Sakura looked around dully at the people gathered in her house for dinner. Benji saw her blank looks and the depression that lurked behind them. She had moments like this sometimes, it happened from time to time, but he had never seen her like this before.

When No Name arrived Sakura greeted her, the same as she had greeted everyone else and made her way back into the kitchen. Benji smiled nervously at the girl and followed Sakura.

"I'm almost done supper." She said when he came in behind her. "You should serve them the appetizers now. They're in the fridge." He didn't make a move towards the fridge, instead he watched her as she chopped up vegetables with her usual precision. Except she cut herself today, and as her blood spilled out on to the cutting board she just stood there and watched it.

"Here, let me help." Benji said, grabbing a towel and wrapping up her hand. "Come to the washroom with me." He led her to the bathroom where he pulled the first aid kit from the counter and wrapped her hand in gauze from the kit. "Why don't you serve the appetizers and sit with our company, I'll finish dinner."

"No, no. I can do it Benji. I'm just a little shaky today; I didn't get enough sleep last night."

'Yeah, I know,' Benji thought, 'You haven't gotten any sleep for the past five nights have you?' But he didn't voice his thoughts, he didn't want to hurt her already fragile state of mind.

"I don't want you to hurt yourself anymore, that's all. Go out and talk with people. It was your idea to meet No Name."

Sakura giggled, "No Name? Do you call her that to her face?"

"No." Benji smiled in return, "Maybe you can get her name out of her. That is your mission for the night."

"Yes sir!" Sakura said with a grin and saluted him with her bandaged hand. "I'll get that name for you if it kills me!"

Benji collapsed on his bed happily. What a night… Sakura had invited Sasuke and Naruto, two of her friends from when she was still a ninja for the village. Their dinner party had been a group of seven (but it was more like eighteen, with how much food Naruto ate), and Sakura had been lacking somewhat as far as the good hostess went. But he had made dinner and everyone liked it, or at least said they liked it, and after dessert and coffee they went their separate ways.

It was strange, he had dreaded this night so much, afraid of No Name being in his house with other people, but it hadn't been horrible. She mostly just sat there all night, quietly listening to everyone else talking. Once she put her hand on Sakura's and Sakura had taken notice of her and started chatting with her, but after that No Name became unresponsive, seemingly shy.

Well, she had left first. And everyone followed her eventually, except Ino. Ino stayed behind and watched Benji clean up and held Sakura's hand. Ino took Sakura into her room and stayed with her.

Benji smiled sadly into his pillow. Ino was a good friend to Sakura, so she would know what was bothering her, and she would know how to help her. He hoped she would.

Sakura wrapped her arms around Ino's waist and squeezed her as tightly as she could. And Ino didn't say anything because she didn't know what to say, but her silence hurt Sakura more than just chatting would. Because it reminded her of him, because he was always quiet.

"He's not coming back is he?" Sakura asked.

Ino rubbed Sakura's back comfortingly, "I don't know… I'm betting he will. He's totally got the hots for you girl."

Sakura rubbed her nose on Ino's shoulder. How long had he been gone? Not even a week yet, and she was so pathetic already.

"If he was just going to leave he would have left you a note wouldn't he? He would at least give you some reason for leaving?"

Sakura frowned; sure there was something, something she was forgetting. Something happened the night he left, didn't it?

"You two are pretty much made for each other." Ino said. She was just talking for the sake of talking now, but it made some memory in Sakura twitch. And she could feel that memory just out of reach, like on the tip of her tongue. If she could just reach it…

She did reach it, and as soon as she had she wished she could forget again.

Ino hugged Sakura tighter when she suddenly burst into tears.

"Ino, he's not coming back…" Sakura sobbed, "I sent him away. I thought he was that other man, I thought he was going to rape me again, and I screamed. He's really gone this time!"

And just as she had predicted, once she started crying she couldn't stop. She had too many tears built up in her system now. It would take a lot of crying to make up for lost years, and now he was lost too.

Ino shook her head, "No."

"What do you mean no?" Sakura asked, tears still flowing down her cheeks.

"There's no way you're going to leave it at that." Ino said. "It's pretty damn obvious I'd say. No more doubting it, you're in love."

Sakura stared at Ino's face for a while in wonder, and then started crying even harder, a feat she thought impossible.

Ino held her closely until the tears finally stopped coming.

"Is this what love is then? This pain? The empty feeling in the pit of my stomach?" Sakura asked, and looked at Ino's face for an answer, but the other woman had fallen asleep. Sakura smiled and hugged her. "Ino, I don't want to be in love anymore."

In the morning Benji woke up to a much happier Sakura. At first he was wary of her, afraid she was putting up a front when inside she had become even more destructive, but Ino sat at the table with them and smiled reassuringly at him.

"She's a woman with a plan now."

Benji raised his eyebrows expectantly at Sakura, who smiled and helped herself to more bacon. When he realized she wasn't going to tell him he asked, "And what is this plan of yours?"

Sakura munched her bacon thoroughly and swallowed before answering, "I hope you don't mind, but I'm leaving you alone here for a while. I don't know how long exactly. I'll leave you the money I don't need and if that's not enough you can open the shop when you need more, or keep it going, because I don't want to lose my clientele right?"

"Sakura." Benji said, "What is your plan? You know I can take care of myself, so you can stop babbling now."

"Oh, well… I'm going."

Ino rolled her eyes, and Benji persisted. "Going where?"

"Hm…" Sakura rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "I thought I'd start in Suna, go see Temari." When she saw the look in Benji's eyes she shook her head at him. "No, you can't come with me to meet her. Not this time. You have to stay here and train and take care of things here. I could be gone a long time…"

"Sakura…"

"Ok Benji. I'm going to bring him back. Since it's my fault he left in the first place."

Benji shook his head, "I'm sure it's not…"

"It is Benji. You don't know what happened, but it doesn't matter. Just… believe me ok? I'm going to find him and make it right again."

Benji nodded, "Ok."

"Good!" Ino clapped her hands, as though she had just seen the ending of a play, "Then Sakura needs to get ready, and you need to go Benji! You're going to be late."

Benji glanced at the clock on the wall and realized she was right. He quickly gobbled down his breakfast and bolted out the door.