Puppet

xXx

There is a nightmare that has haunted Sakura since before the war, but she doesn't talk about it, doesn't mention it. In fact she's not spoken of the battle that brought it on to anyone, not even Kankuro who would understand her pain better than anyone. Initially her hesitance to talk about it was primarily because she was still stuck in the idea that people only saw her as weak. Just that pathetic little girl wasting her potential on a silly little crush. She supposed she wasn't lucky enough to be haunted by her cringy behavior above anything else. Not with everything she had seen.

It's early autumn, nearly three years post war when the nightmare rears its ugly head once more, easily breaking through the carefully constructed walls that partition off her issues from the rest of her life; her guard weakened after seventy-two straight hours in the ER. She wakes with a whimper, her groggy mind immediately aware of the fact that she cannot move. Logically she knows it's just sleep paralysis and if she closes her eyes and breathes it will pass, but logic is absent tonight. So, when she meets his pale brown eyes at the end of the bed, she begins to struggle. It's a futile struggle of course, but that doesn't stop her. He doesn't speak now, but his whisper soft voice is still fresh in her mind from her nightmare, describing in vivid detail what he intends to do to her.

She tries to scream as the steel cables snake along her body, but all that comes out is a muffled whine. Heart pounding in her ears she tries to pump chakra into her muscles, forcing them to respond but all she does is feel the bed give beneath her, buckling in the middle and trapping her in the dip created. She wants to thrash, to throw fists, to fight but she can't, her body won't let her, her mind showing her things she knows aren't really there. She's helpless, trapped… weak.

"Sakura." his voice cuts through the haze, a deep sleep warm rumble that burrows its way through the panic. Sasuke, his name a whisper through her mind. She distantly remembers that she offered him her guest room whenever he came home to give his reports and restock his supplies, but she hadn't been aware that he was back in the village. "Of all the people to find her like this," she thinks, "Why did it have to be him?"

She opens her eyes, the image blurred by her tears as the trapped liquid finally escapes to roll down her cheeks. Sasuke is there, hovering over her, his mismatched eyes full of worry. His hand feels arm against her cheek, thumb wiping the tears away. "Sakura, come back to me." His voice is soft but firm and her body reacts like that pathetic little girl she had hoped she'd grown out of. Her fingers twitch as the weight begins to lift, then her hands, her arms and legs until finally she's free to move again. And she does, abruptly jerking away from Sasuke, clambering over the side of her broken bed and dashing into the adjoining bathroom where she only just manages to get the toilet lid up.

The light flips on a moment later but she doesn't turn to see Sasuke standing there. She's not sure she can look at him. She feels him move up behind her, pulling her hair away from her face as the dry heaves wrack her body. She coughs as it begins to wane, gasping for breath between outbursts until finally it stops, leaving her exhausted. It takes a moment to realize there's a weight against her back and another to realize it's his hand, rubbing comforting circles between her shoulders. Oh what she wouldn't have given for this moment under literally any other circumstance than the one she found herself in. She can't even look at him, embarrassment and even shame coursing through her.

Sakura pushes herself to her feet, stepping around him and back out into the bedroom. She stares at the bend in her mattress where the frame is broken through and sighs. It's been years since she had a nightmare so bad that she lost control of her strength. Walking around the bed she pulls the blankets and pillows off, balling them up under her arm. She'll worry about the damage in the morning, for now she was too tired to care.

She can feel Sasuke watching her, but she hopes if she ignores him long enough he'll get bored and walk away or better yet, he'll understand that she doesn't want to talk about what just happened. Unfortunately she's not that lucky.

"Sakura." he calls out to her as she drops the bundle of blankets and pillows on the sofa. She looks up at him for the first time since he showed up at her bedside. "Why don't you take the guest room, I'll sleep on the couch."

She doesn't even hesitate, shaking her head. "No, it's fine." There must be something in her voice, or maybe it's the tired way she runs her fingers through her hair pushing it out of her face, but he doesn't argue, simply nodding. He watches her for a moment longer looking as though he has something else to say, but he doesn't, simply turning and walking back into the guest room. She deflates when he turns his back to her, but it's not until he's out of sight that she straightens out the blankets and tries to get comfortable.

The next thing she knows the sun is shining through the curtains she didn't think to close the night before. She groans in protest, burying her face beneath the covers. She wants to go back to sleep but her mind is already running through all the things she has to get done now that she's being forced to take time off so she knows it's pointless. With a frustrated grunt she whips the blanket off of her, freezing when she realizes Sasuke is leaning over the coffee table in front of her, a tea cup still in his hand. He shakes off the surprise quickly, setting the cup on the table.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." he says, standing up straight, a second cup in his prosthetic hand.

"It's okay, I was already up." she replies, reaching for the cup. "Thank you."

"Hn."

He turns and walks back into the kitchen and it's only then that she realizes she can smell food cooking. The smell makes her nauseous, so she takes her tea back into her room, resolutely ignoring the mess and getting ready for the day. She had intended to sleep all day, maybe catch up on reading the medical journals she had been looking forward to, but now she has to go out, order a new bed frame and hope to whatever deity is left up there that they could get it to her overnight.

Heaving a sigh, she steps out of her bedroom dressed and ready to go to find Sasuke in the kitchen doorway. "I made breakfast." he states simply.

She forces a smile. "Thank you but I don't really eat breakfast anymore." she tells him. It's not a total lie. Now that she was the head medic at the hospital she found herself working longer and longer hours, eventually leading to her going in earlier and earlier. She usually didn't have time for anything more than a protein smoothie or piece of fruit.

"Hn." he responds and had she not known him half as well as she did, she might not have noticed the suspicious look in his eyes.

"I have to run a few errands. If you're still here tonight though I'll make dinner." she continues hastily before turning on her heels and heading for the door. She's just finished slipping her shoes on when he approaches, ready to say something, but she never gives him the chance. "I'll see you around." she tells him and then she's gone, closing the door behind her and leaving her apartment behind. She's a coward she knows, but the idea of having to explain to Sasuke, of all people, exactly what happened last night is almost as horrifying as the nightmares themselves. He'd just come to respect her as a shinobi again, she wasn't sure she could handle him thinking she was as weak as she had been when they were genin.

Her errands run smoothly and she's grateful for it. Her bed will be delivered the next afternoon and on the way home she stops for groceries and a few other things she never has time to pick up. When she makes it back to the apartment it's empty and based on the large amounts of chakra going off in the direction of the training grounds she's sure to be alone for a while. She breathes a sigh of relief and tries not to dwell on the irony. There isn't anything she wouldn't have done to see Sasuke again and as much as possible before last night, and now she's avoiding him.

After putting away the groceries she tidies up a little, dusting and picking up the few stray possessions she's left to sit out. She picks up the mattress and leans it against the wall in her room to get it out of the way as she disassembles the broken frame and takes it all out to the dumpster behind her building. She just barely escapes an awkward conversation with the little old lady who owns the building, making suggestive faces at her as she asks about the handsome man staying in her guest room ("Oh dear Doctor, whatever happened to your bed?" eyebrows raised in a very Ino like manner).

When all is said and done it's mid afternoon and Sakura finds herself gravitating toward the sofa and the stack of medical journals on the coffee table. The next thing she knows she's waking to the sound of the front door opening, drool trickling out of the corner of her mouth and the journal she had been reading dangling from one hand over the edge of the sofa.

She wipes her face clean as Sasuke enters and does her best to smile at him. "How's Naruto?" she asks as he takes her in. His lips twist into a scowl and this time her smile is more genuine. "Enough said." She looks at the clock to check the time. "Have you eaten dinner?" Sakura asks him. He shakes his head when she turns to look at him. She hums, standing and moving toward the kitchen, only to stop short as Sasuke speaks.

"Can I help with anything?" he asks.

She turns to look at him. "Sure, if you want to."

And he does, following her into the kitchen and washing and chopping vegetables as she seasons meat and starts the rice in the rice cooker. They're quiet as they work, moving in sync as well as they did when they were genin nearly a lifetime ago. At some point Sasuke sets the knife aside and takes a moment to flex the fingers of his prosthetic hand.

"What's wrong with your hand?" she asks.

Sasuke sighs, his face twisting in annoyance. "Naruto got a cheap shot in during training."

Like a moth to the flame, she sets aside what she's doing and moves to his side. "Do they hurt?"

"No, just a little stiff."

She takes his hand without preamble, healing chakra lacing the tips of her fingers as she prods at the prosthetic gently, sending her chakra to soothe the nerves and loosen the muscle. She was just about finished when Sasuke shifted his hand in her grip, lacing their fingers together.

"The nightmares…" he begins, stopping short as if struggling to find the right words. "I have nightmares too. Some nights I wake up and I can still hear the screams of my family, my people." he pauses and she doesn't dare look up at him for fear of dissuading him from continuing. "And then… some nights I wake up still hearing your screams because in my nightmares Kakashi doesn't get there in time." he tugs her closer with their linked fingers. Standing so close, his head bowed over her, his voice is soft as he says; "You aren't weak for being haunted, Sa-ku-ra. You aren't weak for being affected by the horrible things that have happened to you."

Sakura forces herself to start breathing again. Trying to blink away the tears that have formed, she unlaces their fingers and continues her work. "How's that?" she eventually asks, letting go. She watches as he flexes his hand.

"Much better." he whispers, still bowing over her. She finally finds the courage to look up at him and it's only as he reaches for her, wiping away the wet tracks on her cheeks that she realizes she's crying. There's a tenderness in his mismatched eyes that at one point in her life would have brought her to her knees. Now it just makes her stomach knot in apprehension.

"Aren't you tired of all this?" she asks, gesturing to herself with a vagueness so abstract she's not even sure she understands what she's trying to say. But Sasuke has always been perceptive.

"I'll never get tired of the trust you have in me, to let me see the parts of you I don't deserve to see." he tells her, leaning down to rest his forehead to hers. "I don't know what's haunting you Sakura, I hope it's not me, but I promise you you don't need to face it alone."