A/N: Thank you to those of you who favourited, followed, or reviewed! The amount of support I received for the first chapter was more than I expected so thank you so much! Here's chapter 2, with a feature of some of our other Naruto characters! Hope you enjoy.
"You're on break," Kakashi announced in the dining room
"What?!" Sakura exclaimed. "What do mean break?"
Sasuke stood by the fridge, oddly interested in his bowl of cereal while Sakura hovered over the dining table where Kakashi sat in the garb of the hokage declaring that she could not go to work, and therefore on any missions, for the next month.
"Sasuke, can you give us the room?" Kakashi asked, without taking his eyes off the enraged Sakura.
Sasuke said nothing as he walked off into another part of the house. They'd been having such a pleasant breakfast—or whatever passed for pleasant when it came to Sasuke and his ever-present silence, when Kakashi crashed the meal to give this little tidbit of inconvenient information.
With the click of the door and Sasuke gone, Kakashi looked at Sakura with both of his eyes. She would never get used to seeing them both so often. After the war Kakashi had stopped covering his left eye with his headband, and began looking at the world with a wider perspective. Sakura guessed that's what made him the perfect set of eyes for their village right now. Though, in this particular moment, she wasn't completely convinced.
"Sakura, I know you're angry—"
"Of course I am! How in the world do you think I could just leave my job as a medical ninja and just not do anything for a month? I don't need a break! I wasn't even injured that badly in the war!" Sakura yelled, pacing about the room.
Kakashi put out two calming arms. "Sakura, listen to me. This isn't about your abilities or your injuries. We've all been through a lot these past years, not just this war, and I think you and Naruto of all people need at least a short break, so I'm giving it to you."
"Kakashi-sensei, I'm telling you I'm fine. Yes, a lot has happened—what with Pein, and Obito, and Madara, and Kaguya, and the Sage of Six Paths, and Sasuke…but that doesn't mean I need to stop working, even if it's just for a while. Everyone is working to rebuild the village and right the wrongs of the past years, I should be too."
"I'm not saying you can't do that, Sakura. I'm just saying that I don't want you out of this village for missions. I want you to stay here and help with what you can here," Kakashi said. The inexplicable emphasis he put on that last word—here—made Sakura pause. What was Kakashi getting at?
He put a hand on her shoulder. "I want what's best for you and for right now I think that's if you took some time off." He stepped forward, pulling her into sudden hug. Sakura stiffened at the unexpectedness.
"I need you to keep an eye on Sasuke, make sure he doesn't leave the village," Kakashi whispered in her ear.
Sakura felt her mind click. That explained Kakashi's strange order. "He's not a danger to the village anymore. You pardoned him of his crimes yourself," she said.
Kakashi patted her back. "I worry about the danger he is to himself, more than the danger he is to others. Just watch out for him for a while, will you? Just until he settles."
Sakura realized it would seem suspicious if Sasuke were listening in and noticed how long this hug had been going on, so she saved her thoughts and arguments for later and merely nodded her consent. Kakashi drew away from her and gave her a stern nod, before breaking out into a grin. "If you ever get bored during your break, you're welcome to borrow one of my books!" He laughed, walking out the door, calling a farewell to Sasuke as he left.
Sasuke returned to the dining room shortly afterwards, a mug in hand, his eyes peeking over the rim. "So, what did you guys talk about?" he asked.
Sakura rolled her eyes and slammed her cup on the table, letting juice spill over the edges as she got up. "I'm going out for a walk."
She grabbed her coat for the chilly morning air and stalked out the house before Sasuke could utter another word.
"Stupid. Idiot. Good for nothing, JERK," Sakura muttered under her breath.
"Trouble with your new housemate, Sakura?"
Standing at the next bend in the road was Naruto, leaning against a lamppost in all black as opposed to his usually cheerful shade of orange.
"Naruto, get out of my way," Sakura said, pushing him aside like a sliding door, as if he hadn't just saved the whole village and gotten himself stitched back together by Tsunade like Sasuke had been.
"He's that bad, huh?" Naruto asked with a sad sort of glance at his sandals.
Sakura stopped mid-step. It pained her to see that even after all this time, and even after bringing Sasuke home, something still wasn't complete here in Team 7. Naruto still felt responsible for Sasuke's actions. He didn't deserve that world of guilt and pain. He deserved to be happy.
"It's not Sasuke, per-say," Sakura sighed, slowing to walk next to Naruto at the same pace, down the street filled with people rebuilding the village. They were coming around the bend where Ichiraku Ramen's shop was getting a massive make-over after the destruction. There was a new red counter and high seats, and plenty of ramen for Naruto to devour before the shop even opened again.
She shrugged her shoulders, "Kakashi-sensei came to see me today."
"He told you about taking a "break"?" Naruto asked, raising his arms for the air quotes, visibly relieved that this was the only thing plaguing her mind. She didn't have the heart to tell him the truth. She didn't want him to believe that he hadn't completely saved Sasuke. Even if Sasuke himself had become a saint or if he had finally damned himself to the devil, Naruto wouldn't be able to endure it if he knew people still doubted Sasuke. He would take it as another failure and she didn't want that for him. She'd already forced him to make a nearly impossible promise before. She wouldn't do that to him again.
She'd bear this weight on her own, that's how it was meant to be. Sasuke should no longer be able to cause Naruto any more pain, she had fought too hard to let that continue happening. She would be strong the one. For the three of them.
"Sakura?" Naruto's face and blonde hair loomed in front of hers. "You in there?" He chuckled, pointing at the imaginary breeze gliding through her empty head.
"I'm here," she said. "I always am."
Naruto smiled and after a beat of silence as they strolled down the street, he said, "I know." With a twist of his leg he turned around to walk in the opposite direction. He put his left hand in his pocket and waved his prosthetic in the air. "I'll catch you later, Sakura. I should get back to the Hyuga's. Don't get too angry with Sasuke. I doubt he could handle your super strength even on a good day."
Sakura huffed. "As a matter of fact, Sasuke has taken it upon himself to teach me how to fight, as if I don't already know how!"
Naruto chuckled, stepping towards her again. He leaned in to snub her nose and with a mischievous grin, he said, "Well, you never could fight that well without your chakra enhanced strength," he began, eyeing her expression for any of the sudden rage he'd gotten used to seeing in her whenever he spoke. "Which of course I think is awesome. But, maybe you could use the practice. Sasuke could definitely use someone to train with, and you know I wouldn't be his best choice right now," he said raising his prosthetic as reason enough.
"That's not the point, Naruto. Sasuke has always thought of me as some weak little girl, who's just always in the way. Teaching me to fight is just another way to show me that he's stronger and that I'm weaker."
Naruto froze with an expression that was a mix of anger and confusion, his brows furrowed down over his eyes. The next instant his expression cleared and he laughed, "Sakura, no one could ever mistake you as weak, and if they are stupid enough to think that, then they're the fools who are going to get their asses kicked."
With his hands in his pockets, he bent his head to the side, forcing her to look at him. This close, Sakura was overwhelmed with the clear blue of his eyes, always taking the world in stride, no matter how much pain it dealt out to him. "Never let anyone make you feel inferior, Sakura. Not even Sasuke. He may not realize who he's dealing with now, but he'll learn one day, and then he'll wondering why he did all the things he did.
"Just give him some time, he'll come around. In the meantime, if he's teaching you to fight, then you should take it—let him. You've got less to lose than he does when he realizes that you're stronger than you appear. You always were."
"When did you start saying such wise things, Naruto? It feels like yesterday you were screaming in that forest, begging me to give you food," Sakura mused. She looked at Naruto now, tall and with a set to his shoulders that told her he no longer carried many of the burdens he had before.
Naruto laughed heartily, running a hand through his blonde hair. "I guess being a war hero puts things in perspective." He stopped laughing a moment and just smiled. "Funny you should mention that day. I never would've guessed in a million years that Sasuke would offer me his food. Sure it was to make sure I didn't bring down the team, but I think—"
"You think that he actually did it for you," Sakura gasped. It was an observation, not a question.
Naruto smiled, shaking his head. "No. I think he did it because somewhere deep in his heart the little boy who lost his parents was reaching out for a friend and that was the only way he knew how."
She searched his eyes to see find that he really meant those words. "You always believed in the best. In everyone," Sakura said in amazement. "Even when the world shuns you, you would go down protecting it. Why?"
Naruto scratched his head with one finger. "Well, I seem to recall you believing the best in Sasuke just as much as I did. So tell me, why did you? Why did you believe in him, why do you still believe in him, despite everything he's done?"
Sakura's breath caught as her mind turned over the question. She set her eyes on Naruto's with a fierce determination. "Because I don't believe in him. I believe in the hope that one day… things will be better."
Her blonde haired teammate smiled. "Then you have your answer right there," he said, before he was off down the street in that familiar gait of his, waving to villagers as he passed them by. She didn't have a chance to tell him then how grateful she was for his words.
"You're still here," Sakura said while tilting her head, biting her lip, and scrutinizing the phenomenon that was Sasuke sitting on her couch, peering at her over the rim of a bowl of ramen.
He blinked at her. After a long moment, he bit into his ramen noodles, letting the excess fall into the bowl before setting it and his chopsticks on her low coffee table. He opened his mouth to say something and then seemed to think better of it. Instead, he rose from where he sat and shuffled around the table to reach her. His hands were stuffed in his pockets so he gestured with the jut of his chin at the door. "Where else would I be? You've been gone all morning."
"You say that as if my being out actually affects whether you would be here or not," Sakura said bitterly, sidestepping around him to clean up the mess on the table. She'd been meaning to clean up before he arrived the day before, but she hadn't had the time between shifts at the hospital and worrying over the whole arrangement.
She was bending over the table to pick up a pile of books when she noticed a photo frame lying on its back next to Sasuke's ramen bowl. She let out a small gasp when she realized it was the picture of Team 7, when they had still been together over 3 years ago. Sasuke shifted behind her.
Sakura picked up the photo and her pink hair whipped in the air as she turned around. She let out a little yelp as she came face-to-face with him. His eyes widened just a fraction as if he'd been surprised to arrive in this position as well.
Immediately avoiding his eyes, Sakura attempted stepping away, but the corner of the table blocked her legs. She was standing so close to him that she could smell the faint bit of pine on his shirt, and even the charred scent of fire on his skin.
He was always on fire.
Her brow creased. "You lied."
Sasuke seemed to jolt out of his stupor. His eyes lost their sheen and he dropped his hands back in his pockets and stepped away from her.
The air in front of Sakura seemed to deflate without his heat.
He regarded her with lazy attention, but she could see in his ever-truthful eyes that he was feeling her out, seeing what she knew first before revealing anything himself. He was always so…calculative. She couldn't tell anymore if this was a trait she admired in him, or feared in him.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I could have. But you're going to have to be more specific about what."
"You said you'd been here all morning. You lied. I can smell the pine on you. Have you been training without my supervision?" she demanded.
Sasuke's jaw twitched. "I don't need your supervision."
"You wanted it last night," she argued.
He let out a bitter laugh and then gave her a callous stare. "That's because you wouldn't stop annoying me about it."
Annoying. There was that word again. She remembered the years before he'd left Konoha. She'd been so infatuated with him, both her and Ino. Even when she had found out they were on the same team, her obsession with him only grew. But now, every time she tried to think back to, an honest conversation, or a real moment they'd ever shared…she couldn't think of one. All she remembered was that word: annoying. She had never been anything more than an annoying girl to him.
A nuisance.
Sakura was drawn out of her thoughts when she heard a harsh crack. She looked down at her hands and realized she'd been clutching the picture frame so hard that she'd made a crack in the glass that ran down the centre of the picture, right through her large forehead, splitting her in two.
"You're right. I shouldn't have bothered," she said exasperated. She dropped the photo on the table with a loud thud and walked out the room.
They mostly started with that picture—her nightmares. The one in the frame on her dining table, the one she'd nearly thought Sasuke had been looking at in…in fondness of the memory of what Team 7 had been in the beginning..
In her nightmare, just like in reality, the glass frame shattered, but not between her bleeding hands, but instead under Sasuke's heel, crushed ruthlessly. Her gaze travelled up his frame to his eyes, eyes filled with such scorn, a pure mask of hatred. He spat his words out as if they were a nuisance to even speak, "You are such an annoyance." And then he plunged his left hand, charged with lightning, into her chest, putting out her life so easily. As if he were blowing out a candle.
Sakura jolted from her pillow, stifling a scream with the back of her hand. She took shattering breaths. Her body dripped in sweat and her skin boiled despite the open window that let in the cold summer night air into her room, scratching at her raw throat. She looked at the clock on her bedside table. 12:00 AM.
She calmed her breath, and pulled the covers off her body to let the cool air bite at her bare arms, neck, and legs. She pushed her matted pink hair off her face and trudged to her room's attached bathroom to rinse her face.
She studied her reflection in her hazy mirror. She noticed the pale tone of her skin and the redness of her eyes. She held onto the counter with both hands because she feared she would fall under the crushing sadness that enveloped her, that wanted to bring her to her knees.
This hadn't been the first time she'd dreamed that nightmare. This nightmare had been a reality to her when Sasuke had used his genjutsu to stop her from following him and Naruto during the last fight that took their arms. She'd dreamed of it nearly every night since then. Of Sasuke's hatred plainly written on his face and hearing the disgust in his voice.
You are such an annoyance.
Indeed, she was an annoyance to him. Even if that moment had been his genjutsu, it was still something he had meant for her to hear, for her to understand. She had never been able to learn that. Even then, in the moment before he'd stabbed her, she had gone on professing her love for him, a love that he had never cared about. He had never been interested in her nor had he ever cared for her. She'd been a fool that day to believe—even for a fraction of a minute—that what she felt for him would ever have an impact on his decisions.
What am I doing? she thought. Letting Sasuke stay at her house…she was asking for pain, for suffering. Sakura let go of the sink counter and slide to the cold tiled floor, her knees bruising on the impact. She took a deep breath, shivering now when she had just been on a fever only a moment ago.
An image flashed before her eyes. She remembered the picture underneath Sasuke's heel in the dream. The harsh cracking sound of glass and the crumpling of the printed photo inside. What had they been so happy about in those days? What would it take to get that back?
She'd thought for so long that bringing Sasuke back would bring back Team 7, would bring back their happier times.
She'd been wrong.
The moments of happiness had disappeared the moment Sasuke left. And now—whoever he was now—he was just a black hole, void of love, void of care. He'd proven as much with that last mad attempt to kill Naruto.
But why, despite everything he had done. Despite every harsh thing he had said to her or the amount of pain he'd caused their village.
Why…couldn't she give up on him?
Sakura sighed. She'd already given Naruto the answer to this question this morning.
Because she hoped that one day… things would be better.
She would hold onto that hope as long as she could.
There was no turning back now.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading that chapter, I really wanted to convey Sakura's struggle about what to do with Sasuke. I promise there will be more interaction between them next chapter! Thank you for reading my story, and as always I would appreciate it if you reviewed with any thoughts you have about my writing or the story!