Disclaimer: Do I really have to keep doing these? I'm running out of funny ways to say "I don't own Bleach"


Chapter 12 – Recovery

Ichigo tried to see over his dad's shoulder and listen at the same time as Isshin explained what had happened. Apparently Rukia'd jerked the wrong way in the car accident, and hit her head. There'd been slight bleeding on her brain, and then, during the birth, she'd lost more blood. She was okay now, Isshin was saying, but there was no telling what she'd be like when she woke up, or how long it would take for her to wake up.

Ichigo took it all in, sort of. "Can I see her?" he asked when his dad stopped talking. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in knowing what had happened. But he was more interested in seeing Rukia, and checking for sure that she was really okay. Isshin nodded and moved aside, letting Ichigo into the room at last. He said something about going to check on the baby and walked away. Ichigo didn't care. He walked over to Rukia's bed.

He hated seeing her like that. She looked so small in the bed of white, her face pale, her eyes closed. She had an oxygen mask over her mouth. The steady beep of one of the many machines she was connected to told him she was alive, as it monitored her heartbeat.

Ichigo took a deep breath and drew a chair up next to the bed and fell down into it. "Rukia," he whispered, taking her hand into his. All he could think about was how close he had almost come to losing her. "Don't scare me like that. I thought I lost you. You can't leave me though, remember? You can't leave me"

----Flashback----

"It's a nice apartment," Rukia said dreamily as she curled up in Ichigo's arms. They'd just finished unpacking all their stuff, finally. Now, of course, they had to make sure it all got put in it's proper place. But that could wait.

"Yeah, it is," Ichigo agreed, kissing the top of her head. "I'm surprised my dad was okay with us living together"

"Yeah, me too," Rukia laughed, "Are you complaining though?"

"Definitely not," Ichigo said quickly, "Trust me, even if he wasn't okay with it, I wouldn't care"

Rukia made a noise in her throat and leaned her head against his arm. "You know, it's been almost three years"

"Yeah"

"I don't think we'll be hearing from the Soul Society"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No way," Rukia tilted her head so that she was looking into his eyes, and smiled. "I never want to leave you"

Ichigo smiled and wrapped her small body into a tight hug. "And I never want you to leave me," he muttered, resting his chin on her head. She leaned her head against his chest, sighing contently, and they sat like that for the longest time, all thoughts of unpacking forgotten.

----End Flashback----

Ichigo looked around as his father walked back in, the baby in his arms. "So what's his name?" Isshin asked, grinning slyly. How did he always manage to look so damn happy? "You gonna name him after me?"

"What'd the poor kid do to deserve that?" Ichigo asked dully, not all together kidding. It felt good, normal to be sitting there, teasing his father. That was why Isshin had said what he said. He knew how to get his son going. "Rukia decided on a boy's name. She wanted Kaien"

"That's a nice name"

"It's important to her," Ichigo shrugged, "And anyways, even if I didn't like it – which I do, trust me – we decided that she picked a boy's name, I picked a girl's name. So it doesn't matter either way what I wanted"

"What'd you pick for a girl's name?"

"Well, I was kind of leaning towards Masaki..."

Ichigo let his voice trail off, and there was silence. Then Isshin said, "She would have liked that Ichigo. She would have liked that a lot"

Ichigo looked at the small baby in Isshin's arms. A million thoughts ran through his mind. "I'm taking back my room again"

"I didn't expect anything less"


Ichigo, despite going to bed so late, was up early the next morning, long before anyone else. As soon as he was dressed he took up his spot in the chair next to Rukia's bed. And he had company too; Kaien had been waking up just as Ichigo came down, so he took the baby into Rukia's room, and held him while he watched Rukia sleep.

"That's your mom," he said in a quiet voice, "That's Mommy. You'll really love her, she's sweet, and kind, and funny...and you're a lot like her. Not just in looks either. The first time you kicked, you hit my ear. She hits me all the time, you know. Kiddingly, but still. I have bruises. You'll love her. I know she already loves you"

The baby stirred in his arms, and Ichigo couldn't help it; he allowed a small smile to play around his lips. Despite all his ill feelings towards this small baby yesterday, Ichigo felt so much love for the little being in his arms right now. He couldn't believe that this little boy was his. He was a father. This was all real. All of a sudden, yesterday felt like a bad, distant dream. Today was the real day, the day everything worked out.

Now if Rukia would just wake up and be okay, this would, without a doubt, be the happiest day of Ichigo's life.


Rukia's body felt incredibly heavy, as if someone was pushing a weight down on it, and she could barely move. It was extremely hard for her breathe. What the hell was wrong with her? She wracked her brain, trying to figure out what had happened...

She'd been in the clinic. She'd...she'd been in labor. She remembered hearing crying, Isshin was saying something about a boy...and then she'd felt really weird, kind of light-headed. And she remembered that her head had hurt...and then everything had gone black.

Am I dead? She wondered. She scratched that right away when she remembered she could feel herself breathing, all though it felt as if there was a lump in her throat trying to prevent it.

She gave up after awhile, and contented herself to just lying...wherever she was, and listening to what was going on around her.

She heard faint beeps on one side, and on the other side she thought she heard someone talking. It was so quiet though, she couldn't really tell. Then she heard someone say, in a slightly louder voice, "Ichigo, supper"

"I'm not hungry"

"You can't do much good just sitting here"

"I don't care. Take Kaien, would you?"

"Ichigo-"

"Yuzu"

There was a moment of silence. Then someone sighed an exasperated sounding sigh, and Rukia heard a door shut. There was silence, then Ichigo was talking again. "He looks so much like you, Rukia. Kaien, I mean. He's even got your eyes...which means I'll probably never be able to say no to him. All he'll have to do is look at me, and that'll be that," she felt his hand slip into her own, and then he said, in an even quieter voice then before, "You'll love him Rukia. I know you will. Please, wake up. Don't leave me now"

It broke her heart to hear him talking like that. Strong, stubborn, hard-headed Ichigo. And he sounded like he was falling apart. She couldn't take it anymore. She took a deep breath and mustered the strength to speak, just a little. "Wouldn't dream of it, idiot"

Her breath caught in her throat and she started coughing. She felt a pair of hands tuck themselves under her back and pull her up into a sitting position. The coughing fit broke, and she took a deep breath and managed to open her eyes, just a little. Just enough so that she could see Ichigo's face, worry evident behind his scowl. At the same time though, a bright light assaulted her eyes, and she closed them at once, groaning. "Ichigo-"

"Sh," he carefully laid her back down, "I'm gonna go get my dad, all right? I'll be right back, I promise"

She heard the door to the room open again, and hurried footsteps as Ichigo took off down the hall. She pushed herself up again, very carefully, her arms shaking as she put weight on them. She brought one hand up to her face, shielding her eyes, and attempted to open them again. She was in the clinic. How long had she been there, she couldn't help but wonder. It was then that she noticed there was something covering her mouth. She reached up to pull it off, but as soon as it left her mouth she found it a lot harder to breath. Panicking, she closed her eyes and tried to draw a deep breath. One of the machines next to her started beeping like crazy.

Moments later she felt someone wrap an arm around her shoulder and press the mask against her mouth again. She took a couple of deep, shaky breaths, and after a minute she felt a little better. "You moron," it was Ichigo, "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"S-Shut up," she managed to say, her voice shaking. She couldn't bring herself to say anything more though.

"All right, all right," a new voice joined. It was Isshin. "That was our little excitement for the night. Yuzu, Karin, you girls go and finish eating"

Shaken now, Rukia opened her eyes again, slowly. Ichigo, she saw, was sitting on the bed next to her, his left arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders, his right hand pressing the mask to her mouth. Isshin was standing next to the bed, watching his son with great interest. Rukia found she couldn't look at either of them, and her gaze dropped to her hands, which were clutching the blankets. "Sorry," she muttered, her eyelids dropping slightly. Ichigo pulled her a little closer to him, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"You apologize for a lot of nothing," the-orange-haired man said, though he didn't sound overly annoyed. He carefully pushed her back down and pulled his hand away from the mask; it stayed in place, thankfully.

"It's all right," Isshin shooed Ichigo off the bed. He complied, looking just a little aggravated "Don't worry. We're just glad you're okay"

Rukia took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to close again. It was becoming easier to breath. "What happened?"

"I'll explain later," Isshin said, "I just wanna do a quick check on you, then I want you to go back to sleep. You need as much rest as you can get right now"

"How long was I out for?"

"About eighteen hours," Ichigo said, "Maybe a little more. Probably a little more"

He shoved his hands into his pocket, sighing as he watched his father work. He'd just found his dad in the living room when he'd heard the machine monitoring Rukia's heartbeat go off crazily. He'd freaked out, understandably enough, and was relieved to find out that it had just been because of her own stupidity. Ichigo clenched his fists tightly in his pockets, and scowled at the floor. Idiot. She seemed to enjoy scaring the hell out of him.

"Ichigo," he looked around as Rukia muttered his name. She was looking over at him, her eyes barely slits. He reached out and carefully took her hand. "Ichigo, I...I want to see my baby, please..."

"Later," Ichigo said firmly, "Right now just...rest, all right? I promise, when you wake up again you can see him"

A slight smile played around her lips as her eyes drifted shut once more. "Him, huh?"

"Yeah. And his name's Kaien"

"That's good..." her voice was barely a whisper now. Isshin smiled as he watched his son bend down and kiss Rukia lightly on the lips. As hard as it was to accept, his little boy, his little Ichigo, was a man now. Isshin could make jokes, he could treat his son the way he always had, but nothing would ever be the same. Ichigo was growing up. And as much as it hurt – and as much as he'd never admit it – it was time for Isshin to let go.

You'll make one hell of a father, Ichigo.


Author's Note: And so ends my Torture of Rukia. Well...for now, anyway. So, just a quick heads up: the Soul Society will be coming back to haunt Rukia and Ichigo (and little Kaien) very soon. Maybe not in the next chapter, but the chapter after that. I haven't decided yet.