Narcissus
By Frozzy

Chapter Three

"You're spoiling an old man doing this."

"It's lunch. I'm not asking you to father my children," Sakura said and peered into the oven and the sticky dough that was slowly beginning to resemble bread. "I ran out of flour at home and your place is the closest. You get free food. Besides, Ino is on a mission and I gotta share my food with someone. I can't grow old and isolated like others."

"Don't I feel privileged now," Kakashi said from his spot by the kitchen table.

"Your humor takes my breath away. You should demand payment for it."

Hiding his amusement behind his mask, Kakashi stood up from his seat.

"Sarcasm is an unflattering trait," he said and stepped around the table. He was unable to sit still for very long as it often was with people of their profession. When you were used to travelling across countries every third week, restlessness became a regular state. Also, Kakashi rarely ever used his kitchen knives for anything else besides practicing his aim. Actual bread being baked in his kitchen made him feel uncomfortable and he thus had to move around to lessen the feeling.

"You would know. Having mastered it at the age of ten and all," Sakura said and cleaned the sink with a damp cloth to remove all traces of flour and other ingredients.

"I didn't know you held me in such high regard," Kakashi said.

"Grab the brush and do the dishes before the dough dries and sticks to everything," Sakura said and gestured towards the large blue bowl and the variety of spoons and knives she had used.

"Shouldn't the one who made a mess of the kitchen be the one to clean it up?" Kakashi asked, but he reached out for the bowl and dropped it into the sink, turning on the hot water and letting it fill the blue plastic.

"No," Sakura said.

"I must be old-fashioned."

"Stuff away the complaints. Free home-baked bread," Sakura reminded the older man.

"Someone's in a bad mood."

"Someone should shut their mouth," she said. She couldn't see his smile, but she could sense it.

"Jokes aside," the older jonin began, "something is on your mind."

She surprised herself by nodding.

"He's sick, you know," she said out loud, playing it off as being an offhanded observation. Kakashi probably wasn't the right person to reveal this particular train of thoughts to, but Sakura would be damned before she could lie to a man that she respected to such a high degree as she did him. He was her guide and her confidante. More so than Tsunade. Sakura had always related better to men.

"Who?" Kakashi asked.

"Itachi," she answered. "Is that why he's back?"

"There needs to be a reason behind his return?"

"You're a horrible liar, Kakashi."

This was Kakashi when he was at his best, blindly agreeing with whatever was said because he felt disinclined to discuss it. Moreover that meant she was on the right track.

"You shouldn't have pulled me into this," she said. Kakashi looked at her. It was the kind of grave look that you only got from him whenever your world was going down the drain and he felt that he had played a part in it. Sakura had only seen it on his face twice in her life before today.

"You're at liberty to speak up, Sakura," he said. "You can decline. Say no."

"And what? Have somebody else take over fixing Itachi's eyes?" she asked. "I'm not stupid. I'm the only one who can heal his eyes. The technique is too advanced for others. It's too personalized. I created it."

"Your options are limited, that's true," Kakashi said. She gave him a blank look. Upon seeing the look she was giving him, Kakashi sighed and his shoulders sagged.

"What do you want me to say, Sakura?" he asked. "You are the only one suited for this task and whether you are willing to accept it or not, it's a task that the Hokage has deemed vital for the medicinal development of the village. And for the Uchiha blood line, by extension."

"It's Itachi."

"Yes," he said. "It's Itachi."

"And you don't see where I'm going with this?" she asked. "Why I'm frustrated?"

"I see perfectly well where you're going with this and I'm not saying you're wrong either," he answered her. "But it may not be the best idea to go into this task with a prejudiced mind."

"Prejudiced mind?" she asked. "I grew up with the tales of Uchiha Itachi and how he had brutally slaughtered his entire family. I grew up with Sasuke's hate for Itachi. And that hate was not a small thing, you know that. At the Academy, I was told stories of Uchiha Itachi's inhuman thirst for death and blood. I was taught to think of him as a monster. I was told never to go down the wrong road, because then I would end up like him. And anything that he has ever done in my presence has always supported this. He killed off Team 7. Not on purpose, sure, but he made Sasuke run away from us. From Konoha. And he did actually try to kill Naruto. I have more reason than anyone else to feel prejudiced about this man. Why should I change my perspective? It has served me well so far."

"Has it?" Kakashi asked. "Has it served you well so far?"

Sakura paused. "What are you saying?"

"Saying? I was asking a question," the Copy Ninja said.

"You never just ask questions," Sakura said. "And clean that up right. You're just smearing it all over the place, apply more soap. Clean is properly. Don't mash it around."

"I know what I'm doing. And weren't we talking about-"

"Give me that."

Sweat poured down her forehead and brows. Her muscles had long ago cramped up when the three teammates finally decided to end the sparring session. And that was in spite of Naruto's avid protests that sixty minutes of attack and dodge within a three mile radius was child's play. Sure, it might have been child's play if you had been lazing off at home for the entire afternoon like Naruto had done, but the day that Sakura lazed off would be the day that a black hole descended upon earth and swallowed it whole. That afternoon she had been off archiving journals and random files for four hours down in the basement of the hospital.

"I call it a tie," Sakura said and singled out a spot on the ground where she sat down and began to massage her sore legs. Konoha was abnormally low on missions and had been for a few months by now. Sakura could only imagine the suppressed energy that rummaged around within Naruto.

"I totally beat you two," Naruto said in between harsh breaths. He plopped down on the ground and spread out his arms and legs. The position most of all looked like that of a dead bird.

"I was not aware we were fighting to win," Sai said. He was the only one out of the three that was still standing. Former Root agent to the core, Sakura thought. Sai's physical strength and shape sometimes scared her. His stamina was better than Naruto's. If you excluded Kyuubi's extra dash of power, of course.

"We weren't," Sakura said and wiped sticky sweat off her brow. "Naruto's being delusional again."

"What, I'm not being-"

"It has been a while since he has had one of those days," Sai said and deliberately paid Naruto's complaint no mind. Sai's social skills had gone through a major improvement over the last year and his newly found sense of humor, however formal and incomprehensible it could be, was a clear testament to that. Of course, with Naruto often being at the receiving end of it, the blond probably didn't see it as an improvement. Sakura had no problems. She had found a soul mate in Sai and wasn't about to waste the opportunities it presented.

"Ease up there, Naruto," Sakura smiled and cracked an eye open to look at her teammate.

"Indeed," Sai said. "There are many times in life when you have to accept the truth for what it is."

"Shaddup," Naruto said and leaned up on his elbows, scouting the area. "Hey, Sakura?"

"Hm?"

"Has he said anything about the bastard?"

It didn't take a genius to guess who Naruto was referring to. And Sakura had expected this to come up at some point, so she wasn't taken by surprise.

"No."

"Do you think you-"

"You know I can't," she said and stopped him. "I'm his doctor. Not his therapist."

"Right," he said after a brief pause. "Right."

"It's getting dark," Sai said and made both Naruto and Sakura turn their heads. "We should head home."

"Yeah," Sakura agreed and got up from the ground. She wiped a hand across the smeared dirt on her skirt. She didn't want to look over at Naruto and see the blank expression on his face. She longed for the days back when Team 7 used to go on lousy C-rank missions for a variety of old ladies. Growing up was hard, and she could just as well face the fact that her social network consisted solely of people who wasn't making life any easier for her. All her friends were wrecked beyond repair. Every shinobi was wrecked beyond repair, granted, but Sakura had always felt as if she in particular gravitated towards the especially fucked up ones.

"No detours for any of you?" she asked.

"No," Naruto and Sai replied in unison.

"I gotta head to my parents' place first," she said. The two men both stopped and looked at her with confused expressions.

"It's in the other direction," she said.

"Ah, right," Naruto said. "See you tomorrow."

She nodded. She didn't know what else to do. He had shut her out for the time being, and she didn't begrudge him that.

"Do not get lost in the woods," Sai said. Sakura shook her head, both amused and exasperated.

The trio split up with two of them going east and one west.

Sakura hadn't walked far before a familiar chakra signature made her stop mid-step in the middle of the road. It was funny how she didn't think twice before she pushed her way through the brushwood by the side of the road. She kept jogging straight ahead until she reached a small clearing in the middle of the looming pines and birches. There she stopped dead in her tracks. Itachi was there. Part of her wanted to yell out to him. God knows where that particular urge came from. It was probably the same urge that had sent her rummaging through the brushwood seconds before.

"I wasn't aware that I had been assigned a supervisor," Itachi's voice travelled across the small space separating them. Kakashi's voice rang loud in Sakura's ears. In that moment it was the one thing that kept her from making a pitiful exit. Prejudices were bad. She knew that. Kakashi had reminded her of it.

"If that was the case, I wouldn't fit the job description," she answered and kept her voice light and neutral. She could feel safe at the hospital where she owned the territory. This was nobody's territory. Neither his, nor hers. And they both knew Itachi could easily lord over her if he wished to. She had to keep him from wishing so.

"As your medic, I recommend against testing out your vision during the treatment process," she said. "Like I said, for the treatment to be just somewhat permanent, you can't use the Sharingan. And if you do use it, please do so sparsely and only when in dire need. This isn't dire need."

"And what makes you think that is what I am doing?" Itachi asked and raised his head a little.

"You were in Grass Country," Sakura said and changed the topic on impulse. "In that bar."

His head moved another inch, just enough for his eyes to wander aimlessly across the ground close to her feet. By reflex, her legs twitched.

"Curiosity killed the cat. Is there a point you wish to make?" he asked with no interpretable tone to his voice.

"You were off duty," she said, not sure how to phrase it since she had no idea of how Akatsuki was organized and didn't really want to get any insider tips on it. It was a dead chapter to her.

The corner of Itachi's mouth twitched.

"I seem to recall that you must have been too," he said. "However, you may not remember that so clearly yourself, what with the amount of alcohol you saw it fit to indulge in."

"You weren't empty-handed yourself," she said. She had never associated Itachi with the word conversational, but his sentences had steadily been growing longer and longer over the past few weeks. If he had been capable of feeling lonely, she would have blamed it on that. People weren't exactly standing in line to befriend the Uchiha. But Sakura doubted that lonliness was even part of Itachi's emotional barometer.

"I didn't say I was," he replied and turned his head away from her. Almost immediately her eyes were drawn to his neck where she could make out the rough edges of a scar starting right below his ear and disappearing down towards his collarbone where his shirt obscured the rest of the mark. She had walked closer, she realized. For her to make out details like scars, she had crossed some of the distance between them.

"Why were you there? In Grass?" she asked, pushing the matter for reasons unknown to herself. Except that she hated secrets. And she had a feeling that Itachi possessed a lot of those, many of them pertaining to her own life and friends.

"Business. You shouldn't pursue this matter. Let it go," he said with his eyes trained on a spot somewhere behind her shoulder. The eyes were Sasuke's, but older. He was Sasuke with a history that didn't involve a past known by all, but a past known by few.

"Why? I was there," she said. "I would like to know why you were there, too."

Itachi said nothing. Instead, he reached out and fisted his hand in her hair.

Sakura didn't have time to step back and dodge his hand. She let him grab her, but not without a hitch in her breath. She had a flashback to one of their first sessions back in the hospital. He had grabbed her hair and held her down to the floor, quiet threats spilling from his lips like sweet poison. Now, this time, his hold on her hair was less violent. It was more of a warning. If it kept him talking, she could allow a bit of domination and hair pulling. This, the way that the Uchiha could be set off as though there was a special button for it, was something that had to stem from some sort of twisted psychosis deep within his bones. It didn't particularly comfort Sakura, but it was nice to know that there was a reason behind the Uchiha's actions, unpredictable as they were.

"You don't know when to stop talking," Itachi said with his hand wound tight around the hair at the back of her head. Sakura wasn't afraid. Not truly. He wouldn't kill her now. There had been plenty of opportunities in the recent past. If she didn't think too hard about the stories that she had been fed as a child, he didn't scare her more than any other hostile person would. He was a scary mother fucker, yes, but he wouldn't kill her.

"Step back, Itachi," Sakura said.

"Using my first name," he answered. "That's new."

Itachi let go. Not because he had asked her, but probably because he had better things to do than humor her. A heavy weight fell off Sakura's chest and she took a deep breath. Itachi's eyes swerved down to her chest and back up. She tried to breathe less noticably after that. Why had she provoked him to grab her?

"I have a free spot in my schedule at 8 a.m. tomorrow," Sakura said and acted as if Itachi hadn't just manhandled her. "I expect to see you there for our third session."

"I had not planned to be elsewhere."

He had no choice, was what they both knew. As much as Sakura had been taught to loathe the man, her newly acquired view of him as a man who harbored an impressive brain amidst all the bloodshed and death had begun to undermine the preaching that used to tell her how the Uchiha was a monster. In a way, she would have loved it if he had stayed inhuman to her, but she already knew that her future wasn't heading down that road. Itachi was human. Like everyone else. She had always known that, but it wasn't until now that she had had to face the fact. It wasn't until now that she had to admit it.

"Was there anything else?" Itachi asked. "The fact that you are still present would indicate that you have not finished your business with me. Am I wrong?"

"I have no more business with you," Sakura said.

"Then why you are still here?"

She left with a confused shake of her head. There wasn't anything of greater intelligence to say to that.

The next day arrived too soon. As Sakura walked up the stairs of the hospital to the room that she had booked for Itachi's treatments, it felt as though she was walking towards her personal doom. For the past three weeks, her life had revolved solely around the man that she was headed towards right now. Sakura wasn't one to whine and complain, but if anybody should accuse her of doing so, she would find it hard to argue against the accusation this one time.

"You might want to stop blocking the staircase, Sakura-san."

Sakura looked up at the source of the sound. Neji stood before her, one hand on the banister and a small smile on his lips.

"Sorry," she said and stepped aside. "I was thinking. I must have stopped walking."

"May I ask about what?"

Sakura rarely ever spoke with the Hyuuga, despite her being long-time friends with both Hinata and Lee. The three were no longer in a team, but they had kept the contact like Naruto and Sakura also had.

"Nothing interesting," Sakura answered his question a little too late.

"The Hokage is looking for you," he said. "I suggest you go see her after your appointment with Uchiha-san."

"Wait, what?" she asked, throwing all prior caution to the wind.

"Do you want me to repeat-"

"No," she said. "How do you know about my work with Itachi?"

As far as she knew, the only outsiders that were aware of her treatments on Itachi were Sai, Kakashi and Naruto, and they knew better than to talk about it to anyone else. Neji opened his mouth to answer at the same time that another person appeared on the already crowded staircase.

"Haruno-san."

Itachi stood at the top of the stairs. Like Neji, he had one hand on the banister.

"Sorry," Sakura said to Neji. "I need to go. Let's catch up another time, perhaps?"

She walked up the stairs to Itachi. She didn't stop in her trek. She expected that Itachi would remove his arm and clear the way for her.

He didn't.

Sakura came to an awkward halt in front of his outstretched arm and his hand that still held onto the banister. She gave him a pointed look, but the pointedness deflated when Itachi's eyes zeroed in on her face and she was hit with a sudden understanding of why all those girls, herself included, had once upon a time fawned so desperately over Sasuke. When an Uchiha's sole attention was focused on you, intensity gained a whole new meaning. She cleared her throat and reached out towards his arm to make her intention clear.

How could he not understand that move, right?

But he didn't understand it.

Sakura ended up standing with her hand suspended in mid-air, inches away from his arm.

"Uchiha-san," Neji's voice said from somewhere behind Sakura. "Sakura-san will need to pass you."

Itachi dropped his arm, but not without waiting a couple of seconds first. Sakura walked past him and headed towards the room that she had booked for Itachi's treatment. She thanked the Gods that Itachi followed her without protest. When they reached the room, he even walked inside without putting up a fuss. Not that Itachi was prone to putting up fusses. He would rather just tell her directly that he was displeased. That or he would manhandle her to get his point across.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said after she had closed the door behind them. "I lost track of time."

Itachi already sat on the bed. He offered no response. She figured her apology had been accepted.

"Have you felt any regular discomfort in the area since your last treatment?" she asked and sat down next to where the Uchiha lay on the bed with his eyes closed.

"None that have incapacitated me," he answered.

"Elaborate."

One eye cracked open to look at her: "it itches."

"It may simply be the healing process," Sakura explained. "Still, I should-"

"Your pulse has accelerated. I wasn't like this on the staircase."

"What?"

"You are uncomfortable," Itachi said, both eyes now open. Again, this felt like a déjà vu back to their first session together. There had been a lot of those lately. Itachi was aware of his surroundings in the way that a snake was aware of a potential food source. It bothered Sakura to no end that during their sessions, the Uchiha never failed to point out every single observation about the changes in her body and voice. He put pressure on her, and she didn't know if he was doing it intentionally or if that was simply part of his subconscious. She had a hard time thinking that he did anything subconsciously, but logically he had to. No human could be aware of every single process behind their thoughts and actions. Some could be more aware than others, but no one could be aware of everything.

"I always am around you," she answered. "Close your eyes, please."

He did as she asked. She began her work.