Title: As we Age
Disclaimer: Overall disclaimer for the entire series, I own nothing. Story rating is for themes and possible language. Any other disclaimer will be on a chapter-by-chapter basis.
Date: 9/13/2010; 12:44a.m.
Soundtrack: Glitter in the air(P!nk)
Story Precursor: As we age, our hopes are replaced with wisdom, our dreams are exchanged with cynicism. Our youthful exuberance is overtaken with canny mechanisms and our honesty is lost to subterfuge. As we grow, we lose the part of ourselves that created us-body, mind and soul. With the loss of our hopes, all we have left to us is to look back to the beginning, and remember in vain, the days when there were dreams. -Elle
"Yes I love him. I love him more than anything else in this world, and there is nothing that I would like better than to hold onto him forever. But I know it's not for the best. So no matter how much my heart is going to break, I've got to let him go, so he can know just how much I love him. Maybe if I'm lucky, he'll come back. But if not, I can make it through this."
-Unknown
The cool autumn air was a welcome absolution from the blistering haze that the long months of summer had dealt to the land of Fire. Fair-weathered in spring, autumn and fall, the country made up for its mild climates in summer. The ground was baked into solid earth, puffs of dust rising as sandals slapped the surface time and time again.
With fall, though, came a welcome change in their own little corner of the world. Life was no longer to be endured, but enjoyed.
It was for such a reason that the family could be found on the porch. The matriarch, in the seat of honor, had been seated in a finely carved rocking chair with cushions to pad her weary bones. Letting her head fall back, the woman smiled benevolently at the family that surrounded her.
She knew she was blessed. With adult children to carry on his name and her dreams, the family that she had wished for all those years ago was all that she could have wished for, and more. As her emerald gaze met the dark stare of her husband of all these years, the woman's heart was at peace.
It certainly didn't hurt that her youngest grandchild-one of seven-clamored for her attention, demanding an account from her own childhood.
"Grandma," the voice appealed incessantly, "tell us a story!"
Smiling kindly at the granddaughter that had managed to inherit the best of the possible genetic lotteries (really, pink hair on one Kunoichi was quite enough for Konoha's history) with thick dark hair and intelligent green eyes, the older woman couldn't help but laugh. Embracing the child warmly, she settled back in the chair and allowed it to rock, eyes drifting to look back to where her husband of decades sat on the corner of the porch, a part of the gathering but an observer none the less.
"Very well. I don't believe I've told you this story befo-"
"Is it a story about love, Grandma?"
Impetuous chit, she thought with a laugh. "Yes. It is a story about love-but it is more than that. It is of life..and of dreams."
. . . . .
The shadowed silhouettes bled long onto the dusty, beaten path. It was not an auspicious time to start a journey, but no one had bothered to ask her opinion on the matter. Really, no one had asked her opinion on anything.
Sakura sighed.
If they had bothered, she would have been able to inform them as to the fact that her entire team was stupid. She had that annoying Naruto who demanded so much of Sasuke's time, and then that pervy sensei of theirs who was perpetually late to deal with, too!
They weren't a team. They were a mocking imitation of it.
Sasuke was the first to go. Perhaps it was feminine intuition that had her waiting for him at the bench that evening. Maybe it was true and she did know him better than anyone else.
Years later, though, Sakura would admit it to others-she was there by luck alone.
It was not chance that had her watching Naruto leave months later, though. The tanned blonde had been her constant companion as the days passed in Sasuke's absence. She had grown to genuinely like the loud-mouthed adolescent who was as impetuous as he was, kind.
They had all done him a disservice.
What hurt the most about it all was that she hadn't even been able to tell him goodbye.
Sasuke went off to learn from one of the few missing-nin that Leaf had ever created, notorious for his part in the legendary triumvirate known as the Sannin. It was inevitable that the naturally gifted boy would become a legend in his own right.
Ever his competitor, ever in his shadow, it was of no surprise to anyone except Sakura herself that Naruto ended up the student of Jiraiya.
For three years, the blonde haired boy had been absent from Konoha. No one knew in the beginning how very long it would take. No one knew that, when that boy left the Leaf Village the sole survivor of the doomed team seven would be forced to find solace in memory and hope for so many seasons.
No one realized how different it would be when they started to reassemble themselves once more.
As Naruto left with Jiraiya, Sakura Haruno was left in despair. Always watching them from behind, always being the one left to wait, it seemed that she was doomed to be forced to repent for their mistakes.
Yet, with a spine that no one had known she had, the pink haired genin had managed to land herself the coveted spot of apprentice to the Fifth Hokage.
Kakashi Hatake in particular, had a moment where he felt the acute twinge of regret. Had that peculiar pink-haired girl always been in possession of such a backbone? It was of little matter, the man concluded, uncomfortable with the direction of his thoughts. More than anything, they were a team doomed from the beginning. It was of little importance if he had done the girl wrong by finding suitable teachers for everyone else but she.
So, as the years passed and the legend of the Sannin refused to fade, what fueled the stories were tales of apprentices. The Snake Master had undertaken the task of teaching a boy as tempestuous as he with far more talent. Sasuke Uchiha could never leave the minds of anyone who had ever seen him, even as a boy.
The Toad Sage was seen traveling with a paradox of a boy, a boisterous yellow-haired affair that everyone concluded, was nothing short of a headache. However, as time flowed on as it was wont to do, the name Naruto Uzamaki found itself in the vocabulary of the world.
"Wasn't he that peculiar boy who won his match against the Hyuuga prodigy?" they would wonder-and realize, that they were seeing something miraculous happen, something new being born before their eyes.
The name no one heard, though, was Sakura Haruno. Left behind by a team that had no need of her, by teachers that had disregarded her as worthless beyond technical knowledge, and by a world that had been jury, judge and executioner, the little pink haired girl had been surpassed by the men she once was surrounded with.
Some things, though, grew finer with age. The wine left to mature in the oak barrel hidden from sight found unseen depths of flavor. The tree that rooted deep in the forest far from any eyes would end up being the strongest of them all, for the silence and peace in which it grew allowed it to be a harbor in the storm.
Far away from prying stares, Sakura Haruno was finding steel in her bones and a courage in her heart that had only been hinted of in the shadows of desperation.
As she aged, the girl was becoming something that no one could have ever seen.
No one, except perhaps the matured blonde woman who stood at the windows overlooking the Leaf, an expression of contentment overtaking her features.
Even if history was trying desperately to repeat itself, Tsunade thought with a smile, it couldn't.
Sakura was stronger than she had ever been, and it would save them all.
A/N: Alright, I actually have this story planned out by chapters so unlike SAN, this should have regular updates. It should be 15 in total (if all goes right) and it explores the past, as well as the future. As you can see, I started this chapter with a little bit of a flash-back idea. Every chapter following should have that. A segment of it will take place in the future, where Sakura is married, with children and grandchildren and then the other half will be her recalling her youth, and the decisions she's made that have brought her to the life she has.
Not everything in this story is as you see. Take nothing for granted. Dream For Her Tonight is a story in which I explore life as it is, not as we wish it to be. For every grand passion that ends in a happily ever after, there is a hidden story of love that makes no sense. For every wildly impractical decision a person can make, there are three other rational options that could lead to a different future-a safer one. Then one begs the question-is safer less fulfilling? Does one need a grand passion to find great joy?
Drop me a line! If you think you can spot the hidden trick of this story-and there is one significant one!-let me know! If you have any feedback or suggestions, let me know those, too! As always, this story was unbeta'd so I tried my best to avoid butchering the english language we all know and love so dearly!