Rating: T for attempted suicide
The first time he is brought to the hospital, sirens wailing, people yelling, Karin crying, everyone is shocked.
(but almost not really surprised)
Sakura almost wishes that she hadn't been the first one there, when the ambulance roars into the hospital, flashing lights and rising-failing wail. Karin has his head in her lap, and his face is wet with her tears. For a moment, Sakura is so angry, because he's bleeding and red and hurt and no one hurts her friends and she will kill whoever touched him!
But then she sees how straight and careful and precise the cuts on his arms-to-wrists are.
She knows only one person that precise.
(and her heart breaks, just a little bit)
xXx
He's unconscious for a day. When he wakes up, it's a surprise, because one moment Sakura is checking the IV, and the next, she is looking into the night sky blue black eyes of Sasuke Uchiha.
She starts, jerks back.
(gets lost in his eyes)
"Sasuke!" she says.
He doesn't say anything, just blinks his infinity eyes, looks at his heavily bandaged arms, and stares at the ceiling.
Somehow, Sakura knows that he will say nothing while he is at the hospital.
Naruto visits him, but he is too disturbed by Sasuke's actions, so he doesn't stay long. Sasuke just looks through him anyway. Others come to see him, but Sasuke does not acknowledge any of them. His eyes just look through and past and beyond everyone.
Karin is the only one whose eyes he meets, and for the first time, he's the one who looks away, as if he's ashamed.
Besides that first time, when he wakes up, Sasuke does not look at Sakura.
(in a way, she's almost glad)
xXx
They release him into therapy after a week, but apparently he speaks more to his therapist than he ever did to anyone else, because Kakashi stops their sessions after only a month.
When Sakura asks Kakashi why, the therapist tells her that Sasuke is simply Sasuke. There is nothing Kakashi can do for him as a therapist, and Sasuke won't let Kakashi, the closet thing he's had to a father in a long time, help him any other way.
Sakura worries, and even if Naruto acts the same, teasing and fighting with Sasuke, trying to make him forget all the horrible things that have happened in his life, Sakura knows he is worried, too. Karin is tight-lipped about the whole thing, but Sakura can see the pain in her eyes.
That first time, people try to forget quickly, try to pretend it didn't happen. They tread carefully for a little while, and then, when they see that Sasuke is Sasuke is always Sasuke, they relax. They assume that everything is fine, that it was a fluke, a bad dream, nothing that needs to concern them. Because Sasuke is still here and Sasuke is still alive, and that's all that matters, right?
(she knows it's wrong)
He acts normal. He talks (as much as he ever talked), trains, tells Naruto how much he hates ramen, even as he sits there eating it with the blond. He spends long hours listening to Karin rant, he walks with Sakura when she's had a bad day. And if the reason why his sleeves are always long is brought up, his face goes careful and polite and blank and he does not speak.
After four months, they stop asking him.
(was that the problem?)
But he's so normal. And if his eyes look too calm and cool and careful then no one thinks too much of it. It's just Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke.
Sakura finds that his name is circling around her head more than ever. But this time it isn't a lovesick rotation. It's just desperate and worried.
Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke.
xXx
Life is so unfair to Karin.
xXx
She's the one who finds him again. She later tells Sakura how she got a text from him that said only "Sorry." She texted him back, she called him, and there was no answer. So she drove to his house, pounded on the door, frantic worried angry swearing desperate.
He didn't answer the door. But then, she had known he wouldn't.
She had her phone out before she crawled through the window she broke, she had dialed the emergency number before she burst through the bathroom door and saw—
Red. Blood red. Blood. Red on white, cold porcelain, red on white, cold skin.
Karin tells Sakura, who already knows, that the cuts were so much deeper, so much harder, so much more intentional that she almost dropped the phone, that all she could say into the phone was, "Help. Please help, he's dying."
(but then, he started dying a long time ago)
Karin tells how she grabbed a towel, another towel, wrapped them around Sasuke's arms, how she applied, pressure, just tried to stop the blood until the paramedics came rushing into the house, breaking down the door.
This time, when Karin comes into the hospital, Sakura knows that the red-head cannot cry. Neither can Sakura, neither can Naruto when he comes after Sakura calls him. Because now they have to face the sobering solemn truth: Sasuke wants to die.
It is all calling out orders rushing to rooms and flashing lights and too much blood and Sasuke's dark hair and eyelashes too stark against his skin. Karin doesn't work at the hospital like Sakura does, but she was a medical genius when she was in college, and everyone acknowledges that it is because of her that Sasuke lives, because she just won't give up, and she's screaming at everyone and the defibrillator is in her hands, and when Sasuke's heart finally starts beating again, Karin is the one who is most exhausted.
She should have let the hospital staff do their work. But it she hadn't been there, Sasuke would have died.
xXx
He does not wake up for two weeks.
When he does wake up, it is Tsunade who is with him, not Sakura, because Sakura is at her house.
(and she is glad that it was not her at his side)
Tsunade knocks on the door, and she looks so heartbroken that Sakura's heart stops because she thinks that Sasuke is dead. Her hands fly to her mouth, tears threaten to fall, but Tsunade only says, "He's awake."
For just a moment, she is so happy that she forgets all about Tsunade's too-serious face.
"What's wrong?" she asks, halting her elation.
Tsunade hesitates. Her voice is tired. "Maybe it would have been better if he had died."
(…that's what she is afraid of)
She goes back to the hospital with Tsunade, but the older woman will tell her nothing lese. She remains tight-lipped and tight-faced. Even her hands on the steering wheel are too tight.
Sakura runs into the hospital, up the stairs, into Sasuke's room.
Karin is already there, and Sakura can hear her crying before she enters the room and sees Karin standing there in the middle of the room, with her arms wrapped around her chest, as if to keep herself from falling apart.
Sakura is frantic now. What could be so wrong if he is awake now? She stumbles and trips, almost falls into the room, pushes her way past Karin, and looks down at the bed.
It is then that it hits Sakura what the day is. It is then that she realizes why he tried to kill himself that day last year, why he tried to kill himself again… on the same day. Because all those many years ago…
Sakura hears someone run into the room behind her and knows that it is Naruto, knows that he feels just what she is feeling, just what Karin is feeling, because they all see the same thing.
Only one thing is written in Sasuke's eyes and face and body. One thing that is carved into him as deeply as the cuts along his arms.
Failure.
Because Sasuke was trying to undo the wrong that his brother had done all those years ago. Slaughtering his family… and leaving him alive.
Sakura falls back into Karin, who falls back into Naruto, as if the thing written all over Sasuke is a physical, tangible blow that knocks the air out of them.
Karin catches Sakura, and Naruto catches them both, and the three of them stand there, holding each other and crying as they look down at Sasuke-who-is-alive-but-could-never-be-more-dead. No fire is in his eyes, no light is in his face, no movement is in his limbs.
Sasuke is dead.
(and all of them desperately hope that it isn't their fault)
xXx
No one knows what to do. Sasuke wants to die, and maybe he has always wanted to die, and maybe they were all just too stupid to realize it. And maybe he had already killed what mattered, because no one knew, so no one did anything.
Sasuke is listless. Immobile. Uncaring. Blank.
(dead)
Karin visits often, but frequently does not stay long, because it is too hard for her to know that she is the reason he is still here, and he does not want to be.
Sakura hears her. Pleading with Sasuke to tell her that he does not hate her. But Sasuke remains silent and apathetic and dead, and Karin leaves in tears.
(again)
Naruto visits, but he stays for even shorter times than Karin. It is too hard for him to see Sasuke-who-was-always-so-alive now so dead. He is too spooked by Sasuke's listlessness. He is too scared that he is all alone again.
Others come and go. Kakashi comes, trying to get Sasuke to talk to him, to anyone, even though everyone already knows why Sasuke did it. Ino comes and cries. Shikamaru comes and watches. Neji comes with biting words and harsh glares. Hinata comes and cannot speak. Shino comes and watches as Shikamaru does. Gaara comes and Sakura can tell that he is wondering how someone so strong could let himself become so weak.
Sakura comes, changing his IV, changing his bandages. Trying to keep her tears inside. Trying to smile for Sasuke, even when he stares through her and still does not talk. Sakura comes, and she hurts dies bleeds for every second that Sasuke moves closer to complete death.
(you can't keep someone alive when they do not want to live)
xXx
More time passes, his eyes are still dead, his cuts are still stark against his too-pale skin. No words. He hasn't spoken a single word.
xXx
Someone brings pictures from his house. At first Tsunade doesn't want them there, saying that the tantalizing glass within the frame might be too much for Sasuke, but in the end they three pictures stay.
Sasuke and Naruto and Sakura. Naruto and Sakura are laughing and trying to get him to smile, and Sasuke is frowning, trying to pull away from them. But his eyes are amused, affectionate. He looks only seconds away from smiling, laughing, which he had done soon after the picture had been taken.
Sasuke and Karin and Suigetsu and Jugo. Suigetsu's arm is around Sasuke's shoulders, his too-sharp teeth revealed by his grin, as Karin stands laughing on Sasuke's other side, and Jugo stands behind them, his big face caught in a smile. One corner of Sasuke's mouth is just barely curving up.
Sasuke… with his parents. With his brother. Surprisingly, it isn't a serious picture. Fugaku has his arm around Mikoto, who leans against his shoulder, smiling gently. Fugaku's usually too-stoic face seems less frozen than usual. But it is the boys who dominate the picture.
The two of them are just stumbling in front of their parents, off-balance, almost-but-not-quite-falling. Sasuke is in a headlock, with his hands rising to grip his brother's arms. His younger eyes are wide with exhilaration and excitement. His eyes shine. He's laughing. He's happy. He's alive.
And… Itachi.
(they don't say his name anymore)
Itachi, whose eyes are more smoke and storm cloud black than night sky blue-black. Itachi who has an unnerving elegance even in a moment that lacks poise and seriousness. Itachi, whose eyes are gentle, whose eyes are content, who eyes shine with care and…
(love)
Sakura wishes that she knew what had happened to the older brother who was in that picture.
Sakura wishes that she knew who had taken that picture.
She also wishes that she knew why Sasuke kept it if it pained him so very badly. Because while once he was the littlest Uchiha, how he is the lonely Uchiha.
The pictures sit on the table near his bedside.
xXx
Suigetsu and Jugo come to see Sasuke and Karin all the time, sometimes alone, sometimes together. Jugo seldom talks, only sits on the floor—always on the floor—by Sasuke's bed. Some days he wants to bring his birds in, but Tsunade doesn't let him.
Suigetsu comes and sits in a chair, leaned back on two legs against the wall, his hands behind his head. His remarks are light, sarcastic, and his sharp-toothed smiles are mocking. But Sakura notices that he always asks if Sasuke is staying well hydrated. They all show how much they care in different ways.
For the most part, Sasuke stays in his bed. Sometimes he sits in a chair, sometimes he leans against a window. He doesn't leave the room. He doesn't respond to anyone. He lives his pathetic excuse for life as if he is dead. He is mechanical and automatic and robotic.
He is always watched, because someone with Uchiha genius surely doesn't need a knife to kill themselves.
When Sakura changes his bandages, his arms are still white, and his cuts are still red. They should be healing faster. Sakura is so worried, too worried, horribly worried.
(it doesn't help when he starts eating less)
xXx
He gets thinner and weaker and deader.
Most people stop visiting. Even Suigetsu and Jugo don't come as often. Because it becomes more and more like paying respects to the dead.
Kakashi, Karin, Naruto, Sakura. Those are the ones who don't stop. Who trudge on without hope. Who still care, enough to come to him even though it makes them physically ill to see what he has done to himself.
(it's hard to know that someone you love doesn't care enough about you to even live)
xXx
He is wasting away, his face is haggard, his skin still that too-pale-even-for-an-Uchiha shade. Sakura is sure she could count all his ribs if she put her hands to his sides.
(but she won't touch him any more than she has to)
xXx
He stops eating all together. But the ones who are still with him don't have any more tears to give. In some ways, they have become as dead as he is.
xXx
Unsurprisingly, Naruto is the first one to crack.
Sakura is outside the room, talking to another of the nurses, when Naruto begins yelling.
He screams out profanities, curses Sasuke's name, yells, "Get up! Just GET UP!"
Sakura goes rushing and tumbling into the room, and when she sees furious-demon Naruto, she screams, "No, you idiot! Stop it, stop it! You'll hurt him and that's what he wants!"
That stops Naruto dead.
(dead)
He holds the shaken Sasuke by his shoulders, and for the first time, Sakura realizes how small and thin Sasuke has become.
More nurses come in, trying to pull Naruto, whose eyes glisten with tears, away from Sasuke. He swears at the Uchiha, his voice soft now. Swears and swears and swears, while tears pool over his eyelids and down his cheeks.
Sakura, like everyone else, is so worried that Naruto has hurt Sasuke that she doesn't realize until later that although Sasuke speaks no word, he reacts. He drops his mask of death and resumed his mask of haughty impassivity for only the briefest moment, a sharp smirk gracing one corner of his mouth.
(for just a moment, he is alive)
Naruto is taken away, while Sakura and later Karin fuss over Sasuke. Naruto is told that he may no longer visit, and once Naruto is gone, Tsunade tells Sasuke that she's sorry, and that since Naruto has been banned, it won't happen again.
(and then he dies again)
xXx
Barely a week later, Karin loses it.
Sasuke still isn't eating, and he becomes even more of an ill-made bundle of bones and skin and hair. Perhaps he is even more listless now that Naruto can no longer visit.
Sakura has been going in and out of Sasuke's room all day, changing his bandages, trying to get him to eat, just looking at him to make sure he's still alive, still breathing. She is checking on him again when Karin walks in. Sakura only nods when the woman comes in, tiredly pushing her glasses up on her nose. Sakura and Karin know each other very well, now.
Karin sits on Sasuke's bed and says his name.
"Sasuke."
She does this a lot, just comes and says his name. So Sakura leaves her there.
When Sakura comes back an hour later, Karin is exactly where she was, still just saying Sasuke's name as his blank eyes stare at nothing.
"Sasuke. Sasuke. Sasuke."
Sakura is not sure what the red-haired woman is trying to accomplish. But then, she has no idea what she herself is seeking to do in all her many efforts.
Karin's voice begins wearing down. She sounds tired and hurt and angry and Sakura wishes that he would just look at Karin. But he is corpse-motionless and carcass-feeling.
Sakura leaves again, returns again.
Karin is frustrated, shaking with pent-up emotion, anger, movement. Her voice is harsh, sharp, now.
"Sasuke."
Like the snap of a whip.
"Sasuke."
Like the shot of a gun.
"Sasuke."
Like the stab of a knife.
For some reason, even though the signs were all there, Sakura is shocked when Karin lashes out, her hand cracking against Sasuke's cheek, making his head rock back on his pillow.
"I know you can talk!" Karin screams. "I know that you're still alive in there, so why don't you at least TALK? I hate you, Sasuke! You're so selfish! I hate you!"
And then Karin is falling back on the floor, crying, and Sakura is torn between rushing to her and rushing to Sasuke.
Sasuke's eyes widen, flash for the briefest moment, then they die again. And it hurts too much to look into dead cold blank eyes, so Sakura picks Karin up off the floor and hugs her while Karin whispers, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it."
Sakura's not sure who the apology is for.
(because they don't think that the man on the bed is listening)
xXx
Sakura keeps the knowledge of Karin's control loss to herself, and begins helping Naruto to sneak into the hospital. She knows that it isn't their fault. It's the fault of their dead friend.
But Sakura doesn't realize that now it is her turn to snap crackle pop.
xXx
Sakura talks to Tsunade and now Naruto is allowed to visit without being snuck in, as long as he promises to control his temper. Sakura tells Karin that it's best if she keeps her temper as well.
Naruto and Karin are sitting outside Sasuke's room, talking in low voices, when Sakura comes out of the elevator. They both nod at her, continue talking, until they realize that she isn't doing well.
"Hey, you okay?" Naruto asks, concern tingeing his sky robin ocean blue eyes as he stands, putting a hand on Sakura's arm. Karin remains seated, her hands squeezed between her knees, the eyes behind her glasses questioning, inquisitive, worried.
Sakura is too worn down. Too tired, too hurt, too helpless. Too broken by seeing how much Sasuke didn't care. But she only smiles and says, "It's been a long day."
Her smile is forced, her voice tense, and both Naruto and Karin can tell.
"Do you need any help?" Naruto asks quietly, clearly growing more concerned. Karin stands now, taking a step toward Sakura as well.
Sakura doesn't want their sympathy. She just wants Sasuke back. She shakes her head, says, "I'm fine," and even though her friends know she is not, they let her go, let her walk into Sasuke's room.
(that was a mistake)
Sakura walks into Sasuke's room and sees that for once, his dull eyes are focused, sad, staring at something instead of nothing. His head is turned, and his eyes are looking sadly and desperately and hungrily at the photograph… of his dead family.
Snap. Crackle. Pop.
Sakura screams. Sakura shrieks. Sakura flies across the room and snatches up the photograph, snatches it away from Sasuke's gaze, startling him, making him follow her with his eyes.
"No!" she yells at him. "No, that isn't fair! You can't do that to us! You can't lock us out, make us sick with worry and then show emotion toward a picture of them!" She's not thinking her words through. She's not thinking anything through.
"You don't care!" she screams. "You don't care about us!" One hand flies out, knocks the pictures of Sasuke and Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke and Karin and Suigetsu and Jugo off the table, on to the floor. Glass from the frames tinkles and shatters and sparkles on the clean clean floor of Sasuke's room.
Sasuke's eyes go wide, startled. A hand lifts from the bed, toward the pictures. Reaching.
(come back!)
"You can't do this!" Sakura yells again. "We care, you stupid, blind, brainless, horrible fool! We care, and you're killing all of us because you. Don't. Care! I hate you, Sasuke! Because all you can think about is your stupid, dead family! And you will never be able to love us like you loved them!"
Furious, Sakura throws the photograph, and Sasuke and Itachi and their parents go flying through the air, spinning end over end until they smash against the wall and shatter, frame breaking, glass exploding, picture floating—for just a moment—before gravity brings everything crashing back to the ground.
(just like everything else has crashed to the ground)
Silence.
Naruto and Karin are in the doorway. Sakura is standing amid shattered glass. And Sasuke is staring at the broken frames, the flimsy pictures.
Silence.
Then Sasuke turns, his eyes find Sakura's, and with the first two words he speaks within the hospital, voice ragged and raw and hoarse and eyes so broken, he curses her.
For a moment, they are all still and stunned. Then Sasuke repeats his condemning words and his eyes are covered by a sheen of tears, and Sakura is too stunned by what has been done.
"Sasuke…" Naruto speaks only his name, and once more the Uchiha curses at him, her, all of them.
Sakura takes a step back. And now she has lost it.
Sakura takes a step back. And now she has smashed his friends.
Sakura takes a step back. And now she has killed Sasuke's family all over again.
Sakura takes a step back. Because for every scar on his arm, there are a thousand tears on her face, and now she has made him truly hate her.
Unable to stay within that room any longer, Sakura turns, runs, past the still Naruto and Karin, out the door, away away away from the broken man that she leaves crying in his bed, there among the remains of all who cared about him.
xXx
Sakura is too afraid to come back to the hospital. She calls in sick, pretends that she is busy, and even though Tsunade knows that there is nothing wrong, she lets Sakura give her pathetic excuse after pathetic excuse. Sakura doesn't ask about Sasuke, and Tsunade doesn't say anything.
Naruto tries visiting, but Sakura hides from him, locks all her doors (and her windows), and curls up out of sight and mind and heart. She doesn't want to hear about everything she's done wrong when she—especially she—should know better.
Doing her best not to be hypocritical, Sakura still eats, still takes care of herself, but she feels as broken as the man she left in that room, and she is so afraid that she has made everything so much worse. She doesn't even know how it could get worse, and so she worries even more.
Karin tries visiting, and even though she stays right outside Sakura's door for hours, saying over and over again, "Sakura, I know you're in there," Sakura refuses to acknowledge that she can hear her.
She gets a thousand calls, a million texts. She doesn't answer, doesn't reply.
(she's too scared that Sasuke isn't even breathing any more)
Nine days, and Naruto and Karin stop coming. Just a little more than a week. That was all it took for them to forget about her? Sakura is crushed, but still she does not move from the house she had barricaded herself in. She leaves only once, to buy groceries, and when she sees Ino in the store, she literally turns and runs away before her friend can talk to her. She knows that Sasuke will inevitably be brought up, even if no one knows what Sakura did to him, and she cannot bring herself to speak of him. Not after her awful mistake. She wants so desperately to know how Sasuke is, but she is too afraid that she already knows.
So many times, Sakura finds herself dialing the hospital, Karin's cell, Naruto's cell, only to hang up, panicked, before they answer. She wants to know. She needs to not know. And she is so torn, as she has always been with Sasuke Uchiha. He dominates her dreams, screaming at her for killing him again, he dominates her days, his scornful and pleading and agonized visage seeming to taunt her mind every waking hour.
Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke.
On the eleventh day, she gets two calls from Naruto, one from Karin, and scores of texts from the both of them. She does little more than glance at her phone, then leave it where it sits at her elbow. She's curled up on the couch with a blanket and a bowl of ice cream, watching some romantic comedy, trying to forget everything and nothing.
(she can't see how the movie is supposed to be funny)
When she hears the knock at her door, though it startles her, she ignores it.
When she hears the gentle rattling of the doorknob, though there is none of the usual cursing, she still ignores it.
When she hears a soft scratching rotating ticking noise, she turns to look at the door and sees the knob turning, sees the door opening, sees the light from outside silhouetting the man who stands in the doorway with skin too pale and hair too dark and body too thin and sleeves too bulky from the bandages wrapped all around his arms…
Sasuke Uchiha glares balefully, lifts a hand, lifts his lock picks. "I thought we talked about this," he says patronizingly, disgruntled. "You may lock your door, but you are not locking me out."
Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke.
Sakura's eyes must be saucer plate moon wide, her mouth open in shock, her ice cream forgotten, her movie ignored, her blanket slipping down from her shoulders to puddle on the couch by her.
Sasuke glances at the TV, grimaces. "You're still watching this garbage? I thought you stopped that after high school."
Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke.
Sasuke crosses the room on slightly unsteady legs, careful careful, and presses a slender (too slender?) finger to the power button, shutting the TV off. He turns to Sakura, takes in her expression, the ice cream, the blanket, the way her house is less than perfect, not like usual, the way she is dressed sloppily instead of precisely, and arches an eyebrow at her. Then that cool, perfect, if a bit scratchy-from-no-use voice says, "You look awful."
Because Sasuke is Sasuke will always be Sasuke even if he has died and come back from the dead and picked the lock on her front door and is now standing in front of her with that ridiculous hair perfectly done and in black slacks and a midnight deep ocean darkest ink blue button up shirt with the white of the bandages peeking out from under the sleeves looking far too haggard and worn and thin and sick to be walking and talking to her and telling her that she looks awful when he's the one who looks awful and he's actually there and he's breathing and Sakura is pretty sure that this isn't a hallucination and Sasuke Sasuke Sasuke is standing in front of her and-
Sakura starts crying. Not graceful feminine small crying, but huge ugly loud crying with hiccups and too many tears and clogged noses and puffy cheeks and running mascara left over from the day before and awful awful awful.
And Sasuke, for once, acts human.
(acts like he cares)
Silent, he moves towards her, sits down by her, holds out his bandaged and cut and mutilated arms and gingerly holds Sakura as she sobs into his shoulder and clutches his shirt and swears to herself that she will never, ever, never let him go, even though if you love someone, you're supposed to let them go.
(but she's already done that, hasn't she?)
(and he came back)
As far as I am concerned, this isn't actually the end of the story, and I do realize that this doesn't really explain anything that went on. But I haven't got the rest all figured out, and I'm not certain whether or not to continue it in more than just my mind. If you have any thoughts, do tell, and thank very much you for reading.
~SNake