Holding Cell

"I don't understand," Rangiku said to the boy in the chair, tears in her eyes. He looked at her sadly and opened her mouth.

"Look," Grimmjow said as he burst in. He had watched on the monitors for awhile before going in himself. "I know you're close to Ichimaru, but it's not an accident that he's not dead."

"He shot him twice in the chest!" Rangiku's voice broke.

"He hit him near where the shoulder connects to the arm, perfectly matched on either side. Obviously planned on, and a painful and incapacitating wound, but not fatal when he knew that Gin would have medical attention immediately."

Rangiku paused and looked back at Ichigo, who wasn't meeting her eyes.

"I used to babysit you when you were little. Can't you at least tell me why you did it?" Rangiku asked.

Ichigo just looked to the side.

"Where you just following Aizen's orders?" she pressed.

He looked up, anger in his eyes. "Follow orders from the man who ordered the death of my mother? What the hell do you think?"

"Then...why..."

Grimmjow wanted to the know the same thing. It's not like he had a personal stake in it as far as Gin was concerned, but he felt...betrayed.

"Can I talk to him alone?" Grimmjow asked the blond women. She nodded and left.

"I'm sorry it's like this," Ichigo said quietly just before she left.

Grimmjow waited until Rangiku was out of the room before slamming his fist into Ichigo's face. Ichigo groaned and fell sidewise out of his chair, not able to stop himself from slamming into the ground because of his bound hands. Men burst into the room, grabbing at Grimmjow.

"Get the hell out," Ichigo yelled. Grimmjow was surprised to note that he was yelling at the guards and not him. They all looked at him in shock. "It's fine," Ichigo said. "Just get me back up, I'm on my broken ribs and it hurts like hell."

Grimmjow felt a stab of guilt for hitting the boy, but he just hadn't been able to hold back anymore. He picked up Ichigo and set him on the chair, the only piece of furniture in the stark holding cell. The guards reluctantly left.

"I'm surprised that the department even let you in here," Ichigo said.

"I think they're hoping that I'll rough you up so that they don't have to," Grimmjow admitted.

"And are you?" Ichigo asked.

"No."

"You sure? You already have a good start," Ichigo said, his eyes far more twinkling and teasing than they should have been in such a grave situation.

"I was just angry. I'm sorry. I'll wait until you're free to wail on you the rest of the way," Grimmjow told him.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure I'll just be walking home by evening," Ichigo said.

Grimmjow sighed.

"You're so full of shit that I have no idea when you've ever told the truth," Grimmjow stated.

"I'm not a dishonest person at heart," Ichigo said quietly.

"You just like using people."

"I didn't use you. Hell, you're the one that came to me, remember?" Ichigo reminded Grimmjow. "I tried to get you the hell away from me. Like I needed that kind of complication."

"Did you...ever really like me?" Grimmjow hated to ask the question in front of all the cameras and recording equipment. He knew it made him sound weak. But he had to know.

"Didn't I say we shouldn't wait until after the raid?" Ichigo said.

"Yeah you did, but was that just subterfuge or..."

"Grimmjow, I'm sorry it's like this."

"You said that to her too," Grimmjow pointed out.

"I meant it both times."

"I'm supposed to question you."

"And you already started, starting with yourself first," Ichigo said with a small smile. "I really hope you forgive me after all of this."

"I don't know how great an 'after this' is gonna be for you," Grimmjow told him.

"Can I get a kiss?" Ichigo asked.

Grimmjow looked at the bound by, wondering what sort of trap this was.

"Really? Like there's anything I could do at this point," Ichigo laughed.

"You're pretty tricky, I wouldn't put it past you," Grimmjow replied.

"Please?"

Grimmjow sighed as he looked at Ichigo. He knew that he wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to try and convince him to tell him what the hell was going on. He just was tired of being made a fool of. But looking into Ichigo's eyes he couldn't help himself. He leaned over Ichigo's chair and kissed him, moaning slightly at impossible softness of those lips, those lips that were slightly ripped and torn from Ichigo biting them, lips that had no right to be soft and so yielding.

"Grimmjow, does it mean anything to you that I completely trust you now?" Ichigo said, his voice low against Grimmjow's neck as he held Ichigo in an embrace.

"Not enough to tell me the truth."

"If it was just the two of us here, I would tell you," Ichigo promised.

"Want to go to dinner?" Grimmjow asked.

"A date?" Ichigo laughed lightly.

"Yeah. We'll grab some Italian and then see a movie," Grimmjow said.

"Sure, why not tonight? Seems I'm free," Ichigo joked. Grimmjow sighed and buried his face into Ichigo's bright hair. "We were never going to be normal," Ichigo said.

"Yeah well maybe I thought we could at least have a chance."

"Was that before or after you framed me for hacking and got me arrested?"

"That plan was over a long time ago, Ichigo. You know that," Grimmjow protested. He straightened up and pulled away from Ichigo.

Ichigo sighed, seeing Grimmjow's face become stern and official.

"Who do you work for?" Grimmjow asked.

Ichigo said nothing.

"On who's orders did you shoot Gin Ichimaru?"

Silence.

"Are you working with Sosuke Aizen?"

"No," Ichigo said firmly.

"With counter-intelligence?"

"No," Ichigo said again.

"Are you fucking insane?" Grimmjow said, a little anger coming through.

"No," Ichigo said with a half smile.

Grimmjow knocked on the door and it opened up. He talk briefly to one of the men on the other side, who returned with a syringe.

"It won't hurt," Grimmjow said.

Hours later and there was still nothing. Ichigo hadn't been this stubborn on whatever Szayel had given him. Or had he? He had said he wasn't working for anyone then either, and he obviously was. Kisuke Urahara was missing, Nnoitra had broken into his home to be sure that the man wasn't hiding out anywhere.

Grimmjow got ready to leave. He knew that Yamamoto and the others probably expected him to use questionable means to interrogate Ichigo, but the truth was he had never been into that and he couldn't force himself to even think about using those means against Ichigo. Ichigo, who despite everything, looked up at him wide eyed with an almost innocence about him. Grimmjow wondered how he pulled it off, and why he didn't hate the kid, why he half felt like grabbing him off his chair and rushing out the door with him. Not that he'd make it far. He just wish that Ichigo would give him a reason to believe in him. Grimmjow wasn't the type to trust blindly, but Ichigo wasn't giving him a leg to stand on.

"I'll miss you," Ichigo said, with a slight slur, still under the effects of the various drugs that Grimmjow had given him to loosen him up.

"I'll be back tomorrow," Grimmjow said quietly.

"Yeah?" Nnoitra answered the phone, gasping and breathing heavily.

"Nnoitra, I just talked to..." Grimmjow paused. "Am I interrupting anything?" he said with a small laugh.

"Oh no, not interrupting at all," Nnoitra said with a deep groan.

Grimmjow's jaw fell. "What the fuck! Either stop and answer the phone or just keep going, don't do both you freak!"

He heard a slight shuffling in the background and Shiro's voice came over the phone. "Is Ichigo ok?" he asked, breathing hard himself.

"He's...not answering questions," Grimmjow said. He wasn't surprised that Shiro knew what was going on. Supposedly the whole thing was top secret but it's not like Nnoitra could keep anything from Shiro if Shiro really wanted information, and he would obviously be concerned about not being able to contact his cousin.

"You didn't do anything to him, did ya?" Shiro's voice was dangerous.

"Of course not," Grimmjow said.

"Well, ya should've at least given a good punch ta the face!" Shiro said with a little anger.

"Ah well, I did do that, but it wasn't to get questions out of him. I was just pissed."

"What's gonna happen to him?"

"I don't know. It helps that a lot of people like him, but he's not cooperating in the slightest," Grimmjow said with a deep sigh.

"Sorry I let that crazy shop keeper get away. I didn't know that I should've kept an eye on 'em," Shiro said.

"Naw, it's ok," Grimmjow said. "He probably would've just poisoned you somehow if you had been more on the ball." He paused. "Now why the hell would you let Nnoitra answer the phone while fucking you?"

"I like punishing him for it later," Shiro laughed.

Grimmjow had trouble waking up the next morning. He was glad at least that they were letting him be in charge of most of the questioning, but he knew if he didn't get any results that they'd change to someone else. They knew that they two were close and had been hoping that would make Ichigo open up to Grimmjow.

He...does like me though, Grimmjow thought to himself. At least that's one area I wasn't hoodwinked in. It was so stupid of me to have gotten so involved. This is why relationships suck. And what am I going to do when they haul him away to some god forsaken prison? No, someone with as much information as he has will never be put with other people. They'll just pass him along until someone finds out a way to break him, a way to use his information.

Ichigo you idiot...

Grimmjow got dressed slowly and headed back towards the intelligence headquarters. Ichigo was being held just down the hall from where both had been held earlier.

What a difference between then and now though, Grimmjow thought grimly. He smelled smoke and stopped, looking around him before looking up.

"Oh my god," he said out loud, seeing the smoke billow from the tall building.

Damn it, he thought, running up countless flights of stairs. The elevators had been automatically shut down. He gasped for breath by the time he got to the right floor. He looked at the biometric scanner and hoped someone had had the good sense to put his information into whatever security system they had in place. He lay his hand on the device and was happy to the see the door pop open. Inside were two guards, looking skittish. They raised their weapons at Grimmjow but were stopped by a voice at the end of the hall. It was the long haired man who ran the crime and narcotics department. Grimmjow briefly searched his memory.

"Thank you Kyoraku," Grimmjow said, remembering the man's name. "What happened?"

Shunsui didn't answer, merely turned and gestured for Grimmjow to follow. Emergency personal were running around and the air smelled acidic. Shunsui stopped in front of a door. Grimmjow swallowed nervously as he realized that it was Ichigo's door. The door swung open to reveal...nothing. There was hardly even a room anymore. Grimmjow could see the street below through the hole in the wall and took a step back. Burn marks lined the wall.

"Did he...is he ok?" Grimmjow asked.

"Who knows? He's certainly not here," Shunsui said dryly. "And...neither is Gin Ichimaru."

"What?"

"Taken by helicopters right out the side of the building," Shunsui said. "Guess we should've put them underground, but then again, we didn't really expect this. Of course the real question is, did friendlies grab them or were they nabbed by Aizen's forces...or even another country's forces."

"He...knew..." Grimmjow said. "He told me good-bye. It sounded...final."

"Well then, at least that hopefully means he's safe."

"He's your enemy," Grimmjow stated, not just for Shunsui's sake, but his own.

"Doesn't mean I want him hurt."

"Yoruichi," Director Yamamoto said into his office phone. He had stopped his pacing finally.

"Why hello! Haven't talked to you in awhile," the woman greeted him warmly. Loud machinery whirred in the background.

"Just tell me...that's he's ok."

"He's ok. He looks kind of hungry but I'll fix that."

"He's there then?" Yamamoto asked. Yoruichi didn't answer. "Where are you exactly?"

"Oh I don't know, there's lots of water underneath us though," Yoruichi replied.

Flying still then, Yamamoto thought.

"I imagine the police department might be a little upset with you," he said. "I sincerely doubt that they like being used in this fashion."

"Oh, I think it'll be alright," Yoruichi assured him.

Yamamoto sighed.

"One day I'll buy you some sake and we can go over the whole thing, 'k?" Yoruichi said. "Off the record of course."

"Until then," Yamamoto said.

"Until then," Yoruichi replied, disconnecting the line.

A/N: Next chapter: lots of explanation (finally!)