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Chapter fourteen

Waking up was surprisingly difficult. My eyes just didn't want to open, like they were sewn shut or something. Slowly, the light began to grow, everything was unfocused and the light hurt my eyes. Things suddenly became easier, as my eyes fully opened.

Moving, was a different matter all together. All I could really do was twitch and it left me tired. A doctor came in gasping slightly like he had been running. I was trying to find out why: one it was so hard to sit up, and two why it hurt my chest to do so.

The doctor rushed over when he saw me trying to get up saying, "You shouldn't be moving yet Haruno-san. You just woke up from a coma don't strain yourself."

I froze, "Coma," my voice questioned, hoarsely, "What? When? How long? Where's my mom? How much school did I miss? Where's Itachi, get that bastard in here he's got to catch me up in Calculus."

The doctor finally calmed me down to say I had only been out for nine days, my mother was at work and would be called immediately, he didn't know who Itachi was so he couldn't tell me. I grumbled at him to get me a phone so I could call and verbally murder the boy.

While I was waiting for him to get here the doctor had told me what happened. The police had found me by chance. I had been shot twice, once in the leg and once in the right side of my chest. That one would have killed me if the bullet hadn't hit a rib after going through the rope. They had to wire my rib back in place, and I wasn't supposed to walk due to the damage the first bullet had caused me. I had also been so dehydrated that the doctors thought I would die. He gave some of the final details, checked some of the machines, and then left.

I was deliberately trying to ignore the IV needle in my arm when Itachi finally walked in. He didn't have what I had asked him to bring.

"What, so you just come to visit, I asked you to bring my Math book. What you think I called you for? It's not like I wanted to see you?"

"The nurse said you needed rest," he said this like I was an idiot or something, probably from my lame attempt at a joke. How he managed to keep a monotone is lost on me. Yes I had wanted to see him... so he could catch me up in Calculus.

"Bah, I've been 'resting' for nine days, if I get any more I may just become catatonic." There was a long moment of silence before I noticed something and just had to speak out, "Why does the room smell like an old person?"

I could almost swear Itachi was trying not to react, or maybe he was constipated. A voice rang from behind the curtain separating the room, "You listen here missy," the voice said. Seconds later the curtain was pulled aside revealing a 'seasoned' female citizen who had gasped when she saw me, "Oh you're that little whipper-snapper who cut me off months ago. I recognize your hair. "

My jaw dropped but the woman didn't stop there, "And now you are in the hospital, it's your bad karma for not respecting your elders. I'll bet it was his fault you're here isn't it? Girls these days, always falling for the bad boy, he looks like such a rotten child..."

Rage fueled my next movements as I stood up glaring at the old bat. I was lucky the IV was hooked up on that side of the bed or it would have been ripped out.

"Listen up you old hag," my voice was low and dangerous, " don't you ever insult my friends. Especially about something you know nothing of." I could feel myself shaking, only my pride was keeping me from falling to my knees. The woman left looking more then a little frightened, and that is when I finally fell. I sat there for some time before crawling back to my bed, Itachi didn't even try to help. It wasn't in his nature, and even if it was he knew I wouldn't accept.

"Why do you feel the need to defend me?"

It was the first question he had ever asked out of what seemed to be, general curiosity. I just scoffed at him, and gave him an annoyed look from my spot on the bed, "Because you never defend yourself. You sit there and act like it doesn't bother you over the fact that every one just seems to assume you're a horrible person."

His shrug meant that it didn't bother him, "It's true."

Now I knew Itachi fairly well, in my opinion, and in my experience around him he always seemed to give off an air of not being anything less then perfect. I knew he wasn't, with the way his family appeared to have a deep dislike of him, the fact that he had been to juve, he was as untrusting as hell, and completely secretive.

So yeah he wasn't perfect, but he didn't seem to grasp the fact that he wasn't the only one in the world who wasn't. There wasn't anything I could say to change his opinion though, and I was kind of wary since last time one of our conversations drifted into this area I had ended up with a black eye.

Sighing I just said, "Think what you will. I don't know what you think of yourself to believe that, but I don't think you could be as bad as you seem to think you are, no one ever is."

Something was bothering me though. Itachi had done something like this before in different conversations, like when he had just come back from the happy house, after Sasuke called us headcases. I had just figured out what he had been subtly trying to do.

"Oh and please stop trying to get me to hate you Uchiha. Get over it and just accept that you can't get rid of me that easy, no matter how bad you make yourself look."

I could tell he was raging that his plan had been discovered, he knew that since I had discovered it any attempts to be a jackass would be ignored. I was smirking at my victory when another thought came into my mind.

I was positive he was trying to protect me from something, himself maybe, with Sasuke's frequent verbal wondering on why I wasn't yet dead it was possible. Sure he could be violent when provoked. But I knew the one topic that seemed to do so, we both avoided it, on his part at least. He already knew the details of mine, but I still wonder what his past could have been to make him the way he is. It couldn't have been that bad.

Could it.

My musings were cut off by my mother entering the room she looked around and spotted Itachi, "So is this that Sasuke boy you told me about so long ago?"

Despite the slight pain in my ribs, gotta love pain killers, I was laughing like an insane idiot. It had taken her just five seconds to give Itachi the ultimate insult. It really took me some time before I could stop laughing, "No mother this is Itachi. Sasuke was being an evil little squirrel, bird raper, thing and broke up with me forever ago. This is my friend, calculus tutor, and Sasuke's brother, I think," my mother's questioning look made me explain what I was already going to say, "well you see he's just to smart to be related to Sasuke, or anyone that I've met from his family for that matter."

My mom glared at me at the clear dislike in my voice. I wasn't supposed to insult other people's family in front of them, or at all. If Itachi wasn't himself I knew he'd be laughing his ass off right now, almost any insult to his family was okay with him. Deciding something, he got up and left giving his normal polite departure thing that kind of freaked me out.

"Well he's nice. Very polite. That's a bit unexpected."

"He's always like that mother," I said in a joking demeaning tone, "Completely polite while in a room with more than one person. Alone however, utterly different."

There must have been an odd look on my face because my moms response was awkward, said in a furious whisper, and I had to stop her from having an aneurism.

"Mother that's disgusting in too many ways. One: I'm not dating anyone, especially not him. Two: That's just wrong. Six: and though I admit he is a fair amount of hot, he is just my friend."

I talked with my mom some more before she had to get back to work. I spent the next five days doing nothing, the doctors wouldn't let me. They wanted to keep me longer, but I just told them to let me out now, or I'd visit the second floor and just play the piano out of boredom. It worked and the next day I was sitting in the atrium of the hospital waiting for my mom.

Ha atrium, hospital humor.

She was late, so late that I was beginning to wonder if we were related to Kakashi-sensei. Something was bothering me though. Across the room sat some guy who was reading, nothing new there, in the some person sitting department, but he looked really familiar. When curiosity finally got the best of me, I struggled with my crutches and slowly made my way across the room. My muscles were still weak from lack of use, fourteen days with minimal to no use, several days tied up, use your brain now.

"Umm, hi, yeah well sorry for interrupting but you look really familiar," I said when I finally reached him. When he looked up the feeling of having met him before increased.

"I don't think we have. I think I would remember such an 'interesting' person," his voice was full of laughter, I knew he was referring to my hair, but for once I found it funny. At least he hadn't asked if it was natural like everyone, bar Itachi, had. I chuckled a bit as he held out his hand in greeting, "Uchiha Shisui. Nice to meet you."

I froze. No wonder he looked familiar. He looked a lot like Itachi and Sasuke.

Creepy.