"Daddy Sousuke, tell us how you and Daddy Ichi met and then fell in love!" Asami giggles as she lies next to her brother in his bed. It seems somehow odd, funny really, that these two children came from within me. Someone could have told me a decade ago that I would carry two children as well as falling in love with one of the most powerful humans in the three worlds and I would have told them they were delusional.


But…


Here I am, the leader of the hollows, sitting on the edge of my son's bed with both of my twins' tucked in, and about to tell them how Ichigo and I met then later how we came to be lovers and married.


It is obvious that neither he nor I were expecting our story to turn out the way it did but we are both happy, even more so since the relations between the three worlds have been going well. It was my father's dream for one day, somehow, have order between hollows as well as relative peace between shinigami and hollow.


I just wished that he could have been here to see it, but we did what we had to do.


"Sousuke?" Ichigo questions my silence. I shift my eyes over to him and gazes at me with a concerned expression. "Are you all right?"


"I'm fine," I tell him then look back at our children. "Now, I am sure you know that your father and I met in Soul Society, ne?" I smile as both Akira and Asami nod their heads.


"Hai," They say in unison.


"We know you were a taichou," Akira adds.


Asami raises her hand to scratch her cheek as she adds another detail I'm sure they heard. "We also know that you were a traitor there." I can see she suddenly looks confused. "But I don't get it…you get along with the shinigami."


"Ah," I sigh, smiling softly. These two haven't any idea about my past. Ichigo and I have been resistant to tell them because it would confuse them and they don't quite understand that they are different from everyone else, being that their heritage is mingled with hollow, shinigami, and quincy. "I get along with them now, but I didn't always once I was branded a traitor."


I can hear a faint chuckle from my lover sitting in a chair not far from me. "What?"


He chuckled a few moments longer before ceasing to answer me. "Sousuke, you only get along with them because of your leadership here. You know, most of them are afraid of you?"


The comment makes me smirk. "Hai, I know, but they don't need to be afraid of me. I won't do them any harm. The times are different now." I know most are afraid of me because at any given moment, I can have the hollow attack. But I wouldn't do that; it would be dishonorable and hypocritical to everything I have accomplished for my father and mother.


"Good thing too," Ichigo comments as he looks at the two in the bed.


He knows if things weren't going as well as they are now, there would be a lot of turmoil. We wouldn't be able to have our children, let alone be together; neither would our comrades or friends.


"Daddy Sousuke, how did you meet Daddy Ichi?"


My smirk seems to widen at the question, since I know Ichigo will not like my answer. "Actually, I met him in the Living World, when he was younger."


"Sousuke!" Ichigo says to me with what looks like a disapproving glare through the corner of my eye. "That is just…weird! Don't tell them that."


"Why?" I ask, knowing full well it will make the children confused. "It's the truth. I did meet you when you were just a child."


Akira's eyes widened at me with curiosity. "How could you meet Daddy Ichi when he was a child? You had to have been one then too!"


I chuckle softly and shake my head. "No, shinigami and hollow age differently than humans once they reach a certain point in their life. Shinigami and hollow can live for hundreds of years, thousands even, but humans cannot."


"But that wasn't our first official meeting since we never really talked." Ichigo spoke out, still glaring at me even as I turned my head towards him. "We met officially in Soul Society when you first became the traitor…Then came here to escape being arrested so you could carry out what you were mind set to do."


"True." I say, nodding. "But as I recall it didn't happen all as I had planned."


"No," Ichigo chuckled while relaxing his and shaking his head. "It sure didn't."