Forgotten Life

Naruto Fanfiction

Main Char: Sakura Haruno

Sasuke Uchiha

Chapter 1- Forsaken Day

He'd finally returned to Konoha, although the circumstances were not the best. It had been eight years since that night he'd left her unconscious on a cold bench. On the very anniversary of his departure the Uchiha was found outside the gates of Konoha, unconscious. He had been in a fight apparently because he was bleeding profusely.

Sakura remembered recieving the call to the hospital. She had been in her bedroom, sulled up as the rain poured down outside as it always did on this day, staring at the picture of their team that brought back all of her twelve-year-old memories.

"Sakura, we need you at the hospital, stat!" Shizune's voice echoed through the phone line.

"Okay Shizune, lemme get dressed," she said grudgingly. Why did she have to be such a good medic? Everytime something happened she was the one they called. Even though her apprentice had almost reached her level of expertise, with Tsunade gone, she and Shizune held up the hospital, always on call.

"Hurry Sakura, this one's bad!" Shizune exclaimed before some background noise on the phone drew her attention away from Sakura. "Got to go!" she said quickly, then hung up.

Sakura had already jumped out of bed, her phone on speaker and had her clothes on when Shizune hung up. She grabbed the phone and her raincoat and then rushed out of her house.

The rain was already flooding the streets, and Sakura splashed through it, the cold droplets covering her bare legs. At times like these she wished she didn't wear short skirts.

She made it to the hospital in two minutes and the receptionist pointed in the direction of ICU. She made a mad dash to the room where anxious voices could already be heard.

"Stop the bleeding Asuki!" she heard Shizune call out to her apprentice. "I'll take care of the head injury!"

Sakura could not believe what she was hearing. More than that, she could not believe what she saw as she stepped in the doorway. There was blood everywhere. She recognized Asuki and Shizune in their hospital robes, but they were bloodstained, as was the floor and the bed that the occupant lied on. Sakura rushed into the room, trying to assess the situation. The person on the bed was a male, his skin tone was undeterminable due to the blood, his hair appeared to be dark, although that could have been dried blood.

Shizune stood at the head of the operating table fueling her chakra into the wound on the man's head. She motioned for Sakura to come to her, just as Naruto rushed through the doors.

"I came as soon as I heard-Oh God!" he started, before staring dumbfounded at the man lying on the table. "I don't even recognize him," he said quietly as he stood frozen, seemingly afraid to come any closer.

"Don't recognize who, Naruto?" Sakura asked as she began to assist Shizune. They had to cleanse the wounds before they could put stitches in his head and she was frantically rinsing the wound through the thick black hair.

"Sasuke-teme..." Naruto said quietly, wondering why Sakura had not been notified.

He soon found out. At the mention of his name, Sakura's entire body tensed. She looked at the bloody face of the unconscious man and her heart fell. It was Sasuke and she had not even recognized him. Her body began to shake and she dropped the water bottle she'd been holding. Water poured out onto the floor, mingling with the bright red blood, Sasuke's blood.

"Come on Sakura! You can freak out after we've stabilized his condition! Snap out of it!" Shizune yelled as the heart monitor began to beep slower.

Suddenly Sakura snapped and the next hour seemed a blur. She worked furiously, remembering the good things about Sasuke-kun that she did not want to lose with his death. She shut out the bad memories that had stopped her from acting upon first realizing her patient's identity.

After what seemed like ages, the blood was gone, the wounds were healed and Sakura fell onto a couch exhausted. Naruto sat beside her and pulled her in close for support. He wrapped his arms around her as he always had on this day. It never failed that Sakura would need his support on this day. But now his support was needed for a different reason.

Before, it was the pain of Sasuke's departure and his abandonment of them. Now, it was the thought that he was home, but in the worst way possible.

"He had a concussion and a few broken ribs. He also lost a lot of blood. We were able to find a donor but he's still in critical condition. We don't know when he will wake up," Sakura said quietly, trying to be matter-of-fact even though she was hurting inside at the thought that Sasuke's homecoming could be short-lived.

"You don't always have to be strong, you know?" Naruto said, as he pulled her into his embrace. In a few minutes, both of them were asleep.

It was three days before there was any changes in Sasuke's condition. Naruto was up to his nose in his Hokage duties and therefore, Sakura took the liberty of staying at Sasuke's bedside, waiting for the Uchiha to awake. By the third day of her watch, she had bags starting to form under her eyes from the lack of sleep. Kakashi would come in every day and check on her, find her forcing herself into staying awake and then make her take a nap while he watched Sasuke.

The Uchiha had not stirred the entire time that he'd been resting on the bed and everyone in the hospital was starting to wonder if he would ever come out of his coma. Then one day, the heart monitor registered a change. An uneven rhythm, his pulse increased, a sign of awakening. Kakashi looked at the sleeping Uchiha curiously for a full minute, watching his face for movement.

Then he saw it, the Uchiha's eyes twitched and then squeezed shut. His mouth opened and he began to move his hands and feet. Kakashi smiled beneath his mask before nudging Sakura gently.

She groaned as she was woken prematurely from her much needed sleep. "Sakura, look," Kakashi said softly and Sakura's blurry eyes followed his fingertip to the Uchiha on the bed. He was moving and not just the twitches that were common for his sleep, but actually meaningful movements. He was trying to get out of the bed.

Instantly, Sakura was fully awake. She jumped up and ran to the bedside to still the Uchiha before he pulled out his IV's. "Kakashi, could you please go tell Naruto?"

Kakashi nodded his head and then exited the hospital room in a puff of smoke. Sakura turned back to Sasuke, noted that her hands were holding his, and then pulled away. He would not like her touching him, he never had. So, instead of holding him still, she watched warily as he moved around, testing his muscles and then sat up in the bed. He opened his obsidian eyes and looked straight at her.

They were just like she remembered except something was missing. She couldn't put her finger on what it was but when Sasuke spoke she knew.

"Who are you?"

-End-