Toshiro let Miyako in after the second knock. His mother hadn't even moved from her place on the couch. She had barely moved from that spot all day. She laid there and watched Kinta play with the growing mountain of toys and clutter that covered the room's floor. When he got fussy she changed him or fed him or soothed him to sleep, but that was all she did. Since she'd received news of the death of Lieutenant Suzuki and his team she had not moved.
For the past week Toshiro had fetched breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the division mess hall, and had done what little cleaning had actually happened. He was furious at his father for vanishing once again, even if it was to hunt the hollow responsible for his lieutenant's death, and he was so relieved when Miyako appeared that he almost cried.
"How are you doing, Shiro?" Miyako asked, as she stepped out of her sandals and up into the home.
"I think Mom's sick," he answered, looking worried.
"I think so too," Miyako agreed. "And I think it's about time she got some help."
She stopped in the doorway, shocked by what she saw. Gin and Rangiku's style of housekeeping had always left something to be desired, but this was ridiculous. Kinta was wearing nothing but a diaper and was chewing on a wooden spoon, which was fine as it was spring but so unlike Rangiku who had always loved dressing her boys in the finest clothes she could find. Spread around him were toys and books everywhere, mixed with dirty clothes and empty snack boxes from the World of the Living. For the first time Miyako could ever remember, Rangiku, herself, was a mess. She wore no makeup or jewelry, not even the diamond ring Gin had given her years ago, and Miyako had not even known she ever took it off. Rangiku's hair was dirty and tied back in a sloppy, tangled knot. The kimono she was wearing was stained and wrinkled. In short, she did not look remotely like herself.
"Where's your dad?" she asked Toshiro as she stood looking in at her friend. She hoped Gin was somewhere nearby so she could murder him. She could not believe he had allowed it to get this bad.
"He had to try to find the hollow that killed everyone," Toshiro answered in a whisper, glancing at his mother in case she had heard him.
Miyako nodded. She supposed that was a valid excuse for his absence. It was what a captain should do, but still, he should have arranged for some sort of help for his family. Rangiku had just been beginning to pull out of the slump she'd been in since Hisana's death and Isshin's disappearance. He should have known she would take these additional deaths hard.
"Rangiku-chan," Miyako said, gently, as she stepped into the room. "How are you feeling?"
Rangiku nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Miyako's voice. She sat up quickly and straightened her kimono and tried to smooth back her hair. "Hi, Miyako," she said with forced cheer. "I didn't realize you were here."
"How are you feeling?" Miyako asked again.
"Me? I'm fine. I'm a little worried about Gin out chasing hollows, but he's always alright, isn't he?"
That was when Kinta decided he wasn't getting enough of the attention that seemed to be going around. The pudgy little thing sat up and waved his arms wildly. "Miya, Miya, Miya!" he shouted.
Miyako quickly went and picked him up before he decided tears were necessary to get some attention. "Of course, Gin will be alright," Miyako said, as the baby in her arms tugged at the clip in her hair. "You know how strong he is and how careful. He can take care of himself. You know better than to worry about him."
Rangiku shook her head. "Of course," she said quickly. "It's just-things don't seem to be going right recently, do they?"
"It's been a hard year for all of us," Miyako reminded her. She too had lost a good friend, and even though she was now in Thirteen, Isshin had long been her captain too. "But you can't just give up."
"I haven't-" Rangiku broke off, looking around the room. She swore under her breath as she really took in how bad she'd allowed the mess to get. "I-I just-shit, I'm sorry." She looked past Miyako to her son who she'd somehow allowed to look after her all week. "I'm sorry, Shiro-chan. I didn't mean-I'll do better, ok? I haven't been feeling well, but I'll get better, so don't worry, ok? I'm going to take care of things."
Toshiro frowned. "I'm ok," he told her. "I like helping, and I'm not doing much anyway, so you don't need to worry about me."
Rangiku forced a smile. "I'm really lucky to have such a dependable son to help me out. But it's about time I got up and did something."
"Exactly," Miyako agreed. "And the first thing you're going to do is take a bath. I'll keep an eye on these two and you take your time and relax."
"I should take Kinta with me. He hasn't had a bath in days either," Rangiku answered.
"Shoo!" Miyako commanded. "And I don't want to see you back in here in less than an hour!"
Rangiku smiled. It was a small smile, but it was real. "Alright, but only because I've had him with me every minute of the past seven days, and an hour by myself sounds like heaven," she said as she slowly stood up.
"Even mommies deserve a break," Miyako told her as she hurried her friend across the hall. "At least an hour!" she reminded Rangiku as she closed the door behind her.
Then she looked down at Toshiro and smiled. "You really have been doing a good job, Shiro-chan, but I bet you deserve a break too, so why don't you go and do whatever you want for a while, ok?"
"Don't you want me to help clean up?" he asked, looking back at the mess.
Miyako shook her head. "Nope, I've got a better idea for that."
The members of the Third Division were more than a little dismayed when Shiba Miyako, Third Seat of the Thirteenth, stormed into the mess hall with their captain's baby on her hip. She looked over the crowd of mostly young men and women. They looked like they'd taken the loss of their lieutenant and five other men in stride. They were somewhat muted but still talking and joking as usual. Loss was too much a part of the Gotei to let it knock you down.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," she said loudly.
Silence fell and every set of eyes turned toward her. Every single person was waiting for her condemnation.
"Your captain is away, serving the Gotei, and not one of you thought to see if his family needed any help. What sort of a division does not think to help its captain in every possible way? Captain Ichimaru cannot be here now for his family because of his duty to all of you, but you're here, so get off your lazy asses and help!"
One of the officers got up the nerve to ask how and Miyako quickly picked out five people to give her a hand and told the rest she expected them to assign someone to check on Rangiku and the boys every day their captain was gone and see if there was anything they needed. Then she led the five 'volunteers' back to the captain's quarters and handed out chores all around, setting two to attack the kitchen, and another to gather up any and all laundry he could find-including diapers-and take it all back to the division laundry for washing, while the last two got to try to help Miyako try to straighten out the avalanche of clutter. And most importantly, no one was to disturb the Captain's wife's bath!
Miyako felt pretty satisfied with herself as she watched two young shinigami scramble about, trying to figure out where everything belonged. She did not feel at all bad giving them a job that was not technically part of the division members' duty. She belonged to the Thirteenth Division. Every single member of her division would do anything for their captain, including cleaning his home, which she doubted he even knew was not usual. Captain Ukitake never asked for help, but he needed it, and his division would always be there, even before he knew he needed anything.
Clearly the Third Division needed more training. It was true that they'd been without a captain for the better part of a century, so maybe they just needed a little more time to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. Maybe she'd knocked some sense into them, and from now on they'd remember that their captain needed them to help make it possible for him to be the best possible captain he could. She didn't like Gin, herself, but he was a captain, and he had damned well earned that rank. He deserved to be treated with just as much respect and devotion as any other captain.
Rangiku reappeared after well over an hour. She looked much better now, all washed and relaxed, her damp hair hanging over her shoulder and her skin still a little flushed from the heat of the bath. She had discarded the dirty kimono and wore a thin pink cotton kimono instead. Miyako could still see the shadow of worry and depression in her friend's eyes, but at least they had taken one practical step forward.
Rangiku watched one young shinigami rush past, pushing a cloth over the wooden hall floor, and then she noticed another adding a pile of books to the stacks in the closet. Miyako and Kinta waved at her from the couch, and Kinta yelled, "Mama!" loudly.
Rangiku joined them on the couch, and Kinta climbed immediately into her lap. "What's going on?" she asked as the boy gathered more books to pile into the closet.
"Captain Ichimaru's division has decided it's their responsibility to take care of his family while he's away," Miyako told her, smiling smugly.
"That's very nice of them," Rangiku said, knowing full well that Miyako must have bullied them into it. Division Three was nice and friendly to her family, but they still had not really gotten used to Gin as their captain.
"I made you an appointment with Unohana at ten tomorrow, and don't even try to argue. It isn't like you to spend your days laying around at home. I don't know if you need medication or not, but you have to do something and talking to Unohana always helps."
"Ok," Rangiku said. "I can do that."
"And," Miyako added, lowering her voice as the young shinigami left the room with a sack of garbage. "Since you really need something fun to do, I've decided I'm going to help you play matchmakers for my captain. I've even picked out the perfect girl for him."
"You're kidding?" Rangiku said, sitting forward with her eyes glowing. "You're really going to let me set your captain up with someone? Really?"
Miyako nodded. "Yes, but only because I'm absolutely sure she's perfect for him, and if we don't set them up they will never find that out. They never have any reason to speak to each other so we need to give them one."
"Who are you thinking of?" Rangiku asked, looking even more excited.
"Nemu," Miyako declared proudly.
Rangiku stared at her for a moment, before she burst out laughing. "Nemu? Kurotsuchi Nemu! That's wonderfully fantastic and completely insane! Why Nemu?"
Miyako waited for Rangiku to stop giggling before she answered. "For one thing my captain needs someone who won't panic if he coughs up a little blood, and Nemu certainly isn't squeamish. She's very intelligent and kind and sweet in her way, and she would take good care of him without trying to baby him, and he could take care of her too. He needs to take care of someone; it makes him happy, and he doesn't often get the chance. But Nemu needs a lot of taking care of, she's so completely helpless when it comes to dealing with other people, and with all the common sense things that everyone else takes for granted she's lost. He could help her with all of that. He wouldn't laugh at her and make her feel stupid like most men do. He'd be gentle and kind and make her feel worth something. She has so many problems with that awful father of hers. She needs help and she needs love and I think my captain would be very happy to give her both."
Rangiku was grinning by the end of Miyako's speech. "You're right, but you missed the number one reason why Ukitake's perfect for her."
"What's that?" Miyako asked.
"Captain Kurotsuchi won't be able to murder him, and there aren't many men you can say that about," Rangiku added with a laugh.
Miyako's eyes widened. "Do you think he would try?"
"Surely even he's not that stupid. The General usually lets him do whatever he wants, but even he has to know there are certain people you just can't mess with, and Captain Ukitake is at the top of that list."
"I hadn't even thought about Kurotsuchi," Miyako admitted. "I suppose you're right that there's no way he would like seeing his daughter find someone."
"One more thing," Rangiku said with a huge smile. "You get to give Nemu The Talk."
"The talk?" Miyako repeated, looking confused.
"Nemu knows nothing about life and that includes love and sex and even kissing. She once asked me why I liked to taste Gin's mouth so much, honestly, she did, with a complete straight face. She really wanted to know. It was years ago, before we even got married, and I was so completely embarrassed at having been caught that I just told her it was because he tasted like the persimmons he loves so much and ran off."
"But that was years ago," Miyako said. "She's probably learned plenty since then."
"When I was pregnant this time Nemu asked me how I managed to incubate a baby in my belly rather than one of their gigai incubators in R&D and if I really considered my method practical, especially since I couldn't seem to grow them past their larval stage and R&D could achieve a full-grown gigai in the same amount of time.
"I tried to explain to her that mine was the natural method and that all the time children spent growing up was valuable for shaping their characters and gave them time to learn and understand the world before they had to face it on their own.
"She wasn't listening though because the moment I stopped talking she asked me how I planned to get the baby out, and if I'd been equipped with an access panel when I was impregnated."
Miyako opened and shut her mouth. "Did you explain?" she finally asked.
"No, I laughed so hard I had to run to the bathroom before I pissed myself," Rangiki said. "Mind you, I have to say I like the idea of an access panel."
Rangiku finally noticed that Kinta was pulling on her collar, a sure sign that he was hungry. She shifted him into the crook of one arm and easily freed one breast from her kimono to feed him.
There was a crash of ceramics shattering on wood, and Miyako spun around to see that one of the boys she had drug over to clean was standing over a wooden tray and the remains of Rangiku's best tea set in a pool of tea. He was staring at Rangiku as though stricken. He had very obviously not had much in the way of previous experience seeing a woman's bare breast.
Miyako was about to tell him off for staring when Rangiku laughed.
"Sorry, Keiji," she said lightly. "I forgot you were here-Miyako, can you hand me Kin-chan's blanket?" she said, pointing at a basket of baby linens beside the couch.
The boy pulled himself together enough to look away when Rangiku spoke, and dropped to the ground, scrambling to clean up.
"Poor thing," Rangiku said, as she draped the blanket over her shoulder to cover herself and the baby. "I can't help feeling sorry for them. There are so many innocent young shinigami, and that's all they're ever going to be. So many of them die so young. Two of the boys with Suzuki were less than a decade out of the Academy, just children who'd never even had a chance to live their lives."
Miyako saw the tears beginning to form in Rangiku's eyes and quickly scrambled to distract her. "Can you think of any way to make Nemu and my captain speak to each other? I've tried bringing her to the division three different times and neither of them will ever say anything to each other. Nemu never does say anything if she doesn't have to, and the captain is actually very shy with people he doesn't know."
Rangiku smiled at that. "We'll just have to make him rescue her," she declared.
"Rescue her?" Miyako repeated skeptically. "Have you never seen Nemu fight? Kurotsuchi made her so strong that I doubt she can be killed."
"She needs rescuing from her bully of a father. Everybody knows it. We just have to find a way to make Captain Ukitake see it firsthand. I doubt he could just standby while Kurotsuchi smacked Nemu around, even if she is his lieutenant and his daughter," Rangiku answered. "Captain Ukitake has to put up with a lot he doesn't really like in the Gotei; I've seen him flinch more than once at the behavior of other Captains, but I really don't think he could endure Kurotsuchi's abuse of Nemu if he saw it himself."
Miyako smiled. "Nemu, the maiden in distress, you really are brilliant sometimes, Rangiku-chan."