Characters: Ishida, Orihime
Summary: Ishida knows the real reason why Orpheus lost Eurydice, and why he's losing his Eurydice now.
Pairings: IshiHime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc
Author's Note: I do adore Greek mythology.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

In his mind, the old image crops up again.

Two figures, traveling through a dark tunnel that reaches upwards towards a flash of light. One is smaller and traveling at a slow pace, gathering shrouds and veils about the head and shoulders.

The leader has been told not to look, knows what it will cost him, but he can not bear it any longer. Orpheus turns round, and looks upon his Eurydice, and loses her in that instant, having from her only a faintly whispered, "Farewell".

They are all grouped up behind a rock, hoping that the monstrous Espada will not notice them, as they regroup and plan their strategy. Byakuya and Kenpachi have taken charge of the planning, and can't quite seem to agree on strategy.

Ishida frowns at them but bites down on his tongue. Yammy Riyalgo isn't going to wait forever.

While the two captains are hammering out their approach, Ishida finds Orihime's hand, pressed flat against the sand of the ground and lightly taps the top with his fingers. She is wedged between him and Renji, and like Ishida is only half-listening to what the captains have to say; listening hard enough that they will remember, but not showing any real interest.

After what seems like an eternity, Orihime turns her wide brown eyes on him. She has greeted Sado and Rukia with relieved, exuberant hugs, smiled at Renji, Byakuya, Kenpachi and Yachiru, and nodded congenially at Hanatarou and Isane, but her cheer has vanished as quickly as it arose, and Ishida can not help but think that this foreshadows something dark and ominous. Her face is now even more pale and strained than it was on the dome.

"What is it?" Orihime whispers, lips quirking in the empty motions of a smile before fading into pale nothingness.

A vein in Ishida's jaw jumps as he whispers, "Do you get the impression, Inoue-san, that those two are just arguing for the sake of it? They don't seem to care about working towards finding a way to beat Yammy anymore."

The whisper has the intended effect; Orihime smiles faintly before responding. "It does seem that way. I wouldn't worry too much, though; I'm sure Kuchiki-taicho and Zaraki-taicho will think of something." She takes a moment to brush her bangs out of her face.

The still, hot air inside the dome suddenly seems far more stifling than usual, as Ishida bows his head so the two of them are on eye level. "Are you worried about Kurosaki?" The words hurt, but he knows they have to be said.

Orihime is silent, but her answer is probably more eloquently put in silence—her hand finds his arm and grips tightly, fingernails digging into his flesh. Her breathing becomes noticeably hitched and tense. She doesn't need to say anything.

Ishida flinches. His emotions are mixed: resentment and pity and understanding. It's not a good mix. Eventually, he speaks, eyes faintly narrowed, not looking at her as her hand slides back down to the earth. "Well, I'm sure he's alright. Probably fighting and screaming and making a fool of himself at this point." Ishida licks his dry lips. "Kurosaki always comes out on top."

It had all been so simple. Ishida shoots a curse at himself, under himself, for his foolishness. Nothing is ever simple. He should know that by now.

"Do you think that will scar?" A small hand with light, tapered fingers gently touches a cut on his forehead, and Ishida starts to draw himself back into the present, shaking off the cobwebs of the past.

"We are going to get out of here." Ishida's voice has as much confidence injected into it as is possible for a whisper, but he prays that Orihime won't see past the façade. "It may take a while, but we are all going to go home. No one's going to die here, Inoue-san." In a way, he's trying to reassure himself as much as her.

Orihime turns heavy, drooping eyes on him, and the expression of her face feels like a secret that only they share. "I hope you're right." Her voice is strangely far away, like a breath of a whisper on some foreign wind. Ishida feels a flinch go down his spine.

"Ishida-kun?" Orihime's voice snaps him out of his reverie, as her fingers lightly push against the cut on his forehead, allowing a dull epicenter of pain to radiate out across his face. "Do you think that will scar?"

Her hand against his skin prickles uncomfortably, not to mention hurts when there is pressure put against the cut; Ishida pulls away, shooting a look at her out of the corner of his eyes, feeling that familiar, painfully shy impulse come over him again. "No. I don't think so. It's not deep enough to leave a scar."

They are sitting alone on the stoop at the back door of Urahara's shop; the others are nearby, but not so close that he and Orihime can't have a private conversation. The cold is biting and invasive, but Ishida forgets it as he and Orihime talk.

"I can get rid of it for you if you want." Her smiles are all painted in twilight sadness now, and are such frail, wistful things that they crumble to ash before they can ever bloom. Orihime's legendary, ebullient, full-bodied smiles and grins are all things of the past now, so far gone that Ishida can hardly believe that they ever existed at all.

Ishida shakes his head and raises a hand before letting it fall back on his knee. "No, that's alright, Inoue-san. It's just a scratch."

"I…was going to try to destroy the Hougyoku." This admission is so sudden, so out of the blue that Ishida's neck cricks as he snaps his head round and stares at her, open-mouthed. It's a credit to how engrossed the others are in Byakuya and Kenpachi's hashing out of their battle plan that no one notices.

Orihime continues to speak in Ishida's silence, taking it as encouragement to go on when, really, Ishida is just unable to form intelligible words for his shock. "I knew that Aizen wanted my powers to awaken the Hougyoku, and I thought that I would have an opportunity to deprive him of a valuable weapon. I was going to destroy it, erase it from existence." Her eyes meet his face for the first time, and they are bleak and dark.

A stranger's eyes are what Ishida finds.

"But I guess I just wasn't quick enough." Her voice is still light and sadly cheerful, and Ishida finds the dissonance to be utterly disturbing.

He decides that he has been underestimating Inoue-san. Drastically.

"And if it scars, I won't mind."

Orihime adopts a somewhat confused expression, tilting her head so stray strands of hair fall over her eyes, and she doesn't attempt to swipe them away. They shield her face like an auburn shroud.

Ishida looks down at his feet. "Scars aren't always marks on flesh. Those that are, are the ones I worry about least." At this, his hand unconsciously goes to the middle of his chest, just over the still livid red scar found there, five thin, scarlet lines splitting out in different directions. He hastily allows his hand to drop when he notices Orihime's curious look; that's not something he's quite ready to explain yet. Then, Ishida isn't sure that he'll ever be ready to explain his scar.

"We're scarred…" Ishida bites his lip, trying to remember the words that have fluttered through his mind for an instant and then vanished as abruptly as they appeared. "We are scarred by the things we have seen, the things that were done to us, the things we've done, and sometimes by the things we haven't done. You can't see those scars."

She nods, the hairs in her face getting knocked back into place. "And those scars," she whispers, her voice especially quiet now, "are the most dangerous. Because they grow, and they don't stop growing."

Eventually, she will save herself. Though it has taken Ishida a while to see Orihime's full strength, hidden beneath that mild exterior, he knows it is there.

Orihime can save herself, can help herself. She knows how, and when push comes to shove, she will. Until then, however, she needs someone to watch her back. Someone to help her. Someone to grab her hand, and pull her out of that dark tunnel.

Hesitantly, Ishida reaches out, and puts his hand on Orihime's shoulder. "Inoue-san?" She doesn't answer. "Are you alright?"

She turns her head, and smiles wide. "I'm fine."

Her eyes are shut, and Ishida realizes that she's keeping them closed to hide what's inside, keep it tucked away from prying eyes, shield it from the light of day. He takes his hand off of her shoulder as though he's been burned.

It's a pale thing, this mask of hers. Her face is a shadow of its normal self, and Ishida can tell that she's just barely keeping it together; whether her efforts, valiant though they may be, amount to anything remains to be seen.

But no.

That's not right, and Ishida knows it. With a soft gust of wind, a few dead leaves fall from the nearby ash tree, and scatter in circles on the gray stone ground.

This is Orihime's real face, the face of grief yet to be expunged, of guilt yet to be absolved.

She's still the same. She still has long, light auburn hair and wide, expressive brown eyes. She still has faintly chapped lips, the white flakes of skin like snowflakes on a gray December day, and bitten fingernails, not heavily chewed-on but enough that the lengths of her nails are uneven. And now, she has purple marks like bruises underneath her eyes and pale patches in her cheeks.

The mask, the real mask, is the "I'm fine" and "Everything's perfectly alright" personas that Orihime has adopted over the years, to cope with…

…To cope with everything, really.

And like an Arrancar who has had their mask forcefully removed, she's lost.

Maybe it's better this way. Problems can't be solved until they're acknowledged and brought out into the light.

A hand clenches tight around Ishida's wrist, fingernails leaving marks in his flesh, and draws Ishida out of one reverie and into another. In the light of day, Orihime's face is pale and waxen, and she doesn't look at him, just digs her fingers into her skin. Her grip is painful, her nails close to drawing blood, but Ishida doesn't shake her off.

Ishida knows why Orpheus really lost Eurydice. The story goes that Eurydice was drawn back into Hades because Orpheus could not contain himself and sought to hold her in his arms again before she could come out into the light. But maybe, just maybe, Orpheus lost Eurydice not because of his impatience, but because of how much her time in Hades had changed her. It was not that she was drawn back into the dark, but that Orpheus saw her in the light and found a stranger to his eyes.

Unlike Eurydice, Orihime's come back out into the pale winter daylight. But there's still another tunnel she needs to traverse, one far darker and longer than the last, and there, it is a place where none can accompany her.

Watching her be drawn back into the darkness of the long journey of the days ahead, and himself still stuck in the daylight, Ishida's losing his Eurydice now.

And not being much of a musician and being unable to venture in after her, he's just going to have to trust that she can find her way through and out, and come back to him soon.