The inspiration for this story was partly from the song 'Lucy' by Skillet, but mostly from my thoughts regarding Ulquiorra and Orihime's short-lived bond which formed during his final moments. It's just a little oneshot, a look at how things might end up if Ulquiorra were given a second chance and was reborn like other souls. Enjoy.

-X-

I remember your name,

I left a dozen roses on your grave today

-X-

He couldn't remember her face. He couldn't remember her voice. He couldn't remember anything about her at all really, not least of which was if he'd ever met her at all. He was only sixteen. If they'd met – and he supposed they must have, at some point – surely he would remember it. There wasn't exactly a large wealth of memories to sift through, not in comparison to older people, so he shouldn't be losing them yet, not at this age. And if he was, there was something seriously wrong with him.

Or maybe it wasn't that his memory was shot at all. Maybe it was that he was going crazy. Maybe he was just imagining things... or recalling bits of dreams and mistaking them for reality. And honestly, at this point he didn't know whether that was better or worse. But it certainly wasn't good, that was for sure.

His name was Ulquiorra Mendoza... Or at least he thought it was. Maybe. For some reason, whenever he introduced himself, something inside inspired him to say 'Ulquiorra Schiffer', which made no sense whatsoever. It was his Spanish father who'd chosen his name (which is how, in point of fact, he'd ended up with a name as goofy as 'Ulquiorra' in the middle of Japan), and his father's surname was definitely 'Mendoza', but still it didn't seem to fit. 'Schiffer' felt more comfortable somehow; familiar, used, worn. 'Mendoza', by comparison, seemed alien, despite the fact that it had been his name since he'd been born.

But in any case, his name wasn't the issue here. Not today (though he had no doubt that some day it would be, 'cause things like not knowing your own name for certain even though you knew your name had the makings of an issue alright).

Today the issue was with the grave in front of which he was currently kneeling. Or more accurately, the woman it belonged to and how he may – or may not – know her. Well, 'have known' it would be now, since she was dead and all.

Her name was, or had been, Kurosaki Orihime. Orihime Kurosaki if he wanted to be all European about it. But again, as with his own name, Ulquiorra felt himself thinking of her as 'Inoue' Orihime (or, more disconcertingly, just as 'woman', which his mother would box him round the ears for if, heaven forbid, she could hear him think it). According to her memorial she'd died forty-three years ago, long before Ulquiorra had even been an idea in the mind of existence, at the ripe old age of seventy-nine. There was no possible way he could have known her. Not any at all. She'd died before he'd been born; before his parents had even met. It wasn't physically possible.

But he remembered her name.

By all the gods, Ulquiorra Schiffer (Mendoza, dammit!) remembered this dead girl's name. Not knew it – not like you would know a name like Adolf Hitler or Walt Disney or other such well known names. If it came right down to it, he didn't know her name at all. He'd never heard it before, not ever. But he remembered it. He remembered her name much in the same way you remember stuff from a really vivid dream you had a long, long time ago. Like deja vu, kind of, only not.

And there was worse to come with the remembering of this dead woman's name. Because not only did he just remember her name, he remembered the feelings associated with her name... Or with her as a person he supposed, since it was difficult for him to imagine feeling particular about a mere name. Even now, as he knelt before her resting place with the twelve roses he'd bought for her (for her), the feelings he couldn't help feeling were bubbling around inside him. Some of them he could recognise – sadness, regret, longing, gratefulness,to list but a few – but some of them were too convoluted to even begin to decipher. And all of them were baffling, because he'd be damned if he knew why he felt anything for this woman he'd never known. He didn't know why he felt, anymore than he knew why he'd thought it necessary to bring her roses. They were things that just were.

Ulquiorra sighed, his head and heart both hurting with the confusion of it all. Gently, he laid the roses on her memorial, wondering as he did so what her family would think when they next came to visit and saw a mysterious bunch of flowers already waiting for them. Probably nothing good, he'd wager. What kind of weirdo went abound putting flowers on stranger's graves anyway?

The same kind of weirdo who doesn't know his own name when it's staring him in the face. The same kind of weirdo who feels the strangest things for a woman he's never known and who's long dead.

But the feelings didn't bother him that much. They were just echoes anyway, not real feelings at all – more like memories of memories of feelings. It was the brief flashes of complete and utter emptiness that scared him a little.

Sometimes, randomly, for no logical reason Ulquiorra could distinguish, he had flickers of an emptiness so soul deep, he imagined he could do the most terrible things (should he be so inclined, which he wasn't) and not bat as much as an eyelid at them. It was a dreadful feeling, though he never felt the awfulness of it until he was actually able to feel again. That emptiness... it was like looking in a mirror and seeing the shadow of a monster; like being on the cusp of discovering something about yourself you'd sooner not discover if you'd had any idea what it was.

Idly, Ulquiorra brushed some dead leaves off his school trousers. He was staring hard at his knees, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next, but of course he couldn't figure it out because he wasn't really meant to have done anything in the first place. The woman (a shiver of almost-recognition ran up his spine) meant less than nothing to him – her existence or non-existence or whatever, should have been of little consequence to him. Yet here he was, giving her flowers, feeling things he had no business feeling and knowing somehow that he wasn't ready to leave just yet.

"I don't think these roses can help me make amends," he said suddenly, shocking himself with the words he hadn't known he was going to speak. He didn't even know what he meant by that, because as far as he knew there was no need for him to make amends at all – he hadn't done anything. But with nothing better to do he decided to roll with it. Maybe his rambling, nonsensical rubbish would shine some light on whatever it was that was wrong with him.

"I know I'd do it all different if I had the chance." he said quietly to no one. And somewhere inside he started to panic because the emptiness was closing in again – soon he wouldn't be able to feel anything, and after that he'd be able to feel a little too much. "I made some wrong choices back then – a lot of wrong choices. And thinking of it now, with my new existence to give me perspective... I don't see how I was able to live with myself. I don't understand how I'm still able to live with myself, even without all of my memories. I-,"

Ulquiorra stopped short, his brain whirring in his head as his mouth spewed forth things his mind had no recollection of authorising for take off. He didn't know what else to say, and in any case he had an idea that there was nothing he could say – it wouldn't change things, whatever 'things' it was he might want to change. Instead he ran a hand through his messy black hair with a sigh, wondering if he should perhaps commit himself to the nearest mental hospital while he still had enough sanity to realise something wasn't quite functional upstairs.

And it was then, distracted by his own senseless musings, that it happened. A door, the kind from back in the feudal days when people had mistakenly thought paper was the ideal barricade between themselves and the elements, appeared as if from nowhere. Ulquiorra watched with rapt fascination as the shoji doors slid apart, a light shining from within the circular entrance, so bright he had to shield his eyes. But even with the mysterious light all but blinding him, he could still see a figure moving through the portal.

And then the light was gone, and before him, dressed in an old-fashioned black shihakshou with a sword at her hip, was none other than Inoue Orihime.

He knew it was her, without any doubt, though how he knew was a mystery even to him. She had long orange hair, granite grey eyes that sparkled with a cheer he could feel bone deep, and a bright smile he felt echoes of discomfort at having directed at him. Her sword (zanpakutou, his mind whispered) had a turquoise flower-shaped hilt that for some reason he thought should be in her hair, and the fact of it's reality came as something of a surprise to him – never mind that a woman had just materialised from thin air or that though he could swear hands down he'd never met her before, he somehow remembered her.

"Ulquiorra! It's so good to see you again. I'm glad you were able to come back like this." the woman cried happily, and although she beamed at him like he was an old friend – even though he felt he should probably smile back, if only to be polite – he felt the emptiness settle on him like a cold you just couldn't shake. And with it, as usual, he couldn't bring himself to show any emotion whatsoever (not even shock at the fact that a woman had stepped out of nowhere). It was almost as if he didn't have any emotions, which couldn't be true because he still remembered loving his parents, and hating his homeroom teacher, and feeling a lot of other things for a lot of different reasons.

Besides, there wasn't a creature alive who could function without some kind of feeling.

...Right?

"Woman." He felt himself nod at her, and the tiny part of him that was still him cringed at his rudeness. His mother had raised him better than that, and if she caught wind of this uncharacteristic coldness she would raise hell.

"You look just like you did then!" Inoue-san exclaimed, delighted with what she obviously thought was a rational observation but what Ulquiorra thought was further proof (not that it was needed) that the world had gone totally mad. What did she mean he looked like he had then? He was himself and looked like he always had, which is to say he looked like Ulquiorra Schi-

Mendoza! I am Ulquiorra Mendoza!, he corrected himself fiercely before he could even complete the thought.

"As do you," he found himself saying, the unusual iciness in his tone refusing to disappear. Inoue-san continued to examine him with a critical eye, one hand cupped around her chin thoughtfully, the other holding her elbow.

"No," she said at last, smiling again. "You're not exactly the same. Your eyes are different – less empty." Which seemed to Ulquiorra an odd thing to say, considering he was more empty at present than could possibly be normal. "And of course your mask and hole are gone. Your tear marks too."

"I'm human." he replied simply. An obvious statement, but one that seemed to hold more depth than he could even begin to fathom.

"Yes." Inoue-san agreed, a touch of nostalgia to her muted happiness. "Yes you are."

"I don't know you." he whispered, and this time he knew it was really him who said it. The emptiness was retreating, as it always did eventually, and in it's place was all the feelings Inoue Orihime inspired in him, more powerful than they'd ever been before. "But at the same time I do. I remember your name. Now that I can see it, I remember your face. I remember your voice. But I'm only sixteen so I don't – can't – know you."

To this, Inoue-san laughed.

"That's okay. The person you are now never knew me, so it's okay if you don't remember everything in your head." she chuckled. "Your soul – your heart – will always remember. We're connected. We share a bond. And nothing, not death or rebirth or anything, will ever change that."

Ulquiorra nodded mutely, her reassurances somehow soothing an ache inside him he hadn't realised he'd had. She was right. He had no idea, at least not in his mind, what was going on. He didn't understand a single thing that had transpired here. But somewhere deep inside he could feel the knowledge hiding, and he knew that one day he would remember. His brain would catch up with his heart some day, and he would recall who he had once been. His only worry was that it was something he didn't want to know.

"I'm sorry!" he blurted abruptly, the words exploding from him before he knew he was even thinking them. "I'm sorry, Inoue-san!"

She looked momentarily stunned, taken aback in such a way that Ulquiorra briefly considered being mortally offended – after all, it wasn't like he was some evil jerk who'd never spoken apology in his life. And besides, he'd done nothing that merited an apology in the first place...

...Or had he? He didn't know. Couldn't remember if he had, and didn't really want to find out either. The knowledge that he could sense hovering just out of his reach was dark stuff – he could just feel it. It was something he would have to face about himself someday, something he would have to grapple with when the time came... but right now, as things stood, he wasn't ready. He wasn't nearly ready for those facts. And in this lifetime, who knew if he ever would?

And then the strangest thing happened as Ulquiorra stood there lost in his meanderings. Stranger even than the fact that he didn't know his own name. Stranger than talking to a long-dead woman he remembered right in front of her own memorial.

Inoue-san laughed. Not just a chuckle, or a giggle, but an eruption of pure mirth that had him blinking in confusion.

"Oh, Ulquiorra!" she guffawed, gleeful tears running down her cheeks – tears that gave him a flash of memory from another time he'd seen her cry, the last time he'd seen her cry.

Holding a hand to his suddenly pounding head, Ulquiorra winced as brief sparks of faded images inserted themselves into his brain. Images that made no sense, and yet made a sickening kind of sense at the same time. He saw blood and fear, but it wasn't his blood or fear and that frightened him all the more for some reason. There were familiar faces that meant absolutely nothing to him, familiar voices that said familiar things in familiar ways... but Ulquiorra couldn't remember any of it. He couldn't make sense of all these things – and he reckoned it was probably better that way.

It was over as quick as it began, the figments of memory gradually dissolving back into obscurity until all he could truly remember of who he used to be was black, green, emptiness and the number four... always the number four.

"I guess you really aren't the same, huh?" Inoue-san sighed, but it wasn't a sigh of sadness or despair – it was a sigh filled with hope. "I'm glad you got another chance."

There was a noise behind her and she looked over her shoulder briefly. The door she'd arrived through was reappearing. When she turned back her smile held the hint of a goodbye. "I should go."

"Will we meet again, Inoue-san?" Ulquiorra couldn't stop himself asking.

"Of course!" she cried, as if it were obvious, no trace of dishonesty in her voice. "I told you, we're connected."

He nodded, simultaneously understanding and not understanding.

"Ulquiorra?"

"Hm?"

Ulquiorra glanced up to be met with yet another peculiar sight. Inoue-san was looking right at him with an expression he didn't know how to read, her hand reaching towards him in an eerily familiar gesture that made his heart slam painfully against his ribcage.

"I never got to... I mean I couldn't reach you in time and so... well..." she whispered softly, fingers stretching as if to grasp him before he could vanish.

Without thinking Ulquiorra copied her, stretching his hand out and entwining his long fingers in her small, slender ones, feeling, as he did so, the significance of the moment. In that instant something important slid into place, and though he didn't know what it was, Ulquiorra got the feeling that a long overdue task was finally complete. Some destined occurrence had finally taken place, an unresolved business concluded.

"I'm not afraid." Inoue-san swore solemnly. "I'm not afraid of you, Ulquiorra Schiffer."

And Ulquiorra didn't even bother to correct her. Because in his soul he knew that that was who he was. His current name may be Ulquiorra Mendoza, but his spirit was and always would be that of Ulquiorra Schiffer. He may not understand it now but one day he would. He would.

"Until we meet again, Inoue Orihime." he bade her farewell, allowing her hand to slip from his as she turned to re-enter the portal.

"See you again soon, Ulquiorra Schiffer." she waved, stepping into the light and disappearing from view

Soon he was alone again, and every bit as confused as he had been before.

But maybe confused wasn't so bad, because to be unconfused was to know the secrets of his past and he doubted he would be able to stand that just yet. Not yet.

He'd be ready someday though. And when that day came, Ulquiorra knew Inoue Orihime would be there to help him deal with whatever it was that awaited him.

Because they shared a bond that ran soul deep.

-X-