This plot wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. Thank god it's out of my head and can't torture me anymore. hahaha

I guess this is kind of AU-alternate ending in which, after the war, Ichigo is forced to stay in the human world. I say AU because the way it's looking, there's no way in hell Ichigo's not going to Soul Society. But whatevs.

I don't own Bleach.

~.~.~.~

Will you still love me
When I'm no longer young and beautiful?
Will you still love me
When I got nothing but my aching soul?

~.~.~.~

When Hanakari Aya comes back from the bathroom to find a petite woman phasing through her uncle's window, her breath catches.

Not because a woman just walked through the closed window on the twentieth floor of the hospital. No, Aya has long been used to seeing spirits, to seeing the poor souls unable to pass on one reason or another wandering the streets, tethered to the human world. What catches her attention is the shihakusho the woman wears.

Shinigami.

Her uncle Ichigo is going to die today.

He seems to know it too. Ichigo goes completely rigid, though he stares straight ahead and doesn't look at the woman standing at his bedside. Neither of them say anything, and the air around them becomes so charged with something that Aya gets the sense she should not be witnessing this and hides outside the doorframe.

She should probably run and get her mother. If Ichi-ji is actually dying, she should know. But Aya finds herself drawn to the scene, peeping around the corner like she's five years old and not thirty.

"Ichigo," the woman says, breathy and hesitant. She turns slightly, and Aya sees the band around her arm.

Her eyes widen. A lieutenant? Why would someone so high-ranking come for her uncle?

The woman shifts, apparently at a loss of what to say. "How are you feeling?"

Ichigo's eyes snap to her at that. He doesn't answer right away, just stares at her so intensely that Aya struggles not to squirm in her hiding spot. "Forty-two years," Ichigo growls lowly. "Forty-two fucking years and you want to know how I feel? Now?"

So they know each other. Not surprising, as from what Aya could gather from her parents, her uncle was a war hero. But from the atmosphere of the room, she can tell that the two were more than acquaintances. Her uncle knew this shinigami very well.

The shinigami in question looks at him cooly, her posture rigid. "Stop it."

"No," he snaps, ripping his oxygen tubes out of his nose angrily. It's something that the nurses are always complaining about—annoyed and baffled at why he wouldn't want to ease his breathing. Aya almost rushes to berate him, but holds back, realizing that it's moot at this point. "Four decades without so much as a hello and you think you can show up now with everything fine and dandy?!"

The shinigami's spiritual body looks younger than Aya herself, but in that moment, her true age shines in her piercing violet glare. "Keep your voice down," she says icily. "And you know the rules."

Ichigo scoffs. "The rules? The rules are bullshit, and you know it, Rukia!"

Ah. Finally, a name. One that niggles in the back of Aya's mind for some reason. Rukia.

The shinigami—Rukia—inhales deeply, clearly trying to maintain her composure. "You are a lot of things, but you are still human, Ichigo. You belong here." She swallows. "And I do not."

Ichigo grits his teeth, vehemently shakes his head the entire time she talks. "I wasn't so human when they needed me to help win their goddamn war!"

Silence stretches between them. Rukia's eyes soften.

"What, did they expect me to just forget that entire world? Forget all my friends?" His eyes pierce hers. "Forget you?"

The stone crumbles; emotions flutter across Rukia's once blank face. "You were supposed to live out your natural human life." At her side, her hands clench into fists. "And one of my subordinates is in charge of securing your town. There was no valid reason for me to stay. I thought it might be easier—"

"Easier? Rukia, do you know why I'm here?" Everything about him is incredulous, from his tone to his expression to his posture. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I'm baffling the doctors. My healthy heart has just decided it doesn't want to beat anymore."

Rukia opens her mouth, then immediately closes it. Instead, she tentatively reaches a hand out, fingers misting down his arm in apology—mapping the liver spots and folding skin—before finally settling between his.

They stay like that for a while, not talking, but obviously saying a lot. Rukia's hand looks impossibly smooth next to Ichigo's time-worn skin, and he seems to notice, breaking the silence. "Not the stud you remember, huh?"

Rukia's eyes dance. "I don't remember any stud." Her other hand tugs at gray locks. "I do remember more hair, though."

Ichigo laughs, and Aya realizes with a start that she has never heard her uncle laugh, not truly, not like this. He laughs until his breathing becomes irregular, but neither he nor Rukia reach for his oxygen. Instead, she sits on his bed and rubs her thumb over his knuckles.

They wait together.

It suddenly becomes too much for Aya. They are personal, these moments, and she has no right to them, or to what goes unsaid, to the looks and the meanings behind them. She pushes herself away from the doorframe and walks away.

She is simultaneously surprised and not that she has made it by completely unnoticed—surprised because both of them should have sensed her, not because in that moment, they saw nothing but each other. Still, when she passes the nurse's station and meets her mother, on her way back from the cafeteria, Aya freely tells her, "Kaa-chan, Ichi-ji is dying. A shinigami has come to get him."

Hanakari Yuzu freezes, and for a second, Aya wonders if she should worry about her mother's own heart. But then she levels her hand a little above four and a half feet off the ground. "About this tall? Female, black hair?"

Aya nods, confused.

Yuzu sags into her, and Aya is surprised to find relief on her mother's face. "Rukia-nee."

Ichigo has never liked talking about his life, and Aya has always been respectful of that. But now, the younger woman's mind races to fit the pieces together. A shinigami that both her mother and uncle seemed well acquainted with. A good-looking uncle that had never married—barely dated as far as she could recall—and didn't have any children. A name only said in whispers, and never around Ichigo.

"He's been waiting for her," Yuzu says, her eyes misty. But as far as Aya can tell, they're happy tears. "All this time, he waited. And she came."

A/N: Written because Lana Del Rey makes me explode with Ichiruki feels and "Young and Beautiful" in particular almost made me start blubbering one day. And yes, Ichigo is dying from a broken heart. I am that sappy.

By my calculations, Yuzu and Ichigo would both be in their sixties in this fic. As for Karin, if you were wondering, I just have this headcanon that she'll die young (like in her 20s). Maybe it's because, like Ichigo, she's reckless and has the drive to protect, but unlike Ichigo, she's not the main character and can die because of her actions. Maybe it's because I ship Hitsukarin like burning and I need my babies to be together. Idk, take your pick. ;) So she and Isshin are waiting for the rest of their family to make their way to over to Soul Society.

Let me know what you thought~