The stiff woolen fabric of Ulquiorra's uniform slightly scratched Orihime's cheek as she settled closer against his chest. Violet morning rose around them and the symphony of birds met it with a crescendo. The small and shabby yard was given fleeting beauty as dew glistened in the cool morning air. Orihime's body was sore from helping to pick up the worse of the mess in the store and her reiatsu felt dull from all the healing she had undertaken in the dark hours of the morning. Yet it was her heart that she felt most keenly this morning. She tried to decipher its strange and yet not entirely unpleasant ache. She looked down at Ulquiorra's again white and unmarked hand entwined with her own.

"I suppose everyone else is asleep," she said, still looking at their hands. When he didn't respond, she went on. "How long do you think they will stay here?"

"I don't know. They are not sure you are out of danger yet, so they stay on. Yet if no more attacks are attempted within the next couple of days, I believe that they will go on home."

"Well at least we all will have time to help Urahara clean up his shop. I feel really bad about what a mess it is," Orihime said softly, not wanting to say what was really on her mind. They stayed that way as the violet burned away to blue and the yard lost it's dewy sparkle. She stalled and tried to memorize the way he smelled. The mundane smell of soap mixed strangely with his own smell of winter. She closed her eyes and tried to envision what his cold scent reminded her of. It was like walking through winter woods, but a woods where the brown deadness was not yet covered and cleaned by snowfall. She imagined herself in those dead trees, bundled against the frosty air as ice crusty leaves crunched underfoot. She raised her eyes to the cruel blue sky in her daydream and felt wetness on her cheeks. Has it begun to snow at last? she wondered. Yet the blue sky stayed and the cold wetness on her cheeks were her own tears.

She came back to green spring with a start and could stall no more. "I...I talked with Urahara some last night as I helped him clean up." she began. Ulquiorra said nothing, but she could feel a shift in his demeanor as though he was listening closely. "I asked him if I could h...heal you...I mean to a state where you would no longer be a hollow...or maybe even dead." She listened a moment and then went on in the silence, "He said he thought it was possible, and that the only way to know was to try. B...but he said if I did, that I would have to be prepared for the possibility that you wouldn't remember anything. T...that to you, everything that has happened since your death wouldn't exist anymore." She stopped there and kept her gaze on his black nails, not wanting to see his expression. She laughed nervously at that...what expression? Why would he look at her any different than with the dead-eyed gaze he usually had?

"Orihime." She buried her head deeper in his clothes, at first not wanting to know what he was going to say. "I want to show you something, Orihime." he stated, intent as unreadable as always in his emotionless voice.

"O...ok..." she whispered and looked up at him. He took his cold hand from hers and brought it to his left eye. She clasped her hands together and looked at his face, not yet knowing what he was going to show her. Suddenly he sunk his fingers deep into his eye socket and pulled. She screamed and turned her face away.

"What are you doing?" she cried at the grass.

"Don't worry, Orihime. I'm alright. Now look here."

She slowly turned to the eye he now held in his hand. She tried not see the way it was wet and glistening in the sun. She didn't want to be sick in front of him. Then she was afraid she was going to be sick anyway cause suddenly he closed his hand on the eye and crushed it. Yet it didn't squish and bleed the way she thought it would. Instead it shattered like glass and the shards formed images in the air in front of them. At first she wasn't sure what exactly she was seeing, or why he was showing her some pretty and quaint little village nestled in a green valley, surrounded by misty mountains. Then the village approached as she watched and soon she was walking it's cobbled roads. Then as she entered the first little house, she got her first stirring of unease. It grew as she took in the neat living room and then the lace curtains hanging in the kitchen windows. There was a young woman under those curtains, washing her dishes. Orihime didn't want to see anymore, but at first was unable to turn away.

"No. Please...don't show me this!" she sobbed as she finally wrenched her gaze from the dying woman and looked back at the ground instead. "Why do you want me to see such things?" she whispered.

"That could have been you, Orihime. It almost was you." she heard him whisper in response. Then she felt him wave his hand into the air. "You can look again. The images are gone."

She looked up at his face, but almost immediately turned away from his one-eyed gaze. "You...you want me to give you your eye back?" she asked him, praying the answer would be yes.

"You don't need to. I can tell you are already tired out and my eye will grow back on its own."

"Oh." Orihime replied, wondering what else about him she didn't know. He didn't say anything else, but Orihime figured he said all he wanted to on the subject. "Um...well Urahara said he would like to talk to you if you are willing to try." she told him softly, wondering if he would still smell like winter.

--------------------

Ulquiorra stood outside Urahara's door unable to decide if he should take his hands out of his pockets or not. He finally decided that the former soul reaper wasn't worthy of his respect and kept his hands where they were. Then the door slid open and Ulquiorra quickly took his hands out and clasped them behind his back instead.

"Come in, come in." Urahara told him motioning to the rubble-strewn sitting room. "I would tell you to forgive the mess, but since you were partner in creating it, I'm sure you already understand." he smiled at him, motioning to a dusty chair.

"I prefer to stand." Ulquiorra told him.

"Then I hope you don't mind if I take a seat then," Urahara said and then sat at Ulquiorra's slight shake of his head. "Now then, I'm sure Inoue-san told you what I said to her so I don't need to rehash that bit. Do you want to have her try to heal you? To reject the fact that you ever became a hollow?"

Ulquiorra stood a moment, considering. His life as a hollow was driven by pain, but had his life as a human really been much different? He couldn't remember anymore. He could remember the humiliation he had suffered and the hate he felt for his tormentors, but that was about it. Yet he didn't really feel any particular affection for his current form either. He supposed in the end, he really didn't care either way and was about to say so, when he thought of Orihime. He saw her turning away from him in fear and then answered, "I'd like for her to try."

"I'm glad to hear that." Urahara said. "Though I lose my research subject, I think the exchange is a good and fair one, " he said with a twinkle in his eye. "Alright...on to what I wanted to ask you. First of all if this fails and you are rejected back to a Menos Grande or lower hollow, we are going to purify you. Do you understand and still want to proceed?

"Yes."

"OK, now as I am sure Inoue told you, there is a good chance you are going to forget everything if she rejects you back far enough. To the human you, none of us would have existed yet, including Inoue-san. There may be a way be a way to counter that, but I just don't know. We are treading on undiscovered ground here. Can you reach your human self that is buried deep within your soul?"

Ulquiorra was surprised at the question. How long ago had he felt that small and seemingly insubstantial part of his soul? Eons ago it seemed...it was a part that felt everything too keenly and thus was allowed to be quickly eradicated by the hollow. He doubted he could bring it back up even if he tried. "I don't believe so," he answered.

"Ah...well keep trying today. We'll begin the process at sunset tonight. Try not to go running off on us again in the meantime, ok?" Urahara told him standing up and stretching out his back. "Now if you would be so kind as to excuse me, my store is looking a little worse for the wear today and I need to get it ready again for the hoards of customers that are always banging down my door."

Ulquiorra followed him out of the sitting room and then turned down the hall to the room Orihime was staying in. He found her alone on the bed, clearly waiting nervously and sat down next to her. He could tell that she wanted to ask him what he had discussed with Urahara, but was scared of his answer. He looked at her and saw her slightly flinch at his missing eye. He looked away and told her, "I don't want to forget you."

He waited for her answer and began to worry that it would never come. Then he felt her warm hand softly cup his face and turn it towards her. "Please be with me on more time. Everyone else is gone or asleep. It's just us." Ulquiorra nodded and gently kissed her mouth, laying her back down on the bed. He tried to memorized everything about the moment. The way the sun glinted in her hair, turning it orangey-gold. It looked that way in the park when he first saw her, didn't it? The way her warm body arched against his own, her small hands tangled in his black hair. The slightly salty taste of her sweat on his lips as he kissed her face. The sound of his name softy sighed in her sweet voice. Her...her...always her. "I love you, Orihime," he sighed back to her. "I'll try not to forget it."