Ichigo woke to a whirling fan. He stared at it, mesmerized, not having seen one in years. Then he became aware of the burning pain in his side as his muscles came back to life.

"Don't." A harsh voice warned but it was the strong hand that kept him flat. Ichigo's eyes worked up from bruised knuckles to the strong jawline of the man above him. Once he got past the surprise of seeing Grimmjow still with him, he looked down his torso to see what the other was doing.

Grimmjow worked a curved needle under his skin, stitching the flesh back together. Ichigo shuddered in pain and bit his bottom lip so as not to make a sound.

"Almost." Grimmjow said by way of letting him know he only had to hang on for a few more moments. Grimmjow finished, tied off the stitches and then splashed a liberal amount of pure vodka over the wound. Ichigo lurched and screamed but the sound was blunted by one of Grimmjow's hands.

"You'll live," he grunted when he withdrew.

Ichigo sat slowly. Grimmjow stood, taking a large slosh of the vodka and turning to the balcony. The patio was smashed in and the apartment was chilled by the night air but still warmer than the culvert Ichigo had been sheltering in. Beyond Grimmjow, he could see drums filled with water—at least that rain was good for something.

Grimmjow watched the land below them for a long time. Judging by the other buildings Ichigo could see, they must have been at least ten stories above sand level. When he was recovered from the pain enough to speak evenly, he asked the obvious question.

"Why? I thought you were eager to get rid of me."

"I was." Grimmjow turned back and pulled cigarette from his pocket. He flicked a lighter and took a long pull. "But then I remembered I can't let you die."

"Why not?"

"Because I have a debt to repay to that soul reaper and the one thing she'd accept from me was a promise to give you help if I should ever see you. That, and her message."

"What message, what is it?"

"The location of the Soul Reaper hideout."

Ichigo tensed. "Where?"

"In the North, over the mountain where the pillars of Las Noches are."

Ichigo absorbed this. He'd been near there just four months ago. Had he really been so close to old friends?

"Does she know anything about my sisters?"

"She didn't say."

"What about other survivors? Orihime?"

"I don't know."

"Chad? Renji, Ur—"

"Kid I don't know! That was all she said. She wasn't about to give away everything to me."

Ichigo forced himself to calm, but it was hard. When he continued to struggle to process this news, Grimmjow grabbed the bottle of vodka and handed it to him.

"I don't drink." Ichigo tried to pass it off.

"If you don't drink and calm yourself down then I'm not going to bother trying to talk to you."

Ichigo glared at him, but took the bottle. "Fine." The chug burned deep but he let its warmth spread out over his sore body.

"Explain from the beginning. When and where did you see her?"

"Not far, the Nagano slums, maybe eighteen months back."

"And what happened?"

"She gave me the message."

"Why though?"

"Cause I'm a known name and she guessed you'd do exactly what you just did and track me down when you started seeing my name on billboards."

"No I mean, why did you do this, why do you owe her?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes it does. Otherwise I won't trust you, I won't understand."

Grimmjow let out a long sigh, with it came a puff of tar filled smoke. He leaned against the doorframe with an annoyed slouch but Ichigo knew he was relenting.

"I got myself into a bit of trouble. Finished a fight, got a little too drunk, and some slavers thought they could make off with me for the glads."

By glads, he meant the gladiator fights. Ichigo wished he could blame the return of the historical game on the Vandenreich, but he couldn't. Gladiator fighting was just one of the ways mankind had found to entertain itself without television. There were many different groups who would abduct poor souls and slave them out to the glads. Grimmjow's ring matches were barely a step up but they were by choice and he made mint on them. Someone else, however, could have made an even bigger profit on him if they'd owned him for a glads tournament.

"And?"

And they managed to beat the shit out of me. She got there just as they were trying to brand me. Downed them all before I even knew what was happening. Unfortunately, not before the asshole with the poker dropped the damn thing on me."

Ichigo winced at the thought of red hot iron coming for his skin.

"Got me pretty damn good." Grimmjow tugged up the bottom of his pant leg, just enough to show the end of a terrible thick scar along his calf. "I was down for the count. Rukia put me back together again."

"A wound like that wouldn't heal fast. She must have been with you for a while."

"Almost two weeks." Grimmjow nodded. "Then she had to go and I had other fights I didn't want to miss."

"You just let her go?"

He shrugged. "We're not allies. I only fought with you lot to survive that war."

"Well how is it different here?"

"Cause I got my own system. I got the fights. Anyone who wants to fight me—Vandenreich or otherwise—knows where to find me. They come to the ring, they get their chance, I throw them down. I've put down three Stern Ritters since the war like a joke. They saw my face, they knew who I was, they made the mistake of trying to take me out. The ring is my domain and it's how I'm surviving in this crap-hole. Money ain't bad either."

"So she was okay with you leaving."

"It's worked to her advantage, really. She said she helped me because we were allies. I told her we weren't and that I'd have to pay her back. She said I could repay her by helping you if I ever ran into you. So here we are."

Ichigo nodded, accepting the story. He didn't really take Grimmjow for a liar, so he trusted it.

"Okay, so you're helping me. What exactly does that mean?"
At this, Grimmjow narrowed his eyes, clearly pissed but far too proud to leave his debt outstanding.

"It means she gave me two weeks, so I'll give you the same. Then we'll be square."

"Two weeks...you mean you'll let me stay with you for two weeks?"

"I'll do you one better." Grimmjow pulled a piece of paper off the coffee table and dropped it in Ichigo's lap. "There's a market happening in Aomori Prefecture in seventeen days—just below the mountain where the Soul Reapers are hiding. Markets mean big fights and big money so that's where I'm going. I'll take you as good as all the way to your girlfriend. Maybe I'll even hand you over in person so I can make sure all debts are paid."

Ichigo clutched the paper which advertised the Market, then looked up at Grimmjow. "You're serious."

"Yeah."

"Thank-you."

"Don't say that—it's a debt. If I didn't owe her you'd be scrap food on the highway by now."

He bent and hauled Ichigo up by one arm. "We leave in the morning. Clean yourself up and then we'll do something about that hair."

"My hair?"

"Yes, your hair. I ain't travelling with you when you've got a damn neon sign on your head announcing you're Ichigo Kurosaki. The orange has got to go."

Ichigo sat still, bare to the waist with a towel draped over his shoulders. He watched his own reflection in the dead t.v. screen. Behind him Grimmjow sat on the couch, plastic gloves on his hands and squirting black liquid into his hair.

"I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me."

"I can't believe you haven't done this yet," Grimmjow countered.

"It feels wrong to hide who I am."

"Not when everyone in the world wants to see you dead."
Ichigo quieted. He let Grimmjow work in silence. He couldn't even find the humour in their situation—that Grimmjow Jaggerjaques was sitting behind him, doing his hair. No, there was no humour left in this world, only what was necessary.

Grimmjow towelled his hair then dropped a comb in his lap.

"Shouldn't we cut it?" Ichigo looked back at him.

"No, you have short hair in those photos. You might as well keep it long."

Ichigo nodded and combed through his now shoulder length black hair. Grimmjow had even done his eyebrows to make sure it looked natural. Since his red hair had always been decidedly unnatural, he thought he might actually be able to pull this off.

Grimmjow had moved over to the balcony again. He seemed on edge, no doubt concerned someone had followed them or noticed him carrying an unconscious orange haired man up ten flights of stairs.

"Okay, go in the back, I'll stay out here."

Ichigo rose stiffly. His side still hurt terribly and he'd lost enough blood to leave him very weak. Grimmjow had let him eat whatever he wanted, for which he was incredibly grateful. The other had no plans to carry the food he had stocked up in the room so he said it made no difference to him. Ichigo couldn't imagine walking away from food, but then he saw the wads of cash Grimmjow stuffed into a knapsack and guessed it didn't matter so much to someone who could just buy more food along the way.

Ichigo stumbled into the back of the apartment and found the master bedroom. He stopped short, seeing the large mattress, pillows and blankets. He gave pause, looking back to Grimmjow.

"What?" The espada said from the doorway. It was clear he was going to stay out here to keep a close eye out.

"I..." Ichigo looked to the bed again. "I haven't slept in a bed in years."

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Well you won't have long, we've got to leave in four or five hours when the sun rises."
Ichigo just nodded and entered the bedroom. It was sheltered from the cold wind that came in from the patio. It was a complete mess and countless people had probably slept in this bed, but after all the places where he'd lay his head at nights, he couldn't care less. He sat carefully on the mattress and rolled into the blankets.

It was something he didn't think he'd ever feel again. It wasn't just the softness of the mattress, the warmth of the blankets and the shelter, it was the man keeping watch in the other room, the fact he wasn't alone and that when he drifted off to sleep, maybe he wouldn't wake up every twenty minutes for fear of someone coming to kill him while he slept.

Dawn came all too quickly. Ichigo had still woken repeatedly, and the pain in his side had started throbbing part way through the night, but none of that changed the fact he'd been warm and dry and it was still the best sleep he'd had in four years.

When Grimmjow barked a wake-up call at him he knew it really was time to leave. There wasn't much preparation to do. Grimmjow filled bottles of water from the barrels on the balcony and Ichigo still packed up some of the food despite Grimmjow's assurance it wasn't necessary. The last thing Grimmjow did was dig under the couch for something. He drew out a long katana and strapped it over his back.

They departed, Grimmjow leaving the door open behind him. This had just been a pit stop for him. Ichigo hadn't stayed in any such buildings, but he knew how it worked. Grimmjow would have dropped off enough cash to whoever worked in the basement and they would have given him the little bit of electricity they'd enjoyed and marked the room as unavailable. Of course someone could come try to take it from him if they really wanted—but no one really wanted to mess with Grimmjow unless it was in the ring for a boatload of cash.

They descended to sand level. Once in the hallway Ichigo could see the sand was four stories up the building. They hopped out a broken window at the end of one hallway and hit the road.

The highways were still the best mode of travel, especially in places where Heuco Mundo's sand had crossed over. The wind and rain helped keep the raised roads cleared, though there were often lower patches that got drowned out. The sun rose hot and brutal. They kept their coats on as it was the best way to beat the heat of the sun's strong rays. The weather had been deeply affected by the clash of the worlds, Ichigo wondered if the atmosphere had too and if the UV rays might be stronger.

They met a fair number of travellers on their way. Many were on foot but a few had bikes and one even had a horse. An animal like that would be extremely difficult to care for especially in the rough terrain and sand. It would almost be more of a hindrance than a help.

By noon, however, Ichigo was wishing he had some other means of transportation. He'd walked all over this broken world, but he did so at the pace of a hungry, tired and often wounded man. Trying to keep up with the well-fed, very fit Grimmjow was exhausting. Grimmjow got quite far ahead of him before he stopped and looked back to see the young man with a hand clutched to his side, limping along trying to keep going. When Ichigo caught up to him after a long struggle Grimmjow just sighed and indicated a chunk of concrete.

They sat. Ichigo drank deep from his canister and tried to catch his breath.

"How bad is it?" Grimmjow asked after a while.

"I can manage."

"Can you?"

"Yeah, what other choice do we have, anyway?"

"None really. So what happened, anyway?"

"Some people recognized me just as I was getting to the outskirts of town. I patched it up but I guess it wasn't good enough."

"Do people recognize you often?"

"I try to avoid people when I can, but yeah."

"Well, hopefully the hair will help. I don't want to get slowed down. It'll be big pot at the Market."

Ichigo just grunted. He hadn't been to a Market in over a year. It was not a pleasant place. He still had trouble getting his head around how quickly people had descended into the most despicable creatures. Some of them may be hollows who got converted back into humans after the Clash, some of them may have been souls from the rukon districts, but they were all human now, and many of them were humans of Earth. So it disgusted Ichigo on every level to see people betting on fights like the ones Grimmjow fought in, or the glads.

At Markets they also sold slaves and you could shop around for top dollar prostitutes. There were other things that did appeal to Ichigo, like the movies. You could pay heaps of money to watch a film projected on a big screen. Most people couldn't generate enough electricity for such things so it was just like going to an old drive-in and tasting a bit of life before the apocalypse. Ichigo had watched one once, almost too far away to see it as he couldn't actually go down into the crowds or afford it, but the sound had carried all the way to him and it had been two hours of freedom from this life.

Vendors would also be selling goods they'd scavenged. Batteries were one of the top sellers. Fresh fruits and vegetables another big hit from those who managed to find a piece of land to farm. Ichigo wouldn't mind tasting something that didn't come from an expired can.

"You good now?" Grimmjow was clearly impatient. Ichigo rose, his side still throbbing, but he nodded.

"Let's go."

They pushed on into the night because the moon was full and it wasn't hot like the day time. They hit a long stretch of sand. It would be dangerous to sleep here anyway because a windstorm could come up on them and even Grimmjow would have trouble getting through it alive.

"How far have you travelled?" Ichigo asked as they walked. They had spoken little—Grimmjow had fought by his side in more than one battle during the war, but he'd never stuck around to chat afterwards and Ichigo had always gotten the feeling he still wanted to take his head off. It wasn't quite the same now—Ichigo was fairly sure being human had tamed some of the worst of Grimmjow's temperament but it hadn't made him friendly by any means.

"I stick to where I know. I've heard enough about the rest of the world to know I'm better off here."

"So Japan?"

"I guess. You humans seem bent on calling this new world by your world's names. For all we know Earth landed on Hueco Mundo."

It was true, they couldn't be sure just how things had happened, but Ichigo was fairly certain everything else had landed here as Earth was the most intact of all the worlds. So they still referred to old political boarders even if some mountains had been crushed or seas filled in by sand.

"I checked out some of the Vandenreich territory once, up in the North island of Japan," Grimmjow said after a while.

"What? No one's been able to get even close to their boarders. How did you get in?"

Grimmjow shrugged. "I wanted in so I found a way. I also went to that city everyone goes on about, Shanghai."
Shanghai had survived rather well and was now probably the most densely populated city on the planet, but that caused its own problems.

"What about you?" Grimmjow asked.

"I left Japan for a year, trying to find other soul reapers, some hope—anything, but then realized there was just more of the same. Alot of Europe seems to be the Rukon districts. Alot of Russia is the Vandenreich world. And in between is just shambles of our world. I only found more trouble out there so I came back here."

His story finished with a stumble. He caught himself before face planting and realized he'd tripped over the edge of buried concrete.

"Good we didn't get off track," Grimmjow commented. If they had, they would have missed the highway where it rose up out of the sand again and then been stuck wading through the desert. "This way."

Grimmjow didn't lead them up the slope of broken pavement but under it, where a shallow shelter was created by an arch of the old overpass. It was just enough room for them to both lean into the bank of sand and be sheltered from wind, rain and the eyes of other travellers.

"A few hours," Grimmjow instructed. Ichigo tried not to groan. After the pace of their long day he wanted to sleep for a week. It took no time for exhaustion to pull him under, but of course, it took just as little for the nightmares to come.

Wow, thanks for the great response to the beginning of this. I'm so glad there is an interest. I hope things aren't moving too slow right now but trust me the action will pick up!

FWI Not IchiHime nor IchiRuki.

Thanks,

Riza