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*
The woods are dark and thick at night.
Ichigo is the only one allowed out this late. His sisters, his father keeps them sheltered in the house. He won’t even allow them past the circle of torchlight outside in the yard. The overprotection is something they’ve learned to accept over time, as much as it grates on all of them. But someone needs to go pick up the supplies in the village, or else the patients suffer.
He takes his time walking back, the spring evening cool and soft on the nape of his neck. His sword rests across his shoulders, an easy grab if any trouble should arise. In one hand, he holds a cloth sack full of medicinal supplies. His father is the only doctor for miles, so he’s kept fairly busy. Three surrounding villages call on him. He is brash and cocky and slightly out of his mind, but he’s a good doctor, so there’s something for him.
Ichigo passes through the densest thicket of woods to the dusty path leading down to their farm. Ahead, he hears the clang of metal against metal. His sword hand twitches, and he speeds up just a bit. In the shadowy darkness, he sees two large figures pressing their advantage against a slim woman in wide skirts. Moonlight creeps over the trees, helping his sight. The men are pressing her back onto her knees, and still she resists, the tension sharp in the soft light.
He doesn’t hesitate another moment.
“You there!” he yells, breaking out into a run.
The two men, broad and snarling, turn. It gives the woman just the break she needs to jump out of the line of their swords and jump up. She brings the hilt of her sword down against each of their heads, hard and sharp in the quiet air. They go down like weak tree limbs crusted in ice, their weights on the ground hard thuds reverberating in the air.
Ichigo skids to a stop, glancing over the scene as the girl steps over them, her face shiny with perspiration and mouth curled downwards. In the dim moonlight, her face changes, softens; he feels some sort of tug of recognition, a thick lump in his throat.
“Are you all right?” he asks as she approaches.
“Fine,” she says shortly.
He swallows down the sharp retort to her rudeness. She is a lady, after all. “Would you like help with them?”
"Your help really isn't necessary," she snaps, short of breath. Her skirts, well-made and glimmering in the moonlight, are hitched up near her knees, fisted together into one small hand. In her other hand, she holds a short dull sword, the tip shiny with blood. Behind her, the men in ratty black clothes lay prostrate, moaning and groaning with pain.
Ichigo glances her over, his hand hovering at the hilt of his sword. "You've got more company," he retorts, drawing his sword lazily. He nods his head behind her.
She looks back to see as he does, the dark hulking shapes inching out of the forest towards the dusty path. There are three of them; three too many for her, after the first skirmish.
"I can't leave you alone like this," he adds with a shrug.
She narrows her eyes, dropping her wrinkled skirts. "Aren't you chivalrous?" she says flatly.
"Nah," he says, a small smirk curling his mouth. He draws his blade and sets the cloth sack of supplies down in the dust."I could use the sword practice."
Her mouth twitches. Even dusty and sweat-damp, she holds herself too straight and together for an everyday woman of the village. It reminds him for a moment of the mother he barely knew, that same regality.
"What's your name?" she asks at last, wiping her blade on her skirt. She walks towards him as the strange men, three of them, creep closer.
"Ichigo," he says, resting the tip of his sword in the ground in front of him.
She smiles grimly, pushing loose dark strands of hair from her face and throat. "No last name?"
"You're one up on secrets, my lady. No last name until I get yours," he says flatly.
"You drive quite the bargain, Ichigo," she says lightly, and he thinks she might be holding in a laugh, from the curl of her mouth. She's lovely in the dark evening light, pale and slight and easy with her sword. "If you want to stay, stay."
"You just don't know how to ask for help, do you?" he mutters, lifting his blade. His heel slides back in the dirt.
She shifts to stand at his side, her skirts gathered in one hand once more. "I don't need help. You volunteered."
"I would enjoy watching you try to take down all three of these men," he retorts.
"You think I can't? Just watch," she says with a smirk.
He does, between his own crossing of blades.
She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.
*
“You’re good,” she says as they roll the dead weight of the unconscious brutes to the side of the road.
“You sound surprised,” he drawls. “You’re the woman.”
She plants her hands on her hips, brow furrowed. “I’m a woman, therefore I can’t fight?”
“All I’m saying is that if anyone is supposed to be surprised in this situation, I believe it’s me,” he retorts. His sword is back across his shoulders, a comforting weight.
She huffs and smoothes her dirty and crumpled skirts. “Well, thank you,” she says, dipping into a low curtsey. Now, he’s thrown for a loop. “Your help, while unnecessary, is appreciated.”
“Great,” he says after a moment, reaching for the undisturbed cloth sack of supplies. “Where are you headed?”
She bites her lip, mouth twisting on itself. “Away,” she says at last, and picks up her skirts to start walking once more.
When she promptly falls to the ground as she puts weight on her ankle, he’s not entirely surprised. The adrenaline of battle will only last so long, and he’s been watching her like a hawk since he saw that blow to her ankle earlier.
He is at her side immediately, his free hand curled around her elbow. “Yeah, okay. You’re coming back with me,” he says.
She glares at him, pushing dark hair from her eyes. “I don’t even know you.”
“Sure you do. I’m Ichigo,” he says with a sharp grin. “Frankly, I don’t even know you. But my father’s a doctor. He can help.”
“But –“
Setting his jaw, he tucks her arm around her waist and pulls her weight onto him. “You’re not winning this one,” he says curtly.
She huffs and limps along with him as they move down the path in the darkness together. She mutters under her breath as they walk, some distinctly unladylike words intelligible.
Ichigo has to smother a smirk.
*
The next morning, with her safe asleep in the guest room, Ichigo comes down for breakfast to find his father alone at the long table, his usual cracked china mug of coffee in front of him. He looks as if he’s seen a ghost, staring out into space.
“You all right, Pop?” he asks after a strangely silent moment. He leans against the counter with the tea Yuzu left for him.
The girls have already left for the village, errands and lessons on their agenda today. Every day they grow older, and every day Ichigo worries more and more for their futures. Yuzu is sweet and would make anyone a lovely wife if she wanted, but Karin is sullen, a little too dark for most tastes; he worries for both of them, and for his father too, who speaks to Masaki as if she still lingers at his side.
Isshin glances at him, scruff dark on his jaw. In the early morning light he looks older than Ichigo has ever seen him. “That girl. She seemed to sleep all right,” he says gruffly.
“Yeah, she did. I’m sorry –“
“Where did you find her, Ichigo? You’re not usually in the business of picking up strange women, as much as I’ve tried to teach you,” Isshin says with a smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s a weak attempt, and they both know it.
Ichigo frowns and shakes his head. “She was being attacked on the roadside. Couldn’t just walk by her.”
Isshin’s gaze softens slightly, and he looks back to his coffee cup. “You’re a good boy,” he says after a moment, voice low. “Did she give you a name?”
Looking down at his cooling tea, Ichigo smiles slightly. “Just a first name,” he says, remembering her sleepy and pain-laced delirium as he carried her up to the guest room, how he had plied a name from her at last. “Rukia. That’s it.”
Isshin huffs sharply. “You surely know how to pick them, son.”
“I was just helping her out,” he mutters.
“She’ll need to rest that ankle for at least three weeks. She can stay here, if she likes,” Isshin says casually.
“What?” Ichigo asks, startled.
“It’ll be nice to have a pretty lady around the house again,” Isshin says with a grin. It still doesn’t reach his eyes. “Go on up and tell her. And bring the lady some breakfast. She’s a class above us, if you couldn’t tell.”
Muttering, Ichigo fixes a tray, glancing at his father every so often. There are secrets hidden in Isshin’s faraway gaze, and Ichigo is tired of them already.
*
“Three weeks?” Rukia says, mouth turned down.
Ichigo shrugs, his hands tucked into the loose linen of his trousers. He feels unaccountably disheveled next to her, even as she sits in bed with her ankle bandaged and in one of Karin’s borrowed work dresses. Her breakfast tray sits forgotten beside her.
“You know, I fixed that for you. You could at least pretend to eat it,” he mutters.
“I can’t stay here for three weeks. I need to keep moving,” she says.
“Moving where? You’re in the middle of the country as it is. No one ever comes out this way,” Ichigo says, shaking his head.
Rukia tucks her hair behind her ears and sighs, her spine ramrod-straight even in repose. “You wouldn’t understand,” she mutters.
“Try me,” he says shortly.
“No,” she retorts. “It will only end badly.”
“You’re impossible. Did you know that?” he snaps.
She ducks her head, but he catches the upwards curl of her mouth. “Suffice it to say I’m avoiding an undesirable environment,” she says at last.
“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” he says flatly.
“That’s your opinion,” she retorts.
He lets out a sharp little growl. The sun is steady in the east-facing room, warm on his shoulders. “Who are you?” he asks at last.
Her shoulders lift in the most proper delicate shrug he’s ever seen. “I’m Rukia.”
“You’re a pain in the ass,” he mutters, scuffing at the wood floorboards. “Well, my dad insists you stay,” he says, the light falsehood easy on his tongue.
“Why?” she asks, baffled.
Ichigo purses his mouth, crossing his arms over his chest. “Because he’s a good doctor and he knows when someone shouldn’t be running around on a bad ankle.”
She wets her lips and folds her hands into her lap delicately. The pale blue of the work dress is pretty on her, he thinks absently. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable infringing for so long on your hospitality.”
“Eh, it’s fine,” he murmurs, shrugging.
“No. I will find a way to be useful,” she says firmly.
He glances her over. “On a bum ankle?”
“Stop it,” she says curtly.
Shaking his head, he raises his hands as if in surrender and moves towards the door. “Make yourself at home,” he says. “I’ve got chores, and patients to help with.”
*
It’s strange, having a grown woman in the house again.
Ichigo doesn’t consider his sisters women, really. They’re still too young yet to be considered any sort of firm female presence, though Karin does give Isshin a run for his money with the mouth she has on her. Since his mother died, it’s really just been the four of them, a strange little dysfunctional unit of a family that hasn’t ever been the same. His father is brash and awkward and constantly vigilant in a strange way. Ichigo has been the backbone, the taskmaster and the handler of all domestic issues for him and his sisters as his father threw himself into his patients and his widowhood. They are distinctly separated from the push and pull of the surrounding villages, and far from the influence of the royal family.
Now, though, with Rukia here in the house, there is a weird shift of the power balance. Yuzu likes trying to teach Rukia (who looked at the kitchen for the first time as if she had never seen one before) how to cook; her first attempt at just rice failed spectacularly, but it was amusing nonetheless. Karin, who was wary at first (as she always is of change and new people), took to Rukia when the older girl hobbled out into the lawn and sparred with her with wooden swords, her skirts catching in the long grasses. After each sparring match, the two of them sit on the porch together, talking softly; it’s the most engaged he’s ever seen Karin with another person.
She is agreeable and friendly and downright polite to Isshin in a way none of his children are, but to Ichigo, she’s still a mystery. She is well-spoken but sharp wit him, defensive but oddly childish when encountered with new challenges. There is still a regality to her that he can’t place. And, she still refuses to tell him her last name or her situation or anything of use.
So, he just adds her to the many mysteries he’s found in his life, with his mother’s death and his father’s past and just why Ichigo can’t be sent to the capital city for legitimate training as a soldier and why Isshin always looks at Rukia as if he’s seeing some other life, some other world.
*
“What happened to your mother?” Rukia asks after a little over a week. She sits in a hay bale, watching as he feeds the horses. It’s a cool afternoon, the spring sun warm through the cracks of the barn roof.
Ichigo pauses as he tosses crabapples into the feeding buckets. The horse in front of him neighs impatiently. “She died,” he says at last.
“How?”
“Mysteriously,” he says shortly, finishing the last of the horses and wiping his hands on his trousers. He glances over at her. She plucks at her skirt with long fingers, her mouth twisted as she watches him.
“I don’t understand,” she says as he approaches her, ready to help her to her feet. She’s still uneasy on her sprained ankle. He helps her so readily because it is the polite thing to do, and not because he likes the weight of her in his arms, the cool press of her against his side, the smell of her hair. No, not at all.
“She went to the village one day for supplies. I was eight. Usually I would go with her, but I was sick that day. The next thing I knew, it was dark and she wasn’t home, and my father went out to find her. She was in a ditch, stabbed to death. We’ve never been able to figure out why,” he said heavily.
Rukia stares up at him, mouth parted in surprise. “I’m so sorry, Ichigo,” she says at last, color rising on her throat.
He shrugs, holding out a hand to her. “It’s all right. It’s one more thing I’ll never understand about my parents.”
“What do you mean?” she asks with a frown, ignoring his hand.
Rolling his eyes, he takes a seat next to her in the hay. Their knees knock together as the hay shifts under them. Dust motes linger in the air, swirling from shadow to light to shadow as a breeze curls through the barn. “You’re fucking nosy, did you know that?”
“Pardon me for wanting to learn more about the family that’s taken me in and been very kind. Except for you, of course,” she retorts, smacking his arm.
“There’s nothing to know. I have no idea what my father did before he met my mother. I don’t know if my mother had family. My father doesn’t. It’s just the four of us out here in the middle of nowhere, and I’m pissed because I can’t go make anything of myself, and my sisters are just wasting away here because my dad is worried about something he won’t name,” he says, voice sharp in the hollow barn.
Silence settles thickly between them. Her fingers curl at his wrist lightly, cool and smooth against his skin. She is very pale against him. “I’m sorry,” she says at last. “But at least you know he cares.”
The bitterness in her voice startles him. He looks at her, tracing the soft worried lines of her face. Dark hair, loose from the knot at the nape of her neck, falls across her throat.
“You’ve got a tragic story too, eh?” he murmurs at last.
She flushes, mouth thinning. “It doesn’t matter,” she mutters.
Impulse wins out; he reaches up and brushes the hair back from her face. Her skin is smooth and even under his callused fingertips. “I told you mine, Rukia.”
“I don’t have anything to tell,” she says stubbornly, words catching as his fingers linger.
Something in his chest constricts as he watches her, as his fingers trail down the line of her throat. “I don’t believe that for a moment,” he says at last.
Her fingers catch at his wrist, pressing and sliding against his warm skin. “Ichigo – “
He catches her jaw in his hand, mouth dry. “I can wait,” he says, eyes fixed on hers. “You’ll tell me eventually.”
Grip tightening on his wrist, she shifts closer. “I won’t.”
“Now you’re just being stubborn,” he says with a grin.
She leans in first, her mouth catching at his. “You talk too much,” she murmurs, even as her mouth trembles under his.
Instead of replying, he just shuts his eyes and kisses her for a moment. It feels like a shifting of pieces, a clicking into place; there have been a few girls before, but nothing like this, like her. His fingers slide from her jaw to the loose knot of her hair, smooth under his fingertips. Her free hand falls to his chest as she slides the hand on his wrist into his hand, their fingers pressed together. Her mouth opens tremulously under his, cool and wet and willing. He shifts closer, trying to pull her against him.
Then, he jars her bad ankle.
She bites at his lip in her shock, groaning. “Ichigo!” she exclaims, face contorted.
He pulls back and rubs a hand over his face, color flushing his cheeks. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
Shaking her head, she leans over to tend to her ankle. “You’re a funny man,” she murmurs, the smile evident in her voice.
He wets his lips, tasting her there. “Yeah, that’s me,” he mutters, rising and holding out a hand to her.
This time, she takes it. Their fingers twine as he helps her back to the farmhouse.
They don’t speak of the kiss again for days.
*
As the days pass, the countryside is awash with murmurs and worries. Something has happened in the capital city within the royal circles that’s causing women in the village to giggle and whisper. There are rumors of the royal guard sweeping throughout the countryside, searching for something. Ichigo never pays enough attention to those types of things to get all the details.
Yuzu, however, is enthralled.
“One of the princesses has run away!” she sighs over a dinner of greens, chicken, and a batch of successful rice from Rukia.
“Two weeks of trying, and you finally learned how to make rice. Good work,” Ichigo mutters to Rukia out of the corner of his mouth.
Rukia kicks him under her table, her aim true and hard on his shin. He chokes on a bite of chicken.
“No one cares, Yuzu,” Karin mutters through a mouthful of chicken and greens.
“But – but – “
“Run away?” Rukia asks after a moment. Ichigo watches the turn of her mouth, the pale of her skin. He can feel the heat of his father’s gaze on him.
“Oh, yes,” Yuzu says, voice dreamy. “She was to be married, but apparently she wasn’t fond of her betrothed. So she disappeared in the middle of the night! No one knows where she is.”
“She’s nobility. Someone knows what she looks like and will find her,” Karin mutters.
Yuzu shakes her head, eyes bright. “She’s of the Kuchiki line. You know how secretive they are!”
“No, I actually don’t,” Ichigo murmurs. His gaze rests on Rukia once more as she eats, her motions measured and even.
“You shouldn’t concern yourself with this silliness, Yuzu!” Isshin exclaims, pushing back from the table. His chair scrapes against the floorboards as he rises. “The royal family deserves none of our attention!”
Ichigo looks at his father as he stalks out of the kitchen towards the lean-to that serves as his doctor’s office. A strange sour feeling lingers in the kitchen between them all. Yuzu and Karin glance between themselves, faces contorted in confusion.
“I only thought it was interesting,” Yuzu says at last.
“You know the old man,” Ichigo says at last, shrugging. “He’s out of his mind.”
Rukia sets her fork down on the faded china with a soft little clink, her plate still half-full. “Please excuse me,” she says politely as she rises from the table. She takes her plate with her as she leaves the kitchen. The front door creaks open.
“You two all right with cleaning up?” he asks his sisters, eyes still on the empty doorway where Rukia disappeared.
“Just fine, Ichigo!” Yuzu trills, elbowing Karin in the ribs when the elder girl tries to protest.
He finds Rukia on the stairs of the front porch of the farmhouse, feeding her rice and greens to the chickens as they stroll around the front lawn. “You’re spoiling them,” he says as he sits next to her, resting his hands on his knees.
She smiles slightly, her healing ankle stretched out in front of her on the stairs. “You don’t feed them well enough, idiot.”
“What would you know? Are you a farm girl?” he teases. “After only two weeks?”
A thin sliver of moon hangs low in the dark cloudless sky. Spring has arrived, warm breezes lingering into the evenings. Rukia loosens her hair from the low messy knot at the nape of her neck and sighs. It’s a wave of darkness down the pale back of her dress, the ends curling. Ichigo’s fingers twitch, an urge to touch her nearly overwhelming. As quiet and still as she is now, he can’t let go of the image of her in battle, the pale comma she made through the air, one with her blade.
Again, he has to wonder who she is, where she came from.
“I wish I was a farm girl,” she says at last. “I like this life. It’s quiet, and simple. Sometimes that’s all I want.”
“And before? What, were you in a traveling band of gypsies?” he drawls.
She looks at him carefully, hesitation lining her eyes and mouth. She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Spar with me,” she says instead, voice low and soft in the air.
“What?” he asks, shocked.
“Come on,” she says with a smile, levering herself to a stand. “I think even with a bad ankle, I could thrash you.”
“Don’t tempt me, Rukia,” he warns.
She limps swiftly down the stairs into the tall grasses of the lawn, startling the chickens and sending them running. Her hands go to her hair, to tuck it back into its knot. “Are you scared of fighting a girl?” she teases.
He rolls his eyes and stands. “We’ve been over this,” he says flatly. “I don’t prey on the weak.”
Shifting to the side of the house, she picks up two wooden practice swords. “I am not weak,” she says sharply, tossing him a sword.
“Normally I would have to agree. Your ankle, however –“ is all he gets out before she launches for him, sword outstretched.
She really is the most beautiful anything he’s ever seen as she dodges and parries. Her dark hair comes loose from its knot as they shift and strike at each other. The slim work dress is easier for her to move in than the unwieldy gown he first saw her in all those weeks ago. Soon, they are both breathless, and she is favoring her stronger ankle noticeably. They have shifted away from the farmhouse, closer to the barn. He can hear the horses snoring softly, the scent of hay and grass heavy in his nose.
“You’re good, Ichigo,” she says, breaking the silence with something other than the smack of their swords. She hitches her skirt up a little higher, her fingers light on the hilt of her sword. “You’re very good.”
He rakes a hand through his hair, shrugging. “So?”
“So, why haven’t you been sent for formal training? The royal guard could use someone with your skills,” she says impatiently, sliding her heel back in the grass.
Bitterness rises in his throat, lingering on his tongue. “I can’t.”
“Why?” she asks, brow furrowing as she presses forward through the grass towards him.
He lets her rush him, blocking her side swipe and her forward slice with ease. “My father won’t let me.”
She stops, breathless. Her fingers dart across her face, pushing her bangs from her eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, Ichigo,” she says at last.
Shrugging, he slides his hand along the dull splintered edge of his practice sword. “He won’t tell me why. It’s like everything else,” he mutters.
Walking forward, she takes his sword from him and tosses both of them aside. Her hands fist in his tunic at his chest. “You need to take control of your own life,” she says firmly.
“As you did?” he drawls. His hands fall to her waist on instinct. He has a sudden flash of a memory, of hay and sunlight and her mouth open under his.
In the dim light, her mouth twists and settles. Her eyes narrow on his face. “I did, yes,” she says softly.
“You can say that all you want, but I don’t know anything about you,” he retorts.
Her fingers tighten their grip. “Ichigo – I –“
“What?” he snaps.
She tugs him down and kisses him, her mouth soft and warm under his. His hands tighten on her waist and pull her closer on instinct. The scent of grass and sweat and the sweet of her hair lingers between them as her mouth opens to his. Their mouths are clumsy together, but the press of her against him leaves him wanting more.
“That’s not an answer,” he says against her lips, his arms anchoring around her waist. He lifts her up, to relieve the stress on her injured ankle and also to gain more leverage as he walks over to the side of the barn, pressing her back against the hard wood siding.
Her legs part on instinct, the skirt of her dress hitching up at her thighs. She presses her heels to the small of his back as she arches. Her back hits the wall with a soft thud. “I want to tell you – I do –“
“Did you kill a man?” he asks, his mouth grazing hers.
Her fingers slide through his hair, pressing at the nape of his neck. “Do I look like a girl who kills?”
His mouth curls. “Is this a trap?”
“Shut up. And, no, I did not kill a man.”
“Is your father trying to make you marry a man you don’t want?” he asks next, as a joke.
She stills under him, her mouth catching at his jaw. “My brother is,” she says at last, voice even.
Ichigo meets her gaze, breath heavy in his chest. “Rukia –“
“I’ll tell you everything,” she says quickly, eyes wide and hands grasping. “I will. Just – please,” she says softly, pale in the evening light.
His fingers trail through the loose tangles of her hair. Dread settles on his shoulders, and he knows now; she is trying to say goodbye. “Are you sure?” he asks at last.
She leans up and kisses him again, his name a soft breath on her tongue. He presses her back against the side of the house, a hand curled around the line of her jaw as the other lingers at her thigh, holding her closer than close. She shifts against him, the press of her chest against his warm and lingering. Her mouth parts to his tongue, and there is a hesitancy and a jarring clumsiness to them together that fits. They could be good, he finds himself thinking. It leaves a sad taste on his tongue.
“Rukia,” he murmurs against her mouth, his thumb at the corner of her lips.
Her hands slide over his shoulders and down his chest, tangling in the loose fabric of his tunic. “I’m a Kuchiki,” she whispers, her mouth stilling under his.
At that he freezes, his mouth just breaths from hers. “What?”
She watches him steadily, pink coloring her cheeks, visible even in the night. “I’m the one who ran away,” she says evenly.
*
She tells him everything over the course of the night as they sit in his room. Starting with her noble parentage who lost their money and titles, the older sister who ignored her for most of her young life and then lost her mind, leaving her alone with a stony elder brother-in-law; she tells him everything he has wanted to ask, and more.
They start in different corners of the wide bed, but by the end they sit together against the headboard, her face tucked into his shoulder and his arm around her waist. Her breath is warm against his throat, her fingers twined tightly into his as they rest on his chest.
“Hisana is very beautiful. Byakuya, the only child and the head of the Kuchiki family, fell in love with her at a ball.”
“People still do that?” he drawls.
“Yes,” she retorts, shaking her head. “So, she married him,” she says softly. “After our parents died shortly after, I came to live with her, to be raised in the customs and style of the royal family. Hisana is unwell now, so I became the lady of the household, to help Byakuya. The situation with the other nobles has been troublesome for some time.”
“I remember,” he says. “The different branches of the royals and nobles are all mad at each other, or something. You people are a mess.”
She rolls her eyes, smiling slightly. “You’re an idiot.”
“Shut up.”
Propping herself up, she rests her chin on his shoulder. “The king- “
“The old man who does absolutely nothing for any of his subjects?”
She slaps his chest. “Be quiet. The king arranged a marriage for me to Lord Aizen. Do you know of him?”
Ichigo frowns, his thumb sliding over her knuckles. “Not so much.”
“Well, he’s awful,” she says plainly. “My brother has a network of people who report back to him, and the information on Aizen was… unsatisfactory at best.”
“So you ran,” he finishes for her. His arm tightens around her waist.
In the filmy pre-dawn light, she almost looks as if she might disappear. She sits up, her hair falling across her shoulders in dark waves. “There was no way out of it otherwise. I was completely independent in the decision. My brother is out there pretending to find me, I imagine. The hope is that Aizen will grow impatient, and marry elsewhere,” she says somberly.
He tucks a hand behind his head, watching her carefully. “So, this is your grand plan?” he asks, mouth twisting.
She frowns, pulling her hair back at the nape of her neck. “To be honest, I had to think rather quickly before my impending marriage. I haven’t accounted for everything,” she says tartly.
“Well, what are you planning on doing next?” he asks, shaking his head. He keeps her hand in his, a comforting weight on his chest.
“I don’t know, Ichigo. Being hunted down by Aizen’s men and spraining my ankle infringed on my planning,” she snaps.
He sits up then, leaning in towards her. “You could stay here,” he says, voice low in his chest. Warmth rises at his throat.
Her fingers twitch in his. “I couldn’t live on your family’s charity.”
“Not like that,” he says, scrunching his eyes shut for a moment. “Just – well –“
“What are you trying to say?” she asks, the befuddlement clear in her voice.
“I’m saying you could marry me,” he snaps back, serious and even. His gaze sets on hers.
Her mouth falls open, eyes widening. “You don’t mean that,” she says at last.
He glares at her. “Yes, I do.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know you can’t cook. I know you’re one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen. You’re annoying and you’re nosy and beautiful, and I can’t read your handwriting,” he says, flushing. “And I know that you’re different. You’ve changed things.”
Her face softens. She reaches up to touch his jaw, the line of his lips. Her skin is cool against his. “I couldn’t do that to you, Ichigo. If Aizen found me – I am telling you, he is not a kind man. Your family is in danger every day I stay.”
“So what? You’re just going to leave when your ankle’s all healed up?” he asks, jerking back from her touch.
Rukia rolls her eyes, passing a hand over her face. “You are absolutely aggravating.”
“See? You need to stay. No one else will tell me off if you leave,” he murmurs.
“I doubt that,” she drawls, her eyes soft. In the early dawn light she is too pale, too everything at once.
Swallowing hard, he takes her face between his hands. His fingers are light on her temples, her cheeks. Her skin warms under his touch. “C’mon,” he says at last, drawing her close. There’s a strange sort of heaviness on his tongue, the weight of the words pervading his every nerve.
Her eyelids are heavy. Her fingers curl at his wrists. He can feel the slide and wave of her hair against his skin. “That’s how you ask?” she asks after a moment, her nails scraping lightly at the underside of his wrists.
“You’re not surprised.”
She laughs then, a soft brief sound that hangs between them like a portent of good tidings. “I suppose not. But really, a little effort wouldn’t be the end of you.”
He leans in and kisses her, his mouth open and warm against hers. He watches as her eyes fall shut, as she tilts her head and leans, her lips parting against his. It’s another part of the puzzle, his watching her; he likes it more than he ought to, really. It’s all he’s thought of for nearly three weeks, watching her.
“You’re not doing this because I’m a noble, are you?” she asks against his mouth.
“Despite it, actually,” he murmurs, his fingers tangling in her loose hair.
She shakes her head, a low huff pressing against his mouth from hers. “I hate you.”
“So marry me, then,” he retorts.
The question hangs there between them as the night creeps away, dawn sliding across the floor in purple-blue-pink whorls of light and shadow. Rukia presses her fingers against his wrists, her face inscrutable for the longest time. He holds his breath because he can, because he’s at a loss as to what else to do.
Finally, she smiles, and rises from the bed. As his hands fall from her face, she catches them in her own. “C’mon,” she murmurs, tugging him up to a stand. The slang is odd on her practiced and delicate tongue.
“Where?” he asks, startled.
She just smiles, loose and free and nothing like whatever princess she might have been raised to be. He likes her this way, or as she was with the sword in her hand, or feeding the chickens. This feels more like the girl he knows than anything else.
“Ichigo, c’mon,” is all she says as she pulls him out of the room, and down the stairs.
They are in the village by full dawn. She pulls her hair back into the knot he is so fond of, and he has thread in place of the rings he can’t afford.
The village priest just smiles when they appear at the threshold, and waves them in.
*
The barn lies at the front edge of their property, close to the dusty main road.
Ichigo presses Rukia through the open doorway, past the sleeping horses he’ll need to feed soon and into the hay bales scattered across the floor.
“Really?” she asks with a breathless sort of laugh, her fingers tugging at his loose tunic.
He falls back into the hay and pulls her down on top of him. Her knees sink into the soft hay at either side of his hips, her body a warm weight on top of his. He has his hands under her skirt and between her thighs as she leans down to kiss him, tongue pressing at the seam of his mouth.
“Seemed appropriate,” he says through a choked groan. Her fingers slide under his tunic to bare skin, nails light on the lines of his body. “You’re a farm girl now, after all.”
She smiles against his mouth, shaking her head. “Next time, a bed. And a pillow,” she murmurs as his fingers press between her thighs into slick wet heat.
“Rich girls,” he mutters.
Her teeth catch at his lip, a soft parody of warning. “Ichigo,” she says.
“Joking,” he grins, his fingers stumbling between her thighs, stop-starting and trembling with nerves. But then she makes a sound, a sound so soft he wasn’t sure of it at first; but then, it comes again, from deep in the back of her throat, and she smiles through it, more animatedly than he’s ever seen her.
“Oh,” she murmurs, skin flushed. “Oh,” she says again as he curls his fingers inside her, his thumb clumsy but true at her clit. She is shifting and alive over him, her skin slick and giving. Her fingers curve into his arms, the bite of her nails a sharp contrast to the pliancy of her mouth.
He shifts and turns over her, pressing her back into the hay. It sticks to his bare skin and in her hair. His mouth slides over her bare throat as he slides his fingers inside of her. She sighs, her hands falling to his hips.
“Careful,” she murmurs, pulling the thick parchment of their license out of his trousers and setting it aside.
“I’m a little preoccupied here, you know,” he says with a sharp little laugh against her collarbones. He can feel the tightening of her around his fingers, the sharp staccato rise and fall of her chest and belly against his.
“You’re ridiculous,” she mutters, voice catching at the end.
He merely rises and covers her mouth with his, pulling the sounds from her throat as he moves his thumb over her clit. Her thighs press at his hips, body arching against his. She opens her mouth under his, teeth grazing his lip. Here, with her skirt around her waist and her hair loosening and wild, she is a beautiful pale slip of shadow and skin, and she is his. The possession is unnerving, but it settles between them. He can feel it in the slide of their skin together, the sharp bite of her nails in his back, as he sinks into her and the breath rushes away from the both of them. Their hands link above their heads, hay scratching at their skin. He can feel the coarse thread encircling the base of her finger, a twin for his.
It’s enough, he thinks as she murmurs his name, her eyes very bright on his. It’s more than enough.
*
Yuzu has breakfast on the table when they walk in together, their fingers brushing each other’s at their sides. Ichigo can’t escape the sensation of hay in his hair and on his skin, even as they had taken the time to pick and examine at every piece and nook of clothing.
“Where were you two?” Karin asks from the table, picking at an orange. No one else looks up. At the head of the table, Isshin is consumed by parchment, brow furrowed.
At his side, Rukia shifts, her fingers grazing his wrist. “Morning feeding. I thought Ichigo could use the help,” she says, all ease and courtesy. She moves past him and sits at the seat she now calls her own, at Isshin’s right.
“When doesn’t Ichigo need help though?” Karin mutters, shaking her head.
“Hey!” he exclaims as he sits across from Rukia.
“You were very quiet this morning, Ichigo,” Yuzu says conversationally as she places a platter of eggs on the table. “Usually you wake me up with all your stomping.”
Ichigo catches Rukia’s gaze. Color rises at his throat. She smiles slightly, her fingers curling at her tea cup.
“I was trying to be nice,” he mutters at last.
That gives everyone pause. His sisters stare as Rukia rolls her eyes. Isshin finally looks up, eyes darting between Ichigo and Rukia.
“Rukia. You must call me Daddy, or Pops, now,” Isshin says at last, a little smile curling at his mouth.
Ichigo blanches as Rukia drops her tea cup with a rattle against the saucer. “Excuse me?” she says at last.
“Why the hell would she do that?” Ichigo snaps.
Isshin glances between them and leans back in his chair. “You married her, didn’t you?”
Silence settles in the kitchen. Karin looks flabbergasted, which Ichigo has never seen before. Yuzu drops her wooden spoon; it lands with a dull clatter on the counter.
“Uh – well –“ Ichigo starts, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Yes,” Rukia cuts in pleasantly. “Yes, we did get married.”
“What are you doing?” he hisses.
She glares at him. “You’re a terrible liar. I’m saving you the trouble.”
“You’re the one who wanted to keep it to ourselves!” he retorts.
“This is your family. They ought to know,” she snaps back, color spotting her cheeks.
Isshin clears his throat, setting the parchments down at the corner of the table. Ichigo’s hand falls to his pocket, the thick folds of the license there. “And your family, Rukia?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Ichigo says quickly.
“Oh, I think it’ll matter a great deal to the Kuchikis,” Isshin says pleasantly.
Yuzu emits a little squeak as Karin drops her orange slices. Both Ichigo and Rukia stare at Isshin, mouths agape with shock.
“You – You know?” Rukia says at last, voice high.
Isshin grins, eyes dark. “Of course I do. Nothing gets past a Kurosaki! Besides,” he adds, just as Ichigo’s about ready to punch him in the face, “you look just like Hisana.”
Rukia pales at the mention of her sister. “How do you know that?” she asks.
“My Masaki, she was quite the friend to your poor sister,” Isshin says casually.
Ichigo, blood roaring in his ears, decides he wants a drink.
*
A day later, Ichigo still isn’t completely sure how it all fits together, how it all could have been so easy to conceal.
He sits on the front steps, his mother’s wedding band cool in the palm of his hand. The sun sets over the treeline. He thinks he can hear horses approaching, a cloud of dust rising from the road ahead. There’s a sick queasiness lingering in his stomach that he hasn’t been able to shake.
Behind him, the front door opens and shuts.
“You’re missing supper,” Rukia says after a moment, her footsteps soft as she approaches him.
He doesn’t say anything as she sits next to him, pressed from hip to thigh to knee together. Her fingers slide over his wrist.
“Ichigo, come on,” she says. A warm breeze curls between them, the smell of flowers and fresh greens thick in his nose. “Say something.”
Instead, he presses his shoulder to hers and turns his head, his mouth lingering at her temple.
The story, in its simplest form, is all Isshin would hand over in the aftermath of breakfast yesterday morning. Between patients and chores, he gave them the salient moments: he had been a member of the royal guard, and she had been related to the king, a niece close enough to warrant a title and a crown. They had fallen in love, and when the king found it, it became such a mess that she decided to leave everything behind for Isshin. Her death is something Isshin still refuses to touch on. Ichigo has his theories now, stretching back to a bitter old king and the vindications of family ties too hard to ignore, but they are only theories.
All of them have been walking around in a daze since then. Karin has kept to the yard and to her practicing; Yuzu, between trying to teach Rukia how to make bread, has alternated between peppering Rukia with questions about royal life and silence.
After a strangely quiet dinner last night, Isshin had pressed Masaki’s wedding band into Ichigo’s hand.
“She would want you to have it for Rukia,” Isshin had murmured, strangely serious. “She would have loved her.”
Now, Ichigo is at a loss as he thumbs the gold ring in his palm, with his own princess of a wife at his side. He hasn’t been able to form any consistent thoughts since yesterday. The release of secrecy is only a brief relief; there is a precedent here that nags at him.
“I don’t know what to say. Everything’s been this huge elaborate lie,” he says at last, staring out across the fields.
“Not everything,” she says softly.
He looks at her then, the corners of his mouth catching upwards. She sits with her legs tucked under her skirts, color in her cheeks and loose strands of hair falling across her eyes. She is the same as she has been every day he’s known her, even with the mantle of a title she ran from on her shoulders, and it’s the most solidifying anchor he has.
“She was a princess,” he murmurs finally, looking down at the gold band in his palm. It gleams orange in the sunset light. “And she gave it all up.”
“It isn’t a life for everyone,” she says plainly. “I wasn’t very good at it.”
“The sword ability was a big hint in that direction,” he drawls.
“I’m serious,” she says, sliding her fingers into his. “There’s a laziness, and a lack of care for others, and a dehumanization that didn’t work for me. I never felt like it was right for me to be in those circles.”
“Bet you looked good at those balls, though,” he murmurs.
She leans over and presses her lips to the corner of his mouth. As he turns his head and slides his mouth over hers, she sighs. “Pretty dresses aside, it’s a suffocating life.”
“And you’re fine with giving it up, too?” he asks at last, the question lingering bitterly on his tongue.
Rukia meets his gaze, face set in even lines. “Isn’t it a haybale, a marriage bed, and a license too late for a question like that?” she teases.
“I mean it,” he says quietly. “They – they might have killed my mother over it. I couldn’t live with it –“
“My brother will never let that happen,” she says firmly. “And I don’t care. We’ll take care of each other.”
He breathes in, the dust rising in the air. “You think they’re coming?” he asks at last.
She squeezes his hand once before sliding her fingers from his. Her hand curves to his jaw. “I think it doesn’t matter,” she says firmly. “So stop thinking so hard. You’re not equipped for it.”
“Bitch,” he mutters, even as he turns to her, catching her mouth with his once more.
“Idiot,” she snaps back.
His hand curls inwards, searching for the band. “Hey,” he murmurs against her mouth, taking her hand and sliding the band onto her finger, over the rough twirl of thread that was its placeholder.
Her skin flushes under and against his. “I’ll keep both,” she says.
“Maybe I want my thread back.”
“Stop it,” she says as she tucks herself against his side. His arm wraps around her shoulders as her face fits into the curve of his throat. The sounds of the farm at dusk settle around them, the horses in the barn, the chickens cooing, wind in the tall grasses. From the house, he can hear Yuzu laughing, the low rise of Karin’s voice as their father booms and crows in the kitchen.
“Thank you,” he says after a long spell.
She shifts against him, her lips light on his throat. “For what?”
“Not being a good princess,” he says with a shrug.
Shaking her head, she smacks his thigh. “You know something? I almost hope my brother finds me. He’ll eat you alive.”
Ichigo smirks, glancing his mouth along her brow. He skims his fingers along her knuckles, feeling the contrast of the metal against her skin. “We’ll see,” he murmurs.
She curls her fingers against his, her sigh soft on his skin. Together, they sit, and wait.
*
The Kuchikis find her eventually.
When they first arrive, Isshin steps up to handle them, and Byakuya in particular, who he knows from his former life. With his father trumpeting around and presenting the story of Ichigo and Rukia’s marriage to a small army of soliders and a stone-faced older brother, Ichigo just stands with Rukia on the front porch and smirks. Rukia smiles, is all respect and courtesy. But she keeps her hand in Ichigo’s, and never lets her ring be out of sight.
Byakuya, as stony and silent as he is, keeps his sister’s interests at heart. They have a few solitary conversations, and a few with Ichigo there in the room before Byakuya leaves to settle the business of her previous engagement. There is talk of settlements, of provisions; as stalwart as Byakuya seems, he says nothing to deride their choices. He seems genuinely fond of Rukia. Ichigo refuses to be intimidated by Byakuya, which perhaps earns him a grudging sort of respect. Rukia is only ever amused by their interactions as they occur.
Sometimes, there are balls, and functions. There is the lingering memory of Masaki for the old king, and he requests Ichigo and Rukia’s presence at times. As lovely as Rukia looks in her gowns, Ichigo prefers the quiet creaks and whispers of their own home, the cluck of chickens and the sound of Rukia in sleep next to him.
*