"Nanao-san?" he greeted, and she heard the obvious question in his tone.

"Good morning, Jyuushiro-san," she said politely, pouring him a cup of tea unasked.

"You're up early," he said lightly.

"I always get up around this time for a work day," she said patiently. She'd spent the rest of the weekend hiding out in his home, and he'd been a more than gracious host.

"Then you're going in?" he asked curiously.

"Yes," she said. "Our private relationship never had any bearing on our work relationship. I don't see why it should start now."

"You know he won't see it that way," Jyuushiro commented looking out the window as the dawn began to grow lighter.

"I can't hide forever," she said with a shrug. "I can't pathetically cry myself to sleep every night." She was more than sure Jyuushiro had heard some of her private pity fests over the past couple days and saw no reason to pretend otherwise. "I made a choice, and it turned out badly. Now I have to fix it."

"Pretending to be unaffected isn't going to fix it," he said simply.

"It's a start," she replied stiffly. "It's all I can do. You and I both know he isn't going to be able to walk away from this mess regardless of what he wants to do. The child is the youngest of the youngest."

"If it's a boy, and if it's his," Jyuushiro added.

"Unohana-san said," Nanao started.

"Retsu-san admitted she could be wrong," he interrupted.

"But she rarely ever is," Nanao added.

"We can hope can't we?" he prompted.

"And have my heart broken all over again after I get my hopes up?" she asked with a sigh. "No thank you."

"If the child isn't his?" Jyuushiro asked, glancing back at her.

"Then I'll apologize and beg his forgiveness," Nanao said. "On hands and knees if necessary."

"That would be something to see," Jyuushiro said with a laugh.

Nanao just hummed her agreement and sipped her tea. "Thank you for letting me stay here," she said finally.

"You keep saying thank you, but it's unnecessary. You are welcome anytime," he said simply.

"If you need to take a side, you should take Shunsui's," she said softly.

"Nanao-san, I'm not taking anyone's side," he replied calmly.

"He's your oldest and best friend," she said. "It shouldn't even be a question. I won't be offended."

"You're my friend too," he said simply. "I'm not taking sides."

"I'm just saying, I'd understand."

"I'm not taking sides," he repeated in exasperation. "Do you want me to walk you in?"

"And protect me from the big bad hairy monster in my office?" she asked with a short bitter laugh. "No. He's probably still asleep anyway. I can't imagine he thinks I'm coming in given how I've hidden this entire weekend. I'll see him in the afternoon."

"He's come here everyday trying to see you," Jyuushiro pointed out. "Perhaps you should go over there and have this out before you go into work."

"He'll respect my need for professionalism in the office or I'll quit," she said firmly, having decided it the night before. "I can't work for him if he can't see the divide."

"Nanao-san," Jyuushiro said hesitantly and then continued. "Can you work for him either way? If it really has all gone horribly wrong, and I'm not agreeing that it has, then are you going to be able to deal with the woman dropping by? Or his mother coming with wedding plans? Shunsui isn't good at keeping business and personal apart and neither is his family."

"I know what he is and what his family is," she said sighing. "I have to at least try. I swore to the Soutaicho himself that the Gotei 13 came first, and I meant it. Why should I have my entire career destroyed just because I slept with the wrong man?"

"As you wish," he said. "I just don't know if Shunsui will comply."

"He'll have to," she said looking down at her tea. "He no longer has any choice in the matter. Now, I've got to go, or I'm going to be late."

"You're going to be a half hour early," Jyuushiro said, glancing at a clock.

"Which is right on time for me," she answered with a laugh. "You forget that I mostly do two people's work. Again, thank you for letting me stay here. It was nice to be surrounded by friends and family."

"Good luck," he said with a nod.

Nanao shunpoed to work and braced herself entering the office. Despite her brave face, she wasn't completely sure this was a good idea. It wasn't like she had another choice though.

"I heard he lied to her and had another entire family on the side," one of the secretaries hissed.

"Well I heard he was getting back at her because she was having an affair with Ukitake Taicho. They say he showed up shirtless to save her."

"That isn't what happened," another defended. "I heard he had a big orgy and got five of the women pregnant."

Nanao rolled her eyes and cleared her throat loudly as she entered the room. "Good morning," she said coldly.

She almost had to hold back a laugh as all of their eyes simultaneously grew wide. "Good morning, Ise-fukutaicho," they chorused looking like guilty children.

"Higa-san, I need those files on my desk by noon," she said crisply. "Mura-san, can you run over to the 11th and see what happened to those acquisition forms from last week. The rest of you, the appraiser will be here shortly and I want a last minute check of the facilities."

"Yes, Ise-fukutaicho," they said, promptly scattering. She headed for her office door satisfied that, at least around her, they'd pretend not to be gossiping.

She got through about an hour of work before she felt Kyouraku's reiatsu bolting towards the 8th. Sighing, she went about finishing the form she was on before he arrived. She'd assumed he'd come in earlier once he realized she was in the office, but hadn't planned on him coming in quite this soon. At the speed he was going he must be convinced she'd make a dash for it the second she felt him heading towards the 8th. She placed the form down in her done pile and held a hand down on the top of the stack as the office door flew open with a gust of air.

"Nanao," he said breathlessly. All of the returned secretaries leaned over their desks to gape at the scene, and Nanao grabbed the next paper off her to-do stack.

"You're in early, Kyouraku Taicho," she commented, before returning her eyes to the paper and focusing on keeping her hand from shaking and her breathing even. She hated romantic confrontations. It was half of the reason she'd avoided relationships for so long. They were always so, messy.

"Is this really what you're going to do?" he demanded.

"Close the door, sir," she said crisply. "There's a draft."

He at least had enough sense to get that hint and shut the door on the secretaries' faces before crossing the length of the room to stand in front of her desk. "Nanao, we need to talk."

"About the budget or the training schedule?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. "The assessor should be here around 10."

"You know what about," he said, taking the forms away from her. "You've hidden from me all weekend."

"We aren't doing this here," she said determinedly. "Work relationships and private relationships are separate. I thought I made that clear from the start."

"You can't be serious," he said, looking surprised. She wondered slightly if it was normal to feel like hitting and kissing a person all in the same instance. "Nanao, they can't be separate."

She took a deep breath and then played her trump card. "Then I can't work here."

"You don't mean that," he challenged, narrowing his eyes.

"You know I do," she replied calmly. "I've thought about it a lot, and this is the only way I can do this. Here you're my Taicho, my superior, nothing else, because if you're anything else then I'm going to scream and cry and storm out."

"Nanao-chan," he said softly, reaching out to caress her face.

She jerked back hard and nearly knocked over her chair in her haste to stand up. The hurt that flashed across his face at her reaction almost made her bend to his wishes, but she steeled herself internally and stood back from him. "I can't," she stressed.

"We can't just ignore this forever," he replied, running a frustrated hand into his loosely bound hair.

"I'm aware," she said shakily, and hated the way his eyes analyzed her. She was sure he could see her every insecurity and hurt at the moment. "But I can't do it here. Not if you want me to stay."

"So what?" he asked sounding exhausted as he moved over and sunk down on the couch across the room. When she looked at him more closely, he looked as exhausted as he sounded. "We pretend nothing happened while we work and then you bolt to Jyuu's at the end of the work day and hide from me?"

"No," she said firmly. "We work like we always have, and tonight we have the conversation neither of us want to have."

"Nanao, I didn't," he started.

"Not here," she replied harshly. Everything inside of her was screaming at her to just let him have it, to lay it all out, and make him hurt as badly as she was hurting, but she knew she couldn't do it. If she did, there was nothing left, not even work. She wondered vaguely if that might not be better, a clean cut, and the thought made her soul wail. There would never be a clean cut from this man.

"Fine," he growled, standing back up. "Give me some of that stack."

"What?" she asked, thrown by the request.

"I'm not going to have you drag this work day out just because all the paperwork isn't done," he said, grabbing half of the papers at random.

"Then you might not want to take papers from the done pile, sir" she commented with a snort.

The morning passed as peacefully as it could considering the circumstances, the reviewer came and went, and they didn't speak again until Higa came in to drop off her files at noon.

"Higa-chan," Kyouraku said tiredly as she started towards the door again. "Would you mind terribly picking up some food for myself and Nanao in the mess hall?"

"Of course, Taicho," the little secretary said, glancing over at Nanao who continued on with her work. "And if I may sir, I'd prefer you call me Higa-san."

Kyouraku looked surprised for a moment and then more depressed than ever. "As you wish, Higa-san." The girl looked torn for a second and then scampered out of the room. "Looks like the secretaries are officially team Nanao," he tried to joke.

"Shocking, as I didn't," she started to growl and then cut herself off. This was exactly what he was trying to do, she counseled herself, he's trying to drag you in before you're ready. He'd known her since she was a child and could manipulate her easier than anyone she knew. "Perhaps they just grew tired of your lack of professionalism."

"What didn't you do?" he prodded, although he knew the answer.

"I didn't ask for lunch," she avoided. "Why did you ask Higa-san to do that?"

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Because you weren't going to get lunch for fear of me corning you and claiming lunch hour wasn't part of work."

"Were you going to corner me?" she asked dryly.

"I agreed to play by your rules, Nanao-chan," he said lightly, "but had you offered me such an easy loophole, I would have, of course, taken it."

The rest of the day was spent mostly in silence, although it wasn't the usual comfortable silence she'd grown so accustomed to over the years. It was strained and awkward, and she'd nearly jumped when he'd come over to retrieve more paperwork. She'd stopped herself, but she was positive he'd noticed. The space between them was necessary though, as just as she'd been convinced in the past that if she let him touch her at work she'd become a warm mushy puddle in his hands, she was now equally sure that if she let him touch her today she would lose all semblance of distance and calm and break down into a crying mess demanding to know why.

Five o'clock rolled around much too soon, and she was suddenly second guessing her day of self imposed torture. All it had done was serve to make her jumpy, frazzled, and already emotionally worn out. He stood by the door impatiently as the clock hit five, and she took her time finishing the last form.

"Nanao," he warned.

"I'm coming, keep your shirt on," she muttered. It was a sign of how wrong everything was that he didn't even try to make a lewd joke of the comment. Putting away the last of her pens, she knew she couldn't stall any longer.

"Ready?" he asked as she glanced up at him.

"Not in the least," she said honestly.

"My place or yours?" he asked, and again there was no smirk or accompanying smarmy gesture.

"Mine," she said with a sigh. It might be a bad idea, as it'd be easier to flee than kick him out if he didn't feel like going, but frankly she wanted to be on her home turf, and after this awful conversation she just wanted to fall into bed and sleep.

"Shunpo?"

"Sure," she said with a shrug. They walked out of the office together, ignoring the gossip flying around them as division members shared meaningful looks. "This is almost worse than when we started dating," she observed.

"It's juicier," he said resignedly. "Everyone expected us to get together. No one expected, well, this."

"You cheating and getting someone else pregnant?" she supplied, and he turned to face her quickly. "No, I'm sure a lot of people expected that too." Then they were at the gate and she started shunpoing home, not caring that her last comment had been mean and perhaps a bit petty.

She slid her keys in the door as he touched down next to her, knowing he was only a step behind her because she'd made him angry and he hadn't tried to catch up or beat her there. Ignoring how stiffly he stood next to her, she slid the door open, and was greeted by a ball of fur slamming into her legs and winding around them.

Nanao had never been so grateful to see the cat in all her life. "Oh Boo, how's my little man?" she cooed, scooping him up and nuzzling her face into his fur. He gave her a little meow of answer and butted his head into her shoulder and neck in welcome.

"Shall we?" Kyouraku asked impatiently from next to the doorway she was currently blocking. She forgave the coldness in his tone, simply because she had been cruel too. Boo hissed in her arms at him, and she secretly gave him an extra neck rub as she let Kyouraku enter. He shut the door behind him, and she kissed Boo on the head before putting him back down.

"Tea?" she inquired.

"No, I don't want tea," he said sharply, and she gave him a glare before heading into her living room.

"I was just trying to be polite," she pointed out, sitting down primly on a chair as he flopped down across from her on the couch. Boo instantly bounced into her lap and sat up like a sentry in it, watching Kyouraku's every move. The cat must have sensed the atmosphere had changed in his favor, as even he was normally not this protective.

"I don't want you to be polite," Kyouraku said. "I want you to tell me what you're thinking."

"I think you're a drunken ass," she said calmly, and thanked kami that she'd had all weekend to decide what to say. "I think the girl is pregnant, and it's yours, and now you have to step up and take responsibility. I think you're going to have to marry her and that's the end of that. I think, beyond work, I can't see you anymore. Am I missing something?"

"It's my word against hers," Kyouraku said frustrated, as he stood up and started pacing in front of her.

She watched him, maintaining her outward calm. "No, it's her word and Unohana-san's diagnosis against your total lack of memory. You can doubt it, but I'm more inclined to go with the people that don't drink away their thought processes. It's not like I haven't recovered you in similar states over the years. I suppose we were always lucky in that I generally arrived before you could impregnate someone."

"I hate when you do this," he blurted, taking a step towards her only to be greeted by a hissing cat.

"When I do what?" she demanded, picking Boo up and standing too as she didn't like him looming over her.

"When you act like you don't give a shit and on the inside you're upset to hell and back," he said angrily.

"Is that what you want?" she demanded, and she was horrified to hear her own voice crack at the end of the sentence. "You want to see how angry and hurt I am? Is this what this is all about, getting some kind of reaction out of me? Is that why you slept with her then? I just wasn't emotional enough, wasn't doing the trick?"

"You know that's not true," he argued.

"What do you want?" she yelled, not caring if she was being irrational. "I don't have anything left to give. I told you, I gave everything I had taking a chance on you, and here we are. So what? Now you want my anger and my sadness too? I apologize for not handing them over. If you want them so badly why don't you ask Jyuushiro-san for a recap."

"Nanao-chan," he started.

"Don't!" she screamed, and despised that she was reacting like this. She'd had it all planned out, she was going to be cool, calm, and collected and then kick him to the curb. "Don't call me that," she growled more quietly. "Don't call me anything, but Ise-fukutaicho, as that's all I can be to you."

"Nanao."

"No," she said shaking her head and holding back tears. "Go home to your fiancé and child. There's nothing for you here."

"The baby isn't mine," he said looking defeated. "Why can't you believe me?"

"I did," she said. "Right up until a healer and the fact that you were blackout drunk told me differently."

"I should remember something like that," he said miserably.

"Just because you don't, doesn't change anything," she said, turning her face away. "Just because you didn't remember getting blackout and painting half of Zaraki Taicho's office pink a half a century ago, didn't change the fact that it was still pink the next morning."

"Nanao-chan," he tried again, and reached for her arm. All he got for his trouble was a vicious cat biting ferociously into his hand. He gave a yelp of pain and backed off a step.

"You should go to the 4th and have that checked," she said, regaining her calm numbly at the sight of his bleeding hand. "Cat bites can be nasty without proper treatment."

"I love you," he pleaded.

"It's not enough," she said. "Please, leave."

"I'm not going to marry her," he stated firmly.

"Well, that's a waste, as the poor girl's family has already disowned her, and I'm certainly not going to marry you," she spat.

"Nanao," he repeated, and moved towards her again despite the growling cat. He plucked Boo out of her arms, ignoring his claws and teeth, and plopped the cat on the floor. She stood her ground, daring him to do something stupid. "I love you." Then he kissed her, and she hated that all of her reacted the way it always had. She wanted to melt into him, to forget her problems, to get even closer. Kami, he felt safe. Instead she shoved him away as hard as she could.

"No more, Shunsui," she said tiredly. "I can't. You've got certain responsibilities and I don't make the list anymore." She desperately forced her tears back, knowing that if she gave in and let them fall she'd never get him to leave. He wasn't good with crying women and couldn't leave off until he got the tears to stop, so right now crying would be the biggest mistake she could make.

He shook his head, and she tried not to feel bad about his bleeding hand. Boo had curled around her legs and was snarling up at him. "I need you," he said finally.

"No you don't," she said with a harsh laugh. "You survived just fine before me, and you'll do it after me."

"So this is it then? You're dumping me no matter what I say?" he asked seriously.

"What could you possibly say?" she asked softly. "Actions speak louder than words."

"I didn't do it," he said.

"Well, when Unohana Taicho tells you that, you let me know," she said bitterly. "Now, please leave. I have work early tomorrow."

"I'll leave, but it doesn't mean I'm giving up," he said regaining some of his control.

"You're wasting your time," she said.

"I've heard that before," he said giving her a half smile.

"The situation was different," she replied. "That was just me and you. This isn't about just us anymore. There is no us."

"There will always be an us, Nanao," he said firmly. "Nothing you can do will change that."

"Perhaps not," she conceded. "But now you need to get out of my home."

"I'll see you again tomorrow," he said, making sure there was no question in his tone.

"Of course," she said stoically. "It's a work day."

"My dutiful Nanao-chan," he said softly.

"Not your anything," she defended.

She saw the hurt in his eyes and could only assume it was mirrored in her own. "Goodnight, Nanao-chan," he said with a sigh.

He turned and headed towards the door. She followed behind him and locked it. When she felt his reiatsu move sufficiently far away she allowed the tears of the past few days to return again. She wondered for the millionth time how she could go from being so happy to so miserable in the space of a few days.

"Come on, Boo," she said resignedly. "Someone earned themselves some catnip."

A/N: Phew. Writing light fluff is so much easier for me. Anyhoo, hope you all liked it and show it by reviewing :) Pretty please?

Also just for all of you still questioning the lack of memory on his part. Blackout drunk means no memories, trust me on this one as I've done it and do not recommend it. Now two years later I still have no recollection of the evening although my friends tell me they had no clue I was that bad off as I'm apparently a highly functional blackout drunk, ha. Anyway I repeat it is not recommended and you feel like death warmed over the next day. So yay for my public service announcement :) On to working on the next chapter!