A/N: Finally! I slaved over this, I really did. I hope it was worth it. But it's a very short chapter. I'm sorry for such a long wait.

What're you thinking?

Chapter 5

Yes.

That single word was the most honest, naked thing he had ever spoken to Ichigo.

Perhaps it was because of the dull ache of loss that resonated in them both that Ishida stopped, put logic aside, and simply received.

Ichigo held him like he knew exactly how. The weight of the arms around him, the pressure of his fingertips against his shoulder blade and the small of his back, the warm pulse of life beneath his ear… it felt impossibly natural, and oddly familiar.

When Ishida closed his eyes and let everything leave him, he realized that it was Ichigo's reiatsu that had embraced him like this, time and time again –that gentle heat, that soft warmth, had always stood behind him.

"You trusted me that much," spoke Ichigo, "even if I had…"

It was too easy to know what he meant.

"Why bring it up if it hurts you?" Ishida said quietly.

He felt him exhale. "Not just me, but you and Inoue, too."

"You know that we don't blame you."

"And yet neither of you ever mention it –

"How could we bring that up when you had just gotten your powers back?"

"I'm ready to hear it now."

Ishida pulled away. The air against his skin was unpleasantly cool.

"Tell me what happened," the shinigami quietly implored.

Ishida breathed in; keeping his eyes on the silent nocturne sky he cautiously began to unwrap his memory. With his every word the layers fell away, weathered to the color of rust like the anguished warmth of Ichigo's gaze.

Ichigo was very quiet. And then he let out a shuddering breath that made Ishida reach out and grab his arm.

"Don't, Kurosaki. I didn't tell you to make you feel responsible –

"But I am!" he insisted. "I almost killed you."

"But you didn't."

Ichigo gritted his teeth. "I would have if Ulquiorra hadn't stopped me in time."

Ishida said nothing.

"Ulquiorra died because of me, too."

"You idiot! Have you forgotten that he had left you to die?"

"That's not the point! It shouldn't have ended like that."

"Then how should it have ended? When Ulquiorra had cut off your arm and leg as you had so foolishly demanded of him?"

"It would have been right, because that thing wasn't me!"

The flash-fire of anger shocked Ishida as much as the sensation of his bare fist against Ichigo's cheek. It was only when he saw him fall back against the wall from the impact, and when he felt the thrum of pain in his knuckles that he realized –once again Ichigo had caused him to lash out not with his mind but his heart.

"How dare you say such a thing?" Ishida snarled. "How dare you, when Inoue still blames herself for having called to you for help? When I had gambled everything I had on the chance that you would get up again?"

It was the shadow of helpless despair on Ichigo's face that maddened the archer more than anything else.

"Damn it, Kurosaki! Say something!"

The shinigami's eyes were dull like incessant, sporadic rain. "I can't ask of you what I had asked of Ulquiorra. And yet it can't possibly be enough to just say I'm sorry. So what am I supposed to do?"

"Stop it! I told you, we don't blame you!"

Ishida flinched at the light press of Ichigo's fingers against his side.

"You might say you don't blame me, but it's still there," Ichigo said softly, "I know that, because I can feel it."

The memory of the wound itself, and the shock and pain of brutal alienation that it carried.

The fear that he could not suppress as he screamed at him to stop.

The resignation that sat in his throat like a stone as his vision was saturated with a light of the brightest, coldest red.

It was so, so bitter that the things that mattered the least to him now were to be felt by Ichigo with the most intensity.

Ishida reached out for Ichigo's outstretched arm and wrapped his fingers tightly around his wrist –like he had done back in Hueco Mundo.

But this time, the pain he felt was not his own.

"Yes it hurt. It really did," Ishida told him firmly, angrily; "but I'm trying my damndest to move past that, because I know that I need to trust you, especially when you are at your weakest moment. Does that mean nothing to you?"

A glimmer of warmth had returned to Ichigo's eyes as he finally lifted his gaze and quietly, sincerely spoke: "it means everything to me."

They both seemed to freeze at that moment –and then from the blossoming pink on Ichigo's cheekbones the archer knew that those words had meant much, much more than just a 'thank you'.

For the first time in the past few days Ishida was flustered –not by Ichigo's straightforward, unchecked reactions that somehow could always move him so deeply, not by Ichigo's touch that clung to him and him to Ichigo's touch like morning mist rising from frosted plains to meet the sun: but by his realization that all of this had always been there, waiting, growing.

Quipping through his trembling voice, glaring through his furious blush Ishida responded, "then at the very least you should trust me and stop looking so damn anxious."

Ichigo blinked. "You mean… that… really?"

The Quincy scoffed. "Romance and grammatical correctness seem to be foreign concepts to you."

Ichigo scowled a little, and then he bent down to the side and kissed him –of all places –on the ear, so that his bottom lip lightly brushed his earlobe like a cotton ball.

Ishida tried not to smile. "You are so strange."

"Your hairstyle was asking for it," Ichigo muttered.

"Hairstyles are inanimate, Kurosaki. They do not ask for anythi –

Ishida stopped himself, raised his hands and clapped Ichigo lightly on either cheek.

"Sorry," he muttered more to his shoes than to his red-eared companion, "I'm trying."

"I know. It's just your defense mechanism doing its thing."

It was Ishida's turn to scowl. "Oh go home, Kurosaki."

He smiled. "You're not trying very hard."

And then he took his hand.

To be continued