Aura of the Chapter: Yellow = Optimism/Joy

Chapter 2: Mother

Red hair. Blue eyes. She smiles, looking into my eyes from the front seat of the car. When she speaks, the only thing I can hear is a quiet murmur. What she says isn't important, only that she says it. I take my eyes off of her beautiful face to look outside my window. Trees blur past. My heart feels content.

The woman has a connection with me. I feel it in my heart. Rose pink. I love her. And I see it in her, too. She loves me - her aura is the same pink as mine. The word - her title, is unreachable. I grasp for it, cling to what I can remember of it.

Comfort. Discipline. Love. Security. Safety. Trust.

Mother.

My eyes opened slowly, as if deeply content rather than shocked. The dream feels strange to me, as though I know the woman - my mother - but she still feels distant. I know she is a mother. I know she is mine. But I do not know her.

The more I think about her, the more I remember her smile, the more I want to know her.

The thoughts in my mind of her grow and fester until; finally, someone opens the door. It's Shizune.

"Good morning, Sakura. I'm glad you're awake." She steps in the room and closes the door behind her. "You have a few visitors. I was wondering if you were up to seeing them. Of course, we'll only let in five or so people in at a time, since you're still in recovery mode."

I nod my head. Maybe Mother has come. Maybe I can learn more about her.

First, Shizune brings in a girl with long, pale blonde hair. The only thing I can think is gorgeous. Her aura is yellow, and a giant smile crosses her face. Her teeth are perfect and white.

"Sakura, this is Ino. She and you are very close."

I begin to wonder if Shizune's choice of the word "are" is appropriate. I want to correct her - "were" seems better to me. The only woman I feel close to right now is my mother.

"Hi, Saki-chan." She calmly sits next to me on my bed, which has been moved to a room with a window. "How're you feeling?" She puts her slender hand on my shoulder.

I don't shy away. I only look at her and shrug. Not bad, not good. Right now I just kind of... Exist.

"Naruto and Sasuke-kun and I are going to stay here while you get visitors okay? A lot of these people you don't - didn't know as well as you knew us." Her aura gains a hint of purple. "So if you get uncomfortable or need anything at all, just squeeze my hand or let one of us know, okay?"

Nod. Smile.

Easy.

Ino asks Shizune to bring the boys in and she does. Naruto sits on the other side of me and Sasuke immediately goes to the corner of the room and stares out the window. I look at him and then look at Ino.

"Oh, don't mind him. He just hates social interaction. I intend to enjoy every ounce of his suffering today."

I was confused. But then the first visitors came in.


There were a lot of people. More than I could count, but to be fair, I can't exactly count very high right now. I didn't squeeze Ino's hand once. I was afraid that if I became uncomfortable with one person, my mother might not get the chance to come.

But she never did.

I'm not supposed to speak a lot, to avoid straining my vocal chords, but I hadn't mastered writing and I needed to know. My voice comes out raspy, like a whisper. "Where's my mother?"

The rooms freezes, and the only active auras are deep green and deep blue.

I wish I know what they mean.

"I need to use the restroom," Ino says, and disappears. I'm now alone with Sasuke and Naruto. I look at Sasuke, who turns away further into the window.

"Naruto? Where... is my mother?"

He takes my hand in his and I think of the quarter I have hidden in my pillowcase.

"Your mother is held up at the moment. But she wants you to know that she loves you very much." His aura turns a deep brown color.

"But I want to talk to her," I insist. "I want to know more about her." My throat starts to hurt.

"I'll tell you what," he says. "Ask me anything about her, and I'll tell you."

Instead of asking him, I lean back into my pillow and look at the ceiling, almost as if I am pouting. I don't want a second-hand account of someone so close to me. I want her to be here. I want to see again the eyes I saw in my dream. I long for her touch.

I hear Sasuke and Naruto arguing but don't bother to listen until I feel a hand on my face that moves my head to face the perpetrator.

"Sakura," Sasuke says, looking at me. "Your mother didn't make it. She passed on."

And then Naruto is punching Sasuke and he stumbles backwards and the hope in my heart turns into a hole and I can't see anything or hear anything and I can't feel and everything goes black.

Everything goes black.


Beep

...

Beep

...

Beep

...

The beeps came back. I knew they would never leave me.

This time, reality comes back to me much more quickly, and I quickly become angry. I hate not being able to walk or talk as I please. I hate being confined. I hate not knowing what happened, but mostly I hate feeling like I've been robbed of my chance to know my mother. Normally, when a child loses a parent, they at least have memories to hold onto.

I scream. I yell until I feel like my throat is bleeding and then I yell some more. And then my yelling turns to sobs and all I want to do is curl up and cry and just not exist anymore because there's no one here to be strong for or live for. And then I realize that while all of this is happening, I am being held, and rocked, and shushed, and loved, and I make myself a promise.

I promise myself that whatever happens, I will be strong for this person who is here for me now, so that I may one day be there for him. So I cry and whimper and cling some more, and I breathe in the scent of this wonderful person, and I hold on for my dear life.

I am aware of being placed gently, so gently, back onto my pillow. But I don't want him to let go of me so I hold on until he gives up and lies next to me so I can fall asleep feeling safe and loved and not so alone anymore.


When I wake again, my eyes feel sensitive and puffy. I remember the feeling of waking up after a long night of crying, and I try to think of all the times I have done it before. All I get is a blur.

I turn to the side to see that I am still clutching my hero from last night by his shirt, and his hand is resting at the base of my neck in the back. When I see his face, I scoff to myself silently. Of course it would be him. I reach under my pillow and clutch my quarter tightly for a moment before letting go again.

"Psst," I whisper. "Wake up." I poke his nose and he lets out an ear-killing snore. I can't quite find the strength to laugh yet, but I smile.

I'm slowly beginning to be able to use my muscles again, so I effortlessly move one hand to cover his mouth and the other to pinch his nose shut.

Within seconds, he is awake and sitting up. He looks at me.

"You should go home," I say. Whispering is easier than talking. "It's dark outside." I gesture to the window. "I don't think you're allowed to be here." I don't say what's really on my mind. He needs to return to his mother.

He turns to look at me with a somber expression. But all he says is "no," and lies back down next to me stubbornly, arms crossed and all.

"Naruto," I say. "I don't want to keep you from -" I am cut off when he turns to his side to face me without warning.

"Sakura-chan," he says. "I don't have a family to go home to."

For some reason, this does not shock me.

He moves his hand to where it was, at the back of my neck, and starts rubbing it softly. "So let me stay," he whispers, closing his eyes.

I want to protest, but I can't seem to find a reason and his hand on my neck feels so warm and soothing that instead I return to the darkness.


When I wake again it is morning, and Tsunade is here instead of Naruto. She greets me and immediately gets down to business, briefing me on what my physical therapy for the day will be like.

She tells me it will be exhausting, but I want to be able to walk on my own so badly I just ignore her and insist we get started.

I soon learn that by exhausting, she means it is mentally and not physically tiring. It is slow, frustrating work, regaining muscles. I go through many exercises that seem tedious but are all too necessary. By the end of the day, I'm glad that my final exercise involves only speaking for longer amounts of time. And at the end, I even get ice cream to cool my throat down.

Around four, Ino shows up with a girl named Tenten, and I am determined to make these girls my friends again. They tell me about my life and the way it was. They bring pictures of the three of us together at pools and birthday parties and bowling alleys.

I begin to remember.

I only get snippets. But snippets are all I need to know that these girls and I share something special.

They leave by seven, leaving me to thoughts of my mother. I want to remember her so badly, I want to know her. I want to see her smile. I pray to see her face again.

My prayer is answered when Naruto shows up with a photo album. I quickly become excited and hold my hands out for the book.

But he won't let me see it; the rules are simple: I can only look at it when I am ready emotionally and never when I am by myself.

"Can't I see the pictures now?" I ask him, hopeful.

He tucks the album under my plain bed and promises we can look in the morning if I don't have any troubles tonight.

I realize he means to stay tonight as well.

"Why is your color so frightening?" I ask him after a long silence.

"Huh?" he looks at me, dumbfounded. He really doesn't know what I'm talking about.

"You know," I say. "Your aura. Yours is different." Maybe he just hasn't realized what I mean yet. Surely he sees the colors too.

"Different how?" he asks with one eyebrow raised. I haven't grasped facial expressions yet, but he looks amused. He's sitting in the chair beside my bed and I adjust myself to a sitting position.

"You know what I mean. Everyone has mixed colors. Like Sasuke has a lot of dark blue but also a lot of orange and sometimes green. And Ino's is mostly brown and light blue. But you... It's like you have two. One is mixed like everyone else's but the other one is just... Well, constantly red. It's scary."

His color turns mostly deep green and then the dark blue flares up. His breath catches in the back of his throat.

"Why are you so quiet?" I ask him. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Will you promise me something, Saukra-chan?"

"Sure."

"Don't tell anyone else about what you can see."

"Okay," I say. "But why?"

"I'm not sure if you know this or not, but seeing a persons aura isn't normal. No one else I know can do it. So if you tell Tsunade and she doesn't believe you or thinks you're crazy, you could be here a long time."

I was silent for a moment. Only I can see the colors? But why? And more importantly, how? "But you believe me." When he nods, I continue speaking. "So why wouldn't she?"

'"Because..." he stops and scratches the back of his head. "You kind of hit close to home with what you said just now. And I promise I'll explain it some day, but not now, okay?"

It takes me a second before I finally nod. I'm extremely curious, but I don't want to pry and push my most important friend away from me.

"I want to show you something," he says, pulling a single picture from the album and giving it to me.

It's a picture of a rock two feet wide and half a foot tall. It's a normal grey rock, the only exception being the splatters of color across the surface. "Nail polish," I say, suddenly just knowing. The word pops out of my mouth before I can register it in my mind. And it feels good, so good that my heart does leaps.

"Do you remember?"

I try to picture it in my mind, but I still only get a blur. So, I shake my head no.

"One day, you decided you had too much nail polish. So we stuck it all in a bag and smashed the bottles against the rock. I thought you might remember because it was something we did over a period of time."

It's so familiar it's painful. It's so distant it's heart-breaking. I take the photograph from his hands and tuck it under my pillow to rest with the quarter. Maybe these pieces will someday complete the puzzle that was my life.

Soon, Naruto began to doze, and I let myself follow him.

I dream of my mother and colors and rocks and knights in shining armor.