Beginning Notes (Please Read): As you've probably already noticed, I changed this story's rating to an M, and while this chapter is the only one that's really going to warrant that rating, it' contains references to child molestation and abuse. Tread lightly. If you don't think you can handle it, don't read. If you're underage and have a parent who monitors your internet action, well…I really don't feel like getting an angry email from an irate parent. So like I said, tread lightly.

And I've lost who I am
And I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken
Rejecting your love...There's a light
There's a sun, taking all the shattered ones
To the place, we belong…
~Shattered by Trading Yesterday

XIV. Living With The Past

"His name was Ichimaru Gin."

Ichigo's head snapped up. He wasn't sure where the words had come from, or what had compelled Rukia to speak; they'd been sitting on the couch, channel surfing. Neither had spoken since Rukia had insisted things were better left buried.

Apparently she'd changed her mind, though.

"Sorry?"

Rukia sighed deeply, closing her eyes and pressing her lips together for a moment. "My second to last foster home…the first foster home my second social worker put me in. His name was Aizen Sousuke." Ichigo had to remind himself not to inform Rukia that he already knew as much. He wasn't about to get Hisana into trouble. "Aizen and Ichimaru…they weren't good people. Do you remember what I told you before?"

It took Ichigo a moment of thinking to pinpoint exactly what she was talking about.

"Let's put it this way: my social worker used his position to his and his friend's advantage. It was sick."

"Yeah," he finally said as her words from his last night in the house popped into his head. " Yeah, I remember."

Rukia hesitated as she opened her mouth to speak again. She still wasn't completely sure she was doing the right thing, opening herself up. She didn't tell anyone these things, besides the therapist Hisana had forced her to go to for almost a year. And even that hack-job had only been given the barest of details.

She had a feeling she wouldn't get away with bare details in Ichigo's case.

"Nee-san did a lot of research, she found out that for years Aizen had been using his position as a social worker to find kids for himself and his friend…they'd been sexually abusing kids since before Aizen had become a social worker. It just became a lot more convenient for them once they had easy access to children."

Ichigo was vaguely aware of the fact that his mouth was on the floor. He forced it to close, glad that Rukia didn't seem to have noticed. She curled up tightly, her legs pressed against her chest, arms around her knees. "It was pretty ingenious, when you really stop to think about it," she mumbled after a second. "Nobody cares about kids in the foster system, except maybe their social workers, and even that's iffy sometimes. If your social worker is directly involved in the abuse, it'll never get reported." She shrugged wearily.

"How…" Ichigo hesitated as he tried to figure out if it was okay to ask what was on his mind. His head was reeling from everything she was telling him. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid she would shut down and refuse to say anything else about the subject. And he really didn't want her to shut down. "I mean, how long…did they…"

"Six months." Rukia's response to his unasked question was baffling. "They didn't usually keep kids for that long, six months in one foster home is rare, after all. They usually made up a reason for Ichimaru to give up the kid so they could keep suspicion off themselves. But — as they constantly liked to remind me — there was something about me they liked. Something that kept them from giving me up."

Now Ichigo was sure he was going to be sick. He curled his fingers into tight fists, resisting the urge to punch something. Rukia was staring at the wall across the room, her eyes distant and unseeing. "The…the first time it was…just Ichimaru." She blinked a bit, her eyes suddenly shining a bit more brightly. "He came into my room, he sat down on my bed, he was just…just talking to me…but he kept moving closer to me, he had one arm around my shoulder, he kept rubbing my arm." She shuddered, the feeling of Ichimaru's long, cold fingers against her skin drifting over the five years that separated her from that moment.

She didn't jump, though she was definitely startled, when a gentle, hesitant, warm hand rested itself on her shoulder, effectively warding off the memories she spent much of her time pretending didn't exist. "I didn't really understand at first what was going on. I just knew it was wrong. I…I called Aizen one day when Ichimaru was out, he said he would come over…he got there at the same time Ichimaru came home."

Not that Ichigo didn't already know where this story was going. But god, it was still painful to hear, to know how it would end. And it was worse to watch Rukia as she told the story, re-counted the details of her torture. Because really, that's what it was. Torture.

Then and now.

"It took them awhile to get tired of me, to want new blood. I never did figure out what it was about they liked so much, but…they lost interest. For a few months before I went to Ichimaru's I'd been bounced between foster homes that could have cared less about me. I found out later that's what he always did; he'd send the kids to neglectful homes, they'd be starved for attention by the time they got to Ichimaru, they didn't protest when he got close to him. They — we — would never realize anything was wrong until it was too late."

Suddenly…jail really didn't sound good enough for these bastards. They deserved to die. Slowly. And painfully.

Ichigo only wished there was a way to make such a thing happen. "Once I got out — away from Aizen and Ichimaru, at least — I kind of…blocked the whole thing out. There was a lot of psychological babble, I don't really remember most of it, I didn't understand any of it, it just basically came down to I forgot everything that happened as a…defense mechanism, or something. Like I said, a lot of psychological mumbo jumbo.

"You remembered eventually." It was such a stupid thing to point out. Obviously she remembered. But Ichigo couldn't think of anything to say. Rukia nodded, her lips pulling into a twisted version of some kind of smile.

"Before Aizen…I had a different social worker, a better one. His name was Shiba Kaien, he was…amazing. He let me see my sister whenever I wanted, if I ever had a problem with a foster family he listened, and he always made sure I went somewhere where I would have a good chance of being happy." Just like Hisana, Ichigo reflected. "Then one day he just…disappeared, and I ended up with Aizen. No one would ever tell me what happened to him, not even Nee-san. Finally, about a year ago…I got curious enough to try and found out what had happened. I looked up his name online…found a news article about he and his wife being shot and killed during a mugging." She sighed, opening and closing her eyes a couple of times before continuing to speak. "I guess that…unlocked whatever part of my mind was trying to keep the memories hidden. For a good six months after that I had nightmares literally every night. Hisana wanted to get me some…pills or something so I could sleep without having to worry about the dreams, but I didn't want to. I just…wanted to forget. I still do."

Ichigo could understand that. He knew what it was like to have something bad enough in one's past that you just wanted to forget.

"I'm sorry." The words were so hollow, so not at all enough, considering everything that had just been said. But while Ichigo knew it wasn't strictly necessary that he say anything, he wouldn't have felt right just staying silent, though he was sure she wouldn't have minded it as much.

He was surprised when Rukia actually smiled. "Wanna let me in on the joke?"

"Not a joke. More like cruel, twisted irony. The guy who's seen the ins and outs of the foster system almost as much as I have is the one that's apologizing for the trouble they caused. Like I said — ironic." Ichigo didn't know what to say to that. So instead he moved on to his next question.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Not that he was complaining. After a moment of serious thought, Rukia just shrugged.

"I honestly don't know."

Silence fell, save for the long forgotten TV that was currently singing a cheery tune for one product or another. "Do you want me to go?" Ichigo finally asked. He knew when he divulged deeply personal information (granted it wasn't often), he usually had a burning need to be alone afterwards.

And he was starting to realize just how like himself Rukia really was.

So he was surprised when Rukia shook her head. She didn't elaborate, didn't ask him to stay. But she wasn't kicking him out. And Ichigo certainly wasn't about to leave off his volition.

So he stayed. After another few minutes of silence on both their parts he picked up the remote and switched the TV off. Another hesitant moment, and he inched closer to Rukia, unaware of the fact that his hand was still on her shoulder, that it had been for the last twenty minutes. Rukia closed her eyes as Ichigo brushed against her, and finally she rested her head on his shoulder, looking utterly wiped out.

They were asleep before either of them realized it.

If Hisana was honest with herself, she wasn't really surprised when she walked into the house, at almost midnight, and found Rukia and Ichigo asleep on the couch. The only surprise was that Ichigo hadn't found his way back here sooner. "Oh boy," she sighed quietly, shaking her head and smiling as she made her way into the kitchen and picked up the phone, dialing a number she knew by heart.

"Hell-lloooo?" She laughed quietly as Urahara Kisuke's overly cheerful voice drifted down the line. Who was this happy at midnight?

"Hello Urahara-san."

"Oh, Hisana-san!" Urahara sounded genuinely delighted. "Calling to check up already? Quite the odd time to be calling, don't you usually make these calls during office hours?"

"I'm not calling to check in. I just thought you'd like to know you might be missing one of your charges. Kurosaki-kun is currently asleep on my couch."

"Oh?" There was a pause, probably as Urahara went to check Ichigo's room. "Ah, well…what do you know. Now how do you suppose that happened…? Oh, you know, I found the bus schedule on the kitchen counter earlier, I must have left it out when I was looking for the pizza menu earlier…"

"And Kurosaki-kun just happened to find it?" Hisana asked with a small smile.

"Yes, exactly! Well, who knew an accidentally left out bus schedule could set in motion any kind of events, right?"

Hisana made a noise in the back of her throat. "Right, Urahara-san. Well, I'll let you get to bed. I just thought you'd like to know where Kurosaki-kun is. The busses are done running for the night, so it looks like he'll be staying here."

"Well thank you very much, Hisana-san. I hope it isn't too much trouble. So sorry for this."

"You know it isn't any trouble. And you're not sorry."

Urahara just laughed lightly before bidding Hisana good night and hanging up. Hisana smiled faintly as she hung up as well. After a moment of thought she made her way back over to the living room, leaning against the doorframe.

Rukia was curled up in a tight ball, her head on Ichigo's shoulder. Ichigo's arm, meanwhile, had found its way around Rukia's shoulders, holding her tightly against his side. They looked so…peaceful, even more-so than they had the first time Hisana had caught them in much the same position.

It was a peace she hadn't seen in either of them for a long, long time.

"Oh boy," Hisana sighed, tugging at a lock of her hair, looping it around her finger and biting her lip. It was a two hour car ride from Urahara's to Hisana's. She could only imagine how long a bus ride was.

She couldn't imagine what would have force Ichigo to embark on such a journey.

Well, okay, that was a lie, she realized as she watched Rukia, still asleep, begin to relax into Ichigo's grip, her limbs slowly unwinding from their tightly curled position. She could imagine.

And that was the part that kind of worried her.

Insane. I never expected them to get along this well…for the love of God, every time I saw them together they were biting each other's heads off! When did they get so close, exactly?

An image of Ichigo's and Rukia's faces, stricken as Hisana told them that Ichigo's month was up, and he was going to a foster home, flashed through Hisana's mind. That had been a good tip-off, of course, that her little sister and their houseguest had gotten a little closer than what was strictly necessary. And she knew Rukia had certainly missed the boy when he was gone. She'd had no idea that the feelings were mutual, though.

Especially not enough to drive Ichigo to take a bus out here.

Apparently somewhere along the line, things had gotten a lot more complicated than Hisana had originally anticipated in relation to the two teenagers.

Well, in their defense…she had nobody to blame for this but herself.

Author's Note:I honestly can't even think of anything funny to say. This chapter was fairly draining to write, as you can probably imagine. It's a little shorter than normal, I'm aware, and I'm sure I'll be hearing about it, but I figure there's probably enough content here to make up for the slight shortness of it. Anyways…can't really think of any fun shameless review plugs, so please just review please, let me know what you think? — Sam