Sakura thinks about every second of her life in the span of time that it takes for the kunai to rip into her throat, because isn't that what you're supposed to do just before you die? The farthest back she can think of is being small, and getting so frustrated that she couldn't reach the stupid cookies that she was ready to cry.
The happiest thing she can remember is being strong, which really is just the fleeting feeling of making Sasuke smirk and passing exams and becoming a ninja. Of cutting her hair, and keeping it short, and stopping the cursed seal from taking him over completely.
The stupidest part of her life is easy to spot, now, as the tip of the blade touches her throat. All her useless pining over Sasuke-kun, following him around like some stray dog he couldn't get rid of. Breaking off her friendship with Ino over something so pointless as Sasuke Uchiha, who only started to look at Sakura after she stopped looking at him.
She should have stopped earlier.
She thinks of Naruto and his sweet, shy love not-so-masked by his constant and incessant yelling. His bright smile, his sunshine personality. She thinks of her family, who never wanted her to become a ninja, never wanted her to become a medic-nin, and scowled at her back as she left for each mission, who, out of anger, she never said goodbye to.
Stupid.
She thinks of Tsunade and every lesson Sakura ever learned from her. But, Sakura thought as blood arced through the air, as Sasuke grunted in surprise behind her, as Naruto screamed, none of those lessons can save me now.
She thinks of her friends, of her exams, of unrequited love and stupidity and happiness and her hair would be short when she died.
She thought of Sasuke quite a bit in her life story major-picture flashback.
"You're annoying," she remembered.
"Weak."
"Don't be stupid."
"Hn."
"No."
But she also remembered, "Thank you."
"Go ahead, tell them, Sakura. I'm sure you saw it before anyone else did."
"Sakura... who did this to you?"
"Aa."
"Yes."
So close, she thought, but too late.
She can manage, at the end, only an odd, tired laugh.
She tried so hard to prove herself to him. Just when he started to see her, the day after he tried to say, S-sakura... I... His sharingan doesn't see behind him, and Sakura knows it would kill him. So, she did what Sasuke tried to do all that long time ago- "Showoff," he had muttered- and slid in front of his undefended back, and couldn't defend against it.
Sasuke is hovering above her, face not quite so stoic, but still, only she notices the crack. His raven hair framed his face, almost covering the red, red sharingan eyes. Naruto just yells, yells at Sasuke to Hurry up and heal her, you teme! Yells at Sakura to No! Don't look at me like that, Sakura, see me-! But Sasuke is not a medic-nin and the blade is impaled just above her collarbone, and just at the base of her neck.
"Sakura," he says, and it is short, icy, but desperate.
"Sasuke-kun," she gurgles, and it says, It's okay, it's okay.
"I- no, Sakura-"
"We- were close," she wheezes, but it sounds more like kssh than close, because she's drowning on her own blood, "Right?"
"I..."
She coughs up blood; can see it on his shirt. His eyes are sharingan, but she wishes they were onyx now, wants to see Sasuke. Naruto has gone back to fighting. He'll win, Sakura knows this.
"Yes," he says quietly, but- is he choking? "We're so close, Sakura. I can- please, let me-"
"'M sorry," she slurs. The knife is gone, and she can feel wet warmth pooling under her head. She remembers crying over his supposed corpse on a misty bridge- You're heavy, he'd told her then, but if Sakura was heavy, he was heavier. Sasuke knew by now he couldn't save her.
Sakura tries to lift her hand up, and realizes she can't feel her arm.
Sasuke lifts it for her in a- wait, trembling?- hand, and from there, she can finally reach his face. Her fingers shake violently and there is blood in her mouth and "Are you crying, Sasuke?"
"A- Aa."he forces out. His sharingan is fading and the red eyes are swirling back into black. They are so deep now that Sakura wonders if this isn't some new jutsu, one that drowns the soul in utter darkness. But they are just his eyes, and he is just scared, angry.
And it's true. His eyes shine, although no tears fall. His mouth is a thin line of composure.
"Sasuke!" she hears Naruto say. The fight must be finished, and Naruto's scratched face leans over her. "Is she still-?"
"Help Sasuke," she tells him, and he must think she means with her wound. His eyes fill with tears again and he sees her.
"I- Sakura, I've never healed before... Sakura, why are you laughing?"
Was that what that weird little rasping noise was? It sounded like broken glass being slashed against a chalkboard, and Sakura knew from training that that was the sound of air rushing past blood, but she was laughing.
Because we were so close. Because I thought he needed to love me. Because it could have happened. Because I think he might try to die after I died saving him. Don't let him, Naruto. Don't let him.
I can't breathe.
...
He can see the spark in her greengreen eyes, and her face was concentrated, like it was when she was focusing on a particularly long passage of medical text. She was thinking. Sasuke looked at these eyes too much, glanced at them when she wasn't looking, because she was never looking anymore, lately.
Now it was fading.
Her hand was still on Sasuke's cheek, and he realized she had forgotten it was there.
Sakura's eyes were half-lidded, and she was breathing through her mouth and her throat- he could see the blood pooling in her mouth and spilling out onto her cheeks. Her pink hair- still short, he thought, still saving me- fanned out on the ground, the edges immersed in the red puddle under her head. She made awful choking noises every few seconds, and her second mouth was smiling, like she used to- only these lips were ragged.
Sakura wore the same outfit she always did- dark pink on pink. Sasuke wondered desperately for a moment why she wasn't healing herself, and then remembered: just an hour ago, she had healed him, fixed him, saved him. She had no chakra left. The look on her face was deceivingly peaceful.
"Help Sasuke," she asked Naruto, and the idiot thought she meant, Save me.
"I- Sakura, I've never healed before... Sakura, why are you laughing?"
Because of the irony. Because I tried to kiss her last night. Because I thought she needed to love me still. Because I almost said it. Because I think I might just die after this. Please, Naruto, don't stop me.
Naruto said that, and before Sasuke could say another word, before he could tell her what he wanted to say, before he could save her, she left. Her bright green eyes faded to the color of dead moss and lost promises, and the gaping grin in her neck taunted him by continuing to bleed. Naruto screamed and Sasuke just hunched over, like the day Itachi killed his clan, like the day Sasuke killed Itachi.
The day Sakura was finally stronger than him, he wished she was still weak.
He felt it burning, his marks. But Naruto put a hand on his shoulder, and his will to destroy, to kill, to torture withered and died, and Sasuke just wanted to stop wanting. Wanting revenge. Wanting to leave. Wanting to stay. Wanting her to not be bled out on the ground. Sasuke was tired, and all he could think was
Why me?
Why not me?
Why did he always get this? He had returned to Konoha, Orochimaru dead, Itachi dead, his life goal complete. He could die or try to be happy, Sasuke didn't really care. As soon as he was off probation, he went on missions, they did, Sakura, Naruto, him.
It should have been him.
And with this last tragedy, with this last loss, Sasuke was past done.
...
On the day of her memorial, he tried to stand, and collapsed onto the floor.
He still made it, though.
Sasuke overheard wisps of conversation in his daze.
"The Uchiha traitor."
He was.
"Why did she save him? He's worthless."
He was.
"He's still a murderer."
He was.
"Why doesn't he move? What's up with his face? He's not mourning at all!"
He was.
"Doesn't he even care?"
Sasuke was a whirling, raging storm inside, feverish and sick. He didn't look at the whisperers, just looked at the picture and didn't hear Tsunade's words and God, this hurt. This hurt. Sakura would have noticed, because she always noticed when his Uchiha mask was crooked.
...
They had been so close to something, Sasuke thought as he stared icily up at Kakashi.
"No, Sasuke."
"Why not?" he snapped back.
"I won't let you do this to yourself, Sasuke."
"Do what?"
"Try and get yourself killed," Naruto says wearily from behind him. Naruto figured out after a while what Sakura had meant- Help Sasuke- and now, with dark circles under his eyes, and pale, pale skin, he faced the angry nin that whirled around to face him.
"You can't-"
"I can," Naruto says, and he is tired, tired, but not as tired as Sasuke, because Sasuke hasn't slept in twelve days, not since her death, and it was starting to show. Vivid nightmares slapped him awake, alone in his giant Uchiha household, the backs of his eyelids stained with her blood.
"I'm not going to fail a mission." Sasuke bit, a cornered animal now.
"No," Naruto agreed. "But you're going to take more and more missions, take them solo, give them your all, without rest, and you're going to die, and you know it, you bastard. And I won't let you do it."
"Naruto-"
"It probably would be better," Naruto half-moaned. "And it sucks to see you like this, bastard."
Kakashi, sensing something serious, vanishes.
"Likewise, Naruto," Sasuke murmurs in a more controlled voice.
"You're not alive anymore, are you, bastard?" Naruto asks with a bitter, morose grin. Naruto would smile again someday, but, Sasuke knew, it would be a while. "I don't know if I agree with Sakura. But I sure as hell am not going to deny her this."
"Why?"
"Isn't that the million dollar question," Naruto says, sighs, wants to scream.
Why me?
Why not me?
Why her?
...
It is only weeks later that Naruto gets the news: Sasuke Uchiha was dead.
They didn't know how, or why. Even the best medical-nin were completely baffled. When nobody had seen him for days, they had checked his house.
Sasuke had been found lying in his bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling as if in quiet contemplation, arms crossed over his chest. If he'd had strength, life in him, he might have been hugging himself. No chakra, they said, which was so unbelievably bizarre, because Sasuke had so much chakra.
His funeral was much more simple: only a scarce few showed up, and those who did came out of duty to Konoha and it's customs. Naruto was there because he was mad, but he wished Sasuke was at peace now. He had known, right at the exact moment Sasuke slid her eyes shut, when her hand fell from his cheek, the Uchiha was gone.
The hollowed look to his person. The caving cheeks. The shadows under his eyes and that sharpened his deteriorating form. If Naruto had been a merciful person, he would have killed Sasuke when she said, "Help Sasuke."
But that wasn't what she had meant.
Naruto was a selfish person, and Sakura's dying wish had given him the excuse to cling onto the feeble strand of hope that someday, Sasuke would heal. That he might smirk. That he might call him 'dead last,' not Naruto, and that he might let someone else heal him now that his own personal medic-nin was gone.
But, Naruto thought, he was a selfish person, not a smart one. Sasuke Uchiha wouldn't have lived.
He hoped, as he put the flower on his casket, he hoped that maybe Sasuke had found her wherever they were, and maybe they could finally take their We were so close and turn it into something beautiful.
...
Okay, I really have no idea where this came from.
Just so you know, when they say, "We were so close," it means they were almost in love, both of them. And when sasuke thinks, "because I almost said it," its because he almost kissed her the night before the mission. He almost said "I love you," but he couldn't, in typical Sasuke form.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. (I am too tired to make up a witty disclaimer.)
REVIEW!