Summary: something's wrong with Sakura, and Sasuke decides to do something before it's too late.

Age: both are around seventeen, early eighteen. Sasuke's on probation, so this is after he spent a bit in jail and before he went on his redemption journey.

Category: SasuSaku, mental health

Note: it's been a million years since I've updated this, so I decided to make this in honor of World Mental Health Day 2019, (AKA our beautiful baby Naruto's birthday, October 10th). This one shot is a whopping 11,520 words long, but is actually really easy to read if you have the time.

The subject really speaks to me because I have a lot of friends with depression and/or anxiety. I couldn't stop thinking, Sasuke and Naruto had it so bad that we overlook what Sakura must feel sometimes. So I made this one shot as a speculation of what Sakura must feel, and what Sasuke does about it.

For the plot, we'll pretend Sasuke got that prosthetic arm Tsunade offered him earlier on, and that Sasuke procrastinated leaving the village a little.

Also! Since it was recently the birthday of the beautiful sunshine boy Naruto, a oneshot shall be up soon for him.

Thanks for reading, and I literally love you all so much.

For those of you who were curious about the Latin title, in English that can be literally translated to: (they are) not alone anymore. This is a common theme in this one shot if you pay close attention to every small detail.
(non: not; solus [male/plural]/ solum [plural]: alone; ultra: anymore)

- | -

Sasuke sighed in annoyance but broke the chopsticks in two as Naruto dug in noisily beside him. Shikamaru, on Naruto's other side, let out a matching sigh. Sasuke smirked slightly because at least one person understood the annoyance eating food with the blonde was. He was messy, and loud. But there was never an awkward silence around Naruto, so Sasuke supposed it was okay.

They were waiting for another guest, to discuss a mission that Kakashi- or, Lord Hokage now- was sending them on in a week's time, but the fourth member was missing. Shikamaru was captain on this mission, but he was laid back and open to ideas, so Sasuke wasn't worried about his compatibility with the spiky-haired genius. They'd worked well together before, they'd do it again.

Sasuke looked at the ramen before him and wondered how Naruto always hassled them into getting ramen. He remembered how sick his twelve-year-old self had been of ramen, and now understood why. But after a three-year absence, Sasuke was content to each as much Ichiraku as possible. Soon he would be sick of it, yes, but he preferred to be sick of it than to not be able to eat it At all due to an extended training session with a perverted snake sannin.

He ate a bit and tensed when he saw something enter the booth out of the corner of his eyes. He turned to face them and saw it was Sakura. She looked out of breath, and her skin was pale, but she gave them all a brilliant smile and sat in the empty seat between Naruto and Sasuke.

"Hey! Sorry I'm late- got caught up with work. I'm here now! Did I miss anything?" She asked, leaning behind Naruto to look at their lazy captain.

"Hi, Sakura-chan!" Naruto crowed, even though Sakura was beside him. He reached over and gave her a one-armed hug.

Shikamaru shook his head in response to her question. "Nah, we were just starting to eat. Naruto ordered you something already, just sit and let's chill for a bit. I know you haven't been able to do much of that lately." He instructed the girl, who laughed.

"Hai, hai!" Sasuke's face adopted a questioning look, and Sakura saw it when she turned around. "Oh, I've been working some extra shifts at the hospital. There's a nasty case of the flu going around."

It figured, since the month of fall had arrived.

Sasuke shook his head. "You should work less."

Naruto nodded in agreement, finally taking his face out of his bowl. "Yeah, Sakura-chan! I hardly ever see you anymore!"

"Sorry, Naruto," she smiled affectionately at the blonde in a way that made Sasuke's heart beat just a little harder. She was still incredibly beautiful, even though she looked extremely tired and a little thin. Now that he thought about it... she looked almost... sick. His heart hammered more with concern.

"Anyway," she said, looking down at her food. Sasuke watched her physically look ill at the sight of the ramen. Perhaps she was sick of it too. After all, she hadn't taken a three year leave from the village, therefore probably ate a lot of ramen. "So, what are we going to do?"

Sasuke watched her as Shikamaru and Naruto started talking over each other, Naruto trying to give her the details, then getting things wrong and Shikamaru had to break in and fix it.

She interacted flawlessly with them as if nothing was wrong. She smiled and laughed, looking happy and charming as usual. But Sasuke's curiosity had been peaked, and now he was paying attention. Sakura ate maybe two bites of her ramen. She smiled at Sasuke multiple times, as usual. Sasuke just watched her, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Sakura's hands were shaking a little bit. Sasuke thought it might've been from chakra exhaustion, since she'd just come from the hospital, or just general exhaustion. She worked too much, and Sasuke was beginning to dislike that.

While he usually never interacted with others, he interacted even less now. Shikamaru and Naruto didn't appear to notice, and neither did Sakura, although all three made attempts to include him in the conversation. He occasionally dropped a 'hn' or a 'tch' here or there.

When Naruto looked away, her smile dropped slightly, Sasuke noticed. She still kept it on her mouth, but she stopped smiling as much near the end of the conversation. It almost seemed to be faked.

Sasuke hadn't seen her in a long time. Almost a month now, they hadn't interacted. He'd been busy taking tests with Naruto- they'd both had to take the Chunin exams, after all. They took it together, passed it together, before moving up the Jonin exams that were held around a month after the Chunin ones (not that the newly instated Chunin were ready to become Jonin- most of them, anyway). Since they were Jonin now, they were both busy on missions with Kakashi and Sai. Team Seven still accepted missions together, and Sakura had gone on all of them with the team until a month ago. Sakura was training to take over Tsunade as the head medic, and was working really hard to do so. Sasuke had no real reason to see her outside of missions or team settings- not like Naruto had. He saw her occasionally on the streets.

She would stop and stare at him, and give him the most pure, welcoming smile, and Sasuke would sort of smirk back, before the two of them turned and walked away from each other without talking at all.

They were friendly towards each other- Sasuke would treat her better than he treated practically everyone (not that she knew that)- but they didn't hang out.

Now, Sakura had finally gotten a break to go on a mission with him and Naruto, but really, she didn't get a break. She overworked herself still. Sasuke frowned.

She stood up, eventually, and kissed Naruto's hair while paying for her meal. He was like her brother after all. She punched Shikamaru in the shoulder, and turned to Sasuke, giving him the same pure smile.

He gave her a full smirk, to her satisfaction, and she bid them all goodbye.

It was only after she was far down the street that Sasuke turned on his Sharingan. As he suspected, Sakura had been weaving genjutsu while they were all eating- almost effortlessly, she gave everyone the impression that she'd been eating, but when Sasuke removed it, the three of them frowned in concern at the full bowl of ramen that sat in Sakura's part of the table.

"You noticed too, then?" Shikamaru asked, his voice low and unreadable. Sasuke looked at his temporary taichou and read the concern in his eyes.

"Notice what?!" Naruto demanded, before holding still at the full forfe of his realization. "Sakura-chan was tricking us into thinking she ate!"

"She took maybe one bite of her food." Shikamaru agreed. "It was a seamless genjutsu, too. She obviously either forgot or wasn't worried about the fact that there was an Uchiha with her at the time."

Sasuke snorted, before running his hand through his hair, and letting his shoulders slump with it. "The genjutsu was practiced. Effortless. Almost subconscious release. She's done this before."

Shikamaru bit his lip, worrying at it nervously.

Naruto frowned more. "Yeah, now that I think about it, didn't Sakura-chan seem a bit skinny to you?" Then his eyes widened at what he implied, and thanked his lucky stars Sakura was nowhere in the vicinity. "Erm... she's always skinny. But there was something different about it this time..."

"Yeah." Shikamaru agreed quietly.

Something echoed through all three of their heads at the same time. Is something wrong with Sakura?

- | -

Sasuke learned the answer to that question two days later. He was walking down the streets with his hands in his pockets, when he noticed Sakura was carrying six bags of groceries- three bags balanced on either arm. Sasuke frowned and appeared at her side in an instant. The bustling civilians didn't appear to notice as Sasuke's appearance stopped Sakura in her tracks. She flashed him a brilliant, sheepish smile.

"Sasuke-kun, hi!" She waved as well as she could with the bags. She struggled to balance it all.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her, before hooking his fingers under the handles of three bags and pulling them gently off her arm for himself. Dinner with Naruto, Sai and Yamato could be skipped, he reasoned as he started walking beside Sakura.

"Oh..." Sakura watched, dazed, as Sasuke voluntarily helped her out. She was pleased, to say the least. "Thank you, Sasuke-kun." He didn't reply, but she never expected one. She'd gotten remarkably good at reading him over the years. "It's so funny that I ran into you," Sakura mused as they walked. "I was just at the Hokage Tower talking with Kakashi about the mission we have tomorrow. He wanted to pull me off it- can you believe it?!" Sakura looked like she wanted to vent her frustration, so Sasuke let her, listening to every word she said closely. "It's almost like he's worried about me- his excuses were pathetic."

Ah, so Kakashi noticed it too. Sasuke thought to himself, frown deepening. Something must be going on if Kakashi's stepping in.

"Of course, he changed his mind when I almost castrated him, but it still wasn't fun. I'm worried Shikamaru thinks I'm gonna be a liability to this mission somehow..." she murmured to Sasuke. She'd always been incredibly honest to Sasuke. Not for his sake, really. But because he was really easy to talk to, so he usually got all of her honest opinions. "Or maybe you talked with him." Sakura looked at Sasuke, who had looped the handles of the bags up his left arm and walked with the three bags and his hands stuffed in his pockets. He opened his eyes and frowned at her.

"Wasn't me." Sasuke replied a little defensively. How could she think that? Sasuke had sorely missed going on missions with Sakura. He wouldn't jeopardize that unless he was absolutely certain she was unwell.

"Okay." Sakura shrugged and turned back to the road ahead of her. "Anyway, that's that. I'm just hoping he doesn't try again, you know? The puppy dog eyes work on him once, but it rarely works twice in a row." She admitted, which caused Sasuke to let out an amused chuckle. She was admitting that she used her position of Kakashi's favorite student to get information or take advantage of him. Sakura looked at him in awe.

He raised a brow in a silent question.

"Sorry, just... your laugh is really pretty." Sakura complimented, a smile on her face.

Sasuke's ears were burning a bit as he looked down, right hand escaping his pocket to stabilize one of the bags on his left arm. Sakura threw her pretty head back and laughed, the melodious sound making Sasuke want to freeze in place and listen to it forever. He didn't, though, and proceeded to walk ahead of her.

"Hey, Sasuke-kun! Wait up, I'm sorry!" Sakura giggled louder.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the trees ahead of him, and pulled to a stop in front of where he knew Sakura's apartment was.

"Wow, nice. Naruto told you where my apartment is?" Sakura asked.

Of course, Sasuke probably couldn't say that he'd followed her home from work one day without sounding creepy. He'd done so because he'd seen a shady character slinking around Sakura during her lunch break, and he'd gotten... concerned.

"Aa." He allowed instead. Hopefully Sakura wouldn't ask the blonde about it. Not that Sasuke couldn't pretend Naruto forgot it- his memory was horrible. Or he could say Naruto was roaring drunk at the time. That would work too.

Sakura opened the door and invited Sasuke inside. He bowed formally to her the way his mother taught him - as all manners were - and removed his shoes. He placed them neatly by the door. Sakura strode inside and kicked hers off flippantly, striding down the hall and into the kitchen. Sasuke's eye twitched, and he stooped with the bags to pick up her shoes and put them neatly beside his. She could thank him later, when she didn't trip on them and fall like she would've. Sakura was an enigma- a walking contradiction in every way. A force of immense grace within the ninja arts, and a clumsy girl outside of set limits.

Sasuke couldn't admit it, but that was part of what made her so endearing to him. For him, the discipline was ingrained so far, it would seem disrespectful to his mother -who had taught him said customs- to not use them. But Sakura somehow managed to be a destructive hurricane and a dainty breeze at the same time and not clash. It was like a subconscious switch that she flipped, and her personality changed with it.

Sasuke looked around and saw with concern that it was strangely devoid of the particularly Sakura energy that always seemed to follow her around. It looked barely lived in. Freakishly clean, a thin layer of dust on top of things. The girly accessories and feminine looking couch suggested that it was owned by a girl, but no ridiculously bright wall colors or crazy decorating. It reminded Sasuke of his own house.

She gave Sasuke another sheepish smile as she noticed his looks. "The hospital's where I spend most of my time now. I occasionally catch a few z's there, when possible."

Sasuke tried not to show how disconcerted that made him.

Sakura made them both tea. She put the groceries away and chattered aimlessly to Sasuke about her life (and he listened to every word) as she waited for the teapot to sing. Sasuke watched her- she flipped to the effortless grace again. Whisking around the room like that while she was still talking with the melodic voice reminded him of a fairy. She finished putting the groceries away and started on the dry dishes by the sink. Then the pot went off and startled her, and she dropped the plate in her hands in the sink. There was that familiar clumsiness. Sasuke would've laughed if he couldn't tell immediately that something was wrong.

It clattered into the sink and broke into several pieces. Sakura looked down at it like she hadn't seen anything so interesting before. Sasuke walked over there briskly, and looked into the sink. The white glass had droplets of something red sprinkled on it. Sasuke looked up carefully to the pink haired girl beside him. She seemed to be in shock. There were two diagonal cuts on both hands, each one ripping a little bit more of her hand. Her blood was dropping faster now. She was frozen, staring at her hands. Sasuke took her wrists forcefully, and turned on the tap. The water flowed, rinsing the blood away from her hands and down the sink so Sasuke could see the cuts better. He grabbed a rag that was nearby with one hand, holding her thin wrists together with another. Dabbing the rag gently at first to clean off the still swelling blood, he pressed it tightly around them and wrapped it, leading Sakura to a chair. Sasuke looked around her house for a first aid kit, and found it right above her bookshelf. As he suspected, it hadn't been used. He knew Sakura could easily take care of herself, but judging by the way she was staring blankly at her hands, she wouldn't be healing herself anytime soon.

He cleaned Sakura's hands and bandaged them, then left the silent Sakura sitting at a table staring off into space.

Sasuke went to the sink and carefully cleaned up the broken plate mess, before rinsing out what was left of the blood. He frowned as he watched it go down the drain.

Once he was done with that, Sasuke poured tea for both of them.

Sakura only seemed to wake up from the daze she was in when she heard the sound of a cup being set onto her table. Her expressive eyes widened in horror as she beheld Sasuke, who was leaning against the counter, sipping his own tea and looking at her.

"Oh, Sasuke, I'm so sorry! I have no idea what came over me!" She exclaimed, snapping a hand to her mouth. She hastily stood, preparing to clean the sink, but Sasuke was there in an instant. He forcefully grabbed her arm and shoved her back into her seat. Sakura wasn't fazed, because Sasuke often used force to convey his opinions since he didn't often speak of them, but was still confused.

"I got it." He told her quietly, lowering himself into the seat opposite her. He set his cup down before him on the kitchen table and ignored his mother's strict 'no-elbows-on-the-table' rule in favor of using the back of his hands as a rest for his chin. His old brooding pose from the Academy, Sakura recognized. "What happened?" He asked. He didn't say 'What happened to you,' or, 'What's wrong with you,' because he of all people would know that it could not be something that happened to her, but to someone else.

"Um..." Sakura looked nervous about talking, ducking her head to look at her lap. Sasuke didn't look away. He burned holes into her forehead and hair with his eyes, as if expecting Sakura's head to straighten and her to look him in the eyes. She complied, but didn't feel comfortable with it.

"What happened?" He repeated, softer this time. Sakura frowned, running an anguished hand through her pink hair.

"Nothing, Sasuke." She said, you know, like a liar.

Sasuke scowled at the answer. "Don't bullshit me, Sakura, tell me what happened."

Sasuke wasn't giving her a choice. While the Uchiha respected her privacy, he had a right to know if his teammate- no, his friend- was going to freeze up randomly like this and get herself killed. He wanted to know what was wrong, and what he could do to help.

"Sasuke, nothing is wrong. It's just something that happens sometimes. It's fine." She said stubbornly. A little bit of that familiar, enticing sparkle returned to her elegant green eyes. Sasuke resisted the urge to smirk. How he'd missed this.

"Sakura, that was not nothing." He chided sternly, pointing at her hands. "You didn't even realize you were bleeding until a minute ago."

"I did so!" She argued defensively. "I just wasn't worried about that. You know I can heal myself easier than anyone."

"Not when you're zoning out, you can't." Sasuke retorted smugly, not subtly flaunting that he might've just saved her oblivious life. "You'd have bled out without me."

"Ever so humble." Sakura rolled her eyes, resting her elbows on the table and putting her face in her hands. She let out a muffled scream into her hands that would've scared Sasuke if he wasn't sure that was just her annoyed scream.

She lifted her face from her hands, giving Sasuke a satisfactorily pissed off look. She finally threw up her hands and growled. "Fine, Sasuke. If you want to know so bad, I got a girl who attempted suicide two days ago. She'd slit both her wrists and bled out in the bathtub. They brought her to me to see if I could save her, and..." Sakura's voice disappeared, and her eyes grew more horrified, as if she was delving into the memory. "She was beautiful. Her name was Juuzou." She told Sasuke numbly. "She had died alone." She informed him, her eyes filling with tears. She dropped her face into her hands. "And I can't help but think... you and Naruto... you were alone. What would've happened if Naruto didn't have his dream... or you didn't have your revenge?" Her shoulders were shaking now, and tears spilled freely down her face. "And earlier I thought... 'this could've been Sasuke', and had to come home early from work..." she didn't say specifically what had happened to make them send her home, but Sasuke had a good idea.

Sasuke wouldn't lie to her and say that he hadn't considered suicide. He definitely had when he was younger. Multiple times. When it was really bad, at least twice a day. Usually the idea of killing Itachi was all that kept him going. That had stopped almost entirely when he landed on a genin team with the stupidest blonde, most annoying pink haired girl, and laziest sensei possible.

Sasuke thought, now, that maybe that was Itachi's plan. He knew Sasuke would be devastated. He gave Sasuke something to live for- revenge- until he found his own happiness. Itachi's death was the final domino. He had bought him time until Sasuke had grown up enough and the pain had dulled a bit. Now, Sasuke was free to find happiness. And he had.

But before that, he'd taken up the thought again after he killed Itachi. It only became a more pressing urge when the truth about his brother came out. But then, Obito manipulated him into staying alive to destroy Konoha.

He walked around the table, and knelt beside Sakura's chair. She removed her face from her hands, and met his eyes. Sasuke gave her a real, genuine smile for the first time in a long time. Tears leaked faster. He took Sakura's bandaged hand, and unraveled the bandage. There were still little trickles of blood slipping out of the wound, and he swabbed the blood onto his index finger.

He rolled the blood onto his palm, pensively, before he stood and got a knife out of Sakura's drawer. She watched in awe as he walked back to her, cut into his other palm, and squeezed his blood onto her uncovered, cut open palm. Sasuke grabbed that hand and squeezed it, allowing their blood to mix. There was something sacred about the blood bond Sasuke was making that had Sakura feeling that he was serious about this. Whatever this was.

"Sakura," Sasuke told her quietly, watching as she watched their blood mingle with interest. "We're tied together now. I'll be able to feel you, you'll be able to feel me. If anything happens to me, you'll know, and vice versa." He stated with utmost conviction. "So you can stop worrying. I'm not leaving any time soon."

He stood up, and grabbed the same bloody rag he'd used to mop up Sakura's blood, and cleaned the two of them off. He rebandaged Sakura's arm, and Sakura hastily healed his own.

"Ano," Sakura's voice was small and tired, but a bit relieved. Sasuke turned his face from his tea to his pink haired teammate. "How do you know that we'll be able to tell if something happens to the other?" She asked him.

"Because we're connected," Sasuke shrugged, before picking up his tea and taking another sip as if none of that had happened.

Sakura blushed, looking down. But being the smart, science driven girl she was that needed a proven fact to believe something, she still looked unconvinced. But that had made her feel a bit better. She supposed she could attempt to blindly believe as Sasuke did.

So she nodded and put her hands on her hips, looking outside the window. "Goodness, it's almost nighttime." She noticed. Sasuke's eyes widened, and he walked to the window to look out at the setting sun as well. "Oh well," Sakura shrugged, turning to her teammate. "Want to eat dinner here?" She asked, turning his attention back to her. He shrugged, before pondering the question and nodding some more.

- | -

Sasuke settled down against a tree with a sigh, running a hand through his hair in relief. They'd been moving all day, and now it was time to sleep

Sakura and him hadn't spoken much all day, although they exchanged soft smiles - or a smirk in Sasuke's case, because there were only so many smiles to go around. Still, his heart calmed when he saw Sakura eating a protein bar earlier that morning, although he hadn't really seen her eat anything else.

Sakura was starting the fire, her sleeping bag nestled in between Naruto and Sasuke's, because they'd kill each other if they were anywhere near each other. Shikamaru rested opposite Sakura, so they surrounded the fire like a diamond. Sasuke watched her side profile as she worried her bottom lip, the firelight dancing on her face.

She curled up into a ball, and rested her elbows on her knees, burying her face into her arms. Sasuke watched her, leaning with his back to his tree, and frowned, turning his attention to the fire. Now that he knew what had been wrong with her, he wondered what happened now. She didn't look much better than she was yesterday, although she smiled more tenderly at Sasuke now.

Shikamaru and Naruto bickered over Naruto bringing microwaveable ramen. Shikamaru handed him something easy to make over the fire. Sasuke couldn't tell what it was from the distance but Naruto looked grossed out by it. Though he usually shied away from anything healthy.

Shikamaru offered Sakura some of it, and she politely refused, thanking him for his offer, with a smile on her face.

Sasuke frowned and tossed an apple at her. He didn't eat too much, and understood that sometimes a person can just not have an appetite, but this was ridiculous. If Sasuke's suspicion was correct, the last thing Sakura ate that day was a protein bar in the morning. He tried to shove down the obvious concern he felt for his teammate, disguising it as 'not wanting her to be weak on a mission', but he knew what it was. He was scared for her.

She wasn't okay. She'd been doing a really, really good job at acting like it, but for some odd reason, Sasuke saw through it.

Sasuke zoned back in when he saw Sakura catch the apple out of the air before it hit her in the head without even turning to look at him. She held it in front of her face and momentarily wrinkled her nose at it, even though Sasuke knew for sure that she loved apples.

Sakura turned her head and smiled at him. "Do you want me to eat this, or were you just looking for a punch in the face?" She queried, sounding far too amused to actually punch him.

Sasuke leaned back on his tree and smirked, shrugging his shoulders. "Surprise me."

Sakura chuckled dangerously, somehow spinning the apple on one finger like Sasuke had occasionally seen Kakashi do with a ball when he was bored. "Oh yeah, you're going down when I'm not exhausted." She told him, taking a bite out of the apple. Sasuke's eyes glinted competitively, and Sakura's smile turned positively malicious, before she frowned. "You're not going to eat?" She asked him.

"Probably not." He confessed. He truly didn't expect himself to eat too much until tomorrow. There was a town there, where they could all get breakfast, so it wasn't like he'd starve. Besides, if he did get hungry, he could always go find something for himself. Maybe the only pro of going with Orochimaru all those years ago was that it taught him how to fend for himself in the wild. Survival skills were basics in his book. It wasn't like he lacked the means of procuring food. He was blessed in the money area. He'd had breakfast and a late lunch, and simply had no appetite at the moment. He also knew that Sakura had gone grocery shopping, yet brought only protein bars for herself.

Sakura, also, wasn't near financially in trouble either. Her pay from the war was a reasonably high amount- given that she'd helped save the damn world and then some- and her pay was good as the new head medic of Konoha. She had a generous savings account for money she didn't use, and still had enough to donate to charities every month. Sakura wasn't one to forget things, either. She was practical, and was always prepared. Yet she'd packed only protein bars, which suggested that was all she planned on eating, which Sasuke would not stand for.

"I took your apple?" Sakura's frown deepened, revealing worry lines on her forehead. Sasuke resisted the urge to reach over and smooth them, because why is the young woman so worried all the time? "That won't do." She murmured to herself, throwing the bitten apple back to Sasuke.

Sasuke caught it, raising his eyebrows.

"You're not a germaphobe, are you?" Sakura teased, her green eyes sparkling.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and took a bite out if the apple directly on Sakura's bite. Which was a direct reaction to her taunt and a real tragedy, because Sasuke preferred the skin of the apple to the apple itself. He tossed it back to her with a cocked eyebrow, a dare in his expression.

The sparkle was only more obvious as her eyes widened. She caught it and bit it, right over Sasuke's, and threw it back. Sasuke caught it and watched her as she stood up and moved further away from him, still watching him with uncannily hawk-like eyes. So Sasuke bit into the apple again, and threw it at her, purposely throwing it above her head. Imagine his surprise when instead of the apple clonking Naruto in the head, she leaped back with amazing speed, reached a hand back and caught it easily. She smirked at him in challenge, took a bite of it, then threw the apple several feet to the left of him.

Oh, no, you don't.

Naruto and Shikamaru had stopped their conversation, watching the two of them like they were mad. Sasuke crouched, then rolled, pushing chakra into his feet to make him faster. He timed it and measured it right, coming up into a crouch right below the apple. He caught it with his left hand, then took a bite out of it.

He launched it high over her head. Sakura's eyes watched the apple's flight for a few seconds, calculating, before she ran after it, up a tree, backflipped off of it, and landed on her feet with the apple in her hand. Now it was her turn to take a bite of it. Sasuke's eyes zeroed in on her hands for a few seconds, seeing that they were shaking pretty violently. That hadn't affected her catching or throwing of the apple, so he assumed it was adrenaline.

She threw it full force at a tree several paces to Sasuke's right, over Shikamaru's head. Sasuke shunshinned by Shikamaru to freak him out, then leaped over the black haired boy's head, his abdomen barely touching the man's ponytail. He grabbed the apple, tucked, and rolled into a crouching position.

"Hey! No fair! That's cheating, 'ttebayo!" Naruto pointed his finger accusingly at Sasuke.

Sasuke shrugged, standing up. He hadn't let the apple touch anything but his hand, but still blew on it anyway, before he turned back to his friends. "Sakura and I never specified on any rules."

Sakura groaned, and stomped her foot (which shook the earth underneath it) but conceded. "He's right, we didn't make any rules."

Sasuke smirked at Naruto. Shikamaru, who was quiet up to this point, rubbed his face thoughtfully. "What's the unspoken rule? Whoever gets the most bites wins?"

Sakura and Naruto joined Sasuke in standing around Shikamaru's sleeping bag. "That wouldn't be too accurate, depending on the apple. We have no way of knowing how many bites the apple is worth, and the size of the bite definitely takes away from that. If it's an even amount of bites, we'd tie. If it's odd, Sakura would most likely get the last bite because she started first. That doesn't mean that I can't decide to take a bigger bite and end the game, but that wouldn't be as fun. Sakura would consider it cheating, which would take away all the joy in winning." Sakura stuck her tongue out at Sasuke childishly. "And counting sucks."

"So the unspoken rule of this game is that whoever drops it loses?" Naruto asked, catching on surprisingly quickly.

"I'm not planning on dropping it." Sasuke said, a subtle challenge in his tone. "Unless she is, which would end our game early."

"Of course not!" Sakura looked affronted, crossing her arms over her chest. "What're you trying to say, mister?!"

"Then the game ends when the apple ends." Sasuke told her, ignoring the patronizing question. That was probably the most he'd talked in a while, and both Naruto and Shikamaru noticed it.

"Oi! Oi, teme! Sakura-chan! Can I play too?!" Naruto asked animatedly. Sakura winced at him, and Sasuke shook his head firmly.

"Of course not." Sasuke deadpanned. "The game's already started, it would mess everything up to add another player." Besides... anywhere Naruto's mouth is, I'd rather avoid. And have Sakura avoid.

"But you just said that the game goes until someone drops it, so it-"

"Doesn't matter." Shikamaru finished pointedly for the blonde, who whirled to look at his friend, betrayed. "Sasuke and Sakura started the game, it's a matter of pride that they finish it." He pointed out. "Besides wouldn't it be more fun to watch?"

Naruto pouted, but sat down next to Shikamaru. "Fine! Get going already." He muttered moodily to Sasuke and Sakura.

Sakura smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. "Sorry, Naruto, maybe next time."

"I'll be holding you to that." Naruto warned, a shit eating grin on his face.

No, you really won't be. Sasuke thought.

They started up the competition again, Sasuke using the basic teleportation jutsu- Shunshin, but not Amenotejikara- to get to the apple, and Sakura replied to this by throwing it extra hard just to make it hard for him to fetch. They went on like this until Naruto and Shikamaru placed bets on who would be winning. They gave unhelpful, but amusing commentary.

"You think he's gonna make that jump?"

"Nah, he'll fall face first."

"Oh, look at that. He made it."

"Barely. Almost tripped. Look at Sakura-chan! She's like an acrobat!"

"Yeah, she's good at this. Too bad the apple's running out."

The apple did run out, eventually leaving only the rind. Sasuke sighed, throwing it to Sakura. His hands were sticky, but he didn't care, because he hadn't lost. Sakura, ever the sentimental one, buried the apple carcass in between where she and Sasuke slept.

The game ended in a tie, but Shikamaru promised to think up a tiebreaker for them. Both were determined not to lose, so Sasuke didn't know how that was going to work out, but he was happy he'd gotten Sakura to eat.

- | -

On their way back from the mission, they stayed in a hotel. They'd decided to split the four of them into twos for the hotel rooms. Naruto and Sasuke simply could not be trusted to room together, given that they would destroy each other and the hotel in less than an hour spent alone. They were very much friends and brothers, but typically, they couldn't spend more than a few hours together without trying to kill each other.

For everyone's safety, Sakura and Shikamaru decided they would be split up.

Sakura, personally, didn't care. She wished she'd been able to room with Shikamaru, because she had wanted to get his opinion on a strange case of the measles in the village they were staying in, but supposed she could ask him about it at another time. Naruto snored, and Sakura was a light sleeper, but she didn't really care, because she wanted to hear about Naruto's progress with the beautiful Hyuuga heiress, Hinata, and knew that Naruto wouldn't be comfortable talking about it around other people. She was good with rooming with Sasuke, too.

She still loved him, of course, but it was nowhere near as obsessive as it used to be. Sakura had mellowed out, and figured out ways that she could tone it down a bit. Rethinking how she used to be, she decided she'd been ridiculously annoying, and had changed that.

She and Sasuke had gotten along the majority of the time, in their genin days, until her irritating-ness became too much for him (not that she could blame him). Even now, they got along pretty well when he wasn't being an ass and she wasn't in a bad mood. They got along even better, now. So she figured that if she got stuck with Sasuke, it would be okay.

The rooms were right next to each other, so the four of them stopped between them to make a decision. Sakura would get the room on the left, Shikamaru the room on the right. She and Shikamaru did rock paper scissors for Naruto, and she lost, so she was stuck with Sasuke.

"Fine!" Sakura huffed indignantly as Shikamaru smirked. "Me 'n Sasuke are gonna have so much fun. We're gonna paint our nails, talk about girls, and make popcorn! You two are so lame!"

Sasuke snorted from behind her. He was leaning against the wall, the pompous asshole, looking all smug with his crossed arms and sexy smirk. "Like hell," he enunciated clearly, so she could understand what he was saying, since she clearly lacked basic common sense.

Sakura threw up her hands in irritation. "You're all a bunch of killjoys! Just for that, tonight I'll be sneaking out, getting myself crazy drunk, then making the three of you hold my hair back as I puke my guts out."

"Oh no," Shikamaru laughed cynically. "You know how I get around vomit- I'll hurl myself."

Sakura snorted, remembering a particularly hectic mission the two of them had been on in the Land of Waves when they were Chunin. "Remember that old prank we pulled to get that old geezer talking in Ta no Kuni?" She laughed, making Shikamaru turn green at the memories.

Naruto and Sasuke exchanged matching confused looks, which only made Sakura laugh harder. When she righted herself, she put a stern look on her face. "You had to be there," she said, false sweetness in her tone. Then her face turned red and her and Shikamaru burst into mad laughter at her morbid joke. Because Sasuke and Naruto hadn't been there. They'd both left her.

Sasuke thought that maybe Sakura still hadn't forgiven them completely for abandoning her yet. He decided that he and Naruto owed her for the rest of their lives.

She turned and stuck her tongue out at him, and he returned it briefly, before smirking and hoisted his backpack on one shoulder. He opened the door and let them both inside, before shutting it behind her. As far as rooms went, it was pretty nice. Luckily, Kakashi had been merciful, and sent them more funds for that mission, so they got two of the nicer suites.

"Cool!" Sakura huffed, running forward and dropping her backpack on the bed that was closest to the window. "I can see the sea really clearly from here!" She told Sasuke, who had dropped his own backpack on his bed and was wandering the room.

"Good for you," he said distractedly, looking at that interesting art on the walls with interest. "This is an intriguing choice of shading." He muttered, mostly to himself. His eyesight was sharper than most people's, so he was easily able to see the contrast in values used in the painting. He rarely ever talked to himself, but that slipped out. He thought it was low enough to be ignored, but given how Sakura turned at the sound of his voice, he supposed that was too good to be true.

"Nerd," Sakura called from the windows, pushing them open.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at the childish taunt. "Says the one who gets excited about nerves firing and sending signals to parts of the human body."

"Hey!" Sakura pouted, turning to him from halfway outside the window. "That's low!"

"You started it." Sasuke said, before collapsing onto the bed, sighing loudly. "'M really tired," he murmured, eyes drooping.

"Sleep, then," Sakura intoned, coming back inside the window and shutting it so the outside noise wouldn't bother Sasuke. She grabbed her backpack and headed towards the bathroom. "I'm gonna take a shower, I'll take a nap when I'm done." She told the already gone man.

He nodded absently, his eyes already closed. "Whatever," he murmured, turning on his side.

Sakura looked at him sympathetically for a few moments, before walking into the bathroom and getting ready for a shower. He'd stayed up late doing his watch, then had to run for hours all of that morning and the day before that. He would be exhausted.

Sakura, personally, felt none of that. She was suffering from a particularly bad bout of temporary insomnia. Her promotion had meant a million times more work for her to do, and with a hospital to run, people to heal, international medical relations to maintain, paperwork to do, and an accident prone Hokage to take care of, Sakura had been wrestling with a particularly bad month of anxiety, which lead to sleeplessness. She thought she'd level out a little once she got used to the extra responsibility, but it hadn't happened so far. It probably would in the future, so Sakura was just waiting. As much as she wanted to, she didn't think she'd be able to sleep if she tried when she was finished taking a shower.

She hoped Sasuke wouldn't ask her about it, because she didn't know how to honestly explain without sounding like a workaholic. Which, she supposed she was. But she had things to do, and people to take care of, so rest didn't happen very often. As a doctor, she knew it was taking a toll on her. Slowly but steadily, Sakura was starting to feel that drowsiness.

But she figured she could keep going like this until she felt like she couldn't continue. Those people needed her.

It was the same with food, though there was two reasons for that.

Recently, due to her sleeplessness, she'd been staying up late thinking. Remembering. She remembered her worst patients' illnesses, or what Naruto looked like, lying still before her. Or the fact that she couldn't get to Neji on time to save him. All of the mangled bodies on the battlefield they'd left. The horrors were hitting her slowly, one by one, and she kept taking them.

Food stopped looking appetizing about two weeks ago, when she remembered what the decomposing body of a Zetsu they were studying looked like. She couldn't eat much without seeing other things replacing the food part of it, and utterly destroying her appetite. Her intimate knowledge of human anatomy didn't help. If a food looked even remotely like a body part, she didn't eat it. When she tried, she usually just ended up throwing it up later. Strong tasting things, like ramen, had started making her feel sick.

Protein bars helped. They were just rectangular lumps that didn't have any good taste, which kept her grounded enough to finish it.

When her food went, the nightmares came. What little sleep she did get (because she would've broken a long time ago without the power naps) were plagued by them. At first they were just memories, then they were vivid imaginings of her loved ones dying. Gruesome. Sakura sometimes wasn't at ease until she saw the person alive and well again. Again, her accurate knowledge of human anatomy was no help to her in this respect.

She'd started freezing during the day, which Sasuke caught doing, once. She had been mortified, because that implied weakness, and Sakura had just managed to convince him of her strength. Now she had dashed it all to pieces.

She leaned against the walls of the shower, biting her lip. She ran a hand through her hair, anguished. Just the reminder of that was not comforting.

Sakura stepped out and got dressed in clean clothes. She brushed her hair and blow dried it, before putting it into a bun. She went outside, and dropped her backpack at the foot of the bed again, watching her companion.

Sasuke was an adorable sleeper. His face melted from the permanently fixed frown or scowl, and eased into into a peaceful line. His square shoulders were not tense at all. He was relaxed in a way he would never be in his waking hours. He slept on his side facing the window (so Sakura's bed). She sat in her bed, and looked at the ceiling, cursing herself for noticing Sasuke's incredible attractiveness. He was beautiful, but Sakura wasn't supposed to be thinking of that, as his teammate and friend.

How she wished she could sleep like he did.

"Oh well." She sighed aloud, sitting at the table between the beds and pulling out some scrolls from her work, spreading them out over the desk.

She hated paperwork. That was the worst part of her job, but that didn't change the fact that she was really, really good at it. She was good at focusing, at being clear and specific, at basically everything necessary to compile reports and dossiers.

She settled into the semi-comfortable chair and got to work.

She froze when Sasuke jumped awake, sitting straight up and looking both ways, before his eyes found Sakura. He sagged against the back of the bed, and rubbed his eyes. "Sak'ra?" He mumbled sleepily, sounding a little... innocent. Sakura resisted the urge to coo. "What're you still doing up?" He asked, finally coming to his senses when he saw how dark out it was.

"Couldn't sleep," she confessed, gesturing vaguely at her paperwork. "Figured I might as well be productive." Sasuke frowned, his obvious disapproval making Sakura wince. "Look," she started, a grimace on her face. "I can't reasonably leave all of this work unfinished."

Sasuke's frown deepened, and Sakura knew that Sasuke was going to be watching her for a long time now. "You'll be going to bed when you're finished with your work?" Sasuke asked, staring at her with a look that could freeze waterfalls in motion.

Sakura laughed sheepishly, nodding and rubbing the back of her neck. "Definitely."

"Do you want any help?" Sasuke asked carefully, raising an eyebrow that suggested that if Sakura said no, bad things would happen.

Sakura gave him a halfhearted smile. "No, Sasuke-kun, you should take a shower and go back to sleep. We're going to be traveling a lot tomorrow."

"So should you, but I don't see you sleeping." Sasuke pointed out, gesturing at the scrolls if medical data with a sigh. "Sakura, either go to bed now, or stay up with me. Your choice."

"I can't ask-"

"Sakura, I already took a three hour nap. I'm good to go for the next five hours. Surely we won't need all of that time?" Sasuke asked, voice deadly.

"Of course not." Sakura murmured. "But you have to take a shower first." She pointed a finger at him accusingly.

He shrugged. "Fine by me." He turned, grabbed a towel and his backpack, and walked into the bathroom, his voice floating out over his shoulder. "I'll be out in twenty."

True to his word, he came out exactly twenty minutes later, toweling off his hair. He wore a black long sleeved shirt that fit him nicely, black sweatpants that hugged his ankles, socks, and a massive smirk when he saw her appraising his outfit choice.

Sakura rolled her eyes at him, ignoring the obvious attraction, and threw him a scroll. He tensed when he noticed it flying at his head, but dropped the towel over his shoulder and caught the scroll easily. His messy hair was an attractive messy, the kind that stuck up all over and reminded Sakura a little of his old haircut. Sasuke unrolled the scroll and frowned at it, laying on his bed and reading the scroll.

"What's this?" He asked, eyes taking in every inch of the paper.

"A draft of an update in the medicinal field law." Sakura told him. "I already looked through that one for you, your job is to forge my signature, which you can do easily with your Sharingan. When you're done with that, you'll get another of the scrolls I'm not done with, then read it out loud to me. The ones I agree to, you put my name on. The ones I don't, throw over anyway. Good?" She asked briskly, opening a scroll for herself and settling back into her chair.

Sasuke frowned. "Isn't forging signatures on official documents illegal?"

"What's wrong, scared of going back to jail?" She looked up from her paper to tease. "Hilarious. The last Uchiha, legendary Sannin and genius, scared of a jail cell."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her from the paper. "Those are mighty high words coming from someone who hasn't spent months in jail before."

Sakura waved a hand at him dismissively. "Details. Anyway, you won't get in trouble for it unless I snitch. Which I won't. But I won't be able to sleep all night if I do all of this by myself." Please, let me do all of this by myself so I have an excuse not to sleep, she begged in her mind. Her pleading expression was real, just not the kind of real he was thinking.

Sasuke eyed her seriously, before sighing. "Alright, I'll help you out with this. But you owe me your soul and a tomato."

As expected, Sasuke had elected to ignore Sakura's silent plea. Although in his defense, he didn't know about it. Sakura sighed disappointedly, but just nodded. She hurled a pen at his head (which he caught). "'Kay." She said cheerfully, getting to work. Before she looked up. "Hey, wait a minute, just when do you plan on collecting on my soul?!" She asked, mock-seriously, a practiced frown on her face.

"The next time I gamble with Tsunade."

"I hate you." Sakura said, turning back to her paperwork. She could see exactly how that conversation would go between her shishou and her friend.

"I win, I get to paint a middle finger on Tobirama's statue on the Hokage mountain. I lose, you get 30 ryo and Sakura's soul."

"Bold of you to assume I don't already own Sakura's soul, but deal."

"Love you too." Sasuke, the cheeky bastard, smirked at her, before turning back to his work. Sakura blushed, but rolled her eyes.

Annoying boy. She thought indignantly.

- | -

The celebratory lunch when they got home was at that barbe-q place everyone was so fond of. Sasuke liked the food, but he didn't go out of his way to eat it. Though Sasuke didn't really go out of his way to eat anything, really, except maybe tomatoes. Shikamaru picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks and stuck it into his mouth.

"Man, I thought that was never going to end," he complained, leaning his head back against the booth.

Naruto agreed, pausing in between shoving the food into his mouth. "Oh yeah. Delivering those papers to the Daimyo was the most boring mission I've had in a long time."

"You guys are aware that we could've been ambushed by enemy ninja looking for the classified information we had on those documents?" Sakura asked an amused undertone to her voice that took away the scolding effect.

"Sure, but we weren't!" Naruto groaned with frustration. "So. Lame." He enunciated, sighing with resignation afterwards. Sakura laughed out loud, making everyone at the table smile.

Sasuke ran a hand through his hair. The mission was tedious. He was ready to curl up in his bed and take a nap. His head was pounding and he was really hungry. Worse- he somehow ended up seated next to the most annoying human ever. Naruto was a slob, but there was no way Sasuke would lower himself to beg for a different seating arrangement. He sighed in annoyance, and tried not to look in Naruto's general direction, because doing that made him abruptly lose his appetite. His eyes went to his food. He was beside a window, so while he ate, he watched the people pass by. Shikamaru (who was seated across from Sasuke) started up a conversation with Sakura about some medical things, and Naruto weighed in with his stupid comments that made Sakura laugh and Shikamaru sigh. Sasuke only halfheartedly payed attention to that, resting his chin on his hand. He looked at Sakura's hands that were resting peacefully on the table. They were slender, and her nails seemed freshly painted. But looking closer, her hands were trembling. Sasuke's frown deepened. He narrowed his eyes at Sakura's hands and watched them closer, sure he must've been seeing things.

He wasn't. Sakura's hands were physically shaking. Sasuke saw her fingers trembling individually. Shikamaru and Naruto didn't appear to have noticed, but Sasuke did, and he was concerned. She didn't eat, nor sleep, and she froze occasionally during the day. Now her hands were trembling? Sasuke thought he'd helped the worst of her anxiety a few days ago, but obviously there was something larger at work here.

Now that he thought about it, her hands had been shaking before. When they were playing catch-the-apple on their mission, Sasuke had noticed it, but dismissed it as adrenaline. Even earlier on, Sasuke had seen her hands shake while they were at Ichiraku's. He hadn't thought twice about it.

I'm such a bad friend. Sasuke thought, closing his eyes in shame. Sakura's clearly suffering something and I didn't notice until the last second.

He looked in Sakura's face, and saw she was laughing and smiling and making easy conversation, but there was an urgency to her. Sakura had always been nervous. Her feet would annoyingly tap, or her knees would bounce up and down impatiently, or her fingers would tap patterns restlessly on the table. Sasuke remembered scolding her about it back in the Academy.

It had gotten worse. A lot worse, if Sakura's normally steady hands were shaking. Surely that was a problem for a doctor, who had to occasionally perform intense surgeries.

Sasuke didn't speak at all during the talks, his frustrated head whirling. He excused himself when he saw Choji and Ino enter the building, saying he needed to unpack and report to Kakashi, figuring that was enough social interaction to justify a week of staying inside. Going home to his spacious apartment, he lay down on his floor instead of his bed to keep himself awake and speculated about what could be wrong with Sakura. When he simply could not go on, he hauled himself to bed and got some much needed rest.

- | -

When Sasuke woke up, the sun had already gone down. Displeased that he'd missed a whole day to be productive, he grabbed a tomato off the counter and left his house, heading for the training grounds.

On his way over there, he passed Sakura's apartment, and spotted Sakura's lights off. He wondered if that meant she was sleeping, for once. He dismissed his thoughts of her, breaking into a run.

He trained for another three hours, before deciding that it would be creepy to stay any longer. He took the long way home, though, because he was restless and wasn't sure if he could sleep when he got back.

He passed by Konoha General Hospital and saw Sakura leaving it, slipping a sweatshirt onto her head. She stopped mid-step and yawned like she hadn't slept in days. Sasuke watched her walk closer and closer to the gates of the hospital, and didn't move from his position outside them. When she left the hospital's campus, she turned around and saw Sasuke standing there, staring at her with a frown on his face.

There were dark rings around her eyes. Her frown lines were more pronounced than ever. Sasuke's chest constricted in concern.

"Sasuke!" She said in pleasant surprise. A smile graced her lips as she watched him, cocking a hip and placing her hands on them. "Why aren't you sleeping by now? It's nearly one in the morning!"

Sasuke said nothing, eyes narrowing at Sakura. His glare let her know that the question was reciprocated.

"Oh... I came here after I got home to clock in some extra hours. They were understaffed, you see..." Sakura smiled sheepishly. "Anyway, what were you doing?" She deflected every question related to her quickly on to someone else. Another thing Sakura had been doing so often.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed even more. "I was training." He said curtly. Sakura's smile faltered at his tone, before a questioning look came over her. "Now, I'm walking you home." He informed her, turning on his heel and walking towards her apartment.

Sakura stared after him in surprise for a few seconds before she scurried to follow him. "Hey, wait a minute!" She called after him, running to catch up. He slowed down, and she matched his pace.

"Tell me about your day." Sasuke said simply, his tone telling her he was expecting a no-bullshit answer.

Sakura paused briefly, before she gave him one confused look, and started talking. She talked about how refreshing it was to see Ino and Choji, and how she'd gone shopping with her best friend after she'd ditched Naruto with the male members of Team Ten. She said she'd had a relaxing cup of tea earlier that was really heaven. She'd performed a successful surgery on a cute old lady that always knew exactly what to say, when she wasn't knocked out. Her colleagues were especially nice to her today, and she'd found some flowers in her office when she arrived.

Sasuke's eyes went to her hands, and he noticed they were still shaking. He stopped in his tracks, reached over to Sakura, (who'd stopped too) and grabbed both of her hands in his own.

Sakura's eyes fell to their hands, Sasuke's covering both of hers with his own like a hug. He felt the shaking more concentrated, now. "Sakura," he said, looking her in the eyes. She raised her head to look at him with despair, that he'd seen one of her secrets. "Calm down," he said in a soothing tone, his hands tightening around her. Sakura took steady breaths, watching Sasuke for confirmation that she was doing this right. He nodded soothingly, inhaling and exhaling with her.

Eventually, her hands stopped shaking. Sasuke felt it, and squeezed them, a small smile on his face. Sasuke had his own problems, his own panic attacks, his own sleeping and eating issues. He'd woken up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, memories making him lose his breath and struggle to remember to breathe sometimes. He'd self harmed before. He had anxiety. He knew what was going on with her. Deep down, before he'd even thought about it, he'd known. Sakura had helped him through his major problems (even if she didn't realize she had) so now, it was Sasuke's turn to finally start paying her back. More than that, he couldn't stand watching her suffer.

He couldn't bear to see her cry anymore. He didn't want to see her in pain anymore- especially not over him. He just wanted her to be happy-

Sasuke held one of Sakura's hands, to remind her that he was here, and turned back to walking. "Start over. For real this time." He told her.

Sakura inhaled shakily, clenching his hand tightly, and words poured out of her mouth. She was tired, she said. So tired. She was tired when she started her shift, six hours ago. She'd worked six hours right after a tedious mission and horrible travel. She told him she'd just done a surgery, and was more than ready to rest. But she couldn't rest because everytime she closed her eyes she saw them-

The people she hadn't saved. Neji. Inoichi and Shikaku. Chiyo. Asuma. Obito. People she'd lost on the battlefield. People she'd lost in the hospital. She saw body parts, and blood, and death, and ruin, and she couldn't be asleep because she could be saving lives, and-

Sasuke squeezed her hand once, his presence coaxing her to breathe. To take deep breaths. She nodded and did so, before continuing.

She couldn't eat without seeing hearts and flesh, and insides of humans. She froze because little things would trigger memories. She shook because she was always itching to do something. To help someone. Being idle was her worst fear.

Sasuke listened. He listened and understood. He knew exactly how she felt, because he'd been there. Right there. His hands never shook so violently- he was composed on the outside at all times- but he'd experienced the same thing. He was in a better place now, because he was back at his home with his friends and his teammates, who had slowly become his family. He had closure about his brother and family, and was satisfied that they'd been properly avenged. They'd averted a disaster.

Sakura was new to this feeling. The first time always hits the hardest. Sasuke's hand tightened protectively around hers, his heart hammering with guilt. These feelings were so hard to bear. The world could've lost Haruno Sakura, if she'd been any less strong than she was. I shouldn't have left her for a second. He thought, anguished. She shouldn't have gone through this alone.

They reached Sakura's apartment, and Sasuke stopped her before she could try to unlock the door, removing the keys from her hands and doing it himself, because her hands were still trembling, and concentrated movement only made it worse.

Sakura went inside, and Sasuke let himself in, closing the door behind him. She collapsed on the couch, and Sasuke sat next to her, after he removed his shoes.

They sat in silence, for a few moments, before tears started streaming down Sakura's face. Sasuke's own face melted into a concerned wince, before he pulled her to him. She lay on him, now, crying silently into his chest. Sasuke wrapped both of his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. He held her shaking shoulders, allowing her to cry it out. When she tired herself out, Sasuke held her. When she fell asleep, Sasuke held her. He came to a realization while she slept.

He cared deeply for her- even loved her- and he wasn't going to let her go ever again.

- | -

When Sakura woke up in the morning, she smelled food being cooked in her kitchen. She stood up and stretched, feeling refreshed. Like she'd actually gotten sleep, last night. She saw Sasuke's shoes by the door, and guessed that he was still here. She wandered into her kitchen, putting her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, and saw Sasuke was finishing up breakfast for the both of them. I had no idea he could cook... it looks really good, too.

"Morning." She murmured, finding a mug and pouring herself some of the coffee Sasuke had made.

"Hi." Sasuke returned, setting some plates down on the kitchen table, and placed the pans on the table as well. He sat down in the seat he'd sat in the last time he was here, and gestured for Sakura to sit across from him.

Sakura complied, throwing her coffee back like it was alcohol. She refilled her cup, without bothering with creamer or milk, and slowly sipped it this time. Sasuke helped himself to the food, and then made her plate too, while she was drowning an unhealthy amount of coffee. He frowned at her, shaking his head.

"Sakura," he scolded. "Eat your food."

"You're such a mom." Sakura commented, pouring herself another cup, but she lifted her chopsticks with her other hand and dug in. I don't want to eat, don't want to eat, don't wanna- but her body was hungry. It was easier to eat this, because Sasuke had made it. She started with the bowl of rice, because it wasn't easy to see it as anything other than what it was.

"I am not." Sasuke scowled, before raising an eyebrow at her. "Slow down, you'll get a stomach ache."

I want to be done with this... please don't make me eat all of this... Sakura rolled her eyes, before finishing the rice at the same time as Sasuke. The two of them looked at each other, then each other's miso soup.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow in question, before picking up his bowl and just tipping it back. Sakura understood why he was doing that- this way, Sakura couldn't see what she was eating very well, only her taste was left. She couldn't see the soup, so she couldn't imagine it as anything else. She felt a stabbing concern at the fact that this made it seem like it was something Sasuke had thought about and done before.

They finished at the same time again, and Sasuke met her eyes, the smouldering black ones holding her attention. "Mirror everything I do, but watch me." Sasuke said. "Only me. Don't look at you. As far as you're concerned, you're not eating anything. Convince your mind of that." He instructed her. He picked up his chopsticks. Sakura did the same, her stomach roiling in nervousness. She knew her hands were shaking again, but she refused to allow that to affect her.

Sasuke pulled a bit of the grilled fish he'd made with his chopsticks, and Sakura did the same using touch. She couldn't look at it. It would've smelled amazing if Sakura wasn't so focused on not being sick. Fish was the same size as other things that Sakura could see clearly every time she closed her eyes.  There were eggs on her tray too, but Sakura refused to look at them. Sasuke lifted the chopsticks close to his mouth and opened it, and Sakura watched him- only him. His mouth, and his hands. Similarly, Sasuke watched her.

Sasuke put the fish inside his mouth, and closed it. Sakura did the same, chewing when she saw Sasuke chew. I'm not eating fish. I'm not eating at all. She told herself, taking another bite when Sasuke did, and only when Sasuke did.

Eventually, they polished off everything on the tray but the eggs. Sakura couldn't eat the eggs. Sasuke hadn't forced her to. In fact, he'd been really patient with her throughout this whole thing. Sakura was astonished to realize that this was the first full meal she'd eaten in a long time. She flashed Sasuke a despairingly grateful look.

Sasuke leaned forward, putting his chopsticks down. "Sakura, we should talk."

"Yeah." Sakura murmured in reply, putting her chopsticks down too.

"You're not okay." Sasuke informed her. It wasn't a question.

"No," Sakura agreed anyway, dismayed. She looked down at the table. There was no hiding it anymore.

Sasuke closed his eyes, the confirmation from Sakura herself only made him feel worse. "I have to go soon." He told her. "I have a window to go on a redemption journey in a few months. To fix some of the mistakes I've made in the past, I want to see the world through fresh eyes." Sakura winced like this knowledge physically hurt her. Sasuke felt a wave of guilt threaten to knock him over. "I have four months." He told her. "In the meantime, I want you to live with me."

Sakura's eyes widened, and she lifted her head to look at him in surprise.

Sasuke wasn't joking. Or playing around. He knew the severity of what he was asking of her, but he was asking it anyway. He needed this. She needed this.

"You and I have something special," Sasuke said, for the first time giving Sakura an indication that he returned her feelings. Sakura's eyes teared up a little bit. "We can worry about that when I get back. For now, I want to help you focus on getting better." Sakura's eyes closed, and tears streamed down her face. Sasuke stood up and knelt by her knees, grabbing her shaking hands and holding them still. "Sakura?" He asked gently. "Does that sound okay to you?"

Sakura couldn't have expressed her relief with a million words. She nodded, more tears streaming down her face.

Sasuke sighed, relief numbing him. He leaned forward and rested his forehead on Sakura's knee, and her fingers landed in his hair, while he clutched one of her hands. She played with the silky, midnight strands of Sasuke's hair, crying silently in relief.

I'm not alone anymore.

The thought was thought unanimously by both Sakura and Sasuke, making them both want to jump and yell and sleep at the same time. Sakura leaned forward and hugged Sasuke's head to her, resting her chin on his ebony hair.

"Sasuke," she whispered. "Thank you."

"No, thank you." Sasuke whispered back. "For forgiving me, and believing me, and loving me. I'm sorry it took so long for me to realize you were hurting. It won't happen again, I promise."

Sakura's tears streamed more freely. Sakura thought she'd never loved him more than she did in this moment. It took a long time, and a bumpy road, but they were finally together like fate intended. Sasuke had to leave again, soon, but that didn't mean he wasn't always with her.

They were connected, after all.