Before we continue with the tale of the ingenue and the composer, we must first cut away to the other players in this production. We must look in on their stories to better flesh out the events of this one.

xxXXxx

Ichigo and Rukia stumbled in through the front door of his family's town house. Aside from the moving men they hadn't had time to hire any staff yet, Isshin had taken Karin and Yuzu to the gala dinner the police department were having tonight, so the two young lovers were alone in the house.

They'd managed to drain a bottle of champagne at dinner, so it would be a while before either of them came down from the high of a good night out. Ichigo spun Rukia under his arm and then proceeded to swing the two of them around the entry hall like they were ball room dancing. Rukia giggled uncontrollably as her feet clumsily kept up with Ichigo's tomfoolery.

"Fool, what are you doing?" She hiccuped.

Ichigo twirled her in close to him, and then dipped her backwards because they were doing the tango now apparently, "You're drunk enough that you can just about put one foot in front of the other, this is my one chance to be a better dancer than you, give me a break." The red head tried for his usual scowl but his speech was so slurred that he could hardly get away with calling Rukia drunk. "Well, maybe not 'better' but I'd say we're at least on equal footing."

Rukia burst out into raucous laughter, going limp in his arms and dragging them both down onto the floor. In his drunken state Ichigo found this inexplicably hilarious and the two lay there on the cool marble floor, laughing their lungs out. The hands that had been joined together since they left the restaurant lay in between their bodies, one still gripping onto the other just as tightly as you would hold onto something precious. Once they both calmed down enough that they could breath in a relatively smooth manner, Ichigo pulled their joined hand up closer to his face so that he could inspect the way their fingers interlocked. Maybe it was the angel but even though one hand was small and smooth with short fingers, and the other was larger, rough skinned from years of fencing practice and with long broad digits, he couldn't quite tell where the two hands met and ended.

"I'm so tired." Rukia giggled, her voice much quieter now.

Ichigo raised his eyes to look at Rukia lying on the floor next to him, she looked tired, her petite frame was stretching out on the floor trying to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in, like a cat.

Crawling onto his knees Ichigo pulled Rukia off her back and hiked her up until her stomach was resting on the line of his shoulder.

"Ichigo what are you doing?" Rukia protested, as much as she could when she was still clinging onto the back of his jacket as he carried her up the stairs.

"We can't fall asleep on the floor Rukia, or more like I can't let you fall asleep on the floor, my family would kill me."

A few more fumbling steps and a near fall down the stairs later, Rukia and Ichigo collapsed onto his bed. They didn't bother pulling the blankets out from where they were tucked in, but they'd spent many happy nights like that, Ichigo sinking his frame into the mattress and Rukia pillowing her head on his chest, their hands still intertwined. Rukia was the first to fall asleep but Ichigo was not far behind, and as his mind faded to sleep he absently wondered how different their hands would feel with rings on their fingers.

xxXXxx

Urahara and Aizen clinked their sherry glasses as they sat in front of the fire place in their office. While the rest of the company would spent this night and a good portion of the next morning celebrating and relaxing. For them however they would only be allowed this one celebratory glass before they returned to work.

"Well, you have to admit Sosuke, that went much better than you expected." Urahara chuckled.

Aizen simply sipped on his drink before making his reply, "I remain under the firm belief that nothing yet exists that can surpass my expectations. But I concede that Miss Inoue did a commendable job, especially given her lack of experience."

Urahara pulled his fan from his waistcoat and fanned at his face while he laughed some more at his partners mannerisms, for as long as he'd known Aizen the man had always kept up this facade that he didn't really feel anything, it was borderline adorable.

"We haven't gone over the books yet but if the audience was anything to go by tonight was a smash. And so it's time to turn our eyes to the future," Urahara punctuated his sentence with the movements of his fan, "what shall our next opera be?"

It may still technically be opening night but in this business you had to think a hundred steps ahead if you wanted to stay on top.

"We have another matter that requires our attention first." Aizen replied, setting his glass down on his side table.

"Oh?"

"We need to find a way to swoon Cirruci Sanderwicci back into the our company."

Urahara scrunched his eyebrows together, "We do? It seems to me that miss Inoue has taken to the role of leading lady quite well, and miss Sanderwicci made it clear under no uncertain terms that she had no intention of returning until we cleared up our little 'ghost problem'."

Aizen scoffed unkindly at the reference to the phantom, to think so many people could buy into such nonsense. But another part of his mind thought that there might be something about the whole affair that might warrant some consideration.

"Miss Inoue was pleasing tonight, I won't deny that, however new talent like her can just as easily be a flash in the pan as a rising star, and for the run of our first opera at least, we needed to secure a reputation amongst the theater goers, and the best way to do that is to use the established popularity of a familiar face. And Cirruci has been a leading lady for five seasons, she's sure to have her own fan base that she can bring in."

Urahara hummed in consideration, he ran over each person and aspect of the opera house that this decision would effect. As always Aizen made a good point, but his partner had a tendency to forget that these were actual people he was talking about. But in this case...

"You might have something there Aizen." Urahara admitted, he took a swig from his sherry glass and held it out to his partner in buisness. "I'll write miss Sanderwicci a letter in the morning, we'll get the gears turning."

Aizen picked his glass up from his side table and toasted Urahara to their agreement.

xxXXxx

In a cavern deep beneath the ground, a figure unknown to the aforementioned players, was busying himself writing letters.