Characters: Ishida, Rukia
Summary: Here we go again.
Pairings: Ishida x Rukia
Warnings/Spoilers: This is extremely AU.
Timeline: late 12th century
Author's Note: This is extremely AU, as you'll gather when you read this. It set in 12th century England, during the time of the Third Crusade, just to be specific. And yes, I know, this is a stupid idea but it made me giggle when I was thinking about it and I got curious to see how it would play out if I wrote a oneshot like this, so here we are: Ishida and Rukia as a 12th century, non-murdering Bonny and Clyde.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

"They're getting closer," Uryuu pointed out, just a little tense. More than a little, actually, Rukia noticed critically; he was so very nervous about these things. Sharp howls echoed from over the night-darkened hills, the glittering light of torches making the scene all the more ominous. "They've got dogs, Rukia."

"Shut up, I know. I'm almost ready," Rukia huffed.

Uryuu narrowed his eyes as he stared over the hills, peering through the canopy of leafy trees. "You know," he mumbled, "I never thought we'd have so many of them after us. Personally I'm surprised they troubled themselves to rise out of bed, so late at night."

"What do you expect? We've been shooting the King's deer." It was a necessary evil and they both knew it. They had to fill their stomachs somehow. "What I don't understand is why King Richard is so covetous of his deer—" Rukia rolled her eyes "—when he has so many for himself. You'd think he'd be able to spare a few deer for his starving subjects, considering he's hardly going hungry himself."

"He's on Crusade, remember? He's not here and I don't think it would make much of a difference if he was."

Rukia closed her eyes tight. She hated it when he was right.

Thunder rolled overhead. Uryuu stared upwards and sighed. "And now it's going to rain. Delightful."

"No, no, that at least is a good thing. The dogs won't be able to track us in the rain. Besides, there are plenty of caves where we could lose them."

The howl of the dogs, in unison, suddenly sounded much closer than it had before and Uryuu and Rukia exchanged a wide-eyed glance. They'd been let loose, it seemed.

"Come on."

.

Sure enough, the dogs lost track of them in the storm, though Rukia was complaining heartily about being soaked by the time they reached a cave to shelter in and Uryuu was rolling his eyes when she wasn't looking.

Whatever sleep they got wasn't particularly restful. Uryuu wasn't sure about Rukia, but he knew what his dreams had been occupied by: snarling wolfhounds. He really did hate dogs.

It was nearly morning now, and a pale gray light was melting across the cave walls, seeping fingers. Uryuu blinked as he stoked the fire listlessly.

"What?" Rukia's face was unusually strained, if just as pale as always and Uryuu realized with a jolt that he'd been looking straight at her. She always looked that way after sleeping on stone.

He shook his head. "Nothing… It's nothing."

She stood up and sat beside him, staring into the embers; Uryuu didn't have the heart to tell that it probably wasn't good for her eyes for her to be doing that. "We could probably lose them in Lincoln," she suggested, tired and yawning. "It's always harder for them to find poachers in a big town like that than in a tiny little village."

Uryuu nodded silently, saying nothing.

Rukia frowned up at him, suddenly hesitant. "Do you want to head back towards Spalding, before going to Lincoln? It's been two years; someone needs to tell your father you aren't swinging yet." She looped her hands around her throat and pretended to choke herself for emphasis, grinning.

He shot an unappreciative look at her. "Somehow I don't think he would grieve unduly at my death, Rukia. And you know, the nice thing about being literate—" a good thing about being the town physician's son "—is that I can just find parchment and pen somewhere and write him a letter, find someone to take it to Spalding and never have to face him in the flesh again."

"Ninny."

"I'm sorry you think that way." He tossed the stick into the fire and yawned. "Are we leaving now?"

"In just a moment, yes." Rukia knotted her cloak around her throat to keep it from slipping. "And remember, when we get to Lincoln, it's the same story as in the last place: we are a young married couple. Got it?"

Uryuu stood, kicking dirt over the fire so the smoke would die down and wouldn't give anyone following them a good idea of where they had been. "Are we always going to live like this?" It was almost a rhetorical question now, almost completely devoid of anything resembling self-pity.

She shrugged. It was a good thing the rain had stopped by then; Uryuu would have been too busy enjoying the scenery—it was different than what he had been used to at Spalding—to really pay attention to Rukia as she griped. Rukia tended to get upset—violently so—when she was ignored. "Maybe, maybe not. Depends on whether we can find work in Lincoln, I suppose. Work that will support us being the key."

The ground was soggy underfoot, but neither one of them really cared; long stretches of time on the road had more than acclimated them to inclement weather. There was no wind, though the sky was still a bright shade of silver.

"Rukia." Uryuu's voice was deceptively casual as they walked down the first road to be found—no running for the moment, since there was no sign of any of their pursuers at their backs. "Since we've already been posing as married since we were about seventeen, what would you say to just making the claim honest? For convenience sake, of course," he added as an afterthought. "You know I don't particularly like to lie about important things like this."

She smiled, grinned, then reached up and kissed him in the slightly aggressive fashion she was so infamous for at home. Uryuu rolled his eyes again, but Rukia only smiled. "All in good time. For now, we've got to move."

So, how did you like it?