Chapter 2 - A Farmer's Life For Me!

"Oh dear...Honey! Come here! Quick!"

"What is it? Oh my lord! What happened to him?"

"I don't know...We have to help him."

"Of course. Help me get him back home."

The two voices echoed in his dark, blank mind. His head hurt. Heck, his whole body hurt. What happened?

"N-naruto..."

"He said something!"

"I know, I know, shh, listen."

"I have to...get back...to Naruto..." he managed. "Have to...get back...to Konoha..."

"Who or what is a Naruto?"

"I'm not sure. But Konoha is a village. Do you suppose he's from there?"

"He has a headband...Yes, I think he's from Konoha."

"At any rate, we'll keep him here at our house until he's better."

'No! You don't understand! I have to get back! Naruto's waiting! It's already been a year! I have to...get back...to him...Naruto!' And then he forgot all, drifting in a dark abyss of nothingness.

-

Naruto paced up and down in front of the gates. Sasuke was 3 days late! He was starting to get worried...

"Naruto!" came a familiar voice. He looked up to see Kakashi jumping from the forest, back into town.

"Kakashi-sensei!" he greeted. "Have you found anything about Sasuke?" he asked anxiously. Kakashi frowned. "What?"

"I found this." he handed Naruto a scroll. "We found his teammate dead, and their stuff strewn everywhere. There's no evidence to point to Sasuke surviving..." he said sadly.

Naruto looked at the scroll addressed to him and felt he would cry.

"But there's nothing to prove he died either!" he yelled before running to his house.

Kakashi sighed, as if in regret. The rest of his team bounded over the wall and through the gate even as he did so. Kakashi took off to report to the Hokage (I don't know Tsunade. I read stories with her in it, but I 've only seen her in AMVs and such. Please forgive. If I put her in here and she is ooc, that's why.)

-

...2 months later...

"Sasuke-kun!" a woman cried. Said boy looked up from his work. "Look out!"

A brown horse was headed straight for him. He looked at it, surprised, before some kind of forgotten instincts kicked in. He threw the basket of vegetables up in the air, jumped up with it, landed on the horses back, reigned it to a stop, and then caught the basket.

"Sasuke-kun!" the woman called as she ran up, out of breath. "That was amazing...How'd you do it?"

Sasuke got off the horse and stared at his hands after setting the basket down.

"I...don't know...Marry-chan, who am I?" he asked.

That's right, Uchiha Sasuke has amnesia. Two months ago, he woke up to find himself in a strange house, with a strange yet powerful pain throughout his entire body. All he could remember was that his name was Sasuke.

Marry, the farmer's wife, and one of the people who saved him, frowned.

"Sasuke...I think that may have had something to do with your past..." she said.

"Who was I?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. She flinched, even without memory of the massacre, his hard life, or anything unpleasant, that look could kill.

"Honey, we think you were a ninja of some sort..."

"A ninja?" his anger was gone. "How could I've been a ninja? I don't even know the names of the villages!"

"Well...we did find you in the forest...and you were pretty badly hurt..." she tried. Before Sasuke could say anything, her husband came up.

"Thank you Sasuke, for stopping my horse. About your past. We don't know whether or not you were a ninja. But you had wounds and a headband. That is all we can tell you. You can stay here as long as you like, or until your memories come back...if you want." he said calmly.

"Tucker-san I..." they had refused when he called them -sama, so he used -san and -chan. "Thank you..."

"Not a problem. You're a great help around here." he gave his wife a kiss on the cheek and turned to go back to the barn with the horse.

-

"Morning!" Kakashi called, appearing before a blonde and a pinkette, heh heh.

"Morning Kakashi-sensei." Sakura greeted cheerfully.

"You don't have to call me sensei anymore." Kakashi reminded her. She shrugged. Naruto looked at him hopefully and he frowned. "We haven't found Sasuke yet, Naruto. I'm sorry."

"No, you're not. If you were sorry, you'd be out there looking too!" Naruto jumped down from the railing of the bridge they were at. "You know that, if the old hag hadn't banned it, I'd be out there looking too!"

"Naruto..." Sakura started. Naruto interrupted her.

"You always tell me 'we haven't found him,' when you're not even the one searching! You call us up and we go out all the time, you read your stupid, perverted books, you somehow eat without letting us see under your mask, but you don't go after Sasuke!"

"Naruto-kun..." Sakura tried, a bit stronger. She looked about to cry.

"Whenever Sasuke's been in trouble, you've been somewhere else! And, while I'm at it, you're always late with no real excuse! You're lazy, idiotic, self-centered, and a coward!" Naruto had started pacing...oh, its bad.

"Naruto-kun...!" Sakura tried, nearly yelling now. Tears began pouring from her eyes.

"And I still can't believe you kissed Iruka-sensei last week! LAST WEEK! Sasuke was brave, unlike you! He'd be out searching if I'd gone missing, even if the Hokage told him not to! So you know what? I'm gonna-"

"NARUTO! SHUT UP!" Sakura yelled, cutting off Naruto's sentence.

Both Kakashi, who had been taking the yelling as a well-backed punishment, and Naruto turned to stare at her.

"Just...Shut up!" she was still crying. "You think you're the only one who misses him? You're a hypocrite! You know that...if you were Hokage...If Sasuke-kun wanted to go look for a missing person, and it was dangerous...You'd never let him do it!"

Naruto blinked at her. She was right. Kakashi gave them both sympathetic looks.

"I care about Sasuke-kun too! I want to look for him too!" She was crying a lot now. "It's not fair that he had to go...I know that...But you need to just...let it go!"

"L-let it go?" Naruto glared at her. "Let it go? No! I don't think he's dead, so I won't let it go! I can't think he's gone! I just...I just can't!"

"Shut up Naruto! You're voice annoys me! I never want to hear you speak...ever again!" Sakura got down off the railing too and glared at the now speechless Naruto. "You idiot! I can't STAND you!"

"Now Sakura!" Kakashi interrupted, stepping forward. "That's a little much! Naruto's just-"

"Ok..."

Both other people turned to looked at Naruto. He looked about to cry, but was holding it in. His voice was one you would hear on a movie when the hero told his best friend to kill him...Sakura's tears dried.

"What?" she asked in a soft, confused voice.

Naruto didn't answer. He shook his head and ran off. Kakashi looked from him to Sakura and back again. Sakura wore a worried look. What had she just done?

-

...about 2 months later...about 4 months since arrival...

Sasuke looked up even before Marry called his name. Yep, he had given into the fact that he had most definitely been a ninja at some point. Now, more than 4 months after arriving, he had regained some of his skills.

"Sasuke-kun, could you please deliver the crops to the nearest town? Annabel's leg is still broken." she was referring to the horse he'd stopped about 2 months ago. She'd hurt herself helping Tucker.

"Sure." he went over to the cart and frowned. "Ok...now, how to do this..."

20 minutes later, he had it figured out. All of the crops were in bags and strapped onto Sasuke. Two in each hand, two around his neck, 3 in a pack on his back, and one in his mouth. Dropping the one in his mouth back in the cart he called onto the farm.

"I'll be back by nightfall at latest!"

"Ok! I'll have dinner ready when you get back!" Marry called. Tucker smiled and nodded in his direction. He picked the bag back up and took off.

-

'This is surprisingly simple. Did I used to do stuff like this often?' he wondered as he ran down the street. Some people gave him strange looks, but he was gone before they said anything.

About 3 hours later, he was tired, but at the village. He walked over to the crop seller they always sold their crops too.

"Good Morning Haru-san!" Sasuke greeted as he set the bags down.

A large, but gentle looking man looking about 36 years old turned around. He smiled at Sasuke.

"Good Morning Sasuke-kun!" he walked over. "Where are Tucker and Marry?"

"Annabel hurt her leg, so I'm delivering the crops by foot." he explained simply.

"But that's a day's walk by foot! When did you start?" he asked. Sasuke shrugged.

"Noon?" he guessed. Haru started.

"Noon? Boy, you must be pretty fast." he complimented, smiling.

"Yea...So, about the crops." he motioned to the bags.

"Right right. I'll buy them off you in no time at all. Tucker's crops are always of the best quality."

-

...7 months since he arrived, 3 months later...

Sasuke paused in chopping wood to look up. It was snowing...

"Snow..."

'Sasuke!' came a loud voice. He turned to watch as the blonde nuisance ran up.

'What do you want dobe?' He asked.

'I'm not a dobe!' Naruto yelled.

'Course not.' he scoffed sarcastically. 'What do you want anyway?' Naruto paused.

'Well...I...' he looked up as a fresh snow came to cover up the white already on the ground. 'It's gonna be a very, very white winter...' he muttered. Sasuke looked up.

'Yea, so?' he looked down, but Naruto was gone. 'Naruto?'

He looked down, it was a box. Dark red wrapping with black writing 'To Sasuke' on the top. He smirked and picked it up. Opening the box, he found a silver locket and letter.

'Sasuke,

I know you hate my guts, but it's Christmas and I decided to forget about that. You don't have any family to give you gifts, though I'm sure your fan club will provide. But anyways, here. I thought you might like this. You can throw it out if you don't want it, but yea. And don't worry about me, though I'm sure you won't, I don't need any gift.

Naruto.'

He stared at the note. Naruto got him a gift? He smiled lightly. The snow picked up and he headed home.'

"Naruto..." he muttered unconsciously.

"Sasuke!" Tucker called. "Just bring what you've got! The snow is gonna get pretty bad soon! Come inside! It's time to eat anyway!"

Sasuke nodded shortly and picked up the wood he'd chopped, laying it next to the fireplace. He went outside and put the axe up, the snow was pretty bad by the time he got back inside.

"Here, dinner's ready and hot." Marry handed him a plate, which he took gratefully. He sat down on the window seat and stared out at the snow, hardly remembering to eat.

"Sasuke?" Tucker asked after awhile. Sasuke blinked and looked at him. "Is something wrong?"

"No...just..." he looked back out the window. "A memory..."

"Memory?" Marry literally bounced over to him. "Really? Of what?" He blinked at her.

"Christmas..." he said softly, trying to recall every bit of it.

"So...you saw your family?" Tucker asked, joining his wife near Sasuke. Sasuke shook his head.

"I don't think I had one..." they looked at him surprised. "I saw myself, walking through a town...it was snowing...and a blonde kid ran up to me..."

They sat next to him, food forgotten for now, and listened. He really didn't want to tell them his memories. But if he had to, he'd avoid the part of which gender every single person was, their age, and anything else personal he could avoid.

"We...well, we didn't really argue. But I didn't seem to like them much..." he looked at the ceiling as he continued, avoiding looking at either adult. "It started to snow harder, and they disappeared...But gave me a present." he smiled the light smile he'd smiled in the memory.

"Oooh...what was it?" Marry was acting like a little kid! He shook his head.

"I..." he didn't want to tell them. It was his gift. Naruto had given it to him. Tucker must have seen the reluctance on his face.

"We understand. You don't have to tell us." Marry seemed disappointed at her husband's words. "Is there anything else you're willing to share?" He began to nod, but paused half way and looked back out the window. Tucker and Marry stood up and went back to their plates. Sasuke finished eating too.

Marry picked up his plate since he seemed in thought and was startled when he spoke.

"I think...all they wanted was...to see me smile..." he said softly, turning to look at her. His gaze was soft. She put the plates on another chair and held him.

-

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