"He'll wake up any day now." Tsunade crossed her arms tightly against the wind. The faces opposite her, carved in stone, were stark and sharp in the sunset. Kakashi, standing beside her, dropped his head slightly. It was he only sign he gave that he heard her, and she took in her breath, eyes fixing on Minato's face. "I don't know how I'm going to tell him."

Kakashi leaned against the balcony rail. "There's nothing you can do...?" His voice was flat and he spoke into his chest. He'd asked the question before, and knew the answer. He just couldn't help asking again.

"Even if I'd been there when it happened... I know he wasn't cared for properly, but considering his injury, it hardly makes a difference." Tsunade sighed. "If we can fix the hara, we might be able to do something about his paralysis. But he needs to get healthy first, and we need to develop some kind of plan of action. This kind of surgery hasn't been done manually in years..." She pursed her lips, peering into the distance before abruptly turning to face Kakashi. "Have you seen Sakura lately?"

He shook his head. "Not since I took her home." He lifted his head. "I told you how she was."

Stumbling, unable to speak. Tsunade nodded. "She wasn't much better when I told her his condition." That look that flashed across her face; as if she'd been sleeping and abruptly woken in a pool of ice water. When she closed her eyes and swayed Tsunade had reached out, certain she was going to fall, but instead she tripped back on uneasy feet, bowed haphazardly in the doorway, and disappeared.

"Well, they're very close..." Kakashi rubbed briefly at his chin.

"Of course." Tsunade glanced at him. "You say it like there was something else."

"Since after Sasuke left. The second time." He straightened, turning away from the wind, and pulled a hand through his hair. "So I heard."

She didn't doubt it. It had always been obvious that Naruto carried something for Sakura. When he was young he'd been like all boys are; so much stupider in her presence. And when he got older there was just something in his eyes; the way their corners crinkled when he smiled at her. Tsunade sighed and Kakashi shifted.

"He might do best hearing it from her." He crossed his arms. "If she can bring herself to do that." His gloved hand came up to rub at the back of his neck and Tsunade watched him turn his head stiffly.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

He lifted his face and the corner of his visible eye bunched in a slight smile. "It's just hard to believe." His gaze shifted to the monument, his teacher's face, and Tsunade saw an almost unreadable sadness in the wrinkle of his brow.

Ino had never really learned how to make comfort foods. Her mother wasn't much for them. During the winter Sakura would bring hot thermoses of thick soup from home while Ino picked over something cold, something thrown together with ingredients straight from the fridge; salads without dressing, hard rice, cold chicken. The first thing she taught herself to make, when she left to live on her own, was rice pudding. Sakura always had it at least once a week in the coldest months, and she'd always wanted to ask to try it. Something about the way it smelled...

Her first attempt at making it was a complete failure, but by now she'd mastered it. Her bad days could be cured with a cup or bowl of it. She hoped Sakura would eat at least some of it. She'd slept the entire day, the dark shades of her apartment drawn as Ino wandered around inside, washing the few dishes in the sink, listening for calls. She expected once from Tsunade, but the phone had only rung once since she'd been there – Kiba's name had come up, and Hinata's faltering voice filtered over the answering machine. She hadn't been able to get in touch with Tsunade, and was wondering how Naruto was. She'd heard rumors that he'd come back into town a few days ago. The hospital wouldn't give her any information. "Sorry to bother you," she said quietly, before hanging up. "I'm just a little worried."

So was Ino. What would happen when--.

The knock at the door surprised her and the ladle she'd held loosely in her fingers splattered against the pudding in the pot. It began to sink as the knocking began again.

"Sakura." The voice penetrated the room as Ino fished the ladle from the pudding, burning her fingers. "Sakura?"

Tsunade.

His eyes moved under his lids occasionally. The left one was bruised and swollen shut, but the right one was slightly open and Sakura caught the smallest sliver of blue, sometimes, when she could bear to look at him. Her chest was knotted and her stomach fluttered strangely, the way that it does when you submerge yourself in water too hot, or when you wake up and, for the split moment, don't know where you are. She pressed her hand to her forehead and it felt feverish. Sweat welled in drops like pinpricks on her upper lip. Her eyes, as they stared down at her knees, were full of hot tears that, for some reason, couldn't fall.

Tsunade had appeared in her bedroom, sat on the mattress and put her hand on Sakura's hip. Her voice was soft but every word squeezed more breath out of Sakura's lungs, pressed her further into the bed, threatened to suffocate her. She was so caught up in what she was hearing, it wasn't until she felt Tsunade's fingers on her face that she realized she was crying.

We'd like you to tell him, she said. We know how close you are, she said. She said, He's really going to need you to stay by him. Be strong. He needs you.

How could she have done anything but nod her head and cry? Tsunade pulled her into her arms and she wept, her cheek pressed into her bare shoulder, arms limp. Ino stood in the doorway, shifting, but Sakura couldn't bring herself to look up at her. She stared down Tsunade's back and let the Hokage comfort her, misplace her sympathy. If she told the truth, she thought, things would become so much worse. She couldn't imagine the words leaving her mouth in Tsunade's presence: I did it. I did this to him. Looking at him now, though, knowing that he would wake and she would have to tell him he was paralyzed, she suddenly wished she'd confessed everything.

Naruto laid quietly in bed. His right eye, once slightly open, had closed. He looked older, somehow. The crease between his brow, the strange colour of his skin. He was too pale. Sakura imagined his eyes opening, washed out and bright, strange, like ice sunken into his face; she imagined the pain she would hear in his voice. Her shoulders tightened. "I can't do this," she whispered. His face was still, waxen. "Please," she whispered to him. Her hands settled on his blanket but she couldn't bring herself to touch him. "Please," she said. "Don't wake up..."

Ino's voice only half startled her. It wasn't so much that she'd forgotten the blonde had come with her; it was the soft tone, the way her voice fell to a whisper. "Sakura," she said quietly. "You don't want that..."

Sakura fisted her hands. It was true. She didn't want that.

He was disconcertingly quiet as he woke. Sakura had heard people wake screaming, had seen people holding broken conversations with someone they'd been dreaming of, someone not in the room. Things like that had disturbed her but now, beside Naruto, she realized she hated this eerie, suspenseful silence more. His eyes sometimes opened, moved about the room, or tried to, and then closed again. Each time Sakura held her breath, hoping he wouldn't fully wake. Hoping to put off her duty.

Ino sat beside the window, staring out. Sakura was glad for her presence, grateful for her understanding. Was it understanding, or just the obligation of friendship? Tsunade, standing beside her, wouldn't bother to politely veil her disappointment, no matter what bond they shared. If Naruto says something... The thought continuously appeared in the back of Sakura's head. Even imagining made her stomach tighten and rise into her throat. Sasuke hadn't died, Naruto was more injured than she'd realized; she had no reason, no excuse, anymore, for what she'd done.

Sakura closed her eyes. She'd been staring at his face on and off for a good three hours, now, but, curiously, when she closed her eyes she couldn't seem to put his features together, past all the scrapes and bruises. The image that came up was one of him when they were younger, thirteen, fourteen, and he was asking her out on another date. They were such babies, then. Such kids. Once he'd brought her an ice cream and to spite him she'd held it in her hand, uneaten, until it melted and dripped sideways from the cone; he only smiled at her, awkwardly. She hated that smile, how obvious it made his feelings for her. But the week before he left he'd grabbed her wrists in his hands and screamed, inches from her face, with so much anger she wondered where that smile had gone. She would have loved to see it then, no matter how pitiful she'd thought it was before.

Why are you here? he'd shouted. If you don't love me, if you're just fucking with me, why are you here?

I don't know, maybe I feel sorry for you. That was her answer. Her stupid, childish answer. She'd pushed him, as if she hadn't known what she was doing, as if she couldn't control herself. Sakura pressed her fingers over her lids until lights, pixelated, grew in the darkness in front of her eyes.

"Mn," came the voice. "Sasuke's dead, then."

Sakura opened her eyes and looked, for some reason, first to Ino, who had torn her gaze from outside. Maybe, if Naruto hadn't spoken again, she would have simply continued to look everywhere in the room but him, searching for the source of that eerily disembodied voice.

"You're in my room," he said. He took a few breaths. "Not Sasuke's." His eyes slid halfway open and fixed on her, pale and bright. Sakura suppressed the shiver that up her spine to the base of her neck. She felt it prickle against her cheeks, like a sunburn, as she looked away from him.

"No," she said quietly. "No, he's fine."

"Then maybe I'M dead." Naruto laughed slightly. Even as the sound left his mouth he realized it didn't fit in the room, humid with tension. Tsunade and Ino stared rigidly at him, their backs straight. Something slow moving and dark rose up in the base of his stomach as he glanced at them, each in turn. He swallowed, wrinkling a brow at the pain he felt in his throat, the tightness in his chest. His eyes were dry and he fought to keep them open. He felt heavy. "So many people here to see me. Miss me much?"

Trying to smile made him hollow with fatigue; the scab at the corner of his mouth pulled tight, threatening to crack, with every word he formed. He had to act like this, though. It was the way he always acted. Tsunade smiled slightly at him in return, but Sakura stared down at her hands, one tightly gripping the other. When she pulled them apart to push her hair behind her ear, he watched the white marks deepen till they were red.

Something had happened last night. He remembered, but vaguely. She'd been crying, her shirt was dark with blood. He'd said some things, maybe, that weren't true. Or that were true but should have never been acknowledged. Maybe that was why she'd said what she did: I don't give a damn about you. It was the only thing he clearly recalled. Something told him more had been said, but all he saw were pictures, brief glimpses of movement: her hands, fingers spread, against his chest; her bare knees; her feet, without slippers; the sky, tilting as he fell. The way her green eyes pierced him even in the semi-darkness of early morning.

"I'm sorry for what I said," he said quietly, pulling his eyes away from her hands. She lifted her face and stared at him, lips parted. Her eyes seemed to large for her face, too surprised, too glassy with tears. She looked away without saying anything.

"Sakura..." Ino shifted in her chair and for a moment her voice surprised Naruto. He glanced first to Tsunade, still standing behind Sakura, and then to her. She held a pot on her knees, full of some flower he'd never seen before, or didn't remember seeing. "Are you OK?" she asked. She glanced between him and Sakura, sitting at his bedside. Had she been there, too, last night? He couldn't remember.

Sakura nodded. He heard her swallow and take in her breath. "Please don't apologize," she said. Her voice was small and tinny, as if he were hearing her through one of those can and string telephones, the kind he'd made when he was young. He'd tried to catch a cat and train it to meow into one side, because he had no one who wanted to pick up the other end and talk with him.

He was stupid when he was young.

"Please don't apologize," she said again. Her voice was so small. Naruto felt a pull in his stomach and swallowed.

"He's dead, isn't he?" He wanted to lift himself up, reach out to touch her - she sat so far away - but his body was too heavy.

"Sasuke's not dead," Tsunade said firmly. "You don't have to worry about him. He's grown more and more stable the past few days." Her hand settled on Sakura's shoulder, who seemed to sink beneath its weight.

"The past few days?" For a brief moment his torso washed hot; he felt breathless. "How long have I been here?" His hand lifted to his face. The stitches beneath his eye were hot; the left side of his face was swollen and tender. The scab on his mouth leaked something clear. He shifted his arm and knew the burns there weren't healed.

"5 days," she answered. He saw her head tilt, her brow wrinkle, and suddenly realized the heavy thing in his gut was dread.

"What's wrong?" He realized – remembered – that in this world he lived in, there was an infinite number of things that changed, degenerated, went wrong, sometimes in less than a second. Tsunade's eyes slid to Sakura and she lowered her head, her shoulders hunching. Her hands were motionless and pale, stiff on her knees. Naruto's eyes roamed the room, sensing the growing tension; it seemed to constrict his throat, something like panic. He swallowed, painfully. "What happened?"

"You're paralyzed," Sakura said suddenly. She exhaled as she spoke, features loosening, as if a sudden pressure had been released. Her shoulders slumped, her fingers curled. Tsunade and Ino, though, winced at the abruptness of her words. The room was sucked free of air. Naruto felt it. His mouth opened but it took him a moment to inhale. Her words were large and ungainly, awkward in his ears. "When you fell." Her eyes searched his, skittering back and forth, and a chill rolled up from the center of Naruto's spine. "When you fell," she said again. He felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

"You can leave," he said quietly, the words scraping in his throat. He wanted to say something biting, something dark and ugly but there wasn't enough breath in his chest.

Sakura's eyes blinked, twice in succession and then again as she spoke: "What?" He saw her chest sink, saw colour rise into her pale cheeks, and knew she'd exhaled in relief, knew she was flush with the joy of not being caught. His heart seized in his chest.

Tsunade was quick to touch him as soon as he grit his teeth, pushing himself upright. His legs laid heavy on the mattress, unmoving; his elbows shook as he struggled into sitting position.

"Don't..." She pressed her hand to his forearm. "Stop. Don't overexert yourself."

His face was growing red; he felt his heartbeat in the swollen skin around his eye. Sakura stood slowly, her hands shaking at her sides.

"Naruto--." She started. "Please, don't--."

"Shut up!" The word exploded from his mouth as his elbow gave out. Everything was so heavy in him. Don't what, he wanted to ask. Don't tell? "Sakura, get out!"

She shifted, her hands grasping at the loose material of her tunic. "Please don't sit up," she whispered. "You might make it worse."

"And how bad is it now?" He collapsed back onto the mattress, one elbow folded beneath himself, and a stiff pain radiated up into his shoulder blades. "How bad is it now? Since I fell?"

Sakura's throat tightened as she swallowed, tripping back. Even now, he saw it in her eyes: please don't tell. Don't tell on me.

"Get out!" he screamed.

Ino, in the corner of the room, suddenly stood. "These flowers," she started. She came quickly to his bedside, holding them in her outstretched arms. "They're scarlet geraniums," she said. "They--."

"Don't," Sakura began. Naruto stared at her, couldn't take his eyes from her. She looked away as his bandaged hand lifted, jumped as he grasped the flowers in his fist. Ino said nothing, unflinching, as the pot shattered against the floor, throwing dirt up onto her legs. Her hands, still outstretched, slowly dropped.

Tsunade was speaking to him, loudly, but he couldn't make out the words.