Chapter 12—The Wandering

"Alright, I'm heading out. I don't know if I'll need dinner today or not; I might be working overtime," she announced, pulling on her boots the next morning. Deidara gave Sakura a flat, unhappy look. "What's with the glare? You look like a wet cat or something."

"You will eat, won't you?"

She rolled her eyes at him, saying, "Of course I will."

"Don't give me 'of course,' yeah. If you come home without eating anything, I'm going to make you eat out tonight," he grumped, scrubbing at a skillet. "I swear, if someone doesn't keep an eye on you, you'd—"

Without him noticing, Sakura slipped up and hugged him around the shoulders, cutting off his sulky tirade. With a small smile, she whispered in his ear, "I promise I'll eat properly and come back for your home-cooking. Wouldn't dare miss out."

That said, she disappeared quickly out the door. Deidara stared at the knob for a long minute or two. It was the most uncomfortable thing he had felt in a long while; she seemed off. Off how he wasn't sure, but she was definitely off.

Somehow, he'd had that impression a lot lately.

Even her medical skills and makeup couldn't hide the ghastly dark circles under her eyes and unnatural pallor of her skin. She was doing her level best to hide her frustration lately, but sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her face while it pinched beneath the stress. As he dried the last dish and set it off to the side in the drainer, Deidara had to take the time to appreciate her efforts, however debilitating. 'I've never had someone put on a good face for me. Never had anyone who would consider me worth it, yeah.' It was a solemn thought, but it actually made him a little happy to think that she cared that much. If compared to 'love' or 'like' it was a very small amount of care, but it was still more than he'd dared hope for from anyone.

He padded across the linoleum and into the carpeted living room, stopping briefly to pick up a coffee cup his 'keeper' had left on the end table. It was white, with a ring of fire pained around the base much like an over-jacket he recalled seeing in the anarchy of her closet—the masculinity of which he decided was much more suitable to her. Little indications of this 'rebellion' filled her home, he noticed; shounen manga, old tape-recordings of famous boxing matches, and other such media filled her shelves, and after he became her housemate, she stopped buying 'feminine' soaps, shampoos and conditioners when she ran out, and simply shared whatever he used for himself. On more than one occasion he thought to tell her she wasn't playing fair by having his scent all over her, but the timing was never right for such a personal jibe.

The cup was left in the sink with a little water in the bottom, and after looking around the room for a bit while feeling at loose ends, he finally elected to work on a new project with the clay Sakura purchased for him. Maybe she would be in a better mood when she got back this evening. Maybe she wouldn't have to fake her smile today. Maybe he could surprise her and make her laugh for real.

In the meanwhile, he would just have to wait.


ANBU's morgue was even less cheerful than the one in the hospital, which really said something about the conditions. It couldn't have been much gloomier if there were bloodstains on the walls and bats hanging in the doorways. Still, the way Haruno Sakura stormed down the hallway said "Business as usual," to anyone who was watching her. Her face was set in a stiff mask, concentrated towards the doorway near the end of the hall.

The metal door opened inward on quiet hinges, and in the room's center she could see the white-draped body, her teacher already pulling on her mask with Ibiki observing morbidly from the corner. The observation room had Anko and a masked operative standing by, clipboards and pens at the ready. Without pause, Sakura grabbed another medical mask and wrapped it around her ears, not even bothering to pull something on and cover her clothes. She would have to wash them afterwards anyway.

"Let's get on with it then," Tsunade snapped, eyes glinting. Sakura had the body opened up for observation almost as soon as the words left her teacher's mouth, her experience hand laying open the blanket and carcass in seconds without an iota of hesitation. The damage was to the head and shoulders, but taking in other vital areas was necessary; if he were poisoned and then exploded as a misdirect, it would be crucial. If he were killed by anything else, they still had to know. Anything could be a hint—anything at all—and in her own way, Sakura was twice as wound up about it as anyone else. The thought of that ex-criminal standing at her kitchen sink and scolding her about eating habits like an old mother hen was driving her, she would admit. She wanted him to keep on being that nagging mother hen. She wanted him to always be there at her apartment, fighting over the thermostat with her and hogging the bathroom and going on cleaning binges.

Sakura wanted Deidara to have that future he was looking forward to, white picket fence included.

Hope was a damn fickle bird if she ever met one though, and she could already feel it leaving as she meticulously surveyed the liver, the kidneys, and the intestines while her teacher dug through his chest. Almost two hours later, after digging through every blood vessel and chakra path, she pulled back from the cadaver with a grim set to her mouth, Tsunade not far behind her. Now for the part neither of them was looking forward to.

If there wasn't an alternative answer, Deidara's life wasn't the only one on the line. Sakura didn't like thinking about it; it felt selfish to put her own life first. Still, those were the facts—if he was the murderer, she was the accomplice, and they would be put to death just the same. With a glance from her mentor, the cloth was pulled back from the brain cavity; there wasn't even a face left—barely half the skull remained, together with the bits of shredded gray matter that hadn't been sent flying and were processed separately. The bone was white and glaring against leftover dead-red contents, but she and her teacher both ignored the feeling that something evil was smiling at them from those places that peeked through the carnage as if to taunt them. The room was silent; without the unnecessary tools of the civilians, sound became nonexistent outside of their fingers squishing around inside the remains, turning red and black and becoming covered in sticky little pieces from who knew where.

Four hands were searching. Four of them, and yet as they poked and prodded and observed, Sakura could see all the things she didn't want to—fine dust on the hair, the faint whiff of gunpowder and chakra, the finely charred and fragmented remains—everything was just what she was hoping against hope wasn't true. It was the most pathetic thing ever, but she could feel her eyes stinging with tears of frustration. She knew it wasn't him, and yet she couldn't prove it. Two people, herself and that twisted, ignorant, childish, sweet, domesticated mother hen of a man were going to die for her incompetence.

Then, like God's divine intervention, a tiny glitter of light shone against her unshed tears.

Sakura lunged forward, nearly butting heads with her teacher in her rush to find out what she'd seen. Tsunade snapped at her, but the reprimand fell on deaf ears as Sakura, with every ounce of caution and skill she could manage, dug through just a little more of the gore. She hadn't been seeing things… she hadn't.

Right there in the midst of all that chaos, like a promised miracle, was a splinter of metal. With almost reverent fingers, she reached to touch it…

'Wait… what was I reaching for?'

She glanced around. The sun poured through her room, and lit up patches on the floor, her narrow bedroom glowing soft yellow in the mid-morning light.

"Sakura, it's time to get up! You don't want to be late to meet your teacher, do you?"


The clay wasn't taking his mind off things today.

He tried making pottery, jewelry, toys, furniture, random objects that even he couldn't describe, and yet he still couldn't shake the feeling that Sakura had been off that morning. It wasn't even her health—and despite her best efforts, he could tell that she was sleep-deprived—but some other sort of off. Psychological stress sounded about right, but she was the hailed golden egg of the Fifth Hokage, right? There was no way she could be going through anything that horrible, right?

His mind jokingly supplied, 'Maybe her boyfriend got jealous of me and threw a hissy,' but he was of the distinct impression that Sakura wasn't seeing anyone.

Why there wasn't a significant other in the picture, he couldn't decide. Sakura was an infinitely affectionate person. She loved touching and being touched, and she was even over-familiar with him of all people, not to mention her teammates and friends. Her beauty wasn't extraordinary, but it was undeniably there—her sharp, cat-like eyes and sweeping angles were certainly lovely in their own way. If she added a touch of make-up and the right hair-comb with a pretty kimono, Sakura would be quite the vision. Still, there wasn't so much as a hint of a lover. The only virile influence in her apartment was from him, her teammates' discards, and her own personal affinity for the masculine. It was a shame, he decided. The more he thought about Sakura, the more amazing she seemed—how had she gone unnoticed like this? Her skills were S-class, her intelligence a force, her appearance lovely and exotic, her heart naturally warm and open… she should have been the text-book perfect shinobi woman, so what happened?

'I should just keep her. Problem solved,' he thought, more out of grumpiness for the men leaving her alone than possessiveness. 'They're all blind if they can't see Sakura-chan's charm.'

At that point, he decided he was starting to sound too much like Naruto and needed to stop. Desperately so.

When a knock came at the door, Deidara stopped and felt out the chakra for a moment before even moving to wash his hands. The ANBU had been moving around more actively since several days ago, and he was already suspicious. This, however, was a call from Sakura's teammates. There was nothing to fear from them, supposedly. They had agreed to bring him here, allowing his keeper to have her way—that made them trustworthy enough.

Still, it wasn't just Naruto or Sasuke… Copy-Nin Kakashi was there, too. His lips quirked up grimly. As much as he wanted to believe they were safe, all things considered it wasn't likely to be a social call. His mind supplied images of "big brothers" attempting to scare him into taking good care of their "little sister." Humorous, yes, but they weren't civilians. They were three of the most powerful shinobi in the known world. 'How troublesome.'

When he finally reached the front door and opened it, he could immediately tell that, just as suspected, the situation wasn't a good one. "Something wrong, yeah?"

"You better be damn proud of yourself, asshole," Naruto snapped, fists clenched tightly at his sides.

Deidara ignored the insult and leaned against the doorway, waiting for the real reason he was being berated. Sasuke seemed like he wanted to say something and couldn't, so finally their teacher stepped forward, coal-black eye stone cold. He was reasonable, but the feeling that something was wrong tingled ominously down his spine…

"Sakura is in a coma, Deidara-kun."

He listened, but it was almost as if he didn't hear it. That couldn't have possibly been right. What was he saying? 'Sakura was exhausted when she left that morning, but she was fine aside from that, right?' he thought, his thoughts creeping out of the corners of his mind so slowly it was like dragging them out through a swamp.

"Wha…t? How?" His crossed arms fell to his sides, limp, unbelief etching painfully into his features as he took a hesitant step forward. "You're kidding, right? You can't he serious… She was tired, but just this morning she—!"

The man visibly grimaced at that.

"She was working on an autopsy with Tsunade-sama on one of the serial victims when she suddenly collapsed," the man said quietly, meeting his eyes with a hard glint. "She was desperate to clear you, Deidara-kun."

"Wait, hold the train, yeah. Clear me from what exactly?"

The looks he received from all three of them were incredulous at best, and accusatory at worst. Still, they eventually seemed to all arrive at the same conclusion, and Naruto pushed past his teacher with a glint in his eye Deidara didn't know what to think of. The boy stopped nose-to-nose with him, intense blue eyes piercing his with a fierce gaze.

"The ANBU ops have been dropping like flies around you lately, you bastard, and you say you don't know? Killed by explosives to the face?"

What would you do if they tried to pin something on you?

"There've been four victims already, all of them died on duty watching you. Sakura-chan's been fighting tooth and nail for you, and you say she hasn't said a word about it?" Sasuke seethed, Sharingan spinning in and out of existence.

Deidara, are you happy?

"Sakura reported staying alert all night for several days to observe you, and seeing that you never moved from her side… but the majority are beginning to suspect she's covering for you, if for nothing else than her own life," Kakashi stated evenly.

Today someone asked me…

She'd never been "asked" about him; there was never the uncertainty of 'what if.' She'd been tiptoeing around the subject, likely wanting to tell him and yet refraining. She'd been putting on that strong face just for him. Specifically for him. All for him.

This was all for him.

Everything she was going through, all the mistrust and disrespect and sleepless nights and strained relationships… all for him. Furthermore, she clearly wanted him to maintain the illusion that all was right in the world even if it was a little hard on her. The blue eyes that accused him so hatefully were mirrors of his own—like he was accusing himself, and he couldn't claim it was wrong. Deidara backed away from the door, the pressure of that accusation forcing him to turn away and look at their apartment—his utopian cage, where he wasn't a monster and his past was an accepted fact and…

Where he wasn't a bloodthirsty killer and never was… that was the illusion she had created for him, while shouldering the suspicion of treason and the threat of execution. All for his sake, she took it, hid it away, and let him be the ignorant prince in an ivory tower, protected like a treasure in a safe. He couldn't help it, his lips unconsciously muttering his thoughts regardless of company, "What the hell, Sakura-chan? Why the hell would you…?"

His thoughts couldn't process any further. It was all for him.


The toast was burnt, dammit. It was nearly charcoal, thanks to her mother's absolute inability to cook. Heeding her teacher's advice to not eat and her stomach's warning that it would be to their mutual benefit not to even touch that deadly piece of bread, Sakura dashed out of the house before her civilian mother (darling woman, but she was absolutely clueless about the whole "I'm a genuine kunoichi thing) could harangue her for not eating. Preserving chakra was definitely the right course of action, so on just her own two legs she took off across town, her heart going at an unsteady and over-paced rhythm as she thought about a certain dark-haired teammate that would be there to meet her at the training grounds. Today was supposed to be a bit of a test issued by their new instructor to insure that they were ready to be genin—that by itself was exciting, but having Sasuke-kun on her team? Now that simply couldn't be beat. She'd even one-upped Yamanaka while she was at it, so that was a real prize! It was a trick to keep running instead of skipping.

Several hours, a trauma or two and a less-than-rewarding bentou from the convenience store later, Sakura and her team (and she used the word with a bit of remaining reservation as Naruto and Sasuke got into another glaring match) were roughly shoved into position for their team photo. "You'll cherish this forever! You'll never forget the day!" and similar promises flowed out of the photographer's mouth, but she distinctly felt like he was attempting to placate the boys into some expression other than a scowl. She turned to glare at Naruto, but before she could open her mouth to bitch at him, he snapped to attention, his blue eyes honing in on her so intensely she forgot what she was going to say as he spouted, "Right, Sakura-chan? Don't you think this bastard's being really unreasonable?"

Blue eyes. She got so distracted by his blue eyes with little flecks of green that it felt disturbingly unnatural, and yet at the same time it didn't unnerve her at all.

"No."

Even as she deadpanned and disappointed her new 'teammate,' she turned around to face the camera and felt a smile well up on her face.

For some strange reason, his eyes had her thinking about white picket fences.


Naruto seethed, observing Deidara from the far side of the apartment. The blonde was still standing listlessly in the center of the room, staring blankly into thin air. The bastard hadn't known what was going on—he could tell he honestly hadn't, and Sakura was likely right that he wasn't responsible—but it was too hard to look at him and know what his teammate was doing for him, and see that he hadn't had a clue.

He knew Sakura liked to spoil people, but this was a little much, even for her.

"Oi, blonde bastard." Deidara's eyes snapped to him, but his head didn't move. His expression didn't change. "Did Sakura-chan even give you a clue about what was happening?"

He just stared for a long while, eyes eventually wandering back to the kitchen.

Today someone asked me…

"Yeah. I just didn't realize it at the time."


AN: Wow. It's been a while. Again. *looks away guiltily* I'm really sorry, honest! School's been kicking my butt, and I've barely been writing at all-neither here, nor deviantart, for pleasure or profit. So please, don't be too terribly angry. Q_Q At least this update was good plot progress...?

We're nearing the climax now, so at the very least I want to attempt finishing this story before summer's end-three, maybe four chapters, I guess? This story has been in progress for a really long time (mostly due to my inability to stay focused), but It's finally nearing completion after nearly seven years from its first post! I'm a shame to writers. *cries* I hope you'll be patient with me and stick with it to the end!