Hot breath blew across Nami's chest, raising goose bumps in its path. She shivered slightly, nestling deeper under the covers. Just as she was about to drift back off into nothingness, she felt a warm, wet tongue against her cheek. Instantly coming to wakefulness, she was greeted with a furry face and dog breath.
"Renji!" she exclaimed with relief, scratching the dog behind the ears.
"Who'd you think it was? Me?" Ichigo asked, receiving his answer when she blushed hotly.
Smirking roguishly but holding his comments to himself, he handed her the cup of coffee he had brought to her. He had let her sleep as long as she would, and it was late into the afternoon. The sun would be setting again soon. He wondered if she would begin living her life lurking in the shadows along with her boyfriend when he returned. His smirk promptly turned to a scowl which caught her attention.
"What's wrong?" she inquired, allowing her fingers to drift over his cheek before she pulled away to wrap them around the mug of steaming liquid he had given her.
"Just thinking," he answered cryptically. It was best she did not know what he was thinking. He was thinking he did not want her boyfriend to return and was glad they had not heard from him in four days. What the hell could he be doing?
Nami dared to turn on her phone, seeing that she had missed calls and texts from Kisuke Urahara. She wondered where Grimmjow could be and if he was all right. Turning the phone back off, she tossed it onto the night table ignoring the loud clacking sound the plastic case made. What did it matter if she broke it?
"Are you all right?" he questioned her, looking at her over the top of his cup as he drank. She had been very quiet and barely moved from the bed the last two days.
"As good as can be expected I guess with this weird new life I've found myself in. What if…" she began unable to speak the rest of the query.
"He's fine. Don't worry. He'll come back," he told her with resolve. Even though he did not want him to, he was sure Grimmjow would be back for her.
~\..'../~
A week later…
Grimmjow dropped through the ceiling into the middle of the lab. He was in his half human/half cat form which gave him greater mobility and strength. He immediately went to one of the cameras. Knowing it was recording, he indulged in an obvious 'fuck you' by flipping off the camera before he commenced to rip the camera off the wall with his bare hand. Proceeding to do away with the three other cameras positioned in the lab by tearing them off the wall as well, he then set about rigging up the chemical bombs for a delayed explosion. By the morning, the acid would have burned through the string, releasing the balloon full of accelerant that would drop down on the flame that would be created by the string igniting the match as the balloon fell. It was a Rube Goldberg machine of sorts, but it would have deadly implications.
After setting up the explosives, Grimmjow began going through filing cabinets and computer programs to gather information about the particular experiments performed on him. Proof, blackmail, evidence, whatever it was called, he needed information and lots of it to ensure his protection in case something went wrong. Something going wrong for him entailed if Urahara and Kurotsuchi somehow survived the blasts he had set up.
"I didn't expect to see you so soon," a familiar and unexpected voice declared behind him.
Grimmjow heard the sound of a gun being cocked so he raised his hands and turned slowly to see Kisuke Urahara with a gun aimed at his head.
"She's taken very good care of you. You look better now than when we had you here at the lab," the scientist commented carefully studying his wayward test subject.
"You have no idea what she's done for me," he growled in return, pulling his lip back from his long incisors.
"Oh, stop it! You don't scare me," Urahara laughed mirthlessly, waving the gun to signal him to get away from the computer. "I can't believe you came back on your own. You sure did make things easy for us."
"I have no intention of making things easy for you," he retorted angrily. Lunging forward, he grabbed the blonde's arm, shoving the gun toward the ceiling.
The gun went off, the bullet hitting a light in the ceiling. One of the fluorescent bulbs shattered, sending glass raining down on the men who were struggling for the gun.
"Don't make me kill you, Kisuke," Grimmjow snarled, trying to pull the gun away from him. "I know you were only following Kurotsuchi's orders. You were never cruel or evil like him. Just let me go."
"Do you love her?" the other man asked suddenly, stunned when the blue haired creature abruptly stopped fighting for control of the gun. "Do you think you can be happy with her?"
"What?" he inquired sincerely confused at this point by the man's questions.
"I like Nami and have no ill will against her. I have none for you either really," Kisuke stated, putting the gun back in the holster attached to his back. "Answer the questions Grimmjow."
"Yes, I love her and I'm already happy with her," he answered truthfully, staring at the man as he crossed over in front of him to go to the computer.
Kisuke typed in the command to erase all files and destroy the hard drive. A red warning box flashed on the screen giving the countdown before all of the information was destroyed.
"You should leave now," he warned, moving back to the large laboratory table in the middle of the room.
"What are you doing?" Grimmjow asked as the man pulled a backpack that had the appearance of being military issued from behind the counter. He watched in silent amazement as the man began to unload grenades and C-4 blocks from the rucksack.
"I'm doing what I came here to do. I'm Captain Kisuke Urahara from the army and I was sent here to watch over that freak Mayuri. What happened here never should have been allowed to take place. To be blunt, I was sent to spy on Kurotsuchi and I was actually supposed to keep the experiment from succeeding. My scientific curiosity got the best of me and you were created," he said, pausing briefly to stare at the one of a kind oddity standing in front of him. "I'm sorry I let that happen. You should not exist."
"But I do," Grimmjow stated in a low voice, swallowing hard. He had never before felt like such a blight on humanity, a terrible mistake, than he did after Urahara's frank confession.
"I know. And that's why I'm helping you," Urahara replied, grabbing two of the blocks of explosives. He adhered one to the bottom of the lab table where he was standing before attaching the other to the door of the room where Grimmjow had been created. "All this has got to go, but you…you deserve a chance to live. None of this was your fault and you shouldn't have to suffer for it. Get out. Go get that girl and have a happy life."
"What about you?" he asked, concerned for the life of his unexpected ally.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. Like I said, I should have done this long ago. You should leave now. You need to be out of the blast zone when it goes off. There will be nothing left of this place but a crater," Kisuke informed him, going back to the table where the explosives sat.
"Yeah, but – "
Urahara reached behind his back to grab the gun. He turned with the gun trained on Grimmjow right between his eyes. "Go!"
~\..'../~
"Nami!" Ichigo yelled the next morning frightening her out of blissful sleep. "Come here! You have to see this!"
"God, Ichigo what?! You scared the hell out of me!" she shrieked, sliding to a stop behind his couch. Her socks and his hardwood floors did not get along too well but she was freezing and had to wear them. She moved around the couch to sit beside him, feeling weak and shaky while she gazed in horrified awe at the television screen. She was grateful for his arm that went around her to keep her from shaking to pieces. There on the screen was an overhead shot from a helicopter of her workplace. The lab was engulfed in flames and did not even exist anymore in places except as a burned out hole in the earth.
"Oh, my god," she gasped, pressing her trembling fingers to her lips. She wanted to scream. Her stomach seemed to drop to her toes as she continued to stare at the terrifying pictures on the TV.
"Don't worry, he's fine," Ichigo assured her, hugging her to his side.
Nami wanted to believe him. She had to believe him, or she would risk falling apart completely.
~\..'../~
Ichigo glimpsed Nami out of the corner of his eye. He was glad to see the faint smile on her face. He had brought her to the mall to see the Christmas decorations in hopes it would cheer her up. So far, Grimmjow had been gone a month with no word. Kisuke Urahara was missing and Mayuri Kurotsuchi had been found murdered in his bed. Neither he nor Nami were sure what to think or hope for at this point. She was still sleeping in his bed while he slept in the guest room. The nights when she cried were the most difficult. He would have to force himself to lie in the bed and just listen to her mournful tears although she attempted to muffle her sobs of despair and worry. He already knew what would happen if he went to her, to comfort her, and he did not want to give her a reason to hate him for taking advantage of her in a moment of weakness.
"Ichigo," Nami said, taking him by the hand. "Thank you."
"For what?" he asked, turning to face her when she stopped walking.
"Everything. Thank you for taking care of me just like you said you would. Thank you for not using this as an opportunity to try to win me over. Just…thank you," she repeated, moving closer to hug him.
Ichigo embraced her, burying his face in her lavender and vanilla scented hair. He knew her scent well and it made his stomach clench every time he caught the faintest whiff of her. One of these days she would leave him whether Grimmjow returned or not; he was sure of it.
"Hey, hey, you two!" a male voice yelled from above them.
They both looked up to find the source of the voice, surprised to see it was a man in a Santa suit. They ignored him, only to be hailed again then entreated to come up to him with a wave of his hand.
"Should we?" Ichigo asked, staring up at the costumed man with apprehension.
"Why not? I'm curious to see what he wants," she said, taking Ichigo by the hand to pull him to the stairs.
"You know what curiosity did to the cat?" He blanched when he received a caustic glance that practically heated his skin from the fury it held. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean –"
"I know. It's okay," she replied, squeezing his hand and compelling a smile to turn up her lips to cover her unnecessarily irate reaction. She knew he really had not meant to be intentionally cruel; he had been just too sweet and understanding with her so far for the remark to have been purposeful.
Nami noticed something familiar about the Santa when her eyes met his intense gray ones. Dropping Ichigo's hand, she boldly walked up to the man to pull down his fake beard to see if her guess to his identity was correct.
"Kisuke!" she gasped, unsure as to whether she should run or beat the hell out of him.
"Shhhh!" he hissed vehemently, pulling her toward him to whisper in her ear. "I have a wonderful Christmas present for you."
"Oh?" she snorted skeptically in return. "Do you plan to torture me or just plain kill me?"
"Neither one. I have your boyfriend," he told her, catching her as she began a quick descent toward the highly polished cement floor from fainting.
Ichigo rushed forward, pulling her out of the arms of the stranger. "Who are you? What do you want? What did you do to her?" he demanded. He had been unable to hear their incredibly short conversation since it had been held in hushed tones at close range.
"She fainted, I know where her boyfriend is, and I'm Captain Kisuke Urahara, her former boss and a military spy who had been sent to the lab where she works," he explained as concisely as possible. "Now if you'll follow me, I can take her to Grimmjow."
Ichigo hefted the unconscious Nami over his shoulder and followed the stranger who was dressed even more strangely in the Santa costume. This would have been his chance to take her and run in the opposite direction. He would never have to worry about her seeing Grimmjow again. Somehow, despite it being his greatest desire, he could just not take the fortuitous opening that had been given to him. Besides, what good would it do if she despised him for it anyway? Sighing heavily with exasperation with himself for loving the infuriating woman so, he followed Santa to give her the greatest Christmas gift she would probably ever receive.