A/N: I don't own Naruto.

This was no fairytale.

Good. Sakura thought seething.

After all, fairy tales mentioned the happily ever after for the protagonists; while simultaneously glossing over the scars, phantom bruises, bitter compromises and squashed ideals it took to achieve that bliss.

If bliss ever existed, that is.

Sakura thought sourly. Maybe bliss was a specialized commodity – custom-made for each being as per their preferences. And, therefore, achieved only through putting oneself through the specific circumstances of peril and pain that fate dearest allotted them.

If so, she couldn't really complain.

Being ushered into the Suna Emergency ward shortly after arrival, she was greeted by the gruesome sight of a bloodied, shredded body...person...whose limbs seemed barely attached to his torso.

High on adrenaline and sleeplessness, she'd acted instinctively, checking for the injuries and damage sustained through her chakra while the nearest nurse rattled off the nature and cause of the injuries in her ear. Routine mission. Ambush. Overpowered. Left for dead. Found by another patrol team on their way back to Suna; unconscious, with poison insidiously working to stall his working organs. Succeeding too, it turned out. This man was dying. The intermixed scent of blood and antiseptic or the spiked scent of the nurse's fear and hopelessness did nothing to deter her from this unnervingly calm thought to settle over her. The chanced glance into the person's eyes, however, felt as if a bucket of chilled water was upturned over her head. It wasn't fear that shone in his eyes, but a desperate hope to live...and a strange, implosive anger that despite all his hopes, fate had other plans. Oddly enough, an old memory of her younger self with Tsunade rose unbidden to her mind.

The self-esteem, wavering between strength and frailty like her chakra, the guiding hand alternating between harsh reprimands meant to shape and kind words meant to soothe. She found herself standing stock-still at how she had harboured the same hope, the same anger as this man. She wondered if she harboured it still. The speculative whispers of the nurses brought her back to the present. She had no time to dwell on it, however, as she had work to do. This was no fairytale. But she would fight with the skin of her teeth to not let it be a tragedy either.

She looked at the barely conscious man, and said plainly, "This will hurt, a lot." But you will live.

The unspoken thought had the man grinning, "Do your worst...On second thoughts, please do your best." Despite herself, Sakura let out a short laugh and gave it her best. And passed out from chakra exhaustion as soon as the nurse declared his condition stabilised.

So what if all the resident nurses thought her mental afterwards, the man would live.

The next day, when she saw the same man, now trussed up in bandages running miles long, the peculiar twinkle in his eyes assured her the same. And gave rise to the same seedling of anger in her too. She'd always had hope. Though incessantly disparaged and shot down, the hope had stayed with her, flailing about inside her mind. And she could think of three meddling blondes in her life that had heaped upon lots of the same hope onto her, despite her impassivity.

This anger, though, that's what she had lost. The anger that would allow her to break through her apathy had been missing. The anger that would make her scream at herself for being numb, and if she ever thought to just give up, would drag her by the hair and force her to move forward, even when the fates were unpleasant, even when she didn't see the point. She wondered if she'd snuffed it out herself, leaving herself unfinished, frayed, incomplete. She vowed to nurture it through this time.

This may be no fairytale. But she would earn her own happy ending.