Hey! Been awhile, huh? Yeah… I AM SO SORRY! My computer had to be refreshed for Windows 8.1 and my copy of Word got deleted. I couldn't access any of my things until I bought another copy. Also, I started my first semester of college in August and it was an adventure at the very least. It has been a time of things just not going my way. Oh well. I have got Word back and now I am back on track! Forgive me for the wait and please accept this chapter as proof of my sorrow. And, as always, I do not own everything because Tite Kubo came up with this idea first.

Chapter 6

Orihime quietly slid the door to her and Aisamu's room shut and then paused, listening to see if she had somehow woken him. Hearing nothing, she turned and walked to the edge of the wrap-around porch and plopped down. After a moment she felt a soft breeze ruffle her hair and she sighed. Today was hard. She had expected her confrontation with her old life to be difficult but it had still shocked her. Ichigo and Rukia's refusal to even give her son a chance had stung. He was just a baby and it wasn't fair that he had to suffer the stigma of being Aizen's son. She should have known that they wouldn't be reasonable though; after all, they were known for their extremes both in law and in their own personal lives. She was glad that she had gotten to see Uryu and Chad again. Orihime hadn't seen Uryu since she had been to his father for a check-up when she was first pregnant and she hadn't seen Chad since he had helped her and Momo move all of her things out of her apartment into storage. She was grateful to them for having kept her secret from Ichigo. She knew it couldn't have been easy, especially for Chad. It hadn't been fair to make them keep her secret but at the time she honestly hadn't known what else to do. She had needed to see a doctor to make sure everything was okay with the pregnancy because she didn't know what side effects there could have been with a human carrying a child whose father was as powerful as Aizen and since Uryu's father was both a Quincy and a doctor, he had seemed like her best option.

It had been a hard day but she knew that it was going to get a lot worse before it got better. The Captains may have decided to keep Aisamu hidden for now but eventually his existence would come to light and when that happened she knew that the Soul Society would try to bring their skewed view of justice down upon their heads.

She wished Momo was here. This whole thing had been so much easier to deal with because she had Momo's unconditional support. Momo had stood by her through everything: the weird cravings, the hormones, the panic attacks; all the things that went with being pregnant. But Orihime knew that she couldn't be so selfish because Momo was fighting her own demons at the moment and she would need time to deal with her issues without having to also deal with Orihime's and Aisamu's at the same time.

"Orihime?"

She turned around to see Captain Ukitake standing behind her. She smiled at him. "Hello!"

He smiled back at her and glanced around. "Where is your son?"

"He's in our room, asleep. All the action today wore him out! Which is nice, you know, that he's asleep. Usually if there's any change to his normal nightly routine he won't go to sleep for hours and I'm not sure I could keep up with all his energy tonight. Not to say that I don't like it when he's awake because I do! He so sweet and silly and I love him so much and he's so fun to play with and he's so smart too! One time, he put a whole puzzle together by himself! It was only one of those kids' puzzles with 9 pieces to it but still! For only be 18 months old that's really impressive!"

Ukitake chuckled. "Yes, it is very impressive. Considering who his parents are, though, that's not at all surprising."

Orihime flinched but tried to give him a smile. "No, I guess it's not. His biological father is quite impressive."

He studied her for a moment before responding. "It wasn't his father that I was referring to." He gestured to the empty spot next to her. "May I?"

"Oh! Of course!"

Ukitake smiled and sat down. "Thank you." It was quite for a few moments before he spoke again. "I wasn't talking about Aizen, you know. You are quite the impressive girl yourself."

"Really?" she asked with a small smile. "I don't think so. I'm just doing what I have to I guess."

"What you have to? Orihime, you've gone above and beyond! What you've done for that little boy is amazing, and it seems that you've been able to help Momo as well."

Orihime turned her body fully towards him and her eyes were cold. "That little boy is my son and I have done what any good mother would do."

Ukitake winced slightly. "That is true, but considering who his father is and everything that happened to you… it wouldn't be seen as unreasonable if you had found yourself unable to raise him the way you did."

A bitter sort of smile that Ukitake had never seen on the young girls face before appeared. "You people… you just don't get it. You look at Aisamu and you see the son of a monster, the son of the devil himself. I look at him and I see a little boy who never asked to be brought into this world or to have the parents he did. This is not his fault. He is not Aizen. He is just a child who you all are trying to find a reason to condemn to death. Last I checked, Aizen never killed children for just existing. So, what does that make you all? If Aizen is a monster and the devil, then who does that make you? The hero's? Angels of the lord? I've learned a lot during my time away about people and about how the world works and you want to know what I've realized? You're no better than Aizen and he's no worse than you. You each had things you wanted to do and both of you were and are still willing to do whatever it takes to get your way, no matter the cost."

Ukitake's whole demeanor seemed to change, harden. "Aizen was a man trying to play god. He performed cruel and unnatural experiments on innocent people and he killed for fun. Aizen was a terrible man. You of all people should know that."

Orihime shook her head so slowly. "That is so hypocritical. He performed cruel and unnatural experiments? Have you met Kurotsuchi? That man has done more cruel and unnatural things in his lifetime than Aizen has and he's still hanging around. And I of all people should understand? What's that supposed to mean?"

"He kidnapped you!"

"And you all left me there to die."

Ukitake didn't know how to respond to that. She was right. They had all just left her there to die. She was seen as collateral damage and nothing more.

"You're right," Ukitake told her softly. "We did nothing to try and help you. Despite whatever may have been said, we all knew that you were innocent; we knew you never would have betrayed your friends. But there was a war going on so…"

"You sacrificed the one for the lives of the many." She finished. "It's alright. I totally get it and I'm not holding it against you. I'm sorry if it sounds like I am. You did what you thought you had to do. But just because you think something, doesn't always mean it's right."

"I agree with you. That's why I volunteered to watch over you and Aisamu. You know how stubborn us older ones can be. What Aizen did was unforgivable and many of us still do hold grudges. It's hard for us to change our ways."

Orihime finally gave him a real smile. "You're not that old."

Ukitake laughed. "You'd be surprised. I'm a lot older than I look."

"Age is just a number. Besides, isn't it less about the number of years you've lived and more about how you lived them? After everything that's happened in my life, I definitely don't feel like I'm only 17."

"You don't act like it either."

"Well thank you for that."

Orihime glanced back up at the sky and sighed, knowing she would need to go in and get some sleep if she were to have any hope of keeping up with both the antics of the Soul Society and the ball of energy that was Aisamu.

"Would you tell me more about your life?" Ukitate asked, suddenly.

Orihime blinked at him. "My life?"

"Yes, your life. Your life after you ran away from Karakura Town," he clarified.

"Uh… okay, I guess. Well, let's see…" her brow furrowed as she tried to think up something to tell him. "Well, after Momo and I left, we decided to try and go as far away from Japan as possible. Somewhere in the United Kingdom seemed our best bet so we moved to London. It was so loud and crowded there, a lot different from home. Momo's so smart though; she picked up English so quickly and helped me learn it too. We both managed to get jobs pretty soon after we arrived there. I was working at a bakery, which was super awesome because that was something I had always wanted to do. I was really lucky that they were looking for help and this really nice older couple ran it and they didn't mind hiring a pregnant woman, even though they knew I would have to go on maternity leave after only a few months of working. They were so nice to me! And they loved Aisamu and were constantly giving him clothes and toys and they never asked about what happened with the father or why we left Japan or anything! They were really great," her face fell as she trailed off.

Ukitake felt a pang of guilt at her obvious sadness but covered it with a smile. "I'm glad you found people to help you while you were away. It's good that you weren't alone."

"Even if I hadn't met them, I still wouldn't have been alone. I would still have had Momo." Orihime replied with a small smile.

"That is true." They sat in silence for several more minutes before Ukitake finally asked, "Do you regret it?"

"Regret what?"

"Not telling your friends before you left. Or maybe even leaving in the first place."

"Not even for a moment. I mean, I was sad to leave them behind and it was hard to not have them be a part of my life and for them to not be able to know Aisamu but I did what was necessary for the safety of my son and myself and I can't regret that. After the fight with Aizen was over and things had started to calm down it was obvious how hard it was for everyone to adjust. Or readjust, I should say, in Ichigo's case. Being able to see spirits and being a Soul Reaper was such a large part of his life and for it to just all go away like that was so hard for him. And while he did feel sort of sorry, I think, for Aizen towards the end he still held a large amount of resentment towards him for being the reason his spiritual powers were taken from him. It would have made things worse for him if he had found out about Aisamu. On the one hand, he was just an innocent baby. On the other hand, he was created by Aizen. It just would have been too confusing and emotionally difficult for him to handle."

"You obviously thought things through carefully," Ukitake commented, not all that surprised.

"It was a big decision, one that I knew there was no going back from. I was sure that we would eventually be caught and that everything would be different when we were brought back but it was still the best thing I could have done for my son at the time."

"It seems to me that you didn't think very highly of your friends if you thought they would turn away from you after all the hardships they faced to try and save you," Ukitake kept his eyes firmly on the moon.

"It wasn't about not thinking highly of them," Orihime sounded frustrated. "It was about knowing them well enough to realize that it would cause more harm than good for them to know. Ichigo, Rukia, Chad, Uryu; they had all already sacrificed so much just to try and rescue me from Hueco Mundo. If I had told them I was pregnant, if I had told them that Aizen had done something to me and now I was carrying what was most likely going to be his child, how do you think they would have reacted? How do you think they would have felt? I did what I thought would be best for them and for me. If I had told them, they would have done what they thought was best for me but I needed to think about what would be best for Aisamu. From the moment I realized I was pregnant, he became my whole world. He's my everything." She stood up then and looked down at Ukitake.

"I'm not stupid. I know how this is all probably going to end. But I just want to make sure that you realize that I will die before I let anyone hurt my son. You will have to kill me to get to him. And I think you'll find that trying to do that is going to be a lot harder than you think it will." She turned and walked back inside her room, closing the door softly behind her. Ukitake didn't get up; he just looked back up at the stars and thought about her words and wondered what she meant by them.

(Break/break/break/break/break)

Momo was pacing back and forth across her small room, unable to even consider trying to go to sleep. It was just too weird. It was weird not knowing the Orihime and Aisamu were just across the hall. She had slept away from them before but it never seemed to get any easier.

Once Rangiku had dragged her back to the squad barracks Toshiro had wasted no time yelling at her for not following orders, for being so reckless as to go out running around the Seritei with a miniature Aizen on her back, and for several other things she didn't really remember because she had kind of tuned out by that point.

After Toshiro had exhausted his need to yell, he ordered her into a room next door to where his own bedroom was located and ordered her to stay there for the rest of night, placing several kidos around her door to ensure that she would stay there. Momo knew that she could take them down if she really wanted to but she had decided that she would continue to let him believe that those kidos would be strong enough to keep her in so that, in case an emergency happened, she could get out quicker and easier.

Momo flopped down on her futon and pulled the bag Orihime had packed over to her. She unzipped it and began to rifle through it. The top of it was filled with clothes but when she shoved those aside she found a small box. She pulled it out and then gave a small, sad smile as she saw that it was still filled with all the pictures she had taken over the last two years. Orihime had packed the one thing that she knew would bring some comfort to Momo while they were here. That wasn't surprising to Momo because, after all, Orihime always seemed to know what to do in order to keep a person's spirit up. That's what made her such a great mother; she always knew just what to do in order to keep Aisamu happy.

Momo pulled out some of pictures from the box and began flicking through them. Most of them were just shots of Aisamu doing silly things: him making a mess eating spaghetti, Aisamu making weird faces at the camera, a shot of him looking disgruntled while sitting in the bathtub with wet hair, and all the other little things that made up everyday life with the one year old. Her hand paused as she pulled out one of favorite pictures. It had been taken several months before in December at the ice-skating rink next to the Tower of London. They had gone with a couple of Momo's co-workers and one of them had taken this picture of her, Orihime, and Aisamu. They were all bundled up in coats, hats, and gloves and they were all smiling straight at the camera. Orihime was holding Aisamu in-between her and Momo and Aisamu had one gloved hand clutching at his mother's jacket while the other was behind him, gripping the collar to Momo's jacket and therefore keeping her close by. Their cheeks were all bright red from the cold and Aisamu looked like he was having the time of his life, even though he had just started to learn how to walk at that time and had to still be held for most of the day.

A tear slid down Momo's face. It's not fair, she thought, bitterly. He's just a baby. He should having a whole life ahead of him. He shouldn't have to be worrying about things like the Soul Society. And I shouldn't have to be sitting here wondering if any of us are ever going to be as happy as we were that day.

Momo dropped the pictures back into the box and put her face in her hands. She knew there was a chance that the Soul Society might not kill Aisamu, a small chance but a chance nonetheless. However, she also knew that they would be digging through their past to see just what they were both up to while they were away and she knew that if they found out just what she had been doing, or maybe more accurately who she had been doing, things were going to go very badly very quickly.

Not that things had been going that great up to this point. She didn't think she'd ever forget the look on Rangiku's face when she had first caught site of Aisamu. There had been so much pain and anger there, and then an overwhelming amount of grief. Momo knew then that, despite whatever sort of front she was putting up, Rangiku was still not completely recovered from Gin's death. She had put on a brave face though.

Flashback:

"And who is this little guy?" Rangiku asked with a strained smile as she looked at Aisamu.

No one said anything and Aisamu just looked back at Rangiku, studying her with his big brown eyes. Rangiku visibly flinched at his gaze and Momo's grip on Aisamu tightened.

"Well?" Rangiku turned towards her captain.

"Rangiku, this is Aisamu Inoue. He will not be staying with us."

Momo had to roll her eyes at that. Stupid stubborn Shiro.

"Inoue?" Rangiku gasped. "But I thought…"

"Well you thought wrong!" Toshiro snapped. "Now, get to work! You aren't being paid to just stand around and do nothing! Why I put up with your laziness is beyond me."

Rangiku opened her mouth, probably to give her usual excuses, when another voice interrupted her. "No Shiro!"

They all looked at Aisamu, eyes wide with surprise.

"What did he say?" Toshiro asked, eyes narrowing.

Before Momo could answer him, Aisamu spoke again. "No Shiro! Not nice!" He was giving Toshiro his most stern look and even Rangiku couldn't help smiling at him.

Momo spoke up then before Toshiro could say anything. "We've been teaching him about the right way to talk to people. He heard what he thought was you being mean to Rangiku and was trying to tell you that it is not nice to talk to people that way."

"Aww!" Rangiku cried, racing forward and grabbing Aisamu so she could hold him to her chest. "That's so sweet of him to defend me like that! He's so adorable!"

Aisamu's little fists were waving around in the air and Momo jumped forward and grabbed him before he suffocated. Aisamu gasped and started gulping in air as fast as he could.

"Whoops!" Rangiku giggled. "So sorry about that!"

Aisamu gave her a slightly fearful look before turning and hiding his face in Momo's shoulder. He seemed to be mumbling something to himself but it was in his own little language and she couldn't understand a word of it.

"You have to tell me everything!" Rangiku exclaimed, grabbing Momo's arm and dragging her back into the office and onto the couch. "How on earth did all this happen?"

Toshiro groaned and rubbed the sides of his forehead. Momo would have felt some sympathy for him, but she was too busy trying to answer Rangiku's questions while at the same time trying to stop Aisamu from climbing down and trying to get as far away from Rangiku as he possibly could.

End Flashback

Momo had to admit that Aisamu's reaction to Rangiku was pretty funny. Since Rangiku and Orihime looked vaguely similar, she had been expecting Aisamu to take to Rangiku rather well, even if Rangiku didn't feel the same about him. She had not been expecting Aisamu to become as afraid of Rangiku as he was now. He had spent the rest of the afternoon trying to stay as far away from her as possible and would tell her, "No", anytime she tried to get near him. He seemed to think that she was going to try and suffocate him with her chest anytime she got near him. Aisamu had clung to Momo for most of afternoon until he had sensed Orihime's presence. He had climbed onto Momo's back and squeezed her in his excitement at his moms return. She knew that she should have waited for Orihime to come and get Aisamu but she'd felt like she couldn't stay in the same room as Rangiku's incessant questions and Toshiro's hateful glares for a moment longer so she had just grabbed Aisamu and left. Toshiro was furious with her when Rangiku had finally brought her back but she hadn't cared; she'd been too distracted by what had occurred after Ichigo and Rukia had found out about Aisamu.

Momo knew that it had hurt Orihime when she heard Rukia say that she would have helped Orihime have an abortion but she wasn't really surprised by it. She had figured that Rukia would have reacted to things the way she had and that was why she had supported Orihime's decision to keep the news from her. Ichigo's reaction had been less easy to predict. On the one hand, Aizen had almost gotten everyone he knew and loved killed, while also being the reason that Ichigo had lost his powers but on the other, Orihime was his friend. He had proved his loyalty to her when he had gone after her to Hueco Mundo; although, his quest had become significantly less impressive once she had learn that he had doubted her loyalty to them. Anyone with half a brain would know that Orihime would never purposefully betray her friends, especially not Ichigo, and it was disappointing to learn how little faith he put in the one person who loved him the most. Or at least, who had loved him the most.

Momo set the box of pictures aside and laid down on her futon. She knew she would need to rest if she wanted to be ready for tomorrow; she was going to have to be prepared for anything to happen now that Ichigo had been alerted to the fact that Orihime was back. That boy was stubborn and not at all subtle, a very bad combination in Momo's opinion. The last thing they needed was him yelling at Orihime in hearing range of an unknowing Soul Reaper about Aisamu. It was bad enough that he knew, if word got out to the rest of the Seritei then they would order for them to be instantly executed. She closed her eyes and fell into a light, uneasy sleep.

Yeah… I'm not sure about this chapter but I thought you all deserved to read it. It's unbetaed but I feel like it's not too horrible. I don't know when I'll update again and I'm sorry about that but you all know what life is like. Let me know your thoughts!

Thank yous to MangaAddict300, mlsmls27, ma300, newkidzondablock, Reader-Favs, SherriexKaiser, broman2, leafpool5, SandraStar66, finnythewise, Hylla, ECYA, and dcdishy. I'm so grateful for your reviews! I will try to PM those of you who leave a comment or question so that it won't clog up the end of the chapter. Thanks again!