Post chapter 200
Word Count: 500

"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering." - Paulo Coelho

One More Day

Every night, Rukia cheerily wishes everyone goodnight as she enters his sister's room to sleep. Isshin will bid her sweet dreams, and asks if she needs tucking in, and Rukia will demure with a giggle and an embarrassed "No need for the trouble!". Watching with wry amusement, Karin remarks that he never lavished such affection on his own daughters, to which the old man replies that he has to make up for 15 years Rukia-chan has gone without Daddy's loving! Ichigo doesn't bother to tell him that Rukia's much older than that.

He also doesn't tell anyone that every night, after everyone else is in deep slumber, Rukia will creep back to his closet to sleep.

Some nights, she crawls inside without saying a word, only pausing to throw Kon out. Other nights, she will make some sarcastic remark, and they'll spend a few hours bickering softly and talking about random things.

And on yet other nights, his Hollow permit will activate, and the both of them, in shinigami form, will go out to hunt Hollows.

It's on one of those nights, returning from a regular Hollow extermination, that Ichigo suddenly realises that he's beginning to find all this routine, a part of a cycle that he's unconciously beginning to make space for in his life. And that thought is so horrifying that he actually pauses. Because (and he is never more aware of this than now, with Rukia in her shinigami robes and looking as other-worldly as when she first met him) eventually she'll have to go back to Soul Society and a part of his life would go all missing all over again. After all, she's only here because of the Allankar threat, and frankly he's looking forward to /that/ part of her stay to be over, so that he can stop worrying about everyone all the time. He'd also gladly skip the battles; just remembering the last one makes him clench his fists in anger and exasperation.

Which is another good reason for her to go back: one less person for him to fear for.

"Oi Rukia," he wants to ask. "How long are you staying this time?" And maybe she'll answer, "Don't ask silly questions." or "Once my job is done." An irrational part hopes she'll say, "I'm staying right here, idiot! You're always getting into trouble!"

Sometimes, he also wants to yell at her in frustration, "You said you were going to stay in Soul Society! Why d'you have to come back? Make up your mind, dammit!"

(He just needs a reply so that he can stop thinking about her, but he doesn't even let that thought fully register.)

But when she turns to him with bright eyes and a sarcastic comment about staring like an dimwit however, the words fade away before he can even form them. One more day won't hurt, he reasons. One more day to figure out what he should do.

He's not sure what that would be.