A/N: Well, I finally have a FF account. Huzzah? Not really. I've pretty much given up on Naruto given Kishimoto's crappy handling of the story, but I have all these fics lying around and people tell me they shouldn't go to waste. Ah, well. Enjoy!

(This story belongs to me; the characters belong to Kishimoto. No absurd amounts of dough for me.)

The almost imperceptible drone of the optometrist's office coupled with his most recent set of drugs kept Itachi constantly dozing.

"We can supply you with the right glasses, but given how fast the disease sets in -"

"It doesn't matter," Sasuke's voice interrupted smoothly. "He'll live his last year as damn well as he can." A slight smile bent Itachi's lips. So he had forgiven him -eventually- even if he had waited until Itachi had been diagnosed with - oh, what was the name? That didn't matter. It was death.

There was a pause in the conversation, and the doctor ducked out to check on something.

"You're going to get the glasses," said Sasuke finally, coming to sit down beside Itachi. "How are you doing?" Itachi nodded vaguely. Much of his conversations nowadays went on like that: people asking after his health and his general assent that all was well (though it wasn't, really). And that was useless, because he knew where he was going and all these other people had their whole lives in front of them, dark and uncertain. He was really more concerned for them...

"Where the hell is that doctor?" Sasuke stood up and disappeared behind the door with a few quick strides. Itachi began to doze again, before the door opened.

"Are you Uchiha Itachi?" asked the nurse, peering at a clipboard over her glasses.

"Yes." She came over to sit in Sasuke's abandoned seat and pulled something that looked like a stethoscope out of her pocket. She held it up - "Would you mind if I listened?"

"Go ahead," mumbled Itachi. She put it up to his chest and listened. "You're not an optometrist," he said, watching her. "No," she replied, still listening. Itachi felt his eyelids grow heavy, his mind fuzzier. "But I'll still be checking up on you in the coming months. Is that okay?"

"Yes." She smiled and replaced the instrument in her pocket. "I will see you in a little while, then." She turned to leave. "Wait!" Her footsteps stopped. "What... what's your... name?"

"You can call me Konan."

His vision grew worse over the next few weeks, even as the doctors gave him medicinal cocktail after cocktail; everything was blurry before Konan visited for the second time.

He was alone again, sitting in the courtyard of the house he shared with Sasuke, swaddled in a blanket in spite of the sunlight. Her footsteps came out of nowhere, soft and padding.

"Hello." He looked up and saw her, not out of focus or soft around the edges, but as clearly as when they had first met.

"Hello." Itachi paused and looked her up and down. Not in nurse's uniform, as before, but in simple clothes, as might any visitor to a sickbed. "You look well."

"Thank you. I can't return the compliment, I'm afraid," said Konan, taking a seat on the garden wall next to him.

"I feel fine."

"That is a lie." He glanced at her more sharply, before relaxing.

"I lie because it comforts others," said Itachi. She nodded. "Very noble." (Ordinarily, he might feel the obligation to deny such a claim, but that would be a lie, too.) "I lie a lot, these days," he added.

"Never lie to me," said Konan. "Because I'm not here to reassure myself."

"What are you here for, then?"

"I'm here because you're dying."

The next time she visited, the world was filled with darkness that was all in his head and he was lying in bed, staring at the dawn that was like sunset outside his bedroom window.

She stood out starkly against the darkness (just as brightly as before) and he could swear he saw the outline of white wings in the shadows.

"Are you here to kill me, Konan?"

She approached and stood over him, and touched his ashen cheek with an even paler hand. "No, not yet."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" She shrugged and waited for him to say something.

"Dying... is not too bad," he said. "Being patient is the hardest part. Have you ever died?" It was a peculiar question, but one he would probably ask no one else.

"It's not in my nature to die," she said.

"So you're immortal."

"I'm not alive," she corrected. "So I cannot die."

"I can see you breathing."

"Because you want to see me alive. Because you want, very badly, for others to live." Her eyes glittered in the falling darkness.

"Yes..."

"Nobody else wants that. Everyone wants to live, to themselves. Too little, not enough to go around."

He would have replied, but a sudden spasm of coughing took his breath away.

"I'm sorry for all of them," she said, not moving to help him as he doubled over. "To have to take you away."

"Promise me," he gasped, his mouth bloody from the coughing. "The next time I see you..."

"I know."

...time passed...

...hours...

.. . days . . .

. . . weeks? . . .

He could feel the fresh spring breeze in the room and hear the morning calls of songbirds, though the night still surrounded him.

"Itachi..." There was a soft sound of wings flapping through the air.

He was tired, so tired... but he managed to nod, raise his voice. "My brother..."

"He has time. More than he knows what to do with. Do you feel cold?"

When she mentioned it, he noticed that a numbness was traveling through his fingertips, up his forearms, creeping into his shoulders... it panicked him for a split second. Then he felt a warm hand close around his, and he couldn't place it (her hands, when her flesh had come into contact with his, felt almost nonexistent). Itachi didn't know how she could do it, but she pulled him up, and when he looked at her, she smiled, turning into an encroaching darkness.

"Let's go."