Another First Time

Chapter 17: Nascence

Sai and Junko were met with bits of debris, sticky mud and absolute silence.

The sight of such destruction still unnerved him slightly, although he had to fight to keep a small smile off his face – the mess was a clear sign Sakura got to throw her weight around a little bit.

"Onii-sama is going to throw a fit," Junko murmured, her eyes wide from shock at the sight of a large part of her home in such disarray.

"Well, he kind of asked for it," Sai replied tonelessly. "When shinobi enter the picture, things generally turn out messier than expected."

Unhooking his arms from the backs of her thighs, Sai allowed Junko to slowly slide down before swiftly entering the estate through the caved-in ceiling.

Inside was just as magnificently destroyed as the front lawn – mud coated the walls, tables and chairs were wildly positions all around the place and entire walls had been torn apart.

In the midst of all the chaos was pink, pink, pinkpinkpink-

Sakura!

Rushing over, he saw with no small amount of relief that she was still breathing. Blood was still sluggishly running down her forearm, coating a good portion of her torso with a rusty red – it wasn't very long ago that Sakura collapsed.

Quickly, Sai lifted her up in his arms as gently as possible, finally catching sight of the shinobi down on the ground near her; by the impossible angle his neck was making, it was clear that Sakura had cleanly broken this guy's neck, killing him in the process. Sai was uncertain as to where the other two ninja were, but it was obvious they were down as well – Sakura never left a job half-done.

Dispatching another two clones to dispose of the body and locate the other two, Sai made to exit the house but remembered the young woman he had just brought back.

"Stay here and wait," he said, turning around to face Junko. "Konoha will send someone over soon. Sakura needs a medic, fast."

Without waiting for a reply, he disappeared in a teleportation jutsu with Sakura safely tucked in his hold.

Don't let go.

Sakura was floating.

The sky was pastel and there was a field of paper flowers and Sakura was floating.

Ah, Sakura thought. I see.

She had been fighting, hadn't she? And then the only way she could have won the fight was by allowing herself to get stabbed and then taking advantage of the split-second opening that would create. Yes, she remembered now.

And it had worked too, hadn't it? Yes, she remembered hearing a crack before he had gone down – there was no way he would live with a neck broken in that place.

Strange – she didn't feel guilty about this death at all. Looking down at her hands, she didn't see blood staining them, like she so often saw after other missions. Her hands were soft and supple, her nails showing the healthy condition of her body.

Was she becoming more jaded? Would she end up like Kakashi, and all those other tired ANBU whose lives had become an endless sky of blood-red?

No, that wasn't it.

She felt no guilt – what she felt was sadness.

He had said so, hadn't he? That all he wanted was to survive. It just so happened that his way of surviving collided with her way of survival. That's all there was to it.

And it just clicked.

There were no bad or good shinobi, per se. There are ideas and thoughts and dreams and wishes, morals and beliefs and different ways of thinking. There's no such thing as hopelessness, because hope is only hope if you have faith in it. There are no unhappy endings because you are the only one who can decide whether you are happy or unhappy in the end.

In other words, it's just a choice.

Sakura could choose to angst and be guilty over every death she has ever caused. But she could also choose to just quietly mourn those who had died and remember that she is a kunoichi of Konoha.

Sakura could choose to let happiness just come along, but she could also reach out and grasp her own happiness.

She could beat herself up over the fact that she still went down during this battle, that she still wasn't strong enough, but she could also open her eyes and realize that strength wasn't about winning all the fights.

Because it isn't.

Strength and skill are different. Skill is dexterity, agility, adaptability and any other positive adjective someone might be able to think up. Skill is learned and practiced and honed and perfected. Skill is hitting the mark nine times out of ten.

Strength isn't like that.

Strength is getting up when you fall. It's never letting yourself settle for second-best. It's becoming the best that you can be. It's loving yourself for who you are.

I am strong.

Sakura never lied to herself, and now she dances upon the field of paper flowers.

Her feet touch the ground now.

When Sakura first opened her eyes, the room was blurred and she had to blink several times before everything came into focus.

The empty darkness of the room stirred up nostalgia within her – wasn't it just about a year ago that she also woke up to an empty hospital room, all alone?

She yawned and stretched, noticing how her arm had been completely healed – the absence of a scar told her that it was probably Tsunade or maybe Shizune who had healed her.

She smiled.

The hard, plastic chair that was usually placed in the back of hospital rooms had been moved to her bedside, right up close to her pillow. Sakura idly wondered if anyone had sat there while she had been out.

There was a duffle bag on top of the thin covers; it opened to reveal some clothes. Sakura's smile grew wider – she knew there was a good reason why she worked so hard to keep her friends happy.

She slowly pulled on the pair of black tights and light blue sundress that had been present in the bag – it was obviously Hinata who had packed the bag for her, seeing as only Ino and the shy Byakugan-user understood her taste in fashion. She was finishing strapping on the shuriken holster also in the bag to her thigh, underneath the dress, when the door slid open quietly.

Sakura looked up.

"Sasuke…"

The black-haired man offered her a slight, almost-not-there smile.

"Let me walk you."

She nodded. "Okay."

Sai dabbed gently at the canvas he was working on. The details of the painting were tiring, back-breaking work, but it helped take his mind off things.

Tsunade had finally kicked him out of Sakura's room after three days of moping around her bedside.

"Take a shower, get some food and some sleep before coming back here!" Tsunade had yelled while bodily dragging him out of the room and throwing him out into the hallway.

As he got up, Tsunade had turned around and said, "Actually, don't come back at all! You've gone three days without sleep and you just ran fifty miles back to Konoha while holding up four shadow clones, and I don't need you to collapse from chakra depletion as well. Don't you dare step foot into the hospital until I say so, Sai!"

"Hokage-sama," Sai started, "but, Sakura-"

"Shut up," Tsunade irritably said. "You'll be the first to know when she wakes up."

And that had been the end of that.

They were orders he couldn't disobey, so he had gone home, gotten a shower, went down to eat a bowl of ramen, and come back up to his empty apartment. While unpacking his bag he had come across several unfinished sketches that he had wanted to paint.

Sai almost let out a breath as he put down the brush.

She better wake soon.

"Thanks for picking me up," Sakura started, as she and Sasuke began walking down the crowded streets of Konoha.

Sasuke shrugged. "Actually, everyone else wanted to come to, but I convinced them that I needed to talk to you."

Sakura sent a sidelong glance to him. "You didn't pull Chidori on them, did you?"

He snorted.

Sakura took that as a no. "Ah, I get it. You used the Sharingan on them." She nodded wisely as she spoke.

Sasuke didn't say anything. After several minutes of silence, Sakura began to notice that he wasn't walking in the direction that led back to her apartment.

"Hey Sasuke, my place is that way…" she trailed off when she noticed that he wasn't listening. Sighing, she followed him anyway, wondering what had gotten into him.

"Why were you so insistent on picking me up anyway?" she asked, curious for answers. It had been quite a long time since she had even spoken to Sasuke – things had been strained, to put it nicely, since they had broken up.

"Some…things I wanted to clear up between us," he said. Turning to finally meet her gaze, he continued.

"I never got a chance to say I'm sorry," he quietly said. "So…I'm sorry."

Sakura sighed, looking away from him to look at the clouds above. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Sasuke continued as if he hadn't heard her. "I'm sorry I went and got myself, and you, into such a big mess. I just want you to know that I didn't go out looking for a woman that night – I just needed to get a drink, and then things sort of got…fuzzy."

Sakura couldn't help but smile a little bit – Sasuke was just so funny and awkward whenever he tried to apologize for something.

"And…" he hesitated slightly, just enough for her to pick up on it. "I'm sorry that I left you alone when you were in such a vulnerable state. I honestly didn't know what to do, and by the time I was sober again you were gone."

Sakura turned to face him once again. "I forgave you a long time ago, Sasuke."

Sasuke smiled slightly. "I know. I just needed you to know that I was sorry."

She laughed and resisted the urge to mess up his hair – it would destroy his ego more than apologizing to her would have.

"You know you'll always be a brother to me, right?" she asked, stopping to place a hand on his shoulder.

Sasuke nodded. Handing her the duffle bag, which he had been graciously holding throughout their stroll, he rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully.

"And just so you know, I know where you live." Reaching into his pocket, he lifted up his hand to show her the house key she had given him. "I still have this, remember? I just thought you should know that someone else has been sitting at your bedside for three days straight until Tsunade kicked him out."

He pointed behind her.

They were standing in front of Sai's apartment.

Sakura turned back to him. "Sasuke…"

Sasuke nodded, giving her a little push on the shoulder. "Go on. I've cleared things up with you, and now it's your turn to clear things up with him."

"How-?"

"I've known you long enough to be able to read you, Sakura," he said, shaking his head. "Even if I haven't seen you in a long time, I know exactly what was going on during that mission."

Sakura flushed slightly, but smiled. "Thanks, Sasuke."

He turned around, hands still stuck in his pockets – a pose reminiscent of the days at the Academy when they were still naïve little kids. Sakura watched as his back disappeared into the bustling crowd before turning to the apartment in front of her.

Alright. Here goes nothing.

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"What are you doing here?"

Sakura scowled. "Hey, won't you let me in first?"

Sai wordlessly moved aside to admit his pink-haired visitor. She threw her duffle bag to the side and yawned, stretching out her cramped muscles again. Sai closed the door and crossed his arms, leaning on a wall.

"I thought you were still in the hospital."

"Iwas, but Sasuke-kun was nice enough to walk me here," Sakura said cheerfully.

Didn't Tsunade-sama say I would be the first to know when she woke up…? Sai couldn't help but feel a stab of annoyance and something else at the thought.

"Hm. I see." Sai uncrossed his arms and walked back to his canvas, sat down, and began to paint again.

The smile slid off Sakura's face and she began to scowl again.

"Hey, is that all you have to say?" she asked, stomping over to his side.

"Not really," he answered. Sakura bit back a retort, choosing instead to take a peek at what he was painting.

"Sai…" she breathed.

It was her.

"I…remember that night," she quietly said. "We had camped near a stream, and you told me to take a bath because you said I smelled."

Sai put his brush and palette down. He slowly got up from his stool.

"You get it now, don't you?" he asked, running a hand through his mussed hair. "See, I-"

His hands grasped her shoulders, as if trying to make her understand something.

"Sakura, I-"

A finger went to his lips to silence him.

"It's alright," she whispered. "I understand. It's fine this way. It's all I need."

And then she kissed him.

She kissed him, and he remembered.

It was his turn to remember as her smell, her warmth, her presence permeated his entire being.

They fit against each other – he was taller and she was all gentle curves and sharp hipbones but they fit just right.

When they broke apart, Sakura's arms were curved around his neck and his hands were resting on her waist.

"I…" he hesitantly started. "I've never done anything like this before."

She smiled. "It's alright. You've got to start somewhere."

"I say the wrong things a lot of the time," he continued.

She laughed. "I know. I'll just have to hit you until you stop."

"It's okay like this?" he asked, because he was still uncertain and so much more vulnerable than he thought he would ever be.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

Her green eyes shine softly and her smile was small but genuine.

He believed her, and when their lips met again, he knew things would change for the better this time – this brand-new first time for the both of them.

a/n: Ahhhh...

Well, that's it for Another First Time.

Yeah. Not joking. But I might put up an epilogue...honestly, you guys won't believe me, but I have like, 4 different versions of an epilogue somewhere on my hard drive XD

Again, I'm very sorry for the rather late update, but it's exam period (ohgosh3summativesduetmrwah!) and it's been stressful. Although I have to admit that I've mostly been procrastinating and in denial about the whole situation. It's like, I KNOW that I have a whole crapload of work to do in an unreasonable time limit (English teacher, long story) but all this time I'm just like, "Lalalala I don't hear anything..."

Anyways, I really want to thank all my readers who have taken the time to read this story in the first place, who didn't give up on me even with my ridiculously sparse updates and stupid spelling mistakes, and who have left me very encouraging comments and critique. I love you all :) Thanks again!

On a closing note, my fic journal is now open for REQUESTS. I will take just about any het pairing and perhaps a few specific yaoi pairings - just drop me a comment (link is my homepage at my profile) and we'll go from there. If you comment annonymously, please at least provide me with your fanfiction penname - I really would like to know who you are :D

Enjoy!