Warning: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters affiliated with the series.

CHAPTER 3

When Sakura woke up, it was dark in her hospital room. She looked at the clock on the little table next to her bed – 2:17 a.m. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep for. She had arrived at Konoha from Suna around 10 in the morning, and she knew that she had been in the operation room for at least 5 hours after that. So had she been asleep for 11 hours? Or, if it had been more than a day, 35 hours? She really had no way of knowing, she supposed, until a nurse showed up.

She suddenly bolted up. Naruto! She thought, panicked. And Sasuke… Where were they? Were they awake? She knew that she had taken care of Sasuke – she had made sure of that at the cost of losing her own life. She knew that her chakra was never supposed to be used in that way, but there was no other choice. Her friend was dying in front of her, and she was the only one who could save him. Shizune didn't have the energy or chakra to take over for Sakura after her own 6 hours of operating on him. Sakura was his last chance, and the pink haired medic nin knew it.

She paused. Friend, she had just referred to him as a friend in her thoughts. Did she still consider him her friend?

Yes, came the immediate answer. Yes, the boy had tried to kill her and the people she loved. Yes, the boy had left her years ago and broke their shinobi family up. But he would always be her friend, whether he wanted to be or not. She had never stopped caring for the boy who had lost everything and fell deeper and deeper into darkness, and probably never will. This wasn't some crush she had as a twelve year old – this was deeper than that. They were Team 7, the four of them. Naruto, Sasuke, herself, and –

Kakashi. She remembered then that he was the one who found her after the operation, that he was the one who had made sure she would be safe. She wondered where he had gone. He was always coming and going at the oddest of times, she mused. For the first two years that Naruto and Sasuke had left, she also felt like she had lost Kakashi. She had submitted herself to Tsunade's tutelage, and with the third piece of Team 7 out of his hands, Kakashi started going on A and S rank missions almost constantly after that. She would occasionally run into him in the Hokage Tower as he was coming back from or leaving for a mission, but aside from standard greetings, the two never dawdled much to chat.

Truth be told, she hadn't had the strength to be around him, to talk with him as if nothing happened – as if their team hadn't been shattered. She was always glad to see him because he reminded her of Team 7, but, at the same time, she was always afraid to see him – because he reminded her of Team 7. However, she didn't really know that he felt the same way until one night a little before Naruto returned from his training with Jiraiya.

It had been a hard day for Sakura. Probably one of the hardest since Naruto left – and that was saying something, considering that the days after Naruto's departure was filled with some of the hardest days of Sakura's sheltered life. Tsunade was not an easy shishou. But she never complained, because it had been what Sakura herself had asked for, and she knew it would pay off in the end. She knew that Tsunade would mold her into the kunoichi she wanted to be.

However, that day was exceptionally torturous. That was the day Sakura lost her third patient.

The first patient she lost had been hard, too. But Tsunade had expected Sakura to take it hard, and was ready to talk her through it. To tell her that it wasn't her fault; that it was part of being a medic nin. That the best of them had lost patients. That Sakura had done everything she was supposed to, but they couldn't save everyone.

When "talking" hadn't exactly worked, Tsunade brought out the good stuff – sake. Sakura hadn't really drank until then; she was underage, after all. Plus, as a medic, she knew that that stuff was no good for her health. Yet as Tsunade more or less forced her to drink, Sakura found that she liked it. She liked that it burned her throat as the liquid went down. She liked that the alcohol warmed her body up.

Most of all, she liked that the sake dulled her pain. And made her forget.

When Sakura lost her second patient, she drank herself into a stupor once more. Though she had to battle a killer hangover the next morning, she found herself thinking that she could do this, she could be tough and emotionless as long as she was drunk.

But the third patient that Sakura couldn't save broke that resolve. Because the third patient that she lost was a little genin boy who was twelve. He had stumbled off a cliff during a mission, and didn't have the chakra control down enough to save himself from falling.

Sakura cried and cried after the boy had died because the boy reminded her of her boys. Of Naruto and Sasuke. She cried at the memories of the three of them as twelve year old genins, and she cried for the genin boy who must have had many dreams and ambitions as a shinobi. He would never live to see them realized.

She also cried for his teammates, who would undoubtedly be affected by the boy's death. She cried for the boy's team, which she suspected would never be whole again. It couldn't be whole again. Just like Team 7 couldn't be whole after Sasuke left.

She didn't reach for a drink that time because of two reasons: one, she really didn't believe that the alcohol could dull the blow this time. She just felt so much that she couldn't possibly imagine anything making it better, and two, she didn't want to dull the pain. She wanted to know that she could handle this, that she was truly stronger now. She wanted to prove to herself that she could pick herself up after this.

Sakura had stumbled out of the hospital after the boy's death, but she didn't even know where she was going. She had no idea if her feet were leading her home or not, and she really didn't care. It was pitch dark out by then, and Konoha's streets were deserted. Somewhere along the journey, her feet gave out from under her, and she just crouched down in an empty street at the edge of an alley and cried some more. When even her tears wouldn't come anymore, she just sat there, staring out into nothing. She felt… dead. She was just so tired. She didn't know how long she sat there like that, but she found that she could no longer keep her eyes open after a while. She didn't care that she was in the middle of the street alone in the dead of the night. She just fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes, bright lights attacked her eyes. She shielded her eyes with her hand with a groan and realized that she was in a bed. She didn't remember going back home last night. And why didn't her sheets have her familiar bed scents on them? She liked to wash her bed sheets with a flowery detergent, but these sheets smelled of… she couldn't quite pinpoint the scent, other than that it smelled like nature. Pine, maybe?

She sat up with a jolt when she realized whose scent that was. She took a look around the room, then at herself. She was fully clothed, and a white duvet cover had been on her before she sat up. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why, Sakura-chan, I'm hurt," came a baritone of a voice from the doorway. "You didn't think I took advantage of you, did you?"

She threw a pillow at him, because he knew she hated when he called her Sakura-chan, because it always sounded so sarcastic coming from him. He caught the pillow with ease, of course. "Kakashi-sensei! You shouldn't even joke about something like that with someone like me. You've known me since I was twelve, for Kage's sake."

"Hey, I'm telling you, in the villages across the sea, the girls get married when they're nine years old," the Copy Nin countered drily.

"Well, then, I'm really glad I was born and raised here in Leaf, where that would be considered highly inappropriate," she emphasized with a glare. Then she realized her situation. "Uh. Why am I even here having this conversation with you in the first place?"

Kakashi leaned along the frame of his door with his signature slouchy pose. "Well, I found you last night in the streets… Sakura," there was suddenly a dangerous gleam in his one eye, "what in the world were you doing sleeping there? Something could've happened to you. A visitor from one of those villages across the sea, for example, could have picked you up to turn you into his next bride."

Street… Last night. It suddenly came back to Sakura. She felt the blood drain from her face and her heart dropping into her stomach as she remembered the reason why she was found there last night. She remembered the turmoil of emotions and… the pain.

Kakashi eyed her sternly. Despite his joke, he really was angry at her for being so stupid. She was supposed to be the level-headed one, yet he finds her sleeping on the streets alone. Then he saw her face and saw – pain. Plain pain. He hadn't seen pain in her eyes like that since the morning she told everyone of Sasuke's defection.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I was just…"

She couldn't finish the sentence. She couldn't deal with the emotions again. Then she realized that she was talking to the man she hasn't really seen in almost two years. She ignored the reasonable part of her conscience that told her that she hadn't really wanted to see him – that she had been fearing that Kakashi might remind her that their team was gone, and the two were left as broken remnants of a broken team. She ignored all this because she was hurting and wanted to lash out.

"You know what," she got up from the bed and stood in front of her sensei – her former sensei. "You don't get to care about where the hell I was sleeping and why I was doing it. I owe you nothing."

Kakashi's face remained impassive as she continued, her voice laced with anger and dangerously low. When Sakura was angry, she always yelled. This quiet anger was new to Kakashi. It was new even to Sakura, she realized. "You know it's been about two years since your star pupil left us? Then the next person of interest to you in our team left, too. And gee, how many times in the past two years have you even been in my sight for more than two minutes?"

All of the emotion that Sakura's had to put away for two years that unleashed at the genin's death last night rushed to Sakura all at once, it seemed. She wanted to leave. She wanted to leave and punch the shit out of something. If she could've punched Kakashi, she would've – but even in this state, she knew it'd be a waste of time. She could never land a blow on this guy.

"Just because you found me last night, doesn't mean that you get to lecture me, sensei." Was it her imagination, or did Kakashi actually flinch at that the word that she added at the end of the sentence as an attack on his absence in her life?

"Thanks for the bed. I'll see you when Naruto gets back, I guess." She gave him a last contemptuous look, and then moved away from the silver-haired man toward the door. What time was it, anyway? She was sure that she was late for her meeting with Tsunade… She inwardly groaned; a cranky Tsunade was not what she needed today.

Sakura was pulled out of her thoughts when an arm was place between her and the door. She looked up to see Kakashi looming over her, his hand to the wall. He really was too tall – he had to slouch down even further than his usual stance to put his face at level with Sakura's.

She looked at him in annoyed surprise, then saw his face – and her breath caught at her throat. The look on Kakashi's face was… in a word, sad. He looked so sorry. She had never seen her teacher look repentant about anything before.

"Sakura, listen to me before you go," he began very quietly. "I didn't… Look, I always knew I wasn't cut out to be a teacher. That's why I never took on a genin team before you guys, and you guys were more or less forced on me by the Third…"

Huh, Sakura thought to herself. So it was true. She had always suspected that Kakashi would've gone his entire life without taking on a genin team if it weren't for the fact that Naruto and Sasuke were so… special. They were special enough to need a very special teacher – and let's face it, who was a more special jonin than the freaking Copy Nin? Sakura never really pursued the theory, though, to try to get to the bottom of it. She hadn't really felt the need to pursue a truth that would only highlight how normal and plain she was compared to her two teammates.

Kakashi continued. "You know how… less than ideal it was to have to take on both Sasuke and Naruto at the same time. They're a lot to handle. I didn't even like kids. But you were different than those two. You weren't unhappy, and you weren't damaged." Great, was she going to have to listen to him say flat out that she just wasn't worth his attention because her childhood had been too happy? She was about to open her mouth to yell at him some more when she caught his eye – it was so earnest… so pleading. She had never expected Kakashi to feel like he owed her an explanation, however much it was needed. She hadn't expected him to even care, really.

"But I have no excuse for not being your teacher after the boys left. I know that. Tsunade knows it. You know it. But I'm glad you found Tsunade… I'm a shitty teacher and I know it. I taught Sasuke the Chidori, and he tried to put a hole through Naruto with it. I just thought you'd be better off without me. Especially after Tsunade took you in… I didn't think you'd even want to see me. I thought you wouldn't want to be reminded of Team 7…"

Sakura stared at the man before her. She had no idea that he gave this much thought to what she felt.

"I'm sorry, Sakura. I know that that's not enough, but I'm sorry." Kakashi finished. He lifted his hand off the wall and straightened up. "And I'm sorry for holding you up here. I just wanted you to know…" he trailed off, not sure what more to say.

Sakura didn't really know what to say or do, so she said and did… nothing. She stood there and stared at her teacher for what was probably few seconds in reality, but felt like a lifetime to Kakashi.

What she did next surprised Kakashi.

Sakura put her arms around the silver-haired man's waist and gave him an embrace. She didn't say anything, but Kakashi didn't need her to – he knew, in that moment, that she wasn't really angry at him anymore. That she appreciated his explanation. That she understood.

A little piece of Team 7 had returned to Sakura and Kakashi in the form of each other.