Naruto 1. Chapter 1

Author's note: This will probably be the only one in the story, so read it. This was originally going to be a one-shot because I do those so much better than chaptered stories, but I changed my mind, it just didn't flow right. As a precaution against the horrible procrastination that plagues me, I am going to try to have at least the next chapter done every time I post. This will (very probably, there is as always a chance that I will change my mind) be a Naru/Saku/Sasu

Disclaimer: I own the clothes on my back, fifteen thousand notebooks (almost all filled), seventy candles, and a computer. Unfortunately on this list I can not add Naruto.

Summary: Sakura feels useless, and used and is tired of trying to live with one part of her heart while killing the other. Her relationship with Sasuke and Naruto is not going the way she wanted, and she is losing a little more of herself everyday. Its time for a change.

Not Just A Girl

(Not Just a Bed Warmer)

Sometimes Sakura felt remarkably useless. She was normally just optimistically obtuse enough to believe that her teammates needed her. If not for her battle skills (which were, for the record, formidable) than because without her Sasuke and Naruto had a frightening predilection for violence, and more often than not when they went off on their own the only wounds they sustained in the mission were from each other. Except that sometimes there were days like this. Days when Sasuke was given a mission and told he could take three other ninjas and he smirked in the vague direction of where Naruto might be and that was all the confirmation Naruto got that he was on the mission, watching Sasuke's back. Days when she waited the whole time for Sasuke to ask her to accompany him, even though she knew that Sasuke would have picked and confirmed his team within the hour. Days when she paced and fretted and wrung her hands and sent as many meaningful glances at Sasuke as she could find time for, when she finally worked up the courage to confront her Sasuke-kun, and he just looked shocked that she had expected to go with them. Days when Naruto overheard and sent her a toothy grin and told her to keep the bed warm for them. Days when the medic they chose to take was some damn Chunin who was dense and slow and who _she_ had been training.

She had been the first of the three to make it to Jounin (granted this was most likely because Sasuke was off killing his brother and Naruto was on another one of his _training _trips)She had surpassed Shizune as Konoha's second best medic-nin. Perhaps she couldn't beat either of her lovers in a spar four times out of five, but she was at least _as_ qualified as Kiba, and that loser medic-nin Sasuke had deemed worthy of accompanying him.

The fact that Sakura had been having days like this more and more often since Sasuke had been made a Jounin captain was seriously starting to bother her. If it had been anyone but Sasuke and Naruto passing her over she would have been mountain-toppling furious, but when the two men she loved enough to do _anything_ for decided that she wasn't fit to fulfill missions with them, it hurt more than anything else. When they told her (Naruto's words and Sasuke's smirk) to **"keep the bed warm" **while they were away, she couldn't explain what it did to her.

When she was younger, and far more foolish, she had been accustomed to being the weak one, to watching their backs. It was a mindset, one she had worked tirelessly to break herself of. And all her teammates did was push her back into that old role. From Sasuke it could almost be ok, and was at the very least understandable, because Sasuke by virtue of being Sasuke was an ass, and had no problem acting like one. But from Naruto, it was heart breaking and soul shattering. The self-confidence which Sasuke and Naruto possessed in such a quantity that it radiated from them had always been lacking in Sakura, no matter what confident front she put up, so it was pathetically easy for her boys to knock down the hoard of confidence she had built up over the years.

Beyond their lack of confidence in her ability to fight (understandable, but unjustified) there were the looks that they shared. Deep, soulful, meaningful looks that neither one of the boys ever bothered to send her way. It was the fact that when they went out together Sakura never ended up feeling like anything other than a third wheel. Naruto would start telling a story and Sasuke would give a little smirk; the kind that people give when they know the ending to a story and feel superior because of it. When Naruto saw the smirk (and he always did, within seconds, it seemed that every twitch of Sasuke's facial muscles drew notice from the normally dense teen) he would trail off, sometimes he would glance at Sakura and hastily pick up the story, but sometimes he wouldn't remember that there was someone else, besides Sasuke and himself and he left Sakura wondering how exactly he had escaped from the fort, when he was buck naked.

In bed (which is where it sometimes felt like they spent all their time) Sakura was always in the middle, and every night the boy on top (usually Sasuke, he had more than a few dominance issues) would stare over her head at the one on the bottom. They moved inside her and ghosted touches over her slender body, there were moans and groans but nothing earth shattering. It was always a little bit routine (or so she assumed, as besides those experiences she had nothing to compare it to), and she was always a little bit disappointed. Not that they didn't pleasure her. They were always so careful, so considerate. Maybe that was the problem; it wasn't in their natures to be particularly careful, or especially considerate. Naruto was fire and passion and enough heat to rival the sun, and Sasuke was calm and cold with the intensity and power of an iceberg, and it was just so _wrong _with them being something they weren't.

Sometimes, rarely, she would be able to watch them when it was just them (and it was never just her and Sasuke, or her and Naruto, but there was enough Sasuke and Naruto to make her wonder) and it was violent and passionate. They screamed each other's name, bit and fought for dominance, until one of them made surrender look sweet, and the other took the spoils as is any victor's right. Together they lost themselves in a way they never did with her, and she was jealous and bitter and more than anything she wanted _that_.

Once a month (always the twenty-fourth) Sasuke would show up with a home pregnancy kit and wait (im)patiently for the three minutes and looked briefly heartbroken when the one line would show up. It was Naruto, always Naruto, who slung an arm around his shoulder and forced a reluctant smile out of him. She'd tried, tried over and over, every way she knew to coax that smile out of him, but all she ever got was a blank look and an even blanker voice as he replied with a thanks and told her that she would be fine. Every so often Sasuke would bring home a baby toy embossed with his clan's symbol. Or a little orange baby jumper, he never brought anything which would show that the baby was hers too. Subtlety had never been Sasuke's strong point.

More often than not she felt like a human incubator that they happened to be friends with. She felt (and felt awful and guilty and horrible for feeling that way) that if either of them had been able to carry the baby for the other one then there would truly be no place in the relationship for her. She knew that they cared about her, that if asked they would probably die for her, but she knew too that they didn't love her. Not like they did each other, and they probably never would. They wanted a baby and she was the easiest way to get the baby (not that either of them would realize the callous way that their thoughts turned). It wasn't what she wanted (not the baby, she would love a baby, had wanted a family since as long as she could remember), it was what _they_ wanted, and for the first time she realized that the 'they' was a private relationship that she was not party to.

She needed to talk to Ino.

She untangled from the bed, and her boys. It wasn't hard she slept as close to the edge as possible and was only hindered by the perfunctory arm around her stomach, while Sasuke and Naruto were nothing more than a tangle of tan and pale limbs with a shock of hair on top. She slipped silently off the bed, after carefully removing Naruto's arm (it was pathetically easy, just once she wanted to wake up and be pulled back into a warm body, the way Ino said Shikamaru did) and padding over to the pile of abandoned clothes. She pulled on her tight, spandex shorts but couldn't find her top quickly, so she slipped on Sasuke's typical navy blue top.

The rustling brought the ever alert Sasuke out of his sleep. He raised himself up on a single well muscled arm. She noticed with a rush of longing that Naruto's arm, which had been splayed over where she once was, immediately went to wrap around Sasuke and pull him back down. Sasuke resisted and looked at her through sleep fogged eyes.

"Where are you going?" Even with his voice roughened by sleep, it could smooth over gravel. It was rich, and luxuriant, the sort of voice that got her all weak around the knees and once she'd thought that it was just an expression, but with Sasuke there was no doubt in her mind that the person who coined that turn of phrase had done so with Sasuke in mind.

She smiled, it was the kind of smile that took a little too much effort to force and that he would notice immediately, if he had been paying attention. "Its nothing Sasuke-kun. I just forgot something that I need to do before tomorrow. Go back to bed, and if I don't get back in time to see you off, you guys be careful ok." 

At the hint that she thought she would be gone until past dawn Sasuke sat up straighter. "Where are you going Sa-ku-ra" He drawled her name in the way that never failed to make her weak in the knees, or to get an answer out of her on the rare times she didn't tell him at the first sign of his interest.

"Don't worry Sasuke-kun" The underlying steel in her tone was as close to a "Fuck off" as Sakura had ever come to giving Sasuke. Shocked and tired he obeyed her unspoken order, falling back into the comfortable embrace of his lover.

She smiled, a little sadly, Sasuke noticed and filed away for later contemplation, and turned to unlock the bedroom door. Sasuke was paranoid enough that all the doors in the apartment had locks and were routinely set with all sorts of dangerous traps, on the off chance anyone was stupid enough to attempt to sneak up on the near legendary trio. There were no window's in the apartment, something that Sakura had protested vehemently to when they moved in, but Naruto had taken one look at Sasuke's determined face and took his side, thus ending what could have been the first real argument of Sasuke and Sakura's lives.

She didn't bother brushing her hair or teeth, nor did she wince as she pulled on a pair of Naruto's orange sweatpants. She clashed, and looked bad enough that when she knocked on her best friend's door at three in the morning that all Ino did was take in her friend's air of desperation and holler at Shikamaru to make some tea. Ino escorted Sakura to the small living room in the cramped apartment and went to pull herself together and give her boyfriend a firm kick in the ass (if she had to be up, then damnit so did he). As soon as she was in clothes that didn't make her look like she had rolled out of bed she went back into the room to see Shikamaru already offering Sakura (who looked, now that Ino had time to look, pale and gaunt and frighteningly hollow) tea.

Sakura gratefully took the cup of tea from her best friend's lover and then folded in on herself even more. Ino sighed and strode confidently to the couch, where she sat close enough to Sakura, that should she feel the urge Sakura could wrap an arm around her and avail herself of Ino's shoulder.

"Want to tell me why you showed up, dressed like that" Ino was too much of a girl to not scrunch up her nose at Sakura's attire, and enough of a girl to gentle her voice after that comment "at three o'clock in the morning?" Sakura looked up through her bangs and Ino was thrown back over a decade to when she had first met Sakura. She didn't like how close her best friend, who had clawed her way past that teary-eyed sheepdog stage, had regressed so far since the last time she had seen her.

Sakura glanced at Shikamaru, who was all too happy to intercept that gaze and use it as an excuse to get back to bed. "Ino, I'll leave the tea and get back to bed, ok?" It was a mark of Shikamaru's silent worry that the word troublesome didn't pass his lips until after he was sprawled back across the bed, shamelessly eavesdropping as much as he could from his comfortable position.

"What is it Sakura?" Ino kept her voice at an octave light enough to be unthreatening and forceful enough that Sakura would open up under it.

"It's Sasuke-kun, and Naruto." Ino was too good of a friend to sigh, and prepared herself for what was doubtless not going to be something that she was going to want to be hearing about.

"They said they wanted me, that they weren't complete, weren't right without me. They said that I was the missing piece. That they needed me." She looked desperately at Ino for confirmation that they had indeed said that, that it wasn't something that she had made up so she could intrude on their relationship.

"I believed them, of course I believed them. They were my teammates and they never lie to me. Not to Sakura-chan, never ever to Sakura-chan."

"Of course you believed them." Ino reached out to lay a comforting hand on Sakura's shoulder. "What reason would they have to lie to you?"

"Exactly!" Sakura's cry was short and soft, but filled with a tone that told Ino that she had given Sakura the valediction she had needed. "Except, except that Ino," Her voice lost that tone and was back to being soft and contemplative. "Ino, they did lie."

Ino didn't want to ask. Nothing good would come of asking. But she couldn't resist. "How did they lie Sakura?"

"They don't love me. They don't even want me. Not really. Not the way they do each other. But I thought that it was okay. That they loved me differently but equally, because that is how I love them. They are different people, you can't love different people the same way, it doesn't work. But I do love them, and I love them both equally, and I couldn't choose between them. Not if someone was holding a kunai to my throat and told me that I had to choose, Naruto or Sasuke. I thought, but I was wrong

"They love each other, and they just need me. Because Sasuke, more than anything wants to restore his clan, and he'd choose that over Naruto, because he is so stupid, and so dedicated to that clan of his. And Naruto, he just wants a family, always has, since he was little. But they are both boys, and it doesn't matter that they can do i _anything /i _because they can't give each other what they want most, so they turned to me. Because I am a girl, and I can give them both lots of little Uchiha/Uzumaki's.

They do care about me. I know it Ino, they trust me, and with Sasuke that means more than anything because Sasuke doesn't trust anyone. But Naruto he just likes me, because he likes everyone, and maybe he likes me more than he likes most but he doesn't love me."

She looked at Ino pitifully and the statuesque blonde felt her heart breaking in sympathy. But she didn't say anything, because stopping Sakura once she got started meant that she probably wouldn't start again.

"I want to be loved. And I want to go to sleep and have someone pull me back to them when they sleep. I want passion, and I want if I have a baby, for it to be my baby, something that came from me and that I laugh and play with. I don't want to be that woman who carried it for nine months. And what if, once I finally do get pregnant, and why can't I get pregnant? We've been trying and trying and I just don't. Is there something wrong with me?" The tears began to trace a crystalline path down her cheeks. "But what if, after I have the baby, and it's a beautiful and wonderful child, Sasuke and Naruto don't want me anymore? They won't need me once the have their baby."

Sakura's words became unintelligible and Ino cast a desperate glance at her bed room, where the man she loved lay sleeping. She took her best friend into her arms and let the tears saturate her clothing. She stroked Sakura's hair and wondered idly at its softness.

Sakura lifted up her face and Ino didn't resist her urge to sigh this time. This was going to be troublesome (as soon as that thought crossed her mind she vowed to stop spending so much time with Shika-kun).

"You are my best friend Sakura, you know that right?" Sakura nodded her confirmation hesitantly. Nothing good could come after that sentence. "I really only want you to be happy. And so when they were making you happy, or at least making you think you were happy, I was okay with it. But you aren't happy anymore, so I'm not happy anymore."

She took a deep breath. This was not going to be easy, but she had to convince Sakura, it was the only way. "You need to leave."

Sakura gasped. "Ino, you don't understand I love them. I can't just leave them."

"Its because you love them that you need to leave Sakura. They are breaking more than your heart. The longer you stay with them, the more you lose of who you are. The last time you cried like this was when you found out that Sasuke and Naruto were in a relationship, and had been without telling you, for a year. That was years ago. You are different now. Stronger, and they are making you lose that.

When was the last time they sparred with you? Or gave you a compliment? When was the last time you went on a mission with your old team? The last time you used your full talents, and challenged yourself? You love to challenge yourself, and you aren't doing that any more. Sakura" She shook her best friend lightly "Sakura they are suffocating you."

Sakura took a shuddering breath and pushed her hair behind her ear. "I think you are right Ino. I'll break up with them when they get back from their mission."

Ino winced. It had been fairly easy to convince Sakura that she needed to break up, but this next part would be more difficult. "No Sakura, you need to leave. Completely out of their lives, and out of Konoha."

"But" Sakura stuttered. "I can't just leave, that would make me a missing-nin, and I am Tsunade's apprentice, she would send so many people after me, it would just be pointless if not suicidal. And all my friends are here, and I can't just leave them like that. They are still my friends."

"You know as well as I do, that all it would take for you to come back to them is a line from Sasuke and a pout from Naruto. That would truly be the definition of futility. And I don't want you to just leave. You are smarter than that. We need a plan. While Sasuke and Naruto are on their mission, how long is their mission anyway?"

"At least two weeks" came the subdued answer.

"Perfect. So while they are on their mission you can ask Tsunade-sama for a long term mission, and you know that you won't have to explain yourself much. Tsunade herself left the village for years so she could "find herself" so if anyone understands what you are going through it would probably be her. Then you leave the boys a note explaining that you are on a mission, and you don't know when you'll be back, of course you can't tell them where you are going because it is a confidential mission. Then add that you don't think that it would be a good idea for them to wait for you, and that over the time you think that you might get into another relationship. Add something about how you are tired of always waiting and want to use this time to experiment a bit. It'll make them furious enough that they wont think about looking for you for at least a few months, because they aren't smart enough-"

"Hey!" Sakura, ever loyal and still very much in love protested.

"Fine, they aren't level headed enough to think that it isn't a very Sakura thing to say. At the very least it will give you time to begin to mend yourself."

Sakura nodded reluctantly. She hated it when Ino made sense. Especially when Ino made a point that Sakura hadn't even thought of. She smiled half-heartedly and attempted a joke. "That's a pretty good plan Ino-pig, you really have been spending a lot of time with Shikamaru haven't you? All that intelligence was bound to rub off a bit."

"Shut it forehead. If I were you I'd go say goodbye before Naruto and Sasuke leave. You won't see them for a very long time, and it'll be the last time that you get to treat them the way you have been." Sakura paled at the realization.

"Thanks again Ino. You really are the best friend a girl could have" Ino smiled, and it lit up her already stunning face.

"Love you too Sakura. Now Scat! I want some beauty sleep, even if I don't need it." She flipped her long hair arrogantly.

Sakura snorted inelegantly and was out the door before Ino's outraged squeal escaped.

As soon as Sakura was out the door Ino trudged wearily to her bedroom. She flopped gracelessly onto the bed beside Shikamaru and laid her head gently over his head. One of his hands went to cup her head and the other one wrapped around her waist, pulling her even closer to his body. "I'm really going to miss her Shika-kun." He sighed and dropped a kiss on the crown of her head.

"I know you will, but this really is what's best for her, troublesome as it may be." Ino smiled up at the man she loved.

"I really do love you, you know?" He allowed a tired smile to creep across his face.

"I know." She waited patiently for him to respond with his own declaration of undying love. And when it didn't come, she slapped his chest half-heartedly. "Geez! I love you too, troublesome woman." She gave a contended smile and snuggled into his chest and fell into a deep sleep.

Sakura showed up at her apartment just as her boys were leaving.

"Hey! Teme!" Naruto's voice was boisterous, even at the early hour, and Sakura knew she would be getting a complaint about the noise later, if she was still there later. "Where's Sakura-chan?" She could practically feel Sasuke's shrug.

"What do you mean you don't know?" His voice was angry and dangerous. Sakura gave a rueful smile, he had always been ridiculously overprotective. "What if she got hurt without us? How could you let her leave? What if she's lying in a ditch dying, and she dies because we weren't there to find her." She didn't know what Sasuke said, but soon Naruto was letting out a low growl. She quickly turned the corner.

"Relax Naruto. I'm right here, I _can_ take care of myself you know?" She smiled innocently at him. "You can't pick a fight with Sasuke-kun before your important mission. At least wait until after, okay? I promise I won't stop you."

Naruto gave her one of his contagious grins. "I'll hold you to that Sakura-chan." He bounded up to her and enveloped her in his warm arms. That close to her he sniffed and smelled salt. "Sakura-chan? Have you been crying?"

He felt a rush of relief when she gave out a laugh, and Sasuke felt a small twinge of alarm, that wasn't Sakura's normal laugh. "Of course not, I just went out for a run. I had all this energy you know?" Sasuke's eyes narrowed, but he let it go. Sakura would tell them what was bothering her when she was ready if it was important. She had probably just tripped running. But then again, if she had just been running, why hadn't she told him where she was going?

"Okay Sakura-chan. Give me a kiss to remember, and wish me luck!" Naruto's voice snapped Sasuke out of his thoughts, and he watched as their female lover took Naruto at his word and gave him a kiss that didn't look like any of the other kisses they had shared.

"Good luck Naruto" She hesitated for a brief moment "_-kun"_ Naruto let out a whoop and turned to Sasuke.

"Hear that Teme? You aren't the only –kun anymore!" Sakura grinned at him, a real grin this time and any worry Sasuke had been harboring evaporated. She walked shyly over to wear he stood and hesitantly stood on her toes to kiss him too. Except that even then she was still significantly shorter than her first crush. With a cocky smirk he leaned down and allowed her to initiate the kiss.

Sakura pressed her lips confidently against his and gave him a hard, intense kiss before she rocked back on the balls of her feet. "Come back safely." With that she turned and walked into the apartment.

She draped herself across the bed, somehow her five foot two inches one hundred pound soaking wet body managed to completely cover their king-sized bed. She gave a small sigh before allowing herself to slip into a world of dreams built completely on the premise that neither Sasuke nor Naruto were with her, and that this time, it was by her choice.

Three hours later she was in Tsunade's office, observing the snoring Sannin. "Tsunade-sama you need to wake up, now." A ridiculously exaggerated snore came from her mentor's nose. She walked up to the blonde and pinched her nose tightly enough to block all intake of oxygen.

Tsunade shot up and whined. "What was that for?" She rubbed her bleary amber eyes. "Sakura-chan?"

"I need a favor." The grim determination in her pupil's voice had her straightening up, suddenly very awake, and very apprehensive.

"It depends. What favor would this be?"

"I need to get away from Konoha, go on a journey to challenge myself." At Tsunade's blank stare she hurriedly began to attempt to convince her before she made up her mind in a way Sakura would not approve of. "It would of course be beneficial for the village. I could study with other medic-nins, surely there are techniques that we could use in our hospitals that we are not yet aware of. And other than you I am the best person to send on such a mission, because I am far more likely than anyone else to learn and remember the technique, with my memory and chakra control."

There was desperation tingeing the voice of the young woman who was so very much like herself. She remembered, with perfect clarity the day she had decided that she needed to leave everything she had known to save herself. It had been cowardly. But sometimes cowardly actions were all that kept you alive. "Are you running away Sakura?" Her voice was serious, and her student straightened.

"Maybe, I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat and regroup. I will be back, and I will be stronger." Behind the desperation their was determination in Sakura's voice.

Tsunade steepled her fingers. "Naruto and Sasuke won't be happy."

"Naruto and Sasuke are never happy, and I won't, I _can't _ keep putting their happiness above my own. It might be selfish, but I don't care. I need this."

Tsunade nodded reluctantly. "Very well, Haruno Sakura you are officially on a mission to travel to all of Konoha's allies and gather what information they have on medical ninjutsu." She whipped out a scroll and scrawled something across it. "Give this to the kages of the villages you visit. It should explain your presence. Also when you have completed this, I would like you to visit Suna and assist that village with the training of their medic-nins. I can not give you a time line for this mission. Return whenever the job is done. This mission is of course confidential."

"Of course and thank you Tsunade-sama." Sakura bowed low and turned to leave the room.

"Oh and Sakura?" Tsunade prepared to add her afterthought.

"Yes Tsunade-sama?" Sakura didn't turn around. To tell the truth, she was a little frightened to.

"Keep in touch okay?" Sakura smiled happily.

"I will Tsunade-sama." Sakura left the Hokage tower quickly and began to prepare for her new mission.

Tsunade sighed deeply and took out her sake bottle. Sakura was far too much like her for her comfort, she only hoped her pupil learned from her mistakes, and she desperately hoped that history was not, as she feared, about to repeat itself.

Sakura had always felt that she was fairly verbose. She'd found it easy to express herself for the entirety of her life. And she could say with complete and total confidence that this letter was the hardest thing she had ever had to attempt to put in to words. She'd started and discarded at least fifteen drafts, before she settled on one. It wasn't ideal, but nothing about this situation was.

She sealed the envelope with a quick kiss and placed it gently on the freshly made bed. There wasn't much that she needed to do before she left on the mission, but with Sasuke and Naruto gone for so long she needed to clean the perishables out of the fridge and take out the garbage. She didn't want them coming home to a stench. The landlord needed to be paid for at least the next three months, because Sasuke and Naruto never remembered to do it. She'd pay for it herself, as a last act of kindness.

After Sakura had completed her simple tasks she cleaned out her drawers, she only had two, and no space in the closet, which should have tipped her off, because a man who wasn't willing to share closet space wasn't willing to share other things either. All her scrolls and medical supplies were cleaned out of their spacious living room, and tossed in to a separate bag. With one last melancholy sigh, she turned off the lights and prepared to go say goodbye to Ino.

It was just turning noon as they finished their teary farewells, and Sakura stepped out of Konoha for her first solo mission. She didn't look back until it was too late to see anything but trees.


	2. Not just a goodbye

Author's note: Okay, I lied, one a chapter it is. But I have a very important question for you my lovely reviewers (I love you all!). Or actually I have a very important poll-thingy for you all.

Do you want:

One more chapter, with a time skip and a reunion and a maybe happy ending, probably within the month.

More than one chapter with Sakura off learning medical stuff and the boys doing stuff that I cannot yet reveal? The chapters will be slower in their coming that way.

Not Just a Girl

Not Just a Goodbye

A month later Naruto and Sasuke returned from their mission bloodied and battered, but successful. An unusually sober Tsunade greeted them grimly in Hokage tower.

"Report." Her voice was cold, and her eyes angry.

"Mission was successful. Target was taken out, and the scroll was retrieved." Sasuke took the scroll out of his hip pouch and tossed it carelessly to her. Her hand snatched it out of the air easily and sparing it no more than a cursory glance Tsunade nodded.

"Injuries?"

"No more than the expected scratches. Nothing that won't heal on its own." She nodded.

"I'll expect a full mission report tomorrow." She was already looking away from them.

"Of course Hokage-sama." Sasuke inclined his head politely, too proud to bow, and Naruto just snorted and left.

"But Sasuke, I did it last time" was the last thing Tsunade heard of the two most promising ninjas of their generation, and the two boys that had driven off _her _most promising apprentice ever.

Sasuke and Naruto arrived that their home within minutes, expecting Sakura to be their to great them with one of her gentle smiles, but they weren't all the surprised or disappointed when it turned out she was out. They were surprised when they walked in and the apartment was dark and clean. Sakura always had a candle or something burning, and she never blew them out. She was also ridiculously disorganized and whenever they left for more than a week they always came back to the apartment in shambles.

They looked at each other and shrugged. Then Naruto gave Sasuke a challenging grin. "If I have to write the report, then I get first shower." Sasuke looked down at the grime and dust and blood that caked over his entire body.

"Hell no." Sasuke took off in the direction of the bathroom, but the inexhaustible Naruto created a clone that tackled him around the ankles and sat happily on his chest. The fatigued Sasuke glared a glare that had in fact killed lesser men, "You are very, very dead when I get up."

"Like you could take me." Naruto boasted confidently from the bathroom. "Hey Teme, why can you take your conditioner, but I can't take my ramen? At least ramen is edible."

"What the hell are you talking about, dobe?" Sasuke pushed at the clone and glared when it disappeared in a puff of smoke. He trudged into the bathroom and looked enviously at Naruto, all ready lathering himself with soap. "My conditioner is right there." He pointed to where his conditioner should be, and did a double take when it was actually not there.

"I've told Sakura a thousand times not to use my conditioner." Sasuke growled, and ignored the small part of him that was thrilled that she acknowledged his claim on her, by putting _his _scent on top of her own distinctively feminine and alluring scent of rain.

"Hey, Teme?"

"What?" He snapped, and glared, still angry about Naruto stealing the shower from him. Next time…

"Why isn't Sakura's shampoo here either?" Sasuke shrugged.

"She probably used it all, You know how quickly she goes through the stuff."

Naruto gave him a relieved smile. "Yeah, come on, why don't you come join me in here. The water is great." Naruto gyrated lewdly under the hot water.

"Are you ever not horny?" Sasuke contemplated joining him. On one hand there was the fact that the shower was running and Naruto would use up all the hot water, and Sasuke really wanted to get clean. On the other there was the fact that he was wiped out, and all he really wanted to do was put get clean and then get some sleep. But if he told Naruto that, he would have to kick his ass extra hard next time to get him to drop it.

"Sometimes, when I am really tired, I don't remember my dreams? Is that close enough?" Sasuke sighed and began to undress. An hour later the water had cooled and Sasuke closely resembled a marionette. He used short, jerky movements to stumble into the bedroom and fall naked on the bed. There was something poking him in the back, but he wasn't sure that it was bothering him enough to warrant movement.

With a long suffering sigh he rolled over and gathered the annoying thing into his fist, On the envelope in his hand Sakura's messy scribble spelled out his name, and Naruto's.

"What's that?" The voice broke him from his pondering on whether or not he was going to open it now. He moved his arm slightly, in a gesture for Naruto to take it off his hands. "A letter? I love letters."

Naruto ripped carelessly through the envelope and scanned the letter. Paled noticeably and sat down heavily on the bed, disturbing Sasuke enough that he got up and took the letter from Naruto's white-knuckled hands.

_Naruto and Sasuke,_

_I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye in person, but you know how missions are. _I thought that you deserved a letter though, because the mission I'm on is… indefinite. I don't know when I'll be able to come back. I can't tell you where I'm going or what I'm doing, but I don't want you to worry, I am the only person qualified for this mission for a very good reason. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.

However as I do not know how long I'll be gone, or who I will meet in that time, I feel it would be better if you two were not waiting for me to come back into this… relationship. From now on I no longer consider myself a part of this unorthodox relationship. If you feel the need to find a replacement I understand, and allow me to suggest Ami-san (the purple haired girl from the academy, she's a chunin now) she still has a crush on you Sasuke-kun, and I have heard her talking about you too Naruto-kun.

If it is an absolute life or death emergency and you need to reach me, give the message to Ino and she will contact me. Goodbye boys. I hope when I return we can still have our friendship. I really don't see what something as foolish and small as this should break our friendship, when so many other things have not. However I will understand if you two do not feel the same way.

I'll see you in a few years.

Sincerely,

Haruno Sakura

P.S. I paid the rent for the next three months, because you **always** forget.

P.P.S. Sorry about your conditioner Sasuke, you know how much I love it.

Suddenly Sasuke wasn't tired anymore. It wasn't the kind of letter that Sakura would leave. It was snide, bitter, and curt; three adjectives that never described Sakura. It didn't make sense for her to suddenly be on a long-term mission, especially a solo long term mission, because the recipients of such missions were usually given at least a month to prepare, and they never went alone.

It was an abnormality, and Sasuke was used to observing, analyzing, and taking apart the unusual until he came down to the root of the problem. He did so quickly and was almost always right about such things. The fact that such missions were never carried out alone or on short notice, as well as the fact that Sakura was never so callous and impersonal as she was in that note, led him to one sickening conclusion.

He opened his mouth to share his suspicion with Naruto but in a show of discretion he closed it again. Before he broke a small part of Naruto's heart he needed to talk to Ino, or barring her, the hokage.

But then the fatigue set in. There was absolutely nothing he could do right now. He wasn't sure that if the world was ending around him he would be able to lift his head to watch. So he simply thought about slinging an arm around his lover. His _only_ lover now that it appeared that Sakura had decided that she was finished with them.

He forced the words out of his tired vocal chords. "We'll do something about it later Naruto" He closed his eyes again and marveled at the unparalled exhaustion he was feeling.

Sasuke used Naruto's given name rarely, so Naruto always took note of what he said when he did. Naruto looked down at him, his sky blue eyes rolling with storms. Sasuke was almost sure he had seen the electric lighting flashing in them.

"I don't understand it Sasuke." Sasuke was as surprised as he always was that there was still any innocence left in Naruto after al he had seen and done, and he cursed Sakura for destroying a little more of the dwindling supply he had left. "I get that it is a mission and all, because someone has to do the missions, but I would wait for her, we would wait for her. Surely she knows that?" Sasuke didn't mention that he wasn't sure that he would have been able to wait, he wanted, _needed_ an heir to the Uchiha clan. "Why would she do that Sasuke? She was happy, we were happy." It was frightening watching the sorrow turn into anger that Sasuke couldn't bring himself to feel through the haze sleep deprivation had brought to him. Even in the face of Naruto's great and terrible rage all Sasuke could feel was a need for sleep that had settled deep in his bones and refused to leave.

"How could she do it damnit? We are a team first and always, we stick together. How could she take a mission without at least one of us to watch her back? Damnit" Naruto swore again and his anger ebbed into sorrow. Sasuke was always uncomfortable watching people cry, he didn't necessarily see it as a weakness, but he didn't understand the ability to let someone close enough to see it. He pretended not to notice Naruto's tears, because as soon as they were there they were gone.

Naruto leapt from the bed, and Sasuke winces as the torn muscles and bruised bones protested the sudden movement. "I'm going after herm dragging her back if I have to break every single one of her bones to do it." Naruto didn't recognize the words that so closely resembled the ones he had used when Sasuke took his leave of absence from the village and sanity, but Sasuke did and felt an irrational stab of jealousy. Naruto looked back at Sasuke, who was ignoring his abused flesh and beginning to rise stoically.

Sasuke was far too proud to admit that he was too tired to go on an anger fueled rampage (or a anything fueled rampage, or a rampage in general, maybe not even a mild short walk). Naruto blinked once and settled back onto the bed. "After I get some sleep. I'm so tired that even Sakura could beat me." Sasuke settled relieved back onto bed and was instantly asleep, entangled in Naruto's arms. Neither man recognized the easy way they maligned their teammate and lover.

By the time they woke up the sun had been hidden behind the horizon for hours. It was a slow coming around for Sasuke. A luxury he was rarely allowed. First it was the feel of Naruto's warm body curled around his own. Naruto was always so warm, Sakura liked to say that it was because he had so much passion that it burned through to his skin. Sasuke thought that it was more likely that it had something to do with the demon fox, but Sakura's version was more poetic. After marveling at the heat put off by his lover he noticed the dark, and then the smell, or rather the lack of the rain scent that always permeated everything, because it was the only scent that Sakura would wear (besides Sasuke's conditioner). There was a moment of confusion before he remembered the letter. He carefully squirmed (as always glad that no one was there to see the great Uchiha lower himself to so undignified an act as squirming) out of Naruto's hold. Naruto tried to draw him back but Sasuke was slippery as a snake and as strong as an ox so he managed to avoid being trapped again.

"Sasuke?" Naruto's voice was roughened by sleep. "Come back to bed." Sasuke glanced wistfully to where Naruto had sprawled himself lewdly across the bed, sorely tempted to do as he was ordered.

"Get up Naruto; we need to go see Ino." Naruto blinked and scrunched up his face in a picture of utter confusion and raw sexuality.

"Why?" If Sasuke were not Sasuke he would have sighed.

"We need to talk to her about Sakura remember?" He waiter for the remembrance to dawn on Naruto's face, unfortunately it didn't begin to click until after Naruto started a frantic speech.

"Sakura-chan, what's wrong? Where is she?" Naruto was out of bed and pulling on pants before Sasuke had a chance to answer. "Oh." Naruto's movements slowed to the point where they were almost stopped.

"On second thought I'll go talk to her, you stay here and work on that mission report." Naruto resumed his movements.

"No way in Hell. I'm coming with you. Ino doesn't like you very much anymore." Sasuke didn't point out that Ino didn't like Naruto much more than she liked him. Hadn't liked either of them since they "lured" Sakura into "a dark and morally disgusting" relationship. But making that comment would be futile and would probably hurt Naruto; Sasuke had tried to give up on such endeavors a long time ago.

"Hurry up then. I'm leaving." Sasuke was out the door and on his way to Ino's before Naruto started swearing. About half way there Naruto caught up and swung a fist at him. Sasuke smirked and dodged simultaneously, he then sped up noticeably. Naruto cursed him again and increased his pace even more.

Ino opened the door wearing a scowl and little else. Upon seeing the two of them lurking impatiently on her doorstep the scowl deepened, twisting her pretty features into an ugly mess. She slammed the door and the smash as it hit the doorframe reverberated around the building. Sasuke and Naruto waited (im)patiently for her to open the door again when she was properly tired. After ten minutes it became evident that even Ino didn't take this long to throw on sweats.

They knocked on the door again and were soon face to face with a bleary Shikamaru. He wore low slung pants and his hair loose and both men took a moment to admire his lean beauty. "Ino says to tell you to go the hell away."

They shoved roughly past him, uncaring that he slammed into the wall. They didn't notice his face twist into a grimace that perfectly matched Ino's scowl.

Ino stormed up to them filled with righteous anger and boiling hate. She wore biker shorts and a mesh top, but this time neither Sasuke nor Naruto took notice of the stunning blond who looked like she had stepped right out of one of Kakashi's nasty novels. Sasuke did notice that her hair was about a foot longer than Sakura's and looked almost as soft.

"Since you won't leave you rude shits, what the fuck do you want?"

Naruto grinned easily. "We'll be gone soon Ino-chan." Sasuke watched Ino winced at the suffix and narrowed his eyes as if to better study her. "Just tell us where Sakura-chan went." Her eyes narrowed and she slipped a hand into her hair casually. Sasuke knew from personal experience that she kept a kunai there; and that she had taught Sakura to do the same. "And why she left." Naruto finished his demands, Ino lunged, and Sasuke was there bending her wrist backwards with bruising force before she act on her violent impulses.

Summoned by Ino's pained cry Shikamaru let out a soft protest. "Let her go Uchiha." As soft as his voice was a threat shouldn't have been able to be contained in it, but the threat was there. Sasuke knew that Shikamaru was no great threat to him, but he would be _troublesome_ to deal with. So he obligingly released Ino before the shadow that was slowly creeping towards his own could reach its destination. As soon as his lover was cradling her bruised wrist Shikamaru let his shadow retreat.

Sasuke threw a punch at the unsuspecting shadow wielder. It collided with a sickening crack and Sasuke was positive that he had broken his jaw, at the very least. He fell unconscious to the floor.

"Sasuke you asshole, there was no need to do that." Naruto's eyes were heavier than normal, luxurious and sated, filled with self-satisfaction. Sasuke was only confused for a fraction of a moment before he noticed that Ino lay slumped on the couch.

'Get back in your body Yamanaka." He addressed his lover and didn't even stop to think how weird it felt to be doing that. Naruto's face twisted into a frown so uncharacteristic t his lover that Sasuke almost winced.

"Make me Uchiha." Ino in Naruto spat nastily. Sasuke had never heard that tone of voice before, and was glad. The hatred in his voice was enough to almost break Sasuke, even knowing that it wasn't really Naruto speaking to him so.

He apologized silently to Naruto as he plowed a fist, and then a foot into his stomach. Exactly in the place where Naruto's tanned body was marred by the seal, it was an extremely sensitive part of Naruto's body, a part that Naruto always guarded fastidiously. But Ino didn't know to guard this one weakness, so she let out a pained scream, it tore at Sasuke to listen to it. He wanted to comfort Naruto, offer to buy him ramen and ice cream, but this was _not_ Naruto he brutally reminded himself.

"Naruto can handle it, can you?" he looked pointedly to a trickle of blood blossoming out of Ino's mouth.

"Release!" Naruto's pained voice cried. As soon as the word was spoken the bodies were ruled by their correct owners. Both blonds gripped their stomach.

"What the hell just happened?" Naruto's question went ignored as Sasuke and Ino glared at each other in a silent battle of wills.

"Get out!" Her hiss was filled with vehemence. Sasuke wondered if she had taught Shikamaru to be so intimidating while being so quiet, or if it were the other way around. If Sasuke were anyone else, he would have probably obeyed her command, but obedience did not come easily to Sasuke.

"Answer his questions." Sasuke replied, his voice cold enough to freeze the sun.

"No." Naruto watched them. His eyes volleying from one to the other, if he was confused, no one noticed.

"But Ino-chan" Ino cut him off before he could get properly into his whine.

"Yamanaka-san to you." Her voice was filled with contempt and disgust, as though Naruto were something less than a bug underneath her polished feet.

Naruto frowned and Sasuke knew how much it hurt him to hear that cruel tone from someone he had considered a friend. The wounded look on Naruto's face turned Sasuke even colder.

"Where is she?" his vice promised a thousand deaths in a myriad of painful ways. It was enough to frighten Ino into responding (after all if they killed her she wouldn't be able to respond to Sakura's letters, which would worry Sakura enough to bring her home and then she would succumb to Sasuke's black magic smile, and Naruto's dream spun eyes. Which would defeat the whole purpose of sending her away, so telling Sasuke was in Sakura's best interest really).

"I don't know." She was glad it was the truth, because the glare Sasuke was giving her made her feel like a liar, and it made it clear what he had planned for her if she was.

"Where is she." Visions of trip wire and hundreds of tiny little knives danced tauntingly in his voice. Sasuke felt himself consumed by a cold rage, and almost unconsciously his eyes began to bleed red. Sakura had dumped and run from him (_them_ he corrected himself) and now when Sasuke was trying to find out where she had gone so he could drag her home and tie shake her until the idiotic idea that she could abandon him (_them_) left her head, her best friend decided to be as helpful as Naruto when asked about theoretical algebra.

Ino, who had never been a fearful sort of girl, straightened and felt anger wash over her in comforting waves, washing away and cleansing her body of fear. "Listen you narrow-minded chauvinistic asshole. Even if I did know, which I don't, because Sakura knew that you two wouldn't leave well enough alone, and would come to harass the answer out of me, and she didn't want you to know, I wouldn't tell you. Because Sakura is my best friend, not that you understand the concept of friend Uchiha," she spat the name like the curse she intended it to be "after betraying all of yours." She was aware in some distant part of her brain that this was beyond a low blow, that she had just pushed the boundaries of too far straight into China, and that Sasuke would probably kill her very soon, but anger clouded her judgment and she continued on her rant. "Except that real friends don't betray each other. They keep each others secrets and protect each other from people who will cause the other pain. And you two" it was the first time she addressed Naruto in her mini-monologue and he winced at the fuming glare she pierced him with "caused Sakura more pain that Orochimaru and Itachi combined."

Sasuke's fingers itched to wrap themselves around her neck and snap the fragile appendage, so much so that he clenched them into fists and thought briefly about counting to ten (Sakura swore by this method of calming oneself, but Sasuke was a firm believer that if they made him that mad they were better of dead anyway). He did however remind himself that if he killed Ino then Sakura would _never_ forgive him, and if Sakura never forgave him than Naruto wouldn't either. But how dare the presumptuous brat think to breathe the names of Orochimaru (who she had maybe glimpsed in passing) and Itachi (who she never even heard of in passing) let alone compare him to those heartless bigots.

"Enough Ino." Sasuke hadn't even noticed her mouth opening, although he did notice it snap shut. Unlike him Naruto's voice contained no threat. It was soft and gentle almost lilting. Turning his prized eyes to the blond man Sasuke noticed that at a direct juxtaposition with his tone, his stance contained even more threat than Sasuke's tone. Naruto was standing now, and though he was inches shorter than Sasuke's own six three, his presence dominated the room in a way Sasuke's never had. It reached out and seemed to smother Ino with murderous intent. He loomed just outside of arms-reach from Ino, and he probed her with eyes suddenly so pale they appeared white, except that there was a ring of blue so dark it was black keeping the whites of his eyes from leaking into his irises. Involuntarily Sasuke licked his lips. Naruto was _hot_ when he was intimidating people.

"I don't care about your opinion of me, of us" he gestured with infallible accuracy to where Sasuke was standing behind him and slightly to the left. "I also do not care about your varied and unique use of expletives. But you will tell us why Sakura-chan left. Throw in as many insults as you feel necessary." Sasuke could almost hear the pain that would be reflected in Naruto's tone. He really wanted to kill Ino. "I guarantee you I've heard worse."

Sasuke watched in mild-amazement as Ino's back straightened under a glare that had felled bigger, stronger people, and a tone that showed why Naruto would someday be an excellent Hokage.

"The fact that you honestly don't know why Sakura was unhappy, the fact that you didn't notice far as long as you didn't notice. It means that you don't deserve to know." She stuck her nose up defiantly and sent them a lofty, frosty glance filled with indignation on her friend's behalf. It was the kind of disparaging look that only women were capable of giving, the kind that subdued the best (and worst) of men.

"Perhaps you just don't know. I mean you and Sakura haven't been friends for all that long. Maybe she didn't trust you enough to tell you." Sasuke marveled at both Naruto's ability to manipulate and Ino's gullibility.

"Even if she hadn't told me the specifics, which of course she did, I am her best friend and I would know. I did know." She corrected herself when she saw Naruto open his mouth. "I knew before she knew when she was still basking in the sweet afterglow of the 'honeymoon period'. I knew and I waited until she knew. I knew and I waited until she told me. And then I held her while she cried for hours, and I helped her realize what she needed to do." She only glared defiantly when the growl started in Naruto's throat.

"You can't honestly be surprised that Sakura left with the way you two were treating her." Sasuke frowned and Naruto swore.

"What do you know about it? We treated her like a fucking princess."

"You treated her like a fucking glass doll Naruto." Ino sneered. "You treated her like she would break if you breathed on her. When was the last time either of you brought her on a mission? The last time you let her accept a mission without one of you?" She waited for them to think about the length of time. She knew they wouldn't tell her, but they didn't need to, Sakura had.

"Trying to protect her makes us bad people? Gives her a reason to up and leave?" There was incredulity in his voice, and Sasuke didn't like the deviation from his previous murderous tone, but even a master of his emotions wouldn't have been able to keep it out.

"That's not all you did Uchiha, but that was a stepping stone in making Sakura unhappy. Sakura has spent years making sure that she doesn't need protection. Years fighting and striving so that she could stand beside you, not behind. She defeated an Akatsuki member almost single-handedly. She is one of the most promising medics for generations. She deserves respect. But more than that, you men used her for a breeding tank to continue your 'oh so esteemed lines'. You said you loved her and then treated her like an afterthought. When was the last time you did something nice for her? When was the last time you bought her chocolate while she was menstrual? The last time you took her out to eat where she could get her favorite food? Something completely unrelated to ramen and tomatoes." She scrunched up her nose at the thought of some one actually liking tomatoes that much. "When was the last time you did something because that is what she wanted?"

Ino took in a deep breath and looked them in the eyes. First Sasuke then Naruto and then back to Sasuke, when they looked confused rather than enlightened by the questions she decided to summarize it. Men. "You know how you guys love each other? You don't feel that for her. Not really." Naruto opened his mouth to let outraged splutters escape his lips. Sasuke tightened his fists. Ino gulped and hastily added "At least, that is what she thinks."

They stopped glaring at her and turned to glare at each other. "This" Naruto hissed out "Is all your fault." He glared at Sasuke in a way that made homicide on her new carpet seem inevitable.

"Actually, I think you both deserve the blame." And they were back to glaring at her. She looked mournfully at the carpet, it had been so nice and white.


	3. Not just a cat

Author's note: So I took a poll, and in a completely contrary way (I am _completely_ contrary) decided to go with option number three. Theoretically there will be two more chapters. Sorry this one took so long. It is a little bit more light hearted than the others. I hope you enjoy!

Not Just a Girl

Not Just a Cat

Sakura pushed sweat soaked hair out of her eyes and resisted the urge to glower at the dog laying prone in front of her. She had thought she was finished with veterinarian medicine years ago. Of course, if she tried this on a human she would probably kill them. The hair she had shoved out of her eyes came back to flop rebelliously in front of her face again. Annoyed she took out a kunai and before she could think better of it sliced the annoying lock of hair.

The man standing beside her winced as the sweat-darkened hair fell slowly to the ground. When she was less frustrated and fatigued, she was probably going to regret doing that. He turned sharp green eyes to watch his temporary pupil attempt to pour her chakra into the dog again. She was doing very well, far better than he or any he had attempted to teach had done, but that didn't appease her frustration at her inability to get it done. Sakura was beginning to near the edge severe chakra depletion. He had suggested (kindly) that she take a rest about three hours ago. Her responding glare had silenced him, but if she continued to work this way he was going to have to broach the subject again.

Sakura slowly withdrew her chakra from the dog and turned to the subdued man at her side. "What am I doing wrong Jaegar?" She hated having to ask, hated not getting it right, chakra control was her thing she hadn't needed someone to explain how to manipulate it in _years_.

"You are pushing your chakra in, it is overwhelming the other chakra. You need to let it go in slowly like sand flowing through an hourglass, and once you are in you need to let your chakra spiral, in tightly packed coils until your chakra is completely insinuated into the body." He paused trying to find the right words to explain it, he really hated teaching. "Then your chakra should _feel_ the other chakra. Then you just" he shrugged "_use_ it. I'm sorry I don't make much sense, I am not exactly the best teacher."

She didn't reply. He looked down at her and the small frown written across her features was so incredibly endearing that he almost wanted to kiss it. She didn't even look at him as she walked back to the whimpering dog her chakra began flowing in a thin thread approximately the diameter of a needle into the dog. She began to wind her fingers in tight circles and her chakra mimicked the movement. Sakura felt her chakra sink into the dog, she continued to let her chakra leak into the dog and after an amount of time she couldn't even begin to guess she felt an awakening in the dog, A tentative brush on her chakra, then another firmer brush and suddenly she couldn't tell where her chakra began and the dog's much less significant chakra ended. She focused a little harder and she was the dog, but somehow more. She felt a twinge in her leg, but _not_ her leg. Almost unconsciously she turned her mind towards the leg and rode a smooth road of chakra to the left hindquarter. There were torn ligaments and a broken bone wincing Sakura grabbed a fistful of chakra, hers, the dog's, a little bit of both, and gripped the torn ligaments together and pinched with chakra until the two sides were melded together again. She moved towards the bone and held it together, her body following her mind. She built a bridge connecting the two halves together and poured more until it was hard and solid and the bone was together again.

Sakura withdrew from the dog, her chakra and the dog's seemingly unwilling to part. As soon as she pulled away from the quadruped she felt her vision go black and her head begin to spin in a way that was not nearly close to being fun. The floor really needed to be swept.

Sakura woke up convinced that she was giving birth to Athena. She lifted her head weakly and waited for the wave of pain to die down. As soon as it had reached a level that was merely intolerable she reached down into the well of chakra she had built up over the years. It was only when she found the level of chakra at the same level it was when she was a genin that she remembered why she was lying fully clothed on what appeared to be a hospital bed. Chakra depletion, she diagnosed, combined with exhaustion and malnourishment, but she had done it!

Jaegar walked into her room carrying a bouquet of fennel and blue periwinkle, instantly her mind flashed back to the hours in Ino's shop, fennel for admiration and periwinkle for friendship, it was a nice gesture. He startled as she sent him one of her patented smiles.

"Sakura-san! You should still be asleep; you used up a ridiculous amount of chakra, combined with the fact that you haven't been eating, or sleeping? Are you insane? I should write Tsunade-sama right away and let her know of her pupil's willful disregard of her own health. I do not think that would make her very happy do you?" he glared meaningfully at her and she winced, partly because his voice was unnecessarily loud, and partly because Tsunade would **_not_** be pleased. She remembered the time when her training had first begun and she had stayed awake for days trying to figure out the secret behind a jutsu. The resulting lecture from Tsunade (also while her head was attempting to murder the rest of her body) had cowed her into submission for almost a month.

She pouted the way she pouted when Naruto and Sasuke were being stubborn and she _really_ wanted something, it had always worked on them. She shook her head to clear it of the cobwebs of her memory before she could get trapped in a sticky web and forced to relive memories that were better off left dead. "But Jaegar-kun" her voice was saccharine in its sweetness "you wouldn't want her to _kill_ me would you?" She looked up at him through her eyelids and saw his frown begin to dissipate.

Keeping the pout on her face she rejoiced inwardly. It was good to know that even in a hospital bed, looking no doubt a bit worse than death warmed over, she still had it. She braced herself for the pain and swung her legs over the side. She was not so weak that a little headache would incapacitate her. Her vision faltered, blackened, and then returned to normal. She placed her feet down decisively and held onto the bed as the world began to sway.

She waited for the dizziness to pass, but it soon became apparent that it was only going to get worse, and all the spinning was making her stomach threaten to rebel. Gentle hands pushed her back onto the bed, and she went willingly enough. His features swam into focus and she latched desperately onto his deep green eyes. They were greener than hers, the closest thing she could think of was that of pine needles, but even those were not quite the right shade of green. Eventually she regained her equilibrium and focused on his face. He was attractive, not as attractive as Sasuke- no he was just attractive, and she would not compare him to her ex-lovers. Sakura ignored the pain in her heart the way she had not been able to ignore the one in the head.

He was pale. Possibly the palest person she had ever seen. She could trace the pale blue veins down his arms and face if she wanted to. Strangely it didn't make him look as sickly as it should. It was actually rather striking, especially as it offset his hair, the rich red color of fall leaves. He was made up of delicate bones and slim muscles, and moved as a cat. For the first time in years Sakura felt a surge of longing for a man who was not Sasuke or Naruto. She smiled as she basked in the feeling.

Jaegar frowned when the smile stretched across her face. A smile like that never meant good things for a man. "As I am sure you had noticed getting up is a bad idea. As I am also sure you _know_ you need to eat, preferably something with a lot of sugar, to get your energy back up, and then I think sleeping would be a good idea, if you can handle the sugar."

"By 'something with a lot of sugar' do you happen to mean chocolate?" Sakura said hopefully. She hadn't had chocolate in what felt like forever. If the smile that she had worn when she was contemplating his looks had worried him, the one on her face now terrified him.

"I don't see why not. You can have one bar of chocolate for every energy drink you consume."

"Deal." Jaegar hadn't heard Sakura sound that happy since she had walked in to the village of Stars three weeks ago and started trading techniques with him. This admittedly was more of her teaching him than him teaching her, there were few secrets that the medic-nin of Konoha didn't know.

Five energy drinks and six bars of chocolate later Jaegar was remembering exactly why you shouldn't eat sugar on an empty stomach, and promising himself he would _never_ make the same mistake again. He didn't know whether to be relieved that she was so obviously feeling better, or concerned that she was so _obviously_ insane.

"Jaegar-kun!" Sakura launched herself at him so fast he had no hope of dodging, or staying on his feet. "I want to _train_. Or shop, or get a kitten, I always wanted a kitten, but Sasuke said we couldn't have one because he's mean!" He blinked as the girl sitting on top of him started to bawl. She had been happy less than five seconds ago. _NEVER_ again was he letting her within arms reach of chocolate. She should have come with a warning label.

He shifted her easily so he could sit up and pat her back. "I am sure he was a cad." He had absolutely no idea who Sasuke was, or that Naruto she had started to babble about, but it seemed like a safe answer. As quickly as the tears had started they had stopped and she giggled. The sound of a grown woman, who could topple mountains with a finger (he knew, she'd done it to prove that she wasn't just a girl when the council elders had been a _wee bit_ chauvinistic), giggling was disconcerting. She was off him and twirling around him, tugging his arm.

"Sasuke is a cad! The cadiest of all cads ever! I'm going to go get a cat, because he is a cad, and I don't have to listen to him anymore. I'm getting a cat and he's a cad!" Seemingly liking the sound of that Sakura began to singsong "Kitty cat-to spite the cad." Over and over until he wanted to drive a kunai through his ears, he had begun to suspect that Sakura Haruno was many things. But she was _not_ a singer.

He allowed her to pull him through the village, hanging her head and hoping that everyone he knew was suddenly somewhere far away. She looked back at him and stopped the song for a minute to explain that **she** was getting a cat, so he had to skip. When he had started to explain that as the son of the Hoshikage he did **not**skip through the village the tears had threatened again, so he had started to skip. It was shameful how easy he was to manipulate.

The walk through the village had been the longest of his life, and he barely resisted the urge to kiss the owner of the pet shop when they reached it. Sakura demanded to be led to the section with the kittens. She spent a while examining what appeared to be a litter of kittens. She frowned and apparently had decided that none of those kittens were to her liking, though he couldn't see why they were all stunning creatures, black and white with glowing eyes. She turned around to the store owner, at a moment the owner would likely regret for a long time.

A kitten much smaller than the others, the rut of the litter Jaegar supposed (he wondered why it hadn't yet been killed as the store owner would not be able to find anyone to purchase it) had pranced over to the owner and with a feline sort of smirk urinated on what looked to be expensive boots. Sakura turned around just as the scowl was twisting what might have been an attractive face into something ugly and the long, muscled leg was drawn back. She saw the foot descend towards the kitten, and though she did not block the kick in time she did catch the creature easily while turning to the owner with anger dancing like flames in her eyes.

She held the kitten gently in one hand while the other was clenching into a white knuckled fist. Sakura _hated_ bullies, more than she hated most things. It might have been a throwback from the days when she had been mercilessly taunted by them, or it might be that she had always had an unwavering sense of justice and picking on those that could not fight back chafed against that moral compass. Maybe it was a little bit of both. But whatever the reason the store owner was now finding himself facing a woman who could break every bone in his body without thinking about it and heal him just as easily.

"You are despicable." She spat it in a way that made the insult more potent than any curse under the sun. "This is just a kitten, and" she paused as said kitten weakly lapped at her hand. She gave it an easy smile and poured a tiny bit of chakra into it "_and_ it had three broken bones and internal bleeding. You are lucky that it needs my immediate care or I would show you what it feels like to be picked on by someone you have no chance against. Of course" she sniffed disdainfully "you have even less of a chance against _me_ than this kitten had against you." She turned away and ordered imperiously "Jaegar, gather the things I will need to care for this cat."

"You bitch." As Sakura began leave the store, the owner seemed to realize that he had just been insulted and when he could no longer see the eyes that promised his death in a very slow, infinitely painful process, he grew brave and lunged at the departing ninja with a kunai in hand. Jaegar winced; Sakura spun around gripped the wrist and kicked the back of his knee. The bones shattered.

"That was stupid." She looked down at the man now laying prone on the floor. "Jaegar can you also deal with this trash?" All traces of the sugar high were gone from her face and voice now, she looked and sounded like a queen dealing with a disrespectful peasant. She left before he could give her his affirmative answer. He wouldn't be able to heal the damage as well as she would have, but she probably knew that. The store owner would walk with a limp for the rest of his life, if he was lucky he would need a cane. He would never have the same range of motion in his wrist either.

"You got off lucky you know." The store owner snorted like he didn't believe him. Jaegar _accidentally _left a small sliver of bone unattached to the rest of his knee. "Attacking a diplomat from the hidden leaf could have easily meant your life was forfeit. The money you will lose from that runt kitten and the necessities for it are surely a small price to pay. The store owner snorted again, and Jaegar was suddenly very glad he _hadn't_ kissed him.

Sakura went straight to her apartment and laid the kitten gently on one of her pillows before delving into it with her chakra. Her supply had been replenished since she had woken up, but it was no where near what it should be. The process was slower than it should have been but soon the kitten was healthy and prancing around her as she held her head and fumbled for something to take to relieve the pain. If she hadn't exhausted it all the day before (not that she regretted that for an instant, she had figured out the trick to the jutsu, which would be very useful and would no doubt save a lot of chakra in the future) she would have been able to deal with the headache easily enough. But using chakra to get rid of a chakra strain headache was a bad idea.

She finally found the herbs she was looking for (she was running low and would need to gather some soon) and crushed them in her palm. She through the herb dust into her mouth and swallowed. It would have gone down easier in a tea, but she didn't want to take the time to make the tea, so she took the bitter dust reluctantly. She grimaced at the taste and waited a moment for the medicine to take effect. It was a blessedly quick remedy so within a few minutes she was looking at her new cat (what had possessed her, she did not have the time or ability to take care of a cat, and now she couldn't very well get rid of it). It sat on its haunches and appeared to examine her as well.

The first thing that she noticed was how very small it was. It could sit easily in the palm of her hand, the thought of anyone taking advantage of so small a creature made her heart hurt. It was pitch black except that its paws and about a quarter of its legs were blindingly white. She smiled at it "I shall call you Puss, because of your boots." She informed the creature who promptly tilted its head and appeared to consider it. The newly dubbed 'Puss' apparently approved of this new title, and licked Sakura's leg once to convey its pleasure. Only then did she notice its eyes. They were neither blue nor green but a beautiful melding of the two colors. She had _never_ seen eyes so stunning.

"You are a beautiful creature aren't you Puss?" She scratched gently under its chin and it gave a content purr. As if in answer her own stomach growled and she laughed somewhat sheepishly. "I guess it is time to eat boy, or girl. What are you anyway?" She flipped the cat over and before it had a chance to let loose the indignant yowl that she was sure was building up, she had it placed on her shoulder. It dugs its claws in a bit too hard in retaliation but made no other attempt to move. "A girl then, that's good. I am getting a bit tired of men." The cat moved a bit closer to her neck and the cover of her hair, giving another lick to her ear almost agreeing with her.

Walking into her small kitchen she opened two cans of tuna and drained them. She served a portion of it to the cat on a small plate and mixed mustard and mayonnaise (and a small bit of dill pickle) into hers and sat down across from the kitten. As soon as she sat down the kitten began to eat. She took a moment to ponder the strange behavior of the cat before shrugging (she was used to smart animals, and cats were rumored to be extremely intelligent, unless of course you asked Kiba) and eating her own dinner.

By the time Jaegar came by with necessities for the cat Sakura had taken a shower, fingered her one significantly shorter piece of hair and decided that she needed to go see a hairdresser. She had also fallen totally in love with her cat.

"Did you heal that odious man Jaegar?" She didn't look up from where she was carefully brushing her new kitten.

"To the best of my ability Sakura-sama" he wasn't sure what it was that made the honorific seem important now. There was just something in her voice; it was sugar with an undercurrent of steel. She frowned slightly. "Of course, to the best of my ability means that he will still walk with a limp and have problems with his wrist for the rest of his life." The frown cleared.

"Maybe I was a bit unfair. I am not better than him am I? He had not even the barest hint of a chance against me. He was just a civilian and I am a jounin of the hidden leaf." She looked up and her eyes were haunted.

The thought had never even crossed his mind and he wasn't sure how it came to make itself home in hers, but never the less he hastened to reassure her. "Bullies never think that they have earned that title. He had a foot and a half and at least a hundred pounds on you, and a very violent temper. He came at you with the intent to kill, or permanently wound you. You would have been within your rights to kill him, but you simply made sure that he could not do so again. And he would have, he liked to pick on women, children and animals, things that couldn't fight back. Now he won't be able to anymore." It was important, suddenly the most important thing in the world that he reassure her.

She looked up at him with a smile that was almost good enough to fool him, but she lacked the skill necessary to make the lie true in her eyes as well. "Thank you Jaegar, that is very reassuring." He sighed and could think of nothing else to say.

Impulsively he leaned over and pressed his lips gently to hers.

Sakura froze, this was the first time in months that she had been kissed, and the first time ever that she had been kissed by someone who was neither Sasuke nor Naruto. She didn't know what to do, but it didn't seem to matter because Jaegar's lips were moving gently over hers, sucking her lower lip into his mouth and rolling it around. It was nothing like either of the other boys, but it was… nice. Warm and gentle.

Just as Sakura was about to begin kissing back Puss yowled angrily and scratched at Jaegar. He stumbled back, clutching a bleeding arm. "I'm so sorry Sakura-san. Please forgive me; I don't know what came over me." He was mortified and slightly upset by her lack of enthusiasm but at least the sadness was no longer lurking in her eyes.

"Its alright Jaegar." She wasn't sure if she was more upset by the kiss, or by the fact that he was sorry about it. Was she not worthy of being kissed? Was she forever doomed to being a mistake? Would no one ever really want her? She blinked back the tears threatening to fall down her cheeks. Not while he was still there, she would never show him that he had hurt her. He was such a sweet boy, it would have had to be an accident, he would never hurt her on purpose, and she wouldn't have him feeling guilty because she wasn't good enough. "I think I would like to be alone tonight. We can finish training tomorrow. I need to be leaving for Suna soon."

Jaegar couldn't believe that the thought of her leaving was as incredibly intolerable as it was. He had known her less than two months but somehow the crush he had developed as soon as he had seen her had become friendship. And that friendship had become something more. Not love, but at least a strong like, and he had very little doubt that he could love her. She was beautiful, and smart, kind, and powerful, and she couldn't just leave. He had thought he would have longer with her. He had thought he would have time to make her like him the way he liked her, to make her want to stay. He was sure that she would have stayed at least another two weeks, but now she was rushing, and he had a sickening feeling that it was his fault.

"Of course Sakura-sama" his voice was subdued and his eyes kept to the floor. Sakura winced internally, did he regret it that much? Was she so awful, and unworthy? Sakura felt a little bit of her already decimated self-esteem die away. He bowed to her as he left. Her door wasn't even closed before the tears began to pour down her face.

The kitten put her head under Sakura's hand and purred. When this didn't wake her new mistress from the haze she was in she bunched the muscles in her shoulders and leapt, landing gracefully on Sakura's shoulder. This time she did not dig her claws in at all, but walked daintily over to her neck. Perching herself just under Sakura's ear she began to purr again, brushing her tail soothingly over the back of Sakura's neck.

Sakura's tears slowed as she felt the cat's odd actions. It really was an intelligent creature. She attempted to make her voice as cheerful and encouraging as possible. "It's ok darling, I'm sorry. I'm just a little tired, and a lot stressed, maybe it is time for me to go to bed." The kitten purred its assent and stayed on Sakura's shoulder while she set up the litter box and prepared a bed out of pillows for the cat. She fingered the collar and looked at the mass of black fur riding on her shoulder.

"It would seem wrong to put a collar on you. You are not my property." She tossed the collar, a shade of pink that reminded her of her hair (did everyone think that was her favorite color? She didn't get people things to match _their_ hair. Just because her hair was pink. Honestly.), into a bin that was storing garbage. The kitten meowed approvingly at this and Sakura smiled.

She gently took the kitten off her shoulder and placed it onto the bed she had made it. It glared at her in a blatant show of disapproval. She almost laughed. "Don't be like that darling, I move too much in my sleep. I wouldn't want to squash you." Strangely the cat seemed to accept this and stood up from its bed, circled a few times and lay back down agreeably. This time Sakura did laugh, choosing once again to not question the strange understanding the cat had with her. She did however wonder at its desire to stay close to her. Weren't cats supposed to be solitary creatures?

She changed out of her sweats and into a giant T-shirt. It had once been Chouji's then it had been Ino's and now it was hers. It dwarfed her, coming easily down to her knees, and with enough spare fabric to fit another one of her in there without touching anywhere. It was her favorite nightgown, as it had been Ino's before it had disappeared. She had listened with a straight face while her friend bemoaned its loss, and almost felt bad when Ino had blamed it on Shikamaru. As penance Sakura had made sure Shikamaru would not be killed for its disappearance by suggesting they simply steal another of Chouji's shirts, which had launched an espionage mission the likes of which she had never seen.

They had dressed in black cat suits, the kind you never wore when you were really on a mission, and entered through the front door. Sakura had gone into the bedroom (she was far better at stealthy than Ino) and stolen the shirt, while Ino had found Chouji's chip collection and stole those. They had then planted a few bags strategically in a subtle path leading up to Kiba's house and then dumped the bags in a duffel bag in the backyard.

Ino had gotten the shirt and been happy. Shikamaru had never known how close he came to dying for Sakura's sin, and was almost happy. Chouji had gotten to beat up Kiba and upon the retrieval of his chips, been happy. Sakura had gotten revenge of Kiba for making fun of her abysmal love life and been happy. Kiba had gotten beat up for something he didn't do, and laughed at when ever he showed his face for the next two weeks. Kiba had not been happy.

Smiling at the memory Sakura began to think of how easy it had been before Naruto had brought Sasuke back. Before she had been immersed in a twisted relationship that never benefited her, before everything had changed. She wished she had that time back. As soon as she started to think of it the past came rushing back into her mind in a flood. She had been able to keep the memories at bay in the light of day, but now that she was alone in her bed at night the loneliness and desolation started to swamp her. She wanted Sasuke and Naruto, even though they didn't want her. She wanted to love them enough for all of them.

She wanted to watch them fight, and then make up. To listen to Naruto's stories and Sasuke's silences. She wanted it all back, every destructive minute of it. But she could never go back. No matter how much she wanted to, it would never be alright for her to go back, not when she had realized what was so wrong, not when she felt herself bending so much she was breaking. She wanted what she could never have, and wasn't that always the way it was?

Sakura cried herself to sleep, as she had done at least three times a week for almost a year.


	4. Not just a fight

Author's note: Sorry this is so late you guys. Writing Sasuke kicks my ass. Anyway I hope this will tide you over for a while, because I am going to be having surgery in a few hours and will probably not even start thinking about the next chapter for a week. Review please gets down on her hands and knees and looks pitiful please?

Not Just a Girl

Not Just a Fight

Sasuke had three broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a shattered femur. He was however secure in the knowledge that Naruto looked much worse. Naruto had cracked a vertebra, suffered a concussion, dislocated his shoulder and there was a jagged piece of glass through his abdomen. Naruto would heal faster, damn fox, but it was safe to say that _he_ had been the winner.

Tsunade walked into the room with a scowl that was becoming more and more typical as the year without Sakura began to stretch closer to two years. She looked down at Sasuke's chart, which had more than doubled in size since Sakura had been gone. "You are an idiot." Sasuke waited for her to elaborate, but realized that she wasn't going to when she began to wrap a bandage around his ribs.

"Hokage-sama?" It shouldn't be possible to fit so much derision into one word, but if anyone could manage it, it was Sasuke Uchiha.

"This is the thirty-fifth time you have been in my hospital in less than two years, and the thirty-second time you and Naruto have been in the hospital because you beat the shit out of each other for NO BLOODY REASON. You two need to get over what ever it is that is bothering you, or you two need to stay away from each other, because you are my two best ninjas and I am tired of patching you up."

When she finished wrapping his ribs and leg, and pouring a little chakra to seal the punctured lung she turned to leave. Sasuke, who was feeling no better, and looked rather pathetic gave a questioning "Hokage-sama?" It was amazing how he could fit so many different inflections in the same word.

"I see no point in healing you so I can see you in here again in less than a month. You are going to heal the civilian way. And so is Naruto." Sasuke didn't gape, because he was an Uchiha, and somewhere in the thirteen books of Uchiha conduct gaping was forbidden, but his eyes widened minutely and his jaw slackened unnoticeably. As Tsunade left his room he waited, ears tensed, for the inevitable explosion.

"But…" The voice was loud and angry and all of the feelings that Sasuke couldn't express openly were carried in the tone. "NO!" Sasuke gave a small smirk "Are you insane?!" after that last outburst there were no more. Sasuke wasn't sure if it was because Naruto had lowered his voice, changed Tsunade's mind, or been knocked out. But he was pretty sure it was the third option, Tsunade was stubborn and Naruto never shut up.

* * *

Naruto was released from the hospital later that day, because even Tsunade couldn't stop him from using the Damn Fox's chakra to heal himself, but Sasuke had to wait another two days before he was released from the hospital. Even then he was forced into a wheelchair; somehow all the crutches in the hospital had 'gone missing'. He was under firm instructions to not attempt to think about attempting to walk for at least a week, which Sasuke translated to 'you should be back to training in two days tops'.

Naruto had picked him up at the hospital, after not visiting for the two days when Sasuke was imprisoned in the white-washed institution, grinning a sickeningly bright grin and looking like he had never been injured at all. Sasuke was in pain, bored, and irritated beyond belief. He wanted nothing more than to plow chidori through Naruto's bright grin. Sasuke reminded himself that without his teeth Naruto could not put voice to all his secret protests, or do that _thing_ he did with his teeth and tongue, and settled on a glare that would have caused Itachi to cower in his huge potato sack of a cloak and beg mercy. Naruto seemed remarkably unaffected; he was going to have to practice glares _again_ if Naruto remained so unafraid after exposure to his deadliest.

"Come on Teme, stop being such a wuss, I've been wanting Ramen all week, and its your turn to pay."

Sasuke frowned, but it went unnoticed as Naruto began to wheel him down the street. It was just _so_ demeaning. He was going to have to add something to the Uchiha books about wheelchairs. He also made a mental note to destroy the next wheelchair he saw, a few katon and a well placed chidori would do quite nicely. Naruto slid him into the Ramen shack and Sasuke was unhappy to note that he couldn't even see over the bar stools in the wheelchairs.

The blond looked confused as he noticed that Sasuke was not on the barstool beside him, but soon looked down and gave an almost Uchiha like smirk, it was unnerving on Naruto's normally easy going face. "Come on Sasuke, aren't you hungry? You have to get up here to eat." Sasuke clenched his jaw so hard a layer of enamel on his teeth chipped away. If Sakura were here she would have smacked Naruto and healed his legs, but Sakura wasn't here and he had eaten nothing but something pretending to be vanilla pudding for three days. He glowered and sulked and looked so much like his twelve-year-old self that it startled Naruto for a moment.

Sasuke could practically hear his stomach acids beginning to digest themselves, but he was not going to ask Naruto for help when he was looking so damn Naruto-ish. Upon realizing that Sasuke wasn't going to admit to needing help Naruto sighed and lifted him gently from his wheelchair and placed him very gently on the stool next to his own, all done with one hand and it looked so infuriatingly easy that Sasuke just wanted to hit _something_, especially something blond and blue and too damn happy.

Sasuke's homicidal thoughts (he was just figuring out how to dispose of the body when he was as incapacitated as he was) were interrupted and dispersed when Naruto ordered him a Miso Ramen and placed a tomato in front of him while they were waiting for the Ramen to finish. Uchiha's do not _melt,_ so the feeling in his stomach was probably just the hunger.

* * *

Sasuke had had one too many glasses of sake; of course Naruto had had about a bottle too much sake. If he were a little bit more sober Sasuke would have been amused by the drunken Naruto, or maybe heartbroken, Naruto was a sad drunk. He had made it clear over the year that he missed Sakura, that he wanted to go after her, and that 'no they couldn't find another person to repopulate the clan'. Sasuke had known he was unhappy, and had been unhappy himself, without Sakura is was good, he and Naruto fit together well, but not quite right. They were proof that opposites attract, but attraction isn't always enough, love isn't always enough. They were two extremes, they were too extreme. Sasuke was too dark, midnight without stars or the moon, and Naruto had been too light, the sun with no clouds protecting the eyes and skin. Sakura had brought the clouds to Naruto, and the moon to Sasuke, she'd been the tempering force in the middle allowing them all to meld together without smothering each other. She'd been perfect because she had a little bit of his dark, and a little of Naruto's light. They needed Sakura.

Sasuke knew he was drunk when he started thinking of things like that, but not nearly drunk enough if he could still think. He took the bottle from Naruto's hand and ignored the snarls his actions evoked. He surveyed his lover, moping and teary, and winced. Naruto was about to start crying, Sasuke hated tears, didn't understand them or deal well with them. He'd left Naruto and Sakura to Naruto and Sakura and only rarely, reluctantly, stiffly, patted backs when people started the waterworks.

"I want Sakura back." Naruto looked at him through pitiful eyes, and Sasuke couldn't help but wonder if he had ever looked at Sakura like that, ever made similar declarations while he was on his 'leave of absence'. "I miss Sakura-chan, and I can't get her back because she is on a mission, and there is no creepy snake molesting her, so I can't just storm in and rescue her, and no one will tell me where she is." Naruto's tears were slow and pathetic, sliding almost unnoticeably down his cheeks, and they wrenched at Sasuke's heart.

He was just drunk enough to willingly pat Naruto's back and attempt to offer him comfort. "We'll get her back. As soon as I am out of this damn chair" Sasuke punctuated that with a slap to the chair and winced when he jostled his leg and ribs. "You and I will go get her back from where ever she is. She's probably gotten herself into trouble again; you know how she attracts it."

Naruto looked up at him through a runny nose and tear fogged eyes. "Really? We'll get her back?" He sounded obscenely hopeful, and Sasuke couldn't bear to point out that they might not be able to get her back. That Tsunade might not let them leave, and that Sakura might not _want _them back. But Naruto seemed to realize this on his own, because his eyes deadened again, and he felt his heart break a little more. "But Sakura-chan doesn't want us back. She left us, on her own."

Sasuke swallowed a little bit of I-don't-want-to-do-this with the swig of alcohol he threw back. "Since when does that matter? I didn't want to come back either." It isn't quite true, Sasuke had missed his village and his team and wanted nothing more than to come back, he just hadn't wanted to go to the trouble of admitting that to them. But Naruto didn't know that and he looked up with a stupid drunken smile.

"You're right Sasuke-bastard. We'll get her back, not even Sakura-chan can beat up both of us!" Naruto was far too enthusiastic, bouncing around in a dizzying manner. The last thing Sasuke thought before he succumbed to the dizziness and the drunkenness was that it didn't seem quite fair that he was being insulted from someone he had just comforted.

* * *

Sakura swore in three different languages. If she survived this she was going to open an ice cream shop in Sand and make a lot of money (because Sand, despite being wicked hot didn't have a single ice cream shop), and never take a mission as a personal favor to the Kazekage again. If she survived this, she was going to make Gaara pay for her ice cream shop. If she survived this she was bringing her cat with her everywhere, the thing could _sense_ trouble. She couldn't remember why she hadn't brought it with her but it was probably a very stupid reason. Damn cat, damn Gaara, damn mission, and goddamn the Akatsuki.

There were three Akatsuki surrounding her. The blond one that she was sure they had killed _years_ ago, the one with the sickening orange mask (she hated orange, it was Naruto's color and didn't belong on something so evil) and _Kisame_, who should have died with his partner. She was almost positive that Akatsuki traveled in twos, but then maybe they had just never replaced Itachi.

She was sure that she could take the blond one if he would get close enough for her to hit, and the orange one was already laying unconscious (she didn't have the time to kill him, not with two others right there) as a result of one lucky chakra infused hit. She was also almost positive that she could hold her own against Kisame, if she was at her best (which she wasn't, stupid Gaara, and the stupid mission, and now she was bruised and had the same level of chakra she had possessed as a fresh genin, all that _before_ they had shown up), but they were evil bastards and evil bastards never played fair.

She narrowed her eyes and narrowly avoided a swing from the blue man's chakra stealing sword. She debated punching the ground and getting him away from her, but she didn't have that much chakra left. They didn't want to kill her, which was small consolation. Her mind moved as quickly as her body as she avoided the blond's bombs and the fish man's sword. She smirked as she began the movements necessary for Sakura Blizzard. It was a rudimentary attack, one not likely to do much against the trained killers, but it would provide the cover she needed.

As the blossoms that she was suddenly very glad she had taken the time to prepare, flew around the sandy land she quickly moved her hands bit her finger and moved her hands in a distinctive summoning gesture, two small slugs, the fastest and least noticeable of her summons appeared in her hands. She whispered their instructions to them as she tossed them as far away from the blast as she could get them, and then she took a split second to pray.

As she was unable to get away from the resulting explosion it knocked her out, as well as the bomb maker, if she hadn't been unconscious she would have noted the poetic justice. The only one free of the blast the blue man smirked, impressed with the kunouchi who incapacitated two akatsuki members and had reportedly killed a third. He slung her over a shoulder and kicked at the other two until they groaned and regained consciousness deciding that it was going to be so much easier to transport the prink-haired girl if she was not awake for the transportation.

He never noticed the two slugs, one on its way to Konoha, and the other nearing Suna. He would have regretted that, if he'd known.

Gaara scowled at the slug, who in return looked at him as if it was _his _fault. Which it may have been. Naruto was going to kill him, but first he had a score to settle with the akatsuki and the perfect reason to do it. The slug wisely vanished as the sinister smirk crossed his face.

Sasuke watched Naruto clutch his head as he bent over the toilet and wheeled himself instead over to the tub. He was going to have to pay some genins a D-rank to clean it up later. Just as he was wheeling himself over to the sink and scrubbing his mouth vigorously Tsunade burst through their door and easily dodged the fifteen shruriken that her action caused (twist the doorknob in the wrong direction twice to disable the trap).

She scowled at the messy apartment and Sasuke wondered when it had gotten that messy. He always kept it clean, maybe he would pay for two D-ranks and hope no one stumbled upon his traps, maybe he should make it a C-rank. "Get up you pitiful fools." She snarled and Sasuke was tempted to point out that he couldn't get up since she had refused to heal him. But she seemed to realize that as he pushed himself into the living room.

Naruto had simply groaned and hugged the toilet closer.

She cursed before she crouched in front of him. One hand over his leg, another on top of his ribs, and pushed her chakra into him. It was a painful healing, burning and shifting and wrenching bones back into place, but it was a fast healing, and as Tsunade slumped he stood up, his face grim as he went to haul Naruto up.

Naruto groaned again and Sasuke rummaged through the medicine cabinet until he came upon the last thing of Sakura's in the apartment. It was a bottle of Tsunade's famous hangover cure, which Sakura had gotten very good at brewing. He threw it to Naruto, who drank it down gratefully, turning his devotion from the porcelain god to the glass vial.

They both walked back out to greet the grim Hokage, who wasted no time informing them of her purpose there. "You are both on an S-ranked mission. You are on Shikamaru's team" here Sasuke almost interrupted. He had been the team leader for years "You will be accompanied by Neji, Kiba, Hinata, Lee, and Ino."

"What's the mission Granny?" He was back to being so rude and annoying that it was impossible to guess that mere minutes before he had been miserable. It was really a testament to Sakura's skill.

Tsunade's mouth formed a grim line, and she didn't rise to the taunt and hit Naruto. "It's Akatsuki." Both men stiffened "They have Sakura." They paled and began to pack with a speed that she had never seen either exhibit. "Your team leaves in an hour." And with that she left them to prepare.


	5. Not Just a Daring Rescue

Not Just a Daring Rescue

Sakura glared at the man in front of her and began to formulate a plan for shooting killing chakra out of her eyes. Except she was almost positive that it would burn her retinas beyond repair, and wasn't sure it was actually possible.

"You know" he said in a maddeningly calm way "You don't actually have to be _alive_ for us to use you as bait. They are already coming." She bared her teeth.

"You don't want to come that close to me." The chains were unbreakable, but they did nothing to stem the flow of her chakra, and if anyone came within arms (or legs) distance of her they would regret that oversight.

The robed man laughed and threw a kunai at her heart. She twisted as much as the chains would allow her to and hissed when it embedded itself in her right shoulder. The man laughed again. "Sadistic bastard." It amazed her that any noise could come from her when her teeth were that tightly clenched. He laughed again and she barely resisted the urge to scream. If there was anything worse than a sadistic maniac, it was a cheerful sadistic maniac.

'They are already coming' his voice echoed in her head for hours. Bouncing around her mind in the way a ball, thrown a harshly at a wall, would bounce around an empty room. Who did he mean by _them_ and if he meant who she was almost positive he meant she had to warn them. Except that she was chained to a wall in a buildings filled with extremely powerful men who would sooner kill her than do anything else.

Sakura thought on this problem for what may have been hours or minutes or days before she remembered the days with Ino working on a variation of her mind transfer jutsu. They hadn't completed it yet, had been able to make it effective over distances longer than fifty feet. But it would probably work. Of course Ino would _kill_ her if she found out that Sakura had tried it on her own. Assuming that there was anything left for her to slaughter when it was done. Concentrating Sakura brought her hands together to form the signs. Her captors really were overconfident, allowing her enough chakra and leeway to perform jutsus.

Sasuke glowered at the sand ninjas that had met them the day before. It was the first time since Gaara became Kazekage that the three sand siblings had been on a mission together. Sasuke wasn't sure exactly why he was so mad at them, except that Sakura had been under _their_ protection. Sakura had never been kidnapped by Akatsuki when _he_ was protecting her. It might have been the grave silence the three had taken up. It wasn't out of character for Gaara, but his two older siblings had always been more outgoing. But Temari didn't tease Shikamaru and Kankuro didn't flirt with Ino. Their somber presence seemed to hint that they knew Sakura well enough to be truly upset by her loss, and they had _no right_.

Gaara was absently stroking the cat that had perched itself on his shoulder and refused to move and staring into the darkness with a look that no one would ever want to receive. It promised pain with no respite, eons and eternity of nothing but pain. Sasuke's attention was drawn to Shikamaru when he began to slowly unfold himself and stand up. He spoke in the casual, lazy way he had of speaking, and it was infuriating. This was _Sakura_, and he should give _some_ signal that he understood how important it was, a frown, a stressed undertone, clenched fists, _anything_. But if Shikamaru was worried, he didn't show it. He outlined the plan calmly and easily laid out a plan that seemed far too passive for Sasuke, and apparently for Naruto too, because he leapt up and countered Shikamaru's plan with one of his own.

Naruto's plan was to go in and kill the Akatsuki, to have each of them take on a member, and then heroically go and sweep Sakura off her feet, at which point she would be so grateful she would throw herself into his arms and come back to Konoha immediately. For minutes no one spoke, then simultaneously Gaara snorted, Kankuro laughed, Ino smacked him, and Sasuke and Kiba spat out a derogatory "Idiot". Naruto pouted and glared and crossed his arms, Sasuke had a sudden flashback to a twelve year old Naruto doing the same thing, and almost smiled despite himself.

A moment later a lilting voice asked "Should I be offended that you all so happy when I am chained to a wall in a hell hole?" Sasuke snapped his head around at a speed that could have given him whiplash. There was Sakura, standing, no floating about ten feet behind him. He frowned, the last time he remembered Sakura was not translucent. Naruto screamed when he saw her, and then passed out.

Sasuke couldn't remember her laugh ever sounding as magical as it had in that moment. He started to take a step towards her and stopped when she gave a bright smile and a wave to someone behind him. Sakura had _never_ ignored him, it was disconcerting and it caused a pain not unlike the one that had blossomed in his chest when he had read her letter. Sakura was _his_, he wasn't sure what had made her forget it, but when he found her he was going to make sure she knew it, and would remember it for the rest of her life.

"See Ino, I _told_ you it would work." Sasuke looked back to see the rest of the rescue party standing with open mouths (with the notable exception of Neji, who looked maybe mildly surprised). Ino then looked furious.

"You _idiot_, are you trying to get yourself killed? How far away is your body? How are you going to get back? What the **_hell_** do you think you are doing?" The blond asked the questions so quickly that Sakura had no chance to answer one before the other was fired.

"I don't really know, for any of them, I wasn't thinking that far in advance." Ino looked livid, and Sasuke wondered just what Sakura had done to prompt that reaction from her best friend, after being away for so long. Then what had been said dawned on him. Ino had asked her how she was going to get back into her body and _she didn't know?_ Sasuke not only understood Ino's ire, he was beginning to feel it.

Ino was stopped from berating Sakura by Hinata's hand placed gently on her forearm. "If Sakura-san would take such a risk" the soft spoken woman said quietly, gently chiding "I am sure she had a good reason." Ino closed her mouth and nodded.

"Sakura-san!" Lee's voice was loud and exuberant "You have allowed your youthful spirit to escape, so that you may help us to find you!" Sakura paused for a moment to formulate a proper response.

"Not quite Lee-san. I want you guys to go home." The outburst at this was extremely loud, especially for a ninja camp that was supposed to be making as little noise as possible. The cat that had been perched on Gaara's shoulders jumped off to run and sit at the place were Sakura's feet should have been. Ignoring their vehement protests Sakura smiled at the cat and knelt down.

Gaara strode forward to lock eyes with the phantom Sakura. "No." he said firmly.

"But..."

"No" Sasuke reiterated firmly, in a tone that few had ever dared to question and Sakura had obeyed blindly for years. But instead of nodding and accepting his word as law Sakura slowly stood up.

"I don't want or need you to come and get me Uchiha. Actually, make that I don't want or need you period. Or Naruto, if the rest of the group wants to come, then that if fine. But I am sick and tired of you two thinking you need to protect me all the time, I can rescue myself." Sasuke felt his heart twist and break at her words. Uchiha, 'don't want or need you', the pain from them was almost enough that he did what she said. Then he straightened, that was too damn bad for her then. She was _his_, and he guessed she was Naruto's too, but mostly she was _his_, and he never let go of what was his. If she didn't want him… well she should have thought of that when she was twelve and was promising to love him forever. She had been his since the day she first declared that love, and he would make her want him again.

"You obviously do need us. If you were so strong you wouldn't have gotten captured in the first place." She bared her teeth at him.

"Just go home!" She shouted.

"No" he kept his voice cool and level and Sakura frowned and then turned away from him. She smiled at Gaara and the team from sand and began to speak to Shikamaru.

"Shikamaru-san, I assume you are the leader of this mission?" her voice was sweet enough to rot teeth and Shikamaru inclined his head. "Don't you think that they would just be a liability?" Sasuke opened his mouth angrily, who was _she_ to suggest that _he_ would be a liability. "I mean what with Sasuke's hatred of everything Akatsuki, he would probably go and get himself into fights instead of rescuing me, which is I assume the top priority?" Shikamaru inclined his head again, and Sasuke felt his heart break a little more. What had he done so wrong that she would think he would choose to fight people he had (for the most part) never met instead of rescuing her? Hadn't he always saved her? Hadn't he always protected her at threat to himself? What right did she have to question his loyalty and devotion? What right did she have to renounce his protection?

"And Naruto, Shikamaru-san, why do you think they captured me? They want him, and I am just the bait, leading him there is leading him into a trap. Surely that would be a huge problem to your plans. If you just send them home it would be much easier" she stopped and clutched her stomach where Sasuke could begin to see red "it would be much easier" she started again, and then let out a scream, and disappeared.

The whole camp looked alarmed with the exception of Shikamaru who looked thoughtful (and again Neji, who looked as apathetic as ever). Sasuke turned to Shikamaru "Don't even think about it."

Shikamaru looked about to respond, but then he looked at Sasuke again and nodded. Sasuke let out a breath. He had not been looking forward to the court marshal that would have that would have awaited him had he threatened and disobeyed a superior officer.

"Sakura?" Naruto sat up and looked around frantically. When he didn't see the phantom Sakura he let out a relieved sigh. "I just dreamed that Sakura died and came back as a ghost to haunt us, you guys. It was so weird." The sounds of heads going into hands filled the camp, along with the laughter of Kankuro and Kiba.

"What did you do?" The man's voice was deceptively calm, as was his face. If not for the fact that he was steadily slicing her with a chakra sucking sword one would think he _was_ calm.

Sakura would have snarled, or spit, but she couldn't even work up the effort to glare. She felt her knees weaken and finally give out, the muscles in her arms trembled as they now bore the brunt of her weight. Kisame walked closer, his sword already slung over his shoulder. His fingers were long and hard, the calluses like a glove over his palm, they rested, deceptively gentle, on her chin as he tilted it up to look at his face.

"If I were you I would answer me now." His voice was softer now, but his grip was harder. He squeezed harder and harder, until she was forced to open her mouth. She felt a scream bubbling up in her throat, but it couldn't push itself through her doubtlessly damaged vocal chords. When it became apparent that she wasn't going to answer Kisame's face twisted into a horrid mockery of a smile. His grip tightened to the point that she thought for one panicked instant that he was going to break her jaw, smash the bone to an irreparable pile of dust. Instead he loosened it again.

"I was hoping you would say that." He twirled an impossibly large, wicked looking dagger that he had drawn from somewhere she didn't know you _could_ put daggers (although, she supposed, that did explain a few things). The last thing she thought before her mind was consumed by a fog of pain, was that Sasuke would really like the amazingly sharp weapon.

They circled the area three times before they came to the conclusion that this actually where the Akatsuki headquarters were believed to be. It was nothing more than a house, a little on the large side, and a little on the dreary side, but a house nonetheless. It had few windows, and no fence. Either the Akatsuki were extremely arrogant, or they had dangerous traps strewn throughout the premises; or it was a little bit of both, the Akatsuki were arrogant, not stupid. They didn't wait until night, ninja's are light sleepers, and the Akatsuki had more reason than most to fear assassination. It was full daylight when they moved quietly in, slipping one by one through one of the few windows. The window came up with the barest hint of resistance. They prepared for a fight. No ninja leaves a window unlocked.

The room they entered was meticulously clean, and frighteningly black. The only relief from the start black was a single dark blue pillow. They walked as ghosts, gliding silently over the floor. The hallway wasn't well lit, but it was deserted. Beginning to fear that their information had been wrong they fanned out. Then the cat, that had remained comfortably perched on Gaara's shoulder, so silent that they had forgotten that it was there, leapt from its place and began streaking down the hallway. Akamaru followed immediately, the grace with which he moved eerie, as he was now approximately the size of a Japanese bear.

Kiba ran after his partner, then Naruto, and then everyone else. They ran into no one, and when they stopped it was to find the cat pacing angrily over a section of the hardwood floor. They examined it closely for a moment before turning away and fanning out.

It was Hinata who stopped them before they got too far. Her voice steady and quiet, but unmistakably happy, "There's a door here, under the boards." The veins around her eyes were bulging, and when Naruto moved to find it, she cautioned "There are three people down there. One of them isn't moving." 

In stead of moving more calmly after the warning it only made Naruto More frantic. Finally he found the grooves, so small they were almost not there, and yanked the door off its hinges. _Everyone _winced, so much for the plan, and element of surprise. By the time they were all down the narrow stairs that led to the underground chambers a grinning blond, and a boy of unknown age in an orange mask were waiting for them.

"Well it looks like we have visitors, un?"

The man in the mask did not reply, but the blond didn't seem to need one.

"It's a good thing too; our other guest was getting a bit… dull. Doesn't even scream anymore." There was a low growl bubbling up in Sasuke's throat.

"You!" Naruto's voice was loud and emphatic. "I thought we killed you!" The blonds laugh was quick and so at odds with his evil persona that everyone did a double take.

"I am not easy to kill, un." Before Naruto could respond Gaara stepped up, and addressed the blond.

"Deidara. I believe we have a score to settle."

By the time was the battle was over, the entire group had sustained injuries, but none of them were serious. They'd been fortunate that they were under ground and Deidara hadn't been able to make full use of his bombs. Even more fortunate that between Ino and Shikamaru Tobi had gone down without much of a fight. It had ended with Deidara taking an unconscious Tobi and leaving.

"They are probably going to get the others. We need to hurry." Shikamaru was already moving when he pointed that out.

When they found Sakura she was slumped, chained to the wall. She was recognizable only by the pink hair. In the two days since she'd appeared to them she'd been sickeningly abused. Her face was black and blue, and there were more cuts then were easily counted, and she was covered in blood. There was a pool of it at her feet. Her cat was licking pitifully at a cut on her calf.

Sasuke couldn't remember feeling so ill since he found his families bodies so many years ago. She looked so broken. Automatically he reached out and steadied Naruto, and noticed Shikamaru doing the same for Ino; he wondered why they didn't have any one with more medic experience than the two months worth of study Ino had put in.

"Ino, see what you can do for her." His voice was hoarse and he could feel bile rising up. Goddamnit, this was Sakura, shame and disgust warred with anger, and he felt himself rise to a killing edge. As soon as she told him who had done it, he was a dead man.

Ino pulled back from Sakura. "I did all I could, but it wasn't much. She needs medical attention, now. She's bleeding internally and one of her ribs has gone through her lungs, she also has numerous broken bones and cuts, and has lost dangerous amounts of blood."

"Someone get her down!" Naruto moved to follow Kiba's barked order, but in the end it was Ino who took the lock picking set from her hair and began fiddling expertly with the lock, it clicked within thirty seconds, and Sakura's body began to fall.

It took a split second for Sasuke to catch her. He cradled her with more tenderness than he could have guessed he possessed. If she died… Sasuke didn't know if he'd be able to survive it. He would destroy the Akatsuki, and he would destroy himself doing it. Sakura turned slightly toward him and whimpered. He held her a little bit tighter, but just as gently.

"I'm the fastest. I'll get her to Suna. You follow and take care of any reinforcements Akatsuki sends." Everyone nodded, and looked grave. Suna was the closest village with ninja doctors, and there was no way a civilian doctor could save her. Suna is a six hour run for most ninja. Sasuke could probably make it in three. Before they had finished nodding he was gone.

"Sasuke?" Her voice was weak, but it was the first word he had heard her say since he started running.

"It's alright Sakura." He took the time to smile down at her; it was too bad she probably wouldn't remember seeing it. "I'm going to get you to Suna. It'll all be alright." He promised fervently. She gave him a weary half-smile.

"You're always saving me Sasuke." Her lashes fluttered against her pale skin. "Thank you, Sasuke-_kun_." And then she was out again.

"You're going to be alright." He wasn't sure if it was an order for her, or a promise to himself. It didn't matter, it was going to be the truth; he would see to it.

Author's note: So, this chapter took forever. I kept rewriting it, over and over. For a while I even had Sakura escaping on her own, but the rescue is such an amazing plot device (even if it is cliché), and escaping from the Akatsuki seems pretty almost Mary-Sue-ish and I love Sakura way too much to do that to her. I'm so sorry. Thanks for all the reviews (I've always wanted to reach fifty hint hint. Two more things:

People have been asking me to change the pairing. While I understand that this is not everyone's favorite pairing it will remain a NaruSakuSasu, because I promised my friend one as a Christmas.

Because you are so good at reviewing (and I would love more reviews) I will write a Sakura/you-pick-the-guy after I am finished with this story. Just review and tell me who you want the male lead to be. The one with the most votes wins!


	6. Not Just a Monologue

Author's note: So I'm uber sorry that this took so long (school ate my soul and destroyed my creative drive), and that its short. But I'm leaving for a cruise in about five hours and didn't even have time to beta it.

Anyway I hope you enjoy and review (I would really really love fifty guys… and my birthday is coming up…) if only to vote what pairing you want for the next story. As it stands so far:

Gaara/Sakura 2

Kakashi/Sakura-2

Itachi/Sakura-1

Sasuke/Sakura-1

Neji/Sakura-1

Not Just a Monologue

Sakura slept an unnatural sort of sleep that she didn't wake from, couldn't wake from. It had been six days, her bruises had mostly faded, and her wounds were mending, but still she didn't wake. Seeing her attached to the (state of the art!) barbaric, beeping monitors robbed Sasuke of his breath at the same time it tore out his heart, so he went to talk to the doctor's again.

They told him that the only reason she was still alive was because of the jutsus she had taught them, but she had only been in Suna for a month, and a month was hardly enough time to teach the entirety of her knowledge they quickly tried to explain to the horrifyingly haggard man. Sasuke had thought he understood the meaning of patience (hadn't he waited nearly thirteen years to kill his brother? Hadn't he put up with Orochimaru for three years? Hadn't he given Sakura nearly two years to come to her senses? Didn't he deal with Naruto every single day?) but he had neither the patience to wait for Sakura to wake up, nor to hear the phrase 'be patient' one more time.

Sasuke listened solemnly while they tried to explain that her damage was extensive. That even now they couldn't be sure she would ever wake up. That he really did need to be patient. He weighed their words with a face so impassive that even the Suna natives; who had long since become desensitized to their Kazekage's stony visage (it was a common theory in Suna that the muscles in his face did not in fact actually move), felt their palms become damp. He was silent for a long moment after they stopped speaking to him. Then he simply replied:

"Those excuses are not good enough. Fix her." He didn't say 'or else', and it was remarkable considering that there were absolutely no vocal fluctuations or muscle twitches that the threat was so blatantly implied that only the remarkably alert realized he it hadn't come from his lips.

The doctor, a wispy, willowy woman did not flinch. "We will do our best sir."

It wasn't possible for the utter stillness of his face to get even more still, but somehow he managed it. "As long as your best is good enough, you wont have anything to worry about then." He turned away, and with long, smooth strides walked back into the comatose girl's room.

As soon as the door was firmly closed behind him the doctor slumped and shivered, bringing long hands up to rub thin arms. "God I wish I had just stayed home. Mondays suck." The nurses, who had huddled, frightened, behind her all nodded.

Sakura's room was filled with flowers. There were small weedy blossoms that had been picked by a random Suna inhabitant that she had managed to befriend. A large, impersonal bouquet clearly picked out by a man, that bore a card inscribed with the Kazekage's hurried scrawl. An even larger batch filled with bright Cosmos, and Long, dropping Sakura petals. A bunch of roses from Naruto, and a few more bunches from assorted people Sakura had met and touched over her time. They were an expensive gesture in a land as dry as Suna, and slightly futile considering that she hadn't opened her eyes in almost a week.

The rest of the squad had been forced to return home, they were the best of the best and there were missions that needed to be completed. But Sasuke and Naruto (and the Cat, who had, in a typical Naruto manner, been dubbed Cat) had refused to return, or even budge from the hospital room, except to occasionally crash in shifts in Sakura's flat.

When Sasuke entered the room again, a haggard Naruto looked up from where he sat on the bed. He gave a wan smile, and Sasuke was struck by how ironic it was that despite the fact that Sakura was lying in a coma, and Naruto was the one who looked like he had recently taken up vacationing in hell (not that Suna was all that different from hell). Sasuke covered the ground between them in two easy steps and laid his hand on Naruto's shoulder, the gesture of comfort as much as he could bring himself to express. Naruto turned and the hope, ever present in him shone from dark rimmed blue eyes.

"I think she's doing better today. The beeping thing is less beepy." He waved a hand in the general direction of the machined.

Sasuke forced a grin for his benefit. "Yeah, I'm sure she is. Sakura's a fighter." That at least he believed. "Its your turn to go and get some sleep. Take cat." He pointed to the cat, curled near Sakura's next, whining piteously and occasionally stretching to lick her face.

Naruto opened his mouth to protest, but Sasuke knew him too well, and cut the protest off before he could vocalize it.

"If she wakes up to see you looking like you do, she'll probably be so frightened she'll go right back into the coma." Naruto's teeth flashed into something that was less than a snarl, but not by much. It was a sign of how truly exhausted he was that he didn't attempt to argue, or swing at Sasuke. He stood up and reached out to take the kitten that hissed at him and swept its claws at his encroaching hand. He shrugged and left.

Sasuke pulled a chair up to the bed. He didn't reach out for her hand, it was too cliché and her hands were both attached to IV drips.

"They don't know if you can hear me, or if you'll remember it when you wake up. They don't even if you will wake up. They don't seem to know much of anything. I guess it's a good thing that you came to teach them." The words that he could never force himself to say when she was awake and they would have mattered, seemed to pour out now. "But goddamnit Sakura it's been nearly two years. You left me, left us." His head drooped, in a gesture that were he not The Sasuke Uchiha, proud leader of a dead clan, would have been seen as the move of a defeated man.

"I know how hypocritical this sounds coming from me of all people. But we needed you. We still need you." Fire spewed from lips made of ice as he swore a vicious and violent oath. "And it isn't easy for me to admit to needing anybody. You know me. And you do, better than anybody. You know _us_, we can't stand each other. Not in the small scheme of things. We love each other, we do, but we can't live with each other. We fight and fight until we destroy each other. For once the gossip mill had it right. We're fire and ice, put us together and I guess his fire will melt my ice, but ice turns into water, and as I melted I would smother him."

He didn't fidget or scratch his head as he talked; they were the moves of someone like Naruto. But his hands fisted in the sheets of the bed hard enough that they actually started to rip in his hands.

"That's why we need you, to love us, to ground us. That's not right. I can't get this to come out right. It makes it seem like we only want you because you make it easier for us. And neither of us is that selfish. We love you, just not in the same way. Like you love us, but I guess you couldn't see it. And I guess I can see why. We didn't show you the same way, and you never were the most confident person. You took different for less. But it isn't. The tree loves the rain just as much as it loves the earth. But for different and in a different way. It loves the rain for helping it to grow and the earth for giving it a home, and it shows the earth by giving back to it so it grows healthy as well, while it shows the rain by becoming bigger and stronger in acknowledgement. That analogy isn't quite right. But you understand. You always understand what I'm trying to say."

His hands unclenched and he rubbed at his forehead. "Except that you didn't. So I guess what I'm trying to say, just so I know you understand, is that I love you. That we love you. I guess I'm asking you to come back. To forgive me for not seeing. Please Sakura."

He slumped again, only to straighten when there was a knock at the door. Before he could acknowledge it, the door slid open. The man who walked in was delicate of feature, pale with flaming red hair.

"My name is Jaegar. And I came as soon as I heard. I think I can help Sakura-sama." Sasuke opened his mouth, but the man had already dismissed him, sliding past the deadly shinobi to stand next to a woman he looked at with eyes filled with concern and adoration. He flipped open a chart that had been hanging off her bedside and scanned it quickly, nodding occasionally to himself.

"Yes, I think I can help." He looked back then, at Sasuke, who nodded at him. As he moved to stand very close to the bedside the cat stood up and purred. "Hello, I see she still has you." It gave an indignant meow and hopped onto his shoulder, nuzzling his chin.

His hands were pale enough that Sasuke could trace the veins with his eyes. He placed them at the exposed skin of Sakura's face. For the first time Sasuke wished for the Hyuuga's bloodline instead of his own so he could see what was going on. The man stood motionless for over an hour before he started to sway, then held on for a half hour more. He broke off exhausted.

"I am not nearly as good as she is." Sasuke nodded, Sakura had long since surpassed Shizune and now easily rivaled Tsunade, there was no one better. He couldn't help the surge of pride. "But I think that she should get up soon. The man then slumped into the chair Sasuke had vacated.

Sasuke studied her, waiting for the slightest twitch of movement. Within five minutes, he saw what he was looking for, the first sign of movement in a week. Her right arm spasmed and her hand started to twitch.

The elation (an emotion totally foreign to Sasuke, who normally felt at most, contentment) that came over him was so great that he almost didn't want to kill the healer when he reached over and held that twitching digit.

"She'll wake up soon." Even though he hadn't been speaking to Sasuke, Sasuke responded.

"I know." For the first time, in a very long time Sasuke smiled.


	7. Not Just a Reunion

Author's note: Yeah, so, it's been like a year. Sorry about that. I hope it's worth the wait, and you enjoy. The next one will be out faster. Within the next month, I promise. Review Please?

Not Just a Girl

Not Just a Reunion

Sakura didn't wake up to pain, the way she had been sure she would if she were ever to wake up. She woke up immersed in a cloud of drugs, the pain that she should feel almost detached. Her eyelids were heavy, and it was almost too much of a bother to open them up. But she could hear breathing, and she couldn't feel her kunai. Every instinct she had screamed at her from behind a heavy veil, so she opened her eyes.

There were two figures beside her bed. She blinked her eyes to bring them into focus, once and then again, but the figures wouldn't sharpen. She blinked, again and again, distress fighting its way through the fog, she made a little moan and reached for the kunai that she didn't own.

A tall, dark figure was beside her as soon as the noise escaped her mouth. "Sakura" while she couldn't make out his features, the voice was instantly recognizable. She moved away from the voice. Tried to display to him that she didn't want to see him, wasn't ready to see him or Naruto yet. She wasn't over them yet. Unfortunately Sasuke took the movement as restlessness, or pain, and immediately moved impossibly closer to the bed.

He turned his head to the boy who had healed Sakura. "You. Go get Naruto. Immediately." She made another noise of protest but once again Sasuke misinterpreted it as pain. He felt like running his hands through his hair. She was in pain, and there was nothing that he could do to help her. The feeling of helplessness was almost completely foreign to him (it had been introduced in a few times, but they were occasions which Sasuke preferred to forget.), and he definitely didn't like the feeling. It was somehow worse than the months she'd been in a coma, when she'd at least appeared to be peaceful.

Sakura was actually feeling almost no pain. But Sasuke wasn't Naruto, and ironically it was Naruto who was a master in silent conversation, whereas Sasuke was inept in almost all forms.

The boy who had healed Sakura opened his mouth to protest. Sasuke was almost impressed with the fact that he was willing to do so. Except that Naruto needed to be informed ten minutes ago, and he was hardly going to leave the woman he had been searching for for so long, knowing Sakura she would find some way to escape them if he left. Looking at the boy who had healed Sakura, he had absolutely no doubt that he would help her with her plot. And they could not have that.

So he glared at him, until he nodded and disappeared from the room. Sasuke reached awkwardly for her hand, and patted it with an unnatural gentleness. "Listen, Sakura…" he started but found himself unable to finish the sentence. It was one thing to say something to a woman who didn't know that he was talking to her. Another thing entirely when she was looking at him (actually not really at him, but more over his shoulder. Had he upset her so much that she refused to look at him?) with those piercing eyes and pained expression. So he simply sat by her bed and waited for Naruto to come.

Luckily Naruto was almost as fast as he was, and by the time he was beginning to realize just how awkward the "conversation" was, Naruto had arrived. He didn't even glance at Sasuke before flying to Sakura's side.

"Sakura-chan! We were so worried! You're awake! I'm so happy! How are you feeling? Do you feel better? We missed you? Where were you? We looked everywhere! And no one would tell us where you were, and I was so worried. So was he" he jerked a thumb at Sasuke while continuing to speak. Sakura looked up helplessly. She opened her mouth "Are you thirsty? So you want water? Can you have water? Sasuke get her some water! And a doctor. Has a doctor come to see you yet? What did he say? They aren't as good as you. Or Baa-chan. Someone needs to send a message to Baa-chan. She'll come down and heal you, and then you can come home. We moved out of the apartment, and made you a room, of your own. It's blue and orange, because I said you'd like orange, but the bastard said that you'd like blue, and he's an idiot, but he bought the paint, and had a paintbrush, and so he ruined your room. There was going to be some pink in it, but we used up all the pink paint in the kitchen, and then we had none so we used the blue and the orange, and it looks really good. But not as good as it would if it were all orange, because blue is a stupid color. But he doesn't get that because he can't see color."

He took a deep breath and continued "Ino really misses you, but you sent her letters, and you didn't send us letters, so we missed you more. Why didn't you send us letters? You sent everyone else letters. But none of them said where you were, because we read them, because we wanted to find you but we couldn't. I wrote you letters, but I didn't know where to send them, so I didn't send them. They are all in your room, because it was as close to you as I could get. It made me sad. Ino wanted to stay here, but she couldn't because they need some one to do missions. Sasuke and I couldn't go back, because you were sick, and they couldn't move you, and we can't leave you alone, especially after we finally found you!"

She whimpered, and Naruto turned to Sasuke. "Where's the water?" he mutely held out the requested drink. It was a sign of how worried he was, that he'd obeyed Naruto without comment or question. He held it gently to Sakura's mouth and tilted it back. She swallowed, and then swallowed again, faster, because Naruto hadn't stopped pouring the water in her mouth. She finally gasped for air and started choking. He hastily jerked the water back, sending if flying in a shining arch.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to. Please don't be mad." She couldn't see him as more than a big blond blur, but he sounded much the way she imagined a puppy who'd made a mess on your shoes would sound.

She sighed and gave a gentle smile, she couldn't possibly not forgive that pleading sound.

"Its fine." The first words she'd spoken in who knows how long came out as weak croaks. "I needed that water anyway". She didn't point out that him giving her too much could make her sick. Although it would.

A doctor that was all tan and smiles knocked politely on the door. Sasuke looked up and glared. If the doctor could be happy, he had obviously not been working long enough, and he obviously lacked understanding of the gravity of the situation. He ignored the fact that Sakura had always greeted her patients with a smile ("If they are in the hospital they are having a bad enough day. They don't need a surly doctor to make things worse."), because Sakura was made of smiles and gentleness, and _men_ shouldn't be.

"So, have a nice nap?" The doctor waited patiently for a laugh that he didn't get before he moved briskly onto checking her chart, and then moving on to checking her.

Sakura tried to watch the doctor as he moved about her, but all she could see was a small white blur. "Doctor?" Her voice was hoarse and painful, and three sets of eyes immediately snapped to her intently.

"Yes?" His voice was gentle and soothing, the kind of voiced that Doctor's were all meant to have, but which could never be taught, and was thus unattainable to most.

She lifted her hand weakly, noting idly the tubes running into them as she felt them pull, and gestured at her face. "My eyes, what happened to them? I can't see." The already intent eyes sharpened. Her eyes were unfocused, moving but never seeming to land on anything.

The doctor's manner went from affable to professional with remarkable speed, and he moved closer to Sakura's bed. "I'm going to place my hands on your face and channel chakra into your body so I can see what exactly is the matter, alright?" His voice was still so soothing and gentle that Sakura didn't feel the need to snap at him that she was a medic-nin and knew exactly what he was going to do. His chakra was cold, and made her feel the same way she'd felt as a child when she'd eaten her entire ice cream cone in one bite.

He withdrew quickly and pressed his lips together. "I don't really know how to say this..." And suddenly he didn't have to, the optic nerves were extremely sensitive, even if he had the chakra control to diagnose there were perhaps five shinobi in the world with the ability to perform any type of surgery on them. Which had been a good thing back when Itachi had been looking for someone to heal his eyes, considering that three of those ninjas were loyal Konoha citizens and the other two she had just trained. She reached out and placed a gently hand on what seemed to be the doctor's chest.

"I understand. How bad is it?" her voice was still hoarse, frighteningly so, but it was softened by her understanding. He smiled grimly, though he knew she wouldn't be able to see him.

"Understand what? What do you understand? I don't understand! What's the matter with Sakura-chan?" Naruto's voice was bordering on hysterical. Sasuke simply crossed his arms and glared at the doctor, daring him to answer in a way he didn't like.

Sakura sighed, it had been nearly two years since she had seen either of them, but she could still recognize a patented Uchiha glare purely by the way the air thickened with fear. "Sasuke" somehow the honorific still wanted to roll off her tongue with his name "stop it, you're scaring him."

Sasuke stopped glaring at the doctor long enough to switch his gaze to Sakura, wondering if it was time to point out that she had never called him anything but Sasuke-kun and he didn't appreciate the name change. "What's wrong?" He knew his voice was gruff, bordering on apathetic, but it hid the fear that was creeping up.

It was Sakura who answered. "There must have been some damage to my optic nerve", she didn't think it would be wise to mention that as she remembered being able to see before she had passed out for a few months it was likely that something had happened while they had been trying to save her life. It didn't seem necessary, and she liked most of the people at the hospital too much to admit to either Sasuke or Naruto that they had messed up.

That was all it took for Sasuke to understand. After he had killed Itachi Sakura had pulled him aside and warned him about his what would happen to his optic nerve if he wasn't careful using his sharingan. She had told him that the only people who would be able to fix his eyes were in Konoha, in what had been a very thinly veiled threat.

Naruto had not been privy to this threat, and probably wouldn't have put it together anyway. "What about your eyes? Why isn't it better? Why haven't you fixed it?"

Sakura fluttered her eyes, exhaustion setting in. She forced them open again although she couldn't see anything more than the colored blobs. She wished they would leave, she wasn't strong enough to talk to them without breaking down.

Sasuke's eyes had sharpened on hers the second they started to flutter, and he answered Naruto's question. "The eyes are extremely sensitive, dobe, it requires an astounding level of chakra control and understanding to heal them. There aren't more than three shinobi that can heal optic nerves."

Naruto did the math. "Sakura-chan can't you do it?"

She yawned. "I could, but" her words started to slur. She wanted to go to sleep.

"But what?" Naruto's voice was coming precariously close to a whine. The man who had returned a few minutes after Naruto panting for breath answered.

"Its an extremely painful procedure, patients are normally knocked out during it as it requires them to remain very still, it would be impossible to perform it on yourself." Naruto looked back, surprised, the man had come into the room without making any noise, Sasuke merely fixed him with an appraising glare.

"Jaegar?" Sakura's face stretched into a bright smile for the first time since she had woken up, and suddenly the bone deep weariness that had been plaguing her was gone. "Is that you?" The pure joy in her voice jolted Sasuke and wounded Naruto.

"Hey Sakura-chan, I came as soon as I could, but, you know how quickly news reaches Star." Her laugh was painfully hoarse and Jaegar moved instantly to the side of her bed and reached down to her throat his chakra spiraling down into hers. The procedure had never been performed on her while she was awake, and Sakura found it to be the single most intimate experience of her life.

Unlike the doctor's his chakra wasn't cold at all, but warm and almost sweet feeling. It brushed against hers before wrapping around it gently and manipulating it, again oh-so-gently. She let out a breathy little moan, and was glad that all of the men in the room would take it to be pain. She wondered, idly if it would be possible for her to use her chakra to stop him from taking over, and resolved to find out as soon as he wasn't using that chakra to heal her.

Naruto didn't exactly understand what was going on. The pale man with pathetic muscles and bright red hair had woken him up from the longest sleep he'd had in almost a month. He'd rushed to the hospital, desperate to see his Sakura-chan after _years_, and she had barely spoken to him, and she certainly hadn't smiled at him the way she smiled at the boy. And now she was moaning when he was supposed to be healing her. He was confused, 

he was unhappy, and as soon as he stopped the steady stream of chakra going into his Sakura-chan and took his pathetic hands off of Sakura's neck he was going to kill the man.

Jaegar swayed as he removed his hand, too tired to pretend to these two men who were looming over him that he was not exhausted beyond the ability of words to describe. Sakura felt him weakening, and felt the lessening of pain in her throat.

"Thank you, but you shouldn't have" she chided him gently. "You know you have to take care of yourself first. You are useless to the patient if you work yourself to the point of no return. I can't even imagine what you must have done to drain your chakra so badly when you were using mine." She stopped for a moment to think about it, and shuddered.

He laughed. "Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? How many times have you pushed yourself past the breaking point to heal just _one_ more patient?"

She sniffed delicately. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to sass your teacher?" Sakura felt content around him, and was grateful for his presence, distracting her from the two men she wasn't ready to face yet.

"Only my teacher, and I feel that it is a pathetic ploy to force someone to respect her." Sakura laughed, but Sasuke and Naruto both growled. The sound was low and threatening and immediately the smile was wiped off Sakura's face.

It was, they decided, minds working as one the way they sometimes do when people are together for years, bad enough that she was ignoring them. They didn't like it, but they could handle it for awhile longer, at least until this stranger was out of the room. It was worse that this stranger did not appear to be a stranger to her, and that this stranger was fairly attractive if you went for pretty boys (which Naruto knew Sakura did, Sasuke was still incapable of realizing just how _pretty_ he was). They were pretty pissed off that she was ignoring them in favor of this stranger, who she had greeted with a smile the likes of which they hadn't seen in years even before she left them. What was unacceptable was that this foolish little boy that they could crush blindfolded in a wheelchair was insulting Sakura.

Sakura heard the growls and her head snapped around to where she suspected they came from. Her face suddenly serious.

"You" Sasuke's voice was as flat and cold as ever, and suddenly Sakura remembered it breaking and pleading, but couldn't quite remember what had caused it to do so. "Leave. Go tell whoever needs to be told to contact Konoha, and have them send someone to deal with this mess." Jaegar remained where he was, and Sasuke felt his irritation building. He wondered how angry Sakura would be if he broke his hand where it rested on her shoulder.

"You heard him." Naruto's voice was low, filled with threats and anger. He was reluctantly impressed when the victim of both his and Sasuke's ire simply looked to Sakura.

She nodded then. "Go. I have things that I need to say to them that should not be said in front of company." She didn't realize that it would hurt Jaegar to be referred to as company when he wanted to be so much more. She didn't realize that he was already confused, having no idea who these two men were, and being 

more than a little frightened of them both. She didn't realize, and he didn't tell her, choosing instead to bow slightly and leave the room.

"Who was he?" Sasuke questioned, unused to feeling this impotent jealousy, and definitely glad he rarely had occasion to feel jealousy. Naruto put a restraining hand on his shoulder. He squeezed too tightly, and Sasuke knew he wasn't the only one with a dull, relentless anger churning in his gut, desperate to break free and do serious harm to the man that made someone that was theirs laugh and smile in a way that should only be caused by them.

But Sasuke looked over at Sakura nonetheless. She was pale and leaning back on the sheets, and she looked small and lost and confused.

"He was a student, who taught me some interesting things." She didn't mention that she'd taken what he taught her, and her knowledge of Naruto's rasengan to formulate a new attack, that she was pretty sure would be twice as destructive when she perfected it.

She sighed. "Thank you both for rescuing me." It was hard for her to force the words past her lips. They didn't want to come and she didn't want to admit that she had needed their help, although she had. It seemed to reminiscent of the times before she had begged to be allowed to sweat and bleed and cry in order to become stronger.

Naruto's face softened. His eyes gentled, and his hands relaxed. There was a look on his face that had become unfamiliar over the past two years, as it was a look that was purely reserved for Sakura. Sasuke could feel his face mimic it.

"Anytime" Naruto whispered it hoarsely before walking over to take Sakura's hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "You know we were really worried about you. They didn't think you'd wake up." Naruto's voice was devoid of its usual cheerfulness. It was the voice of a haunted broken man. Sasuke merely grunted his assent before walking stiffly behind Naruto, and putting a hand on his shoulder, and resting his other hand, gently, possessively, on Sakura's waist.

Being this close to them was breaking Sakura's heart all over again. She knew she'd worried her team, and imagined, for a second, that it had been one of them in her place and swallowed the instinctive bubble of terror and rage. But them being this close to her was bringing back memories and giving her hope that maybe they loved her. Maybe they wanted her just as much as they wanted each other. She wished, desperately, that she could see them.

"Thank you for saving me." She repeated again. Desperate to get them away from her so that she could breathe, so that she could crush the hope that was blooming before it crushed her. "But I would appreciate it if you would leave now."

Naruto stared at her, dumbfounded and hurt and Sasuke took it upon himself to respond, although the suggestion was ridiculous enough that it didn't exactly merit a response.

"No." Sasuke liked the answer. It was short and yet still managed to reflect just how ludicrous he found the question.

Before Sakura could answer the cat jumped to her shoulder and started to purr. She was startled, having been unable to see the cat and not searching the room with her enhanced senses, unconsciously trusting the two men to make sure she stayed safe. At least physically.

"Hey Cat." She reached the hand that was currently in her possession up to stroke her furry friend and wondered at Sasuke's response to the animal. She knew he hated them and hoped, desperately that he wouldn't hate this particular one, although she wasn't sure why it mattered so much to her. She also wished she had taken the time to name the cat.

Sasuke snorted and Naruto started to laugh, remembering what he had taken it upon himself to call the beast, hurt feelings temporarily pushed aside.

And Sakura started to cry.


	8. Not Just a Bet

Authors note: Almost a month exactly. How exciting.

I need a beta. Desperately. Contact me if interested.

Not Just a girl

Not Just a Bet

It took Shizune a week to get to Suna. In that time Sakura avoided them like the plague.

Logically it shouldn't have been possible for a blind woman confined to a hospital bed to avoid two visitors, but Sakura managed.

It didn't matter when they came in, noon or the crack of dawn or during the hours when visitors weren't even allowed, there was always someone there with her. Sometimes it was _that boy_, and they both refused to call him anything else. It was standard policy not to know the names of the people you were going to kill. Sometimes it was one of the sand siblings (far too often it was Gaara, they were beginning to contemplate the political ramifications of killing him). But even more often it was someone they had never met.

When they came into the room Sakura would lift her head momentarily, and turn it in the direction of the chakra, or the noise, or the pure presence of the men who used to be (and still were) hers, and then she would go back to talking to whoever was sitting by her bedside (or on her bed). She would then proceed to ignore them.

It hurt Naruto more than it did Sasuke. Sasuke understood that she was angry with them, and that she would want to make them crawl. He even understood that they probably deserved it (which did not mean he was not attempting to figure out a way to get her back without crawling, he hated crawling, well he hated crawling most of the time...). That wasn't to say it didn't hurt him, and subsequently piss him off (Sasuke didn't like feeling hurt, he didn't know what to do about it, but it was easy enough to channel hurt into rage, and Sasuke knew what to do with rage better than most people), but it hurt Naruto more.

It reminded him of the days before he had forced people to respect him with his strength and his smiles. Days when no one would serve him but the kindly family who worked at the ramen bar; times when he went weeks without talking to anybody. And he didn't like suddenly feeling that way again. Especially from the woman who had been his best friend before she became his lover. He had managed to convince himself that it was all a misunderstanding. That Sakura would forgive them as soon as she saw them (Sakura was so good at forgiveness, so bad at holding a grudge that he'd been so sure she wouldn't be able to do it to the men who meant the most to her. He didn't really understand that its worse when the people you love hurt you, even harder to forgive).

They'd tried talking to her. Naruto had tried begging. But she'd just paused, and for a second she'd looked torn and small and heartbroken, but then she turned back and listened to Jaegar describe her flowers.

The operation had taken two days. They hadn't slept. Naruto had paced outside the door, glaring at the clock approximately once a minute, and Sasuke had just sat there, never taking his eyes off of the second hand slowly ticking by. Shizune had come out exhausted after the first day, and Naruto had taken one look at her weary, defeated face and decided it meant Sakura would never see again.

Sasuke had thought the same thing.

But the next day Shizune had walked out with a huge grin on her face, and Naruto's answering grin had been twice the size and almost as touching as the small smile that Sasuke didn't even try to hide.

It had taken another week before they had let Sakura leave the hospital, a week longer than she had been willing to spend in the hospital, and only the knowledge that once she was out it was going to be a whole lot harder to avoid being alone with Sasuke and Naruto had kept her from breaking out.

The first actual sight of them in years had made her heart stop for just a minute. She didn't remember them being so beautiful. Naruto was so bright he actually hurt her eyes for a moment, he'd grown into something resembling the sun, and she couldn't look at him for too long before having to look away. And Sasuke was something else entirely. He'd been like midnight once, cold and dark with flashes of brightness, but now he'd changed, thawed somehow, and she lacked the experience to describe him.

Her heart had stopped for a second, and then started to beat so fast that the heart monitor began beeping at a rate that would have any Konoha nurse in her room in less than a minute. She'd been displeased to note that it had taken the Suna nurses five minutes to respond.

Naruto had, of course, rushed straight to her side, frantic and worried and so adorable that it had made her heart hurt. She'd brushed him off, as coldly as she could, and almost winced when his face had fallen so dramatically. But she'd looked away, and she'd steeled her resolve. She wouldn't, _couldn't_, allow herself to give up what she had slaved to gain. Being able to live without them had taken _forever_ but she had learned to push back to gnawing emptiness, to find fulfillment in training, in learning.

She'd turned away from them, and ignored them whenever she could, focusing all her attention on her visitors, her _other_ visitors; she'd talked to the nurses who came in; she'd talked anyone but them.

They'd gone home (and she'd been livid when she'd found out that by home they meant her apartment. Her wonderful apartment with windows and clutter and _her_ things, she was certain they had come in and cleaned it up, and changed it and made it _theirs_ and she didn't approve). It had been the first time all week that they'd both left her side, and she suspected that they wanted to... relieve some stress. The nurses had had to promise them that she would be there when they returned, and Sakura felt a little bad about forcing her hand, but it was about time for her to learn that she shouldn't make promises that she couldn't keep.

She'd been long gone by the time they got back. They'd given her a cane and a pair of large, remarkably ugly sunglasses. She'd taken them both, but thrown the cane in disgust after only a few minutes, determined that she could, and would walk on her own. So she did.

She considered going to Jaegar's apartment (hotel room?) but she realized to her shame that she hadn't asked him where he was staying. And it would be the first place they came to look for her. And she just wanted some time alone, to strengthen her resolve, and think.

She'd considered running again, but it was just impractical. She was injured, and she couldn't go back to her apartment with them there (ruining, perverting her space). She knew, logically, that she couldn't avoid them forever, and that putting it off was borderline immature, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

She ended up wandering the streets looking into stores and convincing herself that being in a escaping from the Akatsuki and then being in a coma for _forever_ meant that she totally deserved the gorgeous pink drops in the boutique. And that her two ex-lovers showing up meant she got to buy the matching dress, the one that stopped her heart the second she put it on. It fit like a glove, with no back and a slit up to her thigh.

She wasn't sure why she deserved the shoes (strappy stilettos that could kill a man), or the matching necklace. Or the hair piece, but she was sure that she did.

She's just finished purchasing the ensemble designed to make men fall on their knees and beg (hell, she'd fall on her knees and beg) when they got up with her. Surprisingly it wasn't just Sasuke and Naruto, Jaegar had tagged along for the ride and was looking more pissed off than she'd ever seen him.

He was flushed, the red color standing out in unflattering splotches against his very pale skin. And he was panting. She couldn't help but compare him to Naruto and Sasuke who looked cool and collected even in heat she wouldn't hesitate to term sweltering.

She considered addressing them, and then considered how much easier it would be to simply pretend that they didn't exist. And thus she turned to her student and smiled a smile that was, in her opinion, truly a winning smile.

"Hi!" She rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

He glared, Sasuke glared, Naruto started to yell. "Sakura-chan! They said to take it easy. Shopping isn't easy. And why are you shopping? You are supposed to be in the hospital. You promised you'd be in the hospital."

Sakura felt the leash she normally kept on her temper fraying before snapping, the sound

reverberating in her mind. "I didn't promise anything" her voice was cool, was level, was perfectly polite, it was also furious. "You made the nurse promise that I would be there when you got back. As though you should have some say in the way my life is run. I left because I wanted to get away from you." Her voice was slowly raising.

Jaegar shuddered. The last time he had seen her this angry she'd beat up the shopkeeper so badly that he hadn't been able to completely heal him. She was glorious in her anger. And she was terrifying. To his surprise the two men didn't seem to even notice her anger. Well The Dark One (he refused to think of them by their names, rivals did not deserve names) had smirked a little, but beyond that neither of them were half as intimidated as he was. The Golden One had simply snarled and grabbed her arm and dragged her off.

"We need to talk." He snarled at her, and it was the single most terrifying thing he'd ever heard. He moved to take Sakura from him, to protect her from the clearly insane man who was dragging her along, ignoring the fact that she was limping rather badly. He'd been surprised when she simply snarled back and planted her feet, with a tiny little wince that most wouldn't even have noticed.

The Dark One looked on, almost as if he were amused. Almost as if her were proud. Almost as if her were turned on. It made Jaegar's head hurt.

The Golden One bared his teeth. Sakura bared her pulled her lips back from her teeth in a grotesque imitation of a smile. The Dark One looked even more turned on. The People Of Suna looked on with the same kind of morbid fascination that Jaegar did.

"You want to talk about it here? Fine. Lets make a scene" The Golden One threatened. Sakura frowned.

"I don't want to talk about it at all you idiot. I want you to get your stuff the hell out of _my_ apartment. And I want you to go straight to hell. Or barring that at least Konoha. The future Hokage shouldn't be spending so much time away anyway." She attempted to jerk her arm away from The Golden One, but his fingers tightened around her wrist. Squeezing so hard that she gave a muffled little scream and dropped her shopping bag. The Dark One swooped in to pick it up, and take the other bags from her hand.

The Dark One looked at The Golden One and spoke for the first time in this interlude. "You're hurting her. Stop squeezing." The Golden One looked momentarily horrified and loosened his grip before his face tightened and he glared.

"That's not an option." This time when he began to pull her she followed him. Her face set in a hard mask of anger and pain. Jaegar moved to follow when The Golden One turned around and spoke "Stay". There was anger and death in his tone and Jaegar almost listened to him. Before realizing that it would mean leaving Sakura alone with them. Jaegar moved to follow.

He heard her shout "Sasuke-kun no!" the same second he felt his hand on his cheek. It was nothing more than a slap, which was insulting enough. What was worse was that the slap tossed him into the wall. His head connected with a sickening crack and he was tossed brutally into unconsciousness.

Sakura watched her student hit the wall and howled.

"You bastard. You asshole. You-" What followed was a truly impressive string of expletives as Sakura attempted to struggle out of Naruto's hold to race to her student. Or to attack Sasuke (who was still holding her shopping).

"He'll be fine." Sasuke said confidently. "Let's go."

So they went, dragging Sakura behind them as she tried not to limp.

She came home to find that her apartment had in fact been cleaned up. Things organized in a manner that assured her it would take months for her to be able to find everything again, and the anger that had been steaming inside her head reached the boiling point.

Naruto had released her wrist the second they came into her apartment and she moved her hand to rub at her leg before walking confidently to her couch and sitting down. Her had still rubbing absently and her cat curled up on her lap.

She stared up at them silently for a moment before speaking "You aren't welcome here. Leave" _Please_, she begged with her eyes. She couldn't stand being this close to them and not being with them. She loved them, and the war between her love for them shouting at her that she didn't need respect to be happy, and the voice in 

her head that had gotten stronger and stronger telling her that she was too strong, too powerful, too much to settle for anyone was giving her a headache.

"No." Sasuke wondered how many more times they could have this conversation. Sakura had to realize by now that their answer wasn't going to change. She scowled, but his eyes were drawn to where she was rubbing her leg. He remembered being told that she'd been given a cane. And she definitely didn't have it with her now. He put her bags down by the door before walking over towards her.

"Where's your cane?"

She shrugged. He repeated the question. "I got tired of it. So I threw it away."

Naruto, who had almost calmed down enough to have the conversation he had been planning for almost two years went white with rage.

"Last time I checked you were a doctor. You should know better than to go walking around without your cane if the doctors say you need it."

Sakura snarled, and would have stood up if her leg didn't hurt so much. "Last time I checked you," she tossed her hand to encompass Sasuke "neither of you, had any respect for doctor's orders. Or doctor's in general." The last was whispered, and Naruto made a note to address it later.

"Maybe that's the problem Sakura. Last time _you_ checked. The last time you checked was nearly two years ago. When you left us. Without a word. With a catty, bitchy note that we've kept this long because it was the only goddamned thing you left in the apartment. The last time _you checked_ we were going away on a mission that you knew would be the last time we saw you in forever and you didn't even give us a fucking hint."

Sakura laughed harshly. "Is that what this is about? I didn't say goodbye. Did I hurt your feelings Naruto-chan?" Sasuke didn't like the way she was ignoring him. Naruto's knuckles were white with rage. "Fine. How's this. Goodbye Naruto. Sasuke. Get out of my apartment."

"No." Sasuke wasn't sure how he felt about Naruto stealing his part of the conversation.

"That isn't what this is about and you know it. You. Left. Us." He moved next to Sasuke in a show of solidarity.

"And how many times have you left me?" 

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sasuke realized the second after it came out of his mouth that it wasn't the best thing to say.

"Let's see. Where to start. How about when we were twelve Sasuke? How about when you went on a two year training trip Naruto? How about those times?"

Sasuke winced. She hadn't brought it up much, but every time either of them did he remembered leaving her on a bench. He remembered almost killing Naruto. He remembered his stupid twelve year old self, and he hated him.

"I thought we'd moved past that. Whatever happened to forgive and forget Sakura" He was surprised that the words had come through his mouth without him thinking them through. He should have learned his lesson with the last thing that he hadn't thought about.

"Fine." She allowed. "We'll forget that one. It's not like there aren't a dozen other instances to choose from."

"Name one" Naruto snarled. So incredibly angry that she was sitting there defending her choice to run away from him, from _them_ he corrected almost automatically. He understood that she was harboring some misconceptions that had hurt her. Understood that those were probably his, and Sasuke's fault, they hadn't noticed she was unhappy, and she should have. But her choice to run away instead of coming to them with her fears and her feelings had been the wrong choice, and she couldnt seem to acknowledge it, and that was pissing him off.

Sakura started quietly. Stroking the cat seemed to calm her down. "I made Jounin. I made Jounin first. I've quite possibly surpassed my teacher in the same way you have surpassed yours. I took out two Akatsuki on my was home from healing a civilian village infected with the worst cases of smallpox I have ever seen. I can level mountains with my pinky."

They nodded. It was true.

"So Sasuke makes captain and gets to pick his own teams. And for a year we live like this. And not once does he take me on his team. Not once. I am one of the strongest ninjas alive and you tell me to _**keep the bed warm**_ while you go out on missions without me."

They winced, and acknowledged that that was perhaps not the best way to phrase that, but they couldn't bring themselves to admit that they were wrong.

"We were protecting you!"

Sakura screamed. "I don't need protection!"

"Says the woman who got captured by the Akatsuki."

Sasuke could see this going downhill fast and intervened. His voice coming out slowly drawling out the words in a way that Sakura had always found irresistible, this time because he was weighing each word before it came out of his mouth.

"Naruto, let me take this one." Sakura fumed "It isn't" he began "that I didn't, don't think you capable." She raised a brow. "Our missions often involve killing, as you well know. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should have to. You aren't like us. You aren't a killer."

She snarled and hid the fact that she was softening. "I killed my first man when I was thirteen. How about you Sasuke? Naruto?" Neither of them answered. They knew she knew. "I've lost track of the men I've killed. I do what is necessary to protect my village."

Sasuke growled and then raised his voice, the tiniest bit. "But it isn't necessary! You don't have to do it. Not when I'm here. That's why I'm here. To make sure you don't have to. You don't have to taint yourself. It upsets you. And you shouldn't have to do it."

"Sasuke." Her voice was quiet, and he wanted to shout. That wasn't his name. Not from her lips. It wasn't his name, and he wanted to go back to the time when she didn't think before she addressed him. When his real name slipped off her tongue, the result of years of practice. "Maybe, if you'd told me this then it would have made a difference."

He nearly swore. There was no nearly about what Naruto did.

"What's the problem now?"

Sakura closed her eyes. No longer angry, simply deeply sad. "That wasn't the only reason why I left Naruto-kun." Naruto snarled, Sasuke growled. The sounds were so unexpected that Sakura jumped. Sasuke wondered if he could kill Naruto to get his suffix back, before deciding that it probably didn't work that way.

"Don't call me that. Don't you ever call me that again." Sakura only looked confused. Suddenly Naruto looked defeated. "You called me that right before you left me." He looked so dejected that Sakura automatically moved to wrap an arm around him before drawing it roughly back. She wouldn't allow the fact that he missed her to override the fact that he only missed her because she acted as some sort of buffer between them. Sasuke noticed her arm moving towards Naruto and was suddenly confident again.

"Whatever your other problems are we can work them out." Naruto made the promise rashly. "Anything. Just as soon as you come back with us."

Sakura was baffled. Sasuke wanted to slap Naruto. This was not how they were supposed to bring it up. "I'm not coming back with you. I'm staying here."

Now Naruto looked confused, all his anger suddenly gone. "But Sasuke and I can't stay here. We have to get home. We have work."

Sasuke really wanted to slap him. But he figured domestic violence was not the way to convince Sakura that she wanted to move into the house they had decorated for her (it even had windows. Every time he passed one of them he twitched uncomfortably. Kind of like he did in her new apartment with as many windows as walls).

Sakura nodded. "I know."

Naruto frowned. "Then why-" Sasuke knew the minute he figured out what Sakura was saying and so did Sakura. "No. Absolutely not. We aren't leaving without you."

Sasuke wanted to signal him that this was Not The Time. But he didn't know how to do so without alerting Sakura.

"Yes you are."

"No we aren't."

"Yes. You. Are."

"No. We. Are. Not."

Seeing that this wasn't going anywhere and she was her teacher's student Sakura came up with a solution. "How about a bet?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes. So did Sasuke.

"What kind of bet?"

"You give me fifteen minutes to heal my leg. And then you meet me on training field nine. The one with all the trees." That training field made her nervous, and she enjoyed destroying it. Suna shouldn't have such an expensive training field. And they wouldn't, unless they were training their ninjas in just in case procedures.

"And?" Sasuke was intrigued.

"And we spar. I win you both pack your things, and leave. You win, I'll finish my mission within two weeks and leave with you."

Naruto didn't hesitate. "Deal."

The spar started off gently. Sasuke and Naruto didn't want to hurt Sakura. Wanted to incapacitate her quickly, but they didn't want to hurt her. And Sakura wanted to figure out how to make her plan work.

The spar gradually grew more and more into the kind of fight that made civilians fear ninjas.

None of them had any idea how long they'd been at it. Naruto and Sasuke looked bad. Bruises and cuts and maybe a broken bone or two. But they were confident. Because Sakura looked worse. It had made them both sick to hear the crunching of what could only be her bones. They both hated the bruises on her perfect skin, and resolved to end it soon.

Sakura had the same idea.

She moved behind them faster than most people could see, but at a speed that was, for them, rather sedate. But then she'd put a finger on both of their necks, very very gently. And neither of them had moved, the feeling of her touching them, willingly, after so long, pausing them in their tracks. By the time they had swung around to face her, her chakra had spiraled down.

They both moaned at the feeling of her chakra enveloping their own. Warm and silky and so incredibly intimate and sexual that it seemed wrong for it to be used out in the open the way it was. They both shuddered. The pleasure was intense. The intimacy unprecedented. And that was nothing compared to the fact that it was Sakura bringing those feelings.

They were jolted out of their pleasure by her quiet words. "I win."

"The hell you do!" Naruto shouted.

They tried to pull away and felt the most excruciating pain. Naruto cried out. Sasuke gasped. It was as if their chakra was trying to push itself from their body to stay with her.

"Idiots!" Sakura swore and released their chakra. They disliked the loss of the intimacy even more than they disliked the pain she'd caused them. She brushed a hand over both of them, making sure that they weren't seriously injured. When she drew back she swayed. Sasuke resisted the urges to actually finish the spar, or catch her.

But she caught herself and straightened.

"Watch" She walked slowly over to a tree and placed her hand on it. Sasuke could only assume she was doing that chakra thing she'd just done to them and almost growled in jealousy. Then, in less than a second, the tree exploded. Wood rained down everywhere, no single piece large enough to do any serious damage.

"I win." She repeated.

"Wow. That was so awesome Sakura-chan!" Naruto enthused. Forgetting for a moment what her winning meant he began to question her. "How'd you do it?" That's so wicked cool. Could you teach me? I want to do it! What did you do? Could you do that to a person?"

She only smiled wearily. "I don't think its something you could learn Naruto." She looked at Sasuke "I won".

He inclined his head in what she took to be acknowledgement. "I have to go speak to Gaara. You'll be gone when I get back." She didn't phrase it as a question and Sasuke shrugged, which she took to symbolize agreement.

Sakura sighed when she got back from telling Gaara all about the mission that he had sent her on that she had completed successfully. About how she suspected that the village had been poisoned to draw her out. She'd also told him that she was never, ever going on a solo mission for him again. He'd grinned a little bit. She'd asked him about opening an ice cream shop, and he'd laughed, and told her they would be more than happy to have one, even if it was a gross waste of her talents.

As she agreed with his assessment she put aside that particular aspiration until she was far too old to do anything but sit around and talk about when she was young.

Her feet hurt. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. For some reason she'd hoped. In some deep corner of her soul, she'd hoped that they would fight for her. And they'd left. Not, she forced herself to believe, that she wasn't happy about it. Because she was.

She turned her key in the door and walked in.

Her apartment smelled of oden and dango. Her two favorite foods. Sasuke and Naruto hated them, so she assumed that Jaegar had come in and cooked her dinner.

"That smells fantastic!" She clutched her stomach. She hadn't realized just how hungry she was.

"I'm glad you think so." That wasn't Jaegar's voice. That sounded an awful lot like-

"NARUTO!" She was impressed at just how loud her voice got.

"You need more traps. Anyone could get in. Your security sucks. I'll set them up for you, since we'll be staying here." 

"SASUKE!" Her voice was even louder. She was livid. And in that traitorous corner of her heart she was relieved.

And then she realized what he said.

"You will not!" And then "You are not."

Sasuke shrugged. "I will, and we are."

She put her head in her hand and resisted the urge to scream. "No!"

"Unless you are coming to Konoha with us? You can see your new room." Naruto interjected hopefully.

"No. You are leaving."

"No we aren't. Unless you want to propose another bet? I promise you that won't work on us again." Sasuke closed his eyes for a second as he remembered the pleasure before the pain. He wondered if, when she forgave them, they could get her to try that... while they were alone.

Seeing her opportunity Sakura jumped. "The bet! You promised. You'd leave. I won" Absolutely positive that they couldn't contradict her on that Sakura beamed and sat down absently at the table while Naruto filled a plate for her.

"We have the apartment next store. We won't be staying in your apartment anymore." Naruto offered the tidbit to console her, even though he hated even being that far away, and didn't think it was the best way to handle things. Sasuke had disagreed. Had told him that Sakura needed her space. And Naruto thought it would be a good idea to woo her properly. Even if he didn't see why they couldn't do that, and stay with her in her (disgustingly) blue apartment with the orange carpet. He wondered if she'd known that she'd done it.

Sakura moaned. "That was not the agreement. You promised." She took a bite of the oden, and noted that it was possibly the best thing that she had ever put into her mouth before looking imploringly at Sasuke. Sasuke had always been good at the logical.

He shrugged. "I never promised."

He smirked as she began to devour her supper. She turned to glare at Naruto and raised one eyebrow, waiting for his explanation.

He grinned wolfishly. "I lied.


End file.
