Title: Dream On (Dreamer), Part I
Rating: T
Words: 12, 210 (5,900~ in this post)
Summary: It really was too bad that prescient dreams didn't come with a guidebook. AU. KakaSaku.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishi does.
Notes: This fic fills hukomuyo's prompt for Wishlist 2012. It also fills the "planet destruction" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card, the "safe" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card, and the "matchmaker" square on my Trope Bingo card.

"Mom, why do we dream?"

Haruno Miki smiled down at her five year old daughter. "So that we can put things to right," she said. "Have you been dreaming, Sakura?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you know what you're going to do about them?"

Sakura regarded her solemnly. "Not yet," she said. "I think I'm missing the pieces to my puzzles."

Miki smoothed Sakura's hair away from her brow. "You'll find them."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Mom?"

Haruno Miki looked up from the dishes. Sakura was twelve and slumped at the kitchen table. "Yes, sweetheart?"

"Why are all our dreams about changing the world?" Sakura asked, her voice flat and brittle-the way it had been since her team fell apart.

"Because the world changes in many ways," Miki said quietly, rinsing out a glass.

"I can't change the world," Sakura said.

Miki hated that her daughter could say that and believe it. It was wrong. She could. Miki had faith where Sakura didn't.

Arguing that, right now, when she was still reeling wouldn't help. Instead, Miki asked, "What do you consider to be the world?"

Silence answered her and Miki knew without looking that her daughter was staring at her.

"The world's the world, Mom."

"You're thinking too large," Miki chided very gently. "You're thinking of the world. The dreams are meant for your world."

"But they're so big-"

"Of course they're big," Miki interrupted, ignoring her daughter's grumble. "Everyone's world revolves around themselves, you see? How could your dreams, your world, be anything but big in your eyes?"

"I'm going for a shower!" Sakura announced abruptly, the scrape of her chair a sharp sound in the kitchen.

Miki smiled slightly. That had gone better than she'd thought it would.

"Mom?" Sakura said, twenty-three and a Jounin, and standing at the door.

"What are you knocking for?" Haruno Miki asked, reaching to tuck a bit of fly away hair behind one of Sakura's ears. "You can come in any time. It's your home too."

"I've moved out."

"That doesn't matter."

Sakura laughed softly, the sound like music to Miki's ears, and followed her inside.

"Mom," Sakura said, after they've had tea and exhausted the small talk of the village being reconstructed after the war. "I think I've got my dream figured out."

"Oh?"

Sakura nodded. "The only problem is that I need to get Kakashi and Ino to get along."

Miki took a long swallow of her third cup of tea. Ino-chan was a brilliant kunoichi and an even better friend to Sakura. Kakashi-kun was a Jounin with an impressive record-and the man Sakura was happily engaged to.

They loathed each other.

"That's going to be difficult."

Sakura grimaced. "I know," she said, her heart in her eyes, "but Mom, they're my world."

Miki set her tea down, stood up, and pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead. "Then you'll work it out," she said. "You're part of their worlds too."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"No." Ino's voice was flat and uncompromising.

Sakura wrapped her mom's assurance around her like a blanket and forged on. This would be okay.

"I know that you don't get along," Sakura said, trying to sound practical and not wheedling. Ino, despite her tendency towards well-executed histrionics preferred the practical from other people. "I'm not asking you to be best friends or for you to love him."

Ino raised one elegant eyebrow as if to say, well, as if.

"I just want you to talk to him." Sakura pressed on. "Clear the air. Please? For me?"

Then she waited. Pushing Ino into a corner was the fastest way to get her to refuse.

Eventually, Ino sighed. "When?"

Sakura hugged her. "I'll let you know. Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

With Kakashi, Sakura took a different route. Ino worked better with time to make up her own mind once the matter was neatly laid out.

Kakashi worked better when given incentive.

"No sex," Sakura announced abruptly.

Kakashi paused, looking up from sharpening his kunai quizzically.

"That's the new law—until you talk to Ino," Sakura clarified. "This apartment is now a no-sex zone."

"I could make you change your mind," he said, his voice low and deep, which sent a pleasurable shiver down her spine.

He probably could change her mind.

"You won't though," Sakura said with simple confidence. "You respect me and love me too much for that."

Kakashi just looked at her for a long moment. "You drive a hard bargain," he said, heaving a sigh. "Can we start enforcing this rule tomorrow?"

She was tempted, so tempted, to put it off for a day.

"No," she said. "I need this more than I need that."

He made a face at her.

"Tomorrow?" she said. "At nine? Does that work for you?"

"No," Kakashi said. "But you're going to make it for then anyway."

He was right. She did.

"Mom?" Sakura said. "I'm going to die waiting to hear how it turns out."

"No you're not," Miki said with a laugh. "You'll be alright."

Sakura muttered something that sounded like she totally wasn't sure of that. Miki pretended she didn't hear.

"What if they kill each other?"

"They won't," Miki replied placidly. "They both know that would hurt you. You have to have faith in them, Sakura. Isn't that why you're with me today instead of listening to them?"

Sakura looked deeply torn. "No," she said slowly. "Well, not entirely. I think they need to do it themselves for my dream to work itself out."

"Then wait and see."

Sakura sighed, closed her eyes, and rested her head on the table.

Miki smoothed back Sakura's hair comfortingly.

Waiting games were always the hardest. The worst part was that she had so much practice.

Kakashi entered the private room of Sakura's favourite tea house gingerly, like he was worried it would blow up, and was unsurprised to find that Ino was already there.

The first one in had the appearance of power. He knew it and she knew it.

I really can't stand her.

The mirrored thought lurked in her eyes as she watched him with an unsmiling face. Kakashi shut the door behind him and approached the table.

"Yo," he said, folding his legs under him as he took a seat opposite of Ino.

Silence, awkward and stifling settled around them.

They were supposed to try to talk to one another. Where were they even supposed to start? Kakashi studied the oak panelling of the walls, the painted table, and the light that dangled over them.

The room was pretty empty.

"Sakura had them remove the decorations," Ino said flatly. "As if either of us would lack for weapons."

It was a gesture though. Kakashi understood that.

He suspected that Ino understood it as well.

Sakura trusted them enough to leave them alone. She didn't trust them to not kill each other. That was her way of reminding them to not do so.

"This means a lot to Sakura." He kept his voice utterly neutral.

Ino's eyes flashed. "Got that," she said, like it was the most obvious thing ever.

Kakashi conceded that it probably was. This was not him at his best. "We're supposed to talk," he continued doggedly.

"We are."

"For a certain value of 'talking'," he drawled.

Something almost like a smile crinkled around Ino's eyes for a split second before disappearing. He still couldn't shake the feeling that he'd amused her.

Was that a good or a bad sign?

Ino raised her eyebrows. "Do you know where to start?"

Put that way, Kakashi had to concede that maybe snarking and sniping at each other actually could be considered progress of a sort. It was more than just sitting in stony silence.

"This isn't going to help," he said, the words slipping out as they realized. "It's just not."

"I knew that."

But they'd both gone along with it for Sakura.

Kakashi felt the first stirrings of a headache. They had to do something-if only for Sakura's sake. Personally, he was rather content to despise Ino until the end of the world and would be deeply surprised if it was any different on Ino's side.

That was one thing they had in common then: they both loved Sakura.

"Let's go spar," Kakashi said, getting up.

Ino tilted her head at him. "I'll be going for the kill."

He nodded. "So will I."

Sakura shouted at both of them until she cried when she found them six hours later.

Kakashi had fourteen broken bones and his head felt like it had been beaten into a tree-because that was exactly what had happened. But he was still on his feet.

Ino was sitting down, green chakra coating her hands as she ignored the both of them to heal her own injuries, which Kakashi took vicious satisfaction in knowing were just as bad as his.

Neither of them are dead. They'd kept their word to Sakura.

Not that she seemed to see it that way.

Sakura healed him grudgingly, raking him over the coals the entire time she did so, then stomped over to check Ino's work.

Maybe it's the blood-loss but, as Sakura dragged him off, Kakashi called back over his shoulder, "Same time next week?"

Ino's answering laugh was scornful.

But not a no.

They don't get to spar again.

Sakura laid the law down and Kakashi was disgusted to realize that both he and Ino were grudgingly willing to abide by her rules. No sparring.

Which was why, the next week, when they were both back at the tea house, they had absolutely nothing to talk about.

Kakashi felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Ino looked bored out of her mind as she maintained an empty silence.

He made it through two cups of tea before she spoke.

"Remind me," said Ino, "did Sakura say we have to stay here?"

Kakashi looked at her balefully. "Yes," he said. "We're not allowed to leave. We're not allowed to hit each other. We're not allowed to poison, threaten, maim or injure each other." He paused and considered the list. "She didn't say we couldn't yell at each other."

Ino wrinkled her nose. "She so doesn't trust us."

He knew there was a reason for that, given that they had tried to kill each other last week, but the fact that Sakura doesn't trust them still irked him.

"What about video games?" Ino asked.

He couldn't remember if he'd ever played one and squinted at her with his good eye. "What about them?"

She rolled her eyes. "If I can't actually hit you, beating the shit out of your character in a game might be an okay substitute, duh."

Kakashi considered this. That actually sounded… okay. "Where would we go?"

"Naruto's place?" Ino suggested. "He's away and he's got the right sort of games."

"Naruto's place is a hellhole of filth."

"I know that," Ino said, with exaggerated patience. "Which means Sakura's not going to look for us there."

"All right," he agreed, because that reasoning really was sound. "You're on. We're going to have to sneak out though. We're not allowed to leave here, remember?"

Ino rolled her eyes again. "As if they could keep us here."

They couldn't.

(And playing the games, though Kakashi would never admit it, turned out to be extremely cathartic.)

"I'm going to murder them," Sakura said. The room where Kakashi and Ino were supposed to be was empty. She gave it a long, dirty look and then turned and stormed down the hall.

Haruno Miki swanned along behind her indignant daughter with a faint smile on her face. "They're ninja, sweetheart. They don't like being stuck in place."

"I know that," Sakura snapped. "But they promised to try."

"I think they are trying," Miki said calmly, with a reproving look. "They had to have worked together to get out of the room and last week they spent time together."

"Trying to kill one another!"

Miki shrugged slightly. "And you were just threatening to kill them," she said, repressing a smile ruthlessly. "I'm not a ninja but that seems to be how ninja react."

She doesn't particularly care for that but she'd made her peace with her daughter's way of life years ago and her unease didn't show.

Sakura's shoulders slumped. "What if they actually kill each other? Like, not just hyperbolically?"

"I don't think they will," Miki said reassuringly. "After all, they know you don't want them to."

"That was more reassuring before last week," Sakura muttered but didn't shrug away when Miki hugged her. "I just want them to get along."

"You can't make anyone get along," Miki said softly. "They know you want them to and they showed up for the second meeting when neither of them wanted to."

Sakura looked vaguely guilty.

"You didn't," Miki said, softly reproachful. "Oh, Sakura, no wonder they're resentful if you're blackmailing them into keeping trying."

"It's too late to change it now," Sakura said mulishly, which reminded Miki of the worst of the teenage years.

"Yes," Miki said, a note of censure in her voice, "you've made your bed and will have to lie in it."

Sakura looked down. "I know," she said miserably. "That's what I'm scared of. What if I mucked it up?"

"Then you have."

Sakura stopped and looked at her, rather chagrined. "I'm whining, aren't I?"

Miki smiled. "A bit, dear, but it's to be expected. You love them and they don't get along."

"They hate each other," Sakura corrected. "Passionately." Her green eyes were troubled. "But I don't know why. I've never gotten a straight answer out of either of them."

"No?"

Sakura shook her head as they made their goodbyes to the owners of the tea house. Miki, secure in her knowledge that her daughter will answer, waits patiently until they're back outside and walking down one of the side streets, a smile on her face.

"No," Sakura said thoughtfully. "I've had rhyme and verse on how irritating Ino is and how awful and aggravating Kakashi is but nothing that would stir up such… feeling."

Miki ruthlessly suppressed another smile. "What if I told you that I know why they hate each other?"

"I don't believe you," Sakura said but with enough doubt in her voice to express that maybe, maybe she did and just didn't want to admit it.

"That's alright," Miki allowed, checking the traffic on both sides of the street before beginning to cross. "I'll tell you what I know when you do."

"That's not fair!" Sakura protested, hurrying to keep up with her. "Mom, I'm trying to make this be a solved problem, not perpetuate it."

"I know." Miki draped one arm comfortingly across Sakura's shoulders. "But you're too close to being the problem for you to solve it. You've told them you want it fixed and you've arranged for meeting times and places and," with a side-long look, "you've blackmailed or bribed them into meeting. I think you've done enough, Sakura. Let them work it out."

Sakura sighed disconsolately as her shoulders slumped. "You're just repeating yourself, even I can see it—you think I need more patience."

"As long as you need to hear it again, I'm willing to repeat it," Miki promised, laughing softly. "That's what a mother does."

Sakura laughed. "That's what I'm afraid of, Mom."

But, after that, Miki noted that Sakura stayed out of the meetings, except for continuing to arrange them. No more showing up at the tea house, or looking for them.

It was a step in the right direction.

And Miki would never turn down more time with her daughter, since her daughter inevitably wound up seeking her out while her most precious people were meeting.

Kakashi was somewhat dismayed to discover, after a few weeks of Ino and him fighting their way through Naruto's game collection that he was better at the button-mashing all-out battlers while Ino was better at the ones that required strategy.

He felt like it should be the other way around.

"I win," Ino crowed triumphantly as his character died (again). She pinned him with a blue-eyed stare. "You weren't even trying that time, dog."

"I wasn't," he said amiably, since it was the truth. "I was thinking that Naruto's not going to let us keep breaking into his apartment when he gets back from his training in Suna."

Ino made a face at him. The apartment around them was cleaner than it had been the first time they'd broken into it. The cleaning had started slowly; first the trash around the TV and gaming systems, then the bathroom, and then the kitchen.

The bedroom, they had decided by mutual non-discussion, had been thoroughly ignored. Their one concession the bedroom's existence had been to shut the door leading into it firmly.

"I suppose not," Ino conceded grudgingly. "Though he's still going to know someone was in here. It'd be pretty hard to not and even though he's clueless it's hard to not spot the missing piles of trash."

Kakashi nodded.

"What are we going to do next then?" Ino asked. "I came up with this idea. You come up with the next one and I'll tell you all the ways it sucks."

He glowered at her. "You're too kind."

"I get that all the time," she said without a hint of shame and glanced at the clock. "We've got time for one more before I've got to run. What game? I'll kick your ass."

Just for that, he picked a button-masher. Her outrage when she lost was like music to his ears.

"But seriously," she said, later when they've evacuated Naruto's apartment, "what are we going to do? I can't be seen in public with you."

"Ouch."

She rolled her eyes. "You read porn in public. Not the sort of company I want to be seen keeping."

"I am marrying Sakura," he pointed out, a bit of acid in his voice.

"I know," she replied, her face unreadable. "That's why I am being seen in your company."

Kakashi wanted to retort to that and had several pithy things to say when he abruptly realized that, in a way, she'd just told him her entire motivation.

She'd trusted him with it.

Kakashi let the retorts he had in mind die unspoken and instead shrugged languidly. "I don't know what we should do next," he said. "I'll let you know."

Ino nodded. "When is Naruto due back?"

"Next week," Kakashi said. "Knowing him, it'll be any day now. Or not at all."

"He can't do anything normally." Ino sounded almost amused.

Kakashi couldn't argue—she was right.

She continued, "I'll keep a look out for your message."

Then she was gone in a swirl of smoke and leaves.

Kakashi shoved his hands in his pockets and then, thinking better of it, disappeared the same way.

Sakura arrived home from her latest shift at the hospital, feeling weary and wrung out, to Kakashi sprawled out on her couch reading Icha Icha Violence. "Hey," she said, leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek. "No mission?"

"I leave tomorrow," he said, pulling his mask down to give her a better greeting. "I shouldn't be gone too long. It's a simple in-and-out."

She nodded and wriggled onto the couch with him. His arm snaked around her waist and she smiled slightly. He wouldn't give her any more information—and she had no idea what in-and-out in this case actually meant-but he didn't consider it dangerous.

Which didn't mean it wasn't-but some of Kakashi's ego is entirely justified.

"I'll miss you," she said.

Kakashi smiled slightly. "I know. I'll miss you too."

It didn't even cross her mind to ask him to promise he'd come back. There was no way that a jounin could ever promise that and mean it and she didn't want to make him be a liar. Not about that. Making him promise would almost feel like she was laying a curse on him.

She loved him too much for that.

"Are you all ready to go?" Sakura asked instead. "If you are, we could go out for supper, if you'd like?"

"I do like," Kakashi said and sat up, his arm still around her. "Where did you want to go?"

"There's a new place that Ino mentioned," Sakura said. "It sounds pretty nice."

He was silent for a moment and then nodded. "All right," Kakashi said. "We'll go where Ino thinks is suitable for you."

Sakura's eyes narrowed slightly. "What does that mean?"

Kakashi smiled. "Exactly what I said," he said easily. "You don't think she told you about the place with me in mind, did you?"

She squirmed slightly. "Not really," she admitted. "But that's not a bad thing, is it?"

"Not a bad thing," Kakashi said agreeably. "Just a thought."

Sakura supposed she could handle the thought.

"How are you and Ino getting along?" Sakura asked even as she wondered if she ought to be asking. Her mom said to leave it alone and give it time… but it was weird if she didn't ask at all, right?

And Sakura firmly believed that her curiosity would eat her alive if she didn't know even a little about the whole situation.

Kakashi frowned slightly, pulling up his mask. "We haven't killed each other yet," he said. "That's like progress, right?"

"Not really," Sakura said a bit plaintively.

He laughed and kissed her cheek as he got up. "She really loves you," he said. "She's insufferable and bad-tempered and appallingly avoidant at answering questions."

Sakura knew all of that. She waited, hoping he'd tell her more.

"I think I know why you like her though," he said thoughtfully, closing his book with a snap.

"You do?"

He just waved the question off and picked up the phone to make a reservation at the restaurant she wanted to try.

Except that… Sakura stared. She never told him the name of the restaurant. Ino must have told him. Ino was the one that had recommended it to her, after all! That meant that… they were talking-at least a little bit.

She decided to drop the questions for the time being. Progress was being made and that news made her ridiculously happy. When Kakashi got off the phone, she pulled him into a kiss that turned into more and they wound up being a little late for their reservation.

Neither of them minded.

Sakura beamed sunnily all through their dinner and the evening that followed and even when Kakashi woke her up the next morning at godawful o'clock to kiss her goodbye, she flopped back into bed still cheerful, irrepressibly so.

When the clock ticked to four in the morning, she gave up smiling at her ceiling in favour of reaching for the phone to call Ino.

Ino answered on the second ring, sounding wide-awake. "Do you know what time it is, Forehead?"

"I love you," Sakura said.

Ino was silent for a moment then said, "Oh god, what do you want now?"

Sakura laughed. "I mean it," she insisted. "Are you busy today?"

"That depends," Ino said. "What do you want me to be unbusy for?"

She debated the merits of arguing that 'unbusy' wasn't a word with Ino but gave it up in favour of laughing some more. "Nothing bad," Sakura promised. "Breakfast. Shopping. Possibly a movie."

"There is a new Ito Ryouma flick out," Ino mused. "It promises all the things I like. I'll meet you in ten."

The voice that echoed in Sakura's dreams was and wasn't her own.

It doesn't come to her with dire warnings and terrible portents, not the way dreams in the fairy tales her mother used to read her always did. Instead, it told her stories. Long, chatty ones with laughter, like she and the voice that wasn't (quite) hers were old, good friends that hadn't seen each other in a while and were catching up.

At one point Sakura felt like they were drinking tea, though nothing concrete came of that feeling before it was gone and it was just the voice, friendly and talkative going on and on and on.

Most of the words fell on her ears and faded away without ever being fully understood. It would bother her, except that in dreams like this, it never did. She'd been having these dreams since before she could walk, before she could remember them ever starting, and Sakura knew it was just a matter of time before the almost-her got to the point. She'd remember the point.

She wasn't in, truth be told, because the voice was comforting and soothing, and if it had something to tell her, then there was time enough to fix it.

That was the one constant of the voice and the dreams: there was always time to fix what they thought should be handled.

When they've had tea and talk enough to be sated on, warm, soft hands clasp her cheeks, and lips that burned like a contained fire blazed against her forehead.

Sakura woke up with the words the voice, the almost-her, wanted her to hear, sounding in her ears. Rolling over, sheets tangling and trapping her legs, Sakura reached for her journal and swiftly wrote down the words that, even now, echoed in her mind.

Once they're written down, the words fade, and she was left with only her notes. Sakura rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, touched the page and read aloud softly, "The world of hatred and materialism will end on December 21, and with it the end of fear, in this day mankind will have to choose between disappearing as a thinking species that threatens to destroy the planet or move towards the harmonious integration with the whole universe, understanding and becoming aware of everything is alive and we are part of that whole and that we exist in a new era of light…"

Because was more confusing than her dreams usually were, Sakura read it again. Then a third time to make sure.

The precise date was unusual, though it gave her time enough to do… whatever needed to be done.

She still had three weeks.

It was clear from the wording that 'harmonious integration' was what she was supposed to shoot for. Sakura puzzled over the wording then, giving up, got out of bed, showered, and dressed for the day.

Then she picked up the journal and went to find her mother. It was a bit disheartening but, in some things, her mom still knew better than she did.

It was progress, in a way, that she could admit that. A few years ago, she wouldn't have been able to, stuck on her own pride and trying to be an adult when the adult thing to do, all along, had been to go and ask for help when she didn't understand.

Well, now she didn't understand this and she was older now. Asking for help wasn't easy—but it wasn't nearly as hard as it used to be. She could do it.

Outside, a brisk wind billowed, tugging golden and rust-red leaves off of trees and scattering them in the air. The nights were touched lightly with frost and children were getting excited for the holidays that marked the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

Inside, Haruno Miki stirred honey into her tea and listened as Sakura told her of her dream. Sakura's tea was untouched in front of her but Miki didn't begrudge her that—Sakura was busy, talking..

"What do you think it means?" Sakura asked her, green eyes troubled.

Miki smiled at her gently. "May I see the wording?"

Sakura handed over the book without hesitation. Miki valued the implicit trust in the act knowing that Sakura trusted her to not look at any of the other pages. Which she wouldn't, in any case.

The words matched what Sakura said, which didn't surprise, Miki.

Truth be told, the dream didn't particularly surprise Miki either. She looked back up at Sakura, who had progressed to fidgeting and trying not to, with her tea cup. "Drink," she suggested mildly. "It will do you no good to just let it grow cold. A bit of warmth may be what you need."

For the beginning of December, it was cool out. There was no snow, but then snow fell in Konohagakure no Sato rarely anyway. Sakura was wearing her usual outfit, almost a uniform, and Miki wondered if she ought to suggest her daughter might like to try wearing a coat.

But no, she knew that shinobi handled it differently and noticed the cold less than civilians.

And Sakura was terribly, terribly touchy about her pride and capability as a shinobi. Miki has never doubted her but Sakura has struggled with doubting herself and that left a mark more complicated than any tattoo upon Sakura's heart.

So Miki let the lack of proper clothing go, though perhaps she'd knit Sakura a scarf for the holidays. Something in green and blue-soothing colours and ones that go well with her hair.

"I'm not a child," Sakura muttered, but took a sip of her tea anyway.

"You're my child," Miki corrected her. "No matter how old you may grow."

Sakura sighed but smiled. "I'll remember that," she promised. "What do you think of the dream?"

"Something is going to happen," Miki said, ignoring the way that Sakura opened her mouth, no doubt to tell her that she already knew that. "Given the scope of your previous dreams, I would guess that this dream also concerns Hatake-san and Ino-chan."

Sakura's eyes grew troubled. "That would mean that this is it. Either they… get along, or they're never going to."

"Which do you think is more likely?" Miki asked, not offering an opinion on which way she thought it might fall.

Sakura shook her head and sipped her tea. "I'm not sure," she admitted, looking pained. "I think they get along better now. They're talking some, at least, but I don't know that I'd say they're friends. I haven't tried to hang out with both of them at once. Not when I'm unsure where they stand. And...," Sakura hesitated a moment before carrying on, "I'm pretty sure that they're unsure where they stand too. Kakashi gets information and suggestions on restaurants from Ino, and Ino gets... I don't know what she gets but she seems less vicious about him."

"Those are good signs, aren't they?" Miki wondered. They sounded rather good to her. "If they can be civil then perhaps they will manage to muddle along well enough without causing you undue stress."

"I don't want to settle," Sakura confessed. "I'm greedy. I want them to get along so I never have to worry or concern myself with the fact that they might not want to be near each other."

"At least you know that's greedy," Miki said, with a smile to take the sting from her words. "It may never happen."

Sakura laughed and shook her head. "Honestly? That's what I'm afraid of."

They fell silent for a bit, Miki drank her tea while Sakura leaned over to reclaim her notebook and flipped through the pages idly. It was a peaceful silence for all that they hadn't managed to figure out the dream. Some dreams only made sense after everything, though. Miki knew that.

"Do you think that if they do not get along well that something will go wrong?" Miki asked, finally, once her first cup of tea was finished and she'd made a good start on the second cup.

Her daughter stopped, then finished turning the page, and looked up. "Yeah," she said, "that's what I'm worried about. I mean, it talks about destroying the planet and if you're right… then I'm that planet. If it all goes wrong, what happens to me?"

"I don't know," Miki said, knowing that was cold comfort for Sakura. "But whatever happens, remember that you are not powerless. You can change things too. Even if the end result is something that Ino-chan and Kakashi have to work out for themselves, you are not an insignificant piece of the puzzle. You have capacity and agency and can make your own moves."

Sakura dropped her gaze to her lap. "I thought I wasn't supposed to interfere."

"There is a difference between interfering and trying to make people be friends with one another and saving yourself," Miki pointed out calmly. "I am strongly against you meddling in the nascent potential friendship between Ino-chan and Kakashi-kun. If they are to be friends, they must do it themselves. That being said, sweetheart, if something is a danger to you, I would never want you to just lie down and take it-I would, and do, want you to fight. It is an entirely different matter."

From the expression on Sakura's face, Miki knew that her daughter was unconvinced by this. "What do you think I should do for now?"

"It's too early to say you need to fight," Miki said meditatively. "And nothing is out of the ordinary in your life, is it?"

Sakura thought about it, carefully, and then shook her head. "Kakashi's on a mission and Ino's been running around doing-something. It's just been the hospital for me, like usual."

From experience, Miki knew not to ask what Ino-chan's 'something' might be.

"Then keep watch," Miki counselled. "Let Kakashi and Ino-chan fumble towards friendship on their own. Do not interfere unless something happens that also touches on you. I think that is all you can do for now, Sakura."

Sakura nodded, finished her tea, and sighed. "I want to argue but I can't. I'll let you know if anything changes."

"Of course, sweetheart."

"Did you want another cup of tea?" Sakura asked. "I think I'll get something to eat."

Miki smiled. "I'd be delighted to join you. Tell me of your work at the hospital."

Sakura took great comfort in her mother's words and, when she left the tea house, kissed her on the cheek, and made plans for meeting up in a week, schedules permitting, to further talk about Sakura's visions. She headed out with a light step and a lighter heart.

Next week, she had little to report: Kakashi and Ino were still dancing around each other, friendship an ephemeral thing that wound around them but Sakura couldn't tell if it was taking or if they were just toying with it in anticipation of discarding it.

Her mother, at the end of their tea, ruffled her hair, kissed her forehead, and reminded her that she shouldn't worry too much.

The next week went by much the same and Sakura started to feel panicky because December twenty-first was coming up terribly, terribly fast and she still had no idea what was going to make or break the world. Make or break herself, especially not in regards to Ino and Kakashi.

Tea that week was spent with her mother consoling her as they both reread the vision that had named the twenty-first of December as a significant one. Sakura was agitated; her mother was a soothing balm.

The week after that, three days before the date, Sakura was quietly melting down. Kakashi was out of town on a mission, Ino was doing something for her father (and Sakura hadn't even asked if it was poisons, flowers, or intelligence related) and the only good, bright spot in her day was her meeting with her mother.

When she left her mother, her mother gave her a smile and stayed behind to chat with the wait staff.

Haruno Miki never made it home that night.