A/N: Written for overtoned for the December round at Bleach flashfic.
Haha, me and my obsession with making crack pairings sound plausible. Forgive me? XD
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4:00am
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Rukia had forgotten how to sleep.
Now, she just sat and breathed and waited for Ichigo, who was doing enough sleeping for the both of them together and then some, to wake up.
Sometimes she sat on the roof and compared the stars to those of Soul Society. Time ran differently between them, but they never got further than a few weeks apart from each other, as if the world of the dead's time swayed like a pendulum in relation to the axis of the living world-- now faster, now slower, now perfectly in sync for a few brief minutes.
Sometimes she sat in her closet in her pajamas as though planning to sleep. She never made it quite that far, however. Even when her faux body wept for rest, she could only stare at the dark ceiling and vibrate with a terror that would not abate.
Sometimes, like tonight, she sat at the kitchen table with a mug of something hot and syrupy sweet and nursed it until it grew cold and bitter with the hours.
Sometimes, like tonight, Isshin sat with her, he who shared her fearborne insomnia. It was his son, after all, who lay upstairs wrapped in a darkness even his impossible blazing light hadn't managed to break through. Yet, she reminded herself. Hadn't broken through it yet..
They watched the curls of steam rise from the cups until they didn't rise anymore, taking a sip every now and then when they remembered what they were for.
The night passed, the day passed, the next night came. And again, and again, and still Ichigo did not wake.
Eventually Isshin, who was not accustomed to sobriety or silence to begin with, could not hold to the uncharacteristic stillness anymore and took to pacing the house and telling Rukia stories about Ichigo's childhood. Sometimes he talked about Masaki. Most of the time he smiled whenever she came up, but whenever he didn't, Rukia just let him have his moment of memory in peace. She never pried, though she was sorely tempted, being a curious person. He would probably have told her if she'd asked, but... some stories cannot be forced with losing the essence of them.
She had been a true love of his-- true enough for him to turn his back on Soul Society, lock himself into a body that was only halfway real, and risk losing it all at any moment should Soul Society discover what he had done and decide to bring him back. That level of love was something Rukia had trouble understanding. She had felt something she'd thought was love once, with Kaien, but realized later that though it was indeed love, it was not the right kind of love. It had bordered much closer on filia than eros.
Ichigo was the closest she'd known to romantic love, but he was still too young. Compared to her and her near-century of existence after-death... he was just a child, despite all his ridiculous strength and startling moments of maturity. She didn't think he remembered that most of the time. He saw her as a girl his age, endearingly naive about the changes in the world. He was right about the latter-- though not as right as he probably thought-- but no matter how she looked on the outside, the first was simply not true.
Isshin was closer to her age than Ichigo was, though in the other direction. He had left the Court of Pure Souls shortly before she'd come to it, but he hadn't been that old when he'd done so. His power had made him captain, not age and experience. She had nearly seventy-five years on Ichigo. Isshin only had sixty-odd on her.
He handed her a fresh mug of hot chocolate. She wrapped her hands around it, letting the heat sink into her weary restless fingers, and thanked him.
Without preamble, he began letting another story ramble from his lips, this one about a trip to the beach and little Ichigo's insistence on swimming out against the waves just to see how far he could go without tiring out and drowning.
He hadn't changed much since then, Rukia thought wryly, swallowing the convulsions that rose in her throat at the thought of a younger, freer Ichigo playing carelessly in the water with no knowledge of the oceans of sand and death waiting for him years in the future.
He'd always needed to test himself, push and see how far he could go before failing. This time he'd gone too far, and now he couldn't wake up. Wherever his spirit was trapped, it was somewhere he was really having difficulty escaping. Thinking of a place that could do that to someone like Ichigo made Rukia shake with fear even after all her years and the horror she'd seen.
Isshin was less obvious about it, but she knew it frightened him too.
He began sitting on the roof with her. When she asked him why, since he was obviously cold, he answered that he'd figured she needed the company to stay sane. He was right, in a way, except that the one who needed touch and reassurance to ward off insanity was not her, but him.
They huddled together for warmth, pressed close beneath a thin blanket. The world seemed colder these days.
"He'll wake up tomorrow, won't he?" she asked him softly every night.
"Absolutely," he answered every single time with a broad, confident grin, knowing full well that he was almost certainly going to be proven wrong in the morning.
It was enough to break Rukia's heart twice-- once for Ichigo, and once for Isshin. Fathers should not have to watch their children fade away.
They'd tried everything already. Urahara and Unohana, both of whom knew more than anyone else about where the spirit might go that wasn't life, death, or hell, had both shaken their heads after trying everything they could think of and simply said that he would have to find his own way back from wherever he was.
All Isshin and Rukia could do, who loved him, was wait. So they waited sleeplessly and did not give up hope.
They played board games, card games, word games. Isshin usually won, but Rukia was smarter than she pretended to be most of the time and the margin was not large. It paid to have your enemies underestimate you, and sometimes it paid to have your friends underestimate you too. Rukia made everyone underestimate her on general principle. She got the sense, however, that she hadn't fooled Isshin at all. He'd had the measure of her right from the beginning.
They watched movies. Isshin liked comedy, Rukia liked romance, so they usually watched something halfway between. They passed the hours fairly quickly, but they both hated the feel of falsity about the perfect setups and perfect snappy dialogue, and only watched them when they were already sick of absolutely everything else.
They practiced together just once. Battle, even mock battle, made the blood run hot and high and brought things best left to rest seething to the surface. Rukia ended up weeping so hard she could not see to aim her thrusts, and stumbled into Isshin's arms. They held each other in the harsh chill that belonged only to four in the morning, and did not say a word.
The left behind can only wait.
After a month of insomnia, their bodies finally gave out. Rukia fell asleep against Isshin's shoulder during a movie, and he followed bare minutes later, his head resting atop hers in a way that would ensure him a sore neck when he next awoke.
It was then that bitter irony overtook them, for Ichigo visited them in their dreams. All of these sleepless, tense nights waiting for him to come back to them, and they'd only needed to succumb in order to go to him.
Now they knew where he was. A little research later, and they knew how he could get himself out. They were so excited they nearly failed to fall asleep again, but after an hour of doing breathing exercises together they eventually succeeded. They fell asleep with their hands clutched together, knuckles white with hope.
The next morning, they stood over Ichigo's bed and waited for the sun to rise. When it cracked over the horizon at last, Ichigo's eyes opened with it. He smiled up at them wearily.
Isshin seized Rukia by the shoulders and kissed her hard, once, joyfully.
Then they sat down beside Ichigo, whom they both loved, and held his hand between theirs as he returned to them with the morning.
The left behind can only wait, but sometimes it's enough to do so with faith that they will not have to wait forever.
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A/N: Y/N? 8D