This is the sequel to Join Me. Please enjoy!

Just as she had requested, Sakura had been buried next to the man she had loved, and died for. Everyone she had known had gone to the tragic event, and it was a long, sad affair. Sasuke had taken it upon himself to make the preparations for the funeral, to be sure that she had been buried next to Itachi, as nobody else could be trusted to do so.

In her casket, Sakura wore a beautiful bridal gown, and on her finger Sasuke had placed the engagement ring that Itachi had given her. She wasn't living anymore, but in the afterlife, maybe she could be with her lover. It had nearly killed him to do it, it had hurt just as much as finding her dead at the temple, lying next to Itachi's grave.

Everyone who knew her shed a tear as her coffin was lowered into the grave, grieving her premature death. Holding the small bundle of baby Itachi, Sasuke had completely broken down for his unrequited love. Nobody touched him, knowing that the Uchiha was not a person to talk to when in such a devastatingly low emotional state. Several different people had wanted to be the caretakers of baby Itachi, Hinata and Naruto being one of these couples, everyone thinking Sasuke would not be the most responsible guardian. Sasuke wouldn't allow it though, both because he wished to follow Sakura's final wishes, and because he didn't want to let go of the last connection he had to her.

He was morbidly happy for Sakura, because he knew she was happy wherever she was, but the pain of her leaving was still present. He had been the last person to leave the temple, clutching baby Itachi to protect him from the cold air. That day, he vowed to never love a woman again, everyone he seemed to love died. Sakura would have told him to move on, to be happy with someone else, but with her dead, he could see nobody else like that again.

Konoha, six years later

"Megumi, I told you I'm not interested." Sasuke sighed, but the girl refused to give up. It was just as it was when he had left, every single kunoichi in the village was a fangirl. Megumi, who was five years his junior, was almost as obsessive about him as Karin had been, only Megumi admitted her feelings for him.

"Sasuke-san, all you ever do is take care of that kid and go on missions. You need a little fun in your life." She told him, hitting too close to home. Megumi was right, all he ever did was complete missions and care for Itachi. Speaking of which, Itachi had recently started his first year at the academy, meaning he needed to be picked up soon.

He began to walk away from the girl, not really caring that it was rude to leave her hanging, and headed towards the sounds of children playing and laughing. Isolated from the other kids his age, Itachi was swinging slowly on the swing set. Itachi was so much like his father that it was amusing to Sasuke, the only feature he had from his mother was her wide forehead. Otherwise, Itachi was a spitting image of his father with long, drawn back raven hair, charcoal eyes with deep grooves beneath them, and that amazing calm aura. Not to mention he was advancing above other children his age, just as his father had.

"What did you learn today, Iatchi-chan?" Sasuke asked, taking the swing next to him. the boy sighed, continuing to swing up and down, watching the other children being picked up by either a mother or father.

"Not much. Everything they taught, you had already told me. It was boring." Itachi finally huffed after a couple moments of silence. Sasuke rolled his eyes, wondering if his older brother had ever complained in the same way. He watched the boy as he swung, seeing a sort of sadness in his face. Sasuke recognized it immediately, understanding it to be loneliness. Only someone who knew what it was like to have no parents could ever understand that level of pain. He didn't say anything though, he wasn't sire what he could say. Sasuke was Itachi's guardian, and technically his uncle, but there were somethings only a parent could do.

"Sasuke-nii, why don't I have any parents like the other kids my age?" He asked quietly. Sasuke hadn't wanted him to call him his father, nor his uncle, instead prefering something more close, like an older brother. His heart wrenched at Itachi's question, and he wasn't sure if he should answer it truthfully. Sakura had told him to tell Itachi the truth about his parents, but he didn't know if he should tell him so soon, and how much he should tell him. He had killed his father, and his mother had committed suicide not long after. He didn't want Itachi to hate him for what he did, though he probably deserved it. Whatever the case, he needed to tell him something.

"Come with me, I have something I need to show you." Sasuke said, standing up. Itachi jumped off of the swing and took his hand. Sasuke led him silently to the temple, not stopping until they stood in front of his older brother's grave, which was swept clean by himself. Itachi's eyes widened in horror at reading the name on the gravestone.

"That's my name." the boy whispered, looking very afraid.

"Your mother named you after your father when you were born." he told Itachi, watching his saddening expression.

"Where's my mother?" He asked, fearing the answer before it came. Sasuke sighed in despair, pointing to the grave next to the first. Itachi read the name, looking confused by how she wasn't an Uchiha. He looked up from her name into Sasuke's anguished face, searching for an answer to who she was.

"My brother died before she could marry him, and long before you were born." Sasuke told him, hating himself for having to be the one to tell him such terrible things. It was better for him to hear it from him though, rather than some other third party.

"Why did he have to die?" Itachi questioned, waiting expectantly. Sasuke swallowed hard, and decided to tell the boy the truth, to tell him the horrendous thing he did.

"I killed your father." He said quietly. The boy's eyes widened in shock and confusion. It hurt to see his misery, and he could tell he didn't want to believe him. He had never seen Itachi look so hurt before, which only hurt him even more. He loved the boy, like he really was his little brother.

"That can't be true Sasuke-nii; it must have been an accident... You didn't mean to do it." Itachi said hopefully, but Sasuke shook his head. He wished he could tell the boy that it had been some flucke accident, that he had mistakenly killed him during a mission together. That wasn't the truth though, and Sasuke didn't want to resort to lying.

"No, I killed him on purpose." Sasuke whispered, watching the boy's eyes fill with tears, and even more so with a look of having been betrayed. It was the same thing, he realized, as when his older brother had massacred the Uchiha clan, it was utter betrayal.

"Why did you kill my father? Why did you kill your own brother? Did he do something bad to you?" Itachi cried for the fist time since he was a toddler. It was a rare, strange sight, to see the normally calm and overly mature boy crying. It hurt Sasuke to watch, knowing he was the one to cause it.

"When I was only eight years old, he had killed everyone from our clan." Sasuke started. Itachi gasped, and Sasuke saw more pain in his eyes from hearing that his father had done something so awful. More betrayal.

"It wasn't his fault, but I blamed him for it anyway. The Uchiha clan had been planning to over-throw konoha, but I was too young to know this. I was ignorant, an believed that he had wanted to kill them, and I vowed to kill him one day. Your father was one of the strongest Shinobi there was to live, reaching the rank of ANBU captain when he was thirteen years old, so I had to train for years before i was confident enough to face him. In that time, your parents had met, and made you. A month and a half after your mother got pregnant, we finally met again. We fought, and he let me kill him. He had been planning on dying by my had since before the massacre. I didn't know this until after he had died, and your mother had hated me for it. She had tried to save him, but was unable to, even with her talent for medical ninjustu. She forgave me though, and that' why she trusted me with you."

"Then why did my mother have to die too?" Itachi asked sadly, wiping away a tear that had been slipping down his face. Sasuke wasn't sure that he should tell a six year old boy that his mother had committed suicide on the day of his birth, after having seen her son and not been able to live any longer. It wasn't something he could explain, as he could hardly understand it himself. Itachi waited, and Sasuke couldn't bear to keep the truth from him, no matter how hard it was to hear.

"Sakura killed herself, after giving birth to you." Sasuke whispered, and watched the shock and agonizing pain cross Itachi's young face. The boy looked down at his feet, and was unable to look at either Sasuke's face, or his parent's graves.

"She didn't want me." He stated calmly, a small, sad smile on his face. Sasuke didn't know what to say to that. It wasn't that Sakura hadn't wanted to raise her own child, it was just that she hadn't wanted to do it on her own. Sasuke kneeled down to Itachi's height and rested a large hand on his shoulder.

"Don't blame your mother for what she did. It's better to forgive ad forget, I learned that the hard way." Sasuke told him in his most sagely tone of voice. The boy looked into his eyes, his own brimmed with tears. Sasuke did something he had never really done before, hug Itachi caringly. Itachi sobbed into his chest, hugging him back so tightly that one would have thought Sasuke was his lifeline.

"Why does it hurt so much, Sasuke-nii?" Itachi wailed in a way he never had before ever when he was a baby.

"Rejection. You wish your mother hadn't left you behind." He answered, stroking the child's hair in the most soothing way he could manage. Itachi cried in front of his parents graves for a long time, clutching desperately onto Sasuke all the while.

"What did they look like?" Itachi asked, pulling his face out of Sasuke's chest after having calmed down once more. Sasuke smiled minutely at the boy in his arms, pleased by his question. He supposed he was wrong in thinking the boy was too young to handle the reasons for his parent's consecutive deaths. Little Itachi was going to be fine, as far as he could tell; he even wanted to know what they used to be like.

"I have pictures at home, if you want to see." Sasuke recalled, remembering the time he had ransacked Sakura's apartment, the Uchiha compound, and Ino's 'Best Friends Forever' scrapbook for photographs of both his older brother and Sakura. If it weren't for the reason he had to have pictures of them, the incident could have been considered amusing.

The two made there way to their house, Itachi perched up on Sasuke's shoulders in the same way he had hung in his own older brother's. Sasuke retrieved the cardboard box of pictures from its secret hiding place and scattered them on the floor. He picked up one of them and handed it to Itachi. It was one of the few pictures he had found of the star-crossed lovers together. Itachi's eyes widened at seeing the two of them together, shocked by their appearances.

"She had pink hair?" Was the first thing that Itachi could manage. Sasuke laughed at Itachi's understandable reaction, remembering having a similar one when he was younger.

"Yep, heart throb of Konoha, the only known human to have pink hair, that was Sakura." he chuckled. Itachi turned back to the photo, this time to inspect his father more closely. It was strange to him to see hid dark, calculating eyes and aristocratic features mirrored back so exactly, only a little older in age. It was like looking at his future self.

Itachi put the photograph down and sifted through the pile for another to admire. He found another one of both of his parents, though it was quickly taken away for being inappropriate.

"I forgot I still had this thing." Sasuke muttered, quickly glancing at the picture of Itachi and Sakura drunkenly kissing each other. Definately not something he wanted the poor kid to see.

After having seen each of the pictures, and deciding he looked just like his father, Itachi sighed. He may not have learned much a school, but he did afterwards, that much was certain

"I wish I could have known them." Itachi whispered, looking back at the first photo. Sasuke ruffled the boy's hair teasingly, earning him a pointedly irritated look from Itachi.

"They would have liked you, Itachi-chan." Sasuke smirked, poking him in the forehead he had inherited from his mother.

A/N: WOW!! I hope that had a happier ending then the first part. Thanx for reading, please review!!! :D

~Itaweasel-hime