They'd been in the stuffy room for over an hour and the stench of well-used smoke was grinding on Aizen's nerves. Esparo only added to the problem, abiding happily in the open-smoking policy of the small French town's police station.

It was exactly what Aizen had expected of the ill-equipped station; what he'd expected, and exactly what he needed. It surprised him that the slap-dash force of five officers had been able to scrum up a lip-reader at the late hour.

She sat across from him at the table where he, Esparo, the police chief and the head officer of Kurosaki's arrest were seated.

The thick swirls of smoke circulated around her, the early-thirties woman looking more tired than irritated in the haze of her work environment. All eyes were fastened on the television on a pedestal at the end of the table where the security camera from the train station had been played and replayed for thirty minutes, every moment and movement of Rukia and Ichigo's time of capture scrutinized.

"Right there," Aizen said for the fourth time as they watched the screen, his eyes narrowing on Ichigo as he dragged Rukia before him as he backed to the train station entrance.

The lip reader sighed a long puff of smoke into the air, her fingers aged beyond her years, the smoke showing in her face in creases around her lips. "He says, 'Back up. Be afraid,'" she said in English, her voice grating in her thick French accent. "'When we get to the door run. Fight me. Get on a flight home later.'" She glanced to Aizen. "Again, Monsieur, he maybe said 'Don't be afraid.' I cannot tell from this angle."

Aizen nodded, ignoring the weary looks of the men around the table. Esparo glanced his way, but he didn't acknowledge him. He watched the tape rewound, the images of his targets jerky and quick as the scene replayed in reverse. The second officer played it again.

Without prompting, the woman began her delivery as they watched Ichigo grab Rukia from off the train station bench. "She says, 'Ichigo, what are you -' I can't decipher what he says there. She nods. He says 'Back up. Be afraid. When we get to the door run. Fight me. Get on a flight home later.' All English."

Aizen looked to the police chief, who returned a cool look of disdain equal to one of Aizen's best. "Where is she?"

The chief shrugged, tapping out his cigarette in a large ash tray in the center of the table. "She got away in the confusion," he said in precise English.

"Find her."

There was no suggestion in Aizen's tone, and the chief nodded subtlety. "The department in pressing charges for assault, but after trial and sentencing here he will be turned over to you for prosecution."

To Esparo's surprise, Aizen nodded. "Then I want twenty-four hours for questioning before you press charges."

The chief gave Aizen a long look, most of it lost in the smoke. "You will sign the release and inmate return papers?"

Aizen nodded, keeping the smile from his face. "Can he talk?"

The second officer chuckled, but his superior answered.

"We are not the L.A.P.D., Agent Aizen," he said levelly. "He can talk. Permission for twenty-four hour questioning granted." He nodded to the second officer, who quickly stood and left the room. "After paperwork, you understand."

Rukia had watched the police station ever since following Ichigo and the French policemen from the train station. She'd had every intention of getting as far away as possible from the scene in the station when the officers had descended on him like a pack of rabid wolves.

She'd heard the police clubs on him even as the door behind her swung shut. His muted grunts, his cursing mingling with what she was sure to be swearing in French replayed through her mind. She'd gotten as far as the next building before her steps slowed. A taxi had followed her along the sidewalk from the street, and she hurriedly waved him away, not wanting to draw attention from the authorities. He'd strolled the car alongside her until she ducked into a narrow alley. After a moment the taxi had passed, seeming to lose interest in her fare for the night.

She'd peeked around the corner of the alley building in time to see the four policemen rustle Ichigo down the sidewalk, his hands clasped behind his back in cuffs, his posture and slight limp evidence of his previous beating.

For the next ten minutes she'd followed them at a distance to the police station three blocks away, but didn't dare get any closer as he was taken inside. Her relief at escaping the helicopter crash and police at the train station had faded as she thought about the man with the orange-copper hair that she simply knew as Ichigo.

He'd said to go home, had ensured her escape by giving himself up to the authorities, but Rukia didn't have the heart to follow through with his orders to go home. She clutched her purse closer, nervous hands too tired to tremble. She leaned against the brick building as the deep thick of night eclipsed the town. More than anything she wanted to sit down.

No. More than anything she wanted Ichigo to be at her side, she realized. She let out a weary sigh. She was in over her head, past anything she'd ever done before. With resolve, she swallowed what she could of her fears and looked down the opposite side of the street, hoping.

It was there. The taxi she'd shunned.

She waved to where it was parked a block away, the optimistic driver still eager for her fare.

She smiled her most ingratiating smile for the scruffy-looking man inside as the taxi stopped beside her part of the sidewalk curb a moment later. "Hello. Do you speak any English?"

He smiled widely. "But of course, madam. You need a ride to somewhere?"

She nodded, then shook her head. She was about to clarify the matter when she saw a movement at the police station. The entrance door opened and several figures paused there, among them one she knew to be Ichigo.

She looked back at the taxi driver, and then hurriedly opened the car's back door and climbed into the seat behind him.

He looked at her in the rear view mirror, but her eyes were on the police station. "Where do you wish to go, madam?"

Rukia's attention was still on the police station. Ichigo was led out of the station and put into the back seat of a waiting sedan, hands still cuffed behind him. She didn't recognize Esparo as he slammed the back door shut after Ichigo. She knew by Ichigo's slumped posture when leaving the station - supported mainly by Esparo - that he was injured enough to need assistance, and that she found troubling.

The jolt through her veins shouldn't have been there, not for another man, not for anyone other than Michael, and Rukia told herself it was because Ichigo's beaten condition was partly on her behalf. But she knew it was more.

She leaned forward on the seat, looking past the taxi driver to where Esparo was starting the car. "Can you follow that car?" she asked the driver, pointing before them, half hidden behind the man's bulk. Her eyes jerked back to the station as Aizen came out and got into the car parked behind Esparo's. She watched it start, and then both cars pulled onto the street, heading in the opposite direction. "Can you follow both cars?"

The driver chuckled a gravely sound. "Ah, you wish me to give chase?"

"Uh, well, I don't know if you have to chase them, but follow," she said falteringly, "yes, follow."

The driver turned the steering wheel, a gleam coming to his middle-aged face. "All my life I wanted to give chase, madam."

There was no chase. The two sedans that left the police station headed out of town and onto a highway that made only a few curves along the dark countryside before another small town appeared. Rukia didn't know the name, the village limit sign announcing it in French, which she couldn't read.

The town was much like the first in the dark, about double in size, which wasn't saying much, with a few extra shops, bars, and hotels. It was one of these hotels that the two cars in front of the taxi stopped at, the only light coming through a muted glow at the reception window of the building.

It was a far cry from the luxury of the hotels Rukia had seen lately, consisting of three levels of once-elegant but dirty siding and ornamental window trim in need of new paint. She sighed as the cars parked at the curb.

"Keep going," she told the taxi driver, settling lower into the back seat as they passed the cars. She peeked over the edge of the upholstery just enough to see Esparo and Aizen get out. The both went to the rear door to let their passenger out.

"Turn around, madam?" the driver asked.

Rukia nodded, and then said: "Yes. I want to watch that hotel, but I don't want us to be seen. Can you do that?"

"Oui, madam. Of course."

The taxi made a few turns to put it back on the street a few blocks away, facing the hotel where the three men were just entering. The two cars were parked at the curb in front.

"They can't leave the cars there," the driver told Rukia as he shifted the taxi into park. "A big tag fine in the morning."

Rukia edged to the front seat to see past his shoulder. She hooked her arms over the seat, eyes moving over the hotel. "The hotel is open all night?"

He shook his head, looking over at her. "No, madam. Not even this late. Whoever they are," he said, waving a finger at the hotel where Aizen and Esparo had taken Ichigo, "they have money or influence." He cocked his head to the side as her eyes remained fixed on the hotel. "Someone you know?"

Her lips pursed at the question, it making her realize she knew very little about any of the men, including Ichigo. "Can we stay here?" She looked quickly to the meter sitting idle. "If I pay you by the hour, can we stay here and watch?"

This time the glint in his eyes was for the money. "But of course, madam."

They watched all night, at least, Rukia did. The driver nodded off forty-five minutes into the watch, the indolent streets under the muggy, still night inviting sleep rather than surveillance.

She saw little. A few lights came on in two of the tall second floor windows, some shadowed movements behind the pulled shades. Nothing of any definite form.

She had anchored herself at the front seat by her forearms, finding herself nodding off to sleep a few times only to flinch awake at the sounds of cats in the alley garbage cans nearby. So went her long night of vigil.

It was just after sun up that the town began to come to life, the shopkeepers opening their shops, signs gradually turning to Open along the opposite sidewalk, the hotel's sign blinking on to green at the main window under the sunny sky.

Rukia didn't wake the taxi driver, instead taking a moment to look at herself in the rear view mirror. She subdued a groan at her dreary appearance. The days of flight and frenzy had caught up with her, the telltale mangling of hair only slightly combed and not completely free of tree debris from her impromptu helicopter jump.

She tried to comb her fingers through it, not wanting to yet wake the driver.

He woke up anyway. He mumbled something, eyes shifting to her as she sat back in the rear seat. He turned to see her better and leaned an arm over the bench seat. "You're still going to watch this place?" he asked, jerking a thumb at the hotel.

She nodded, knowing what was coming. "You probably have to leave."

He nodded, sighing. "I have a lot of explaining to do with the missus as it is. There are other taxis in town, madam. Two, I think."

She sat straighter and opened her purse, careful to limit his view of it contents. "You've been a great help. How much do I owe you?"

He told her the amount, and she readily paid him, and then asked for one final favor. She pointed past him to where the shops on the other side of town were putting out sandwich boards to advertise their daily specials and sales. "Can you drive me there?"

He squinted at the shops a few blocks ahead. "Which? Ah, the one with the café sign. You need breakfast, madam."

While Rukia agreed with that suggestion, she had her mind on another shop. "The one past the café." She smiled at the sight of the woman who was erecting a sandwich board advertising coifs in fanciful lettering. "The wig shop."

The driver chuckled, but obliged her.

Rukia looked to the two sedans as the taxi passed them at the hotel sidewalk. Her eyes fastened on the rear car, memorizing the license plate of the one Aizen had driven. She turned quickly as the driver swerved the taxi to the side of the street near the boutique selling wigs and casual dresses.

She nodded, looking to the display window. "This is perfect," she told the driver. She glanced down the sidewalk to where a public phone box was at the corner. Even better, she thought. She looked to the driver as he turned to her. "Thank you. You've been a lot of help."

Ichigo wasn't sure how long he was out, or even when he became fully conscious the next morning. He was aware of the throbbing at his temples and the sharp pain at his side amongst the assorted bruises sprinkled liberally over his body. The shine of the sun off the wooden floor made him squint at the brightness.

Damn French police, he thought as he struggled to open his eyes. He knew he was tied to the wooden, straight-backed chair in what he thought was the second story floor of a cheap hotel, but beyond that the preceding night's events were still fuzzy. He braced his feet to the chair legs were his ankles were tied and lifted his sagging head.

Pain soared through his neck, but he gritted his teeth and sat back in the chair, flexing his fingers at each of the chair armrests. They were tied at the wrists by black plastic bands, simple but effective, and had begun to cut into his skin in a few spots. He looked around the room.

There was little to see, a chair and folding card table set up before him a few feet away, two windows open a few inches to his left that sounded like they were facing a street below. The rest of the room was bare.

The French police that had arrested him hadn't beaten him as well as they could have, and Ichigo knew it. Just a few steps beyond subjugation. It was enough.

The door opened to his right and Ichigo looked to it, an immediate scowl coming to his face as he vaguely recognized Aizen and Esparo. The younger man set a small black case on the table as Aizen positioned himself between Ichigo and the second chair.

Aizen's gaze traveled over the slight bruising at Ichigo's temple and one eye. "Let's get down to business now," he said steadily, as if they were resuming a conversation they'd started.

Ichigo wondered if they had. He didn't remember one.

"Who are you?"

Ichigo's eyes narrowed on him. "What crime have I committed?" His attention snapped to Esparo, who was placing items from the case on the table.

"Aside from assaulting that woman at the train station?" Aizen recalled. "Killing that chopper pilot?"

Ichigo was half-relieved his ploy with Rukia had worked, but his defenses raised a notch when Esparo came toward him with a small, flat plastic box and a camera.

"You might call it a non-crime, and you know what it is," Aizen said.

Ichigo tensed as Esparo forced his stiff fingers individually onto the tacky beige pad in the box to record his fingerprints. "Can you be more specific?" he asked Aizen.

Esparo took a step back, raised the camera, and took Ichigo's picture.

Ichigo muttered a curse.

"You're Ichigo Kurosaki," Aizen said as Esparo took the box and camera back to the table behind him. "Yes, we know."

Ichigo shook his head, fingers drumming on each side of the armrests to aid circulation. "You've got the wrong guy."

Aizen feigned surprise, and not very well. "Oh? That's the name she gave us."

Every sense in Ichigo's body sharpened. "Who? What she?"

Aizen crossed his arms in front of him. "You don't think we fell for that charade at the train station, do you?" He nodded, smiling at Ichigo's sudden distress. "I think she'll talk for us after another night."

A hundred words sprung to Ichigo's mind, but his brain was still warming up from his assault, and none of the words got uttered. "She's got nothing to do with this."

Aizen nodded. "So you do care. Good."

A few of the thoughts flying through Ichigo's mind now made more sense. He grinned a bit, nodding slowly, a movement that made his temples pound more. "You don't have her," he said, recalling Aizen's use of his full name. "She doesn't know as much as you've told me." He chuckled. "You're bluffing, you bastard."

Esparo glanced to Aizen at the accusation, but Aizen didn't look at him.

"You think so?" Aizen's smooth expression had turned somehow colder. "Esparo, grab the SPID and get that photo sent out. Interpol never got a photo of our new friend here. See what's come up on the woman."

Esparo nodded and left the room without looking to Ichigo. Aizen reached into his shirt's breast pocket and took out a well-worn paper that was folded into quarters, eyes locked onto Ichigo's.

"You're not Interpol?" Ichigo asked as Aizen walked past his chair and paused behind him.

"We're above Interpol, Kurosaki." He pushed Ichigo's head down to his chest to see a laceration scar below his hairline. Beneath that was an old burn mark that dissolved up into the scalp. He touched the irritated spot where the tracking chip was implanted.

"You've been flying below the radar for a long time, boy," he said, stepping back in front of Ichigo to face him.

Ichigo looked up at him. "I'm not your boy."

"You've got the markings of Interpol's John Doe 481, Passive List. You get around."

"Lots of people do."

Aizen's voice didn't change. "Do you remember how your mother died?"

A threatening look claimed Ichigo's face.

Aizen nodded, smiling. "I thought so. You never identified your father's body at the morgue."

Ichigo shifted uncomfortably in the chair, adrenalin reaching new heights. "I knew he was dead."

Aizen pulled two more papers from his pocket. He unfolded them, watching Ichigo's posture stiffen. He held them out for Ichigo to see.

"I'll be you did. You were there."

Ichigo looked at the papers. They were photos, old and creased black and whites. In one was Isshin Kurosaki, dead on a stretcher at the accident with the truck that had nearly killed Ichigo, too, and had sent him on the run as a teen. In the other was the funeral home, a photo of Ichigo a year younger looking into his dead mother's coffin.

He wanted to slap the photos from Aizen's hands. Instead his fists balled.

"The coroner said Isshin had been kept breathing for an hour. Artificially breathing," Aizen said methodically, turning the pictures so he could see them. "A feeble attempt at CPR had been made on him. Handprints on his chest in blood, so distinct we kept the tan shirt he was wearing. Those life-saving attempts were your doing."

Ichigo spat on the floor. "Damn you -"

"Forensics found a second blood type all over the truck seat and Isshin's body," Aizen continued, folding the photos.

"That's past," Ichigo bit out, the pain in his body replaced with rage. "You can -"

"You can make a good life now, Ichigo," Aizen said. "A little information and no more hiding. The Division can be very accommodating."

"I saw how you accommodated the Kern and Walters families. You jailed a fourteen year-old girl!"

"Little Momo Walters was difficult," Aizen said with a smile and a sigh. "It's all about cooperation. You give us what we want, and the past is past, Ichigo. Get a wife. Maybe that one from the station. No more running. Why stand on principle?"

Ichigo sat back in the chair. "Forget it. No names."

Aizen was going to continue, but the door opened and Esparo returned. He handed Aizen a photo.

"The police chief just sent it over," he said, eyeing Ichigo. "It's from the train station's security camera."

Aizen nodded as he studied the black and white image. In it he could see little of Rukia's face, but her hand on Ichigo's around her waist was clear enough. He smiled at the wedding ring on her finger.

"So you've already got that wife," he said to Ichigo, looking up. "You can protect her now by talking. You know what we want, Kurosaki." He nodded to Esparo who was sorting thorough the case on the table. "Shoot him."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading, and to everyone who alerted this. Sorry it took so long to update. Assorted problems ...