Warning: Swearing.

Three takes on a Sakura

I.

"Here's the thing, Hidan-" Her words were slurred with blood and she winced as fresh incisors pushed through gums.

"What the Fuck!" His voice grates like senbon over slate, "Don't get up! I fucking sacrificed you to Jashin-sama, you fucking heathen-"

"The thing," She repeated, blinking. Her vision shadows, stretching and breaking as the optic nerves regrow. Kami, it hurts. It always hurts. She planted a shaking hand and began to lever herself up. "Is that-"

"Bitch! Shut up!" Hidan howled and sliced his forearm to the bone. The ceremonial connection was faint and sluggish but hadn't dissipated. Sakura collapsed, a mirrored gash echoing through her arm. This time, she let herself stay still but couldn't restrain the rasping, wet laugh as she held her forearm up.

"You idiot." She wheezed, "Look."

Already, the gash was glowing a faint green. Muscle and tendon growing together, skin knitting until her flesh returned whole. Not even a scar remained on the pale skin.

Hidan got it, finally. "The fuck?"

"That's the thing." Sakura let her arm fall and craned her head to look at where the man was demon dressed in his circle. The medical chakra was a sharp itch over her skull, stitching together bone and brain. Filling in what was lost. "Hidan, your big move? The sacrifice to your precious Jashin-chan? It doesn't work."

"Don't you dare blaspheme against Jashin-sama, Heathen!" Hidan leveled his scythe at her, fixating as usual on the exact wrong thing.

"It doesn't work," Sakura repeated. A thousand fire ants paraded across her scalp as her hair began to unspool, growing long and jelly pink again. She held up a hand and cracked her fist, "And I haven't even started."

II.

She was a letter. A secret message to be passed between them. A safe barrier for a relationship too sharp, too painful to survive.

When Sasuke clutched at her, arms her tight enough to leave marks the next day, he wasn't trying to hold onto her.

When Itatchi rested his forehead against hers and whispered, those three words weren't meant for her.

So she carried them- the fierce embraces, the sweet words- between them like a letter.

III.

"Sakura."

Sakura glanced up from her grocery list to see Sasuke standing in the doorway, a traveling pack over one shoulder. His eyes were heavy, wary as he glanced over the two halves of the kitchen table, now neatly stacked against the far wall. One of the remnants of last nights argument.

"Do you want me-" She waved her hand vaguely to her coat, unable to repeat the oft-denied request of company. Sasuke quickly shook his head and relief loosened Sakura's shoulders. One of her greatest fears was that he would finally say yes and she'd follow him out of Konoha. Most days being in the same city was too much. She'd end up killing him if they had to camp.

The truth was Sakura preferred her Sasuke better than the real one. The Sasuke created from hours of preteen stalking and years of waiting. The Sasuke for whom she had strived, improved herself, desperately waited.

Careful what you wish for, she would have told her younger selves, he's not what you want.

"Alright. Safe travels." She turned back to her list.

Already, the tension between them was easing. Sasuke adjusted his pack and leaned forward to press his fingers against her forehead. Sakura smiled and leaned into them, just for a moment, and then Sasuke was gone. The door clicked shut behind him.

Sakura took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Finally, her home was hers again. She crumpled the grocery list, full of small delicates Sasuke enjoyed and threw it in the trash. Then she began her ritual of reorienting- straightening the couch, removing the extra reading life to the bedroom with the king sized bed, pulling out the extra pillows she enjoyed and Sasuke hated.

Sasuke loved her and she loved him desperately in return.

But if she was lucky, he'd wait a year before showing up again.

A/N: Three fragments I needed to get out of my head so I can focus on longer things. Not AU. Not really connected.