Simple Living

by writingISmyART

Meet Nurse Sakura Haruno and her boyfriends... Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. Having a three-way relationship has never been complicated for them, but an innevitable change coming they're way just might give the three lovers a run for their money.

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Simple Living

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A SasuNaruSaku FanFiction

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WARNING: CONTAINS SOFT CORE YAOI AND SOME OTHER SEX RELATED STUFF

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"Sasuke! Naruto!" Sakura called from the kitchen. She stood in front of the stove, cooking up a third omelette and trying not to burn the Natto at the same time. "I swear, if I have to come in there and yank you both out of bed, I will!" she threatened, though she had a feeling neither of them would listen.

A presence walked up behind Sakura and wrapped a pair of strong, comfortable arms around her waist. She didn't even need to look to know whose arms these were.

"Sasuke, where's Naruto?" she asked, turning down the flame under the Natto and moving the omelette out of the pan and onto the one of the three plates next to the stove that didn't have one, all while in the prison of Sasuke's arms.

"Taking a shower..." he breathed against her skin, kissing his way up her neck.

Sakura shivered under the pleasure his kisses brought. "You're not..." she had to swallow once, "...joining him?"

"No," he simply murmured.

After turning off the other burners, Sakura served out the Natto to the three plates so that each plate now had an omelette, Natto, broiled and salted salmon, and Nori. She really had more room to move around in Sasuke's arms than she had first thought, but then she tried to take some plates over to the table, and she found out how little she actually had.

"Sasuke," she tried to keep her face straight, but even at 25, she wanted to squeal like a FanGirl with the way he was clinging to her. "Come on Sasuke," she tried again, "You have to let me go."

"No," he whined, burying his face into the back of her neck.

She sighed, wishing he was like this all the time instead of just when it was the two of them. She'd love to stick all this affection right in Ino's face. She set the plates back on the counter where they had been before and twisted all the way around to face him, despite still being held by him.

"Sasuke," she brushed her hand through his nappy, early morning bangs, "You have to let go of me so I can set the table."

Sasuke caught her off guard after that with a kiss. And not a quick-peck-on-the-lips-good-morning kiss. A full, real kiss that pushed her back into the counter.

"Sasuke," she said in a chastising voice whenever his mouth was off of hers, "Sasuke, stop... Come on..." She really hated to do this, but she grabbed the back of his hair and pulled him off her lips. "This is so not fair," she informed him, "You always get what you want when you kiss me. It makes me feel powerless."

He smirked at her, "I know."

Sakura's mouth screwed into a frown, "You enjoy that, don't you?"

"Every second of it," he replied, yanking her towards him with his arms, so that her hands jerked and released his hair, and he could get his tongue in her mouth again.

Sakura broke away with some difficulty. "What is up with you?" she asked him, thoroughly confused, "What... The gay side of this relationship hasn't satisfied you lately?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," a familiar voice said from the doorway.

You could probably have guessed that it was Naruto, dripping wet and naked, except for a towel wrapped around his waist. Why he liked eating breakfast practically nude, Sakura and Sasuke both would never understand. Not that they really wanted to.

Naruto walked over to the two of them. As one who used every moment of his life as an excuse to be affectionate, it wasn't any surprise to Sakura or Sasuke that he greeted them with, "Good morning," and then gave them each that aforementioned peck on the lips, even though the two of them were still tangled together.

"Oh, yum," he said, grabbing a plate of food. He licked his lips excitedly while he opened a drawer, grabbed some chopsticks and went to sit at the table. "Sakura, you're too good for us," he told her, stabbing into his omelette.

"I'm glad someone thinks so," Sakura replied, giving Sasuke a condescending glance before breaking out of his arms. She grabbed her plate, and her own chopsticks, then went over to sit beside Naruto at their kitchen table of four, though only three could sit at it since one side was pushed up against the wall.

Sasuke didn't say anything, but grabbed his own plate from the counter, chopsticks from the drawer, and sat at the last place at the table.

"Yeah, I know," Sakura swallowed a bit of egg and continued off the comment Naruto had made at the doorway, "You two are really loud, you know that?"

Naruto smirked and waved a piece of Nori in the air. "Well, I'm sorry that you have an issue with moaning," he apologized sarcastically.

"Yeah, but you moan like a teenage girl," Sakura accused, "It's really hard to sleep listening to you."

"You're just jealous that Sasuke can make me moan and not you," Naruto jabbed, rolling some Natto up in his Nori seaweed.

Sasuke choked on some omelette, which made Sakura throw her hand over her mouth and giggle hysterically. Naruto joined in, laughing in his own childish way.

"I'm not jealous," Sakura said finally, in a voice that made it seem like the stupidest thing Naruto had ever said. "If anything," she went on, dropping her voice and batting her eyelashes very sexily, "You're jealous that you can't make me moan the way Sasuke makes you."

Naruto swallowed hard. He hadn't thought of that. "N-No," he stammered stubbornly, "And anyway, even Sasuke has yet to make youmoan, so it's really no surprise that I haven't been able to."

"Too true," Sakura agreed, getting up from the table and going over to the refrigerator, "Too true."

Sasuke sat silently munching on toast and looking back and forth between the two of them. Wow. He had never quite realized what odd taste in partners he had. "Didn't we have a 'no sex talk at the breakfast table' rule?" he asked finally.

Sakura - a carton of orange juice in her hands - and Naruto - about to put a bite of egg in his mouth - exchanged glances, and then looked at Sasuke. "No," they said in unison.

"We had a 'no sex talk at lunch' rule for a while," Sakura mentioned, "But we haven't actually had lunch together in some time."

Sasuke pointed his chopsticks at Sakura, across the kitchen, "That's because you keep going out with Ino."

"So?" Sakura found three tall glasses in the cabinet and placed them on the counter. "You have an issue with me hanging out with my best friend?" she asked, filling each of the glasses with orange juice.

"Yes," he answered flatly, "I do."

Sakura turned back to him and raised an eyebrow, "Well, I'm sorry, but you don't get a say in the matter."

"I do when it's taking up the time that I would be using to take you out," he snapped.

"Pfft... You're funny," she scoffed, putting the cap back on the orange juice as she walked over to the refrigerator, "We've only been on 7 dates in the 10 years we've known each other, Sasuke." She looked over at him, "And no. The escapades where you invite me over to your office to 'chat' on my break, and I end up staying for sex, do not count."

Sasuke frowned at her.

"Be glad you got those five, Sakura," Naruto piped up, "I've only gotten 4, and two of them were group dates with you."

Sakura brought over two of the glasses and set one beside Sasuke, and one beside Naruto, shaking her head, "I don't know why we keep you around, Sasuke." She went back to the counter to get her glass.

"Yeah, and how many dates have I taken you on, Sakura?" Naruto went on.

"49 or so," she answered, taking her seat beside him, "Flowers, chocolates and everything else romantic and corny."

Naruto nodded, and then finished the last of his omelette, which cleared his plate. "Don't mind him, Sakura," he told her, "He's just embarrassed by us."

"That's obvious," Sakura said, taking a drink of orange juice.

Sasuke shoved away from the table and took his dishes to the sink, clearly upset at how the conversation had turned on him.

"Aw, Naruto," Sakura looked over at him, "I think we upset him."

Naruto got up from the table, downed the last of his orange juice, and took his dishes over to the sink as well. He then turned to Sasuke and smiled a sly, but cute smile at him and leaned in to kiss him on the lips. "Come on, Sasuke," he teased, "Don't be angry. It's all right."

"Naruto," Sasuke said flatly, "I don't do all that lovey-dovey crap."

"That's okay," Naruto told him, his eyes on Sasuke's lips as he took another step towards him.

Sakura watched in awe as the scene unfolded in front of her. True, she was totally use to seeing this kind of Yaoi stuff in their house, but Naruto's boldness surprised her. It was very unlike him to go for Sasuke.

It didn't only surprise Sakura, it surprised Sasuke as well. Naruto took a step closer to him, then another, and he backed up until his back hit the counter. Finally, Naruto had him. Naruto moved his face up to Sasuke's and kissed him full on the lips.

Sakura dropped her chopsticks... and her jaw.

Sasuke was stunned at first, but then Naruto's hands seized his hips and he snapped back. He kissed Naruto back, reaching a hand up into that brilliant blond hair of his, and placed another hand on his neck, yanking Naruto onto him so he could get his tongue into Naruto's mouth. He was not going to let Naruto be the aggressor.

Rolling her eyes, Sakura picked up her empty plate and cup and took them over to the sink beside Naruto and Sasuke's little make-out fest. She glanced at them out of the corner of her eye, a little aroused at the sight of the two loves of her life making out in their kitchen. Then she got irritated for no reason and whirled to go to the bathroom to shower.

Before she got anywhere though, Naruto pulled away from Sasuke and seized her wrist. Sakura turned and glared at him, "Naruto, let go."

"Come on Sakura," Naruto jerked her towards the two of them, "You know you want to."

"No," she snapped, struggling against him a little. She was a lot stronger than him when it came to brute strength, so if she really wanted to, she probably could've pulled away from him with no problems. But... he was right. She did want to.

Sasuke placed his hand on Naruto's and pulled with him. Sakura ended up between the two of them. She giggled from the ticklish kisses they dappled on her cheeks and neck. "Guys," she tried to put up a fuss, but she was kind of enjoying the attention, "Guys, come on. I need to get ready for work!"

Sakura's pathetic protests were silenced when Naruto kissed her, and she couldn't help it, she kissed him back. Sasuke pecked along her exposed jaw, down her neck and then moving along her chest, burying his face in the lace and silk that made up her nightgown. He felt Naruto's hands reach across Sakura, then along his abs and hips; seize his jeans and mush the three of them closer together. That was so like him. Naruto loved feeling the three of them close together. Skin on skin. Warm. Exciting. Loving.

Naruto broke away from Sakura so Sasuke could have a "turn", (for lack of a better word). Sasuke brushed his lips against Sakura's - teasing her before actually kissing her. She kissed him back hungrily, feeling warm hands traveling up and down her nightgown she knew belonged to Naruto by the way they moved in uncertain patterns.

Suddenly, Sasuke's steady and, somewhat forceful hand started traveling down her flat stomach, down... down... down...

"Ah! Stop!" she suddenly broke away from the two of them, out of breath, sweaty and aroused all at the same time, with bright red blush filling her cheeks. "No orgies in the kitchen!" she snapped at them, "Jeez!"

Sasuke leaned his back against the counter, folding his strong arms across his bare chest. Naruto tucked his arms backwards, resting his palms on the counter behind him, like he was going to jump up on the counter, but he didn't. Sakura found herself surprised that his towel hadn't fallen off by now.

"Don't look at me all smug!" she gritted her teeth at the two of them, who just kept on smirking. "Boys!" she exclaimed, turning away from them and muttering as she stomped away, "... stupid … irresistible … annoying … sexy … ugh!"

Naruto threw his head back and laughed. Sasuke chuckled along with him. "I love it when she gets angry," Sasuke told him, "So hot."

"Yeah, hot to you," Naruto stepped away from the counter and walked away from him backwards, so he could look at him straight to his face, "You're not the one who gets his face slammed in with her angered fist."

Sasuke dropped his hands and started walking towards Naruto, who had stopped in the middle of the kitchen. "Poor little dobe," he ran his fingers across Naruto's bangs, pushing them back off his softly tanned forehead, "Do you need me to protect you from the exceptionally hot, and quite violent Sakura?"

"No," Naruto whispered, "But I do need you to listen to her."

Sasuke frowned. He didn't like following orders much.

Naruto gave him a quick peck on the lips. "No orgies in the kitchen!" he shouted, tossing his towel over Sasuke's head and running off the way Sakura had disappeared.

Sasuke pulled Naruto's towel off his head. He smirked at it, then dropped it and ran after Naruto, taking off his jeans as he ran, and abandoning them on the floor halfway through the hallway.

~~~

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled from the front door, where she was packing her purse. She grabbed her car keys from one of the hooks by the door. "Sasuke!" she called, "Come on, you two! I have to get to work, and I will have no problem leaving you here to take the bus!"

"Sakura, I said I was coming!" Naruto stumbled out of their bedroom, his shirt completely unbuttoned and trying to put his shoe on while he was walking. "Damn!" he cussed at her, "And you say I'm impatient!"

Sakura smiled at him. "Your shoes are on the wrong feet, babe," she told him, pecking him on the cheek.

Naruto looked down at his feel and cussed some more. "I'll fix them in the car," he snapped, wrenching the door open.

Sasuke walked up then, shrugging into a black suit-jacket. Sakura coughed and choked as soon as he got near her. "Oh my!" she exclaimed, throwing her hand over her mouth, "Well he smells terrible, but you're wearing enough Axe make some one hurl!" She coughed again, "You two must have been busy while I was in the shower."

"Don't look at me," he told her, "Naruto broke the sprayer." He grabbed his briefcase from the small table behind Sakura, where she had been packing her bag, leaning in close to her face when he did so, then turned and followed Naruto out the door.

Sakura raised an eyebrow at his back as her walked away. How do you even break that? she wondered, and started to leave, but then she noticed Naruto's backpack sitting next to the table. She rolled her eyes and grabbed the backpack, taking it with her when she left the house.

She double-checked to make sure the front door was locked on their quaint little townhouse, then turned and went down the three front steps, and to her red convertible, parked on the curb. It was a college graduation gift from Naruto and Sasuke - who sold their cars to buy it - with strings. She now had to drive them to and from work everyday.

"You're not sitting in the front, dobe," Sasuke argued, as they both stood on the sidewalk next to the car.

Naruto was buttoning the last button on his shirt, but his shoes were still on the wrong feet. "Get out of the way, Sasuke," he snapped, making a pass for the door, only to be blocked.

"Naruto!" Sakura called, distracting him briefly. She threw his backpack at him hard enough that he got hit in his stomach, fell backwards, and flipped into the back seat. She smirked and moved around the car to the driver's side with a cocky stride.

Sasuke smiled at her. He wished Sakura would be cockier once in a while. It was very becoming of her. He opened the car door and got in at the same time she did.

Sakura buckled up, started the car, checked her mirrors, etc. Then she tore out of her parking spot with screeching tires.

She loved being in her car. It gave her more confidence than she would have thought she had. She reached over to the radio and cranked it up loud for the ride. Besides Naruto kicking Sasuke's seat the whole ride as he tried to get his shoes on the right feet, the ride was as uneventful as any other.

Finally, the three of them reached the Hospital where Sakura worked. From the Hospital, Sasuke would go North a block to where he worked at a small law office, and Naruto walked two blocks West, where he worked as a Junior teacher at the town's public High School.

The three hopped out of the convertible, grabbing their bags, and Sakura locked up the car. Naruto, frowning and furiously trying to untangle his tie, cussed and got his finger tied up.

Sasuke watched him struggle a moment more before he decided to step in. He seized Naruto's tie, yanking Naruto towards him. He untied Naruto's finger, then re-tied the tie. Sakura giggled as she watched them and blush crept across Naruto's face. That was more the Naruto she knew. He was always really embarrassed with Sasuke's boldness.

"Dobe, try not to make an idiot of yourself today," Sasuke told him, flattening his tie against his chest.

"Too late for that," Sakura teased.

Naruto frowned over at her. "Ha. Ha," he snapped.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and grabbed Naruto's chin, turning the dobe's face back to his. "Naruto," he reclaimed the blonde's attention quite forcefully, "Just..." Naruto gazed at him with wonder in his deep blue eyes. He sighed, "Have a good day."

Sakura blinked. Was Sasuke trying to be lovey-dovey?

Naruto smiled at him, and then reached his hand up to pull Sasuke's hand off his face. He leaned forward and kissed him briefly on the lips. But Sasuke wasn't satisfied; he wrapped his arms around Naruto's waist and pulled him closer, kissing him deep and more loving than he usually did. Naruto, still excited from their earlier session, even nipped at Sasuke's lips a little.

"Hey!" Sakura yelled, interrupting them. They pulled away and looked across the car at her. "Can we not make out in the parking lot, please?" she asked, moving around the car to them, "Is sex all you two think about?"

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other, still holding one another, then looked over at her. "No," Naruto answered. "Why?" Sasuke asked after him, "Jealous?"

"And we're back to the jealousy trip," Sakura put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes, "Ridiculous."

Naruto let go of Sasuke and went over to Sakura. "I like it when you're jealous," he whispered in her ear, reaching his hands around her waist and pulling her toward him so her stomach was pressed against his, and he was leaning over her.

"Naruto..." she groaned unhappily, "Naruto, please stop. What if my Boss sees you?"

"What if she does?" he breathed in her ear, and she became acutely aware of something.

"Wait a second!" she shoved him back far enough that she wasn't bent over backwards, but he still wouldn't let go of her waist. "You're acting just like..." she looked past him, at Sasuke, who was leaning against the car with a smirk that clearly said 'So you finally figured it out?'. She looked back to Naruto, "But, why?"

Naruto shrugged, "Cause I want to make you feel the way he makes you feel." Such a simple, yet so Naruto-ish answer.

Sakura's eyes glittered, and she removed his arms from his waist. "Naruto, you're an idiot," she giggled, "I want you to be you. Sasuke may be sexy and seductive, but you're my fun and free boy. You make me happy in ways Sasuke can't, just like he can make me happy in ways you can't."

Raising an eyebrow at her, Naruto seemed to be confused, "You... Didn't like that?" He asked about his waist holding earlier.

"Not really," she shook her head, "It's creepy when you do it."

"Oh," Naruto blinked, "Sorry?"

Sakura grabbed the back of his head and pulled him towards her. She kissed him roughly, but he was okay with that. When she pulled away, she said, "That's okay."

Naruto's big stupid grin spread across his face, and Sakura left him to go over to Sasuke. She reached up and kissed him on the lips, then smiled at the two of them. "Behave," she told them. She looked at Naruto, "Teach children." She looked at Sasuke, "Win cases." She turned and started walking towards the Hospital, waving her hand 'good-bye' to them.

Sasuke shook his head, grabbed his briefcase and walked past Naruto, pecking him on the cheek. "Told you so," he said with quite the cocky tone as he walked away.

Naruto frowned, grabbed his backpack from the backseat of the convertible, and started off in the direction of the school he worked at.

~~~

"Morning Sakura!" Ino greeted when she saw Sakura enter the double doors of the Hospital.

"Hey Ino," Sakura replied, heading behind the front desk, where Ino was messing with some paperwork. She went through the door in the wall behind the desk, to the laundry room, where she went digging through the scrub uniforms. "Jeez!" she exclaimed, "Is it too much to ask for a pair of red scrubs?" She came out of the laundry room with a pair of green scrubs, slightly irritated.

"We're not that big of a Hospital, you know," Ino reminded her, "We only have, like, five pairs of red scrubs."

"I know," Sakura growled, "But it always seems to me that everyone else gets the colors they want except me."

Ino glanced down at her purple scrubs and shrugged. "I suppose it would to you," she explained, "But you know the saying, 'First come; First serve'."

Sakura rolled her eyes and started to walk away.

"You know," Ino called her attention before she had left the desk area. "There's another saying," she opened a drawer by her knee and pulled out a pair of red scrubs, "'Ask and you shall receive'."

Sakura went over to Ino and gave her a big hug. "You are the best friend ever!" she exclaimed, squeezing her.

"Ow! Easy!" Ino cried. Sakura released her and she handed over the red scrubs.

Sakura went back into the laundry room and put back the green scrubs. When she left the room, Ino followed after her, carrying a stack of patient charts. The two walked down the hallway, side by side, headed for the locker room.

Right before they reached the locker room, a good looking doctor stopped in front of them with two cups of coffee from the coffee shop down the street. "Hello, Ino," he greeted her in a flirty tone, "Coffee?" He offered her a coffee, and she took it to be polite.

"So, Ino?" the doctor went on, "I had hoped maybe you'd like a night on the town with me, a hot young thing like yourself."

Ino smirked at him and took his other cup of coffee. "Thanks for the coffee," she told him, "But no. I have a rule against dating doctors."

Ino walked past him, and continued down the hallway. The doctor looked at Sakura in confusion. Sakura just shrugged and jogged off to catch up with Ino.

"You have a rule against dating doctors?" Sakura asked, "Why not just tell him you have a fiancée?"

Shrugging, Ino handed her one of the two coffees. "That was more fun," she answered simply.

The two went into the locker room and Sakura changed into her red scrubs, tossing her street clothes in her locker. She pulled her hairbrush out of her purse, and started brushing through her hair.

"Wow," Ino commented, "I just noticed how long your hair has gotten."

Sakura reached her hand back and brought all her hair over her shoulder so it was easier to brush. "Sasuke likes it long," she reminded Ino, "Too bad it has to go soon."

"What?" Ino exclaimed. Sakura's hair almost touched her butt! "Why?" she asked incredulously.

Sakura shrugged. It was no big deal to her what length her hair was. "Once it hits my butt, I chop it off," she told her, returning her brush to her bag, "Naruto likes it short."

"You and those boys," Ino scoffed.

"Jealous?" Sakura asked. She just couldn't resist.

Ino rolled her eyes and went behind Sakura's back. "Not hardly," she answered, reaching for Sakura's hair. She split her pink hair into three separate parts, and then started braiding it together, like Sakura wore her hair everyday. "Didn't even get a chance to braid your hair today..." she mentioned curiously, "Morning sex?"

Sakura sighed, "Yeah, but not involving me." She handed her ponytail holder to Ino, who tied off the end of the braid.

"Ah, ha, ha," Ino laughed a little, "Too bad for you."

"Oh, shut up," Sakura snapped. She pushed all her bangs off to the right side of her face while she grabbed her purse and shoved it in her locker. She shut the locker door and spun the combination lock.

Ino raised an eyebrow at her, "Bad?"

"Huh?" Sakura gave her a quizzical look, "No, not at all." She took some of the patient charts from Ino. "Good actually. Really good," she explained, "But... I don't know... I feel like... something's missing."

The two of them left the locker room with their coffee's and their charts. "Something missing?" Ino laughed, "Yeah, that's not a cliché or anything."

"It's so annoying!" Sakura went on, happy to finally be talking about why she had been so unreasonably moody lately, "Naruto is sweet and loving and romantic... Sasuke is hot and passionate and takes my breath away... Both of them with me is practically as sexy as the two of them together..." She went over to the main desk they had been at earlier and reached for a pen from a cup full of them, then opened a patient chart and scribbled some stuff down on it, "If everything is so wonderful, what am I missing?"

Ino shrugged and took the pen from her, so she could fill out some paperwork on one of her own charts. "It'll come to you, I'm sure," she told her, "When you least expect it."

Sakura took the pen back and tucked it behind her ear. "'When you least expect it'?" she smiled and shut her patient chart, "Now who's sounding like a cliché?"

"Ino!" a female voice called. It was Temari, headed towards them in a fancy woman's suit - pants, jacket and all. "Oh, hey Sakura," she greeted when she reached them.

"Hello," replied Sakura, eyeing the ridiculously tight bun Temari's hair was in, "Headed out of town?"

Temari nodded unhappily. "Yeah," she said in an uncomfortable tone, "Two days. A meeting with some other country representatives from the continent."

"Hm," Sakura nodded, understandingly. Though she really didn't quite understand why a woman who worked as hard as Temari couldn't get a 'get out of business trip free' pass. I mean, how come a country like America could have a whole cabinet of representatives, but their country couldn't afford to give Temari some time off when her brother was in the Hospital. Granted, his disease put him in the Hospital quite a bit. "So you came to check on Gaara?" Sakura asked, rummaging through her charts.

"Just did," she answered, "He's out like a light. That's good, isn't it?"

"Mm...Hm..." Sakura found Gaara's chart and flipped through the papers, skimming over the doctor's notes, "His vitals look good... and they've been lowering his medication due to his rising stability..." She shut the chart and smiled at Temari, "If he keeps improving, you'll probably be able to take him home when you get back from your trip."

"That's good," Temari seemed relieved - and not only because her brother was going to be okay - "Kankuro hates staying in the apartment by himself, so he's been in my guest room for the past couple days…" She reached her arm back to rub the back of her neck, like she was slightly stressed out, "But he and Shikamaru are at each other's throats."

"I'll bet," Sakura mused.

"Yeah, Shikamaru tells me Kankuro keeps locking him out whenever he comes over," Ino giggled, "I can just imagine Kankuro slamming the door in Shikamaru's face, can't you?"

The rest of the girls joined her in laughing at the thought of Kankuro being so overprotective of his sister.

"Well, Temari, don't worry about it," Ino told her, throwing an arm around Sakura's shoulders, "You're not the only one with a complicated relationship."

Temari raised an eyebrow at Sakura, "Why? What's going on with you?"

Sakura moved out from under Ino's arm. "Nothing," she answered Temari, even though she was glaring at Ino.

Ino paid her no mind, "She thinks something is missing."

"Ino!"

"Oh come on, they would have found out eventually!"

"Something missing?" Temari exchanged a confused glance with Hinata, and then looked back to Sakura, "You have Sexy and Cute. You have Graceful and Klutzy. You have Intelligent and Stupid. You have Strong and… well, I guess Naruto is strong, but I was going to resourceful or something like that. You have Slow and Sensual and Pound You Until-"

"All right, that's enough!" Sakura interrupted, a little too loud.

Temari rolled her eyes, "The point is… What could you be missing?"

"A girl?"

Everyone turned to look at Hinata, who suddenly realized she had accidently said that out loud. Her face when cherry red and she felt like she was going to pass out from embarrassment.

"Where the heck...?" Ino looked around, confused. When did Hinata show up? Sneaky little lady, she was.

Temari raised an eyebrow, "What… like a girlfriend? Because the boys are together, maybe Sakura needs a little balance?"

"And are you offering to fill the position?" Ino teased. She bet any money that Hinata would love to get in bed between Naruto and Sasuke just as much as she herself would.

Suddenly Ino spotted a hot-pinkish…red-headed… Oh, who was she kidding? She didn't know what to call this one's hair color. "Karin!" she called out, catching the woman's attention.

Karin scowled and walked over to Ino, Temari, Hinata and Sakura. "What?" she snapped, as short tempered as ever.

"Well first off," Ino decided to nit-pick a little. If Karin was already pissed off at her, she may as well have a bit of fun, "Your skirt is short by two inches. Tsunade's going to kick your ass if you don't start respecting the dress code."

"Oh, shut it," Karin snapped, messing with her black suit-jacket so that it covered the cleavage she had spilling out of her lavender shirt underneath it. Though she really didn't have much for boobs, push-up bras could do wonders, and she didn't need Ino pointing that out.

Ino rolled her eyes. She knew exactly what Karin was doing, but she didn't feel like starting up a fuss over something so trivial. "40 dollars," was all she said. Karin narrowed her dagger-like eyes and yanked two twenties out of her pocket, throwing the crumpled bills at Ino. If there was one person Karin hated more than Sakura it was... Uh... Nevermind. She hated Sakura the most. But Ino was a closesecond.

Ino rolled her eyes once more and threw Karin a look that clearly said 'Oh, very mature' then bent down to pick up the fallen twenties. "You don't have to be so short about it, Karin," Ino told her, straightening up, "Stop betting and you'll stop losing."

"Hmpf," Karin stuck her nose in the air and strutted away from them, angry as ever.

"Touchy..." Ino spat after her.

"She will never get over herself, will she?" Temari watched Karin disappear into the crowd of doctors, "She only became a lawyer because Sasuke did... and she only applied to be the Hospital's lawyer so she could keep an eye on Sakura."

Sakura shook her head and took a sip of her coffee, "Pathetic."

The black beeper on Sakura's hip suddenly went nuts, as did Ino's. "Time to get to work," she mentioned, starting to walk away.

"Yeah," Hinata sighed, "I've got to get back to the X-Ray lab too."

Ino nodded at Hinata and turned to followed Sakura. The two of them could hear Temari asking Hinata about Gaara's CAT scans as they walked away.

"I think I'll check up on Gaara later," Sakura told Ino as they made their way down the crowded Hospital hallway, "I know how much his brother and sister worry about him. I mean, I know I'd be worried if Naruto or Sasuke were in the Hospital."

Ino nodded in agreement. "I totally-" she started to say.

Out of no where, someone bumped into Sakura. It was doctor. One of the Residents. After he knocked Sakura into Ino, he gave her a nasty look, as if it were her fault. "Two-timing slut," he muttered, only loud enough for Ino and Sakura to hear.

Sakura bit her lip and looked to the floor, noticing that she had lost her coffee. Ino narrowed her eyes angrily, and got in the doctors face.

"Take it back," she snapped at the doctor.

"Ino," Sakura grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away. People were starting to stare, and she really didn't need this kind of an incident. "Come on," she urged, "It's not worth it."

"No," Ino yanked her arm away from Sakura and got in the doctors face again, "He wants to pick on nurses, he better be prepared to eat his words."

The doctor rolled his eyes, "I wasn't picking on the fact that she's a nurse."

"Oh I know," Ino told him, "You were referring to the fact that she openly has two boyfriends, am I right?"

Now a real crowd was starting to gather. Sakura was sure most of them knew about her love life, but she was still uncomfortable with the whole situation.

"Well, yeah," the doctor tried standing up for himself, "She's a whore."

Ino shook her head and gave off one of those 'I cannot believe he just said that' smiles. She took the cap off her coffee and lifted it up to pour it all over him. A little of it splashed on her in the process, but she hardly noticed it. "Ah! Ah! Ah!" the doctor cried because of the hot coffee dripping all over his head. "What the-" he began, but was cut off when Ino's fist went through his face and he was sent crashing into the floor.

Ino flexed her hand a few times, then turned away and started walking.

Sakura gave the guy a lingering glance, and then ran to catch up with Ino. "Why did you do that?" she exclaimed.

Ino was still flexing her hand. "I hate doctors," she spat, "Plus, I learned from the best."

Sakura couldn't help but smile just a tiny bit. "B-But still..." she snapped back into upset, "You shouldn't have hit him! You're going to get me fired!"

"Oh please," Ino blew her worry off, "I'll just pawn it off as a sexual harassment scene again."

Sakura laughed. Ino was always getting into incidents with sexual harassment issues. It really wouldn't be that big a deal if she called it sexual harassment.

"Ino..." Sakura was at a loss of words to thank Ino. Even though she probably could have gotten her point across with less force.

"Ah, ah, ah," Ino saw the look coming across Sakura's face, "No. No dropping to the ground and kissing my feet or any of that crap. Just... hit someone in the face for me someday."

Sakura nodded, "Sure."

Ino smirked and headed down a separate hallway, where she worked in the OR as an Anesthetist. Sakura waved to her, and headed the other way, to the Critical Care Ward.

"Sakura, finally, come on," Dr. Ishii was rushing her as soon as he caught sight of her, "This one is stable, but I need you to run down to the lab and see if his blood test results are back."

Sakura nodded and turned back around the way she came. That was just the way it was in Critical Care. She ran around, fetching all the things the doctors needed to save someone's life, and knowing full well that the fact that she could get things done in less time than any other nurse made her one of the most wanted Physician Assistants. Every second counted when you were in the Critical Care Ward, and Sakura always had seconds to spare.

Running back from the lab, test results in hand, Sakura spotted something unusual. A little girl, not even 6, was sniffling and crying all by herself, huddled up in a corner, where people were passing her by so quickly they barely registered she was even there.

Sakura stopped. She looked around, hoping to find a mother or father looking for this little child. Finding no one, she went over to the little girl herself.

"Hey, hey," she cooed, lowering herself down to the girl's level slowly, trying not to spook her, "Hey, it's all right."

The girl stopped crying and looked up at Sakura with big, curious brown eyes.

"There now," Sakura smiled at her, "I'm Sakura. What's your name?"

The girl sniffed and wiped her tears on her sleeve. "M-Manami..." she sniffed, eyeing this strange pink-haired woman.

"Manami," Sakura repeated, "That's a beautiful name."

"T-Thank you," she smiled a small and hesitant smile, "I- I like your n- name too."

"Thanks," Sakura raised an eyebrow and looked around once more. "Are you lost, little one?" she asked Manami.

The little girl nodded, her little smile disappearing.

"All right, well..." Sakura offered her hand to the simple little child, "I have to take these very important papers to my boss... but if you come with me, maybe we can find your mom and dad. How's that sound?"

Manami looked at Sakura's hand, then her face, and then her hand again. Finally, she put her hand in Sakura's and allowed herself to be pulled up to her feet.

"Would you like me to carry you, honey?" Sakura asked, "You look a little wobbly on your feet."

She nodded and Sakura wrapped her free hand around Manami waist, pulling her up into her arms. "Can you hold these?" she asked, offering Manami the file of papers in her other hand. Manami took them, and Sakura was then able to hold onto Manami with both hands.

And that's how she carried her. Sure, people gave her funny looks and she was slowed down a bit, but after the incident that had happened not more than a half an hour ago, Sakura really didn't mind any of it. She carried Manami back through the Critical Care Ward, to Dr. Ishii, who was still working on the patient. Checking and re-checking all the equipment around him.

"Sakura, what is this?" Dr. Ishii motioned to Manami, who hugged tighter onto Sakura's neck, startled by the doctor's harsh tone.

"Please Sir," Sakura rubbed Manami's back, trying to soothe her, "You'll frighten her."

Dr. Ishii frowned, "Sakura-"

"She's just lost," Sakura cut him off, "I only need 15 minutes."

Dr. Ishii looked at the frightened little girl clinging to Sakura, then sighed. "Just hurry," he spat, turning his attention to the papers Manami had given him.

"Thank you, Sir," Sakura gave a little bow and left the room.

She took Manami to the front desk, where she had just been drinking coffee with her friends. It wasn't unusual for her to be back and forth between the same places in the Hospital over and over again, but still.

Sakura set Manami sitting on the desk and looked at her. "Okay little one," she addressed her, "So... Where are your mom and dad?"

Manami looked down at her hands, then back at Sakura. "Mommy's in a room," she told her.

"A room?" Sakura repeated, "You mean like a Hospital room?"

Manami nodded, and she seemed to be getting upset again. "She's sick. And daddy..." she had to swallow before she could continue, "Daddy doesn't sleep much..." She sniffed, "He was sleeping though, and I- I had to go to the bathroom... I- I- I didn't want t- to wake him..."

"Shh... Shh... Shh..." Sakura calmed her down, "It's okay. We'll find him." She reached behind the counter and grabbed one of the many bottled waters that were kept behind the counter for the staff. She unscrewed the cap and handed it to Manami, who took small sips.

Sakura picked her up and set her on the ground. She took the hand Manami wasn't holding the water with, and the two of them started walking. She didn't know where they were going, but she hoped either someone would see Manami, or Manami would see something familiar.

And in fact, it didn't take long at all. They'd only been walking around for five of the fifteen minutes Sakura was giving when a really exhausted and stressed out looking man spotted them. "Manami!" he cried, running over to her.

Manami dropped Sakura's hand and ran to the man, crying harder than she had any of the times since she met Sakura.

Standing there, amongst the hustling and bustling Hospital people, who spent their whole day every day, just like her. Saving strangers. Sakura teared up at the sight of Manami - a girl she hadn't known for more than fifteen minutes - and her father - who Sakura had never even met.

That was it.

That was what she was missing.

~~~

"Sakura!" Naruto stood by the car, under the light of the setting sun, waving not only his hand, but his entire arm at her. When she was close, he grinned at her, "How was work?"

She hesitated. Bad! she wanted to scream out, Horrible! Terrible! Exhausting! Irritating! But how could she say anything like that to a face as cute and bright as Naruto's looked right then. She smiled weakly, "Fine, Naruto, but I'm tired."

Sasuke, standing on the other side of the car - the driver's side - raised an eyebrow at Sakura, and for just the slightest second, his cold demeanor turned to a look of worry. But when Sakura looked over at him, the cold came back, and he furrowed his eyebrows in frustration. She was hiding something. That was unusual.

The three of them had a silent ride home. Another unusual thing. Sakura always blasted her radio, or chatted about all the things that had happened that day, but not today. Anytime she was asked a question she answered it with a one-word answer, or stayed silent.

Even Naruto, oblivious and dumb as always, could sense something was wrong. He and Sasuke were both worried now, though neither of them said anything.

The silence continued. The three of them went inside and Sakura ordered take-out to be delivered to their house. They ate it on the couch, watching some show that none of them actually liked, but nobody felt the need to change.

When at last Sakura got up to go to the bathroom, Naruto turned straight to Sasuke. "What's wrong with her?" he wanted to know.

Sasuke shrugged and swallowed some fried rice. "I don't know," he answered, "She ordered take-out... So maybe she is just tired."

Naruto frowned. That didn't seem right. Even when Sakura was so exhausted she came home and passed out on the couch, she was still cheery and exuberant up until the moment she went down. This was... wrong. This was like the way she had been behaving the two days she had been hiding the fact that her parents were coming to see her.

Yeah. That had been an uncomfortable visit. Sakura's father was especially displeased with her living with two single boys. Of course, it had been even worse three months later, when she had to tell them she was dating both boys. Naruto had taken a fist to the stomach for that little news flash to daddy.

"No," Naruto said finally, his tone a little more dominant than usual. Sasuke looked over at him with a surprised look, then smirked. Naruto's boldness was getting hotter and sexier by the day.

"We need to talk to her," Naruto told him, "We need to find out what she's hiding."

"So you noticed it too, dobe," Sasuke reached for the remote to change the channel before his brain started oozing out of his ears. "Leave her be," he warned, "She's always given up and told us what's on her mind at the very last second."

Naruto shook his head, "I think it's different this time."

"Don't worry about it," Sasuke told him, nonchalantly flipping through the channels until he found some thing on the History of Swords in Japan.

"Sasuke," Naruto was getting irritated with him, "Maybe you should be worrying more. Do you even care if there's something wrong with Sakura?"

Sasuke turned dagger-like eyes on Naruto. "First off - Keep your voice down," he hissed, knowing how much Sakura hated it when they spoke about her behind her back, "And second - Don't you ever say I don't care about Sakura."

"Oh, sorry," Naruto stood, not lowering or raising his voice from the level it was at, "Maybe it's just me then? Maybe I'm the one you don't care about, since you're obviously not willing to back me up on anything."

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke asked him in disbelief, "So because I want to give Sakura the space she obviously needs before she's able to come to us with whatever it is that's bugging her, I suddenly stop caring about the two of you?"

Naruto was so angry, he actually growled at Sasuke. "I guess so," he spat. He slammed his half-eaten container of food on the coffee table, and stalked off to their room.

Sasuke looked down at the coffee table. Naruto... to angry to eat? This was really bad now.

Sakura passed him in the hallway. "What's all the arguing about?" she asked apprehensively.

Naruto didn't answer. He dipped into their bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

~~~

Sakura blinked. Where was she? She looked around at the stainless steel appliances and tiled counter-tops. A kitchen? But... she'd never seen this house before.

"Don't worry, I've got it," she heard her own voice say, but she hadn't even opened her mouth.

A woman came through the swinging door that led from some other part of the unfamiliar house to the kitchen where Sakura was standing. She had long pink hair, all tied up in a loose bun with a thick red ribbon. She wore a red shirt with long white sleeves, and a pair of white draw-string pants. Easily noticeable beneath the red shirt was a beach-ball sized stomach.

Sakura raised an eyebrow, then turned her attention to the swinging door when she heard someone call her name.

"Sakura," Ino pushed through the door, "Jeez. You're so stubborn. Give me those."

An older, taller and fuller Ino with short, pixie-cut blond hair went over to the older Sakura and took the stack of dishes from the pregnant woman that Sakura hadn't noticed she's been carrying.

"Ino?" Sakura exclaimed, "You cut your hair! No way!"

She stepped forward, reaching out for her best friend, who had taken the stack of dishes, and walked right through her to the sink. Sakura noticed for the first time that every inch of her being was light blue, and SEE THROUGH.

And tangible, apparently.

"What the-?" Sakura went over to the wall and swiped her hand through it a couple times. What was going on?

"Ino," the other Sakura said, "I can handle it myself."

Ino shook her head. "Sakura, get your pregnant ass back to your baby shower this instant!" she ordered, putting the dishes down in the sink.

Older Sakura sighed and looked like she wasn't going to go anywhere, but then the older Ino spun her around and pushed her back through the swinging door.

Sakura followed curiously. She meant to push the door open, but as you could probably guess, it didn't work out for her. She went through the solid swinging door.

The living room of the unfamiliar house was filled with people. Sakura watched her older self take a seat on the couch, in front of a pile of gifts stacked up on the coffee table. She glanced around at each of the other people, (women actually, as she noticed there were no men around), picking them out one by one as her close friends. She even found TenTen, sitting on the arm of a chair Hinata was sitting in.

TenTen had grown her hair out quite a bit. She still had her familiar buns coming off the top of her head, but most of her hair was down and rolling off her shoulders in beautiful waves. She looked really good, too. Healthy and… happy, if the wide smile across her face was any indicator.

Hinata was actually the opposite. She had cut her hair. Unlike Ino's pixie hair, Hinata's was cut in an odd fashion, where it was cut high in the back, then went down diagonally on the sides of her head, until it lightly touched her shoulders, up near her face. She looked good too, much like TenTen, with bright eyes and a smile.

Sakura looked around for the one member of her girls she couldn't find. As she was doing so, she noticed a number of other women that sort of stuck out. Like Hanabi - Hinata's sister - who she wouldn't have imagined seeing around all her other friends, and Tsunadae - looking surprisingly well for how old she must have been - with Shizune, (well, that wasn't much of a surprise).

Just as she was wondering where her missing friend was, Temari came through a door on the other side of the room with a gift wrapped package of her own. She looked… normal. Her hair was all pulled up into a ponytail, the same length she had always kept it at. Well, at least one of her friends hadn't changed.

"Sorry I'm late," she apologized to everyone, whose attentions she had captured when she came in. She kicked off her shoes with everyone else's and made her way over to the general gathering.

"Oh, Temari," Sakura's older self started to stand up, "We tried waiting for you, but you know... Anyway, do you want some cake? It's right in the kitchen, I'll just go get-"

Temari rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Sakura, sit down and quit avoiding your presents," she told her, as if she had said this several times before, even though she had just arrived, "You know damn well I don't want any cake."

The older Sakura put on a face that expressed something like, 'Curses. Foiled again.' and dropped back onto the couch.

Temari set her gift on the table then went to sit on the other arm of Hinata's chair. She patted her on the head and smiled, "Hey sis."

Sakura was confused by that for a moment, but then she got distracted with Ino thrusting a light pink package in her older self's face.

"Come on," Ino was starting to get whinny, "Quit stalling. We know you don't like baby showers, but it's not our fault you keep popping out children, Sakura."

"Baby shower?" Sakura wondered out loud, knowing no one could hear her, "So I am pregnant."

Older Sakura took the gift in surrender and started opening it. It looked to Sakura as if her older self was even a little PLEASED to be opening gifts. Sakura took a seat on the ground near the couch to watch.

The first one was from Ino, and it was the cutest little pink dress with a strawberry on a pocket at the bottom, and another strawberry on the matching hat. Plus, a pair of little red slip-on shoes to go with the outfit.

"Oh, Ino," older Sakura gushed, "It's adorable. Thank you."

"Yeah well," Ino seemed to be enjoying the praise, "If it had come out that you were having a boy, you would have gotten banana overalls…" She turned her head away a little and mumbled, "…or blueberry overalls…"

Older Sakura used her stomach to fold the outfit and place it back in the box. "Ino," she threw on her chastising voice, "Last time was an accident. It is definitely Naruto's baby this time."

Ino put her hands up like someone who had just gotten caught by the police. "Right, right," she smirked, "Sorry."

"You're so not sorry," Sakura said to the older Ino, who didn't hear a word, "But I know you're just playing."

"Well, this will be nice for Naruto," Hinata commented, a little bolder than Sakura would have expected. Perhaps she had gotten braver with age? "I mean, he has two boys already, and Sasuke has the twin girls and a boy," she explained, "Another girl will balance things out."

Older Sakura reached into the pile for the orange package with the red bow she knew was Hinata's gift. "The same could be said if your little one turns out to be a girl," she mentioned, pulling at the wrappings of the gift, "You already have a little boy, after all."

"Oh, if Hinata's turned out to be a girl, then she'd be close in age with your girl, Sakura," TenTen exclaimed, "They would be great friends, don't you think?"

"Well," Hinata looked down and ran her fingers along the barely noticeable lump in her stomach, "I'm happy with either one. I don't care if it's a boy or a girl."

Temari smirked, "Whatever it becomes, I'm sure it's not going to be the last."

Sakura had listened intently through this whole conversation, trying to sort it out in her head. So… Hinata was pregnant too? The older Sakura was going to have a girl? Naruto's girl? Plus, she already had five kids?

Out of no where, Sasuke stuck his head through the swinging door, scaring the crap out of blue-ish Sakura. "Hey babe," he called to the older Sakura, "Where are those slip-on drink holders we keep from festivals and stuff?"

"In the drawer closest to the fridge," the older Sakura once again started to stand, "But if you want, I can get-"

"SIT!" - except the blue-ish Sakura - everyone in the room, including Sasuke, commanded her in unison.

Older Sakura dropped back onto the couch, a guilty expression covering her face.

Sasuke disappeared back through the swinging door. Deciding she had learned all she could from the baby shower, Sakura got up and phased through the swinging door again. She found Sasuke in the kitchen, pulling a bunch of drink covers from the drawer where older Sakura had said they would be.

There was something weird about Sasuke. He looked great, same as ever, so he was probably still working out with Naruto like a nutcase… but there was something, off. His hair hadn't changed, and neither had many of his features - except that he was taller and bigger in general - so she really didn't know what it could be.

After grabbing all that he could carry, Sasuke took the drink covers out the back door near the refrigerator. Sakura hadn't noticed it before, because she had been standing in front of it, facing Ino and older Sakura. She crossed the kitchen and went through the door to follow Sasuke.

Out in the backyard, Sakura found madness. There had to be at least ten - hell - fifteen children running around. Plus, in addition to the pool near the back corner of the yard, there was also a giant play set, like the kind they have at parks.

Sakura noticed Naruto first. He was running around amongst the children; even managing to get his large-ish, older self through the play equipment. Apparently, he was being chased by the mob of children running around behind him. He went down a swirly slide, then ran across the yard, slower than he could have really ran, but Sakura guessed he was going slower to be kind to the kids and make them think they almost had him.

"He's still at it?" Sasuke's voice asked beside Sakura.

Her head whirled in the direction of Sasuke's voice, and she found a bunch of older guys hanging out under the shade of the house, near a smoking barbecue. They grabbed drink covers from Sasuke and slipped them over the bottoms of their beers and sodas and such.

"Yep," a red head who Sakura realized was Gaara, replied to Sasuke's question, "He never stops."

Sakura got a little closer to the group in order to hear them better. An unfamiliar brunette spoke up, and it was only after she heard his voice, Sakura could recognize him as Gaara's brother, Kankuro.

"I can't believe he's gonna be the father of another child," Kankuro shook his head and took a sip of his beer, "And a girl, nonetheless."

"I'm sorry, how many children do you have?" Sasuke asked him, with just a small bit of defensive tone in it, "Because Naruto and I have five, and he seems to be doing a fine job to me."

Before Kankuro could come up with something else to say, a boy with an uncanny resemblance to Naruto, and looking to be about 5 or 6, came over and tugged on Sasuke's pant leg. "Daddy," he murmured, "Can I have a juice box?"

Sasuke nodded at the boy and went over to a cooler. Inside, along with the beers and sake and such, there were juice boxes and water bottles and other non-alcoholic beverages.

"Oh," Sakura suddenly realized as Sasuke was fishing out a juice box, "So that's why the kid asked. Sasuke's probably not letting the kids go into the cooler, so that they don't accidently grab something with alcohol."

Sasuke found a juice box, pulled off the straw and stuck it in the hole at the top before handing it to the Mini-Naruto. "Here, Minato," Sasuke ruffled the boy's hair, "Now make sure that gets in the garbage when you're done. Okay?"

Minato nodded and wandered off with his juice box. Sasuke sighed as he watched the kid go, "I'm so gonna be picking that up later."

"Sasuke?" a guy standing near Kankuro and Gaara called out to him. Sakura suddenly knew the guy was Shikamaru. "Be honest. Is it ever weird for your kids to call Naruto daddy, and Naruto's kids to call you daddy?" he wanted to know.

Sasuke stood up from being crouched down to Minato's level and shrugged. "Confusing a little when we don't know which daddy they're taking to," he admitted, "But Naruto's kids are mine, and mine are his. We don't play the separation game."

Shikamaru seemed satisfied with this answer and turned to Gaara. "So I hear from Temari you've got another one on the way, too," he seemed to be congratulating Gaara, "Good for you."

"And I hear you're engaged," Gaara spat. Irritated, but not hostile.

"You're what?" Kankuro choked on some beer.

Sasuke joined the three of them. "Kankuro," Sasuke voice was warning, "Be nice."

"Yeah, I'm engaged," Shikamaru shrugged as if it were no big deal. He wasn't fooling anyone though. He'd been afraid of Temari's brothers since he first started dating Temari. "I assumed Temari would tell you," he tried to save himself.

"She did," Gaara replied, "But Kankuro never checks his E-Mail."

"Who E-Mails an engagement?" someone else entered their conversation. The long, dark hair and white eyes told Sakura right away that it was Neji.

"Who writes one from Italy?" Gaara defended his sister, taking a sip from the can in his hand.

Sasuke turned to the barbecues to check on the food and set up the next round of burgers and dogs. "Gaara, why aren't you drinking exactly?" he asked curiously.

"Sake has never been good with Gaara," Kankuro teased his brother.

Gaara eyed his soda curiously, "I'm just being supportive. If my wife isn't drinking, neither will I."

"You got that from Naruto," Sasuke accused, "He never drinks when Sakura is pregnant."

He never drinks when I'm pregnant? Sakura glanced over at Naruto, climbing up the playground slide the wrong way, As dedicated as always…

"And what about you, Sasuke?" Neji called him out, "I don't see a beer in your hand either."

Sasuke closed the barbecues again and smirked as he turned around. "I just… Don't have a taste for alcohol today…" he replied.

"DADDY!" a young female screeched, saving Sasuke from an uncomfortable situation. He turned his head towards it and found his pink-haired, identical girls running over to him. So those were his twins...

"Whoa! Whoa!" Sasuke knelt down and tried to calm them down, but they were hysterical. "Kasai, Raikou," he cooed their names, not even knowing which one was which since the two of them looked exactly alike, "Easy, come on. One at a time."

A girl grabbed each hand and tugged furiously, though Sasuke didn't move. One of them spoke up, and Sakura only wished she knew which one it was, "Daddy fell! He fell off the play set and he's not getting up!"

Sasuke's blood ran cold, but he didn't freeze up. Instead, he leapt to his feet and took off running. The girls followed him, but were passed by Gaara and Neji, who came up on Sasuke's flanks. The rest of the men went too. Running, but slower.

Sakura scanned the yard. She had been as oblivious as the other adults in the yard, but she saw now how eerily quiet the backyard was. Somewhere behind the play set, she saw all the kids gathered, and that's straight where all the men ran to. She took off as well, her medical experience already forcing the worst case scenarios into her head.

"Naruto!" the kids parted for Sasuke, who dropped down onto his knees beside the blond.

The frightened children separated. Each of them - and sometimes more than one - went to their fathers. In any other circumstance Sakura would have been detailing which kids went with what fathers, but all she could do right now was kneel next to Sasuke and stare down at Naruto's empty expression.

"Naruto…" she cried, "Come on… I know you can't hear me, but this is my dream, damnit! Wake up and be okay!"

Sakura hadn't actually expected that to work, but it did. Naruto blinked his eyes a couple times, then a grin swept across his face and he looked straight at Sasuke. "Hey," he whispered.

"Hey," Sasuke whispered back, though he didn't know why he was whispering, "Are you okay? What happened?"

Naruto tried to sit up a little too quickly and all the blood went rushing to his head. "Oh… Whoa…" he got really dizzy and fell into Sasuke's arms, "Did I fall? Cause my head is saying I fell."

"Yeah you fell, you big dobe," Sasuke chastised him, "You know, if Sakura were out here, she'd be saying stuff like 'Don't scare me like that! Be more careful!' and 'You don't have any spare brain cells, Naruto, so stop losing them!'."

Naruto smirked, "But you'd never say anything like that, huh?"

Sasuke actually blushed at this. Something Sakura had only imagined him doing. Oh, well then that made sense. It was her dream. It was part of her imagination.

"No," he answered, then cleared his throat nervously, "I'd say something more like: 'Next time you freak me out and make me run across the yard, it better be worth it… Which means you'd better be dying,'."

Naruto's eyes were bright, "Sorry I freaked you out… and made you worry."

"Yeah, well," Sasuke helped Naruto get up onto his feet, "Come on. Let's get Sakura to look at you."

Naruto groaned, "Do we have to? It's really not that bad. Just a bump."

Sasuke let go of Naruto, whose head had cleared and he could stand on his own now, but Sasuke still kept his arms out and ready to catch the blond if need be. "Yes, Naruto," he rolled his eyes at him, "You have to."

Naruto grumbled something Sakura couldn't quite catch under his breath.

"Dad!" a boy's voice - older, but not even deep enough to be a teen - came from behind Naruto. Suddenly, the owner of the voice, (a boy looking to be ten), with fiery orange hair and green eyes straight from Sakura's own face, came up beside Naruto and looked him over with worried eyes. "Dad? Are you all right?" he asked anxiously, "I saw you fall. You should really have mom look at you."

"We're going straight to her," Sasuke mentioned to the boy.

Naruto let out an exaggerated sigh, "Am I really so fragile that you guys have to be freaking out over me?" He looked at the boy, "Kitsune, please... I've taken worse hits than that."

By this time, Naruto was standing up straight and walking just fine on his own. He walked past his son and spouse and headed towards the house. "If it will really get you all off my back, I'm GOING TO SEE SAKURA!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air for emphasis.

Sasuke watched the blond walk away with tender eyes Sakura had never seen on him before. Then he reached a hand over to the boy, Kitsune, and ruffled the kid's hair playfully. This dream was actually starting to creep her out a bit.

Kitsune chuckled and batted Sasuke's hand away from his head. "Do you need any help with lunch, dad?" he asked him.

"Can we help? Can we help?" the twins chanted from beside Sasuke.

Sasuke smirked, "All right, come on. If Naruto is being taken care of, let's go have lunch."

The whole, huge group made it's way back to the barbecues, where Sasuke took the last set of burgers off the grills. Kitsune and the twins - Kasai and Raikou? Is that what Sasuke had called them? - were each given jobs and set about helping everyone find seats at the couple of picnic tables they had. Eventually they found that there was room enough for the children to sit, but the adults would have to stand. No matter. They were standing before anyway.

"All right," a brandish brunette with red tattoos on each cheek swallowed such a large lump of hamburger it made Sakura sick to watch it. That was definitely Kiba. "I get confused," he announced, "Whose kids are whose? And not just with Sasuke and Naruto, with all of you."

Sasuke took a swig of soda, and was the first to answer him. "If you want to go by fathers…" he told Kiba, "Minato, the mini Naruto on the end there, is Naruto's. As well as Kitsune, the 10-year-old with the dark orange hair, and Sakura's eyes."

Sakura looked at each child as they were mentioned. They were such lovely children. It made her heart jump into her throat to think she was the mother.

"Mine are the twin girls, Kasai and Raikou," Sasuke went on. Sakura picked out the girls from before, sitting side-by-side and trading off to each other what they didn't like on their plates. "Plus Shisui, the boy with the long-ish black buzz-cut, sitting across from them," he added.

Sakura noticed that all three of Sasuke's children had black eyes, though the girls had her pink hair. She guessed that his eyes were a dominant genetic trait.

"So whose are the two black haired, black-eyed ones at the other end of the table?" Kiba asked, confused. He had probably jumped straight to thinking they were Sasuke's as well.

"They're mine," Sai butted in. Sakura knew it was Sai the instant she saw him. He hadn't changed physically at all, (except that he was taller now). "The older one is Subaru; he's 9," Sai explained, "The younger one is Ibuki; he's 7."

"And the red-head across from them is mine," Gaara mentioned, quite nonchalantly, but Sakura got an odd vibe from him that told her he was being slightly cocky when he said this.

Kiba growled, "Yeah. I know that one. Koigokoro is Hinata's son just as much as he is yours. And I'm always sure to keep in touch with my best friend."

Sakura's jaw felt like it fell off her face. HINATA married GAARA? And had a SON! Not to mention, she was pregnant with another one! This was a fucking weird dream! And was... Kiba... jealous?

She looked around at the rest of the table confused. There were still five children unaccounted for. Who did they belong to? Of course, she probably could have expected that the instant she thought something like that, the question would be answered. But no, it stilled kind of surprised her when Sasuke spoke up.

"And the rest are Neji's of course," he wrapped it up.

Neji nodded, "My boys with the brown hair and matching eyes are Rihatsu, the 13-year-old, and Ronri, the 6-year-old... The dark blue-haired boy with brown eyes sitting on Rihatsu's lap is my 3-year-old, Ikasu." He paused for a second to let that sink in, then continued, with Sakura's eyes still jumping from child to child. "Chishiki is the older girl - being 11 - the brunette with the white eyes sitting by my other girl," Neji explained, "The 8-year-old with the dark blue hair, like Ikasu, and the white eyes like Chishiki."

"Wow," Sakura breathed, "Who would've thought TenTen would become a baby factory... Oh. But I guess I'm really not one to talk."

"You guys trying for another one anytime soon?" Sai asked Neji Sakura's exact thoughts.

Neji's eyes glanced over his five children. "Yes, actually, we are," he replied with a lot of weight on his voice. Like he was ready to have another kid. "We're just waiting for Ikasu's fourth birthday next month before we start trying," he informed them.

"Yeah… Apparently, Sakura wants another one right after Naruto's girl comes out," Sasuke told them, "I think she wants this girl to have another sibling close in age to her, because by the time she hits her due date in three months, Shisui will be five, and he's our youngest."

"Ino said she only wanted two, and that she was fine with boys," Sai joined in, "But I don't think she really understood the full weight of my… uh… lacking female seeds. Who knows what she'll want after Sakura has a girl." The men laughed at this.

Sakura suddenly remembered: There was still one guy missing from them. Naruto still hadn't come back from visiting her older self. She curiously turned and headed for the back door, phasing through it, then crossing the empty kitchen and phasing into the living room.

The first thing Sakura noticed was the lack of gifts there were now. The second was that Naruto was passed out, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch and his head resting on older Sakura's leg.

"He works so hard," Ino was saying when Sakura entered the room, "He really needs to take it easy on himself."

The older Sakura was running her fingers through Naruto's hair. "He just tries to spend as much time with the kids as he can," she told Ino, "He's a wonderful dad."

"Oh, he's an amazing dad," Ino replied, in case Sakura had in any way thought that Ino had meant otherwise, "He's a teacher, after all, so even when you and Sasuke are working late, he's always there for the kids afterschool. He's totally ready to take on another one."

Older Sakura nodded and looked down at Naruto's sleeping face. She obviously didn't want to wake him.

"Oh, Sakura," TenTen spoke up, "You haven't told us what Naruto wants to name your little girl."

"He said I could name her," Sakura whispered, though her voice was loud enough for everyone to hear.

"And?" Temari pressed, "What are you naming her?"

The older Sakura raised her eyes and looked straight at the blue-ish, see-through Sakura, as if she was actually seeing her. Hell, maybe she was. Sakura froze, her eyes widened, and she didn't even blink as she stood locked in her older self's gaze.

"Manami," her older self breathed.

Manami.

Manami.

Manami.

MANAMI!

~~~~~~~~~~

Sakura bolted up in bed like she was waking up from her worst nightmare instead of the most beautiful dream she had ever had. Her bolt had shaken the bed just enough to wake up Sasuke, (laying on her left), without waking Naruto, (on her right).

He lay in the king-sized bed they shared, staring at Sakura's back, and the little bit of the left side of her face that he could see. It seemed that she didn't even care that she had woken him up. That, or she didn't know she had.

Sakura collected fistfuls of the blanket in her hands and buried her face in them. Her shoulders shook slightly, and a few quiet moans escaped into the blanket. She didn't even know why she was crying! She had just had the best dream ever! She shouldn't be upset about it!

But she was. She was, by all definitions of the word, miserable. Her chest ached, and her eyes poured out more tears than she new she had.

Sasuke watched. He wanted to comfort her in some way, but something was stopping him. Sakura crying was not something that happened that often, and watching it happen right here, in the middle of the night made his heart jump into his throat.

He hesitantly raised a hand up to her shoulder, trying to decide what to say to make whatever she was feeling go away, and coming up blank. Suddenly, a movement in the peripheral vision on his right side made him automatically retract his hand and turn away.

Naruto sat up in bed as well, rubbing his eyes and wondering what had woken him up. It only took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then he knew what it was. "Sakura…?" his voice was quiet, almost fearful, "Sakura, what's wrong?"

Sakura didn't answer. She didn't think she could. She just shook her head against the wet blanket.

Naruto didn't hesitate, like Sasuke had. He didn't waste a second of time. He reached one hand behind Sakura, and the other under the blanket and under her legs, then pulled her over and cradled her in his arms, scooting back so he could rest his back against the headboard on their bed.

And he held her, just like that.

He stayed awake for another hour and a half, just letting her cry herself to sleep. If she didn't want to talk, she didn't have to, but she should know that he was here for her. When at last Sakura had fallen asleep again, Naruto moved her, slowly and carefully. He let go of her legs, and turned her so that he could lay down and get back to sleep himself, but also so that her back was pressed against his chest, and he could be there, holding her in case she woke up upset again.

There was someone else who stayed up longer than both of them though. Sasuke - teeth clenched, fist tightened, and face buried in his pillow - cursed himself over and over and over again for reacting the way he did. When would he ever get over himself and change?

~~~

The next morning, Naruto woke up to an empty bed. He practically jumped out of it, leaving the room in just his black and orange boxers. After scanning the hallway, he headed left, to the kitchen, sticking his head into the bathroom and Sasuke's office as he made his way through the hall. When he got to the kitchen, he found Sasuke eating at the table. He didn't necessarily feel like speaking to him, not knowing whether the two of them were still fighting or not, but he did anyway.

"Where's Sakura?"

Sasuke said nothing, just pointed his chopsticks at a note on the table next to him. Naruto snatched it up and read Sakura's perfect handwriting off of it.

Morning boys,
Went over to Ino's this morning to help her out with some stuff. I'm getting a ride to work with her, so here are the keys to the convertible. See you tonight.
- Sakura
P.S. Enjoy your breakfast.

"What kind of stuff does she have to do with Ino at barely 6 in the morning?" Naruto asked out loud, glancing at the clock to make sure his time was right. It was.

Sasuke shrugged. He set down his chopsticks and picked an Onigiri up from his plate and bit into it.

Naruto's teeth clenched. Apparently, they were still fighting. He grabbed the plate off the table with plastic wrap covering it to keep it warm, and stalked away, muttering that he'd be eating in the living room today.

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder and watched the back of his angry blond head back down the hallway. He sighed and dropped his Onigiri back on his plate, having suddenly lost his appetite.

~~~

Patient is respiding... respoding... rispeding...

"Damnit!" Sakura cursed, throwing her pen across the room. It clattered nosily against the wall, then fell to the carpeted floor of the conference room. She grabbed the piece of paper she had been writing on and crumbled it up before tossing it in the pile of crumbled papers - not one of which had landed in the garbage can they were on the floor next to.

Lousy pen. Why couldn't she do her reports in pencil? It made life so much easier!

She shoved herself away from the table. It was noon. She was hungry. And she couldn't focus on her damned paperwork anyway, so she may as well take a break.

She left the reports where they were, confident that no one was going to bother with them, and left the conference room and it's long, empty table and eerily quiet walls for the hustle and bustle of the rest of the Hospital.

It took her a max of 7 minutes to get to the cafeteria, and when she did she was relieved to find her friends waiting at their usual table. She'd been avoiding them this morning - even took a bus to work rather than asking Ino for a ride - but now, she somewhat craved their company.

Lucky her, the line for food was short. She got a chicken Caesar salad for energy she knew she was going to need later, with an apple and milk on the side, then went to take the last open seat at the table.

"Ah ha!" Ino cried when she sat down, "She lives!"

"Very funny," Sakura reached for the plastic top covering her salad, but paused when she noticed neither Ino nor Hinata had touched any of their crappy Hospital food. "What's up?" she asked them, quizzically.

"Oh," Hinata was blushing slightly and playing with a loose strand of hair, "We were waiting for you. We're uh... not eating here today."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at Ino, who just shrugged. "Okay, I'll bite," she told them, dropping her hands from her salad cover, "Where are we eating?"

"I guess we'll find out when we get there," Ino replied.

Hinata picked up her tray and started to walk away from the table with it. Ino followed after her, then Sakura took up the rear.

They weaved their way through busy doctors, nurses and not-so-busy patients. Sakura followed the Ino, who followed Hinata to the elevator where they went up to the second floor and then down another hallway. Sakura looked around curiously... Wait, wasn't hisroom down this way...?

They turned and went into room 304. His room. Gaara's room.

Gaara was sitting up in bed. Or rather, his bed was sitting up and he was laying back against it reading a copy of The Bamboo Cutter's Daughter. He looked up over the novel when the girls entered, then closed it and set it on his left bedside table.

"Hey," he greeted, and Ino and Hinata gave him similar greetings. Sakura remained quiet and hoped he didn't notice. Which he didn't, since he was more preoccupied with watching Hinata.

"Here you are," Hinata handed him a chocolate pudding cup off her tray and a plastic spoon.

"Awesome," he breathed, "Oh, Temari's going to kill me when she finds out about this."

"If she finds out," Ino corrected. She sat in a chair on one side of his bed and folded her legs up onto it so she could set her tray in her lap.

Gaara had opened the pudding and stuck a spoonful in his mouth. "Mmm..." he swallowed the pudding and pointed his spoon at Ino, "You obviously do not know my sister. She knows all." He seemed to suddenly remember something, "Oh yeah, can you knock that sunflower in the pot there out the window, please? And make it look like an accident."

Ino gave Gaara a quizzical look, but he seemed to be really serious. "Um... Oh. Look at this beautiful sunflower," she said in really bad, drawn out acting. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure there was no one walking on the sidewalk below, then bumped the pot out the window, "Oops."

Sakura's mouth dropped open. She hadn't actually though Ino would do it!

"All right, now, why did I do that?" Ino wanted to know.

Gaara had another scoop of pudding in his mouth. He shrugged as if it was no big deal. "It was fake," he said after swallowing his pudding, "Temari put a webcam in it when she though I was sleeping."

Sakura, sitting in a chair beside Ino, looked down at the broken pot strewn across the sidewalk. A doctor was standing next to it, looking up at the building. She quickly shut the screen part of the window, but left the glass part open.

"All right, G-Gaara," Hinata set her tray on the flat surface table attached to his bed, then took her purse off her shoulder. She opened the drawer in the left bed-side table and started taking pudding cups out of her purse and putting them in the drawer. "Let's hope you go th-through them a little slower this time," she joked.

Hinata? Joking? This was odd. Then again, so was having lunch with Gaara and knocking a web-cammed plant out the window.

"Hinata, you are an Angel among mortals," Gaara smirked, "Thank you."

After the last of the pudding cups were out of Hinata's purse, she set it down on the floor and closed the drawer. "You are going to get fat off pudding," she teased, reaching for her tray. She pulled a chair up beside the bed, and Gaara scooted over so there was enough room for her to set her tray on the bed next to him to eat her lunch.

"Well that's good," Ino butted in, waving a plastic spork around, "The boy is skin and bones. He could use some fattening up."

Sakura poked Ino in the shoulder with her spork and the blond flinched away from her. "So could you," she mentioned.

Hinata, Ino and Sakura laughed. Even Gaara chuckled quietly - which didn't work out too well for him, since he ended up coughing a little.

"G-Gaara?" Hinata sounded frightened and worried. She even started to rise from her seat.

Gaara waved his hand at her, as if saying, 'Sit down', as he got out his last few coughs. "Relax," he assured her, swallowing once so his voice wasn't so gravely, "I'm fine. Don't worry."

"It's my job to worry," Hinata told him, taking on a strong tone Sakura hadn't heard in some time. She leaned over him and placed her hand on his forehead. "I was your nurse for 3 years, remember?" she argued.

Gaara took her hand off his forehead. "Yes, but then I got better and you moved on to X-Ray," he said, as if reminding her, "Now you're just a..." he hesitated for barely second, "friend of mine, having lunch with me."

Hinata sat back down and Gaara released her hand so he could go back to his pudding, but they both kept glancing at one another as they ate. Ino and Sakura exchanged their own glances, both wondering the same thing. Did they forget we're here too?

Sakura glanced at the strong and silent red head, then the shy and simple lavender-eyed girl. The two of them were an odd pair... And didn't make any sense. As Hinata had said, she was Gaara's personal nurse for three years before he had started to feel better and she had gotten transferred to the X-Ray lab. Nothing had happened between the two of them for those three years - at least, nothing Sakura had been informed of - so what was going on now?

Sakura's heart jumped into her throat. Her dream! In her dream, Hinata and Gaara had been married! And had kids! Was it possible that her dream was actually... showing her the future?

She rattled her head back and forth, shaking such a stupid thought from her mind. What was she thinking? Was she insane? There was no way a dream could tell the future!

She looked over at Hinata and Gaara once more. Hinata was giggling and blushing while Gaara tried to reach some pudding on his nose with his tongue. Suddenly, Hinata's giggles were stopped short when Gaara tapped an index finger of pudding on her nose. She crossed her eyes too look at the end of her nose, and not only Ino, but even Gaara laughed with her now. It was all silly and childish and...

Sakura's eyes dropped to her tray, where she lazily poked her salad with a fork. … and cute. she finished in her head, Really, really cute...

~~~

Tap, Shh... Tap, Shh… Tap, Shh… Tap, Shh… Tap, Shh…

Naruto stood at the front of his classroom and wrote out line after line of notes, copied straight from the student's HEALTH textbooks. Each stroke of his chalk was a Tap, Shh… kind of noise as he wrote. Each Tap rang out in his ears. Each Shh… grinded his brain. He didn't even have a headache or anything. He was just... He didn't even know what.

"Um… Mr. U- Uzumaki?" a small, hesitant voice behind Naruto spoke up. He turned to locate the kid from who it came.

From the way most of the students turned in their seats to look over at the one specific person, it was pretty obvious who had called out to Naruto, and it surprised him. A lot, actually. It was Mura Kagami. She was simple, plain girl - though she had one of the highest IQ's in the school - but was hopelessly shy around everyone. It was very, very unusual for her to speak up in the middle of class, without even raising her hand.

Naruto was so stunned for a moment that he didn't say anything at first. Then he blinked a few times and snapped back. "Oh. Yes, Mura?" he replied, using her first name in a fashion that might have been considered inappropriately casual to the other teachers in the school, but then again, Naruto had a very casual class.

"W-Well…" the High School Junior dropped her shy eyes to her lap, "I-If there's s-something w-wrong… I-It's al-always b-better t-to t-talk t-to someone ab-about it. That's… That's wh-what you al-always s-say, isn't it?"

Naruto nodded, though Mura didn't see it since her eyes were set firmly on her lap. "Yes," he answered, placing the chalk he had been holding on the chalk tray built onto the chalkboard, "Why? Is there something you need to discuss with me? It's probably better if you wait - "

"No, M-Mr. Uzumaki," she cut him short, surprising Naruto once again, "I-It's n-not me…"

By now, the whole class was looking at Mura. Naruto raised an eyebrow at her. "Then what…?" he began, but his words trailed off into nothing.

Mura took a deep breath and looked straight up to Naruto - her frightened brown eyes locking onto Naruto's confused blue. Then, without a bit of hesitation; without any sort of stutter whatsoever; without dropping her voice from the normal tone it should always be at, she simply asked him, "What's wrong, Mr. Uzumaki?"

Every Junior in Naruto's 30 student High School class turned their heads to Naruto at practically the same time, (give or take a few). Naruto's eyes widened at Mura, who continued to look straight at him with pure worry in her eyes. He shuddered once, then had to drop his eyes to the floor.

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Uzumaki?" another girl, who - from the sound of her voice - Naruto identified as Leiko Ryuji, spoke up, "Is that why you've been acting so strange today."

Naruto brought his head up and looked over at Leiko, "What do you mean, acting strange?"

"Please, Mr. U," a brazen boy on the other side of the room - Yuuto Aya - motioned towards the textbook in Naruto's hand, "You only pull out the textbooks when you're to upset to do something fun."

"He's right," another boy - Botan Shigekazu - spoke up as well, "This is only the second time this year you've had us copying from the books… and the first time was when your girlfriend's dad kicked the crap out of you."

The class snickered and giggled together in remembrance. Naruto had come to school with a black eye and a bag of frozen peas on his face.

Naruto chuckled along with his class. He took a couple steps over to a tall barstool he kept at the front of his classroom for whenever he felt like sitting in the front. He closed the textbook in his hands and dropped in onto the floor with a minimum thump. "So I'm that easy to read, am I?" he asked his class, "Well, fine. Since we're learning about Life Lessons in Health right now… I'll tell you guys what's wrong, and you tell me how to fix it. Deal?"

A number of nods came from the students, along with 5 or 6 'Deal' remarks. Naruto took a deep breath, exhaling with a half-hearted sigh. "Okay," he said finally, "To start, I'm going to make it very clear that I am, in no way pressing my… choices, my… way of life onto any of you. You are each an individual of your own person - your own being, and I do not want to be a bad influence on any of you because of the life I've chosen."

All eyes were glued on Naruto. Curiosity. Worry. Excitement. Wonder. All these different things conveyed through the eyes of a bunch of High Schoolers.

"Well, you see…" Naruto reached his hand back to rub the back of his blond head, "I sort of have a boyfriend…"

"Sort of, or do?" Leiko asked skeptically.

Naruto dropped his hand, "Yeah, I do. I have a boyfriend."

"You're gay?" Botan asked.

"Yes... What did you think I was a wom-" Naruto suddenly cut himself off, waving his hands in front of him, "Nevermind. Ignore that last comment. Yeah, I'm gay."

"But," the girl sitting behind Leiko - Chika Shou - spoke up this time, "I thought you had a girlfriend."

"Yeah, well…" Naruto sucked in a breath through closed teeth, making a hissing sound as he did so, "I do."

"You have a boyfriend and a girlfriend?" Leiko asked, just to clarify.

Naruto sighed, "Yeah."

"Whoa!" Yuuto exclaimed suddenly, "Way to go Mr. U!"

"You jerk!" Leiko snapped across the room at Yuuto, "That's two-timing!"

It started up slow, but then all of a sudden, before Naruto could do anything, his whole class had separated into Boys V.S. Girls. Girls against two-timing, and Boys defending the men who two-timed.

"HEY!" Naruto shouted in order to quiet his class, "SHUT UP FOR A SECOND!"

The room went silent. Everyone who had just been yelling back and forth across the room stopped mid-sentence to turn to Naruto.

"Look," Naruto rubbed his temples frustrated, "Maybe this isn't such a goo idea…"

Groans and complaints echoed all around - 'Come on, Mr. U' - 'Yeah, come on, we wanna know what's wrong' - 'Please, Mr. Uzumaki?'.

"Okay, so… Something went wrong with your boyfriend and girlfriend?" Leiko guessed, "Did they find out about one another?"

"What?" Naruto shook his head, "No. It's not what you think. We're all together. We live together. Eat together. Sleep-" Naruto cut himself off for the second time, "Nevermind."

Most of the boys were stunned, the girls went into FanGirl mode - squealing and giggling - and the rest of the students just went 'Ooo!'

"Hey! Mr. U! Do you have pictures?" Yuuto snickered.

Naruto frowned at Yuuto - his problem student. "Not of what you're thinking, but yeah," he got up from his stool and walked to his teacher's desk at the back of the classroom, "Yeah, I have a small photo album somewhere…" He went digging through his drawers and the piles of paper scattered all across his desk. Maybe teachers were supposed to be organized, but Naruto sure as hell wasn't. "Ah-ha!" he said suddenly, pulling a small orange and red photo album from the very bottom drawer on the left of his desk.

He walked up to the front of the class, then all the way to the left and handed the album to the boy in the front corner desk. "Here," he told his class as the boy took the photo album and began leafing through it, "This should give you a better idea of what we are."

"How long have you three been together?" Botan asked out of no where. A random question, yes, but one the whole class wanted to know the answer to.

"Hmm…" Naruto actually had to think about that one for a minute, "… 12… no… 13… Yep. Thirteen years."

"Okay, but how long have you been together together?" Leiko asked with a smirk. "Oh…" he had to think about that one too, "Uh… Hm… 6 years…" - hesitant pause; unsure if 6 was the magic number - "Yep. 6 years as of two months ago."

Out of no where, a thin, pale hand rose into the air. Naruto smirked and called on the person who's hand it was. "S-So… Wh-What's wrong M-Mr. Uzumaki?" Mura asked barely loud enough for Naruto to hear.

"Well…" Naruto's expression darkened, and he was suddenly very serious, "We're kind of fighting right now."

"Awww…" some of the girls whined together, then Leiko spoke up with, "Why? What happened?"

Naruto took a seat back on his tall stool and sighed. "I don't really know. Something happened to our girlfriend, Sakura," Naruto explained solemnly, "It was like… We were having this fine and wonderful morning, then when we went home after work it was all awkward and silent… She's hiding something, I know that, but Sakura can be pretty stubborn when she wants to be. I don't think she plans to tell me what's going on for a while.

"Then Sasuke and I had a fight last night - that's mine and Sakura's boyfriend, by the way. He's cold and stoic, and that really gets on my nerves sometimes. We started fighting about what to do about what's wrong with Sakura, and I kind of… I kind of accused him of not caring about Sakura or I. He got kind of upset about that, and we haven't really talked since last night.

"And in the middle of the night last night, Sakura woke up crying. She was quiet about it - which is really unusual for her; she's a loud crier - but she woke me up and wouldn't talk to me, so I just kind of had to hold her until she went back to sleep."

Naruto took a few deep breaths. Okay, so his tale had bee a little long, but at least now his class knew the whole situation. He suddenly realized he must be pretty desperate to be asking for advice from a bunch of kids just two years short of being a decade younger than him.

"So, just ask Sakura what's wrong," Yuuto told his teacher blatantly.

"Baka!" Leiko snapped, "You can't just waltz up to a girl and be like 'Tell me what's wrong'. You have to have a plan. You have to at least have a few ideas of what she's going to say, so that you have a few ideas of how to fix it!"

"That's ridiculously confusing," Botan retorted, "How is he supposed to know what's wrong with Sakura? She went to work fine and came home all sad. Anything could have happened."

"Well, what about where she works?" Chika offered, "Could that have something to do with it?"

The students looked over at their teacher, who simply shrugged. "Maybe…" Naruto rubbed the tips of his fingers of his cleanly shaved chin - as if he were thinking about something important, "She works in a Hospital, after all…"

"So, maybe she lost a patient," Leiko suggested, "That might be a reason for her sadness."

"What if she got fired…" Botan thought out loud.

Naruto thought about that one. If Sakura had gotten fired, it would explain why she had claimed to have gone over to Ino's that morning and not driven Naruto and Sasuke to the Hospital like they did every morning. It did seem like the best bet...

Since he had been off in his own little world, Naruto had missed how the conversation had continued on without him. Suddenly, a female voice who rarely spoke up in class - even when called on - suddenly cut through with, "Who the hell are all of you to be giving relationship advice?"

The class turned together, even those who hadn't really been participating in Naruto love problems. They all looked with shocked and pissed expressions at the rebel of their class. The long skirted, super short black with purple streak haired, black lipstick and eye shadow wearing, Kotomi Satou. She raised her eyes from the little red book she was reading, though no one saw the title, and frowned at her class, none of which very much liked her.

"Like you're one to talk," Leiko snapped defensively, "You've probably never had a boyfriend."

"Because I don't want one, not because I don't know how to get one," Kotomi sat up out of her slouch and placed her book on her desk, "And I don't see any boys clinging to your arms either, Lei-ko."

Leiko eyebrows furrowed together and her expression was one of disgust with Kotomi, who just continued smirking.

"It's pretty damn obvious what Uzumaki's problem is," she stated, glancing around the room before resting her eyes on her teacher. She paused for a moment, to draw out the tension of the room, before she simply said, "Us."

And then the silence was broken. Everyone was talking at once. Mostly yelling at each other. None of them understood what Kotomi had meant, so every one of their opinions was wrong.

Naruto shouted a couple times, trying to get them to calm down and shut up, but no one could hear him. He sighed and stuck his right thumb and right index finger in the two corners of his mouth and blew out an ear-splitting whistle that made a bunch of the kids throw their hands over their ears.

"For Kami's sake!" he snapped at them, "Why do you all have to go into a big roaring fight every time someone makes a simple comment? If you all would just shut up for a second and let someone explain, there probably wouldn't be any reason to go at each other's throats!"

The class was quiet. Most of the students turned and looked over at Kotomi, waiting for an explanation.

"I meant kids," she spoke to everyone, even her teacher, as if she were the smartest person in the world, and they were all idiots, "Us. Kids. Get it? Sakura can't have kids."

Now it was Naruto's turn to argue. "That's not true," he told Kotomi, but then his voice drew back a little, "At least... She's never said anything about not being able to have children."

"Wow, you're dense," Kotomi muttered, too quiet for her teacher to hear her - and possibly give her detention for saying so - "Mr. U… You don't get it, do you? It's not that she can't have kids, it's that she won't."

"What do you mean?"

Kotomi rolled her eyes, "Really?" She sighed at Naruto's hopelessly confused expression, "A kid can't have two fathers," she practically spelled it out for him, "Which means it will either be your kid, or this Sasuke guy's kid. And don't you think she's worried? She can't even get married, because if she did, she'd only legally be allowed to marry one of you. This means the other would probably get pissed off and leave her. It works the same way with kids. She's too freaked that once she has one guy's kids, the other will take off."

Naruto blinked blank eyes at her, "B-But it doesn't work that way! Sasuke loves me just as much as he loves Sakura. If he left because Sakura had my kid or whatever, he wouldn't just be leaving Sakura, he'd be leaving me too!"

"Yeah well, isn't that kind of a thing with you men?" Kotomi asked condescendingly folding her arms across her chest, "Once one of you marks Sakura with a kid, she belongs to that guy. I doubt Sasuke will love you anymore if you put a claim to a woman he loves just as much as he loves you."

Naruto didn't answer.

So Leiko did for him, "Oh, what do you know, Satou?"

"More than you, apparently," Kotomi scoffed, with a grin, "Trust me. You don't have to be in a relationship to know them like the back of your hand."

"Prove it," Leiko challenged.

Kotomi shook her head, "You really want me to make a fool out of you, don't you?"

"Shut up. You don't have any experience at all," Leiko snapped, starting to rise from her seat across the room, "You're just worrying Mr. Uzumaki over nothing!"

"It's not nothing, you preppy bitch," Kotomi hissed, "I know what I'm doing."

"Then prove it!"

Naruto didn't intervene. He'd been waiting for this, actually. These two girls had been rivals since kindergarten, and it was time they just went head to head and got over themselves. Plus, he was kind of curious to see where this was going. He took a seat on his tall wooden barstool to watch.

"Shigekazu is in love with you," Kotomi stated simply.

Well Leiko was taken off guard. She looked over at Botan, like most of the class was.

Kotomi went on – her voice practically smug – "Botan Shigekazu transferred to our grade school in third grade. He didn't even know who you were when he first got here, but when he met you a month later, he fell hard and fast."

Botan was blushing madly and trying to keep his eyes on his desk. Leiko sat down.

"And you like him back," Kotomi went on, victory hanging from every word, "But the problem is, Yuuto also likes you." Now the class shifted to look over at a blushing Yuuto.

Kotomi grinned, "He doesn't love you, but he thinks you're cute and smart. Mura is just as smart and twice as cute as you, so he really should be going out with her, since they used to be childhood friends in grade school, and she's loved him ever since then. Even when the two of them grew apart in middle school, and even now.

"And he really likes her too, but he's afraid she'll be to nervous around him all the time, and he doesn't like to make her unhappy and uncomfortable like that. Which, by the way, is total bullshit. Her little cutesy, Oh, I'm so shy! act is total bullshit. She just wants all the boys here to think she's too hard to get, so that they don't approach her, because she only wants Yuuto. I've seen her working as a waitress at a couple different clubs. She's not nervous at all. In fact, Mura hit one of the customers once."

"Mura, is that true?" a girl named Aoi, who sat next to Mura, asked, "Did you really hit someone?"

Mura sighed. "Way to give it away, Gothic Bastard," she snapped at Kotomi, who just continued with her victorious grin, "Yeah. Fine. I hit a guy at a club, but only because the lecherous scum was feeling up my butt whenever my back was turned."

"He what?" Yuuto roared suddenly. Then his face went beet red at what he just did.

"Personally," Kotomi wrapped up, pulling out her headphones and tucking them back into her ears, "I think you all need therapy."

So she does know… Naruto though to himself, Damn. I was hoping she'd be proven wrong…

All the way in the back, Kotomi caught Naruto's eye and mouthed Good luck, to him. Naruto smiled and gave her a single nod. Thanks.

~~~

"Ino, I think it's about time I got off the phone."

"No way, we've barely talked for half an hour."

"Well, honestly, you're not saying much."

"Why do I have to say stuff? Why don't you tell me what's up with you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Sorry, girl, Naruto ratted you out. Says you've been giving him and Sasuke the cold shoulder since yesterday."

"Ino, Naruto thinks I give him the cold shoulder when I don't answer his phone calls while I'm running around saving lives."

"Fair enough. But is there something bugging you?"

"Do I seem like something's bugging me?"

"A little. I just figured it was that time of the month."

"You are a master detective. But no, it's not. Sorry. And don't worry, if something were bugging me, don't you think I'd tell my best friend?"

"Oh I get it. You just haven't found out what's missing yet, right?"

"Well…" BLEEP BLEEP "Shit. Hold on, Ino. Someone's on the other line… Oh, it's Temari. I'll put her on."

"Okay."

"Hey Temari, I'm three-waying you with Ino."

"Hey."

"Hello. How are you?"

"Fine. How's China?"

"Busy. Dirty. Sleazy."

"Sounds like fun."

"I wanna come home. I'm worried about Gaara… oh, and Kankuro assassinating my boyfriend."

"Relax, Gaara's fine. We all had lunch today and he seemed to be enjoying himself THROUGHLY."

"Ino, that's none of our business!"

"What's none of your business?"

"Oh, NOTHING."

"Bullshit. Tell me or so help me Kami I will find a way to throttle you through this phone."

"Well, it is your brother, so I guess it is your business."

"Damn straight it is. Now tell me."

"Ino, don't - !"

"Your brother was putting the moves on Hinata today. It was SO cute."

"My brother? Kankuro?"

"What? Ew. No you moron, Gaara."

"Gaara? Are you pulling my leg?"

"I have never been more honest in my entire life. He was coughing, and she was all, 'G-Gaara?' and he was all 'Relax. Don't worry. I'm fine.' So then she was all 'It's my job to worry, I was your nurse for three years, remember?' So then he was all 'Yeah, but that was before I got better and you moved to X-Ray. Now you're just a… friend having lunch with me.' It was freakin' adorable, Temari, you should have been there."

"What did you memorize the whole scene?"

"Nope. Cause she forgot what happened before all that."

"Huh? Before? … Oh, you mean when Gaara was all 'Hinata, you are an Angel among mortals, thank you.' Yeah, that was sweet."

"No, actually I meant the part were you were all bad actor and pushed Temari's webcam out the second story window."

"You did WHAT?"

"On purpose."

"WHAT?"

"Gaara told me to!"

"Wait, what? Gaara knew?"

"Duh he knew. Honestly Temari, you don't give your brother enough credit."

"I guess not."

"Ugh. Where the hell is Sai?"

"Why? Looking to get laid?"

"Hell yeah. Why should TenTen be the only one having fun right now?"

"Say what?"

"Hm? Oh shit. I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"I forgot that you two don't know about TenTen."

"What about TenTen?"

"She's in Paris. On her honeymoon."

"She got MARRIED?"

"Well it's about TIME!"

"I know right? Neji was always blind when it came to seeing what was right in front of him."

"Maybe that genius brain of his finally got it figured out."

"Or not."

"When did you find out about this?"

"This morning, while you were so blatantly avoiding Hinata and I. Hinata told me she got a letter from TenTen that explained Neji had proposed in Egypt, they had gotten married in Italy, and now they were on their honeymoon in Paris."

"Lucky bitch. I'd kill to get laid right now."

"You know, I get the strangest feeling that something like that is going on right now."

"Yeah, no kidding, I've been trying to get Gaara on the other line since Ino's little 'Gaara told me to' comment. It's supposed to just automatically click me over to the other line if he picks up, but he's not."

"What phone are you calling? Cause the Hospital has a strict rule against cell-phones being on in the building."

"I know. I'm calling his room. It's rang like 20 times but he still won't - "

CLICK. SWOOSH. THUMP. "Damnit!" … "Well, I dropped the fucking phone!" … "I will not CALM DOWN." … "Okay, okay, okay, don't go, I'm calm. See? Heart rate and blood pressure are fine." … "Well, can't I just leave it on the floor?" … "Rrr!" CLANK. CLUNK. "Fuck. Hello? WHAT Temari?"

"Gaara, who the hell were you talking to? And why do you sound all flushed and pissed off?"

"He sounds like he's all out of breath. What are you lifting weights?"

"What the-? How many people are on this line?"

"Sakura and Ino, now stop avoiding my questions. Who were you talking to?"

"Temari that is none of your business. Now what's so important that my phone has been ringing off the hook for 10 minutes?" … "What?" … "I'm not BEING mean, I'm just irritated."

"Gaara, what are you doing?"

"Nothing, jeez." … "Well, I'm not gonna tell her that now am I?" … "Because she doesn't need to know!"

"Why does he think that putting his hand over the mouth-piece makes it so we can't hear him, when we obviously can?"

"I don't think he cares. He seems a little preoccupied."

"All right, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell." … "No wait, Hin - "

"GAARA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Temari, SHUT UP. I don't have time for you right now!" … "No, come on don't go!" … "Well, since you're the one getting dressed and leaving, and I can't get off this bed because of tubes and wires, if you take one more step, I'll just have to rip my IV out and come after you." … "Try me. You know I will."

"Um… I think he didn't hang the phone up all the way."

"Okay, I'm starting to get really freaked. Are either of you two at the Hospital? Can you go see what's going on?"

"Nope. We're at home."

"Yeah, but isn't Hinata working third shift tonight? She's probably in the X-Ray room."

"Sakura, call her. See if she'll pop in on Gaara for me."

"Why do I have to?"

"Because I can only have two other people on my line, and that's you and Temari."

"And I'm already calling from China. This is fuckin' expensive."

"All right, all right, I'm calling."

Sora wo miagereba... Hoshitachi ga hora matataiteru… Kono hoshi no hitotachi mitai ni…

Oh. My. God."

"What is that?"

"That's Hinata's ringtone."

"Coming through Gaara's line."

"Oh. My. GOD."

"SHH! Shut up! Gaara's saying something!"

"…if you want to." … "Well, no, I don't really want you to answer, but it's your choice." … "Well, babe, you sort of have a way of not being able to keep secrets." … "As soon as someone starts questioning you, you get all red in the face and stutter and you spill your guts before you know it." ...

"Oh. I got the voicemail."

SHH! /u

"Wha-?"

"… think it's cute." … "Yep. You get so embarrassed. Like when I kiss you here..." … "And here…" … "And here…" … "Mmph… Mm…"

"Yep. I'm done. Hanging up."

"Me too."

"Right behind you."

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

~~~

Sakura tossed the phone across her king-sized bed where she sat on the edge. She massaged her temples with her hands, and angrily thumped herself back on the bed.

What time was it? She didn't know. She knew it was dark. She knew her townhouse was empty.

Where were her boys? What could they be doing out this late?

The answer came 20 minutes later when she heard the front door open and close again, and two voices speaking in hushed tones.

"Here, put him on the couch."

"Which couch?"

Sai…? Sakura wondered, sitting up again on the edge.

"The larger one, moron."

"Okay. Okay. Jeez."

Sakura rose from the bed and headed for the door. Slowly and quietly, she turned the handle and opened the door just a creak so she could hear better what was going on right outside their room.

"… he's such a dobe," Sasuke stated irritably.

"He's gonna have one hell of a headache in the morning," Sai's tone seemed to be agreeing with Sasuke.

Sasuke shrugged his arms out of his coat and tossed it on the smaller of the two couches in their living room, "Yeah, well… Thanks for helping me carry him in, Sai."

"No problem," Sai replied, heading for the front door, "I better get home before Ino mobilizes the police."

"Hn," Sasuke nodded in understanding. Sai was kept on a short leash – disappearing for a couple hours was definitely going to get him in trouble.

Sai opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it and left without another word.

Meanwhile, Sasuke had gone down the hallway to the kitchen on the other end of the house. He disappeared around the corner at the end of the hallway, and Sakura stuck her head through the door when she heard the sound of rushing water.

Naruto was passed out on the living room couch, though as to why, Sakura had no idea. He was out like a light and snoring like a moose with a head cold at the same time. Muti-tasking, apparently.

The water in the kitchen stopped, so Sakura pulled her head back in before Sasuke could round the corner and catch her. Not that he was very interested in catching her – he was more pre-occupied with folding up the damp rag in his hands and placing it on Naruto's forehead.

Sasuke sat on the coffee table and just watched Naruto for a moment. Naruto's deafening snores finally turned down a couple notches to kind of an off-set purr. Naruto's chest rose and fell with his breathing. Eventually, Sasuke leaned forward and kissed Naruto in the section between his eyes on the dobe's face before straightening himself up and heading off to the bedroom.

Unfortunately, Sakura didn't hear his footsteps – him being so silent and all. So when Sasuke tried to open the door and didn't know Sakura was behind it… well… Sakura got knocked in the ear.

"Ow!" Sakura stumbled back from the door, then fell on her ass next to her bed, "Fuck! Ouch!"

Sasuke pushed the door open the rest of the way and entered their room. "Damn, Sakura, what the hell are you doing?" he asked, kneeling down to help her up.

Sakura yanked herself out of his grasp and climbed over onto their bed, rubbing her ear with her hand, "I wasn't doing anything, you'rethe one who nearly cracked my skull open!"

"Oh wow, I actually got a whole sentence," he feigned shock, "For the first time in two days, she speaks!"

She scowled at him.

Sasuke made his way across the room and to the door that opened up into their walk in closet. He went in and changed out of his suit and into a pair of plain, dark red, cotton pajama pants, choosing to leave his chest bare as he strolled back into the bedroom and crawled onto the bed.

"Well, thank god it's Friday," he commented, laying down on his back resting his head on a pillow with his hands underneath it, "Cause the hangover Naruto's going to have in the morning is going to hurt."

"Hangover?" Sakura narrowed her eyes furiously and her hand dropped from her ear – forgetting about the pain, "What do you mean hangover? You let him drink until he passed out! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sasuke snapped, and he slowly made his way to sit up.

Sakura's eyes dropped to the bed. She lost her spark of anger because she knew exactly what he was asking, but she tried to play dumb, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit," he spat back, "I don't know what the hell is up with you, but whatever it is, you better get it straightened out, because it's not just affecting you, Sakura."

Sakura blinked and slowly brought her eyes back up, "What do you mean?"

"You went to work two days ago happy and fine as ever, then came home as an empty shell. In addition to ignoring the two of us, you've also been causing Naruto and I to overly worry about you," Sasuke was ranting, something he didn't do practically ever but was doing now because he felt Sakura needed to hear this, "Somewhere in the mix of all that you've thrown at us, Naruto and I ended up fighting. He disappeared on me afterschool, Sakura. I got a call from Sai telling me Naruto was passed out at a bar. And since Naruto hardly ever drinks, this is kind of a big deal!"

Sakura bit her lip. What was she supposed to say to that?

"You could start with an apology," Sasuke read her mind clearly through her expression, "And Then you could explain to me what the hell is going on with you."

"I…" Sakura couldn't hold his eyes. She tried, of course, but Sasuke had the kind of stoic eyes that could peer right into your soul if you let them, so her aquamarine eyes dropped down to her knees, where her hands were resting.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as sparkling tears began brimming on her eyes, "I'm so…" She choked. "So sorry if I've been making you worry, but I… I just…"

"Just what Sakura?" Sasuke got off the bed, cause he seriously felt like breaking something, and he didn't want that something to be Sakura. "What is wrong with you?" he asked, pressing and raising his voice, "What is it you want from me?"

"I WANT A LIFE!" she snapped. Loud.

Damn. It was too late. Her eyes were brimming with tears and the worse had been said. Sakura furiously tried to wipe the tears away as Sasuke watched her – confused for the first time in quite a while.

"What?"

Sakura couldn't look at him, but she knew she owed him at least an explanation. "I want… a life, Sasuke," she cried, "I want to get married and have children and grow old with someone I love…"

"Sakura…" Sasuke couldn't really think of anything to say beyond that.

Sakura stood on the other side of the bed, facing Sasuke, shaking with sobs. "I want…" her crying made it hard to breathe, "I can never have what I want, because it would mean I had to choose!" She paused. Her eyes fell to the ground, where tears escaped her and plunked onto the carpet, "I can't choose… I can't…"

Sasuke sighed, "No one's asking you to choose, Sakura. You can have that life you want, we just- "

"Just what Sasuke?" she snapped, spitting his own words back at him, "You and Naruto aren't allowed to get married, and I can't marry two different men. How would we build a life together? How would the two of you decide who gets to have kids with me and who doesn't?" A brief memory of her dream from the previous night started to wiggle its way into her mind, but she shoved it back into it's little box and locked it down. This was reality. She didn't have time to chase wild fantasies here.

"I can't believe that's what this is about!" Sasuke shouted, moving farther away from the bed as his anger and his voice rose together, "Sakura, I swear, sometimes you can be so selfish!" He turned away from her to face out the window, crossing his tense arms over his chest.

"I'm selfish?" she was angry now, but the hot tears continued raining down her cheeks, "I'm selfish because for once I want something more than what I have? FOR ONCE! What the hell kind of sense does that make?"

"No, Sakura," Sasuke turned back slightly to look at her, still shouting, "You're not selfish for wanting more! Everyone wants more than they have! It's human nature!" He uncrossed his arms and waved them as he spoke, "You're selfish for Naruto and I in the first place! You're selfish for keeping this to yourself and dragging Naruto and I down with you!"

Sakura narrowed her eyes furiously, preparing her verbal counter attack. She never got to execute that attack, however, since the door suddenly creaked open. Sasuke and Sakura's head's whirled in the direction of their bedroom door and found Naruto, half-asleep and only keeping himself upright by leaning hard against the doorframe. He was breathing heavily, and clearly still drunk, but he lifted his head and looked back and forth between the two of them with lazy eyelids.

"Waz wif all da yellin?" he asked. His words were slurred and hard to make out, but his two companions still heard him.

"Naruto," Sakura's voice was so soft and so worried, it made Sasuke's heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vice knowing how much she cared for their big blond idiot, "Honey, what're you doing up?" She slipped off the covers and went to the door to help him to the bed.

Sasuke went over to help too, but the bed was only a yard or two away from the bed, so when he reached the two of them, Sakura was already settling Naruto down. He helped get Naruto into a laying down position, and somehow ended up on the bed as well, with Naruto's head resting in his lap.

"You guyzz er reelly lowd," Naruto muttered, like he was trying to complain, but he was too tired to, "An yur fightnen bout somezing retarded." He paused and shifted his head around on Sasuke's sweatpants a little. "And I'm supposed to be the dumb one," he said perfect and clear before passing out again.

Sakura smirked, then left the room without a word. She was gone a little less then 5 minutes, then she came back in with the wash cloth Naruto had abandoned in the living room – freshly cooled and damp. She placed it on Naruto's forehead – avoiding Sasuke's gave as she did so – and brushing the back of her hand across his burning cheek.

She then pulled away from Naruto and went to the end of their king-sized bed, where there was a trunk filled with extra blanket. She grabbed a random one from the top of the pile inside the trunk and headed for the door; pausing only slightly to reach behind Sasuke and grab her pillow.

She sighed and finally allowed herself to meet Sasuke's eyes, "I'm gonna sleep in the guest room tonight."

Sasuke's eyes widened a little. He hadn't actually thought their petty fight would some to this. "Sakura…" he began, searching for a way to convince her that sleeping somewhere else wasn't necessary.

Sakura just shook her head and left anyway. She didn't want him to convince her of anything, and she could hear in his voice that he was going to. She closed the door behind her.

Sasuke turned his eyes down to look at Naruto. After a few seconds of hesitation, he gently raked his hand through his companion's brilliant blond hair.

This would not end well.

~~~

She was gone for three days.

Sasuke paced around the living room. Both he and Naruto were skipping work again today.

And so was Sakura. Because she was missing.

"Aren't the cops doing anything?" Ino was there too, sitting on the couch with Sai. Her cheeks were tear-stained and puffy. She'd been crying since yesterday.

"They just got started looking into it," Naruto replied, much to calm for his personality. "We had to wait 48 hours before we were allowed to call in a missing person, remember?" He should have been freaking out right now. Which he was, but only when the others weren't looking. For once, he figured it was probably a good idea to just keep his mouth shut and not cause anymore stress.

"I just don't know why she would take off like this," Ino's eyes were glossed over and looking ready to spill another round of tears. She quickly buried her face in her hands before that could happen, and Sai - always weird when it came to displays of emotions - awkwardly placed an arm around his fiancé in a futile attempt to comfort her.

A sudden knock on Naruto and Sasuke's front door made everyone in the room jump. Naruto stood from the chair he had been sitting in, but he didn't head for the door since Sasuke had already beaten him to it by the time he was standing.

Sasuke wrenched the door open, forgetting about the chain lock, and just breaking right through it. Standing on their small square of porch he found Hinata, closing her umbrella and she wiggled her way into the house and out of the pouring rain.

Furiously, Sasuke slammed the door behind his cousin. Muttering a curse to the bucketfuls of water coming from the sky and preventing him from looking for Sakura. He took a deep breath, then turned and offered to take Hinata's coat and hat and hang them up for her. An offer she accepted before joining everyone else in the living room.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at Hinata. She was still in her lavender Hospital scrubs. She was supposed to still be at work, for that matter.

"Hinata, why- ?" he started to ask, but she interrupted.

"They s-sent m-me…" she sniffed and went over to join Ino on the couch. She had the same puffy cheeks as her light blond friend, so Naruto was pretty confident in guessing that she had been crying for a while now too. "They sent m-me home," she tried to keep her shaking voice from cracking, "They t-told me to t-t-take some t-t-t-ime to g-get myself together." She swallowed and did her best to push out a smile, "I g-guess I w-w-was scaring some p-patients with all my blub-blubbering."

She gave up. She pulled her legs up onto the couch with her and cried into her knees. She must have cried Why? and Where? over 15 times each, but nobody said anything. Nobody minded.

Everyone was thinking the same thing. Why? Where?

Sasuke resumed his pacing. Naruto watch him sadly. It may had taken his stupid self forever to learn, but he knew what lay beneath that cold expression. Sasuke was feeling guilty. He was the last one to see Sakura three days ago. He thought it was his fault she had run off.

Just then Shikamaru and Gaara came into the living room. They had been on the phone in the kitchen, talking to Temari and Kankuro. Now they came in aggravated, and glaring at one another.

"What's up?" Naruto asked as casually as he could force out with the pressure of the current situation.

"She's landing now," Shikamaru announced. Before he could finish though, Gaara came in with, "And Kankuro's at the airport waiting to bring her here."

Naruto sighed, and his eyebrows came together in a sort of upset face, "I thought you guys were going to tell her she didn't need to come home! She shouldn't have to go to all this trouble to come home early."

Shikamaru rubbed the back of his head, the same bored expression taking over his facial features. "Trouble? Temari?" he asked, sarcastically, "Are you kidding? The girl lives to cause trouble."

"He tried," Gaara explained, jutting a thumb at him, even though Shikamaru as standing right next to him, "But Temari was already on the plane. Plus, she gave him an earful when he tried to tell her she wasn't needed here."

Sasuke suddenly hissed sharply and exited the living room. Naruto guessed all that pacing had probably given his boyfriend a headache.

Which was both wrong and right. Sasuke did have a headache, but it wasn't from pacing. It was from worry. Sakura was gone – left without a note or anything. Where she was and why she had gone were completely unknown to anyone, and it was tearing his scull apart that he couldn't even go out and look for her.

He stopped. A few steps back brought him to stand right next to the guest room where Sakura had said she was going to sleep before she disappeared – whether she had actually slept there remained to be seen.

Sasuke glance down to the end of the hallway out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't see any of the people clogging up his living room, since the living room area itself was off to the side a bit, but that wasn't the point. He was looking back to check and see if anyone had tried to follow him. No one.

Slowly, he pushed the door open with one hand and entered the guest room. It was empty – he knew that – but something was pulling him in. The hope of finding something that would lead him to Sakura, maybe?

Hope… he scoffed in his thoughts as his eyes scanned over the surfaces of the room, That's new.

There was a desk, with Sakura's cherry red laptop on it.

The bed was slightly messed up – like she had been lying on top of the covers, not like she had slept in the bed.

Sakura's purse was on the desk next to the laptop – the contents strewn across the surface of the desk and some even on the floor.

Everything was as untouched as it had been three days ago. The only difference now was the barely visible layer of dust forming on the objects.

Sasuke took another step into the guest room. Allowing himself to become intoxicated with the scent of Sakura. A scent that probably wouldn't last much longer.

He blinked.

Wisps of pink smoke filled the room. He knew it was his imagination – his mind wishing for something that wasn't there. The smoke took the form of Sakura, as he had last seen her. She was lying on the bed in her pajamas, with her hands tucked behind her head and her eyes on the ceiling.

Sasuke said nothing. Did nothing. Just watched.

The smoky Sakura sighed and shifted over to sit up and get off the bed. She stood from the edge of the bed and hesitantly made her way to her laptop. The real, solid, red laptop stayed closed and on the desk, but when the smoky Sakura sat down, she lifted open a smoky version of the laptop and started clicking around for a couple minutes.

More of a plaguing imagination came in the form of a smoky orange Naruto, who formed sitting on the edge of the bed. This one spoke…

"It's your fault you know," it told him. The voice sounded like Naruto's, but it had a ghostly echo to it. Sasuke said nothing, so the smoky orange Naruto continued, "If you had just swallowed you pride and cuddled her before I did that night… maybe she would have felt you actually cared."

Sasuke didn't respond. He wasn't shocked or anything. This wasn't the first time his imagination had pulled something like this on him, and he was not in the habit of speaking to hallucinations.

"You don't even care, do you?" the Naruto questioned, rising from the bed, "'Leave her be,' he said, 'Don't worry,' he said. Lot of good that's done us, Sasuke."

Sasuke's teeth clenched. Shut up… he willed his thoughts, Shut up…

"She's GONE, Sasuke," the Naruto was getting harsher as Sasuke got angrier, "She's GONE, and it's YOUR FAULT! You did nothing to understand her! You didn't even try!"

Sasuke took a single step back. He was being forced back. His own mind was attacking him. Stop it! he threw his palms on his temples, locking his head in his vice-like hands, STOP!

"She could be dead, you know," the Naruto got softer for only that sentence. All of a sudden, his eyes angrily locked to Sasuke's – his iris' changed into a violent red-orange and widened in the white's of his eyes; his pupils slanted like a cat's eye; his cornea glinted with the madness of a wild animal. "SHE COULD BE DEAD," he shouted, a growl ripping from his throat, "SHE COULD BE DEAD AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"SHUT UP!" Sasuke screamed at his hallucination, "JUST SHUT UP!"

The Naruto drew back. His voice was still like hot metal against bare skin, but it was quieter. "Well, I guess now you know what it felt like for us when you decided to disappear for a couple years…" he hissed, "Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Baka, be quiet!" another voice snapped at the smoky Naruto. It was the pink, smoky Sakura. She surprised both Sasuke and the Naruto. Sasuke had forgotten she was in the room.

Sasuke watched her rise from the seat in a rush. She quickly seized a smoky-looking pink bag that wasn't actually sitting on the desk – the real one was on the floor - and dumped the smoky contents everywhere, which disappeared as they aligned with the actual objects strewn across the desk and floor.

"Don't be mean to him, Naruto," the smoky Sakura chastised the Naruto as only Sakura could, "Besides… I'm not dead…" she grabbed a non-existent smoky pen and paper and scribbled something down she read from the computer. She then dropped the smoky pen, where it disappeared into the real pen – laying on the desk – and picked up her smoky keys, which had also fallen out of the smoky purse.

What the HELL was he seeing?

"… he's going to save me," she finished, grabbing a pair of smoky car keys and turning to look Sasuke dead in the eyes.

She smiled and held the keys and the paper out to Sasuke. "You should hurry," she told him simply.

Sasuke looked from the smoky face of Sakura, to the Naruto, back to Sakura and finally down to the keys and the note in her hand. He reached a hand forward slowly.

As soon as his hand brushed against his hallucination, it disappeared. Everything disappeared. Even the scent of Sakura that had once filled the room.

Sasuke looked around the empty room. What was that about? What was his own mind trying to tell him?

His eyes finally rested on the open computer.

Or… What was Sakura trying to tell him?

~~~

"SAKURA!" Sasuke cried out at the top of his lungs. His throat was hoarse and it was hard to breathe in this pouring rain, but still he screamed for her again, "SAKURA!"

This was really stupid. Why had he snuck out the back instead of telling Naruto where he was going? Why had he left his phone in his room? Why hadn't he even bothered to put on a jacket before walking 4 blocks to catch a bus uptown and now 7 more blocks to reach his destination?

Now if he fainted and died out here he and Sakura would both be screwed.

"SAKURA!" he coughed, he wheezed. Sasuke's body shook from the wet and the cold, and still he raised his head, sucked in a breath and shouted again, "SAKU-"

He stopped. Wait. This was it. This was the house on the corner. The great white house that had been on Sakura's computer.

"Sakura!" Sasuke went running. Up the few first cement stairs, then slipped on the huge wooden stairs attached to the even bigger wood wrap-around porch. "SAKURA!" he cried, pounding his fists on the door, "SAKURA, PLEASE! ARE YOU HERE? SAKURA! Sakura! … sakura …"

Slowly roar in his voice died down. The door was locked, and there was a sign in the window:

FOR SALE BY OWNER

No. No. No. No. NO! Sasuke dropped to his knees, his shoulders shaking with sobs that he refused to let out, It was a mistake. It was all a mistake. She wasn't here. She wasn't…

Sasuke's peripherals suddenly caught sight of something a couple feet from him. A collapsed figure that didn't belong on any porch, much less this one.

"Sakura!" Sasuke exclaimed. He didn't even bother getting up from his knees. He crawled the couple feet over to Sakura, panic rising in his throat.

Her face was pale. Her lips were blue. Was she even breathing? Sasuke couldn't stop his hands from shaking long enough to check. They fluttered uselessly over her body – traveling up and down the length of her form, but never actually touching her.

"Oh god, Sakura…" Sasuke tried to remember how to breathe. How to think. How to get help.

Help. Help! That's right! He needed help!

"H-Help!" he shouted to the rain drenched streets and houses and cars. The again, louder, "H-HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!"

His gaze fell back on the unmoving Sakura. "I… I…" his thoughts were scrambled, but he knew enough to know he needed to go knock on a door and find help.

He placed a hand on Sakura's smooth, freezing cheek. "I'll be right back," he assured her, "I promise. I just need to go get help." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Stay with me, Sakura," he pleaded, "Please, Sakura, stay…"

~~~

"You have to let me in, I'm her boyfriend!"

N-Naruto?

"Nice try pal, but her boyfriend is already in with her."

"I'm his boyfriend too!"

"Uh-huh sure."

"He's not lying, let him through."

S-Sasuke?

"But- You- "

"Will you just shut up and let him through?"

"Uh… y-yeah… I guess…"

"Sasuke! What the hell happened to you? And what happened to Sakura?"

"The doctors say she probably tripped since the contusion on her head looks like she hit it on the ground. She was dehydrated and unconscious for two days - borderline coma state. That's how I found her."

"Found her where?"

"Please, Naruto… It's a long story and I'm tired…"

"Right of course. Get some rest, I'll be here when you wake up."

"Looking forward to it."

Warmth. A warm… hand? A warm hand holding hers. She knew this warmth… This warmth was…

"Naruto," she sighed.

"Sakura?" Naruto's voice was somewhat louder than even he expected, since he suddenly lowered it, "Are you asleep?"

"No…" she murmured.

With great struggle, Sakura got her heavy eyelids opened to find Naruto's face – red cheeked, worried, and blue eyes full of tears. "Jeez Sakura," he reached a hand down and placed it on her forehead. She didn't feel any warmth from it like she felt from his hand, leading her to believe she probably had a fever.

"Hey," she whispered. She barely had any voice at all. She wondered why that was.

Naruto sniffed. "Hey," he replied in a sort of half-laugh, half-cry.

"She's up?" Sakura heard Sasuke ask.

Very carefully, Sakura turned her head so she could find Sasuke without knocking out any of the tubes and wires coming out of her. He was in the hospital bed only a good two or three feet from her. She had a feeling they could probably reach each other if they both reached their arms out to one another. Of course, his lucky ass was only attached to like, two wires – an I.V. and a heart rate monitor.

"Hey," she croaked out once more.

Sasuke's face was unusually red. She had expected that her being in the hospital - which is where she was pretty sure she was - would upset Naruto, but she didn't think Sasuke would cry for her too. Maybe, he had a fever or something.

Sasuke, who had propped himself up on his elbow to look over at Sakura, now fell back onto his pillow with a dramatic, "UGH!" Sakura turned her head back to look at Naruto with a confused expression.

Naruto chuckled at her expression, "That's Sasuke speak for, 'You scared the shit out of me with your little disappearing act, Sakura'." He let go of her hand and started walking around to the other side of Sasuke's bed.

"Dis… Disappearing?" Sakura tried to recover the memories that would explain this, but she couldn't. Who knew if she ever would?

"Yes Sakura," Sasuke tried not to snap, but he had that edge in his voice. "You disappeared," he informed her, "You were gone for three days."

"Three-?" she began, but Naruto interrupted her.

"No, no, no," he told the both of them, "Shut up, the both of you." He stood on the other side of Sasuke's bed and set his arms out straight and suddenly started pushing Sasuke's wheeled hospital bed towards Sakura's.

"What the hell are you doing, dobe?" Sasuke protested.

"We are not talking about the past…" Naruto stopped when Sakura's bed was touching Sasuke's, "No talk of Sakura's wanting a future…" He pushed the heart rate monitor and the I.V. stand closer to Sasuke's bed, "No talking about the fighting between the three of us..."

Naruto went over to the door of the room and closed it, "No talking about me getting drunk…" He switched off the light and headed back over to the two of them, "No talking about Sakura disappearing, or Sasuke's disappearing after her..."

The blond dobe went to the end of their beds, crawled up and wormed his way between the two of them. "We can worry about the past some other time…" he snuggled half on Sakura's pillow and half on Sasuke's, "And the future doesn't need to be brought up until we get around to it."

He yawned, "For now… can we just… for once… can we just… be?"

Sakura watched the worry lines on the face of her Naruto smooth as the baka fell asleep. She smiled and shifted over the best she could to cuddle against him. Yes, Naruto… Let's just be… she answered him with her thoughts. She closed her eyes and fell asleep with him.

On the other side, Sasuke moved closer to the two of them. He folded one arm up and tucked it under the side of his head. The other arm he used to drape his hospital blanket over the three of them, then left laying on Naruto and Sakura's waists.

Sasuke sighed and closed his eyes, and as he did so tears welled up behind his eyelids…

…and he cried.

~~~~~~~~~~

Epilogue

~~~~~~~~~~

"Come on Sakura!" Sasuke shouted, thumping a fist against the bathroom door, "How long does this thing take?"

"Oh wait," Sakura's voice drifted out from inside the door with a kind of sarcasm only Sakura herself could pull off, "I just read the label. It says it actually works faster the more you YELL AT ME ABOUT IT!"

Naruto, sitting on the opposite side of the door than Sasuke, started snickering at the two of them.

"What are you laughing at?" Sasuke snapped. He was excited, and frightened, and horny… These emotions did not work well in him.

"A little stressed for sex?" Naruto asked, just poking fun in his usual dobe way.

Sasuke thumped the back of his head against the wall. "What do you think?" he practically groaned.

"I would have thought five months would be easy for you, Sir Strong and Silent," Naruto chuckled, "Guess not."

Reaching a hand up, Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and pointer finger. The throbbing below his belt was making his head hurt. "Shut up," he ordered Naruto.

"And just who said I'd have sex with you after I'm done?" Sakura asked through the door.

"The hell you won't!" Sasuke turned his head sharply in the direction of the bathroom door. Too sharply. Now his heart hurt more.

Naruto sighed and stood up. For some reason, he and Sasuke had changed personalities in the last five months. Maybe it was the sex. Maybe Naruto getting nailed every other night while Sasuke had to sit in the living room with the T.V. on full blast while he tried to ignore the two of them had softened Naruto and keyed Sasuke up a couple notches.

Or maybe Naruto was maturing in preparation for the upcoming events?

Pfft… Yeah right. It was totally the sex.

Naruto went over to Sasuke and pushed his raven-haired companion against the wall by his shoulders. "Relax, Sasuke…" he cooed, "In 5 more minutes you'll have exactly what you want…" He leaned forward, his warm breath intoxicating Sasuke in ways the dobe couldn't even imagine he was doing.

"Yeah… Or I'll find out I won't be allowed to have sex for another month," Sasuke hissed.

"Hm," Naruto leaned in a little farther.

All of a sudden, Sasuke's hand came up and stopped the blond's lip from meeting his. "Don't kiss me," he growled. He was angry with himself, and had no right to growl at Naruto, but it couldn't be helped now.

"Why?" Naruto's hold on Sasuke's shoulder's loosened and his face looked like a kid who had just been slapped by their parent.

Sasuke thumped his head back against the wall. "Because if you kiss me, I won't stop," he was practically whining. Naruto was stunned. "And we need to find out what the test says before I can touch you," he wanted to growl again, but forced himself to swallow it.

Naruto frowned and pulled away from Sasuke suddenly. A second later he was pounding on the bathroom door with both his fists. "COME ON SAKURA!" he shouted, "HOW LONG DOES THIS THING TAKE!"

Sasuke blinked… There was a pause… And then he burst out laughing.

Naruto was shocked to say the least. Sasuke had been branching out with his emotions – both he and Sakura had noticed the dramatic change since Sakura's accident – but he was laughing! Like, grabbing his gut, doubling over and only keeping himself standing by leaning against the wall laughing!

So Naruto joined in.

A moment later, the door opened and Naruto's fists, which had been resting against it, fell away from the door. "If you two nut-bars are done…" she seemed really upset. Almost on the verge of crying.

Naruto and Sasuke immediately stopped. Naruto's eyes widened and he slowly stepped toward her. "Oh, Sakura…" he whispered, reaching out of her, "Sasuke was only kidding. He doesn't mind waiting for sex. We'll keep trying and check again next month…"

"No… No… It's just…" Sakura stepped back from him, grabbing her arms in her hands, holding herself.

"What's wrong, Sakura?" Sasuke asked, truly concerned.

"Well…" She suddenly turned to them. All at once, her face brightened, a smile stretched all the way from one ear to the other. "WE'RE PREGNANT!" she screamed.

"Oh my god!" Naruto was freaking out worse than Sakura. He wrapped his arms around her and practically shoved his tongue down her throat.

When at last Naruto let her go, Sakura was swept up off her feet by Sasuke – who twirled her around and smiled. "That's our girl," he told her, before putting her down and giving her a kiss of his own.

"Holy shit!" it was like it just hit Naruto again, "We're pregnant!" He threw his hands up into his hair and continued repeating the two words over and over again, faster and faster, "We're pregnant… We're pregnant… We're pregnant… We're pregnant… We're pregnant… We're pre - "

Sasuke put Sakura down and grabbed the front of Naruto's shirt, yanking his dumb blond toward him and swallowing him in a kiss. "We're pregnant, Naruto…" he whispered against the dobe's mouth.

Naruto stumbled back and threw his fists in the air. "WE ARE PREGNANT!" he screamed at the very top of his lungs.

"Oh!" Sasuke suddenly remembered something, "Wait here. I'll be right back."

Sasuke took off down the hallway and ducked into his office. Naruto and Sakura exchanged confused glances, but didn't move an inch. Something fell. There was a crash. Then Sasuke swore. And all of a sudden he was out in the hallway again, coming towards them with two small, gift wrapped boxes.

"Here," he shoved the boxes at them. There was a dappling of blush on his cheeks, and he could keep eye-contact with either of them, so he became thoroughly interested in the wall next to them.

Sakura daintily ripped open the paper with her nail, while Naruto just tore the top of the box off – paper and all. Inside, they both found a single key and a piece of paper.

"Oh… Sasuke… You didn't…" tears came into Sakura's eyes and blurred the writing on the paper shaking in her hands.

Naruto had a copy of the same paper Sakura was holding. It was a FOR SALE statement. Like, those flyers that people hand out when their trying to sell their house. Except the house on the paper was what the three of them had so fondly decided to call "The House on the Corner". It was the house of Sakura's accident. The house from the dream that haunted her everyday.

It was the house she had fallen in love with, but then found that they didn't have the money to buy.

"H-How…" Sakura furiously tried to wipe the tears from her eyes as they streamed down her cheeks, "How did y-you…"

"I'm a lawyer, Sakura," he stated like she was an idiot. He didn't mean to – that was just the kind of tone he had, "It's my job to convince people to give me what I want."

Sakura tackled him to say the least. She jumped on him and hooked her legs around his waist kissing him deeper and more lovingly than she ever had before. Her mouth never left his. Their lips melded together. Her tears fell on his cheeks.

And then Naruto interrupted.

"Well that kicks the crap out of my gift," he commented, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

They stopped. Sakura still didn't untangle her legs from Sasuke, but she pulled her face away from his and they both looked over at Naruto.

"Your gift?" Sakura asked.

Naruto reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small black velvet case with "Tiffany's" written into the velvet in red. He anxiously twirled the box around in his hands, "Yeah, well…"

Sasuke lifted Sakura off of him by her waist. Hesitantly, he reached over and took the box from Naruto's hands. Slowly, he opened it. Inside he found three gold rings in three separate slots in the velvet.

Sakura gasped, "Naruto…"

Plucking one of the rings from the box, Sasuke lifted it up to examine it. He knew enough to know the ring was real gold. Maybe… 14 k? Then he spotted something on the inside of the ring. An engraving.

Sakura

"This is yours," Sasuke told her, handing her the ring.

She took it in her hand and ran her fingers along the smooth surface of the beautiful gold. She noticed the engraving as well, and the tears returned. "Naruto?" she called the blond's attention.

Naruto looked over at her curiously. She was holding the ring out to him. He smiled and took the ring from her, stooping down on one knee.

"Wait a second, wait a second," Sasuke butted in, breaking the moment, "Why does he get to propose?"

Sakura looked at him quizzically, "Because he bought the rings."

"I bought a house," Sasuke argued.

"Sasuke. Really?" Sakura crossed her arms at him, "Are you really going to fight him over this? Can't you just let him have his moment?"

Sasuke blinked. Oh. She thought he meant… "No, no, no," he explained, "I'm not arguing about that. It's just, he's proposing to us, so I wanted to propose to him, even if he did buy the ring."

"Oh," Sakura nodded, "Well, I'm the girl. I don't want to propose to him, I want him to propose to me… So you can go right ahead and propose to him if you want."

Sasuke pulled the ring with the engraving Naruto out of the little velvet box, then handed the box to Sakura. He held out the hand not holding the ring, "You first, dobe."

Naruto grinned and took Sasuke's hand, allowing himself to be pulled up from the floor.

"All right," Sasuke smirked, "I'm not going to do anything big and romantic. I'm not even going to get down on one knee." He looked at Naruto, staring straight into his big, bright blue eyes. "But I love you," he looked over to Sakura, "Both of you. And today marks the beginning of our lives together." He then slid the ring onto Naruto's left ring finger, and raised the hand up to kiss the sliver of gold.

"And I love you both as well," Naruto continued. Great. Now there were tears pricking the backs of his eyes too! He took the box from Sakura and pulled out the ring to put on Sasuke's hand.

Then he turned to Sakura. He still had Sakura's ring from when she had handed it to him earlier. Once more he got back down on one knee, "Sakura…"

Sakura's eyes were slowly over flowing with happiness. "Oh, just put the ring on, Naruto," she said, giving him her hand.

Naruto smiled at her and slipped the small piece of gold over her left ring finger before standing up again. The three of them did what they normally did in situations like this. Sakura pecked Naruto. Naruto pecked Sasuke. Sasuke pecked Sakura. Sasuke threw Sakura over his shoulder and started carrying her away.

Wait. What?

"Sasuke!" Sakura protested. He had picked her up and thrown her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a sack of flour. She didn't know whether to be flattered or annoyed. So she was both, "You do know I'm pregnant, right?"

"Yeah. I heard," Sasuke still didn't put her down. He headed down the hallway to their bedroom with Naruto trailing along behind the two of them. "Which means I get to have sex again," he sounded… almost perky with that last bit.

"Oh I don't know…" Sakura's voice was dripping with sarcasm, "I'm really beat today. I don't think I can handle sex with you today… What do you think Naruto?"

Sasuke went into their bedroom and dropped Sakura on the bed, on her butt. Naruto stood over at the door and leaned against the doorframe.

"Yeah, I'm pretty tired today, too," Naruto faked a yawn, "Maybe some other time Sasuke."

They were messing with him. He knew that. But still… he wasn't in the mood to be messed with. "That's it," he snapped, "No more Mr. Nice Sasuke."

Naruto chuckled. "There's a nice Sasuke?" he teased. Sakura giggled along with him.

"All right look," he roared, "I wasn't allowed to have any sex whatsoever for FIVE MONTHS! Five months I waited for this screwball-" He pointed to Naruto. "-to get you pregnant, so the three of use could have a baby.

"I wasn't even allowed to have sex with him on the off chance that some of my leftover cum would get transferred to you somehow," at this point he reached down and pulled his black T-Shirt up over his head and disguarded it on the floor.

He turned to Naruto, "Naruto, you've got some mouth on you, let's use it for something other than talking though."

He turned to Sakura, "Sakura, you have about 5 seconds to be undressed, or I'll rip your clothes off myself. And I know how much you like those pajamas."

Naruto glanced past Sasuke to Sakura. "It seems he can't be stopped," he commented on Sasuke's current state of sex-need.

Sakura shrugged, "I do like these pajamas."

With a sly, foxy grin, Naruto stepped into the bedroom and closed the door with his foot while he pulled off his own T-Shirt and threw it on top of Sasuke's.

~

Panting.

Lots and lots of panting.

Sakura and Naruto laid on each side of Sasuke, panting and breathless. The three of them were sweaty and sticky and naked beneath the covers.

Naruto swallowed, "Holy fuck Sasuke."

"Seconded," Sakura raised her hand half-heartedly before it dropped back onto the cover with a THUMP.

"Yeah…" Sasuke sighed, "…again?"

"What?" Naruto turned his head to the left on his pillow, "Are you serious?"

"Yes," Sasuke stated firmly, "I'll even say 'please' if you want."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Go for it."

"Again please?"

"No."

"But-"

"No."

Sasuke frowned. "You know what, usuratonkachi…" he propped himself up on his elbow to face Naruto, "This sudden boldness of yours was really cute at first, but now it's just getting annoying. And I am not in a mood to be annoyed."

Naruto reached his hand up and tucked them behind his head. He didn't know if that was such a good idea with the way he'd been sweating for the past couple hours - yeah, you read that right… last… couple… hours… - but he hadn't really started to stink yet, and his open armpits didn't seem to bother Sasuke in the least.

"Who're you calling a useless idiot?" he snapped, addressing Sasuke's not-so-little pet name for him.

"You moron," Sasuke snapped back.

"You're such an ass," Naruto sat up and got in Sasuke's face, "You honestly think being a jerk to me will make me want to sleep with you?"

Sasuke leaned forward a bit, 'til his and Naruto's noses were practically touching. "I'm only an ass because you're an idiot," he argued, though it wasn't much of an argument.

Oh well. It got him what he wanted. He was suddenly on top of Naruto, the two were swallowing one another and getting hot and sweaty all over again.

Sakura rolled her eyes and left the bed. She picked her robe up from where it lay on the floor and pulled it on over her naked body as she headed for the door.

"I'm hungry…" she announced, "Either of you want an omelette?"

~~~~~~~~~~

END