hello peoples :) -- late update again... very late, whoops, sorry:)

big massive thank yous to Aiyo Rei, dailyangel, Gothic Saku-chan, xteenuh102593, Starlight - Wild Koneko and angstar54 for wanting me to continue, even if there was only one who wanted me to keep going i think i would so thankyou all of you for being so kind and sticking with the story -hugs u all :)-

also this is the biggest chapter ive done so far... mostly because it was one of those chapters that cant be broken up... either that or im just too lazy to break it up lol, so u can have it all :) -- also, sasusaku fans may like this chapter... let me know if u dont cos i'd obviously be doing something very wrong :)

anyway onwards :)

Masked Happiness

Chapter 13: Her Antiseptic

Sakura's bare feet pounded on the rough road, tears she told herself weren't there streamed down her face before she hurriedly wiped them away, only to have more tears replace them seconds later.

She had lost track of Naruto ten minutes ago. After beating him over the head a few times he had sped up and she had lost him… barely.

But she continued to run because she found that while she ran, she could distract herself and delude herself a little longer into believing that her father hadn't resurfaced after all.

She couldn't stop the voice in her head that screamed her weaknesses though, as she realised that if anyone saw her now she would be thought of as even more pathetic than she knew they already did.

Stopping for a second to catch her breath she realised just how much of a mess she must look in her ruffled, dirty clothing, bare feet and tear stained face.

She decided to head to the team seven training grounds and the river that ran nearby to clean herself up a bit before realising that she was closer than she thought and must have been heading there subconsciously anyway.

Absently wondering about why she found the training grounds so comforting, her feet continued taking her there while she stumbled up the road looking completely dazed and unaware of her surrounding, actually quite glad of the short respite her mind had granted her with different thoughts.

Leaning over the slowly running water of the river and looking into the shallow depths on the edge where schools of tadpoles swam lazily, only to scatter quicker than her eyes could follow moments later, Sakura felt suddenly peaceful and calm.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura sat down at the edge of the river and moved her legs around underneath her so that they were immersed up to her knees in the river, the current softly brushing at her now very sore and bloodied feet.

Looking down at the sudden stinging in her feet with some surprise, she saw for the first time just how bad they were. While she was chasing Naruto she had been too preoccupied to notice her bare feet getting torn up by the twigs and cobblestones and afterwards she had been too upset, so it wasn't until now that she saw that the bottoms of her feet were nearly black from dirt and that blood streamed from several places.

Gingerly pressing her fingers to a particularly nasty looking cut that run from her heel to the underside of her foot, she winced as a spike of pain ran up her leg like electricity. Marveling that such a simple touch had caused so much pain when she had been running on it moments ago and guiltily taking a small amount of pleasure in it, Sakura gathered some of the clear water in front of her in her cupped hands and poured it slowly onto the cut before rubbing it lightly to get the blood off, smiling through the pain.

After repeating the process a few times, the cut now appeared as a long red gash with the skin surrounding it a deep bruised purple from the irritation. Placing it back into the water with her other foot and leaning back so that she looked directly up at the sky as her foot was washed with waves of cool water and now dimming waves of pain, Sakura watched the clouds meander slowly across the sky.

Seeing the white puffs of air float carelessly across the blue nothingness above her, she momentarily forgot her problems, the calming sight extinguishing all thought and slowly causing her to slip into a light doze, dreams overtaking her as the water played around her toes.

All of the lights were off, a fact clearly visible from outside her house, and upon opening the door a long ominous creak echoed throughout the pitch black rooms. Having never seen her house so dark and unwelcoming made Sakura feel extremely uneasy. Wondering why her feelings of panic and fear were so strong, she took a few steps into the house and fumbled against the wall for the light switch.

Eventually finding it and letting out an audible sigh of relief, she flicked it on and was confronted with a sight that made her scream. Blood was spattered against one of the walls and a tall figure stood threateningly over another more crumpled figure that was lying, unmoving on the floor.

At the sound of her scream, the taller figure shifted and moved towards her with frightening speed as she backed away in fear and found her back up against the wall. Looking up into the face of her father she whimpered as he let out a low growl and raised the knife he had previously used on the now lifeless form of her mother. She screamed again, knowing that she would never be able to dodge the likely fatal blow and that her mother could very well already be dead.

Instinctively raising her arms to shield her face, shaking with terror, her fear was getting the better of her… she felt like she couldn't breathe… she saw only black and felt as if cool smothering hands were gripped suffocatingly over not only her mouth but her whole body… even her present situation, her mother and father, the knife, all faded to nothingness…

Moaning slightly, Sakura woke to the unpleasant feeling of being in shadow and dripping, soaked in freezing cold water. Shivering uncontrollably, she opened her eyes which took quite an effort for some reason, and looked up blearily, her eyes unfocused no matter how many times she blinked.

She realised she was lying down and tried to sit up but both a hand on her shoulder and a sudden bout of dizziness pushed her back down as she panted, out of breath and with no idea why. Her vision slowly coming into focus, Sakura looked up again and saw, even with her still slightly blurry eyes, what was unmistakably an Uchiha looking down at her.

Her reaction was slow but when she finally realised it was Sasuke, her position on the ground and the state she was in (and eventually managed to put it all together in her slow, waterlogged mind), she sat up quickly again, her lightheadedness returning in a rush that made her feel nauseous.

He put his hand on her shoulder with a sigh to push her back down again and even though she fought it this time, he firmly pushed until she complied and put her head back on the ground.

Looking up at Sasuke, Sakura was quiet for a moment, feeling like she had lost the ability to speak. In those minute while she slowly regained her energy, she noticed how a very subtle and almost unnoticeable mixture of remaining worry and relief was spread across the Uchiha's pale face.

After a few moments when Sakura felt she might be able to speak, she said the first thing that came to mind,

'What h-happened' she said through chattering teeth while her whole body trembled violently from what she guessed was the cold air brushing her wet skin.

Looking down at her with a very slight look of incredulity on his face, he said,

'You were in the river so I pulled you out.'

As Sakura fought hard against the impulse to roll her eyes, her mind slowed down a fraction from the mile-a-minute speed it had been going as she stopped to think, 'Well that didn't tell me anything, I think I could've figured that out by myself', knowing she would have to pressure any valuable information out of Sasuke.

'Why was I in the water? And how did you know I was in the water? Where is the water?!' She said, vocalizing each thought as it came to her and realising they weren't by the river anymore.

'Well I don't know why you were in the water, seems pretty stupid to go for a swim with all of your clothes on… I saw that you were in the water when I went to get a drink after I finished training, and the river is over there.' He said, pointing to their right and as Sakura listened she realised that from where she was, she could still hear the distant sounds of running water.

Marveling that she, Sakura Haruno, was possibly the first to witness such a long sentence from the Uchiha, she replayed what he had said in her still fuzzy mind and realised that even after all that, she still had no idea what had really happened. Actually rolling her eyes this time she tried to remember what she had been doing before she had woken up drenched and freezing.

As she remembered chasing Naruto and washing her feet in the river, the memory of the dream came back to her in a rush and her eyes went wide as she tried not to scream at what she had seen in her sleep.

Noticing her slight agitation turn into wide-eyed fear, Sasuke immediately grew worried again, reminiscent of how he had felt when he first saw her in the water…

-Flashback-

Tired but satisfied with his training, Sasuke walked slowly to the river to get a drink before he would go back and continue until nightfall. As he neared the edge of the river and the sound of rushing water filled his ears, his eye was caught by something bobbing a little further down stream… something pink.

Panic rose quickly in his chest as he instantly recognized that particular colour and waded out into the freezing water until it got so deep that he was forced to swim. Battling the light currents that tried to brush him onto the riverbank one moment and into deeper water the next, he eventually reached the unconscious and now completely submerged kunoichi after what seemed to him like hours but was only a few minutes.

Either amount of time felt like far too long to the panicking Uchiha as he pulled Sakura out of the water so that she would be able to breathe and slowly pulled her through the currents until he reached the shallower water and was able to wade.

Lifting her up out of the water, her head leant against his chest as he cradled her violently shivering form in his arms, relief washing over him when he saw her chest rising and falling, almost unnoticeably, but it was there… she was breathing.

Finally making it back to dry ground again, Sasuke carried her away from the river and into the middle of the training grounds to where he left his backpack. Laying her down on the ground gently, he looked at her pale face and saw that her breathing was already less erratic than it had been before.

Sighing gratefully and lowering himself onto his knees, he looked at her again, noticing for the first time how her long eyelashes brushed the delicate skin on her cheeks, before also noticing how incredibly pale those cheeks were and how blue her lips looked. As he continued to stare at her, he almost jumped a few minutes later when her eyelashes started fluttering, signaling that she was finally waking up.

-End Flashback-

Re-living it all again, he thought,' I cant believe she nearly drowned… she was already completely under when I got there, it's a miracle she was still breathing, but she's safe now, surely she shouldn't be so scared when she's safe… why was she in the water though?'

As Sasuke sat deep in his thoughts, Sakura pushed herself onto her elbows finally getting over the fear of her dream enough to sit up as well, Sasuke being too distracted to push her down again. Sakura was deep in thought herself, 'That dream… it was just so real… it wasn't though, what I saw… that's never happened before and it never will… I mean it couldn't… could it?...' but she found it hard to ignore the little voice in her head that told her that if her father came back, she might well have seen the result.

Both deep in thought, it took Sasuke a while to realise that both he and Sakura were dripping wet, shivering and sitting, staring into space, too deep in their own thoughts to notice.

Looking at Sakura, her bowed head hidden behind curtains of her still wet, pink hair, he asked the question that had been bothering him.

'Sakura, why were you in the water?'

Startled slightly out of her thoughts by Sasuke's sudden question, Sakura looked up at him, her hair falling back so that he could see her face clearly. He could see the remnants of fear in her eyes from the dream that he didn't know about, the still pale cheeks and slight blue-ness in her lips and when they slowly parted to speak as Sakura chose her words carefully, he could hear the fear and indecision in her voice.

'I honestly don't know why I was in the water, I just sort of feel asleep next to the river after I finished cleaning my feet and woke up here, that's all I can remember.'

Sasuke raised an eyebrow and just said,

'Feet?'

'What? Oh yeah, I cut my foot when I was chasing Naruto,' seeing Sasuke raise his eyebrow slightly higher, she said, 'Naruto still hasn't fixed my door and I was chasing him to beat the crap out of him for it, but I lost him and…' remembering the reason why she had continued running and had eventually ended up at the river, she struggled with trying to find an excuse due to her still slower than usual thinking and the fact that her mind kept wandering back to her dream which, oddly enough, had a lot to do with what she was now trying to cover up.

'Um, and then I decided to come here… for a drink.' She finished lamely, knowing he was now suspicious because of her useless lying skills.

Ignoring the obvious fact that Sakura was covering something up, his gaze moved down to her feet which, in her kneeling position were poking out behind her, and as she twisted around and looked down too, she could see a small trickle of blood sliding lazily down her foot, from the gash on her heel. Trying to ignore the sight of blood that was never truly unwelcome to her, she looked back up to Sasuke with a blank questioning look on her face, clearly not bothered by the blood covering her foot and wondering why he was.

Without a word, Sasuke stood and walked over to his pack which sat slumped against a tree a little way away from where they had been sitting. He went through one of the pockets and Sakura thought he was about to pick it up and leave as he did so often.

She was shocked when he came back with a small bottle of antiseptic and some bandages, so shocked that her jaw dropped as she gaped at him.

When he saw her reaction, he immediately knew that she had thought he was going to leave and raised his eyebrow again, slightly annoyed that after he had pulled her out of the river and saved her from drowning she still had a low enough opinion of him to think he would leave her here.

Ignoring the voice in his head that told him that, had it been Naruto, he probably would have left him there with the bandages, he opened the antiseptic and waited for Sakura to move so that he could clean and bandage her foot, as she seemed incapable of proper thought at that moment, let alone tending to any wounds.

Numbly moving until she sat on the ground and one leg was curled underneath her while, after some insistence from Sasuke, the other rested lightly in his lap, she sat in disbelief as The Sasuke Uchiha began to gently wash her foot.

As he covered his surprise at how cold her foot was and wondering if the rest of her felt this ice-cold, Sakura winced in pain as the antiseptic was poured onto the deep cut, the stinging once again shooting up her leg. As the pain dulled down a little, she became aware of Sasuke's hand holding her foot firmly as though to comfort her through the pain, not aware that she hardly minded any pain he caused her.

After a few moments of making sure her foot was completely clean to avoid infection, he lifted her foot from his lap briefly to place the bandage underneath it, before putting it back down gently to wrap the top of her foot. Repeating this several times until her foot was completely bandaged, Sakura tried to ignore the moments of pain as well as the tickling as she sat patiently, slightly relaxed by the feeling of Sasuke's hands, so gently wrapping her foot, until she realised Sasuke had finished and was now simply cradling it in his lap.

'Why were you scared before?' He asked her, still holding her foot as though to stop her from running away. Knowing what he meant but playing dumb, Sakura said,

'What do you mean, I was unconscious so I couldn't have been scared.'

'I mean after you woke up,' he said, hiding his slight exasperation at her avoidance of the issue.

'Oh, I wasn't scared, I was just… shocked… you know, at what had happened and that I hadn't noticed I was even in the water and everything… I was just really disorientated.' She finished in a rush, hoping that it would be enough to convince him.

'And you really don't know why you were in the water?'

'No, all I remember was falling asleep.' She said as she considered for the first time the fact that she could have drowned if Sasuke hadn't been there. Shuddering at the thought of what could have happened, an unbidden voice in her mind accompanied by a flash of memory of her father standing over her mother with a knife said, 'but wouldn't that have just made everything easier…'

That single thought scared her more than anything. She didn't want to die, not at all, and she knew it wouldn't make anything easier or fix her problems, especially since she seemed so useless at the moment that she knew she would probably find some way to mess that up too.

Eyes fixed on the ground in front of her, still trembling slightly at what could have happened and the feeling of not having control over her own thoughts, she looked up in surprise when Sasuke, having felt her trembling through her foot that he still held, suddenly said,

'Are you ok Sakura?' The tone of his voice and the look on his face left her wondering whether he meant at the moment or in life as a whole. At this thought she instantly smiled one of the fakest smiles she had ever been able to achieve and said,

'Of course, I'm fine now,' still smiling, she quickly withdrew her foot from his grasp, which left him slightly disappointed (shocking himself immensely, he had to admit that he hadn't minded the way they had been sitting), and startling him further, she stood (cut foot and all) and bowed deeply to him, her hair falling in graceful curtains around her face, obscuring it from view as she said,

'Thank you very much for saving me Sasuke-kun, I'm very grateful.' And with that she straightened up, still fake smiling as she turned on her heel ('wrong heel' she realised as she winced to herself, realising that she had just re-opened the gash on her heel). trying not to limp, she headed home, thoroughly exhausted as she unknowingly left a very stunned, slightly annoyed and still dripping Sasuke, kneeling in a clearing on his own, still holding the antiseptic.

okie dokey... chappy 13 down... ive always found unlucky things quite lucky (whenever i walk under ladders or see black cats my day gets better) so hopefully this chapter was good luck an not bad :) -- also the title... her antiseptic... i meant it as purifier and healer (as in sasuke is her antiseptic... in a nice way lol) - not as in her sterile, bland or insipid lol... i was either gonna call it her antiseptic or drowning in dreams... i just prefer this for some reason :)

also, small poll just to see what people think and stuff firstly,

who wants to see Sakura's life get worse, and who wants to see it get better?

who do you think she should end up with (this is ultimately a sasusaku fic but im happy to add smaller relationships along the way and if theres enough protest, maybe even change the sasusaku-ness... it all depends on feedback (actually its also down to what i think i can write in but i take others thoughts seriously so what do you think???)

lastly, that little purpley-grey button down there loves u so please click it and review:D -- i'll try to update faster, but till next time, let me know what u think:)

have fun and thanks for reading :)