Sasuke looked much as he always did before he turned into a first rate sociopath – cold, calculating and effortlessly lethal. Just a glimpse of those dark eyes terrified her, mostly because she knew that he wasn't real.

Telling herself that did nothing to calm her frantically pounding heart though; her fear was a palpable, living thing that snaked through her. As the image of Sasuke took a step forward, she found herself taking a giant one back. She was blinking and blinking and he wasn't going away.

"You're not real," she gasped around the strange choking sensation in her throat. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could feel phantom fingers wrapping around her neck, the ghosts of the bruises he had left behind. "You're not real –not real- not real…"

"….."

He stayed where he was, watching her with empty, black eyes. When she was younger she had loved his eyes because she could see the boy she loved behind them – no matter how expressionless he'd managed to make his face his eyes had always betrayed him. But now – now they scared her because there was nothing there. Where once there had been anger, irritation, pride… they were now bottomless in a way that she found frightening.

A hand involuntarily went to her throat then, as if by covering it she could hide from the memory of that stranglehold.

It's not real, Sakura. Just avert your eyes and walk away. But walking away would require her to move and her legs seemed to be frozen to the spot.

As she stood there trembling, a crash sounded somewhere up the corridor and it startled her out of the fear sneaking through her. It was odd, she thought, that her delusion of Sasuke turned towards the noise too.

"Sakura-chan!" the voice was intimately familiar and immediately comforting. Naruto's heavy footsteps sounded towards her until he appeared out of the shadows, all bright colours against the darkness. His eyes were wild.

"Sakura-"

And then he crashed into Sasuke with a very solid sounding thump.

"S-Sasuke-teme…" he trailed off at the other boy's pointed glare and backed hastily away, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Sakura's head was spinning. Sasuke was not a delusion. Sasuke was actually stood in front of her in the middle of the Shinobi Alliance's base- Sasuke, who was insane and cruel and very definitely Madara's ally. Delusion, or solid, undeniable presence…she wasn't sure which was worse.

"Sakura you- you look like you're going to be sick," Naruto said uneasily, starting towards her looking concerned. "Is everything-"

"I don't understand."

"What?" It was almost comical, his uneasy look of someone caught in the middle – of someone who had been caught omitting the facts.

"What is he doing here?" How could he be standing there with his empty eyes, when only weeks ago he'd declared his intention of destroying them all? Why did she suddenly feel like crying?

"Ummm, Sakura-chan," he took her elbow with a certain kind of desperation in his voice, "I was trying to tell you this earlier – Sasuke-teme saved me from Madara! He helped me defeat him!"

Silence. How was she supposed to respond to that? What did it even mean?

You have to imagine yourself as a blank slate, Sai's voice came drifting back to her for some reason. She wondered belatedly if he had come through it alright – and what about all her other friends too? Ino-pig, Shikamaru, Neji, Hinata, Kiba….

Sakura's head was swimming in confusion but she knew one thing – that what she wanted almost more than an explanation was to get away from Sasuke's cold, dark eyes and his ominous silence.

Her hand found Naruto's and gripped it tightly.

"I think I- I want to go back to bed," she said in a voice very unlike her own. Naruto looked at her in concern, his blue eyes wide, but didn't seem to mind her vice-like grip on his hand.

"But Sakura- don't you know what this means? Our promise of a lifetime – we finally got him back….." his smile was so wide and bright but Sakura felt only numbness. "He's finally coming home."

For a long moment she stared across the hallway at the dark haired boy who was everything to her- who had been everything to her- and he stared back.

She'd imagined this moment so many times over the last three years, the moment when Sasuke would finally come back where he belonged. The time and the setting often changed; sometimes it would be day, sometimes in the Village…sometimes she would stumble across him somewhere in the wilderness and would convince him to return with her. Other times she would find him gravely injured and save him from dying.

Whatever the daydream, it was always, always a moment full of joy because things were finally as they were supposed to be – Team 7 reunited at last, Sasuke home….

"So you thought you would come crawling back, did you?" Sakura asked quietly. "Well. That's certainly a change of tune. What happened? Got bored of licking the Madara's shoes?"

She was rewarded by the smallest of scowls- and she only saw it because she took special care to watch, to gage how her words would affect him. Something flickered in Sasuke's eyes. Naruto turned to look at her in horror.

"Sakura-chan!" he gasped. "What are you saying? I know this isn't you- if you knew the truth-"

She found herself rounding on him then, quiet and cold. Her face felt frozen somehow.

"And whose fault is it that I don't? You start bawling every time I actually do what everyone else does and fight my own battles, because really you still think I'm just a stupid girl who should be standing on the side lines!" Sakura felt like screaming. She realised that her hands had fisted in her hair and she was tugging at it in frustration. "You act like I'm not a part of all this and I am. I was on Team 7 too but none of you ever acknowledge that! Whatever this huge, great, important secret is that you have this time – you can keep it. I'm done."

She turned on her heel and stalked back up the corridor, doing her best to ignore the fluctuating shadows dancing around her.

"Sakura!" Naruto called behind her, but she sped up. She was done. She was so sick and tired of this- this twisted, ugly, excluding bond they had between them. She was sick of watching from the outside, of having to pretend she didn't notice that they never let her in. She was sick of them never acknowledging she had as much right as any of them to get herself almost killed by a raging psychopath. After all this time, it was the same old tune. 'Protect' the client; stand on the side lines while the boys do the fighting.

As her heart pounded in her chest and her legs wobbled beneath her, it occurred to her that she had just ruined the moment she and Naruto had been striving for all these years.

Sakura stormed back into her resting room, slammed the door shut and under the cover of impenetrable darkness, burst into silent, furious tears.


Naruto was still staring after Sakura with a hand outstretched, his expression crestfallen. Sasuke himself felt he'd been slapped in the face.

"Well," the blonde boy mumbled, turning back to face him. "That could have gone better."

"Like I care."

Blue eyes surveyed him knowingly. At times like this, Naruto's ability to read him like a book was more of a curse than a blessing.

"You care," he said, "If you didn't you would have let Madara skewer me the other day. Sakura-chan is just angry right now."

He recalled her hard, green eyes boring into him and it dawned on him that he'd never actually seen Sakura angry before, not like that and certainly not at him.

"You didn't tell her I was here."

"Ah….I was getting to it," Naruto replied, looking guilty as he leaned against the wall. "What were you doing out here anyway? I thought you were supposed to be keeping a low profile until Tsunade baa-chan sends for you?"

Immediately he was uncomfortable- not for breaking the Hokage's orders but the reason for doing so.

Sasuke slept, but he never slept particularly well – a pattern that was exacerbated by nights like these, when the air was warm and still and close.

"I heard a scream," he answered. The sound had startled him and he'd gone to investigate, more out of boredom than concern. He hadn't been expecting to come across the pink haired girl who had once been his team mate, who until that moment, he had thought to be in a coma.

You're not real, she had gasped and it bothered him. Everything about their encounter bothered him and he knew that Naruto could see it on his face. But it had afforded him one thing at least – he now knew who's chakra he had seen threaded around Madara's sharingan.

"Well," Naruto yawned, "looks like I'm gonna have to crash in your room, teme!"

"No way."

His confinement room was too small as it was. Though he could now admit to himself that he didn't actually want Naruto's head on a platter (at least, not in the literal sense), sharing a room was several hundred steps and a giant leap too far for him. The memory of the blonde's thunderous snoring suddenly kicked in and it filled Sasuke with a sort of nameless horror.

"Awww c'mon, Sasuke – there's no way Sakura is gonna let me back into her bed now."

If he were anyone else, Sasuke might have choked. And then he decided that Sakura was a spiteful bitch and he didn't care one jot who she had in her bed with her. Not even if it was Naruto, who snored and kicked and occasionally hit people in the face while he was asleep.

Since when had those two been so close anyway?

"I hate it when she's like this," the other boy sighed, looking extremely glum. "I always mess up with her."

He thought for a moment, staring at his feet. There were questions he felt compelled to ask out of curiosity, but that would make him seem like he cared. Or something.

"You didn't tell her about the Uchiha massacre."

Naruto put his head in his hands and groaned. The air seemed suddenly very still and warm and quiet, like they were the only two people awake in the whole world. And Sasuke wondered why he was standing here talking to Naruto about a girl he had tried to kill, in the middle of the night.

Because you are remembering who you are, the voice said, making its first reappearance in days.

Was he?

"No, I didn't tell her. We – Kakashi-sensei, Yamato and I- had just found out ourselves and we didn't know then…if it was true or not. We didn't know what to do with the information until we could find out and then Sakura came and – and we didn't tell her. Why didn't we tell her?"

A sudden thought occurred to him then; that Sakura, when he had last seen her in the Land of Iron, had not known the reason for his uncontrollable rage or his affiliation with Akatsuki….she had not known any of it. He remembered the feel of his hand wrapping around the smooth skin of her throat, fingers crushing cruelly into her windpipe….he remembered wanting to feel her neck snap beneath his fingers before he brought the kunai down…

No matter that his hatred of her in that moment had made perfect sense to him, what could Sakura possibly have seen at that encounter, but a monster?

Don't think about it, he told himself. I don't care what Sakura thinks of me. I've never cared what Sakura thinks.

"Sasuke…" Naruto interrupted his scattered and uncomfortable thoughts.

"….."

"What made you change your mind?"

When he didn't answer, the blonde elaborated. "I mean- was it just about the clan for you? Do me and Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei matter to you at all? Even a little bit?"

For a long moment he had no intention of answering, more out of ingrained habit than anything else. He had spent most of their limited interaction in the last three years, trying to beat it through Naruto's thick skull, just how much he didn't care. But Tsunade's words drifted back to him and replayed in his mind in an uncomfortable loop.

'You'd better not hurt them again, Uchiha. I'm tired of picking up the broken pieces you leave behind you.'

And it occurred to him then, that maybe Naruto didn't have quite as much confidence in their bond as he had earlier professed. At least, not on Sasuke's side anyway.

Grinding his teeth together, he said. "I could have taken Madara on my own."

Let the dobe work it out, he thought, striding silently back to his annoying, little room. He already felt like he had said too much.


"What the hell are you doing, forehead?"

There were times in her life when Ino was the one person in the world she wanted to talk to. Now was not necessarily one of them.

Sakura, in the middle of changing her shirt, gave the blonde girl her most disparaging look. Shikamaru, who had been trailing behind Ino when she burst into Sakura's room, made an uncharacteristic choking sound and backed into the hallway.

"Geez Ino," they heard him say, "this is why you're supposed to knock."

"Oh shut up," Ino snapped at him, perfectly blasé. "You act like you've never seen a girl in her bra before."

Sakura sighed quietly and pulled on the black t shirt that had been left folded by her bed.

"Hello Ino," she said. "Nice to see you're alive and all."

Ino ignored her. "What are you doing?" she repeated looking outraged. "You've been unconscious for three days! You're supposed to be in bed!"

"Yes, because lying around like a vegetable is really useful when there are hundreds of injured shinobi who need to be taken care of before they can go home."

The blonde stalked over and tried to forcibly push Sakura down on the bed. "And you're one of them idiot! You nearly died!"

Sakura dodged her outstretched arms with ease and started looking for a spare skirt or something. "So did a lot of people. "

"SHIKAMARU," Ino bellowed, looking murderous. "Back me up here!"

He poked his head cautiously through the doorway, a hand over his eyes. "Why are you getting me involved, you troublesome woman?"

"Because!" Ino shouted, like it was the most logical explanation in the world. Sakura and Shikamaru shared a look, then simultaneously rolled their eyes.

"Listen, pig," she began. "I'm fine now-"

"Bullshit!"

Ino glared at Shikamaru, who made a hasty exit, pulling the door shut behind him. When it was just the two of them, she rounded on Sakura with a look of indignation.

"Don't lie to me, Sakura," she said, "You might be able to fool Shizune-sempai and everyone else, but I know you. I know what you're doing."

Sakura kept her expression carefully blank, as she searched for her boots. Last night had been awful. She had no intention of talking about it ever.

"Oh really?"

Ino folded her arms and perched herself on the bed, eyes narrowed and very serious. "Going back to work the moment you can stand upright won't stop you from having to deal with it eventually."

She couldn't quite stop her shoulders from hunching defensively. "I'm not running away from anything."

"Bullshit," Ino said again. "I can see it in your eyes. So you're going to sit down and talk to me before I let you go anywhere near other patients. If you leave, I'll just have Shikamaru trap you with his shadow jutsu."

Well that was irritating. Sakura loved Ino, she really did, but sometimes she was the most annoying person she knew. Still, she could not ignore that her best friend's actions, misguided as they were, were coming from a place of genuine concern.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked eventually, leaning against the wall. "I feel well enough to help, Ino. Isn't that the most important thing?"

The other girl shook her head, blue eyes subdued. There was a new thinness to her face that wasn't there when they left Konoha and Sakura knew that she wasn't the only one who bad things had happened to in the last week or so.

"I'm not stupid. Everyone is saying Madara was under some kind of genjutsu when Naruto and- and Sasuke-kun fought him. And I heard Kakashi-sensei telling Hokage-sama it wasn't there when he confronted the two of you."

Sakura stayed silent. Just the mention of Sasuke's name made her shiver, a horrible cold feeling creeping over her skin.

"So I ask myself – who was the last person to see Madara before Naruto did?" Ino eyed her beadily.

"Why are you asking me if you already know the answer, pig?"

The other girl sighed and tilted her head back so she was looking at the ceiling. "Inner-Sakura's still alive and kicking, I assume. I know how you did it. You let him mess around in your head until she woke up with a vengeance, am I right?"

Sakura hung her head, pink hair falling across her face in knotted strands. It was longer now, already reaching just past her shoulders. There was something nice about that.

"Have you – have you told anyone?"

Her friend looked satisfied now that Sakura was beginning to open up. "I haven't had the chance yet. But I knew it, as soon as the rumours started spreading. He got in so far that you managed to overpower the Tsukuyomi and turn it around on him, didn't you?"

Sakura didn't answer. Though they shared many similar traits – both were stubborn, bossy and fiercely competitive- their shared silence was one of quiet understanding. If Naruto was the brother that she had never had, then Ino was something like a beloved sister.

"It's all thanks to you," she admitted, voice wavering ever so slightly, "I remembered our match you know – the first chunnin exam. I knew it was my only chance."

"And it worked," Ino said, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "You beat him."

They sat there in a companionable silence for a long time, both of them weighing their words and taking comfort in the fact that they had not lost each other. Outside the sky grew brighter as the sun rose higher in the sky. There were no birds though, only the moans of the most severely injured and dying. Everything should have been so right in the world on a day like this, with victory in the air – but it wasn't. Everything was still wrong.

Sakura clamped her lips together mulishly and folded her arms across her chest defensively. "Look – I know I'm not in great shape right now," she said, her voice beginning to waver, "but if I don't do something to help…I'm going to go insane. There's too much that I don't want to think about right now. I can't."

Ino let out a shallow breath. "You've seen Sasuke," she said carefully, scrutinising her with concerned eyes.

Her bowed head was all the answer her blonde best friend needed.

"I'll walk you down to the medic tents," Ino said. "I've been helping out the past few days, but…"

It was a complete turn around from the start of their conversation and Sakura was grateful. One day, she thought, when she'd had time to process everything that had happened, she would be able to tell Ino everything. And Ino, in return, would do the same. But her deadly battle of wills with Madara, the terrifying and hostile meeting with Sasuke in the Land of Iron, her terrible outburst the previous night….it was all too raw, too fresh in her mind to talk about today.

"Thank you Ino-chan," she said, touching her forehead to her best friend's shoulder. Ino patted Sakura's pink hair affectionately.

"It'll be okay," the blonde said quietly. Sakura nodded; she could only hope that one day, maybe, Ino's words would come out true.


"Wait!"

It would be a lie for Sasuke to say he was surprised when Naruto's voice rang out on the cool evening air, but his expression certainly startled him. The blonde appeared out of nowhere, Kakashi at his side and the ANBU the Hokage had sent to escort him to Konohagakure visibly relaxed, the hands that had immediately moved to their weapons stilling at their sides.

Sasuke, however, felt his shoulders tense up at the sudden appearance of his old teacher. He hadn't seen Kakashi once since he'd been at the Alliance Base – given that he hadn't Sakura's excuse of being unconscious he had assumed he was avoiding him. Noticing the grave expression in the silver haired man's one visible eye, he thought it was safe to say his assumption had been correct.

"Kakashi-san," the ANBU operative on his right greeted him. "What is the meaning of this?"

His departure was supposed to be a secret after all; the whole point of this operation was that no one would know he had left the neutral confines of the Alliance Base until he was safely in the Hidden Leaf Village.

"There are probably hundreds of nin out there just waiting for the opportunity to assassinate you," Tsunade had said, levelling him with an irate glare before she left. "So for Godsake, lay low while I organise a guard party to collect you and behave yourself!"

Well Sasuke thought, sighing very quietly, he had done as the Godaime ordered. Other than his little run in with Sakura the night before, the only person he had talked to at all was Naruto.

"I'm going with you!" Naruto said with his usual steely resolve, but his blue eyes were uncharacteristically agitated. Sasuke expected them to argue with him, to ignore and belittle him like the villagers always had – and was thoroughly astonished when they did not. Instead, the masked ninja's at his side accepted his statement without comment, merely turning to Kakashi for confirmation.

"Hokage-sama is doubtlessly expecting him," was all his former teacher said. The ANBU captain nodded respectfully.

"We move out in five minutes, Uzumaki-san."

And then his so called 'protectors' went back to their preparations and proceeded to ignore Sasuke. It was odd how, even with their faces concealed, they managed to give him the impression they were not exactly thrilled with their assignment to escort him. For that reason alone, he was almost glad Naruto was accompanying them. Almost.

He kept his face blank as the blonde moved to stand by his side – but Kakashi held him back with a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Sensei?" Sasuke heard him ask. He averted his face and stared out at the darkening night sky with bland eyes and told himself that he wasn't listening. It wasn't his fault he had sharp hearing.

"What is it?"

"I don't think I need to tell you to be careful," he heard the older man say quietly. "Sasuke might be cooperating but he is still dangerous. Whatever happens on this journey, you must not draw attention to yourselves."

While his stomach churned, Naruto rose to his defence. "He won't hurt me, Kakashi. I mean- I know he's done some messed up stuff but he's still Sasuke. He's finally coming home."

From the corner of his eye he saw Kakashi out an arm around Naruto's shoulders, steering him around to mute their discussion.

"It's not you I'm worried about," he muttered. "If someone gets wind that he's out in the open and attacks him, what do you think will happen? The Hokage can only do so much to keep the other nations at bay Naruto. He can't afford to slip up even once."

"I- I understand." The blonde's head was lowered, "that's why I'm going with him tonight even though things are such a mess. It's – it's hard to choose…"

What is he talking about? Sasuke wondered. He turned his head slightly, straining to make out the rest of their muted conversation. There was a slight pause.

"Sakura isn't going with you." There was a question in the statement he was sure, but Sasuke felt his jaw tense at the mention of her name.

"No, she….I don't think she wants to be around….us…right now."

Kakashi sighed and ran a hand through his hair distractedly. "That's the last thing we need, but I can't exactly say I'm surprised. Alright – you go with Sasuke, I'll talk to Sakura."

"You?"

"Yes, me." Perhaps it was Sasuke's imagination but he rather thought his old sensei sounded peeved. "I'm not the one she's angry with."

"You're the one who wouldn't let me tell her about the massacre!" Naruto hissed, too loudly for Sasuke's liking.

"Quiet down!"

"Yeah, yeah, alright you old bastard." Naruto grumped, rubbing the back of his head moodily. "I heard you already. Just don't make things worse, okay? I need her to be okay with all this."

There was another pause, longer this time, in which Sasuke found his hands clenched into tight fists.

"Naruto," Kakashi said at last, his voice a faint murmur. "The last time Sakura saw Sasuke, he was trying to kill her. I don't think she's had the chance to even start trying to deal with that – and now she's had the biggest psychopath in the history of the world messing around with her head. It's going to take some time before she is okay with anything."

"And what about you?" Naruto asked. "You haven't even acknowledged him yet."

"I care about Sasuke just as much as I ever did," Kakashi said in a voice as gentle as Sasuke had ever heard from him. "But even 'old bastards' like me need time. Give him my regards, won't you?"

And, true to his nature, he disappeared in a puff of smoke. Coughing slightly, Naruto jogged over to where Sasuke waited for him.

"Stupid old man," the blonde grumbled. "I hate it when he does that."

"We're moving out now," the ANBU captain drawled. "Get into formation and if you know what's good for you, you'll try to be discreet, Uzumaki."

As they set out under cover of darkness, the cold night air whipping against his skin and through his hair, it suddenly occurred to Sasuke that Kakashi could have had that conversation elsewhere.

Running towards Konoha – home, a disloyal voice in his head insisted- he could only conclude that Kakashi had wanted him to hear every word he had said.

A glance to his left revealed Naruto's uncharacteristically solemn face staring straight out into the darkness ahead and Sasuke felt like there was a cold fist in his chest, squeezing uncomfortably.

It would be a lie, he thought, to say he'd ever spent a great deal of time imagining what it would be like if he ever returned to Konoha. But even so, the few times he had imagined returning…well. Suffice to say that scenario had never turned out anything like this.


A/n: What the hell is up with fanfiction's 'reply to review' links? Is it just me that is having problems with it? UGH.

Anyway, sorry I couldn't respond to last chapter's reviews guys - know that I really appreciated them and so I'd like to give a shout out to:

Miss Chocolat, tenshi303, the 8th Stone, Whitney Rockafella, LaughsRFun, too addicted to fiction, LuvNjewlz14, pirateKitten11893, Livvy22, ilikesquidward, Tukiko Kinikia (you would not believe how many times I have had to type your penname trying to spell it correctly), Senka Hitomi, SweetAngels123 (thanks for the consolation), mistressinwaiting, EbonyEye, Avaricea, shasa...

And of course the unfailingly awesome Kaze and Kiba and Sakura's Unicorn. (Seriously. My brain cannot handle these sudden changes in pennames. I am going to have to call you UNICORN from now on :S )

So now that's all out the way...OHMYGOD. I think Kishimoto must be on holiday or something, because SAKURA WAS AWESOME in chapter 540. Shame Neji was actually...well, not Neji. Really. I was kind of starting to ship EvilNeji!XSakura for a week or so.

Never mind. Let's all pray that Kishi will stay locked up in his closet or something so Sakura can keep on being kickass and not totally useless.

1. What is your favourite anime? (other than Naruto, obviously)

2. Is anyone else in love with Chris Hemsworth from Thor? He is SO GOOD LOOKING. (I find it very pleasing when actors from my favourite soap make it in holllywood)