Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

And just like that, her whole world came crashing down around her.

The silent but concrete realization that he was not invincible slammed into her at full force, knocking her breath away and leaving behind a ringing emptiness that tore right at the center of her heart. Her throat tightened up and her eyes prickled, yet she was nowhere near tears.

It was one thing to see Ichigo bruised and bleeding, and an entirely other matter seeing him still—broken. Her senses grasped at any small sign of movement, something to indicate what she knew to be wasn't actually.

The expansion of his fractured ribs, a twitch of his bloodied fingers, some light in his unseeing eyes—nothing.

Nothing.

And just like that, Orihime was very suddenly reminded of how weak she was.

It choked its way out of her, scraping up and out of her mouth in a mute sob, a trembling breath drawn up too close to be a sigh or a prayer or a curse. Something inside of her was crumbling away at the foundation, her very purpose in life fading quick before her very eyes, fragile hands turned open toward him in quiet, senseless offering, as if he would take them in that frozen moment—his motionless body crumpled up on the ground upon blood-soaked sand, once white as bone, once empty.

Inside, she was screaming. Great, big, shrieks and shouts twisting up like a hurricane. Lost before it could reach the surface, a drowning victim not strong enough to reach the top.

Not strong enough to save the man she loves.

And inside, she was dragging his body into the circle of her arms, cradling him into her chest and burying her face in his hair, all matted with sweat and dirt and something red—

And inside, she was stitching him back together again, building him back up, breathing the life back into his eyes with her lips pressed full against his—the only thing she ever wanted, just once to let him know he was the only thing that ever made her feel alive again and if only she could do the same for him—

And inside, their roles were switched. He would fight, he would win, he would move on and live again and she—would be a simple memory long gone before her last breath.

A dull ache suppressed and forgotten before it could sting, before it could scar—and this, this would leave her heart ripped in two, three, four—nothing.

Nothing.

To know her only strength was not enough to drag him back was the sharpest knife. She could pour her very spirit, her soul, into this one task—the only task that would ever matter—and it would still not be enough to revive him.

His eyes continued to stare lifelessly into the distance, her own hands reflected back, like mirrors, pools.

It was an immediate thing, the fading of her hope. It shrunk to the very corner, the very bottom of her heart, and trembled in fear of the moment they both knew would come. The end of everything she'd ever cared about.

But it had the loudest voice, hope, and it came out in endless tears and whimpers and ugly sobbing, shaking her violently at the shoulders and bowing her over him in a crooked, helpless arch.

Please don't go. I need you.

And if she could, she would turn back the clock to the very moment he smiled at her, his eyes so warm she could feel herself melting and his voice so gentle she could almost feel it touching at the strings of her heart, and beg him to go home. To leave, please, this is only going to hurt you in the end—to remind him of his little sisters, waiting for him at home, of the future stretching ahead of him.

A future she won't have any part in.

And if she could, she would take every time he's ever promised he'd protect her and press them up tight against his chest, all that resolve and conviction translated into rebirth. She would take every fiery grin, every wild glance, every strand of happiness he's ever felt and meld it back into his veins, pump it back into his heart—life; his happiness is life.

And if only she could take all of that, take all of herself, and wrap him up in them, she would do it in the blink of an eye.

But there, the whole world has come crashing down around them, the realization that Ichigo is not invincible and she is not strong enough and she will never see his smile, his warm eyes, his wounded heart ever again.

There, the glaring and concrete fact; nothing had ever hurt Ichigo more than her.

~~...~~X~~...~~

After Ulquiorra killed Ichigo and Orihime couldn't heal him. Sorry, if it's too sad.