Someone left a review. I couldn't ignore it. I honestly forgot this was a story, so I must apologize. I apologize for the almost four year hiatus I have taken, though I cannot promise a quick end to this story either. Thank you for your time and the enjoyment you have all recieved from my writings for these many years.

They were wrapped up in her bed, Itachi's arm holding her securely to his side. He was sleepy, but stared up at the ceiling. He didn't want to fall asleep, not today. It was a day off from the job he'd acquired and he wanted to spend as much time awake and with Sakura as he could. She was snuggled up to him, her head on her chest, as she lazily flicked through her phone. She was sleepy too, he knew, from the way she rubbed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek into his chest.

"Aren't you tired?" she finally asked softly after a few moments. "You've been working a lot."

"I am, but I do not want to give my time with you up for a nap," he gently explained. He turned on his side and tucked a hand behind her head, holding her to his shoulder. She seemed to really like being held like this. She always made a happy noise.

"What are you going to do with all the money you've saved?" she asked. She had grasped a tendril of his hair and was playing with it.

"I want to move out and find a way to bring my brother with me," he said readily. Ever since that night in October, he had decided it was his best chance. He could not leave his brother alone in that house, but he couldn't imagine that his father would let him stay the moment he was done with schooling either.

Sakura seemed to be stunned for a moment. Then she said, "I'm happy about that. Have you figured out a way to do it?"

"It will be easier if I can manage to talk my mother into it." He and Sasuke had been talking. He was out of the house so often that he hadn't seen his mother's face in what seemed like years. He didn't know how she felt. He didn't know what she thought of the situation. Sasuke was more involved, always the favorite child, and would have the information he needed. "Sasuke says that she has been distant, floating around as if a ghost. She barely speaks anymore. She is a far cry from the lovely, smiling woman that makes up my memories from my very young years." He could remember the last time his mother had ever hugged him. It had been when he was seven, just before the beatings and the hatred started.

"She never tried to help you, though," Sakura instantly said. She didn't think much of either of his parents. His father was one thing and his mother was another. His mother should have run away with them. She should have done something other than sit silently and let her husband do such terrible things.

"The first time it happened," he said, referencing the beating, "she tried. She got between myself and father and received a kick to the face so harsh that she had her cheek wrapped in gauze for a week. I could not allow my mother to be harmed in such a way. The next time it happened, I told her not to." He hadn't spoken or cried out for her. He had glared at her so harshly that she seemed to have realized that she couldn't step between them. He didn't want her to.

"Oh," Sakura was quiet for a moment. Then, "She could have taken you, and Sasuke, and gotten you away from him."

"My father controls all the finances," he said gently, trying to quell her. "He has total control over her. They are cousins, thrice removed. If she were to run from him to our family, then they will bring her back without delay. She has no money to find a place of her own and struggle with us. I know that there are other things out there, charities and such, that could have helped us, but I imagine her too afraid to strike out on her own with two young boys and worry over whether we will be fed, clothed, and homed. She could have left herself, but she stayed. That is the most I can ask of an abused woman." He couldn't actually reach into his mother's mind and tell Sakura exactly what she was thinking, of course, but he could guess and this was his best one. She wouldn't be a hollow shell of her former self, a ghost, if she was alright with everything going on in the home.

"When are you going to talk to her then?" Sakura asked now.

"I have about two thousand dollars now," Itachi explained. "I will need her to be the cosigner. No one will rent to an eighteen year old alone." He had already been scoping out possible places to move and had already decided he would like to move to a complex. He didn't trust individual landlords and didn't trust himself not to be taken advantage of. He didn't know how much of this worked and wanted more experience. There was a complex that was within the school district, but he needed either a cosigner or good credit. He would have to settle with the latter. "I will speak to her soon, after the new year, when I have almost four thousand. That should be enough for the move in fees and what we will need to start a new life."

Sakura huffed quietly. Then she was moving, fighting herself free from him. Wildly confused, he allowed her leave and she stumbled onto the floor. She crossed to her dresser and rifled about in the bottom drawer. She didn't show him where it was or what she kept it in, but she pulled out a wad of bills and shoved it at him.

"I can't accept this, Sakura," Itachi pushed it back towards her.

"It's only a fraction of what I have. I'll make it back before summer," she shoved it back at him. There was a fire burning behind her green eyes and it was obvious that no was not an answer. She didn't say anything but her eyes shone in relief as he pulled it from her hands. He held it quietly, his black eyes watching her calmly. "If I cannot help the people I love, then what use is it?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. "My parents will not make me leave until I'm ready and I've already been promised things I would need it to buy. I've only been saving it for things I like that they shouldn't have to buy for me."

"Thank you," he murmured. He tucked it deep into his pants pocket. He could bring it to the bank before going home today. He stood with her and tugged her into a hug. She returned the hug fiercely, smiling into the kiss that he gave her. He felt her soft hair in his hand as he sunk his fingers into her hair, felt her gasp as he tugged her waist firmly against him. He could not find the reason he deserved someone so selfless, so lovely, so giving. He did not want to let her go. He didn't want to leave her lightly perfumed room, smelling of the one she always used. He didn't want to ever forget her glowing green eyes or the way her small, slim fingers gripped the front of his shirt. He dwarfed her, completely, but he loved the way she melted into his frame and how she could fit so nicely into his arms.

Her eyes were wild and bright when he finally released her. He couldn't help the smile on his face and he was granted a luminous smile in return. He checked his phone and sighed. Her parents would be home soon and they could not stay, alone, in her room any longer. Her face fell, though not by much, and only took his hand, leading him from her room. She hated when their short alone time was interrupted just as much as he did.

He knew that she would come home an hour and a half before his father. He knew that she usually had Saturday nights alone, his father no doubt off with a mistress until deep into the night. He knew that she could no longer bring herself to make meals. She could no longer bring herself to do much of anything. She drifted around, going through the motions of life, but with no light behind the eyes that mirrored his.

He found her that Saturday night, after his shift at the coffee shop. It was only seven at night, a night he would usually devote to Sakura, but he had to give what little time he had to something more important. She was sitting in her favorite armchair, the television on, but it was obvious she wasn't seeing it. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, her jaw set but not clenched. Her flat eyes were just staring at the television.

He entered the room silently, not wanting to spook her. He didn't exactly know how to approach this, but he wasn't about to stand down. Though he didn't have the words, he was sure he would find them. Her eyes held surprise when she saw him, some kind of relief. She didn't try to school her expression, but she didn't seem to care. She probably thought he had only come through to go to his room and would nod his head silently as he usually did, but her breath hitched when he did not. He knelt in front of her, thinking it the best thing to do.

She looked quite a bit older. The mother of his memories was young, constantly smiling and seemed to be laughing about some secret that no one else was privy to. The mother of his memories was always hugging, cuddling. This woman was silent and still, only able to stare at him. Lines he had never noticed lined her mouth, though her smile lines were less pronounced than they would have been had she kept on laughing. Her hair seemed to be a duller black than he remembered. Her eyes, oh her eyes. They had lost the light he had loved so much as a child. She had lost whatever secret she used to keep on laughing. They had lost the touch of intelligence, the spark of life he had grown so attached to when he was young. He remembered her teaching him about the stars, about life, and about the grander things that could only be imagined. He remembered her soft voice reading him to sleep. He remembered how she would nap with him sometimes, her body curled around him on the sofa. Those memories seemed tinged by a golden hue of sunlight. Now everything around them seemed dark, dingy, sad.

He touched her hands gently. She only watched as he took them in his. Her mouth was slightly parted and there was a question in his eyes. What could he possibly want? He could read it so clearly.

"Mother," he started without knowing exactly what he wanted to say. "I needed to speak to you."

Her voice wasn't haughty, though he could never remember a time when it was. It was a flat voice. It was not the voice of his childhood. It sounded as though she had steadily been losing hope.

"What about?" There was only curiosity, a hesitating hitch in her voice.

He stared into her eyes, pain piercing him. He had only meant to protect her. He had only meant for her to stay unhurt. Even as a child that didn't know any better, he had only wanted to make sure she continued to smile, continued to laugh, but he could not even protect that. He wished he could have done more, but he knew there was little. He was still only a child that could do nothing until this very moment. He was hoping, praying almost, that he could fix it with this one conversation.

"I meant to ask, and I am hoping that you say yes, if you would be willing to cosign an apartment with me," he managed through a thick, closing throat. He hadn't felt anxious, hadn't felt scared, but now the feeling exploded in his stomach, almost as if it had been there all along and he just hadn't realized it.

Terror filled her eyes. "You're leaving us?" she whispered. He cursed himself. He had phrased it incorrectly and he had offended her, terrified her, confused her, oh he didn't know. The panic rose in his throat. "Of course you'd want to, I'm sorry," the terror seemed to fall away as quickly as it'd come, but it was replaced with a look that was close to tears.

"I meant to take you with me," he finally managed around the thick feeling of fear in his throat.

"Leave your father?" she seemed mystified.

"Yes."

His mother's tears finally fell. He didn't know whether she was in shock, if she was relieved, or if she was terrified to leave his father. He knew, from Sasuke, that there was little reason for her to still love their father. Whenever she looked at him his brother only saw terror. Sasuke had said he had not heard words between them for months.

"Your father...he isn't bad, you know," she hunched over. She could no longer keep his gaze and her shoulders shuddered. "He only takes to drink like a fish in water and it...changes him."

"I know father thinks I am not his," Itachi interrupted her. Her teary eyes flew to him, shock deep in the depths. He had not meant to find out. He had been rifling through papers in the study, looking for his birth certificate and social security card when he'd found her letters shoved under a false drawer in her desk. They had been to a lover before she'd married his father and she had feared the pregnancy she carried was not his father's. She had become pregnant only a short time after the wedding ceremony. There was a chance it was her lover's. "I know that he holds a grudge against me for it." He could not say whether he was his father's son or not. Only a paternity test could tell and he wasn't about to ask his father for one. He could only imagine the response he would receive. His mother gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. "It doesn't matter," he shook his head. "What matters is that he shouldn't treat us like this."

"But..." She seemed about to say something, but the thought was lost to her as quickly as it had come.

"You are not the woman I remember as a child," he reached to cup her face. "You were loving and kind. You were full of laughter. You were full of knowledge and taught me relentlessly about things you liked. I still love the constellations, you know. I still love the kings and queens that you romanticized and loved to read about. I still love the fairies and the princes and princesses that you read the stories of. You have lost what you had and I only want to give it back to you. I want to take you and Sasuke away so that we may find these things that we've lost after so many years of living in fear, stepping around eggshells that only angered one man."

She could only cry. Her shoulders heaved with her sobs. Her hand rose to grasp the one he held to her face and turned her face into his gentle touch.

"How can you not hate me?" she asked, voice desperate. "I did not protect you. I only watched. I let it happen. How can you still love me, Itachi?"

"You tried to protect me once," Itachi's eyes were impossibly calm as he watched her. What panic and anxiety had risen within him had long since died down. He had convinced her. "You were hurt badly and I could not forgive myself. His rage was not directed at you. Don't you remember when I glared at you and you stopped from inserting yourself again? I cannot blame you, for I was trying to protect you as well, in a way only a child knew how. I know now that I did not succeed, otherwise you would not be feeling like a dead man that still walks."

"You protect me well enough," she gripped his hand tighter. "Well enough to take it upon yourself to take us away from here. I thought...I thought you blamed me for never taking you away myself."

"Where would you go?" he asked instantly. "I could only fathom the terror of being delivered back by our family. I can only fathom the worry of whether you can manage two boys on your own when you have no funds, nowhere to go, and the fear that we will be homeless and hungry on the streets. No, mother," he brushed his thumb across her face, taking away her tears, "I cannot blame you for you could only do as much as a person can in your position. You did not leave us alone to bear his wrath, that is the most I could have asked of you."

His mother crumpled under the understanding his son showed her that seemed to be a knowledge that spanned far beyond his years. Her shoulders were wracked with violent sobs and he lurched forwards to hug her, hold her. Her relief was overwhelming her. Her son still loved her. Her son did not blame her, though she knew she deserved to be. Her son was doing what she could not and all he needed was her signature. She could run away after so many years. She could start again.

She held onto him as though he were a rope thrown into the sea to a drowning man. She cried into his shoulder until she could no longer, unable to feel awkward that the roles were reversed. He only sat there and waited until she had calmed. It took a while. She had years of bottled emotions, years of pain. She felt a thousand times better, a satisfied kind of exhausted, when her tears were dry and she was able to pull away from him.

"What do we need to do?" she asked, voice rough and scratchy.

"I've a meeting with the office of an apartment complex in a week. I have the money we need to begin the lease and I'm sure we'll have enough for furniture and such, though I must say we cannot get the best quality. Sasuke already knows of this plan and he is planning to get a part time job himself to help. I could not find his records and therefore he has been unable to."

"They're in the safe in our room," his mother said quietly. "Yours were in the study because your father didn't want to look at them, even though it isn't often the safe is open. I'll have to retrieve them and my own. We cannot take anything but our clothes. I worry your father will try to come after us with false reports of burglary if we do."

"Ah," Itachi nodded. He didn't know if that were right or not, but he couldn't possibly know any better. He needed his mother's help and so he was going to have to agree to her terms. He pulled her stringy hair, stained with tears, out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ears. "You should take a shower. You don't look very presentable after crying." She almost thought it was a jab, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face. She realized he was teasing her. The shock, more so than anything else, caused a high giggle to leave her throat, a smile cracking through her thin lips. It felt so foreign to smile. She couldn't remember the last time she had.

"You're right, I've always been an ugly crier."

"That's alright," he helped her to her feet. "The meeting is scheduled right after your work is done, on a Friday. I know father is usually off drinking at that time and therefore we will have more than an hour and a half to settle our business."

"Yes," she agreed. She hadn't thought this before, when she had been wracked with so many emotions, but she realized Itachi had taken on her vernacular. He sounded so much like herself and something akin to pride rose within her. She could not say she really did much for him up until this point. She could not say she deserved his unconditional love like this, but she could say she felt he was her son, through and through.

"Stand up straight, mother," Itachi said as she made her way to the stairs. He still had a slight smile playing upon his mouth. He looked so much like his father, but far kinder, as he stood there with his hands shoved into his pockets. His hair was the same straight black. The shape of his eyes were similar. The cut of his jaw and the strong chin reminded her of the man she had grown to love and come to hate. She could see the slender throat, the pointed nose, and the long, thin fingers that were all her own, though. This was her son, not fazed by his father in the slightest. "Stand up straight, mother," he repeated, knowing he had lost her focus. "You look better when you are full of pride."

She could only smile. She made a show of squaring her shoulders before disappearing from his sight.

Itachi didn't waste any time. The moment he heard the bathroom door softly close behind her, he was on the move. He wanted to talk to Sakura. He needed to. It had been her gift that had made tonight possible. It had been her driving force that had made him wake up and realize that he could not just sit by and let the world keep turning. He needed to see her and let her know that everything was falling into place. He needed to kiss her, have her in his arms. He needed to bury his nose in her neck and breathe the perfume she always wore.

His fingertips drummed impatiently on the steering wheel as he went to her house. He knocked on the door, knowing full well that they were just finishing up dinner. He didn't care whether he was intruding or not. He didn't care that Sakura didn't even know he was coming. He felt high, the adrenaline running through his veins rushing him forwards.

It was Sakura that answered the door. She had probably seen his car in the drive and known it was his knock on the door. He didn't even wait for her hello. He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her into the air, spinning her in a circle until he was so dizzy he could barely stand. He let her down, the surprised giggles still in the air around him. He wrapped her up in a hug, burying his nose in her hair. She was surprised, but she knew him. She didn't ask him anything, not yet. She wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes, and waited.

"It went well," he finally said after a few long moments of just holding her and breathing her in. He hugged her tightly, almost pushing the breath from her lungs.

"Well I didn't think it went badly," she let out another breathy giggle. "I think you'd be more glum if it didn't go well."

"I'm sure I would be," he agreed. He finally let her go, but still held her hand. He pulled her to the steps and let her sit. He closed the front door, not wanting to let the chill in more than they already had. Sakura was already shivering from the cold and he dropped down next to her, drawing her small body into his coat with him. She snuggled up to his warm body, seeking out his warmth.

"It wasn't difficult, was it?" she asked. "I mean to convince her."

"Not as difficult as I thought it would be. She only attempted to defend my father once, though I'm sure she was trying to convince herself. She holds no affection for him anymore. She seemed surprised that I love her still. She wanted me to blame her for failing to protect me. She wanted me to hate her just because she was powerless. I could never bring myself to do so. I only told her how I felt and it convinced her easily. I believe she had told herself that I could not love her for so long that she had actually begun to believe it."

"I'm surprised that you don't blame her," Sakura shrugged. "I mean...I do, kind of." She didn't really, not anymore. After the conversation that they'd had in her room the other day, Itachi had helped her realize that his mother didn't deserve it for the most part.

"I understand," he said gently. He didn't push her away. He didn't even sound angry. He just knew it to be fact and he wasn't going to try and change her opinion. "Hopefully, you can find it within yourself to come to know her and forgive her, much as I have found I hold much unconditional love for her. She is my mother and, though she did little to help, it was because I told her not to. I can only blame myself for her inaction and even then I was only trying to protect her myself."

"I know," she whispered.

"I love you as well, perhaps more," he said gently, tilting her chin so he could meet her eyes. "I thank you for the strength you have given me. I thank you for your presence, ever constant, at my side. I thank you for your selflessness. I—"

She had cut him off with a kiss planted firmly to his mouth. Her face was burning. He could feel it in their proximity. He held her tightly, and he told himself the pretense was because it was cold and she was without a coat, not that he was trying to feel her soft body through their clothes. He was high on adrenaline, love, the knowledge that everything was going to be okay. He had never felt something so exhilarating.

"I love you too," she said quietly, solemnly. She was happy they were outside where the cool air was helping her calm rather than spur her on.

"You are beautiful," he whispered, unable to keep silent. She was still flushed from his compliments and her green eyes were so bright. She was like the dawn he'd been waiting for for so long. She bathed him in golden rays and spurred his actions. He wanted to be better. He wanted to give her the world and to do so he had to try everything in his arsenal. He wanted to make her the happiest girl in the world. He wanted to erase her terrors and her insecurities, things she had done for him. He hugged her again, crushing her to his body. He relished in her scent, the perfume he loved so much and, under that, her distinctive shampoo. He hoped he would never forget her scent.

"It's getting late," she whispered, looking down at her phone. They had sat there for a long while in silence, staring up at the few stars they could see through wispy, fast moving clouds. They had been simply sitting there, basking in each other's company. "We both have to work in the morning, so you should get going..." she trailed off, as if she really wasn't ready to say goodbye to him.

"I know, I don't want to say goodbye either," he murmured into her hair. "Shall we meet tomorrow after work is done?" he asked.

"Please," her cheeks were flushed again. He couldn't see her face, but he could feel the heat of her rushing blood near his arm.

"Alright," he was smiling, she could hear it in his voice. "Come, let's get you inside. There's little need for you to freeze just to see me off." She didn't reply, only nodded.

Itachi stood first, holding his hand out to her. She took it without hesitation and let him lead her up to the door. He snuck one more kiss in before she opened the door. He gave her one last hug before she left him. As she was about to close the door, he smiled at her.

"I love you," he said.

She was caught in surprise again. Her cheeks flamed red and she buried her face in her right hand, the other on the door ready to close it. She was smiling, he could see it.

"I love you, too," she whispered, barely audible. She lifted her red face from her hand to smile at him and shut the door.