She couldn't stop the tears from falling down her face as she flew through the night, her destination set in her mind. She was an absolute mess her thoughts never lingering on one thought for more then a moment, and still in this state she knew where her feet were taking her.

She really didn't understand why she was here, let alone why she was waiting awkwardly outside the window wondering if she should knock or not. She knew that the target of her journey to Human world wouldn't care how she came in.

But Ichigo always left his window unlocked.

It was that sentiment that had her rapping her knuckles against the glass. The body less then a foot away startled slightly before he sat up and stretched for a moment, opening the window and letting her walk in without a word.

"A Menos….a Menos appeared during a mission. My… my friend… Miris-chan. S-she…" she tried to say what had occurred what still felt like mere moments ago.

The scene was as real to her as the blood staining her already filthy hands.

A firm grip wrapped around her wrist, "You can tell me what's wrong after we clean you up. You're disgusting" Ichigo sighed, his voice giving away the concern that reminded her why she had ran here. Ichigo took her blood soaked hands without worrying about tainting his own hands.

Taking her towards the bathroom he sat her down on the toilet and grabbed a rag gently scrubbing away the dried blood. They sat there for a while, Ichigo getting rid of all the traces of blood on her hands. She let him do it, because even if it was just Ichigo commenting on how she really needed to trim her nails it felt like she had returned to normalcy.

Ichigo had given her ground to stand on in her moment of need.

She couldn't express her gratitude for that. She felt her eyes start to sting with unshed tears a mixture of gratitude towards Ichigo and grief for what had happened.

Ichigo let her cry, not once did he look away from scrubbing the filth off of her hands. She felt the warmth of his hands wiping away the evidence of what had happened and that was enough, she didn't need him to wrap his arms around her and tell her it was okay.

It was alright to cry, but only while Ichigo was cleaning off her hands. Once her hands were washed of what had happened she wasn't allowed to cry anymore.

Ichigo took his time.

An hour later and Ichigo stopped, it was around 3 in the morning now, and she finally had the mind to remember that in the morning she could sleep in and not go to school but Ichigo was a student, who already missed enough school as it was.

She looked over at Ichigo guiltily, "I-"

"I don't want to hear it. If I didn't I wouldn't leave my window unlocked." he gave her that annoyed look he got when he was trying to get a point across. "Don't they teach you spirit world nobles anything about manners by the way?" he asked his eyebrow quirked in inquiry.

"Wh-" she paused in her sentence before she gave a small smile, the first one she'd managed in a bit, " Thank you." she said her hand gripping Ichigo's.

"You're welcome. Now, we should both get some sleep. You look awful, and I have school tomorrow." he grumbled, suddenly looking very tired, he stood stumbling slightly he turned and walked towards his room, leaving the door open.

Rukia happily followed a minute later, noticing that Ichigo's window was still unlocked for others that needed him. Feeling selfish she leaned over controlling her breathing, making sure that she didn't disturb Ichigo who had already fallen asleep.

She flipped the lock into place making sure that no one else would bother Ichigo that night.