After unlocking the last of ten locks, Sasuke is able to enter the apartment—or hideout, really—and find his brother.

He throws his keys, and gun on the table and walks into the spacious living room. It's a nicer apartment, complete with a television and even a couch, leather and deep brown. The floors are wood, and the walls have delicate crown molding. Itachi keeps the deep red curtains closed, with the only source of light being fluorescent lamps.

It's Itachi's favorite; it was their father's favorite.

"Itachi!" Sasuke calls out, stepping down the hallway. He sees a coffee table drowning in news articles, and thick, manila envelopes. "Anybody here?"

"In here, brother," Itachi calls, weakly from the bedroom. It's so like him to still be in bed, Sasuke thinks, wasting the day away.

He makes his way down the long hallway to a master bedroom. The thick, wood door is wide open, his brother on the floor, shirtless and half-asleep. Sasuke frowns at the state of his brother, at the needle poking out from under the bedskirt, hastily and poorly hidden. "Why are you on the floor?"

Itachi pointedly ignores his question. "Did you meet with Kakashi today, like I asked?"

His frown deepens, uneasy. "Something came up."

Itachi grimaces. "I need that file."

"Why didn't you get it yourself?"

"You know I can't leave here," he snaps. "If anybody were to break in, all of our intelligence would be lost!"

Sasuke nearly snorts; as if his brother could defend himself, let alone all their documents in his current state. Instead, he asks, "you alright?"

"I need that file," he says.

"What for?"

"Intelligence," he spits. "What time is it?"

"Seven," he says. "Seven-thirty, maybe, I'm not sure exactly."

He sighs. "It's late." He pulls his loose hair back into a low ponytail, and stands. It's thin, now, and brittle. Sasuke thinks he sees grays. Itachi looks much older, crows feet even deeper, cheeks sallow and pale. His lips are thin and dry, eyes red-rimmed and parched. He has dark circles under his eyes, because he doesn't sleep, and he's painfully thin, because he doesn't eat.

Sasuke can't believe what his brother has become. "Maybe you should shower," he recommends. "I picked up supplies the other day."

He brushes him off. "Yeah, later."

"Did you eat?" he asks.

"No."

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

Itachi's frown deepens. "What the hell is your problem?"

Sasuke rolls his eyes. "I'm just concerned about my older brother."

"There's no reason to be." He crosses his arms, and he looks mighty frail, too tiny for someone that's six-foot-three and once could lift Sasuke over his shoulders. "Try to meet with Kakashi this week."

Sasuke gathers his things from the table. "Yeah."

"And stay out of trouble," he teases. His mouth turns into a fond smile, one that Sasuke almost returns, until he sees the track marks running down his brother's arms.

He shakes his head. "I'll try."

Sakura looks over the towering mountain of files on her desk with a drawn sigh, unaware of where to even begin.

The pile is nearly taller than her, and she should tuck in, really, because she's already behind as it is. She shifts in her seat with an uncomfortable wince and begins sorting. Her side is still tender, aching, marred with a scar she'll keep for the rest of her life like a tattoo, along with a ruptured spleen, a broken leg, and a bruised pelvic bone that Ino claims looks like a cat.

Sakura claims Ino is an idiot.

Sakura is smart enough to realize how lucky she is that she escaped with her life, and that she isn't really in the position to complain about a few breaks and bruises that look like, apparently, cute animals. She should be happy she survived; some people aren't nearly as lucky. Still, it hurts, she thinks, a lot.

At least wounds fade into scars that always end up being cool party stories.

Tsunade had insisted she take a few weeks off only to welcome her with overdue paperwork. It's been fourteen days since her ridiculously strange incident, since her horrible happenstance of being mugged in an alleyway right next to her own safe place, her job. While Sakura could have taken the entire month, she has too many patients, and too much paperwork to take that kind of time off. She couldn't have accepted that time off in her right mind.

Sakura's thoughts are interrupted by a familiar, harsh rapping on her door. "Come in!" she calls, sounding more annoyed than intended.

Ino opens the door with a raised eyebrow and pursed lips. "What crawled up your butt and died?"

Sakura shoots her a dull look. "Watch your mouth or I'll be assigning you all this paperwork."

She scoffs. "I dare you."

"Don't test me," she says, and grabs a small stack off the top. She thrusts them toward Ino with a teasing smile. "All yours."

She snatches them out of her hands, but doesn't really make a motion of annoyance. Ino is her assistant, afterall. "I can't believe she gives you all this crap."

Sakura rolls her eyes. "I can. Imagine what Shizune must do."

Ino nearly shivers. "Now that's a job I never want to have."

"Don't worry, Ino, I'd never trust you with trust you with that amount of work—"

Scoffing, Ino tells her, "you'd be lost without me. I'll finish these up. I'm grabbing lunch, want anything?"

Sakura frowns. "I can walk with you—"

She cuts her off. "If you insist on working in this state, I'm not about to have you walk around and pop your stitches. Now, what do you want?"

"Whatever hot lunch they have."

Ino shoots her a look. "Not only can you not exercise for a few weeks, but you're about to load up on carbs?"

"Bite me," she deadpans.

"Maybe you could use a chunk of that fat missing," she teases.

"You're the pig, remember—?"

"I'm not the one stuffing my face with carbs—"

"Could've fooled me with that body of yours—"

"Tell me, is that big forehead of yours there to house that big ego? Because it's certainly not housing comebacks—"

Sakura lifts up another stack of files. "I believe these are yours."

Sitting over a salad and a hot plate of pasta, Ino asks Sakura, "how are you feeling?"

Sakura digs into her lunch. She's sore, she's tired, she's confused, a little scared, maybe. She says, "I'm fine." She takes a guilty bite of her pasta.

Ino smirks. "Maybe if you ate a little better, you'd grow into that big forehead of yours—"

"Do you really want to go down this road again?"

"I'm just trying to help—" she tries, not kindly. Finally, Ino says, "you got really lucky."

Sakura nods her head, because Ino is right. She could've ended up in the obits, which was far more likely than her ending up in the ER. She could have said goodbye to the real-world if her cloaked savior hadn't come along. "Yeah."

"I mean, to think, they just, like, stopped attacking you," she says, because that's what Sakura told her. "I almost can't believe it! That shit doesn't happen."

"You're right," she agrees. If her knight in shining Armani hadn't shown up, Sakura would've been a goner.

"You were lucky you were by the hospital, too," she says, and then adds, "you were lucky period." Sakura frowns, deeply, and then Ino says, "we don't have to talk about it," with a smile.

She returns it. "Thank you."

Still, Ino pouts. "Are you ever fun?"

Sakura shrugs. "I'm a simple girl. I don't need mugging mysteries to make my day." Sakura wonders how dreamy Ino would get if she knew the truth of the matter. "How are things going with Sai?" she tries, slyly, changing the subject.

Ino immediately turns a pretty pink, twirling her perfect ponytail in her long, thin fingers. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? You haven't met him? Mr. Tall, dark, and weird in the ER—"

"He's not weird!" Ino snaps. "And believe me, there's nothing going on there."

Sakura frowns. "Still?"

"Still," she confirms with a sigh. "I'm not sure he even realizes I'm interested."

Sakura rolls her eyes. "The whole hospital knows you're interested."

"That's what I thought!" she argues with a huff, throwing her arms up in frustration. "It's not like I'm trying to keep it a secret! He's just… dumb!"

"Most men are," Sakura agrees with a wink.

"Kiba isn't!" she counters.

Sakura laughs. "Ah, but Kiba is well trained and I've had to put many years into crafting him into a person I can barely tolerate."

She laughs along with Sakura. "Come on, Kiba is just, like, a good guy."

"Yeah." Sakura sighs. "He is."

"Not to mention he's, like, so hot—"

Sakura snorts.

"Need me a man like Kiba, that's it." Ino nods her head, ponytail flying. "How'd you meet him again?"

"Kiba asked me out," Sakura says.

"Boys ask me out," she counters.

"Not Sai," she says, and Ino is pouting even harder. "He'll come around."

"And if he doesn't?" she whines.

"Then we'll find you someone even hotter," Sakura says, and slaps her hand down on the desk for emphasis.

Ino only rolls her eyes. "Eat your damn pasta."

Sakura takes another dainty bite. "Maybe just ask him out?"

"I'll ask Sai out when you ask Kiba to marry you."

Sakura glares, the glariest-glare she can glare. "Who says I want to marry Kiba?"

"Oh, come on, Sakura," she says, casually waving her off like she's the ridiculous one. "You've been with him for, like, eight freaking years, you've lived with him for almost half of them—of course you want to marry him."

"I have a whole career ahead of me!" she argues.

"I'm not saying quit and go all barefoot and pregnant." She rolls her eyes. "What, is he afraid of commitment?"

"Clearly not," she snaps. "I do live with the guy."

Ino leans back in her chair, thinking amount, before she gasps, placing a well-manicured hand over her little mouth. "Unless you're the commitment phobe!"

"What!? No!"

"It is you," she accuses. "Are you scared of getting married? How come men fawn over you and I can't even get a date!"

"Men? It's Kiba we're talking about—"

"All I want is for Sai to notice me, and you just have boyfriends flinging diamond rings at you—"

"Boyfriends!? Ino—"

"Excuse me, Dr. Haruno?" a tiny voice interrupts them. A young nurse stands waiting at the door, flushed like she's intruding.

"What?" Sakura demands, still glaring at a laughing Ino.

"Somebody's defensive!" she sings.

"Ino, why don't you shut—"

The nurse coughs, sufficiently interrupting what could have been a horribly embarrassing tirade. Sheepishly, Sakura turns towards her. "Sorry, Tenten, what's up?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's a man outside insistent on seeing you."

Sakura raises an eyebrow. "A man?"

"Yes," she confirms."He came in asking for you, says you'll know him."

Sakura knows she wasn't expecting anybody today. "Did he give a name?"

"Well, no…" she whispers, flustered. "He insisted that you know him, and when I asked his name, he said none of my damn business—"

Ino snorts. "Rude."

Sakura rolls her eyes. "This is why we keep you at the front desk," she says, turning towards Ino. "Nobody insists anything to you… Whatever, did he say anything else?"

"Well…" Tenten trails off. "I don't know if this is important, but he says you 'owe him?'"

Ino says something like, "what the hell is that supposed to mean!?" but suddenly, Sakura feels very, very far away.

She swallows, and she knows she must look like saw a ghost, because Ino suddenly seems incredibly concerned, and the nurse is repeating how sorry she is and then, before Sakura can even get out of her chair, there's a man following behind Tenten that she knows all too well, and he's gripping his side and is that blood? And oh, god, all Sakura can say, is—

"Sasuke?"