Sorry if readers got confused. Sasuke is still alive.
1
Like a particularly devastating dream, the first night in the hospital would remain in Sakura's memory for the rest of her life.
She awoke that night, trying to talk.
"Oh please," she mumbled, "Oh, please don't….oh, please…" her lips shaped the first combinations of words again and again. When she eventually stirred and opened her eyes, she stopped murmuring, because she was in a black place, a steep black hole without shadow or limits.
Where is this? She thought, the deep shudders shook her.
Blinking slowly, she glanced first from one side, then the other, until she could hold her eyes open. But she couldn't see anything, and she was hurt all over. She rolled her tongue on her lips; they were swollen and cracked. The dark was impenetrable.
She tried to get up, but things were stuck in her arms and they pulled and tore as she moved. She felt lifeless and yet her heart was hammering so hard it beat in her ears. Her hand seemed fat as mittens -when she touched herself, they had no feeling. In fact, they were rock hard. She couldn't tell what the things were on her arm or why they were there, though she remembered once Itachi had something similar to this when he broke his leg once.
Where was everybody? She thought, and bits of what had happened began to trickle through her senses. Where's Sasuke? Mommy and daddy? Itachi?
She remembered someone had picked her up and she had glimpsed the burning house. They're all gone, she thought. Oh, Itachi! Itachi! Itachi! She felt raw inside, cauterized with the fearful knowledge that she was entirely alone…forever. They're all dead! I'm sorry, she thought, and said, "Sorry," as tears welled and ran from the corners of her eyes.
She was gasping for breath when she remembered Itachi's promise, and two thoughts cross her mind. They're all dead, except Itachi. He must have got out. Her eyes searched the dark, but only tiny disappearing pinpoints of light met her gaze.
Careful of the things girding her arms, she shrugged up, wiping her face against her shoulders.
Quietly, she said, "Itachi, are you there?" But with her thick lips and tongue, her voice was so unfamiliar she thought that even if he had heard her, he wouldn't know who she was.
She wanted to cry again, but instead she forced her eyes to search the darkness once more. As well as she could, she called to him, "Itachi…," and the fear and anger and longing grew so intense her teeth chattered. "Why didn't you take me with you?" She lurched up and though the darkness, betrayed and forsaken.
"Why didn't you take me with you?" Her chattering teeth chopped her words in two. She wanted to get up; she found an edge to the place where she lay. Something metallic crashed on the floor and the scream rising out of her was like that of a trapped animal, a forlorn and vicious bawling.
A door flew open
and, screaming in though the light, white shapes flocked towards her
like the hosts of God.
"Don't take me!" she shrieked. She
failed out against them, still screaming and trying to talk, but they
gently pinned her down and gave her a shot with a needle.
As the shroud of her loneliness overtook her, she heard one of them say, "It's the medicine that's making you say crazy things. You shouldn't try to talk, Sakura…. You're not making sense. You don't want people to think you're crazy. Now, do you?"
After that night, it would be a very long time before Sakura again tried to speak of her hope and her terror, her love and her wrath.
2
She had seen it before in the movies, but she had never expected to have happen to her. To Riku Haruno, she could never truly have explained the sensation of fullness and completion she experienced as she stooped by a hospital bed one evening and little Sakura Uchiha, still dangerously in shock and wrapped in bandages, reached out and grasped her thumb.
The memory of that evening had haunted and held her ever since.
At age thirty-four, Riku Haruno believed that everything always turned out for the best, and that the least significant everyday events were guided by some unknowable, mystical force.
Even in the worst circumstances, her belief seemed to hold true, from this moment back to that time sixteen years ago, when, soon after her eighteenth birthday, she had had to leave home.
Rather then submit to her mother's arrangement and receive an abortion, she had taken the bus as far from home as she could go with fifty dollars. The journey took her to an alien town she had never heard of and behind some abandoned building, that was where she gave birth to her baby.
Young and inexperienced, she lost the baby hours after labor and settled living with her sister in a small apartment. Her sister, Jenny, worked at a nurse in the local hospital and sometimes Riku would tag along with her just to visit some unwanted patients who needed cheering.
She asked for where one patient's room number was at the end of the nurse's station and had started down the hall past the intensive-care unit when Sakura wandered out of a room, her bandages coming loose, getting dirty, and Riku veered from her sister's side to go to her. She took the child's unbandaged hand and said, "I believe you're going the wrong way." and guided her back into the room as nurses darted towards them. Listening to the nurses' chatter, she realized this was the little girl who had survived that awful fire.
A few minutes later, with Sakura safely tucked in bed and the intravenous tube re-attached to her bandaged arm, Riku leaned down to say good night and the little girl grasped her thumb.
She kept promising herself she wouldn't go back to the hospital, but in the middle of the morning or late in the afternoon she would go out for bread or a bottle of milk, or with some other excuse, and drive up the hill to the hospital, looking at the windows, wondering which one was little Sakura's.
She continued on for months, visiting the child as she grew well, spoiling her with small presents and treats. Though the child remained mute, they exchanged warm feelings when their gazes met and she felt her heart melt every time.
That day, she silently called the girl her Sakura.
Sakura Haruno.
3
Sakura was fast asleep and dawn had filled the room when Riku had entered. Quietly, she tucked in the little girl and sat on the stool besides the patient's bed. Riku never really paid much attention to the stacks of dolls on the floor -gifts sent by sympathetic neighbors and family friends.
Many of the dolls were still in their original cartons, and the others, without packaging, were heaped on the top, legs and arms protruding every which way.
Riku found the mere fact that they were immeasurably sad, and couldn't bear to look at them for long.
Shivering in the cool morning air, she stretched, wiping her face, and moving towards the window. On the windowsill stood seven red roses in seven thin glass vases, the red buds regressing from fresh to faded. They struck her as excessive and even unwholesome; it seemed inappropriate for someone to be sending rose frequently to a little girl.
She thought of roses as a woman's flower and the frequency implied a lover's gesture, yet… It all seemed ridiculous, Riku thought, blushing at such foolishness.
She glanced for a card and found nothing but a florist's tag. Then she heard hasty steps of the nurses in the hall. She put the tag in her purse, collected her sweater, and whispered, "So long, see you later" to Sakura.
A few days later, in the afternoon, she drove across town to the Forget-Me-Not Florist and wandered among the claustrophobic profusion of flowers on display. When no one came to wait on her, Riku found a woman seated behind the cash register braiding a wreath from greenery.
Riku explained who she was and asked the woman if she could remember who sent the roses to Sakura. The woman who immediately knew who she was talking about, smiled, and shrugged.
"Your guess is as good as mine," she said. "The order came in the mail. I've got the note somewhere."
She flipped though a file and held up a small sheet of paper torn from a spiral notebook. Written in a gawky, childish hand, the note said in cursive: PLEASE SEND 1 ROSE EVERYDAY TO SAKURA AT HOSPITAL TILL MONEY GONE. I'LL KNOW IF YOU DON'T.
That was all. No signature or date on the marking. "Don't that take the cake?" the woman said, her hands again shaping the wreath.
"So we did what it said. Oh, I remember now -it didn't come in the mail. Someone stuck it under the door along with a hundred-dollar bill."
"Is that so?" Riku said, just to keep her talking.
"We think it must've been from her brother, Sasuke; he's living with relatives now. You know, by the handwriting. The envelope was all beat up."
The woman's notion seemed logical enough and Riku laid the small mystery to rest in the back of her mind.
3
Once, while Riku headed to pay Sakura another visit, she found the room already occupied by two strangers; a man and a woman.
They both looked rich, each of them dressed in fine clothing decorated head to toe with jewels and accessories.
They glanced up from the child and gave Riku a silent glare.
"Are you Sakura's relatives?" Riku asked.
They nodded that they were. She asked where they came from.
"Japan." the woman said. She asked how their trip had been. "Long and tedious," the woman replied, bored. Sakura had not moved on the bed, her expression slack and remote.
"Does she know you?" Riku asked, and they shook their head. To make conversation, Riku said, "I was wondering -how old is she?"
The woman frowned. "Seems like second or third grade, wasn't it dear?" Taking his time, the man nodded.
The withered roses had been thrown out, but ten tube vases still occupied the windowsill.
"Sakura has such pretty roses," Riku said. "Did you send them?"
"No," the woman said. "We meant to, but we never had the time."
"Is her brother with you?"
"No-o. We left him back at home. We took him in first thing after we received word from the hospital. He was lucky enough to escape with a few scratches and burns."
Then it was quiet.
It was obvious they didn't want her company. Unmistakably they were snobby as they appeared -rich, snooty-speaking businessmen from another country, come to take Sakura away.
The phone rung and the woman picked it up.
"konichiwa." she slurred in a different tongue.
Being part Japanese, Riku was able to make out half of what she was saying.
"The boy? Tell him she's asleep. How'd you get my phone number? Finish his registration form for me, the boarding school one. Good, and shut the damn kid up. Bye."
There was another uncomfortable silence.
"Will you be taking Sakura with you?" Riku asked in a rush.
The woman cast a disgust look at the child. "When she's well enough," the woman said. "The doctor said we could probably take her home after her check-up this Wednesday."
The man checked his watch and signaled their leave.
"Just dump her at some boarding school as well. I have no business with her. She's not even related!" the man thundered down the hall.
After they had left, the murmur of Sakura's sleep drew her down like a seductive lure.
"Good lord, Sakura, what will become of you?"
4
At noon on Monday, during a meeting with her lawyer, Riku fared no better then the encounter at the hospital. Back in the room, she sat and waited more then an hour so the bearded man would see her.
"There's no doubt," he said, "that you could provide for the child. But -and there's no gentle was to say this -considering that you're alone, never been married, I'm afraid adoption is out of the question. With wealthy, living relatives willing to take her, no court would take your petition seriously."
"I see." she said. Numb with the news, she rode the elevator down, turned the wrong way in the marble foyer, and went out a delivery door. The door locked automatically behind her and she found herself stranded in a grimy alley.
A burst of freezing wind snatched her ivory-colored hat from her head and sent it spiraling up along the inner walls of the sooty brick airway.
She spent the rest of the afternoon in Scranton bank arranging for the withdrawal and transfer of all her money from the bank in town.
Clearly, she had no other choice: she had to do what she had to do
5
She found herself in Sakura's room, visiting hours long past over. Just rushing down the corridor and into Sakura's room without getting caught was a blur.
A spill of light from the parking lot outside fell through the large window and onto the corner of the bed. In her haste, before she could see as well as she wanted to, the child's name was uttered, on a rush of breath.
"Sakura?"
Slowly, as her eyesight adjusted to the dark, a flurry of disturbing impressions overtook her other concerns. The room was cold, unreasonably cold. The far wall had curtains that, when drawn, entirely covered two windows.
But tonight the curtains were partially pulled back and a draft of raw wind blew by her and out the lighted door behind her.
In nearly the same instant, she realized that the windows were opened, the thin curtains on the side swelling and shifting and collapsing with the movement of the breeze.
But oddest of all was the air itself. It was as if one of the nurses had dropped a bottle of cheap perfume and decided, rather than clean up, to air out the room.
Good Lord, she thought, what have they done? It made no sense.
Taking up less than half the bed and outlined by the street tucked in around it, the curled-up figure lay o its side, the top end of the sheet clutched to its chest.
Its smudgy eyes seemed locked on a corner of the ceiling. For a stabbing moment, Riku gazed at the door number again to see if she might actually be in the wrong room.
Then, confirming that she wasn't, she wondered if Sakura might have moved to another room.
She took a tentative step forward. "Sakura?" she whispered across the dark depth of the room. "I've come back." but her voice broke.
The curtains fluttered.
Avoiding the light that fell though the window, she moved up past the foot of the bed. There laid Sakura, staring silently into the distance with blank eyes.
As she leaned down towards the while, a cold gust of wind lashed through the room. Half the curtains filled and collapsed so quickly they snapped. She shuddered, all the while speaking quietly, "I'm sorry I took so long to get here, Sakura, but at least I can stop that wind."
She glanced at the curtains once more and then pulled the window shut.
"There," she said, hurrying back.
She turned back to Sakura. It occurred to her to stoop over into the spill of light from the window so the little girl could see who she was, as well to make her feel better.
Sakura was trembling hard, but the smudgy eyes didn't change or respond.
But Sakura…even if she wouldn't look at Riku or say her name, even if she didn't know who this woman was who had come to her every night, and talked to her and read and held her when she trembled, and kissed her goodbye after her visit while slipping a lollipop under her pillow for good luck -even if Sakura didn't care or know or noticed, one day her lips had been purple, the next day orange from the lollipop, and she was getting better.
And tonight, as Riku pulled the gray blanket from the footboard to wrap Sakura in, she told her, "If we have to start from scratch, at the very beginning all over again, one day you will know your name, Sakura, and you will tell me mine."
Sakura was still trembling; Riku had to undo the small fingers one by one in order to pull the sheet down and replace it with a blanket when she pulled it away, however, she discovered Sakura was already dressed in clothes too big for her, but dressed.
Girl's clothes, a size or two too large. Jeans and socks and tennis shoes loosely worn on her as she dressed herself in a rush.
"Oh, Sakura," Riku said, surprised, "were you going to run away? Is it that awful here? Where'd you get the clothes?"
Just then, as she leaned to pick Sakura up, she saw the curtains shift just slightly and below the bottom edge of the curtain she saw shoes.
In that instant, everything -Sakura, even herself -seemed surreal. Then, before the sensation had passed, the window light shining though the fabric shown a moving shape, a very distinct shape of a moving figure standing as if wrapped in gauze.
She tried to speak, but her voice was too dry to lift sound; finally, she exhaled, her thin voice carried: "Who are you?"
The curtains stirred and began to part. She couldn't see who it was -the emerging figure was in shadow but all she could remember was seducing red eyes.
Her heart began to stop.
Pulling Sakura up into a gray bundle in her arm, she ran to door and yanked it open.
She rushed along the corridor, through the doors, then out into the clear, cold night, and into the car -driving away before she'd even turn the head lights.
Suddenly something large slammed itself to her side window, a blur of teeth and slobber and a deafening growl. She saw it slide away, but before she could straighten the car, it came again, striking the side window with such force the glass cracked; the creature's blue maw rimpled back on slashing teeth, so close she lunged from it, threw her arm up defensively, and jammed her foot on the gas pedal.
With a loud growling noise, the creature hit the window a third time, its claws digging at the glass besides her face, but by then the minivan had shot forward, bouncing across a low brick wall, it plunged into a shrubbery, jarring Sakura up against Riku.
And Sakura's arm came up across the line of Riku's sight, as if she were reaching for the animal!
"Get down! Sakura! Get down! Dear god, get down, Sakura! Please!"
Evergreens scrubbed the length of the car, swabs of black boughs lashed the windshield, and the steering wheel whipped from side to side under her weakened grip.
The minivan broke though the other side of the evergreens, struck pavement and spun past a parked car, tires squealing.
As she struggled to correct the car, she saw at the rear-view mirror a figure running after them, and something else.
The dog.
No mistake now; she had seen it up close: it was a dog, a damn crazy dog. She was so completely shaken she had cramps all over.
Away she drove, stroking the small head on her lap with one hand while steering with the other, not exactly knowing where she was heading.
Fuke. Dis chapter blows. Sorry if I didn't put Itachi in here as much, but next chapter will have him telling his side o' story.