Next months were difficult. Everyday when she was waking up and her consciousness would kick in, her first thought was "Oh, no. Again." Again she needed to get up, go to work, do all that was demanded from her. Pretend that she was here. Present. All while the only thing she wanted was to dive deep inside her head and remember. Close her eyes and be someplace else, in a different Konoha, think about how it felt when Sasuke loved her.
She was doing it more and more as it dawned to her, that it was as much of Sasuke as she would ever get. The realization didn't strike her, it crept slowly, worked its way into her heart, until it became certainty – there will be no "together". There was nothing she could do to make a "together" happen. Or rather, she could do whatever she wanted, move mountains, travel barefoot to the end of the world and back, and still it wouldn't change anything. It was not dependent on her actions. She was powerless because the power, ultimately, laid by him. Surprisingly to her, that realization made her calmer. It was out of her hand, so she stopped straining herself. It left her numb, but at least in hurt less. Every day she cared a little bit less about what was going on around her – what she did, what she ate, how she looked like. It all didn't matter, the purpose was gone. She would wait out the course of the day, until she could finally lie down and drift into the memories. Thankfully the Tsukuyomi shone bright and full of colours under her eyelids, rocking her until she would fall asleep.
Keeping up the appearances was getting increasingly difficult. At work, she had troubles dealing with the nurses, they were pissing her off with their incompetence. There was now way in the world for her to tutor younger medics as she was supposed to, because she lacked patience. She started to decline all invitations from Naruto and Hinata, who were just ready with their new apartment, because looking at their little love-nest was unbearable for her. She just couldn't stand people around her, wanting things from her, expecting her to interact when all she wished for was to be left alone.
One day she realized to her shock that she stopped finding pleasure in her work. That made her stop in her tracks for a moment. That was wrong. Her work was her vocation, the most accurate manifestation of what she wanted to be. Not liking it was wrong. She went to Tsunade and asked for holidays, thinking that she was overworked and a break would help her regain the enthusiasm.
A week of holidays she spent mostly at home. Mostly in bed or on the sofa under the blanket, because she was permanently cold. "My fires are burning low." she thought.
When she came back to the hospital she wasn't feeling any more motivated than before. Only more irritated. Two months later she took another holiday, this time longer. She had an impression that Tsunade wanted to say something when she was signing the permission, so she scrammed as fast as she could.
Staying at home wasn't fun, it was infuriating. Being out was as well. At least she didn't have to be at work, where other people would be at the receiving end of her temper, Sakura thought bitterly.
Every day, same refrain was playing inside her head: "I don't want all this. I just don't want!" But she never could pinpoint what was it that she didn't want.
For a lack of better target, she focused her embittered attention on the things around her, in her apartment. She clearly owned too much stuff; she didn't need all that…
She went methodically about it. First ones to leave were her pot plants. She gave them to Ino, who accepted them easily, knowing what miserable life poor flowers were leading at Sakura's place. She always forgot to water.
She brought many books to library – there they were happy about it, as the post-war scarcity was still felt. She sold two carpets she never liked to a nurse who was just moving out from her parents. Many other things she just brought to the neighborhood waste-disposal area and put them neatly next to containers. They all disappeared so she assumed someone took them.
When in her cleaning process she reached her kitchen area, the eyes first landed on chairs standing around the table.
"These are too many." What did she need six chairs for? One was enough. Then she decided to be reasonable and to keep two. Naruto was in the end still dropping by from time to time. The next day, it was exactly Naruto who called her on it, spotting the chairs assembled on the side of the pavement in front of her house, each bearing a tidy, little note "To give away".
"Sakura, why are you trashing those perfectly good chairs? You liked them; we were picking them out together…"
"But I don't need them." She explained and failed to notice a worried look on his face.
Next came the clothes. That hurt more than she expected. Green summer dress hurt particularly badly. Reasonable, navy-blue skirt was not much better. They landed very quickly in the rejection pile together with most of other dresses and skirts. And blouses that had cleavage. And anything in bright colour. At the bottom of the wardrobe she found her red Genin dress, the one with Haruno circle at the back. She brushed her fingers against it – material was soft from the wear. Her fist clutched around the fabric. She always imagined how her daughter would want to try it on when she would be five or so – dress would be hanging pathetically from the thin shoulders, sweeping the floor, tangling around little legs... And later, how in the ripe age of twelve the same girl would snort at her mother's taste. But she will never have a daughter. She saw her in front of her eyes even now, so vividly. She will never have a daughter with black, black eyes and heart-shaped face. Sakura even had a name ready. She will never have a daughter named Sarada! After that, cried the rest of the evening and gave up the clean up for good couple of days.
She picked it up again, eventually. It was late evening and Sakura was balancing dangerously on her toes on the chair, trying to reach last stack of bowls in the very deepest end of the cupboard. She was scourging the kitchen cupboards. Amazing how many dishes she owned, she even didn't remember buying all that!
She grabbed that last stack from the depths of the cupboards and pulled them towards herself, stepped down the chair and started to methodically dust one bowl after another. She got to a pretty one, brown, glazed donburi bowl. She hadn't seen this one for a long time. Actually, last time Sakura saw it was inside the Tsukuyomi. When she cooked for Sasuke for the first time, as a form of thanks for his middle-of-the-night bento. She could remember how he sat by the table, looking so comfortable and content. He told her that what she prepared tasted good. And she was inclined to believe him, as that one time even she liked her own cooking.
Sakura weighted the bowl in her hand couple of times. And open up her fingers. Bowl landed on the floor, cracked into three parts. She grabbed a matching one from the set and hurled it against the wall. That worked better – the bowl smashed into a mass of small shards.
"You stinking Uchiha bastard!" she pushed piled plates over the countertop edge. "You fucking bastard!" Plates were falling one by one, staccato of their breaking accentuating her words. "So high and mighty! Better than everyone else!" She swept across the table, shoving all the glasses that stood there onto the ground. "Then why did you get yourself killed!" She slumped on her knees and sobbed. "Madara, you bastard, why did you die!"
She cried for a while and then she stopped. It was pointless, like everything else. She saw that one glass survived the slaughter; she picked it, stood up. Held the glass in outstretched hand, tilted it so that the opening was facing down and dropped it. Then she went to have a shower.
Next morning Sakura marveled at the scale of destruction. How did she yesterday manage to navigate between the broken glass without cutting her feet, was beyond her. She carefully tiptoed towards the hall to find shoes to wear around the house. Some full shoes, not ninja-sandals.
The next day she briefly contemplated cleaning up. But only very briefly. "Maybe it will clean up by itself if I wait long enough." she thought bitterly. "That is exactly what I do whole my life: waiting for things to mend on their own, don't I?"
On the third day there was a knock on the door. When she opened, she saw Shikamaru propped up against the corridor wall. His eyes immediately went exactly in the direction of the mess she was trying to block from his sight. "Yo. Bad timing?"
"No…" she mumbled in response.
"Good. Because I'm supposed to take you for a walk."
"What? Why? I… I don't think I want to go anywhere."
"Why? You're busy?"
"Yes." She said with conviction. Faking was becoming a second nature for her, she felt really accomplished in it. The more disappointed she was when Shikamaru didn't even bother to take her lie seriously.
"I don't think so. We're going." He grabbed her hand.
"Where? Why?" She tried opposing.
"Tsunade-sama told me to see what's wrong with you."
"Nothing is wrong! I'm having my holidays."
"Yeah, right, then at least make it less bothersome for me, will you?" He pulled her out of the doorstep.
Sakura gave up. "At least let me take my jacket…"
They walked along the river, exactly the route Sakura was avoiding. But she had to admit, this was a very scenic path. At some point Shikamaru deemed they were far enough and sat down. Sakura braced herself for the interrogation.
"So…" dragged Shikamaru. "Now it's the part when I ask if you are ok and you start entrenching yourself."
"Exactly." Thought Sakura but didn't say anything.
"Can we spare it to ourselves? Some things are clear and no denying from your side is going to change it. And, no I won't ask you how can we help you, because I doubt you can even give me an informed answer. I will just ask you what EXACTLY is wrong."
Sakura hung her head low. "Everything."
"And more specifically?"
"Every fucking thing!"
Shikamaru sighted. "Ok. Then let me analyze it, the way I see it and you tell me when our paths split?"
Sakura nodded. Shikamaru seemed to be determined, and on these rare occasion, she wasn't able to divert him. Tsunade-sama must have been very convincing. Poor Shikamaru.
"Just take no offense it whatever I say Sakura, ok?" She nodded her agreement. "So… It's pretty clear for me that it is Sasuke. The question only is "why?". Directly after the war you were so motivated to get back in touch with him. He got pardoned; he comes to the village from time to time, hangs out with you guys. Of course, it could have been that he spurned you once again and you got wounded by it. But. Either Ino or Naruto would have known about it, and they don't." Sakura gasped in exasperation but he continued. "No offence, remember? I did my research, for whom do you take me? Sasuke is more absent than present, but he was gone for five years before, and gone without hope of returning and you were relatively fine. So what you have here is a definitive change for better. Taking your determination into account, I don't believe you're giving up on him. You lived on empty hopes for five years and seemed perfectly ok back then. Now you're breaking into pieces. You don't have PTSD either, you've been checked for it." He added as if in an afterthought.
Shikamaru put fingers together forming his meditation seal. "You didn't stop me, so what I said is correct… In that case – there is just something I don't know. The question is "what?" What is it Sakura that compromises your functioning? Why are you not being your usual self, waiting for Sasuke like a faithful dog?"
Anger flashed in Sakura's eyes, but quickly died. Surely, it was exactly how everyone saw her, wasn't it?
"Tell me."
"…"
"Tell me." His voice was as constricting like his shadows were.
"Tsukuyomi."
"What?"
"It is Tsukuyomi."
"It has been dispelled…"
Sakura looked up to the sky. One good sunny day, at least today. Like back then…
"Tell me Shikamaru, what did you see in yours?"
He halted but then probably decided that everything is good to get her talking. "Nothing that I would not expect. I know my dreams – do my duty and retire, sit on a patio with my children, smoke and watch clouds. Nothing special. And that's what I got."
"I also know my dreams. Heck, probably whole village knows my dreams. Public knowledge, that's what they are. I got to live them and now I cannot live my reality…"
Sakura clenched her fist. If he wants to hear it that badly, then she can as will speak up. She was well past the point of caring about embarrassment. "I have to bend and twist myself every time he is around." First sentence was difficult, but with every next one her throat was getting less and less constricted. "Be nice when I want to scream. Be undemanding when I want payment for my efforts. Be not clingy when I want to wrap my arms around him. All not to scare him away, not to make him uncomfortable around me cause this would lower my chances. I'm playing a game that's called "catch a Sasuke". I'm playing against him, and the prize is him. It feels awful; I don't want to be doing it. I want him to just love me. Just like this. Just like he did in the Tsukuyomi!
Sakura bit her lip. „This was my plan, all the way along – to wait and be always there for him and that at some point he will come back and... I don't know. Maybe appreciate my waiting? Or at least he will be taking me so much for granted that if he once decides to settle down then it will have to be with me? I only needed to wait. Grit my teeth and wait, and hope. Nothing more. But I can't do it anymore! I can't stand that he doesn't care! That he treats me like air! Now, that I know how it is when someone cares, I cannot stand that he doesn't! Before I didn't miss it, you cannot miss what you don't know. Now I know and this knowledge makes all the difference in the word. Suddenly I feel entitled to love, which I'm not getting. I cannot do it anymore, all by myself – to provide enough love for us both. It's like pulling a cart when two wheels are missing, it's just not possible, you need all four!"
"Actually, you can have a two-wheel cart if the wheels are on the same axis and pull it very well.."
"Shikamaru! It's not about construction details! It was a metaphor!"
Shikamaru looked at her carefully. "So was mine."
But Sakura wasn't listening as she went on. Now that she started talking, it was like an open tap, like a waterfall, like a mountain river after the snowmelt. "You know, I'm starting to suspect, that the Sasuke I dreamt about doesn't exist. In the Tsukuyomi he was exactly how I imagined him to be if everything between us turned out fine. Cool and introvert and all Sasuke-like, but to me, only to me, showing tenderness. What if this caring side of him doesn't exist?! All those years I have been telling to myself that he's just not showing that he cares. What if he really doesn't? What if I was clinging to an illusion I created myself?!" Sakura paused, took a deeper breath. Her voice was strained when she spoke up again. "It's not love anymore, this thing inside me. It's resentment. It's black and dense, it's like a tar. I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at him. I hate everything around me. I start to hate people. Because they don't understand. Or they don't have time for me. Oh, this I hate the most – that they don't have time because they are so busy being happy. I know I should be happy for them, on a certain level I am, I really am. They are my friends, I love them, but… But then I am invited for a wedding and I want to punch walls." She shouldn't be saying those horrible things aloud, but she couldn't stop anymore. "And I hate every place here. It's so awful, I used to love Konoha, but now every street, every bench, every path in the forest reminds me of what could have been but is not. Even stupid, everyday objects…"
Shikamaru gave her a peaceful look.
Who cares, he knows already, he probably knew the moment he saw it. "Yeah – the crockery at my place. It had a bad luck of reminding me of something… I hate everything here. Even the weather – it always rains whenever I gather energy to go for a walk. Did it always use to rain so much, or is it just this year?"
"It rains as much as it always used to rain…"
"Really? I had a different impression… And it's cold, it's always so cold." Sakura felt up her fingers – like icicles, even though she was wearing a jacket while Shikamaru was sitting there only in a T-shirt. She ran out of steam, she didn't have anything more to complain about. It was pointless. Only thing she could think about was how freezing cold her feet were.
Shikamaru lighted up another cigarette. He sat there, a statue of calmness, taking slowly drag after drag.
"Can I have as well?" She never smoked, but who cares. Sakura thought he would give her a new cigarette, but Shikamaru just extended his hand with the half-burned one. She hesitantly took a whiff, and returned it. It wasn't half as bad as she expected. He took one more whiff and offered it to her once again, apparently meaning she could keep it.
"In that Tsukuyomi of yours – what else did you like? Except of Sasuke."
Sakura lifted her head, looked at the sky. "Everything." Cigarette was calming her down. "Everything was running smoothly. Patients were getting better quickly, experiments were working, paperwork was taking half of the usual time, nurses were friendly and full of energy. Ino was sympathetic and supportive for once. Naruto showered more often. Kakashi was sometimes there on time… The world seemed to bend to my hand…" Sakura felt tears forming in her eyes. "Why can't it be like that for real?"
She wanted Shikamaru to console her, if he already dragged her out here and made her remember all this again. But lazy bastard didn't, only pressed further instead. "What else? What else was there?"
Sakura sobbed, tugged arms around her knees in oh-so-familiar attempt on self-comfort. "Warm." She managed. "It was warm." She cried for good, self-hugging always prompted her to crying. "I want it all back. I want to be back there. I don't want to be here anymore." She swung her arm in broad gesture.
"Then don't."
"What?"
"Then stop trying to be here where you don't want to be."
Sakura stared.
"Most of the things you want changed don't depend on you. Poor choice of things that matter, if you ask me, but who am I to judge… You can't change people or circumstances, at least not that easily, and definitely not in your current state. But there is something that depends only on you – it is where you are. Don't want to be here – go some place else."
Sakura looked dumbfounded "Where am I suppose to go…?" she whispered.
"Suna. Go to Suna."
"…why?"
"It's warm there. Rarely rains."
Sakura gathered her wits. "Shikamaru. Since everyone tells you you're a genius, didn't you get a bit too full of yourself? Do you really think you can sputter every first nonsense.."
"Not a nonsense. Think about it for a moment. Here everything reminds you of Sasuke. In a new place… well, it will certainly not be the case. And out of all the possible places, Suna is a closely allied village and I assure you, it IS warm."
"This is a completely crackpot idea, Tsunade-sama will never.."
"Tsunade-sama will for sure. Suna is famous for poisons, you could do hell of research there. You could modernize their healthcare, I heard they are rather lacking in this department. Temari is moving here soon and with her being so high-profile and all, it wouldn't be bad, if someone of similar rank would go to Suna…"
Sakura blinked - that thought was so alien that she didn't even know how to go around it. And then, maybe because all that inertness that she felt those days, she felt as if Shikamaru just took her out of her usual track and put her on a completely different one. Like a ball on a marble run, now she could roll down along the new track. Now she couldn't imagine anything else that she could do except going to Suna. It was suddenly so obvious, so logical. How strange, she didn't spare a single thought to the Wind Country probably whole last year, and now she was going there. With some curiosity, she was observing as a part of her still wanted to protest - more out of a sense of indignation than anything else, while most of her brain was already busy making a packing list. "Good that I got rid of so many things already. It will be easier to clear the apartment."
She looked up to Shikamaru – he was smiling at her. "Thank you." She said and got up. She had things to do. Lots of things and little time. The sooner she leaves the better. Sakura looked past her shoulder. "Your Tsukuyomi… it really didn't have any influence on your life?"
"Hmm… Now that you ask… Maybe I'll teach Temari play shogi, when she comes…"
"Why?"
"In Tsukuyomi I used to play with my wife. She was good."
Sakura laughed. "It wasn't Temari, there, in your dream, was it?"
"No… That one was much cuter, less violent… But Temari is here, and if she will have a lazy bastard like me, then I can only be grateful. I'm sure she'll make a heck of shogi player."
AN: I'm still a bit torn whether to leave the story as it is, with a sad ending of Sakura going to Suna and trying to cope with her life, or to get Sasuke to finally wake up and live up to her expectations. A sad ending would be more realistic I guess... Any good arguments?
