A/N: They're like the "Brangelina" of Soul Society, man. "Byakugiku"? "Ranguya"? This story is so mushy and quirky naming abounds. May or may not belong to the "Good Wife" universe.
Disclaimer: Tite Kubo's, I'm just playing.
"Welcome Home"
Byakuya steps through the door of the captain's quarters at the Sixth Division compound and immediately comes to a halt. His wife has decided not to await his arrival at the manor the next day, perhaps rightly suspecting that he would want to remain at the division to see the mission through to the end. He felt her reiatsu before he even entered the building but still the sight of her, after far too long in the cold, dark deserts of Hueco Mundo, chasing spirits and shadows on the trail of a ghost, takes his breath away.
Rangiku lies on her side at one side of a large futon with the covers to her throat, fast asleep. Her hair, gilded in the candlelight spreads around her head like a halo. There is a healthy glow to her skin and her as yet unlined and youthful face is even more so at rest. He feels a rash of irritation at the fact that she could not wait up for him, but it is gone a moment later as she breathes out the whisper of his name. Her brow is not crinkled though, so he imagines it to be a pleasant dream.
"Rangiku," he whispers in reply, then draws the door shut behind him and goes to her.
Her eyes snap open when he is halfway across the room and she lifts her head to look at him. He halts again to look at her. In her present state it is best to be cautious, particularly since her zanpakuto rests just behind her head. But after a moment concern relaxes into an easy smile and she lifts a hand from beneath the covers to her lips and whispers, "Shh."
Ah, so of course. He continues to her, discarding first zanpakuto, then haori, tabi, hakama and kosode, and juban until he is left in his fundoshi. There is a spare yukata at the foot of the futon, which he slips on before lifting the covers and sliding in beside her. He does not get very far. For one, their younger son is pressed against his mother's chest, one hand at her shoulder, the other clutching at a breast, legs hooked over her waist. For another, their daughter, the first-born, has her back to her brother, a thumb in her mouth, the other hand tangled in the belt of her yukata. The older son has wrapped himself into a ball at the foot of the bed.
In the morning the older two will wrap themselves around Byakuya until Rangiku forces them to let go and get breakfast.
Rangiku giggles and says, "My guardians, you see."
Sitting up again, Byakuya lifts the boy at the foot of the bed into his arms. Without waking the boy wraps his legs around Byakuya's waist. Byakuya pauses a moment to make sure that the child is still asleep and them lies back and draws up the covers. This son will become the Twenty-Ninth Head of the Kuchiki say the Elders and the rules and traditions of the clan. The daughter is the one with the mind for it, having stubbornly insisted on following her father around since before she could properly crawl.
"It is good to see that they took my instructions seriously," says Byakuya to Rangiku, once he is settled.
She reaches across the children to caress his face and replies, "They live in fear of their sister."
"As they should," he says, looking down for a moment at the child between them. "She is the eldest."
"And your clone," says Rangiku.
"Actually she looks like you," says Byakuya, reaching over to sweep the child's hair from her face. She does, she looks a lot like Rangiku but with his grey eyes and black hair. The second child also has black hair but his mother's eyes and the third has his mother's hair and eyes but looks most like Byakuya. The fourth, another girl, again with the grey eyes, lies asleep in her bassinet next to Rangiku. The fifth has only just begun to make its presence known, rounding out Rangiku's stomach and hips in a way that delights him every time he sees it.
So yes, Byakuya will never admit that he likes to see her, to quote Kenpachi "fat with his child", but he thinks she is loveliest so.
When the physician had given them the happy news three months ago, Rangiku had turned to Byakuya and told him that while she loved him dearly, this had to stop. He had pointed out then that he was hardly the sole guilty party and she had blithely ignored him in favour of lamenting that her captain was going to be furious and not understand that it was not happening on purpose but that her husband just could not keep his grabby little hands off of her.
Of course their unexpected fecundity has been the talk of the Seireitei since the second child was announced. While the high nobility and spiritually-powerful are capable of having children, that they should have four, soon-to-be five children in relatively quick succession and little difficulty is unheard of. Well, except to the Omaeda and Ukitake clans maybe, but still. It also has brought on more than a few bawdy jokes that Rangiku repeats with great amusement.
"Tou-san?" comes the hoarse whisper and Byakuya looks down to find his second son awake and staring back up at him. The boy smiles sleepily and then nuzzles his head into his father's neck.
"Go back to sleep," says Byakuya, a gentle command.
Rangiku still lifts an eyebrow at him but before she can comment, their daughter speaks up, "Tou-san…you're home…Kaa-san, Tou-san…"
Rangiku giggles again and says, "Ah, well, I don't think we're going to get much sleep tonight."
"Go back to sleep," Byakuya commands again, but their daughter shifts over to his side of the bed and climbs up onto his side. The third child mutters something but remains firmly attached to his mother.
There had been a summer storm the night their first child was born. Byakuya remembers because he could hear Rangiku agonised cries over the sound of the thunder from the other side of the birthing room in the manor. Rukia was in there with her, speaking in a low soothing voice though he could feel the terror in her reiatsu. Then the midwife had said something about the child being stuck or in the wrong place and he could take it no more and burst into the room.
Rangiku, drenched in sweat, hangs on his sister's arm as she squats over the mat, the midwife on the other side massaging her stomach and back. They all look up when the door is thrown open and Rangiku releases one arm from his sister to reach for him. He is knelt before her in an instant and she puts both arms around his neck, then grasps hold of the collar of his haori and screams.
Byakuya can do nothing but hold onto her and pray to their ancestors and the Soul King that both mother and child be spared.
"I think I have it now," says the midwife after what feels like forever but may only have been a matter of minutes. Supposedly she has coaxed the child into the correct position. Byakuya wonders if this waywardness is an indicator of behaviour to come.
There is a sudden crash of thunder low and close to the manor that rattles the ancient roof. Rangiku starts and looks up into Byakuya's eyes but then there is another contraction and she has to try again to push the child into the world. She is tired, exhausted, and her body trembles in his arms. They have been at this for hours and no amount of kido or special painkillers can remove the pain that comes now. But Rangiku is strong, she will survive this.
There had been a time, once before, when Byakuya could have become a father, he thinks as he struggles to keep his wife upright. Given Hisana's poor health it had been unexpected but happy news and for a time they could both pretend that they were a normal family. He remembers feeling overjoyed. See, he wanted to tell the Elders, our love has borne fruit. I have made the right choice. And then one day he was summoned to the manor to find blood-stained sheets and Hisana in tears. There was never to be a second.
Rangiku is strong. He can feel that strength in the arms that grip onto his shoulders and collar, the determination in her gaze and the way she still manages to rein in her reiatsu, for the midwife's sake even now when she barely has the strength to continue.
"We're almost there!" calls the midwife. "I'm going to need your help, my lady!"
Rangiku's hands leave his shoulders to join the midwife's between her thighs and with a final battle cry she pulls the child free and into the air between them.
Their daughter, for it is a girl says the midwife though the child is covered in so much fluid and other material that he can barely tell what it actually is, is long, and slim and very purple. Rangiku stares at her with wide eyes, barely breathing and Byakuya finds that he cannot. Then the baby twists its little head, wrinkles its already wrinkled face, opens its mouth and wails. Rangiku gives a cry of relief, kisses the child's head and whispers, in a voice full of awe, "Amagaki."
Their second child is born in the spring, just as the plum blossoms bloom, blinking bright blue eyes up at them before bursting into a wail that threatens to shake the walls of the building. The Elders are pleased and gift Rangiku with three elaborate heirloom kimono, one of which she wears at his naming ceremony. They are not as pleased that she chooses to call the child "Hisaki", and particularly since she uses the kanji from Hisana's name.
The third child is conceived before and then born while Byakuya is away on a mission to Hueco Mundo and is immediately named "Tsubaki". Byakuya thinks that this is why he clings to his mother so much; he came to them in a time of strife when they argued frequently and were often apart. It did not help that there were rumours of infidelity on both sides, her with Lieutenant Hisagi and he with a recently-widowed former childhood friend. Nor that the family had begun to agitate for Rangiku to give up her position in the Gotei Thirteen, like a "good wife and mother would" and Byakuya, worried about the possibility of losing her agreed. But worst of all, if that were possible, had to be the realisation that they had grown a little bored with each other. Time apart turns out to be the best thing for the both of them.
The fourth child blinks her eyes open at dawn but does not cry, and immediately closes them again to sleep. For weeks after too they have to constantly wake her up for feedings, of which she takes little, or baths and changes or simply to make sure she still lives. It is a curious thing to walk into a room in which her siblings are sounding a racket to raise the dead to find the baby comfortably in deep sleep. Rangiku speculates that Haineko must have gotten into the baby somehow but as she still has her zanpakuto and can speak to the spirit can prove nothing. This one is called "Yuuko".
The last child as yet has no name, though the older children have volunteered "Ryuunosuke" and "Ryuuko". They may or may not have been spending too much time with Captain Hitsugaya.
For a time a comfortable quiet settles over the captain's quarters as Byakuya listens to his family sleep. In the morning, both he and Rangiku have work and the older children have their tutors. It will be some time before they can all lie together like this.
And then Yuuko starts to wail and Rangiku and Tsubaki groan and they are all up again. Byakuya sits up but Rangiku is already out of the bed and scolding the child for not sleeping through the night before heading off to the small bathroom to change her. Tsubaki rolls onto his back, blinking, and then turns to look up at his father. There is a moment where father and son stare at each other and then Tsubaki crawls over to join his siblings wrapped around Byakuya.
So Tsubaki has yet to forgive him for not immediately going to see him on his return after the child's birth. Byakuya can hardly blame the boy. He did not actually hold him for the first time until more than three months after returning home. Of course the child's coldness now is nothing compared to Rangiku's fury then.
Rangiku returns with the baby at her breast, humming a lullaby. When she sees Byakuya's state, she giggles and says, "I should take a picture of this. What would Ichigo-kun pay to see you like this?"
"Not nearly enough. If he cannot afford to move out of the manor, he does not have the money," says Byakuya. Actually that is far from the truth. Captain Ukitake has long arranged a home for the former Substitute Shinigami in the Thirteen Division barracks, but it is easier for Byakuya to monitor the boy and Rukia's after-hours interaction under his roof. Not to mention all the free babysitting.
Rangiku slips back unto the futon, still holding the child and lays down, closer now. Then she whispers, looking him in the eye, "Thank you for coming home alive and well."
Byakuya replies, "It is hardly my decision either way."
"I know, but thank you. It's good to see that your men can take orders from me as well," she says with a wink.
He lifts an eyebrow. "You told my men to ensure that I return?"
She shrugs. "We are going to have five children. We are going to watch them grow up together. Then you can die and leave me a rich and powerful woman."
"Is that your way of saying 'I love you, husband. Welcome home?'"
Staring him directly in the eyes she says, "Yes...with the children here."
The fifth child is another girl, dark-haired, arrives in the winter and surprises them all by clearing a path for her golden-haired twin brother. Byakuya knows what Rangiku will call them before she says the words: "Tsukiko" and "Haruki".
0o0
Names (according to the translations I found, I am never looking for children's names again...then again, I could have stopped at three):
"Amagaki" – "sweet persimmon"
"Hisaki" – "long-lasting life/radiance"
"Tsubaki" – "camellia flower", considered unlucky for samurai in the language of flowers, so that must have gone down well, "waiting" or "longing"
"Yuuko" – "gentleness/serenity child"
"Tsukiko" – "moon child"
"Haruki" – "sun/sunny life"
The children's suggestion: "Ryuunosuke" – "noble/dragon herald", "Ryuuko" – "noble/dragon child"