A/N- Sorry for the long hiatus. But thank you to everyone reading and leaving reviews letting me know what you thought. Makes it so much easier to keep writing!

It had been two weeks since Rukia and Ichigo's engagement. In that time, Ichigo had stayed in the Soul Society in order to, for lack of a better term, raise awareness of the engagement. Byakuya and the nobles had Ichigo and on more or less a public relations job, in order to please the public….or whatever. In all honesty, Ichigo had kinda zoned out when Byakuya had tried to explain what exactly the point of him making the rounds of the Soul Society was. The short version was that people hearing about the marriage of two war heroes was something that the people could focus on without dredging up unpleasant memories of the war. It felt like a bunch of celebrity gossip magazines to Ichigo, but even in the living world the masses loved hearing about famous people's love lives. Ichigo didn't really get the appeal of it all, but in the end it didn't really matter. All that's important in the end is that the people have something nice to celebrate instead of all the morbid feelings since the war.

And people had definitely been celebrating. Ichigo and Rukia had been guests at no less than 10 parties thrown in their honor. At least ostensibly, anyway. In practice, it appeared a lot of people just wanted an excuse to get drunk and go crazy. No matter how posh or noble the parties had started off, eventually it always ended with far too much alcohol and people passed out on the floor. Rangiku was probably to blame for it. She always seemed to be there pulling drinks out of nowhere and suggesting everyone have a shot…or twenty. Though to be honest, Ichigo didn't mind too much that they all ended up like that. It kept him from having to do too much in the way of public speaking. And all being said, the whole point of this was to make the people happy, right? And it's hard to deny that people running around drunk with lampshades in their heads are happy.

An unfortunate side effect of all this party going however, was that Ichigo and Rukia hadn't had much time to talk alone with each other since this whole thing had started. They were separately chauffeured between events and they were sleeping in opposite wings of the Kuchiki estate. The only real interaction they'd had was to talk at the parties, but even then someone or another always wanted to talk to one of them at a time or something. And it's not like they could just disappear from the party together. Everyone was always watching them. So in the past two weeks, the two of them had barely done more than exchange greetings. Which Ichigo saw as morbidly ironic, since the two of them were now engaged, you would think that they would be closer than ever right now, but they had barely been able to speak at all. It was beginning to get frustrating, honestly.

It was with this frustration in mind that he approached Byakuya and asked for permission for both him and Rukia to go to the world of the living in order to inform their friends of their impending marriage. Originally, the plan had been for Ichigo to go back home alone for a few days, just long enough to tell everyone and then he was supposed to hurry back to the Soul Society in order to make preparations for the wedding. Naturally, Ichigo wasn't fond of this idea. He wanted more time back in his world. He wanted more time to explain things to everything. And not the least of all he wanted to bring Rukia with him. They were her friends too. And besides, if the both of them were allowed to return the world of the living then they should be able to actually get some time to themselves for a while. Surprisingly, Byakuya didn't require much convincing in order to let Rukia come along and to give them a longer time over in the living world. The deadline was bumped from two days to two weeks.

It was the first morning in the world of the living. They had gathered all their friends from school in order to tell them all at once. They were all meeting in a nice café, sitting in a booth in a corner. Ichigo had decided that sitting as far from the rest of the patrons as possible was a good idea, since he foresaw at least one shouting outburst from someone. Probably Keigo. Which of course turned out to be the case.

"WHATTTTTTTT?!" Keigo screamed with such a high pitched voice, it may as well have been Orihime shouting. "W-What do you mean you guys are getting married?! You weren't even dating! …Or were you?! You were, weren't you! And of course no one tells me anything! Its so unfairrrrrrr!" His protestations were loud and insufferable as always.

To be fair, Ichigo probably could have lead into it a bit better. As soon as everyone had exchanged greetings, he had immediately bluntly stated that he and Rukia were getting married. He figured it was better to just get that out in the open as soon as possible instead of beating around the bush for an hour trying to think of a smooth way of saying it. He looked over at Rukia and saw that she seemed nearly as shocked as Keigo. Okay, so maybe he should've warned her beforehand what his plan was. He did a quick look around the table to see how everyone was reacting to the news as he tried to formulate a follow up to Keigo's outburst.

Chad seemed as stoic as ever, though Ichigo could swear he saw a slight grin pulling at the edge of his mouth though he wasn't sure. Uryu seemed stunned speechless, which Ichigo was grateful for. There was a limit to the amount of outbursts he could handle at once. Orihime had an odd expression on her face and when she noticed him looking at her she quickly shifted her gaze downward. Seeing her like that for some reason made Ichigo feel slightly guilty, though he couldn't quite explain why. Next to her, Tatsuki looked angry for some reason. He couldn't really understand that either. Keigo was as loud and idiotic as ever, crying about life's great unfairness. Mizuiro seemed exasperated by Keigo's outburst. Like usual.

"We weren't dating…exactly." Ichigo tried to explain. "You see…"

"What do you mean not exactly dating?" Tatsuki asked, with a light hint of danger in her voice.

"Oh, uh…" Ichigo said, caught slightly off guard, "I mean it's a …political thing? I guess?"

"What this idiot is trying to say…poorly…is that our marriage was proposed to us by the nobility of the Soul Society as a means of taking the public's mind off of the causalities suffered in the war with the Quincies." Rukia interjected.

"Whaaaaaa?" Keigo asked in his usual eloquent manner. His incredulity was shared amongst the rest of the friends gathered there. Each of them had a different shocked or puzzled reaction to this particular bit of information.

Rukia took a breath before continuing. "Believe me, the two of us were just as shocked as the rest of you."

Ichigo interjected, "Yeah, no kidding. This whole thing really came out of nowhere."

"Allow me to see if I've got this right," Uryu said, adjusting his glasses as he did, "The nobility can't do anything to curb negative public morale, and so as a last ditch effort they're forcing you two to get married as a method of distracting the public from their own failings to recover?"

Well, it was nice to see that Uryu was as fond of the Soul Society as ever. Though Ichigo did have to admit, he got the gist of it. Aside from one key detail that was.

"They didn't force us." Ichigo stated.

It was a simple thing. Only four words, but they carried a lot of weight behind them. Whether or not Ichigo himself could really explain what that meant. He was sure that it mattered though. This was their choice in the end. Not something forced on them. Claiming that he had been forced into it was sure to breed animosity or resentment of some kind. Life had been crazy ever since he and Rukia had met, seemingly forcing the two of them to deal with more and more ridiculous things as the years passed. But this was different. Sure, neither of them probably would have ever done it if Byakuya hadn't asked them to think about it, but that didn't change the fact that they chose it. They could have said no. Ichigo nearly had at first.

A quiet voice interrupted his inner reverie, "What do you mean, exactly?" Looking at the source, it was Orihime with a strange expression on her face.

Ichigo took a breath before he answered, looking around the table he realized that everyone was staring at intently, especially Tatsuki, Rukia and Orihime. "I mean…that all they said to us was their idea and they asked us to think it over. We weren't forced into this. We could have said no. I nearly did, honestly. But in the end we made this decision ourselves."

Tatsuki quickly asked, "Why? You guys weren't dating before or anything right? So isn't that kinda crazy to go from nothing to married? And there had to be other ways to cheer up the Soul Society…I mean you probably coulda done the same thing with a big enough party or making Byakuya dress in a cute outfit or something."

The image of Byakuya dressed like Chappy momentarily flashed across Ichigo's mind. He quickly dismissed the image.

Ichigo chuckled slightly, "Yeah, I know. It's crazy from a purely objective view. Like there's no way that this should be something that makes sense to me. But it just does. I've had to think about a lot of things because of this. Like the future and how I want it to play out. And I realized that in every future I envisioned, Rukia was always there…" Ichigo quickly realized what he was saying and let his voice trail off embarrassed. He looked over and saw that Rukia looked nearly as embarrassed as he was. He was kinda surprised that she hadn't interrupted him at some point.

At that point, Orihime stood up, "I'm not feeling too well, I think I'm going to go home." Without waiting for a reply she quickly excused herself and left the table.

"I hope she's okay. Hope it isn't a stomach bug. Those are the worst." Ichigo said.

Tatsuki facepalmed. "You're an idiot. I'm gonna go check on her and make sure she's alright." She then got up and went after her.

Ichigo wasn't sure what he'd done to be labeled an idiot, but he was too concerned about what was wrong with Orihime to worry about it too much.

Chad spoke up, "This is probably a good spot to call it a day."

Ichigo nodded, "Yeah, we still have to tell my family after this, too." He was really not looking forward to that conversation.

They all stood up and paid, before all going outside. They all exchanged farewells and promised to stay in touch while Ichigo and Rukia were both in the World of the Living. After saying goodbye to everyone, Ichigo and Rukia began walking side by side towards the Kurosaki family clinic.

"You know…" Rukia said, "What you said at the restaurant earlier was really sweet."

"What?" Ichigo asked, confused.

"That I was in every future you imagined." Rukia clarified.

"Oh…I hadn't really meant to be so sappy. I just…" His voice trailed off.

"That reminds me…" Rukia said, with a smirk on her lips. "You never did tell me what you and my brother talked about before…"

"Ah…." Ichigo stammered. He hadn't been expecting to talk about that right now. "He asked me the same thing he asked you…If I loved you."

Rukia's face reddened slightly. "I see…And…what did you tell him?"

Ichigo shook his head, "I'm not telling. Or at least..." He paused a second before finding a little more courage, "I'm not telling unless you do too."

Rukia responded slowly, "That…would be fair I suppose."

"Then…? You gonna tell me?" Ichigo prodded.

"You first." Rukia said, embarrassed.

"Promise you'll tell me?" Ichigo asked. When she nodded, he continued. "I said, I wasn't sure. I didn't know if what I feel for you is love or not… But I know that no matter whatever else happens in our lives, with or without a marriage between us, I'd do everything I could to see you happy…" Ichigo's face heated up with embarrassment as he rattled on all the sappy crap he had said to Byakuya. Normally, he'd shut up here or have never said anything in the first place. But he wanted her to know, and the two of them hadn't had much opportunity to talk lately so once he started talking the words flowed out like a river. "You…saved me. From myself. You made me a better person. I'm still not sure what I'm feeling. But…when I'm with you… the world feels more like a place I want to live in…It doesn't feel like it's raining anymore with you around."

After he finished his sort of confession, Ichigo noticed that Rukia's eyes were slightly watery. He was about to ask if everything was okay, when she stopped suddenly and turned to face him with a warm look in her eyes.

"What is i-" Ichigo's question was cut off when Rukia suddenly pulled his head down towards hers and pressed her lips against his.

A kiss. Ichigo knew what was happening. Rukia was kissing him. But it felt like so much more. It felt like everything that was wrong was suddenly better. He felt whole without ever having noticed he felt like he was missing something before. It felt like he was finding answers to questions he'd never thought to ask. His mind wasn't processing anything but her. Her taste, her smell, the feel of her in his arms. She was everything in the world in this one moment. And Ichigo never wanted it to end. The kiss only lasted a few seconds, but that feeling would last a lifetime he was certain.