A/N: Okay everyone, I'm back with yet another chapter. This is for all you SasuSaku fans. For all of you who don't know, this will be mostly a NejiTen and SasuSaku fic with some NaruHina and ShikaIno. Hope I'll be able to update this quick all the time. Oh yeah, and if you're reading this fic, please leave a review. It really encourages me and helps me know what you guys are thinking. Thanks! Hope everyone enjoys this chapter!

Chapter 2: Reality

He frowned as he noticed that Tenten had already arrived and was standing silently at the edge of the clearing. Silently, he berated himself on his lack of awareness. If she had been an enemy he would have been dead by now.

Why isn't she coming out yet? he wondered while still throwing shiruken at random targets.

Finally, he decided to acknowledge her presence and turned around, his face impassive. "Are you just going to stand there all day?"

She looked surprised for a moment, but it was instantly covered up with a teasing smile. "Is it so wrong for a mere mortal to admire the greatness of the Hyuuga Neji?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm and playfulness. Of course he would notice you, she scolded herself inwardly. He must think you're a lunatic!

"Hn," he replied, turning his back to her, and pocketing the shiruken he held in his hand. "Are we going to train or not." It wasn't a question.

"Of course," she said, already pushing the disturbing thoughts she had been thinking while staring at her teammate out of her mind. She jumped into the trees silently.

And with a flash of steel, they began their training.

A long pale hand reached out to grab him. A snake with sharp fangs. Orochimaru. Blood. The stench of death. The red wheels of the Sharingan. Itachi. A flash of metal in the moonlight. Empty, haunted eyes framed by cold, pale faces. Blood.

Sasuke woke with a start, his hand already reaching for the sword that wasn't there. His calculating gaze swept the room, looking for the movement of an enemy. He blinked when all that met his eyes were white, plastered walls and a beeping heart monitor.

A dream. It was just that same damn dream. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the gory images of dead bodies. Tried to block out the memories of his blood stained past. It had been eight years. Eight long years since he had left—no, betrayed—Konoha. Eight long years since he had left that desperate crying girl lying on a bench on a cloudy summer night.

He looked around the white, empty walls. He was safe now. He was in Konoha. He was back home. And something in his heart relaxed at the thought. Of course, he knew that his betrayal would not go unpunished. He would probably be executed before a week had passed . . .

But he couldn't bring himself to fully regret what he had done. He had killed Itachi and Orochimaru, the biggest threats to Konoha. And now the world was rid of practically every evil thing that existed. Now that Itachi and Orochimaru were dead, their followers would disband and would no longer be a major threat to Konoha.

But what about the things he had had to give up. All the things he had left behind. What about Sakura and Naruto and Kakashi? What about Konoha?

He thought back to that night so long ago. Leaving Konoha had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do. Harder than mastering Orochimaru's brutal techniques, harder than acting like he was evil to the core, harder, even, than killing all of those innocent people. It would have been hard enough, just walking out on the village he grew up in to join its enemy, but Sakura . . . Sakura just had to make it harder. He could still hear her voice in his head, so full of tears and devotion, crying—begging—him to stay.

He had never told anyone, but crying girls were just something he couldn't deal with. Especially not crying girls with pink hair and green eyes.

He had had to repeat in his head 'It's for their own good, it's for their own good,' over and over again while she was pleading with him. God, he had to knock her out just to make sure he kept his resolve. Because he wanted to protect them. He wanted to protect her.

That was something that surprised him the most. Even though he told himself, 'This is for revenge. This is for me,' the only thing he thought about in his hardest times was them (smiling emerald eyes) That he was doing this to protect them (her sweet laughter) so that they (she) would be safe.

He frowned. In the end, he just wasn't as selfish and violent as he thought himself to be.

"Sasuke . . . " He resisted the urge to jump as the hoarse, desperate whisper reached his ears. Something soft and warm shifted on the bed and he turned sharply to find the last thing he expected.

"Sakura," he breathed, almost reverently, almost alarmed at the fact that he hadn't noticed her presence before.

"Sasuke . . ." she spoke again in that tearful sort of whisper. "No . . ." she shifted again so that he could see her face. His eyes widened at the tears that ran down her cheeks. "Don't . . . leave . . ."

Something inside of him twisted at the words. Sakura was crying . . . because of him . . . again.

I should wake her . . . but— his hand reached out to touch her hair and the moment his fingers made contact with her face she shot up, her wide green eyes instantly locking with his onyx ones as she instinctively tightened her grip around his own hand.

It seemed as if time stood still when she looked into his eyes. The same eyes she remembered. The same eyes she could lose herself in without a second thought. Sasuke's eyes. He was really here. He was really back home. It wasn't a dream. He was here, and he was safe and she would never let him leave again. "Sasuke," she whispered, her eyes still locked with his.

There were a few, brief seconds of tranquility when everything was right in her world, and then, reality came crashing down.

Sasuke wasn't hers. He never would be; never could be. He didn't love her—and she didn't love him. She was done crying. She was done with him. She didn't love him anymore.

She instantly let go of his hand as if it burned, furiously wiping the tears from her eyes and talking a mile a minute to fill up the silence (because perhaps even after eight years, some old habits never change.) "Sasuke, I'm so sorry. It was just that I came here to visit and I just fell asleep here. It's awfully busy at work you know and I've just been so tired lately and I really didn't mean to stay the night and sometimes, well, you see, I get nightmares . . ." She trailed off at this part, her eyes trained intently on the white hospital bed sheets.

She obviously hadn't realized that she had been talking of these said nightmares in her sleep, and Sasuke didn't even think of telling her.

In fact, Sasuke wasn't thinking much of anything at the moment. All he could do was sit there and wonder how he could have ever forgotten how...nice, her eyes were. He did not use words such as 'beautiful' or 'pretty' to describe them (though, secretly, that's what he thought they were) because Uchiha Sasuke just didn't use words like that.

And as the silence in his room stretched and thickened, all he could do was bask in the memory of her voice, so completely and utterly Sakura. In fact, everything about her was still the same Sakura he had left behind; sweet and pink and naïve.

Yet, he couldn't help but notice the way her soft pink hair had seemed to have gotten even softer and silkier (though she still kept it relatively short) than he ever remembered. (In the very back of his mind he wondered how it would feel between his rough, calloused fingers.) And how she had filled out in all the right places and the way her lips—

"Sasuke?" Her melodic voice broke through his thoughts. She leaned forward, forgetting her shyness in worry for her ex-teammate. "Are you alright? Should I get the nurse?"

His brain shut down as he inhaled her scent. She smelt like wildflowers and the cool, spring breeze. She smelt like innocence and purity, everything he was not. He leaned in closer to her so that their noses were almost touching, trying to get more of that glorious scent, more of her. He knew that he shouldn't touch her, he shouldn't taint her; but he couldn't help himself. It was as if his body moved on its own, drawn in by her emerald eyes and her skin and the way her breath mingled perfectly with his.

As if waking up from a dream, she blinked and abruptly pulled away, wincing slightly as if he had burnt her. Her breathing came in ragged gasps as she eyed him with so many emotions running through her eyes that he couldn't decipher a single one.

"I need to go." She stood up so quickly that she knocked over the chair, but she didn't seem to notice. "I need to go now." She practically ran out the door, quickly closing it behind her.

Sasuke stared at the door in shock. What had just happened? What was I thinking? Damn it! I almost kissed her! He frowned at the memory. He had always had a . . . soft spot for the pink-haired kunoichi, but when had it gotten this bad? But…she smelled so…nice, his mind countered convincingly.

He shook the thoughts from his head. No, he couldn't even begin to think of Sakura like that. She was annoying and she was noisy and whiny and weak. And he had much more important things to think about, like if he was even gonna be alive long enough to see her again.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the door was opened and an unfamiliar chuunin poked his head through the door meekly, obviously a little afraid of the S-class missing nin. "Uchiha Sasuke, Tsunade-sama will see you in two days, when you are fully recovered from your, er, injuries." The chuunin's eyes glanced down at the numerous bandages that covered the raven-haired man. Sasuke glared at him, and the boy audibly squeaked, shutting the door quickly. Obviously, word of Sasuke's insane strength had reached Konoha.

"Hn, pathetic," he muttered to himself.

A trial, huh? Should be interesting.

To be continued…

A/N: So, how was it? Hope you enjoyed it. Tell me if I did alright on the SakuSaku part. Please leave me a review. It brightens up my whole day! (And it might encourage me to update faster.) wink, wink Thanks for reading! See ya next time!