Hello everybody, Springroll here!

Story name: Dolls

Word count: 1,518

Pairing: Slight GrimmUlqui, Ulquigrimm

Warnings: Angst angst angst, character death (not graphic)

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach... except in my laundry room. Heavily inspired by the doujinshi "Dolls" and The Little Prince... both amazing stories(:

Dolls

The sky is blue, so blue, a delusional, fantastical color that I've only ever seen in broken glass and festering wounds. Around me, life flourishes and blooms profusely at my feet, a sign that I do not belong. Sunlight filters through the trees and emerald streaks the ground like whiplash fragments of a sky turned upside-down. This is so far away. Is this a meadow? A forest? I don't even know. This is no black and white world. The air is thick with sweet scents, too many for me to distinguish, although I sense that there is life here, obnoxiously beautiful life surrounding me and making me feel secluded, lonely; again, not belonging.

Where am I? How did I find this place? I don't even know why I am here. I just smelled flowers, and followed myself...

And then I found him, alone, holding a daisy in his hands.

He lifted his head to scent the air. "Grimmjow? You followed me." His voice was still lifeless, but it seemed soft as well, almost a whisper, as if he did not want someone to hear. "Why?"

I moved so he could see me, and I gazed down at him, meeting that unreadable expression in his glazed eyes. "I smelled flowers. What are you doing here, Ulquiorra? Aizen sent you here?" My face curled into a familiar sneer, and for a moment I disgusted myself.

He still seemed lost in thought. "Grimmjow... Please let me go. Please leave me be..."

I felt a strange, hollow laugh escape me, and that was the moment I knew something was strange, something was horribly wrong. "Why, Ulquiorra? Why?"

Then I saw that he was shaking, as if he was afraid, and his face was so pale, as white as snow. "I'm dying..."

At that moment, I felt as if I were suddenly rushing headlong into an endless abyss, and I realized that there was something he knew that I could never escape. "You wish to come here to die, alone? I can't smell blood. You're not hurt... why are you here?"

"I'm dead," he whispered, "And I die again a million times every day. After all, we're just dolls... In fact, we might be likened to clowns... I don't even know if I really belong to myself. Who really cares for us? Sometimes I wonder... what is a heart? Do I have a heart?" He blinked and his eyes clouded.

"Why do you worry about that?" But my voice was uncharacteristically soft.

Ulquiorra held the daisy up to the sun, and his eyes were so filled with wistfulness that it looked like for some reason he wished that he too could be a flower... he suddenly seemed so naive, so small... "One day, I asked Szayel what a heart is. He told me that a heart was a vessel in our chests that pumps our blood through us, in order to keep us alive. That is all. But... I have heard humans speak of this 'heart', as if it were the most important thing in the world. As if, without a heart, they are no longer human. As if, without a heart, they die a different death..."

I could not grasp his words. I thought him absurd. He was just like a child, too innocent, too oblivious... but he knew we were not human. We were just empty shells. There's nothing sad about empty shells. Yet at the same time, I wanted to see him happy. He seemed so weak and insignificant here, surrounded by the lushness of life, so flourishing and beautiful it is almost scandalous.

But then, why was I thinking this way? I wasn't made to. I was as dead as he was. I didn't care about hearts, or whether I had one... It must have been the sky. The sky was so blue...

I reached down and held my doll in my arms. He smiled and rested his head against my chest, and then he closed his eyes. It seemed as if he was sleeping... but I knew he was only dying, again and again and again.

I gazed sorrowfully at his Hollow hole, a mark of being nonhuman... I knew he was already dead. But he must have a heart? Sometimes I could feel my own, thumping and fluttering like the wings of a swallow, shot with ten thousand arrows. My heart, betraying my Hollow self, sometimes dragging me down until I drowned, over and over again. Did it keep me alive? I had forgotten how to feel when I had first died. But... Ulquiorra? What if he had no heart? All he had was that hollow abyss, a hole where his heart should be, where his veins twisted and frayed at the ends, sending his blood beating into nothingness...

He continued to twirl the daisy in his hand."Even dolls have hearts," he murmured. "They are made with love... but I was not made with love. I was not made with anything. I am beautiful, but I am empty... A cage without a bird. I'm just a fragment of a mirror, something broken and used... So I am not even a doll...

"And so it makes me sad when I come here, because everything around me is breathing and moving and so filled with light, alive... but I am not. I am just... here. I am not alive; I only exist. Yet at the same time, I'm so drawn to this place. I can't forget. I hunger for it so helplessly. I thirst for it so desperately. The beauty of it all pierces me, makes me want to know... that I have a heart. That somehow, I can find it. This place is so far away, and I will never belong. And yet, long after I depart, I understand the clouds, and remember the fragrance of a flower..."

He turned to face me, and there was something strange and shimmery on his face. A splash of moonlight on starry skin. I could see the shock through those brilliant verdant eyes.

Ulquiorra was crying...

"Grimmjow? What... what is this...?" His voice trembled slightly, and I knew he was scared.

"Oh... they're tears. You're crying..." My own voice seemed an echo of his, somewhere far away in my mind.

"Crying? Why am I crying? Is it because I am happy... or because I am sad...?" His murmur barely reached me, and at the same time, I felt something overwhelming me and blossoming deep in my chest, something half joy, half terrible sadness.

I lifted my eyes to meet his, and in that moment, the emerald mirror shattered and suddenly I could see all the brokenness, all the grief and sorrow and remorse, and all the love in the world. I held him closely, not daring to let go. He was shaking like a child, a broken doll, and at that moment he seemed to be the most fragile treasure in the universe.

"Don't let go... Ulquiorra..." Was this emotion? I couldn't really tell. What did it mean to cry?

"Where do love and sorrow start? In the mind or at the heart?" His eyes were clouded with pain and anguish, and yet a soft smile danced across his face, so beautiful, so beautiful.

He did not close his eyes again until his whisper had faded into the wind. Around him, the beauty of the world blurred into a haze of silver.

I blinked, and realized it was a question I could not answer.

.:x.x.x:.

It was three days later when I found out that Ulquiorra was dead. He had died in a battle, fighting, but not for his own life. I knew that he was not afraid. He had simply faded away...

The strange thing was, I never found out if he had a heart. I would never know. But then again, he did not know himself... But I knew that in some way, he had found it, even if he did not know what it was. After all, I didn't know either.

In the end, what is a heart? If I tore apart his chest, would I find it? If I smashed those emerald eyes, would I find it? If maybe he did have a heart, then where would it be now? In the wind somewhere, I thought. All around me, so I can always feel him with me.

So as I lay here like a forgotten doll, in the forest of secrets and dreams, I can only whisper to the wind and hope he hears me. The sky is beautifully blue, laced with stars that sparkle like tears... Somewhere, somehow, when I am here, surrounded by beauty, I can hear the beat of his heart, in the wind, the rustle of the leaves, the flight of a dying swallow, in anything and everything. I know he's there. I know... because I have found my own heart.

Around me, beauty pulses in a sky radiating, glistening with light. And now, I have finally come to understand the clouds, and remember the fragrance of a flower.

How'd you like it? My first Bleach fanfic... GrimmUlqui is adorable ! Please review! I would love love love it. -Springroll.