Not-so-long-author-note: This is one of my reviewers' long-awaited prize, a freestyle oneshot by me, for winning my author note contest. Congratulations Anya, and sorry about the delay!

This is rated T for mild language.

Warning: Possible spoilers.

Rukia's Rain

"Like hell you're okay! Don't come to school! You'd probably keel over before you even leave my house!"

"What did you say? I dare you to repeat that again, Ichigo."

"A. Little. Girl. Like. You. Should. Stay. Home."

"Why you-!"

"Whoa! See, this is why I'm telling you to stay home!"

This last sentence was exclaimed after Ichigo caught Rukia in his arms, who would have accrued a nasty collection of bruises when she fell out of her closet in dizziness if it weren't for his assistance. He noted her appearance with some concern, though most wouldn't have been able to tell with his still-furrowed brows that gave off the appearance of a scowl.

Her normally well kept hair was disheveled with sweat and from a night's worth of tossing and turning. Karakura's standard high school uniform also appeared unusually untidy, with wrinkles marring what would normally have been a professional look. It was odd to see the tiny and mostly elegant Kuchiki so unkempt, not to mention pale. She was naturally pale, and colored too easily and too often for flushed cheeks to be too much of a concern to him, but her paleness was definitely nothing positive. It drew attention to the dark bags under her eyes, heavily-lidded eyes and the dullness of her normally bright and fierce violet eyes.

He glanced around his bedroom in search of any medical supplies. His eyes roved over a plain desk with several books and papers, with an equally inconspicuous lamp. His bed laid unmade, a result of him jumping out of his bed to investigate the strange noises he had heard. Said noises, he soon came to find out, were from none other than the stowaway in his closet.

"Back off! I've dealt with worse conditions in my Shinigami work!" she retorted, though it held no sway in its shakiness. Ichigo sighed exasperatedly, and lifted her under her arms and tossed her over his right shoulder, to her mortification. She squawked in indignation, and made her displeasure known by weakly beating her tiny fists against his broad back and complaining.

And this is what he got for trying to be nice to her.

He gave one last look to his room, noting that outside the windows, it was around 5 in the morning. It wouldn't do to wake up anyone, even his annoying bearded father, for something he could probably handle himself.

He hefted her again, and walked down the stairs, but not before turning off his room lights. Rukia quieted down, not wishing to wake up any of the other Kurosaki household members. She had that much tact at least as a guest in this household. She wondered if her nii-sama would be pleased at her manners or disappointed with her slight subservience to the Kurosaki family. Probably displeased.

She felt the vibrations as Ichigo descended down the stairs silently, minding the creaky parts of the steps, and coming down in the living room. He laid her down on the couch in front of the TV, and shuffled into the kitchen. From her fetal position on the comfortable piece of furniture, Rukia could hear drawers and cabinet doors opening, as well as the occasional clink of cutlery. As she waited patiently for him to finish whatever business he had, she reflected on why Ichigo was being so nice to her.

It wasn't that he wasn't nice, but he was the type of individual that found it hard to express themselves through words and actions. But then again, he was definitely some level of niceness for shouldering the mantle of a Substitute Shinigami and protecting the lives of Karakura residents, who continued to remain ignorant of the Hollows lurking around, or the wandering souls.

Her musings were cut short when the orange-haired Kurosaki returned from the kitchen with a tray. She hurriedly tried to force herself up into a sitting position. He sat next to her and lifted a thermometer up to her mouth. She opened her mouth obediently, and he popped the medical tool in, and set to arranging the cups and various medicine on the tray.

Rukia resisted the urge to roll the glass stick around in her mouth, knowing that it wouldn't help, and instead settled for holding the contraption under her tongue. She still couldn't understand why humans used these devices, but they made her curious, and she liked to have questions and answer them. She watched Ichigo group different colored pills together and mix what appeared to be tea in a ceramic mug with a small spoon.

He lifted his hand to yank the thermometer out, and inspected the thermometer.

"You have a fever, but it's not that bad," he noted. He handed her the tea wordlessly and she grunted a thanks, before sipping it slightly. She noticed that her throat felt prickly, a most disagreeable and unpleasant sensation. Her Shinigami partner noted her discomfort, and deposited the pills in her free hand.

"You'll want to swallow-"

"I know, Ichigo," she hoarsely retorted, though it held no actual irritation. Ichigo knew it was simply her automatic reaction to push him away and shoulder her illness alone. She could be so stubborn with help sometimes, like when he had to rescue her in Soul Society and she had refused his help on multiple counts…

She set the cup down, the pills now traveling their way down her body, and shivered. He tossed the blanket at the other end of the sofa to her, and she gratefully cocooned herself in it.

He stood to pick up the tray, and took several steps towards the kitchen before he stopped, his back turned to her. She sent a silent question to his back with her eyes, and he asked, "How'd you get sick anyways? It's not like you or most Shinigami to get sick."

When he heard no reply, he turned just in time to see her avert her eyes and carefully hide something behind her eyes. Stung slightly by how she refused to tell, yet respecting her privacy, he took the tray to the kitchen and left it in the sink to wash later.

"I'll wake you up later for school. If you feel better by then, we'll go." And with that, he crossed the room to lounge in a sofa, and turned on the TV, keeping it at a low volume setting. She again stared quizzically at him, and he sent her a look back. Like I'm going to leave you here. She had to smile at that in appreciation, and finally allowed her exhausted and shivering body to fall asleep.

"Atta girl, Kuchiki! Hit harder, swing faster!" She panted with exertion, but did not feel like complaining. Setting her eyes into a determined scowl, she cried her battle cry, and lunged for her opponent in front of her. Sode no Shirayuki whistled through the air, but her foe was faster still. She whirled around on the spot, searching for the vanished foe.

"Over here!" She spun around quickly to the left, before she felt an explosion of pain on her forehead, and fell to the ground on her rump. She shot back up quickly, rubbing her forehead and pouting childishly.

"T-that hurt! What if you had taken my eyes out? Or broken my nose!"

"Psha, you should be able to handle that much at least! And someone as great as me wouldn't hit there with my aim! Not this Shiba Kaien!"

She finished patting her hair back to order, and held her sword at her side, looking up at her lieutenant. In every aspect, except a few, he looked like someone she knew, though that person's name was slipping from her mind at the moment.

She noted his strong jaw, spiky purple hair, aquamarine eyes with pronounced lower eyelashes and his tall, well-built build. He shook her head to clear her mind and watched his next move. He strode over to a spot some feet away from her as she watched, and simply stopped there. Rukia quickly settled into a defensive stance, and waited for Kaien-dono to make a move. Seeing as he wasn't making a move after several moments, she concluded that he wanted her to attack of her own initiative. How strange though. Hadn't he wanted her to practice her defensive stance mostly?

Again, she shook these thoughts from her head, and jumped after him, her sword arcing in a deadly half circle to his left shoulder. Shock swept through her like frigid ice water when he made no move to defend himself and the sword cut cleanly through him.

"Kaien-dono!"

She quickly checked her forward momentum, and carefully extracted her sword from his thankfully long yet shallow cut. "I'm so sorry Kaien-dono! I will begin with emergency healing!" she flustered, closing her eyes and concentrating healing Kido into her hands, channeling them. As she did so, she also noted how odd it was that he did not avoid, parry, or counterattack her blow. Her stealth had been improving lately, but surely he could still detect her footwork as easily as the day she had been conscripted into the Thirteenth Division? He hadn't even cried, crumpled, or hissed in pain, too. She was jolted out of her reverie, and noted that a strong hand had attached itself to her wrists with a firm grip.

She looked up. "Kai-" She found herself cutting off in horror, as she found herself face to face with an old face she had hoped to never see again.

"Hello, little girl. Looking for your precious lieutenant again?"

The grotesque thing, an all-too-familiar Hollow, wiggled its disgusting pink tentacles and leered at her through its mask, before it suddenly transformed into a mockery of Kaien, who was now green-skinned, with bright deranged eyes, and orange markings around each. This monstrosity too leered at her, and lunged, yelling "He's right here!"

Before she could even scream, in a blink of an eye, she found Kaien's body, impaled on her sword which had somehow moved to a position in front of her. The same warm but cooling blood rolled down her face for the second time that night, she felt her sword shake and tremble with the weight on it for the second time that night, and she felt her mind, heart, soul, everything about her splintering again… for the second time that night.

"Aaaahh!"

She felt a hand land with a heavy thump next to her blood-splattered cheek on her shoulder and flinched.

"Kuchiki…I dragged you into this… my stubbornness has caused you pain…" he murmured regretfully, his eyes swimming with guilt and suppressed pain. She noted that his breathing was shallow and labored, and that though it must have hurt a lot (of course it did, her sword was sharp, was through him, was dripping with his blood), he did not show any sign of pain. For her sake.

Why…? Why did she have to repeat that night again? Had she not atoned by laying his soul at peace once and for all in the battle against Arroniero? Had she not apologized to his siblings? Did he still hate her after all, for killing him? Her hands that still gripped her sword hilt tightly trembled, clenched and unclenched in turns.

"I'm sorry. You must be torn apart inside."

Wrong. She wasn't torn apart inside. She didn't have anything inside.

"Thanks… to you…"

What was there for him to thank? She had murdered him; he was going to die, going to leave his siblings, his friends, and his wife again. But wait, his wife had died at the ends of the same Hollow that had manipulated him to the end. At least he could be with his wife in a sense. How morbid her thoughts were…

"My heart… can still stay here…"

His heart may stay, but hers couldn't. It would forever be bogged down with guilt in this rainy dark forest…

Rainy… She had just noticed it was raining, had just become aware of the droplets streaking down her face like tears, dragging his blood off with it. It soaked her robes and his, making his body heavier than it already was. That was alright though; she would shoulder all the weight in the world for her sins. And it still wouldn't be enough to pay them all.

She waited for the next part she knew was going to happen, how his hand, cracked from the parasitic Hollow, encircled the small of her back, in a final desperate gesture to convey his apologies and comfort. She waited, for the increasingly inert and cold hand she knew was going to grasp her, thank her, thank her for murdering him. It was then, to her surprise, that the hand that encircled her back was neither cold, heavy, or falling apart at the seams like her sanity was, but rather warm, firm, and comforting.

Almost sobbing with relief, she hugged Kaien-dono's now dead body closer even as she leaned back into the unfamiliar yet familiar hand.

It was so warm… She fancied she could hear Kaien-dono's voice even now, chanting "Rukia, Rukia…"

But Rukia… wasn't what Kaien-dono called her… Rather, wasn't it Kuchiki…?

With a gasp, Rukia jolted awake, her eyes fluttering around before swiveling to the side. At first she was confused, and thought she was under white blankets, for a white expanse of cloth was all she could see. Then the cloth rustled and backed away, and she realized it was Ichigo's white tee-shirt, clothing one worried teen. She also realized that the warmth at her back had disappeared, and surmised that Ichigo had been trying to help her up, or comfort her. More warmth blossomed within her, this time from her chest to all parts of her body.

"And you said that you could go to school today," he stated with an annoyed tone, yet with an expression of relief. She blinked at him, than glanced at the clock, and nearly jumped off the sofa in surprise. It was past school ending time, meaning she had slept through the whole morning and most of the afternoon!

It was then she noticed how Ichigo stood up, grimacing at his stiff and unresponsive legs. She frowned and did some quick body calculations. Based on the time she knew Ichigo normally got home from school, he couldn't have been sitting at her side more than fifteen minutes maximum, which wasn't enough to get cramped and stiff legs. This she knew from years sitting on the ground at the Shinigami Academy.

"Ichigo?"

"What? You need to go to the bathroom?"

She flushed, and in a raspy voice, shot back, "I'm just fine," before she coughed softly. "How long were you here?"

He didn't meet her questioning gaze as he retreated to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. She gulped it down thirstily, before setting the glass down on the coffee table close to her, and awaited his response.

He rubbed his head, which she had come to associate as a habit he did when he was embarrassed or confused, and mused "That doesn't matter. I mostly had Kon watch you while I got lun-"

"You skipped school?" she interrupted, now feeling guilty. While it was nice that he had apparently stayed the whole day to take care of her, she was a Shinigami, at least a century and a half older than him, and could take care of herself just fine. He needn't have wasted a day better spent educating himself about the wonders and complexities of the human world.

"It's fine," he continued, undeterred in the least by her outburst, before his voice softened slightly. He stared at her in silence for a few moments, noting that color had returned to her cheeks, and while she was still sweaty and exhausted, she did not seem to be shivering any more.

"Who's this Kaien dude?"

He watched Rukia freeze, before a colorful range of emotions fluctuated across her face. Despair, fondness, guilt, peacefulness, regret, and so much more. Like she had earlier that day, she tucked them away and hid behind her question: "How did you find out?"

"You were muttering in your sleep."

"Did I say… anything else…?"

He stared at her for a long moment, and though she was used to holding the gaze of much more intimidating people, she found it hard to look at his eyes then. "You didn't," he answered, but she found it unconvincing. No matter. She would find out later.

"You got sick because of this dude, huh?"

She didn't say anything, and he scratched his head again and made to grab her glass to refill it again when she answered, "He was important to me, yet I killed him with my own hands."

He jolted in shock. No way. She meant to say that like him, she had dealt with the pain of killing someone they had loved, yet unlike him, she had had no one to talk to about this yet? He could tell she hadn't told anyone, for she didn't have many close friends at Soul Society, and he had a gut feeling even Renji didn't know about this.

He thought about that day at the cemetery, where Rukia had yet again attempted to help his family in her own way, by having Kon take his place to watch over them, and had healed him of his physical wounds and his emotional pain. He thought back to words that seemed so long ago, yet so recent, and decided to give Rukia a taste of her own medicine. It wasn't going to start exactly like before though…

You're not… going to ask anything?

…If I ask, will you answer?

"I bet you won't tell me what happened for real," he began as his mind returned to reality. Rukia lifted her head up wearily and stared at him. Her appearance was still worn, but her eyes were brighter, meaning she was focused. Good.

"…It's your problem. A deep, deep problem."

She stared at him in shock, the words slowing dawning on her, as clear as if it had been yesterday, despite her long life of memories and experiences as a Shinigami.

"I have no right to know. I don't have a method of stepping into the depths of your heart without getting it dirty," he continued, unembarrassed, unregretful, honest with the words that flowed from his mouth as easily as a clear, unobstructed stream. These words didn't need memory, it only needed a vessel that could deliver them with conviction. It was his turn to be their vessel, like her, like the one that helped to forgive himself on that day at the cemetery.

"So I'll wait."

By this time, Rukia was sitting propped up against the sofa as best as she could, watching him with intensity, watching like a man dying of thirst would watch a waterfall after chancing upon it, like a starving man at a feast, like a lonely man at friends.

"When you want to talk, when you think it's okay to talk… talk to me."

Talk to me, Rukia, he thought, watching as sleep took her over again, though not before a single phrase slipped from her lips: "Thank you, Ichigo."

He stared at figure that was now lying across the sofa again, before he shook his head.

"Stupid, I don't need thanks."

Talk to me Rukia, because you chased away my rain.

He checked her fever with his hand one last time, and concluded she was well enough for school tomorrow, if she got plenty of rest. He cleaned up the leftovers of takeout lunch and medical supplies, before he walked towards the kitchen. He turned back to look at the little Shinigami at the couch, before allowing a small little smile he hardly showed to anyone.

But she wasn't just anyone.

Talk to me Rukia. Because you chased away my rain…

I'll chase away yours.

Super-long-author-note: Personally, I think this would have been better in When It's Rukia, but I had to get to an oneshot before I got sick again, haha. So Anya, you waited a long time for this probably, and for that, I'm sorry. I don't know your reading style preference, so I guess this is similar to the tone and mood of When It's Rukia.

So I do have a form of cancer, and this is really impactful on me and my school life now, so I'll be able to respond less to you and any readers reading this. I'm grateful for your first input on my first fic. I'll never forget you, that's a promise.

So, this fic was not that specific as I would have liked, but I think fussing too much over it would leave the impression that I forget promises, so I just posted it as it is. I hope you and any other readers like this.

Feel free to check out my other fics, but be warned that because of cancer, updates will be few and far in between. Thanks so much to Anya and all my supporters thus far.