Name: Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Rating: T
Pairings: Ichigo/Rukia ... Ishida/Orihime
Genres: Romance/Drama/Angst
Summary: When lead singer Inoue Orihime can no longer sing, their band has to find a new member. Who else but Rukia? She busted into Ichigo Kurosaki's life and changed his world. And he, in turn, taught her to sing again.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or the characters. Thanks to CrystalRaindrop007 for beta'ing!

Ichigo Kurosaki hit the last few strings on his guitar and breathed in deeply as he let his eyes wander the crowds. They were cheering loudly, their hands up in the air. He turned around and began unhooking the electric gutiar from the amp. They'd had no singer this time; just him, Renji, who was on the drums, Ishida, who did the piano, and Byakuya, who did bass. But apparently they had preformed good enough; the crowd was estatic.

Ichigo was smirking as he walked backstage. He kicked a small piece of metal with his sneakers and put his gutiar down. Grabbing his black hoodie, he pulled it on, shaking his head to let his hair go wild as he pulled it over his T-shirt and past the belt line of his worn jeans. He watched as the rest of the band came backstage. Renji walked up to him and slapped him on the back, grabbing his own sweater and pulling it on over his bare, tattooed chest.

"Good job, man! I didn't know you could sing!"

Ichigo shook his head.

"Yeah ... neither did I until that solo came up. I know we were planning on cutting it out because Inoue's not here, but ... I dunno. I just did it, ya know?"

"Yeah, good job Kurosaki," Ishida said. "But you can't fill in for our female lead; we still need a singer."

"Whatever," Ichigo said, rolling his eyes. "When is Inoue coming back, anyway?"

Ishida shook his head sadly. "I was with her this afternoon; the doctor said she has little to no chance of recovering her voice. Her vocal cords were completely smashed in the crash."

Ichigo nodded in silent understanding. It was the news no one wanted to hear. They had just lost their best, and only, singer. She had been the life of the band, giving them all encouragement when they didn't want it and sometimes landing them in the hospital with food poisoning. It appeared to hit Ishida hardest of all.

"She's going home soon, though. She leaves the hospital the day after tomorrow."

"Yeah ... " Ichigo said slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I know we're all sorry about Inoue, and I hate to mention this because I fell as though it will always be Inoue's position ... but we need a new singer. This team can't survive without one."

It was something none of them wanted to face.

"Guess you're right, huh?" Renji said, sighing.

No one spoke for a few minutes until Ichigo's cell phone rang loudly. He jumped in surprise and grabbed it, groaning when he saw the name on the caller ID. He answered it.

"Hello, dad?"

And then he held the phone about three feet away from him while his dad's loud voice floated through the receiver and everyone else in the room raised their eyebrows. When Isshin Kurosaki had finished loudly recapping Ichigo's concert for him, Ichigo said,

"Yes dad, I can sing. Yes dad ... yes dad." Ichigo rolled his eyes as he repeated the same two words at least five times while his dad asked him how every little detail went. Ishida gave Ichigo an amused look, and as soon as said orange haired teen hung up his phone, Renji commented,

"Man, you are the only one who has a parent breathing down their back at sixteen."

"Renji, shut up. Most sixteen-year-olds have fathers breathing down their backs about every little detail of their lives, their friends, and if they were with girls when they were out until seven O'freakin' clock."

Renji laughed as Byakuya raised his eyebrow.

"Seven? Geez. Tell the old man to give ya a break."

"Yeah," Ichigo said, leaning down to tie his shoe before he stood up and stretched his arms over his head. "You would think he would give up after five years of pointlessly trying to get me to go on a date."

"You've never been on a date?" Ishida asked, shaking his head as he took a long drink of water; they had a long time ahead of them of dealing with fans.

"Nah. No girls have ever caught my eye. What about you?" Ichigo asked, sending his semi-friend a glare. Ishida shrugged.

"I have no need to tell everyone about my personal life."

Ichigo's glare deepened as he began walking out of the room.

"Yah. Whatever. I'm leaving here before any fans come and attack me. My dad would have a field day with that one."

Ichigo sighed as he kicked a rock and watched it skip across the ground, sending dust up in small clouds. Inoue ... gone from the band? He hadn't wanted to believe it a month and a half ago when they had gotten the call from the hospital while in practice ... but Inoue had been involved in a car crash and her voice was nearly gone. She could speak a little, and, they believed, with speech therapy, she would one day be able to speak right ... but never sing.

Her dream had been crushed.

He hated seeing her like that; she used to be so talkative and would make everyone, even that stone-faced Byakuya, smile with her jokes and contagious energy. But, now, she didn't speak almost at all. Ishida had been the only one to get her to speak so far. And even then, she had only said a few words, and her voice was so low and soft, you couldn't barely hear it; you could tell she would never sing again in the bright, beautiful way she always had.

"I'm sorry, Uryuu-Kun. I didn't want to cause you and Kurosaki-kun and the others so much pain ..."

All she thought about was them, never herself. She was worried that she had caused the band pain, not her.

And Ishida had done what Ichigo had never thought possible. He had wrapped Inoue in a tight embrace and told her not to cry. But she had only cried harder. They had left them alone at that point; he and Renji and Byakuya felt like they were intruding on something, and afterward, Ishida pushing his glasses further up on his nose, the doctors said that there was hope, and that they would be able to tell them better what would happen in the future in a few weeks.

That had been two weeks ago, and now ... it was true. She wasn't coming back.

Letting another sigh escape him, Ichigo stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets and shivered in the cold February air. He, unfortunately, wasn't watching where he was going, and the next thing he knew, he was staring straight at the ground, his eyes wide and his hands still in his pockets.

He had tripped.

Brilliant.

"Watch where you're going!" a quiet, pained voice yelled. Ichigo quickly sat up, rubbing his head, to see a young woman sitting on the sidewalk. He glared at her and said,

"Yeah, well maybe you shouldn't freakin' sit in the middle of the sidewalk, dope!"

She glared back at him.

"I twisted my ankle; happy?"

Ichigo rolled his eyes and stuck out his hand. She glared at it, too.

"Well, are you gonna let me help you or not?" Ichigo said roughly. "Because if not ... I need to get home."

She finally let the glare drop from her face with a sigh and took his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. She nearly fell back over as her feet collapsed under her, but he grabbed the back of her sweater and held her up.

"Can ya walk?"

"What does it look like?" she shot back, wincing as she tried to put a little weight on her foot.

"It looks like ..."

"You're not supposed to answer that!" she cut him off, her violet eyes seemingly burning a hole right through him as she nearly fell over again.

"Fine. But do ya need help home?" he said, grabbing her arm to hold her on her feet. She finally gave in and let him, her pride crushed just as hard as he ankle.

"No. I can get home by myself," she protested. "Rukia."

"Huh?" Ichigo said, a clueless look on his face.

"My name, fool!"

"Oh. Well, I'm Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Nice to meet you. I think."

Ichigo smirked, his amber eyes running over her form as she wobbled on her feet. She seemed to be about his age —sixteen— and was wearing a soft, light brown skirt and a pink sweater that zipped up the middle. The zipper, he noticed, was a small, white bunny. Her eyes seemed to glow violet in the moonlight and her raven hair was framing her face perfectly as she tried to push it out of her eyes. He let her lean on him as a crutch and asked,

"How do you feel?"

"Like crap."

"Nice," Ichigo said, uninterested as she began to limp beside him. "I thought you didn't want me to walk you home."

"Then carry me. I can't walk, in case you haven't noticed."

Ichigo growled deep in his throat.

"Fine then. Where the hell do you live?"

"Um ... I just moved. I don't know my address, but I know where my apartment is," she said, biting back a wince as she applied a little pressure to her ankle.

"About your ankle ... is it broken?"

"How do I know?"

"When are you going to stop answering my questions with questions?"

"When are you going to stop asking questions?"

Ichigo growled loudly this time, rolling his eyes. He would have dropped her then and there, but something might have happened to her ... and he didn't want that. No matter how annoying she was, he had been raised to help little, midget, pain in the ass girls who twisted (Broke) their ankles at nighttime when the crazy men came out.

"Did you break your ankle? Did you hear a crack when you fell? Does it hurt that bad? Is it swelling? Should I go slower?"

Rukia kicked him with her uninjured ankle and he screamed out in pain, letting go of her; she fell to the ground and protested loudly when her ankle landed wrong.

Ichigo growled, "Now your ankle's broken."

Rukia kicked him again.

"Hey, Inoue-san, are you awake?"

Ishida walked quietly into her hospital room, walking over to her bed and looking down at her. She wasn't awake. Her soft features were peaceful in sleep and her breathing was relaxed and quiet. Her soft, red hair spread out beneath her head, and Ishida felt an involuntary blush begin to surface. He sat down in the chair beside her bed and sighed, pushing his glasses up further on his nose.

"I ... ah ... I just wanted to drop by and tell you how everything went. We got into the finals, but I'm not sure how we did it without you. We just ... well, even if you can't be there with us, you can cheer us on. I know you never really cared about this tournament in the first place, but you had fun singing and it's ... well, it's unfair for this to have happened to you." Ishida stopped to take a breath. Even sleeping, it was hard for him to talk to her. "Why am I saying this while you're sleeping?"

He answered his own question a second later.

"Because I can't face you while you're awake, I guess. If I said it was unfair, you would say you didn't care and that it happened for a reason. If I said I was sorry, you would smile and say, don't worry for me. If I said that you were irreplaceable, you would say that no one's perfect and everyone is equal. You ... you don't care for yourself enough, Inoue-san ... you care for those around you instead."

He stopped again, finally having succeeded on forcing his blush down. He, Uryuu Ishida, didn't blush over girls.

"We'll never be able to replace you. In our band ... or in our lives."

Well ... does Ishida seem OOC to you? Hmm ... I HOPE not! But this is AU, Orihime was sleeping, and ... and I don't think he was OOC, but hey, readers can have opinions, too. PLEASE tell me what you think. Does this suck, only partly suck, or is it wort continuing?

Please Review!