we were afraid but we weighed bricks in our hands regardless and dreamed of futures where we built with them and did not break with them

rating: g
genre: adventure/friendship
pairings: pre-inosaku
POV: Sakura
other notes: "I need you to marry me" for Femslash February, turned into weird concept fic. a prelude, if you will.
word count: 865

A/N: While I will keep crossposting to the oneshot collections that are hosted here, I haven't been crossposting any new fic. If you want to see the rest of what I'm writing, please feel free to follow me on Tumblr or on Archive Of Our Own, where you can find me under the username mouseymightymarvellous. Thanks so much to everyone who is still reading.

"Oh," Sakura says, pleasantly surprised as she opens the door, "hey, Chōji. I wasn't expecting you. Come in."

Her hair is still wet from the shower and she's wearing one of Sai's shirts and a pair of Ino's shortest booty shorts, the ones that say Boss Bitch on the butt, but Chōji has seen her in worse and won't care.

"Can I get you some tea?" Sakura asks, walking towards the kitchen. "The kettle just boiled."

She's ignoring the fact that, just underneath his usual good humour and calm presence, Chōji is almost shaking out of his skin. It isn't noticeable (he's too good a shinobi for that), but Sakura has known this man for over twenty years, through blood and war, and there isn't a lot he can hide from her.

"Tea would be great," Chōji answers, and follows her into the kitchen to pull together a snack from the mostly empty icebox, almost like magic as Sakura has been out of the village for the last two weeks and the general state of her pantry has gone from its usual unimpressive state to downright barren.

Sakura busies herself with carefully measuring out tea leaves and pulling out cups, slowly pumping chakra into the seals that line the window frames so as not to draw the attention of any passing patrols (or, she doesn't dare think, not here, not in Konoha where she should be the safest, anyone watching her building).

Only when they're finally standing shoulder to shoulder, elbows against the tall kitchen counters as they lean forward, Chōji's bulk obscuring Sakura's face from the window, does Sakura finally ask.

"Room's secure. What's going on?"

If it was something Team 7 related (which, these days, can almost only mean Sasuke-related), it wouldn't be Chōji here playing messenger. If it was something Village related, there wouldn't be any need for secrecy at all, or at least not any kind of secrecy that couldn't be explained away by Sakura's regular movements in and around the hospital or the Tower.

So, no. That Chōji is here, for Sakura, his back loose and his laughter warm and his fingers carefully tracing the Ino-Shika-Chō symbol for Mission Compromised, Scatter and Regroup at Base Camp in the beads of water dripping from the spout of the tea pot, well–

This means Team 10.

This means Ino.

Chōji smiles at her, and for the first time Sakura can see the fear in his eyes.

And then his eyes roll up, back into his head.

When he blinks, Ino is looking back at Sakura, Chōji's head tilting just so, a familiar, careless, clumsy gesture.

"Sakura," Ino says in Chōji's voice. "We fucked up. Shit, I'm so sorry, but we fucked up real bad."

Sakura grabs Chōji's forearm and does her best not to otherwise move.

(This is Konoha and she should be safe here, Team 10 should be safe here, legacy and clan and all the power that is held in a name. But. Sakura knows by now that clan is not always enough to save you, that sometimes all you have are your own two hands, that sometimes all you have is a legacy of a seal on your stomach or the screams of the dead haunting your family home.)

She doesn't know that there isn't someone watching the building.

"Sakura, please. I need–" Ino laughs and it's a brittle, brutal sound out of Chōji's mouth. "I need you to trust me. And I need you to save my life."

"Always. Anything." As if Sakura could do anything else.

Ino laughs again, and Sakura just wants to cry. "Then I need you to marry me. And then I need you to take me to Tetsu no Kuni. It's the only way he won't be able to reach me. We need to run. Please. Please, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Sakura doesn't understand what is going on.

Sakura wants to scream.

Sakura knows what's in the Land of Iron, what she'll find there, but she doesn't know why Ino thinks this is the only way.

Maybe there would be a better way, but Ino is pleading with her, and Sakura has never seen Chōji look as scared as when he walked in her front door.

"Yes," Sakura says. Helplessly. Hopelessly. As if she could have said anything else. As if she could have told Ino no.

And then Ino is gone, and it's only Chōji behind those eyes.

"Sakura-chan," he says, her name clumsy on his tongue. "Thank you."

"I'd do it for any of you," Sakura says.

It's a truth. It's not the whole truth.

"This is for all of us," Chōji says. "Now, quickly. Pack. Shikamaru will take care of letting your team know, when the time comes. I'm going to get you out of the Village and to Ino."

Sakura nods, and heads for her bedroom, saying over her shoulder, her mouth clear to the window, "Dango sounds great, Chōji. Just give me two minutes to dry my hair and change."

She leaves Chōji to clean their dishes, and faces the unknown.

Auntie Mikan is just going to be…so pleased to see them.