Disclaimer: Nope.

AN: Just a brief scene that popped in my head when I saw my two friends holding each other. She was holding him from the back, as he rested on the window. It just screamed Ichi/Ruki to me, so here it is. And for the first time since writing for this fandom, both of them are alive. Hah.

o.o

o.o

"If you should stop for a while

You will find me standing by

Over here at the side of your life

I'd like to hold you still.."

o.o

o.o

The lamp flew across the room and hit the wall right next to her.

Briefly, Rukia wondered if she should maybe try to dogde the next thing that comes flying. Though in anger right now, Ichigo was getting better at aiming even though he wasn't even looking where he was throwing things. Not that he was usually bad at his aiming, but right now..

She sighed.

She drowned out Ichigo's yelling and let her eyes wonder around the room. Ichigo was in the process of tearing the room to shreds. Feathers whirled around him as he repeatedly slammed the already ripped apart pillow on the mattress – now upturned and lying on the floor. Everything else was in tatters.

Oh, look. He found his books; she thought as one flew her by and landed in the hallway. Ichigo was currently tearing out the contents of his bookcase. She had noticed that he'd had one before, just not so many books to use as anger ammo. But now its books and their torn pages lay scattered around as he threw them on the ground one by one with a sort of methodical carelessness.

"What are you doing?" she asked, didn't yell, but her voice reached him anyways. Always did.

"I'm fine!" he snapped angrily, obviously not fine, turning around as the last book from the shelf decided to fly out of his hands and right into her shoulder when he faced her. Well, maybe she could be a bit angry herself.

"What the hell's the matter with you?!" she yelled. A feather got caught in her mouth as she inhaled and she spent the next few seconds coughing to try and free her airways. This only served to spike up her deal of anger, and for a minute she debated strangling Ichigo or at least stuffing a handful of feathers into his mouth.

He set his eyes on her, and she could see the murderous gleam in them. He was still in his shinigami clothes. And there was still blood on his hands – now, dried up and turning brown.

"Why aren't you out there with the others?!" he demanded back, now finished with tearing his books and papers out. Just as he stepped forward, most likely moving onto the shelves, to vent out on them by ripping them out with a rage-induced determination, she jumped on his back, arms around his shoulders and legs firmly wrapped around his waist.

He staggered a bit on his legs and turned his head to look at her. "Rukia. Let go." He snarled and underneath her hands the muscles in his shoulders twitched and turned. She didn't even flinch.

"Ichigo, you need to calm down." she said, voice calm and smooth as the surface of a lake. He snickered, and stood still. For a second there she thought he may have given up but in the next second she was down on her back, lying in the rumbles of the before destroyed mattress.

He stood above her, vivid and anger rolling off in waves from him. "Calm down? You want me to calm down?" He practically spat out the last two words. "Goddamn it, Rukia – that's my sister in there – on the table! That's my father there, trying to save her life because of the stupid Hollow – that's my bloody sister we're talking about! And you want me to calm down?"

She winced a bit at his tone. Well, he was right. It was his sister fighting for her life in the clinic downstairs. Still, Rukia faced these things all the time in Soul Society. Friends and comrades always got hurt, sooner or later. Of course there was always the 4th Division to help them, or Unohana herself, but they were fine in the end of the day.

She sat up and tipped her head up to look at him. "Ichigo, your father is an excellent doctor. And I healed her as much as I could on the spot. She will be fine." So what if she had no tact. That just wasn't her nature.

"Fine?! She had a fucking Hollow's tail in her stomach!" he yelled and stalked off to the window, snapping it open to the side so hard that the frame cracked. Well, that didn't go well, she thought, rising to her feet.

She stood behind him as he leaned on his arms to watch the city before him, and breathed deeply. It was obvious he was trying to calm down, despite how he reacted when she said him to do that. But his posture was still stiff, and she could see how his fingers gripped the windowsill, hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

Taking two steps she rested her arm on his shoulder and he sparred her a glance. "What?" Rukia didn't miss the bitter edge in his voice. "She will be fine. I promise."

He turned his eyes away from her and into the night before lowering his head down. "I know, Rukia. But hell – my own sister!" He growled and gripped the sill so hard it snapped under his palms. "I'm supposed to protect them, I'm their big brother, for fucks sake – she shouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place! Just because I'm a freaking shinigami, they get caught up in this mess all the time and –"

Two slim hands sneaked around his chest from behind and Rukia's head rested between his shoulder blades. He cut off in the middle of his sentence and froze in place. "She will be fine." Rukia repeated, the last word heavy and true on her tongue, small fists grasping hard at his shirt.

All of a sudden his anger seemed to disappear and he sagged a bit in her hold. "I know." He lifted on hand and rested it atop of hers, holding it. "I know." He said it in almost a whisper, softly. Rukia closed her eyes and savored the feeling of holding him, if only for a short while.

Until he turned in her grasp and caught her by the shoulders. "You will not do the same." He said it harshly, to her ears is sounded like nails on the blackboard. There was something in his tone that made her flinch, almost. "Understood?"

She looked up, a meek smile on her face as she nodded. But he wasn't satisfied. "No, Rukia. You still don't have your powers full back on, and you will not make me.." He trailed off, not quite sure what he was trying to say. But she understood. She will not act reckless in the battlefield again, like his sister did today when she decided to butt in because she thought she could.

"I won't." She promised, although they both knew it was a promise that will not be held true. This was, after all, Rukia they were talking about. His eyes narrowed, and she wondered what he was thinking about. A frown settled on his face when his eyes looked up and over her, and a groan left his mouth.

"Shit."

Feeling a bit puzzled she raised her eyebrows, looking at him. "What now?" Ichigo's hands lifted from her shoulders only to settle on his hips as he scanned the room. Ah. Yes, well…

"You did it. So – clean up." She announced to him, smirking. When Ichigo looked back down at her she almost stepped back from the sly smile that crossed his face. "And you could have stopped me sooner. So – your fault too."

Damn.

Maybe she shouldn't have smirked after all.