Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

Authoress' note: The theme for this fic is 'The Space between Dream and Reality'. Taken from the end of the movie; this is a take on Senna's last moments.

And all I could hear was your voice…..

Telling me I meant something…..

That it was not all in vain…..

Her eyes were clouded, to see the world no more. The air around her was stale, the coolness of the wind reaching her slightly, dancing across her skin like the caresses of forgotten ghosts trying to drag her to their sorrowed oblivion. The only sensations the girl still possessed was the small bit of aural recognition, letting the occasional sound filter to her fading mind, giving her a detached knowledge of her surroundings. It was these spiritual whispers that would become her final memories, silent and etiolated like old photographs.

But, even through the muddled haze that used to be her senses, the was one thing she still knew. One thing that was still clear within her heart. Something that would, even as the rest of her soul and form tarnished around it, would stay as bright and clear as the first moment it had appeared.

He was still there. He hadn't left her, and he never would.

Cradled upon his back, he was the only constant left within her life. In the three short days she'd remembered drawing breath upon this plane, he had been the one thing that had stayed unchanged. The only part that had not been shadowed in doubt. And even now, as her world entire was draining away like water through a cosmic sieve, he held her, and did not move, nor become transparent. He was as the rock in the stormy ocean; unfaltering and nil-changing, no matter what waves may batter him or rain water overwash him, he would not break.

Try as she might, the girl wanted to hang on; to steal some of his obstinence, and survive; but the tides of nothingness were reaching too high, crashing against her with a jarring force, bringing her ever closer towards nihility. Her soul was becoming tired, even if she did not wish it so, and her time limited.

There was one last thing that she held out for---a light through the darkness; a comfort that would allow her to pass with no sorrow, no regret. She could feel the reverberations of his muscles as he spirited her to the destination she had wished, her own kinesthesia having been lost to her a small time before that, though to the girl in question, it seemed like a time incalculable.

"I want to check my family grave."

It was a simple request--no strings attached, no harrowing tasks to perform. Just a simple escort of a moribund soul to the place where its family rested. Where its body, from a life before the one it was currently about to lose, was resting as well. It was not for some lofty reasoning; like paying respects to ancestors, or wishing to die where one was lain to repose, but rather for proof. Proof of existence.

The girl wanted to know. Before her consciousness subsided into eternal silence, she wanted to know the truth. Were her memories her own or had everything she'd seen, and experienced been nothing but a dream? And the last three days, she had walked the line between dream and reality, Fate finally leading her to this one truth--awakening her and placing her in this town; leading her to him, and finally to sacrifice; all for the purpose of learning the veracity of her own existence. She had been tested, tried, and tortured; but she'd come through--all for this moment in time. To learn, once and for all, if she had lived.

Four stones from the end. It had been what she had told him; the location vivid in her mind's eye--the place where her family, or what she thought to be her family, was interred. Everything was still; even his breathing not able to be heard upon the dead air; as if the world had hushed in reverence, waiting for his answer. Her shallow breath was baited, as she, too, was locked in anticipation.

"Is it there?" Her voice, soft and strained, filtered across the expanse, quickly to be devoured by the quiet. Closing her eyes, she took in another shuddering breath. The saturnine atmosphere was thick around her, the air itself feeling more like lead weighting her form. The minutes languished on, as all the world teetered on the precipice of that one response.

"Yeah." The silence was finally shattered, the heavy aura finally being lifted as if by angels' hands. "You lived in this town, and you had a family." Her entirety suddenly gained weightlessness, as all the doubt was cleared from her soul forever; the calignosity replaced by brilliance. His words were as a kiss from Heaven, healing her essence, and showing her the way to Elysion, her existence finally proven to all. It had been him, who had set her free. She felt her senses fall away completely, not into the cold darkness in which they were originally drowning; but rather, into a gentle warmth that encompassed them, until finally there was peace.

I truly existed……

And these memories are my own…

The last memory, a happy one.