Sasuke was quiet for a moment, his oynx black eyes unnaturally intense. They peered out past the cold metal bars of his cell, but seemed unfocused, hardly seeing anything of his dim surroundings. "She hates me."

It wasn't a question. It was a matter-of-fact statement, an irreversible fact that had been stamped into the world. Something he really shouldn't have cared about. But he did care. And that bothered him.

A blonde-haired boy glared at him from the other side of the bars, his bright blue eyes more serious than they had been in quite some time. "If she does, she has good reason to," he snapped, his voice colder than usual. "Traitor."

"Then you hate me, too," Sasuke whispered. He turned away, staring at the blank white wall that faced him. It seemed almost like it was laughing, mocking him. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to smash it to pieces.

Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally, "I don't hate you, teme. I just don't feel like I know you anymore." He paused for a long second. "You let them drag you back here...why didn't you just kill them?"

Sasuke turned around sharply, seemingly surprised at the question. "Dobe...they took me by force--"

"I'm not as stupid as you think," Naruto cut in. "You can't lie to me like that and expect me to believe you. I know that with how strong you've gotten, there was no way those jounin could have taken you if you hadn't allowed them to."

"Hnn."

"Hey! Don't 'hnn' me!" Naruto snapped. "Why can't you give anyone a decent answer?!"

"Why can't you shut up?" Sasuke demanded. "I don't know why I didn't resist them. Okay? It was a stupid decision, one that didn't go without punishment… Now I have to sit here listening to you."

Naruto was silent, for once choosing to let his thoughts circulate throughout his head without them spewing out of his mouth. Of course, that didn't last long... "How can you not know?"

"I just don't." Sasuke closed his eyes. "Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"Because you're my friend."

"You said yourself that you don't know me anymore, and that Sakura has good reason to hate me. Does that sound like something you would say to a friend?"

"Oh, shut up."

The wooden door creaked slowly open, causing both boys to squint, shielding their eyes against the blinding new light that seeped into the dark room, illuminating it for a second before the door closed and it disappeared, fading into the darkness. A tentative-looking girl was now visible, her lips pressed tight together in an attempt to keep from crying. The area around her luminous emerald green eyes was very nearly the same color as the bubble gum pink locks held back by a headband, a sure sign that she had recently shed tears.

"Would you please let me have a word alone with him?" she asked Naruto, sounding scared and unsure of herself.

The Kyuubi's vessel nodded and walked out, leaving her alone with the raven-haired traitor of Konoha.

Sakura's eyes widened as she peered into the cell, taking in her old friend's appearance.

Sasuke's clothes were barely more than rags, tattered and worn enough to make one think he was some homeless street urchin shunned by all. They revealed his pale white back, marked with a multitude of scars and caked in dried blood. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he'd had many a sleepless night in the close past. Blood clung to the corner of his mouth, and he looked terribly different than he had the last time she had seen him.

"Sasuke-kun..." The candy-haired girl's lips began to tremble. She couldn't help it.

"If you're going to cry, go do it somewhere else. I don't need your pity." His voice sounded harsh, even coming from him, and sent a sour note through the atmosphere that broke through the invisible barrier separating him from her.

"You be quiet! I think you've done enough!" Sakura cried, somehow managing to glare at him through the moisture that had collected on her lashes. "I don't need you to tell me that! I don't need you to say you don't need anything...Because you do..." Tears were pouring freely down her cheeks now. "You need friends, Sasuke-kun. Everyone needs friends. But right now, even more than that...you need forgiveness." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry - yes, I know, you don't need an apology...I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to forgive you. I just can't do it." She shook tremulously, not bothering to wipe off her face. "Don't expect me to say I don't have pity for you, that I have sympathy instead...because I do pity you. I don't understand you...I have no idea who you are."

Sasuke was quiet for a moment. "That's nothing new...You never knew who I was."

She gasped at his bleak words, a fresh surge of tears springing to her eyes. Then her voice became cold, empty as the bottomless pits of Hell. "You're right," she whispered, her arms dropping to hang motionlessly at her sides. "I never knew you, only knew about you, even in the time that we were on the same team..." Her voice cracked, her breath catching in her throat. "You never had a heart, Sasuke-kun...and you never will." That said, she turned her back on him. Giving vent to her feelings, she slammed the door shut after her, a resentful sound that vibrated off the walls and hung eerily in the thick air, cloaking the bitter atmosphere. And once she was gone, it was if all the light - little light as there was - had been sucked out of the room.

Sasuke sighed softly, letting strands of his raven black hair fall over his dark eyes. "After all this time I've been away, you're still so annoying," he murmured, a comment that was more to himself than it was directed to the girl who had just stalked out. But he knew that what she had said wasn't merely annoying. Sakura's words were far worse than a simple annoyance...they had cut him deep. He hadn't even known his soul could be cut that deep...he'd always thought it was much more shallow than that. But apparently, if it was a pool of water... He shuddered at the thought. He'd hate to be at the bottom of that pool. He would let it stay as that.

Author's Notes: I hope you enjoyed it. Please review even if you didn't...I prefer flames to no reviews at all. Also, as everyone should be able to tell, I do not own Naruto and this is purely fan work... Oh, and this is a oneshot for now, but I might decide to continue the story later if people tell me they want me to. 'w'