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 4 : If I've Heard Your Voice...

Ichigo managed to recover enough on the walkdrag home that by the time he got to the door, he only barely needed to lean on Rukia's shoulder. They had discussed how to get past his family, and as fate would have it, his family was gathered around the TV, watching that Don Kanonji show. Well, Yuzu and his father were, Karin was just disappearing upstairs. As Rukia let the main door click to behind her, Ichigo took a deep breath and called out, as best he could, "Tadaimaa..."

From the living room came the sound from the TV, mixxed with a young girl and an older man's voice: "BOHH HAH HAH HAH HAAAAAAH!" Ichigo rolled his eyes and muttered, "Well, it'll be easier than I thought, at least."

Rukia whisper-stepped up the stairs and Ichigo, leaning heavily on the railing, clomped up behind her. She had just disappeared around the corner, noting that Karin's door was shut, when Yuzu leaned into the hallway and informed Ichigo's back that "there's dinner on the table for you, Ichi-nii..."

Ichigo tried his hardest to sound as alive as possible. "Thanks, Yuzu, I'll come get it later." It didn't work, something showed through, and Yuzu became concerned and took a closer look at him.

"Ichi-nii... are you ok You look like you've—"

"I just... got in a fight today, after school, is all." He could feel Yuzu's worried frown press into his back. "I'm fine, really. I'll come get the food later." And he continued, slowly, up the stairs.

Rukia had left his door ajar and had tossed Kon onto the bed. As for herself, she had slid open the closet door and was sitting on the shelf like it was a couch; leaning up against the wall with her legs out into the room, arms folded, ankles crossed. When Ichigo stopped next to her knee, she hopped out of the closet and looked at him. "Is there anything I can do? I mean, I don't really know what to do... the only thing I can think of is just lay down and rest."

Ichigo blinked. "Yeah... sounds good." He slowly moved towards the bed, Rukia putting a hand out to help him. "Kon, move your furry ass or suffer the consequences."

In an instant, Kon went from looking like an ordinary discarded stuffed animal to an energized bundle of insulted stuffed animal. "What consequences, you oaf? I haven't moved from where Nee-chan left me, and it seems to me to be a perfectly good place to lay."

"That it is," Ichigo replied, and turned his tall frame to collapse right where Kon was standing. Kon, being the agile stuffed animal he was, dodged just out of the way of Ichigo's shoulder, and took a breath as if to say more. But he didn't say more, cause after the day's events, he suddenly thought that it wouldn't be kind to berate the orange-headed oaf too much.

Rukia pulled out the chair and sat sideways on it, and didn't say anything either, just looked at him. After a moment, Ichigo turned his head towards her ever so slightly, cracked one eye, then languidly spoke. "Ano... don't take this the wrong way or anything... but you sitting right next to me makes me feel like I'm under observation or something."

Rukia hastily stood, muttered a sorry, and took a couple steps towards the closet. On second thought, she stepped back, reached over Ichigo, and snatched Kon up by his ear.

"Neee-chan! Hidoi da na..."

She lightly chunked him into the closet and said, "Hush up, just let him rest." She eased her own fake body back up into the 'couch' format, and picked Kon up and made him sit on her lap. "Heh, we're kinda funnily similar, have you ever thought of that, Kon? A couple of displaced souls in fake bodies, hiding everything from the world..."

Kon gasped and raced his mind, trying to turn that link into some way to get some snuggling action started. "Yes! Exactly, Nee-chan, how similar we are, we should explore more similaries! Don't you think?" Then he lowered his voice enough so that he hoped Ichigo wouldn't hear: "Or maybe I can just explore you a little?"

Rukia gasped in astonishment and overhanded Kon into the dark half of the closet, where the sliding door still closed it off, and heard him hit the wall, and wished she had thrown him harder. "Neeeeeee-chaaaaaan..."

"And stay over there, you ass."

"Lion! Not a donkey, thank you."

From his bed, Ichigo chuckled. Rukia relaxed just a little. Then she started thinking again, and a little bit out loud.

"Souls... fake bodies. A Soul Society outlaw and someone on her way to becoming one." She was quiet again, and Ichigo turned his head a little towards her.

"What?"

"Well, think about it. You're a human... and a Shinigami. And it's my fault." If they found you, they'd kill you. "He's windfall from a scrapped project, and would be... dealt with... on a second's notice if they found him out." And that's kinda... well, that's not really anyone's fault. Just one of those things that happens. "I've been gone from the Soul Society for... too long. It doesn't matter how long."

"They still send you Hollow reports, they can't hate you too much."

It's not about 'hate', Ichigo, it's not about emotion. It's about rules and regulations and How You Do Stuff and How You Don't Do Stuff. "They send reports to an area. It's like radio, a station just throws the information out there and your radio picks it up."

"Can't they track you using your phone?"

Fear boiled in Rukia for a split second at the mere suggestion, but the answer was, "No, again, in the same way that a station can't track your specific radio. But they'll have other ways of... of finding me." Rukia finished quietly. The more she thought about it, the worse her situation was looking. The worse everyone's situation was looking. Her's... Ichigo's... maybe even Kon's. Why I still offer a sliver of thought about him, I don't even know. But she did... because she'd already stuck her neck out to 'save' him from Urahara. She was awfully kind for a Shinigami.

Her mind started racing, but worse than that, whirling. Thoughts of her brother, of her adoptive family in general, of the Soul Society, of the knowledge of where she stood in line, both on the totem because of her surname and just in how powerful, or not-so-powerful, she was in relation to the other Shinigami. She was not going to get off lightly for this. She doubted they'd put her to death, but sometimes it wasn't about merely dying or not. It was about... about doing things right. Correctly. About following the rules and the regulations.

She'd broken a lot of those. Let a human, an untrained human, have access to her powers and abilities through a known but discouraged jutsu. That it and of itself should never have needed to happen. It was because Ichigo was so brash, charging against and enemy he could not have defeated, and she got in the way to protect him. She had immediately ceased all contact with the Soul Society... excepting the one captain who came after her at the cemetary. She had given him a defiant and cryptic message to take back, but who knew if anyone would buy it? For all she knew, someone was hunting her right now. For all she knew, they were here, in full Shinigami powers, sticking their head through the wall to say,

"Boo."

Rukia jumped a mile, throwing herself against the wall to her left with a 'thud', as Kon's voice invaded her right ear. It was only through training that she didn't cry out in alarm. She grabbed him by the neck with her left hand and prepared to throw him across the room, but seeing Ichigo so peacefully asleep, breathing shallowly and evenly, stopped her. She pondered throwing him to the dark half of the closet again, but decided not to. Instead, she just set him down and loosened her hand.

"I'm probably overreacting, aren't I."

Thinking she meant about throwing him everywhere, Kon replied, "Yes, Nee-chan," and followed it with a sniffle that was probably intended to garner pity-sympathy. Rukia ignored it, and tried to console herself that she was being paranoid... but looking at Ichigo's peaceful face only made her fear the day's events even more.

They WILL see the appearance and the disappearance of a Menos Grande, and they will NOT have an explaination, and someone will come to investigate...

Kon had squirmed out of her hand and hopped up mostly on her shoulder. "Neeee-chaaan," he started, "whatever the matter is, don't let it worry your pretty face like that. Come lay down (with meeee) and sleep on it. All problems look better in the morning."

Rukia had to admit, that sounded too tempting to pass up. Ichigo was still in his school clothes, and so was she. She hopped out of the closet again and stepped to where he was, and put a hand on his shoulder to wake him up. "Ichigo," she whispered, "you'll probably want to change and brush your teeth and stuff, before you sleep all night..."

Ichigo didn't move. She shook him just a little bit and spoke just a little bit louder. "Ichigo..."

Still nothing. She didn't want to shake him too much, but sleeping in school clothes couldn't be comfortable. She hadn't pushed the desk chair back in, so she sat down on it, and just started running her hand back and forth on a little bit of his shoulder. "Iiiiichigooooo..." she whisper-sang a little. Her hand moved in a bit of a wider area on the front of his shoulder. "Iiiiiii-chiiii-goooo..." She raised her voice pitch but not her volume. Her hand slowed as she processed the heat he was emitting. Suddenly, the immediate silence in the room and the slightly distant sound of the television downstairs, and the peace on his face and the heat under her hand coalesced into a surprisingly ... beautiful moment. Not for any real reason, but just... because. Because he was asleep and she was awake... because he was injured and she was not... because he was laying and she was sitting... it made her feel as though some odd version of maternal instincts were rising, like she was nursing him, taking care of him, helping him to get better. Her hand's pattern began to spread even more, down his arm a little and back, a little more towards his chest and back, to his shoulder-

And then she caught herself, and froze, and yanked her hand off. I - what was - what am I doing... I guess it's just a ... a what? You're not human, she berated herself. You are a Shi-Ni-Ga-Mi. Different. Altogether different. Now stop this and get ready for bed. And in her determination, she stood and walked a few paces away. And stopped, and looked back at him.

And yet... what was I berating myself for?

Rukia wondered if she was subconciously keeping herself from answering, even as she climbed into bed.

As she settled down, she felt something under her side, and pulled out Kon, and chunked him, complaining, over her shoulder out into the room, and slid the door shut. Kon pounded on the door as best his stuffed animal paws let him, then apparently gave up and hopped up on Ichigo's bed. She heard Ichigo turn over once, twice, then get up and pad his way towards the hall door. And stop outside the closet.

A pause.

"Rukia?"

"Yeah?"

"Were you ... singing, earlier?"

She shifted over and faced where he would be seen, if the door were open. "Singing? Not like actual singing, just sort of... whispering..." Your name...

"Oh... I heard something... sounded like my name... was... pretty."

Rukia's eyes widened.

"I guess. I dunno, maybe was just my head. I'm gonna feel like I imagine hangovers to be like, tomorrow. Or maybe have funky dreams, heh, who knows."

Pretty?

He paused again, and may have opened his mouth to say something else... but didn't. Then, "Anyway, night Rukia."

"Night," she whispered.

... and what am I berating myself for now?

Author's space.

Yay, I have a couple of reviews already. Thank you so much for reading.

Yes, I have the Elric brothers speaking Japanese (and reading it too, I might have put that in as a clause-to-cover-my-ass). Why? ... cause if they can't communicate, that makes stuff way too hard. So... I'm gonna pretend they speak Japanese.

As of this note, I'm posting chapters 4-7 in one swoop... and then it gets interesting. o0. Thanks for reading, thanks for any reviews.

- Sanna