it should have been (under ideal conditions)
Amongst the cracking of bones and the spilling of blood, she doesn't understand. Another fight, every day is another fucking fight, those idiots, and they think that she's stupid enough to not know, that she's ignorant, but she's fully aware. And she doesn't understand because she needs them both and she loves them so much, her boys, that it's burned into her existence as a teammate, as a kunoichi, as a person. She needs them like oxygen, but they're suffocating her, drowning her under the weight and fury of their passion and it hurts, it hurts her indefinitely but what ails her the most is the fact that they are hurt too, because of this. She doesn't stand it, doesn't tolerate it; because it hurts so fucking much, more than Sasori's poison when it wound itself through her bloodstream, more than the sword that was forced through her body and she's bitter, bitter because she has her team and they're all in love, but in love with each other at the wrong time and they can't comprehend it.
In frustration, she yells, breaks the ground beneath their feet –
"We are a team – why can't any of you understand?"
But she's ignored, like she's been ignored so many times; because Sakura is still pathetic, still useless, and she still needs protecting. She's not a medic, a strong kunoichi, or the apprentice of the Godaime. She wonders if she'll perpetually be left behind on that stone bench, treated as somethinglessthanequal and she knows that when people hear of Team 7, she is the last person to come to mind. More importantly, she wonders why this is – why she has the power to both give and take life, and why this influence and strength is underestimated. She wasn't born to power – she not only learned to harness her almost insignificant abilities, but she was able to make power for herself and why the fuck did that not mean anything to anyone in this God forsaken village? She chooses not to train with her team that week, instead opting to throw herself into work at the hospital.
(She remedies her feelings of futility with her determination to save lives; though it doesn't work most of the time, she still takes pleasure in the fact that she was the one to protect her patient's family and friends from a very different type of pain – the pain of loss. She's far too well acquainted with it for someone of less-than-twenty.)
"Those boys will be the death of you, Sakura," Tsunade-shishou gripes, commenting on her state of disarray. "But tell me, how can you ever be without them?" And Sakura knows that she shouldn't be here in the office with her mentor, her mentor who has lost so much, who doesn't have her boys (… men, Sakura mentally corrects) at all, her own teammates to spar with, to eat dinner with, or to cry with. And it's sad, so sad, that the only bet her shishou has ever won was the one she wanted to lose – because no amount of money could ever bring Jiraiya-sama back. Sakura chastises herself because she thinks that she knows loss, but nobody knows loss like the Godaime does, and she won't even try to measure up.
(After all, at least Sasuke came back. Naruto came back.)
Sakura attempts to smile, but instead ends up with an expression that looks more like a grimace. "I don't know, Tsunade-shishou," she admits, bowing her head. "And that's what seems to be the problem…"
And Tsunade laughs and laughs and laughs, until she's coughing and gasping for air, tears glistening in her eyes. Hesitantly, Sakura laughs, too; but it's only halfhearted because she knows that her boys will be the death of her. But the empty feeling in her heart, the sinking feeling in her stomach, soon disappears because she knows that she'd rather die than lose them again – it was the better choice, her own sick little preference.
She thinks of telling this to Tsunade, but doesn't – she's also aware, almost too aware, and she definitely wouldn't be here if she had the chance to bring Jiraiya-sama back in her own place. In a flicker of thought, she comes to realize that which she had once proclaimed to Chiyo-baasama, which she would have even proclaimed to the world; she is her shishou's creation, she is the next Tsunade.
but there are always exceptions (exceptions like reality)
Amongst the cracking of bones and the spilling of blood, she doesn't understand. Though Naruto had predicted – known – this, she never thought that he could ever be right, not right about something like this.
(Like Tsunade-shishou, he had taken a gamble – but it was own life that he had to pay with.)
She looks at her hands, her calloused healer's hands; hands of a woman who could take and give life – hands of a killer, hands of a mother. She wonders if that even means anything.
("You've got it though, Sakura-chan!" Naruto proclaims proudly, throwing his arm around her shoulders. "That spark, you know? That healing touch." He grins roguishly at her. "I wonder else you can do with those hands though, ne?" the blond adds, whispers, barely an afterthought. She forces herself to laugh and punches him playfully, trying to distract her best friend from the growing blush on her cheeks.)
But the spark's gone, the magic's gone and soon they'd be gone, too. Her boys, as if they never had identities before they were hers, shadows lurking in the dark, faceless. Team Kakashi, the problem class of their graduating year: Sasuke, the last Uchiha, Naruto, the Hokage's son and the vessel of the Kyuubi, and Sakura. She was just Sakura, a sweet girl with pink hair and green eyes, a fiery disposition. She lacked an identity, and many believed that she lacked the ability to become a shinobi. She was the faceless, nameless one before Team 7.
They were her world and she couldn't even save them because she didn't have the energy, the chakra, to do it because she wasn't enough.
With her medical training, she's easily able to explain the tight feeling in her chest when she sees Sasuke again and she knows that her red string, their red string has been cut. Preparing to battle, she vows to sever it before he does.
(But somehow, Sasuke-kun always does get his way.)
And then Naruto's left to sever it – them – all by himself. He always did have a penchant, a bad habit for carrying heavy burdens by himself, in himself.
(She misses how soft Sasuke's hair feels when she runs her fingers through it and the feel of her cheek pressed against his neck. She aches to hear his heartbeat, feel his pulse, examine his chest as it rises and falls, slowly. She misses him, she misses him as a human and she loves him and regrets that she never had the chance to be –)
None of them would ever have the chance to be, just exist freely, not crushed under the weight of their wishes, dreams, and failures. For Sasuke, it was alwaysalways Itachi and for Naruto, it was always Konoha; but for Sakura, it was them.
(She remembers how Naruto would hold her close and whisper into her hair. He'd whisper nothing and everything, and she could gather his flaws into the palm of her hand and kiss them better and wish them away. She wants to believe that it's temporary, just until Sasuke-kun gets back, but she knows that isn't the case at all. Sasuke is smoke, untouchable; floating away, inevitably escaping, dancing through her fingers. Naruto is the fire, and, she supposes, mentally laughing at herself, she's already been burned. And with her fingers, her healer's touch, she shows him how to feel.)
Sakura sighs, grimacing as she feels stiff muscles move, muscles that could break boulders easily, and she imagines mountains crumble under her gentle, lethal touch, just a flick of her finger. She imagines rubble flying, disrupting the blue continuity of the sky, dust floating up into the heavens before sinking down to the earth. And somewhere in the sky, in a distant country, stars were shining; teenagers, reckless and clumsy, would fall in and out of love with each other, easily; a baby is crying in bed with her parents; a newlywed couple was making their first wish together.
(She always says she knows loss, that she knows lonely, but she somehow forgets that she once knew together, too.)
As she takes her place next to her teammates on the grass, she hears Naruto begin to chuckle with the little bit of energy, of life in his system and she feels Sasuke's gaze shift, so guilty, so regretful. The taste of satisfaction rests heavy on her tongue; she basks in the knowledge that they are all together, finally, not fighting, just tired. They have three minutes to waste in tranquility, the stillness of life.
"Hey Sasuke-kun," Sakura says, closing her eyes. She doesn't wait for the grunt of approval, of acknowledge; she continues, "I just want to let you know that it's okay, that you were a bastard and we – me and Naruto – forgive you for every moment of it." She opens her eyes and turns on her side, relieved to see a perpetual grin present on Naruto's face. A lazy silence lingers over them, rays of sunlight crawling through the cracks in thick canopy, illuminating Sasuke's features. He almost looks like he's at peace, the bastard, a bastard angel about to fly through space.
(She'd give anything to see that look on his face again, but she won't because it's only now, only in a moment like this he'd ever be at peace.)
She can feel their time together coming to an end, so she reaches for both of their hands and rips through her system, giving them all she has, if not only for a minute. She'd be willing to give them all she has for an eternity, if they'd only let her.
(But not for a lifetime; she's already given the two that.)
"I loved you both." She's ready to cry as she feels them fading into the languor of the forest. "I love you both," she says, hastily correcting herself. Sakura closes her eyes again, content to feel the grip on both of her hands tighten before they slack, content to hear the sounds of the forest and to dream of teenagers falling in and out of love under the stars, as she had once fallen in (but never out of) love.
(Somewhere, in the distance, she hears Jiraiya-sama and her shishou bickering; somewhere, in the distance, she hears a clear "Thank you" and Naruto's laughter and buzzing in her ears. She hears redemption and tastes satisfaction and feels enough, has seen enough; and maybe, also in the distance, there's a flower shop with fragrant roses, daffodils, and carnations. And they're all marching, the momentum of life dragging them down.)