Hey there again! This the third installment in my series of onehots "Days in Their Lifes". This came up a bit later than promised. Which there is a plausible expanation for.

The thing is... my dog ate it.

Nevermind the fact that I don´t own a dog. I´ts totally possible! No? *sigh* Then i suppose I better tell you the truth. I was hit with a slight writers block. It was horrible! For a long time, no matter what I wrote, it would all come out wrong, and I wouldn´t be able to finish it no matter how hard I tried. And did I try! I must have begun at least three fics that never made it past 500 words. But, in the end, all I needed was a good idea, which I luckily got, and my creativity returned.

So with that said, please enjoy this new installment, and as always, please remember to review! It makes me happy when you do!

Ulquiorra was sitting in the living room, silently reading a book when he heard the woman approaching. She stood for a little while in the doorframe connecting the kitchen and living room. Then, after having stood there silently for a little while, she slowly spoke.

"Ulquiorra-kun?"

Ulquiorra looked up from his book, focusing on her, slightly annoyed. He really didn´t like to be interrupted when he was reading, something the woman knew very well. After he had been to work all day, he enjoyed using the time before dinner to read. Quenching his annoyance, he directed his attention to her.

"What is it, woman?"

At the sound of his voice, the woman looked at him, wide eyed, as if she had forgotten he was there in the time it had taken him to answer.

Ulquiorra examined her closer. She was tiptoeing around the place she stood, looking everywhere in the room but at him. Her cheeks were flushed with blood, and her she was wringing her hands. This was odd. Usually, the woman would be all sunshine and puppies. She was almost never nervous. The last time he had seen her like this was on their wedding day, and that was almost four years ago.

"You, you see, Ulquiorra-kun, I was wondering, I-I mean I have been thinking about…" Seemingly gathering her courage, the woman directed her eyes off the floor, where they had been plastered for the whole conversation, to look him in the eyes. Her expression was that of extreme concentration and determinance. When she spoke, it was without stutter.

"Ulquiorra-kun, do you like kids?"

Ulquiorra just stared at her. What else was he supposed to do? Even though the woman had a habit of asking the weirdest questions at the weirdest times, this was unprecedented. So, he simply stared at her like she was an alien from some other planet. The woman was looking at him, and he could see the self-confidence and determination from before quickly disappearing from her face. She started wringing her hands again, her uncertain gaze meeting his confused eyes.

"Ulquiorra-kun? Is something wrong?"

Ulquiorra snapped out of the reverie of questions inside his head. The woman´s question had literally left him dumbstruck, something no one had ever done to him before. Quickly gathering his wits, he regarded the woman in front of him.

"What do you mean "do you like kids?" woman?"

"W-well", she began, her voice trembling." For example, do you like Nel-chan?"

This made Ulquiorra wonder. While he didn´t really love the former espada, he didn´t dislike her either. He had only met the little child arrancar a few times since the Kurosaki couple adopted her. Sometimes, the woman offered to babysit her for the Kurosaki´s. And while the woman had a hard time letting go of her at the end of the day, for Ulquiorra babysitting the kid always meant having to clean the whole house as a result of the food fights that somehow always ensued whenever she stayed over.

But, while cleaning up was hard work, any excuse not to eat the woman´s experiments and order pizza was a blessing. In that sense, the kid was fine.

"I have nothing against the Kurosaki´s problem child, if that´s what you mean. Though I fail to see what you can use that information for."

The woman looked slightly encouraged by his response. Leaning forward, she looked at him even more intently.

"Then Ulquiorra-kun, please answer this seriously." She gulped slightly before continuing. "Have you ever thought about, you know, having kids on your own?"

"No."

It wasn´t a lie. Ulquiorra had never thought about having children before. Living in the vast deserts of Hueco Mundo, the thought of starting a family couldn´t have been farther from his mind. Even after moving to the human world to be with the woman, the idea of having children on his own had never crossed his mind. But, at the sight of the woman´s crestfallen expression, he was starting to think it was the wrong response. She leaned back into the chair, refusing to look him in the eyes.

He waited for a minute, silently waiting, expecting the woman to revert back to her usual bubbly self, for her to turn and smile at him like she always did. But, time passed, and the only thing she did was to stare at the floor. Then, just when he was thinking about saying something, he saw her shoulders quake almost unnoticeably. Then he realized.

She was crying. The woman was crying.

In the blink of an eye Ulquiorra was at her side. Looking at her face, he saw the small trails of water on her cheeks, and the small tears building up in her eyes. He felt an almost indescribable feeling of guilt coming over him. The woman never cried, unless it was something really serious, which just made it all worse. For a moment, he just stood there, not knowing what to do. Then, he slowly reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Woman, what´s wrong?"

She turned to look at him through bangs of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes, shielding her. Her eyes were still moist with tears. She bravely tried to muster a smile when she saw him looking at her intensely.

"I-It's nothing, Ulquiorra-kun. I-I just got something in my eyes, tha-that´s all."

"You´re lying."

Even if she hadn´t been stuttering, Ulquiorra would have known it. At twenty-eight, the woman was still like an open book, her emotions showing on her face easily. And right now, she was most definitely lying. Something he said had made her sad, and as such, it was his responsibility to find out what it was and apologize. If it had been anyone else crying, he probably wouldn´t have cared, but this was her.

"Something is obviously bothering you", he said. "Was it something I did?"

She hesitated for a bit, and then fervently shook her head. But that moment of hesitation had been enough for Ulquiorra.

"So it was something I did, after all."

The woman tried to protest, but he silenced her with a hand.

"What is it?" He sighed. "If it´s about the Kurosaki´s, I apologize for calling her a problem child."

The woman shook her head strongly. "It wasn´t that, Ulquiorra-kun."

"Then what was it?"

She still refused to answer him, which aggravated Ulquiorra somehow. How was he supposed to know what to apologize for if she wouldn´t tell him?

"Woman", he said slowly to contain his temper. "Just tell me already."

"It´s because you don´t want kids!"

Time froze. Ulquiorra stared incredulously at the woman, the gears in his head turning at full speed. So this was what it was all about? The woman had gone back to staring at the floor. For while, neither of them said anything. Then, the woman broke the silence.

"I´m sorry for yelling at you Ulquiorra-kun, it´s just… You didn´t even need to think about it. And here, I-I´m already…"

"I never said that."

The woman looked at him, surprised.

"Huh?"

"I never said that I didn´t want kids."

The woman in front of him looked up at him again through straws of golden hair.

"But you said-;

"You asked me if I had ever thought about having kids. I haven´t. I never said anything about not wanting them." he looked at her pointingly. "You simply jumped to conclusions."

"Then, Ulquiorra-kun, I´ll ask again." The woman was back to gazing intensely at him. She had apparently cheered up a little, even if she still looked like she was somewhat on the edge. "Do you, or do you not, want kids?"

Ulquiorra leaned back into the couch, putting a hand under his chin, contemplating her question for a minute. He didn´t like the way this conversation had gone. It was supposed to just be another of the woman´s curious questions. Normally, this would be over the moment he answered her, but somehow, his had developed into something endlessly complicated. Why did it matter so much if he wanted kids anyway? Did he? No matter how hard he tried, Ulquiorra couldn´t picture himself raising a kid, much less his own. He wouldn't know what to do.

Though, looking at the woman, Ulquiorra realized that she would be the perfect mother. She was sweet, loving and caring. Everything he wasn´t. She loved kids, and even worked in a daycare, whereas he worked in library, simply because that way, he wouldn´t have to talk with other people as much as other jobs. He was quiet, didn´t really like to be with anyone other than the woman, not to mention bad at showing emotions. Not exactly the ideal father figure.

But still… when he tried to picture it… a small child, with hair colored like the woman´s, a light strawberry blonde, and his eyes, a dark green, looking up at him, smiling, he felt a strange kind of… longing. And even though Ulquiorra still wasn´t able to understand emotions as well as the woman, he suddenly had a feeling that having a child of his own wouldn't be so bad at all.

The woman was still looking at him, a concentrated look on her face. He sighed once, and then looked her in the eyes.

"I´m not… objected to the idea."

This was as good a confirmation that she would ever get from him. For a minute she just stared at him, as if struggling to understand what he had said. Then, a smile slowly spread on her face as she began to understand. In a second, she threw herself at him, pressing her mouth harshly unto his. Surprised, he fell back, holding her to make sure they didn´t fall off the couch. He kissed back, masking his confusion. What was happening? First she was nervous, then she was crying, and now she was happy? This was strange, even for her.

In the meantime, the woman had let go of him, untangled her lips from his, and got up from the couch. Using her hands to straightening some imaginary crease on her clothes, she smiled apologetically at him, a small tint of red on her cheeks.

"I´m sorry about that Ulquiorra-kun, I´ve just been so nervous of what you´d say… I´ll go finish dinner now."

Ulquiorra nodded, not knowing what else to do. Although he was happy that everything was back to normal, he still felt as if there was something the woman hadn´t told him. Resigning himself to the fact that she would only tell when she felt like it, he simply asked:

"What are we having?"

She turned her head to answer at him.

"Yakiniku. I made a bit much, but I think that´s fine." She smiled at him, her voice getting softer . "I have to eat for two now anyway."

Then with one last strange look at him, she disappeared through the door to the kitchen. Ulquiorra got back on the couch and picked up his book, looking forward to get back to his reading. However, he had only just opened the book when her words hit him. He froze.

"I have to eat for two now anyway…"

The book slipped from his hands and hit the floor with a soft thud.

"Eat for two…"

He turned to stare at the doorway to the kitchen. He could hear the sizzling sound of food cooking, and the woman´s soft humming.

"Two…"

Getting up from the couch, his brain still working on overdrive, he made his way to the kitchen. Rounding the corner, he saw the woman standing in front of the stove, still softly humming while she cooked. Quietly he made his way, until he stood right behind her. He embraced her from behind, slowly to make sure she wasn´t frightened. She stiffened for only a second, and then relaxed in his arms. Ulquiorra wasn´t really the touchy-feely type and voluntary physical contact on his side was a rarity. Lowering one of his hands to place on her belly, he felt a small, almost unnoticeable bump. Still trying to gather himself from the shock, he broke the silence.

"How long have you… I mean, how far are you…?

"I went to the doctor today. He said I´m two months along." She turned to look at him, a happy and slightly anxious expression on her face. " So… What do you think?"

Ulquiorra didn´t answer her. Instead, he gently turned her around so she faced him. Keeping one hand on her belly, he gently held her chin with the other.

"I love you."

He said it, and then kissed her. And after that, he just held her in his arms. For a long time. So long that the food burned to a crisp.

But that didn´t matter to Ulquiorra. He was far too occupied by the image of a small child with amber golden hair and green emerald eyes.

That´s it folks! Thanks for reading, and again, please review!