The Cold Is To Be Endured.

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Chapter Three.

Her days consisted of thoughts of Ichigo. Bathing, thoughts of Ichigo, thoughts of the other three, thoughts of Ichigo, and then a little food while unnaturally green eyes with slitted pupils watched her. Then she was left to a broken sleep, prolific with dreams about Ichigo that she awoke from sweating and crying and trying to wipe his blood from her hands.

At some point the meals changed from bread and water to something more substantial, and she was grateful.

"Do you miss your shinigami?" His voice made her jump. This was the first thing he had said to her in over a fortnight. She looked askance at him, but he did not say anything more.

"Every day." She said eventually, softly.

She didn't bother telling him that he was never hers to begin with.

"Why?" His eyes mapped her face.

She looked at him for a very long time, weighing up her answer. Then told him, "You wouldn't understand," before going back to pick at her food, because she wasn't hungry anymore.

He left then.

And so this continued. He would come daily, always at the same time, and watch her. At first it made her uncomfortable, somebody watching her eat, and then she learned to ignore him. Sometimes they would exchange words - they didn't talk, because a conversation required a level of comfort that just wasn't there. Most of the time, they wouldn't, but unfailingly, he would ask her the same question, and she would always answer the same way. That he wouldn't understand. Because he wouldn't.

Slowly, the nightmares became less frequent, and with Kurosaki's desperate face slowly dissipating from her dreams, she slept better. She began to eat more. She spoke more freely to Ulquiorra, even if he didn't speak back, and smiles began to frequent her lips more often. It became a little easier to laugh.

And, finally, Inoue Orihime began to feel a bit more like herself again.


The door opened with its customary breathy groan, and Orihime tore her gaze away from where she had been looking for patterns in the cracks of the ceiling, surprised.

She blinked owlishly at the much brighter light streaming in. She was fairly certain that it was far too early for dinner (lunch had only just been taken away).

It was.

The figure silhouetted in the doorframe was taller, broader and shaggier than the one she had come to expect in the evenings. He stalked in, his gait peculiarly uneven and the click of his heels much too harsh over the hiss of the shutting door.

At least he used it this time.

"What?" He demanded irritably, crossing his arms, "You didn't think that brat could have finished me off, did you?"

Her heart panged a little.

"I am glad that you are alive," She said softly, because she was.

"You're a crap liar, chick," He told her.

Orihime said nothing.

His hair was short again, and he looked much different from when she saw him last; his body fluid and feline, but he was still Grimmjow Jaggerjack.

He stalked over to the bed, the light casting his harsh features into respect and making his slanted eyes seem exotic and brilliant. He stood by her, and she sat up a little warily, unsure of his intentions. He only propped his shoulder against the wall, and bared his teeth in something that could have been either a smirk or a snarl, she wasn't sure which.

She looked at him then, really looked at him. It was evident that he still hadn't recovered completely from his injuries, even though it had nearly been a month, and her heart gave another little twinge. She wondered if she should offer to heal him.
He seemed to sense her pity though, and his icy glare was enough to make her shrink back from him and reconsider the offer.

Even though, something seemed...off.

Not a particularly perceptive girl - some people had often referred to her as quite obtuse - even Orihime could see that something was not quite right with the Sixth Espada.

It was niggling at her; tugging her conscious like a small child at the hem of their mother's skirt.

He was fidgeting and dragging his fingers through his pale hair, and his glare, usually so focused, seemed to be projected wildly all about the room. Everywhere except for her. She sat patiently, and waited for whatever it was that he seemed to have on his mind.

It didn't take long.

He cursed.

She blinked, and wondered whether or not she should mention something, because saying words like that was bad manners; but she didn't get the chance.

"Tell me about the brat," He snapped suddenly, and she blinked again. "About Ichigo. Tell me about him."

Her gaze was on his face, but he refused to meet it with his own. Instead, he stared resolutely at something on the opposite wall.

What would he want to know about Kurosaki?

More importantly, why?

And why wasn't he laughing?

His face was etched unfamiliarly, with lines of gravity that were so out of place on his harsh face that they made her think twice about asking him politely to leave.

If he was being cruel to her, he would laugh at her. He laughed all the time, even at things that weren't funny. She even recalled him laughing when he killed that girl Espada, Luppi, while she looked on in horror and the knowing despair of somebody who had unwittingly attributed to a crime.

Or was Luppi a boy? She could never tell.

Maybe she/he was one of those 'Lady boy's' from Thailand that Keigo had told her about, before Tatsuki had thumped him so hard his eyes had crossed.

But, Luppi didn't look Thai...

A snarled "Well?" bought her back to the present time rather uncomfortably. She abandoned thoughts of boy's dressing up like girl's in favour of examining the Sixth Espada, searching for signs of fallacy. She could find none.

She was puzzled.

Why would he ask her such a thing?

Then, she thought of him seeking out the substitute shinigami, demanding battle after battle. Making her heal him just so they could fight at their full potential, and the peculiar way that they interacted, that kind of rivalry as much competition as it was enmity.

About how Grimmjow had said that the redhead was like him.

...Perhaps she did know after all.

And then she wanted to tell him.

So she did.

"His mother died," She said to the hands that were nervously coiled around each other in her lap. "Rukia told me she was eaten by a Hollow. He lived with his two sister's, and his dad. They own a medical clinic. That's a place where --"

"I know what the hell a clinic is." He snarled, and she fell silent, but he didn't say anything else, so hesitantly, she started again.

She was uncertain at first, and it was difficult.

It was as if all of the time that she had spent trying to put Kurosaki out of her mind had sealed all of him away from her, and she felt a little fear.

What if she had locked the thoughts away in a huge safe in the back of her mind and she couldn't get them back?

But as she thought harder. "Hmm"ing aloud helped - even if the Espada was looking at her as if the noise was personally offensive.

She remembered Ichigo frowning, Ichigo scowling, Ichigo glaring at Hat-And-Sandal man and Ichigo yelling and punching Keigo.

And once or twice, she even remembered him smiling.

And holding her. Before a green robed child tried to bust him in half.

Before...he was gone.

But she refused to let herself think of that. She chanced another glance at the rough man propped near her bed. He was staring at the floor, on his face an assumed look of pinched boredom.

But he was too focused; he was holding himself so still, that she thought that perhaps it wasn't completely true.

And so she took a deep breathe, steeled herself, and continued the onslaught. It was if there was a dam inside of her, holding such thoughts back, and she just kept poking holes in it.

It was leaking more and more of the Kurosaki Ichigo inside of her: Ichigo frowning, glaring, sulking, pouting, snarling, snapping, smiling.

Laughing.

Ichigo refusing to leave his friends behind. Ichigo helping perfect strangers. Ichigo helping his enemies. Ichigo protecting people.

It was as if it it was Kurosaki against the world.

Kurosaki Ichigo, and his resolve.

And the dam broke.

She could barely keep up with herself, as it tumbled out from wherever it had hidden, bypassing her cognition and just falling straight from her mouth. She was probably not making sense and was jumpng all over the place, but she could care less.

He used to scare her when they were at school, he always looked angry. He was good friends with Tatsuki, who was her best friend.

Her brother was a Hollow, a monster with a familiar face: Kurosaki saved her, and her brother went to a better place, and she was wasn't scared of him anymore.

He always tried to protect everyone, no matter who they were. He always tried to do things by himself because he never wanted anybody else to get hurt, and everyone was always tearing their hair out because he would sometimes disappear for days or even weeks on end to train without a word to anybody.

He had saved Rukia from Soul Society, desperately injured. He fought captains and vice-captains and guys who weren't vice captains but pretty strong anyway and then there was that really big guy at the gate that he defeated in like one move - but she stayed with that guy and healed him!

When she mentioned his training with Urahara Kisuke trained prior to going to do all of the awesome things at Soul Society, Grimmjow demanded to know more, but she couldn't tell him much.

Instead, she told him about how Hat-And-Sandal Guy always picked on Ichigo, which she thought was funny.

She thought his hat was kind of cool.

There was more; the Bounto and how he and Ishida became friends (though neither of them would admit that that was what they were) and his deal with Chad and his relationship with Rukia, and the fight with Renji that also ended in a friendship. Ichigo always beat up people before he became friends with them, she noted.

Except for Tatsuki. She always beat the heck out of him.

It was a pity that he died before he could become friend's with Grimmjow, she thought, but she didn't say that out loud.

And then she remembered seeing him train before Ulquiorra took her away, and the little brat with the mask that made him eat dirt and she laughed.

She recalled Ichigo's disgruntled curses while a girl who looked younger than his littlest sister ran rings around him and the Espada smirked, and then looked annoyed that he had done so, and Orihime laughed again, and her grin felt as if it were splitting her face.

And then she went quiet, and there was a silence between them, that although was not quite companionable, it was not full of the tension that it usually was, and she was grateful. Orihime stood and turned to fully face Grimmjow, and stretched her smile even further to include him, as if she could project how thankful she was for what he had done in one single expression.

He didn't return the smile, but the bored, slightly irritated mask that he had affectated was somehow even less convincing, and that was enough.

Maybe she wasn't alone after all.

But then Grimmjow glanced over her shoulder, and stiffened. His face darkened. She turned to follow his gaze and she tensed, and the moment dissipated like blood in water, and if she had not have been so distracted she would have been disappointed.

Ulquiorra stood there.

"It is time for her meal. You must leave," He said bluntly, his voice a shade colder than usual.

Grimmjow eyed him belligerently. "And why should I?"

Ulquiorra said nothing. He didn't need to. Everybody knew that nobody but the Fourth Espada was to enter Orihime Inoue's quarters, by orders of Aizen.

Orihime stood between the two, feeling like a particularly small and insignificant rabbit being snarled over by foxes. She noticed that the door was open and she wondered if she were to run through it, would they even notice, so intent on the other they were.

Eventually the small battle that had ensued ended as they often did, with one conceding defeat.

"Hn." Grimmjow snorted and shoved off the wall, "Whatever."

He stalked out of her small room, his displeasure manifesting into a violent bump of the shorter man's shoulder on his way out, hard enough to make even Orihime wince.

Ulquiorra barely even moved.

They stood in silence. The red head felt as if she should apologise for Grimmjow's rudeness, but only looked down at her feet uncomfortably. She felt as if she was doing something wrong, but she didn't know what or even why she felt that way. It was as if she hadn't done her homework or...was caught kissing some boy behind the classrooms during lunch and it was awkward.

"You have left your bed," He noted. His voice was still different, and it was worrying her more than it should have.

"Oh, uh...yes," She stammered, unable to shake the feeling of having her hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar. She hadn't left it much since she had been taken back, and never when Ulquiorra was there, but she wasn't quite sure why that was important.

Or why her stomach was churning with an indeterminable guilt that she couldn't quite fathom the cause of. Was she feeling guilty because Grimmjow had visited her?

He advanced towards her, and she recoiled instinctively, before she caught herself.
Stop it! She scolded, shocked by her own foolishness, you're being silly!

"How long were you standing there?" Orihime blurted out.

"Long enough to be surprised that the Sixth did not notice my presence." There seemed to be something more behind those words. Something she didn't entirely grasp. And it made the churning worse.

He stepped closer to her: now he was only a mere few feet away.

She crossed her arms defensively, in a seemingly unconscious gesture.

"Why were you talking about the Shinigami to the Sixth Espada?"

Oh.

He must have been standing there a while to discern what she was talking about.

"I think I kind of inflicted it on him," She tried to look sheepish, "He asked me how...um...well, how I make...pancakes! Yes! Pancakes! And I remembered that Kurosaki loved pancakes, and I just started talking! Oh, I feel kind of sorry for him, having to listen to me talk for goodness knows how long! Lucky for him you came and saved him!"

To say that the look he had levelled on her was disbelieving would be making an understatement, and Orihime wilted just a little.

"I would have thought Grimmjow Jaggerjack would not be the type to allow his judgment to be swayed by social niceties." Ulquiorra said flatly, and she knew that he knew that she was lying.

She felt even guiltier than she had before, for lying. She hated lying, but that was mostly because she wasn't very good at it. Well, she wasn't exatly lying anyway. She was talking about Kurosaki. She was just...twisting the truth a little.

However, personal feelings and savvy Espda notwithstanding, she would not be detered!
Shrugging noncommittally, Orihime wondered if he would buy it if she changed her mind and said that they were talking about King Aizen.

The squeak of wheels and the tick-tick-tick of small heels interrupted them as two Arrancar brought in her food cart, their eyes averted from the Espada. With furtive, worried movements and many sidealong glances to the Fourth's sandaled feet, they bought it within a respectable distance from the door and then all but fled.

She felt for them.

However, the subject of their poorly hidden distress seemed completely unfazed, and merely stood far too close to her, looking for all the world like a blank canvas.
Inoue shifted and glanced behind him to the metal trolley which had her meal on it. She could smell whatever was on there, and it smelt fantastic. The meals that were cooked for her, although a little boring to the palette, were always quite delicious, and she looked forwards to them. This one more than most - she was surprisingly hungry, considering all she had done was talk.

"Why do you miss the Shinigami?" He asked her, as he always did, and, distracted, she raised her eyes to his. He had taken another step closer; now he was right in her personal space and it took all of her willpower not to retreat.

"You always ask me that," She told him quietly. She refused to play his game anymore.

Click.

Another step closer, and he was close, so close. She could see the dark sweep of his eyelashes contrasting sharply with his deathly white skin, and she could see that the tear streaks on his cheeks weren't actually black like she thought they were, but a dark teal - like Grimmjow's, but darker.

His peculiar eyes were boring holes into her head, and he was so close that when he spoke she could almost feel it reverberating through her and she was nervous, inexplicably nervous. He was so close she could smell him, and he smelt like male and crisp cold and his voice was almost like a caress, a caress from a hand that had been buried in snow.

"Do you blame me?" He asked, and the unfamiliar words grabbed her heart and squeezed. She looked at him sadly, because she did blame him, but for reasons that she didn't understand she didn't want him to know it.

His breath was ghosting over her, cool tendrils teasing goosebumps from her flesh, chilling her in a way that couldn't just be put down to mere temperature.

She shivered, despite herself.

"Woman?" He murmured, and his voice bore down on her, so calm, so collected.

He was so close.

"...Inoue," She whispered, the lump in her throat making it difficult to speak. She cleared it, and said it again, louder.

"Inoue."

One corner of his mouth pulled down in displeasure. "What?"

"Inoue Orihime," Her voice was firm, "My name is Inoue Orihime. Not woman."

So very close.

"I do not speak the name of trash," He said, finally.

Whatever strange thing had been building up in that encounter had abruptly been destroyed, but whether it was by Orihime's words, or by Ulquiorra's, neither of them knew.

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

She watched him go, puzzled and even just the littlest bit hurt, and wondered what is was that she had done wrong.