38. Abandoned

Characters: Hitsugaya Toushiro, girl!Ichimaru Gin, Matsumoto Rangiku

Pairings: Implied

Summary: [AU] She continued smiling and asked, "What do you know?" Nothing was the word on the tip of his tongue. But that wasn't what she wanted to hear and that wasn't how he wanted the conversation to end.

Aizen Sosuke found no worth in women.

They were weak, they were difficult, they were not worth his time.

And this showed when he upped and left.

Hitsugaya Toushiro made this conjecture as he stood by his childhood friend's sick bed.

Matsumoto just nodded and silently agreed. In her mind, her childhood friend's image haunted her.

"She didn't deserve this," his vice captain murmured stoically.

"No, she didn't," he replied.

"She cared for Aizen so much," his vice captain whispered raggedly.

"Yes, she did," he replied.

"She shouldn't have gone through this," his vice captain rasped angrily.

"No, she shouldn't have," he replied.

And it was funny that while both of them were talking about two separate people, they managed to make sense. It made so much sense that the Tenth Captain almost laughed, but he didn't.

He couldn't laugh at the other, not when she went through the same as Hinamori.

"Now, would ya two please stop talkin' about me as if I weren't 'ere?"

Hitsugaya Toushiro glanced at the bed across Hinamori's.

At a woman who was strong but at the same time so fragile.

"Gin, you know I didn't mean it like that," his vice captain tried to amend with a forced smile. The shell of her usual smile made it painful to look at her. If it were painful for Hitsugaya, he didn't know how much worse it was for the bed-ridden captain.

"Ran—"

A flurry of black, orange and pink and she was gone.

"I can't do it."

A rare moment of lucidity in her drunken escapades.

"Gin, she was always the one in control."

A slight pause and another swish of alcohol.

"She was always the one who was right, who was strong, who was better than everyone else…"

He remembers taking a small sip and allowing the information to sink.

"I don't think I can ever reconcile her image with…"

He knows that his vice captain will not remember telling him this.

"With the fragile person abandoned by that traitor."

An almost inaudible sob escaped her lips.

"I know."

"Waddaya know?"

Startled, Hitsugaya faced her. He never meant to say anything out loud.

Her thin smile mocked him, which would have usually infuriated him, but not now.

"Waddaya know?" she repeated.

Nothing was the word on the tip of his tongue. Hitsugaya swallowed it the moment it came up. That wasn't what she wanted to hear and that wasn't how he wanted the conversation to end.

"Waddaya know?" she repeated. Her voice lowered slightly and the words were dragged out.

There was no desperation, no anguish, no pain. Just a question.

One that no one would answer.

It was strange, he thought. She of all people should know. But she asked anyways.

The same smile and same expression, she would ask:

Waddaya know?

The first day he came to visit Hinamori, he heard Unohana's response:

"No more than you do."

The second day he came to visit them, he heard Kira's response:

"Nothing, taichou."

The third day he came to visit her, he heard Matsumoto's response:

"About what?"

And she stayed in her hospital bed even after all her physical ailments healed.

Smiling and mocking, she would ask, "Waddya know?"

Hitsugaya looked at her but avoided her gaze. Not that he knew whether she was even looking at him or not.

Spidery fingers curled gently at the white bed sheets and long pale neck rested upon the stiff pillow. Silver hair spread out like a halo around her thin face. The sheer white surrounding her made her skin ashen.

Even though her skin was pale and her hair was colorless, she seemed to contrast the color rather than blend into it. Maybe it was his preconception of her dark and malicious personality that made her stand out.

But he was no longer certain whether that reason still held water.

"Waddaya know?" she asked again.

A flash of the number three enclosed in a rhombus skidded across his line of sight. Her red eyes looking down at him as a sword point hurtled toward his unprotected eye. The subtle manipulation through a poisonous forked tongue. The smile of a murderer.

And her fragile frame falling. The apathetic smile of a murder who stabbed her through the chest. The blood that smeared across the captain's haori which she meant to discard. The sighting of dark red eyes in shock. The fall of an angel.

"I don't think I can ever reconcile her image with…"

Hitsugaya finally looked into her eyes. Ruby red, looking more like a jewel than blood. Because blood did not shine, it dried and darkened.

"I know."

She continued smiling and asked, "What do you know?"

He answered:

"He abandoned you."

Ichimaru Gin stopped smiling but looked relieved as she sat up from her sick bed.

"Did he?"

"Yes."

She swung her legs off the bed and stood.

"He abandoned me. That's right."

Paying him no heed, she walked out. The certainty of her step reassured Hitsugaya that she would show up at the next captain's meeting.

He knew.

-END-

A/N: Okay, this was strange. I mean, I've read many Hitsu turn girl but never have I seen a Gin turn girl one. Going with Tite Kubo's girls-are-helpless-and-super-weak-and-need-the-protection-of-man's mentality, I kind of applied that to this.

For this story, I ignored the latest chapters. So...go with it?

So, thanks for reading! Drop me a review if time permits!

~sodesne