Blue Kitsune and I were in conversation over Pain's message, to which she said he reminded her of Bane from "The Dark Knight Rises" when he takes over Gotham City (with a nuclear bomb to keep everyone hostage and imprisoned for a "revolution").

I also realize this chapter was MUCH longer than usual. XD I've done long chapters before, but this one broke this fic's record.

Chapter Fourteen

Seclusion

If he wanted to be put out of his misery, this was the best way to deal with it if not the way a suicidal teenager would dare to dream about. He drank to the point of nearly falling asleep being out with Kisame - and the two now taken before his eyes today. He didn't want to see anyone or even talk to anyone. He hoped Hanaru would understand that.

Or she would be stubborn and insist on being beside him.

Itachi grunted and lay his head flat against his pillow, on his bed and naked, save for his underwear. Kisame brought him home, staying sober enough to drive him from the bar after work, but swore he would have to get him help whether he asked for it or not. "You're really screwed up worse than ever before," the shark-like man said. "At this rate, tadpole, you're going to either turn into a useless alcoholic or someone under a coma. You have any idea what it will do to your woman, your brother - and the friends you have left? Including me?"

Hanaru...I don't want to hurt her. She deserves to be away from this. She will only suffer for something that isn't her fault.

Currently the press was insane about the events, and Kakashi was really doing all he could to keep the civilians from panicking. "As long as we are all together, we can protect this town which began as a small village made by our founding fathers," he'd said, "because we do NOT negotiate with terrorists. Nor do we let them see we are afraid. Running and hiding is for cowards. We have time to combine forces with our allies, and in that time, we enjoy the time we have in addition. And we also mourn all those we have lost in this monstrous tragedy; it is our responsibility to not let those deaths be in vain."

When people asked about him, he hadn't been there to answer himself. But Kakashi supplied for him. "Itachi Uchiha will return, because we are all nothing without him. We all saw what happened today: two convicts who were forced and paid for it with their freedom, happiness and ultimately their lives. Even the greatest of human beings can fall...but there are those who can pick up and avoid making those mistakes, which is exactly what we are all going to do." Even that didn't make Itachi happier. Instead, it made him sink further into despair.

Sasori and Deidara are gone because of me. His line of thinking was starting to turn dark. He tried telling himself the depression and the alcohol was only making him think like this, and sleep was the best way to go. Kisame was gone now, but was the door locked on his way out?

It was then and there he remembered that Hanaru had a key of her own.

She wouldn't even bother calling him, but she would also come anyway. Just as he'd lost his friend's divorce case.

Thinking about that made him briefly wonder if Toneri was still doing what he did best, but Itachi growled and fought to go to sleep, refusing to think about his enemy who humiliated him and his best friends who defended themselves to the end. If the bastard didn't realize his mistakes, then he deserves to die when Pain comes.

~o~

As expected, Itachi was home and was so drunk he passed out in his room. Seeing this, Sasuke swore under his breath and went into his brother's room without permission, his doctor mode kicked in. His brother, yes, but this was unacceptable, and it also made his wife a little pissed even though she agreed with him.

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura said, trailing after him, "don't force him to talk if he doesn't want to." Hanaru was right behind her, and her heart dropped for the umteempth time that day when she saw her future husband in bed, naked beneath the covers, and the lines beneath his eyes more prominent from stress and grief, and the dark circles shown a little more due to drinking and little sleep over the last week.

She wasn't ready to say it aloud, but she was scared for him now. Scared he would become suicidal before they even got married, before they protected their city from incoming terrorists. He couldn't be going around behaving like this, but she had to keep in mind the lifelong lesson in handling someone in a depression: you couldn't half-ass and force help onto the person. It would only lower the value of emotion when they finally came back to their senses. His two friends brutally taken away from him had pushed him over the edge today.

Now, with that in mind, Hanaru planned to go right to Toneri Oosutsuki and confront him about today. She no longer feared a lawsuit, because she was backed by others and not only because she was engaged to Itachi Uchiha.

"By God," Sakura said with a shake of the head, sitting down beside him and turning him gently onto his back so she could look at him better. "He's so wasted. But I don't think we can force him to get help if he doesn't want it."

"Why not?" Sasuke asked, dismayed. "Look at what that bastard did to him today! Pain caused him so much suffering as he did to all of us! Itachi shouldn't be like this, not when..." He trailed off then, unable to finish. Three months until what is left of the Akatsuki will come and devastate us all, when we don't know what to expect of them. If he's catatonic until then, he's doomed like the rest of us. Those words were unspoken, but Hanaru and Sakura knew it.

But if they forced him, he would never trust them again for a long time.

Hanaru glared at her future brother-in-law. "I know that," she snapped. "You don't have to repeat those words that are mine."

Sasuke snorted. "Hn." He looked back at Itachi when he stirred and moaned softly.

Onyx eyes fluttered open and hazily settled on the three of them. He flinched and turned his face in the other direction. "Leave me, please," he said groggily. "I wish to sleep in peace."

Hanaru crawled further onto the bed, sitting beside him. "The hell we will," she said defiantly, and he glared up at her.

"Hanaru, this isn't like last time."

"Hell, no it isn't!" she replied, disgusted that he was pushing them all away like this. Everyone couldn't shut up about his breakdown as it was, and him hiding away from it all wouldn't help. "I won't stand by and let you wither away like this! I plan to just let you leave be, but to go to extremes like this won't be good enough for us long term - or even in these next few months before we are attacked."

I won't let him resort to suicide if he's thinking it right now. Sasori and Deidara because of Pain has really cut him up. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to cry.

What he said next took her off-guard altogether. She never thought he would even SPEAK to her like this. "Hanaru," Itachi growled, clumsily sitting upwards and looking at her through lidded eyes, smoldering with black fire, "leave me, or I will do everything in my power not only to call off the wedding, but also shut down your business you love so much." The words were spit out with such fire and hatred that it made her slide off immediately. She shouldn't have let him intimidate her like this, but something inside her cracked and fell apart.

Sakura gasped sharply and straightened up. "Itachi Uchiha, you have gone too far!" she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. "You don't even know what you are saying!"

"Yeah, big brother," Sasuke added, equally loathing, "and even I would never go that far."

"How wrong you are, little brother," Itachi sneered back. "Just as you almost did on your wife that one time..." He was cut off when Sakura reached over and struck him across the face - which Hanaru wanted to do but was beaten right to it.

"Oh, don't go there!" the pinkette snarled. "Now, we came here to help you, and you're going to have to obey doctor's orders whether you want to or not." Hanaru quickly stood up, not wanting anymore to be involved in this, and if Itachi was being like this - and if he WAS serious about his threat; she tried hard not to think about it - then she would just give him the benefit of the doubt.

As soon as she was outside the room, closing the door behind her and tuning out the heated outbursts on the other side of the door, she felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. Mikoto was calling her. She swiped the screen to answer her. "Mikoto, it's a bit of a...bad time," she said nervously, torn between lying to her future mother-in-law and not. The older woman sighed sharply.

"Itachi isn't doing well," she stated, rather than asked.

"It doesn't do it justice," Hanaru answered dejectedly, leaning her back against the wall. "He's drunk and a mess, and on the verge of sleeping it all away. Sakura is here with me, but she is only doing so much. I don't want to force him into anything...but I'm worried about him."

There was a short pause and light intake of breath. "...so am I. I should come by, but if it's that bad, then I think it's best to just leave him alone today. After all, what the whole world saw..." Mikoto paused there, too shaken herself to repeat it. "You should have seen my husband. He didn't show it, but he's feeling failure again."

"But why? He didn't cause any of this."

"No, but...he feels he forced Itachi into this. I told him all of Itachi's life that this was his son, and he didn't want to pick up the mantle - and it's per family tradition." There was a hint of disgust. "But Fugaku, the stubborn man he is...and he did let a tear fall even though he tried to hide it." This did catch Hanaru off-guard now. F-Fugaku Uchiha - shed a tear? Real men do not do that.

Mikoto laughed lightly when she said this aloud. "Oh, but they do with the right amount of pressure. But," she said suddenly, "what did he say to you?"

Well, no getting around it either. "He threatened to call off the wedding and shut Jōnetsu down," Hanaru stated, clenching her free fist in her pocket. Her future mother-in-law sucked in a harsh breath.

"Maybe it's for the best to leave him alone then. Give it a week or two. I know my son that well," she said, but Hanaru knew she was more worried than she was because this was her fiancée's mother, after all. "In the meantime, tomorrow, how about you and I meet for lunch? I know all of this is horrid timing, but I have something to give you...for the wedding."

Hanaru let a small smile tug painfully on her face. Maybe that would be a nice break from this. If her man was being this way and threatened to take a turn for the worse, and if no one right now could force him to get help, then just let him be that way while she tried to enjoy the planning process.

She should have expected how hard it would be without him.

~o~

For not even a month and a half, he rarely left his apartment except to go to the grocery store, and he was given a short leave of absence with his boss' permission. Of course, the majority of his colleagues were extremely disappointed in him. Toneri? No one had seen or heard from him since that day. People were stating that he, too, had a leave of absence, but no one knew for sure. It was either that, or he was hiding like a coward.

Itachi wanted to believe it was the latter. Now people see his true colors.

Toneri was the least of his problems. When his beloved Hanaru, his brother and Sakura came to him, everything exploded that even he didn't remember it all in his half-drunk state, but one was for sure: he'd threatened to shut down her business and cancel their wedding. He never spoke to her like that, and she didn't deserve it. But the words had not been taken back when Sasuke unleashed every profanity he had, and Sakura swore she was coming back periodically herself to check on him.

Two days later, he'd refused - purposefully - to go to his baby brother's birthday. He knew how he would be viewed. How low he'd sunken, to being fearful of the way everyone would look at him, and how could Hanaru bear to look at him after what he said to her...?

Kisame and Shisui couldn't take his shit either. They would come by after work, if not all the time, to make sure he didn't kill himself. "Itachi," his cousin said through his teeth, "you're being a child worse than I know I can be." He had flinched at the deep disappointment in his best friend's eyes and tone, and Kisame, of course, repeated the same lecture as the first day.

Itachi Uchiha was aware of how he looked even if he didn't look at himself in the mirror all the time. He hadn't shaved for days, given he didn't feel like it, and the last time he did, he'd been lost in thought that he'd accidentally cut himself and drew back as well as wiped away that little bit of blood that oozed out. When he saw his own blood, he would remember the blood from his dying friends...as he would see their faces when he slept...

Sakura prescribed him sleeping pills to help him rest at night, but they would only be for a month's time, and if they didn't work, she recommended him talking to his family's therapist - and she was laying the law down there, for she had enough power to recommend him locked up until he was better, if she had to supervise him herself. He'd growled at her, feeling more like otouto than himself. If this was how Sasuke felt when his little wife put her foot down, then it also meant he had to face that with Hanaru someday soon.

He did keep in touch with everyone through the phone, but when his brother blew up his mobile the day after his birthday, he cursed as much as he did the day he arrived to find his nii-san drunk worse than Tsunade would be. He called Itachi selfish and self-centered and swore he wouldn't speak to him again unless he pulled his shit together. He never spoke to Sasuke again after that, though his sister-in-law did only for periodical check-ups.

Hanaru...

He had expected her to come around since he knew her too well, but she never once tried to see him either, and they only spoke once over the phone, but their conversation was sparse at best. She, along with his mother and her grandmother were busy with planning the wedding before Pain would come for them. Because of that, the wedding planning would be a month and a half or two months at most. Time was of the essence, but it would all be worth the blood, sweat and tears of this year and waiting for her his entire life.

Although, she wasn't keen on coming to see him face to face anytime soon. He cringed at the stinging words he remembered, as she turned the tables on him so he knew how she felt: "I won't see or talk to you until you get off your ass and get the help you know you need." She'd half-assed him, and he knew he deserved it. Five weeks later, it was an official yes to that.

He wasn't afraid to take Sakura's suggestion of seeing the family therapist, but he'd begun to think he didn't need it. One reason had to do with his avoidance of those around him, save for Sakura, because it had to do with the loss she and Sasuke had, even if it wasn't the same as the loss of two of his cherished friends. If Father and Sasuke heard me, they would call me a coward.

And speak of the devil. There was a harsh bounding on his apartment door. "Itachi, you are going to answer the door even if I have to break it down myself!"

Itachi wasn't as his best. He was unshaven, his ponytail mussed, but he did shower and clean regularly because he hated the aroma of lack of hygiene - even on himself. "Just a minute, Father," he yelled back, "while I fix myself up -" But as expected, Fugaku slammed hard once on the other side, barking back.

"I don't care if you need to put on a clean shirt or whatever it is! This has gone on long enough that you are going to listen to your father!" He growled through his teeth and stalked over to the door then, unlocking the door and opening it to reveal his father red-faced and livid. "Wipe that look off your face, boy," the man growled, lips pulling back. He brushed past Itachi and moved over to sit on one of the leather chairs across the glass coffee table. "Well, sit down so you damn well hear what I have to say."

Treating me like the little prodigy he raised me to be. The good little boy who sat across from him, humble on his knees, and did as he was told to do.

"Do you have any idea how your absence has affected us all?" Fugaku went on. "Your mother, your fiancée, and everyone else has been trying to look past this, but it won't last any longer on me OR Hanaru. I didn't need to talk to her myself to see if the two of you are even working together. It's unbelievable; an Uchiha wouldn't dare to just push aside his loved one." Itachi stiffened but said nothing. He didn't even purposefully shove her away! But then again...no, I did. I threatened to end our marriage and crush everything she built on her parents' memory. I don't deserve to be in her presence like this.

"You come here to say this when I lost two of my most precious friends, because of the ones we fought our entire lives hunting down like the animals they are," Itachi hissed, clenching his fists.

Fugaku's palm slammed flat down on the surface of the table, almost cracking the glass.

"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT?! ITACHI - MY PRIDE AND JOY HOLES HIMSELF UP IN HERE BECAUSE HIS LIMIT BROKE! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" He paused there, taking a few breaths to calm down before lowering his voice. "A man who hides away is a coward, and that's just what the mayor said to all those people of this town who are depending on us. Hell, when I was still in your position, do you remember me avoiding my family and those closest to me just because someone got killed because of me?" Fugaku's eyes hardened.

"Do you think your friends will approve of this behavior of yours?"

The answer was already in front of him even while he delayed this long enough: No, they would be turning in their graves. In fact, he had been forced to leave this place once for the double funerals, and to see poor Granny Chiyo when she was attending her grandson's funeral tore him further beyond repair. When she looked at him, it was nothing short of hard disgust as if he shouldn't be there.

Somehow he agreed with her.

No one would even look at him, but when he made eye contact with Shisui, the same message was still there. Day by day, he was slowly losing everyone because he was broken apart.

"No," Itachi finally whispered, closing his eyes, which made his father relieved to know that hope wasn't lost.

"Glad to know that my son still has some sense in him. Which means that I think we can call the family doctor now - for the sake of proving you are willing to get your pants back on?" A crude way of putting my predicament, Father. It's unlike you.

~o~

When someone threatens all you hold dear, it's immense hatred and determination to protect all of it.

When that someone whom you love is the one to threaten it...there are no words to describe the pain and confusion.

She did mean it when she said she didn't want to see or speak to him for his conduct - a word that a harsher professional would use - so besides on the phone and the one time at the joint funeral, she didn't speak to him or make eye contact for fear of getting weak. I should have listened to Sasuke that day, but I was too stubborn and acted on my feelings. Now Itachi is doing this alone.

Five weeks went by since then, and from what she heard from those around her, Itachi's remaining friends were devastated and had all but given up so he could get up on his own. He hardly left his apartment except for getting himself groceries, but other than that, he didn't dare to speak to anyone - except Sakura. She had been making sure he didn't kill himself, like a child constantly needing to be checked on periodically. As a consequence, he missed his younger brother's birthday, which Sasuke lashed verbally out at him for.

Hanaru worried Sasuke would be back to hating Itachi and never forgiving him for this.

But he'd shook his head. "No, I don't hate him...but this is inexcusable. Never in our entire lives did I think he would do something like this. It's the first time my 'perfect' big brother locked himself up to scrutiny." He felt his lip curl.

The issue with Itachi wasn't all, for there was the most wonderful news in the world revealed sometime in early August: he and Sakura were expecting again! That didn't take very long. What did it take? Understanding from aniki and then the wife using her wit and fist in the wall to coax hubby back in bed with her for as many rounds as it would go. Hanaru shook her head, not wanting to imagine any of that, because it was her best friend and future brother-in-law...

Their baby was estimated to be due in April the coming year. Now with this new one, Sasuke was more determined to protect his wife and new unborn than ever. When they all got the Akatsuki off their shoulders once and for all - and she damned well knew they all would, because Konoha always prevailed in the past - then her new niece or nephew would be safe in this new environment. And Itachi's niece or nephew.

It seemed no one told Itachi the good news yet. In fact, it was on this day that the happy couple told everyone when Fugaku gathered them all that afternoon - which was the day before he went right to Itachi to do the knocking of sense into him himself. Seeing her best friend expect her first child, given a second chance, made her think of the one she would have with Itachi someday...and now her heart melted before hardening and cracking, forcing the flood into her throat and eye channels.

Her eventual father-in-law noticed this, and exhaling sharply, he'd put down his whiskey on the mosaic-patterned table - a new import from the Middle East. "That does it," he announced, standing. "I'm going to have a talk with Itachi if that is the last thing I do."

Mikoto looked worriedly up at her husband. "Fugaku, is that wise?"

"It has to be done," he answered firmly, putting his hand on her shoulder. "If we're going to have a wedding, and if we're gonna get Pain and whoever left is helping him before time runs out, then we need Itachi back." He looked over at Hanaru, not smiling but sending the message. It's about time. All she could do was numbly nod.

Naruto and Hinata had been there with her, but her brother could not contain his threats of dismembering her fiancée himself if he saw him again. "The bastard, hiding like a coward," he growled once, and she could have sworn she saw his eyes turn demonic red. "To threaten you and all of us like that...he has the nerve!"

Hinata had winced and shook her head before turning her attention to the blonde woman. "I'm sorry, Hana-chan," she'd said softly. "But...I don't think he really meant what he said." In other words, Itachi cursed back because he didn't want her suffering his mess. It was so childish to a tee, and it did hurt her so much. So her firing back taught him a lesson, hopefully. Now his father was going to do the talking now. Even if the man was a hard-ass, Fugaku could crack the wall of steel.

A couple days after that, Itachi called her himself. She could only assume his father did the deed, and she was right. For that, she wept for joy with knowing he was going to get his desired help.

Hanaru saw him for the first time again, face-to-face, two weeks later when she was notified that Itachi had done remarkably better than the average emotionally and mentally lacerated patient, but it wasn't like he had been locked up. By then, Fugaku and Mikoto decided that a really big welcome back party was in order at the manor, having only close friends from both sides instead of snobby distant relatives for the hell of it.

It was in the middle of the same month when it happened. The mornings and nights of weeping to herself and worrying would be over now.

She had been lacerated herself as much, being apart from him and having so much time to think as well as continuing life even if there was no shadowy danger ready to emerge any time. If the man she was going to marry locked himself away from those he always knew were there for him.

She stood with her brother, two best friends and brother-in-law - not long now - as the front door opened, and the man himself walked in with Shisui right beside him. Sakura was fighting to hold back tears in her dusty rose silk-satin dress with a modest neckline and plunging cowl back; her husband was all in black, as expected, and his mouth smirked to one corner. Hinata leaned into Naruto, wearing lustrous ebony satin draping in the right places, and Naruto himself just couldn't resist being in bright orange paired with navy blue. He was smiling, though he planned to give the man of the hour more than a piece of his mind.

"If you kill him," Hanaru had threatened him in private, holding up her clenched fist, "then you'll get more than a removal of what you value most...and I won't say what parts I am talking about." She grinned devilishly at the shining sweat that broke out in his forehead. It wasn't every day she got to exert this kind of control over her baby brother, and this time felt good.

Shisui had said that Itachi didn't shave in God knows how long, but now he looked as he always had. His hair was tied back, his clothing sharp and totally him: red collar shirt and polished black in one. Clean, cut, and all hers. She was the first thing he set his eyes on, in her long golden dress patterned with blushing cherry blossoms and a plunging neckline. Those eyes darkened before glazing. He didn't seem to want to look anywhere else other than her.

But we are still going to have a lot to talk about...but not tonight.

"Hanaru," Itachi breathed when he came to stand before her, his expression falling slightly. His eyes closed for a moment before reopening. "Everything I said to you, have done to you...I don't believe I deserve a second chance with you."

He was giving her the pity party at a time like this, but she would have none of that. "No, stop talking right there," she said sharply, putting a finger to the bottom lip and leaning up to kiss him then. He returned it briefly and chastely. All eyes were on them; she felt the drilling holes in her back. "We have plenty of time to talk, but tonight is not the night."

Itachi's smile lit up his face. And was it her imagination, or did those lines on his face just get deeper and make him look older than he was? He's better but isn't completely well yet. It's going to take time.

I confess I was worried with this chapter because to do depressed Itachi after losing his friends was hard, and it was also a chance to cause a little problem between him and his fiancée, since everyone knows that no relationship is perfect. :( It hurt emotionally as it did physically. I was most concerned with the final scene in Hanaru's POV as she recalls Itachi's seclusion and then learning he gets the help he needs (and with Fugaku saving the day).

Finally, next chapter has long-awaited moments. :D