54 of 100: Fallen Angel
Unedited.
Nanao's head hurt. It throbbed at each temple right above her ears and thrummed across the top. It felt like a short circuit between her ears. She shifted and her body protested the movement. Her lips parted in a moan the never left her mouth.
Pain.
Why did it hurt?
If she was still, there was nothing. Movement, however… twitching tired eyes flickered open and the confusion tripled. It was like looking through wispy white gauze. Everything was white. Shifting one shoulder she pulled her arm free of what felt like a bed laden with heavy blankets. She tried to reach up, to clear the wispy gauze out of her way but her fingers felt nothing. There was nothing to grasp onto. Her tired arm fell back down to her side.
Had she been injured in battle? That seemed so unlikely and yet here she lay in bed, in pain, and with her eyesight altered. The last thing she remembered was breakfast. She had been sitting in the kitchen with Hinamori. The girl had made her tea and Nanao had been grateful for the cup to warm her hands. She had been suffering from a headache that night and hadn't been able to keep warm.
Hanatarou had been making breakfast, as he usually did, as he hummed to himself. She couldn't remember him serving breakfast though. Had they been interrupted before they ate? Hinamori had requested that they not use the kidou chains that day, which Nanao had not agreed to and… and what?
"You're thinking too hard."
The voice surprised her.
Not only because it was achingly familiar but because she'd thought she was alone. Immediately, she tried to move, to coax her body from the warm nest she'd been laid in but large hands came down over her shoulder caps and pressed her aching form back down.
"No, no. You need to stay in bed. It's barely been an hour since I've tucked you in," he chided. He was so close. Nanao didn't struggle as he pulled her blankets back up to her chin and she breathed in the scent of them.
It was unfamiliar. They didn't smell like him. Where was she?
"Captain," she breathed her voice raspy. "Where am I?"
His chuckle didn't amuse her. "Astute of you, Nanao-chan. We've taken a little vacation."
"I can't," she started. "Where are Hinamori and Hanatarou?"
"They have been returned to Soul Society. Your mission has ended."
"I haven't debriefed. I need to report." Her protest was a pathetic mewl through tired lips, a desperate cling to duty she didn't have the energy for.
"Little Momo-chan can handle that. You're not reporting to anyone."
Nanao's tired eyes had drifted closed. It was easier than staring up at blank, silky white and they hurt less when she wasn't focusing on anything. "What's wrong with my eyes?"
His breath fanned across her forehead before she felt the chaste press of his lips. They were dry. "Nothing," he kissed her temple. His weight shifted, cloth rustled, she felt him curling down beside her. "There's nothing wrong. Trust me and rest now, Nanao."
"But … Captain," she whispered, as his arms closed around her. The weight of her unknown ordeal weighed heavy on her. Fatigue fell like a curtain closing. It was pulling her under.
"Just rest," he murmured against the shell of her ear.
There was a crispness to some dawns: the chill in the air, the freshness of new that wafted on the breeze, the dew that glazed the grass. When Nanao woke the second time, aware that it was the second time, she felt this newness as it crept across her face. It felt as though there were a window open nearby. When the haziness of waking faded, she flicked her eyes open rapidly, her heart pounding as she recalled details of her last memory.
She'd been awake in a strange place with pain and damaged eyes and her Captain had been there. Her heart thudded.
With an urgency bordering on frantic she looked and saw shapes.
It wasn't dawn at all. She was in a room bathed in the blue black of night. Sometime during her slumber she had turned onto her side and she faced an uncurtained window. It was pulled open and a full, low moon hung in the night sky. Dark clouds hung suspended over its corners, eclipsing the silver light shining down into the room.
Which brought her to mind again… where was this room? Pushing an arm beneath her, she hoisted herself up and was relieved when there was no pain accompanying the movement. Instead, there was a groan behind her and an arm snaked around her middle and she was abruptly pulled back into the bedding. This time, she felt the body curled up against her back, warm and hard and solid.
And she knew who it was.
"Captain," she spoke sternly.
"Shhh." The arm around her waist pulled her nearer, tight against his body. The heat of his chest warmed her back, the hard muscle of him reassuring. "This is an old house, Nanao-chan, they'll hear you." His voice was a quiet hum against her ear, his breath a hot rush against her cheek, his arm was heavy over her side, his hand hot against her belly.
It was so inappropriate. It was sinfully perfect.
Immediately her need to squirm vanished as her mind stopped processing sensation and picked up logic. They who? Where was she? "Where am I?"
"We're taking a vacation, remember? Just me and my Nanao-chan."
She started to reply that they couldn't take a vacation. That the two of them were the senior most executive officers of Division Eight and that they both couldn't be away at the same time when it hit her, again, she was no longer a part of Division Eight. She was no longer even an officer.
Ripped from her excuse, she grasped at straws. "I wasn't cleared for a vacation."
His laughter soothed her. It eased the awful homesickness that had started to curl in her belly while playing house with Hinamori and Hanataorou. As if he would even need to file paperwork to get her away from Captain Ukitake.
AN: There are things that need to be explained. I will explain them. I think.
