A/N: For those of you in the US, please enjoy the double-update as a Thanksgiving present! For everyone else, I hope you enjoy it as well.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first one-shot! I had fun doing these even if (as usual) my ambitions exceeded my time management skills.

Day Five: Gratitude (Nov 27th)

"I can't even believe this," Sakura pressed her hands to her face and sighed in deep aggravation.

"Yes, I think you've mentioned that."

"This is just so stupid."

She could feel his hum of agreement vibrate through his chest.

"I mean, not even a piggyback, a princess carry! That's so embarrassing!"

"I'd trade you," Genma called from where he was draped over Shisui's back, "but I don't trust Taichou not to drop me. He likes you better."

"I guess you're right. After all, I'm not sure I trust Shisui to keep his hands to himself."

"That you could think such a thing wounds me deeply," the other Uchiha pouted. "I'm hurt."

Sakura snorted under her breath and continued in a louder voice. "I still don't see why I couldn't have just taken a soldier pill and carried myself."

"Because when you eventually crashed there would be no one to catch you. This way if you feel faint again I won't need to worry about you falling off my back."

"The medic shouldn't be the one being carried home."

"Consider it me returning a favor," she could hear the amusement in his voice, "since you used the last of your chakra to heal me."

Sakura sighed again, but subsided with bad grace. She needed to preserve her strength if she wanted to convince Itachi to at least let her walk through the village on her own two feet.

Is what she told herself all the way home, but the instant she voiced this idea aloud the hardass ANBU Captain vetoed her with a flat "No" and insisted on carrying her to the hospital against her vehement protests that she was fine and could walk herself, damn it!

Shizune's reaction was to raise an eyebrow and smirk. "Enjoying yourself?" The insinuating tone was hard to miss.

"Not as much as you'd be enjoying yourself if Taichou had been carrying me instead," Genma chortled, making Shizune laugh and distracting Sakura from her desire to put cayenne pepper in the older woman's coffee as payback.

"Well," she said as she watched Shisui become increasingly uncomfortable with his position stuck between the two flirting shinobi, "this was fun and all, but you can really put me down now."

"Not yet," Itachi denied easily. "Shizune-san, could you please look over Sakura?"

"It's just chakra exhaustion," Sakura insisted. "You're the one who was injured!"

"Honestly," Shizune sighed, "medics always make the worst patients. Alright, go sit down and I'll examine both of you."

"Sakura is the one who most needs to be examined. She already examined me in the field."

Sakura, freshly freed from the cage of Uchiha Itachi's arms, latched onto his wrist when he took a step towards his teammates.

"Oh no you don't. If I have to sit through a superfluous medical examination then you're coming too."

"I wasn't trying to escape," he said in an infuriatingly reasonable way, "only making an observation."

"Shoo," Shizune flapped one hand at them as she waved Shisui and Genma away, having already given them quick check-ups. "Go sit down so we can get this over with."

Which was how Sakura found herself sharing an examination bench with Uchiha Itachi as Shizune looked them over.

"It's standard chakra exhaustion," she announced when she'd finished with Sakura. "Get plenty of rest and fluids for the next few days, don't push yourself, and lay off the fatty food." Turning to Itachi she said, "No strenuous activity that might re-open the wound, but you'll be fine with light exercise by the end of the week.

"And since you were so dutiful in bringing Sakura here," there was a sudden calculating glint in her eyes that Sakura really didn't like, "can I trust you to see her home safely?"

"Now wait a minute-" Sakura tried to say, but was interrupted by Itachi continuing to be calmly and infuriatingly reasonable.

"Of course, Shizune-san. I will do so right away."

Shizune's shrewd expression immediately melted into a smile and she beamed at Sakura as if she'd done her a favor instead of damning her to another few minutes with the fussy overprotective Captain.

"I can get home on my own," Sakura frowned.

"Medic's orders." Shizune's smile got a little too wide and she started flicking her eyes towards Itachi in a way Sakura really didn't understand.

"As Shizune-san had given you a clean bill of health I think a piggyback would be appropriate since you disliked the other carry so much."

With perfect composure he slipped from the bench and kneeled on the floor in front of her, presenting his back for her to get on. Sakura's first reaction was to reject the offer, but the moment she opened her mouth Shizune started glaring at her, mouth still stretched in the semblance of a smile. Sakura was so freaked out by the expression on the other woman's face that she decided to just do what Itachi wanted and save her complaints for later.

To his benefit he was quick and didn't bounce her unnecessarily, setting her down just in front of her apartment door with a minimum of jostling.

"Not going to tuck me into bed?" she asked sarcastically.

"I can if you give me your key," he said, and with his mask removed it was obvious that he was completely serious.

She gaped at him for a few seconds before recovering herself. "Actually, no, that's alright, I'm totally good—fine, I'm totally fine. You really didn't have to do any of," she waved a hand first at him, then at herself, "this."

"It was no trouble, Sakura."

Something about the way he was looking at her sent a little frisson of nerves down her spine.

"Right, well, I appreciate it. Even though I want to stress that you really didn't have to. And shouldn't again. Ever."

"I will keep that in mind," he agreed solemnly, but with a hint of something in his eyes, "and accept your appreciation, though I'm more accustomed to being thanked."

"Oh." She blinked in surprise, realizing that she'd never actually thanked him after how disagreeable she'd been the entire time.

"Thank you, Itachi."

"You're welcome," he said, and smiled his rare, sweet little half-smile. "I'll let Tsunade-sama know your mission report will be late."

And with absolutely no explanation for why he was willing to risk Tsunade-shishou's infamous wrath over truant mission reports just to give her a little more time, he was gone, leaving Sakura standing in bemusement on her welcome mat.

It took Sakura about twenty minutes—the length of time necessary to brew herself a pot of tea and settle onto her old comfy couch with a plate of snacks—to decide that her feeling uncomfortable around Itachi had been a manifestation of her conscience objecting to how rude she was being.

Sure, he hadn't needed to carry her like that and it had been really embarrassing, but he was just fulfilling his role as Captain by looking after his teammates, and that included temporary medics. She'd seen him waiting around the hospital with Shisui and Genma often enough to know that Uchiha Itachi protected his own.

Accordingly, the next day she tracked him down in ANBU HQ and thrust a carefully wrapped box into his hands before he could say anything.

"About yesterday—I just wanted to thank you again and apologize. Shizune-senpai's right about medics being the worst patients. I took my frustration out on you and that was completely unacceptable, I'm sorry."

"Sakura."

She hastily shut her mouth before she could continue babbling. Itachi was staring at her, dark eyes fixed on her face and not even looking at the present she'd pressed on him.

"This wasn't necessary, but thank you. I assure you, you don't need to thank me. I only wanted to see you safe."

Something about an earnest Uchiha Itachi made it hard to find words.

"Right," she agreed and nodded. "Ok, well, I just wanted to give you that in thanks. And apologize."

Itachi was still staring at her, almost as if he was waiting for something. Sakura made a colossal effort, but language failed her, so she fell back on the safety of social pleasantries.

"Then I'll see you around, Itachi."

She might not be the smoothest person ever around Itachi, but she could remember her manners, and that had to count for something. Satisfied with herself, Sakura considered the matter of showing proper gratitude closed.

Three days later found Sakura wet and miserable after an ungodly long shift at the hospital. Recovering from chakra exhaustion meant two things: one, she was only allowed to supervise and consequently found herself doing a lot of awful mind-numbing paperwork; two, on coming outside to find it down pouring she couldn't take a quick-jutsu shortcut home and had to either wait or give up and walk home in the rain.

Being tired and generally impatient, Sakura had taken option number two, visions of hot baths and hot tea and dryer-warmed towels floating through her head as she trudged home.

She had reached the point of fantasizing about hot baths made of hot tea when a nearby black umbrella separated from the other umbrellas shuffling through Konoha's streets and walked over to her.

"Sakura," Itachi said from beneath the umbrella, "you're soaked, let me walk you home."

It would have been foolish to say no, and Sakura definitely knew better than to decline an offer of temporary shelter when it was willingly given.

"Thank you," she sighed once they'd reached her front door. "I'd invite you inside for some tea, but I need to change and get warmed up."

"Don't worry about it," he replied, "and you're welcome. I'm just happy to have been of service."

An hour, a bath, and two mugs of tea later Sakura smacked herself on the forehead in sudden realization. He'd done it again and she hadn't even noticed!

He'd done her a favor so easily, as if he didn't have anything else to do or wasn't busy with his own things when he'd seen her. How many times had Uchiha Itachi gone out of his way to help her from the goodness of his heart without her noticing? And to think he'd been doing so without her even thanking him!

Worse, she'd complained to him and told him not to do it anymore. Granted, she'd only been talking about the embarrassing princess carry that time, but to be scolded after taking such good care of her must have been like a slap in the face after all the effort he'd gone through to help her without ever asking for anything in return.

Thank kami she didn't live with her parents anymore. If her mother found out about how disrespectful she'd been it wouldn't matter that Sakura was a jounin and an accomplished medic-nin, she'd be grounded faster than Naruto could say "ramen."

But the bright side to this stunning and mortifying new awareness was that now Sakura knew what was happening she could fix it. She would not be ungrateful towards Uchiha Itachi ever again.

"Thank you," Itachi said when she gave him a bigger box of dango, "but it was really no trouble at all."

The next week he paid for her lunch at the okonomiyaki stall when she was short two hundred ryo, and Sakura bit her tongue until it bled to prevent herself from protesting that he could've just loaned her the extra ryo instead of purchasing her entire meal.

"Paying for your lunch isn't going to beggar me, Sakura," he said with amusement, fingering the small jar of homemade antiseptic cream. "I don't want you to go hungry when you always work so hard."

Five days later he did such a good job of sweet-talking the best but crankiest fruit vendor at the market that she not only replaced all the fruit that had been bruised when Sakura's paper bag broke apart, she also insisted on giving Sakura extras for the next month.

"I'm glad I could help you," he said as he tucked the free food vouchers to one of the Akimichi barbecue joints she'd wheedled from Ino into his pocket. "My mother's shopped with Kuze-san since I was a child, so she has a bit of a soft spot for me."

And so it went. Itachi opened doors for her, helped her carry books and scrolls home after she got a little too excited at the library, always let her have first dibs on the shower when she was medic on his team's ANBU missions, and otherwise proved himself to be a generous and incredibly thoughtful friend, all while accepting her clumsy thanks and small thank-you gifts with the graciousness and patience of a sage.

It was driving Sakura crazy.

He was so nice to her and even though he said every time that she didn't need to do anything in return and that it wasn't an inconvenience to help her in fact he enjoyed it really, Sakura, her thanks was reward enough, somehow she just couldn't believe him.

He might be happy with her paltry attempts at expressing gratitude, but she certainly wasn't. Itachi had been a good friend to her and she'd gone too long without recognizing his efforts, which was not something a real friend would ever do. Sakura was determined to right what she perceived to be an egregious wrong on her part in their relationship and prove herself worthy of Uchiha Itachi's friendship, once and for all.

"Sasuke," she whined, sliding onto the empty stool next to him. "You've got to help me I'm running out of things to get for your brother."

Her teammate paused mid-bite, letting the noodles slide back into the bowl before putting his chopsticks aside and turning to stare at her with one eyebrow raised.

"Why do you need to get Itachi anything, Sakura?"

Sakura nodded to Teuchi-san politely asking if she wanted her usual and slumped across the bar top with a deeply put-upon sigh.

"He just keeps doing things for me and I don't know how to thank him."

Sasuke's other eyebrow arched up to join the first at his hairline. Next to him Naruto, who'd been mechanically slurping up noodles as he stared at her with wide eyes, choked and started coughing, pieces of noodles falling into his bowl with a messy splash. Without even looking Sasuke reached over and started pounding their blonde teammate on the back.

"Have you tried saying 'thank you?'"

Sakura gave him an unamused look.

"Yes, I've done that. But, Sasuke, I think he's been doing this for a really long time and I never noticed. And I just feel so bad about what an awful friend I've been."

Naruto shoulders were shaking, his face so far in his bowl his coughs had begun to sound more like watery snorts. Sasuke's response was to pound his back harder, and the bar top around Naruto was soon liberally sprinkled with broth. Concerned, Sakura sat up and tried to peer around Sasuke.

"Naruto, are you ok?"

"Y-Yeah, Sakura-chan," he coughed again and reached for a napkin to wipe his dripping, very red face. "Just choked on a noodle."

"I've told you before it's not healthy to eat your food that fast."

"Yeah," he said, nodding vigorously.

Something about the way he agreed with her so eagerly made Sakura suspicious, but in that moment Teuchi-san appeared with her ramen and she instantly forgot her teammate's shifty behavior.

"About the Teme's brother," Naruto spoke up as she was taking her first bite. "What's the big deal? I mean, if he wants to be nice to you or whatever just let him."

Sakura cut off Sasuke's softly muttered "Dobe—" when she whirled on her stool to glare at the blonde.

"That's awful, Naruto! Would you treat Lee or Kiba like that if they did something for you?"

Naruto's face turned bright red and he started stuttering.

"B-Bushy Brows and Dog Face- to me? They wouldn't."

"You're friends, aren't you? And would you treat a friend like that after they'd helped you out?"

Naruto was gaping at her, mouth opening and closing as he tried to find words when Sasuke drove a hard elbow into his side.

"Dobe, I think what Sakura is trying to ask is whether you'd let a friend do you a favor without saying thank you."

"But your brother-"

"Is a friend," Sasuke stressed, elbowing Naruto again despite the blonde's attempts to dodge, "right?"

"Well, yeah," Sakura said, feeling that Sasuke's insistence somehow went beyond simply agreeing with her. "I've known him forever but we've really gotten close since I started going with his squad on missions."

"Hn," Sasuke said, and elbowed Naruto one more time, seemingly for good measure. "Just friends?"

Sakura frowned. "What's wrong with being friends?"

"Yeah, Teme," Naruto piped up, "nothing wrong with Sakura-chan being friends with your brother."

There was some sort of subtext going on here with all of the sudden emphasis on friendship, but Sakura couldn't figure out what it was for the life of her. Instead she cleared her throat and tried to get the conversation back to her original point.

"So anyway, what should I do? About getting stuff for Itachi, I mean."

"Have you considered," Sasuke said slowly, "that he might just want to do things for you?"

"No, I know that." She sighed and gave him a serious look, not sure he understood her dilemma. "That's exactly why I'm doing this, Sasuke, to make up for all the times he was a good friend to me and I didn't notice."

Her teammate had a very funny look on his face, eyebrows furrowed and eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at her. It was almost as if he was confused, but there was nothing about the situation that Sakura thought was particularly confusing, so that couldn't be right.

"Gratitude," he said after a long pause, "isn't a competition, Sakura."

"It's not a competition! I'm just trying to return the favor. But there's only so much I can do when your brother just seems to be everywhere. I don't know how he does it it's like he's got some sort of sense for when I'm minorly inconvenienced or something. And with him always helping me like that I don't know how to show how much I appreciate what he does for me.

"Simply saying 'thank you' just doesn't seem like enough!"

Sasuke looked pained, his eyes wide with disbelief. Beside him Naruto had his face in his bowl again, apparently so enthusiastic about the ramen broth that he was trying to drink it like a dog. His shoulders were shaking with his efforts and he was making gross wet sputtering noises.

"Poor aniki," Sasuke mumbled softly and turned back to his no doubt cold noodles.

Utterly mystified by her teammates' bizarre behavior in reaction to her outburst, Sakura could only blink at them, not at all sure why Sasuke thought that Itachi was "poor."

"What?" She asked, but Sasuke refused to answer and only continued eating.

"I think," Sasuke finally said once he'd finished his noodles, "that what you've been doing is fine. You know him well enough by now to have an idea of his tastes."

Without another word he dropped the correct change on the bar, physically lifted Naruto by his jumpsuit collar out of his ramen bowl, and dragged the still-dripping blonde from the booth, leaving Sakura to stare after them feeling as if she'd missed something important, but with no idea as to what it was.

"Shannaro!"

Sakura's punch went straight through the solid concrete wall surrounding the compound, ripples of force and debris flying in her wake. She fought off a fresh wave of attackers as she pressed a finger to the comm set in her ear.

"I'm through, does everyone copy?"

There were two muffled replies and one grunt over the line as everyone confirmed receiving her message. Sakura was a little concerned because the grunt had sounded like Itachi and it was unusual for him to make noise, even in the heat of battle, but in the next moment Shisui appeared beside her to provide back-up.

Genma was close behind, Itachi bringing up the rear and covering their retreat with a steady stream of fire. The instant he reached her Sakura darted around him and struck the ground with a chakra-enhanced fist, the superheated air produced by the Katon dispersed further outwards by the ground she'd churned up.

Sakura's first instinct was to stop as soon as possible to get a look at everyone's injuries, but Itachi shot her a look she could read through his mask and they kept going, Sakura gritting her teeth against the medic's intuition telling her that something was wrong and to fix it immediately.

Ironically despite Itachi's insistence on getting away as quickly as possible to avoid pursuit, he was the one to drop first, saved from falling out of the trees by his fleet-footed cousin.

"That's it," Sakura said, already removing her vision-restrictive mask. "I want a roll call of everyone's injuries, now."

"I'm fine," Itachi said, but didn't stop her from cutting through the side of his ANBU flak vest and the shirt underneath so she could pull aside the bloodstained fabric to see his wound.

"Standard-length katana," he reported as she probed the injury with her chakra, "went in clean and missed all vital organs. I flooded the area with chakra as the blade was being removed and started the healing process."

"Damn it, Taichou," Sakura sighed, "what have I told you about checking for infection first? Just because the sword went in cleanly doesn't mean it was clean."

Itachi was silent as she examined the entry and exit sites, carefully touching the fresh pink skin around the edges of the cuts, evidence of larger original wounds. She was always a little jealous of his chakra coils in moments like these, knowing she'd never have been able to repair so much damage if she'd burned as much chakra as he had.

But he paid for it in other ways, lacking the finite control over his chakra and med-nin techniques necessary to weed out infection or repair delicate structures in the heat of battle. And his flash-healing, though useful, took its toll in a massive chakra expenditure that was a major risk when missions went awry.

Sakura finished checking over his work, repaired the damage most in need of treatment, and accepted the bandages Genma had retrieved from her med-kit without her asking, giving him a pointed look as she did so.

"I'm alright," he said, holding up his palms in surrender. "Nothing serious, just a little cut up. One of those guys was a Wind-user. Lots of tiny stinging cuts but nothing too deep."

Without needing to be told he was already reaching for another roll of bandages for the little weeping cuts dotting his arms and legs. Sakura turned on Shisui next with a raised eyebrow.

"Miscellaneous cuts and bruises," he told her cheerfully, "surface damage mostly. I have a nice slice on my left side, but it's shallow, nothing like Itachi-chan."

"I'll be the judge of that." Sakura gestured him over, done bandaging Itachi's injuries.

After healing him she gave her team a careful once-over. Itachi was very pale and visibly struggling to stand upright, obviously feeling the effects of using up so much chakra in such a short amount of time. Shisui was haggard and jittery, shifting restlessly from foot to foot as she assessed him. Genma, by virtue of not having the complexion of a porcelain doll, seemed a little better, but even he had a glassy sheen to his eyes that spoke of fatigue.

Sakura herself was operating at just over one-third of her chakra capacity, her job as decoy and keeping their escape route clear having only put her in contact with the weaker fighters. On good missions it was fifty/fifty whether the strongest enemies went for the bright pink kunoichi causing lots of property damage, or remembered they were supposed to be guards and stuck to their posts. Of course on bad missions all the enemies were strong, but they'd been lucky this time. Three team members low on chakra but with only minimal injuries was a testament to the squad's speed and skill in completing their mission objective.

"You're not traveling like that, Taichou," she said flatly as she gauged who in the squad could best carry him.

She was about to delegate the task to Genma when the obvious solution occurred to her and with it a sudden revelation. Hadn't Itachi carrying her after that one mission been what made her realize the disparity in their relationship and how remiss she'd been as a friend? And now their situation was completely reversed, meaning she could pay back the original favor exactly as he'd helped her.

"Ok, Taichou," she said with a smile that was a little too excited given the current circumstances, "you're with me."

Itachi's face was slack with a combination of his exhaustion and his usual lack of emotion, but Shisui and Genma both stared at her in shock.

"Sakura," Shisui started, eyes darting to his cousin, "don't you think maybe one of us might be a better option?"

"Are you suggesting I'm not strong enough?" She returned with a raised eyebrow. Shisui blanched, if possible, paler than he'd already been.

"Pretty sure strength isn't the issue here." Genma stepped in, rubbing the back of his neck as he attempted to rescue his teammate. "Should the most capable member of the squad and our medic be taking on this burden?"

He gave a belated grin in Itachi's direction. "No offense, Taichou."

"None taken," Itachi said as he braced himself upright against a tree. "But I agree with Genma's assessment. If pursuit catches up to us you will need to be able to fight."

"Shisui's still got a few shunshin left in him," Sakura said easily, "he can take you from me and get the two of you away, but I can't let him carry you on his own when it looks like a strong breeze could knock him on his ass at any moment."

She ignored Shisui's dryly-muttered "thanks," turning her attention to the only other option.

"Genma doesn't look much better and arguably with his reflexes slowed as they are he doesn't need anything else impeding his reaction time, which makes me the best option. And," she continued, "since I have the strength to do so there's no reason you should be subjected to an uncomfortable carrying position where you're largely outside my sight and from which I can't monitor your health."

Her smile was very wide, knowing she'd proved her point beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"That's exactly what you told me last time, Taichou."

Instead of fighting her further, Itachi only nodded and took a few wobbling steps towards her. Sakura was quick to rush forward, unwilling for him to avoid a near miss with Shisui only to fall on her watch. He was patient and didn't complain as she lifted him into her arms, shifting the position of her hands to better settle his weight and make sure he was secure in her arms for traveling.

"I'm ready. Let's go."

Unfortunately, her teammates didn't seem inclined to move any time soon. Genma was alternatively rubbing his eyes with his hands and then staring down at his open palms with a deeply stunned expression. Shisui was snorting loudly into his fist, tears starting to leak from his eyes as his laughter grew too hard to stifle.

"I never thought I'd see the day," Genma muttered, eyes wide.

"C-cute!" Shisui gasped, "That's too cute, Itachi-chan, wait until Mikoto-oba-san hears about this."

"Some highly capable, professional ANBU squad you are," Sakura rolled her eyes. "I don't see what the big deal is. I've carried Kakashi-sensei like this before when he's exhausted his chakra and passed out. Considering the potential damage to his Sharingan eye I need him in a position where I can monitor it more easily."

"Yeah, well," Genma spoke as Shisui laughed hysterically into his shoulder, "seeing Taichou like that with you of all people—" his words cut off abruptly and he went pale, digging an elbow into Shisui's side until the other Uchiha stopped laughing long enough to look up before he too went white.

Sakura's brow furrowed in confusion. "What about me?"

"Yes," Itachi said, voice icy, "is there something you'd like to say?"

He was facing away from her as he spoke and Sakura couldn't see anything but the back of his head. She had no idea what kind of face he was making or why he was suddenly so angry, but it seemed to have the desire effect on their teammates as both sobered immediately.

"I suggest," Itachi said mildly after another minute of staring at them, "that we move out."

"Yes, Taichou," they replied, snapping their masks into place and hopping into the trees.

"Do I get to know what that was about?" She asked as the forests of Fire Country flew by around them.

"It was wrong of them to laugh at you. Doing so belittles your effort as team medic."

This seemed like an unnecessarily harsh response to what Sakura thought was genuine amusement over the mismatch of her carrying someone taller and heavier than herself, but she couldn't help being a little touched that he'd taken the squad to task over a perceived slight to her honor.

"But don't you think it's a little funny?" She glanced at the man in her arms and the way his legs dangled so far out, his head actually higher than hers from how her arm was propping him upright. "I mean, everyone thinks it's strange I'm so much stronger than I appear. This probably looks pretty ridiculous to them."

"I don't," Itachi said quietly, face hidden from her as he stared straight ahead. "I think your strength is remarkable. You've worked hard for this skill and it shouldn't be mocked."

Sakura couldn't reply around the lump that had formed in her throat. Itachi wasn't a particularly verbose person in the first place and his compliments were sparingly given. She'd never understood the way Sasuke practically hung on his aniki's every word said until she'd started working on Itachi's ANBU team and learned exactly what effect one well-placed word of praise could have.

"Well," she said some minutes later once she felt again capable of speaking, "with this we're definitely even. I think I've returned the favor now."

"Hn."

A large portion of the journey passed in comfortable silence and Sakura thought they wouldn't speak again until they'd reached the village, whereupon she was determined to transport her Captain straight to the hospital just as he'd delivered her. So she was honestly a little startled when Itachi spoke up, sounding remarkably hesitant.

"If you feel that we're even and that you no longer need to repay me in thanks for the things I was happy—and will continue to be happy—to do for you as someone who cares about you," he paused and turned to stare at her, dark eyes intent on her face, "can I ask if you're free next Friday night?"

"What?"

"Next Friday night," he repeated as his eyes searched hers, "are you free? Would you be interested in eating with me on a," he smiled then, small and hopeful, "date?"

It took the rest of the way back to Konoha for him to convince her that he really wasn't angry with her for dropping him and that, yes, the date was still genuinely and enthusiastically offered.

For their first date they used the free food vouchers for the Akimichi barbecue joint, saving debates on who would pay or whether they should split the cost for a future occasion.

A/N: In reality despite excuses about "wanting the patient somewhere their condition can be visibly monitored," a fireman's lift is a much better way to carry someone who's physically larger than you are, and a pack-strap carry is not the same as a simple piggyback. But I would be the first person to admit to excessively abusing romance novel tropes. Forgive me, I wanted to write a situation where Sakura carries Itachi like a princess, and Itachi ("SweeTachi") really doesn't mind at all.

EDIT 12/6/14: So my beloved best friend/enabler/partner-in-crime Re-Ane drew me Princess Carry Itachi fanart which I've now made the cover image for this story! The tiny thumbnail really doesn't do her hard work justice so please visit my profile for a link to the full image!