A Christmas Tree

By RJ

A/N: Merry Early Christmas. Here's some of my holiday cynicism.

Sakura Haruno was twenty-one now. She'd gone through so much development that a lot of people who weren't usually around her wouldn't have recognized her. Her hair was just a bit shorter, but still that bright shade of pink, and she wasn't in that ridiculous outfit anymore, she wore the standard ANBU uniform as was required of all first year members. When she turned twenty she had joined the elite division and became the team medic on the infiltration team.

That december as she and her team casually took their time returning home, Sakura remembered the request her mother had asked of her before she had left for her short-term mission. She came to an abrupt stop on an ice-covered branch (using her chakra to keep from slipping), and gave her team an agonizing stare from behind her Koala mask. One of her members, Hyuuga Neji, replied with a confused raise of his brow. Now that they were close to the village, he had his mask off.

"I'm sorry," she told them, "we're going to look pretty tupid walking back into the village."

Shikamaru Nara, the team leader, gave her the same look Neji did. "Why?" He asked.

Her narrow shoulders slumped and she pulled back her mask so it hung behind her neck and rested on her shoulder blades. "I promised my mom I'd get her a christmas tree on the way back." Her cheeks flushed when she heard Shino scoff ever so sightly.

Shikamaru crossed his arms and scowled. "We're almost to the village, tell her to go buy one or something."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, my mom is dirt poor, and I'm not lending her money to buy a stupid tree." She twisted around a bit, looking at all the pines in the area. There was one that was small enough to fit into her mom's appartment, and to carry, so she jumped down from the tree they were resting on and landed silently in the fluffy snow. Her team followed her, exasperated.

"How do you think we're going to get that into the village?" Neji inquired.

Sometimes Sakura hated how everyone seemed to underestimate her. It was true that she wasn't a good fighter, and she never would be, and she never wanted to be, because her job was primarily medical treatment. But her natural strength came in handy numerous times, and she was probably stronger physically than anyone in the village. Without answering Neji's question, she pulled back her fist and punched the ground in front of her. Her fist cracked the ice beneath the snow and it was then that they all realized they were standing over a pond. The impact uprooted the tree she was aiming for, but also sent all four of them straight down into the icy water. Sakura could feel their evil glares even before they resurfaced.

"God DAMNIT Sakura!" Shikamaru snapped as they climbed onto the settling water. Their medic grabbed the spiky trunk of her prize and swung the entire thing onto her shoulder. It was narrow and prikly, but she didn't exactly care. She didn't even say anything, she just took Shikamaru's antagonizing while the others dried themselves off with chakra, but sadly, they couldn't do anything to dry off their uniforms.

They entered the village, as expected, with numerous confused stares aimed in their direction. The three males were eager to be seperated from their female companion, and parted in different directions, even if they should have been going her way. Sakura scowled all the way to her mom's appartment, shivering in soaked clothes and foot-deep snow.

Her mom came out as soon as the doorbell rang.

"Sakura!" She beamed, "You got me the tree-What happened to you?" She gave her daughter's appearance a shocked, analytical look-over. From the wet clothes, clentched fists, wild hair, and furious scowl.

"Just take your tree, mom, so I can go home." She mumbled angrily, letting the pine fall from her hand so it dropped into her mothers.

"Well, I, uh, thank you for going through the trouble of-"

"Sakura?"

Both of them looked up when her name was called, and although her mother blushed furiously at the sight of the grey-haired jounin, Sakura beamed with delight at the sight of an old friend. Kakashi Hatake was standing not to far from them in the snow-caked street in casual clothes that suggested it was his day off. Lucky. He wore a black hoodie, a scarf, and a pair of denim jeans. His feet were protected with leather sandals with no openings, just like Sakura's were, which were currently icing over in the snow, where she couldn't see them, but could defiantly feel them.

He wandered over to them, a bag of instant ramen cups in his right hand. He had aged a little, his hair was cut shorter so it was more messy, rather than crazy, but he didn't look too different than the last time she had seen him, when Naruto, Sai, Yamato, Kakashi, and her had had their last mission together. She must have looked a lot different to him, but at the moment she just felt ridiculous.

"What are you up to?" He asked casually.

She shrugged, and shivered. "Delivering a christmas present." Sakura replied.

Her mom was forced out of her trance. "Present? This can't be my christmas present!"

Sakura snapped her head around and shouted: "Shut it mom, I'll get you a DVD player!"

Angrily, her mom turned back around and dragged her tree inside. Kakashi chuckled and stuffed his hands into his hoodie. His head band was missing, but an eye patch replaced it and his mask remained. "You haven't changed much," he noticed.

"Not personality wise, no," she muttered under her breath. She saw in his eyes that he was smiling underneath that mask, but then he frowned.

"Are you wet?" He asked, a little confused.

"Yeah, uh..." She blushed in embaressment. "We had an accident when I tried to uproot the tree." Sakura almost laughed, but she resented it. "I ended up breaking open a pond instead."

He nodded his head, as if it wasn't a surprise. "How far do you live from here?" He asked.

Her shoulders tensed. "A couple miles."

He clicked his tounge and shook his head dissaprovingly. "Nah, you'll freeze before you get there, come to my appartment and I'll get you something else you can wear." The request was so tempting, Sakura agreed immediately, and it took them less than a minute to speed walk to his less-than-majestic quarters. As a registered Jounin or ANBU member, you're given free rent for your appartment, as a cool bonus for your deeds to the village. Sakura thought it was interesting that, as of now, she was a higher rank than her former teacher, who was just a regular Jounin. Once again, people would think it was an outrage, but they didn't understand that Sakura was not meant to be a combat ninja, her talents and chakra control weren't meant for a normal member of ANBU, but at the moment, if her skills in medical training were the same as Sasuke's skills with the sharingan, she was already Uchiha prodigy material.

Kakashi held open the door for her and she slipped in quickly, relieved that his appartment was fully heated. She had only been here once, when Naruto and her had gone looking for him after a few hours of needless waiting. They found him sleeping in his entire uniform, and they never got an answer as to why he was in that position.

"Wait here," he instructed, and dissapeared into one of the back rooms. When he returned, he held a neatly folded pile of clothes that seemed dusty, but looked warm. "This is all that I have that will fit you, they're my leisure clothes from when I was your age."

She laughed and took them without complaint. "They'll still probably be baggy on me."

He gave her an analytical look and rubbed his chin. "I don't know, you may have more body build than I did when I was twenty-one."

She twitched, irritated. Was he calling her manly? Even if he was, she didn't say anything, because she was too grateful for the clothes to get testy with him. She slid into the bathroom and took off her ANBU uniform, which wasn't wet anymore, but stiff with ice. She took the first thing from the pile and held it up: Grey sweat pants. The next was a long sleeved undershirt for Jounin, with the patches torn out and matching material sewn back in. they fit her, and made her look scrawny, but she didn't mind, it beat looking muscular and masculine. Before she left the room, she pulled on the socks he gave her and shook the ice from her hair, which was wet now that the snow had melted from it.

He greeted her with coffee when she came out.

"Nice," she said beaming. She took a long, agonizingly hot sip and then looked at him for a moment before asking; "what have you been up to?"

"Oh, well, nothing too fascinating." he replied, sitting on his couch while she sat on the foot stool which had comfortable padding. "I've been doing a lot of personal missions for the Hokage, delivering urgent messages, arranging meetings with other deligates face-to-face." He paused, then added, "I think I've become her slave."

Sakura held up her hand, as if the statement were an insult. "You didn't have to work as her apprentice, Kakashi, so stop complaining." She was serious, but she smiled as if it were a joke.

He grinned beneath his mask. "What are you doing nowadays, now that Naruto's been busy with Hokage preparations." Over the last two years, Naruto was choosen to be the next Hokage when Tsuande resigned or died, but the elders of the village had demanded he be fully prepared; which meant getting rid of the stupidity and headstrong personality and replacing it with supreme intellegence and talent. In other words, they were turning him into a drone, not that it bothered him.

"I'm in ANBU now, well obviously," she laughed a little, "I'm on the Infiltration Squad with Neji, Shikamaru, and Shino, I'm their medic."

"Yes, I heard, I heard you were also training new medics at the hospitals."

"Only on my free days." She said with a cheeky grin. Most of the time, although they thought she was useless in combat, which she was, Sakura was the first person called to the hospital at three in the morning. Don't call the Hokage, call Sakura, she's better than Tsunade. That was true too, although Tsuande kind of resented it, Sakura was better than her in most respects. She made bigger craters, kicked down bigger trees, healed wounds more quickly with less chakra, and could use her forbidden technique and only shaving off five years of her life, not twelve.

"That's pretty impressive," he complimented, and Sakura blushed. "How are your combat skills?" He asked curiously.

"They suck, like usual." She said with a smile. It was easier to tell that to someone who honestly didn't know how she was doing, rather than tell it to someone who antagonized her for it.

"Do you want to get better?" He asked, and she felt an offer coming on.

"Not really," she mumbled, sipping her cooling coffee. "I tried eight years to actually be as good as someone like, I dunno, you, but last year I gave up and focused everything on medical training. If worse comes to worse, I can put up a good fight with adrenaline and strength, but I don't have the reflexes or the speed to fight effectively."

"That's true," he said, understanding, "we're all born with different talents. I mean, Shino isn't a fighter either, he's more like spy material." Sakura nodded in agreement, Shino couldn't fight, even I was better than him, he was used primarily for gathering information with his bugs or paralyzing enemies.

"Listen, I've got to get this stuff home and you probably want to relax on your day off, so I'll head out now." Sakura stood, and she drank the last of her coffee, which was cold. "Thank you for the clothes and the coffee, do you want me to bring them back tomorrow?"

Kakashi waved the suggestion off. "You can keep them, they fit you, but they're way too small for me."

Sakura was suddenly a little sad, when would she be able to talk to him again like this? It'd been quite awhile since they had last talked. He watched her go, and while she jumped carefully to her appartment over the rooftops in her dry sandals, she thought of a way to repay him; She'd get him a christmas present.

But that was the issue, what the hell does Hatake Kakashi like? A new mask, a new vest? Porn? That was probable. But Sakura would feel ridiculous giving a man porn for christmas after such a long time without communication, like giving an old friend a thong for their birthday.

She'd figure it out, she still had a week before the holiday arrived. For now she would just go home and get some much-needed rest.

But, on christmas eve, Sakura still had no idea what to give him. She'd gotten Ino plaits for her hair, Shikamaru a new set of cheap, but nice shogi pieces, and Naruto she sent a letter and a box of instant ramen that he technically wasn't allowed to eat. The elders wanted him in perfect condition, which meant making sure he ate healthy foods instead of ones high in sodium. But for kakashi, nothing came to mind, nothing.

That night, she went to sleep, exasperated, hoping to get something for him the next day, but at four in the morning, she heard a knock on her window.

Used to this, she rolled out of bed and grabbed a hoddie to throw over her white tank top and the grey sweats Kakashi had given her earlier that week. When she pulled back her curtains and pulled up her window, she was greeted by Ino. She was in her hospital clothes, because she worked the night shift. Her breathing was fierce and unsteady, meaning she had run all the way there, and Sakura began pulling on her boots before she had even said anything. "Sakura," she breathed. "Kakashi Hatake just returned from the mission, he's pretty fucked up."

Her hands slipped while tying the straps to her boots. That was so convenient. Maybe she could save his life and call that her present? She pushed those thoughts from her head and bounded out of her window without closing it. His life was more important.

When they reached the hospital, Sakura pushed past Ino to get to his room quickly. "What's his condition?" She asked, before opening the ER door. Ino merely shook her head. When the door was opened, she was greeted with moans from the bed, and a mob of medical trainees trying to do the right thing, and getting it wrong. The Hokage wasn't there, and no registered medics were present. That eased her a little, until she saw Kakashi himself.

His mask was removed, and that was the first thing she noticed, but she didn't linger on it. His chest was ripped wide open, and, somehow, he was still alive. The first thing she did was shove all the trainees out of her way. Now she knew why they didn't bring anybody else in but her, she was the only one who could do anything. She heard one of the medics make a comment on all the blood, which was everywhere; on their clothes, on the floor, on the door knob.

The trainees were orded out of the room, except for Ino, who was a registered Medic, and together they went to work at saving his life.

"Kakashi?" Sakura asked loudly, so he could hear while she shoved every ounce of chakra she had straight into his heart. It was beating faintly. "Can you hear me?"

He coughed up blood and moaned. "God, Sakura, I feel like crap."

"Really?" She laughed a little and Ino smiled, but was still serious. For a brief moment, she looked up at the clock and remembered it was after twelve.

"Merry Christmas, Sakura," she mumbled grimly.

"You too," Sakura said, starting to feel a little tired, but not enough to slow her down. "Kakashi," she whispered." He opened his eyes for a moment and looked at her, he look lifeless. "Merry christmas," she said.

He grinned, but didn't say anything. His smile was stunning, but like before, she didn't have the opportunity to enjoy it. After half an hour of non-stop healing, Sakura began to feel feint, and Kakashi was beginning to recover, but not fast enough. After some time, Ino had to take over, and Kakashi's heart was slowing faster than his wound was healing. Sakura was drained, and if she valued her life, she'd let her chakra build back up before doing any more work.

She watched, devestatingly, as his heart stopped beating after Ino had started. The blonde healed the wound five minutes later, and they began CPR, desperately trying to revive him. CPR was so old fashioned, but with Ino coming dangerously close to collapsing, and the same for Sakura, they pounded his chest and breathed his air for what felt like forever.

Ino gave up first. She stepped back as she watched Sakura work him furiously, and a tear crept down her cheek. Ino was always emotional when a patient was lost, but she would usually shed a tear or two if it was somebody she knew. Gradually, Sakura's arms started to bend at the elbow, and she started to cry silently, over his cleansed chest, which was wrinkled with a scar.

But, she gave it one more try, a few more shoves to get his heart to work.

And this time, when she went to forcably make him breath, he came back to life. The sudden jolt startled her to much she fell backwards, watching him gasp for air, stunned. He started to cough next, and Ino and her were lost for words. Was that just dumb luck or some sort of Christmas miracle?

He patted his chest while he struggled for breath, and Sakura jumped up to make sure he wasn't going to die again. She held his head up while he examined his scar. "Jesus," he gasped. "You two do good work." He grinned at her, and Sakura almost felt like crying. She was so lost for words she kissed him, and Ino wasn't even surprised, she was starting to get over the shock of what had happened, and stared at them, wide-eyed.

Sakura kissed him again, and this time, Kakashi pushed her away. "Relax, relax, I'm alive."

"No," she cried, "you died, I let you die!"

She started to cry and he let her do it on his shoulder. The scene was just so...Christmas.

"It's okay, Sakura, this can be your present to me." He joked. But Sakura couldn't think of anything better she could have given him. Death, and then life.

It wouldn't have meant so much if her mom hadn't of asked her to get her that damn tree.

A/N: This was a piece of crap in my oppinion, but I know some people will like it. I wanted to get back into the spirit of writing Naruto fanfiction, so I wrote this even though it's not christmas yet. Expect more oneshots, because I'm not ready to start any chapter stories that I know I won't finish.