Hey Everyone! Yume-chan Here!

Thanks for all of your immediate responses! It makes mo so happy to know that you all are happy, too. Oh God, I could get really sappy. This is the first time that I've put my writing out in public, let alone write a fanfiction, so I'm really winging this. But I'm trying my best, and it's great to know that you are all behind me in this!

I replied to all my reviews for the last chapter!

Just some notes:

The story will continue.

I am in school, so don't freak if I don't update.

It's not too late to vote,

The search options will switch between Sakura/Sai and Sakura/Sasuke. Just to keep it fair.

Read and review guys, I hope you'll stay with me for the entire ride, I'm sure it'll be an exciting, incredible one.

Love Always,

Yume-chan

P.S. Happy New Year and Merry Christmakwanzanikah or something. I'm so glad everyone liked my holiday messages to my reviewers, I got so many responses! May there be many chapters for 2007!

Typing the next chapter, watching too much Naruto, and remaining forever yours,

Yume-chan

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Sakura and Sasuke jumped apart.

"Heheh," Sakura said a little too forcefully, her right hand behind her head, "well Sasuke, your heart beat is great!" She stole a glance at Sai. He glared at her for a second then turned to Sasuke.

The two pairs of onyx eyes met with one another across the room. You could nearly hear the explosion as the fire that blazed fiercely within their eyes with mounds of hatred, anger, jealousy, and passion met with one another. Years of unshowed emotions captured the moment, surrounding each of the three shinobi the room contained. And all because of their favorite, pink-haired kunoichi.

"Yeah, Sai," Sakura said, eager to break the uncomfortable silence. "Lunch sounds great. Sai plastered on his signature smile, and offered his hand to Sakura.

"C'mon, ugly, Naruto's waiting." With one last look at Sasuke, Sakura, holding hands with Sai, exited the hospital for a well-earned break. Sasuke stared at Sakura's back as she retreated from his room, wondering where she was going to eat. Well, wherever she was going, she was going to have fun with her team, wasn't she… But why should he care? It's not her fault he ruined her life…It's not her fault he now regrets it… (A/N well, maybe it is)

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"Hey, Sakura?"

"Yeah Sai?"

"Have you forgiven Sasuke?"

"No." Sai stared at her. She said it with such force, but he found it a little hard to believe. Seeing his skeptical look, Sakura glared at her teammate and took it as an opportunity to let out her bundled up feelings about Sasuke.

"I'm his doctor. Traitor or not, it's my duty as a Konoha medic nin to take care of my patient. My previous fan-girl feelings for him are gone. Even my respect for him as a teammate or friend or equal is gone.

"I admit he's got courage, though, to come back here. He says that Konoha was his past, and he hopes to turn it into his future. That, however, is foolish and stupid. He won't be welcomed back, mentally or physically. Keep that in mind Sai, I'm not the girl I used to be. I'm not even the girl you first met. I'm 10 xs stronger and I increase in strength every day. Never, ever assume that I've forgiven Uchiha Sasuke that easily."

Sai laughed nervously. "Don't worry, Sakura-san, I have faith in you. I was just wondering.'

"You better have been," Sakura mumbled under her breath. If Sai ever admitted to the fact that he was questioning Sakura's strength, she'd add him to 'her list.' So far, it consisted of Sasuke, Orochimaru, and Naruto on and off. Right now, it was just begging for another name.

"Hey, by the way," Sakura asked Sai, tilting her head sideways at him, "We're not going to Ichiraku, are we?"

"Eheheheh… funny story really."

Sakura laughed. "It's ok, I know that's probably the only place you could get Naruto to go to. Ramen's not that bad…" Sai laughed too.

"Yeah, you're right. Naruto said he would only get out of bed if ramen was included." Speaking of the devil, the two approached Ichiraku Ramen, to find, what do you know, a large, spiky yellow head bobbing up and down. Someone was apparently enjoying his lunch.

"Yo Sakura-chan, Sai!" Naruto screamed, receiving some strange looks from passersby. (A/N: I own the Japanese versions of time skip Naruto, and sometimes I miss things. Does anyone know what Naruto calls Sai? I'm too lazy to look it up.)

"Hey Naruto, Beef Ramen, please," Sakura said, smiling at the dude behind the ramen bar.

Around a half of an hour later, the conversation between the three teammates took a turn for the worse. They, so far, had managed to stay on pleasant, non-Sasuke related topics. But Naruto, the ever-stupid one, decided that it was a safe time to bring up the topic he had been wanting to talk with Sakura about.

Ha. Yeah right. There's never a good time for Sasuke these days.

"So, Sakura-chan, how are things going at the hospital?" Sai glared at Naruto for bringing up the sensitive topic. Sakura, however, smiled and lifted her head up from her large ramen bowl.

"Things are going great, Naruto. Sasuke is improving everyday. With the treatment I'm giving him now, he should be out of the hospital within the next week."

"That's great, Sakura-chan!! And as soon as he's fit for fighting, we beat him into a pulp together until he begs for forgiveness." Sakura smiled sadly. He was definitely still the same Naruto.

But what worried her was the fact that Sasuke wasn't the same Sasuke. For one, he was claiming to be 'loyal to Konoha' not to mention the fact that he was more sarcastic and, well, emotionally different. If Naruto and herself were to fight the Uchiha prodigy, what would the outcome be? Hurt and mixed feelings? Questions of loyalty? Resolved conflicts and compromises?

Sakura knew that Naruto's intentions of fighting Sasuke were purely for her benefit…one would find it quite surprising to know how much a good shinobi is able to find out about a person from fighting them.

Yes, there would defiantly be an unpredicted outcome if they were to actually follow through with Naruto's suggestion. But whether or not Sakura would like that unpredicted outcome was just as unpredicted. Was she ready for that?

Eager to change the subject from an awkward silence to something a bit more positive, Sai started talking about the sudden wave of missions team 7 had received, due to Sasuke's hospitalization. Luckily, the subject stuck and Sasuke wasn't mentioned again.

Sai was confused. When he saw Sakura and Sasuke looking so intimate together like that, Sai had felt a spew of emotions he had never felt before surface in one big hot bubble. He had always cared for Sakura as a teammate, what made those mutual feelings of friendship change?

If Sai had an inner Sai, it would have said:

Maybe the threat of competition for Sakura-san's heart made you realize how important she is to you/how much you love her : O!!!!!!

However, so I don't mess with the all-great and powerful original Naruto storyline, so let's just say a little voice in the back of his told him that.

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A few hours later, three of our four heroes were still eating ramen. Naruto had eaten a grand total of 32 bowls, Sai 9 and Sakura 12. Hey! She was in the hospital for three days straight! Cut her some slack!

"Geez, ugly, you've got some appetite for a girl."

"Correction, Sai, I'm a kunoichi. Big difference."

"My apologies, kunoichi-sama," Sai teased, bowing low. Both Sakura and Naruto punched him in the head.

When they finally left, after much debating on who would pay the bill (A/N: It ended up being Sakura, of course) Sai had two beautifully placed lumps on the top of his head.

"Sa-ku-ra-cha-nnnn!" Naruto whined/screamed into Sakura's ear as she turned on the path to the hospital, "Don't tell me that you have to back to the hospital already!"

"Sorry, Naruto, Sasuke needs me." Sai's eyes narrowed slightly.

"That bastard can wait a few more hours." But Sakura shook her head sadly.

"We both know that's not true. Besides, the longer I spend with him, the faster he'll be out of the hospital." Naruto looked down at Sakura with big, blue eyes.

"Do we want him out of the hospital?" Naruto asked. Sakura smiled softly again.

"Well, at least out of ward." Avoiding the question…

"Alright… ja ne Sakura-chan! We'll drag you out for dinner tonight!" Sakura laughed, the first true laugh since Sasuke came back.

"Fine, but you're paying!" With a wave of her hand, Sakura disappeared from her protective teammates. Naruto sighed.

"Teme better get better quickly."

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Coming to a mutual understanding with himself, Sasuke, alone in his hospital room, decided to only go after Sakura's friendship. He also decided he nearly had Sakura in his bag, so he decided to concentrate on Naruto. He'd be harder to win over than Sakura.

Oh how wrong he was.

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Sasuke was surprised. When Sakura returned, she treated him like a patient. Not anything more, not anything less. She had concern for his health because he was in her ward. She no longer blushed when she touched his chest. She treated him like she treated the man in the bed across from him.

Had he lost her?

That night, Naruto, Sai and Kakashi came into Sasuke's room. They found Sakura sitting cross-legged in a chair next to Sasuke's bed, writing something on a clipboard and Sasuke staring at the ceiling.

A heavy and uncomfortable silence hung in the air. Sakura looked up from her clipboard. Her eyes sparkled again at the sight of her team, Sasuke noticed.

"Hey guys, you still want to do dinner?"

"Yeah," Kakashi said slowly, careful to explain the boy's plan to Sakura in the most normal way possible. "We got take-out for the five of us. I thought it might be a good idea." Apparently, Sakura had different thoughts, based on her face.

But she smiled, another fake smile, anyways, and swung out a table over Sasuke's bed so they could all eat around it. Everyone sat criss-crosss-apple-sauce (A/N: I just had to say that) on Sasuke's hospital, Sakura next to Sasuke and everyone else squished on the other side.

"Well," Sasuke said, daring to test his old teammates' limits, "you've all changed."

"No duh, Uchiha-teme. We've grown out of our 'Sasuke phase' and found a real, amazing life without you." Oh, harsh. But Sasuke remained stoic, refusing to give the dobe the pleasure of him suffering.

The rest of the dinner was silent. No one said a word. Just as well.

As Sakura began to stack up the plates and throw them in the garbage, Sasuke made his move.

"Guys, I need to talk to you," Sasuke started slowly. Four heads turned. "I really want to, maybe, well, mend my ways. Seriously. I can't beat Orochimaru alone. I still have a life ahead of me. Please." No…No… NO

Naruto punched Sasuke out of the window as Sakura pulled out Sasuke's IV cord and Kakashi activated his Sharingan and Sai crashed down on the already empty hospital bed.

Ino, who had just walked in with a bunch of flowers, stared at the wrecked room in confusion.

"Eh? Eh? EH?" She was answered with four VERY PISSED shinobi pushing her out of the room.

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I really, really, really tried to get this up before Christmas. However, the week before, I got the stomach flu, bronchitis and a three-day migraine. Not fun. Well, I finally managed to pull this together, so hope everyone enjoyed!

Now I have midterms, so I might not be able to update for a bit. Before the end of the month though! Maybe sooner if I get a lot of nice reviews… So review and please wait faithfully for the next chapter!