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A/N: So, I know that it's been forever since I've posted anything. Like, since January I think. And I'm sorry!! Really, I am. Next I think I'll continue working on Redemption, for those of you amazing people that are reading that story. The inspiration for this story came from me thinking (way too deeply) about how Sakura could have really felt about Sasuke leaving her on that bench and what it actually meant. I don't know how well I conveyed that, but I hope you like the story. Anyway, without further ado, enjoy!

OH, and by the way, this story contains huge spoilers!!! If you haven't gotten to the part (with Madara) just after Sasuke and Itachi's fight, then you shouldn't read this.

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto.

The Bench

Sakura ran down the street and when she reached her apartment she took the stairs three at a time. She didn't stop to catch her breath at the top of the stairs and instead slammed into her door and rustled with the keys until she got the right one in the lock. Closing the door firmly behind her, Sakura locked it and took a deep breath.

She wasn't exactly sure why she was running from him. She wasn't afraid, she didn't hate him, and he couldn't even follow her. Sakura took a deep breath and let it out. Dropping the keys on the table as she passed through the foyer, Sakura forced herself to calm down and seated herself in the chair at her desk and thought about what had just happened.

When he left that day all those years ago, Naruto had tried to comfort Sakura. Naruto quickly discovered that Sakura didn't do well talking to others about her feelings. She told him she didn't need therapy and yelled at him and threw things at him until he fled her apartment. Weeks later, Naruto tried to subtlety tell her that sometimes you didn't need another person to talk to in order to understand your feelings and feel better. Sometimes it just helped to write it down. Ever since then, Sakura had used a diary.

She had to admit; it felt like she was thirteen again. What responsible, normal adult used a diary? But she didn't care, as long as no one knew and it actually helped her. As it happens, the diary did help, and she began to use it more often. If one were to look through her diary; however, they would discover that most of the really troubling stuff was at the beginning, the mess that started this whole affair. The rest was trivial everyday occurrences, such as this passage: Naruto asked me if I wanted to get dinner with him tonight. I didn't mind until I realized that he only wanted me to come because he was currently out of money and just wanted ramen.

But today, Sakura needed the diary for a more serious reason. She pulled on a well hidden string in the bottom desk drawer to lift up the fake bottom and pulled out the diary. Placing it on the desk, she searched for a pen in another unbelievably messy drawer. Sakura opened the diary and flipped to the page after her last entry and clicked the pen. For several seconds she stared at the blank page, thinking of where to start. She sighed and placed the pen to the paper.

I got up early for work today because some ninja guards were injured in some sort of skirmish outside of Konoha this morning. They didn't tell me who did it, but only showed me the injured men. I tended to them quickly and moved onto other patients in need. I asked Tsunade later, when I had time, who was able to inflict such damage on these ninja. I told her I knew that it wasn't simply a little skirmish, as she put it. She was hiding something from me, I knew that much.

She would only tell me that the problem was not major, even though the ninja who did the damage were not even caught. I thought about it all day as I tended the sick and injured. Finally at the end of the day I was ready to go home when I heard citizens saying that the ninja responsible for this morning's attack had been caught. I wanted to know who they were, the ones that Tsunade had been hiding from me. I should have gone home.

Konoha ninja walked the terrorists down the road proudly towards Tsunade's office in the tower. Each terrorist had two ninja flanking them. They had their hands tied behind their backs. It all looked so humiliating. I didn't recognize the first few. There were two men and a woman. I was about to leave, thinking that I wasn't missing much here, when I saw him. He didn't look any different than the last time I saw him, with Naruto, sensei, and Sai. This is what Tsunade was hiding from me, obviously. She didn't want to tell me that he might be involved with Konoha again. Maybe she thought I couldn't emotionally handle it.

And then he looked directly at me and our eyes met. When I looked into his dark onyx eyes I froze up. I felt like everyone could hear my heartbeat. It was so loud! I couldn't say anything, and couldn't even turn and run, as much as I wanted to. I think I mouthed his name then. His eyes softened, and then he was past me. Maybe Tsunade was right.

I'm not sure what happened next, except that I couldn't control myself. I don't remember turning or starting to run, only that one second I was watching him and the next running to my apartment. And so here I am, thinking about the boy who left me on that cold bench all those years ago. And although Naruto believes this to be one of my worst memories, I would say that it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I know this sounds weird at first, but just hear me out.

Before he left, I was obsessed with this boy. I fought with my best friend over who would date him and I worried about stupid meaningless things. But when he left, telling me that he needed to become stronger, it was as though he was pushing me to become stronger as well. In leaving me on that bench, my distractions were taken away and I could finally see that I was getting nowhere. I began to train as a medic. To put it bluntly, this boy made me who I am today. He set me up with a career that I love and will have for the rest of my life.

How could I hate him for that?

And yet, although it's not a bad thing, what he did, it is still one of my most painful memories. No matter how I look at it, what I tell myself in my head, it still hurts. We weren't good enough. He made it even worse when we tried to take him back from the sannin. He's become so distant…so what was that look in his eyes today? I just don't know what to think anymore. I can't see him now, now that he's back. I don't know what I should do or how I should react, because the truth of the matter is that I still lo

Sakura jerked her head up in response to the noise, dropping the pencil instinctively and grabbing a kunai.

"Who's there?" she demanded. In response, the intruder moved out of the shadows of her room.

And there he stood, taller than she remembered. He has trimmed his hair ever so slightly, but it was still just as messy. The bangs hung in front of his dark eyes, which had bags under them from his lack of sleep. He wore a loose white short-sleeved shirt, but not opened in the front the way his previous shirt was. Underneath he wore some weathered chainmail. His pants were black and tied around his waist with a long piece of cloth, and his shoes were old and tattered. He had evidently lost some weight.

"Sasuke," Sakura said.

"Sakura," he responded. His voice was gruff and filled with pain. Sakura didn't know what happened to him in the time he was gone, and now she wondered again for the hundredth time.

"How did you get here?" she demanded, trying to sound more intimidating. Sasuke smiled sadly. He knew exactly what she was doing. He began to walk towards her. Sakura raised her kunai to chest level.

"Stop!" she exclaimed. He paid no attention and continued towards her. She did nothing to stop him. His touch was gentle as he raised his hand and clasped her wrist. He lowered her hand and she dropped the kunai.

"Sasuke…what are you doing here?"

He didn't release her wrist. "In what since of the question do you mean?"

She looked into his eyes. "You know what I mean," she whispered. He sighed and let her go.

"I came to Konoha because I found out some information that informs me that my brother Itachi was innocent. He was a victim. The real perpetrators are the elders of Konoha." His eyes hardened and he fixated his attention on the window. "I came to give them my just revenge." He turned his attention back to Sakura. "I came to your apartment because…well, I'm not sure why I did that."

She ignored his last sentence, appalled. "You're going to kill our elders? Sasuke, that is ridiculous!"

"Sakura, they conspired together and managed to kill my entire family by means of my brother. And that's the worst part; they made it appear as though it was his fault. They blamed him for their own sins. How is this ridiculous? All my relatives are gone because of these people."

She looked at her feet, not quite sure what to say. "H-how did you get out of your cell? I'm sure they locked you up."

He nodded. "Yes. All of us were locked up separately. And I was tired of hearing Karen complain anyway."

"Who—?"

"Don't worry about that." They were both silent for several seconds as they looked away from each other awkwardly. "When I saw you in the crowd," he started slowly, "I almost didn't recognize you at first glance. You've become a beautiful woman, Sakura."

Sakura blushed and looked away. "What are you trying to do, Sasuke? I would think it would be a little late for this kind of talk."

He laughed ever so slightly and Sakura looked up, amazed. "Yeah, I guess it is. You'll never accept me for what I'm going to do anyway."

Sakura rubbed her feet together awkwardly and started at them intently. "You still think you'll even be able to do that sort of thing now?"

Sasuke smirked, reminding Sakura of the way that he used to be. Before he left.

"Of course," he said. "In fact, now it will be even easier. Sakura, don't you understand? They want to have a trial. They are going to bring me straight to the elders."

Sakura scoffed. "They are going to suppress your chakra. You won't be able to do anything."

"I'll find a way."

Sakura narrowed her eyes. He was such a stubborn pain in the ass sometimes. And then it clicked. "Sasuke!"

He looked confused. "What?"

"I can talk to Tsunade. She can handle all of this. She is the hokage after all."

"No!" His eyes were burning with passion. "I want to handle them on my own."

"Sasuke…" she murmured.

"Besides," he continued. "Why are you trying to help me? I don't remember ever doing anything for you."

She looked at her feet again. "But you did help me," she whispered to herself. He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

"What are you talking about? When?"

Sakura looked up and realized he was inches away from her face. She flushed and backed up, managing to stumble over something on the floor in the process. He raised an eyebrow, amused.

"It's just that… well, look. I am going to grab my keys and then we are going to see Tsunade." Sasuke tensed up. "It's okay," Sakura said. "She'll hear me out before making any decisions on what to do with you."

"Sakura," Sasuke said, trailing off. She wasn't listening. She hurried off to fetch whatever she was getting, and Sasuke looked down at the open diary. Sakura hurried back in to find Sasuke reading something on her desk. She froze. Did she leave the diary out and open like that?

"Sasuke?" she asked cautiously. The question hung in the air for a few seconds. Finally he looked up and turned to her. She couldn't read his eyes at all. What was he thinking?

"Did you read the whole entry?" As she asked, she could feel her chest constricting in fear. He nodded. Sakura felt the blood rush to her face.

He cocked his head to the side and smiled. "Since when did ninja write in diaries?"

Sakura looked away, wishing she could disappear. "It was Naruto's idea."

"Hmph. Safer for him that way, I guess." Sasuke laughed, but the smile was already dying on his face. "Sakura," he began. Sakura felt her heart was beating way too loud again. "What was the last sentence supposed to say?"

"Nothing," she whispered. "You shouldn't have read it." She hurried to the desk and slammed the book shut. As she picked it up and tried to clear the desk, Sasuke grabbed her wrist again.

"Sakura," he pressed.

"It doesn't mean anything, okay? Now let me go! We need to go—"

Sasuke pushed her into the wall and the diary fell out of her hand. He pressed himself against her, rooting her to the spot. She blushed and tried to look anywhere but him, although he was making that a rather difficult task.

"How does that sentence end, Sakura?"

She was becoming fed up. "Fine! You win, damn it. I was going to say that I still love you! Okay? Are you happy now? Because I'm a stupid girl who can't just be happy with what she has. No, I just have to want the one thing I can't have. The one thing that I know every time I get close to, will burn me. I guess I'm just a masochist because I can't get over you."

It all came out in one breath and Sakura was forced to take several deep breaths. It didn't help that he was still pressed up against her, restricting her movement.

"Sakura," he whispered, shocked. She'd become so much stronger than all those years ago. Suddenly, she was engulfed in a hug. His face was buried in her neck and she could feel his breath. She blushed.

"Um, Sasuke? What are you doing?"

"I really took you for granted, all of you," he mumbled into her neck. His grip on her tightened. "And you've grown so much."

Sakura's blush deepened. "Um, Sasuke…I don't really—"

Sasuke raised his head suddenly and leaned forward so that his nose was touching hers. Sakura's eyes widened as he leaned forward into a tentative kiss. He stopped quickly to measure her response.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "For everything."

"Didn't you read my journal? I've waited a long time for you to come back…"

"Hn."

Sakura laughed softly. "Still won't use real words, huh?"

He smiled and kissed her again. Sakura closed her eyes. She was sure that she could convince him to hear Tsunade out. But that could wait.

"Sakura!"

Sasuke broke the kiss and looked towards the window. Funny, it sounded like…

"Naruto?! What are you doing coming through my window?" Sakura squeaked.

"What are you doing, making out with Sasuke?! I came here to tell you he was back, but obviously he beat me here." Naruto finished climbing through the window and pointed a finger at Sasuke, who was still holding onto a blushing Sakura. "Aren't you supposed to be in a cell somewhere?"

Sasuke let go of Sakura and frowned. They began to argue. Sakura grimaced. Why did Naruto always have to ruin everything?

A/N: I know, I know. This story doesn't have a real ending. It's rather sudden…I guess I'm just lazy and didn't feel like resolving it because then it wouldn't really be a one-shot…whatever. The idea is that Sakura takes Sasuke to Tsunade and they sort the whole elders thing out. Meh. Apply your own ending. haha. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think. And if you see any typos or whatnot, let me know because I was too impatient to get my beta-reader to read this before posting it. haha

And PLEASE REVIEW!