This is my first true AU story in the Bleach Universe, and I must admit I am rather excited (and slightly nervous) about it. Funny, both of my new Bleach stories are are titled with a single word starting with the letter "r". Oh well.

I first got this idea on March 11th of this year, the two year anniversary of the Earthquake and Tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. I seemed to have been surrounded by reminders of the event recently, and found myself researching whatever I could find on the disaster, wanting to know more. From people on my Twitter feed mentioning it (since I follow some Japanese rock bands), to a song by One OK Rock called "Be the Light" on their latest CD, Jinsei x Boku= (which, to be fair, does not necessarily have to deal with the Tsunami. It is more of a ballad of revival from difficult situations, though the video does have some footage from the Tsunami, as well as other disasters and war. But when I first heard the song, it is what I thought of, so I still want to give it some credit. Plus, it is just a really powerful song.), and then with me stumbling across and watching a documentary film on HBO called The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossoms (the title, "Revive" actually comes from this. I was just struck by this word in the documentary and wanted to use it), I have just had the disaster on my mind.

And then this idea came to me.

I want to start out by saying this fic will deal with some really heavy subject matter. This is a work of fiction dealing with a very real natural disaster that affected so many, and I don't want to sugar coat it or represent it as something that is easily overcome. People are still affected, and will probably be haunted by this event for the rest of their lives, and I will not sit here and act like this event is not a touchy subject. This will contain dark ideas and situations dealing with death, and how people try to deal with things like this. That being said, I have bumped the rating up to M to cover my bases. Plus, it is a romance, though I doubt I will dive into lemon territory. Maybe some lemon zest, but nothing graphic.

I also want to say that I have not experienced these events, and that these are only a representation of what happened. In no way, shape, or form would I ever be able to capture the emotion of it accurately, because quite frankly I have not lived it, but I hope it comes off as believable in this story. Everything I talk about is what I have learned through my research and through first-hand accounts of the event from survivors. I hope I do not offend anyone by writing this, and if I do, feel free to message me personally and let me know. It is not my intentions, and I want to be able to fix it if I am being offensive.

So, the basics:

Pairing: Ichigo x Orihime

Summary: Destruction, inevitably, will lead to reconstruction, no matter how painful that may be or how long it may take. It is important not to forget, but to remember and rebuild to the best of our abilities, with hope and determination to find the light in the darkness.

Rating: M

Warnings: Angst, dark themes, death, romance

Disclaimer: I own only OCs and the plot. Bleach and its rights go to Tite Kubo and whoever he chooses to share them with. The organization mentioned, Architects for Humanity, as a real organization, and I do not own any rights towards it. I have just used the name for this story's purposes. I do not gain profit or intend any disrespect in the writing of this story.

Enjoy

Chapter 1

Water is both life and death.

It can replenish, rejuvenate, and reanimate. It can take something fragile and make it strong, take something small and help it grow. It is needed by all living things, and even the majority of our bodies are made up of the stuff.

But it can also choke, overwhelm, and destroy. It can make something decay and rot, burn you when it's too hot, freeze you when it's too cold. It can be contaminated, disorient you or make you fall ill just because it was not taken from the right area. Too much of a good thing, even something that is essential, can lead to devastating consequences.

Imagine what it can do when accompanying something equally as destructive, like an earthquake.

But what we can do, when everything seems lost, is rebuild.

Those where the thoughts that had kept Ichigo up, seated at the kitchen table of his home. Well, his father's home now. It would no longer be his, though he was assure by his family that he was welcome at any time. He was moving into his new apartment tomorrow, starting out early in the morning whether he got sleep tonight or not. It was weird to think like that, to picture this place as anything else but his house. It had been his house for twenty-five years. He had grown up here, but now he was leaving. How many times had he sat at this very table? He couldn't give it an exact number if he tried. It had never seemed significant before, but now…now it seemed much more important.

The house was quiet, a little after two in the morning. The only sound in the kitchen, besides the calm breaths he was producing, was the soft hum of the refrigerator. The room was dimly lit, just the light over the stove on, and he knew that if he traveled the length of the hallway, went upstairs, his sisters would be sound asleep in their beds. He should be in bed. He should be resting in preparation for the big day he had tomorrow.

But instead, he was preparing for an entirely different experience.

The orange-haired man sighed, flipping the pamphlet over in his hands for what could have been the hundredth time. He stared, but didn't see any of the words. Not that he needed to read them again. He'd gone over the words again and again, and even now the words rattled around in his skull, keeping him awake. There wasn't a lot on the ad that had come in the mail, addressed to "Residents of the Household". It wasn't like they had reached out to him specifically, more like just sent them to everyone. There was no way it was intentionally sent here, to him. And yet he felt it was fate that he would receive such a thing, and it was fate that had placed him in this kitchen, holding this call for help.

"Architecture for Humanity." it said. How appropriate, seeing as he had just graduated with a degree in architecture, but he knew whatever labor he did for this would be construction, something volunteer. It was a non-profit charity organization whose mission was to help those who had been affected in natural disasters. And Japan still needed help after their latest tragedy, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The call to action hit Ichigo much harder than most.

After all, he had lived it.

It had been just over two years since that day, and Ichigo could still see it all clearly in his mind. If he closed his eyes and focused hard enough, he could feel the building shake beneath him, the plaster of the ceiling falling around him. He could hear the alarms, the screams of terrified people, men, women and children alike. He could see the water moving down the street to the pedestrian bridge he had taken shelter on, the way it crept towards them like a predator stalking its prey. He could feel the familiar ache in his side, a residual pain from broken ribs he had sustained in the earthquake that lingered to this day. Almost subconsciously, he reached up to feel the raised skin above his eyebrow, where he had gotten four stitches to close a wound he had received in the chaos. It was barely visible now, having faded with time and scar cream Yuzu had insisted on, but he could still find it easily with his fingers. Those who did notice it assured him that it only added to his looks, giving him a rugged handsome appearance.

Scars were not that big of a deal to him. He had been a fighter all his life, and his body was riddled with scars. But that one held much more than one he had gained in a school yard struggle.

He still had trigger points, where he would pause in some mundane activity and be lost in the memories that only time and extensive therapy had healed. Small things, like the wrong tone on an alarm clock, or the scratch of branches against a window during a storm, both sounding much to close to the sounds he had heard that day. It had been bad for a while, to the point where he remained in his room for the majority of his time, leaving only for his studies and for necessities. But he had come a long way from that. He wasn't that weak anymore.

And now he wanted to go back to where his life had been turned upside down. If you asked him why, he wasn't sure he could give a logical reason. It was more instinctual, something tugging his insides and telling him that here was an opportunity to make a change, to matter. He wasn't the same kid that had cowered at the thought of a thunderstorm – though he still didn't particularly like them, seeing as how storms had always been unsettling to him, even before the disaster – or the one who couldn't even think about oceans without falling into shock. He no longer avoided anything with the possibility of shaking or rocking, and he could walk into a multiple storied building without breaking down. No, he was much stronger than that person, and the overwhelming desire to return to this place was consuming his every thought.

"Ichigo?"

The gruff, sleep-filled voice of his father had the orangette sitting up in his chair. Brown eyes watched as Isshin Kurosaki moved across the tiled floor, bare-foot and disheveled from obvious slumber. He yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as Ichigo inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Hey Dad."

"What are you doing up so late, son?" the man asked, grabbing a clean glass from the sink and filling in with water before sitting across from his first-born child. Ichigo smiled, though his exhaustion clouded the action, leaving it blander than usual.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I'd say it was my instincts," Isshin started with a chuckle. "But that would be a lie. I was thirsty." He sipped his drink as if to emphasize the point, before casually adding. "You didn't answer the question."

"Can't sleep. Too many thoughts," Ichigo responded, letting the silence of the house settle once more over him.

The older man grunted a sound of agreement, sipping the cool water from his glass once more before setting it down. "Not backing out of moving, I hope," he teased, a rumble of laughter escaping him. Ichigo knew the man well enough to know he was filled with nostalgia at the idea, picturing Ichigo as a child. He joined his father in the laughter, shaking his head.

"You wish, old man."

"Can't blame a man for trying to hold onto his children," his father responded good-naturedly. Isshin leaned back in his chair, eyes falling to the pamphlet still clutched in his son's hands. He'd recognize the pamphlet, Ichigo knew. It was not the first time he had seen it. Ichigo had the feeling that if it had been his father who discovered it in the mail, he would have never seen the ad. It would have been tossed with the rest of the junk mail their house received. It was luck that he had been home early that day to collect the mail first. Another reason he felt it was meant to reach him.

Almost immediately a sigh escaped Isshin's lips. "I thought we discussed this already," he said with a gesture to the pamphlet. Though his tone was more casual, Ichigo could still hear the sharpness underneath, showing that the light-hearted teasing was over for the moment.

"We did," the younger man confirmed, eyes rising to meet his father's. "But that does not mean I've changed my feelings about it."

"What will get you to change your feelings?" Isshin countered, shaking his head. "Or are you intentionally trying to ruin all the hard work you've accomplished in recovery?"

"You know this goes further than my own health," Ichigo started. "I'm not going to relapse. I'm going to help others who are like me, who survived."

"Son, please do not misunderstand my stand on this. I think your desire to help is admirable," Isshin started, pausing to take a swig of water. It was a way to distract himself from his frustration, though it seemed to only serve as a delay in the conversation, "but right now is a crucial time in your life. You're fresh out of college, ready to start your career, and I don't want to see you get sucked down by your past."

"I'm not getting sucked down," Ichigo insisted, knowing he was getting defensive. He had to remain calm. Otherwise, he'd look even more like a child. If he wanted to prove he could handle it, a two-year old with a temper tantrum was not the image he needed to portray. "This is an opportunity for me."

"To do what?" Isshin countered. "What are you trying to prove by torturing yourself?"

"How am I supposed to learn and grow if I don't create experiences?" Ichigo asked, voicing the question as if it were a new thought though he knew it wasn't. He and his father had had this conversation already, but Ichigo couldn't let it lie. "Dad, I feel like this is a sign."

"They send these things to everyone, Ichi. They had no way of knowing your past with this."

"But I still feel fate has a hand in this," Ichigo said with a raise of his hand, holding the pamphlet up at eye level. "This was meant to reach me." He flipped through the flimsy paper, locating the section headlined "Work Sites". "They even have site at Sendai. It's not like I would be going in without blind. I even know the area well."

"That is not funny, son," Isshin said in a low tone, his frown deepening.

"It wasn't a joke."

"And what happens if you relapse?" Isshin asked, leaning forward on his elbows to give a hard stare at his son.

"I won't," was the quick response form Ichigo. Too quick, but he hoped it was confident enough.

"Do you remember what it was like when you got back home?" the dark-haired man stated calmly, though Ichigo could feel the emotional war going on inside of his father. "How long did it take you to stop having nightmares? You remember those, right? The ones that had your sisters unable to look at you for weeks at a time, afraid they'd set off another round of tortured screams."

"You don't have to remind me –" Ichigo began, only to be cut off.

"How long did you have to suffer with survivor's guilt? How long did it take you to realize that what happened was a tragedy, and you couldn't blame yourself for living?" Ichigo looked away at that, knowing his answer would not be favorable. Too long was the correct response, but Ichigo was certain that this time would be different.

Noticing the orangette's reaction, Isshin sighed. "It's not that I think you are weak. I've never thought that. What you went through…" A frustrated huff of air left him, his hand dragging through his dark hair. "A father can't protect his children from everything, no matter how hard they try. Though I couldn't have predicted the event, I can keep you from reliving it now. I just don't want you to fall back into that, Ichigo. It nearly destroyed you last time. Our family can't go through that again."

"This time will be different," Ichigo insisted, shaking his head. "I will be rebuilding, helping those who lost so much that day. I can help bring them hope. How can that be wrong?"

Ichigo watched as his father smirked, his eyes focused on the glass held between his hands. He almost berated the man for mocking him at a time like this, but when Isshin looked up the words died in his throat. His father didn't look like he wanted to mock him. Instead, he looked…proud.

"You know," Isshin started, still smiling in that lopsided way of his. "You sounded like your mother just then. She would have had the same argument in this situation, and she would have undoubtedly picked your side in this, no matter how much I protest."

Ichigo remained silent, unsure of what to say. For a moment, the silence of the house returned. It struck Ichigo that this may very well be the last time he ever had a late-night kitchen conversation with his father, and the thought brought sadness to Ichigo's heart. He would miss this, he knew. He would miss waking up to Yuzu's cooking. He would miss helping Karin with her soccer skills. He would miss these rare moments of serious conversation with his father. It seemed like only yesterday he was a kid with his whole future in front of him.

But time passed whether you wanted it to or not, and Ichigo's future was now. He wanted to make sure he had no "what-ifs". At the end of his life, he wanted to look back and know he did something worthwhile, something that changed a life or two.

"How long would you stay?" Isshin asked, tearing Ichigo away from his thoughts. The orangette's heart sped up at the question as he tried to form an answer.

"A year at most," he responded, smiling a little before adding. "It is non-profit after all. Whatever time I give is volunteered. I have enough money saved to keep the lease on the apartment for that much time, and then I plan on returning to start my career. I've been sending out applications, testing the waters and seeing if I get a bite somewhere."

"Oh, you'll get a bite," Isshin said, pride filling his voice. "I'd bet my life on it, considering your rank in graduation."

"You think?" Ichigo asked, allowing hope to come into his voice.

"It's not only compassion that you got from your mother," Isshin said with a smile, "but her iron will as well. You'll be just fine, knowing your determination." He paused, turning his head to the side in thought before speaking again. "Got your good looks from me, though."

Ichigo rolled his eyes at the comment, but couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled out of his chest. But just as the conversation turned light, it returned to the serious side. "Are you sure this is what you want?" Isshin questioned, watching his son carefully. "I want you to give me a straight answer. If this is from some wild idea in your head that you are somehow held responsible for what happened to these people, then I won't let you go. I will tie you to the house if I have to, and you know that is no empty threat. I want you to be absolutely sure that you can handle it."

Ichigo appreciated the concern, knowing his father was only looking out for him, but this was bigger than fear. This was something he felt like he needed to do.

"I'm sure."

"Then I can't stop you, can I?" Isshin said, shaking his head. "You're twenty-five years old. I can hardly tell you what to do. We'll look into it tomorrow. But right now, while you are still under my house and within my jurisdiction, I am ordering you to go to bed and get some sleep." He stood with a tired smile, waiting until Ichigo stood before reaching out and gripping his son's shoulder. The simple gesture stopped Ichigo, and he watched his dad with curiosity.

"Even if I'm worried, I know what you are doing is a great thing. You've grown up into a great man, Ichigo, and I am so proud of you. Don't forget that." The words were spoken softly, but Ichigo could hear the sincerity.

"Thanks Dad," Ichigo said, smiling widely at his father. "But I get that from you, too."

Isshin grinned at the words, shaking his head. With a pat on the shoulder, he released his son and started down the hall towards his bedroom. "Oh, and Ichigo?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't think just because you've been up all night you'll be getting out of your wake up call. You may be a college grad, and I may be getting old, but I am still the master of the sneak attack." Ichigo could hear the smile in his voice, and he gave a bark of laughter.

"We'll see about that," he called after him, turning to head up the stairs to his own room. With every step, Ichigo could feel the excitement building in his gut. With a soft groan, he realized he still probably wouldn't get any sleep tonight, but even if he was dead tired tomorrow he knew he would still feel on top of the world.

He was going to make a difference, just as he had set out to do.

X

Orihime circled the pen over the top of the page once more, willing the words to pour out of the tip of the writing utensil. She had been sitting in the same position in front of her small desk for the last two hours, rereading the application over and over and finding it nearly impossible to fill in the required information.

She sighed as she drug a delicate hand through her hair, the orange strands falling into her eyes despite to attempts to secure them with hair pins. This was the tenth night in a row where she had sat in her apartment and been unable to write what was required.

What was so hard about this? It was only a few questions. Basic government information about herself, and then a small essay attached. She had already bought the necessary postage to send it to the admissions office, and all she had to do was complete the application to send it on its way. But every time she started, something held her back.

Tatsuki would tease her for this. Orihime could hear the other girl now. "Just go for it! What do you have to lose?" But it was never that simple, was it?

It seemed each night presented another obstacle. Her favorite television show was on. It was time for her weekly dinner with Tatsuki. She was late making her nightly cup of tea. All of these things, those simple, were much more important than they seemed.

It was a routine. Something constant, never changing. Constant was where she was safe. Routines were where she found peace.

These applications, though she wanted to send them very badly, fell into the different, the unknown. It was not safe.

Fifteen minutes. She was late for her tea by fifteen minutes tonight, and she couldn't stop her hands from shaking at the thought of missing it. It shouldn't be a big deal. She should be much stronger than this after two years, but she knew that without a set plan, without the small amount of control that she had taken over her life, she would fall back into what she that day had made her.

It was the reason she never left Sendai. The reason she kept her job at the Mediatheque, even though it had been meant as a job she would leave within a year. It had been meant as a bridge that gapped the time between her graduation from the Kanazawa College of Art and entering a graduate program for Art History, and her professors had been most kind to send her information to the Mediatheque, particularly to the gallery section of the library. They would probably frown upon her hesitation now. She had all of those applications, but she couldn't even finish the first one. Even with everything here that was a constant reminder of what had happened on March 11, 2011, she couldn't bring herself to leave. After all, leaving was never a part of the constant schedule she had given herself.

She shut her eyes tightly, blocking the thoughts she knew would storm her mind if she allowed them. Careful, she told herself, don't send yourself into an attack.

She glanced at the clock. It was now twenty minutes past her tea time ritual. Longingly, she looked towards her small kitchen. She could see the bright blue teapot sitting on the counter, tea bags already out and waiting to be used. It called to her like a warm, childhood blanket, familiar and secure.

With one final glance at the blank paper, she stood up from the small desk chair. Later. She would finish it later.

Right now she would make her tea, and then go to bed. She needed to be up early tomorrow, just like always, and start her day all over again.

This first chapter is a little bit shorter than my usual length, but I felt it was a good place to end. I wanted to make sure I set the foundation before jumping into everything. It should start picking up in the next chapter or so.

Once again, I would greatly appreciate feedback, though please no flames. You can tell me how to make it better, sure, but please do not just destroy my writing. I do try very hard.

Much love,

Meg