Archive of Our Own ^beta

The remote island of Enoshima marked the southernmost region of the continent.

It lay off the coast of Fire Country, only nominally part of its borders, and beyond was nothing but an expanse of ocean until the next continent over. Vast stretches of the island were uninhabited, and the native population that remained against a steady exodus for economic opportunity on the mainland was concentrated in a small village inland. In recent years, a niche tourism industry had created a seasonal ferry route, bringing in wealthy civilians looking to lounge on beaches fringed with eco boutique hotels.

All in all, an ideal place to entomb the living remnant of Konohagakure’s darkest secret.

Sakura stood at the front of the ship, watching the approaching island as it grew in size, filled out in color and detail.

Somewhere on this isolated patch of land, Uchiha Itachi was expecting her.

The docks were small and underdeveloped, salt stained wood and rusted metal. There was a thin strip of uninviting beach on one side, the remainder bordered by pitted rocks that caught the ocean as it came in and threw it up in sprays. Sakura surveyed the area as she disembarked, spotting a man waving at her by a small administrative building. He jogged over, her pink hair like a beacon in that deluge of beige, blue and brown. These were the times when its enduring ability to announce her entrance before she could was a blessing rather than a curse.

“Haruno-sama?”

“Oh, hello,” Sakura said with a smile, shaking his outstretched hand. “Sakura-san is fine. You must be the guide? Thank you so much for coming.”

“It's no trouble. I’m Katsuro,” he replied warmly, beckoning her to follow as he began to walk inland, continuing the usual pleasantries.

“It'll be about an hour and a half by foot. Bit of a remote place that your friend lives in. I have to warn you, the path won't be great with all the rain lately. Hope you brought some good shoes!”

“Don't worry about me,” she laughed. “By all means, lead the way.”

They set off, and after Katsuro had given her a rundown of the history of the island and it’s culture and geography—he worked as a tour guide part-time—she posed the question that had been on her mind since the moment she’d received this mission. It was a long walk, and she was growing more nervous with each passing minute as they fell into a comfortable silence, focusing on their steps as the dirt road filled with muddy holes. They'd taken a turn off the main road from the docks, and the homes grew further and further apart until none could be seen at all.

“What's he like? The man who lives there.”

“Well, he keeps to himself, but he's very polite. You don't get many handsome strangers moving here, so he caused a bit of a stir when he showed up in town,” he said, chuckling.

She nodded, unsure what to say to that.

It had changed everything when the true nature of the massacre surfaced from Danzo's bloodied mouth. Stranger than fiction, the way it had all unravelled. Danzo was an old man like any other, and old men might grow ill, they might have cardiac episodes in front of well-meaning bystanders. They might be sent to hospitals where, prone on a bed, bandages might reveal an arm studded with unseeing eyes. She hardly would've believed it, had she not been in that room herself.

Few things could turn Sakura's stomach, after everything she'd seen. But she'd thrown up that night, kneeling on the floor of the staff bathroom.

As for the rest, the information was on a strict need to know basis, and Sakura was aware of only the most basic facts. They had found Sasuke, who found his brother shortly after, and Itachi had remained in Akatsuki as a double agent until the outbreak of the war, revealing nearly a decade of secrets before he bowed out from the stage. He'd been delisted from the Bingo books not longer afterwards, curated rumours of his death condensing into undisputed fact. She had never expected their paths to cross, but she'd known Sasuke's brother was out there somewhere, alive.

The tragedy of it struck her. She found it difficult to imagine him, perpetrator and victim, enduring everything he had done and that had been done to him, moving forward with his life. But Itachi had clearly found a reason to live through the ruin, for him to request medical treatment now.

“The house is up there,” Katsuro said, pointing uphill. “Get to the end of this road here. There'll be a footpath through the forest, it'll open up and turn into a bit of a climb, but there's only one way there and nothing else in the area. You can't miss it.”

Sakura thanked him, tipping him with some ryō from her packs and set off. The path was narrow and choked by undergrowth that closed over it entirely in sections, so that she was wading through a sea of leaves and branches.

Really, did no one ever come up here? Was Uchiha Itachi a bonafide hermit?

That was the whole point, she supposed.

Finally an unassuming one-storey house appeared ahead, at the top of a gentle slope, the surrounding plateau supporting trees where the rocky inclines had not. Sakura didn’t linger despite her nerves. Itachi had to have sensed that she was there already, and wringing her hands outside like a nervous school girl wouldn’t make for a strong first impression as his care provider. She was the best medic-nin in the world without question, and against all odds, Uchiha Itachi was not her enemy.

She took a deep breath, steeling her nerves, then strode up to the door and gave it a firm knock. The door opened a moment later, and there he was.

How she'd ever mistaken that pale imitation of him for Sasuke was beyond her. Seeing Itachi now made her acutely aware that he'd only been a teenager, his slender form swallowed in an Akatsuki cloak, at a time when the thought of him had filled her with awe and terror. The shadows under his eyes were prominent, though perhaps less deeply lined than they had been before. He was wearing glasses, wire framed and scholarly.

“Hello, Haruno-san. I hope your trip went smoothly.”

Sakura supposed it was a bit much to expect him to smile, but his voice was low and civil, like any person greeting a visitor at their door. She knew he was aware that she'd been his little brother's teammate, and that he'd agreed to being treated by her specifically. They were otherwise perfect strangers, and she managed a smile as polite and restrained as a perfect stranger deserved.

“It did, thank you.”

“The rain can come suddenly, at this time of year,” he intoned, stepping aside. “Please, come in.”

His feet were bare. What an odd thing to notice, but they were. Sakura took off her shoes and placed them neatly into a rack beside his, feeling almost sorry to see the damp dirt she'd tracked in despite her efforts.

“It’s a small space. This room on the right is free for your use, though I understand other accommodations have been arranged for you. My room and the bathroom are both at the end of the hall, and the living space and kitchen are on the left. Do you have any questions at the moment?”

She shook her head. “Not currently.”

“Take whatever time you need, I'll go make tea.”

Sakura followed him into the living room, taking in the sparse furniture. It was clearly an aging property, but fastidiously clean. The plants in his house looked to be in the peak of health, which abruptly reminded her that she'd forgotten to water the straggling plant that had been Ino's housewarming gift before she left. There were three shelving units, only one of which contained books and scrolls. The others had an expectant look to them, as if waiting to be filled.

“I’d like to get started right away, if you don’t mind. We don’t have much time to waste.”

That was true. But she also had no idea what she was supposed to do in Uchiha Itachi’s home if not work. Relaxing was off the table, no matter how nice the views were from his windows. The living room, facing the path she'd come from, looked straight down to the edge of the water.

"We'll start with a conversation so I can better understand the condition of your health. I've read what you've reported thus far in the mission brief, but I'd like to hear it from you directly, and I'll have a few questions as well. After that, we'll proceed with a physical exam. Does that sound alright to you?"

“Of course,” he assented, with a nod.

He led her past the sofa to a small, two person dining table near the open entrance to the kitchen. After he returned with a pot of jasmine tea, Sakura had him walk her through the progression of his disease and the various medications and treatments he’d received over the years. If she'd constructed the timeline correctly, the first symptoms had appeared almost immediately after he defected. The timing was uncanny, she thought, as though it were a stain that began to spread on the night that his life had gone to pieces.

“Pein eventually became aware of my illness. By then, it had become impossible to conceal. The medical care in Rain wasn’t on par with Konoha, but they were professionals. The medication they prescribed is what I've continued to use.”

She went still, the mention of Akatsuki catching her by surprise. The reality of the patient that sat across from her made itself doubly known, and she felt, not for the first time, the extraordinary nature of their situation. Itachi gave her a questioning look.

“I’m surprised to hear that you were offered treatment,” she admitted.

“Is it surprising? I was an asset to the organization. It was against their best interest to have me performing at less than my full capacity.”

“Right, that makes sense. I suppose I just thought it was a situation where you were cut loose if you couldn't keep up.”

“I wouldn't have been easy to replace.”

He said it without a hint of pride or offence, and Sakura realized, cheeks warming, that she'd suggested that he couldn't keep up. She looked around the room, wanting to move on as quickly as possible from her blunder.

“Right, I think I've gathered enough information for now. We can conduct the exam on the couch, unless there's somewhere else...?”

“There's the bedroom as well, if you'd prefer that.”

Sakura definitely did not prefer that.

“The couch is fine. Do you have a stool? Otherwise I can sit on the coffee table.”

“I do, give me a moment to fetch it.”

She unpacked her things while Itachi went to the kitchen to get the stool for her, then pushed back the coffee table to make space for it as he returned. The room felt unbelievably small as they manoeuvred around each other.

“You can sit up for the first part of the exam, it’s the standard check up you should be familiar with.”

This, Sakura could do. This was so familiar she could've done it in her sleep, and she felt herself easing up as she went through the motions, the practiced questions. Uchiha Itachi stopped being himself and started being another body to examine with medical objectivity.

“I'd like to take a look at your internals now,” she said, fishing a fresh scroll from her medical bag. “I'll be using chakra for this portion of the exam. Would you remove your shirt and lie back please?”

Itachi gripped the back of his collar, pulling it clear over his head. Pausing with the sleeves still caught on his forearms, the fabric pooling in his lap, he regarded her.

“It’s incurable,” he said, not unkindly. It was a simple statement of fact, though he'd said as much already.

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Itachi nodded and laid back on the couch without another word, closing his eyes. It gave her a moment's reprieve as she approached to survey his body and the topography of its scars. These were scars that might belong to any shinobi, though perhaps more scarce than usual for one of his tenure—a testament to his ability, if anything.

Unbidden, her mind saw what was familiar and what was alien, and drew up comparisons. Sasuke was shorter, broader and more compact, though not by a wide margin. Physically, very little about Uchiha Itachi reflected what she knew he was capable of. He wasn't a big man, his frame slender and trim in a way that suggested he had difficulty putting on real bulk, though he had told her he'd lost weight over the past year, a mixture of his illness, a largely pescatarian diet, and less physical exertion than he was used to.

Her hands found his torso, palms flattening to push chakra into his body. She examined each organ, pausing intermittently to jot notes and draw simple diagrams. It was slow and methodical work, and they didn’t speak. His lymphatic system was alarmingly inflamed, and his lungs were badly scarred, the healthy tissue struggling to pass air. He hadn't overstated the severity of the problem, and Sakura found herself amazed that he'd been able to fight at the level he had little more than a year ago.

She pulled back to stretch her back with a noticeable crack, deeply missing the adjustable tables at the hospital, then realized with a start that an hour had passed. Itachi hadn’t made any of his discomfort visible, though she knew what she’d been doing couldn’t have felt pleasant.

“I think that’s enough for today. Thank you for your patience.”

“It wasn’t a problem,” he replied, sitting upright. Sakura gathered her thoughts as he put his shirt back on, careful to fix her face into a veneer of calm professionalism.

“As you know already, there's extensive scarring in your lungs. I believe your previous medical care providers were correct in identifying it as a degenerative lung disease brought on by an autoimmune disorder. I can heal some of the damage, which should have an immediate effect on some of your symptoms. My hope is that it'll slow the progression of the disease as well. I have some ideas for medication that I’ll look into when I return to Konoha, but the degeneration up to this point is irreversible.”

She paused to allow him to absorb her words, watching for a flicker of some emotion, some reaction, but there was nothing there to find.

“As for a more permanent solution, I can’t say at this time. I’ll take some samples tomorrow to analyze at the hospital, so we'll know more when I return in two weeks for a follow up. My options are limited here without additional equipment, but I have some ideas. We can start with a healing session tomorrow, that’ll give me a better sense of how to proceed.”

“I understand, thank you.”

She searched his face, and a sense of déjà vu came over her. How much time had she spent looking at Sasuke, attempting to decipher his opacity? Their resemblance was obvious, but Sasuke’s imperturbability had always held a violence in a language all his own underneath. Itachi simply looked tired.

“I’m sorry. I suppose I haven’t told you anything you don’t already know.”

“No, Haruno-san. I appreciate your assessment, and your solutions. You’ve come a long way from home.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, diverting her eyes to her scroll, a surge of empathy coming over her. That home had been his once, too. “I’d do the same for any fellow shinobi of the Leaf.”

Kami. Why had she said that? Sakura finished the sentence she’d been writing down, then glanced over in time to catch the corner of his mouth kicked up, wry. Itachi stood from the couch, and she found that she didn't quite like the look of him, looming over her with his dark hair, dark clothes and even darker eyes.

“Thank you. Would you like dinner now? Or later?”

“Pardon?”

“That is, if you’d like to have dinner here. I need to cook for myself regardless and you must be hungry after your journey. There's one restaurant in town, but it's closed on Sundays.”

The idea of sitting through a dinner with him was, quite frankly, more daunting than half the missions she’d taken in her life. Where had that been in the mission requirements? Ability to sit through an entire dinner with one of two Uchiha alive, who’d played a main role in ensuring that distinction. What would they even talk about? His brother?

“There’s no pressure to stay,” Itachi said.

She’d let the silence drag on a moment too long, and suddenly felt a crippling pang of guilt at his reassurance. She didn't want him to think that she was uncomfortable around him, even if it was true.

“Oh, um—yes, of course. I’ll stay for dinner then. Thank you, Uchiha-san.”

He nodded.

“I just need to pick up some ingredients from the market. Would you like to come with me?”

The village, if it could even be called a village, more like a smattering of buildings surrounded by undeveloped forest, was so small it didn't have a proper grocery store. One humble looking convenience store sold essentials and a small selection of foods. The rest came in by boat once a week and was carted into the small square that marked the heart of the region, where it joined the goods produced by local farmers.

She couldn’t help but stare.

Uchiha Itachi was tapping melons for quality, buying napa cabbage, and saying hello to the sellers, who he greeted by name and who greeted him in turn as Haruka, the alias he’d adopted. Sakura thought about what an improvement that name was to his own. A nice, pleasant, boring name. Who named their own kid Itachi? Ridiculous.

Almost as ridiculous as naming a pink-haired girl Sakura.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, all too abruptly, then recovered. Perhaps honesty was the best policy. “It’s just—it’s a little strange, seeing you like this.”

He considered the head of cabbage in his hand, turning it over to examine the other side, then looked back at her.

“Seeing me shop for groceries?”

She blinked.

Was he teasing her? His expression hadn’t changed in the slightest. Feeling a little off balance, she took a moment to fortify her common sense. Obviously he shopped for groceries. And cooked. Hell, he might even use the bathroom sometimes. If she was going to continue returning here for the foreseeable future, she needed to get used to the fact that Uchiha Itachi was both human and effectively retired.

“It’s just that I've always pictured you under... different circumstances.”

He smiled slightly, deposited the cabbage into his bag and moved onto perusing the potatoes.

“I understand. Do you enjoy sukiyaki?”

The turnabout was sudden, but she seized onto the opportunity to divert the conversation. And she did like sukiyaki, though if she didn't, she wouldn't have told him so. Itachi could put war rationed sludge into a bowl and she'd eat it without complaint.

"Do you like it here?" Sakura asked, after returning from a detour for what little there was to see of the village and they'd begun their walk back.

It was a different route than the one she'd taken from the docks, the village being further inland. They'd used chakra to run to the market before things packed up, but now they took the path back at a steady pace. The road seemed to stretch on forever, though she guessed that the walk would take only half an hour. The frogs had started to croak, softening the uncomfortable silence.

"I like it enough. It's peaceful."

"You don't ever feel... bored?"

"I don't mind a little boredom."

She could understand that. After the war, barely eighteen, she'd been more than ready to put her feet up and never experience another eventful moment again in her life.

"I guess we can all do with some of it. It's pretty here at least."

"I find things to occupy myself."

"Reading?"

"That's right, though it's difficult to acquire books here. Do you read, Haruno-san?"

To her relief, there was a minimal amount of tension after that. Her natural diplomacy took over and Itachi asked the right questions, polite and interested, though if he felt as queasy about the occasional lulls in conversation as she did, he certainly didn’t show it. The topics remained light, though unavoidably shadowed by their deliberate intent to keep it that way. They'd spent too long living in parallel to fool themselves into believing they knew nothing about each other.

While he cooked, graciously dismissing her offer of help, Sakura went to the room he'd pointed out earlier to examine her notes and work out a treatment plan. There was a sturdy desk, and a futon rolled up in the corner. He dropped off dinner in a tray not long afterwards, and she thanked him, relieved that they wouldn’t have to sit through an entire meal together.

Sakura worked for several more hours uninterrupted until a knock came at the door, and Itachi opened it to ask her if she wanted tea. There was a cup already in his hand, chamomile.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling a little like the words were beginning to rust on her tongue from repetition. He’d been the consummate host. She looked out the window into the dark, surprised by how much time had passed. “But I was about to get going.”

“As I said, you're welcome to stay here.”

“That's alright, I just lost track of time. Thank you for dinner, it was really good,” she said, and meant it.

Mostly she had her two meals a day at the hospital cafeteria, with the occasional outing with friends. At home she ate whatever she could cobble together from her pantry and forever empty fridge. If he was anyone else, Sakura might've joked that he had a bright future as a chef.

“I'll come back say, around ten o'clock tomorrow?” she asked, closing and stacking the medical tomes she'd brought, more to give her something to do than anything else.

“I'm an early riser, you can come whenever you'd like.”

Sakura returned just shy of ten the next day, a little annoyed, soaking wet, and muddied from a flash bout of rain that had come down while she walked. Even running with chakra hadn't saved her. It had drizzled, and then it had poured. Itachi greeted her at the door, then fetched her a towel to dry off.

The second examination went much like the last, yielding more clarity on the mechanism of the damage, but nothing more to its solution. Sakura wished she had access to the various diagnostic machines at the hospital, but Kakashi had made it clear that any intervention would have to take place on the island, the risk was too high to do otherwise, and Itachi himself had no desire to leave for additional treatment. She'd taken all the samples she could, and afterwards, had gone back to the room she'd worked in the day before to iron out more details.

“Uchiha-san, are you available to get started on the healing session now?”

It was late afternoon. She caught him standing in front of the open fridge, clearly considering what he was going to make for dinner. She had no idea what he’d been doing in the hours since their second exam, though she’d heard the back door open and close several times, and had come out around two o’clock to find a plate of cooling yakiudon left for her on the kitchen table. Sakura was starting to wonder if he did anything at all besides train and make food. And garden. Evidently.

She looked out the window. Were there fewer weeds in the back than there had been this morning?

“Yes, of course.”

They settled into the same position as the day before. Itachi's glasses got caught on his shirt as he took it off, and he struggled briefly to untangle them. Sakura watched with some amusement as he straightened them on his nose, but didn’t comment.

Three hours later, with a break in between to allow both of them to stretch their legs—her back was killing her, she’d need to find a better set up—they were done. As much as could be done for now, at least. The sessions would need to be spaced apart.

She pressed the stethoscope to his chest, the muscles in his stomach flexing at the cold.

“Take several deep breaths,” she said.

He did, and she listened intently to the sound. Satisfied with how much clearer his breathing was, Sakura straightened and passed him his shirt.

“How do you feel?”

Itachi breathed out, eyes closed, once more before he answered.

“Better than I have in a long time. Thank you.”

She wasn’t sure what to do with that genuine note of gratitude in his voice, but offered him a smile. Doing her job and doing it well almost always pleased her, and Uchiha Itachi appeared to be no exception.

Two weeks later, she was back on Enoshima.

Inclement weather had delayed the ships, and Sakura had arrived late in the evening with only a drop of dusk left in the sky. She'd gone by Itachi's to drop off his medication but hadn't gone inside, though he'd looked at her damp hair and asked if she wanted to come in to dry off. She'd declined, but told him she'd be back in the morning and set off to her rooms for the night.

The next day proceeded much like it had before. She performed an exam, then worked for several more hours in her room comparing what she'd found with a massive stack of medical journals she'd brought with her. Like the last time, she wanted to divide the healing sessions over two days to reduce the strain on his body. By tomorrow, she would've healed whatever was possible to heal, and they'd have to wait to see how his disease reacted to the new medication with follow up sessions once a month.

It had rained again. She mulled over trekking through the muck to get home in the dark, and then having to come here again the next morning through a new downpour. The sky was still heavy, laden with a shadow that promised more rain through the night.

“Would you mind if I stay here tonight?” she asked, as Itachi sat upright and pulled on his shirt, looking drained after the four hours she'd spent working on him. She'd been able to go longer, after the sessions two weeks ago had taken out the worst of it.

He answered without hesitation.

“Not at all.”

“Thank you. Honestly,” she continued, needing to elaborate, “it rains so much here and the path to your house turns into a bog. You live in the middle of nowhere, Uchiha-san.”

“It's monsoon season,” he replied, nodding in understanding. “The room is always available to you, Haruno-san. You don't need to ask.”

Sakura woke up by instinct at the crack of dawn, accustomed as she was to the early morning shifts at the hospital. But she hadn’t slept well that night, not thinking exactly, just coasting on a sea of muted noise. She'd lain awake, feeling incredibly aware that Itachi was there on the other side of the wall. The coughing was worse when he laid down, he'd told her, though she'd heard nothing that night.

Blearily she got up, registering the unmistakable sound of kunai hitting wood, rhythmic and comforting in its familiarity. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, changing into some clothes still wrinkled from their journey, then ventured outside into the garden.

Itachi turned immediately at her approach, a kunai still in his hand.

The garden was large and mostly empty, with one large willow tree and a shed in a far corner. Around him, the grass was tended to, the bushes neatly restrained. She was reminded of her father, who had picked up gardening in his retirement, attacking the front yard with enthusiasm. The back half of the garden here was still overgrown, though the worst of the weeds had been dealt with. Itachi hadn’t gotten to it yet, she supposed. She wasn't sure how long he'd been here.

“Good morning,” he greeted, “I hope you slept well.”

“I did, thank you.”

His eyes swept over her, neutral, and she felt herself warming, as though caught in her perfunctory white lie. She glanced down, instinctively searching for whatever it was that he wanted to see. Had she thrown on something with a stain? He averted his gaze.

“Don’t stop on my account. I’d like to observe, if you don’t mind.”

Itachi’s aim was unerring, as she’d expected. His movements were smooth as he moved himself through a series of katas, the mastery he had over his body on clear display. The sickness hadn't impacted how intentional, how graceful, his every move was. She had the thought that water seemed to suit him best, despite his clan's affinity for fire. By the end he was breathing more heavily, a faint sheen of sweat on his face. An exercise like this should’ve been nothing for a shinobi of his calibre, but they both knew that.

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm not pushing myself the way I once did, but my stamina has never been good,” he replied, lifting the neck of his shirt to wipe his face. “I feel there's been significant improvement since our session two weeks ago, though I think you’d do a better job of ascertaining that.”

She nodded, rather pleased that he’d demurred to her expertise. Itachi began gathering kunai from the wooden targets, efficient but unhurried.

“I’d like to do another examination this morning, if you don’t mind. There’s something I want to look at. We’ll leave the healing session for later, maybe late afternoon.”

“Let me finish clearing this and I’ll prepare breakfast.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I usually just have a cup of coffee.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“Sometimes I have a protein bar,” she added, feeling the absurd need to defend herself. He raised an eyebrow—really? Uchiha Itachi was going to judge her for her breakfast choices?—and returned to the task of collecting his kunai.

Breakfast, like dinner the night before, was delightful.

Everything was thoughtfully proportioned and nutritionally balanced, a traditional meal of broiled, salt-cured fish, blanched spinach in sesame sauce, miso soup, an assortment of little pickles and a bowl of fragrant, quality rice. She was starting to have an idea of his routine, early as it was. If not for his disease, Itachi’s habits were so rigidly healthy he could’ve been a monk, and probably lived to be as wrinkly and ascetic as the oldest among them.

After a second helping of pickles—she'd been caught looking at his—Sakura made an attempt to help with the dishes like she had the night before, but he plucked the tray from her hand as soon as she’d lifted it. A restrained back and forth ensued, like they were a pair of awkward acquaintances arguing over who would pay the bill at a restaurant.

“I can handle the dishes, Haruno-san. I don’t have anything pressing to do,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance as he carried it to the sink himself. “I’m certain you have other things to prioritize.”

Her jaw might’ve unhinged and dropped to the floor at his audacity. The things to prioritize. Like the issue of his terminal illness. Which he was now using as leverage. Was she misreading this? She didn't think so.

Her stubbornness rose up and manifested, with the speed of someone who dealt with difficult people on a day to day basis, into a sugary sweet smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Sakura went to his side, taking up the sponge before he had a chance.

“I’d actually prefer it if you go and lie down, Uchiha-san, to rest before the healing session. It puts a lot of strain on the body. We can start right after these dishes are done.”

He paused, but knowing when he'd lost, nodded and went to retreat.

Sakura was very satisfied with her progress. His progress. These things were a joint effort, though the real hero of the situation was her back, which was once again killing her after two consecutive days of hunching over. While she still had Itachi lying on the couch, marvelling as he breathed clearer than he had in years, she took the opportunity to bring up something that had lingered in her mind.

“Do you want me to take a look at your eyes? They seem to be under a lot of strain.”

She’d seen him press his fingers to his temples and the sockets of his eyes, particularly after wearing his glasses, having spent hours reading with them. He squinted frequently, and she was willing to bet that he was plagued by migraines.

“It’s fine. I haven’t used the sharingan in a long time. I don’t intend to ever use it again.”

There was a deep and unflinching certainty to his voice that he couldn’t hide, or didn’t bother to hide. Sakura felt as though she’d been eating a peach, sweet as summer, and had only just now hit the surface of its bitter kernel, mild though it was. She persisted.

“The damage can only recover naturally up to a certain point. I worked on my sensei’s sharingan, so I'm familiar with what happens and how to treat it. I know you used yours intensely, at one point.”

“During my time with Akatsuki, I never turned it off unless I was incapable of continuing.”

She stared at him. That was eight years.

“Never?”

“No.”

“I don’t ever want to see you judging my breakfast choices again,” she muttered, frowning deeply.

This cracked a real smile from him. She watched his face lighten with mirth, and found hers doing the same. He chuckled faintly.

“So will you let me? It can’t hurt. You’ll be able to read better,” she added, to sweeten the pot.

“Whatever you’d like, Haruno-san,” he replied, mild as you please. “I defer to your expertise on this matter.”

The state of his eyes was significantly worse than Kakashi's, though that came as no surprise given his advanced doujutsu. Thinking about Mangekyō made her think about Tsukuyomi, about what Itachi had done with it in the past, and she stopped that line of thinking there. Afterwards, leaning back against the couch, he watched her take down notes from the spontaneous treatment with interest.

“Can I take a look?” Itachi asked, inclining his head to the cluster of scrolls on the coffee table.

“Sure,” she replied, rifling through them to pick the least alarming one. Sakura didn't want him reading the worst of what was there, though he had to be more than capable of handling his own mortality after so many years spent ill.

Itachi took the scroll with a murmur of thanks, stretching the paper close to his face. He squinted, long lashes lowering over his eyes, and she had a feeling it had nothing to do with his eyesight but took the opportunity to hammer home the medical advice.

“What did I tell you? Your eyes definitely need treatment.”

“This has nothing to do with my eyes,” he replied dryly, looking up at her.

“Do you have something to say, Uchiha-san?"

She narrowed her gaze at him. His mouth twitched.

“Your writing is terrible. I can't read a single thing.”

It was true, but he didn't have to say it. He looked so much like Sasuke then, with that trace of a smirk on his mouth. She felt herself kindle with tongue-in-cheek indignation.

“I'm a doctor. I can read my writing just fine and that's what it's meant for. Most patients don't ask to read their notes, you know.”

“I apologize. I'm sure I'm not an easy patient to have.”

He was the easiest, in fact.

Itachi obeyed her every instruction to the letter, answered her questions articulately, and never offered a single complaint. The log she'd asked him to keep of his medication and health was neat, thorough and diligently penned multiple times each day. He even dated each entry by the minute. Unnecessary, but she appreciated the effort.

“Well, now that you know that, you can do better,” she remarked. “I'll be seeing you once a month, after all.”

While she was at home for the following month, Sakura contemplated the state of medical care on Enoshima.

The island possessed one small clinic with an aging civilian doctor, and the locals couldn't afford treatment on the mainland. If a medical emergency occurred, it was largely left to god. She'd written a letter to have Katsuro spread the word, and on her next excursion, took command of the clinic to treat patients pro bono. The rain caught her on the return trip, and even with Itachi’s sturdy umbrella, with the way it poured and the lack of proper paving, she’d run with chakra at her heels and muddied herself anyway.

Itachi was responding well to the medication, and the healing session had taken less than an hour. The rain continued to pour outside, which ruled out going to the beach or training, and Sakura had exhausted what she was able to do here without access to more texts and the hospital lab. Itachi didn’t have a television, and when she attempted to read, her eyes slid off the page and wandered.

“I apologize, there isn’t much to do here,” Itachi said, emerging from the kitchen with his habitual cup of tea. “You must be bored.”

“That’s alright,” she said, waving her hand. “I’m being paid for this, after all. I can’t complain.”

“Do you play shogi?”

She perked up.

“You have a board?”

He nodded, moving to the shelf and retrieving a box from the bottom. Though this raised the question of who Itachi played with. By himself?

“I asked Sasuke to bring it.”

Right. Of course Itachi wouldn’t sit here playing alone, switching seats. Though it wasn’t hard picturing him, glasses slipping down his nose, staring intently at the board with his serious eyes. The image seemed so lonely to her, but Sakura reminded herself that he didn’t seem to mind the isolation, probably enjoyed it even, and didn’t need her to feel sorry on his behalf.

“Oh, I see. Does Sasuke… come around often?”

“Not since I moved here.”

Maybe he did play by himself.

“Right, his mission. I haven’t seen him since he left either,” Sakura said, trailing off. Having no desire to linger on that topic, she continued. “So, are you any good?”

She moved from the couch to take a seat across from him as he set the game on the dining table. The board was old and well worn, but the wood was buttery smooth and of high quality. She emptied a bag to begin laying out the pieces, and realized the back of each one was carved and painted with a fading Uchiwa fan.

“I’m decent,” he replied, shoulder lifting in a careless shrug. “But I haven’t had an opponent in a long time.”

Decent turned out to be a gross understatement, because he demolished her. Her growing frustration seemed to be amusing to him, but he was wise enough to hide his smile behind his hands before she did something insane like crack the board over his head. She’d nearly gotten him on their fifth round and decided to call it a night there, wanting to end on the high of having very nearly beaten Uchiha Itachi, even if only in a game of shogi.

It was May, and Konoha was flush with the vibrancy of late spring. Idly, watching water drip from the eaves outside, Sakura thought with relief that after four months of rain in Edoshima, monsoon season was over at last. She'd finally stop showing up to Itachi's house drenched, tracking mud into his spotless home.

Well, he'd never complained. A mud room was called a mud room for a reason.

“Where's your mind at, girl?”

Tsunade had just returned from overwintering in warmer parts of the continent, fully mired in her golden retirement years. They were catching up at her shishou's favourite izakaya, with several bottles of sake empty between them. It was a rare occasion where the student had surpassed the master.

“I have a case, this patient, that's been occupying a lot of my time. It's a degenerative lung disease,” Sakura said, brow wrinkling as it did nearly every time she thought about it. “But it's strange. I can't find anything quite like it. They've had it since they were fourteen, and it's fairly advanced, but stable at the moment.”

“It's that Uchiha brat isn't it?”

“What? Sasuke? Of course not.”

“The other one.”

The mission was classified, owing to the fact that Itachi's existence itself was classified. There were fewer people who knew about him than there were fingers on her hands, and the former Hokage was one. Naturally, she had handled the situation directly when it arose.

“That's a breach of patient confidentiality,” she muttered.

“Tch,” Tsunade said, tossing back her cup of sake, giving her a look that showed Sakura exactly what she thought about her patient confidentiality. “Is it an autoimmune disorder? I have a contact in the capital that specializes in lung diseases of that variety. But I have to warn you, Sakura. I've never heard of anyone surviving it in the long term.”

Sakura nodded reluctantly, sighing.

“I know.”

“Treat this like any other case. Don't get too attached. You can't save everyone, you know this.”

The conversation lingered with her, like a piece of grit in an oyster that might offer up a pearl. Sakura had already written a long letter to the specialist Tsunade had mentioned, though she didn't expect it to bear any more fruit than the others she'd contacted already.

She was meant to go to Enoshima for her fifth visit the following morning, but she had a day off and couldn't help thinking that she might as well have gone early and arranged another med day. It took a day of travel alone to get to the southern coast from Konoha, which meant Sakura usually had to waste a night staying in the unimpressive small town from where the ferry set off.

With nothing better to do, she went to Konoha's shinobi shopping district to buy new kunai and senbon, hoping she wouldn't run into familiar faces. Laden with her supplies and thinking about whether she should call up Ino to unload her feelings in the vaguest, most mission-safe manner possible, she came upon a bookstore.

On a whim, she went inside.

Sakura hadn't read much besides medical tomes and journals since she was a child, even more so now, but she knew one voracious bookworm whose shelves she had spent some time perusing with little else to do. Itachi was keen on history and philosophy, as well as contemporary literature, poetry, mystery and some fantasy. She'd seen a few romances too, tasteful period classics.

She perused the shelves slowly, tilting her head sideways to read the titles, then realized she'd ended up in the adult section. Abruptly she thought of Kakashi, who even as Hokage shamelessly took meetings in his office with his orange book on his desk for kami and country to see. At least he had the sense to flip it over. Picturing Itachi reading Icha Icha was so absurd she barked out a laugh that had the cashier looking at her in confusion, and she picked up the first edition before she had time to change her mind.

She picked out two more in the end, a contemporary novel shortlisted for the Fire Nation’s most prestigious literary prize, and an absolute tome of a fantasy that was the first in a trilogy. Briefly she wondered when she'd gotten so comfortable with him that she could tease him like this. At some point, they'd started calling each other by name, though she couldn't pinpoint exactly how that had happened. They hadn't talked about it.

His illness had advanced in the past month, though his logs hadn't showed major changes in how he felt day to day. She'd upped the dosage of his medication, and he hadn't commented on her lack of explanation. There was no point in alarming him, though it felt as though he'd known.

They were friends, she thought.

She couldn't just give up on him.

“What is this?”

Sakura had put the orange novel at the bottom of the stack, saving the best for last as they say. Itachi regarded it warily, sizing up the dubious cover. She watched with extreme pleasure as the realization dawned on his face, and, unbelievably, turned into a flush that reached his ears.

Oh, this was good.

“A recommendation from the Sixth,” she said with studied innocence, absolutely certain now that she'd be bringing him the sequel next month, if only to draw another reaction from him.

“Right,” he said, managing to summon an accusatory look through his embarrassment. “Thank you for the books, Sakura.”

“You're very welcome,” she replied cheerfully. “Okay, dishes now?”

Admittedly, it could be annoying to have to wash up immediately after a meal, but if she didn't, Itachi would just go ahead and do them without her, which was unacceptable. Sakura had been raised with manners. You didn't just let someone cook for you and then kick back on the couch while they cleaned up.

She gathered up their dishware and deposited it in the sink. Itachi came up to her left and reached around her to open the drawer for a clean towel, the edge of his sleeve sliding against her lower back. Once there, then again as he withdrew his arm. Her spine stiffened with a shiver. They lapsed into an easy silence, though she felt that he was standing a little too close today, his elbow brushing faintly against her arm.

Sakura studiously ignored it and continued washing, passing everything to him to dry, letting the garden draw in her gaze and focus, past the pots of tomato seedlings lined up on the ledge. Yet he was so present, with his body beside hers. He was quietly drying dishes and exerting the gravity of a dying star.

“Have you…”

The question left her mouth before Sakura had a chance to be certain that she wanted to ask.

“Hm?”

Sakura watched his slender hands twist a washcloth into the cup he favored, one of the two that he kept in his bare cupboard. He set it aside and she passed over her cup next. Almost everything he had came in no more than a pair, one for himself, one for her. Well—one for whoever was expected, but she knew he received no one else and, without quite meaning to, had begun to think of all these things as hers.

Itachi was focused on his task. There was still opportunity to abort mission.

“Nevermind,” Sakura muttered.

He turned to look at her, curious now.

“What is it?”

“Ugh,” she groaned, “it was stupid, forget about it.”

Had he insisted, had he pried, she would’ve doubled down and left the question quashed in the hole it belonged in. But he spoke to her in that compelling sotto voce, that voice that seemed to turn her around in whichever direction he pleased, that had somehow convinced her into staying for dinner the first time despite her misgivings.

“You can ask me anything, Sakura.”

Reflexively, she pushed her hair from her face with soapy fingers.

“Okay, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I was wondering. Have you ever been with someone before?”

His hands stilled, and then he chuckled.

“What?” Sakura asked, eyeing him warily.

“I was expecting worse.”

She flicked the suds off her hands at him, which Itachi bore without flinching, and waited for his humor to subside. His demeanour changed then, turning inwards, thoughtful.

“Only once,” he began, “but we were so young. Her name was Izumi.”

In the gap between his sentences, her mind filled with questions about this stranger.

“She was an Uchiha.”

A fist clenched in her chest and dropped her heart to the floor.

“I found that I couldn’t end her life the way I had the others,” Itachi continued quietly, subdued. “I used Tsukuyomi to let her live out the life she wouldn’t be able to have. The life she wanted with me. She would’ve experienced it as if it were real, before she died.”

“Oh, Itachi,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head slowly. “It's almost a relief, in a way. I've never told anyone that before.”

“Your secrets are safe with me.”

He smiled at her, and it soothed, despite how raw she felt. He'd had over a decade for these truths to make a home in him. Sakura was only just now letting these intruders through her door. She'd lie awake for hours later thinking about this, she was sure.

“Do you think we might've known each other?” Itachi asked, and she understood what he meant.

“Well, I suppose I'd be your little brother's annoying teammate,” Sakura mused, and felt a curl of amusement creep in despite herself, “and you'd be his terrifying older brother.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I think I would've appreciated your influence on my foolish little brother.”

“So Sasuke's still an ass, in this hypothetical?” she asked, pursing her lips around a laugh.

“He always took a little too much after our father,” he replied, the reflection of a fond memory soft in his voice. But he looked far away, when she glanced at him then, and there was an unhurried lull as they finished the last of their washing.

Sakura hesitated to ask another loaded question, to invite more of this encroaching history, but they'd already pulled back the curtain and she wasn't ready to let it close. They were always so careful to keep to the boundaries of this house, this island. Their lives began and ended at the shore.

She wanted to see him clearly, she realized.

She wanted to hear all the things he'd told no one else before.

“Do you want to come back to Konoha?”

He paused.

“That’s a difficult question to answer.”

Another quiet settled in, but it was a gathering quiet that promised more. Sakura waited, letting herself examine the profile of his face as he looked outside the window. She was certain Itachi knew she was looking at him, even if his peripheral vision wasn’t what it once was.

“I wouldn’t accept a pardon if it was given to me. It's better for the village that things remain as they are.”

Sakura had thought about the logistics before and had come to the same conclusion, however much she disliked it, but that wasn't the answer she wanted to hear. She opened her mouth to interject, to clarify that she’d been asking about what he wanted—but it seemed he already knew.

He shut his eyes very briefly, and inhaled.

“Yes, Sakura. I would go back, if it was possible.”

It was a gorgeous day, and the evening sun slanted gold into the kitchen. Konoho lay to the north, in the direction of the brightest star in the sky. Somewhere beyond the forest, the shore, the sea, lay the village where they had both grown up. But she was welcomed there, and Itachi would never set foot inside its gates again. A sudden feeling of dread seized her. She'd be leaving so soon.

Sakura imagined what it might feel like to wait at the docks with him, to board the same ship, to have his company in that boring seaside town. It was so easy to see him standing in the aisles of the bookstore she'd visited. He'd probably find it amusing to hear Tsunade call him that Uchiha brat.

“I wish you could,” she murmured, watching the dish soap drain in a slow swirl.

He'd begun coughing blood again.

The attacks were coming more frequently now, typically within days. She had switched Itachi onto a medication recommended by Tsunade's specialist last month, but it was hard to say if the disease's progression was linear or worsened by in its inefficacy. Sakura hadn't decided if she'd change it back to what he'd taken before, or if he should go on a third, newer drug that had shown some promise in two cases she'd found.

At least one of the two was still alive.

The experimentation was nerve-wracking. She was performing it in real time, on a person she'd come to care deeply about, who she only saw once a month. She'd made up her mind that she'd shorten the period to three weeks and rearrange her schedule at the hospital accordingly. Even that seemed long when the time between her visits was plagued with thoughts of the worst coming to pass. Sakura did her best to hide her concern, but Itachi was unfazed, steady.

Often, it felt like everything she said was more of a comfort to herself than to him.

She was sitting on the back porch, in the shade, reviewing another long medical text on hereditary autoimmune disorders when she heard the sound of something hitting the ground.

“Fuck.”

Her eyebrows raised to her hairline.

She'd never heard Itachi swear before. Sakura stood up to look at him, standing in his rows of stunted plants, a wide-brimmed hat on his head that might've been comical on anyone else. But Itachi still had his broad shoulders, his quotidian elegance, his lovely face that drew stares from the summer tourists that had started coming in to coo at the quaint village. He'd been having groceries delivered by Katsuro to avoid the risk, however unlikely, of being recognized.

“What's the problem?”

“Whiteflies.”

“Oh.”

“They’re irritating,” he growled.

The look of sheer frustration on his face made her chuckle, and then his unforgiving glare set her off for real. She laughed until tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. Itachi removed a glove and threw it straight at her head, and she caught it without pausing her hysterics.

“Are you done?”

She leaned her elbows on the railing of the porch and looked smugly down at him, rather appreciating the view as he bent to pick up the garden shears he'd thrown.

“The great Uchiha Itachi, defeated by the humble whitefly,” she drawled. “They’d never believe me.”

“Yes. And spider mites. Thrips. Leaf miners,” he continued, frowning deeply as he considered the tomato plant staked in front of him. “I‘d rather deal with an army of missing nin. I've tried everything.”

“I guess I know what book I should bring back next time. Gardening For Dummies, maybe?”

The second glove came sailing at her. She cackled.

Three weeks later, bag laden with several books on gardening and a long, jargon-filled paper about holistic pest management on organic farms, Sakura was in Enoshima again.

It was well into summer now, but the sea winds kept the heat from gathering density and she wondered if the lack of humidity was worsening Itachi's symptoms. His logs didn't look good, and she kept looking at him, waiting to see what she'd only read about, in worry and expectation.

It happened, finally.

Itachi was standing at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables, by now an utterly banal scene for her, when he suddenly doubled over in a fit. One hand gripped the edge of the counter as he bent, and the other clamped over his mouth as he coughed. A drop of blood dripped through his fingers and splashed onto her bare foot. It seemed to go on forever as she stood anxiously beside him, hands bracing his chest and back.

He tried to speak, but she shushed him as they moved to sit on the couch. Several minutes passed quietly as she focused her mind on clearing the blood and mucus, healing the broken alveoli, soothing the flare up of inflammation. Sakura kept her stare fixed on his collarbone, watching their subtle movement as he breathed, a little easier each time.

When she raised her eyes, his half-lidded gaze pinned her under their strange light. For a moment she expected to see red, to see tomoe swim in their pool of blood. Her hands were still on his chest, under his shirt. Faintly, she registered his heartbeat, elevated and thrumming beneath her palms.

Sakura pulled back, not so quickly that it broke the spell, not as slowly as she would’ve liked. She didn't want to pull back at all. Her hands dropped into her lap, heavy as stones. Her head felt filled with static.

She had to get a grip. The attack had been so alarming that she hadn't even properly taken stock of the situation before she'd healed him. Taking a breath, she schooled her expression and passed him napkins from the coffee table. He wiped his mouth and hands.

“How are you feeling?”

Itachi blinked, quiet for a little too long before he spoke.

“Better, thank you.”

“Was this worse than the spasms you described in the logs this past month?”

“About the same,” he said, clearing his throat, and then, with a note of hesitation, “I try to resist it when I’m around you.”

Her anxiety returned in full force, dispelling the aura that remained.

“What?”

“I don’t want to worry you,” he spoke quietly.

“That’s—that’s. Are you stupid?” she asked, scowling now. “I’m your doctor, Itachi! You don’t need to spare my feelings.”

He nodded and let his head fall back, looking more exhausted, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him. The lids of his eyes lowered, the skin there so thin, the veins so blue.

“Promise me you won’t try to hide anything else.”

“I won’t.”

“I want to hear you say it,” she said firmly, crossing her arms.

Itachi smiled wanly and chuckled, his head tilting against the top of the sofa back. She'd attempted to be stern, but the way he looked at her was so indulgent, like she was a child demanding attention. His bangs had fallen into his face, and Sakura resisted the urge to push them back.

“I won’t hide anything else from you,” he acquiesced.

“Good. I’ll take care of dinner,” she said, standing up and moving towards the kitchen. “It’s not going to be as good as yours though.”

“I’ll like anything you make, Sakura.”

His low tenor rolled over her, gravelly and electrifying. Finding herself suddenly unable to speak, Sakura nodded and slipped into the kitchen before he might notice something amiss.

You know this.

She did know this.

Tsunade's warning had been too late then, and it was far too late now.

Eight months had now passed since Sakura first set off on a boat into the furthest reaches of Fire Country. All of Itachi's silly tomato plants had died, though he hadn't gone about clearing them yet, and occasional autumn rains had started coming down in advance of another monsoon season.

Four months ago, Itachi thoughtfully replaced the desk in her room with an adjustable standing desk that doubled as an examination table, doing wonders for her back. He’d ordered it three months earlier, but it had taken ages to arrange for transport to an island so remote, which meant he’d done it almost right away, when he'd noticed her discomfort in those early sessions.

Sakura had never really stood a chance.

She'd been absolutely fucked the moment she'd agreed to dinner.

He was lying before her now, the faintest stitch between his brows as they entered the second hour of a gruelling healing session, when suddenly he opened his eyes. There was a knock on the front door. They looked at each other, confused. Itachi raised his head, a strange expression on his face.

“I’ll get it,” she said with a shrug, curious to see what kind of visitor would show up at his door. Itachi had visitors besides her? That was news.

Absolutely nothing in the world could've prepared her for Sasuke standing on the other side, taller than she remembered, his hair grown out. He'd been masking his presence, but had clearly known she was there. She couldn't keep the shock off her face.

“Sasuke?”

“Sakura.”

To her relief, Itachi appeared immediately at her side.

“Sasuke,” he said, quiet.

“Nii-san.”

She stood there dumbly. Were they just going to stand there repeating each other's names over and over?

“Come inside,” Itachi said, having reassembled his composure more quickly than either of them.

She stepped aside to let Sasuke in, then followed the brothers into the living room. Sasuke’s eyes moved slowly from her to Itachi, utterly inscrutable. It isn't what it looks like, she wanted to say.

Except—wasn't it?

“I’m the medic Konoha sent for his treatment,” she explained, as they all turned to face each other. The air felt thicker, the walls that much more claustrophobic, like there wasn't enough room for the three of them and their baggage. The words they hesitated to say piled around them and exerted pressure.

“Ah.”

“I’m… going to go to the village,” Sakura finally said, when the silence had dragged on so long that she felt another second might literally kill her. “I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”

“That’s fine,” Itachi answered.

“...Right, okay. I’ll see you two later.”

Sakura left as quickly as she could without appearing as though she wanted to burst into feathers and fly from the house like it had gone up in flames. She wasn’t quite sure she succeeded, but she dragged out her time in the village centre for as long as she could, and when she eventually had to make her way back, she walked very slowly, watching the sky, which was darker and punctured more intensely with stars than anywhere in Konoha. Itachi had told her he slept outside occasionally, in the garden.

Unfortunately, Sasuke was still there when she entered. The cup that Sakura normally used was on the table in front of him, the tea cold and untouched. He was as inexpressive as ever, but when she looked at Itachi she could read the stark emotion on his face. Relief.

“I need to go find a room to stay in,” Sasuke said, coming to a stand.

With a start, she realized suddenly that her room was Sasuke’s. He’d stayed there when he visited before, and he was meant to stay there for subsequent visits too. Of course Itachi hadn’t gotten a two bedroom house just for himself. Her being here had essentially turned his little brother out.

“You don't need to go,” she said in a rush, looking at Itachi for backup and finding his brow furrowed with the same thought.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Itachi asked.

“It's fine. I’ll see you tomorrow, nii-san. Sakura, would you come out with me?”

“I—sure.”

She met Itachi’s worried gaze over her shoulder as she followed his brother outside, trying to project reassurance. She shut the door behind her, wishing it sounded less like a jail cell closing, and stepped out onto the porch beside her old teammate. He'd never truly been more than that, though she knew what it would've meant had she agreed to what he'd asked her of. Sakura waited for him to speak, crossing her arms to ward off the autumn chill, until her patience vanished.

“How’s the mission?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“It’s going.”

“…I see.”

The silence hemmed her in. They’d had a hundred, a thousand exchanges exactly like this, but it had never bothered Sakura so much. Why couldn’t he give her something, anything to work with? He was the one who had asked her to come out here. Finally she turned and burst out.

“Why haven’t you visited? Itachi told me you haven’t been here since he first came.”

“I’ve been busy,” he said stiffly.

“It’s been almost a year.”

“I know.”

She stared into the side of his face, though he now had bangs that obscured nearly everything from where she stood, and waited. She was planning to wait as long as it took. She’d wait until they both turned to stone where they stood, like whole figure miniatures of the carvings on Hokage Rock.

“We don’t know how to be around each other,” Sasuke said, finally.

Oh. A wave of sadness came over her as she recalled how relieved Itachi had looked when she’d returned. She thought about the sad tomato plants in the garden and moved a little closer, leaning against the railing.

“I think it’d make him happy,” she said, gently this time. That tone had never softened him, but she had to try. “I think it might make you happy too.”

He didn’t respond, but the intuition born of lifetime of trying to understand him told her that he’d heard. She bit her lip.

“Sasuke… you and I…”

He shook his head, turning to look at her.

“Forget it. It’s okay, Sakura. How is he doing?”

The relief of avoiding that conversation with him crashed into a wreckage against the reality of Itachi's illness.

“As good as can be expected, but not good either. There's no known cure, but he was responding to medication. The disease stabilized after I started treating him, but in the last few months it's started progressing again. I don't know if…”

She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even find it in her to believe it. Not yet.

“I see,” he said quietly, “thank you.”

“You don't need to thank me.”

“I wouldn't trust another medic here,” Sasuke said, and decided their conversation was over without so much as a pause. “I’ll see you later.”

Then he was walking away, as abruptly as he came. Sakura watched his back, touched by the light from the windows of the house, until he was out of reach. A memory came unbidden to her mind. She thought about when he’d left her unconscious on a bench, how he'd thanked her then too. He'd done the same when he'd asked her to travel the world they'd saved and—shocking even herself—she had said no.

Itachi was sitting on the couch where they’d left him, not even pretending to look as though he hadn’t been waiting anxiously for her come back. She sank into the cushions beside him, sighing loudly.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I am. Are you? He didn’t… say anything, did he?”

“It was fine. It went… pretty well, actually. But a warning would’ve been nice. That was so—so Sasuke of him. I wish he’d sent a letter or something,” she grumbled. “I almost had a heart attack when he showed up.”

He laughed softly, and she found herself smiling in return, their tension dissolving around them. His eyes were so warm, she wondered how she had ever found him cold. Had that been her, so young and so outclassed? Had that imposter wearing his face really been his match, menacing in his gathering of crows and red clouds? It was so hard to imagine, it felt more like a dream than a memory.

“I haven’t been so nervous since I waited for you to come here the first time.”

“Wait,” she said, turning to him with a glint in her eyes. “That made you nervous?”

“Yes. And you lingered outside, I thought you might turn around and leave.”

“I didn’t linger!”

“You did.”

She punched him in the arm.

They walked together to the docks the next morning to await the ship that would carry Sakura back home, sent specifically to collect her now that the high season was over. Impulsively, she gave Itachi a hug before she stepped on board, and felt herself warm against the chill when his arms came around her, blocking the sea wind. She'd disappeared to the front of the ship right after, as she always did, but mostly because she didn't want to watch his standing figure shrink into nothing as they pulled away from the shore.

The next three weeks crawled by at a painful speed. Sakura found herself counting the days, going to bed each night relieved that she'd wake in the morning another day closer. She wondered how Itachi was, how he was feeling, how the change in medication was working, how the cold weather plants were faring in his garden, and—like the press of a blade to her throat—if he'd have another summer to try again.

At the hospital, when death came long and slow, there was almost always a moment when they knew exactly what would happen. Behind closed doors, they'd examine the diagrams, the charts, the readings, and they would know. Their eyes would meet briefly, their heads would shake, and a little quiet would suffuse the room. Nothing more needed to be said. If the patient was lucid, if they had families and friends, the most difficult part of the job would follow. You learned how to deliver the worst news, to show them the hole, to ask them to jump.

Sakura could feel herself standing on the same precipice, and she was afraid.

The disease had stopped responding to medication or healing. Heedless of her every effort, it continued its relentless and unfeeling progression towards one end.

She realized she was simply staring at a blank scroll, pen in hand, delaying the inevitable.

“Sakura,” Itachi said, his voice drawing her back.

Through her peripheral vision, she saw him reach out to grip the back of her chair and gently wheel it around to face him. He was sitting upright, legs over the side of the table, looking at her with concern.

“It's worse than I've seen in any of my visits before,” she said finally, feeling tears gather in her eyes despite herself. “I'm sorry, Itachi. I'm so sorry. I've looked into everything. I have no idea what else we can do.”

Itachi took the pen and notebook from her wooden hands and laid them down beside him. Freed, she let her elbows drop to her knees, hunching over to cradle her face tiredly in her palms. He pulled back one hand with his, enough so that she could lift her head and look at him, glassy-eyed.

“It’s alright, Sakura. You’ve done more than I could have ever expected.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, with a rueful laugh. “I should be the one comforting you.”

He shook his head, giving her a fond tap on her Strength of a Hundred seal.

“I’ve had this illness for over a decade. I’ve come to terms with it.”

There was a wistful, subdued note in his voice. Yes, he had told her as much that very first day.

Itachi didn't ask for how much time she thought he had. In truth, she didn't know. These things varied so much, and he was still so alive, so unlike a dead man walking.

Afterwards, they made a rare trip to the restaurant in town, then walked down to the rocky shore in the vespertine light. They played a game of shogi. They talked. As the night drew in and pressed up against the windows of the house, signalling the winding of another cycle around the sun, she found herself resenting that they needed sleep at all, that he had to disappear into his bedroom and Sakura into hers, fading into their separate dreams.

In the middle of the night, she woke up to the sound of violent coughing on the other side of the wall. Without hesitation, Sakura darted out of her room and went next door into Itachi’s, finding him sitting, coughing into his hands. The blood splattered on the sheet over his lap looked black in the moonlight, like ink. She rushed into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. He was slumped back against raised pillows, a ball of bloodied tissue in one hand, draped over his eyes.

Itachi propped himself up on his side at her approach, blinking slowly with exhaustion. He accepted the glass gratefully, and she took it from him when he'd finished to set it atop a book on his nightstand.

“Let me get you a new blanket,” she said softly, pulling it from his body. He took his soiled shirt off at the same time, and the cooling sweat sent a visible shudder through him.

She bundled up the blood-stained sheets and dug through his closet for a new set, which she drew up to the middle of his stomach so she could place her hands on his chest and give him a reprieve that they both knew was only temporary.

He was looking at her again. She stilled where she was perched on his bed, seeing him very clearly. Her mind was utterly blank, but her chest swelled full of feeling.

He was so beautiful.

Her palms slid against his skin as Itachi raised himself, and she must've bent her head at the same time, because their mouths met, chaste and sweet. His hand found her waist, and the other reached up to cradle her jaw, adjusting the tilt of her head to kiss her more deeply. He eased down slowly onto his back and she went with him, twisting so that her chest met his. Gravity pulled her downwards, into him, with a delicious pressure. She realized she’d hooked a leg over his—there was warmth everywhere she was pressed against him—and she shifted just to hear him groan.

Eventually they had to part for air, and she inhaled with a gasp before his hand at her neck brought her down again.

“Sakura,” he sighed.

Her lashes brushed against his cheek. Sakura pulled back a little more to see him better, and the gap between them filled with their breaths, their latent desire. In a delirium, she realized his eyes were red. She watched the slow, hypnotic turn of his tomoe as they spun and wondered how she could feel this way, how she could want someone so much, if he hadn't netted her into a genjutsu.

“You need to go back to your room.”

She flinched, sitting up immediately.

“Right. I—sorry. I’ll let you get some rest.”

His hand caught her wrist as she stood and pulled away.

“Sakura,” he said again.

She licked her mouth, tasting briefly the metallic tang of blood. The blood that had been in his mouth and on his hands. He exhaled slowly, and she watched as his red eyes settled at her lips, then her throat, then the hands clenched at her sides. Her skin burned under his need, as if touched.

“I want you to stay,” Itachi breathed raggedly, “but not like this. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Intermittently through the long hours of the night, she heard the soft, muffled sound of his coughing. He was suppressing it, she could tell, but she didn't dare enter his room again. Sheer exhaustion eventually pulled her into an uneasy sleep that limped forwards through the morning with bad dreams, until she woke up abruptly to the sound of knocking on her door and a full autumn light pressing in through the curtains.

“Sakura, it’s almost noon.”

Her mind jolted awake with a start.

“Shit,” she muttered. “I’m up!”

She heard Itachi’s footsteps return down the hall and went to use the bathroom and wash up, before leaving in her pajamas to find him in the living room. He had her medical pack in his hand and was tucking some of her scrolls into the front pocket. The shadows under his eyes were like bruises. He hadn't slept any better than she had.

Everything was different, and everything was the same.

“We’re not going to talk?” she asked.

“There’s not enough time,” he replied, eyes flickering to the clock. “Your boat leaves in half an hour and you need to pack.”

In the off season, it’d be difficult to find another willing to leave until the next market day, a full three days from now.

He was making sense. He always made sense. But it didn’t mean she had to like it. She gave a sharp nod, and without another word went to her room to pack. When she came back out into the hall he was leaning against the front door. His hair was loose. She had the sudden memory of how soft it had felt in her hands, even softer than it looked.

“I’ll walk you to the docks.”

“No,” she replied, unable to keep frustration from her voice. “I think you should stay here.”

This wasn't his fault, but she had a feeling that Itachi didn’t want to have this conversation, that it’d been a relief to him that she’d gone and overslept like an idiot, sparing him the trouble. She didn’t think she could handle walking with him, talking about everything except what they needed to talk about, like they had that first day returning from the market. But she paused at the threshold, expectant.

“Well. Goodbye.”

There was a little frown on his face. His hand reached out, hesitating briefly before it found her waist, pulling her in. She went, helpless to stop it. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I’ll see you next time, Sakura.”

She was such a fool.

Sakura regretted how they'd parted immediately, and then there was no more time to feel. If she had felt urgent before, it was nothing compared to the noose tightening around her neck now. She was consumed by the task of studying his illness, of retracting the death sentence she'd finally delivered out loud, while Itachi sat there so serenely that he might've been a ghost already.

Boxes of obscure medical journals were stacked in her office, in her living room, months of accumulated research. She had a drawer full of letters exchanged with every doctor she could find in the Five Nations who had something to offer. Well over a hundred degenerative lung diseases had been identified, and though none were quite like what Itachi had, the common denominator was the same.

There was not a single case where the degeneration had been cured. The life expectancy ranged wildly, from two years to ten.

Itachi was already past the furthest edge of hope, but she'd known that since nearly the beginning. Only, back then that hadn't kept her up crying at night, or driven her into Naruto's arms as a collapsing wreck. He hadn't known what to say to her, but he'd held her, and that had been nearly enough.

Sakura was finishing up a shift at the hospital when a messenger dropped by her office with a summons from the Hokage. This Hokage, sitting lackadaisically at his desk with his one eye on her, creased as though he'd just told a great joke and was taking in his laughing audience with pleasure.

“What a rare occasion it is to see my favorite former student these days.”

She rolled her eyes, a habit she seemed to have only around her old teacher.

“I just got off a long shift at the hospital, spit it out already.”

“Right,” Kakashi said, straightening in his seat, suddenly serious. She felt the mood shift at once, and was reminded again why he'd been elected into this position in spite of his reluctance. “You won’t be needing to go to Enoshima again. The mission is over.”

“What?”

His half-lidded gaze took her in with watchful regard.

“Uchiha Itachi has declined further treatment.”

Silence followed as Sakura put the words together, feeling as though she'd been scattered like a handful of sand.

“He—why?” she asked, stunned. “What did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“And you just accepted that?” Sakura demanded, the shock giving away to anger.

“He doesn’t owe us an explanation of any kind. Have you made any progress on a cure for his illness?”

The question was charged with intent. She felt it land with a prick, and her anger vanished like so much smoke.

“No,” she said, reluctantly.

The word rang hollow. She was sure the bags under her eyes could out rival Itachi's at their worst, and she knew that Kakashi was seeing her all too clearly. It felt like she'd poured and poured herself into a vessel that had no bottom.

“We have to respect whatever his wishes are,” he said. “But Sakura, if you want to take a few days off, a week even... it does get a little stuffy in here, doesn't it?”

His eye warmed, crinkling at the corners.

Sakura set off the next day.

Genius, my ass, she fumed. She imagined Itachi in the garden after she’d left, overthinking, lost in his own head. He would've sat down to write his letter to the Hokage at the kitchen table, after arriving to his ludicrous and well-intentioned decision. Didn’t he know her? Did he really think that the mission was the only thing bringing her here?

The long day and a half of travel gave her anger time to ferment, an agonizing metamorphosis that only revealed how uncertain she was. Did she want to go back to how things were? She thought about him, growing sicker and sicker between each visit. She'd spend that same passage of time living out her life in Konoha, pretending that she didn't know.

It didn't seem possible.

She knew when she'd come in range of his senses, which hadn't dulled in the slightest despite the toll his illness had taken on his physical strength. The front door was wide open when she arrived, the screen intact, but she went around to the back of the house and into the garden.

Itachi was sitting on the ground beside the willow tree when she entered, already looking in her direction. This was the first time he hadn't come out to greet her, she realized. His forearm rested on one raised knee, a book dangling from his hand, his thumb in the pages where he must've left off before he sensed her arrival. Her eyes dropped to the cover, recognizing it as a title she'd brought him the last time. Second in the trilogy.

They froze there like that for a long moment, looking at each other.

Finally he stood up, brushing fine willow fluff from his pants. The tree was in full bloom for the first time. There was some caught in his hair.

“Do you want to come inside?”

She nodded mutely, following him in. He went to the kitchen to make tea, and she took her seat at the table. It was undisputedly hers, after all these months. Itachi always sat on the other side, facing the opposing wall. From her vantage point, the window behind his seat silhouetted him in the evenings, bringing out the bronze in his hair.

He came over and placed the cup of tea in front of her, then took a seat.

“Did you know that you make tea when you're nervous?” she asked, watching the steam rise.

“I hadn't thought of it that way,” he answered. The low, familiar tenor of his voice made her ache.

Sakura didn't touch her tea, and Itachi didn't touch his.

“Why?”

All the thinking she'd done, the words she'd wanted to say, distilled into that single syllable.

“You know why, Sakura.”

“No, I don't, actually.”

And there was the anger again. She latched onto it, knowing that the moment she let it go, she could only free fall to the very bottom. And what a long way down that was.

“I’m running out of time,” Itachi replied, wearily. “I am going to die, soon. Whether it's now or later doesn't matter.”

He was looking into his cup instead of at her.

“That’s not true,” she protested, hating the resignation in his voice, on his face. She hated it. “It matters. It matters to me! What are you doing, Itachi? Are you just—are you just sitting here, waiting to die?”

“I expected to be dead already,” he said, looking up, his eyes like black stone. “I thought I’d die by Sasuke’s hand before this disease had a chance. I meant to let him win regardless of his strength. It was his right. He was never supposed to know, nobody was. I could never have anticipated Danzo being caught. It threatened to undo everything I'd ever sacrificed.”

“You—you—”

Her heart twisted as if crushed under a cold weight. She felt sick with disbelief. There was another way this might’ve played out, the way Itachi had wanted it to play out, where he was in the ground and Sasuke's tanto was in him and the story ended there.

History wasn't going to let Uchiha Itachi go quietly. It would hold him close, strip him of flesh and soul, put him on macabre display. Here was the man who slaughtered his family and relished in the blood—that was all that'd remain.

“I know,” he breathed. “I know I’ve made mistakes I can never atone for, Sakura.”

“If you never wanted to be healed, then why did you ask the Sixth for a medic in the first place?” she asked, and she couldn’t help the bitterness. She was blinking back tears and failing.

“I didn’t.”

“You didn't,” she echoed.

“Sasuke did. He requested you specifically.”

Sasuke. It always came back to him in the end, she thought. Itachi had been willing to kill for him, to die for him. He was willing to live for him too. But her? Where did she fit into his life?

There was a long pause before she could speak again. She stared at her hands on the table.

“Sasuke asked me to go with him, when he left,” she said. Sakura watched him absorb what she’d said, read the layers of what that meant, willing him to understand.

“You didn’t go.”

She shook her head slowly. What if she had gone? Where would she be now? Where would Sasuke be now? And Itachi?

“Part of me wanted to. I spent my entire childhood loving him, or at least thinking I did. It felt like I was meant to, like—like that was the script that I was meant to follow. I think... Sasuke might've felt the same.”

“I understand the feeling,” he said, eyes looking somewhere beyond her, past her, into the blank wall at her back. Sakura felt the distance stretch between them, an interminable distance, between one side of the table and the other. She wanted to scream, but she could only whimper. The sound drew Itachi back to her, and she saw her misery mirrored in his.

“Itachi, why didn’t you want me to come back?”

Sakura could read every feeling on his face. She could've collapsed right into the pit of pain and longing that lay there.

“Because you make me want to live,” he murmured, “and I don’t want you to watch me die.”

Of course, she thought, her heart breaking. He'd always been a martyr. Why would that change now? Itachi was going to die here, he was dying already, and he’d wanted to spare her the agony.

But she could do it. She could bear witness.

She could stay with him.

“You don’t get to make that decision for me,” she said, wiping the tears from her face. Her voice shook like a leaf. “And if that's what you wanted, then you shouldn’t have kissed me, you shouldn’t have—“

Been kind. Been him.

“I’m sorry, Sakura.”

“You should be,” she choked, hearing the constriction in his voice as he spoke.

She turned partially away, though she could feel him looking at her. It took several minutes to breathe in slowly and settle the way the air caught in her throat in sobs. There was still something left to ask.

“Do you want me here?” she managed, so faint with fear that she thought he might not have heard. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

Sakura watched his face twist, felt the longing in his voice rend her open.

“Yes,” Itachi said, “more than anything.”

She got up and went towards him. His chair scraped against the floor as he moved backwards, allowing her into his space, and she threw herself into him, feeling as though if she eased her grip, if she let go of him, he'd vanish. The hand on his shoulder lifted itself, sliding through his hair, pulling free the willow cotton she'd seen earlier. Sakura looked at it between her fingers and turned her face to kiss him.

She tasted salt, and realized these weren't her tears, but his.

Sakura returned to Konoha to request a one year sabbatical, and Kakashi promptly signed her off on indefinite leave. Every other month or so, Sasuke visited with medical supplies she arranged for him to retrieve. He insisted on going to an inn even when his room had freed up, though he started to stay in their home, towards the end.

Itachi died in spring, a little over a year and a half later.

It was far longer than anyone could have expected. He'd had another chance at the garden, which flourished, though his strength had waned and Sakura did the brunt of the physical labour. That was the summer of tomatoes, so many that they took bags of them into the village to give away. Even in dying, his resilience was nearly superhuman.

In that last week, he could no longer move from the bed, and after three days couldn’t keep anything down but broth, and then nothing at all. In despair, in defeat, she proceeded with palliative care.

He slept mostly. She’d catch herself willing him to wake up, to speak to her again, to look at her with his gentle eyes and suspend themselves exactly like that.

She only left the house once, forcing the chakra into her legs until they burned and moving as quickly as she could, petrified that he’d go while she was gone. The thought of him taking his last breath alone, without her, was beyond comprehension. She knew she would never forgive herself.

The last night they had, she lay curled against him. His hand was clutched to her chest, the tips of her fingers on his pulse, feeling it beat slow and steady over the thin bone of his wrist. A coin faced moon lay outside, and the glow of the bedside lamp lent warmth to his pale face.

Itachi was asleep.

He’d slipped into a dark that she couldn’t pull him out of.

It was so quiet in their room. There was only the sound of the clock ticking on the wall, the muted trill of island fauna, and the air that came and went in a rattle from him. She listened, counting numbly, and watched his chest lift in a shallow breath, so small it was nothing more than the pocket of air you might hold enclosed in your mouth, under the sea, and knew it would be the last one.

When Sakura packed up her bags a month later, she found that there was almost nothing of hers that she wanted. Everything was his. The cup he drank tea from, the books she’d brought him filled with his notes, the necklace that he always wore. The house sat enclosed like a drop of dew, their own little world, so empty now without him in it.

Closing up the windows, she lingered at the kitchen counter where she’d watched him stand so long ago. Then she walked slowly down the familiar path to the port, worn by the tread of her steps each time she'd left. She found herself regretting every trip she’d made.

When she returned to Konoha, Sakura would find her apartment exactly as she'd left it. She would recount the version of her sabbatical, ad nauseum, that was nearly the truth. She'd go back to the hospital eventually, and return to active duty. There would be days where it felt like she could do nothing but cry, but it was possible to go on. Itachi had been the proof of that.

She arrived much earlier than the ship meant to take her back to the mainland, and found a wooden post to sit on while she watched the boats come in and unload their goods. Eventually a dot appeared in the horizon that was unlike the others, blotting out more sea and sky as it drew near.

It was market day again, and it was time to go home.