Themes of Life Chapter 10: abandonment, a naruto fanfic

&dis-clai-mer is applied!
&special thanks to: sillyangelxo for being the 100th reviewer of "Themes of Life"! Thanks a bunch!

The big one-oh guys! :D

The faded hardwood floors whined as the rocking chair creaked back and forth, back and forth. Rain pitter-pattered against the windows, following the fierce storm that had hit the village a few hours ago. Faint shouts accompanied the distant cracks of thunder; men scurried in and out of the houses.

The soles of her ninja shoes scraped across the floor's length as she shuffled toward the window. Water dripped off her into scattered puddles and formed rounded beads on the wide sill she moved to sit on. Her back hit the side of the window pane and she groaned in relief. Rhythmic and loud, her breathing puffed out her mouth with each pant. Her shirt glued itself to her skin -itchy, wet, and uncomfortable.

"Naruto…he here yet?"

Her head rocked to the side, staring through the glass after she asked.

"No, the men needed help moving the bodies."

She nodded and her head sank to her chest from the movement, lying limping against the cool glass.

"You should change."

Water clung to her pale skin, running off the rising goose bumps and creating larger puddles. Sakura sighed and clutched her arms around her soaked waist.

"Yeah."

She didn't move, though.

Sasuke sat in the corner, a mass of dark limbs. His hair was matted over his eyes, blood still peeking through his disheveled locks. His fingers were clasped over his knees and she strangely couldn't make herself look him in the eye. Something about him was so intense after he had come back to Konoha.… It unnerved her to be around someone who wouldn't miss anything.

"Hey,… have they found him?"

He slid his leg up and balanced his elbow on top of it, looking out the doorframe. His moves were so calculated and steady, Sakura thought. Things he did made her wonder if he could read minds; he always looked away right when she started feeling too watched, too observed.

"No."

"Hm."

Silence.

What else was there to say?

She'd been through this before, with more important people even. She wanted to think that it wouldn't hurt any.

The rain picked up into a shower. Watching the drops pelt the window, Sakura laid her cheek flat against the pane, the cold prickling at her skin. She felt Sasuke's eyes return to her face, hard and searching.

Sasuke studied the paleness in her skin. Her breathing was still loud, her arms and legs limp, her body still jerking and twitching in chills. It reminded him of dark, damp rooms filled with metal shelves and a droning voice, chanting medical theories and jutsus and possibilities, oh, the possibilities. And ever since he returned, Sasuke had begun to think that maybe, all the speculation he heard from Kabuto was true. That chakra really might be what made people alive…

Sakura turned her head, regarding his silence with mild interest, and shut her eyes. He watched her body relax, all her muscles simultaneously releasing. Her chakra flow flickered and receded far back, like a tide pulling in from the shore. Sasuke snapped his head up, considering the rise and fall of her chest as her chakra plummeted past severe depletion. Then it just, grew back, like the fall was almost a great big yawn in her energy. Maybe it was.

But he thought, what if chakra really was life? And Sakura shivered more. Her skin glowed in the room with sickly clamminess, shining with water. Her hands fell off her lap and woke her up from her light sleep with the change of balance. With sleepy, vaguely curious, apple green eyes, Sakura peered at him through a haze of unusual fatigue. Cold settled into her chest cavity and her veins felt so heavy, but she was so tired… She didn't want to move…

Hospital monitors woke her up next, combined with the familiar crack of thunder. Sakura parted her lips, gulping in the fresh air. She rolled her head to the side and expected the horizontal view of one of Konoha's rooms, saturated in the scent of strong chemicals. But she opened her eyes and instead saw a single hospital bed with its pillow covered in spiky blond locks. Naruto snored in rhythmic, lulling breaths; Sakura looked out through the window and recognized the same scenery. Still Rain Country. Darkness cloaked the cramped room except for the shaft of light illuminating from the crack in the doorway. Warmth pooled against her thigh and she turned her head to the left, meeting a head of soft black hair.

Sasuke inhaled and exhaled peacefully, his body rocking from the motion. He licked his lips in his sleep and let his head fall backwards, mouth parted. A wool blanket scratched at her arms and a cold cloth slipped off her forehead when she moved upright. A pounding headache sprouted up behind her eyelids and in her temples, and she squeezed her eyes shut in pain. Blinking her eyes back open, she picked up the cloth with her right hand. Sasuke grunted in his sleep and shifted on the lumpy couch. Sakura wrinkled her forehead up and felt her pulse, beating steady through the thin skin of her neck.

She was mostly certain she had gone into slight shock from chakra depletion. She looked at Sasuke again and small smile curved up her lips at his relaxed face. It was nice having someone who had some medical knowledge. She wasn't sure how much he had learned while he was with Kabuto, but he hadn't seemed to have missed much besides actually using medical chakra.

The door creaked. It pushed open and an old woman with black hair, peppered with silver streaks, peeked into the black room. The light made Sakura squint, but she tried to clear her voice for the woman.

"Ma'am, do you know if anyone's heard of the other ninja who was with us?"

The woman's breath hitched when Sakura spoke. She shuffled in the doorway.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Miss, I thought you were all asleep. No one's heard of your friend; is something wrong? What's happened?"

Sakura wrapped the blanket tighter around her arms. The woman's name was Chihiro; she was the lady that offered to house them while they were there, but she didn't like the villagers knowing about their team.

"Nothing really. Just a complication with the border work we were doing. Don't worry about it, Mrs. Chihiro."

"Oh, …alright then. Sleep well."

Chihiro stumbled in the doorway, nervously mumbling another goodbye. Sakura cringed; she didn't want to make her uncomfortable, but it was hard not to with civilians in general. The door quietly shut closed, erasing all the light except what was filtering through under the door.

Sighing, she shivered inside the wool. Naruto rolled over to his side and his patched face stared at her. Had Naruto run into him?

His snoring continued and she tucked her calves under her, wriggling farther inside the blanket. Sasuke head's nodded off the back of the couch. Lying on his cheek, he murmured something incoherent, his arms pulling closer to his sides. Tentatively, she pulled the wool blanket away from her and edged it around him, feeling him relax with the heat.

His soft inhales and exhales were comforting, something steady when everything was so chaotic. Wistfully, she sighed again and placed her chin on his shoulder, ducking her face into the warmth radiating off him. The rain drizzled into nothing, finally fading into the quiet sounds of the night.

"Nowhere?"

"Not…exactly."

"…they've found him?"

"…Yeah, they have. Danzo up and left, along with everyone in Root. He's been spotted with them."

"…"

"…Sakura…are you…okay?"

"Yeah, Naruto. It's nothing I haven't been through before."

Thump, thump, thump.
Thump, thump, thump.

"I think you're okay."

Sakura took her hand away from his pulse and leaned back, off the side of the bed. She propped herself against the corner of the table and folded her arms across her chest. Naruto stared at her like she was the one on the hospital bed.

"I asked Sasuke if you were okay. He didn't say anything, but…what happened?"

Naruto shifted on top of the crisp, white sheets. He didn't fit in with hospitals and illnesses and sick people; it was like he knew that, and his body wasn't ever at ease in hospitals… It was so hard to hospitalize him sometimes.

Sakura turned her head and looked out that same window. The clouds were puffy and gray, but it wasn't raining, and for that, she was glad. She had had enough of rain. Enough of the country, too.

"Not much. I might have gone into a little shock from chakra depletion, but it wasn't bad."

Sakura shrugged as she said so. Holding her arms closer against her chest, talking about everything with Naruto was the last thing she wanted. He was too caring. Too caring for anyone to move on without talking about something. It seemed like her whole team made it hard on her to be strong. Or maybe it was that being strong wasn't what she was doing.

"That's your problem, Sakura. You think that because you've dealt with it before, you can do it again. I know that there are some things that have happened to me that I might've gotten through once, but I don't know if I could do it again."

"Don't… tell me that. You, of all people, Naruto, are the one person who I need to hear say that if you can do it once, you can do it again. You don't choose what happens in life. You deal with it however you can."

The beeping from the machines skipped a beat, then quickened.

"It shouldn't be like that, Sakura."

"But it is."

Silence enveloped the room and Sakura sighed, letting her head fall upwards against the wall. She still felt heavy and dull, as if she'd been underwater for a long time.

The door slid open smoothly, Sasuke standing between the room and the hall outside. Heaving herself onto her own feet, Sakura pushed off the wall and laid a hand on Naruto's hot forehead. She laid her other hand on the top of his head, ruffling his hair as she tried to smile.

"C'mon. That's enough for now. We're leaving tomorrow and you need to sleep."

The scars on his face twitched as he contorted his facial features, trying to find the right expression, the right thing to say. The door shut closed before he had the chance.

"Has Tsunade sent anything else?"

Pausing outside the door, Sakura looked up at Sasuke. The rich wood gleamed in red hues, shining off the iridescent light streaming in from the tall windows. The halls in the old-fashioned lord's house were as dead as they were silent. The machine's beeping eerily suited the place.

"No."

She slipped her hand off the doorknob. She felt like asking. And strangely, she thought she could mange it. She had had enough of taboo names in her life.

"What are the chances… Do you think we'll run into Sai on the way back?"

"It's a good possibility."

"Hm."

"Naruto," Sasuke paused as he started. Which was so uncharacteristic of him. She glanced up at him warily. "He thinks Sai might come back. Eventually."

Tragedy was an interesting thing. It brought people together in the sense that they all have a common problem. Maybe even a common grief. But it still surprised her that Sasuke had an expression on his face… that closely resembled Naruto's. She raised her eyes to his and tried to smile at his effort.

"No, I don't think so, Sasuke. As much as he was meant to be, he's not you, and I don't think he ever intends to come back."

"What are going to do, Sakura? Hit an old teammate?"

"No, Sai. I'm going to kill you."

Abandonment

Blood. Blood was everywhere -on the trees, on the ground, on her clothes, on her face- leaving slippery black streams pooling on the forest floor. Ink blackened the blood, thickened its consistency. It stuck in clumps in her hair and smeared across his stretched smile…

Every time she looks at a picture and sees his face, she flinches knowing that he'd rather have committed treason than have stayed with them.

a/n.
I am alive! Shocking, I know. So, readers (my favorite people in the whole wide world), how did you like it? Eh? The next one's kind of serious like this, but then I'll probably throw in a mushy, funny one.

rrrrrrrrreview? would be much appreciated. :D
pea ess: check out 'refuge', my amazing people.