20 JUNE 2015: Whole story is being edited. No major changes; hopefully reading is simply smoother. Enjoy!

A/N: Taking the plunge again here with this one. I finally got pissed off enough at myself for not posting the very last chapter of my Yu-Gi-Oh! fic before my brain took off with itself and started writing this. In my brain's defense, though, it's been writing this since we readers and watchers were embroiled deep in the Las Noches saga. Years ago. Effing KT, you troll.

Warning now: Updates will be sporadic, random, and of incredibly varying lengths. I've already got a whole bunch of chapters written for this, and a definite direction and conclusion. It's how I wanted Las Noches to end. I'm writing it for me, because there's nothing worse than standing an armed watch on a lonely quarterdeck at two in the morning. And because I've listened to "We're in this Together Now" on repeat for the last 7 years and can no longer disassociate it with GrimmHime, damnit.

Endless thanks to OveractiveImagination for all the times you spend nerding out with me despite how often reality tries to suck time away from our fun. You help me remind myself that we do it because it's fun. And because there's not enough good GrimmHime out there, fufufu.

Enough of my babble. Read on, cool cats.

Disclaimer: Bleach and all associated places and characters are the creative property of Kubo Tite. I'm just having fun.

Coronado

Chapter 1: "All Used and Beaten Up"

Orihime's face throbbed, and her pride stung. She held cool fingers to the swelling under her eye, wishing that her tears would stop soaking her palm.

She had held out for a commendable length of time before the pain and humiliation wrought by the two Hollow girls was too much to withstand. She remained silent throughout the beating and could not even make a noise when Loly delivered a swift kick to her ribs that sent the wind from her lungs and a crack through the bones there.

She would have to heal that.

After the girls had departed, she crumbled to her side in a ball and sobbed silently. She was framed by the light streaming into the dark cell through the still open doorway. The bars over the window had long since witnessed the departure of the forever waning moon into the perpetual night sky.

Orihime sobbed and wondered.

Now, here, in the throes of her pain and self-pity, she could not come up with any purpose or direction.

Forced into a corner, she had selflessly sacrificed her freedom to Ulquiorra at the threat of her loved ones' safety. She could not bear to think, though, that she had served her purpose. Surely her chapter had not ended with her incarceration. Why, after all, did Aizen truly order her detainment? She seriously doubted she was here as a single-woman nurse corps for his army of Arrancar. Orihime recalled Grimmjow's mad laughter with a shudder and curled tighter into herself on the floor. She could almost feel the electric tingle of his oppressive reiatsu.

She missed the tall shadow that the new figure in the doorway cast on her.

Calculating blue eyes narrowed on her defeated form, taking in her torn dress and the hint of blood and bruising peeking through the fingers still covering her shame. His expression was indecipherable.

When Orihime finally pulled her hands from her face, the doorway was empty again, and there was no trace of her fleeting third visitor.

She fell asleep there on the floor.

EDITED: 20 JULY 2015