Howdy.

This chapter was so hard to write. It killed me the way I was forced to end it, but it had to be done. Now, don't go looking at the end just to see why I was upset, read the entire thing.

Review, and remember, the pics and new story ideas!

Nicola

Chapter Fourteen: Renewal

As the day wore on, Kaede tried to work up the courage to speak with Miki. They were best friends, what was there to be afraid of? Lots of things, Kaede mused sourly as she assisted Sakura with the dishes. Like Miki's juriken, Neji's over-protectiveness, his juriken, and Miki's temper. Those were all wonderful reasons to be hesitant about making amends with the Hyuga girl, but apparently they weren't good enough for Sakura.

"Oh, for Kami's sake, will you just go and talk to her already?" Sakura said, handing Kaede another plate. "It's not like she's going to bite you or anything!"

"You don't know that," Kaede grumbled in response, soaping up the plate and vigorously attacking the food stains on it. "She could be rabid."

"Uh-huh, sure." Sakura dunked a rather large ramen bowl—obviously belonging to Naruto—into the soapy basin and began scrubbing it with a dishrag. "I mean, there are shots for that stuff, you know. You wouldn't die if she was rabid." When Kaede smirked, Sakura said hurriedly, "Not that she is rabid, or going to bite you, therefore leaving you no reason to put this off any longer. So just go tell her that bringing Sasuke here was a good thing, and that if she doesn't want to think so then it's fine. She can just go live in the Sand."

"Yeah, like she'd ever do that," Kaede scoffed, rinsing her now shiny clean plate and putting it on the dish rack with all the other clean dishes. "You don't understand how stubborn and moody Miki is. She's like…oh, I don't know…Sasuke. Maybe that's why we just kind of clicked."

Sakura was silent, which annoyed Kaede more that the pink haired woman's banter. For the next few minutes, they washed, rinsed, and dried about a quarter of the stack of dishes still towering above their heads. By the time Kaede had done her twenty-eighth plate, her hands were all wrinkly and there were several small cuts from grabbing the sharp end of knives instead of the handles.

Finally, Sakura turned towards Kaede, looking as if she had something so say. Kaede set the knife she was attempting to wash back down in the water to give her friend her full attention.

"If you don't talk to Miki," Sakura began, "then you'll be losing a wonderful friend. I'm going to go find Naruto and hang out with him. You can finish up here."
As Sakura went to leave, she turned and looked solemnly at Kaede. "You know, sometimes you remind me of Sasuke, too." And she left.

Kaede watched as Sakura disappeared through the door and had to consciously close her mouth. She was like Sasuke? No way! She wasn't quiet, cold, reclusive, obsessed with power, sarcastic, or anything. But as she thought of the conversation she'd just had with Sakura, she sighed.

Okay, she had to admit it. She did kind of act like Sasuke sometimes. But she was a lot kinder and more forgiving that the Uchiha man was. Living with him must have caused some of his little habits and ways to rub off on her, and she figured it was something she'd have to deal with later. Oh, well.

She put her hand back into the sudsy water to grab another plate or utensil or something, and pulled out the knife that she'd dropped in, thankfully picking it up by the handle. As she did so, she heard someone walking down the hallway and pause near the door. Unconcerned, she continued to rinse the knife and place it in the dish rack. That someone near the door walked into the kitchen and plucked a dish off of the stack, dunked it in the water, and, picking up Sakura's discarded rag, began scrubbing. It took a few moments for Kaede to realized that this person assisting her in washing the dishes was in fact the person whom she had claimed to be rabid not twenty minutes ago.

Miki was staring down at the bowl, slowly rubbing the rag in circles, her stance one of hesitance and anxiety. Kaede couldn't help but eye Miki as she, too, slowed her washing and continued to run the rag over the same plate for several minutes.

It wasn't until Kaede was beginning to worry that the plate would begin to disintegrate with the soap and water and scrubbing when Miki dropped the bowl to the floor with a crash that made Kaede cringe. The Hyuga girl flung herself at Kaede and threw her arms around her neck. She was sobbing, and Kaede couldn't think of anything else to do but rub her friend's back.

Unsure of what to say, she continued to try and soothe Miki as best she could for a time that felt like an eternity. Miki's tears were soaking through Kaede's shirt, and her shoulder was beginning to get very, very wet and cold. Finally, with a sniffle and a sheepish chuckle, Miki pulled away, wiping at her face. Grudgingly, Kaede picked up the dishtowel and handed it to her; gratefully Miki blew her nose on the cloth and tossed it into the trashcan.

"What're we gonna use to dry the dishes now?" the Hyuga asked, and Kaede shrugged.

"I dunno, our pants or shirts or something," Kaede replied, and Miki laughed, a weak laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Kaede felt her heart swell with happiness that she and her friend had made up, but something was bothering her about this little forgiving reunion. It was almost like despite the fact that they had obviously made up, Miki still hadn't really pardoned Kaede's decision.

Quickly the two girls cleaned up the pieces of the shattered bowl and dumped them into the trashcan before returning to finish the dishes. As they scrubbed at the speed of light, Kaede couldn't help but steal a thoughtful glance every once and a while at Miki. The Hyuga was quietly washing each dish she received; yet it was almost too quiet. Normally, Miki would be cutting up and joking around and acting stupid, but she wasn't, and Kaede knew it wasn't the war that had sobered her friend. It had been her decision to bring Sasuke back that had tuned Miki down a few notches.

The village needed an insider, though, she mused. If they could have more than their current benefactors right up close to Orochimaru, which Sasuke was, they'd be home free in no time. Or what felt like no time, anyway. With the Uchiha man on their side, they had someone who had infinite sources and information right at his hands, and who was willing to share it all. Why couldn't Miki see that?

As she dunked her hand back into the basin to feel around for dropped utensils, Miki tossed her rag in and sighed, giving a meek smile. "Well, it's about finished here, and I still have to go help Neji distribute pillows and stuff. See you later." With that, Miki left and Kaede stared after her. What was up with her? She could've waited for her to get finished so she, too, could help.

Shrugging it off, she felt around again and cried out in pain as her finger connected with the sharp blade of a knife. Immediately she withdrew her hand and sucked on the injury, glaring in the basin at the terrible utensil. It seemed to mock her, so she slashed her uninjured hand across the water.

Damn those knives.



That night, Kaede once again lay awake, staring at the ceiling, as those around her snored and shifted in their sleep. She couldn't seem to find that soft, welcoming place of slumber that possessed all of her friends, and, searching for comfort, she pulled her necklace out of the warmth of her shirt and held the little heart in between her fingers. She sighed and closed her eyes, immediately disposing of the idea of trying to think of good memories to lull herself to sleep. Last time, she'd woken in an irritable mood.

But in spite of her determination to not think and just sleep, she found herself remembering the day she and Sasuke had first met.

A smile worked its way across her face as she saw her disgruntled, angry face from that day, and recalled how enraged she was when Sasuke dismissed her as weak. She'd threatened him with kicking his butt, or, as she'd said, "I'll beat the shit out of you faster than you can blink, Uchiha." The thought brought a warm feeling to her chest, and the longing to go back to that time and have everything the way it used to be. It was impossible, she knew, but that didn't stop her from wanting it.

That night in the meadow, staring at the moon, came back with a vengeance. They had sat silently in one another's company for only a few minutes, and Sasuke had spoke to her, literally poured his heart out to her. He'd told her how he saw the moon, how to him it represented the unknown future. She'd mused how they were total opposites on the subject—she thought the moon to be a symbol of the unknown past, like hers had been back then. Nowadays, though, she knew her past, and saw the moon through Sasuke's eyes.

More memories came back of the little moments they had together. Waking up in Sasuke's bed had certainly been a shock, especially considering she'd been wearing one of his old shirts and a pair of his shorts. She had been enraged to find he'd changed her wet and dirty clothes without her consent, but now, she saw it as the only kind act the Uchiha could think up at the time.

Then, the next morning, Sasuke had comforted her, wrapping his arms around her as she cried on the bridge, but ultimately taking it all back and telling her how he didn't want to be on a team with a weak, useless kunoichi. Even today, his words stung and made her blood boil.

Wallowing in her old memories had not put her to sleep this time; instead, she was even more awake than before. She tossed onto her other side, buried her face in her pillow, tried lying on her back, sides, stomach, everything, and finally kicked the blanket off of her. Her newfound insomnia was beginning to become a problem.

Restless and longing to get out, Kaede tiptoed past all her sleeping friends, extra careful to not step on Miki or bump her, afraid that waking her would set off some kind of alarm or something.

She made it through the door, then padded silently down the hallway, her eyes set on the door at the end of it. Just inside that door were the steps that would lead up to the surface, where the moon hovered ominously in the dark sky. Her heart thudded in anticipation as she reached the door, turned the knob, and entered.

Quietly, she shut the door behind her and stared up the staircase. The wooden trap door was still there, guarded by the tree she knew was on top of it. As she climbed the stairs, she made a chakra sign, waiting for the familiar creaking, crawling, rustling sound of the tree moving before pushing the trap door open and pulling herself out into the cool night air.

As easily as if she did this every day, Kaede sealed the door shut and replaced the tree, barely thinking about it. Her gaze locked on the moon, and she began to walk, arms hugging her torso, hair lifting slightly in a breeze. Her eyes bore into the silver crescent in the black night sky, outlined by a scatter of sparkling stars. Back home, this had been her favorite time of all, when no one was out but herself, no lights were on, just the moon illuminating the world.

Thoughts of Konoha brought the sting of tears to her eyes as she realized it had been almost three years since she'd lived there without fear. It was hard, not going home, not being able to visit Ichiraku or the market, or the training fields or the lake, or the hot springs, or hang out at Sakura's house, or have snowball fights even though they were way too old to do so, or spar with Tsunade, or chase Jiraiya out of the girls' locker room, or anything. The thoughts brought a stinging pain to her chest, and she tightened her arms around her, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

She wanted to go home. She wanted this war to be over. She wanted everything to be the way it was supposed to be.

But…wait.

She stopped. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she came to a realization. Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe this war was what had been planned all along, maybe the way it was wasn't how it was all supposed to turn out.

"Sometimes in wars, we fight to protect what's precious to us, even if we don't know the outcome."

Kakashi had said that, she remembered, a long time ago, after Orochimaru had first tried to attack the village, ending in the Third Hokage's death. All of them had been solemn after those words were spoken, and would never forget them.

They were true, she thought quietly, watching her feet now instead of the moon. She was fighting for the things that were precious to her. Her friends, her love, her village…they were all things she kept close to her heart at all times, a dangerous thing, but also a wonderful thing.

As she walked, not knowing where she was going, her hand reached up and touched the necklace Sasuke had given her. They were both older now, more mature, but still clung to a few child-like tendencies. As always, Sasuke had been too shy—and probably too cautious—to give her a present in person. On every birthday he had sent her something, left it on her pillow, or thrown it through the open door and run off. Okay, admittedly the door one had only happened once, but it still counted.

It was beginning to get later, she noted, but she continued to walk without destination, not really caring where she would end up. If she ended up in the clutches of a few Sound nin, then there would be a few more dead in the middle of the forest. If she made it to the lake, she would stay there, watching the moon's reflection off of the water, the way the ripples made it seem like it was moving, waving at her, winking.

In a few minutes time, that was where she found herself, at the lake where she and Sasuke had sat together a few weeks ago. She settled onto the dewy grass, her knees folded and her arms resting on top of them. Her eyes gazed at the water swaying just in reach. She wanted to jump in, to swim and to feel free again. In the world she was living in, there was no such thing as freedom for those who held strong for Konoha. She sighed, tossing her head to get her hair out of her eyes.

A long time she sat there, in the same position, knees to her chest, just watching the water. Soon she began to feel stiff, and stretched her legs out in front of her, laying on her back and propping her head up with her hands. Her gaze swept over the starry sky, and once again she named the constellations. She made out Pegasus, the Little Dipper, the Big Dipper, Canis Major and Canis Minor, Equueleus, the foal, another one of her favorites, and, finally…

Someone settled next to her, and a deep, velvety, welcome voice said, "Orion. Isn't it beautiful?"

Kaede looked to her left and saw Sasuke sitting there, one leg folded with an arm resting on it, the other stretched out in front of him. His eyes were focused on the sky, his chin tilted upwards, his free hand balancing his weight on the ground behind him. She stared up at him, a smile beginning to make its way across her face.

"Yes, it is," she answered, rolling over to lie on her side. He looked down at her, a smirk of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She couldn't help it—she blushed. He always had that effect on her when he showed her that special smile of his. He was so handsome, so beautiful—in a manly way, of course. She'd never call him beautiful to his face. He'd mutilate her.

They stared at each other like that for a while, until he lied down, too, his face merely inches from hers. Their noses were almost touching, as he made his way closer, closer, until they kissed.

She fell into the kiss with everything she had, trying to make it last. When they pulled away, it was reluctant on both their parts. Sasuke's black eyes bore into hers, full of feelings he would most likely never be able to voice. She smiled, he smiled back. He pulled her closer to him and held her there, against his chest. She breathed in his smell and wallowed in his warmth.

All she wanted to do was sit and stare at him, be with him for the rest of forever, but she had to open her big, uncontrollable mouth.

"What ever happened to us?"

Confused, Sasuke pulled away and stared down at her, a frown creasing his face. "What do you mean, what happened to us?" he asked suspiciously. "We're fine, aren't we? I mean, we're together."

Kaede immediately regretted her question and just rolled back onto her back, wanting to forget the whole thing. "Never mind, it was a dumb question."

But Sasuke was persistent. "No, it wasn't. What did you mean, Kaede? Aren't we just fine? We're together again, right?"

"Sasuke, there's nothing to worry about. I was just…being stupid. I don't know why I asked that. Just…forget about it, please?"

"Whatever." And he was back to being his old self, distant, cold, and unwelcoming. He sat up and stared forward, refusing to look her in the eye. She sighed heavily and just shook her head, watching the stars twinkle in the sky.

"I remember when I was with Orochimaru as a kid," Kaede began, still gazing at the stars. "He used to take me to this place in the woods in the middle of nowhere, and we'd watch the sunset together. We'd watch all the colors turn into black, and he'd tell me that eventually, life was like a sunset. Every person was a blast of colors from the darkness when they were born, like a sunrise, and we lived our life with sunny moments, bright blue skies, and cloudy days, and in the end, as we faded away, all those colors we were at birth would appear again, then slowly fade into the dark night." She smiled slightly at the tender memory, even though she still hated Orochimaru's guts. "He said that the stars represented the people who went up into the sky after death. It was kind of nice, sitting there with him, and ever since then I've always wanted to be in the sky as a star, twinkling and bringing light to the darkness."

Silence followed her little story. She stole a glance at Sasuke, and saw him searching the sky, his eyes filled with…tears. Quickly she looked back at the stars as if she had never glanced at him. The strong, stoic Uchiha was actually crying.

"I wonder if Dad is up there," Kaede said softly to no one in particular, trying to pinpoint which star her father would probably be. As she did this, she realized that that was the first time she had actually called him Dad instead of Kyoto. A sad, but somehow happy smile quirked her mouth, and she felt the tears building up. She had never had a father figure in her life, other than Sasuke, and it hurt to think that she hadn't made amends with Kyoto.

She spotted a star in the sky that was dim, but somehow stood out more than the others. It was kind of like her father, she thought, swallowing the lump in her throat. He had been a dim little light in her life, but had had the most influence. In ways, he had shaped her to be what she was today. Sure, she resembled her mother in appearance, but habit-wise and personality-wise, she was more like her father.

Both of them had a determination and stubbornness like none other. Only Naruto seemed to come close. They loved to fight, and fight with tactic and skill, hating to lose. They had their moments when they were stoic and unmoving in their opinions, and when they just wouldn't give up. They shared the taste for the spicier ramen, and the distaste for tomatoes.

In some ways, she had shaped her ideal of the right guy off of what her father was, what she could remember of him, anyway. Which was probably why she kept coming back to Sasuke, and refused to give up on him.

"My parents are up there, somewhere, I guess," he said, his voice sounding far off and wondering. "They wouldn't be there, they shouldn't be there." He was whispering now, deep in his thoughts. Kaede stayed silent and let him continue. "My father…and my mother…they should be here, alive. If they were, all this wouldn't be happening. They…they were the most important things in my life."

Unknowingly, Kaede took notice of how he used his parents in the past tense. She knew they were dead and gone, but shouldn't they still have the most influence on him?

"I can't help but wonder what my life would've been like if they were still here, had raised me and not stopped halfway," Sasuke went on in that odd whisper. "Maybe if they had brought Itachi up different, showed him the right way, and not allowed him to get so hell bent on power, then I wouldn't have ruined my life the way I did." Okay, that stung.

"Sasuke, you didn't ruin your life," Kaede said in a low voice, getting to her feet and brushing herself off. "If anything, and I hate to say this, but you ruined mine. I never wanted to become Hokage before you left. I thought I had to prove that I was strong enough to be with you, but you never came back. I'm not blaming you for this war, but I'm blaming you for leaving."

Sasuke said nothing, and she walked away. She jumped into the trees, not wanting to walk slowly. She just wanted to get back to the hideaway and be back with her friends. Her heart held no regrets, just longings. She longed to have never fallen in love, she longed for the war to never have happened, she longed for everything to just stop and rewind. But that was not going to happen, not anytime soon. Not as long as Orochimaru was in control of one of the biggest, strongest villages in the world.

She ran at a rapid pace, trying to get as far away from Sasuke and the lake and their conversation as possible. It was immensely difficult, though, as something was telling her to turn around and go back and apologize. But what would she apologize for? For expressing her feelings and finally getting something off of her chest? That was not going to happen as long as she was in control of her own actions.

Suddenly, she felt as if someone was behind her, and then a hand grabbed her own and pulled her to a stop on a high tree branch. She knew who it was, and reluctantly turned to face him. Sasuke looked down at her, his eyes full of emotion, still watery from his struggling cry.

"Before you go," he said in a husky, thick voice, "I want you to know, I wish you the best in whatever you do, and that I always have. If this is what I think it is, then I just want to tell you that I hope you find what you're looking for, even if that isn't me." She could hear the tears in his voice, and felt her own welling up behind her eyes. Slowly, she lifted her hand to the back of her neck and unclasped the necklace.

She knew that this was the only way to go. It wasn't possible to have a relationship in the middle of the war, on two different sides. She realized and didn't care that he would continue to help Konoha try to gain their village back. She understood that this was where they would stop being together, that this was probably the last time she would see him looking so intimately at her.

Tomorrow, he would be back in the Sound, and she would be back underground, helping her friends and the people, training for the attack that would eventually come. She, too, wished him the best, nothing less than that. She hoped he would come to see that she would never stop loving him, no matter what happened, or who else she fell in love with. He'd always be at the top of her list.

Her eyes strayed to the sky as she placed the heart-shaped necklace into his hand. She saw the stars through blurred eyes as he leaned down to kiss her one last time. She let him, kissing him back with all the goodbyes she dared to say.

As she turned to leave, Sasuke's hand rested on her shoulder again, but she couldn't look at him this time. She was crying too hard.

"I hope you find everything you've ever dreamed of, Kaede," he whispered, "but I wish you'd stay."

Unable to form words through a thick, teary haze, she shook her head and jumped off the tree branch and onto another. This was goodbye, she knew, wiping her tearstained cheeks. Her hand went up to her neck where the tender piece of jewelry had lay only a few moments ago. It was gone now, and so was he.



Sasuke made his way back to what used to be Konoha, the necklace still balled in his hand. He felt a strange, dull sensation in his chest, and he swallowed hard to see if that would stem the feeling. It didn't go away.

His hand rested on his chest, clutching at the thin fabric of his shirt in a tight fist. It wasn't long before he reached the gates, nodded to the guards there, and entered. He knew where he was going to go, and what he was going to do with the necklace Kaede had returned to him.

At the thought, that feeling pulsed with a vengeance, causing him to double over in pain. He panted, straightening with a grimace and took several deep breaths to calm down. What was going on? He had not the faintest idea, and, after running a hand through his hair, he came to the conclusion that whatever this…pain was, Kaede must have felt it after his departure. With a wince, he imagined what it must have done to her, to have to watch him leave, thinking he had every intention of returning.

Maybe the argument with her father had left her distracted and unable to recognize that the ANBU who had come to summon him was not an ANBU at all, but merely a chakra-created shadow clone of sorts. No matter what it was, she'd imagined he was just leaving on a simple mission, to return in a day or so. But he hadn't, and he took full blame for it.

No one had forced him to go. He could have lived out his life in Konoha, with Kaede, revived his clan, been part of the ANBU Black Ops like he'd planned as a child, before his family's death. He could have been happy, been strong enough to defeat his brother with the assistance of his friends, of Naruto, Sakura, Kaede, even Kakashi. Yet he'd chosen his path, and look where it had ended up. He was betraying the man—if you could classify Orochimaru as an actual human being—that had taught him to be strong, that had shown him how to harness his power and become what Itachi couldn't.

He found himself by the fountain in Konoha, the fountain that hadn't filled with water since the war had begun. He stepped up onto the outer rim, slowly letting the necklace fall to its full length. A lump came into his throat, and stubbornly he pushed it back down. He was not going to cry.

Hope a nagging voice in the back of his head, Sasuke gently placed the necklace in the bottom of the fountain, in a spot where it was hidden from any passerby who thought it would be worth a pretty penny. As he left it, turning his back and walking towards the old Kage temple, he wondered if one day, when the village was back to what it was supposed to be, Kaede would find it and think of him.

He smiled, thinking how wonderfully impossible that was. It was something he had to look forward to, he figured, and shoved his hands into his pockets. Maybe one day.

I'm sorry, I cried. If any of you have heard Brad Paisley's songs "She's Everything," "I Wish You'd Stay," and "We Danced," then you understand how I put myself in the mood to write these. I listened to "I Wish You'd Stay" the entire time for the whole breakup scence.

Sniffle

Love ya, read and review! Please!!!!

Nicola