Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of its characters.

Authors note: Ok if you are reading this and thinking where is Ichigo? Please be patient he is coming.

Please read and review!

Chapter one.

Elisabeth had always prided herself in her grip on reality. She wasn't like other young teenage girls who would spend all their time dreaming about boys or clothes. Elisabeth spent her time studying and planing for her future. Some people said that she had gown up fast because of her parents death in a house fire, and because of her injuries that she had sustained in that same fire. But Elisabeth thought she would have been mature even if that wouldn't have happened.

Everyday Elisabeth would walk to school alone and everyday she would walk home alone. She didn't really have any friends, no one wanted to make friends with someone who didn't know how to have fun.

Even though she spent most of her time studying and filling her mind with knowledge she still found time for her one guilty pleasure (reading fiction.) When she read fiction she could forget her life and pretend that she was someone else. She could forget that she had no friends because she met new people in her books.

Then on one normal snowy morning Elisabeth's life changed forever.

On her way past a small park that looked more like a garden then a real playground, she seen a old homeless man huddled on a bench. He was humming a tune and writing something in tiny black book. "You there." He called just as she passed him.

She stopped and turned around "Yes." She answered.

"Why does a young girl like yourself walk with such a frown on her face." He asked.

"I don't know what you mean." She said because she hadn't known she was frowning.

"You look as if you are tired of the world." He stated.

"I was just thinking." She told him.

"The scares on your face. Are they the reason you have lost your youth?" He asked bluntly.

Elisabeth put her hand to the left side of her face. Most people didn't talk about her scars unless they were being cruel. But this man wasn't being cruel, his clear blue eyes held no malice, only concern.

"I..don't know." She answered truthfully.

"You poor child." He said as he pulled a coin from his pocket. He walked the coin back and forth across his knuckles with fluid grace for what could have been a full minute, then he tucked it back into his pocket.

Elisabeth blinked and shifted from foot to foot, she didn't know why but she felt like she couldn't just leave the old man without doing something for him. "Here I want you to have this." She said and held out her bagged lunch to him.

He smiled a yellowed tooth grin and took the bag. "Thank you child your kindness will be repaid."

"You're welcome but I have to go or I'll be late for school." She said as she turned away.

She broke into a run so she could make up for lost time, yet she couldn't help but look back at the old man. Then when she looked back she didn't see him setting at the bench. She had only took her eyes of him for a few seconds, yet he was nowhere in sight.

Unable to feel satisfied that the man had vanished into thin air, Elisabeth walked back over to the bench in hopes of seeing his footprints in the newly fallen snow. But there were no foot prints, and the bench was covered with snow as if no one had been on it for hours.

Feeling slightly unnerved Elisabeth continued on to school and tried to put the old man out of her mind. That proved to be a task not easily accomplished considering that once lunch hour rolled around she had no food.

Hoping that buying a candy bar from the snack machine would get her through the day, Elisabeth reached into her pocket and pulled out her stash of change. There under her quarters and dimes was the coin the old man had been holding.