A/N:Thank you for any and allreviews, favorites, and follows, as well as all you other readers out there!

Bleachand all products thereof are copyright to Tite Kubo, et al.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

Ichigo and Rukia poked around the former's room first, discovering that in addition to some new furniture he did indeed have both an adjoining full bathroom and a walk-in closet. All of his things had been arranged as near as possible to how they had been in the Kurosaki household. A few new outfits and accessories seemed to have been added to his wardrobe, including one that looked suspiciously like the uniform Alan had worn. Rukia tried to imagine how her partner would look in it and found she liked the thought—he'd look rather quite dashing and the blue would nicely compliment his orange hair…

"What?" Ichigo asked her when he noticed her just staring at it as if in a daydream.

"Don't intrude on a woman's thoughts!" she said with annoyance, but the mental image of dashing Ichigo was gone.

Deciding not to press the matter, Ichigo went back into the room proper. He noticed that even the chocolates she'd given him were where he'd left them on the desk, even as the desk itself had been moved. He hadn't had time to try any of them yet. What was new was that beside them was a letter. Raising an eyebrow, Ichigo walked over and picked it up. Rukia meanwhile busied herself nosily looking through his clothes. "Hey, when did you buy suits?" she called.

"I didn't," he replied, opening the letter. Inside were two different documents. The first was a brief note in Japanese reading:

Couldn't adjust your acting pay-grade, was able to up the benefits package.
–Alan
P.S. Be aware they may still be listening in on you through your old badge.

Ichigo frowned at both lines. Regarding the first, he didn't like evidence that forced him to imagine the man as being anything other than a conspiratorial nemesis, no matter how true or irrefutable it was. Regarding the second, what was that supposed to mean? He put it aside for a moment and looked at the other document. It was a folded balance sheet for a bank account with a linked JCB credit and debit card in his name attached. He opened the sheet and determined his salary would be directly deposited into the account and utility costs would be withdrawn directly from it. He froze as his eyes scanned over the existing balance. He could only proclaim "What?!"

Rukia poked her head out from the closet, asking "What is it?" When Ichigo didn't respond she came over and looked at the sheet he was holding at, finding it listed the balance as ¥3,000,000.00. "Eh?!" she responded, looking at it in similar shock.

Ichigo exhaled at her sudden presence, deciding to get it over with, and handed her the note, saying "It came with this."

She scanned over it, frowning curiously at the first line and rather clearly cringing at the second. After a second she looked up at him with a guilty expression. "I…"

"Hey, it wasn't your idea right?" Ichigo said with a small smile. It didn't bother him: Ukitake had given him the badge, he was now working with Ukitake and would tell him whatever he found out anyway as part of his job, and he hadn't had it on or near his person much in the time since he'd been depowered until just the other day, which was when this had all kicked off anyway. Alan's casual mention of it seemed to indicate he, and his superiors, didn't care either, which was notable in itself.

Rukia looked down at the floor. "After you lost your powers," she muttered, "Ukitake-taichō let me have the receiver." There had been no great need for it to be retained in an official capacity anymore, not that it had ever really provided much information.

This time, Ichigo chose to engage, and leaned down a little so they were at eye level with one another, saying "Why did you want it?"

Her eyes shifted back to him, brows knitting in irritation at how he was teasing her even as at the same time she found herself kind of enjoying him starting to stand up to her again. "To hear your voice," she said primly.

"I didn't know you liked my voice that much," Ichigo said plainly.

"Who said I liked it, fool?" Rukia replied, adopting a haughty expression and crossing her arms.

Ichigo would historically have escalated into a shouting match, but after the events of the past few days, he adopted a new tactic. He leant further forward and brought his lips up to beside one of her ears, their cheeks ever so slightly brushing. He could feel a sudden heat radiating from her face as if she'd thought he'd do something else. "Guess you must want me to shut up then," he said in the same tone.

"Maybe you should," she hissed, albeit playfully.

"Thing is, I'm not sure how to, maybe you can help?" he replied with just a hint of smugness.

"Maybe I'll consider that after you brush your teeth," she shot back.

She had him then, verbally at least, simply because there was no comeback he could make that wouldn't offend her and give her a pretext for injuring him. She also had a point: it'd been over a day since he'd last brushed. Sometimes discretion was the better part of valor, but she had also left him an opening, and so he simply stood without a word and went around her before she could respond, going to the bathroom, locating his toothbrush, and starting in.

Rukia, while quietly impressed at his new directness, left to go check out her room while he was distracted. She'd scarcely set foot in it the night before. It too was equipped with a full bathroom and a walk-in closet, and she figured the rooms were either the same size or very close to it. Since she'd had no personal effects to bring over, it had been outfitted completely from scratch. The furniture was cute and feminine but in a broadly more sophisticated rather than a girly way, featuring a lot of cherry wood and patterned fabrics. Most of these were, admittedly, of Chappy, although there were a few abstract ones to break it up. The bed was queen size and she had two night tables, several dressers, an armoire, a desk, and more.

It was the contents of the closet and drawers that really floored her though: a complete wardrobe from top to bottom had been assembled for her, and she found she liked everything about it and that it looked like it would all fit to boot. It was completely impossible that guy had selected everything in here for her and if he somehow had right down to the pajamas and underwear she decided then and there that she would murder him despite his complete understanding of her taste and her vow to protect humans. No, somewhere within SOCOM's operations, it was clear there was at least one woman's touch. Rukia was convinced.

She was pulling out various dresses to inspect them more thoroughly when she heard Ichigo's shower start up. Apparently he'd decided that if he was going to clean up in one way he might as well in another. It had been a day since they'd dressed and showered and even though the cold weather had been to their benefit neither could've been described as fresh after their panic the night before, so Rukia picked out a few things from her new set of clothes, closed her door, and likewise went to go shower.

She had not noticed that there was a service uniform in her closet just like in Ichigo's, and even if she had, she wouldn't have known its pattern was that of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force.

By the time Rukia was finished and opened the door Ichigo had already long-since finished and had cleaned up the living room, dining room, and kitchen from the previous night's party rather than choosing to explore without her. Reunited, they decided to investigate the house they'd come into possession of.

The living room had spacious and comfortable seating and an entertainment center that had every convenience, featuring a large flat-screen TV that appeared to get satellite reception and was also hooked up to both a PS2 and GameCube, although there were no games to be found. It seemed they had finally found a limit to the US government's generosity, although perhaps it was to keep them from slacking off as much as anything else.

The backyard featured a covered deck with some chairs and a small grill, and led down to a compact garden structured around an ornamental pond with a little burbling waterfall. It was rather tranquil.

The kitchen was robustly stocked with cooking implements and its door did in fact lead to a utility room complete with washer and dryer, and a pantry which had some rudimentary nonperishable foodstuffs but was largely empty. The refrigerator and freezer had been similarly rather barebones in their stock.

The reading area featured both upright and reclining chairs and a small library of various famous and classical Japanese-language works of fiction and poetry, with some empty space for new additions.

The guest bedroom, on closer inspection, had a bathroom just like their own, and its neutral and stately furnishings were clearly intended to not offend guests of any sort. It seemed that their long history of receiving visitors had been duly noted.

It was the office which received their attention last. It featured two large desks opposite one another, each with a high-backed office chair and new if seemingly-standard Dell PCs, along with space to lay out documents. It also had a landline phone, a printer, and a fax machine, and a safe that was at present unlocked. Inside were the three folders of Ichigo's previous 'homework'—including the official history, which had apparently been returned to its proper housing—and a few new ones besides, along with a card on top detailing how to set the combination lock.

The office was stocked with its own library. The selection of books was a very strange and eclectic collection: various kinds of military field and reference manuals, dictionaries, atlases, geopolitical texts, philosophy books, mythology compendiums, science references, and the like. Most of them were in Japanese but a few, particularly the military works, were in English (these also being very clearly standard US military documents), and he spotted both a Japanese-English dictionary and a few books on learning English among the mix as well. It was clearly meant for the two of them to both use and learn from.

It was while looking at the books that Ichigo noticed there was one particular bit of the floor in a weird area that sounded kind of different when it was walked on. He tapped his foot around trying to determine the extent of it and eventually figured out he was a square about 3 centimeters on a side. Rukia looked at him like he was crazy while he did so, but he ignored her for the moment. He tried tapping his foot on it twice and it suddenly pushed in.

"What did you do to the floor?!" Rukia exclaimed, both in surprise and irritation that he was somehow already breaking the house—our house.

"It's some kind of switch," he said. He withdrew his foot in confusion only to see the floor slide back and a metallic pillar ascend from it up to about waist height.

Rukia walked up to him as they both stood and considered it. "What does it do?" she asked after a moment. Mounted on top of the pillar was a numeric keypad and an LCD display that had four underscored spaces for numbers.

"Dunno," Ichigo replied.

"It wants a four-digit number?" she said quizzically.

"This place was set up for us, so I guess it'd be something we'd both know?" Ichigo pondered.

They tried punching in each other's respective birthdays ("1507" and "1401") as much to prove they knew them as anything else, and found it didn't recognize either. "Hey, wait, Americans give the date as month, day, year, and not day, month, year," Ichigo suddenly remembered. He had noticed that that order had been specified on his contract paperwork and had found it weird. They tried again in the opposite order ("0715" and "0114"), and still nothing happened, the system rejecting both numbers immediately again.

Rukia cupped her chin in thought. "If it's not our birthdays, what could it be that we should both know?"

Ichigo looked sideways at her for a moment, before smiling. He tried punching in "0518." The number held for a second, then flashed. "First day we met," Ichigo said, proud of himself, "Friday, 18th of May, 2001."

Rukia smiled softly at the fact he remembered such a thing. Before she could say anything, the display shifted to displaying "WAIT" and there was a series of chunky mechanical noises behind them. They turned with newfound trepidation. A square section of the floor about a meter on a side in the center of the room retracted down and slid away, revealing what looked like a very deep hole. The pair cautiously crept over to it and looked down. A square ring of white LEDs lit up on the sides, followed by another a half meter down, and so on in rapid succession. The shaft was at least 50 meters deep. There was no visible means of descent

Raven and One looked at one another, both finding their new house suddenly much creepier, before looking back down the shaft. It was now clear that the bottom of it was rapidly coming up to meet them, causing them both to move away in distrust. A metal platform suddenly came up flush with the floor. It had another similar pillar on it which only had an up and down button. There was enough space for them both to stand on what was clearly an elevator. After sharing another look and exchanging a weary sigh, they both walked onto it, face to face, and Ichigo pushed the down button. They were whisked downward at an alarming rate, the lights rushing past them.

The elevator slowed down as they apparently approached the bottom, bringing them to a very soft brake. They were in the middle of a square room significantly larger than the office. A hallway bisected the room at either end, lights in the floor leading off in both directions. There were white overhead lights as well, and the entire space was well-lit if sterile-looking, as the place seemed to be made mostly of metal and plastic. Looking around, they could see the room was mirrored about the walkway that denoted the exits: the left was the same as the right. It was then that they both noticed what covered the walls.

The walls were lined with all kinds of guns, none of which looked like traditional military hardware as Ichigo was familiar with it through video games and movies. Ichigo thought some of them resembled the Morning Star and the Moonlight Scythe he had seen Alan with. Rukia thought she saw ones she had seen in visions of the man's memories. They were very clearly mounted in a fashion that was logical to somebody, becoming more lethal-looking toward the axis that was perpendicular to the hallway.

Exactly perpendicular to the hallway, on either side of the elevator, were two large cases made of what appeared to be glass, except it was an opaque, reflective black, like one might see on the windows of a luxury car, glinting in the static lighting. There was something stenciled on each of them in matte red lettering. Ichigo approached one to read it more clearly and found it read: "IN CASE OF APOCALYPSE BREAK GLASS."

Ichigo frowned severely at that because it seemed like a bad joke. He leaned forward, trying to peer through the glass as to what might possibly be inside. Nothing was visible whatsoever. He noticed in the reflection that Rukia's head was right beside his and started in surprise as she pointed and asked "What does 'apocalypse' mean?" Her English was still extremely limited, which possibly explained some of the books upstairs.

"It means 'the end of the world'," he said, before stepping back and grimacing at the black glass "What the hell is in this thing, and why are there two?"

"I think we're not supposed to know unless we break into it, which we're not supposed to do unless the world is ending apparently, so…" Rukia said with disbelief, before looking to the one on the opposite side, which was identical in every way. "I'm guessing we each get one side."

"This place gives me the creeps," Ichigo muttered.

They split up and surveyed the collection of softly backlit weapons, noticing that there were also various lockers and footlockers repeated on either side. Opening them revealed other kinds of gear, from what looked to be various kinds of munitions, to outfits like the one Ichigo had seen Alan in, to armored pieces of some kind. The size of the clothing, at least, indicated which side was supposed to be whose.

After some minutes they reconvened at the center of the room, considering the hallways. Before he could say something Rukia grabbed his wrist and led him down one. After a gradual curve to the right, they found themselves looking at what appeared to be an automated shooting gallery with space for two shooters. It was at least 50 meters long.

Promptly turning around and heading the other way, back through the gun room to the other hallway, they went along a gradual curve to the left that led them to what was a comparatively traditional looking dōjō, although there were still clearly hints of Western design in it, particularly in the continued clinical lighting. It was roughly a cube that was about 10 meters long on every side, and had a small second tier walkway that could be reached by ladder.

They looked at one another in unspoken agreement and again promptly left, returning to the elevator and getting on it before Ichigo pushed up. Within seconds they were back in the office, and after they had stepped off the elevator it again rushed down, the floor closing up over it, and the pillar sinking back into the floor. Just like that it was simply an office again. Ichigo pulled out one of the office chairs for Rukia and then the other for himself, and they sat and looked at each other in silence for awhile.

"Ichigo, what have we gotten ourselves into?" Rukia said at last.

Ichigo just sighed, before saying "We don't tell anyone about that."

Rukia just nodded seriously.

They sat with their own thoughts for awhile, finally letting themselves reflect on how they truly felt about their new circumstances.

The house was nice enough. It was clear that the expense of having acquired, refurbished, and outfitted it for them had not bothered their SOCOM benefactors—neither knew much about logistical costs, either in the Living World or Soul Society, let alone in major organizations, but it was rather evident this was viewed as simply an operating expense in the name of getting them established and not an effort to buy them off. Alan's note had probably been with regard to Ichigo's "sign-up bonus" and the extent of the furnishings and accoutrements provided to them. Those had also been a statement in their own way: they reflected the selections of people who had observed them for quite some time and in some detail to know them and their tastes so well.

That was also reflected in how they had been maneuvered into being here. SOCOM had approached Ichigo during a moment of weakness and had positioned things such that he would, of his own accord, do exactly what they wanted. Things were such that they had gotten Soul Society to do the same: there had been a sense of obligation to both Ichigo and Rukia, and so they had been reunited with just the simplest of pushes, and circumstances had been exactly such that they had been placed under stress together and…

Neither was willing to admit what was going on between them yet, either to themselves or to each other, but while carefully avoiding looking directly at the subject and merely skirting around it mentally, it was clear that their history and emotions had also been used to move them just so too. They had instinctually noticed it happening and it remained their primary source of antagonism with Alan, even if he himself was gone.

It was now that they both independently transitioned from holding that as an assessment of him to holding it as an assessment of his organization. Although neither knew it, they were sharing the same thought: a military organization playing matchmaker, how ridiculous!

It was very reminiscent of Aizen, but at the same time it wasn't. Aizen had had no compunction with using his abilities destructively even when there were clear alternatives simply because he could. Aizen had had no regard for the feelings or wellbeing of others. Aizen had had no issues with gloating about his accomplishments, or taking credit for things that even he had not easily predicted. SOCOM had moved them like pieces on a board, but in a rather more thoughtful way, and having achieved its goal of bringing them together was now quite content to let them develop as they might…and seemingly willing to reveal more of its hand.

The space below that neither of them wanted to much think about was evidence of as much. Nobody would turn over such a ridiculously dangerous assortment of hardware to people that were not, in some way, trusted implicitly. The limited nature of the facilities below—how long had this place been being prepared anyway to have all that?—indicated they were supplementary rather than all-encompassing: they were expected to utilize Urahara's training room and perhaps Soul Society's facilities as well. But if SOCOM intended to tell them more, there was as yet no evidence of it they had yet seen.

It dawned on Ichigo first, if only because he was somewhat more familiar with computer technology than Rukia, the Shinigami efforts at such being concentrated in the 12th Division. "Rukia," he said, looking up at his partner directly and drawing her out of her own contemplation, "I'm sure whatever they intend to tell us is on these machines."

He reached back and pressed the power button of one. After having watched him do it, Rukia nodded and did the same.