When I came to, I was in a plain room, with familiar off white walls, feeling the soft floor beneath me and the warmth around me. Mine and Rukia's room, and I was somehow in my bed.

I pushed myself up, and instantly winced. "Oooww..." I squirmed, pushing my palm to my head in an effort to stop it from opening. I felt a warm hand on my forearm. "Not yet." Somehow I knew what the words meant, and I followed by lying back down, and instead turned my head, finding Ulquiorra.

"w-what happened?"

"You collapsed."

"Oh." I allowed my eyes to wonder to the other side of the room, when I found night-time filling the window. "How long have I been out?"

"A few hours."

I frowned, and concern bubbled up in me. I found his eyes again, staring at the floor next to my hand, and pushed myself back up. "Ulquiorra? Whats wrong?"

By force he returned his gaze back to me. "I don't understand." That meant he did. I understood full well, but he wasn't that kind of person. If he suffered, it would be the silent, lock doors, shut blinds, sensationless kind of suffering. So that meant I either had to drag him kicking and screaming, or assume. I could take a guess.

"It's about what Ichigo said."

He maintained eye contact, but the pupils tightened to pin points at his name, and he looked almost too stoic. A flash of recognition hit me, but soon passed. "Not entirely."

"What else?"

He began searching with his eyes, as though everywhere but me had the answers. "It was true. What he told you."

"Huh?"

"And I think you know that. You know that as much as you know what I looked like, but something so trivial is not important to me."

I changed my position so I was sat on my knees, wrapping my blanket around myself to hide the goose pimples. "What is important to you then?"

At last, he met my eyes. "That I didn't hurt you."

As soon as he said it, I was arguing. "No! I don't believe that for a second-"

"That's blind defence."

"Do you think you hurt me?"

He snapped his eyes away. "I was...something else...back then. I don't know what I was capable of. But...sometimes...I get images, flashes. I say something or think something, and I feel like...im getting a hint from my subconscious."

We sat in silence for a moment, letting that and everything else sink in. I switched my eyes to his hand, resting on his knee, and thought of the image of that very hand dispersing in front of my face. I wanted to hold it, for the thousandth time, just for reassurance.

"Ulqui...ora?"

I heard a "hmm", but I didn't look up. "Can I tell you about a...dream...I keep having?" I found his eyes, his directed to their previous focal point. He continued staring, sadness in his eyes. Guilt.

"I keep dreaming that you...and I...are in, like a desert. Youre standing there...and I know its you, but you look different. Like...a demon. But your eyes...theyre exactly the same...and they look like they do now. You hold out your hand...and I try to grab it." I stop when I notice my voice getting shaky, and I return my gaze to his hand.

"It disappears like dust, and you go with it."

In a final attempt to meet his eyes, I nervously looked up. He was watching with intent. He didn't move, blink, flinch, or even move for breath. His eyes were shadowed by his bangs, much like the dream, sadness and something else...something unreadable. I felt myself falling trying to find that unidentified emotion, and tightened my blanket around my arms and torso.

"We should sleep."

He nodded, swallowing his words and recollecting himself. "I'll go find-"

"No, erm..." I shifted across on the floor mattress. "Can you...stay with me?" I felt myself blush, despite the innocent ignorance in his eyes. After a few moments consideration, he finally unravelled and moved to lay next to me, a couple of inches between our arms. I pulled the blanket out beneath me and covered the pair of us. "Thank you."

...

Sure, it was slightly awkward. Awkward as in, cramped. But, in actuality, it felt comforting. I could even convince myself I could feel the veil of sleep drift over me, pretend I was real. I felt as though any surface would be suffice to sleep upon, because the aches and pains in my joints finally eased with a satisfying, dull sensation. They felt slightly numb, but not disconcertingly so.

Outside, like a distant thought, creaks and slight thuds sounded by the door, and my thought was that the room was suddenly black...

I awoke with a jerk, eyes slamming open to the pitch black room. I thought only minutes had gone by, until I heard the slow, uneven breathing of the girl next to me. She was fast asleep, curled next to my arm and her legs on the solid flooring next to her. She looked happy enough, so I didn't bother her. Instead, I remained laying there, recounting back to the series of images that had gone through my head in the impossibly short amount of time that had passed. They felt like more intense, more detailed versions of the feelings that washed over me at random points, like tiny bites of realisation that teased me with one sniff, and then whipped away before I could establish what it was. But these bites were not delicious, or even pleasant. They were foreign, gory, ghoulish and furious, often empty, lonely, destructive. Flashes of fire in artificial deserts, vast battles, immense power...contrasting with moments of agony uncharacteristic for one to bare, a hole in the chest, literally and metaphorically. A demon, incapable of anything but negative emotion and turmoil. Instead of cringing at the ideas, I simply lay to let the cold truth wash over me with shards of ice for waves. That was me, and the 'me' now was dreaming.

Dreaming...had I done that when I was a hollow?

Was I still...a hollow?

I waited, wondering if my subconscious would offer me anything more, and when I waited long enough I shifted my head to take one look at the woman. I wanted to move the hair from covering her features, but that would've woken her. Gently, I shifted from the bed, and stood, making my quiet way from the room in the dark.

In the hallway, I found the bespectacled man, just making his way into a room, a belt in his hand with numerous unidentified items lining it. He noticed me, but didn't look startled. He didn't smile, but he didn't frown, attack, or recoil. He simply nodded.

"Ulquiorra." He did, however, spare me a look up and down. I took a disinterested glance down, my clothes still neat and standing like a normal human. Perhaps a little straighter.

"Could you direct me to the owner of this place?"

Regarding me with an arched eyebrow peaked over his glasses, he said, "Training."

I inwardly recoiled. "Very well."

I began making my way down the hall, when a pale arm blocked my path.

"Ichigo is with him. I wouldn't if I were you."

I turned my stare onto him. "Why should his presence affect me?"

He lowered his hand, and turned only to be slightly angled towards me. "For Orihime's sake."

"It seems to me that you tend to unnecessarily try to shield her."

He gave a very dry, very humourless smirk. "Not unnecessarily. You are aware of that."

I held my gaze, but with great difficulty. I wouldn't let him win, but I knew there was some truth to his words. They had a reason to be protective, and I was wearing that reason's face.

"You want to know If you're still hollow, right?"

I squinted my eyes in suspicion.

"Rukia informed me. I am more attuned to types of rietsu than some, Kurosaki in particular."

Instead of pushing for more of the story I was not interested in, I waited for the answer. Something about this person told me he wasn't one for idle details either.

"Contrary to what Ichigo claimed, you're not hollow. I," he speculated, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger, "am not quite sure what you are at present."

With that he left me alone in the hall, pushing his way into the room behind the door. I stood, like I was waiting for something. Relief. Anything to replace the ever-growing hollow hole in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't go back in there, not yet. As the Ichigo trash had correctly observed, it was difficult to find a place to be alone.

I chose to swallow my pride, and took a few slow, cautious steps, and found my way to the room in which was the entrance to the training grounds. The only time before this that i'd found it on my own, I was catching the woman from certain death, milliseconds after she'd placed me in her room to warm up. How i'd moved so fast in such a dead weight of a body was beyond me; how I knew what was happening was an answer as far away as my humanity felt. I located the button, and waited for the steps to fully appear.

The grounds seemed to forever be basked in bright day light, a dash of cloud adding realism and eliminating the chance of sun blindness while training. It seemed logical enough.

At the end of the steps sat a man, long white hair blending in with his white coat, much like the captain who'd saved me. He was leaning his elbows upon his knees, admiring the battle scenes ahead.

"I'm looking to find the owner," I said. The man looked around, his brown eyes tired and kindly. "Ah, the elusive Ulquiorra. I'm afraid I haven't seen Kisuke for a few minutes. Perhaps he's tending to something elsewhere."

What a helpful person, I retorted mentally.

"Very well."

I turned to make my way back up the steps, noting how exhausting they looked when one looked up, when I sensed eyes on the back of my head. I turned ever so slightly, just to see the orange haired idiot through strands of my own hair. He was stood with purpose, but neither of his hands were poised on the hilt of his weapon. Still, I didn't trust him. I stared him out, waiting.

For some reason, I didn't feel the need to repeat what his friend had said to me, about my not being a hollow. I felt that he knew, but that didn't bother me. It felt like an empty come back, like, 'I told you so".

"Ichigo," the captain between us said, "I do not want any trouble here."

"Its fine, Captain Ukitake," he said. He connected his eyes to mine again. "I see you're not hiding behind Orihime this time."

"It's not for her sake that I'm here," I said, feeling the intense darkness of my voice. "Nor is it your business."

His eyebrows lowered over his brown eyes. "Why are you here then?" He asked, but it felt more like a message. You have no business being here, as it translated.

I turned on my step, and held my chin higher, looking down upon the trash. It felt familiar, particularly as my hands found their ways onto my pockets. I sent him a sharp look, which only made his eyes colder and angrier. "You may have defeated me once, Ichigo. It appears to have provided you with a hero complex." I took a few steps down, closer to him, able to see each wrinkle around his eyes. "Trust me when I tell you that you will not defeat me again."

"Arrogant as ever," he forced through his teeth. Instead of trying to provoke him further, I turned on my heal and retraced my steps.

"What's changed?" he asked, shouting. Again, I stopped, and again, I looked behind and down at him. "What has changed to make you think I cant defeat you again?"

I answered instantly. "My reasons for fighting."

"And what are they?"

I hesitated. Why should I tell this boy?

Because he had the same reason, once before.

I nodded inwardly at the voice. "The woman. I fight for the woman."

I didn't see his reaction, because I didn't care for it. The words i'd just uttered echoed and bounced back to me as though celebrating my own realisation. It made me tempted to smile, and it made me a little more alert, making my way from the grounds faster. I barely noticed I was back to her room until I was opening the door, back to the pitch black comfort of our pocket world.