Hello my dear readers and reviewers!!

I'm so much very sorry about the updating so late... -hides behind desk- please don't hate me... please?

I've been overloaded with school work (which sucks because I want time to get new ideas and with all the work I can't) and then the plot bunnies abandoned me for a while and i had no ideas for this next chapter, but now I'm Back!! (with a capital B and all -insert sweatdrop-) and i'm having ideas!! (I'll give a big virtual cookie to who can give me a few plot bunnies in a cage so i can keed them near my bed to get new ideas!! lol XD)

Anyway, I'll stop rambling, because i'm sure that everyone cares more about the story than about me... (but you care about me right?... right??)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, the wonderfull Manga belongs to Kishimoto-sama, praise him and his wonderfull mind!

Sakura's evolving as well as the other characters. I really enjoyed writting this chapter, and, as always, I apreciate your opinions, it helps me improve myself.

I hope everyone likes the 2 last scenes I wrote with Deidara and Sakura in it, I had a blast writting them!!

And then there are a couple of scenes in this chapter, to make them i followed a request to make more moments with the twins!!

One last thing, tell me what you think about the last scene i did, it's the one i revised the most to get it, not perfect, but as good as i could make it!!

Chapter 14

She looked outside the window and sighed. Ever since that day Deidara hadn't showed up, at all. It had been 1 week ago. She'd been in Rain for 6 weeks now, more or less, and ever since she and Deidara became, well, friends, he would stop by Fay's place almost everyday.

She was sorry, and she wanted to tell him that, but after she had healed him, he had just left, ignoring her and Fay completely and leaving. She'd watched him leave, blaming herself if he got sick for being out in a crappy day like it had been.

She regretted talking about his mother, but she'd only remembered what Fay had told her about him and Deidara when they were kids after she'd spoken.

"Stop blaming yourself." She turned around, away from the window, and smiled sadly.

"It's my fault." She spoke softly and started to walk away towards the hallway.

"Don't worry, he'll come when he'll get over it, he's not the hating type of person." She hugged herself and entered the hallway.

"Well, I deserve it anyway." What would Naruto think when she told him the truth? The truth she had kept away from him and everyone for all those year.

"Don't say that." The blond watched as she entered the kitchen and then glared out of the window. With a frustrated sigh he walked to the window and opened it.

"Will you just come in, let her apologise and then have another childish argument about a stupid cookie or whatever?" he scolded, but it fell on def ears as the blond artist merely kept leaning against the wall, his eyes looking at the gloomy grey sky.

Blue eyes narrowed at the stubborn gaki.

"Geez Deidara, I never knew you were like that." He turned his back to his best friend. "I wonder what Suzume would say if she knew you're acting like such an ass." He mumbled and closed the door, not even bothering to wait for a response from Deidara.

Purple/grey eyes watched as the girl everyone seemed to protect inside the organization sat on the floor, leaning against the couch, moulding some children's clay (like PlayDo) slowly, her eyes set on her hands. The bastard still hadn't apologised to her, and it pissed him off, because Kaorin and Jin were supposed to be best friends, yet there were times, like this, when Jin acted like an ass and hurt her.

The twins had spent the week around Kaorin, trying to cheer her up, drawing, moulding and whatnot for her. Kyuuki was currently drawing a picture and Ryuuki was moulding something.

His eyes glanced back and narrowed.

"If you're not apologising, then just leave." Although he spoke calmly, the menace of future pain was there.

"Hn." And he just had to answer that.

"Leave Jin." He stated and as the teen was about to enter the living room he extended his arm and prevented him from doing so.

"Leave." His eyes glanced at the teen and then settled on Kaorin, who was smiling lightly as Kyuuki gave her the drawing she had been doing.

"You're not my father." He turned around, pushing the teen on the process and raised a brow.

"No, I'm not, but I'm still older than you." He leaned against the door frame and stared at Jin. "Got a problem with that, go complain to Sasuke-sama, but I doubt you'll do that because you're the one at fault, and you know it." he saw Jin's blue eyes narrow, his jaw clenching and his fists being shoved in his pockets.

"Mind your own business Ryo." A smile made its way to his lips and Jin's eyes narrowed even more.

"Oh, but you see, this is my business, because Kaorin's my friends, and I'm just looking after her." His smiled became sickeningly sincere. "Leave." And the coldness in his voice made up to it. He knew how to be manipulative and cold, an ass if you'd like, when he wanted to, and to be an ass with Jin wasn't hard.

The teen glared and then turned around, walking down the hallway. Ryo shook his head.

"You should appreciate what you have dumbass."

"A messenger bird?" his companion looked just as surprised as him. Usually there weren't messenger birds sent to Rain, hell, Rain didn't bond with the other countries, at all.

"Seems like it." they approached the hawk carrying a scroll on his back and he reached for the scroll. The bird followed him with its eyes and then chirped lightly. His companion petted the birds head and said bird shifted and chirped contently.

"Seems to like you." He mumbled and turned the scroll in his hands.

"Yeah." He rolled his eyes, his companion just fell in love with the bird. Averting his eyes to the scroll he was surprised to find the Konoha and Suna stamp on it.

"Oi, Hiro, check this out." His brown haired companion averted his eyes from the bird to him.

"What is it Natsu?" he showed him the scroll. "Wow, Konoha and Suna, I bet that ain't for us." He nodded.

"It's probably for Leader-sama." Hiro nodded and returned to the bird.

"Will you take it??" he looked at him, petting the hawk. "I wanna take care of him." He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah yeah, I'm going."

Footsteps echoed through the hallways of the corridor as he walked towards the leader's office.

After walking for a few more seconds he reached the office, the door was open so he took the liberty to enter, knocking nonetheless, obviously.

"Leader-sama, I have a scr-" he looked around, but, surprisingly, there was no one. He scratched his head, it wasn't like Leader to not be in his office during work hours, unless he was out of town obviously. "Leader-sama?" he called out, maybe the man was around. He furrowed his brows when he heard child's giggles coming from the adjacent room of the office.

Slowly walking towards the (now that he looked at it properly) half opened door and discretely peeked in, and boy, was he not ready to see what he saw.

Leader (someone said to be cold and ruthless) was sitting in the carpeted floor cross-legged, a small girl (around 4) with long ebony hair sitting in between his legs and a boy with spiky raven hair (twins maybe?) sitting, also cross-legged, in front of him. Between the adult man and the small girl and the small boy was a Lego construction, that oddly resembled a city, being done.

But that wasn't what was strange (well, it was, but it wasn't the strangest thing of it), the really strange thing was that Sasuke, Leader-sama, was smiling, seemingly having fun, while the small girl giggled from time to time and the small boy kept adding Legos to the construction, while Sasuke did the same, that smile (boyish, almost happy) remained there. It was so very rare for Leader to smile, more rare than seeing snow in
Suna.

"Ne, ne, Sasu-nii-chan, where do we build Naruto-nii-chan's house?" the small boy asked. It was clear that the boy was happy and excited.

"The Dobe's place…" the grown man leaned forward, inspecting the construction, and after a few seconds he pointed a building (a Lego one of course). "It used to be here." The girl looked up at him.

"How was it nii-chan?? Was it cool?" he scoffed.

"Are you kidding? His place was dump." The kids giggled and the adult smiled.

He watched his leader with a smile and then stepped away from the door silently, whatever was on the scroll could wait a few hours, even if it was urgent. He wasn't just about to interrupt when his leader looked so happy, happier than he had even seen him.

He walked down the hallway, a smile on his lips, he was happy for Sasuke-sama.

"Man I'm bored." Kisame looked at the young blond artist lying carelessly over the couch, one arm over his face, the other hanging from the couch, as was his left leg.

"Don't ya usually go out?" the blond huffed, but said nothing. "Fought with your boyfriend did ya?" the blond lifted his arm and looked at him with a blank stare.

"I'm straight, yeah." He let his arm cover his face again. "And it's none of your damn business." The shark-man shrugged and leaned back on the couch he was sitting.

"Whatever." He mumbled. After that there was silence.

A good 20 minutes passed before Kaorin came into the living room, she was still depressed. She walked slowly, purposely avoiding eye contact with Jin, who was sitting on the window-sill, and walked up to Deidara.

"Sempai." She called out softly, her hand tugging on his sleeve. He peeked from under his arm.

"Hm?" she fidgeted with the hem of her navy blue top, her eyes cast downwards.

"Ne, can we go out?" the blond lifted his arm from his face and raised a brow.

"Why?" she mumbled some incoherent words, but when she glanced at the blond at the window he understood. "Ok, sure." A small smile graced her lips.

"Thank you sempai." He shrugged and sat up.

"Wanna come Salmon-chan?" he grinned when the shark-man twitched at the nickname.

"Stop calling me that girly." This time the blond twitched.

"I am not girly." He got up. "And if you wanna come, we're going." Kisame rolled his eyes and got up, following the blond artist outside.

They walked through the streets, not really watching where they were going, Kaorin seemed to be fine with it, she probably just wanted some fresh air, but then, as if to mock everyone, it started to rain.

"Let's go to Fay-san's house sempai." Kaorin had suggested, and after some persuading, Deidara had accepted, telling her to go on ahead.

"Before we go, whatever you see at his place, you can't tell anyone." Kisame raised a brow.

"Why not?" the blond glanced at him and then looked back at the road.

"Because Leader can't know, he'd kill me if he knew."

"In that case, fine." Kisame paused. "What am I gonna see exactly?" the blond shrugged and walked on ahead catching up with Kaorin.

"Something tells me I'm not gonna like it."

After everyone had taken their shoes off, Kisame had settled himself in a couch, Kaorin in another one, and Deidara had gone looking for his best friend, only to find him in his bar downstairs, getting everything ready to open after lunch.

"Hey." The blond twitched when Fay ignored him and kept working on putting the chairs on the floor.

"Why are you ignoring me?" Fay spared him a glance, but said nothing for a while.

"Suzume would've beat the crap outta you if she was here." He frowned, he didn't like talking about his sister.

"Why would she do that?" Fay faced him.

"For starters, you've been acting like an ass for the past week." He scoffed.

"It's her fault." He mumbled like a stubborn kid.

"She's been wanting to apologise to you the whole week dumbass." His best friend scolded, almost yelling at him, he just looked away. "Just let her apologise already, and it's your fault too." Fay walked up to him. "So just drop the cold unforgiving act, because we both know that you're dying to get her to cook something for you." He crossed his arms in front of himself, refusing to look at his best friend.

"Stop being an ass already, you've never been the holding grudges type." Fay walked past him, and while doing so hit the back of his head.

"She's in her room."

He could hear his best friend chatting with Kisame and Kaorin as he stood in front of Sakura's room (well, for now at least). He sighed in frustration and ran a hand through his hair, it was damn annoying to not want to be mad at her, she was supposed to be the enemy, so why wasn't he treating her like one?

"Damn it." he cursed under his breath and, after taking a deep breath, knocked softly (more softly then he'd intended) and then entered.

She was lying on the bed, a book in her hands and over her face (he wondered how she could read properly), and from the looks of it, she was pretty down.

Guilt washed over him, why he didn't knew, because hell, what was there to be guilty about? She had been the one to start it. Somehow his conclusion didn't sound right.

He stood there quiet, watching as she read and didn't notice (so maybe he barely touched the door while knocking, got a problem with it?) him. He had to do something, and as he stood there, ideas ran through his mind, the outcome of all of them being bad, but with the last one he had, he risked (she was probably get pissed and beat the crap outta him, but then again, they would be good again, kinda).

So, with all the stealth he had, he walked closer to her, and then with a boyish grin he climbed on the bed, crawling over her. His right hadn reached for her book and snatched it away from her, her first reaction was to glare.

"What th- Deidara?" she looked up at him, her glare changing to something between surprise and confusion. He tossed the book aside, and it landed perfectly on the bedside table, face down, opened in the page she had been reading.

"Whatcha so depressed about?" he tilted his head and his blond locks fell around them, creating a curtain.

"Ahn…" he grinned when she shifted, her look becoming one of discomfort too.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, her eyes looking into his. "About…" she trailed off and he smiled.

"You're forgiven." He lowered his face and kissed her cheek. "Somehow, I can't stay mad at you." She blinked when he reached his hand up and put a strand of her hair behind her ear, and then she smiled.

"Thank you." He shrugged.

"Don't thank me now." He grinned and she raised a brow suspiciously, somehow, she knew it couldn't be good.

"Why not?" he didn't say anything, but his eyes tinkled, while mentally he prepared himself for the beating she would give him after, he would be lucky if she didn't send him flying to the other end of Rain.

"Because." Was all he said before he lowered his face to hers… and kissed her. He watched as her eyes widened in shock, and somehow, it was amusing, because if there was something that the kiss wasn't, it was romantic.

She pushed him away, breaking the kiss, her eyes narrowing at him.

"What was that for?" she demanded, and he just couldn't help himself and laughed. "And what's so funny?" oh boy, she was pissed, really really pissed.

"You should've seen your face, it was priceless!!" he kept laughing and she shoved him off of the bed, making him fall on his butt on the floor. But that didn't stop his laughter.

"Stop laughing." She ordered, almost yelling, and, not to make matters worse, he stopped, holding his laughter in. He got up and looked at her, his boyish grin coming back to his face when he saw her glaring murderously at him.

"It wasn't that bad." Her face was flushed with anger as she got up and walked towards him, her steps heavy.

"Any last words?" she hissed and cracked her knuckles, to which he just couldn't resist.

"Don't hurt me too much." And when she was just in front of him he leaned down and kissed her again, this time deeper (they were just friends, but he had to say, she was a nice girl to kiss).

When he leaned back she was standing there shocked, but her expression changed to murderous quickly, so he slammed the door open and ran.

"Come back here bastard." She screamed and ran after his laughing persona.

There were noises, yells and laughing too as the trio in the living room shared looks.

"Ne, Fay-san, do you know what's happening?" Fay smirked.

"Yeah, Dei-chan getting a beating." He shook his head. "I wonder what he did to piss her off." Kisame raised a brow but said nothing.

"Get back here bastard." the pissed female screamed and seconds later Deidara landed on the corridor in front of the living room entrance. 3 sets of eyes settled on his laughing person.

"Aw, c'mon, it wasn't that bad." He tried to defend. But the next second his collar was being held as a female straddled him, her eyes glaring. "You wouldn't hurt me… would you?" her hold on his collar tightened.

"Why not?" she smirked when he gulped.

"Because… hm… because I'm pretty!" he finally exclaimed. She scoffed.

"Oh, please, haven't you got something better?" she smirked and he just stood there, biting his lower lip and getting ready for a beating.

"Guess not, any last words?" he tilted his head in thought and then leaned upwards, only to be pushed back down. He rolled his eyes, but spoke nonetheless.

"Don't tell Kami-sama." She raised a brow and was about to hit him with a chakra infused fist when Kisame spoke.

"What's happening here Deidara?" Both Deidara and Sakura turned to look into the living room, their mouths opened and then closed at the lack of words to say.

"What's wrong Kisame-senpai? Is something wrong?" Kaorin inquired as Kisame stood up abruptly, his eyes glaring at the blond artist.

"Deidara?" the shark-man looked frightening as he demanded answers.

"Hm… well… I told you, you couldn't tell anyone." The blond defended, and he honestly sounded a bit like a child. And as he finished speaking he felt someone else glaring at him, someone really close.

"Deidara-kun." She spoke softly and then got up, dragging him up with her. "Let's have a talk in the kitchen." She hissed dangerously sweetly. His eyes turned to the living room, desperately trying to find some help. He whimpered when he found none and was dragged into the kitchen by a pissed off pink haired lady.

"What have I gotten myself into." He mentally kicked himself.

"Ne, Sasu-nii-chan, are you sure this is Konoha?" he looked down at the girl between his crossed legs, who was looking at him with those onyx eyes with the tints of dark emerald green.

"Aa." The girl turned to the Lego construction again and tilted her head, her brows furrowed.

"But, there's things missing." She whined. He noticed Ryuuki nodding.

"And there are things that aren't there." The boy spoke. He shrugged, it was only natural that the village changed after so many years.

"Things change with time." The twins nodded, mumbling chorused 'oh's, and, against his will, his lips curled up into a small smile.

He remembered this morning the twins coming to him and asking if he could play with them, and, after a few rather unnecessary comments from Deidara, he said yes. So now here he was, sitting on the floor of the adjacent room of his office making a replica of Konoha 10 years ago with the twins, Sakura's twins.

As he kept adding a few Legos to the 'village', Ryuuki doing the same, he wondered what the pink haired girl was doing (because, no matter what, she would always be a girl to him) and the moment he started thinking about her, guilt started washing over him, the weight of his sins leaning on his shoulders. He'd worked so hard to get where he was, he'd worked so hard for everything, and all of his work was for her, because she'd been the only one t-

"Nii-chan, are you ok?" he snapped from his thought when he felt light tugs on his sleeves, and when he looked around, the two small children were standing in front of him, looking at him in wonder and worry.

"You look sad." Kyuuki spoke and then looked at her brother, they shared a glance and then looked back at him. He raised a brow at the twins. "When mama's sad…" Kyuuki started.

"We hug her, and then she gets better!!" Ryuuki finished, and the moment he finished his sentence, the twins lunged at him and hugged him, small and warm arms wrapped around his necks as the 3 of them fell backwards from the impact.

"It's ok to be sad Sasu-nii-chan." Both twins spoke softly, and, somehow, it sounded right coming from them, because didn't the truth come from children?

He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes soft and a smile on his lips as his arms wrapped around the small kids, his heart clenching, this feeling of belonging overwhelming him (although he didn't know why).

"You're the best Sasu-nii-chan!!" he let a smirk curl at his lips when the small girl said those words, but his eyes softened and his smirk turned into a boyish grin when Ryuuki spoke.

"I like you best." The meaning behind those words being understood and appreciated, because the boy meant 'I like you better than I like Deidara', and if he wasn't so prideful, he'd rub it in Deidara's face to shut him up with his unnecessary coments.

For the first time in a long time, he felt h-

"Ne, nii-chan, do you like us?" he held the twins tighter against him and smiled a boyish smile (one of those that look childish and spoiled and at the same time innocent).

"Of course I do." He stated, and his boyish smile widened. "But don't tell anyone." He whispered and let himself enjoy the moment, hold the twins against him as if they were the solution to all his problems.

Now, if only Sakura was there too…

I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!!

Please leave a coment telling me what you think, I can improve myself with your coments!! And i don't mind if there's rambling in it, I apreciate it!!

Big coments are my favourite, but small one are apreaciated in the same way!! And c'mon people, isna't that little button with the 'GO' in it just calling out so you leave a comment??

Anyway, I love you all very much!!

With a kiss and a plate of virtual cookies to each of you,

Kimi-chan!!