Ulquiorra started at the sudden knock on his door. He wasn't expecting to be summoned so soon by Aizen...his next report on Orihime wasn't due for two more days. He tried to quiet the uneasiness that had settled into his stomach and said, "Come in."

The servant opened the door and bowed. "Aizen-sama wants to see you now, Numero Cuatro."

"Tell Aizen-sama I am on my way." Ulquiorra told the servant.

As Ulquiorra walked to the throne room he tried to think through all the reasons that Aizen could want him. The most logical of course was that he had another mission that he wanted to send Ulquiorra on in the human world. Yes, very logical...so why did Ulquiorra's mind keep returning to the unauthorized visit he had taken to Orihime's apartment? Besides if Aizen did ask him about that, Ulquiorra had a very logical explanation for the trip. Aizen would see the logic too Ulquiorra was sure. After all Aizen had entrusted him with keeping the girl's health intact.

"Ulquiorra reached the throne room and took a deep breath and mentally calmed himself before pushing open the door. He approached the dias with what he hoped was seeming calm and then bowed low before Aizen. "You have need of me, master?"

"Why yes, actually I do." Aizen's voice came down from his throne. "I was hoping you could answer a couple of questions for me, Numero Cuatro. I have no doubt that you have a reasonable explanation for the little trip you took last night and I would like to hear it."

Ulquiorra raised up with his heart in his throat, but when he answered Aizen he was relieved to hear that his voice didn't stutter or otherwise betray his uneasiness. "I do, Aizen-sama. The reason I went to the girl's apartment for some of her things is two-fold. First you charged me with her care and she had begun to look unhealthy to me, so I thought bringing her some things to occupy her mind would help. Secondly it is part of my plan to insure her loyalty to us. By showing her kindness, I can change her beliefs about what we are. If she has a good friend here, she is more likely to be loyal to us and not want to leave."

Aizen sat quietly for a moment looking at Ulquiorra and then said, "You should have asked permission though."

"You are right, Aizen-sama. Punish me however you deem fit." Ulquiorra said, head bowed again.

Aizen sat studying him for a moment more before answering, "Not this time Ulquiorra, but from now on I want to hear all of what you are doing to brainwash this girl."

"Yes, Aizen-sama."

"This really quite ingenious and cruel of you, Ulquiorra. I'm not sure I expected it coming from you...causing some poor human girl to think that you actually like and care for her. Luckily for you, she seems naive enough to really believe a creature like you actually has feelings beyond hate and fear. I could almost feel sorry for the girl." Aizen chuckled to himself.

Ulquiorra's outwardly calm didn't betray the emotions he felt stirring inside of him. How could Aizen know anything about him? And then he realized that Aizen was creating things that he really had no idea about. Sure, along with the removing of a hollow's mask you got a humanoid appearance and intellect, but Aizen didn't seem to realize that maybe it also gave other human qualities too. Ulquiorra silently mulled this over in his head and decided that it might not end well for Aizen after all...if he didn't keep the tight grip on his minions that he did, his own subjects may very well be part of his undoing. Yet, that was all far in the future. He had certainly heard no stirrings of mutiny at this point in time. Still it was an...interesting...thought if nothing else.

"You may go now, Ulquiorra." Aizen called down to him and Ulquiorra did.

--------------------

When Orihime was done eating her dinner that night, she didn't immediately get up to stand at her window like she had always done before. She just sat there and stared at her plate, for some reason not wanting her guard to leave just yet. Maybe she was lonelier than she had thought.

"Are you done?" he emotionlessly asked her from next to her door.

"Yes...but...uh...well, you don't have to leave just yet do you?" she nervously asked him, not sure what his response would be. She was still looking at her plate so when he didn't answer her right away, she shyly looked up at him to see what expression he wore. She saw of course it was the same one he always did. He was just standing there looking at her. "Ulquiorra?" she asked him, using his name for the first time.

That seemed to cause some sort of reaction in him and he said, "No, I don't have to leave just yet."

"Will...will you sit down with me for a moment and chat?" she asked him already knowing he would refuse. After all, when had he ever chatted with anyone?

To her amazement he actually came over to her and sat down across from her...all silently of course. Suddenly she felt awkward with him so close, though she wasn't sure why. So to cover up her awkwardness she blurted out the first question that came to her mind. "Why did you become a hollow, Ulquiorra?" As soon as it was out she wished she could take it back, because of all the things she could have asked him that was probably the worst one.

He looked at her a moment and then said, "It is a choice isn't it? I tried to tell myself for a long time that I had no control over what I had become, but I knew it was a lie." Then they sat looking at each other a moment more and then he told her and she was amazed.

"When I was alive, people like me weren't looked very favorably upon. People that could see spirits, touch the other side as it were, were seen as deviants, insane, or worse witches that were in communication with the devil. It made for a lonely lifestyle on the fringes of society. One such as me couldn't find work outside of a circus freak show or maybe if you were lucky as the local witch doctor where though you might earn their dark respect they would never give you honest employment or ask you to marry their daughters. For me, I was the local laughingstock of the town. If I dared try to enter a pub where the respected locals drank, they would ask me mocking questions such as 'Come over here and look at William. Do you see his dead grandmother around him like you did last week? If you do, ask her where she hid her whiskey money! Ol' William is still looking for that stash!' And then they would clap each other on the back thinking that was just the funniest thing in all the world. And if I tried to ignore them and drink my ale quietly in a corner, they would try harder tactics to show just how unwelcome I was among them. I often found devil's eyes and such marked on my small house...once I found a black cat strung up in the tree in front of my house."

"Oh, Ulquiorra..." Orihime breathed.

"I could have bore it all for many more years I know, I have always been a patient man, and I had no intentions of moving somewhere else where I had no home to live in and the same trash to deal with wearing different faces. They had other ideas though. When a lot of the local livestock started dropping dead of disease they blamed it on me and I was arrested and found guilty, though the charges they brought against me were of a more mundane sort. I was hanged in the public square not two weeks later. I'll never forget everyone that showed up and cheered my execution like it was some sort of a festival." Ulquiorra said, eyes like green steel. "Of course after I was dead I couldn't resist sticking around and making life a living hell for those that had tortured me so. It was good to see them doubting their own sanity for a change when the chairs from the dining room were all found in the chicken coup and such."

Orihime giggled a little at that and then quickly stifled it with her hands.

"It's OK to laugh, Orihime. It was silly and petty of me to waste my death on such things. Of course the longer I stayed on earth as a spirit the more and more I hated them. I hated them all and I still do. It's funny really. There are so many human emotions that I have forgotten during my years as a full hollow, but the hatred and the anger...I never forgot those." Then he looked at her clearly finished with his story.

"Oh, Ulquiorra..." Orihime began not sure what exactly to say to him. "Maybe...maybe I can help you remember what other emotions feel like too...at least I'd like to try."

"Ok." he said to her as tonelessly as always, but it seemed to Orihime that his eyes weren't quite as hard as they had been before.