Authors note: Firstly, I would like to say thank you for all of the love and support for this fanfiction. I really appreciate all of the feedback and notifications that I get for it. It brightens my day so much when I know that there are people enjoying what I've put out there into the world.

Secondly, near the end of this chapter there is implied drug abuse and self harm. This is right when Sakura answers the phone and it is not being described as a scene, but rather something that has happened outside of the narrative. Not graphic, but a warning because I don't want to cause anyone discomfort.

Enjoy!

The world around them was silent.

Everything else was nothing but a blur and even if it weren't, she doubted she could focus on anything besides the way he was looking at her. His dark eyes were filled with emotions that she had once been scared of but secretly longed for. His eyes spoke of the nights that they spent at the beach by that damned rock with his guitar, the early sunrises and the late sunsets; promising words whispered against her skin in moments of weakness and gentle caresses that made her feel like she was floating. Deep in his eyes, though, she found hurt.

"I.. I have to go," Sakura says quietly once she focuses back into the world outside of Itachi. She pulled her hand away from his and cut eye contact. "It was nice seeing you." Hugging her arms to herself she quickly made pace to the car where Gaara, her boyfriend, was sitting with the window down. She knew he must have heard glimpses of everything, but she couldn't find it in herself to care for much else other than the feeling of Itachi's gaze burning into her back.

Feeling the car pull away from the venue and away from Itachi, she relaxed into the seat and let out a breath she hadn't realized that she was holding. Her world was shifted and she reached for Gaara's hand, something to stabilize herself with, but frowned when he pulled his hand away to rest it on the steering wheel instead. Shifting to curl in on herself more, she turned to the window and stared out of it instead.

She couldn't wait to go home.

Watching her walk away was even more painful than when she never came at all.

"Why did you let her go?" Kisame asks as he takes a sip of his beer, peering at Itachi from across the room where said man was perched at the bar with his head resting on his left hand, his right hand nursing a glass of whiskey.

"I couldn't very well stop her," he snorts and Kisame rolls his eyes. "That wouldn't do well for anyone. Besides," Itachi carries on in a softer note that sounds disappointed, "she has moved on. She's with that redhead."

"Sasori's cousin?"

"That would be the one."

"Ah," Kisame tips the beer bottle back with his head and finishes it off, discarding it into the trashcan full of bottles that looked the same. "Maybe we should go and visit him, huh? We've been needing to discuss band business anyway."

"Perhaps," mutters Itachi but he doesn't care. He couldn't find it in himself to find joy in his music anymore. He restarted playing for her, finding his muse in her, and letting himself drown in songs about her. He couldn't play his guitar without thinking about her and the way her eyes would light up and scream so many emotions. It wasn't the same.

He wasn't the same.

The last few years have changed him and he wouldn't say that he's proud of these changes nor that they were productive habits, either.

Cigarettes and booze were two of his comforts, both of them being accompanied by Kisame and sometimes Sasori and Deidara. He wasn't an addict, not really. They just numbed him in ways that he needed to be. They were reserved for the weekends. Special occasions.

But this past week was special all the way through.

Special in the way that it broke him.

After trying tirelessly to get in contact with her, he finally saw her face to face and he was turned away. Worse, she turned away. He had only held her in his arms a few times and one of those times he was buzzed out of his mind. He almost thought that he hallucinated her, but that was dislodged when he woke up with her in his arms. It was the best night of sleep he had gotten in awhile. His nightmares had finally stopped and he was at peace. He had her.

But he didn't.

She left just as quickly as she entered and he wasn't even sure she remembered that night that they had shared.

He almost wished that he didn't either.

He almost wished that he could shake the memory of her lips and her body against his from his mind. The way her breathless moans in his ear made his body stiffen and his thoughts go crazy. The way her legs felt wrapped around him and her blunt nails against his back.

He wished he could forget the way she made him feel.

"Why are you mad?" Sakura asks from her position on the couch. They had gotten home hours ago but Gaara had left as soon as they came home. He was only just now returning, hours later, with a slight wobble in his step. He was currently leaning against the wall by their kitchen cabinets, his gaze heavy on her and she felt like she was suffocating in the worst kind of way.

The air around them was stifled and stagnant. Tension filled the spaces and was slowly drowning her, eating at her nerves. She hated this.

"Gaara?" She asks softly when he doesn't answer and he continues to stare at her. For a moment, a brief moment, she thought she saw his shoulders hunch forward and his expression fall to one of helplessness before quickly turning into a stoic stare. Chewing on her bottom lip, she moves to get up but is halted by Gaara speaking.

"Do you love me?"

Her breath caught in her throat and she looked up at him, meeting his eyes, and looking like a deer caught in headlights. Her heart was pounding and she was stuck in the half-up, half-down position that was in from trying to get off the couch. Silence passes and she knows that she should answer him, that he deserves an answer, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything even with the silence dragging on and making everything worse. She watches him sag a little and her heart clenches, slightly breaking, but she doesn't know what else to do.

"Can you love me?" He asks after a moment and she couldn't help the sad look on her face when she thinks over his words. A sad smile on her face as she thinks about them, how he was her best friend, and how he was there for her but in the end, she wasn't there for him in return. Not really. Not the way she should have been.

"I don't know," Sakura answers truthfully and her heart breaks when his expression falls completely and his whole body hunches over. She could feel his pain and she pondered over her thoughts in the last year, how she was certain she didn't love him and he, her. "Do you love me?" She asks in return, needing to know the answer.

"Yes."

She watches him take his eyes off of her, instead choosing to stare up at the ceiling as he slides against the wall and sits with his knees up against his chest, his arm loosely wrapped around his legs.

"Did anything ever feel real to you?"

"Yes, you made me, make me, very happy." She answers truthfully and turns to look out the window sadly. "I always felt safe with you, comfortable."

"Then why couldn't you love me?"

"I don't know," Sakura says and doesn't take her eyes off of the window. She could hear him shuffle and move to get up. She could hear his footsteps, but she chose not to watch. She didn't want to watch his heartbroken trail out of the apartment that they had shared for the last year. She didn't want to see his hurt, the very hurt that she had swore she never wanted to inflict on anyone. The same hurt that she avoided Itachi for out of fear of stringing him along.

It's ironic, she laughed out, and bowed her head as she brought her knees up to her head and cried.

She was horrible.

Gaara was moved out within the week. He was staying with Kankuro once more and Sakura could hear his drunken footsteps followed by the soft giggles of a girl almost every night. It didn't bother her the way it should have. She was just sad that she had brought him to be like that, that she had hurt him in such a way.

The apartment was too big for her and reminded her of how alone she felt sometimes. Everyone else had somebody and all she had was Gaara, but she couldn't even handle that right. A part of her felt disdain towards Itachi, hanging onto the hopeless thought that maybe it all would have ended differently if he would have just left her alone in the first place.

Alas, she knew, deep down, that the ending of her relationship with Gaara was foretold from the beginning. She knew, but she denied it.

Curled in a blanket in her bed, she hugged the blanket close to herself and frowned as she blinked back tears. She was disgusted with herself. It reminded her of how used she felt by Sasuke, how sad she felt for Karin when Sasuke ditched her when he was done with her. She wasn't any better than Sasuke, she figured.

What kind of person knowingly leads someone on?

The part of her that was grateful it ended was small, very small, but it gloated. The guilt of not being able to reciprocate such strong feelings was no longer on her shoulders, though it was lost along with her best friend. She desperately wanted her friendship with him back but she knew it was likely a lost cause.

It isn't easy being friends with someone that you dated, especially not when it ends like theirs had.

Her life was filled with restless nights so she filled them with schoolwork. She had nothing better to do and she was well on her way to her career. On a night such as one of those, she heard a knock on her front door. Sighing, she got up slowly and closed her laptop before opening the front door.

"Get dressed, we're going out. You're not going to waste away in there."

"Ino, I can't-" Sakura tries but is cut off by the blonde pushing past her and shoving her into her bedroom. The blonde gasps dramatically at the disarray state of her room. There were books, notes, and even clothes littered around. It was a mess, to put it simply.

"Alright, first, we're going to go out and then tomorrow, we are addressing," Ino pauses as she looks around the room at a loss of words before finishing with a, "..this."

"I'm fine," Sakura says and crosses her arms.

"You aren't, but I'll let you continue to pretend." Ino shrugs and digs through her closet. She pulls out a red halter top and then digs through Sakura's dresser, pulling out a rose pink pair of flowy shorts. "Put these on."

Sighing, Sakura knew she wasn't going to get out of it so she resigned herself to her fate.

The club that Ino chose was noisy and Sakura regretted even opening up her door that night. She was going to have a raging headache tomorrow and it would be the blonde's fault. Groaning, she rubbed at her already aching temples.

"You know you can stop avoiding Temari's texts, right? She's not mad at you." Ino said off-handedly and Sakura glares in the opposite direction. Sakura had been purposely ignoring a lot of people out of guilt. She felt bad and she figured Temari would be mad. It was her baby brother, after all. "She knows that she kind of pushed the two of you together and that sometimes somethings don't work out."

"I know that," gripes Sakura but Ino settles her with a harsh look.

"Do you?"

Sakura sighs and hangs her head low slightly.

"It's just hard, Ino. I swore that I wouldn't ever use someone or hurt them like that and I did." Sakura ends up saying and she lets Ino hear all about the way she had been feeling for the last week. The blonde listened closely and didn't speak for a little bit, gracefully accepting the margarita that Sai offered her and gesturing for Sakura to accept the drink that Sai was offering to her as well.

"Did you try with him?"

"Of course, I tried so hard but I couldn't do it. He made me so happy but I just," she stops and takes a deep breath. "I just couldn't bring myself to love him."

"Then you have nothing to feel guilty about. You tried and it didn't work out. That's it." Ino said and she made it sound so simple, but it was beyond that. Nothing in life was ever that simple. "Drink up, tonight is about forgetting and moving on," the blonde encouraged and Sakura sighed before tipping her head back and forcing her way through her drink.

"Hey, fancy seeing you here, yeah?" Calls a familiar voice from the end of the table. She could feel Ino's excited gasp and she couldn't fathom who it would be before her eyes move and meet another pair of blue.

"Deidara?"

"You remember? It has been awhile, doll, what are you doing out in the city?" He grins at her and she shrugs non-committedly.

"I live here. What are you doing here?" She responds and he gives her a large smile as he slides into the booth next to her. She could see Ino's starstruck gaze and she wanted to smack her around to get her to focus so that she could leave.

"Band business, ya know?" He responds and her breath catches.

Did that mean the entire Akatsuki was here? Itachi, too?

"Oi, Deidara, come on, we have to get ready to perform-" Sasori grumbles but upon seeing Sakura he pauses. "Sakura, nice to see you," he says and tips his head in greeting.

Sakura looks at him awkwardly and anxiously takes another drink. "Hey," she says lamely and thankfully doesn't have to say much else before the two guys are bidding their farewells and Deidara is being dragged towards the stage.

"I know how Sasori knows you, but when did you meet Deidara?" Ino swoons and Sakura rolls her eyes. The blonde used to base her hair off of his as a teenager and often copied his crop tops and purple colors. She would never admit it, but Ino was obsessed with him during the Akatsuki's prime.

"Back when I was dating Sasuke. He was over at their house the morning after I spent the night the first time."

"And you didn't tell me?" She wails dramatically and Sakura rolls her eyes.

"You are married," she laments and Ino sticks her tongue out.

"I could have married him instead!" They laugh and joke in all good fun. She almost forgets who could very well be in close proximation. Almost. She is reminded with a jolt when music starts to play from the stage. Not just any music, but the song that Itachi always played at the beach. It didn't fit the atmosphere of the club, but Sakura didn't mind.

The world around her stopped and she ended up tuning Ino out, focusing on the stage. She met his eyes and she felt like her heart had stopped beating. There was no one else but them. For some reason, she felt like he was calling for her, but she stayed rooted in her seat. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe; she wasn't even sure that she existed at this point.

"Are you alright?" Ino asks worriedly, coming to rest her hand against her shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I think, I think I need to go home," Sakura answers honestly and for once, Ino doesn't argue. They gather up their belongings and head out of the club. The whole way out of the door, she could feel his gaze on her back and she felt like she was missing something as she settled into the backseat of Ino and Sai's car.

Sleep hadn't found her easy that night, but it never did. She pushed through.

"What the hell, what are you doing in here?!" Shrieked Sakura as she backtracked into the hallway slightly, taking in the form of Gaara on her couch. It was odd seeing him in the apartment after him being gone for the week. It was strange, but it was comforting at the same time. She missed it, missed him. She wanted her friend back.

"I wanted to talk to you, to clear some things up."

"Oh," she says smally and she follows to sit on the couch when he gestures her to do so,

"I won't lie to you as long as you don't lie to me," he starts off and Sakura swallows a little roughly but she nods, consenting to the terms. She didn't have it in her to lie. "I'm hurt, was hurt, about the whole ordeal but I think I might have walked into it knowingly. You didn't do anything wrong. We were only together a year, relationships work differently and sometimes it takes longer for some people to fall in love. I understand that now."

"That doesn't excuse me keeping you in the dark about my feelings. I feel like.. Like I was using you and didn't notice it until after everything." She swallows thickly and looks at him, an honest look of regret and sadness on her face. "I feel terrible about it all. You made me so happy and I feel like the one thing I could have done for you was love you, but I couldn't bring myself to do it." She sniffles slightly and looks away. "I'm sorry, I truly am. I should have told you how I was feeling, maybe then we wouldn't have ended that way."

"Do you love him?" He asks after a moment and her heart picks up in pace.

"No," she answers honestly. She didn't give herself the opportunity to be able to love him. She ran away as soon as she started feeling anything because he was close, too close to Sasuke.

"Do you think you can?"

This question catches her off guard and she remains quiet, thinking over it. She can feel his gaze on her face, trying to read her emotions, and she is grateful that he doesn't prod at her. He just sits there, much like how he used to when she would vent to him. He knew all about Itachi, all about Sasuke. He heard it all and she supposed that made the heartbreak even harder.

"Maybe," Sakura settles with and he closes his eyes briefly as he nods.

"I thought so," he responds and opens his eyes as his seafoam eyes meet her emerald ones. He gently reaches for her hand, placing his thumb over her knuckles and rubbing gently. "I want you to be happy. Not just comfortable or okay, but happy. I want you to be able to love someone. Sakura, I love you, I don't want you to eat yourself up over something that you couldn't help." He takes in a deep breath and presses a kiss to her forehead like he had several times before. "I want you to do what is best for you."

"I.. Thank you," she breathes out and leans forward into his open arms. He accepts her embrace and he holds her. His cheek pressed against the top of her head as he stared out of the window. He would relish in this feeling of her in his arms while he could. He knew that this would be the last time that he was able to hold her like this and he was going to make the most of it.

"He is staying with my cousin for a couple of weeks, I think you should talk to him." Gaara whispers against her hair and he felt her freeze in his arms. He gently rubs soothing circles around her back, trying to get her to relax. "For closure or for more. Whatever it is that you want, but I think that either way it would be a good idea. I'll be right there waiting for you afterwards," he says softly and pulls away to look her in her eyes.

"I'll always be there for you, Sakura."

Things between the two of them didn't go back to normal, but Sakura kind of liked their new normal. She felt like they knew each other more and were closer now than before. In a way, the break up was a good thing, but she still felt incredibly guilty and upset by it all. She knew that he still was hurting over it from the way his eyes lingered just slightly too long on her or the way he would brush his hand against her. It would take a bit to adjust to being just friends again, but it was worth it.

Sakura hadn't contacted Itachi yet and she wondered why he didn't try and contact her either. She found it hard to believe that Sasori hadn't let it slip that she lived in the same apartment complex as him, though she didn't see why he would feel it necessary to disclose the information in the first place. Still, it made her feel anxious and she was about ready to just say fuck it and go with the flow.

Bzzz.

Bzz.

Glaring at her phone, she picks it up roughly and she answers it.

"Hello?" She answers and she, under normal circumstances, would groan at the sheer volume of Naruto's voice over the phone. Instead, she let out a breathless, "What?"

Her heart was racing as she listened to his quick words and the panic in his voice.

"Calm down! Call the ambulance, fuck, try and stop the bleeding!"

She tried to calm him down over the phone and eventually got him off the phone after hearing that Hinata had called the ambulance. Her mind was a flurry of thoughts and her heart was pounding in her chest. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. It was unbelievable, she almost didn't want to believe it but she knew that it had to be true. Naruto wouldn't lie about such a thing.

Sasuke.

Her mind doesn't wander towards him very often anymore. Not since the cliff and all of that had happened. He was the least of her concern anymore. She no longer felt any remaining puppy love towards him and all she thought of was the sad look on his face when he gazed out on the cliff before it twisted into the dark face that was hovering over her on the ground. She shuddered.

It made sense, to her at least, that he was struggling mentally.

It was sad.

It tore at her heart, at the softer parts, that the quietness of news about Sasuke was all because he had gotten into drugs, ran off, and went down a dark, lonely road.

The call was right after Naruto had found Sasuke by chance on the sidewalk outside of Sakura's old house. He was bleeding pretty heavily from his arms and he seemed dazed, completely out of it. His normally pale skin was even more pale than normal and he was thin, too thin.

Her heart ached for the boy she once loved, the boy that was her first.

Above all, though, her heart ached for his family that loved him so much and expected so much out of him.

The baby that probably didn't know her father and may not get the chance to.

The bond that may not be repaired between him and Itachi.

Itachi.

Did he know?

She wasn't sure how long she was lost in her thoughts, but she was broke out of them by a knock on her door. Slowly, she headed towards it and opened it gently. A soft gasp fell out of her mouth when she took in who was on the other side.

There stood Itachi, his hair messy and short, his jaw clenched and his eyes glassy.

"Sakura," he says softly and Sakura doesn't say a word. She just opens up her door and allows him to come inside, allowing him to crash into her and hold onto her. She hesitantly wraps her arms around him and gently leads them to her couch. She sits them both down, stroking his hair and his back. She hums softly and rocks slightly, listening to his deep breathing.

She knew how Itachi had felt for Sasuke.

How disappointed he was in the way that he had started to turn out, how he loved him, and wished for him to just wake up to the real world.

"He.. Sasuke," he breathes out and Sakura nods against his, resting her head ontop of his just like Gaara had done her.

"Ssh, I know, just relax.. We'll figure it out, okay? Just try and breathe for me," she says softly and he lets out a shuddering breath. She had never seen him so emotional before, so worked up. She couldn't help the tight squeeze in her heart. She didn't like seeing him like this, it tore at her and made her want to cry and punch things.

They stayed like that for awhile. Eventually he shifted and pulled away from her. His eyes were red rimmed and he looked slightly embarrassed, but Sakura didn't hold any judgement in her face. Everyone needed to be able to lean on someone at some point. It was necessary for survival.

She watched him check his phone, watched him let out deep and haggard breaths.

"He is in the hospital right now," Itachi says after a moment and Sakura rubs circles into his shoulder and arm. Letting him know that she was there for him. "I need to go, to be there for my mom, and.. Sasuke." He looks over at her, watching her face. He was searching for something, something Sakura didn't know what. "But, I, uh," he trailed off and he looked a little embarrassed, "I didn't drive here and even if I did.. I don't quite trust myself to make the drive alone.."

"Would you like me to go with you?" She asks softly, not trying to push the idea onto him. Sakura wasn't going to overstep. They hadn't even acknowledged anything other than Sasuke and they had to talk over a lot of things, but now was not the time. Still, she would be right there with him for it all if he so wished.

And a part of her wanted to make sure Sasuke was okay, as well.