The Lines Between

Orihime was trying very hard not to whine.

'Ulquiorra-kun would say 'stop making such a fuss' wouldn't he?' She sighed to herself.

'How long is this thing going to go? If he hears my stomach growl he'll have them give me twice as much food and stand over me until I eat it all!"

Orihime sucked in her abdomen in an attempt to keep the feared growling at bay. She had no idea why Aizen had wanted her here, but here she was. Standing behind Ulquiorra , her feet aching, her stomach feeling like it was about to roar like a angry tiger as any moment.

Zommari Rureaux began to speak…again.

'Boy, I thought Ulquiorra-kun could drone on and on but I guess not so much compared to most of these guys.'

Other Espada were jumping into the discussion from various spots in the room, some in shadow, some not. She recognized Tier Harribel and her fracción standing at a distance and sporadically heard Nnorita Jiruga but could only see his fracción, Tesla Lindocruz.

The always leering Quinto's voice echoed through the room again bringing another current bodily irritation of hers into focus.

'My boob itches.' She puffed out her cheeks and then rolled her shoulders hoping it would stave off her need to scratch. She stared at her warden's back. 'His hair looks kinda tangled. I wonder if he used Sonido a lot today and messed it up. He should carry a comb in his pocket.' She could just see him zooming from one place to another, getting whatever task Aizen had for him done. Her mind tacked on a 'varoom' and Road Runner like, 'meep meep!' to the scenario and she bit her lip to keep from smiling widely. She almost scratched her itching breast in her distraction and felt her face heat up in embarrassment. If she made that mistake, Nnorita would pounce, hands trying to 'help' her before she could take her next breath.

Her eyes scanned over Ulquiorra's mass of unruly hair again, her mind shifted to an image of her reaching up and running her fingers through the messy mane at the nape of his neck and smoothing it down. 'Bet it's soft like a kitty's fur.'

Though slight, she noticed him shift, his head giving an almost imperceptible tilt as if listening closely to something. If she'd not been combing over him so thoroughly with her gaze to bide her time she would have surely missed it.

Tozen began addressing Zommari.

'Oh, this is ridiculous!' Inoue wanted to moan. 'No wonder, Ulquiorra-kun nods off on my couch! If I had to go to these things everyday I'd need a nap too! This is worse than school!' She clicked her heels together, lifted her right booted foot to scratch her left ankle, wobbled a moment, and placed it back down with a soft 'tap'. Her stomach released a short rumble. The warmth fading from her face returned and she folded her hands across her belly as her eyes darted from Ulquiorra's form down to her feet, with the hope he hadn't heard.

Ulquiorra's voice echoed into the room, cutting off the still-speaking seventh Espada mid-sentence.

"Aizen-sama, is Inoue Orihime still required?"

'Darn it!' He'll be sitting at my table, "assuring all necessary nutrients are consumed" with me today for sure!

Zommari abruptly wheeled on the Fourth, incensed at the interruption, yelling and practically foaming at the mouth.

'Don Kanonji's ghost!' Orihime's jolted back from the onslaught regardless of Ulquiorra— calm as ever—being between her and the other Espada. Both began speaking rapidly, moving from Japanese to Spanish. Several other voices jumped into the unexpected fray. Orihime only understood a word here and there even after Aizen pointedly cleared his throat causing the dust up to calm down to a more civil exchange for a short time. After a few more moments of being wary of those arrancar nearest to her she realized the whole conversation had shifted and she had no idea what they were all going on about now.

But they were going on…and on. And then on some more.

And it'd looked like she'd been so close to being let go! But Ulquiorra had seemed to forget about her and his opportunity to ply her with food in the midst of it all.

Time began to stretch out before her again. Inoue shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She thought about just plopping down on the floor. Instead she fidgeted. She yawned. She gave up and scratched her boob…as inconspicuously as possible of course.

Her mind drifted to other things once more despite the noise around her. Her old apartment, her lonely cell, the friends she left behind, the barred window that was her only companion now. Days with tea, red-bean mochi and swim-suit shopping with Rangiku-san. Hitsugayu-taicho pointedly finding somewhere else to be that was away from the both of them. She felt a pang of longing for what no longer was, what she had chosen to leave behind.

Her mind's eye offered up in consolation a vision of nights with the fleeting arc of enormous, black wings and the lash of a whip-like tail thrown into relief against a backward moon. The tug of talons tangled in her wind whipped hair. Her brow dipped in confusion, wondering at her brain dredging up the odd dreams she'd begun to have; stranger still, the real sense of safety and comfort she received from them.

'I am not alone in my loneliness. There is more in the seemingly empty spaces than I presently perceive.'

Murcielago, resting on Ulquiorra's narrow hip, gave off a faint reverberation, like wind rushing through leaves. The action went unnoticed by Orihime lost as she was in her own thoughts but Zommari abruptly stopped yelling (and projecting spittle) that he had again risen to and instead bit out something low, remarkably drawing Orihime and everyone else's attention in spite of the din that proceeded it.

'What was "Una amenaza"?'

Orihime glanced around her. She didn't figure the ensuing quiet would last. She could see that the Seventh Espada's breathing remained labored and he seemed to be working towards another explosion, his face wrathful. She could just image the blank look being directed back at him from Ulquiorra, probably making the Arrancar all the more infuriated. There was a very pregnant pause, and then...nothing .

Had Aizen silently signaled them all to be quiet and go away because they were giving him a migraine acting like bickering babies? Maybe the smaller of the two Espada had won the argument, er…debate they'd been having?

'Yay! Ulquiorra-kun wins! Time to wrap up!'

Orihime took a deep breath, blew it out, awaiting the word of dismissal from Aizen. Refocused by the vacuum of sound, she thought about just raising her hand to ask to be excused. Alternatively, her arms went from where they'd been draped around her midsection to behind her back where she clasped them together. She pushed herself up on her toes and then rocked back on her heels. Any minute now…

She visualized Aizen standing, clearing his throat…

Out of nowhere, Nnoitra dropped from some unseen ledge looming in darkness above to land at the Seventh Espada's side. He leered at her, slapped Zommari on the back, then hissed something at Ulquiorra and the giant Espada exploded again.

'Eh! What... No! I… Just…no more! Ulquiorra-kun is stronger than both of them. I don't' approve of all the crazy violence here but just…"Cero!" Or, "Bala!" Take your eye out and throw it at them. Just…do something, anything, Señor-Fuzzy-Butt to get us out of here, I can't take it anymore!'

Orihime felt a sudden pulse, like a labored heartbeat; thick…heavy.

Ulquiorra's reiatsu. Familiar but stronger; stronger than she'd ever felt it before.

The unexpected and sharp throb of spiritual pressure stopped her wide-eyed, hidden-behind-her-hair, silent-screaming-tirade at the expanse of floor between her and "El Cuatro" as Nnoitra had called him. She looked up from where she found herself, now slumped to the floor.

Zommari and Nniorta wore twin, stunned expressions; both staring at Ulquiorra.

But Ulquiorra…

Ulquiorra was staring wide-eyed, over his shoulder, at her. She didn't even think he was capable of making such a face!

'Ano…? They were arguing…and I was just standing here...'

She knew by Ulquiorra's glare she'd done something really bad—at least according to him. He turned to face her fully. With three deliberate steps he was looming over her.

"What did you say?"

Inoue sat frozen, trying desperately to figure out what exactly she'd done wrong; and also trying not to pee-pee in her pink, Hello Kitty panties she'd been allowed to retain.

'Kurosaki-kun!' She thought for the first time in a long time, unconscious of how her body was starting to tilt back from her so called caretaker.

"N...nothing, Ulquiorra-kun. I…I didn't say anything."

She was in trouble.

She had been in trouble before.

Strangely, while the Espada's eyes drilled into her as Aizen and his other 'children' looked on she felt this trouble fell somewhere nauseatingly in between Chizuru ambushing her in class and having a terrifying hollow randomly pop up in front of her. A mash-up of the feeling she'd had as Soul Society pursued her and Ishida and her mortification at the thought of Kurosaki ever finding her notebook filled with love letters to him. This felt both dangerous and embarrassingly personal.

Why!?

"Woman?"

Laughter erupted somewhere behind her. "What dumb-ass thing did ya do down there, Princess?" Grimmjow.

"Ano…Uliquiorra-kun?" She squeaked out.

Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed.

'I didn't say anything!' Her mind screamed.

Before Orihime could truly make the exclamation her vision blurred. Her nose crinkled as if she'd been assailed by a pungent scent. Her mind swam with the abrupt regurgitation of images and sensations. Skin prickled with the sensation of biting wind and cold; calmed by fur and tempered leather pressed to bare flesh. "I licked your wounds only to be branded by your soul. Strange human. You…Woman, who woke in Murcielago's world and did not cower. You, who have usurped Aizen-sama in my all seeing eyes."

Ulquiorra's shadow fell over her trembling form. She heard him speak; announce to Aizen that he would return her to her cell. His speaking voice seemed far away compared to what had just resounded through her mind.

"Perhaps some food as well." She caught from the self proclaimed, Lord of Las Noches, who sounded wholly amused.

Ulquiorra crouched low, scooping her from the floor to rest firmly against his chest as he stood and made his way out the doors of the throne room. Orihime's vision cleared for a moment as unbidden tears broke free and slid down her cheeks, the trails matching his own.

"You are not so frail, Woman…in that other place." The statement was pitched low, direct but flavored with familiarity.

Despite his words though the mistake of this moment was his, Ulquiorra knew. Her aside so brazen, so full of that out-of-nowhere imprudence that she oft brandished around him in their 'other' place he'd reacted as though she had spoken aloud. Impulse overriding observation. But when he'd looked to her instead of a child-like-obstinate glare, small hands balled into fists at her side, he'd found wide-eyed bewilderment pulsing from a crumpled form. And then there was nothing to be done but to take her, leaving the others to believe that she'd said something unacceptable that only he, her constant warden, had made out and would discipline her for.

Aizen-sama was not so easily mislead. But with the coming war he needed the fourth. Occasional aberrant behavior where the woman was concerned would not outweigh his usefulness as Aizen's most efficient and dutiful of soldiers. It would suffice.

Orihime blinked owlishly at him, fresh uncontrolled tears pouring forth. His small outpouring of reiatsu had left her dazed. She truly did not realize what she had done; what she was capable of doing. The boundaries between her conscious and sub-conscious were thinning but still confused to the reality of all that had transpired between them. Whereas he was fully merged with his other self, his full self, his zanpakuto—even when it was sealed and resting on his hip. And every inch of him was fully aware of every inch of her whether resting or awake.

But she was close to knowing it all. More and more he found her looking at him for too long or standing by him too closely. He had caught her check herself more than once, stopping the unconscious movement of her hand reaching to clasp his as she had done before…in the world between. And her thoughts about the unruliness of his hair spoke volumes; about her burgeoning union of consciousness and the necessity to discourage her, when they met, from her inclination to touch and manipulate that part of his person whenever she was in reach of it.

But it felt unmentionably good…

Regardless, he would have to address the issue. And the more pressing subject that had surfaced as well; that he absolutely, under no circumstances would abide a second utterance of that appalling pet name. It's accuracy in its description of his release form irrelevant and notwithstanding.

And if she disliked it she should stop combing her fingers through it.

But it felt unmentionably good…

Ulquiorra crossed the threshold to Orihime's room and deposited her on her couch. She sat unmoving for a few seconds and then shifted, raising her legs to curl them up beside her, her hands limp in her lap. As she glanced up at him and opened her mouth to speak her stomach spoke first and let out a long, loud growl.

He waited, casually sliding his hands into their usual resting place while observing her face's transition from anxious pale to mortified red, before turning away from her.

"I'll return momentarily with food, Woman."

'So much for asking what in the world just happened.' She thought. She counted each click of his measured steps as he made his way to her door.

"It's Inoue." She muttered back under her breathe when she knew he was on the verge of exiting. 'Or-i-hi-me.' She continued in her mind, pursing her lips to keep from smiling at the sass she felt welling up in her.

Ah, there she is again. That woman he knows. He thought again about what she had called him, 'Senor Culo Fuzzy'. Tch, he could just see her laughing at her insulting moniker, even as she pressed herself closer to him...fuzzy or not. The woman was ridiculous. What was it the servants in the kitchens called her? Inoue Al-ways-hun-gry.

He heard the woman gasp behind him before her door closed between them.

'Do they really call me that!?'

'You're surprised?'

'Eh! You can here me!?'

Yes...she was catching on.