Wow, two chapter in the same week. Even I'm surprised.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and I can't wait to write the next. Thanks for sticking with me

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters

Orihime:

Ichigo's fingers traced down my spine, pushing on the small of my back until I was flush against him. I exhaled, sighing into him, and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. His tongue barely having half a second of contact with mine, before he broke away.

He did not move far, just enough to feather his touch over my cheeks, across my eyelids, "Show me your eyes," his voice was breathless and made me shiver.

I did as I was told, blinking against the burning light. My vision focused on his wide smile, showing me a small dimple on his right cheek that I never knew he had.

His hands still stroked my face, "There you are. You scared me,"

Resting my forehead against his chest, I struggled to catch my breath. My throat felt hoarse each time I inhaled, my body fatigued. "How long was I in there?"

I felt him shrug, "I don't know. Too long, I'd wager."

It was such a relief to hear his voice, after considering for days that he was dead-

My head snapped up, nearly knocking against his chin, "How did you... Cuyler said you were his prisoner."

"Ah," He said, glancing over his shoulder at Cuyler slumped against the wall. "So that was him." Shrugging, he smoothed my hair away from my face, drawing out the strokes. As if he was afraid I was about to step out of his touch and he'd never get the chance again. "Three weeks ago some guys dragged me into an alley but I'd just assumed I looked like an easy mark."

My fingers white knuckled his shirt, "Three weeks ago?"

"Give or take."
I shook my head, "But… the poison? Did they not use the poison on you?"

Cuyler had taken precautions with me. Had ensured I was outnumbered, but comfortable enough to let my guard down. And then he had riddled me with drink. I can't imagine he saw me as such a threat to go through such lengths to blackmail me, but be so careless with acquiring his leverage.

Ichigo considered it for a moment, "Well they had stuck me with something. I was out for a few minutes, but when I resurfaced Rukia had taken care of them so I don't know what happened after that."

Rukia? Had they not known of her presence in him? If they'd known I'd taken her tonic, they must have known her role within their ranks, and how far her power stretched.

My head was starting to throb, the witchfire had left me feeling utterly exhausted.

Ichigo slowly led me towards a lounge chair near the fire, helping me ease into it. He kneeled in front of me, keeping hold of my hand. "Rukia was spooked after that, she wanted me out of there and, with you out of the city, I had no reason to stay. So I left and met up with her in the Inbetween. I sent you a letter explaining it all, didn't you get it?"

I pulled my hand from his and fished his poem out of my pocket, smoothing it out over my knee. Huffing out a laugh I said, "That dirty thief,"

The envelope had been marked from three weeks ago, likely immediately after he'd been attacked. Cuyler had lost his prisoner and his chance at a throne all in one fell swoop, but he knew just enough to make it convincing. Just enough to make me fall in line.

And I had played my role as simpering fool to perfection.

"I was in the trenches, when suddenly Rukia dropped like a stone. In the two years I've known her, I'd never even seen her even stumble. Then she was screaming out, screaming for you." he took a shaky breath, "Gods, I assumed the worst. Worst minute of my life."

"They burned her out of me." I clarified. He nodded, his face grim, like he was reliving the echoes of her pain. "I suppose they didn't know to do the same to you."

Ichigo chuckled, no humor in it, "I'm sure they tried." Noticing my look of confusion he continued, "I haven't taken her tonic in over a year. There would have been nothing for it to burn away. The moment Rukia skinwalked in my body, we were connected on a molecular level. Regardless of distance or length of time separating us, she will always have a foothold in me. Whatever they gave us likely reached inside, looking for something that did not belong. It would have passed right over her and never realized it was anything other than me."

Suddenly, he took the poem from my limp grip, looking over it. "So you did read it, huh?"

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, my voice still coming out thick even to my own ears, "A few hours ago, yes. Cuyler must have intercepted it and held onto it all this time."

I must have really aggravated him at dinner for him to play that trump card. I clenched my teeth, my hand resting in his turning to a fist.

"I'm such a gullible fool."

He sighed deeply. Using his free hand he made my fingers loosen so he could smooth them out once more, "When Rukia told me she couldn't feel you anymore, I left our camp with nothing but the clothes on my back. No food, water, shelter from the storms- none of it. All I could think about was you being completely alone here. I would have died long before I got here if Rukia hadn't caught up to me."

My gaze alternated from watching his hand stroking my own, to his face. He wouldn't look at me, his attention wholly focused on where we touched. I took the opportunity to study the bridge of his nose, to the gentle curve of his eyebrows- curved inward in a nervous scowl.

And his lips that had been soft and warm on mine.

My cheeks were flushed even before he said, "I already know why I reacted the way I did, which emotion spurred me into action. I can only hope it was also what influenced yours."

I felt I might begin to shiver, despite the heat of the fire beside us. I wanted him to look at me, to calm me with his steady eyes. "I've never been good at emotions," I tell him honestly.

A muscle clenches in his jaw and I continue quickly, "When I was a child, I prided myself on playing my part to perfection. On being as versatile as any tool, to be used as the user requires. It gained me the approval of my father, who at the time I still wanted to please. So I perfected my craft until I could feel on command; hate, rage… even love." He, finally, met my eyes, "Then, after the pits, the lines began to blur. Swirling until I could no longer tell my own truth from calculated falsehood. I've been deceiving myself since I was thirteen years old, and I have no idea who I am anymore." My eyes burned, but I refused to look away. "How can you ever trust the emotions I give you when all I've ever done is pretend?"

"Because pretending can only last so long, and I've got time." The gentleness of his voice pushed a few tears down my cheeks. His lips curled into a small smile as he brushed his thumb over my damp lashes. "What do you think, Orihime? Are these tears real or pretend?"

My answer was immediate, "I've never had to fake anything with you."

Perhaps I would always assume the worst of myself despite my attempts to change, but I could never doubt him. I sank to the ground with him until we were knee to knee. He, so slowly it nearly broke me apart, cupped my cheek in his palm.

I leaned into his touch and released a steady breath. I laid my hand against his chest, feeling his warmth sink into me. I was not afraid as I gave him the only truth I'd ever coveted, "I had forgotten what it felt like to be young, to not feel like every moment would be the last I'll ever have. To look out over the horizon and not crumble under the weight of it." The tears now flowed freely down my cheeks, mingled with overwhelming relief.

Ichigo watched them fall, his face shining as bright as the rising sun.

Yet the truth would not stop pouring out of me, "There will always be parts of me that never recover. Regardless of any words you speak or hours you spend piecing me back together. There will be days I flinch at the touch of your hands and wake choking on phantom blood. And nothing you do will ever repair it. Are you prepared for those days?"

He was silent for a moment, and all the motion in the world was the beat of his heart against my palm. It was steady and strong and the only thing that mattered.

"I had seen you once before I met you." He began, "I'd been in the capitol a few weeks and had spent the last copper pieces I'd earned from working the wheat fields in the south. I had gone up to the High Courts to pick some pockets. I figured if I chose wisely I'd only have to do it once and then I could slither back to the slums. I was perched on a platform a bit above the crowd, just waiting for my mark to cross my path. I never expected you." He covered my hand on his chest with his own. Connecting us in every way he could. "You were in your uniform but you had no armor on. I remember because you were a fleck of white in a sea of black and gray. I like to think I would have noticed you regardless of that. I could tell, even then, that you held the lion's share of breath. I knew immediately you would leave me with all types of scars."

He smirked suddenly, pushing my hair back from my forehead, "You walked right past me and never even looked up."

I chuckled at that, "Maybe you're not as handsome as you think you are."

"You just had a lot on your mind." The tips of his fingers ghosted down my cheek until they traced my bottom lip, my breath halted in my chest but he did not pause, all seriousness once more. "I thought of you for days. I went back to the High Courts but never saw you again, not until you walked into the warehouse that day with Bonnie. It was then that I realized who you were."

I watched, entranced, as his jaw clenched. His eyes turned hazy as he remembered. "I'd heard the stories, of course. The Ironfist of the West; Heir to the Golden Throne, to cross her path is to dance with death. You were meant to be cold and indifferent. Cruel and detached. I was meant to look at you and cower, but all I saw when I looked at you was a girl with sad eyes and bruised hands." Gently, he brought it up from his chest, his lips brushing my knuckles as he spoke, "And if they were wrong about that, then they could be wrong about all of it. I decided then and there I would see for myself what type of person you were."

I swallowed, "And what did you discover?"

He shrugged a shoulder, a sureness in every word, "You're just a girl. A girl with stories behind her eyes and a curiosity about the world. You save people so quietly that you seem not to notice you're doing it. You're fierce and reckless and patient." His grin turned devilish, "You rub your cuticles when you get nervous. You dog ear your books, and take your coffee too sweet. And you always blush when I look at you for too long, but command a room the moment you enter and never falter. I have never met someone so contradictory."

"That's just because I have no idea what I'm doing."

He did not laugh, his eyes held an earnestness I'd never seen on him before, "I have been to so many places, done things I never thought I could do, yet I've always felt... hollow. And I'd tried to fill it with possessions and, when that didn't work, with women. Still, eventually, I'd pack up and move along to the next place and then the next... Until the only place left to go was West. I didn't expect to find a home waiting for me. A home in you."

His hands on my face were so tender, like he was worried that with one wrong move I'd crumble away. "Ichigo-"

"There are parts of me you have never seen. There are things inside me that I have tried to kill and never will. You are not alone in your bad days, Orihime. Mine find me as cravings for a liquor I haven't tasted since I was a boy. They come for me as cold sweats that have me wanting to claw out of my skin, and I used to be ashamed of them. But we are all fucked up in different ways and once I accepted that, I didn't feel so suffocated by it anymore."

I'd been absorbed for so long in keeping myself from shattering, I nearly forgot other people can feel broken too.

"So to answer your question, Princess. I have no delusions on who you are. I will always hold you when your thorns are sharpest. Give me the worst of it; it makes no difference. Break me, remake me, and I will rise again to love you once more."

My hands shook as I took his face between them, at long last giving in to the pull of him, "You have caused the growth of flowers in the deadest parts of me,"

The first brush of his lips upon mine retethered me to the world. Then refocused it to reside inside of him. And even as it was happening, as I lived it, I knew I would emerge from this cold winter castle as someone I would not recognize.

That I would never be the same again.

.

.

.

I am overjoyed. I could honestly cry as I type this.

Someone please tell me this is what we all needed from them because I am distraught at this slowburn now turning into acceptance :')

Thank you for reading!