Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. All content belongs to the respectful owners.

Author's Note: Okay, this is my second late birthday/Christmas present, but it's for a different friend. I don't really write Bleach stories (tried a couple, then I kind of decided to stop watching the anime lol), but this is what she requested that I could do, so here it is. ^^

The lyrics are put in at parts. The song belongs to Evanescence. =]

Like I said, I fell out of Bleach a while back, so this is just going off of what I know. The story starts after Rukia returns to the Soul Society (really early, I know, but it makes the most sense for what I'm going for).

Enjoy! ^^

Hello

(Ichigo and Rukia)

Playground school bell rings…again

Ichigo sat outside the school. The gloomy sun watched him from above as he stood underneath one of the trees, not particularly wanting to go anywhere.

Rain clouds come to play…again

Thunder rumbled and some of the girls squealed as they fumbled to see if they had brought an umbrella with them. Some boys started running for home before the rain started; others offered to walk girls home because they had umbrellas they could share.

'Hmph…suck ups,' Ichigo thought. He readjusted his feet and leaned back against the tree. His thoughts wandered off as he tuned out his surroundings. The orange-haired teen thought about everything that had happened recently.

Rukia was gone. He had watched her get taken back to the Soul Society. Her expression as she was led away from him was burned into his mind. He couldn't get her out of his mind.

Has no one told you she's not breathing…?

He knew that she wasn't supposed to be in the world of the living, but he didn't want her to just…go. It wasn't like they didn't spend most of their time together, or work together against hollows, or hang out with his friends together. It's not like she slept in his closet every night.

That was exactly it. She was always so close, but now it was like she was ripped out of his life in an instant. He couldn't take it. He couldn't take losing someone else close to him. His heart couldn't take it anymore.

'Dammit. This isn't right,' he thought. 'Just think like she was never here. Everything that happened was just a dream…just a dream…'

Hello, I'm your mind…giving you someone to talk to…

Hello

If I smile and don't believe…

Ichigo carried on with life as usual, as if Rukia had never been there. He had his usual fights with his dad, the usual conversations with Karin and Yuzu, and the usual discussions with his friends at school. He spent his lunches with Chad, Orihime, and her friends and they mostly messed around. Uryu sometimes joined them, in which there would be all out fights under the trees as the two of them argued and then laughed and laughed. All of them carried on like Rukia had never existed.

Soon I know I'll wake…from this dream…

But when the substitute soul reaper would be alone in his room at night (with Kon either out or locked in the closet with tape over his mouth), his mind would wander to his friend. Friend? Is that all she was?

'Is that really all she is to me?' Ichigo thought. 'Damn I don't know. It feels like it should be so much more…'

His feelings made him frustrated and angry and he grabbed his jacket and left to take a walk.

"Ichigo," his little sister Yuzu said as he walked past the kitchen. "We're about to have dinner."

"Where are you going Ichigo?" Karin asked as she walked towards him.

"I'm taking a walk," he grumbled. "Just save me a plate. I'll be back." And with that he walked out the door and into the night.

The black-haired soul reaper wandered the streets, dressed in her black robe. She knew this was a bad idea, sneaking out to come find Ichigo. She knew that she could be majorly punished for this; more so than she already was about to get. Everyone at the Soul Society was saying that she had done something terribly wrong, and that she was messed up for wanting to stay in the world of the living for even just a day longer.

"I just want to help out from there! Can't you just assign me to working in the world of the living?"

"No, there is just no way we'd let you stay any longer. You've caused enough problems in the time you were there. You are not allowed to go back!"

She sighed. 'I'll probably get put to death for this…but…Ichigo…'

Rukia maneuvered her way to the alleys she knew led to Ichigo's house. She couldn't get her mind off of him, and there was no way that leaving the way she did was going to make her feel any better about how it had to end between them. She didn't want there to be an end to 'them'.

' 'Us!?' ' she thought. 'It's not like there was already an 'us'. We didn't look at each other like that…

'Or did we?'

Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken…

The rain clouds that had been hanging around all day suddenly decided to rumble again and start the rain. The sprinkles hit Ichigo's face, and he ignored them. The teenager honestly didn't know where he was going, but he didn't care. He was clearing his head; it wasn't time to be reading street signs.

He thought back to what his friends had said earlier that day; a conversation that he wasn't supposed to overhear.

"Ichigo looks lost," Orihime had said to Chad and Uryu. "Maybe we should do something to cheer him up."

"Yeah," Chad answered.

"He's obviously upset that Rukia is gone," Uryu had retorted. "It's not like we can do anything about that."

"You're right," the orange-haired girl answered. "But he just looks so broken."

'I'm not broken,' Ichigo thought as the rain started coming down a little more. 'Then again…maybe I am…'

Hello…

He looked up at the street sign closet to him to realize that he was now at least 10 blocks away from home. Sighing and going with his better judgment, he turned around and began the walk home. He still couldn't shake Rukia from his mind. He just wanted to see her again. Maybe if he saw her again he would understand why he wanted her around so badly to begin with.

…I'm the lie…living for you so you can hide…

'It's just because she was around so much. I miss her because she was always with me, and it's weird to be without her.'

He just kept telling himself that as he continued to get drenched.

Rukia was walking around every road she could find. When the rain started she had been talking to Kon, who she had rescued from the closet. After he had been smacked from being overly happy to see her, he explained to her how Ichigo had been acting over the last few days since she had been gone. When he was done talking, she asked him another question.

"Where is Ichigo?"

"No idea," the stuffed lion responded. "I think I heard his sisters saying that he went for a walk or something like that. Good riddance I say. His gloom messes with the atmosphere in this place."

She was now out looking for him. For some reason, the rain and the impending storm was making her frantic to find him. She was worried for him; worried he'd get sick, worried that he'd be in an accident.

'Ichigo…Ichigo…ICHIGO,' she thought, her anxiety rising as she began to run in a direction that she felt he would take, water forming under her eyelids. 'Please be alright Ichigo…I…'

Don't cry

Ichigo was lost. Not lost in thought anymore. Not lost as in just can't find his way for a minute. No, he was actually lost.

"Where in the hell am I?" he asked out loud as he walked down what looked like an unfamiliar alley. He sighed and rubbed his wet hair. The rain just wouldn't let up, and his jacket just happened to not have a hood. "Great, just great," he mumbled.

He turned a corner to end up at a dead end. He yelled as he pulled at his hair and turned around. "This is just bullshit!" he yelled as he retraced his steps and took the other way. After about a minute of walking this way, he smirked. "She would so be making fun of me right now," he said. "She'd say stuff because I should know where I'm going, unlike her." He chuckled. "She's such an airhead."

The orange-haired teen took another turn and ended up on a deserted street. He followed it down some before remembering to take an alley to get back to his street. 'I got this,' he thought as he sneezed. 'Ugh…I so need a bath after this.'

As he maneuvered his way through the twists of this alley, he heard other footsteps besides his own. To make sure he wasn't just hearing something, he stopped and the other steps were still going. They were quick, like the person was running around. He could hear panting and figured that someone was in trouble. His instincts kicking in, he ran up to the next turn that he knew the person would come to.

"Hey are you-"

The other person ran right into him. His first instinct was to put an arm around them to make sure that they didn't take off or fall on the ground from the impact. It was so dark, with the closest street light blinking in and out, that Ichigo couldn't see any of this person's features. He knew that this person was shorter and smaller than him and that the clothes they were wearing were not modern.

"Hey are you alright?" he asked, concerned.

Then the street light blinked back on.

The person that Ichigo was now holding didn't move and he felt thin arms wrap around him; then came a muffled voice. "Ichigo? It's you isn't it Ichigo?"

He was in instant shock. 'I'm dreaming right? I fell down somewhere with a terrible fever from this rain and I'm dreaming. I miss her so much that I'm dreaming that she's here with me.'

Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping…

The orange-haired teen then looked down at the person who was now holding onto him. He saw a mess of black hair parted just the way Rukia would have it; and a black ensemble that she would wear as a soul reaper; and that voice…

"Am I dreaming?" he asked suddenly. The girl in his arms shook her head no and then lifted her head to look up at him. Their eyes locked together: her happy ones with concern still deep set in them, and his shocked and tired ones.

It WAS Rukia.

"God, I'm not dreaming…" he gasped, unable to take his eyes off of her as the streetlight blinked off again.

Hello…

"Hi Ichigo," she said through the darkness.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" he asked, clearly still shocked but also confused.

She put her head back against his chest. "I…I wanted to see you."

He was now even more shocked. "Did you run away?"

"Sort of," she mumbled as the street light flickered to a low light.

"Rukia! You shouldn't have done that! What are they going to do to you?!" he asked as he pulled her away from him to look at her as he questioned her.

Her eyes were downcast and she refused to look at him. "I don't know…" she said quietly, so much so that he almost didn't hear her through the rain. They stood there for a bit as the light came back to its full brightness and Ichigo got his bearings.

…I'm still here…

"What are you doing out here in the rain?" he asked her now, starting to take off his jacket.

"No no no," she said quickly before he got too much of it off. "Keep it on, you're going to get sick."

"I don't care," he retorted as he continued to pull it off. She grabbed the sleeves and pulled the jacket back up to his shoulders. Then she leaned against him, both sides of the jacket in her hands so that he couldn't try to do it again.

"Please don't," she whispered. "I just found you, I don't want you to get sick."

Ichigo then put two-and-two together. "You came looking for me? In this rain!? Are you crazy?"

"I really wanted to see you, okay!" she cried.

The streetlight went out again as a roll of thunder came through. When the noise died down, she felt strong arms surround her.

"That bad, huh?" he asked, his head leaning to rest on her head. "I don't blame you. I really wanted to see you too."

He felt her move to look up at him in the dark, but instead of standing up straight, he waited for her head to tilt enough. When he could feel that she was at the right point, he lowered his head to search for hers and gently touched her lips in a kiss. As they separated, the light came back on and they looked into each other's eyes.

She tugged at his jacket. "Again," she whispered as she gently pulled him down into a more passionate kiss. Her arms ended up around his neck as they locked lips over and over. They each had a hand running through the other's wet hair as the rain continued to fall out of the sky. When they stopped for much needed air, Rukia pulled Ichigo's ear to her mouth.

"I love you," she whispered as she hugged him around the neck again. "I'm sorry for all of this. I'll probably die for doing this."

All that's left of yesterday…

His arms wrapped around her in a hug. "I won't let them do it. I'll protect you." He pulled her away from him so he could look at her face. The street light came on just as their eyes found each other in the dark.

"Because I love you too."

And with that, he lowered his mouth to hers for another kiss in the rain.

Author's Note: I actually really like how this story came out. ^^ I had no idea how I would do it, but I did and I really like it now.

There's just one thing left to say: Happy Belated Birthday and Merry Christmas Kerri-chan. =]