Title: Compass

Author: 8sword

Date: 4.1.10

Summary: She puzzles and puzzles for days, trying to remember a single instance in which Ichigo acted for himself and no one else.

Author's Notes: If Rukia was a little more introspective and a little less intelligent than I think she is. Set somewhere after the Soul Society arc.

Disclaimer: Tite Kubo owns Bleach.

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Selfishness.

When Renji accuses her of it as he catches her sneaking away to see Ichigo – "Quit going and giving that moron false hope. It's fucking selfish, Rukia" – Rukia thinks immediately of the orange-haired boy.

He has become her all-purpose compass, it seems. The north by which she discerns all directions. When she is losing against a Hollow, she thinks of what Ichigo would yell at her to do if he was there. When she cannot unseal her throat to talk to her intimidating brother, she thinks of where Ichigo would tell Byakuya to shove his zanpakuto. When she is struggling to fall back asleep after nightmares of Kaien, of Aizen, of the Sougyoku, she thinks of what Ichigo would do.

Selfish. Rukia cannot understand what Renji means. She thinks of Ichigo in order to try to understand. Would Ichigo think that she is being selfish?

Her mind shies away from that question. She tries a different angle: is Ichigo selfish?

The idea is rejected almost violently, denial flaring in Rukia like reiatsu. Ichigo is not selfish.

Her own vehemence surprises her. The question of what Renji meant when he called her selfish dwindles into a ghost in the back of her mind as this new idea of Ichigo's selflessness consumes her. It has shocked her, and she does not know why. She has always known that he is selfless, from that instant he grabbed Shirayuki's hilt and demanded that she make him a Death God. If that had not convinced her, his coming to save her in Soul Society would have.

Yet between pinnacles of selflessness, there should be lows of selfishness. Even Kaien had them sometimes, hogging the training field or Ukitake-taichou or bottles of sake.

But Rukia can think of none in Ichigo. Even in his everyday civilian life, she cannot pin a moment where he was selfish enough to keep a manga for himself when she wanted to read it, to take the last pudding dessert in the cafeteria at school, or to keep the TV remote when one of his sisters wanted to watch something.

It bothers her. She puzzles and puzzles for days, trying to remember a single instance in which Ichigo acted for himself and no one else.

She cannot, or maybe does not, want to understand why she needs to find this. But she does need to, and the need grows in her mind like a tremendous spirit pressure coming closer and closer, until it vibrates in her skull and pulls at her bones.

It distracts her.

Her distraction results, one night, in a Hollow managing to carve a deep gash in her arm as she buries Sode no Shirayuki in its mask.

It is then, as the spiritual particles dissolve around her and as her sandal-clad feet begin to drag her yet again down the familiar route to his house even though she could return to Soul Society and receive the gentle, unscolding treatment of the Fourth Squad instead of the curse-punctuated, clumsy, threats-to-chop-her-hair-off-if-she-gets-hurt-again-filled treatment he will give her, that Rukia realizes why she has tried so hard to find a time when Ichigo was selfish.

Because she is selfish.

Renji is right. Coming to see Ichigo now is like making an unspoken promise that she will keep coming. And that isn't true.

She is being selfish. And she wants him to be, too.

Because if he is, then she will not feel so much like she does not deserve him.

Rukia's eyes are blurring, now. She feels herself wavering like a compass needle, turning back toward Urahara's shop and the portal to Soul Society.

But Ichigo's reiatsu is like true north. She gravitates toward it, shuffling down the road.

And tonight, as he has all such nights, he is dropping lithely from the slanted roof eaves as she struggles up the sidewalk. He slings her good arm around his neck and leaps them back up to his windowsill with one bend and push of his legs, as lithely as any of the times Kon inhabited his body.

She listens vaguely as he mutters about stupid midgets and idiot brothers who don't deserve the name if they can't keep their sisters out of trouble, and oi, pay attention to him or he'd free Kon from where he'd taped him under his desk, and then she'd be sorry.

Maybe she mumbles something about vanilla pudding and heading north. It would explain why he is giving her his weirded-out frown instead of his normal one and half dragging, half lifting her to the closet and tucking her in with a command to just go to sleep already because it's hard enough to understand her weird ideas when she's awake, for God's sake.

When she gasps blearily awake from a dream of fingers groping through her ribs, the conditioned question – what would Ichigo do? – springs to the front of her mind like a frantic father jumping up to catch his child from the cradle before it can remember its nightmare.

The answer is there, a vague shadow silhouetted in the moonlight, leaning against her mattress, his hand warm and heavy atop her head.

This is what Ichigo would do.

This is what he does.

It is why she keeps coming back, even though it's selfish.

The compass needle gives one last shudder and finally, finally, lies still.