orihime giggled as that stubborn curl of hair hanging in his face brushed the little girl's face. She batted at it ineffectually while he chuckled.
It was the first warm day of summer in Karakura Town, and Orihime had finally managed to talk her husband into taking a day off work to take the kids to the park. She shook back her newly short auburn hair from her face, enjoying the airy feeling on her neck. She had cut her hair just in time for the change in the weather.
It was a beautiful day, the gravel paths crowded with laughing people enjoying the sunshine. The trees had leafed out and beds of pink and white impatiens blossomed extravagantly behind newly burnished iron grillwork. Glancing at her husband as he stood patiently in line at the ice cream stand, she marveled that it had all come to this, after all the drama and terror of the war, after the imprisonment of the man who had started it all, after all his scheming and plotting to stand on top of the worlds and to become a god.
She still remembered that fateful night when Aizen had turned up on her doorstep, escaped from prison, powerless and bleeding, still strikingly handsome even bereft of his overwhelming reiatsu, asking her to heal him… and restore his powers.
She had almost refused him, fearing that healing him would only lead to more bloodshed. But in the end, her essential compassion had taken over, and she had invited the wounded man and his companion into her apartment.
She had healed his wounds, and hidden him for weeks while she worked to clear the heavy spells and limiters that had choked his reiatsu and almost brought him to death. It had taken long and painstaking work; probably the most difficult healing job she had ever accomplished.
The entire time she had been half afraid of what she was doing… of what Aizen would do when his powers had been restored… but she had continued despite it all. It had started as compassion… but it had become something else, as she realized that she was falling in love with the traitor shinigami, despite all his past crimes.
She had always found him attractive, of course, but caring for him and being so physically close to him on a day-to-day basis made her unable to resist him. He was a rebel and a charmer, a fascinating conversationalist with a streak of essential loneliness. He had always been set apart, had always been alone. She found herself wanting to comfort him and ease that loneliness regardless of the consequences.
They had slept together, even though she was certain that he only intended to use her, that he would leave her as soon as he had gotten the use out of her he wanted. Nevertheless, she had welcomed him into her arms and her bed, had given him the pleasure and the companionship that he was quite willing to take. And she had fallen in love with him, even believing that he would never reciprocate, and had freely chosen to enjoy their time together while it lasted.
No one had been more surprised than she when it had turned into something more than a sexual dalliance for him… unless it had been Aizen himself. He had begun to return her feelings, had for the first time been turned from his goals of power and vengeance.
Much later, he had speculated to Orihime that her healing had gone deeper than either of them suspected, that her power had healed his damaged soul as well. He had been abused and brutalized as a child, and as a result had grown up uncaring of human life. Somehow, Orihime's power, while reaching into him to heal his blocked spirit centers, had reached into his heart as well.
With his blossoming love for Orihime, he had found his old ambitions and desire for revenge to be empty and meaningless. One night, he turned to her and revealed the Hougyoku, still embedded in his chest, but hidden all this time from her senses by his illusions. He told her it was an evil stone, full of ancient hatred… and although it gave him great power, he wanted her to use her power to unmake it. It spoke to him, he said, whispered to him in the night to kill her, to resume his plans, to wreak havoc and bloodshed on the world.
He no longer wanted any part of that.
She had placed her hands on his chest, had seen her golden shield appear. It had been difficult… difficult to unmake, the hardest task she had ever undertaken with her powers.
When it was over, he collapsed on the floor in front of her. Frightened, she lifted him in her arms, called his name. He opened his beautiful brown eyes and smiled at her, said he was free.
His powers were greatly diminished; she had never been able to restore them completely. But he said it no longer mattered.
He decided to stay in the human world, reside in a gigai, because Soul Society still declared him a wanted criminal. They had gotten married. He had taken a job in a human company.
Five years later, he owned the company, and had negotiated a pardon with Soul Society.
Orihime smiled ruefully. Wherever Aizen was, it seemed to be in his nature to keep striving higher. He always seemed to come out on top of any endeavor he undertook. He was already on his way to owning half of Karakura Town, apparently as skilled in human business dealings as he was with a zanpakutou.
Along the way, they had had two children. Emiko, the older, was four years old. She had her father's coloring, his imperious manner, and his silver tongue. She was already wrapping everyone in her daycare around her little finger. Tobio, the younger, was still a baby in his mother's eyes at a year and a half old. He had inherited Orihime's red hair and compassionate disposition.
Watching Aizen with Emiko now, as he bent to listen to her place her popsicle order, she marveled at how gentle he was with the small girl, how patient. That resonant voice that spoke so resolutely when making hundred-million dollar deals in the boardrooms of Karakura Town was soft and mild as he negotiated with his daughter over a popsicle transaction.
The ice cream man said something and Aizen replied with a smile, making the man laugh. He handed Emiko a bright orange popsicle and the little girl's eyes became even bigger and rounder. Aizen picked her up with his casual grace, and the two of them came back toward Orihime, Emiko waving her popsicle frantically.
"Oh!" cried Orihime as they got closer. "Emiko, you need to be more careful!" she scolded. The little girl, excitedly waving her popsicle, had smeared bright orange ice all over her father's white shirt. Orihime picked up a napkin and blotted ineffectually at the stain.
Aizen merely glanced down at his shirt and smiled. "Don't worry about it; there's plenty more where that came from… but only one afternoon with my daughter."
"You spoil her, Sousuke. She needs to learn."
He raised his eyebrows. "Besides, can't you just reject the stain?"
"Well… yeah," she admitted. "But it's the principle of the thing."
"The principle?" he asked mildly. "For a four-year-old?" Emiko wiggled in his arms as they approached the play structure. He set her down and she immediately ran off, climbing one-handedly to the apex of the structure, waving the popsicle in triumph as she ascended to the very top and seated herself at the summit with a self-satisfied smirk.
"See?" she called down to her parents, flushed with her accomplishment. "I'm sitting on the throne at the top of the world."
Aizen gazed up at her indulgently, a small smile on his lips. "Indeed you are, my dear," he called as Orihime came up beside him, pushing the stroller. "And thus the world is the way it should be," he murmured, wrapping his arms around Orihime from behind and burying his face in her sun-warmed hair.
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A/N: I originally intended this as a one-shot, but upon rereading it, it reads like the outline of a longer story. Would anyone be interested if I expanded this to show the process where Orihime heals Aizen, the development of his back story, and his slow change under Orihime's hands?