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K&K

DNON

"The whole value of solitude depends upon one's self; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it."

John Lubbock quotes (English Biologist and Politician, 1834-1913)

"I have a huge, active imagination, [and] I think I'm really scared of being alone; because if I'm left to my own devices, I'll just turn into a madwoman."

C. Danes quotes (American actress, b.1979)

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Gravity

Chapter 28-Sakura's Imagination in Incarceration

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She'd been here, locked up in this room, for over two months now.

Sixty-two days spent, by and large, by herself.

Sakura figured it out in the long, boring hours with nothing to do—one-thousand, four hundred and eighty-eight hours spent in the company of herself.

It would be a generous estimation to say that she'd spent one-third of it sleeping. Up until the last two weeks or so, even with very little to do, sleep had eluded her many a time because of the riotous thoughts in her head.

The daimyo's short, sporadic visits didn't count as company, as he was her jailer and not her friend or confidante. Even if she did count the hours he came by to gloat, harass, or just plain bother her, they only accounted for about twenty-four hours in total. Karin had only been here that one time over a month ago and, luckily, that visit only for a few minutes. In all, Sakura had spent one-thousand, four hundred and sixty-nine hours with no meaningful human contact.

And counting.

The inordinate amount of time Sakura was forced to spend alone was slowly becoming unbearable. So, her mind, which had never had a problem talking back to her, began to supply her with an assortment of company—day or night, asleep or wide awake, it didn't matter.

Sasuke was both the best and the worst.

During the worst times, Sasuke would show up—looking so incredibly handsome, cool, and collected—and not speak a word to her for hours. He would stand, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, refusing to even glance her way. If he did talk, it was only to call her useless, annoying, or weak. If she shed tears of frustration, he scowled coldly at her inability to control herself.

If she told Sasuke something about the baby, he would sigh and tell her she wasn't his responsibility and he couldn't do anything if she couldn't get out of her cage by herself. She quarreled with him about the mechanics of the mechanism holding her there. Once she yelled at him that he wasn't even actually there, only to have him offer to pinch her to prove he was. The pinch on her arm felt so real that it hurt—but then she'd blinked…and he was gone.

During the best times, however, he would encourage her to find a way to escape her prison and come home to him. He would come up with small things she could do to try to break her shackles and escape. For hours, she would try everything he suggested until her hands and ankle bled and she was forced to quit—she'd clean and bandage her wounds for fear of what harm an infection might do to her child.

The most heartbreaking was one time she woke up to him calling her name. Sasuke actually held out his arms inviting her in. She sat on the bed crying because she knew…she knew he could not be real. Sasuke wouldn't try to hold her like that.

Would he?

"Nakanai, Sakura," he said softly, kneeling beside the bed. "Come home with me." She closed her eyes and felt his feather-light touch brush the tears from her cheek. She wanted to trust in him. She could even smell his scent and when she opened her eyes he was still waiting with open arms.

She believed.

Smiling, she launched herself off the edge of the bed, only to have him vanish. She fell and got a lump on her forehead and a sore nose for her trouble.

She knew deep inside they weren't real. Both Sasuke and her friends were only imaginary…only, sometimes it was so real.

Because she wanted it so badly.

She knew he'd come again, in the shadows of the night with more fictitious promises to take her home…and she'd believe every one.

Other times it was Ino who came to her, telling Sakura stories of her drunken escapades in Konoha's nightlife or she'd swear she was going to rip Karin's head from her shoulders for hurting her best friend. Ino always cheered her up, but never stayed for long. The good feelings never did.

For some reason Naruto never came to see her.

That was probably because his sunny disposition and never give up philosophy just didn't fit with her dismal view of her situation. Naruto was just too…Naruto.

She really would not believe it if he visited her.

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There were rare days when the naked skies of Wind Country actually became loaded with clouds as storms blew. During a few of these, she imagined Shikamaru was there, lounging beside her, watching the puffy wisps of watery air as he imbued her mind with the random thoughts of how she might undo her quandary.

"Sakura, do you remember when I taught you how to use Morse code?" Shikamaru drawled. "Remember how you always mixed up the letter O and S, no matter how many times I corrected you?" he chuckled. "You were such a pain in the ass."

She laughed out loud at the memory of his frustration. "You told me nobody would ever know I was in trouble because nobody would understand my O.S.O. message when it was supposed to be S.O.S."

"Troublesome," he agreed quietly, watching an especially interesting cloud pass.

He drew on his cigarette and Sakura swore she could smell the acrid scent. "If I saw it, I would know," he told her, turning from his cloud watching to look at her thoughtfully, hand cushioning his head and one foot across his knee.

In that moment, Sakura could see what Ino found attractive in him. Not only was he handsome, he was Sakura's best friend's complete and utter opposite—calm and steady to her wild and impulsive. He was the Yang to her Yin and together they worked perfectly.

Finally, she turned back to watch the clouds that were sadly, starting to clear up. The weather never changed much in Wind Country. Empty cloudless skies were definitely the norm—Shikamaru would leave her soon.

"If I were here, I would ask for a radio."

When she turned back to ask him why, he was gone. It took her two more days to realize he was trying to tell her something.

She asked the daimyo if she might have a radio.

She had been so appreciative recently when he brought her a few books—and she asked him for little else except her freedom—that he immediately had one brought in for her. Hanshu thought he had finally cracked her tough veneer and maybe soon he would be able to tell her of his new plans for her.

He never once suspected that she might want the radio for more than listening to music.

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At first, she thought Shikamaru was telling her to use the DC circuit in the radio's transistor board to try to corrode the steel cable attached to her ankle. It was a simple solution and easily accomplished. Then she realized that the current, although probably not life-threatening for her, would end up transferring through to the baby unless she had some sort of protective rubber sleeve to put under the cuff. She wouldn't take that chance—it was too unsafe for the baby.

She almost despaired until she remembered something else Shikamaru explained to her all those months ago.

The first part she had to figure out was what tools she needed make. She decided a knife and a screwdriver would be the most important. She was never given a knife with her meals and those meals were usually something that could be eaten with the chopsticks accompanying the plate—but she was occasionally given soup. When she stole the next spoon that came with her meal, she waited for two days before doing anything to it just in case they noticed it was missing in the kitchen.

With the radio playing, she was able to grind the spoon on the rough, stone surface in the corner of her terrace. She flattened the bottom of the handle enough to fit the head of a screw. It was slow, arduous work, but at least it was something to occupy her time.

Next, she carefully disassembled the ornate lamp next to her bed. She had to be especially careful not to break the base or porcelain vase on it. She gutted the lamp, taking the wire and rod inside that. She carefully reassembled the pieces, making it look like it had originally, only now it didn't work. There was also a metal clip at the top of the rod holding the light socket on and, when she straightened it, she found it was sharp enough to cut with.

Now she had both a screwdriver and knife.

She waited until the daimyo mentioned he would be leaving for a while. He always warned her when he was going somewhere, so she wouldn't worry when he didn't come to visit. At first, she hated this—did that pompous bastard honestly think she would worry if the asshole holding her captive didn't grace her with his presence for a few days?

After the daimyo left her room, she took the radio into her bathroom and swiftly began to disassemble it. She carefully laid out all the parts along the countertop, striving to remember the way a transmitter worked from the diagrams Shikamaru had shown her and just how to use the parts she had pilfered from the equipment. She knew the general idea of a wireless telegraphing transmitter. The signals were sent out in electrical sound waves and the message was transmitted when she interrupted these waves. She would never really know if they were received unless someone came to rescue her because there would be no receiver—she just didn't have the hardware to make one. But she knew there were radio towers scattered around Wind Country and if she could transmit a message to one, it was possible that they might pass that message on. It was a huge gamble, but her shishou always said those had the best payoffs.

It took her most of two days of trial and error to get the machine to work. In the end, her makeshift knife had turned into her transmitter key. The lamp's wires, once stripped, completed the circuit, the extra wire made the antennae running up to the bars of her bathroom window, and the radio's batteries gave her the power. The electromagnet she almost despaired of not finding until she remembered the buzzing sound when her leash was retracted.

Taking apart the button's plate was the most adventurous thing she had tried since coming here. If she screwed up, she would not only be reeled back to her bed, the guards would probably check on her to see why she was being reeled in—she hadn't set it off in weeks. If they saw where she had removed one of the button's plates and switch components, she was done for.

This might be her only chance of getting back to Konoha alive.

When she successfully retrieved the magnet from the switch plate, she sat on the floor and wept with relief. She knew it had to be her hormones making her feel so damn emotional, but there was nothing she could to about it. When her hands finally stopped trembling, she rose and pushed a plant to cover up the spot where she had taken the switch out of the wall.

She finished putting her telegraph together before dinner and after the guard left with her dinner tray on the second day of the daimyo's absence, she scrambled to the bathroom.

She spent the rest of the evening and all of the night transmitting a one line signal and praying whoever heard her would pass the message on.

O.S.O. HSOTAGE. H.O. KONOHA. W.C. PALACE

She waited thirty seconds between each transmission. She spent all night tapping out the message and caught herself making mistakes with the signal again and again. It was so hard to remember the proper dots and dashes to interrupt the signal with and it was maddening not knowing if anyone in the world actually heard her S.O.S. call.

Exhausted, she finally fell asleep on the floor near morning and was discovered by the daimyo himself when it was reported she didn't touch her breakfast.

She woke up with a start when he placed her on the bed.

"It looks like you've been busy in my absence." Hanshu's stern look had her backing against the head of her bed, unsure of what he would do to her. Unconsciously, Sakura's hand protectively covered the tiny baby bump that now showed on her abdomen. She watched unhappily as his men removed her homemade wireless telegraph from the bathroom and came to fix the leash's switch that she had dismantled. When they finished, bolts affixed the plate to the wall instead of screws, assuring she would not be removing it again.

"It was a clever idea, Sakura-chan but I'm afraid there is no way your pitiful little transmitter could be heard, even as far as Suna. You would need a hundred foot tower to transmit far enough to be of any use."

She wasn't sure if he was telling her the truth, but she felt her stomach sink at the possibility.

'On the other hand, it's good to know that my child will be born from two exceedingly knowledgeable parents,' the daimyo mused thoughtfully. 'That makes me feel easier about the next generation running this country.'

He smiled slyly when she gave him a withering scowl.

"I'm afraid there will be no more music for you, Hime. And no other treats until you've learned your lesson and apologized properly."

Sakura turned away from him and hid her face in the pillows until he left the room. When she looked around, not only were the radio and tools cleared away, but the lamp, the precious books she'd just gotten, and every other little gift to entertain or treat her, save for the clothes, had disappeared with Hanshu and his men. He was serious when he said he was punishing her. Once again, she had nothing to look forward to except long, lonely days and the too-slim hope that some soul had heard her message and might, on a whim, pass it on to Konoha.

Sasuke visited her that night—to remind her of how useless she had become.

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A week later, a message came from Suna to Konoha.

Shikamaru was called from his desk in Tsunade's outer office.

"Gaara sent this on because they were able to make out the word Konoha in the code. Do you know what the rest might be?

One look at the odd message and he knew immediately who had sent it. He grinned.

"It's from Sakura."

"Shizune!" Tsunade yelled and her assistant flew in from her desk. "Call Team Seven in. We have a clue for them."

Shizune swiftly left to do her bidding.

Tsunade turned calmly with folded hands to her tactical specialist.

"Now, Nara-kun, tell me how in the hell you got that Sakura sent this out of that gobbledygook."

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Shikamaru had to repeat himself when team Seven finally checked in from Sound, where they'd been relentlessly searching for signs of Sakura—River Country had been a bust, even Kakashi's hounds couldn't find a hint of Sakura's trail.

"As you can see, most of this message makes little sense. That happens with wireless telegraph code. It is an unreliable and imperfect way of transmitting messages. Unlike the antennae towers and telegraph lines we regularly use, wireless runs differently. You don't simply send the message with code, you have to interrupt the circuit with the key in short or longer taps to make a single letter of Morse code. This can be hard to do even if you have a knack for it.

Sakura doesn't. She's horrible at it." He indicated the message copied in large letters on the movable chalkboard.

O.S.O. HSOTGE. H.O. KONOHA. W.C. LAC

"It doesn't make any sense," Kakashi said.

"Yeah, well Sakura's code usually didn't. I taught her myself and she was constantly switching letters. Especially O's and S's."

He flipped over the board.

"Taking into account that she did this on purpose, but made sure to spell Konoha correctly—this is what the message says."

S.O.S. HOSTAGE H.S. KONOHA W. C. LAC.?

"The last word makes no sense to me, but the rest says, S.O.S., hostage Haruno Sakura, Wind Country."

"Wind Country!" Sasuke asked. They'd searched everywhere but Wind Country.

" You got that out of that?" Naruto questioned. "How?"

"I told you, I know Sakura's code. I think she made those mistakes on purpose to throw off anyone who might catch her and to let me know directly that she was being held hostage."

"Why would she send you a message?" Naruto asked. "We're her teammates."

"Because I would know it was her with the least amount of words. Code is hard to send correctly under the best circumstances. We don't know what she had to do to get this through. She might've been working on this telegraph for all the months she's been missing, or she might have had only a small amount of time to get a message to us."

"Wind Country's a pretty big place," Kakashi said. "There are hundreds of little villages all over that godforsaken desert. Some of them don't even have proper names. Where do we start looking?"

"I would start in the north. First, any place that has the letters LAC in its name and you'd better hurry. There was no traceable source from this message. That means she didn't have the proper equipment and she's probably not at any real telegraph towers, but I sent Gaara a message asking him to double check all of them anyway just in case she's able to get another message to us. She was most likely cut off from her transmitting after the person at Suna tower received this message or she would still be trying to get through. They might even have moved her already. And there's no telling what kind of punishment she might be given for trying to send this message…if they let her live."

"You heard the man," Tsunade growled. "Get out there and bring Sakura back!"

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Things you probably already know:

Nakanai-Don't cry.

Hime-princess

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Thanks, SU, for editing this story. You're the best!

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Yo, guys! You really can use the DC current in a radio to corrode steal but it takes a long, long time—like months. Also, you actually can take a radio and make a transmitter out of it—I did not make that up—I researched it. Maybe not exactly the way she did here but you get the gist of it-it's pretty close. There, a story and a science lesson for you.