A/N: Written for my wonderful friend Sa Rart, who requested 'something happy'. I don't know if this counts as 'something happy', but I hope it brings you joy nonetheless.

Feedback is always appreciated.

Pairings: Unrequited Orihime/Ichigo, Ichigo/Rukia

Dedication: Sa Rart

Is This?

What is love?

The first time you are asked that question you are fifteen, and the asker is a cinnamon-haired girl you have known of for years but only known for a few months.

What is love, Kurosaki-kun?

At the time the girl faded to black and instead of her serious, pinched face and warm brown eyes you saw a tower climbing towards the sky and a glimpse of black hair disappearing into darkness. You thought of worry and despair, hope and – more hope – and what it feels like to say goodbye.

You scratched your head and made a face and said you supposed love was care.

(Her face fell and lit up, contrarily, but you did not notice, because in your mind's eye she was no longer there; instead a petite, dark haired young woman with eyes a blue so deep they were violet smiled at you. You wondered if there was a word you could apply to that feeling.)

What is love?

The second time you are asked that question you are still fifteen, but older, wiser, somehow. Several months have stretched to half a year: you have already seen things most men would not see in lifetimes: and now the asker is a petite black haired girl with stars in her violet eyes and a contemplative hand beneath her chin.

At the time you wondered how to reconcile the two events that have shaped your life: one over and done with, the other still ongoing, a jumble of time and chaos you had somehow managed to get yourself caught into.

You wondered how you, apathetic Ichigo Kurosaki, who never did anything if he could help it, came to be in a way you never thought you were.

What do you think love is? You asked, and you wondered if you were buying time or genuinely curious: and she said,

A foolish emotion not fit for the likes of (you and) I: but if you had been able to see into her mind you would have seen a tall dark grinning man with the heart of an angel and the luck of the fallen: and a broken bitter one, fiery red in the darkness, and if you had looked harder you would have seen yourself, and you would have thought of worry and despair, hope, and what it feels like to say goodbye.

But instead you thought that love was indeed foolish and out loud you said love was blind.

What is love?

The third time you encounter that question you are sixteen, and it is scribbled on a notepad flung carelessly across your sister's desk.

You had a lifetime ahead of you and another behind you and you picked up the notepad and sat yourself in your sister's chair and stared at the words a good minute or so and that is how Yuzu found you, coming into the room and demanding to know why you were in her room and why you were touching her things and why –

And you said Yuzu you can talk to me and she said Ichi-nii I'm sorry,

And you remembered a Quincy archer with a thousand arrows and a fighter with gentle hands and a healer with steel in her eyes –

But what is it? Yuzu asked, and you looked at her, your little sister with a thousand arrows and gentle hands and steel in her eyes –

And you told her love was strength.

What is love?

The last time you encounter that question you ask it of yourself. You have come full circle: all the ends are beginnings and all the beginnings are ends and they are all there: the people you have touched and who have touched you and who are the ones who found you and helped you and held you and healed you:

And there is the katana protruding through your chest and the familiar rush of power that feels as though it never left and you ask yourself:

What is this love?

And you pick yourself up again.

(Words do not always mean what you suppose them to.)

(We cage ourselves with our definitions.)

Thank you for reading.