Disclaimer: Tite Kubo...he owns these characters...I just torture them.

A/N: Thank you everyone for the reviews. Thank you all for bearing with the late updates. Here's the next installment!

Where She Belongs

By: Apherion

Chapter 14

-Orihime-

Though Urahara was here, explaining everything to me, I wasn't coming to terms with it. What he was suggesting was his spirit was rejecting the human body, but hollows don't have spirits anymore. Then I heard the faintest whimper from the one who had started my involvement in this whole ordeal.

He was lying on his back, his knees tucked underneath him. He stared blankly up, his electric green eyes stark against the blackness around them. He had the same pallor he had when he was an Espada. His complexion had become void of color except for the two lines that started on his lower eyelids and stretched to his jaw. His obsidian hair had lengthened to extend past his shoulders; his bangs would have covered his eyes had he been sitting up.

All of that wasn't what alarmed me when I looked down at him. I could see his wings growing.

"Urahara…his wings," my voice didn't sound as urgent as I was hoping it would. I tugged on his sleeve, and he leaned into my line of sight, blocking Ulquiorra for a moment. When he pulled back, he turned me to look at him.

"I don't see them"—I cut across Urahara.

"But they're there! I know they are, his hair's longer and I know you have to see the markings on his face." Urahara patted my shoulder gently.

"I wasn't saying you were lying, Orihime. I'm telling you that I cannot see his transformation. I know how Shinji and the others became hollows because I was there the night it happened. I could see that transformation, but it's different when reiatsu is involved. It's supposed to be barely detectable when someone has spiritual energy invade their body."

"Why can I see it then?" I heard the panic in my voice, but there was nothing I could do about it. Urahara sighed and shook his head.

"Maybe because you're the reason there is reiatsu pouring into his body, or maybe because you weren't the one who resurrected him." I looked at him askance before my eyes returned to the man lying on the floor. I could see the wings growing, elongating to reach their original length.

"What do you mean I'm not the one who resurrected him?" My voice did not sound like my own. I heard Urahara's sigh, but I refused to look away from the one I wanted to help.

"I mean to say that hollows do not have the same kind of energy that Soul Reapers possess. He has reiatsu—the energy of Soul Reapers—coursing through him. When the reiatsu has consumed him, he will need a gigai to contain the spiritual pressure he is bound to have. The fact that he has enough to cause this kind of effect on his human body means he will be as powerful as he has ever been, if not more so." My eyes widened, mind reeling at what implications this had.

"Does that mean he's going to be a Soul Reaper?"

"I don't know; I've never experienced this phenomenon myself. I've only read about it once in a book long forgotten in the Soul Society's library. It may and it may not be the same as hollowfication. It may only take just one thread to break and—"

"Urahara…" I started slowly, cutting him off, my memory almost painfully jogged by his recent ramblings. My mouth almost couldn't keep up with converting the too fast thoughts into words. I looked at Ulquiorra's motionless body, frightened for him, my chest tightening with the thought of him not surviving. "I tried healing him before…he had done something in Hueco Mundo to harm himself, and there was one strand inside him that I could not reject. Could…could the Hogyoku have brought…him back?" It was Urahara's turn to pause, and I let my eyes wander to him, still overwhelmed with what I was thinking.

He, too, appeared as shocked as I was. However, he pulled out his fan and started tapping his chin with it like he always did when he pondered something. It sprung open, startling me, but I was hopeful, believing he had to have come to some conclusion about this situation.

"Seeing as I made the Hogyoku," I leaned in, eager for an answer, "I am most assuredly not sure." His gay tone caused me to blink, and I pulled back, my expectations dropping. I sighed, remembering he had not had long to work with the Hogyoku before being forced to place it inside of Rukia. "Orihime," he said gently, putting his hand firmly on my shoulder. "Regardless of how he came back, you're not going to abandon him. I know this because you have never called me by name without an honorific before today. You must be worried for him."

"You're right," I said, moving to kneel and put his head in my lap. My fingers splayed in his hair, and I could feel the spiritual pressure building around him. "He's my friend now, too." I let the obsidian strands slip between my fingers, smooth as water, and I looked up at Urahara. He was shaking his head at me.

"'He's my friend now, too'?" He repeated my words. "You've never been so worried about someone that you've never called me 'Mr. Urahara'." I blushed, returning my gaze to Ulquiorra, and changed the subject.

"Will you be able to make a gigai for him when he's"—I searched for the proper term, but settled on the easiest, "awake?" Urahara laughed momentarily, not out of rudeness, but for my lack of experience with the Soul Society's jargon.

"I'll do my best to have it fashioned immediately for him, but I have no idea how long this is going to take." Always the gracious host, I pretty much offered him to my entire home as long as he cleaned up after himself. I earned another peal of laughter from the shopkeeper. I didn't move from Ulquiorra though. He had my concern back in Hueco Mundo, and now that he was here—no longer hollow, no longer human—I could not lie and say he no longer held my interest.

It didn't help matters that he and I seemed to be getting as close as we had been in Hueco Mundo. Although he kidnapped me, he protected me—as best he could. I leaned over him and pressed a kiss onto his forehead, a long one because I was fighting back the tears that came with the memory from that time.

-Ulquiorra-

He could feel her tears on his skin, but he could not move for the fire. It was a dull ache now, but it was still too painful to lift his head to press his lips against the woman he would claim as his. She was the only thing that he had maintained in his memory.

She was there, bargaining with him to spare the two men escorting her. She was there, vehemently refusing to eat. Her body disheveled and used. Her body as he pinned her down. Her hand striking his face in response to words meant to damage her ability to hope. Her hand as it reached out to grasp his as he disintegrated into dust.

Now she was above him, crying.

"Mr. Urahara… Are you almost finished?" Her voice was soft, a little broken as she recovered from the tears she had been shedding. The shopkeeper laughed.

"Orihime, you don't have to keep calling me that. You're grown-up enough to address me by my name."

"But…" She wanted to argue; however, Urahara would not hear of it.

"You may call me Urahara, you may call me Kisuke. Please don't insist on being a child anymore." She did not reply, taking in how he scolded her. "Yes, I think the gigai has been completed. I won't know until he's—as you put it—awake." He knew what was waiting for him to open his eyes, but he did not wish to do so just yet. He wanted to listen to the two talking as the pain dwindled out of his system.

He watched as images of past lives interrupted some of the menial chatter the woman presented to Urahara. Mostly questions of how the gigai would work for him, as he was no longer human and no longer hollow. He was a…Soul Reaper? It made no sense to him; he only recalled the white-hot burn that seared his insides to nothing. Reiatsu coursed through him, not the fuel of souls that failed to move on.

Then, his memories focused on their kiss. Her soft body against his, and he felt himself move slightly into the touch of the woman who cradled his head.

"Urahara," she started, almost excitedly. "He…moved." He felt her lifting him off of her knees and being lain down gently on the ground. Hair tickled his face then, and he knew she was leaning over him. He could feel her breath on his cheek, but he did not move. "Ulquiorra," she whispered tenderly to him. Whether she intended for it to happen or not, her lips brushed his skin as she said his name.

He opened his eyes then, green seeking gray through the mess of red hair. They found his, widening before slowly brimming with tears.

"Woman, do not cry." However, she was not able to stop the twin tears that dripped onto his face. He lifted a hand through the tresses that shielded them both, and pulled her down to his lips. He needed to feel that softness again as he lay there, weakened by the transformation his body had undergone. It was awkward for her, and he smiled briefly at her ineptitude.

The kiss was broken sooner than he'd have liked, but she was inexperienced and too embarrassed to show affection. Urahara acted as though he wasn't there, because he had his back turned on the two of them even as she began to help him sit up. She immediately started to gush about what Urahara had done for him, and attempted to explain what was going on.

"I know," he said once she paused for breath. She looked at him puzzled, her hands frozen in midair from talking with them. "I heard everything that you were saying earlier. You need not explain again."

"Oh," she replied, looking a little put out. Her hands lowered as her lower lip jutted out. Her attention then turned to Urahara, and he addressed her from over his shoulder.

"If you two are ready for his gigai…?" He spoke in uncertain tones, hesitating to turn around. Ulquiorra felt something inside of him purr with uninhibited delight; Urahara knew she was his.

"Yes," she piped up enthusiastically. "He's ready!" She smiled at him brightly, and he allowed the slightest of a grin to return her ecstatic gesture. Urahara turned around, cradling an almost invisible body suit in his arms.

"This may be a little uncomfortable, but once I get you properly measured, you won't notice a difference beyond your spiritual pressure being suppressed." Urahara was about to place the gigai on him when he paused. "You'll need to lie down, Ulquiorra," Urahara added, offering silently that the gigai was not meant to be put on like an article of clothing.

He did as told, and he felt a cool, slippery thing fall over his body, encasing him and conforming immediately to his skin. He felt it meld to his body, pressing against each contour of his skin, branching in and out of hair follicles. It felt like a film had been placed over his actual face until he blinked and the film slipped underneath his eyes, seamlessly covering them. He could feel his entire body attracted magnetically to this new body. In a matter of seconds, everything was as it should be; only now he was encased in a frame visible to humans.

He righted himself at once, feeling her touch on his arm as he did so. The touch felt less like her marking him with fingerprints with each passing second. Urahara appeared astounded; at least as far as Ulquiorra could tell with his face shrouded by the hat the shopkeeper continuously wore.

"Is it ok?" She asked him nervously. Her attentiveness did not go unnoticed because Urahara calmly stated,

"Orihime, give him a chance to breathe." She blushed and immediately retracted her hand from the layer that passed as his skin. Ulquiorra watched as she folded her hands on top of her thighs, sitting on her ankles, and watching the floor with rapt interest. He returned his attention to the creator of his façade.

"It is different, as though I have allowed myself to become imprisoned. However, each moment I remain in this…gigai…I feel as though it is the real body and my other is the soul that animates it." Urahara nodded, seemingly intrigued.

"You certainly did take to it without delay. I believed the gigai would reject you, as you are not a true Soul Reaper—and you would not be considered Vizard, either. But it seems I stand corrected." He smiled and looked down at the woman. Suddenly, her mouth opened wide as she yawned heavily.

"It appears you need rest, woman." She shook her head defiantly, turning to look at him. He could see the pout she was trying to form on her lips.

"No, I'm not ti-ti-tired," she spoke as another yawn interrupted her. Urahara laughed a bit to himself.

"I think that your gigai will undergo apoptosis should it find it's not properly attached, but should you experience a problem, you know where I am, good night."

"Good night, I am in your debt," Ulquiorra replied nodding his head to the shopkeeper, who waved his hand dismissively stating that the debt would be paid in time before disappearing out into the black night. Now, to get her to bed, he thought with some displeasure remembering her obstinacy.

He stood up and pulled her to her feet. She swayed almost instantly on the spot. "You need rest." His logic was overpowered by her nonsensical brain due to lack of sleep.

"So do you, but I…" she trailed off, blushing furiously. Ah, he thought, noticing the way she tugged at her purple nightshirt. For a moment, he saw himself relieving her body of both shirt and bunny covered pants. Yet, he knew that really wasn't what she was wanting, and what she needed was a bed.

He leaned forward, brushing a lock of her red hair behind her ear as he whispered huskily, "Come." She allowed him to take her into his arms and carry her up the stairs to her bedroom. He laid her down, and she instantly sat up.

"I'm not tired!" She shouted childishly. He snorted softly, seeing her indignation. As softly as he could, he shoved her closer to the wall so he could sit on the bed as well.

"I cannot force you to sleep. However, I know that is what my body needs, and I will not deny it." As he began to fall back onto the pillows, he saw how her face reddened with the idea of spending the night with him. "It is safe, Orihime Inoue. I will not hurt you."

Her foolish antics ceased, and she looked down at him. Slowly, she allowed herself to lie on her back next to him. He settled himself even further into her sheets, all around him her scent.

Before completely succumbing to the embrace her bed was giving him, he felt the weight on her side shift as she shyly rested her head against his chest.

TBC...