Somebody

By. Misery's-Toll

Chapter Eleven: Tangled

Now, now, darling
Oh, don't kill yourself
'Cause none of us were angels
And you know I love you, yes

- "Speeding Cars" by Imogen Heap

It's one of those rare days where the sun is shining. There is no snow, no rain, no heavy fog. The roads are still slick from the night's rain, but for now the day is clear. Sakura presses her forehead to the glass, watching as her breath causes small white splotches fog the window pane. She can hear Ino's footsteps approaching behind her, but instead of turning as she knows Ino would want her to do, she just draws a smiley face with her finger in the residue her breath causes. Her heart begins to pound heavily as she feels Ino's harsh grip on her shoulder.

The blonde spins her around and delivers a violent slap to the pink-haired girl's face. She shoves her into the wall.

And for a moment, Sakura remembers the tangled limbs and the moans and cries that came from her best friend –the same sounds that used to keep her up at night before they ceased all together; when mother and father stopped sleeping in the same bed and father slept on that very same sofa that…

"It's not fair! It was supposed to push him away! It was supposed to make him hate you, see you as the pathetic whore you are! Instead you have him wrapped around your little finger!" Ino screeches, "Why does everyone love you? What could you possibly have that I don't? I'm beautiful, I have power! Why does everyone flock to you? I hate you."

"I'm...I'm sorry Ino. How can I make it up to you?" Sakura asks softly, her eyes tearing up, "Don't...don't hate me Ino. Don't hate me!"

Because she doesn't know if she can live with herself if the person who's most important to her hates her.

Ino's flustered angry look dissipates and a smirk forms in its place.

"I think I know of something you could do."

"Okay, this is easy stuff, Sakura. All you have to do is," Sakura says to herself and swallows, "Steal Principal Tsunade's cell phone."

Ami was distracting the principal, while Sakura was to sneak into the back room and take the phone from her bag.

"Sakura, what are you doing here?"

She gasps quietly, nearly slamming the door shut in surprise. She shuts it as silently as she can, and stares at her shoes. She hadn't expected anyone to be in here, much less him.

"Sasuke?"

"You're not supposed to be in here," he says, "Why are you here?"

She nudges the carpet with the toe of her shoe, "I'm doing something important."

"Important," he deadpans.

She nods fervently, "Please don't try to stop me, Sasuke. I need Ino to love me again, and this is the only way."

Tsunade's purse sits atop the copy machine, keys sprawled to the side. She unzips the handbag, ruffling through the items before pulling out an expensive-looking phone.

"So I can't stop you," he states, sounding disappointed. Sakura walks up to him, reaching out to take his hand, but she thinks better of it, and just lets her own fall to her side.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. This is how my life is. I do what I have to," she looks at him with pleading eyes.

He nods once. His head jerks to the side when the doorknob turns. Sakura gasps. She doesn't have any pockets to hide the phone in or anything.

"Wait, Principal Tsunade!" they hear Ami exclaim, along with a few other murmurs.

Sasuke mutters a quick apology under his breath before pulling Sakura into his arms, shoving the hand holding the cell phone under the back of his jacket, and pressing his lips to her neck and his hands into her hair, and Sakura can't help but marvel at the way his back feels; not how muscular and defined it is, but she's almost certain that she feels feathers?

AngelAngelAngel.

The door opens and Tsunade gasps.

"Sasuke!"

Sasuke releases Sakura, catching the phone in his hand and stuffing it into his back pocket and he makes an attempt to look flustered, "Principal Tsunade!"

Sakura coughs, straightening her shirt, and she tries to fight back her blush.

Tsunade shakes her head, "Sasuke, I gave you access to this room so that you could run errands for Kakashi, not so that you could…"

"Ahem. I apologize. I promise it won't happen again," Sasuke bows his head.

"You bet it won't. I'm calling both of your guardians. Sakura, this is the third time you've been called into my office. Don't make this a regular thing. Do you know how much trouble it was, cleaning up those flyers from your party? And then the aftermath?"

Sakura bites her lip, "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't Sakura's fault. It was Ino's party."

Sakura looks up at Sasuke, her eyes wide, "No, he's mistaken. It is my fault."

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is."

"I don't care whose fault it is. Get your butts in my office, now!" The busty blonde woman turns and exits the room.

Sasuke turns to Sakura and murmurs with a smirk, "Your hair…I like it long."

He drops Tsunade's phone back into her purse and walks away.

"Sakura

I...

...I just don't

know

what to do anymore!

Do we

not treat you well?

Have I failed you

as a

parent?"

she asks

and

I can

see the tears

as they well up

in my mother's green eyes,

They're so much more beautiful than yours. So full of life's luster.

"Is this...

Is this some sort of

personal attack

because I

failed you?"

Because she didn't give birth to a girl with wings?

And even though

I know

I know that it hurts her

I just can't say

anything

because she didn't

fail me.

I

failed her.

But

my silence is

taken the wrong way

and

she's crying.

Somehow, you're always the cause of tears.

The bringer of sadness.

And the next thing I know

I'm trying,

to find the words to

make it all okay again

but

I don't get the chance

to say

what really matters because

we're at an intersection and

someone is

running a red light,

speeding.

And instead of an

apology

or an

'I love you'

I shout

"Watch out!"

I had always thought

that

the day I died

if I were to die violently

and

not by old age

it would be

either

unbearably slow

to where I would wish death

upon myself

just

to get it over with

or

it would be so fast that

I wouldn't know what

hit me.

The panic

and the fear

made it go by quickly

but

I was fully aware

of our car

flying through the air

and

performing summersaults

into the

opposite lane

and

the car that

made our car

flip

into the ditch

on the side of the

road,

the glass

popping

and shattering

and the metal

groaning

and twisting.

And for a second

I don't know what's

going on

and all I can think

is that

I flew.

I flew.

And I'm laughing.

Laughing hysterically

even though

blood is gushing

from the cut on my temple,

and my

(is it broken?)

nose.

But its

flowing

up?

It takes Sakura several moments before she realizes the car is upside down, and that she's crying. Not laughing.

Her long pink locks are tangled in a mess of matted blood and twisted metal, and she can't move her head.

"Mom?" she asks, her voice thick with tears and nausea, "Mom, are you alright?"

She can hear a slight gurgling sound being emitted from her mother's throat. Sakura turns her head slightly, but feels a terrible jolt of pain from where her hair is tugging at a gash on her scalp. But she can see enough.

The seatbelt is wound around her mother's neck.

"Mom! Mom, I'll get you out of there, okay?" she says, her voice lined with hysteria, "You're going to be okay!"

Sakura wants to try to pull her hair free with her hands, but that plan is ruled out when she realizes her right arm is broken.

Can you see it? Her wings. They're sprouting.

"Mom!"

Sakura uses her left arm to reach into the glove compartment that she knows has a pair of scissors inside. She opens it, and a mess of papers and pens falls out, but she grabs the scissors. And she can't help but think that if she dies here, then she'll be leaving behind Sasuke, and Hinata, and Naruto, and Gaara.

I can't forget about Ino.

She can hear someone shouting, "Are you okay?" But it's irrelevant now.

Her feet are no longer touching the ground.

"Stay with me, Mom!"

Sakura tries to reach for the seatbelt around her mother's neck, but she can't move enough to touch it. She can't unbuckle her own seatbelt or she'll fall, and she still can't move her head.

"Your hair...I like it long."

Sakura closes her eyes and runs the blades through her light pink hair, and suddenly she's free. She stretches as far as she can and snips the strap. It unwinds like rubber band snapping, and her mother falls at an unnatural angle, the entire left side of her body a bloody mess.

She's flying away, now. Say goodbye, Sakura.

"Mom, you can't leave me here! Take me with you!"

Goodbye, mother.

"Mom!"

Don't you want to say goodbye? Don't you love her?

"MOM!"

And now

she's the bright-colored angel

that's

too far away

too

high

for me to see

and all I can think of

are the words

"Did I fail you as a parent?"

and how

I couldn't say

anything

to prove her wrong.

The lights

they blind me

and I can only feel

pain

and I can hear

the deafening scream

of the sirens.

No, darling. They're your screams.

And it

it's too much

and

I think that maybe

I black out.

What would she think of you now?

Sakura wakes up.

She knows the smell and the feeling of the air of hospitals; she can vaguely remember the days when she would hold Ino's hand as the little girl would stare at her dying mother with baleful eyes that said, 'This is your fault. You deserve it.' Because even though she loved her mother her mother never quite loved her back.

And Sakura remembers the feeling the day her sister's mother died, and now she understands that look. Because Ino wasn't saying, 'This is your fault. You deserve it.' She was saying, 'This is my fault. Why did this have to happen?'

Because mommies aren't supposed to die when you're just a kid.

Sakura's fingers twitch and she can feel the scratchy material of the pale blue sheets. And she can feel the cast on her right arm. And she can feel the dizziness brought on by morphine. And she thinks she'd rather feel pain than this hollow nothingness.

She looks away from the ceiling, turning her head, and she realizes she's got one of those things that is supposed to help her breathe, and she thinks it feels a little weird, but she doesn't really care because she also remembers the television shows she used to watch when she lived in her beach house where whenever anyone would wake up in a hospital room, someone the injured or sick person loved would be sitting right beside them, pleading desperately for them to wake up.

Sakura wakes up to an empty room. And she feels just as empty.

"Don't jump!"

Sakura shivers. She feels a little strange being out in only a starchy blue hospital gown and her pale pink underwear. With twenty people staring at her.

"There are other solutions! There's therapy! Counseling! They can help you. You don't have to do this."

More people who would just tell you what they think you want to hear.

Sakura's knuckles are white with the tightness of her fingers curled around the metal railing. Right now she's just enjoying the feeling of almost-flight.

"Hold on. Let me try," she hears a familiar voice and she almost cries. But not quite because the feeling is immediately smothered by her mind protecting her from the sadness.

"Sakura."

"If I jump, maybe my wings will sprout and I will fly."

FlyFlyFlyFly.

"Sakura, you can't fly! If you jump, you'll die!"

"If I jump, will you catch me?" she asks, her grip loosening on the railing, "Will you fly down and catch me before I hit the ground? Or would you let me fall? I'd deserve it."

"Sakura..."

LetGoLetGoLetGo.

Sakura lets go.

Sasuke shoots forward, grabbing her from behind, holding her in a tight embrace. She can feel his warm breath against her ear, as a cold wind blows, "I won't let you fall."

Sakura puts her uninjured hand on his arm.

"Someday you will unfurl your wings and fly again, and maybe I'll get to watch, but maybe I won't, because maybe you'll disappear, because angels don't stay forever."

It'll only get harder when the time comes.

When I wake up

again

Gaara is just entering with

a cup of coffee

in hand.

His eyes

tighten at the corners when

he sees me.

He

swallows heavily before

sitting in the plastic chair beside me

that I can tell he

inhabited earlier

as

his jacket is draped over

the side.

He takes a long sip

from his drink

before staring at me

almost expectantly.

"Hi," I croak out

and

lick my lips.

Gaara puts his ice-cold

fingers

against my cheek.

"Hi."

He brushes his hand through my hair

fingering the ends,

jagged,

from cutting them with

the scissors—

but my mind

slams the door shut

over the memories I

don't want to relive.

"People with long hair are attractive."

It's only a matter of time…

"How long

have you been here?"

I ask.

"Only since

school got out."

I roll the shoulder of my

undamaged

arm.

"What time is it?"

"Eight."

"Gaara, you should

go home. You've been

watching me sleep for

three hours."

lovelovelovelovelove

He shrugs

before leaving a

gourd

with a ribbon on it

on the table

next to my

bed.

"Get better soon,

Sakura."

He leaves.

Don't…leave…

Over the next two weeks, Gaara, Hinata, Naruto, and Sasuke come to visit. Twice, Sakura's father comes to visit, but only while she's sleeping, and she only remembers passing glimpses of him as she'd fade in and out of consciousness. Ino only visits once, and she doesn't even enter the room. Sakura just glances up and sees her sister's face in the window of the door, and as soon as their eyes catch, the blonde walks away.

"I wasn't going to kill myself, you know," Sakura says to Sasuke one day; it's the last day she's stuck in that same hospital room before she gets to go home. Sasuke's been coming every day before school, and he always makes her sit quietly and watch the television, though neither of them is interested. A man and woman are on screen, having a romantic moment.

Sakura immediately has his attention.

"I just wanted to see you fly," she says, not looking at him, "I know you have wings. I felt them."

The woman sobs to the man. He strokes her cheek.

Sasuke just stares at her in silence for a minute, neither denying nor verifying her statement, and she stares right back.

"It was stupid of you. If I hadn't reached out for you, you would be dead," he says, and receives a shrug in response.

The man whispers sweet-nothings to calm the woman down.

"But you did reach out for me, and I'm not dead…" she says, but her eyes glaze over as she becomes lost to her thoughts, "My mother's funeral is this weekend. It's not an open casket. When the cars collided, half of my mother's body was shattered upon impact. She was cremated. We're spreading her ashes out at the beach by the house I used to live in. My mother loved that house. I'd appreciate it if you would come."

The man and woman kiss.

"I don't think that would be a very good idea."

Sasuke grabs the remote and changes the channel.

When Sakura returns home, Hinata carrying the girl's only bag, slung over her shoulder, no one is there.

The house feels dead without the moans and groans or screams or shouts. And Sakura finds herself missing the sounds that used to give her chills.

Because at least the chills meant that you were home.

"You can drop those there," Sakura murmurs, removing her shoes before walking slowly in the direction of her parent's bedroom. She takes a deep breath before opening the door.

Everything belonging to her mother is gone; packed away and placed in the darker corners of the closet so that her father could avoid the reminder of the wife he had lost his love for. But the half of the bed her mother slept in is still unmade, her linens left just as they always were on her off-days.

Sakura slowly and wearily makes her way over to her mother's bedside, crawling under the covers. Lying there under the sheets, she finally lets the truth soak in; her mother is dead. She isn't coming back. She cannot fix her fairy-tale life that broke so long ago, no matter how many friends she makes, no matter how many angels she befriends, no matter how many cell phones she steals for Ino. Ino will still make love with boys she doesn't know on her parent's sofa, Karin and Ami will still frown at her and call her a whore and make fun of her, and Sasuke will always be that unreachable piece of heaven, no matter how close he is. Because he doesn't love her and he never will, because angel boys don't love little broken girls with little broken fairy-tales.

PleaseComeBack.

Tears stream from the corners of the girl's eyes, dripping on and sullying the only visible remnant of her mother's existence.

Hinata climbs into the bed behind Sakura and presses her body to her friend's. Because she needs this reassurance just as much as the pink-haired girl.

"I was pregnant," the smaller girl says, "I had a baby. And as all babies do, she probably just wanted to hear that she was beautiful. And she was beautiful. But she died before I even knew she existed."

And she was beautiful.

Silent sobs just rack Sakura's immobile body, but Hinata knows that Sakura knows she understands and that she's there for her.

"Do you want me to call Sasuke?" Hinata asks tentatively, placing a hand on Sakura's arm.

Sakura doesn't move or say a word.

Hinata slowly gets up, moving toward the phone, and Sakura wants to say anything to get her friend to stay with her, but she can't find the will to do anything, because she wasn't strong enough and she cannot save anyone. So she curls up, pulls the covers over her head, and sort of hopes she will suffocate.

And she doesn't know how much time has passed, but eventually she feels someone larger than herself against her back, and an arm around her waist. And though she's never realized before, he smells of smoke but feels of light, and she instantly knows who it is, and she reaches out from her cocoon to take his hand and she pulls it to her breast.

And she was beautiful.

So he can feel the little beatbeat of her heart.

"I will never let you lose that," he murmurs. But she cannot hear him over her hic-hiccups, but she takes comfort in the rumbling of his voice deep in his chest that feels like music to the touch.

And she was beautiful.

She slowly shifts, still wound her messy tangle of blankets, and curls into Sasuke, though he cannot see her among the twist of her mother's quilts. And Sakura wonders when among her wanting Sasuke to be her angel, she began wanting him as something more as well.

Please, let somebody fly us away from here.

End of Part I

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

A/N: I wrote the part where Sakura's mother dies shortly before I posted chapter four, I think. In all honesty, at this point I have no idea how long this story could possibly be. It could be anywhere from sixteen to twenty-five chapters. I doubt longer than that, but it is possible. I hope that for those of you that have been complaining about lack of angst, this chapter gave a little back to the story. And wow. 150 reviews and 4 C2s! Free hugs and kisses to everyone.

And for those of you have given me requests for my request-story that has been in the making for sort-of forever, I am going to write it. I swear. I just also have to work on this story, and finally update 'Silence End,' first. And if any of you would like to send me a prompt for my request-story in the making, please do.

Chapter Eleven: 'Speeding Cars' by Imogen Heap

Please review! I appreciate it!

-MT