Where it Happened
part x

"He's staring at you again."

Sakura flipped the page in her chart as she spooned another helping of oatmeal into her mouth. She chewed slowly before answering, "Why do you think I'm pretending to read this chart for the third time?"

Across from her, Naruto cocked his brow. "You ever going to tell me what happened between you two?"

"Nothing happened."

The words tumbled out of her mouth out of habit, their sound so familiar on her tongue. The blond sighed. He had been getting the same answer for a week now, as had everyone else who asked, but he didn't press. Not directly anyway. "Is it the same kind of nothing as when we were in med school and you got drunk and tried to have sex with me on the kitchen counter?"

Sakura choked. She lowered her cup from her lips and coughed loudly as she tried to clear the water out of her airway before she stared wide-eyed at Naruto. "I thought we agreed we weren't ever going to talk about that again?"

He grinned over his coffee cup. "I know. But it got that brooding look off your face, so it was worth it."

The glare she shot him over the chart was softened by the smile tugging on the corner of her mouth, and she shook her head before closing her file. "What happened between Uchiha and I...it isn't something I want to talk about."

"Did he hurt you?"

Sakura blinked. "What? No."

"Do you want me to beat him up?"

His seriousness made her laugh, and for one moment she entertained the thought of Naruto raising fists against the Cardio Surgeon. Itachi was tall, at least a head over Naruto, but her blond friend had always been incredibly quick and scrappy. She didn't see Itachi as the physically type, but he was fit. He could probably hold his own in a fight.

Inwardly shaking herself, Sakura banished the scenario from her mind. "Please don't. We just got a new Cardio Head. I don't need to start the screening process for another one. Besides, the Chief would kill me, and likely you, if he ran off again."

Naruto pouted as if he had actually been looking forward to making a scene. What a drama queen. "Well, let me know if you change your mind."

Sakura grinned before she changed the subject. "We still on for drinks tonight?"

His gaze was fixed across the cafeteria as he eyed something with vague interest but he nodded. "Usual place?"

"You even have to ask?"

Naruto smirked, already knowing she was fantasizing about the pan-seared chicken breasts she ordered every time. There was something about that balsamic glaze that always made her crave more.

"When's your last surgery?" he asked.

"Scheduled for four." Her pager went off before she even finished her sentence and with practiced ease, she pulled the device from her hip. She eyed the message with a frown.

Naruto read her expression immediately. "Keep me posted?"

"Yeah," she said as she stood. "I'll see you later."

With a murmured acknowledgement, Naruto reached across the table to steal the rest of her oatmeal. She smiled good-naturedly. That man could eat all day every day, and likely would if he didn't have surgery to distract him.

Sakura's good mood lingered as she swung by the nurses' station to drop off her patient chart before she headed to the elevator. Once inside, she pressed the button for her floor and waited as the lift carried her up. It paused a few floors below hers and automatically her gaze drew to the doors as they opened again.

Her smile fell as Itachi stepped inside.

Sakura had been so busy ignoring him that she hadn't even noticed he had left the cafeteria. He seemed just as surprised to see her but neither spoke as she shifted aside so he could step in beside her. It appeared they were both headed for to same floor and for a few moments that felt like hours, they rode in silence.

"Hatake paged you as well?" Itachi eventually asked.

Her eyes didn't waver from the numbers as the lift tracked the floors but she hummed her reply.

He didn't even seem fazed by her lack of small talk. "It must be a serious trauma."

Sakura didn't answer, and when the the numbers finally fell on their destination, she quickly slipped through the doors before they had fully opened. Itachi followed silently.

Inside the consult room, Kakashi and Neji were waiting silently. The pair stood side-by-side as they studied the numerous scans stacked on the wall while Hanabi stood on the far side of the room, quietly observing.

"What do you have?" Sakura asked.

They both glanced at her before they resumed eyeing the films. Kakashi was the one to answer, "A messy one." His voice was without humor or sarcasm; it was simply fact.

Stepping up beside the two surgeons, Sakura examined the images. Her eyes widened when she realized what she was looking at. "Is that a pole?"

Neji nodded somberly. "The patient was impaled when a work truck lost its load on the highway. The pipe went through her windshield. I was hoping the scans would show that it wasn't as bad as it looked, but her C7 vertebrae is completely crushed. She's lost all feeling in her low extremities."

Sakura briefly glanced at him, her eyes wide. "She's conscious?"

"And alert," Kakashi added.

"That's quite remarkable considering the rod appears to have completely pierced her aortic artery," Itachi said.

Sakura took a second look as the initial shock wore off. She frowned when her trained eye saw exactly what Itachi saw. There was so much damage. They wouldn't even know where to begin. Which is why Kakashi paged both cardio attendings, she suspected.

"So what do we do?" Hanabi suddenly asked.

No one moved. No one answered. All four attendings knew the answer, but none seemed inclined to voice it. It was difficult, condemning as if saying the words out loud made the decision final. They had all been here time and time over, but the next time was never easier than the last.

"Nothing," Sakura finally said.

The resident nearly gaped. "What? We can't just let her die."

"Her injuries are too extensive. We would just be delaying the inevitable."

"So that's it?"

"Yes, that's it," Sakura answered. She then turned to Neji. "You should call the family if you haven't done so already. She won't last much longer-."

"How can you be so dismissive?" Hanabi snapped suddenly. "Or are you really just that cold?"

The room stilled. Slowly Sakura rounded to face the young doctor. Everything from her face to her body language was unreadable as she pinned Hanabi in place with a frosty stare. The resident suddenly looked as if she wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor as every eye settled upon her.

"You think I don't care? You think that I just don't feel like saving her?" Sakura asked rhetorically. Her voice was soft but laced with a hard edge that rang clearly against the silence. "There is a steel rod piercing this woman's chest. It doesn't matter how slowly or carefully we remove it, she will bleed out faster than we can repair the damage. And that's if there is even enough artery left for us to sew a graft onto. So what do you suggest we do?"

Hanabi didn't offer an answer as her gaze fell to the floor. And Sakura didn't wait for one. She turned her back on the young woman as she resumed eyeing the scans, purposely ignoring the stares that burned into the side of her head.

There weren't any options. There weren't, she repeated.

The tension in the room was broken by a pager. Itachi quickly silenced his device. "There's an incoming trauma. Since we all agree this is non-surgical, I can handle the paperwork on this if you would like to take the case in the ER."

Sakura didn't have to look at Itachi to know he was talking to her. He was using that tone again, the one that was a little friendly and a bit placating. She didn't bother hiding her scowl. He had been doing this all week, attempting to give her the 'better' cases and offer to do the more routine surgeries that Sakura found less exciting. She knew it was his way of apologizing, but she still wasn't ready to forgive him. A fact she only made too clear every time.

"No, I've got this one."

A retort readied on her tongue as she waited for Itachi to press and try again, but to her surprise, he simply nodded. "Ok. I will be in the ER then. Page me if you need me."

Then he was gone.

Somewhat taken aback, Sakura tore her steady stare away from the x-rays to eye the doorway he disappeared through. Her comeback still hung on her tongue, heavy and uncomfortable as the pent up energy was left with nowhere to go. It left a bad taste in her mouth and she suddenly felt as if she had just kicked a puppy.

"I will go update the patient," Neji said quietly before he slipped out of the room. Hanabi quickly followed without a word.

When Kakashi remained behind, Sakura glanced at him. The table against the wall supported his weight as he folded his arms over his chest. He said nothing but he studied her in that familiar way like he could read her every thought.

"What?" The single word came out sharp and curt as the annoyance meant for Itachi turned on him.

Kakashi was hardly fazed. "I see you still haven't forgiven Uchiha."

"You think I should?"

He didn't say it but his answer was clear in the way his shoulders rolled in a small shrug.

Sakura glared as her arms crossed defensively. "He left."

"But he came back."

"So that's just supposed to excuse everything else?"

Kakashi visibly softened. He understood how sensitive she was to being left behind, to being forgotten, abandoned. She still had wounds that refused to heal. "Of course not."

"Then why are you defending him?" Sakura asked. Her voice was still firm but it lost much of its caulousness.

"Because as much as you hate to admit it, Itachi is still the Head of your department," he told her, his dark gazing holding hers and refusing to let go. "You're reaching the point where a choice needs to be made. You both can't keep working like this. It's bad for your patients and your work. You know this."

And she did.

The tension in her shoulders fell away with a long sigh. Her eyes drifted back to the row of scans plastered against the wall beside her as if she would find some answer in them. In a way she did. Because for her, it only felt like she had been pierced with a steel pole.

"You think Hanabi's right?" she asked quietly. "You think I'm cold."

Sakura peered at Kakashi when he didn't immediately answer. His face was unreadable but his voice was always more telling. "I think you have a way of letting your emotions control you. Which isn't always bad."

"But not always good," she countered.

Kakashi said nothing as he straightened from the table. He rested his hands over hers where they still curled around her upper arms, quietly supportive but unwavering in his opinion, before he left silently.

Alone, Sakura's thoughts moved freely. She tried not to recall the way Itachi looked at her so openly when they were alone or how disappointment and regret shined in his black eyes every time she rejected him. She felt some of that regret now as his look of dejection from just last night resurfaced in her mind when she had blatantly ignored the cup of coffee he had offered her.

Sakura closed her eyes against the memory. Itachi had hid the look well enough but the sorrow had resonated within her like it was her own and it carved out another small piece to widen the ache in her chest. How did she become like this?

When Sakura opened her eyes again, they settled on the wall of x-rays. A frown tugged at the corner of her mouth as her mind shifted to the medicine, like a railroad switch. The longer she studied the images, the longer her unrest grew until she found herself shaking her head. She couldn't just walk away.

Pivoting on her heels, Sakura hurriedly swept out of the room. She needed to find Neji.

xx

Itachi stared unseeingly ahead. In his lap was a patient chart, his notes half-finished as his mind drifted from one thought to the next unhurriedly. He thought of home - or at least the place he had once called home - and Shisui and his mother.

His phone was silent now, his cousin already off-shift and likely already asleep. It felt heavy in his pocket. Itachi hated that such a small device was his only connection to the one person that had always been a constant in his life. He was reminded again how he had been so easily swayed into going home - or rather his not-home home - and how this whole mess with Sakura had started.

Itachi didn't blame Shisui. And he certainly didn't blame Sakura. It was his own choices that he now found himself alone on the floor, his back pressed against the wall opposite the surgical board as tried to distract himself with paperwork that could probably be left for an intern.

"You still here, Uchiha?"

Itachi picked up his head as Kakashi passed him. His silver hair was tucked under his surgical cap, little dog footprints running circles around his head, but it was the surgery he erased off the board that made Itachi's brow lift curiously.

"You decided to remove the rod after all?"

Kakashi replaced the eraser on the bottom of the board before he leaned back against it to face him. "It was Sakura's idea."

Itachi blinked surprise before he frowned. "She didn't page me."

"Don't take it personally." The trauma surgeon pulled his scrub cap off to rake his fingers through his silver hair. It did nothing to tame his wild locks. "We all knew it was a lost cause."

"Then why do the surgery?"

"Because Sakura wanted to try."

Itachi stared. He wondered if the double meaning was intentional. But when Kakashi continued to hold his gaze unwaveringly, Itachi looked away. He wouldn't allow himself to immediately give into the hope that was threatening to bloom in his chest.

"She has made her sentiments very clear," Itachi said slowly.

Kakashi just shrugged as he crossed his arms loosely over his chest. "That's the thing about Sakura. She's not very good at holding grudges." When Itachi didn't reply, Kakashi continued, "There's a bar downtown, along the water she likes to go to. Just...press her. She'll give."

Itachi peered up at the older surgeon. There was no way Kakashi didn't know of her current grievances against him, and Itachi frowned as he wondered what his angle was. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I like you, Uchiha. And because I think Sakura's going to forgive you. Eventually."

Itachi wasn't so sure about that. "How do you know?"

A secret smirk crossed Kakashi's face as if he was recalling an amusing joke. "Because if she didn't want you here, you wouldn't be." His words made Itachi's brows knit in confusion but before he could ask, the trauma surgeon continued, "I'll let you in on a secret: Sakura's a foodie. If you want to get on her good side, bring her food. And coffee. She likes mochas with extra chocolate and way too much whipped cream."

Kakashi then pushed off the wall and turned to leave only to pause again. "Oh and Uchiha, I don't think I have to tell you what will happen if you hurt her again. Don't make me regret being in your side." His threat rang clearly, his smile promising, before he finally disappeared down the hall.

Itachi watched him go. Even with Kakashi's parting words, he was left feeling lighter than he had all week. Sakura had many friends within the walls of the hospital, but none knew her better than Kakashi. If he believed she was going to forgive him, Itachi was inclined to believe it himself, even if Sakura had been avoiding him. He just needed to press her, as Kakashi had recommended.

It seemed he would be finding an intern to finish his paperwork after all.

xx

The dim overhead lights slipped through the glass windows and danced across the surface of the water below. The city flickered with life across the bay as headlights moved endlessly on the highway like blood through veins. Inside the bar, patrons sat around tables in groups of mostly twos or threes, admiring the water and the inside decor over crystal glasses of wine and liquor.

Itachi found Sakura near the window. The chair opposite her was vacant but the dish settings of both sides showed signs of use. He chose to ignore the resulting twinge in his chest. "May I join you?"

Sakura drew her gaze from the window to frown at him. It was a moment before she answered. "I'm not here alone."

"I know. I promise I won't stay long." The downward pull in the corners of her mouth didn't lessen but she didn't refuse and silently he slipped into the chair across from her.

The candle in the center of the table reflected in her eyes, artificially warming her cold stare, but her expression remained otherwise unchanged. He knew he would have to drive this conversation. "You decided to go ahead with the surgery."

If she was surprised by his choice of topic it didn't show. Nor did any other perceivable emotion. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because she deserved a chance." There was no sentiment in the statement. Just cold, hard fact.

Itachi looked at her thoughtfully. "Even though you knew there wasn't one?"

Something stirred behind her eyes, softening the ice and smoothing its sharper edge. But it was gone before he could identify it, disappearing just as quickly as it had come. "Yes."

"Why?" he asked quietly, not entirely understanding.

Sakura didn't immediately answer as she turned her head to gaze out the window absently. She was silent for so long he thought she might not answer, but then she murmured, "Because I am not cold."

The words were so softly spoken he nearly missed them. His brows pulled together at the hollowness in her voice, wondered what was passing through her thoughts for such emotion to reflect in so few words. He guessed Hanabi's unjustified outburst had struck a nerve, but he didn't dare ask.

"I know you don't trust me," Itachi said softly, redirecting the conversation. "And you have every right not to. But I am here now, Sakura, and I plan to stay. I'm not going anywhere."

Sakura looked at him again, regarded him as thought passed behind her eyes. In this light, they were the darkest shade of emerald. "Why didn't you say goodbye?"

Itachi didn't immediately answer as he was the one to look away this time. He stared down at his hands, suddenly feeling more nervous than he could remember. Like the next words out of his mouth would put all his deepest thoughts and desires out on the table for Sakura to judge.

"I tried. I went to your apartment the night before I left," he confessed. When he looked up, Sakura's expression reflected her confusion. "But as I stood on your doorstep about to knock, I realized that if I spoke to you, that if I saw you, I would never get on that plane. And I needed to get on that plane."

"To get your life back together?" she asked, repeating his own words.

He nodded. "Yes."

Her bemused look didn't fade. "What does that even mean?"

"It is complicated…"

"Try me."

Itachi sighed at her firm tone. They both didn't have the time nor the energy for him to explain the entire story, but perhaps he could satisfy her with a piece. "My father and I do not see eye-to-eye on...well, almost everything," he told her. "He interfered in something he shouldn't have and it has made things…"

"Complicated?" Sakura provided when he trailed off. She pursed her lips when he nodded. "So you flew home to make up with him?"

"Not exactly. When I told him I would not allow him to meddle with the matter, he threatened to disown me."

Sakura blinked. She opened her mouth with one thought only to close it and start with another. "What does your mother think of that?"

"She has tried talking him down, but my father is very proud and set in his ways."

Their conversation lulled then, but some of the warmth Itachi remembered so fondly had returned to her face. No longer did he feel unwelcome in her presence nor held at arm's length emotionally, and he half-wondered if she would have let him enjoy a glass of wine with her if she didn't already have company.

"Thank you for being honest with me," Sakura finally said, but the warmth in her eyes slowly faded. "I know you still have feelings for me and as much as I hate to admit it, I do still care about you. I know you want to go back to the way things were between us before you left, but I just can't. I don't trust you not to leave me behind again."

A strange mix of emotions twisted inside Itachi's chest. His heart fluttered lightly at her confession quickly followed by a heavy lump that settled deep in his stomach. He had truly hurt her. And it hurt him to see it so clearly reflected in her voice now.

"I know," he murmured honestly. "It wasn't my intention tonight to convince you otherwise. I just wanted the opportunity to explain."

A small smile curved in the corners of her mouth before she glanced towards the bar. It was gone in the next instant. "Naruto is on his way back."

Itachi followed her gaze. The blond, pediatric surgeon was navigating his way around the maze of tables with two wine glasses in hand. His time was up.

"Then I will take my leave. Enjoy your evening." Itachi stood then only to hesitate, his hand on the back of the chair. Sakura peered up at him expectantly. "You are anything but cold, Sakura. Don't believe for an instant that you are."

Sakura stared at him in surprise before a genuine smile passed her lips. It made her appear so much younger and he branded the image in his mind. But the moment quickly passed and Itachi eventually forced himself to turn away. He could feel her eyes follow him until he slipped through the front doors.

tbc...

And here we have Itachi floundering at trying to apologize and Sakura saying no but also really wanting to say yes...oh, the muddled emotions.

Thank you to those of you who sent me thoughtful reviews. It's always refreshing and motivating to get reviews that say more than just 'update soon'. (Because to be honest, those reviews grate on my nerves and make me NOT want to write.) So to my followers that are specific in your reviews, this one is for you. xoxo