The night was a harrowing and absent friend to the Konaha nins who sat waiting near the ailing Kage. Both watched out the glass windows of their respective positions, focusing on the clear and almost blinding stars in the otherwise empty sky. Each nin pictured a face as bright as the stars that littered the darkness and, with a pressing comfort, noted that they could feel the chakra of their desired company within grasp.

Sasuke sat unabashed before the Kage's chambers as he leaned into his sword, which held his weight in his hands. He wasn't tired, even after such a pressing eight hours spent pursuing a source to the Kazakage's health. While he found nothing substantial, he knew his presence alone would be a shield around the Suna leader, accompanied by his pink-haired companion. As he sat in front of the room, the effervescent glow that distinguished the Haruno woman from others, a persistent pastel green that was stronger than the color's epithet. He thought of her determination, which was an endearing change to his more primal expectations from his biological interest, and smiled. She was unwilling to move from his side. The thought of what needs she was subduing just to keep her post clenched his heart in a way he was reluctant to admit. Strength, a prevailing trait, she was undoubtedly linked. She would rather sacrifice her comfort to care for the needs of the Kage; was it due to him being her responsibility, or simply because he was the Suna leader? He was permitted to believe the former. She was nothing if not a Hippocratic and upstanding doctor. Admiration radiated through the onyx-haired Uchiha. In the empty hallway, he allowed a smile to grace his thin lips.

Sakura was alert to every simple movement around her. Every breath, color, and shadow in the darkness captured her attention, keeping sleep from creeping into her strong green eyes. As a burdenless distraction, she looked to the scattered white on a black canvas in the Suna night sky. The moon had moved to the other side of the Kage's chambers, casting the room in a faint white glow that only encased the bed holding the ailing leader of the land. He was still, but his breath was only mildly raspy. A slight improvement from earlier events of the day was still a win in her book. She focused on the information of the case to pass the time.

In a few short eight hours of intervention, he was already breathing better; the pinkette was apt to believe their presence made some difference. The assumption persisted the looming suspicions; the Kage must have been poisoned. His food was clear of anything that could harm him; Sasuke had made certain of that. But what was to say they wouldn't try a more direct approach in lieu of a compromised source? It was this pestering recourse that Sakura kept any thoughts of sleep at bay. She couldn't sleep, not when the Kage was most vulnerable. The only thought that kept her awake was the very real blue chakra emanating from outside the door. While it was never decided that Sasuke would also keep watch, a warmth emitted through her veins at the knowledge he sat just outside the door.

The pinkette was not so naive to think the decision was based on her presence but that it was the judicious approach to an assassination suspicion; it still provided comfort. While sleep was evasive, Sasuke's incessant presence covered her in a warm blanket of confidence. Admission of this stalled only in her mind; she felt her own chakra reach out for the dark matter of his, and the connection that always cried out between them to embrace crescendoed. The niggling of it shot through her veins as her heart ached from the close connection. Even with the mission as a priority, her body called for him, and he was so very close. She could even hear the steady breathing behind the oddly thin wood door. Would he be able to hear her if she called out?

"Sasuke?" Her meek voice carried in the stillness.

The Uchiha perked; the voice of the Haruno woman invaded his senses as if it simply belonged there, and his body relaxed in its warmth. Without thought, sheer reflex answered.

"Yeah."

The word was so simple, but the implication was pervasive. Sasuke was there, and he was open to her. Was it only due to the mission? If she allowed the monster of doubt to devour her confidence, she would talk herself out of the aplomb that the solid wood and darkness provided her tonight.

"When you left," She began. Her throat drying as if in search of a river to drink. Her eyes cast to the wooden door that separated them, its presence almost invisible as her vision imagined the blackened cloak of the Uchiha man. "Why did you-" poke me? She imagined how silly that would sound, and as a prevention of embarrassment, she stopped. Her cheeks draped in the sameness of her hair, and she clasped her perspired hands. If expressed indubitably, would he even understand?

"When you left the first time, after you were free…when you left me at the gate…" she wanted to bury her head in her hands and scream away the pernicious nagging of insecurity screaming at her to delegate the leap she had initiated. Would she fall off the cliff with the answer being the one to kill her, or would the fall do the trick? "Why did you touch me…like that?" What did it mean?

She hoped the very sentence expressed its meaning. Would he even understand her confusion? Was the forehead gesture infantilized by the very woman who dared to question, or did it hold a far more heterogeneous meaning? Should the meaning be so obvious as to be a rejection? In the same moment, he'd all but promised her they'd travel together, no flippant nor direct refusal uttered. But had the amorous ambition only been postulated by the Haruno woman, with the Uchiha's absolute degradation clear? Even still, the quibbling of a feeling, an ignition of a thought, a fire of desire sat abreast herself. If he could reject her behind the door, the wood steeling her from the smothering of her flame, self-aggrandized and emphatic, then she could accept that willingly. To sit in the safety behind it would be enough for her and she could tread the path to move on, to live without him or his love. So she implored him in the silence that sat nipping at the hungry flame she'd ignited behind the wooden door.

Sasuke had forgone the cool exterior in his solitude, with the assurance that Sakura was stationed in her spot, married to her duties, which elicited no need for a guard around him. She couldn't see his vulnerability, which even he was so unwilling to expose, but she could hear it. If she didn't watch the desire snake like a vice around his throat or poison his thoughts then he was safe to let it roam.

It was the very thing he refused to hide now as the question lingered and seeped into the thick bark of the door. So, she didn't understand what that meant, huh? How arrogant to think she would. He hadn't spelled out the meaning to her in words, but his heart had transferred so endearingly to her for him. He'd all but said it in words: I'm in love with you, Sakura. While at the time, he'd assured his damaged heart that it was "thank you for always being there," the meaning was far more potent. He had wanted her by his side but was not ready to receive her light, still dancing with his darkness left festering underneath. He didn't want to douse her in shadows, which would dim her. She was too bright, and he wasn't willing to siphon off her light to remove the blackness. So, to tell her without the words, he'd shown her his understanding of love, a concept he'd all but eviscerated from his heart. But, it still welled below when he looked at her, when he touched her, even when she was close, which extended to when they were apart. She kept him going; she was his tether. Yet, she sat behind the surmountable door and asked for an explanation.

But how did he answer without scaring her? Without giving too much away, that would push her away for good? He was so willing to push that last proverbial straw, to teeter over the edge and meet into oblivion. He was also all too willing to live in that darkness alone with no answer, no comfort from her healing hands that had always reached out for him. But was he so willing to drag her to the depths with him? He couldn't say. And the question tempted him to rapture her and corrupt her to his darkness. If he admitted his desire, his need for her in his arms, then she was vulnerable to his sin, and she was far too good for that. But he couldn't lie, even with it tingling at his lips. The truth was far too tenacious. His heart won out in the battle.

Could he say all that and expect reciprocity? Would she let the tenements of his darkness be forecasted in her light to wash it away with her love? Was she so willing to let him in after all he'd done to not only her, but the ones she loved? The very question steeled his lips. She didn't deserve any darkness in her life. He was unsure even as he's atoned, grown, and left the darkness behind. Happiness was not something he believed he'd ever find again, after his family and for so long that had been okay. But every moment, every hour, every day spent away from her felt like he was missing something he'd lost sight of a long time ago: home. She was home.

"It meant," his voice softer than he'd allowed, "you're my family now, Sakura. My home"

She hadn't meant for the gasp to be so audible. However, with her mind sheathed in a feeling of joy, she didn't have any other way of expressing the rush of emotion other than crying, and she was unwilling to let the tears fall. Sasuke said she was home. Home is where the heart lives and where it's happiest. She couldn't resist the temptation to espouse a meaning far beyond comradery to the words. They could only mean one thing, and Sakura knew Sasuke was a man of few words, all of which he picked with great care. He'd meant what he said, and what he said was a declaration of love.

Her tears began to fall slowly, and her body heaved at every stifled cry. She couldn't let herself be overtaken by the revelation. Even with a door between them, Sakura could not canard herself into the falsehood that he couldn't see her breaking down. With his eyes, he could very well be watching every moment, and she was not naive to believe he wouldn't with such a declaration. Even still, she wept.

Sasuke felt sick, almost drowning in a cold sweat that radiated throughout his body. He'd said the words in the only way he could, and she'd understood. Her reaction, the tears making his body ache to hold her, but his cowardice statuing him at his post made his heart swell. She reacted in a way of elation, sheer emotion, and that was enough to calm the crashing waves of doubt. She must still love him like he loved her, and she must have been waiting to hear those words. He felt sickened that he let them be buried so long in his heart. It only proved to himself that he was undeserving of her love, which she'd always been so willing to give him. He'd hurt her again and again. Would he ever stop doing so?

"Sasuke," her voice just above a whisper. "Do you ever…" The words died like a familiar grip on her throat when the face of vulnerability turned. Would now be the best time? She knew if she looked into his two toned eyes, she would never ask this question. Tonight, in the twilight, she could escape the arrest of her insecurity.

"Do you ever think about me, then?" The languid need for assurance was gripping her fragile esteem. She now knew he loved her, he'd said so in his own way, but did that mean he thought about her while he was gone? Did that mean he missed her at all, like she missed him?

The last Uchiha felt like a viper constricted his heart. Did he ever think of her? The simple answer - every single day. Her beauty invaded every thought in some manner; everything he encountered on his road to redemption or self-made punishment reminded him of her, and the pain of that was enough to kill a lesser man but deserving to him for his crimes. Did he think of her? He lived for her.

"Yes." He answered, and while the following whispered on the back of the silence, it still traveled to the hungry ears of the Haruno woman, "Always."

The woman was certain she had drifted to sleep. She had to be dreaming to believe Sasuke would say such things, arguably romantic in implication, and her heart would not allow it. Was she so willing to believe he didn't love her in such a way as to think of her in the interminable way that her aching soul desired? The perforated venerate of herself was not so amenable. Her greedy tongue, which anguished to cry out the name of her desire, lapped at a salty taste that invaded her thirsty mouth. She was crying.

With such a sovereign response to such simple words, but ones easily interpreted so profoundly. He thought about her, always. The simple idea held so much, like a loaded gun. The Uchiha thought of her enough that she meant something other, and while he hadn't expressed the assuaging meaning in direct words of love, it was simply palpable. But only too willing hearts, of which Sakura's was jagged. Every sharp edge fought the implications like an unsheathed sword, and her heart was the prize of the battle. Was she so willing to lay down her weapons and allow the words to enter?

Sasuke sat in the silence. His heart was beating like it was ready to leap from his chest. Had he been too vulnerable? Was the wooden door and the comfort of the night so intrusive to let him speak his feelings? Had he taken such advantages to speak what his logical mind had been so unwilling to relent? Only the night prior, he'd cowardly whispered his musings of love to the drunken ears of his desire. Yes, she had no recollection of his transgression, of his vulnerability; only the moon heard his confession. But wasn't this just emphatic? Didn't this admission mean all the same?

He waited on bated breath for any response. He didn't care if Sakura said she hated him, or that she never thought of him, just that he could hear her voice again like a melody to his empty soul.

"Me too." Her voice was mousy, littered with a crackle of emotion that expounded tenderness. But the response was rot with double meanings: he was also her home and always on her mind.

Both nin sat in the night, eyes watching the twilight hidden behind a glass window and each thought of the red-tented faces behind a wooden door.

The morning flittered into the room like a beam. The brightness hit the shielded eyes of the Kazakage, rousing him from the blackness of a dreamless sleep and into the next morning. His first thought was of gratefulness, the assault of the sun a welcomed crime, and his green eyes drank it in. A deep breath, unencumbered by restriction or battle, roused him to alertness quicker than the beating rays. How was it that there was an absence of pressure or hindrance to his lungs? After a week of the elephantine boulder on his chest, the lightness he had awakened to was rejuvenating. The celebratory musings were swiftly interrupted by the image of a closed-eyed, pink-haired doctor at his side. A smile, which was an absence of draining his small supply of energy, found his lips. He wasn't surprised that she'd passed out after such a long journey to get here.

What was most surprising about the scene, however, was that Gaara could hoist himself from his position without the onslaught of overexertion. While no one would make quick assumption of wellness, it was undoubtedly that some semblance of his former strength had returned to his thin frame. Happily, he sat higher on the headboard and waited for the unconscious woman to return to the conscious land.

Exhaustion was not a new state for the Uchiha. However, as the night progressed, he had become even more determined to keep his post. Sakura had drifted into sleep meer hours later, both partners tranquilized by each other's presence in the peaceful night air. Steadfast, Sasuke remained in the awakened world, though his mind adrift in the ethereal adulation that endowed him. Sakura's face was all he could see, and with that, the realization of his love. Had he said too much last night in the effect of admission, he was unsure but equally uncaring if it was adequately received. He did love Sakura, and while the only unmitigated heart was his own, he refused to ignore the feeling. Now, on the mission, was unsurprising to be the unfolding revelation. Soon, the moon yielded to the sun, its turn to aluminate his constitution.

The unmistakable presence of another filled the stale air; the Kazakage was awake with a noticeably stronger disposition and chakra than before. Sasuke allowed himself a quick reprieve from watching the room from his post. While correlation and causation could not be confirmed, it was unmistakable that even in the short twenty hours Sasuke and Sakura had arrived that something had improved his condition.

Without proof or a definite cause, Sasuke was reluctant to send Garuda back to the Hokage with an update. But, He'd sent the hawk to the perverted leaf leader with an update of their arrival just yesterday. Garuda was due back any minute. Sasuke could inform the leader of his Suna counterpart's improvement with little more to go on, or he could mention his suspicions. If he did the ladder, he'd have to use a special jutsu to ensure any information in the letter would burn without its proper recipients' acceptance. He supposed it was best to give all information found so far to keep him informed enough to be on guard. The Nara's words echoed the very real possibilities, which were even delaying his own nuptials. While Kage's are always on guard, increasing their efforts would be a good idea.

Author's Note:

Hello...so, all I can really say is I'm sorry it's so short! I really wanted to make this one long and push the plot, but I couldn't really find the flow of transitions with this chapter. I felt like it was a bit too heavy-handed with the SasuSaku confession, and I didn't want to take away from it too much. I got a few little things in there as far as plot go, but we got the biggest part out of the way, which is the confession! Yay! I hope you guys enjoyed it. Don't worry, there will still be awkward musings of doubt by these two, but soon enough we'll get into everything!

As always, thank you for reading,

- Monsta~