Hey all - and thanks for your kind words! I somehow have no regret over leaving mainstream Bleach :)

More sweet philosophy over the next couple of weeks, as nothing good ever lasts, I guess...before Aizen finally gets, well, what he'd been looking for all along.

Freedom's but another word for nothing left to lose.

- Janis Joplin

His hand slipped off her hip, but remained close; following the unwritten steps of their shared ritual, Unohana turned and snaked her arms around his, leaning her still hot forehead on his shoulder.

She did not want to open her eyes – at least, the woman thought, not yet, not while her body retained the traces of the lingering pleasure, and not a single second before she would have to return her thoughts to painful reality. Stark remained quiet in his turn, doing no more than slipping his fingers through her hair, and gently kissing her forehead.

It was terribly late, but neither cared for sleep, as neither cared to close the Shoji panel which led to the garden, and offered a view of a starry corner of the night outside. She tried to recall the image of the sky while keeping her eyelids stubbornly shut, but failed, just as she failed at using the warm memory of the man's embrace and the scent of his skin to keep her heart from sinking to melancholy.

Finally succumbing to evidence which had been present since the beginning, Szayel Aporro had put a stop to his experiment, or, Unohana thought, rolling on her back and finally opening her eyes, at least this particular aspect of it. Regardless of what Aizen had mandated, she had no doubt that the Octava would continue his research in whatever form was allowed to him – somehow, though the thought of what may have eventually emerged from Szayel's tightly sealed private laboratory in the basement of the 12th Division would normally have made her shudder, she could not bring it into focus now.

Stark's fingers slipped from her temple to her chin, but she still did not have the courage to meet his glance – she curled further in, drawing his arm to her chest, and still hiding from a truth that had been chasing them for the entire week, and which they would have to face, come dawn.

The last week…The last night…

Her sadness and guilt fed on each other, like serpents chasing each others' tails. She wondered what he felt; outside, the wind fashioned the dark and indefinite shadows of leaves into the outlines of mythical monsters.

Stark brought her hand to his lips.

'I am not too proud to ask,' he said, chuckling as she finally lifted her glance to his. 'Just to get that natural assumption out of the way.' He shrugged and grinned. The words were rewarded with no more than the frail shadow of a smile.

They had not spoken of the experiment's end at all, and, for the first couple of days, Unohana had felt relieved, and almost content to hide from the end in all of the tiny interactions that had made her weeks in the Primera's company so unexpectedly…

Pleasant? She thought, then dismissed the word. It somehow felt insufficient.

Neither of them had uttered a single word on the subject – they had spoken of many other things, they had read, cooked and made love, watched sunsets and sunrises, and fought a battle they both knew they'd lost since the very beginning. Despite the week long silence, she'd understood the first truly heavy sentence well enough. How odd it was, Unohana wondered, how odd that he was so easy to read…

'Do you wish to…' she began, the fear of sounding ridiculous cutting off the question before she could voice its more significant part. She frowned, expecting the man to chuckle, and joke about the fact that her pride was getting in the way; this time, Stark defeated her expectation and simply smiled – there was no trace of sadness in his eyes. There was only warmth, which rendered her heart even heavier.

'I simply do not wish to make things more difficult for you, Retsu,' The Primera said, simply. 'Well…' he reconsidered. 'More may be an unnecessary qualifier.'

Unohana frowned a little, taking in the contours of his face, and wondering why, though they had not changed, she saw them so differently now than on that long forgotten first night; she found the strength to grin, and placed her index on the tip of his nose.

'Are we fishing for compliments?' she asked. Stark grinned apologetically.

'Men require constant reassurance,' he joked, running his fingers over her shoulder, along her arm and them bringing them to her bare hip. 'I would not blame you if this was not difficult,' Stark added kindly. 'I imagine you should be quite happy that it is finally over and Aizen knocked Szayel Aporro back to his senses.'

'Somehow,' the woman answered, swallowing dry, 'I am unsure that it was the case. We barely had four weeks…' she whispered, shuddering at the regretful sound of her own voice. 'I should not be saying that,' she suddenly said, sitting up and half covering her breasts with the sheets. 'I should not even be thinking that…'

'True,' Stark nodded.

He sat up in his turn, but did not touch her – the lack of contact seemed odd, so soon after they'd made love, and bitterly reminded Unohana of their first week together, when he had done all in his power to interact with her as little as possible. She suddenly felt cold.

'How is it,' she began, dreamily glancing outside, to the dark green foliage of the apple tree and to the threatening world which lurked beyond it, 'that you are so good at creating distances, Stark?'

The woman guessed that her voice had carried some amount of reproach, but she did not care to hide it.

'Practice,' the Arrancar said. 'You can think me a coward, if you like,' he softly added.

'No,' she protested – the word had come unbidden, as had the memory of his touch. 'No. A coward would not put his heart…his entire being,' Unohana bitterly corrected, 'on the table before me. A coward would not have been so giving and so open.'

'There are many kinds of cowardice,' Stark responded. 'But, indeed, no, I do not think myself a coward; I simply thought you needed the distance, thus…'

'Thus you promptly withdrew, and left me to face the end alone,' she said, looking over her shoulder; the brief bout of anger was stifled by the short touch of his fingers across her back.

'No,' he answered. 'I am still here, with you. I simply do not wish to make this hard for either of us,' Stark whispered. 'What good would come,' he bitterly chuckled, 'out of me asking if I will see you again? Technically, I doubtlessly shall – I am sure that if Gin, the court jester, does not engineer some casual encounter for his own amusement, then there will be legitimate causes for us to meet. I know I will see you again,' he ended.

'But it will not be this,' she said, unconsciously straightening the sheets.

A stray thought entered her mind, sifting through all others as the wind amid the foliage outside.

'Are you still waiting for her?' Unohana asked; oddly enough, she felt no grudge. Just the tiniest, most painful sting of unjustified jealousy. Who was she, the woman berated herself, to ask such a thing? With him, she had been hiding from the world, and even after they'd begun to slowly allow reality into their week long shared dream, all the conversations, no matter how heavy, had been carried in unreal detachment; neither of them had taken inflexible stances, they had both listened to the other – a state which, she understood all too well, could probably only be achieved in total intellectual isolation. Stark had made no secret of his own desire to hide, and both of them had been more fortunate than they had hoped for.

There was no reason for which the world into which they emerged from hiding would have changed. None at all.

'I never know for sure,' the man responded. Beyond the honesty of the words, Unohana felt relieved that he had not taken her question for an attack.

'Would you be able to be as you are, with me, if…'

'If I were waiting?' Stark finished for her. 'Unfortunately, I think so,' he answered, at the end of a second of thought. 'I do not trust in parts, Retsu, and I too have no talent for pretence. It is not an attempt at deceit,' he followed. 'This is the whole of Stark – battle abilities aside, there is nothing of him that you have not seen. You have perhaps seen much more than anyone else has, in a very long time.'

She found the first time she'd heard him refer to himself in third person frightening.

'But I never know if I am still waiting…Halibel thought I was,' he added, softly. 'I probably made her feel it.'

'Halibel? ' Unohana questioned, with a mild frown. 'Tercera Espada…Halibel?'

Stark was taken aback, and the honest confusion on his features, as well as his visible embarrassment when he'd realized his mistake made her laugh.

'I thought it was common knowledge,' the man mumbled, sporting something that oddly resembled a blush. 'It is long over,' he rushed to reassure, with such fervor that Unohana could do no more than laugh harder; she found no threat in the other woman's spectrum, aside, of course…

'Well, I am very glad that I am finding out now,' she managed. 'Else, I might have been…'

She gestured awkwardly about her chest.

'Vaguely intimidated,' she finished.

'She also sports a lovely outer mandible complete with perfect shark fangs,' Stark reminded, clearly struggling for the upper hand – his words curved Unohana's chuckles, but not the amusement in her eyes. It was, she thought, perhaps the first time she had really caught him on the wrong foot. Still, the man's embarrassment seemed almost disproportionate; she turned by half, and caressed his arm; to her surprise, the embarrassment in the Arrancar's gaze morphed into distant sorrow.

'Did you care for her?' she asked.

Stark shrugged.

'I have already told you that I am unable to trust in parts,' he responded.

'What happened?' Unohana queried further, drawing herself closer. She did not apologise for her curiosity, nor rushed to withdraw the question, as she had on other occasions where she'd sensed she'd come too close to some painful truth; it was too late for it now, and, Unohana thought, with a small twinge of rebellion, a man who was so practiced at creating distance did not need her protection.

'Aizen happened,' Stark answered, a bit briskly. 'Perhaps,' he added, in a sigh, 'I am being unfair. In the end of it all, Halibel said I had never truly been with her, and perhaps there is a grain of truth in that. As you have noted, I am very good at creating distances. Though - I fought…for her.' He awkwardly said. 'Not to keep her to myself, but just to keep her, as she had once been. I get stuck in the shape of things past so easily…'

He shook his head, showing that he would say no more, then gently cupped her cheek.

'The reason why I will not ask if you will see me again, like this,' Stark said, 'is because I imagine you would like to hold on to the shape of things past as well – I would not think less of you if you did.'

'You do not expect anything that you have said and done during these weeks to have any lasting echo,' the woman said. 'You do not expect that you will have taught me anything.'

'No, I do not expect it,' Stark answered, placing correct emphasis. 'I did and said nothing for your benefit alone, and thus, whatever comes, I know I will feel no regret over my actions. For what it is worth, I hope you will not, either. I told you I am not too proud to ask,' he smiled.

Unohana fully turned around to face him, crossed her ankles and brought her knees to her chest, resting her arms and chin on top of them.

'And no, I am not that detached,' Stark softly added. He scrutinized her features for a few long seconds. 'Did you feel as if I have been…distant?' he asked. 'I did not realize that I was doing it, with Halibel, and I had never truly intended to; I hope I did not do it here, again.'

'No, I did not feel that,' Unohana shrugged. 'I simply felt it now,' she added, 'and resented it a little. Because I am not detached either. The thing that I fear most, at this moment,' Unohana continued, 'is that Aizen did not stop Szayel Aporro's experiment because he suddenly realized that it had no merit. I believe both you and I assumed that from the very beginning.'

'Yes,' Stark nodded.

'So then, why did he stop?' she asked. The Arrancar simply tilted his head to the side, in sign that he agreed with her logic. 'Is this another test? Another game?' Unohana followed.

'He knows you,' Stark shrugged. 'And he knows me; if nothing else, he will have known that I when I do trust, I tend to give a lot of myself. Halibel would certainly have shown him that. The fact that he would assume we would both develop some form of attachment to each other was not far fetched – in truth, it is one of only two possible outcomes. We would either emerge from all this furious, bitter enemies, or…'

'…or not,' Unohana sighed.

Stark's glance grew serious.

'I am not a hedonist,' he said. 'Well, not in anything but food,' he conceded, making her chuckle lightly. 'I would not deny myself a good thing once I have miraculously run across it, either – I am at least that honest. But your fear is mine as well. I actually have no doubt that he is stopping this now because he is reasonably assured that we have formed some sort of bond. My actions would certainly point to that; I have not seen Lilinette in months, I have become far more active than he has ever seen me, and even my axe towards your friend Ukitake and his division has somewhat dulled, if not in sensation, at least in terms of action. Not all of it is your merit,' he grinned, 'but Aizen would certainly be in a position to suspect that.'

'He can only win, after this,' Unohana said, closing her eyes.

'I also only stand to win,' Stark responded, placing his hand on her shoulder. 'It is only you that has everything to lose, here, Retsu. You know that, and I know that. Think,' he whispered, 'of the look on the features of Isane, your lieutenant, if we persisted in seeing each other outside the boundaries of this obligation…'

'I did not lie to her,' Unohana protested, softly. 'I did not truly speak to her about it, but…I certainly did not imply that you were harming me, in any way,' she somewhat rebelliously added, feeling angry at herself. 'I did not…'

She shivered, and he clumsily rubbed her shoulder, as if attempting to warm her.

'You let her think whatever she liked,' Stark said. 'Which is perfectly indifferent to me. I did not grow to care about her opinion, since this started. But you do care.'

'Not to the extent where I would be dishonest,' the woman murmured.

'You've already been dishonest,' the Arrancar corrected.

'And I don't even know why,' Unohana smirked, no longer bothering to contradict. 'I do not know why I was expecting that your actions on the night of the attacks, or the policy change that followed would allow me some opportunity to speak to her about you – I would have thought that either action would have given her some pause or some doubt, but it simply never happened, thus, there was little to no opportunity…'

'I think I have already told you that I neither need nor want you to defend my image to anyone,' Stark said, in a rather cold tone; the woman bit her lower lip in frustration.

'Yes, well, I certainly do not feel like defending your image, either,' she answered, frowning. 'Mostly because I cannot truly see anything to defend.'

'Except for the gigantic hole that lies in place of my heart, and my fashionable fang necklace,' Stark quipped.

'I do not even see them anymore,' Unohana responded.

'Now, well,' he chuckled, 'I have heard of selective deafness being that cornerstone of strong relationships, but selective blindness is utterly new…'

'Stop being awful,' she scolded, not even feigning a smile; Stark laughed, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead.

'You might as well ask me to stop having a Hierro,' he whispered, from up close – the double meaning of the words was not wasted, but she raised her glance to his and did not shy away from the touch of his fingers across her cheek. 'I've told you once, at the very beginning,' Stark said, in the same soft tone, 'that I do not expect you to submit to the new order simply because you've lost the war. All of you made mistakes, that much is true – to me, the very concept of Sereitei was flawed from the very beginning, you committed errors of omission, and errors of tactic, and while I could possibly ask you to admit to those, I would never ask you to utterly surrender all your previous thoughts, and all your previous dreams to this.'

'If you were to continue seeing me, you would be seen as admitting defeat. Perhaps as committing treason,' he shrugged. 'I do not think you deserve that…'

'But is that what I am doing?' Unohana questioned. 'I do not know what you have been acting at the 13th, Stark, but one initial truth remains: you are still the only one who has not conducted a decimation, and, in truth, both yourself and Szayel Aporro,' she spat, ' have done nothing but try to make this madness workable. Rumours and whispers claim that at the 3rd, the Sexta Espada and your Lilinette are working some form of kind miracle, too. None of you had any obligation to do that; Aizen could have forced us all into submission anyway…'

'If I were to truly submit to something, anything…' she whispered, 'it would not be his order that I would be submitting to. Just a new order.'

'It is very kind of you to make the separation, Retsu,' Stark said, with a surprised frown. 'Yet I have to admit that it is almost too large a logical abstraction.'

'Even for you?' she smiled, in undisguised irony.

'No, not for me, but it will be too far a logical abstraction for many,' he chuckled in turn. 'I think most of yours will never see us as anything but an extension of Aizen's will – we technically are that, since without him, we would not be here. Such delicate, philosophical nuances like the fact that we had our human thoughts before he returned our full human bodies to us will most likely be wasted.'

'Yet, I know that, and sense the delicate philosophical nuance.' Unohana frowned. 'Would I not be dishonest if I were to fall back on the shape of things past, and simply apply the opposite of the selective blindness that keeps me from seeing your Hollow hole and your mask?'

'You'd be dishonest to yourself,' Stark shrugged. 'And to me. But not to Isane, your lieutenant – she is very dear to you, and she deserves your protection. It is my opinion,' he softly added, ' that people hide from delicate nuances because they are genuinely scared of where they might lead – Kotetsu Isane is well within her rights in not wanting to face certain things, and you would be right to avoid forcing them upon her…'

'I have to say I am sorry you are thinking that,' Unohana said. 'Isane is not a child, and she is certainly neither stupid, nor cowardly, nor weak. You speak of her as if she were too simple to grasp certain truths, and I do not like it.'

'I'm sorry,' he apologized, placing his arms around her shoulders and bringing her close; Unohana placed her legs on either side of his body, and gracefully surrendered to the embrace. 'It is not that I think Isane is simple,' Stark whispered, as she leaned her forehead on his chest. 'It is that I cannot forget the fact that since we have arrived, we have caused so much suffering…If nothing else, then the controlled massacre of North Rukongai…'

'You could not have stopped that,' Unohana whispered, closing her eyes.

'I did not want to,' he answered, making her shudder. 'That I cannot forget either,' Stark said, gently tucking her hair behind her ear. 'And,' he followed, 'if I cannot forget that, how could we ask that your poor Isane does?'

'The other thing about logical abstractions,' Stark continued, leaning his chin on the top of her head, 'is that they sometimes make good masks for solid, undeniable truths. Such as the fact that we are enemies, Retsu, and, yourself aside, the warmest feeling I can conjure for any of your people is indifference.'

'No,' she pleaded, in an incredulous whisper. 'No…Still…?' Unohana questioned, looking up. 'There is still nothing, in your…'

'You are trying to conjure an organ I naturally lack,' Stark dryly reminded.

'Then how can it be that through all the things that you say, and all of the things that you do, I feel your heart?' she rebelliously queried.

'Practice,' Stark reminded.

'Then,' she said, not bothering to disguise her anger, 'we could easily turn this around – being with me, out in the world of Aizen's making would be as damaging to your perception of self as to Isane's perception of me. It would then not be her lack of abstraction capabilities that you fear, and not her unwillingness to accept the new, but your own. Not wishing to make this difficult for me would simply be the guise under which you give yourself an excuse to hide ad infinitum…'

His unwilling chuckle and incredulous glance did not soften her frown.

'Yes,' she cuttingly said. 'You asked me to learn Latin, once, and I took you seriously. Because I don't do things by half either, and thus far, I have been unable to shut you out simply because the week was done and the door was closed behind me…'

'You actually tried to learn Latin?' he laughed.

'I learned as many quotes as I felt was necessary to impress you,' she furiously returned; Stark's embrace grew tighter, as if to stifle her anger, and though she felt offended at the fact that he was still laughing, and she felt as if her words had slipped by him, she snaked her arms under his, and let the rest of her fury out in a huff. 'You are awful.' Unohana muttered.

'Can I see you again? Outside of this, I mean.' Stark asked.

She did not hurry to answer.

'I am quite scared,' he oddly added, the tremor in his voice somehow making up for the lack of a heartbeat. 'The undeniable truth that I am abstracting from is the fact that I am scared – not of anything that you imagine – of the new, of losing my perception of self…All those fears exist, and carry some weight. Still, the heaviest of them all is that I am scared that I will harm you in some way, lovely woman. I still don't want to do that.'

'I hope you got yourself a new piano.' Unohana responded; she was holding him so tightly that she felt the tension in his arms and chest melt. 'Byakuya will not miss it, I am sure.'

Up Next - Would you believe it, Halibel makes first appearance.