Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own it.

You wouldn't know it from the look of him, but he's quite the talker. Trash talk is his forte and talk in general his constant fall back. Ask Abarai Renji about himself, and he'll paint a picture in coarse words of determination, strength, and longing. He longs for a lot of things. A Captain's smock. A load of money. And a new pair of glasses, since some dumbass kid broke his last pair. And a tiny white rabbit with violet eyes that spark with ferocity.

He'll tell you he's been after that rabbit for years. He'll tell you once they were thick as thieves, seeing as they actually were thieves because kids don't survive Rukongai any other way. He'll tell you he lost the rabbit; he had loosened his grip on her once and she wriggled out of his arms and bounded off. He'll tell you he's caught up to her once or twice.

And she has gone and done it again.

Every time it seemed like he might catch up to her, she would bolt. Rabbits love to play tag.

Renji long ago accepted the fact that she was a creature of reserve and honor. How could she not be, seeing as she now carried the Kuchiki name? But how could she be so different and so terribly, impossibly the same? She has strength because she was a child of Rukongai. She has skill because she was a student of the Shinigami Academy. She has maturity because she had lived, loved, lost.

But the heart she carries is all her own. Even as a child, that heart had ruled her with ruthless power. Every companion they lost in Rukongai, she had wept over as if she had never witnessed death. When the Kuchiki clan picked her up, he knew her tears of guilt and loss were without limit because she had to abandon him. When Shiba Kaien died, he knew the well of saline in her eyes dried up from overuse. He saw her only once after that happened. Her face had become a mask of sorrow. For the first time, he could not bear to look at her and did not feel any loss when she was sent away.

He has gotten harder, too.

Apparently, not hard enough. His old habits would not die.

He had jumped at the chance to become Kuchiki's lieutenant. Why shouldn't he? He had the power. Even as a sixth seat in the Eleventh Squad he could easily wipe the floor with any of Kuchiki's other underlings. He had ambition a-plenty. And how here was the chance to show that stuffed shirt he was man enough to socialize with nobles. Particularly the one Byakuya calls sister. And they would be together again, just like in Rukongai, and life would be normal again. No matter what guise he put on it, his sole ambition was always to get back to Rukia.

He likes to think he doesn't know why.

Her cell in Sixth Division headquarters had become a favorite haunt of his. He would stand outside the bars and jibe at her like he'd done when he was a kid. He only truly became worried when for several days the child in her would not respond. She'd just glance a him with those baleful eyes and turn her chair to the wall. But then she made that eyebrow remark and he thought he'd hit pay dirt. But she took that hope away when she asked the question. "Do you think I'm really going to die?"

Of course not. She's a Kuchiki. Nobles are never executed.

But then ol' stick-up-his-ass himself came in and blew all his hope to hell.

But even his frosty words are nothing to the crushing pain he felt at her response. "He has never once cared for me." There you go, straight from the horse's mouth. She has given up.

Then why the hell has she stayed? If she felt so unwanted, why did she not back out, or try to? Why did she never come to him and tell him of her pain? Why is it now, when it's too late, that she is honest?

And what the hell did she see in that kid to make her act in a way that would surely bring about her death?

He steps away from the bars. For once, words have completely failed him. And his precious rabbit, resigned to her depression, is totally fine with leaving him forever.