When she'd found out Ichigo cheated on her for the first time, she'd cried.

It wasn't that she hadn't known. They'd talked in the very beginning, vaguely hinted that they wouldn't necessarily have to be 'faithful' to one another, but she'd… thought they would talk about it more. It was awkward, sure, but she'd hoped... well, she'd hoped for something.

Ichigo was easily embarrassed, she supposed.

She'd seen the signs. A lipstick stain on his collar where she hadn't remembered kissing him before. An unfamiliar cologne on the sheets. Late nights, poor excuses, new friends she never got around to meeting. She'd told herself he might be cheating, and that technically, it wasn't… it wasn't cheating when they weren't really husband and wife in a super serious way.

Many nights she'd lay there, listening to him breathe. She'd tortured herself, trying to build up the courage to just turn over and ask. Are you seeing someone? She'd promise she wasn't upset, that she just wanted to know. But she could never do it. Because she didn't want to know. Not really.

That night, she'd gotten home earlier than usual. She'd shown up for her shift at the bakery to find there had been an error in scheduling, and someone was going to be able to go home. She already had overtime for the period, and had elected to be the one to go for the night.

Orihime had not payed much attention. She'd been tired. She'd wanted to go to bed early; crawl into pajamas and scroll through her phone until she got sleepy. She'd walked in, locked the door. Put her keys on the post, along with her purse. She'd slipped off her shoes. It was dark, and she had the thought that maybe Ichigo had gone to be early, so she was quiet.

She wasn't expecting anything when she opened the door to the bedroom. So she was surprised to find that no, her husband had not, in fact, decided to retire early for the night, but was instead in the process of taking it hard and fast from some punk-looking fellow she'd never once met in her entire life.

The man with the bleached hair and pierced brow froze, purple contacts still in his wide, wide eyes. Her husband, on his forearms and knees, had stilled, throwing his head up to look at Orihime in alarmed horror. And Orihime had stopped, in the process of unzipping her jeans in preparation for changing into PJs, and together, all three of them had stared, and stared, and stared.

Orihime had been the first to speak.

"Oh."

She had then speed-walked past them with a plastered smile and into the bathroom, where she had slammed the door, locked herself inside, and then turned on the shower so that she could step under the spray fully clothed and cry.

She had just expected more, she guessed. Like, when the going got tough, she'd always had this little daydream of 'it'll get better! You're holding out for a good future!' But now she was in the future. And it… sucked.

God it sucked.

It wasn't her fault. It wasn't even Ichigo's. It had been a bad set of circumstance, she told herself, crying. She tried to ask herself why it bothered her so much. Was it because she didn't even know the guy Ichigo was sleeping with? Would she have felt better if she'd walked in on, say… him and Renji?

God, if anyone should have been fucking Renji, it was her. It would be right, after all. They were the founding members of the 'our spouse isn't in love with us' club, and their spouses matched up, too! So it was only right.

Okay, but someone else who was their friend. Or someone that they both at least knew. Would it make her feel better at all? Or would that be worse since it would be two people betraying her, instead of one?

What was it about other people that did it for him? He wasn't in love with them, either! So why? She'd tried weird stuff! She'd looked through countless categories of porn, shown ideas to Ichigo, asked him what he liked. She'd tried anal. She'd pegged him on multiple occasions, tense every time for the suspicion that Rukia's name just might slip out again, or worse, someone else's. She'd tried the tying-up stuff, she'd tried toys, she'd tried roleplay, hell, she'd tried hitting him when he'd asked! And while that had, admittedly, been alright, she'd felt pretty guilty about it later.

She'd done everything and more. And it still wasn't enough. And it wasn't fair! Why did she have to try so hard when he'd been the one to ask her to marry him, anyway? This was his idea. They were supposed to be there for each other now that they had no one else left.

And here he was, taking it like a champ from some random fucking otter she'd never met once in her goddamn life. On their bed! He didn't even have the decency to have an affair on the couch or something. Damn it. Damn it!

She hadn't asked for this.

In all her visions of the future she'd been proposed to under the moonlight, or, or in some park during the daytime, and she'd laughed and cried into their wedding kiss and she'd had nicknames and fun little hobbies and her neighbors liked her and she had a cottage and a garden and a few kittens to spoil or a baby, god, why on earth had she asked Ichigo to give her a baby, she knew he didn't love her, a kid wouldn't fix that, what was wrong with her? What was wrong with HIM, actually? He didn't have to trap them together! Why had he? Why?

He knocked a little while after the water went cold. She ignored him, shivering through knocking and yelling and pounding alike, until finally the handle jiggled as he picked the lock and made his way through.

She stared up at him from under the water's spray. What was she supposed to feel about him? About this?

Ichigo had stared at her. He was in jeans and a T shirt, thank god. And the punk seemed to be gone. In fact, she could smell laundry soap on Ichigo, so she supposed he'd washed the sheets.

"Why?"

He hadn't answered. He'd crawled into the shower and sat with her, there, soaking himself through. He hugged her and he shook, and together they cried for a long, long time.

When they finally couldn't do it any longer, Ichigo turned off the water and toweled Orihime off. He helped her out of her clothes and into pajamas before attending to himself, and when the sheets were dry he put them back on the bed and found a blanket to wrap Orihime in. He lay down beside her, wrapped in another blanket, and stared at the ceiling while she stared out at the wall.

She'd felt wrung out from so much crying.

"Have you ever loved me?" She asked.

"No." She felt him shift beside her. "Have you?"

"Once."

He wrapped his arms around her, chin on her shoulder. "I'm sorry," he'd said.

She watched the future she'd dream of crumble inside her mind's eye. "Yeah," she'd swallowed past the lump in her throat. "I'm sorry too."

~(o0o)~

Orihime felt a gust of wind blow strands of hair out of her face as Ulquiorra's sword went sailing just past her face. Even a millisecond later and he would have lacerated her cheek. His trainings had been getting more and more intense over the last few days, as he worked harder, she assumed, to make her friends truly believe that she had betrayed them. To what end, Orihime still didn't know, but she was keeping on her toes and watching every move the espada made, hoping to catch him slipping at some point.

So far, it had been all the other way around, and Ulquiorra had injured her thanks to her own distractions a few times over. He had told her she could only afford such things due to her healing powers, and that if she had not possessed them, he would probably have killed her already. She didn't entirely disagree.

For a brief time in her previous life as an adult, Orihime had been seeing a therapist, hoping to clear up some of the mess her life had turned into. When she found out a lot of her problem was just that her situation sucked, she'd eventually stopped going, but Hikari's teachings were still valuable to her. In particular her tendency to chalk up her failures to her personality-one she had privately thought was weak and incapable for a good amount of time. That mindset had been much of what Ulquiorra preyed on, and now, without it, he had to resort to other things.

Like her inability to keep him from beating her into the ground.

She liked to believe, in these moments, that she was getting a little taste of what Ichigo had gone through in his battle with Ulquiorra. Any time she thought, okay, here's a trick, finally I'll have the upper hand, Ulquiorra did something to show her just how much he'd been holding back, and she was overwhelmed all over again. She was starting to be annoyed with him, just a little. Like, she got it. He was mind-bogglingly powerful. He didn't have to keep reminding her over and over again.

"Focus," he commanded. There was a tearing sound as his sword caught the edge of her hakama and skirt, opening the fabric up to the very top of her leg. Young Orihime would have been embarrassed. Current Orihime was glad for the fresh air all up in her business on account of the amount she was sweating.

"I am," she grit out. Dodge, dodge, parry. They'd been at it for over half an hour; longer than any fight would reasonably last, and she was slowing from fatigue. He noticed and cut her other pant leg, likely hoping to embarrass her into pushing herself harder. She kicked sand in his face.

"Resorting to cheap tricks won't help you." He closed his eyes and continued to strike at her, so quickly it was all she could do to keep him from hitting her. "You should not be tired already. We will continue training to build up your stamina."

"Can't we like, play baseball or something?" She panted. "Does it always have to be this?" She saw an opening, though, in his brief moment of blindness and struck out with her hand for his wrist, and her foot at the flat of his blade, essentially kicking his sword out of his hand.

They both watched it sail neatly through the air and embed itself in the sand a few feet away. Orihime turned to him, grinning wide. "Aha!" she crowed.

A second later, the breath whooshed out of her lungs as she was slammed back into the castle walls. Ulquiorra held both of her hands over her head, trapped in steel-strong fingers. His other hand hovered dangerously over her chest. His favorite move; yanking out the beating heart of his opponent.

"Disarming never means victory," he said. "You would do well to remember this. Never let your guard down. Not until your foe is dead."

She wiggled a little in his hold, testing his grip. His hand was unmoving, but she pushed her body up against his, trying to slip free. He made a face, very close to disappointment.

"Woman."

"I'm taking your advice," she said. "Guard's not down. I'm trying to escape."

"I have already won. I would have pulled your heart from your chest."

"But you didn't yet. So I could still wiggle free." She went limp in his grip for a second before realizing it hurt to be hanging from her wrists. She stood back up. "I could head-butt you."

"My helmet would likely injure you."

"Knee you in the groin."

"You have seen me rip my eye from its socket without reaction. Do you believe such a tactic would actually get me to move?"

"Maybe." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I could spit on you. That would probably gross you out enough to let go. And then I could attack you again."

"I would rather you didn't try it."

She pursed her lips.

"Woman." His eyes narrowed.

"Orihime," she reminded him. She pursed her lips again, really considering it again.

"Do not."

She gathered spit just behind her lips.

He clamped his hand over her mouth. "You will not."

She licked his palm. She could practically see a disgusted shiver run up his spine, but he did not relent. She learned that hollows did, in fact, sweat. She could taste the salt on his palm. But there was another taste there, something inhuman. She licked him again, curious. His fingers dug into her jaw.

"Cease," he grit out.

She did, waiting for him to remove his hand. Slowly, he did, wiping it on his coat.

"Oldest trick in the book," she said. "You should have known I'd lick your hand."

"I would have expected you to bite it," he said.

"No way. I don't actually want to hurt you, you know."

"Perhaps that explains why you have yet to triumph in any battle against me."

She shrugged. "Are we done now?"

He just looked at her.

"I mean, with this." She flexed her hands. "Will you let me go, please?"

"Have you learned the point of his lesson?"

She tilted her head to the side, smiling a little. "Probably not."

"Then no."

"Is that part of our training today? How to escape?" She stuck her feat out and kicked idly at his shins. He just stared at her. She pursed her lips again, revisiting the spitting idea.

"I have no such scruples against harming you as you do against me," he said.

"Spit on me, get back-handed, huh? I still maintain that grossing you out would be more effective than hurting you." She prepared to shield herself from his touch, thus forcing him off. He saw her fairies glow.

"Do not use your powers. You must rely on your body at times on its own, when you have exhausted your powers."

She threw her head back. "Come on, Ulquiorra! This is stupid."

"It will continue to be so until you escape me."

That hadn't even been his plan before. He'd been showing her he won. She hated his improvised lessons, and their frequency. He thought he was so smart. He was a baby compared to her. Well. He'd lived thousands of lifetimes. But this one, this one was short thus far. Probably. She actually didn't know.

She imagined Ulquiorra popping out of some void, fully formed. Had his full-grown body been kid-like? She couldn't imagine him as anything other than what he was. Wait, yes she could; she put him in a pair of overalls and a yellow T-shirt and sat him on the floor to play with a train.

The mental image made her laugh out loud, right in his face.

He glared at her.

"Okay," she said. "I've had enough of this. Sorry in advance." He'd said no spitting, but nothing about licking. So she leaned forward and licked a quick stripe up his throat. She grinned when he stiffened and did it again, on the other side. There was that taste again; salt and something… other. She laughed and looked up at him.

Oh.

So he didn't look uncomfortable. He didn't look happy. She couldn't tell what she was seeing. She kept eye contact and licked his chin. He almost looked… angry? But he hadn't yelled at her yet, which seemed to be his go-to the second he got peeved.

And damn it, now that they were so close, she couldn't help but notice the clean scent of him. The coolness of his skin, the length of his eyelashes. He was very beautiful, objectively, and up close there was something about him that she…. Liked.

Here's one that will shock you, Ulquiorra, she thought, and without any further contemplation of the act she pecked him on the lips. He blinked rapidly, moving back, and she wrenched at his hands. He didn't let go. Damn.

"What was that?" He demanded.

"A kiss?" She tilted her head at him. "I know you know what sex is, Ulquiorra, don't tell me you don't know what a kiss is."

"I have a personal knowledge of the mechanics of sex," he said, which was a great way of just announcing right to her face that he no longer held his V card. "Mouth-to-mouth contact is not part of it."

She was trying to imagine Ulquiorra having sex, but much like with him as a kid, she couldn't quite picture it. Who would he even take to bed? She just couldn't picture it. She went to start with the basic mechanics-Ulquiorra naked-but immediately felt weird and quickly abandoned the thought.

"You're trying to tell me you've never been kissed," she said, flatly.

He narrowed his eyes at her, which was answer enough.

At first she wanted to laugh, but before she could, a second, sadder thought came to her. He'd never been kissed, but he'd had sex. He'd been intimate without any sort of… well, connection, then? Maybe Hollows didn't kiss. Maybe it was too dangerous for them, like they might get eaten. But then, sex would be dangerous too, right?

He didn't even know what a kiss was. No wonder he didn't understand the heart.

She could have cried. But instead, she said, "Come here."

He warily regarded her, but stepped closer nonetheless. He must have been curious.

"Tilt your head," she commanded, softly.

He did.

"Now press our mouths together. It's a kiss. I'll show you."

"What is the purpose of kissing?" He asked.

"To feel nice," she said. "To show affection."

"I have no affection to show you," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah. Sometimes that's how it is. So just… to feel nice."

He furrowed his brow, but stepped closer, trapping her not only with his hands but with his entire body. She felt warm immediately, and allowed her eyes to flutter shut as his mouth dryly pushed against her.

It was mechanical, robotic. She pulled back, opening her eyes, and found him staring straight at her. "Relax," she said, trying not to let the sudden pounding of her heart affect her tone. "It's not about… it's not about what you're doing, it's about how it feels. When you chew food, do you focus on chewing really hard, or do you think about how the food tastes?"

"I see," he said. He delved in again, this time gentler.

Orihime pressed her lips to his, closing her eyes again. She moved, kissing him a few times, then opening her mouth. She touched his bottom lip with her tongue and then murmured, "Copy me."

He did. Slowly, the kiss became less and less mechanical and slowly began to feel almost natural. It felt good, even. He was a quick learner, and the more she kissed him, the better his attempts became. The warm feeling spread to her toes, her finger tips, her sex. She swallowed hard. She felt her face beginning to flush as she became more acutely aware of their bodies pressed together.

When Orihime had been a teen, she'd imagined nothing but beautiful, loving, tender missionary sex, with quiet moans in the early morning, and thousands of whispered "I love you"s between kisses. Then, she'd gotten married, and yeah, okay, that sort of thing was nice, but there was also something to be said for getting absolutely railed sometimes.

A lot of times.

Such thoughts were creeping in as Ulquiorra let her hands go and she was free to grab his shoulders. For never having heard of a kiss before he was quite good; clumsy, as their teeth clashed several times, and slow-going, but… good.

When he finally pulled back, his slit pupils had blown wide. She was reminded instantly of a cat seeing something it wanted, but she was too turned on to find it all that funny in the moment.

"There," she said, like she was totally cool and unbothered. "That's a kiss."

"I see," he said, and turned sharply on his heel, flashing away in a burst of sand without another word. She stood against the wall, momentarily stunned by his sudden departure.

"Huh." Well, there you go. Trapped? Kiss your opponent and they'll run away from you!

Feeling a little off, somewhat wrong-footed, she turned on autopilot and headed back to her room, where she would take a steamy shower and whisper a litany of 'what the fuck's to herself until she felt right as rain again.

Hopefully, this wouldn't become a habit.

~(o0o)~

It was becoming a habit.

At the end of all their training seasons, Ulquiorra would pin her to the wall and, without any sort of decorum, say, "We should kiss," and at her enthusiastic nod, would proceed to absolutely maul her mouth.

She was not complaining in anyway, but she hadn't expected him to like it so much. Or at all, really. She'd expected him to be all about the discovery of food, but he still rarely ate, and she'd sort of thought he'd be like "ew unhygienic cooties gross" about the whole kissing thing, and yet.

He uh. Really liked it.

And yes, okay, she did too. It was a totally new concept to her; they had no formal arrangement dictating that they should kiss, and they still were! Moreover, she got to do it again and again and again; not just one day and then never see him again. She was really digging it, honestly.

So maybe they got a little carried away with it. Maybe training cut shorter and shorter and shorter, until they were sparring for twenty minutes tops before dissolving into a fifteen-minute long makeout session with heavy petting and a fair amount of rubbing up against each other.

After the first time, Ulquiorra didn't Houdini out of there when he was done, but would step back, fix his coat, nod, and say, "Until next time," before calmly walking away.

Really, it was a very grown-up arrangement.

Okay, yes. The little Orihime-that-was who lived in her brain screamed "he's the bad guy! We don't kiss bad guys!" every time it happened, but grown-ass-Orihime threw baby-Orihime into a closet and screamed "I've been horny without emotional satisfaction for ten years!" Two which young-and-naive-and-still-believing-she'd-grow-up-to-be-a-NASCAR-driver Orihime would cower in fear of the H word and close the closet door in on herself.

When Ulquiorra found out that kissing worked on places other than the lips, it was definitely game over. Orihime had not realized until then that she had a weakness for neck-kisses, but, well. She did. The fangs did it for her, she guessed. Or his enthusiasm. It was nice to be kissed by someone who clearly wanted to be doing it, after all.

Ichigo had always kissed her like he was sorry for it. Not that she'd likely been any better. But still.

This was a new animal entirely. Different jungle. Different biome. God, different continent. No, you know what? This was an alien tiger from fucking Mars. Mars! That's how different said animals were. Yeah.

All this kissing and then going their separate ways to cool down was melting her brain. Not to say it was getting out of control! In fact, this was the perfect way to get Ulquiorra to let his guard down. She'd worm her way into his good graces and then, uh, somehow save him from exploding into a cloud of black ash. The plan in her head went thus:

Kiss Ulquiorra. A lot And then some more And a little more after that oh god he was good at this UGH Save his life or something

Really, there was no way the plan could go wrong. After all, all her other plans thus far had been going swimmingly!

That's what she told herself, anyway, as she and Ulquiorra stepped into the world of the living again. She was wary of him, knowing as she did that he planned almost exclusively on making her look like a traitor to her friends.

Well, the joke was on him. She wanted them as far away from Hueco Mundo as possible when things went south. If she had it her way, they would never come for her at all. She was just waiting for the moment the hogyoku was revealed to her, and then, she would strike.

"What are we doing here today?" She couldn't sense her friends nearby yet.

He ignored her and started out across the sky. With a sigh, Orihime hurried after him. Just a few hours before he'd been eagerly licking into her mouth, and now he behaved as though she were nothing. She frowned at his back and watched him move, noting his flat butt. A flat butt was just what he deserved, for being such an ass.

"There."

Orihime paused. She could feel it, too. A hollow; and a strong one at that.

Ulquiorra used sonido and was gone.

"Crap." Orihime flashed after him, gritting her teeth. Why were they looking for a hollow? She arrived just in time to have her stomach turned by spiritual pressure. Ichigo and company wouldn't be long-this thing was nearly Menos strength. Had he been around the first time? She couldn't recall.

"What's he doing here?" Orihime asked Ulquiorra's back.

"Hunting," he answered. "Your former allies make for a good meal."

Well, if that was his plan, he was going to have to step up his game. No way would even one of her friends fall to this guy, power notwithstanding.

Ulquiorra approached the beast, which largely ignored him as it scented the air. "Hollow," Ulquiorra greated.

It faced him. Its mouth did not move, but they heard its deep voice nonetheless. "Vasto Lordes," it growled. "What are you doing in the land of the living?"

"You are powerful," Ulquiorra said. "But you will fall to your prey if you do not grow stronger."

"You wish to consume me," the hollow said.

"No. I wish to offer you evolution." He moved his hand and made a rip in space, leading straight to the palace. "Join lord Aizen's army and you will be gifted power beyond your imagination. There will be an end to the shinigami, and you will feast as you wish."

"It's not in the nature of hte Vasto Lordes to lie," he said. "But you smell different from them. You smell… almost like the shinigami."

"I have changed," he said. "And I am more powerful for it."

The hollow considered him for a moment. Scented the air again. He moved his eyes to Orihime.

"I am afraid you cannot have her," Ulquiorra said. "But there will be those with far more spiritual pressure for the taking should you join us. She is a mere morsel."

The hollow gave no word. He regarded them, for a moment, and then silently moved his mass into the portal. He was gone in a wink, soon to be changed into an arrancar, Orihime knew. She bit her lip. So this had been a recruiting mission, then.

Ulquiorra turned to her. His face was hard to read in the low-light. Orihime looked around them, suddenly curious as to where they'd ended up. It was a wide alleyway between two buildings, but she didn't recognize the street beyond or the color of the bricks around them.

"You continue to lower your defences."

She glanced back up at Ulquiorra. "Hmm?"

"When engaging the hollow, you should have adopted a defensive stance in case he reacted poorly to my proposal. You would have been at a disadvantage, should he have attacked."

"You were in front of me," she said. "He would have gone for you first."

"You are a plus soul," he said. "He would have ignored me in order to consume you."
"And you would have killed him before he could even try," she shrugged. She couldn't help but notice that her heartbeat was picking up. Their post-training makeout sessions usually began this way; pointless bickering that Ulquiorra likely saw as good critiquing.

"And if I chose to let the hollow end your life?"

"Well. I guess I could have fought him then." She shook her head. "Ulquiorra, it's going to take a little more than a hollow to surprise me."

He stared at her.

She stared right back.

"I suppose it is," he said. He leaned back against the brick behind him, casually.

She recognized a 'come here' a mile away from Ulquiorra, even when he didn't say anything. She merily stepped up to him, leaning down to look up under him as he directed his gaze at the ground. "Was there something else you wanted to do here, or should we head back?"

His eyes snapped up to meet hers. "Is there something else you wished to do?"

A million things. "Maybe one." She grinned and leaned into him. His spiritual pressure fell heavily over her, like a cloak. A clear sign to all hollows in the area-he was not to be distrubed. She laughed a little at the feeling; it blocked out everything else in the world.

"For being heartless, you sure can be romantic," she said.

He didn't answer, which was unlike him, but she'd take her small victories. She twisted her hands into the hair at the back of his neck and kissed him.

She kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. She liked that they were almost the same height. She'd used to get aches from craning her neck up to kiss Ichigo. Ulquiorra was the perfect height, and build. Flat ass notwithstanding. And he could kiss, damn it, but he could.

It endeared him to her, actually, that he would take such a simple pleasure with no reason at all behind it. It wasn't curiosity anymore. He liked it.

A sharp spike of spiritual presure made her break off from Ulquiorra with a gasp. She turned her head to the right, just to see her friends wide eyes. Horrified.

She turned back to Ulquiorra. "You–"

There was a garganta opening up behind them, though, and he pulled her easily against him and into it. They fell through together, landing back in the sands of their training grounds.

Orihime threw herself off of him. "You!"

He remained on the ground, watching her passively.

Orihime refused to let him see her cry. "That. Was a very mean thing to do!"

He said nothing.

Furious and betrayed and, although she would never admit it, a little heartbroken, Orihime stormed off, leaving Ulquiorra in the sand.

~(o0o)~

"Yo."

Orihime jumped at the sudden intrusion on her hours of solitude.

She'd been in her own head, folding her clean uniforms at the foot of Ulquiorra's bed. Somehow, she hadn't heard Grimmjow come in. That wasn't a good sign.

She smoothed her expression out and turned to him. "What's up?" She checked his hands for bottles of liquor and found him empty handed.

"Bored," Grimmjow said. "Wanna go throw rocks off the roof?"

Her stomach jolted a little at the mention of the roof. "Above the dome?" She clarified.

"Yeah," he said, much in the same manner one would say 'duh.'

There were very often moments in which Orihime had to pause and ask herself, is the action I'm considering taking going to lead to an abrupt, soul crush, mental breakdown? Often times the answer was yes, and just as often she went through with it out of some warped sense of need and then ended up paying the price for it.

So: was going to the roof to… let's check our notes here, ah, yes, throw rocks going to be worth it?

She could case the area out. Start working on part two of her plan in actual detail. Figure out how the hell she was going to pull of saving Ulquiorra from a fate worse than death. Think about Ichigo waking up in the night clawing at his chest screaming. Stuff like that.

Orihime turned back to her stacks of clothes. "Is that a hobby of yours?" She asked. "Throwing rocks off of things?"

"Not like there's much entertainment around here," he scoffed.

"Hmm."

"Well. Other than making out with bat-boy."

Orihime froze.

"Oh yeah, didn't think I'd catch onto that one, did you?"

She whipped around. "I. We."

He crossed his arms. "Add this up for me cuz I can't do math. You think Ulquiorra is out to kill you, and so you rope me into this twisted human friendship shit, and you don't bang me, by the way, which is like. Very questionable. And now I find out that you're swappin' spit with Ulquiorra of all people? I mean, horrible idea all in all, but you think he's out to off you so that kinda. You know. Two plus two and all that."

She ignored his broken attempt at a metaphor. "You're one to talk."

"I'm a hollow!" He threw his hands up. "I mean, it's a given that anyone I fuck is probably gonna want to kill me at least a little bit. You want to make it out of here alive, don't you?"

Don't you?

Orihime looked at the floor.

"So when were you gonna clue me in, huh?"

Orihime looked back up at him, blushing. "Uh… never?"

"I have one fucking source of drama around here at the moment and it's you, you bitch! And you weren't gonna tell me? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I didn't want you to make a big deal out of it. I mean. I know what I'm doing."

"Oh, I saw, don't worry."

She flushed. "How long were you watching?"

"Like I said. One source."

"Right."

"I don't know how you want me to keep him from killing you if you're caring such close quarters, by the way." He shook his head. "Whatever. Rocks?"

At this point, what did she have to lose?

Wind was blowing overtop of the dome, sending gusts of white sand over the air. Grimmjow weaved between the columns, picking up rocks and chunks of broken concrete as he went, juggling them haphazardly in the crook of his arm.

Orihime thought she'd know the spots when she saw them. The column where Ichigo had a hole blasted through him. The clearing where Ulquiorra burst into ash. Something. But no–it was empty and open and she couldn't have placed where she'd nearly been killed from any other spot on the roof.

"Watch this." Grimmjow wound his arm back and threw the rock with such force that she didn't even see it leave his hand. She watched the far-below ground, waiting, and nodded when a few moments later a far off burst of sand popped up.

She sat with her legs dangling off the edge. "Ulquiorra wouldn't like it if he knew you took me out here," she said. "I'd die if I jumped from here."

Grimmjow shrugged. "Then don't jump."

She turned and watched as the sand exploded in the far distance. Another throw from Grimmjow. "What if there are hollows out there?" She wondered.

"Then they'll die."

Right.

For a time, Grimmjow just threw things, causing min-explosions in the distance. Eventually, though, his pile ran out, and he sat down next to her, one leg drawn up to his chest, the other slung off the edge of the palace.

"Think they'll come?" He asked, after a time.

"Hmm?"

"Kurosaki and the rest," he said. "Think they'll take the bait?"

"Well, Aizen wants them to really think I betrayed them so… I don't know."

"Maybe he wants them to kill you," Grimmjow said.

"He must realize they couldn't. Only the shinigami would go that far." She pulled her knees up to rest her chin on them, hugging her legs. "I don't know what Aizen is planning. Maybe he's stalling the beginning of the war by making them think that I'm against them. But I don't know why."

Grimmjow shrugged. "Probably still looking for the Hogyoku."

She paused.

"The… hogyoku."

"Yeah. His is incomplete or whatever. He can't become a god until he gets that other guy's version or whatever."

Oh.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no.

"What's your deal?"

Orihime stood, stomach flipping. "He wants my friends to abandon me, not kill me." She began to pace. "He doesn't want me dead at all. He really wants me to join your side. He-Grimmjow, Aizen thinks I know where the second Hogyoku is."

"Well, hey guess that means we don't have to worry about Ulquiorra killing you."

She shook her head. "No, Grimmjow, you don't understand. I can't give him the second hogyoku because–" it doesn't exist. "Ulquiorra figured my powers out right off the bat. He met with Aizen, right after I came here. That's why he's trying to make me one of you. If I don't tell him where the second one is, I can just keep negating the first over and over he absorbs it until…"

"He becomes a god." Grimmjow said.

She shook her head. "No, no, no, no. That's not how this was supposed to go."

"Hey, chin up. Sounds like Ulquiorra doesn't want to kill you after all."

"Yeah, and that might be worse!" She shook her head. "What do I do now?"

"What indeed?"

Orihime whipped around at the sound of a third voice, eyes widening to find Ulquiorra behind her.

"If it's not the make-out-man himself," Grimmjow snickered.

Orihime shot him a look over her shoulder.

"Orihime," Ulquiorra said. "You should not be here."

"Eh, lighten up, I brought her up here. She had an espada's permission."

"You do not have any jurisdiction over my fracion, Grimmjow," Ulquiorra snapped. He turned sharply on his heel. "Come, woman."

How much had he heard? She looked nervously back at Grimmjow, but he just shook his head. It was fine. Ulquiorra couldn't do anything really bad to her, right? Aizen still needed her. She swallowed hard and followed quickly after Ulquiorra.

Before, she'd been so blasé about this whole thing. After all, how could Aizen win without the second hogyoku? Now, though… She didn't doubt that Aizen could possibly force her hand through some means. He'd done worse, to stronger people. Now that Ulquiorra knew that she was wise to him, was she in greater danger than before?

"You were nervous to come here."

Orihime stopped short. They were nearing the maintenance entrance through the tower, where she and Grimmjow had entered. She could feel that Grimmjow was still far out on the edge of the dome.

"To Hueco Mundo?" Orihime hedged.

He turned to her. "The dome. What is to happen here, then?"

She blinked at him. Something didn't feel right, and it was making her stomach tight with anxiety. "I don't understand…"

"In the future," Ulquiorra clarified. "What happens here, in the future?"