This idea has been sitting in my notebook for awhile and I finally decided to post it. This has been my first real attempt at a chapter fic and although it's small, I'm quite proud. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but this particular plot line.
Sharing a Bed is Only the Beginning - One
Something was . . . wrong.
Of that much Kurosaki Ichigo was certain when he awoke to a freezing cold bedroom during the middle of Karakura's worst blizzard in a decade.
His father had the brilliant idea that the entire family should visit his parents a few towns over during the three-day weekend. With a double homework load in mind (his and the midget's) in addition to his duties as a shinigami, Ichigo had been forced to abstain from the mini-vacation.
Now, his father and siblings were stuck. Karakura was blindsided by the storm and inadequately prepared to deal with the fallback of snowed-in roads. No one could get back into the city and no one could leave. Even school had been canceled for the next week which meant that he and Ru-
Oh, Kami! She is definitely not where I left her.
The only vibes that came from his closet were those of barren coldness.
He felt around the rest of the house and still nothing.
Not good, not good, not good. Rukia better not have left again.
His eyes strayed immediately to his bedside desk where he was relieved to alight upon a clean surface.
No good-bye letters there.
Next, to the closet. He ripped his blankets off in a tangled heap and almost crashed into the sliding panels of her domain when he stumbled in his haste. After a moment of fumbling, his fingers found purchase and the crash of the door resounded as he slammed it wide open.
The sight of her familiar face graced him, but it was lifeless: just a container, a gigai.
"Dammit."
He left the chappy-clad body where it lay and turned back to his desk. Or, more precisely, the drawer that contained his substitute shinigami license.
With a firm shove, his physical form fell into a crumpled mass on the floor. The fingers of his soul scrabbled to open his window out into the white shrouded world.
The flurries of snow had never felt so harsh before as they did now, slamming into Ichigo's face and other exposed extremities like a wall of needles.
He took a deep breath of the frigid air and willed himself to forget about the stinging pain. It meant little in light of the current situation.
Since the time that she'd faded from him completely in Hueco Mundo, he'd been able to sense her reiatsu with far more clarity than anyone else's. Every pulse and tremor and been made clear to him and he pressed that advantage now as he searched frantically for echoes of her presence.
After what felt like hours of precious time wasted, but was truly only mere moments, he caught onto the faint rhythm of her unique reiatsu.
She was somewhere at the park.
Always that damned park! What was she thinking going without me?
He took off in a sloppy shunpo that caused him to lose his footing more than once upon the ice-sheeted rooftops.
With every passing second, he gained distance on her, and yet . . .
"I should be getting closer to her. Why doesn't she feel any stronger?"
If anything, he thought that the pulses felt weaker than when he'd originally set out in her direction.
And as he finally set foot in the park, he felt those same pulses flutter dangerously.
Like a failing heart.
Ichigo's already frantic flash stepping went into overdrive. His heartbeat picked up speed as her reiatsu dwindled ever lower.
Finally his sensing drew his attention to a snowbank far off to the left where the snapping waver of a single, pure white ribbon could barely be made out against the contrast of the black night and the shields of blinding snow.
If shunpo had a known speed limit, then Ichigo had just broken it in his eagerness to reach her. He briefly doubted that even Yoruichi herself could have made out the movement.
He didn't bother to land on his feet. Instead, Ichigo drove down onto his knees into the snow and at once buried his hands into the frozen depths of white.
The snow was shoveled away in fistfuls without a moments worth of hesitation concerning the temperature.
Sure enough, Sode no Shirayuki was the first thing that he uncovered.
The second was the red of Rukia's blood.
I hope you liked it! Please, please. please review and I'll try to get the next part up as soon as I can. Thanks!
