Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Suing would be pointless.

Save Your Breath

Prologue: You Didn't Have a Clue

The sky was blue with wispy white clouds waving over it, the sun was shinning in through the cracks of curtains waking up all the sleepy heads, the birds were singing, the merchants were opening their stands, and it seamed just like a regular day in Konoha. But it wasn't. Today was the day Sakura Haruno was going to make Sasuke Uchiha fall madly in love with her.

She had been planning this all week. She was going to wake up early and go down to the training grounds, where she knew Sasuke started every morning with an early training session, and wait for him to show up and when he did she would casually walk by looking fabulous and say "Oh! Sasuke, I didn't know you were going to be here this early too. Why don't we train together."

It was a three-part plan. Part One: Happen upon him in the training grounds and show him how amazing she could look. Part Two: Train together to show him how strong and talented she was. Part Three: Go get lunch together where she would show him how wonderful and charming she could be.

Ta Da! Instant love!

As Sakura neared the training ground, she straitened her dress out and ran her fingers through her long pink hair making sure noting was out of place. She was just about to take a seat at her strategic waiting spot, so that when Sasuke walked past her to the training grounds she could casually walk up to him and-Hey!

Sasuke walked past the hidden Sakura as he left the training grounds, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Well, that wasn't supposed to happen. Quick, regroup!

"Hey, Sasuke!" Sakura jumped out from her hiding spot and called out to his retreating form. That wasn't exactly the smooth coincidental encounter Sakura was hoping for.

Sasuke turned around and gave Sakura a dubious look, "What do you want?"

"Um-uh," this wasn't what was planed and now Sakura was thrown off her game, "train! Or-what I mean is do you want to train with me?"

"Not really," Sasuke said and continued to walk away.

Not good. He didn't see her looking cute and now he wont get to see how strong she had become. But hope was not lost. "You must be hungry. Lets go eat," she said as she linked her arm through his. At least they will get to know each other a bit better.

"Not hungry," Sasuke said as he slid his arm from her grip and turned the corner into town.

Sakura followed him around the corner, not quite willing to give up yet. "How about we…um… lets uh…" she stammered, hoping a brilliant idea would come to her.

Sasuke was too tired to deal with her today. He had been up for the past five hours training and he didn't have the energy left to ward off Sakura's pathetic attempts at making him fall for her. Oh, yes. He knew that's what she was trying to do. This is what she tries to do whenever they aren't on a mission—or on one, for that matter—like she didn't have anything better to do and there for assumed he didn't either.

It was always hard to let her down easy though. He couldn't just tell her off. They were teammates and that was bad for moral. More importantly though, she was his friend and whether he was willing to admit to it or not he cared for her. But not in the way she wanted him to; therefore he had to make certain not to lead her on. That was unfair to her.

Sakura was the kind of girl that missed the subtle hints and continued to plow though a useless cause. He had no choice but to be blunt and end it all now. "I don't want to do anything with you. I want to sleep, so save your breath."

Sakura stopped dead in her track, "Oh."

Sasuke ignored the disappointment in her voice and took the opportunity to leave. If he didn't stop it then and there he would never get any peace and quite and she would continue to get her hopes up.

It's better this way. She can save her breath for some one who will care.

-----

Sakura had been watching over Sasuke for since he had come back on Guy-Sensei's back a week and a half ago. Tsunade had healed him yesterday but he still needed to recover his chakra.

"How are you feeling?" Sakura smiled at him as she put the flower she had gotten him in to the vase.

"Fine," It was always one-word answers with him.

She sat down on a stool next to his bed and told him what had been going on in Konoha while he had been unconscious, and he listened with vague interest. Normally he would just ignore her but this time he paid attention in hopes of hearing something more about Itachi. But she kept going on about the damage Orochimaru had done. He could careless about the attack, and it was annoying enough to have to listen to her any way, he didn't know how much longer he could take it.

Not much, it looked like, "What about Itachi? Has anyone said anything about him?" Just like Sasuke to get to the point.

"No…No one has said anything about him. Not may people know he was even in Konoha."

"Gahr!" Sasuke fell back on his bed in frustration, "Is everyone in Konoha a fool?"

Sasuke let out an angered sigh and clenched at the sheets. Sakura sat quietly watching him, trying to figure him out.

She broke the silence. "Why do you want to kill Itachi so badly?"

"Because I'm an avenger."

"But this revenge thing is driving you crazy."

"What do you know?"

"I know that you won't be able to go on much longer, I know that the suffering is too much to handle alone, and I know that revenge never makes a person happy," She said with a passion he had never seen from her before.

"Don't try to stop me Sakura."

"I'm not trying to stop you, I'm trying to…"

"Well don't," he cut her off. "Save your breath!"

"Fine! I will," and she got up and left the room. That had been their first fight.

Not a month after that he had left her asleep on the cold concrete bench.

-----

AN:

This wasn't originally going to be the prologue but as I got to writing it I just didn't fell like it belonged in the first chapter. So needless to say this prologue sucks. Sorry, but just bare with me. This is also probably riddled with spelling and grammar errors. When I edit my fic I usually print them up and edit them in the traditional red ink way, but my printer was broken so it wasn't corrected the best it could have been. There is just something about editing on that computer that isn't as effective as editing on paper. For me at least.

Well, anyway this is going to be as short fic (6 chapters including the prologue) and I'm hoping to update it quickly. My goal is to have it done before I'm out of school, but seeing that that is in about six week and I have three test and finals to study for between now and then, it doesn't seam like a reasonable goal. Either way this will still probably be my fastest updating fic. I'm hoping to get then next chapter of Feels Like Rain updated before I continue on with this one, but I'm almost done with FLR so look for that in the next week or so, then I'll get to work on this one. Ok well now I'm rambling…..

If you haven't figured out already the title is from the song Save Your Breath by Hit the Lights and the chapter titles will all be lines from the song. If you've never herd the song I suggest you go download it because it was my inspiration for this fic. Not that this is a songfic but the song does sort'a fit the mood.

Well I'll see you next time.