A/N: Okay, so I'm super-excited about this chapter; it has the scene in it I wrote a long time ago & I've been trying to get to from the beginning. Please let me know what you think!

Chapter Four

Being away from him was more difficult than she'd thought it would be. When he'd left she'd been so hurt, so disillusioned, so embarrassed, that she just wanted him to go away, to hurt too.

But Hitsugaya-taichou was the common thread that ran through her life. She hadn't realized how much she relied on him, how much her sanity depended on him always being there, always being the same angry, impatient, loyal, kind-hearted, infinitely reliable unstoppable force that he was.

So he wasn't a knight in shining armor, wasn't prince charming come to sweep her away from the troubles of the world. So he was fallible.

That didn't mean she could live without him.

He might not be everything she'd always wanted, but he was what she'd always wanted.

So on the seventh day she went to pick up the first load of completed paperwork herself. She found him at Urahara's shop, on, where else, the roof. He was sitting there, staring at the sunset, looking so lost and so heartbreakingly beautiful it hurt to look at him. "Taichou, I've come for the paperwork."

He tensed. "Matsumoto! Tessai has it. When I mentioned it before, I meant send an unseated squad member. There was no need to come yourself."

He turned his head to look at her, and the full force of that blue-green stare was too much. She looked away. If being away from him hurt, being near him was almost as bad. She couldn't hear his voice without remembering, couldn't see his hands without feeling them grabbing her, hurting her.

God, I wish things could just go back to the way they were before.

"I don't think it works like that," he whispered. Either she'd said it out loud or he was a mind-reader. Knowing him, it really could be either one.

"I know," she replied.

His gaze followed hers to his hands, snapped back to her face, and finally landed on her wrists where the last of the bruises had yellowed and almost faded away.

He should see the ones on her breasts, they were still black and blue.

He flinched. God, was she saying everything out loud?

"Taichou, I—"

"Ukitake still hasn't replaced his fukutaichou. And Kyouraku needs a third seat."

Where was he going with this?

"I'm sure one of them would be happy to have you. You can be out of the Tenth before I return."

"Taichou!"

"Hell, if you prefer, I could arrange it so you never have to see me again."

"But—"

"Matsumoto, you deserve a taichou you can trust. One who won't betray you in a moment of weakness."

Betrayal or not, trust or not, memories or not, all she wanted was him.

"How can you just send me away?"

"How can I not! I took advantage of you in the worst possible way. You shouldn't ever want to see me again! You can't even look at me. A taichou and fukutaichou can't work like that. They have to trust each other."

"But, Taichou, I don't want to go!"

"Then look at me, damn it! Look at me and tell me that you can trust me! Tell me that we can get through this and make me believe it," he begged her, tears in his eyes.

She tried, she really did, but a sudden flashback to him gripping her hair, forcing his length down her throat, made it impossible. "I-I can't, Taichou. Not right now. Not yet."

He closed his eyes, turning away from her. "You don't have to decide right now. Take this time, while I'm gone. Decide what you want to do—no, what you need to do. Decide what you need me to do. I'll do whatever it takes, Matsumoto, whether you decide to stay or go. Whether we can get through this or not, I'll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. But if you can't forgive me, if you can't learn to trust me again . . . then I can't be your taichou any more."

"T-taichou—" she sobbed.

"Just—don't call me that. Not until you decide. Maybe . . . maybe not ever again."

He shunpoed away, leaving her crouching on Urahara's roof, shoulders shaking, eyes filled with unshed tears. And fear.

Why did men find it so easy to walk away from her?

Toushirou hadn't had a decent night's sleep in days. Every time he started to fall asleep, the dreams came back. They always began the same way, with Aizen turning into Hinamori on the end of his sword. Shiro-chan, why? Then black hair went red-blonde, and it was Matsumoto in his arms, Matsumoto begging him for answers he couldn't give. Taichou, why? He screamed, and everything fragmented. Snatches of things he couldn't even consciously remember: the warm softness of her skin beneath his cold, calloused hands, the shock in her tear-filled eyes as he forced himself down her throat, the hitch in her breath—was she crying?—as he thrust into her too-dry, too-tight passage.

He was a monster.

And the words she'd whispered to him in the bar, that somehow his ears had caught but his brain hadn't registered because he'd been too intent on her body to care:

I love you, Toushirou.

She loved him. Or, she had. Before he'd all but raped her, left her bruised, aching, unsatisfied; alone to put herself back together.

Before he'd left them both to this void. To these conversations that didn't go anywhere, that just hurt them both. She was sliding through his fingers. If he could just touch her again, just hold her in his arms one more time, it would all make sense. He could make her understand. What, he wasn't even sure himself, but somehow he knew they would both understand.

At the same time, it had to be her move; he knew now that he hadn't taken advantage of his position the first time, not really, but his treatment of her had still been criminal.

He just wasn't sure he would live through another encounter and come out whole.

Who am I kidding, I'm not whole now!

"Toushirou, you look like shit."

He whirled on the Shinigami Substitute with furious eyes. "It's Hitsugaya-tai—"

"Yeah, yeah, don't start. You'll say 'it's Hitsugaya-taichou, Kurosaki' and I'll say, 'Call me Ichigo,' but at the end of the day I'll keep calling you Toushirou and you'll keep calling me Kurosaki anyway, so what's the point? What's the point of any of it, any more?"

Well, someone's in a snit. Lovely. Just what I need.

Actually . . . .

"Sit down, Kurosaki," Toushirou demanded. "Talk." For once he was going to be glad for the distraction of someone else's problems.

"Why, so you can psychoanalyze me and use the results to get my powers sealed away?" the teen sneered.

Hitsugaya just looked at him.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't fair," Kurosaki said finally.

"It's all right. You know I have no intention of making that recommendation. But neither do I intend to recommend that you be immediately promoted to taichou. You'd need to master basic kidou, learn how to control and sense reiatsu, spend some time in a squad to get the dynamic down first. You'd need to—"

"All right, all right, I've got it," Kurosaki interrupted. "You don't think I'm ready. I never said I was! I just . . . I don't think I can keep going on like this, the way things are."

They sat in silence for awhile, staring out at the sunrise.

"You want to know why they really sent me?" Toushirou asked finally. "It's because I'm the youngest taichou, the youngest ever, actually. They thought you could relate to me better because we're close in age, give or take a few decades." He rolled his eyes. "It was a stupid reason, but they weren't completely off."

The teen raised an eyebrow at him.

"Do you know why I'm the youngest taichou, Kurosaki? I didn't rise in the ranks so quickly because I'm ambitious. Power like ours . . . it has to have an outlet. We have to keep fighting, keep mastering our powers, or we'll . . ." he stared out at the lightening sky, thinking of his grandmother ". . . hurt those around us. The more I mastered my powers, the more control I gained, and the more control I had, the less I hurt and the more I was able to protect the ones I care about. So I mastered shikai, and I achieved bankai, and mastered several bankai techniques. But I haven't mastered bankai, Kurosaki. My power isn't mature yet; it's still growing. It might not be mature for another fifty to one hundred years. So I have to keep training, keep fighting, keep gaining control. It's exhausting." He paused, meeting the teen's eyes. "We're a lot alike. Your power is immense, but it's not mature either. It grew ridiculously fast at first, so you might not notice that it's still growing, just at a much slower rate. You need an outlet, and slaying the stray hollow that decides to prey on Karakura Town isn't enough. I understand what it's like to sacrifice your youth to reign in your power, to protect the people you care about.

"At the same time, you're dealing with an obstacle that I never had to. You were pulled into our world, but you're still alive, and your body, your family, your friends, your life is here. You're constantly being pulled between the worlds of the living and the dead, and you can't sever your connection to either: your power has been awakened and you've seen the things that prey on the innocent, there's no turning back now. But you can't give up your life—Shinigami are called after death for a reason. There will be plenty of time for you to be a hero when your life is over. You're stuck between worlds, and I can't imagine how hard that is."

"Bullshit," Kurosaki snapped.

Huh?

"All Shinigami straddle the line between life and death. It's what makes us lucky—we're the only ones who move freely between worlds. If an ordinary person dies, say one of my school friends, he'll be trapped in Soul Society. He'll integrate into Rukongai, unable to return to his loved ones, and the people he left behind will mourn him and pray at his shrine. They're separated by the barrier of death. Then he'll make friends in Rukongai who will inevitably die and be reincarnated in the living world. They'll be unable to find each other, once again on opposite sides of that impenetrable barrier.

"For Shinigami, it's not like that. If my friend died, I could go to Rukongai and search for him. Sure, it may take years, but I could find him. If he died again and were reincarnated, I could find him in the living world. Sure, he may be a different person on the outside, he may not remember me, but I could find him, I could watch over him. We'd still be connected. That's our gift, Toushirou, as Shinigami. We control the wall, and it doesn't exist for us."

The substitute grinned. "That and a zanpaktou are the best things about this gig."

Gift, huh?

"Shinigami still mourn our dead, Kurosaki," he replied, thinking of Hinamori. "It's not quite as simple as you make it out to be."

"I suppose it never is. But it's still something."

The silence was comfortable this time.

"If . . . ," Kurosaki began after a while, "if you sensed Momo's reiatsu, would you—"

"No." There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in Toushirou's answer.

"Why n—" The substitute cut himself off this time as both of their pagers went off and they sensed a foreboding reiatsu.

"Menos," they said together.

She dreamt about him again. God, how she missed him. His quiet confidence. That unshakeable sense that they could do anything, face any odds, if only they were side by side. She really needed that now. More than apologies and ultimatums.

His words kept ringing in her ears. Surely, you don't think that's the best I can do?

Nanao and Orihime, they said that sex didn't have to be unpleasant, that men didn't have to be mean during and disinterested after.

She wanted to try again. Heaven help her, despite it all, she still loved him. She wanted it to work, but it couldn't—not with the ugly memories that assaulted her at the mere thought of his touch. But if they could try again, if it could be different, maybe he could erase those memories, replace them with something bearable.

She knew she could manipulate him into it, too. What she didn't know was whether he wanted her like that. His last words to her, about deciding, they were all about putting their sexual relationship behind them, about moving on as the leaders of the Tenth. Did any part of him want to be with her and not just pretend it had never happened? She didn't know if she was willing to take the risk.

She picked up her cell, stared at his number. The definitive pregnancy test was in two days. If she were pregnant, the choice would be made for her and she would take the risk. If not, well, she would just have to feel him out. If the idea of being with her did anything but make him gag . . . .

Crossing her fingers, she pushed send.

"What?" his deep voice growled into her ear.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"Tai—Hitsugaya-san, i-it's—" she stuttered.

"Matsumoto? What's wrong?" he asked in a gentler, but no less urgent tone.

"Can you come to Seireitei? I—"

"Hold on." She heard heavy breathing, the unmistakable clang of metal on metal, and then "Soten ni zase, Hyourinmaru!"

More heavy breathing, and he was back. "When? Right now?"

"Are you in the middle of a battle?"

"Was. It's over now." Was it possible to hear someone smirk? "Do you need me to come right now?"

"Um, Okay." He was insane. "N-no, not now, but the day after tomorrow? It's—I have a pregnancy test, I . . . don't want to go through it alone. Unohana-taichou will be the only one there, and she won't tell anyone so you don't have to worry about it getting out. And if we don't say anything, even she will probably think that you're just coming to support me because I'm your fukutaichou. I wouldn't ask, but . . . ." she trailed off, unable to think of a way to end the sentence that didn't consist of I'm scared.

The other end of the line got real quiet. "Of course," he said finally, resolutely. "Matsumoto, I . . . I'm sorry you've been going through this alone. I'll be there, whenever you need me."

"Thank you, Tai—Hitsugaya-san. Eleven-thirty a.m. at the Fourth."

Pregnancy test. A baby.

He'd forgotten all about the possibility. What if . . . ? What would he do?

He didn't have to think about it. He'd do whatever it took to tie her to him. Because she was captivating and sexy and he couldn't live without her. Maybe it wasn't love, but it sure as hell was a start.

Kurosaki was right. The Shinigami were lucky: for them, death wasn't an impenetrable barrier. They guarded the pathways between life, death, and rebirth and passed through the different planes unscathed. If death, the ultimate obstacle, couldn't stop them, how could they let anything else stand in their way?

She'd loved him, once. He could make her fall in love with him again.