O.o Wow. Lots of reviews. YAY. Oh, and I went to a coffee house garage-band gig thing. It was cool. And it had good coffee. I like coffee. And I'm still listening to Phobia. Still.

I want a bullet belt for my seventeenth. Does anyone love me?

Disclaimer: Really, it's not mine.

Dedication: To my little sister Emma (you may know her as chocokittens). GLOMP. I love you, hun!

---

I woke up the next morning, curled up next to something big and soft and hard (how does that work?) and warm, and very, very, very comfortable. I like my pillow. The light coming in through the window was unwelcome, and I groaned, and dug my head into this wonderful, wonderful pillow. I hate mornings.

I growled when my pillow moved. How dare it move? I need to-

Wait.

Pillows aren't alive. They don't move.

I gulped, and inched away from my 'pillow', my eyes still closed. No, please don't do this to me. Not again.

I cracked my eyes open, and light filtered into my world. I groaned, and shut them again. I'd rather deal with Uchiha asleep next to me (which he was…) then deal with sunlight, right now. Uchiha, at the very least, doesn't try to wake me up. Sunlight does.

A few seconds later, I opened them again, and found Uchiha staring intently at me. I wanted to shriek, and push him off the bed again, but I didn't. I just sighed. I was still too exhausted to fight with him, right now. I even decided to call him by his name, just to see if it would help.

"Sasuke, get off my bed."

"No. It's warm."

Okay, screw it. I had the energy to push him off the bed. So I did.

Or, at least, I tried. I didn't realize how tightly we were wound together, until I tried to move. I pulled my body away from his by the fraction of the inch that was keeping us together, and noted several things.

First, our legs were tangled together in ways I didn't even want to think about, incase I turn beet red from the thought process. Second, up until a minute ago, I had been curled up next to him, quite comfortably, too. And third, he was starting to crush me. He had just rolled slightly, and now not only couldn't I move, I couldn't breathe. Damn you to hell, Uchiha!

"Agh! Lemme go!"

Hr smirked at me, and continued to crush me.

"No-o-o-o I can't breathe, Uchiha! Get off of me-e-e-e!!!"

He pulled off of me, but that didn't mean he moved away. No, the bastard just held himself an inch off my body, just enough that he didn't crush me. And then I realized that he wasn't exactly wearing a shirt.

Why me?!

And now I didn't want to breathe. It was suddenly overrated, in my mind. Well, I did the only thing that made sense, then. I probably shouldn't have done it, but I was freaking out. I really disliked having people in my bubble. I especially disliked having Uchiha in my personal bubble.

I knocked my head forward, and slammed my forehead into his nose. I didn't hear the sickening snap I expected, and he hissed instead of howled but it made him roll off me onto the floor anyways.

Damn. And I had hoped to break his nose. Oh well. Sigh. I peeked over the edge of the bed, and was instantly reminded of the day before yesterday's morning.

He was holding his nose, but he was looking up at me. "What makes you tick, Sakura?"

I blinked at him. Why was he asking that now?! Shouldn't he be, oh, I don't know, worried about his nose? There was blood trickling out of it, after all.

"You should probably get that cleaned up. Don't tip your head back, you idiot, you'll bleed into your brain!" I had no idea whether that was right or not, but it had never made sense to me to tip your head backwards to stop a bleeding nose.

He complied, and the two of us sat there in perfect silence until, a few minutes later, the bleeding stopped. I handed him a tissue, the third one in five minutes. He took, and I was careful not to touch his skin.

Because just thinking about how much his touch hurt yesterday made me very wary of him. My hand tingled softly as I remembered it, and I pulled all my appendages closer to my body in retaliation. He got up and went to get cleaned up, but I just sat there on the bed, thinking. No, not thinking, dreaming. Thinking is for people with nothing better to do.

A little later, Uchiha came back out, and sat down on the other bed across from me. Good boy, keep your distance, or I might just hurt you again, hmm?

He grabbed our mission file, and pulled a bunch of paper and a pen out of it, before saying "Why didn't you show up earlier last night?"

I gave him a crow's shrug, pulling one shoulder up, and then flopping it back into place. "I was having fun. I'm still not used to working with a partner, and I'm not sorry about it. I saved a chick life's in exchange for being later, sor-ry."

His eyes flashed. "Saved a girl's life, huh?"

"Yeah. And Silver showed up."

"Explain." The single word said that he knew Silver.

I half-smiled. "Silver was feeding off some chick, or at least had started to. I guess she threw him off, because she came blowing past me, and he chased after her. Silver's never been one to let prey go."

I paused, and took a breath. I hated the fact that I needed to breathe. Blah.

"Silver and I have a nice, long, bloody history together. And we hate each other a lot."

"Why?"

"Tsunade probably told you about it. Two and a half years ago, I killed Silver's mate, Argent. He wasn't very happy with me when he found out, to put it mildly."

He blinked. "Why'd you kill the mate?"

I let a snarl mar my lips as I thought of it. "Because I caught the bitch trying to feed on Anko, and that's not something I'm willing to forgive. Leeches took my first family; they weren't going to take my second."

He nodded, deep in thought. "Why did this Silver show up here?"

I gave him another crow's shrug. "I dunno. But Silver only shows up in places where something big is about to happen, y'know? He's from one of the oldest, strongest lines. And every time we've met since, I've come this close to killing him."

I stopped with a huff. "He has this annoying habit of disappearing when I'm just about to win."

He blinked at me. "He disappears?"

I nodded, still thoroughly annoyed by the memory. "Literally, he just… fades away. Turns into mist. I'm not sure how he does it. I don't think it comes from his line, or Argent would have gotten away. I think it has something to do with the fact that he's him."

I stopped, again, and thought. "Well, his full name is actually QuickSilver, so it might be that he got his name from that weird disappearing act he does."

He nodded slowly, and I noted that he was writing on one of the sheets. Was he doing a mind-map? What the hell? "What're you doing?"

He shrugged. Why are we both shrugging so much? "I'm taking note of the vampires that take an interest in you. QuickSilver, RedCard… you have a knack for finding the most dangerous being in an area, and bothering them, princess.

I glared at him. "Don't be rude."

He shook his head. "I'm not being rude, your Highness, I'm telling the truth. Tsunade had been looking for RedCard for months before you showed up, and when I say 'looking', I mean 'making us skip class to find the thing'. And then you appear, and you find him on your, what, second day?"

I mumbled under my breath "It was my fifth."

But he just shook his head. "There's something about you, Sakura, that draws dangerous things close. I don't know what it is, but I have proof."

"Really, and what is that?" I asked him, still annoyed. He has weird, stupid theories.

"Sitting right here. I don't normally tolerate people, princess. I was pissed when Tsunade first told me that we were going to be partners, even before you were here."

I blinked. We'd been partnered before I got here? How was that possible? I relayed this to him, and he just shrugged. He didn't know, either.

"I think it has to do with the fact that neither of us can work with anyone else," he murmured softly.

"What?"

"I normally can't work with anyone - none of my partners have lasted longer then a few days."

"Go on."

He sighed. "Either they're annoying, or they're weak, or they're just useless in general. The only person who lasted was Naruto, and that's only because we've known each other a long time."

"We've only been partnered for technically three days."

"Four."

"Stop being so picky, you ass."

"It's still four days, princess."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Anyways, how did we even get on this topic? I thought we were supposed to be finding out why there are leeches around."

He nodded, and said "Go get changed. We're going out to find whatever we can."

"Okie pokie," I said, and went to get changed. When we were away from each other, when I was out of ear shot, I whispered something that had been bothering me into the still air. I hoped he didn't hear it.

"I don't think you're dangerous at all."

---

We were walking down the street, and I was carefully-carefully-carefully-don't-attract-attention-to-us leading him down to the street where I'd met Silver. I didn't think that there was much there, but… maybe I could talk to that girl, and ask her to show us where she'd first met Silver.

It was the only lead we had, and we were both desperate. Uchiha and I hated each other, but we hated this place more.

We reached the street from last night quickly enough, and I went to the house she'd pointed out. I couldn't really remember her features, but that didn't matter. I knocked on the door, and I heard someone yell "Just a sec!"

Then the door was tossed open, and I was staring at the girl from last night. Our eyes met, and she flushed.

"O-Oh, it's you!"

I nodded, and smiled. Uchiha, brooding next to me, was not helping our case! "Yeah, from last night. My name's Sakura Hatake. I need to ask you some stuff."

She nodded rapidly. "Of course! My name's Emma, come in!" She ushered me in, and I pulled Uchiha in behind me. She looked a little surprised, but she didn't say anything when I kicked him to stop his brooding.

I slipped my shoes off, and followed the girl called Emma into the kitchen. Uchiha followed at a safe distance (or rather, it was a distance that I couldn't kick him) behind me.

When we got into the kitchen, Emma was fluttering about, making… tea? O-kay, too polite for me. "Emma, sit down, we don't need anything, but thanks anyways."

She nodded rapidly again, and gestured to the table. The three of us sat down, and just as I was about to open my mouth, a violent coughing caught our attention. Emma's eyes flashed something in between sadness and anger, and she stood up, grabbed something that looked like medicine off the counter, and rushed off.

I'm a curious person, and I know it's bad to snoop, but I don't care. I followed her, and pulled a catatonic Uchiha with me.

She got up the stairs faster then any normal person should have been able to, and she went into a room right on the left as soon as one got up the stairs. The two of us followed her.

I was shocked when I poked my nose into the room.

It looked like a hospital room, with huge machines and wires running everywhere. It was actually kind of scary. I don't like hospitals much. Doctors are creepy. And, in the middle of it all, was a bed. And in that bed was a little boy.

My heart caught in my throat.

He couldn't have been more then seven years old, and even seven seemed to be estimating a little high. The kid was tiny. He had messy brown hair, and I couldn't really see the colour of his eyes, but that didn't matter, because he looked sick.

Emma was gently helping him drink something, a look of motherly worry on her face. "Shh, I know it's gross, just drink it. You'll get better if you drink it."

He looked up at her, implicit trust written on his features. She was his older sister, and he trusted her to keep him safe. He looked like he was dying. My heart clenched, and I felt a sob try to pull it's way out of my stomach. It wouldn't do to cry here, so I held it in.

The kid dropped off to sleep soon after that, and Emma turned around and looked at us. She smiled tightly; her eyes full of a grief so huge, I didn't understand it. I'd never experienced an emotion so vast that it took up my very life; this looked like it took more then her life, it took her soul.

She motioned that we ought to leave, and she closed the door behind her very quietly. I still wanted to cry. That poor little boy…

When we got back down to the kitchen, she smiled at us again. It was so broken, so sad, that I hugged her impulsively. She looked surprised, but she hugged me back. Poor girl. She allowed herself a few more seconds to let the grief swamp her, and then she spoke. "You wanted to ask me something?"

I nodded, but I was… unable to speak. I still couldn't believe what I'd just seen. Uchiha supplied my words for me. "Yes. It was about last night."

I'd gotten control of myself, and I took up from where he'd left off. "You know the thing that bit you? Where did you meet him?"

Her fingers instinctively curled around her neck, around the place where I knew the bite marks were hiding. She was wearing a scarf, but it didn't stop her from protecting the weak point. "I met him outside the bar, next to the store where I'd just bought the squirt's medicine."

I nodded. " I take it he offered to take you home?"

She affirmed it. "He did, but something in my stomach told me not to trust him. So I told him to screw off, and started to go home. Then suddenly I was being chased, and he ended up catching me just a block from here. He bit me…" her fingers strayed to her neck again, "I kneed him in the balls, and then I just ran towards home. And then I met… you."

I nodded again. I was about to ask something else, but the words pushed themselves out. "What's wrong with your brother? He looks… so sick."

She smiled unhappily. "They don't know what's wrong with him. His body doesn't absorb nutrients the way it should, and so he's very weak, and he never stops coughing. He's better today then he was yesterday; but it's never enough, you know?"

I nodded slowly.

"Don't you have parents?" Uchiha asked, and I was shocked he'd even spoken.

She glared at him. "Do you think I'd be in this situation if I did? The only reason we're staying afloat is because the hospital is very interested in this case, and they're supporting us. But that's not really your concern, is it?"

I turned around and kicked him. How could he ask something so insensitive?! I kicked him a second time for good measure.

A smirk crossed the girl's lips, and we chatted for a few more minutes, about different recipes for chicken noodle soup (I quickly scribbled down the one Anko had taught me; it was the only thing I could cook, and I gave it to her), and then Uchiha and I took our leave. I didn't want to hurt the poor girl by what was going to happen next.

As soon as we got out of the house, the tears started to fall. I didn't know how long I'd held them in, and I never cried, but the trust on that little boy's face had broken me so thoroughly that I simply broke down and cried right there.

Uchiha wrapped his arms around, and pulled me into a park, and sat me down on a bench, and just let me cry against his shoulder. "It'd not fair, Uchiha. Why him?"

"I know princess, I know."

I forced myself to stop crying you-weak-weak-weak-little-girl, and glared fiercely at the ground. "If Silver had drained Emma, that boy would be dead by now, right?"

I felt, rather then saw, him nod.

"We have to figure this out, Uchiha, for them. Maybe we can get them to safety? Maybe?" my breathing was ragged with hope as I asked. But then I remembered Tsunade's words. "This is a drop-everything situation, Sakura."

They rang painfully in my ears, and I wanted to scream. People should not have to die. They should not have to be sick. They should not have to feel pain. The shouldn't have to feel, for fuck's sake!

But they do. It's what keeps them human. I shuddered against Uchiha's side, and he wrapped his arm around me shoulders. And suddenly, it didn't matter that he was annoying or that I was bad or anything.

Suddenly, I was just a girl, and he was just a guy, and he was wiping away my tears, and so I kissed him on the mouth.

I stopped caring, then, that I was supposed to hate him. I stopped caring that Tsunade and Anko were going to do the 'I told you so!' dance. I even stopped caring that Kakashi might try to kill Sasuke for so much as touching me.

I stopped caring.

I stood up, determination a hard resolve in my features. Sasuke (he was going to be Sasuke for the rest of eternity, I guess) followed suit, but he didn't touch me. He still seemed a little dazed that I'd kissed him in broad daylight, when I knew who he was.

He stood beside me, and we just looked at each other. It wasn't deep or anything. It was just… looking.

And then I reached out across the distance between us it-seemed-so-far-away-away-away, and I linked our pinkies.

It wasn't intimate, and it wasn't important in a lot of ways, but at the same time, it was very intimate, and it was very important, in every way that counted. He half-smiled at me, and I almost expected him to hug me, but he didn't.

But he didn't pull his hand away, either.

---

I didn't cling, and he didn't keep me too close, but the people we'd seen over the last few days looked at us strangely. I guess we weren't keeping the façade up well enough as we walked through the streets. Maybe it was because we weren't holding hands, or maybe it was because I looked like I'd been crying.

All of this was true, but I don't think that was the reason they were looking at us strangely. I think they were staring at us strangely was because the aura of hostility I always carried with me had dispersed.

And I was pretty sure that the ice in my eyes when it came to Sasuke had melted. I was so tired. It had been a long day, but it wasn't over yet.

We still had to go to the bar where Emma had met Silver, but I really didn't want to. What I wanted to do was go curl up in bed, and get some sleep. I didn't care anymore, you know?

"Sasuke…" I said softly, tugging on his shirt sleeve. Damn. I feel like a fucking two-year-old. He looked down at me, with a raised eyebrow. "Can't this wait until tomorrow? I'm so tired… I've been more tired then I've been in my entire life," I whispered, but he just shook his head with a smirk.

"You'll feel better once you're shooting something."

I perked up. Oh, he was right… I couldn't be tired when there were leeches around to kill! Yay!

So off we went to the bar, and as soon as we were there, I knew it was a blood bar. Blood bars… they have this rotten look to them, like they shouldn't be allowed to exist. And, to those who can see it, it looks like blood.

I don't know why, but if there was a picture that said 'blood', it would be hanging right there on the door. And this place smelled of death. Leeches are just damn evil like that. Screw them.

"It's a blood-" Sasuke's hand wrapped itself over my mouth, and he pulled me into an alley, keeping me against his chest. I didn't move, because I knew he wouldn't have done that for without reason to, but still. He didn't have to be so rude!

"Sakura, don't move."

I didn't like the fear in his voice. I didn't move.

For the next few minutes, we stayed there, stock still, not moving an inch. Finally, Sasuke let go of me, and I turned to look at him.

"Princess, let's get out of here. I think I know what's gotten into the vampires here. And if I'm right, we need to get out of here, now, or we're going to die."

I blinked, and then nodded. "Okay, let's go."

He grabbed my hand, and then we were moving faster then I'd ever moved in my entire life. We got back to the hotel in record time, and I watched in something like amazement as Sasuke was zooming around the room, throwing everything into the bags we'd brought with us.

I don't get it. What's gotten into him? I watched him shove the dress from the first night into my bag, and I let him do it with some satisfaction. I hated that dress. It had to die.

He grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the now-empty-of-our-things room, and he dragged me to the elevator. He paid in cash, and I still don't know how much it was, but he was desperate to get us out of the there.

The creeper of a receptionist smiled sadistically at me, and I shivered. I really don't like this guy. Why does he always look at me like I'm something to eat?! And just as I was about to smack him for looking places he shouldn't, Sasuke finished paying, and he grabbed me by the wrist, and we were out of there faster then anything.

He basically put me in the passenger seat of the rental car, tossed our luggage in the back seat, and then jumped into the driver's seat.

We were on the road faster then should have been possible, and the farther away we got from there, the easier Sasuke was able to breath. I knew, because I could hear his breathing rate slowing down.

I still didn't get it. What the fuck?

"Sasuke, what the hell's going on?"

"Not right now, princess, I don't want to think about it. I need to confirm something first."

I blinked. O-kay… This was going to be interesting, I could already tell.