• Chapter 6
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    Matsumoto was delighted. When Hitsugaya told her what had happened – well after he had returned Sharon and left, hoping she would really believe she had just fallen asleep in her chair in front of the computer – and what the captains had decided about the situation, she was bursting with ideas. Finally, her taichou had a girlfriend! Okay, maybe they couldn’t date… they couldn’t kiss… they couldn’t even be lovers… well, there had to be something they could do, right?

    Hitsugaya sighed, again. This was going to be a very, very long day.
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    Sharon, on the other hand, was sore. The kind of sore and stiff that she wasn’t sure how much was arthritis and how much was fibromyalgia. “One too many anime” she mumbled to herself. She couldn’t quite remember… that must have been some dream. Something about her old roleplay character actually being… a dragon? “Ok, maybe one too many anime plus one too many Pern novels. Except, that wasn’t a Pern-type dragon. Wasn’t a Companion, so the Valdemar novels aren’t the problem.” Tch. What was itching at the back of her mind? “Can’t blame Mercedes Lackey for this book either. That was one of her Elizabeth novels. Man, I sure could use someone like Denoriel to come stand up for me.” A quick mental review of her recent reading indulgences wasn’t helping. Usually when a dream did something funky like that, she could trace the trappings back to whatever she had been reading or watching lately. “Nope, not Tsubasa, not xxxHolic, not Inuyasha. Hey. Maybe it was that Naruto Shippuden movie. There were purple dragons in that.” She had just found the subs of the latest Naruto movie online a few days ago. She nodded to herself. “That must be it. For my Scout to turn into some kind of dragon – ok, so I must have borrowed the images from Naruto. But there were only purple dragons there, not… blue-white ones made of ice… and…” She shook her head sharply again. Blast. She could have sworn there was somebody there, somebody worried, with those incredible eyes. But she just couldn’t remember, except that he was very sad/angry/worried and desparate-something mixed together. And something else, itching to be recognized. What was that other thing he was sending? Almost as if… nah, couldn’t be. Almost as if he… loved her or something. “Bloody dreams. Can’t make a bit of sense of any of it.”
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    Hitsugaya was staring off in space over the most recent pile of paperwork.

    “Here you go, taichou!” Matsumoto swept a clear space in the middle of his desk and put down a tray. “Lunch time!”

    He shot her a glance, then actually looked at the tray. Good. No sake. Maybe this means she’s not trying to get me drunk so I won’t remember to make her work this afternoon. He absently began eating his lunch. The problem of what to do with a certain indigo dragon was distracting him from his other duties.

    “Taichou?”

    “Hmmm?” He wasn’t really paying attention to what he was eating, either.

    “She’s going to be hard to train.”

    “Hmmm.”

    “I mean, you can’t just give her a bunch of new information, and it’s going to be hard to field test any of it. She can’t properly manifest her dragon in the living world. I just wonder how much good you’re going to be able to do.”

    “Hmmm.” Hitsugaya chewed thoughtfully.

    “And really. You need to be thinking about positive reinforcement techniques too.”

    “Hmmm.” He took a sip of his tea.

    “Like kissing her when she gets something right.”

    Hitsugaya choked at that. His sip of tea ended up in the back of his nose, and his eyes were watering. Several coughs later, he regained enough composure to glare at Matsumoto. She wasn’t exactly grinning, but she had that unrepentant look on her face that had “matchmaking” all over it.

    “What part of ‘the woman is married’ don’t you get?”

    “And what part of ‘she doesn’t even believe you are real’ don’t you get?” she shot back. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with how you feel, and how she feels about you, and how the zanpakuto feel about each other. In the meanwhile, you might as well do what you can with what you know. She’s not going to be able to accept or understand any information she doesn’t already know because she still believes you’re just in her imagination, right? So work with that. When she comes to an understanding on her own, gently encouraged by her ‘imaginary friend’ – you – then you should do something to let her know she’s on the right track. And if you kiss her, well, that would reinforce the believe that it’s all in her mind, because she really honestly thinks so lowly of herself, she can’t conceive of anyone treating her better than she’s always been treated. Especially if it means the person on the other end loves her. It’s totally outside of her mindset. She has this crazy idea that love is a one way street: It flows out from her and never comes back. She has such an incredible capacity to love, no wonder she’s been hurt so very badly. I’d like to see her get a little of what she deserves.”

    “Has it not occurred to you, Matsumoto, that what I feel for her is exactly why I should NOT be entertaining the possibility of kissing her?”

    “Quite the opposite, taichou. What you feel for her is exactly why you SHOULD be kissing her. Frequently. It would do you both a lot of good, and would probably speed her healing.”

    Hitsugaya rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, seeking patience. “The. Woman. Is. Married. End of argument. I refuse to do anything to further complicate her situation.”

    “Even if it might calm both dragons?”

    He was trying very hard not to think Matsumoto might be right. “Even if it might calm her dragon. Hyourinmaru can manage. I can manage. But if I were to entangle her heart… it would make day to day living for her even more unbearable.”

    “How so? By giving her hope? By giving her something to look forward to? By – “

    “By reinforcing a love affair with someone other than her husband. Even if she thinks it is just a fantasy. Because the more she loves someone else, the harder it will be to tolerate the slurs and slights he pours on her daily. And the part of her that needs to stay warm, alive, and responsive will become hard and cold, or at least will become so faster. If she is to have any chance at all of gaining control, she can’t let herself be tangled up in loving someone illicitly. It’s as if her heart is playing by rules. She can’t lose the moral high ground without losing her sanity in the process. Don’t you see? That’s why she can’t allow herself to love unless she doesn’t believe it’s real. She is dying on the inside, but the only thing that’s holding her mind together – and it’s not by much – is the belief that she’s not breaking her vows as long as she’s not in love with a real person.”

    That hurt to admit, and hurt more to admit out loud. But it wasn’t hurting him nearly as much as living that way must have hurt her.

    “Besides…” He dropped silent for a moment. He was staring blankly at his lunch again. “I should be trying to find ways for her real-life relationships to heal, not ways to get her to fall in love with me.” His voice had dropped and was rough and quiet. “You talk about what she deserves. She deserves to be loved by a real person, in her real life, who can hug her and kiss her in her reality. She deserves to have a son who lets her give him love and gives her love in return. She deserves the very best life has to offer and is stuck dealing with the crappy hand she got instead.” His voice was shaking. “She deserves to not have to suffer anymore. To not have to fear every damn day of her life anymore. She deserves to be free of the living hell she’s in. That’s what she deserves. I can’t give her that. But I can try to be her friend.”

    “Even if it means denying what you both feel for each other. Even if it means accepting the reality of what she has to live with and abetting that reality. Even if it means… I don’t know. Even if it means the best you can do is sit with her during the fallout when he torments her again.”

    It wasn’t said as a question. Matsumoto didn’t like what Hitsugaya was saying. But she couldn’t find a good enough argument against it, either. She continued softly.

    “He hurts her, you know. When she thinks of kissing ‘in real life’ it means trying to kiss him. So she runs to her fantasies instead. They don’t take so much pleasure in her pain. She wants to encourage her son to hug her – she is the only one her son will hug – but she has to get him to do it in secret because if he does it where her husband can see, he grins and says ‘one hug deserves another!’ and holds his arms open. And then tries to see just how much he can hurt her while trying to make it look like he is ‘loving’ her. And then laughs at her pain. Oh, she tries to be sympathetic and understanding, but there’s a shell around her heart. She’s trying to survive. And it’s awfully lonely in that shell all by herself.”

    Hitsugaya didn’t want to hear that. But he couldn’t argue with it, any more than Matsumoto could argue with what he’d said. “And that’s why the best I can do is be a friend to her. Don’t you see? If the shell is all that’s keeping her going, what right have I to break it? Even if it’s for the sake of love? It would crush her, take away her last defense. I’m not going to deliberately break her when we’re trying to get her whole again.”

    He could tell this argument – and it really was an argument, for all that it was being discussed so calmly – wasn’t going to end any time soon. She had good points. Lots and lots of them. But all of Matsumoto’s good points just didn’t outweigh the fact that she was suggesting that he initiate and perpetuate what amounted to a love affair with a married woman, in the living world. He just couldn’t do that. And he couldn’t leave her instruction to anyone else, because of the dragons. What a total mess.

    Hitsugaya sighed, pushing away the half-eaten lunch.

    “I need to be alone for a while. Don’t bother looking. And please do bother getting your work done.”

    “Taichou.” This time she wasn’t complaining, just looking at him with sad eyes.

    Hitsugaya just closed his eyes and walked out.