-waves casually- hi all :) (dodges flying objects) hehe, been awhile huh... ummm, i honestly didnt think this chapter would be so hard to write (it took ages to find the right angle to write it from so i hope its ok :) - and i also didnt think i would be busier during holidays than i was whilst completing year 12... but there you go :) - all i can say is sorry and i really really really hope people are still (even slightly) interested in this fic -looks hopeful- :)

thankyou sooooo much for the reviews too, they really did help with the writers block and pushed me to hurry up and update so thanks: Merridaine, starlit.kiss7, Gothic Saku-chan, Lacuna Lily, angstar54, dailyangel, nomanslandvicki (who gave me one of the best reviews ive ever recieved :), miroku girl15, Moongoddess97 and otaku-freak-16, the newer people to have read and reviewed and the people who are still reading even after all my late and sporadic updates, thankyou so much -hugs u all-

oh, and two things... firstly, (and i realise this sounds pointless but i felt i should mention it) i have recently found the greatest book ever written and its two sequels (overstatement? i think not lol), they of course being twilight, new moon and eclipse by stephenie meyer... for anyone who has read them, i realise the beginning of this chapter might seem misleading because of my new found obsession but this wont be a vamp fic and all of their hearts are still beating... no werewolves either... poor jacob... sorry, very sidetracked :D - anyway i apologise if my writing style sounds slightly familiar... i couldnt help it :) (any other twilight fans out there:)

secondly, because of my exceedingly late update im not sure how much use a recap would be and if you can be bothered (and believe me, i'll be surprised if anyone reads this chapter anyway... its soooo overdue :( - but if possible, it may be better to just go back a chapter or two and read from there, especially given how slowly this fic goes sometimes (i re-read a lot of it to give me ideas and there were things i'd forgotten... was weird lol) - but yeah, hope people are still interested and if so that you enjoy this chapter, the next one just needs editing and will then be up too and i will try to never ever leave it that long again :)

for daily, the best friend anyone could ask for... and the most patient :) - thank you :)

recap (i thought i'd include one anyway :) :

Her vision already dimming as another wave of dizziness and exhaustion washed over her, she spotted a small patch of bright yellow amidst the clothes and wood splinters strewn around her room and using the last of her energy to focus her eyes on it she saw that it was the daisy she had picked earlier, evidently falling from her hair during the fight… or frenzied attempt at escape.

Forgetting about all else and finally giving in to the inexorable pull of sleep, her last thought was of the daisy and of how much it looked like a star, such a bright yellow amidst all of the darkness, the only piece of beauty and comfort, the only symbol of happiness and hope left in the shattered world that Sakura's bedroom… that her life had just become.

'Yes,' he thought as he walked into the kitchen and began pillaging the cupboards and fridge for food, still chuckling softly to himself, 'I will do the same with this one…'

'I will break her.'

ok, dont know how helpful that was but on we go anyway, enjoy :)

Masked Happiness

Chapter 17: Impossible

Sasuke's POV

A vampire. The living dead. That was the first thought that went though my head when Sakura walked through the door, late, for our first class this morning. It hadn't started yet, although it was supposed to have (we had Kakashi) so she was lucky that her unexplained absence went unnoticed. As often and as needlessly as Kakashi is late, he despises anyone later than himself (when he deigns to show up at all that is).

Everyone in the classroom stopped for a brief second when the door opened, the pause in conversation lasting only as long as it took for people to see that it wasn't Kakashi arriving earlier than usual, but Sakura arriving much later. As soon as people saw the pink hair or the smaller stature or the female attire - whatever was necessary to ascertain that it wasn't any kind of authority figure - the conversation resumed. I wouldn't have even noticed her walk through the door had I not been very slightly… curious… about Sakura's state-of-mind lately. Any worry or concern I feel, I attribute to the team as a whole because what affects one of us affects us all and can seriously alter our chances in any missions we're assigned to.

So it was with much effort that I lifted my head slightly from where it rested on my arms and with vaguely curious eyes that I watched Sakura move towards our shared desk which I was currently sitting alone at (Naruto was a part of a rather loud conversation with Shikamaru and the other guys which I couldn't be bothered being a part of myself). I prepared myself to meet her eyes when I lifted mine to her, purely because she always seems to be looking at me, but when I looked her eyes were on the floor in front of her.

I've watched her out of the corner of my eye often, that's how I notice when she's about to fall on her face from her clumsiness as she so often does and stop her from getting killed on missions (or drowning like two days ago), keeping an eye on her but not staring (in case I gave her the wrong impression and got her all worked up and optimistic).

But today it didn't matter because she didn't raise her eyes from the floor once. For a moment I stared – unabashedly - I'm now ashamed to say and noticed things that all other eyes in the class missed. I noticed the deathly pale skin, the darkening, bruise-like circles underneath her eyes, the slightly heavier than usual but still fairly subtle make-up that had been used (unsuccessfully under my scrutiny) to hide these things and the dead look of her eyes that made her seem well and truly… empty.

Not that I hadn't noticed most of these things before today, they've been noticeable for weeks, I just hadn't seen it this bad before.

I would have thought that others might have noticed as well.

I'm aware of course that there are many things that could pass undetected when it comes to Naruto or Kakashi, or even that girl Ino who I'm fairly sure was Sakura's friend. Things that wouldn't withstand my own observations for a second, but even so, with the way she looked today… especially her eyes, they were unnerving… I would have thought that somebody would notice.

But they didn't.

That made me wonder. The complete cluelessness that I've come to expect from Naruto and that now seemed to be shared by the rest of the occupants of the room (or maybe caught by them… I'm probably right, stupidity is contagious…) may be the cause. Sakura had always been, well, less than happy about her looks.

I may not have been interested but that didn't mean I was deaf, nobody in this school was unaware of the many taunts and vile nicknames she had had to withstand through the years over her looks – some ridiculous, some cruel and some simply so untrue they were laughable – it was a wonder anyone believed them, especially her. And yet she seemed the most willing, the most ready to believe. Its daunting, the things she'd believe when she's usually so smart, so perceptive.

Watching her move was like watching a graceful reanimated corpse.

She wasn't anywhere near as clumsy as she can be when she's not concentrating. As a ninja (and as only Sakura could) her only clumsy moments are when she's doing mundane things that don't seem to require the extra grace or poise that the training teaches us to use always. So in letting her guard down, even only in times when it shouldn't be needed anyway, she makes mistakes with the simple things. Human mistakes of course, ones we all make; she just manages to make a lot more of them. The fact that she wasn't making any this morning, her fluid movements, her controlled footsteps, it was clear she was going by instinct.

For whatever reason she was on autopilot.

It was very unhelpful to think these things because when I came to myself a second later I realised she had sat down next to me in her usual seat and that, very annoyingly, the corner or my mouth was lifted, the muscles in my face feeling strange at the unpracticed movement of smiling, no matter how small. Odd. But I regained composure before it was noticeable.

She sat strangely too.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that she seemed uncomfortable and yet not so at the same time, making any remnants of my smile disappear and a small frown take its place as I contemplated this. The look on her face would have suggested that she was… well dead but also in a small amount of pain, the way her brows furrowed so slightly it could have been a trick of the light had I not known better. And yet she seemed comfortable enough in the seat. She sat as anyone would, back relatively straight but not painfully so, head, though slightly lowered, was in the right position, overall she looked as though she should be (and was) fairly comfortable, but her face showed faint signs of the opposite.

Again, odd.

I pretended I didn't notice the absence of any kind of greeting from her, a first if I recall correctly.

I pretended, but I noticed.

Kakashi wasn't too late after all. For him. He showed up not long after Sakura and with every student in class today (finally) there was hardly any question as to who was behind the door when it opened again. The silence lasted this time.

Taking my eyes away from Sakura, though keeping her in my peripheral vision, I managed to catch the small exchange. Kakashi's eye scanned the classroom of previously rowdy students, making sure everyone was seated and (in Shikamaru's case it was necessary to check) awake. His gaze fell on Sakura and lingered a moment longer than it had on the others and I watched as the folds around his eye disappeared for a moment indicating his raised eyebrow, but he said nothing and continued to his desk. Finally, someone else had noticed the obvious besides me. Surely he would say or do something.

I noticed that when he had looked at Sakura she made the smallest of movements, a flicker of her eyes to meet his and then fall back to the desk in front of her and the slightest of squirms in her seat that moved her body all of an inch. This would come to be the only change in her for the rest of the class. She might as well have been a statue for all the signs of life she gave. She might have been dead.

Sakura's POV

Dead. Numb. Both good words. Both the only words that I wanted to feel because if I let too much in… scratch that, if I let anything at all in, any memory of last night, of his face, his eyes, his smell, of him at all then it would open the floodgates and I knew I would be pulled down, drowned beneath the weight of my memories and wildest fears, both of which were now entwined in my mind. The kind of thoughts that raise the goosebumps on my arms and bring a cold sweat to every inch of my skin, enough to make me shiver if I was still able to feel. This morning had been impossible, an impossible situation.

I woke up feeling more like I had been dead and had come back to life. Well it felt like it.

The pain was overwhelming but I managed, I've been through worse I thought, but thinking back I couldn't remember a time when it had been. I realised that through my life I probably had been through worse physical, mental and emotional pain, just never all three at the one time. I did wake up though, and as much as I don't think I wanted to, I reclaimed consciousness and surveyed the damage of my room. It wasn't as good or as bad as I expected. I was completely detached already and I don't think I minded too much, it's probably the only way I kept my sanity and found the strength to stand with so much weighing me down.

I decided to leave through my window.

I knew I would regret it later on when I would have no choice but to go home at the end of the day, needing to deal with it all then when I'm even more exhausted after a full day of school. But I wanted to keep the numbness for as long as possible, knowing as soon as I lay eyes on any more of the damage that my careful, precarious calm would instantly fall to pieces around me.

I got ready for school and I left through the window. I didn't want to think, or consider anything that had happened last night, and repressing memories isn't too hard, at least in the short-term.

Whatever got me through the day I would welcome.

And I made it too, I looked as normal as I could make myself, although that's more a matter of opinion lately, I've lost any kind of normalcy in the past few months and no longer have any idea of what it looks like on me anymore. Not to mention I couldn't seem to see straight in the mirror in the school bathroom (I didn't dare stay in the house any longer than necessary), as I tried to right myself and achieve a 'normal' state of composure, it seemed as though I was blind, or struck dumb. Like I was trying to read the same sentence in a book over and over again but was never able to make sense of the words.

I gave up after awhile, deciding that it hardly mattered what I looked like anyway, and remembering grimly all of the times I was told I was ugly or abnormal. What more could anyone possibly say that I hadn't heard before? What mildly shocked me was that I didn't care anymore. Who cares about petty squabbles and a bit of name-calling when the problems I had now were… no, I couldn't think about that. I walled those thoughts back up in my mind, refusing to examine them until later when I could deal with them and not have an audience to disapprove of my methods. The methods I had been avoiding for so long… but that didn't matter to me any more, whatever could get me through this I would welcome.

I went to class, just like any other day. I reached the door with my hand outstretched to open it and I allowed myself a moment, a sigh and surprisingly, a smile. This morning had been impossible… torturous… frightening… painful beyond belief.

It had been impossible.

But I had done it.

okie dokey, chapter 17 done... a bit small but heavily edited and hopefully good...? please review and as always thankyou so much for reading! let me know what you think :)

have fun :)