Disclaimer: Naruto was created by Kishimoto, alas not me.

(Track 4)

Chapter 4: Home

A few months later.

"Hey! Sakura!"

Sakura turned around to see Ino trying to catch up with her. "Hey, stranger!" she called back. She was on her way home for the evening. "What's up?" They still aren't nearly as close of friends as they were before their 'rivalry', but ever since the prelims of the Chuunin exam they've hung out together, on good terms, every so often. Ino's mostly been busy training and going on missions with her team, while Sakura has spent most of her time training with Tsunade.

"Chouji, Shikamaru, and I are going to grab some BBQ for dinner, want to join us?"

"Um, sure! Let me just run home and ask my mom."

"I'll come with you," she offered. So the pair walked off together in the direction of Sakura's apartment.

Before Ino had interrupted her thoughts, Sakura had been mentally running through all that's happened between her and Sasuke since they got married. He had visited 3 more times since that first night, and while things have gone more smoothly in a certain department, he has barely said more than 2 words to her each time. It's always he stops by her room, they meet at the tree, do their thing, and then 'I'll probably be back in a few weeks. See you then,' as he leaves.

Sakura sighed at the thought. She did think that their time 'together' last night was different somehow. He didn't do or say anything different, just the same routine as the previous 2 times, but it was almost as if his demeanor had changed slightly. Or, maybe a better way to put it is he didn't act quite so detached. Sakura thought she had caught the smallest hint of affection from him, although, it might have just been hormones.

What am I doing? Sakura thought to herself. It sounds like I only care about what Sasuke thinks and feels. Maybe my mom is right, and I should worry more about myself. Everything I've done has always been related to him, and what has it got me? Well, obviously a marriage, but it's not a very satisfying one, that's for sure. Do I regret agreeing to it in the first place?

She didn't come up with an answer for that question, so she came up with a question she could answer, Am I satisfied living my life only trying to please others, Sasuke in particular? No, I think it's time for a little change. Of course, I still want him back, as in back in Konoha and a part of our team where he belongs – I won't give up on that. But this is killing me being so focused on him all the time when he's hardly around, not to mention getting so little in return even when he is here. I will still do everything I can for him, but that doesn't mean it has to be the whole of who I am anymore.

It was at that point in her thoughts that she heard Ino calling her name. Having dinner out with friends sounded like it'd be a fun time, so she made a conscious decision to go.

"Thanks for letting me go, Mom." Sakura and Ino stood in the doorway of Sakura's apartment, ready to depart for the restaurant.

"Of course I'll let you. I'm just glad to see you being social for once. You'll never get a boyfriend if you don't do anything but train all the time," her mother counseled.

"Stop it, Mom. You can be so embarrassing."

"That's what mothers are for. Anyway, it's good to see you, Ino. You're welcome over any time you want for dinner."

"Thanks Mrs. Haruno. I'll ask my mom about sometime next week. See you later!" Ino called as she started to walk down the hall.

"Bye, Mom. I'll probably just be gone for a few hours."

"No hurry. Just remember to have fun while you're out."

"Mom!" Sakura wined.

"Ok, ok, I'm going back inside and leaving you alone," she conceded. Her mother smiled as the two girls walked away, chatting cheerfully with each other. It was good to see her daughter laughing again.

Everything went smoothly at dinner, except for having to fight Chouji for a fair share of the food and Ino trying to hide her irritation due to Shikamaru's absence and his excuses of Chuunin exam tasks.

Not wanting the fun to end, Sakura decided to walk home with Ino before returning herself. Stretching her arms above her head, Sakura commented, "That was a lot of fun. We should do that more often."

"Yeah, we really should. It'd be nice to have a girl to talk to for a change. Guys are great, but you can't really chat with them about stuff outside the realm of ninjitsu," Ino chuckled.

"Amen to that. Speaking of which, I wanted to get your opinion on something."

"Shoot."

"Do you think I should cut my hair short? I've had it long for a while now, I just feel like it's time for a change."

"Yeah, I really liked your hair when you cut it in the Forest of Death."

They both paused in the conversation at the awkward reference to the past.

Clearing her throat, Ino continued. "What I meant was, I think you look grown up with short hair. You could try putting in some layers and curling them out. I saw that on a poster, and I bet it'd look really cute on you."

"You're sure you're not just saying this because of 'the rumor', and this is your attempt at getting rid of some of the competition?" Sakura joked.

"Huh? Rumor?" Ino put her finger to her chin and thought for a few minutes. "Oh! You're talking about that time when someone spread around the rumor that Sasuke liked girls with long hair! Haha, I can't believe how gullible we were back then! Haha, but no. No ulterior motives, I promise." She even lifted her hand as a sign of swearing the truth.

Although Sakura was the one who started the joke, Ino noticed she dropped her smile slightly at the mention of her former teammate. "Hey, are you ok? I mean, dealing with Sasuke's absence and all. I know how much he meant to you, being part of your team and all. Forget past rivalries, if you need to talk, I'm here for you. You know that, right?"

"Yeah."

Ino gave Sakura a squeeze. "You don't have to say anything now. But whenever you need a friend."

Sakura desperately wanted to tell Ino everything. Not just about how she was feeling, but everything about the marriage and their relationship. Well, maybe not everything. Some things should definitely remain private. She really needed someone to talk to about it, though, so she wouldn't feel so crazy all the time. Somehow even things like what she was currently enduring seemed to make more sense when you had a girl to share it with. But, she had made a promise to him, so she swallowed the urge and changed the subject. "So what's up with Shikamaru?"

Ino's face scrunched up at the comment. "I know, he's always so busy with the Chuunin exam stuff all the time! I bet it's really that girl from the Sand. She's in town right now, you know. He probably likes her or something, so he blows us off for her instead."

"I think you might be jumping to conclusions. Shikamaru doesn't seem to be the type to put effort toward any girl," she consoled. "I'm sure he still cares about you guys."

"Yeah, maybe."

They had reached Ino's home.

"Well, I guess maybe I'll see you sometime next week for dinner. I definitely don't want to get on your mom's bad side by ignoring her invite."

"Yeah, tell me about it. It'll be fun, though," Sakura assured.

"Ok, well, good night."

"Good night, Ino."

Ino opened the door and stopped. "I really think a short haircut would look good on you."

Sakura smiled to acknowledge her recommendation as she waved good bye and turned to go home.

A few weeks after that.

"Sakura."

"Yes?" she responded to Tsunade.

"That Naruto kid, it seems like he's returned to Konoha," she informed with a smile. It appeared even Godaime Hokage was eager to see the brat again.

As the pair walked out into the street in search of him him, a millions thoughts raced through Sakura's mind. She was desperate to see how much Naruto had grown, how strong he had become.

Assuming Naruto's feelings on the subject hadn't changed, she was aching to tell him about Sasuke. How he had returned to her at least, so there was hope he wasn't completely lost to them.

"AHHHH! Sa-Sakura-chan?" brought Sakura out of her contemplations.

She turned around to look behind her. "Eh? Naruto!" she pointed in shock.

They didn't have long to catch up, though, before Kakashi-sensei cheerfully called for a repeat of the bell training (of course, that wasn't until after Sakura got in a good punch on Naruto for being perverted). This time however, the bell training would last overnight, and they eagerly lived up to the challenge. They had the next day off before being assigned their first mission as a team again, and it was that night that Sakura heard a familiar tap at her balcony window.

Ah, there's Sasuke. Sakura opened her window to find a Naruto.

"Naruto! What are you doing here? You do know what time it is, don't you? And at my bedroom window?"

"That's why I'm at your window. Because it's so late. I didn't want to wake your parents. See, Sakura-chan, I was thinking ahead!"

"Not so loud!" Sakura hushed. "And what do you want anyway since you already woke me up?"

"Huh? Oh, I just stopped by to see if you were excited about our first mission tomorrow," he replied in a quieter but still excited voice. "I hope it's an awesome one, very dangerous."

Sakura yawned. "That's what you came here for? Well, you know Tsunade-sama will probably start us off with just a small mission, such as a standard escort or some kind of delivery, so go home and try to contain your excitement," she ordered sternly.

Naruto sulked in response, but wished Sakura good night before hesitatingly heading on his way. Sakura lay back down in her bed and was just about to fall back to sleep when she heard another tap at her window.

"I swear, if Naruto doesn't keep his endless supply of energy to himself, I'm going to punch him home from here," she muttered under her breath as she pushed off her covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed a second time. Opening her window, she started, "Naruto, I don't know what could be so import…oh, Sasuke-kun. It's you."

Not exactly the greeting he was expecting, but he quickly recovered. "Let's go." And with that, he leapt off her balcony and back into the night.

"Wait!" Sakura tried to call, but he was already out of ear shot. "Crap. He won't be happy, but I guess I'll just have to explain it there," she spoke to herself. She jumped off the balcony and made her way to the usual meeting place.

When Sasuke caught sight of Sakura, he immediately started taking off his shirt until he noticed something. "Sakura, why didn't you bring the blankets?" Sasuke questioned when she arrived.

"That's what I was trying to tell you. I'm on my period. And I don't care how much you insist, the answer is no." Apparently PMS helped her in her resolve to stand up for herself at least a little.

"I wouldn't have asked. That's gross," he replied as he put his shirt back on.

"Um, good." So much for standing up to him.

"So, uh, how long do these things last?" he questioned, a light blush tinting his cheeks. Why does talking about this kind of stuff have to be so damn awkward?

"About a week. I should be done in a few days."

"I see. Well, I might be able to stop by again in a week or so. See you-"

"NO!" Sakura interrupted. "You're not just leaving. Ok, so we can't have sex. But you said this was a real marriage, and guess what, married people talk to each other. So since I already came out here to meet you, you're going to stay, and we're going to talk." Sakura hated how emotional she got this time of the month, but in this case, she was grateful to not particularly care how Sasuke would react at the moment.

Sasuke didn't know what to make of Sakura's defiant attitude. Of course, thus far she had gone along willingly with all of the terms of the marriage he had set without question, so he supposed it wouldn't hurt to do this for her. "Fine." He sat down on the ground and leaned back on his hands.

"Eh? You mean you will? Wow, ok, wasn't expecting that." She sat down next to him, knees pulled up to her chin. "So….uh, how have you been?"

"Can we not talk about me?"

"Ok….what do you want to talk about then?"

"Um, I don't know. You think of something. This was your idea, you know."

Sakura twirled her hair for a minute. "Do you want to know about the team?"

"Sure," he replied in a manner that showed he really wasn't interested. "Tell me about Naruto and Kakashi-sensei."

"Actually," she started, pausing to think, "I couldn't really tell you anything about either of them. Naruto just got back yesterday, and since I was the only one left in Konoha, I didn't see much of Kakashi-sensei due to a lack of a team. In fact, I've probably seen you more often than I've seen them."

"Then why'd you suggest it?"

"I don't know, I couldn't think of anything else. Last night Naruto and I did the bell training with Kakashi-sensei again, though," she said with a smile. "That was fun."

"Did you get a bell?"

"Of course! We both did together, although we had to fall back on a cheap trick. So we didn't exactly defeat him with your standard set of jutsu."

"I see."

"But we've actually improved. Honest."

"Sure."

"You don't believe me?"

"Huh?" Sasuke got lost in the conversation. When did this turn back on me? I was just agreeing with her the whole time. "I'm sure you've improved after 2 and a half years."

"You don't believe me." This time it wasn't a question. She lifted her head up to stare him straight in the face.

"I just said I did. What do you want from me?"

Ok, Sakura. Calm down. Don't let your emotions get the better of you. Let's just deal with this rationally. "Do you need to spar with me or something for me to prove it?" she challenged instead of being rational. "You know, it's not like I've done nothing. Ever since you left I've done nothing but training. I'm sorry if I'm not a natural-born genius like some ninja here, but I've been working hard and I think you need to appreciate that!"

"Are you drunk?"

"No, I'm just upset that you assume I'm still at the same level as when you left!" she yelled back, leaning in slightly.

"You're the one assuming here. I never said that at all!" he yelled back, sitting up straight so he was close to her face. Now even Sasuke was starting to get a little bothered. "You want to fight? Then let's fight so that you can let this go and then we can drop the subject."

"Ok!" Sakura jumped up cheerfully. "After you," Sakura offered.

I really don't get girls. Sasuke walked out from under the tree and turned to face Sakura.

Sakura put her finger to her chin in a contemplative fashion. "Now, we don't want to draw any attention because we're not that far from the village, and we probably shouldn't leave any signs of damage. So I think it's best if during the fight we stick to just taijutsu. No weapons, either."

"Fine with me."

"You can still use your sharingan if you like," she offered.

"Sure, whatever. Whenever you're ready."

"I'm ready. Go ahead."

"This was your idea, why don't you make the first attack?"

"Why do I have to? Why don't you?"

An extremely annoyed expression appeared on Sasuke's face. With a grunt of frustration, he charged in to throw a basic punch in her direction. His eyes widened in surprise when she didn't make any moves to dodge or block his attack. He must have attacked too fast, but it was too late to pull the punch back as it landed smack into her…bunshin? When did she do that? he wondered.

From the smoke cloud of the disappearing clone lunged a punch-readied Sakura. Sasuke reacted in time to only be grazed by her punch. However, that was enough to send him flying through the forest.

Crap! Sakura thought as she saw him soaring headfirst toward a rock and took off sprinting past him to catch him before he would crash into it. Molding chakra in her feet, she ran up the rock and protruded horizontally from it, ready for the impact, when she looked up just in time to see he had twisted himself around and his feet were ready to collide with her face. She should have known he could handle himself, but it was too late to think about that now, and it was too late to dodge; all she could do was crouch down and fling her arms up in defense. But Sasuke had caught what she had done and threw his arms down to slide his hands along the ground, which enabled him to change his momentum and propel his legs up in the air in time to miss kicking his wife in the face. He slid to a halt centimeters from her in a handstand position.

After a few seconds and no impact, Sakura slowly opened one pale green eye, and then the other when she saw that instead of his feet colliding into her, his stomach was stopped right in front of her. She breathed a sigh of relief and stepped down from the rock as he righted himself. Her relief didn't last long, though, when she saw blood running down both his hands.

"Here let me take care of that for you," she offered, pointing to his hands. Sasuke presented them to her. "Sorry about that. I guess I should have realized you didn't need my help," she apologized while pulling out some medical supplies she had on her to clean the wounds before healing them. She always carried her supplies and weapons in case they were ever discovered. "But after you fell for the bunshin and failed to completely dodge my punch, I thought maybe you weren't as good as I remembered. It's a good thing I pulled the punch as much as I did," Sakura rambled.

"That wasn't full force!" exclaimed a shocked Sasuke. His hands stung, but not too bad. "So uh, when did you create the clone, by the way?" he tried to ask casually.

Sakura giggled a little. "When you walked out from under the tree in front of me. I was still under there the whole time until I jumped out with the punch." She finished cleaning up the blood and started applying medical jutsu. "I thought I might be able to pull it off if you didn't use your sharingan. That's why I offered for you to use it. I figured you purposely wouldn't use it out of pride. I still didn't think I had much chance of success, though, but I guess it worked."

"It only worked because I wasn't expecting you to do something like that," he defended. "You said taijutsu only, and bunshin is ninjutsu. Hey, when did you learn how to do that?" he asked referring to the healing jutsu.

"I said during the fight to only use taijutsu. I made the clone before the fight started. It's not my fault you didn't think to make preparations. Besides, as a ninja, you should always be ready for anything," she countered. "And I'm a medical-nin now," she added in response to his question.

"Fine, but that was obviously a chakra-enhanced punch, and I wouldn't necessarily categorize that as strictly taijutsu either."

"That's simply chakra control, it doesn't change the classification."

"Whatever."

"You're done."

"What?"

"Your hands. They should be healed now. Do they still hurt?"

"No, they're fine now. Um, thanks."

"Well, it was the least I could do since you got injured on account of me."

"Yeah."

"That was still cheap, with the clone."

"Yeah, I guess it was, wasn't it? Hehe."

"That's definitely something like what Naruto would have pulled." He smiled as he said that.

"Hey! Don't compare me to that pervert," she scoffed.

"Pervert? What did he do?"

"Well, actually I don't know what he was going to do. I punched him before he had the chance to do it."

They both looked at each other and laughed. "Some things haven't changed at all, have they?" Sasuke commented.

"Some things have changed. You know, Sasuke-"

"So do you still want to have that fight? This time I'll set the rules. Taijutsu and genjutsu allowed, along with any non-destructive ninjutsu like kawarimi and bunshin. Oh, and no smashing through anything with your chakra-enhanced taijutsu. That's just as bad for leaving damage. Now we'll see how well you hold up," he challenged, almost playfully.

"Ok, but I don't want to hear any whining from you this time," she responded playfully.

"I was NOT whining."

"Of course you weren't. So are you going to start or what?"

"Oh, you're going to get it this time," he warned as he charged in and kicked a log. Damn, she's fast with kawarimi. I can't follow it without using my sharingan.

He easily dodged her punch and followed in with a counter. Apparently not paying enough attention to her surroundings, Sakura tripped over something as she was pushed back and, losing her balance, fell to the ground. Funny, I didn't think there was anything behind me. Not wanting to go down peacefully, she swung her leg around to sweep his legs out from under him, but when she connected it felt like hitting a rock. Ah, he must have used genjutsu. "Kai!" she called out to release herself from the illusion. Yup, I just tried to sweep a rock. Good thing I know medical jutsu, otherwise that would have left a very noticeable mark in the morning.

She jumped up and looked around, her eyes searching for him among the trees. Not seeing any signs, she started to think that maybe he had just decided to leave when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. He flew in quickly at her and arced in a punch for her stomach with his left fist, but she effortlessly caught the angle with her left hand. Throwing his right fist over top his left arm, he had no hope of getting it past her right hand. He then smirked as he launched himself in the air. Since his arms were crossed, he easily rotated his body, and since her hands were previously occupied blocking his punches, there was no resistance for him to wrap his legs around her neck. Taking advantage of her surprise, he freed his hands so he could use the ground as leverage to flip her onto her back.

Quickly getting up onto his knees, he pulled her up into a chokehold with one arm and locked up her arms with the other. "There. So what are you going to do now?"

"This," she replied as she demonstrated her flexibility by swinging her leg up and hooking it around his neck to try to force him down to the ground. Unfortunately, he had a tight grip on her and she ended up only get her leg stuck. Had this been a real fight, of course, she would have just taken his head off with a chakra-boosted swing of her leg, but she certainly didn't want to decapitate her husband.

She sighed as she did the only thing she could think of to get out of the awkward position. With her arms locked behind her back, she reached out with her fingers in search of a ticklish spot on his stomach. And then what started out as a serious fight turned into half an hour of playful grappling with the full arsenal of tickling, hair pulling, and biting.

"Ow, ow! Ok, ok, I give up," Sakura pleaded as Sasuke found a particularly ticklish spot while having a firm grip on her hair. "I said I give up already!"

"So you agree that I win?"

"Yes, yes. You won. Please, it hurts from laughing so much," she begged.

"All right then," he relented his hold with a triumphant smile.

"Whew. That was fun, even though I lost," she commented.

"Yeah…well, I've been here a while, I should get back. I probably won't stop by again for a few weeks. See you then." And he was suddenly gone.

Sakura sighed as she stood up to return home as well. At least, he's not completely cold-hearted, she thought. He even laughed. Still, he disappears so abruptly. I'll have to do something about that next time. Yawning on her way back, she hoped she wouldn't be too tired for tomorrow's assignment. At least it should be an easy one.