Renruki Week is here! Day One: Alternate Universe

I have, um, written a lot of Renruki Alternate Universe stories over the last few years. I really did intend to continue my Spirit Society AU, but I totally writer's blocked it, so instead you get Dr. Renji AU: Part Three. This chapter is sadly lacking in Unohana, but it is very Renruki, so, I think it fits the occasion.

If you're behind, this is an AU where Aizen had Renji shipped off to the Fourth instead of the Eleventh. Parts 1 and 2 can be found in Squad Six is Jerks, vol III.

"Second floor, east wing…" Rukia repeated to herself, her eyes scanning the identical office doors. "This really doesn't seem right."

She'd already been shuffled through three different departments downstairs before a harried nurse had directed her up here. It was very quiet in this part of the Coordinated Relief Station, and the few people that she saw seemed to be going about their business more sedately than on the ground floor.

"Excuse me!" Rukia said, accosting the next person to pass, a slender, nervous-looking young man with kind eyes. "I think I'm lost?"

The young man bobbed his head and smiled shyly. His nametag said 'Yamada'. "How can I help, ma'am?"

Rukia sighed. "I'm trying to find the, er, the head of the trauma department, and I was told to look on the second floor, east wing, but this doesn't seem like…an emergency room."

Yamada tilted his head to one side. "The emergency room is downstairs."

Rukia groaned.

Yamada waved his hands. "You seem very calm and there doesn't seem to be any blood coming out of you, so I'm guessing you probably just want to talk to the Third Seat, right?"

"Er, right," Rukia agreed.

Yamada nodded happily. "You're in the right place then! His office is that one over there!" He pointed at a doorway just past the next cross corridor. "I'm not sure if he's in or not, but if he's down on the floor, he's not available for talking, anyway."

"Oh! Right. Of course," Rukia realized. Obviously the guy wouldn't have time to talk to her if he was trying to reattach someone's arm. A small wave of disappointment washed over her. It would have been kind of cool to see an arm get reattached. "Tha-" she started to say, only to realize the little shinigami was already bustling away. "Thank you?" she called anyway.

Heaving another sigh, she walked over and rapped on the doorframe. There was no answer. Rukia sucked her teeth for a moment then rapped again. "Er, hello?" she called. "Doctor Third Seat, are you there? It's…um, Kuchiki Rukia." She thought about adding her squad, but she supposed she wasn't actually here in her professional capacity. "First Daughter of the Kuchiki," she mumbled instead. It didn't matter. He wasn't in.

After all this, she would just have to come back later, she decided, although she had no way of knowing when this guy might actually be in his office. Kiyone said that everyone at the Fourth was terribly overworked. For all she knew, Dr. Trauma Boss spent twenty hours a day packing people's livers back into their bodies and the other four sleeping it off in a supply closet. Now that she thought of it, maybe Kiyone could ask Isane to ask him to give her a call when he had a minute.

Rukia was so lost in her own thoughts as she headed back down the hall, that she didn't notice the voices coming from the cross corridor, and nearly ran face first into the chest of a tall shinigami who was talking a mile a minute to one of the pink-clad Squad Four nurses.

"I am so sorry!" Rukia sputtered. "I wasn't looking where I was…" Suddenly, all the words fell out of her brain. "R-renji?"

Rukia had never really understood why humans found the prospect of seeing a ghost so alarming. She had seen quite a few ghosts on the occasion that she had been deployed to the Living World with Kiyone, and it had, for the most part, been a very professional and not-at-all affecting experience.

Now, confronted with a person whom she hadn't seen in thirty years, she got it.

For a second, she tried to convince herself that she must be mistaken. (But how could she be mistaken? Who else would get eyebrow tatts?) Renji was taller now, his shoulders broader, and his rangy frame filled out with cords of muscle, a fact made obvious by the fact his sleeves were tied back, putting his handsome biceps on full display. His hair was longer, a long, neat braid hanging out from under a pale green scrub cap. His eyes were familiar, though, brown and wide with surprise, behind the dorkiest pair of heavy-framed glasses Rukia had ever seen.

"Since when do you wear glasses?" she demanded.

Renji's face split into a sheepish, goofy grin. "Rukia! Ah, um, hi!" He blinked and shook his head like he was trying to get his brain back into place. "Er, Nurse Yuki, did you-?"

Nurse Yuki was sizing up Rukia, like he was ready to throw hands over Renji's honor. Rukia realized belatedly that the little fellow also appeared to have an eyebrow tatt. Maybe it was a Squad 4 thing. "I got it, sir," Yuki said, icicles hanging from every word. "I'll go see to Mr. Fueki right away."

Rukia's brain raced, still trying to make sense of it all. At some point, she'd heard Renji was no longer at the Fifth, but she didn't know any of the details. She'd avoided trying to find out any of the details, to be honest. Renji had never been very careful with himself when left to his own devices and, well…as long as she never heard anything to the contrary, she could assume he was out there somewhere, working hard and making a name for himself.

He was still alive, though, and right in front of her. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. The very moment after she said it, her brain put together the tied-back sleeves and the scrub cap and the fact that the nurse had called him 'sir'. Fuck.

"I…uh…work here," he said stupidly.

"You work here?" Rukia repeated. "In the Coordinated Rel- wait-in the trauma department?"

"Yeah, actually." He looked confused. "Um…why?"

"I am supposed to talk to your department head, but he's not in. Do you know how I could get ahold of him?"

Renji blinked at her for a moment, then frowned. "He's in."

"He's not! I just knocked on his door and no one answered!"

"I tell you, if he's not in, he's gonna be back very shortly." Renji straightened up and strode past her, back toward the office of the errant Third Seat. As Rukia scrambled to catch up to his stupidly long legs, he bent over and squinted at a placard mounted on the wall next to the door, just underneath the room number. "Hey, Rukia," he said, his voice dripping with trollish delight, "come read this for me."

"I didn't see that," Rukia grumbled as she finally caught up. "'Trauma Department, Chief Officer,'" she read off, "'Third Seat… Abarai…Renji.'" With horror, she looked back at him. He was grinning and waggling those stupid eyebrows at him.

"I didn't see it!" she repeated.

"I gathered that."

"This isn't a prank? You're really…" she waved her hands vaguely at him, "a surgeon?"

"Surprises me too sometimes."

It seemed completely absurd, but at the same time, it made perfect sense. Renji had been a funny kid. His public face had been as pure a son of Inuzuri as there had ever been- sneering and swaggering, a temper like dry kindling, tough as a wild boar and twice as strong. But all this was a defensive armor that Rukia had watched him construct, brick by mud-packed brick. Underneath, there was a certain tenderness, a heart that couldn't help caring about everything and everyone. He patched holes in their roof and learned which wild herbs were edible. He somehow always ended up with the smallest blanket, even though his legs were the longest and stuck out ridiculously. He never hesitated to offer a piggyback when Mameji got too tired, or a kind word when Fujimaru got down in the dumps. Just because he held a sword like he'd been born with one in his hands didn't mean that's what he actually wanted.

A doctor. Go figure.

Renji cleared his throat politely. "Um. So…you were looking for me?"

Rukia tried to pretend like she hadn't just tripped headfirst into her feelings. "My brother," she announced, pulling herself up to her full height, "came home yesterday after spending two days in the Coordinated Relief Station! He won't tell anyone what happened. Even his lieutenant doesn't know. I haven't even seen him, but this morning, he sent me this note." She rustled around in her sleeve and pulled out the little folded slip of paper. She almost just handed it over, but changed her mind at the last second and shook it open so she could read it out loud. "'Rukia. Please go to the Fourth Division and speak to the Head of the Trauma Department.' That's it!"

Technically, that wasn't 'it'. There was another line, which read, "Dress in a manner befitting the First Daughter of the Kuchiki and comport yourself accordingly.'" She still wasn't entirely sure what the reasoning behind that was- she certainly would have felt more comfortable facing a senior Gotei officer-childhood friend or not-in a shihakushou instead of the wisteria-patterned semi-formal kimono her maid had stuffed her in before shoving her out the door.

"Ummmm," said Renji.

Rukia narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. "So what the Hell happened? Is my brother going to die?"

"What? No!" Renji squeezed his eyes shut for a second. "Look, let's go into my office to talk about this."

Byakuya was definitely dying. Rukia could feel it in her bones.

Renji led her into his office. It was small, and full of stuff, shelves packed with medical books, primarily, but also practice swords and weights and the ubiquitous piles of Gotei paperwork. Unlike her own Third Seats' shared office, at least there was some order to it. The walls were crowded with various framed certifications, as well as pictures of Renji with his friends- playing soccer, dressed up for something fancy, manning what looked suspiciously like the safe sex booth at the annual Squad Four Health Fair with a horrified looking Kira Izuru. His zanpakutou sat on a wall-mounted sword rack behind his desk.

"Can I make you some tea?" Renji offered, waving vaguely at a kidou-powered kettle and some tins of tea crammed onto a shelf next to a precariously leaning ikebana arrangement of chrysanthemums and greenbrier.

"Do you still make tea so strong that a stick would stand straight up in it?" Rukia asked.

"Only when I'm pulling graveyard shifts," Renji replied. "And don't say that too loud. My captain takes tea very seriously."

"I'll pass, then," Rukia said, sitting down in the visitor's chair, as he settled down behind his desk.

"So," said Renji.

"So," Rukia echoed.

Renji folded his hands in front of him, and composed his face into a very professional mien. "Your brother is fine. He lost a fight, and I put him back together afterwards myself. Captain Unohana signed his discharge papers personally. The only reason he was here for so long was because we have a mandatory 48-hour observation period for infection when someone's had an open abdominal cavity in non-sterile conditions."

"He lost a fight?" Rukia's brows furrowed. "To whom?" There weren't that many people in Soul Society who could beat Byakuya, and even fewer who wouldn't have bragged about it to the entire city by now. "Was it the Kenpachi?" she guessed. "Or Captain Ichimaru? Have you ever met that guy? He's really creepy."

"I…have, but let's hold off on badmouthing other people's captains for now." Renji sucked his teeth for a moment. "It was me. I was the one who fought your brother."

Rukia blinked at him. "What?"

Renji sighed. "This is really not how I pictured explaining this to you. He really…he really didn't say anything?"

"Just the note!" Rukia singsonged.

Renji looked down at his desk and nodded for a moment. "Of course he didn't. Why would he? I deserve this, I suppose," he mumbled to himself. Then, suddenly pulling himself together, he slapped his palms on the desk, and looked up at her, jaw set and eyes blazing behind those stupid, nerdy, unspeakably hot glasses. "Rukia," he said. "I have something to tell you."

Rukia stared back at him and waved the note again. "Yeah? That's why I came here?"

"It's not about- well, not directly- that is to say-" He screwed up his face again. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"Am I what?" Rukia echoed.

"Seeing anyone. You know. Romantically."

"I am not, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"Oh! Great!"

"'Great'? 'Great'?! What is that supposed to mean?"

"In that case, may I prevail upon you to go to dinner with me? This weekend maybe?"

Rukia squinted at him. "Are you a person who says 'prevail upon' now? Ew."

"Not-not usually! I was trying to sound classy!"

"Well, stop it. I get enough of that at home. Anyway, can't you just tell me the thing right now? I am not a patient person and I will explode if I have to sit on this until this weekend."

Renji squinted back at her, and for a long moment, they made faces at each across his desk. "Are you serious?" he finally said.

"Just tell me!" she insisted.

He laughed softly for a moment, then flashed her a fangy grin. "Fine. Here goes: Kuchiki Rukia, I think you're the best girl in the world, even though you're a huge blockhead. I like you so much that I trained every free hour I had until I could beat your brother up and ask him for permission to ask you out. Then, I studied and practiced every working hour I had until I could heal him back up afterward, so you wouldn't get too mad at me for doing it. I'm sorry, I thought most of this was implied when I asked you out, but I honestly had forgotten about the blockhead thing." He studied her gobsmacked face for a moment. "So, do you wanna go out or not? I'm paying. I got a place picked out and everything." His face softened. "I've really missed you, you know."

Rukia stared at him blankly for a moment. Absolutely none of this made any sense. She pulled the note out of her sleeve again, and re-read it. Dress in a manner befitting the First Daughter of the Kuchiki and comport yourself accordingly.

"Are you telling me, Abarai Renji," Rukia said slowly, "that you just attempted to win me back from my brother?"

Renji's face flushed. "No! Well-I guess you might see it that way, but my intention-"

"I guess you won," Rukia mused. "So I guess you did just win me back from my brother."

"No, it's not like-"

"What the Hell, Renji? And for that matter, how did you manage to beat him anyway? Hit him over the head with a frying pan while he wasn't paying attention? I'm still grappling with the fact that you're a Third Seat. There's no way you beat up my brother."

"Look," said Renji, having abruptly snapped free of his stammering and stuttering when there were fight retrospectives to be done, "Captain Kuchiki's been in a lot of public fights and he makes no efforts to keep his zanpakutou's abilities secret. His fighting style is well documented. He always trash-talks his way through the first half of a fight, and slow-rolls his bankai, which after enough study, I realized is because it takes him some time to build his reiatsu up to the nosebleed levels he's capable of. I went in hard, straight to bankai, and didn't let up until he was on the ground. If I'd let him get up any head of steam at all, he would have rolled me over, so I…didn't." Renji made a thoughtful face. "He says he wants to fight me again, and I kinda want to see how I would do outside of win-at-all-costs mode. Could be fun, you know?"

The way he explained it, so matter-of-factly, sent her right back to Inuzuri. He could have been telling the story of how he distracted a fruit merchant while palming an apple instead of talking about his-

"Renji," Rukia said slowly. "Did you just say you have bankai?"

"Yeah."

She stared at him. "How the Hell did you find the time to get bankai on top of," she waved vaguely at his bookshelves, "learning to be a doctor?" She thought she had been doing well with two sword attacks and getting up to 60's-level kidou.

"Those two things turned out to be weirdly complementary," Renji scratched his head. "Makin' bones do stuff that bones normally shouldn't be doing."

"What is it like?" Rukia blurted out. "I want to see it."

Renji's eyes widened. "My bankai?"

"Yes! Do you do something with your own bones, or is it extra bones, like do you get bone armor? I don't even know what your shikai does, is it bones, too?" Rukia's mouth snapped shut, as she abruptly recalled why she had never seen his shikai. She stared down at her knees. "I'm sorry. That was very forward of me. I…I forgot."

Renji regarded her very somberly. "Forgot what? That we aren't friends any more?"

"Mm," Rukia replied noncommittally, rubbing her fingers over the intricate woven texture of her kimono as a distraction.

Renji sighed. "Look, Rukia. I'm sorry I hit you with the dating thing out of the gate. I never told you how I felt about you back then, and I wanted to be upfront about my intentions. If you're not interested in that, or you don't feel that way about me, I still-"

"How am I supposed to know how I feel about you, you dumbass?" Rukia snapped. "I haven't seen you in thirty years! And for that matter, it's not like I've stayed the same, either. How do you even know you still like me? This is just like you, latching onto some stupid idea and-and going to the trouble of getting bankai over it before even asking my opinion!"

"I'm sorry," Renji repeated. "I just wanted it to be a sure thing, that's all. And you're right. You're absolutely right. But what if we started slow? Get to know each other again. We can figure out what we want to be later." There was open desperation painted on his face. "I just want to see you again, Rukia."

Rukia crossed her arms over chest. "Answer one question for me, Abarai."

Renji looked like he was torn between horror and hope. "Okay?"

"What kind of face did my brother make when he conceded to you?"

Renji stared at her for a moment. "Oh. Um. Well, he didn't exactly concede. It was very…pbbbbblllth!" He made a vague gesture with both hands that suggested fountaining. He thought for a moment. "Hmm, his normal face is kinda like this?" He lidded his eyes, tilted his chin up slightly, and made a face like he smelled something unpleasant.

"Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good," Rukia nodded.

"Well, the face he made was more like this." Renji made the same face, only he opened his mouth ever-so-slightly. He still managed to look about a thousand times more surprised than Rukia had ever seen Byakuya.

She nodded again, curtly this time. "I wish you had invited me."

Renji's eyebrows shot up.

"I don't know how I feel about you or about any of this," Rukia decided. "But based on this note, you asked Byakuya for full courting permissions, didn't you?"

"Er, maybe?"

Rukia scanned Renji up and down one more time. Everything about him-the braid, the glasses, the scars, the muscles- it all screamed down-to-earth practicality. He was exactly the opposite of the rarefied assholes her brother regularly surrounded himself with, the stuffed-up peacocks her aunts constantly tried to interest her in. "No," she said. "No, you beat him fair and square, so you're my boyfriend now, and he is going to deal with it."

"Ummmm," said Renji.

"Do you own any nice kimono?" Rukia asked.

"I do, actually!"

"Perfect! We're going to a garden party at the Shihouin's on Sunday afternoon. You will escort me. I will be wearing green."

Renji looked like he was about to say something, but instead, he set his jaw and nodded. "Okay!"

She could get up and leave now, Rukia reminded herself. She had done exactly what Byakuya had asked her to do, and was being more than generous in upholding his end of this stupid bargain. Renji knew it, too.

Except that Renji had the courage to say a bunch of things out loud, and just because she couldn't bring herself to process any of them at the moment didn't mean he didn't deserve better than this.

"If you show me your bankai on Saturday morning," she said slowly, "I'll let you take me to lunch afterward. Lunch! Not dinner! And if it turns out your bankai is lame, I'm walking."

Renji's facial expression relaxed into an obnoxious smirk she recognized all too well. "I think I'll take those odds."