When Sakura left, she went straight to the hospital, seeing her now only two patients. Tsunade was getting on her nerves turfing her patients to other doctors. She was trying to clear up her schedule for a mission and she could only pray that it wasn't her going with Ronan back to his village.

She was already annoyed with the guy and she hadn't even seen him yet today. Like she had told Sasuke though, he was waiting for her in the lobby and was giving her a smile the second she got off the elevator.

She went home and changed before they headed out to the training grounds. He kept on talking to her the entire time they were walking there and it was extremely amusing to her at the idea of how much she knew this guy would annoy Sasuke. Ronan talked all the time, usually said silly comments about the most random things, and had the natural ability to make everything about flirting.

It wasn't until they started training though that she realized what a mistake it had been. She was forced to make physical contact with him, and even though she could throw stronger punches, he was better at taijutsu. She hadn't even seen it coming when he pinned her and before she knew it he was leaning in to kiss her.

She could hear the sound of voices in the distance. Someone was arguing. But that didn't help the matter at hand. At least she thought it didn't.

Her heart was racing as Ronan started to lean.

"What the hell?!" came Sasuke's voice, loud and clear.

She was in a little shock of what he was actually trying to do and it took her a minute to move. She turned her head away from him when his lips finally reached her, touching her cheek. She was quick to fight her arm free and put it on his chest, pushing him back.

Her head whipped around to see that Naruto was holding back Sasuke. Ronan was off of her at this point, a confused look on his face as to why she had pushed him off and she stood up.

"Oi bastard, calm down," Naruto exclaimed.

Sasuke struggled to escape Naruto's grasp and if it wasn't such a serious situation they probably would have looked quite funny, but the red color of Sasuke's eyes proved how serious he was.

Sakura wasn't exactly sure what to do. She couldn't walk up to Sasuke, not with Naruto here or Ronan for that matter. But then her thoughts fell to the lecherous asshole that was standing up next to her. She didn't think twice as she whipped around and punched him enough so that he stumbled back holding his nose as blood dripped from his chin.

"What in the hell was that?! Have I not made it clearly obvious that nothing will happen! You did not have the right to do that!" Sakura yelled.

She turned and started walking towards Sasuke and Naruto, her gaze flicking to the both of them before she focused on Sasuke. He looked so mad, the last time she had seen that look he tried to kill her and she had to admit, it scared her a little.

Seeing Sakura hit that interloping idiot caused Sasuke to at least stop struggling to get away from Naruto and go kill Ronan. Unfortunately Naruto didn't realize that Sasuke had stopped struggling and continued to hold onto Sasuke, making it appear as if the blond was trying to hug him.

"Idiot, I'm not going to kill him so let me go," Sasuke said, pushing Naruto away from him.

She kept walking past them as she crossed her arms, tears burning at the back of her eyes as she tried not to cry. If she had reacted a second later than Ronan would of kissed her and she could only imagine how pissed off Sasuke would of been. Everything they had could of been ruined all because of some stupid idiot.

She could hear Sasuke and Naruto talking behind her, or rather Naruto talking and Sasuke grumbling and refusing to answer quesitons, and it was safe to say she was a little panicked. She was on the verge of crying, Sasuke was pissed off and nearly took Ronan's head off, Naruto knew something was up by the questions he was asking and she had no idea how to get Sasuke alone to try and make sure he knew that she wasn't going to let anything like that happen.

It wasn't something that could wait until later though. They needed to talk about this now because if she let Sasuke sit around and really think about it, there was no telling what kind of conclusions he might come to. She had spent so long building trust in him and it could very well of just shattered.

When they came to the point in the path where Sasuke and her usually went separate ways she stopped, looking back at the two. "Naruto, can you please keep Ronan occupied for a little while. He has to have a village escort and I can't be around him right now."

She turned to him, hoping he wouldn't argue with her. It wasn't like she lied to him about anything, either. She couldn't be around Ronan, she didn't want anything to do with him after that.

"Please," she pleaded.

Of course Naruto complained about wanting to know what was happening, but Sasuke turned around and sent him a glare.

"I'll explain when I talk to you tomorrow about what we have to discuss. Just go," he grumbled to Naruto.

Naruto looked rather dejected, but the blond left, knowing not to piss Sasuke off anymore than he already was.

But even when they were alone Sasuke stayed silent. He was still walking towards his apartment, so that he and Sakura could be alone and no one else would hear them discussing their secret relationship and their secret fight. He didn't even glance over at Sakura, still caught up in his own gloomy thoughts. Sakura knew she was in trouble. From the way Sasuke was walking to the expression on his face. He was tense, and when she fell in step beside him she felt like a child about to get scolded.

She knew the moment she was in his apartment there wouldn't be anything holding him back from venting and she couldn't admit to him she was scared. She kept telling herself that he wouldn't hurt her, but in the back of her mind she couldn't get rid of the nagging thoughts of what he could really do to her. Or even worse, what he would do to Ronan if he was ever alone with that guy.

Once they arrived at his place he unlocked the door and let them both in, still not speaking.

When they entered the apartment she walked in and didn't say a word. What could she say to him, really? She wasn't apologizing, she didn't have anything to be sorry for. She needed to train, Ronan tagged along and just started being stupid. She didn't let the guy kiss her and in fact she punched him. She didn't do anything wrong and she'd stick to that. She had a feeling that wasn't what Sasuke wanted to hear though. So all Sakura did was stood in silence in his living room leaning against the back of his couch.

"You were alone at the training grounds with a stranger who is strong enough to pin you to the ground and try to kiss you. Don't you realize how dangerous that was?" Sasuke wasn't yelling. His voice was quite and retrained, but still with that element of coldness that his entire body currently showed.

"Sasuke, I'd hardly consider that dangerous," she retorted.

She knew she was just digging herself a deeper hole by disagreeing with him, but she wasn't going to just roll over for him to make him happy. He needed to understand, it wasn't like she was going to go around the rest of her life letting him win every fight.

"For one thing, I was in the village and another thing, he was just trying to kiss me, not kill me. Okay, I needed to train, something you should understand, and he knew it. He wanted to tag along and I can't say no. If Tsunade found out she'd consider it a failed mission and I'm not about to let something as stupid as this go against my record as a fail just because I needed to train and he happened to be there. I'm pretty sure me punching him will mark it as a fail, but that's for a good reason and I'm not spending any more time with him, alright?"

She stayed on her side of the apartment, watching him closely. She could understand why he was so upset at the situation, but what she couldn't get was why he was pissed off at her. She hadn't done anything wrong but here he was scolding her anyways. There had to be another reason why he was blowing this out of proportion but she had no idea what it could be unless it involved what was bothering him last night.

Sasuke frowned. "But he could have tried to kill you. You don't know him well enough to know that he wouldn't. You could have brought someone else with you to training. I would have gone with you if you'd even thought to tell me what you were going to be doing."

"He wasn't going to kill me. He either has to be incredibly stupid to kill someone in their own village or incredibly skilled, which Ronan is not." She sighed as she turned away from him and began pacing.

"Plus, you know you couldn't of come along and everyone else is busy. As long as we're keeping this," she paused to point at the both of them, "a secret, than we can't do things like train together or even so much as walk down the damn street."

Slowly pushing away from the couch she made her way over to him, stopping when she was in front of him but not touching him.

"I really don't understand why you're mad at me. What's wrong?" Sakura asked.

He paused for a moment. "I'm mad because you were careless and some other man nearly kissed you. Next time it might not just be nearly."

Sakura was getting mad now, also. That wasn't fair for him to accuse her of going with Ronan alone. She knew him better than Sasuke apparently thought. She was forced to spend a lot of time with him and he wasn't the most complex guy to figure out, unlike a certain someone else. She knew Ronan wouldn't hurt her, but she had still asked around to try and find someone to go with her.

She hadn't had a single urge to be alone with the guy but everyone she had asked was busy, and when Sasuke said he'd be around Naruto that had taken her last option and she wasn't about to subject Sasuke to actually meeting the guy. If she knew it would of blown up in her face so badly than she would have agreed to just train with Naruto and Sasuke and let the chips fall where they may.

"Sasuke, I wasn't being careless. All I did was lose a sparring match. Sure he took winning a step too far, but I'm fairly positive he's not going to try anything again."

She honestly didn't know what to say to him besides the fact that what happened, happened. It had been bound to happen eventually, also. Ronan didn't know she had a boyfriend and she couldn't very well tell him. He thought she was single and was just going for it. Sure it pissed her off how he did it, but she wasn't going to put herself in that situation again.

Sasuke frowned, looking annoyed. "That's my point. You lost the sparring match and if it was a real match you would be dead. You would be dead and I'd be alone again. Don't you even care about that?" he said, his voice growing increasingly cold

The feeling she got after he spoke was almost the same as if someone had wrenched a knife in her. Sakura stopped pacing and just looked at him with a raw, hurt expression. She couldn't honestly believe he was accusing her of not caring. She cared about him more than anything and she had thought that had been apparent enough.

Usually she could brush his angry comments off and retaliate with one of her own simply because they were usually minor things that they would just share different views on. Her caring though, that definitely wasn't minor and definitely something she couldn't just brush off.

"You don't think I care?" Her tone was horribly calm as she stared at him.

She was pissed off and hurt. "How could you even think that? I think I have more than enough proved how much you mean to me over the years." Her voice was starting to rise and she honestly didn't care. She couldn't even help it when she started to cry.

"I love you Sasuke, with everything I have, but if you can't see that than I don't know what the hell I'm doing here!"

She didn't want to lose him, but if he was claiming that she didn't care about him than she was obviously wasting both of their times and she wasn't going to be selfish and keep him to herself. If anything he probably felt obligated to be with her out of everyone. She was the only girl he actually talked to.

Sakura took a deep breath as she looked from him to the door, and then back to him. She had heard that he was scared of losing her by his word choice, but she was more focused on the latter part that labeled her as someone who didn't care about him. It was enough to send her into debates on if she should stay or go.

But then like he had so many times before, Sasuke surprised her.

"Damn it," he mumbled to himself.

She looked back to him only to find him standing just inches from her, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her close. She wondered if the day would ever come to where she'd stop forgiving him when all he did was hug her and say something unpredictable that would catch her so off-guard she'd forget she was pissed. She doubted that day would ever come. He meant too much to her for her to even want to be mad at him when she had a good reason to be.

"Don't cry. I'm sorry," he said quietly, almost to the point of it being inaudible.

She stood there for a long time not hugging him back but she didn't pull away either. She just tried to stop crying.

She finally reached around him, holding him tightly to her as she kept calming down. He had apologized to her, something she never thought Sasuke Uchiha would do for anyone and he had done it for her. It had been weird to hear him say it, but she certainly wasn't going to object to it. For that comment, he had every reason in the world to apologize.

"Sasuke, don't you ever say anything like that ever to me again. Ever."

He nodded. "Hn."

She hugged him tighter before she pulled away and made her way to his room as she sat down on the bed and lay her head down in the palms of her hands as she started to cry again.

"Sakura?" she heard him call from the other room.

She wasn't mad at him anymore, but he had hurt her, something she hadn't been expecting. She was going to cry until she couldn't or just felt better. Right now she was more likely to run out of tears to cry before she felt even remotely better.

Looking confused, he walked into the bedroom. She kept her head down because she didn't want him to see her like this. Sasuke paused before sitting down beside her with a sigh.

"I'm not good at this sort of thing," he said quietly. "If you need comforting then you have to tell me how."

Sakura took a deep breath as she wiped at her cheeks, trying her best to dry them before she turned her head in his direction.

"Just promise me you won't think something like that. I care about you more than you'll ever know and as long as you want me, I'm not going to leave you. You just have to trust me," she answered.

Sakura turned her head the rest of the way to look at him and she was positive she looked like a train wreck but she didn't care.

"I promise," he said, looking very serious.

Sakura closed her eyes. She wasn't going to start crying again, at least not if she could help it. She didn't want to make him feel guilty and she knew when she cried it did. He would give her that confused, helpless look that he got whenever he didn't know how to emotionally deal with something. She hated it when he looked at her like that, too. He looked so unsure of himself and she couldn't stand how she was the one who was making him feel like that because she knew he certainly didn't enjoy it.

Sasuke leaned down and gently kissed Sakura's forehead. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

Sasuke used his thumb to wipe a tear away from Sakura's cheek that she had missed. "How about before I have to go to my training tonight, I go out and get us some take out? I did promise you a date."

She was quick to place her hand over his, holding it there as she rested her cheek against it, savoring his touch. She smiled just slightly at the fact he remembered as she turned her head and gently kissed his palm.

"That sounds good, but just stay here with me for a bit."

"Hn." He nodded. "We can stay here for as long as you want."

Getting closer to him she let go of his hand and rested her head against his shoulder.

"Thank you."

She closed her eyes as she leaned against him, just taking relaxing breaths. She knew what her crying did to him. The only two times she had ever been around him and she cried his demeanor would automatically change.

He would usually forget whatever it was making him mad and do whatever he could just to get her to stop. He would even go so far as to push his pride aside to get her to feel better. She knew he cared about her if he was willing to do that for her.

"I hope you don't mind paying for me. My money is at home," Sakura said with a bit of a smile.

She highly doubted Sasuke would of let her pay regardless but she didn't want him to think she'd automatically assumed that. Sasuke was an old-fashioned type of guy, and those types of guys hardly ever let girls pay.

Sasuke smiled slightly, seeing that Sakura was now much calmer than before. It looked like she wouldn't be crying anymore and that was very good. And she seemed happy about his suggestion of going on a date. He made a mental note to remember to take her on a real date out at a nice restaurant once they let the world know about the two of them.

Sasuke couldn't help but laughed lightly.

"Tch, do you really think I would have it any other way?" he retorted, confirming her suspicions.

A laugh escaped her. It was just a quiet sound, but he was already making her feel better. "I didn't think you'd mind, but I figured I should ask."

Sasuke looked relieved to see her laugh. "I wouldn't let you pay even if you wanted to," he replied with a smirk.

She turned her head up, her breath fanning across his neck before she placed a soft kiss. "You're better than you think at comforting."

"Is that so?"

She stood up after that, wiping at her face to try and dry it before she looked back at him, smiling softly at him.

"I love you," she cooed.

She took a step closer to him and leaned down, placing her hands on his shoulders as she kissed him.

Sasuke let go of her and returned her kiss. Then he pulled away before long, smirking up at her.

"I love you too."

He stood, taking her hand in his.

"Come on, let's get some food. You have to be hungry. It 's dinner time," he said, leading her into the living room and towards the front door.

Sakura only nodded in agreement. "Are we both going?"

She knew that was a silly question, but it was a legit one. They couldn't just show up at a restaurant together, grab food and bail out. If they ran into someone they knew, red flags would go up everywhere and it wouldn't be long before people found out. A part of her wanted to go, hoping he wanted to finally tell people but she wasn't going to rush him into it.

It was going to be weird whenever they finally got to that point where they told people. She knew a lot of girls would hate her for sure, but they weren't anything she couldn't handle. It would be nice though to walk down the street next to him and not have to talk about a medical condition regarding to his eyes as a cover-up. It would be like starting their relationship over but in the beginning they would already know how they felt about each other and they could already be comfortable. She was ready for it, no questions about it.

Sasuke paused, looking like he'd forgotten that their relationship was a secret.

"Right. I'll go. You wait here. I won't be long. There's a new Chinese take-out place a couple blocks away," he said, releasing her hand.

"Alright." She let out a light laugh again as she stopped next to the kitchen counter, leaning against it as she crossed her arms. "Thank you."

If she had been right about Sasuke asking her to move in thing, this was something she could get used to. Staying in, relaxing with one another and just feeling like she was at home. She knew she'd say yes when he'd ask her, the idea of waking up to him every morning was something she wouldn't dare pass up. She'd enjoy the sound of him coming home, just everything.

He gave her a soft kiss then stepped toward the door, leaving quietly.

Sakura pushed off the counter and went to his bedroom getting out a black shirt, the clan symbol present on the back, and a pair of pants. She wasted no time getting into the shower, and in the length of the ten minutes she spent in there she must have scrubbed her cheek where Ronan had kissed her a good fifteen times.

It had felt so wrong when it happened and Sasuke had been right. If it had been a second later before she reacted, Ronan would of kissed her and she had a feeling that Sasuke might not of forgiven her for that so easily.

She hadn't seen that side of him in a long time, Sasuke having been just so angry. He had that look in his eyes like he could of killed something and it had scared her. She could go the rest of her life without seeing that look. But she knew it would never be directed at her. It was Ronan he wanted to hurt.

When she got out of the shower she didn't bother with drying her hair as she put on the shirt and pants she had taken from his closet, folding up her own and taking it with her.

Going to his bedroom, she set it down on the dresser before going back into the living room and taking out the scrolls she had scanned over that morning. Sakura proceeded to lay them all out, sitting between the coffee table and couch again as she began to go over them.

She found one of the scrolls particularly interesting. It was over field techniques and how to get the maximum healing strength with the littlest amount of chakra use. If she could learn it she could automatically raise her value as a field medic and it would making getting into ANBU that much easier.

She wasn't technically sure if she'd be able to use the techniques though. Reading them was one thing, but actually using them was another. She wasn't about to overstep her boundaries.

Arriving back at his apartment with the food, Sasuke found Sakura once again looking at those medical scrolls. He sat down on the couch opening up the bag with the little Chinese food boxes and chopsticks.

"I just guessed at what you like, but I made sure it's not spicy," he said.

"I'm sure whatever you got is fine. Thanks." She smiled up at him.

She immediately went for the food, being hungrier than she originally thought as she took one of the sides for herself. Before she started eating it, she was sure to close up the scrolls and set them aside as she pulled herself up onto the couch next to him.

Sasuke began eating too, having picked the only thing on the menu that contained tomatoes for himself.

It hit her then that he said he didn't get anything spicy. She looked over at him, her gaze softening before she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

"You remembered what food I don't like."

He merely shrugged. "It's not that hard to remember."

"It's more the fact you listened than remembered."

She smiled to herself a slight triumphant feeling swelling up in her. The last time she had mentioned to Sasuke she didn't like spicy foods was when they were around twelve and on one of their rare missions outside of the village. She wasn't even sure she really mentioned it, instead just turning her nose up at it and muttering a dejected 'no thanks.' It meant that he at least paid a little attention to her when they were little and that was great all in itself.

She continued to smile at him before she went back to the food, snapping the chopsticks in two. "Sorry I borrowed your clothes without asking, the shower was kind of spur of the moment."

He couldn't help but smirk a little. "It's not a big deal. I already said you can borrow whatever you want."

"I know, but it makes me feel special, you know? I know how you feel about your clan. I'm not apart of it and it just makes me feel grateful that you let me wear it."

"Tch, you don't need to walk around wearing my clothes to be special to me," Sasuke grumbled.

It wasn't long before he finished his meal, throwing his trash away when he was done. She tossed her trash away when she finished as well, standing up and going about cleaning up the living room. His clothes practically swallowed her but she didn't seem to mind as she went to the kitchen and got him a bottled water along with her own.

Sakura sat down on the armrest of the couch next to him, dropping the water in his lap.

"Thanks for dinner. I'll repay you somehow."

The smallest of smirks tugged at her lips as she took a sip of her water. She reached over and ran a hand through his hair before resting it on his shoulder.

"Any ideas on how?" she teased.

He took a drink but setting the water aside.

"No, no ideas at all," he said sarcastically. "But I'm sure you'll think of something."