Author's note/ Hello lovelies! Just wanted to pop in here before Ch17 picks up. Ch17 and ch18 are essentially 1 whole chapter that i split in half. Ch17 is part 1. I would like to clarify some things, i know some commenters have told me they are confused. *Spoiler in parentheses* so if you do not want to know scroll on down. The reason i have left what is happening with Sakura ambiguous and not explicitly stated is because Sasuke himself has no idea if they were visions, a ghost or if he really was seeing her in heaven as an angel. Spoiler here (Sakura is dead. Sasori did kill her in the chapter with her PoV. Ch16 was in fact Sasuke seeing her in heaven.) End of spoiler. Now as far as the other instances he thinks he saw her i won't be discussing that quite yet. Sasuke believes he has lost his mind, and if you've been paying attention i've shown you that. Big difference between the moment he saw Sakura crawl out of the closet and when he pretended Ino was Sakura when he got the shots. One was a hallucination the other my lips are sealed on for the moment. I can't give up all the answers or the story would be dreadfully boring from here on out. Well if there's any other questions i will be glad to address them and clear them up in the comments. Now buckle up. This chapter Sasuke is on his grippy sock vacay, and it is alot. He's unhinged and i love it. All though i tried to sprinkle in some funny bits, because i don't want to depress you guys to terribly. Sasuke's going to be battling the fragile grip he still has on his sanity, and he has lots of work ahead of him. Sasuke loses his ever flipping mind by the second Tuesday in part 2. I always felt that his mental breakdown in the series didn't really do it for me, instead of angry crazy Sasuke i give to you loony crazy Sasuke. Now without further ado i present to you Ch17 or what i named 'Electric Avenue' pt1 with pt2 to follow sometime this week. Also i don't currently have a beta right now, but i have a friend who looked this particular ch pt1 and 2 over before i posted and she said she cackled throughout it at the thought of Sasuke grooving to the tune. Electric avenue- Eddy Grant. Give yourselves a giggle people.

Chapter 17.

Electric Avenue pt1

Setting: Konoha Psych ward

The Second Monday

"Don't you hear it?"

The clicking or the chirping sound, it was still around. He didn't know where it was coming from. It was driving him crazy. Crazier.

Click click click click click click cl-i-ck Chh-iiiiii-rppp.

At first Sasuke didn't catch the steady beat with which the clicking matched. A week into his stay at the psych department, Naruto had turned on the radio and now Sasuke couldn't unhear it. The chirping matched perfectly to the song on the radio.

Now when the sound came Sasuke couldn't help but to sing along.

"Oh we gonna rock down to electric avenue." Sasuke snapped his fingers in rhythm hoping for the 10th time his best friend would hear it.

Naruto still didn't seem to hear it, he looked at Sasuke kindly, but also with a tight smile that in this place Sasuke had learned meant 'Nutjob'. Sasuke couldn't find it in him to disagree with him. He felt his sanity slowly but surely slipping more with each passing day.

It was Monday again. Sasuke had been a patient for a week now.

'God.' Sasuke thought to himself pulling the blankets over himself to escape Naruto's worried gaze. 'This place- they'll never let me out of here. I'm off the deep end.'

The First Monday

"You want me to-" Sasuke couldn't even voice the rest of his question to Ino. He picked up the plastic cup like one might a dead animal.

"Pee. In this cup." Ino didn't look up from her chart. She scribbled away furiously barely acknowledging his presence.

"I don't think so." Sasuke deadpanned, dropping the cup back on the counter towards her.

Ino's pen paused, and she looked up briefly with a frown for him.

"Well if you're sure. It's been awhile since i put a catheter in someone, but i'm sure you won't mind if it takes me a few tries." She tilted her head thoughtfully.

Sasuke's face must have betrayed the horror he suddenly felt festering inside him at her threat. Ino pushed the cup back across the counter with the tip of her pen.

Sasuke grabbed the cup without another word.

He really shouldn't try to push his luck. After all no one had restrained him with a straight jacket...yet.

...

Ino took him on a tour of the Psychiatric facility after that. Once he was properly admitted he got the absolute joy of being issued sunset- yellow hospital scrubs complete with a robe and matching grippy socks. At least they weren't itchy.

The walls of every area they entered are white and plain. No signs, but there were windows that Sasuke suspected were probably sealed shut. To stop the suicidal ones from trying to jump out, the thought made his skin crawl. Unlike the other parts of the hospital he's seen, the psychiatric unit had taken every effort to make it seem appealing and comfortable. The clinically clean and sterilized rooms, the cheery colors the patients wore, every bit of it was designed to evoke a sense of happiness.

There was a rec room for the patients to socialize, but Sasuke didn't bother to listen when Ino listed the activities. He didn't plan to socialize with the other patients.

Sasuke was taken to his room. Ino told him he has to attend the group therapy session they have in the evenings. 1 on 1 sessions with councilors were optional. For now. His meals would be brought to him, and everything he did would be monitored. He knew he wouldn't be left on his own often. Privacy became a luxury.

Sasuke inspected his room. It was small. Only enough space for the bed, a table, and for some odd reason a broom in the corner that's gathered cobwebs.

It was unnerving in this place. Sasuke knew he needed it though. His sanity had slipped, he didn't want to go back to what he was before. He didn't want the grief he felt for Sakura to consume him the way it did when his family died. The thing was Sasuke wasn't so sure he ever recovered from his first bout of mental instability, he thought he had, but perhaps the whole time it was still there festering. Lying dormant until it could rear it's ugly head once more.

Yes. Sasuke thought to himself. He'd been insane for years, and only now was he able to admit it.

He wanted to get better. To move on. To find peace. If being in the nuthouse couldn't fix him, he didn't know what would.

"Naruto, told me you aren't sleeping." Ino told him.

"Naruto should mind his own business." Sasuke's knee jerk reaction came out. He's still miffed with Naruto. Deception he expected from Kakashi but from Naruto it hurt more than he'd like to admit.

"We just want to help, you." Ino fidgeted at the door. "I heard what you said, about Sakura. You think she's still alive?"

Sasuke ignored her, but he did want to clarify he didn't think that any longer.

Ino's lips pursed. She flipped her ponytail back, and she's about to unload whatever's been on the tip of her tongue since they walked in here.

"I saw her. When Lee, and his team came back with Naruto. Naruto was in and out of consciousness, it was bad. Everyone was focused on him, because it only took us medics one look at Sakura's body to know there was nothing to be done for her."

Sasuke flinched, but Ino treaded on.

"She was cold. There was nothing left in her. I held her hand, i felt for a pulse, there was nothing." She said.

"Look-"

"No! You look, Sasuke. You need help. Sakura is dead and she isn't ever coming back. None of us can change that. The only thing you can do is honor her memory. How do you think she would feel to see you like this?"

"I know." Sasuke exhaled. "That's why i'm here to get help. Just do what you have to, and i'll be fine."

"No you won't. Don't you get that yet? None of us is fine. We never will be again. This place isn't a cure. It's to help people manage what they've been through. Your expectations need to change. I get the feeling you think this might take a few weeks at the most? Until you're all better?"

He nodded dumbly.

"Yeah. This is a rest of your life kind of thing Sasuke. Grief is like a scab. It heals up nice enough, but even when it scars over every once in awhile it's prone to bust back open when you least expect it."

Ino scooted a paper cup across the table. Sasuke didn't have to look to know it was pills. Probably for his nerves or some kind of tranquilizers to keep him calm. He wondered if they'll give him sleeping pills to take that night, or if they'll just sneak them into his food.

"These will be here for whenever you're ready. Just know i won't be letting you leave this room until you've taken them. I refuse to let you continue on like this, we already lost her and we won't lose you to." She turned. "I'll be right across the hall, i've taken an office there."

"You work the psych ward?" He had guessed Ino was only showing him around for the benefit of familiarity for him.

She eyed him up and down. "I guess i do. Now."

Then Ino slammed the door shut. Sasuke was alone.

He heard the clicking, chirping noise from before. But he still couldn't locate it. He tossed his sheets from his bed, moved the table around, it sounded so close. After awhile he gave up, believing he must have made the sound up. He swallowed his pills and waited for the day to progress.

...

"Would you like to talk about why you left Konoha?"

"How is this supposed to help?" Sasuke ground out through his teeth.

"Sasuke, you've been diagnosed with PTSD, an anxiety disorder, mild depression, and schizophrenia. It seems to me that point in your life when you left the village was well, a turning point. Group therapy has been very helpful for many of our patients. Talking about your experiences and feelings with others isn't half as horrible as you have it built up to be. You're always welcome to do a session with a councilor alone if you would prefer a more private setting." Shizune told him.

Like hell, Sasuke thought. The group sessions were mandatory. He did not have to subject himself to anything more than that.

Sasuke chewed his lip. He remembered Shizune or more he remembered hearing of her, he'd never met her in person before becoming a psych patient. There was a ninja from the sound who used to talk about her constantly.

The click. Chirp.

"Did you hear that?" Sasuke asked looking around the circle right to left. By his estimation there were 5 people in the room other than himself.

"No." Shizune said in answer for everyone. "Now let's get back to our chat."

Sasuke briefly wondered if he'd imagined the noise again, but he allowed her to steer him away from the distraction.

"What am i supposed to say?"

Sasuke pinched the bridge at his nose. There wasn't any point to fight the demands they make of him. He won't be allowed to leave until he checks off whatever boxes they have that signal his sanity has returned. It's all part of the process, but it feels like his fingernails actually split at the thought of telling strangers how he feels.

"Tell us your happiest memory from the last year." Happy memory? Does she even realize who's she's talking to, Sasuke wondered?

Sasuke snorted. Shizune could tell it's something she said.

"The happiest memory in the last 3 years then?" She asked helpfully.

Sasuke chuckled a bit.

"The last 5 years?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

Sasuke busted out laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach.

"Any kind of happy memory, at all?" She looked like she might be about to call the guards.

Sasuke straightened himself back out with a final chortle. Before he even realized he's done it, his hands were behind his head supporting it in the same fashion Naruto did.

"You wanna define happy?"

"Define...happy?" The woman looked entirely confused.

"Look i've got alot of memories but not really any i would call happy."

If she hadn't already been terrified of him, she might be now. Her clipboard was across her chest as if in some kind of protective stance.

"Okay. Well how would you categorize some of those memories?"

Sasuke paused and thought for a moment.

"Content." When his family was still alive and whole.

"Alone." After Itachi killed them all and ruined their family.

"Angry." For all years, he pursued his brother.

"So the memories you have are all either content, lonely or angry?"

Sasuke idly thought they actually perfectly described his personality, but refrained from saying it because he really wanted her to stop looking at him like he strangled her cat.

"Nothing else? There's no other way you describe your memories?"

"No, guess not."

"I suppose content might be your happy?" She nodded to herself, scribbling something down. "When you think of being content, what do you think of?"

"Pink."

"Pink?" Shizune looked at him knowingly.

"Yeah. Pink, is my content, my happy or whatever."

'Pink' for his time spent as a genin. For the time in his life when cotton candy colored hair plagued his every thought.

"Well that's a start, thank you for sharing that Sasuke."

...

Naruto came before visiting hours are over. They didn't address the tension between them from the spat in the hokage's office. Naruto told him he's proud of him for asking for help. He told him it was the right thing to do. Sasuke asked him to reach out to Karin on his behalf. She was probably beyond pissed at this point. Naruto said he will. Sasuke heard the noise again before he left. Naruto doesn't hear it. Sasuke decided he's exactly where he should be, locked up with all the other crazies.

The First Tuesday

Crash!

"Rise and shine!" Ino Yamanaka was the last person he wanted to see this early. He never even liked to eat breakfast.

Sasuke pressed his pillow over his face hoping idly he might suffocate. As Ino continued to crash the metal table around the room he groaned into the pillow in dismay.

"I'm not hungry." He told her.

In response a bucket of icy water poured down his back soaking his bed and sheets.

"Don't kill her," he said to himself, "Think of how disappointed Kakashi will be."

Sasuke slowly sat himself up, and pulled the shirt sticking to his skin off and let it hit the floor with a wet thud. He glared at Ino the entire time.

"Oh look you're awake." Ino said feigning sweetness. "Just in time i brought your breakfast."

...

Breakfast wasn't all she brought.

"Ow-" Deep-breath he reminded himself. "Ow, fuck that hurts Ino." Sasuke jerked his hand back from her.

"Such a baby. I haven't even stuck you yet! You can take a rasengan without so much as a peep, but needles really freak you out this badly?" Ino spoke in an exasperated breath like she was talking to a child. "Just let me get this IV going, you're still way more dehydrated than i'd like."

"Your bedside manner is for shit."

Her eyes rolled.

Sasuke reminded himself over and over she's Ino. He refused to allow himself to picture anyone but who she is. He wanted this to work. He wanted to get better.

...

"If anyone laughs i will stab them in the throat." Sasuke declared pre emptively.

Another patient tripped over his IV line and, as it became disconnected the tube spilled across his hospital getup making it look like he'd wet himself.

Sasuke had not wanted to sit in the rec room with all the other patients but Ino had insisted. She dragged him quite literally by the metal pole connected to his hand.

Ino hid her face behind her clipboard. Shikamaru looked away just before Sasuke could catch his eye, but he swore there was a smirk. He didn't know why exactly, Shikamaru is there but he didn't question it. He wondered if Shikamaru might have a crush on Ino, he's always following her and doing her bidding.

Naruto who had faithfully come to visit sat to his side, and managed to restrain himself from laughing. He scrounged up some paper towels for Sasuke, and as he wiped up the mess, Ino started messing with the IV equipment to set it back up.

"Don't worry, this hospital is the best around." The only one around Sasuke wanted to correct. Naruto's reassurance was less than however because his eyes darted back and fourth reminding Sasuke of a trapped animal. Naruto was more on edge than Sasuke even though he wasn't the patient. Naruto couldn't stop fidgeting. His eyes were frequently watching, Ino, who clearly scarred the both of them for life when she trapped them that day. "Only the best for the Hokage's students right?"

"Oh yeah, for sure. One of us will be saddled with the responsibility of leading the entire village. One of us is dead. And i'm on what is still an undetermined amount of time in the Psych department." Sasuke nodded, and flexed his ugly yellow socked feet. "Only the best for the Hokage's students."

Tsunade had forbidden Kakashi from visiting him in the hospital because 'How would that look?' There was still alot of unresolved stuff between him and Kakashi, but it would have to wait until Sasuke was more stable.

Even though it's mostly a morose statement Shikamaru cracked a smile.

"Did you just make a joke?" Naruto blinked in surprise and reverence.

Later when it was just Shikamaru and Sasuke for a few moments he apologized for his stunt in the Hokage's office. Shikamaru didn't look to have heard or just didn't care to respond. Sasuke decided he probably had squandered any chance of making peace with Naruto's friend.

...

Click click click click click click cl-i-ck Chh-iiiiii-rppp.

The sound droned on during group therapy that evening.

"I'm not crazy."

"You've admitted to hallucinating your dead teammate on more than one occasion. You don't find that a bit.. unstable?"

"About the noise. I'm not crazy about the noise!" Sasuke's cheeks burned.

"Hmmm." Shizune told him.

"Okay I'm crazy." Sasuke challenged. "I'm imagining the noise."

The clicking noise was starting to give him a headache.

"Oh so were you lying now or to begin with?" She clicked her pen. "Let's get to the bottom of where you're lying all began. What was the earliest lie you ever told?"

Sasuke slammed his head onto the table.

He might actually be here forever. He still needed to take care of Sasori. He was entirely frustrated.

The First Wednesday

Crash!

Ino waltzed into the room with his breakfast and practically pile drove the table into the wall. Sasuke moaned. He barely slept. If they were drugging his dinner with sleeping pills, the dosage was off.

...

"I- um, broke this. Sorry..." Sasuke trailed off, Ino sighed.

Sasuke laid the stethoscope down in front of her.

"I um, thought your intern was trying to give me another shot."

"You probably scared her half to death which way did she go?" Ino fretted over the mangled equipment, and rose from her office chair. "I swear, Sasuke if she quits i'll hold you responsible and when you get discharged i'll make you work as my lackey in her place." She threatened.

He pointed her in the way he's pretty sure she needed to go, then Sasuke marveled at his sudden awareness that Ino Yamanaka was growing on him.

...

"Does anyone else hear that fucking clicking sound?"

...

Naruto came to visit while he was pretending to nap. Sasuke pretended not to hear him as Naruto broke down and sobbed at his bedside. Sasuke pretended it didn't make his stomach roll to know at least in part some of his friends misery was his own fault. Sasuke destroyed their team. With even one choice made differently their team might still be intact. Maybe Sakura would still be alive, maybe Sasuke wouldn't be crazy. Maybe Naruto wouldn't have to mourn what could have been.

...

Group therapy sucked that night.

They made them partner up, and do trust falls with each other. Sasuke considered letting his partner hit the floor, but decided against it when he realized that was probably not the thought of a mentally healthy person.

That clicking sound was going to drive him insane if he didn't figure out where it was coming from. So later Sasuke picked the lock to Ino's office door, and was rifling through her drawers looking for keys to some of the locked rooms. He would turn this place upside down if he had to.

The noise was real. Maybe Sakura hadn't been but the noise was. He couldn't be that crazy could he?

"You aren't trying to leave are you?" A deceptively calm voice asked from the now open door.

Oh shit.

"Oh, hey." Sasuke fumbled with the keys in his hand. "I thought you already headed home for the night.."

Sasuke shivered at the sight of Ino Yamanaka as she stalked toward him.

"So you were trying to sneak out." Ino eyed the keys in his hand.

"No. No. I wasn't i swear." Ino was pretty scary Sasuke had come to realize. "There's this clicking sound somewhere, and the doors are all locked and-"

Ino's eyes narrowed, and she held a hand out for the keys.

The First Thursday

"Rise and shine!"

Sasuke cracked open one eye apprehensively. Waiting for the crashing of the metal table. Then he smiled and rubbed his face deeper into his pillow when he remembered he tossed it out of a window he managed to pry open yesterday.

"Hey where did the table go?" Ino asked.

...

"Sasuke Uchiha, if you don't stop breaking my medical equipment i am going to pulverize you!"

She obviously discovered the remnants of the table from his room.

Sasuke almost choked on his water when he heard Ino scream at him across the hall.

Slam! Her door banged shut. Sasuke made sure to avoid her the rest of the day.

...

"What the actual hell is this?" Sasuke said aloud. He picked up the shiny object and cringed when it broke in his hand. "Oops."

Sasuke threw the remnants of it under his bed, to hide it from Ino for as long as possible.

...

"I was thinking-"

"Must be painful for you." Naruto had come for another visit, and they were both lounging around his room staring out the window, at hokage mountain. Sasuke wondered if Naruto was thinking of the same memory he was, but refrained from asking.

"Hardy har har." The blonde snorted. "I was thinking you should live in Sakura's apartment."

"I'm in a literal nut house. To protect myself and others in case i become dangerous. Again. And you think they're going to let me buy realty?"

Sasuke had every intention of addressing the matter with Kakashi before, but his breakdown might have dashed the hope of buying Sakura's apartment.

"Well not now- but like later after all this. When you're all better." Naruto gave a half smile. "You could stay here in the village. Leave the sound village to someone else. You don't have to go back there after we deal with Sasori."

Sasuke sighed. "If."

"If?"

"If i get better."

The clicking noise by that point was no longer a slight annoyance, it was a huge one. It was going on practically the entire day. His nerves were shredded, and he was on edge. Sasuke was mostly furious at the fact he couldn't determine it's source, and the fact that he seemed to be the only one able to hear it.

Shizune asked again in group why he left Konoha and Sasuke avoided it. She told him he had to confront the past in order to move on. Shizune encouraged him to talk to Naruto about still being mad at him so he could let go of his anger.

The only positive thing Sasuke could think of, when he wen to sleep that night, was that since he had been admitted, he hadn't seen Sakura once. He hadn't hallucinated her.

That was good. That was healthy.