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Opening her eyes to see the run-down, dark looking park, Orihime felt tears come to her eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" Ichigo asked softly, noticing she was about to cry.

"Um yeah, let's just go." Orihime wiped at her eyes, and started in front of the others. I feel so broken...

A few weeks later, April 1st, Saturday

"Where's Orihime at?" Nadia, their wedding planner, asked as she joined the table where Ichigo was sitting.

Ichigo sighed, but tried to hide it with a smile. "She wasn't really feeling up to leaving the house today."

Nadia hummed as she opened her notebook. "I hope she's doing okay. She hasn't come to our last few appointments."

"To be honest, she's going through something with… her family," Ichigo said, inwardly cringing at adding that last part, but it seemed like that settled Nadia's questions. "This past month has been hard on her, and I'm trying to take on more to make it easier for her."

Nadia seemed to accept that, as she nodded and motioned to the notebook. "We're essentially looking at a busy month, as there are many things that we need to finalize or get started on. A big one is for you and Orihime to find your tux and her dress. I'd love to say that it is a short process, but not many people find themselves lucky enough to find their tux or dress on the first try. If anything, the bride usually has several different fittings and different locations, and that could take a month or two. Then getting everything altered could take even longer, and it's really important to at least start the process sooner rather than later."

Ichigo nodded slowly. "I'll be sure to bring that up to Orihime when I get home. Hopefully, she'll cheer up a little."

Nadia offered him a sympathetic smile, before she flipped to a new tab. "Okay, moving on."

An hour later

Shutting the basement door, Ichigo set Mina down after Bingo had calmed a little. Watching her go over to the living room to her toys, Ichigo then focused on letting Bingo out back. Hearing heavier footsteps than Mina, Ichigo turned back to see Orihime coming downstairs. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and she was in her pajamas. "Good afternoon."

"Hey." Orihime mumbled, as she moved over to the refrigerator.

At her silence, Ichigo sighed and moved over to the bar stools. "The meeting with our wedding planner went well. It was mostly us finalizing stuff, but she did talk about how it's about time for us to start searching for my tux and your dress."

"That's great." Orihime replied shortly, as she closed the refrigerator and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter.

Seeing she wasn't as excited for shopping for a wedding dress than he thought she would, Ichigo glanced to Mina, and got another idea. "On another note, Mina's birthday is coming up next month, and maybe we can start brainstorming ideas for what we want to do."

Orihime shrugged and took a bite out of her apple. "I guess so."

Sighing heavily at that, Ichigo turned to close the back door after Bingo came in. "You could at least try to sound a little bit excited."

"Her birthday isn't going to be for another month, why would we start planning it now?" Orihime countered, her eyes narrowing in his direction. "And our wedding is four months away, and I have time to get a wedding dress later. I don't really care to do any of that now."

"You don't really care to do anything lately!" Ichigo snapped back at her, as he turned around and met her eyes. "I get that you've been depressed and upset, but you can't just ignore the people in your life."

"I'm not ignoring-"

"You haven't left the house in three weeks!" Ichigo interrupted her, as he felt all this anger boil up the surface. "You barely talk to me. You don't talk to any of our friends or family."

"Why would I want to talk to any of you?!" Orihime countered, as she slapped her hand on the counter. "I can barely look anyone in the eye, because of all the problems I have caused-"

"Oh we are not going there again!" Ichigo interrupted, waving his hand back and forth. "No one blames you for Aizen! No one blames you for your mother helping him-"

"Don't call her that!" Orihime shouted, as she brought her hands to her head. "I should have just stayed in Hueco Mundo a couple of years ago, then none of this would be happening."

"Then we wouldn't be together or have Mina," Ichigo replied, his eyes glaring at her. "Is that really what you want?"

"At least I wouldn't be constantly putting yours and her life at risk every damn day!" Orihime countered, before she turned away to go upstairs.

Mina starting to cry from the living room kept Ichigo from going after her, and he moved quickly over to her. Seeing that she had pushed one of her toys too far under the couch and couldn't reach it, he sighed and knelt down to get it for her. Forcing a smile onto his face, he handed the toy to her, as he noticed it was actually Bingo's toy that she tossed back across the room for Bingo to retrieve. Sighing at their innocence and obliviousness at what just happened, Ichigo sat on the floor, and leaned his head back on the couch behind him. This is day took a turn for the worse.

That night

Turning over to her other side, Orihime sighed as she felt no closer to sleep than she did two hours ago when she first laid down. Trying for another couple minutes, she finally got up, and tip-toed out of the room to try to keep from waking up Bingo or Ichigo. Walking downstairs, she went to the study, and sat down at her desk. Turning on her computer, she pulled up her recent work, and frowned as she looked it over. Over the past month she had been slowly collecting as much as she could on narrowing down who her father could be.

While she wasn't a hundred percent certain that she had a separate father than Sora, she couldn't ignore the possibility. At this point, it's the only thing we have to go on- Her thoughts broke off when she heard a creak sound, then Ichigo walked in. They had apologized to each other over dinner after their fight, but it still seemed a little off between them.

It was quiet as they stared at each other for a moment, then Ichigo crossed his arms. "What's up?"

Orihime sighed, as her eyes went back to the screen. "Nothing new. I just can't sleep..."

Pulling the chair from the desk over, Ichigo sat down next to her, and looked to the computer screen. "I think we've narrowed down that if you did have a different father than your brother, there is no digital record that can confirm that."

"I've searched everywhere from Rosehaven to all the cities and towns surrounding it," Orihime said, as she leaned back on the chair a little. "I could only find a death certificate for Sora's father, and possibly my father. There's not one for my mother though."

"So you think she's alive and not a shinigami? Or I guess she could be alive and be a shinigami-"

"Or something completely different," Orihime interrupted, shrugging at Ichigo's look. "I had to get my strange powers from somewhere."

"That's true, I guess." Ichigo agreed, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.

Orihime hummed lowly, and focused back on the computer screen. "She could have lived anywhere in the world before coming to Rosehaven, and if she did in face die, it could have been hundreds of years ago. There's no way I could trace that without having some sort of idea of her story, or more of our relatives."

Ichigo noticed that on the desk table, she had Sora's birth certificate, as well as her own. However, a question mark on her's, had him raising an eyebrow. "What does this mean?"

"That's the thing, I found Sora's birth certificate easily, and it had both signatures on it. Mine does as well," Orihime replied, as her hand went to her birth certificate. "But something doesn't seem right about it. It's a copy of the original one, and I think my original might still be at the hospital in Rosehaven."

"Are you sure you were born in Rosehaven?" Ichigo asked, then he shook his head. "It doesn't matter. If you think it's possible, then maybe it's worth going to check out."

Orihime raised an eyebrow at Ichigo getting his phone. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to call my dad and see if he can watch Mina."

"Ichigo, it's two in the morning," Orihime said, noticing that didn't stop Ichigo from dialing his dad's number. "We don't have to go right now."

His dad picked up on the second ring, and Ichigo asked him if he would mind watching Mina if they brought her over. His dad agreed, then they ended the phone call.

"Ichigo-"

"Orihime," Ichigo interrupted, as he reached over for her hand. "I know that sometimes you think that you are the only one who's going through this, but I am right here with you. I've spent most of my time over the past few months trying to find something to go off of, and this might just be that something. We need to try. I don't want to keep sitting around."

Hearing that felt relieving to Orihime's ears, and she leaned over to hug him. Feeling his arms wrap around her, she sighed. "I love you Ichigo."

"I love you too," Ichigo said, as they pulled apart. "If you want to go get Mina, I'll get her stuff together, and get Bingo too."

"Okay," Orihime replied, as she got up. As she left the room to head to the stairs, she smiled a little. I hope this tells us something.

An hour and a half later, Rosehaven

Setting their bodies in the trunk of the car, Orihime cringed as Ichigo shut the trunk. "This is uncomfortable."

"We are doing this so no randomly comes across our bodies and thinks that we're dead," Ichigo said, smirking at Orihime's raised eyebrow. "Last time we did this, you were able to sit next to my body and just make it look like I fell asleep. Since we're both going, this just makes it easier."

Orihime sighed heavily as they walked away from the car to leave the parking deck. "This is probably one of the strangest things we've done together. Put our bodies in the trunk of a car."

Ichigo laughed as they jumped up on top of one of the buildings to start crossing rooftops to get to the hospital faster. "I have to agree with you there."

"When we get to the hospital, we should probably stay away from people. I know no one is going to be able to see us, but we just need to stay away from people who like they are about to die," Orihime said, feeling Ichigo's eyes go to her, she looked over to see his raised eyebrow. "What? Have you not seen those shows that always portray someone who's dying or about to die, and how they can see ghosts."

It was quiet for a moment, then Ichigo laughed. "Wow."

"Don't laugh at me." Orihime said, however, she smiled as he continued his laughter. Once they landed in front of the hospital and entered the building, Orihime took in a long deep breath. I still don't like hospitals.

"Okay," Ichigo said, having glanced at the map before they went into the stairwell. "The file room we are looking for is most likely on the basement floor. If that doesn't have what we want, there are smaller rooms of files in each wing of the hospital."

"I would think that older files would be downstairs."

"That's what I thought too. That or they are in a completely separate location, but let's hope that is not the case."

After Ichigo finished talking, they started down the stairs and had to get through the locked door to access the floor. Orihime was busy looking around at the more dimly lit floor, and the signage. Her face scrunching up at the sight of the morgue sign. "Oh god."

"Don't think about it," Ichigo said, taking her arm to keep her walking past the morgue, and further down the hall. They finally got to the file room, and once inside they were greeted with what seemed like almost a hundred shelves. "This is a small town, right?"

"Yeah," Orihime said, walking over to the shelf closest to them. "But I mean this stuff could be over several decades, and there is probably a lot of medical information in here."

"I know, but this seems like a lot," Ichigo said, going over to another shelf. "How about we work on different shelves?"

"Sounds good. I'll let you know if I find anything… Although we might be here a while." Orihime said, starting to look through some files for her name. Ichigo was right. For such a small town, you wouldn't think there would be so many files. Her eyes moved through the cracks between shelves, and as she looked back it seemed like the shelves went on forever. We'll be here forever.

An hour later

"Found something."

Ichigo's voice caught Orihime's attention from across the room. Leaving the shelf she was looking at, she walked over, and glanced at the paper he had pulled out of a folder. It was what seemed like the original copy of her birth certificate, and sure enough, there was no signature on the father line.

"Your mother's name Kurahime is correct right?" Ichigo asked, pointing out the mother's line.

"I guess so," Orihime said, her eyes looking over the document. "I know that this can't completely confirm that my brother and I have separate fathers, but this at least makes me more suspicious."

"Speaking of," Ichigo said, as he pulled a second file. It had Sora's name on it, and he pulled out a birth certificate. "He does have a signature on the father line for his. Hotoko, like the one that is on the copy of your birth certificate at home."

"Did you find anything on my mom?"

"No. There appears to be no birth certificate or death certificate."

"If she were a normal human, then her birth certificate would exist. However, we don't know for sure if she was born here."

"Yes, but if she was a shinigami who has died, she could have died forever ago. There would be no chance of finding any of her information. Or she could be a regular human, who gained shinigami abilities, and that could explain why her files are non-existent," Ichigo said, then he pulled another file off the shelf. "This one has your name on it too."

Accepting the file from him, so he could put the others back, Orihime opened it, and raised an eyebrow. "It's a paternity test."

As Orihime flipped through the papers, Ichigo hummed lowly when she didn't say anything. "What does it say?"

"It says that I don't match Hotoko..." Orihime trailed off in a moment of silence. "So my mom must have had reasonable doubt to have this test done, and it turned out she was right that Sora's father is not my father. My dad might actually still be alive then."

"Maybe," Ichigo agreed, his eyes softening at Orihime's words. After another moment of silence, he nudged her shoulder. "We should get out of here. Once we get back to Karakura it should be close to five in the morning. We can get breakfast and go pick up Mina from my dad's."

"Okay, then we have to go over to Urahara's and tell the others. Just to keep them updated," Orihime replied, putting the file back on the shelf. Her eyes dropped down to the floor as they left the room to go back up to the main floor. "I hope we figure out all this mess soon. Hopefully, something will lead us to Aizen."

"It'll happen," Ichigo said encouragingly, reaching over to take her hand once they were back on the main floor. "I'm sure it will."

A few hours later, 7 a.m.

"So it's confirmed that Orihime's father is not Sora's father..." Renji trailed off after Orihime and Ichigo finished explaining what happened that morning.

"What exactly does that tell us?" Rukia asked when no one else said anything. "How does this help our case to find Aizen?"

Orihime sighed at the question. "There's no guarantee it'll help."

"But," Ichigo started, as he motioned to Orihime. "If we can find her birth father, there is a chance that he might still be alive. He might know where to find Orihime's moth- Kurahime or maybe he could have crossed paths with Aizen himself."

"I don't know," Rangiku said, still a little skeptical. "I think we kind of went through Rosehaven the best we could-"

"To be fair," Toshiro interrupted, his arms crossed over his chest. "Knowing that Orihime has a separate father might be helpful. It might be easier to learn of associates of Kurahime, than finding her."

It was quiet as eyes went to Urahara, who finally nodded. "It wouldn't hurt to look into. We still haven't been successful on our end."

"Great," Orihime said, her eyes going back to Ichigo. "I kind of want to go ahead and go back to Rosehaven. Like right now."

"Didn't you two just get back from Rosehaven like two hours ago?" Akira asked, noticing the bags from lack of sleep under both Orihime and Ichigo's eyes.

"Yeah," Ichigo said, however after sharing a look with his father, he frowned at Orihime. "My family is pretty busy today. Dad and Yuzu are working and Karin is training. Then Hana's also working I think. So I think I should stay here to watch Mina."

Orihime's eyes focused down on Mina who was wide awake, sucking on her pacifier, and had her head resting on her chest. "Okay, that's fine."

"I can go with you," Toshiro offered, as he looked down to his phone. "Karin won't be out of training anytime soon."

"That's right," Akira agreed, as she stood up from the table. "Rin's been supervising so far this morning, and both Karin and Kimi are being a handful. Speaking of, I've taken a long enough break. I better get back to them."

After Akira left, Orihime nodded to Toshiro. "Yeah, it'll be nice if you would drive actually."

"I don't mind," Toshiro said, motioning to the door. "My car is outside."

Orihime turned back to Ichigo, as she passed Mina over. She kissed him, then the top of Mina's head. "Alright, I'll keep you updated."

Rosehaven, over an hour later

Opening her eyes, Orihime blinked a few times as she had to adjust to the light coming in through the windshield. When she was able to focus, she realized they were parked in front of a window in a parking deck. Straightening up she looked over to Toshiro who was on his phone, but had looked up when she moved. "I fell asleep."

"Yes, you did," Toshiro said, a smirk appearing on his face. "Shortly after we started driving here."

Still a little disoriented from waking up, Orihime glanced at the time that had past. "How long have we been sitting in the parking deck?"

"About fifteen minutes," Toshiro said, reaching over to turn the car off, and smirking at that had put a concerned look on Orihime's face. "Don't worry about it. Karin kept me entertained. She's got training this morning, and they are letting her spar Kimi."

"Oh I see that going well," Orihime said, as she and Toshiro got out of the car. When they started to walk to the exit of the parking deck, she yawned. "I feel like I was just here."

"That's because you were just here," Toshiro replied, a smirk on his face. "And since when do you and Ichigo go on adventures in the middle of the night? That is the exact reason that you and I are best friends for."

Orihime chuckled, as they left the parking deck. "Aw, are you jealous, Toshiro?"

"Absolutely." Toshiro replied, smirking as that made her laugh.

Walking down the sidewalk in the direction of the northern side of town, Orihime yawned. "Maybe we should stop for coffee. I'm exhausted."

"Sounds good to me," Toshiro said, as they got to the Rose Hill Coffee House. They walked in and out within five minutes, and he smirked at how much happier Orihime seemed sipping at her coffee. "Better?"

"Much better," Orihime said, as she took another sip of the hot coffee. They crossed a few crosswalks, before they reached what was considered the northern section of town. "I think we need to try the places up here more regularly. According to Sora, our mother drank a lot, and I assume the bars might be a good place to check."

"So you think that by going into bars, we might run into her?" Toshiro asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Not necessarily," Orihime said, waving off his smirk. "Look, I don't expect to see her here, but you never know."

"I guess..." Toshiro trailed off, before raising an eyebrow as they stopped in front of a bar. "I can't believe they are already open. It's barely nine in the morning."

Orihime shrugged, as she approached the door. "Then it won't be busy now."

Five bars later they had no luck in finding anything useful, and Orihime's shoulders slumped in defeat. She and Toshiro stopped a block down in front of a small grocery store. "That was a complete waste of time."

"Well," Toshiro said, stopped as well, and crossed his arms over his chest. "We didn't expect it to give us the answer to everything."

Orihime scowled. "I know, but I at least expected it to give us something-"

"Kura!"

A woman's exclamation interrupted Orihime's voice, causing both Orihime and Toshiro to turn to see a middle-aged woman walking out of the grocery store. Her eyes on Orihime.

"Oh I'm sorry," the woman said, as she offered a smile to Orihime. "I thought you were a friend of mine."

Kura… Orihime thought, sharing a look with Toshiro, then she looked back at the lady. "You're friend's name is Kura?"

"Yes, Kura. Kurahime." The woman replied, shuffling a bag of groceries around in her arms.

"What a coincidence?" Toshiro countered, noticing Orihime had seemed to freeze up after the woman spoke. "We were actually looking for someone with that name."

Trying to keep her composure despite her head feeling like it was about to explode, Orihime put a smile on her face, and held out her hands. "My name is Orihime, and this is my friend Toshiro."

The woman's face lit up then, as she reached her hand forward to shake Orihime's. "It's nice to meet you both. You can call me Ivy… So you said you were looking for Kurahime?"

Orihime shrugged, as she noticed that Toshiro had given her a small shake of his head. "Well, we weren't really looking, so much as reminiscing," she said, as she tried to continue pulling out the fake story. "She was a friend of ours, and we hung out here sometimes. She was super cool, and she told us that sometimes she comes here to this town."

"Well," Ivy started, as she sat on the bench in front of the store. "I can't be certain if we are talking about the same person, but it is likely. There aren't many people with that name around here."

"Did you see her recently?" Orihime asked, trying not to sound so eager, but it was practically slipping out with every word she said.

"I did actually," Ivy said, nodding slowly as she hummed. "This last Summer actually. I live on the outskirts of town, but we ran into each other when I was shopping in town last year. I don't usually go into to town, so it would have to be fate that it happened."

No kidding. I would say it's fate again, as we're running into you. Orihime thought to herself, before focusing back on Ivy. "Is that how you two met?"

"Oh no darling," Ivy replied with a laugh. "Kura and I met back a couple decades ago. We were pretty wild back then."

Orihime noticed her motioning to a tattoo on her wrist, and it was a flaming X. "What is that for?"

"Oh Kira and I went out and got it together on one of those wild nights." Ivy replied, her eyes looking Orihime over closely.

"When you saw Kura last Summer, was she traveling with someone?" Toshiro asked, breaking the silence that had come as Ivy had been surveying Orihime.

Ivy nodded. "Yeah, the guy was pretty banged up… Come to think of it, he seemed pretty familiar."

"How so?" Toshiro asked, raising an eyebrow after the woman had paused.

Ivy shrugged. "I don't know. I felt like I had seen the guy from somewhere. At first, I thought it was me having one of those strange deja vu feelings from the old days," she paused and chuckled, once again staring Orihime down. "Of course, back in those days, Kura and I were pretty blacked out, if you know what I mean."

Orihime was quiet as Ivy had laughed, and she swallowed the lump in her throat.

Noticing how uncomfortable Orihime was, Toshiro met Ivy's eyes. "Do you happen to know what Kura and that man were doing here last Summer?"

"They were living here for a while it seemed," Ivy replied, then she shrugged. "Then I guess they have moved on. As I said, I don't usually come into town. The only reason I knew they were even here was because of how they came to visit me every once in a while."

"What did they come here for?" Toshiro asked.

Ivy gained a grin on her face, as she motioned behind herself. "I make the best moonshine."

That received a sigh from both Orihime and Toshiro, and Orihime crossed her arms over her chest. "You wouldn't happen to have remembered seeing Aiz- that man before would you? Like maybe 19 or 20 years ago?"

"If I didn't make it clear before," Ivy said, as she chuckled. "I don't remember much of anything from that time of my life."

After that Orihime shared a look with Toshiro, then she met Ivy's eyes. "Well, we should probably get going. We have a decent drive to get home."

Ivy was quick to catch Orihime's hand in-between her own, and she seemed to stare directly into Orihime's soul. "Dear if you ever want to catch up, my home is a little cabin just over the little hill leading into the Northern forest. You can't miss it. There are a ton of white daisies that grow there this time of year."

"O-okay," Orihime said, forcing a smile onto her face, as she and Toshiro turned to leave. As soon as they were a good distance away, she looked to Toshiro. "She seemed..."

"Creepy?" Toshiro offered, shaking his head as they crossed the next crosswalk. "Karin's been into watching these horror and ghost movies on Lifetime, and Ivy kind of reminds me of the psychopath neighbor that is plotting the death of her neighbors. Or the crazy stalker that ends up attempting to kill someone to get closer to their friend or something. It's all in the eyes."

Orihime laughed. "I wouldn't go that far, but I mean, she does seem a little eccentric… How is it the entire time that we've been in Rosehaven and searching around Rosehaven, we haven't run into her before?"

"She did say that she doesn't come into town that often," Toshiro reminded, but he frowned. "The locals in the town probably know of her, but we just didn't know what we should be asking. We never knew that your mom had a friend here that still lives in town, or near the town I guess."

They stopped in front of the parking deck, and Orihime crossed her arms to think. "At least we found something out today. I don't know how it helps, but at least we know for sure that someone remembers seeing them. Apart from the initial couple of witnesses that I found that ended up not being that helpful."

"Want to stay here or go back home?"

"Let's go home. I miss Mina."

As they started up the stairs in the parking deck, Toshiro smirked at Orihime. "It's your birthday in a couple of days."

"Oh yeah… I guess I haven't thought much about it." Orihime said, her eyes focusing on the ground as they walked to the car. Nothing says happy nineteenth birthday like Aizen and my mother looming around in the shadows.

A/N: What are you first impressions of Ivy?

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