Chapter 12 - Dark Days

Naruto strode from the Hokage's office, restless and troubled. He passed by his apartment without stopping, unable to bear the idea of being closed in its walls, trapped with his thoughts.

Instead he veered toward Ichiraku's for dinner, but the congenial air didn't help. He barely get through one bowl of noodles. Flashbacks of his anbu mission, of Hawk's death, kept intruding with jarring frequency.

Teuchi frowned at the rumpled bills Naruto shoved across the counter. He looked from the solitary bowl back to Naruto.

"Eh? What's this? Only one bowl? Naruto, are you feeling alright?"

Naruto forced his lips into a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. "Nah I'm fine. Just full." He patted his belly then turned away quickly, covering the lie, even as Teuchi scoffed in disbelief and offered to pack something up for later.

Naruto shrugged off the kind gesture and left. It somehow made him feel worse. Out in the dark, he shoved in his hands in his pockets and turned the opposite way from his apartment. He didn't know what to do with himself, so he walked. For hours more, he trudged down Konoha's empty streets, until his feet hurt and his mouth was dry and he finally thought he was exhausted enough to sleep. Only then did he turn for home.

At his door the handle stuck like it always did, but this time Naruto didn't have the patience for it. Instead he gave it a hard shove. Suddenly the lock popped, the door swung open on the dark apartment and Naruto was hit full in the face with stale air and memories.

With that dank smell, the empty days of his childhood were resurrected and, for the space of a breath, Naruto was wrapped in the bone-deep loneliness that was once his life. Before he had a team, a sensei, missions and a purpose, there was only that stale smell to greet him everyday. It was the only constant in his wretched life, and he hated it as much as the village hated him.

It was Kakashi who suggested opening a window. During one of those early visits when he went over the 10-year-old's apartment, sniffing at the milk and peering in the trash can. "It still stinks in here. Open a window or something."

Naruto followed that brilliant piece of wisdom from his new sensei, and the smell went away. It was such a small change that it was lost beneath all the other changes still to come, with his new team and his new life as a shinobi.

So to be hit with that smell again was a sucker punch after everything he'd been through the past few days. It was as If his old life was coming back to haunt him. He wished suddenly that he'd taken Old Man Teuchi up on his offer of take-out.

Naruto thinned his lips, keeping his breath shallow while his eyes searched out source of the problem. Across the room, the small window in the kitchen was shut. Now he remembered, it had been raining when he left and he shut it carelessly.

He didn't realize how much the landscape of his life would change from then, when he was joyfully anticipating his first anbu mission, to now….

Naruto grunted and heaved the door shut behind him, locking it with one hand before stalking across the room to throw open the window. He didn't bother turning on lights. There was enough ambient light to make out the shabby furniture of his living room, which he didn't want to look at anyway. He trudged down the dark hallway to his bedroom.

Streetlight from the windows stretched in big slants across his floor and bed, illuminating the room in pale, unearthly blue.

A flash of pearl echoed through his mind, and without meaning to, Naruto saw Hawk's eyes peering out of the black eyeholes of the Anbu mask, wide with fear and desperation. It was that snatch of memory that kept replaying in his mind, those last gasps of breath, when blood bubbled from the wound and he looked out with eyes too young to die—

Naruto shook his head and ground the heels of his hands into his own eyes, forcing out the memory. What the hell was wrong with him? He'd seen death before.

But dumping his keys and weapons, pouches and holsters onto the top of the dresser, each one thudding into the darkness, he knew with certainty this time was different. And that he didn't want to pick up those weapons again any time soon.

He knew, without delving too deeply, what the difference was. This time, it was his own comrade that died, not the enemy. And there was nothing he could do to save him.

Everything that Naruto had known and fought for was thrown into question. And if he was honest with himself, he didn't like the answers he was finding.

Naruto jerked open the top drawer to pull out a clean t-shirt.

Had he been less tired or less preoccupied he might have been more careful. He might have realized what he had hidden away, so long ago, under that particular shirt at the bottom of that dark drawer.

But in the half-light of his room he never looked down. Instead, when he fingers felt the cool, clean fabric of his favorite old shirt he gave it a hard tug upward.

The shirt unfurled in front of him, and with it came at least a dozen pink squares, all fluttering to the ground like confetti to the ground.

Naruto's heart lurched in his chest. Pressing the shirt against his belly he slowly reached down for one, picking it up gingerly as if it might burn him. The streetlight made it glow in his hand.

Sakura's pretty writing slanted across the top. He chewed the corner of his lip. He had always loved the way his name looked when she wrote it….

"Naruto—"

He knew he shouldn't look at it, he knew it would only hurt, but seeing her writing, just some little piece of her after all this time, made him yearn for more, and he couldn't stop himself….

"Where are you? I've been looking for you everywhere! Are you ok? Come find me when you get in."

He could hear her voice in his head. He could see her standing outside, leaning against his door, biting her lip while she wrote the note, sweet concern etched on her face….

"—Sakura"

He blew out a long, low breath, closed his eyes and curled his fingers around the note. The paper rustled loudly in the quiet room.

It was just one more thing he couldn't save. Instead it had died right in front of him.

He could have opened the door, he could have been there, he could have found her. But he did nothing. He was too angry or stupid or afraid— And now it didn't matter. All he had left was the stack of pink notes in his drawer.

It was a testament to just how much she cared about him. That she kept coming back over and over, never giving up. And it was a testament to just how reckless and idiotic he was — keeping the damn notes instead of opening the door to her.

Fuck, he muttered, hating himself all over again for not doing enough. He bent to pick the snowfall of papers off the floor, aching each time he caught snatches of sentences. "How are you…." "Is something wrong…." "I miss you…."

He shoved the shirt and the pile of papers back into the drawer — pointedly ignoring the long white envelope exposed at the bottom — and climbed into bed with his clothes on.

Sometime the next morning he cracked open bleary eyes, still tired but not enough to sleep. Rain streaked silver down his window and drowned Konoha in grey. He roused himself, changed — being certain to avoid the top drawer — and went on with his day. But the grey feeling stayed with him, the next day, then the next. Even after the sun broke through and the storm clouds rolled away, the colorless feeling stayed with him, threatening to pull him under.

He moped through his days, aimless and tired. He didn't know what he was doing and he didn't know why. The people he'd protected were gone. His view of his precious village had been torn through. He avoided his former classmates so they wouldn't ask questions he didn't want to answer. And he absolutely didn't want to train like he always had in the past. It was like being shipwrecked, even as life went on around him.

On his fourth day back he passed Team 8 returning from a mission. Hinata offered a sweet hello, said a few kind words of hope that they might all team up again, but it didn't touch him. He wondered if it ever truly had before. Kiba only grunted, but whether it was an apology or a continuation of his possessive tug-of-war over his teammates, it seemed pointless. Naruto muttered a quick hello to them all and kept going.

On the seventh day, Tsunade herself called Naruto to her office, concerned with Naruto's subsequent disappearance upon his return from his mission. But he offered no real explanations.

He sighed finally, when it was clear that Tsunade wasn't just going to let him leave. "I guess it's just that the things that mattered, don't seem to matter that much anymore."

"I'm sorry about the Anbu assignment," she said quietly. Naruto just shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on some distant point out the window behind her.

She started rifling through her scrolls looking for something else to give him, some bit of work that might rejuvenate him or snap him out of this depression—

"Don't waste your time Baa-chan. I'm not interested."

Tsunade watched him, deep concern lining her features. But Naruto didn't storm out again like she half-expected him to, so she let him stand in silence let him think.

Finally, with a shuddering sigh, Naruto shoved his hands in his pockets and gave voice to the thought that had been weighing on him.

"I don't know if I even want to do this anymore." His shoulders bounced with a single unhappy laugh. "I'm starting to sound like that idiot Sasuke—" The words caught in his throat.

Tsunade nodded solemnly. She pushed the scrolls away and folded her hands on the desk. "I understand, Naruto. More than you know, I understand." She breathed deeply, looking tired and worn.

"There was a time when I could not face my duties. I didn't just walk away from them, I ran." There was a note of shame in her voice. "Death, loss…it never makes sense. So don't try to understand it. You're duty is to protect—"

"I could have done more—"

"Naruto, I've read the report. There was nothing more that could have been done. And Hawk knew it too."

Naruto grimaced at the name and the snatch of memory that flickered through his mind with it.

Tsunade's eyes were soft with sympathy. "Naruto, I want you to take some time off, just a few weeks, and after that I'm reassigning you to active duty." Naruto shook his head, ready to rebuff the offer, but Tsunade cut him off sternly. "You can't run forever. You have duties to uphold and people who are depending on you, even if you don't think they are."

Naruto laughed bitterly. "What team will I get to 'glom on to' this time?" Kiba's words still rang in his ears, and he'd begun to wonder if the other teams saw him this way too. A third-wheel. A burden.

Tsunade peered at him, choosing her words carefully. "Remember when I told you to go your own direction, to find your own way? Well that hasn't changed, even if your assigned to every team in Konoha. I told Sasuke the same thing after he came back." Naruto nodded automatically. "All three of you have to find your own way. And that doesn't change your bond. But sometimes you have to find a new purpose."

Something clicked and Naruto looked up sharply. "You said this to Sakura too…? You mean, she felt the same as…she felt like this?"

Tsunade nodded. "She felt like she'd lost her…purpose."

Naruto frowned. "She should have come to me to talk about it—" An image of pink notes buried in a drawer flashed in his mind. He suddenly cut his eyes away.

When he looked back, Tsunade was stared at him pointedly, her face a mirror of his thoughts: Sakura did try. And he had no one to blame but himself.

"I should have been there, I guess," he said quietly. He rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort. "I should have let her talk to me about Sasuke. But they seemed like they were fine, so…."

Tsunade frowned at the obvious lie. "Sakura's problems had nothing to do with Sasuke," she said dryly.

Naruto stilled. He held her gaze processing her words and the possible meaning behind them. Then it was gone. He slung his hands back in his pocket and tipped his head, scowling. "Yeah, probably that medic guy," he said with distaste, then grumbled, "Doesn't matter anyway."

"No, it doesn't matter," Tsunade snapped. "What's done is done. And I can't make any of you work it out. But I can tell you that you have an individual path within Konoha as a shinobi, a path that goes beyond your team assignments. A path that you are contractually obligated to uphold, no matter what happens on your missions."

Naruto blinked at her, taken aback at her sudden anger.

"I'm sorry you've had a rough time of it lately," she said, sounding like an Academy teacher. "But I'm not going to let you slip through the cracks. It's a hell of a climb back up. I should know," she added quietly, straightening the scrolls on her desk.

Naruto finally found his voice. "Geez, Baa-chan! You don't have to be so mean about it! I'm not going to run off like Sasuke—" He frowned suddenly. "Wait a second, how did Sasuke get off the hook so easily? You didn't give him this speech did you?"

Tsunade shot him another irritated look. "It's not a speech! It's the truth! And yes, as a matter of fact I did. But Sasuke's a different case." She leaned back into her seat. "The council would not have been in favor of him returning to active duty. So the fact that he didn't want to made things a lot easier. I was happy to relegate him to civilian status."

"I thought he was still a shinobi, just not active?"

"No, not quite. It's a little more complicated than that." Tsunade flicked her eyes to him. "But I thought he explained all of that to you before he left."

Naruto looked caught. He cut his eyes away. "No, uh, I never, uh, got the chance to see him."

"Uh-huh," Tsunade said like she didn't believe that one either. "Well, you need to snap out of this." She reached for another scroll. "There are a few missions coming up I'd like you in on. Not Anbu, but since you've trained with them you'll serve as a good liason between their agents and a normal team…."

Tsunade's words faded away beneath another flashback of Bear standing in the trees above Naruto and the spot where the young Hyuuga's life had just been snuffed out, saying "We can't compromise the mission." Bile rose to Naruto's throat at the idea that he would be the one to explain Anbu's horrific policies to other Konoha shinobi as if he agreed with them. Naruto shuddered inwardly. The grey despondent feeling was seeping back in.

Naruto shook his head. "I just don't know if I want to do this anymore—"

"Do you think you're the first shinobi to think they can't possibly go on," Tsunade barked at him. "Well, you're not. If you come back alive, then you have to go on!"

Naruto folded his arms over his chest but Tsunade continued.

"You have three more weeks of leave left," she said, her voice unforgiving. "If you don't like what you're doing, then choose another direction. If you've lost your purpose, then find another." She leveled a hard look at him. "Do whatever you need to do, but in three weeks I expect you back in here, head in the game, ready to work."

Naruto looked angry and wounded, but Tsunade ignored him. "Dismissed."

With one last glare he turned on his heel and stomped out, feeling worse than when he came in.

Back at his apartment Naruto flopped on his bed. Three more weeks with nothing to do.

He didn't know what he was expecting by going to see Tsunade. Maybe a pep talk? Maybe some words of wisdom? He'd really hoped she'd just understand and let him out of it.

But now returning to active duty loomed in front of him like an execution.

Naruto rolled on his side, propping his arm under his head. How could he choose another direction? How could he find another purpose? His prospects were as empty as the brilliant blue sky outside his window.

Begrudging the happy color, he rocked onto his other side. But when his eyes landed on his dresser — the dresser where those notes refused to stay forgotten — he decided he'd rather have the over-bright window. So he rolled back and folded an arm over his eyes to block out the light. Maybe he'd take a nap…. Just because he didn't have the heart to do anything else.

Wrestling with this unfamiliar hopelessness had proved exhausting. But he discovered that sleeping through the day and waking in the early evening didn't help either. Groggy and hungry, he drifted into Ichiraku's near closing time, then stayed up for hours more, walking the dark, empty village, too wired to sit at home alone. By the time he finally dragged himself back to bed it was nearly dawn. He slept into the middle of the next day.

Three more days of that, and he still wasn't any closer to sorting things out. In fact, everything had gotten worse. He no longer felt like himself. He no longer rose early, springing out of bed to train or prep for a mission. He couldn't even bear the thought of it. Instead he laid like stone, watching the damnably bright sky through bleary eyes. Disgusted with life and himself. Especially himself.

Naruto's emotional turmoil was playing out on his face, there for everyone to see. And he thought if he noticed it, then it must be really bad. But it was all there in his cruddy little bathroom mirror, looking back at him like an irritating reminder of how lost he really was.

His face was pallid, and purple circles sunk in under his eyes. His hair was limp and dull from too much sleep and not enough bathing. But he couldn't bring himself to care.

He eventually stopped flicking on the bathroom light so he wouldn't have to see himself.

It was the beginning of his second week off, drowning himself in ramen that no longer made him happy, when a black shadow fell across the bowl. The stool beside him creaked under someone's weight. Naruto never moved his head, just shifted his eyes to see a gloved hand raise two fingers to order a bowl of ramen.

Kakashi. Naruto slumped a little further and continued pushing the wet noodles around the bowl with his chopsticks.

At length, Kakashi's soft, measured voice broke the heavy silence. "This would be a great disguise if you were on a mission."

Naruto ignored him completely.

"And by the way you've been staking out Ichiraku's lately, I'd have thought there was some illicit activity going on." He scanned the room, "But everything appears to be in order here," he said before turning back to Naruto. "Nope, you're the only one who seems a little out-of-sorts."

Naruto's mouth rumpled into a sudden frown. Telling himself he'd lost his appetite, Naruto slapped his chopsticks down and pushed away from the counter when Kakashi spoke again.

"I know what you're going through, Naruto," he said quietly. Naruto paused on the seat to listen, but never turned his head. "Believe me, I do. I've been there, and so has Tsunade. Most shinobis do if you live long enough."

Naruto closed his eyes and gave the ghost of a shrug. He knew this, and it didn't make him feel better. He stood up.

"Did you get to speak to Sasuke before he left," Kakashi asked, looking up at him. Naruto stared out at the door and huffed loudly. Kakashi nodded, understanding his answer as if he'd spoken it aloud. "Well, that's a shame. Perhaps you two could have helped each other. You've always had a close bond, closer than a lot of nins I've known. I think he would understand exactly what you're going through."

Naruto shrugged. "Doesn't matter now, does it," he said in a rusty whisper. "He doesn't want to be a ninja. What could he have to say that I'd even want to hear—" He shut his jaw on the sudden emotion.

"Just give it some time, Naruto. Don't give up on you're goals because the things around you seem to have changed, because in time you'll see—"

"Yeah, but that's just it, Kakashi-sensei. I don't know what I want anymore. Maybe I never did. Sasuke, Sakura…. The other teams, Anbu—" he scrubbed a hand down his face, regretting just saying the word. "None of it turned out the way I planned."

Kakashi nodded. "Teams change. Through growth…and through loss, unfortunately. But the village still needs you."

Naruto looked back over his shoulder at Kakashi, the doubt plainly written in his tired eyes.

Kakashi understood. He looked at Naruto with a measure of sympathy that was almost fatherly. "Just give it some time. Keep doing what you know you love. I promise you'll come to see things differently."

"Yeah. Sure," Naruto said in a monotone that left no doubt that Naruto didn't believe him one bit.

Kakashi said more to himself than Naruto, "It's just too bad you didn't get a chance to talk to Sasuke…."

Yeah, that's just one more thing to regret. Naruto bit down on the sudden anger and disappointment, and decided this torture had gone on long enough. He flicked his fingers in a half-hearted wave and strode out the door.

In the cold darkness, Naruto turned away from his apartment and the rest of the buildings and headed for the black mass rising up on the other side of the village. The forest was huge and enveloping and marginally dangerous. It was a good place to forget about things for a while.

He didn't run through the canopy or stop at the training posts spread out around the forest. Instead he walked slowly over the moss covered ground. Sometimes he wished a booby-trap would catch him. At least with an injury he'd actually have an excuse to sit around and feel miserable. But he had no such luck.

Hours later, dirty, tired and chilled, Naruto made his way home. He flopped back into bed, instinctively rolling away from the window and its bright street light. The old dresser suddenly filled up his vision. It looked just as dark and formidable and full of secrets as the forest.

He knew what was inside. And he hated it.

Kakashi's words from earlier echoed back to him, needling him with the reminder of lost opportunity. Too bad he hadn't gotten to speak to Sasuke.

His eyes drifted shut, closing on his view of the top drawer, those pink notes, and that long white envelope….

Naruto's eyes popped open. He blinked, focusing on the drawer. Maybe…. Maybe it wasn't too late.

Stirring with a determination he hadn't felt in weeks, Naruto swung his legs over the edge of the bed, yanked on the bedside light and stood. He slowly slid open the top drawer.

The white shirt was rumpled, just where he'd left it, with curls of pink notes peeking out of its folds. He gingerly pushed it aside, but his hands froze over the scattered collections of notes beneath it. The scraps taunted him, heartbreaking souvenirs from a life that seemed more like a forgotten dream now.

He would have given up completely, swallowed by the hopelessness, had he not seen the corner of the white envelope at the bottom of his drawer. Sitting, waiting for him, just as it had been ever since he'd founded it shoved under his door. The front was turned face down so he would have to see the writing and be reminded of its owner.

Naruto gently pulled the long envelope out – a few pink notes dislodged and fluttered back to the drawer like otherworldly butterflies — and slowly turned it over. "Naruto" was written across the front in long, deliberate black strokes.

Naruto exhaled slowly and pulled out the folded letter.

Author's Notes:

Poor Naruto, he's kind of mired in his life right now. Maybe he'll find some words of wisdom in that letter... So, it's sometimes hard, but I enjoy writing for Tsunade. Often I find she's portrayed as being entirely matronly and doting, letting Naruto get away with everything and keeping track of his love life. But I tend to think Tsunade's caring side is equally matched with her firm side. She has a soft spot for Naruto, but she won't let him slack off, and she couldn't give a damn about his love life (actually I think she'd be pretty cynical about love, seeing how hers has worked out), but she doesn't want him to slip through the cracks. She'd be like a good, no-nonsense teacher, wanting to him to see the long term picture, not the short term. And as for Kakashi and Tsunade, both have overcome terrible grief and loss, so it's nice to get to write about them from that angle. That there is still a price to pay in being the survivor. Thanks again for the reviews, faves and alerts! Glad everyone's enjoying it! :) Please read and review!