Back at the Four Seasons, Momo signed her bill, turned to Keigo, who tipped the Bellman, and said, "All set then. Where's Rei?"
"I just called, she's on her way down.," Keigo said.
Toushirou and Rangiku joined them. Everyone's spirits were low.
"Okay, so I'll, uh... send Yuki back to you over Christmas," Toushirou said.
"And I'll see that Rei spends Easter with you," Momo said.
The elevator opened and Yuki and Rei stepped off. Both were dressed in identical t-shirts and jeans. Both had white hair and silver contacts. It was impossible to tell them apart.
Toushirou pointed to Rei. "This one's Yuki, I'm positive."
The real Yuki grinned and said, "I hope you're right, Dad. You wouldn't want to send the wrong kid all the way back to Karakura Town."
Toushirou looked to Momo. He couldn't be sure.
"Here's our proposition. We go back to Division 10, pack our stuff, and the four of us leave on the camping trip," Rei said.
"The four of us!" Momo exclaimed.
"And when you bring us back, we'll tell you who's Yuki and who's Rei," Rei said.
"Or...You do as we say and I take one of you back with me to Soul Society whether you like or not," Toushirou said.
The four went back to the Soul Society. Four sleeping bags were tossed into the trunk of Toushirou's Suburban (Yes they have cars in Soul Society now! Well, just for the sake of this story). Toushirou threw in the final bag as Sora watched, wearing her short and tight shihakusho and sunglasses.
"What am I supposed to do for three days? Sit home and knit?" Sora asked her soon to-be-fiance.
Momo exited the barracks looking very Out of Africa, carrying a backpack.
"Excuse me, what is she doing here?" Sora asked, jealousy seeping into her voice.
"That was the deal - the four of us go together," Toushirou said.
"What are you suddenly, the Brady Bunch? This is ridic-" Sora was cut off.
"Hi, Sora. Everything okay?" Momo asked.
"Well, no, as a matter of fact, it isn't. I didn't realize you were going on this little outing and to tell you the truth, I'm not so sure I am okay with it." In reality, she was definitely NOT okay with this.
"I agree. The ex-wife in the next sleeping bag is a little weird..." Momo said.
"Thank you."
"I insist you come with us, really," Momo said.
Sora stopped cold.
"Hina ..." Toushirou started to say.
"Toushirou, I messed-up up your entire weekend, it's the least I can do to pay you back."
A few minutes later, Rei and Yuki exited with Rangiku. As the kids climbed into the car, they noticed Momo and Sora come out of the house. Sora was now dressed in tight black work-out gear.
"Dad, what's Sora doing here?" Yuki asked.
Toushirou got behind the wheel. "Your mother invited her. Be nice."
The girls looked at each other, then to Rangiku, as Sora smiled and climbed into the front seat.
Momo closed the door. "Okay. Have fun everybody."
"Hinamori, what are you doing?" Toushirou asked.
"I really think you and Sora need time alone before the big day."
"Mom! Come on, that's not the plan," Rei protested.
"Honestly, you'll have much more fun without me."
"Look, if you're not going... I don't have to go... Trust me, I'm not exactly a big nature girl," Sora said.
"But this'll be your chance to really get to know the girls. Starting next week, they're half yours," Momo said with a twinkle in her eye.
Toushirou caught Momo's eye. She blew him a kiss.
"Have fun yall'!"
As the car pulled off, Rangiku turned to Momo.
"I would pay to see that woman climb a mountain."
At the mountains, Yuki and Rei were climbing a steep hill, wearing backpacks and baseball caps. They were followed by Sora, puffing and perspiring, dabbing sunscreen on her nose as she tried to keep her balance. Toushirou brought up the rear. Sora plopped down on a rock, trying to catch her breath.
"I'm gonna kill my trainer... He says I'm in such great shape..." Sora said rubbing her legs. "I can't believe people actually do this for fun."
"Girls, hold on, we're stopping!" Toushirou called.
"Again? Dad, at this rate, it'll take three days just to get up the mountain," Yuki protested.
"Sora isn't used to the altitude... Just chill, okay?"
Behind Toushirou and Sora, Rei slipped large rocks into Sora's Prada Backpack.
"Somebody hand me my Evian... I can't move," Sora said.
Rei spotted a small lizard. She grabbed it and placed it on top of Sora's water bottle.
"Here you go, Sora."
Sora took the bottle, lifts it to her mouth and found herself eye-to-eye with the lizard. She screamed, tossing the Evian bottle in the air, losing her balance and slipping off the rock.
"Honey, you okay?" Toushrirou asked.
Rei caught the lizard. "This little guy was on her Evian bottle, I guess. He won't hurt you, Sora."
Sora screamed again. "Get it away from me! I hate things that crawl. It's disgusting... It's a lizard, it should be a belt. Ugh, how can you touch it? Put it down!"
"Okay." Rei pouted.
Rei walked behind Sora and gently deposited the Lizard right on top of Sora's head.
"Why don't I take the lead, you two help Sora," Toushirou said.
Toushirou moved off. Sora rose, still not knowing the Lizard sat on top of her head.
"Sure, you're going to help me... right over a cliff, you'll help me."
"Not a bad idea. See any cliffs?" Yuki whispered to Rei.
Sora groaned as she lifted her much heavier backpack.
"Need a hand?" Rei asked.
"Not from you, thank you. Don't think I can't see right past those angelic faces. One more trick from you two and I promise I'll make your lives miserable from the day I say 'I do'. Got it?"
"Got it, Cruella," Yuki inwardly smirked.
Sora slowly turned around. "What'd you call me?"
"Nothing. Not a thing..." She lowered her voice. "Cruella." She turned back around and added, "Oh, Sora... I think there's something on your head..."
The girls walked ahead. Sora reached up and felt her hair, then her hand landed on the lizard. She let out a blood-curdling scream and the Lizard panicked and ran down her face and right into her mouth. Sora's eyes buldged. She spat the lizard out, gagging and coughing. Toushirou and the girls ran back.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Toushirou asked.
Bright red and in shock, Sora stomped her feet and pointed to Rei and Yuki. Smoke was pouring out of her ears.
"What did we do, Dad? We were with you," Rei said.
A little while later, Sora walked by herself, banging the buttons on her cell phone.
"Please work... Hello? Hello?"
Sora stopped when she saw Rei and Yuki bent over examining something on the ground. Sora snuck up behind them and overheard their conversation.
"I didn't know they had mountain lions up here," Rei whispered.
"Oh yeah, the place is crawling with them," Yuki said, winking at Rei. "Hisagi-san once showed me how to keep them away." She picked up two sticks and hit them together. "Just do this and they'll never come near you."
The Girls picked up sticks and moved off down the trail, clacking the sticks together. Sora stooped, picked up two sticks, clacked them together and followed.
That night, at the campfire, Toushirou, the girls, and Sora sat around the campfire. Everyone ate trout, except Sora, who sat on a rock, wrapped in a blanket, swatting at mosquitoes and rubbing lotion on her arm.
"You sure you don't want some trout, Mom? Is that okay, by the way? If we start calling you Mom?" Rei asked.
"I think your mother would prefer if you called me Sora and no thank you, I do not eat trout... for the thousandth time. I'll wait until breakfast. What are we having?" Sora asked.
"Trout," Toushirou and Yuki said at the same time. This was Rei's and Sora's first time. The two had done this before.
"We always live off the trail up here. It's part of the experience," Toushirou said.
Sora swat away at some bugs. "What's the other part, being eaten to death by mosquitos?" She looked at the lotion bottle. "You'd think they actually liked this stuff."
"What is that you're using?" Toushirou looked at the bottle, and then put some on his hand. "You're going to attract every mosquito on the mountain. This is sugar and water. Where'd you get this stuff?"
Sora looks to the girls, who busied themselves eating.
"That's it. I'm taking a large sleeping pill and going to bed." Sora was fed up.
She picked up her two sticks and whacked them together as she moved off toward her tent.
"Sweetheart, what are you doing?" Toushirou called.
"I don't want the mountain lions to..." Sora paused, realizing that she's been had. "There are no mountain lions up here, are there?"
Captain Hitsugaya Toushirou shook his spiky white head. Sora glared at the girls, dropped her sticks in the fire, walked to Toushirou and gave him a luscious kiss goodnight. Then she smiled at the Girls and marched off to her tent.
"I'm telling you guys, lay off. This isn't her thing, okay? I'm not marrying her because she's Annie Oakley." The girls' father was not joking around.
"Who's Annie Oakley?" Rei asked her dark red eyes filled with confusion.
"Just cool it," Toushirou said with his teeth clenched. 'Actually, these girls are better at teasing her than I am…' His mind went back to a day when Yuki was still at the Academy.
~Flashback~
Toushirou was in his office, doing paperwork, as always. But he had received a call from Yuki's sensei about ten minutes. Yuki knocked on the door and went in. She stood by her father's desk until he told her to sit on the couch. She did and about two minutes later, he joined her.
"Alright, Yuki. I think I need an explanation. From what I heard from the teacher today about ten to fifteen minutes ago, you pulled a mean prank on a kid because he provoked you." Toushirou's smile was tight on his face. "Is that true?"
"…Yes…" Yuki was now scared to death. Her father was usually very nice to her and even spoiled her rotten a few times, but she had seen him get mad at his subordinates and heard that he also had a bad temper, much like her. However, she had never been a victim to her father's temper before. And the look on his face gave her evidence that she needed to pull herself together and be a woman. She didn't mind getting yelled at by her teachers or anyone else, but her father was a different story.
His eyebrow was twitching now and his eyes were beady and his face was dark. "Why?" Toushirou didn't like this. He didn't want to have to punish his own daughter for something that was forgivable. He didn't to yell at her. He rarely ever did.
"Cause he was making fun of you! He was calling you a monster and cold-hearted and heartless and stuff! I couldn't just stand there and do nothing about it!"
'She may have my temper, but she has Hinamori's heart…' Toushirou wiped the tears that didn't exist yet from his teal eyes.
Yuki continued when her father didn't, her dark blue eyes now blazing with hatred for the guy that she pranked. "He said that you were weak and inexperienced! At first I tried to tell him that he was only talking about himself! But I found out today that that guy is a PINHEAD! He doesn't get anything I say! So I pretended to drop it and fortunately, he fell for it. So during break after that class, I thought about the prank and set it up, and guess what…IT WAS A HUGE SUCCESS!"
"So I heard…" He handed her a piece of paper. She reached out her little hand and took it.
"What is this?" She asked, looking at it.
"The medical report…" Her father answered calmly.
Yuki's eyes widened as she read the entire thing. "I…I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt…I just wanted to teach him a lesson…" Her dark blue eyes sparkled with fresh tears. She looked at her father hesitantly. "So what's my punishment?"
"That was your punishment…" Toushirou said, looking at his daughter square in the eye.
"What? Reading the medical report?"
"Yep…" The white-haired Captain leaned back against the couch and ran a hand through his hair. "You need to know how dangerous your pranks are…" He pulled his around-seven-or-eight-year-old daughter into a tight hug. "I'm not mad. And next time someone insults either you or me, tell me first and let me handle it, alright? Don't take matters into your own hands. It could get you in trouble, or worse, killed."
There was a short silence in which Yuki whispered, "Thanks, Dad…"
"So…Yuki…what exactly was the prank that you pulled on this kid?" Yuki's face immediately lit up and she told him the entire story…
~End of Flashback; At night~
Everything was quiet. An owl hooted in the distance. The girls snuck out of their tent and tiptoes over to Sora's tent.
The girls stepped inside and saw Sora fast asleep on her air mattress. They positioned themselves at Sora's head and feet and on the "count of three", they lifted her up on her mattress. It wasn't easy. As they carried her out, Sora moved her arm, brushing her hand across Yuki's nose. Yuki twitched her nose but kept going.
The girls stepped out of the tent, carrying Sora on her mattress. They quietly dragged the air mattress into the lake. They nodded to each other and pushed her off the shore.
As they watched their soon-to-be Mom drift away, Yuki said, "Sweet dreams, Mommy Dearest."
It was now dawn, and Sora was sound asleep on her back in the middle of the lake. A bird rested on her nose. She flopped an arm into the water.
"That feels so nice..." Sora said in her sleep.
She gently moved her fingers in the water, and then her eyes sprung open. She looked straight up as the bird flapped its wings and flew across her face. Sora sat up, realizing she was in the middle of the lake. She screamed, her voice echoing off the mountains.
"SHIIROUUUU!"
Toushirou stuck his head out of his tent, still half asleep, and spotted Sora thrashing around, screaming, in the middle of the lake.
The Tenth Division Captain groaned. "What's she doing in the lake?"
Yuki and Rei peeked out of their tent and saw Sora splashing back to the shore in her soaking wet pajamas. She stormed past the campfire, kicked the coffee pot into the air, and marched up to Toushirou.
"What's going on?" Toushirou used his best The-Captain-Just-Got-Up-But-You-Will-Listen-Anyway-Dammit voice. Yuki had heard it before, but Rei was different picture.
"Here's what's going on, buddy. The day we say "I do" is the day I ship those brats off to Karakura Town. Get the picture? It's me or them. Take your pick."
"Them." Rei's and Yuki's eyes widened.
"Excuse me?" Sora obviously did not expect that answer.
"T-H-E-M. Get the picture?" Toushirou gave his signature smirk, and Sora stomped off, screaming. Toushirou turned and winked at his twin daughters.
That evening, Momo was sitting on the front porch of the Tenth Division barracks, reading. She heard Toushirou and the girls pull up. She rose to greet them.
"Back so soon? Did you have fun?"
"Not exactly," Rei said.
"We've been punished through the end of the century. Literally," Yuki said.
Toushirou rolled his eyes. "Starting now. Go."
"Where's Sora?" Momo asked.
"We played a couple of harmless tricks on her and she kinda freaked out a little," Yuki said.
Toushirou snorted. "A little?" She showed his ex-wife the ring. "We broke up."
"Oh, jeez...This is all my fault. If I hadn't suggested she go..." Momo mumbled.
His teal eyes twinkled and his mouth was up in a smirk. "Tricked her would be more like it. Like mother, like daughters..."
"I'm really sorry, Toushirou," Momo said.
"We are too, Dad... really," Rei said.
"Will you forgive us?" Yuki asked.
"Up to your room!" Toushirou said. When they were gone, he smiled. "I gotta remember to thank them one day."
"You're relieved?" Momo had never seen her childhood friend so relieved in his entire life.
"I think I am." Toushirou suddenly had the feeling that he didn't want to talk about it. "I'm also starving... Matsumoto around?"
"She and Asano-san went off on a picnic around noon... yesterday." Toushirou looked up on that one. "Hopefully they'll be back... soonish..."
"Who would've thought my Lieutenant and your Butler... So, listen, how 'bout I whip us up something to eat?"
"You know how to cook now?" Momo lightly smiled.
"Of course, I know how to cook. I can make ramen... and ramen... and...
"Ramen sounds good," Momo interrupted him.
"Would you like a side of watermelon with that?" Toushirou looked knowingly at her.
Momo smiled wider. "Sure…I'd like that…"