☆Okay, I'm just going to say now that almost all of these will have spoilers, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! ☆

    "You've really gone and done it now, Ichigo." Rukia mumbled as she hauled an injured Ichigo's arm over her shoulder.

    "Shut your mouth."

    "If you had shut your mouth earlier and had not provoked those Hollows, you wouldn't be like this." He couldn't argue with that, she had a point.

    "Just, hurry. It looks like it's gonna rain." He said while limping stupidly as he tried to put the least amount of pressure on his left ankle as possible.

    "Relax, we'll definitely get to your house i-" it started to drizzle "-in time." Ichigo sighed in annoyance.

    "Can't you just carry me and use shunpo?"

    "Me, carry you. Yeah, that's going to happen."

    "Worth a shot." He muttered to himself.

    But Rukia just couldn't get to his house fast enough, their robes and hair were almost soaked and the rain was only going to get worse. "It's no use, we'll have to just get to a shelter for a bit. Once most of your reiatsu is restored, we can shunpo back to your house."

    "Sounds like a plan." He winced after that. They stopped walking and Ichigo's free hand flew to his side.

    "What's wrong?" Rukia asked quickly. She was answered with blood speeping through Ichigo's fingers. His wound re-opened... "Stay still." She brought her right hand over the wound, focusing some reiatsu with the kido on it and was soon healing the injury.

    It was then when Rukia realized how close she was to Ichigo, her head right underneath his chin and she was still supporting him with her left arm. It would technically be a hug if she completely wrapped her arms around him. She felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but luckily they were already pink for a while from the cold air. Embarrassed, she stepped back just a little to put some space between them, Ichigo still watching the green glow from her hand heal the wound. But she immediately missed that brief feeling of warmth from him, hearing his heartbeat in her left ear and the soothing rain in in the other; it was comforting... She blushed even more and quickly removed her healing hand.

    "All done? It still kinda hurts." Ichigo said, completely oblivious.

    "Of c-course, I only meant to stop the bleeding. I'll completely heal it once we get out of the rain." Her blush only grew deeper and in an attempt to hide it, she turned back to the side (so he wouldn't see) and continued to walk Ichigo to...well, who knows where? Just anywhere that provides shield from the rain that isn't a tree (learned that lesson not too long ago).

    But, eventually she came across a place she did recognize. It was the river area where she spent that last day before Ichigo lost his powers, and also... She remembered that there was a kind of 'bridge' of the concrete that was placed on top of a hill that was cut to allow people to walk through - long story short it was a place to get out of the rain.

    "What about there?" She asked, carefully.

    "...Sure, why not." Ichigo answered in monotone.

    Why did it have to rain? Rukia thought. For him to come here is pretty normal, but not when it's raining... I should have just picked another spot. "Ah-uh, we can go somewhere else..."

    "It's fine, I'm not a kid anymore." He said more assuringly with a slight grin.

    "Don't you have to be 18 to be considered a young adult?"

    "Shut it! Don't you know that I turned 18 several months ago!?"

    "Ohhh, yeah! There was cake and ballons! :)"

    "Yeah, when I kindly asked for a party bus."

    "Be grateful!" She said and flicked his head.

    "Really? Because if I remember correctly it was exactly like the party last year."

    "To someone who's never had a celebration for their birthday like that, it's very special."

    "Oh..."

    "Oh."

    "Well, you weren't even there last year! Ha!"

    "El oh el."

    Ichigo sweatdropped. "W-what the hell was that?"

    "Huh? I thought you guys use that word when sending messages through cellphones when something is funny. Except that, you know, no one laughs when they type it."

    "How much time did you spend with Yuzu? She's in her phone phase!"

    "What was the problem anyways?"

    "It's used fo-- ugh just keep walking."

    Must have been another 'real world' lifestyle interpretation failure. Rukia thought to herself. But seriously, it's not like I just know everything.

    "Okay since when was it this cold when it rains?" Ichigo complained at the sky.

    "It's not even that--"

    "Says Miss. I Can Survive -200° or whatever it was!"

    She giggled. "Hey idiot, we're here." They couldn't have thanked the construction people or whoever thought of the design for the place even more; since the ground was slanted, the water just slid right off and the ground was completely dry. "But to think, that a pack of mere Hollow had you injured."

    "Th-they were Vasto Lorde with a few Adjuchas!"

    "I was kiddin'. I should probably take care of that tortured shoulder first..."

    "Huh?" he asked as they both sat down and leaned back against the wall from where the bridge started. She placed her hand on his deeply cut shoulder and began to heal it.

    "Remember? When you fought Grand Fisher, how he stabbed you right through the same shoulder." Sh*t...bad example...... "Uhh and when you first met Renji? He landed a deep cut on your right shoulder and then released Zabimaru and created an even deeper cut? In fact...how come you didn't lose your arm?"

    "Oh yeah-! Wow... kinda creepy that you remembered all of that."

    "W-wha?" She blushed a little. "Then, is it creepy when you remember something from when you were a small child or something?" I cling on to my memories here too much then...

    "Not necessarily, I just- nevermind." He huffed.

    "I'm sorry I'm not an expert at this world yet! If I wasn't so afraid that Renji would have killed you, I would have laughed at how stupid you responded when he asked if you knew Zangetsu's name!"

    "Ah-- touché." Wait...'remember something when you were a child?'... idiot! Stop reminding him of it!  "That was nothing compared to when I fought Ulquiorra." He said a little too proudly.

    "Oh really? Did you finally lose an arm?" Rukia joked.

    "Uh...no. He kinda fired a point blank Cero on my chest." Rukia stopped the healing and gasped slightly. "What is it?"

    "How...that's..." Did her voice just...? Rukia raised her arm to slap him, but somehow she stopped herself and sighed angrily. "Don't...don't say something like that so calmly!" She scolded him. "That Ulquiorra guy...I heard of him! Inoue told me about him. He was the 4th!"

    "I beat him, didn't I?"

    "I just assumed this whole time that it went like any of your other battles, but then the roof came down and your reiatsu was just...sinister."

    Flashes of Ichigo's conversation with Zangetsu appeared in his mind. 'Recognize me!?'

'That was the form you took when you fought Ulquiorra Shiffer.'

'I turned into...that?'

    "Ichigo." He had been spacing out. "What happened in that battle?"

    "...Why should you know?" He said a little too harshly. "Just hurry up with the healing please."

    "If you didn't want to talk about it, you could have just said so..." His shoulder was healed and she moved on to the wound that had been bleeding earlier. "It's just...to ask me to let go of the fact that I felt your reiatsu completely die off at one point..." Her voice grew quiet.

    "Okay, fine. I was dead for a while, but I'm back now eh?"

    Rukia smiled. "Hehe...why do I always wanna punch you?"

    For the first time ever, Ichigo dodged her incoming fist. He had ducked and listened to the sound of breaking concrete and felt dust and peices of rock fall at his neck. Rukia brought her hand back to her side and Ichigo sat up, looking at the huge dent.

    "Wha--what the!? Where you really trying to kill me!?"

    "How can you just tell me that you were dead so casually!? You fool!" She shouted at him with bleeding knuckles.

    "Why do you care?!"

    Rukia placed her left hand over her right and quickly fixed the cuts on it. "So you're engaged in a seriously outnumbered battle, and then just like that, you feel my reiatsu dissappear into thin air. And all you can do is have faith that I didn't die." she replied angrily.

    "Well, I'm alive now, so--" My god... "H-hey..." Tears were running down her face. A strange feeling overcame Ichigo from the sight of it.

    "Sorry, don't know what that was about." She laughed and wiped them away. 

    Wow, I'm such an idiot. "Well, actually." She looked up at him. "Ulquiorra had me convinced that you were dead for a minute."

    When I fought Kaie--no, that Espada...

    "But being stubborn, I couldn't believe even if I saw it happen right before my eyes."

    "Well then..." Rukia jokingly scoffed. And then she went back to healing his injuries.

    ~☆~

    "There, everything seems good. Now I should restore you reiatsu."

    "It's alright, I'll let it naturally regenerate."

    "Too late." She placed her hand on his head and a softer green glow emanated from it. Well, looks like she didn't quite think about how close her face would be to his... "Well," she couldn't stop the soft blush that colored her cheeks, "have we learned not to taunt a group of Vasto Lorde?"

    "What am I, 10?"

    "You might as well be compared to my age."

    "We'll you've definitely got the hight of a 10 year old. Wha-- ah ow ow ow cold cold coldcoldcold!"

    "And now we've learned not to annoy the girl you can freeze what tiny brain you have solid."

    "Teme... And even if my real body dies, my soul will still go on to Soul Society. And then we'll be together forever--" (Think of the overly attached girlfriend meme)

    "Don't say it creepily like that!"  She yelled and ceased to restore his reiatsu. 'Together forever'...does that idiot ever think about how his words sound.

    "Yeah, yeah I do."

    "Wha-- I said that aloud?"

    "Yep." She blushed even more. "I also, actually..." Even he began to blush. "I was hoping you would heal me like you did back there, haha..."

    "Well, what are you saying?"

    He gulped. "I really like you, Rukia..." He said it so cautiously, with the fear of rejection. But to Ichigo's relief, he received a smile from the shinigami.

    "F-fool..." Why was that the only thing she could say? "I like you too..." Orihime was not screwing around when she told her that the awkwardness in these situations is thick enough to choke on.

    "I like you, you like me, we're all one big family - or how ever that goes." Oh did they recognize that voice.

    "Hi-histugaya-taichou!" Rukia said.

    "Toushiro?!" Ichigo asked.

    "No, like Kuchiki said, 'Histugaya-taichou!'" The captain replied angrily. He sighed. "If you're all better Kurosaki, we need to meet up with everyone else at your place to discuss the fleet of Vasto Lorde that you two just defeated.

    "Yes, right away sir!" Rukia said, standing up. She held out her hand to help Ichigo up. "Hurry up Ichigo--!"

    He pulled her back down and kissed her, staight on the lips. It was so quick that Rukia didn't even have time to change her pervious facial feature from when she was speaking. "Yes! I was about to lose the moment thanks to whitey over there." Ichigo said when he pulled away.

    "How cute - Time to go - And I'll kill you soon enough. Hurry up already!" Toushiro said as he sped off.

    "Ja, you heard the kid, Rukia!"

    Ichigo then dissappeared as well. Rukia sat there with a red, shocked face, then fainted from embarrassment.

    ~☆~
    Shut up, I woke up at 3:40-something which means someone was staring at me, wiritng calms me down :3