A/N: Thank you to Sapphire Rivulet

As you guys know I am in a desperate need for betas, please recommend some or self volunteer.

Chapter 34

Sasuke forbade Sakura from going anywhere.

She was very weak after the loss of her baby. In his wrath, Sasuke had ordered the girl, Riiku, to be steamed alive.

Sakura stayed silent.

She barely moved; barely ate. She was like a living zombie, barely moving unless necessary.

She would get out of bed only to go to the washroom, and eat only to stay alive. The rest of the time, she lay on her bed, her face buried in pillows.

Sasuke tried to stay by her 24/7. He made sure that she wasn't doing anything self-destructive or harmful to herself. He did everything in his power to ensure that she wouldn't find a way to commit suicide.

Her extreme depression lasted around a week, before it simmered down to a dull throb around the edges of her being.

Sasuke watched as the girl who was once so full of sunshine turned into a woman who was filled with hope and love. Now, she was barely a husk of the girl who used to prevail against all adversity that came her way.

Sasuke kept her in the hospital for a week, before she was returned to her room.

Sasuke waited patiently, and Sakura thought about her life.

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that her life had revolved around Sasuke. She wondered where her dignity had gone.

She wondered if she had learned anything from the last few years, up to the point whereTsunade-Shishou had sacrificed herself for Sakura.

Everything made perfect sense somehow. That was why Shizune-San had hated her! Sakura was the reason that Tsunade was dead.

How despicable.

She turned her head to look at Sasuke, who was reading some scrolls at the table. When he felt her gaze, he turned his head towards her.

She saw the warmest, most comforting gaze pouring from his eyes and washing over her entire body. That look had not been present a long time ago when she had first removed those bandages from his eyes.

Kakashi-Sensei...

Sakura wallowed in pain and sorrow. It was very clear that she had been nothing more than a tool. Tossed and turned, used by Uchiha Sasuke, and all this time, she had even believed that she was his wife.

How foolish.

Sakura, Sakura, Sakura...

You were always doomed...

She remembered back to almost a year ago when she had lost her memories. Her heart had thumped wildly for Sasuke, her eyes glued to Sasuke, her love and affection, all for Sasuke.

She looked at his perfectly delicate features, his porcelain skin, onyx eyes, high cheekbones...

And she found that her heart didn't flutter anymore.

Maybe it was time to let go...?

She clenched her chest; he immediately rushed to her side. "Are you alright?"

Sakura asked him, "What were you thinking? Back when you used me as a tool to dispose of Madara?"

Sasuke chuckled, though his eyes showed no amusement, and he looked away from her. "I was blind."

I was blind...

It was so simple. Three simple words. I was blind...

Do you mean that literally or metaphorically? Sakura wanted to ask.

"Don't touch me," she said to him and rolled over to wrap herself in her blankets like a cocoon.

Sakura became busy after she returned to her room.

Summer came. Many fresh herbs in the garden were waiting to be picked and washed and made into medicine. Sakura had already lain in bed for nigh on three weeks. She decided that life was too short to be sitting around and doing nothing. She could be making medicine, adding more and more to her little medicine kit collection. Just in case one day she returned to Konoha and she needed to help.

She held on to the hope of returning to Konoha.

It was not an easy task, really. She started work during the day. First she weeded out the unnecessary weeds in her garden, then she picked the leaves and sprouts of some herbs. After soaking them in water, she began the long and tedious process of pounding them into paste.

Just like she did back then, when she was an ignorant fool.

The garden had grown wild during those months she had spent back in Konoha, but it was still in reasonable shape. Granted, there was some weeding to do, but it was still recognisable as an herb garden.

Sometimes she would sit down and close her eyes; all she could think about was her baby.
Her precious little baby boy, the baby who was so cute and innocent... the baby that would never see the sun rise.

She had thought of a name. She thought long and hard while day dreaming about her baby, and she came up with the name Hikaru. Just like what she once hoped to have. A light; a sun; a ball of warmth.

If her baby had lived, she would educate him properly. She would train him to be a gentleman towards girls; she would let him grow to be like his father.

But it was all shattered hopes and dreams.

She opened her eyes, and they were all gone. Her hopes and dreams. They flew away like thoughts in the wind.

Sakura would then exhaust herself processing the herbs, before going back to her room and wrapping herself in her sheets, wrapping away all of her dreams and fantasies and burying then in the graveyard that use to be her heart.

A/N: I admit this chapter basically talked about nothing. Please find me betas, please please please please.

Next Chapter coming up tomorrow.