It had been a week to the day when Ino and Shikamaru found themselves sitting in the hospital room waiting, again. Naruto and Sakura had been brought back to the hospital within an hour of their "demise". They were closely checked and given a clean bill of health…barring the fact that neither had woken up yet. They were hooked up to IV's and feeding tubes, so that they wouldn't waste away and die in the time it took them to awaken. Some were starting to have their doubts that they would ever wake up. Others were convinced that all they needed was time. The pair in the room was part of the latter group.

They had come every day and waited for a sign of their return. Tsunade had forbidden them from submitting any documents until they had got a chance to speak with Naruto and Sakura. She had done it so they would have time to think it over…to decide if they really wanted to quit being shinobi. It wasn't an uncommon thought, all of the rookie nine who were still conscious had had it cross their mind sometime recently. Even team Guy, the ever optimistic and rearing to go team, had balked. So far, no one had quit, but Tsunade had given them all the same order. Take some time off, think, visit your friends, but don't make any life changing decisions.

The reasoning was to not make a big decision while you were still processing something like the horrors that they had seen. Shikamaru wondered briefly if Sakura and Naruto would regret their life changing decision once they woke up. They had gotten married in the thick of war, how much more life changing a decision could you make? But, it was Naruto and Sakura, and so far as the story went according to Shizune, it was Sakura's idea…not Naruto's. That had to mean something in itself, didn't it?

On the opposite side of the newly weds room was a table that was slowly disappearing under a massive pile of gifts. They were all wedding gifts. Shikamaru thought it was sort of gruesome. What if they never woke up? Would these gifts be moved to litter their graves? But he tried not to think of them dying permanently, not until they were old anyway. With their forces depleted by war Konoha needed two as strong as the couple lying in bed. Shikamaru needed his friends back and everyone needed Naruto's smiling face, his antics and Sakura's constant attempts at keeping him in line. It brought smiles to the people's faces. Everyone needed to smile now.

Konoha itself had taken virtually no damage in the war as a function of their proactive attack in the forest. But the forest needed cleaning up; no one wanted to go for a stroll and stumble upon rotting flesh. No one wanted to accidentally come upon a loved one with an eyeball being pulled out by a crow. The scars of the people of Konoha ran deep enough without those sights being burned into their memories.

The remaining troops who were willing and able to move with the addition of some very brave commoners were the clean up team. It was slow going because of the sheer amount of work to be done and because it was emotionally taxing. What do you tell your wife you did today when the answer is 'I washed dried blood off of tree trunks and collected body parts in a wheel barrel'? How can you look your child in the face after sorting through body parts all day, trying to objectively decide what belonged to whom and tell him that the world is a good place? The newcomers to war were realizing that the horrors of war last much longer than the battle itself. So much longer.

There were several piles of remains. Those of Konoha lineage were to be given a mass grave if they were unidentifiable or in pieces, and the rest were to be buried as the surviving families desired. There was going to be a town wide funeral service once everyone was…collected. Those not of Konoha were put into different piles based on where they were from…if it was possible to tell. In order to start repairing relations Konoha had decided to return the dead to their homes, as best as they could anyway, as a sign of respect. Although some wondered how respectful it was to turn over a finger here, a part of a leg there and pretend that it was doing someone a favor.

Ino and Shikamaru were playing their favorite game in the hospital room, the room that had become like a second home to them. "Guess the present" was the game. It was about as light hearted as they could get and they guessed more and more inappropriate gifts to make each other laugh. It wasn't very deep laughter, but it stopped the tears for a while. The tears came when they were alone. In a pact that they made, without ever having said a word, they never left each other's side. They slept curled up in two separate little balls facing each other in alternating locations. Back and forth between the Nara's and the Yamanaka's. Their parents were keeping their distance for the most part. This wasn't something anyone could talk you out of. This was something they needed each other for. They were lucky to not be alone.

Evening fell and the nurses informed them it was time to leave for the night. It was a night at the Nara's tonight. They would spend it in the same room Shikamaru did after Asuma died. Eyebrows had begun to rise since the two of them were never alone; they even slept in the same room together. But, neither had a look on their face of being in love and neither gave anyone the opportunity to ask. How had Sakura been able to even think of love during war? Is love so selfless that in your final moments on earth, all you can think about is the one you care about with no feelings for the pain you find yourself in? Shikamaru found it hard to believe, but Sakura had always been a pain, so he might never understand her decision.

Back in the hospital room, not long after the nurses had changed IV fluids two eyelids fluttered. Naruto awoke to a dark room sore, hungry, confused and scared. What had happened? Hadn't he been sure he was dying? Where was Sakura? Had she really not only confessed… but also married him? He would have bolted up in his bed to look around for answers but he found himself impaled by IV's and tubes. He lay still for a moment, trying to make sense of his memories when he noticed a small noise that sounded very much like breathing. He turned his head slowly, not knowing what he expected to find. In the bed to his left was an unconscious Sakura. She was hooked up the same way he was. In a moment of panic he did a quick sweep and decided that aside from her eyes being closed, she looked perfectly fine.

He called her name quietly to see if she was just resting and he got no reaction. He figured he would just lie there for a while; trying to figure some things out until either Sakura woke up or someone came to visit. It was as he was readjusting himself around the tubes when he noticed a dark mass on the other side of the room. He squinted and strained and decided he had no idea what he was looking at. But it was going to drive him nuts until he knew. Something so simple as identifying an object was a far more appealing task than remembering what he had seen. And felt. But that single thought forced the memories to the surface and the memories all came flooding back at him.

The feel of flying backwards through the air. The sharp pain and agony of landing on something that went straight through him. What was it again…a sword? And then the memory of Sakura's guts being spilled. The heart wrenching pain of watching the one you love go through that. Of seeing her holding her intestines in with her hand, still determined to not give up. Of that sick bastard poised to slit her throat with him totally unable to stop it, stuck to the ground helpless. Of the look on Shizune's face. The realization he was going to die. The memory of the confusion and the joy of hearing that Sakura had loved him. The ecstasy of her asking to be his wife. The difficulty of staying awake. Their first kiss. The blackness. The burning. Then, nothing.

He felt the tears flowing down his face. All of that pain and suffering, all of the beauty and horror of the situation hit him in the chest like lightening. He didn't know how he was alive. But he knew that he had been given a chance to be with Sakura. The thought that she could have been faking it or less than serious had never crossed his mind since one does not spend their last moments on earth lying for someone else's benefit.

He found himself really crying for the first time in longer than he could remember. Sasuke's ultimate and final betrayal ended in his death. Naruto had failed him. Sakura's torture, pain and death had also been his failure. Could he protect no one? He found himself suddenly exhausted. Life, death, love, pain, failure, death again. All of these thoughts swirled in his head until he found himself drifting off to sleep again. He would soak his pillow clean through by the time he fully awoke in the morning. And he would have an ear cocked in Sakura's direction in case she so much as missed a single heartbeat or breathed in the slightest different way. Tonight Naruto Uzumaki cried himself to sleep for the first time since he was a little boy.

Morning came around just like it did everyday. But today was different for Naruto. He was awake again with a whole new life ahead of him. A life hopefully full of the love he had always wanted. He noted, with a degree of pleasure, that the strange pile that he had tried so hard to make out was a pile of presents. Wedding presents he thought with satisfaction mixed with despair: Sakura was still out cold.

When the morning nurses came in they found him sitting up in bed staring out the window watching the sunrise and the birds going about their business. The one nurse screamed and ran off down the hall to get somebody while the other nurse wiped tears from her eyes. They had been assigned to Naruto and Sakura since they were admitted and had been losing faith in their survival as more than just empty bodies. After he assured her that he was fine and insisted the tubes be removed so he could have real food, the nurse happily asked what Sakura would like. Naruto's face darkened and he looked away from the kind nurse, who noticed then that it had really been too quiet to have both of them conscious.