Update (I know it's been a long time): I completely reuploaded what I have so far of this story. So many grammatical errors...I'm surprised anyone was able to understand it (and there's probably still some that I missed.)

Schism

Summertime Sadness

—"I know the pieces fit,

Because I watched them fall away"

They had left in the summer; when the flowers were at their peak of violent colors and the trees robust with evergreen leaves. The incalescent sun bringing sweltering dog days and lazy roaming bugs the total antithesis of how much that day had impacted. How much that day had hurt.

She was left, in loneliness, with a deep sadness saturating down to her bone marrow. People always described pain of the heart as sharp, like a knife, but to her it felt more like a weight. She was Atlas, holding up the world on her shoulders, but the only world which had come crashing was hers. She knew that she shouldn't have let their departure leave a void, knew that they never valued her strength into their numbers, but nonetheless she had ached. The pressure securely pinned her down in one bitter state of mind and wouldn't budge.

I wasn't good enough.

The anger had simmered beneath the surface of her consciousness, left unrecognized for her benefit as much as anyone else's, until it had transitioned into utter indifference.

Nevertheless, she persisted for five more years…

…because it was only fitting that they would return with the summer, as the summer had fled with them the day they left.

…

"Do you think she hates us?" asked Naruto, looking up at the stars from his horizontal position on the springy grass.

A musky wind blew through their campsite, bringing the smell of the late summer night and the chirping of the enthused black crickets.

There was no need to add context to his question with a name; they all knew whom he spoke of. The day they had left was branded into each of their minds, not because they had left their home village, but because they had left their teammate in the process, not knowing the damage they would cause.

Kakashi shifted restlessly next to him, but he was not the one who answered.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she did," replied Sasuke quietly, face pointed upwards towards the night skies, too.

"We should not have left as we did," Sai intoned, hands twitching for something to occupy his mind besides these pinching thoughts.

Sasuke moved in discomfiture because he had left before them and in a much more unforgivable way.

"We can't do anything about that now though, so there's no point in discussing it," Sasuke retorted, a bit of bite to his tone.

Naruto replied, voice curt, "Well, it seems like you don't even care that much anyways."

A long silence.

"I care," came his voice, soft and inoffensive like the summer breeze.

Kakashi sighed heavily. "Sasuke's right—there's no reason to talk about what's already been done. We'll arrive back to Konoha tomorrow and then we'll see…she might not be as dissonant as we think. We might just be overreacting."

"We'll make her see," Naruto muttered, turning over to try and catch a rest or two before the night finished. "She'll understand."

The crickets' song, once soothing, now turned inharmonious in the quiet clearing.

…

Sakura stormed up the steps, a maelstrom thundering towards the Hokage's office. She gritted her teeth in annoyance and kept at her stomping pace. She passed by Shizune carrying a stack of papers as said woman shrunk away from Sakura in an attempt to be less conspicuous. Sakura by-passed her with a quick nod of her head—Shizune was not the one who indulged her ire.

"Is shishou in her office?" she asked tersely.

"I don't know, I just came from the files office," Shizune responded speedily, not wanting to be in the immediate attention of Sakura's righteous stare any longer than necessary.

"Does she have any important meetings at the moment?"

"Nope," Shizune delivered promptly, edging away. "What's wrong, Sakura?"

"You know what's wrong." Another nippy reply.

Shizune stopped trying to scuttle out of view and sighed. She looked to Sakura with coal-colored eyes, "You know Tsunade-sama is only trying to do what's best."

"He was my patient."

"I think being Head Medic and Hokage to Konohagakure overrides that fact," Shizune supplied helpfully.

"Well it shouldn't!" came Sakura's intelligent rebuttal. She threw her hands in the air in exasperation "Shizune," she whined, "what the hell?"

"There's nothing I can do about it!" Shizune spluttered hastily.

"I know that," Sakura voiced, "I just—ugh!" She turned away. "I'm going to go talk to her."

"Good luck with that," Shizune grumbled under her breath, knowing Tsunade to be stubborn as the recurrently nagging weeds that grew through the concrete on her patio every summer. "Take her sake away if she doesn't listen! She drinks way too much of that stuff anyways!" Shizune called after her in a louder voice. "Don't tell her I told you that!"

Sakura waved absentmindedly at her as she walked away, not turning as she did so. "Yeah, Shizune, I think I'll do that even if she does listen. Thanks."

Sakura walked faster, seeing her destination was in reach, and wrenched open the office door, flying inside, arms at the ready.

Maybe if she hadn't been currently residing in her thundercloud of indignance she might have noticed the familiar-but-not-so-familiar-anymore chakra inside the office before bursting in with such enthusiasm. As it was, the first person she saw upon entering the sunny office was Tsunade herself, no doubt having sensed her incoming chakra, with her hands folded demurely beneath her chin and a languid smile adorning her mouth. Next, she saw Gaara, standing next to her with slow blinking eyes. She assumed it was about time for the two to sit down for their annual meeting and attributed Gaara's presence thusly.

"You discharged my patient from the hospital without even asking me about his current injuries and the first thing you do is send him on a mission," Sakura accused rightly, fists bunched on her hips clothed by her white lab coat. Then, remembering her manners, bowed a quick "Hokage-sama" and "Kazakage-sama" which was reciprocated by the latter with a greeting of his own and then got back to business.

Tsunade beat her to the punch and spoke before Sakura could continue her deluge. "I needed Kin specifically for the mission he is presently on," Tsunade replied agreeably, smile still in place. "Rest assured though, I readdressed his injuries myself before sending him."

"Shishou," Sakura pleaded, "he had two lacerations on his upper torso that restricted his movements on account that I had to spend hours healing which still needed stitches after I was finished! If left unattended, they could fester and infection could set. You know how reckless Kin can be!" Sakura didn't mess around with the health of her patients and if it wasn't for this specific fact she would not have been telling her shishou off in such an offhand manner. As Shizune had said, she was the Hokage after all and the fact that she could launch a stapler through a concrete wall with nary a flick of her wrist was testament to Sakura's ample spine and her determination to see to that of her patient's welfare.

Tsunade nodded pleasantly, seemingly unperturbed. "Facts of which I reminded him of before sending him on his way." She unfolded her hands now and rested them on her desk. "Sakura, the mission I sent him on was strictly reconnaissance and should not take him more than four days. Kin is careful when he knows he needs to be. The boy's not stupid. And I'm sorry I went behind your back and released him from the hospital without your consent, but I knew you would tell me off for it and it was much easier this way to boot. Anyway," Tsunade abruptly laced her hands under her chin again, smile back in place, "he's already gone, so there's nothing you can do about it."

Surprisingly, a statement that didn't stop her from being angry.

Sakura glared, knowing defeat when it smiled with lacquer at her from its seated position across the way. "Shizune told me to take your sake; I think it's affecting your judgement."

The benign smile disappeared. "A cup now and again never hurt anybody," she replied, sniffy.

Sakura snorted in dour amusement. A cup.

Although her shishou was being resolutely infuriating, Sakura knew she was privileged—Tsunade would only let two people talk to her with such familiarity, Sakura being one of them and the other having squirmed away only a few minutes ago.

"Now, if we're finished here, I do have business to attend to," said Tsunade, topic changing awfully fast, "we can talk about this over dinner tonight to your heart's content if you're so inclined. I have a few words for Shizune, too," she finished ominously, honey eyes darkening.

"Right," Sakura sighed, then stiffened slightly, sensing the static omission of occupied space behind her for the first time. The negation of empty space which meant there were living bodies just at the turn of the head, she realized just now due to the occupation of her mind by frustration.

She flicked her head to the side and glanced at the people who had been silent through their conversation with mild interest…

…Only for her head to do the quickest double-take of her twenty-two years to date.

Naruto, Kakashi, Sasuke, Sai, and Yamato were standing, straight-backed, against the same wall as the door which Sakura had burst through, staring wide-eyed at her.

Sakura jerked her head back to look at Tsunade right away and regretted the split-second widening of her own eyes, hoping they hadn't seen. Oh, fuck.

Face straitlaced, she replied, "I see. I'll be on my way then." Sakura had become strict at hiding her emotions and she reclaimed those practices at that moment. Sakura shut down.

"Sa—" started the familiar voice of Naruto behind her before being promptly cut off. She did not turn.

"Shut the hell up, Uzumaki Naruto, I did not give you permission to speak and until that time you will not utter one sound," Tsunade spoke, tone turning unfriendly and severe.

Sakura gave another quick bow to Gaara, who stood watching the proceedings with an interested ambiance. "Kazekage-sama." Another to her shishou and then she walked swiftly out the door, not glancing for a second at that side of the wall. She popped her head back in only to say: "Don't tell Shizune that I told you that she told me to take your sake away; she told me not to tell you she said that." And then she was gone.

…

Sakura found herself in her office with only blurred images of the people and buildings she had passed to get there. Her mind was strangely blank.

She lowered herself slowly down into the cushy chair behind her desk and stared, mystified, at the glaringly white color of her opposite office wall.

The moment reoccurred over and over again in her mind with haunting clarity. The second her head had turned became an eternity when she saw what had waited—or rather who—just at the corner of her peripheral sight. Oh kami, it was them.

The shock of seeing Kakashi, Sasuke, Sai, and Naruto had been only secondary in Sakura's emotional agenda. And the first?

Anger.

They looked similar enough, she supposed. Older, of course—the lines of their faces and bodies more defined by age and exertion—but that was by far the furthest thought from her mind.

For so long, her former team had become only a tiny pinch in her memories because she had willed it so. Sakura never thought of their return because it seemed as unassuming and unimportant as the mold growing steadily in the corners of her small bathroom. If she didn't think about it, it ceased to be a concern. Yamato had become an unwelcome presence in her life, because although he had not gone with her former team, Sakura knew with conviction that Yamato had been told by those four that they were leaving. Sakura knew Yamato was told of their whereabouts by inconspicuously delivered letters, but he kept them to himself for whatever reason Sakura no longer cared about. For a while, he tried to sidle up to Sakura on the odd dinnertime meal, maybe keeping an eye on her, but once she made it adamant she wanted nothing to do with him, he retreated and only gave her the occasional wave from across a crowded marketplace. All five had become nothing to her when she ceased to become nothing to them.

Sakura felt her anger doubled at the instant she had recognized them while glancing upon their unwanted familiar facets, because she thought that indifference had encapsulated all feelings she had had towards them, even anger. She wanted nothing of them, not even that familiar emotion.

Sakura would never be able to erase the day they had allowed her to fall to pieces because no matter that she tried to never think of it, they still made their sickly reappearance during her inevitable time of unconsciousness.

At sixteen, Sakura had woken up to the same tandem she had for a long time now. She'd showered, dressed, eaten breakfast, and gone to meet her team at their regular place. It surprised her that Naruto was not there yet when she had arrived, but it was sometimes common for him to show later than herself, so she worried not. What was more surprising was that Sai had not arrived, because the finicky artist was anal about schedules and Yamato was usually the same. Kakashi's presence, however, was, as always, not even worth pondering over until maybe two hours past their scheduled time.

Like the fool she was, Sakura waited for them for an hour, worried. Her overactive imagination bombarded her with horrible thoughts that maybe something had happened to one of them and coming to tell her was not a possibility due to the critical danger one of them might be in. Waiting became excruciating so that she made a mad beeline for Tsunade's office, seeking answers.

Sakura had arrived out of breath before her shishou's office door and rapped her knuckles harshly upon it. A subdued "enter" had answered and so she did.

Tsunade knew it was her behind that wooden door, so when Sakura stepped inside, she made no movement to straighten her position or change her expression. Tsunade held a white piece of small parchment in between her two firm hands and no, something was wrong. By the bright summer sun piercing through the window, Sakura saw through the translucent white sheet to read the one word that really only mattered printed in bold black letters.

Sorry.

A deep breath. Then another.

Nothing.

"They left," Tsunade had spoken, face grim and voice barely containing her anger. Sakura understood only until later that her anger had been for Sakura's benefit. "Izumo and Kotetsu informed me that they saw Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, and the chakra artist, Sai, leaving at exactly five this morning, carrying fully packed equipment. Said they had a mission and Izumo and Kotetsu just let them go without checking for a mission leave document. I mean, they were supposed to be Konha's most loyal shinobi, right?" At this point, Tsunade was mostly talking to herself.

"They went after Sasuke, didn't they?" Sakura asked.

Still, nothing.

Tsunade nodded, looking carefully at Sakura.

Of course they had. No matter that they were supposed to do that as a team including Sakura, but maybe she had never really belonged with them anyway. She remembered the times when she stumbled after them, her shame at her own weakness. Sasuke's contempt had been sharper against her memories because the little girl that Sakura had been, believed herself so in love with him. Sakura remembered the day they discovered she had a dulcet singing voice on a mission and instead of offering contentment, Sasuke had flippantly replied with "maybe you should have done that instead". Yeah, instead of being a kunoichi. The times when Kakashi had to slow their pace because she had been lagging, not having the inhuman stamina that the males possessed and not being able to recognize the fact that not reaching such abilities was perfectly normal for her developing physique. Them not having the foresight to inform her of such a thing made her feel like dirt for she did not understand that concept back then. There was Naruto, too, always making the excuse to give her the lowliest, least energy consuming job on their missions even though, through Tsunade and indistinguishable determination, she reached a level that was almost on par with theirs. Later, Sai had only added to the complex of feeling like shit around them, being as tactless but infuriatingly powerful as he was. Yamato was easier to be around; he never made any outward action that he thought her weak, but she occasionally saw his looks of barely concealed impatience.

Tsunade had asked, but with a tone of already knowing Sakura's answer: "They didn't tell you anything about this, did they?"

"Nope," came Sakura's soft reply.

There was something.

A pressure.

Tsunade clenched her fist harder, now clutching her wooden desk, and the wood creaked.

"It's not really surprising, shishou," Sakura continued, voice flat, uncaring. "Honestly, I should have seen it coming. I always felt…useless. To them, anyway. It's probably better this way." The last sentence was said and she felt her face twist in sadness.

There it was.

She didn't cry—couldn't seem to—although she did start to break right then. The realization she'd always carried around in the back of her mind hammered away at her.

I wasn't good enough.

Sakura hated the feeling, because she told herself adamantly every day that she was good enough…but not to them.

"Don't," Tsunade had warned firmly, "You'd better not be thinking what I think you are, Haruno Sakura. I would not have chosen any apprentice of mine had I thought for a second that she wasn't tough as nails and brimming with enough talent to surpass me one day. Get it out of your head right now. That's a fucking order."

Sakura nodded absentmindedly, the outstanding praise she had never heard in uttered words, only seen in the eyes of her shishou, 'till now, only a pitifully small buffer to her ache.

Tsunade's voice softened, "It's okay to cry, you know."

Sakura smiled despite her state, a rueful smile. "I know, shishou. I just can't seem to get the tears out."

That day Sakura was left without a team. Tsunade watched her with her scrutinizing eyes for a time after that, making sure she really was alright. Ino came over more often, trying to cheer her up, sometimes bringing Hinata and Tenten along, and after a while, it worked. Her melancholy faded to the background of her busy life and she was happier. Sakura enjoyed going out with her friends and although she didn't date—her previously regretful experience had left her with a deep distrust of men—she enjoyed the approving appraisal of men she sometimes even deigned to flirt with.

At seventeen, Sakura had made the decision to join ANBU. She studied and trained for hours on end, believing the tall tales of how difficult it would be to enter such an elite group, and when the time came to prove herself, she breezed through all the tests and obstacles with an airy laugh. Tsunade and Shizune were so proud.

Soon after, Sakura was paired with Hirako Kin, an ANBU captain and, at first impression, a huge assbag. Kin wasn't very nice which completely spoiled his good looks for Sakura, and as her captain, he always left her to figure things out on her own. The last part Sakura never much minded because she was a quick learner and he an efficient leader. At long last, the sole reason Sakura never complained or resented him was because he never once made her, or made any action towards her, expressing she was a burden to him. After a time of tentative outreaches at companionship on both ends, familiarity set itself in place. Kin valued her opinion and skill, always requested her for missions Sakura didn't necessarily need to be on. Sakura came to actually know him and by kami, was he funny. Usually, they dished out playful banter towards each other that had Sakura grinning widely and Kin with a goofy smile plastered on his face. Kin became her unexpected friend. Sakura started to hope that maybe not all men were complete fecks after that.

It was only after some time being partnered with him did Tsunade divulge that their pairing was not at all a simple scanning of profiles and complementing skills but a deliberate action on her part. Sakura then realized that Kin was damaged, too; he saw his previous team murdered before his eyes, Tsunade had said, all of them.

"I thought you two would be good for each other," Tsunade had claimed, stare plainly speaking as to why she'd thought that. "And, as always, I was right." Well, Sakura's team hadn't exactly died had they? They'd just abandoned her, which was maybe worse.

Sakura had just rolled her eyes.

For the first time, Sakura had initiated physical contact with Kin and had given him a huge bear hug upon their next encounter, never explaining the reason. Kin had blinked owlishly and asked, "are you eating strange mushrooms again?" referring to the time he and Sakura had been stranded in hideout without food and she'd regressed to eating a colorful mushroom she'd found on the inside of the cave they'd claimed as their hidey-hole. Suffice to say, Sakura had not wanted to look at Kin for a week after that incident.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sakura had feigned abashment, "I thought you were Rei." Rei was a rather rotund old female family friend who owned an ice cream shop and who always gave Sakura free ice cream. She'd brought Kin along one day and Sakura had noticed with amusement they shared the same soft caramel, chestnut-colored hair. She'd then smirked, "Getting a bit plump around the edges there, are we not, Kin?"

He'd smacked her with his thigh holster. "Why, I never!" He brought a hand up to his chest, as if affronted while Sakura pushed him with a little too much gusto and sent him toppling over. Sakura, actually sheepish now, had gone over to help him when his head popped up. "Must be my fat ass," he'd sighed in despondence to which Sakura burst out laughing a rancorous laugh.

Two years later, her mother died. Grief was a feeling Sakura thought she knew, but oh was she wrong. Her father having died when she was really young, Sakura didn't exactly know the emptiness of the absolute loss one experienced when they lost a loved one. The absence of her father had always just been a curious sort of longing, but the absence of her mother left her completely bereft. She'd taken bereavement leave and her many friends had paid her a visit, bringing every imaginable dish of casserole mankind had ever invented. Sakura had smiled at the appropriate times and assurance at her stable state of mind was never far behind. When Sakura had been putting away yet another casserole, Kin had initiated physical contact on his part for the first time. Alone in her kitchen, he'd wrapped his strong arms around her and hugged her tight.

Sakura had sniffed, holding back tears against his shoulder. "Eating strange mushrooms, Kin?" she'd copied from two years previous.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he'd said using her exact tone, "I thought you were that huge pink flamingo that wanders around Konoha forest sometimes on the full moon. Getting a bit long around the face, hm?"

Sakura snorted despite herself. "You idiot," she'd sniffled, "at least mine made sense." Sakura pulled her face away and grinned, a real muscle-stretching, grin. "And mine was funnier. Why would you want to hug a giant flamingo, anyway?"

Still, despite her friendship, Sakura wondered why she wasn't good enough for them. The ones who'd initially and most profoundly had mattered to her. Their departure echoed by her mother's felt side-by-side was when Sakura understood the loss of those primary four and how it was only a far cry shy of the grief she'd felt for her mother.

But here they were again, six years too late.

…

A/N: Did you guys like it? I thought I'd do my version of the Team 7 fic where they leave Sakura behind and come back years later. I love all the angst. I plan for this one to be a much longer fic.