Their Love (itasaku one-shots)

It started with puppy love

It started with puppy love

Title: it started with puppy love

Pairing: ItaSaku

Prompt: Puppy love (30 prompt tables table A, prompt 4)

AU: non-massacre and no Sakura fangirl

Note: the age difference between Itachi and Sakura is 5 year.

Second note: inspired by a different Sakura x ? fanfic called Stages. I can't find who wrote it or with who Sakura was paired up. I'm sorry.

Third note: 3/? Stages. I'll probably continue this when I have a sad prompt because I have very sad ideas for the ending but I didn't want this one to end sadly.

I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto-sama owns it.

It started with puppy love

First stage

It all started when Sakura was just born and her parents visited the Uchiha residence. Itachi saw her for the first time and the first thought he had was how such a fragile and little girl would survive this world. He knew most of the cruel things in the world and handled it pretty good. In a way a five year old boy handles it. Sure, his little brother had been small too in the beginning, but he was a male from the Uchiha clan which would mean that he would be prepared very good.

This little girl, with the pink hair (which was utterly ridiculous. How does one survive in a world full of ninja's with pink hair?), however would have no training as her parents were normal civilians who mostly worked for the Uchiha's.

That was when Itachi decided that he would protect her for a little bit, just for the time that she couldn't protect herself.

This thought was confirmed once more when she smiled for the first time at him.

While he was busy with "protecting" Sakura and keeping Sasuke happy he never noticed his and her mother gushing over him as he was "so cute". Their mothers would tell this to them on their wedding, saying that they always had known that they would end up together.

Second stage

Itachi was watching his little brother, Sasuke, and Sakura play on the playgrounds when a group girls approached. They looked harmless, but Itachi had been wrong about that. Talking to "their" Sasuke-kun had made them notice Sakura and because of their foolish jealousy they started to bully her, saying that such a ugly girl shouldn't be playing with, again, "their" Sasuke-kun.

Even though they utterly adored Sasuke they didn't listen to him when he said that they had to stop. But what could a six year old boy do when his opponent was a group from around 7 girls, a few even older than him.

It was Itachi who made it stop, who said that they had to stop. He may or may not have accidentally turned on his Sharingan because he was mad. It was his "job" to protect her. It was now five years after he made that promise to himself. He thought he would stop protecting her when she could walk or something but he couldn't make himself stop.

Itachi had been surprised when Sakura hugged him afterwards, not quite expecting it. "Thank you thank you thank you," had she been muttering in his neck.

Third Stage

She had been 12 at this time and he was 17. Sakura had started with her Genin team and Itachi had just returned from a mission when Sakura decided to ask it. "Itachi-kun?" she started, her voice soft, eyes down to the ground. "Hn?"

"Can you train me?" It had taken all her courage to ask it. People had said that a civilian like her would never become a good kunoichi. That she just have to give up on her dream, go to a normal school and then when she was the right age marry another civilian. That's how they wanted her to be. But she wasn't like that.

"No," Itachi flat out refused. This was like a slap in her face. She had thought that since Itachi knew what they wanted from her he would help her. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm busy myself, you have your own team, your parents just want the best for you," this made Sakura so not happy. Where this the only reasons that kept him from training her? She opened her mouth to say something but he still had to finish his sentence. "And I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want to have to be afraid and worried when I'm at home and you're away on a mission, making me worried about the fact that you may not come back alive."

This made her shut up. He hugged her, seeing the defeated look in her eyes, knowing that what he had said had hurt her even if he didn't want to hurt her.

Sakura knew she shouldn't be acting like this, like a little child, but when he untangled his arms she just turned around, not being able to say anything.

Later that night Sakura had had a nightmare, leaving her shaking in her bed. Not being able to sleep again, she went outside to the Uchiha residence and sneaked to Itachi's room. This wasn't the first time they did this. He also went to her when his nightmares became too much. She went to him every time she had a nightmare. And she hadn't even had her first kill. She just had seen a few persons be killed right in front of her eyes, but the look on his face still haunted her, the feeling of her blood falling on her and the smell of the other dead bodies still haunted her.

The moment she landed on the floor she knew he was awake. He always noticed everything.

She started to apologise when she slowly let herself lay down next to him. They lay face to face now. "I'm sorry," was the first thing she said. "I shouldn't have reacted that way. I was acting like a spoiled child." Silence. Itachi didn't reply but Sakura knew he had accepted it because he slowly pulled her into a hug.

Itachi started speaking after five minutes. "I will train you," he said, "But only so you can protect yourself and I don't need to be worried sick about your safety."

"Thank you, Itachi." Too bad it was too dark for Sakura to see but if she had the same vision as Itachi did she would have known that they were both smiling.

Itachi knew though.