Episode 26: The Relapse

A/N: I know this chapter is short, but I needed to get this out of my system before I conquer the next chapter. Reviews are always appreciated.

Ichigo

We awake at the same time, breath colliding together despite the staleness of the morning. My lips spread wide in a smile, I plant a kiss on her nose. "Good morning."

"Morning," a voice lined with stress.

"Rukia, I want you to know that I love you. I don't care about your past, or what got you into Seireitei. None of it matters. It doesn't matter."

"I know," her voice cracks, but she snuggles closer to me. That's a good sign. "It just scares me that you're okay with that."

"You don't choose who you love," I wrap an arm around her and pull her close against me, her head against my chest and one of her hands swirling down the contours of my stomach. "I am glad that it's you, though."

I feel her smile against me.

\

~.~.~.~.~

The next few weeks would have been boring, if they were spent with anyone but her. She was absolutely everywhere. In the scent of the silken sheets in which I slept, in the smell of coffee in the morning, under the steaming, tiny rivers of water of the shower we shared. I loved showering with her, and not just for the killer shower sex that happened every so often. I loved admiring her body, pure despite the imperfections, glistening like an angel with her damp hair gathering about in her eyes. That was my favorite part, wiping the stray strands out of the way so I could see her beautiful violet irises. She would then, of course, smack my chest and call me a hopeless romantic, but I noticed the blush that escaped through her tough-girl exterior. She was there when I was angry, when I was frustrated, and when I was lost. I just wish she would have been there when the a cop entered the mansion that day.

I sat alone on a massive L-shaped leather couch in the entertainment room of the basement of the Kuchiki estate when I heard the crack of a window.

They're here. You're going to die.

I stretch my ear upwards to make sure the sound wasn't what I thought it was, my heart beating impossibly fast and loud in my chest, so much so that I thought it would release my position to the infiltrator. A footstep, soft but profound, lands on the carpet upstairs. The living room. They broke through the front door. How many are there? How do that know that we're here?

My first instinct is to grab Rukia and get the hell out of here, but it was her turn to go to the grocery store today. She's been gone for a couple hours, she could be home any moment. Do I hide? Do I rush out the back door and try to find her before the police do?

"Police! We have a warrant to enter this establishment due to evidence that criminals are hiding here."

Fuck, they're right above me. How long before they check the basement? I have to look for another door out of here. I'm just about to bolt when a young cop, probably fresh out of training, descends the stairs to find me panting and staring wide-eyed right back at him.

You need me to help you.

No, I don't need you. I never need you.

You need me if you want to survive this. You need me if you want to spend your life with her.

I try to fight it, the demon inside who begs for control of my body. Please, no, not again. I don't want to be the person that this inner force causes me to be become. The feeling of its cold fingers gripping my heart and squeezing through the crevices of my ribcage is unbearable. I scream, a vibration in my ears that makes my blood curdle. The cop tenses, but does nothing, frozen in place by the noise that just procured from my body.

"No!" I scream to no one in particular, collapsing to the ground, and pulling strands of hair out from the scalp. "Please, no…" My vision blurs, going black for mere seconds. I push against the demon, regaining my sight for only a moment. I glance up to find a dozen cops all stranded on the stairs leading into the basement, staring at me with their guns raised to my heart.

"Halt! You're under-"

My vision goes black, and I'm gone.

~.~.~.~.~

I wake up choking in a pool of blood. Spitting out the iron, salty liquid, I cough and gag. I'm hot, too hot to be comfortable.

Don't worry, Ichigo. I took care of it.

Took care of what? I open my eyes, the blackness receding enough to let me see. Bodies, sprawled and tangled together in heaps. The blood, dripping from limbs that were out of place and bent in angles that shouldn't exist. No… not again. I blink. One, twice, three times to make sure its real.

"Ichigo?"

Fuck.

Rukia stands in the middle of the stairs, holding multiple plastic grocery bags by her hips. She's dressed a pair of light denim jeans and on of Yuzu's flowing, white shirts. She looks just like an angel, standing there with those white bags without a drop of blood on her.

"Ichigo, what have you done?"

What have I done. Finally able to rise, I stand up and fully assess the damage in which I have done. Their isn't an inch of cream carpet in sight, it is smothered by the red. The bodies, I count them. Exactly twelve, just as I had suspected.

"It killed them, Rukia. I… I killed them."

The bags dangling in her hands fall, a plethora of contents spilling down the staircase and into the fray. I can't stand the look on her face, no longer surprised, but completely apathetic. God, she's shutting me out. Please, please don't shut me out, Rukia. But, I've learned to read her body language pretty well during our silent times in the Seireitei Asylum for the Criminally Insane. She's gathering up the courage to tell me something. I felt it in her body before she told me she loved me. But now, for some reason, the thought of that makes me sad. She opens her mouth to speak.

"I'm pregnant."