Chapter 14—Hellcat & Canary

Sakura's body was still; her skin remained pallid and lifeless, her eyes closed, her fingers still. At her bedside, Sasuke threaded his fingers together and hunched over the mattress, watching her with all the attention he wasn't able to direct elsewhere.

They were a measly 19 now. It'd been almost six years since their team was formed; their forced bonding had probably created a natural disaster or two along the way. Naruto being the idiot he was, Sakura being the smart-ass she was… and Sasuke with a little too much pride for anyone to handle gracefully. They'd grounded him. Having to deal with Naruto's antics and Sakura's attitude made it impossible for him to stay aloof, and he ended up on their level before he knew what was happening. When they came for him three years ago out in the middle of nowhere, between the two of them and Kakashi he'd pretty well gotten his ass handed to him—especially Sakura, who spent the next two days knocking him around like small siblings would get in a tickle fight. She would walk by him and land a new knot on his head, and wouldn't even say anything other than, "I've got catching up to do."

Admittedly she was in the right, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Orochimaru was dead. That supposedly meant he could move on with his life… but Itachi was still alive. He was still living and out there, roaming around with the criminal organization that Deidara had merrily skipped away from at the (unwillingly) proffered opportunity. He was probably still killing people for no good reasons, torturing their minds for his amusement and then doing his wicked deeds. The thought didn't hurt as much as before—it didn't turn him into a mass of hatred and anger to think about it. That was probably all Sakura's fault (and a bit of Naruto's "Believe it!" syndrome), since she laid down the law the whole trip back from sound. Just because he felt the responsibility to kill Itachi didn't mean he wasn't also responsible for the safety and protection of his village and, more importantly, his friends.

That friend, that girl so full of a ridiculous amount of strength and life and will to simply be… was prone in a hospital bed, now in a coma for nearly a month. Despite the machines at her side, his fingers unconsciously moved down to check the pulse in her wrist anyway. How many times had she flat-lined? How many arrhythmias had popped up in the last weeks? Her body was weakening, her heart ready to give out altogether; the whole hospital's staff was antsy as hell because she was in here, fading away, ready to be gone the second they took their eyes off her.

He'd never been a praying man, but Sasuke occasionally found himself whispering pitiful wishes out the window, or at the ceiling or floor, sometimes even into his arms as he held himself together by sheer force. It was pathetic for a man to be this weak, but because it was Sakura… because it was the woman who laid her life on the line for him time after time and beat the shit out of him when he needed it and crammed common sense in his head because she declared he must've been born without it… that woman was fading away like a ghost instead of dying gloriously like she should have, in battle with some bad-ass enemy that just happened to get the better of her, or who insanely outmatched her.

He wanted to blame all of this, all of it, on Deidara. He wanted to say that he should've been killed in his sleep the same night he saved them, that he should've been killed long ago like the ANBU that surrounded him. Sasuke really, really wanted to do that… but he still couldn't. He couldn't find it in himself, for whatever reason, to take all his hatred and focus it again. If he thought about it, it was probably Sakura's fault. After she berated him over and over again about bottling up his rage about his brother, maybe he just couldn't hold on to it anymore. He wanted to be mad for her sake… but undoubtedly the kunoichi laying before him would lay him out flat, truss him up in a full-body cast and put him on bread and water for as long as she wanted if he tried.

She forgave Deidara, the same way she forgave him. She forgave the killing, the senseless choices, the idiotic stunts—the bad, the worse and the stupid. She accepted it, beat the hell out of them once or twice, and then tossed it off in some corner of her formerly-horrendous closet. That was Sakura.

It was just her way, and he was too thankful for it to deny someone else the same access. It wasn't something he could hide away for himself.

Sakura's pulse jumped. It wavered, jumped again, and then went back to normal. There was no telling what was happening inside her mind, but the nurses would start talking as if it were doomsday again if he told them… so Sasuke ignored it, and just kept his fingers pressed unnecessarily against her pulse. His black eyes remained on her face, and continued to observe her, just as he had been every second he hadn't been away from this place.

"Sasuke, any change?" Naruto asked, slipping in to the room behind him. The Uchiha muttered a negative, and his best friend pulled up another pipe chair and flopped down, running a hand through his messy hair. "Tsunade-baa-chan's still trying to figure out what she saw in that guy's brain stuff. Sakura-chan didn't say anything when she reached for it; just touched something, got kinda dazed and collapsed. I finally managed to get that much out of her this morning while she was hung-over."

"How are the ANBU moving?"

"Yeah… that's the bad news."

Sasuke didn't really need to ask. Their small band, however powerful, couldn't hold them off forever. This was a matter of the village's security, their safety—Tsunade's faith in her apprentice couldn't appease them any further. They were at the end of their rope.

"Deidara's been—"

At that moment, Sakura's pulse jumped. The sudden spike was so loud and sharp it hurt their ears, and it only raised. In fact, it kept going up. It went so high that the nurse that came rushing in screamed. The flood of motion that followed, nurses and medics dashing into the room in a frenzied, disorganized mess, nearly forced the two of them away from her bedside. The heart monitors were screaming; they were beeping so constantly that all present swore it should've short-circuited already. No human heart should be going that fast. The rate she was going, she would—!

At that moment, the peak of tension, Sakura shot from the bed with eyes open. Needles ripped out of her arms and the oxygen mask snapped off its tank, her hands wrapping vehemently around Sasuke's neck and gripping with intent to kill. The nurses were too stunned to react; in her sudden adrenaline-fueled recovery, Naruto couldn't pull her off. The bestial strength in her arms hurled him across the room, knocking over the IV that was previously attached to her hand. The pallid skin burned to life with a fever… but her eyes were unfocused. They were directed at his… but Sasuke could tell. She wasn't seeing him.

Sakura's fingers gripped his throat almost to the point of snapping his neck. It was counter-logical, but he stopped resisting. He closed his eyes and reached out for her, fingers trailing awkwardly over her facial features as gently as he could until he reached her temple. Sakura was awake, but she wasn't sane.

She was caught in a genjutsu.

Her crazed eyes were telling enough for him. If it were simple she would've already realized she was caught and would've ended the farce. She would've broken out all on her own, because she was good enough to do that. Instead, she was having trouble. This attack probably meant she was resisting the control… but she hadn't broken free. That meant it was his turn to help. Sasuke gripped the hair at her temple for leverage, pressing a sharp burst of chakra out of his knuckles and into her head. Like a physical blow, it seemed to throw her off for a moment; it wasn't enough. He sent another blow, and then simply let it stream inside her, coaxing her out, leading her like a little light he could only hope she saw. The genjutsu was strong. She was still resisting.

He could feel the bones in his neck beginning to pop and crack, his breathing coming shallow and awkward, his lungs burning and his windpipe straining to the point of no return. He was blacking out in fact, but he couldn't stop just yet.

… Damn if he didn't hope she would wake up soon.

Naruto scrambled up from where he was sent sprawling, and if Sasuke were able to talk he would've told the idiot to hit her with the stupid pole. It would've helped a little, at least. He didn't seem to get that mental message (more likely he was ignoring it), and came charging at her again, putting her in a headlock in an attempt to drag her off. She didn't make a sound, lost in her illusion, mind and voice trapped in a maze. Naruto pulled, forcing her to choke… but her hands didn't loosen. Sasuke gasped, spots popping like fireworks in his vision, and with the last bit of sanity he could muster he activated his Sharingan.

He met Sakura's eyes, and entered her world.

The scene that met him was a day he would never forget—it was a turning point that had nearly destroyed them; it had torn them apart for over three years, and nearly caused him to chase the shadows of his past to a stupidly early demise. There was his figure, being eaten away by the curse-mark… but Sakura wasn't holding him. She didn't hug him from behind, like she did then. This 'him' she was strangling with all her might, screaming something he couldn't process in the shock of what he was seeing. In this vision, she was trying to kill him.

It hurt. It really, really hurt. All the things he'd done to her, the things she'd done for him… and something in this world of hers made her snap. It was probably something she should've snapped for a long time ago. The guilt and regrets that were still lingering in his mind started to creep out of their hiding places. He made a good show of being unaffected; from the outside, anyone would think he had already reconciled that part of his past. Naruto, and maybe Kakashi, knew better… but Sasuke had far from forgiven himself. Sakura also… hadn't completely forgiven him. She had taken him back, she had given him a modicum of trust… but it was obvious from this scene, and things he had already noticed, that Sakura would just never believe in him that much ever again. Her disappointment hurt, especially when it was the very same, if not deeper, that he held toward himself. Seeing a quick shadow fleet through her eyes, noticing the occasional lack of the affectionate '-kun' suffix, the somewhat stiff tone she would have when speaking to only him… he wasn't oblivious. She probably wished he was, but damn it…!

"You're not Sasuke-kun! Who the hell are you, bastard?"

He probably should've waited. He probably should've just gotten her attention, and let her continue the interrogation after releasing that other 'him.' He should've… but his ability to stay in the genjutsu was fading with his consciousness, so he had to wake her up. He reached her apparition just in time to see her rear back as if in recognition…

The next thing he knew they were back in the hospital room, his ears popping and eyes going blind, his throat and lungs burning with the need for air before he was suddenly freed, body slipping weakly to the floor.

Sakura panted, eyes suddenly opened to what she was doing. Sasuke's throat was smooth and burning hot beneath her fingers, and for a moment she was morbidly fascinated by his suffering face before she shook herself and released him. This was the real Sasuke. He was here with her in his casual hakama that he wore when not on missions, his eyes were black and a little teary from pain; Sasuke was here, just the way he was supposed to be.

The way he was supposed to be… because all those events had been a dream. No… they were a genjutsu. They were a prison someone had built so carefully that her heart had been lulled to think that she was living in that world of the past when they were still close… when they were a team that was absolutely unshakable. Someone who would know enough about them—about her—with the power to weave an illusion so strong she didn't even realize she was caught until the web surrounded her…

She didn't even have to draw conclusions. Sakura had already seen the answer for herself within the same vision that trapped her. Naruto checked her throat, already making apologies for bruising that she didn't give jack shit about. Sasuke looked up at her, his mind stabilizing a bit with the return of oxygen to his system.

"I'm glad you're awake, but that was one hell of a greeting."

"Excuse me, I think I just found the answer to all our problems. Are you going to listen or bitch?"

The hospital personnel seemed to deflate, their emergency patient suddenly awake and throwing snarky comments as if she were never in a debilitating coma at all. A few exchanged looks of exasperation; a nurse or two wore ridiculously relieved looks that really weren't overkill, even though in light of her miraculous recovery they seemed excessive. A few of the older staff even had the audacity to look disappointed and start talking about going out for drinks after their shift. Regardless of their reaction, all of them eventually filed out of the room, Sakura disappearing into the attached bathroom and cranking up the shower.

"So what's the answer to our problems, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked from outside the door. Sasuke moved back to his chair, hunching over and rubbing his throat gingerly. Inside, she spoke over the rushing of water.

"I'm not saying it here; walls have too many ears," came the answer, muffled by distance, steam and the door. "What I need right now is information. How long have I been out?"

"Almost a month."

"DAMN. I knew it felt like a while. What's been going on?" she asked, dumping shampoo and conditioner both in her hand and scrubbing them in quickly before rinsing. The answer took a while; she was done with washing her body and had turned the water off before Naruto finally responded, his words slow and hesitant.

"Deidara's supposed to be executed tomorrow."

Her hands stopped in the middle of ringing her hair dry, and regardless of her naked body she dashed out into the room to stare at them.

Naruto's blue eyes met her in all seriousness—the same blue as the mad bomber himself, who wasn't actually mad at all. His hair the same shade of blonde, their attitudes equally mature and immature in the best and worst of ways, this existence that, in that illusion, had constantly told her something was amiss… Here he was, telling her that the great mother hen of men was about to be…

She wanted to deny it. She wanted to say he was lying, and have him smile and joke back that of course he was, and then say something pervy and stupid about her standing in this room between her two male teammates naked as the day she was born. She wanted him to be the stupidly carefree Naruto that made everything okay right now. Instead, Sakura could see the face of a man who was on his way to being Hokage; the man who devoted himself down to his soul for his loved ones. That man who was determined to be their saving grace, while lightening their sins… he was the one who looked at her, with eyes that told her a very, very bad story.

"You were his only advocate, y'know; me and Sasuke couldn't do anything near what you could. While we kept surveillance on him in the holding cell, the murders stopped; it was too much evidence for us to handle," he said, voice mellowed with regret. "You were being cared for only because Tsunade-baa said that you might have some kind of evidence or testimony… and really, we still caught an assassin or two that got brave. We had our hands tied."

The silence was unbearable, but also unbreakable. There weren't words enough to describe what each of them was thinking, not in any of the dictionaries on earth. Sasuke got up from his rickety chair and took the towel off the counter inside the bathroom door, and rather than hand it to Sakura and expect her to automatically snap out of her stupor, he dried the few places he could see hadn't air-dried already; her lower back, sides and calves. He knew she wasn't paying any attention to him… but he observed her eyes closely. Sasuke didn't know what to do himself; this time, only Sakura had the answer.

When he saw that determined fire begin to light up her eyes, he knew they were about to enter the eye of whatever maelstrom had blown its way into their world, and she was going to beat the hell out of it without any help.

Sakura didn't bother knocking—she kicked down the door like a diva, and then smiled at all the ANBU present, letting their shock sink in for a minute as they realized that, yes, Earthquake Haruno herself was back in action.

"Hello all. Good to see you're well. You may not be by the time I work each and every one of you over; but don't worry, I promise to heal you after~."

"Sakura!" Tsunade looked surprised; that likely meant that this meeting had been in session long enough that no one had been able to give her the news yet. "How—?"

"Shishou, you said I might have evidence regarding Deidara-san, didn't you? I'm here to tell you exactly what it is," she stated sweetly. Naruto inched a little further away from her, almost prepared to run; Sakura's outrageous temper was in full swing, and even though he approved… he really didn't want to get caught in her wake.

The masked operatives around the room were starting to gear up for a fight; a few were even muttering comments; one or two even dared to suggest that, after covering for a criminal, she was going to give him up in hopes for a lighter sentence. He almost pitied their ignorance.

Almost.

With the confidence of someone who had saved their lives many multiples of times, Sakura strode through the den of hyenas to the lioness whose eyes burned on her like fire, intent to hear exactly what she had to say. In fact, Team 7 was absolutely certain in that moment that if one of the ANBU made a move to harm her, his life would be forfeit.

At the door to her office, Yamato and Kakashi appeared with Deidara between them, garnering very little attention as Sakura's presence—her anger, her pride, and probably her arrogance—filled the room to such an extent that, like an actor fully into her role, no one could take their eyes off her. No one including Deidara, who looked so shocked and overjoyed that in that moment that if Naruto hadn't already come to the conclusion he was innocent, he would have immediately realized it then. The chakra shackles on his wrists strained as his hands fisted in excitement, blue, cat-like eyes widening on that petite and yet awe-inspiring figure in the room. Sakura turned, eyes landing on them—on him—as if she knew they were there from the second they entered the room, and laid on their ears her most shocking declaration.

"I'm here to tell you how Uchiha Itachi is out to frame Deidara and myself for treason."

AN: So. Did I throw you a good and proper curveball? 8D We've finally hit the climax, folks! Just one or two chapters to go~ Probably two. My head is planning for two.

At any rate, it's really been a long time coming; CP has been sitting on the internet for almost six years, so it's going to be sad to see it finish... but it'll also be a relief, because now I can start doing other things! I keep thinking "Okay, I'm going to wrap up my fanfiction career and move on with my life!" ...but yeah, I kinda doubt I'll ever stop writing fanfiction. I just keep getting more and more ideas. XD Still, here's to aiming for finishing all my stories currently online! Hope ya'll will keep an eye out in the future, as well. ;P