Part 1
It happens so fast, within the time she takes to blink. One second she's rushing toward Sasuke, the next, Tobi is standing over him, then one blink – that's it – and they are both gone.
"Sasuke!" She screams his name into the empty space, but it's futile. They're long gone, and she did nothing to stop him from being taken.
She stops running, hand braced against the uchiwa painted into the only wall left intact from the battle. What is she supposed to do now? She has no idea of where to look for them, and if she goes back to her team and the village empty-handed... Either way, Kakashi-sensei will be pissed. She's such a failure.
Hot tears fall from her eyes, mixing with the freezing rain. She's standing over Itachi's body with hate in her eyes. She never thought in her life she'd have the capacity to truly hate someone like she didn't now. It was his fault. All of it. Her being here to save Sasuke, his fault Sasuke had left, his fault Sasuke had been injured enough to be taken, and his fault Sasuke had festered under his own hatred so much he couldn't love her.
Her hot tears drop onto Itachi's cheeks, and he flinches. He's not completely dead.
Her hands find his skin, still warm, feeling for any sign of life and - there - fainter than the brush of a butterfly's wings is his heartbeat fluttering along.
There's a rush to that discovery and the act of beating back death from someone, and in the face of so much uncertainty on what to do next, her hands automatically start to work. This she knows. This is the only thing she knows. The feeling of uselessness starts to fade away as she gains momentum and his heart beats stronger.
Later she rationalizes that he's the only one who might know where Tobi could have gone and the only one strong enough to face him should it come to that, but it's secondary to that intrinsic need to do and fix. She's so exhausted by the end, it's all she can manage to take them to an inn nearby. She collapses at the edge of his bed and sleeps for hours.
When she wakes, she's staring into the eyes of the man she hates most in the world. She stands quickly, and a blanket drops from her shoulders to her surprise.
"Sorry, did I wake you? You were shivering."
She doesn't expect an apology or that he isn't showing any signs of aggression at all. Her response is uncharacteristically rude, just a cold glare.
"You look familiar, but I don't know why." He says with a lost look, unaffected by her glare, and moving to sit up. He winces, and she's at his side again, checking his injuries even as she scowls. "I can't remember anything, actually." He continues without his eyes leaving her face.
"Excuse me if I don't believe you." And why should she? He was smart, and this could be his best chance at preying on her soft side.
"You don't.. like me." He answers slowly, only because it's written all over her face.
"No."
He looks down at her glowing hands, "But you're still helping me."
She clenches her jaw and doesn't answer. He's clearly tired, but he's trying to learn as much as he can by just observing. The room, her expression, her clothes. His eyes snag on her headband.
"You're a leaf, Kunoichi." Her eyes meet his for a moment in confirmation. "I...am also a leaf shinobi." He says it carefully like he's tugging the memory loose from his head.
"You were. Not anymore." She corrects, offended he'd put himself in the same category as her. They weren't the same at all.
"Was? Hmm." He considers it some more. "I remember bits and pieces of my home, Konoha, but that's it. Nothing about leaving. Is that normal?"
"Stop talking so I can concentrate." She snaps, and to her surprise, he responds with a soft apology.
"Yes, of course. I apologize."
He's healing more slowly than she'd like, mostly because of her own exhaustion and shallow chakra reserves. At the close of this checkup, he asks, "May I please have some water?"
Begrudgingly, she gets him a glass and presses it into his hand. He winces again at the weight and almost drops it. Sakura catches it quickly and raises it to his lips, silently helping him drink. She removes it before he has his fill with an explanation, "Drink too quickly, and you'll make yourself sick."
He looks up at her, now much closer than before, and stare.
"What?" She barks.
"I can finally see you clearly." He says it without embarrassment. His eyesight was that bad, and he's just admitted it with the same even tone as one would admit the sky was blue. "You're beautiful for a kunoichi. You don't have any scars."
She stands up quickly, feeling a flare of strong emotion in her. Hate. She hated him so much. This all had to be an act. Playing on her softness and vanity. She stalks to the door.
"Where are you going?" He asks with a note of panic in his voice.
"I'm getting dinner." The first excuse that pops in her head, and closes the door behind her. He won't leave in this state, and even if he goes, good riddance.
Again she's faced with why she's doing this at all. She should be reporting back to the village, to Kakashi, but what would she say. She just revived a criminal and aided him in escaping capture instead of reporting back. But more than that, she was scared. What if they told her Sasuke had been killed? How can she face them after being such a failure? Naruto's disappointed face would break her.
There were too many scenarios to think through. Too many what-ifs, and that was paralyzing. But she did know if she left Itachi now, he would die. Maybe that was for the best anyway. He was destined to die anyway, right, so she should just walk out the door -
She stops short at the bottom of the stairs. At the inn's entrance is a giant man who's skin was ice blue and cloak covered in red clouds, darkened by the rain. Kisame, Itachi's partner. She darts back up the stairs before he can see her, hurrying back through the door to their room.
"Did they not have food-"
"We have to leave." She's already gathering her few supplies, shoving anything useful in the room into her pack. "Now."
She pops a soldier pill and helps him to the edge of the bed, threading his arms through the straps of her plack and dropping her traveling cloak around his shoulders.
"What's going on?"
"Just get on my back." She crouches in front of him, waiting to feel his weight leaning against her before she grabs the back of his knees and stands. They flew out the window into the rain as fast as she can manage.
The weather is awful for traveling but gives them lots of covers, beating away their tracks as she runs with no destination in mind other than away from the inn and the battleground to the north.
The longer she runs, the weaker they both feel. He needs rest and at the warm wetness seeping into her back, she knows he's reopened some injury. But she doesn't know where to stop. She has nowhere safe to take him.
"Miss?" She hears in her ear. She hadn't told him her name. She tilts her head, so he knows she heard him. "I think I remember something. A hideout from when I was a child."
Her gut tells her not to trust him, but what choice does she have? If she's walking into a trap, the worst they could do is kill her, and if Sasuke was dead, well...
"Head to the right toward that Maple tree with the twisted branches. There's a hidden door at the base."
She takes his direction and sees it almost immediately. It's been shaped from a sapling or through some Jutsu has a pair of lower branches twisting unnaturally together in a spiral. She inspects for a door but doesn't see one.
Itachi asks to be lowered, and she does, looping a weight-bearing arm under his shoulders. On his hands and knees, his hands sink into the muddy grass, and she feels a flare of chakra. A door snaps upward. She doesn't ask any questions yet, just hurries them inside.
Uchiwas cover the room, including a faded tapestry on the far wall "Protect and Serve" in script at the bottom. It looks to be some kind of secret meeting room, but she figures it doubles as a safe house when she finds enough to last a full year in the back. She hopes they won't need them for that long.
Dragging out a dusty futon that smells like mildew, she makes a comfortable place for Itachi to lie back. No chakra left for healing, she has to treat his reopened wounds the old fashioned way, with antiseptic and stitches. After she's finished, she again hand feeds him water and a quick miso soup she found dehydrated in the back.
He thanks her more times than she can count, and not once does she answer.
Only when she's rinsing out bandages in a sink in the tiny bathroom does she finally stop to consider just what she's doing.
Again she had the opportunity to leave. She could have left him for his partner to find, but she took him and ran. Staring at his blood on her hands, she feels nothing but disgust for herself and confusion. She scrubs her skin raw.
Wandering back to the room where Itachi is sleeping, she props herself up against a wall, glaring at him until she loses the battle against her exhaustion.
His coughing is what wakes her, wet and deep. She pulls his hand away and sees dark blood. A curse leaves her. She'd check before she left for internal bleeding and broken ribs. There was no reason for blood in his lungs. None. Although it will have consequences, she pops another soldier pill and looks again.
It's a disease.
Her hands drop away, and she leans back on her calves. Another chance to give up and walk away. Another choice.
She stands and begins to pace. It was very advance, and this type was something he'd have been born with. Treatable now, but clearly untreated. She turns her back on him, staring deep into that tapestry with the uchiwa. A chink in the great protege's armor. In the strength of the Uchiha clan. Had they left it untreated to save face? Doesn't matter because she needed to decide whether it would be worth it to hide here and heal a man whose very body was fighting against him. A man she hated. An enemy. Should she stay even when she should already be headed back? When Sasuke could be in trouble?
His wet coughs pull her back, and she can't stay away. Her glare is hot on her face as she does what she can to ease his symptoms for the time being.
Team 7 and 8 would have already found the battle sight and have more information than her. They were a team designed for tracking. What would she even add to that? She'd be a spectator. Here at least, she was doing something. She was making an impact. And if Itachi lived, he could give them information they didn't already have.
She leaves to find tea and rationalizes some more.
The second wave of exhaustion from the soldier pills is worse than the first, as she knew it would be. She doesn't know how much time has passed, but Itachi is thankfully sleeping when she wakes. She'd die if he saw her in this state.
Her empty stomach lurches, bitter saliva filling her mouth. Staggering to the bathroom, her muscles tight from overuse and sleeping against a cold wall, she's sick several times. Nothing is I'm her stomach but yellow acid, and when that's gone, dry heaves for several minutes. The cool tile on her face is a relief. She's exhausted, and the weight of her loneliness hits her in full. Her friends don't know she's here. She can't leave. Even if it makes her the weakest shinobi in the world, she just wants to go home and see her mother's face again. She wants her mom to bring her peppermint tea and rub her back softly until she feels well again.
She's silently crying on the floor, holding her breath through the sobs, so they don't escape. Her moment doesn't last long because Itachi's coughs reach her again. She sits up, wipes her face, and focuses on the only thing she can.
She doesn't have enough chakra right now, but he's not coughing up blood this time, so she opts for traditional methods. A warm mug of tea in her hand, she slides behind him and helps him sit up, leaning his weight back against her smaller frame. His breath is less labored sitting up. She stirs him awake and carefully pours tea into his mouth, it's sharp herbal vapors opening and soothing his airways. Then she rubs circles into his back until he falls asleep again, thinking about her mother and her home.
It takes a week before he's well enough to stay away for any length of time. It's restless and agonizing for Sakura, who, left alone with her thoughts, rehashes all her options until she's shredded to pieces. None of it matters. Her life has become a series of reactions, and that's it. The moment he needs her, she's there nursing him without the desire to be. She still hated him with everything in her, and this place was covered with reminders of that. It was inescapable.
His lucidness was as welcome as it was unwelcome. A companion of any kind eased some of the loneliness, but his attempts at conversation left Sakura feeling angry and tired. He maintained that he didn't remember anything when she questioned him about Akatsuki, their base locations, and Tobi. It was very clever given she wanted him only for information at this point. She's sure he's just dragging this out until he was strong enough to run. Another inevitable scenario to worry over.
It's that theory that has her still being uncharacteristically rude to him. She gives one-word answers or none at all whenever possible.
Eventually, he stops asking, taking the hint that she won't answer, and just starts talking out loud, puzzling through any memories he can. It's little things: a particular drill he ran in training as a boy, learning his first Jutsu, the smell his mother had. Most are about training, to her surprise, like he'd spent most of his time doing only that, but his mother began to appear more and more. It didn't matter to her, she told herself. Just the sound of his voice alone grates on her ears, and she grinds her teeth and the monotony of it. She's never hated anyone this much that even that is irksome to her.
But one day, she wakes up, his words are drawn out, sloppy, and stop making sense at all. An infection kept upon them, and it bottoms out her stomach. If she lost him now, none of this was worth anything. She wasn't worth anything!
His words become very important
then because if he was speaking, he was surviving. She asks him as many questions as she can think of as she cares for him, though it's all delivered in a clinical tone.
Can you sit up for me? Yes. What's your favorite color? Pink. Think harder, please. Oh, right, blue. Do you have any persistent chills? Yes. What's your favorite food? Dango. How's your headache? Worse. What's your birthday? It's in June, I think. Lay back down for me? Okay. Favorite birthday present? Breakfast my brother made me.
She stills at that, pulling the cool, damp cloth from his forehead. He'd never once mentioned Sasuke, and her surprise at him remembering shown was mirrored on his face.
"I had...a brother." He murmurs, his fevered face looking up at hers. "Sasuke."
For the first time, she nods in confirmation at a memory of his. He nods back at her as well.
"For my birthday one year, he made me breakfast. But mother wouldn't let him use the stove, so he took the rice leftover from dinner and pressed it into rice balls for me."
Sakura catches herself staring and dips the cloth in cold water again, wringing it out and dabbing it against his warm forehead.
"He woke me up by jumping on my bed...One of them rolled off the plate and ... onto the floor...We had to split the last one." He's far away, speech slowing, and that scares her. His eyes slide closed.
"Itachi?" She says a bit too quickly. He doesn't respond. "Itachi."
He looks at her through heavy eyelids, making eye contact for the first time in days—her fault, of course.
"What else happened?" She asks softly, staring for the first time this intently into his depthless eyes. He blinked, and they turned glassy.
"I don't know, but... Suddenly I feel like crying."
Sakura bites her lip, dabbing the cloth at his temple, then over the trail of tears rolling from his eyes.
"I think I love my brother very much." He says, and she sees in his face that he does... or did.
"So did I." She whispers, and his brow furrows. The tense of it is another question she doesn't ask herself. Instead, she cools the cloth again and asks, "Would you like to hear one of my stories about Sasuke?"
It's hard to maintain hate for someone whose wellbeing is the sole purpose of your life, Sakura finds. That or she was just growing to like him after all. The stronger he got, the more of a real personality started to emerge. He was polite and kind in a constant way that was becoming harder and harder to believe was an act. It was little things, really, like when he stopped her from killing a spider, and she had to let it outside instead.
After the night of fevered delirium, their conversation had become less stilted. He still didn't remember much about Akatsuki or his time after the massacre but learning about his childhood made him unavoidably human.
"My father and I didn't get along." He admitted one day in conversation. He couldn't remember details out of thin air, but once he started down a train of thought, things came to him in the same context. His father didn't often come up.
She nodded for him to continue, but his brow furrowed, and he looked away. Sometimes she knew he was holding back, like now, but why was still a mystery.
"Can you not remember?" She offers, adjusting her seat on the bed.
"That's not it." His eyes are trained on the floor. She waits for him to continue if he'd like but doesn't press. "We didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. He had very high expectations."
"I can imagine. He oversaw your whole clan, so I'm sure the pressure was -"
"You don't know what you're talking about." Itachi cuts in, tone steely cold.
She stiffens. He'd never raised his voice at her once in the weeks they'd been here, and for the first time in a while, she feels wary of him.
"He made me kill a man at 7 years old." Rage sizzled in his voice, but Sakura could only see shame in his eyes. She leaned back in surprise. "It was a traitor among the Uchiha, one of my own clansmen. My father wouldn't tell me what he'd done to deserve death but placed the kunai in my had anyway. He said it was my duty to protect the clan at all costs, even from traitors inside of it. I begged him not to make me. Then he beat me until I agreed."
Sakura felt sick and presses her fingers into her lips, wondering just what kind of man Fugaku really was.
"I was too weak to hold the kunai myself, so he squeezed his hand around mine. It felt so small in his. He'd only ever shown love to me with those hands. Small gestures like a pat on my back or head. But that day, he beat me and held my hand so tight it hurt and forced me to press a kunai into my own relative's neck until it bled, and he died."
His hands curled into fists that shook as the words finished pouring out of him. Sakura hesitates, unsure what to say to him, but her hand reaches out to cover his, giving it a gentle squeeze. He lets out a breath, threading her delicate fingers with his.
She wonders if he's misremembering or rewriting his memories into something he can live with. He'd killed every one of his clansmen, so what if he was mixing two memories together? But the emotion in his face, maybe she was too naïve, but it felt too raw to be anything but the truth.
"The more I remember about my life, the less I want to. I'm coming to realize most of it was filled with regret." His hand clenches hers. "All I feel is powerlessness. I just want it all to end."
"Don't say that." She commands, scooting closer toward him on the futon. Her purpose had become to keep that from happening, but she wonders if he'd already tried sending Sasuke after him like he had. She wonders if he'd try again given a chance.
"Why shouldn't I want to die?" He's dejected, almost resigned. "I know I'm a murderer. How can someone redeem themselves from what I've done? I can't even remember all of it, but I see the way you look at me and know worse things are hiding inside my head."
The pity on her face and the fact that she can't meet his eyes confirms his suspicions. Itachi recoils from her at the realization, disgust marring his graceful features. This mouth draws tight at the corners, jaw jumping under his skin, and he looks away.
"I don't think I deserve to still be breathing. I feel that more every day. I see your face and feel..." He breathes in through his nose and then out in a whoosh. He looks at her again and says, "So undeserving."
If she didn't know the whole story, she might have contradicted him, but she does. Many terrible things had happened because of Itachi Uchiha. But the man capable of doing those things and the man holding her hand now couldn't be more opposite. She made the decision to be here, so he deserved something from her. The person she knew, or rather the gentle person he was without his memories, deserved to live.
So what if his story was true? What if this is who he was before whatever he had endured as a child made the way he was? Was there more to the story, things out of his control? If he was just a boy who'd suffered abuse until he snapped, Sakura knew she could forgive him for just about anything. She'd forgiven Sasuke for very similar reasons.
Itachi shrinks a bit more into himself in her contemplative silence. Now, all she can see is how small and lost he looks, a little boy who just needed someone's help. Her help. It tugs at her until her fingers curl around his cheek, and he leans into it. Her touch was familiar and comforting now, after so much time caring for him. It is quiet for a moment longer.
"You should have left me in that inn and gone home." He finally says into her palm.
She shakes her head but realizes he can't see it with his eyes screwed shut. "I couldn't do it."
From the way his brows droop, she knows he understands that she had tried. Shame clutches her stomach.
"Why not?" he murmurs, compelled to even if he believes the answer will be unpleasant.
She can't answer, but he gives her plenty of time to. What could she possibly say to that? Even to her, the truth was tangled together with the dozens of rationalizations she'd made so that she could look herself in the mirror every day without hating herself. And those were so impersonal, it would only hurt him more if she did.
He finally speaks again. "We've discussed many things but never how I fit into your life." Her hand drops from his cheek, but he catches it, dark eyes finally opening. This he's not letting this go as easily as the rest. "What are we? Colleagues? Friends?"
There's an innocence to him believing they could have been friends that again has her stomach in knots. She doesn't want to think about it or how far she'd gone for him despite what they were.
She tries to lean back. The space between them grown too small to fit his questions and the weight of his stare. He stops that too, hand coming to the back of her neck – firm, but not so hard she can't break free if she wants. He's constantly asking her closer so he can actually see her expressions. She tells herself that's all this was.
"Why are you so invested in me, Sakura?" His eyes jump between her own. When he could see clearly, his eyes never stayed still.
Again, she doesn't have an answer but finds her chest rising and falling quickly, adrenaline tingling inside. It must not be from fear because she doesn't feel like running. She's sure she should feel like running.
Instead, she's drawn forward.
"I can't remember you at all, no matter how hard I try." His eyes trailed her cheek, to the pulse hammering in her neck. His thumb brushes away her hair from the spot. Her cheeks heat. "There must be something because I...feel something for you. It's frustrating not remembering why or what you feel for me."
Feel something? What did that mean? She swallows, lips parting after. It catches his attention, and his always moving eyes still. Reacting without thinking, her's fall to his now, and even if he hadn't moved yet, she wondered if they would begin to dip forward. She wondered if, with his thumb brushing her neck and his eyes on her lips, he was thinking about kissing her.
Finally, the missing instinct to run hits her full force.
"There's nothing to remember." She says quickly, stopping whatever it was he'd been considering. He finds her eyes again, questioning her. This was too close. She can feel his warm breath on her face, and as she inhaled, she could taste the sweet and herbal tea he'd drank on her tongue. "We never met before I found you."
His forehead creases. "I don't understand. Why would you care for me like this if I was a stranger to you?"
"I don't know." A prickling pressure builds behind her eyes. She doesn't know anything. Everything she was had spiraled so far out of her control that she was thinking about him without any hate in her heart. With something else in her heart entirely. "It just happened."
"Something like this doesn't just happen."
This? There is no this. There is nothing more to this than getting some intel and then going back to her life like it never happened. But she's faced with how impossible all that was now, and her head spins.
She'd have to tell everyone where she had been. No lie she tried to spin could possibly explain her absence or Itachi's reappearance, for that matter. Sasuke would be furious. He'd never forgive her, let alone love her. And for what? For what was she doing all of this?
"I'm just your brother's teammate. That's it." She breaks away from him, quickly shifting to her knees and springing to her feet. What the hell was she doing?
"I see." He says in that quiet way he does when he's sifting through his memories for more information. His hands fall to his lap. "Sasuke's…"
Sakura turns her back and leaves. She was Sasuke's, but she's realizing not once in her life was he ever hers. At this point, she doubted he ever would be.