Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

Story note: Italicized sentences indicate internal dialogue, so there is less confusion. Single italicized words are usually stressed.

Between You and I

I have no regrets.

An spectral glow flickered in the distance providing the only source of illumination.

As long as he is alive to protect the innocent, my life will never have been spent in vain.

The light grew closer, bathing him in a warm sensation.

I am…dying. In his heart, he knew these to be his last moments. Grandfather, I will join you soon.

I am ready.

"Do you really believe that, Uryuu?" He recognized the voice. It was faint, but unmistakable. "Are you going to make yourself out to be the martyr and gracefully fade away? You better think again, because I'm not going to let you."

He felt like he was being pulled in a different direction. "What's going on?" he said out loud. In an instant he was torn; he thought that he was ready to move on, but the very sound of his voice kept him at bay. The unrest squirmed in his chest and burned his senses. Only his voice could cause this much trouble.

"Remember - we have a deal. We need to keep each other alive so that we have someone to beat on. Got that, Mister Handicraft? You can't get out of it that easily."

"Ichigo?" Uryuu whispered. "How… Where…?" There were not enough questions to ask, and answers were in even shorter demand. He felt his eyes flutter open…and he could see.

It was a wondrous field, full of white flowers. The sky was so blue he felt he could lose himself in its boundless hue. He looked down at himself, still clad in the red garb of battle. Questions buzzed in his mind. "What the hell is going on?"

Ichigo stepped into view, dressed in his shihakusho. A breeze fluttered through the perfect world, and the smell of flowers was heavenly. "You brought me back."

The pained look on Uryuu's face was enough to indicate a problem. Sweat beaded on his brow, and his breath was strained and deliberate. His teeth gritted and his hands clutched his sheets.

Rukia rushed in behind Tessai "What's happened?" The words were forced from her lips that almost rose to a scream. Even she with her waning shinigami power felt the flucuation of Uryuu's spiritual pressure.

"Uryuu's become…unstable." came the curt response as Tessai formed hand gestures to initiate a procedure. He announced the methods of curing he would be using as he executed. "Number fif–."

A cane rose horizontally to Tessai's chest, a common indicator from his boss to cease his actions. Urahara stood silently in the doorway as he watched the events unfold.

"Eh?" Tessai glanced at his employer. Urahara's telltale smirk indicated that there was something occurring that Tessai wasn't aware of. Certainly this was not the time to wait if there was any chance to save Ishida. He considered resuming the healing kido, but his attention instantly drew back to the endangered soul on the table where his master's gaze settled. A startling sight awaited him.

Uryuu's body emitted a strange blue glow, riddled with red ethereal flames that flickered and rose in a spectral mist. To those in the room who could feel the spirit energy, it was a though a deadly pressure surrounded him. At first there was no apparent reason as to why Urahara stopped the incantation. Then it happened.

There was a resonance to the flicker of spiritual energy from Uryuu. It was matched by a second wave of energy emitting from that of Ichigo. It seemed that they harmonized and reverberated back and forth between them, almost echoing each others pattern.

"It seems that Ichigo still has some tricks up his sleeve." Urahara surmised.

"I thought he was in a coma!" Kon injected as he climbed onto a table to get a better look.

"Physically, he is. Spiritually, however, he must still have some level of awareness."

Uryuu's expression seemed to relax a little in the reverberation of pressure between the two souls. Even the monitor that had until that moment beeped feverishly started to slow. Then the alarm stopped altogether; Uryuu was stable again.

"What is going on in there, Ichigo?" Urahara whispered. There was much more to this story than they could see, that was apparent.

"Ichigo?" It was him, without any wounds or injuries to speak of. "Is this real, or a hallucination?"

"I guess it's real." Ichigo shrugged. "It's a manifestation of some sort, constructed from spiritual energy…I think." reiterating what he heard about this place. Not too long ago, he had wondered the same thing.

It was true; the power emanating from this place even felt familiar. Had he been here before? "Then how am I here?"

"I'm not sure. Up to that point I thought I made it all up. That is, until I felt your spiritual pressure fading. Then I knew I had to do something. Somehow I managed to bring you here."

An idyllic breeze blew through, stirring their clothes. Flower blooms rustled slightly in the wind, some of the petals catching in the current.

Ichigo brought him here, but Uryuu was not exactly sure where that was.

"I'm not going to let you just fade away. As I see it, you saved my life; I should be able to return the favor." His pose was intimidating even from that distance.

"How does being here stop that? I was prepared to die." He pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and looked away, trying to show disinterest in the substitute soul reaper. There was something more inside that he was not going to admit, that he would never admit to Ichigo. "There is no reason for this." He told this to himself as he spoke to Ichigo, "This make-believe world that we are in isn't going to stop the fact that I am going to die."

"No, you're not." Ichigo gritted his teeth.

"How do you know?" It seemed that they were getting into another argument they often had, purposely taking opposite ends of the spectrum to defend. Whether now was the appropriate time to do it was uncertain; it appeared that this place was timeless.

"It's not what you want." Ichigo continued his permanent scowl.

"Shut up, Soul Reaper – as to that, you have no clue." Uryuu knew that to be the case. There was nothing that Ichigo could do to feel how he felt. To lose his family, his grandfather and mentor, was a lot to bear. There was no one to go back to, not his estranged father, not to his small empty apartment to try and make ends meet. There was nothing for him to go home to. Nothing he wanted to go back for. Not even this banter that he and Kurosaki shared more often than not at school and on the battlefield was enough to make him want to stay. Death seemed a pleasurable release from all that. "How would you know how I feel?"

"It's written all over your face." Ichigo's hard stare softened a little. "I know I can't save everybody, but I sure as hell can repay a debt. I'm not going to let you die."

What was this feeling in his chest? It was a burning sensation that kept rising as Ichigo talked. The more he spoke the angrier he got. "I don't want you to repay any debt to me. You don't owe me anything. Now go save some lives and leave me in peace." He maintained his disinterested pose, body slightly turned away from the shinigami, his hand resting on the bridge of his glasses.

"Don't I? Well, it doesn't exactly matter what you want. I'm not letting you die. I guess you're just going to have to deal with it."

A blue arrow whizzed past, barely catching Ichigo on the cheek. Uryuu's face had become much darker suddenly. In this world they could still call on their power, it seemed. Ichigo was more than surprised as his glance turned downward to the thin red line that developed as he touched his hand to the mark.

"In case you didn't know, I missed intentionally." Uryuu called out matter-of-factly. The wound was superficial but enough to accentuate the point; Ichigo knew his aim could have been fatal. "The next time, you won't be so lucky." His brows were knit in an agitated stare at Ichigo. "Leave me alone." He warned.

Ichigo without a word grabbed a hold of the hilt of Zangetsu from his back and drew it out of its sheath. Instead of assuming a ready stance, he held the blade tip down at the ground. He plunged the sword into the soft earth, separating some of the abundant flower petals in the process. Uryuu watched as the sword disappeared in a shroud of darkness, and a figure emerged.

It was an older man surrounded in a black cloak. The covering seemed to waver in its own indelible wind, for the breeze in the field mysteriously died down. His face was pale and thin, and despite his gaunt features, he was in no way a frail man. In fact, he exuded virility and strength, even at this distance. He was tall, towering several feet above Ichigo even though he stood right next to him. His eyes were shielded behind yellow hued shades, and Uryuu could barely see his stare from the shine on the reflected surface.

Uryuu's gaze didn't flinch.

"Alright, Zangetsu. Remember what we were talking about earlier?" Ichigo nodded to Zangatsu.

"Yes." Came the deep reply. That voice was so abnormally deep, and familiar…

"It looks like were going to have to do it." His scowl deepened.

"Very well. You are aware of the risks?" Zangetsu's eyes never left the target, no emotion showing on his face.

"Damn them. I told him that I wouldn't let him die, and that's final." His gaze shifted back and forth between Zangetsu and Uryuu. "Let's do it."

At first nothing happened. Then there was a shudder in the landscape, like an earthquake rolling through the field. Flower petals rose to the sky in a swift breeze that blew suddenly, carrying the white snow-like particles away. The ground faded to black and melded into a strange boxlike pattern. A cityscape rose in the same material around him.

"What is this?" Uryuu eyes widened a bit, but he quickly regained his composure.

"This is my world." Ichigo commented. Now they both shared the same rooftop overlooking the city, a strange blue solitary place. It felt like Ichigo, his being was somehow joined to this place, linked by his spiritual pressure. Not like the field that maintained its own spiritual presence.

"So what are you planning?" He drew back another arrow. "To fight each other here until you can get me to resolve my feelings? It's not going to work." Uryuu realized how angry he sounded and resented it. It was not that he wanted to die; he just didn't want to be saved by Ichigo. He didn't want to be saved by anybody. There was nothing that he did for anybody, and there's nothing that anybody else had done for him. Why didn't Kurosaki just stop trying? Did he get some kind of pleasure at his disdain?

"You're going to live…because you deserve to live!" With that an explosion of light and energy expelled from Ichigo's body, creating a flame of spirit energy around him. Zangetsu moved fast – too fast toward Uryuu. As Ichigo's power shot out Zangetsu's cloak enveloped him, covering him in a shadowy, sticky black mass that consumed his entire body.

He felt as though he were falling in that mass, falling in blackness.

There was a sickly, almost maniacal laugh in the distance as he fell. It reverberated off of the nothingness and rang in his ears. The voice spoke.

It seems that he saved you. Well, there's no way he wouldn't win; he is the king of this place.

Drowning in the dark, sticky mass, he fell.

Uryuu's pulse stopped.

The onlookers at Urahara's shop held their breath as they watched the wraithlike light dance around the two bodies, shifting from one form to the other. The seconds ticked by as Urahara kept his composure, the cane lightly resting on Tessai. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand.

Uryuu's pulse resumed, sending a shockwave through the room.

His eyes opened wide and he gasped for air. Sitting up with a fit of coughing, he felt all of the injuries of battle return in a pulsing, burning ache, increasing as his awareness returned.

Uryuu was back.

He was alive.

Ishida fell back onto the cot and tried to blot out the pain. His pale skin regained some of its former color, his lips losing his purple hue. His eyes closed and opened again slowly, and suddenly Ichigo was staring down on him.

"I told you I'd bring you back – because you brought me back." The normal scowl was absent from his face. Instead, it contained a smirk that almost seemed – content.

Uryuu suddenly felt conscious of the small distance between them. For some reason, he felt a blush rise on his cheeks.

Ichigo had flipped up and backward onto the small frame of Uryuu for dramatic effect after realizing the position that the two beds were in. Unfortunately he didn't take into account his body was exhausted from the healing process, and the sudden outburst of energy left him exhausted. Ichigo's eyes left Uryuu's intense stare, rolled upward as his body collapsed onto Uryuu, and fell into unconsciousness.

"What are you doing?! GET OFF ME!" Uryuu squirmed under the larger body of Ichigo. A bit of dribble creeped out of the corner of the sleeping man's mouth as Uryuu flailed pitifully in his weak condition.

"EUW! KUROSAKI DROOL!" Ishida complained as Tessai removed the limp body off of him. "It'll never wash off!" he moaned.

Most of his outburst was an intentional cover up. He was rather emotionally confused about how it felt with the wiry frame above him, the man who had brought him back from death. His heart fluttered, but was it about Ichigo, or the trauma he just endured? He tried to dismiss the feeling, but it hovered in his thoughts.

"Best thing for you now is to rest." Urahara commented.

Ichigo was already snoring softly on his own mattress.

"Avoid any unnecessary exertion…especially arguing." Urahara's eyes sparkled mischievously. "At least for a few hours." His cape swished as he walked for the exit.

That cloak…it reminded him of something…

Uryuu drifted to sleep.

See? I didn't kill him:D I couldn't do that to Ishida-kun. I'm so proud of myself:)

I'm letting my sister beta read for me so I have less errors (at least spelling, hopefully some grammatical) when I post.

I feel like the story is really starting to move along now. Don't refrain from letting me know if something more should be done. Please review!