A/N: I guess you can call this the winning poll, but honestly it was also after listening to this song and gaining my muse back. This is the GrimmIchi Trilogy that I was going to write for you guys. It's not quite what I expected. Seemed spontaneous. And Grimmjow might seem OC, but you'll know why. Oh, and recommend listening to this song, "Life After You" by Daughtry. It's what inspired this fic, so I hope you enjoy it :D

Life Ever After [A Trilogy] – The Future

All that I'm after is a life full of laughter,

As long as I'm laughing with you,

I'm thinkin' that all that still matters is love ever after

After the life we've been through

'Cause I know there's no life after you

Grimmjow tried very hard to forget the war.

It was over, wasn't it? He shouldn't cry over spilled milk or some bullshit like that. Though he wasn't exactly crying, Urahara kept bringing it up every time he had to visit the shop for Gigai check up. He had no choice in the matter. Still, something was bothering him. And the ex-shinigami seemed to pick up on it, even though Grimmjow himself wasn't quite sure yet what the problem was.

Maybe it was the change. He was never fond of the idea. But everything ended after Aizen was defeated, if anyone could even call it that.

It was so anticlimactic Grimmjow would have bet his beloved sword on it that everything was ripped out of a fucking storybook and shoved into his face just for laughs. But his sword just wasn't his most importance piece of belongings anymore. Without blood to feed Pantera, the blade was like a scrap of metal. He was still a proud owner of that scrap of metal, but that was beside the point.

It was too easy. All of it.

Honestly, he thought, Aizen wasn't meant to die. As much as he disliked his deceased leader, he respected his skills, his powers. For him to die because of foolish self-pride was unacceptable.

And Soul Society wasn't supposed to win. Hell, Ulquiorra—that prick—wasalso fated to die. But things didn't turn out the way he liked them to be, did they?

And he…Grimmjow…wasn't supposed to be alive.

But here he was, standing, kicking, still fighting everyday, albeit with a different purpose in his non-living life.

All due to one person, one human, one shinigami.

The One.

"Hey, Grimm. You okay?"

Grimmjow snapped up from his musing, hands still tightly placed on top of the glass table, flat and tensed. He looked up. "Hmm?"

Kurosaki was shock from his reaction.

"Whoah, did you seriously just responded normally?" Ichigo chuckled, nearly incredulous. "Without the scowl and all, you know. That's a nice change."

"Change," Grimmjow repeated; then scoffed darkly. "What change? You're getting cheeky, Kurosaki."

Ichigo merely smiled at his weak retort, and Grimmjow grumbled and look out the store's window, watching the humans scurrying along the sidewalk, still thinking how insignificant their path of life truly was, even if he had gained a certain level of respect for them in these past years.

"Still stubborn…" Ichigo muttered before sipping on a shake, his other hand busy scribbling something onto a piece of paper, all actions on auto-pilot. Grimmjow didn't get the point of it even after watching the man work every day, either scrunched up in front of his desk or in a café like the one they were at now. So focused, so determined, Ichigo wrote and read so much now that Grimmjow was caught up with the man's motivation as well.

"What about you?" the ex-Espada muttered—because that's everybody seemed to be these days, "Ex-this-and-that,"—and picked up a book to look at. Though not as clueless as before, cultural studies was still something that made Grimmjow twitch whenever Ichigo brought it up. "You changed."

"No, I didn't," Ichigo rebutted.

"Yea, ya did," Grimmjow said, frowning back. "What's with this? Studying? College? You should be fighting." He made a face. "The years have made you dull."

To Grimmjow's surprise, Ichigo laughed. He should be offended, but he only waited for the man to calm down and regain his bearings, waiting for an explanation for this idiotic outburst.

"Oh yeah?" Ichigo practically chirped. "Just so you know, growing up doesn't equate change." The man smiled. "It's just how people are. And you? Why did you stop fighting? Before, you would have bugged me to spar everyday."

Grimmjow turned. "I got bored."

With a raised eyebrow, Ichigo opened his mouth to comment on Grimmjow's unusual behavior, but quickly closed it. He brought a finger up to tap on his chin, reconsidering his words.

"And College?" Ichigo questioned.

Grimmjow shrugged. "You do it," he said. "I don't see why I shouldn't."

It was honestly shocking. "Wow…just…wow."

Even now, Ichigo couldn't fully grasp the idea of Grimmjow entering a university with him. Everybody was worried days and nights at this turn of events that Ichigo had to reassure them more than once that there weren't going to be sudden, mysterious disappearances, nor would there be freak accidents happening around the campus. The only things brewing around were rumors about Grimmjow's weird heritage. It was oddly amusing that even Ishida let down his guard. So they dropped the case and let bygones be bygones.

"So, 3 years, huh?" Ichigo pursed his lips, and Grimmjow watched him push up a thin-rimmed glasses. Kurosaki didn't peg him as someone whose eyesight needed aid. The man was probably wearing it to hide something much deeper, heavier. Ichigo said it made him focus more on his work, since he didn't like doing it. Grimmjow snorted at him for such a superficial conduct.

After a moment or two, and a pause in the sound of pencil on paper, Grimmjow spoke up, tapping the table a bit to gain Ichigo's full attention.

"Kurosaki," he began, somewhat unsure. He chastised himself for the hesitation he was bearing, but moved on. He was Grimmjow Jaegarjaques. He would only allow that kind of shilly-shallying to happen once, no matter how much time had passed.

"I don't like it," said Grimmjow. His lips twisted into a grimace. "I should be killing someone right about now, or even myself out of sheer boredom. This is too typical for me. But that's not the problem.

"I'm not fighting this as much as I should. I don't want to be caught up in this normality," he muttered.

Ichigo straightened up from his slanted position, dropping his pencil.

"Terrifying, isn't it?" he said, understanding, as if to save the blue-haired man his pride.

Grimmjow didn't make any move to agree.

"But I know this," Grimmjow settled for continuing on like he was never stopped, his fingers trailing along the coffee cap in front of him, brooding. "I like my stay here. Not at first, of course not." A scoff. "But I do. I never thought I can live a life without battles, wars, blood, fighting and survival, all those shit. I really, really would have killed myself already if that wasn't a dumb and cowardly move on my part.

"I guess," Grimmjow licked his lips, "I just decided to tolerate it, even if just a little. But you grew on me. I still don't like it. But my goals had changed." He looked up with a fierce glow in his eyes. "I blame you for this, Ichigo."

"You are so open, Grimmjow Jaegarjaques," Ichigo mused with a pleased nod, pissing the other man off purposefully by his obvious actions. "And I am flattered."

"I'm not complimenting you," Grimmjow growled.

"Well, this relationship—how do I say it?—as fucked up as it is, it's eerily satisfying," said Ichigo, eliciting an immediate scoff from Grimmjow. The latter picked up his drink and down it like one would with alcohol. It was coffee, though, and Grimmjow was left with an aftertaste that he didn't quite like or dislike. He made a face at the bitter grains that were left at the bottom of the cup.

"Please, if any relationship has the word "eerie" in it, it's the pale, emo fuckwit that's hooked up with that woman."

Ichigo chuckled. His notes had been long tucked inside his books and notebooks, pen and pencils put away neatly once the conversation had started. Talking with Grimmjow had always been more amusing, perhaps not as productive, but sometimes much, much more interesting.

"Mmm, and remember, some time ago, we would have never even consider this scenario happening," Ichigo muttered.

"Scenario?"

"Me, you, this shop…" Ichigo gave a shrug. "Laughing, talking, no bickering—well, occasionally…yeah, there was no way this could have been true a couple of years ago."

"Shinigami, I thought I was the pessimistic one," Grimmjow finally let out a chuckle. His voice was filled with a hidden contentment that Ichigo never seem to miss, but also never mention about. The orange-haired man only took what was given with a smile that was no longer as rare as before.

"Well, you wouldn't have been the one making jokes like this if I was still a shinigami," Ichigo said.

A corner of Grimmjow's lips lifted up in that strange way Ichigo knew he would do whenever he felt the urge to truly smile but struggled to form a grimace instead, trying to cancel the action out like a node with an anti-node.

He couldn't help but think back about the notebook he stumbled upon in Orihime's room a month or two ago when he was helping the girl clean out her room for college. Ulquiorra was there. To tell the truth, Ichigo was wary at his presence. But the man was just lounging there, unbothered, so Ichigo moved on.

Ichigo had made a little correction to the words with the bubbly girl by his side, encouraging. It was a small modification that changed everything.

He stood up with Grimmjow following not soon after, paying the bill, leaving together. Grimmjow was stiff, but was much comfortable, like a cat that had finally found a place to take the perfect nap.

And Ichigo dumped his books on him to carry with glee as the man grumbled and attempted to throw them right back.

Hello, Halcyon days, indeed.

A/N: College is looming, which is probably why it's going to be a recurring theme in this story...well, not a lot, just something that would bear the sense of normalcy that Grimmjow was talking about. So, yeah...there's two more parts in this, as all trilogy has, so look forward to it. Bother me a lot by R&R too so I can update faster cus it seems to be a problem these days T^T