Wow, sorry for how cheesy this turned out. :O

Thanks, reviewers!

Enjoy! :)

Chapter Ten - Bonds

"I think that you're making a really bad decision, Sasuke," she told him as they walked away from what had been his home for the past month. The light wind was blowing through her hair peacefully, but she was distraught inside.

"Why?" he asked, frowning. "The captain told me to stay; I should respect his wishes." He kicked a rock clumsily.

Sakura scoffed. "Right, because you're so okay with that."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean? You think I want to stay on that thing? With the seasickness and the drunken crew and the annoying idiot and Sai?"

"I don't think you want to stay here," she said.

Sasuke nodded eagerly. "Yeah, I do. I'm finally old enough to be hired at that shop I visit all the time, and I still have time to snag the position before someone else has. That Bernie had his fat eyes on it too, but his birthday isn't for another couple of months. …I'm looking forward to it," he added.

She sighed and gave him a knowing look. "Don't think I haven't noticed the way you look at him. The blond man, Naruto?" Sasuke glanced over at her, brow furrowed. "And he looks at you the same way; I could practically see the heartbreak in his eyes when you said you wanted to stay. Sasuke, don't let me or some stupid job be the reason for missing out on something good. I only want to see you happy. It's been so long."

Naruto moaned miserably and slid down the wall, flopping inelegantly onto the cabin floor.

"I hate seeing you like this," Kiba voiced forlornly. "Come on, Naruto. Look on the bright side: it's probably better this way, without him here to distract you. You weren't even sure he liked you anyway; he was probably a lost cause, right? Come on, get up. We're getting ready to leave. We probably won't be seeing land again for weeks, at least get one last look."

The blond raised his head enough from the floor to give the other man a hard glare before letting it hit the floor once again with a heavy thunk.

Kiba frowned but left the room without another word, knowing there was no way to get through to his friend just yet.

Walking onto deck and into the evening sunshine, he saw Neji and Kakashi raising the main sail in preparation for dispatch into open sea. Gaara and Shino were standing knee deep in water below, ready to push the vessel if need be. Shikamaru was in the crows nest, overlooking everything and shouting directions to Kankuro below.

Within moments The Shuriken was sliding smoothly out into the ocean. Kiba's brow furrowed as he said a final silent goodbye to Sasuke.

Having just climbed the rope and returned to the ship, Shino joined him at the edge of the deck. "Feels a bit anticlimactic," he said quietly.

"You're telling me," Kiba laughed sarcastically.

They stood in silence, watching the island get smaller by the second. "There are people on the shore," Shino stated, breaking the silence after only a few moments. "Look."

"Where? Oh. Oh! People! Wait, Kankuro, stop!" He ran to the other side of the ship and, after a moment of eager pushing, he managed to get the anchor over the rail and toss it into the sea below. They were still relatively close to the shore and the anchor hit bottom within seconds.

Kiba turned to see Temari storming over. "What the hell are you doing, Inuzuka?"

"What's it look like?" Kiba asked, then, upon seeing her angry scowl, quickly added with a grin, "I'm waiting for Sasuke!"

Temari jerked her head around to see the shore. Kiba was not lying; there he was, standing with Sakura on the brink of the water. A small smile appeared on her face. "Fetch Naruto. I'll ready the lifeboat."

Naruto hadn't believed Kiba when the brunet had first barged into the room shouting that Sasuke was waiting for them on the beach, especially since he had been trying to make him feel better since they had set sail. Then he gathered that joking about something like this was most definitely not going to make him feel better, and even the thickhead Kiba knew that. With that realization, he leapt up from his miserable demise and followed the doglike man out to Temari, who had already lowered the small lifeboat into the foamy sea with help from Gaara.

Quick as he could, the blond man swung himself down into the boat and squinted towards the shore, where he could see the two figures watching them. His heart melted a little at knowing Sasuke was there waiting there for him, but he still had the nagging feeling that something wasn't right.

Gaara landed beside Naruto and Lee beside him, as he called up to Temari, "Fill in Kankuro on the situation. We should be back soon."

The row to shore was agonising; Naruto was dying to speak with Sasuke, since they hadn't even been able to say a proper goodbye. However, his damn arms weren't able to paddle any quicker.

But it was all worth it the second they touched ground.

Sasuke started over slowly, hesitantly, but didn't make it far before Naruto reached out and tugged him into his arms, where they held eachother tightly. "I'm coming with you," he whispered happily into the embrace.

"I'm glad," Naruto smiled back, with his cheek pressed against Sasuke's forehead.

Sakura stood nearby, waiting patiently to say goodbye. When they broke apart no mere moments later, Naruto took her in his arms too, surprising her. "I know it was you who convinced him, and I don't know what you said to do it, but thanks."

She smiled as they broke apart.

"Goodbye, Sasuke," she said, turning to him and pulling him into a hug. "I'll miss you. Truly, deeply, I will. Good luck to you. All of you," she added, pulling away from Sasuke and glancing at Gaara and Lee who stood nearby.

"Farewell, good miss. It's been a pleasure like no other to have met you today. I shall never forget," Lee said, kissing her hand once more.

Gaara grimaced sadly at the bittersweet farewells, arguing with himself. After a short battle in which he won, he stepped forward. "Miss Haruno, if you would like," he began, clearing his throat, "You can feel free to come with us."

Though Naruto's smile faltered for a second, he announced, "That's great!"

Sakura's smile also faltered. "Really?" she asked timidly.

"Why not?" Gaara said, throwing his arms out and shrugging; it had been a strange day. "You mentioned your love for ships, and you look like a decent sailor. Besides, we could always use another deckhand."

She took a quick glance at Sasuke, and he at her, before her smile reappeared and she exclaimed, "Why the hell not? It's about time for me to be spontaneous."

Sasuke looked at her concernedly. "You're going to come with us? But what about your family?"

Sakura sighed, a grim look had taken over her expression. "Let's be honest. All that my father has ever cared about is his image; he's never cared about me. I'm sure that with me gone, it'll just be easier for him to build his business and status. I'm not going to miss him, and he's not going to miss me." She winced at this. "As for my mother, she's been drinking so much as of late that I doubt she even remembers who I am let alone that I'm no longer around. There's nothing to lose and everything to gain." She smiled lopsidedly. "Besides, they're going to be so pissed when they see that the safe money is missing."

Sasuke nodded but said nothing.

"So it's decided! Let's depart," Gaara said, clapping his hands together and leading them all back to the lifeboat.

Once they were all standing safely upon the deck of The Shuriken once again Gaara called a meeting to catch everyone up on the day's events. Thanks to Sakura, their newest crew member, they had gathered most of their debt, but they still had quite a ways to go.

He then started the short introductions for the people she hadn't yet met. "This is Temari, my sister, and second in command," Gaara told Sakura. "You can stay with her in her cabin below; Kankuro can sleep in my room for a while until things get settled and we figure things out. That alright, Temari?"

She was staring at him blankly. "Another woman on board? Yeah, that's… awesome. I don't feel threatened. Not at all." She said the last three words while walking away stiffly.

The rest of the introductions were made and Sakura followed Gaara, Sasuke and Naruto to the hold on the ship. As the rest of the crew scattered, Shino moved closer to Kiba. "Now this feels better," he said.

"Hmm, much more like the closure I needed." He looked up at the newly born moon and smirked. "It's been one hell of a day."

The next morning when Naruto walked into the saloon for an extremely late breakfast he found Sakura alone at the table munching on some toast.

"Morning. How're you adjusting?" he asked, taking a seat beside her and piling some eggs onto his plate.

"Great, actually. Everyone has introduced themselves and they've all been really nice, Chouji and Lee especially. That Sai guy has been a little weird, but I think he has good intentions. Oh, and Temari lent me some of her clothes." She leaned back to make a point about not sporting the long red dress anymore, but rather a white cotton shirt, light purple vest and brown trousers like Naruto's own pair, along with a red bandana tied across her head to hold her hair back.

"That's good to hear," he said, grinning and nodding. "You know, you're adjusting a lot easier than Sasuke did. I still don't think he's quite adjusted yet."

She giggled. "Well, that's Sasuke for you. He's not really the social type and probably never will be. But don't worry, soon enough he'll be bounding around like he owns the place. Maybe. Bounding may be a strong word to describe Sasuke walking on a ship. Where is he, by the way?"

"Sleeping still. Does that a lot. I'm always up before him, and he's usually in bed before me too. And he spends all of his free time in our cabin, too. Reading." He took a slice of toast and shoved it into his mouth.

"Sleeping or reading; always in dreamland. That's so like him." She smiled nostalgically and took a strawberry off the plate in front of her. "I've missed him."

"Mmm," he said, swallowing. "Hey, Sakura. I never got to properly thank you for convincing Sasuke to stay with us yesterday. I actually thought I was never going to see him again. I think so anyway; yesterday is a bit of an emotional blur."

She shook her head. "It's fine. It's actually me who should be thanking you. You saved his life, in more than one way, Naruto. He seems like a completely different person around you, full of new spirit and heart. All I had to do was simply remind him of how life used to be and he was running back towards the ship in a second." She paused. "You guys are really close, huh?"

Naruto seemed to shrink in his seat. "Kakashi told me that we were, but lately I've had this nagging feeling that it's not true. I feel like he wants nothing to do with me, really."

Sakura turned in her seat to look at him face to face, looking quite serious.

"You know, when we were young, Sasuke and me, I used to have the hugest crush on him," she started with no forewarning. Naruto put down his fork, confused but willing to listen.

"I used to follow him around and tell him that I loved him and wanted to marry him one day, but he would always tell me that he wasn't interested; he liked me as a friend and a friend only. And I wasn't the only one to throw myself at him. Girls from all over the town would show up at his house at all hours of the day to confess their undying love for him, which was silly really, now that I think about it. I mean, how much do eight year olds really know about love anyway?" She rolled her eyes and continued.

"Well, anyway, he would always tell them that he wasn't interested, he didn't like them that way, he only wanted to be friends. Seemed to me that he never liked anyone that way. Nothing interested him. Nothing. Even while he was living in my basement and the cloud of girls had evaporated, he would rarely open up to me about what he liked. He could rant for hours about all the things he disliked, but he would keep mostly quiet about his interests." She paused again, and brought her hand to Naruto's cheek. "But, Naruto, I've seen the way he looks at you. And it's the same look he used to get when he would tell me about a thrilling, passionate quest that he had just read about. It's a look of admiration, of faith. I know Sasuke has troubles with opening up and showing his emotions, especially when he's confused, but you can see it in his eyes, Naruto. You have nothing to worry about; it'll happen for you."

Naruto nodded.

TBC