Update four in my marathon of updates. You wanted to know about Isshin – chuckles. Enjoy!

...Mayuri Kurotsuchi Japan's leading doctor and psychiatrist was in the midst of a scandal today as he was arrested by police. Not all the details are clear yet, but police official confirmed that he was arrested for sexually assaulting and tormenting boys in his care at the hospital. It seems that evidence was leaked to the police at exactly the same time as it was handed over to hospital officials and financial backers of his expensive drug research facilities...

Isshin coughed up the coffee he had just inhaled and was on his feet the moment the words of the news report sank into his mind.

Ichigo!

Oh fuck Ichigo!

Oh fuck, Oh fuck, Oh FUCK! What have I done? What have I FUCKING DONE?

His fingers were dialling quicker than his brain was operating and he held the phone to his ear with enough force to probably shatter the handset. The tone told him the hospital was engaged and he tried another number, an internal line. Engaged also. He threw down the phone and ran from the lounge, his lunch forgotten.

Karin looked up where she was holding the fort and booking in patients.

"We're closed!" Isshin shoved the ninety year old grandma back out of the door she was trying to enter through, walking frame and all.

"Dad!" Karin leapt to her feet watching the poor old dear though the glass doors nearly topple over into the bushes.

"We're closed. Sorry everyone one, yes even you Mrs Kanzie. You are not going to die from a poorly big toe, bath it in antiseptic and I'll catch up with your next bout of suspected life threatening diseases next week okay!" He smiled at the confused looking middle aged woman and also propelled her towards the door not letting her get a word in edgeways. He locked the door just as her hand rose to knock on the glass dividing them and shook his head. "C.L.O.S.E.D!"

"Dad what the hell are you doing?"

"Go back to school, your a good girl for coming home for lunch, have I ever said that?" He kissed her on the cheek with a wet slobbering kiss and began to run out of the hospital back into the house.

"What's going on!" Karin fisted her hand and found she was just a bit too slow for her dad today as he snatched up his car keys and stormed from the house. "Stupid man." Karin cussed as she watched his car screech with smoking wheels down the road.

...

The hospital was a buzz with news reporters and police. Isshin was lucky he had his doctors ID on him or he'd never have got into the Psychiatric wing. The small petite looking receptionist had been replaced by a surly looking woman with a hairy chin and Isshin demanding to see his son cut no mustard with her.

"Sir, you can't just barge in here."

"My son is here. I am taking him home. Kurosaki Ichigo? What room is he in?" Isshin continued.

"My records don't indicate a Kurosaki...Ichigo... Nope." The woman looked up from the hospital computer.

"I left him here this morning. Tall lanky, ginger hair, you can't miss him!"

"You must be mistaken." Her sour face drawled. Isshin was really starting to get worried.

"Look again, look again on your records, I only left him this morning!" She looked again at the admission on her computer and shook her head. Isshin stood and scrubbed his hands through his hair. "YOU'VE LOST MY SON!" Isshin shouted at the end of his tether. A few reporters who were so far, kept out of the actual treatment area's began to lift their heads at the commotion. Certainly a man yelling the hospital had lost his son was big news with what was going on today.

Isshin yanked out his mobile.

"Sir we don't allow mobiles."

"Well see about this...." Isshin was mumbling. "Ryuken!" He screamed down his mobile as it was answered.

"I can hear you in my office Isshin." The grey haired man stepped through the gaggle of jostling reporters his mobile in his hand and looking thoroughly uninterested. Isshin turned to the voice of his old friend and gave him his best pleading expression.

"Where is Ichigo?"

"Ichigo?"

"I left him here this morning. Mayuri admitted him! This woman can't find him."

"Lets just take a look in the office." The man was trying to be understanding, a frantic Isshin was not a pretty sight and he led him into Mayuri's office. A moments searching showed Ichigo's admission form had been left on the desk. "There, he just hasn't been put through the system yet. I'll walk you down." Ryuken held onto the form and knew that this was unforgivable that a patient had not been admitted properly. Of all people it had to be a damn Kurosaki in the middle of all of this.

Isshin felt somewhat relieved and although still agitated, he followed the stiff man into the lift.

"So what's going on, is it all true?"

"I don't know. I never thought it. What about you? I mean... Ichigo was a patient."

"Which I did on your recommendation!" Ryuken couldn't argue that one. He glanced down at the paper and noted that Mayuri had noted prescribing the M21. But that was just stupid. The kid surely didn't need that level of drugs. He'd only seen him a little while ago himself. He frowned but held onto his concerns as they headed down the corridor noting the names on the door.

"Here we are." Ryuken held the door handle. "Isshin, Mayuri may have sedated him."

"I don't care. I just want to take him home." Isshin pushed his hand out of the way and unlocked the door to swing it open. Both men stood open mouthed for some moments.

"WHERE THE FUCK IS MY SON!" His fingers tightened on the neck of his old friend.

...

Retsu didn't mind being pulled across to the mansion on a daily basis, it was her job after all. Her division was a fully operational hospital unit, created to deal with the Palace Royals, official's and all the staff and guards they needed. It kept her busy and her little hospital was usually full of men injured whilst training or like today, a daft bodyguard who lost control of his car and had given himself concussion. It was seeing Rukia beside the guards bed that prompted her first visit. It reminded her the Palace had wanted a medical check on Byakuya Kuchiki. The man was never ill, yet recently he had stayed all that time in Karakura and now it seemed being recalled home was not helping him either.

As she walked the serene little dirt path that threaded through the wonderful gardens that linked the Kuchiki house to the palace she mused on her visit two days ago.

Retsu bowed as her position demanded when entering the room of a noble and looked at the strained face of the man she had come to see. He most defiantly looked under the weather, but his attention was not in her direction, nor had he even seen her enter the guest bedroom where the servants had lead her. She followed his line of vision to a docile young man in the bed.

"Kuchiki Sama." She bowed again as he turned to the sound of her voice.

"Unohana?" He looked surprised. "A medic has already been." He stood letting the early evening newspaper fall from his lap and they both bent to pick it up. Their hands held the folded broadsheet either side of the vivid article on the arrested disgraced doctor.

"I read this myself only an hour ago." She shook her head with a clear expression of disappointment, when thinking of a fellow doctor who would abuse his position. When her eyes lifted she noted the Lord had his eyes fixed on the teenager again and he was wearing a most strange expression. Any expression for this man however seemed strange. He was not one taken with open displays of the concern she could see.

"Would you mind examining him. It is not that I do not trust your subordinates..."

"Of course if it would ease your mind." She smiled and released the paper to his hold. "Is there anything you can tell me about him?" Her shock registered quietly inside her mind as his gaze fell back to the article and then back to the boy. It may well have been a subtle and involuntary admission of where the boy had come from, but it was clear to her now why he was so docile. She placed a soft hand on his arm and patted it gently. "I will examine him. What is his name?"

"Ichigo."

"And how do we know Ichigo?"

"...He is a school friend of Rukia's." Retsu had seen enough relatives and loved ones in her wards to know the falsehood of those words, it was not Rukia sitting here worrying. "Retsu... That man may have..." His eyes went back to the paper and it's glaring headlines of abuse. To Byakuya it made sense with Ichigo's earlier fears of intimacy and some darkness inside him had to know how much Mayuri had messed with his lover.

It was a relief to her that she found nothing indicating sex had taken place and she had no qualms in telling Byakuya that. Although the presence of a clear slick substance to his anus made her aware of how close the poor child had been to that event. What ever the truth behind Byakuya's worries, it seemed pointless to add to them with the fact it would have happened and she buried that information inside herself and left it alone.

The relief on his face when she told him that was also very vivid and Retsu again wondered at the relationship between these two.

"Here." Byakuya handed her a thick manilla folder similar to her patient notes and the clipboard with his recent treatment details. "These were... acquired. I can make out nothing in them... I... I would appreciate any information you can give me."

"Acquired? Byakuya-sama, patient details are confidential, there is no way you should be in possession of these. Just what his going on here?"

"I merely wish to protect him. If the details in that folder allow me to do that to my fullest then so bit it."

"You had something to do with the arrest didn't you?"

"...My role is to protect. Do you not wish to help someone who may have been tormented by such an unprofessional man?"

"I am guessing that your next sentence will be that the palace must know nothing of this matter?"

He blanked her and turned his head back to the boy. "Byakuya!"

"He is a friend. A dear friend. Would you not help someone that important to you?"

"I will treat the boy. But I will not discuss the contents of this with you." She waved the folder. "The boy will have to answer for himself."

Byakuya assumed he could have relied on her discretion, but now he wondered if he could at all. Would the medic find that she needed to speak with the sotaicho? Byakuya inhaled and let out a long drawn out sigh. Things needed to be prepared, he would not meet with the worse case scenario without a little homework.

...

Today she found the guest room empty or seemingly empty. A sound from the bathroom prompted her to head towards the open door left ajar in the haste to get to the toilet. Ichigo on all fours was heaving into the toilet bowl and Byakuya soothing his back with slow gentle movements.

"Aggghhh Byakuya... I've never felt this bad... what did that bastard inject me with?" He heaved again.

"This will pass." Ichigo would have turned to the new feminine voice had his stomach not heaved yet again.

"Retsu." Byakuya nodded to the woman.

"This is the effect of a sudden withdrawal. Patients should always been weaned off any form of drugs. Anti-psychotics are no different."

"Ahhh, How long then? How long will I be doing this?" Ichigo pulled his head away and held his abused stomach that ached from all his dry retching.

"Usually seven days is enough."

"Seven!" Byakuya didn't know how he would take another five of these, let alone how Ichigo was coping with it all. He let his hand rest on the boys head and gave him a playful ruffle of his hair accompanied by a sympathetic smile. Ichigo flopped back onto his bottom and leaned against the tiles. All of this was so exhausting. "Please someone kill me now."

"Ichigo." Byakuya tutted and was only answered by a tired looking glare. "Bed."

"Sure... When I can get up." The teen pulled up his knees and let his head rest down on his crossed arms, plaster cast or not, sleeping here seemed preferable than a flight at speed when his stomach wanted to hurl.

"Up. Come on." Byakuya stood and took hold of the boy under his arms. "You cannot sleep there."

"Don't care." Ichigo mumbled and not helping Byakuya at all. Byakuya gritted his teeth at the dead weight and gave one heave to get Ichigo upright.

He was bundled back into the green covered futon and Retsu attempted to press a mouthful of water inside him.

"So, care to tell me how you ended up on these drugs?"

"Are you a doctor or something?" Ichigo looked warily at the dark haired woman of whom he had vague recollections of seeing yesterday, but he couldn't be sure of his memory. She might be pretty and kind but he had taken a distinct disliking to all doctors and that included his father.

"I am."

"Humph." Ichigo turned his head away and inched away from her side of the bed as he turned his back on her. He yanked the covers over his head and hid his ridiculously shivering and aching body away from the world.

"Has he eaten?" Retsu asked.

"For the amount he ate and then brought back it amounts to barely nothing."

"Well, try him on small amounts more frequently..." She advised. "And yourself? Surely you are not tending to him alone?"

"Rukia is with Renji, who else would you suggest?"

"His family?"

"No way!" Came a voice from under the covers and an angry scowl appeared over the covers. "My dad got me into this. Stupid fucking doctors... If anyone would have just listened to me!" The latter part of his words began to fail in his throat as the pain of his dad leaving him to the mercy of that evil bastard Mayuri was like the ultimate betrayal. He didn't know the full extent the goings on in the news of late, Byakuya hadn't told him, but Ichigo knew first hand what the man was like. No media story could tell him anything new. "Byakuya, not my dad. Don't send me back to my dad!" His eyes had watered up and his pleading expression made Byakuya's burden feel twice as heavy. Again Ichigo was not to know that Byakuya and Isshin had spoken already.

"I have told him your staying here." It hadn't been a pleasant conversation with the father crying down the phone about his failings as a parent.

Ichigo's head fell back against the pillow and he closed his eyes in relief. "Thank you."

"He wants to come and get you."

"NO!" Ichigo's head shot up. "NO I'm not going with him!"

"You can't stay here forever. Its not possible you know that."

"I don't care, I'm not going back!" Ichigo's eyes were wide and his words angry and scared at the same time. He shoved the covers off and threw himself through Byakuya's reaching arms as he bolted for the bathroom. "Get Off Me!" He struggled lashing out and with a strength that only came from his fear of going home, tore himself free and slammed the bathroom door behind him. Byakuya jolted at the slam of the lock.

"Ichigo." Byakuya knocked on the door.

"You said to me... You said...."

"I am not sending you home right now."

"You don't want me here!"

"Your father was worried about you."

"Do I fucking care about him? Look what he did to me!"

"Ichigo you are being unreasonable."

"Go to hell!" Byakuya looked at the shut door and listened to the sound of heavy sniffing and muffled sobbing.

"Byakuya-sama?" The soft sounding voice of Unohana made the noble turn away from the door and she hid the startle that had seen through Byakuya's emotionless façade. The dampness in his eyes, the very slight pinch across his brow and the tremble in his hands told her how much he was restraining himself. "Maybe you should get some rest and leave him to someone else for a while?"

Byakuya rose his eyes to the ceiling giving himself the second he needed to draw back his failing mask. When he looked back down he was more his usual self. "Even a servant?"

Byakuya nodded at the wisdom of her words, the feel of his own body yearning for sleep and his mind was too torn to deal with the tantrums calmly now. He might love Ichigo, but without some respite from the teens swinging moods he was of little help to him. "Ichigo? I'm leaving..." He was about to say for a little while to sleep but the paranoia that was Ichigo at the moment yelled out his fear and scrabbled for the lock.

"NO!" The door swung violently open and Ichigo bolted into Byakuya's body. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just don't go... Don't leave me in here alone!" The teen grabbed handfuls of Byakuya's robes and buried his head in the taller man's chest. "Don't say it.... Don't say you don't want me any more." Byakuya could feel his clothes getting more sodden by the moment and he ignored the enquiring eyes watching him as he wrapped his arms around Ichigo.

"I need rest Ichigo. Just as you do. Get back into bed and sleep."

"You won't leave me... You won't go?"

"No. I promise I'm not leaving you." Calming stroked down the teens back took ten minutes to get the boy to stop crying enough to move from the spot and Byakuya edged him back towards the bed. Again he was tucked in and his eyes finally shut for the last time.

Retsu had watched the interaction with interest. Not many people have ever managed to get beneath the icy surface and into the nobles heart, but this child had somehow managed it. She watched the way Byakuya soothed him and sat patiently enduring all the times the chocolate eyes would battle against sleep to see that his protector was still beside him.

"I don't know how the Kuchiki clan would feel about you wanting to adopt another teenager." She spoke softly. Byakuya looked up with a smile on his face and a shake of his head.

"You think I want to adopt him?"

"If he has a father, you know it really isn't an option." She had read the files so she knew about Ichigo's mother. But whether her guess was right or not, Byakuya made no attempt to correct her and she watched him silently again.

Byakuya's fingers had found their own way into the ginger spikes and Ichigo's body curled closer into the contact. The were no denying that there was a strong connection between them, it was all too telling in the subconscious actions they shared.

"If he is part of this mess at Karakura hospital, his files should also be returned. Clinically I would not be braking any confidences to say that there is little to no evidence in there for a diagnosis of Schizophrenia."

"And for wanting to keep him in the hospital?"

"Nothing is noted except the use of a drug I am unfamiliar with."

"But his dreaming and seeing things?"

"Chemically influenced with drugs that were prescribed to him." Although that was a slip and she should have not mentioned it, her words seemed to have offered the noble some relief. "How about that rest now?"

"I will sit with him a little longer." Byakuya said quietly.

"You cannot adopt every troubled child you find." She smiled at him. "Even you will run out of bedrooms!" She joked. "I dare say the palace may rent you a few if the need arouse." She was laughing lightly and shaking her head. "It is good though."

"How is it good?"

"You have found something to replace your wife."

"I have found my peace that I will confess. Ichigo had an addictive personality."

"Well there seems little more I can do. It is just a waiting game whilst the drugs flush out of his system. It is normal to expect this behaviour, just be patient with him and see that you don't forget your own needs!" He nodded at her mothering tone and followed her out of the room quietly not long after. Whilst the boy was asleep, he could get those arrangements sorted.

...

For one night all respective inhabitants were resting in their own beds. The dead of night had swallowed the huge mansion whole and plunged into darkness. The personal guards of the Kuchiki clan were safeguarding the perimeters and walking their usual route around the house near their sleeping wards. A guard paused outside the guest room, a noise had alerted him as he passed and stopped to listen.

With his head cocked to one side he dared a glance through the slatted shutters and looked in at the boy shaking violently in his bed. His face was screwed into torment and his mouth was repeating over and over "No. No. NO!" It was a dream, a vivid dream none the less, but no security risk and none of his business. He tore his gaze away from the room and began to walk on.

No more that four paces along, an ear piercing scream erupted from the boys room and the guard ran back. This time he did not hesitate to enter the room for other influences to the boys distress. But one foot inside the garden door, the noble lord himself rushed into the room, his dark steel eyes clashed with the guards and he was followed closely behind by the younger mistress. They looked startled and where she held back from approaching the still sleeping but screaming boy, the Lord did not.

Byakuya took hold of Ichigo's shoulders and gave him a firm shake. The visage that had been screaming woke startled with the echo of a scream still on his lips.

"... My mother!" Ichigo's terrified eyes took in all the faces watching him and he retreated up the bed yanking his bedclothes with him and covering his body as he balled himself up tight.

Byakuya was now used to seeing Ichigo shivering from the effects of the drugs, but this was different, this was fear. "Ichigo." He went to stroke the messy tufts of hair and was confused by the way he jerked away from the touch. Wide timid eyes stared back at him and Byakuya realised the boy was still too affected by his dream to understand his surroundings. "It was a dream." He said softly. "Just a dream." the teen shook his head. It was no dream.

What he had seen was never a dream. It was a memory he had buried deep inside himself and thanks to Mayuri and his damned drugs had been brought painfully back to the surface. With his eyes and his sleep induced mind, he had been that small child again beside the river.

Ichigo shook his head as sobs left him breathless and his hands clenched either side of his head. Huge clumps of hair tore in his fingers as held on tight in his desperation as the scene played out over and over again in his mind. The sound of her voice screaming and pleading. The man plunging himself into her body raping her and stabbing her with the knife. The silver of the blade tainted red with her blood and dripping over Ichigo as he threatened to kill him too.

"You may leave us." Byakuya said to the guard who nodded and slid silently away. "Rukia, fetch some camomile tea for us all." She nodded and left the room.

Carefully hoping that Ichigo's was not dreaming of Hollows and sword fights moved himself onto the bed and looked at the teen. With slowly careful movements he began to reach out and untangle the first of the fists wishing he didn't see tufts of ginger still captured in the free hand.

"Its me Byakuya, Ichigo." He reached for the second and noticed the boy was terrified of him. "You had a dream my love." He whispered holding the hands now tightly in his own to stop him tearing at his hair again. "Its all over now, I'm here."

A shard of hope splintered the memories and Ichigo's eyes fought for focus on the softly speaking figure in front of him. "Byakuya?" He whispered as the tears dripped freely from his jaw, their wet trail down his cheeks, a well marked route by now.

"I'm here. No one is going to hurt you here." He whispered and began untangling the teen from the covers as he felt him relax to a small degree.

"I can hear her screaming... Byakuya... The knife..." There was so much pain echoing from the croaked words and the earthen coloured eyes that he ignored all his overcautious slow movements and swept the boy into his arms. Ichigo froze into the hold as his mind waited for the stab of that knife he could still see in his mind and the feel of her hot blood on his skin. "Don't hurt her! Stop!" Ichigo fell into his child's eye view of the events that day and he battled to be free of the hold around him, but Byakuya was not going to let him go.

Rukia entered and watched as her brother tried to restrain the thrashing teen. His sobs and cries pulled at her cold heart too and she was more than a little awestruck at her brothers patience and tender rocking. His soothing whispers into the unhearing ears went on until Ichigo was too tired to fight any more.

"What do you see?" Byakuya asked with his lips passing over Ichigo's ear.

"Blood."

"Whose blood?"

"Mum!" Ichigo wept. "The man... He's... "

"What is he doing?"

"Raping her..." Ichigo's body shook again. "Stabbing her... she screamed... She screamed and no one came... the knife was all red. All red from her and he held it at my throat..."

"You remember now?" Byakuya stroked his finger down the side of his lovers face as Ichigo nodded. Well at last Byakuya has his answers. If Ichigo's fears were not stemmed from Mayuri, they must have come from witnessing his mothers rape and brutal murder. Even with the memory suppressed it was no wonder that the teen would have been scared of all intimate contact. The whole ordeal would rightly affect him the way it did. Everything fell into place, everything was now explained. The blood he kept seeing on himself or others during his hallucinations was the blood from his mothers murder.

Unknown to both of them Mayuri's drugs had not only worked to counteract the long last side effects of his previous drugs it had also paved the way for his locked memories to flood his mind. But Ichigo was not ready to see it all again when he felt so off kilter. His sick body could just about hold out to the withdrawal symptoms and now he had this too. His life had turned into real life nightmare all thanks to well meaning but blinkered help. Right now Ichigo never cared if he saw his father again. He had to blame someone and he pushed that right towards his father.

"Byakuya... I wish I didn't." Ichigo wrapped his arms around the man's neck and held him tightly as he let another wave of tears wash over him.

...