Alright, here we go! Welcome, readers, to the third multi-chapter installement of the Lost And Found series and what will prove to be, I am sure, the angstiest yet.

Okay, my computer tells me angstiest is not a word, but whatever.

If you have not read any part of the Lost And Found series:

- Why not?

- This has spoilers.

While Lost And Found and The Stage were more companion pieces and non-spoilerific of each other for the most part, this is what you might term a sequel. It takes place after the end events of The Stage, and if you have no idea what happens there, don’t want to be spoiled and still want to read this fic, I suggest you go and read that one first. –smile–

On a similar vein, here is the suggested reading order for the series.

- Foreshadow (Hitsugaya/Karin)

- Lost And Found, the original (Hitsugaya/Karin) Finding an old love

- The Stage (Rangiku/Byakuya OTP!) Finding a new love

- The Ring Hunt (Ichi/Ruki) Finding a ring

- Truth or Dare (Momo/Shuuhei) Falling out of love and finding new love.

And then there is Musings, which occurs partway through this fic.

So! New readers, welcome, old readers, welcome back. It’s good to have you on board, and if everyone would be seated, I’d like to get started ;)

xXx

In the time she’d been dead, Momo had learnt three very important things about love.

1 – Never fall in love with your best friend.

2 – Never fall in love with your superior.

3 – Never fall in love with traitors.

Number three had been the hardest to get over, but the easiest to avoid thereafter. Number one was a little more difficult to escape, but still possible. It was number two that Momo seemed to have the most trouble with.

“Tai-chō!” she sang, swinging into the office with an arm full of paperwork. Kurosaki Ichigo sat slumped at his desk, white haori nowhere to be seen and a shocked look on his face.

Momo frowned, dumping the paperwork on her own desk and waving a hand in her Captain’s face. “Taichō? Are you okay?”

“Rukia’s pregnant,” he blurted, eyes growing wider as he said it. “And I can’t figure out how it happened.”

Momo borrowed a trick from Rangiku and laughed out loud to hide the fact that her stomach was somewhere in the vicinity of her knees and her heart in the general throat area. “The usual way, I’d assume,” she said airily.

Ichigo flushed a little then shook his head. “No, I know…uh, I mean...it’s just so rare!” he burst out finally. “And with Maiko born only two months ago it’s…”

“Totally unexpected?” Momo offered, returning to her paperwork.

Her Captain swiped a hand over his face and groaned. “Yeah. I mean damn, we just got engaged y’know? I’m not ready to be a father.”

She gave him a disbelieved look over the stack of paperwork. “Taichō, children love you. Yuki-kun can’t get enough of you, and he’s the single most reserved child I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, but that don’t mean—”

“You’ll be a great father, taichō,” she said firmly, getting started on the day’s work.

He didn’t reply, but out of the corner of her eye she saw his shoulders relax slightly as the tension rolled out of him.

“You know,” she remarked. “One day someone in the Seireitei will have a planned pregnancy and the worlds will fall down.”

Ichigo grinned. “Getting ideas, Momo?”

Her hand slipped, a thick black mark scarring the form. She licked her lips a little and ignored the tightening of her throat. “Not me, taichō.”

“Aw, why not?” His troubles appeared to have deserted him in the face of teasing her.

She didn’t mind, though, even though this particular subject was a sore one. He didn’t know that and seeing him smile more than made up for it. “Because, taichō, so far as I know the Twelfth Division has not yet come up with immaculate conception,” she huffed, rewriting the form she’d ruined.

Her Captain burst out laughing and Momo smiled softly, reaching for the next paper. It was a good morning when she could get him to laugh before nine o’clock. Ichigo wasn’t much of a morning person.

“Well, maybe if you got out of the office for once Momo, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”

“I do get out of the office, thank you very much.” She stood and wandered over to the kettle. His mug was empty, and she knew that he needed at least four cups of coffee before he was properly awake these days. “I played office soccer with Rangiku and Yuki the just the other day.”

“You played office soccer.”

“Don’t look at me like that!” she protested, half-laughing. It did sound a little silly when she thought about it. Well, a lot silly if she was honest. “And don’t pretend like you haven’t done the same thing half a dozen times. I’ve got your number, taichō.”

He opened his mouth to retort, then shut it with a snap as she whisked away the Chappy mug that Rukia had painted for him and refilled it. “I can make my own coffee, you know.”

“Yes taichō,” she agreed, setting the cup down in front of him and dropping three lumps of sugar in. “But not as well as I can.”

He smiled ruefully and took a sip of the coffee. “I guess you’re right.”

“I may not know much, taichō, but I do know coffee.”

She was used to watching his emotions change suddenly across his face, but the frown that chased away his smile took her by surprise.

“Geez, I wish you wouldn’t do that Momo.”

“Do what, taichō?” she asked, confused. Momo was usually careful to make sure she didn’t screw up in front of her Captain – she didn’t want to give him an excuse to get rid of her.

“Put yourself down like that. I mean, you were freaking Acting-Captain for eighteen years. You’ve got bankai, for crying out loud. I’d say you know a hell of a lot more than making coffee.”

She licked her lips again, a nervous gesture she’d picked up somewhere years before. Her foot shuffled a little as she looked at the floor. She wasted a few seconds on composing herself, then look up and flashed Ichigo a grin so wide her eyes closed.

“Yes taichō. But I’m really good a making coffee.”

Only, that didn’t make him laugh the way it was meant to. He merely grunted, eyes unreadable, before turning his face to the day’s workload.

“Gimme some of that.”

“Taichō—”

“You stepped down because of the stress, didn’t ya? Except ever since I’ve taken over you hardly let me do any work at all.”

Ah. Stress. The reason she’d given everyone when she stepped aside so easily from the Acting-Captain position. It was a thin excuse, because she could have just accepted the Fifth’s haori and become Captain in name as well as actions with a vice-captain to help her instead of becoming the vice-captain herself.

But Momo would never wear that haori. Even now, nearly five years after she had stopped loving Aizen entirely, it was too painful to even look at. She had the sneaking suspicion that Ichigo knew and used his loathing of formalities to cover for her and not wear the thing.

And she hated that. Not the fact that her friends and co-workers went out of their way to protect her, but rather that she required it. After all these years of attempting independence, she still couldn’t stop herself from relying on her friends.

“Oi, Momo?” A clenched fist tapped lightly on her forehead. “You there?”

“E-eh?” She nearly jumped to attention, flustered as she was. Thankfully she managed to avoid such an embarrassing mishap, although her back was so straight she might have been wearing a bracing-board. “N-no taichō. I mean yes taichō! I’m sorry?”

He sighed, grabbing a handful of paper off the top of her pile. “C’mere and teach me this.”

“Taichō, it’d really be quicker if you just let me—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know it’ll take longer today if you teach me, but we’ll make up for the time later when we both work on it.” Ichigo moved back over to his own desk and dumped himself into the chair. “Now what the hell is this?”

Momo bit her lip and then shook her head. “Well…I guess I’m not technically qualified to sign some of these anymore,” she admitted, getting up from her own chair and padding over to him. She had to stifle a small grin when she saw what he was glaring at. “Ah. That, taichō, is a five-one-three-bee.” She jerked it out of his grasp, glanced over it and screwed it up into a little ball.

“The hell?”

“Trust me, taichō, you don’t want to know. Suffice to say the Division’s not going to be pleased with you this month and let me handle our sake budget from now on, alright?”

“But—”

She pointed at the new form. “This, taichō, is a seven-nine-eight. Damage caused to Division property by Eleventh. You wouldn’t believe how many of these Fourth gets.”

Ichigo stared at her. “Are any of these about good things?”

Momo frowned, thinking about it. “No.”

His head hit the desk.

“You wanted to do this, taichō,” she reminded him. She wasn’t beyond teasing back on the odd occasion.

“Shut up.”

“Taichō!”

He grinned.

She described the basic code of the number positions to him, and then what each number referred to. By the time the morning was over, he had the hang of it and she was able to return to her own work.

She was still working on the Division’s monthly report when he tapped on her shoulder.

“Hmm?” she murmured, not looking up.

“Five o’clock, Momo. Time to go home.”

“I have to finish this, taichō.”

She could feel his frown, even if she wasn’t looking at him.

“You work too hard, Momo.”

“Better than not enough,” she countered, thinking for a moment that she were Acting-Captain and he a mere subordinate. Then she realised what she said and how she said it and her hands flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry taichō, I didn’t mean—”

He was chuckling, she realised, and the sound made her forget whatever hurried excuse she’d been about to deliver.

“It’s good to see you’ve still got some spine in you, Momo,” he said, the smile still in his voice. “I wouldn’t like to think that I’d had the crap beaten out of me by some girl who didn’t know when to stick up for herself.”

She flushed and returned to the report, remembering that misunderstanding from five years ago.

“I’ll just finish this report, taichō. Hisagi-sem – I mean, Hisagi-taichō – gets stressed when they’re not in to him on time.”

He frowned down at the code on the top of the paper she was writing on. “Ain’t that due tomorrow?”

“Ise-fukutaichō handed hers in yesterday, taichō. And it won’t take me long, I promise. And I’ll only do this one. Really. Actually, I could probably fit in a few more…five o’clock is really only a guideline—”

“Geez, you never stop, do you? Don’t you wanna get home and lie down or something?”

“There’s not really that much difference between being home alone and in the office alone, taichō,” Momo replied, laughing a little nervously. “I really don’t mind.”

“Yeah? While I freakin’ do. Think of it as an order, if it makes you feel better. Get that report done and in to Hisagi, then go have some fun or something. Office soccer, if you have to.”

She mock-glared at him. “I do other things than office soccer!”

“So go and do them,” he retorted, before his eyes slid a little to the left and he grinned. “Hey, Momo. You’ve got this splotch of ink – right here.” He tapped his cheek.

“Wh-what?” She rubbed at it, probably a little too hard.

He rolled his eyes. “Other cheek, baka.” And with that he reached out and swiped his thumb gently across her cheekbone, coming away with a dark smear. He wiped the thumb on his uniform and shook his head. “See? You’re working too hard.”

Thankfully he didn’t appear to be expecting a response, because Momo was in no condition to give him one. Her cheek tingled ridiculously where his thumb – his thumb, for crying out loud! – had touched it and all of a sudden she was overwhelmed with guilt.

This was wrong. This was so wrong. Not only had she fallen in love with another woman’s fiancée, she gone and fallen in love with a friend’s fiancée. And he was her Captain. Her Captain and therefore her superior and rule number two was to never fall in love with your superior.

Of course she had absolutely no intention on following through on this stupid, idiotic, painful, wonderful feeling. It would have been wrong in the extreme to even contemplate it and even if she had been willing to betray Rukia – which she certainly wasn’t – Ichigo would never.

It was part of the reason she loved him.

I need Rangiku, she thought hopelessly as she said an absent goodbye to her Captain who was no doubt off to spend the evening with the love of his life. Of course, she batted that thought away immediately. The idea that Rangiku would hate her if she knew the truth was ridiculous, but it lingered nonetheless. Plus, Momo had promised herself that she would work through this on her own. It was a test of her strength, so to speak. Most people spent their lives trying to fall in love. Momo seemed to be spending hers attempting to fall out.

She finished off the report, felt guilty about leaving the other papers and then felt guilty about feeling guilty when she had promised her Captain that she wouldn’t touch them.

Needless to say, Momo had guilt issues. However, knowing that she had guilt issues didn’t stop her feeling guilty, so she largely ignored the presence of what Rangiku would term a complex and lived with it. She didn’t mind feeling guilty, not when she’d lived with it for so long, so she figured that meant other people shouldn’t either.

Except that guilt tended to build on itself, and Momo’s friends started to feel guilty for making her feel guilty and she felt guiltier and it was all just one never-ending circle. So she kept it hidden when she could and brushed it off when she couldn’t. Easier said than done, of course. She knew that eventually one day her friends would get sick of her never ending sense of responsibility and she’d be alone again.

But she rather deserved to be alone, she thought. So really, that was alright too.

xXx

So! I hope you weren’t too turned off by this first bombshell. The Shuuhei/Momo love will come later, I promise.

Alright, Stef, I got it up in one go. Happy now?