Note: So I found the perfect poem for this story in my grandmother's poetry book and I've decided after I finish this story I'll post it for everyone to read. Also I created a account so if anyone wants to see my artwork then just go to rememberance91. I have one picture for this story right now but I plan to more up.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor do I own the Naruto story line.

Chapter Sixteen:

Happiness And Joy All Replace

I woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare that I was having to find Naruto sprawled across the bed next to mine.

I smiled as I watched him for a few minutes forgetting the gruesome dream that had plagued me not to long ago.

I looked around the room- after he had snorted and mumbled something about ramen- for the red head that was traveling with us to find that he was not in the room. I stood up stretching my arms above my head as I went to go to the bathroom.

Shutting the door I sighed, leaning against it for support, my body was weak from the dream.

I still remember what made it so frieghtening.

I was standing in the middle of a room with ebony curtains, and a square carpet pattern on the floor. My eyes zeroed in on the pattern for a few minutes as I silently traced the squares that entangled themselves together in different hues and colors.

All around me voices were echoing phrases at that moment in the dream I could not seem to understand.

I could catch small distinct words such as death and murderer.

My dream self looked up from the carpet to a bed to the right of me, the bed had someone in it who had a single silk black blanket laid gracefully over them. I went to the bed side slowly my entire dream self shaking in terror, but not the kind of terror that you feel when your very life is in danger.

No this terror was different.

It was the terror that I had just lost someone very important to me.

The terror that I would never see that person again.

Tears glided down my cheeks as I raised my hand- my intention was to pull the silk off to see who was laying under it.

Even though it had been a dream and nothing more I could shake the terror that was left over as I stood breathing heavily in that small, cluttered bathroom with its yellow wall paper and white tiled floor.

In the dream my fingers touched the silk sending a new wave of terror through me; I felt its silky surface tickle my palm teasingly as I gently pulled the cover back from the person's bright blonde hair.

My heart sank- and might I add my heart hurts even now as I recall the dream and the events that took place after the dream.

His eyes lashes were pale from the powered they use on the dead, laying like a feather on a pillow, against his extremely pale cheeks and were closed lightly as his lips were creased into a frown.

More tears fell from my cheeks in the dream lightly splattering on his own nose and trickling to his closed mouth.

I stared at his souless shell, and I remember thinking in the dream that his frown seemed to show his fustration for dieing before he could become the hokage like he had often said he would.

I collasped against the bed the tears following harder than before, my head buried in the covers beside his hand.

I heard his child-like voice say in my ear, "Don't cry Sakura."

I looked up from the bed in hope of seeing him.

Across from the bed he stood there, twelve-years-old, grinning widely at me and next to him was Sasuke's twelve-year-old self, Kakashi, and my twelve-year-old self. My old team was there once again before everything had turned out the way it had.

Naruto's old self grinned, "Why are you crying?"

"Naruto?"

My voice was weak even for a dream.

"Yeah who else?" he demanded.

"Come on," Kakashi ushered me.

They were started to fade.

"Yeah," Sasuke said cooly with a smirk, "Come on already we'll be late."

"Wait!" I called at them stretching my arm out above his body, "Don't go!"

I jumped up to my feet, and was about to jump over the bed only to be stopped by a strong hand on my shoulder; I glanced over to see Gaara standing there with his hand on my shoulder stopping me from chasing after our former selves.

"What are you doing?!" I yelled at him the tears flowing down my face.

Strangely enough even though I was asleep I could feel everything in that nightmare, including his touch on my shoulder.

I opened my eyes, kicking off the door and staring into the mirror in front of the sink- to my surprise I had tears falling down my cheeks just from recalling the nightmare. Closing my eyes once again, bracing myself on the sink I allowed the memories to finish replaying in my memory.

Dream Gaara shook his head, as if silently telling me that chasing after the past was useless, I watched as a wind picked up blowing his body away in the form of sand.

Then my dreamed switched and I was standing in the middle of the room again staring at the squares as they tangled themselves around each other.

Though silently I was screaming for myself to wake up knowing what was coming next; I didn't.

Again to the right of me there was another bed with someone laying in it covered by another silk black blanket so that I couldn't see who they were.

My feet began to move forward once again until I was in front of the bed; my hands reached up, gently tugging the covers from the person's face. I watched the silk slide slowly off their hair, gliding over the out line of their nose and mouth. Instead of the blonde hair that I was suspecting there was crimson in its place.

I gasped in horror.

His eyes, much like Naruto's, were shut and the ebony rims had faded to a stormy gray the powder having the same effect on his eyes as Naruto's very own; I stared at his lips that were pressed together in a frown as if he was in deep thought about death and life and their meanings. In my dream, he didn't look exactly peaceful, but more or less lost in the deep slumber that he wouldn't wake from.

Tears fell from my eyes onto his closed ones slowly sliding across his cheeks as if he was crying as well.

Even though I knew in my mind that it was a dream, my heart still ached from the emotions that were created from it.

My dream self kneeled next to the bed taking his hand in mine and mumbled something to him that I wasn't able to make out; I don't know what I said but I do know that what ever it was made me cry even harder.

"Why are you crying?"

I opened my eyes realizing that I was no longer in the memory of my dream nor was I alone in the bathroom; I looked up to see the very same subject of the second half of my dream staring back at me in the mirror. He showed no real signs of concern for my tears- actually he didn't show any signs of emotion at all.

Never the less his reflection made me jump- he was the last person I expected to see.

I wipped away all the evidence of my nightmare from my cheeks using my arm, then once I had finished I said with a false grin on my lips, "I'm not crying!"

"Yes you are," he said not falling for the lie that I was trying my very best to make him believe.

He leaned down so that he could see my face better his nose inches from my own.

I turned my head so that I wouldn't have to look him in the eye- the memory of his lifeless body from my dream flashing cruelly in my mind, "Besides why does it matter?"

Another tear slid down my face and I cursed the fact that I couldn't seem to control my emotions.

Taking his thumb, he wipped it away from my cheek- that was the first time after Sasuke's betrayal he had shown affection toward me. I could see in those embellished sea foam green eyes that in his heart he was hurting; they showed me the emptiness he felt and recieved from the world.

From that moment I knew.

"Have you ever heard that saying that people's eyes are the windows into their souls?"

It was a rather stupid and some what childish question, but it was something that I often pondered about when I was own my own.

He blinked, pulling back some in thought, "No."

"Well," I said looking at my feet in my own embrassment, "There is this saying that says that when you look into someone's eyes you can see into their soul and tell who they are and what they are like."

He was silent, waiting for me to finish explaining my thoughts- that was something that I loved about him- he was always patient. That and there was something about him that allowed me to open up without fear of being made fun of or anything like that.

I mean I could talk to Naruto to, he was like a brother to me, but with Gaara there was something different- something else.

I can't say for sure what it was that was different- but it was there and I saw it.

"And when I look into your eyes," I paused trying to find the words that I was looking for, "I see-"

"A monster?" he finished my sentence his tone distant.

I looked up in shock; I hadn't thought of him as a monster since he tried to kill me when Naruto and he fought, but that was the only time.

And even then when he was so unstable- monster was not the word I would have picked as the adjective to discribe him.

Lost.

That would the adjective I would have used.

"No," I told him rather quickly trying to organize my thoughts into something logical and intelligent.

He looked up at with doubtful eyes- I guessed that he thought I was saying that because we needn't his help with Sasuke and Itachi, but he was wrong.

So very wrong.

I was starting to see his soul through those eyes, and it was something that was so complicated and so beautiful that it often took my breath away from me.

"Your eyes," I began again lifting my face up to that we were eye to eye, "Is so sad yet at the same time beautiful beyound any adjective in the human vocabulary."

He turned his head so that I couldn't see his eyes.

My stomach began to feel as if it was hallow and my heart began to beat against my chest threatening to explode inside of me- this was a feeling that he had often given me.

"Things like that are pointless," he stated looking back at me.

His eyes revealed nothing to me.

"Yeah maybe," I replied unsure what to say at that point, "But then-"

He leaned down even closer to me, "But then nothing, you can't see people's souls through their eyes."

For a moment- a brief moment- allowed my thoughts to trail away and the image of our lips touching in a kiss made itself apparent. That thought made my cheeks turn an even darker shade of pink; he must have guessd my thoughts because he turned his head away from me with a faint blush.

There was an awkward silence between us.

Through the door to the bathroom Naruto called, "Hey whos in there? Come on, hurry up!"

We both could hear him bouncing up and down outside the door.

"Hold on Naruto!" I yelled at him.

"Hurry up!" he whined banging on the door, "I gotta go!"

"Shut up!" I growled, "I heard you!"

I looked around the bathroom for Gaara to find that he had vanished only leaving a few grains of sand on the tiled floor.

Naruto banged on the door again.

"Okay, okay," I yekked back, jerking open the door to find him dancing around the room like a three-year-old.

"About time!" he huffed rushing past me, slamming the door shut behind him.

I climbed into bed, pulling the sheets up around me, and closed my eyes blocking out an images from my prior nightmare.

Things were starting to change, and at that time in my life I assumed for the better.

But like they say, every thing good or bad has an end.