"Where are you going?" Rangiku asked.
Gin paused at the door. He looked at the floor for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Out."
"Out?" Rangiku repeated, she glanced back at Toshiro, laying still on his futon in the second room. "Again?"
He shrugged again. "I'll be back."
She watched him leave before she sank slowly to the floor. "Where are you going?" she whispered.
A moment later she felt a small hand on her shoulder. "Mom, can we go out tonight?"
Rangiku turned to Toshiro. He was still barely taller than she was sitting on the floor. He looked very worried and serious as he looked down into her teary eyes.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Captain Isshin asked if you wanted to go to the Silver Dragon for Captain Kyoraku's birthday tonight, remember? We wouldn't be very late, and it would be fun," Toshiro told her.
She knew he was trying to come up with something to make her feel better, and that felt wrong. It wasn't her little boy's job to make her happy; it should always be the other way around. But she was still tempted. She'd tried not to go out as often recently, at least not when Gin wouldn't be home to keep an eye on Toshiro. He got bored if she dragged him along, not finding a bunch of drunk grown-ups very interesting.
She shook her head finally. "You'd be bored," she told him.
"No I wouldn't," Toshiro argued. "Captain Ukitake will be there, and he will play Go with me. He can't drink very much because it makes him sicker, so he'd just be bored too if we didn't go. Captain Ukitake wouldn't have anything to do but watch everybody else drink. You know that's no fun."
A smile spread across Rangiku's face. "You're right," she agreed. "Go get dressed fast as you can. We've got to hurry."
There were at least twenty shinigami gathered at the Silver Dragon. Rangiku and Toshiro were greeted with cheers. Space was made at one table for them, and Toshiro was given a bowl of ice cream before Rangiku found a cup of sake shoved into her hand.
Toshiro hadn't even taken a bite when Yachiru appeared beside him, enormous eyes staring greedily at his bowl.
"Didn't you get some ice cream?" Toshiro asked. He was pretty suspicious of the Eleventh Division lieutenant. She had an infinite sweet tooth and no compunctions about sharing. While he wasn't really wild about deserts in general, he really liked how cold ice cream was, and truthfully he would have eaten something he hated just to cross her.
"Yup," she said, still staring at his ice cream. "I ate Ken-chan's too. Can I have yours?"
"Go away," he suggested.
"If I cry your mom will make you give it to me," Yachiru threatened.
"No, she won't. She's not that stupid," Toshiro said, glancing at his mother, who was already deep in conversation with Aunt Nanao and holding a bottle rather than a cup in her hand. "She knows all about you."
"Oh, yeah?" Yachiru asked, curious now. "What's she know?"
"How you bully everyone in Eleven, and they have to do everything you want or you go crying to Captain Zaraki," Toshiro answered.
"I don't have to go crying to anyone," Yachiru defended. "I'm the lieutenant. They have to do what I say."
"You're not a real lieutenant," Toshiro said. "You're just a kid like me. Everybody-"
"That's it, Snowflake! Let's fight! I'll show you I'm not a little kid. I'm a real lieutenant!" the girl shouted, as an aura of pink reishi grew around her.
"Yachiru, stop picking on the Ichimaru baby," Kenpachi's rough voice suddenly cut into the argument. "You want more ice cream, go bug the kitchen."
The girl's scowl turned into a grin when he mentioned the kitchen, and she vanished the moment he quit speaking.
Toshiro, freed of her harassment, couldn't feel grateful. He glared across the room at the giant captain and said, "I'm not a baby."
"Yeah, ya are," Kenpachi answered with a huge grin. "But looks like you got more backbone than your old man. Maybe you'll be worth something when you grow up."
"Hey," Rangiku said, loudly. "Gin's not a coward!" Then she paused as if thinking over her own words. "I don't think he is," she said more softly, still looking a little unsure. Then she smiled suddenly, a thought occurring to her. "He's smart and he's careful, and if you'd teach your boys to be a little more like him they wouldn't be spending half their time in Division Four."
At that, Kenpachi chuckled loudly. "Probably so, probably so, but what fun would that be?"
Rangiku raised her bottle in salute. "Agreed. Why be smart when you can have fun? I never bother to do anything if it isn't fun."
"I can attest to that," Isshin said, loudly.
"Captain!" she immediately protested. "I almost always finish my reports on time now."
"I noticed that," he said, frowning. "What is it you're up to, Rangiku-chan?"
"I'm being a good worker and a responsible mother," she answered and glanced back toward Toshiro.
His bowl was empty, and he was nowhere to be seen. She jumped to her feet before she'd even had a chance to process the sudden rush of terror that empty space inspired. She looked over the heads of all the gathered shinigami. There was no white in the sea of black. Her son was nowhere to be seen.
Just as she was about to scream his name, she felt a tug on her hakama.
"Rangiku-chan," Nanao said calmly.
Rangiku looked down to see her friend pointing behind her. She followed Nanao's direction to find her son seated at a Go table not five feet behind her. He was sitting across from Yachiru, who had regained her pink aura.
Captain Ukitake was sitting with them, explaining the basics of the game to the determined girl. Toshiro looked annoyed. He'd been playing the game since before he could count, and he hated playing amateurs-and that included his mother.
"Oh," Rangiku let out a deep breath as she sank back to the floor. Then she reached for her bottle and took a deep drink before she spoke again. "How does anyone survive having kids?"
"I have no idea," Nanao answered. Then she added, "Not that I'll ever need to," under her breath.
Rangiku leaned close to the lieutenant. "There are plenty of men to choose from. You should ask one of them to walk you home tonight," she suggested softly.
"What?" Nanao demanded, staring at Rangiku like she was out of her mind.
"There are," Rangiku insisted, looking over the group that had gathered for Kyoraku's birthday. Kenpachi certainly wasn't an option, and Lieutenant Iba just wasn't smart enough for Nanao. Why weren't there more intelligent shinigami? "What about Captain Isshin?" She suggested finally, although they really didn't seem like much of a match.
"Captain Shiba?" Nanao said, looking even more doubtful as to Rangiku's sanity.
"I don't know, but someone," Rangiku said, still unable to think of anyone Nanao might be remotely interested in, although she could think of over a dozen men who found the librarian-ish lieutenant of Division Eight extremely attractive. "There are plenty of good men around; you just have to give them a chance. Just pick someone you find attractive and ask him to walk you home. You might find out you really like him or you might not, but either way you should just give it a try. You are always going to be alone if you don't take any chances, and if you do anything you want to take back tomorrow you can always just blame it all on the alcohol."
Nanao stared at Rangiku as though she'd never heard anything so insane in her life.
"It's what I used to do, seemed kinder than telling some poor boy I'd spent an evening making out with that I'd just been using him to try to get over the love of my life," Rangiku said.
Nanao blanched. "Did you do that often?"
"I was drunk!" Rangiku protested. Then she grinned. "See, it totally excuses a lack of self-control, especially to those of us who tend to get drunk a lot. They know better than to mention it again, and you can all go back to being friends."
"Then they can do the same thing to you, can't they?" Nanao said, looking down at the still full sake cup in her hand.
Rangiku rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's a chance. Everything is, but what's the point of having a heart if you're not willing to risk breaking it?"
"Maybe if there was someone I really-" Nanao sighed. "I'm fine the way I am. I have far too much work to waste time worrying about men. Despite what my captain believes, my division doesn't run itself. Maybe someday it will be different, but for now the division is my life."
Rangiku sighed. She really was going to have to think of someone perfect for Nanao. She wondered if maybe Miyako would be willing to help her with that. It really was a pity Hisana wasn't in the Gotei; she'd help any way she could.
Rangiku lifted her bottle to her mouth once more and was disappointed to discover it was empty. She had just raised her head to see if she could spot a waitress when there was a small explosion and a shriek just behind her, and suddenly Go tiles were raining down on the entire party.
"You're such a sore loser!" Toshiro shouted above the chaos.
"I didn't know it was so breakable! I didn't mean to break your game! Why would anyone make a game out of such flimsy wood anyway?"
Rangiku and the entire party turned to the captain and two children. All three of them were covered with the ashen remains of the Go table, all that was left of what had been a considerable slab of wood before Yachiru had hit it with a blast of kido. The two children were grey with ash as they stood yelling at each other, but no one even noticed because the frail captain doubled over, coughing harshly.
Nanao was on her feet and reached Ukitake an instant ahead of Kyoraku, both of them demanding to know if he was alright.
He tried to shake them off, but the next moment he coughed up a bright red spray of blood.
"Hey, Whitey, you ok?" Yachiru demanded, and Toshiro stared as the captain continued to cough.
Rangiku grabbed both of the children and pulled them out of the way. There was a few minutes of chaos while people suggested getting a healer, and the shop owner started freaking out about the destruction to his restaurant, but eventually he was directed to Kenpachi, and he shut up, and Kyoraku and Nanao vanished with Ukitake, deciding shunpo was the best way to get him to a healer. And the party was over.
It hadn't been half long enough in Rangiku's opinion, but Toshiro was yawning, and he should have been in bed hours ago. There really was nothing to do but take him home.
She set his feet in his shoes and stood up, pulling him to his feet as well. "Come on, then," she declared, forcing a smile. "Time to go home."
Toshiro was staggering almost as badly as she was as they set off down the road, and Rangiku was beginning to wonder where she'd gotten the obviously very bad idea of taking her son to a party where she intended to get completely smashed. She never did think about the going home portion of the evening. She could try to carry him, but she really didn't trust her balance.
Abruptly someone picked Toshiro up, and she looked over to see her captain carrying her son. Even as she watched, Toshiro's eyes closed and his head fell against Isshin's shoulder.
"Thank you, Captain," Rangiku said, and she set one hand on his arm to steady herself.
"Where's Gin gotten himself to tonight?" Isshin asked, and Rangiku could hear the clear condemnation in his tone.
"He has a lot to work on," Rangiku said, trying to excuse her absent husband. "He's trying to master his bankai."
"He do that every night?" Isshin asked.
"No, he-" Rangiku broke off. She couldn't remember one night in the past three months Gin had not either been late or left for a large portion of the night. Twice he'd vanished for three days in a row. "Lieutenants have a lot of responsibilities. He always tries to spend at least one day at home with us each week, but he has a lot of other things he has to tend to as well, and mastering bankai is a very large commitment of time."
"He hasn't gotten a girlfriend or anything like that, has he, Rangiku-chan?"
Rangiku just gave her captain a look.
"Yeah, I didn't think so either," Isshin answered. "But he's up to something, and I don't like it. He's going out to Rukongai too often, and his snooping is getting worse. He knows things only a captain should know, and some of his teasing's hitting a lot harder than it should. I don't know what he's playing at, but I'm afraid he's going to end up in a hell of a lot of trouble if he doesn't watch himself."
Rangiku nodded. "I know," she agreed. "But he won't talk to me about it. I don't know what to do."
"I hate to think he could put you and Shiro-chan at risk, but-"
"No," Rangiku interrupted. "Whatever it is he's doing, I'm sure he believes it's the best thing for us. He wouldn't do something he thought could hurt us, unless not doing it would be worse. He doesn't do that. He never puts what he wants first. That's just not something he does."
Isshin shook his head. Sometimes the faith women had in their men was simply stupefying. The idea that Rangiku honestly believed that Ichimaru Gin wouldn't just do what he wanted when he wanted, but would always consider her first was so far beyond funny it was downright pitiful. But that's what she believed, and Isshin knew better than try to convince her otherwise.
"You just make sure you don't let him get you mixed up in it, alright, Rangiku-chan? He starts asking you to do things that seem a bit suspicious you remember you've got this boy to think about, and if his dad's getting himself into some kind of trouble he's going to need his mom twice as bad."
Rangiku nodded, and tightened her grip on her captain's arm to keep from stumbling. "Don't worry, Captain. Gin's not going to let me help him out no matter how bad I want to."