Sakura woke well before sunrise.

After a few minutes of dazed blinking and trying to figure out who and where she was she remembered that she didn't have to get up for another two hours at least.

She stretched like a contented cat, glad for once that civilians were so lazy. She snuggled deeper into the toasty bed, which was surprisingly comfortable despite the lack of space, and drifted into a light doze.

Sai also woke up before dawn, but unlike Sakura, when he was awake that was it; he stayed awake. He felt Sakura stretch behind him, her feet brushing against his calves and ankles.

It was nice, he decided, so he remained in the warm bed watching the faint light on the dank wall become more prominent until the light turned golden red, making the old green wall glow, revealing the subtle tones created by long hours exposed to sunlight.

When the sun had risen just a little further Sai finally decided that it was time they started moving again. He twisted in a half-hearted attempt to sit up and Sakura stirred beside him.

"Izitumermer?" She asked him blearily probably thinking she was asking a coherent question.

"Ugly, you have to let the words form before they leave your mouth." He poked her face absently and she blinked up at him.

"I meant to ask if it was time to get up." Her features turned into a scowl. Suddenly, Sai found himself dumped on the cold floor. "And don't call me ugly." She growled at him, jumping out of bed with surprising vivacity. She dumped the sheets over his head. "I'm going to head down to the bathhouse before we leave." He felt a hand pat his head through the blanket and then heard the door swing open and close again.

He made a mental note to tell her to make more noise when she walked. She was just far to light on her feet to pass for a civilian.

Five minutes later Sai had paid the old lady for the room and the food and then he too was on his way down to the bath house. It would be nice to be properly clean for a short while at least.

He stripped off and picked up his towel and washcloth before heading into the bathing area.

The room was very steamy and Sai could just about make out that there was one other person in the bath already, but he ignored them as he slipped into the hot water, laying his towel down behind him.

"Well this is awkward." Sai nearly jumped out of his skin when the dryly amused voice drifted through the steam. The steam wafted to the side a little, allowing him to see Sakura just a little more clearly. "Guess you missed the mixed bathing signs?" She asked lazily. As the steam cleared a little more he noticed her slide down ever so slightly.

"Apparently I did."

Why did the steam have to keep getting thinner? It wasn't as if Sai had never seen a naked woman before, but this wasn't just a naked woman it was a naked Sakura, and that was a different thing entirely. Ok he'd accidentally seen her a little scantily clad once back in the old days, but he didn't remember much of that. She'd taught him to always knock by bashing his head against the door several times.

She smirked at him, apparently not as uncomfortable as he was. Then again, she didn't have to worry about having her lights punched out if her eyes unintentionally wandered slightly.

Suddenly, she laughed.

"Sai, you look like you're scared for your life, chill out, I'm not going to sucker punch you." She chuckled again, an amused smile playing across her face.

"Are you sure?"

"Well that would be unfair wouldn't it?" She offered him a devilish kind of grin. "Plus I don't generally punch people when I'm wet and naked. It would just be too weird." He caught the blush that spread across her cheeks. "In fact this whole line of thought is just too weird."

"Agreed."

They both stared away from each other for a long moment.

He heard Sakura take a breath and glanced over in time to see her head disappearing beneath the water. He saw her hands running over her hair, making sure it was fully submerged before she brought her head back up again, pushing her soaked bangs away from her face.

Sai tried not to watch as she applied her shampoo and conditioner, but it was actually quite interesting to see how she took care of those pink long pink locks of hers. First lathering the shampoo through the entire length of it, ensuring that it was worked in properly, then thoroughly rinsing it out in sections before doing the same with conditioner. He even saw her painstakingly rubbing something into the very ends of her hair.

Having heard the story of why she had once cut her hair short, because she was being mocked for taking more care over her hair than her ninja studies, Sai was curious to see that she had returned to meticulously taking care of her hair once again.

"Sakura," he began without thinking about it.

She looked up from her examination of her hair, a slight frown of still concentration in place. He said nothing, realising that it was probably not something he should ask her.

She frowned at his silence. "It's not like you to refrain from asking an inappropriate question."

"I was just wondering," he paused, trying to think of the least offensive way to phrase his question. "I heard the story about you cutting your hair during your first Chunin exam, how you were criticized for paying more attention to your appearance than your jutsu…"

"And now you're wondering why I am once again back to the wicked ways of vanity?" A wry smile twisted at her lips. "Firstly, it's because I find it quite soothing, Secondly, I'm a kunoichi so I've got to take some care over my appearance anyway. And finally, as you should know, I don't let it interfere with my skill level. I would chop it off all over again if it came down to it."

"I see." It was good to have such a mystery solved. It made perfect sense, although he failed to see how she might find such an activity soothing.

She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and arched an eyebrow at him.

"It's time to shut your eyes now."

He did so obediently, feeling quite grateful that the ordeal was coming to an end.

Ten minutes later they were back on the road, leaving the run down little village behind them.

"How much money do we have left?" Sakura wondered aloud as they turned a corner, leaving the village out of sight.

"Not much, probably not enough to pay for a vessel to take us to the coast of the Land of Lightning." Sai could feel the weight of the money pouch bouncing against his chest, from where it hung around his neck. "I suppose I could sell some paintings in order to raise some funds." She nodded thoughtfully. "What are you going to do in order to earn your keep?" His tone was light so she resisted the urge to punch his arm in a very un-wife-like manner.

"I'll help you sell them; you don't exactly have the best people skills." Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally. "Our financial troubles are worse than before; we won't be able to avoid them today."

Sai made a small noise of consent, gazing around in a seemingly absent manner.

They were being followed again, but now it seemed closer, more like the stalking of prey than mere observation.

It wasn't until after midday that they made their move.

Annoyingly, it was when Sai had just nipped into the bushes to 'relieve himself' (because Sakura objected to him taking a leak right in front of her) when the first of their stalkers approached Sakura.

From that she deduced two things.

First of all, they definitely didn't know they were attacking shinobi.

Secondly, that they were all total morons.

"Put down the bags missy, you're coming with us." The leader sneered. "We've already got your husband before you try to call out to him."

She glanced over her shoulder, surprised to see Sai being led out of the bushes by two more shinobi.

So ten in total... Sai nodded at her and she suppressed a smirk as she realised a third fault in the shinobi apprehending them.

"We've been keeping an eye on you two, my pet." The leader explained approaching her, lifting her chin with his hand. He turned her face to the side, examining her closely. "It was nice of you to take the room above us in the inn, it meant we got to hear your performance. Sounds like you have both vigour and stamina." He sneered.

So they'd misinterpreted their fight over the bed as something else had they? She suppressed a giggle as she imagined them in the room below, thinking that all that noise was actually something a little naughtier than it was.

His hand travelled down her throat and all desire to giggle vanished.

She was too busy trying not to kill the man for touching her with his filthy hands.

"What do you want from us?" Sai asked from his place between the two shinobi who had apprehended him.

Another unpleasant sneer. "We don't want anything from you, we're just simple traders." His hand was now toying with the zip on Sakura's top. Her skin bristled. "I'm sure we'd fetch an excellent price for you."

She shoved him back. "Release." She growled, raising one hand in the half tiger seal. The one set back of the Genjutsu, it was difficult to fight with it activated.

Sai's ink clone vanished as he took the two shinobi apprehending him out with his super beast scroll.

Sakura dove after the leader. "What kind of motley crew are you leading?" She asked coolly. "They can't even tell the difference between a civilian man and a clone."

Before she could land a hit on the leader, one of his subordinates caught a fistful of her hair.

Gritting her teeth against the pulling sensation she spun and sliced at the guy's hand.

A few strands of pink hair parted from the rest as the man released her hair. The next moment the kunai struck his throat handle first, crushing his windpipe before Sakura's fist cracked down on the top of his head, knocking him out cleanly.

But no sooner had she taken two steps away from him, he was up again, rubbing his head.

He seemed very proud of himself when he spoke. "You wanna be careful, Pretty, we're in the bingo book."

She considered him carefully for a moment. "No you're not." She informed him incredulously.

"We are, you're clearly not very well informed. What are you? Genin or something?" She seriously wanted to laugh at him for that foolish assumption.

"So what are you in it for then?" She ventured, figuring that they probably weren't in her bingo book because hers only contained A-Rank and above. They obviously weren't that great, if they were they wouldn't be advertising the fact they were in it.

"Our leader, Lanard made us famous by teaching us a jutsu which allows us to heal our bodies rapidly." He sneered. "The only way to stop us it to kill us."

"You're certainly not in it for intelligence, are you?"

Quick as a flash she was behind him. His expression was vacant as he fell to the ground, all his nerves severed at the neck.

"I doubt I'll even get a pretty penny for killing you." She sighed as she moved away from the man's body. "Did you hear that Sai."

He nodded abruptly, slicing some guy's throat with his tantō.

It wasn't long before they were down to the last two. Neither of them were injured, apart from Sakura's hair and a small scratch on Sai's cheek, which had been pure bad luck.

She lunged at the first before ducking down to allow an ink lion to leap over her head, which tore out his throat before melting away.

Sakura knew there was something wrong then; the super beast jutsu didn't simply melt away like that. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Sai lean on a nearby tree like he had just been sapped of all his strength.

She straightened from her crouch, still looking in his direction; trying to diagnose him from two meters away.

Poison, she decided, throwing her chakra infused fist back without looking to meet the last shinobi square in the face. Needless to say he would not be getting up.

"Huh, I wonder which one was Lanard." Sai's voice was carefully casual but before he could dismiss his injury any further Sakura had pinned him against the tree and was examining the scratch on his cheek.

He squirmed as she turned his face so she could see it better and poked it with her free hand.

"Yup, congratulations Sai; you've been poisoned." She probed a little more carefully with her chakra, trying to identify the type of poison the way Tsunade had taught her. "Hmm..."

"You shouldn't say hmm right after you tell someone they've been poisoned."

"Sure I can, if I know what I'm doing." She pulled a scalpel from her kunai pouch and brought it up to his cheek. "And I definitely know what I'm doing." Before he could protest she had reopened the cut with one quick painless cut. "Sorry Sai but the quickest way is for me to just suck the poison out."

"You're going to suck my face?"

"Suck and spit Sai, Suck and Spit. It's what all the couples are doing on their honeymoons these days." She slapped his chest with an amused expression. "Trust me I'm a pro, Naruto always to get bitten by snakes; I swear he just did it on purpose. Plus you should know anyway."

With that she pushed him down into a sitting position so that she could kneel between his knees, then, stabilising his head in a practised manner, she bent down and fastened her lips to the gash on his cheek.

It struck Sai as odd that he felt this was such an uncomfortable situation. This wasn't the first time she had sucked poison from one of his wounds when she didn't have the correct antidote. But this time he could feel himself getting hot with embarrassment as she sucked the poison from his wound.

He tried to reason that it was because last time, it had been when he had taken a poison senbon to the arm, so she had sat beside him, rather than between his legs, in what he knew to be a quite intimate position.

She worked quickly and efficiently, constantly channelling healing chakra into his chest, effectively forcing any poison back the way it had come.

Before long she was cleaning the wound, and touching it with her healing chakra.

"There, all better." She said after about ten minutes of silence. She patted his cheek jovially. "We should probably go easy for today; I had to extract quite a bit of blood to fully remove the poison."

"I noticed." He said, pointedly glancing down at the place where she had been spitting the blood. He handed her the canteen of water which he always carried in the top of his pack. "Do you want to rinse?"

She laughed taking the canteen gratefully. "That would be nice." She swirled a bit of the water around her mouth and gargled a little of it before discreetly spitting it into the bushes. "Much as I like a rare steak, human blood is taking it a little too far for my taste."

She quickly recast the Genjutsu before offering Sai her hand to help him up.

"Oh Sai," she grinned remembering the way they had always repaid life saving acts in team 7. "You owe me ramen."

Ok so here's the plan; I have a new FictionPress account under the pen name PeregrineFlight in which I am posting my baby, my original work.

Naturally I want to make sure I publish that but I'm going to try to alternate, so I'll be publishing one of that one week and one of this the next.

Please visit Flight (fictionpress).com/s/2994500/1/Flight support me as an artist; I'd love to hear what you think. (I had to bracket the fictionpress but you get the picture i hope)

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review and all that, it makes my day =D