Sakura was easy to find. Training Ground Seven. She sat in front of the three wooden stumps, facing them. She looked up at them and smiled warmly. "You know, I had almost given up on ever training here with Team Seven again."

"We had a lot of fun here," Naruto looked around, smiling with nostalgia.

"Like Naruto getting poked in the ass by Kakashi?" Sasuke laughed hard. He laughed even harder when he caught Naruto's insulted and annoyed look. Sakura smiled deeper, basking in the laughter and presence of her teammates. This was worth waiting eight years for. Sasuke was so different…so happy. Naruto didn't seem to have changed so drastically, but that was fine with her. She loved Naruto the way he had always been.

"Hey you teme—"

"Or when he was tied to the stump?" Sakura chimed in, laughing with Sasuke.

"Not you, too, Sakura! Please don't encourage him," Naruto plead, a smile crept on to his face. "This was where we became one. A single team, not three separate ninja. That was the best day of my life. It was nice to know that, no matter what, I would never be completely alone again."

"You left me behind." That was the thought that had plagued Sakura. Hadn't she been part of the team? Hadn't she been their friend?

"No. You were needed here. You were doing great things, Sakura." Naruto denied her accusation. He moved in front of her and wiped her eyes. "You have become so strong. An amazing medic-nin. I was not going to ask you to give it, to risk your dreams."

"I was part of Team Seven, too! It should have been my choice!" Her tears came harder, she was feeling somewhere between anger and relief.

"You are right. We were trying to protect you." Sasuke admitted.

"Protection? From Orochimaru? I could helped you." She was a ninja. She could have been some help.

"No, from us. We were protecting you from us." Naruto whispered, sounding ashamed and sad.

"We weren't exactly stable. I had the cursed seal and Naruto had his seal. Using them we the only way to win and having someone else around would have been reckless. Neither of us wanted to hurt you." Silence fell over the three, something Naruto had had enough of the past few days.

"I am not weak. You could have at least told me…you just left Naruto. You just left and I didn't know where you went or if you were ok. You could have been dead! And I would have never known."

"Come on…nothing can kill me, I'm practically invincible!" Naruto smiled, and spoke in that convincing way he had. But Sakura remembered. She remembered when he came back from the failed Sasuke retrieval mission. She remembered his arm wrapped up after he performed that justu he had been creating.

"You aren't invincible…no one is." Naruto looked at her and sat down, leaning his back against the middle stump. His stump. Sakura and Sasuke followed his lead and sat on either side of him.

"Would you have let me go? Would you have waved goodbye and told me to be careful?" He looked at his feet, not at her. "You would have begged me not to go. You would have asked to come. You would have cried…and I would have stayed."

She remained silent, knowing he was right. So an uncomfortable silence set in, something Naruto had had enough of. He hated the quiet!

"Let's get ramen! I haven't had good ramen in years!" Naruto offered her a hand up, and she took it, laughing at her old friends antics. Ramen was something she hadn't had in five years. She never ate it unless Naruto had dragged her there. Sakura knew it wasn't like old times and issues were still lingering, but she let it slide tonight. She just enjoyed her teammates. They cut through the other training grounds, it took longer to reach the ramen stand, but it let them talk privately a bit. And this time there was no silences or tears, just laughter. Until they reached Training Area Eight. And Naruto stopped walking. He was staring at the dark haired girl training…Hinata. "Hina?" he spoke so quietly, she wasn't sure he had said anything.

Hinata had frozen the second that Team Seven entered her training field, her back facing them. She was not ready for this. She was not prepared to see him yet. Slowly she turned around to face them, her eyes locked on him.

"Well, Sasuke, let's go on ahead. I'm starving!" Sakura said loudly, pulling Sasuke with her as she tried to leave as fast as she could. Sasuke stole a glance at Naruto, but he didn't move his eyes off of Hinata.