I do not own Bleach.

~Nanao~

Nanao sat nervously in the warm lit waiting room. She played with her sleeves as she sat and waited to be called into the office. She looked up at the clock, still five more minutes. Her anxiety wasn't helping the situation.

She nearly jumped when the assistant tapped her on the shoulder. "It's your turn my dear." She gave the woman a weak smile as she followed her to the door of the office. She offered the woman another smile as she walked in.

She walked into the office, and was shocked by the colour of it. It had black and dark neutral colours, accented with vibrant shades of pink. It was an even larger surprise to see that the office belonged to a man. He was even wearing a pink shirt. She was too surprised to even say a word, she just stared at him.

"You must be my next appointment." Nanao nodded as she walked towards the black leather couch in the middle of the room. She stood as he walked towards her with a smile on his face. He held out his hand, so she placed her's in his. "Shunsui Kyoraku. It's a pleasure to meet you Miss Ise."

"Pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Kyoraku." Nanao sat down on the couch as he sat down in the chair beside it. She picked up the fluffy pink pillow and ran her fingers throw it. It was as soft as it looked. "Do you like pink?"

"Yep. I find it to be a happy colour, and there are rarely ever any happy things that go through this office in a day." Nanao gave him a weak smile as he opened a note book and sat back in his chair. "Now, let's go over some ground rules. Every now and then I will ask you the stereotypical therapist question, how do you feel? Depending on how much anxiety you feel about the current topic we are talking about, I want you to give me it on a scale from hot to cold. Cold being you are fine and we can continue. Hot being uneasy and you would like to change the topic. If you want to stop at anytime, just say 'tickled pink', okay?"

Nanao understood the hot to cold scale, but a safe word? And why was it 'tickled pink'? "Okay." Nanao continued to run her hand through the pillow, it was a good distraction.

"When did you last have the bandages on your wrists changed?" Nanao looked at him in surprise, she had covered them up and he had never looked at them. How did he know about them?

"I just changed them the other day." Nanao shifted in her seat, she was already uncomfortable, and they hadn't even started talking about the main issue.

Nanao noticed him taking notes, but she couldn't guess what they could possible be about.

"Okay then. Let's begin, shall we?" Nanao returned his smile weakly. He was fairly comfortable to be around, he just talked about uncomfortable things. "When did you first meet Mr. Aizen?"

Nanao took a shaky breath before starting. "We were taking several classes together in our junior year of university. Both of us were studying to be engineers. We just started talking and working together.

"Soon it became more than just a friendship. He would pick me up in the morning, we would go for coffee, then head to class. Some days he would take me out to dinner, and others he would bring me back to his house and cook." Nanao smiled as she remembered the early months of her previous relationship.

"Sounds like a good relationship." Nanao's smile faded, she had been naive enough to think that too. "When did you start noticing the change in his behaviour?"

"At about the six month mark. We got put on different teams for our final project. By the end I was doing it alone, because all of my team members had either dropped the class, or were in the hospital because of an accident. At first it seem just like a stream of unfortunate incidents, but he always seemed to know when one of my team members wasn't going to be there." Nanao slipped off her shoes and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"How do you feel?" Nanao thought about the question and the scale before answering.

"Refreshed." She was comfortable with the current topic, but she knew it was going to turn worse.

"Okay. How quickly did these incidents progress in severity?" Nanao crossed her legs, trying to find a comfortable position under his ever present gaze.

"By the third month, none of the men in the engineering program would even look at me. And most of the girls avoided me as well. They all seemed to be frightened of me." Nanao had never felt as alone as she had during that time. "That was when Sosuke started paying less attention to me. So I would try harder to try and attract it, but nothing seemed to work."

"What happened when it did?" Nanao thought back to when she had finally gotten his attention back.

"I'm not proud of it. I made sure he saw me flirting with an old friend of mine. He was in the accounting program. I'm pretty sure Sosuke was the one that put him in the hospital." Nanao nearly cried thinking of what Kira had yelled at her when she went to visit him in the hospital. "Sosuke never let me out of his sight after that. He also moved me into his apartment. I didn't think anything was off, I was too happy, he was paying attention to me."

Nanao sniffled and accepted the tissue box Shunsui offered her. She blew her nose before continuing. "He never asked for anything, just that I was back in the apartment before midnight. That was reasonable, I was never a late night person and was usually in bed before 11. He also gave me my own room. He wasn't pushy about the relationship." She blew her nose again, the worse part was coming up.

"Did it start getting worse after that? What happened?" Nanao panicked a little, she wasn't ready to talk about that.

"Tickled pink." She pulled her knees up to her chin again. She pressed her eyes to her knees as she felt tears soak into her jeans.

"Okay. You did good." She looked up when she felt a gentle hand rest on her shoulder. She found herself looking into a pair of brown eyes. They were different than Sosuke's, they were warm and gentle. They made her feel safe. "We can stop there for today."

"I'm okay to continue. Just not about that." Nanao was surprised with herself, she usually wasn't an open person. No, she was an open person, before she met Sosuke. "Can we talk more?"

"Of course." Nanao was slightly sad when he removed his hand and sat back down in the chair away from her. She liked the warmth of his hand on her shoulder, it was comforting. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Aren't you suppose to be bringing up the subjects to talk about?" Nanao had never been to a therapist before, she had never needed one. "Isn't that why my doctor told me to meet with you? So you could find out why I tried to kill myself."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I won't talk about other things. It's fairly obvious why you did what you did. Mr. Aizen made you feel inferior or otherwise an unfit choice for him. He isolated you so you could only rely on him, then he broke you down and built you back up to what he wanted you to be." Nanao was surprised at how right he was. No wonder he was a professional. "I'm guessing by your expression that I am close. And by deducting that you are a smart woman, you calculated that the only way option you still had to make, was when you could stop living the nightmare of a life you were stuck in. Am I right?"

Nanao was completely shocked, he had read her like a book. She looked away from him as she laid down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. She had never been read so easily, she prided herself with that. 'But he's a professional. It's his job to read people.' Nanao sighed as she pulled the pillow close to her chest a buried her chin in it, it tickled her cheeks.

"So what does the pretty lady want to talk about?" Nanao looked at him curiously. She was wearing a pair of casual jeans, a white blouse and sweater vest, and a pair of converse. Her hair was in a messy bun and she had her glasses on. How could he possibly think of her as pretty?

"I'm not pretty." She hid her face more with the pillow, so she couldn't see him.

She heard a chair scrape across the carpet. "Why is that?" She moved the pillow so that one of her eyes was uncovered, but she still didn't look at him. "Why don't you think of yourself as beautiful?"

"Because I'm not. I'm ordinary and plain. Nothing any man would want." Nanao repeated the same words she had heard spoken to her constantly.

"That's not true." Nanao taken by surprise, it almost sounded like he was mad at her. "You are most certainly not ordinary. Ordinary women wouldn't pick engineering as a career. Ordinary women would choose cosmetics or singing as a career. Something easy, not something worthwhile or challenging."

Nanao was touched by his words. Did he really mean that?

"And saying no man would be interested in you, I think you have already proven that to be untrue. If it was, would Mr. Aizen have tried so hard to intimidate the other men to stay away from you?" Nanao thought about it seriously. Shunsui was right, if she wasn't attractive, Sosuke probably wouldn't even have bothered with her to begin with. "See. You just proved that you are an extraordinarily beautiful and attractive woman."

Nanao laughed a bit at his statement. He was definitely a flirt outside of his office hours.

"Now that is a beautiful sound. When was the last time you laughed?" Nanao thought back, but found herself going much farther than she had hoped. She frowned as she tried to find a time, but she couldn't. "That long?"

"Yeah. I've been living with relatives since I was twelve. Always jumping from family to family. I never stayed with one for more than a year or two." Nanao wasn't that close with her extended family. "My mother and father weren't married when I was born. My father didn't want a daughter, but he didn't want to abandon my mother and leave her with a child to raise on her own. So he stuck around, but once my mother passed away, he didn't stick around. He left me with my grandparents and never came back."

"That's terrible. What did your mother die from?" Nanao wasn't sure why her father never told her what her mother was sick with. She had to do research to find out.

"It was cancer in her lungs. She didn't want to go through chemo, so she just stayed home and let it take her." Nanao didn't cry over it anymore, she had already cried about it enough. "My grandfather was the one that inspired me to be an engineer. He was one, and he would teach me about it when ever I was bored or sick."

Nanao smiled remembering what her grandfather had taught her. She liked when he would build things that did little everyday tasks. Her favourite was the one that turned on the sprinklers in the backyard. She would always try to race against it so she wouldn't get wet. Her grandfather would always grab her and hold her while they both got soaked, laughing with her the entire time.

"He sounds like a great man." Nanao turned her smile to Shunsui, he was smiling at her too.

"He was. Both of them died in a car crash several years ago. I used to visit them every summer. Well, really I would move back in with them, till another set of relatives would get assigned to take me in for the next school year." Nanao sat up and placed the pillow in her lap. She ran her hands through it as she thought of what to say, but nothing came.

"Anything else you want to talk about, Miss Ise?" Nanao smiled at the brown haired man sitting close to her. He was a nice guy, one she wouldn't mind getting to know better. But he was her therapist, and that wasn't appropriate.

"Not right now. Maybe another time?" Nanao was happy to be able to see him again. Even if it was to discuss unpleasant things.

"Sure. Lisa can book you in for another appointment at the front desk." Nanao followed him to the door of his office. She took his extended hand again, but he didn't shake it, he brought it to his lips and placed a feather light kiss on it. "Till next time, Nanao. Have a nice day."

Nanao walked away a bit confused, but happy. He was a gentleman, and she liked it, a lot. She sighed as she remembered that he was her therapist, and could be nothing more.

~Shunsui~

Shunsui hummed as he collected his paperwork. He tore out the sketches from his notebook. He had gotten a very nice one of Ise Nanao. She was very beautiful, almost like a picture. He placed it and the rest he had drawn that day in his briefcase.

He didn't take notes about his patients, but instead took sketches of their most used facial expressions. Actions speak louder than words. And most of the sketches were spot on to what his patients were feeling that day.

He walked out of his office and locked his door. He checked in with his secretary so he could mark when his appointments were. "So what so I have planned for tomorrow Lisa?" He pulled out his phone so he could record them there.

He was proud of how up-to-date he was with the current technology, but Lisa seemed to be more of a techie than he was. "You have Byakuya Kuchiki at 10:30, a lunch meeting with Jushiro Ukitake, and Nanao Ise at 2:10." Lisa typed furiously on her keyboard. Shunsui was surprised to find that the events she had listed were already in his phone. "I sent you an email and your phone automatically adds it to your calendar."

Shunsui smiled at his secretary. "Thank you Lisa. Have a good evening." He walked out of his office with a grin, today had been a good day.

The next day Shunsui walked into his office with his head held high and whistled as he walked. All he had today was a man with a serious case of narcissism, lunch with his best friend, and another meeting with the lovely lady Nanao. He was quite happy with the progress they were making, but sad that he couldn't peruse her romantically. He was her therapist after all, dating her just wasn't professional.

Shunsui was glad when his first appointment was finally over.

"Long day already Shun?" Shunsui looked toward the white haired figure of his oldest friend, Ukitake Jushiro. "You look worn out."

"Just an early start of my day." Shunsui wasn't a morning person, and he considered everything that happened before noon to be morning. "So, where are we going for lunch?"

"I thought we could try the little cafe down the road. It looks like a quiet little place." Shunsui smiled at his friend, he really knew what he liked.

"Then let's go!" Shunsui walked towards the doors of his office with his friend in tow.

"You seem to be in a good mood. Is it a woman?" Shunsui smiled at his friend as he pushed open the door to the office building."It is! Tell me all about her!"

"Well we aren't really together. We can't be together. She's a patient." Shunsui began while walking down the road.

He remembered the little cafe quite well. Little Taste of Sugar, it was bright pink and looked like a candy store from the outside. He had wanted to take Lisa there, but she didn't like sweet things.

"Well that complicates things. Do you like her enough to break the rules?" Shunsui thought seriously about the question as they walked into the cafe. He did, but he didn't want to cause any problems with the head office.

"Welcome! How many?" Shunsui went to reply to the sweet voice, but stopped when he caught sight of the waitress. Her hair was pinned back in a perfect bun and her violet eyes smiled at him. "Mr. Kyoraku?"

"Miss Ise. It's nice to see you again so soon. There is only two of us." Shunsui was surprised to see her here. He would never have guessed she worked at a little cafe like this.

"Right this way please." Shunsui followed Nanao to a table out in the courtyard of the cafe. Pink roses were blooming everywhere. "I thought you would like to be outside. It's such a nice day out, and the flowers look especially beautiful today."

"Yes they are. But not as beautiful as another flower in this garden." Shunsui smiled at Nanao, she seemed to blush at his comment. 'Much too cute.'

Shunsui sat down at the table Nanao led them to and took the menu she offered him. "Today's special is Rose water tea, and our specialty dessert for the day is a mixed berry open crepe with fresh whip cream."

"That's sounds delicious." Shunsui chuckled at his friend. Jushiro had a really big sweet tooth.

"I guess we're both having a Rose water tea and a crepe." Shunsui passed his menu back to Nanao. "How are you feeling today?" He didn't mean the question to be that one, but that was what came out. He was mentally punching himself, he didn't mean to sound professional.

"Cold as ice." He smiled as she replied with a genuine smile as she walked off to tell the kitchen their order.

"Well that was strange." Shunsui laughed at his friend's confused face. "Did I miss something?"

"That's the question I ask all of my patients when we're talking. It's to gauge how comfortable they are with the conversation or the situation." Shunsui knit his fingers together and leaned on them. The sun was shining on his back and making him comfortably warm. "I like this place."

"We haven't even eaten yet. Or is it the staff that you like?" Shunsui smiled with his friend.

He felt his chair move, but he couldn't see anyone behind him when he looked. He shrugged it off as his chair slipping.

"Two Rose water teas and two mix berry crepes." Shunsui smiled as a girl laid the order on front of them. "You dropped this." She placed a note beside Shunsui and walked away.

"Wonder where Nanao went?" Shunsui picked up the sheet of paper. He hadn't dropped it, but he guessed it was for him. It was addressed to 'pink shirt bastard'. He opened the note. 'Stay away from Ise Nanao.' The note confused him, who would tell him that?

Shunsui looked around, but he didn't know what he was looking for. Nanao had never described Sosuke Aizen to him. He waved down a waitress. "Were is Ise Nanao?"

"She just left. Her shift ended." Shunsui thanked the waitress, at least Nanao wasn't here anymore, but he wasn't sure if Sosuke still was.

"What's wrong?" Shunsui met the worried eyes of his friend.

Shunsui smiled and shrugged of the bad feeling he was getting. "It's nothing. Just a bit of pointless worry I guess."

Shunsui could tell his friend didn't buy his excuse. He finished his crepe, payed for the lunch and went back to his office.

"Lisa, let Miss. Ise in as soon as she gets here." He walked into his office and got his papers ready. It was almost 2, so he wouldn't have to wait long. But after half an hour, he started to worry. He picked up his phone and pressed '0' for Lisa. "Give me Miss Ise's contact number."

"I can call her-" Shunsui cut her off with a glare through the security camera Lisa had installed in his office. "Fine."

Shunsui wrote down the number and hung up as soon as he had it down. He dialled the number and waited for her to pick up.

It was answered on the second ring, but it wasn't a woman. "Ise Nanao's residence. How can I help you?" Shunsui didn't know Nanao had a boyfriend. He wondered why it had never come up in their discussion the other day. But then again, it was only their first session.

Shunsui cleared his voice. "This is Shunsui Kyoraku, her therapist. May I speak with Miss. Ise?"

"Of course." Shunsui was getting sick of the man's voice. It was to sweet and well controlled. "It's for you Nanao."

'Of course it is, idiot. It's her house.' Shunsui kept his discontentment to himself, the man was still on the other end.

"Hello?" He smiled at the sound of Nanao's voice, it sounded hopeful. And maybe a bit relieved.

"It's Shunsui Kyoraku. You missed our meeting today. How are you feeling?" He was hoping to get a clue about how she was doing. Warning lights were starting to go off in his head.

Shunsui was a little confused by the chipper laugh she gave. "I'm tickled pink of course. Sorry about missing the meeting. I had something-" The phone line went dead.

Shunsui hung up and rushed out of his office. "Did Nanao leave a home address?" He walked around his secretary's desk and stood over her shoulder looking at her computer screen.

"Why?" Shunsui didn't answer her question.

And he was glad she brought up Nanao's patient records anyway. He skimmed through the file till he came to a home address. It was the apartment complex about five blocks away. "Call the police and tell them to head there. Say there is an intruder there." Shunsui grabbed his coat and ran out of the office.

He got to the apartment and found the police already there. He saw the officers drag a man out and push him into a police van. He guessed that was Sosuke, but now his thoughts turned to Nanao. He walked up to the apartment complex. 'Please be safe.'

~Nanao~

Nanao could hear a beeping sound as she regained feeling in her limbs. Most of them hurt, and some she couldn't move because of the pain. She slowly opened her eyes and wasn't surprised to find herself in a hospital, again.

"Good to see that your finally awake." Nanao looked towards the door, Shunsui Kyoraku stood in it. "How do you feel?"

Nanao smiled at the question, she was sure it had probably saved her life. "Safely incased in ice." She smiled as Shunsui sat down beside her bed.

But it faded when she noticed the serious look on his face. "I'm afraid I can't continue to be your therapist." Her jaw dropped. "I have a rule about not dating the patients I have, and I can't seem to help myself, I love you. I understand if you think of me as a hopeless romantic to believe in love at first sight, but-" Nanao put a hand against his mouth, his soft lips kissed her palm.

Nanao found herself blushing. "Of course I think of you as a hopeless romantic, and that would mean that I am also one." Nanao bit her lip as she tried to think of what to say. "I don't know if I love you, but would like to find out."

She smiled at the man beside her. "Then will you go on a date with me? Once you get out of the hospital and that bastard goes to prison of course."

Nanao had forgotten about Sosuke. She sighed as a police officer walked in to the room. "Miss Ise? This is a court order for you."

"Court order?" Nanao took the paper from him and read through it. "He's claiming he did nothing?! That son of a bitch! I inflicted all of the wounds myself and he got his injuries trying to stop me?! More like the other way around bastard!" She was furious, and her anger just increased as she went down the list. She growled in frustration once she got to the end. "When is the first court date?"

"August 12th ma'am." Nanao thanked him as she rubbed her forehead. Her fight was far from over.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked towards Shunsui. "It's okay. My friend is one of the best attorneys in the city. He'll help you."

"I'm going to need the best to beat Sosuke. He has a silver tongue and a snake like charm." Nanao knew she couldn't afford a good enough lawyer. She was only able to afford the therapy because of the money her grandparents had left her with. But that was almost gone.

"He is the best. Jushiro Ukitake, the longest friend I have ever had." Nanao looked at him in amazement. His best friend was the top ranked lawyer in the city?! That was as impressive as being the best ranked lawyer in the country. "Plus I'm sure Lisa has already found enough evidence against Mr. Aizen. She isn't an ex-police investigator for nothing."

"Ex-police investigator?" Nanao hadn't realized that the quiet woman running Shunsui's office had been a police officer before.

"Yeah. Got injured on the job, but never gave up the habits. She already has a twenty page portfolio on you I'm afraid." Nanao was shocked, there was that much information about her?

She smiled at his worry about her, he really wanted to help her. "Thank you, Shunsui."

"No problem, Nanao." She felt his hand close over her's, but she was too focused on his eyes, his warm brown eyes. "We'll get through this. I'll make sure of it." She could see that he meant it, every word of it.

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Polling for this story is now up. It will be closed as of March 6, 2014. So put your vote in and see if you got it right. Good luck to all.

So I got rid of the poll, because no he was bothering to do it. So I am not going to tell till I put up another story. I don't know when that will be. But it probably won't be long.