Sakura and the Prince of Flowers
By Miss Angel Maxwell

Free Talk: I wrote this chapter completely out before deciding that it was too long and needed to be split up. What does this mean? Well, it means I am uploading two chapters on this update, which probably means I will get fewer comments… But I am too excited to be getting towards the climax of my story to postpone posting the second part, especially for something as petty as getting comments. I must admit though, when I read the kind and encouraging comments made on this fic it just makes my day. Thank you as always for the support. And please tell me what you think!

Chapter 20: "Did You Tell Her It Was Really Us?"

"I'm going with you."

Sakura stared and blinked several times at the Kazekage's cool statement, but gave no verbal response. Her teammates, who stood on either side of her in front of Gaara's desk, shifted uncomfortably and exchanged furtive glances with each other. Temari and Kankurou were standing next to their little brother and seemed stunned even though neither spoke a single word.

"Pardon my asking," Sasuke finally said. "But why?"

"Haruno Sakura has been of great service to myself and my family these past eight months," Gaara responded in his usual icy tone. "As the Kazekage of Suna I believe it would only be proper of me to escort her home and make sure she arrives safely."

"But that's what she's got us for!" Naruto squawked out of turn. "You don't think Sasuke and I can handle it?"

"I did not mean to insult you," said Gaara. "It is not for her sake that I wish to accompany you, but for my own. I have grown quite fond of Haruno Sakura and escorting her home is a matter of personal importance."

Naruto grinned and raised his eyebrows suggestively. "I see," he drawled. "The Kazekage's got a little crush… eh?"

"I'm afraid you are once again mistaken," Gaara replied calmly. "My feelings for Haruno Sakura are not of a romantic nature. I love her as I have come to love my siblings. Which brings me to my next order of business. While I am away, I would like for my older brother Kankurou to fulfill the duties of Kazekage."

"Really?" the hooded young man asked eagerly. "Me? Not Temari?"

"Is this a problem?" Gaara asked.

"No," his brother answered. "No problem at all. I… I won't let you or the people of our village down."

Temari had an accusing finger raised and pointed and her mouth was already opening to object, but then she saw Sakura's hopeful eyes looking at her and her hand dropped back to her side. "I think you're up for it," she said. "Good luck, Kankurou." Then she turned to the three members of Team 7 with a grin. "Well, since I'm not needed around here, I think I might go along with you kids as well. It's been far too long since I've seen Konoha."

Sakura gave a devious smirk. "You mean it's been far too long since you've seen your Bambi," she said slyly.

The older girl turned faintly pink and scratched the back of her blonde head. "Yeah, that too. Well, I'd better go and get packed. We'll be traveling with Miss Baby Mama here and the old man, so it will probably take a bit longer than usual to get there."

"I'm just glad that I'm able to travel at all," said Sakura, patting her tummy. "With the position of the baby, though, it will probably be at least another two weeks before I give birth. I'm so happy that I'll be having my baby in Konoha. I love Suna, but the Leaf Village is my home. And it was Lee's home, too."

Gaara gave the smallest, slightest hint of a smile, the friendliest expression he was capable of. "Then I am happy for you," he said. "We shall leave today."

"Alright!" Naruto exclaimed. "And in the off-chance we run into one of those nasty monsters, I'll just unleash some of my Kyuubi power and then it'll worship me as its god!"

"Naruto!" Sasuke stammered. "Don't you remember what Shin told you on the trip here to Suna? If you use the Kyuubi's chakra, it will just confuse the monster and it will rip you open like a sack of rice to get the Kyuubi out!"

"Well how is he so sure?" Uzumaki huffed, crossing his arms defiantly. "He doesn't have a demon trapped inside him."

Sasuke let out a tiny amused laugh at his best friend's childishness. "Don't get all bent out of shape, Naruto. He's just trying to look out for you. And it doesn't really matter because we're not going to run into any of the Children of the Kyuubi."

"Yeah, yeah… whatever," Naruto sighed. "Let's just go pack."

-

The sound of girlish laughter bubbled through the woods and into Sasuke and Naruto's ears as they walked along the worn out foot trail. The blonde immediately spun his head around and growled when he caught a glimpse of Sakura, a couple of meters behind them, talking and laughing with Lee's grandpa.

"This has been going on the whole trip!" Naruto snorted. "And I'm sick of it! He's a dirty old man!"

"He's just being friendly," Sasuke calmly told his friend.

"Friendly?" Naruto stammered. "Just look at him sweet-talking her like that! It's… it's downright indecent!" Then he stopped in his tracks and walked back towards the cheerful duo. "Alright! Just what is going on here?" he asked, keeping pace with them while walking backwards.

"Shin was just showing me some of Lee's baby pictures that he brought with him," Sakura replied, with a glowing smile. Then she held out a photo of a tiny baby with enormous round black eyes and even bigger black eyebrows. "He looks the same as ever, doesn't he?"

"Er… yeah," her baffled teammate replied. He had already seen Lee as an infant in the picture of his parents, but it was still a shock to see a baby with that odd face. "Very… cute… So I noticed that you and Gray Brows have become good friends while we've been traveling."

"Oh yes," Sakura answered. "He's such a nice man, and he's lived a fascinating life! Did you know that he knew the Fourth Hokage?"

Naruto's eyes immediately lit up upon hearing this and any accusations he had planned to tell the old man were tossed aside. "Really?" he asked excitedly. "You knew him? What was he like?"

The old man nodded fondly. "He was the most brilliant shinobi I'd ever met," he said. "The Fourth's knowledge of the Kyuubi was invaluable in my research on the Children. Yes, a good, good man indeed."

The ecstatic young man was about to ask more about the deceased Hokage, but Sakura interrupted him. "I hate to be such a burden," she said politely. "But the sun is starting to go down, I'm getting pretty hungry and my ankles are twice their normal size. Do you think maybe we could stop for the night?"

"Stop?" Naruto whined. "For the whole night? But if we keep walking through the night, we'll be home before morning. You said you were up for it earlier."

"We've been on the road to Konoha for almost four days," said Temari, appearing at Sakura's side, apparently out of nowhere, and taking Naruto by surprise. "And we've only taken three stops that were longer than an hour. Let's give Pinky a full night's rest. Come on, the girl's walkin' for two."

"Well…" Naruto began, scratching his chin.

Suddenly a cloud of fine sand swirled onto the path ahead of the little group, forcing them to a halting stop. The grains swelled and condensed until the stoic form of the Kazekage materialized in the center. "I am thinking that Sakura could use a good long rest," he said. "Let us stop for the evening."

"Well, I guess that settles it," Shin chirped. "Let's find a nice place to set up camp and I will cook dinner for us all!"

-

Rock Shin's dinner of stewed fish and vegetables was remarkably good and everybody had seconds. They had found a nice little clearing that wasn't far from a clean cold stream, and set up a crackling fire in the center. After finishing their meal, with warm full bellies, everyone fell asleep under the glow of a waning moon. The only exception was Gaara, who kept a silent guard from the treetops above.

Snuggled up in her sleeping bag and surrounded by friends, Sakura felt safe and warm. She fell asleep thinking about Sasuke. He had been especially quiet during the trip so far, which wasn't unusual for him, except that before they left Suna, she really felt he was starting to open up to her more. Truthfully, the two of them had barely spoken to each other since they took that walk together in the palace courtyard. Sakura fell asleep thinking about how he had wanted to tell her something and she cut him off, and vaguely worrying if she'd hurt his feelings.

That night the Prince of Flowers appeared in Sakura's dreams that night. It began much like the dream she'd had the night before Naruto and Sasuke went on the mission without her. In this dream, however, she was no longer a child but her grown up self, and when she met her Prince in that vast field of yellow and white flowers now he seemed so incredibly small, just a little boy. Still, they lay together, finger laced, staring up at the distant white clouds that crawled across an endless blue sky. Unlike her previous dream, the sky didn't turn green and her nostrils weren't clouded with the putrid stench of rotting flesh. There was no monster anymore.

With a gasp and a jolt, the young woman awoke, her heart rate unusually fast. It took her a moment to calm herself down. "That's certainly a change," she mumbled quietly to herself. "Waking up because there isn't a monster in my dreams."

"I'm terribly sorry," a squeaky voice whispered from near the fire. "Did I wake you up, dear girl?"

"No, don't worry about it Shin," she answered groggily. "I just woke up because I needed… some water. That's all. I'm thirsty. Why aren't you asleep?"

"Oh I just couldn't really sleep," he said softly.

"Are you thinking about Lee?" Sakura asked gently, as she climbed out of her sleeping bag with some difficulty and joined the old man on the trunk of a fallen tree near the fire.

"I suppose I am," the elder sighed. "I'm a bit nervous of how my old heart might react to seeing his memorial stone. I know he's not buried under it, but still…"

"No, I understand," she responded. "You know, I used to worry that when the baby was born it would look like Lee, and that whenever I looked at it I would feel sad. But that was back when thoughts of Lee carried such deep feelings of shame and remorse. Now I feel like if this child reminds me of its father, it will fill me with feelings of gratitude and hope. And it's all thanks to you and your letter."

Rock Shin smiled somewhat sadly. "You are a very dear young woman," he said. "And I am so happy that Lee got your letter and sent you his blessing to return home. Indeed, your future is a bright one. It seems I just have nothing else to think about except for the fact that my grandson's life has really come to an end. And it's such an early ending."

The last word out of the old man's mouth, coupled with the fact that they were sitting together on a fallen tree suddenly reminded Sakura of the night of Tenten's party when she and Lee sat together on a log bench. She smiled and said, "Someone very wise once told me that 'endings don't matter much' and 'it's what you do before them that matters.' So you shouldn't just dwell on Lee's ending and feel sad. Think about everything he did during his life. Despite not being able to use ninjutsu or genjutsu, Lee was a great shinobi. He proved everyone's expectations of him wrong and that's something to be proud of."

"Well spoken," Shin responded with a nod. "I am very proud of him. And I suppose you're right that I should try to spend my remaining days in peace, knowing that my grandson and his parents were brave, kind people and they died heroically."

"And don't forget that you're going to have a great-grandbaby to come and visit," Sakura reminded. "I would love it if you could teach my baby just a fraction of the things you know."

"Indeed," he said with a smile. "That is something I look forward to. Now, why are you really awake, Miss Haruno? You've been sitting here for ten minutes and you haven't bothered to get yourself a drink. I take it you're not really thirsty?"

"Actually," Sakura said cautiously. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you, Shin. You say that my memories of the attack were erased… But is it possible that they may still exist somewhere in my subconscious?"

"I'm afraid not," he answered. "The seal I used on your memories was permanent erasure to prevent you from being traumatized or emotionally damaged. Why do you ask? Do you want to remember?"

"It's not that," she said. "It's just… Ever since I was a little kid and especially in the past nine months I've had these dreams where I'm attacked by a monster, or it kills my teammates… or even worse, my baby. I just thought that maybe it's related to that day. Maybe the monster in my dreams is one of the Children of the Kyuubi. It was huge and covered in grayish brown fur, and it had a head like a wolf or a hyena. And it smelled… just awful, like rotting meat. Does that sound at all like the Children?"

"That sounds like it could be just about any monster," Shin replied, trying to disguise his shock and confusion. "Including the kind of monster invented by a young girl's deepest fears and anxieties."

"I guess you're probably right," she sighed. "After all, you are the one who sealed my memories. And I guess the Prince of Flowers isn't a real person, just a manifestation of something else buried in my brain."

"Prince of Flowers, you say?" asked the old man.

Sakura blushed slightly. "Yeah, he's just… It's kind of dumb, but there's this little boy that also appears in my dreams sometimes. He's got sad eyes and dark hair and… and he's sort of like a guardian angel. I mean… in my dreams… when he's near me, I feel safe. And I think he led me to Suna too, because he knew I'd be safe and find friends there. I just thought that maybe… he was real. But it's silly, isn't it?"

"I don't think it is silly at all," Shin told her. "I think perhaps this boy really is your guardian angel. And if that's the case then I am happy that you have him. And I hope your Prince continues to take care of you and bring you good dreams. Miss Haruno…" Shin had been about to say something else but he felt his young friend's body leaning against him warmly and looked over to find that she had fallen back asleep. "Dear sweet girl…" he whispered.

Even very pregnant Sakura was still small and rather light, so Rock Shin didn't have any trouble carrying her back to her sleeping bag and tucking her in. He was heading back to the fire to sit for a few more minutes when two figures emerged from the shadowy woods in front of him.

"What was that all about?" one of them asked.

"Is she having trouble sleeping?" asked the other.

"Ah, Mister Uchiha, Mister Uzumaki," Shin greeted softly as the two boys stepped into the fire glow. "Miss Haruno just had something she needed to ask me to get it off of her chest. She's fine really. Why are you two awake?"

"Naruto had to pee," said Sasuke, sounding a bit annoyed. "And when he got up the dummy stepped on my hand and woke me up, and then I had to go too. So what's this thing that Sakura had to get off her chest? It wasn't something that would endanger her, was it?"

"Oh not at all," the old man replied. "Apparently your lovely teammate has somehow retained some small bits of subconscious memories of the attack thirteen years ago. It still has me quite baffled. I must say, the only way any trace of memory could have survived my seal is if she has some sort of stubborn alter ego inside her brain, desperately clinging to them. They're incomplete though." He let out a small chuckle. "It seems her mind has combined the two of you into one little boy that she considers to be her guardian angel."

"Did you tell her it was really us?" Naruto asked.

"I didn't think that was necessary," said Shin. "It seems to comfort her to think of him as her guardian angel. And besides that, I think she's finally getting over her nightmares about the monsters. I would hate to tell her anything that might trigger them to start again. Now, let us all get some sleep. Tomorrow is the last day of our journey!"

"I guess there's no use in pondering things now," said Sasuke. "As long as Sakura is happy and safe. Goodnight then."

"Yeah, goodnight," Naruto snorted softly. He definitely seemed more upset by what Shin told them than his teammate did.

Both young men returned to their sleeping bags on the ground near Sakura and fell back asleep easily. Sakura's talk with Rock Shin must have eased his mind, because he too fell quickly asleep, sitting up by the fire.

To be continued…