Disclaimer: All Naruto Characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto
Rating: M (ItaSaku)

In the Silence

Chapter 10- Better Left In the Silence

"You mean…"

"Yes. My sharringan is causing the headaches."

"How so?"

He looked at her as if he was slightly irritated that he was actually giving her this information. Then again he had a right to be. His sharringan was his most deadly weapon. "I do not know."

"Do you have any other problems with your eyes?"

His look this time was expressionless. Completely and utterly devoid of all emotion and reaction. "I am going blind."

She didn't move. Didn't breathe, didn't blink, didn't open her mouth and gape at his words… didn't anything. She couldn't. "Are you sure?"

He glared.

"Alright sorry, stupid question. Let me phrase that differently. What are the symptoms of your blindness?'

He shifted slightly, the black and crimson of his cloak falling softly around him. "My vision is blurry to the point at which all detail is gone. When my sharringan is not active it is dark and ineffectual. When it is active it is merely blurry, but causes headaches."

And it was active all the time. At least, all the time that she had seen him. Belatedly she wondered if his eyes were as dark as his brothers when it wasn't. "How long have you known your vision was deteriorating?"

"Since I achieved Mangekyo."

"And the headaches?"

"The same time."

She chewed on her lip as she thought. Medical procedure for such things dictated an examination. As a skilled medic she would utilize chakra to determine the type of damage done, its extent, and wether or not it could be silightly repaired or fully healed. But such examinations required trust, and she wasn't quite sure Uchiha Itachi would be willing to submit his greatest weapon to the examination of a woman who had just found out less than three days ago, that they were not the enemies she had always believed. On top of that, she knew the secrecy with which the Uchiha clan had guarded their kekkei-genkai. Little if anything was known about the doujutsu's functionings, and all attempts to find scrolls about it had failed. They were either nonexistent or had been destroyed in the massacre. Perhaps Itachi himself had disposed of them. She doubted he still had them unless he had put them someplace no one would find it. And with his talent, that was more than likely.

She sighed and looked up from her thoughts. He was watching her. Crimson eyes assessing her reactions. She wondered how much he actually saw.

"I would…, I would like to help you." An eyebrow rose, just slightly. "But the only way I can do that is if you permit me to examine your eyes. I understand if you don't want me to, but if I cant properly assess the situation, there is nothing I can do for you."

He remained still. Watching her, and she was preparing to speak again, to say that 'nevermind, its obvious youd rather I didn't…' when he spoke.

"Alright."

"Alright?"

He smirked, and she noted that the expression must have been one of the only emotions he let himself show because he was doing it to her far too often. "I will consent to an examination of my eyes. Tonight, after dinner if that is alright with you. I will be in my room. Will that give you enough time to gather what it is you require?"

"Y…um…yeah. It will."

He nodded and without another word rose and exited the room, leaving her standing by the window as if she had been alone the entire time.

Dinner was a louder affair than the last one she had been to. Both Tobi and Deidara were awake and lively after their day spent catching up on sleep. Deidara and Kisame bickered slightly and in jest about fighting styles and Tobi added his two cents now and then, agreeing with his sempai one minuet only to follow the shark nins opinion on the next. Itachi, as usual, was quiet, making his way through his meal without a word.

Sakura spoke, but didn't really pay attention. Instead she was reviewing in her head what she was going to need for her examination. She couldn't bring herself to register the fact that this was Itachi who she would be examining, so she focused on all things medical, slipping easily into the façade she wore while on duty. It was like a mask- put on and taken off at will. The mask allowed her to conceal what she really thought or felt behind a purely scientific approach to the situation. It allowed her to keep a strait face when she was rebuking patients and wanted nothing more than to laugh, or to keep it together when she lost one and all she wanted to do was cry.

Tonight her mask allowed her to eat dinner without staring at Itachi.

When it was over Itachi and Kisame disappeared and she made her way to the kitchen where she and Deidara did the dishes. Tobi wanted to help, but she told him that it would just go faster with less people and he ambled away to do whatever it was he did when he was alone.

Deidara made some funny snide comment and ended up dripping from a cup she poured over his head. She had to admit thought that the look on his face was most definitely worth the pot of water that got dumped over her shoulders.

Smiling and utterly soaked she made her way back to her room intent on changing clothing when she remembered her prior engagement. Hurrying she rain upstairs and changed. After drying her hair she found her pack and took the supplies she thought she might need. They consisted of merely a carry scroll which held some of the harder or more obscure medical jutsus, a notebook and pen. She wasn't sure if he would let her take notes as she went- it was in fact easier to keep track of what she found that way- but unless he specifically said something, she would do just that.

This was an amazing opportunity to look at the famed kekkei-genkai. Why she had never asked Sasuke or Kakashi she didn't know. She was sure either of them might have been willing to show her how it worked even if they made her swear not to tell anyone else. But she never had. And now her first chance would be on someone whos Mangeykyo was far different from Kakashi's. More dangerous in a cold blooded sort of way despite his claimed aleigance to Konoha.

Collecting her things she left her room and strode down the hall comig to his door once again. She knocked slightly and without waiting for an answer opened the door and entered. Itachi was standing over his desk looking down at a scroll. He turned slightly when she came in and nodded. As she closed the door she noted once again that hes cloak was off, the long fabric folded neatly over the back of the desk chair.

She wondered briefly why she was here. He had agreed to her suggestion almost immediately, no hesitation, no voiced concerns. Did he trust her that much to not ruin his eyes? He was facing her now leaning slightly back against the desk. Watching her.

"I know what you are thinking Sakura."

"Oh do you? So then tell me."

"You wonder why I would agree to this. Why I would let a woman who was once not so long ago under the impression that we were enemies examine my greatest strength."

"Indeed." Great so now he was a mind reader- or else her mask want working as well as she thought. "Well I think I know your answer."

"Enlighten me." Arrogant jerk.

"You are not my enemy, or so you claim. But you cannot prove that without a show of trust. This is your show of trust. Utmost trust. It is brave I grant you."

He watched her. "Bravery has nothing to do with it. It is necessary."

Of course it was.

"Alright then. Well considering it is your eyes I am examining, and you are several inches taller than me, it would probably be easier if you were lying down." She ignored the part of her that instantly went to that place and set about opening the scroll and notebook as he moved towards the bed, the only possible place to lay down. Stealing herself, she dragged the desk chair over to the bedside near his head.

Itachi was lying with one hand tucked beneath his head. It was an extremely casual pose, one she almost couldn't imagine he would ever strike, and yet there he was calmly laid out in front of her as she prepared to examine his eyes. He watched her silently, his chest rising and falling softly as she took her seat and opened to a blank page of her notebook. She made a list of the symptoms he had told her before.

Headaches usually indicated that too much strain was being placed on the eyes- specifically the nerves. That was obvious enough considering the constant use to which he put his. Putting the notebook on the floor she turned and faced him.

"Alright, first I would like you to activate your eyes in which ever way is most common for you. This way I can get a baseline for how it functions on a day to day basis."

"They are already as you say."

"Perfect. Now the way such examinations usually proceede is through the use of chakra. I will slowly funnel some into your eyes so that I can asses the initial damage. It will not be painful or annoying, you will most likely feel nothing other than the slight tingle of where it touches. This time I will do nothing, I will merely observe. I will ask you to switch between the different type of sharringan as well as completely deactivating it. Afterwards I will tell you what I have found and if anything can be done."

He nodded.

"Alright then. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Please keep your eyes open. Blinking is fine."

Slowly she raised her hands and lightly pressed her fingertips to the corners of his eyes just in front of his temples. He blinked but kept his eyes open as she asked. It was, she admitted, unnerving touching him. He was dangerous and deadly despite the calm casual way he lay on the bed. She closed her own eyes for a moment as she started but she could feel him watching her, could feel his eyes on her face and knew that he was still studying her.

Subtlely and with the delicacy that she knew eyes required, she funneled chakra into the nerves around his eyes relaying the information back to herself in images. She had to keep herself from gasping. The damage was amazing. As she threaded the observational chakra further through his eyes she noted the flow of his own chakra. It was building to painful amounts, specificially in his optic nerves. That was the reason for the headaches, and the cause of the damage. She knew that the sharingan would require a substantial amount of chakra but this amount was dangerous. No wonder he was going blind. His optic nerve was in tatters and she wondered that he could see anything at all.

"Alright, could you please switch to your Mangekyou." It took all of her courage to ask but she was quite glad to say that her voice didn't waver or squeak. The moment he did was obvious. The nerves in his eyes swelled slightly and she watched as the damage that was already so horrific only got worse, stressed too much by the amount of chakra required for the looked unbelievably painful but if it was Itachi said nothing.

She opened her eyes unable to resist the slight temptation to view the deadly jutsu up close, without being on the receiving end of its effects.

He was watching her.

The black of his tomoe had merged creating a pinwheel shape. It was eerie and shouted danger, but his gaze was calm, observing the way she met his eyes, something she thought very few people ever did. Her fingers were still by his eyes and she returned her concentration to her task.

"Now could you please deactivate your sharingan completely."

She watched the process on two levels. On the molecular level the pressure of his chakra faded leaving the parts of the eye it had touched almost raw and swollen. On the surface level she watched as the crimson of his eyes bled away leaving them almost coal black.

Darker than Sasuke's.

Slowly she withdrew her hands and reached for her notebook and began jotting down what she had found. His situation was grave, and the damage extensive. If she had had anything less than perfect chakra control there might have been nothing she could do for him, but she believed there was. Putting the note book down she turned to him. He was still watching her but hadn't bothered to turn his sharingan back on so she was looking into black eyes instead of crimson. And somehow, that frightened her more.

She cleared her throat slightly before she began to speak. "Your eyes have suffered almost irreparable damage. The stress placed on your optic nerve from chakra in your sharingan's normal form is minimal and expected. However as soon as you switch to Mangekyou is when the problems begin. Your headaches are from the stress on the nerves, and your blindness is due to the literal deterioration of the eye. As long as you use Mangekyou it will continue to break down until you are completely blind."

He nodded from where he was and closed his eyes for a moment. "So there is nothing to be done."

She scoffed and he opened his eyes again to gaze at her. "On the contrary. There is quite a bit I can do. If you permit I can release the pressure build up in your eyes which will rid you of the headaches. It will take time but you will no longer be in pain. In addition I can heal and not simply repair the damage done to your optic nerve. That will take even more time however, perhaps more than one session. The eyes are far too delicate to rush when healing. When I am finished you will be able to see as well as you did before you achieved Mangykyo. However if you continue to use it afterword the process will only start back up again and your vision will once again begin to fail.

He was silent and she wondered what he was thinking.

"How many sessions would it take to see an improvement?" She smiled slightly.

"With an hour I could soothe away the chakra build up. After that I could start on the actual damage. You would see improvement by tonight but not perfection. Perhaps two more sessions after that would finish it."

He nodded as if her words didn't phase him.

"Alright then, if you are ready." She placed her fingers at the edges of his eyes once again and settled herself in for a long evening.

The process wasn't terribly difficult, but it was time consuming and tiring. It required precise chakra control- which in and of itself drained her of stamina. By the end of the first hour she was slightly tired, soothing the last bits of stress away with care. After that she moved on to the actual healing. This was far harder. She had to keep his normal flow of chakra running easily as she healed the cells and nerve ends that had died, reconnecting them and soothing them into place. After about three hours she had fixed the bulk of the problem, ensuring that he would no longer be in pain and that the darkness that clouded his vision would be gone. He would still be blurry but he would be able to see more than her had in a long time.

Her hands began to shake slightly and she knew she should stop, when another pair came up and close over her own. His fingers were warm, curling gently around hers and pulling them away from his eyes. Smart since she was starting to fall asleep on her feet. She wavered in her seat trying to keep her eyes open and ask how he felt, if the darkness and headaches were gone. She tipped forward and realized too late that she couldn't stop herself- she was too exhausted- and cringed, knowing that she would hit the floor which would be embarrassing. Only she didn't. Instead she fell against a hard chest as his arms snaked out to hold her in place, supporting her as she started to fade. Her mind could barely comprehend the awkwardness of the situation as she slipped towards sleep, unconsciously curling closer to his warmth and presence. She felt him shift against her, and felt herself being lifted off the seat, but before she could argue the world fell away leaving her lost in dreams.

He looked down at the young medic who had collapsed against him in exhaustion as she curled herself around one of his pillows. Her coral pink hair was bright against the deep coal color of the sheets. Unable to stop himself he reached out and brushed it away from her face marveling as he watched the individual strands flutter around his fingers. He couldn't even remember the last time his vision had been this clear. The headaches were gone and he could see as if he was merely nearsighted- and his Sharingan wasn't even active.

A precious gift.

This small woman had given him something far more valuable than his eyes though. She had given him trust. He had told her she was free to go- in less specific words but he knew that she understood his meaning-, free to return to Konoha, to her family and friends, and team. To his brother.

But she had stayed. She stayed because she had believed him.

She turned in her sleep, hugging the pillow closer to her chest and something in him growled, jealous of the way she held it.

The thought stopped him dead in his tracks. Astonished he shook his head and looked away but was instantly drawn back to her again as a slight peaceful sigh escaped her lips. Trying to ignore it he turned away and reached for his cloak, slipping it smoothly over his shoulders before he went to the door and opened it.

A last look back at the young woman stopped him, before he turned away and left the room, disappearing down the dark hall.

Some things were better left unexamined and untouched.

This moment's Silence, was one of them.

Chapter 11- Don't Push Away (We Both Fell)

A/N: Yo! My apologies for taking a while to update, i just moved into college so ive been pretty busy, but i promise not to forget about all of you or this story, im enjoying it too much. I just wanted to add a note so that you understood what is going on.

This story is primarily told from Sakura's POV, but every now and then you may see somehting from Itachi's. When it is in his POV it will always be consistantly italicised since i cant change the font the way i do in my word document. Single italicised words simply imply emphasis. I hope you enjoyed this. The tension is growing! *evillaugh* Laters!