It was like déjà vu, really. Many, many years ago, when Renji stopped hanging around for the first time, Rukia slipped into an inexplicable snit. If inexplicable were tantamount to unspeakable. Ichigo didn't dare bring it up. He didn't dare.

By the time the information on his whereabouts had filtered down to the intended places, Abarai was no longer sneaking around with the intrepid Arisawa (contrary to the impression he gave off with his shifty red blush). No, they were hot and heavy, as evidenced by Asano's holy-shit-I-passed-my-midterm! party, where they were caught in the bathroom playing spin-the-bottle. The irony was that they were alone and there was not a bottle in sight. When they were betrayed to Rukia, she merely rolled her eyes and made one comment: "It's not a matter of when one of them is going to choke on the other's tongue. The question is whose tongue?" Her tone was sharp, almost wounded. Ichigo, who had become a master of making himself silent or scarce whenever the topic of Renji clawed its way into her mind, decided that here was where he would stand his ground.

"This is ridiculous. I can't believe you're not happy for him."

"I can't believe you are. Don't you get it? They're carrying on like this is it. It can't be, you know. They can't stay like this forever," she huffed. They were headed home and the bite of winter was on the edge of the autumn wind. He shivered, almost convulsively.

"Why not?" He wanted to know.

"Don't make me spell it out."

"You owe me that. And Renji too, if you care so much. Is it really that bad?"

"He can't just come back and forth like that. He's a vice captain, you know."

"So are you. What's the difference?"

"Arisawa is human."

"So am—oh," he murmured. The difference that might as well have been the Grand Canyon for their childhood friends. Uncrossable and unfathomable. This was the cumulation of their bittersweet time together. They had fought many battles and won a war. But time never lost to anything. It pressed on and change followed. Rukia's snit melted into apprehension and spread to Ichigo. They waited for what seemed like weeks. And then the shift came and went. Renji stopped coming altogether and Arisawa faded away. When Tatsuki took another man's name, they told themselves that while it was for the best, it still sucked. They liked Hakumeis plenty. They were a fun couple until they left town. But they were never as close as before. Not Ichigo and Tatsuki, who'd been the first to make him cry when they were five, nor Rukia and Renji, who had been her dogged shadow for longer than she could recall. And like that, the others began to fall away as well. It was as if the removal of one piece—Renji—made the whole puzzle collapse. The Ishidas were too busy raising a family. Asano started selling real estate someplace else. Mizuiro began working with his mother, which kept him either busy or too far away to socialize with. Chad—despite the suddenly clear chain linking him to the irascible but devoted Karin—stayed close but kept his distance, as if he knew and was trying to make his own absence easier to deal with when the time came.

But now, one by one, their friends were coming home. This was wonderful to Ichigo, whose nostalgic nature compelled him to welcome the familiar with open arms. But the arrival of Hakumei posed a problem for Rukia. The day after Hakumei—Arisawa—barged into her office and demanded to know where the redhead went, Rukia told her what she knew and watched her leave determined to claim what was hers.

Hers.

Meaning, no longer Rukia's. The same problem she'd had and was able to solve with logic the night they were caught playing tonsil hockey in Keigo's bathroom presented itself again. With interest.

Ichigo planted himself on the floor with his arms crossed. "Okay, so now what's wrong?"

"Nii-sama did this," she fumed.

"No, Nii-sama made it happen faster than it would have. I'd think you'd be tired of the moping, too," Ichigo pointed out. "He can move on now and finally be happy." He paused, measured his words. "You can't have us both, you know."

She tilted her head with a frown. She'd never own up to that one, even if she had the words to express it. "They're going to beat the stuffing out of each other."

"Well let's hope they have sex first. They'll be too tired to do too much damage."

"Ha," she snorted before kicking him out of her office.

Abarai Renji and Arisawa Tatsuki did not reappear for two days. When they came back, they were a spectacle, but only because Arisawa, who no longer answered to Hakumei, was allowing herself to be led back into Sereitei. Renji stalked forward with a slight smirk, which would have been a grin if Arisawa did not drag her feet once and a while to remind him just who was on the end of his hand. They went first to the Sixth division office, where they bowed in tandem before Kuchiki-taichou and apologized for their behavior. Tatsuki lifted her head just a little and winked.

Byakuya winked back. But when his second raised his head, he had snapped back into himself. Byakuya's humor was reserved only for women, except maybe Rukia. Other men didn't need to know. He understood, when accosted by the the Dragon Bitch, that she would not accept excuses or outright lies. But something did not sit right with him, not yet. "What will you do when you find him? If I were to tell you, what would you do with that information?"

Tatsuki had taken a breath. "I'll settle it."

"Settle it how?"

Her jaw set in an exasperated frown.

"You owe him something," the captain said. "You know that now, don't you."

The woman remained stiff and silent.

"I will not satisfy you until you satisfy me."

"What is it you want?" Her arms crossed.

"Assurance that my fukutaichou will be returned to me in one piece, and at peace. Do no seek him unless you intend to satisfy your debt to him."

Tatsuki huffed. "How does a choice he made for me constitute a debt?"

"A love gift," Byakuya replied, "should be answered in kind or relinquished."

"I can't give his years back to him."

"So you admit you do not care for him?"

"What are you? A lawyer?" So. They are evenly matched, the Captain thought to himself. He hot-headed and rash, she hot-headed and cool. Both stubborn as mules, but passionate to a fault.

Byakuya let the smile slide onto his lips then. He had her, and he knew it. "No. I am merely the one who stole the words you inspired in a man who otherwise had none. I know all his secrets and as his Captain his care is my responsibility. I will not see him injured any further."

"What do you mean, stole his words?"

"Excruciatingly bad haiku, all dedicated to you. He could not use it at the time, so I did."

"Did it help you any?"

"That is another story. But I will not be moved. Do you love that man?"

A pause. "I do, Kuchiki-taichou. More than you'd ever expect."

"That is not enough."

Her jaw seemed to drop, just a little. He could not imagine she thought it would be this easy. If she did, that was only proof that she was designed for Abarai, but that was beside the point. "What is it you want?" She asked finally.

"More than words. It's been the better part of a century. You've lived another life, one where he never crossed your mind. You say all it took to revive the feelings you had when you were barely more than a child was to regain the memory you had of the time you knew him, the time when you were barely old enough to know yourself, let alone another soul? A shinigami lives for centuries, sometimes millennia. You say the feeling you had then—the feeling you have now—can outlast that?"

"You say that like my feelings were shallow."

"I say your feelings are shallow."

Her fist clenched at her side. He could feel it. He insulted her; she wanted to strike him down. It took a moment for her to beat down the rage, but the hurt settled in his stomach like lead. Byakuya pushed on. It had to be dealt with. "I did not say they were not genuine. Only that they are a child's passion. Such things fade."

"I let that man hit me. More than once. And he let me hit him. He trusted me to watch him, and I trusted him to watch me. He made me feel—safe. And capable. He made me better than I was, whether I knew it then or not. Nobody knows better than I do what he did for me. But I don't love him for what he did for me. I love him for the way he looks at the world. He's never stinted, not for me, not for Rukia, not for you. He's always given and even when he felt he deserved something, he never once tried to take what should have been his. He's earned so many things he never really received. No rewards, nothing. But he never stopped. You could make his day with a black cherry slushie, he's that simple. He is rare and he his precious. He's more pure than anyone I've ever known, and I know Ishida Orihime." She was not crying; Arisawa Tatsuki was not a weeper. But her clenched fists were shaking, as if she had never said this aloud, even to herself. "Loving a man like that isn't about passion. Sure there's lust. He's got quite a body. But a heart like that—I'd be an idiot to pass it up, however it turns out. I'll be with him any way he wants me to be. And if he doesn't, I'll walk away and watch over him like he watched over me. It may be the only time someone gives him what he deserves, even if he won't take it. It doesn't matter to me. I don't care about what you think I need to prove to anybody. All I know is I won't leave him. Ever." She lifted her head, looked Byakuya square in the eye. "So why don't you get off my back?"

Tatsuki was literally floored by Kuchiki-taichou's full blown smile. Before that day, only two others had ever seen it. As constrained as Kuchiki was, any little show of mirth came with uncontrolled reiatsu. She nearly fainted at his amused relief. After he'd gotten his smiling done with and the placid expression came back, he bade her to rise and gave her what she came for.

She left understanding that he wasn't the hardass Renji had described to her all that time ago. He was a hardass, yes, but he had a sense of humor that was truly shocking. When she bowed next to Renji, her wink to him was a signal that his secret was safe with her. When he winked back, she knew she was being entrusted with something that was precious to him. A truly faithful and devoted redhead. All she could do was be thankful.

Renji, on the other hand, had a harder time gaining the approval of his old comrades at the eleventh when Arisawa announced that she had decided on a beau.

It wasn't that they were jealous. It wasn't even that they still nursed a grudge against him for leaving to join the sixth. The men were no problem.

Yachiru was a little disgusted. Any path she skipped down, they would stomp after her. "Shuu-chan," she declared, "is sad because of you."

"It's complicated, fukutaichou," Renji told her in the gentle tone that usually worked when dealing with her. "Sometimes people aren't meant for each other, no matter how right they seem together." The child seemed to accept this, after additional coaxing from Yumichika.

"Besides," Tatsuki said, smiling, "Hisagi-semapi is strong. He'll be fine."

Not convinced, Yachiru proceeded to observe the ninth division captain with concern. The day she came back with a report of strange activity, Tatsuki listened patiently in her room.

". . .and then he said, 'Isane!' and she said 'Shuuhei!' and there were slurping noises," Yachiru finished, eyes wide in amazement. "Did he make her have her period?"

"I'll tell you when you're older," Tatsuki said.

A few months after successfully burying the apparent Kotetsu-Hisagi hookup, Tatsuki showed Renji her shikai.

It was nowhere near as perverted a question as it sounded to her when he asked to see it. Sure, he asked while they were in the middle of doing the other thing they did as much as sparring, but. . .

The scythe glinted green in the sunlight and the staff that held it up seemed covered in scales. Dragon scales, he told her jokingly, unaware of how close he was to the truth. They were hard and smooth and any hit she deflected with the staff left no evidence. Not a mark, not a scratch. Zabimaru could push her back, but it could not break the sword. Renji would chuff and try again. Tatsuki would dodge—she was close to mastering shun-po, which was surprised her more than it did him—and swing with all the force she could manage. There was a golden ring on this merry-go-round. When she could call her zanpaktou by its name, she would see Renji's bankai. That, however, was turning out to be a terrible wait.

She was shy about it, and a little ashamed. Her zanpaktou had no name she could understand. It had not told her much of anything. She called it Wind Razor, which was as close to interpreting its language as she had ever come. It appeared when she needed it, which was strange seeing as everyone else had a name to call theirs. When she focused on it, she could hear a faint, shrill cry unlike any she had heard before. She knew it would be a long road, maybe centuries before she got to Renji's level. But she also knew better than to expect him to wait for her. It was a good thing. Neither of them were interested in settling.

After sparring, they always made love. She giggled when he called it that. "What should we call it, then?" he demanded finally, smacking at her tattooed hand which was wandering a little too low on his torso for his comfort.

"I dunno. It just sounds cheesy. Like something Ishida would call it." She rolled over languorously, gazing, sated, at the false blue sky above them. "Neither of us are that gentle, you know."

"You're such an animal." His eyes affixed themselves to her slender ankles. "Arisawa."

"Abarai." The smirk in her voice made him chuckle. "If it ever turns into 'making love', I'll have to marry you or something."

His heart skipped a beat. "I'm not good enough to marry?"

Turning again, she laughed into his ear. "I was someone else's wife. What I want to be to you, what you deserve, is bigger and better than that, moron."

He stretched, smiling. This was what he wanted. He wasn't waiting for anything. Not anymore. "You say good things," he murmured as he finally fell asleep.

AN: Hard as hell to write, and it doesn't even seem like an ending, does it? I know. There's a whale wandering the background of my mind. Anyone willing to beta-read for me? Seriously.