(A/N: Yes, yes I know groan all you want at the Punny chapter title. About two chapters back I left you guys with a nasty cliffhanger, and well here's the continuation.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

3rd Person pov

"I love you Ichigo Kurosaki," Rukia said to Ichigo, leaving the orange haired teen completely awe struck. Tears were starting to form in Rukia's eyes. "I-I never loved anyone before, I don't even know what it means to love someone, but I can't be mistaken by these feelings," Rukia put her hands over her chest and looked away to the left, "Ever since I found you lying on your back like that and after what you told me about Karin, I…I already came to trust you. And you worried me when you and Tatsuki left without saying anything, and I haven't seen you all day today either." Rukia raised her voice and looked at Ichigo, "You really scared me you Baka!" She started to cry, but held back most of it. Ichigo didn't know what to do, to be honest he hardly knew this Rukia at all. All he knew was the snobby bitchy one back home. However, even so, so long as he was in this world, she was his friend. Ichigo stepped forward and pushed Rukia's back gently so that the momentum caused her to fall onto his chest. His right arm wrapped itself loosely around her, while his left hand gently stroked her soft black hair.

"It's alright, I'm sorry for worrying you Rukia," Ichigo comforted.

"Ichigo-san," Rukia sobbed.

Again with the honorific, he thought, she really does think highly of me. Rukia put her left hand on his chest and stroked it up and down him.

"I feel so safe when you're around," she said, "I don't know why, but I just do. I wish, I wish that when I was being held captive for execution a dashing individual like you would've come to my rescue. Not that I didn't mind being rescued by my friends it's just…"

"I understand," Ichigo said, now loosely wrapping both arms around Rukia, cupping his right wrist with his left hand, "And you know in my world I did come to save you," he added, causing Rukia to grip his shirt with the hand his chest, "Of course you weren't that happy about it."

"It must've been like with Karin, I was scared, scared that all of them would get killed trying to rescue me. And I wasn't worth that." Rukia said sorrowfully.

So that's what it was, she was resolved to die and didn't want to see us get hurt, "You were worth it Rukia, I, Karin probably did to, risked my life to save you because it was my fault you were going to be executed and that's why I had to fix it. I'm sure Karin felt the same."

Rukia couldn't hold it back any longer she just started crying full blast into Ichigo's shoulder. Ichigo rubbed her back comforting her. He then wrapped one arm around her shoulders and one around her waist and just held her while she let it all out.

It's all right Rukia, just let it all out, I'll be here until you're done.

When Rukia stopped crying she looked up at Ichigo, "How do you feel about me Ichigo-san?" she asked. Ichigo looked at her confused. "I told you before I'm in love with you so…"

Ichigo didn't know how to answer, he'd never had any sort of feelings for anyone in his life.

"Ichigo-san, please say you love me back," tears were forming in Rukia's eyes again, "If you don't…I…I don't know what I would do." She sniffed. Ichigo cupped his hands over hers. Rukia stood a few inches from him.

"I don't know how I feel about you Rukia, I don't even know how I feel about the other you, or my other friends like Tatsuki and Inoue. I've never really given it any thought." He said.

Rukia let go of Ichigo and looked at him, her hands balled up, tears slowly dripping from her eyes. Her right hand was close to her face the knuckles turned towards her and the other hand was down at her waist, "Th-then, at least let me have one thing from you," she said trying not to let all the tears she was holding back fly out at once.

"What?"

"Let me at least have one kiss from you, please." She sniffed, almost begging.

Ichigo wasn't sure how to respond, he toyed with the thought of being able to take advantage of a different kind of Rukia, but it was the Rukia he knew. Then again he could always rub in her face later, one kiss it didn't seem like that much of a big deal.

"A kiss is a form of greeting,"

"I spent years crafting my image."

Well considering I really don't have a reputation in this world, no harm no foul I guess. Ichigo approached Rukia and leaned his face down and connected his lips to hers. Rukia's face flushed, as she closed her eyes to deepen the kiss and wrapped her arms behind Ichigo's head. Her left arm was almost completely wrapped around his neck and the other was tightly balling his orange hair. The kiss ended, dark blue met dark brown before Rukia broke the silence.

"I…need some time to myself." She said walking past Ichigo to the bed.

"Okay, I'll be downstairs if you need anything." He said. Rukia sniffed and nodded. Ichigo opened the door and shut it behind him. When Rukia was sure that Ichigo was gone she lay down on the bed and just sobbed into the pillow. She had several strong emotions she had to come to terms with and she didn't want anyone to see her acting so pitiful

Ichigo's pov

I left the house telling my parents that I was heading out for a walk. I grabbed the coat my mom bought me and headed out to the park. It was kind of late out as I sat down on the bench and looked at the starry sky. I wondered how the Inoue of this world was doing as well as Tatsuki. I also wondered how Karin was doing out in my world. Probably a lot better than I was considering people knew her as my younger sister.

With nothing else better to do I went to go see Shinji and the others again.

"Oh so you've returned for some late night training have ya?" Shinji asked. I nodded.

"Good, good, let's get to it then,"

"Yeah," I guess for now this is all I'll be able to do is just train and fight, hopefully though, I'll find that Arrancar soon.

(A/N: Sorry I know this is kind of short, but I wanted to capture the IchiRuki moment here and save the next moment with Ichigo and the Orihime of the Karin-verse for the next time, which will be in two chapters. Thanks to everyone who is enjoying and taking the time to read this, I appreciate it. And for the record I had planned on doing a lemon for this chapter, but that kind of got lost when I decided that I wanted to keep the Ichigo of this fic the canon Ichigo for a little while longer. If the situation presents itself again I may do an IchiRuki lemon, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it for this time, sorry .. As always R&R).