summary: Itachi guilts himself into the position of unwanted babysitter to the woman who saved his life. It proves to be quite a taxing exercise in patience for both of them.

Itachi's face was flat. "You're sick."

"Of your face? Definitely."

Sakura's jibe was promptly ignored. "Get back to bed."

He wanted her to get back to the bed she had practically been shackled to for the past three days. And presumably rest.

Again.

Rest. She never thought she could hate one word so much. As if she hadn't rested enough during the five days she was in the hospital. And the subsequent three days she spent lazing around at home doing nothing in bed, waiting for her stomach to stop digesting itself and for her brain to quit banging itself against her skull.

It was only now that she felt well enough to get up and run herself a bath she needed desperately. Uchiha Itachi was, quite literally, getting in her way. He stood in front of her bedroom door, arms crossed, stance square, like some sort of glorified bouncer.

He was obviously not trying to help.

Her eyebrow twitched. What right did he have to tell her what to do? He might be her occasional team captain, and her even more occasional sparring partner—but their relationship was restricted to a professional level. He was not her friend (and definitely not her boyfriend, as much as Ino wanted to believe) nor had he ever shown her any inkling of concern beyond what was expected of him.

He was, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger to her. And to insinuate that he knew better she did, especially about her own body? Who the hell was the medic here?

Sakura had no intention of taking this lying down. "Or what?" she bit back sharply. "Are you gonna make me, Uchiha?"

The 'taichou' was forcibly held back. In missions Itachi might have her complete respect and obedience, but otherwise Sakura was not afraid to speak her mind.

She glared at him with no small amount of hatred.

It was his fault she got poisoned in the first place. She was mercilessly forced to join his team yet again on a weeklong mission to Iwa. She had resisted at first, telling him that her work at the hospital was far too demanding, that she couldn't abandon her duties for a day, much less a whole week, especially with the influenza outbreak among the civilians that came with the rainy season—but he was adamant.

Itachi had overreacted (in a dignified, holier-than-thou manner, of course. No one could expect less from an arrogant Uchiha like him) when he received her answer. He came straight to the Hokage Tower and informed her shishou that she would take him with her, or he would go with no medic at all.

And so she was pulled out of her rounds and told to prepare for departure at dawn.

Tsunade-sama obviously valued this one captain's 'safety' more than welfare of Konoha's villagers.

If that's how he wanted to play, she thought then, so be it. Once she got this jerk out of her hair she was going to march in to the Hokage's office and air out her numerous grievances—mostly about the way the village hierarchy spoiled Uchiha Itachi more than he had any right to be, prioritizing his unreasonable needs above the everyone else's duties and responsibilities. Konoha did not simply bend over backwards for one of its shinobi, however talented and prodigious and gifted he may be. It was not as though he were Hokage.

Then she would request for a long term assignment to some obscure village in an even more remote area.

That should teach him a lesson on manners he obviously lacked. Despite what he believed, the world did not revolve around him.

The mission went along well, as expected. Sakura could not understand the reason why Itachi wanted her to be in his team so much for this particular assignment. Her contribution to the work amounted to waiting in the sidelines looking pretty as Itachi and the rest of the team did all the fighting.

It was only near the end of the mission that she found out her purpose.

The band of missing nin they were to eliminate proved to be a little more troublesome than previously thought. They were moderately skilled, as expected of ANBU targets, but not that difficult.

The real threat was their leader. A tiny little slip of a boy, fresh out of adolescence, he was more dangerous than he seemed. He moved quickly, and with nimble fingers he was able to throw senbon (his weapon of choice) with pinpoint accuracy to his target's vital regions. Coated with the venom of a rare, indigenous snake native to Kumo, this poisoned weapon was especially dangerous—rendering the victim immobile within minutes, unconscious within an hour, dead within a day.

She was to stay behind and be ready, at any point in time, to neutralize the toxin should someone get hurt—at least enough to keep him alive until they could get home.

Or so she had found out in the sixty-second briefing Itachi had given her before he and the others went to fight them.

She hid herself in the canopy of the trees, watching, waiting behind the leaves when the incident occurred. Itachi had been too busy casting a genjutsu on the leader to notice he had a clone sending a needle straight to his neck. Realizing it wouldn't be enough to tell him to get out of the way, given his position wasn't conducive to evasive maneuvers, she promptly dropped down from her perch and shielded him from the weapon.

With her arm.

Which was kind of stupid on her part because god knows there were a thousand ways she could have deflected the attack (a kunai would have worked nicely, or perhaps the scabbard of her ninjaken) but it was moving far too quickly and there was no time left to think.

So she did what she had to do.

The aftereffects of her heroic deed (however unwillingly it was done) need not be discussed.

It was all his fault, really. If he hadn't forced her to come along with him in the first place she would have avoided this trouble altogether. Someone else could've taken her place and caught the senbon for him. That would've been real nice.

Had she known that he would only push her around so imperiously as a result of her one good dead perhaps she wouldn't have come to his rescue.

On second thought, she should have just let the senbon lodge to his throat, then run like hell. She should have just let him die, this annoying, irritating asshole.

An image of a sputtering, convulsing, half-dead Itachi flashed before her mind, leaving her appeased for now.

If looks could kill, he would have been dead a hundred times over.

You could be charged with insubordination, you know. A shinobi's duty does not end once a mission is done. A voice in her mind commented wryly, but she could hardly care at the moment. He was insulting her intelligence, in her own home where she didn't recall allowing him entry.

Sakura pushed him off her, determined to ignore how good his toned chest felt against her palms, how she had missed running her fingers (secretly) along his skin whenever she healed him after a particularly rigorous training session, how she liked having him look at her so intensely with those dark eyes of his.

The last thing she wanted to do was to ogle him while he dared to boss her around as if she were his lapdog. It didn't help that she was attracted to him. Physically, of course. There was some anomaly—or was it a blessing?—in those Uchiha genes that made them all so unfairly gorgeous.

She had to remind herself that she was mad at him.

"Get out of my house. Now."

The damn bastard took her words as a challenge.

He threw her own words back at her. A sly smirk twisted his lips. "Make me, Sakura."

His voice sent a shiver down her spine, making her step an inch backwards. She bit the inside of her cheek and hoped he wouldn't notice.

There was something carnal in the way he said her given name, in the way he rolled his tongue with the 'r' and extended the vowels, in the way he made it seem as if he were so intimately familiar with her when they hardly even glanced at each other outside missions.

Sakura didn't like it one bit.

She looked over his shoulder (which was a difficult feat, considering his height), and debated which one she valued more: her sanity, or her apartment?

Unlike the rest of Konoha who fell at his feet without any reservations, she had half a mind to give this arrogant Uchiha a trashing he deserved.

The decision was made quickly. She clenched her right hand slowly, giving the impossible man in front of her ample warning should he happen to change his mind and flee. Chakra flowed smoothly towards every one of her fingers with the ease of experience, and Sakura felt a very small amount of pity for her latest victim.

And then she aimed straight for his gut.

It was an open secret that Sakura did not like him. Like most women her age she found nothing to admire behind his (admittedly) appealing facade. He was brutally honest, irreverent, and perhaps a little arrogant—but that was fine with him. He wasn't looking to win friends. As long as he got the job done he didn't care about what people thought of him.

Granted, it wasn't the kind of attitude expected from the heir of an esteemed, traditional clan—but in light of his capabilities the elders let him be. What mattered was not how he treated those beneath him, but rather those above.

Thankfully, Itachi was good at keeping up appearances. He was patient enough to know that sometimes it was best to just grin and bear with matters he would rather not deal with.

But his patience could only stretch so thin. He had never been in the proximity of a woman for such an extended amount of time, and Itachi was beginning to feel the strain on his nerves.

By his calculations he had been by her side for most of the past three weeks already, and as far as he knew his current situation would not be changing in the foreseeable future. Sakura was getting better by leaps and bounds, yes—but despite his limited knowledge in the medical arts it was clear to him that she was overexerting herself, even if she just wanted to get out of her room.

In such a state she would only prove to be an inconvenience to those around her (namely him, especiallyhim) and even more so to herself.

Her restlessness was understandable, he supposed. Few shinobi were avid fans of bed rest—most abhorred the feeling of uselessness that came over them during the period of recovery, to the point where they avoided medic-nin like the plague.

Her resistance and overall displeasure came as no surprise to him. What did, on the other hand, was his complete and utter apathy towards the situation. Even her catty, snide remarks did nothing to faze him. Normally he wouldn't have tolerated them, least of all respond to them with startling efficiency.

Strangely enough he found her rather endearing like this.

Worse, when she decided to get a little more violent he just felt vaguely amused.

He caught her fist without batting an eyelash, chakra and all, repelling it with his own. He did not even wince.

"Your chakra is weak," he said. "And you're delirious.

"Get back to bed."

"Don't you dare think you can tell me what to—mmffph!" Her words were promptly cut off as he pulled her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, unmindful of the fists that pounded his back relentlessly. "You're not my mother!"

At least, to that statement he could agree with her. He found himself having a healthy dose of respect for this woman's mother. How could she have possibly put up with this kind of stubborn idiocy for all of twenty years? He could barely stand it for twenty minutes.

"I'm not."

"Then what do you think you're doing?"

"I was ordered by Tsunade-sama to make sure you don't overexert yourself until the poison is completely out of your system. I had no choice."

A total lie.

But of course, Sakura didn't need to know that.

It had nothing to do with the Hokage, actually, his almost hawklike vigilance towards her wellbeing. Itachi felt obliged to watch over her now, at least until she got better. He had not been inclined to like or dislike her before the mission—she was skilled, and he needed someone skilled to accompany his team to ensure their survival on particularly dangerous missions. Putting two and two together she was the only logical choice for him to take.

Unfortunately it just so happened that Sakura hated his guts. But then again Itachi hardly concerned himself with the opinions of others. He needed her, so he took her. He knew she was professional enough to set aside her disdain for the sake of the job.

And then it happened. So quickly he had hardly felt the stirring of the air, the senbon flew towards him—only to be deflected by the one person he least expected to watch his back. With her own body, of all things.

When he felt her body crumple to the ground he knew he had to finish the fight fast, if he wanted her to live. He eliminated the target with a ball of Amaterasu (something he, belatedly, realized should have done in the first place), and the others as well, ignoring the strain on his eyes.

It occurred to him, around a hundred miles on the way back home, when he was forcing himself to stop ticking down the clock in his mind, that he owed her his life now.

The thought sent an unpleasant shiver over him. He did not like the idea that his life had, even for a single moment, rested completely in her hands. He could have been the one poisoned if she hadn't decided to swoop down to his rescue.

It had been particularly stupid of her to do so—if it were up to him he would have allowed the senbon to head for its target, knowing that at least he would have the skills to save the victim. However as it was none of them could help her, especially against a poison of this caliber.

So for the first time in many years, Itachi prayed. He hoped she would live long enough to reach Konoha, if only to let him repay his life debt to her.

Life debts were so common amongst shinobi, given the nature of their work, that it was almost inconsequential. But this was the first time he had incurred one himself, and he was not the kind of person who forgot favors easily.

That was how he guilted himself into the position of unwanted babysitter.

Itachi promptly set her down on her bed with no further reservations, doing so carefully so as to avoid unsettling her stomach yet again. Sakura's eyes were still half-lidded in anger as he sat down on the armchair beside her.

His tone was soft. "Stop making things difficult."

She pouted like a petulant child, too sick to do anything else. The chakra-infused punch had taken much out of her. "You're the one being difficult."

"Let's make things easier for both of us. Just tell me what you want so I'll get it and you can rest."

"You wish for a temporary truce?"

Itachi quirked a brow. "Was there ever a war to begin with?"

Sakura snorted. "Point taken." She turned her body towards him. "You can tell me why you're still here. I yelled at you and attacked you but you don't seem very eager to let yourself out—even when I tried so very hard to make things difficult for you. I'm not exactly an easy patient to attend to."

"I told you; the Hokage sent me here to make sure your recovery is going along well."

"Bullshit," she coughed. "Everyone knows you operate on your own terms. As much as the elders like to think you're just another one of their pawns, you're hardly any more submissive than Naruto is.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure you like me as much as I like you—which is a considerably minuscule amount."

Despite himself, Itachi chuckled. "True, on both accounts. I have my own reasons."

Sakura moved closer to him, fingers clutching the edge of the bed. "And will you tell me those reasons?"

"Perhaps. Maybe another time."

She let out a small smile, undeterred. He wasn't exactly making conversation easy, but she would take what she got. "I think this is the first decent conversation we've ever had."

"Dreadful, by my standards."

"But interesting enough to keep me engaged."

A comfortable silence settled between them, with neither trying to initiate further conversation. She was tired, and so was he. She slumped further into the sheets beside him as he leaned his head back on the armchair. Itachi acquainted himself with the plain whiteness of the ceiling, interspersed with several brown leak spots. Sakura made a project of analyzing the patterns printed onto her comforter.

This brief respite from their rather strenuous activities earlier gave both a chance to calm themselves: Itachi, from the tendril of anxiety that had been nagging at him ever since this whole ordeal started; Sakura, from the irritation that had been plaguing her ever since she woke up this morning.

Now with an open, peaceful mind, the ill kunoichi chanced a look at the man beside her, thinking about how he had, in his own way, tried to help her get better these past few days (despite her constant refusals)—nursing her, feeding her, watching over her.

Maybe he was not as horrible as she once thought.

She told him, "I'm surprised, you know. I didn't expect you could actually be quite agreeable—when you're not trying to be an ass, I mean."

"I was not trying to be an ass," he said defensively. "I was only being myself."

She stifled a laugh, so he was completely hopeless. "I'd rather not say this—but you are aware how pathetic that sounds, right?"

"I apologize if my behavior is not palatable to your sensibilities."

"I daresay your behavior is hardly palatable to anyone's sensibilities. I guess that's why you have little to no friends."

"Well, you are talking to me now, are you not?"

"We wouldn't even be having this conversation if I hadn't been forced—" a wave of dizziness hit her, and she clutched her head tightly.

He drew nearer to her in response, overcome with yet another surge of worry towards the girl. It was certainly unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. Tentatively he sat on the bed and cradled her in his lap. She drew to his warmth, clutching the fabric of his shirt.

The roles had been reversed: from him depending on her now she was depending on him. He had little idea how to handle the responsibility. In fact he did not have any experience dealing with invalids. The last time he'd was even close to caring for someone sick was with an injured young Sasuke. Even then the entire situation was resolved within an hour, and his mother had returned to take care of the mess he had made trying to bandage him.

He was unnerved by how helpless he was, and how he couldn't do anything to help—but he still had to try either way.

"Do you need a painkiller?" he whispered lowly.

Her answer was barely audible. "That would be nice, yes."

Itachi let Sakura wait out the pain for a few moments, until she released her tight hold on him. He gingerly detached himself from her, making sure she was as comfortable as possible before he left in the direction of her bathroom. He found it easily—having been confined to her home for the past few days he was now knew its layout like the back of his hand, perhaps a bit too well for his taste.

He retrieved the bottle of aspirin with little fuss and set out into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Before long he was back at her side, watching her curiously as she seemed to doze off.

Sakura was certainly an interesting individual. The tough, stubborn attitude she put on when dealing with others was nothing but a facade. She was deep down, still a kindhearted woman with a big heart, willing to make friends with anyone and everyone around her. Quick to anger, quick to forgiveness—it seemed that there was much more to her than her work as a medic, to both the hospital and his team.

Again he was baffled by his renewed awareness of her. Surely it wasn't only because of his life debt towards her—hell, he had saved Shisui's life on multiple occasions but it wasn't as though his cousin developed an unhealthy interest in him afterwards.

His train of thought was halted abruptly when she stirred. "Itachi, is that you?" she said, eyes moving restlessly beneath the lids.

He came at her call, setting down the medicine and water at the bedside stand. He helped her sit up with strong, sure hands. He then gave her the painkiller and watched as she washed it down with small, slow gulps. Laying her down on the bed again, he arranged the sheets until it covered her suitably.

She closed her eyes with no further delay.

It irked him, how easily she seemed to feel comfortable in his hold, how quickly she yielded to his instructions, how she just let him guide her with no further fuss, despite the fact that had never moved past the level of acquaintances (that was, until today).

He had never been one to give out his trust so easily, and to see someone give it completely to him without second thoughts interested him.

She was willing to give him a chance, as evidenced by her willingness to initiate (and sustain) small talk with him, despite their less-than-diplomatic confrontation mere minutes ago. And for that, he felt inclined to at least reciprocate the kindness by somehow extending his gratitude for her saving his life and sincere efforts in being generally nice to him (which, contrary to popular opinion, did not happen to him on a regular basis).

It took him a few minutes to ascertain she was completely asleep. Tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear, he bent down and whispered against her skin. "Thank you."

a/n: as this is the first story i've posted in months i'm quite insecure about how the plot progressed. please tell me what you think.