A/N: Thanks to Mooky and Quasi a la Modo for motivating me into writing this chapter.

We

"Did you choose to be who you are now, Itachi?" I whisper in question, staring up at the darkened sky and wondering would it would be like to fly. Maybe it would be nice to feel weightless and unchained for a moment, before gravity clutched onto your body and dragged us back down.

I see Itachi tilt his head in thought from the corner of your eye, but he doesn't respond immediately. "I do not believe that many of us get to choose who we are in life," he murmurs in response. Despite the lack of a straightforward answer, it still feels as though it's a statement that he personally resonates with. I understand.

(I have no choice. It's you who chooses, and you can't even do that properly.)

It's a strange thing; this bittersweet sort of camaraderie between Itachi and I. ("We have known each other for a while, now. Do you not feel the passage of time?") You still don't know about him, and you're probably better off not knowing. Perhaps you'd be excited to know the brother of the boy who holds your affection; perhaps you'd be restless. Either way, we both know it wouldn't work out well for you. (Can you tell me what's worked out well for you, Sakura? Can you?) I suppose you are a good example of what the term, 'ignorance is bliss,' embodies.

(I'm here; you know I'm here. But you're still so blissfully ignorant, Sakura, and the pain won't go away.

The pain won't go away.)

"What would you choose to be?" Itachi inquires after one of our many prolonged silences. (And yet, there's still sound. His soft breaths. The quiet hisses of the wind against your ears. The odd sound or two from the village I can't call my home.) Somehow, it's become an unconventional standard for us to ask one another questions about the other. Maybe to get to know each other. Maybe to distract ourselves from the demons that haunt us.

He rarely uses my pseudonym, if he can help it. Itachi knows what it means to me ̶ (it means nothing and yet it means everything I don't want to be) ̶ so he considerately avoids using it for my benefit. (Is it supposed to hurt; feeling grateful? Appreciative? Why does it hurt so much?) In return, I call him by his first name. Itachi. Just, Itachi; the boy upon the hill with the solemn gaze and warm ̶ (hurting) ̶ heart whom I may be able to call my friend.

(It makes me want to scream. I don't… I'm not meant to have friends. I don't. I can't. But I have one, anyway, and I can't even be happy about it because I don't know how.

How can I be happy that I have a friend when you have none? It's not me who needs a friend, but life is cruel, isn't it?)

I exhale, taking a few moments to blink away the dryness in your eyes. The answer to his question is both easy and annoyingly complex because, "I would choose to be whole." And how pathetic is that? That there's nothing more to aspire to than to just be a whole, human being named Haruno Sakura. It's such a low standard and yet… it's so out of reach. (You make things so difficult, I don't understand why ̶ )

"When you are a ninja," Itachi begins, his voice almost swallowed by the building gust of wind, "you eventually lose parts of yourself." I tilt my head towards him, but I don't turn to look at him. Instead, I stare at the rippling blades of grass and think of nothing. "Every day, many of us struggle to fill the holes in our souls. I am one of them, and I do not believe that it is bad to have the simple wish of being whole."

Feeling his gaze on my face, I finally build up the effort to lift your head and meet it with your own. (He's warm and he's cool and soon, I will have to say goodbye.) "Maybe you can meet her, one day," I offer, regardless of how much they feel like pretty, empty words. "The whole, functional kunoichi known as Haruno Sakura."

The smile he gives me is heart-wrenching in its bittersweet, sincere meaning. His eyes shine with what would seem to be the sheen of unshed tears, and when I blink, I think your eyes might be the same. (Your lips are twisted, but I don't know if that's a smile. It hurts, yet it's not as wide as yours. Does everything have to hurt?)

"I would like that," he accepts, reaching over to grasp your hand with his own. Itachi doesn't acknowledge the instinctual flinch that physical contact evokes, instead allowing me to take my time as I get used to his touch. I think it takes more time than I think it feels like, but he doesn't seem to mind.

(He doesn't say, "Maybe Haruno Sakura will be able to meet Itachi, one day." Because we both know that, as improbable as my offer is; his is simply… impossible.

My friend, Itachi. If I could cry, I would cry for him, too.)

. . .

. . .

You can't breathe. Your heart is thumping in your ears and threatening to travel up your throat and choke you. Rocking back and forth, you cover your ears in a futile effort to block out the world around you.

They're screaming, arguing once more about whose fault it is that this family is a wreck. You can't move from the lounge room, hiding behind the couch as the kitchenware clatters from the adjacent room. (You're frozen, hiding away like a terrified mouse whose heart is about to fail. I can help, you know. Even if it's not the best way.)

"Her condition is worsening and you're not helping!" your father snarls, his spiking chakra so prominent and frustrated that it fills the air and soaks into the walls. "Why can't you fucking accept that they're both our daughter?! Because they are and the fact that you think one of them is a thing rather than a person helps no one!"

You violently flinch at the abrupt shattering of some kind of ceramic object. "Because they're not! Sakuran isn't even human, let alone my daughter!" And that ̶ that sears. (But it's the truth, isn't it?) "Do you see how empty its eyes are when it's using our daughter's body as a flesh suit?! Do you?! Our baby is being eaten away by this monster and you want to accept it!"

Their voices become muffled, then, just as your vision begins to blur and darken. You feel nauseous and you want to throw up, but you can't do more than rock back and forth in a constant, repetitive motion. (It's not helping.) You don't even notice the snot and tears that soak your face, your body ̶ (your entire soul) ̶ too overwhelmed and on the verge of shutting down.

It's at this point that you think about how things might be better if you just stopped existing. You think that, maybe, they'll be happier if you just… disappeared. Then, they wouldn't have to argue anymore. They wouldn't have to worry about you or be forced to provide for you. Nori-san would no longer have to deal with you, so he'd be able to focus on more important things.

No one will miss you. (How dare you think ̶ )

"Please," you sob, and I pause as you try to talk through your dry heaving. "S-sa…" You don't manage to finish your sentence, but I understand.

("Save me.")

. . .

. . .

"I'm afraid to say that Sakura, the primary personality, has fallen into dormancy due to a severe mental breakdown," Nori-san announces, no happier than your parents ̶ (no happier than me, oh god, why?) ̶ at the confirmation. He heaves a deep, solemn sigh before, "That means that Sakuran, the alter, has become the dominant personality indefinitely."

Your body is shaking, and I sharply exhale as I attempt to calm it. Your mother screams in anguish, the sound so piercing and yet so unexpectedly dull in your ears. There's a clatter of something, but I don't turn to look. (I don't want to.)

As your mother falls to the ground, your father is there to kneel by her as she clings blindly to him for non-existent comfort.

I breathe in your place. (And I hate it.) I move in your place. (And I hate it.) I live in your place.

(And I want to die.)

Tilting my head towards a silent Nori-san, who shifts in acknowledgement at my attention. "I'm going to go… for a walk," I breathe out, standing from the cold, metal chair to make my way towards the door. (I need to get away; to mourn for the sleeping, broken soul that I've tucked away into our essence.)

"Alright," Nori-san replies. "But please, don't go too far."

As I nod, I catch the eye of your father ̶ (Kizashi; it's time to call him that) ̶ before I leave. His expression is like crumbling stone; he's trying, but he's grieving just as much. He looks at me ̶ (at the body that's no longer yours because it hurts to live) ̶ and he sees his ̶ (their) ̶ failure. I stand before him until he nods in resignation and lets me go. (Your mother never looks up. She sobs into her hand and she doesn't stop. I envy her, in this moment.)

I don't look back as I close the door. Then I wander, left to my thoughts ̶ (what joy, indeed) ̶ and the environment of the sick and the dying. Maybe you would've been a medic-nin at some point. I think you would've been a great medic-nin, what with your inherent kindness and desire to help others. I think… I would've liked to see you be a combat medic-nin, so that you could hurt just as you could heal. Because the world is cruel, and people step on kindness and compassion if you let them. You would have to protect yourself, after all.

(But that's just a fantasy, isn't it? Our story isn't a fantasy; it's a reality and Haruno Sakura doesn't exist in this one.)

Perhaps I'll have to do it, instead; become a medic-nin that can hurt and heal and poison and break. (We already know how to hurt; how to poison one another; how to break each other. All we need to do, now, is learn how to heal.) I'll think about it. Even if I don't become one for us, iryou ninjutsu would be useful, regardless. (I can't die before you've decided to live again. I can't do that, Sakura, no matter how much I want to.)

My train of thought is broken as I'm about to pass a room that has your object of fascination held within it. I pause, taking a moment or five to register the back of his weirdly-shaped hair; the hospital gown draped over his small, somehow defeated form; and the fact that he's here, sitting up in a hospital bed and staring out the window with no one for company.

Your chest tightens, a sharp sting of pain seizing it and immediately reminding me why I don't want this. (Why I don't want a life without you and me as one person. But I don't get what I want, I know.) I step forward, anyway, my footfalls quiet despite the suspiciously barren hallway as I enter his room before closing the door. (A part of me wonders how I managed to get to this part of the hospital, but the rest doesn't care.)

"Sasuke."

His hand twitches. Then, gradually, he removes his dead-eyed gaze from the window and places it on me, instead. For what feels like a long while, Sasuke simply stares through me, unable to properly register my presence with his shattered existence distracting him. (We can relate.)

Then he blinks, gradual recognition brightening his eyes somewhat to give him at least some sort of life. I wait patiently ̶ (I wait aimlessly) ̶ for him to finally reply, since there's not much else that I have to do. (How am I supposed to live for you?)

"You…" he mutters, his hoarse as though he's been screaming for days. Maybe he has been. His eyes search your face, looking for some kind of confirmation. I blink, and so does he. "You're back…"

Something about that hurts. I feel your face form into a bemused frown as I take a few steps closer to the side of his bed. "Were you waiting for me?" I ask, conflicted on how to feel about the fact that he recognises me; that he's been waiting for me. (I don't want hope. I don't deserve it.)

Sasuke's head droops slightly, a slow blink further emphasising his fatigue. It seems to trigger a similar reaction in your body, as I feel a weariness begin to weigh down your shoulders. "Maybe…" he whispers. "Sakura took a leave from school… So… So, I couldn't look for you. I don't know why I… What was the point…?" He stares down at his bandaged hands, spreading his shaking fingers as if they might have the answers to his questions.

"Sakura's gone, now," I reveal, watching his fingers twitch at the information. "What's been taken from you, Sasuke?"

("Have you ever felt the inevitability of tragedy, Itachi?"

"Yes. I feel it. I fear that I will always feel it.")

Surprisingly, Sasuke huffs out a weak puff of air at the query. His fingers curl until they've become tight fists, his head lifting enough to let me see the barest hints of a wry smirk. "Just… everything, you know…? My parents… My cousins, my aunts… My uncles… All dead; murdered by my brother… Of all people. No… No big deal…" His breath hitches, his attempt at sardonic humour failing as he fights back an unwanted sob.

("I apologise. I know it is presumptuous of me to request that you keep my brother company when I am gone.")

"Do you…" I grimace, unsure of how to deal with a broken Sasuke that's on the verge of crying. "Do you want me to leave?" Because he probably wouldn't appreciate me watching him like some kind of weirdo as he grieves for his fallen clan.

"No!" he chokes out, his voice cracking as he scowls at me in offence. "You think you can… come in here a-and make me feel something again… then just leave when I'm… W-when I'm…?"

I exhale as he trails off, a dull sense of guilt gnawing at me as I watch him hunch over and clench his chest as he weeps in desolation. (Rocking back and forth, unable to breathe, see or hear properly; you begged for me to save you.)

"My bad," I murmur, before climbing up the bed to sit with him. And despite his current state, he moves to accommodate. (It hurts me. I don't know why.) Although, he doesn't really give me a chance to settle when he violently seizes your hand with his own. Somehow, we both tense and flinch at the contact before he forcefully intertwines his fingers with yours like vines entangling together.

Sasuke glowers at me, his face all red and wet and snotty. (It's almost cute; in a desperate, sad way. Like you.) "Why aren't you crying?" he snaps in question as he holds onto your hand like a lifeline. I assume he asks because he doesn't want to be the only one bawling. "You… You lost S-Sakura, didn't you?"

Your mouth abruptly twists ̶ (is it a grimace, or is it a smile?) ̶ your chest tightening as something stabs it incessantly. Sasuke blinks, seeming to take in whatever expression I'm forcing your face to make. I squeeze his hand with enough force to bruise it, but he barely seems to react. I suppose he's not the only one who needs a lifeline.

(How does he know, I wonder? How does he manage to see you and me as different entities? Why does it feel like relief and devastation mixed into one?)

"I can't cry, Sasuke," I answer. (With self-loathing. With guilt. With anger and resentment because why did you have to be the one to leave?) "No matter how much I want to."

(Maybe he can cry enough for the both of us.)

We

A/N: All hail OOC Sasuke. (And Naruto, when he makes an appearance.)

Reviews are love. Reviews are life. It's never ogre. Thank you for reading.