Chapter 11

Remember, Remember

Again I awoke to humming, soft and gentle in my ear.

I could get used to this…

Hands stroked gently over my hair, and the steady sound of my aibou's heartbeat was in my ear. I shifted slightly, turning my head to press gentle kisses against Ichigo's heart.

I heard his smile when he spoke next, and I felt him press a few fingers against my temple in an affectionate touch. "Good morning, Shiro."

"Good morning, beautiful." I murmured, a smile on my lips as I shifted up to kiss his lips softly. His lovely eyes filled with warmth, and I gently stroked a hand over his forehead and cheekbone. "Gods, Ichigo… What was I thinking before, aibou?"

He chuckled. "You were being a Hollow. You couldn't help yourself."

"How could I have missed this?" I asked. "We could have had all of this so long ago, if I had just gotten over that anger and hate that I now realize was wrong of me to have."

A gentle laugh was my response. "And now you're not sounding like yourself at all. Where has the Shiro that I know and love gone?"

In my thoughts I totally missed the "I" in his sentence, and I simply continued onward. "I just think that I should start taking better care of what we have, aibou. After all, we could get caught any day now."

"Don't say that." he admonished. "Both of us are better than that, and now that I've finally gotten some of my strength back, I can help you out a lot more than I have been. I think that all I needed was a good rest and a chance to unwind." He chuckled. "And apparently some sex on the side."

I snorted gently. "Well, sex does fix… every…thing…" My jaw dropped open. "You said I. The entire time. I don't think I've heard you talk like that since… since before the accident."

A grin spread across his face. "That's probably because I haven't. I knew what I was doing wasn't right, but I just couldn't fix it. Something happened last night… Something I've never felt before. And I just feel… I feel new."

Before I could speak there was a faint tremor in my mind, a warm tingling somewhere within me. It was the link that I had with Ichigo, the one that had always been there. Even though we had always had a strong connection, it felt different somehow, almost… deeper.

And then I realized. Energy transfer between the two of us had been possible at some point, but we had to focus on it, had to try to give each other power. Now, there was simply a huge reservoir of combined strength, one that I could easily pull power from. There were no more walls between us.

"Wow…" I murmured.

He chuckled faintly, nodding. "An appropriate word for it. I noticed it a little while ago; I think it might have something to do with how much better I'm feeling. I haven't felt this good since Toshiro came to tell me that we had to leave."

I glanced down at his body, running a finger down his side. "You're not so skinny anymore… Even overnight you've been changed this much."

"Skinny?" he tilted his head. "You never mentioned anything about me being too skinny before."

My eyes met his briefly before I looked away. "You know how I am; I'm not very good at voicing my worries. By the time I was more efficient at that, I had more important things to worry about. But you were getting too thin; I was starting to see your ribs."

Ichigo sighed faintly. "Weeks of living in the streets will do that to you. We need to do something about money, Shiro. I haven't really got enough money left for us to keep doing this; these two hotel stays have used up a lot, and I didn't want to use it unless we absolutely had to. I certainly didn't expect to be using it this way."

"I know. You wanted to go to college. You almost had enough for two years, right?" I asked, tilting my head.

He nodded. "Yup. Dad told me that he would help me, but I wanted to save up as much as I could… I was going to start looking into schools this fall… Damn the Soul Society for that."

I folded my arms, resting my chin on my wrist where I leaned against my aibou's chest. "I still don't understand why they suddenly decided to come after you. I mean, it's not like they didn't know before, right? You were using my mask for a while."

"Yea, I know. I think it's because they had to go through with all their legal stuff; you remember how Yamamoto is about being so legally correct. Now that the war is over, they don't need me, so now they can come after me for doing something illegal." Ichigo mused out loud, his hand coming up to rest on the small of my back.

"Speaking of illegal, what about the rest of the vaizards? Why aren't they going after them?"

Ichigo snorted. "Don't give me that, you know as well as I do that they vanished after the end of the war. No one has seen or heard from them in nearly two years. I can't even sense them anymore, and I know that they're not in their warehouse. I have no idea where they've gone."

"Right…" I murmured. "I had forgotten that."

A comfortable silence descended on us, and I closed my eyes after a few moments, sighing contentedly and relaxing. Ichigo's hand ran briefly over my hair, and then pushed at me. "Come on, get up. We're gross."

I made a face. "Oh come on, aibou, I just got comfortable!"

He stuck his tongue out at me, and I felt a glow of warmth in my chest. The old Ichigo was finally coming back out. "Well I feel disgusting, and we're both covered in all kinds of nasty things, so we need to go shower."

"Ooo, shower…" I purred, suddenly feeling a lot more excited about the idea.

Ichigo rolled his eyes, lightly smacking me over the head. "Nothing dirty, you perv. We need to get clean and then get out of here. We need to get on the move, Rukia being here for so long the other day might bring them back here at some point, even though she said she was going to lead them away."

I ran a hand over my hair. "Yea, I guess…" I reluctantly sat up, following my aibou into the bathroom where he turned on the water and stepped under the warm spray. I joined him after only a moment, purring slightly at the warm water cascading over my skin. It felt wonderful after such a long and satisfyingly tired night.

The beautiful muscled back in front of me was too tempting; I placed my palms flat on Ichigo's shoulder blades, running my flat hands over his back. He leaned into me, muscles rippling lightly beneath his tanned skin. The warm water made our skin slide together easily, and I stepped closer, my arms moving around his waist. He leaned back against me, his fingers dancing over my forearms.

"Remember Shiro, nothing perverted. We really should get clean." he murmured softly, leaning his head back onto my shoulder and pressing his cheek to mine.

I growled softly, but nodded in agreement, reaching past his body to grab at the soap. The liquid soap smelled faintly of vanilla, the hotel brand was actually fairly nice. I easily cleaned his beautiful body, running my hands over his shoulders and arms and soaping him up.

He returned the favor, tracing every plane of my body gently and lovingly. I smiled as he explored, turning to allow him to scrub at my back. A moment later his hands were moving through my white hair, working up a lather of shampoo.

"Wow…" he murmured softly as he washed. "Your hair is colorless really. Very shimmery white. You're entirely bright…" A kiss was pressed to the back of my shoulder. "Beautiful…" Another kiss, this time close to the back of my neck. "Pure…" A kiss to the nape of my neck. "White…"

I purred softly, turning my head to kiss him slowly, lovingly. Turning beneath the warm spray I wrapped an arm around his waist, pressing our bodies together. "I love you, aibou…" I whispered, putting our foreheads together and looking deep into his eyes. "I love you."

Another beautiful smile graced his face. "I love you too, Shiro."

Ok, next chapter is when things start picking up...