Word Count: 584
A/N: I wrote this for Kaira-chan15 who requested a Team Seven fic. Sorry it took so long, dear. It's been sitting in my document manager for quite a while and I'm still not sure I'm completely happy with it, but I'm not sure it's going to get any better so... Hope you enjoy it anyway.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
It's just not the same, Sakura knows as she lays quietly on the soft earth dappled in moonlight, surrounded by the familiar trees of the Konoha forest and the team.
(And it's not her team; at least not all of it, anyway.)
Captain Yamato isn't Kakashi-sensei.
Kakashi-sensei was a simple man; all he needed to be happy was a place to sleep and his porn. (Captain Yamato is nothing like him.) And so right now, she's isolated; both literally and figuratively, having forgone the option to sleep in the house Captain Yamato had erected soon after sundown. (Sakura is strong.) Kakashi-sensei never had to try and intimidate them (although they still were, Sakura thinks fondly), and Sakura doesn't know how, but Team Seven just worked, dammit.
Sai is not Sasuke.
(Sakura dislikes Sai with as much passion as she loves Sasuke.)
He was rude, manipulative, and fuckin' fake. (Sasuke could kick his ass with both hands tied behind his back.) Sakura finds she has to hold her tongue around him most of the time (even though she doesn't care if he hates her or not), and other times she has to clench her fist to stop herself from ripping off his damn face. He doesn't have any right to judge her, or Naruto, or Sasuke; because Sakura's possesive, and because she's got first dibs on kicking Sasuke's ass (with both hands tied behind her back; Sasuke wouldn't touch her).
Naruto is Naruto; and she loves him with a passion that suffocates her on the nights that she forgets the morning she woke up on a that bench near the gates of the village. Naruto understands her, she thinks, because for some odd reason, whenever she wants to just scream; Naruto is always there with a smile and a crumpled up voucher for free ramen. Sakura doesn't like ramen, but for some reason, Naruto always makes her.
And it's not the same; not really, because Sakura's trusting her life with a strange leader and a boy that just doesn't understand life. And that's what Sakura has on her mind when she sits up her make-shift bed (because she just can't sleep), stretching her sore muscles, and she glancing up at the mansion looming above her. (If she listens close enough, she can imagine Naruto's snores.) She doesn't see much--just a hunk of glorified wood that looks so completely out of place--so there's no excuse as to why she stares at the house until her eyes begin to sting and her back begins to bitch. But Sakura, being Sakura, can make an excuse out of anywhere (because she's finally a good ninja, dammit) and so when she sees Naruto shuffling out of the cabin, she smirks in her knowing way and lays back down.
And if she's surprised when Naruto flops down beside her, she certainly doesn't show it, she merely snuggles into her blankets and tells him not to kick her in his sleep. Naruto hums back at her and all is silent.
So when Sakura takes a deep breath and listens to Naruto snore and imagines Sasuke telling the dobe to shut up and envisions Kakashi-sensei propped up on a nearby tree and looking for all the world apathetic (but watching over them), Sakura doesn't find it strange in the slightest.
It still isn't the same, really, but Sakura figures she can enjoy it now; so when the real time comes, she won't feel like she's missed a thing.