The first two nights, Yuzu doesn't recognize the sound.

It's muffled by walls and the pillow that Yuzu puts over her head but it's still audible to the youngest Kurosaki, just loud enough to keep her awake at night. The noise is filled with pain and sorrow and loss and despair and a loneliness so intense that the first night she heard it Yuzu nearly woke up Karin just to make sure that her twin was still there, still alive.

The second night, Yuzu stayed up for hours, listening and feeling her heart slowly rip in two as the night goes on.

She can't explain why the noise makes her chest hurt so much and doesn't attempt to.

The young girl wondered whether Ichigo or Karin or Goat-Face heard the noise. At breakfast after the second night, through subtle questioning, Yuzu figured out that they didn't. Ichigo was especially reserved at the meal, leaving for school almost immediately and only pausing to grab some toast before leaving to meet with Mizuiro with nothing but a quick "thank you" tossed over his shoulder to Yuzu, leaving her staring after him.

While she had been cleaning up, Yuzu had wondered if Ichigo eats enough; Ichigo had missed many meals since coming back from his camping trip. She resolved to feed him more during dinner, only to discover that he was staying with a friend until late.

The third night, Yuzu finally realized what she had hearing: screaming.

Heart heavy with worry and trepidation, Yuzu slides out of bed and quickly pulls on her fuzzy slippers that do a surprisingly good job of muffling her footsteps. She hears Karin mumble something in her sleep and turn over, but the black-haired girl does not stir into consciousness. Yuzu lets out a breath she doesn't realize she has been holding and steps into the hallway, closing her bedroom door softly behind her and wincing at the slight click it makes.

After pausing to make sure no one heard the noise, Yuzu walks down the hall, making sure to keep to the areas of the floor that don't creak. She knows them well after delivering laundry so many times, and with silent footsteps she approaches the source of the noise.

It has been growing louder, jumping in volume the most when Yuzu had moved into the hallway. Yuzu now recognizes her brother's voice and her breath catches in her throat in automatic worry, instincts warring with instincts until concern wins over caution.

She makes it to his door with little difficulty and raises a hand to knock, only to find that it is stuck. Yuzu stares at the limb, confused. She wants to knock, to make sure her older brother is okay, so why won't her hand move?

It takes Yuzu a few moments to realize that her hand is shaking, and she quickly rubs her eyes when they begin to burn, finding that they are watering in response to the vocalized agony emanating from her brother. After swallowing around the lump in her throat, Yuzu brings her hand up again, only hesitating for half a second before she knocks solidly three times with a confidence she doesn't feel, hoping after each knock that the other residents of the house will not wake at the noise.

At the third knock, the screaming stops as though strangled into silence.

Once more, Yuzu's disquiet trumps her general unease and she eases the door open, her eyes adjusting to the slightly different light level in her brother's room. It's dark, the curtains drawn and everything blanketed in a layer of shadow. The tiny slivers of moonlight that sneak through the curtains do little to alleviate the darkness.

Even so, Yuzu can see her brother sitting up in bed, his back ramrod straight.

For some reason, Yuzu interprets the position as filled with pain. She can't say why.

She doesn't try.

Yuzu says not a word as she steps into the room and eases the door shut, blocking out the meager light of the hallway. She can't see Ichigo's face; his hair shadows his eyes and he is turned away from her, almost hunched. He is an animal cornered, one that seeks escape but doesn't know where to look.

She takes one step closer and tries to ignore the pang of hurt in her heart when she sees him stiffen in poorly hidden alarm. "Ichigo?"

The name is a question in itself, a query, an offer. Ichigo winces again and doesn't immediately reply, choosing to look away from Yuzu completely. His posture is filled with shame and guilt. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice so soft that it barely reaches Yuzu's ears even in the unnatural stillness of the night. "Did I wake you?"

There is an odd trembling in her brother's tone, one that is entirely alien to Yuzu. All the same, it makes the lump in Yuzu's throat grow and burn. "N—no."

It's a lie and they both know it.

"I'm sorry," repeats Ichigo. "You can go back to bed. I'll be quieter from now on."

Yuzu blinks a few times to clear the blurring in her eyes and is shocked to realize that her eyes are watering again. She quickly brushes the tears away, sniffling slightly.

The noise catches Ichigo's attention and he stiffens, turning partially towards Yuzu before freezing, almost catching himself. He seems to be in conflict and settles on speaking instead of fully facing his sister. "Is something wrong, Yuzu?"

Yuzu sniffles again, mentally telling herself to get her act together. She puts on her brave face, hoping that some of the false energy will slip into her voice. "Not at all, Ichigo!" The cheer is forced and both of them know it, but Ichigo doesn't comment. She hesitates on her next words and then plunges ahead anyway. "Do you want a glass of water? You sound parched."

"I—"

"Wait here," Yuzu all but orders, overriding her brother's words before he can utter them, her resolve firming as a set task settles in her mind. She hustles out of Ichigo's room, barely remembering to keep quiet, and hardly notices the change in atmosphere between Ichigo's room and the rest of the house until a few moments later.

While she is filling up the glass of water, she recalls how much heavier the atmosphere in Ichigo's room seems to be. Yuzu sets her shoulders and goes back upstairs anyway, knowing deep inside that she can't leave her brother alone tonight. The water nearly goes over the edge of the glass more than once but Yuzu has had long practice and she keeps it from spilling as she ascends the stairs and goes back to Ichigo's room, opening and closing the door once more.

Her brother hasn't moved much, only settling into a slightly more comfortable position that still looks quite uncomfortable to Yuzu.

She approaches his bed and holds out the water. "Here," she says.

Ichigo stares at the proffered glass for a full ten seconds, his eyes gleams of amber in the meager light, before he reaches out and accepts the water. "Thank you," he replies, taking a deep drink immediately after speaking.

Yuzu waits as he finishes, after which she takes the cup back and sets it down on his desk, not wanting to leave the room again for something as mundane as putting the cup back in the kitchen sink. Ichigo is watching her again, his gaze measured and wary. It makes Yuzu's chest ache to see her brother like this; there is a vulnerability in the way he holds himself, and his posture shows signs of wear and cracks that aren't visible during the day.

It takes more effort than Yuzu wants to admit to swallow, and she wipes her eyes again as they blur.

The two siblings stay in those positions for a minute, Ichigo backed into the corner and Yuzu standing next to his bed, one's expression guarded and the other's worried but trying to appear brave.

"Do you need any more water?" Yuzu eventually asks.

"No, thank you," Ichigo replies, his voice almost more subdued than it had been.

Yuzu bites her lip, a habit she knows Ichigo finds endearing (and that is why she never makes the effort to break it) and then takes a deep breath. She might as well go for it, she realizes as she checks the time. It is too early - or too late - for her to think so deeply on what her instincts are telling her to do.

Reminded of times when she was younger and far more afraid, Yuzu climbs onto Ichigo's bed. Her brother watches her every move like a man on death row, his fingers twitching, but Yuzu sets her jaw and crawls up next to him, her fuzzy slippers forgotten on the floor next to Ichigo's bed.

Her brother's chest is hard, made firm with muscle. She can hear his pounding heartbeat and the way his entire chest shudders with every breath he takes.

She feels her heart tearing in two all over again.

"Yu . . . zu . . ."

Her brother says nothing save those two syllables, but even so Yuzu still hears the shock in her brother's tone coupled with the desperation of a man drowning at sea with land nowhere in sight.

It breaks her heart to see her brother like this; Ichigo is strong and always has been. Yuzu thinks of how he refuses to dye his hair just because some dumb thugs tell him to, how he stands up for Yuzu and Karin, and how he even comforts them and makes sure that they are still all right no matter how tired he is. Ichigo is a solid force of good for Yuzu, one that never wavers or falters in the face of sorrow or anger.

Now Yuzu can see the cracks that spiral through her invincible older brother and she wonders how she ever missed them in the first place. They are so raw, so new, so filled with emotional pain, that Yuzu wonders what happened while her brother went camping.

She snuggles closer to him, using him as a kind of stuffed animal—if her stuffed animals were all so muscular and big, of course, because no matter how much Yuzu wishes for a growth spurt she knows that she will never catch up to her older brother—and she tries to project calming thoughts.

After a tense minute, Ichigo's heart rate slows down and even though his breathing is still uneven, his arms relax and wrap around Yuzu, drawing her in closer.

Enveloped in Ichigo's aura, Yuzu feels Ichigo's grief and desolation keenly and she can't help her whimper as she buries her head in Ichigo's neck, making her brother's grip on her tighten reflexively.

Ichigo is so filled with pain that Yuzu wonders how he ever functions during the day. She remembers how she tried to give him more food and wonders how she ever thought that food was the answer. Ichigo's problems run deeper than that.

Yuzu sniffles and no longer tries to stop herself from crying as tears roll down her face and she lets them flow freely. She cries against Ichigo, knotting her fingers in his shirt and sniffling and half-sobbing while trying to stop from making too much noise that could wake the rest of the family. Her brother pulls her even closer in response to her grief, his familiar aura of strength and support slowly overwhelming that of his despair and pain.

It's odd; after a minute, Yuzu realizes that she is not the one using Ichigo as support. Instead, her brother seems to be using Yuzu as a source of comfort and the young girl finds it that much harder to breathe evenly after realizing that.

Neither sibling says anything as Yuzu gradually relaxes against her brother. She doesn't leave his room; she doesn't want to.

She comes back the next night, and the next, until she is sure that Ichigo knows he is not without family.

Ichigo may be her protector, but Yuzu refuses to believe that protectors need to fight alone.

A/N Late-night emotional trip. Fun, right?

Wrote this up in forty minutes when the idea hit me. Hope you enjoyed.

-RoR

Please review.