Second Time Around
By Frozzy
Chapter One
"Mom, I'm putting down your medicine here," Sakura said. "On the counter. Look."
Her mother remained unresponsive. She sat by the window in her bathrobe with a cup of untouched morning coffee in hand. If it hadn't been for the unfocused and faraway look in her eyes, the sight of her mother wouldn't have made Sakura feel so terribly lost. A patient, an ANBU captain, had died on Sakura's shift last night. He had died under Sakura's hands. Literally. Sakura didn't want to be pedagogical and overbearing with her mother today. She wanted her mother to get her act together, dead husband or not.
"I'm putting it down here," Sakura said again and placed the small container of pills on top of the kitchen counter where it seemed the cleanest. "You take one now and one in the afternoon."
"I've done this many times before, Sakura," her mother answered. "I hear you."
"I don't think you really do, mom," Sakura said and walked over to the couch where empty boxes of cheap take-out food littered the small coffee table. This was the same table that her father had used to sit by when he and Sakura had played cards late into the evening, or when she as a small girl had watched him flip through weaponry books and had thought that being a shinobi was cool. She didn't understand why her mother insisted on still living here. The house was too big and it had too many memories.
"I'm not done with those," her mother spoke up, referring to the boxes that Sakura was picking up from the table.
Sakura sent her mother a blank look.
"You're not eating this," she said. "I think I saw it move just now."
Her mother turned her head away from the window and looked at Sakura for the first time since her daughter had entered the house. The unexpectedness made Sakura's hand slip and she almost dropped a box of moldy rice.
"You come around here too often," her mother said.
Sakura didn't know what to say to that. This was very often the case when she visited her mother. Their conversation would slip into dangerous zones. Since she didn't know what to say, Sakura took her time shoving the take-out boxes into the trash bin. She then began doing a thorough examination of every expiration date on every product stored in her mother's fridge.
"Why did Naruto stop coming with you?" her mother asked. Sakura stilled.
"We all work, mom," she explained as vaguely as possible and threw out an expired, unopened cheese. Her mother's brow furrowed, but Sakura wasn't worried if she suspected that her daughter had just lied to her. When it came down to it, Sakura knew that her mother would prefer 'we all work' to 'I asked him to stop'. The latter held too much truth in it. Truth wasn't good for her mother's spirit these days. It wasn't very good for Sakura's spirit either, but that was a different can of worms.
"That's a shame," her mother said and took a hesitant sip of her now cold coffee.
"Do you want me to make a new pot of coffee before I leave?"
Sakura closed the fridge, done with her check up, and turned around to see her mother look up from her lap.
"I'm not helpless, Sakura."
To her credit Sakura only paused for a brief second. "I didn't say you were, mom."
Her mother smiled and Sakura couldn't find more to do. She gently reminded her mother of the pills on the kitchen counter and left the house with an eerie sense of stillness in her body.
It was a tradition that Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto ate lunch together twice a week, since they no longer spent the majority of their day in each other's company. Today was Sakura's treat, so she naturally got to pick the place. This was also the reason to why she was the first person on the scene when Sasuke arrived.
"Sakura," he said and inclined his head.
"Sasuke," she said and watched him sit down in the seat opposite of hers. He never sat next to her. It was a forced habit with roots stretching all the way back to when they were children and before his impromptu departure to Sound. She could have played the blame game, but she wasn't so sure she would have wanted to sit next to herself either. She had been horrible. She had chased him like a maniac fan girl. Her intentions had been good, but they had manifested badly. She understood that now.
"What's wrong with you?" Sasuke asked, rather insensitively.
"I lost a patient," Sakura said.
That and the glorified whore living in the apartment underneath Sakura's had yelled down the building for the past four nights. Sakura would have to talk to the landlord about it. Couldn't a person get evicted for keeping the other residents up with ceaseless moaning and banging against walls?
"The Hokage wants you to stop by her office later," Sasuke told her. He studied the menu, no doubt wanting to do it in peace before Naruto arrived and would want to give his advice on what to pick.
"Did she say what it was about?"
"No-"
"Hey, don't you start without me!"
Both Sasuke and Sakura looked up at the arrival of their blond friend. He skidded into the seat next to Sasuke's and snatched the menu from the Uchiha's slack hands. This was one of the times where Sasuke let him.
"Do you see any food yet?" Sasuke asked Naruto in what was his sarcastic voice.
"Did you ask her out yet?" Naruto asked, countering Sasuke's sarcasm, and Sakura watched Sasuke's face turn as pink as her hair.
"Ask who out?" she asked. Unsurprisingly it was Naruto who answered. He grinned and held up the laminated menu, unfolding it so it shielded the two of them from Sasuke's half of the table.
"This girl Sasuke is crushing on," he whispered behind the paper shelter. Then the menu was whipped out of Naruto's hand and Sasuke whacked him over the head with. In fact, he whacked him with it so hard that Naruto's face rushed down to kiss the table. People nearby turned their heads around. Sakura smiled, modest and demure.
"Save that for the training grounds, Sasuke," Naruto said and rubbed his sore nose.
"I'm notcrushing on any girl," Sasuke said. Naruto didn't comment. He had learned his lesson. Sakura, on the other hand, was dying from curiosity.
Ten minutes later Naruto had predictably settled for his miso ramen. Sakura and Sasuke both had caved in and ordered the same.
"When you wake up one day and realize you've transformed into a giant noodle, please remember not to eat yourself," Sakura said. "I can't heal food tissue."
The Rasengan wielder gave Sakura a confused look. It would have been adorable if it hadn't been for the food dripping down the left side of his chin.
"Huh?"
"Idiot," Sasuke said from his seat, chewing delicately on a bite that was half the size of those that Naruto shoveled into his mouth. Naruto scowled at his friend and shoveled another fist sized bite into his mouth.
"You won't find yourself a girlfriend if you eat like that," Sakura said and wiped her mouth with a napkin as though that would remove the mess Naruto was successfully making of his own face.
"But Sakura-chan, if you want to talk about-"
"If you finish that, you will leave with a chopstick rammed through your eye," Sasuke said.
"Jeez, you're in a bad mood today," Naruto said and shook his head.
It was settled, Sakura thought. She would corner Naruto later and get all the juicy details about this girl Sasuke was crushing on, because something sensational was going on here and she was excluded from it.
"Do you know which village that'll host the chunin exams this year?" she asked.
"We have it this year," Sasuke answered.
Sakura pursed her lips. "Konohamaru became chunin last year, right?"
"Yep," Naruto said, obviously thinking he had had something to do with that fact. Maybe he had. But not directly, anyway.
"Do we know anyone this time?" Sakura asked.
"Eh. No?"
"They're all five years younger than us and none of us have any students," Sasuke pointed out when Naruto failed to say more.
"That doesn't mean we don't know anyone," Sakura said, tempted to wave her finger at the Uchiha. She knew better than to actually do it, though.
"If Kakashi-sensei was teaching a new team we could have cheered for them," Naruto slurped noisily around the food in his mouth. That actually made sense. Sasuke's coaly stare met Sakura's brilliant green one as they exchanged a look across the table. Naruto had spoken sense. You had to recover from that.
"He's not," Sasuke said, recovering first.
"But if he-"
"He isn't," Sakura agreed with Sasuke.
"It's not fair when you gang up on me like this."
Sasuke snorted. Sakura smiled into her food, but the smile was as half-assed as they came.
Half an hour later she had deserted her boys and was headed towards the Hokage Tower and Tsunade's heavily trafficked office. She doubted that bawling out her eyes would affect her pokerfaced teacher, but she was not above giving it a try if it turned out that Tsunade wanted to discuss the details of the ANBU captain's death a third time.
"It would seem that your reputation as a medic precedes you."
Tsunade put down the flagged file she was studying and continued.
"Throughout these last months, I've received a lot of requests where team captains have specifically asked for you as their medic on high-risk missions. That's because you're damn good, Sakura."
This didn't come as a surprise. Sakura knew that she was good. It was difficult not to know whether you were a failure or success in the competitive world that was the shinobi profession. But Tsunade rarely ever said it so straightforwardly.
"So, in light of these requests, I have decided to give you a choice. An opportunity, if you will," Tsunade said and leaned forward in her chair. "You can continue on as you do now, working at the hospital fulltime and doctoring patients. Or I can transfer you to the pharmacy floor of the hospital, where you'll work with medicines instead. This essentially means that you'll have fewer working hours, so the possibility of coming to work in the field as a medic will be larger than what it is now. So, Sakura, what will it be?"
"The second option, shishou," Sakura answered, not surprised by how easily the answer came to her. She did love her job at the hospital, and she did love the trust that so many people put in her, but a lengthened leash was just as loveable, if not more. She wanted to feel sunlight on her face. She was tired of fogging up windows with her breath.
"Good," Tsunade said and slammed her palm down on the desk. "The transfer takes place this Monday."
"You already arranged the transfer?" Sakura asked.
"Are you saying that the two years I spent on training you were a waste?"
Sakura laughed awkwardly. "Ah, no, of course not. You would know what I would choose. You know me."
"Good. Then we agree," Tsunade said. She reached into one of her drawers and pulled out a thick scroll.
"Before you leave, will you do me a favor and deliver this to Kakashi? The idiot left earlier without it, and I can't be bothered to track him down myself," Tsunade said and held out a sealed scroll for Sakura to take.
For just a split second Sakura hesitated, but that was all it took for Tsunade's eyes to narrow.
The older woman raised a brow and rested her chin on top of her steepled fingers. "Is there a problem?"
"I'll find him," Sakura said and took a quick hold of the scroll. Her hand was clammy when she tucked the scroll into her belt pouch and her posture was stiff, but Tsunade didn't comment on any of it. She leveled her student with an unreadable look and dismissed her thereafter.
The truth was that up until now Sakura had strategically placed herself behind various food stalls and tall bushes whenever the Copy Ninja had been in the near vicinity. So, understandably, when she managed to locate Kakashi outside the jonin headquarters thirty minutes after having left Tsunade's office, she felt pathetic.
Kakashi was descending one of the many stone stairways that lead away from the headquarters. On impulse Sakura called out to him across the open space. He stopped to look over his shoulder and caught sight of her approaching form. When she closed in on him, he stepped to the side and leant up against the handrail, so there was room for both of them on the narrow stone steps.
"You forgot a scroll in Tsunade-shishou's office," Sakura said when she came to a halt in front him.
"Ah, right," Kakashi said, not sounding sorry at all. Sakura ignored his blatant indifference and fished the mission scroll out of her pouch, fully intent on finishing her task and scurry off as quickly as possible. It was just unfortunate that Kakashi didn't take the scroll from her hand. Instead, he moved out of his comfortable slouch and continued down the steps with his hands buried in his pockets.
"Where are you going?" she yelled after him with the scroll still in her hand.
"Groceries."
Sakura cursed under her breath and took off after the retreating man, jogging down the steps until she caught up with him. They reached the last step together and Kakashi took a turn down a road that led to the swarmed center of town.
"Is this a joke?" Sakura asked.
Kakashi looked at her. "No. I'm hungry."
"So, I'll have to wait for you to buy a bag of apples or whatever, before you're gonna take the scroll that is, in fact, assigned to you?" Sakura asked and sidestepped a bench that had seen it fit to squeeze its way in between her and Kakashi.
"You never doubted my motives back in the day," he said. "But let's not forget you were also horribly naïve as a child."
Sakura's mouth dropped open. Forget the groceries. She could rip out chunks of his hair and feed him with that.
"I'll let you know," she said, "that I graduated from the academy in the top five."
"Oh, I don't doubt that."
They had reached the more trafficked part of the village and the road that they travelled by had begun to thicken with people and household animals having ventured away from the safety of their homes. A couple of civilians travelling on horses caught sight of Kakashi's jonin gear and guided the large animals to the opposite side of the road. Sakura remembered one of her lessons with Tsunade the previous year where the short-tempered woman had proclaimed that all villagers feared those who protected them. And those who didn't fear their protectors were stupid. Sakura had tried to explain that it was discouraging to watch the villagers fear you. After all, you had devoted your life to protect them. But Tsunade had advised her to grow a pair. It was around that time that Sakura had learned not to question whatever wisdom Tsunade saw it fit to pass on to her. Also, her advice very often turned out to be true. She was the Hokage for a reason.
"I'm being transferred to another floor at the hospital," Sakura told Kakashi on a sudden whim. She watched a nearby cluster of giggling academy students chase an orange cat with a burnt tail up on a roof.
"Tsunade-shishou wants me back on missions."
"That's convenient," Kakashi said and slipped a hand out of his pocket to rub his nose.
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.
"Naruto is a jonin now."
"You think she wants to pair us up for missions?"
"It's an option."
An option they both knew that Tsunade would be a fool to ignore. And whereas the female Hokage might be ill-tempered and brash like her pink-haired apprentice, she was no fool. Tsunade was Kakashi's female counterpart when you talked nasty ulterior motives. And old man Jiraiya was Kakashi's counterpart when you talked supreme dirtiness. It almost made you fear what unflattering trait Kakashi could have picked up from the third Legendary Sannin. Better not dwell on that. Instead, Sakura ought to dwell on the fact that this was the longest conversation she had had with Kakashi in over two years. The longest soberone, of course, because who could forget that night with the lamppost, and the blue door, and the loose tongue.
"You're right," Sakura said. "Sasuke is going to raid every liquor store in town when he finds out that he can't join us, because he's still chu-"
"Kakashi-san?"
Sakura and Kakashi stopped to look over their shoulders. They were very nearly tramped down by a herd of people. One woman separated herself from the herd and approached them. The woman was a petite brunette and that was the only thing that stopped her from being a complete replica of the slim redhead from that disastrous night at the bar weeks ago. Sakura could feel a vein somewhere near her forehead pop and burst open. Really? Really? Could she not cut a break, just this once?
"I thought you were out of town?" the woman asked Kakashi with a delicate downturn of her lips.
"Ah, yes, you see," he started, "I returned to the village this morning and was held up at the hospital."
Liar, Sakura thought.
The woman's dark eyes flickered towards Sakura. "And who is this?"
"This is-"
"I'm his daughter."
The brunette's face fell and then contorted until it looked like she had been force-fed a basket of lemons. "You have a daughter?"
Sakura smiled at the appalled woman. Whatever reply that Kakashi could have come up with was unimportant, because the petite woman turned on her heel and walked away.
"Was that really necessary?" Kakashi asked Sakura.
"Kakashi-san," Sakura said and mimicked the woman's voice. "What happened to taste aside from big breasts and butts?"
"It's sex, Sakura," Kakashi said. Sakura blanched and lost grip on her act. "You don't need to have taste to sleep with someone."
"So you would sleep with the first bucktoothed woman you came across?" Sakura asked.
They passed an elderly couple who overheard Sakura speak. She earned herself a dirty look from the overweight woman of the two.
"I think the Yamanaka woman has rubbed off on you a little too much," Kakashi said once the elderly couple was out of hearing range.
"Sweep the dirt off your own doormat before you pick at mine," Sakura said. She fought her blush. She wouldn't blush. But there was a vast difference between Kakashi the authority and Kakashi the person. This was Kakashi in his non-childproofed version and Sakura hated to admit that this version intrigued her immensely. Apparently, a shift seemed to have had happened in their relationship, probably as a consequence of her drunken mouth on that fateful night, but it was too soon to say if the change would stay or go.
"Here we are," Kakashi said and stopped so suddenly that Sakura almost rammed her face into his shoulder. A broad shoulder that smelled nice and warm.
"What?"
Kakashi inclined his head and Sakura looked ahead of him.
"No," she said.
"No?"
"No. I'm not buying groceries with you."
Sakura was fed up. She would not be dragged around town by a man who found her anger entertaining and only sought to add fuel to the fire. Ino had said that Kakashi was a man, not a pre-teen, and perhaps she had a point there, but right this minute Sakura was sorely tempted to claim otherwise.
"Do you get off on this?" she asked Kakashi.
The bemused look he gave her spoke volumes.
"The scroll, please," he said and held out a hand.
Sakura shoved the requested item into his outstretched hand and fled the scene without saying goodbye.
Sakura sat perched on the toilet lid, idly picking at her fingernails and listening to how the water splashed against the panels of Naruto's shower stall. It was no rare occurrence that Sakura would drop by Naruto's apartment unannounced. On the particular evening, Naruto was soaping up his hair when it happened.
"Megumi, is it?" Sakura asked. "That's Sasuke's crush?"
"Yeah," Naruto said from under the spray of water.
"I ran into Kakashi-sensei today," Sakura said. She had no real interest in Sasuke's conquests, however nice they may be. Chances were slim that anybody of importance (read: Naruto and Sakura) would ever be introduced to this Megumi. Sasuke didn't maintain romantic relationships. This didn't bode well for the man who was under pressure by the village to produce heirs and secure the Uchiha bloodline, but it was nevertheless a fact. Sasuke didn't do romantic relationships. He either couldn't, or he wouldn't. Sakura didn't care to know.
"He thinks Tsunade-shishou might be planning to pair the two of us up for missions again," Sakura said. The water was turned off and Naruto's hand crept out of the shower stall to grab a towel.
"Kakashi-sensei said that?" he asked, the towel muffling his voice.
"He did."
"But Sasuke can't team up with us," Naruto said. He stepped out of the shower stall and padded over to the mirror. For Sakura's sake, he had wrapped the towel around his waist. The towel was appreciated, thank you. Sakura saw a lot of naked men in her profession, but Naruto was too much like a brother for him to walk around buck-naked in her presence. Except for one scar that ran diagonally across Naruto's right shoulder blade and another fainter one that was stretched across his bicep, Naruto's skin was mostly unmarred. It was a testament to the wicked healing rate of Kyuubi and Sakura's kick-ass medic skills.
"Sasuke is in a difficult situation. So is Tsunade-shishou, I guess," Sakura said.
"But Kakashi-sensei was the one who brought it up. Not Tsunade-baachan," Naruto said. "How can Kakashi-sensei know?"
Naruto had a valid point.
"He could be wrong, really," she said. She got up from her seat and exited the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, Sakura and a fully dressed Naruto had regrouped to the living room. They had just barely sat down on Naruto's old and tattered couch, when the hideously yellow curtains of the living room were pushed aside and Sasuke entered the apartment through the open window.
"I have a door," Naruto said and pointed in the direction of it. "With a doorbell attached to it."
"Your point is?" Sasuke asked.
"I know you like shiny stuff. My doorbell is particularly shiny."
Sasuke gave his friend an unamused look and steered straight for the kitchen.
"I'm low on food," Naruto called after him.
"Try the cupboards to the left," Sakura said. This was where Naruto tended to store everything eatable that wasn't included on his limited list of proper food for a self-proclaimed future Hokage. In his simplified world, a Hokage didn't eat nutrients like every other carbon-based organism did. Surely the Hokage could live by eating noodles for supper every day, because the Hokage was just that awesome. Sakura really ought to burst Naruto's bubble.
She lowered her voice and sent Naruto a sharp look. "You can't tell Sasuke. You shut up about this until we know for sure."
"I can keep my mouth shut."
"Not around Sasuke, you can't," Sakura said. "And you always leave me to deal with the mess afterwards, so just shut it, all right?"
Naruto didn't get a chance to answer. Sasuke entered the room with an unpeeled orange in one hand and a glass of water in the other. The sight would have been hilarious to people who weren't accustomed to laying eyes on Sasuke when he was off duty.
"Is that an orange?" Sakura asked, her eyes zeroing in on the fruit.
"Do I have oranges?" Naruto asked.
"It's a mutant lemon," Sasuke said and sat down in the unoccupied armchair, fully focused on the task of peeling the fruit and reach the juicy flesh inside.
"What?" Naruto asked, confused.
"Yes, it's an orange," Sakura said and shot Naruto an exasperated look. She had no idea how Naruto and Sasuke managed to communicate when she wasn't around, so she figured it was a good thing that she was in it for the long ride. It was just unfortunate that she didn't know precisely how many other rides that this long ride had planned for her.