Chapter Seven- Returning Comfort
Recap:
Suddenly there was a loud beeping, and the sounds of nurse's shoes scuttling frantically against the ground rang up and down the halls. Sakura realized that they all ran towards one location: her mothers' hospital room.
Sakura's heart just about stopped. The day was just about to get even worse.
Now:
Sakura stared helplessly as doctors and nurses filed swiftly into her mothers' hospital room. She couldn't tell what was going on, and she couldn't discern it from their talking either with all the extra noise of the people buzzing about. She thought she saw Tsunade slip into the room as well, barely passing her a glance as she began to yell at the doctors and nurses', questioning what was going on.
Suddenly there was a deep, chilling silence. Everything froze, nothing made a sound. The silence went on for what felt like forever, though in reality it only lasted about three seconds. Doctors and nurses began to file out of the room sullenly; the noise of their idle chatter and footsteps began to take up the hallway. From the white coats of the workers Sakura noticed her father's red shirt emerge from the crowd and look around for a second until he spotted her.
The look on her father's face was the only foreboding of the terrible news she got before her father spoke.
"She's not gonna make it." Was all Sakura heard as everything around her suddenly seemed to crumble and blur before her eyes. Tears already began to spill wildly from her face. Her father slightly opened his arms, as if expecting Sakura to run to him and hug him with her grief, but that wasn't how it went. Sakura ran, but she took off in the opposite direction. Down the hall, down the stairs, out the door, and then any direction her legs would take her.
It was all way too much to take in. Neji had used her, betrayed her; her mother was dying, falling into a black abyss that Sakura could not pull her out of. Her whole world felt as though it was ending.
As she ran the grieving process began to take over, first came denial. She prayed that she was only dreaming, that she would wake up any second now and everything would be normal, but the pain she felt soon pushed out her denial, and suddenly she was filled with an immense fury.
She cursed it all. She cursed Neji for betraying her and using her like a tool just to get another woman, she cursed the burglar who broke into her home and hurt her mother, the doctors for not doing everything they should have done to save her mother, her father for not being home to help, everything and everyone she could think of related to all that's been happening she cursed. It was all their fault, she thought, their fault for her misery.
Finally her legs began to ache, and she gradually slowed down to a stop. She looked up; she stood in the park in front of a big tree. A memory flowed through her; this was a place she had once come to when she had grieved over Sasuke leaving. She had ran here and climbed up into its branches to cry without anyone bothering of even noticing her. Looking farther back, it was also a place she had ran to in the past when Ino had been in a car crash. She had come there after visiting Ino in the hospital to let out her sadness. Her muscles almost seemed to be tuned to run here now when she felt bad.
Just as she had done before, she slowly climbed up the tree limb by limb. She reached a thick branch, a branch she had stopped on the other two times, sat down on it, pulled up her legs, and let the tears and sadness she felt flow from her.
Sakura had no idea just how long she stayed up there. Last she had checked the sun was well over the horizon of a mountain in the distance, and now it had almost completely disappeared, leaving the skies a deep orange color.
Sakura sniffed and wiped the trail of tears on her cheeks away; her pants were stained with all the tears she had let loose. She gripped her hands into tight fists as another strong wave of sadness washed over her.
A sudden rustling broke her from her trance of grief, and she looked about wildly. A bird suddenly appeared by her, it was the cause of the noise. Sakura stared at it for a moment, perplexed as to why a wild bird would come so close to a person, but not entirely caring for the answer. She waved a hand, and the bird flapped its wings and took off out of the tree.
Finally alone again, Sakura felt a couple more stray tears slide down her cheeks. She took in a deep, shaky breath, trying to regain some composure, as she knew she'd have to go back home at some point.
"Home…" she thought, "where Mom's fate was forever altered…."
She could just about feel another bout of sadness come, but another sound stopped her. She glanced around, expecting to see another bird, and prepared to swipe it away, but that wasn't what emerged from the leaves.
A dark head of hair popped up from the leaves. For a moment Sakura believed it was a random person coming up the tree to look out across the park, until she saw their face, and she realized something.
She knew the person…it was someone she hadn't seen in what felt like years. It was Sasuke.
Sakura could only sit there, frozen, as Sasuke gazed up with the same black eyes she had looked into many times, able to read them and tell exactly what he was thinking, and now she could read them again. It wasn't surprise at coming across her, it was…relief.
"I found you." Sasuke spoke with a light smirk as he pulled himself up onto the branch Sakura had seated herself on.
Sakura could still only sit there, gawking at him. Sasuke gazed at her for a moment, and then reached out and touched her face, brushing away the stream of tears that had formed once again. Neither one of them said anything.
Sasuke suddenly pulled something from out of his pocket. "I think you dropped this." He held out the object; it was her cellphone. Sakura vaguely remembered how she had dropped it onto the ground before she began to cry in the hospital, and that she had left it on the floor in her grief and desire to run out of the place that by now probably held her mothers' dead body.
The last part of her thought brought her back to reality. Her mother was gone, Neji had used her to get to Tenten, and Sasuke, who had been gone for over a month, was suddenly in front of her, sitting with her in her tree as she fell to pieces.
"Sa…Sasuke?" Sakura called, as if not believing it.
Sasuke smirked. "Well, you remember who I am at least."
Sakura bit her lip. "Sasuke…you're…here…."
Sasuke nodded, reached out, and grasped her hand with his; the warmth from his hand confirmed that he really was there. "Yeah, I'm here Sakura." His voice was extremely soothing, and it felt like an ointment healing a wound, comforting. Sakura subconsciously leaned forward, as if being closer to him would fix all of her problems.
"But…why…how?" Sakura asked.
"I'll answer that later…. First…what happened?" Sasuke questioned.
If it was anyone else Sakura probably would have shrunk back and refused to say anything, but with the feelings she was receiving, with how much his presence helped her aching heart, she opened up, she told him everything. All the while the two edged closer and closer together until by the time Sakura finished her heartbreaking tale she was already well wrapped into Sasuke's arms, and her head rested against him as her hands clasped on his forearms.
Sasuke let out a deep sigh. "All of that happened in a few weeks, eh? I sure miss a lot."
Sakura whimpered quietly and tightened her grip on Sasuke's arms as if he was about to leave her again. "I missed you in general."
Sakura couldn't see Sasuke's expression, but she guessed from the tone in his voice that it was a saddened one. "I missed you, too."
Suddenly feeling her old courage, Sakura positioned herself to still be in Sasuke's grip, but she could look at him now. "Why did you leave?"
Sasuke closed his eyes. "I didn't want to…my dad got reassigned to a new position in a big city a while away from here, so we had to move."
Sakura looked down at Sasuke's arms. "Why didn't you tell us?"
Sasuke opened his eyes. "I thought I'd have the ability to stop the move. I wanted it to stop and just be forgotten like it never happened; I didn't want you guys to be sad."
"So leaving us in the dark was supposed to make us feel better?"
Sasuke huffed. "Like I said, I wanted to try and stop it, but all I got was my dad scolding me as he forced me into the car."
Sakura almost cracked a smile; it was typical Sasuke to be so stubborn. "But then why didn't you give any of us a call?"
"After my plan failed I was…well, I was almost too ashamed to really call you guys and tell you, so I didn't…and I pressed ignore every time one of you tried to call."
"But then…how are you back?"
Sasuke smirked. "Mom was never happy with the idea of us moving, she loves this place and the relationships we have here, and after five weeks of nagging and dirty looks Dad finally caved in and requested to get stationed back here."
Now Sakura finally cracked a smile. "Your mom is so nice."
Sasuke scoffed. "You should have seen her when we were in the other town; she was scarier than Kakashi when we took his porn books in Freshman year."
Sakura let out a laugh and grinned. "I remember that, I think Naruto wet himself with how fierce Kakashi got."
Sasuke chuckled. "Yeah…."
Silence fell between the two again, and finally Sakura spoke up. "Did you ever get Naruto's voicemail? Or did you ignore that too?"
Sasuke let out a puff as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. "I got it alright, and it was my driving force from then on to get back here. Mom's dirty looks alone didn't get Dad to cave in. I was the definition of a demonic, brooding little child the whole time after I got his message."
Sasuke pressed a few buttons on his phone, and suddenly Naruto's voice played from his voicemail: "Teme," he declared, "you had better pick up the damn phone! Jackass!" Sakura gawked at the phone; she had never heard Naruto sound so passionately angry before. "Do you even realize what you've done you jerk? How could you have left us all without even a word? Do you even realize what you did to us? No, forget us in general, do you realize what you did to Sakura? You broke her heart man! You fu—" The message suddenly cut off. Sakura stared at the phone for a moment, confused, as Sasuke pressed another button.
"His rant went on and it got cut off, he called me again to continue." Sasuke explained as the next message played.
"Like I was saying," Naruto's voice continued, "you broke Sakura's heart you bastard! Did you even stop to consider that before you left without a word? Sakura is in love with you, damn it! She loves you! And you have the nerve to just get up and leave without telling anyone? That's really cruel…and Teme…sigh, just…you hurt her, you hurt all of us, and guess who stepped up to comfort Sakura…Neji Hyuga. He's trying to take your place man, I know it. He—" Naruto's message was cut off yet again by the timer on the voicemail.
"Dear lord, how long is this?" Sakura inquired.
"Just one more," Sasuke replied as he pressed a button to allow the last of the three-part message to play.
"You really need to extend the timer on your phone or something Teme…. So anyway, Neji's stuck his nose into the group. I don't really like it, and I think in time Sakura may…well…with what you did and with how Neji came in, if you ever come back for me to beat your ass, Sakura just may be holding Neji's hand by then. So you better come home! You better come back and get Sakura, because I know how you feel for her! You told me, remember? So call or do something! This stupid timer's gonna go off again, I know it…. Don't become a bigger bastard than you already are, Teme!"
With that the message ended. Sasuke closed his phone and put it way. He looked down at Sakura, whose expression was both surprised and wondering, as if she couldn't believe that Naruto had said those things.
Sasuke opened his mouth to speak, but Sakura beat him to it.
"Was he right?" She asked.
Sasuke stopped, not entirely sure what she meant.
"Do you…I mean…are you really…?" Sakura questioned, looking away from Sasuke and down to the ground below them.
Sasuke understood what she meant, and his grip around her tightened. "If you still are…then yes…but I mean, if you hate me now or something…I won't…I mean…."
Sakura slightly caught Sasuke off guard as she turned back to face him, let go of his arms to wrap her own around him, and planted her mouth right onto his. Sasuke was stunned for a moment, but in the next instant he returned Sakura's kiss, and repositioned his arms to fit around her as Sakura shifted onto his lap and moved her legs around his waist to hang off the other side of the tree branch.
They pulled away after they ran out of air and then simply stared at each other.
"I am if you still are." Sakura stated.
Sasuke smirked knowingly. "Then I definitely am. And Neji?"
Sakura scoffed. "That jerk, all he did was use me."
Sasuke blinked. "Wait, you never…?"
Sakura shook her head. "Oh no, we were never a 'thing' at any point, though I think if it was Neji who had come to seek me out rather than you after hearing my mom died, and he hadn't done what he did, then well…you know."
Sasuke snorted. "Vile thoughts be gone."
Sakura smiled. "Well, just be glad you're the one I love, and not someone else."
Sasuke gazed at Sakura tenderly. "That I am…."
After that, thoughts of sorrow and hurt were pushed away, only to be replaced by thoughts of the present, thoughts of tender love and happiness.
'"'"'"'"
Sasuke and Sakura stood holding hands in front a gravestone, it was marked with Sakura's mother's name, and a bouquet of flowers rested in front of it. The two stood in silence for some time as they stared down at the gravestone, honoring the dead with their own separate thoughts.
Sasuke broke the silence. "So are you okay…being here?"
Sakura nodded. "I'm fine…thanks to you. No thanks to that two-timer."
Sasuke smirked. "Speaking of him…a day or so after I found you me and Naruto paid Neji a little 'visit'."
Sakura shook her head and sighed. "You guys…."
"Hey, guys can use that girl quote too: break her heart and I'll break your face."
Sakura giggled. "Well, I thank you for putting that 'girl quote' to use."
Sasuke let go of Sakura's hand then, stepped behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his chin on her head. "That's what best friends do."
"And boyfriends and girlfriends I guess." Sakura stated.
"Yes, and boyfriends and girlfriends, of course typically they're the reason of heartbreak."
Sakura's face fell a little as Sasuke said this, and Sasuke ran a comforting hand along her side.
"Don't worry, I'll never hurt you ever again, or else I'll personally beat myself up."
Sakura smiled. "Well then, thanks for your dedication."
Sasuke kissed the top of her head. "And I plan to stay that way till the very end, hopefully still in this position till the very end. Me and you, us together."
Sakura sighed as she gazed down at her mother's grave once again. "That's a future…I can look forward to."
THE END
Woooow…LONG chapter! I think maybe my longest yet! This is almost 3000 words! Well…this has been the end of "Cold Comfort"! Quite a ride, eh? Of course as I type this I still have chapter six stockpiled up as well. I actually wrote this whole thing in one day! Okay, so, just to note: no, I am not a Neji hater. Would I have written "Scribble, Scribble on the Walls" which is in Neji's POV if I did? No, I just used him as the antagonist of the story. (Even if for a while he seemed like a nice protagonist to the story like…subbing for Sasuke till he got back.) Anyway, so I hope you all liked this! Quite a road we traveled…and I think quite successful for the first ever hurt/comfort I ever wrote. How'd I do on that? Pretty sure it was very hurt/comfort-ful, which means I did it right! And very dramatic…. That's all for now! Till the next story!
Extra note…for people who have not seen the notice I put on my profile, I may be taking a break after I publish this chapter. Inspiration is just not with me…and I haven't been able to finish ANYTHING besides this! So it may be a bit till you see a new story from Naruto-fan-Okami-chan. Till then!
