Rock Lee, to the surprise of all the doctors in the hospital, had actually managed to stay in his room the whole day after Sakura had left him. Every time he got up, he would see Sakura in his mind and think

If I can control myself and rest for a day, Sakura will love me! If I can't stop myself she will hate me and call me fuzzy eyebrows forever!

Funnily enough this had great effect. So when Sakura walked in the next day, she was surprised to have a few nurses and doctors come up to her and thank her for being able to keep Lee from harming himself. When she walked in his room, she found Lee happily asleep in his bed. Lee, however, was well trained in the art of 'alertness' and woke up almost immediately upon hearing her footsteps.

"Lee-san, I hear you've been following my advice and taking care of yourself. That's really good!"

She felt somehow happier than she had in days, which wasn't actually a big deal, given her worries for Lee, her umpteenth unsuccessful attempt to ask Sasuke out, and her fights with Ino.

Rock Lee was indignant and answered

"I didn't rest, I was...er...resting...I mean....I mean only temporarily! Youth is the springtime of life, how could I waste it sleeping?"

He tried to stick his hand out in Gai's customary victory symbol, but he couldn't stand up so instead he gave her 'the toothy smile' while in the background a distinctive 'ping' sound was heard.

Just then a fat, bossy looking woman came in and started talking

"Youth will be the springtime of your death if you don't get some more rest and more food. Teenagers these days, they just don't value life like they used to. Why I'm surprised you can even stand up, the way you starve yourselves. You'll need to stay in that bed for more than a minute if you want your body to get better so that...."(well you get the idea).

After a few minutes of speech at a high speed she put down a tray containing some food and medicine and left. After a moment of silence, both girl and boy burst out laughing. Lee exclaimed

"Half the reason I tried to escape from hospital was because of her!"

"I get why you hate hospitals so much now!"

"So tell me, who else is in hospital? What happened after I got here? I heard bits from the doctors and saw a bit of the war from my window, but I didn't really get what was really happening."

"Oh there's..um...Hinata...Chouji...Sasuke...that Gaara kid too I think"

"Gaara...?"

"Oh he's changed a lot, he's gotten much nicer since Naruto beat him..."

"Naruto..he...he beat Gaara...?"

So Sakura told him everything that had happened from her own point of view, right until the defeat of Gaara and eventual retreat of the sound ninjas.

"...So that's how we ended up, victorious. We're really weakened though, its getting hard to fulfill all our missions, especially since the Hokage died. Oh and the three sand genins decided to stay as well, as I said, Gaara's a lot nicer, he's quite cute when he's not trying to kill you."

Lee was mortified "There was so much fighting for Konoha, and I missed it! I should have been there to protect you from Gaara, I could have kicked his ass..."

How sweet thought Sakura but aloud she said

"Don't forget you lost to him which is why you're here..."

"I know. I'm going to work harder and prove that hard work can defeat genius!"

Sakura sighed resignedly. Lee grinned and said in a winning voice (or so he thought):

"Ill make you a deal, Sakura-chan. If you come and visit me every day I promise I'll stay in bed until I get better."

Sakura blushed when she heard it, then she thought about it. It was worth it...besides she enjoyed talking to him, weird as he was he was pretty cute too.

Wait a minute did you just admit that he's cute? Inner Sakura butted in, and Sakura ignored it.

"It's a deal, I'll see you tomorrow" she blurted out before leaving in a hurry, she felt like jumping around and shouting for some reason. Inner Sakura told her Admit it, you like being with him!

I do like it...I wonder why though... she pondered silently. (Its Sakura's turn to be stupid for a while, I hate people who call Naruto insensitive when Sakura is probably even more so)