Title: Hide And Seek
Torture: Silent Treatment
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Characters/Pairings: Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime; Ichigo/Rukia
Summary: There was a price for bringing back the dead. Unfortunately, it was the dead who had to pay it. AU.
Warnings: Spoilers for Orihime's power. Angst. The Ichigo and Rukia seperation for Life fic I swore I would never write.
It figured that it would be on his deathbed that he would find her - still looking as young and eternal as always, while he was a wrinkled, ninety year old man, dying on foreign soil.
He could see her staring at him, behind all the nurses and Doctors - some alive, some ghosts that had long haunted that huge London hospital, all focused upon their task of keeping his frail body breathing. No one took notice of her, she was a shadow of a shadow, despite the fact that she wore white robes.
She stood there, perched on the window sill, almost exactly as she had all those years before when he was sixteen. There was no breath-taking smile on her face this time, but that didn't matter at the moment.
He had finally found her after seventy-four years of searching all three worlds for any trace of her.
A frail hand reached out to her. "Rukia..."
She didn't move.
XXX
"Rukia? Rukia? Rukia, wake up!!!" The voice was filled with panic and fear as the lanky youth shook the small corpse by the shoulders. "You aren't allowed to die! Do you hear me?! You aren't allowed to die."
The corpse's head flopped back. The boy's hands began to shake. "Rukia? Come back. You weren't supposed to die - nobody was supposed to get hurt, oh God." His voice cracked from the strain of held back sobs.
His eyes found Inoue's.
"Heal her," He barked out.
XXX
"Sir? What's the matter?" One of the nurses took his out-stretched hand gently in her plump hand and patted it. She was a motherly looking woman and had a very good listening ear, which she had often lent him over the last few days.
Ichigo remained still; his eyes trained on Rukia, afraid that if he even blinked that she would disappear. It wasn't an unreasonable fear; she had done it often during the long years that he had chased her.
"R-Rukia..." His fingers strained within the nurse's grasp to touch Rukia, to confirm that she was real.
The nurse's eyes widened.
Rukia didn't speak and her eyes remained as cold as ice.
XXX
Rukia walked through the world now, as if in a dream. At times, she seemed so lost that it wasn't even funny.
She walked through the halls of his house and school looking for something that wasn't there.
"I'm not supposed to be here, am I?" She asked him.
"You're here now, and that's what matters." He told her several times.
"Ichigo. What really happened that day?"
He always turned away when she asked that question.
XXX
He has searched the world over for any trace of her. All his life has been sent searching for her, to bring her back home, to marry her, to finally apologize.
And now, it was too late to do any of that.
His sisters have both grown up and married good men to take care of them. He has several nieces and nephews and several more great-nieces and nephews. They all know his story, or at least the version told to them by their mothers.
"Uncle Ichigo is searching for the ghost of a girl he loved very very much when he was younger. And he's not going to stop until he finds her. Now, why don't you go look at the nice souvenirs he sent you."
There wasn't one place he hadn't been in his mad chase after Rukia. It figured that the one place that he would find her was the last place he had thought to look.
The world between life and death.
XXX
"Rukia... calm down." He tried to touch her shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" She screamed at him. "What were you thinking?! Bringing back the dead?! Who the Hell do you think you are?!"
He grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him. "I had to, Rukia. Don't you understand?! I had to."
"LET GO!!!" She screamed, scratching at his eyes in her rage. "I was happy! Why did you have to bring me back?! Do you know what you've done?! Do you?!"
He kissed her as hard as he could, and instead of softening, Rukia became a block of ice. She pushed him away.
"Don't touch me." Her hand clenched the sleeve of her other arm. "Don't you understand Ichigo? I'm no longer dead, and I'm no longer living."
He stared at her.
She stared back. "I'm nothing now."
He shook his head wildly, and tried to grab her again. "You're Kuchiki Rukia and I lo-"
But she was already gone.
He would never see her again until he was an old man waiting to finally rest after countless years of searching.
XXX
Machines were beeping wildly around him, as he continued to struggle toward her, throwing off the arms of stronger men as they tried to pull him back toward the bed.
He was sixteen again, and almost at the height of his strength. He grabbed her limp hand and pressed it to his lips.
"I'm sorry Rukia. God, I'm so sorry."
Her eyes softened then, as she took his own hand and kissed it. "Goodbye Ichigo."
As his body collapsed to the ground, his fading ghost still held her. "I'll find you again, Rukia, and this time I'll free you."
She gave him a sad smile. "Of course you will." And then, the keeper of the ferry that guided all Souls between all worlds took him across the one world and into the next, before she disappeared from his sight, to continue her service in the name of the King of Heaven.