Ichigo x someone, Masaki and Isshin in the background

See-Saw

"C'mon sweetheart, come here!"

She lifted him up, and sat him down on a seat. She sat down on the other side, and Ichigo rose into the air, laughing.

"Mum! This is so fun!"

She smiled at him as he laughed, waving his arms in the air.

He stood in the empty playground as dusk fell on the park that had once been his favourite place in the whole world, although the world had been a much smaller place to him, then. She had been a wonderful mother, he knew, the best he could have had, even if it were only for a short time.

He wondered if he would take his baby here, when it was old enough.

He did not know if he would make a good father, but he hoped he would be half the parent he remembered his mother being. And too, his father, because even though he was an idiot, he had been a rock in those terrible months after Masaki had died.

The thought of the tiny thing growing inside of her terrified him to his core, but he had been scared before.

He turned his back on the fading voices of his childhood and walked towards the entrance, where he could make out, even from this distance, the shape of a woman, hand on the large bump at her front.

Now was time for the future.