Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Rise

Chapter 6

Sasuke wakes and the first thing to cross his mind is that he hasn't slept so well in a very, very long time. His entire body feels languid, calm. No nightmares entered his peaceful sleep, and he vaguely considers letting himself be lulled back into the warmth of slumber as light touches caress his head.

But his shinobi senses—the ones that tell him to always be alert, always be wary of his surroundings—warn him otherwise. He blinks his eyes open, and it's a few moments before they adjust to the dim lighting.

"You're awake," a soft voice says above him.

His gaze narrows at the source of the voice, but he relaxes when he recognizes Sakura's pensive green eyes.

His head is resting in her lap, he realizes. He's lying on her bed in what he assumes is her bedroom, cushioned with blankets and pillows all around. Her fingers were playing at his scalp earlier, massaging it gently, but she stops now, as if afraid he will berate her for doing so without his permission.

She tucks her hands at her sides and asks, "How do you feel?" Her eyes are wary, body tense—unsure of how he'll react after their mishap at the training grounds.

Sasuke thinks that he should probably rise and discuss this with her face to face instead of viewing her upside down from his place in her lap, but now that he's certain he's not in any danger, he relaxes once again.

His eyes close, and he can nearly feel her shock as he reaches to grab her hand and place it back on his head. "I'm fine," he says lowly, voice husky from sleep. "Keep going."

Sakura hesitates for a moment before continuing on with her previous massage. She's quiet for a short minute. Then: "I have nightmares. Not every night, but often enough."

Ah. So he isn't the only one plagued at night by memories of the past.

Sasuke opens his eyes to watch her wordlessly.

"It used to be worse," she continues. Her gaze focuses on the wall across from her without really seeing it. "I would wake up screaming almost every night, thrashing around, trying to get away…"

Sakura looks down at him almost guiltily. He prepares himself for what she has to say, knowing fully well what it is, but still when she speaks, the words cut into him deeply, relentlessly. They fill him with a sense of self-loathing he's been familiar with for years but that he's come to almost forget these last few months. His blood rages with it, making his muscles tense, his jaw clench.

"...trying to get away from you," she finishes quietly. She senses his suddenly rigid posture and the hand in his hair moves to squeeze his shoulder softly. "In my nightmares, it was like I was reliving the past—at that bridge—over and over again. Over time, I could barely see you in person...could barely meet your eyes without thinking that you hated me and never wanted to see me again. I couldn't get the nightmares out of my head." She winces. "And I felt so horrible, Sasuke." She leaves out the honorific from his name and it sounds so wrong to him. "I hated myself for what I did to you. I hated myself for being such a nuisance to you in the past. But most of all, I hated myself for not doing more to be a good friend to you...for not being enough to stop you from leaving. And to think that I actually tried to kill you…"

Her lips tremble and she looks away. The raging storm inside of him peaks, and he's just about to leap up from her lap and disappear—out of her apartment to a place where he can tear into something, anything, where he can unleash his frustration at himself for making her feel so unworthy when she deserves to feel loved and cherished and important—when she finally meets his gaze again and a wavering smile plays on her lips.

"Every time I see you these days...I don't know how to act around you or talk to you. I get flustered when I'm with you because I'm so afraid that you'll hate me for who I was in the past. I was weak." She frowns. It's a sore word for her. "But you've been nothing but kind to me since you returned. Not once have you given me a reason to believe that you dislike me. I just—I don't know what to think of it. My nightmares have almost disappeared completely. Being around you, laughing with you, spending time with you...it gives me hope, even though you're hard to read and I swear I can never tell what you're actually thinking."

The fire within him calms immensely with her words. His heart rate slows, and he unwinds once more into her touch. Her fingers graze his upper bicep and rest there casually, but she doesn't seem to notice—it's instinct to her, to be nurturing and affectionate to those around her. Usually Sasuke would despise such contact. He would jerk away and glare in such a way so that the perpetrator would never dare to touch him again.

But it feels different with Sakura. It always has. Even when she hugged him in the Forest of Death all those years ago, effectively bringing him back to earth when he's sure he would have otherwise lost all sense of himself and gone on a killing spree—even then, her touch was welcome, and he relished in it.

Sakura's green gaze grows somber in a way he's never seen before. "I'm going to be completely honest with you, Sasuke." Again with the lack of suffix. He frowns up at her, but she rushes on, eager—desperate—to tell him what she has to say. "Today, while we were training, I realized that I'm not okay—not yet. I saw your chidori aimed at me and I was so terrified I couldn't move. It was like my nightmare had come to life, and even though I knew deep down that you weren't trying to harm me...in that moment, I was back on the bridge again and I truly thought that you wanted me gone. That you were going to kill me. And I would've allowed you to, because I told myself in that moment that I deserved it." At that last sentence, her voice cracks, and he sees the pain—a reflection of his own self-loathing, burning and very much so alive—in her usually cheerful eyes.

He's speaking before he can stop himself, something that betrays the self-control he's worked so hard to master, because he cannot stand to see that look in her eyes, cannot stand to think even for a second that she hates herself even close to as much as he hates himself.

"Sakura, I—"

She interrupts him before he can say anything more, building speed with every word. "I still have a lot of things to come to terms with about myself, but I…" A deep breath. "I would very much like to be your friend, Sasuke-kun. If you'll allow me. It won't happen overnight, and that's okay—I'd like to think there's no harm in trying. Neither of us will ever forget the past, but I'm tired of running away from my fears." She smiles a small smile. "You've been a fear of mine for quite some time, whether I wanted to admit it or not. Training today forced me to think about a lot of things I shouldn't have been hiding from myself, or from you. I want to be honest from now on. I want to change."

And this Sakura—this Sakura is one he thought he knew, but it's become obvious that that can't be further from the truth.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," he responds quietly, because there isn't much else he can think of to say, and because although he's apologized before—after he and Naruto blew each other's arms off and they lay bleeding at the Valley of the End—he feels the weight of it now more than ever before. And it's not enough, will never be enough to account for what he did in the past, for the pain he's caused her all these years. But it's a start. "Truly. For everything. I'm sorry."

Sakura's fingers, having moved back to his head as if without her realizing, still from their place at his temple. He watches the emotions play in her eyes—the shock, the perplexity, the quiet elation.

She smiles and it's blinding. "Thank you, Sasuke-kun," she whispers. "That means more to me than you'll ever know."

A start, indeed.

Sakura becomes a constant in his life.

Sasuke finds that his days feel strange without her presence, even though she's busy more often than not and can only find the time to train with him a few times each week. Still, he'll go weeks without seeing her, with her off on missions or sent to other Hidden Villages in need of her medical prowess, and he becomes impatient as the days go by.

And when he's out in the village, his head turns at any sign of pink, eyes searching for the source—it's an instinct he's developed no matter how hard he tries to fight it.

"Oi, teme."

Sasuke cuts his gaze to look at the blond and raises a brow ever so slightly.

Naruto squints at him from his seat on the tree branch. They're taking a short rest after their training session, perched in one of the highest trees in the clearing, overlooking the village below.

"You might as well just ask her to join us if you're gonna keep staring at her like that," Naruto deadpans.

Sasuke glares at him and looks away.

The blond chuckles lightly beside him, but he brushes it off.

And there she is. He was up far enough in the tree to catch a glimpse of her pink hair as she strolled through the village gates, returning from a mission that kept her away for the last week. His eyes followed her as she passed down the streets, greeting people as she went.

She's currently stopped just before passing a building that would have blocked his view, talking to a tall man with tousled brown hair. Sasuke can't see the man's face, but he says something and Sakura blushes, smiling softly.

Sasuke clears his throat. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says cooly.

Naruto barks a laugh. Sasuke glares once again.

"Whatever you say, teme," the blond replies happily, and jumps off the tree to the ground below. "Ready for me to kick your ass for the second time today?"

Sasuke sighs. "Can't do something twice if it never happened in the first place, dobe," he shoots back, and leaps down to join his friend.

He launches himself into the forest surrounding Konoha, and it's liberating in a way he hasn't felt in a long, long time. Today is the first day he's allowed outside the village, and while several ANBU still trail him, he takes no notice of them as he flies through the trees at breakneck speed.

The wind whips his hair—long now after months without a trim—into a frenzy and his eyes sting with tears. The sun rises to the east, turning the sky into a gradient of midnight blues and washed-out yellows. It's cool out, a misty haze still creeping over the forest ground, and it feels like freedom.

He doesn't stop for another thirty minutes, and the ANBU take another five to catch up to him. He can hear their heaving intakes of breath from behind him. If he wanted to, he could have outrun them and be halfway to Suna by now, but he's taking small, gradual steps in regaining the village's trust, and he doesn't want to ruin his effort.

Sasuke tilts his head back and closes his eyes, letting the soft breeze curl around him, breathing in the crisp scent of the trees, listening to the wind rustle through them. He stays still for a long time, mind blank. He soaks everything in and allows himself a moment of peace, surrounded by nature, basking in it.

Minutes or hours later—he doesn't know and doesn't care—Sasuke finally turns and heads back to the village.

No nightmares haunt him that night. He sleeps soundly, and awakes feeling more at home than he has in far too long.

He and Sakura are sitting at her dining table, various weapons strewn out before them. They originally planned to train today, but it's uncharacteristically hot for this late in the year, and Sakura declared that she would rather stay inside and finally clean the weapons she left unkempt for so long instead of dying of heatstroke whilst training. Sasuke—while thinking that she was being a little dramatic—decided he would prefer to be in her presence rather than train alone, and so he joined her.

He pauses in the action of cleaning his chokutō, holding it in one hand and sipping water out of a cup with the other before glancing up to observe the woman across from him. Sakura's brows are furrowed as she sharpens her many kunai, working with quick, precise movements. She holds one up to inspect it closely, green eyes narrowed in concentration.

She's dressed in casual wear today, sporting a plain red tank top and fitted black shorts. Her hair is tied back into a high ponytail with bangs framing her face and stray pieces falling over her brow. Sakura claimed earlier that she was too cheap to run the air conditioner outside of summer time, and so her skin appears dewy in the warm room as she wipes a hand across her forehead before leaning back in her chair and heaving a deep sigh.

"It's hot," she groans.

Sasuke blinks, aware that he has just spent the last twenty or so seconds focused solely on his teammate, and places his own weapon down on the table.

"Are you done?" he asks.

Her eyes flicker to his.

"No," she answers simply. "But it's hot, and I'm in the mood for some strawberry ice cream. Care to join me?" She grins at him.

Sasuke nods at her, and as they walk side by side down the streets of Konoha, his eyes follow her continuous smile. She radiates delight and merriment everywhere she goes—heads turn as she passes by, people wave and greet her endlessly.

Finally she gets her ice cream, and they sit at a nearby park, relaxing on a bench in the shade of a large pine tree. He watches as she brings the spoon to her mouth, and her eyes close as she nearly moans aloud. "This tastes so good," she sighs, content. "Just what I needed."

Sakura notices his gaze moments before taking a second bite. She meets his eyes, then looks down at her spoon, and back at him again. Clearing her throat and with a miniscule smile, she asks meekly, "Wanna try some?"

Not allowing himself to hesitate, he leans forward and closes his mouth around her spoon, pulling the portion off as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

She watches, nearly gaping, as he swallows the ice cream; slowly his nose wrinkles in disgust, and he frowns.

"Too sweet," he mutters.

Sakura expels a short, breathy laugh. "I know. You don't like sweets. Why'd you even try it then?"

Sasuke shrugs, not meeting her curious eyes. "You offered."

She stares at him. Shaking her head, she focuses back on her dessert. "You're strange," she comments nonchalantly, and takes another bite.

He snorts. "And you're annoying."

Sakura bursts into laughter at this, nearly dropping her ice cream in the process.

And the frown lifts from his lips ever so slightly as he watches her.

A/N: I live for slow-burn SasuSaku stories. While frustrating at times—kiss already, please?—they always seem the most realistic to me in the end. So be prepared, my friends. :)

As always, please leave a review and let me know your thoughts!

With love,

Shannon