Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Starts in Sakura POV.
Healing
By: Apherion
Chapter 8: Thief of Hearts
She wanted to hurt him. It was plain. Nothing in the world would've changed her mind at that moment. Her anger flared unnervingly.
"Calm down," she heard Itachi whisper in her ear. It was difficult to listen to him. She wanted so badly to hurt him, to inflict some pain. "Don't fight, Sakura," he whispered, touching her hand through the bars.
"I…know that you're not pleased with me, Sakura, but… I need to know something." Kakashi's words almost fell on deaf ears. However, mostly Itachi made her decision. His eyes looked desperate for her to comply when she looked at him.
"You're right," she said, frown evident on her face, her jaw tight, eyes watering while still looking into Itachi's. "I'm not pleased with you, but…" she covered Itachi's hand with her other. "For him, I will do what he asks." A tear slid slowly down her cheek, and Itachi wiped it away, and the others that were to follow, he stopped before they were released.
She heard the loudness of the key turning in its lock, and she marveled at the squeak in the bars as they moved out of place for the moment. She stood gently, allowing her hands to fall away from Itachi's. It almost broke her heart to leave him. Her nose burned horribly, but she would not cry.
Once outside the cell, Kakashi led her to a room, one of the interrogation rooms. She didn't care though. She would be back with her love soon.
"Sakura," Kakashi started, once both had sat down. "Please…start at the beginning. I need to know everything about Itachi." She glared hard at him, still feeling a bit emotional.
"Why do you need to know about Itachi?" Her voice didn't quaver, but it did sound unused and rough. She watched Kakashi's body movements greatly. His hands were on the table, but he leaned over and began to run his fingers through silver locks of hair that weren't there because of his age. He looked disheveled, as though he'd suffered a sleepless night.
"I want to know…because…Sakura…" he looked up to meet her gaze, and the look in his deepened eye startled her. Millions of emotions crossed it, and she was amazed to find acceptance there beside jealousy. "Sakura, I want to know that he makes you happy. I want to hear everything. I don't want you to hold back."
"Kakashi," she whispered, laying her head on the cool table, her pink locks splaying over the surface. Her thoughts crowded her mind. He wanted to know she was happy…that she was being taken care of. He wanted her to tell him that she had found someone better than him for her… Because he never saw himself worthy of having me, Sakura realized.
"That day, the village was attacked, it was—at first a plot to kidnap me for a time to help with the village Itachi lived in. They had needed a medic, and Itachi had been watching over me." She took a breath, and continued, still resting her forehead on the table. "Sasuke had asked Itachi to watch over me…as a dying wish."
"So Itachi was looking for you while we fought?" Sakura's head snapped up from the desk and felt a dizzy spell wash over her. Once her head had cleared, she questioned Kakashi's rhetorical question.
"So what…he was looking around for me?" She didn't seem to comprehend. How could anyone do two things at once while fighting someone? Then a reminder of her days being a genin and Kakashi holding his perverted books while Naruto blindly attacked. A grin stole over her face for a moment. Peaceful times, those times when one was young and innocent, before all the problems of the world begin to crack the ceiling to have it all come tumbling down, collapsing on one's head.
"Yes…sort of, but please…continue…I was out of place to interrupt." His formal talk was very different from his regular demeanor, but if he wished to be so with her, who was she to tell him otherwise?
"When I found you two fighting, I was running towards you, in vain wanting to save you. But Itachi caught me around the middle and I cracked my head on a stone that was in the ground under the leaves. He…inexpertly healed the wound, but he healed it. I fell asleep as he carried me off to the village.
"When I woke up, I saw him, sitting in a chair, staring me down, but not hostilely. He was calm, and we interrogated each other. I asked him why he saved me and he said 'my brother's dying wish.'" Her lip trembled as she spoke because it—Sasuke's death—wasn't mourned as much as it should have been. "Itachi held me and hushed me to sleep. He understood—he was kind…
"The next morning he made me breakfast, and made me the offer of returning to Konoha if I worked at the hospital in the village. The little village wasn't full of shinobi; it was full of ordinary kids and adults. Itachi and I were the only two ninjas, for miles it seemed like. I didn't want to come back after working there.
"I loved the normalcy of it. The situations surreal in this life here, but almost everyday ordeals in that village, are so…indescribable. I was so used to it there, I forgot about Konoha." She watched Kakashi as he mulled it over in his head. He just waited patiently for Sakura to finish her story.
"Three months into living with Itachi, I let him get closer than anyone…we… He was so good to me… He's changed Kakashi," she pleaded with him to understand. His exposed eye widened when she mentioned briefly of how far their relationship had gotten. "He's not the murderer you make him out to be. He's gentle, Sasuke did this to him—I just know he did."
"So you're still living for Sasuke?" His condescending words, sharp as knives, cut Sakura. Her venomous glare sent back hatred.
"No, Kakashi, Sasuke was someone I never had…a wasted folly. Do not compare my feelings to my younger days." She looked as though she was analyzing what else she could say, but everything else Kakashi knew. "If you're through, I wish to go back." Kakashi nodded and stood, Sakura following suit.
The same way they had walked to it, they walked back in silence. Kakashi opened Itachi's cell this time, looking defeated. Sakura rushed past him and flew into Itachi. He received her well, taking her in his arms and holding her tightly.
He felt ashamed of being there in the same area as the lovers. On the outside looking in on a scene that could've had him in the place of Itachi, but he had screwed it all up. He took a quick glance at them, and felt a wave of remorse weave its way into him.
Itachi and Sakura were locked in a tight embrace. Lips touching each other's so directly it was hard to distinguish whose lips belong to which face. It was bittersweet to watch it. The girl he had love, and possibly still cared deeply for, in the arms of someone who deserved the least amount of love.
Goes to show something, Kakashi thought, as he tried to ignore the couple as he quickly locked the cell again. Give all of your love and you will be given a prosperous deal in turn. He walked out of the jail—so to speak—watching the sun blaze high overhead.
"I am happy for you Sakura," he said, looking back on the prison he had put them in. "I just wish I hadn't held back."
TBC...
