When Sasuke is branded as a missing-nin by the Hokage and an assasination hit is put on his head, no one is affected by it more in Konoha than his former team mates. Naturally, it has to be them who go after Sasuke and try to save him: the brash fox-faced blond and the pink-haired girl with the healing hands. Sasuke is supposed to be off-limits. He's an enemy of Konoha and its citizens, and as ninja both Naruto and Sakura are supposed to take him down for the Hokage.
The idea of some stranger taking Sasuke's life is inconceivable. The only way Sakura can sleep at night is to sing off-beat lullabies on what she would do if she was the one to kill Sasuke. It's a morbid trick she's picked up from going on missions with Kakashi, hearing him in his sleeping bag at night whispering songs to himself how he would have taken Obito away. Obito had died filled with regrets; Sakura vowed to release Sasuke of all his regrets no matter what. She loves him, ever since they were young and training to be ninjas, and even now Sakura loves him enough to throw everything away for him, as foolish as it seems.
This doesn't escape Naruto's usually dense attention, just like it doesn't escape Sakura's attention how many times a week Naruto comes around to the hospital, either to visit different nin injured in the attack or just to volunteer when there is a shortage of hands on board. When her shift of healer kunoichi go home for the night, she ends up trailing after Naruto to the Ichiraku stand, which has managed to rebuild enough to resume business as usual. She can tell that Naruto is really feeling the news of Sasuke's new status as top of the ANBU hit list; he's managed to keep himself busy training and helping Konoha rebuild, but even all of his deflecting couldn't keep the worry from gathering behind his eyes like storm clouds, grey and flat.
Naruto does not sleep. His thoughts are full of Sasuke - as an ally and team mate, as a dangerous friend, as a stranger with his blade to the other's throat. As someone who can still be brought back into his arms and held as one might hold a lover. He knows that when the search party disperses in short time to find Sasuke that he will come with them; he just hopes he can find the lost Uchiha boy before someone else does - someone who can hurt him far worse than he already is. Tossing and turning on his cot does nothing to still his mind, and neither does slurping down a lukewarm cup ramen in his barely lit kitchenette. He doesn't go back to sleep; he goes on a walk that twists and turns through the shadows of night before it leads him to the still standing monument of Sasuke's family: the Uchiha family compound. No one seems to be on guard this night.
When he slips through the front gates, Sakura is already there. She's sitting on the stoop of the main house, expression lost in thought. It feels as though at any second the ghosts of Uchihas past would come floating out from the woodwork, drifting from doorways and open windows to see the Konoha traitors who would dare step foot on such hallowed ground. They sit on the same stoop with a body-sized gap between them, not wanting to fill in the space that is meant for their friend, and let a moment of silence pass by as they appreciate sitting in the place where Sasuke grew up without them.
"He's out there," Sakura says. Her voice breaks through the quiet. "Waiting for . . ." She trails off, not wanting to sound conceited. Not wanting to sound like Sasuke may not want them back.
"For us," Naruto says, sounding proud of his old friend. "Cause he still needs us. But not yet."
Sakura nods. "We can't just keep running after him without thinking."
"Yeah," and then he grins. "We need a plan first." For years, Naruto has been telling himself it's better to distance himself from Sasuke for now, that in time he'll be ready to confront his friend as a smarter, better person. It has been over three years. Waiting is taking its toll on both of them - waiting and the distance between them and their constantly moving goal.
"We may not be able to stop him from what he wants to do," Sakura confesses. The idea of taking Sasuke back into the fold does not appeal to her if that means letting Sasuke run rampant killing those responsible for his pain and then those who aren't.
Naruto reaches over to brush something off of her shoulder, and for a second she wants to believe that maybe Naruto could be the one. He's nice and goofy and clever and not dangerous. When Naruto moves his hand back, Sakura doesn't regret for one second that he did, and it hurts. He says something about having to do their best to help Sasuke even if he doesn't want them to, and Sakura nods in agreement.
Despite his usual actions of rashness, Naruto knows when it is time to just shut up, so he does, all the while wondering what he would have done, how he would have comforted Sakura in her time of grief. And then he thinks he'd rather have Sasuke's shoulder to rest his hand on, and it's enough to have him fall back into silence. Words of hope and despair fly around in the city walls, but within the compound of a dead legacy, two friends sit together and think of the endless task before them.
Beyond the flattened rubble of Konoha, they can see the night sky blanketed with stars that seem to shine clearer than ever.