Author's Note: I rated this 'M' for violence, disturbing themes, language, and maybe sex (we'll see haven't gotten that far yet, writing sex scenes is awkward). Anyway, this chapter has a lot of violence, so trigger warning.

After parting ways with Naruto and Hinata, Sasuke had opted to walk back to the department instead of taking a cab. He needed to clear his head. This case was big and it was bad. Just one look at the file and he knew this was going to have ties to crimes against humanity, human trafficking, human experimentation, murder, kidnapping, assault and who knows how many other charges. Not to mention if the Akatsuki was involved. That added another complicated layer. Organized crime was always harder to take down. Organized crime also had squads and teams. Team vs. team was harder to bust than team vs. individuals. And if there was a connection to Itachi—Sasuke's rage raced through him like a wildfire. His fingernails dug into his palms, dangerously close to breaking skin. He stopped walking taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. Pink hair and green eyes danced across his minds eye, exhaling the sound of her laughter. Immediately the oxygen was depleted from the fire, his rage dissipating into a numb calm, his clenched fist loosening. Sakura without fail always removed the ugliness that fueled his anger.

He clearly remembered the first time it happened:

"Dosu Kinuta, Zaku Abumi, and Kin Tsuchi. These three have been implicated in several rapes, assaults, and thefts in North Konoha. They're violent behavior seems to be escalating. We have to catch them."

"Alright let's get these bastards!" Naruto jumped up.

"Slow down Naruto," Kakashi sighed wearily, "they are incredibly difficult to find. They only come out to cause trouble and then seemingly disappear."

"Well then what are we gonna do?"

"We'll work this case from two angles. Naruto, you and I will talk to victims and witnesses and see what how much detail they can remember. Sasuke, you and Sakura will look into the three's backgrounds. Figure out who they are. Check for CCTV footage of all the crimes."

"Right." All three said in unison. Naruto jumped up excitedly."Let's get a move on Kakashi-sensei!" He yelled, pulling him from the briefing room. Sakura Smiled at Sasuke, who felt his annoyance spike at being stuck with this pink haired princess who spent more of her time in the academy trying to flirt with him then focus on her training.

"I guess we're partners this time, Sasuke-kun." And she had contributed almost nothing in their last two cases.

"Hn don't bother. Keep your useless self out of my way." And with that he stalked off.

But Sakura had been anything but useless on that case. While Sasuke poured over every record of them alone, Sakura had gone and spoke to the people that used to know them, and found out how they met at an underground metal concert in NoKo. She had then cross referenced that with the CCTV footage they had, and saw how they seemed to come out of and disappear into nowhere. How all the crimes were committed within a ten-block radius, and how all the crimes had been committed just off of streets with manholes. She had been the one to put two and two together. The concert they met at had literally been underground. And that was what they were using as their hideout. Sasuke wasn't at his desk, and they just received a report of a girl who had gone off with three individuals matching their targets descriptions. She didn't have time to lose, so she went off alone.

Sasuke came back frustrated from digging up more records on the three but still being no where near finding them. It annoyed him even more that his supposed partner wasn't at her desk. She should at least have the decency to pretend she was doing something useful. His mood fouled even more when he heard that a girl had gone off with their targets, which was how all the rapes they were implicated in had started. Their violent tendencies were escalating, so that girl had the potential to become their first murder. What a time for his useless teammate to decide to one up herself. Aggravated, he stomped over to her desk intent on ripping up whatever notebook she must have been vandalizing his name in for the past twenty six hours, when he stopped short. CCTV footage was paused on her computer screen, on her desk was a map with all of the crime scenes marked with an X, and random other points not far from the crime scenes, circled. There was a city planners map underneath it that had red lines connecting to where the circles were on the other map. And in the notebook he assumed would be covered with his name, was her tiny, tight looped hand writing—field notes—with one word highlighted. "Underground." Sasuke's eyes widened in shock. She'd figured it out. The shock was quickly replaced by dread. She'd gone after them. And guilt. Alone. He was out of the building, in the car and speeding to NoKo in record time.

He knew he was close when he saw her car. which ever manhole she was parked closest to was where she was—and where they were. He was out of the car and dialing Kakashi in an instant, running around desperately trying to find the manhole.

"Sakura found them. Underground. NoKo sewer system. Hurry." He hung up before Kakashi could say anything. He needed to find her.

And he did. Dropping down the closest manhole he sprinted down the tunnel following the echoing sounds of yelling. The tunnel opened into a cavern, it must have been underneath an intersection. There was Sakura—on all fours, bleeding, bruised, and breathing hard—positioned in front of an unconscious girl. Her pink hair was cut short and uneven, the long strands on the floor near the feet of Dosu, Zaku, and Kin, who were all glaring down hard at her. Zaku pulled a boot knife out of his arm, blood staining the sleeve around the wound. Sakura must have done that.

"You'll pay for that, bitch!" Zaku yelled, suddenly grabbing her by the front of her shirt and slamming her against the wall, holding the knife to her neck. "If you're so eager to protect that slut, you can just take her place," he growled, leaning closer, his eyes trailing up and down her body. "You're quite the snack," he smirked.

"And you're a filthy piece of trash. No wonder you resorted to force. No one would ever sleep with you willingly" Sakura snapped back, her eyes filled with fierce determination.

His partner had proved him wrong. She wasn't a useless vapid flirt who cared more about her looks and his than she did her duty. She was an incredibly intelligent and resourceful outside the box thinker. She was someone who would rather run into danger alone than waste time waiting for backup. She was someone who would face off against three opponents she had no prayer of beating to protect a helpless civilian. She was someone who would glare down an enemy threat in a weakened and vulnerable state, and hurl withering insults to keep all their anger and attention on her rather than the girl she was trying to protect.

Sasuke's rage exploded in a way it hadn't since his brother murdered his family. He was behind Zaku in seconds, twisting the filthy hand that had been stroking Sakura's thigh behind his back and pointing his gun at his temple. "Drop the knife." Sasuke's voice was terrifyingly low. Sakura's eyes went wide.

"S-Sasuke-kun?"

"Sasuke? So you're the Uchiha. bit more believable that you're KPD's finest than this dumb bitch." Zaku sneered knife still poised at Sakura's neck.

"Drop the knife." Sasuke repeated. Pushing the gun harder against Zaku's temple.

"Please, you won't shoot me. You KPD pigs are too soft—" he was cut off by a loud bang that echoed around the cavern. Dose dropped to the ground screaming, holding his leg which bled profusely from the gun shot. Sasuke returned his gun to Zaku's temple.

"Last chance." Sasuke growled. Zaku dropped the knife from Sakura's throat and she immediately limped away to go check on the unconscious girl. Because she was someone who cared more about the wellbeing of others than that of herself. Sasuke's rage surged through him with renewed force. He wanted Zaku to hurt for all the pain he caused Sakura. The second she was clear of them, Sasuke twisted Zaku's other arm behind his back, forcing him to drop the knife, and slammed him into the wall so fast with so much force that his nose broke. He rammed him into the wall again for good measure and twisted his arm up so hard there was a sickening snap. Tossing the screaming man to the ground, he pointed his gun once more at Zaku fully ready to shoot him in every non-vital organ he could so that he would only know pain, when two soft strong arms wrapped around his torso. He turned to see two watery jade green eyes looking up at him, horrified.

"Please…Please stop, Sasuke-kun. Please stop." He felt the rage that had torn through him just moments before recede into whatever dark hole in his character it had erupted from. "He needs to go to trial. For all the people he's hurt. They need to see him go to trial." Her arms slowly untangled from him and she knelt next to Zaku, gently cuffing his arms, careful not to move the one Sasuke had broke.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…"

Sasuke just stared at her. Because his partner was someone who took her responsibility as a member of the KPD very seriously.

Kakashi and Naruto had shown up not long after that and arrested the other two. It was after that case that the two of them started getting paired together more. That was when their relationship had really started. He shook his head to clear the memory, but instead was met with Naruto's words wringing in his ear.

"Well bastard, it's just that some of that stuff sounds a bit like what Hinata-chan and I do with each other."

The more he thought about it now the more it seemed true. But he wasn't sure if those were the nature of his feelings towards her. Or her towards him. She had a crush (bordering on infatuation) on him at one point while they were still in the academy, but by the time their relationship had started, she seemed long passed that. He knew he needed to talk it out with Sakura, and soon. She was the only one to ever calm him down and sooth his rampaging anger. This case was a bad one, one that might have ties to his brother. One that could spike his rage easily. He had told Tsunade he didn't want to let Itachi turn him into a criminal. He hadn't been lying, but he also wasn't sure that he had enough control over himself. Naruto had given him a wake up call, dragging him back from a very dark edge, but he knew he needed Sakura to keep him there. Which meant that he had to try and restore their relationship to some semblance of what it was before.

It had been his intention to talk to her about "Them" the second he saw her next, but one look at her and it was clear that it wasn't the right time for that conversation. She was tensed up, her head down, murmuring softly to herself. A habit he recognized from back then as well. She always used to give herself mini pep talks to force herself to do something, or mutter through what she was doing, as a way to keep herself focused on her task. He remembered how she used to have to talk herself into going near the corpses at crime scenes. Big leap for her to have become such a skilled doctor. He hadn't believed it as first.

When he returned, he'd been disappointed to hear that Sakura was no longer a member of the police force. But that was soon lost in the shock he felt hearing that she was now one of the head medics at Konoha University Hospital. The girl who was too grossed out by dead bodies couldn't have made for a successful doctor—this had to be some bad excuse to avoid him. So three weeks after returning, having not seen a whisper of Sakura, and still not believing that she was a doctor, he went to the hospital to check. And as he was about to ask the front desk for her, the lobby door burst open and in rolled a patient, guts nearly spilling out of his body. Straddling him was a pink haired woman in a white lab coat and scrubs, holding his intestines in. Short hair pulled up in a spiky ponytail, arms and shirt covered in blood, green eyes shining with determined focus, voice urgent but calm and controlled as she issued orders to the staff around her. It was an image of her that hadn't left his head since.

Suddenly he was looking into shocked wide green eyes. "When'd you get here?"

This was the other reason he couldn't talk to her now. She was still too skittish around him. That conversation would only go well if she was open to listening to him. Right now, when her guard was up, the conversation would get nowhere, certainly nowhere good at least. It might be like that forever though, he thought, until his eyes dropped to the photograph on her desk. It was the Squad 7 team picture. She'd kept it. And she hadn't cut him out of it or ex-ed out his face or scribbled over him. Their team still mattered to her, which meant on some level, he still mattered to her. "You still have it…"

"So do you." She fired back. Her face was a carefully blank mask of defiance but he could see the question riddled with hope hidden in her jade eyes. Why?

It wasn't the time for the conversation yet. She wasn't ready to have it. He could see that much. But he could at least lay the ground work for it. "No matter how blinded I was by rage, I couldn't throw you away…either of you." He felt so vulnerable with just that statement, that for the first time, he wondered if maybe he wasn't ready to have that conversation yet either. Maybe he needed to warm up to it too.

"No matter how emotionally wounded I was, neither could I."

There was a long pause and the mounting tension he felt building between them was confusingly exhilarating. He wasn't sure what but he had to say something to her.

"Sakura—"

"I need to go do the autopsy." The spell broke. The magnetic energy dissipated as quick as it's onset. But Sasuke wasn't ready to be out of her presence just yet. Today was the first day in 3 years and 10 months that he'd really seen her and spoken to her. Whatever they had been, whatever they were now, whatever they would be, there was no denying that she was someone he cared very dearly about. And that she was one of very few he actually craved interaction with. Interaction that he hadn't had for 1,372 days. So to prolong her presence for just a little longer he quickly supplied an, "I'll go with you."

"You can't!" The trace of panic in her voice caught him off guard as he fixed her with a questioning look. "It's against regulation." She said, her eyes dropping down and to the left.

"I meant I'm walking you there…"

It was what they used to do. He'd walk her places. Neither of them were ready for the conversation they needed to have, but maybe reestablishing some of their old patterns would help ease their way into it. Or piss Sakura off enough to force her into the confrontation. He was hoping for the former. Besides, something was bothering her, which he was pretty sure was related to the autopsy, and he wanted to find out what.

While the rhythm of their conversation was familiar and comforting, Sasuke was getting tired of how hard she was trying to change the subject. What was it about this autopsy that had her so freaked out? He knew he'd outmaneuvered her this time. In this pointless debate where she tried to convince him of something he knew to be no longer true about her, he played the hand she didn't know he had. That he had seen her hold a mans guts in. Now she had no choice but to come clean about what was bothering her.

"For a body to get like this…this man was tortured, brutally. Worse than that…He was an experiment…and…" of course that's what was bothering her. He knew that Sakura valued few things more than she did human life, and human dignity. It was why she had joined the police force. To protect and restore life and dignity to those it had been stolen from. It had been in the way she protected that girl in their first case partnered together. It had been in the way she'd stopped him from torturing Zaku. It had been one of the arguments she'd used the night she tried to stop him from leaving. Those values had probably strengthened through her work as a doctor. Of course this autopsy would bother her. This crime, what was done to that body, shat on all of the beliefs that made her tick.

"You're still too soft." She was far too kind for the ugliness in this world. He'd abused that kindness before, a mistake he'd rather die than repeat, but that didn't mean others wouldn't. It was never something he'd truly admonish her for though. That care she felt towards humanity was part of what made her Sakura.

"What was that? She growled. He almost laughed. Her temper was also part of what made her Sakura. She had always been short tempered but he supposed training with Tsunade had shortened that fuse even more.

He watched as she bit her bottom lip, anxiety filling her gaze as she stared at the doors separating her from the nightmare of a cadaver she had to cut open.

"How long will it take?"

"2 or 3 hours. Probably."

Which meant he'd be back down here to walk her back in two or three hours. Because it was what he would have done before and he was going to reestablish this part of their relationship. At least until they had their talk, or she chewed him out for it. But also because he knew that the autopsy would upset her. And he wasn't about to let her sit in that alone for one minute longer than protocol enforced.

Sure enough, two hours later, he found Sakura with her knees pulled up to her chest, head buried in her arms, folder clutched tightly in a knuckle white fist. He took a quiet step forwards, ready to kneel down and attempt to comfort her when she growled, "I'm gonna make that sick son of a bitch pay."

He froze. That was not at all what he had been expecting. Sakura took a deep breath and stood, a little shakily, her eyes burning like green fire. Also not what he had been expecting, he had figured she'd be crying.

She turned, everything about her posture to the look in her eye indicating that she was ready to march up to the briefing room, deliver her report and start hunting down leads. That is until—

"Jesus Christ!" She jumped at the sight of Sasuke. "When'd you get here?"

That was the second time she'd asked him that today. "Just in time for you to make that son of a bitch pay."

"We need to get you a cat bell," she muttered shaking her head.

"I'd rather waste one of my nine lives." He retorted dryly.

For one very brief second, she almost laughed. He saw the way her lips quirked up and her crinkled and her body relaxed. And then it was gone and her face was a carefully blank mask again. "Why are you here, Sasuke-kun?"

"You said you'd be done in two hours."

"So?"

"I came to walk you back." He read the question in her eyes, and found himself answering without her ever putting it into words. "I thought you might be upset."

He could read her inner turmoil from the way her shoulders relaxed and then tensed again, the way her arms had twitched to move to her chest before she caught herself and held them in place at her sides. "I'm not upset…Not in the way you thought I'd be."

"If you're the woman I know, there's no way you wouldn't be."

"Guess you don't know me as well as you thought you did."

"And yet I can still tell when you're lying."

"I'm not breakable like I was before."

"I never thought you were breakable."
"Bullshit."

"Delicate."

"How's that different?"

The same familiar rhythm as before. That quick, playful, cause and effect, rhythm that they had whenever they spoke. They had fallen back into it so naturally. It gave him hope for the rest of their relationship as well. They were so close to that conversation, they were so close to stepping foot into that territory. But right now wasn't the time. Right now they were outside a morgue, where Sakura had conducted the most upsetting autopsy she'd ever done, with the most disturbing medical results she'd ever seen. Right now, they needed to get to a briefing on the results. Right now they had to focus on the case. This was not the time nor the place to have the conversation he needed to have with her. Which was why he had to break the rhythm now, before it all spilled out in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I'll tell you later." And before he could think about what he was doing, his middle and pointer finger reached out and tapped her on the forehead. He hadn't meant to, he surprised himself by the action.

Turning away from her shocked and confused face, and the flood of familial memories, he started back down the hall. Feeling rather than seeing Sakura fall into step beside him.