Come Back Alive to This Place – Chap. 10

A/N: I would like to thank my readers for their attention and my reviewers for generously sharing ideas, praise, critique, comments, and support. I have incorporated bits of many of your ideas into my story, and I have smiled and laughed over your reviews and become inspired to write further. Eldar-Melda, VirgilTheart, RabbidMaki, Cerice Belle, nypsy, ThePandaHat, sokkenai, Darinenelle, MM08, rootali, Gun d'ange, Embryforever, Twoformemories, glasclach, Lonewingwriter, miss quirky bookworm, Airrieal, ichihime shaz, tootsiepopgurl, Nightkill, SuperYuuki, Kelsey L Leigh, champylin, MondayRain90, emo1sk8r, Flare-Flare, After The Fire, kisagi, OtakuZEO... this means YOU. :) If I've missed you, review chapter 10 and I'll add you to the list! ;)

Oh, and Lony... you get your wish in this chapter. ;)

I would especially like to thank those of you who reviewed with constructive criticism pointing out the flaws in this story and helping me make it better. Especially, thanks to Twoformemories and glasclach for your incisive commentary. I have gone back and edited the entire story based on your very helpful suggestions.

Note (3/29/15): Twoformemories has now written a sequel to this story! Very lovely and dark. It's called Queen of Hearts. Link: fanfiction dot net/s/11140363/1/Queen-of-Hearts

Warning: Lemon in second half of chapter. Do not read if you are under 18.

(Originally posted 11/12/11.)

XxXxXxX

Epilogue

As they sailed into Seireitei Harbor, crowds lined the docks to watch the unexpected hero and savior of the country, who turned out, after all, to be their own Fifth Domain lord. In the face of the popular outcry, Ukitake had abdicated in his favor. Aizen had sent agents ahead to prime the rumor mills, to spread the word about his deeds, to pave the way for his kingship. Instead of the pirate king of Las Noches being despised as a traitor, the tales of the dashing pirate who had crushed the barbarian invaders and saved Seireitei were on everyone's lips. With his typical ruthless efficiency, Aizen had made sure he would be welcomed as a hero.

Orihime shivered a little. He had turned out to be as ruthless as his carefully constructed persona in many ways; he would stop at nothing to achieve his goals, and he had made it clear that disobedience to his rule would not be tolerated. But now that she had been made aware that his true goal had always been to save their country rather than pillage it, her own view of him had changed. She could still see that she would have to be quite active in his government as a force to plead for mercy; indeed, it was clear that it was destined to be her life's task.

However, despite his arrogance, Aizen had shown a surprising willingness to listen to her in decisions of state, and she could see that she would have a powerful role in keeping him from truly becoming the tyrant he had seen in his visions. Indeed, he had specifically told her that the most successful futures were those where, after all was said and done, she chose to ally herself with him of her own free will, even though at the time she believed him to be completely evil. He had emphasized that it was her compassion and forgiveness that were needed for the best future for Seireitei.

But she had been surprised at how many people, it seemed, were grateful for Aizen's strength, and welcomed his decrees, almost as though they had been hungry for a leader such as him. Things had fallen apart in many areas of Seireitei with the decades-long power vacuum at the top, and corruption and sloth riddled the government as well as the country's private institutions. The inevitable widespread fraud had led to much suffering, and citizens were eager for a strong hand to scrape out all the rot, perhaps with more force than was strictly necessary.

People were standing thick along the docks, and as the ship drew closer to shore she could see that they were all cheering. Aizen raised an arm in salute as he stood at the bow. With his other arm, he drew Orihime to him. She was still wearing her wedding dress, and the cheering intensified as they sailed by, as people spotted the two of them in their matrimonial finery. The ship continued its slow progression toward the Seireitei docks, all the people welcoming their new King and Queen.

Gin came up behind them, grinning as usual. "Ne, Aizen-taichou, Inoue-dono, ya two make a fine royal couple. Ya look good t'gether, y'know?" He scrutinized the crowds on the docks. "Ev'rythin's been taken care of as ya ordered, sir," he said to Aizen, who nodded.

Behind him, Orihime's Aunt Rangiku, who had rushed out to the ship to be her maid of honor in the hurriedly arranged wedding, grinned almost as widely as the silver-haired man with whom she had recently struck up an unexpected friendship.

Aizen's arm, curled firmly about Orihime's waist, tightened as a renewed swell of cheering greeted them as they approached their docking slip. She relaxed into the support of his arm as she smiled and waved back to the crowd, feeling anew the strength and energy of his grasp and knowing she was utterly loved and protected.

XxXxXxX

Aizen sighed, leaning back in the richly brocaded armchair, twirling the glass of ruby wine in his long fingers so it glinted in the firelight. "Ah, I almost cannot believe that everything I have planned has come to fruition," he said quietly. He glanced over at Orihime, sitting in another armchair across from him in their grand private quarters in Seireitei Palace. "It took quite a bit of elaborate planning."

"How hard could it have been," asked Orihime somewhat acerbically, "when you had a prophetic jewel telling you exactly what the future held?"

Aizen smiled. "It's not quite as easy as it looks, my dear. There were many factors which had to be balanced, and there is always the chance, especially on these low probability paths, of a chance event derailing everything." He glanced at her and his expression darkened in memory. "For example, the events surrounding your abduction had to be perfectly timed and executed." His lips curled slightly as he regarded her. "In almost all of the timelines, Lord Ichigo attacked us and was able to rescue you. Those timelines all led to disaster."

Her eyes turned to his. "Disaster?" There was a faint hint of suspicion in her voice.

"Yes," he said softly. "The more I searched the threads, the more I found difficulties. After seeing you appear in the timelines, I focused more on your future during my sessions with the Hougyoku. And it turned out that in almost every one of your future threads, you ended up married to Ichigo Kurosaki."

She stared at him, wide-eyed.

"I expected that, because you were handfasted to him, after all." He stood up and paced to the far end of the room, then turned slowly and faced her again. "But what I did not expect was how happy you two were." A shadow passed over his face. "He was kind to you, despite the past rumors of his violent personality, and the two of you loved each other. You seemed to have a special bond. I could see the bond already forming with that one visit you two had on my vessel that day." He frowned.

"However," he said, his face becoming stern, "there was a problem with all the threads where you two ended up together—and it was not merely my jealousy." A brief smile twisted his lips only to disappear as his eyes darkened. "In every single one of them, Seireitei was destroyed—and both of you were killed in the battles. He was resolved to defend his country whatever the cost, and you accompanied him to the battlefield to tend the wounded." He regarded her, his face grave. "There was not a single thread in which you lived to celebrate your one-year anniversary."

Orihime swallowed. Her hands, which had become cold, clutched one another in her lap.

Aizen sighed. "I was not surprised that someone as good-hearted and pure as you would end up with someone equally good-hearted." He gazed off into the distance. "He is, indeed, probably a better match for you than someone like me." He gave her a dark smile. "Let's face it, my ethics leave much to be desired, and I am willing to do anything to accomplish my goals."

Orihime dropped her eyes.

"Nevertheless," he said softly as he took one of her hands in his and began gently warming it, "I am inordinately pleased that in this lifetime and this universe, it appears to be best for everyone if you and I are together."

Orihime sat up and looked at him, her eyes wide with curiosity. "So how did you make it come out this way, if it was such a low-probability path?"

There was deep satisfaction in his smirk. "I studied those timelines for weeks, searching for the most favorable outcome, examining them over and over again, planning for every contingency." He reached for his glass of wine, took a sip and gazed at her over the rim of the glass, eyes narrowed slightly with amusement. "It turned out that it all depended on whether you were pregnant at the time of Kurosaki's arrival."

Orihime stared at him in disbelief. "You planned that too?"

"Yes. You had to be pregnant, and know you were pregnant, by the time he arrived. Only in those timelines did you agree to my demands." His gaze was dark. "The most effective means to cause you to behave in accordance with my wishes was to threaten the lives of your maidservant and family. That threat was effective at all times except during Kurosaki's visit." Orihime stiffened, thinking once again of the terror she had felt at his threats. She frowned, but Aizen was no longer looking at her. He was gazing into the fire, his face neutral. "Apparently, you felt such a connection to him that you would even risk the death of your family members in order to escape with him, unless you were already pregnant."

Orihime glared at him. "Were you really going to kill my family if I disobeyed you?"

"Of course not." His voice was mild. "As I have told you before, I find it much more effective to use threats of violence rather than the violence itself to obtain my goals."

"Still," she said, angry now, "you could have used a method other than threats with me."

"Indeed," he said. He leaned back and studied her face, his expression calm. "There were many options where I approached you… in a more gentlemanly manner." His gaze was measured. "However, in all of them, you refused me." One corner of his mouth curled up. "That confounded honor of yours, you know. Even in the timelines where I revealed the nature of the Hougyoku to you and explained the consequences, you still stubbornly insisted on going through with your marriage to Kurosaki." A slight frown creased his brow. "You were quite tiresome."

He brought her hand to his lips with a sigh, gazing over their joined hands at her with his dark, intense eyes. She met his eyes, her ire evaporating.

"Sousuke," she said, pressing his hand, "please do not worry. Yes, perhaps, if I had known Ichigo Kurosaki longer, I might have grown to feel love for him. I do feel that he is a special person. Perhaps in another lifetime, the two of us might be destined to be together. But Sousuke… in this lifetime, here and now, I don't feel the spark for him that I feel for you." She looked down at their intertwined fingers, then met his eyes with a sudden grin. "There's something about you that is endlessly appealing to me, despite your… character flaws. And I feel the two of us fit together, like light and dark, like pepper and salt; we fit so well perhaps because we are so different." She looked up at him and he was grinning back at her, mischief and affection lighting his eyes.

"It's fortunate, then, that we are so different, Orihime," he said. Then a teasing glint entered his eyes. "And it's a good thing I settled upon the option of coercion early on." His lips quirked in a smile again. "It turned out to be more… enjoyable… for both of us." He leaned forward, his eyes now dancing with wickedness.

"As a matter of fact, on that subject…" He set the glass of wine down on an end table and rose, coming to her and gracefully straddling her in the chair. His lips brushed hers, and then he leaned forward to take her mouth in a demanding kiss, pressing his lips into hers, his tongue insistent. She yielded to him, and felt his smile at her submission to his desires. His eyes dancing, he reached for her and brazenly slipped both hands under the bodice of her dress and stroked her breasts. She gasped as the remnants of her outrage resurfaced for a moment with her shock. "Sousuke! Shouldn't we be in bed for this? What if the servants come in?"

He chuckled as he bent his head to her throat and began licking the skin along the neckline of her gown. "Who cares?" he murmured as his lips vibrated against the skin of her throat. Then he drew back, regarding her in silence for a few seconds, his eyes narrowed in speculation.

Then, with one powerful movement, he ripped the fabric of her dress, exposing her stays. He laughed. "I've always wanted to do that. And now that I'm a king as well as a pirate, I can do whatever I please."

Orihime gave him a sardonic glance. "Nothing has ever stopped you from doing whatever you please."

"Of course, my dear; it so frequently happens that doing whatever I want leads to the best outcomes... for everybody," he said with calm satisfaction as he unlaced her corset and dropped it on the floor, leaning into her in the armchair, taking her full breasts in his hands. "I'm going to take you right here, in our audience chamber, the servants be damned." His huge eyes were focused on hers from only inches away, and once again she felt the almost hypnotic power of his will. Why did it feel so… intensely pleasurable to submit to his every whim? She shivered under his hands, this time with delight. She had never imagined feeling so absolutely cared-for, so unreservedly protected, as though she were a small but precious jewel cupped in the palm of one of his powerful hands. It was unbelievably erotic.

He drew off her shoes and curled his fingers around her stockings, sliding them down her legs and tracing patterns with those long elegant fingers along the bare skin of her inner thighs. As his hands roamed under what remained of her dress and his mouth met hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth, she closed her eyes and felt the last shreds of her anger dissipate. He was setting her body on fire, once again, that incredible sensation of physical passion taking over her body and mind, until she felt utterly overwhelmed by him, until she wanted nothing other than to share pleasure with him.

He drew back from her for a moment, and gazed at her with his dark, soulful eyes ringed with thick lashes. The tip of his long tongue appeared at the corner of his mouth and she felt her own mouth open in response, every part of her body willingly baring itself to him. A faint smile emerged on his face, and a devilish spark glinted in his eyes.

"On second thought," he said, "I've changed my mind."

She opened her eyes fully, staring at him in surprise.

He picked her up easily in his lean, muscular arms and cradled her half-naked body to his chest, her bare feet dangling over one arm. He walked rapidly toward the far end of the audience chamber, going not to the door to their private quarters, but to the door that led to the throne room.

"Where are you going, Sousuke? Did you want to go to bed after all?" she asked, puzzled.

His only response was a dark chuckle. Then he kicked open the broad, heavily carved wooden door to the throne room. The vast, high-ceilinged room was empty, the many tall windows reflecting back the lamps flaring in their wall sconces at regular intervals along the wall. Silk strands on the tapestries lining the walls gleamed in the low light.

He mounted the wide, shallow steps that led to the dais holding the oversized throne and seated himself on the velvet cushion, Orihime pinned on his lap. His lips were curled in a lascivious smirk, his eyes dark with lust and mischief. Orihime struggled to sit up, her breasts hanging free in the cool air, the torn remnants of her dress trailing along the rich, soft velvet.

"Sousuke!" she cried softly, her voice echoing in the large room, embarrassment at her nudity in a public space sharpening her voice. "Whatever are you doing?"

He only smiled and lifted her body, arranging her so she straddled him, half-naked, on the throne. "This is something else I've always wanted to do," he whispered, indulging in a flurry of feathery kisses along her throat. She gasped as her sensitive skin sparked in response to his lips and tongue, and tingles shot through her entire body. He pulled her body to his and bucked his hips forward into her; she could feel his erection pressing hard against her legs, straining at his clothing. She felt both scandalized and suddenly wet in her core and ravenous with desire, the conflicting feelings driving her mad with confusion.

A little shocked and flustered but still unbelievably aroused, she gasped. "You can't seriously expect us to…" she protested. "Not here, not on King Yamamoto's throne… mmph, mmmph—" Her voice was muffled as his mouth descended on hers again.

When he came up for air, her eyes were wide as they fastened on his face once more. He had never appeared so beautiful, his pale skin flushed, his eyes demanding but hazed with lust, his hair tousled with the single curl still falling between his eyes, the perfection of his features enhanced by the bloom of arousal on his face. She sighed. She could never resist him when he was like this, as puissant and unrelenting as a force of nature.

"It's not Yamamoto's throne any more," he pointed out. "It's mine— ours." He wrapped his arms around her fiercely. "It's time to christen it," he murmured with another devilish smirk.

"What?" she asked, half-laughing and half-frowning, shaking her head and trying once again to push herself away from him. With careless strength, he held her against him, her breasts pressing against his chest as his hand pinned her hips and his fingers slid under her torn clothing. "Sousuke, I'm a total mess here… what are you doing?" She could not help herself, giggling helplessly as his hands cupped and lifted her large, soft breasts and his fingertips stroked fire on her bare skin. "No, I don't think we're supposed to…"

He bent a very dark glance on her. "What's the point of having absolute power if we can't do whatever we want?" His eyes were half-lidded now as he rubbed himself against her, then began unbuttoning his own clothes, opening the brocaded, royal blue fabric of his robe. He laughed deep in his throat. His erection brushed against the shreds of her dress and the skin of her torso, trailing milky liquid over the gentle swell of her belly, across the soft flesh of her thighs, teasing the reddish hair between her legs.

She tried one last time. "But what if someone comes in while we're…" And then she was blushing and laughing as with one powerful motion, he had pulled the last folds of fabric from around her hips, removing the remnants of her dress in a single movement. She half-fell on top of him, naked on the huge throne, helpless in the grip of his arms, unable to stop herself from smiling even as she felt a blush creeping over the skin of her face.

His lips brushed her ear. "Why should you or I have to worry about what anyone else thinks now?" He began licking and nipping at the shell of her ear as she writhed on his lap, throwing her head back, no longer able to mount even a feeble resistance to him. He breathed onto her neck, whispering, "You know they would be too afraid of me to say anything…"

Her fingers tangled in his thick brown hair as his lips surrounded the nipple of one breast, opening wide to suck and torment her with his tongue. At the same time, his fingers found her inner core between her legs and slipped inside. She moaned, no longer caring that the sound echoed all around the vast, empty throne room.

After bringing her to the brink of need, he removed his fingers, his eyes dark and teasing. "Noooo," she whimpered, and he laughed. He aligned himself with her entrance and slid inside easily, she was so slick, so suffused with desire, so helpless with longing for him. She clutched at his smooth, cool, well-muscled back and moaned again. She would do anything for this man, she realized as he filled her and her body wrapped around him and was wracked with waves of concentrated pleasure. She loved him, wanted him, yearned for him; there was something about the careless power in his every movement that unraveled her will and her resistance; she felt deliciously weak in his hands and yet so utterly safe at last, knowing he loved her and would protect and treasure her beyond all reason or hope.

As he moved within and against her, the friction ignited heavy flashes of pleasure that lengthened and intensified as his thrusts increased in vigor and speed. She panted, her fingernails digging into the hard muscles of his back, the unbearable ecstasy of his penetration deep into her innermost core taking her breath away, slamming her hard against the carved marble armrests of the high throne, but she no longer could feel anything but him, the intensity of her passion overwhelming her, her body flaring like a torch lit by the fire of his body, and then she was screaming as he took her over the edge, screaming with the incredible thrill that possessed her body and mind and burned her white as though struck by lightning. And at the same time he gasped and stiffened and threw his head back, his eyes closed in ecstasy, his beautiful throat bared to her, and she felt his seed shoot into her core like a flare, filling her, warming her, taking her.

She sighed as his body at last relaxed and they lay together, limp, on the velvet cushion, panting together for a long moment, his fingers gently running through her hair, their heartbeats gradually slowing.

"Ah, Orihime," he murmured in between covering her face with soft, slow kisses. "You are so beautiful, so all-encompassing to me. If I could only truly express how much I love you, it would overflow this room and flood all of Seireitei."

Her arms tightened around his warm body. "Oh, Sousuke, you are everything to me," she whispered. "Sousuke… I love you."

They lay together on the ancient throne of the kings of Seireitei, there in the beautiful and richly decorated chamber, the echoes of their sighs and moans fading to a memory, their breaths deepening and slowing. And Orihime knew in her inmost heart that they completed each other, that they were destined for each other in this lifetime, and that their love, and their children, would hold back the darkness for a very long time.

~THE END~

A/N: Please leave a review and let me know what you thought of this story! I welcome constructive criticism, random thoughts, or even, of course, praise. :D

Anyone want a sequel?