Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of the characters/settings therein. I'm not making any money at all on this, and have no intentions of making money on it. Please don't get lawsuit happy.

Mini-Summary: 14: The stunning conclusion of Grimmjow and Ulquiorra's harrowing trip through Karakura, including the horrors of the clinic, some ice cream, and a cameo appearance from Ishida! What does Ulquiorra have? Will Grimmjow learn about the cupcake? And what's this about their gigais?

Note: Sorry for the sucky new title. They won't let me make it long enough to do what I wanted, and it's got to at least be recognizable as the same story. And wow, this is the longest chapter I've written for any of my fics here. But I really wanted to squeeze it into a third part and not a fourth. Don't expect similar lengths in the future, unless the spacing works out like this again.

New Note: Made a change to the cab scene.

Grimmjow and Ulquiorra's Excellent Adventure, Part Three

Grimmjow had almost managed to convince himself that he was dreaming the entire day's events, and that the occasional jostle from the cab rounding a bend or hitting a fucking hole in the shitty human-built street was that lying bastard Szayel trying to wake him up for more "good for you" medicine... when the movements suddenly stopped. Confused, he cracked open an eye and saw that he'd been wrong about the dream.

"Well," the cab driver was saying, fiddling again with that meter box in his passenger seat, "that's about it for me today. I went off duty thirty-four minutes ago, and we're here." He looked in the rearview mirror. "At the clinic," he clarified unnecessarily, "for your appointment with a doctor at one o'clock."

Grimmjow resisted the urge to leap forward over the seatback and strangle the man for his condescending little speech. As the day'd gone on, the cab driver had become more and more like Aizen and Szayel all rolled into one irritating human shape. "I got it," he growled. He reached over and gave Ulquiorra a poke in the ribs. "Oi. We're here."

Ulquiorra didn't respond other than to groan softly and mash his cheek harder against the window. Grimmjow wasn't sure how Ulquiorra had managed to get so soundly asleep in a position as uncomfortable as that, especially given the angle of his neck and the frequency of these so-called "pot holes." Still, asleep or not, this was the main reason they'd gone through all the other hell, and Ulquiorra wasn't ditching.

The cab driver cleared his throat, and Grimmjow looked up at him, entertaining the notion that the man would come down with a brutal case of whatever the hell Ulquiorra had. "What now?"

The man looked vaguely smug about something. "You two going to make it on your own?"

"Bwuh?" Why would they need backup? Was there something even nastier in the clinic than all those sick children from last time?

The cab driver handed him a piece of paper. "I'm going off duty. You'll have to call another cab after your appointment. Total's 27,669 yen."

Grimmjow tried to remember what the total had been for the woman's meal, and could only recall that it was a minuscule amount compared to this cab fare. Still, Ulquiorra had counted the money back in the store. If the Cuarta said they had enough, they had enough. He might not like Ulquiorra, but he did trust his judgment there.

He handed about two thirds of the wad of bills over the seat to the man and set himself again to waking up Ulquiorra. "Come on, already, 'Cory.' It's time to see the doctor." Grimmjow jabbed his finger back into Ulquiorra's ribs, harder than before.

"Your change."

Grimmjow looked up, distracted. What was this about change now? He was fine. Didn't need to change a damn thing, unless it meant Ulquiorra would start cooperating and wake his pasty ass up. He couldn't be one hundred percent positive, but he was pretty sure he hadn't been this pathetic when he was sick. The cab driver was looking at him expectantly, holding out a few bills from the wad he'd been handed. Grimmjow took the money and stuffed it in his pocket with the rest. "Uh, thanks."

Finally getting too impatient to try irritating the Cuarta awake, Grimmjow slipped an arm through the handles of their shopping bag, grabbed the package he'd nearly died retrieving, and got out of the car. He walked around to the other side and had to bite back a laugh at the sight of Ulquiorra's face pressed into the window. He jerked open the door and pulled Ulquiorra to his feet by a grip on the other arrancar's collar before he could tumble half-asleep onto the street. "Come on," he muttered. "You can sleep later."

"I'm awake, I'm awake," Ulquiorra rasped groggily, reaching up to push at Grimmjow's hands as he started waking up. He coughed. "Let go."

Grimmjow complied, keeping an arm around Ulquiorra's shoulder to steady him as the cab drove off. The Cuarta felt warmer than was normal. Maybe warm enough to qualify for a fever, though Grimmjow wasn't sure how warm Ulquiorra'd have to be for that. It was close enough contact just keeping Ulquiorra upright, and he didn't relish the thought of smushing a hand against his face like Szayel had him. If Ulquiorra was actually running a fever, the doctor would say something.

To his surprise, instead of handing him a clipboard with loads of paperwork on it and telling him to go sit down and fill it in, the woman at the desk nodded at him with a smile. "Cory Shipper?" she asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

"He is," Grimmjow said, pointing. "I'm Jack. Where's the paperwork?"

"I have it here all filled out from when you came by earlier, sir." She wiggled the clipboard briefly before smiling again. "You can go on back. Exam room 12..."

Grimmjow blinked, not sure he had heard right. When the cab driver had dropped them off here that morning to make an appointment, he'd filled out tons of paperwork. It had given him a headache. And now they were telling him he didn't have to do it a second time? Either things were really starting to look up or something dreadful was coming down the chute to make up for this ray of sunshine.

"...a touch early," the receptionist was saying in that bouncy manner that made him want ruin her day, "but the room's open, so you can wait there. Doctor'll see you shortly!"

"'Kay." He steered Ulquiorra in that direction, both thankful that he didn't have to hear kids barfing in the main waiting room and worried about what was going to go wrong as revenge for this blessing. Maybe he'd be thanked for something. He could stand that sort of drawback if it meant he wouldn't be threatened by needles or some shit like that.

Just as with the post office building, the exam room was cold. Really, really cold. Either that, or Ulquiorra was running enough of a fever to be shaking in his seat. For his part, Grimmjow didn't care which was the case. He was too busy being glad it wasn't him getting all the attention this time. Ulquiorra had been none too happy about the blood pressure cuff, or about being stood up on a scale and weighed like livestock. And while seeing the great and mighty Cuarta Espada squirm when the nurse shoved a little pointy thermometer in his ear was entertaining, even that had paled in comparison to the vast expanse of unexplainable stuff crammed into this tiny room.

And so now, instead of mocking Ulquiorra, he was busy channeling curiosity about Aizen's forbidden box onto a safer, more easily accessible set of objects. Having finished with a glossy poster featuring several horrible things that could go wrong with the inside of an ear--which poster was possibly the cause of Ulquiorra's discomfort when having his temperature taken--Grimmjow moved on to the next item to catch his eyes: a glass jar with what looked like cotton swabs inside it. He'd never seen cotton swabs this big. The things were huge. He took one out and laid it out on his palm. Longer than his hand, and way too big to fit in an ear. He didn't even want to know where this was supposed to go.

There was a crinkling of cough drops being removed from a pocket and unwrapped, and an irritated sigh. "Don't break anything, Grimmjow."

Grimmjow ignored him, now chewing on an oversized popsicle stick. These at least, he knew about. He'd had one rammed down his throat last time he was here, and he seemed to recall a spoon being shoved in his mouth before that. At a meeting, or something. It was kind of a blur. Despite his bad history with them, the slab of wood was fun to gnaw on, and he bet it would be even more fun to tap it on a table in Ulquiorra's otherwise deathly quiet room. He stuck an extra one in his pocket for later.

Next, he reached into a little cardboard box and pulled out a wrinkled plastic glove. It wasn't as thick as Szayel's lab gloves had been, nor as long. In fact, it was downright tiny. He gave it a pull and was intrigued by the way it stretched and the faint noise it made when it shrank again. He tried it on, tugging at it to get his fingers all the way to the tips of the glove. Given how on edge Ulquiorra had been since arriving at the clinic, Grimmjow imagined he could have some fun with this. He smiled and grabbed the cuff of the glove, stretching it as far as it would go before releasing it with a loud *snap!*

Ulquiorra jumped clear out of the chair at the sound, and settled back down audibly grinding his teeth. "Would you just sit down already?"

Grimmjow laughed and spit the splintering popsicle stick into the trash where he'd tossed the cotton swab. The glove followed it into the can as he continued to make his way around the room. This place was actually kind of fun when you weren't too sick to appreciate it. It was too bad Ulquiorra was preoccupied with feeling miserable and worrying about what kinds of horrors awaited him when the human version of Szayel finally showed up. Grimmjow had so far refrained from telling him that this doctor wasn't so bad. It was just too much fun to watch this way.

And his wandering around the tiny, frigid room seemed to be adding to Ulquiorra's anxiety in a very entertaining manner. Grimmjow wondered what it would take to elicit an actual, physical reprimand from Ulquiorra. He'd managed it earlier just mentioning the cupcake thing, but Ulquiorra's energy levels had plummeted since then. He decided to save the cabinets for last and paused in front of a little plastic box mounted on the wall. He recognized the symbol on it from poking around Szayel's lab as a Privaron Espada, but had never asked about it then, just in case Szayel had decided to demonstrate the answer. He'd always had a suspicion about the meaning anyway.

Forcing that month out of his mind entirely, he traced the symbol with his finger before flipping the lid up. It was too high to see over the top and he didn't feel like jumping, so he settled for further irritating Ulquiorra by asking about the word printed below the symbol. "Hey, Ulquiorra, what's 'biohazardous' mean?"

"It means don't touch it." Ulquiorra wrestled himself out of the chair again and crossed the small room to plant a death grip on Grimmjow's forearm. "Sit back down," he said, increasing the pressure until he was sure it would leave a bruise, "and leave the doctor's things alone!"

"Ow!" Surprised at his sudden success in provoking a response, Grimmjow let the lid fall shut again and held his free hand up away from the box, wincing. "Okay, okay!" Once released, he rubbed his arm to restore blood flow. "Sheesh. You could have shown this sort of energy when we first got out of the store instead of curling up like a little human brat in the cab and sleeping against the window. Bet the whole of Karakura saw your drooling face pressed up against that glass. Hope they took pictures."

"I was not drooling," Ulquiorra whispered venomously, his voice almost entirely used up by his earlier volume, but still holding a promise of violence.

Despite the fact that Ulquiorra was right and that his hand had now returned to its stranglehold on Grimmjow's already-throbbing arm, Grimmjow smirked. It had taken him nearly an hour in this waiting room to get Ulquiorra this riled up, and he wasn't about to let it go now. "Yeah you were," he lied.

He wrapped his free hand around Ulquiorra's wrist and tried without success to pry the other arrancar off his arm. "It was probably all that dreaming about cupcakes that did it." Ulquiorra's grip tightened and Grimmjow increased his own efforts with a pained scowl, wondering idly how much clenching strength their gigais afforded them. It would suck to leave the clinic in a splint if he prodded Ulquiorra too far. "You know the ones," he continued, unable to back down. "With those pretty sprinkles that match your ey-owowow!" he yowled, folding over his captured arm and smacking at Ulquiorra with the other. "Are you trying to break it?!"

"Yes."

The door to the exam room swung open while they were still grappling with each other, and a slender man in a lab coat walked in, his attention on the clipboard he was holding. "And how are we doing today?"

They froze for a moment, and then whipped their arms back to their sides a half second before the doctor looked up at them.

When Ulquiorra remained silent, Grimmjow started feeling his arm for fractures. Either the gigais weren't equipped for bone-crushing grips, or Ulquiorra was lying about his intentions. Whichever was the case, he was glad nothing was broken. "How are we doing today?" he repeated under his breath. "Well we're here, aren't we? How do you think we're doing?"

The doctor chuckled, and then set the clipboard on the counter Grimmjow had just been exploring. "I'm glad to see you feeling so energetic, Grimm-san."

Grimmjow scowled, remembering the stairs. "I'm energetic? That's news to me."

"Well, considering the last I saw of you, you were in pretty bad shape..." The doctor patted the examining table. "Hop up so I can listen to your lungs."

"I'm not sick anymore." Grimmjow folded his arms over his chest and stayed put. He wasn't interested in having cold metal shoved under his shirt today. "I don't have to sit on your paper tablecloth or have you--"

"Do it." Ulquiorra grabbed a fold of skin at the back of his arm and tightened his fingers in a hold that didn't hurt yet but threatened to start hurting a lot if Grimmjow didn't obey. "Now."

Grimmjow jerked his arm away and clambered up on the table with a growl. For this, he would dedicate the remaining time in quarantine to discovering the truth behind the cupcake Ulquiorra was so desperate that he not know about, and then he'd tell fucking Nnoitra all about it. That would do the trick. He wasn't sure who had the bigger mouth, Nnoitra or Tesla, but between the two of them, all of Las Noches would know within a day. If it was a good enough story, it would be everywhere within a few hours. The only way to spread something quicker was to tell Lilinette.

"Okay, Grimm-san. You know the drill. Deep breath." The icy cold pad of the stethoscope moved a few inches. "Again." A pause, followed by more shifting of cold spots. "And once more." The doctor moved round to the front. "Last time. Good." The icy pad withdrew. "You sound wonderful. Now remember," the doctor continued as Grimmjow scrambled off the table with a glare at Ulquiorra. "Plenty of fluids, and lots of rest. If you overdo it, you'll risk a relapse."

Grimmjow frowned. "Is ten flights of stairs overdoing it?"

The doctor's cheerful expression flickered off momentarily before coming back full force. "Yes. I'd say so. That's what elevators are for."

"Oh." Grimmjow looked around the room to avoid either of the sets of eyes casting incredulous stares at him. "Well I, uh, won't do it again." Not the stairs or the elevator. One put him at risk for more of that god-awful medicine and the constant presence of Szayel, and the other would probably give him nightmares.

"I should hope not," Ulquiorra muttered. "All we need is for you fall ill again."

The doctor sighed. "Well," he said, looking at Ulquiorra now. "You would be the cousin, Shipper-san, I presume."

"Yeah," Grimmjow interjected. "He's sick as a dog, and probably needs a shot. Or three. Maybe one in his a--"

Ulquiorra cleared his throat and sent an elbow into Grimmjow's ribcage. "I'm here because of a sore throat that makes it hard to swallow," he rasped. "And coughing."

The doctor verified the symptoms as matching what Ulquiorra had told the nurse. "Ah, well let's get you up on the table, then, and I'll take a look." Once Ulquiorra was settled--and looking decidedly nervous Grimmjow noticed gleefully--the man approached him with light and a tongue depressor. "M-hm," he mumbled, turning the light in a few different directions. "Fever, difficulty swallowing, sore throat with occasional cough... and those tonsils. That's strep, all right." He stood up straight and threw the tongue depressor in the trash before making a few notes on the clipboard. After sliding his pen into the pocket of his lab coat, the doctor withdrew a cotton swab from the canister. "I'll take a culture for the labs, just to be sure."

"Labs? A culture?" Ulquiorra asked, his eyes fixed on the offending cotton swab while his mind fixed on Szayel and every disaster that could come of the Octava having a piece of him to study in that lab.

The doctor paused. "It's a very simple procedure," he reassured. "It doesn't hurt a bit. In fact, it rather tickles." He smiled. "Open your mouth, please." When Ulquiorra reluctantly complied, the doctor twirled the end of the cotton swab all along the back of his throat, prompting a coughing fit and the throat-clutching that had become Ulquiorra's primary reflex as the day wore on.

"That'll be all for that. Are there any other symptoms, Shipper-san?" The doctor slid the swab into a plastic bag drawn out of one of the drawers. "Strep is sometimes accompanied by other ailments, and additional symptoms might give us a leg up in finding something."

Ulquiorra glanced at some of the other tools, sharp metal ones, in the drawer and at the biohazard bin, spent a second calculating, and then shook his head. "That's all. The throat. The coughing."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Grimmjow contradicted. "You've got all the energy of slug today. I've had to drag you everywhere just so you wouldn't fall over."

"Oh?" The doctor looked intrigued, and Grimmjow almost regretted saying anything. "Are you experiencing any unusual exhaustion, Shipper-san?" He placed his hands underneath Ulquiorra's jaw and frowned. "Any nausea?"

"Is that serious?" Ulquiorra asked, avoiding the question.

There was a pause as the doctor interpreted Ulquiorra's reaction and then took the pen back out of his pocket to make another notation on the clipboard. "I'll order some blood work as well. Sit still a moment. A nurse will be right in to do that." The doctor left the room, clipboard and cotton swab in hand.

"Blood work, huh?" Grimmjow was terribly glad he was on the other side of the room from Ulquiorra and therefore safe from any retaliation. He didn't know what all this "blood work" entailed, but he was sure Ulquiorra wouldn't be pleased. Ulquiorra hadn't like the blood pressure cuff, after all, and this was probably something similar. He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "That sounds fun."

Ulquiorra leveled a miserable glare at him.

"For the record," Grimmjow said, "I didn't mean to do that." He fidgeted in the seat and wondered if an actual apology was in order. Nah. Apologies weren't his style, no matter how responsible he was for this "blood work" stuff being suggested. "But you know it couldn't hurt, right? A little squeeze on the arm. To see if there's something else. Szayel would probably say it was..." Grimmjow let his sentence trail off, not needing Ulquiorra's exhausted shudder to realize it was not the phrase to mention at the moment. Maybe it was time to remind him how nice this doctor was compared to Szayel.

Thankfully--in his mind at least--the nurse from before returned, wearing gloves, before he could dig himself any deeper. "All right, sir," she said with a beaming smile, "we're going to draw a few vials for analysis. We'll be done in a minute or two if you've got good veins." She wheeled in a low, rolling table set with five thumb-sized plastic containers and a syringe attached to a thin tube.

"Oh, shit, that's a needle." Grimmjow scrambled out of his chair to increase the distance as much as possible without leaving the room. For some reason, probably a combination of guilt and pity, he didn't take off for the street at a dead run. "I was kidding about the shots," he mumbled. "Really. He doesn't need 'em. He's fine. Totally energetic. Not at all like a slug. He was doing cartwheels in here before you came in."

The nurse looked at him, practically oozing concern. "Do you need to wait outside while I draw the blood, sir?" she asked, her brow furrowed.

Grimmjow took a deep breath. "Yes," he said with a nod, moving toward the door and thankful for the permission to abandon wide-eyed Ulquiorra to his fate. "Yes, I do."

"No, he doesn't," Ulquiorra argued, his voice trembling slightly. He sounded almost desperate.

Grimmjow froze, his hand still stretched out toward the door handle. He willed himself to open the door and wait outside. Nothing happened. Damn this stupid compassion shit. He wanted out of here, away from the needle. Anything that gave the apathetic Cuarta the shivers was something he wanted nothing to do with. He set to work convincing himself that it was more a sign of bravery than sympathy to stay put and watch this needle business take place. It wasn't like this was Szayel, after all. Hell, it would probably be over before it started. After a long moment, his hand fell back to his side.

"On second thought," he lied, "I'll be fine right here." He lowered himself stiffly into the chair and began reassuring himself that the needle had Ulquiorra's name on it and not his.

The nurse continued to watch him. "Lots of people are squeamish around needles, sir. It's okay if you want to leave the room for a few minutes." When he gritted his teeth and remained seated, she shrugged. "You're sure?"

"He's sure," Ulquiorra rasped, eyeing the syringe and breathing more shallowly than usual.

"Well, then, sir, hold out your arm, please." When there was no movement, the nurse smiled. "Don't like needles much, either, I see. Think of it as a mosquito bite," she soothed, rubbing a cotton ball of antiseptic over Ulquiorra's skin, "only without the itchy bump later." She tied a little rubber strip around Ulquiorra's upper arm and tapped her fingers on the crook of his elbow. "Very nice veins," she complimented, patting his arm as though he was a skittish pet in need of comfort.

Ulquiorra shifted uncomfortably on the table, the paper cover crinkling as he moved. "What do you do with the blood when you're done? Do you store it somewhere to experiment on later?"

She looked up from where the needle hovered over Ulquiorra's arm, scandalized. "Experiment? Like in a horror movie?" The nurse paused, as though imagining what would prompt that line of inquiry. "Of course not! We have it incinerated. Now hold still, please, sir. If you keep shaking like this, I'll miss the vein and have to stick you again."

Grimmjow watched from his considerably safer seat while Ulquiorra clenched his teeth and eyed the ceiling. He tried not to be nauseous as one little plastic tube after another filled up with red. It wasn't that he was afraid of needles, really. Because he wasn't. Really. It was just that certain of the medicine's side effects were still in place. Grimmjow had badgered Stark into listing off the side effects once while Szayel was busy planning the next stage of his side project, and while it sucked that there was still some anxiety, it at least gave him a good reason to be less than comfortable around needles.

"You need to breathe, sir," the nurse was saying. "If you don't, you'll pass out."

He wasn't sure what Ulquiorra's excuse was. This little syringe wasn't nearly as monstrous as the one Szayel had threatened him with last night. And a little prick in the arm was nothing compared to the thought of being stabbed in the throat with one. Grimmjow rubbed his own arm nervously. He'd rather cut himself open and bleed into a bowl than sit on that table and have it sucked out of him, and he got the feeling Ulquiorra would agree.

"There we are," the nurse said, holding a new cotton ball to the inside of Ulquiorra's elbow and wrapping a strip of blue tape around his arm. "You did very well, sir," she praised, patting his shoulder. She got up and tossed the used needle and her discarded gloves into the biohazard box on the wall before opening the door. "Go ahead and rest here while we run the tests, okay? And remember to take nice, slow breaths. Shouldn't be long at all."

The door closed behind her and Grimmjow looked over at Ulquiorra, who had his head tilted back and his eyes unfocused as he swayed slightly. "I... don't... feel well," he murmured.

"'Course you don't. You just got your shoulder petted like you were some kind of kid." Grimmjow got up and cautiously examined the biohazard box where he knew at least one syringe was lying in wait. He'd almost had his hands in there! "That, and you're here, remember? And for good reason if the doctor needed someone to jab a needle in your arm to find out what was wrong. Could you imagine if Szayel decided to do that?" There was no response, and he glanced over in time to see Ulquiorra slide sideways right off the table.

It took him a split second to process the situation, and by the time he had, he'd already grabbed Ulquiorra's shoulders to keep his head from hitting the floor. Grimmjow crouched there, weighing his options. His first instinct on seeing an enemy fall over for no reason was to finish that enemy off and then gloat. Clearly, that was not the thing to do in this situation. But he didn't have any idea what one did with a suddenly fallen ally, and if he was going to be honest with himself, Ulquiorra fit more readily into the second category.

After a moment, he set Ulquiorra down flat and thought about trying to find the doctor again. Or the scarily perky nurse. But no, Ulquiorra was breathing without a problem, and that meant he should be fine in a minute. Szayel was weird, and creepy, and just a little bit terrifying if he had the right equipment in hand, but he made good gigais. "Hey." Grimmjow slapped him across the face, trying to be gentle about it. "Wake up!" Nothing. So much for gentle. Grimmjow tried the other cheek, harder. "I mean it, you little shit! I don't care how sick you are, I'm not carrying you home!"

Ulquiorra's eyes fluttered open and slowly focused on Grimmjow's face before wandering to the surroundings. "Why... am I on the floor?" He put a hand to his cheek, confused.

"Hell if I know," Grimmjow muttered, stuffing his concern back where it couldn't be seen. He grabbed Ulquiorra by the collar and hauled him into a sitting position. "You didn't lose enough blood to pass out, that's for sure."

"You hit me."

"No I didn't." Grimmjow crossed his arms. "Well, only after you fell off the table. And you tried to break my arm, so I think we're even."

Rather than reply, Ulquiorra simply dug a cough drop out of his pocket and unwrapped it. A moment later, he shuddered. "That's impossible."

Grimmjow turned his head to the side, curiosity only barely overtaking a growing sense of apathy. "What is?"

"The strawberry cough drop tastes worse than the citrus splash." He ignored Grimmjow's laughter and spat the cough drop out into the wrapper with a gag. "I thought citrus splash was a horrible as they got." He didn't retrieve a replacement cough drop.

They sat there for a while, leaning against the side of the examination table, which was just as cold as the rest of the room, Grimmjow noted. In fact, about the only warm thing in the room was Ulquiorra, and he only knew that because the smaller Espada was falling asleep again with his head on his shoulder. At least in the gigai, there was no horned mask digging into his shoulder. Grimmjow shook Ulquiorra a little, and then stood up, dragging Ulquiorra up as well before settling him in one of the chairs in the room with his head leaning on the wall. Maybe on top of being sick, a little blood loss went a long way. Or maybe it was the mental image of Szayel holding a syringe. Maybe some combination.

Grimmjow looked around the room, and sighed. It wasn't white, but it wasn't where he wanted to be, either. At this point, he thought he'd done more than his fair share of real world chores and was almost--though he'd never admit it--looking forward to curling up on that blasted white couch in Ulquiorra's room so he could sleep again. There were only about ten more days of quarantine left, anyway, and then he could finally go back to his own room.

He had just about mustered up enough curiosity to go digging through the cabinets when the door opened again and the doctor entered with a smile. Szayel had smiled a lot, too, at first. And the nurse. It must be a creepy medical thing, he mused. They probably thought it was good for their patients.

"Asleep, is he?" The doctor chuckled. "I expect he'll be doing a lot of that in the near future." He pulled up the rolling chair and adopted a more serious expression. "Your cousin does have strep throat, as I suspected. He'll take this medicine for that." Instead of handing him a piece of paper with scribbles on it, the doctor handed him a canister of pills. "It's best that he eat a little something with these, but not necessary. What is necessary is that he drink a full glass of water with the medicine. Grimm-san, are you listening?"

"Huh? Yeah." Grimmjow nodded, picking out the important details to repeat to the doctor. "Drink lots of water. Give him the pills. What the fuck is 'strep throat,' anyway?"

The doctor handed him a pair of glossy sheets of paper folded into little booklets. "I'm assuming your brother with the pink hair takes care of the details around your household, yes?" At Grimmjow's nod, he continued. "These are pamphlets on strep throat and mononucleosis. Give them to him for me, okay? The instructions for the antibiotics are printed on the side of the canister. Follow them closely."

Grimmjow held up a hand. "Wait. I know that word. Antibiotics. That's that shit you gave me, isn't it? That was awful." He tossed the medicine at the doctor. "Take 'em back. He'd rather die, trust me."

"These are much milder, Grimm-san. You were the worst case of pneumonia I've seen in years. I debated with your brother over the possibility of having you hospitalized, but he took offense at the director's name. I can't imagine why. Ishida-san is quite capable, and runs a high quality hospital." He passed the pills back, returning to the subject at hand. "These will clear up the strep in about two days, but he needs to keep taking them for the full five, or he'll get sick again."

Grimmjow moved the canister from one hand to the other and back. "Right," he said. "Five days. Milder." He wasn't sure he believed the man. If it took two full weeks of pills to clear up the pneumonia, how could weaker pills do the trick in five days? Didn't it stand to reason that these would be that much stronger? And that he'd have to put up with all kinds of crap while Ulquiorra was drugged out of his mind? Grimmjow shrugged. Let Szayel figure it out later. He just wanted to be done with this whole trip. "Whatever. So he's got this strep throat stuff. And that other?" He glanced at the second booklet. "Mondo something or other."

"Mononucleosis. Or mono for short."

"Right." Grimmjow tried to pretend he cared, but it had been a long day, and after two overt displays of sympathy in row, his reserves of giving a shit were more or less depleted. "Mono. Where's the medicine for that?"

The doctor smiled. "There isn't any, Grimm-san."

Grimmjow sat straight up in the chair. This was suddenly worth caring about. "You mean he'll be a fucking slug for the rest of his life? Stop smiling, damn it! This is serious."

"Mono is viral. It will pass on its own with time, fluids, and rest. All he needs is sleep and patience." He chuckled. "Calm down, Grimm-san, please. Think of it as a forced vacation. He should stay in bed for at least a week, and he'll probably be too tired to do much of anything for a month or more."

"But it will go away?" Grimmjow had to be absolutely sure on this aspect of things. If Ulquiorra's usefulness had come to an end, there was no telling who Aizen would blame for it. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of that punishment--it would definitely be painful and probably permanent.

"Oh, indeed. He'll be his right regular self in no time. Just remember, he needs rest. If he overdoes it--and even a single flight of stairs would be overdoing it, for either of you--he'll have a relapse and be right back to sleeping all day."

Grimmjow nodded. "Great. So in the meantime, he's a useless, cupcake-obsessed slug. Any more good news?"

The doctor chuckled again. "Remember, Grimm-san. Plenty of fluids and lots of rest. That goes for both of you, but especially for your cousin."

"Question." Grimmjow paused for a moment to be sure he properly phrased the issue that had been dancing around in the back of his mind since Szayel had first given Ulquiorra the cough drops and the instruction to drink water. "Lots of fluids," he started. "How's he supposed to drink a lot of water if he can't fucking swallow? He nearly choked to death on a cough drop earlier, and he wasn't exactly all that willing to down much water in the cab."

The doctor smiled. "Ice cream will help."

"Ice cream," Grimmjow repeated. Only the fact that the man sitting in front of him was a doctor and therefore firmly off limits kept him from acting on the violent impulse that shot through him at the mention of yet another baffling human term. Both parts of the phrase made sense on their own. Together... they were a mystery. But if a doctor was recommending it... "I suppose there's a prescription thing for that?"

The man's mouth opened and closed a few times before anything came out. "Your family has the most interesting ideas about life, Grimm-san." He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back in the chair. "A doctor friend was telling me about his son's classmate. She had to be taught how to open a juice box. A relative, perhaps?"

Grimmjow looked over at the package he'd picked up, sitting beside Ulquiorra. It was indisputably a box. And a cardboard one at that, since it was made out of cardboard. But a juice box... how the hell would that work? He shook his head, saving the logical dilemma for another time. "I don't have any female relatives." Except Halibel. But he wasn't sure what stupid name Szayel would want her to use, so she was best not mentioned.

"Oh well," the doctor said. "Just thought I'd ask. But to answer your question, ice cream is not a prescription drug, or even a drug at all. So no. You could find it anywhere. In fact, about half a block north of here there's a nice little ice cream shop that specializes in--"

"Great," Grimmjow interrupted. "Anything else I need to know, or can we leave?"

..........

Grimmjow slung Ulquiorra's arm from around his shoulders, letting the shorter Espada slide out of his grip and into a slump at one of the itty-bitty round tables at the window of "Hojo's Novelty Ice Creams," and then let the bags with the bread, bean paste, package, pamphlets, and medicine slide off his arm. Once everything was settled, he looked around. It was brightly lit and cold, also largely empty. He was beginning to think that humans had a thing for cold building interiors, and that maybe Aizen should think about getting some of this in Las Noches before he melted the town into a key. Or whatever his big plan was.

He cast one last glare at Ulquiorra, who'd hardly noticed the difference between being half-dragged down the street and being folded over a glass table, his cheek flush against the tabletop. At this rate, he *would* end up carrying the little bastard, regardless of the threats he made to the contrary. At least the cold air would help combat the fever he'd been working up. And if this "ice cream" had any relationship at all to its name, it would be cold, also. And the doctor said it would help.

Grimmjow turned around and wandered up to a long, glassed-in display. Seemingly countless tubs of colorful paste were lined up in metal buckets. On top of a taller counter, there were little cups in a progression of sizes. He scanned the colors of the paste and bit back a groan. It just figured this would end up like the bean paste.

"How can I help you, sir?"

Grimmjow looked up at an eager youth in the most ridiculous outfit he'd seen since the woman had been given a proper uniform. The stripes down the front even beat out Aaroniero's ruffled collar. He tried not to look at the hat. "I'm here for ice cream," he said, turning his eyes back to the buckets of paste.

The kid blinked. "Did... you have a particular flavor in mind?"

Grimmjow looked over his shoulder at Ulquiorra and engaged in a brief mental debate over whether he should get a little of each color. Maybe with some green sprinkles, since that might perk the Cuarta up a bit. Ulquiorra shifted slightly and groaned, mostly asleep again. What the hell, he thought. Might as well indulge the guy. Grimmjow turned back to the clerk, who had a strangely nervous look in his eyes. "White."

"White what, sir?"

"What?"

"What kind of white do you want?" the clerk clarified.

Grimmjow scowled. "The kind that is actually white-colored, kid. If it looks white, I want it."

The clerk took a deep breath and bit his lip. "Well, we have several flavors that are white, sir. And many more that are..." he looked around the room as though searching for a hidden observer, "...mostly... white. In the, er, all-white category, we've got Almond Ripple, Butter Pecan, Coconut, French Vanilla," the nervousness faded as he got into the routine of flavor-listing, "Parmesan Popcorn Crunch, Pineapple Banana Swirl, Potato Liqueur, Roasted Marshmallow, Saltwater Fish Paste, Sesame Garlic with Butter, Shrimp, Vanilla Bean, White Cheddar, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, White Pepper Horseradish, and the special of the day, Piña Colada with Jamaican Rum." The clerk sucked in a deep breath. "Our mostly-white flavors include hand-churned--"

"Fine, fine!" Grimmjow waved his hands to cut the kid off, his mind already swimming with all the options in the so-called "all-white" category. He didn't want to add a second category on top of that. After digging around in his pocket, Grimmjow plunked down all of the money that remained after paying the doctor for the appointment and medicine. "How much will this buy?"

The question seemed to throw the clerk off balance again, and he counted it with shaky fingers. "J-just over a gallon, sir."

"Okay." Grimmjow made no moved to accept the money as the clerk tried to hand it back over the counter. "I'll take a little of everything white. More of that last one. The rum sounds fun." He paused and gave the clerk one of his milder glares. "And no French Vanilla. I do not speak French."

The clerk fidgeted. "I'm sure you don't, sir."

Grimmjow looked back over his shoulder to check on Ulquiorra, who it turned out was still fast asleep, and only remained in the seat because his slide to the floor was prevented by the window at his side. He really hoped he hadn't been like that. Shaking his head and wishing for a moment he could record pictures with his eyes to be crushed and viewed later, Grimmjow returned his attention to the clerk, who had over a dozen little cups laid out on the counter and was filling them with scoops of white paste.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Grimmjow yelled, waving his hands again since that had stopped the clerk in his tracks the last time. "What are you doing?! I can't carry all those!"

The clerk froze, a ball of off-white paste slowly inching out of the scoop. "Huh?"

Grimmjow pointed at the largest of the containers on the countertop. "Just dump it all in the big tub or something."

There was a great deal of hesitation before the clerk responded with anything other than mute gaping. "...You mean mix it all together? All the flavors?" He sounded as though no one had ever made such a request before.

"They're all white, aren't they?" Grimmjow shrugged. "What does it matter?"

This time, instead of a nervous reaction, the clerk bit back a gag and swallowed hard. "Yes, sir" he muttered mechanically. "Of course, sir."

Grimmjow watched him mash ice cream into the much larger tub, carefully making sure that there were no patches where any one flavor was over-represented. After a minute, the repetitive scooping and cautious layering got boring to watch, and Grimmjow began an investigation of the other canisters on top of the counter. There were lots of chopped nuts, it seemed, but also some of those colorful sprinkles like he'd seen earlier at the grocery store and something that looked like long, dusty flakes of dandruff.

"Hey, kid," he started, "how much do I have left over after a gallon of that?"

"Excuse me?"

Grimmjow pointed at the jars on the counter. "Can I buy this shit, too?"

The clerk followed his finger to the toppings and closed his eyes for a moment. "Sure."

"Cool. Toss some of the white stuff on top. However much will get rid of the change so I've got even less to carry home."

After a few more minutes of pressing the ice cream down into the bucket, the clerk dumped on a half cup each of white sprinkles and shaved coconut. He stuck two long, red spoons into the tub and passed the bucket over the counter along with a wad of brown paper napkins. "Here you are, sir."

Grimmjow looked down at the ice cream. "Do you have any white spoons?"

Biting his lip again, the clerk glanced around the room. He cast wide eyes at Grimmjow for a moment before swallowing again. "Am... Am I on t.v.?"

"What's tee vee" Grimmjow asked flatly, "and what does that have to do with spoons?"

The clerk flinched, and then spun on his heel and walked into the back room, muttering something about customers being right all the time. He returned half a minute later with a single, white spoon and a wad of white napkins. "This is all we have left in white."

Grimmjow accepted both, and set the red spoons on the counter for the clerk to do something with. "Thanks. I think that's what I'm supposed to say to you, anyway." He plunked the bucket on the table and prodded Ulquiorra. "Come on," he said. "I've got this ice cream shit that's supposed to help. Let's go."

"Go'way," Ulquiorra moaned, his voice wavering between a hoarse rasp and a feeble whisper. He didn't lift his head from the table. "M'hot. Tired." All hints of a rasp vanished and were replaced by a breathy squeak. "Throat hurts."

"Screw hoping," Grimmjow muttered. "I know I wasn't this pathetic." He grabbed Ulquiorra's arm and dragged the unwilling Cuarta to his feet. "Come on. The doctor says ice cream will make you feel better, but we can't eat it here." Especially not when the nerve-wracked clerk had started telling the thin air that he'd passed the test and would his boss please come out of hiding, it wasn't funny any more.

It was a struggle, but he finally managed to drag Ulquiorra, the package, the medicine, the pamphlets, the prisoner's food, and the ice cream to a bench just across the street. Once all the stupid things he'd been burdened with on this trip were settled, Grimmjow flopped down on the bench to join them. He handed Ulquiorra the spoon. "Start eating."

"It's white," he whispered.

Grimmjow felt his eye twitch. "If that's suddenly a problem, Ulquiorra, I'm going to hold your face down in this bucket of ice cream until it melts enough to drown you."

"Why white?"

And how the hell was he supposed to answer that? 'Because I thought you'd like it?' No way in hell. 'Because you looked miserable and I...' Nope. 'Because I felt bad about the blood work?' Too close to an apology. 'Because...' Not a chance. He shrugged, and motioned for Ulquiorra to put the spoon to good use. "Because that's all they had, moron," he lied. "I wanted to get all kinds of colors, but it would figure this is the one place where there isn't any variety."

He watched Ulquiorra scrape off a spoonful of ice cream that was mostly sprinkles and put it in his mouth. Satisfied that he was going to eat it, Grimmjow leaned his head back on the bench. Now they just had to get back to the park. They couldn't take a cab, and there was no way he was carrying Ulquiorra. Hell, his own reserves were giving out, and he wasn't sure he could walk all the way to the park even without Ulquiorra weighing him down.

There was a hand on his sleeve. "You should eat."

Grimmjow looked at the proffered spoon, and then at Ulquiorra. Szayel had set aside money specifically for them to eat a meal. Something about retaining strength. And he was hungry. He shrugged and accepted the spoon, digging out a glob of ice cream for himself. He couldn't say much about whether it counted as good or not, but it was cold. Kind of like cheesy garlic mixed with milk. The next bite was more like a banana. The two together were... interesting. He handed the spoon back.

So. Getting them to the park. Grimmjow dug out the map Szayel had handed him. He wasn't even sure where the park was with all the twists and turns the cab had made. It could be a block away or clear across town. Any sense of direction he had was shot by now. He found a word on the map that matched the little sign on the post overhead, and followed it. The line cut all the way across the map, from top to bottom. That really didn't tell him anything. Grimmjow shrugged, crumbled the map into a ball, and tossed it into a nearby trash can.

Even if he could find the park from here, he got the feeling they'd never make it. If, as the doctor said, one flight of stairs was overdoing it, he was pretty sure a walk across town would be way too much. He'd rather not get pneumonia again. If they weren't at the park by the appointed time, Szayel would just have to go looking for them. And it would serve him right.

They'd just sit here and eat the ice cream. Besides, after passing the spoon back and forth a few times, he'd come to the conclusion that ice cream was actually pretty good, and tingly from the rum. Or most of it was, anyway. There were patches of pure horror in that bucket, and since it was all one color, he could never be sure what he'd pulled up on the spoon at any given bite. But regardless of the bad sections, this beat walking to the park. And while it didn't make up for the rest of the day, at least it didn't make things worse. At this point, he'd take what he could get.

OMAKE: Quincy Archer... Is Really Confused

Ishida Uryu gripped his "Sunflower Tailor" bag more tightly and increased his pace just enough to arrive quickly without looking out of place to the regular folks. If he noticed an arrancar imprint but no shinigami had clustered on the scene, that meant it was another of those oddly undetectable, untraceable gigais. He wasn't sure what Aizen was planning, but some of the arrancar sightings in the last few months were just bizarre. An arrancar asleep on a park bench in the rain. An arrancar drifting through the park drinking cans of abandoned soda. An arrancar standing outside a pharmacy holding bags of cough syrup. An arrancar loitering on the rooftop near a Laundromat. And those were the tame sightings. Never mind the pair of arrancar riding the train system back and forth across town for days on end.

Perhaps the weirdest sighting, though not the most awkward one by far, was the pair that purchased a cart full of cosmetics and then tried to steal the shopping cart itself. He hadn't gotten near enough to actually see that one, and had settled for asking the humans in the store what had happened. So far, none of these incidents broke the truce, but he'd spent the last few months scurrying around town whenever he felt an arrancar. The gigais seemed to flicker in and out, disappearing for hours and then showing up again for a few minutes clear on the other side of town. He'd been watching the pair on the bus, and they'd vanished from his senses no fewer than ten times on a single bus route.

He rounded the corner behind Hojo's, Inoue's favorite ice cream shop, and came to a sudden halt. Yes, this would be another of the odder encounters, he was sure. There were two of them, sitting--or slumping, more like--on a bench eating what looked like vanilla ice cream but which probably wasn't, given that it was Hojo's. A crumpled map of Karakura was poking out of a nearby trash can. Neither one reacted to his sudden presence, all of five feet away. He couldn't detect any shinigami in the area, which made a certain amount of sense, since they were in the untraceable gigais. As loathe as he was to help the shinigami, he wondered how he could get a sample of some sort so Urahara-san could get to work on correcting shinigami locators to pick these gigais.

"What are you doing here, arrancar?" he asked, dropping his bag to the curb and readying his bow. He hadn't confronted the others, but the others had all been in close quarters with humans. These two, despite sitting near a busy street, weren't in earshot of anyone who could get confused by the exchange. And as long as he kept his bow down at his side, he wouldn't attract any attention, or break the truce.

The blue-haired one--Grimmjow, from Kurosaki's description--looked up and scowled at him. "We're sitting." He pointed to a pile of plastic bags from one of the larger grocery stores in town, which contained rolls and something in tins. "Got to keep little miss red bean paste happy, don't we?"

Ishida felt his resolve waver slightly. There was only one person he could be referring to, and if they really wanted Inoue to be happy, they'd release her, despite the terms of the truce indicating that she stay in Hueco Mundo. This had to be a trap of some sort. "There have been a lot of arrancar sightings in recent months, despite the truce." He felt heat bloom across his cheeks as he recalled that one sighting in particular. That arrancar had also had blue hair, according to Yoruichi. "One of them highly inappropriate."

The arrancar shrugged. "Inappropriate maybe, but lots of fun." He wiggled blue eyebrows in his direction and Ishida noted with disapproval that the arrancar didn't have the decency to look ashamed. "So what's your point, Quincy? There's been no real fighting, and we haven't gotten in anyone's way."

That was true. The truce forbade three things for the next year and a half: fighting and interference on either side, rescue attempts on their part, and attempts at making the King's Key on Aizen's part. These two weren't interfering or fighting. Not at all. They were sitting. In public. Eating ice cream. Ishida's bow faltered slightly. What could any of this possibly gain for Aizen? This was all getting very confusing, particularly as the shorter arrancar was concentrating entirely on the ice cream and ignoring the conversation. He hadn't even looked up once, and Ishida had a weapon charged. "Are you really here to buy food for Inoue-san?"

"Sure." He snagged the spoon from his companion, scraped the bottom of the bucket, ate a bite, and handed the spoon back. "And Aizen just had to have some stupid cardboard box," he said around the ice cream before swallowing it. "Look, we aren't bothering anyone, so just piss off, all right? It's been a long day."

Before Ishida could respond, a garganta unzipped to the right, just missing a nearby storefront. Ishida found himself locking eyes with none other than Szayel Aporro Granz. The Espada had been seething when he first stepped out of the garganta, and his mood didn't seem to improve when he saw Ishida. As they stared at each other, the air seemed to grow thick.

"Oh, get over yourselves." The blue-haired one got to his feet and picked up the bags from the bench, holding them out toward the garganta. "Hey, Pink, come grab this shit. I've been carting it around all day and I'm sick of it. Ulquiorra, get your ass up. I'm done carting you around, too." He dragged the shorter arrancar--Ulquiorra, it seemed--up by the front of his collar and shoved him toward the garganta. Then he turned to level an exhausted glare in Ishida's direction. "And you, Quincy? Go home and change. Only we arrancar have orders to wear so much fucking white."

"There's nothing wrong with white," Ishida and Ulquiorra said in unison, a second before the garganta slammed shut.

Ishida adjusted his glasses, and then stooped to retrieve his sewing bag. While the encounter hadn't provided any of the clues he'd been looking for, he was thankful the bag remained intact for use in the future. And what an odd encounter. From Kurosaki's descriptions, Ulquiorra was supposed to outrank Grimmjow. He wondered why the higher-ranking Espada let himself be pushed around like that.

A blotch of white caught his eye as he turned to go home, and Ishida stopped. They'd left the ice cream tub. It wasn't much, but he was sure Urahara was crafty enough to get a sample from it. Perhaps the encounter hadn't been a total loss.

Notes: I figure there's a need to clarify a wee bit about time lines. The truce was drawn up shortly after the four captains showed up to save the day, and terms were designed to a) maintain the status quo and b) to forestall Aizen's plan to destroy Karakura. No one's thrilled, but the compromise was supposed to give the soul society faction a chance to regroup. So this departs from the manga just before the Pendulum arc. Roughly. Nnoitra and Kenpachi never got to figure out who was strongest, but Zommari and Szayel bit the dust.