Lovesick

Summary: Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, and Sai are one a mission for the new Team 7. Everything seems to be going well until Sakura contracts a mysterious illness. What's the source of this sickness and will Sakura be alright? Rated PG-13 for language and Sai's nasty talk.…. Kakashi/Sakura pairing.

Author's note: This is the new version of a fic I began long ago. Now I'm a better writer, and Shippuuden has happened. There you go. Sakura, Naruto, and Sai are 17-18 (I think that's around Sai's age?).

Italicsthoughts

--Shinsei Shinja

true believer

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. If I did, I'd be the happiest person in the world because people would be making fanfics of my work!

Sakura trudged up the steep face of the treacherous, foreboding mountain. Her concentration lagging, she occasionally lost the balance of chakra flow to her feet, causing her to stumble slightly across the ground. Frustrated and exhausted, she let out a quiet sigh out of fatigue. Hidden Leaf Village's new Team 7 had been slowly winding its way through the forests of the mountain's harsh terrain. On any other day, Sakura would be living up to her place as the tough, always cautious female of the team, but not today. Today, she felt terrible. A medic-nin, Sakura knew the village of Konoha had a flu epidemic going around, and her constant presence in the hospital did nothing to reduce the risk of her contracting the illness. So when they first started scaling the mountain and she began to feel constant pain throbbing in her head and horrible "demons" chewing at her stomach, she immediately assumed that she, too, had caught the flu.

Ever his straight-faced self, Sai walked silently alongside her, while Konoha's very own Jinchuuriki marched energetically up front. Team Seven's laid-back sensei paced himself to her left, browsing thoroughly through "Make Out Tactics." Sakura's eyebrow twitched as she glanced at the familiar warning symbol on the back.

"Pervert. God, it still amazes me that he has no problem reading them out in the open like that," she thought. The dirty side of Sakura had always been curious as to the content of the books. Perhaps one say she would find out for herself.

"Hey! Everyone! Let's play a game!" Naruto yelled from the front. As always, no one reacted.

"Oh God, here we go again..." Sakura thought. She was absolutely not in the mood for Naruto's sole savior from boredom. It seemed as though almost every mission they went on, Naruto had to break out the "I-Spy game" at least once. She knew if she said she didn't want to play, he'd whine until she did. Even worse, Naruto was not the most subtle player of the game

"Then again, nothing about him is subtle," she scoffed, inwardly.

"I spy…something gray…" the blonde ninja whispered dangerously.

"Kakashi-sensei's hair," stated Sai. Naruto let out a cry of frustration.

"How do you always know!?" he asked.

"Because you always pick such simple things," Sai replied "whole-heartedly."

"Do not!"

"Yes you do."

"Urgh! Fine! You pick something then!"

"I spy something…pink."

"Sakura-chan's hair!"

"Good job. Now you're on par with the academy students."

"HEY!—"

"I swear, If these guys don't stop, I am going to punch them so hard in the face…" Sakura fumed. Luckily for Sai and Naruto, they were saved unknowingly from worlds of pain by the Copy Ninja.

"Alright, that's enough, you two," interrupted Kakashi. Naruto glared at Sai who responded with a smile, and both returned to their original positions: Naruto at the front and Sai next to Sakura.

"Kakashi-sensei…I'll never say anything bad about your books ever again. Ever." thought a very gracious Sakura. Mind wandering, she stumbled again. Her stomach lurched, and for a moment, she thought she was going to lose her lunch, but she swallowed hard and sucked it up like a real kunoichi. Feeling delirious, the pink-haired ninja was brought back from her thoughts when she was startled by the sound of a low, soothing voice.

"Are you alright, Sakura? You look pale," Kakashi commented. Sakura looked up at the concerned Jounin, a slight element of surprise briefly playing across her features before vanishing.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks," she replied stiffly. She didn't want to sound mean, but she was not the weak, dependent shinobi she used to be. Determined, she turned to face the front of the team, eyes on the red spiral on Naruto's back. Unbeknownst to her, Kakashi's look of concern lingered for a moment. Knowing he wasn't going to get an honest reply from the apprentice of Tsunade, his eyebrow furrowed momentarily before he too turned to the front of the team. Though he recognized that Sakura was tough, he wasn't going to let her over-exert herself unnecessarily.

"She has enough on her hands keeping Naruto on track and dealing with Sai's snide comments. Not to mention…Anyways, she doesn't need another burden to carry," he thought quietly.

…

Team 7 continued to hike across the steep, forested mountain face for several more hours. It was dark when they came upon a beautiful grassy valley nestled between mountains and under the watchful gaze of the stars. Feeling as though she might collapse at any moment, Sakura paused to look up at the night sky. She sighed, gazing hopefully at the soft, twinkling constellations for a sign that they would be stopping soon. She was jolted from her thoughts when she heard a dull thud. Kakashi had allowed the heavy knapsack he was carrying to slide off his shoulders onto the grass. She turned and was mildly surprised to see Sai and Naruto also looking up at the night sky, apparently lost in thought. She smiled weakly for a moment before a sharp pain in her temple reminded her that she was not in good condition.

"Alright, this spot looks good enough. Let's set up camp. We have another long day tomorrow, and I'd like to go over some more details of the mission before we go to sleep," announced Kakashi.

Sakura felt like she could kiss him.

"Woah there girl, you need to slow down. You're seventeen, and he's what? Twenty-something?" she thought. "Well, I'll just blame it on the deliriousness for now," she concluded, before joining the rest of Team 7 in setting up tents and collecting firewood.

…

"Hey Sakura-chan, you wanna see if we can go find something to eat? I'll give you the best piece of meat if you come with meee…"

"Sorry, Naruto, I think I'll pass."

"Good decision, Sakura. He doesn't know much about 'big pieces of meat.'"

"GROSS, SAI."

Sakura massaged her temples for the twentieth time that day. She was losing her temper…

"Whatever, you're just insecure about your tiny dick."

And then she snapped.

"Sai! I've had it with your snarky comments all day! And Naruto! Can you do something by yourself for once? God! You can make a Rasengan, but you can't even find our dinner by yourself!? Grow up!"

And with that, she stomped off to her tent, feeling worse than ever, and leaving two speechless members of Team 7 behind her.

…

Kakashi came within view of the campsite, arms full of firewood, just in time to see Sakura yell at her two teammates and trudge off to her tent.

"I knew something was wrong with her," he told himself, frowning slightly beneath the mysterious mask. "After I drop off this firewood and have a little discussion with those two, I'll go check on her."

"Now look what you did! Sakura-chan's pissed at us now!" exclaimed a mortified Naruto.

"No, she's pissed at you. For being dense." Sai replied smoothly.

"Can you stop being a total douchebag for five seconds so we can see if she's okay!?" Naruto retorted.

"There won't be any need for that," explained an approaching Kakashi, "If you couldn't tell, Sakura's felt horrible the entire day."

"What!?" exclaimed Naruto.

"Told you. You're dense," Sai replied with a smile.

"…And, she really doesn't need either of you grating on her nerves at the moment," Kakashi continued patiently.

"So then what can we do to help?"

"Build a fire, cook some dinner, and keep the noise level down. I'm going to go check on her."

"Aye-aye, Kakashi-sensei," replied Naruto.

"We'll do our best," added Sai.

…

Sakura was curled up in the fetal position, praying for a cure--any cure. Unfortunately, her medical knowledge told her that though chakra was great for healing broken bones, it did almost nothing for the flu.

"God, I just want to be home right now…but I can't let my team down. I've got to suck it up," she told herself.

So much for that. A moment later, bile began to rise in her throat, and she knew there was no stopping it this time. Quickly, she unfastened the zipper on her tent and sprinted mach-5 to the tree line.

…

Kakashi approached her tent cautiously. He wanted to comfort her, but he also didn't want to be intruding. "I'll just ask her if she needs anything," he reassured himself. Slightly more confident, he reached her tent and knelt by the door.

"Are you alright, Sakura?" he whispered, with concern in his voice.

No answer. He waited for a moment.

"Do you...need anything?" he asked awkwardly.

"Sakura? Are you in ther—"

He tugged at the corner of the tent's door, then pulled it open completely to see that it was empty. It was about that moment he heard the sound of someone gagging off in the distance, near the tree-line…He hurried toward the noise as fast as he could.

…

Sakura was kneeling on all fours, and to put it simply, she was puking her guts out. She had made it to the bushes just barely in the nick of time.

"Why me?" was all she could think. She was out in the wilderness, she felt terrible, and the only people with her were two boys who only knew how to argue and a teacher who had been missing since they had arrived at camp. "If there was someone, anyone…"

Gradually, she became aware of the warm hands holding back her hair and gently patting her back. She threw up again. And then, she looked up to see Kakashi, smiling at her beneath his mask.

"You should have told me you didn't feel well," he told her.

…

A/N: More to come. This time, I PROMISE. Haha. I feel more comfortable with this with Sakura being seventeen. Hope you enjoyed! (there might be a few errors because I wanted to upload this quickly).