Disclaimer: If I owned this anime I would have given Ishida way more screen time.

Ishida Uryuu wasn't sure what a father was.

The cold distant man he knew was not gentle or kind. He hardly ever spent a few minutes at a time in the same room as Uryuu. His grandfather insisted that his father loved him, but it was hard to believe that when he only every spoke cruel words if he spoke to him at all.

(It was hard to see him care for anything after watching the man cut into his mother's corpse so coldly. Like she was just another stranger instead of his gentle ever devoted wife.)

The closest thing he had to a father was his grandfather.

His kind and gentle grandfather who looked for the best in everyone. He was so strong and so brave. He taught Uryuu to be a Quincy to be proud of who he was and what he could do. He never laughed or scoffed when Uryuu couldn't do something like his father did sometimes. (When he was home, which was rare truth be told.) He told him about the Quincy legacy and how their pride was their downfall in the end. He told him about the Shinigami and how they protected the world from the scary Hollows.

Uryuu loved his grandfather.

That's why it hurt so much when he was taken away.

(It was a burning agonizing pain that made Uryuu want to curl up in a tiny ball and never move again. Why? Why? Why? Why did it have to be him? Why couldn't the Shinigami arrive sooner? They were supposed to protect. That's what his grandfather told him.)

The pain only grew worse when his father sent him a sideways look as he drove him home and told him that it was his grandfather's fault because he decided to be a Quincy instead of doing something meaningful.

(Uryuu wanted to scream and shout at him. Tell him that being a Quincy was meaningful, that his grandfather was a better man than he'd ever be, but he didn't have the strength. He was tired, so tired.)

Then he was left, alone in a big empty house.

(He hated it.)

So, he left.

He knew that his father would not like him to be here, but he didn't care. It wasn't like the man would even notice. He hadn't even come home for the last three days. Uryuu scuffed his foot in the dirt. The screeching of the other children was ringing in his ears making him nervous. He had never spent much time with other children before.

He wasn't even sure why he came here.

A park he only ever saw in passing.

(He knew why. He wanted to be far away from that house. It was too white, too clean, to empty. Here in this park, he could blend in, with the other children even if he sat apart from them.)

His father had hired him, tutors, instead of allowing him to go to school like a normal child. His grandfather said that he was simply trying to protect him from the other children, who couldn't see spirits like he could. (He was gone now, so Uryuu didn't feel as guilty when he scowled and started to hate his father. The tutors were just as cold as his father was and always expected more than he could give.)

As soon as they left in their fancy cars he was out the door, halfway running to that little park.

(His safe haven. Even if the other kids ignored him. There were plenty of spirits who were more than willing to talk to him.)

He saw Hollows on occasion, but the first thing his grandfather had taught him was to control his power and draw it into himself so the monsters would never know he was different. (He was good at that. Even other humans seemed to forget he was there when he held it tightly to his chest.) The monsters would never know he was a Quincy who hated them for taking his kind and gentle grandfather away.

(Though he hated the Shinigami even more because they were supposed to help. They were supposed to protect.)

It had been weeks now and Uryuu was still afraid to try and practice his powers. The place where they had trained so happily was now stained with the memory of his grandfather's death.

(It still hurt so much. It always hurt, though it had become a dull pang in his chest rather than the lava hot wound it once was.)

(He didn't have a teacher anymore. He was alone and ignorant to many of the Quincy ways.)

There was a boy.

Uryuu paused. For the first time since he started visiting the park, someone else was sitting under the tree he had silently claimed as his own. (He wasn't sure how to respond. He didn't have much experience with other children. ) He stood there awkwardly for a few moments, watching the strange orange-haired child.

It wasn't until the other boy turned and replied to a ghost standing next to him that Uryuu moved from his frozen position. (Excitement coursed through him. He wasn't alone. He wasn't alone!)

"You can see them too?!" He voice came out cracked and desperate.

Wide brown eyes looked up at him in surprise. Uryuu knew his own eyes were just as wide.

"The ghosts?"

"Yes."

"Yeah…I can…"

Isshin didn't hold the same hatred for Quincy's that some of his former Shinigami associates did. (He did marry one after all.) But he knew he still had some prejudice, mainly due to the prick he had the unfortunate luck to meet. However, as he stared down at the blue-eyed child, his only son had apparently dragged home he couldn't bring himself to do anything, but smile. (Masaki would probably have beat him over the head if he didn't, he reasoned privately) He had sent his son out to the park in hopes of cheering up the grieving child. Masaki had been gone for nearly ten months now, but Ichigo was still mourning her death like it happened yesterday. He knew it wasn't healthy, but he wasn't sure how to help him.

(Deep down he knew that Ichigo blamed himself for her death. He knew he could be frank with the child and tell him about Hallows and Shinigami, but he…couldn't. He didn't want his son dragged into that business. Not now, not ever.)

He greeted the blue-eyed child called Uryuu Ishida and privately winced as those too bright, too blue eyes turned on him silently expecting something from him that he didn't understand. (He knew what Quincy eyes looked like. He had met the boy's father after all, but it was always unsettling to be on the receiving end of those clear, focused eyes.)

He had fully prepared himself to kindly let the two boys hang out with one another for as long as they wanted to today, then take the Quincy child home and make sure the two never met again, even if it meant asking that smug bastard to keep a better watch on his kid. (He didn't want Ichigo involved, damn it!)

But…

"Your mother must have been killed by a Hollow. You know those scary monsters I told you about. You probably can't see them, but they appeared and try and eat ghosts and people with high levels of spiritual energy. My grandfather was…well he was killed by hollows too…j-just a few weeks ago."

Isshin leaned against the hallway wall sighing silently.

"So! It's not your fault. T-that's what I was trying to say. S-so please don't cry."

He walked away. (He felt like a coward. How easy would it have been for him to explain everything to his son?) When he entered the room later, intending to finally take the Quincy boy home he found the two curled up on the floor fast asleep with red-rimmed eyes and snotty noses.

In the end, he didn't take the child home.

Instead, he wrapped them both in blankets.

The two were inseparable after that, leaving Isshin frustrated and lost in how to deal with this new development. He allowed it reluctantly, however, simply because of how happy the Quincy boy's presence made his son. He supposed it must have been the fact that they both could see ghosts. Ichigo was a sweet child and had always been able to talk to other kids easily, but more often than not he would come home crying because some punk kid called him crazy or a liar when he talked about his gift.

For the first few days he wondered when the Quincy child's father would approach him, with sharp words of reprimand for daring to be near his son, but the man never showed his face. He realized quickly that the boy was hiding his daily visits from his workaholic father. As more time passed and he learned more about Ishida, he was almost grateful for the lack of appearance. He would have broken that smug man's jaw for saying some of the things he did to his son. As it was, it took several weeks for Ishida to finally stop looking at him and seeing his own father.

(He wasn't sure when he started to think of the child as just Uryuu, rather than the Quincy boy or Ishida. Maybe it was the first time he smiled at him. A tiny, soft smile that made his small face light up.)

(He'd never forget the day Uryuu reached up, hesitantly, to clutch at his hand as he walked the two back home from the park.)

Of course, the peace they establish over the course of a month was broken by the arrival of the older Quincy. Isshin nearly slammed the door in the man's face when he laid eyes on him, but somehow managed to stop himself at the last minute.

Instead, he smiled.

(A bright ugly smile that didn't reach his eyes.)

"Ah, you much be young Uryuu's father." He exclaimed loudly. "My son and him have been inseparable for the last month!"

(He didn't smile when Uryuu hid behind him instead of going to his father, but he knew the smug satisfaction was clear within his eyes.)

This has been on my computer for a while now, but I never actually got around to publishing it. The basic inspiration behind this one-shot is just a random thought about what would happen if Ichigo and Ishida met as kids and became friend/quasi-brothers.

*Update* I changed the beginning a bit since I've now finished the manga and know Uryuu's backstory and what happened to his mom. I didn't know that when I first wrote this. I also went through and did some minor edits to the flow and grammar.