A/N: =P!

It was Tuesday.

It's been three days since she blew up at Sasuke.

And she's been regretting it very much since.

There was no reason for her to blow up at him. He was innocent. For the most part. Since it was completely in his intentions to push her buttons and to set fire to her gradually shorter and shorter fuse.

Sakura let out a mildly angry sigh. She was still angry and annoyed at him for doing such a thing but she was also embarrassed and sorry about actually losing control of her emotions and lashing out at him.

And for her to say such hurtful words at the snap of her fingers. That was something she was going to regret for the rest of her life.

But the fact that those words flew out of her mouth without a thought meant that she had very much thought about those words. Deep within the recesses of her mind, where she hid all of her complaints, worries, accusations, fears, insecurities, and pain, and where her most bitter thoughts were born and cultivated in the darkness, was where those words had come from. She must've mulled over those words night after night and day after day without ever realizing that she was harboring such hostility within her.

In a sense, she was disappointed with herself.

Why did she let herself get to such a point?

How did she get to such a point?

The point in life where she was so guarded and skeptical of everyone's intentions that she felt like she needed to protect herself in the form of a facade.

While it was not completely a facade, as the exhaustion and stress she felt was entirely real, and the happiness and laughter she let out was authentic, but that was only half the emotions she was feeling. She didn't let any of the anger or disappointment show as she gradually felt like it was her against the world as she lost more and more family members and as she lost any semblance of leading a normal, happy, worry-free life that she saw thousands of other people living around her.

She was jealous. And she was bitter.

She laughed at herself in her head, scorning herself.

What a joke.

Whoever would've thought that she'd end up the way she did?

An orphaned high school girl with a half-orphaned baby and a brother-in-law widower to take care of?

She wanted to laugh at herself even more with contempt.

Instead she twirled her pencil in one hand and clenched the other as she listened to the teacher's lecture. If she was at home, she felt like she would've broken down long ago, instead of holding it all in. But she was at school and would be seen as a madwoman by all her classmates and teachers if she didn't.

She would've broken down. Finally.

Isn't that what everyone wanted?

"Stand."

"Bow."

And school was over.

Sakura took her time copying down the homework from the board, since she needed to wait until everyone left. She was on duty this week. And guess who the other person is.

Uchiha Sasuke.

Just great, is what she thought when she came in yesterday morning. Needless to say it was completely quiet yesterday after school as she cleaned up the classroom and did the logs with Sasuke. It probably made it worse between them, or at least for her.

He seemed as cool as a cucumber. Like he always did. When he was with everyone else. But when he was with her, he seemed so natural. Sakura can't help but think that he had a facade, too, as she had suspected since the beginning of their unexpected friendship.

The one reason they were able to understand each other so well was because they had gone through the same thing, more or less, since he didn't have a baby to take care of. But he had also lost his parents at a young age and, too, had a workaholic brother.

Sakura got up and got the broom and dust pan out of the closet. She said nothing as Sasuke started erasing the board.

But the thing was, there was one major difference between him and her. And it was that her brother-in-law actually came back to being a brother to her and that he wasn't purposely drowning himself in his work to forget about what happened anymore. He had safely swam ashore and was in control of when he waded back in.

And even before that, Sakura's sister stepped up to the plate and stayed true to her roots as her sister. She didn't leave her and not come back. She came back alright, and she brought along with her someone she trusted to take care of her and her little sister.

Karin would never leave her behind. She promised that they'd never be separated ever again.

Sakura stopped sweeping and gripped the broomstick.

Karin always had a big heart, even if she never showed it when they were young.

The reason for her death, what was it?

She was helping a pregnant woman retrieve her hat that had been blown away by an unexpected strong gust of wind. She couldn't leave it be, as she had been pregnant once, too. It was her motherly instincts and her big heart.

And see where that got her?

There was a speeding car that was all too prepared to run a red light to hurry home to watch a popular TV show at the time. The driver was on the phone, talking excitedly to his friend about it. He wasn't paying attention to the road at all.

Sakura gripped the broomstick so tight that her knuckles turned white.

He didn't see Karin run into the street to pick up the sunhat for the eight-months pregnant woman.

He didn't see her at all.

Dead on impact is what they said.

Neither her nor her brother-in-law could believe it when they first got the phone call.

It took them a whole five minutes to react. Then it was a flurry of action as they rushed to get to the hospital, but not before dropping Mari off at the neighbor's to take care of. The morgue was nowhere for a baby to be. That is, if it really was Karin in the morgue on a cold metal slate.

It had to be a joke, right? A completely sick and twisted joke.

But it was no joke. They weren't laughing when they got to the hospital to identify the body.

The woman, whose hat it was, wasn't laughing. She was screaming at the top of her lungs as she went into early labor from the shock.

The man who was driving the car wasn't laughing. He was on his knees in front of them, begging for forgiveness with tears running down his face.

Sakura and Suigetsu weren't laughing. They were stock still, still trying to process everything and to make sense of it.

From the second they found out the reason from the police officer, Sakura was already blaming someone. She wasn't angry at the careless woman nor the careless driver.

No. She was angry at her sister for putting herself in danger. Yes, it was her right of way. But if she hadn't gone back to help the woman because of her big heart, she would still be there with them.

Sakura was pulled back to the present when she felt strong arms wrap around her. That was when she realized that her cheeks were wet and her vision was blurry. The broom fell to their feet as she let go of it to wrap her arms around Sasuke where her hands gripped the back of his blazer and to bury her face into his chest.

Loud sobs wracked through her body as she let out months worth of tears, angst, anger, and exhaustion, years worth even.

No words passed between them as Sakura cried her heart out, dirtying Sasuke's uniform with her tears, snot, and spit, and as Sasuke wrapped his arms even tighter around her shoulders, bringing her ever closer as he placed infinite kisses on the top of her head.

This was what she needed.

This was what she needed all along. To be held tight. And to feel safe. Safe enough to let everything out.

This was what she needed.

A/N: You guys are probably thinking, FINALLY! Well here it is, Sakura's letting it all out!

Sorry for taking so long to update, lol, things got busy for me again.

Thank you for the reviews and thank you for reading!

I hope you liked it!

Please review!

Updated – 10/11/2013

EDITED – 9/6/2014 (Oops...took me so long to go back over and fix all the grammatical mistakes...my bad...XD) And damn, I teared up while rereading this chapter.