Notes: Thanks to Haruka-Hime for being my beta!

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant
After Long Silence
William Bulter Yeats

Day of September 29th
Evening

How frail was the alabaster skin under the lamps warm light to his eyes. Everything seemed wrong in this picture that was frame by the door frame as he stood in the door way of the room. How wrong was it for her to be here now? Laying ever so still and wrapped in a robe that was whiter then her skin at this point. Were eyes had been once full of a vivid pulse of life now lay closed from the light of the room? How could such a light be taken from her like this? Even her once lushes hair that seemed a fall of liquid gold now did not shine at all as it once had in the sun light, set aflame round her in battles like some avenging angel's halo. Everything of the once living fire that was Matsumoto Rangiku had gone out from this place and him.

Hitsugaya felt the settlement of disbelief filling his mind at once at this scene in wooden frames. Limbs had frozen in place just as his breathe tried to fill his lungs from an onslaught of heaves that might take control of his body. Everything seemed so wrong with this picture of his Litunite just laying in the hospitable bed as if in some deep sleep. Yet the proof of her actions could seen scene on the white wraps on the wrist of each arm, darkened by the leaking blood that slipped between the stitches in her flesh. Teal eyes could only stare helplessly at the dark spots as the cold shock filled his nerves and left , a comical expression on the normally composed mask he kept up to the world save for her. Such raw emotions rippled deeply in the depths of those penetrating orbs at seeing this in the reality he was trying to hope was not real but a nightmare from some long ago lost child hood.

Yet it was real and stood there just outside the door way of this scene that fate played cruelly in front of him. Something felt odd by this for the moment as he fought his mind to make his feet walk to the bed side of the sleeping Venus but it refused. It was the shield of shock that let his brilliant mind form some kind of theory for this but it was smashed in moments any web of reasons might recognize at all. It had to be all wrong for this to happen now. Hitsugaya might have not moved for minuets to hours if a warm hand gentle found his shoulders to take his stoned gaze from the laying woman to a deep pool of ebony and a true understanding of how he felt at the moment more then he did. A perfume of sunflowers in spring reached him and held his body, a scent of a mother maybe? Who could this person be? An answer came in the form of a name many knew and took to their hearts. Only one such woman held such a hum of gentle power and wisdom no man could ever hope to reach in his days; Retsu Unohana, the harmony keeper of the Court and Taicho of the Forth.

"Histugaya-taicho, would you like some tea?" her voice was quite like a spring wind to melt the snows to him.

He let her gentle take his arm and lead him away from the source of his shock to a small room covered in flowers of every kind. It was well know the gentle Lady grew flowers for her own joy and to bring color into this place when the snows came to the world. One single rose lay painted in pink on the white glass, dainty and cute. Unohana only moved round the table to grab an already warmed tea and pour the bronze colored liquid into the cups for two people. Smiling all the same as she did with anyone that came to her good care for healing or to visit the older woman on such days as this where a friend was needed She sat down for the moment to look at the green eyed teenager and her smile was whisked away at the shallow light in those lively eyes she knew.

Sipping the tea as if pulled only by the memory of his times pass like a machine of some kind. Hitsugaya only acted the part of drinking the tea, his mind far away from this warm room and the heavy gaze of his fellow shinigami and Taicho of the Pure Courts. She in turn took a sip as he did but one hand reached out to hold his cold one on the timeless table. "She will recover Hitsugaya."

Looking up in a state of bewilder meant, nothing escaped his lips at her words for the moment. "Why?" his alto brass voice choking on the words as if they were shards of glass in his throat. "Why did she do it?"

How to answer the loss young man who seemed to cast of the years of adult and warrior to hurt child in front of her in just those few words. Ebony eyes closed to his own for the moment as it seemed search for the reasons why. In how to bring some comfort to the boy in some degree at least if only she could. "Only she can tell you when she wakes up Hitsugaya."

It was the only answer she could give the youthful Taicho as this point of the story as it was written down page by page by fate. A body leaned into chair as if it was weighed down by chains of some kind no one could see. Hands that held both sword and pen covered the face of a fallen man from the world or hide the naked sorrow that lay under the skin of him. These words did not bring the comfort she had wished but it was something at least to bring the shock down and face the truth that was kept in the darkness of one mind of sleeping Venus. Only she could tell shattered youth the why of her actions.

How unreal his world seemed more and darker with out now at his side. Was he still so much of a child to let this happen to her as it did before with his childhood friend. Even thinking of the once bright girl called Hinamori Momo caused an ache in his heart and caused the wound in it to bleed unseen by the eyes of world that watched him. Strangely, one pair of those eyes did see the wound and wished with all power she had to power to heal this problem for both him and the sleeping woman so close.

"How did they find her?" Hitsugaya asked, empty in his tone to her for the moment. Daring not look at the Healer for fear of her expression to his question might not be the best of news.

Sighing softly, Unohana had known this would come up. "They found Rangiku-sama in the garden of the Third, passed out and having used her own blade to cut her wrist near the pound. It was Kira-san who found her in time to get to her forth and I sentIkkaku who was dropping off some paper work to find out and tell you. She lost a lot of blood but it was lucky we healed her in time and started blood transfers the moment we got her into the forth. Physical, she is fine but it the mental that I worry on when she wakes Hitsugaya-sama. She will need you more then ever now."

Need him? If she had needed him so much, would she have done this? Bitterness filled his tongue as he bite deep into the flesh of his inner lip on this thought. Why would she do this? It ran around his mind like some twister of nature over and over just never to stop. For being one of the so song hero's and savior of this place, his power meant nothing if he could not protect those close to his heart and read. Was he too late to save her again? How many times would he be to late as before? Laughter might have pulled at his voice but his face was sober in the bleak truth unrolling before him.

Peeking up from the shroud of his hair, he met her eyes in question. "How?"

"I am unsure of how to respond until she is awake Hitsugaya-sama. We can only wait and see how it plays out. She maybe will be fine or not. It is hard to tell at this time but be ready for anything is the only thing I can truly tell you." Unohana seemed to whisper but it filled the room in each world.

Standing up, he only walked to the door for the moment. "Thank you."

Watching him leave left her heart weeping at the nakedness she has seen displayed so openly now. Gone had been the mask of a captain to be replaced with a young man lost and alone in the world. Seeking some one to protect and expect him with out question as Matsumoto had from day one of the pairing of those two. Hearing of their fights to the untold loyally the older woman displayed to her captain and no one else. Some of those higher had come into question if the said woman would be s spy for Gin due to their bound as children. Rumors spread she was spy and would in the end go to the traitor. Many of them were quieted by Matsumoto's friends soon after they the lips of the gossip. To even think she would do a thing or think of doing it was heresy.

"Please, may those two be well in the coming days of peace for how long they last." Unohana prayed to any kami's listening at this moment or watched a young man walk away.

Hitsugaya only found himself to stand at the door of Matsumoto's room. Listening to her frail breathing and the click of the machines at work in a beat, staring only to fight not to take her away from this damn place. To watch and protect her as he has done from day one of their meeting that seemed not so long ago to him. Lost in he memory for the moment of that meeting in the Office of where they had first met that day.

"Your my new captain? Did they run out of good looking men at the school again? Your too young and cute looking to be my captain!" she had said, looking him up and down with arms on those goddess hips

"Do I have to prove I am your captain?" Hitsugaya growled, glaring at this woman.

"Maybe captain, but the kind of proof? A real captain can drink me under the table and our last one did but I don't think its legal for those under 100 to drink!" laughter purred in her tones as she only patted him on the head and left. With him following and growling all the same which soon became the normal for those two of the tenth.

Days filled paperwork and chasing down her drunken ass from bar to bar. Days filled with her trying to make him loosen up with sweets and jokes only to be hit in the head by a paper ball of his hands. Being dragged out on sunny days for a walk or a late lunch on the hill tops or roof to watch the sunset. Matsumoto never asked anything of him in truth that whole time but a simple smile. Trying her best to drag it out of the young man at the times it seems he needed to smile at the world. Only more when rolling her eyes and smirking when got her way with him. Hitsugaya still wondered how she got so far with him even now.

His heart ached for those simple days. Missing them all the more with the breaking of the Winter War like some grand storm on their Hating the hidden pain in her eyes and lost of laughter from her lips in knowing who she would fight maybe. "I will protect you this time. I promise!" It would be a promise he intended to keep.