A/N: Chapter 12 here we go! Also a brief introduction of Uryuu Ishida! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any other copyrighted material.
Lie To Me Chpt.12
Rangiku sighed seeing her breath disperse in the chilly air of the winter. She was supposed to meet Orihime in five minutes. But she couldn't. Surely her friend would understand that. She felt as if her dark jeans had turned to superglue because she couldn't make her legs move an inch. The muscles were frozen in place. Her light blue eyes were fixed on the hospital in front of her.
Though it was cold, the air was not what chilled her.
It was the memory of that man still lurking in the depths of her mind. His spindly fingers touching her undeveloped body in places he wasn't supposed to as she could do nothing under his voracious scrutiny save for cry. Waiting until he determined the 'check-up' over and allowing her to run shivering into the arms of her mom dismissing her puffy eyes as 'irritation from the light'.
The sight of his glaring white lab coat was burned into her memory and his wicked smile haunted her dreams. That slick brown hair made her shiver in disgust.
No one had believed her when she'd told them what the 'bad doctor' was doing to her, no one except for Gin. She'd confessed everything to him in that vulnerable state as a mere seven-year old, because he had been her closest friend since they were born. He had held her and stayed by her side trying to convince her parents to believe in her.
She couldn't make since after that of why he had become increasingly distant from her in middle school and even more so in high school. Ten years later as a 17 year old, when she'd finally worked up the courage to confront him about his absence all he'd told her whilst cupping her cheeks in his strong hands and pulling her close was:
"So you won't have to cry anymore Ran-chan."
His soft-spoken words still puzzled her even now that they were a couple of sorts. Living together when he was home, yet that distance was still there. That ungainable ground between them.
Needless to say she didn't have good experiences with hospitals.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to take rigid slow steps towards the entrance, fear gripping her with every inch.
She wished that Gin was there, to hold her hand and distract her with all of his silly nonsense.
She thought of Orihime. About her resilient perseverant nature and her silent strength she carried with her through every tough situation.
She would be alright.
That bastard was behind bars. At least to her current knowledge he was supposed to be. He couldn't touch her now.
She remembered the devastated look on her mother and fathers faces as they received word from their new physician that Doctor Aizen was arrested after several allegations of child molestation that had been filed against him.
She remembered their disappointment in her for 'letting it happen'. That bleak, cold disdain in their down-turned faces as they stared at her from above as though she wasn't their daughter. They shunned her, telling her she was never to speak of this to anyone or else she would bring shame onto their family. Scaring her into silence.
She looked straight forward keeping her gaze focused on the handle of the door in front of her. She imagined that Gin was beside her, calling her 'Darlin' and felt more at ease. She'd made it through the front door at last. She'd made it inside. She was fine.
"Hey! Rangiku-san!" I shouted spotting the blonde across the courtyard. She turned her head in obvious awe of the flowery utopia we were in. Whoever this Aizen was who donated to build the facilities definitely spared no expense in decoration.
"Hime what is this place? It looks like a greenhouse!" Rangiku looked so pretty. She was wearing dark almost black jeans with a nearly see through tank top covered by another white tank that exposed her covered stomach but tied securely over her bosom. To bring the look together she had a silver bangle and high knee boots.
"I know isn't it great? The perfect place for lunch!" Rangiku nodded smiling however she seemed a little apprehensive for some odd reason. We settled on a bench by the fountain situated in the center of the courtyard. Its gleaming water was calming as were the fragrant scent of the lilies planted around it.
"So how are things with Gin?" I asked apprehensively. Rangiku offered a small smile as if she was wishful about something.
"He said it'd be another two weeks." I nodded not wanting to press the matter any further for fear that it would ruin her good spirits.
"So how are you? Still hung up on the carrot-top?" her blunt question riled a laugh from me. I wasn't sure why something that had ended so terribly seemed so humorous but it was. It seemed like a distant past now. I felt better, and more confident than I think I ever had when I had been with Ichigo towards the end. I had lured myself into a false sense of security with him, giving into my foolish heart and believing some boy would take care of me forever and ever. That was wishful thinking.
I didn't think following your heart was a bad thing but sometimes you need to think and remember that people are always changing and running and whatever else. So it's best to look out for yourself and remember you don't need someone else to be happy even though another person can intensify this crazy wonderful euphoric ride of life.
"No not anymore I don't think." I said calmly feeling a slight breeze flow through my hair. Rangiku nearly spit out her food but managed to gain her bearings and force it down.
"That's something I never thought I'd hear you say." She was staring at me like I was a completely different person. Well, maybe I was.
"Hey Hime." I met her intense stare blushing under the harsh scrutiny I was receiving.
"Yeah?" she leaned closer to me not breaking her eye contact.
"Do you have a guy?" I felt like my head exploded. My heart seized up and my hands went cold.
"N-No, no, no! I don't!" she was unrelenting even though I was even using my hands to get the point across!
"Liar." I backed away covering my cheeks while Rangiku laughed heartily munching on her sandwich.
"You know I'll probably figure out who he is before you do." I snorted taking a bite out of a strawberry.
"You always do."
"There." I sighed clicking the top of my pen with my thumb and placing it in my bright blue scrubs chest pocket. I picked up the crisp piece of paper I had just filled out. It was a notice requesting fewer hours and less shifts.
I decided that working at the hospital, while it had its benefits and life lessons alike, I needed a job that was a little less demanding to fill the void of the lost hours at the Aizen Center for Women & Children. I had been working in medicine since high school. And I didn't come out of high school with near perfect scores just to waste it bending over backwards at a high maintenance job 40-50 hours a week.
Ichigo had always said that I didn't need to go to college because he was going to be the one to provide for us. He had a complex about it almost, saying things like that it was a man's job and yata yata.
Maybe I would go now. It would be the most ideal. If I was going to be on my own I would be better off at a business firm than a hospital as a low level nurse. And I could be working up on a degree like Ulquiorra.
I wondered as I walked up the quiet stairs with each step echoing my footfall, what Ulquiorra would say if I told him my plans. Would he reject the notion? Or would he support my decision?
I pictured his stoic face mumbling something along the lines of 'You should pursue whatever makes you happiest Ms. Inoue.' I giggled. That was probably exactly what he would say.
I hugged the paper to my chest a little tighter. Ulquiorra was so charming now wasn't he? With his elegant words and long black hair and those eyes, oh those eyes. Was it bad that I'd started secretly referring to him as 'prince' in my head? I mean he was kinda.
He was unfairly smart too. After high school and after attending Japan's most prestigious medical science university, Ulquiorra had managed to graduate in a mere two years. If that wasn't impossible enough he had been admitted to med school and shined so much above the rest that he had earned his rank as an attending and his name as the best neurosurgeon in the country. He was pretty dreamy I guess. I shook my head trying to dissipate the blush forming on my cheeks as I knocked on the door to Szayel's office. What are you thinking you idiot! I screamed at myself internally.
When no one answered my knock I carefully twisted the knob and decided to leave it on his desk when I found a man in the vacant room staring out the window. The office had a very ominous air that was screaming caution at me. It sent my hair on end.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." I said retreating back outside the door.
"Wait." I did as the voice commanded me and froze in place.
"Come here." I silently made my way toward the man who still had his back to me and heard the door click shut behind me.
The man turned around to face me and I felt strange. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Like he'd wronged me in some way, somehow, yet his familiar face escaped my memory.
His mousy brown hair was messy falling in curly waves over his forehead. He had black framed glasses that provided a see through buffer between his all-knowing light hazel eyes and my terrified gray ones. He was tall and possessed a domineering presence that made me want to crawl under a desk and hide. I wanted out of this room as soon as possible.
"What is your name, girl?" I swallowed nervously.
"O-Orihime Inoue." He smiled.
"Ah, The Orihime I've been hearing about. Is it true that you're close to Doctor Schiffer?" I narrowed my gaze and forced a smile. Why did this man need to know anything so personal?
"Yes, we're good friends." He nodded seeming oddly pleased by my discomfort.
"What's this?" he gestured to the paper in my hands.
"O-Oh nothing just a request for Szayel-san!" he nodded and stalked away his white lab coat flowing ever so slightly from behind him.
"Tell Doctor Schiffer I said hello." The mysterious man vanished behind the door as I called out for him to stop, realizing I didn't know his name. I sighed shivering off the chills that he'd given me and moved to place my notice on Szayel's desk but I felt my foot scrape over something on the carpet.
"What?..." I bent down seeing that it looked like an I.D. card. It belonged to the same man that had disappeared before telling me his name. Aizen Sosuke. I clasped my hands over my mouth placing the card along with my notice on the desk.
I had just spoken with the CEO of the hospital.
Rangiku stared at the neat row of cradles lining the room in the nursery ward. She knew that she shouldn't have ventured this way and should have just made a bee line home but she couldn't help herself. The precious little bundles were like crack. And she was addicted.
She placed her slender fingers on the glass separating herself from the infants on the other side remembering her own. That sweet child that had been taken from her after only seconds after coming into the world. Asahi Ichimaru-Matsumoto. She remembered the innocent plump lips turned blue and the pasty gray colored skin his miniscule complexion. His perfectly formed little feet and tiny clenched fingers. Those lungs that she'd formed inside her that would never take a breath and that heart inside his chest that would never beat.
But these babies were alive and well. Breathing properly and hearts thumping strongly. She wanted to hold each and every one of them, to cradle them gently in her arms. But more than that she wanted a child to call her own. She couldn't help but be a little jealous of Neliel. She didn't get just one but two babies.
Why couldn't her body accept them? Why had it failed in the one purpose it was built for? She hadn't told her friends about the miscarriages that followed the stillborn. Gin knew. And Gin was secretly just as devastated yet he said nothing. They said nothing to each other about them. He would just rock her in her bloody catatonic state until she was able to form words. Until the tears stopped, and then he was off again.
Maybe it was her failure as a woman that drove him away. Or maybe it was that he had grown tired of her.
Rangiku pushed herself away from the glass, her strawberry-twizzled hair swaying behind her as she turned to leave, feeling the intense need for alcohol. Yet she was again stopped from her escape this time by an old acquaintance.
"Ishida?" she questioned looking over the man in navy scrubs standing before her.
He looked almost identical to his high school self yet there were minor differences.
He was still only a hair taller than herself and wore glasses framing his dark blue calculating eyes. His hair was still pin straight but pushed more to the side than split down the middle. He was more filled out, showing he was no longer a boy but a man.
"Good afternoon, Matsumoto-san."
After a long and strange day at the hospital Orihime and Ulquiorra were finally walking home. The woman was not acting 100 percent normal though. Normally she would talk his ear off about her day and how it went and with whom she'd spoken. But she was silent, her brow furrowed and her lip in between her teeth.
"Is something troubling you Ms. Inoue?" she snapped out of her intense concentration and looked to Ulquiorra her cheeks turning scarlet.
"Um, nothing really." He nodded continuing to scan the area around them. Two leering stares of high school aged boys caught his attention. They were obviously ogling at the woman's assets their heads tilting up and down. He fought the urge to snap their shameless necks and instead drew closer to Orihime gripping her arm and pulling her near him glaring at the boys as they passed earning short grumbles upon their assuming she wasn't alone and eventually they sauntered away. The woman was lucky he was their to interject even though she probably hadn't noticed the extra attention she had been receiving. She was really too good in heart for her own safety
"U-Ulquiorra-kun?" he looked down at a stuttering Orihime and realized he was still gripping her bicep rather tightly and immediately released her.
"Forgive me." She bobbed her head down looking at the sidewalk as their feet continued to stride in synch. He couldn't tell whether the pink in her cheeks was from the chilly evening air or something else. He decided not to let his imagine run wild and they happened upon their shared complex stopping only to allow her to greet the receptionist Mashiro whom he'd noticed Orihime had grown quite fond of.
"Any mail today Mashiro-chan?" she chirped her strange flush completely dissipated.
"Actually yes!" the green-haired woman pulled out a small envelope inscribed Hime. Orihime ripped it open like a child on Christmas day and read the contents through and through. She lowered her hand and shifted her eyes to him tears brimming her silver orbs.
"Tatsuki-chan is coming back." She smiled embraced an elated Mashiro screaming in happiness.
So the raven-haired woman was returning from America? He thought, allowing himself a small smile indication of his feelings on the matter. There would be much to catch up on and hopefully, he looked to the jubilant woman bouncing up and down, much to tell.