PLEASE READ: I hope you guys aren't daunted by long chapters (at least I think it's long), please review and tell me what you think. I could probably do shorter ones if many of you wish it so, maybe I'll put up a poll later on if my story gets any sort of audience *crosses fingers* I hope so =).

There will be chapters rated M later on *wink wink* but as for now I'll put the rating as T for suggestive stuff ;D.

If you do not like stories with OC's, you'll likely not care for this one, but I believe I've tried my best NOT to create any sort of Mary-Sue and whatnot. I actually think she's very down to earth, really. But if you have any suggestions that might improve her or the story don't be afraid to PM me. This is my first fic after all.

Disclaimer: Don't own Bleach, Tite Kubo does. Oh, I do own the idea of Wendy and Luke though, the end.

Chapter 1: Let Me Have It

Two figures strolled at a leisurely pace down the sidewalk in the night, streetlamps making their shadows crisscross as their destination came into view three blocks ahead.

"It's good to be back home again, but I'm going to miss being able to relax whenever I want," said the more slender of the two. This voice was smooth and a bit melodic as the syllables slipped from what was unmistakably a female.

"Oh, 'cause you never did that here, no?" The taller and broader companion replied, the deeper and huskier voice identifying the woman's partner as a man. "Well, we're not going to be completely home until after we check in with him. I have to know what all was so important that we had to come back so soon, no questions asked."

The woman shifted closer to the man, looking up at him with her bottle-green eyes that seemed to always have the effect of making the man feel at home no matter where he was. "You looking forward to getting nice and comfortable back home, Luke?" She said, lowering her eyelids a bit to give her a dusky, seductive air she knew he had to work extra hard to resist.

"You know it," he said as he looked down at her, attempting to imitate her own technique with the twice the intensity, but only succeeded in making her giggle like a little school girl. "Damn, why can't I ever get that right?"

"Who says you didn't?"

Kisuke Urahara was pleasantly surprised to see two more visitors turn up at his shop after Renji, Chad, and Orihime came by to train for the coming war in the winter. They entered and soon caught every eye in the store, leaving Kisuke to feel obligated to make the introductions.

"Well hello you two! I didn't anticipate you both to arrive so soon. Everyone, this is Ruko and Wendy. Wendy, Ruko, this is Chad and Orihime. I don't yet know if you ever got the chance to meet Renji though," Urahara said indicating the heavily tattooed redhead who nodded his head to them in greeting.

"Good to see you again Urahara-san!" Luke said.

"Nice to meet all of you," Wendy added tactfully since Luke hadn't acknowledged them. Not that he was intentionally rude, but he had his mind on getting Urahara to explain the reason why they had to leave America so abruptly.

Kisuke invited them to sit down for some tea with the others as he recounted the current events in the Soul Society to Luke and Wendy. By the time the story had been told, Wendy had a bewildered look whereas Luke just seemed puzzled.

"No! Not Captain Aizen, he always seemed so nice and helpful... I could nearly expect it from Gin Ichimaru, he always seemed a bit creepy, but... wow. Captain Aizen helped me..." Wendy trailed off, reminiscing about the time when Wendy used to be even weaker than she was now, how Captain Aizen had helped her in conditioning herself...

"Well, it was a shock to many of us, but the fact is we have until winter to train ourselves for this war. We'll be needing as much assistance as possible from any and all available shinigami, which is why you were called back to help Ruko," Luke cringed just the slightest. He had given up long ago when he tried to get people to call him Luke, but many with thick accents kept calling him "Ruko" so he learned to deal with it and just introduce himself to others as Ruko. Nevertheless, it was a bit disappointing to him to hear his name butchered.

Wendy couldn't help but notice the absence of her as a subject in talk of the war. She wasn't sure if she should find it insulting that they wouldn't think about including her in combat, or if they were just so absorbed in tactics that it was becoming a closed off conversation. They knew she wasn't a real strategist, so she couldn't blame them. But there was one other person she noticed that seemed to be ignored throughout the discussion...

The other girl in the room, Orihime, seemed quite in battle with herself. It seemed that every now and then she wanted to interject with some thought or inquiry but held back by biting her bottom lip. Why would she do that, Wendy thought to herself. It was then she decided to go outside for a chat with Orihime, and stood from her spot.

"I'll be outside Luke. Orihime, would you like to join me?" Wendy tried her hardest to make it sound polite enough to be a question rather than a daunting command that she had gotten used to with Luke when she wanted to speak privately with him. Unfortunately Luke doesn't do well with detecting subtlety, so Wendy had gotten rusty with the technique as she rarely had to use it with anyone else.

Orihime seemed to catch on that Wendy wanted to talk though, or she may have just been tired of being excluded and would've taken any opportunity to have some girl talk, even if they had just met. As the two women left the room to walk outside of the shop, Luke sighed. "Oh boy..."

"What's the matter Ruko?" Renji asked.

"Well, Wendy's not happy. She knows that we're deliberately not including her in what we've been talking about, and I'm guessing she picked up on the fact that the other girl was not going to be an active participant in the war. And she says I'm not subtle. Wendy doesn't know that I spoke with you earlier before we left America and that we'd agreed that both her and the other girl would not be placed in combat, but that doesn't mean she's not going to let me have it later," Luke looked over to the door Wendy had gone out of, displaying a strange discoloration on his neck.

"What's that on your neck?" Chad asked Luke.

Luke tried hard to control himself, but he felt his face heating up the more they all stared at him awaiting an answer, making the spot in question turn an ever deeper shade as well, only highlighting its existence even more.

"Well, heh heh, funny you should ask that after I was talking about her letting me have it..." The other men just looked at him with a few wider eyes and some mouths agape.

"She beats you up?" Renji practically yelled, apparently not catching on.

He's even worse than me about not catching on to things, Luke thought. "No... it's... never mind, it's not important." Luke's blush stayed throughout the rest of their talk, however.

"So Orihime, what do they deem not special about you that they won't let you join the fight either?" Wendy asked quite bluntly, seeing as Orihime widened her eyes even more at the frankness of the question.

"Well, I'm... not very strong at all. My only power is to heal, but I can create a shield. My only offensive weapon was damaged, so I'm not considered a big asset to the front of the war..." Orihime explained sadly to Wendy. Wendy was outraged by this. "But-"

"Che! You have more potential than me going into war, and I'm centuries older than you!"Wendy exclaimed. This was not right, if the girl could at least create a shield for herself then she shouldn't necessarily be a liability, and she could heal! What the hell is wrong with those men?

"C-centuries?" Orihime asked. "If you're a soul reaper then they have no right to hold you from going to war, you have as much right as any of them, especially if you have all of that time and experience!"

"You assume too much, I have no real experience with what they need. And as for time? That just makes me an old bat I guess," Wendy laughed. But Orihime noticed that Wendy had pointedly not confirmed she was indeed a shinigami... but what else could she be if she was really as old as she says she was? Even though Wendy looked about twenty or so, Orihime had learned not to judge age by appearances through her contact with soul reapers. Orihime decided to turn the conversation to something a little more hopeful that might make amends to Wendy's mood and view of herself.

"Well, I did end up getting Tsubaki, my offense back. I'm going to be going to Soul Society with Rukia soon to train up a bit, that way I can get stronger and hopefully be an asset instead of a liability in the war. Would you like to come along with me?" Orihime asked timidly. She wasn't sure if it would be insolent or appropriate to ask someone much older than herself to train with someone on her level, even thought Wendy herself had said that she had less potential in war than Orihime.

"You know what? That sounds like a plan to me. I should probably get away from my beau for a while anyway, he'll just get on my nerves if I see him helping out in training while I sit back watching the oh-so-mighty men whip into shape." At that Wendy at last got a smile from Orihime, and when Wendy started laughing Orihime joined in and giggled.

Instead of going back inside Orihime and Wendy started talking about regular girls stuff. They had talked about boys, a lot actually. Orihime had mentioned how Luke seemed to be nice despite what was going on with the men excluding them at the moment. She was right though, Luke was very nice, and funny. Not to mention really handsome; Orihime had noted that Luke had a striking resemblance to Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, what with his longish brown hair and gorgeous eyes and rugged stubble on his chin. At this Wendy laughed out loud, not expecting Orihime to have actually known what Lord of the Rings was. She wondered if maybe Orihime had more in common with her than she knew, maybe they were both closet nerds.

"Yeah, he's actually had a few nicknames before, Aragorn and Strider being a few back in America. People actually used to get thrown off from hearing his real name's Luke." As if a bell had summoned him, Wendy's man came out of the shop and strode over to where the two girls were sitting by the fence chatting.

"Wendy-"

"Uma, Aran Aragorn?"

Luke hesitated in what he was about to say."Nin Bereth Wendalynn," Luke said with a smile. He knew now that Wendy wasn't truly angry with him, as they playfully exchanged words in elvish as a joke for him looking so much like the King of Gondor of Tolkien fiction.

"I'll definitely take you up on the Soul Society thing, Orihime!" Wendy called out to her as Luke had scooped her up and was walking away back down the street they had come through before.

"Okay, be here tomorrow at two!" Orihime called back to her.

Luke had walked for at least a couple of blocks before Wendy finally motioned that she wanted to get down and walk on her own.

"Aw, I wanted to sweep you up to the house like I used to do!" Luke said, still not putting her down.

Wendy was about to say, "Why, to sweeten me up for ignoring me earlier?" but then decided against it, not wanting to sour the mood. Luke noticed her brief silence before she finally consented and let him carry her up to the door to the home they shared. He fumbled to grab the keys out of his pocket when Wendy got them out for his, brushing the tiniest bit too close to a now very sensitive area. She grinned up at him, and the devil could not have tempted him with anything sweeter than her twinkling eyes.

"Hurry up and unlock the door babe, I wanna get to bed before daylight."

"Me too," Luke said, taking the keys from her soft, lithe fingers and swiftly unlocked the door, rushing them upstairs to their bedroom. He layed her down on the mattress, her long, wavy auburn hair sprawling out around her like tendrils of ribbons. He kissed her sweetly, pulling away to look into her sparkling green eyes lovingly.

Literally faster than the eye could see, Luke was now splayed with his back on the mattress, Wendy above him with a sharp grin. "What, no tongue?" She asked jokingly, yet earnestly.

"Oh, did I do something wrong? Let me have it then." He said, his voice even huskier than usual.

There was going to be a new discoloration or three blossoming tomorrow, he just knew it.

A/N: Okay, first fic posted on here EVER. Hope it's not too bad, I know there's a lot of focus on the two OC's, but don't worry, there will be much more interaction with more Bleach characters in the next chapter, promise! And you all may be wondering why my OC's in a relationship with another OC and not Nnoitra like I've put as in the character category. All I have to say to that is, patience my pretties, patience.

Oh, the whole LotR thing, I'm sorry I'm such a nerd but I couldn't help it. I don't know if the elvish is even correct, but it's supposed to have Wendy say "Yes, King Aragorn?" and Luke saying "My Queen Wendalynn." I know, her name is unusual, and that's not her full name of course (will later be told) but she's unusual too!