Title: Walk Away
Author: Nimacu
Disclaimer: Not mine, never has been.
Summary: Ichigo/Orihime from a Rukia point of view
She's not the one he wants…she knows this. She is the only one he'll let himself have. It breaks her heart every moment knowing that he chose her because he loved the other one too much.
She should never have loved him, she knew how he felt. Knew long before she ever saw him that way. She remembers the day she realized how she felt…the hopelessness of it. She knew who his true love was and it wasn't her.
She should have stopped them before they started, she was just another way for him to push her away. But she was in love…
She wasn't one of those fools who thought she could change him, she wouldn't have wanted to even if she could. Part of what she loved was his selfless need to protect the ones he loved, even if it was from himself. She didn't think she could change him but she thought she would be ok with it.
She was wrong.
She should have given him up years ago…it would have saved her the pain of always wondering when he'd finally give in and walk away.
She could say in the ten years he'd been fighting by her side that they still didn't seem to be ahead. They survived in a kind of half life, living from one disaster to the next.
She knows the exact minute he gave in…They were all there together, another planning session. They'd both reached for the same thing and she saw his hand brush hers, in the scope of momentous moments it wasn't very large. But she was always hyper aware of them both whenever they were in a room together and in that one brush they lingered to long, they looked up at each other too intently and she knew it was over.
She nodded when he told her as they were leaving that he needed to stay and go over a few more things with her. She smiled like she was confident in him…in them.
She'll never know what they discussed that night, what happened.
She'll give him this though; he came home to her that night.
She met him at the door. Told him that she loved them both, that she would always want what was best for them.
She walked away.