Chapter 23-"no room for you between the rock and the hard place"

"This stuff is worse than spaghetti!" Sarada turned up her nose at her plate.

"Sit up in that chair and eat your chili," Sakura snapped. For ease and economy she found that Tuesdays meat loaf with tomato sauce and spices made Wednesday spaghetti. And some kidney beans and it was chilly con carne over rice on Thursday.

"You eat good everyday." Mebuki patted Sarada's hand. "It may not be fancy, but its good wholesome food! Your mother is doing the best she can."

Sakura got up and opened the freezer door for some ice, so Sarada and her mother wouldn't see her wiping at tears. She was dog tired and worked everyday to bring order to their new lives, but she couldn't even relieve the daily unpleasantness. The time when she could repay her mother, and restore Sarada's carefree life, was too far off to see.

With the freezer open, Sakura lingered, relishing the frosty cloud that billowed into the steamy kitchen. The August heat was stifling, and even if the air conditioner in the living room actually worked, Sakura couldn't afford to run it. The apartment's puny windows, one to a room, meant there wasn't enough breeze to move the sheers, so box fans whirred non stop. Some evenings she'd come home, and her mother and Sarada looked so wilted that she felt guilty because she worked in an air conditioned office all day.

Summer vacation was miserable for Sarada. She was used to a yard, her friends riding camp, tennis lessons and her own pool. Now she sulked and watched TV with her grandmother most days. And when Sakura told her daughter she would enter sixth grade at the school down the block, Sarada didn't speak to her for a week. Mebuki had been right. Sarada had no idea what sacrifice and hardship were , and she wasn't adjusting well.

Sakura shut the freezer and reclaimed her seat at the table. 'How can I tell her there'll be no dance class come September?' She'd registered for two business courses, deciding their future was more dependent on her getting a better job than on Sarada improving jete.

"I'm sorry, Mom. The chili's … good." Sarada looked at Sakura, then back at her grandmother, who nodded her approval.

'Mom? When did it stop being Mommy?' "I'm gonna make a ham this weekend a real Sunday dinner, when I get off work. Potato salad, fresh string beans, now that'll be good."

"That Hinata sure did love herself some ham! You remember how she'd keep whacking off hunks." Mebuki grinned. "She'd put it on a hot dog bun! Girl didn't care, long as she had herself some ham." She fished the lemon wedge out of her glass of ice tea. "Yes Sakura, it had be somebody else you saw in that room. Had to be. Y'all had your spats over the years, and lord knows you haven't seen each other in awhile but she'd never not speak to you. She had her ways, always wanting to be important and all, but…"

"Ma, I told you it was her, and I told you I don't want to talk about it."

It was weeks since Sakura had come home, foaming at the mouth, after her encounter with Hinata at the hotel. Mebuki wouldn't believe it was what it seemed, but Sakura didn't care to dwell on the episode. She knew that if she had run into Hinata last year, when she was still hot stuff and could brag about Sasuke landscaping the hotel, she wouldn't have hesitated to make herself known. But Sakura's pride didn't let her say hello that day with a scrub brush in her hand. And give Hinata the chance to return that slightly superior pity that Sakura used to feel for her friend sometimes? No, that, shoe pinched too much for Sakura to wear.

Mebuki sprinkled sugar on the lemon, bit down, smacked her lips and squeezed her eyes tights. "Ahhhh…my dessert."

"Momma, there's ice cream if you want dessert." 'Every night she sucks on a stupid piece of lemon.' Sakura figured it was her mother saving money. 'Makes me feel guilty as sin.'

"If I wanted ice cream, I'd get some, thank you kindly." Then, Mebuki stacked dirty plates, put them on a shelf in the refrigerator, and went into the living room. Without making a crack, Sarada moved the dishes to the sink and filled the dishpan full of water.

"By the way, I won't be home for dinner tomorrow." Sakura watched Sarada's back for some reaction. "We just got a big client, an international bank, so Darui and C are taking us all out for dinner. Isn't that nice?"

"Daruiiiiii and Ceee." Sarada swayed her narrow hips to the mocking singsong. "Why should I think it's nice? I'm not going anywhere! And when did you start calling them by their first names?" Without turning around, she dragged a dish rag around a plate.

Sakura had never spanked Sarada, but right now she wanted to. "Better be careful. You're not as grown as you think you are!" Sarada washed with no further comment while Sakura made a sandwich to take for lunch.

She had debated whether to go. Sakura hadn't done anything fun since before Sasuke was in the hospital. Mabui a paralegal at the firm who was one semester away from graduating law school at night, had been on Sakura's case about attending. This afternoon, Mabui had cornered her in the conference room. "Girl, you know it's a four star restaurant!? And it's free! How can you say no?" She brushed her hair behind her shoulder. "They'll work it out of our behinds once this bank business starts. Best partake while you're offered. Live large. Get a sitter. That's what I'm doing. Jordan and Jocelyn will live. So will Miss Sarada."

Mabui was a single mother too. Sakura still couldn't wrap her lips around the term, but their kids provided a constant source of conversation about life outside the office.

Sitting in the armchair at the head of mahogany conference table seemed natural for Mabui. The imposing furniture in the dark paneled room was intended to dwarf mere mortals, but Mabui, bug square and strong, carried enough confidence not to be fazed in the least. She twirled around, applied her post-lunch lipstick in the beveled mirror behind her, and spoke to Sakura's reflection. "I'm sorry about your husband and all, but they say life is for the living. You'd better start remembering what living is like, girlfriend, 'cause it's not going to wait on your feeling sorry for yourself behind."

Sakura caved in.

"I shouldn't be too late."

"Uh-huh."Sarada kept washing.

"I'll leave Gram some money, and you can order a pizza, okay?"

"Yeah. And maybe if I'm a good little girl, you'll bring me a doggy bag!"

"That's enough! You act like I'm going out to punish you! I'm an adult, and I can go out without your say so, dammit!" Sarada paused mid plate and glanced over her shoulder at Sakura. She had never heard her mother curse before.

Sakura glared back, and Sarada returned to her task. "I didn't make this mess, and I don't know what else to do! I can only fix what I can, and occasionally I deserve to have a good time or at least try. I'm sorry you can't go to your old school with your friends. I'm sorry I can't send you to dance class…"

"What?" Sarada spun around to face her mother. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't want to tell you like this, Sarada. But if we're ever going to get out from under this mess, I have to go back to school, and I'm starting next month. Business English and Microsoft Office. I'll be able to get a better job, maybe move up as the firm expands. Anyway, even with the job at the hotel, I can't afford to go to school and pay for your dance classes, too. Besides, I wouldn't be able to get you there or back home because…"

"Because? Yeah , because what? Because we live far away from all my friends? Because we live in a dump?" Sarada glared at her mother. Soap suds dripped down her arms and dissolved in a puddle at her feet. "Bet Daddy ran away cause you spent so much money, and that's why we're broke now!"

Sakura grabbed Sarada's shoulders and shook. "Don't you ever say Bet to me again! Do you hear me! That's why we're in this hellhole today. Because of your daddy's bets!" When Sakura let her go, Sarada ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

"Come out this minute!" Sakura shouted above the water Sarada had turned on full force.

"She'll come out when she's ready. You can't make her, no more than I could of made you. She's just as pigheaded as you were, you know. Kami, your temper. You lost it all when you married Sasuke, though. Became just as meek and mild as you please."

"Momma, I don't want to talk about me and I sure don't want to talk about Sasuke! Sarada Uchiha! Come out of that bathroom this instant! Do you hear me?" Sakura rattled the doorknob.

"I'm sure they can hear you across the street. I'm telling you, the more you yell, the longer she'll stay. Maybe I will have me some ice cream. It'll help me stay cool."

Two hours later Sarada emerged from the bathroom, showered, her hair a wet, tangled mess. She had polished her nails and a lot of fingertips, bright red a color she was expressly forbidden to wear. Sarada sauntered to her bed in the alcove and sat on the side, blowing her handiwork dry, daring Sakura to comment.

Sakura didn't look up from the news. After the weather, she roused Sarada from her bed, marched her back into the bathroom, handed her the polish remover and some tissues and stood, arms folded across her chest until the red nails were gone. "I haven't even decided how to punish you yet, but right now I can't stand to look at you, so go to bed."

"But Mom…"

Sakura held up her hand. "Don't even speak to me."

The next morning Sarada feigned sleep when sakura kissed her good bye. 'She is my child. Just as stubborn as I was.' Mebuki shrugged and shooed Sakura out the door.

As usual, Sakura was the first in the office. Six weeks after she started, they gave her a set of keys and asked her to open each day. That made her feel important.

Today, like every day, she arrived just before eight, adjusted the thermostat, brewed coffee, neatly stacked magazines in the reception area, and cleared papers from the conference room. Then she checked her appointment book against Darui's and C's to make sure that neither had slipped in a surprise meeting or lunch.

At eight on the dot she retrieved messages from the voicemail and turned on the phones for the day. When the secretaries arrived at eight-thirty, the place was rife with the aroma of Starbucks coffee. At eight-fifty nine the associate dashed in and disappeared behind stacks of files. Depending on the day, Darui or C were in the office by nine or they had phoned from their first appointment. Mabui and the other paralegal traipsed in and out all day on a perpetual loop of county offices, courthouses , law libraries, and back to …

"D & C LLC". Good morning!" Sakura answered the phone. She nodded and smile as C came in the door then handed the lawyer his messages. The rest of the day passed routinely. "D & C LLC…"—more coffee a trip to get pastries for the meeting at ten, then greeting more clients. "… neatening the conference room post-meeting, picking at her sandwich. "D & C LLC…" —calling for copier service, requesting a messenger. "D & C LLC …"

A little after four Sakura called home. Sarada answered, but handed the phone to her grandmother as soon as she recognized Sakura's voice.

"She's fine. Been beating me at Uno all day. We're gonna have our pizza and maybe a surprise for later."

"What kind of surprise?"

"You'll see. If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise now would it?"

"Don't do too much, Momma."

"Stop worrying about us. You have yourself a ball, baby!"

The restaurant was even better than Mabui's report. Their party was seated at a long table in the garden, surrounded by trellises thick with flowering vines. Eating out was definitely not in the budget, and sakura had almost forgotten what it was like. She laughed, easy and carefree. She wasn't Sasuke's wife she wasn't Sarada's mother she was Sakura.

After dinner Darui and C gave their pep talk. They were proud of their coup and the staff that helped make it possible. They promised raises, increased benefits and called for their continued support in the busy months ahead.

"Dinner was outrageous!" Sakura felt giddy as Mabui pulled off. They'd gone in one car because it was more fun, and they were headed back to the office so Sakura could get hers. "I'm glad you made me go."

"And a raise is a helluva lot better than my raspberry torte, and it was good! Of course they'll figure a way to tie it to our regular raise."

"Raise? I hadn't even thought about a raise."

"Haven't you been her about six months?"

"Almost."

"Then you got one coming! Make sure you tell them you're going back to school. That kinda shit always makes you look good. They might even offer to pay part of you tuition. 'Continuing education makes a more valuable employee' blah blah… That is, if you promise not to leave them the minute you finished your classes!"

It was almost eleven-thirty when Mabui pulled up next to Sakura's car. They hung out in the parking lot a while, replaying the evening with editorial commentary, but Sakura had to be at The hotel at six in the morning, so they packed it in. "Call me when you get home," Mabui said, then waited until Sakura started her car and drove off.

'More money! If I keep the job at the hotel, and figure a way for her to get home, Sarada can still have her dance lessons.' Sakura yawned and pulled out of the lot. 'I bet I can ask one of the other mothers to keep her after class until I can pick her up…

When she rounded the corner, heading toward the apartment, the faint, woody scent of distant smoke seeped in through her closed windows. 'Wonder what's burning?' More people lingered in the street than she expected so late. 'Folks must be out cause it's so hot.'

The neighborhood wasn't fancy, but it was respectable and quiet. Sort of like Hidden leaf village. 'What do I know about who's out this time of night? Sakura giggled. 'It's way past my bedtime!'

She turned onto her street and was met by smoke so strong it burned her eyes. Rivers ran at the curbs and sakura crawled along the water-slick pavement, scanning the people, some in robes and pajamas, clustered under the hazy glow of the streetlamp.

'Where's the fire?' She spied police cars blocking the far end of the block and realized the hook and ladder was in front of her building. Silent screams rocketed through Sakura's body. She threw the Car into park in the middle of the street and shot out, door wide-open, engine running. 'Please don't let it be true! It can't be!'

She stumbled a few feet, then stopped, paralyzed by the charred, smoldering skeleton, the remnants of home. The windows, dark hollow sockets, dripped water like tears. Firefighters, shielded in helmets and protective gear, lounged on axes, folded hoses, took notes like this was all normal, not the surreal nightmare Sakura had entered.

She clutched herself to keep from falling to pieces and hollered. "Sarada! Momma!" Sakura searched unfamiliar faces, and screamed her heart out for them.

A patrolman grabbed her by the arms.

"You got a little girl?"

Sakura nodded.

"She's at the hospital. Come on, I'll take ya."

"Is she…"

"I don't know how she is. They took her about an hour ago."

"My…my mother. Is she with Sarada? Is she okay?

"Sorry, ma'am. That's all I know."

Sakura rocked and prayed in the back of the squad car, hand over her mouth to muffle the sobs. When they arrived, she searched in a frenzy for the handle. 'There aren't any.' She had known it since she was eight. Since Yahiko.

"Hold on! Hold on!" The officer opened the door and she took off up the ramp and through the swinging emergency entrance doors.

"Where is she?" Wild-eyes, Sakura grabbed a young man wearing blue scrubs and a disposable shower cap over his hair. "My little girl… from the fire!" Sakura shoved the startled orderly aside and ran to the desk. "I have to see her! And my mother! Where are they?"

A mixture of faces, turned to see the commotion. Weekends, standing room only at the hospital emergency room. Gunshot wounds competed with colicky babies and food poisoning. Seniors dizzy from the heat, lay on gurneys next to teenagers in labor. Tall metal fans noisily circulated hot air, rank with the smell of sweat, vomit, and disinfectant.

"What's the name?" A bulky woman in a pale blue smock came up behind Sakura and laid a calming hand on her shoulder.

"Huh?" Sakura whirled around. "Sarada, my daughter's name is Sarada… Uchiha."

It couldn't have been long, They said she…

"Pretty little thing? Long pigtails, right?" The woman mopped sweat from her forehead with a brown paper towel.

Fear snatched Sakura's tongue, and she nodded mutely.

"They're working on her now. She jumped out a window. Good thing, too or the smoke woulda got her." She folded the towel and tucked it under her watchband.

"What about my momma? Older lady, blond hair. Slightly taller than me. She would have been brought in with my daughter."

"Oh Kami…" The aide turned away, couldn't look Sakura in the eye.

"You have to tell me!" Sakura grabbed the woman's sleeve.

"Doctor'll be with you soon, honey. He'll talk to you about it."

"Momma!" Sakura knees buckled. The aide caught her around the waist. "She can't be…" Sakura shook her head frantically, like she didn't hear right. "You're wrong!"

"I'm sorry, honey." The woman eased Sakura into an empty chair. "Just wait here."

"Momma's gone?" The words were nonsense. She got up and moved aimlessly, oblivious to wary glances from those who wondered if she was a nutcase.

"Sarada?" Sakura trembled violently, and her field of vision shrank to a tiny black dot.

She came to, face to face with a doctor who assured her she was fine, but told her she needed to sign a consent form for Sarada to have surgery.

"Is she burned real bad?"

He straightened up and took a step back.

"No, that's the least of her problems but when you daughter jumped she fractured her right femur in two places just above the knee, shattered her right elbow, and dislocated several vertebrae in her lower back. We need to relieve the pressure on her spinal cord."

Sakura sat up. "Her spinal cord! Oh Kami, she's paralyzed?"

"She seems to have movement and feeling in her extremities so we don't think she paralyzed but the sooner we go in, the better. Her X-rays also indicate some bone fragments sliced through part of the surrounding muscle tissue in her thigh. Thankfully the laceration kissed the femoral artery, but there's bleeding we need to stop as well." He took the stethoscope from around his neck and put it in his pocket.

Sakura struggled to digest the doctor's words.

"After the fractures are set, she'll be in a body cast. She's so young and her bones are still growing. We can handle that here, but once she's stable we'll move her down to the city for follow up at a facility with a state of the art orthopedic unit. Right now, I need you to sign here." He took a clipboard from the top of a supply cabinet.

"I…" Sakura's panic threatened to take over again. 'They have to help her, but if I tell them I can't pay…She stared at the forms. 'If I had started work sooner, I'd be covered.' She hadn't hit six months yet, and she wasn't insured.

"Is there something else I can explain for you Mrs Uchiha?"

"I'm sorry. Just tell me again." 'I have to understand.' Sakura made herself focus on every word as he patiently repeated his explanation. She asked lots of questions before she got to the big one. "Will she be all right? She took the clipboard in hand.

"We'll know more after surgery, but barring complications the outlook is good."

'I need to tell him I can't pay.' "Uh…I..uh"

"Yes?"

'Say it!' "I…I…don't have any insurance…or money…"

"A lot of our patients don't. We don't turn anybody away here."

"Thank you." Sakura signed by the X. "Can I see her?"

"I'll have an attendant bring a wheel chair."

"That'll upset her. I'll walk."

The doctor helped Sakura down the narrow hallway. She was stunned by how different this hospital was from the shining modern facility where Sasuke had been. She caught her reflection in a darkened window, smoothed her hair and straightened her dress.

"My mother was brought in here too. Do you know what happened to her?" She knew it wasn't good, but she had to hear it anyway.

The doctor told Sakura the firefighter had gotten Mebuki out before the flames engulfed the building, but they couldn't resuscitate her. "From what I understand, smoke inhalation was most likely the cause of death."

'Death?' Sakura choked down the urge to vomit. "Sarada doesn't know, does she." 'What am I gonna do?' Her brain screamed, but she got hold of herself. 'One thing at a time.'

"No. And it might be best left until after her surgery."

'I don't know if I can do this…without her … Momma!' Putting one foot in front of the other required monumental effort, but Sakura followed the doctor down a cluttered corridor.

"Right here. She's sedated, so she might be asleep, at the very least groggy." The doctor parted the curtain around Sarada's bed so Sakura could slip through. He mouthed, "Her mother," and the nurse who was adjusting Sarada's IV put an arm around Sakura's shoulder and pulled her close to the bed. Sakura stared in horrified disbelief. Sarada's whole body immobilized in what looked like a styrofoam splint. The skin on her face and the backs of her hands was reddened like she'd been playing in the snow too long.

'She's so still.' More still than sleep or the pretend sleep of this mornings anger. Sakura reached out, but stopped, her hand poised in midair. "I don't want to hurt her."

The nurse guided Sakura until her fingertips met Sarada's. Remnants of red polish still rimmed Sarada's cuticles. Her eyes fluttered open, and for the briefest moment the flicker of a smile passed her lips, then she was out again.

She was still sleeping when the orderlies took her up for surgery. Sakura followed along side the procession, hand resting lightly on Sarada's good leg until they told her she couldn't go any farther. She wanted to beg them not to take her baby, would have given anything to trade places. Sakura kissed Sarada's closed eyelids, stepped away, and for a horrible moment wondered if she'd see them open again. 'I didn't even want to look at her last night.' She stood, diverted to the spot, unable to move for fear she'd dissolve. Eventually the nurse who had been by Sarada's bedside came over to Sakura, suggested she go the the cafeteria for coffee. It was going to be a long wait. The room was half-lit and empty except for the cashier. Sakura took a paper cut from the stack near the coffee urn, filled it, dug some change out of her purse.

"Is that all you having?" The woman perched on the edge of a stool was seventy if she was a day. Her slender legs were crossed at the knee and a Barbie -like mule dangled from her bobbing foot. "You look like you could use some food baby."

'Baby? She sounds just like…Oh, Momma!' Sakura barely made it to a table before heavy gasping sobs erupted from deep inside her. She cried and blamed herself until she was limp. Then the heaving stopped, but a desperate aloneness remained. 'I'm nobody's baby anymore.' All she had in the world was in an operating room, and she couldn't do anything to help. She had no family to depend on, no friends to lend support. 'I promised to call Maubi! Damn you to hell Sasuke Uchiha! She cursed him all the way to the phone.

Maubi got to the hospital as soon she could rouse and dress her kids. Sakura protested. It was five o'clock in the morning, but Maubi was having none of it. "You shouldn't be by yourself." After a while Sakura appreciated the distraction of Jordan and Jocelyn, who came with toys to show her and storybooks they needed to be read. Just Maubi's presence was calming, and when the surgeon came in a little after noon and said Sarada had done well in surgery, Sakura had a shoulder to cry on.

Then Maubi went into action. First, she whipped out her cell phone and had Sakura call the hotel to explain she wouldn't be in. Next Maubi had her leave a message on D & C LLC voicemail. "That'll be the last thing on your mind Monday morning, so now it's done." Then she went with Sakura to see about Mebuki.

The process at the morgue was cut and dried. Forms to fill out, and they released the even lope with Mebuki's belongings. Sakura couldn't think what was inside until she tore it open. "Daddy gave her that ring, for their thirty-fifth anniversary, just before he…" Maubi just held her until Sakura got it together again. There seemed to be reminders of what used to be and wasn't anymore around every corner.

Maubi took a notepad out of the enormous red canvas tote she'd brought with her, and started making lists. Sakura racked her brain to come up with the name of the funeral director who handled her father. She knew for certain her mother's burial policy was paid up because for the past twenty years Mebuki bragged about it. "When my time comes, all you have to do is make sure they play 'His eye is on the sparrow.' I like that. Oh and if Hinata could be there to sing it…" 'Hinata.' Thoughts of her were woven through all of Sakura's long ago yesterdays, but there was no time for that now. She called old minister from Hidden Leaf village to get things started, not knowing how she was going to finish it.

"You need to see if there's anything you can salvage at you place before other folk help themselves to it. We should go now, while you've got the time. When Sarada comes out of recovery she'll need you. Where's your car, downstairs in the lot?"

Sakura hadn't thought about the car since she left it in the middle of her street. After they drown around the neighborhood for an hour looking for the car, Maubi made a note to call the police and report it stolen. Sakura searched through her wallet and found detective Stuckey's card and gave Maubi the number. "She helped me before … with Sasuke."

"Your auto insurance will only give you the book value but it's something."

"No theft. I had to drop it…"

"After Sasuke died? Damn girl! There ain't no room for you between the rock and the hard place." They cracked up laughing, which eases the tension for a minute, but when they got out in front of her building it came back with a wallop.

The store was boarded and padlocked. A wet, blackened sofa , chairs and mattresses littered the sidewalk, and sakura could taste the dank, charred smell that emanated from them. After a moment she realized the furniture was hers.

"You can't woulda, shoulda over it, Sakura. Let's see if there's anything you can use and get going."

"What's the point?"

"Maybe there isn't one, but we're here, so let's do it." Maubi used the promise of ice cream to bribe Jordan into waiting in the car and minding Jocelyn. She and Sakura slid the board from in from of the door and carefully mounted the dark stairs.

Sakura entered the apartment and wanted to walk right out again. Maubi made her stay. Still in heels from the night before, Sakura tripped over unidentifiable broken objects underfoot. Maubi guided her to a dresser drawer, where Sakura found clothes still intact.

"A couple of washings will take care of the smell." Maubi pulled a green trash bag out of her tote and stuffed the things in it.

The TV, pot handles, were masses of free form melted plastic. Wires dangled from the kitchen ceiling. The cabinets by the stove had burned to nothing. Broken dishes, utensils, and blackened can were scattered all over. And on the floor in front of the scorched stove lay her mother's cast-iron dutch oven, cracked in pieces.

When Sakura checked in her closet, she was glad Maubi made her come. The green metal footlocker was safe. It contained things she had no place for in the small apartment: Family record, photos, Sarada's baby mementos, art supplies, and all of the Sarada story books she had made so lovingly. Things she would have been devastated to lose.

They loaded up the car and headed back to the hospital. "While you're with Sarada, I can drop this stuff wherever you're gonna stay."

That's when it hit Sakura. She had no place to go. "I don't know. There's not…I don't have…any…"

"There's nobody you can call?"

Sakura shook her head and turned away, ashamed that she lacked something so basic as friends and family. 'How did this happen?' Sakura stared out the window. 'Is this how it was for Hinata?' After Yahiko, when Hinata was adrift in foster care, Sakura could never really imagine what it was like to have no hope and nobody. She was getting the picture now though. 'But I made them find her. She wouldn't even speak to me! How could she do that!'

"Listen, Sakura," Maubi reached across the seat and rested her hand on Sakura's arm. "Kami knows I don't have any room. The kids share one as it is, but you're welcome to my couch for as long as you need it."

"I couldn't. Thank you, but you don't have to do that…"

"Do I look like somebody put a gun to my head? I wanna do it, fool!"

Sakura could see the sincerity in Maubi's face. "Thanks. I'll stay here tonight, to make sure Sarada's all right. We'll talk tomorrow. And Maubi, thanks again for everything." She opened the car door. "I want to get a few things out of the footlocker Sarada might like."

Sakura removed sketch pads charcoal, and the Sarada Uchiha adventure books, then waves as Maubi drove off in search of the promised ice cream, kids squabbling in the back seat.

"Sarada's doing fine," the charge nurse reported when Sakura got up to pediatrics. "Her medication has kept her pretty out of it since they brought her down, that's good because she won't be feeling so great for a while."

Plaster casts encased her torso and leg, another protected her arm. For the next twenty-four hours, Sarada awoke only in snatches. Glazed and expressionless she'd searched the room until her water gaze landed on Sakura.

Nearly choking on fear and guilt, Sakura rested her hand on Sarada's head and whispered up close to her ear, "It's gonna be all right baby…" until she would drift off into a sleep, frequently disturbed by whimpers and twitches. Durning these episodes Sakura would hold her own breath, until Sarada's relaxed and resumed it's regular rhythm. 'How? She must have been so afraid! And where was I? Can it ever be all right again?'

"You got to get a grip. You can't do her any good like this," Maubi told Sakura when she showed up the next evening. "You haven't slept in days, and only knows if you've eaten. You look like shit. If you're scaring me, imagine how Sarada feels when she sees you?"

"I didn't think about…"

"Well it's time you did." The faded murals of clowns and balloons on the old, cracked walls of the solarium tried to put a cherry face on the sadness that haunted the floor. "The funeral is the day after tomorrow. That'll be hard enough, but it's gonna get tougher than that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Have you applied for Medicaid yet?"

Sakura looked horrified. "Don't look at me like that. Who's gonna pay for this expensive little home away from home?" Maubi made a sweeping gesture with her arm. "Well?"

"I don't know how I'm going to pay, but …"

"You should figure it out…"

"Fine. I'll take care of it. Okay?" Sakura snapped.

"What are you going to do when the time comes for her to leave? Where will you live? Eventually you have to go someplace. When they say Sarada can go home, where's that going to be? What are you planning to do for money?"

"I still have a few hundred dollars left."

"And none coming in. That'll last about a minute. I can offer you my couch, my floor, whatever, it's yours for as long as you need it. But money's something I don't have to spare. Between the kids and school my paycheck's not spread thin, It's damn near transparent!"

"Maubi, I never expected you…uh…anything like that. You've been so helpful as it is. I'll always be grateful."

"You're welcome, but let's save the friend appreciation speech. All I'm saying is I've been there, where you are now. Which is exactly nowhere."

"But…"

"But nothing! Listen, Sakura, when I say I know, believe me, I know." She paused, absently fingering the leaves of the dusty artificial ficus tree in the corner before continuing, her robust voice quieter than usual. "If I hadn't grabbed my kids and took off when I did, I'm not sure I'd be here today. I didn't know where I was going, just that I had to go. I lucked up on a shelter, for abused women. I saw the information at a neighbors house I went to with the kids the last time he came home crazy and ripped up the house. They helped to get me on assistance and we…"

Sakura's mouth fell open. "Assistance? You mean welfare? Maubi, you're almost finished law school! You were on welfare? I didn't know…"

"Well I don't exactly go around bragging about it. I'm not trying to be the welfare poster girl. 'From medicaid to legal aid. What a credit to her people!' Sakura I hated what I had to do, but I had some bad things happen. Things I never planned."

"But I could never…A Shelter…"

"Don't say it, girl. Never is a long, long time." Maubi shook her head. Look, I had a college degree, no job, two babies and a husband who loved drinking more thank us or himself. How do you think I felt?"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry, yeah. Sorry isn't shit. I needed some help, just for a little while until I could get myself together. So will you."

"It's just that I'm not like…"

"Like what? Needy? You got a better idea? Maybe your long lost rich Aunt Penelope who'll have open arms and lost of space in her mansion for you and Sarada? If not, you better get real."

"I'll think about it."

"You do that. Call me when you want some sleep." Maubi got up. "Oh yeah the cops haven't found your car. They said they're still looking but I wouldn't hold my breath." She disappeared down the hall.

Sakura went back to Sarada's room and read her the story about how Sadara's magical eyes princess, forbidden to marry her handsome, but common warrior. The tale, Sarada's favorite, held her interest almost until the end, but the sandman came before the lover were wed.

Tears streamed quietly down Sakura's cheeks. All she could think about was Sarada, snuggled up on her lap, wide-eyed and innocent as she listened to this story the first time in the comfort of her brand-new bedroom. 'What have I done to her life?'

Sakura wiped her eyes, then put the book away. Through the open door, she watched for a while, fascinated by the quiet, but constant and well-orchestrated activity around the floor desk across the hall. She took a pad from the shopping bag next to the chair and started to sketch the nurses' station. Drawing used to relax her, but tonight the sleep that had eluded her since the fire seemed to slip even farther from her reach. She was still wide-awake when she finished the drawing. 'Maybe I'll give it to them, as a thank you when we leave.' But Sasuke's ridicule of her drawings popped in her head and she snatched the page from the sketchbook and tossed it in the trash.

For the rest of the night she was dogged by truth Maubi had dropped on her. Sakura has $1000.00 left in the bank, no income, no home, and she knew they wouldn't hold either of her jobs forever. 'But public assistance?' Mebuki's "You have to be strong, teach her how to be strong," ricocheted through Sakura's mind. She knew her mother meant those words to carry them through the Sasuke ordeal, but Sakura hadn't expected them to be so prophetic.

Next morning, feeling like shit, Sakura was waiting in front of the office when the hospital social worker came in. It was time to face the inevitable.

As Sakura outlined the last year of her life, the young woman drank coffee, changed from sneakers to her office pumps, and made little tart faces each time she ate one of the grapes from a plastic bag on her desk, This was the first time Sakura had told the whole riches to rags story. It seemed preposterous, even to her, and she'd lived through it all.

"Do you have any resources available to you? The social worker was unmoved by the sob story. "Family? A church? Friend? Anyone who might offer you a place to stay when the time comes?"

Sakura shook her head. "Nobody." She knew her old church in Hidden Leaf Village, might have helped, but she was too ashamed to turn to the people she turned down her nose at and too embarrassed to call on those she used to count herself among. "That's why I'm here."

"Well, you'll have to start from the beginning." From dog eared file folders she dealt Sakura a stack of sheets outlining the how to's of applying for public assistance, medicaid and housing.

"We have no place to live. I can't be on a waiting list, not with my daughter."

"You have to apply for benefits first, then take it from there."

"My daughter won't be able to walk. We have to have someplace to go the moment she's discharged."

"And I can't snap my fingers and find an apartment. Do you have any idea how many people have needed a place to live longer than you? You have to wait like everybody else."

The scolding made Sakura furious, but the anger fueled her through the long hot lines in crowded state offices, the forms with spaces for an address she didn't have, and probing questions asked by workers too busy to be patient. At the end of the day she wasn't a start.

Burying her mother was the next hurdle, and Sakura knew she couldn't allow herself to feel the pain, afraid it might take her to a place so desolate and lonely that she would never find the way back, so she shut off that passageway, sealed it tight. 'Sarada needs me. I'll do whatever I have to.'

In the midst of a few mourners who had known her parents and remembered her when she was little, Sakura felt like an observer and not a participant. Sitting in front of the closed bronze casket, she could easily have believed that she had hallucinated that last decade. It didn't happen. Gone. Wiped out, and she could retreat to that narrow slice of time and space between Sunday mornings in a tiny, brick front house in Hidden Leaf where she and Hinata made plans for being grown. She longed for Hinata to help her make sense of his now. 'I wasn't around for Daddy's funeral and Hinata helped Momma through it. I wasn't around when Hinata needed me. It's my own fault she didn't speak. I deserved that.' Sarada was the best thing to come out of the last ten years. Sakura realized that she couldn't undo her past mistakes, but, whatever it took, she had to be there for her daughter now.

Riding to the cemetery next to Maubi felt strange to Sakura. She was used to driving there alone. When she stood on the hill next to the Reverend Hiruzen Sarutobi, leaves rustled in the dry, hot breeze. 'Now these trees will be her view too.' She watched the undertaker sprinkle a shovelful of earth on the end of the coffin, but Sakura didn't feel the grief or own the sorrow. She couldn't. After Sasuke was gone, love and hate, truth and denial had dueled every day in a battle for her head and heart. She was worn out numb to all but nagging guilt because she hadn't been with her daughter or her mother when they needed her most.

After the graveside service Sakura asked for some time alone. She looked off into the brilliant blue afternoon sky, hoping to find the right words written across the horizon, but nothing appeared. She stepped closer and whispered, "I'm sorry. I never meant for things to go so wrong…I love you, Momma. Daddy'll tell you..I'm just so sorry…for everything."

Before he drove off, Reverend Sarutobi beckoned Sakura to his car. She rested her hand on the door, and he covered it with his as he spoke.

"Don't you hesitate to call on us for anything you need. Those are not just puffed up words, neither. MT Myuboku was your momma and daddy's church home from way before you were born. Now I know you miss them and they can't walk beside you right now, but we're still here for you."

Sakura nodded, chewing her lip to hold the tears she'd dammed up all day.

When she got back from the cemetery Sakura stopped by the nurses station and was surprised to see her drawing, rescued from the trash and neatly tacked to a cork board behind the counter.

"She's been watching the door all afternoon. I think she's waiting for you," the nurse reported. "By the way, your drawing is really good."

"Oh…thanks." Sakura cheeks burned with embarrassment but she smiled, then headed for Sarada's door.

"Mommy?" Sarada was hoarse and barely a whisper.

"I'm here, baby. I'm here." It was the first time she had uttered more than a whimper since the fire, so to Sakura it was sweet and warm as a baby's kiss. "They told you I wouldn't be gone long didn't they? Just had somethings I had to do…"

"Mommy…" Sakura leaned closer so she could hear better. "The fire…I fell asleep… It was my fault… Gram was making me doughnuts. I know she wasn't supposed to…but…I…" Her lashes glistened, shiny with tears.

"No, no Sarada. Hush. It doesn't matter now. You just have to get well." 'Momma's buttermilk doughnuts…'

"I was mad at you…and..I…"

"It wasn't your fault." 'Blame me because you're in here and your Gram's gone.'

"Gram? Where's Gram?" Sarada's face, so full of defiance a few days ago, now looked sad and pained. "She didn't…get out…did she, Mommy? She's…"

From somewhere inside Sakura found a quiet reassuring voice. In hushed comforting tones it carried a scalding, painful message, but like cool running water, it helped to soothe the wound as well.

Two long weeks after the fire, Sakura and Sarada left the Hospital for the Bone Treatment Center in Konoha City.

Sakura never took Maubi up on her offer of a place to sleep. By the time She felt Sarada was doing well enough to leave overnight, the round trip train fare from the city to upstate Konoha was more than she could afford. So a new hospital lounge became home, a new ladies room, Sakura bath and laundry. The clothes she salvaged fit in two plastic shopping bags, but she only looked forward, because no matter how many times she went over it, the past wouldn't change.

The first week there was endless conversations with doctors, physical therapists and nurses left her exhausted, her head a jumble of medical jargon, confusion, worry. Sarada would need therapy and a specialized home exercise regimen to ensure she regained her mobility and strength.

Then the job fallout hit. The hotel was first. "Don't bother to call in anymore." That was it. A few days later, she got the bad news from Darui. "We tried, Sakura. We can't hold your position open any longer. It's Chaos in here, and with the bank business starting to come in, we can't have chaos. I'm deeply sorry about your mother and your daughter. If you need anything…" 'My job. I need my job. At least Darui treated me like I'm human.'

After that her days started with bus trips uptown to the child welfare and the medicaid office to move her case along. The housing Authority put her on waiting lists they said could take years.

"I don't have years!" Sakura announced, but it didn't matter. She was so disheartened she just started walking. It was a golden fall afternoon and school children, frisky after a day of learning in the confines of a classroom, scampered home. Home was such a simple, basic need, like air, and she was starting to suffocate without out one. Sakura walked past busy storefronts and rundown buildings and before she realized where she was she was standing across from MT Myoboku.

"…your momma and daddy can't walk beside you right now, but we're still here for you." It was like Reverend Sarutobi's words had brought her there. She had thought she couldn't ask for help, but she had asked everywhere else and no one had any to spare. Sarada was close to discharge, but Sakura was no closer to an apartment. She remembered how they had helped retrieve Hinata from the group home and would've been lost in the system. Her momma told her they went to Reverend Sarutobi when Sakura was a baby and he got them baptismal papers and a birth certificate that said she was theirs. 'I have nothing to lose by asking.'

Sakura put her false pride in her hip pocket and proceeded to walk inside then hesitated. Then she felt hands on her shoulders pushing her threw the door. She knew it was her mother and father giving her strength. Instantly feeling better, wiped her eyes and walked inside. The church secretary directed her to a cluttered office upstairs, presided over by a young woman name Mirai Sarutobi. Mirai heated two mugs of water in a the small microwave that served as a bookend and made them tea, then listened to Sakura's saga.

"I put in housing applications everywhere, but body is telling me when or where they'll have a place for us. I can't bring Sarada home to a shelter."

Then Mirai thought for a while, bouncing a tea bag in another cup of water. Then she searched through papers in her file cabinet and emerged with a pamphlet. "This place is pretty new. I haven't sent anyone there yet, but it sounds as if it might work for you."

Sakura held her breath and prayed as Mirai picked up the phone.

AN: I have up to Chapter 25 completed. Next Chapter back to Hinata. Thank you for reading.