Part three!!! I'm happy to tell you that this one came out as two chapters. It's shorter than part one again, but part one was the best. I like this better than part two, anyhow. I really do like this.
Some themes that I tried to imply in my writing were repetition to bring the plot to a full circle, and the graduation of changing emotions.
I'm sorry to say that the 'graduation of changing emotions' is definitely rocky. I am really bad at it. But I did my best, so you'll just have to deal with Itachi's weird mood swings.
Okay. Also, 'checker eyes' is a joke from a dub on youtube, the great checkers escape. Go look it up, it's hilarious. Not hard to find.
Yes, I referenced the long and winding road, again. It's in there.
Disclaimer? The usual. I don't own Itachi, I don't own Luna, I don't own Tobi, Deidara, Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu, Zetsu, the works… I also don't own the setting, Ottery St Catchpole, nor the hills round it. …noticing a pattern?
Okay, onward.
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Itachi was lost.
He had been circling the same hills and town for hours now, and had no idea where in the world he was.
Literally.
He wasn't sure he was even in Japan anymore, he was that lost. Nothing looked familiar, not one thing.
And so we come to the conclusion that Itachi was lost.
The hours melded together into a clump as Itachi found himself rounding the same small inn for the fifth time.
It was following him, he was positive.
But it was getting late. And even awesome evil murderer people like Itachi need sleep. So, eyeing it warily, he stepped into the broken down inn.
He rented a room, (he had money. He always has money. That just seems like the sort of thing Itachi would not run out of… somehow. Bet Kakuzu bugs the hell outta him.) and went to lie down.
Itachi hadn't slept well. The bed was lumpy and the pillows were scant, he had spent the night dreaming of his Akatsuki cave, Bob Segar poster and all.
And now he needed coffee.
So he wandered through the still unfamiliar town until he came across a small coffee shop, with ivy growing on the roof and a faded sign in the window advertising it's famous lemon scone.
Itachi decided he hated lemon scones.
A waitress came up to him, and offered him something to eat or drink. She was speaking in English, which Itachi probably doesn't know, but for the purpose of this fanficiton He does. He ordered a plain coffee, and nearly took her head off (literally) when she asked if he wanted a lemon scone.
Life sucks when you don't want to cause a riot.
He stared out the window as he waited for his beverage, hating every pebble in the road. He hated the tiling on the building across the street, he hated the stupid squirrel clambering up the thin tree out front of the café, he hated that guy with the plaid button-down shirt, he hated that guy wearing the obnoxious purple slacks, he hated that lady wearing the obvious wig, he hated that blonde girl coming into the café, and most of all he hated that he was stuck with them all.
He turned back to his table and was surprised to find his waitress setting his coffee (complete with a doily and a biscuit for presentation) onto the table. He didn't say anything, and ignored the waitress as she walked away.
He sipped at the coffee, forcing himself to hate the taste. (It was actually pretty good coffee, but Itachi wasn't in a 'lets appreciate this cup of coffee' mood.) He stared straight ahead, not really seeing anything.
And something caught his eye.
No, wait, false alarm. He was still staring- I kid I kid.
He turned his head ever so slightly, and glared at the earrings that had flashed in the morning sun so annoyingly.
The owner of the bizarre earrings turned her head.
And smiled.
And something in her dreamy gaze made Itachi want to kill her. She had no right so be so cheerful in this dreary town; there was nothing remotely cheerful here. Yet she smiled.
So he glared at her some more.
She just went back to her lemon scone.
That day, Itachi did several things, including kicking random trees or benches, swearing loudly at birds, and scaring little children.
Which was always fun.
But none of this was productive.
So he wandered round the hills. They stretched quite the way around. Not many houses, they were diluted widely over the hills. The houses that he did see were odd, the weirdest of many looking a little like a teapot.
That evening, he was finally able to find out where he was, and many a child's ears were covered as he discovered that he was all the way in Britain. Ottery St. Catchpole, to be more precise.
He had no way home. He couldn't walk over seas, no matter how fast he went. And he hated boats; he got motion sickness in vehicles. He was banned from riding planes because he'd once lost it and murdered the pilot. Which is why he never killed people unless he has a reason anymore. Unless he was going to kill all of them…
Anyway, the fact was, he was stuck. Lost.
So he trudged back to the dingy hotel, and took a really, really long shower.
Morning peeked through the thin curtains at Itachi. He woke up, got out of bed, and dragged a comb across his head.
And went out for coffee.
He felt like he was still asleep, kind of numb. Like he didn't really exist in this town. He went back to the same coffee place as last time, because it beat trying to find a better one.
He didn't even glare at the waitress, he was so wrapped up in the fact that he had no way home.
He didn't even notice the happy blonde seating herself in the table next his.
He didn't even care that she ordered another of the cursed lemon scones.
He kept staring straight ahead, not really seeing the poster advertising a bottle of wine he was looking towards.
"You seem out of it."
He looked up.
The blonde girl with the lemon scone was looking at him. He shot her a 'shut up if you value your life' look, and took a sip of the coffee the obnoxious waitress had just dropped off.
"You're not very friendly," the blonde girl said, picking up her half eaten scone.
Itachi didn't answer.
"Are you always grumpy, or just in the morning?"
Itachi picked up his coffee and walked out of the shop. He didn't need to listen to a nosy blonde picking at him.
He picked up a novel at the bookstore, and locked himself in his hotel room for the rest of the day.
Life became routine over the next week or so. Get up. Get coffee. Wander aimlessly around the city, possibly pick up something to eat for dinner, get sleep.
Day after day.
Hour after hour.
Minute after minute.
It just kept getting longer
Every morning, He would go sit at the same table in the same café- lemon scones and all. He never touched one, just ordered the same coffee every day. And every day he would be greeted by the same blonde girl, who had by now introduced herself as Luna Lovegood. The name left an odd taste on his tongue, like a tea steeped for too long.
She would ask him questions, some days.
How had he slept?
What was he going to do today?
Did he like lemon scones?
Sometimes he answered, but he never really got into a conversation.
Sometimes, when he didn't answer, she'd answer for him. She'd slept great, today she was going to the aquarium, and couldn't wait. And she loved lemon scones.
Once he had asked her a question. Just why she was so curious.
She had laughed absently, and answered that he was just so mysterious.
He didn't know how he felt about that.
So it was an overcast, gray and dull sort of Tuesday that Itachi found himself wandering past the hill's houses once again. They were all so different, and it was a way to pass the molasses called time.
He was becoming accustomed to the houses nearer to the village. They were scattered and few, one of them looking like a small farm, another a quaint little cottage with a neat garden that made Itachi feel out of place. There was also an orchard, and hedges that Itachi thought might cover one more house, but he had never seen it.
Today, he found himself walking away from those houses. He just kept walking through the hills. About an hour or two later, although it felt like much longer, he was far from the village. There were still houses, there was one very odd one with three chimneys, one that was painted grass green and blended in well with the surroundings, and then he was coming across the weirdest house he had ever seen.
Betcha saw this coming.
It was very tall, a tower of sorts, and it looked… almost like a chess rook. There was a brambly sort of garden, filled with plants Itachi did not recognize. Decidedly, he liked it much better than the neat, flowery garden in front of the cottage back near the village. He stared at it for a bit, then walked over for a better view.
There was one sign out front; "Pick your own mistletoe." (The other two are not visible to muggles)
This was the weirdest house he had seen so far, ever.
He stared up at it a bit longer, then began his way onward. He had walked about 10 yards when a voice called out from behind him;
"Hello!"
He turned around slowly, because he recognized the voice. It was about the only voice he'd heard over that past week or so.
Luna Lovegood was waving from over the gate, unlatching it and stepping out into the road Itachi was standing on. She was wearing something really unusual; they were diluted grass green robes, that fell around to her feet.
She walked up to him, and held out her hand to shake his, he stared at it for a minute, then took it uncertainly. It was warmer than his, and much smoother.
"What brings you here?" She asked him happily, staring up at him with her blue, ever-surprised eyes.
"Took a walk." He sniffed unceremoniously.
"It's rather stormy looking, though, are you sure you want to be out on such a day?" She replied, looking up at the sky dreamily, her eyes raking the blanket of dark clouds.
"I like these days." Itachi said.
"Oh," Luna said. "Well, I guess someone has to. The poor things would feel so unloved otherwise, don't you think?"
Itachi grunted noncommittally.
"Can I walk with you?" She asked, gesturing toward the (long and) winding road stretching out before them.
Itachi regarded her tentatively, but she was already heading down the road. So he followed.
After a minute or two of walking in silence over the hill, he gestured back towards where they'd come. "You live there?"
Luna nodded. "Oh, yes. My father and me, it's a really lovely home, although most people think it's a little out of place."
"Looks it." Itachi kept his eyes on the road ahead of them.
"I don't know, I think it fits the rolling hills perfectly. You never seem to know where they go either." Luna sighed, staring out over the grassy dunes that stretched before them.
"You are quite the character," Itachi shook his head, kicking at a pebble lining the road.
She laughed. "So are you, you know," she said. They walked in silence a bit longer, and this time it was she that broke it. "It occurs to one," she said, out of the blue, "That I don't think I know your name." She looked up at him.
He pondered refusing to tell her. Just to get on her nerves.
"Would you tell me?" she asked, her wide eyes searching his patterned. (checker eyes)
"Itachi." He said, kicking another pebble, sending it soaring into a tree that was growing innocently a hundred yards away.
She smiled at that. "Quite the kick." She kicked at a small stone herself, and it clambered a few feet before rolling to a stop.
Itachi smiled.
She was so ridiculous.
He walked up to the pebble she had moved so feebly, and kicked it so hard it flew over the next hill and out of sight. She shook her head, laughing.
"that's not fair, you're just showing off, now."
He couldn't keep himself from grinning a bit, and she brought her wrist within view, to glance at the odd watch she wore. (Lots of hands. Planets round the edges. The usual.)
"Oh, I'd better get back," she said, hiding her watch under the hanging sleeve of her light green robes. "It's nearly dinner. You could come, if you'd like, you know." She looked up at him.
"No," Itachi said. "That's okay."
"Then I guess I will see you tomorrow morning," she said, and skipped off in the direction of her bizarre abode.
The night dragged on. Itachi woke up several times, disappointed each time when he found he had woken once again at such a rude hour.
But finally the first rays of daylight shone through the raged curtains, and Itachi pulled himself out of bed. He left early; wandering round the town for a while before heading towards the little café he had made part of his routine.
She was there again, as ever. This time she had arrived before him, she did sometimes. He made to sit down at his usual window side table.
She motioned to him, to come sit with her.
He stopped.
He looked at her.
And he sat down at his usual window side table. He didn't need to sit with her. She was a nuisance. Wasn't she?
She took no notice of the rude refusal, but instead smiled. "Hello, Itachi."
"Hello." He said, without realizing that this was the first time he had returned her daily greeting.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Lousy."
"Mmm, when I can't sleep I like to read. It's such a nice way to wind down."
Itachi didn't answer, he picked up a newspaper someone who had been there earlier had left.
She let him read, watching him with her familiar lemon scone.
He managed to ignore her for the rest of his stay, but as he was leaving, she waved. "Bye, Itachi!"
"Bye." He muttered, as he pushed open the door and walked out into the cool morning air. (I was really tempted to write, 'only to find that the door said pull' after he pushed open the door. But I already had him bonking his head as he straightened up in the last bit… how much damage cant he poor guy take?)
The next morning, Luna offered him a seat at her own table as well. He ignored her again, sitting down and ordering a coffee. Once again, she acted as though she had not offered, and began to talk.
The morning after that, and the one after that as well, she offered a seat beside her still. Itachi continued to reject it, although he was beginning to wonder if he oughtn't just take the company. It wasn't as though he needed company, but he had read somewhere that lack of human company can make one go mad…
What was he thinking. He didn't need anyone, for sure. No one needed him either. That was his world, and he was happy with it.
But the next morning, she walked in five minutes after him. He watched her carefully as she walked vaguely over to the table beside his, where she usually sat, and became irritated as she pulled out the seat she had occupied so many days before this one.
He grabbed the back of the deep blue jacket she wore over her dark blue sundress before she could sit down. She looked over at him, questioningly. He gave her a small shove (not one that could knock Kisame onto the floor, just a gentle nudge.) toward the empty seat across from him, and she blinked at him before sitting down at the seat indicated to her.
Itachi made no sign to show he had been the least bit hospitable, and neither did Luna. He payed her very little reaction to her comments and questions, speaking occasionally to convey disinterest or answering the odd question with a few short words.
But it was more than he had ever done.
The next day, Luna had gotten there first. She was seated at Itachi's table, looking out the window in an absent fashion. Itachi sat down silently next to her. It was an unspoken agreement- nothing would be said. They simply sat together.
Let us take a moment to salute how truly odd it is that Itachi Uchiha be found sitting in a café in Ottery St. Catchpole with Luna Lovegood, not killing her. Okay, back to the story.
Time passed, as time often does when one waits long enough. Over the next few days, seating stayed the same. Across from one another by the window, Luna was weaving her way into his routine. He'd taken to watching her over his coffee in the morning, sometimes she noticed, but never said anything. One thing about her that Itachi had noticed was that she never made awkward comments, nothing that might make one uneasy. Which made her easy to be with.
The more he watched, the more he picked up small things about her that he had not noticed before. She rarely closed her eyes when she smiled, they were open so frequently. She didn't blink very often, either. So you could most always see the blue color of her eyes. Sometimes she didn't seem to be all the way there, she'd stare absentmindedly into space, as if listening closely to a song no one could hear.
And he no longer found her company annoying, he realized to his immense astonishment one long afternoon he was spending sitting on a park bench watching the people pass by.
"How long?"
"Oh, just a day or two," Luna said airily, waving her hand around liltingly. "It's not very far."
Itachi took a sip from his coffee. Maybe a day or two away from Luna would get his head back on his shoulders. Because she was visiting the mountains this weekend- a vacation with her father.
"Will you be here when I come back?" she asked lightly, breaking a corner off her scone.
Itachi watched the crumbs fall onto her napkin. "Might be."
The next morning, Itachi got up a lot later than he normally did. He walked leisurely through the town and stopped at the coffee place.
He looked through the window at the table he and Luna normally occupied, and it looked strange and deserted now, without the vague blonde sitting at the table, staring blankly into space.
It irritated him. She meant nothing but something to listen to. Wasn't that how it was?
But he didn't enter the coffee shop. He grabbed a to-go cup a few shops down instead.
The following day was the worst Itachi had had yet. He'd been splashed by a driver on the side of the road, laughed at by a small child when he tripped over a fallen tree branch, and become the birds' favorite target. As he wandered through the town, moving faster and angrier, thoughts kept occurring to him, like what was he doing. Why was he here? What had he done to deserve this???
…Oh, right.
It started to rain later in the afternoon, but Itachi refused to go indoors. He would be just as miserable wet than dry, and he didn't want to be defeated by the weather. So he continued his long walk, wandering aimlessly through the streets until he was certain he was lost. He was lost.
Itachi was lost.
That was just it.
He had found his way back eventually, but it had been late and he had been shivering with the cold. (He had tried his hardest to keep from it- shaking made him feel weak. But the body doesn't always obey orders like stop being uncomfortable.)
He had slept restlessly, and so it was with a sore head and temper that he made his way to the same coffee shop that morning. He didn't stop to look forlornly at the table so frequently occupied by a smiling companion, but say down stubbornly as he had the first few days, without company and without the need of it.
Or so he told himself.
He ordered his coffee, scowling at the waitress and leaving earlier than usual. He kicked at stones, aiming them at squirrels that scampered up trees at the sight of him. He glared at children, who ran to their mothers and hid behind skirts. He stomped on grass with a very clearly written 'keep off the grass' sign guarding it.
He locked himself in his hotel room and hated the whole town for being his prison.
Life sucks when you're a pessimist.
Light dawned on the third day, and something in the back of Itachi's mind was buggering him. Luna's coming back today, it was telling him.
But Itachi shoved the thing in the back of his mind to, well, the back of his mind. He didn't need some wench to bother him. His life sucked enough already.
Itachi didn't go to the café that morning. He got something from a vendor and sat on a lonesome park bench. Where he stayed the rest of the morning.
He avoided the café the day after that, too. Who needed a stupid café. Or the stupid girl that came with it.
In the late afternoon, Itachi was sitting in a bookstore, looking over different authors he'd been reading for something to keep his mind occupied.
He'd read all the books by Shannon McKenna, and he didn't like Francis James' style.
He was just reaching for a book called December, by Allen Harper, when something caught his eye.
It was the flash of an earring.
"Itachi!" She exclaimed, running toward him, dressed in a strawberry red skirt and a light green spaghetti strap.
He frowned at her. She stepped up to him. "How are you!" she asked excitedly. "I haven't seen you recently! You weren't at the café this morning."
Itachi ignored her heatedly, leafing through December. It seemed a good enough read… lots of metaphors.
Itachi liked metaphors. (…He just does, ok?)
"Itachi?" Luna said again.
He turned toward her slowly, snapping the book shut with one hand.
"Yes?"
She was still smiling, but it wasn't as happy a smile. "Are you alright?"
"I was." He returned December to it's place, and picked up another book by the same author.
She didn't say anything for a minute.
"Is that a good book?" she asked suddenly, pointing to December.
"No." said Itachi decidedly.
"Are you sure you're okay…?" she asked, frowning now.
He turned and left the bookstore. He might as well have told her he never wanted to see her again.
Luna just stood there, watching him leave, no sign of her previous jubilation splashed on her shocked expression.
Itachi turned in for the night early.
He ought to feel great. That Loony Luna wouldn't bother him again, he was certain.
But he felt lousy.
Terrible.
Horrible.
No good, very bad.
Okay sorry.
Anyway, the point is, he didn't feel any sort of happiness at the pain he'd caused.
Which was very unusual. We're talking about Itachi.
He couldn't sleep, either. Again. And when he did sleep, he dreamt of large stone earrings, a deep black. There was no sun glinting off them.
Finally, morning did occur. Itachi slid out of bed, and dragged himself down the street.
He wasn't headed toward the small, ivy covered café of earlier, but he ended up there anyway. Looking in the window, he saw nobody.
Well, that wasn't entirely true; there was that bloke in the corner with the suit and tie, and the lady sitting in the booth with a magazine on health and beauty.
But it looked empty to him.
He entered anyway. Sat in his old table. Stared at the spot where Luna sometimes sat.
Why did it bother him so much that he was alone?
Why did it seem so final.
And he stared at the door to the café for he rest of the morning, jumping every time someone entered, every time the stupid chimes at the top tinkled.
The next morning was exactly the same.
And so was the next one.
And he couldn't hide from himself any longer. Because in a game of hide and seek such as this, someone wins sooner or later.
On the fourth day of seeing no one and nothing in the café but empty seat beside him, Itachi was forced to admit that the empty pit in the center of his stomach was something new.
Remorse. Guilt.
He didn't want to push Luna away.
He wanted her back, talking to him.
Like it seemed she always had been.
Looking at her empty seat hurt.
Looking into his empty heart hurt more.
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Yup. I could have ended it a paragraph later, which plot wise is a better place to stop, but I couldn't because I like that as a stopping point. It's cute. Although, mood swingy… oh well. I think the very end turns it around the most in the way of moods…
Okay let me note that the authors I name and the books as well are things I made up on the spot because I didn't feel like searching my mind for the perfect Itachi book. Don't look for them, you'll be there all day.
For those of you who didn't get it, the orchard and hedges were covering the burrow. I went researching the setting in hp vol. 7 I'm proud of myself.
All right, stop feeling like I left you with a cliffhanger, the next chapter is a click away. When you're done, review, kay? Thanks!