Standard disclaimer applies.
Author's notes: This is a 'coupled with' Duality, the following ficlet. This one is thrown in Rukia's POV. So, go read and hope you like it. Thanks for your reviews as always!

Silence's Voice
16.05.2005

Rukia is well aware of all of the bandages running around his torso. Even when Ichigo's shirt isn't as thin as to let her see them through it, she knows where the white gauzes overlap each other, where they turn exactly over his ribs, where the fasteners keep them still. She is conscious that there are ones that need to be replaced soon because they are bloody due to the wounds that have not closed up completely and that might start staining his pristine white school shirt. She knows that hard it is to move with them too, tightly pressed on certain places to ensure the wounds and his skin heal properly, but that he has to cope with them.

Rukia has, after all, been the one to place those bandages despite his insistent retorts and complaints from the boy (his constant squirming had added one or two extra bruises from her, of course). Her small hands have run over that wounded torso, have pressed themselves against his chest, and healed him with the little spiritual power she is still able to muster; her hands have felt the blood covering his body.

Rukia has never liked the sight blood before, or never will. As a shinigami, she knows she should be used to see it, to be used of everything that death implies. Hell, she is a symbol of death herself! But she still doesn't like it, because the blood in Ichigo's body meant he had been hurt, had been wounded not only physically but perhaps even emotionally as well. And it's thanks to her, because thanks to her, he has to do the job that is truly hers.

Yet she says nothing of this to him… because Ichigo doesn't need to know. The boy doesn't need to know how she's suddenly more conscious of him, of her growing concern for him, of how she finds it unbearable every time he leaves to fight a hollow, of how she despises the idea of him getting hurt. She should be the one there, standing on the battle line fighting and protecting him, not the other way around. It makes the female shinigami's frustration grow. What has this boy done to her?

Rukia knows all of this is her fault in the first place. That's why she is going to get her powers back and leave silently so he can forget that anything ever happened, even when she won't be able to, and go back to lead his normal life. He deserves it.

Somewhere between the point of looking at him and falling into her thoughts, she realizes that she has stopped in the middle of the road. She mumbles something to herself under her breath when she realizes that Ichigo is fairly ahead of her now and that she's standing on her own like a complete idiot.

"Oi, Rukia," he stops and slightly turns his head over his shoulder to look down at her, "Hurry up, it's getting late for school."

He waits for her to catch up, his back facing her as he grumbles something about being late again and scratches the back of his head. But she stays there, staring at his back. Ichigo looks at her again with a questioning glare, so she hurries her way to him this time. The frown never fades from his face.

"You okay?" He asks when they start walking, although he doesn't even bother to look at her when he does. She nods, deeming it enough to make him know she is fine, and follows the boy to school.

She says nothing else to him and silently keeps on walking down the road with him.