Thanks for your reviews and support. Yes, that was a sad chapter. I sort of just happened that way. My mind is an enigma when I type. Stuff just pours out and usually ends up sounding okay. Thank you all for being with me for this fan fiction! I am not sure what's going to happen in this chapter. Let's just hope that I'm feeling like a good ending and not a bad one.

Ooooooooooooo

My Personal
Assistant Uchiha

Chapter 10: Letting Him Go

Sakura dreaded the moment as she walked back to her office. The scroll in her hand felt leaden but she kept it despite the slightest urge to burn the thing that had potential to hurt her for the rest of her life.

She went through her the open office door, shut it behind. Sasuke sat behind the desk, bored, and looked up as she walked across the room to him. He leaned back, hoping she'd come closer but she kept the desk between herself and him.

"Sasuke," she said quietly, then nothing more while he watched her closely. She looked up into his eyes and he was slightly concerned. She'd just turned distant right before his face.

"Sakura, what are you doing?"

She took a quiet breath and held out the scroll. "Tsunade agreed to let you join the others. You're going to be a Jounin." She was too quiet. Why was she being so damn cold?

Sasuke nodded slowly and held the scroll, but didn't take it from her hand. "Well, it was…interesting here." He said and saw her look away. Why couldn't she say what was wrong? Couldn't she see he was stalling?

"I…I'll miss you." she said and looked up again. She had tears in her eyes and she was now putting him on edge. It was like she was just…letting him walk away. But it was that she seemed to be expecting it, which got his ire up.

He was also on edge because she might have been right…

"You want me to leave…and not just this hospital."

Sasuke took her silence as confirmation and he stood. He held a long lingering gaze on her.

"Let me get this straight," he hissed, angry at her calmness. "You want me to leave you?"

She turned so he wouldn't see her tears. She wasn't going to let him see her broken. "Well, you don't want to be here. Or held down by me anymore." She was whispering, but he heard her every word.

"I don't want you to suffer because of me."

She felt strong, angry fingers dig into her arms and she gasped as she turned, frightened when she saw how fierce his Sharingan was, staring right into her soul.

"You think I was just using you?!" he hissed and tightened his grip. She refused to bend.

"So you want us to just walk away from each other? I didn't just choose to have sex with you, Sakura, for the hell of it!"

"The only reason you did was because I was in your path!" she snapped. "I don't know if we'd have gotten together if you weren't in my house or my hospital. We might have never said another word to each other if Tsunade had just made you a Jounin in the first place!"

Sasuke's fury rose; he knew she was right.

"Well you don't know that." He whispered, though he wasn't sure of his words. She closed her eyes and allowed two tears to fall. No more.

"Then I'll say it flatly Sasuke. I don't think you'll stay."

He turned from her his teeth grinding in his mouth. "From the way you phrase it, I don't think I will either, Sakura."

With that said, he walked from the room. And out of her life.

ooo

Tsunade read the stats on the Jounin missions and noticed that Sasuke Uchiha had grown higher, more ruthlessly, than any other before him. She had risen his rank twice, had planned on it again, but the Uchiha had wanted nothing else. He didn't want to be an ANBU yet, but she hadn't planned on that either.

Sasuke acted and worked, like an emotionless ghost. He did nothing but missions, had spent almost no time with Naruto and, she was certain, none with her pink-haired doctor.

Tsunade slammed the drawer in her desk shut with fury and looked over to the documents to her right, piled high with patient reports; all of whom where Sakura's. The damn girl had gone back to her old ways, worse than before. The Sannnin was positive that Sakura hadn't slept two hours each night since well over a month ago when she had given her the scroll with Sasuke's new assignment inside.

He had come to her tower, requesting the key to his families' district, that day. He'd wanted to live there, but he hadn't seemed too excited about it. When she'd asked why he wasn't staying with Sakura he hadn't answered her question. "Hn." Was all he'd said.

Tsunade nearly snarled at the mayhem that had ensued, all because two people couldn't admit three simple words to each other, whether the words were 'I love you' or 'I need you'. Was it so hard to say such easy phrases?!

The Hokage hit an intercom, snarling to Shizune that she was going to the hospital.

"About damn time!" the assistant replied. "She'll kill herself before long!"

Tsunade used her jutsu and appeared inside her office in the hospital. She stormed out, intent on giving Sakura a piece of her mind.

She spotted Hinata and tromped over to the young doctor. "Where is she?"

"She's in her office." The Hyuga said, hotly. "Please knock some sense into her, Tsunade-sama!"

She'd do just that. It was time they had a little talk, which she hoped would spark an all out battle.

"Sakura!" Tsunade kicked the door in and she spotted the young doctor sitting at the assistant's desk, if she'd even had one, spacing into whatever world she inhabited.

The pink-haired medic jerked as Tsunade pounded the table. "I want you home, now!"

Sakura frowned. "No."

Tsunade snarled and overturned the desk, sending the computer flying and all the useless office supplies as well. "I am your superior, Sakura Haruno, and I want your attention!"

Finally! Sakura thought and leapt to her feet to do battle.

ooo

Sasuke was walking into the hospital for the first time in a month and a half, on orders from Tsunade for a check up. He didn't want Sakura to do it so Tsunade had requested it of Hinata.

Sasuke hadn't even spoken to the pink-haired doctor. But he'd seen her... and he'd wanted her.

He wouldn't allow himself to be weak. Not after how they'd treated each other.

He fortunately- or unfortunately- was with Naruto and he listened to the dobe blabber on as they walked. They spotted Hinata who brought them both to an exam room; the same he had been in with Sakura.

He sat on the table with Naruto and saw the hole in the wall where Sakura's chakra had burnt into it and he closed his eyes, not wanting to think of her.

Just as Hinata was getting their weight written down, they heard a loud crash and lots of yelling. "What the hell is that?!" Naruto shouted and the two Jounin opened the door and halted, just a whiff of powerful chakra flew past their noses.

They watched, shocked, as Tsunade and Sakura fought viciously. It looked like a damn battle to the death.

Sakura spun away from an oncoming fist from the Sannin and she connected her own with Tsunade's stomach. Before she could step back with victory, the Hokage kicked and brought Sakura down hard onto the ground, her head spinning.

"You are not to be here tomorrow morning, Sakura!" Tsunade snapped and watched her under-slept doctor black out and turn unconscious. The Sannin looked around and , thankful, that they hadn't done any damage except for Sakura's office.

She saw Sasuke and Naruto out of the corner of her eye as she wiped blood from the corner of her mouth. She gingerly cradled her stomach and healed herself as she stepped over to them. "Just a misunderstanding between us." she began.

"What happened, Baabaa-san?" Naruto howled.

"Like I said, we had a disagreement."

Sasuke didn't take his eyes from Sakura. She looked paler and her eyes were dark under her lashes; she was thinner than before. He looked to the Sannin and noticed she was watching him.

"Isn't this enough, Sasuke?" she hissed lowly, as Naruto was pulled back in for the exam, reluctantly, by Hinata assuring him it would all be sorted out.

The Uchiha said nothing and looked down at the floor.

Tsunade glared at him and suddenly grabbed his shirt. "I should never have given her the scroll, I should have known she would push you away!"

"Then why did you in the first place?!" Sasuke snapped back.

"I had hoped she would tell you what she wanted, instead of assume what you would do." Tsunade was livid, and he could tell by the way her aura was nearly sparking with her fury.

"You blame her for judging you decision," She continued, "but how could she not?! You walked out on them years ago and when they went to retrieve you, you fought back to stay away!"

Sasuke said nothing, but he was so glad the hall was empty and the exam room door was shut.

"How can you expect her not to have foreseen your decision? It would have been uncharacteristic of you." Tsunade continued, eyes burning.

"Well maybe she should have kept her mouth shut and let me decide!" Sasuke growled and looked up into the Sannin's eyes. "She almost literally told me to go! She expected it to happen, so I only did what she wanted! She never asked me to stay!"

"Didn't she already as that of you once before?" Tsunade said, accusingly.

That shut him up quick.

"She didn't want you to leave her, you god damned idiot!" Tsunade hissed in a whisper and had him back up a step cautiously as she advanced on him.

"She needs you. She is killing herself and does nothing but work. She hardly eats, she never sleeps and her home has been this damn hospital since you left. I'm of half a mind to force you back here myself, but that won't solve a thing." She sighed and massaged her temple to rub away an oncoming migraine. "You two need to sort this out yourselves."

Sasuke ran a frustrated hand over his hair and face.

"Do you love her?"

"Yes."

Tsunade was taken aback by his blunt answer. "Well, then…er-" she was temporarily out of words. A first for her.

"I think you should be there for her tonight." She said. "You need to mend this somehow."

Sasuke nodded and looked down at the woman he loved, lying on the floor sleeping. He never thought he'd ever say such weak words, but they gave him power as he'd spoken them.

He took a deep breath and said he was going home.

"Hey."

He turned back to look at Tsunade. "I am ordering you to see her tonight."

Sasuke turned and shrugged. He was going even if she had ordered him not to. It had been far too long since he'd given her his mind and he was not going to loose the opportunity again.

Ooooooooooooo

So I didn't end it here. But the next chapter is the last one. I doubt there'll be an epilogue. But if I get enough requests, I'll think about it. Thank you everyone, please review!