A/N: There is sex in this one, so beware. It starts after the italics, but if you scroll down to the end and a little bit upwards you can miss it, if you don't like that sort of thing.

After nearly turning the whole tent upside down for fifteen minutes, Sakura managed to find some potatoes and, by some miracle, several tins of milk in order to make a quick lunchtime soup. She scurried back outside towards the fire that Deidara had expertly prepared, and dumped the potatoes and cans into the cleaned and re-cleaned pigeon pot while she turned to go back inside, hoping to find herbs of some sort. Salt and sugar were rare as hen's teeth during the war, but some strong enough seasoning could make up for that.

The onions she managed to find would do just as well, though. Grabbing a couple of trench knifes, Sakura formed a makeshift basket with her recently donned apron and put the onions and knives into the depression, cautiously walking back out to the fire again.

Deidara looked up at her and waved his own trench knife at the growing pile of potato peelings beside him in the snow. Sakura blinked and sat down on one of the two logs that he must have drug over while she was distracted with finding the ingredients. She reached her skirt over and dumped the onions into the pot, then spoke to him.

"I'll peel these onions. Just—just don't take the skin off of the potatoes, if you could. Try to get off as much dirt as you can but leave the skin on while you chop them. The skin has lots of extra vitamins and minerals we'll probably need." Sakura gasped. "Oh! There was some dried bacon and turkey in the—no, we should save that. For when we…leave."

Deidara smiled softly and continued peeling, this time leaving the outsides on. He honestly didn't know what the hell she was saying half the time because she talked so damn fast, but he could get by just listening for key words. Most people would feel frustrated in such a situation, and he knew Sakura did, but stress really didn't do anything to make it better In that case, he occasionally stopped listening to her altogether, content to simply listen to the ebb and flow of her voice.

Something occurred to him that he thought was unwise to pass up, however.

"…Vögelchen?"

Sakura trailed off, looking curiously at Deidara, who was already finished with the potatoes, dammit, while she was still trying not to kill herself with that knife. He had even already put the milk in the pot over the fire, too! Was he even listening to a word she said?

"What did you call me?"

"Nothing, nothing…how much food is there in the tent that can be dried? We should begin preparations, yes. Not a day that is lost."

Sakura blinked, suddenly sensing a reversal of alpha position. Did she really want Deidara to have that much control over her? "Oh, um…some fruit was delivered to us a couple days ago. I had already started drying it, but…there's some meat that I can cook and dry for sure." She dumped the onions in the pot, leaving the rest in the snow. "I'll go and check on that. Will you finish those?"

He nodded noncommittally and picked up the onions, resuming the peeling without a bump in his routine.

Deidara jolted awake, panting hard.

Whipping his head around frantically for a moment, he calmed when he realized he was only back in the tent. To his left, Sakura slept soundly on her cot, pushed haphazardly flush with his own. It would lessen her reaction time in case of emergency, she said, but he appreciated it for rather different options now available.

Now, though, his only thought was gratitude. Just looking at her chased away the mara from his body, stable and comforting even while unconscious. He lay back on his cot and threw an arm languidly over his face as if trying to wash away the remnants of his dream.

What do I do? What can I do? A horse rushed past him, terror-stricken, its rider dead from a rifle shot. A cloud of dust obscured his vision and he panicked, unable to breathe even the fume-scented air. He looked down at himself, in full uniform, clutching a doll with half a head in his right hand. His gun rested dutifully on his back and his hair was in perfect shape, long again, even. Why was he so clean?

He looked about him, trying to find the little girl. Surely, she was missing her doll. But where was she? Another horse ran past, this one carrying his father, who yelled at him while rushing past. Hurry up! You are worthless in this war! You are always worthless! It is because of you that Freyja died! Stupid boy!

Familiar pangs in Deidara's chest sprung up, painful recollections that he hoped to never feel again after the car crash. His father was gone in another cloud of dust, though, and Deidara finally had the peace of mind to scrutinize his surroundings. He was in a small town of some sort, burned asunder from the air raids. German air raids. Soldiers and civilians alike rushed past him again and again in a never-ending flood of colors and the reality of being horrified past all rational thought. Some he knew, some were just faces in a crowd.

A deep, rumbling noise reverberated somewhere close by, but when he tried to run, he couldn't. He swore and lurched forward only to fall in the blood-permeated mud that coated the streets like deathly pallor, surreal in its existence. A pair of strong hands picked him up and threw him in the middle of the street just as a charred building groaned and collapsed right over the spot he had been standing.

Rising shakily to his feet, Deidara turned to thank his rescuer, but a line of fast-moving tanks met his eyes instead. There was a split second as the first tank met his impact and butted him rudely to the side, and he lay face-up in the mud, watching the ethereal silhouettes of the buildings burn with hellish, sulfuric flames. Screams and shots rang out all around him, and he closed his eyes, unwilling to move or breathe.

Deidara opened his eyes and an earthy ceiling met his confused gaze. He rose to his feet, magically invigorated once more, and, to his further appeasement, the deformed doll was still clutched forlornly in his hand. Footsteps echoing unnaturally, he walked in circles around what he now recognized as a makeshift war hut, like the multitudes he had seen in marches before. A beautifully adorned oak and redwood table looked garish and out of place in the center of the granite floor, and for several minutes he allowed himself to be entranced by depictions of Norse goddesses seducing earthly warriors.

A cough alerted him to an aberration in the shadows behind him, and he sidestepped until a shaft of light fell upon the small girl crouched there. He remembered the doll and held it out to her wordlessly, and she whimpered in fright at his sudden, coarse movements.

Nimm du es. Take it.

He shook the doll at her. She shook her head vehemently in response, racking her emaciated frame and sending her into a coughing fit, and she fell on her hands and knees, tiny drops of blood spattering the ground beneath her. Non! Non!

Disturbed at the emotional frenzies of this little French girl, Deidara walked to her and kneeled down, prying her hands from her face with little force applied and looked her directly in the eye, expecting her demeanor of a different kind of terror, one she must have experienced a thousand times before. Releasing one of her hands, he gently placed the doll in it and pressed her hands together around it, never once breaking eye contact. She seemed to perceive this new change and slowly smiled with recognition, stroking the doll's smoke-stained hair with unwashed hands.

Deidara smiled back and put a hand on the girl's head, hoping to offer some kind of solace in the face of abject squalor this girl seemed to have no choice but to suffer in. He stood up and prepared to leave when a harsh shout stopped him in his tracks. Behind him, he could feel the girl freeze. What was it now?

Framed in the window was his father. Or was it Hitler? The men who came to drag him from his shop? For it seemed that every change in the light, the man's face seemed to change, becoming every symbol of his grief. Beyond the shelter, Deidara could see a burning meadow, and a giant hole filling rapidly with bodies. The flames fell upon the bodies and devoured them, waiting eagerly for the next group to be tossed in. Gasping for air in the stifling atmosphere, he was rendered immobile once more as the man, his father, walked brusquely through the doorframe and shoved Deidara aside with the butt of a rifle.

Eyes widening, Deidara reached behind him to find only cloth. The rifle his father—no, his commanding officer—held was his own! How could that be? His eyes darted to find the girl, and found her standing up, back against the wall, doll limp in her arms, a serene look on her face. She looked sympathetically back at Deidara, but to him it cast a heavy blow as if she had slapped him in the face. He was worthless. He could do nothing as he watched the man, now changing too rapidly to discern an identity, raise the gun to his shoulder.

He could not stop the man from cocking the gun. Closing his eyes to wait for the inevitable, Deidara drew his arms under his body and hunched over. A sharp kick startled him out of the beginnings of his prayers, and he looked up to see the faceless man offering him the gun. He stood up slowly, took the gun, and situated it automatically on his shoulder. He had done this a thousand times before.

Walking to the middle of the floor, he faced the girl, who had sunk to the floor again, staring at him with hurt and betrayal almost tangible.

He took careful aim and fired once.

The girl cried out in pain and fell limp to the side, dead before she hit the ground. Deidara dropped the gun and stared at her body impassively. The man clapped him on the shoulder and grinned. Good work, he said cheerfully. I'll buy you a beer. He had done it this thousand times before. He walked out the door, leaving Deidara with a static gun and a rapidly chilling corpse.

Deidara staggered to the little French girl's form and collapsed on his knees, tears already falling as he gently lifted her up in his lap, ignorant of the scarlet blood painting his uniform a haunting, dreadfully familiar color. He stroked her brown hair, the only part left of her with any life shining out from its roots. His forehead lowered against her own and he closed his eyes, offering up a finished prayer for her spirit.

The doll lay forgotten in the dust near his foot, her porcelain head shattered into a thousand pieces.

Deidara groaned softly, moving his arm from his face and letting it drop to his side. Suddenly feeling stifled, he rolled silently out of bed, trying not to wake Sakura. Hissing at the chill of the floor, he walked briskly to the front flap, feet lightly scraping on the canvas below. He glanced toward the low hum behind him and felt gratitude towards Sakura for remembering to turn on the heater that night. After working on the plane all day, they had both been tired, but only she remembered to do those little things that mattered so much. Another good thing about women, he thought.

Some part of him wished she were awake, though. He remembered shooting that girl, egged on by his friends and hating himself for giving in. And for what? His pride? Deidara felt ashamed. He wanted to be comforted, but he didn't want that kind of comfort people gave when they felt obligated to do so; he wanted…something he didn't know how to say. There was simply no way to ask for it, really.

A pair of soft arms wrapped around his waist casually, hands playing with the zipper on his pants. He stiffened and froze.

"Hey."

He swallowed and held his breath, eyes widening. Was this really happening?

"What are you doing out of bed? You're still sick, you know."

Her voice was soft and lulling, a tone to it that Deidara had never heard from her before. Her hands ran down the front of his pants lightly, teasingly, and fell back to grab his hand, turning him around gently to face her, concern shining in her lucid emerald eyes. He looked down and nearly passed out when he realized she wasn't wearing any pants, only a very long shirt. What was she wearing under that?

"I don't think you're well, Sakura. Go to bed. Now."

She smirked and put her hands on his hips, running them teasingly up his chest to his face, bringing the hem of his shirt up with them. He wordlessly took the shirt from her and pulled it all the way off, too stunned to offer any resistance. Maybe he'd put that back on later.

She wrapped her arms back around him in a second and stood on her tiptoes to lick and kiss whatever she could reach of his chest, giving Deidara pleasant feelings in places that he felt extremely guilty about.

"I'm not drunk or anything," she whimpered against his skin, making him shiver. "You just looked so sad. So sad. I don't want you to be sad, Deidara." She released him, still pressed tightly against him, and gently took his hands once more, putting them just under the hem of the shirt she wore, and guided them over uninterrupted skin to her hips, bunching the fabric at her waist. Deidara blushed and vainly made an effort not to look down…much. She really wasn't wearing anything under that shirt.

All of this was so sudden, he thought, as she closed her eyes and ran his hands slowly up her body. It was okay for him to touch her, he just liked teasing her that way, but maybe he'd pushed her too far. This seemed off for some reason, not like Sakura at all. On the other hand, he had really only known her for several days. None of it really mattered at all, though, when she brushed his palm up against her breast.

He tensed, torn between wanting to whisk her back into bed and pull the covers over her to hide her, and wanting to rip that shirt off—which was ruining a wonderful view of her breasts—and fuck her right there on the floor. It wasn't fair to her breasts, anyways, that no one would ever get to see them, he reasoned. Taking her shirt off was definitely the right thing to do.

He swallowed, wondering exactly what he had gotten himself into. Making up his mind for the last time, he reluctantly pulled his hand gently from her grasp. She gave in easily, opening her eyes to watch curiously, as he took the shirt at her waist and pulled the whole thing over her head before he could change his mind.

Initially, all he could do was stare. And he was fine with that for now, really. He could've probably stared all night if she hadn't taken control once more, huffing indignantly and unzipping his pants as he looked on rather apathetically.

He wasn't sure what to make of all this quite yet. Taking it slow wasn't all that bad; he could just see where things went, and—and—well, then what? Unfortunately, for him, Sakura had other plans. She yanked his pants down, dragging his army-grade boxers down with them—sending him into a futile sputtering fit—and snatched his hand. She dragged him over to the nearest cot, and then shoved him on. He felt more than saw her move around in the dark and strike a match, lighting a gas lamp on the bullet-shocked nightstand next to them, which cast a soft, romantic glow throughout the tent.

Wasting no time—that woman was certainly resourceful, if anything—Sakura went back over to the cot and perched on the edge, watching him with burning pools of emerald. Rather than feeling turned on, Deidara felt distinctly perturbed. Who was this woman? What had they done with Sakura? Was she really holding back all this time? American women were so bizarre.

He stiffened when she languidly drew a hand up from her side to rest a fingernail on the tip of his nose and then slowly brushed it over his skin. Deidara hummed nervously.

The fingernail continued traveling, across his torso and down his stomach, down, down…Deidara grabbed her hand, and Sakura looked at him questioningly.

"Is that really necessary? You know what, let's just stop now before this gets out of control. Obviously you got a hold of some beer or something, I don't know, but this just isn't right." He propped himself up on his elbows and prepared to roll over and hopefully smother the whole issue. Yeah, that would do it.

Deidara tried not to shudder for as long as he could. He was a man, after all, and men had their natural desires. It wasn't wrong for him to think what he was thinking, and it was okay for him to want to snatch her up and pin her under him so he could get rid of this annoying, pesky problem which was not supposed to be there in the first place, dammit.

Deidara remained lost in his rationalizations as she scooted herself far enough into the bed to rise up on her hands and knees and straddle his stomach coyly. He slowly pulled himself out of his thoughts—he might as well go through with it, he mused, since they were already naked and everything—and stared curiously up at her, fingers slowly starting up a soft caress across her hip bones.

She put her hands flat on his stomach and shifted, making him clench his eyes as tightly as he was clenching her hips. He moaned, suddenly concluding that this whole 'holding back' business could go right to hell. If she wanted to go and wrap her arms around him and strip and rub up on him and—oh God what is she doing now—then it was her prerogative.

"…Shit."

And at this point, there really wasn't any more arguing to be done, was there?

"Fuck, Sakura," Deidara whispered, closing his eyes. "What are you doing to me?"

She paused, and then leaned farther forward to lick the tip of his nose and giggle; he could feel her breasts flush against his chest and decided he would very much like them to stay there for the rest of the night, thank you.

He sighed.

She took this wonderful opportunity to open her mouth against his, snaking her tongue past his teeth and exploring every veritable nook and cranny she could find.

He made quick work of tightening his hands on her hips in order to flip them over in bed while Sakura thankfully submitted to the whole thing. Taking a deep breath, he rallied his stamina, throwing pregnancy cautions to the wind in favor of finding satisfaction as quick as he could.

The guilt was still there, yes, but for now, he could ignore it for this. For now, he felt wanted and appreciated. He felt happy, something he never expected to feel again after those men drafted him into service and all his hair got cut off by the inexperienced army barber. Just turn on the buzzer and let loose, Charlie. Completely unemotional and cold.

This, he thought as he pulled out and pushed back in, was something completely different. She was the first to come to him, and even had to do a bit of convincing him to conclude that she, indeed, wanted him. This was very sudden to Deidara. He had been convincing himself that he was definitely going to marry this girl—while really only joking to himself half the time—and in the end she made all the advances, put her emotions on the line, if only for the sake of his emotional acceptance.

This touched Deidara in more of a way than he would allow himself to convey. He was, after all, the proud product of the German Army. Soldiers were discouraged from displaying any emotions whatsoever in front of 'commoners.' Then again, he smiled as he looked down at Sakura's pleasure-stricken face, her sweat-slicked body writhing and wailing underneath him, because he didn't understand how someone could bear to act like that all the time. Especially when there was this to look forward to.

A tension somewhere snapped, and they were falling and there was no war, and there was no little girl in the shelter in the mountains, there was only him and Sakura and a feeling so good it made him want to cry and punch the wall and moan into her hair all at once.

He collapsed onto her, gasping, and quickly rolled away, putting his hands over his face and rubbing the palms into his eyes.

She stilled for a moment, then peered curiously up at Deidara lovingly, slowly reaching her hands up to stroke his face, tracing the bridge of his nose and the depressions of his cheeks.

"Deidara," she murmured, and closed her eyes, savoring some unheard bliss.

Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she stared at him intensely. He blinked back, startled. Was she mad that he hadn't used a condom? Was something wrong with his—?

She grabbed his shoulders and began shaking them as roughly as she could from underneath him.

"Deidara!"

He grunted in surprise. If he was naked, then why did he feel cotton rubbing against his leg? More importantly, what the hell did she think she was—? Wait, how did she get on top of him just then?

"Deidara!"

He gasped and started awake, finding himself back on the same old cot, fully clothed, with no gorgeous nurse glowing underneath him with the after-burn of attentive ministrations.

Sakura stopped shaking him then and promptly went into full medical mode.

"Well," she scolded the very confused man. "You had me worried."

Why was she wearing…clothing?

"You were tossing and turning and moaning for almost twenty minutes, and I was trying to get you up! Oh, I should've treated you more—more completely, I don't know, for that pneumonia. I knew you had it! Look at you! You're—you're all red, and—and panting! I hope you're not mad at me…"

Well, that was a bit hard, considering the way she was looking at him and running her hands all over his chest, evoking a painful bout of nostalgia while she was at it. Deidara discreetly pulled the covers closer to his chest. If he could only get her to go back to sleep…he really needed some privacy now, or his masculinity would be utterly crushed.

The world outside was quiet in ironic opposition to Deidara's mind.

After assuring Sakura in, once again to his dismay, his same old broken English—he really missed the communication he was able to share with her in his dream world—that he was fine, that his lungs didn't hurt, she had nodded to his every word and dropped back onto her cot, asleep in an instant.

Deidara couldn't really blame her. After all, he had woken her up at nearly three in the morning for a dream. As to what the dream entailed, he was minutely glad that she hadn't asked what kind of dream it was. Be that as it may, he would never tell her what, exactly, he had dreamt, but he suspected that his blush and stammer would give everything away. A small blessing in his world of pain that she would never know.

She really had no idea how this was effecting him. The Sakura in his dreams had been attentive to his every fluctuating emotion…he had felt it when she purred her condolences to him. This Sakura was purely concerned with his medical issues, nothing else. She didn't notice the pleading, heartbroken look on his face when he realized that everything had been a dream, nor the downcast aura he emanated as he threw on some extra clothes and grabbed a map from the trunk at the foot of his bed when he escaped out into the snow. Some planning would clear his mind, he reasoned.

He shook his head roughly, blaming the dampness in his eyes on the crisp, French winter air. Damn the French. Damn the snow. Deidara stamped his foot down in frustration before wandering over to the log where he had eaten dinner hours before. Perhaps he would find some comfort there.

He opened the map, detailing the layout of the Franco-German area—he smiled lightly at his chance luck, now he wouldn't have to risk embarrassment going back inside to fetch a different map—and took out a pen, hoping to find some way of getting across the Siegfried Line and towards his hometown to regroup themselves.

Sticking the end of the pen in his mouth and chewing the end, he wondered exactly how difficult this would be. With the girl it would be easier, for as she slowed his plan of escape down heavily with her emotional baggage and constant whining, she possessed an important, un-ignorable quality about her: She was American. He sighed.

The Allies controlled nearly all of Germany at this point. A deserted German soldier would find no mercy there. If she would vouch for him, though…

The pen scratched on the map ceaselessly until the dawn painted Deidara's face a golden yellow, reflecting the excitement gleaming in his eyes. So far, escape looked possible. He only had to focus on not making any advances towards the girl and he would make it out all right, would live to see more sunrises like this one, maybe…share them with someone.

Finding the girl attractive had not a single advantage for him, that much he was certain. Her interest ended with him where his sickness improved, and that was that. Still, the way she had acted at the plane site the other day… He closed his eyes and shook his head once more, clearing his throat with some measure of closure.

He would resolve things with her later.