Title:The Awakening of Miranda

Series: Bleach

Theme: Tempest

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Dedication: For Nagi, who is wonderful.

Characters/Pairings: Ichigo, Rukia, Uryu, Aizen (in spirit), Urahara (in spirit). Ichigo/Rukia.

Rating: PG

Summary: The girl who is Miranda no longer knows the difference between her father's voice and her own.

Notes: While I love all of Shakespeare's works, his final play The Tempest has always filled me with a sense of horror in the fact that all of the characters, including the main character Prospero's daughter, Miranda, danced to the tune that Prospero played for them. None of the characters made decisions of their own free will, any choice that they made was a choice that Prospero led them to - in the end there was no choice, no freedom, no love - only puppets following the directions of their puppet master.

Tiny flames licked the night air, feeding hungrily on the verses that he fed them. Page after page slowly crinkled and curled up, as ink ran like blood. Paper crumbled to dust and the wind swept the dust off the small apartment deck and back to its creator.

His hands were black with soot and there were several blisters on his fingers from when he had held the matches for too long. Burnt match after burnt match lay on the ground around him, each one used to kill. His eyes watched in morbid fascination as each match killed more and more words that had been used to create something that was once of beauty. Every so often, his eyes would leave the page to glance over at the girl who leaned against the railing on the opposite side of the balcony.

Wrapped in a white sheet to warm her shivering body, the girl watched the flame lick its prey lovingly before devouring it. Her eyes were dull, and the light was reflected too brightly from her eyes. Water droplets slid down her hair to drop onto her neck. A pale hand lay outside of the blanket - it was covered with raw, red scratches - her nail tips were red.

Another page died.

He had been pressing her for quite some time to read some of the great Bard's work. She had been living in his world for five years now and she still had yet to fully appreciate the man who had been William Shakespeare. He had finally managed to convince her to read the plays after taking Rukia to his University's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which she had immediately fallen in love with.

As they had walked home that night, he had been amazed to hear her repeating a number of lines from the play, in the exact same way that they had been presented by the actors. Her eyes had glowed in a way he had never seen them glow before and he had found himself kissing her as soon as they were in the hallway of his apartment.

"They're so much easier to understand, you know." She told him later, much later. She grinned at him. "I find them easier to understand than a lot of today's discourse."

Somehow that didn't really surprise him.

She had stared digging out all of his old, worn copies of the various Shakespearean texts and had started reading one right after the other while he was at his classes. He would come in and find her either giggling helplessly at one of the comedies or find the remainder of tears on her cheeks from reading one of the tragedies. King Lear had really gotten to her for some reason (he suspected that it was because that play hit a little too close to home for a girl who had never known her family).

He should never have let that one play fall into her hands. He should have known. He should have realized that that was the one play that she should never read.

Rukia's lips had been pressed thin as she placed the book on her bedside table, withdrawing her hand away - slowly, purposely - before switching off her lamp. Without a word, she turned her back to him and pulled the sheets up to her chin.

Slightly confused by her mysterious behavior (she usually stayed up to talk to him about the plays and discuss possible theories with him - they had argued for a week about whether Hamlet had been really insane or not), Ichigo turned off his own light and reached out to wrap his arm around her body (a habit he had developed after the war).

She jerked violently the moment his hand touched her shoulder.

Hurt and feeling more confused than before, he pulled back his offending appendage. "Rukia?"

"Burn it." Her voice was hard and cold, as hard as it had been that one rainy night almost five years ago.

"YOU CAN'T BURN SHAKESPEARE!" Ichigo screeched just a bit too loudly. The occupant in the room next door thumped on the wall loudly. Ichigo glowered at the wall before turning his glare back to Ruka.

"Fine." Rukia bit out, still not facing him. "Toss it into the ocean then."

"You. Are. Talking. About ONE OF THE GREATEST WRITERS OF ALL TIME!" There was a bang from the other side of the wall. Ichigo turned to the wall. "SHUT UP ISHIDA AND GO BACK TO YOUR KNITTING!" He turned back to Rukia. "Just WHAT is your problem with SHAKESPEARE?!"

There was another bang from the other side of the wall. "IT IS NOT KNITTING! IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT I'M WORKING ON THE EMBROIDRY OF THE DRESS NEEDED FOR THE DRAMA CLUB'S PRODUCTION OF A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE!!!"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT IT'S FOR, JUST SHUT UP BEFORE I BANKAI YOUR ASS!" Screamed Ichigo, once again cursing whichever idiot decided it would be a great idea for Ichigo and Ishida to room together while at University. He grabbed his blankets, ready to wrench them off to go and seek some peace from stupid sewing Quincys and girlfriends who couldn't appreciate the wonder that was William Shakespeare.

"I'm not Miranda."

Rukia's voice made him pause. "What…?" He turned around to stare at Rukia's small back. "Rukia?"

"My decisions are my own."

He reached out to touch her shoulder and this time it trembled under his hand.

"I'm not Miranda."

His eyes fell upon the well-worn book, with its tattered cover that still spelled out clearly: The Tempest.

"Rukia."

She didn't hear him. "I killed Kaien-dono because I was selfish - because I wanted to."

"Rukia...?"

"I saved Ichigo because I could. I didn't release because I could handle it."

Fear was beginning to fill him as she began digging her finger nails into her arm leaving long angry scratches.

"I killed Aaroniro because I hated him. He found me and I found him because we wanted to."

He grabbed her in his arms and picking her up off the bed, kicked his door open and rushed to the washroom. Stepping under the shower, he grabbed the shower handle and twisted it so that only the coldest water would rain down on them.

"I'm not Miranda." Her voice sounded so small and so not Rukia.

The water would be able to wake her up in a way he couldn't.

Now they found themselves outside on that small balcony, rendering The Tempest to ashes.

Each page had to be burned individually and the matches only lasted so long. He had found a couple of lighters in one of the drawers in the kitchen (Ishida had always been good at making sure that they were outfitted for any and every emergency). He was now onto the second lighter.

The last page burned now - the page with Prospero's ending speech, the moment when he released all of his puppets.

Soot still blackening his hands and parts of his face, he now reached for Rukia, his hands staining her shivering face. His thumbs caressed her cheeks and he kissed her hard on the mouth.

He pulled away after a moment. "You're free. They can't touch you and they never have."

She stared at him in something like disbelief before taking his face in her own hands and kissing him back.

Soot of burnt chains painted both their skins as they lay there together on the balcony celebrating the fact that they were neither Miranda nor Ferdinand.

You're free.