Hey guys, I'm back with the second part of the epilogue, bringing conclusion to another character in our story! Stay tuned tomorrow for the third and last part of the Spectral Eyes epilogue!

Addi out!

Oh, and I don't know if I'm supposed to put this as a warning, but someone says the word suicide near the end, so if that bothers you, just skip the last paragraph. I made it easy for you to notice; it's the only paragraph in ALL CAPS!

Happy reading, everyone! Addi out for realsies this time

Itachi's Epilogue

Sasuke clutched the guest pass in his sweaty hand hard enough to leave a mark as he looked at the door marked "Room 14, Itachi", unable to convince his body to move any further towards the doorknob. He'd been planning this for weeks: he'd told Fugaku his idea, gotten him to give Sasuke the pass and let him to go alone, rehearsed over and over what he was going to say, but now that the moment had come, Sasuke found himself hesitating. He'd avoided seeing his brother for eight years now; wasn't it a case, of too little, too late? After eight years, would a little longer really matter?

Without his direct bidding, Sasuke's feet took a step backwards, then another, then another. Yes, his mind decided, it would be best to put this off until tomorrow, or even the next day, or perhaps next week, or maybe when I come home from college for Christmas vacation-

All of a sudden, there was a clattering sound behind Sasuke as he collided with something solid.

"Oh, sorry, perdón, perdón!" a young female said from behind Sasuke in broken English. "I did not see you there!"

"No, it's my fault," Sasuke said automatically as he turned to see a Hispanic nurse in her early twenties picking of dirty plastic plates from the floor. "Here, let me help."

"No, no, I am fine," the nurse tried to protest, but Sasuke had already shoved the guest pass into his jacket pocket and knelt down next to her, gathering up the handful of plastic silverware that had scattered across the hallway floor.

"It was my fault. I insist."

"Sí, if you want to…" the nurse said dubiously, watching Sasuke reach for a plastic knife that had skittered away. When Sasuke had gathered all of the silverware, he stood up and she followed suit, suspicion still in her gaze.

"I do not recognize you," she said abruptly as Sasuke deposited the silverware on the stack of plates in her hands. "Are you a new worker here, tal vez?"

"Oh, no." Sasuke pulled the guest pass out of his pocket and held it up for her inspection. "I'm just visiting someone."

Relief flooded through the Hispanic nurse's face. "Sí, visiting," she said with a reassured smile. "You'll have to forgive my rudeness. We can never be too careful when it comes to security in a place like this."

Nodding and hoping the nurse, satisfied in her curiousity, would now leave him alone, Sasuke pushed the guest pass back into his jacket pocket and started walking down the hallway. "It's no problem. I understand."

Luck was not on his side, however, and the nurse practically skipped along beside him, hugging the dirty plates close to her chest. "So, you are visiting someone in your family? A parent? Sister? Brother, tal vez?"

A sense of guilt swamped through Sasuke's stomach. "Actually… I think I'm just going to leave. I don't know if I can face him."

"Qué? Leave? Without a visit?" The nurse turned a reproachful look on Sasuke. "Why? Do you no longer want to see who you have come here to see?"

"No…" Sasuke stopped walking suddenly, his mind buzzing with arguments and counterarguments. "I do want to see him…"

"Then what? Are you afraid?"

The accusation, though it was voiced in a kindly tone, made Sasuke flinch, and he looked away from the nurse, ashamed and unable to speak.

"Ah, el niño," the nurse said gently, and Sasuke had the feeling that she would have been patting his head if her hands weren't full of dirty dishes. "You are here to see someone you care about, and they are also waiting to see you. But think about, if you are scared to see them, how much more scared they must be to see you! Don't you owe it to whoever you are here to see to conquer your own fear to show them that they, in turn, have nothing to fear? How can they heal if the very people they rely on most believe they are broken beyond repair?"

Each word the nurse uttered was like the impact of a gunshot to Sasuke's eight-years guilty conscious. He flinched, gripping the pass in his pocket so hard, the edges of the plastic card bit painfully into the soft flesh of his palms.

"That pass you have is a blessing not given most families of patients here," the nurse continued, driving the guilty spike even further into Sasuke's heart and gut. "So many wish for the chance to see their loved ones again, even for just a few minutes, and here you are, throwing that chance away!"

Sasuke swallowed thickly. "I know," he said, unable to raise his face to meet the nurse's knowing gaze. "It's just… it's been so long… I don't know if he'd even recognize me anymore…"

"Doesn't that make it even more important for you to go see him now, while you have the chance?"

Shocked into action, Sasuke jerked his head up so his gaze collided with the nurse's kindly one.

"I am not allowed to tell you to visit whoever you are here to see," she said gently, her eyes holding an understanding Sasuke never dreamed he could find, "but I can advise you not to let distance come between you and someone you care about. You will only regret it later if you do."

Sasuke's body froze as still as a statue while his mind tried to process this, and the nurse flashed him one last smile before taking a few steps backwards down the hallway.

"You must excuse me; I have work to do. I hope that I have been able to help you, el niño."

And with that, she left Sasuke and sauntered down the hallway, humming a Spanish-sounding lullaby that echoed off the hard, unadorned walls.

Don't let distance come between you and someone you care about.

Sasuke had to resist the urge to bash his head against the wall until his brains splattered out in a rush of viscous grey fluid so maybe, just maybe, he could read what to do in the innermost sanctuaries of his own mind. He knew the nurse had intended to help him with her pseudo-psychiatric advice, but she'd only succeeded in making him feel more confused and guilty.

Don't let distance come between you and someone you care about.

Leaning his head back against the wall, Sasuke pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, blocking out the vision of the overly sterile hallway. Did he even care for Itachi? The bastard had attacked him when he was ten years old, mentally scarred him, and he'd spent the last eight years of his life hating him. Could he really move past an emotion that had been so deeply ingrained into his being, it had become almost a habit? Did he even want to?

You will only regret it later if you do.

"Tch." Sasuke allowed the annoyed syllable to fall unencumbered from his mouth, the harsh consonants causing a minute droplet of spittle to fly out and perch on his lower lip. If he left now, everything he'd done to prepare for this moment, and indeed, many of the things he'd experienced over the summer that had led him to the desire to see his brother again, would all be for naught. It would be a coward's way out, and Sasuke had no intention of being a coward. Wincing, he rubbed the skin of his neck, feeling phantom sympathetic pains as if he had been the one bruised, not Neji.

If I cannot learn to forgive, how can I expect forgiveness for my own actions?

A more confident spring in his step, Sasuke turned and walked back down the hallway, stopping in front of the door marked with his brother's name and knocking on it without hesitation.

"Hmmm… knight on C-3 to B-5. Capture the bishop that's occupying the square."

"Have I told you yet how utterly impressed I am by the fact that you're able to play a game of chess from memory, and manage to beat me while doing it?" Kisame asked in a tone of amazement as he moved the piece Itachi had requested and removed his own piece from the board, placing it with a sharp, audible click next to his patient's hand.

"Several times already, but it's always nice to hear it again," Itachi replied with a smile, running his fingers over the head of the bishop he'd just captured.

"Then I shall say it again, and several more times besides," Kisame laughed. "Okay, my move is… the rook on H-8 to H-4, capturing the pawn there."

"Hm…" Itachi had rather hoped that Kisame would capture his knight, then the whole game would be set up for his win, but he hadn't taken the bait. It appeared Itachi would have to try something different. "Um… move the pawn on A-3 to A-4."

Before Kisame could carry out the move, a knock sounded from the door, and Itachi frowned in surprise. "Were we expecting someone?"

"Not to my knowledge," Kisame answered, moving Itachi's chess piece as he'd requested. "Is it your father, perhaps?"

"No, he wouldn't knock; he's got the code." Now Itachi was starting to get curious, and worried. And on today of all days… "Can you go see who it is?" Maybe if Kisame got distracted, he wouldn't give so much attention to the game and he'd fall into the trap Itachi had set.

"On it." Kisame stood up from the table, his chair dragging across the floor with a loud scraping sound, and moved to the door as a second series of knocks resounded through the room. "Alright, already. Hold your horses; I'm coming."

Itachi sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest as Kisame opened up the door. Who could it be? He was practically itching to find out.

Whoever Kisame had expected to find on the other side of the door, it certainly wasn't who he found, because the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm sorry; I think you have the wrong room."

"No, this is the right room," a quiet yet strong voice of a young man in his early twenties or late teens said. "I'm here to see Itachi."

A frown pulled down the corners of Itachi's lips as his visitor spoke. Why did his voice sound so familiar…?

"The patient in this room doesn't see visitors," Kisame said firmly, sounding as if he was preparing to close the door in the young man's face. "You need to leave, please."

"This visit was cleared by the administrator of this ward several days ago. You should have been notified already. I have a pass," the voice argued, and again Itachi was struck by a sense of familiarity. There was some rustling, presumably as the pass was procured and bared for Kisame's inspection. "See?"

If possible, there was even more suspicion in Kisame's voice when he spoke next. "Why do you have a family visitor's pass?"

This time, when the young man spoke, Itachi recognized him before the first syllable had been absorbed by the padding of the walls in his room. "I'm his brother."

"S-Sasuke?" The word passed through Itachi's trembling lips on an uneven wisp of breath.

Itachi heard Kisame move to the side and stood up behind the table, knowing his younger brother would now have a full and unobstructed view of him.

"It-Itachi," Sasuke echoed, stuttering a little as well. The sound of his nervous swallow was audible even across the room. "It- it's been a long time."

"Yes," Itachi answered, not sure what else he could say. His mind was still reeling from shock, too numb to process the fact that Sasuke was here, now, and for some miraculous reason hadn't yet come at him with a dull butter knife. But, then again, it wasn't as if Itachi had any eyes left to gouge out; he'd taken care of that job himself eight years ago.

It was a good thing Kisame was in the room as well, otherwise the two brothers might have stood staring at each other - at least in Sasuke's case - in silence for a long time, perhaps indefinitely, each waiting for the other to speak.

"Come in," he offered, and Itachi heard a light set of footsteps proceed into the room before the sound of the door clicking shut. "Would you like to sit?"

"I'll stand for now, but thanks for the offer," Sasuke answered, and Itachi heard his footsteps stop a few paces away.

Swallowing, Itachi finally managed to find his voice. "Not to be rude, bringing this up without any introduction, but… why? Why are you here? Why now?" Why now, when he could have come years ago? Why, of all times, now?

For a few seconds, Sasuke didn't respond, and Itachi thought he was going to ignore his question. Then there was a faint sound of the intake of air, and Itachi waited breathlessly for the words that would follow it, not knowing what to expect, and certainly not expecting what came.

"They can poison the mind with a single carefully crafted sentence and make a man go mad."

Itachi froze, the very air inside his lungs turning to a solid mass as he heard the echo of those very same words he had uttered eight years ago.

"Wh… what?"

"They can poison the mind with a single carefully crafted sentence and make a man go mad," Sasuke repeated, but softer this time, gentler. "You were the one who told me that, weren't you? About the Akatsuki. Back then…"

"I… I…" Itachi stuttered, unable to formulate his sentence on the first try. "I didn't think you would remember that night. Father said..."

"That I'd blocked it from my memory?" Sasuke supplied. "I had, from my conscious memory, at least. But my subconscious brought it out when I needed it the most."

"When you… needed…?"

"I finally figured out something because of it," Sasuke continued without responding to Itachi's interruption. "And the most important part of it is that I understand now… and I'm sorry."

"Oh, Sasuke, you don't have anything to be sorry for-"

"Yes, I do," Sasuke interrupted quietly. "For not trying to understand; for not coming to see you before now… for not forgiving you."

Itachi turned his face away, unable to see his brother's expression, and yet still unable to face it. "There's no reason you should feel the need to offer me forgiveness; I wouldn't deserve it even if you did-"

"That's not true," Sasuke interrupted again, even quieter this time, as if the words were directed at himself and not Itachi. "If I can't forgive you, how can I expect - or even accept - forgiveness for the things I've done?"

It took a few seconds for the full meaning of Sasuke's words to sink into Itachi's numb brain, but when they did, he drew in a sharp breath, everything coming into abrupt focus. "You… you've seen one, too?"

"Five," Sasuke correct with an achingly hollow half-laugh.

"Five?" Itachi felt almost sick to his stomach, and he gripped the edge of the table to steady himself. "What… what happened?"

"It's kind of a long story," Sasuke admitted. "But it culminated in Neji Hyuuga owing the retention of his ability to speak normally to a couple of phantoms who managed to pull me off him before I throttled him." There was guilt in Sasuke's voice, making it raw and hoarse.

Jesus Christ. The story was hauntingly familiar to his own, except Sasuke had gone for the throat, barehanded, while Itachi had premeditated an attack on the eyes with a kitchen utensil. His throat constricting suddenly at the memory of the blackness his mind had harboured back then, Itachi doubled almost completely over, gasping for air, unable to breathe, his grip tightening to a painful level on the edge of the table, but his heartbeat remained steady and loud in his ears. From the other side of the room, Kisame moved toward Itachi in concern.

"Itachi? Are you alight?"

"I'm fine!" Itachi managed to gasp out, pushing aside his memories and focusing on the presence of his brother, a few scant feet away from him. "It's alright, Kisame. I'm okay."

"Itachi?" This time it was Sasuke who spoke in a concerned tone. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Itachi repeated, then shook his head in amazement. "You're a stronger man than I ever was, Sasuke."

"That's not true," Sasuke corrected softly, his hair rustling softly as he gave his head a slight shake. "They completely sucked me under their spell. I only made it through because I wasn't alone."

As I was alone. But Itachi ignored the thought, focusing instead on Sasuke's words. "Was Father with you?"

Sasuke's voice abruptly turned cold. "He doesn't know," he announced with a finality that said the matter was closed. "And he can't ever know."

So Sasuke and their father were not on the best of terms right now. Itachi nodded once, storing the information away. "Then who?"

"A motley collection of friends, enemies-turned-allies, ghosts… and you."

Itachi's heartbeat thudded once, loudly, in his ears. "M...me?"

"I started hallucinating," Sasuke admitted, shame in his voice. "I let them drag me down further than you ever fell. But when I hit the bottom, I saw you, and you told what to do. I realized after that it was my subconscious pulling up the memories of what you said to me that night so I could finally make sense of them. The things you told me all those years ago… they probably saved my life."

"Oh, Sasuke…" Itachi instinctively reached out a hand and placed it comfortingly on Sasuke's shoulder. "You're stronger than you know. Whatever you did, you did it under your own power."

Sasuke stiffened at the contact and Itachi immediately regretted his snap decision, but then Sasuke reached up and covered Itachi's hand with his own. "You are, too."

"Sasuke…?" Itachi gasped uncertainly, his hand grasping onto Sasuke's shoulder like it was a lifeline.

"Stronger than you know," Sasuke clarified, and there was a strange thickness in his voice that wasn't there before. "I had so many people around me, but you… you were all alone, with so many people hating you."

"Did you hate me?" Itachi asked quietly, almost dreading the answer.

"I used to think I did," Sasuke answered with a sniff, and Itachi realized with a start that the thickness in his voice was tears. "But I don't, not anymore. Now I just hate the people who took my precious big brother away from me!"

Itachi stood still in shock, completely floored as Sasuke covered his mouth with the hand not holding Itachi's to stifle a sob. His precious, beautiful little brother, the person he thought he'd pushed away forever, didn't hate him, wanted to forgive him? The thought was not one he'd ever even dreamed he could entertain, and yet Sasuke was here, ready and willing to offer the one thing he hadn't know how badly he'd needed until he'd dared to think he could ask for it. His lips parted, unsure, positive that this couldn't be right, that he must be mistaken somehow.

"Sasuke, I don't-"

He was cut off as Sasuke threw himself forward to embrace Itachi and bury his wet face in his shirt. The move caught him off guard and he froze, one arm still outstretched and the other hovering at his side, not touching Sasuke, until his little brother whispered in a tearstained voice, "I missed you, Big Brother."

The arms that squeezed him were the strong arms of an adult, but it seemed to Itachi that his little eight-year-old brother was hugging him again, crying because he'd fallen down and scraped his knee or their father hadn't come see him dance. Undone by that simple gesture, Itachi hugged Sasuke back, pulling his body as close as he could. Past the lump in his throat, Itachi managed to whisper, "I've missed you too, Sasuke."

Pulling his face away from Itachi's chest, Sasuke wiped tears away from his eyes and let out a shaky laugh. "You know, I almost didn't make it here today. I was standing right outside your door, and I almost turned and walked away."

"What stopped you?" Itachi couldn't help but ask, tightening his grip around Sasuke's waist.

"This nurse said something to me," Sasuke replied, laying his head back against Itachi's chest. "You'll regret it if you don't. It made me think of all the things I would miss out on if I kept putting it off to the eternal tomorrow… and now I'm very glad I came back."

"So am I," Itachi said, leaning his head down so his cheek resting on top of Sasuke's head. "So am I."

The pair might have been content to stay like that for a long time if a cough from several feet away hadn't interrupted them. "Um, I hate to be a stickler for the rules at a time like this, but you're really not supposed to have prolonged full-body contact with one of the patients…"

"Oh, come off it, Kisame," Itachi snapped, tightening his grip on Sasuke ever so slightly. "We are having a moment here! And it's not like you haven't broken that rule before yourself."

"It's okay," Sasuke said lightly, pulling back gently from Itachi. "I actually have somewhere to go after this, so I should probably leave anyway."

"You're going?" A pang of agony ripped through Itachi's chest.

"I have to, unfortunately," Sasuke said ruefully, disentangling himself from Itachi fully except for a hand on his upper arm. "But I can come back tomorrow and see you again, if that's okay?"

The words were said with such hope that Itachi just couldn't crush them. "Sure," he said with a gentle smile even though each word was like a stab to his gut. "I'd love for you to come back tomorrow."

"It's a date, then!"

Sasuke started to draw out of his reach, but Itachi caught his receding arm before he could disappear from his realm of perception altogether. "Wait! Sasuke…"

"Yes, Itachi?"

The quiet, trusting way the words were spoken, so similar to the way he'd answered eight years prior when Itachi had called out to him with a knife hidden behind his back, made Itachi's throat clench up momentarily. When he had recovered enough to speak, he asked thickly, "Will you let me look at you before you go? Please?"

Kisame shifted awkwardly on the other side of the table, clearly confused by his request, but Sasuke understood right away. "Of course."

He reached for the hand grasping his arm and gently detached it, threading his fingers through Itachi's briefly before laying the hand against his own cheek.

Slowly, Itachi dragged the soft pads of his fingertips over Sasuke's cheek, feeling every contour and change from the child he had known. The rough stubble of a light five o'clock shadow prickled his fingertips when he dragged them lower - when had his baby brother gotten big enough to need to shave? - before he reached the angular bone of his jaw, sharper than he had remembered in that pudgy eight-year-old's face. His cheekbone, too, was sharper and more defined now that he'd grown into his face, the baby fat melting away to reveal someone Itachi guessed would be considered handsome by most. Without thinking, he allowed his thumb to brush up against Sasuke's lower eyelashes, and the younger Uchiha immediately tensed up.

Itachi froze as well, wondering if he'd accidentally stepped over some unspoken boundary, but after a few seconds Sasuke took a deep breath and released it, expelling the tension from his body with the air he expelled from his lungs, then his eyes fluttered closed, his eyelashes dropping down to rest daintily on Itachi's thumb.

Taking this as a sign he could proceed, Itachi took a step closer to Sasuke and brought his other hand up so he was cradling Sasuke's face in both hands. Sasuke's breathing ratcheted up a notch but he didn't protest, so Itachi allowed his thumbs to brush over Sasuke's closed eyelids and smooth down his eyebrows, feeling the contours of his forehead and committing them all to memory, because he knew he wouldn't be able to see them again.

Directly over Sasuke's right eye, there was a healing scar, all that remained of a once deep wound. Tapping it gently with his index finger, Itachi asked, "How did you get this?"

"Broken glass," Sasuke answered, sounding breathless from the contact. "A big plate of it shattered and a shard flew up and hit me."

"You should be more careful," Itachi said gently, drawing his finger down from the scar to Sasuke's still closed eyelid, a frighteningly short distance. "What if it had hit your eye?"

Itachi realized how ridiculous that must have sounded coming from him, but Sasuke didn't remark on it.

"I know," he said instead. "I was scared at the time, too. But I was lucky, in more ways than one."

"That's good."

Itachi had intended to let go after that, but he found himself hesitating. Suddenly, he moved both his thumbs up to rest on Sasuke's forehead as a reference point and leaned down to press a kiss between them.

"It's times like this I wish I still possessed the ability to cry," he whispered, but not loud enough for Sasuke to hear him. His lips lingered on the soft skin of Sasuke's forehead, not wanting to leave, but eventually he pushed himself back with a sigh.

"Don't let me keep you," he said lightly, the corner of his lips quirking up.

"As if there were any place I'd rather be than here." Sasuke sighed as well, and Itachi could almost visualize the disappointed look on his newly familiarized face. "But I really should be going. Same time tomorrow?"

"Sure," Itachi agreed with a smile, even as another pang shot through his chest.

"I'll show you out," Kisame offered, and Itachi heard a rustle of cloth as Sasuke turned to answer him.

"Thank you- oh, I never did catch your name. What is it?"

"It's Kisame," Kisame answered, his footsteps receding towards the door and opening it. "I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow, Sasuke."

"And you as well, Kisame," Sasuke answered warmly, his footsteps following Kisame's toward the door before turning one last time to look back at Itachi. "Goodbye, Itachi. I'll be back again tomorrow."

Itachi couldn't bring himself to utter the finality of a goodbye, so he just smiled. "I can't wait."

When the door closed behind Sasuke, Itachi searched around until he found the back on the chair he had been sitting in, then sank down into it, pressing the heels of his palms over his empty eye sockets. "Oh, Kisame, this is too cruel. Why now, of all times, does Sasuke have to decide to mend the bond between us? Now… when I'm about to escape this place forever."

Kisame drew back the chair opposite Itachi and sat down. "Do you want to stay now? To be with your brother?"

Surprised, Itachi dropped his hands from his face and raised his head. "You said that wasn't an option, that once we'd agreed there was no going back-"

"That wasn't what I asked you, Itachi." Kisame reached forward and laid his hand on Itachi's cheek. "If, given the choice between seeing your brother every day for the rest of you life or escaping and never seeing him again, would you choose to stay?"

Itachi bit his lip and lowered his head, running the problem over in his mind. "I would choose to go," he said finally, each word traversing the distance from his brain to his mouth slowly as he pieced them together in the perfect way to articulate his feelings. "However much I love my brother and however much I want to spend more time with him now that we've reconnected, I've still been without the pleasure- no, the basic human right, to feel the outside air for too long, and I'd trade anything to feel that even just one more time. Although," he added, his hand tightening into a fist so his nails pressed little half-moons into the soft flesh on his palm, "no matter how much harder it is to leave now that I know Sasuke will being coming back tomorrow, I'm still happy that I got to see him one more time and know that he's forgiven me. Who was it that said it was better to have loved and lost than never loved at all?"

"I think it was Tennyson, though I could be mistaken." Kisame leaned back, his chair squeaking under his weight. "Is that really what you think?"

Biting his lip, Itachi nodded once, then again, more confidently. "Yes, I'm positive."

"Good." Kisame reached for the case he'd brought the chess set in and popped open the hidden secret panel at the bottom. "Then, Itachi Uchiha, are you ready to die?"

"I've already done it once before; I'm ready to do it again," Itachi said confidently, laying his arm, palm up, on the table. "But didn't we need to finish the game first?"

"It won't be necessary; that was only to eat up some time, Sasuke's visit did that for us. Everything should be ready by now."

The sudden bite of cold metal against his wrist from the blade of the knife Kisame had drawn from the secret compartment of the chess case made Itachi hiss in surprise.

"You sure you're up for this?" Kisame asked in sudden concern. "We can try to find another way-"

"No, no, it's too late now." Itachi slid his arm back along the table so the knife was resting over his palm, then closed his hand so the blade cut through his skin, bringing a thin line of blood to the surface that beaded up and dripped down his hand. "See? I'm fine."

"O-okay," Kisame said in a shaky voice. "I- I'm going to make the cut now."

The blade trembled against Itachi's skin but didn't press down any further, so he reached forward and grasped Kisame's wrist gently.

"Together?" He asked gently.

"Together," Kisame agreed, the relief in his voice palpable.

As one, Itachi and Kisame drew their hands back, creating a shallow but wide cut in Itachi's palm that started welling blood as soon as the knife was withdrawn. Quickly, Itachi curled his hand and pulled it back so the blood wouldn't spill on the table, then held it over the floor and pumped his fist several times to make the blood flow faster as Kisame quickly pulled bandages he had stolen from a hospital supply cabinet from the hidden compartment in the chess case. Though he couldn't see it, he knew that his blood would be forming a spreading pool on the floor on the opposite side of the table from the camera.

"Alright, that should be enough," Kisame said after about half a minute of steady flow, and Itachi immediately closed up his hand and extended it to Kisame, who wrapped the bandage tightly around it. "How do you feel? Are you lightheaded at all?"

"Fine so far," Itachi said, giving his fingers an experimental wriggle. "My nose and fingers tingle a bit though."

"That's not an issue; you haven't lost enough blood to require a transfusion, but try not to move as much as you can help it. The person who's waiting for us will have some iron supplements for you to take as soon as we meet him, so not to faint until then if you can help it." There was a muffled thump as he dropped a set of street clothes onto the table next to the chessboard. "Now strip."

With a wordless nod, Itachi started pulling his shirt over his head. Normally, he would have used the opportunity to make some kind of snide sarcastic remark, but this was too serious to joke about. As he dropped it to the floor, he heard Kisame move over to arrange it next to the pool of blood behind the table and quickly discarded his pants as well. As soon as Kisame had finished placing the clothes in the correct position, he quickly helped Itachi dress into the street clothes and handed him a pair of shoes to slip on while he put the final finishing touches on their scene. The clothing felt strange to Itachi, like a skin he hadn't worn in eight years, the cloth much rougher than what he was used to with the soft hospital supplied clothes, but he found that he liked it. When he was ready, he stood up, and heard Kisame stand up next to him.

"You ready?" He asked nervously, raising his wrist again, but Kisame stopped him.

"One more thing."

"Wha-?Ah!"

Itachi gasped as he felt the bandage around his eyes being torn away and he immediately tried to cover his empty gaping eye sockets, but Kisame quickly pulled his hands down and perched something on his face before he could resist.

"Sunglasses," he explained to Itachi's unasked question. "The bandage is too noticeable. Now we're ready."

Itachi gave a short nod, feeling strangely exposed as the sunglasses slid down his nose and he had to push them up again. "Good. I am too."

"You remember what we have to do, right? There's approximately a three second delay before they can get the camera running, so we need to be out of range before then-"

"Kisame!" Itachi reached up and pressed his hand against Kisame's lips. "I remember the plan; we made it together. We can do this. Okay?"

There was a short pause as Kisame reached up and touched Itachi's cheek gently, then he nodded. "Yes. On three?"

Itachi nodded and held out his arm. "One."

The blade of the knife pressed flat against his arm, resting gently against his pulse. "Two," Kisame echoed, his hand steady as it held the knife against Itachi's flesh.

As one voice, they announced together, "Three."

In one swift movement, Kisame cut the strap of the heart rate monitor strapped to his wrist and allowed both it and the knife drop to floor, then seized Itachi's wrist and pulled him towards the door of the cell and outside of the room, leaving behind them an empty room as the intercom crackled to life.

"Kisame, what's going on? The patient's heart rate suddenly flat-lined- AHHHHHHHH! BLOOD! BLOOD! CALL A DOCTOR TO ROOM 14! THERE'S BLOOD ON THE FLOOR-! WAIT, IS THAT A KNIFE? CODE SILVER! I REPEAT, WE HAVE A SUICIDE ATTEMPT!