Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

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Renji woke slowly, the white light that always seemed to fill the rooms of the fourth division seeping through his eyelids. His head was throbbing, the pain centred behind his left ear, and he could hear someone crying. They were crying quietly, sniffing and stifling sobs. Renji was pretty sure that his condition wasn't severe enough to warrant tears. He lay with his eyes closed, trying to figure out just what he had been doing before he was hit on the head.

There had been an alarm, and Rukia had been there. Then he had been fighting a really obnoxious hollow who had insulted his hair, and then another annoying hollow who had insulted his tattoos. Then he had been hit on the head, which was unusual, so something must have distracted him. What could have distracted him? It had been something familiar… but unexpected. He remembered the feeling of surprise being cancelled out by the pain as he was struck. What had it been?

Whatever it was, it had made Rukia cry. Renji opened his eyes.

Rukia was tucked into the corner of the windowsill, her cheeks wet with tears. He could see that she was searching the buildings below for something, and he couldn't tell from her expression whether she was hopeful or afraid that she would see what she was looking for.

"Rukia?"

His childhood friend turned and gifted him with a shaky smile. "Renji."

"I'm pretty sure those tears aren't for me," Renji teased. "What's got you so upset?"

"Ichigo joined the fight."

"I know, he distracted me with that damn reiatsu of his, that's how I got knocked out," Renji explained, not wanting her to think that he was normally that easy to take out.

"He asked me how he died."

Silence fell as Renji bit his lip to keep from swearing. It was a question that he had known that Ichigo had wanted to ask, and one that he really hadn't felt comfortable answering. It would have been better coming from someone like Urahara, someone who could attempt to make the best of a dreadful situation. He could imagine the scene, Rukia would have fallen apart just telling him. It was somehow worse than the whole messed up situation with Kaien had been. At least Kaien had asked for it and forgiven her, from the look on her face Ichigo had just been mad - and who could blame him?

"Come here," Renji said, patting the side of the bed. "You're so tiny, there's enough room for you."

As Rukia's slight form settled into his side, he was reminded of when they were children, curling up in Rukongai during the long winter nights. "We'll get through this," he said, echoing the words of his younger self.

"You're an idiot," Rukia whispered back, and her reply let him know that she was thinking of the same thing.

Xxx

Rukia had left to ferret out some proper food for them both when he received his next visitor. The door slammed open to reveal the always imposing sight of Kurosaki Ichigo, back in his Shinigami uniform with extra black straps adorning his wrists and chest. Renji couldn't quite make out which emotions were blazing from his brown eyes, and he hoped that he wasn't about to get punched. His head ached enough as it was.

"I remember you, Renji," Ichigo said, stepping over the threshold, his reiatsu filling the small space. Renji worried that Ichigo had perhaps not remembered everything, and thought that he was an enemy, as he had when they first met. "I remember meeting you, fighting with you and fighting against you," Ichigo continued. Renji breathed a silent sigh of relief, until he noticed that Ichigo's fists were clenched and there was an angry edge to the reiatsu sweeping around the room. "And do you know when I remembered you?" Ichigo asked through gritted teeth.

"No?"

"When I saw you lying unconscious in that damn hospital bed!" Ichigo roared.

"I'm… sorry?" Renji apologised. Ichigo stormed towards him, and Renji tensed himself for pain. He fully expected to be punched in the face. He realised later that he should have been prepared for the unexpected; it was impossible to plan for Ichigo's actions because the teenager himself didn't know what he was going to to before he did it. Renji expected a fight, what he got was an armful of trembling Ichigo cursing into his neck.

"…Thought you were dead you stupid, stubborn bastard. Just when I remembered, when I knew what you bloody meant to me you were in this fucking bed…"

Renji tuned out the cursing and focused instead on running his hand over Ichigo's shoulder, trying to calm him down. He could only use one hand; Ichigo had gripped the other so tightly it almost hurt, although Renji suspected that he didn't even realise that he was holding it. The fabric under his fingers was dirty, covered in small rocks, sand and dust. Ichigo must have been letting off steam in Urahara's secret training room. Ichigo's wild orange spikes were also filled with grit, and Renji found himself combing it out with his fingers, the springy hair bouncing back into place as his nails scraped through it. A small rain of dust fell onto the white sheets.

"You need a bath," he said absently, interrupting Ichigo's rant. The former substitute Shinigami chucked and pulled away to sit on the edge of the mattress, rubbing his grimy hands over his face.

"I know, I had a fight with some rocks."

Renji bit his lip. "Are you mad at me?"

Ichigo's brown eyes widened in surprise. "Why would I be mad at you?" he asked.

"I… didn't tell you the truth straight away," Renji said. "I didn't tell you how you died."

Ichigo shook his head. "You did the right thing. It was bad enough remembering in stages, I don't think knowing everything from the start without remembering the emotions that came with each event would have been a good thing."

Renji nodded, trying not to show how tense he still felt. "Do you remember the last fight?" he asked. He watched Ichigo's face carefully as the teen studied the sheets he was sitting on, and was surprised to see a faint blush colour his cheeks.

"I don't remember much of it," Ichigo said slowly. "But I remember you. I remember you reaching out for me as everything faded into pain."

Renji winced. "I'm sorry," he said. "That must be a horrible memory-"

"No," Ichigo interrupted. "It's a precious memory. It's a memory that means someone - you - cared enough to try and catch me. Everyone else was standing there looking guilty, you didn't look guilty, and you didn't stand still."

"Standing still is not my strong point," Renji said wryly in an attempt to make Ichigo smile and perhaps change the subject.

By the time Rukia returned with a tray of onigiri and a pot of tea, Ichigo had calmed down and Renji found that he was having to make an effort not to grin. He had known that Ichigo was safe for weeks, but that knowledge had not provoked the same feeling of joy that he was experiencing now that he knew that he had his Ichigo back.

Rukia stopped dead in the doorway, the tray rattling in her hands. "Ichigo... you came back."

Ichigo snorted. "Of course I did, you idiot.

Renji was quite interested in hearing what his two friends were going to say to one another, but at that moment the conversation was interrupted as Hitsugaya peered over Rukia's shoulder.

"Kurosaki, are you in here?" he asked. Blushing a little, Rukia stepped to one side and let the short Captain into the room. "Yamamoto-soutaicho wants to see you now."

Ichigo sighed and got off of the bed. Renji felt inexplicably colder without his friend's warm presence. "I should have expected it," he grumbled, turning to look Renji in the eye. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he promised.

"It's ok, duty calls and all that," Renji said as flippantly as he could manage, waving one bandaged hand. "Don't keep the old man waiting."

Ichigo started to follow Hitsugaya out of the door, but paused next to Rukia. "I forgive you," he said quietly, before stepping out. Rukia's expression of relief made Renji smile. He didn't know how she could have thought that Ichigo wouldn't forgive her.

"It seems that it might just work out," he teased her.

"Shut up, idiot," she replied automatically. "There's still a war to be fought."

Renji shrugged. "We have Ichigo back. Now I know we're going to win."

Xxx

Three weeks later and things had settled into a routine. The new residents of Las Noches had retreated back into the fortress, and the Shinigami squads now patrolled an established perimeter. There were still daily skirmishes, but it seemed that the enemy was taking time to heal wounds and formulate new plans. The Captains spent this time creating plans of their own, and Renji hoped that they were better plans. It made him angry when he thought too hard about how Aizen's influence had disrupted the balance of the worlds - large groups of Hollow invading Soul Society itself was unheard of. Hollow were created in the real world, caused a disruption and then were taken care of by Shinigami. Every few decades a particularly powerful Hollow would gather enough followers to be a problem, and then the Shinigami would mount an expedition to Hueco Mundo and take care of it. That was the way that things had been for centuries, and now one ambitious maniac had destroyed the natural cycle.

Thinking about it too much made Renji very, very angry, and so he tried not to think about it at all. Not thinking about the war was surprisingly easy when you had a former Substitute Shinigami sleeping in your quarters while he tried to figure out which Squad he wanted to join - the Captain Commander had offered to let him make up his own mind.

"The fourth seat at the eleventh is open," Renji pointed out from his position on the sofa. Ichigo was pacing up and down in front of the window, with only a week left to decide the pressure seemed to be getting to him.

Ichigo shook his head. "Working that close with Zaraki would terrify me."

"It's not that bad once you're in there," Renji assured him. "I don't think the thirteenth is an option, you look too much like their old Lieutenant, Kukaku's brother."

"I don't think I'm cut out for the second, fourth or twelth," Ichigo sighed. "What do the rest of the squads specialise in?"

Renji shrugged. "They tend to run more messages at the fifth, we do a lot of research at the sixth. The ninth is obsessed by that paper of theirs. If I were you I'd choose based on which Captain you'd be working under."

Ichigo sighed and flopped on the sofa next to Renji. "I'm really tempted to take the easy way out," he confessed.

"What's that?"

"Apply for the sixth so that I get to work with you."

Surprised, Renji looked up at his friend, and was astonished to see how serious Ichigo was being. "What?" he spluttered. "Why would you want to work with me?"

"Because I get the impression that until this recent crisis, the divisions didn't have much to do with one another."

Renji slouched into the sofa cushions and inspected the ceiling. "It was hard to make new friends outside of your division, that's true. But at the same time, when we're not fighting against organised maniacs, we have plenty of free time to socialise with friends already made. I still kept in contact with my friends from the Academy and the eleventh, even after I got moved to the sixth."

"So even if I moved to, say, the fifth, I would still get to see you?" Ichigo got up and started pacing again. Renji contemplated sprawling out, but he suspected that Ichigo would be sitting down again soon.

"I thought you still didn't remember Shinji?" Renji questioned.

"I don't," Ichigo admitted with a sigh, pausing to look out of the window.

"I wouldn't recommend choosing the fifth then," Renji advised. "There's far too much history there."

"Why do there have to be so many damn divisions to choose from?" Ichigo complained. "I have a headache."

"Perhaps you should talk to more people than just me about this," Renji suggested. His earlier prediction was proved accurate as Ichigo turned and sat next to him again.

"I trust your decisions," Ichigo told him, reaching over to lay a warm hand on his shoulder. Renji leaned into the touch, and before he realised they had both relaxed into a boneless sprawl across the cushions, with Ichigo's arm around Renji's shoulders.

"This is new," he commented before he could help himself.

"It's comfy," Ichigo replied sleepily, resting his head on top of Renji's. "And it seems to be helping my headache. Don't question a good thing."

"Must be a stress headache then," Renji observed.

"Shut up and relax."

Xxx

A/N: Longer chapter than usual, I hope you enjoyed! Any suggestions for which division Ichigo should pick?