Itachi was pretty certain it was sometime in the late morning.

He'd woken up on the floor of the library, lines from the carpet imprinted on his face from sleeping there all night. He hadn't moved since then, had waited as the sun gradually rose and continued to rise, illuminating the interior of the library, the light slowly creeping towards him until he could feel it warming his ankles, his shins, his knees.

It was only a matter of time until it reached his face and he'd either have to turn onto his back or close his eyes and stop staring at the ceiling.

In that case, he wasn't sure what else he would have to do besides trying to fall asleep again.

The light on the walls was uniform, unchanging. There were no birds or clouds or occasional interruptions of any kind in all the space between the sun itself and the walls of the library, no person or thing that could intrude upon Karin's property. Aside from their creeping movements as the sun passed overhead, the lights and shadows on the walls remained static, uninterrupted.

The irregular slants and angles of the library windows threw the light in unusual geometric patterns on the far walls, black barred strips of shadow cutting between them and becoming less exaggerated as the day went on, as noon gradually approached.

He supposed it didn't really matter what time of day it was, what day it was, or how long it'd been since he moved. Time was for those with promises to keep, and there was nowhere Itachi needed to be. Nothing he needed to do.

Instead, he could stay here on the library floor and continue watching the shadows crawl across the walls and listening to the house creak and groan as Karin traveled through the hallways.

Or as she opened the door to the library.

He didn't turn to look but he could hear her shoes scuff against the carpet as she approached him, her steps slow, measured. Unusually hesitant for her.

He supposed he couldn't blame her for that.

Her footsteps stopped several feet away from him but Itachi didn't look away from the ceiling. She stood there a moment, either watching him or waiting for him to acknowledge her.

"So, uh," Karin started. "I noticed you slept here last night."

He had.

"I could tell you slept here. Like, on the floor. Not where you usually sleep."

He had.

It had felt like it'd taken hours to exhaust himself yesterday, to burn away all of his frustrated energy, but by the time he had finished he had no desire to walk the few steps between himself and his makeshift bed.

There was, after all, nothing to prevent him from sleeping on the floor if he so pleased; there was no decorum to observe when he was entirely alone.

Alone except for Karin, that is. She was still standing there, her face just far enough out of his peripheral vision that he could avoid looking at it without needing to move. Still, Itachi could hear the soft sounds her hands made as they fidgeted, the rustle of her clothing as she shifted in place.

It seemed she might be waiting for him.

"It's my fault," he finally said, toneless, as he watched the faultless white of the ceiling begin to warp and change the longer he stared, sections of it almost seeming purple in their shadows. "It's my fault I'm trapped here."

He heard Karin move again and her shoes scraped against the carpet as she sat down beside him. "How do you figure that?"

"Sasuke only ever wanted to become a ranger because of me. All the heroic images in his head… I put them there. His desire to surpass me brought him here, on countless other dangerous missions. It's only right that I eventually would be held accountable for that."

Karin heaved a sigh and there was a dull thump as she dropped her face against her knees. "You are," she said, voice somewhat muffled, "so damn frustrating."

She let out a long, annoyed groan then sat up again, her glasses clinking when she removed them to rub at her eyes. "It's not your fucking fault; you're just being dramatic."

Itachi didn't respond but let out a disbelieving snort. As if he shouldn't have been bothered at all by hearing the rest of his life would be meaningless.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Karin cringe. "No, I mean… It's… It's a long story, and I'm not going into it but… There are a lot of people who have made mistakes that led to this and you're at the very bottom. This isn't your fault. At the very least, it's my fault before it's yours. You're justified feeling the way you do. That's… Kinda why I'm here, I guess."

Karin inclined her head, staring at the spots on the wall where scraps of paper were still hanging. "I… Yesterday was pretty bad. And first of all I should apologize, but on top of that I want to set your mind at ease: no more talking about marriage. I get it; it's not what you want. I'm not going to ask you again. That's a promise."

Itachi could appreciate that.

At least, he could appreciate that Karin was capable of acting in her own interest, and that it just so happened to benefit him as well. He'd given her a long enough list of qualities he admired and it seemed she was putting them to good use.

It wouldn't do her any good, but at least she was making an effort to be less intolerable.

He didn't move.

He was beginning to wonder what would happen if he decided to remain in that exact spot forever. If the library would allow him to stay there, or if eventually it would mistake him for trash and remove him.

"I've never really had a family," Karin continued, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "At least, one that I can remember. You probably figured it out by now but I can't leave the grounds, and so that means the only people I've ever seen are ones I meet here."

She hesitated for a moment, pursing her lips. "I found out when I was pretty young that people want to stay here, but not forever. It's easy to lure people in but then impossible to make them stay of their own free will."

Itachi crossed his arms over his stomach, suddenly feeling as though his shoulders had gotten stiff. Perhaps once Karin was gone he could take the opportunity to stretch, to work out the kinks in his back. He'd been used to that before, he realized.

When he was a ranger, and even when he was living it the University, he'd been used to sleeping in uncomfortable places. He'd slept in dry fields with tiny brown shoots that poked through his clothes and in trees that rubbed his back raw and spent the last few years with a mattress he'd sworn had been carved of stone but he couldn't remember ever feeling this uncomfortable afterwards.

Apparently that was a tolerance he'd lost.

"Last night wasn't the first time someone tried to tear this library apart," Karin added. "And maybe you feel good about it for a little bit because you've tired yourself out. You've broken things and maybe that destructive impulse feels good too." She slouched backwards, leaning on her arms. "But then you wake up and nothing has changed and it suddenly doesn't feel so good anymore."

Itachi finally turned his head and she gave him a small smile when their eyes met, her eyes unusually gentle. He held her gaze steadily until she looked down, fiddling with the buttons on her shirt.

"But anyway," she said, letting out a heavy breath. "That was a long way for me to say I'm sorry. Not just for keeping you here but for the way I talked to you yesterday. I know what you're going through is hard and… I thought if I could hit you with it all at once it'd be easier to swallow but that turned out to be wrong. I thought we could argue it out and you'd come to terms with it that way."

Karin's eyes flicked away, looking over the disordered papers scattered around the library floor. Her mouth was at a slant, her eyebrows furrowed.

She rubbed the back of her neck. "I think what you were working on was probably really cool and I shouldn't have called it a waste of time. It's… I mean, you've probably gotten more done in the last few months than I have in the whole time I've been here."

"I don't care."

She blushed and quickly turned away. "Well I didn't expect you to. I mean, I know you don't really care about my opinion or anything. I just want to correct the record. Clarify where I stand."

Another silence settled over them, cut only by the sound of Karin squirming, crossing and uncrossing her arms and adjusting her glasses as she waited for some kind of response.

He didn't understand why she was trying so hard if she'd truly given up trying to pursue him. If she only meant to apologize she could have done so much more efficiently and without the unnecessary personal details.

Karin eventually spoke up again with a sigh. "You should get up and come eat. You slept for like twelve hours; you've got to be starving."

"I don't feel like it."

"What if I brought you something to eat?" she tried, perhaps forgetting her promise weeks ago that she'd never do anything of the sort.

"I'm not hungry."

Karin shifted, and Itachi was becoming impatient for her to leave. A patch of light was hitting him squarely around his midsection and it was getting to be uncomfortably warm. He could feel sweat prickling between his shoulder blades but he refused to move until Karin left.

She took in a deep breath. "Okay then," she started. "I'm going to preface this by saying I know you don't like the bargaining. I get it; it gets tricky and manipulative. I understand why you don't like that."

In that case, it seemed no input was needed on his part. Karin had become more or less capable of raising his objections for him.

Karin wrinkled her nose and for a moment Itachi wondered if she had somehow been able to read his expression. "Still. I know I haven't done anything to deserve it, but I want you to trust me when I say that I want to bargain over this for a reason, and that reason is more for your good than my own. Okay?"

"I'm not interested," he said, tilting his head back again, looking towards the top of the wall behind him. The ceiling in his room at the University had been full of cracks and, during nights when he couldn't sleep, tracing patterns in them had been strangely therapeutic.

There was no such comfort here.

"Okay," Karin said, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I want to offer you a way to see your family again."

Itachi's eyes snapped to her.

"But," she said, holding up a single finger, the corners of her mouth curling into a smile. "Before we get into it you should come get something to eat. We can talk in the kitchen."

With that, Karin stood and straightened her trousers, brushing off imaginary dust.

When Itachi didn't move she sighed and leaned down over him, holding out her hand.

"Come on," she said. "You might as well."

He waited, staring at her outstretched hand and weighing his options.

It wasn't entirely accurate to call Karin a liar because, surprisingly, she often told the truth; she only told it at a slant. The result was the same, however, and he knew better than to trust her. He wouldn't put it past her to say such a thing only as bait, as a ruse to convince him to leave.

At the same time, it seemed it would be a short-lived gambit once her lies became clear. As much as he hated to admit it, his expectations for her were much higher than that, and it seemed likely this would only be the first step in a more convoluted plan, the final goal he could only imagine.

Or, she could be telling the truth.

Itachi looked past her hand and at her face, at the not-too-wide curve of her smile, the roundness of her eyes. She raised her eyebrows when she caught him looking, and waggled her fingers near his face.

"You gonna wait for me to beg or something?"

Staying in the library would mean waiting for Karin to leave, and as long as she was there he wouldn't be able to move, to stretch, to get out of the sun.

A bead of sweat rolled down his back and he twitched at the discomfort.

He grimaced and lifted one arm to knock her hand away, using the other to get himself into a sitting position.

Karin's expression flashed with annoyance that quickly faded into surprise when he stood, pulling at the front of his shirt to help cool himself down.

Without waiting for her response, he turned and started heading towards the door to the hallway.

It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to be.

A/N: This chapter brought to you by my weird love for sleeping facedown on carpeted floors.

And, as always, by my undying love for Karin, who is finally getting a little bit of character growth.

Also I need to do a little more plot work but there's a pretty good chance I bump down the rating for this because it probably won't be getting too explicit. That was mostly something I had as a fail-safe but aside from some coarse language and Itachi's existential crisis there isn't anything too upsetting in this.

Other housekeeping things... The Karin generation swap AU is officially the only AU I'm writing (along with this, of course) until I finish it. Which means I'm not working on anything else because so help me I'm going to finish something eventually (I say, for probably the fourth time). I love it to death tho so here's the tiniest little excerpt from ~5 chapters in, after they've already met, where Karin feels his chakra out in the wild and goes to say hi:

Karin blushes. "I mean…" She looks away, feeling her face get hotter because she doesn't have a reason for being here.

Itachi is waiting, though, his head cocked to the side, and so she blurts out, "Your brother is kind of a jackass, you know."

He raises his eyebrows again and Karin mentally kicks herself for continuing to sound like an idiot.

"Is that so?" he asks, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "I wasn't aware."

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.

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It's gotta be edited to death before it's really readable but the dynamic has me suuuuper excited.

As always, thanks to everyone who has been reading/commenting/acknowledging my existence in general! I have so much fun with this and it makes me extra happy to know other people do too.