.:Promise:.
Her stomach twisted in anxiety. They should have been back by now, but they had yet to return to base camp and Sakura's fears grew with each passing second. The heady scent of antiseptics, which usually gave her a sense of purpose, made her nauseous and dizzy and the walls seemed to waver and seep in closer and closer and then she couldn't breathe and, and... Quaking hands grasped onto the nearby window ledge as she gasped in the crisp night air to steady herself.
"How long will you guys be gone this time?"
"Few days, maybe." Naruto shrugged. She couldn't really see his face, silhouetted against the scorching sunrise. It was a rare occasion when anything could outshine the blonde. "You gonna miss us?"
Sakura rolled her eyes at his cockiness. "You wish."
"Aw, Sakura-chan! Don't be like that!"
"Dobe," his voice cut in like sandpaper, going against the grain of Naruto's pride. Uchiha Sasuke was a piece of work, complete with endless eyes, high cheekbones, aristocratic nose, and the emotional baggage of an orphan who's brother was accused of murdering his entire family. But that's a story for another time.
"What did you say, Sasuke-teme?"
"Oi, oi! No fighting before a mission!" Sakura stopped them before they upgraded into a "playful" fistfight. Next step up from that? Friendly fire, and she really didn't want to go there again.
"Heheh, gomen-ne, Sakura-chan." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly while Sasuke just 'Hn'-ed. Sakura rolled her eyes at their antics because they never changed. They were her two constants in the raging tide which had become her life. She needed them, more then they could ever fathom. There was no life without them.
"Sakura-chan?"
The pinkette startled awake, unaware that she had begun drifting on her own strands of consciousness. She received curious stares from both of her comrades but waved them off. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt until later, but it wasn't later yet and they didn't need to know just how dependent of them that she was. It would only make them even more protective of her.
"Naruto, Sasuke! We're leaving!" Called their commander, Lieutenant Yamato, from where he sat in the jeep with the rest of their squad. They would be joining up with the rest of their platoon soon.
"Yeah, yeah!" Naruto shouted back at him, yelping as the Lieutenant sent him the look. "Bye, bye Sakura-chan, looks like we have to go!"
As they turned away she felt something in her break. They were about to walk off to what could be their demise. She might never see them again, alive, but they were still going to leave. Her constants were moving away from her.
She flung out her arms and grasped them around their shoulders, enveloping them in what could oh so easily be their final embrace. These were her boys. They couldn't leave her too.
"Saku-"
"Just come back, okay?" She dug her face between their shoulders muffling her words but they still understood.
"Don't worry, Sakura-chan. We're going to be back in a few days." Naruto wrapped his arm around her and when she spoke again her words were too broken to make out.
"Huh?"
"Promise." She kept her head down and they could feel moisture on their shoulders
"I promise, Sakura-chan." he gave her one final squeeze before he let go and stepped away. "Just a few days, a week tops!" then he walked away, one hand in his pocket, the other raised in a final farewell.
"You too." Sakura turned to the quieter one, staring into his deep, onyx orbs with her glassy emerald ones. At that moment something passed between the two, something that neither of them could decipher but both held onto like a lifeline. She broke eye contact. "Promise that you'll come back here."
"Hn,"
"Say it." she felt her face heat up at his inquiring look. "If you don't say it, it doesn't count."
His eyes seemed to soften, just a little but enough to melt his icy exterior. If only for a second. But it was enough.
"I promise to come back to you."
It would be okay, she reminded herself. They promised to come back, and they would go to the ends of the earth and back before they broke a promise. But that promise was two weeks old.
"Sakura-san!" Shizune's voice cut through her dancing reveries like a razor, sharpening her focus to the world around her and not the one in her mind. "Squad twelve from special forces just returned. Three men have been injured by a landmine. Tsunade and I have the first two, you're in charge of the third one."
"Is there any info on the patient?" Sakura spoke quickly, nothing but business.
"Severe third degree burns on the right side of his body and there is not much left of his leg. He has lost a lot of blood and is now being prepped in operating room four."
"I'm on it," Sakura's legs were already moving in the direction of the patient before the words were out of her mouth. This is what she was born for. Sure, she was the strongest female fighter in their class but it was treating patients that gave her a sense of duty and pride. This is why she joined the army.
She burst through the doors of the operating rooms where the patient was being prepped for surgery and her heart stopped beating. Ebony locks splayed out beneath his pale face with aristocratic features. His dark eyes were still slightly open and his jaw was locked from pain. Blood was quickly blossoming through the makeshift bandage, tied tightly around what was left of his right leg. Half of his body was a mess of charred skin and blood where the landmine had hit.
'This can't be,' Sakura thought. 'No,' she pleaded to herself. 'No. Not him!' She felt as if she were going to be ill. The walls seeped in closer and closer. 'Oh please God, no!'
"Sumiiro Sai," Sakura's head snapped up at the sound of the nurse's voice so close to her.
"What?"
"The patient," the nurse gave her an inquisitive look. "Sumiiro Sai of the special forces unit. His charts."
Sakura took the manila folder of all of the patient's information, feeling a static charge of relief wash over her. She flipped through the pages, scanning the doctor's notes and gathering all the insight she could to save his life before handing them back to the nurse and prepared herself for a long night.
"Ugh," Sakura's back straightened from where she was changing Sai's I.V. His eyes were clamped shut in pain from his injuries or from the disorienting florescent lighting. Or a combination of the two. She wasn't quite sure.
"Sumiiro-san?" She halted her movements and stared at the once unconscious man. His eyes flickered open briefly, only long enough for him to catch a glimpse of the sterile white walls before he closed them again. "How are you feeling?"
"My leg." his voice was a gravely baritone and his heavily bandaged hands grasped at where his leg ended in a stump, right above where his knee once was.
"Gone," she turned to fill him a cup of water. "It was nearly torn to shreds in the explosion and all nerve pathways to it were cut off as well as your femoral artery. You're lucky you didn't die of blood loss."
She placed the plastic cup on his bedside table and stared at his face, so much like her friends but she was starting to see the differences. The shape and shades of their eyes as well as the shapes of their faces. Where Sasuke was all angles this man held a bit of roundness.
"Oh," his hands tightened on the papery bed sheets as his mouth set in a grim line. It was a bitter pill to swallow, being a special forces operative meant he spent almost his entire life in the army. But now? Now he would be nothing but a hindrance. He would most likely be given a purple heart and discharged from the military. His eyes remained shut, as if since he couldn't see it, it wasn't true yet.
Quietly, she propped him up, all too aware of the bandages that covered most of his body. She held the cup to his mouth so he could drink and he wearily opened his dark eyes. He looked past the cup she held and to where the pastel blankets dipped down, where he knew that there would only be air when he pulled back the covers, and closed his eyes once more. His mouth opened to accept her offering of water and her grip on his non-injured shoulder tightened slightly. The cup was empty in seconds.
"How are you feeling?" she tried again.
"My leg is gone." he stated flatly, though she could hear an undertone of disbelief.
"And the rest of you?"
It seemed he had forgotten about the extent of his other injuries with the shock of losing his leg. He attempted to prop himself up instead of relying on Sakura's steady grip and groaned as his healing skin and muscle tissue stretched beneath the bandages.
"Yeah, you're going to be in a bit if pain for awhile."
"This is a 'bit' of pain?" he grumbled as she lowered him back down to his pillow.
"As compared to when you first came in?"
He grimaced. "Fair enough."
She chuckled, giving him an extra dose of morphine before she turned to walk out. He was doing much better than she thought he would. Most of the patients that she'd had who'd lost a limb would usually still be in shock or would get emotional or something. But Sai seemed almost nonchalant. There was a bit of shock, of course, but none of the overly emotional things that she had experienced with previous patients.
Sakura shook this latest mystery man out of her thoughts just as Shizune came running up to her, panting slightly and pale in the face.
"Sakura-chan," she started, her mouth quivered a little before she set it in a grim line. "Tsunade-sama wishes to speak with you in her office."
Sakura looked at the older woman and felt her stomach twist into painful knots of anticipation. She felt flushed and her palms were suddenly sweaty. Her voice sounded shaky to her own ears as she said "Alright," and followed after her sempai.
The walk down the sterile corridors towards her Shishou's office seemed to stretch on for miles and she began feeling queasy. She had a pretty good idea of what her sensei was going to say to her though she forced her mind to play with other possibilities. But it was a fruitless effort. After all, two weeks is a long time.
When they finally reached the intimidating doors of the Head of the Medical Staff Shizune knocked respectfully before granting herself entrance and taking her place behind Tsunade herself.
"Sakura," Tsunade stood, her shoulders set but her eyes were red-rimmed and so, so tired. "We just got new information in on squad seven."
Sakura's heart seemed to slow as she felt the blood leave her face. 'On, not from.'
Tsunade took a steadying breath of air before continuing. "They encountered an ambush and were vastly outnumbered." Her breath hitched as she waited for the final blow. Her shishou's eyes clamped shut in pain but her voice remained strong when she finally managed to say; "No survivors were found."
Sakura's heart stopped and her stomach dropped through the floor as if filled with lead. She wanted to curl into a ball and scream out the lump which had formed in her throat, constricting her breathing, but she couldn't. Not in front of the woman she respected most.
"Are you sure?" her voice sounded weak and fragile. She couldn't seem to stop her trembling fingers so she curled them into fists.
Tsunade's head bowed towards her desk. "The reports are definite."
"Alright," she whispered. Her throat gave a final squeeze and she knew that she wouldn't last much longer. "May I be dismissed?"
Tsunade gave her a look which appeared to be the epitome of pity. "Yes." her voice cracked with emotion. She had always been rather fond of Naruto. Behind her she could see Shizune with her head bowed and her hands clasped to her chest.
Sakura turned away from the two women she respected most in the world and left the office to stagger through the blindingly bright halls. 'Naruto and Sasuke were…' The flickering fluorescent lights seemed to mock her as she passed, not really sure where she was going but she was going nonetheless. 'Naruto and Sasuke, they're….'
'Dead,'
She clumsily twisted the knob on the door of an empty room and closed it behind her as she sank to the floor. Her hands twisted around herself but she desperately wished that they were someone else's. The weight of her heavy heart was too much and it lowered her forehead to rest on the tops of her knees. Salty drops plopped onto her medic skirt and splattered on the tile floor. Loneliness and pain slithered through her limbs until she couldn't feel them anymore. There was nothing left of her.
She had never felt so alone.
"Good morning, sunshine!" Sai groaned at the overly cheeriness of his doctor while Sakura pressed her teeth together and opened her mouth in an attempted smile.
"Morning ugly." he retaliated, expecting anger but only receiving what could resemble a dirty look. Sai may have only known this pink haired medical expert for a few days but he had heard rumors of her spitfire personality. A "dirty look" didn't set right with him. "What's wrong with you?"
For a moment her eyes gained a glassy appearance, but it was gone so fast that Sai couldn't be sure it ever really existed. "I should be asking you that same question."
Sai gave her a no nonsense look but she only waved it off. Sakura continued with her routine check-up, changing his bandages and checking his temperature and whatnot.
"I hear you're going to be going home soon," she commented as she was checking his pulse. It quickened a little. "Do you know what you're going to do?"
Sai was quiet for awhile, staring at the ceiling with blank eyes. For a minute Sakura thought he wasn't going to answer and prepared to leave. His voice caught her by the door.
"Paint," he said with gaining conviction. "I'm going to paint."
Sakura turned to look at him, a small smile forming on her face. "I didn't know you were an artist."
He simply nodded but there was a small light of hope in his dark eyes now. She turned to leave once more, but as soon as she opened the door she was stopped again.
"Ah! Haruno-san," squeaked a nurse on the other side. Her right hand was raised as if to open the door herself and her other hand clasped a clipboard. "Tsunade-sama didn't expect you to be here today because of-"
"That's quite all right," Sakura cut her off, not wanting to feel the sting of loss again so early in the morning. Her eyes narrowed at the younger nurse. "You can tell her that I would not abandon my duties so easily."
Finally, she turned and left the room, uninterrupted. The entire day consisted of whispers and pitiful stares. Condolences for her loss, but she ignored them. She blocked out the world around her, all except for her duties and her patients. When she did that she didn't feel so much pain.
The day ended with a dusty sunset. Tsunade had come to her personally at dusk and dismissed her. Sakura didn't have enough fight in her to argue. So there she sat, on the porch steps of the medical unit and let everything wash over her with the dry breeze. 'They were gone. She would never see them again. Hear them. Feel them. Naruto and Sasuke. Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke. Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke.'
She remembered how they looked one that final day. The last day she ever saw them. How their backs looked so strong and tall against the early morning sunrise. How warm they were when they hugged her and held her close. Sakura shivered as the sun dipped below the horizon. 'But they promised...'
Her throat constricted and her shoulders folded in on herself. 'They were gone. Gone, gone, gone. They weren't coming back. They never would. Sasuke and Naruto are dead.' Every thought that encircled her brain dipped her deeper and deeper into a black abyss until she couldn't think anymore. She could only feel the hallow in her chest. She had cried her heart out and now there was nothing left.
Her eyes locked onto the moon above her as her tears streamed down her face, tickling her cheeks before splattering onto the wooden steps below her. 'This is it,' she thought before whispering "Goodbye, Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun."
It felt as if the world descended on her then but it was too much to bear and she crumpled under the weight of it all. Her entire form quaked with her sobs that echoed throughout the empty night. She didn't know if she could keep living like this. 'Would it be worth it?'
"Sakura-chan!"
Her head snapped up so fast her neck cracked. 'That voice…' She looked off into the distance where she could see two figures. One was supporting most of the weight of the other and they moved at a slow gait but their forms were unmistakable.
"Sakura-chan!"
"Naruto-kun? Sasuke-kun?" her voice sounded strangled as she stood from her spot on the porch. One of the figures began to wave at her frantically, obnoxiously. She began to stagger towards them, her vision blurred by her tears but she hastily wiped those away. It was her boys!
"Sakura-chan!"
She quickened her pace to a dead sprint as she passed the nameless buildings that surrounded her. Her lungs burned a bit but she refused to stop because with every step she took the more of them that she could see. The more real they became.
"Sasuke-kun! Naruto-kun!" she screamed, her voice cracking from her raw throat. They had stopped their movements and Naruto's grin spread across his muddy face. His arm was slung over Sasuke's shoulder and she could tell that his left ankle was swollen and discolored. Sasuke had a long gash running from his ear to his nose and several others on his arms. Both of their camo uniforms looked to be in bad shape but it didn't matter. None of it mattered because they were back.
Sakura flung herself into their awaiting arms, causing the three of them to lose their balance and topple to the ground. Elation swelled in her chest.
"You idiots!" she screeched at them and tightened her grip around them, just to make sure that they were real. She pushed herself up to get a better look at their faces and her tears splattered on their dusty cheeks.
"I thought," she choked. "Oh God, I thought-"
"Sakura-chan," Naruto said gently before smiling up at her. "We're back."
She nodded and felt both of their arms tighten around her waist and she sunk into their grasp. The weight of the world seemed to have lifted itself from her shoulders.
A crowd began to gather around the trio. All of their friends had heard Sakura and were now grouped together in the moonlight. Gingerly, they pulled themselves up. Laughter bubbled out of Sakura's throat as she continued to wipe the tears from her face.
"Na-Naruto-kun," Hinata's quiet voice drifted above the small crowd and Naruto was tackled once more by the emotional Hyuuga. "Naruto-kun! Naruto-kun…" she cried as he smoothed her silky dark locks behind her head, whispering soothing words to her.
Sakura turned to Sasuke and smiled through the various emotions coursing through her. "You're back."
"I promised, didn't I?" he smirked and took her by the waist, whispering into her ear. "You look like a mess."
She smacked his shoulder. "You're one to talk." Though she supposed she couldn't have been looking too pretty. Her face had to be blotchy and her eyes swollen and her pink hair was hastily tied behind her head at some time that morning.
"Sakura," his onyx eyes bore into hers, and she felt goosebumps raise on her arms. His face neared hers.
"Welcome back, Sasuke-kun." she whispered before her lips were sealed with his own.
Yays for SasuSaku month! This is for the Hello/Goodbye prompt. Though I don't think I ever said 'Hello' throughout this whole thing... it was implied though so bleh. I feel like I should have made this a multi-chapter fic, but I really didn't have the patience to do so. Oh, this can also be an announcement that I am not dead. So yay to living :)
Now then duckies, REVIEW. That is a command. Now.