Yes, I know I should be working on Nightmare Come True, but this idea has been eating at me. I know it's not my best work, but I like it :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters used in this story.
Sakura liked postcards. Only those on her team knew though, because every time they went on missions, Sakura would stop to get a postcard. They never knew who she was sending them to. Year after year she would buy her postcards, and year after year they would wonder why.
Eventually they asked, well actually Naruto screamed the question, but they would all agree that it qualified as all of them. And she looked at them for a moment, until she finally told them that she wasn't sending them to anyone. They were confused and this time it was Sasuke who asked her why she bought them then. And she told him in a very matter-of-fact tone, that it was a way to prove that she had been there, it was to see something that she hadn't known before.
And so they finally understood, and though none of them would admit it, every time they went on a mission they would send Sakura a postcard.
They didn't know how sick she was, until she was gone. She had terminal lung cancer, and she had never told them.
They cried that day, all of them, even Kakashi and Sasuke. It was dead winter, but they laid flowers on her grave, all different kinds of flowers, flowers that weren't supposed to have survived through the cold. And then the funeral was over, and all they could do was stand there, the three of them, and think of what to do, of what to say. But no words came.
And they left, going different directions, because even though no one had noticed, even though they had all thought she was the weakest link, she was the one that tied them together, the link that kept them connected. And now she was gone.
Naruto would go to Ichiraku like always, but he didn't seem to smile as much anymore.
Sasuke went to the training grounds and fought like usual, but there wasn't passion in his attacks.
Kakashi would sit on rooftops and read Icha Icha Paradise, but he could never seem to concentrate on the page.
It was almost a year after she had left them that they went to clean out her apartment, the furniture was covered in dust, and it took most of Naruto's willpower not to cry again. Because this place had been so full of life, because there were memories everywhere, because this was what they would all call home. The dining table where Naruto almost choked to death on spaghetti because Sasuke was shoveling the pasta in his mouth like a madman or the couch where Kakashi had fallen over the side and onto the floor because he was laughing so hard, the kitchen where Sakura would always be testing some new recipe or another and forcing it down their throats if they didn't try it willingly.
They packed up what they could, the knickknacks and the picture frames, but then in her closet shoved all the way to the back was a box, a box filled with postcards. Some had the ridges yellowed, some looked almost new. And they went through those postcards, recognizing most, remembering some, and even finding the ones that they themselves had sent.
It was a year after her death that they returned to her grave, it was only a moment before they left again. Because they had only needed to leave it.
A postcard sat on Sakura Haruno's grave, of Naruto Uzumaki, Kakashi Hatake and Sasuke Uchiha. Wish you were here.
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