DISCLAIMER: All Naruto characters belong to Kishimoto

Author's Note: What's up, everyone? It's about one-ish in the morning in my side of the world, but I couldn't sleep so you're all getting a fic update.

Also, this particular oneshot is not quite like the two previous chapters. So, a quick warning: ANGST. So much angst. Brace yourselves. If this type of story is not your cup of coffee (or tea if you don't drink coffee), then I don't particularly recommend this chapter.

If you do decide to continue, happy reading!

Non-mass.

Chapter 3:

Tadaima

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Do you want to kill him? Because if you keep pushing that much chakra, he's going to end up dead and trust me that if that happens, I'll make sure that you go six feet under the ground as well."

"Go–gomen, Haruno-san!" Eager to avoid another verbal assault, the flustered medic immediately decreased the amount of chakra she was using.

Knitting her brows together in concentration, Sakura knew that she was being unnecessarily harsh with her words. She was supposed to be composed because when everyone else fell like puppets with their strings snipped away, medics were the ones with the ability to help the team survive.

But Sakura would have rather been in the middle of an ambush right now. An ambush where the odds would seem hopeless and she would be forced to perform a rapid healing on the forest floor. A situation wherein she would be dodging kunais while attempting to save her injured comrades.

Because where Sakura was now, she hated it, every minute of it. She hated standing in the operating room of the Konoha Hospital with her arms and shirt splattered in blood. She had long since grown accustomed to the sterile air that smelled of alcohol and multiple other antiseptics, but at this moment, she wanted to gag. The once familiar white walls of the operating room were blinding and she wanted to close her eyes. Most of all, Sakura wanted to scream.

She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. She wanted to scream at the medics who seemed to have suddenly become idiots when they were needed the most. She wanted to scream at Shizune to find an antidote quicker. She wanted to scream at Tsunade-shishou to save the man in front of them faster and better because wasn't she supposed to be the greatest healer in all of the shinobi nations?

Damn it. Damn it all.

Sakura had long since accepted that she couldn't save everyone. That wasn't to say that she had forgotten the faces of the people that had died under her care. She held a special space in her heart for those dead people; a place that Sasuke and Naruto had repeatedly told her to destroy because remembering that many sad memories was bound to break her heart someday.

But nonetheless, she remembered them and continued to save the people she actually could. For the promise that she could always save the people she loved, she would keep on healing despite the pile of dead names in her heart.

And kami-sama, she had found someone to love over these past two years. Someone she loved more than a brother as she did for her teammates or as a father as she did for Kakashi. Someone to love because her heart ached beautifully for him.

And Uchiha Itachi loved her back as dearly as the night sky loved the stars.

As he lay on the operating table in front of her, Sakura wanted to scream at Itachi to survive. Because damn it, she needed him. Because the stars could be as beautiful as a thousand diamonds, but without a sky to embrace them, they were nothing but lonely, broken pieces of the universe.

"Don't do this to me, Itachi," she murmured as she was forced to shift her attention to the reopened wound on his abdomen. "If not for me, think of your family. Sasuke would be incredibly lonely without his pain in the ass aniki." She tried to force her words to become more lighthearted but with the tears threatening to spill, her voice faltered. Itachi, who had been forced by her shishou to remain awake with his eyes open, tried to convey some sort of emotion to Sakura. But all Sakura could see in his eyes were pain and waning life.

"Concentrate, Sakura!"

Tsunade-shishou's booming command allowed Sakura to blink the tears back and focus on healing.

She apologized to her shishou for allowing her emotions to overcome her even for a brief moment.

Looking Itachi in the eye one last time, Sakura steeled her resolve. Itachi's left eye twitched minutely the same time Tsunade-shishou cursed, but Sakura ignored them as she focused on her work.

Uchiha Itachi would live. Sakura had to believe that much.

"Eh?" Sakura asked incredulously.

"I said that I would like to court you," Itachi repeated.

"But–but Sasuke-kun's your brother!"

Itachi gave her a pointed look. "I fail to see how that has anything to do with the relationship I am trying to begin with you."

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and snorted. "Tch. Sasuke-kun would probably beat your ass up if he found out you're trying to get into his teammate's pants."

A smirk played on Itachi's face. "I am asking permission to court you, Sakura-san. I am not asking for a one-night affair. Quite the opposite actually."

A patch of red stained Sakura's cheeks and she shifted her gaze to the ground.

"And as for Sasuke, I would like to see the day that my foolish otouto, as you've so stated, would 'beat my ass up.'"

Just a little bit, Sakura thought she could get used to that overly confident tone.

With his head on resting on her lap while they sat under a giant oak tree in one of the training grounds, Sakura thought that she wouldn't mind staying in this moment forever.

It was that time of the year where winter was about to kiss spring, and the flowers were beginning to blossom.

The soft breeze tousled her hair and she had to tuck it back behind her ear. The sound of Itachi's quiet breathing as he slept brought a smile to Sakura's face. As she moved a stray strand of Itachi's hair from his face, she had the pleasure of watching his nose twitch adorably like a kitten.

Sakura swallowed the dango in her mouth and scrunched up her face in contemplation. "Hmm," she said. "This is all hypothetical, correct?" she asked. When he nodded, she proceeded, "I'm not sure I'd be suited to be a matriarch."

Itachi raised a brow as an indication for her to explain.

She put the stick of her remaining dango back on the paper tray before continuing. "It's not necessarily that the responsibilities would be difficult because if I really needed to, I'm pretty sure I can handle them." She paused as she tried to think of a way to properly convey her thoughts. "The problem is that I don't think I can be a matriarch to the Uchiha clan. Your clan is very specific and restricting of what it requires of people who marry into it. I'm not even sure I'd like to raise my future children in it," she admitted.

When Itachi did not immediately reply, she thought that she might have angered him. After all, she just criticized his entire clan. Instead, he surprised her with his response.

"Hypothetically, if I were to ask you to marry me, you would likely refuse due to my position in the clan?" he clarified.

Confused, she nodded once.

"So if I were to promise to renounce my position as heir to my clan when we wed, will you marry me then, Haruno Sakura?"

And under the cover of a small dango shop, Haruno Sakura found herself engaged.

"Shizune!" Tsunade yelled out. "I need that antidote now!"

Back in the frenzy of the operating room, Sakura hissed when she heard that the antidote was nowhere near complete.

Uchiha Itachi had been carried to the hospital by one of the shinobi guarding the village gates. He had returned from his solo mission with death trailing behind him.

Aside from the concoction of poisons spreading through his bloodstream while threatening to instantaneously stop his heart, a series of deep gash wounds adorned his skin and damaged some of his vital organs. The possible head trauma he sustained was the least of the medics' worries.

Itachi was one of the greatest shinobi in Konohagakure. He was a legend come to life. Whoever did this to him was probably someone short of a monster, if not already one.

Outside the doors of the operating room, Sakura could feel the chakra signatures of several people. Uchiha Mikoto was emanating a presence of absolute worry for her eldest son and even the stern Fugaku seemed to be in a state of unease.

Sasuke was the worse. His chakra was fluctuating in angry spikes and it felt almost as if it was pressing against the doors, daring to strangle the people who would not be able to help his aniki. Sakura wanted to yell at him to leave because she didn't want him to watch her flail to save the person they both loved.

"Damn it," Tsunade muttered.

When the older woman cursed a second time, Sakura dared to glance up and all the color drained from her face.

Beneath her shishou's hands, Itachi's heart was beginning to slow down. Too slow.

Sakura turned desperately to Shizune, hoping she'd have the antidote ready but alas, there was still none.

Alarmed, Sakura frantically met Itachi's eyes and she immediately wished she had not. Because beneath the pain and the waning life that she had originally seen, another emotion was evident in Itachi's eyes – resignation.

Time seemed to have slowed, and though his voice was weak and the sudden beeping of machines filled the room all around, Sakura watched Itachi's lips move to form a lone word.

"Tadaima."

Everything went on overdrive.

Itachi's heart stopped beating. His chakra signature disappeared. The machines all flatlined.

When Tsunade-shishou stopped and moved her hands away to call the time of death, Sakura's hands immediately moved into action.

She pushed the older woman away and started pumping chakra into Itachi's heart, hoping that the sudden influx of healing chakra would force his heart to restart.

She didn't know how long she stood there with her hand's attempting to heal a dead man. But the next thing she knew, her shishou was pulling her away. She fought against Tsunade's hold but could not escape. Sakura fell to the ground just in time to watch Sasuke and his parents burst through the operating room.

Uchiha Mikoto covered her mouth with a hand as tears streamed down her cheeks and Uchiha Fugaku walked out of the room just as quickly.

Sasuke…he had a look of horror in his eyes. A cacophony of emotions that was jarring and unpleasant. He stood frozen at the door until, like Sakura, he fell to the floor as well.

Sakura screamed. She finally screamed except it was too late now. But she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Sasuke and Naruto had been wrong. The names of dead people she barely knew wouldn't be the ones to break her heart. No. It was the name of one dead man that shattered her heart into a million unfixable pieces.

Author's Note: So...everyone okay? Take a moment to take a deep breath in and then out.

All right, so, the lovely thing about a compilation of oneshots is that a character can be dead in this chapter and then alive in the next. Unless the next chapter is also angst and, well, you could very well end up reading a character die all over again.

Anyways, thank you to everyone who's been leaving reviews (definitely keeps the writing going a lot more). And thank you to everyone who's been hitting that follow/favorite button – I very much appreciate it!

I would also just like to let you all know that writing angst does come easier to me. I find that when I write fluff and rainbows and unicorns, it's never as, for a lack of a better term, natural as writing drama-filled and angst-filled. Notwithstanding, no guarantees, but...would you all like another drama-sesh for the next chapter or something more fluff and happy and cute?