Thanks to everyone for their support for this story! It's finally almost to its conclusion; just one more chapter and the epilogue, which will be split into three parts.

So sorry to the people who review who I haven't given a shout out to yet! I feel so bad that I missed you!

loveleslover- thanks for your kind words! Hope this answers your Kisame question!

MukuroLeonheart- holy cow, how did you review three times and not have me respond to you yet? Bad Addi! And in answer to the question you asked literally almost a month ago, a few of the songs Naruto sang are based loosely on "real" songs (the Lion King one very loosely based on the Screen Junkies Honest Trailer of the Lion King and the Aladdin one based on the song "Take Off Your Clothes" from Starkid's Twisted, so I don't own those two) but all the others are from my own imagination.

And just in case you were worried about our lovely couple back at the hospital...

A few days after Kisame stopped coming to work, Itachi stopped getting out of bed in time to meet the temporary nurse who brought him his breakfast every morning. She was a sweet lady, a little older than the Hispanic nurse who had accused him of being possessed by the Devil but much more understanding and better at her job; there was no way Itachi would have been able to manipulate her like he'd manipulated the first nurse. There was only one problem, and that was the fact that she wasn't Kisame.

The mornings, and in fact, the whole day, seemed colder without him. Itachi hadn't realized exactly how much the nurse had helped him - and indeed, how much he meant to him - until he had disappeared abruptly from his life. But then again, wasn't that always the case?

One morning over a week after Kisame's disappearance and the incident with the Hispanic nurse, the door to Itachi's padded white cell opened, but he refused to acknowledge the presence of the nurse who closed the door softly behind them. Let them make something of that, he thought spitefully, keeping his face pressed into the fabric of the pillow as he listened to the footsteps of the nurse as they carried the tray of food to the table.

The nurse's abnormally heavy footsteps.

Too heavy for a woman.

Just as Itachi came to the realization, Kisame's voice resounded through the room, muffled by the padding on the walls.

"And here I thought you'd be more excited to see me again."

Itachi tore out of bed and threw himself in the direction of Kisame's voice. There was a chair and a table in the way, and he crashed into them with a litany of impressive swears, but Kisame laughed and came around the table to pull Itachi into a hug.

Itachi allowed the embrace for a few seconds, reveling in the feeling of being held, before he pushed Kisame away and fixed what he hoped was an angry expression on what he hoped was Kisame's face.

"And where the Hell have you been?"

"Oh, here and there," came the response from somewhere to the left of where Itachi was focusing his angry expression, and he quickly adjusted his aim accordingly. "Something came up that I had to deal with."

Something in his tone alerted Itachi that Kisame wasn't telling him the whole truth. "Like what?" He asked, then added pointedly, "Family emergency?"

Kisame stilled at the words. "How'd you find out about that? I told them not to tell you."

"...I manipulated it out of a nurse stupid enough to let me."

"Itachi!" There was disapproval written in Kisame's tone. "That's only going to hurt your image, you know."

Itachi heaved a sigh. "I know, but she deserved it! She brought me a metal knife and fork, and then she was on her phone, and she didn't even read my case file before coming in here! Honestly, I did her a favor."

"By forcing her to break another rule?"

"No, by scaring her enough that she'll never break another rule again." Itachi crossed his arms over his chest and gave Kisame an expression of defiance.

Kisame responded by running his hand through his hair - a motion discernable to Itachi only through the sound it created - and sighing. Itachi allowed him his silence for a few seconds before pressing his question again.

"So, why were you gone?"

Kisame turned away from Itachi. "I turned in my two week's notice."

"Kisame, stop deflecting the questio- wait, what? You're leaving? When?"

"A week from tomorrow."

"A week from tomorrow?!" Itachi felt a shard of ice slip into his chest. "Why so soon?"

Silence permeated the room as Kisame refused respond, turning the shard of ice in Itachi's chest to a hot flash of anger, and he slammed palm flat against the table, causing the tray of food to jump and clatter.

"Dammit, Kisame, why won't you just tell me?"

That drew a response from him. Mirroring Itachi, Kisame slammed his hands down onto the table and leaned towards Itachi, spraying him with the spittle of his harsh words. "Stop asking, Itachi! You have to understand the position I'm in! I need to disappear; I can't afford to say anything that could allow someone to track me down!"

"Ahh." Itachi allowed a triumphant smile to creep across his face. "So your father's gang found you. Tell me, are they threatening you to come back or offering you asylum?"

A strangled noise escaped Kisame. "Wha…? How did you…?"

"Please; it wasn't that hard. You practically told me yourself." Itachi spread both hands flat against the tabletop and leaned towards Kisame. "You said you needed to disappear, and given what you've already told me about your past, it was only natural to assume your father's gang would be involved. Also, there'd only be two reasons why you'd need to disappear: one, that they want you back and you need to escape from them again, or two, that a rival gang has found you and your father's gang is offering you protection from the rival gang. So, which is it?"

Silence followed Itachi's pronouncement, followed by a shaky sigh and the sound of a chair being scraped across the floor opposite Itachi. "You're too smart for your own good, or mine, for that matter," Kisame said as he sat down across the table. "Alright, I'll tell you, but only if you eat while I do it. Don't think I didn't notice how much weight you've lost in the past week."

"Sold." Itachi immediately pulled the tray towards him and started shoveling food into his mouth without really tasting it. "Alright, I'm eating, so you can start talking now, no?"

Kisame heaved another sigh. "You're very pushy today."

Itachi stabbed his spoon in Kisame's direction. "Are you going to tell me what's going on or try and deflect the question again?"

"No,"Kisame said on a sigh, his voice retreating slightly as he leaned back from the table. "I'll tell you, it's just… unnerving, with the cameras and all."

Dismissing Kisame's concerns with a flap of his hand, Itachi said, "Oh, don't worry about them. They don't record audio anyway."

That gave Kisame pause. "They don't?" He asked cautiously.

"Yeah, they switched me over to a low-resolution security camera with no audio years ago because it was more cost efficient and I had stopped my 'self-destructive behavior' - their words, not mine. The only way we'd be overheard is if they turned the intercom on, and we'd know if they did that."

"Interesting." There was a sound of skin brushing against skin as Kisame passed a hand over his jaw in thought. "You know, for as long as I've worked here, they never told me that."

"It doesn't surprise me. They like to appear as if they have more control than they actually do." Itachi laid his spoon down on the table next to the bowl of whatever he had been eating - when he'd devoted enough brainpower to it, he'd decided it was a bowl of sawdust mixed with mashed cardboard - and steepled his fingers. "Was that deflection number three? Because I'll just keep asking until you tell me."

"No, it wasn't," Kisame defended, drumming his fingers anxiously against the tabletop. "I was just- dammit, it was a deflection. And so was this. Fuck!"

If Itachi was surprised by the sudden curse, he didn't know it. Yes, it was against the rules for nurses to swear in front of patients, but Kisame was under a lot of stress right now and he wouldn't hold it against him. "Just spit it out," he recommended, reaching blindly across the table until he found Kisame's drumming fingers and stilled them with his own. "Let's try this again. Kisame, why didn't you come to work this past week? Did something happen?"

"My father's gang found me!" Kisame exploded, and then the whole story poured out of him almost on one breath. "They've known where I was for a long time, but they let me alone because my father respected my decision. But my father was just recently killed by an assassin from a rival gang, and now they want me back to take his place. They're not exactly threatening me, but they've made it clear that I can't refuse their offer because now that they've contacted me, the rival gang also knows where I am and I'll be next on their hit list." All the energy drained from, Kisame allowed his head to collapse on the table, on top of Itachi's hand holding onto his own. "I don't know what to do, Itachi. I don't want to go back… but I don't have a choice anymore."

"There, there." Itachi awkwardly patted Kisame on the head with his unoccupied hand. "You'll make it through." He didn't know how, but Kisame had been dealing with this his whole life. He could do it.

"I know I will," Kisame muttered into the table, the words muffled by the wood and Itachi's hand. "That's not what's bothering me."

"Then what is?" Itachi asked gently, stroking his fingers soothingly through Kisame's hair.

Kisame sat back upright, dislodging Itachi's hand from his head and reaching forward to cup his cheek with his hand. "I made you a promise," he said quietly, his thumb brushing across Itachi's cheekbone and almost touching the bottom of the bandage that covered his eyes. "And if I leave, I can't keep that promise."

Itachi felt the tempo of his heartbeat suddenly quicken, but he quickly pushed the feelings it evoked back down. "That's alright, Kisame; you've got to take care of your own problems first-"

"No! You don't get it!" Kisame interrupted him loudly, shocking Itachi into silence. "I swore that I would get you out of here, Itachi; I gave my word you would be a free man, and you would be free by my hand. How can I 'take care my own problems', as you so put it, knowing that I left someone I care about, someone who deserves to be free, trapped in a hellhole like this?"

"Kisame-"

But Kisame cut Itachi off as soon as he tried to speak again. "I can't, Itachi, and that's the truth of it. But I can't stay either…"

"Then take me with you."

The words were so shocking, even to Itachi himself, that they seemed to freeze the air within the room and the humans resting inside it into a single solid mass. It was so foreign a concept, so alien, that he almost wanted to take back the words hanging in the frozen air.

"Wh-what?" Kisame gasped, and Itachi squared his shoulders. No, once those words had been said, there was no turning back.

"Take me with you," he repeated, grasping onto both of Kisame's hands with his own. "We both know my father will never let me out of here, no matter how hard you fight against him, and since he forged records of my death years ago, I would never be able to get the assistance I need for my disability anywhere but with someone who knew my situation or a place like here. It would be the only way." A sudden thought struck him, causing his cheekbones to flame, and he dropped Kisame's hands and turned his face to the side. "Unless you don't want me with you. I would understand; I'd be a huge burden-"

"You wouldn't be a burden at all!" Kisame cried, grabbing Itachi's hand back in his own. "I just… You know that I'd have to exist outside the law, right? I could never ask that of you. With all you've been through, you deserve a better life."

Trembling, Itachi leaned towards Kisame. "Kisame, just being outside at all would be a dream come true! I wouldn't care where I was or how I was living if I could feel the sun's rays, and the rain, and air that doesn't smell of chemicals… I would be happy. Besides," he added, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly, "I'm legally dead already. How much worse could my life get?"

"Y-you really mean it?" There was a tremor in Kisame's voice. "You'd really come with me, to live a life like the one I'll have to lead?"

"In a heartbeat."

"Itachi," Kisame gasped out, grasping onto Itachi's hands even harder. "You don't know what you're saying; you can't-"

"I know," Itachi assured him, squeezing Kisame's hands tighter in return. "I'd do anything if it meant I could live outside here… and with you."

"Oh, Itachi," Kisame almost moaned. Itachi heard him leaning forward and followed suit, his heart pounding, moving closer; any second now and they would collide-

But a half second before their lips could meet, the intercom on the wall crackled to life and they jumped apart.

"Kisame, the patient's heart rate is abnormally high. Are you experiencing any issues? Would you like a sedative-"

"No," Kisame interrupted after clearing his throat. "No sedatives. Everything is under control."

"Are you sure?" The voice asked dubiously. "He's been without much contact for a week. You don't know if that's done something to him."

"He's fine," Kisame repeated. "He's emotional, not violent. It's good for patients to have a catharsis once in awhile."

To back up his claim, Itachi let out a little sniffle, just loud enough for it to be audible on the other side of the intercom. It must have satisfied the person on the other end of the line, because the intercom omitted a "Roger," crackled one more time, and fell silent.

"That was close," Kisame said with a sigh, leaning back.

Itachi couldn't help the pang of disappointment that shot through him, but he shook his head and ignored it. "I'm sorry; that was my fault. I forgot they had the heart rate monitor on me."

"No, it wasn't your fault," Kisame quickly assured him. "I'd forgotten too."

"We'll have to be more careful from now on," Itachi hedged, "if we're going to plan a break out."

Kisame stilled. "Are you serious about it?"

"Are you?"

After a few seconds, there was the sound of rustling as Kisame nodded. "Yes. Yes, I am."

"Good." Itachi allowed his joy to show in the curling of the corners of his upper lip. "Because we're going to need a very precise plan to pull it off. Any ideas?"