Keeping My Brother

Genre: Crossover
Universe/s: Two FMA'ers land in the Bleach world.
Spoiler Warnings: Set around Bleach anime eps 15-18, but references manga knowledge from a little farther on. Involves the end of the FMA storyline.

Chapter Two: If I Heal Your Wounds...

Ichigo lay on the ground, on the verge of passing out.

["How can I defeat a man with that look in his eyes?" He's really beating himself up over his grandfather's death, he's really got this vendetta scored into his heart. Maybe I'm the same... against the Hollows... the Grand Fisher... Then his mind faded into the same shade of black he wore.

Rukia sat between her feet, the ground matter scraping into her legs. She didn't care. On the borders of her mind, she registered Urahara's binding spell slipping off. She didn't care, either. Too much flew through her mind. [His power is... always on? The Soul Society could have detected a Menos Grande, but nothing showed up on my phone. They would have deemed me too weak, and sent... oh hell, stronger Shinigami to come take care of it... but when those Shinigami come and don't find a Menos Grande, they will ask questions... They'll find me and ask me, they'll find Ichigo and kill him...

Urahara had a much calmer version of Rukia's panic. [Yes, they'll see that on their radar, and send someone to deal with a threat that will have inexplicably subsided... and Rukia is about to run away, and Ichigo will of course go after her, and Orihime-chan and Sado-kun have their decisions to make, and I'll need to train everyone, and start putting the Gate together... if those Shinigami come after me, it will of course be troublesome, but I can only hope that doesn't happen. All he said was, "I'll leave that crack in the sky to you!" And then he was gone.

Urahara's companions went about their business, paying nearly no discernible attention to Ichigo, Ishida, or Rukia. Rukia staggered to her feet, and tried to walk with as much composition as possible to Ichigo, where she fell back to her knees. "Sleeping, is all. Baka." Somehow, it was almost an affectionate insult. She looked up to Ishida, still looking like a strung puppet in storage. "Quincy." No acknowledgment. "Quincy!" Still no acknowledgment. "Ishida-san!" He slowly blinked and turned towards her, looking as though he thought he were in a dream world. "Are you injured? Well, of course you are. How are they?"

He spoke slowly, with tremors in his voice. "Injuries?" He brought up his left hand, raw and bleeding, and looked at it as though he only half remembered how it had gotten that way. "Yeah... and they hurt. Quite a bit."

"Come with us, to the--" [Is it safe to bring him to the clinic? Will Ichigo's father ask questions? It can't be helped, we'll--I'll think of something. "Well, yeah, to the clinic. I have no idea what we'll tell them, but you need that looked at."

"No." This time Ishida's voice was firm. "I can treat myself."

Rukia blinked at him. "But you... look like you can barely stand..."

"That may be. But I will manage." He slowly and very unsteadily pushed himself to his feet as Ichi-Kon, clutching the lion in one hand, ran up to the scene. Seeing everything, he cringed as Ishida slowly walked towards him, mistaking the set jaw for anger, not suppressed pain. As Ishida passed Ichi-Kon, he turned back, and said, "But thank you for the offer." And slowly plodded off into the afternoon light.

Ichi-Kon watched him go, then threw himself towards Rukia and the unconscious soul of Ichigo. "NEE-CHAN! Is he gonna be ok? Are you ok?"

"Yes, Kon... but we need to get him home. And somehow without his family seeing."

"Can we not pick him up like this?"

"I could if I were strong enough. I don't think you can really touch him though, and that would look funny besides, two solid humans appearing to carry someone between them, but not really."

"Yeah. Does he need his body back?"

"I think so. Here, lay on your side next to him and cough up the pill, then I can roll his body onto his soul. And give me your body too." Ichi-Kon laid down on his hip and elbow next to the invisible soul with the lion body in one hand, and with the other reached towards his mouth for the green pill. Rukia put her hand on the lion doll, but before Ichi-Kon released it, he said quietly:

"Someday, you gotta give me your body, Nee-chan." And winked. And pulled the pill out, and Ichigo's body fell backwards onto his soul.

Rukia was taken so aback that as the arm with the pill fell, she almost forgot to catch it and keep it from rolling off and loosing Kon forever. She threw herself across Ichigo's prostrate form and scrabbled as it rolled across the ground, getting it before it disappeared in the growing shadows. With the lion doll in one hand and the Kon-pill in the other, she realized that if anyone saw her with her hips flat over the upper half of Ichigo's chest, it would be very difficult to explain away. She threw herself back over Ichigo, and scowled and growled at the lion doll in her hand. Then realized it was an empty doll. Then she scowled and growled at the Kon-pill in her other hand... then realized that he was inert in that condition. With a tired and irritated grunt, she shoved the Kon-pill into the doll, and proceeded to shake him till he woke up.

"Ahh, Nee-chan, you're choking me! Not that it really matters, I can't really breathe. But still!"

"Yes, I am, you lecherous, insulting, frustrating... DOLL! Why do I even bother to rescue you from being lost?" She threw him in the general direction of Ichigo and ended up hitting him in the crotch.

Kon sprang up indignantly. "Nee-chan! I don't like guys! I want /you/!"

Rukia put her hand to her face and thanked the powers that be that Ichigo was still out. "Let's just try to get him home. Somehow." She pulled and rolled Ichigo to a sitting position, mustered her strength, and did her best to pull him to his feet and gain her own too. Ichigo groaned, and she said, "Help me if you can, Ichigo. This gigai only has so much strength."

He did his best to put his feet under him, and mumbled, "What, ar'you sayin I'm fat?"

Kon wedged himself under her arm, and the two walking figures slowly turned and set off in the direction of the Kurosaki Clinic. They hadn't taken two steps when, from somewhere that sounded both close and far at the same, a young teen boy's voice cried out something that might have been 'AL!'

Rukia stopped and looked around, trying to see if she had ascertained the direction the shout had come from. Ichigo blinked and tried to ascertain if he had really heard anything or if his ears were just ringing. Kon had his face buried in Rukia's side, trying to pretend his face were buried elsewhere, and just ignored it.

Rukia muttered, "If it concerns us, it will find us, won't it."

Oct '07 - Chapter 2 fixed. Not much wrong here, fortunately. I don't quite understand how keeps losing my formatting. And only some of it. shakes head Anyway. I'm also going to remove any formatting that requires tags to display, IE italics. All thoughts will be in brackets and emphasis will be designated with slashes. I really don't like relying on hidden-tag-denoted formatting. But anyway. All for now on this one.