First thing xD Im sorry if the story layout is fucked D= loves screwing up where words go and where lines go and also where titles or bold/italics/middle or left or right text goes XD

Second thing, sorry for not updating so much xD I haven't been feeling like it as much (All my baby chickens got murdered by a gay evil fucktard fox four days ago =[ But the grown up ones are ok). I managed to get my GCSE results back for the ones I have done so far (just started year 10) and found out all A*s so far :)

Third thing, gogo read my other itasaku stories, or at least the definition of being unfair. That is my fav itasaku oneshot written by yours truly :)

Fourth thing, you may wanna thank alina my awesome romanian friend for kind of making me wanna write again xD

Fifth thing, I don't own naruto ;D

Sixth thing, READ AND REVIEW PEOPLE! I AM A REVIEW WHORE! GET USED TO IT! REVIEW! NOW! More reviews = More daily reminders and temptation for me to update and makes me feel good D: You gets your updates for writing a 5 second comment (at least D:), I get my happy feeling special moments. Hence, reviews make everyone happy. :D

Seventh thing, I can't remember why I called this chapter 'The Trade', so just use your imagination :D

Eighth thing, ENJOY =)

Ninth thing, EDIT from 10-9-10, LOL I FOUND OUT WHY IT SAID THE TRADE XD Forgot to replace chapter 1's chapter name roflmao xD Yes, this proves it. I am a retard.

Returning Favours

Chapter 2

Temporary Ceasefire

Written by eifi

It had been so cold. Trudging through the muddy forest, she grimaced as she watched her socks get coated with even more of that thick smelly substance. Sighing soundlessly, she once again scanned the area for any incoming chakra, just to make sure that wherever she may be in the forest, it was safe to camp out. Her heart stopping as she felt a new unnoticed chakra force coming from only a few yards away from her, she gulped as she waited for it to attack her. Clenching her fists as a stinging bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face and successfully reopening a previously dried out wound on her cheek, she didn't know whether or not she would have the energy or chakra to fight back. In fact, part of her told her to give up and let the person kill her, she wouldn't have to put up with this continuous struggle to live.

Moments passed and she released her breath painfully. Placing a palm on a nearby tree, she gulped as she wondered why she wasn't being attacked by the person who was more or less likely to be a ninja just like her. Knowing this, her common sense told her to take the initiative and kill the person first. If she did, she would have finally secured a place to sleep that would be safe for an hour or two. Sleep was precious to them at that time, and to have a whole hour of pure rest and peace during this war was equivalent to being a miracle. Not having slept for so long, the temptation to attack caused adrenaline to pump around her body, urging her to jump out and slit the throat of her intruder and finally claim her reward of bliss.

Jumping out and darting towards her visitor, she pumped the last bits of her precious chakra and within seconds she was behind the person.

But that person wasn't standing, and nor was he conscious.

Swallowing her guilt down, she leant down to the man and checked swiftly for any explosive tag traps. Finding none, she rolled the man over and almost gasped at the identity of the person she found. Or at least, what he looked like.

Brushing aside his dark bangs, if not for the slight subtle wrinkles that the man had probably gained from years of experience and the slightly tanned skin, he had looked exactly like him but older and with longer hair. Looking away from the person in embarrassment, she felt disgusted at herself for both endangering the life of an innocent, and also at the fact she had felt so happy when she thought he was Sasuke. Looking at the unconscious man once again, she stood up and walked away, intent on finding firewood for them both to share.

Opening her eyes grumpily, she guessed by the way her face felt like it was frozen, that she had somehow dozed off. Shivering slightly, she got up from the tatami mats where she had fallen asleep, and dragged her feet all the way to her bed. Sighing, she cursed the Uchiha for wanting to have such a bloody big house. What was the need for it anyway? It means either more work for her, or the fact he'll have to bring in some servants. And no way in hell is she going to do his housework for him. He could fuck himself for all she cared.

Shuddering from the warmth, she buried herself deep into the duvet covers. Thinking for a moment, she didn't understand why she was being so angry and spiteful towards him; he hadn't done her any harm apart from almost killing her those few weeks ago. In fact, he had even organised a beautiful wedding party just for her, even though she didn't even want to get married to him. Just as she was trying to tell herself to treat him a tiny bit more nicely and that maybe he wasn't as bad as she thought, his next action made her disagree completely.

Screaming when she felt hands around her waist, she jumped out the bed and instinctively put her fists in front of her in a defensive position.

"What the hell!" She shouted, her anger directed at the bed. She scoffed in amazement how he could just calmly poke his head out of the bed innocently and watch her as if what he had done wasn't embarrassing at all. In fact, if she didn't know beforehand that Uchiha's smirks are ten times bigger and ten times more arrogant, she would have thought that he was smirking.

"What's wrong?" He asked, acting totally innocent, rubbing his eyes as he did so.

"What do you mean what's wrong! You just openly groped me." She exclaimed, too angry to care that she was now out in the cold.

"Yeah well, you woke me up." He groaned, yawning a little before turning his back on her, totally ignoring her as he pulled the duvet over himself completely.

"Why the hell were you in my room anyway?" She argued, furious that her bed now would smell of him.

"Well technically, it's my house." He argued back, and she could actually feel him smirk underneath the covers.

Screaming in frustration, she resisted the temptation to throw the nearest object at him, which currently was a pile of female clothes. Wait. What? Her thought track stopped, and the anger completely disappeared. Staring at them like they were some strange unidentified object, it took a while to figure out that Itachi had actually bought them for her.

Feeling a little guilty, she could kind of guess that they were expensive too, she could tell from a glance that they were made of either pure silk or very expensive materials. Sitting down next to them she pulled out a cardigan that looked warm, and wrapped it around her surprised that it fit extremely well.

"Do they fit?" She asked a deep muffled voice, interrupting her thoughts again. Looking back at them, then back at him, she replied by staring sarcastically at him.

"Whats wrong with them?" He asked again, his face finally emerging from under the duvet. Looking bored, he watched her with hidden amusement as she fidgeted awkwardly, before asking him how he had found out her clothing sizes. With a simple 'I looked on the tags of your other clothes' a sigh of relief escaped her lips. Then, an awkward silence entered the room as Itachi kept on staring at her, as if expecting something to happen.

"Uhm..?" She murmured quietly, hoping for him to stop staring at her. Itachi got the hint, and asked her again if they fit or not. She looked at him, frowning at him as if he were some sort of dumbass or something.

"I haven't tried them on yet." She said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Itachi however acted indifferently, and just kept on staring.

"And? Go try them on." He said impatiently, wondering whether or not all women were as slow as this one. Sakura knew that he was thinking this, but she didn't care. His attitude was pissing her off.

"Then get out of the room already and let me get changed." She said through gritted teeth, her eyebrows furrowing as the reason why she was originally so angry came back to her. It was the damn uchiha trade attitude.

"Why should I?" He asked, obviously teasing and mocking the pink haired girl. And it was working.

Absolutely furious with him, she didn't even care if he bought those clothes especially for her, or the fact that he could kill her within seconds and/or include a luxury five star trip to a torturing paradise, grabbing the nearest solid and painful looking object, she lobbed it at him. Watching him duck and look back at the wall where the object had landed, he winced inwardly as the object has been practically lodged into the wall. Sighing, he guessed he could afford to let her have the room to herself as she got dressed.

Getting up, he revealed an astounding toned body, his yukata slipping off down his arms and revealing his frontal torso. As if he were strutting his feathers like a peacock, he walked with high confidence past her and through the door, sliding the door shut as he exited. But not before sending Sakura a deathly glare with his sharingan and a warning not to act so violently towards him in normal dark voice, effectively sending chills throughout her body.

Shivering slightly, she knew that this time it wasn't due to the cold. Once again for what would have been probably the nineteenth time that month, she resisted the strong urge to break up into tears and cry behind those sliding doors that he had exited from. With useless thoughts of her being encaged here, wishing she was with her friends still and begging God to save her somehow, this time she couldn't stop the tears from escaping.

Sniffling slightly, she looked miserably at the clothes that he had bought for her, and before she knew it, she was ripping them into shreds, crying her eyes out as she did. Suddenly, everything that he touched, everything that he breathed on, everything that had anything to do with him made her feel sick. Hiccupping slightly from her crying, she decided that she wanted to destroy everything in that room, everything around her, everything that belonged to him. After ripping her clothes to shreds, she saw pure red and started to obliterate the furniture, until nothing in that room was useful or intact.

Laughing to herself hysterically, she guessed she was finally going mad from all this abuse. She asked herself what else in that room wasn't broken, and she chuckled cynically at the answer. Her soul certainly was broken, but her body remained intact. Grabbing her kunai that she had been using to rip and destroy everything, she didn't even care anymore for her friend's happiness, her friend's freedom and her villages' peace. No, for her whole life she had been sacrificing everything for them. Risking her life to protect them, letting him go because of their stupidity and unwillingness to go after him. And now, she was married to a monster to make sure that they could sleep well at night. Well enough was enough, she wasn't going to take this shit anymore.

Bringing the kunai closer to her, she smiled as it came closer to her beating heart, but that smile immediately turned into a frown as she felt warm strong arms and hands around her. Struggling violently against his hold, he gripped her wrists tighter and tightened the arm that was around her waist, only after punching her in the stomach to stun her. Gasping with pain as he knocked the breath out of her, she bit back the tears that were forming and hung her head low. She would cry in his house, his home, his room. But she would never, ever cry in front of him. And with a low growl against her ear, she could tell that her beloved hubby was way beyond pissed off.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing Sakura?" He said in a dangerously low whisper. She stopped attempting to struggle as the fears of the consequences hit her like a ton of bricks, and also because of the fact that he was too strong. When Itachi was answered with nothing but silence, he narrowed his eyes at her, before looking down onto the floor.

"Let go of the kunai." He ordered, but Sakura remained still. Pretending her disobedience was from not being able to hear him, he repeated himself, but in a more dangerous tone.

"Let. Go. Of. The. Kunai." He said in dangerous clear words. This time, she complied, and he swore he could feel her shiver slightly in front of him.

The kunai out of the way, he proceeded to let go of her wrist, which then hung limp by her side. At her blind spot, he formed a few seals then quickly pressed his palm into her forehead.

Draining her energy and chakra, she gasped as it took her all she could to even keep her eyes open.

Her body completely limp, she found herself being carried bridal style by Itachi out of her room and across the corridor. Her head resting against his bare chest, she watched weakly at the direction of where he was going.

Counting dazedly the steps that he took, he stopped suddenly in front of another pair of sliding doors.

Opening her eyes again and lazily scrolling them to the right, she realised that she was entering Itachi's actual bedroom. Glancing at it, she noted that it was slightly smaller than her own, and that there was hardly any furniture in there at all. Judging from that, she could guess that he wasn't home for much.

Feeling Itachi enter the room, she suddenly had a terrible feeling that something would happen that she wasn't going to like. And of course, it did.

Before it was too late to scream, she realised that he was carrying her to his bed. Laying her gently on the bed, she asked him what the hell he was doing, but instantly regretted it when he glared at her angrily.

"You don't have the trust or privilege to have your own room anymore. From now on you'll stay in the same room as me so I can keep a constant eye on you." He said, the last few words emphasised slightly with a dark smirk, letting Sakura's mind be filled with crazy and untrue fears and guesses.

Stripping himself of his yukata he slipped into bed as well, pulling a comfortable heavy amount of duvet on top of them.

Pulling her towards him, he left an arm around her waist and tried to drift off to sleep. Sakura on the other hand had other plans.

"Let me go!" She cried, trying to gain control of her body but failing miserably. He replied by pulling her closer to him, and even resting his chin at the top of the back of her head.

"I… I don't want…" She started, but found herself unable to finish the sentence. Unknowing that Itachi was watching her as she breathed heavily next to him, he sighed and shuffled slightly.

"Sakura. Go to sleep." He said. His voice wasn't angry now, and it was probably the closest thing to being pleasant that she would ever hear from him. But it still wasn't enough for her. She didn't want to be here married to him. She didn't want to live in the same house as him. She didn't want to sleep with him, even if it was only innocent bed sharing. The thought of it disgusted her. For the reason that he was his older brother, and the fact that sometimes, sometimes she would see him instead of Itachi. The thought of staying with the man who destroyed her first love's life, and now also hers and many of her friend's disgusted her. Gazing miserably at the silk sheets that lay in front of her, she would have given almost anything just to go back into her own room, into her own bed, where the monster wasn't. So she tried again.

"But…" She urged on, trembling slightly at tears that she couldn't stop from falling. Praying to God that he couldn't see them, she waited in silence for him to respond. Unfortunately for her, when he took one of his arms that was around her waist from her and wiped her tears with his thumb, she immediately knew that he knew she was crying. In her weakened state, more tears fell, and she suddenly couldn't take it anymore. Crying her eyes out, she felt him roll her over and hold her at his chest, stroking her head gently as she wailed away.

For the first time in ages, and to the person she hated the most, she was crying like a baby, unable to take any of this anymore. Sobbing away, she didn't want to fight anymore; she didn't want to suffer anymore. All she wanted was to have some peace and quiet, to be somewhere where she didn't have to fight or worry anymore. And at that moment, that place was in his arms.

Moments later, she had finally stopped crying, and instead sat there quietly, not understanding what had just happened. They had stayed like that for quite a while, and it was only until Itachi moved up and got out of bed that Sakura noticed that he was there again. Watching him tiredly, she guessed she must have looked terrible from his view, but he said nothing but a simple, "Go to sleep Sakura," before tucking her in then leaving the room wordlessly.

She was so confused. She didn't know what to do anymore, and her husband certainly wasn't helping. Why did he let her do that? In fact, why did she let him do that? And why hadn't he killed her yet for the huge disobedience that she had shown him earlier? Her head pounding and her vision blurring, she winced in pain as she realised that she had probably caught a cold earlier. Already in a pretty comfortable position, she guessed that since he left the room that he would probably not return for a while, and that it would be pretty safe to fall asleep.

And she did.

Hope you enjoyed the story :) Now spend at least 5 seconds of your life giving a review to the dear writer of this fanfiction to make her feel a tiny bit special :) In return, you get cookies and also faster updates :D If not, me and alina will come after you with a masamune and a chainsaw :D You can guess what will happen then.

Anyway c2, (that's supposed to be a heart btw xD since the less than and 3 don't work here) REVIEW! D=