disclaimer: do not own Naruto.
comments: revamped 10/14/2006.
"Tsunade-sama..." Sakura pled, clenching her hands at her side, "please, just keep this from my parents."
"I cannot do such a thing." The blonde turned away from the young girl, gazing out the window silently for a long moment. "Though you may be grown, you are still a child – and your parents should be informed." She turned back, lips curving into a severe frown, eyes serious and hard. "I know you have been neglecting medical studies for some time, but to come to me at this point..."
"It will worry them needlessly," she insisted, trying to sound as though she were in control.
She tried so hard, even standing there with her pale face and tightly pressed lips, as pain shivered along her back and kept her from moving – because movement would hurt, and she would not be able to suppress the cry of pain that would come.
It was not the way to convince the woman who had listened to her symptoms, who had checked her over thoroughly, only to come to a conclusion that Sakura hated to hear.
"Please," she added, though that single word hadn't made the difference before.
Tsunade sighed, raising a hand to her forehead, rubbing gently between her eyes. Her too-stern façade was easily discarded – it hardly made a difference to the girl she had mentored for the past two years. "Sakura, you realize you are asking me to keep a secret from your parents... a secret too large to simply say 'I'm sorry, I forgot' when they realize it?" She finally returned to her desk, fingers trailing lightly over the surface of it. The reality of it. "I am the leader of this village. I must always be forthright and honest; everyone should be able to hold the utmost faith in me, knowing that I will do what is best for Konoha, even if it means my life. Just one secret can demolish the faith your parents hold in the one they call Hokage."
"Fifth," Sakura pressed, switching from name to title and apparently ignoring the lecture, "you need not keep it a secret... quite. If you will just keep from sending a missive to them, it should be over by the time they return. You yourself said their mission was going to last longer than expected." In fact, they should have been back a week ago.
It had taken that week for the tests to finish, the plans to slide into place.
The older woman hesitated. She understood where the girl came from, and could see just why she wished her parents to be ignorant of the news – but even so, it was putting her in a compromising position. Not that she would ever deliver such disheartening news to those on mission, but afterwards...
"Sakura," she began again, with the faintest of frustrated sighs. "I have told you before it does not always work. What if your symptoms do not disappear? What will you tell your parents then? This is hardly a tried and true method... it is not necessarily the miracle cure."
"Then we tell them the truth," she replied, so promptly that Tsunade knew the girl had no doubts the operation would succeed.
It was a good attitude to have going into it – but what the girl didn't understand, and the adult did, was that sheer belief was not always enough.
"Then I will need to speak with Kakashi..."
"No!" Sakura blurted the objection, coloring faintly under the raised eyebrows of the woman she admired. "No, he...he really doesn't need to know. And it isn't as though he's family."
"He is your mentor as much or more than I am," Tsunade pointed out sharply, "and therefore as close as family."
Sakura glanced away, biting her lip. How can I tell her...
"But I see how you would not wish to worry him at this time." She sighed, leaning against the side of her desk and crossing her arms. "I cannot lie if he comes to me, Sakura."
"I know," she whispered miserably, wishing desperately the woman could.
Tsunade shook her head slightly, recognizing the signs easily enough. "I will keep your secret as well as I am able until your parents return home. However..." she raised her voice slightly, sharpening her tone to get the girl's attention. "We will begin treatment tomorrow."
Sakura bowed her head. "Thank you, Tsunade-sama."
- - -
He glanced up, somehow unsurprised to find him outside her home, just as dark began to fall. Her light was already on to battle the shadows; was she studying? Perhaps reading a text – he had seen her do it often enough, brows furrowed as she read through the long and winding passages of medical care and history.
She is too pale, he thought, frowning faintly. He had silent worries he had never voiced, believing at first her apparent illness to be worry.
Worry over the boys, being gone so long. Worry over the teacher she held feelings for.
He bit back a curse, annoyed at the thought. It was complicated, had become too complicated to even speak with her.
He had called her a child, while thinking anything but. Sakura was grown, a woman. Occasionally falling to fits of emotion, yet rational and logical, perhaps the most mature out of the three he had raised from childhood. And that was the problem.
He was too old; she too young.
She was too sweet, too untainted by the life she lived. Even after the missions, even after her broken heart – even after bravely continuing to be as she always had, after realizing that she held no place in Sasuke's heart – she was still the very flower she was named after, beautiful and soft, graceful and serene.
In that pretty head of hers existed facts and numbers, figures and planning. Perhaps because of it, she had grown far more accustomed to living as an adult.
No matter how logical, no matter how logical, no matter how analytical she could be – she still held emotions inside her. Strong feelings, strong bonds. He saw it every day – how easily she dealt with others, considered them friends, trusted and cared for them. That he had never seen how it had changed – strengthened – toward him...
Perhaps because she had seemed so much older, he had begun – however briefly – to see her as a woman rather than a child.
Until he realized he did. Until she fell into his arms, looking at him with eyes he had not realized he wanted to see.
It was unethical, immoral, for him to think that way. He had drawn away immediately, knowing that showing his own weakness would only cement what she believed to be her ever-lasting feelings for him.
Him. The man her beloved Sasuke looked up to and admired, however reluctantly. The man who had been there during her bitter tears, her secret trips to the forest to do nothing more than run – run too fast, too hard, over terrain too rough for her carelessness. She had wanted to forget it all then, had kept whispering for the days of yesterday.
He had thought of her as a little sister then; when had it changed?
I've been alone too long.
There was no other explanation for it.
And yet he stood there until the lights went off, and stood there a little longer after.
- - -
Sakura fought the urge to nibble at her nail, a habit she had outgrown years ago. Her eyes flickered around the room (gray, empty, cold), rested upon Shizune. The note was damp and crumpled in her fist. Urgent, it said.
"...had decided to start tomorrow, the newest test results have us worried." That same worry was scrawled all over her face, something close to pity in her eyes.
Don't look at me like that.
Something like panic stabbed at her chest.
"Your chakra control is astounding..."
"...but it's slipped." She finished the sentence flatly, forced herself to meet Shizune's eyes. Breathe. Just breathe. "I know. I can feel that."
"And you're still not eating," she confirmed with that toneless sort of voice that only confirmed her darker fears.
"We're starting tonight?"
"Tonight," she confirmed. "Tsunade-sama will be here shortly." She hesitated. "This... has never been tested on someone who is this advanced."
"I heard." Sakura gulped a breath of air. Blinked away tears. "I knew the initial diagnosis was leukemia. I was prepared for that one, you know." It was like she could do nothing but blabber like a fool.
Somehow life felt so much more real now. So much easier to lose. So much more fragile than she had ever remembered.
Nothing was under control anymore.
"I know." Shizune's fingers trembled. "I'm sorry, Sakura."
She smiled faintly. Trembled. Closed her eyes.
Everything will be all right.
"I know."