Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!

A/N: This story probably takes place during the Blank Period if it was non-mass. It doesn't follow what actually happened in the show/manga all that well, I'm just writing what I think best fits with the story. That being said, enjoy!


Two years post-war. Non-Mass.

Sakura flushed the bathroom toilet and went to the sink to wash up before returning to the hospital floor. She pumped some soap into her hands and scrubbed it into her skin, purposefully avoiding her reflection in the mirror above.

Miss Sakura! I drew you a picture!

She clenched her jaw, scrubbing the milky lather harder into her skin.

The little girl's mother beamed happily as she handed her a beautifully scribbled drawing that consisted of three stick figures holding hands in a field of flowers. Three different people. Three distinct hair colors. Naruto with his characteristic whiskers was right in the middle, her and Sasuke positioned on their respective sides.

It's very beautiful, Yuka! I love Sasuke-kun's spiky hair!

That carefree smile was still imprinted in her mind over a month later. How it had quivered, pressing innocently into a frown as she was read her diagnosis.

She turned the water off, lingering there with her hand on the knob, making no attempt to fix her hair as it fell over her face.

For the past few weeks, she'd been trying her best to steer clear of the inpatient unit, instead spending most of her time in and out of the lab and research departments where she could veil her insecurities in the privacy of an empty chamber surrounded by nothing but test strips and petri dishes. Tsunade advised her not to get too comfortable with it; her skills were obviously needed in the more public parts of the hospital, but she didn't see too much harm in it given it was only for a short period of time.

Sakura hadn't pressed the subject much after that. She enjoyed interacting with patients, being a part of their before and after, even healing her own comrades whenever they returned exhausted and dizzy from strenuous missions. So much time had passed since she'd seen battle that this had become her new reality, but at the end of the day, there was just no substitute for the cold comfort of the lab. At least, not in her current state of mind.

"Sakura-chan, do you have a minute?"

Sakura had been bent over one of the tables, a pair of blood cultures in one hand and a pen in the other, signing labels to stick on them. She hopped a bit in surprise, turning to find one of her coworkers leaning over by the door.

"Risa-chan?"

While she was used to seeing her downstairs in inpatient, sometimes the two of them went out for drinks after work. Sakura usually enjoyed herself after the effects of a few beers, but it had been several months since they'd last gone.

"What's wrong?" she said without thinking, her worried expression spreading from Risa's face to the cultures in her hand as she remembered to keep shaking them, hoping they hadn't already started to congeal.

A look of surprise came over Risa's face, settling into a sheepish laugh. "Wow, you caught me," she said defeatedly. "I didn't think it looked that obvious."

Sakura tilted her head, releasing a light chuckle of her own. Maybe she should have been a little less vocal about it. "Just a little," she replied, bagging up the vials and sealing it closed. "Believe me, it happens to the best of us. Is there something wrong?"

"As much as I would like to say no," she trailed off. Sakura kept her eyes on her as she spoke, breaking eye contact only when she reached the opposite corner of the room where the air tube was to send off the samples. "Yesterday, I received a house call from Uchiha Fugaku. I feel responsible for following through with it, but if I'm honest, I don't think that what they're asking for is within my scope of expertise."

At that moment, she was thankful that her back had been turned as it concealed the look of distress that consumed her face when she heard the word 'Uchiha'.

"I couldn't stop thinking about it for the entire day."

She released her finger from the button, sending the bag of cultures up the pipe that led to the testing center, her heavy gaze revealing an intense desire to follow it through the ceiling and dismiss herself from the conversation.

"Sakura-chan?"

Ever since team seven had returned from the war, her name had become synonymous with Naruto and Sasuke - bound to them like cement. It came with it's own ups and downs, but Sakura enjoyed spending time with them as she always had when they were children. The differences between them sort of just crept into frame at some point. Naturally, they were bound to have separate adventures going forward. Everyone around them were getting married and starting families of their own, including Ino who had vowed she wouldn't become a housewife until at least thirty-five. That obviously didn't happen.

Naruto began training immediately to become the next hokage, much to Kakashi's relief. Sakura always knew he'd make it there at some point. If it wasn't for that she wasn't sure Sasuke would have ended up leaving the village again, but those two lived to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, which meant that as long as Naruto stayed, he was destined to find his purpose somewhere far away.

Looking back, she should have known it was a waste of time to wait on him. Nowadays she couldn't decide whether it tortured her more to see him gone or have him here…

"Have you talked to Tsunade-sama about this?" she asked. It was her turn to attempt to mask her feelings.. "It sounds like you might have to have someone else take the assignment."

The room fell eerily silent, dense with some invisible emotion.

Part of her didn't even want to know what the details of the assignment were. If she could maneuver through the rest of her life without seeing another Uchiha, she'd probably be much healthier herself.

"I..did-"

"She'll do it."

Behind the door panel, a pair of heels clacked their way to the doorway as Tsunade revealed herself. The look on her face could only be described as 'perturbed'. Sakura knew it very well since like now, she was often on the receiving end of it.

"My office," she said, only stopping long enough to shoot her a glare. "Now."


"Shut the door behind you, Sakura."

Tsunade had made it a point not to answer any of her questions until they made it up the stairs and into her office on the leftmost wing of the hospital. Sakura stared at the piece of paper in her hand as they walked, hoping to get an idea of what this was all about. It looked familiar, but she wasn't able to make out exactly what it said until the door clicked closed, and it was violently slapped onto the face of the desk.

"What is this?" Tsunade shoved her finger on it. "Some kind of joke?"

Sakura's eyes fell on it, instantly coming to recognize the delicate lines composed of her own handwriting, the feelings she had while writing it rushing back to her with force.

"That was two weeks ago," she said.

"And that changes what?" The hinge of her chair squeaked as she dropped into it, crossing her legs. "After all the medical training we've done. All the fighting. Is that what you really want? To stay in the lab with the students and new grads?"

Sakura couldn't look at it anymore, cutting her gaze towards the tile flooring that matched the rest of the building's interior. If she had an answer to that question she would have just said it, but she couldn't help the bitter taste of confliction at her tongue, impairing her ability to make a decision.

Unfortunately, she didn't need to. The hesitation was itself an answer; It made her want to puke.

Tsunade sighed heavily. "I taught you to be stronger than this.. You act as if you've never seen death or suffering first hand before when you're one of the few people left in this building that has! How many years did it take you to master the Hundred Seals?!"

"Shishou,"

"And if it's Sasuke again-" She started to say something, but decided not to finish the sentence. "You need to pick yourself up, Sakura. You've been dragged through much dirtier mud and you know it."

"The last thing I wanted to do was disrespect you and the time we spent together.." Tsunade was no longer looking at her. She had taken a large red 'declined' stamp and began marking the whole page with it.

Sakura let out a gentle sigh of her own. It had been a while since she'd mustered the balls to admit these things to herself. "I guess I did let it get to me, more than I thought," she said. "When he came back."

She threw her arms in the air, letting them fall back down as if they were dead. "And now he's gone again. And Naruto's gone too.." Shaking her head, she pinned her gaze on one of the windows.

"It feels like I'm going nowhere with my life."

"And at what point are you actually going to start living for yourself?" Tsunade seemed to have cooled off well enough to carry on with her work. In fact, she seemed pretty satisfied with the answer she got. Or was it just the fact that she got to deny the hell out of Sakura's transfer request?

She finished her signature at the bottom of another document that she slid towards Sakura alongside the first. "First thing - For the record, I wasn't going to allow you to transfer in the first place. Ask again, and I'll fire you."

Sakura softened, her lips curving into a small smile. As if she should've expected anything less in the first place...

"I'll try," she teased, earning a low glare in return.

"Second - I'm giving you this signed order to take with you to the Uchiha compound. Tell Itachi that the one his father requested is not skilled enough to use the techniques required to fix his eyes. I mean, that part is pretty self-explanatory. Just do the job - "

"Shishou!"

The instant they locked eyes, Sakura could tell that her next words might be her last. If she wasn't careful, Tsunade was bound to lose her composure again, and then she might actually be out of the only job she knew how to do.. Not really, but there was a devilish glint in Tsunade's eyes that screamed 'please, try something'. Her fists probably still itched from Jiraiya being gone for the past few months.

"I - Aren't there others that can do the job just as well? I do have other projects I'm working on right now, and the others need the experience anyway."

"No, Sakura," she said seriously. "There's no one else I trust with this job other than you. Your projects can wait a few weeks."

"What if I -"

"10 AM tomorrow. Now take the paper and leave before I kick you out myself."


The rain came down in droves the entire night, and at around eleven o'clock, Sakura realized that if she didn't take a sleeping pill she wasn't going to sleep at all, which would inevitably end up impairing her work in some way the next morning. The pills had been her saving grace over the past few months. Even though she knew at some point she'd have to stop taking them, tonight was probably not the night to start. Fugaku was even more no-nonsense than Tsunade was as a former Hokage and that's saying a lot.

As for Itachi, she didn't know what to expect from him. He was Sasuke's older brother, he was an ANBU officer, and he must have helped in the war in some way. She'd only met him twice in her entire life and they weren't rememberable at all. Perhaps that was a good thing when she really thought about it. She'd had enough of Uchihas and their stubborn arrogance.

If you've met one, you've met them all. Someone told her that once, but she couldn't remember who..

At around midnight the sleeping pills finally began to take effect, eyelids drooping heavily over her irises despite her will to stay awake. She wanted to think and prepare more and continue to watch the rain splash itself over the rails of her balcony.

It wasn't enough to keep her conscious. Within minutes, she was fast asleep under a mountain of blankets that she would probably end up kicking off of her at some point during the night, the rain only starting to subside in the wee hours of the morning as the sun slowly popped its head over the distant treeline.

It was bound to be an interesting day...