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“What are you doing here,” he asks softly, crossing the broad expanse of identical white stones to the place where she is standing, head bowed, fists clenched, again. Moonlight gleams on the sword at her hip, lights a path up the back of her neck as she does not answer. The Gate is silent; sealed and impassable. Even her formidable determination is no match for the Captain General's orders.
A hand on her arm, brusquely shaken off. He can hear the sound of teeth being ground as she squeezes her fists until they shake. One step forward, then another, and she is pounding on the door, pounding against an impenetrable barrier with all her might, striking out against loyalty and duty and the terrible pressure in her chest that means he is gone.
He lets her wear herself out, watches her blows become softer and less frequent, grateful once again that the curious material absorbs the percussive force without a sound. Each strike against the immovable bulwark steals a little bit more of her spirit, a little bit more of herself every time until she has split her knuckles and then it takes her blood, as though she were offering.
Maybe I am
, she thinks, exhausted, resting her head against the hateful surface.
Maybe if I give it enough, if I could just give it everything, it would let me through.
His arms wrap around her, offering what measure of comfort they can. She does not move, not even a little, and he sighs as he takes her injured fingers in his own. She is not the only one with blood on her hands, not this time, but she is the only one so insistent upon making metaphor reality. He tugs softly, knowing it will be a fight. It always is.
“Leave me alone,” she spits, pulling her hands away and they are slippery with blood and sweat and he falters.
“Never,” he replies, meaning it as much this time as he always does, hoping that one day it will finally get through. She steps away, her spirit somewhere behind him now,
there
, no,
over there
, and he follows, letting her lead him wherever she needs to go. Last time it was past her squad's headquarters and into the wilds; this time he watches the districts of Rukongai flash beneath him, counting the rising numbers in his head until he loses count. He feels her spirit flag; she is tired, and he lands before her in a deserted courtyard with little trouble, turning around -
Right into the point of her sword. He stares down Sode no Shirayuki where she has pressed its point against his throat, watches his pulse travel down its shimmering length. In all their years, she has never once drawn steel against him and meant it, until tonight. “I let him go,” she whispers, eyes cast down into the dust at their feet.
“We all did,” he corrects her, because this is something he understands. His hand flashes out, catches her wrist and turns, wincing when Shirayuki falls to the earth with a hollow, bitter sound. He wonders just when it was that she gave up, if there was anything he could have done or if she was lost the moment -
Her knees buckle and he grabs for her left wrist as well, hauling her up with both arms above her head. He pushes her roughly against the wall of the abandoned house in whose courtyard they have chosen to play out this dance. He has been patient, he has been understanding, he has hauled her up from the floor every time,
every damn time
that she has fallen since
he
left. He is the only thing standing between her and the self-destruction she craves, and tonight, for the first time, he is tempted to give in.
Her breathing is heavy in the too quiet darkness; the slums of Rukongai were never so still when they terrorized them as children. Fewer souls seemed to find their way, and as the war raged on there was less and less they could do to fight the deficit. The Arrancar were winning. Here or in the living world, it made no difference. He is useless, helpless, as stuck in the past as the woman whose wrists he is bruising in his grip and if there ever was a way out, he lost sight of it a long time ago.
His fingers stroking the soft, flushed skin of her wrists, the way a single beam of light has managed to penetrate the gloom and light her face as she looks up. Her eyes are red, her skin is moon-pale and he has not yet moved his hands. He cannot separate the light in her hair from the sword at his throat and he wonders how they have come to this point, wonders, but his lips are already pressed against hers and it no longer matters.
She does not move, a statue in his arms and he pulls away. Humiliation curls like lead in his stomach and he lets out the breath he didn't know he had been holding. Her arms fall to her sides, he hears a deep, shuddering breath, and then “I'm sorry.”
He stops, half turned towards Seireitei and his squad house, where he belongs. Where they call him by name, they call him with the respect due a Lieutenant of the 13 Protection Squads, where his Captain would be awake over a stack of books, searching for something, anything that might be of use. The answers it seemed increasingly likely they would never find. He would glance up, assess the defeat written on his face, and send him away without so much as a word.
He feels her fingers curl against his, watches her reach up with her other hand to touch his face. Something flickers in her eyes for only a moment but he sees it, wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her close. He does not let go, not as they stagger across the threshold into the empty house, not as he fumbles with the cord at her waist, not as he pushes her back against the wall and time stands still, every touch, every sigh an eternity between them.
Not as she comes with another man's name on her lips, not as she collapses into his arms with a sob. He does not let go as he carries her home, and he promises her he never will.