Yes people I am alive, though this chapter almost killed me to finish. I figured that it's been 3 months since I last updated and I was pissed at myself, so I made myself finish. Plus, I got a death threat, so I thought it was about time this got done. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

Btw, Fire Dolphin did you read my mind?

Warning: OCC, bad grammar, bad spelling, bad plotline, bad writing, bad everything. And I wrote this while I was ill so… yeah, its gunna be awful.

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would have made at least a side story with Sasuke and Naruto together by now.

XXSASUNARUXX

As Sasuke walked to school, he just knew it was going to be a bad day. Clouds rolled throughout the sky, dark and ominous. The shop keepers of the street he was on were hastily pulling tables of produce inside, all the while staring with distaste at the clouds, and if they consciously had chosen to rain today just to spite them.

Yes, he decided, today was definitely going to be a bad day. And not one he wanted to spend at school.

As he shuffled into his seat of the classroom, the fan girls finally decided to leave him alone after they had learned neither he - nor Naruto, were morning people. Just for the morning though. It was a great success in Naruto's eyes, and she decided that she wanted to train them to become their (her) secret army for when they (she) took over the world.

The only flaw in her plan was that Sasuke, the 'motivator' (i.e. only person the girls would actually listen to) wasn't exactly in the mood to take over the world... Yet.

Maybe after he'd used the rabid fans to kill Itachi for him in the most embarrassing way an S ranked missing Nin had ever been killed, he would.

It made him smirk just thinking about it.

Five minutes later, Iruka strolled in. He, also not being a morning person on miserable days such as these. He glared at any noisy kids and told them, using only his eyes, that if they didn't get to their seats pronto, they would not live to even see the genin test.

The little brats scampered to their seats.

Sasuke sighed, what he wouldn't do to be able to control people like that.

It was only after another five minutes that Sasuke got worried. Normally, Naruto would have arrived when Iruka did, usually carrying bags or coffee for the chunin. After meeting Sasuke, she seemed to have toned down on the number of morning pranks, so she was nearly always there in the morning.

Emphasize the 'nearly always'.

Fifteen minutes after the bell went; Sasuke was seriously beginning to think about sneaking out to find her.

When said spiky haired girl finally arrived at the door, she seemed fidgety, like someone was going to stab her at any second, and didn't seem to be paying attention to the shouting Iruka.

It was sort of like she was in a daze.

Or still asleep.

Sasuke snorted, it would be just like the dobe to sleepwalk all the way to school.

When Iruka had finished with his rant, she simply mumbled something about her alarm not going off and doors getting stuck before walking to her seat.

I slipped into my seat as Iruka-sensei gave me one final glare before sitting down to call the register. From next to me, Sasuke gave me a worried look and tilted his head in question. I nodded back to him to assure him I was fine, trying to ignore the guilt weighing me down from lying to him.

I don't like lying to him; he sulks for days when he finds out.

But I don't want to burden him.

He'll get mad in righteous anger -on my behalf of course, because I'm way too used to it to get annoyed anymore- and then get irritated when he can't do anything because he's too young and 'powerless'.

Then he'll get in a huff with me because I won't join him in his crusade to the Hokage's office to demand that Jiji do something about it.

He doesn't realize the old man is doing all he can.

It's sweet he cares though. Hopefully he'll help me find a new place to live; it's boring flicking through newspapers and looking for cheap enough flats on your own.

Yep, that's right, some bastard burned down my apartment building.

Amazingly, no-one was harmed. It probably helped that because the place was so old and was practically crumbling away, so hardly anybody lived there. And the few who did were probably warned.

Well, all of the few except for me.

It's a good thing I had run out of food; otherwise I wouldn't have been out at a take-away and away from the building.

I was startled from my thoughts by a piece of chalk slamming onto my forehead. My head was literally snapped back by the force of the throw. Rubbing my, no doubt, red forehead, I glared at a glaring Iruka.

"Naruto! At least have the decency to pretend you're listening!" Iruka-Sensei yelled from the front, his big-head-no-jutsu making his head well… big.

Huge.

Massive.

Colossal.

Tremendous.

So enormous that if the universe looked at his face, it would run away whimpering with its tail between its legs.

Another piece of chalk hit my forehead.

"For goodness sake, listen!" A vein on his neck was sticking out quite noticeably. I nodded and said sorry quickly in case he exploded. I hoped he wouldn't, Iruka was one of my very few precious people.

It would be a shame to be the cause of his death.

Sighing, I strategically turn so it looks like I'm watching Iruka, but I'm really staring out of the window. I hope no-one (CoughSakuraCough) annoys me today; I'm just too tired to deal with it right now.

Naruto had been ignoring me all morning. I don't think it was intentional, she just didn't seem to be registering my furious whispers of her name and the jabs delivered to her ribs.

She was either ignoring me (I told she's moody in the morning), or something was going on with her.

To test, I whacked her extremely hard on the head with my notebook.

Snapping out of whatever daze she was in, she shot me a foul glare before pointedly dismissing me to turn to Iruka's 'very important lesson' on knots.

Sense the sarcasm.

Well, I thought, if she wasn't ignoring me then, she is now.

I decided I didn't like that.

It was me after all; she can't get mad at me just for hitting her. Otherwise, we'd never actually be friends and would be in a constant state of absolute and foolhardy war.

I say foolhardy because it would obviously be her win. She'd sniffle and flash adorably (not that I'd ever admit it) wide eyes and my will to hate her would crumble like a dry cookie.

Well, I'd give her a taste of her own medicine. I stuck my nose in the air (well, metaphorically. I didn't want the mutt to ask me what was so interesting about the ceiling... Again) and decided to ignore her for the rest of the day... Or until she woke up enough that she wouldn't bite my head off for glancing in her general direction.

Whichever one came first, really.

I was betting on the rest of the day.

It was at first break when she finally, completely woke up.

Sasuke had turned around to get a snack from his bag, with a grumpy and still agitated Naruto to his left emitting an aura of doom.

And when he turned back, it was to whom he liked to refer to as 'day Naruto'. In other words, the normal chipper blonde.

The change made his head spin. Where there was once an aura of imminent death was now a aura of sparkly flowers and rainbows.

It made him feel slightly nauseated.

As soon as he had turned around, Naruto was at a go. Speech blurred in her race to verbally vomit the last twelve or so hours of events that had happened to her without Sasuke.

And Naruto was in no way introverted.

After fifteen minutes of what sounded like kidnappings, murders, dragons tech-napping her microwave, hacking for top secret governments, and a cup of tea with the Daimyo and the Hokage, he was seriously wondering why he hung out with her in the first place.

He was tempted to interrupt her monologue, but he had been around her long enough to know that he would be completely ignored.

Breathing deeply, Naruto grinned sheepishly at him and rubbed the back of her head.

"So," he said in a dry voice. "Anything else happen?" It was obvious that he didn't believe her, but the oblivious blonde didn't seem to notice and immediately thought he meant something else.

"Nope," She said way too fast. "Nothing at all! Zilch. Nada. Méishénme [1]." At his raised eyebrow she laughed nervously and looked away quickly. Scanning the room for a subject change, she said the first thing she thought of.

"Look," she pointed. "Is Shino wearing new sunglasses?" Obliging to her change of topic, he looked. And indeed, Shino was wearing new glasses. He wondered how she had noticed, as the change was so small it was hardly noticeable. Even he didn't see.

But then again, he wasn't exactly looking.

Asking her the question, she replied with a one shouldered shrug and a wink. "Amazed at my pure awesomeness, aren't you?"

Walking out of the hell that some individuals called school; Naruto had never felt so relieved. And believed it would only get better and better every time she walked out of the Kami forsaken place.

She truly and honestly believed that she would one day die a gruesome death at the hands of a monologue-ing Iruka, going on about the different types of grips kunai offer for the umpteenth time.

Walking next to her, hands in pockets and occasionally glaring at, well, everybody, was an irate Sasuke.

She guessed that even he had to get bored after such an awful lesson.

What really annoyed her, though, was that the lesson didn't serve to distract her from her problem at all. If anything, it gave her more time to think about it.

And dammit, her brain was not made to think!

Well, it was, but…

See!

Anyway, now all she needed was an excuse to get away from Sasuke and she was good to go.

"Can I come to your apartment today?" She jumped from the unexpected question. After all, Sasuke hardly ever wanted to come to her apartment. He said it wasn't fit for human habitation and that it should be demolished.

She inwardly snorted at the irony.

Oh why must today be the day he actually wanted to go round hers?

"Ano, why do you want to come? You hate it there, don't you?"

"I think I left something there." She was so screwed. She needed to stall him.

"How can you be sure it's at my place?" He turned to her, dark eyes holding the beginnings of suspicion, head tilted to the side, considering why she was so reluctant.

Why on earth did he have to be a genius?

"Why don't you want me to go? You'd normally jump at the chance to spend some time at your house." She faltered, unable to think of a reason to stop him coming. Taking advantage of her silence he turned in the direction to her apartment, thoroughly ignoring her spluttered objections.

The obnoxious arsehole.

Unwilling to give up, she stubbornly turned in the other direction, heading towards a safe hiding place. AKA the Hokage's office.

He was set on going to her place, and she doubted her ability to stop a suspicious and worried Sasuke when he wanted to know what was going on.

He'd have to find out eventually, anyway.

Her only consolation was that she wouldn't be around when he exploded.

She sensed him before she heard him.

The sense of imminent death for those who had crossed him.

She cursed the fact that the Hokage was in a meeting and she couldn't hide under his desk.

Silently making sure the tree she was hiding in covered her completely, she held her breath and waited. Soon, the crack of breaking twigs could be heard, along with the squawks and flapping of birds as they fled the approaching danger.

Naruto wished she could join them as they flew to safety.

Soft yet thundering footsteps continued until they stopped relatively close to her tree. Her heart was thumping so loud she was pretty sure he could hear it.

Apart from her heart, there was silence. Not even a breeze broke it.

She heard him shuffle a little on the ground. It was evident he had already found her, so why wasn't he confronting her?

Whatever the reason, she was glad. She didn't want to see the pity on his face.

After five minutes, he gave up. He wasn't the most patient person after all.

He jumped onto her branch and silently held out a hand. She took it, not looking at his face, lest she burst out crying or laughing.

She herself was too messed up by what had happened to know what she'd do.

Still not saying a word, he indicated that they were going to jump down, making sure she'd seen it - as her attention was solidly fixed on the swirls and contours of the oak she'd chosen. It was an old one, certainly, for it had many leafy branches and was very tall.

She had hoped it would have hidden her well.

That failed.

Once they were safely on the ground he started to lead her back through the village, not once letting go of her hand. She was tempted to point out the health and safety warnings about jumping off trees while holding hands that Iruka had taught them, but elected to stay silent when he glared at her.

It wouldn't surprise her if he said could read her mind.

Sasuke snorted from next to her.

Pursing her lips, she let him drag her to wherever it was he wanted to go and instead opted to watch the stars. It was only when they got to the Uchiha complex that she paused; she had thought for sure that they were going to the Hokage.

Pulling her through the door of the main house- his house-, she decided she was confused. Naruto really thought he would have been yelling by now.

Instead, he led her down a hall and pulled open the door to the room opposite his.

The guest room, her brain provided. She had been over his house enough to know the layout of the complex.

Shoving her through the door he -for the first time- broke the hand connection and left her there. A minute later and he returned with what looked like fabric.

Throwing the thing at her head he turned to the door and said,

"Welcome to your new room. Leave or argue and you die a very painful death."

He shut the door in her face.

Shocked she stared down at the clothes in her arms, having instinctively caught them.

It was an old shirt and some shorts.

Nightclothes, the non-freaking out part of her brain told her.

She shrugged and decided she's sort this lunacy out in the morning.

She was too tired.

XXSASUNARUXX

Sorry if it ended abruptly, but my brain started to hurt.

1. Means nothing in Chinese (according to Google translate… I really need to stop using that.)

A one worded review does actually help, so try it.