don't touch my hand and call it love
you said it was over, and then cried and cried; you were gone before i said goodbye.

7.


"I'm not sure how to explain it." Tsunade's features are set into a deep frown. "It's like…there is a wall in your mind, purposely keeping your memories from returning." Her fingers leave Sasuke's temple and Sasuke sits up, looking just as confused as the Hokage.

Tsunade came to Sasuke's checkup because she herself hasn't had an actual look into his brain the way Sakura has.

"Really? I didn't notice it at all every time I checked." Sakura is surprised, and maybe a even a little disappointed at herself. She thought that at this level, while she would obviously not be on par with Tsunade, she would be able to notice the traces of a jutsu.

The Hokage shakes her head. "There's no way you could've, Sakura. It's far too faint and well crafted for you to have detected it. Even I had to double check."

"Which means that that my memory loss isn't an accident," Sasuke concludes. The way he's frowning reminds Sakura of the old Sasuke, always focused on killing his brother and nothing else. It's both comfortingly familiar and frightening. "Someone did it on purpose."

"But who would…? For what purpose?"

"Whoever it is, they're fearsome." Tsunade crosses her arms. "For a jutsu to be as intricate as that…"

Sasuke slips off the examination table. "Hokage-sama, I request permission to leave the village and search for my own answers. I do not wish to trouble the village any further."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke, but I'm going to have to decline. On top of it being too dangerous for you to go alone with only who knows how much of your memory still intact, but you're also the last of the Uchiha clan. Whether any of us like it or not, your blood is important to the village—I can't let you wander off again just because you want to."

Sasuke looks straight at Tsunade, his eyes more menacing than Sakura has seen in years. "I am not the last of the Uchiha clan."

Tsunade seems to have caught her mistake a moment too late, but manages to cover herself up smoothly. "And do you think we'd be able to bring Itachi back? Even if we could, we wouldn't want him. We consider you to be the last viable Uchiha." Sakura breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

"Viable. Of course." Clearly irritated, he slips past the Hokage. "Well, if you have nothing else to say to me, I'll excuse myself." When the door of the examination room closes behind him, both Tsunade and Sakura's postures slump, as though they're just relieved of a very large stress from their shoulders.

"You have to be careful of what you say to him, Shishou!"

"It just came out." Tsunade looks like she just aged five years. Who knows what would happen if Sasuke realized that Itachi is already dead, and no one informed him. "In any case, I'll dispatch an investigation team for this matter. Are you interested?"

Sakura almost says yes, but at the last moment, shakes her head. "Whatever it is, I'll find out not long after you do. I don't want to be more involved in Sasuke's matters more than I have to." She's curious about who could have possibly done this to Sasuke, and for what reasons, but she doesn't want to dedicate so much of her concentration on him anymore. She's already wasted enough time on Sasuke—it's time for her to care more about herself. "And anyway, there are other ways that I can support him."

Tsunade places her hands on her hips, with an understanding smile. "Alright. I'll gather the best team I can—the best I can have without you, of course."

Sakura smiles. "Thanks, Shishou."

She'd rather be fighting her own battles.

"Still practicing? Have you got it down yet?" She finds Sasuke sitting by the riverside, concentrating very hard with a blade of grass in his hand. She can see the faint outline of chakra extending from his pointer finger, but it's sloppy—there's no way it can cut through anything like that. "That's worse than it was yesterday, Sasuke-kun."

"I know. I'm just…" A few moments, and Sasuke slams the grass to the ground, clearly frustrated. "I can't concentrate right now."

Sakura sits down beside Sakura, the grass tickling her skin. "Who do you think would've wanted to do this to you?"

"If I had an idea," Sasuke says dryly, "wouldn't they have just wiped it from my memory?"

"Oh." Sakura falls silent, feeling stupid. That didn't occur to her. "I'm sorry. Shishou told me that she'll put together a team to investigate though, so don't worry about it too much!"

"Are they going to put as much effort into this as they have into locating my brother?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

Sasuke sounds cold—much colder than he's been in the past weeks. It makes Sakura feel small and not good enough. "I mean that considering how long I've been back in Konoha, there should have been some news about his whereabouts, or even Akatsuki's movements. But it's been so quiet. It makes no sense."

"Oh. Well…if Itachi doesn't want to be found, he won't. You know that."

He rips some grass out of the ground and tosses it to the side, and repeats the process. "I feel like something's missing. There's a gap of missing information that doesn't have to do with my memory loss or the cause of it…something more obvious, but I keep on walking right past it." Sakura's gaze falls to the ground, worried that if Sasuke looked at her, he'd see the obvious lie right in front of him. Itachi's already dead. We didn't tell you because we were afraid you'd leave again, since you wouldn't have a reason to stay. She thinks that Sasuke should know when the time comes, though, because leaving him in the dark like this is unfair—especially when it concerns something that he's been working towards his entire life.

But she doesn't want to—not quite yet. Not when things are almost normal between them—a life where Sasuke pays attention to her, talks to her…cares about her…

"What would you do?" Sasuke holds out his palm full of grass, and the wind blows it away. "If you were in my situation."

"I…I don't know, Sasuke-kun. I wouldn't have sought revenge in the first place."

"Why not?"

"I mean, isn't it painful? To dedicate your entire life towards something that makes you so angry and sad…especially when there are people here who care about you—me, Naruto, and so many others if you would just let them…I don't think I would have been able to leave all of that behind for so much uncertainty, you know?"

Sasuke is silent for several long moments, and Sakura blushes, wondering if he's mentally ridiculing what she said. "You're strong," he finally says. "To decide to stay."

"I don't think so." She smiles softly. "I think you're strong for being able to go."

His eyes are downcast. "Thank you." It sounds sincere—maybe just as sincere as that night, so many years ago. It doesn't come as much of a surprise anymore when Sasuke says kind words like that; he really has changed. And for the better, Sakura thinks.

"Maybe I'll return after I kill Itachi," he says. "It never occurred to me that I could truly be happy, but I could always try. I always thought building a future here was so uncertain, but if Itachi's dead, then there would be no reason for me to hate this place. And maybe…I could be with you."

"And Naruto too, right?"

"Yeah, I suppose he can be a part of it too."

(You're such an important person to me. How do I make you see that? That you don't have to try this hard?)

It hurts, Sakura thinks. It hurts to love Sasuke.

Naruto is summoned to the Hokage's office in the evening. Winter is creeping in and the chill is beginning to set into his bones as he heads to the heart of the village, and he frowns grumpily, pulling his jumpsuit tighter around himself.

"What do you want on a night like this," he complains once he barges into the room. Tsunade is sitting at her desk, and also present are Shikamaru, Neji, and Kakashi. "Hey, guys. What's up?"

"You're late," Neji says with irritation.

"You were just early," Naruto shoots back.

Tsunade holds out Naruto's copy of the scroll, and he takes it. It's unmarked—an unranked mission. Naruto immediately straightens his back and stops with his attitude, and pulls it open for a quick scan.

"Earlier today, I discovered that Uchiha Sasuke's memory loss was intentional. We have absolutely no information or leads on who could have done this, which is why I've gathered you four here today. This mission is top secret—you are to talk about it to no one outside of this room. Report directly to me only." Tsunade crosses her arms. "Furthermore, because I realize it will be difficult to make any progress with no leads, this will be an ongoing mission. You will accept other missions while tending to this one, and always be alert for any potential information relating to Sasuke's memory loss. Is that understood?"

The four shinobi salute to their Hokage.

"But Baa-chan," Naruto says, "why isn't Sakura-chan here?"

"She opted out of this mission. She said she'd rather not be a part of it."

"Oh." He falls silent for a moment, and then points accusingly towards Neji and Shikamaru. "Then why are they here? They don't even care about Sasuke!"

"Because they're skilled!" Tsunade glares at him, not unlike the way Sakura glares at him when he's done something to piss her off. Naruto shakes a little in his shoes. "Neji is excellent on the battlefield, Shikamaru's mind one of the sharpest in the village, and Kakashi has got a near flawless tracking method. You wouldn't even have been included in this if I knew you wouldn't destroy half the village in anger once you found out."

"…Oh." Naruto's gaze falls down to his shoes. Of course. He may have the Kyuubi locked inside of him, but he's still a mediocre shinobi when compared to Neji, Shikamaru, and Kakashi. They all have their strengths to build on—what does Naruto have? He's not even good enough for Sasuke to remember.

Tsunade sighs. "Don't be discouraged, Naruto. You know Sasuke better than any of them do—you'd be able to catch things that the rest of them miss. Don't be so hard on yourself." A hand lands on his head, and he looks up at Kakashi. His single visible eye is crinkled into a smile.

Right. Just because Naruto is no one to Sasuke right now, it doesn't mean that Sasuke is no one to Naruto. Naruto would never forget Sasuke.

The next day, Sakura is working in the greenhouse when Sasuke comes in, calling out her name.

"What?" she asks, not looking up from her work. She has a large pair of goggles over her eyes as she's mashing a few herbs together in a mortar. When crushed together, the herbs are known to emit gases that that combine to create an irritant towards the eyes that is even worse than onions.

"I can cut the grass now. I'm ready for the next step."

"Really? Come here. Show me." She continues to crush the herbs as he makes his way through the different pots and tables of plants. "How long did that take you, a few days? Not bad." She got it in two, but she'll give him the benefit of the doubt. "You see that red plant over there? Just pluck a leaf off and cut it for me." Doing as he's told, Sasuke concentrates his chakra at the tip of his finger and slices the leaf in his palm, accidentally cutting into his own skin as well. Before he starts bleeding all over the place, she snatches the cut leaf and tosses it in with her mixture. "Good job, Sasuke-kun! How difficult did you find that?"

He shrugs. "Everything comes with its obstacles."

"Well, next is to increase the power! You know how I can break a rock just by flicking it? That's by propelling a concentrated amount of chakra out of your body. How much you put into it determines how much damage you do. You can break a rock, like I just said, or you can create an earthquake with just your foot. So, next!" Smiling brightly, she puts down her pestle. She's done with that bit of the antidote. "Go to the training grounds and have a go at knocking down some trees."

"You won't come with me?"

"I can, but you're going to have to wait until I'm finished my work here first. Are you okay with that?"

Sasuke sniffles. "Okay."

Blinking, Sakura peers closer at him, and notices that his eyes are wet. Sasuke's cheeks flush, and he quickly brushes the tears away. She laughs. "You don't have to be that touched that I'm teaching you medical jutsu!"

"It's not that!" he protests. "I don't know what's happening…"

Giggling, Sakura tosses him a pair of goggles. "I'm just kidding. It's the herbs I'm dealing with right now." Sasuke looks at the goggles with much concern, before he finally gives in and puts them on. (He looks ridiculous, but she tries her best not to laugh too hard.) "Do you want to help me?"

"Sure. I guess."

Sakura tells Sasuke about the different herbs and plants that she's mixing together right now for an antidote. She explains in detail where each plant is found, how it's harvested, and what season they grow best in. She tells him the health benefits for each one, tells him how they work together to form this specific antidote. It's not really important and Sasuke most likely doesn't even understand anything she's saying, but she likes talking about it because it makes her feel smart.

There are actually people whose jobs are to stay in the greenhouse all day and make antidotes, ointments, and other cures, but this is one of Sakura's hobbies, so she offers to help out when she can. She just finds it so interesting that so many different life forms, when combined together, can do such amazing things. A different combination of them can save any dying man.

"Heal instead of hurt, Sasuke-kun," she singsongs.

"Hn."

Together in the warm greenhouse, they mix herbs and create antidotes.

(Goodness, FFN, it seems like your formatting is less and less user friendly as the years continue.)

A quick update because I happened to be on a streak this past week, and I wrote a few chapters in advance! Ooh, the plot's finally thickening. ;) On another note, I actually reread Fading Away as well. It's interesting how writing styles can change so easily…I have no idea if I can ever write like that again! It's a little sad to think about.