Celebrate! I turned in my thesis yesterday! It was 100 pages (falls to floor, exhausted).

This is a bit longer than a drabble so I removed the 'drabble' specification. How long IS a drabble anyway? Okay, well, expect the later parts soon...the second is nearly done being written and the rest follows from that.

Thanks for reviewing!

Resolution I

It wasn't so much that she had once loved him, she thought, looking up at the moon. No, there had never been any romantic love in her heart for Aizen. There had only been a blinding sun, risen in her heart, which had cast all her other loves into shadow.

She recalled the night she had awoken, bathed in the rays of the moon. That had been the night the sun had set for her—the night Aizen had dispelled the illusion of love holding her heart.

After that, she had been bereaved, blinded by the loss of the intensity that had once fueled her life. But one day, and almost guiltily, Matsumoto had happened.

'Happened' because Matsumoto was her own phenomenon—almost the opposite of Momo's shy girlishness, Rangiku was loud, flirtatious, and not only wore her heart on her sleeve, she then went around shoving this metaphorical sleeve—along with her copious breasts—into whoever's face was closest. Just in case she had not driven the point home.

Momo had not been allowed to do very much in the war, and it was over rather quickly. She shut her ears whenever she heard rumors or reports about Aizen's capture, his upcoming execution, the fate of others in Hueco Mundo and Karakura Town—both enemies and friends.

All of a sudden, everything was closing up, being resolved, and there was no more war to fight, only the formal coup de grace that would destroy Aizen for good. It was only then that Matsumoto had (as Momo had later learned) approached her Taicho clad in the emotional sleeve most commonly known as Matsumoto's Wrath of God, or, Major PMS.

Thankfully this particular mindset rarely manifested, much more rarely than the once a month that Matsumoto happened to loudly 'be a woman' in order to provoke Hitsugaya to new heights of icy rage, a task which she saw not so much as suicidal on her part, but rather as a sick sort of sport.

Hitsugaya, for his part, knew something was wrong when he had come into his own division—early as usual—to find Matsumoto sitting at his desk, finalizing a stack of paperwork he had anticipated would take her approximately thirty-five times longer to complete. "Matsu—"

It was at that moment that Rangiku looked up. Someone had set a bonfire in her silvery eyes and they glistened with a peculiar moonlit rage. "Taicho," she said, sounding more like his wrathful grade school teacher than his trusted subordinate, "don't you care about Hinamori-fukutaicho?"

"What kind of a question is that, Matsumoto?" Clearly a ridiculous one. Hitsugaya crossed his arms. "She's been my best friend since—"

Wrong. Very wrong. Matsumoto stood, using her height against him. At that moment he sincerely wished to be back in Hueco Mundo fighting all ten Espada at once; his own single combat with the Cuatra Espada took on a hazy nostalgia in his memories. "THEN WHY ARE YOU IGNORING HER?"

"Meep," said Hitsugaya, pouring sweatdrops.

Matsumoto took that as permission to continue. "YOU CLAIM YOU CARE, BUT YOU'VE ABANDONED HER AT THE TIME WHEN SHE NEEDS HER FRIENDS THE MOST. UNOHANA-TAICHO CONTACTED ME, ME! BECAUSE SHE WAS WORRIED ABOUT HINAMORI'S RECOVERY AND SHE DIDN'T THINK YOU CARED!!"

Hitsugaya, filled with remorse, let one tear fall. It froze before it could reach the ground. "I-I don't…Matsu, she's just not…I can't help her!" The temperature dropped slightly, hopefully cooling off his fukutaicho's ire. "I went by a few times…but…Momo-chan…she's not like she used to be, and I can't wield Hyorinmaru and slice it all away and…"

"I'm sorry, Hitsugaya," said slightly more normal Matsumoto. With a sad smile she rushed over to him from behind the desk and scooped him up in a big, suffocating, hug. For once he didn't mind, since it meant that Wrathful Angry Matsumoto had gone away for the time being. "I was just so angry, I mean, I should have thought about how it was hard for you to…you know…"

Putting him down so he could breathe again, she continued, "Well, Hitsugaya-taicho, I don't know Hinamori-san as well as you do, but I think that this is a job for both of us, right? Why don't we go together and we'll make her all better, I promise!"

Hitsugaya, looking into her sincere eyes, soft as moonbeams, fell a little more in love with his fukutaicho in that instant. He hadn't known that Matsumoto could be so nurturing, so concerned, for the sake of someone she knew very little, but knew he cared about. "Thank you so much," he whispered, taking her hand in his. "Shall we go?"