Disclaimer: Bleach, its characters and its settings don't belong to me

Kuchki Byakuya listened to the rain. It was an early overcast morning, a gray morning, and it would rain until-

It would rain.

The warmth of her was like a cat, comfortable, compact. She made a slight noise, shifted a little in her sleep.

They were companions of a sort. Companions of something more than convenience

She came to him last winter, late at night then the moon was bright on the snow. How cold it had been, as he stood there, watching the moon. How cold and still and alone.

He heard a sound in the garden, detected her tremulous reitsu.

She'd been beautiful that night, in a kimono of white and palest blue, colors she knew he liked, and she'd hunched there, disgraced and humiliated at what she thought was her own weakness in his eyes.

Yoruichi could never be what Soi Fon needed her to be. He'd never asked what precipitated that late night visit, with Soi Fon clad in a kimono her mother had given her long ago. Her reasons weren't his affair.

He understood Soi Fon better than most because Byakuya understood himself. He knew what it had cost her to come here, far, far sharper than a sword, he knew she'd suffered the one wound that neither could bear.

Abject, utter humiliation.

That night he'd taken Soi Fon into his arms, into his bed.

They understood one another. Better that most. Better than anyone else understood either.

She came to him occasionally, slept in his bed. He didn't send her away. Insofar as either could find solace in the company of another they found some small degree of comfort in eachother.

This was a rule Byakuya was willing to break, if broken it he had. There was no love here, merely - comfort.

Byakuya listened to the rain.

He thought of Rukia, Hisana's sister. In name he was her elder brother. In practice -

Perhaps his wayward daughter. So sly and sweet, with a wisdom beyond her shallow years. She knew he'd never believe she'd taken leave of her squad to teach, she was a Kuchiki. Her place, he'd come to realize, was the field of battle.

And to leave a single year before Kurosaki Ichigo disappeared-

Kuchiki Byakuya offered the ceiling of his chambers one of his rare smiles.

He didn't know what his little Rukia was up to at the academy, or who she was up to it with.

It wasn't breaking the rules not to go find out.