Author's Note: Hey everyone! I'm doing my best to update more frequently over the summer, so I hope that I can get close to finishing this story (or have it finished!) by the end of the story. If not, I'm definitely going to finish this eventually. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck it through with me until now, I really appreciate it, and your awesome reviews. :)

Please let me know what you think about this chapter, and I'll try to have another one out soon!

"Spill. Everything." I was on the phone with Tenten, the day after Ino's Christmas party.

She groaned. "What do you want to know?"

"EVERYTHING!" I was practically shouting through the phone. "What happened with you and Neji?"

"Oh that," Tenten was doing her best to sound uncaring, but I knew better. "We just talked a lot, and then he took me home." Oh my god. Was I going to have to pry it out of her?

"So?" I prompted. "Is it... going anywhere?"

"He said he wanted to see me again today before his family leaves to go on vacation." Tenten said stiffly.

"Eeee!" I squealed. "Where are you meeting? Do you need to dress up? I need details Tenten." With the nonexistent romantic interests in my life, I was basically living vicariously through my friends.

"He just wants to get coffee-"

"He asked you out on a date!" I shouted.

"I don't know if it's like that, Sakura."

"Of course it is!" I was so excited. First Hinata and Naruto, Ino and Shikamaru, and now Tenten and Neji? I was a matchmaker by now. Really, I should have realized how talented I was before.

"Well," Tenten said, "what do I do now?"

I thought for a moment. "I would wear something simple, but still nice. Maybe like a sweater dress, since it's cold outside. Or a nice sweater. Oh, and do your hair like I taught you!"

Tenten sighed, and I heard her mutter something that sounded like "high-maintenance".

"Hey!" I said indignantly. "I heard that!"

I ended up talking Tenten through how one should conduct themselves during a date (at least, guidelines I had decided for myself throughout high school). "The most important thing is to just be yourself," I said, "that's why he likes you. You don't need to try to be someone you're not."

"Thanks, Sakura." Tenten said finally. "I'll... let you know how it goes."

"Please do!" I said. We got off the phone after that.

I found myself alone at my house after saying goodbye to my parents before they left that morning. I felt a little sad, being at my house by myself, even though it was really my decision. The sky outside was grey, and it was snowing slightly. Thankfully, my mom had left her car keys with me so I wouldn't be stranded at home the whole week they were gone. Leaving me at home hadn't been a hard decision for my parents - they trusted me, and since I was one year away from living on my own anyway they weren't worried about me fending for myself.

I had a nice morning, which consisted of me staying in my pajamas in the living room reading a book I had just started. I was just thinking about finding something for breakfast, when my phone rang.

"Hello?" I said.

I was surprised to find that it was Sasuke calling me. "Sakura?"

"How did you get my number?" I said suspiciously.

"Ino." He said. Of course. Not that I was complaining actually. Now I had an excuse to text him on occasion. You see, I already knew Sasuke's phone number, but I knew that if I had suddenly started trying to contact him before we became friends it would have creeped him out.

"We need to meet up so I can talk to you about your new position on student council." Sasuke said. "Also, Suigetsu got pretty behind on a lot of his work, so we'll need to catch up during winter break. Sorry."

"That's fine," I sighed, "I signed up for this, remember?"

"Meet me in half an hour." Sasuke said, and gave me the name of a coffee shop I used to frequent. "I'll bring the Vice President stuff there and we can start going through it."

I threw on some clothes really quick (the already freezing temperature had dropped so much that night that that I knew I would have to bundle up to stay warm. My hair was still a mess from waking up, so I put it up and stuffed it under a knit cap that I had bought about a month before. I left out a few pieces of hair so that it would frame my face. I used to be self-conscious about my face, especially my forehead. When I was in elementary school, a bunch of girls had teased me about it. I tried everything to hide it, including some hideous bangs that I cut myself in fourth grade which turned out to be a disaster. Eventually, I just had to accept it. It really wasn't a big deal anyway.

Sasuke was already there when I arrived, sitting at a table with a stack of folders that looked like they were filled with loose paper.

"Good lord." I said, when I saw the pile. "What is all this?"

"We're about to find out," said Sasuke grimly.

After ordering coffee and food (I still hadn't eaten anything), we got to work. It was kind of dull, but being with Sasuke was worth it. There were so many forms that Suigetsu was supposed to fill out but had forgotten about, not to mention old handouts, and plans for prom. It took me a while to figure out what all of it meant, and where it needed to go, but Sasuke helped me and it didn't take long until I figured out what I was supposed to do with my position.

It took us two hours to sort through all of the piles, and even then we still didn't know what to do with most of it. "I think we're good for today," Sasuke said. He sounded tired. "We can go through this some more another day. Thanks for coming to help."

"It's fine," I said, "it's not like I have anything to do today anyway."

Naruto, who had shown up for the last fifteen minutes (I guess he had plans with Sasuke after we were done) looked up from where he had been texting Hinata. "You should come hang out with us Sakura!"

"You're parents are out of town anyway, right?" Sasuke said. I was surprised that he remembered.

"Yep," I replied. "They left this morning." I had forgotten that I told him that. I was even more surprised that he remembered something like that.

"Come on!" Naruto said eagerly. "We're going to get ramen!"

"Sure," I said, "that sounds fun."

We ended up going to the same place we had gone when school was still in session - the ramen place that Naruto frequented. Weirdly, the ramen was perfect for the cold weather. Naruto was onto something.

"Is this what you guys do during the holidays?" I joked, even though I knew it was true. The last time, we had spent all our time together during Christmas break. My parents had been gone visiting friends, like now, and Naruto and Sasuke didn't have anyone at home with them, so we even slept over at Sasuke's house sometimes. Or mine. Of course, I didn't expect us to be that close this time around, but at least they had invited me to hang out with them, so that was something.

"For the most part." Sasuke replied. He had been more quiet than usual today, but he was warming up to me again slowly.

"We usually just watch movies at Sasuke's house." Naruto said. "Do you wanna join us then too?"

I looked at Sasuke, who shrugged. "Okay," I said. "It'll be nice to have some company."

"Yay!" Naruto said, through a mouthful of ramen. "Dis'll be greab!" He swallowed. "You can help us pick out the movies!"

We hit the movie rental place (something that I called a novelty after Netflix happened), a small establishment that was close to the ramen restaurant, after lunch. It was there that we collected a stack of movies with genres that ranged from horror to classic to movies that Naruto said were "traditional". Of course, I knew what those movies were and usually watched them with Naruto and Sasuke, but I played along like I was just taking part in this for the first time.

After we had successfully compiled the movies, Sasuke drove us to the grocery store where we stocked up on snacks too. For the first time in a while everything seemed normal. It was like I could have pretended that nothing happened in the first place. Obviously that wasn't the case though.

Once we were at Sasuke's house, we settled into the living room with the food and movies, and Naruto (after hurrying off to the kitchen to fix himself another bowl of ramen) put in the first movie - something scary that had been in theaters our junior year. I sat in the corner of the couch, and - luckily for me - Sasuke sat beside me. Naruto seemed content to sit on the floor with a pile of pillows that he had seemed to have collected from all of the rooms in the house and his ramen.

As it turns out, just hanging out with them turned out to be just as fun as it had been before. Naruto's reactions to the movie had me laughing until I was crying at some points, and Sasuke even joked along with us a bit. It was so strange having my friends back after what seemed so long, that I was kind of afraid of it ending.

After the first movie, Naruto disappeared to call Hinata (who had left that morning with her family to go on vacation), leaving Sasuke and me alone.

I gasped. "I completely forgot!"

"What?" Sasuke said.

"To call Tenten!" I said. "She and Neji went on a date this morning and I wanted to see if it went well."

Sasuke just rolled his eyes.

"What!?" I said defensively. "It's not like they would have gotten together without me!"

"Meddling in people's lives..." Was Sasuke teasing me? "It's like you have a gift for it."

"Of course I do. I'm very talented." I gave him a fake hair flip.

To my surprise, he laughed. "I'm sure."

We talked for a little while more, until Naruto walked back into the room.

"How's Hinata doing?" I asked him.

"She's fine," he grinned, "they just got to the lodge where they're staying. It sounds fancy."

"It probably is, knowing the Hyuga family." I replied. "Maybe they'll take you with them next year." Naruto just laughed it off, but I was pretty sure that would be a possibility if Hinata and Naruto continued dating into college (which I was sure would happen, of course, they were perfect for each other).

We watched two more movies that night, until I decided that it was probably time for me to go back home around one o' clock in the morning. Even though Sasuke's house wasn't too far away, he insisted on driving me back. "It's too dark outside, and cold."

"You'll come back tomorrow, right?" Naruto said, his voice muffled by pillows. At that point, he had managed to bury himself under the small nest he had made on the floor, and had briefly fallen asleep during the last movie.

"If that's okay with you guys." I said.

"It's fine with me." Sasuke said quietly. I knew that meant he was tired too.

Once I had properly bundled up, I said goodbye. On the way home, I couldn't stop smiling. It might have been because I was so tired, but I hadn't expected to be invited to hang out with them again over Christmas break. I knew that Sasuke and I were sort-of friends now, but that didn't change much, I thought. Now, I wasn't sure.

"Do you ever wonder what life is going to be like after high school?" I asked Sasuke. It was Christmas break, and we were at his house. Naruto had gone to see his girlfriend Ami - they had gotten back together after fighting for the past two weeks. I thought that he should have just dumped her for good, since she made him miserable all of the time they were together.

"What do you mean?" He asked. Despite Sasuke's practically nonexistent Christmas spirit, I had insisted that we make hot chocolate and watch the marathon of cheesy Christmas movies playing on TV. We only had a few days until Christmas Eve, and my parents would be back soon.

"Do you think we'll still see each other?" I said. "And our friends? We'll be hundreds of miles away from everyone. Maybe even thousands. Do you ever think about that?" I stirred a snowman-shaped marshmallow that I had put in my hot chocolate, watching it dissolve.

"I don't know," he said, "I know I'm going to see you and Naruto. Definitely."

"And what makes you say that?" I met his eyes. They were serious and dark.

"You're the closest people to me," he said, "closer than my brother, even." I could believe that. Sasuke and Itachi hardly spent any time together, especially after their parents died. It's not that Itachi didn't care about his little brother - because he did - he was just always so busy with running their father's company. I was sure that he wasn't sure how to take care of Sasuke either, with both of them being so emotionless most of the time. It must have been hard.

"I just..." I trailed off. "I always hear about people moving away for college and becoming distant. I'm scared."

"It won't happen," Sasuke promised. "We probably won't see each other as much for a few years, but we'll still see each other on holidays. And keep in touch."

"Okay," I teased, "as long as you don't forget me after all of the admirers you're going to have when you go to college."

He rolled his eyes at that. "You're over-exaggerating things."

"I'm really not," I laughed. Sasuke was always in denial about how popular he was. "It's because you're great."

He just smirked at me.

We stayed like that on the couch into the evening, just talking. Thankfully at the time Kiba and I had been taking a break too (I really should have listened to my own advice about Naruto's relationship when it came to my own) so I didn't have him to tie me down over the winter holidays.

Later on, Itachi would tell Sasuke that he couldn't make it for Christmas, and my family would have him over to celebrate with us (Naruto was at Ami's house, poor guy).

The dreams had been coming more often - they were more memories than anything, bubbling up to the surface - and to my surprise, I wasn't as affected by them. Whenever I woke up, I would have a twinge of sadness of what I had lost, but it was fading.

Of course, the morning after I had hung out with Naruto and Sasuke I basically ambushed Tenten on the phone.

"So?" I pressed. "What happened?"

"Sakura," she complained, "you woke me up."

"No time for sleep," I insisted, "tell me what happened!"

"Fine." Tenten grumbled, and I heard her shifting in bed, probably to sit up. "We went out for coffee, we talked, and then we left."

"I need details!" I said. "What did you talk about?"

"All sorts of stuff," Tenten replied, and then paused. "He said he liked my hair in the buns, but it was nice down too."

"Aww," I said, "how sweet." Really, that was sweet of him. I had no idea Neji would be into the whole Princess Leia hairdo, but as long as they were happy I guess it didn't matter. "What else?"

"Well..." she trailed off, "we talked about what we wanted to do after graduation, and about Yearbook Club and football... and he said he wants to see me again after they get back from vacation." She said the last bit in a small voice, like she couldn't believe it.

Well, of course she should believe it. Tenten was great. And I told her that, after screaming into the phone excitedly for about half a minute. "Tenten, I knew it! I'm so happy for you!"

She just laughed. "Can I go back to sleep now, crazy?"

"Carry on." I said, and then said goodbye. Once we were off the phone, I got out of bed. I was sufficiently awake, and I didn't want to go back to sleep. The memory-dreams were nice sometimes, but Konan often appeared in them (as she did) and I didn't want to relive anything else at the moment.

I went over to Sasuke's house again that afternoon - it seemed like that was when Naruto finally woke up.

"Hey Sakura." He said sleepily. How much did he sleep? "I was just about to make some ramen for lunch. Do you want some?" Seriously, with all the junk food he ate I wondered how he was able to stay in such good shape.

"I just ate," I said, "but thanks."

Sasuke and I did some more work with the stack of papers Suigetsu left. This time we were just looking at what was relevant for the spring semester or not. Unfortunately, it was most of it. I spent most of my afternoon figuring out which parts I wanted to start on first, and how to start on them. Thankfully, Sasuke was there to help me out.

"Bring these to the next student council meeting," he handed me a stack of forms. "It's for prom, and they're going to want to start on that first." He sighed, as if he was tired of hearing about it. Which he probably was. Sasuke had gone to prom our senior year, but not because he wanted to. He went to prom because he felt obligated as Class President.

"Sounds like a plan!" I said brightly. I had already done homecoming, so how hard would prom be? Besides, I knew I could make it way better than it had been the first time around.

After spending time on the papers, I relocated the stack to my car (it was my responsibility now, but Sasuke said I could still ask him if I had any questions), and we spent the rest of the day watching movies and talking. I was happy to be around Sasuke, especially around this time of year. Painfully, I thought that I was about halfway through the semester. I only had until the beginning of June with him. Roughly five more months.

I put that out of my mind though. I was tired of crying about what I couldn't have. Being able to spend time with him was enough.

I spent the rest of the week with them - just hanging out. Sometimes we went back to the ramen place that Naruto liked, and other times we went somewhere else, or just ordered a pizza. We went through at least two stacks of rented movies, but that wasn't all we did. One of my favorite memories from the week I spent with them was two days before my parents came home.

We had just come back from the coffee shop that Sasuke and I liked (we had dragged Naruto there with us because we needed to get out of the house), and it had just started to snow again. It had been snowing on and off all week by then, and I wondered if it would ever stop.

"We need to do something else!" Naruto said. "Like a snowball fight!"

"Are you stupid?" Sasuke said. "That's something we did when we were ten."

"Doesn't make it any less fun." Naruto said, and threw a snowball at me. I had been getting my purse from Sasuke's car, and it had hit me in the back of the head. I could feel the melted snow trickling down my neck.

"Oh it's on." I said.

"Sakura, that was supposed to go to-" But Naruto couldn't complete his sentence, because I had already pelted a snowball at his face. "Hey!" He said.

Sasuke was brought into the fight when Naruto threw one at him that should have hit him, but he dodged it. I had forgotten how fast Sasuke was - it was probably from football or something. It wasn't long until we were running around his yard like we used to when we were ten. Of course, I was the only one who could remember that I had been there too, but that was okay.

Something peculiar happened when I tried to surprise attack what I thought was an unsuspecting Sasuke. Right before I was about to drop a huge snowball on his head (my masterpiece), he turned around and grabbed my arm. "Ow!" I said, because it startled me. I tried to step away, but then I slipped on a patch of ice. Before I knew it, we were on the ground.

I found myself staring up at Sasuke, who was above me. "Be careful next time," he said.

I tried to reply, but he was looking at me in a way that I hadn't seen him look since before the accident. I couldn't explain what it was, but it made me speechless. I had never realized how dark his eyes were. It was like there was something burning in them. Slowly, he placed his hand on my cheek, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His touch made my face burn, but I wouldn't look away.

"What are you doing Sasuke?" Naruto said loudly, breaking us out of whatever trance we had been in.

Sasuke stood up then, and offered me his hand. "She tried to get me and then we fell."

Naruto just gave him a smug look. I wondered what that meant.

That was the most unusual thing that happened between Sasuke and me before Christmas that break, and we didn't talk about it afterwards. The day before my parents returned, I gave both of them presents. It wasn't much, just some homemade hot chocolate and a different DVD of a Christmas movie each.

"I figured I should get you guys something," I said. "It's nothing much. Oh, and the Christmas movies are to be watched over Christmas. Sasuke, I know you don't like them but humor me please."

Sasuke just grumbled. "Thank you, I'm sorry we didn't get you anything."

"It's not a big deal," I said, "It's more of a thank you for practically letting me live here for the past week."

"Thanks Sakura!" Naruto grinned.

"Have a great Christmas!" I said back. "I had a lot of fun."

My parents came back on the twenty-third of December - just enough time to get our last-minute Christmas preparations out of the way. Our family was coming again that year, including my aunt and my grandmother again. That was strange, they hadn't the last time around. It wasn't until later that I realized that Konan had set it up for me so I could see them one last time... just in case. In a way, it was sort of touching.