Hey,

Another one of my really angsty, weirdly interesting Ichihime stories. Sorry.

so, this is extreme AU, but I felt like writing it. Inspired by the song Concrete Angel by Martina McBride, this story came to me last night when I was watching Bleach AMVs and saw one to this song. I suggest you watch the music video, or at least listen to the song. It's unnervingly sad, and very touching. It applies very well to Orihime's character, I think, which is part of why I'm writing this. As usual, I haven't read this at all, so I have no idea if it's any good. I get the feeling this is much less touching than the song, so listen to it afterwards so that this doesn't look too bad.

The music video can be found at: .com/watch?v=KtNYA4pAGjI

I hope you like it,

Emmy

Orihime liked things that made sense, things that were logical, followed a pattern. She liked, for example, how concrete was always cut into squares, and how they were always in the same size, and perfect. Every now and then, there was a crack, and she didn't like those—she avoided them, refusing to step on one. Sometimes, she would skip the entire square that had the crack in it, just because she didn't like the cracks. They scared her.

Orihime hated cracks, real and symbolic. She hated how they disturbed patterns, routines. She hated when things happened that her logic couldn't explain. Foe example, she couldn't understand why everyone in her class got a lunch made by their parents, and she always had to make her own. She couldn't understand why everyone else got walked to school by their parents and hugged goodbye outside the building when she had to leave the house as quietly as she could to walk to school alone in the hopes of not disturbing her parents. Her intellect had no explanation for why this was.

She had long ago learned to come early, so the other children didn't see her alone and think something was wrong.

She was a good student, she knew. She liked school; it followed patterns perfectly. There was time set aside each day for certain activities, and those schedules were strictly followed. There were no cracks in school, just simple, calming logic. Even math, which most students couldn't stand, Orihime loved. There was always a solution, and if you thought about it, you could always find it. All that math was was patterns and logic. Orihime loved it.

She had a friend at school. Nobody else knew him, so perhaps he was imaginary. That made sense—lots of children are supposed to have imaginary friends. She liked him. He was very punctual. He always showed up at the same time in the same place, and she was always there. He was funny, she thought. She liked laughing.

His name was Ichigo. Orihime liked that name, it made him into something fun. She sat on a bench with him all recess long and laughed with him. She thought he might like her. Not like like, but the same way she like him, as a friend. Her only friend.

He told her she was pretty. She'd blushed when he said it—nobody had ever told her that, at least not that she could remember. She'd mumbled a thank you, and he grinned and laughed at her. He said that she didn't have to thank him for saying the truth. He told her that she looked like an angel.

She'd blushed all the more, and conversation had been really awkward for the rest of the recess.

She always asked him if he would come home with her, because she always missed him when he wasn't there with him. And, she told him quietly, she was scared of her mother.

She was scared of the noise, the cracks that her mother always brought with her wherever she went.

Maybe him being there would make it less scary, she told him. Maybe he could make it all better, just like he made her recess every day so much better than it would be without her. But he always turned her down, saying he had to go somewhere, and that he had some other people to talk to. It made Orihime sad every time he left to do that. He wasn't only her friend, after all. There must be other people who needed him. That was logical.

And so, every day, she walked home. She walked quietly in the door, and crept to her bedroom. If she was lucky, she would be able to stay there until the next morning when she had to get up for school. It was a rare thing for that to happen, but she could always hope.

Another thing she had learned a long time ago was never to draw attention to herself unless it was absolutely necessary, especially at home. Of course, that sometimes got her into trouble; there had been an occasion when her mother had left the house all night because she thought that Orihime had never come home. When she came back, the screamed at Orihime and hit her. She didn't mind the hitting nearly as much as she did the screaming, though. She hated noise.

That incident had been a pretty bad one. She'd missed a few days of school, and when she'd come back, she had told everyone that she had fallen down stairs. It was almost good that she didn't have any friends, because they would have known her house only had one floor. There were no stairs for her to fall down.

Her mother scared her. Orihime didn't understand her mother at all. He mind couldn't comprehend how her mother being worried could result in being yelled and hit. Isn't worry supposed to turn into relief when it's alleviated? How can relief turn into anger? And how can being worried make someone so scary?

Still, though, being quiet was better than being loud. Being loud was just a bad bet, any way you looked at it. Orihime tried not to think about what happened when she made too much noise.

Every night, she went to bed knowing that she would get to go to school the next day. Every night, it was the only comforting thought she could muster to try and ease herself to sleep.

It was okay, though. She was used to it.

What she really didn't like was when there were bruises where people could see them. The other kids didn't notice, of course, but Orihime knew that the teacher had seen them. Orihime knew the look of pity. She hated that look.

Still, though, Orihime knew the teacher had never said anything. She would have heard about it—perhaps had a few injuries to go along with the verbal complaint.

Every action created an equal and opposite reaction. It made sense. If the teacher found out, her mom would hear about it, get mad, and Orihime would get hurt. That was the way that these things worked, as far as she knew. She would probably deserve what she got, too. Her teacher would only notice anything if Orihime didn't cover up the bruises well enough. Her mother was pretty good at putting the bruises places where nobody would see the odd colors on her skin. She always wore the same dress, too, when she had to hide something. It had long sleeves, which were really good for covering when her mom grabber her arm too hard and left a handprint.

She wore it a lot. It was rarely clean. Cleaning clothing made noise, and she tried to avoid making noise.

She was only loud one part of the day, when she was talking with Ichigo. She liked being with him. She liked laughing. When she was with him, she wasn't scared. She told him everything—how much she hated that long-sleeved dress she almost always wore, how she lover mathematics, how she liked him, and how he was her best friend.

He told her everything, too. He was dead, which was why nobody else could see him. He told her that he had drowned when he was trying to save someone from the water of a flash flood. His mom had jumped in after him, but she had been dragged out of the river before it was too late. He hadn't been so lucky. That's where he went every day, he told her. He went back to his family, to watch them, to try to comfort them, even though only one of his sisters could even see him.

She felt bad for him. She didn't even understand the feeling, but she wanted to cry, and not like she usually did. Usually, she cried when she was scared or lonely, or because there was nothing else to do that could be done quietly. Now, though, she felt herself wanting to cry because he must have been scared. He must have been lonely. She wanted to cry for someone else.

It was bizarre. She liked it.

The day he told her that, she asked if she could come home with him, to see his family. He told her about them, and they seemed nice. They seemed like they were whole, complete, perfect. Without a flaw or crack. They seemed like people she would like.

He told her she could come, and spent the entire rest of the day talking to her during class. For the first time, she wasn't the first person in the class to finish the math worksheet.

She all but ran to his house after school, and She could feel herself smiling the entire way, almost giggling with the insane rush of it all. She was amazed with herself. She was giggling. She never giggled, her mom thought it was annoying. Now, though, it was the best thing in the world. That and the sound Of her friend, Ichigo, laughing along with her. She didn't even notice when she accidentally stepped on cracks. They didn't matter.

When they got to the house, though, she was nervous. It took her several minutes and plenty of reassurances from Ichigo to make her ring the bell. A girl half Orihime's own age opened the door. She had black hair. Karin, Orihime thought. She knew what both of his sisters looked like, thanks to Ichigo's descriptions. Karin was the one who could see Ichigo. When she realized that he was with her, Karin let in Orihime without question and brought her to the family.

They were all there. They were all smiling. They were all happy.

They had no cracks. They were flawless. They made sense.

Orihime was practically busting with pure happiness. She knew that she couldn't stay, that she was in trouble for coming here, but she couldn't help it. She liked the family almost as much as she liked Ichigo. They were so nice, so easy to like. They believed that she knew their son, they laughed. They were beautiful.

Orihime knew she didn't belong. As much as she loved it, and as much as she wanted it, she didn't belong there. She couldn't stay, she had to go home.

She politely excused herself and began walking home. She was late, after all. If her mother was in one of her moods, she would be in a lot of trouble. There was no point avoiding the inevitable. She tried to run, to show urgency, but she just couldn't do it. Her feet were like lead, her legs stilts that she had never learned to walk with.

Ichigo was with her, which she didn't notice until she was already most of the way home. She looked at him and tried to smile, but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. He tried to smile, too, but couldn't. He held her hand instead, and she felt just a little bit better. They were silent until they got within a block of her house.

She asked if was going to come in with her. She said it wouldn't matter, because her mom wouldn't be able to see him anyways. He told her would come, so he could make some noise that she liked. Her mom wouldn't be able to hear him, either, which would be that much better.

Orihime cracked a small grin. The idea of him being there made everything a little bit less scary.

She walked in the front door, and everything was quiet. Maybe her mom was asleep, that would be good. She let out a breath, and walked back to her room, with Ichigo following quietly, though it's not like he had to.

They sat down, and Orihime took out her homework, some kanji work and some math (double-digit multiplication—she liked this stuff a lot. It was much more satisfying to get an answer from a difficult problem than from an easy one). She did it, and the two of them talked. She found herself laughing at him, as she always did. He always made her laugh.

Her mother heard.

When her mother came into the room, there was nothing to be done. Orihime was too scared, and Ichigo, no matter how hard he tried, was just a ghost. There was nothing either of them could do, and Orihime just went limp and took the hits to her back, her stomach, her head. She coughed up some blood, but it didn't seem to faze her mother, and she beat all the harder and yelled all the louder. It hurt, but Orihime always hurt.

Hurting was reassuring. It meant she was still alive. It was when the pain stopped that she got worried.

And it did stop, all at once. Most of hit, at least. Her mother hit her back harder that she had, and there was a crack, and Orihime found herself on the ground unable to move, but she didn't feel any pain from anything below her waist. And that was when she got really scared.

She heard Ichigo yelling, vaguely. She recognized it was him. She heard her mother screaming, a sound she would never forget. But more than anything, she felt a rhythmic, painful pounding in her head. It got worse and heavier every time if hit her, and she found everything around her turning black.

And then she was standing next to Ichigo, and she was fine, and the pain was all gone, but she wasn't scared, because she was next to Ichigo. And she knew that she was the same as him now, she was a ghost too. She looked away from him and saw her mother collapsed on the ground, not because she had been injured, but because she was drunk, and had passed out.

Orihime appraised her for a moment, and then turned back to Ichigo. She took his hand, and the two of them walked back to his house, much happier than they had been going the other way.

Karin understood when they walked in. She started crying.

Orihime, too, had tears going. The sight of this one little girl who was willing to cry for her, a perfect stranger. The thought of Ichigo comforting her as he, too, let the tears fall.

The thought that those two people would cry for her, that she was worth the water and salt, and the sadness from them that crying entailed.

Even as she cried, she had never been happier in all her life.

Ichigo and Orihime lived in that house for years, leaving only to go to her old school or to Kurosaki family events. Once, they went to their graves. His was in a family graveyard on a mountain. It was as a grave should be, she thought. Small, dignified. Smooth. Entirely devoid of cracks. It was clean, too. The family cleaned it. The family still loved him.

They went to her grave once. It was in a park, a cemetery on a lawn beneath trees rather than on cement. Her body had been buried there two days after her death, just after it had been determined that her mother had been abusing her for a long time. She had some broken ribs that were long-since healed in awkward angles, which proved her to be a victim of neglect at best, and abuse at worst.

Her grave was a memorial more than anything. It was a three-foot-high statue of an angel, wrapped in robes with wings and ringlets, looking up to the sky. Her grave, unlike Ichigo's though, was dirty. She had been forgotten.

And Ichigo's hand squeezed hers, and she remembered him. She had not been forgotten, she had been allowed to move on. Nobody in that life cared for her, it was only now that she was worth the effort. It was only when she had her friend, her Ichigo, that she was a person. She wasn't complete without him.

Now, though, her life was complete. It was ironic that it didn't happen until she was dead, but... she had everything here. Her world was smooth, quiet, beautiful. There were no cracks anywhere, no bruises, no miscalculations, no screams. There was only laughter, and love.

Orihime looked at the statue. The angel looked nothing like her, had nothing to do with her. It was proof that nobody had known her. She wouldn't have wanted an angel, she already had one. Her angel was there with her, next to her, holding her hand. It seemed he always had been, and she knew that he always would be.

And she smiled at the statue. She thanked it for its wisdom, the lesson it had taught her.

Then she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he gave a low chuckle, and the two of them walked slowly home.