This is going to be my last update for a while. I'm off to Iowa for a mission trip with my church friends, and I'll be gone for about nine days. We're going by bus. I pray I won't lose a thumb to my horrible carpentry skills.

Lol. Anyway, don't kill me. This chapter's a bit of filler, but it should keep you sated for awhile.

Love you guys! Keep up the reviewing Sil-vous-plait.

Merci Beaucoup!

I stared at it. His hand was big, warm, and comfortingly strong against my own. He glanced down, and hastily pulled his under the table. Sasuke didn't look at e while we ate, and for a few minutes, the tense atmosphere from our first mission together hung heavy over our heads, heavy with the weight of regret.

"Sasuke-kun!" the girl, Karin, had been seated a few tables away with her teammates, and had just pretended to notice us. She smiled a pretty, perfectly adorable smile. It made me hate her. She was too simpering for her own good. Sasuke looked up as she started walking over, the blue-haired one—Suigetsu was it?—following suit.

"Hi Karin, Suigetsu." Sasuke gave each of them a polite nod of the head and an almost-smile. Karin beamed at him, and Suigetsu smirked at me. The smell of their…vampire-ness was overpowering. Did we smell like that?

"Hey….Sasuke-chan...Who's your pretty friend?" I pretended to blush out of modesty, but inside I was furious. It was these types of men that I hated the most. God's gift to women.

Sasuke would never be like that. I held out a hand for him to shake. He held it longer than was safe, and squeezed just a bit too tight. I giggled to cover my discomfort, pulling my hand back into my lap.

"My name is Sakura." I stated blandly with a polite smile. He leered closely and inhaled silently. I leaned towards the wall. I felt cornered.

"Sasuke, I never figured you'd go vamp after all the fuss you used to make about your bro—"Sasuke cut Suigetsu off.

"Lets just say my short time at Konoha changed my philosophy a little. What better way to find your enemy, than to become one?" His face was carefully blank. Suigetsu's Predatory smile widened. He leaned down close to his ear, and whispered.

"I think you're lying. But for now, I'll let you go. Let's see how far you can take this. Don't worry, I won't tell the heads of the hordes, but you can bet that Orochimaru-sama will definitely love to find out what you're up to." He pushed himself off of Sasuke's shoulder, and motioned for Karin and Juugo to follow him. They went into the club through a pair of swinging metal doors, and were gone.

I sighed and collapsed against the table. Sasuke was shaking, his fists clenched. For a second I thought he was angry, and then I looked at his face. He was pale, eyes wide. He looked absolutely terrified.

"I thought Orochimaru was dead?' I asked him.

He looked at me, gaining some control over his emotions.

"He is."

---

We left soon after, paying our bill. We still had two more weeks to find the warehouses, and tonight's encounters had left us shaken and a little scared. We went back to our hotel the roundabout way to shake off any pursuers.

When we reached the room, Sasuke smoothed out the sheets of the bed, unrolled his sleeping bag on top of it, and got in.

"Hey, if you're going to do that, scoot over so I can too. I only took a nap on that floor and my back already hurts." He looked up from his pillow, where I was standing with my hands on my hips.

What was the point in taking the bed if you weren't even going to use it?

He moved over to another side of the bed, still cocooned in his bag, and I laid mine down next to him. First I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and changed into a pair of soft shorts and a tank top, leaving my dress on the bathroom floor. I slipped in beside Sasuke, and fell asleep in ten minutes.

---

When I woke up, the room was still dark. It wasn't s dark as before, the sun was just starting to rise and every bone and muscle in my body was screaming at me for more sleep, but I wanted to check something.

I slid off the bed, and went to the curtains facing the east. I slid them open barely an inch and slid my hand into the beam.

Pain of an intensity I had never encountered before brought me to my knees, and I screamed. It really was a horrible sound for Sasuke to wake up to, but oh...it hurt so much.

I felt like my nerve endings were on fire, like every broken bone I had ever had decided to re-break all at the same time.

My scream was cut off as Sasuke pulled the curtains closed. I let out several whimpers and what I tried to tell myself wasn't a sob. He kneeled down next to me, and turned my hand towards him to look at.

For the few seconds I had been in the sun, my hand had blistered, and the blisters had cracked open and had started to bleed. He pulled me to my feet and dragged me to the bathroom.

He hadn't spoken, but picked me up with almost surprising ease and set me on the counter. He wet a washcloth and carefully, tenderly pressed it against my hand. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming again.

He finally looked me in the eyes, and while he looked a little angry, he also looked a little concerned.

"What did you do?" he asked me. I felt stupid.

"I stuck my hand in sunlight for about three seconds." I said, looking away.

"Only three seconds? The VE1 must've really kicked in then." He busied himself with finding Band-Aids and some antiseptic. "That was really stupid by the way. You could've gotten hurt a lot worse if you actually stood in the sunlight. Don't do it again." I huffed.

"I was just curious as to how potent the sunlight was against us. I'm sorry for making you worry."

He didn't look at me, but he didn't deny that he was worried.