Rebirth: A Tale of Two Souls

3: Scene of Illness

"The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections. Deep affliction has but strengthened and refined them."

-Charles Dickens 'Oliver Twist'

I could have just left her, wandered off and tried to find my own way back to Soul Society. I had returned her to her home and she would have had people coming home to her. It was tempting but duty held me from taking to the roads and finding my path home. It would make me so much less than I am to leave someone to whom I owed such a great debt. The war still raging in the fake version of Karakura town left me without any contacts to figure out just what had left me stranded in the human world regardless.

Byakuya found himself truly shocked by the realization that he was fully in the human world and honestly was unaware of just what a thing could possibly mean. If the need arose would he even be able to use his Zanpakuto? It wasn't as if he could test that where he was now, and the girl was staring at him again.

Kagome was indeed basically gaping at the man in front of her, though her mouth was at least closed. She was pretty in a simple way, dark hair and eyes that reminded him again of his lost Hisana. She was still blushing horribly and when she moved a little closer she was wavering a bit again - as if she'd gotten herself some sort of saki while she was off with the linen.

"You are pretty." She half giggled when she said it, leaning a little too far forward. She would have fallen into his lap but he caught her with his hands and frowned at the goofy look she was giving him. What the hell was wrong with this human anyway? What did she expect in return for helping him?

"Well, I guess I should say you are handsome, it's not really becoming to call a man pretty is it? I think that some men are actually pretty though and usually that they're better looking than the ones that I would otherwise call handsome. What are those thingy's in your hair for anyway?" She rambled on as her eyes seemed to slowly refocus on his face.

She was horribly hot to the touch and while it had taken him a few moments he realized that the girl was feverish. He'd seen such sickness on occasion from the lesser members of his squad but never from something as simple as being cold, though he wasn't familiar enough with the intricate health details of humans to be sure what could have caused it.

He'd seen one person with such a bad infection that they were going on about being someone else entirely, her actions weren't fully her own if her fever was as bad as he could guess from just how warm her arms were.

"Heeeelllllloooo." She drew the word on and giggled again. "What are those thingy's in your hair?"

"They're called kensaiken." He explained as he tried to think of what he could do to help her with her sickness. "They're a symbol of noble ranking."

"Noble? So you are a baron or a lord or something?" She kept the questions coming as she continued to stare. "You remind me of a lord I knew once, he ruled all of the west."

He didn't reply this time, knowing she could spout all manner of nonsense he still noted her words in case he could figure out something important. Then he finally asked her a question. "What would you do if someone had a horrible fever?"

She canted her head a little and offered a curious look. "I'd give them medicine for it."

"Do you have any here?" He figured he could just get the answer out of her while she was being so forward toward him.

"Any what?" She gave him a goofy grin and kissed his chin. "I stole a kiss."

He frowned at that and kept reminding himself that she didn't know what she was doing and knocking her out would not help him figure out where they kept there first aid supplies.

"Kagome. Where do you keep your medicine for fevers?" He asked her seriously, doing his best to ignore her drunk-like antics and held her arms down as she started to touch his hair.

"You have pretty hair…fever medicine? Um." She seemed to pause to think, as if she was a little tired. "We keep it in the first aid kit over there. It's this nasty clear stuff that tastes like vanilla gone bad."

She managed to wrangle her arm free so she could point to the box with the red cross on it on one of the bookshelves in the main room. "You don't seem like you have a fever though. You're nice and cool."

She'd settled her forehead on the chest of his new clothing, nuzzling it a little bit. He pushed her away at that forward of an action and was frowning furiously as he considered her. If it wasn't for the fever he probably would have done worse than shove her. "I am not interested in laying with you…"

He kept his voice frosty as he got up and moved to the box she'd pointed out to him, opening it to try to look through for the medicine she'd mentioned. There were two bottles that had clear liquid so he started to read them for clues as to which one.

"Laying?" She blinked at him with the confused face that was becoming accustomed in her moment of illness. "Whatcha talkin' about?"

He discerned the correct of the two bottles and walked back over to her with the one she was suppose to take. "It says to take a table spoon, what form of measurement is that?"

"It's a big spoon…" she blinked a little at the strange question. "Do you want me to get you one?"

"Please." He replied without expression, refusing to give in to the growing agitation. The girl didn't know what she was doing, it was probably only natural for a woman in her profession to expect to bed the men around her in such a state of mind.

She stumbled a little as she came back and gave him the utensil, sitting down again and sighing softly. "Wow, I'm kind of dizzy. I wonder if all that rain getting in my hair and ears might have given me some kind of infection."

"Here." He poured the amount the bottle prescribed and held it out to her.

"Huh?" She stared at him and then the spoon.

"Take it." He urged, raising a single perfect brow when she leaned forward to eat it while he was still holding the spoon as opposed to picking it out of his hand first. He'd been lowered to feeding a mortal sick girl? No one would have to know about this whole embarrassing scene, and if they heard they didn't have to survive.

"Thank you." She said with more seriousness as she leaned back again, putting a hand to her forehead. "I am really hot…maybe I should open a window."

There was still something about this woman that evoked memories of his Hisana in him, the grateful way she gazed at him after he gave her the medicine was almost enough for him to forget about the insults. At first he believed that her spiritual energy difference was what was off about those brief instants when she brought forward strange feelings that he'd thought he'd lost when his wife passed. Yet, he was starting to think he hadn't yet puzzled out just what was the problem.

He shook his head when he noted she was looking toward him for comments as to her opening a window. "I don't think you'll want to get a chill when you are already feverish. You should probably cover up again so it'll burn itself out faster."

He wanted to sit somewhere else but it there were no other chairs and he would not lower himself to sitting on the floor when she would be seated above him. Instead retaking his previous seat and letting out the long breath he'd taken for a sigh slowly when she moved over and settled her head on his arm.

She had at least pulled the blanket back around herself, though when her flesh touched his he could tell she was still far too hot to be healthy. "You are always nice and cool. Maybe it's cause you always have such a cold attitude."

"Is she insulting me now?" He wondered idly. "How long will I have to suffer this treatment?"

She continued to nuzzle his upper arm. Couldn't she have offered him a shirt with sleeves after stealing his away?

"You smell good too." Her words were slurring ever so slightly, though if it was from sleepiness or the fever was hard to tell. "Like the cherry blossoms in the spring. I've never known any man that smelled so nice."

Dark eyes continued to watch the woman, it wasn't as if he had anything better to do. She didn't have the constant guilt that Hisana had carried with her. Despite her strange behavior and sickness she had a confidence to her that was never something his lover had possessed.

Hisana had been far more meek and apologetic.

"Why if you are a man do you smell like flowers though?" She piped up, glancing up at him and starting to stare at his face again.

He much preferred Hisana's attitude.

"It is a sign of my house." He explained shortly.

"Like the thingy's in your hair?"

"Kensaiken are also such a mark."

"So why do you have the gloves? They're a little strange aren't they? Big fake diamonds in the center like that?" She was just as soon playing with them.

"Fake?" A frown twitched at the edge of his lips. "I wear nothing that is…false in nature. My house can afford to make them correctly."

"Wait…they're really diamonds?" She seemed openly shocked with a mix of impressed. Another sign of her commoner station.

He didn't answer, he'd already explained it once and his stoic face should have been enough.

"Oh…you are just screwing with me aren't you?" She giggled a little and kissed his cheek before settling her head on his lap with a yawn. "Silly Kuchiki-kun."

He was frozen in place, somewhere between horrible anger and frustration with a thirst for vengeance and the need to fulfill his duty by failing to act on the former of the two groups of feelings. She'd kissed his face and was starting to fall asleep in his lap but his thoughts were alight with so many words he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it but continue to stare.

Just who was this spiritual healer that had fallen into his life, and lap, headlong and carefree…ripping into his normal expectations with an innocent ferocity. Who was this woman that had saved him and angered him so much in a single day.

His thoughts were still buzzing as she fell into slumber with her head innocently resting in the lap of a captain of the soul society, a man that could have destroyed her in an instant for the insult but that she'd confused so fully she was left to slumber completely, and blissfully, ignorant of just how dangerous her new friend really was.

…To be continued.

Whew, this chapter had points that were hard for me to write but that I also laughed at. People can get pretty crazy when they have fever's that are too high so I figured it was a fun excuse to have Kagome be all nutty and to frustrate the hell out of poor Byakuya. Who was like 'I wanna kill her, cut that, destroy her' 'but she saved me' 'dammit'. Except of course in a much more noble styled way. Byakuya is actually pretty hard to write for which is why I keep switching between third person and his actual thoughts. He hasn't gotten to smack her for her many transgressions yet but I had to toss in that last 'Kuchiki-kun' before the end of chapter when she fell asleep.

-Aura

P.S. I like new words and strange ones. And I am aware I turned off anonymous reviews because some dumb ass was ticked off that I wasn't working on one of my fictions and was sending me 'ur a fat old slob' and other such nonsense and I was sick of going in to delete it every day. Seriously, some people need lives.