I finally have enough completed Bleach requests from my Tumblr that it's time I archived them here on FFN. These will contain a lot of Orihime, Rukia, and Matsumoto pairings. Because that's what people seem to enjoy asking from me.

Although requests are not actually open at present, please enjoy the ficlets that have been written thus far.

Also I apologize this thing is a mess of tenses.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

Title: Nightmares

Pairing: Ulquiorra x Orihime

Requester: GemNika

Prompt: "I had a dream you smiled, and it was the scariest thing I've ever seen. Never do that..."

Dreams in the depths of Las Noches could really only be called nightmares.

Even the pleasant wispy things, memories of happy times spent with her brother and her friends, wrought a gaping hole in Orihime's chest when she awoke. A hole that only widened every time she closed her eyes. Her fingers would probe the area around her heart, searching for it's steady beat - to reassure herself that it was still there. That it had not yet been torn out. Every time she would find smooth fabric, and unblemished skin. But the sensation of missing remained.

And she would crumple in on herself, whispering over and over again that she had not been wrong. Leaving to save her brightly shining friends was all she was capable of.

Orihime was careful to never let Ulquiorra see her in such a vulnerable state; her ears always straining for the cadence of his footsteps outside her door. Long experience (and Tatsuki) had taught her never to show weakness to those that meant her harm. Even if Ulquiorra himself didn't seem particularly interested in harming her outside of forcing her to eat, the man behind the apathetic arrancar's actions terrified Orihime. That Ulquiorra reported on her was an inevitability, and she wasn't quite so naive as to believe otherwise. Any weakness, any flaw that Ulquiorra could see in her, he would bring back to Aizen. To use against her; against her friends.

So Orihime kept it from him, and wiped all traces from her countenance.

The guilt she felt in so doing was just a trick of her mind, she knew. A trick born of blank white walls, an unchanging sky, and deep loneliness.

Only once did she fail at hiding her nightmares from her guard.

She had awoken, sticky with sweat and her hair plastered to her face, and found Ulquiorra staring at her from the safety of the doorway across the room.

"Nightmare?" His calm voice had echoed in the large room, the call of "nightmare, nightmare, nightmare," driving deep into Orihime.

Caught, she could do naught but nod.

Then he asked, "What about?"

And Orihime was thrown for a loop. Was that... dare she even think it... interest in his voice?

She drew her blanket up protectively. "I had a dream you smiled," Orihime had told him slowly, haltingly, her eyes never leaving his form.

It had been a bright dream. Ulquiorra smiling at her, and standing beside her friends while they joked around. Kindness and affection written clear on his face. Sunlight shining on his hair. A possibility of a world that she knew would never be.

"And it was the scariest thing I've ever seen. Never do that..."

He contemplated it for a moment, confusion breaking through his usual apathy. Then he nodded in acquiescence - a relief to the girl.

Fantasies born of loneliness were the worst kind of nightmare.