Kurama had to borrow a company car to take Ichigo to the hospital. And he spent the whole trip there focused on her while he silently raged at himself for being such a soft-hearted fool as to not do something long before now about his former employee's delusions.

Honestly, he didn't know what to do here. He'd never been in a position where he would have to apologize for possibly getting a woman's face maimed before.

He usually didn't let anything get quite that far; situation wise, before he stepped in.

But he hadn't this time despite his instincts screaming at him too. And because of his foolishness, his darling may wind up with a scar marring her lovely face.

He knew that he probably shouldn't have been as worried about that as he was at present, given her past as a soldier. But for some unfathomable reason he had just developed a deeply rooted fear of her coming to hate him for this fiasco. It was somewhat an unreasonable thing to think, much less believe.

But here he was, driving a car- and sort of panicking internally. It was a wonderful combination. God, knew that he'd lost count of just how many red lights he'd run in his effort to get her to the hospital to get her face fixed up before he had a damned temper tantrum.

Luckily, they had made it to their destination in one piece.

Though he supposed that he understood the reason why Ichigo had rushed to let herself out of the vehicle and then promptly started kissing the ground before he'd unceremoniously hauled her up by her arm and all but dragged her into the building pleading with him to let her drive them back afterword.

Which he quickly nixed since she would likely be on pain meds and unable to drive at all anyway.

She made a pitiful sound, almost like a baby animal whining and he paused in mid step to glance back at her and noted her resigned expression and sighed before carefully telling her that he would drive much slower and more safely once she was seen too.

He wasn't exactly sure if she really believed him or not, but it didn't really matter since he wound up having to carry her into the building.

After that, the two of them had sat down in the waiting room and Ichigo had filled out some paperwork. It was the usual stuff. Age, birthday, gender- all of which he found informative since he'd been secretly reading the pages that she filled out from the corner of his eye.

Absently committing every bit of information about his darling to memory, just in case something like this ever happened again.

He especially found the fact that she'd been in two comas' very interesting. So interesting in fact that he'd had to quietly excuse himself to go to the men's room where he'd accidentally broken a sink right off of the wall during his little meltdown.

Thankfully, the restroom had been empty when he'd entered it and he managed to escape the room before someone else could walk in and notice the damage.

So, no one would be catching him for that anytime soon.

Returning to the waiting room, he went to re seat himself in his previous chair and suddenly found himself being glared at by a toddler that had claimed his seat next to Ichigo. His darling seemed to not have noticed the boy glaring at him at first. But once she did, she reached over and tickled the little one's stomach, making the boy break out into peals of laughter and squirm in an effort to get away from her as someone- a woman with long auburn hair walked up and stopped in front to the two.

Blinking his eyes as he stared at the woman, he couldn't help but notice some similarities between her and the child. So obviously she was the toddler's mother. And she also didn't seem to mind the fact that a stranger was playing with her son.

He couldn't help but wonder if they knew each other?

"Ichigo, what are you doing here?" She asked curiously as Ichigo slowly retracted her hand from the still giggling boy.

"I got into an incident and need to have my face stitched up." Ichigo said easily but yelped when the woman reached out and grabbed her face and started to turn it this way and that.

Kurama couldn't help but bristle a bit considering the sudden way that the woman grabbed his darling, but he was at least wise enough to recognize that she didn't seem to mean any harm and was simply gauging Ichigo's injury for herself. Finally, she released his darling and stepped back a little bit with a low whistle.

"That's a deep cut." She simply said, stating the obvious as his darling nodded her head sagely. "I don't think I've seen you cut that deep since..." The woman paused for a moment and got a thoughtful look on her face.

Ichigo's expression became shuttered, and she thinned her lips a bit and glanced towards him for a second before finally saying out of the blue, "Orihime, did you know that I got engaged?"

Sensing that his darling was attempting to both deflect attention from her and her injury while introducing him to her...friend? He sat a little bit straighter in his seat and waited.

The woman, Orihime, blinked her eyes as if confused and then a second later her face lit up with excitement that was almost tangible.

"Really?" She asked, her grey eyes sparkling with delight. Ichigo nodded her head and pointed to him and waited for the auburn-haired woman to follow her finger to where he was.

Kurama tried hard not to feel amused by the flustered look on Orihime's face as she quickly turned and introduced herself and her child- little Ichigo- to him. But he still wound-up chuckling anyways before he gave her his own name.

He could easily see why Ichigo was friends with the woman almost automatically as the two of them shook hands. Orihime was a genuinely warm and caring person. Not only that, but he could feel her spirit energy spike a little bit when he was shaking her hand.

And while that typically wasn't enough to be threatening in any way. It was certainly curious. Almost as if she were attempting to subtly probe him in an effort to see if he would rise to her bait.

Her attempt was awkward and clumsy, but normal humans wouldn't notice it at all. So, he didn't bother to react to it though he did file the information away in the back of his mind for later as Orihime suddenly thrust her young son into his arms and said, "Here, hold your new god-son."

He took hold of the scowling toddler while the boy's mother promptly seated herself in the empty chair next to his darling and began asking her all kinds of questions. Completely dismissing him from her mind for the moment.

Kurama wound up having a staring contest with the little one since the boy was so displeased to be in his grasp that he wouldn't stop staring at him.

He wasn't sure how long he and the boy wound up staring each other down, but it must have been a little while since Ichigo reached out and lightly pinched the toddler on his arm and hissed at him to blink already.

Earning her a grateful smile from him as he found both his darling and her friend watching he and the toddler in amusement. Probably trying to gauge how he would react to having a child in his hands for more than a few minutes. For future reference, perhaps?

Either way, he took having the boy in his hands as a sort of personal challenge from his darling and her friend. And after that he spent the better part of the next twenty minutes trying to get the child to behave and stop scowling at him.

But every time he tried to make the boy smile and win him over, the boy's little face simply seemed to grow darker and darker until Kurama almost found himself making a scene when the child finally snapped and bit him. Hard.

It was difficult for him to keep himself from reacting to the pain in his hand from the child's teeth trying to tear his flesh apart and simply throwing the boy across the room like a venomous snake of some kind. And he might have actually done so if not for the utterly frigid tone that his darling used to call the toddler off.

"Ichigo Ishida, you let him go immediately and come here!"

The second that the boy heard Ichigo speak, he automatically released Kurama's hand and stepped back away from him, looking more than a tad bit upset about finding himself in trouble.

"Now, kid." Ichigo said forcefully and she pointed to the vacant area right in front of her chair. The boy shuffled over reluctantly and held out his arm.

Kurama watches in curiosity, wondering what was about to happen as his darling takes hold of it and lifts it up to her mouth and then quickly bites him.

The demon's jaw drops open in alarm and horror, even as he is quickly able to tell that Ichigo isn't actually harming the child. The pressure that she's asserting is very soft, but firm. It takes him a moment to catch on to the fact that she has curled her lips over her teeth to protect the boy's flesh from actual harm.

It's doubtful that the child will even have any sort of discomfort of bruising.

The boy lets out a whine and his eyes tear up, regardless of her efforts. She slowly released him and then says, "That is no way for a big boy like you to act towards other people. If you don't want to get bitten again, then don't bite anyone else. Now go apologize to Shuichi and ask him for a hug."

The boy pouts, but shuffles back over to him and holds his arms out to indicate that he should pick him up again.

Kurama lets his eyes flicker to Ichigo and the boy's mother as if asking if it was really alright to pick the child up again after last time. The two women give him a nod of encouragement and leave it up to him if he wants to pick the boy up again.

All in all, it took him a moment to finally do as the boy bid and this time, instead of glowering at him or biting him. The second that the boy was in his arms, he simply leaned in and kissed his cheek, shocking the hell out of him since he hadn't been expecting such a thing. As the boy then curled up against his chest.

It was cute. Weird. But cute. So, he allowed himself to enjoy it to the fullest while Ichigo and Orihime resumed talking for a little bit longer before the woman decided to get her son and say her goodbyes.