Please remember that for this story I made the assumption that all souls keep their memories. The story doesn't work otherwise.

It was freezing. The wind was howling and the rain came down in icy sheets, drenching him to the bone. But he was oblivious to the storm and the cold. He was focused on one thing. A girl, in the river, drowning.

"Onii-chan!" she sputtered, gasping desperately for air. "Help…" but she didn't finish whatever it was she was trying to say because at that moment, a wave rushed over her, pushing her under the surface. He dove in after her, not bothering to even remove his shoes. He searched for her, but it was so dark, he couldn't see anything. And then, finally, there she was. Floating eerily in the water, arms outstretched like a voodoo doll, with a trail of bubbles rising slowly from her mouth. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kicked hard, trying desperately to get to the surface. But he couldn't swim and her dead weight wasn't helping. He thrashed wildly, pushing with all his might, but he just couldn't break the surface. His lungs were burning. His legs were aching. Darkness slowly closed in around him until he couldn't see anymore.

"Haruka!" he screamed into the water.

Hitsugaya awoke drenched in cold sweat. It was a dream. Only a dream. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his breathing, listening to his heart pound against his chest. He knew he wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep. He never could, not after that dream.

Deciding that the dullness of paperwork might help calm his nerves, he got dressed and headed towards the office.

oooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Where is it!?" Karin cried in frustration. "I know I put it in my pocket!" Karin had waited eagerly for Yuzu to return home, wanting to give her the letter from Hanataro as soon as possible, but for some reason, when she reached into her pocket, it was gone. She had made up some dumb excuse to Yuzu and ran off to find it. Karin looked everywhere, tearing her room apart in the process. If she had just read the stupid thing, she could have passed on the message verbally, but no, she had to respect her sister's privacy.

"Idiot!" she thought angrily, "I know exactly what it says!" But she didn't really, although she had a general idea. But, if she was wrong, she didn't want to embarrass Hanataro any more than necessary. The poor boy was so fragile as it was.

"Think Karin!" she scolded herself. "Think!" And then it hit her: the office! When she had fallen off the desk in Hitsugaya's office and crawled around on the floor for an hour. That had to be when it fell out. She raced out of her room and into the night.

Karin didn't meet anyone on her way. She wasn't expecting to, it was really late. She had spent hours checking and double checking every nook and cranny in her room, which wasn't particularly neat to begin with. She let herself into the 10th squad office and scanned the room. Nothing, not even a single piece of paper on the floor. Karin sighed. Maybe she was wrong after all. But then where the heck was it?

Karin head footsteps coming down the hall and froze.

"Who on earth is wandering around at this time of night?" she wondered. But whoever it was, she didn't think she should be caught snooping around someone else's office. She looked around desperately and saw a closet in the corner. Perfect! She climbed inside and suppressed her reiatsu, shutting the door just as the office door slid open.

From the slit between the closet doors, Karin could see a captain's haori and a shock of white hair.

"Toushiro?" she wondered. "Is he really working this late at night? Damn, now I'm stuck here!" Actually, Karin knew Hitsugaya wouldn't really mind catching her in the office, but if she walked out of the closet now like it was perfectly natural, she might arouse some suspicion that she wasn't willing to deal with. So she decided to wait it out.

Hitsugaya was indeed working. Karin could smell the ink and hear the gentle motion of his brush against paper. She leaned back against the closet wall, wondering vaguely if she should fall asleep, when she heard more footsteps and loud voices in the hall. Hitsugaya groaned audibly and Karin suppressed a laugh.

The door slid open and the smell of sake filled even Karin's secluded closet.

"Wait, wait right there!" Matsumoto called to her drinking buddies. "Don't you dare move! Just let me get my…" she stopped when she saw Hitsugaya.

"Taicho!" she cried in surprise, stumbling over to his desk and leaning so far forward on it that her "assets" were in danger of falling out of her shirt. "What are you doing here so late?" Hitsugaya didn't have to respond. Matsumoto saw the look in his eyes and sobered up immediately.

"Sorry fellows," she said, sticking her head out the door. "I'm staying here." And she slammed the door in their faces before they could protest. She sighed deeply and turned back towards Hitsugaya. All traces of her irresponsible rowdiness had vanished to be replaced almost instantly by concern and understanding.

"So taicho," she said sympathetically. "You had that dream again, didn't you?"

"Yes," Hitsugaya admitted. Matsumoto and Hinamori were the only people who knew about his dream. Hinamori had known for ages, ever since they were children, and Matsumoto had pried it out of him one night when she found him sitting on the roof on the verge of tears.

"You've got to forget about her taicho," Matsumoto said, the hurt apparent in her voice. "It's not healthy to dwell on the past like this." Hitsugaya sighed.

"I know. But I just can't."

"Taicho…"

"I love her so much Matsumoto!" Hitsugaya said painfully. "How can I just forget her?"

"You know it's for the best taicho," she said motherly. "For you, and for Haruka." Hitsugaya lowered his gaze.

"I just…I just wish I could find her" he said, his voice catching in his throat. "Tell her…tell her I'm sorry…"

"I know taicho," Matsumoto said soothingly, coming over to him and wrapping her arms around him. "I know." They stood there for a while, Matsumoto rocking him gently. Finally they broke apart. Hitsugaya shook his head to try to compose himself, then said,

"I'm going to bed now." Matsumoto nodded. She looked at his receding back longingly, then followed him out.

It took Karin a while to realize that they were gone. She stumbled out of the closet. Her legs didn't seem to be working properly.

"Toushiro's in love?" she asked aloud, and the words stung her straight to the heart. She felt an animosity she had never imagined possible growing towards this Haruka girl.

Until that moment, Karin had never fully appreciated what Hitsugaya really meant to her. She had always taken him for granted. He was always just there, just hers, her best friend and the person she cared about the most. But as jealousy filled her heart, she realized the true nature of her feelings towards him. She was in love with Hitsugaya Toushiro. As she thought it, it stuck her that she had known it for years, but was too blind and stubborn to admit it. He had always been there for her when she needed him, helping her out, supporting her, putting up with her rants and her teasing. She had suspected that he might like her as more than friend, but she had ignored his affections because she didn't want to return them. But now, with this new discovery, she understood the truth.

"I love him," she admitted with a painful heart. "But he's not mine and never has been. I feel like I've lost something that I never actually had." A tear, the first in a very long time, rolled slowly down her face.

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

The next morning, Hitsugaya was feeling somewhat better. He got out of bed and glanced out his window at the early morning sky. When he first came to Soul Society, he used to dream about Haruka all the time. But the dreams had become less frequent as time passed. Matsumoto said they were perfectly normal, everyone thinks about their family and friends for the first hundred years or so, but they get over it eventually. But Hitsugaya was having trouble letting go of his sister. She had been his constant companion in life, and the fact that he hadn't been able to save her that night still haunted him. He knew Matsumoto was right, that he should forget her and move on. It was so rare to be reunited with people in Soul Society. But that didn't stop him from trying. He and Hinamori used to search for their families together during their Rukongai days, but Hinamori had outgrown it long before he had. He still kept his eyes and ears open for any sign of his long lost sister, but so far, he hadn't had even a hint of her whereabouts.

He sighed, then decided he had better get to the office. As an unspoken rule, Matsumoto always took the morning after one of his dreams off. Not that she really needed the excuse, but Hitsugaya actually appreciated the time to be alone and regain his dignity after the night's events.

A mountain of paperwork greeted him, but he was far too used to the sight to care. He decided that this morning he would tackle the stack that Karin had knocked over the day before. It would take more time than the others, considering the fact that it was completely out of order.

He was halfway through the pile when he picked up something unusual. It was an ordinary piece of paper written on standard 4th squad stationary, but it was highly wrinkled, like someone had been manhandling it.

Hitsugaya looked down at it and frowned. It wasn't a form or a memo. It looked more like a letter. And it was extremely short. He started to read and realized immediately that it wasn't addressed to him. It was addressed to Kurosaki-san.

"Kurosaki-san?" he thought confused. "How did this get in my pile?" Karin must have dropped it, he realized. It had probably fallen out of her pocket when she fell and had been picked up and put on the stack with all the other papers on the floor. He was about to fold it up to give to her later, when a single word caught his eye, and he found himself reading the letter in spite of himself. It simply said,

"Kurosaki-san, I think you are the most wonderful woman in the world. Will you be my girlfriend? Hanataro."

"What?!" Hitsugaya said in a strangled voice. Jealousy, waves of sour jealousy washed over the normally stoic and emotionless taicho as he read the words over and over. He knew that Hanataro was Karin's sempai, but he hadn't thought that there was anything more than that between them. Karin had never spoken about him with anything resembling affection, but then, affection wasn't exactly Karin's style. But if Hitsugaya knew anything about Hanataro, it was that he was inordinately shy and unconfident. He would never ask out a girl unless he was certain of her response. He wouldn't risk that kind of emotional defeat.

"Why should I care?" he reprimanded himself. "Why should it matter that Karin's found someone?" But it did matter. As much as Hitsugaya tried to avoid it, deny it, pretend it wasn't there, it was. His feelings for Karin ran deep, deeper than they ever had for anyone else. He just wasn't himself around her and he knew it. Well, actually, he was more himself around her, which bothered him even more. He was kinder and gentler to her than he even was to Hinamori, yet he could also fight against her using his bankai and know that she would thank him for it. Every time he saw her, he got a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach and his frosty exterior began to melt, leaving him flustered and nervous. He was much more apt to let his emotions show when he was with her. She meant everything to him, but he refused to admit his true feelings, even to himself. But sitting there, staring at that letter, and picturing Karin in arms of someone else, his heart filled up with a strange combination of hatred and grief.

"I love her," he said aloud, and hearing the words come out of his own mouth made them more real than he could ever have imagined. "But she's not mine and never has been. I feel like I've lost something that I never actually had."

Note: Haruka's name means "Scent of Spring," which I thought matched well with Toushiro, which means "White Winter." Oh, and just in case you still don't get it, Haruka is Hitsugaya's sister, but Karin doesn't know that.