A/N: sorry it took me so long to update, guys. I know I deserve whatever complaints you have after leaving u like this for so long. Its been, like, wut, a month since my last update…? …less than a month. I just checked. It was about three weeks.

But anyways, sorry bout that. Wut with school, a funeral a four-hour drive from where I live, multiple activities, about five different projects my teachers suddenly decided to pile on at the same time after weeks of basically no homework, and most of all, a definite lack of inspiration, it was really hard for me to get anything written. But now that things are a little less exciting (or hectic, if im gonna be honest about it.) ive managed to grind out yet another chapter. and since it took me so long I wrote two thousand eight hundred seventy words. Yay me. I should reward myself with some cookies…I'll go get 'em now…so read on! **emits sounds of munching**

Frozen Like Ice

Chapter 3: Major, And Not So Major, Screw-Ups

Two months after Gin's death, mid-afternoon in the Urahara Store…

"Jinta! Reiatsu and scrolls! Now!"

"Uh, sir, there aren't any left…"

"What? Whaddaya mean there aren't any left? Kisuke, you were supposed to have made enough first to sixth level sealing scrolls since our first experiments to keep us going for a year, weren't you? How come this kid's saying we're all used up?"

"Well, uh, heh heh. I was…uh…working on it, Yoruichi, but…I was really busy, and – "

"Oh jesus, you have got to kidding me. Why is it you men are so frickin' lazy? It drives me insane! I mean, how long could it have taken for you to combine the three simplest Kido elements into a bunch of shitty little SHEETS OF PAPER? A baby could've done it in a day! A baby Hollow could've done it in a day! A baby Hollow with ABSOLUTELY NO SPIRITUAL PRESSURE could've done it in a day! Hell, even Ichigo could do it in a week or so, although he'd probably blow the whole house up with his badass reiatsu at the same time. And you're actually trying to tell me that you were TOO GODDAMN BUSY?"

"Now, now, just calm down, Yoruichi. It's only – "

"Calm down? CALM DOWN? You did not seriously just tell me to CALM DOWN, did you?"

"Well…uh…no, not exactly, but – "

"Don't interrupt me, you useless piece of shit! Don't you get that what we've discovered could put the whole frickin' Soul Society at risk here? Not to mention the entire human world? And your OWN GODDAMN LAZY-ASSED SELF? You do realize that if Aizen's really alive, the first guy he's gonna go after is the one who has almost ruined all his plans, multiple times? Ending with almost killing him?"

"Uh…Yoruichi…"

"You think he's just gonna leave you alone after that? Like he's just gonna say, 'Oh, It's all right, my dear Kisuke, I'm not going to brutally murder you. I mean, all you've done is foil my plans over and over again, causing me major headaches and a lot of loose ends to tie up, not to mention the fact that most recently, you shot a bunch of Kido spells into my body and BLEW ME UP, but that's okay, I don't care, I like having people destroy my evil plans and make attempts at my life!'"

"Yoi-ru-i-chiiiii…"

"…I'm so grateful to you for trying so hard to kill me. Why don't I make you my Minor God or Vice-God or High Minion or something and we can have sleepovers in Hueco Mundo on weekends when we're off god-duty, and I can treat you to my favorite brand of sake and extra rare shinigami flesh!'"

"…Yoruichi?"

"What?"

"Um, are you done yelling? Because I just thought you should know…"

"Know what, Kisuke?"

"…Ururu's fainted."

"..."

Two months after Gin's death, late afternoon in Seireitei…

It was late in the afternoon as Rangiku Matsumoto walked through the maze-like streets of Seireitei. She found herself wandering aimlessly around like this more and more these days. A few well-aimed Flash Steps and she was out the door of Tenth Division's barracks and in the street, away from Toshirou's nagging and the panicked chaos of Tenth Division's less intelligent Shinigami, who seemed to think the Vice-Captain's duty included fixing whatever mess the rest of them had managed to create, going off in a random direction that somehow always ended up taking her back to some place that held a memory of Gin.

She wondered if it was her subconsciousness guiding her, or if there were just so many places that reminded her of him that it was inevitable that she came to one eventually. She was so different nowadays, spending her time alone, walking silently through Seireitei, taking in the world she had lived in for over two centuries, but that she might not have truly appreciated until now, when it seemed too late.

Gin's death had changed her a lot. She actually stopped to think about things now, rationally, instead of just forging ahead, leading the way one some crazy scheme, then laughing it off if her plan failed, and immediately suggesting something else that sounded like fun.

She didn't have fun anymore. With Gin dead, she didn't have the energy or the attitude to flirt and tease and play around like she used to, acting like she didn't have a single care in the world.

'Course, she was only acting even then; it wasn't like she was totally happy and carefree before either. But now, the pain was too deep for her even to pretend. She had become quiet and solitary, or at least quiet and solitary in comparison to how she was before. Still, now she actually thought about things. Horribly deep things like the world and the meaning of life and doing stuff 'for the good of Soul Society'.

Ugh, she was getting like Hitsugaya. It was awful. Before she knew it she'd have turned into some creepy old hag who owned fifteen cats and drank nothing but carrot juice. Well, not that Hitsugaya was actually a creepy old hag with fifteen cats who drank carrot juice (the hag, not the cats), but he was just so damn mature sometimes. Way too mature than he should be, Shinigami Captain or not.

How was it even possible for someone to look ten and have a middle-age man's mentality? And she was getting like that? Rangiku felt depressed just thinking about it.

Three months after Gin's death, mid-morning in Tenth Division Captain Hitsugaya Toshirou's office…

Hitsugaya stood at the window and watched as Rangiku's curvy figure, clad in her unmistakable Shinigami robes with her signature hot pink lining, receded into the distance, until she was just a shadowy blur walking along the shingled roofs of the buildings on the main street of Seireitei. He sighed and turned back to the ever-increasing piles of paper on his desk, some of which should have been on Rangiku's desk, had she had a desk, which she didn't, because it had gotten broken in a fight a while back when she had a drinking party in her office.

He had sensed it when she left the barracks, felt the increase in reiatsu when she used flash steps, but he hadn't had the heart to stop her. He'd make her regret it later when she came back, and make sure she did her work, but for now he'd let her have a little break. She needed it. They all needed it.

Hitsugaya wondered how long they could go on like this. There had already been rumors and mutterings among the Tenth Division about how the Vice Captain wasn't fit to lead anymore, rumors that had been greatly encouraged by the Third Seat Yashin Tekina. And although most of the squad loved Rangiku and stayed loyal to her, even they would start to complain eventually.

He remembered the Hell Butterfly he had gotten from Urahara a few months ago, telling that the impossible might just be possible. He hadn't believed it at first, until he'd gotten the research data and the five-page long simplified theories. Then he'd had no choice to believe it, much as he hated to.

And now, he almost hoped that Urahara was right, because he hated to see Rangiku like this. Much as her old perky, sassy self had annoyed him, Tenth Division wasn't the same without her lively presence. They could've done with her antics at a time like this.

Hitsugaya sat down and leaned back in this chair, then opened a pack of cigarettes and lit one deliberately. He had taken to smoking a few months ago, because it helped to distract him from everything when he just couldn't take it anymore. Hinamori, paperwork, Rangiku, paperwork, leftover mobs from Aizen's army, and paperwork were some of his problems.

Hitsugaya picked up his pen and went back to signing papers, trying to get through them as quickly as possible. If he got any more overloaded, he thought, he might have to resort to Renji's solution of getting his zanpakuto to do the work. He tried to blow a smoke ring but it came out as more of a smoke blob, which did nothing to improve his already bad mood.

Hitsugaya had gotten to his sixty-eighth paper when he heard a weird rustling noise behind him. Weird rustling noises are never good. He put a hand on Hyourinmaru and whirled around. Unfortunately he'd forgotten that he was sitting in a spinney-chair, so when he whirled around the chair kept whirling a few times before it stopped with Hitsugaya in it, physically unharmed but with a good chunk taken out of his dignity.

He grunted and got quickly off the chair, in case it decided to do anything else to make him look like an idiot in front of the potential weird rustling enemy, then realized that there was no enemy to speak of, or anybody else. But the rustling still continued. Hitsugaya looked around his office and finally identified the source of the noise. A Hell Butterfly.

Hitsugaya let go of Hyourinmaru and put his hand out to the butterfly. It flew slowly over to him and landed on his palm, then relayed its prerecorded message. A single short sentence, in the voice of Urahara Kisuke:

"We've got a breakthrough."

Three months after Gin's death, midday in the outskirts of Seireitei…

In a story, after someone's died, there's always another person who's still alive, worrying about how they're going to forget about the guy who's dead. Forget what they looked like, forget what they sounded like, forget all the little quirks and distinctions that made them who they were.

It was so typical that filmmakers and writers would come up with such stupid, idiotic, unreal ideas. How ironic that they would talk about people who were afraid of forgetting, when Rangiku Matsumoto knew there was no way in hell that she could forget about Ichimaru Gin. And she almost wished she could forget, with the pain the remembering was causing.

It was three months since he had been killed, and she still remembered everything. Every little detail of the very first time she had seen him, to that last moment when he died. And along with each detail, every emotion that came with those moments. His memories were branded into her heart with burning ice. Burning ice like the color of his eyes. His beautiful eyes. Those eyes that were so hard to read for everyone but her.

She had always been best at telling what Gin was thinking. It was almost impossible not to, she knew him so well. Or at least, she knew him – had known him – better than anyone else had. He had always been mysterious and closed-in, but when they were alone together, he opened up a part of him to her. He told her that she was what kept him from ever forgetting who he was. She was his anchor.

She'd never told him, but Gin had been an anchor for her, too. His mere existence was what held her back even when she was dead drunk. He was what kept her from crossing the line, from going too far, from being too reckless, even when he wasn't there. She was so filled with memories of him that he didn't have to be there for her to feel his presence.

And she knew now with an unwavering certainty that those memories were never going to fade or drift away. It wasn't a promise; it was the honest, unquestionable, undefeatable truth. She couldn't forget anything about him.

Maybe, she thought as she walked through a swirl of petals in the cherry orchard where Gin used to take her to watch the sunrise, maybe it was because of the way he had been even while he was alive. How he was always leaving without warning for months on end, and when he came back he would never tell her where he had gone.

Maybe it was because she always saw so little of him that, when she did see him, she would treasure and store away every single memory of when they were together, knowing that soon he would disappear again, leaving her with nothing but a shadow, just a painful reminder of his absence.

There was always that unspoken understanding between them that, although he was here with her now, he wasn't here to stay. She was reluctant on her part, and she liked to think that Gin was too, but he had always had that thirst for adventure, that need to keep moving on, never staying for too long in one place.

To Rangiku, their little street in Seireitei had been her home. To Gin, it was more of a – well, honestly, she didn't what Seireitei meant to him anymore. Or had meant to him anyway. He wasn't alive to have anything be meaningful to him now.

Rangiku stood there in the rain of pink and white blossoms as they slowly scattered on the ground like teardrops, and wondered if she would ever feel whole again.

Me: Hell yeah! TWO THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED SEVENTY words ppl! TEN FREAKING PAGES! Most I've ever written for a fanfic! Yay, Love me! I'm so totally awesome! So totally amazing!

Sheah: So totally self-centered…

Me: …did you say something, Sheah? *evil glint in my eye*

Sheah: Wait, wait… *moves over to other side of room and puts the bed between us* …yes, I said you're so totally self-centered.

Me: …bitch. You're in no position to judge.

Sheah: …touché. But I resent being called a bitch.

Me: I'll admit that I'm a bitch, too. Is that okay?

Sheah: Oh, okay then. So long as you're a bitch too.

Me: …there's something very wrong with your logic. But wutevs, so long as you're satisfied with it.

Sheah: Yeah, to each his own. Or her own. My logic and your fanfics.

Me: Exactly. And even you gotta admit this chapter was good. Given, there was a little too much Rangiku-rambling-on-about-Gin, but the other parts made up for it. Hitsugaya with a ciggie, trying to blow smoke rings, lmao! That was great. Vicki gave me the ciggie idea and I just had to put in, the image was so hilarious. (I owe you, Vicks!)

Sheah: Hey, hey, what about me? I helped too, didn't I?

Me: …true. You were good with the angsty parts with Rangiku. But it was mostly Vicki with the ciggie and Lilith (Kawaii-tan), who gave me the idea for the whole Yoruichi-yelling-at-Kisuke dialogue. (btw thanks Lilith!)

Sheah: Yeah, yeah, but I was still the best, right?

Me: …uh, hate to break it to ya, Sheah, but –

Vicki: *materializes outta nowhere, holding a marshmallow*: BUT YOU SUCKED ASS!

Sheah: *seriously pissed* Excuse me? Who the hell asked you? Get outta here, Vicky, you weren't even invited! And why the f to you have a marshmallow?

Vicki: IT'S VICKI YOU GODDAMN IDIOT! I CHANGED THE SPELLING LIKE A MONTH AGO AND YOU STILL DON'T REMEMBER? AND WHAT, YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH MARSHMALLOWS? YOU WANNA TAKE IT OUTSIDE?

Me: …Vicks, is there a particular reason why you had to do all your talking in caps?

Vicki: No, no reason. Just felt like it.

Me: Oh, okay then. Just wondered.

Sheah: YOU'RE BOTH ACTING LIKE WE'RE HAVING A COMPLETELY NORMAL CONVERSATION WHEN WE'RE TOTALLY NOT! AND DON'T IGNORE WHAT I SAY!

Me: Sheah, now you're talking in caps.

Vicki: Yeah, Sheah, stop copying me.

Sheah: NO! STOP IGNORING WHAT I SAY! I HATE ALL OF YOU…!

Me: Aww, poor Sheah…why are you still talking in caps?

Sheah: AAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!

Me and Vicki: *collapse in laughter and high five each other*

Sheah: *muffled sobs*

Me and Vicki: Sorry, Sheah, you're just way too easy to wind up. Forgive us?

Sheah: Fine. If you get 15 faves and comments in the next month for this chapter I'll forgive u. Otherwise you're screwed.

Me: Owch. Sheah's pretty harsh. So help me out guys! I don't want her mad at me forever! GIMME SOME FAVES, PLZ?

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