He knew her first. They spent years together just surviving before they entered the academy.

Then Kuchiki Byakuya came along and made Rukia his little sister. He gave her a noble family name and a kind of security Renji could never find for her out on the streets.

Rukia deserved to have a place to go home to. She deserved even better than the Kuchiki clan could give her.

Letting her walk away with the Kuchiki's was the hardest thing Renji ever did. He allowed them to have his sister, the only one of his childhood family of friends to survive. They could give her a better life than she had on the streets with Renji and he had to remind himself that she deserved it.

Still, thinking of Rukia as a Kuchiki felt strange. In his mind Renji knew she had a family years before she heard of the Kuchiki clan or called Byakuya older brother.