A/N: Sorry about the long pause between chapters. I had some serious computer issues and then when I thought all was well and went back to work, I had another glitch and lost half of what I'd written. The worst. I can never rewrite things as well as I did that first time. Bah, but the show must go on.

~*~

Night had fallen while we had been in the visards' piercing shop and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was one of those nights that wasn't quite dry enough to be foggy or wet enough to be rain. The clouds had settled somewhere in between and were lazily dragging themselves along the ground. Streetlights made hazy spots of orange glow at regular intervals, but everything else was murky darkness.

I defy anyone to not get lost in that. Not that we were exactly lost, because we weren't. We were more or less just walking back aimlessly.

Neither if us had said much since we'd started walking. I for one, couldn't think of anything to say. It happens more than you might think. That, and I like the way quiet feels with Hitsugaya. Somehow it's more peaceful than just regular silence.

His hand slipped into mine in one of the dark places. I tightened my fingers around his gently and murmured, "That's my sword hand. If we get attacked, it's going to slow me down."

I could hear the laughter in his voice as he whispered back, "I'll risk it, and I'll remember to put it in my report, to explain the slow response time."

My shoulder leaned against his and once again, I marveled at the feeling of warmth in the skin of his hand, contrasting with the coolness around him. "I'm sure Yamamoto's seen worse in reports."

Hitsugaya cleared his throat. "Yes, you weren't there at the captain's meeting the time Captain Kyokaru's entire division missed a emergency drill and his excuse was that he was asleep at the time."

I was surprised. "Nanao-kun didn't wake him?"

"Ah... she was also asleep, at the time."

"Oh." That was... uniquely Eighth division. Then again, almost every division had their quirks. You just had to accept the eccentricity and go on. I frowned. "So tell me again why you go so overboard on the whole perfect captain thing?"

I thought he wasn't going to answer. We had already covered this before. "I hold myself to a higher standard than that."

"Perfectionist," I accused with a smile.

"What's wrong with that?"

"Life's messy, life's imperfect," I replied. "If you are so worried about making mistakes, you miss out on the fun and the mess. It can lead to better things than the 'right' things. Where would I be if Ken-chan had stopped to think he had no business picking up and carrying around a baby?"

"I'll give you that one," Hitsugaya conceded. "And it is a good theory actually. One I suppose I could use more of in my life."

He'd just said what I wished for the world. Everyone should just take a step back every now and then. Stop taking things so seriously. Find some joy in the simple, in the random. "Everyone could."

Hitsugaya stopped walking just under one of the streetlights, leaving us in the center of one of those perfect circles of milky sodium light. I turned to ask what was wrong, caught before I could even say a word by his lips on mine, his hand on my waist, holding me close.

I was being kissed. Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya was kissing me. I was speechless, but yes, a perfect example of going with the flow and seizing the random.

In the span of my life, many people have suggested that the only sure fire way to keep me from talking, some say incessantly, is to keep my mouth otherwise occupied. This has been accomplished with candy, sweet rolls, various food and drinks. It has been less successfully tried with drugs and on one very memorable occasion something called duck tape. None of those things, on any occasion had ever stopped my internal voice from nattering along.

For one long, silent moment, I was frozen, still and silent, inside and out. Pressed against the tenth captain, in the middle of a human world street, I was stopped in my tracks.

Then of course, my brain caught up. I was being kissed. Was I supposed to do something back? Wasn't there something to do with tongues? How did that happen? Were there protocols?

Just when I had begun to panic, the rest of me caught up and I felt. Fluttery, weak, hysterical, euphoric, giddy and utterly devastating. It was like one of those singular moments in life that you remember how you felt forever. Like the first time your zanpakuto spoke to you, or in a fight where you discovered you might not win. It as being thrown up in the air higher than you can imagine, knowing you'll land safe in Ken-chan's arms every time.

I clung to him, half desperate that he not get away before I was done feeling all of that. Before I got the chance to kiss him back and find out exactly what all you could do with kissing. One of my hands was buried in his hair, holding tightly as my eyes closed, mouth moved on his and yes, there was things to do with tongues. They were excellent things.

Finally, there was breathing to consider. Our lips parted and I was suddenly aware of our surroundings again. It was cold. When I opened my eyes, the misty rain wasn't misty or rainy anymore. Instead, as far as the streetlight extended around us, there were fat, impossibly large snowflakes falling. They were huge fanciful ones, like you'd see on the front of a postcard.

Looking up, I watched them continue to fall and tangle in our hair, and Hitsugaya's eyelashes as he watched me. I met his eyes and let out a breath, caught in just how blue-greeny they really were.

"I really haven't made a great impression the past couple of days, have I?" He asked ruefully.

"What do you mean?" I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand. I think it was getting numb.

"The visards, the mission... everything," he sighed. "The plan was to get you alone, prove myself to you and... impress you with... something. Make you see me as an acceptable suitor. Instead, everything that can go wrong has. We've been interrupted by everything at every turn, I was drugged, you fought a visard while I ate donuts... I finally get the chance to kiss you and I completely fail to keep my reiatsu under control."

I blinked a few times to make sure he was done. "So?" I asked when I was sure he was.

"So?!?" He stared at me dumbfounded.

"You've made an impression," I answered, lightly touching his jaw. "Seems like a pretty good one to me."

"But..."

"But nothing," I answered. "I've never paid all that much attention to you before. I didn't know all the things about you that I know now." It all seemed really simple to me. I didn't know why he'd make such a big deal out of it.

"What could you possibly know now that's favorable?"

The snow was turning back to drizzly stuff and the air around us was warming back up to the way it was before. He was concentrating again. It must be a real pain to have to put so much effort into keeping his reiatsu contained all the time. Not that I didn't know personally. I did. I kept mine all nice and mostly tidy... most of the time. But I didn't pee icicles if I forgot.

"You watch the stars. You can lose an argument and go along with my plans." I stopped, thinking about the next things on my list, searching for words. "I can close my eyes around you and just for a moment, feel normal and relax."

Hitsugaya looked perplexed. "You do that all the time around Captain Kenpachi and the others in the eleventh squad, don't you? You're always relaxed and so... carefree around everyone."

"Ken-chan doesn't count," I laughed. People had the weirdest ideas about our relationship, and it wasn't something either of us could explain. "And there's never anything very normal about me. But that's okay, for the most part."

His shoulders were still set stiffly, braced for defeat. Time to try to explain this in a different way. "Hitsugaya-kun," I said softly. "I knew you were a perfect captain. I knew you could lead a textbook mission in the human world and I know you are an accomplished fighter. You never had to prove those things to me." My fingers seemed to seek out his cheek and hair all on their own. "Those were never things in you favor in my mind."

Hitsugaya looked even more befuddled.

"If I wanted the perfect captain, I'd be chasing Byakushi," I laughed.

Ouch, wrong thing to say. His jaw clenched, his eyes and his reiatsu flared in anger. I held up a hand in a hurry to stop whatever he was about to say. "What I meant was that I want a good captain and a better person."

The dangerous glint in his eyes faded, and I could breathe without seeing it again. "So you're saying that it's good that fail to meet my own self-set standards."

I had to consider that for a moment. "Maybe so."

He shook his head with that now familiar expression of amazed amusement. "You really are crazy."

I nodded happily. "Mmhmm!" I tugged on his hand and turned in the direction of Urahara's shop. "So come on. Let's get back and go home."

Hitsugaya dug his heels in. "Kusajishi-kun."

I waved my free hand over my shoulder. "Nope. We're done. No more talking. You've made my head hurt as it is."

"No really, Kusajishi-kun. You're going the wrong way."

I stopped, looking back at him. "Oh... right. I'll follow you then."