Truths.

When Sakura next sees Sasuke, he is lying asleep in a hospital bed and she marvels at how at peace he looks in slumber. She finds it ironic that it was the same place where she had once adoring fed him apples and cooed over him.

A million other things run through her head, but the most predominant one is that she doesn't want to be weak again.

She still loves him, that's true. Its apparent in the way her heartbeat picks up when her eyes connect with hers, when something inside still hurts when he brushes her off or treats her as nothing, and the way she still cares about his safety and how he perceives her.

Wounds heal with time, but scars never fade. She still remembers being knocked out and left on the bench. His hand a vise grip around her throat as she gasps what she believes are her last breathes. Collapsing from a fourteen-hour shift at the hospital and waking up to find that her best friend, her bright eyed sun left her behind to fulfill his promise.

Later, she finds out that all the injuries she had healed the day Sasuke arrived unconscious and close to death was from that final confrontation. Where somehow Naruto, with his love for ramen, orange had convinced Sasuke to join with him against Madara. Where they had actually beyond all belief won by taking advantage of the madman's crippling arrogance. That Sasuke had not actually agreed to come back, the decision had been taken out of his hands when he had collapsed in the middle of the battlefield, eyes glassy and wounds deadly.

And when she finally learns about the backstory to Itachi, the council, and Madara, she doesn't know how to react to the blonde teammate looking at her with imploring eyes. Tell him how it felt to be left behind and not told the truth like she was something of a lower level? Understand Sasuke more and his blind vendetta turning him into a pawn of a manipulative psychopath?

Finally, she just hugged her optimistic teammate and some of her hostility towards Sasuke dissolved and was swept away with the winds.

So when his eyes snap open at her approaching footsteps, she merely smiles politely.

"Uchiha san, I was ordered by the Hokage to check your wounds."

He looks at her intently and scowls before switching off his sharigan. As she focuses on the bandages on his torso she doesn't expect to him to talk. To her surprise, he does.

"Last week. What was that?"

She shrugs as she continues unwrapping the bandages.

"I was merely following my orders as a shinobi. Tsunade sama would hardly be pleased if I took the chakra restraints off an S-class ninja whose loyalty is unknown. "

Silence for a moment. She feels his gaze on her as she looks at his half healed gash.

"You called me Uchiha-san."

She chooses to ignore him as she places a hand on the injury and channels her chakra to regenerate the cells. His muscles tense under her touch, and she tells herself the quickening of her heartbeat and the tingling in the hand is due to chakra usage. A green glow surrounds her fingertips and the tear in skin rapidly closes. She sends tendrils throughout his body just for a quick check that the other parts were healing properly.

"There. It'll leave a scar but it shouldn't trouble you. Uchiha San." She tacks the formal suffix as if it is an afterthought, but judging from the way Sasuke's eyes narrow, he is displeased by it. When she moves away to change his drip, he hand shoots out to clamp around her wrist. She flinches instantly. From the contact, from what he represented, for what she used to be and his hold loosens.

"Don't. Call. Me. That." He utters the words through clenched teeth.

"Why not? I don't know you, not really." The words escape from her mouth before she realizes what she's saying and by the time she does, its too late. His gaze hardens and his hand drops away from her wrist. As if a few rolling stones started an avalanche, her words flow out in a torrent she can't stopper. "Tell me one thing then Sasuke. Is your revenge done? Your brother is dead. Danzo is dead. Madara is dead."

"No."

"What more can you want!"

"The elders. They started the plan with Danzo. They tried to cover it up. They deserve to die." He was back. The burning avenger, that left destruction in his wake.

There was a sickening crack as flesh met flesh, and Sasuke looked up in mutinous disbelief, hand on his red check and bloodied lip.

"Do you ever think of anything else? You say you want revenge and have gone after it time and time after time. Do you think it would bring you peace? What do you have left after they die? No village, no family. Just blood on your hands. Is this what Itachi wanted?"

"Don't you dare think you knew what Itachi wanted!" He was furious now, snarling and face pale with rage.

"Oh don't I? I may not have known your brother Sasuke, but he loved you. He couldn't kill you. He hid the truth from your because he wanted you to grow strong and redeem the Uchiha name. He guarded you against Orochimaru, Madara, and gave up his life. He could have easily told the truth about the elders. He could have left Akatsuki. But he didn't and he was the reason why we had information about Akatsuki at all. He was our informant in Akatsuki! Its all in the restricted files. Even when he left Konoha he never stopped protecting it! And you want to destroy everything he worked for, let his sacrifice be in vain? I love you Sasuke, but sometimes you -

"I've heard enough of your declarations of love. Get out. " Sasuke cut in icily, voice quivering with fury. Sakura froze.

"GET OUT!"

Sakura turned on her heel and fled.


Author's note: Sorry this took more then a week, but believe me when I say I just couldn't see how it would go. In the end, I opened up a blank document and told myself to write whatever came to mind instead following a strict plot. I've also adjusted and edited the prologue, so I hope it all flows better now.