The Road to Forgiveness

If there was one positive thing about working dayshift at a bar, it was that work was generally pretty slow and gave a person plenty of time to think and reflect on matters of importance…provided, of course, that one's co-workers would mind their own damned business, and Halibel was feeling very thankful that for once they were keeping their mouths shut.

It wasn't that she didn't like Kishiko, Sachi, or Dunc; they were all good people to work with (even if they were human) and they had only her best interests at heart when they were preaching at her to "ditch the psycho," but they didn't know the full story and as such they had no right to tell her what to do.

At least they were leaving her be for the moment and that was a small miracle in itself.

Turning her back to the empty bar and leaning against it, Tia began to clean out some of the mugs that would be needed when the "lunch crowd" arrived, as there were plenty of men in Karakura who would skip their actual lunch-break in favor of a beer or two, but her thoughts were elsewhere than the beer and the lecherous human men.

She hadn't managed to talk with Tyn yet, not really; he'd already been dressed and gone by the time she woke up, although he did leave breakfast on the counter for her. Judging by how cold the meal was, she had missed him by about fifteen to twenty minutes and she didn't need Ulquiorra's unerring logic to tell her that Tyn was intentionally avoiding her.

At least the landlord and the maintenance crew had caught her before she'd left for work this morning, saying they were going to start on the repairs to the unit today and that small piece of good news had salvaged her flagging mood somewhat.

She sat down the now-clean mug and opted to pick up the shark's tooth dangling from her neck, looking at it closely; the tooth and the breakfast this morning were the only indications that Tyn was willing to forgive her on some level and that he might be willing to talk soon. Small gestures to be sure, but they held a lot of significance to her given the circumstances; despite all of his anger, his very justified anger, he was still reaching out and trying to make peace and she had to latch on to that if there was ever to be any hope of making amends for all she'd put him through.

Tia had scavenged the black leather cord holding the tooth around her neck from the Lost-and-Found bin in the back of the bar, which was full of unclaimed items customers had lost ranging from jewelry, cell phones, wallets, glasses, shoes… Items unclaimed for more than two weeks were considered up for grabs among the employees and she had taken a beaded necklace from the bin and recycled the cord for her own purposes, tying a little cradle around the base of the tooth before placing the homemade pendant around her neck.

Tyn may have been more in touch with his bestial side than the rest of them but that didn't mean that Halibel hadn't greatly appreciated the tooth.

Although, she would admit that she could have done without his note saying that he was only mostly sorry for trying to kill her…

Mostly…

She smirked in spite of herself, shaking her head; really, had she expected any less from the Raptor Prince? She knew what he would say about it later, too, about how they were both monsters at heart (even if they didn't actually have hearts), so it would always be impossible for them to be completely apologetic to one another. Halibel didn't necessarily agree with that sentiment but at the same time she found herself unable to contradict it, either.

She picked up another mug to clean, turning around to look out at the bar…and very nearly dropped the mug in surprise at seeing a semi-familiar dark-skinned woman with amber eyes seated on a barstool, patiently waiting for Halibel to turn and notice her presence.

"I'm sorry…" Tia said to the ex-captain, apologizing. "I had no idea you were there."

"Stealth Force," Yoruichi Shihōin reminded her with a grin.

"Right…" said the arrancar, sitting the mug down. "If you're here, I'm guessing you have information about the other night?"

"You guess right," said Yoruichi, leaning across the bar and reaching down behind it, fumbling around and looking for something.

It was forbidden for customers to reach behind the bar but Tia waved Dunc off as he started to move in to try and eject the former shinigami.

"Oh, come on, you do have some here somewhere, don't you?" asked Yoruichi, frowning. "No, that's not it…no…not that, either…What kind of a bar is this? No…nope…ah-ha!"

Yoruichi sat back down in her seat, pulling a bottle of warm sake along with her and grinning broadly.

"Say hello to your 'miracle,'" she announced, gesturing to the sake bottle.

"Are you saying that we were saved by sake?" asked Halibel, feeling a little confused.

"More or less," said Yoruichi, opening the bottle as Tia handed her a small cup. "I'm sure you remember Rangiku Matsumoto from the battle over Karakura, right?"

"Fake Karakura, but yes, I remember the bimbo Soul Reaper who fought my fracción."

"Well, my little investigation revealed that she was on monitor duty that night and Rangiku likes to drink, especially if the job is too boring."

"So, she was too drunk to notice our presence? Such incompetence would never have been tolerated in Los Noches."

"Funny you should say that…" replied Shihōin with a smirk, fishing out her wallet. "See, Rangiku rarely gets stupidly drunk on her own… More often than not, she only gets wasted when she has a drinking partner and it turns out that she did indeed have a drinking partner that night, at least for a couple of hours."

The shinigami pulled a photo from her wallet and looked at it appraisingly.

"It's not the real her, of course; it's her gigai, but I'm pretty sure you know this individual…" she said, laying the photo on the bar for Tia to see.

In it were two people; a man with dark hair and a contented grin standing behind a woman, resting his chin on her shoulder with his arms around her waist, holding her tightly. The woman…gigai or not, there was no mistaking those hazel eyes, green hair, and cheerful grin.

"Neliel?" asked Tia, looking back up at Yoruichi. "Neliel is in the Soul Society?"

"Lieutenant of Squad 13 now, actually…" said the other woman, taking the picture back and tucking it safely away into her wallet once more. "Turns out she and Rangiku have become fast friends and the two of them got completely smashed while they were supposed to be watching the monitor stations. If Nel hadn't dropped by that night…"

"Then the shinigami would have probably been sober and we would have been noticed…" finished Halibel, dumbfounded by the entire situation.

"According to my brother, Nel and Rangiku were sitting in the floor drunkenly making beeping noises when he found them and they claimed to be singing along with some kind of weird 'music' that had been playing just a few minutes earlier."

"The monitor stations sounding out the alert that Tyn and I were loose in Karakura…"

"Exactly," said Yoruichi, pouring the last of the bottle into her sake cup. "The 'miracle' you told Kisuke you needed was sake and the 'guardian angel' he suggested was one of your own."

"We never knew what happened to her when she vanished…" said Tia, resting her hands against the bar and leaning on them, "I assumed she left because she couldn't stand the violence and other rumors said Nnoitra had killed her… I never imagined that she fled to the Soul Society, though."

"It's a little more complex than that," said Yoruichi, slapping some money down on the counter to pay for the sake. "But she's alive and well…well, as alive as any of us can actually be, anyway…"

"That seemed like a personal photo, not something taken for intel," observed Halibel and Yoruichi nodded.

"The guy behind her? I kinda adopted him as my baby brother a long time ago and as you saw, they're pretty…close. I've gotten to know her pretty well myself this past year…she's a nice girl, really," smiled the ex-captain as she stood to leave.

"Thank you, Yoruichi," said Halibel, giving an appreciative nod. "You and Kisuke both, for everything you've done for us."

The shinigami simply smiled and shrugged the thanks off.

"Not a problem; we all make mistakes, right? Besides, this gives me ammo to use against Nel next time she tries to tell me that she doesn't drink," she said, the friendly smile turning into a mischievous grin.

Tia watched the ex-Soul Reaper leave, still musing over everything she'd learned as Kishi came over to stand with her.

"You were talking with her for a long time…she a friend of yours?" she asked.

"Yeah…" Halibel said, allowing herself a small but genuine smile for once, "I think so."

"So I don't play with the temperature controls and I don't wrap the burger first and then cook it?"

"Nope; keep it set right where it is and wrap the burger when it's done; it's less likely to start another fire that way," Tyn acknowledged, tossing a spatula to himself as he watched Grimmjow try and master the grill without causing another insurance claim, with Starrk watching from his customer-less window, the fire extinguisher sitting within arm's reach just in case.

"This isn't so bad; I can do this shit," announced Grimmjow proudly, spitting on one of the beef patties before dropping a fly he'd pried from the glue-strip on the far wall, pressing the dead insect into the meat with his own spatula.

"See? It's easy," Tyn agreed. "Now if I'm ever out again, you can work the grill."

"And Ulquiorra can go clean the fucking toilets himself," said Grimmjow with a grin, although everyone knew that would never happen. Still, the image of the cuarto covered in grime as he labored at scrubbing dried feces from and piss stains from the toilets in the back with a toothbrush brought an evil smile to the sexta's face, forcing him to chuckle darkly.

"Ulquiorra would call in those two idiots from the night shift rather than clean the bathroom himself, idiot," said Starrk, putting an end to Grimmjow's happy fantasy.

"Then maybe we should make you scrub the fucking shit!" snapped Grimmjow bitterly, leveling his spatula at Starrk as if it were a weapon. "Might fix that fucking better-than-you attitude you've had lately!"

"I only have an attitude with you," Starrk said coolly, feeling neither impressed or intimidated with Grimmjow's threats. "How is it that the rest of us are slowly integrating into human society while you remain an overly-aggressive, psychotic thug?"

"Me? Hey, I'm not the idiot who used his Soul Candy and tried to destroy the town!"

"Not yet," said Starrk as Ulquiorra came out of the office, effectively ending the conversation with his presence as he gazed out at the empty dining room.

"We're not scaring off the customers, before you say one goddamned word," said Grimmjow. "Just a slow fucking day."

"I just finished speaking with Urahara over the telephone…" said the pale man, ignoring Grimmjow completely. "It would seem that good fortune is with us; the Soul Society did not notice your reckless behavior the other night."

"Fortune favors the stupid," said Grimmjow, smiling cruelly at Tyn.

"And yet somehow, you're still dirt-poor and manage to lose nearly every fight you get into…" observed Starrk dryly, a slight smile forming when he saw Grimmjow twitch and curl his hands into fists.

"Enough," said Ulquiorra, squelching Grimmjow's impending explosion of violence with an emotionless-yet-threatening death glare before it was too late.

"He say anything about how they failed to notice?" asked Tyn.

"It was a long story, although it did reveal a new and interesting fact; Neliel is still alive, and is living in the Seireitei."

"What?" asked Starrk, forgetting about taunting Grimmjow for a moment as he came away from his window. "What happened? How did the shinigami capture her?"

"We can't leave her to them," said Tyn, agitated by the thought of one of their own being held prisoner. "They'll execute her just for being an arrancar. We have to do something, have to save her before—"

"She is there voluntarily," Ulquiorra interrupted. "She is now the Lieutenant of Squad 13, apparently."

"Traitor!" spat Grimmjow. "That bitch betrayed us all! We should kill the—"

"She is also responsible for the Seireitei not noticing Tyn and Halibel's fight the other evening," announced Ulquiorra. "She has indirectly saved us all."

"She always was a sweetheart, wasn't she?" asked Tyn, smiling as he shook his head. "Even after all this time, she's still protecting us from ourselves."

"She is unaware of our continued existence, or of saving us," Ulquiorra reminded the group. "Do not count her as an ally just yet; until we know more, we should consider her a possible threat, just like any other shinigami."

"So when she left the Espada, she joined the shinigami?" asked Starrk, confused. "Why didn't we see her during the war? Were they afraid she might turn on them during the battle instead of fighting against us?"

"We did see her; she was the child that followed Kurosaki through the desert and into Los Noches," said Ulquiorra. "From what Urahara explained, the rumor that Nnoitra killed her was partially true; he set a trap for her and during the ambush he managed to crack her mask, damaging it to the point that her reiatsu began to seep from the wound. Her body compensated for the loss of energy by reverting to a smaller child-form."

"Son of a bitch…" said Grimmjow. "I thought that little brat looked familiar."

"I thought perhaps it was Neliel's offspring," admitted the cuarto. "That perhaps she had become pregnant and fled Los Noches to protect the child."

"And who would have been the father?" asked Starrk. "Nel was always open and friendly, but I never saw her act like she was interested in anyone in particular."

"Well…" began Tyn, "she did always call Grimmjow 'cutey-kitty,' didn't she?"

"Yeah, and when I asked if she wanted to hook up, she said that I wasn't that cute," growled Grimmjow bitterly, cheeks flushing as he looked away.

"Wait, you actually tried to ask Nel out once?" asked Tyn before collapsing into the floor in a fit of laughter. "You, with all of your violent and sadistic tendencies, thought that Nel might give you a chance in hell?"

"Hey, fuck you!" snapped the sexta, hurling his spatula at the still-laughing Tyn and narrowly missing his head. "She was cute, okay? And it wasn't like I was asking her for a date, you know! I was just seeing if she wanted to be fuck-buddies!"

"You're demented…" said Starrk, "for thinking Nel would go for something as shallow as that, least of all with someone like you."

"Shut your fucking mouth, Starrk!" said Grimmjow, turning his fury on the primera now.

"That's enough," said Ulquiorra again, stepping between Starrk and Grimmjow before a fight erupted. "The subject at hand is not Neliel's choices in men, nor is it Grimmjow's questionable ethics in regards to the opposite sex."

"Questionable? Fuck you, too, Ulquiorra; we're all monsters here, you know!"

"The subject…" Ulquiorra continued, ignoring Grimmjow's outburst as the quinto finally picked himself up from the floor and returned to the grill, "is Tyn and Halibel's behavior and the threat it represents to our survival if it is not curbed. Did you two reach an agreeable resolution last night after our departure?"

"…not exactly," mumbled Tyn, his demeanor visibly darkening at the mention of his roommate.

"Don't tell me you two had another fight…" sighed Starrk. "I offered to let you crash at my place."

"We didn't fight," said Tyn, idly pressing an already-overcooked and charred burger into the grill with his spatula. "We just didn't talk. She went to go take a shower, and I went to bed. That's it."

"Talk with her tonight," ordered Ulquiorra.

"Yeah, yeah…" Tyn said. "I will. If nothing else, we gotta figure out what to do about all the broken shit. Maybe we'll go shopping this weekend for a new TV and coffee table."

"Orihime offered to fix everything when we arrived."

"Yeah, and we both said no for a reason; if the landlord came up later to fix the wall and balcony and saw everything all shiny and new after having seen an absolute wreck earlier that morning, it would raise too many questions."

Tyn finally scraped the overcooked burger off the grill and slapped it on a bun before wrapping it and placing it under the heat-lamps to wait for the next customer.

"Besides…" he added after a moment, "it's a pride thing. We didn't want any of you there to see our mess and we didn't want to go through that therapy crap. Both of us would rather work our personal issues out by ourselves."

"Your personal issues ceased being personal the moment you allowed them to risk exposing us as a group," said Ulquiorra as he headed back to the office. "Speak with Halibel tonight or we will come back tomorrow night and let Orihime lead you two in another counseling session.

"Want my advice?" asked Grimmjow, a feral grin on his face.

"Murder isn't an option anymore, so no," said Tyn, chucking another frozen patty onto the grill.

"Neither is asking if she wants to screw like a couple of rabbits," teased Starrk.

"But if you want to ask her that yourself, you go right ahead," added Tyn. "Just let me buy a camera first so I can sell the ensuing mayhem to one of those Funniest Home Videos shows."

"To hell with both of you!" snarled Grimmjow.

"Whatever you say, 'Cutey-Kitty,'" said Starrk with a smirk as he put his headset on to attend to a customer finally.

"Hey, fuck you! I thought she was flirting with me!"

"If you say so, Cutey-Kitty."

It was the combination of silence and savagery that unnerved Tia the most.

While the hole in the wall had been repaired by maintenance earlier today and the repairs on the balcony had been started, the rest of the apartment was still a mess despite Grimmjow's efforts the other night and still Tyn was still reluctant to speak with her.

She scrubbed the dried blood from the wall, glancing back at her roommate as he finished picking up the remaining scraps of wood, drywall, and glass that littered the apartment. Tyn hadn't even said anything to her when he'd noticed the tooth worn around her neck and that stung. Had she been wrong after all? Was he not ready to forgive her yet and speak? Was he still angry at her, maybe still wanting to murder her? Maybe it would be best if one of them did move out…

"Fuck!" snarled Tyn, and Halibel turned around from the wall to see him sitting on his knees in front of the couch, clutching his hand as it bled.

She knew that he had been looking for more glass from the coffee table in the rug and under the couch and he'd apparently found a piece the hard way. Tia dropped her sponge to the ground and walked over, gently pulling him to his feet by his arm and examining the wound.

An insignificant wound by their standards; it probably hurt now but once the offending shard was removed the gash would likely be gone entirely tomorrow morning.

Still, it was a chance to grab his attention and maybe force a conversation.

Carefully, she extracted the jagged, wickedly-sharp chunk of bloodied glass from his open palm and dropped it into the garbage can before leading him to the bathroom and washing the open wound in the sink.

"You don't need to do this… I'm perfectly capable of taking care of it myself," he all but growled at her.

"I know I don't need to…" she agreed with him. "I want to."

"Why?" he asked harshly, watching the bloody water spiral down the drain as she turned off the faucet and began to rifle through the cabinets for bandages.

"Because I want you to see that I'm not the psycho bitch you think I am," said Halibel softly, producing a small roll of bandages finally. "Not anymore, at least."

Tyn's answer was an unconvinced grunt.

"And you said buying bandages would be a waste of time for us…" she said, clucking her tongue as she wrapped his hand with the stretchy white gauze.

"Is this supposed to be your idea of an apology?" he asked her finally.

"An apology, yes, but not a full apology," she corrected. "It's hard to make eight months of hell right overnight, isn't it?"

"Very," he agreed as she released his hand finally, allowing him to flex it.

"Don't do that too much for the next few minutes; give the wound time to start to close or you'll just aggravate it."

"I'll be careful," said Tyn, turning and going back out to the living room to finish scouring the carpet for more glass.

"Tyn…" she sighed, irritated that he was trying to avoid this much-needed conversation once again.

"What do you want from me?" he asked finally, turning back to face her. "I gave you the tooth and made you breakfast this morning."

"I want to talk!" she exclaimed. "How is that not clear? We have to sit down and—"

"Why?" he asked. "What's done is done; let's just move on."

"Wait, what?" Tia asked, blinking. "Are you saying everything's fine, just like that? That we forgive and forget?"

"Not exactly… I'm saying that talking about the past will get us nowhere; you said you were sorry and that things will be different now, so let's focus on seeing how that turns out. We don't need to talk it out like a bunch of whiny humans; we had our fight, and now it's over."

"It's not that simple, Tyn…" she sighed.

"Isn't it? We both said we're sorry, and you promised to stop abusing me. That seems pretty simple to me; it's all this crap about talking that makes it complex."

"You said you were only mostly sorry for trying to kill me," she reminded him.

"Heartless monster from a land of darkness and death here."

"So am I," she countered.

"Then stop trying to be human and talk about it! We agree to no more fighting, right?"

"Right."

"Then what more is there?" he asked. "Let's just take it day by day and see what happens."

"If that's how you feel, why have you been ducking me? Why leave this morning before I got up? Why ignore me for most of tonight?" pressed Halibel.

"Why? Because yes, I am still a little angry. That's not going to magically vanish just because you said you were sorry, and no amount of talking will kill it off; just give it time and that last bit of rage will die on its own."

"How can you know that? How can you be sure that it won't thrive and grow into something dangerous? Tyn, you're—" asked Tia, her frustration evident in her tone.

"Because it's happened before…" said Tyn abruptly, cutting her questions short. "Did you think that I wasn't upset when you and the others chased me from Los Noches, trying to catch me and kill me?"

Tia closed her open mouth and went silent at that, listening as guilt began to knot itself in her stomach once more.

"I felt betrayed…" Tyn continued, "that you and the others were the true traitors, not me. I was trying to make everyone stop and think for a minute instead of blindly following Aizen and for my troubles, you all turned against me and tried to murder me. The only friends I had ever known, including the woman I'd call my best friend, exiled me from the only real home I'd ever known!"

"You were too fast for us…" offered Halibel. "Your sonido is your greatest strength, and I'm glad that we couldn't catch you."

"I was angry at all of you for a while…hated you, even. Especially you. I knew you and Starrk and Ulquiorra were just following Aizen's orders and wouldn't have come after me on your own, but that didn't matter at first; the feeling of betrayal hurt too much."

"But you got over it eventually?"

"I came back for you, didn't I?" asked Tyn softly. "You, and the others. The anger dissolved after a few days in the desert, once I managed to cool off."

"You sound less angry with me already…" Tia pointed out, trying not to focus too hard on the way he'd mentioned coming back for her and her obviously-flawed perception that he'd only mentioned the others as an afterthought.

"I do, don't I?" asked Tyn, smirking as he looked down at his still-bandaged left hand and flexed it tentatively, making sure that the bleeding had come to a complete stop as Tia stepped over beside him, watching him work his fingers.

"It'll be just fine…" she assured him gently, offering him what had to be the first non-threatening smile he'd ever seen on her face since coming to Karakura.

"And so will we."