Previously: Orihime took a deep breath and pushed with all of the strength she could muster.

"And again."

She tried again, with a little less determination.

"It's almost over, just one more big push, Orihime."

With all of her desire to see her twins in mind, she inhaled and screamed out as she used up the very last of her energy.

At last, the cry of the second baby was heard. The second son, was finally there with them.

"He's here..." Ichigo whispered, looking down at the little human and smiling.

Then he looked up at Orihime, who was trying to recover the energy to look at him. Without any other words, he moved back up and kissed her lips.

No Regrets

Chapter 11: Welcome to the World

It had been many long hours since the birth, and Orihime was still completely exhausted.

She was now staying in a small room intended for after-birth stays. Soon after the delivery, she had fallen asleep, and that was when they moved her here.

Now, it was nine in the morning, the following day. She was sat awake, stressed about how much she had missed. Where were her babies? It was impossible not to wonder.

To that point, nobody had told her anything, nobody came and explained it to her. Had they forgotten, somehow?

Then she saw Ichigo sleeping. He was on a chair, the same style as the ones from her previous room. That thought made her realize just how long she'd been in the hospital.

She hadn't been outside in weeks. By the time they let her out, she would probably have forgotten where she lived.

Orihime sighed, maybe a little too loudly. She lay back in the comfortable bed, appreciating it much more than the one from the other room. Maybe that was because this time, she wasn't heavily pregnant and frustrated about being kept in one room for an intended month.

"You're awake?"

Ichigo's eyes had opened. He stretched and yawned, straightening his back from the awkward position. "Are you okay, Orihime?"

She started to cry, "You..." she sobbed, "I had a dream, and there was a dragon...he nearly ate you."

"It's nice to see nothing has changed now that you're a Mom," he laughed.

Orihime blinked, a little shocked to hear the name. "I..." she whispered, "Where...where are they?"

"They..." he stopped, "rather, our twins, are in the Nursery, or being tested. Ryuken said it would be best to make sure that everything is okay before they let us see them."

"Okay..." she calmed a little, "What...happened? I can barely remember anything about last night...just screaming and pain."

Ichigo looked at the ground, "Maybe it's better that you don't remember too much."

"What do you mean?"

He stood up, walked over, and brushed a hand against her cheek. "You almost gave up your life."

She looked a little confused.

"With the second baby, there was a struggle. You didn't have enough energy to push any more, so we had to persuade you..."

"That's one thing I do remember," she thought about it.

"You do?"

"Yes," Orihime smiled, "and I'm sorry. From now on I'll do whatever I can to make sure we can stay together."

"Always good to know," Ichigo leaned in and kissed her.

After that, he sat back down in the chair and offered to answer her questions.

"Okay, so did you watch one of the babies being born in the end?" she laughed.

"Number two," he smiled, thinking back at it. The smile disappeared as he recalled what she meant about how disgusting it was, even though he hadn't cared or taken any notice at the time.

"So...oh, hey! What genders are they? I don't remember anybody saying that last night, and I never even saw the babies."

Ichigo grinned, "We have two baby boys."

"Oh my gosh, really?" she sat up in the bed, "Well we have to think of names!"

"Right, how did we never think about that before? All those times when we were bored in the other room, we could have come up with some then."

"Well now it a perfect time! We're only waiting to see them, our sons!" Orihime no longer felt tired. She was hyped-up about the details of her twins.

"Okay then, what were you thinking of before? I doubt you never thought about it at all. You probably imagined it in the two months you were gone, right?"

"Well, I did think about it. But all I could think of then was a baby boy with bright orange hair nd brown eyes, did that one come true?"

"I didn't really have a close look, but I remember seeing dark hair, black or brown."

"Wow, I wasn't expecting that," she giggled, "I can't imagine it!"

"You'll see soon enough," he promised, "I think we can see them this morning, as long as the test results come back okay. I don't have any doubts, though."

"Yes, I think they only like causing trouble when inside people," she looked down.

This had never crossed her mind, not even a brief thought. There was no longer a huge bump there, just a slightly expanded stomach.

"You've only just noticed that it's gone?" Ichigo laughed.

"Well, I never thought about it. Within the last few months I just started expecting it to be there, it's really weird now that it's gone."

"But no regrets, right?"

"Never," Orihime lay back again, raising her hands to hold the charm of her necklace.

They continued on with their questions and answers for the next thirty minutes, before a nurse entered the room.

"Miss Inoue, would you like to see your twins now?" she asked, "The test results are fine, it's okay for you to meet them now."

"Yes, please! That would be wonderful," she smiled in greeting to the friendly young woman.

The nurse looked at Ichigo, "Would you like to help me bring them in?" she asked.

"Oh, right, sure."

He followed her away to the Nursery.

She couldn't help but grin excitedly to herself. Finally, the worst part was over. Now she was a Mom.

"Orihime!"

Rukia bounced through the door, "You're awake!"

"Y-yes! What are you doing here?" she accepted the embrace that her friend offered at the side of her bed.

"Ichigo called me about an hour ago, so I came as quickly as I could. But you were still sleeping...so I bought some juice! Then when I came back up, you still hadn't woken up, so I got this," she held out a leaflet, "I found it near the main desk downstairs."

As she held it out, Orihime read the title. It said 'Naming Your Baby'.

"Were you somehow listening when me and Ichigo were talking about this earlier?" she laughed.

"I just saw it and thought it might come in useful if you haven't already picked names yet," Rukia smiled, "Speaking of Ichigo, where is he?"

"He went with the nurse," she said, "they'll be here any minute now. She told us that we can see the babies."

"Really? That's good, I'd like to see them!" she grinned.

Just two minutes later, they walked in with the cribs. Orihime tried not to look inside, only at the metal and wheels that held up the plastic-framed beds.

"I'll leave you alone then," the nurse smiled, returning to the corridor.

"Are you ready to see them, Orihime?" Ichigo pushed the cribs into the empty space, walking around quickly to the side of her bed. As she nodded, he helped her out.

She was a little wobbly on her legs, most of the last few weeks had been spent lay down, due to the twins she had to carry around.

He kept his hands on her shoulders as they proceeded slowly across the room. At the point in which she was one step away from a view of the babies, her hands got ready to cover her face.

Orihime bounced forwards one more step, and she could already feel it coming.

Inside she saw two perfect little humans, dressed in blue babygrows, hats and socks. They were very quiet, sleeping contently in the cribs.

She knew herself too well, the tears started flowing.

Their sparkling blue eyes then opened and looked up at her. Orihime leaned over, taking in every possible detail she could see in front of her.

"Oh, they're awake?" Ichigo stepped around to the other side, smiling down.

"This one just woke up," soon after she said that, the other one opened his eyes.

"Do you want to hold one of them?"

"Can we do that?"

Ichigo moved again, to the crib that was just further away from her, "Sure. The nurse said we could, when they woke up."

She looked at him with hesitation, "I-I don't really know...how."

With a little help from Ichigo, she then lifted the tiny body out of the crib and nestled him into her arms.

"Hi..." she whispered to him, new tears beginning to fall, "welcome to the world."

Just a metre away, Ichigo picked up the other. "I might be acting like I know what I'm doing here, but you know I'm completely freaking out, right?" he pulled the baby in closer to his chest.

"I figured that this would be quite different in your head," she smiled, never taking her eyes away from her holding partner.

Rukia sat down and watched them, cradling the babies as they sub-consciously started to sway a few centimetres to each side.

"So do you guys have any names already?" she flicked through the naming leaflet.

"Not yet, but I think I'm getting some ideas..." Orihime laughed, starting to properly rock the baby from side to side.

Ichigo managed to look up, "I remember thinking once, that it'd be funny if their names began with 'K', so it would be 'K Kurosaki' or..."

Neither of them had some much about the surnames, not wanting to raise the thoughts of marriage right away.

"A name with 'K' sounds good," Orihime said quickly, just in case it happened then.

She watched carefully at the expression on Ichigo's face, "It's okay if you freak out, as long as you don't drop him."

He smiled at her, "I think I can hold it back for a while, maybe when we get home and it all turns into reality. Right now, I'm testing a theory."

"What's that?"

"I'm hoping that if I don't show how freaking scared I am right now, you won't either."

Orihime missed the sentence, an important idea had formed in her head.

"I have a name!" she said quickly.

"I'm all ears."

She stepped backwards and sat at the edge of the bed, and looked up at Ichigo and Rukia. "How about...Kiyoshi?"

Rukia flicked through the 'K' pages, "Pure?".

"Yes!" a cheerful flame burned in her eyes.

"That's not bad, I like it," Ichigo responded, trying to think of something for the twin that he was holding, "I can't think of anything for this guy, really. It's harder than you'd think."

"Are you thinking of 'K' names? It's cute if both of them have that," Rukia said.

"Sure...then how about..."

"Kazuki?" she read from the page.

"...Isn't that harmony and hope? It's kinda girly..."

"Kaoru?"

"What, are you kidding me? That's..."

"Fragrance."

"Exactly!"

Rukia threw the leaflet at his face, "Whatever, can I hold the baby?" she jumped over to him.

"Fine, fine..."

Ichigo passed him on to her carefully, "Hold up his head," he muttered.

"I know!"

With his hands free, he picked up the pages and pages of names, which had landed on the floor. He searched through until something caught his eye.

"How about...Katsuo?"

Orihime looked at him, eyes squinting a little as she thought about it. She inhaled deeply, looking serious. "That's...a great idea!"

Ichigo looked at her, confused. "Really?"

"Yes!"

Then he felt half the size of the others, "Well what was with the serious face...?" he muttered in a small voice.

"So what does the name mean? Is the 'O' on the end as in, hero?" Rukia asked.

"It seemed to fit with the 'Katsu', which is victory."

"Great idea, like I said!" Orihime beamed.

She hopped up, holding the baby as still as she could. Then she travelled to the spot next to Rukia, "So we have Kiyoshi and Katsuo!".

–

"Finally I can leave this place!"

Orihime was packing up her belongings, preparing to return home.

The babies had been born a week ago, so she'd spent altogether about a month staying in the hospital. Quite fed up of the boring walls and disgusting food, she was one-hundred percent ready to go home.

Most of the time, it hadn't been much fun. Two weeks, she had been heavily pregnant with two twins, and several things made that distressing. The first, she was a teenager. Secondly, these were two twins with abnormally high spiritual pressure. Third and finally, she'd spent her eighteenth birthday bored in there, in labour during the whole day.

There were, of course, some good aspects, too. Like her birthday gift, the necklace. She'd also had many visitors, especially at her birthday. Though it was suspected that the visit from the Shinigami may have cause the sudden heightened contractions, leading to the birth.

"Are you sure everything is ready? It'd be a pain to have to come back just to fetch a sock or something, you didn't leave any lying around, right?" Ichigo checked.

Sometimes it scared her, how well he knew what to expect. Before he noticed, she shoved the sock she'd found a minute before into the side-pocket of her bag.

"...I should probably get dressed."

He glanced over at her, "That would be good, but how did you forget that?"

"I was collecting socks..." she admitted guiltily.

Quickly, she unzipped the bag and pulled out the clothes at the top. Her knee-length pink skirt and white pullover jumper were lay nearest to the top.

For a few seconds, she looked down at the clothing. In other words, she tried to innocently give a message. Ichigo laughed and turned to face the wall.

As fast as possible, she switched from her pyjamas into the chosen outfit. "All ready! What's next on the to-do list?"

He turned back around, to the clock, "Hmm...the thing I was supposed to do five minutes ago."

She stared with question.

"It's not too late. My dad was gonna bring the stroller, I was supposed to go and get it, he's probably still there, though."

Ichigo made his way to the door and walked out, quick-paced. Hopefully Isshin was still waiting. Orihime wasn't sure what she had to do, though. And it was never a good idea to give her a list of plans, she'd never remember. Ichigo had tried to organize their departure himself, it just made more sense.

Guessing at what to do next made more sense that waiting around for him to return, so she sat down to think about it.

Part of the plan that had stuck in her head, was that they were going to get the twins once they had the stroller and had checked with a receptionist, that it was okay to leave. Part of hospital policy, apparently.

It wasn't long before her thinking turned into daydreaming, and Ichigo came back in five minutes with the double-stroller, folded up. "Ready?"

She fell from the world of fantasy, "Huh? ...Oh yes!"

Ichigo held open the door as Orihime grabbed her bag and swayed through, blushing at her own ignorance. "Thank you," her voice almost cracked.

He chuckled to himself and followed her through to the Nursery. It took a while for them to figure out how to unfold the stroller, but a few minutes later they had both of the twins inside. They still wore little blue onesies and hats, hidden under the blankets.

It was already nearly half-way through September. The time had flown by so quickly that they could barely believe it. But even in that time, they hadn't discovered a way to tell one baby from the other. The best they could manage was different coloured pacifiers. Kiyoshi's was white, and Katsuo's blue.

They travelled to the ground floor in the elevator, which was quite quiet. Two other people were in there, giving them awkward looks, as if it somehow wasn't normal to see two teenagers with a stroller containing twins. The thought made them want to laugh.

Just a couple of minutes later, they were signing out of the hospital, hopefully for a while. Both of them were more than ready to see the outside world. Especially Orihime.

She stepped outside the doors with no hesitation, partly because the doors were automatic, and she was pushing the stroller. But in her eyes, there was nothing scary about venturing back out into Karakura Town.

Even if she'd only been able to see it through a window for the past month.

–

At this rate, I may as well just promise to update every day! Haha...but if I do, I know it won't work out. I'll just keep overworking myself, for now at least. ;D

Soo! They're going home at last! Any guesses at more trouble occurring soon? Well, not yet! I think they've had enough problems to last for a while.

Writing this has been so weird! I've been using words that I've never even said before, like pacifier, crib and band aid! What the hell? Well, I figured that using them would cause less confusion...even though I still use the 'colour' thing. Sorry that I'm not American! I'm 100% English, and I apologize for that! Hehe~ ^^

Just like always, a review would be really nice!

~HellYus