Byakuya once said when he took Rukia back to the Soul Society that even if Ichigo lived, all his power will be gone. He won't be left with a shred of spirit power, let alone a death gods' power. This is the story of what would've happened if Ichigo lost his memory as well as his power and he wasn't saved by Urahara after that but was saved by Isshin instead.

In Dreams

Dreams are just that.

You dream, wake up, and forget about it.

At least this was how Ichigo normally dealt with them. Most of the time Ichigo made no effort to remember his dreams, but somehow he had remembered her in his dreams - a girl whom he didn't even know. His dreams about her were so vivid that it was impossible not to remember.

He dreamt that he was lying in the street, dying. Blood was pooling underneath his body. He couldn't move. He felt cold. The rain was pouring. Then darkness took him.

Ichigo felt odd. His muscles protested as he sat upright on his bed. His torso was bandaged with multiple layers of white gauze but he didn't remember getting into a fight or anything that would give him such a bad wound.

Ichigo held back a cringe as the gashes on his torso started to throb again. His reckless action earlier had opened up some wounds. A crimson stain began to soak through the inner layer of the fabric but something else held his attention. A strange feeling of grief was gnawing inside him. It was the same hollow feeling that he had when he lost his mother. He couldn't figure out why.

When he asked his sisters about how he got his wound over dinner, Isshin suddenly got excited and exclaimed that his son had grown up because he got his wound from his heroic action to save a girl. Before long, Ichigo lost his temper with Isshin's senseless rant and he had to kick his father's chin to shut him up. The rest of the evening was nothing eventful. Yet he had stopped seeing any spirits since then.

At first he wasn't aware of it. His suspicion only arose when he noticed that he had not seen a single spirit for the past several days. On average, he could easily bump into five spirits on any given day – his highest record so far was fifty in a day. Not seeing them for so long was seriously something that he could regard as abnormal.

The new discovery left him feeling a mixture of relief and an odd sense of emptiness. All of a sudden, he didn't have to worry about being stalked by a ghost all the way home or being caught talking to the air when he was alone any more. The 'special gift' that had troubled him for years had finally left him and would no longer affect his daily life. If anything, at least now he could live a normal life.

Sometimes Ichigo could almost pretend that his life had never been more normal. Almost. If he wasn't having dreams about her - a mysterious raven haired girl with large violet eyes.

It always rained in his dreams when he dreamt of her. There were two other men in his dreams – both were wearing traditional black haori and carrying swords. One was red haired and another had some weird hair-rolls. He didn't care who they were; he only cared who she was.

"Wait!" he called out to her as she walked farther and farther away from him. She turned around with her eyes brimming with tears and said, "Don't move! Just trying to move one step, just trying to come after me, I… I will never forgive you!"

Never once had he seen a pair of eyes more sorrowful than hers, not in real life or dreams. There were so many layers of sorrow and pain in her eyes that it wrenched his heart to look into them.

Why? Why had she been so sorrowful for him? Why did he feel like he was being saved, again, by her?

He never had the opportunity to ask those questions because his dream always ended before he could ask. A door would suddenly appear before him when the red head thrust his sword into the air. Bright white light emitted from it, blinding his sight momentarily as she walked towards the door. "Wait!" It was always too late. His eyes would snap open and he awake up from that dream.

He didn't dream of her every single night. Sometimes weeks could go before he dreamt of her again. But when he did he often had trouble going back to his sleep. He would stare at the ceiling until sleep claimed him again – if he was lucky. Some nights, he would lie awake till the next morning come.

However, as time passed by, Ichigo grew familiar to her presence in his dreams without realizing it. He no longer jerked awake soaking in sweat after that particular dream. Even the rain seemed to cease in his dream.

Sometimes there were happier dreams about her. In those dreams they would always bicker over something insignificant. He never remembered who won in the end. All he ever remembered was her smile when she won. The truth was although it annoyed him that she was gloating about it when she won, he hadn't mind letting her win if it would make her smiled.

Some nights he even had some bizarre dreams about him slashing some monsters with her by his side. He would never admit dreaming those dreams to anyone because it was embarrassing for a teenager at his age to still dream monster-fighting superhero dreams. He hated those stupid dreams but he could tolerate them as long as she was in them too.

One night, Ichigo dreamt of her again. He was busy doing his homework when she suddenly appeared before him. She entered through the windows and landed lightly on the floor of his room. Surprised, he stared at her dumbfounded.

"How?"

"You didn't lock the windows."

He never locked his windows. It was a habit that he hadn't realized he had developed. It just came naturally to him. He couldn't explain why. Now that she pointed it out, suddenly he couldn't tell if it was just his dream or if she had come to him in reality. But it didn't make sense that she was real. She only existed in his dreams.

"Why are you here? I mean… am I dreaming?"

"Well, as a matter of fact…"

She caught him off-guard when she suddenly pounded her fist at his jaw. He jumped and yelled at her, "Ouch! What is that for? You crazy bitch!"

She smirked and answered, "I figured this is the best way to answer your question."

Then Ichigo stilled as if something had struck him like lightning bolt. His mind registered that if he felt pain when she hit him, it couldn't be a dream. She was real!

The memories of her thrusting her blade through his heart the first time they met, of him fighting hollows as her substitute shinigami, of her leaving him in the rain, suddenly flashed through his head in those split seconds. He could finally hear clearly the voices that kept calling her name in his sub-consciousness, "Rukia, Rukia!"

"Rukia." He called out her name at last, despite feeling a lump in his throat.

She smiled.

"Took you long enough, idiot!"

Ichigo stumbled forward and pulled her into his embrace. And she didn't resist. The realization that it wasn't a dream finally sunk in when he felt her warmth radiated from her body pressed against his. She was in his arms, not in his dream this time.

They didn't speak for the longest time until she finally broke the silence, "Hey, how long do you plan to hold me like this?"

"As long as I can."

"Idiot."

And that was that.

END

A/N: I haven't written any happy ending for a story in a long time. But I really do think they deserve a happy ending.