Sorry this chapter is so short! /o\

Thanks to my beta's Q and B. Wnd thanks for reading! I appreciate it.

Ichigo walked for what seemed like forever, without direction. An emptiness yawned widely in his stomach, and only grew worse with every step. He was such a fucking moron—what had he expected, honestly? Grimmjow was a sadistic prick; maybe Ichigo had simply grown too used to the psychopath directing all his murderous impulses at him to realize it. The war hadn't really ended, not for a second, though it felt like it had, trapped in Hueco Mundo. Like time didn't seem to matter here—and how much of it had Ichigo wasted, chasing after Grimmjow's ass?

He'd been able to delude himself into thinking he could use the arrancar as a possible escape, if he got close enough to the other man, but now Ichigo couldn't even stand to do that. It was so close to siding with the enemy, he might as well've just called it as such—handing over all of himself to be used completely, when it wouldn't even guarantee his escape. Ichigo didn't justify his actions to anyone, and he hated that now, he felt like he needed to.

How selfish could he possibly be, Ichigo wondered. Willing to sacrifice everything he stood for, if only so that he could get off, no matter how many other people it put in danger. Having Grimmjow in Hueco Mundo, away from everyone else, had made it easy for him to forget what was important. How long was he going to be here—trapped away from everything that made sense in his mind, and the space filled up by the exact opposite.

"What will you do?" Ichigo asked Nel, later, after he'd worn himself out thinking until his head hurt. Aizen's summons had rung in his head until Ichigo felt disoriented and nauseous; Ichigo imagined that Aizen was looking forward to a gloating audience after Grimmjow and Ulquiorra's return. Ichigo didn't mind attending if it meant he'd know what really had happened in the real world. He didn't particularly want to ask Grimmjow about the details.

Ichigo had arrived in the auditorium to find Nel and her fraccion, already waiting for Aizen to arrive. He was glad to see her, and joined Nel on the low steps where she sat, sharpening her blade to waste the time. "You've already sided with Aizen," he continued. "Are you going to kill shinigami to serve him?"

"I've killed shinigami before," she answered. Ichigo was surprised. He didn't want to imagine Nel killing anyone. "Why?"

Ichigo looked away, not wanting to acknowledge that she surely had, in the past. As a hollow. It was too hard having her as an ally first; now he couldn't even consider her an enemy—even if she would eventually become one, once he finally escaped. Nel made no illusions about her loyalty to Aizen.

"C'mon, you must've known that," she said, disbelief in her voice. "I wouldn't have lived long if I hadn't."

"You didn't have to."

"And what would I've done instead, huh? Gotten killed myself?" She laughed lightly. "I didn't come this far to get knocked back to nothing."

"It's not nothing, you'd go to Soul Society. You wouldn't have to still be a hollow," Ichigo said, scowling at the ground. He didn't want to tell Nel the real reasoning behind his questions, which only made him feel like more of a pathetic, lovelorn idiot; Ichigo felt a hard knot form in his stomach at putting things in that way, but it was the most accurate. Even acting upset over this made him feel stupid.

"That's your problem right there, you know that?" Nel's irritating was clear in her voice. It wasn't something Ichigo was used to, from her. "You never think that maybe we like being hollows, maybe this is what I'm supposed to be. If I got sent back to Seireitei, what would be left, huh? I can't even remember what my first soul looked like."

"Maybe you should find out," Ichigo snorted, petulantly.

"Maybe I don't want to," she returned, nose turned up towards him. "You don't even know if that's true; who says what we turn back into, once we die. You ever met anything that used to be hollow in Soul Society?"

"Don't mess me up anymore than I already am," Ichigo said, and didn't meet her eyes. Of course he didn't know, because he'd never thought to ask—that annoyed him also, his own stupidity—but he'd never been stuck with enough time to think these things over when he'd first started out. Rukia said the hollows were purified; that had to be better than what they were now. He hadn't questioned what happened after.

Things weren't as complicated before the arrancar, before hollows started seeming more human than animal. Grimmjow was still plenty animal, and Ichigo was thankful for that—easier to put him in a category far away from what Ichigo knew as normal. Nel confused him; she was too much of a friend to be an enemy, and he dreaded the day when she eventually would be. She wasn't trying to convince or sway him into staying, and that was almost worse: Ichigo would be grateful if, just for once, she'd act like the evil antithesis she was supposed to be.

Nel shrugged her shoulders, "Would you go back to being a normal human, now that you've been a shinigami?"

"You piss me off," he muttered, not directed at Nel but the entire situation.

"Life doesn't give you easy answers every time."

"Doesn't give you any better," Ichigo grumbled. "What're you gonna do, huh? When you run into me, or Rukia, or Inoue? You gonna fight us?"

"Of course." Ichigo envied how easily she answered. It was also frightening. Nel returned to working on her blade. "And I'd expect you not to disappoint me."

"Now you're starting to sound like Grimmjow."

"I knew he was the reason for all of this," she said, her eyes focusing on Ichigo slyly. "What's the matter, starting to enjoy the company too much?"

"Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong."

"Oh, am I?" she smiled, and stuck her tongue out at him through her teeth. "Speaking of which." Nel glanced at the door, nodding her head-and there the fucker was, of course, limping pitifully—but at least Grimmjow's leg was attached this time.

"Shit," Ichigo cursed. He wasn't exactly ready to deal with the prick just yet—not when he still felt messed up inside, more conflicted than ever.

"Some choices are always bad, but what can you do? You're not the type to run from things." Nel smiled kindly at him. Bad choices—it basically summed up Ichigo's life.

Hopefully, I will feel guilty enough about how short this chapter is to get the next one up ASAP. Happy 2010!