A/N: I'm trying out a new story idea that I've had for awhile now but just started to plan out. Hopefully I can get it to work and if not...well then I hope I at least had a good start to it.

"I don't see why you're putting up such a huge fuss over this."

Ishida groaned and turned to face the white-dressed assistant. "For the last time, I don't need a secretary to help me. I can manage everything perfectly fine by myself. When was the last time I turned in a late report or forgot to sign off on a prescription?"

"Well…never but still, this is a lot of work for just one man."

"Okay here, we're going to take a different approach to this." Ishida spoke; adjusting his glasses. "Who put you up to this? I know you Albert, and I for one know that you would never step out of your line to do something like this. So obviously you weren't the one who put out an ad for a secretary position and you weren't the one who held the interviews; you also weren't the one who picked out whoever matched the set criteria. So why don't you just spill it?"

The blonde-haired man sighed in unfortunate defeat. "Yeah well…I wasn't supposed to tell…but since you already figured it out…it was your father."

He swore he felt the color slowly drain away from his face. "Are you telling me that Ryuken put you up to this?"

"Actually almost the entire staff knew about it…but yeah." Albert nodded; watching as the dark-haired doctor seemed suddenly agitated. "Hey man, he's the director and he's your father so we just kind of figured he knew what he was doing."

"No see, that's where he gets you; Ryuken never knows what the fuck he's doing." Ishida muttered as he slowly kneaded his temples at an oncoming headache.

"Look, just because he's not currently in the building and pretty much left the hospital to you, doesn't mean he's still not making decisions." Albert reminded. "Where did he go anyways?"

"I don't know and I don't care." Ishida replied. In retrospect, he really didn't know. It wasn't like the old man ever told him anything about what he was doing, after all how else did this whole thing start up. "As long as I don't have to see him, I couldn't care less where he is."

Albert was about to comment on the harsh remark but decided to keep it to himself. "Okay here, why don't you at least meet the new girl and just let her work for a few days. If you don't like having her help then we can fire her. Deal?"

He wasn't much for compromises that had anything to do with Ryuken behind them but at this time he didn't want to deal with the matter anymore. Plus going out there and telling the woman that she was fired barely on her first day working was fairly harsh for someone who was just innocently caught up in this matter. "Yeah, deal. But just to get one thing out of the way, I'm still holding this against you and every staff member involved."

"Well that's better than firing us I guess." Albert chuckled. "But you gotta see this lady, she is a total babe."

Of course, leave it to Albert to make such a remark, as if there was ever a moment where the man wasn't talking about women. Ishida sighed and slowly followed the man out of his office. Yeah, his very own office in the hospital. Then again, after graduating high school with the highest honors and then repeating the same thing in college and throughout med school, well really an office just seemed necessary to have. As for Ryuken…the man just seemed to disappear after he took over the clinic. He was obviously still working as director though, in some way or form- kind of like a ghost it seemed at times. But like he mentioned before, as long as he didn't have to personally see or hear from the man, he was completely okay with it. As long as he could just work in some odd sense of peace knowing that another confrontation with the man was very slim to none…hell the days would seem just perfect.

From his office, which was set fairly far back into the hospital, the two took the first floor main corridor straight down towards the front lobby. Different examining rooms and an assortment of others lined doorway after doorway down the long-winded hallway; adjoining corridors branched out to their right and eventually disappeared into the maze that made up the first floor. With the E.R. located in the Eastern wing of the building, part of the ICU ward in the Southern area and just filing rooms and offices in the Western compartment, it was very easy to get lost on just the first floor…let alone in the rest of the building, which was composed of three or so different stories.

"Now before you say anything, the new girl does look fairly young but I hear she is very qualified for the job." Albert spoke as the two neared the large lobby-like area. "She's great with organizing files and folders for you, she's good with people which is awesome since she's kind of doubling as a desk maid right now as well and she's just overall good-looking, which will keep bringing people back."

"Just so you know, people don't necessarily want to keep coming back to a hospital." Ishida reminded. "That's not a good thing."

"Either way, I don't think we'll be hearing too many complaints from people about having to wait in the lobby for long periods of time."

"You know, sometimes I worry about you…then I remember I don't really care."

"Thanks for the support, man."

Ishida rolled his eyes slightly before the two stepped out into the much larger lobby area. He sighed and looked around at the few number of people seated sporadically in the room; half of them kept themselves occupied with magazines and the other half were messing around on their cell phones.

Typical.

"Ah, Miss. Sanderwitch, I'm glad you could make it." Albert spoke.

He looked up and watched as a light-haired woman turned at the words. Her thick purple hair was pulled back into black clip; allowing the curly strands to fall stylishly to the back of her neck. She had a softly shaped face with piercing purple eyes and full lips that matched with the same shade and color. Her neck was carefully adorned with yet another purple accessory, a choker. A white blouse clung to her sculpted upper body with a modest plunging neckline that showed off her deep collarbones; her sleeves were cuffed just a few inched above her elbows with small gold buckles, showing off her slender yet lean forearms that ended in delicate hands and fingers. A light ruffled material ran down the middle of the shirt, slightly masking the black buttons that pulled the blouse together, and ended just at the hemline which helped to shape out her narrow, balancing hips. A white, pencil skirt formed around her seemingly full thighs and skimmed just above her knees; showing off the rest of her slender, curved legs that ended perfectly in a matching set of white heels.

Those purple lips turned up into a rather generous-looking smile. "I want to thank you for having me and allowing me to become a member of your staff on such short notice."

"Think nothing of it." Albert replied. "Now then, I want to introduce you to the doctor who you'll be taking care of. This is Dr. Uryu Ishida, Ishida this is Miss. Sanderwich."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." she smiled; holding her hand out to him.

That voice made his blood run cold through his veins just like seeing those eyes made his entire body turn stiff. He knew those eyes… It was impossible though…those eyes shouldn't even be looking back at him. There was no way…no way possible.

"Uh…Albert, can I speak to you for a moment?" Ishida questioned. He didn't wait for the nurse to reply and instead grabbed him by the sleeve of his scrubs and pulled him back into the hallway; making sure they were well out of range of eavesdropping. "What- where did she come from?"

"Okay first off, that was kind of rude and second, that's a weird question." Albert replied as he managed to wiggle out of his grip. "What's your problem, man? You're like paler than you normally are. Do you… do you know that chick?"

"Yes- I mean no!" Ishida quickly corrected. "I just…she looks like someone I used to know."

"And is this a good thing or a bad thing?"

He sighed and closed his eyes, unsure of really how to answer it. "She just…she looks like someone I knew who…died, okay?"

"Ah man…I'm sorry."

He let out a mental sigh of relief. Dodged a bullet with that one. "It just kind of freaked me out-"

"Paging Dr. Ishida; you're wanted in Room 101." the static voice of the intercom interrupted overhead.

"Damn…" Ishida muttered. "Look, I've got a busy schedule today so could you just help her get settled in." he didn't bother to wait for the man to reply and instead hurried along to the given destination he was called to.


The light click of his office door closing behind him seemed like it couldn't come fast enough. Sighing heavily, he pushed aside his dark bangs as he walked over to his semi-crowded desk and collapsed into his leather chair. The clock on the wall clicked at only five-thirty, which meant he would have to deal with more patients for four more hours…if he was lucky. This wasn't a nine-to-five job, more like a six-to-whenever-patients-stopped-coming-in or when the night nurses could handle the injuries. Either way, he often times just pulled all-nighters because of the constant flow of patients coming in through the E.R.; that and because there wasn't a second doctor on staff yet, he had to handle everything. It wasn't too much to handle though, there were enough patients to keep him busy but not enough to be too overwhelming. Although it still wouldn't hurt to have another doctor helping to run the place, at least that way he could get a break every now and then. Maybe they should've looked into hiring another doctor instead of more secretaries.

A chill shot through his body as he remembered her. God…she looked just like her; she sounded just like her. Those eyes… But it was impossible. He was just freaking out over nothing. It was just mere coincidence that the woman happened to resembled that…that Espada. It was probably just another college-bound teen who dyed their hair and was looking to make an easy buck. Plus, her name was different…similar but different enough to give her another identity. As long as he just avoided the lobby area and made as little contact with her as possible, then he could just easily forget about the whole thing.

He looked up as someone knocked at his office door before he carefully arranged himself to seem a bit more professional. "Come in."

"Sorry for interrupting." that secretary…what was her name again? Sanderwich? "But you received some new files while you were taking care of patients."

"Oh…well, thank you." he replied; careful to watch his words. "Uh…I'll just take the files then."

She smiled lightly and walked over to hand them to him. "Also, someone left a message for you earlier."

"Did you happen to write it down?" Ishida questioned.

"No but I can recite it for you." she smiled.

He tried not to seem too annoyed by her giddy-kind of attitude. "Okay…" he replied slowly.

Those purple lips of hers remained in a slight upturn as she placed her hands against the smooth oak of his desk and leaned in towards him; locking those purple eyes onto his. "I know exactly who you are." her happy tone from before had been replaced with a slightly deeper and darker tint. "And I know for a fact that you know who I am. You can't fool me…Quincy."

That last word seemed to snap off the tip of her tongue. It felt like everything inside of him completely shut down for a moment. "…Thunderwitch."

"Don't spoil such a beautiful name on that ugly tongue of yours." she remarked with a light sneer. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions and you probably want a lot of answer for them. Well guess what, Quincy? That's just too damn bad. I guess you'll just have to sit here in your nicely furnished office and contemplate over it; maybe if you're lucky, it'll drive you insane. But off on that note, you just listen to me and you take every word I say to heart. You don't say a word about this or so help you, you just look in my direction wrong and I'll rip that tongue of yours clean out of your mouth. Do we have an understanding here, Quincy? You think this is a coincidence that I ended up here? No…no, I've been looking for you and guess what? Now that I've found you…I'm not letting you go. I've finally got you Quincy, and from here on out, I'm going to make your life…a living hell."