Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Reliance

Chapter 10?

Warning: I think this is still considered a T rating fan-fic, but I should warn you there is a little more swearing in this chapter than usual, so if you're offended by that. Please don't read it.

It was early in the morning and Naruto walked to the old training grounds of Team 7, where he knew Sasuke would be. Naruto had a sure purpose in mind today; to find out what his intentions were with Sakura. Now on the surface this sounded very territorial, like Sasuke was messing around with stuff he shouldn't be. But that was far from the case, knowing Sakura as well as he did, it was clear that she was her own person and wanted to be treated as such. No, Naruto's intentions were protective in nature, and despite how well he knew she could handle herself, he felt it was still his duty as both their friend to make sure everything was ok.

Only now did it occur to his usually agile mind, that it might be important to decide what approach he would take. Sakura had only said they were friends; that she was lending her office to him as a haven of sorts. Of course he hadn't said anything against it; he didn't want to worry or irritate her. But honestly, in an imagined scenario, where an audience were asked 'Raise a hand if you believe her,' safe to say, no one would. Did she think he was blind? A little vague perhaps. But not stupid. Or maybe it hadn't even occurred to her to wonder what on earth is going on.

There were many reasons that made Naruto concerned, most noticeably, the fact that Sasuke voluntarily sought out her company. That spoke volumes. Actually, that reason alone was enough, he didn't need any others. Because for the Sasuke he knew as a genin, to seek out anything, revenge aside, was amazing. And now here he was seeking out a girl. This should go against the very grain of Sasuke's being; to seek out something (a girl!) openly and regularly, like he was dependent on it; a reliance. Surely that was something only the weak did. Had Sasuke become weak? Or just more human?

Then there was the fact that he had been extremely pissed off, to find she had been drinking with Kakashi. Naruto wasn't quite sure which part in particular, whether it was that Sakura was drunk or that she was with Kakashi. Either way, as soon as she'd appeared he'd grabbed her arm savagely and stormed off. Leaving the rest of the group wondering what the hell was up his ass. Kiba had suggested PMS, to the group's amusement.

There were also smaller things; though subtle, hinted to something larger. For instance, if they were at Ichiraku's, he would often sit next to Sakura, something he had been very reluctant to do in their younger days. And the night when they had had tea at her place, Sasuke had asked her questions about her. He'd shown interest in someone else. While that doesn't seem major to most, Sasuke was one of the most self-absorbed people he knew; who usually didn't give a shit about anyone but himself. However his behaviour was to the contrary. None of the previous judgements seem to apply. Though one could argue, that he was still was still serving his self-interest, albeit indirectly. If he was dependent on Sakura for whatever reason, to know things about her and if she was ok; would be important for him.

But the bottom line was simple: What the hell was that reason he'd become so reliant?

Naruto had come to two options; which were quite plain: friendship or something more. He hoped to god, for the peace of everyone and to avoid complication, that it was the former. But when had luck favoured him before?

And so, deciding an upfront approach was best (he couldn't do much else) he took a deep breath and moved toward the dark haired man training in the clearing.

:----------:

The dobe took his time thought Sasuke, upon sensing his friend's chakra. He'd been expecting this and was slightly surprised he hadn't brought it up sooner. Though, he supposed, Naruto, in nature, was anything but organised. But he couldn't say much more about himself. He hadn't been demonstrating anything remotely Sasuke-ish in his behaviour. As to why this was the case, his guess was as good as anyone else's. He wasn't sure he would be able to give the dobe an answer.

Sasuke stopped his training and went to rest by a tree, sitting down and leaning his back against it. Better to have his entire attention focused on the dobe and save revealing more than he wanted to. Naruto, walked into the clearing, saw where Sasuke was sitting and made his way toward him.

Naruto, not one to be pretentious, had a serious look on his face. This was not a time to fool around. He sat down, in a similar fashion to his friend against a nearby tree and said, "Teme, we need to talk."

Sasuke remained silent, but Naruto knew he was listening. "What's going on between you and Sakura?" he asked; straight out.

If he liked anything about the dobe at that moment, it was his directness. He didn't fuss around with unnecessary crap. Sasuke thought carefully about how he should answer this, he didn't want to dig himself a hole he couldn't get out of. A while ago he had begun to consider Sakura a friend, on par with Naruto. This he had no problem admitting. "She's a friend," he answered.

"And that's it?" Naruto pressed.

"That's it," was the simple reply.

Naruto sighed, the said, "Did you two talk about this? So you'd both give the same answer?"

Sasuke's looked directly at Naruto and asked, "You asked her about this?"

"Yeah," he replied, trying to gage a reaction, "But she was just as vague as you."

"So you came to me."

"Come on Sasuke," said Naruto prying for an answer, "What do you mean by 'you asked her about this?' What is this?"

"I told you, we're friends," he said, remaining stoic as ever.

"Are you sure?" pushed Naruto, he wasn't backing down on this one, "Then why do you seek her out everyday?"

Still calm, Sasuke replied, "I don't seek her out every day. I just go to her office sometimes."

"So this is all just about her office right? And sometimes? Are you kidding? It's you're second home!"

Getting irritated, Sasuke said, "No, I go to her office because she is there. But I'm not seeking her out every where she goes."

"You and I both know her life is her work. She doesn't go anywhere else."

Flat out annoyed, Sasuke snarled, "Look, she's a friend. That's it. Plain and simple."

"Then why'd you get so angry the other night she was drunk with Kakashi?"

"Because!" he snapped, "Kakashi's a pervert and she was drunk. God knows what could have happened."

Naruto looked slightly shocked, "Do you really think that low of Kakashi? And of Sakura?"

"No. But they were both drunk and not in control of their actions."

Naruto snorted, "If you think that was bad, then …" his voice died out, remembering his tact. Sasuke didn't need to be reminded of other times, the lot of them had been utterly wasted and done numerous stupid things. E.g. Sakura mistaking a bar stool for a cat, Kakashi reading a menu, thinking it was is favourite orange book and trying to interpret 'chicken soup' as something dirty, and Naruto, being, well Naruto, multiplied by ten.

Sasuke remained silent. Naruto sighed, "Teme, you've gotta understand Kakashi and Sakura are friends too. He would never pull something like that on her. Nor would she let him."

Still Sasuke didn't speak. Naruto continued on, "So that's it, you're just friends."

"We've done this," Sasuke replied tonelessly. Shit, he was shutting off. Naruto could see the window of opportunity closing fast.

"She used to annoy you."

"Yeah, well she doesn't now," Sasuke replied.

"But that's no reason to start hanging out with her."

"Her company's easy. She doesn't fire questions at me. Unlike some." He shot him a look.

"Fine," said Naruto, rubbing the back of his neck; frustrated, "I'll back off."

"What a blessing." Sasuke replied sarcastically, as he stood. He was pissed off. Those questions had made him confront issues, he had stored away in a neat box in his mind; to be revisited at his leisure, not at someone else's. But by answering Naruto's questions, he got the idiot off his back.

He walked back to the clearing to train, and sighed when he heard the dobe getting to his feet and following.

Not wanting to this to end bitterly, Naruto thought if he trained with the teme; all their frustration could be vented and lost. He shouted out, "Hey teme, you wanna train for a bit?" He was speaking to Sasuke's back.

He shivered when Sasuke turned around. His Sharingan was activated, making his eyes glower and entire aura seem much darker. And before Naruto could move, the dark haired boy was moving toward him with such speed, he seemed to disappear entirely. Next minute there was a presence behind him, and a voice spoke, "Not today dobe." Then there was black.

:----------:

Sakura walked into her office that morning, with two coffees. She placed both down on her desk and reached for today's files. Sasuke didn't appear to be in yet. Sitting down and flicking through the files, she found there were only three. On average she'd get about fifteen. Odd. Deciding she'd finish the three cases, and then see Tsunade, she opened the door; to find she'd almost ran straight into Sasuke. She swiftly sidestepped him, to avoid a collision and said, "Hey, you're coffee is on my desk and there's a new book you might be interested in."

He nodded and muttered a "Thanks."

Thinking he was more quiet than usual, she grabbed his arm, to stop him and asked, "is everything alright?'

He looked down at her and said, "Just the dobe."

Sakura grinned, dropped her hand, and said "What'd he do this time?"

"Annoyed me."

Figuring she wasn't going to get anything more, she continued smiling, and responded "Naruto could sit near you and you'd get pissed off."

She got an "Hn" and a closed door. Chuckling to herself, she walked off to begin her rounds. While, Sasuke; inside her office, grabbed the remaining coffee, picked up the new book and made his way to the couch. The title of the book read, 'From the Eye to the Visual Cortex: A study of blood line limits in vision.' Smirking slightly, he sat down and opened the book, thinking, she must have ordered this deliberately, it's too specialised to be a common text book most medics have.

:----------:

After whizzing through, the three cases, she promptly made her way to her sensei's office. Knocking on the door, she received a quiet, "Come in."

Her sensei's head was down on her desk, surrounded by empty sake bottles. Sakura could see Shizune grabbing the last two full bottles and hurrying to her office to hide them. Tsunade groggily looked up and said, in a slurred voice, "Sakura. Good, I'm glad you're here. You're going to emergency today."

Sakura, quite used to finding her sensei slumped over her desk, drunk, asked, "Sure. Is there a reason for this or….?"

"Oh, don't worry. You're work's fine; still on top. Just not much coming in at the moment."

Feeling slightly relieved, she wasn't losing it, Sakura replied, "Alright. I head down there now." And with that she left the office, closing the door behind her.

:----------:

Meanwhile, in the clearing of the old training grounds, a blond man woke up slightly disorientated. Taking in his surroundings, and thinking back to the last thing he remembered, he growled in frustration and shouted, "Teme! You're dead!"

:----------:

Emergency set a rapid pace. It wasn't like cruising down the halls, at a leisurely pace, floating from one patient to the next. You were on constant alert in this place, and couldn't afford to falter for a second. Or it could cost someone their life.

Sakura had replaced her usual long white coat, with a matching set of blue scrubs and tied her hair up in a messy ponytail. She was then approached by a flustered nurse, who was handing her a file on an incoming patient, rattling of descriptions at her, "young girl, 8 years old. Fell from a tree, 50 feet. Severe lacerations, to the head, torso and left leg." Then she added, "It doesn't look good."

Sakura felt the extra comments weren't necessary, and said sharply "I'll decide that."

However as the girl was wheeled through the emergency doors on a stretcher, surrounded by hurrying nurses and her distraught parents, Sakura felt perhaps the nurse wasn't far from the truth. Rushing forward, Sakura, shooed away some of the nurses to get a closer look.

Had Sakura not been told the girl's age, she would have guessed she was only about 5 years old. Her tiny body was covered in blood, from her many wounds. Her skull had been cracked open, almost right through the middle, and blood was spurting out. Not matter what the nurses did, it wouldn't stop. The other major injury was the deep cut in her torso that was dangerously close to her heart. Fragments of her ribs were tearing through her skin, and as Sakura far could see, puncturing her right lung.

"Get her into the first operation theatre. Now!" she shouted, and pointing to particular medics and nurses, "I want you two to take her down there, seal off her left lung and stabilise her breathing, I'll be there shortly. And the rest are scrubbing in with me."

:---------:

In less than two minutes, the entire surgical team were working on the patient in the operating room. The young girl's breathing had been stabilised, and medics were controlling the bleeding from her torso. Sakura's first concern was the head injury, she had sent chakra to slow the bleeding and redirect the blood to other areas of the brain. The corpus colosseum had been partially severed and she was working on re-knitting the connecting tissue back together. Once the hard part had been done, she had another medic, finish healing the remaining wound. She then turned to the injury on the torso. Her primary concern was to make sure; the heart had not been damaged. She sent chakra in to the wound, which acted as a sensor, telling her where and how great the damage was. This was a technique Sakura had developed, with her chakra control. It saved time usually spent on looking for the injuries, to instead healing them promptly. She'd taught Tsunade, who no doubt mastered it easily and now it was being taught the more advanced medics at the university.

The heart had not suffered any direct damage; however two of the main arteries leading to it were perforated, so she quickly sealed them. This wound was deep and Sakura had to use an enormous amount of chakra to knit each fibre of tissue back together. Slowly but surely, the wound was coming together. Then Sakura felt a warning from her chakra, both lungs had collapsed. Monitors started beeping and nurses hurried to stabilise the girl again.

Her heart rate was dropping fast.

They needed to get air back into the lungs, the right was already screwed, so Sakura focused on the left. She shoved a tube down the girl's throat, that was attached to a pump and when she was sure it was in far enough, she began manually pushing air into the lung, through the tube. However, it wasn't enough, her oxygen levels were plummeting, despite. One lung wasn't enough. She handed the pump to another medic, so she could try to heal the other lung.

Sakura sent chakra into the right lung, sealing it off so it could hold air. But it was taking too long. This lung was like a sieve, it had so many holes.

It was all over when the young girl flat lined. Sakura used her charka as an electric shock to revive her, over and over, but it didn't work.

The girl was dead.

Another medic called her time of death, the rest of the team were quiet. It was well known throughout the hospital, that you could number the patients Sakura had lost on one hand. She was that good. But on the rare occasion, her efforts and training weren't enough, Sakura hated it, absolutely loathed it. In her mind, if you were good enough, no one need die.

Sakura, expressionless, said "Clean her up before her parents see her. They shouldn't have to see this." And with that she left the operating room, pulling off her hat and mask as she went. (Part of the uniform for surgery.)

Sakura didn't stop walking until she reached a deserted corridor, on one of the higher levels. No one would hear her up here.

"Fuck!" she yelled, kicking the wall in frustration, then rubbing her eyes tiredly. She slid down the wall, knees brought up in a sitting position. Elbows supported by her knees and her hands holding her bowed head.

"Shit," she cursed again. Sakura, didn't get riled up about too much, but there was nothing like losing a patient. And for those who had never experienced it, they could never understand. It was her responsibility to save people. That girl's life had been in her hands, and she'd let it slip away. Gone. If she had trained harder, learned another jutsu she could have saved her. God, I'm slipping.

Sakura didn't know how long she been sitting like that, when she felt someone sit down beside her. The familiar chakra told her it was Sasuke. He was sitting in his signature position, one leg raised, the other stretched out, raised knee supporting an elbow. He waited a moment then asked quietly,

"What happened?"

There was a long pause, before she answered, "I lost a patient. A little girl."

"Surely you've lost a patient before?"

"Yes!" she snapped, "Doesn't make it any better."

"Then what's the issu-"

"The issue is if I had been stronger, I could have saved her."

Then it became painfully obvious to Sasuke. This was really about Sakura feeling inferior. But in a different way than before. Instead of measuring herself against team-mates, she was measuring her abilities by how many lives she saved, which in his opinion was just as stupid.

He sighed, "Sakura, you're a good medic. I doubt Tsunade could have done any better."

She just scoffed, looking at him, and said bitterly, "You'd hope so. Seeing a she is my equal as a medic."

Slightly confused, Sasuke asked, "Then why is she still you're sensei?"

"I only match her skill, not her experience."

"So you're still learning."

"I'm always learning. Nothing I ever do seems to be enough!"

"Bullshit."

"Its not-" she started indignant.

"Get over it!" said Sasuke cutting her off. "Yes, it's sad you lost a patient. But be upset because of the life lost, not you're performance. No one is perfect. I think I'd know."

Sakura snorted, "You're so bloody arrogant."

Sasuke, smirked slightly, said, "At least I'm not pretentious enough to think I can save everyone."

"No, you just think you're more powerful than anyone else," she shot back.

"Did think that," he corrected.

Sakura, tired off arguing, mumbled "Whatever."

Sasuke felt a change of scenery was in-order. "Come on," he sighed, getting up and hauling her up by her arm. "You need a drink."

Sakura gave a short laugh, "You sure you won't get all huffy? I remember the last time I had a drink…."

"There's a difference. You're with me this time," he answered evenly.

:---------:

Tsunade emerged from her office, and saw off the parents of the little girl who had died. Turned out she had been up in her tree house, when the supporting branch gave way, it was quite sad. And the Hokage felt sorry for their loss. But if you'd worked as long as she had in a hospital, you learned that was apart of the job. Doesn't mean you valued a life any less, just means you dealt with a loss differently. For instance, some might say that was one of the reasons she had so many sake bottles in her office. Sakura's way involved immersing herself in medical textbooks, as if to fix the reason the person had died, even if it had been beyond her control. That girl expected too much of herself.

So she was very intrigued to find Sakura, not surrounded by text books, but leaving in blood covered scrubs, with none other than Uchiha. But what was even more astounding was the expression on each face. Sakura was rolling her eyes at something Sasuke had said, while he was smirking, as usual. Though it held a warmth Tsunade didn't recognise.

How he'd managed it, she didn't know. But if Sasuke could get Sakura out of her books and away from the office once and a while, perhaps he wasn't so bad for her after all.

Shizune behind her had witnessed the same thing. "Maybe we were wrong."

Tsunade smiled slightly and said, "Wouldn't be the first time."

Assumptions are the absolute mother of all stuff ups.