Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other characters

A/N: The dates aren't too bad this time around. Sasuke is 5 during the year of 1959. You can count his age upward by looking at the following years.

Interlude I

I'll Build You a Brick Road

1959, March 5

Sasuke is too young to understand anything. It's what his father says, one hand perched on Itachi's shoulder and then he says, "You'll make our family proud" but it's aimed at Itachi.

Sasuke is young but he understands what his father is saying; he understands that he can't amount to his brother. He clutches his mother's sleeve for the support it'll bring. She smiles, pulling him further into her half embrace and she ruffles his hair, kisses his forehead and says, purposely blocking the view where Itachi is demonstrating his fireball jutsus in rapid succession, "I think your father is wrong. There is power in love as well."

He frowns, a look his mother has told him several times in the past makes him look older. He says, "But if that's true, then why isn't love enough to make father notice me?"

His mother's smile drops a little and it makes him feel horrible. "Sasuke, you know that's not true. Your father loves you. He just doesn't know how to show it."

And Sasuke looks at how she clasps his hand, breathes and says, "but it's easy" and he watches over the river of her hair, the way Itachi elegantly flips onto the surface of the lake, walking on the water's edge, only to run towards his father's purposeful gesture.

"Maybe for some" she says, too softly and Sasuke bites his lip and crawls into his mother's lap when his father pats Itachi's head and smiles. They're under a tree and the shade is nice, but it's dark and Itachi's out there in the sunshine with his father.

Sasuke may be young, but he understands the pull of warmth, and squeezes every bit of it he can from his mother. He takes and takes.

But it's only fills his heart half way.

1962, February 2

"Don't leave" Sasuke says – no, he demands – because his mother is stupid and she doesn't understand what she's doing, "father can handle the war himself. You're safer here."

His mother stops by the door, a traditional shoji screen with flower designs which had been her personal touch when it seemed like the war was starting to rear its ugly head. It was meant to brighten up the room, but it's dark now anyway. "It's not a war" she corrects, "There's some disturbance in the sound and they're angry at Konoha. Your father and I are going ahead to make sure everything is alright." Right. She's lying.

It's the dead of the night and it's cold outside and she's an absolute idiot to go out. His fingers are clenched and he can't seem to unfurl them from the grooves they've dug into his skin. There's no blood there, but it's a near thing. He can control his heart rate to a steady thrum, can walk on water with his hands and make fireballs into the shapes of flowers and dragons, but he can't control anything else.

She turns to look at him. It's slow and it makes him angrier. "Oh darling" she manages, and her voice is gentle, like it's somewhere between a sigh and the high notes of a flute. "Your father needs me" she says. She doesn't even have her stupid winter kimono on. She doesn't look like the lady of the house, but like some pawn ready to fall over in the battlefield.

"I need you" Sasuke says, trying to get it through to her. She was stupid enough to marry that man, but he's not letting her die for him as well. "You said father was strong. So he'll be fine by himself. But I-" and he stops there. It's too many words and yet, too little and he can't manage to say what he wants because he's never had to. She had always known and he had always lived in this uneasy balance of slow-placed affection and silent affirmation.

"Darling" she says and he doesn't want to hear that again. It's the tone she uses to get her way. "You'll understand when you're older. That I need to do this. I would never be able to live with myself knowing that my husband is out there fighting when I have the power to help." She does, that's true. She was a jounin before she took the duties of a housewife, but that doesn't matter now, because she looks so frail in the darker colors of the jounin vest. Too small and he feels smaller just barely reaching her chest and wondering just what to do to get her to stay.

He picks his best weapon because he can't fight; is too weak to. "I thought you loved me too?" he spits out, meant to hurt, meant to scar.

And she sighs, so softly, "I love you too. Never question that. I love you and your brother and I know the two of you will take care of each other while we're gone. And when we come back, we'll have a dinner with all your favorites" she reaches for his hair, to ruffle it maybe. "Now wouldn't that be nice?"

He slaps her hand away and he almost regrets it because the sound it makes on contact resonates in the room. And his hand is throbbing and he feels like he's drowning and he hates it. Hates it so much. Hates the pain and wants to scream, 'Look what you made me do?!' but settles for, "No. Don't touch me." He can't manage a damn thing that's even half as elegant as he usually is on his tongue. His stomach is lurching. He feels it.

"Sasuke" she begins again, pulls herself forward and takes his hands, and even when he tries to pull them away, she's strong enough to pull him into some macabre hug, mumbling, "oh please, please don't hate me. You'll break my heart. Darling please."

And she goes on like that, even when he says, "then stay" and she replies,

"But he's all of me and even when he gave me you and Itachi, I'll still…"

And she doesn't quite say, 'Love him more,' but Sasuke hears it loud and clear.

He feels his heart drain of whatever was inside it. It's empty and hollow and he'll be damned if anyone goes near it again.

1962, May 19

Sakura and Naruto really worm their way into his life when they're assigned their teacher, Kakashi. The man is perverted and stupid – even stupidly strong - and Sasuke sees a little bit of Kakashi in Naruto. Just the stupid and perverted bits it seems. Sakura is every bit the fan girl because she makes him lunch when he doesn't ask for it, sits by his side when he doesn't want it and grabs his hand when he'd rather she didn't. He doesn't stop her though, because often enough, the food is good and the warmth beside him is nice and when she grabs his hand, he shakes it off only when it becomes too much. Too much of a reminder of his mother.

They're very young for genin, but it's an accelerated program. Sasuke had been chosen for his ability and most likely, clan affiliation, Sakura for her intelligence and affinity with chakra control, and Naruto for his exponentially large chakra reserves.

Naruto growls when they're practicing chakra control and falls knee deep into the water. Sasuke stands on the surface and Sakura's beside him, stopping to peer at Naruto. Sasuke notices her shifting closer to him when she looks at Naruto and says, "You ok there Naruto?" at the same time Sasuke snorts and says, "Idiot."

Naruto looks like he's about to yell, sputters and screams and says, "You wanna go you bastard? Right here, right now. I'll kick your ass!"

Kakshi doesn't attempt at anything half-placating, perched on a tree and reading god knows what, "Now, now, children. No fighting" and turns a page.

They fight anyway and Sakura runs for cover.

And Sasuke understands the language of battle. Knows that each kick and punch has no secrets behind it or any hidden messages. It's just brutality and kill or be killed and dirt and grime under fingernails, sitting in the setting sun. He loses it somewhere. Punches too hard. Hits enough to sting and draw blood.

It's at the end of the battle that they sit under the canopy of a tree and Sakura's twiddling her thumbs in the background and Kakashi looks displeased, standing in between them. Sasuke feels the blood rushing through his veins and feels every stretch and pull of his taxed muscles and it reminds him that he's here and he's alive. Naruto looks worse for wear. Bleeding and bruised and he's coughing blood.

He's pretty sure he's won the fight until Naruto coughs a little more and grins at Sasuke and says, "You're pretty good."

It makes Sasuke sputter. "Of course I am you dumbass."

Their team's still newly-formed and Kakashi goes insane stressing that their teamwork needs work if they're to survive in battle and Sakura simpers and says, "Sasuke, you're so cool"

Kakashi snaps then, losing that laid-back boredom, and it surprises Sasuke enough to look at him. "Konoha is barely even a village anymore and I have to stand by training you useless brats to fight in something you can't even handle. How could you let something as stupid as rivalry get between you two?" and Kakashi turns to him and says, "From someone from the great Uchiha clan, you act like a pampered snot compared to your brother"

And that sets Sasuke off and he ignores Sakura's gasp and he races to Kakshi, the newly formed chidori he had copied off the man when he wasn't looking and aims for his stupid head. Itachi's perfect and well liked and running the ANBU. Sasuke isn't strong enough to and spends half the time not trying to because he's not his brother. He's his own goddamn person.

Kakashi stops it, channels the chakra into the ground and there's silence, except for his breaths and Naruto sputtering and Sakura's hands are clamped over her mouth.

Kakashi says, "Look at the other people around you who are suffering. You're lucky to have at least one person to call family"

And Sasuke hisses, "You know nothing" and he wants to kill this man. He really does.

Kakashi says back, uncharacteristically gently now, "I know loss" and he flashes his eye and there's a sharinghan and he forces Sasuke into some dimension that is a world of pain. No, it's not a jutsu that Kakashi uses. He just looks at Sasuke and it's strange to see that eye on someone else after only ever knowing Itachi's and his own for what seems like years.

Sasuke steps back, far away and lashes out, "These teams are stupid. They're just training us so they can throw us through the ranks so they don't feel horrible for putting children into the war." He's not going to give Kakashi anymore of a reaction because of that stupid eye. It doesn't hold half the sway as it did when their clan was something great.

Kakashi says, "that's right" and Sasuke doesn't preen at his foresight. No, he doesn't feel like he's won this battle at all.

1963, September 3

The Hokage dies. He had been too soft in a world that couldn't hold him.

Sasuke stands at the monument with Naruto. All the mourners – mostly panicked villagers and silent ninja – have already left and Sasuke feels irritated that it's raining like some sort of cruel joke the heavens are enforcing on them and he's even more annoyed that Naruto's letting the rain cover him in a layer of water. His clothes are wet and he's shaking and his blonde hair mats his face enough to cover his blue eyes. Naruto doesn't have family but Sasuke knows enough that Naruto always considered the Hokage to be something like one.

Sasuke stands there, flips open his umbrella and puts it over the idiot because he'll die from hypothermia at any rate, and he'd rather be the one to kill him instead of the weather.

1963, October 4

Kakashi dies in battle. He protects them from a barrage of kunai and fights all the sound ninja on his own, despite the blood dripping out of his wounds and all the kunai embedded in his back.

When all the ninja are dead, Kakshi falls too and Sasuke is irrationally angry – at every goddamn thing this bastard has ever done for them - as he watches Sakura huddle over their teacher's body, trying to use some weak healing jutsu that seems to only slow down the bleeding temporarily. When she shudders and stops for a second, breathing hard, Kakashi's wounds split open again and there's a blooming of blood. Sakura's clothes are getting stained but there's not much of a loss there because her clothes are already red. She mops the blood with her sleeve, trying to find the wound, but it's too much blood.

He hates what he's feeling. He can barely bottle it up. Can barely keep the slow seeping shock and hate from crawling into his chest. 'Look what you're making me feel you piece of shit' he wants to say, 'and it's worse because you're not alive to see it.'

It's Naruto who draws him out of whatever he's in and he knows he's lost when he only catches the end of his statement. "-hell Sasuke. Don't stand there! Do something! You're the genius! Heal him!"

And Sasuke turns to him, shaking – it must be anger – and says, "You moron! The Uchiha aren't a healing clan. We can only fight!" and that's partially true, but his mother had known how to heal. When he had been younger, she used to put her hand over his wounds and make them disappear, saying, "It's magic darling" like the eccentric, world-loving thing she was.

And Naruto screams back, "Well it's not fucking doing anything for us right now!" It's almost hilarious because Sasuke wants to agree that there's no magic here. None at all. There's only the edges of something insane in Naruto's eyes and Sasuke can interpret it because he's seen it before. He pretends he doesn't know where, but it's a yawning chasm of desperation. The look of 'oh please, don't leave me. Oh god, don't leave me. Never leave me.'

Kakashi, before the mission, had said, reading his book, "I had went on a mission with Obito, a Uchiha. He was a good friend of mine. He died in the battle and gave me this eye." He had been every bit the picture of calm and Sasuke had bit down on the urge to ask him if he had seen his father and his mother. Bit down so hard on his lip that it had started to bleed. They had left and he didn't think it was worth knowing anything else. And what were the chances that Kakashi knew anything just because he had some offhanded affiliation with their dispersing clan? What stupidity.

And now that the mission is over, and they're trudging back empty-handed, unable to carry the heavy body of their former teacher, Sasuke can still barely acknowledge that he'll never know those answers now.

Itachi's there at the border to pick him up before they enter the mock thing they call Konoha. He's openly worried and it surprises Sasuke when Itachi pulls him into a hug and says, in front of Sakura and Naruto, "I was so scared."

"Why?" he snarls, hating this goddamn perfect being in front of him who had always been his father's favorite. This person who says he'll protect him and fights every goddamn battle the village will force him into and is barely a presence in the house with broken promises left on notes saying, 'I'll be back soon' and 'On a mission. I'll come back, don't worry.'

And Itachi says, "Because I love you"

And damn it, Sasuke's already weak and shaking from the fight he hadn't fought in – and that's the ironic part - and Itachi's there saying what his mother had told him long ago. Sasuke can't ignore it this time because he's tired of this war and there's affection in front of him.

His heart fills, if only a little and he says, "Ok." He's damned anyway.

1969, April 5

"Konoha's infrastructure is falling apart" Naruto says as they stand over a hill watching villagers tiredly trying to rebuild, "People have to live in tents because the rebuilding effort is hard on them and going so slow and we don't…don't have enough ninja to help" and Sasuke can almost hear Naruto wanting to say, "It's unfair."

"Then let's do something about it" Sasuke says, looking into blue eyes and holding it, because Naruto looks like he's dying along with the rest of this goddamn village.

1969, May 8

Sasuke walks into Sakura's tent. He's warned her far too many times that she needs to ward her goddamn door if she wants to stop her fucking admirers from attacking her. She's spent years perfecting her chakra control and her healing is exemplary enough that she has Tsunade watching over her and a whole wing of the hospital to herself. It's bound to draw wayward admirers wanting even just a taste of power.

The tent isn't large with only one major division to the dressing room and when he finds that she's not in the main one, he says, "Sakura" in warning before pulling the flap over to the dressing room.

She's in the middle of the room, and that's not what's surprising, but it's the steady way she has a pair of scissors in her hands at her neck. Her hair is in tatters and pieces of it are all over the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?" he says because he can't think of anything else and his mind is rolling with some coiled up anger.

Her face snaps towards him, and she starts, terrified, "Sasuke? I was just- I was-cutting my hair and then I-it was an accident- I-"

He snatches the scissors from her hand and he realizes she's shaking.

"Don't" he says, snapping them in his hands and throwing them behind him, "Don't fucking try that again"

She says, "Yes" and she looks away and he realizes that he never noticed when she stopped sitting too close to him or holding his hand or telling him she loved him.

"Sasuke" she says, and starts crying.

He watches her - standing and almost uncertain because he doesn't know a damn thing about what to do in this situation - until she stops and pulls herself back together.

She wipes her eyes and says, "That was stupid. It won't-it won't happen again"

"Good" he says. And that's it.

He watches her closely after that. All on top of his duties, because he's got to pull the weight when Itachi's busy and Naruto's ascending in ranks as some political leader. He sits at the ramen stand Kakshi had secretely loved and Sakura comes with him and Naruto shows up and comments on her hairstyle, "I think it's really you Sakura. It's really pretty." And sure, the blonde is a complete idiot but he makes Sakura break into a smile.

They've made a name for themselves. The legendary team seven. Some of the villagers show the reverence they usually show Itachi or Tsunade, the crown jewels of Konoha when it had been at its finest. Not that he cares. His father isn't around to see what he's doing and his mother would have preached something about love, if she were alive.

He's just protecting the village his mother and brother love so much. This village Naruto and Sakura are fighting for. And when he looks at it, on his worst nights, he doesn't see anything worth saving, but the few people he gives a damn about.

1975, February 3

"Itachi" he asks, when he's back from a mission and he only remembers that Itachi had tried to hold his hand and there had been blood everywhere. "Where's Itachi?" and he looks at Naruto, trying to tell him through his eyes that the mission had went horribly wrong and though the sound nin are dead, he feels like there's something else dying in his chest. It's more painful than his wounds.

Naruto's clutching his hand and the other ANBU are running around, trying to earn some sense of decency, but Sasuke doesn't care that he's frightening them. He clutches Naruto harder when he doesn't answer.

"My brother?" he starts again, "Where is he?"

And Naruto looks every bit like he's back in the rain and watching the monument with listless eyes, "…On another mission. It was urgent. We had to put him back on the field. I'm sorry we couldn't tell you"

"Yeah?" Sasuke asks, "Ok. Ok. Itachi's ok" and he feels like his eyes are raining blood, touches them and sees that it's true.

1980, June 15

He loves it all, – needs it, craves it – the way she curls into his hold like a glove and he's all around her and blocking her from the rest of the world. It's like it's just them and it makes him wild with something he can't quite taste but is certainly addicted too. Because here, they're an island of two and no one else matters.

He can see it though. The way she inches away and begs and pleads to leave. She's breaking down and he wants to break her down more if it means she'll stay. He sees what it does to her and sometimes he wants to strangle her for making him feel like he's on shaky ground that he can't master, can't control. He doesn't know what to do.

He says it somehow, forms everything into something spiteful and hateful because she's his and she'll never try to give herself to him and he'll never know how to do it properly enough for her to understand, "You've changed. A little crueler." And because Naruto has orders and he's never failed Naruto. He's afraid to take and lose because so long ago, he had lost something. Something important. He can't fit any of the pieces together and goddamnit, he knows Hinata knows how to do it right.

And he knows his orders, though he doesn't want to think outside of this warm space. And he's only a man – and Naruto sometimes, if not always, forgets it –and he can't help but reap the benefits, no matter how temporary. She curls into him though, doesn't know what he's thinking, never trying to, and it makes him tired and angry and needy. She says, "You too" so softly that he wants to lean in closer and hear her say more.

So, he'll keep her here for a while longer. Let her fill him and empty him at the same time. Keep her here and be simultaneously tortured and trusted – she's so warm – and he tells himself he'll let her out tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after that, or the one after that, or after that, or after that…

A/N: I've always imagined Sasuke to be arrogant to the point of being close-minded and intelligent to the point of stupidity. To be mean to the point of cruelty and to be just so privileged and so equally unfortunate to the point that he can't see a good thing that's packaged in front of him. He's every bit the tortured hero type that I was honestly at a loss on how to write him without completely screwing it up. Here's my take on his perspective, and I'm still on the fence as to whether it came off the way I wanted it to or whether it's just….bleh. I won't change it though, because I've had a horrible week bashing my head against some counter and wishing I was every bit the good lab tech like some of my other peers.

Unrelated, I know, but I treat my writing like a report (hence the dates) with just a touch more fluidity to throw in incomplete sentences or capital letters where they don't belong (ie. Starting the sentence with 'and') and I enjoy it. Enjoy writing for some covert audience that hopefully enjoys it as much as I like writing it. Huh, it's another shameless plug for more reviews. Go figure.

You guys probably know this already, but I read every review, squeal a little after seeing each one and do a little dance.

Note: The 2nd last scene was on the same day as the first part as chapter 2. The last scene is Sasuke's take on Hinata from chapter 5, but it's only a tiny bit of it. I'm obviously going to write more in the future, but the point of this chapter was to stress a certain point Naruto made in the last chapter to Hinata, and if I've done a shitty job of emphasizing it, please PM me or leave it in a review and I will answer your questions.

Probably the longest chapter I've ever written because I wanted to write so much more, and then I was alerted that I have an assignment due by the end of the night and I just told myself, "Now here's a good place to stop" then proceeded to scramble through the assignment. All is well though, the assignment is all participation and I can handle that.

Reviews are always lovely, and I think I've embarrassed myself enough by pleading for more.