A/N: Hello friends! In my latest absence I participated in ShisuIta Week 2019 on Tumblr and cranked out a Lot of fics, which I shall now begin crossposting from AO3. Eventually I will also crosspost the conclusion (?) to the Western AU. But for now enjoy this oneshot for the prompt "Time Travel." :D

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Tell Me How We Get It Right

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He closes his eyes to the rain and the blood, the pain, all of it. Everything fades into darkness at last, and it feels like a strange, sad gift that the last glimpse he has of his brother's face shows only his confusion and shock. Not his hatred.

Itachi thinks it's as good an image as any to die on.

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Except that he doesn't die.

At least, this doesn't feel like any afterlife he's read about. His eyes are still closed, but beyond them he is aware of a world moving around him, sunlight warm on his skin.

Is he dreaming? Or is this some incredibly realistic genjutsu, something beyond even Itachi's ability to discern?

He focuses on what he can sense. Sound comes first—birdsong, a cheerful chirping from somewhere overhead. There's a gentle breeze that doesn't bring with it the scent of blood or oncoming storms; the smell of grass; a glimmering of light that dances across his eyelids, as if through swaying trees.

And running underneath it all is another sound: the sound of a rushing river.

He spent some of the truest moments of his life by that water. He would know the sound of the Nakano anywhere, and suddenly he is afraid to open his eyes.

He does it anyway.

Dream, Itachi decides, trying to ignore the ache in his chest as he stares up at too-familiar tree cover. It has to be a dream.

It would make a sick kind of sense. This wouldn't be the first time Itachi has dreamt of home, of this place, of peace, only to have it all dissolve into screams and an ocean of blood. Why wouldn't his mind retreat here in his final moments? He resigns himself to the inevitable even as he marvels—his dreams have never felt this real before.

A new sound is creeping into his hearing now, the cadence of not-quite-distant voices. Slowly, Itachi maneuvers himself to his feet, noting that even his current aches and pains have somehow made it into this latest dreamscape. That hasn't happened before either.

He follows the voices—two of them, he thinks, and one is laughing. A new thought is pushing at his brain, insistent and terrifying, and Itachi fights to ignore it as he peers out from behind a tree to see who is sharing this imaginary forest with him.

It's less surprising than it should be when his own face greets him.

Itachi closes his eyes hard. When he opens them again his younger self is still firmly present, sitting on the bank of the Nakano, pant legs rolled up so that his feet can dangle in the cool water. Young Itachi's face is tilted up, acknowledging something said by the other person present, his dry expression fast losing ground to a smile.

There have never been many people who could make him look like that; Itachi can acknowledge that fact now, when only one of those people still breathes and that person hates him more than anything in the world. The picture is coming clear now—he can almost remember this day, this moment, which means—

Dread fights a brief battle with something far stronger, and loses. Itachi's eyes find the person he'd been trying desperately not to see.

"You think I won't do it?" Shisui is saying, taunting, and the sight of him knocks the breath out of Itachi's lungs.

This can't be a dream. Itachi has tried to conjure Shisui's image in his mind for years and finally despaired of it; it's shocking how quickly memory can fade when you no longer see a person in close quarters every day. Details—the way a particular curl was always falling into his face, the tiny quirk of his mouth or glimmer in his eye that meant he was about to try something inadvisable—were the first to fall by the wayside, sacrificed to a fallibility of human memory that not even the Sharingan could prevent.

The Shisui that stands before him now is flawlessly imperfect, whole and sharply defined as Itachi's memories have never been, and the realization that this is somehow—impossibly—real feels like taking a blow.

"On the contrary," his younger self says while Itachi reels, "I am perfectly aware that you will do whatever you like. As always."

"Aw, come on, 'tachi. You end up liking it too." Shisui grins, the familiarity of it another blow. "Usually."

Young Itachi's eyes narrow. His mouth opens for a warning that never comes, as Shisui has already yanked his shirt over his head, taken a running leap and cannonballed into the water next to him. Suddenly his younger self is preoccupied with spitting out mouthfuls of river water. Itachi can still remember the taste of it, as well as the jokes he'd endured from various uncles on the walk home about swimming in his clothes.

Shisui's head surfaces (Itachi very carefully doesn't think about a time when it will not) with his curls flattened to his head and his eyes laughing. Young Itachi levels him an unimpressed look, but it's not his best effort and they both know it.

"See?" Shisui says, resting his elbows on Young Itachi's knees. "Told you."

Itachi watches his younger self watch Shisui, watches him take in the lithe and very wet picture his cousin is making. Shisui notices, as he always did. The air around them changes. Itachi wants to look away but finds that he can't.

Shisui moves suddenly, surging up out of the water to press a kiss to Young Itachi's mouth. It's over almost as soon as it begins, just the barest moment of contact, but they both look like they've been burned, and Shisui's ears are pink enough that Itachi sees the color even at a distance.

This is early days, then. It is not just time and distance that makes them both look painfully young to Itachi's eyes; his own younger self can be no older than twelve.

But then, is twelve really so young? It had been old enough for him to join ANBU and make a name for himself. Well past old enough to kill.

Though not quite old enough to be involved in the opening stages of a civil war, brought into the confidences of both clan head and Hokage and asked by each to betray the other. Itachi watches his younger self, perhaps the most at peace any version of him will ever be, and feels a stab of absurd envy.

Shisui has hauled himself out of the water now and is shaking his hair dry like one of Kakashi's dogs. He hasn't yet managed to relocate his shirt; Itachi notices his younger self takes a second too long to look politely away.

"Wait here," Shisui says. "I've got a surprise today. It'll make up for giving you a bath in your clothes."

"Will it?" his younger self asks dryly, but Shisui is already running off somewhere, the sound of his laughter echoing behind. Itachi stares at the spot where he was until long after he's disappeared into the trees.

Young Itachi stands up and suddenly speaks.

"You can show yourself now," he says.

Itachi blinks, but he knows he shouldn't be surprised. Young or no, he has always been a shinobi, and he has always known complacency to mean death. There is already the glint of a shuriken in his younger self's hand.

And Shisui, he suddenly remembers, will not be back for some time. He'd run off that day and brought back lunch, all food he'd made himself—which essentially limited the menu to various onigiri, though they'd still tasted delicious.

Which means Itachi has a few minutes alone with himself. Normally this would not be a prospect to relish, but today…

"I won't ask again," his younger self says, cutting off the first nudging of an idea. It would seem that the first order of business is to not accidentally kill himself.

Saying a silent apology for the sake of his own sanity, Itachi steps out from behind the tree.

To his younger self's credit, he does not drop the shuriken.

"What is this?" he asks after a moment, his face wary. "If enemy nin had breached Konoha again—"

"You would have heard the alarm raised," Itachi finishes for him. Young Itachi's eyes close briefly and reopen black-on-red. He stares for a long time before blinking the Sharingan away.

"There is no genjutsu around you," he says, finally starting to sound shaken. "That isn't possible. You are—"

"Impossible," Itachi agrees. "And yet."

Young Itachi shakes his head. "I'm dreaming, then."

"Doubtful," Itachi says—he has never been one to go easy on himself. "May I sit?"

"I—" He watches his younger self file through a dozen possibilities and discard them in the space of moments, coming up with an answer he dislikes but has no choice but to accept. Young Itachi swallows hard.

"You are me, somehow. You don't need my permission."

Itachi inclines his head. "Fair enough."

He sits on the bank of the river with his legs folded under him. The Akatsuki cloak is too heavy for a Konoha summer day, so he shrugs it off. After a long, tense moment, his younger self sits down beside him.

"What does that mean?" he asks, nodding at the cloak's embroidery. Itachi notes that the shuriken hasn't left his hand.

"Nothing," Itachi answers. "Not to you." Pein won't finish recruiting for a little while yet, meaning the black sky with red clouds is not yet a symbol of fear across the Hidden Villages.

His young self's eyes lift to Itachi's face, his forehead, and his eyes darken.

"And that?"

Itachi reaches up to touch the deep gash in his hitayate. It no longer gives him a jolt when he sees it in the mirror, but the same cannot be said of his former self.

"That is a long story," he says at last. "Longer than we have time for. Shisui will return soon."

His younger self twitches. "If he came back to find two of us…"

He doesn't finish. He doesn't need to; Itachi can well imagine what Shisui, once assured that nobody was under imminent threat, would say when faced with the possibility of two Itachis at once. The thought almost makes him smile. He sees the expression uncannily mirrored on his younger self's face.

"You shouldn't fall in love with him," he hears himself say.

But the words are hypocritical and, more pertinently, too late. Even if he didn't remember for himself Itachi would see the truth written all over his own face, the way his young self doesn't quite blush but goes still like a rabbit sensing hunters. Itachi marvels again that he was ever this easy to read—but then, this version of himself hasn't murdered his parents, hasn't lived nearly a decade under the weight of his little brother's hatred.

Not yet, he thinks, his earlier idea beginning to take form. None of that has happened yet.

The realization is belated, but stunning in its possibilities all the same: in this, whatever, wherever he is, his mother and father are still alive and breathing. Their blood doesn't stain the floor of the family home. Their clan hasn't been decimated. Shisui hasn't flung himself from a high cliff to die in this river, and Sasuke…

His heart races. What if it could all be changed? What if eight years' worth of knowledge and hindsight is enough for him to steer things right, to prevent both the massacre of his clan and the coup in one strike? It feels too big, impossibly big, but the fact is that Itachi is here—here, where everything first spiraled out of control—and that was impossible too an hour ago.

He tried to accomplish such a peace before, but he was thirteen. ANBU or no, prodigy or no, a teenager's words would never have been enough back then.

But he is older now. And he knows more than Konoha's elders could possibly imagine.

His younger self is saying something, but Itachi knows they're running out of time—he doesn't know whether he'll get this chance again, if he'll wake up on the stony ground choking on blood, or if he won't wake up at all. The decision has been made; now he must say what needs to be said, and say it fast.

"Listen," he says, sharp enough that his younger self immediately quiets. Itachi takes a deep breath. His mind churns with possibility, and with something stranger and more foreign—hope.

He says, "There is something you must not do."