Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
An: This is a sort of companion piece to "Away" drabble by xxpoison ivyxx, which I loved at first reading. You should go and read that first, or after reading this one. Pairing is vague Sakura/Sasuke. Thanks!
...oOo...
Once again she felt the coming of spring.
It was always spring with her. Sun too warm on her skin that promises a new beginning but never gives it in full, the greenness all around that betrays her hopes and dreams in the reflections of her eyes. Curtains of fog in the morning providing the perfect masks for hiding and running away, and the harsh blowing winds in the quiet afternoons.
Always the spring.
The only thing she wasn't and the spring was - the variety it offered. She was too plain, too common, too predictable.
Sakura is oblivious to it sometimes, but in this moment she knows it all.
She's barely standing on her aching feet in the middle of the night, the cold air hitting her from behind, while she hugs her broken arm closer to herself, and she knows. She can see it in the blooming of the flowers that will come in the morning and the newly grown trees are softly, achingly whispering to her that the winter is going away and out of her reach.
The only thing she looks forward at spring are the storms that rage, bitch and moan, throwing out the anger and the fury that nature has accumulated over the period of sleep, and the winter was too careful to let it out then. She closes her eyes and in her chakra she can hear the screams of the damned and the cries of those yet to fail and she can feel the beginnings of frost fall apart.
She's too good at hiding things, she thinks and cries herself to sleep every night.
(Sakura thinks that the face of winter is just like him - quiet, calm, composed and completely frozen and she hopes that the winter will stay as long as possible.)