Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Lifeless ❯ Waking ( Chapter 7 )

Waking

 

When she woke up, he wasn't even there.

 

Some underling from the 4th division came and told the captains that Hinamori was awake, and Hitsugaya rushed right out of the captain's meeting, followed almost immediately by Unohana-taichou.

 

He thinks it was the most conflicted moments of his life right there, those miles between her room and the 1st division's meeting room, knowing that she was awake, not knowing what she would do.

 

He knows it was the worst moment of his life -in full-color, and framed- when her eyes blinked uncomprehendingly at him above the nurse's shoulder and she asked, in precisely the same voice as all those years ago, “Who are you?”

 

The world went dark in that moment, the shadow after the flash.

 

He was ushered from the room. Sat down quietly, talked at- told that she has experienced very severe trauma, taichou (Who are you to say that, did you see her bleed?) and that she will of course be disoriented from her long coma, Taichou (Did you sit at her side?) and that she must not be upset by anyone, Taichou and finally getting to the point of completely unadvisable for you to visit her, Taichou because she might suffer a relapse at any time, Taichou (keep her from me and I'll kill you).

 

He allowed himself to be kept away from her, but not because of any 9th chair's whining drone but because of Unohana's placating after we are sure, Hitsugaya-kun.

 

When he was next allowed into her room, all danger of relapse past, Taichou she was sitting up in a chair and doing much better, Taichou (he begins to think he hates his title). He sits there and doesn't shock her, mindful of his warnings. He doesn't say what he wants to (I'm sorry I let him hurt you. I promise you no one will ever hurt you again), but waits for her to speak first, watching the pink back in her cheeks and the life back in her eyes.

 

She frowned, and she asked, “I know you, don't I?”

 

“Yes,” he said, feeling his way forward. “My name is Hitsugaya Toushirou.”

 

She smiled, and it was like the sun coming back into his world. “Can I call you Shirou-chan?”

 

He stares at her for a moment, faced with a captain of the Gotei-13 and asking if she could call him a name only she dared use.

 

Struck by the sheer absurdity of it all, he smiles. “I don't see why not,” he says, and she smiles again, a smile just for him, and there are no shadows in her eyes.

 

-end-