Author's Note: That time again everyone! I am so proud of myself for updating regularly-ish. Not saying that this will be a great chapter, but I'll leave that to you to decide.

Something that I've been thinking about? We know from early chapters that Rukia came with Hisana to Soul Society when she was a baby, but in the third Bleach movie Byakuya tells Ichigo that Hisana was born in Rukongai. A continuity error? Or does Byakuya just not know the whole story? Eh. Not likely. I don't know.

Thank you so much for sticking with this story this far! Big thank you to Valu86, Aizawa Ayumu, Kuchiki Rukia-taichou, athenaphoenix17, Juveniliare, omaomae, Toushi, alero1990, Veronica111111, mysticalphoenix-avalon, glon morski, pamianime, and Goku's Daughter for your reviews. It was interesting for me to note your responses to Rukia and Ichigo's scene in the last chapter. Some liked it, some thought Rukia was too angry, and it was very good for me to see that. Thanks so much. I hope you like this one.


Byakuya thought.

For a long time he sat in his office and thought about the incorrigible ryoka boy, paying very little attention to Renji rattling off his report. He now thought less on why he had been in Rukia's room in the middle of the night, and more on what he said to cause her so much distress.

Or done.

His eyes hardened at the thought.

What if he had done something?

What if he had taken advantage of his sister's weakness and…done…something?

What if that something was something that needed immediate attention, and not a something that you could tuck away in the back of your mind and think 'Oh, that thing's just a something that's not really important. That thing may as well be a nothing.'

What if it was a very big something indeed?

…Well, things would be found out.

Byakuya had sent Rukia to the 4th Division later in the morning. She seemed exhausted, anxious, and had been running a fever since dawn. He had visited her once, in the afternoon, and by then her temperature was down and she was resting, though she still seemed weary. Unohana had said they could not persuade her to sleep.

She started asking about the boy then - where he was and if someone could please bring him to see her.

Byakuya had flatly refused her request. He had left her and ordered the duty officers to bar Kurosaki Ichigo from entering the compound at all times and under any circumstances.

This something was not going to carry on.

And if he saw that human boy anywhere, regardless of whether he was near Rukia or not, he would kill him.

He didn't think there'd be much of a fuss.


Ichigo thought.

He thought for hours on one of wide walls cut into the face of the cliff at the centre of Seireitei. He was quite impressed with his ability to get to it in the first place - there had been a lot of precarious balancing involved. After sitting there for so long, seeing the afternoon sun dawdle to the horizon, and finally pass its duty to the moon, he began to understand why Rukia liked high places so much.

He thought that Rukia had gotten completely the wrong idea from him the previous night, and if she had given him a moment to explain his meaning instead of going bat-shit crazy on him, then he wouldn't be in this situation.

Which was, more or less, hiding from Byakuya, or anyone likely to tell Byakuya where he was.

He admitted that he probably sounded rude and whiney, and he hadn't meant to go on and on about death to a dead person who worked with other dead people who was dying herself, it just sort of…happened. But she needed to give him a break. It wasn't every day he had to deal with his friends dying.

Well, actually, he'd been having to deal with it every day for the past few weeks.

But whatever.

He also thought, more seriously, that he did not like the look that had been in her eyes. It wasn't crazy, it was…loathing. As if she truly hated him at that point in her existence. He wondered if she really did, at that moment, or if it was the sickness that was robbing her of her own beliefs.

He tore a handful of clay from the cliff and threw it to the ground below him. He fervently hoped that wasn't the case. It was bad enough that it was destroying her body, but to change the person that she was? He sighed.

Maybe it was the stress.

Either way, he wanted to see her, and talk to her. Before he'd found his wall, he'd overheard some of the 4th Division's officers commenting that she'd been admitted there again.

He hoped she was alright.

He tossed up between going to see her and staying where he was. Was it too soon? Would she go crazy again and try to attack him? He wasn't too worried. She was pretty harmless in her state.

He hoped.

Well, it was too bad for her if was too soon. He'd just explain things calmly and not worry her and apologise and then everything would be alright. And then she wouldn't look at him with those eyes again, and he'd know they were still friends and still on the same level and then everything would be alright.

Maybe just a few hours more.


Orihime thought.


"Eh, figures you're back in here. I thought you'd burst a blood vessel last night."

Sitting against the wall, Rukia's head shot up. "Ichigo!"

"I know it's really early and you were probably still sleeping. Don't yell at me. If you do, you'll wake everyone up. And I'm not leaving. So then everyone will wake up and I'll still be here. So…don't yell." Finished, Ichigo exhaled noisily and sneaked a glance at her. She was looking at him, but not at his eyes; she kept her gaze on his shoulder.

"I'm not going to yell at you," she said softly, "I'm -"

"Sorry, Rukia."

She paused, blinked, and slowly raised her eyes to his.

"I'm sorry I upset you. I wasn't trying to piss you off. But you got offended and freaked out and…I guess…" He ran a hand through his mess of hair and sighed. "I'm not handling this well, am I?"

"Ichigo…"

"Ok, I'm sorry I offended you. The words just came out wrong. And I know I shouldn't have -"

"Ichigo, don't apologise."

"Eh?"

"Don't." She said, a little more forcefully. "I'm the one who needs to apologise. I…" She paused, thinking, and knotted her hands together. "I chose this life. I may not have known what it entailed, but I chose it. But you…I dragged you into my world, when I should have just left you alone. You didn't choose to be surrounded by death." She dragged her fingers through her own thin, brittle strands of hair. "So I'm sorry for being angry at you. I was…out of line."

"Out of line?" He snorted, and sat heavily on the bed beside her. "That's something you say to colleagues or teachers, not to friends."

"I wasn't sure you'd still want to be, after what I said." She admitted. "You're not selfish, Ichigo, and you're not insignificant….at least, not to -" A violent cough ripped through her words. Gasping, she doubled over and clutched her hand to her forehead until it had passed.

Ichigo waited until the coughs subsided, watching her with troubled eyes, before gently grasping her chin and lifting her head up. "Ok?" He asked quietly, and her eyes crinkled wearily in a half-smile. He took a glass of water from the bedside table, pressed it into her hands, and draped one of her blankets around her shoulders. She sipped the water carefully.

"Anyway, don't say stupid things, Rukia. I'm not leaving just because you went all high-and-mighty noble on my ass. Besides," he grinned, "I'm glad you didn't leave me alone when we met. We'd all be dead then, remember?"

"That's right," she smiled back at him weakly, "but there are some things humans shouldn't see and experience."

"I could already see things. And stop going on about it. I think we were supposed to know each other, one way or another, and if I hadn't met you I wouldn't have met everyone here, and Byakuya wouldn't have someone to freak out over, and all the things that have happened to us wouldn't have. Something good came out of all of them. Even the bad ones. End of story."

"You mean - ?" She dropped her head. "All the things…" She twisted the glass in her hands.

"So stop worrying. I'm sorry, you're sorry, whatever. Let's get over it."

She nodded, raised the glass to her lips and coughed suddenly again. She wiped her hand across her mouth slowly, then looked at the glass. She started and set it back on the table with a thud, pretending she hadn't seen the water quickly turning red.

It was at that time, which was probably the most inopportune, with Ichigo beside her and not enough sleep and at not even 5 o'clock in the morning, that Rukia realised, seriously, for the first time, that she was probably going to die. She'd thought those words before; said them out loud, even; had thrown the idea around her mind and jokingly planned her will with Renji - but this was different. Here was death in the form of bloodied water and the reflections in Ichigo's eyes and her bones made of napalm and Inoue had been and gone and there was really nothing anyone could do. That was it, wasn't it? There weren't any more options. You could hope for a miracle, but in reality, there was only death.

Death.

And it wasn't a human death where there'd be another life waiting for you; she'd been through that; this was death where your very body returned to the air and the world but she supposed there was reincarnation -

Her mind flew to the lines of Ichigo's face and his eyes and what if his hair were black -

And then it almost made sense - sins weren't obliged forgiveness, they just gathered grief in the dust-laden corners of your heart and you could beg and beg and barter away your soul but until you actually did -

So do.

Rukia swore at the logic of her mind. She'd accepted death willingly before, and offered herself to it readily enough, but something had changed in the months since then and her desire to live had grown and strengthened until she was sure, sure as hell that she did not want to die. And so she would again beg forgiveness to Kaien and her brother and everyone else she had wronged and ask them not yet. A little longer. She wasn't ready.

A choking hand clawed its way out of her throat. Blood spattered her sheet. She curled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyelids as her shoulders shook with the coughs, and it took a little while for Ichigo to realise the coughs had given way to sobs and still she crushed her palms to her eyes to block the tears and he had no fucking idea what to do -

And then her hand reached out, clutching the air, so he grabbed it in his and pulled her to him as if she weighed nothing.

Which, these days, she seemed to.

He wrapped both arms round her and tucked her head into the crook of his neck, turning her face away from the blood-stained sheet and the stupid glass of water and the stupid hospital room and everything stupid that wasn't him, and he hid his own eyes by resting his forehead on her shoulder. She twisted her hands into his kosode and tugged him closer to her, finding comfort in his warmth and reiatsu and in his familiar smell.

He contemplated for a while if he should just let her cry or if he should say something to get her out of her emotional trough, like remarking that they were doing a pretty good impression of a turtle at the moment, or hey, she wasn't really one of those girls who could cry gracefully and look pretty, was she? He contemplated a moment longer, and then decided that she liked him enough to let him hug her at the moment, and he didn't particularly want to incur the wrath of someone who was in such close proximity to his face and other vulnerable bits.

So he just held her and cursed the world and the cruelty of fate and wondered if there was some twisted god looking down on them and laughing.

After a while her sobs quieted and she stilled against him. She blinked slowly against his neck, her eyelashes tickling his skin, and he pulled back slightly to look at her. "A bit better?" He gave her a lopsided grin.

She scowled at him and turned her face into his shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed, Ichigo noted, but her skin was cold and clammy. He reached for her blanket with one hand and tucked it round her carefully. "I think you need to get some more sleep," he said gently, and she nodded.

She hugged him tightly for a brief moment, breathing out heavily, before untangling herself from him and scooting back to the her pillow. Pulling her blankets over her, she stopped and stared at the blood-spattered sheet. In a second Ichigo had ripped it from the bed, bundled it up and tossed it into a corner of the room.

"Thank you," Rukia whispered hoarsely, and carefully lay down.

Ichigo acknowledged her with a nod of his head, took the glass of blood and water to the attached bathroom's sink and emptied it. "I'm going now, Rukia." He returned to her side and tugged the blankets further around her. "If word gets to Byakuya that I've been lurking around your room at this hour, he'll have me arrested and killed. Unless he's planning to already."

She smiled tiredly at him. "No, Ichigo, not yet. But it's probably a good idea to stay away for a little while, until he's cooled down."

"I didn't say anything about that. I'll just have to make sure he doesn't catch me, right?"

"Right…" She sighed and rolled onto her side.

"Hey, Rukia…I am sorry, y'know?" His fingertips brushed against her cheek and her hair. "For being insensitive…and complaining, when you're the sick one."

"Don't be," she whispered to the wall, "I wasn't making it easy for you."

"Yeah, whatever. Ok. See you later, sicko."

"Ichigo…?" She twisted her head back to look at him, but struggled to find the words she wanted. She reached back and clasped his hand tightly for a few seconds.

He grinned at her. "Yeah. See you, Rukia."

She watched him go before shifting back to her side and curling herself up in her blankets.

And she realised that now she found it easier to breathe.


Author's Note: Ok, so not a whole lot of plot progression here (or any). But hopefully more character development and a chance to see something from Rukia's perspective, which we haven't had a lot of. Please continue to review and share your comments! There were some very good ideas on Orihime you put forward. Love to you all. x