A/N: Major spoilers ahead for the post-war era! This will be a two-shot, with the next part to be posted sometime in the near future (but probably not this week). Hope you all enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving (almost) to those of you who celebrate it.

Haruno Sakura is the one who grounds him.

Since receiving chakra from the Sage of Six Paths and sealing away a literal goddess, Sasuke has reached godlike levels among shinobi. To him, S-ranked missions are child's play. He doesn't think there's a soul alive, save Naruto, who would best him in a fight at this point.

Which is why it's a wonder that he's lying here, in this hospital bed with the starch-stiff sheets, his mind clouded by all the painkillers coming through his IV drip. He tries to rise, prop himself up on his elbows, but he finds that he can't move, so he thrashes around even harder, ripping out the Velcro ties that bind him to the bed. He hears the monitor next to him go off, beep beep beep beep beep, incessant, but it barely registers in his mind. When a medic-nin finally enters the room, the only thing he can make out is the swirl of pink atop her head, neatly pulled into a bun. He breathes a sigh of relief.

"Sasuke-kun!" she cries. "What's the matter with you? Honestly, I leave for a second to use the restroom and you ruin all the hospital equipment before I get back. Figures."

"Sorry," he says groggily, before he knows the word has even left his lips.

At his apology, she visibly softens, and a small smile appears on her face. "That's okay. Since you're awake, you can sit up. I'm going to take your vitals."

She pulls at the bindings around his wrists, allowing him to get up comfortably. In his still-sleepy state, he notices that Sakura is wearing civilian clothes, not scrubs. Out of the corner of his right eye, he spots a plate of apples on the bedside table, half peeled and sliced and the other half still in the process. He feels a pang of guilt related to the apples, but he doesn't remember why, and the moment passes quickly.

In any case, it's clear that Sakura isn't even on duty. Has she been staying here this whole time?

He used to wonder why she stuck around for so long after he left Konoha the first time. Sometimes he thinks back to what Kakashi said about not needing a reason to love someone, but he's always had trouble believing his former sensei. Now it's simply an unresolved mystery, and one he prefers not to touch. She is too reckless with her love anyway if she thinks something so puny can change his set ways.

"Why am I here?" Sasuke asks. His mouth tastes bad. He thinks he remembers something about a mission with Naruto gone wrong, but the details are hazy.

"You'd have to ask Naruto or Kakashi. Something happened while the two of you were on a mission together, but I don't know what it was." While she talks in a low, soothing voice, she takes his pulse, her cool hands almost too cold against his clammy skin, and then his blood pressure. "Elevated heart rate and BP, but that's to be expected, I guess. Open up, please," she requests, and he complies obediently so she can stick a thermometer in his mouth.

If Sakura had known the mission details, she might have found it funny. A group of powerful criminal shinobi running a drug ring on the border of Fire Country needed to be taken down, and Naruto and Sasuke had been chosen for the job. The two of them against 24.

Those missing-nin stood no chance.

Still, Naruto had the bullheaded, imbecilic idea that he and Sasuke should compete seeing who could take out the most ninja with the least-ranked ninjutsu. Which meant no rasengan, no chidori, no Sharingan or senjutsu. And they'd gravely underestimated the opponent, of course.

Naruto had gotten off pretty much scot-free with a few thigh gashes and a black eye. The blonde was probably on a date with Hinata this very moment, milking his injuries for all they were worth so she'd give him sympathy kisses and the like.

Sasuke, on the other hand, had been immediately hospitalized with two broken ribs and a second-degree burn on his left shin. When he was brought in, Sakura panicked at first, thinking she would be losing him not to the darkness within but to forces she could have and should have stopped if she had been on the mission as well. The injuries were actually mild for a top-tier medic-nin like herself, but it didn't stop her from crying until her eyes were bloodshot and chafed that first night. Not that she would ever let anyone know.

His head pounds, and the bright lights and clinical whiteness of the hospital probably don't help. When he lifts a hand to massage his temple, trying to make the ache go away, it only gets worse. Sasuke feels as though his head is splitting, but he doesn't voice his pain. He never does that.

Sakura begins to re-dress his burn wound, and suddenly the hurt is shared between his head and his leg. But her healing chakra soothes the burn quickly until the pain subsides to a mere whisper. Then, even without him asking, she moves her hands to the top of his head, sending chakra through his skull until that feels all better as well.

Now he remembers why those apples made him feel guilty: Sakura has never stopped trying to be everything for him—teammate, friend, perfect caretaker. When she props up his leg so she can re-bandage it, he remembers the day he broke his ankle by-accident-but-not-really, and Itachi set and bandaged it before giving him a piggyback ride back home. His nii-san was his caretaker once upon a time, and he'd resented that even then because he wanted to gain Uchiha Fugaku's approval over his own brother.

It seemed that Sasuke was always throwing away someone who mattered for a goal that didn't, and Sakura deserved better.

"You were originally supposed to head to Suna after your mission, too," she tells him. "Make small talk with the Kazekage, drag Shikamaru back home … he's been there for at least a month by now, because, well, duh."

She giggles, and Sasuke has no idea why, but all of a sudden, he's filled with chagrin for allowing her to see him like this. So vulnerable. He feels naked, and it's not just because he's been sleeping with his shirt off.

"Okay, that's enough," he says, voice hardening. "Leave me alone now. Please."

"Sasuke-kun, I can't do that—"

"I said get out!" His volume rises, but if Sakura is hurt or shocked, she doesn't show it. Maybe she knows that he doesn't really mean all this anger that he can't ever seem to contain. That it's a physical manifestation of his shame.

"As a medical professional, and as your friend, I'm going to need to stay here and monitor you a little longer," she tells him.

His dark eyes start to spin to red—not a voluntary reaction this time, just something that seems to happen when his adrenaline gets going—but that stops when he glances up into her eyes and is overwhelmed by the devotion he sees. There is pain in her gaze, he can tell, her eyebrows all knitted up in worry. At the same time, he cannot help but be comforted by the fondness in her eyes. They are precious gems: emerald and jade, peridot and adoration.

No, even better, they are the color of new growth, like little shoots that are determined to push their way up after even the harshest of winters. They will inevitably be wiped out by residual frost on their first night, but the call of the sun is too great to ignore. And then when spring really arrives, her namesake blossoms, those cherry flowers the same color as her hair, will fall to the ground in sprinkles, and villages everywhere will have a festival to celebrate.

So Uchiha Sasuke lets himself get lost in her green, green eyes, all anger forgotten. She takes his one good hand, the one that's probably repulsively moist, but hers feels cool and dry. They stay like that for a short while until she moves to peel another apple.

"Sakura, you shouldn't do this," he says. He hopes she realizes he doesn't just mean taking care of him as a patient, but that she understands the unspoken message. I'll never feel the same way about you. I'll never stop leaving you. I'll never be good to you, or for you.

"But I want to, Sasuke-kun," she says simply. That's when he knows that she knows, and when he realizes that it doesn't matter to her. I love you anyway.

After that, he lets her become the solid earth beneath his feet that holds him steady and promises new life, day after day.