Kinta was only a week old when Rangiku received a guest she had never expected. Kuchiki Byakuya stood in her doorway with a small package in his hand, looking very uncomfortable. Toshiro had let the captain in and brought him to see his mother, as instructed, but when they reached the room he went to stand beside Rangiku. He didn't look like he was hiding from Byakuya, however, he looked more like he was standing guard over Rangiku and her sleeping baby.

"Captain Kuchiki," Rangiku said in surprise. "How kind of you to come."

He nodded slightly and stepped forward. His eyes were so cold. It was only when Rangiku was around Kuchiki that she had any understanding of how others felt with Gin. He was completely unreadable, like there nothing but a was a wall behind those icy eyes.

He held out the package, and for a moment his eyes lingered on the red patterned silk the box was wrapped in. "Hisana made this," he said slowly. His eyes went to her face and for an instant Rangiku thought she might have caught a glimpse of his pain in the depths of his eyes, but it was gone before she could be sure she wasn't just imagining it. "For you, for the new baby," he added, holding the package out to her.

Rangiku forced a smile to her face as she took it, but she knew she hadn't succeeded in hiding the sadness that was still too fresh. "Thank you, Captain, for this. You needn't have brought it yourself. I would have understood if you sent it."

"Hisana would have come to congratulate you, and to see the child." His eyes dropped to the golden-haired infant for less than a second. "She wanted you to know how happy she was for you. She worried you might think she was jealous, but she wanted you to know she felt nothing but joy for you, her dear friend, in all of your happiness."

She couldn't stop the tears that spilled down her cheeks. Poor, sweet Hisana! "It's not fair," she whispered.

Kuchiki did not respond except to step back. He looked at Rangiku a moment longer as though he was considering saying something more, but instead he nodded, and turned away, leaving the room without saying anything more.

Rangiku stared after him, fighting hard against the urge to start bawling. Hisana had been gone for four months, and it still hurt like she'd died yesterday. She had so many regrets. What an awful friend she'd been; she hadn't thought once about Hisana while she was sick, except to think it was annoying. Surely a good friend would have worried, would have realized-

"Are you going to open it?" Toshiro asked, interrupting his mother's dark thoughts.

Rangiku looked up, meeting Toshiro's worried eyes. She forced a smile to her face. "Of course," she said, as cheerfully as she could. "Wasn't it kind of Captain Kuchiki to bring it himself?" She said as she untied the knot that bound the fabric and lifted the lid from the small wooden box.

A real smile lit up her face when she saw the gift, a tiny kimono of her favorite pink. It was trimmed with a design of colorful children's toys, pinwheels and tops and striped balls, all beautifully and perfectly embroidered. Toshiro had refused to wear pink for years, but now she could dress Kinta in her favorite color.

"He's going to look like a girl," Toshiro declared as Rangiku lifted the tiny garment.

"He's a baby," Rangiku answered. "It doesn't matter, and, anyway, not everyone looks like a girl just because they're wearing pink. You're just so pretty already that if you add anything cute at all it pushes you over the edge. You should grow your hair out. Then we could dress you up and trick people into thinking you really are a girl. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Toshiro glared at her. "No."

"You really aren't much fun sometimes, did you know that?" Rangiku informed him.

"What sort of a mom wants to turn her son into a cross-dresser?" Toshiro answered.

"Not a cross-dresser, just once in a while for the fun of it," Rangiku informed him. "I always wanted to dress up as a boy and see if people treated me differently, but your daddy wouldn't let me. He said I was too pretty, even before I had much of a figure, but I guess he wouldn't pass for a girl either so it was fair."

Her expression became thoughtful as she remembered that long ago childhood. It had been so hard, but there had been good things about it. She wouldn't change it, she realized, even if she could somehow go back in time. It had been important.

Toshiro just shook his head. There were some times when he was quite certain his mother was not sane. This had to be one of them.