Finding a new apartment was surprisingly easy. The first complex she visited had no fewer than ten vacancies, and the landlord seemed keen to fill them as soon as possible.

He showed her room 306, a modest one-bedroom on the third floor. It was small but well-lit, with a balcony and ensuite.

"You can keep or throw out the last of the previous tenant's things." He gestured to an assortment of boxes in the kitchen area. "Kami knows he won't be coming back for them."

Sakura looked at the boxes. "The previous tenant was KIA?"

"Yep," the landlord took a drag of his cigarette. "All our current vacancies are. Pretty lucky for you, eh?"

She chose not to respond to that. Instead, she stepped out onto the narrow balcony. Aside from a few stray leaves, the only thing out there was a potted aloe vera plant. It was large, with thick leaves and even a single orange flower at the top. Someone had painted orange polka dots on the pot.

"Can you tell me the name of the person who lived here?" Sakura asked, poking her head back inside.

"I'm afraid that would be a breach of our privacy policy," the landlord shook his head. "But his name might be on some of his old stuff, I don't know. Does that mean you want it?"

Sakura thought about her parents, the way they had begun to watch her more closely, ask more questions that Sakura couldn't easily answer. She needed somewhere she could drop the mask.

"I'll take it."

"Excellent!" The man spread his arms wide. "Welcome to the building, Haruno-chan."

After signing the contract and getting her key, Sakura wasted no time moving in. In the end it only took one trip; the personal items that still held any meaning to her could all fit into one box. On her way up, she checked the lobby mailboxes to see if she could find the name of the former tenant. Box 306 was blank, but the name on number 304 made her stare.

"Looks like we're neighbours." As if thinking about the man had summoned him, she turned to see Hatake Kakashi himself, wearing his usual fatigues and carrying a paper bag full of groceries. He smiled at her. "Welcome to the building."

"I didn't realise you lived here," she blurted out before she realised it might sound rude. "Sorry, I just meant that it was a coincidence that I moved to the apartment next door to you."

"Ah, so you got Katsuragi-san's old place." Kakashi nodded at the blank mailbox.

Katsuragi!" Sakura practically shouted, before blushing. "I was trying to find out his name."

Kakashi turned for the stairs, gesturing for Sakura to follow. "I assume the landlord explained why there were so many vacancies all of a sudden?"

Sakura grimaced. "That's part of the reason I wanted to find out who lived there. A lot of his stuff got left behind, and I wanted to contact his next of kin."

"Katsuragi didn't have any family, as far as I could tell." Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe his parents are still alive, but to be honest I doubt it. You can probably just throw his things away."

"That's what the landlord said," Sakura shifted the weight of the box to lean against her hip. "But it seemed too sad. He's got an aloe plant up there; that should go to a loving owner, at least."

"There's no reason you couldn't be that owner, you know."

Sakura hesitated, and Kakashi turned back to look at her.

"Unless you're worried you won't have time? After all, you should be focused on recovering."

"I don't have anything to recover from." It sounded churlish, but she couldn't bear the thought of being pitied by Kakashi. She'd move back with her parents before she let that happen. "I'm sorry if I gave you that impression."

They had reached the third floor. "It would be only natural, after something like that." Kakashi said softly.

Sakura forced a careless laugh. "The whole world was under that genjutsu, Kakashi. Don't act like I'm made of glass just because I don't want to adopt a plant."

"Well then feel free to give it to me, if you like." Kakashi fumbled with his key for a second, before unlocking his door with a sharp click. "It would make a nice companion for Mr. Ukki."

Sakura stared, and Kakashi laughed. "That's my pot-plant's name. You should name the aloe too. It'll grow faster." With a final smile, he disappeared into his apartment. Sakura caught a glance of a layout similar to hers. She shook her head, smiling in spite of herself.

"You're so full of shit, Kakashi."

The next day, she tried to get in touch with her other friends. She went by the Yamanaka flower shop, but it was only when she saw that all the normal flowers had been replaced by huge wreaths that she realised it might be a bad time.

"Yamanaka flower shop." Mrs Yamanaka didn't even look up at the chiming of the door's bell. It was only when Sakura approached the counter that the woman seemed to realise it was her.

"Oh, Sakura-chan." Mrs Yamanaka was wearing a black dress that made her pale face seem even paler. She smiled at Sakura with red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Mrs Yamanaka," Sakura said, and meant it. "Mr Yamanaka was like a second father to me. Is Ino here?"

Selfishly, she'd been hoping to talk to Ino about her own problems and had completely forgotten that Inoichi's death was still recent.

Mrs Yamanaka shook her head, giving Sakura a sad smile. "I'm afraid she's been completely tied up with clan business," she explained. "She'll be formally taking over as clan leader following the funerals tomorrow."

"The funerals are tomorrow?" Sakura squeaked. She hadn't realised how much time had been lost in Shiroito.

"Yes, child." Ino's mother spread her elegant hands. "That's why I'm still at the shop. All these arrangements have to be ready by tomorrow morning. As it is I'm only a third of the way done; but at least it keeps me distracted."

That was something Sakura could understand. "Would you like some help?" she offered. "I've got some time, and it sounds like you could use the extra pair of hands here."

That was how Sakura ended up spending the rest of the day arranging funeral wreaths with her best friend's mother. Part of her genuinely wanted to help the Yamanaka family, who had always been good to her. Another, guiltier part hoped that by immersing herself in funeral preparations she could somehow recapture some of the old grief her mind had already processed. It was shameful, but the loss of those killed in the war was overshadowed by the loss of Sarada. In her heart, Yamanaka Inoichi had been gone for years. His grandson Inojin and all the rest of that generation had been gone only a few days.

No matter whose face came to mind as she bent flowers into wreaths, no tears would follow.

The mass funeral was just as difficult the first time as it had been in her dream. The weeping of mourners mixed with the sonorous voice of the Hokage to form a deeply lulling melody. Sakura caught herself on the cusp of dozing off more than once, springing back to alertness with a guilty glance at her friends.

She'd spent her first night in her new apartment getting to know every single inch of it. Even when it had become as familiar as her parents' place, her instincts still wouldn't allow her a full night's rest. Every time she seemed to be slipping into REM sleep, she woke with a jolt, performing the rat seal and making sure her surroundings were just as she'd left it.

"You always forget in the end." That's what the Kakashi in her dream had said, and she believed him.

"You look like shit," Ino said to her after the ceremony was complete.

Sakura laughed, because it was clearly meant to be a joke. Ino's clothes may have been freshly-pressed, a simple black dress with the Yamanaka sigil on the back, but her face was blotchy and no makeup in the world could have withstood the tears she had shed that day. "Right back at you, Pig."

The girl (and she really was just a girl, wasn't she? Seventeen and already the head of her clan) gave a wet smile. "Just when I think I'm all cried out, I'll think about Dad and Mr Nara sitting on our back porch with Mr Akimichi, drinking a beer or planning a mission or something, and I'll start all over again." Even as she said it, her eyes began to well up.

"How is Shikamaru?" Sakura asked. "I haven't seen him since I got back."

"He's over there with the other guys." Ino pointed to a small cluster of people. Shikamaru was speaking to Hinata, whose pale face looked almost as red as Ino's. Naruto was standing next to Hinata and had a comforting hand on her shoulder, which probably wasn't helping with the redness. "Want to join them?"

Sakura nodded, but part of her just wanted to go back to the apartment and crawl under the covers. She felt like an impostor, an outsider who had infiltrated this group of people under the pretence that she was their old friend Sakura. Even Sai, who had once literally been an outsider to the group, was standing at Naruto's right hand and joining in the conversation with apparent ease.

"Hey guys," she gave a small wave. "Long time no see."

The group shifted at once to make space for her, and she felt a tinge of relief. At least she seemed to be faking her role well enough that nobody suspected anything was wrong.

"What happened to your hair?" Sai asked, in his usual blunt manner.

She rubbed the short stubble on the back of her head. "You don't like it?"

"You look bad-ass," Kiba grinned, and gave her a thumbs-up.

Naruto gave her a wide smile. "So, how was Shiroito when you left it?"

Decimated. "Recovering. We found a few survivors here and there."

"I wanted to stay back and help but Tsunade-baachan said I had duties back in Konoha." Naruto rolled his eyes, but his smile remained untouched. "She keeps parading me around like I'm the village mascot."

Shikamaru scoffed. "As if you don't love that."

Naruto ignored him. "She says she wants to remind people that it's really over, so they can begin the recovery process."

Sakura's smile began to ache. "That's a great idea."

"Apparently there have been some unexpected reactions to the genjutsu," Naruto continued, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort. "Mostly kids, struggling to separate the dream from reality."

Shikamaru turned to Sakura. "Maybe you should visit the hospital too."

"What makes you say that?" Sakura snapped, anxiety flaring.

The others blinked at her.

"Because you broke out of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, right?" Shikamaru said, ending the awkward pause. "That gives you a unique perspective on the matter."

"I don't know about that…"

"Hey, you should talk to Obito-jisan about it." Naruto grinned. "Between the person that helped form the jutsu and the person who broke out of it, you could probably learn a lot about the side-effects."

Her smile faltered. "What?"

Naruto shrugged. "I decided to visit Obito the other day, after I was done seeing Sasuke. Speaking of which," he grinned. "When are you going to visit Sasuke?"

The others smirked at Sakura as if they knew exactly what she was thinking. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "To be honest, I haven't thought about it. But I don't think it's the right time."

"Why not?" Naruto pouted. "He asked about you, you know."

That surprised her. "Really? What did he say?"

"He wanted to know how you managed to break out of the genjutsu, and why. But it was clear that he also really wanted you to visit, and was just too proud to say so."

Even in prison Sasuke could mess with her head. Her expectations had been worn down to nothing by a decade of dream-marriage, but she still felt her hands balling into fists.

"I'll see Sasuke at his hearing," Sakura said, once she was confident she could speak without snarling. "I don't have anything to say to him that can't wait until then."

"Aw come on, don't be like that," Naruto cajoled. "Sasuke's finally home! Of all the awful things that happened-" he spread his arms to take in the funereal surroundings- "that's one thing we can actually celebrate. Why aren't you happy?"

"This is meant to be your dream. It's meant to make you happy."

"I have to go," she said, turning abruptly for the door. She didn't stop to answer her friends' questions, didn't stop when Kakashi caught her eye from the other end of the room or Tsunade tried to wave her over to a group of officials, didn't stop at all until she was back in her apartment, cradling her head in her hands and waiting for the terror to pass.

When it did pass, she felt foolish. Emotional outbursts wouldn't help convince people she was normal. Pinching some colour back into her face, she grabbed her wallet and went to the local market. She would officially christen her new apartment with a home-cooked meal.

She'd been comparing prices on flour when the sound of crying made her glance up.

A young mother was bouncing her wailing child on one hip, making desperate shushing noises that went largely ignored. A handcart banged against her other hip with every bounce, jars of baby food rattling so violently that it was only a matter of time before something broke.

Sakura had crossed the aisle and reached for the baby on pure instinct.

"Here, let me."

The mother raised her eyebrows, but allowed Sakura to take the child. At first, the baby fussed and howled even louder, but Sakura hugged them close, resting them on their back in the crook of her arm.

"Poor little man," she crooned. "You've had a long day, I can tell."

"He's teething," the mother explained, adjusting her grip on the handcart. There were dark circles under her eyes.

"Ah, say no more," Sakura gave the woman a wry smile. The baby's cries finally died down as the rocking motion lulled them into submission.

"You're pretty good at that," the woman pointed at her child, who was beginning to close their eyes.

Sakura shrugged. "Years of practice."

"Oh yeah?" The woman smiled. "Do you have a lot of younger siblings or something?"

"No, I…" Sakura trailed off. "I'm a medic. A lot of my patients are children."

"Ah," the woman nodded. "Especially now, I bet. What with all those dreams."

"Mm." She handed back the baby. "He's beautiful. You're very lucky."

Tempura had always been a favourite dish. Sakura's mother had cooked it for her, and then Sakura had gone on to cook it for Sarada. It had been so popular that she had been asked more than once to make extra for Sarada's teammates.

There must have been something wrong with the kitchen in apartment 306 however, because from the start nothing seemed to be going right for Sakura. The batter was too lumpy, then it was too runny and kept sliding off the shrimp. When she went to put a shrimp in the oil, it slipped free of her grasp and fell in with a splash.

Sakura screamed, wrenching back her hand; the oil was boiling hot, a visceral reminder of the flames of Amaterasu. She raced to the sink, forcing herself to calm down and focus on moulding chakra to heal the second-degree burns she had just given herself.

She had barely started the process when the smoke alarm went off.

"What?" she looked back at the stove. What had once been a pan of hot oil was now a pan full of fire, belching dark smoke that was already starting to obscure the ceiling.

"Shit!" acting on pure instinct, she filled a cup under the still-running tap and flung it at the fire.

With an ominous whoomph, the low flames shot up to become a tower of heat. Sakura was forced back, bumping blindly into the far counter. The smoke alarm continued to scream insistently, but Sakura couldn't even tell where it was through the haze of black.

A figure appeared, leaping past the fire and into the kitchen proper. With a deft hand, the figure grabbed the pan's lid and slid it over the source of the fire. It fought them, rattling with the still-boiling oil, but they turned off the hot plate and after a few seconds the fire died down to nothing.

"Kakashi?" Sakura's eyes were watering with smoke, and the acrid smell in the air told her she had probably singed her hair again.

Kakashi glanced at her, grabbing a tea towel and carefully moving the hot pan off the plate. "I broke your door."

Sakura edged past him to look at her front door. It hung open, and there were a few splinters of wood where her flimsy lock must have given way to Kakashi's boot. But on the whole the damage was minimal compared to her kitchen. "Shit," she repeated, before grabbing her flak jacket off the back of the chair. She used it to fan the remnants of smoke away from the alarm, whose tinny trilling felt rather superfluous now.

"Can I ask what happened?" Kakashi said, over the racket.

"I was just cooking dinner." Sakura gestured lamely to the plastic bowl of tempura batter. The side that had been closest to the stove was now warped and blackened.

Kakashi looked at the bowl, then back to Sakura. "That batter is way too runny. Also, your hot plate was up way too high."

Sakura gave up on fanning the smoke and went to open the balcony doors. "I don't understand what happened."

"It's your first time living away from home, right?" Kakashi said. "Nobody's a perfect cook right away, especially if you're not using a recipe."

Sakura's throat tightened, and she covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh no," she moaned. "Could I really have been so stupid?" She sank to the floor.

Kakashi knelt down in front of her. "What is it?" he asked, eyes narrowed.

She felt the awful urge to laugh, but in truth there was nothing funny about her situation. She had cooked tempura before, hundreds of times, and it had always turned out just like her mother's.

But only in the genjutsu.

She pressed her eyes shut, her throat thick with bile.

"Sakura?" She could feel Kakashi's presence over her. "Are you hurt?"

"Are you happy?"

She wrenched her eyes open, forcing her mouth to twist into a smile. "I'm fine, just embarrassed. I guess I never paid attention to how hot the oil should be, or how much water to add to the flour."

"Or not to add water to an oil fire?" Kakashi said.

"...How did you know I did that?"

He glanced meaningfully at the black mark on the kitchen ceiling. "Call it a lucky guess."

She sighed. "Right, of course."

"Are you sure you're okay?" A hand reached for her shoulder, and her body jerked away before she could fake indifference. The hand retreated. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

"You need to stop saying that," Kakashi said, his brow furrowed. "You know you can talk to me, right? You can tell me anything."

"Of course," she lied.