Authors note: How about a small continuation two years later? *Wink, wink*

If you haven't checked them out already, I do also have some other ItaSaku works!

Enjoy!

Sakura didn't suspect anything was different from her normal day until she placed her hand under what should have been steaming hot water. She could see the steam and yet, iciness greeted the skin of her hand and fingers when held beneath the stream of water. She even removed her hand, wiped it off, and re-put it under there just to make sure.

"How odd.." Her voice trails off and her brows furrow.

"Sakura, are you okay in there?"

She nearly jumps at the voice. The familiarity of it.. She knows that voice. Knows who that voice belongs to. Something settled deep within her chest and twisted painfully. She trailed her emerald eyes around the bathroom - taking in the counters and the products in the shower. Her bottom lip is worried by her teeth. She hesitates before actually looking at herself in the mirror.

An aged woman did not greet her back.

She lets out a choked sob as she removes her gaze from the young woman who she saw in the mirror. She bows over the sink and lets her tears mix with the water streaming from the faucet. She didn't know how many more of these sick dreams she could take.

After Itachi passed, she dreamt of him - his voice, his touch, him - night after night. She never could remarry because of it. Never went past the first date. He had been it for her - her one and only true love. She knows that the image that should greet her in the mirror is an older version of herself. One with smile lines and wrinkles.

A grandma of three beautiful children.

A tired old woman who just wanted to rest.

That's not who she knows would greet her back if she were to lift her head back up.

Her chest ached because she knows this is just another silly dream and damn it, she is too old and tired for this anymore. Her cries came harder.

"Come back to bed, love," his voice called from their shared room. She knew he was in the bed that they shared.

Sakura wipes the tears as she sniffles them back. She washes her face and ignores how wrong the now smooth skin feels against her fingers. She ignores how cold the water feels and instead dabs her face dry with the towel hanging up on her side of the rack. She gives a final sweep over of the bathroom. It's bittersweet.

She might as well give in the dream since she is here, she figures. So, tentatively, she steps out from the bathroom. Her eyes stay on the floor until they travel up the bed oh so slowly. They take in the sheets that she recalled being his favorite and the comforter she had begged him to buy for her. Eventually, she runs out of bedding to look at and her eyes are greeted with white skin that she could remember exactly as it felt beneath her fingertips. She ventures further until her eyes rest on his lips that she has memorized the movement of it against her lips when they kissed and his eyes, oh his eyes.

Deep and ebony.

Kind and sincere.

No pain.

A harsh shiver wracks her body in that moment as if a strong wind swept through the room in a chilly blast. He gives her a small smile, reaching a single hand out to her in invitation.

"Come back to me, my love. Let me warm you."

Her feet move across the floor without her even thinking about it. Without question, she'd fall into him time and time again. Her hand greets his and their fingers intertwine. She allows herself to fall into him and the bed. He scoops her up into his arms and she holds onto him tightly.

She relishes in the feeling of him wrapped around her and the warmth emanating from him.

Tears fall from her eyes and he kisses them away as he quietly comforts her with gentle shushes and soft 'I love you's.' All of the emotion, feeling, and warmth was making her drowsy. She fought her eyes to stay awake. She knew when she opened her eyes again that he would be gone.

"Ssh, it's okay. Close your eyes," he kisses her forehead. "Come with me and it'll be alright," he gently rocks with her. "Our paradise awaits."

"Family and friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate the love and life that our mother, Sakura Uchiha, shared with the world. I know without a doubt that our father has already greeted her..-"