Give me a reason not to keep sleeping

when I'm awake I feel like I am dreaming

the world is shrinking, every street's the same thing

I can't reach that far, but there are people disappearing

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

The scream that erupted from his chest was a terrible, blood-curdling thing that pierced the night air like a knife. Sakura scrambled away from him in alarm, falling backwards onto the ground with wide, frightened eyes.

"Get away – you're dead, you're dead - this isn't real -"

"Please – Sasuke-kun, please, please, stop screaming – stop - "

Her hair was long, her frame skinny. There was something helpless in the way she pleaded with him to calm down, but it did not reassure him. Sakura was twelve and small and – and dead, damn it. He'd seen her lifeless body. This was – this was a dream, it had to be a dream, because he – because Sasuke, he was dead, too – Tobi killed him and none of this was real –

"Oi, bastard," Naruto's voice, sleep-slurred and irritated, sounded from nearby. "Shut up."

He watched in horror as a tousled head of blond hair poked itself up and out of a sleeping bag. Naruto, twelve and boisterous – that loser he remembered from the days of Team Seven and petty squabbles – glared at him. Kakashi, he could see, was slumped against a tree a little further away, that infernal orange book over his face.

"You're scaring Sakura-chan," Naruto added, blue-eyed and so, so young. Sasuke swallowed with difficulty and snapped his jaw shut. The night air was cool and sweet smelling, the sky above their heads littered with stars. He could still smell the remains of a campfire, the ashy scent of leaves mingling with that of summer, could feel the soft, green grass beneath his palms.

It felt real.

"This is an illusion," he said, but the words came out garbled, almost strangled sounding. "You're not – this. It's not real!"

The more the truth spilled past his lips, the paler and more concerned his former teammates grew, but Sasuke didn't care. He took off running – running as fast as he could and it wasn't disappearing, the world wasn't disappearing and why was he moving so slowly?

"Sasuke!"

"Sasuke-kun, come back!"

"You better get back here, bastard!"

Their shouts called after him into the dark, but he kept running. Every in and out of air through his lungs was like a fist slamming against everything he knew to be true.

It's an illusion, he told himself, still running blindly in the dark – the black shapes of trees and shrubbery closing around him. Just an illusion; it has to be.

The damp grass beneath his feet, the smell of the night air, the sounds of a forest alive around him – none of it could be real. None of it could be true because he could still see that blood-red sky, could still hear Naruto's last, rattling breath.

Sasuke could still remember Tobi turning Sakura's lifeless body with his foot, could still remember the way it had felt to bleed out in the mud with half his ribcage torn clean away. Instinctively, he shuddered to a stop and looked down at his torso – his small, skinny, and completely whole body.

"It's an illusion," he whispered, still panicked – reeling from the sight and sound and sensation around him. A thought, clear and sharp, emerged through the chaos.

Sharingan.

He reached for the power of his clan – the tell-tale burn that preceded its surfacing bubbled in the depths of his bloodstream – but nothing happened. His eyes stayed as they were; dark and wild and normal.

He recoiled from himself in horror. The Sharingan – the Sharingan was gone. How could it be gone? How could it just disappear like that? Sasuke closed his eyes and searched for that once-elusive place deep inside himself – somewhere between fear and elation…

And came up against a wall.

He pushed futilely against it and stabbing pain rocketed through his skull, making his knees tremble. Sasuke gasped and started forwards again, moving because the alternative was to drown under the torrent of emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

Eyesight blurred, he only stopped when a glimmering surface appeared out of nowhere and cold water lapped around his ankles. The stream trickled quietly through the night and Sasuke looked, unwillingly, down at his reflection.

A child looked back at him – dark haired, wild eyed and sickly pale. No matter how hard he stared at his reflection it didn't change and the Sharingan didn't surface. He looked twelve and half-mad – frail, puny, weak…

His hands moved to form the seal that would release him from the genjutsu.

"Kai," he commanded, staring fixedly at the rippling surface of the water and his own softly wavering reflection. Nothing happened.

"KAI!"

Slowly, his hands dropped. A glint of metal caught his eye; a tiny glimpse of kunai handle peeking through a small gap in his leg holster. He reached for it, fingers shaking, and raised it high into the air. There was a strange rushing sound and a spark of light flew off the blade. Pain exploded in his thigh.

Sasuke looked down at the blood pulsing from his leg, hot and wet and copious, and then at his surroundings which had not changed. The world spun on its axis as he bled out and then the bottom dropped out of everything.

The first thing he was aware of was muffled voices nearby. The darkness hugged him close and he felt warm, enclosed. Flickering light danced against the back of his eyelids and he smelt fire.

"That stupid bastard," someone said weakly. "Sensei…is he going to die?"

Someone – a very feminine sounding someone – was crying.

"No, Naruto; Sasuke will be just fine. Sakura…please stop crying."

"S-sorry," the girl's voice hiccupped. "It's j-just…"

"Does your wrist still hurt?"

Silence. Still struggling into wakefulness, Sasuke could only dimly comprehend that she must've given a non-verbal answer of some kind. His head pounded and all the world rocked gently around his ears. The cage around him, he started to realise, was a sleeping bag. His leg throbbed painfully with every pulse of blood that moved through his body.

"What happened?" Kakashi asked, sounding bemused. "Everything was fine, when I woke you up for your watch."

"I don't know," Sakura said, sounding shaken. "I went to wake him up like I was supposed to Sensei and…and h-he just —"

"The guy lost it," Naruto interrupted, sounding honestly baffled. "The guy's a nutcase, Kakashi-sensei. Can't we get someone else on our team? Look at Sakura-chan's wrist!"

"It's not his fault, Naruto! I just – I fell on it wrong, that's all."

"He was screaming like a lunatic!"

"What did he say?" The voice of his sensei, quiet and very serious, swallowed up Naruto's indignant babble. A short, tense silence followed.

"He kept screaming that we weren't real," Sakura told him at last, very quietly. "I thought he was having a nightmare or something."

"Sasuke is a genius," Kakashi said at last. "But even prodigies get nightmares sometimes. Be kind, Sakura. And you, Naruto. Don't pester him over it in the morning. In fact…"

"What is it, Sensei?"

"It'd probably be better if we pretend this never happened."

When his teammates started to protest, Kakashi added, "Think how you'd feel in Sasuke's shoes. Would you want everyone reminding you of that?"

Silence.

"That's what I thought." His sensei sounded almost sad. "Now, go to bed. I'll wake you in a few hours."

There was a faint shuffling and the night quieted. Sasuke allowed himself to be pulled back into the warm, comforting darkness.

When he finally woke properly, it was to a small, unfamiliar bedroom in which he was the only occupant. Golden sunlight streamed softly onto a patch of wooden floor, and for a moment he simply lay in his bedding on the floor, dazed and uncomprehending. Sasuke's entire body felt stiff and sluggish — his mind even more so.

Where am I?

Somewhere outside, he could hear birdsong and he struggled into a sitting position, utterly disorientated by his surroundings. The movement caused unexpected agony in his thigh – throwing the crisp bed sheets back, Sasuke saw the bandages. He remembered his manic attempt to dispel what he'd fully believed was genjutsu – and how it apparently hadn't worked.

A cold chill went down his back, despite the comforting warmth of the room. What if – his mind flinched away from the possibility, his hands clenching into fists – but what if this wasn't a genjutsu at all?

Sasuke looked down at his hands – the small, pale hands of the child he'd once been. There'd never been a genjutsu he couldn't break before.

Am I dead then? It seemed likely. Tobi tearing through him like he was nothing more than paper…that he remembered well.

"It's over now. You've played your part to the letter; I have no more use for you."

When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the wet mud beneath him, see the red sky looming over him, hear the screams of people dying on the air….

A sudden rattling noise made him jump. The door slid open to reveal the two people he'd watched die before his eyes. Sakura beamed at him, a tea tray held aloft between her thin, little girl arms, and behind her, Naruto sulked.

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty," the blond grouched, and Sasuke just stared at him- at both of them. Now that he was fully awake and somewhat prepared for what he was seeing, he was able to process the impossible with a little more coherency. Naruto was pretty much exactly as he remembered him; short, blond and obnoxious. Even the heinous, orange tracksuit was the same.

He looked to Sakura, examining her with the same calculating scrutiny. Yes, this was the little girl he remembered; thin-boned and fragile looking – not some flat-eyed kunoichi spitting up blood on the battlefield. Seeing the contrast between who Sakura was and who she would grow to be made him uncomfortable.

Sakura set the tray carefully down on the floor beside him as Sasuke stilled dangerously, a sudden idea striking him. What if…?

The sound of tea being poured yanked him out of his thoughts before they could go any further. Smiling, she handed him a cup of softly steaming tea, as though nothing was wrong – as though she hadn't just died in the stinking mud, as though the world hadn't ended, as though Sasuke hadn't tried to kill her three times. It was enough to make his stomach turn.

Her fingers brushed against his as she handed him the tea, and the skin-on-skin contact sent a jolt of awareness through him. Her hands were warm. It frightened him a little, that she felt so real. It made it harder to believe that everything was a dream.

"Here," she said, voice soft and feminine. "Kakashi-sensei said you should drink it."

She looked so young, he noted, numbly accepting the tea because he didn't know what else to do. Her innocence – their…their oblivious smiles and actions made him feel sick.

"I want tea, Sakura-chan!"

She pursed her lips at him. "Go wash your hands!"

"You've been out in the rice paddies, too!" the blond pointed out indignantly, the beginnings of a pout forming on his mouth.

"Yes, but I've already washed up," Sakura told him somewhat smugly. "It's good manners, Naruto."

As Sasuke watched in sickened silence, she leant over the tray to pour another two cups of tea and Naruto stomped off somewhere into the depths of the house. All he could think was that she looked so breakable and he could crush her so easily – could reach out and smash her head against the floor before she'd have time to scream.

"You're not drinking," she said suddenly, snapping him away from the image of her skull breaking beneath his fingers. His mouth and throat were dry; he said nothing in reply. Part of him was still convinced that he was dreaming, or stuck in a genjutsu.

Part of him was still convinced that they were all dead.

"I bet you're thirsty. I'm always thirsty after sleeping. That's why I always keep a glass of water on my nightstand. But I guess that's harder on missions and you've been asleep for a lot longer than usual and-"

"Shut up!" Sasuke finally snapped, cutting through her nervous babble and immediately silencing her. The thudding in his ears almost blocked out the smashing sound of china. Glaring, hands clenched into fists, he tried to stand – only for the pain in his thigh to send him sprawling to his knees. He felt aggravatingly vulnerable – weak – weaker than he'd been in years.

He knelt there on the wooden floor, breathing hard and fast, eyes burning with his shame and confusion.

"Just…shut up."

Sakura was silent and still, but he could feel her hurt radiating out from beneath her skin across the room. He didn't want to look at her.

"Kakashi-sensei said he'd come talk to you later," she said at last, voice wavering and he heard the gentle tap of her cup being set down on the tray. He didn't look up as she got quietly to her feet, her dress rustling as she moved - a strange and long-forgotten sound that echoed down the years.

On the battlefield, she'd made no noise at all when she moved.

"Careful of the shards," Sakura told him softly as she let herself out of the room, the door sliding shut behind her. Breathing harshly from his outburst, he glanced at the floor to find himself kneeling amid pieces of broken china.

Sasuke stared at them for a long time, the world spinning around his ears. He felt completely disconnected from everything, thrown so far backwards that nothing made sense anymore.

Tobi… the war… had…had any of that even happened? Was any of it real?

He scoffed and lashed out at the broken china with his hand, leaning back and falling amidst the bed sheets. Of course it was real. He remembered everything; the feel of Naruto's Rasengan punching a hole through his stomach, the sound of his own agonised scream ripping the air apart, Itachi's smile as he slid to the ground …

"Damn it." The word hissed between his teeth, confusion and rage churning together and struggling to the surface from the dark, bottomless pit that had filled him since his brother died in front of him.

Those memories and the accompanying dead space inside him was all he had left. Sasuke clung to the hatred, forced himself to remember every wrong against him and his family, for fear that the confusion would win out and turn his entire world upside down. Because – because if this was real, if he was twelve and Sakura and Naruto were alive, did that mean that none it had happened yet?

Did that mean none of it had ever really happened at all?

"Would you care to tell me why your teammate is crying outside?" Kakashi's voice said, interrupting Sasuke's thoughts and startling him so badly he was moving to throw a kunai in his old sensei's direction before he realised that he was weaponless.

"You seem a little…jumpy," his former teacher observed, raising an eyebrow. "Bad dreams, or is there something you need to tell me, Sasuke?"

For a frightening moment, he felt hysterical laughter bubbling up in his throat. When had he ever told Kakashi anything? His old teacher had preached and lectured, but never listened and years after the fact, Sasuke saw no reason to start.

"Isn't there something you need to tell me?" was all he said in response, because Konoha was full of nothing but liars and traitors, and Kakashi was one of them.

The silver-haired man recoiled slightly, sole visible eye wide with surprise and something else that Sasuke couldn't read. That was familiar. He'd never been able to get a good read on his genin-sensei. He was lackadaisical, nonchalant, too secretive to be relied upon. Sasuke had secretly admired him, once. Just for a short time. That Sharingan made him feel less alone. Now he knew that his former teacher was nothing more than a pretender to his clan's legacy.

He would always be alone.

As if he could guess his thoughts, Kakashi said, "I don't know what's troubling you, Sasuke, but pushing people away is only going to make it worse. You have the chance to form some really special bonds here, bonds that last whole lifetimes. You only ever get one genin team."

I know, he felt like saying. Mine chased me to the ends of the earth and it didn't make a difference.

But he didn't. Instead he glowered in silence, and Kakashi sighed.

"Just think about what I said," he told him. "Get to know your teammates a little. If you can, stop making Sakura cry. You're never going to get anywhere without a proper team, and if I recall, you have two certain goals you want to fulfil."

Immediately, Sasuke went completely, utterly still, his mind sent reeling back to that first meeting between Team Seven, when they declared their likes, dislikes, and dreams to the summer sky.

And he'd said he wanted to kill a certain man, meant it with every cell in his body.

Itachi…

His brother's face flickered in front of his eyelids, an image nothing could disperse. That familiar, regretful look, the blood that poured from the corners of his mouth, the whispered, "I'm sorry Sasuke. There won't be a next time."

I take it back! he wanted to scream. I take it back! I'd take it all back! But he could not speak around the obstruction in his throat.

That was what really got to him, sent him spiralling into a darkness of mind that nothing could pull him out of. All those wasted years he'd spent hating his brother, believing all those lies…he'd devoted himself to killing the brother who loved him all along – and Itachi had known it.

Kakashi, taking his silence as a concession to his wishes, reached out and ruffled his hair. Sasuke was too lost in the desperate anguish of his mind to react.

"You only live once, Sasuke," the silver-haired man said, before disappearing in a puff of smoke, as was his habit.

In the silence, it was those words that echoed over and over. You only lived once, but Sasuke had already had his time.

Hadn't he?

How can I pretend to know my own mind

the more questions I ask, the more I find

I'm lost at home, out of time

the coins I flip land on their side

notes: once again my thanks go to my glorious beta, Sakura's Unicorn for trawling through pages of my writing and somehow making it decent.

notes2: I forgot to mention that the lyrics at the start and finish of last chapter were taken from the song Hey Now by Augustana. this chapter, the lyrics are taken from Lost at Home by The Automatic.

notes3: and lastly, thank you so much my lovely readers for the phenomenal response you gave me last chapter. 53 reviews for the opening chapter alone is...well, it's a first for me. so thank you very much! you all have some very interesting theories and i'd love to know what your thoughts are again :)