Disclaimer: I still don't own any of the characters, or the original idea. Where this differs from the anime, the anime (obviously) is correct. The events in this take place after the first half of the Chuunin exam.

The moon was starting to rise behind the two, casting strange shadows over the two. Sasuke looked at Sakura for a brief moment, and found her bathed in the pale light. It was strange he thought. Sitting there like that, she was so ethereal, so otherworldly. Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out towards her.

Even much later, looking back, he never knew what possessed him to do that. Was it that she looked so detached sitting there? Was it that she reminded him of his mother, before her death? Could it simply be that he'd gone so long without touching a person that he could not resist this one chance for human contact? He didn't know, didn't know that he ever would. But he reached out, tentatively, and touched her face. She jerked at first, shocked, but then relaxed a bit.

He held his fingers against her cheek for just the briefest of moments, then slowly ran them down it, feeling, as he did so, a warmth of her skin, the soft smoothness of her cheek, and oddly, a gentle moistness.

After a minute he brought his hand back, confused. She was crying? Why? Was it him? Or was it something else?

He didn't want her to cry for him. But that made no sense. Why did he care? If she was too weak to hold her emotions in check, then why should it hurt him? He'd never cried. Why should he care if she did?

But the fact remained that he did care. He cared, and it hurt, that she was crying.
What should he say? He didn't know, but he wanted to say something, anything.

"You know," she said, "it seems like a few days ago that we started at the academy. And now, here we are, ninjas. Soon, you and Naruto may become Chuunin, and I may never see either one of you again." She snorted in derision, wiped her eyes. "Funny, isn't it? After all this, to think that I'll be upset at the idea of never seeing him." She turned to him and smiled. "And you may be gone, too. I'll just be plain old Sakura, left here, following in your trail."

He didn't know what to say. He tried, started to speak, and then stopped. He tried a second time, and again he stopped. What should he say? He couldn't comfort her, couldn't offer anything. Sakura looked at him for a second, and then reached out to grab his hand, squeezed it.

Why? Her, comforting him? Why was she doing that? He didn't need comfort. He didn't need help. He was fine.... He should be the one doing the comforting, not the other way around.