Chapter three
Everything you want

----

It took Naruto a good few hours to shape the inside of the hut into some semblance of order. In all honesty, he couldn't care less what the condition was like, but Sakura seemed like she needed something to distract her, and they wouldn't reach the nearest village at a suitable time even if they left now. He'd suggested this with their timeline in mind, putting aside further travelling till tomorrow, and somehow in all of that he'd managed to land himself with cleaning duty.

Luckily, he'd seen worse.

It wasn't that he was unhygienic. Far from it. Like any nin who'd had to wash the blood from his skin, he'd become fanatic about personal cleanliness, and when he wasn't on missions he showered twice a day. The lingering memories of the blood remained forever, but at least the smell dulled over time and at least he couldn't see the crimson stains when he glanced down at his hands.

No, he wasn't unhygienic. He was just...forgetful. And busy. And caught up in all sorts of things that sometimes forced him to be out of his kitchen for weeks at a time. Sometimes he got called away in the middle of preparing dinner. And it wasn't like that time he'd left the fridge open had been on purpose, or anything. Who would have thought that that many cockroaches could fit inside a milk carton? Man, Shino was never going to let him live that one down.

Come to think of it, Shino would have a field day with the varied species of bugs that seemed to have claimed the hut for their own. He disturbed a nest of cockroaches in one corner and beat down a colony of spiders from their webs in another. Mosquitoes hovered over the murky puddle above which Sakura was working, banging wood on the roof with what he could only interpret as malicious glee. He slapped one of the insects from his forearm, wincing at the tiny red splash on his skin. The bastards loved his blood, for some reason, and if he wanted to avoid waking up in lumps tomorrow, he'd have to get rid of them all, quick smart.

Sighing, he dropped to his knees beside the puddle and started mopping.

It was hard work and menial to boot, and he wasn't surprised to find his attention wandering at some point in the repetitive scrubbing. Wipe, wet, wring. Repeat. The bandage he was using turned a nasty shade of green and grew slippery in his hands, but he couldn't be bothered ruining another one. His thoughts drifted off and wandered back to Tsunade and her vague outline of this - in his opinion - bogus mission. What had she been thinking? Perhaps a better question would be, what had she been drinking?

Seriously. Their mission had apparently been assigned no rank, but if he was to hazard a guess, he'd made it a D. Genin could handle this stuff. Why were they being punished like this? It had been a very specific team assignment, as well. Just the two of them. With Kakashi off on some Stone country recon mission, it was all that remained of Team Seven.

Maybe that had something to do with the old woman's plans. It had been months, and the ache still wouldn't go away. He didn't think that it ever would. That's what happened when someone you'd given a piece of your heart to went away forever. They took that piece with them and it died when they did. Sasuke and Sakura had always had the biggest shares of his heart. Now a piece of Naruto was gone forever and he'd never be whole again.

A while back, after the aftermath, Kakashi had cornered him, interrupting the frenzied training he'd been trying to lose himself in, and tying him to a tree. Naruto had taken the loss very badly and it was a sign of how far he'd gone to have needed his teacher to restrain him in such a way.

"Don't snarl at me," Kakashi had said, a grim tilt to his eye. "I don't care if you're suffering. You're not the only one."

"He was my best friend!" Naruto had growled back, struggling against the wire.

Kakashi just blinked at him. "Of course he was. And you may even remember he was someone else's friend, as well." He gave him a meaningful look before dropping the wire and vanishing, as if disgusted with Naruto's very presence.

He'd sat in shock for a while, the raw edge of his grief fading somewhat from Kakashi's words. He'd been an arsehole and a fool, wallowing in his own pain. Sakura...what must Sakura be feeling? She'd been dry-eyed at the memorial service and he hadn't seen her since that time. She'd been hurting like he was, maybe even more, if he stopped to think. She'd loved Sasuke so much and for so long. She'd never given up hoping for his return. He had been more than a brother to her. He had been everything.

Naruto had to help her. He had to be strong. And if he had to lie and pretend everything was okay...then that was just what he had to do.

He rather thought he was succeeding, too, coming back to the present to find the puddle basically gone now, a damp patch on the floor the only legacy that remained. He rolled back to his feet and winced as feeling returned to his legs, before looking over the room, wondering what to tackle next. Still another hour or so of daylight. Best to get this done before then. He crossed to one of the bunk beds and starting batting away the cobwebs

The Baa-san will be hearing about this, he thought darkly. It wasn't right for a qualified shinobi to be relegated to cleaning duty. Even if their mission was a highly suspicious one, at that.

----

Sakura flipped the last plank onto the roof and slotted it into place, stepping back with chakra-sure footing to check her handiwork. Not bad. It wasn't quite as good as new, but she felt satisfied nonetheless. Not to mention it had been a relief to keep her hands and mind busy, distracted by real work.

She rubbed her palms together in a gesture of completion, suppressing a hiss at jagged snatching she could feel through her gloves. She glanced down and noted with dismay that a number of renegade splinters had left the wood to try their luck on her gloves. Some were sharper than she'd expected and had managed to pierce the black fabric. How ridiculous. She wore them to protect her hands from bruising and possible breakage, and yet a few measly splinters had power to slip right in.

Rolling her eyes, she jumped off the roof and sat cross-legged on the grass, removing her gloves to survey the damage. Two small ones in her left hand, and a long, wicked-looking one deeply embedded in her right. She gritted her teeth and got the first couple out with relative ease, before honing a needle-fine point of chakra from one finger and slicing carefully at her hand to withdraw the other. She was loathe to go too deep and settled with making the point of entry a little wider, before dismissing the chakra and pulling out the piece of wood with her fingernails. It came out and brought a bit of blood with it, but the wound was still clean and she closed it without a thought, skin hissing faintly under the application of chakra.

"Wow!" came Naruto's voice from right behind her, and she repressed the urge to wet herself at how close he'd managed to get without her knowledge. She hoped he'd only been able to surprise her because her body was used to his presence and regarded it as a friendly one. If that wasn't the case then she had lots more training to do. A ninja did not allow people to sneak up on them. The only ninja that did was a dead one.

She turned as soon as her heart stopped racing and found Naruto staring at her with wonderment. "That's amazing, Sakura-chan! I wish I had that much control over my chakra. I'd probably slice off my own arm if I was trying to heal it like that."

She flushed at the praise but waved it off. "It took me years to learn, Naruto. In the beginning, I sliced off more fish heads than I care to remember." Stupid fish. With their big staring eyes, distracting her.

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter, it's still amazing. Are you finished with the roof?"

She nodded and accepted the hand he offered to help her up. "Yup. If you need a hand inside I can work with you now."

His eyes sidled away. "We-ell, it's done. Sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?" Warning bells went off in her mind. He'd broken everything. Somehow he'd burnt the interior. Maybe the murky puddle held a water demon and he'd -

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan! I'll have the floor!" He said it grandly, but the words meant nothing to her, so she pushed past him into the cabin and got a good look at what he'd done.

The floor was clean. So were the walls and the small sink, close to the door. Even the storage cupboard to the side looked less musty than it had. She gave them all only a cursory glance before focusing on the large, smelly pile taking up one wall. "What the..." she breathed, moving over for a closer look.

The outpost huts always had two sets of bunk beds, because it was assumed a team would consist of four shinobi or less. If there were any more, it became more practical to make an encampment, regardless of the more sturdy shelter a hut could provide. This one had been no exception, and the spindly frames of the bunk beds were in their rightful places on opposite walls. What wasn't right were the three rotting mattresses that made a sloppy pile right near her feet.

"What happened?" she asked, breathing through her mouth.

Naruto scratched his head. "I cleaned the floors and stuff before I even thought of the beds, and when I got to them I found that they'd been ruined by the damp as well. The bottom two," he pointed, "were near the hole and are completely soggy and drenched, while the top one has...er...droppings on it and seems to have something living in it as well." As if on cue a large carpet snake slithered out of a tear in the fabric and regarded them both with unblinking eyes.

Sakura took a hasty step back. She hated snakes.

She turned to the last bunk, the bottom one on her right. There were a few stains across the cover but it at least looked like it could be slept on without too much hassle. "No snakes in that bed?" she asked.

Naruto shook his head. "Nope. This is the only one." Bored by their interchange, the carpet snake retreated back into its foamy nest and she found she could breathe again with it out of sight.

She grimaced. "Well, I guess there's nothing we can do. If you want to get rid of those, I'll see what we can have for dinner." All that chopping and pounding had made her hungry again. Carpentry was underrated.

"Okay," he replied, a trifle deflated. He rustled up a couple of Kage Bunshin and made them take the snake mattress, before putting his back into lugging out the other two. She watched from the corner of her eye, checking the cupboard for supplies.

Whatever else he'd been or would become, Naruto could always be counted on to put a smile on her face. The edges of her lips tickled and turned up, and she pulled two ramen packages from his bulging satchel. Usually she'd whinge at him for packing the noodles for a mission, but just for tonight she'd give it a rest. He'd done well and the place was habitable. The least he deserved was a serving of ramen.

----

Naruto splashed a bit of clean water over his hands after taking the mattresses outside. He wasn't quite sure what to do with them, and in the end, after extricating the stubborn carpet snake, he'd just dug a big hole and dumped them in the ground. Foam wasn't the best thing to burn and he couldn't just leave them to decompose in the open air. Hopefully burying was environmentally friendly. If not...well, too bad.

He wiped his hands on his pants and ducked through the splintered doorway. Sakura had been a tad too enthusiastic in her desire to get in and the poor door had copped the brunt of it. They'd need to find some more wood and knock together a new one but for the time being they could probably drape the unused tent across the gap. Hopefully they'd sense any enemy nin approaching them, and if a wild animal managed to find the hut, sneak in and eat them, then they deserved to get eaten.

Sakura had pulled out a camp stove from somewhere and a pot of water bubbled atop the gas. His mouth watered at the sight of the two waiting ramen bowls sitting open and ready at her side. Suddenly all his cleaning had been worth it. Sakura was not only eating ramen, but she'd instigated the meal as well.

He crossed to her and sat down, staring at the water with predatory intent. He could feel his lips turn up into a slightly manic grin but he didn't care. Ramen!

Sakura spied his face and sighed, but the gesture was a good-natured one and she was smiling again. "You're so easy to please, you know."

He nodded, only half-listening. "Yeah, and that's a bad thing?"

She started and almost dislodged the pot, barely managing to right it before boiling water spilled everywhere. She let her hair fall forward to cover her eyes and when she answered her voice was almost husky. "No. It's not a bad thing at all."

She said nothing further as she tipped the water into the bowls and replaced the lids, leaving them to sit while she turned off the gas. He was sorry to have said or done anything to take away the curve of her lips, something he'd seen all too rarely these last few months.

Still without looking up, she passed him a pair of chopsticks and pushed over a full bowl. "Eat up."

He took the food, and frowned at her, weary of these mood swings. "Whatever you're thinking, Sakura-chan, stop it."

She glanced up, looking surprised. Maybe it was his words or maybe it was the fact he'd put talking before eating. It didn't matter. He'd been starving but seeing her like this robbed him of his appetite.

"I can't stop it," she said, tears threatening suddenly. "I can't stop it any more than I can change it."

"You can change it," he replied obstinately. "Everyone has the power to change the future."

"And what of the past?" she asked brokenly. "I can't go back in time to make things all better."

"Then move on," he said ruthlessly, though it tore at him to do so. "No one can change the past but that's why we learn from it and walk forwards. The future comes to meet us with the past at our backs."

She blinked and a single tear spilled over, running down her smooth cheek before catching on the corner of her mouth. He stared at it and stupidly wished he could lean forward and track its path with his lips.

Idiot!

"I can't bring him back," she whispered, and he stopped thinking about tears and lips and thought about Sasuke instead. He felt his face grow hard.

"You know what, Sakura? You're being selfish."

Her mouth dropped open and he wondered if had been from the forgotten suffix or the cold, hard truth. He'd never spoken to her like this but someone had done it to him to open his eyes and it was time he did something to help her along. Cruel to be kind, right? He might be hurting them both but it had to be said.

"You're being really selfish," he continued, his own eyes glittering with unshed tears. "Kakashi-sensei got to me just after it happened and he told me the same thing about myself. He said he didn't care if I was suffering and that Sasuke hadn't been mine alone."

She blurred in his vision but he pushed on regardless. This had been building up between them for months, maybe years. Maybe he'd always wanted to shake her, make her listen, make her see reason about their team. "Look what's happened to you. You're pale and skinny, you never eat, I rarely see you train and you haven't been on a real mission since that time. What happened to the strong Sakura-chan I've always known? Were you ever more than a lovesick girl, or were you never a kunoichi in the first place?"

Maybe it was the tears or maybe he saw it coming but wanted it to happen anyway. Either way he took the slap without flinching, let her hand connect solidly with his face, the shock jarring the salt water from his eyes and letting it dribble down across her hand. His vision demisted and he saw her clearly, crouched right in front of him, fingers still spread across his cheek. She brought her other hand up and lay it against the other half of his face, smoothing her trembling fingers against the grooves that lined his features.

"I'm not strong," she sobbed, her head coming forward to rest on his shoulder. He stiffened at the contact and felt her warm breath against his neck, closing his eyes at their sudden proximity. He'd had dreams, but this wasn't quite right; there'd been less grief and more love and she'd been smiling like she used to, innocent and careless and free. And they'd done things because she wanted to and he'd been confident and secure with none of the helplessness or gaucheness that seemed to fill him up right now.

He brought a hand up and rubbed awkwardly at the small of her back, letting her hiccup into his chest. "You are strong," he corrected gently. "Someone smacked a big hole in the door and it sure as hell wasn't me."

She hiccuped again but it was a reluctant laugh as well. "Physically. But inside..."

"Inside is what keeps the outside running smooth," he said, bringing up his other arm so he cradled her shaking figure in both hands. This was okay, wasn't it? He wasn't being annoying or rude?

She pressed into him closer and he struggled to keep his racing heart from ripping though his ribcage. She was too near and yet not near enough, and her warm body and tickling hair were doing all the right things at this very wrong time.

"Sasuke," he said gruffly, and the name caught in his throat. "Sasuke had a dream. Something he worked towards with every fibre of his being. He made choices for that dream that didn't work out and it's our job to not to judge him but to remember him in our hearts and move on."

"A dream," she said contemplatively, her shudders slowing and finally stopping. Her breath fanned out over his collarbone and he resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably, something that would no doubt shatter the moment. He could endure this. He would. Who knew when the chance would ever come again. She sniffed and slid one hand down his face, moving it around his chest and encircling his back. "You have a dream, don't you? You want to be Hokage."

"Want to? I will be Hokage." He spoke with a joking confidence and felt her lips turn up against his skin. "You have a dream too, right, Sakura-chan?"

She was quiet for a long while, her breathing growing steady and slower until he thought she might be asleep. "Yes," she said softly, almost startling him. "I want to be the best that I can be, so you all will be proud of me. That you'll one day see my back instead of the other way around."

He glanced down at her back, a tad confused. "You have a very nice back, Sakura-chan," he offered diplomatically, and she shook a little against his chest.

"Not like that, silly," she murmured drowsily, and he wondered what she meant. "Just wanted you both to be proud."

He moved a hand from her back and stroked over her hair. "I've always been proud of you," he said softly. "And he said something like that as well, remember?"

She didn't answer and it seemed like she'd finally given into sleep, her torso resting uncomfortably against him with her legs still kneeling on the floor. He moved and tried to put her down in a position more conducive to rest but she grunted and gripped his shirt, strangely unwilling to be separated from him. He stayed in that position for a bit longer, until his legs became dangerously numb, and then he moved her, very carefully, slipping her head into the crook of his arm and draping the rest of her body across his lap. She murmured something before nosing her face into his armpit and then she stilled, apparently satisfied with her bed for the night.

She was always pretty, had always been to him, and he allowed himself a selfish moment while she slept to trace his fingers down her cheeks. She'd always been the only girl in the world for him, and all he'd ever be to her was her teammate, and her pillow. He allowed himself a tight smile before reaching out to the cooling ramen, picking up the bowl and using her stomach as a makeshift table. Sakura had been exhausted, but that didn't mean he had to drift straight off to sleep.

He unsnapped the chopsticks and stirred the noodles through the broth, bringing the lukewarm food to his mouth. "Itadakimasu," he mumbled, voice loud in the quiet hut, and then he ate, chewing slowly and carefully without tasting a thing.

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Woot! Over the halfway mark now, only two chapters left. Remember this isn't supposed to have much of a plot at all - it's just an exercise in exploring Naruto and Sakura's feelings. I hope no one got too caught up in their mission and the reasoning behind it - everything is just a convenient device to get them closer together. :)

Thanks to sureasdawn and DarkenedSakura for beta-ing, and Nushi for being awesome. Thanks also to everyone who read and reviewed and I've been overwhelmed by the response so far! I hope everyone enjoys this latest installment, and I'll see you in a few days.