"No...."

"Why is this happening to us...?"

"I-I can't do it any more..."

"That is IT!" Temari gasped, collapsing as she finally reached the bleachers where she'd left her beloved water bottle. As she fumbled to get the lid open, she glowered at the other students and faculty still running around the 400-meter oval, and one pink-haired girl in particular. "I'm done! I can't play My Little Horsie: running is magic with her any more!"

Tenten managed a chortle as she poured her water bottle directly over her head, "I can't believe she does this every day. That woman is made of steel."

Hinata, however, frowned as she watched that pink pony tail vanish between the other runners on the track. "I-I think something's different. S-She's very intense."

"She always gets intense around exam time," Tenten tried to shrug it off, but she looked a bit worried as well, "She stops gaming and goes all in on studying, sleeping, and ... exercise. You know she worries about the scholarship money."

"S-still. I-I think she might be trying to run away from something." Hinata protested when both of her roommates gave her a "you're imagining it" look, "S-Sakura-chan hasn't said anything after last night... She even put her laptop away today. Sh-She never puts her laptop away."

"Yeah... I'm sure there's a good reason for her hubby missing the finals, but..." Tenten didn't want to finish that thought.

"Even the good reasons wouldn't be great," Temari frowned, "She might never get an answer at all."

"Sh-She really liked him." Hinata murmured, watching as Sakura charged passed them for another lap. She showed no signs of slowing down.

"Well, what will be will be. Nothing we can do by killing ourselves on the track with her. C'mon, let's get breakfast. I heard the caf's doing French toast today." Temari said briskly, extending her hands so Tenten and Hinata could help her up. "My legs are about to fall off."

Sakura only noticed her friends leaving when they flagged her down, but she shook her head when they mimed eating breakfast. She just wanted to run now.

One step after another, one foot in front of the other, one breath at a time. She tried so hard to focus on the monotony instead of the dull ache in her heart. All of a sudden, she thought she saw a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye and instinctively turned around, nearly colliding with the person who'd only been a couple steps behind her on the track.

"Sorry," she muttered as she stumbled off the track, searching desperately... for... Meister?

Her common sense kicked in. Don't be stupid. You don't even know what he looks like in real life. You're looking for a guy whose face you don't even know.

I should've asked... Well, maybe it's too late now anyways.

Feeling stupid, feeling sore, feeling heart-sore, Sakura tried to make herself get back on the track, but her legs felt like wet noodles that could barely support her weight, and her lungs were screaming in pain. Surrendering to reality, she began cooling down by slowly walking around the outside of the track.

If only it was this easy to walk off regret.

(＞﹏＜)

This has been the longest 18 hours of my life. Itachi rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the scrape of his unshaven chin and the grittiness behind his lids pressing up against his eyeballs.

When his parents had died, he had been unconscious and sedated while they operated to save his life. Those 18 hours had passed in a blink, even if everything had changed after he opened his eyes again.

He couldn't imagine Sasuke, eight, scared, and alone, enduring those 18 hours. With those vultures that they called relatives dripping poison in his ear, that if Itachi hadn't been graduating that night, if Itachi hadn't wanted to go to that restaurant, his parents would still be alive - Itachi now understood why Sasuke had refused to see him once he'd woke up.

I'm glad fate didn't take him, too.

"Uchiha-sensei, you should get some rest. The doctor said Sasuke is going to be fine, but it might be a while before he wakes up," one of Sasuke's friends, the one who had called him at the airport, suggested. Itachi shook his head gently.

"I'll just sit with him for a bit longer." He ignored the looks that his little brother's roommates shot one another. They were good kids. Itachi was glad his brother had found such good compatriots, once he could trust. But...

But Sasuke was his little brother. The only family he had left in this world.

"Uchiha-sensei..." The blonde one, the friend who had been driving when Sasuke had been hit, wheeled himself over. He still had bandages wrapped around his head and an IV attached to his arm; Itachi was sure he was supposed to be on bed rest, but there he was anyways.

"What is it, Uzumaki-kun?" Itachi's gaze softened as he saw the steely stubbornness in the younger man's eyes. He had a feeling he knew what the other man wanted to say.

"I'm sorry!" Uzumaki got up and performed a full 90° bow, something that alarmed his two other roommates. Startled by the move, Itachi tried to help him up, as he was pretty sure maintaining that kind of posture wasn't good for Uzumaki-san's head injury, but he persisted.

"I was the driver in that car, and it was my fault that Sasuke was injured like that. If only I had reacted a little quicker, done some defensive driving, maybe the truck would have missed the side completely, or maybe the airbag would have deployed properly, or –"

"There's no need for that," Itachi interrupted him. "It was an accident, and the car rental company was to blame for letting their cars go on the road with a faulty airbag. Don't worry about it. And our lawyer will deal with that rental company and that trucking company."

He finally succeeded in getting Uzumaki-kun to raise his head, and all three of them saw the steely glint in Itachi Uchiha's eyes.

Man, Sasuke and his brother look a lot alike, Naruto couldn't help thinking, but his conscience wasn't clear yet. "But if I just –"

This time the interruption didn't come from the Uchiha brother sitting by the bedside, but the one lying in the bed. All of them jumped up when Sasuke's tired, quiet, but audible voice came from the bed.

"Don't be an idiot, idiot."

Even though his eyes were barely open and his face was very pale, Sasuke had finally woken up.

Relief, the first real emotion Itachi had shown since coming into the hospital last night, made his hand holding Sasuke's tremble. "I'll get the doctor," he managed to get out and squeezed his brother's hand tightly one more time, before turning and leaving at a fast clip. Itachi - cool, child prodigy, genius professor Uchiha - completely forgot about the "call nurse" button at his brother's bedside

"You're actually awake?" Naruto asked, watching Sasuke's face carefully. Sasuke's eyes were barely open, and his face was still pale. Lying in the bed with the monitors and IVs attached to him, he still looked very fragile.

Sasuke slowly turned his head toward the foot of his bed, where Kiba and Chouji had kept vigil. Slowly, he nodded his head, and a faint smile curved his lips.

"Whew," Chouji let out an audible sigh, then relaxed back onto the other bed in the room, where Naruto had been sedated last night. "I could sure use a bag of chips."

"You're really okay?" Naruto demanded, lowering himself into Itachi's seat by his bedside. "Really, really?" When Sasuke nodded his head again, Naruto also sighed in relief, but just to be sure, he held up two fingers on one hand and three on the other. "What's two plus three?"

The corners of Sasuke's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Sixty-nine."

"S-Sixty-nine?" Naruto's eyes widened. Despite his injuries, he jumped out of the seat faster than Itachi had. "Quick, we gotta get a doctor in here! Sasuke's lost his analytical capacity - "

"Pfffft Naruto you idiot," Kiba easily pressed him back down in the seat. "He's messing with you."

"Messing...?" Naruto goggled, looking from Kiba and Chouji who were suppressing their laughter, to Sasuke lying on the bed, who now wore a very familiar smirk. "Hey!"

"It's your fault for falling for it," Kiba continued to make fun of him. "I thought the doctor said you only had superficial head injuries."

Naruto shoved him, but weak and recovering as he was, Kiba easily dodged him. Still, since it no longer looked like Naruto was going to go running for a doctor any more, Kiba left him at Sasuke's bedside as he went to pour Sasuke a glass of water.

"You okay?" Sasuke asked Naruto.

"Yeah," Naruto grimaced, "Some scrapes and bumps. Doctors had me here for overnight observation just in case, but I feel fine. I should be out today or tomorrow. You, though... I'm really sorry, Sasuke, I-"

"Oh shut up," Sasuke cut him off again, turning his head back to center. "If you really want to make it up to me, take that resume critique session in two weeks. The one Itachi got me to agree to, for first years. You'd be better at it than I would be, anyway."

"Sure, yeah. Absolutely," Naruto agreed eagerly, like a lamb to slaughter.

Satisfied, Sasuke was about to drift off, when his eyes flew fully open again. He'd remembered something important. "What time is it?"

"Two in the afternoon, why?" Chouji responded, baffled.

"The tournament..."

"The tournament?! Why are you thinking about a game now? It's not like anyone who doesn't know where we are really cares-" Kiba scolded, but then broke off when he realized someone important didn't know. "SakuraBlossom!"

"Oh shit!" Naruto swore. "We all forgot. No one logged in and told her last night."

"Hello? Car accident?"

"I hope she didn't wait all night," Chouji worried

"Did any of you bring your laptop?"

"I did," Chouji volunteered, putting down his nearly-empty backpack. He'd eaten through his entire emergency snack reserve, so it was the only thing left in his bag

"Can one of you log on and tell her what happened? Tell her I'll be in contact as soon as I can." Sasuke felt exhaustion overwhelm him again, but he was determined to get his words out before he fell back asleep. Chouji instantly started logging on.

Meanwhile, away from Sasuke's bedside and near the door, Kiba voiced his concerns very, very quietly. "She won't dump him, right? Because he didn't show up? It's not like he could help it."

"No way. Sasuke and her are the real thing. Believe it!" Naruto declared a lot more confidently than he felt. He still kept his voice down, though, and looked over at the bed to make sure Sasuke was asleep

Itachi, who was just about to open the door for the doctor, overheard the last exchange and stopped in shock. Someone... would dump Sasuke? No, wait - he was dating someone in the first place?!

( ^ ___ ^ )

AN: Is Itachi focusing on the right thing here? Hmmmmm... :) 

Man, having to edit this chapter was hard, I'd gotten lazy with a Beta, LOL! Please excuse any errors, I'm still getting back into the groove of things (Not that all previous errors weren't also my fault - Beta spot still open, Swaps and Newbies OK!). Well, here's the next chapter soonish - I hope you enjoyed it! I didn't want to leave you hanging on too much of a cliff. I've seen a few of you saying that you started watching the drama cause you couldn't deal with the cliffhangers, LOL. Which I mean, excellent. While I hope those who choose to enjoy this as its own story will be able to do so, this story is *also* well served read as a comparison piece to the original drama, especially in the second half. Plus the original drama is just *swoons*, so the more people who watch it, the better. Also I'm really sorry for anyone who I freaked out with my last AN - I'm never going to abandon this story. It might take me a while because life, but my heirs or my ghost will come back and finish it if it takes me that long. There just might be a... hmmm how to say, SasuSaku 18+ secret project also going on in the background (LOL), and those are always harder to write. Please look forward to it! Finally, for those of you who caught it, I did slightly flirt with the Brony fandom back in the day until the original showrunner left. That uh... I'm kind of glad I got out when I did though.

As always, comments, reviews, kudos, favourites, bookmarks, and ocean tankers of coffee not spilled into the Suez Canal all make my day. Thanks for stopping by!