The tedious job of paperwork for the truck's purchase was made less time intensive by the fact that Renji was actually purchasing the vehicle and not financing it – which went relatively smoothly, thanks to Fourth Division's adaptability and Isane's interpretation of Renji's cryptic message to Soul Society – but it still meant a wait of two hours while the truck was cleaned up.
"Make it presentable," Bradley told them, a smile on his face at one of his easiest sales ever, nodding to Orihime. "We'll run a safety check and then," he dangled the lone key from a metal ring in his hand, watching Renji's impatient face, "it's all yours. Drive it home in two hours, okie-dokie?"
Renji gave him a confused look at the term, and then assumed a response. "Yeah. We'll be back then."
He turned Orihime from the used car lot's back office where the truck was still parked and they started to the sidewalk near the newer trucks and street. "I guess that's it. Let's find something to eat."
She nodded, arms still crossed over her stomach to suffocate any grumblings. "We'll really be able to take the truck back today?"
He shrugged as they met up to the sidewalk that edged the front lot. "Looks like it." Across the street a couple of guys that looked to be high school age glanced their way, watching Orihime beside Renji.
Renji pushed her to the inside of the sidewalk nearer to the small shops lining the sunny walkway, tossing a narrow glare back at the opposite side of the street. "What do you think about school? I put the word in the Fourth Division, kinda, and it looks like they're considering sending you some documentation for enrolling." He watched a slow smile cross her face as she mulled the idea over. "You don't have to go, Orihime, but it would give you something to do. Keep you busy, but if you don't feel up to it, you don't have to go."
Her smile set into a line as she nodded. "There isn't much to do here," she admitted, nodding as they passed two elderly women coming the opposite way. The women gave Renji a quick appraisal, but neither spoke as they passed. "I don't have to go?"
He reconsidered the thought, scowling when he realized he didn't really know. "I'm not sure, actually. Legally, I don't know." Sour thoughts of his last encounter with the American school systems and authorities surfaced. "It's probably an age thing."
They'd followed the sidewalk far enough to see the carved wooden Indian standing outside the door of Pubby's Grub. At this distance Renji could see that the figure was very detailed, right down to the real metal tomahawk in its wooden grip. He looked to Orihime as she slowed walking, her steps stopping as she looked in the wide window of Shad's Bait and Pool Shop.
Inside they could see Sylvi standing behind a counter at a cash register. Orihime stepped closer to the door, eyes moving over the walls and shelves inside covered with fishing accessories and trophy mounts of open-mouthed fish.
She turned to Renji, smiling. "It's Sylvi. Can we say hi?"
He didn't really want to, not with Pubby's in sight a few shops ahead, but he nodded and opened the door.
A bell jingled above them as they stepped in. Odors of moist earth, bait, and minnow water greeted them in the cramped shop. The walls were lined with packages of rubber worms and fishing lures, fake crickets and small bobbers and weights, and everywhere was the sound of trickling water. The shop was long, divided into two sections by a half wall of corkboard sporting pictures of locals holding strings of fish and a few enormous catches from the shop's sponsored contests.
Renji kept an eye out, for what, he wasn't sure, but there was an inkling in the atmosphere he couldn't decipher. Maybe it was the proximity of so much merchandise in so little space, but there was something niggling at him.
At the counter Sylvi pushed aside the magazine she'd been reading and looked to them. She smiled quickly, waving them over. "Hi! Hey, you got to town. Did Delmar give you a lift in?"
Orihime shook her head. "Hi. No, Mrs... Uh, Widow Mayes and Reese gave us a ride in."
Sylvi brushed the few black dirt traces from the hem of her heather gray t-shirt that read "Shad's" in a logo made of earthworm letters with night-crawlers sitting in lawn chairs by an in-ground swimming pool. "Yeah, Widow Mayes is nice enough." She glanced to Renji looking around the shop and then back to Orihime as a chime sounded from the rear section of the shop. "Come on," she said, stepping around the counter. "There's someone at the pool side."
Orihime looked to Renji as he nodded. "I'm stepping outside a minute," he told her in Japanese. "Don't go anywhere alone."
She nodded and followed Sylvi, trying to read more in his expression. She looked back as the blonde girl led them to the back of the shop, seeing Renji head out the shop's front door to the sidewalk.
"You all settled in now?" Sylvi asked, weaving their way around the corkboard of photos to where a second large room opened to a very different display of merchandise, accompanied by stronger chemical smells.
"Oh, yes. All settled in," Orihime said. Her eyes went over the shelves, here lined with buckets and containers of chlorine and other substances. Goggles, snorkels, water testing chemicals and treatments were packed on the short shelves where a back door to the shop led to the alley behind the rows of shops parallel to the main street in front.
At the back door two boys around eight years of age were attempting to blow up a swimming inner tube with a bike air pump while the tube was still in its package.
"Get out!" Sylvi screamed at them, grabbing the nearest weapon, which happened to be a hot pink foam pool noodle, brandishing it at the two youths who giggled at her and dropped the ripped open flotation package.
Orihime flinched as Sylvi brought the foam noodle down over the nearest boy's head, sending him howling out the door with the second boy on his heels.
Sylvi caught the door as it slammed shut behind the boys, their insults ringing through the alley. She shook her head and looked back to Orihime.
"They're in here a couple of times a week, trying to get me fired," she grumbled, replacing the noodle with the other colorful foam pool accessories.
"Oh, I'm sure they mean no harm," Orihime said, eyes resting behind Sylvi where a wall chart in full color depicted the variances of water harness and treatment options was tacked beside a poster showing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and first aid procedures for drowning.
"Yeah, they do. Wouldn't be so bad if that biggest brat wasn't my cousin," she said, straightening a shelf of chlorine tablets.
Orihime blinked at her. "Cousin?"
Sylvi nodded. "They come in here and loosen all the lids and blow up the inflatable floaties – still in the packages – until they pop. Brats."
Orihime glanced back to the door.
"I didn't mean to get nosey yesterday," Sylvi said, shrugging as they headed back to the bait side of the shop. "Just surprised me. You know, you and ... Ranji? Renji. You know, living together. It's a small town. We don't get much ... unusual out here." She offered a smile. "Most people here have always been here. Hardly anyone is from out of town, much less Japan."
"Well, it's nice here," Orihime said, smiling more. "Except for those men who escaped from the prison."
Sylvi looked to the window past Orihime where Renji was watching the street as the two high school guys passed by across the two lanes again. She nodded at Orihime. "The whole town's in high guard. Delmar won't let me even walk to Grubby's on my own." She smiled, sighing. "I kind of like it, him caring and all, but he drives for the shop and he isn't always around. He goes to college in a few weeks, and I already miss him, you know?"
Orihime nodded, but didn't really know. "Yes. It's hard to be away."
Beneath the glass counter amid lures on display was a newspaper article under a second glass panels. Pressed there was the same article Orihime had seen of the four inmates. Sylvi tapped the photos of Butler and McDarrow. "These two were spotted yesterday in the next county, so that's good."
Orihime looked at the photo of Nyles.
Sylvi's finger rested on it. "This one they thought they caught, but it was some other guy." She laughed, looking up. "I heard he had a number sixty-nine tattooed on his cheek. Can you imagine that?"
Orihime giggled nervously. "Oh...no."
They both looked to the window as Mayes' truck pulled up beside Renji at the curb.
Outside, Renji turned his attention from the faint waft of disturbance in the atmosphere to the truck. Mayes' aged face looked back at him from the passenger window, and for a moment he wondered if she was getting ready to pass on into another afterlife and that was what he was picking up on. In the truck bed he saw two fifty pound bags of livestock feed.
Mayes squinted at him. "Howdy. You and your girl need a ride back to the house yet?"
Renji didn't automatically correct her. "No, we've got a truck lined up in an hour. Thanks for the tip on Bradley."
She wrinkled a smile at him, chuckling. "Good. Okay then."
Behind the steering wheel Reese had bent to see through the passenger window. "You sure? Sheriff report has those jailbirds on the move in these parts. Ain't a day to be out walking."
Renji nodded. "We're fine. Thanks."
Mayes sized him. "Okay then."
The pick-up moved on and Renji was left staring back at the two teen boys across the street. They were both on the large side, even for American teens, wearing t-shirts leftover from an early football practice, and Renji had a sudden urge to set a few matters straight with them, in preparation for Orihime's entry into the school system.
Before he could decided exactly what he wanted to do, from one side of the street a long line of cars suddenly rounded the corner, moving at a snail's pace, a hearse leading the way. As the funeral procession neared and the other few cars of the street stopped and pulled to the side, the thin sense of something recently departed drifted to Renji, and he assumed that was what he'd felt.
The cars eased up the street.
He watched with mild interest, the shinigami in him feeling like he should. He heard the shop bell from behind him and looked to his side as Orihime joined him.
Her eyes seemed especially violet in the day's bright late-morning sun that seemed to mock the funeral procession's mourning. "How sad," she murmured, watching the cars and trucks roll slowly by. "Like a parade for sorrow."
He nodded, not quite feeling as she did about it. "Let's get something to eat."
Pubby's Grub wasn't quite busy for lunch yet, but the brunch crowd was lingering. The décor was casual and half bar, but no one was drinking, most of the customers on the last pieces of pie at the counter where the grill was firing for lunch.
Orihime and Renji found a booth amid the tan and rust colored furnishings as the acting hostess gave them a quick wave from the lunch counter. They took their seats, each looking around at the motif of hunting and fishing trophies and photos mixed with antiques lining the walls.
Renji looked to the bar as two middle-aged men gave him a shrewd look, and then a longer lingering study of Orihime. He glanced at Orihime, who was already hidden behind a large foldout menu she'd plucked from the napkin holder.
"Any news from that Sylvi girl?" He opened a menu and surveyed the choices lined up on either page, grumbling at the selection of foreign dishes.
Her eyes moved over the menu, a smile creeping to her lips as she read the descriptions silently. "I asked her about school," she said, pausing to finish reading a menu option. "I have to go. She said the sheriff here was a real ... uh, well, a real hard-ass," she whispered with part of a blush, leaning over the table to say it, "and he won't put up with any truants."
He chuckled, catching himself before seeing if there was any shadow hinting above her lavender collar, even for job-related study. "You can't be truant if you haven't registered," he said. "But, yeah, we don't need the hassle of any authorities trying to check into our business here. Isane said they'd send someone soon."
She smiled more at the menu. "Ooh, potato planks."
"Get whatever you want," he told her, finding the potato listing on his own menu. His attention flicked back to her, this time observing the skin just above her collar for a longer moment. He'd neglected filling in that part of his report the night before, preoccupied with the accident and stubborn communicator.
There was no sign of blemish in her skin, and he looked back to his menu as her eyes rose to the top of the second page of her menu.
He was about to speak when a haggard waitress came up to the table and gave them a cheery smile. "Hi. Ready to order?"
Orihime nodded as Renji looked to her.
"Go ahead," he told her. "Anything you want."
She did. Renji placed his order, outnumbering hers by two items, and the waitress left with a promise of lemonade for each.
Orihime crossed her arms in front of her on the table, sighing. She hesitated in asking, but after a moment of debate, she took a deep breath and did so.
"What would Soul Society do to me if I couldn't stop the delayed Hollow modification, Renji?"
He raised an eyebrow at the query, recognizing the tentativeness in her voice. "Do you think Urahara's protocol isn't working?"
She shook her head slowly, pushing a stray strand of auburn hair behind her ear. "But if it doesn't work ... what then? Is there any other way to stop it?" Her voice lowered. "Soul Society gets rid of Hollows."
He'd actually thought about that. He hadn't come to a conclusion of what he would do, under certain circumstances, but he knew for certain what he wouldn't do. "I don't know the technical side of all this shit, Orihime," he admitted, watching her gaze drop to the delft blue and cream checked tablecloth. "But the precautions are in place. You're far away from anyone with spiritual abilities and your own powers aren't being used. There's nothing to interfere with Urahara's reversal."
She nodded, eyes on his finger tracing a square of blue on the table.
"Is there anything happening you should tell me?"
Her eyes shot to his.
She shook her head.
"Because you can tell me," he said, leaning over the table slightly, moving his foot when his shoe kicked her sandal. "Sorry. Anyway, the report only asks for some stuff; you can tell me anything off the record, too."
For a few seconds she looked like she was going to say something, but then the waitress came back to their table and set two tall glasses of lemonade in front of each of them.
"Be right up with your orders, folks," she said and then disappeared back to the counter.
Orihime readily unwrapped her straw and stuck it in the dink and took a long slurp, followed by a sharp expression. "Oh, this is tangy, Renji." She took another smaller sip. "I think it's made with real lemons."
He took a drink of the beverage as she tied a knot in the straw's paper wrapper. She was right; it was tart.
He sat back and moved his feet, letting one rest to the side of her sandal. "What happened with Ishida?" He glanced to the green segmented bracelet. "Last I seen you two looked mighty close."
She nodded slowly, sighing. "He's trying to make amends with his father. They're the last two Quincies left, Renji, and he doesn't want to lose that."
He frowned, watching her take another sip of the lemonade. "What's that got to do with you?"
"Oh, nothing," she said hurriedly, smiling a bit. "He wants to study his heritage, to find out what Ishida-san has given up. To put his priorities in order."
He didn't see how that would affect a relationship with Orihime, but he didn't push the topic. If that was what Uryuu had told her and she accepted it, then that was fine with him. Stupid for Ishida, he thought, but fine with him.
"You're okay with that?" He watched her over the edge of his glass as he took a drink of lemonade, wishing he'd ordered something stronger.
She nodded immediately.
"And Kurosaki and Rukia?"
This time her nod was slower, but still a definite nod.
He shook his head. "It's okay to throw a fit about it, Orihime," he said, nudging her ankle with his. "No one's here to see it. No one you know, anyway."
She giggled a little, and then rested her forearms on the table and sighed, looking to him steadily. "I thought all that through. I had a lot of time to think and worry in Las Noches, and I kept running around in circles in my head," she said, her voice growing timid as she looked to the napkin holder with its cream colored napkins. "I kept thinking Ichigo would come and save me, because he always did. And then I thought, yes, he always did. He was always there whenever I had trouble in my life, and he always showed up at just the right time with the right thing to say."
Renji had his doubts about that, but he didn't voice them. She looked back to him.
"It was that way when my brother died. It was the worst moment in my life, Renji, because Sora took me away from home and was always there when I needed anything. And when he was gone, before I could say I was sorry for ... for some things, he was just gone..." Her voice faded and she looked to the lemonade before her. She frowned at it, which dissolved into another, softer expression.
"Ichigo was there when Sora died, and he told me that it wasn't my fault, and that my brother would always know I loved him," she continued in a lower tone. "And then he was there every time trouble or danger came around. Protective, like Sora, and kind, and didn't ask for anything." She looked to him sharply, this time more of an edge in her voice. "Sometimes people are nice but then they want something else from you. Ichigo wasn't like that. He was always there in the right spot when I needed him."
Renji shrugged one shoulder, rattling the ice cubes in his glass. "Yeah, he's got a knack for being in the right place at the right time," he agreed, looking to her as she nodded.
"But that's not love," she said, disappointment touching her words. "Not really. It's silly to pretend it is."
He frowned, for some reason her conclusion making his hackles raise. "Did he tell you that, Orihime?" He set the glass down on the table. "'Cause that's pretty damn rude."
"Oh, no," she said smiling fully. "It was silly for me to lean on him after Sora died, and then to be ... so enamored with him." She blushed quickly as she admitted it. "I never told anyone that." She put a hand to her collar, pressing on an unseen flicker beneath her shirt. "I think Urahara-san's treatment makes me say things I shouldn't."
He grinned, chuckling as the waitress brought a tray of food to their table, the inviting smells of the dishes adding to their appetites. They waited for the woman to unload the plates and took a moment to add their choices of condiments to the cheeseburgers, French fries and hash brown patties, coleslaw, and onion rings. He watched the seemingly never-ending addition of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and specially requested grape jelly Orihime heaped onto her burger.
She smiled at the heavily slathered burger and looked to him. "Are you really all right with Rukia and Ichigo, Renji?"
He nodded and took a big bite from the burger. "Yup."
She licked her lips, partly in anticipation of her lunch and partly to give herself a moment to reconsider second guessing a vice captain in Soul Society about his feelings. "Are you sure?"
Renji looked to her, chewing the large bite, nodding as he swallowed. "I'm sure, Orihime."
She nodded in return, and then picked up her burger.
Szayel was getting weary of discovering the drawbacks of the Living. Although he'd chosen the best specimen of the few he had access to, Morgan, whom he now possessed, required a lot of maintenance, primarily in the form of nourishment.
He'd found town and past it, following the twisting roads out of sight along the steep shoulder.
His new host body was less than ideal, but in better shape than Nyles' had been. But the man liked to argue.
"Shut up, you feeble-minded twit," he threatened the small voice of Morgan still nagging him. "You just tell me when we see something we can consume for sustenance."
Szayel had found the traces of Orihime Inoue in the air, brief fragments of her unique spiritual powers, somehow now subdued. It was a faint trail, and it led out of town. He dearly hoped he came across a source of nourishment before his sluggish host of Morgan's body passed out.
He cut through a thick woods of underbrush where the mountains afforded a break between the steeper grade to his right. In the distance he could see small white dwellings in the growing evening dusk. Closer, sounds unfamiliar to the once-Espada reached his ears, Morgan's ears, and his human host identified them as chickens and goats.
Szayel didn't care what form of animals they were unless they could provide ready nourishment, which Morgan insisted they would not.
"But that," Morgan hinted to him as they came up on a residence a moment later when the woods and brush thinned, "that we can eat from."
Szayel paused at the outskirts of the yard perimeter. It was a modest house surrounded by outbuildings that had outgrown their use. A large barn in disrepair was behind the house and two newer ones in better shape further on, with assorted fences running around most of the place.
The yard was huge, shaded by a few mature trees, and a large garden took up a good portion of it. Large tomato bushes and eggplants and peppers lined up over the patch beside a patch of sweet corn. The tall corn offered a handy hiding place, and the bean plants nearest Szayel's side of the garden were heavy with green beans.
A goat bleat sounded from across the dark yard as Samson watched them warily from his penned side of one of the better barns.
Szayel smiled at the yard. The last rays of sunlight were fading, and only a few windows in the house were illuminated with lamplight.
He was about to step from the tree line when a tall lanky figure wearing a baseball cap headed from the house down a well-worn path that led back to the small dwellings in the far distance.
Szayel watched Reese disappear down the bramble strewn path until he was out of sight over the slope edge, and then helped himself to what the garden had to offer.
Renji was pleased with the truck. He and Orihime had spent a full two hours being pleased with the new truck – new to them – as they tested out its durability along the more adventurous routes back to the house they rented off of Mayes. They'd cut through the back roads, which were only slightly more hilly than the main roads, skirting the mountain, spotting the Pal'O'Mine Stables that Orihime realized was mostly likely where Sylvi lived.
Renji didn't try to impress her with pavement hanging curves at too high of speed; they'd both already had enough fun with that concept.
Instead he put the truck through a modest course along the winding roads, tempted to test the pick-up's ability on the sloping soybean fields that angled up a mountainside.
But he didn't. Orihime was already gripping the door panel rest and spare seat belt between them and he decided against giving her another fright.
Upstairs at their house that evening – he wasn't quite yet ready to call it their home – he knocked on her closed door at her end bedroom. "I'm going out to check around," he called through the door, hearing her turn down the softly playing radio she had on some pop station.
She opened the door as he was about to speak again, her eyes going to his right hand on the doorframe, seeing the ring. "Okay. Not for long?"
He saw the flicker of apprehension pass through her eyes. "Just for a minute. Not for long, Orihime. I haven't tried out Captain Kurotsuchi's work yet."
She nodded. "Okay."
"I'll lock up behind me."
She nodded again and went back into the room where she'd been sorting her clothes from the clean laundry basket.
He glanced at the light curtains moving in the growing evening breeze at her window.
"It's not open much," she said, catching his attention on the window.
He nodded. "Back in a few minutes."
Renji waited until he was out the back door, which he locked, and past the small plot of overgrown garden and small tool shed to slip the ring from his right hand to his left. Instantly he was back in his shinigami robes, the surge of his old powers coursing back into him. He grinned at the welcome change, relieved that the Research Department had gotten it right, again.
He patted Zabimaru's hilt at his side, and then alighted to the top of the house, and then went on to make a quick pass over the immediate premises. He didn't go far, certainly not over a half mile, and again felt the trace of something in the atmosphere.
He paused over the back of their property line that was marked by a line of birch trees running the gully to the next residence. In the distance blocky black shapes could be seen, a few lights on inside a small house set closer to the road farther back. It would be Sylvi's house, he knew. He didn't go there, instead heading back to the house where Orihime's bedroom light shone mutedly through the pulled curtains.
The twinge of something in the atmosphere was heavier and Renji wondered at its nature. It could very well be a cemetery; after all, they'd passed two on the way home.
Plus Widow Mayes was edging onto the graveside of life. He didn't know how old she was, but he knew it was near ancient.
He hovered at the trees edging their property. Orihime's window was a square of dull orange light in the dark, the music from her radio barely discernible at his distance.
So she'd given up Kurosaki as a schoolgirl's refuge during her brother's death.
And Ishida had given her up in pursuit of his heritage.
Renji thought they were both missing out, Ishida and Kurosaki.
He hadn't expected her to come to a conclusion like that over Ichigo Kurosaki. Then again, maybe she'd had a lot of time to think during her imprisonment in Hueco Mundo.
She was right about some of it, he decided. Kurosaki did have a tendency to be in the right spot at the right time for some people, at some points of danger.
He ignored the wave of guilt that sucked at him. He was the one who was supposed to be in all those right spots for Rukia, like a good brother would be, and he had instead decided to follow his Captain's orders. He'd regretted it since, and every order since, Renji had rethought before following. He'd never make that mistake again.
But Captain Kuchiki was a methodical man, and there hadn't been any orders that Renji had denied.
He forced down those thoughts and turned back to Orihime Inoue's surprising analysis. He settled above the trees where he'd blend in, he hoped, in case she looked out the window.
He'd thought a lot about Hueco Mundo, too, and about her capture, and before anyone knew it was a capture at all and not her willingness to join Aizen Sousuke. There'd been a few times he had wondered how things would have been different if he'd been allowed to carry through when he'd volunteered to bring her back.
The thought put a grin on his face, as it usually did. Kurosaki had been stunned that he would offer.
In the light of the closed curtains he could see Orihime's silhouette as she changed out of her clothes and into her nightwear and robe. He let his conscience prick away at him, knowing he wasn't seeing anything, yet familiar enough with her to know the shapely silhouette cast on the curtains was very accurate in its curves.
"Damn pervert," he muttered to himself.
The light switched off and a moment later the bathroom light came on, this time a duller tone under the heavier curtains in that room.
Renji gave himself a sharp reprimand and alighted to the ground at the garden shed, and then switched the ring to his right hand, putting him back in his gigai.
He made his way back across the dark yard, digging the back door key out of his jeans pocket.
Maybe he should have denied Yamamoto and brought Orihime back from Hueco Mundo on his own anyway.
Author's Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing!