FYI, this is the final chapter of Restoration. I had two more planned, but I think the story will be less complicated and flow better if this is the final chapter. Maybe someday when I'm not working on anything I'll go back to my outline and write the next two, but for now this will be the last of Restoration. Enjoy, and don't forget to review!

.:Restoration:.

Chapter 7: Duty

The small apartment was silent. Sakura could see the early morning light streaming through the window and the little flecks of dust floating around the lightly furnished room. She closed the door softly behind her, and the little click of the doorknob made her flinch. Apprehensiveness radiated from every inch of her body, and Sakura took a few breaths to try to calm herself, but it was in vain.

A small rustling noise came from the other side of the only visible door. Setting her earlier received gift basket down on the ground next to the front door, the pink-haired kunoichi quickly removed her boots and padded over to the bedroom door, grabbing hold of the knob with a few more pacifying breaths.

Once she was decidedly calm enough, Sakura entered the room to a sight she hadn't seen for years, and never thought she would see again.

On the lone bed lied Sasuke, tangled in the sheets with a sheen of sweat covering his forehead. He was obviously asleep, but the stress lines were still etched into his forehead. From what she could see, Sasuke wasn't wearing a shirt, and her eyes trailed over his finely muscled shoulders and upper portion of his chest.

Although in the few instances that they'd met after he'd defected from Konoha Sakura had been able to deduce that Sasuke had grown significantly, she never really had time to appreciate it until this instant, when Sasuke had his guard down. Figuring that he wouldn't pose much of a threat when asleep, Sakura went back out to the main room and grabbed a simple wooden chair and brought it back into the bedroom, firmly placing it in the corner of the room and sitting down.

The last time Sakura could remember seeing Sasuke sleeping in a bed was back in their days as Team 7...

It was a particularly straightforward mission, just a simple escort assignment. They'd travelled to Sunagakure to lead a fairly wealthy man and his son to Konoha so undertake in some economical deal or another. Whatever the reason was, Tsunade-sama had sent them on this mission and the sooner they could get it done, the sooner they could resume training.

"Escort missions are important for you to gain skills to add to your repertoire of skills as shinobi," Kakashi had said patiently.

"But they're so boring! Nothing ever happens and the people we have to guard are so stuck up!" Naruto exclaimed, causing Sakura to hit him over the head and scold him in a motherly fashion for calling their clients 'stuck up'.

"Naruto, if you can't handle a simple escort mission, how can you expect to become Hokage?" Sakura said, hands on her hips.

"Hey! Well it's not like Tsunade-sama ever does escort missions! I don't see why I have to be stuck doing this kind of stuff if it's not going to help me become the Hokage!"

"Naruto, shut up and deal with it," Sasuke said, irritated, silently complaining yet another time to all the Kami, whyohwhy did a shinobi of his caliber have to be paired with the orange-jumpsuit-wearing freak?

At the dark-haired boy's statement, Naruto crossed his arms and huffed. "Fine. But no more escort missions after this one, Kakashi-sensei! If you sign us up for another... I'll... I'll leave Team 7 and train on my own!"

"Hmph!" Sasuke had rolled his eyes, while Sakura merely sighed.

Surprisingly, the silver-haired jounin laughed. "Naruto, how about this. Whenever we get stuck with another escort mission, I'll take you out to ramen, how about that?"

The blond looked at his sensei from the corner of his eyes, suspicious. "Do you really mean that?" he asked cautiously.

"No. Now hurry up!" Kakashi ruffled Naruto's hair and began walking away, towards the Zazekage tower.

The next morning Sakura woke up at the crack of dawn, probably because none of the windows in Sunagakure had shades. She squinted against the unwelcome light, mumbling something under her breath that may or may not have been a string of curses towards the great star that was the sun.

Looking around her, she could see that her team was still asleep, Naruto sprawled out on the ground in the middle of the floor while Sasuke and Kakashi were more uniformly tucked into their bedrolls. After a stretch and yawn, Sakura carefully unzipped her sleeping bag and went to use the bathroom.

The room was unchanged when she came back in, and having nothing to do, she sat down on her bedroll, opening some medical scrolls she was to study. The long words blended into one big mush of letters and she sighed, giving up on reading. Her team still wasn't up yet, but Sakura didn't even consider waking them all up. She was the only morning person among them, and she'd rather be bored than have to face their combined wrath at being woken up so 'early'. Besides, their escort mission wouldn't begin for another three hours.

Sakura's eyes made their way over to Sasuke, like they always did. Her crush on him was as raging as ever, and her green eyes drank in every detail of his flawless face. He was pale, though in a different way than she. His dark hair was practically begging her to run her fingers through it, and she imagined it would be like feathers. With his forehead protector off in sleep, he looked like a peaceful boy, and could easily been mistaken for the son of an aristocrat instead of a shinobi without a family.

Whatever scars he had, he didn't show.

Thinking about it, Sasuke had never told them anything about what he felt, what he liked, or even what made him happy. There were some things that Sakura and Naruto could pick up, for instance, tomatoes were his favorite produce, but that had taken them two years to figure out. There wasn't a lot else that he let on. Sasuke was a secretive person, dealing with his problems himself and not letting anyone else in. It'd troubled Sakura, and sooner or later she figured he would burst.

And even then, she was afraid, even then he would still keep pushing people away.

There was movement from the bed, causing Sakura to snap out of her reminiscing. Sasuke was turning over in the bed, obviously distressed. His arms raised about his head, then came back down to his sides and his head moved side to side. The fine lines of his lips moved but no sound was produced.

Sakura sat quietly, observing her old teammate levelly. She was the person in control here, the person with power, and she willed herself not to lose that position.

Her resolve almost faltered when Sasuke shot up into a sitting position, clutching at his eyes with both hands and panting like he'd just run a marathon, civilian-style.

It took a few seconds for her to realize what he was whispering under his breath. "I'm sorry, Itachi, I'm sorry."

She didn't know what to make of this, so she smoothed her face into a passiveness that could be written off as uninterested. "Good morning," she said indifferently.

Sasuke held his position, still trying to catch his breath, seemingly unsurprised by her presence. But of course he'd known that I was here. He probably already knew in his sleep. He's just that good. Sakura's thoughts admitted wryly.

He brought his hands away from his face to clench in his lap and raised his crimson Sharingan gaze to meet the cool green of her eyes. Suddenly the red faded into gray and Sasuke clutched at his sockets again, hissing in pain. Sakura rose from her seat in the corner, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You're a fool," she stated blankly.

"What did you say?" Sasuke growled menacingly, and Sakura surprisingly found herself unafraid and not intimidated by the tone of his voice.

As if not hearing him, Sakura continued, "Don't use your Sharingan. It's obviously causing you pain," she paused, remembering the dullness of his one vibrantly black eyes, "and you're going blind."

He looked at her now, with the aforementioned dull glare. "Don't you dare tell me what to do."

In response, Sakura merely grabbed his head between her hands, placing her palms at his temples. Before he could shove her away from him, her hands glowed green with medical chakra that was infiltrating his skin, focusing in his eyeballs. The soothing feeling was instant, and Sasuke's hands fell limply back into his lap as he basked in the relief that her chakra was providing him. It was like all the pain was lifted off of him at once. Hell, he could even feel the nerves in his eyes reestablishing their contact with each other. She was fixing his eyes for what seemed like no reason.

After about five minutes of this, Sakura drew her hands away, extinguishing the green glow. Sasuke slowly opened his eyes again to look her in the face. "The damage is terrible, but with regular healing sessions, you'll be able to regain your sight," she said expertly.

"Hmph."

Sakura returned to her wooden seat and eyed him, one eyebrow raised. He gazed back at her with a sort of disinterest on his face.

"Why did you let yourself get caught?"

Her sudden question startled him, though he did not show it. "Excuse me?"

"How come you let us take you? Everyone knows you could have easily gotten through us and been on your marry way to do whatever you pleased. But no, you practically held your hands up and let Kakashi-sensei use that incapacitating jutsu on you. Why?" Her voice sounded much too judgmental and suspicious as either of them would have liked.

"Why should I explain myself to you?" Sasuke's upper lip curled.

Anger and resentment and regret boiled somewhere in Sakura's chest. "No. No. No! I am sick of hearing that from you!" she stood up, taking steps toward the bed where Sasuke still sat, clenching and unclenching her fingers. He voice dropped to a low, dangerous whisper. "Every. Single. Day. Every day we were on Team 7 with Naruto and Kaka-sensei, you've been completely unresponsive! All we wanted to do was help, but no, you couldn't have anyone helping you, the great Uchiha Sasuke, now could you? You closed yourself off to us, keeping everyone out until the day that you couldn't take it anymore! And then what? You left. You left us. Without telling us why, without letting us help you!"

She was dangerously close to him now; Sasuke didn't need his Sharingan to see the almost murderous intent that was rolling off of her in waves. He swiftly got out of the bed on the other side, using the innocuous piece of humble furniture as a barricade.

He knew he was just fueling the fire, but his pride prevented him from staying silent. "It's not like you would have understood, Sakura" he said her name like a taunt.

"You didn't let us try!" She shouted, lunging over the bed and aiming a punch at his face, which he grabbed with his hand.

"You never let us in!" Her kick was barely blocked.

"You didn't have to leave!" He dodged the jab to his stomach.

"IT HURT US JUST AS MUCH AS IT HURT YOU!" was her final scream, and now she was in tears. They stood about three feet apart, Sakura hiccupping from the hot, angry tears streaming down her cheeks and Sasuke uncharacteristically stunned speechless.

Part of her mind was wondering why she was attacking Sasuke, and the other was busy justifying it. He had never done anything for them, when they did everything for him.

Sasuke found himself justifying her attacks as well, in the exact same way that she was.

After a silence that was only broken by Sakura trying to stop her sobs, Sasuke crossed the room and stood before her.

"Sakura... I'm sorry."

Situation forgotten, Sakura's green eyes widened and she looked down at the ground. Her distress escalated at this revelation and she began to sob again, although for what she was not sure.

All she knew was that Sasuke was home again. Really, truly home.

Sakura's body craved the most universally basic need: human touch. Without her thinking about it, she flung her arms around his broad chest, embracing him tightly as her tears streamed down his skin. As if he, too, had been craving such a thing, he brought his arms around her waist, his fingers lightly brushing the tips of her hair.

"I'm sorry," Sasuke breathed again, in awe of the fact that the words he were speaking were true.

Sakura clenched her hands against his back, needing to know that he was here, with her, and not somewhere unreachable. Ever so slowly, her sobs of frustration and sadness transformed into small hiccups of relief.

Her breathing calmed, but she didn't feel ready to let go just yet. If it was a dream, she wanted to hold on for the rest of eternity, but then Sasuke's hand lightly brushed against her back and she realized it was real. This was all real. Sasuke was back, in her arms, tangible, not an idea that could flit away. He was in the same room as her, of his own free will, without any complications or regrets.

Sasuke slowly extricated her arms from around his shoulders, lightly gripping her shoulders at arms length. The smile was bright on her face, overpowering the puffiness of her eyes and making her look radiant. It was foreign to the Uchiha, the thought of making someone happy just by his presence.

Small tears were still streaming down her face when his obsidian eyes locked with hers. With the pad of his thumb Sasuke drew the droplets off her skin and she laughed, embarrassed. Not wanting him to see her like this anymore, Sakura backed away from him and walked out of the room towards the gift basket that she'd received earlier that day. Extracting a couple of tissues, Sakura hurriedly wiped her eyes, hearing particularly loud footsteps just on the other side of the front door.

She barely had enough time to step out of the way as the door swung open, revealing a black-and-orange-clad Naruto. One look at her face and his expression immediately turned to one of concern. "Sakura-chan, what's wrong?" He bent his knees to be at her eye level, and looked her straight on with those crystal clear blue eyes.

"Hi, Naruto." She smiled up at Naruto, who now looked confused.

"Why are you crying?"

Sasuke chose this moment to walk out into the living room, and he met Naruto's questioning gaze over the top of Sakura's head. He made no move to answer Naruto's question, and instead greeted him with a slight nod. "Dobe."

"Teme."

And Sakura knew her team was restored.

...Because, Naruto, there's nothing wrong. Everything is right.

THE END.