Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto series of any of the characters associated with the Naruto series.

The walls creaked as a sign of caution about what awaited up the stairs. The house was older, build long before the Great War of Nations. It withstood battles and use. The building's original function was to supply energy for the valley, spinning electricity from the strength of the wind. It withstood so much; hopefully it can withstand more to come.

A form slowly ascended the steps to the upper levels of the windmill, taking each stride with a cautious confidence. Even the steps protested against the transferred weight, but they were simply ignored. She was never one to listen to the majority.

Reaching a door, she halted for a mere second, breathing in the deep, musty scent of the battered wood around her to get a grip on her turbulent mind. She knew what awaited from behind the door, but as to why the she placed the weight upon her own shoulders was a whole different question. One could say it was out of respect, loyalty, honor. But, she was not about to say that her actions were of noble origin.

Releasing the latch on the door, she carefully made her way inside the dark room. With a heavy breath, imbedded in her chest, she transverse across the room to a stationary bed; taking care to shut the door with an encroaching click of the door. An even rhythm of breaths kept pace with her own as the distance between her and her goal decreased.

She didn't try and fool herself into believing that his breathing didn't calm her, even the slightest. The memory of last week when he nearly lost it for six minutes intruded on her already hectic thoughts before she aggressively blew them out of her mind. Taking a pale, thick wrist into her fingers, she counted his heartbeats that still resonated her own. Normal.

She placed it back to where it once lied, beside his unmoving frame. Undoing his shirt, she then checked the bandaged covering his torso and appendages, finding the majority of the gauze quite clean with minor red spotting; a good sign with all things considering. She was no medical expert, nor a good nurse; but having a few medical ninjas as friends that would always spew useful knowledge about what they were doing when one bangs up their body beyond the remedy of sleep and ice cream, did help.

Her clear grey eyes wondered to his pristine visage, washed clean of blood and removed of all bandages. Why, even when his cheeks were so thin and his lips dry, did he still look the image of perfection in her mind?

Flipping her nearly forgotten pack over her shoulder, she brought out a canteen of water to gingerly press to his lips; allowing a slow stream of water to run down his throat with some coaxing of the fingers.

She knew he was well not without faults. Irritating, stubborn, rash, pompous, inconsiderate bastard; yet still, she found herself sitting by his side at ever spare moment that came to her.

A chair was beside his bed with a half stitched garment lying limply atop of it. She found herself taking a seat in it once again with the cloth in hand. Holding the tattered material up, she was careful of the needle still imbedded in the collar from her last useless attempt at seaming the shirt back to its former glory. It really seemed useless and if were any other shirt, she would have just thrown it out; but it held a symbol that she knew was irreplaceable.

The reminisce of his old blood had been scrubbed thoughtlessly by her callused hands. Not much could be said by the rips that still marred the back of the garment.

Removing the needle, she continued the try and make the piece whole again. It would never be perfect, for she was never one to leave an unfinished project. Her mind cleared and she found something along the lines of solace in this ceremony of nurse and guard. But the magnitude of her rash actions always seemed to catch up to her sooner or later. Facts remained facts: she was harboring a known, wanted, and thought to be dead criminal of the country.

She stopped her work, looking upon his pale visage with a lost gaze. He had been in this condition for nearly a week. His weight had seriously declined and if it wasn't for her force water down his throat, she was sure he would have been gone. There were times when she thought that he wouldn't awake, that he could have possibly suffered a concussion and is now in a comma. His shirt fell into her lap, with the silver needle settled atop the mass. 'But,' she thought silently, 'he's not dead.'

Something in her chest lightened, but her shoulders still heaved at the burden. Her head fell into awaiting hands, allowing her dark braid to trail down her neck. 'Baka.' What had she been thinking? An all knowing throb echoed through her chest, still so fresh from so long ago. Wasn't time supposed to heal all wounds? It's been years since that night in the rain; yet she knew that her aura has never been the same since and it probably will never be the same.

She looked up upon his face once more, cheek supported by knuckles. She found her mind calming as grey eyes roamed around his peaceful face. 'If only he were so when awake.'

Fingertips brushed his midnight bangs from his lashes. Amazing how fast hair could grow. Fingers brushed against his temple, caressing his soft skin before resting upon his pale cheek. At first she questioned what she was doing; yet, she never found a plausible reason and could never pull herself away.

'But why does it have to hurt?'

X-X-X-X

The wind was nagging at the back of her neck, carefully pushing her along in the direction of home. Yet, her body felt resistant to the wind's guidance. Someone was following.

Her senses picked up around the surroundings with each impact of each branch beneath her feet echoed in her ears. She strained to hear an echoing pair, but only heard the whispering wind. The scroll hidden in her right leg burned against her skin. Was this what they were after?

Grey eyes darted around the lush forest, taking in the landscape. Not an ideal place for a fight. She sensed a chakra spike and flipped down a level on a branch, changing directions. Not a sound was made in the dense forest as she lied in wait beneath a dense thicket. The air was hazy with fog, now that she lowered beneath the canopy. Mist hung in the air, thick enough to wrap around and be used as a blanket. Closing her darkening eyes, she listened for movement, sending streams of breeze out as a pinpoint. They whipped around the foliage of the forest, breezing by and sending the feedback to its origin.

Her eyes snapped open as the stalker waited in the middle of a clearing on just the other side. What are their intentions? Knowing that they were alone, she stepped out of the cover cautiously to meet them.

Only their silhouette was visible, but as she took a step to close the distance, the wind pushed the fog away and she was left staring into eyes of pitch. Her heart stopped making breathing near impossible. Slowly, her hand started to quiver as her arms lay limp at her side, but not in fear.

He stood not ten yards from her still form yet they still felt so far. Her mind scattered in every which way, leaving a gaping shell at his mercy. Her breath locked itself in the throat as lips parted. Her throat felt so dry, yet somehow she found a voice

"Sasuke?"

He had changed in three years, not drastically, but enough to say that he was no longer the same person that she knew. She nearly slapped herself then. Did she even know him back then?

Broad shoulders, clear and pale skin, night black hair, sharp eyes. She felt the lock on her memories flatter for a mere second, sending a tense chill down her spine.

"San."

It only took one sample of his voice to piece together her mind and for her heart to, once again, begin the process of pushing blood to her shrieking veins. Her arm bent off its own accord and she found her fingers lacing around the hilt of her tanto.

A gale pushed into her mind causing her chest to heave and breath to quicken. The pain resurfaced, boiling uncontrollably over the edge on her decaying barriers.

"You won't kill me."

Each syllable was so easily cut into her soul, burning...

"I never had a home..."

Her jaw set as she began to grip her sheathed sword with enough force to shake it. As hard as she tried, her gaze would not waver from his. The wind around them danced, isolating the area in their own world of memories and pain. He had gotten closer and she found herself clashing blades with his before her next breath. The ringing of steel seemed to release the tension in her body, but only add that in the air. Rage still burned within San's soul from so long ago. Only one strike and she found her hands shaking.

"You left," she delivered a quick set of kicks into his torso and side, sending him stumbling with burning eyes. "You said you would never come home!"

She breathed through grit teeth, voice as low as the valley she came from. The gale inside her veins rattled her frame and pushed her blade farther. He stared into San's changing eyes with a gaze that she did not care to interpret.

Clash after clash echoed in the fog dense forest. Her mind raced against the storm inside, keeping pace. She kicked, clawed, striked will all that her body would allow her. She let her emotions drive her muscles to tense and stance to settle. That was her fault.

"San!"

Her gaze did not waver from his dark eyes as she felt her breath leave her all too quickly. She began to fall back. The hilt of Sasuke's sword quickly moved away from her torso as he reached and caught her pale wrist. With an escaping sword and breath, her back hit the ground.

"San-," he repeated again until her leg weaseled between them, effectively delivering a sharp impact to his gut. His frame flattered and eyes shut, but his grip held.

"Let me go!" San screamed with raging green eyes. The wind seemed to push the fog closer, as a crowd and cover.

"San, listen to me!" His shin held down her forearm and leg while her other wrist remained in his unrelenting grasp. Sasuke crouched over her with a hard gaze as he tried to contain her thrashing form. San's head rolled to the side, burying her forehead to the supporting soil while she still tried to fight. "Calm down."

Her heart lurched, sending a calming euphoria through her body, ceasing the storm. Breath returned to an even rhythm and eyes returned to a hazy grey. San then realized that her cheeks were damp. Had she been crying?

She felt the beating of a heart, but it sounded nothing like her own. This one was louder, stronger... familiar...

"Soyogakure is going to be attacked," he said evenly, brining her out of her thoughts to stare widely at him. "You can keep attacking me blindly, or be calm while I explain."

He took my silence as an affirmative and slowly released pressure on her limbs. San processed his words further, before blinking and sitting up. "Explain. Now."

A glare was sent at her but she pressed on, leaning closer to him with a matching expression. "Orochimaru is planning an attack upon Soyokagure by the next vernal equinox," he voiced with a fixed gaze.

San's breath hitched, "That's only next week." Sasuke merely nodded singly, turning forward.

Her gaze hardened upon his form, "Why would you betray this information to me?"

"You need not know the reason why," he spat, eyeing the woman beside him. Her jaw clenched and she almost reacted by grabbing the hilt of her tanto, but it was not sheathed on the small of her back. San's gaze turned forward into the thicket of mist. A blanket of unknown bordered by the coniferous trees.

"If you really expect me to trust you," she spat bitterly, "You must trust me." She really did try and smother the spit in her words, but years of it simmering in her core did not help.

He suddenly stood. It wasn't until he did so that San noticed a red gash across his torso and hip. It was not deep, nor was it shallow. She turned away from it.

"Look," his eyes bore into hers as if cutting her from the inside, "I am telling you for the sake of your village. Just because you do not trust me does not mean-"

"That is exactly what it means!" Her steel grey eyes matched his intensity as she remained seated on the dampened ground. "You are giving me no reason to believe you and why would you betray your bastard of a Master for the sake of a village that you have never seen?"

Her gaze shot down as her legs moved to fold in front of her. Only then did he see the unhealed wounds of so long ago still embedded within her. Yes, she was strong and resilient; but not invincible. She was brave enough to allow him in, but he was heartless enough to break out. San could have been crying, but she knew better than to allow her emotions to spill over again while in the Uchiha's presence. It was not like before...

"You were right," she sighed as she spoke hollowly, with her arms around herself to keep from falling apart so soon. "I could not kill you then." The night so long ago that led to them both being soaked to the bone was still fresh in her memories. She had to remember it, his words and his eyes.

Just barely she managed to catch him from outside his village gates, but back then, she didn't understand that he wasn't the same boy she knew.

"You're being rash," she reasoned as the rain pelted her open form."Come on, let's get you home."

His eyes narrowed, holding something she mistook as hatred. San took a step back upon his trail with a frown. "I never had a home..."

Lightning hit somewhere in the distance as thunder filled her ears. Her mind tried to make sense of his words, but bit by bit, she felt herself loosing. "You have people here that love yo-"

"I am cutting my bonds." His hated glare moved to his open palms, "Cutting the bonds that make me weak."

She could not believe his words. The Sasuke that stood before her was not the same one that had fought alongside her. He was not the same one that wanted to protect. No, she realized slowly as she saw the hatred in his eyes burn, this was the one back in the Forest of Death in the chunin exams, not a month ago...

"Bonds!" She shouted with white knuckles, numb from the cold. "You're exchanging bonds for Curses! The Snake is just going to use you! You will not get stronger by hatred!" Her forearm burned but not nearly as much as his glare.

"I do not need the approval of the likes of you. Now move!" The force in his tone settled in with the raging storm around them. Her mind raced before something broke deep inside of her and she found herself drawing her tanto. Water droplets dripped from the fresh blade as her hands shook.

"Then," words just came out, "if you come any further, I will kill you." Lightning flashed, closer this time, and the thunder overtook the cries of a falling tree.

Her stance did not shift as he began to walk closer to her. "You can't kill me," his empty eyes looked past her wide, grey eyes as his palm encased her shaky grip, "or more, you won't kill me."

He lowered her weapon as they stared upon one another in the weeping weather. She was still searching for something inside of him that was recognizable; yet nothing was in his eyes. San's knees buckled under the weight and she came down upon the mud as her heart crumbled.

Sasuke walked past her, leaving her to kneel in the mud under the turrets of water. She hated him and all the moments that contained him. Bitter. Water pooled around her hands and knees in the soft mud as water streaked down her cheeks.

He left her broken and for her pieces to be stepped upon. Long ago, she had ceased her pained expression, but she never expected the wounds to heal. She knew better.

"I would not kill you then, but," her gaze hardened as her face turned to him beside her, as she was once again covered in mud, "If you are lying to me, I will not hesitate to do so now. You have grown stronger, as have I. Shall we see who has had the more successful method?"

"It was never my intention to fight you," his hand moved as if to cover his wound, but stopped mid-way, before he sheathed his chokuto. "You started it, baka."

San rolled her grey eyes to the side, realizing that though in appearance he had changed; he had never really grown up. By the time eyes rolled forward, she saw her tanto being held out to her, hilt forward.

"Orochimaru has not started to mobilize the army, but he will. I'll send you word with the finer details, but be prepared."

Her gaze didn't leave her sword in his open palm. She grasped it, pulling herself up with his unsuspected stance and took her weapon, sheathing it behind her. "I still do not understand why you are giving me this information."

Sasuke watched the light catch her muddied hair and dirt crusted forehead. Yet her eyes shined. Memories could not compare to the real being beside him. She could be covered in sludge, battle worn and torn; but at the very sight of her his entire air changed.

"Sasuke," she spoke softly making his heart beat in an all too humanly way. He took in a breath, only for it to be forced out by a hard-hit impact to his face. Only minimally did he stumble, mostly out of shock. His stance composed itself after realizing that she stood tall in front of him. Yes, she had smacked him. No, she was not the least bit apologetic about it. And yes, she thought it felt amazing.

The pressure in her body left her breathing heavy and relief finally came to her. It took all but a second to regain thought process and notice that Sasuke now stood face-to-face with her, taller than she had recalled. At first she glared at him, matching his; but then she was utterly confused when she felt a light touch upon her lips. With wide eyes she froze under his gaze as his palm wrapped around her jaw.

"You really don't understand," he spoke slowly, close enough to feel the vibration in his voice. San felt the wind whip her hair and the circling current nudge her. Her heart was shaking against her cage, rattling her form.

"Better luck next time."

She blinked and he was gone, again. To stand alone, again.

Thank you for reading. I did not know if I even wanted to put this series up, but I decided that if I bothered to start it, I might as well make the effort to publish and finish it. Please tell me what you think!

I am going to try and do the format of this series a bit differently than the ones int he past. This will be a bit of a shorter series at 5ish chapters, but hopefully it will still be good.

Again, thank you for reading and I would love to hear anything and everything that you have to say portraying to this story.

-Sin