Rangiku wasn't the stay at home sort. As soon as Unohana would let her, she was up and around, showing off little Toshiro to everyone she could think of. It helped that the winter cold did not seem to bother him at all. In fact, by the time he was six weeks old he was constantly wiggling his way out of the blankets she wrapped him in and turning his face into the winter winds.
The first time he laughed a gust of wind carried snow into the house and he reached up trying to catch the sparkling flakes in his fat hands.
Rangiku thought it was adorable, but behind his smile Gin was still worried. Several captains had mentioned to him the same thing he noticed, no one had ever seen a child whose reiatsu interacted with the world so naturally and easily. Aizen was fascinated.
Rangiku laughed and refused to worry. Toshiro's father had been a prodigy. She was not surprised their son was unique.
The first summer was rough. Toshiro had no tolerance for heat. In May he had been on the verge of crawling, but by mid-June he had completely stopped growing and did little more than lay listlessly on the floor.
Unohana was concerned and Rangiku was outright terrified and within a month most of Seireitei had been enlisted in the effort to keep the baby cool. Someone brought an ice box back from the World of the Living, and others were constantly bringing back ice to restock it. Captain Isshin harassed Division Twelve for air conditioning to be installed in their home, but Kurotsuchi refused unless Rangiku would let him examine Toshiro to discover the source of his temperature sensitivity. So they only had the old fashioned icebox with the door open to try to cool the baby.
Toshiro was the only infant in the Gotei in several years, and his mother frequently brought him to the different divisions, happily spending all of her free time visiting with old friends and making new ones. There was hardly a shinigami in the city who was not worried when their Shiro-chan fell ill.
The ice box and daily trips to the pool got him through the summer, though he didn't gain an inch or a pound for the entire four months. The only explanation Unohana could offer was that his highly reactive reiatsu was negatively affected by heat, just as it had seemed to positively affected by cold. She guessed that it might have been the result of so much exposure to reiatsu before his birth and she didn't doubt that he would always be sensitive to the weather.
Summer was nearly over before Gin returned to his old habits. Rangiku was laying on the tatami just inside the entry sprinkling Toshiro with water as he slept on the cool stone of the entry itself. With all the ice melted she couldn't think of anything else to do. She was so tired and frustrated and just plain miserable. The door had to be left open to allow the breeze to cool the house, but it let in millions of mosquitos too. She swatted them away from the baby constantly but felt like she herself was being eaten alive.
Gin had brought a bento dinner from his division kitchens as usual, but he didn't even step out of his sandals. He watched her for a moment before he said, "I'm going out."
"No you're not," Rangiku exclaimed as loudly as she dared with the baby asleep, and sat up abruptly.
"I've got to go," he said, turning to the door.
"Why?" she hissed. "It's not your night for the night watch. Aizen wouldn't ask you to come in with Shiro so sick, not unless he had to. Did something happen?"
"I'll be back." And with that he vanished.
Rangiku glared at the open doorway. That was so absolutely unfair. He wasn't going to work. He was just going out because he felt like it. He was going to have fun, and she was stuck here, bored out of her skull, watching a sleeping baby.
She looked down at Shiro. He blinked enormous blue eyes back at her. Great, a wide awake baby.
Half an hour later she was standing in the doorway of the most popular summer sakeya in Seireitei, popular because the owner had some sort of deal going with R&D and it had air conditioning. Shiro was peeking out of sling she had strapped across her chest and grinning at the cool air that was blowing down on his face.
A large man working the door tried to step in her way. "Ma'am, this isn't really an appropriate place for-"
"Shut up," she suggested, turning furious eyes on him.
He did. The cowed man bowed and stepped back.
She was looking over the crowd. She doubted her husband was here. While he found people entertaining, he wasn't exactly social, so she was looking for someone else whose party she could crash. She spotted the Squad Eleven boys quickly and headed over to join them.
More than one half-drunk shinigami noticed her with Shiro as she crossed the room, but if anyone else objected to her bringing a baby into a sakeya they didn't say so. Most of them knew her by sight anyway. She'd spent the last nearly eight months befriending at least half of the Gotei. As she told Gin, when he noticed people from other squads started greeting her in the street, what else was she supposed to do with all her free time?
The boys from Eleven greeted her enthusiastically. Many of them raised their glasses to her and shouted out greetings. "Hey, Rangiku-chan!" "Long time, no see!" "There's Shiro-chan, never too early to start drinking!" "Good to see you!"
Rangiku grinned and stepped out of her sandals to climb up onto the raised tatami. She squeezed between the drunken men and made her way over to Ikkaku and Yumichika. As the senior officers, the others let them have one end of the low table and crowded along the other two sides-which was perfect because that left space for her.
Rangiku dropped to her knees between the two men and shouted at the nearest waiter, "We're gonna need another round!"
Everyone cheered and shouted their agreement. There were times she loved Squad Eleven.
"Where's fox-face?" Ikkaku asked. Then he grinned as a new thought struck him. "Did you leave him?"
"Of course she didn't," Yumichika answered. "She's not that bright."
"Excuse me?" Rangiku demanded, but Yumichika handed her a drink so she couldn't really get mad.
"You are very beautiful, Rangiku-chan, and you put a real effort into your appearance, and I appreciate that; so few people do try. But you have two very serious flaws, you hardly ever bother to think and you're in love with Ichimaru Gin. The first I can forgive, but the second..." Yumichika trailed off dramatically.
"But didn't we make the most beautiful baby?" Rangiku argued, pulling Shiro out of the sling and sitting him on the table.
He looked around curiously for a moment, blinking at all the staring eyes. He was very pretty with his feathery white hair and pale, clear skin, and the most serious, round, aqua eyes the same color as the silk jinbei he wore-one of many beautiful items Rangiku had found in a box of hand-me-downs Captain Ukitake had passed on to her from a sister who'd heard about the baby and wanted to help.
Shiro took in his surroundings carefully, seeming to consider each and every member of his audience. Sometimes Rangiku thought he acted like a tiny old man, looking on everyone with disapproval, but then, like every other baby ever, he reached for the nearest glass.
Rangiku grabbed it out of his reach. "Nope. That's mine," she told him and drank it all just to be safe.
He frowned back at her and said, "Mine!" reaching for the stolen cup.
"You are amazingly beautiful for something so small and fat," Yumichika told him, leaning in to meet the baby's eyes.
"Mine!" Shiro declared again, and lunged for the feather above Yumichika's eye.
Yumichika dodged back in terror, and Shiro screamed in triumph; the feather was in his hand.
Yumichika raised his hand to cover his eye. "You little monster! You really are Ichimaru's offspring!"
Shiro waved the feather in the air. "Pretty!" he declared.
Ikkaku and Rangiku just started laughing.
"No, no," Rangiku mumbled, drunkenly. "It's this way." She waved one raised finger toward the street they had just come down.
She was talking in Ikkaku's ear as her chin rested on his shoulder while he carried her on his back.
He glanced back at Yumichika, who was carrying a sleeping Shiro in her sling. The sight had been hilarious half an hour ago. Now it was getting kind of annoying, especially with the way Yumichika kept humming to the kid.
"How the fuck don't we know where she lives?" Ikkaku demanded.
"Why would we?" Yumichika asked. "We're not going to be making social calls."
"Just keep going this way," Rangiku suggested, pointing in a completely different direction. "It's just-oh, never mind."
Gin appeared directly in front of them, looking very different from how either of the Squad Eleven officers had ever seen before. His eyes were wide and panicked, and Shinso was in his hand. He managed to hide his fear almost immediately and sheathed his zanpakuto instantly.
"Oh, look at you, Ran!" he said, plastering a grin on his face as he stepped forward. "Already getting falling down drunk in front of our son? Poor thing, what's he going to have to look forward to? He can hardly become disappointed in his parents as he grows up if he already knows all our faults."
Rangiku smiled as Ikkaku lowered her to the ground. "Don't nobody know all your faults," she answered, stumbling forward.
Gin caught her and pulled her up against his chest. "Careful," he said.
She looked up at him for a moment. "I'm mad at you," she declared, finally. "You walked out on us."
"That wasn't walking out on you; that was running an errand."
She frowned. "Felt like it."
"That's only because you've never been walked out on; the real thing feels a lot worse."
She raised her hand to his cheek, and her eyes searched his face. "I'm sorry," she said finally.
"You will be in the morning," he assured her.
"I love you," she said, and pulled his head down, meeting his lips for a long, deep kiss.
"Oi!" Ikkaku said loudly. "We're still here!"
Rangiku turned slowly, holding onto Gin with one arm around his neck. "Why?"
"Your kid!" Ikkaku said, pointing at Yumichika, who was gently swaying and humming softly to the baby.
Rangiku blinked at Yumichika. "Oh, right." She started toward them and immediately lost her footing.
"How about I carry the breakable baby?" Gin suggested, catching her around the waist.
She nodded. "Good idea."
Yumichika sighed and unstrapped the sling. "He's been sleeping really well. He loved the air conditioning. That's why Rangiku-san brought him to Morimoto's. She was thinking about him. She didn't just go out to get drunk."
"I know," Gin answered, taking Shiro from his arms. "Thanks for looking out for both of them."
He tightened his grip on his family and vanished, shunpoing home in an instant.
"We didn't do it for you," Yumichika said to the empty street.