Paper Cranes, a bleach fanfic

Title: Paper Cranes
Author: croisee
Character/Pairing/Group: Rukia, Ichigo, Byakuya, Renji, Ishida, Chad, Hanatarou, Isshin, Unohana, mentions of Shirosaki, IchiRuki
Word Count: 2,428
Rating: PG-13
Summary: She doesn't believe in miracles (but it wouldn't hurt to try).
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. That's all there is to it.
Warning(s): Slight spoilers for the HM arc. Spoilers for Isshin's identity. Sexual innuendo. Slight cursing. Really tiny mention of Shirosaki.

Rukia sat beside his immobile form, drawing inane sketches of barely recognizable rabbits and bears that Ichigo would've insulted if he were in any other state. She drowned herself in the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor and reveled in the fact that he was alive and beside her and breathing even if it was with the transparent mask that fogged with every breath he took.

Her back straightened ad she gripped her Chappy pen like a sword, looking at the note she had involuntarily scribbled on top of her drawings.

She bit her lip and crumpled the paper with a white-knuckled fist, then tossed it at him. He would've yelled at her.

If he had been awake.

They were alone in the dead of night, surrounded by the steady beeps of the heart monitor and the pile of crumpled paper beside his head.

She crawled over the blood-soaked sand of some dim and distant corner of Las Noches and leaned her back tiredly against a crumbling block, her reiatsu slowly diminishing to a tiny glow that struggled to keep her alive. The bubbling cough in her throat was stifled by the trickle of blood that fell past her lips and the hand she held over the hole in her gut (the same hand that once held the broken Shirayuki) fell limply to her side.

She could feel the soft yet steady rhythm of her nii-sama's reiatsu. She could feel the brash and brawny edge of Renji's. She could feel the sharp and overflowing waves in Ichigo's. She could barely feel her own drumming under her fingertips.

A clammy hand closed around her own. "You don't mind the blood…do you?" she coughed weakly, more blood spilling from her lips and onto the dust and grime below.

"Would I be holding your hand if I did?"

Rukia smiled and closed her eyes.

"Give me the rabbit book, Ichigo." Rukia demanded as she stood on tiptoe and pointed at the smallest book on the topmost shelf.

Ichigo scowled and shoved his hands in his back pockets. "I refuse."

Rukia glared at him and stomped her foot in a manner that suggested she might be twelve. "Ichigo–"

"If you can reach it, I'm buying it for you," He interrupted, mindful of the stares they were attracting and his rapidly dissipating college funds. If she would somehow get mad –

"Sure."

– they could argue their way outside. But apparently, Rukia had other plans and she stood expectantly in front of him. "Well? What are you waiting for Ichigo?"

"The hell?"

"Carry me now!" She raised her hands in front of her and waited for Ichigo to give her a lift. Ichigo, on the other hand, stared at her as if she had grown another head.

"The hell!"

"But you used to carry me while in shi–" Ichigo clamped a hand over her mouth, wary of the number of onlookers who were watching them bicker, and used the other to grab a random book from the Art bookshelf.

Rukia wrenched her head away from his grasp and stood her ground in the center of the shelves yelling, "I didn't want the origami book!"

Ichigo growled and grabbed her by the waist, carrying her like how he did when she was almost executed. "See if I care!"

"Put me down!"

"We're getting this book. We're buying this book. We're leaving this store!"

Once, Rukia read the book Ichigo bought her. Fascinated by the colorful cover of folded paper, she flipped the pages until she landed on a picture of a paper crane and some bizarre diagrams labeled as instructions on how to fold one.

When Ichigo entered his room after another night of hollow patrol, Rukia's nose was buried in her book and she seemed oblivious to his presence. When she addressed him as he was returning to his body, Ichigo jumped and the arm he was halfway in flailed lifelessly.

"They said that if you make a thousand paper cranes…" she stopped and fixed him a look.

His soul melted into his body and he returned her look with a scowl. "What?"

He saw her purse her lips in thought. "They said you can have a wish. Is that true?"

He scoffed and let himself chuckle mockingly. "Like I'd believe that crap."

"I see."

Rukia picked up a piece of crumpled paper from the pile beside Ichigo's head and smoothed the edges with her palm. With a glance at Ichigo and another at the words standing out amidst her pathetic drawings, she started folding along the creases until one messy paper crane stood on his bedside table.

She bit her lip and started another.

It was cold. So, so cold. Rukia moved her body closer to Renji's and his hand tightened like a vice around hers. This wasn't hell, because even hell had the decency to burn. The pulse of her reiatsu faded to a small, dim glimmer as her lips cracked from speaking.

"Renji?"

"Hmm?"

"Where is Ichigo?" Renji's grip slackened and he held her hand loosely between his fingers. The silence that followed was only broken by heavy thuds that reverberated in the sand.

Her nii-sama's soft and steady reiatsu was nearer, and it calmed her apprehension as it did during her failed execution. Ichigo's reiatsu incinerated the fine outline of her dissipating soul as if it were him beside her, and not Renji. The heavy thuds were closer and slower until they stopped altogether.

Her reiatsu flickered, faded and died.

Renji never did answer her question. Her nii-sama never did reach her. And Ichigo's voice never did stop ringing in her head. "RUKIA!!"

Her back was turned and she refused to meet his eyes as she said the words that condemned their partnership.

"I'm not coming back."

He was glaring at the back of her head and she refused to even acknowledge the heavy, ragged breathing coming from him. Instead, she opted to fold her hands over her lap, and make her way to the window and into the darkness outside.

She was halfway out when a piece of paper hit the back of her head. She sighed and picked it up, flattening it against her thigh to smooth the edges.

Rukia found herself staring at a note hastily scribbled on top of his Algebra homework and she shot a look at Ichigo who sat on his bed unflustered.

"What does this mean?"

He scowled and made a grab for the paper but she jumped away, looking warily at him.

"It means exactly what it says, idiot!"

He made another leap for her, but this time she met him halfway and they tumbled to the ground in a heap of intertwined arms and tangled tongues.

The sound of skin against skin sliced through the silence of the night.

Byakuya stood outside Karakura Hospital's Intensive Care Unit, looking through the one-way mirror at his sister and her silent vigil beside the unconscious Ichigo. He was joined shortly afterwards by Renji who leaned his head against the mirror.

"Kuchiki-taichou." Byakuya didn't bother to acknowledge Renji's presence. They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, both staring at Rukia as she made more of the paper cranes that littered the area around Ichigo's bed.

Byakuya made a move to leave but he stopped when Renji started speaking again.

"It was stupid of him. That Ichigo doesn't know how to control his reiatsu." Byakuya closed his eyes at this yet Renji continued speaking, "Rukia could've died. He could've died. There was little chance that both of them would survive. I–"

Byakuya walked away without even sparing at glance at Renji and the latter stopped speaking as his superior turned his back on him.

Renji didn't tear his eyes away from the miserable figure Rukia cut with her bleeding hands and paper cranes. He didn't have the heart to tell her to stop and eat, or to bandage her fingers and leave Ichigo to the hospital staff.

Ichigo grabbed Rukia roughly by her shoulders and tried to shake her into awareness. Renji, oddly quiet and calm, was gently trying to pry Ichigo's hands away from her.

"Oi, Rukia! Stop dozing off, you midget!"

A bloody and beaten Chad stood behind Ichigo, trying to help Renji detach him from Rukia. All their efforts were in vain and Ichigo's grip only tightened further.

"Ru-ki-a!" He said, in a pathetic attempt of the whine she used to say she hated so much. "Mr. Chappy's waiting for you in my bed." Rukia's head lolled to one side and his actions became more desperate and zealous. "So you just have to wake up and get it from me! It's Chappy, Rukia! Chappy! Dont'cha want Mr. Chappy? Huh, Rukia?!" Ishida got hold of one of Ichigo's trembling arms. Even the sobbing Hanatarou was trying to help restrain him.

It took the combined efforts of five men to pull Ichigo away from Rukia, who was growling and yelling obscenities directed at the violent midget bitch who had the audacity to fall asleep during the afterglow of the greatest victory of his life. His hands left her shoulders and she slumped lifelessly against a wall.

The wind picked up. Sand flew everywhere and his hand flew to the hilt of Zangetsu.

Ichigo broke away from his companions with a roar that shook the very foundations of Las Noches. "BANKAI!"

And he stood in front of her like the first time they met in the single moment that bound them to each other. The roles were reversed, his first impressions were gone, and he concentrated his reiatsu on his sword.

And the blade was brought down.

He ignored Orihime's frantic shouts (it was her fault, after all, that they were there) and Ishida's warnings (he should just jump around in his pathetic Quincy robes instead of bothering him), and tried to give as much reiatsu as he could to Rukia.

Rukia's reiatsu sparked to life just as Ichigo's was draining out. He staggered as he pulled his sword out with the last of his strength and collapsed on top of Rukia, feeling an extreme heaviness overcome his body.

But he couldn't care less because he could feel the steady beat of Rukia's heart thumping under his chest.

He closed his eyes as Rukia opened hers.

As Rukia was folding her forty-ninth paper crane, Ichigo's heart monitor made a different sound, and it irritated her so much that she set her half-done origami work down to grab the front of his hospital gown. Asleep or not, she was going to beat the crap out of him. But as the flat plane of her knuckles touched his chest over where his heart was, the anger quickly melted out of her.

His heart wasn't beating and she couldn't feel it even as she splayed her fingers over his ribcage. For the second time in her life, fear gripped her insides and twisted her gut that she felt bile rise to her throat and tears prick the edges of her eyes.

Even as a uniformed female pulled her away and more people entered the room, she stood by the doorway watching a man put something against Ichigo that made his body rise from the bed oddly and fall with an undignified thud against the linen sheets. The process was repeated so, so many times that Rukia couldn't keep the bile from rising to her throat and she ran out the room to the nearest sink to throw up.

"Unohana-taichou."

"Kurosaki-taichou."

Isshin laughed heavily though he himself couldn't fathom what was coming out from between his lips. "That's ex-taichou for you."

Unohana smiled and lowered her head. "I wanted to talk to you, Kurosaki-taichou."

Isshin returned her smile feebly and tried to act as though it were perfectly natural to have a son in heavy comatose just by the next room. "Yes?"

"Ichigo-san will not be able to stay here."

The smile disappeared from Isshin's face. "Pardon?"

Unohana placed a hand over his shoulder in a motherly gesture. "Ichigo-san is not dead, Kurosaki-taichou. But his soul is not a normal shinigami soul. True, the loss of reiatsu should be easily taken care of because Seireitei is overflowing with spirit particles. But it seems like it is not doing anything for him. In fact, it seems to be worsening his condition. You are aware of the Hollow within him?"

Isshin nodded his head gravely. "The Vaizards are trying to recruit him."

Unohana smiled in understanding. "The Hollow is preventing the proper intake of spirit particles. It would be better to let him stay in the human world, preferably in the care of your human health experts. Besides, letting him stay here would be extremely detrimental."

Both of them glanced at Rukia in her eternal state of self-accusation as she sat up straighter and met their sympathetic eyes

The sky opened and rain fell.

"Do you remember?"

Rukia frowned and pushed a mop of drenched hair away from her eyes. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"

Ichigo had his eyes closed and his face was turned up towards the open skies.

"Remember what I wrote on the night before you left?"

Rukia scoffed, her hand playing with the hilt of a sealed Sode no Shirayuki. "And I was detained because of your unquenchable hormonal drive."

Ichigo shot her a glare that spoke of how serious he was and Rukia's mouth snapped shut.

"Shut up! I'm trying to be romantic here!"

The laughter died in Rukia's throat as Ichigo pulled a soaked but intact piece of paper from his jacket pocket with a triumphant smirk on his face and the rain fell harder. The letters scrawled across it were melting together, but that could have been the product of the water running over her eyes.

The paper floated in a puddle on the ground that reflected two melded bodies, with a note that was barely recognizable in the dark stains of water and lines.

Stay with me.

She wrote those three words for the hundredth time, two hundredth, or three. She had lost count a long time ago. All that mattered was the promised wish that lay behind her bleeding fingers and the thousand paper cranes she never came close into finishing.

Ichigo slept beside her and nothing changed, even as a new paper crane stood proudly beside his unconscious head.

Rukia didn't believe in miracles. But it wouldn't hurt to try.