Well, ready for something cool? This story is still canon. It's amazing, I thought my universe would have been shot to threads by now, but apparently not. Who'da thunk it?

If anybody gets the "A Knight's Tale" reference, in here, please tell me. It'll make me very happy.

Also, please, please, PLEASE ask me questions, because I don't want to end the story yet, but I'm running low on ideas. And admittedly, I know how I'm going to end it, but I need a plot leading up to that point. Questions help with that, I swear.

The song I was listening to on repeat as I wrote this chapter: Scar Tissue, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

For Dellanotte, because her(I'm pretty sure, Ara sounds like a girl's name) reviews always make me smile.

Emmy

"You survived." They were in Orihime's room, at the table in the middle. Her hair was unbraided again, her haori on the chair in front of her vanity. Orihime would have invited him to sit on the couch or even bed, but... she needed something between them, and Ichigo hadn't seemed to mind. Maybe he also needed it there.

"Yes, I survived."

"How?"

"The Hollow, he came out and, you know... did his thing."

She all but giggled. That was one way to put it, for sure. But her laughter soon died down—this wasn't a topic that afforded laughter. It was more like she was laughing in order to keep herself from crying, because the moment she stopped, she felt her lips turning down against her will, and she was barely able to will herself away from wiping her eyes. She looked up at him, but he just looked sad, like he didn't know what to do. He was looking down, unable, somehow, to be his confident, untouchable self.

That hurt worse than anything else.

"I am so sorry."

It wasn't a whisper, but it wasn't her voice. She had tried to talk, but her voice had cracked and somehow she had ended up in between that and a whisper. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't fix you. I tried so hard, Kurosaki kun, I tried, but I couldn't move..." She was quickly becoming hysterical. The spout was open and water was gushing out, almost literally. She hated crying, she hated tears, the ultimate sign of weakness. Kurosaki never cried. He was stronger than that. He was better.

It was horrible. She collapsed forward, her head on the table, sobbing. Crying. Oh, how she hated when this happened. Well, this had never happened before—he had never seen her cry. She had meant for him to never see this part of her, the weak, insecure, unstable part that couldn't hold herself together. She was strong. She had always told herself that, and, over time, it had become true. But somehow she was weak again, and she hated it.

He was next to her, she suddenly realized. He pulled her up off the table and into his arms in a hug, as her head hung on one of his shoulders, her eyes leaking tears like rain through a blind thatcher's roof. He said nothing as she clung to him, letting it all go. Letting him go, even. Maybe.

He didn't say anything all the while, his expression never changed, though Orihime couldn't see it. He held her tightly, though, maybe even tighter than she held him. He never moved, he didn't rub her back or pet her hair. If Orihime had been in a mode of conscious thought, she would have been baffled by his behavior, the epitome of mixed signals.

The tears eventually slowed and stopped. She didn't want to let go, she didn't want to leave. She was so... fit to be right where she was at that moment. She didn't want to move. She imagined that she thumping she could feel was his heart, and not her own.

It was all so stupid.

She turned her head, eventually, to look away from him, across the table. Her hair was against his neck now, and she would have been able to fall asleep there in a moment if she wanted to. But now was not the time.

"I'm so sorry, Kurosaki."

She felt him exhale heavily, and then he started to talk. "There is nothing for you to be sorry about."

She tore herself out of his hold and stood up. "There are many things for me to be sorry for, Kurosaki kun. Many things that I have failed to do. I'm sorry that I wasn't there at the moment that you needed me, that I couldn't save you and you had to rely on the hollow for that. I'm sorry that I left without saying goodbye or even seeing you for two weeks," She was pacing, now, her voice growing louder and louder as she went. "I'm sorry that I never got to thank you for saving me in the first place, I'm sorry that you had to save me, I'm sorry that you even know me. And," her voice grew quiet, almost timid. "I'm sorry that you remember me," she finished. She'd stopped walking, and was holding her forehead in her right hand, her elbow resting on her left hand, which was folded across her chest.

He stood and took a few steps toward her, so that the two of them were closer, but still several paces apart. He was almost behind her, so he couldn't see her face."Why are you sorry that I remember you, Inoue? It doesn't make any sense."

She turned to look at him. "I'm sorry that you remember all of the horrible things that my existence has caused you to go through. I often think that it would be easier if you didn't remember, or I didn't exist in the first place."

"Is that why you didn't tell me that you knew who I was?"

She almost smirked back. "You played along, Kurosaki. You acted as if you didn't know me, either. Why did you do that?"

He stuck his hands into the vents in the sides of his shihakusho, as he currently lacked pockets. "I thought that you didn't remember me either. I thought it would be pointless to bring up old memories for the sake of my own satisfaction."

"Satisfaction?"

"Well..." he searched for a better word. "Closure, maybe. I don't know, I thought it would be selfish of me to tell you that you had a responsibility towards me. That would hardly be me looking out for your best interests, now, would it?"

"I can't imagine minding. If I couldn't remember my past, I think that I would be a very differen person right now. I would be nicer."

She was closer to him now, she had been taking sideways, meandering steps toward him unconsciously. They were now within an arms-length of each other.

"You were nice to me, Inoue. Even pretending not to have any idea who I was, you were nice to me. And you're nice to your subordinates, you gave them the day off. You take a lot of your duty on yourself, you don't delegate it out. Maybe you're cold, but you're not mean."

"Just saying that I'm not mean doesn't correspond to my being a nice person."

He laughed. "Where did this stubbornness come from?"

She smiled back, albeit unwillingly. "Two hundred years of not knowing anybody around me."

His smile disappeared, taking hers with it. "Two hundred years."

She nodded. It had been a long time.

They were silent for a while, each of them standing still, looking anywhere but at the other. Neither one knew what to say. Orihime hated silence, but as she stood there, she couldn't think of anything to say. She started giggling to herself at one point, as she almost bursted out in a round of "," but she was able to stop herself.

"How've you been?"

Well, there was a question, Orihime thought. She had to think about it for a moment, not knowing what she should say. Had she been well? Healthy, maybe. Had she been fine? That would be a lie in all practicality, and she was horrible at lying to Ichigo—he could always see through her. That was the Ichigo—the Kurosaki kun that she had always known.

That sparked the idea in her head. To see if he was still himself, to see if he had changed beyond her ability to cope with a new reality, a new personality.

"I've been fine, Kurosaki kun. Just... busy. Confused a lot, but fine overall."

His frown was immediate and deep. "Don't lie to me, Inoue. You've never been good at it. How have you been, really?"

She looked at the ground. He was Kurosaki kun, he hadn't changed at all. He was himself, still frowning at everything, still able to see through her as if she was invisible.

Still the man who held her heart without any intention of doing so. Still the man who had broken and mended it so many times, until it was if there was nothing but scar tissue left to beat and keep her alive. Nothing but what her experiences had made her, nothing left of herself. She was not her own person, she was the sum and results of her combined experiences. She was invisible, she knew. Ichigo could see right through her, he knew what she was made out of.

Scar tissue, the result of a lifetime of wrong promises and hopes, and their combined affect on what was left of her.

She was crying again. Dammit, she hated when she cried. She hated crying in front of people—she hadn't cried in front of anybody but her own reflection in dozens, even hundreds of years. And yet here she was, crying in front of Ichigo for the second time that day, even in the last hour. How pathetic.

"I missed you so much," she managed to get out. "All of you, I always wanted to see you. I always wanted to see what had happened to your soul, how you had been reborn, who you had married. I was so lonely for so long. I was used to it, but..." she looked up at him. "When you came here, still alive, I was... I could barely... I..."

And then he was hugging her again, and she was sobbing into his shoulder again. Her arms were folded up into her chest, and his arms encircles her completely. Her knees collapsed, and she couldn't hold herself up. He took her and half dragged, half carried her onto her bed. He set her down and scooted her legs onto the mattress, finally laying her down. She lay on her side, curled into a ball, sobbing. He arranged the two of them on the bed so that he was sitting with his legs falling off the side and her head in his lap, facing away from him, his back resting on the wall behind him. His hand entered the tips of her hair, playing with it. It was subconscious, though. He did it without thinking, without realizing the soothing impact it had on Orihime.

Her tears quieted again. She was still for a while, but finally got up the courage to turn onto her back, so that she was still in his lap, but looking at his face as opposed to his knees. His hands were still playing with her hair, but she didn't notice—in fact, she didn't seem to be noticing anything except his face, his eyes. It was a mark of how serious the situation was that she didn't even notice how close her head was to his... manhood.

"I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun."

"For what?" his head tilted when he spoke, and somehow, he looked both warped and upside down now. It was cute, the kind of thing that made her want to laugh.

"For lying to you."

His head turned back to what would be a normal angle if she had been looking from a normal point of view. He looked... intense, and a rueful smile took over his face.

"You know that I should be the one apologizing. I broke my promise to you. I said that I would save you, protect you always. I failed. That makes me lower than scum. I'm so sorry that I couldn't keep a simple promise. I made it to you, I made it to myself, but I still couldn't..."

His gaze shifted to what was in reality up, but to their warped perspective away from her. "I wanted to make it up to you, Inoue. I heard where you had gone, and I felt like I owed you a serious debt. I felt like I needed to at least keep my promise to you. I mean, what kind of a punk," Orihime had to keep herself from giggling—his unique terminology still hadn't changed. "makes a promise to someone, let alone a girl, and then, rather than keeping the promise, makes the girl do for him what he said he would do for her? That is so twisted. So wrong. I..." He looked back down at her. "When you left, I decided that I would do whatever it took to keep that promise.

"I lived out another few years of my life as a human, long enough to make sure that my sisters would be okay, and then arranged to have my body killed. I think I was... Twenty-five, or around there. I went to Soul Society, and talked to Yamamoto. He said that I had two hundred years to become good enough, to train to go there. So I trained, I got very strong. I used to fight Renji, and he got awfully good, as well. He's a captain, now, by the way. He took Byakuya's spot."

A shot of pain went through Orihime at the mention of Byakuya's name, but she ignored it—now was not the time.

"And then I finally made it here, and you were the first person that I saw, but you were so different, you weren't... you didn't laugh, you didn't spend all of your time eating. You were strong, and cold, and untouchable. But I spent two hundred years making sure that I got here, so when I got assigned to the guard, I took it as an opportunity to get closer to you. I worked for another sixty years, and now I'm here," and he paused, looked down at her, and smiled. He smiled, and oh, how beautiful it was, even from her warped vantage point. "And now I will keep my promise and protect you to the very end of my ability."

"You don't have to do that, you know. You got me back from Hueco Mundo, and that was more than enough. You did save me."

His frown was back. "I think... I intended it as a lifelong commitment, Inoue. I had no intention of you being somewhere that I couldn't watch over you. And now, I can make sure that you are safe again. It is my duty. I think..."

He was silent for a moment, and then "I think I was meant to die for you."

She sat up quickly, looking sideways at him. "Never say that, Kurosaki. Never, ever say that your life is worth less than mine. Your life carries dozens of times the weight of mine. There is no competition, and that is why I did what I did so long ago. I had no intention of letting you die, and if I had to become a killer to ensure your survival, then I would become a killer." her voice became quieter. "You had already shed so much blood, Kurosaki. I wanted you to have a chance at being normal. I didn't want you to have to live with that for the rest of your life."

"But I was prepared to do what I did, to take lives, Inoue. I was made for it."

"As was I," she responded. "I was prepared to do whatever it took to keep you alive, to keep you safe. You were... you are... the hope that everyone had. You embodied hope. You were strong, and determined, and young, and you were still only just beginning. I owed that to everyone else, and especially you.

"I am not sorry for what I did, nor will I ever be. Yes, I do live with the spirit of that... thing... inside me, and no, I don't like it, but I'm not sorry. I did what I had to do." she paused. "we all did what we had to do. It was war, Kurosaki. Bad things happen in war. You, of all people, know that."

She could tell that he didn't like it, but she could also tell that he was resigned. He knew that she would keep her stance, that she would not back down. And it was a good thing, too, that he recognized that. It was observant, and positively correct.

"So where do we go from here, Inoue?"

She stood up and walked across the room to the dresser, the vanity that held her haori. She picked it up and swung it onto her back, and tied it around her waist.

"Now," she said evenly, "we will go through our duties as we are supposed to. I will be Chief Caregiver Inoue, and you will be Ichigo, my guard." She looked up at him, and her gaze softened, along with her voice. "Times are different now, Kurosaki. We can become friends, but we have duties."

She turned around to face the mirror. She slowly braided her hair, bringing it back to the left of her face. She wrapped the silver chain back into it, and turned around again to face him when she had finished. He was standing now, with Zangetsu on his back and his hands in fists on his front.

She looked at a clock that was on the wall above her bed. "It is six thirty, Ichigo," She said, her voice the cool, in-control voice that her position required. "You are expected back here at twelve o'clock, midnight. Don't be late."

He nodded and left.

He didn't hear her belated whisper. "I couldn't stand it if you were late."