Author's Note: I've always loved Senbonzakura and Sode no Shirayuki. I know that others have varying opinions of what they look like, but I think they would clash. A Spring to her Winter. One graceful and stoic, the other caustic and free. Once again, review if you find this to your taste, but refrain from commenting if you have only brutal words in mind.

Disclaimer: Please refer to Chapter One's disclaimer from now on. I think we've established that I have never owned Bleach.

The Wedding That Could've Been: Eternal Winter

Every winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay-- Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.

- Chris Kingley

Sode no Shirayuki was as cold as she was beautiful.

Her lips were ghosted a pale pink, as if the Winter that she ruled over eternally had sucked the color out of her and her domain. She was nothing like Senbonzakura, noble and detached where his own sword was spiteful and dignified only in name. Where Senbonzakura ruled over Spring with a careless mind that bent trees and blossomed flowers to her rule, Shirayuki was cruel and heartless. Upon the crown of her head rested a delicate tiara, fastened from icicles that never melted, and from there it proclaimed her identity to the world.

She spoke to him, in his dream, coal-black eyes penetrating his core even as her snow-tipped lashes fluttered like anxious butterflies caught in a deep trap.

She spoke to him, and he listened.

'That which you seek is waiting.' Her breath misted out in phantom ghosts, and she held the image of a frozen world in her hands.

He couldn't speak, stopped by an almost unseemly awe at her presence. The snow fell harder around him, clinging to his ankles even as he sought to gaze into that picture. The white was blinding and the cold stung at him harshly, biting at his neck and kissing his soul away. He wondered at her power, wondered at it and bowed before it.

Her starless night tinted long hair slipped over pale shoulders, white as the moon in their color, as she lifted his chin to meet her eyes. The snow was swallowing him whole, drowning him in a flurry of motion and endless winter. 'You need only to find it.'

Her kiss was cold and it burned on his lips long after the dream.

Eternity means forever...

The silence stretches on, tense and unbreakable as they eat their carefully prepared meal together. She sits across from him, hands shaking as they go over dining routines that after years still refuse to become imprinted. 'Sode no Shirayuki makes quite the impression, don't you think?' Senbonzakura's voice is a harsh whisper in his ear, and he imagines the picture of cherry blossoms cutting through flesh. He remains silent, an answer in itself, and his eyes continue to ponder a woman that was never supposed to live. 'I couldn't believe that she was Rukia's sword at first. She was so cruel and lethal where Rukia was scared and lonely. I thought she'd been angry at having such a vessel for her partner, thought she would've been infuriated at her partner's weakness.' Senbonzakura laughs, a mirthless sound without humor, and fixes a burning gaze at him. He thinks she is not nearly as intimidating or regal as Sode no Shirayuki, but he does not tell her that.

Words have always been useless when talking to her after all.

'It was a mistake to say that to her, a careless mistake. I paid for it, dearly too.' She bares her neck to him, slipping the collar of her oriental gown down until he can see the slim outlines of collarbones. But that is not what he is meant to see and he knows it. There, engraved in an elaborate and graceful design, is a twisted scar running through where her jugular vein would be if she were real and human. 'It is a mistake I will never make again.'

There's a sharp clatter as the chopsticks tumble onto the hardwood floor and Rukia doesn't meet his eyes as she picks them up off the ground. "Gomen nasai, Nii-sama. I was careless." The words are carefully practiced and when she finally looks up, he sees her for what she really is: a street rat thrust into the arms of royalty. She feels awkward in front of his presence and the thought is strangely unnerving.

"Try not to do that again." He says back to her, and she flushes red and excuses herself from the table. He is left to stare at the empty chair in front of him and for a moment, just a moment, he feels regret and a twinge of loneliness.

'Is Hisana's memory that precious to you? Are you so angry at her death that you would take it out on her sister?' Crimson-tinged eyes turn to him and he reads fury there, fury and bitterness that has nothing to with him, and everything to do with what he is. She hurls a handful of edged flowers at him and turns away; he pretends not to see her tears. 'You have learned nothing from me, Kuchiki Byakuya. You have learned nothing at all. From now on, you will fight your battles alone.'

It isn't until midday when he is sitting behind his captain's desk filling in paperwork, that he realizes the emptiness within his days and routines. There is no one to chastise him in his head, no flaring temper or barbed words. There is nothing. No soft and cold hands rubbing the aches after a day's worth of hard work, no sad and broken smile looking back at him when he sends a Hell Butterfly bearing the message, "I need to stay late at my office again. Go to sleep."

Byakuya is powerful and as fair and just as a person can be, but he is a mortal man. He is human.

And even great nobles can feel heartache.

It is Winter, but this time, Spring will not come.

Spring will never come again.

-And this is how the story goes-