AN: And here we are at last. I hope that there will still be a remnant of people able to enjoy this, despite the long wait…It's amazing what the threat of two unfinished assignments due on Monday will do for my writing muse…

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto…if I did, I'd have freakin' cut out all these STUPID non-manga story arcs, and given me Kakashi's Gaiden already! How many people know what I'm talking about?

Post-Operative Counselling 101

Sakura felt awful.

This is all my fault.

She gazed miserably into the frothy depths of her low-fat cappuccino, her emotions in too much turmoil to even think of scooping off the top sprinkling of powder.

Poor Shikamaru. All he wanted was a quiet life…and now look what's happened. He can't even sit in his office without getting molested. I've never seen him looking so harassed.

And it's all my fault.

Me and my stupid good taste in glasses has suddenly turned him into the sex-god of Konoha. Everything in a skirt wants him. It's crazy.

Sakura's smooth brow furrowed deeply as she continued to ponder, watching the steam wafting up lazily from her cappuccino.

But Shikamaru is an adult now, he's a jounin, he can handle his own problems (supposedly). So why does all this bother me so much? Why do I feel all protective suddenly? Why do I care?

A thought more disturbing than any other emerged, unbidden, from the depths of her mind.

And WHY can't I stop picturing him with his shirt off?

At that, Inner Sakura cackled with amusement. Sakura jumped at the bacchanalian sound.

What are YOU doing here?

In a flash, the pleasant café décor surrounding her disappeared, to be replaced by an electrical-looking black and purple background. She found herself staring up at an enormous black and white, eerily familiar form.

The figure rolled its eyes. Oh please, I live here, remember? Even if you haven't seen me around for a while, I've been here, don't worry. The pink-haired medic's inner ego smirked down at her.

Ok, but what made you pop up all of a sudden? Sakura asked herself, realising simultaneously that healthy people really shouldn't be able to have conversations with entities in their heads.

I just couldn't bear to see you sitting here and wallowing pointlessly, asking yourself silly questions to which you already know the answers. The figure folded its jet black arms and grinned.

Huh? Sakura blinked in confusion. Inner Sakura chuckled.

You can play dumb with yourself and everyone else maybe, but you can't play dumb with me, honey.

What do you mean? The pink-haired kunoichi felt a chill of foreboding.

Well, her black and white inner self smiled ferally, let's just say that all these years, I've been getting the front row seat in everything you see and think about, and let me tell you, things have certainly changed since a few years ago.

Sakura gulped. Have they?

Why don't you see for yourself?

With a shock, Sakura found herself sitting in a stormy black and purple row of seats, in front of a huge TV screen, with her inner self slouched beside her, remote control in one hand, and, ridiculously, a bucket of popcorn in the other.

Ok, said Inner Sakura, pressing what was presumably the 'Play' button, here's what the picture was like up until a couple of years ago.

Immediately, the screen flickered to life, showing an artificially sparkly, flowered image of one Uchiha Sasuke striding towards them, black hair blowing in the breeze.

He spoke, looking directly at the screen.

"Sakura, I need to ask you something."

As he spoke, the camera view seemed to be chaotically roaming over his face, zooming in on his mouth, then suddenly going wide lens to admire how shiny his hair was, followed by a dreamy panning over his eyes, as hearts and flowers began to float across the screen. As though she were actually present in the flashback, the kunoichi could feel how her heart had been beating erratically, and, incredibly, she could even sense how her palms had been sweating.

What's wrong with this camera? Sakura asked, feeling slightly disorientated at the emotions and sensations wafting from the screen.

Inner Sakura looked at her sideways. And everyone keeps saying how smart you are…that's your eyes we're looking through; this is your mind and feelings. This is how you used to look at Sasuke.

Really? Wait, what do you mean, used to?

Inner Sakura snorted at this.

You can't tell honestly tell me that you're STILL pining after him like a 12 year old, dreaming of a white house with little pink-haired, Sharingan-wielding ninjalets running around while Sasuke gets home from a mission and you're there, cooking the dinner? Especially since you SUCK at cooking…

Hey! Naruto said he loved the ramen I made for his birthday!

Ha! Naruto would love ramen even if Orochimaru made it for his birthday!

Good point…

Their attention was brought back to the screen by the sound of her own voice saying chirpily, "Yes Sasuke-kun?" even as her inner voice screamed, "Yes! He's FINALLY going to ask me out!"

Sasuke spoke. "Have you seen Naruto today?"

"Um, yeah, he went to the Academy to meet Iruka-sensei, I think."

"Good, see ya."

And he turned and walked away, leaving her standing there, as usual.

The pink-haired medic sighed at the familiar sight of Sasuke's back.

I guess you're right, it's been a long time since I thought about Sasuke-kun that way.

Yeah, actually this is a pretty old tape; let me find a more recent one. Hang on.

It had been a few years now since Sakura had realised that Uchiha Sasuke was just not interested in anything to do with love, romance or hormones. Since Naruto had brought him back forcibly from Orochimaru, his goal was fixed; to become strong enough to kill his brother, using his own resources. To that end he only had time to spend on people who could help him attain that goal; Naruto, Kakashi, he had even trained with Neji and Lee a few times.

Sakura would readily trust the Uchiha with her life, and she knew he thought of her as an important person in his own (cold, emotionally stunted, undemonstrative) way. Maybe someday, after achieving his goal, he would be ready to look at the finer things life had to offer, but Sakura realised that she had decided she was not going to wait around for that day.

Oi, you're missing the good bit. Inner Sakura elbowed her in the ribs, and the pink-haired medic jumped.

Good bit? She looked up at the screen, then gasped.

She was in the hospital; that much was clear from the clinical white bed and beige walls and cupboards surrounding her. The sun was shining brightly in through the open window, reflecting off the glass medicine bottles, the crisp white bed sheets, the shiny linoleum floor, and the taut, tight, green-spandex clad buttocks of one Rock Lee, who was currently bending over, back (and bum) towards her, about 1m away.

WHAT IS THIS? Sakura's face flamed as she tried to rub her eyes out of their sockets.

Inner Sakura was shaking with helpless laughter, heedless of the popcorn scattering all over the seat.

You don't remember this?

Obviously NOT! What the hell was I doing, staring at Lee-san's butt?

Well, it IS a very nice butt, you must admit.

Well yeah, but still!

Lee's perky voice interrupted them.

"Sakura-san, I appreciate you giving me advice about stretching exercises to help with my training, but don't you think maybe I've done enough toe touches? Perhaps there are other areas I could be working on?"

The camera began to zoom in slowly as her voice replied, "Lee-san, are you questioning my abilities as a medic? These particular stretches are very important. You may not know it," the camera began to move up and down slowly, "but with all your training, these muscles at the back will get very tight, and developed…and…nice…"

STOP IT NOW!

The kunoichi's face was on fire now, as she pressed her hands to her face, wishing she could hide under the seat, as her stomach tied itself in knots.

Inner Sakura smiled evilly as she began to fast-forward.

Oh, you think that one was bad? You should see the dream sequence you had about Kakashi-sensei after you treated him on that mission a few months ago.

What are you talking about?

You don't remember? It was raining; he had that kunai wound on his stomach. Don't you remember the way he peeled off that wet, clinging shirt, the way his hair was all plastered down over his eyes…?

Shut up shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP! How is ANY of this relevant to Shikamaru and me being…concerned about him?

Well, to answer that, we'll need to watch from…here!

Abruptly, the jerkily moving figures on the screen slowed down to normal speed. Sakura was standing in Shikamaru's office, her eyes fixed on a point out the window, just to the left of the Sandaime Hokage's sculptured nose.

"And that takes care of that problem," said the shadow user, in a very satisfied voice.

After a pause, he continued, "Man, Sakura, can you believe that girl, impersonating you? I'm starting to think I need around-the-clock protection."

Her inner voice groaned,"He'll need that around-the-clock protection from ME if he doesn't put a shirt on! Oh man, I want to look, I want to look, I want to look, I want to look, I'm NOT GOING TO LOOK!"

"Shikamaru?"

"Yeah?"

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

She finally looked at him, and when she did, it was all she could do to keep her breathing steady.

She saw pale olive skin stretched tightly over the smooth planes of broad, bare shoulders, the sweeping lines of his collar bones slightly raised above the flat, hard muscles of a chest scattered lightly with fine dark hairs, disappearing down to the finely ridged, tight lines of his stomach. And above all that, when she finally managed to drag her eyes up, was his face, with its sharp, hard angles of nose and clean-cut jaw, the broad forehead, the ponytail of thick black hair; but most of all, his narrow, piercing brown eyes, flawlessly framed with the glinting silver spectacles that simply completed the image before her…(AN: Whew!)

Alright! Alright! I'm attracted him, ok? In the dark movie theatre of her mind, Sakura turned exasperatedly on her inner self. I'm attracted to him, big deal. Pretty much every female in Konoha is at the moment too! What does this prove?

My my, aren't we getting awfully touchy all of a sudden? Inner Sakura looked at her coolly. You think I'm showing you all this just to prove how much of a closet pervert you are? Incredibly, no. So just be quiet and keep watching.

"Sakura? Are you ok?" He glanced at her again, before pulling open one of the drawers of his desk and extracting a plain black T-shirt, slipping it over his head and tugging it on with easy, unhurried movements that made Sakura's toes curl.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He raised an eyebrow. For a moment he looked as if he were going to press her further, but then clearly dismissed the idea as too troublesome, for he then sat back in his chair, hands lazily clasped across his stomach. Oddly, he made no move to get rid her or to continue his work, but simply sat there, watching her.

"Shikamaru, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," he said, in a way that made her uncomfortably certain he had not only been waiting for her ask something, but also that he knew exactly what her question was going to be, and had probably already thought out an answer to it.

"If you knew from the beginning that that girl was really Mizuki and not me, why would you let her, I mean why did you let her, I mean…" she trailed off.

A corner of his mouth twitched upward.

"I didn't know."

AN: Gasp! He DIDN'T know? Ok, if you read another story I recently updated, you'd see that I said I'd written chapter 9 of this, so I'd be able to update quickly after this chapter…unfortunately, this chapter is going to have a second part to it, which will become chapter 9, so the chapter 9 that I've had written and waiting for the last few months will now get bumped back to chapter 10! Argh…hopefully it'll be worth it, because I really think you'll like that chapter and I want to hurry up and post it and see what people think of it…

Thankyou so much to all the lovely people who have taken the time to review and encouraged me to continue; please don't be put off by the sporadic updates – this story will NOT be discontinued.