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Some IchiRuki musings and fluff while Karin and Toshiro travel...

"[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." -1 Corinthians 13:8

Urahara Kisuke turned away from where the door had just slid shut behind the two travelers. He looked at his young friend from beneath the brim of his striped hat. "Well Kurosaki-san, should I reopen it for you?" A smile gleamed in his eyes and danced on his lips.

The new father's eye twitched almost imperceptibly. "What?"

"I figured you'd be following after them, going to check in on her, right about," he looked at a nonexistent watch on his wrist with keen, precise eyes, "now."

Ichigo scowled harshly. "Get off my back, old man. I can wait at least a few wee...days before I drop in. I'll give her time to settle," he said, trying to sound magnanimous. Rukia laughed over in the corner of the room and his eyes flew over to glare at her. "Like you said, we'll probably visit 'Nii-sama' anyway."

"True," she said, rocking back and forth, her grin wide.

His gaze and scowl softened significantly as his eyes held his wife's.

"All right you two, all this lovey-dovey stuff is polluting my shop. You're scaring away customers."

"What customers? You never have customers."

Half shoving them out the door, Urahara slapped on his "handsome, lowly shopkeeper" facade, waving his paper fan wildly in front of his face. "Come on, come on, must get back to work! Busy day ahead. Thank you for your business," he sang, shutting the door unceremoniously behind them.

Ichigo grumbled inaudibly under his breath but helped Rukia tuck sleeping Eiji into his stroller.

They left Urahara's together, comfortably silent. The young man's pensive silence was not entirely unusual, but his wife could sense these moods coming before they even came upon him. It was that critical, self-deprecating nature of his; she was used to it, how easily it overtook him, even though she always quickly grew tired of it. In her eyes, he was the most selfless man she'd ever met, and nothing would ever change that fact. They had spent too many years together, been through too much.

She loved him too much.

"She'll be fine," she tried. She could sense his unease regarding Karin, but did not know if it was purely brotherly worry or something else. They were walking through the park, heading towards home. She pushed Eiji's stroller, and Ichigo was beside her, hands in his pockets.

He didn't respond.

Rukia sighed. She didn't want to lecture him...again. Although she'd never tire of encouraging him and building him up and slapping sense into him, sometimes she wished he could see himself the way she saw him.

Her eyes shot up when she felt his hand on her waist, when he tugged her closer to him. His eyes, beneath the harsh lines of his signature scowl, looked straight in front of them, but the corners of his mouth were pulled into a half smile. "I know," he said.

She rolled her eyes at the assured cockiness present in his voice.

He took hold of the stroller handle and wheeled it off the path; she followed closely behind. He stopped at a clearing behind some bushes and, after peaking in at his sleeping son, took Rukia's hand and tugged her down to lay in the grass beside him. She cushioned her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso, enjoying the feeling of the sun on her skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat in her ear and their proximity. The sky was almost an abnormal shade of blue, and she sun was warm without being hot. The grass was soft beneath them. How she cherished these moments of peace. For the longest time, she feared they would never be able to be together, that there would always be some war needing soldiers, some mission needing completion. Now, however, she found she could breathe easily.

After a minute, he whispered into her ear, "What's the academy going to be like? For her, I mean." He took her hand and kissed her palm.

How was she supposed to answer his question with him distracting her? Without opening her eyes, she said, "It's better than high school, I can tell you that." She smiled to herself, comparing the two extremely different experiences in her head. "It's not terrible. Traditionally, it is a six year study, but Karin will be admitted as a second year student, at least. She'll be taught to control and utilize her Spiritual Energy, as well as the techniques Hakuda, Hoho, Kido, and Zanjutsu...but that last one she knows decently, as well. They'll prepare her for the general duties of a Shinigami, mostly."

"And then what?" He kissed each of her fingertips softly.

"Well, really it's up to her. She can apply to join the Gotei 13, if she wants, or she can simply...return home."

"You say that last part as though she won't choose it."

She shrugged. "I don't know," she stated honestly.

"You stayed here." He squeezed her hand.

"But I had a reason to stay here." She squeezed back. "I had you."

He mulled that over silently, pleased and put out at the same time. She had him there.

She bit her lip absentmindedly, deliberating, before braving her next statement. "She might find a reason to stay there."

He didn't grow immediately angry as she had expected him to, but she noticed his jaw clench. "She can make her own choices, I guess." At least it wasn't some crack about white-haired children. "She always has."

They were silent for a moment more before he said, bitterness evident in his voice, "He broke her heart, you know."

"I remember full well; I was there. But you must remind yourself that she has a clean slate; she does not remember. You should also remind yourself that two hearts were broken that day, not just one."

He squirmed at the truth in her words. "Do you think she blames me?"

Rukia cocked her head to look up at his face. "'Blames' you? For what?"

Ichigo shrugged once. "For 'waking her dormant shinigami powers'...however Urahara phrased it...whatever. Just, it's my fault she-"

She shoved his chest. "Not your fault. Stop blaming yourself, already; sometimes your altruism is tiresome," she said; meanwhile, he absentmindedly caressed a long, white scar on her wrist. A deep sigh escaped her chest. She hesitated, then said, "If anything, she blames herself."

He asked incredulously, "Why would she blame herself? She hasn't done anything."

"Or I guess she would blame herself--if she ever remembers." He opened his mouth but she continued, "I know she's your sister, that you'd defend her to the death in every sense, but it is her fault she-"

"It wasn't her fault-"

"It was! It certainly was not his fault! She told him to leave and never come back and he did as she asked. It was not his fault she followed him and-" She saw the stoic, resigned look on his face and stopped. Realizing she wasn't helping, she buried her head in his chest and sighed. She whispered, "It was no one's fault. It was an accident."

She drew circles into the soft material of his shirt as they sat in silence and he twirled her long raven hair around his fingers.

"Karin is smart and capable, much like her brother; she will do...well in Soul Society," she assured.

"'Well,'" he scoffed.

A knowing smile grazed her lips. "I guess she is a Kurosaki; perhaps 'well' is an understatement."

Rukia began to think about her son, and what his future would hold. Already he had many expectations to live up to as both a Kurosaki as well as the Kuchiki family heir; she didn't want him to have that pressure, but it was already his. She wanted him free to make his own choices, decide his own future, like Karin had been able to. She also wished she wasn't worrying about her son's future already.

"She'll be all right."

She rolled over and laid in the crook, the protection, of his arm. She felt him shift beside her and when she opened her eyes she found him leaning over her. His face looked troubled, his brow was furrowed.

"Are you," he began, obviously struggling with words; he licked his lips, "are you...happy? Are you...glad you stayed?"

Rukia was very tempted to slap him. How dare he question her, especially when they had chosen each other; it wasn't a one-way street. "Are you nuts?" she instead whispered, digging her fingers into the collar of his crisp, white shirt.

"I'm serious. Do you wish you had--or at least we had--stayed in Soul Society?"

"Are you nuts?" she repeated. Then she sobered and propped herself up on her elbows so their lips hovered mere centimeters apart. Their eyes locked and they shared each other's souls. "You are crazy, to think I would rather be anywhere but here with you. Do not ever doubt what we have ever again. 'Location' does not matter. You're crazy if you ever thought that it did. We could live on the moon...or in Hueco Mundo, for all I care. I only live for you--for us--now. I don't need anything else." She tugged him down and his lips claimed her own, and she backed up the sincerity of her words in the kiss. His hands travelled up and down her sides and she anchored herself right with her arms snaked tightly around his neck.

Eiji began to cry.

Ichigo broke the kiss abruptly, then sighed into Rukia's neck. She stroked his wild hair gently. So much for peace. They held each other for a moment longer before Ichigo tugged the stroller closer to them and lifted up his son. The baby immediately stopped crying, as if his father had a magic touch. Perhaps he does.

Rukia sat up, too, and attempted to smooth down her own disheveled hair. She eyed her husband, sitting cross-legged and cradling their son. She could not help but smile, amazed that a month ago she had been mad at him--really for no tangible reason--enough to throw all of his clothes out of their bedroom window, and now...

He looked up and saw her grin. "What?"

She shook her head and knelt in front of him. Stroking her son's soft hair, she was overwhelmed with love for these two men in her life. Her violet eyes lifted lazily to meet his amber ones. "I love you." Her voice was steady, sure, sincere.

"I love you, Mrs. Kurosaki."

Pushing thoughts of Karin and Toshiro and Soul Society and everyone else out of their minds, they sealed their promises with a gentle kiss.

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