Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

Author's note: "RIP Itach's dick" - my favourite review. Thanks for all the reviews! Anyway. Leave a comment, if possible, when you read :)

o o o

Deidara had a thought.

There were three of them in the room where they had been keeping the captive, and two of the total were currently indisposed. The medic had got her final win, but the timing had been poor. And now Deidara was free to act.

Uchiha Itachi had activated his bloodline limit and immediately dropped to his side with the effort. The medic-nin was successfully captured in his illusion, but the man had been gutted with its execution.

If Deidara really wanted, he could end Itachi right there. Set a bomb to his adversary and let the man greet Beauty in its truest form before his timely end. His hand twitched with the tempting impulse, and he couldn't decide what would be the best send off. Dragon? Spider? Something new and just for this one man. Steal him up and out from Hanzo's leftover hideout. He could send Uchiha high into the air above the village, make a real spectacle of the act.

He smiled.

The expression feebly expired and he soured.

It would be a farce; an opportunistic and shallow victory.

Where would the glory be in seizing such a low hanging prize?

There would be none and it would a travesty.

That was what he hated most about shinobi – the sneaking and scheming. All the small gestures and long brewing machinations. It was a smoulder where there should have been dramatic rises and falls.

Deidara wanted there to be a bang when he killed Uchiha Itachi, and he wanted the burning, consuming build to snuffing out the blood red intensity of his Sharingan.

Let the medic heal him, whatever his ails, and then Deidara would defeat the man.

But he did, for the moment, sniff a bit haughtily and push Itachi's barely conscious form just that much further away from Sakura.

o o o

One second past midnight. Sakura broke through the door to make her escape.

Two seconds past midnight and she punched at the door to escape.

Three seconds past midnight. Sakura looked away from the wall clock and glanced around the room in which she stood. She shook her head as if to clear it, told herself she had to escape, and then rushed the door.

o

Sakura was looking at the clock on the wall. An analog design with large white minute and hour hands and numbers on a black face, and a brilliant red seconds hand. She watched the seconds' hand as it passed over one and the time read eleven minutes past the hour.

The office she was standing in was empty, brightly lit, and the uncovered window showed hints of the village lights behind the glare on its glass. Konohagakure appeared as she stepped closer, looking past her reflection.

Her reflection was wrong. It caught her attention as she looked down at the long locks of hair hanging down her shoulder. Her clothes were casual in form and the coat she wore was for civilian doctors. Eyes to the window again, she recognized the view from the central hospital. Definitely her home village, but some sections of the city were bright where she didn't remember there being any activity. She was on what she guessed to be the seventh floor and inside a doctor's office. There was a desk and filing cabinets, wall cabinets, a couch under the window, a plush leather chair, personal decorations and accolades. The paper displayed proudly on the wall had the civilian medical doctorate program listed and under that, her name. Sakura ran her hand over the glass framing and shook her head. That was wrong.

The photos hanging on the wall had people in them and she was there, too, her hair sticking out prominently against the other subjects. Her eyes were out of focus as she tried to determine who was posing with her in the photos. She looked like she had been pasted in late, completely incongruous.

She was about to take a closer look at a photo of a group shot when the door to the room opened. Someone knocked as they entered, and the gesture felt more out of habit than one seeking permission.

Sakura frowned.

"Still here, I see," the person said, tone teasingly disapproving around a gentle expression.

Uchiha Itachi was in plain clothes. That was the most noticeable thing – followed shortly by Uchiha Itachi was in the same room as her.

He was an enemy shinobi. He was dangerous.

No one had ever thought she, small time medic-nin of innominate clan background, would ever need to know how to fight a Sharingan user like Uchiha Itachi. So maybe Sakura overreacted when she punched the floor out from beneath the two of them.

Her fist hit the tile and she felt the impact, she thought, and she should have felt the rumble of destruction but it never came.

She blinked and she was staring at the clock on the wall.

o

Sakura opened her eyes.

She saw first that there was a clock on the wall. Analog type with a black face, white minute and hour hands, and a bright red seconds hand. The time read forty minutes and sixteen seconds past one in the morning.

She was by herself in an office. The interior lights were on and for a second she studied her reflection in the window on the far wall before refocusing to the village lights beyond. Konohagakure. There were too many lights on, she thought, for a village that was still rebuilding after the Sound-Sand invasion from a few years ago. It was too bright.

The view told her she was in the central hospital, on an upper floor. She guessed the seventh. On the wall were photos and accolades and she saw her name scrawled across the framed graduation paper. She frowned at the program name for the civilian medical doctorate. That wasn't right. She never took part in that program.

The photos, too, were off. She was in many of them, but the people around her were all wrong. She picked up a frame to try and recognise the blurry faces. A knock came from the door and she turned from the task, distracted.

The person let themself in and quietly shut the door for privacy.

"Here you are," Itachi said, pleased to find her.

Sakura felt her throat tighten.

That was not...normal. But she was slow to admit as much to herself as she watched him cross the room to meet her. Amenable and casual, like he had done the movements a hundred times before.

Sakura stepped back. "No, this isn't right."

He wasn't supposed to be in Konoha.

"We were supposed to meet. You forgot again," Itachi said. He reached for her shoulders, too familiarly and with sympathy she didn't want, and she immediately jerked away from him. He hushed her and when he reached for her again she struck out to punch him.

Her hand was light and he caught the swing with a surprised and yielding grip, apparently bemused by her action. He glanced between her eyes and her arm, and she did the same, terrified.

It was almost enough to make her curl inwards as her stomach dropped to her knees. The floor rose up to meet her, but Itachi's grip on her kept Sakura upright. She stared at where they met. In his hand, her hand was dainty and sweetly feminine. Her nails were delicately painted, a decorative bracelet wrapped her wrist, no calluses from weapon usage or old scars. Civilian and pampered and weak.

She rasped out, dry with disbelief, "wh–where's my strength?"

Where was her chakra? Where was – she couldn't feel anything from her inner coils and chakra network – where was her damn clout and muscle?

"Sakura, calm yourself. You're a healer, not a fighter." Itachi sounded worried. His face was plain with concern around his bemused smile and she felt she'd gone mad as she looked to him. He said, and he was both soothing and patient, "it has been a long night."

"No, no. This is wrong –" They shouldn't be in an office together. Not like this. She was a kunoichi and he was holding her captive and something was wrong –

Sakura opened her eyes.

On the clock, the time read forty minutes, seventeen seconds past one.

o

It was a quarter after three in the morning. Sakura was in an office at the hospital, standing at the window that overlooked the village. Her eyes were on her reflection in the glass, watching as her hands ran over hair that was too long, and then over the crisp fabric of a civilian medical uniform that suited her in a way she thought she remembered, but didn't really.

Her name was on the certificate on the wall. She had files with her signatures on the desk. She saw herself in photos she almost recognised, but they were all wrong. She barely knew any other faces, except for one. It was wrong, seeing herself in a picture with him.

When she looked to the door, she was expecting the knock that followed shortly. And then the man from the pictures was letting himself in and something like dread slipped down her spine. She twisted fully to face him, questions crashing against her teeth but her jaw was shut tight with apprehension.

"You're still here," Itachi said. Gentle and with a hint of teasing, "another long night."

Her fist tightened reflexively and she reluctantly loosened her fingers and relaxed her tenseness.

"What kind of game is this?" She asked. Sakura couldn't feel her chakra pathways and reserves. She couldn't feel any weight of muscle to her. She was soft and light. The word powerless strangled her throat and made her jaw ache. "What the hell are you getting at putting me here like this?"

He ignored her questions like she hadn't spoken. "I've been waiting for you. Did you forget we were supposed to meet?"

She frowned, shook her head. Of course he would answer her question. She rubbed her temples, contemplative. She needed a way out. It wasn't a normal genjutsu.

"Sakura, you should reconsider taking time off. You deserve a moment to rest."

"Moment to rest?" She spat back at him, agitated.

For all her anger, he was placid. He looked so plain in the office, like her. Plain clothes, tasteful and boring, and completely normal.

"The tests went well. You've done everything you can for now. We can breathe," he was smiling, reassuring. He emphasized with a bashful gratitude, "I can breathe. And I have only you to thank for that."

"What?" What from her tongue like a lashing. She side stepped from him, legs unsteady. "I would never do anything to help you. What are you even implying? I've never helped you."

"If not for you, I would be dead."

"You should be dead," Sakura told him.

She would never heal him. She would never. She would never. She would never...

o

It was morning, bright and clear. The window in the office was open and the air that came inside was a young type of warmth with pollen on its breeze. Springtime. The village was lively and pristine. Flourishing, if she could pick a word.

Her eyes were on the stretch of the Hokage monument, settled on the face of the Fourth Hokage if only because there wasn't a carving to honour the Fifth to keep her attention.

A man came into the office. Itachi. He walked over to her, handing her a hot drink while sipping at his own. She numbly accepted the offering and spun the cup slowly in her hands.

"You've been here all night," he said.

Sakura nodded. She had been in the office for too long, she thought. Everything was off, somehow.

Patiently and with a small, indulging smile at her quiet reservation, he said, "my tests went well. Didn't you want to celebrate?"

She finally looked away from the monument to his face. His eyes were dark and happy to study her as she stared up at him, frowning. "Celebrate?"

"For the moment, I'm healed. You healed me. You can step away from the office for a little while. I am certain we will both survive." He was almost playful as he spoke. Happy.

"No." Shaking her head. "No, I'm not here for...I didn't do that."

He placed his drink on the window sill and leaned towards her. It was invasive, she thought, but she didn't pull back from him.

Until he reached for her face and she slapped his hand away.

She didn't heal Itachi from anything. She hadn't.

o

The sun was high and it was midday. Sakura took her eyes from the clock on the wall and glanced between the window and the door. She was expecting someone.

When Itachi entered, her heart beat hard in her chest and she took a shallow breath meant to steady her nerves, but she seemed to empty with it.

A question was on her lips, "why?"

But he cut her off before the thought could mature much further.

"You're still here," he pointed out, playfully reprimanding. "I thought we had agreed to meet?"

"We were meeting?"

"To celebrate." He had flowers in his hands and she found them distracting. Unusual. Unlike him because this wasn't him at all. Itachi noticed where her eyes rested and smiled. "Courtesy of our favourite flower family. They've always thought so highly of you."

"Those are from –?"

"They're to congratulate you. Us." He spoke over her. "You healed me when no one else could."

"I didn't heal you," Sakura insisted. "You're not sick."

"Not any more because of you. I wish you were not so modest. I would be dead if it were not for you." When she didn't agree with him, he raised his eyebrows and gave her an indulgent smile. "Maybe you can listen for yourself?"

Sakura was stiff as he moved closer to her, his hands finding her upper arms. He pulled her to his chest and her own thumping pulse drowned out the sounds of his steady breathing and heartbeat. His hold was light and not at all insistent and it wasn't right.

She pushed hard and faltered. She had to leave –

o

She couldn't have healed him.

She could have, though. A part of her was a healer. Something like that? But it didn't sound right.

A healer. A healer.

o

"I did this?" She asked Itachi, uncertain and curious. The thought worried her.

"Of course."

Hearing that made her worry a little less.

o

"And how are you with added physical strain?" She asked, genuinely curious.

"I breathe more easily, every day, because of you." He was sure and steady and close to her. "Listen for yourself."

Sakura didn't pull away. She had healed him and it sounded wrong, but so familiar. More familiar than wrong.

o

She had healed him and he lauded her work. Sakura had healed him and it made her eyes wet.

He wiped the moisture from her face and told her to be happy. Itachi was slow to take his hand away, but then he was closer to her. He said, "you are not sad, Sakura. Do not be upset."

She was scared, maybe.

"I'm not sad," she said, but her voice shook with nerves. Excited agitation.

o

"You are still here," Itachi greeted. "Always dissatisfied with your work."

"I'm not dissatisfied," she defended herself. Sakura fixed people, it was her job. No, she healed people. She healed Itachi.

"Then step away from your work for the evening. Celebrate with me?"

Sakura hesitated. His hand sought hers and his grip was gentle and enticing, begging her back to him.

"You did well, Sakura," he said, and it was hard for her to swallow suddenly. Heat on her face and her ears were warm from a beating pulse.

Nerves, she thought. He had the ability to make her flush with excitement.

A good kind of happy excitement.

He gave it and took it from her and she thought it wasn't right –

o

She liked it when he thanked her. To an extent. But then it felt familiar, too. He felt familiar to her, like she must have known him many times before.

She must have.

"You feel good," he told her.

No, she thought. Not always.

o

It was normal, she started to think. He was gentle and present, and artfully, effortlessly persistent. She almost protested, and then she didn't. And then she hushed herself and her thoughts.

But not entirely.

o

They had moved to her desk and for a moment her view was undisturbed over his shoulders. Her attention caught on something long enough for Itachi to notice and pull away.

"We should go there again," he said, following where her gaze had gone to a photo on her shelves.

A portrait of the two of them. Winter and they were stood together under a pavilion in a quiet garden.

"I've looked at that photo thousands of times," she said, admitting something aloud. Thousands and thousands and thousands...

"It is a beautiful picture," Itachi agreed.

It was something, she thought.

He returned to his previous attentions and she reluctantly allowed him. Followed him.

But there was something wrong, still.

o

The clock on the wall was ticking away and it was well into the evening. Sakura looked out the window, let her eyes take in the blissful scene as lights turned on with the setting sun, and then she was glancing to the door, expecting the knock that followed shortly.

"I know I'm late," she said before Itachi could reprimand her.

He came into the office and matched her sheepish smile with his own. He was dressed smartly and carrying flowers. A picture of sweetness.

"Not too late to celebrate your success," he told her.

"And your health." Sakura leaned her chin up as he approached her. He had flowers in his hands but she put them aside in favour of returning his warm embrace. It made her heart flutter and her chest cool with a nervous apprehension that she hushed away. The movement felt natural and expected.

"To the best healer in the village," he said. "And to the woman who has found my heart in the mess that was my illness."

"Does everyone know what a complete cornball you are?" She asked him.

"It is becoming less of a secret these days. I find my face is not accustomed to the smiling I now do in your presence, or merely when I think of you."

"Such excessive flattery."

"If it serves to lighten your heart, then I cannot express any regrets for my saccharine admirations."

It did 'lighten her heart,' she thought. There was something addictive about acknowledgment and unabashed praise. She was special to him and it caught a tinder in her heart long shushed and hidden. The fire was welcomed and she relished in it.

Almost, almost because there was something she was forgetting.

Itachi kissed her with idle abandon. He moved her with ease, bent her and stirred her with control and little apparent thought for his efforts. Above her and consuming her and all she felt was from him and for him.

They were on the desk and she was staring at a photo.

It should have been of the two of them, a winter scene together, and she saw instead a different pair. Sakura and a woman, older and more mature, a mentor and her leader. Lady Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, her master and Sakura was a kunoichi –

– And this was wrong –

Sakura opened her eyes. She was in an office and there was a clock on the wall, red, white, and black in colour.

o o o

Itachi was heavy and slow with exhaustion. He barely maintained his straight posture while seated at the table in what would be a library or study for the base. Deidara had dropped him there, unceremoniously, and Itachi hadn't done more than shift his position since. The only exceptions were his coughing fits, which had calmed eventually.

Kisame was with him and Deidara had left to pursue his own entertainment elsewhere.

"She'll need her seals redone for hydration soon," Kisame said. He distractedly pushed a piece across the board on the table between them. He was a natural player and Itachi enjoyed their matches. He asked, slyly, "how's that illusion you set up for the little woman?"

Itachi kept his face blank. The illusion was his own private retreat for particularly sad nights; one where there was peace in his country and village, where he wasn't shackled to shinobi or clan duties, and a world in which he had a woman he loved and who loved him in turn. She lived and he lived. His fantasy in which he was healed and young and unencumbered. It might have been his dream of heaven.

Shamefully.

A younger him might have visited more often and in recent years he had found the ideal to be pandering and pathetic. Thoughts on it were quickly cut short in favour of responding to actual demands. For the most part.

There was no need for Itachi to tell Kisame the full truth of the genjutsu in which he had placed the girl, but the man had been toeing around the topic for half an hour and wanted to know something at least.

He said, "I had her in my Tsukuyomi. The two of us, alone, with time enough to get acquainted. To calm her, tame her, bring her to my side."

"Shit. Only your company, huh? For how long? A thousand years?" Kisame was sneering, humorous and exaggerating. Then, thinking more realistically, he said, "a week or something?"

Itachi said flatly, "it might be equivalent to several months or a year. Two? It is difficult to pinpoint exactly."

That was too much time, apparently.

"Shit," Kisame repeated more emphatically. He contorted his face, a beat of disgust on his features. "You trapped her in hell."

"I would think not," Itachi said. The genjutsu he had made for her was a merciful means of persuasion. He had been much more strict and unrelenting with Sasuke. He clarified, "she would have been handled gently."

"For a girl who tried to kill me with a punch to my spine, I don't think she'll see gentle the same way as you." Kisame snorted, amused again by something Itachi couldn't fathom. He said, under his breath and perfectly comprehensibly, "you've got learning to do, kid."

Surely, it had not been hell for her.

o o o

She had a strong impulse to run, to push him off her and flee. She was too stiff, muscles seized with unrealised adrenaline, and she didn't move.

He sensed her hesitance all the same.

"Relax, Sakura, you have had a very long day. Leave your worries and restraints behind."

She hushed her protests and Itachi sealed them there inside her.

o o o

Author's Note: This genjutsu is an ultimate nightmare. No control. Manipulation to the extreme. Dread and gas-lighting for company. I struggled posting it.