Fully back on my bullshit.

Canon divergence because if Kishimoto had made Sasuke less of a human trash bag, I might have been okay with how the series ended (and, to a lesser extent, because I like Sakura with long hair). Fight me.

[What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me?]

If she's being honest with herself, Sakura doesn't remember much of her childhood anymore. She'll be seventeen this year, and the years predating her graduation from the academy have become increasingly hazy. She vaguely recalls being bullied by the other girls for her forehead, but she couldn't name names even if she wanted to. She remembers the red ribbon Ino had given her when, out of pity, the Pig had decided they should be friends. She remembers stupidly giving it back and wrecking their friendship — if you could really call it that — over something as stupid as a boy, especially when she can't remember why she'd even decided she liked that boy. She remembers being terribly, terribly cruel to Naruto, but could not for the life of her tell you why, except that children are, by nature, terribly cruel, but that doesn't seem like much of an excuse anymore.

She knows it's supposed to happen this way — that memories inevitably fade as a person ages, which is both disappointing, because she doesn't want to forget the way her father had carried her on his shoulders when she was little, and an immense relief because she'd rather not remember how she'd carried on after Sasuke simply because all the other little girls were doing the same. But with each birthday, her early memories — both pleasant and unpleasant — are recalled with less and less clarity.

With the horrifying exception of one.

She's always meant to ask her mother why she'd thought it was a good idea to let her eight-year-old daughter leave the house alone, after dark, to bring dango to a little boy she hardly knew, who lived at the far end of town. But, then she'd have to admit to another human being what she'd seen that night, and that's still not something she's ready to do. As a child, it had been the fear that he would come back for her if she told anyone that kept her quiet. Now, it's the fear that her entire world as she knows it will come crumbling down. So she carries on pretending she hadn't seen a thing, and hoping that, some day, the memory will fade and she won't have to pretend anymore. But, after almost nine years, she's beginning to feel less hopeful.

What she remembers most is the blood. Even now, she doesn't think she's ever seen so much blood.

Before she'd even set foot inside the compound, the stench had been enough to make her stomach turn and she'd nearly thrown up her dinner. It still dumbfounds her that she hadn't immediately abandoned her mission and gone home. Instead, clutching the package of dumplings, she'd continued down the line of trees and through the front gate. The buildings had all gone dark. Blood drenched the ground and coated the walls. And there, standing alone in the street, amidst all the bodies, had been him. Even with his blood-soaked face, she'd known him — Sasuke-kun's older brother. He'd come to pick him up from school the week before. She'd thought he was handsome.

"Itachi-san?"

She'd tried for years afterward to tell herself that he hadn't been crying — that she'd only imagined it, because it was easier to believe, and easier to reconcile. But as clearly as she remembers the sickening smell, she also remembers the tears streaking down his face, dripping red from his chin.

"Please go home."

She'd dropped the paper bag of dumplings at his feet and run.

When he wakes, laying on a cot, staring at the all-too familiar ceiling of an infantry field tent, Itachi finds himself with a number of questions, such as where he is, who brought him here, where his clothes have gone, what's in the IV drip feeding into his right arm, why his eyesight is markedly improved, and, chief among them: why he's woken up at all.

His battle with Sasuke had been the end, or rather, it should have been. He'd planned it to be, after all.

Sasuke had been freed of Orochimaru, and he had been freed of the weight of his sins. Sasuke would be hailed as a hero for killing the man who'd massacred his entire clan, and welcomed home with open arms to the village that loved him, and Itachi would be forgotten. His baby brother would never have to know the truth. His own survival had never been part of the plan, and he wonders what it will mean for all he's worked for since the day he left Konoha — what it will mean for Sasuke. With weak fingers, he tugs at the IV in his arm. He's tortured his little brother enough.

Distantly, he hears the tent flaps snap open, but continues to claw at the IV.

"Stop that! What's wrong with you!"

He can't recall when a simple slap has ever felt like blunt force trauma, and groans in discomfort, wondering if he's just had his hand broken. The woman standing at his bedside, glaring down at him, is clearly without sympathy. His mental faculties are significantly slowed, but he recognizes the Konoha insignia on her flak jacket, and, after a moment, the unsettling green eyes and absurd pink hair. She'd been Sasuke's teammate, before he'd defected — the one who'd destroyed the Akatsuki stronghold in the Wind country. The one who had killed Sasori. His mind is too jostled to remember her name, but he suddenly very much dislikes the idea of being trapped here with her. With a greater sense of desperation, he reaches for the IV again, and finds himself shoved back down against the cot none too gently for his troubles.

"Stop doing that," she snaps. "Next time, I'll break your hand."

"I think you already did," he says, grimacing.

Still frowning, she tosses her long hair over her shoulder and leans down to check that the IV is still attached. Her irritation is tangible.

"I only sprained it," she tells him, looking him dead in the eyes, "and I'm not fixing it until you stop trying to rip out your IV."

That will prove to be a mistake, he thinks, and with what little remains of his chakra, attempts to activate his Sharingan.

"I won't be staying here," he replies, staring up at her. If she's foolish enough to think she can overpower him, even in this state, he thinks, she's going to be sorely disappointed. But when the Sharingan spurs to life, only to immediately fade back out, she rolls her eyes.

"Don't bother," she says, planting a fist on her hip. "You don't have enough chakra to sustain your Sharingan right now. You really think I'd be stupid enough to look you in the eye otherwise?"

He sags back against the stiff cot and stares emptily at the ceiling, unable to remember the last time he's been so humiliated.

Sensing his defeat, she moves over to the makeshift workstation in the corner, turning her back on him.

"You should be dead, you know," she adds, offhanded, as if that hadn't been his intention all along.

He glances over at her, watching as she fills a syringe from a vial of clear, viscous liquid.

"Why aren't I?"

She looks back at him over her shoulder, her delicate facial features pinched in frustration, as if she takes his tone for being ungrateful.

"Because I'm an idiot, apparently," she snipes, capping the ampoule and and beginning to fill a second.

He thinks she could be lovely, with her long, bright hair, soft face, and lean frame (he doesn't ever recall shorts and stockings being the standard for field uniforms) — if not for her attitude.

"You could have let me die," he tells her.

"The hunter-nin said the same thing," she replies, not bothering to look up from her work this time. "I'm beginning to think I should have listened."

From the markings on her vest, he guesses she's only a chuunin, and has to wonder what she's doing accompanying a team of hunter-nin, when corpse retrieval has only ever been delegated to Anbu. And while he knows that age means little in their profession, she still seems terribly young.

"Why didn't you?" He asks.

She finishes filling and capping a third syringe — the vial now empty — then shifts to look at him, and he finds her expression has softened, but just barely. She's still frowning, but the softness in her eyes reads more like pity than anger.

"Because I wouldn't be much of a medic, then, would I?"

A medic, he thinks. A medic with monstrous strength and a terrible temper. Suddenly her placement on a team of hunter-nin makes a great deal more sense.

"You're the Godaime's apprentice," he says.

She smiles wryly.

"I am," she says. "What gave it away? The miraculous fact that you're no longer a human pincushion?"

"Your foul temper."

Her expression immediately darkens again, but rather than snipe back at him as he expects, she turns and picks up one of the syringes she's just filled, then returns to his bedside. Instinctively, he attempts to shift away, but his ruined body is hardly willing to budge. If she notices, she doesn't care, and goes on scowling at him, clutching the ampoule tightly in one hand.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're an idiot?" She asks, seating herself beside him at the edge of the cot and rolling up her sleeves.

He chooses not to dignify the question with a response, and only glares up at her in return.

"No? Oh good," she says, her voice falsely cheerful as she uncaps the syringe. "I get to be the first. You're an idiot — since only an idiot completely drains his chakra and willingly destroys his optic nerves. You were completely blind when we found you — do you know how much time and chakra that took me to reverse?"

He tries push her away when she carefully lifts his arm to administer the shot, but she easily brushes him off and presses him back down against the cot.

"Oh, stop it," she tells him, holding him down with her left hand and injecting the ampoule into his deltoid, just above the bicep, with her right. "For someone who's so put out over not being dead, you seem awfully worried that I'm trying to kill you."

To his own embarrassment, he flinches when the needle pierces his skin, and he feels the thick fluid being forced into the muscle beneath.

"This is a chakra stimulant," she says, pulling the now empty syringe from his arm, recapping it, and setting it aside. "It will speed up the regeneration process, since you bled yours completely dry. And the IV drip is a high-dose painkiller because your injuries were so extensive, though not as high-dose as I'd like, since you're still conscious. But, it's the best I have outside the hospital. Either way, I'd quit trying to rip it out if I were you."

Once again, he says nothing in response, instead closing his eyes and hoping that she'll just leave him be. But when he's overcome by a coughing fit, too sudden and violent for him to stifle in his weakened state, that hope is quickly dashed. Once it subsides, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, already knowing there will be blood. From the corner of his eye, he can see her watching him, entirely unconcerned.

"How long have you been dying, Itachi?"

Somehow, the question catches him off guard. Of course she knows. How could she not? With the amount of work she must have done and chakra she must have expended to piece him back together, it would have been impossible to miss. He tilts his head to look at her, but says nothing. The pity in her eyes is too much for him.

"There was so much blood in your lungs I assumed they'd been punctured, but none of your ribs were broken in the right places," she says. "It's a wonder you can even breathe, let alone move or fight. The pain must be excruciating. I don't even know how you've survived this long."

"I've been given medication," he tells her, not in the mood to be lectured.

"No, actually, you haven't," she says evenly. "I ran a blood test to check for any toxins in your system, and the results came back with traces of low-grade painkillers and cough suppressants."

His gaze flickers back to the ceiling, and not for the first, second, or third time since he'd woken up, he wishes he hadn't.

"Why would you let this happen to yourself?" She asks quietly after a moment. "Why are you in such a hurry to die?"

Part of him wants to laugh. Is that what she thinks?

"I would not have chosen this," he says, "but as a missing-nin, I had no hope of receiving treatment."

In his peripheral vision, he can see her frowning, and he realizes that she still doesn't understand.

"Why didn't you seek out a medic?" She presses him. "The damage to your lungs is so extensive that you must have been living with this disease for at least five years. Not all of the hidden villages could have known your face then, and Konoha has plenty of enemies — I'm sure they wouldn't have cared, even if they had recognized you."

Slowly, he shakes his head. "It isn't that simple."

She fists her hands in her lap and leans in over him, as if to get his attention. "Why not?" She demands. "Akatsuki is a powerful organization with widespread influence. You could have easily bribed or threatened many of the other villages into providing you treatment."

"They would have killed me."

She laughs then, but not because she finds it funny. "That's a bit rich," she tells him darkly, "coming from a man who seems genuinely disappointed to still be alive."

His expression blackens and he shifts to face her again. "Everyone has the right to die on their own terms," he replies.

She makes a face at him, and for a moment, he sees Sasuke as a boy, sulking because Itachi wouldn't train him. The expression had been identical. Suddenly, he can't stand to look at her.

"Regardless," he continues, feeling his eyes begin to burn — a telltale sign of forthcoming tears, and a sensation he hasn't experienced in more than eight years — "the only medic capable of treating this disease had been missing since long before I was born, and she still owed allegiance to Konoha."

He hears her huff quietly, followed by the soft rustle of fabric as she crosses her arms over her chest.

"That didn't stop Orochimaru from tracking her down and begging for help," she says, as if she thinks she's making a point.

"And how did that end for him?" He asks, already knowing the answer.

Yes, he thinks when she goes quiet for several moments, she's still very young. Glancing over at her briefly, she's red in the face, staring at the floor.

"She tried to kill him," she murmurs.

He closes his eyes and hopes she can't see the corner of his mouth turn up as he fails to keep himself from smirking.

A long, uneasy silence passes between them — her, too embarrassed to continue the conversation, and him, considering what he's supposed to do now when he hadn't planned on living this long, though he supposes he likely won't live much longer. As if on cue, another cough wells up in his chest that he forces himself to choke back down.

"I won't try to kill you," she says suddenly.

His eyes snap open and he looks over at her, surprised in spite of himself, as if he hadn't heard her with perfect clarity. "What?"

She's staring down at him intently, her eyes strangely bright.

"I haven't killed you yet, have I?" She asks, perfectly serious. "And trust me, I've had plenty of opportunities. You were practically dead when we found you, and you couldn't fight me now even if you wanted to — your body is too weak and you don't have enough chakra."

He glares at her, unappreciative of the comment. "That isn't what I meant."

She makes the same face she'd made before — cheeks puffed and a frown that's quirked to one side — and he has to keep himself from insisting that she not.

"Oh, you think I can't do it?" She says, as if she thinks this is a challenge. "I fixed your vision, didn't I? Believe me, repairing a completely deteriorated optic nerve and cornea is much harder than this will be. Do you know how delicate the eye is?"

His expression doesn't lift. "Why?" He asks.

She stares at him like she doesn't understand. "Why what? Why will this be easier than healing your eyes? Didn't they teach anatomy at the academy when you were there?"

"Why did you do it?" He clarifies, willing himself to not express his irritation. "Why did you restore my eyesight? Why would you be willing to treat my illness?"

She goes on staring at him for a moment, and he wonders if maybe she hasn't just changed her mind. But then her face softens, and he does not expect her to reach out with one small hand and carefully brush his filthy hair from his face — her fingertips cool against his skin. When had she taken off her gloves?

"I told you," she says, her voice gentler than before, "I'm a medic. I fix broken things."

"You would fully rehabilitate your enemy?" He asks as she sweeps another matted lock of hair from his face.

She regards him seriously, tucking aside one final strand of hair before slowly getting to her feet. "It's not really for me to decide," she says, "and I'm not sure you're my enemy, Itachi."

Isn't he?

His gaze lingers on her face, even as she turns away. Those startling eyes. That springtime pink hair. Suddenly, it comes back to him.

"Sakura," he says, and she stops to look back at him over her shoulder. "That's your name, isn't it?"

With the slightest smile that he only recognizes by the way her eyes light up, she nods.

"You were my brother's teammate."

She nods again, the smile fading. "A long time ago."

He watches as she steps over to her workstation and picks up another ampoule of the chakra stimulant, uncapping it and pushing her sleeve further up her left arm.

"You should try to get some more rest," she says, administering the injection with practiced ease. "I don't have enough chakra to start the treatment yet, and repairing the damage to your lungs will be painful — not as bad as your eyes would have been, but, unfortunately, this time you'll be conscious."

He wonders how many days it's been since she found him. She'd made no secret of how much chakra she'd expended to keep him alive, and again to repair his eyes, the recovery for which would not be an overnight process. He then finds himself curious as to the whereabouts of the rest of her team.

"How long has it been?" He asks once she's pulled the needle from her arm and replaced the cap.

Her eyes flicker back to him as she rolls her sleeve back down. "Three days," she says, setting the empty syringe back on the steel surface of her workstation.

Longer than he'd hoped.

"Since we found you, anyway," she adds after a moment. "I'm not sure how long you were out there before then. Based on the condition you were in and the state of your wounds, I'd guess forty-eight hours, maybe?"

The statement frustrates him. Two days he'd managed to cling life when he'd only wanted it to be over. He'd been ready. It should have been time.

If she notices his frustration, she says nothing, asking him instead if he's in any pain.

"No more than usual," he tells her, and immediately, she frowns, moving back over to his beside to inspect the IV drip.

"I can up your dose," she offers. "It might be help you get some more sleep."

He's quick to decline. "I'd rather you didn't."

She looks as though she wants to argue with him, but settles for simply shaking her head instead. "Suit yourself," she tells him.

He's surprised when she proceeds to fetch a sleeping bag and mat from the opposite corner of the tent and unroll both on the floor beside his cot, because he realizes he doesn't even know what time it is. She only bothers to kick off her sandals before she sinks down onto the floor and crawls inside the sleeping bag.

"I need to get some sleep and restore as much of my chakra as I can. You should do the same," she says, rolling onto her side so she's facing away from him. "And don't get any stupid ideas about leaving — I still have more strength and chakra than you right now, and I will happily knock you on your ass if you try."

He thinks she sounds more like the Godaime than she knows.

"Where is the rest of your squad?" He asks, wondering at this point how long they've been alone.

If she's irritated with him for keeping her awake, he has no way of knowing, because she doesn't turn to look at him. "One should arrive back in Konoha tomorrow to report to Tsunade-sama," she says. "The other two are tracking your brother. Except I doubt they'll find him. He was already long gone by the time we found you, and I assume he's in better shape than you were."

"You don't want them to find him?"

"I don't know," she says, her tone clipped. "Why does it matter to you? You're supposed to hate him."

He doesn't miss the way she says it as though she has reason to believe otherwise.

"It's a bit strange, don't you think—," she continues, more quietly than before, still curled up on her side, her back to him, "for a man who hated his little brother so much, to be so disappointed that his little brother didn't kill him."

[What are you wondering? What do you know?]

A/N: Part one of probably three. Gonna keep this one short.