*cries* I'm really sad because I can't reply to reviewers who don't have accounts and I get some really lovely ones from you accountless peoples. I'm now at the point where I've decided that I should address everyone and tell you how much I appreciate the reviews but I'm too scared to talk about you guys individually in case I miss someone!
But seriously, thank you so much to everyone who leaves a review~ I loove them so much ^_^
P.S: I've been told "leant" isn't a word. I'm very upset about it and intend to stay loyal to it instead of using "leaned" when I can. If I don't I will feel that my whole life has been a lie. This is similar to my loyality to "suprise" over "surprise". Deal.
Naruto stood near the door. He hadn't moved since he had been thrown out of the operation room and his mind was still reeling. An hour had passed but they couldn't hear any of what was happening behind the door.
Sasuke.
An hour and half or so ago he had woken up as his life spilled back into his body, overwhelming him as he made the transition from that person to this person. He had watched from some other part of his mind as Sasuke was thrown about like a ragdoll by that man... It made him angry in that small part of him, it hurt him, but at the same time it couldn't overcome the incredible pain of finding himself so quickly.
He had been behind a wall. He didn't remember that but he knew that there had been something that stopped him from being the true Uzumaki Naruto. He remembered the morning after staying at Sasuke's after the festival. He remembered his house and going into the bathroom. Everything until the moment when Sasuke's brother, Itachi, had pried him wide open was watery and faint. He had been ripped open but it was too much to handle and he entered a greyness that numbed him. But it didn't stop his tears. In his grey he had been somewhat aware of small things but still far from rational thought. He just knew that that persistent pound beneath him that was Sasuke's heavy footsteps kept him earthbound and calmed his broken mind to some extent. And then it stopped. Sasuke stopped moving. And he needed to scream. And he needed to fight. Fight the grey with lucid blue. Overpower the blue with red. Beautiful, blood-red.
It wasn't like before. It wasn't like that time on the mission when he had been trapped inside himself. Not like when before long he was in another world. Where he could feel his brain starting to unravel, detaching from any normal thought process. Unreachable, even to himself. But some things were the same. This time he could still feel the skin around his mouth pucker and tighten. His eyes narrowed and made the world darker. His lips starting to pull back like a snarling wolf's... no, a fox's, a demon's...
When it started, the burn was familiar, the itch from that time before he had slept. Hot. Hot. Hot. But not painful because he was blank and the pain was at his soul not his body as he relived moments of his life over and over again. They felt new although he had known them, but not for so long. But hot. Hot. Hot.
It happened all at once. The wave inside broke and had forced him to cry out with such raw unplaced emotion that his throat felt like it had been sandpapered. He wanted to move, to outrun whatever was going on inside him, but a stabbing pain in his belly kept him in place.
The red hot pain in his stomach exploded with such intensity that he doubled over in agony, bending from his sitting position. The loudest scream he had ever made almost burst his throat. It was a torrent of pent up rage spewing out, a lava flow of all those years of pain, insults, ridicule and helplessness and above all an agonizing breaking of his very being as his eyes slid to Sasuke's white body that reeked of death to his heightened smell.
Despite being in this state he could see and he could move at his own will. He could see this man who had taken one step back and dropped him as he tore his sleeve from his fingers. This man who had bloody knuckles. Sasuke's blood. His Sasuke.
Naruto could breathe and see. He was in control but damnit! He was so angry, and so hurt.
How dare you come after Sasuke when you came here for me! How dare you break him right in front of me! How dare touch you him!
Breaking loose, he had charged Uchiha Itachi on all fours, ignoring how disgusting the notion to rip out his throat with his teeth was. As Naruto flew at him Itachi barely had a chance to move, but still the man was a skilled ninja and pulled back at the last minute, avoiding a fatal blow. Naruto's sharp teeth grazed past him but that didn't stop the blonde from striking out with his arm, the lightly orange cloaked limb tearing through Itachi's black and red coat and sending him flying just as the man had to Sasuke while Naruto sat and watched.
He had been incredibly... clear. A moment before he had been a wreck, the memories simply too much for his unprepared mind, but as soon as the red-orange flame had started at his skin he felt it burn away the anguish. He was clear.
Itachi vanished into the trees like smoke before Naruto could kill him like he wanted to. His red eyes still burned on the black of Naruto's eyelids when he blinked slowly.
In the waiting room, Kakashi's voice brought Naruto out of his thoughts.
"Naruto?" Right... They had to talk at some time. But he was nervous. What if they didn't want this Naruto?
The blonde shook his head. Now was absolutely not the time, not with Sasuke how he was...
Naruto turned to his sensei. Sakura sat next to him, her eyes were red and her hands shook in her lap.
"Are..." The older male's eye drove into Naruto, searching. "Are you... back?" There it was. The question that would confirm that yes, he was here. Yes, he was that stupid loser again... But now was absolutely not the time for that worry!
Don't be selfish for once in your life and just give him the straight answer! Don't make him think about you when Sasuke is in there like that!
Naruto took a deep and smiled the best he could but he could feel his eyebrows crinkling and trembling in a strange way that he knew made the face look weird.
"Ah.. I'm back Kakashi sensei... Sakura chan." Sakura stared at him with her big green eyes when he said her name. Naruto squirmed under her intent look.
"How...?" asked Kakashi quietly. Again Naruto offered a half smile, quirking one side of his mouth and closing his eyes.
"Honestly, I don't know..." The smile came away and he looked down between his feet. "All I know is that when I actually saw Sasuke like that... Nothing else mattered. Not me and my pain. All of me is nothing compared to seeing my best friend dying. I've seen it before. I couldn't handle it that time and I couldn't handle it this time either..." Hot tears pushed behind his eyes as he continued, babbling a bit now. "Heroes are supposed to jump in at the last minute and save the day you know, but I was really late; really, really late... I was... I couldn't..." His shoulders were shaking even though he didn't want them to. "I screwed up again..."
It was painful. It hurt. He didn't want any of this. He couldn't lift his head and look Sakura and Kakashi in the eye because this was all his fault. Naruto pushed his fists against his eyes and clenched his teeth. It was his fault that they might lose Sasuke. It was his fault that even if Sasuke lived, he might not have a usable leg. It was his fault that Sasuke was broken.
"N-N-Naruto." Sakura stuttered through her trembling chin. He couldn't help but lift his face when she called him. He always looked when he called her...
Her skin was sickly white and her whole body shook with just noticeable tremors. She looked thin and fragile.
"I... I missed you." Now he was crying and he didn't have the strength to cover his pathetic crying face. She was on her feet shakily, taking baby steps toward him.
She must have been so alone. In his watery memory, Sasuke was always near him but Sakura... must have been so alone. It was all his fault...
Uzumaki Naruto who always said he would be the one to take Uchiha Sasuke down, really had. It was all his fault.
Naruto fell to his knees. He was scared.
Sasuke.
Sasuke.
Sasuke.
Sasuke.
Sasuke.
"Sasuke..." The name fell from his lips wetly. He raised his blue eyes to Sakura who was standing over him and let her touch the tears on his cheeks with her frightened fingers before she too went down on her knees and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.
"Naruto... It's not your fault. I promise you, Sasuke kun will be fine. I promise you that. I absolutely promise you that with all my heart... We'll wait this out together. Sasuke kun will definitely be alright. He can't not be now that you're here..."
Her arms were warm and comforted the turning terror that was eating him from the inside out. He'd never been this scared. Never. But he was home. Finally home. With his family, his number ones, his Kakashi sensei and his Sakura chan and definitely he would be together with his Sasuke soon too. They just had to wait the bad stuff out, be strong and hang in there. That's all it took, and that was his specialty. But still he couldn't stop crying.
"Naruto." Kakashi was on the floor next to them. "For what it's worth..." He paused. "Okaeri." Naruto squeezed his eyes closed tighter.
"T-Tadaima!"
Just wait it out.
Be strong.
Hang in there.
Hang in there Uzumaki Naruto and hang in there Uchiha Sasuke.
.
.
.
When Sasuke woke up it was very dark. He could barely see a thing and it took him a long moment to register the piles of breathing warmth on either side of him and the feeling of his hands being much hotter than the rest of his body. The space in front of his nose went foggy every now and then in time with his breathing. Sasuke blinked up at the patterns of squares above him; tiles? Trying to clear the lingering hazy blue from his head.
Where was he? He blinked again. Ah, the hospital. He wasn't dead... How about that? He wondered if he could move at all. Slowly he flexed his toes on one foot and then- oh, that was interesting. It seemed his toes only moved properly on one foot. How curious... Sasuke clenched his eyes shut and then opened them again, his vision was still blurry. Not that he could see anything other that the roof right now.
I wonder if I still have arms. He tensed and untensed the muscles on each arm. They were there and working. Next he wiggled his fingers on his right hand and found they didn't move a whole lot. One of the warm piles stirred. It raised its head blearily and looked at him.
"Sasuke kun... are you awake?" it whispered to him in the darkness and he blinked three times fast. His mind was catching up now.
He was in the hospital after his battle with Itachi, the reason his fingers didn't move was because Sakura was holding his hand in both of hers and his leg didn't respond well because... The sickening snap sound his leg had made when Itachi jumped the bone straight through his skin made the raven clench his teeth.
"Sakura...? Ugh..." replied Sasuke, still blinking his way back to balanced thought. His voice sounded like plastic and he now realized that the fogging that was going on around his nose was a mask to help him breathe. He was so groggy...
"Sasuke kun, how do you feel? Does it hurt? You're on a heap of drugs so it shouldn't." Her questions made his head spin. He wiggled his hand out of her grip and reached heavily for the mask to pull it off, his fingers stumbling over the smooth see-through surface. Sakura stood up and helped him. He coughed loudly as the cold midnight blue air flowed into his lungs and the girl tried to urge him to put the mask back on but he shook his head in refusal. He didn't need help to do something as simple as breathing although right now it was taking a lot of effort.
"Are you alright?" Sakura asked again after Sasuke had settled into a comfortable breathing pace.
"I can't feel my body much yet," he wheezed back, straining his eyes over the rise of his cheeks, probably still swollen from the beating he had taken, to see her. He asked to sit up and she raised the bed a little for him, but only a little. He asked for more but she told him no because apparently he had broken three ribs. He couldn't feel it. Sakura was unusually calm, he noted. How long had she been there? Probably a while considering he was "on a heap of drugs" to keep the pain away so his injuries must have been pretty bad... She must have panicked herself out.
"What happened? How am I alive? How did I get here?" Now his own questions were making his head spin. Sakura watched him quietly for a minute from her bedside chair.
"You and Naruto left the village-"
"I know that much Sakura," he snapped in an angry whisper, trying to sound as though he wasn't muzzy and drugged up. She frowned slightly but she wasn't mad, he could see. That was her concerned face.
"Don't get worked up, you'll hurt yourself even more. Be a bit quieter ne? Talking takes energy Sasuke kun. Be quiet and I'll tell you." Sasuke scowled weakly.
"You left the village. At about 11 am I came looking for you two and I couldn't find you anywhere. I went to Kakashi sensei's place but he wasn't there so I went to see Hokage sama. We were assembling the search party and a lot of the village was out by the gates to see what was going on when..." she trailed off, her eyes skirting to one side.
"What happened, Sakura? How did I get here?"
"Naruto came through the gate with you," she replied slowly. Sasuke's heart missed a beat. Naruto?
"But my brother... he.. Naruto was..." Sasuke stared at her. It didn't make sense! Didn't Itachi take Naruto away after he was done with Sasuke?
Suddenly Sasuke remember the other pile of warmth. His eyes flew to his left side, to his left hand that was hot and constricted. His eyes widened in disbelief.
"Naruto...how...?" The blonde boy was sleeping at his left side with his head on the bed, his hand holding Sasuke, his face nestled in his arms. Naruto breathed deeply and Sasuke stayed very still.
"Sakura, what happened?" He insisted, his voice still a whisper. Sakura drew a breath before she started again. Sasuke leaned forward slightly to listen.
"Sasuke kun. When Naruto came through that gate he had that orange chakra around him again. He was carrying you and I thought you were dead. He thought you were dead. He was screaming and crying. But he was begging for help too. You were covered in blood...But no one wanted to go near him like that. You know... The villagers thought he would tear them apart," she said uneasily. "But you were there inside that chakra too, in his arms and you were dead Sasuke kun, I was sure." Her voice was shaky with emotion and her eyes closed as she spoke. "Finally Lee san jumped up and went to help. Hokage sama and some other jounin went over and took you from Naruto and rushed you to the hospital. Naruto collapsed after that and Iruka sensei brought him here too but he woke up and refused to be checked over. We waited through your eleven hour operation; your condition was pretty critical... Your leg... your shoulder, you ribs and arms... your brain had to be looked at, multiple fractures... And we've been here ever since." She was done and all could say was, "I see..." in a small, tired voice. His arms were heavy. Sakura nodded and they feel to hush. Sasuke was tired. He could feel his body urging his mind to become unconscious again but he didn't want to.
Sasuke remembered something else he wanted to know.
"Sakura."
"Hm?" He was slipping back into sleep. It was stupid but he remembered he wanted to know.
"That book," he murmured breathily, so quiet that she got to her feet and leant over him to hear, bending the bed back to a lying down position as she did, aware he was slipping. "That book you were reading... What... what was it...?" So hard to stay awake. Sakura stroked his head and no one could possibly comprehend how soothing that was when he could feel himself panicking to stay awake long enough for her answer. The drugs were taking effect again. He could hear himself slurring and becoming small under her kind hands. He did love her. She was gentle and soft. She was motherly.
"The book..." he whispered. Above him she smiled in a way that looked like relief but still as though she was about to cry. From here it looked like she had been... That was his fault surely.
"The book, Sasuke kun, is called 'Tides and Ebbs of Honesty', it's a very beautifully written book and one of my favourites. It's a story about two..." Her voice faded away as Sasuke went back to sleep, her calm tone lulling his body to slumber.
.
.
.
Sasuke woke again later feeling slightly less drugged. It was still dark and he could feel the aching in his leg this time and his chest felt tight. The breathing mask had been replaced. Sakura was awake.
"Hey."
"Hn... Can I sit up?" In a word, he felt like: shit.
"Yeah." She lifted the bed for him and he looked around. It was slightly lighter in the room this time. Maybe it was early morning.
To his left Naruto was sleeping and Sakura was watching him. They watched the boy together. Three sets of even breathing.
"Sasuke kun?"
"Yeah."
"I have to tell you something but you've got to promise not to react in a big way because no one else really has since you're like this and if you get emotional, I'm gonna get emotional and I was emotional for like eleven hours straight so don't do anything ok?" Sasuke nodded slowly.
"Naruto has his memories back."
What. What. Naruto has his memories back?
Sasuke blinked and Sakura watched his face closely. He was of course very good at controlling his face so he stayed blank as she had instructed.
Of course. It all made sense. Itachi had unlocked his mind and Naruto had gone. Just gone. Those grey eyes. But here he was by Sasuke's side, living. Breathing. How could that be if Naruto was blank? Because he wasn't blank. And Sakura said Naruto had come back in the Kyuubi state...Did that have something to do with it? With Naruto in the Kyuubi state they must have escaped... Had Naruto killed Itachi...?
"H..How...?" His voice betrayed him when he spoke. Raking her fingers through her short hair Sakura sighed tiredly.
"No one knows. But then again no one knows anything much about what goes on inside Naruto's body. He's just... back." With her last word she smiled and looked back to Naruto who continued to sleep. As expected from him. Or maybe he was tired from waiting for Sasuke to wake up, waiting to see if he would live. Now that he looked at Sakura, her eyes looked tired and dull and she was leaning on her elbows on the bed to keep herself up.
"How bad was it Sakura? Waiting it out...? You weren't in there were you?" Sasuke asked her. She looked uncomfortable. "You can tell me," he assured her using the best friendly voice he could muster. "Please Sakura, be completely honest." She was obviously taken back by the "please" part. But she spoke.
"No, we were there for the first little bit but then Tsunade sama came in and we were kicked out. For the first few hours it was pretty alright. We were worried but it was... quiet. When we started hearing the doctors yelling we were freaking out a bit. But then it went away... Iruka sensei came to be with us too. My parents as well for a while but I told them to go home. I went to sleep after a while on Kakashi sensei's lap and Naruto was sitting with Iruka sensei. I won't lie to you Sasuke. It was nearly unbearable the times when I was actually conscious. I'm sure Naruto was awake the whole time."
Sasuke felt better that Sakura was telling him all this. Maybe it was because she was a female and he was able to trick him self a little into thinking that when she said "unbearable" it wasn't really unbearable. She slept sometimes anyway right?
"At one point you regained consciousness and you... were screaming."
Or not.
"Iruka sensei had to cover Naruto's ears. They must have put you out again pretty quick though. You only got halfway through 'Okaasan'..." Sasuke groaned and closed his eyes.
"Where's Kakashi?" he inquired softly. His eyes were on Naruto again, watching the boy's back rise and fall in even breath. He couldn't believe it. That he was here, alive.
"I think he's sleeping somewhere else. He got recalled from a mission and ran all the way back here. He'd been going non stop since dawn so he must be really tired. He was awake the whole time too. Iruka sensei is with him while we're here," she replied. "He'll probably want to know you're awake. I'll go see him now." She got to her feet and headed for the door. Sasuke's eyes didn't leave the blonde sleeping on his bed. Sakura called his name from the doorway just loud enough for him to hear. He didn't turn to her.
"You should wake Naruto. He's been really worried. He cried. A lot."
She left and Sasuke was left with a sleeping Naruto. A sleeping Naruto was the one that made Sasuke the most anxious. Because he looked the same no matter who he was. If Sasuke moved his fingers that had stayed so incredibly still for all this time and woke the sleeping boy as he had woken Sakura, would he rub his eyes and say "Sasuke san?" or would he really rub his face gracelessly and call him "Teme"?
Was he really back? For real? Sasuke was scared to find out.
AN: 'Tides and Ebbs of Honesty' by Marcab. It's lovely, you can google it ^_^