Ishida felt a cool sensation overflowing his body, the sense of being shaken, but that was all. He could feel a head-spitting pain along his forehead, a jabbed ache in his side. Wait. Uryuu let his body fall back once again, only hard enough for his to hear the porcelain cling against his weak body. He was...but then why...?

Uryuu opened his eyes, wincing at the light glaring over him on the ceiling. He tried to close his eyes, focus only on the gentle pressure of the cold water, but two strong arms wrapped around his waist and yanked him out of the cascading water. Something soft was pulled onto his shoulders and another object, same textile, was draped over his head.

"Ishida! OI! Don't pass out on me, ya' hear!" A gruff, blatantly loud voice called out. Uryuu's head began to hurt, each syllable met with a throb. "OI!"

"Dammit, Kurosaki! If you don't shut up I'll kill myself so as not to hear you scream in my ear!" Uryuu growled, shoving Ichigo's face away from him. He opened his eyes, blinking while opening them wider and wider until he could finally see perfectly, or as best he could without his spectacles. Ichigo was sitting before him on his heels, arms stretched out while gently pressing the towel in the wet raven hair. He looked the way he usually did-eyebrows knit into a scowl, lips pursed and eyes ablaze with some unknown emotion. Something was different, though, and Uryuu couldn't quite get it down...

"Oh thank god." Ichigo sighed, placing his forehead against the wet one before his. He continued to ruffle the towel in the raven hair until two cold, shaky hands stopped their movement. "Ishida?"

"How-how long?" Uryuu asked. He hated how weak his voice had sounded, but he knew this was a delicate situation. He could feel the tension rising, the atmosphere thickening. "Ichigo. Tell me." Ichigo cleared his throat.

"Three months and a half." Damn. Uryuu's grasp strengthened on those rough, warm hands. It had been so long, all of it had been such a nightmare; but he had to believe it was real, it had all really happened. "Listen, Uryuu, what had happened back there-"

"I think I'm going to be sick...!" Uryuu ground out, eyes shutting and hand going straight to his lips. Ichigo caught the motion and grabbed the little trash bin, pushing it into the raven haired teen's lap. Uryuu puked into the plastic container, throat burning with the exertion.

"Shit. I hadn't sensed you in a while; I got worried, babe. I came by your place, I didn't sense you at all..." Ichigo rubbed Uryuu's shoulders gently, a silent was of saying it was all okay. Uryuu pushed the container away, lowering it to the floor beside him. "I even went by your dad's hospital. Guy almost killed me; and then I felt you faintly, as if you where half gone."

"What...What happened?" Ishida said faintly. His head was thumping and his vision was blurring more and more. He could hear a dim droning, like some far-away voice whispering in his ear softly but gruffly.

"When you return...you will not remember a thing that I have done."

"Ichi...go..." Uryuu gasped, feeling like every muscle in his body clenched, forcing him to coil up as if he had just been kicked in the gut. "What the-what's happening!" Uryuu grunted and he slowly fell down, side hitting the cold tiles on the floor. Ichigo reached for him but as the fingers brushed Uryuu's cold cheeks, the Quincy groaned in pain.

Ichigo retreated his hand as if the skin contact had burned him. The Shinigami wouldn't lie-he was seriously worried now. Not that he wasn't worried before, but now it was like…Uryuu was…getting sick with just his mere touch… Ichigo frowned. This was all too fucked up. They had just ended the war…and that in itself was a whole 'nother world of "fucked up".

"Uryuu, Let me help-"

"No!" Uryuu shouted, pushing Ichigo away from himself while simultaneously scooting back until his body pressed against the porcelain bath tub. His eyes where wide, full of tears and something else…as if there was an abnormality to the sapphire that was there. Ichigo felt like he was lost, this was way to surreal. Only yesterday he had cried, alone in his bed, afraid that he had lost the Quincy, his Quincy.

Ichigo was pulled out of his thoughts as Uryuu muttered something. Ichigo snapped his gaze into Uryuu's eyes to find that the cobalt had been almost completely covered by his pupils. Uryuu was shaking, mumbling and sputtering something under his breath, though Ichigo could not make a single word.

"No…P-Please…" Uryuu whispered, voice broken. There was a strangled groan and then Uryuu was sprawled out on the tile floor, breathing unevenly with his eyes squeezed shut. Ichigo breathed in sharply, unaware that he hadn't taken a breath in quite a while. He half scrambled to his feet and slowly and gently paced towards Quincy as if though the sick teen would wake up with any sudden sound. Ichigo scooped up the other male, heart skipping a beat as he realized that Uryuu was thin, cold and hardly breathing.

Ichigo cautiously ambled his way out of the small restroom, snaking his way though cabinets and furniture. He deposited Uryuu on the large bed, softly laying the Quincy down on his back. Ichigo stayed there, seated, hand running absently through raven locks. Uryuu stirred and groaned and Ichigo got up, throat constricting painfully.

"Uryuu…I don't know if you can hear me but…" Ichigo trotted to the bedroom door. "I'm going to go out really quickly, I'll come right back, Okay?" Then there resounded a click as the orange haired Shinigami opened the door. "I'm going out to...just stay here and don't over exert yourself…"

And then, like everyone else in Uryuu's life, Ichigo was gone.

…

Burning. It wasn't fire, it wasn't an outside force that was hurting Uryuu, it was himself. It was his blood, the air he breathed, everything burned his lungs, his heart, his entire being. Memories replayed themselves in his mind's eye, unbidden, unwanted but there nonetheless. Black and white, all of it was so blank and it was like a dream…like a film that was so worn and old it could only be in black and white. But there was red.

There was also a lot of red.

Red, blood, on the stone walls, on the white sand, blood pooling in the darkness of some random room where a person-either Arrancar, Shinigami or human-would cry out, plea to their comrades for help. No one would come. No one would hear them. Uryuu shuddered as things got more intense. He was being unceremoniously carried, more like dragged, across rubble, his stomach ripped open, his blood smearing the white stone floor, until it all turned into darkness…

Uryuu woke up with a start, eyes shot open and he sat up quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. Laying back down, Uryuu clenched his stomach and opened his mouth In a silent groan of pain. It seemed like his throat was being less cooperative in more ways than one. He heard a click and then utter silence before his mind registered who it was that had just left.

"Ichigo" Uryuu thought, or possible said because his throat began to burn more than before. Uryuu closed his eyes, allowing a moment of weakness from the hours of darkness that he couldn't seem to remember. A weakness he could now afford, since the end of the war. "Wait…It did end…" Uryuu looked at the wall he had been turned to in confusion. "So...what am I missing?"

Footsteps reach the room and Uryuu lied down, shutting his eyes. It seems as if though the person has entered his room because the Quincy can feel eyes boring into his being, scanning the room and then returning to him. It seems natural to believe that it is Ichigo, though these eyes seem more intense, more…cynical.

"Tch, idiot." And it is these cold words that Make Uryuu's heart beat faster in a sort of child-like fear. Uryuu wants to groan, wants to open his eyes and glare at this man, but it seems more and more like his body is starting to go lax. It goes against his very will, even when he shifts in the bed, temperature cooling, and groans out one single word, a name.

"Ryuuken."