A/N: So this little baby was something that I had actually started a loooong time ago and for some reason I got this really intense urge to finally just finish it? A writer's mind truly makes no sense sometimes. It's a two-shot, so happy readings of part uno :)

P.S. For anyone who's waiting for me to upload the sequel to These Games We Play, I'm totally working on it! I want it to be perfect, so I need to bang this one out real quick and get my writer's flow flowing again.

Sakura is officially declared missing on a Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, what a stupid day to go missing. At least, that's what Sasuke thinks as he stares blandly out of one of the many windows in the Hokage's office. Of course, Sakura is the only person he knows that is annoying enough to interrupt the middle of the week like this.

"There's been no trace of her," Kakashi remarks grimly, so seriously, from behind his desk. Sasuke finally turns away from the window, hands crossed casually behind his back and his indifferent face unchanged. Kakashi looks distressed. The black mask covering his face is badly wrinkled, eyes dull with purpling bags underneath, silver hair unkempt. In the entire year that he's been Hokage, Sasuke has never seen his former sensei so troubled.

Obsidian eyes sweep across the room. Naruto and Sai are seated in the two wooden chairs across from the Hokage's desk. The blonde is distressed, sitting on the edge of his seat, jittery and anxious. Sai's face betrays nothing, but Sasuke can see that his body is more tensed than normal, and his eyes seem to dart about worriedly. The gravity of the situation creates a hot, stifling air in the room, and Sasuke feels like he is suffocating. It annoys him.

"When was she expected to return?" he asks, not because he is concerned, just curious…just curious.

"Five days ago," Kakashi answers and then swallows thickly. "We have received no messages from her, no indication at all of where she may be. It was only a two day mission, a quick delivery of medicinal supplies."

"Five days," Naruto says suddenly, face breaking out into a hopeful expression. "Only five days, Kakashi. She could still be out there. Waiting."

Kakashi says nothing, but Sai speaks up slowly. "We will find her." His says it in that awkward, emotionally devoid way of his, but his voice seems strong, confident.

Kakashi is silent for a long moment, and Sasuke waits. Finally, the corners of his eyes crinkle, the formation of a pained, empty smile. "Of course we will."

"Great," Naruto says. He stands with that stupid, hopeful brightness in his face, but his hands are shaking. "Well, I need to get my stuff together. I want to be on that next outgoing rescue team."

He rushes from the room, and Sai follows slowly, stating that he would like the same thing. Kakashi stares at Sasuke for a long moment before sighing too heavily and informing him that he would be on the team as well and they would be leaving by midday. The Uchiha leaves the silver haired man immediately after, hearing the frustrated crunch of papers beneath the copy nin's fists as the door eases shut behind him.

Sasuke lingers outside the doors of the Hokage building for a moment. The August morning sun is gentle, only a soft caress of heat against his skin. The air is crisp and cool, and the delicate breeze carries with it the scent of flowers. People happily spill out of their homes and into the streets, filling it with laughter and chatter.

It was a normal day. Sakura just wasn't a part of it.

Or so he told himself.

A growl ferociously rips through the silence of Sasuke's apartment as a large hand comes down and furiously swipes a stack of mail off his table so that the white envelopes flutter wildly before scattering across the floor. He can't stop himself. The agonizing frustration that has been building within him has reached its explosive peak, and he physically lashes out at anything within his reach. Chairs. Dishes. End tables. The once immaculate space is a tempest, a picture of livid disaster. With one final burst of fury, he drives his fist into the wall, only vaguely feeling the way the skin splits across his knuckles.

With a heaving chest and inky black strands of hair falling limply into his eyes, he stares angrily at the large hole now decorating his walls. And the old picture of Team 7 that he had missed by mere inches. Kakashi's squinty grin. Naruto's scowl. His own face of disinterest…Sakura's blithe smile. Stupid fucking girl.

The fury seeps slowly from his body, but the frustration lingers, simmering on top of his skin, and he lets his forehead drop onto the wall. Another recovery mission. And another failure. He can't count how many he's been on at this point, but he always leaves with that same itching anxiousness and returns with enraged annoyance. She's nowhere. There are no clues, no footprints, no lingering whispers of emerald green eyes and a soft, pretty smile. Every day the team returns empty handed, Naruto's hopefulness digresses into frenzy and Sasuke's patience into rage. Sakura's absence is almost as annoying as her presence, and he just wants to find her so he can stop hearing her stupid fucking name whispered in the streets, stop being forced to refocus his entire life so that it revolved around her.

Naruto is absolutely frantic, running himself ragged on recovery missions or in Kakashi's office asking for another one. 'I can't give up,' he keeps telling him. 'I can't give up.' Sasuke blinks slowly. Such familiar words.

XXXXX

"He can't give up," Sakura whispered to Sasuke as she attempted to heal his bloodied lip. Angry, Sasuke didn't answer, only watched Neji with a fierce glare as he furiously walked away from the team and into the brush, disarrayed and bruised from his brief scuffle with the Uchiha. "You don't understand what Tenten means to him. Her being in enemy hands is terrifying for him."

"It shouldn't matter," Sasuke spat, not even wincing as Sakura poked at his cracked ribs. "He's the team leader, and he's acting like a fucking lunatic. If he wants us to find her, he needs to regain some control."

Sakura clicked her tongue angrily, and he slid his eyes toward her where she kneeled in the dirt next to his sitting form, several strands of pink hair loose from her tight bun and swinging in her face, undoubtedly from the trouble she and Kiba had had when they attempted to separate the two men.

"Of course it matters, Sasuke," she said firmly, palms glowing green as she pressed them to his side. "He's in love with her, and she doesn't even know. The only thing on his mind right now is regret because if we don't find her, he may never get the chance to tell her. He's scared that she'll die in pain, alone, without him and then he'll have to live the same way without her. And that's not living at all." He was silent during her rant, spotting a streak of red across her cheek from where his kunai had accidently caught her during the fight. "And even if it is unprofessional, you shouldn't be picking a fight with him. You're not helping either."

She finally glanced up at him, viridian eyes sad but determined, eyebrow raised as if daring him to argue. He didn't respond, only set his jaw stubbornly and used his thumb to wipe away the thin line of blood on her face from her busted lip. She squeezed his shoulder before they stood, begging him to understand, but he wasn't sure that he did.

Two days later, when they finally found the missing weapons mistress, he watched as Neji collapsed by the fallen brunette, who was caked in her own blood, bruises, and mud, unmoving. The look that passed across the Hyuuga's face was pure anguish, a complete collapse of sanity and faith. Beside him, Sakura stifled a cry of horror. Then, Tenten's eyes flickered open slightly. She smiled faintly, whispered 'finally', and the Hyuuga kissed her for all he was worth.

Sakura had collapsed against him in relief, and he caught her.

XXXXX

Sasuke frowns at the memory and then distastefully eyes his now trashed apartment, the dishes he would have to replace, the kunais embedded in the walls, the picture of Team 7 untouched.

On day twenty-three, Sakura is still missing and Sasuke is pretending not to feel the cold seeping into his chest.

The bar is full, drunken laughter bouncing off the warmly lit walls with a mirth that the dark haired shinobi sitting in the corner can't feel. Sasuke is alone, nursing a strong drink that sears his throat as he takes down another large gulp, his ears buzzing with the raucous laughter and the furious pattering of the rain against the ceiling. The others had left hours ago, realizing that they couldn't escape the somberness anywhere they went and being together simply didn't help. Neji and Tenten had slipped away first, with a stiff parting from the Hyuuga and sad eyes from the lithe brunette. Next, Ino and Shikamaru had gone, the genius leading away the melancholy blonde with concerned eyes. Kiba, Lee, and Choji wandered away immediately after, lips pursed and hands in their pockets. Naruto, Hinata, and Sai had lingered for much longer, until a drunken, pained Naruto was lead home by his petite fiancé with Sai flanking his other side.

The group had tried so hard to make light conversation for nearly two hours, tried to infuse the heavy air with something buoyant and uplifting, but the alcohol had only caused everything to resurface with more intensity, more reality. And no one had been ready to face that yet.

Sasuke doesn't even notice their absence, absently raising his glass to his lips once more, dark, dark eyes trained on the area around the bar and the people carrying on so merrily. Like all is well and the world isn't significantly less pink. A song comes on that suddenly has the patrons cheering in approval, and Sasuke's ears perk because he remembers this song.

XXXXX

Though Sasuke was loathe to admit it, his eyes kept migrating toward Sakura as she danced blithely in a cleared space in the bar. She and Ino danced around one another with drunken grins on their faces, the shinobi and kunoichi surrounding them laughing and chatting merrily, a rare night where they were all free of missions and responsibilities for a night out together. Her pastel pink hair was damp and wild from the rain outside, her simple red tank top clinging slightly to her skin, and she moved across the bar floor barefoot, shoes tossed under a table and forgotten. Her movements lacked the type of provocativeness one would usually find in a drunken, dancing girl, but she captured twice the attention. The way her cheeks flushed, the way her shoulders shook as she laughed, the way-

"Watching Sakura, huh?" Naruto's voice suddenly interrupted his solitude, the blonde sidling up next to him with a grin stretched wide across his face and a teasing humor in his cerulean eyes.

Sasuke glared. "No," he said bluntly, taking a long swig from his drink and shifting slightly in the barstool to turn away from the blonde.

Naruto laughed and thumped him playfully on the back, causing Sasuke to growl in annoyance, before sauntering over to Hinata and tossing an arm around the dark haired beauty's shoulders. She blushed but smiled sweetly at him. Just as Sasuke downed the rest of his drink, the song switched to something upbeat that had everyone cheering.

Over the crowd, his sharp ears could pick up the tinkling of Sakura's blissful laughter. Reluctantly, his eyes slipped in her direction, through a throng of people that had parted just enough for him to catch full sight of her. She was jumping around, hands thrown above her head as she laughed with Ino and moved her body to the beat. Pale pink lips mouthed the words to the song, as her head bobbed, pink hair swinging back and forth. After a minute, she pranced toward Sai, grabbing onto his hands and tugging him onto the dance floor. The dark haired male was unsure and awkward, letting his arms be flailed about at Sakura's whim, but the ever present smile on his face seemed genuine for once, warm. The music was loud and the people louder, but the only thing that seemed to ricochet in his ears was her laughter, rich and smooth and delicate.

Suddenly, she was in front of him, smiling softly, eyes sparkly and shiny like the world's purest emeralds. Her deceptively dainty hands rested on his knees, and he raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Always the life of the party, aren't you, Sasuke?" she teased, swiping his drink and raising it to her lips.

He glared but didn't make a move to snatch it back. "Hn."

"Dance with me?" she asked, leaning forward a bit, eyes wide in an innocent, pleading stare. "If you sit here and mope all the time, you'll start to get a reputation, you know."

Sasuke pressed his hands to her shoulders, guiding her away from him so that she was no longer leaning into his knees. His fingers brushed her bare skin there. She was warm.

"I don't dance, and my reputation is not a concern to me."

Sakura pouted playfully and then grinned sweetly. "Fine. How about you just be a gentleman and walk me home then?"

Sasuke sighed but agreed. At least it gave him an excuse to finally escape. Sakura gathered her shoes, and, after several quick goodbyes, the pair set off into the night. The rain, which had been diminished into a soft drizzle, suddenly picked up after five minutes of walking.

The handsome Uchiha growled as his hair began to flatten against his head and fall into his eyes, but Sakura only laughed. Tipping her head back, she allowed it to beat against her face for a brief moment, a second of serenity and contentment, before laughing again, raising her arms, and twirling through the downpour gleefully. Soft pink and radiant green and incandescent smiles.

Sasuke hadn't even realized he was watching her until he stepped into an unexpectedly large puddle, splattering himself in dirty water and mud up to his knees.

XXXXX

Sasuke finds himself suddenly overwhelmed by the bar patrons, by the music, by the alcohol. He stands abruptly, startling a couple of civilians at the table next to him, and moves swiftly to the door. Somewhat drunkenly, he stumbles into the rain.

It's too cold and too sharp, makes his clothes uncomfortably tight and heavy, and Sasuke thinks Sakura is fucking insane to ever enjoy this shit. He scowls. Stupid, annoying girl.

On day thirty-seven, Sasuke trudges home miserably and swears he hears Sakura's laughter ringing along the empty street.

The series of sharp knocks on his front door break through the silence like the fierce crack of a whip. Sasuke doesn't move from his couch immediately, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and staring unblinkingly at the stupid picture hanging on his too white walls. Team 7. Naruto. Kakashi. Pink. Pink. Pink.

He rips himself off the couch and strides slowly to his front door, pulling it open harshly so that whoever is knocking will know that they are intruding on his solitude.

"Ino," he greets monotonously. "What do you want?"

The blonde fidgets for a moment. She looks uncomfortable standing in front of him but desperate all the same. Her hair is disheveled, pulled into a messy ponytail that isn't doing much on keeping her hair out of her face, her eyes weary and watery.

She swallows slowly, and the cool October wind whips her hair into her eyes and pushes its way inside her thin sweater. "I was just in the neighborhood and I wanted to stop by because…" She trails off and looks to her left with squinted eyes, and he knows she's trying to stop herself from crying. "It's been a while and I really miss Sakura, you know."

Sasuke feels something jolt inside of him at the sound of her name, feels a frigidity fill his body as anger spreads across his chest. Her name has become taboo, a trigger for nothing but pain and despair, and it is rare that he hears anyone say it aloud anymore, with the exception of Naruto, who sometimes whispers her name like it is a prayer or a plea. But hearing Ino say it so solidly, so courageously, causes this raging fire to burn within him. He's so angry, and he doesn't know if he should blame Ino or Sakura.

"I fail to see why this would bring you here," he responds callously to her words, tongue cold and sharp. The coolness of the evening begins to seep through his dark shirt and pants, but he welcomes the discomfort, welcomes anything besides the numbness he has been consumed by.

"I just wanted to talk to someone who loved Sakura as much as I did," Ino whispers, and Sasuke mentally rears back at her words but keeps a cool façade in place.

"You came to the wrong place then," Sasuke says, infuriated by her incredibly fucking stupid assumption. He doesn't love Sakura. She's annoying, and she's missing so he can't love her.

Ino stops sniffling for a moment to glare at him, blue eyes piercing as anger blossoms on her cheeks. "How can you stand here and deny that? I mean, look at you. You look like shit. It looks like you haven't slept in days. Your hair is a mess, you don't leave your apartment apart from training, and when was the last time you showered? You're grieving, Sasuke. You're hurting just like the rest of us, and you have too much fucking pride to admit it."

XXXXX

"You're a fucking idiot."

Sasuke bristled at the sudden insult and stopped walking to turn and face the source of his annoyance. Kiba wasn't even looking at him, his sharp eyes focused quite intently on something over the Uchiha's shoulder. Sasuke turned slightly to follow his gaze and understood immediately what caught his attention. The street was crowded, lined with magnificently decorated booths and colorful lantern lights and giddy festival goers as they strolled through the busy streets, but Sakura was incredibly easy to spot. She moved around in a soft white dress, all tanned skin and short pink waves and pretty smiles. The light of the different colored lanterns danced across her face with a strange elegance, bathed her in an ethereal multicolored halo. There was a tranquility about her, a smile that was soft and honest, and she moved from booth to booth without rush, quick to engage the booth owners in conversation that had them smiling immediately in admiration. She was beautiful like a daydream.

"You'll never be good enough for her," Kiba said bitingly, and Sasuke whipped his head back around, completely forgetting that he had even insulted him in the first place. Obsidian eyes narrowed into the infamous Uchiha glare, venomous and dark, and Kiba met it with the same ferocity.

"And you will be, Inuzuka?" Sasuke questioned patronizingly, a sneer twisting his handsome features. His fists began to clench, his body tensed to the point of pain.

Kiba chuckled dryly, boyish features taking on a harder edge. "Fuck no, but I could be a better man to her than you are." His grin was cold and challenging, and Sasuke would've liked nothing more than to wipe it and those stupid fucking tattoos right off his face. "She's in love with you, and you have your head shoved too far up your own ass to love her back."

Sasuke felt jagged tendrils of fury begin to rake down his spine, and it took everything in his power to not activate his Sharingan. In the middle of a crowded street with an already tainted reputation was not the best place to mercilessly pound someone into the dirt.

"We're not friends, Uchiha," Kiba continued seriously, and Sasuke snorted derisively. "I won't give you the courtesy of playing fair, but, man to man, I will tell you that I plan on pursuing Sakura. And if she wants me, then I'll treat her the way a woman like her should be treated. So you can have your pride, and I can have Sakura."

With a hard glare and a rigidly set mouth, Kiba walked passed Sasuke with a lazy gait and straight to Sakura. Sasuke watched as Sakura smiled brightly when he touched her elbow, immediately linking her arm through his and letting him lead her along, the pair laughing together so heavily that Sakura had to lean into him to keep her balance. He didn't know how long he watched them, letting this lead like weight settle in his stomach and his rage give way to something a little more empty. Someone bumped his shoulder as they walked, and he was broken out of his trance. Shoulders hunched, hands buried deep in his pocket, he walked home, only the starry sky and absolute strangers to keep him company.

XXXXX

Sasuke winces slightly, a sick feeling churning in his chest as he remembers the six long months that Sakura and that disgusting piece of dog shit had dated afterwards. All the secretive smiles, blatant caressing, too long kisses. Fucking annoying. That's what they had been.

"I know what you're doing, Sasuke," Ino says, her eyes softening a little as she notices the wince and frown that suddenly cross his face, the way his body sags too heavily against the door frame. "And pretending won't help you any. You're in love with her…and I can understand why that frustrates you now more than ever."

Sasuke grits his teeth, clutches the door frame too tightly to prevent his ire from boiling over into the stillness of the fading afternoon. Who is she to assume such things? Who is she to come to his home and speak so confidently, so foolishly, of his feelings for Sakura? "You know nothing," Sasuke seethes with a sneer, beginning to close the door on Ino's sad, pleading face. "I don't love Sakura."

On day fifty-eight, Sasuke's tongue tastes like acid, and he finds that there's a lump in his throat too painful to swallow.

"Come back tomorrow morning and we can discuss team members," Kakashi says stiffly, running a hand over his weary face. His mask is pulled down to reveal his entire face, every stress line and tense muscle visible to Naruto, Sasuke, and Sai. He had removed it in frustration two weeks ago, muttering to himself that he couldn't fucking breathe with that thing on his face. The reveal hadn't carried any sort of excitement, no exuberant shouts of triumph from Naruto and no curious stares from Sasuke. It was simply the wrong time to care about such things.

When Kakashi collapses back into his chair, the trio of shinobi take it as their dismissal and drag their feet tiredly out into the empty Konoha streets. The cold is absolutely biting, a frigid breeze seeping quickly into their thick coats and pants in a way that made their bones ache. They trudge through the ankle deep snow with slight difficulty but as quickly as possible. It's four in the morning, and Sasuke is fucking exhausted, can feel the greedy little fingers of sleepless insanity tickling the back of his mind, but he doesn't care, can't sleep, because every time he does he only dreams of her and silky pink strands brushing across his cheeks and apple green eyes that are so, so bright. And he just can't have that.

"I have a good feeling about this mission," Naruto says with a slight stutter, his teeth rattling together violently and breath puffing out in visible clouds. "We're close to finding her. I can feel it. We just need…"

Sasuke only listens to Naruto's impassioned rant with half an ear. The weight on his chest makes it hard to think, hard to focus, hard to breathe; it is unbearable. Every day it seems to get heavier and denser, like a sickness slowly infecting his body and making him crumble beneath its mighty force, and Sasuke feels like only half the person he was just months ago. He is fading, and it is her fault. It is her fucking fault that the world is suddenly washed in shades of gray, that it takes all of his energy to pull himself out of bed every morning, that the darkness he'd escaped years ago was beginning to consume him again.

"We're going to find her this time. I know it."

Naruto's hopeful, determined smile and confident words ignite a surge of vicious fury in Sasuke, and he suddenly snaps. "For fucks sake, Naruto," he seethes, voice loud and harsh. He stops completely to face his friends, fists clenched so hard that the skin on his palms begin to tear, inky black bangs falling into his snarling face. Sai and Naruto halt immediately, taken aback by the Uchiha's sudden outburst. "Give up already. Sakura isn't fucking coming back. She's gone. She's dead. And we are never going to find her." Naruto's surprised features quickly morph into an expression of outrage, cerulean eyes igniting with blazing disbelief as Sai's face hardens into stone. Sasuke continues, paying no mind to their growing fury or the snow flurries that are increasing in frequency and nearly blinding him as they cling to his eyelashes. "There hasn't been a single fucking trace of her, and you actually think she's coming back? A kunoichi doesn't just disappear for this long. No one will ever find her because she is-"

He doesn't get to finish because Naruto's fist comes crashing into his cheek, the force of the blow causing the Uchiha to stumble back several steps as sharp pain erupts across his face. Naruto's chest is heaving dramatically, teeth gritted and mouth twisted in a mixed expression of anguish and rage.

"Don't say another word, Sasuke," he threatens, fists clenching and unclenching. "Or I will pound your sorry ass into the ground until you can't walk. You're a complete piece of shit, a fucking coward, giving up because you're too afraid of the outcome."

Black irises morph into a deep red, and Sasuke launches himself back at Naruto with a growl. The blonde meets him with equal ferocity, and the two clash in a flurry of displaced snow, their shouts echoing loudly along the empty Konoha street. Sai stands by without intention to assist either of the enraged shinobi, understanding that this torrent of emotion would extinguish itself, understanding that even he was too emotionally weary to put forth the effort.

"You're living a fantasy, Naruto," Sasuke growls, grunting when Naruto's fist makes contact with his ribs. The pain is sharp enough to make him stumble but not bad enough to slow him down.

"At least I'm not too scared to fight for my friends," Naruto manages to reply through gritted teeth as he wipes away the blood from his split lip.

Infuriated shouts and grunting echo along the deserted, snow packed streets, and Sai frowns as he watches the wrestling friends. Moonlight seems to bounce off the drifting snow flurries, igniting them with a strange, crystalline glow, and it looks like stars dripping from the velvety black night sky. The snow is packed densely along the streets, along the rooftops, a thick blanket of shimmering white. A soft yellow glow from the streetlamps bathes parts of the street in gold, and the air, though bitingly frigid, is refreshingly clean and sharp. He does not completely understand fairy tales yet, but this is what he imagines they must look like. Breathtakingly exquisite, as Sakura had described to him so many times. It is a shame that such serenity is being disrupted by useless anger.

Naruto suddenly lands a sharp kick to Sasuke's stomach, sending his dark haired opponent catapulting into the snow. The blonde's chest is heaving, angry tears beginning to swim inside his eyes. Sasuke stands slowly, arm clutching his abdomen as he struggles to gain some semblance of control over his rage and his breath.

"Why are you really compartmentalizing all this, Sasuke?" Naruto asks with a malicious bite, eyes hard and cold despite the tears that dance along his lash line. "Is it because you feel guilty? Does it hurt to know that you were supposed to be Sakura's escort, that you could have been there to protect her, and instead you convinced Kakashi to send her with someone else? You abandoned her again and look what happened."

The world spins violently for a second, like a savage, relentless tornado, and he can't fucking breathe. Then, it stops and comes crashing right back down on his head, and he is being crushed underneath its incredible weight. Does he feel guilty? Does it hurt? Does it hurt?

XXXXX

The sun was a blazing crimson as it sunk lower on the horizon, setting the sky alight with magnificent crimsons, pinks, and golds. Civilians were slowly beginning to close their business for the day and head home, and the boisterous, energetic chatter of the day was replaced with the soft murmur of goodbyes and tired, last minute conversation. Everything was so calm, so serene.

"Did it hurt? Leaving us all those years ago I mean."

The question violently cut through Sasuke's thoughts. Dark eyes immediately swept to the pink haired woman sitting across the table from him. Her eyes were bright and innocent, like the question was as casual as asking about the weather, and she smiled genuinely at the waitress when she came by with their drinks and two for Naruto and Kakashi, who had yet to arrive for their weekly lunch.

He stiffened and clenched his fists unconsciously underneath the table, a clear sign of his discomfort. Sakura stared at him patiently, chin resting in her palm as her other hand absently twirled the straw in her drink, radiant emeralds burning a hole right through him. His heart thumped too roughly against his chest.

After a long moment, he looked away from her expectant face, gazing out the window at the people strolling by. "I did what I had to do."

Another long pause followed, long enough that Sasuke looked back at his old teammate curiously. Her mouth was turned down into a frown, her brow creasing slightly.

She sighed. "I'll never fully understand why you did it, Sasuke," she said softly. "We could've helped you."

"I didn't need your help," he snapped aggressively, irritated that she was bringing up the past he would rather just forget. "You would've held me back."

"Naruto stayed and he got stronger. I stayed and I got stronger," she stated simply, but Sasuke recognized the spark of fire in her eyes. "We always held on to the things we would fight for, and you always held on to the things you wanted to fight against. It didn't make you stronger, Sasuke; it made you empty."

Sasuke's aggravation flared, and his eyes momentarily flickered to crimson. What did she know about emptiness? Sakura noticed the shadow of anger beginning to darken his face, and gently placed one of her small hands on his forearm resting atop the table. His body immediately stiffened upon the contact, but then relaxed again as her eyes softened into an understanding, pleading look.

"You've accomplished what you set out to, Sasuke," she said gently, a small, encouraging smile slipping onto her face. "There's no reason to hide anymore."

"I'm not hiding from anyone," he hissed through gritted teeth, annoyed by her stupid smile and stupid eyes that looked at him with such unfounded understanding. He removed his arm from her touch and summoned a warning glare, but the brightness in her eyes didn't dim. "I don't know what you want from me, but, I assure you, I don't have it."

Sakura glanced over his shoulder and beamed, waving her hand so that Naruto, who was pulling Kakashi along by the sleeve as the elder ninja kept his orange book raised diligently to his face, could see them in the crowded restaurant. Sasuke didn't know if he should feel offended by the ease with which she could put a somewhat somber conversation on hold. After Naruto had returned her wave, the medic turned back to her companion.

"I just want you to be honest with yourself, Sasuke," she stated, pushing her hair behind her ear and leaned forward so she could eye him very closely. "And when you stop trying to hide your emotions from yourself maybe then you can be happy." She smiled softly though her eyes were serious.

Just then Naruto slid into the booth beside Sasuke, bumping his shoulder roughly and greeting the pair with an enthusiastic smile. Kakashi slid in beside Sakura with more grace and less noise, but lowered his book to his lap to ruffle Sakura's hair with an affectionate squint of his eyes. She laughed and playfully swatted his hands away. The Uchiha stared at the trio for a long moment, watched as Sakura snatched away Kakashi's book with a scolding face and how little he resisted despite his pout and feeble attempt to justify his obsession with pornography, watched as Naruto chattered on and on about something that made Kakashi chuckle endlessly and Sakura laugh so hard that tears of mirth began to leak from her eyes. They picked food off of each other's plates, teased one another relentlessly, smiled fondly, laughed without restraint.

So was it hard, Sasuke, leaving us behind? The question lingered like thunder in his ears, but no one else seemed to hear it.

XXXXX

Something in Sasuke shudders and breaks, the answers to those questions like knives in his ribs. "You don't think it's hard for me!" he shouts, screams really, and his head hurts and his chest hurts and he feels so fucking cold. "You think it doesn't keep me up every night, knowing that she's gone, knowing that every time we go out there looking for her, we'll come back empty handed? You think I actually want her to be gone, that I don't want her here with us, with me, where she belongs?"

Sasuke's raised voice breaks through the silence of the night with shattering force, ruining the pretty picture of a serene, snow touched village. The raw emotion in his voice dances among the scattering snowflakes, winds its way along the deserted street, sends Naruto into paralyzed shock. The blonde had wanted this reaction, wanted his long-time friend to do something, but hearing the anguish so poorly veiled in his words, feeling the intensity of frustration simmering inside him like an inferno, was almost too much, too raw to even process.

Sai is the only one who looks relatively composed in the situation, but even he feels something in his chest stutter painfully as the cracks in Sasuke's rough exterior begin to show. He feels his lips pull into something uncomfortable – a grimace, Sai, Sakura would say – and his eyes flutter shut for a brief moment because the stutter is now more of a throbbing ache.

Sasuke finds it incredibly hard to catch his breath for some reason, like there's something in his throat that won't let him swallow any oxygen. Naruto's staring at him with wide eyes, the fury melting from his face as something more tormented took its place. Sai stares at him unblinkingly, eyes blank but mouth curled down into something more somber than a frown.

Their faces are too honest, their pain too palpable and real, so Sasuke abruptly turns on his heel and heads home.

When the door of his apartment closes behind him and a blanket of warmth encompasses his body, he only just realizes how incredibly cold he had been. His fingers are frozen stiff, his face stung by the hostile bite of the frigid air, and his body trembles violently despite his best attempts.

Even in the warmth, he can't catch a breath, can't seem to get that tightness off of his chest for even a brief moment.

On day eighty-two, it hurts. It fucking hurts.

Passing a weary hand over his face, Sasuke pads through the darkness of his kitchen with practiced feet. It's a quarter past four in the morning, and everything about the night is absolutely still. The Uchiha lethargically makes himself coffee, the soft whirring of the machine sounding exceptionally loud in the silence, and stiffy settles down at his small kitchen table. His coffee is bitter and too hot, burning his tongue and the roof of his mouth sharply, but he keeps drinking it anyway.

He's so tired, exhausted to the point of frustration, but he can't sleep because the thought of those bright, bright viridian eyes dancing and twinkling behind his eyelids for another night makes his chest seize. At first, the dreams were reluctantly welcome, a brief reprieve from the torment of a life without pink. To see her smile, to feel her fingers brushing his shoulder, to watch the way silky pink strands brushed tanned shoulders. It had been refreshing to feel her presence again, like jumping into a pool of cold water on a hot day, but, gradually, these dreams warped into nightmares where he would run and run and run but never get any closer. She was always just out of reach, always waiting with a pretty smile on her face and her hand outstretched for him, but he just couldn't grasp her.

Then, he started seeing her when he was awake. When he wound his way through the market, the slightest flash of pink had him stumbling and frantic, and he swore he's seen her eyes shining up at him in the crowd. Her voice laughed to him as he strolled about on busy, lively nights, and her smile was felt in every sunrise.

Had he finally done it? Had he finally lost the last few strings connecting him to sanity?

'Fuck, Sakura', he thinks as his fists clench atop the table, jaw tensing so viciously it sends a sharp pain through his teeth. Obsidian locks fall forward into his face as he hunches over the table, the crescents of his nails beginning to dig marks into the table.

The misery is absolutely asphyxiating, and he wishes so badly that this situation meant nothing to him, that she meant nothing to him.

XXXXX

He got drunk, and so did she. And then it was easy.

He caught her eye across the room – accidentally, purely accidentally – and then his fingers are suddenly wrapped around hers, tugging her from the drunken cheer and merriment of Naruto and Hinata's engagement party and into the night. If he was someone else – someone honest – he would say it was the radiance of her smile, the allure of her eyes, the way that black dress curved delicately around her shapely thighs and pert breasts. But he wasn't that person, so he decided it was the alcohol surging through his veins and his own aching libido that had gone unsatisfied for far too long.

When he finally shoved her up against his front door, however, he couldn't deny, even to himself, that the feel of her velvet lips against his was anything short of divine. She kissed him with abandon, wrapping her leg around his thigh so that his hard cock was pressed flush against her aching center, rocking against him while her arms locked around his neck.

He could've kissed her forever, just like that. Fingers buried in silken pink strands, tongue aggressively tangled with hers, bodies so flush that he could feel her heart tattooing his chest.

But then she tugged and he followed, stumbling inside after her until his knees hit the edge of his bed, his body falling into hers like he was coming home.

There was more frantic kissing, clothes flying off until they're pressed skin to skin, vulnerability to vulnerability, and when he teased one of her nipples with a relentless tongue, she arched and whimpered in such a way that he had to grind his hips into the mattress, the ache so prominent it was bone deep.

Everything about her was soft and warm, and her cry when he finally laid his tongue on her clit made him shudder violently. She tugged his hair, and his teeth dragged harsher against the sensitive bud, her mouth falling open in a soundless cry when his fingers plunged deep into her slick warmth. Her pussy was spasming around his fingers and he thought 'mine, mine, mine' with such ferocity that he only suckled her harder, her screams like music to his ears.

Before her last spasm subsided, he was pounding his aching, swollen length into her, hoisting her thighs around his waist, plunging so deep and hard his teeth rattled. She panted. She moaned. She destroyed every sane thought in his head.

Heaven, he thought as he came with a ferocity that made his mind blank, heaven. And he feels everything in this moment.

In the morning, he would wake - sated and content and completely alone - and convince himself the opposite before marching to the Hokage's office to demand that Sakura be partnered with someone else for this upcoming mission. Because this and she and them should mean nothing.

XXXXX

Sasuke launches his fist into the wood table, splintering it to pieces and noisily sending his coffee mug careening to the floor.

When he looks at the shadows playing against his walls, he swears it's her, swears it's her form dancing in the darkness, her voice whispering in the night wind.

On day one hundred and one, Sasuke wonders... if she haunts his every step, does that mean she's already dead?

It's a normal day – the new normal, the one without Sakura – that Sasuke lays exhausted and restless in the middle of the training grounds and realizes he really can't remember the sound of her voice. It's like a cold bucket of water on his body, and he tenses violently.

'Soft, whimsical,' he tries to remind himself, then changes his mind. 'No, strong, confident.'

He's hyperventilating because now the exact green shade of her eyes is ambiguous, maybe light or maybe dark. Was her hair pink or was it a very light red?

The overcast sky above him feels too dark – Sakura likes the sun, she always did – and his body feels too heavy upon the damp earth.

His mind is forgetting her, but the rest of him isn't.

On day one hundred and twelve, Sasuke Uchiha feels like the ghost she has become.

Day one hundred and fourteen. It's been less than a year but more than a lifetime. Sasuke trudges through the every day bustle of the streets with Naruto, sullen and empty. Naurto's spine is straight and strong, but his head hangs miserably, fists shoved deep in his orange pockets. It's too loud but not loud enough. There's a voice missing.

They turn a corner and suddenly Sai is charging up to them, dark eyes unusually wide and breath heavy and frantic.

"Sakura," he gasps, and Sasuke feels the wind stop abruptly on his face. "Found her. She's alive."

It's quiet for an achingly long moment before Naruto turns to look at him with a tensed jaw and shimmering, hopeful eyes. Sasuke feels a heavy breath escape him before the trio is speeding in the direction of the hospital.

For the first time in months, Sasuke is aware of the wind cascading along his face and his heartbeat rushing, throbbing, thundering in his ears. Alive. Alive. Alive.

The hospital is bustling when they charge through the doors, nurses teary eyed and smiling and random shinobi milling about in awe and confusion. Sasuke feels powerfully overwhelmed. Where is she? When can they see her? What, how, why?

"You've heard," Kakashi suddenly announces from behind them, Hokage robes lopsided, hair messy, but smiling brilliantly beneath his mask. The three turn to him immediately, eager for information. "She's stable, malnourished and weak but stable." Sasuke can hardly breathe, can hardly hear. "Before she fell unconscious again, she told us it was a group of rogue nin. They ambushed her when she was weak after working in a nearby village. Apparently, the leader's brother was suffering from some lethal but slow-acting poison, and they had been lying in wait for her. Kept her with them this whole time for her to develop a cure. She escaped just a couple days ago, and a group of our own stumbled across her not even a mile from the village gates."

Sasuke feels a violent rage surge through him, and it feels good…having someone to be angry for again. But he also feels an insane sense of pride. She survived on her own, fought on her own, escaped on her own. All at once, emotion seems to flood his being, emotion that he had grown so unaccustomed to.

"We are aware of their location and will be sending out a team within the hour."

Sasuke's head snaps up. Revenge. This is what he's good at, but what about Sakura? Who will she wake to? No…he will avenge her first. She will wake to friends and family and a little bit of justice. She deserved that much. "I'm in."

"Me too," Naruto declared with a resolute expression, fists clenching.

"I volunteer as well," Sai states with more conviction in his expression than Sasuke has ever seen.

"No." Sasuke can't stop himself from objecting. She'll need someone. "You'll both stay. I'll go. She'll need someone to wake to."

Sai nods in agreement, but Naruto looks ready to argue. After a hard glare and a few moments of thoughtful consideration, Naruto also nods, his hand squeezing Sasuke's shoulder sharply. "You'll do right by her, yeah?"

Sasuke's throat suddenly feels tight, so he can only nod abruptly in confirmation. Kakashi's eyes are blazing.

Half an hour later, the Uchiha slips into the growing evening with a team of five others and an inferno burning in his chest.

A/N: Part one is done! I'm working on part two already and hope to have it up asap. There will only be two chapters so the next one will involve a lot more Sakura...and Sasuke...and romance. My favorite things!