Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Special Thanks: goes out to Dani Stark, Joey Klay, and rao hyuga 18 for all your wonderful reviews! Also thanks to everyone who's added this story to their favorites and alerts lists!

Author's Note: This chapter is such a huge turning point for Itachi and Temari. In fact, I think it might be one of the most important in their entire relationship. It's yet another intense chapter, but in an entirely different way. After the sheer anguish and grief in the last couple, at last we reach the point of healing, of recovering and moving on. Of course, it doesn't happen all at once - even in Shadows, Itachi and Temari are still healing - but this is the start. It gets better from here. So I'm relieved to get to this point, to share this with all of you, even if it is slightly bittersweet since we're getting so close to the end. Only four chapters after this one... I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!

*~Chapter XXXV~*

~Anchor~

Little by little, a sense of normalcy seeped back into Temari's life. She launched into a rigorous workout regimen - no more sleepwalking through workouts for her - and by mid-July completed the rope course for the first time since before her brief pregnancy.

She still missed her child terribly; still woke from nightmares in which she heard him screaming in terror, though now she was able to take comfort in her husband's strong yet gentle arms. Her fury at the Council for what they'd done burned unabated deep in her soul and in her belly, but her will to live returned stronger than ever. As she told herself daily, she was Sabaku, and her clan had not held power in Suna since its founding by being weak of purpose. The Sabaku had forged the village's foundations by blood and steel. The day would come when, ancient law or not, Temari would have those evil old men in her power. And on that day she would show no mercy.

The gradual return of normalcy to their lives brought another thing to Temari's mind. Sooner or later, once she and Itachi reached a certain point of emotional healing, they would resume marital intimacy. A kind of restlessness was growing inside her. Watching her husband for similar subtle (or not so subtle) signs, she came to the decision that she had better be ready for it. So despite her embarrassment, she went to see Lady Chiyo, Suna's premier expert on all things to do with childbirth and female health issues. When she asked if there were a way for her and Itachi to be fully husband and wife again without risking a repeat of the ordeal they'd just endured, the elderly Healer gave Temari a bottle containing about a dozen foil-wrapped ovoids. After advising her on how to use them, the old woman stressed the importance of always making sure it was before anything - ahem - interesting happened.

As she hurried home, acutely aware of the weight of the bottle in her pocket, a sudden fierce longing for her husband surged through her in a way she'd not felt in many months. Her steps unconsciously quickened as she decided something interesting would happen that very night.

So, after employing one of Chiyo's ovoids in the privacy of the bathing room, she pulled one of Itachi's workout tops over her head. Then she stood in front of the mirror and critically examined herself, wondering if she looked all right - if she looked desirable.

Her hair hung in soft gold waves around her face, which had filled out again with her return to full meals and healthy exercise, including honing her skills with Itachi for the Founder's Festival in December. The hem of the shirt hit slightly less than halfway down her thighs, hanging loosely on her form; the black fabric made her hair brighter, her skin paler. She stared at her legs for a long, appaising moment, wondering if they were still too scrawny from when she'd lost weight. But she forced herself to shrug off her concern. Turning slightly, she looked over her shoulder at the Uchiha crest on the back of the shirt, smiling at the symbol of her husband's clan.

Taking a deep breath, Temari wetted her lips and then opened the washroom door a crack, peering into the bedroom beyond. Her gaze immediately went straight to the bed, where Itachi sat propped against the headboard. A little flutter went through her as she took in the way his hair fell in an inky waterfall over his bare shoulders, how his dark eyes focused on the book he held in his lap, atop the blankets.

Temari's mouth went dry. For a moment doubt shook her. She'd seen or sensed nothing to indicate Itachi wasn't perfectly content with things as they were. An impulse to change her mind - and nightwear - squirmed through her, but she firmly squashed it. It was time.

Feeling suddenly like a newlywed again, she simultaneously pushed open the door and reached out with her other hand to flip off the washroom light. With slow, measured steps, she crossed the room to the bed, moving quietly and - she hoped - sexily toward him, trying not to feel ridiculous. During the course of their courtship and early marriage, it had been Itachi who wooed her. Now it was her turn to woo him - a process she planned to enjoy to the fullest.

Itachi didn't notice her at first, so focused was he on his book. His brows scrunched slightly over the bridge of his nose with concentration, his lips pressed firmly together, his eyes narrow. Her stomach fluttered again with a strange mix of excitement and anxiety.

At last, reaching the bed, Temari climbed onto the mattress. She shifted until she'd settled herself next to Itachi, hoping the movement would catch her husband's occupied attention.

Sure enough, he looked up from his book, eyes still fogged with distraction, lips half-curled in a distant smile. But then he got a good look at her, and both the fog and the smile disappeared, so fast Temari wondered if she'd even seen them both in the first place. Trying to swallow back her persistent feelings of ridiculousness, she leaned a little closer, knowing the neckline of his top would gap away from her body, and cast her eyes toward his book. "What are you reading that's so interesting?"

He jumped slightly and slammed the book shut. She caught only the briefest glance of the title - one of the chronicles of Suna's beginnings - before he quickly set it aside on his bedside table and snapped off his lamp. "Something interesting, but I'm tired. Good night, Temari."

She blinked down at him, shocked. In a matter of seconds, he'd gone from sitting relaxed against the headboard to curled up under the blankets, his back to her, quite obviously dismissing her.

Pushing her away.

The inevitable feeling of rejection punched her in the chest only a second later, stealing her breath and bringing instant tears to her eyes. Temari started to reach out to catch him by the shoulder so she could tug him around, but her trembling hand refused to lift from her lap. All she could do was sit and stare at the back of Itachi's head, for how long she didn't know. But eventually she turned off her own light and laid down, next to her husband but as well as a whole desert away from him.

She bit her pillow to muffle her sobs, tensing her body against them, until she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

There were places in the deep desert where the sand looked normal, solid, unremarkable. But for the ignorant or unwary traveler who ventured out onto them, the innocuous-appearing surface would crumble away, plunging him into the unsuspected abyss beneath.

Temari's marriage was beginning to feel a lot like that.

During the day things went on as usual. She and Itachi ate breakfast and dinner with Gaara and Kankuro; in between, the two of them would spend hours in the gym, where only years of unrelenting discipline allowed her to keep her focus on the training they did. For that time Itachi was encouraging and supportive even as he pushed her hard in their sparring matches; normal, sometimes even giving her a quick, hard hug or the occasional rare, brief kiss.

But the nighttimes grew increasingly more agonizing for Temari, when Itachi suddenly turned remote and unapproachable, always making sure he was lying well on his side of the bed with his back to her, no matter who got under the covers first. A few nights after her first attempt to romance her husband, she tried again. After several long moments during which her longing built and built, she cautiously reached out a trembling hand and very lightly brushed his chest with a soft caress. His muscles immediately tautened and, before she could continue the motion down the centerline of his body, he caught her hand in one of his own, holding it stiffly prisoned just above his diaphragm. He whispered one word, calmly, in a tone of complete control: "Don't."

Stunned, hurt, and humiliated, Temari stopped breathing for the space of several racing heartbeats. Then, on a long, shaky inhalation, she jerked her hand free and rolled to the edge of her side of the bed. Hot tears of rejection poured down her cheeks, but she stubbornly refused to let the faintest tremor of a sob shake her, determined not to shame herself further. She spent a long, long time listening to Itachi's deep, steady breathing before finally succumbing to sleep herself.

The next morning, when he politely suggested they take a couple of days off from training, pointing out the risks inherent in not giving their bodies adequate recovery time, Temari just as politely agreed, even though a carefully hidden part of her wanted to grab him, shake him, and scream her frustration into his face. When they did resume their sessions in the gym, she quickly noticed that gone were the infrequent hugs and fleeting kisses. Itachi's manner was all business. And, unwilling to let him see her inner woundedness, she matched her own to his.

Gone, too, was the spontaneity from their sparring. From the very first time they'd squared off against each other, there had been a connection between them, almost as if they could read each other's minds. But that spark had also vanished, turning their matches bland and safe. That, as much as anything, almost prompted Temari to give up.

Tame. Routine. Safe. Bitter as ashes, the litany rolled through her mind. We're both playing it safe. Temari stood up out of her bath and wrapped a towel around herself, feeling tired and worn down. Her eyes went to the scanty bundle of her wedding nightie, which she'd smuggled into the bathing room, trying to build up the courage for one more attempt to get Itachi to notice her. But really, what was the point? As had become his pattern, his light would already be out and he'd be planted firmly on his side of the bed with his back to hers, feigning sleep.

...Playing it safe.

The words suddenly crashed through her mind again. But this time they took a radical, one hundred eighty degree shift, leaving her so breathless and weak-kneed she abruptly sat down on the hard edge of the tub. Playing it safe. Itachi didn't know she'd been to see Lady Chiyo, because, caught up in her eagerness to resume marital relations with him and assuming he'd feel the same, then feeling lost and overwhelmed when he repulsed her, she'd never thought to tell him. He didn't know it was safe for them to do so.

He wasn't rejecting me. He was trying to protect me!

All but shivering with excitement and determination, Temari hurriedly reached for the bottle hidden among her toiletries, donned the turquoise nightie and exited the bathing room. Crossing to the bed, where Itachi laid just as she expected, she snapped on his bedside light, took hold of his shoulder, and shook him.

"Itachi!" she exclaimed insistently, when he barely budged except to draw in on himself a little more tightly. "Itachi, I've got to talk to you!"

His dark eyes cracked open a slit before scrunching shut again; but not before she saw the flash of agony that passed through them. "Temari," he said, sounding like a man goaded to the edge of his endurance, "you're killing me. Will you please stop trying to seduce me? Don't you realize that I can't make love to you?"

"But, Itachi, it's okay-" she started to say. He cut her off by sitting straight up in bed, so fast he nearly knocked heads with her.

"No," he said, his eyes locking onto hers with fierce, almost furious intensity. "It is not 'okay.' It will not be 'okay' for more than two years, until Gaara marries Hinata and they have a child!" She tried to speak again, but it was as though a dam had burst inside her husband, and he swept on over her attempt. "I've been to Healer Hatsuharu about how to keep from getting you pregnant again. He said we could count the days of your cycle, which is really unreliable, and he didn't advise it. Or we could do something that's even more risky, and totally beyond my self-control. We could use something that would be uncomfortable for me and downright painful for you, which I would never consider, besides which not being foolproof anyway. Or we could just - abstain." Resting his elbows on his upthrust knees, he drove his hands into his loose black hair and tugged until she thought clumps would pull loose from his scalp.

"I love you, Temari." The words came out nearly in a groan. Dropping his hands he looked at her again, and the heat in his gaze made her tingle from head to toe. "I love you too much to risk ever putting you - putting us - through losing another child. I want you - gods, how I want you! - and it's agony being so close to you and not being able to have you. Do you know how many times I've wakened from dreaming about you, caught myself reaching out for you, and had to stop myself before I could actually touch you? I've got to stay strong, and you-" he drew a deep, ragged breath "-you haven't been helping at all, love."

Temari felt the stinging burn of tears behind her eyes. "Oh, 'Tachi, I am so sorry for not talking to you sooner," she said softly. "It's all- I've been - in such a muddle, I wasn't able to think straight past the fact you didn't seem to desire me anymore. But I've been to see Lady Chiyo, and - and we don't have to abstain."

Itachi blinked at her, his brows drawing together. "What do you mean we don't-"

"Lady Chiyo is extremely wise in women's matters. She gave me something to use that will prevent my becoming pregnant again." Temari briefly recounted to Itachi what Granny Chiyo had told her. "And as long as we're one hundred percent faithful in using them, we're one hundred percent protected." Reaching out hesitantly, she laid a gentle hand along the side of her husband's face. "I've missed you so much, my love. I need you. I need my husband, my lover, the other half of my heart and my self. Please believe me. It's okay." With her other hand, she smoothed some stray strands of hair away from his forehead.

He continued to gaze at her, biting his lip in an endearing way. "And - have you-" He broke off awkwardly.

A tiny smile twitched at her lips as she nodded an affirmative.

Itachi let out another long breath, and with it, she felt the tense resistance flow out of him. He leaned forward. Sliding one arm around her waist, the other her shoulders, he pulled her to himself, crushing her against his broad chest as if trying to pull her into himself, to fuse them into one person. Squeezing her eyes shut, Temari clung to him, drawing in his unique scents - warm sandalwood and sharp pine, like the forests from his native village - as she rejoiced in the closeness she'd not had with him for over half a year.

His lips pressed softly against her forehead, their gentle touch thawing the chill she'd been carrying around in her core. She allowed him to draw them both down to a reclining position, arms still tightly around each other, legs and feet entangled. One of his hands moved to cup the back of her head, guiding her to tip her head back so he could trail a line of kisses from her forehead down between her eyes, along her nose, dropping from there to her mouth. The other splayed against the bare skin of the small of her back, his fingertips tracing miniscule, thrill-inducing patterns at the base of her spine.

Slowly, carefully, with a passion made all the more profound for its lingering tenderness, Temari and Itachi rediscovered the pleasures of loving each other. When at length they finally slept, they did so still twined together, as if unwilling to release each other even in sleep.

*~To Be Continued~*

Author's Ending Notes: Ah, I have been waiting for this chapter. At last, after all the anguish and grief of the last couple of chapters, the healing can really begin. Of course, it doesn't happen all at once - even in Shadows, Itachi and Temari are still going through the healing process. But it really gets started here, and things start getting better and looking up from now till the end of the story. I'm so sad there are only four chapters left, but to help ease it, I'll tell you that the bonus chapter (the final chapter posted, number 40) I announced a while back will bring us literally to where Shadows really begins. It's something several of you asked me for, both in the course of this fic and in Shadows, and I'm really happy I was able to work it out as a bonus chapter for Light and Dark. But until we get there, I'm afraid that's all I can give you lest I spoil the surprise! Until next week's update, thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and I hope to see you all again next week!