An: Spoilers if you don't already know what happens to our favorite Espada. Don't own Bleach, otherwise Ulquiorra would be on a beach working on a tan.

Tiny Heart

Ulquiorra watched her constantly from the corner of his eye, around corners, and openly when they were both in the same room because it was his responsibility to do so. It had irritated him at first that she clutched to the idea of a heart that he could not see. He couldn't touch her and feel it, he certainly couldn't see it, it was just an idea that she held onto tightly because she had nothing else to hold onto. So he began watching her, only when they were together at first, but as it continued to bother him he followed her closely as she wandered the halls like a vivid ghost.

She never smiled. He hadn't seen her smile but the one time that he followed her in Soul Society as he planned on kidnapping her. She grew paler in captivity and life seeped from her as the days passed and no sign of her rescuers appeared. He thought that she would give up the idea seeing that the ones she entrusted with something she thought so precious never appeared. Until she looked back at him watching her, and that first stirring of feeling appeared. So startled was he that he fled as slowly as he could without appearing to do so.

He didn't know when he first recognized jealousy over the fact she thought of Kurosaki as her knight. When he grew restless and went to her room one night to find her murmuring his name in her sleep, or the day they arrived and her color returned in full force. The happiness that exuded from her as her friends grew closer or the sadness that would follow because they came, both confused him to no end and she went back to staring out her window like a caged nightingale. He tried breaking her again by saying it was inevitable that they would die trying to rescue her, but it didn't. And again she recited her belief in the heart, and again it escaped his sight.

She looked back at him once again, and his anger at her penetrating gaze seeing more of him than he saw of here turned to threats against her behavior as she stopped eating and taking care of herself in her worry. She did as he said silently after a while and guilt itched at him until he brushed it off and stopped himself from looking at her, trying to find her heart.

Days continued to pass and her worry made her reach her reiatsu toward her friends to comfort them at least that she was still there for them. He crushed it before it got far, surrounded her room in his presence and never let any of hers leak out. Hers brushed against his gently as she was trying to recognize it and drew back slowly when she realized her attempts were being thwarted. His reaction at first had been involuntary, his own followed hers before he jerked it back in surprise at his reaction. And in that moment he felt Kurosaki approaching much too close to her room for his orders to allow.

His encounter with Kurosaki gave him no insight to the heart at all, even as his hand plunged into his chest and felt the beat against his fingers. He watched for a second carelessly as Kurosaki fell trying to see if the heart she talked of would appear, when it didn't and all Kurosaki's reiatsu disappeared he left to see her reaction to his. That Kurosaki's blood was on his hand mattered little, he would see her heart break as its focus died. Its appearance should be assured at such a crucial impact on it.

When he reached her room and found her gone he didn't panic. Her aura was still strong but coming from every direction, like sunshine radiating everywhere in a clearing. So he focused on Grimmjow instead and finally panicked just a little, he had taken her to the one thing he wanted gone permanently from her life. She would bring Kurosaki back just on the strength of her heart because he knew her will was tied to it.

In seconds he was back at the scene of his battle and stood behind Grimmjow who reacted violently to his presence. All that nonsense coming from him about stealing prey, it didn't cover his right to protect the woman, and basically handing her to the enemy to heal was not protecting her on Aizen-sama's requirements. Damn that fool Grimmjow, trapping him in the Caja Negacion after he strictly ordered the idiot to hand over his charge. So focusing his power on escaping, he waited, until the moment he would crush his enemy again and take back his charge. Than see if her heart was still intact after watching him die fully.

He wasn't sure if he was glad that she was alone when he reemerged from the Caja Negacion. The fear in her eyes was however he found unwanted, he didn't want her to fear him, just admit her heart was not real because he couldn't see it. That it might feel as if she was broken but no heart was the source of it. All his questions to her had been for his benefit, believing that if made her admit that she didn't have one he couldn't find than it was not possible. That nonsense about her heart being with her friends was irritating but he figured it was wrong anyway, he would have seen such heart when he had plunged into Kurosaki's chest. Than just as he felt Kurosaki approaching it looked as if she was going to say something else to him but Kurosaki interrupted.

The battle was long almost pathetically easy, staging it so she would see was the harder part. Watching her break but no appearance of said heart as he decimated Kurosaki's chest was all he needed to confirm it couldn't be real. If after all that pain and no heart appeared to connect her to him than it didn't exist. Her screams for him as she ran toward his body confused him, she should realize he was dead, there was no way for him to come back now. The desperation on her face for Kurosaki to be alive was irritating at the least, she should just give up by now.

Then he felt the pressure behind him as he rise as Kurosaki stood up again, it was unbelievable, he made sure he was dead before he tossed him over the pillar. Orihime looked even more fearful of the person she called friend even as he started demolishing Ulquiorra and doing things he thought impossible for the substitute Shinigami. He truly thought he was going to die when Kurosaki blew away the bottom of his body and held up his sword to stab his head. He almost wanted to thank the Quincy for stepping in and giving him time to take up the last of his power for one more blow. And as the hollow in Kurosaki's skin started creating another cero, one that threatened everyone on the roof, including her. He made it in time to deflect it away from her and harm no one else except himself as he felt his healing slow instead of fast as his power left him.

He taunted Kurosaki, but his sense of honor wouldn't put me out of my misery when I couldn't lift a hand against him to do so. So instead he looked at her.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

"No," she said, tears starting to prick at her eyes. He reached toward her, one last try to feel the heart she claimed existed.

"I see," he said as his hand disintegrated before she could reach his. And finally he did, the heart didn't live inside of her. It was like she had infuriatingly told him, it lived in the reach of those who she gave hers to and only with them. It was in his hand now and he could feel it, even as he disappeared completely.

He leaned against the brick wall waiting for her. 'Where the hell is she? We're gonna miss homeroom, as usual. Should I buy her another alarm clock and tell her it's not a joke that she set it?" he thought as he adjusted his satchel on his shoulder again. Finally she tore around the corner with her skirt flapping dangerously high and her backpack threatening to open and spill all of its contents.

"Sorry!" she said catching her breath as she reached him. Orihime leaned against the wall and finished tying her bowtie as she did so, her blonde hair getting in her face and she blew it out with little thought to the glare he was aiming at her.

"My mom was late setting up for a party last night and I was trying to get as much sleep as possible, but I had a dream that trolls were trying to kill the nice aliens from Mars so you know I had to fight it out in my dream," she rambled putting herself to rights.

"Next time let them fend for themselves and get up a little earlier," he said watching her stuff her shirt into her skirt as neatly as she could.

"Oh Ulquiorra-kun, you know I can't let helpless aliens be beaten by the mean old trolls," she said hitching her socks up to her knees and smiling. "All ready now, let's go!" she said holding out her hand and he took it without hesitation. The contentment that settled over him every time she held his hand came full force and he forgot again that she almost made them late like he did every morning and listened to her ramble on in detail about her dream. As long as he got to keep holding her hand he was perfectly fine staying right there next to her, always.

AN: Alright, I love this, anyone else, show of hands by hitting the review button please. Oh if it's not clear, they were reincarnated, not going further.