The Next day…Lunch…
Ichigo sat legs crossed on his cushion at the table set out in Yamamoto's office. The food was incredibly fine and more than abundant for the two of them.
"You killed Aizen?" The old man asked as he began to select his food. The Aizen uniform disturbed him, but he decided to not let that show.
"I did." Ichigo handled the empty bowl but hunger didn't make its presence known.
"How many children was it?"
"Masaki, Tamotsu and these two." Ichigo's hand settled on his stomach. "I shared a bed with Aizen every night for the past three years if that is your next question."
"Yet that must have meant you had ample chance to kill him before my men arrived." The tone was still casual and almost informal, but the undercurrent of an investigation was there.
"Not really." Ichigo answered placing the empty bowl back down with a sigh. That was something he found he did quite a lot right now.
"Oh?" Yamamoto looked at him. "Not eating?"
"I'm not hungry."
"But in your condition."
"I killed Aizen, I killed the man I assumed I had dedicated my life to. You want to know where my loyalties lie. The location of the Hōgyoku. You want to know where all the Espada are that you can't find." Ichigo wanted to be back with his children, he wanted the peace and santury that Byakuya's home gave him. He wanted to escape the questions, the looks, the assumptions.
"I do. And Ichimaru Gin?"
"Gin… I believed he was dead… But I'm not sure. The last time I saw him…Then there were tales that, he was seem bleeding heavily, but on his feet leaving the castle. We never knew if that was true or not. Aizen said he was dead when he left him. He had no reason to lie to me."
"Did you love Aizen?"
"My loyalty was to my children. To keep them safe, I'd even kill you if I had to...To bring them up in that place with only cold hearted killing machines around was not something I wished to continue for ever. The safety of my children was, is, paramount. What happened to me was irrelevant. I thought Aizen knew that, but it seems he didn't. I took advantage of the situation your invasion gave me. I could never have escaped with Aizen alive and his men free to chase me." Although the thought had occurred to me at times, that a death by that manner was preferable. It would have been my only choice if I had not had the children. "As for the Hōgyoku, I have never set eyes on it, since Aizen's defection."
Second Day of Freedom in the Kuchiki Garden…
The sound of giggling and wondered cries of "Oh look daddy! Look at this!" filled the garden as Byakuya took some time out of his work load and tended to the garden outside the doors to his study. He smiled at the sight of Ichigo and the children running ahead amazed by everything they were seeing.
"Steady on, stay with me there's a pond somewhere around here." Ichigo called them back to his side and they dutifully held his hands. They appeared like a normal family from the back, their outfits which remained the same however jarred his vision.
"Suki." Byakuya called the passing servant. "I have an errand for you."
"Look!" Tamotsu pointed down at the large orange Koi that swam beneath the surface. His eyes were wide and a smile filled his features. He knelt on the ponds surrounding stones, leaning out just a little too far for Ichigo's liking. He sat himself with a groan on the stones and grabbed the back of the child's outfit.
"It's a fish." Masaki said proudly, having listened to her fathers lectures on the way over to the pond. Ichigo nodded at her. "Can't they jump out?" She asked.
"No, fish need the water. They can't live without it." Ichigo kept his explanation brief.
He wondered at how she was absorbing everything about the clouds and the sky, the sun and wind that whistled around them. He had adored watching them touch everything from the gravel at their feet, to the stone statues, plants and flowers. How they laughed when a butterfly flew right between them so slowly yet they still couldn't catch it. "Oh." He looked up at the gray cloud over head and sighed as the drops of water began to fall. Tamotsu and Masaki laughed with their hands out.
"It tickles!" She squealed and her brother laughed too. "What is it?"
"Rain." Byakuya said walking up to them with a hand offered to Ichigo to help him up from the floor. "The clouds are watering my garden."
"Wow!" She looked impressed and Ichigo smiled at Byakuya.
"We should go in before you get too wet." He added to the cute little girl and reaching out for Tamotsu before he headed back to the pond. No sooner than the words were out than the heavens opened and the rain thundered down. The children squealed at the cold water falling on them but laughed all the same. Tamotsu was hoisted into Ichigo's arms and Byakuya picked Masaki up to run ahead into the house. Ichigo tried running, laughing, but sighed giving in and walking back the last part getting thoroughly soaked.
"I think a bath would be in order." He tutted at the wet orange hair stuck to Ichigo's face. The toddler looked as if he had succeeded in jumping into the pond he was that wet. "The servants should be running one now for you."
"I could get used to all this pampering." Ichigo sighed rubbing the trails of water that were falling down his neck and making him shudder.
"I could get used to the children being that enthusiastic about my garden."
"Well, for a first time seeing a garden, yours would have to be a really good head start."
"I wondered at the rain question." Byakuya ushered the children along the corridor towards the guest bedroom they were using. "The hell butterfly…" Ichigo had forgotten that they had seen it fly past them. "It seems that the Sōtaichō would like to see you again. However wet or not, I feel a different outfit would be more suitable. There have been a few comments regarding the attire."
"We only have these. You didn't give me chance to collect anything else. Thinking about it, I don't know what I would have taken, none of it was ours anyway."
"Well I have dealt with the clothes. You must let your father or I know of anything you require." He said as they reached the door of the bedroom. "I will send word that you are resting which I know Unohana wishes you to do. Carrying twins must be an additional drain on you." Ichigo's face flashed with pain of a memory where those words were uttered and Byakuya wondered what had caused it.
"Ichigo?" Byakuya was concerned at the spaced out youths expression. He reached out to touch his arm and Ichigo flinched.
"Byakuya… Sorry." Byakuya stepped back shocked himself at Ichigo's reaction.
"Go take a bath Ichigo, you feel very cold."
He nodded and went into the room with the children passing the servant that had run the bath and sorted the room.
"Is everything arranged for them?"
"Yes sir."
"Good." He replied walked off.
Ichigo bathed with the children. The tub was just large enough minus the odd foot bumping his stomach. But it was an enjoyable way to sooth his memories. Once they had played enough daft games and wrapped themselves in fluffy towels, Ichigo returned to the room to see if their clothes had dried over the heaters from where he had placed them. But they were gone. Instead the cupboards and drawers were open with piles of neatly stacked clothing. All colours of the rainbow greeted his senses.
Instead of gratitude, Ichigo felt anger. Now in the home of another domineering man, it seemed that history was repeating itself. On the bed were a selection of clothes already picked out. Aizen could have well have placed them there himself. Aizen could have ordered the baths to be filled and Ichigo to wash himself. Words seem to trip out of Byakuya's mouth the same as Aizen's.
Orders, suggestions and overtly 'kind'. Ichigo's mind flashed with worry. Was this just a ploy of Aizen's an elaborate trick of his sword? An illusion and Byakuya wasn't anyone else but Aizen himself? Panic rose inside him and felt his breathing strangle in his chest.
"Sosuke!" He screamed. "Let me out!" His panic rose and he held his throat. He couldn't breath. He couldn't move.
"Daddy." Masaki tugged at the towel around him. "Daddy!"
Ichigo felt his vision fading, his heart beat so loud in his ears that he could hear nothing else. His mind seemed to flicker leaving him lightheaded and he stumbled reaching out for anything to stop him falling.
Byakuya had felt the strange pattern in Ichigo's energy. It was not a calm relaxed pattern. Isshin must have felt it too as they were both heading for the room when a scared Masaki came running out.
"Daddy! Help my daddy!" She cried.
…
Unohana pulled the green bubble of healing power from the sleeping Ichigo.
"Well he's fine now." She smiled up at the worried face of Isshin. "I've made sure he'll sleep a while longer, but it sounds like he had a panic attack. Listening to his daughter and what he was shouting out, I wonder if he thought this was an illusion. That he is still in his prison under the influence of Aizen. Something must have triggered it but I couldn't guess as to what. The bump on his head must be from his fall."
"What do we do?"
"Years of imprisonment and god knows what else are going to mean years of careful understanding Isshin. I'm sure you know what you need to do." No he didn't. Not when it came to his children. His rational thought process went out of the window when he worried about them.
The Only Friend…
"So what happened to you all?" Ichigo asked Ishida. The smartly dressed teen gazed around the palatial reception room. It was everything that he would have expected to find in a home of this stature. The only thing he hadn't of expected was the sight of Ichigo with a huge stomach. A pregnant pause had been just that as he took in the sight before sighing to himself.
"School was a bit problematic with all the Hollow attacks. We were glad of Soul Societies intervention and making the town sleep. It allowed us to focus on the war. Before that, the town suffered rather a lot of what was explained as natural disasters. Many families had begun to leave, Orihime's flat had been destroyed so she went to stay with Sado. My father was too busy at the hospital, especially as your dads had been shut down for so long, he refused to help the shinigami in anyway." He sat and nodded his thanks for the drinks the young servant had just brought in.
He watched Ichigo sit with some difficulty and pull the male toddler he'd been informed was his son onto his lap. It was a weird thing to see for a kid their age.
"But yeah we all managed to finish school. Sado is in Tokyo, at university, Orihime is studying catering locally and I've been accepted to a fashion school in Europe. So I'm leaving the design course I started."
"I didn't even get to finish school." Ichigo sighed.
"There were some rumors flying around the town that your dad took you away somewhere after your outburst. Your entire family just disappeared overnight. One minute you were shouting about Aizen and what he did to you, the next being sent home sick and then you were gone. Tatsuki too. The shinigami altered everyone's minds and made out she had moved away, which is what her parents actually did."
"Daddy do you like my picture?" Masaki interrupted her fathers thoughts just as he was about to dwell on everything he had lost. She held up a picture for him to see and he smiled back at her. "That's us and the babies in your tummy." She said pointing to the abstract images on her paper. "But not Daddy Sosuke. I didn't want to draw him."
Ishida noted a flash of a frown pass his face at the mention of the name.
"This is all a little strange for you I guess." Ishida spoke and Ichigo looked at him with surprise that any one was thinking of his thoughts at all. Everyone so far had just expected him to be euphoric. "I mean you've holed yourself up here where Byakuya can fend everyone off you. You haven't been seen outside these gates. You were not at the ceremonies last week that signified the end of the war… Your children do not move 10 paces from you and have done their utmost to stay away from me. They are not used to dealing with company either?"
"No. They're not." Ichigo should have allowed for the analytical mind of his friend.
"I think they were expecting you to be shouting from the roof and enjoying your freedom not dwelling in a self imposed exile."
"Its taking a while to adjust." Ichigo answered. It was the truth.
"All routes into Hueco Mundo were sealed. We did try. Your dad was sent to the cells for a while for repeated attempts."
"Well he didn't tell me that."
"I think trying to strike Yamato was the final straw." Ichigo laughed at the visual scene of his father in full rant lunging at the old man. "We all wondered what was happening to you and hoped you were alright." At this Ichigo let out a long drawn out sigh and shifted his seat. He put Tamotsu on the floor against he wishes and thrust a crayon from Masaki's pile into his hand.
"I thought of you lot too…" Ichigo broke into the uncomfortable silence that had fallen. "Trying to keep these two happy and safe… became more and more despondent that I would never be free. It's hard to explain really and when I do, everyone else I'd tried to talk to gets angry with me."
"What ever happened it was enough to change you."
"How could I be who I was from the first minute Sosuke appeared in my room?" He shrugged. "A fly trapped in his web."
"So when are the twins due?" Ishida decided to change the subject.
"Three and a bit months." Ichigo smiled at the change of conversation. Ishida was a breath of fresh air.
"And you're stuck here until then. You can hardly be seen in the town as you are… although most people you knew have moved on. I don't think you would recognise the place now."
Seven Months Pregnant…
Byakuya entered the neat and orderly guest room and gave a small recognition of his surprise at finding Rukia and not Ichigo. Masaki sat next to her flicking slowly through a picture book and Tamotsu was running a modern car along the ridges of the mats. He made no sound and just quietly watched the motion of the wheels.
"He's having a check up at the forth." She answered his question. "Isshin took him."
Byakuya sat next to Masaki on the side of the bed and he peered at the picture of a smiling cat.
"These two are very quiet again today." Rukia commented. Masaki turned the page again and said nothing for a moment. They were always quiet when Ichigo was not around; both the siblings had noticed that before.
"Noisy children get smacked." Masaki said innocently. Byakuya and Rukia exchanged glances.
"Who would hurt you, you're always so good?" Rukia stroked the child's hair and put her arm around her.
"Daddy Sosuke or Ulqi…ori. The sad man." She turned another page to look at a strange blue dog.
"Not daddy?" Rukia asked.
"Daddy naughty too." They exchanged another glance. "I don't like it when daddy goes away." Masaki said pouting. "Daddy is coming back today?"
"Of course he is. They just want to see the babies are well."
"So when you lived in the castle, sometimes Daddy didn't come back?" Byakuya asked.
"No."
"Do you know why?" He pressed her softly.
"Nii-sama, she is only small."
"Cos daddy hurt." Her wide eyes looked up at Byakuya. "You had lady mend Daddy. Sometimes Daddy Sosuke would mend Daddy, cos he didn't mean to get cross."
Byakuya inhaled a long thoughtful breath and kissed the child on the head.
That Night…
Months of listening to the repressed tears had finally become intolerable and Byakuya yearned to make Ichigo wear that happy smile every moment. Enough, he couldn't listen to it anymore.
"Byakuya! No, I'm sorry." Ichigo was startled by the footsteps that joined him on the decked walkway.
"Sorry for what?"
"Waking you."
"That should not concern you."
"But it does… I won't do it again."
"I don't want you to be unhappy." The words yet again were right from Aizen's mouth not Byakuya's.
"Oh my god… don't say that!" He back away. Fresh tears fell. "Byakuya please."
The boy was clearly more upset by his presence than before. "Ichigo…" Words failed him; he was so unused to dealing with peoples emotions.
"Don't touch me." Ichigo's voice was barely a whisper, full of alarm. It was at this point, he stumbled, his foot lost on the wooden steps that lead to the gardens. Byakuya was there quickly, wishing to stop him falling. One hand on his arm the other around his back. It was a simple act, but one that shot electric volts through Ichigo's system. Ichigo withdrew. Byakuya witnessed with shock, the way he seemed to physically shrink, his muscles tense. He didn't pull from the hold, years of conditioning at work there, but in fact his body sunk into the warm figure holding him.
"Are you okay?" More echoes from the past filtered into Ichigo's ears and he dropped his head nodding.
"I'm sorry. I know I should have stayed in bed. I won't do it again." The dropped head whispered.
"Ichigo I am not Aizen."
"You're touching me."
"I don't understand?"
"It is as if I cannot sleep without him next to me… I cannot do things I would like anymore for myself… I don't know how I should feel. Why should I feel it? I know he would not like it that I'm here and talking to others… he wouldn't like it that I do not wear the clothes he has selected… eat what he tells me to… leave the room. It feels as if I am always doing something wrong and I'm waiting for him to reprimand me." Byakuya wanted to see Ichigo's face. He wanted to witness the pain he could hear in the slow crippled voice. "But… I want him sleeping next to me… I want his hold… I want his love again… Yet I killed him." Ichigo's head buried into Byakuya's shoulder, his arms wrapped around the stiff nobles waist.
Byakuya initially tensed but softened into the hug. He put his arms around the shuddering shoulders.
…
Byakuya sat in his study, he watched the trio walk past his window as they did every night since Ichigo's arrival. He smiled to himself. He knew the children would come back alive with so much talk about everything they had seen, the new flowers, the fish swimming in the pond, the trees ready to blossom. Their delighted faces were enchanting.
Now in his eighth month, Ichigo didn't look as if walking was that comfortable anymore, Byakuya noticed. His hand held the lower of his belly and he was much slower than the children who were running ahead. He heard him call out for them to slow down and wait for him and they did. It was amazing to see how good Ichigo was at being a parent. How his children adored him and although there were moments, both were very well behaved.
What had surprised Byakuya was the way Ichigo watched them talk over the evening meal about the birds and trees. How he smiled even glowed as they chatted with such enthusiasm at seeing the white Koi grace them with their presence that day.
It was that face that woke Byakuya up as it appeared in his dream. That face he wanted to see more of. He really didn't know if he was blind before, or if it was the dark secret of his heart that he longed for children himself and he wanted what Ichigo had? No, he wanted this family. The house was alive and happy. He had even heard the servants wishing they could keep the family here. The sound of laughter echoed through the hallways.
Laughter; it is a funny thing. Never had he craved to hear it as he did now.
What made him respond yesterday when he hadn't all the other days? He'd heard that sound before; he'd heard it as he lay in his bed woken by its sadness. That's when he learnt that Ichigo had become a very good actor.
What made him get up when he hadn't every other night?
