Happiness and Pain
"Under The Weather"
By Nessie
Everyone that knew him would not deny that Kurosaki Ichigo was tough. He had fought enemies of escalating strength: school bullies, Hollows, Shinigami, Arrancar. He had even fought himself and come out the other side a victor.
So how was it (and he really wanted to know) that he could be put down with something as freaking wussy as the flu?
Rukia had been terrified for him when his symptoms had begun. That moment was one of the few he had not spent half-strapped to his bed for the last three days, courtesy of his father. Even when Karin had explained to her that influenza was treated with relative ease these days and that their clinician father would take care of him, the petite Shinigami had responded with doubt.
She stayed in his room as a go-between for him and the rest of their friends. Urahara had assured her that her gigai wouldn't contract the illness as well. Ichigo derived a rather pathetic satisfaction from her willingness to help him. She even did some of the homework that was sent from school. He should have been content with a few days off and Rukia's new-found ability to let him get some rest, but her initial reaction to his dropped body temperature and his seemingly unstoppably tremors kept nagging at him.
"So what is it?" he demanded when she returned to his room from a mission, refilled glass of juice in hand. He took a sip while she asked what he was talking about, then met her gaze. "What happened that made you freak out like that?"
Rukia's eyes widened momentarily, then lowered to a point on the far side of the room. "What makes you think something happened?"
"People don't freak out for no reason."
She seemed to acknowledge this as truth and replied honestly and with a quickness that surprised him. "When I was alive – in my first life," she clarified, "there wasn't a simple treatment for what you call the flu. Hardly anyone survived it. That shivering you did…that racking, it was like the herald of death back then."
Ichigo's eyebrows drew together. "Rukia…"
"And when I saw you doing that, even in this time, I was afraid." Her hand fisted and pressed above her heart. "I have seen what is beyond death, Ichigo. And while a worse fate could await a person, I do not think you should have to go any sooner than your time." She lifted her eyes to his.
He surprised her – and himself – by reaching out and letting his much larger hand seemingly devour her small one. "Rukia, did…did you die from the flu?"
Her smile came slowly, as though she had known he would guess. "It was a time too long ago to matter anymore," she told him simply. "You will be well. And I…" Standing, she purposely drew away. "I will be better because of that."
The thought of her, hundreds of years before, suffering from this very illness without the modern conveniences of over-the-counter medicine and electrically-heated blankets, somehow placed a very heavy weight on Ichigo's mind. He stared at the window long after Rukia jumped through it, feeling torn.
Given the choice, he would always rather he was sick. Not Rukia.