This story is already written with 8 chapters and 37,000 words. It takes place during the blank period between Naruto and Boruto. I'll post a new chapter every Thursday night. Enjoy. :)

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Close to home

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"The Council wants to tear down the Uchiha district."

Kakashi sat with perfect composure as his words echoed inside the Hokage's Office. For a moment, Sakura and Naruto stood stock still, unable to reconcile the message with the delivery. Naruto was the first to react.

"Are you kidding me?" he exploded. "If this is some kind of ploy to get back at Sasuke, he is out there trying to protect the village—"

Kakashi looked dolefully up at the ceiling, as he often did when questioning his decision to become Hokage. "Naruto," he tried to explain, "it has nothing to do with getting back at Sasuke."

"—and now they're trying to tear down his family home?" Naruto threw his hands up in frustration. "This is bullshit, Kakashi! How can you let them do this?"

A long pause followed.

"If your little outburst is done," Kakashi said pleasantly, "then I'll continue. The Council wants to tear down the Uchiha district and build more public housing. Right now the district is uninhabitable and violates more than 50 housing codes."

"But—"

"I'm not finished, Naruto. The Council is arguing that, because Sasuke has left the Uchiha district to decay, he has forfeited his right to the property, and now it's a matter of public concern."

Naruto slapped his hands on the Hokage's desk in outrage and barreled back with arguments.

Sakura stood quietly behind him, occupied with the single image in her mind of Sasuke as a child, running home in time for dinner.

She finally cut in. "So if Sasuke paid to clean up the district," she interrupted, "then the Council can't tear it down?"

Kakashi swatted Naruto's hands off his desk and papers. "Yes, that's right," he responded, still shooing Naruto away from the mess he created.

"Do we know where he is? Can we ask him?" she said.

"The last message we received from Sasuke was a month ago in Cloud. At the time, he was headed to Sand."

"I'll track him down, don't you worry, Kakashi-sensei!" exclaimed Naruto, now full of bravado. Papers of official Hokage business were still fluttering to the floor from his previous outburst. "With my shadow clones, I'll find him in no time."

Kakashi lifted his eyes back to the ceiling. "Aren't you headed out for a mission with Yamato," he reminded lightly. "Right now, as a matter of fact?"

"Oh," Naruto laughed, looking down at his flak vest. "Forgot about that. I got a little caught up."

Kakashi leaned back in his seat. "It should be fine. We can ask our friends in Suna if he's come through. He would have checked in with Gaara."

Sand was only three days from the Leaf. Sasuke hadn't returned to the village in two years, not once, but she couldn't stop her foolish heart from racing at the idea. She tried not to think it, but the words came to life of their own will, tempting, blistering.

What if he was finally ready to come home?

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A week later, Sakura hastened into the Council room, yanking off her white doctor's coat and tossing it onto a bench in the hall. She ran here from the hospital during her lunch break. She took a moment to steady herself, slipped through the door, and sat quietly in the back.

Today the Council would decide how to handle the decaying Uchiha district.

With Naruto on a mission and Kakashi busy with Hokage meetings, Sakura didn't have nearly as much information on Sasuke and his whereabouts as she would like. She only knew that, yet again, he did not return to the village. But Kakashi was able to get in touch with him, and that's what mattered.

"Moving on to the topic of the Uchiha district," Lady Koharu began. She screwed her eyes together as she read through the Council's agenda. She was a small, grand old thing, in some ways as old as the village itself.

Sakura strained to get a better look from her seat on the floor. She cursed her height in situations like these where every other ninja in the room sat taller than her.

"The Hokage has explained the situation to Sasuke Uchiha, the only living heir to the Uchiha estate."

She leaned forward.

"And Sasuke has refused to answer."

Sakura felt her stomach drop. What?

Lady Koharu spoke with absolutely finality as she said, "If a man can leave his family estate to decay, and not bother to answer an official Council request, then he has forfeited his right to the property. We will begin the demolition of the district in one week."

"You can't be serious!"

Sakura froze at her unexpected outburst. Everyone turned to stare at her. Recognition passed over their faces, as Sakura had become a well-known figure in the village for her successes at the hospital, as well as for her role in the Fourth Great Ninja War. They looked expectantly at her. Sakura rose to her feet, feeling the awkward, heavy silence of the room.

"Please forgive me, Lady Koharu," she apologized, bowing. Rudeness would certainly do Sasuke no good here. She took her time raising her head, buying time to figure out what to say, how she could help. But in the end, she opened her mouth to speak passionately and impulsively, and simply hoped for the best.

"We don't know why Sasuke didn't give a clear answer," she began. "Maybe he didn't have time to respond. I'm sure he didn't think the Council wanted to move so quickly."

Lady Koharu shook her head. "My dear, his total lack of concern—"

"If we just wait a few more weeks, I'm sure we can get a reply," Sakura pressed, full of feeling.

Lady Koharu was not a woman without sympathy. Her expression softened at Sakura. Everyone in the village knew that both Sakura and Naruto defended Sasuke at every opportunity. And the village had learned to accept that Sasuke wanted to right his wrongs. But that did not change the matter at hand. In all her years on the Council, Lady Koharu had firmly believed that the group must outweigh the individual. She was not likely to change her mindset now.

"I'm sorry, but the timeline is set," she replied. "The odds of reaching Sasuke before next week are very low. The entire district is a hazard and eyesore to everyone around it. The Council cannot allow the district to remain as it is."

Sakura felt sick all over. Naruto was gone. Kakashi must have thought there was nothing they could do without Sasuke. She hated decisions like this. All her life, she excelled in books and rules, white and black. If Sasuke didn't give Kakashi an answer, then he must not care. But how could she believe that? How could he not care about his childhood home?

And what gave her the right to interfere?

Sakura hesitated, then replied, "It won't remain as it is."

"What do you mean?"

"Let me start the repairs this week," she pleaded, gaining resolve. "We'll start to fix the perimeter walls, and we'll close up the entrances. We can begin the work while we wait for a response from Sasuke."

Lady Koharu raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure, Sakura?"

She knew in her heart that—wherever Sasuke was, whatever he thought, however he felt—she couldn't stand by while other people made the decision to tear down his home.

"I'm sure."

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Later that day, Sakura was not sure.

"What have I gotten myself into," she sighed, standing outside the Uchiha complex and contemplating the crumbling walls. The Uchiha emblems, spaced out every few yards, stared back at her, silent and imposing. She couldn't believe the complaints that kids would run through here. How anyone could summon up the courage was beyond her.

After a while, Sakura finally passed through the entrance, walked through the first street of houses, and surveyed the damage.

Not as bad as they said, she thought. Sure, they looked abandoned. They were abandoned. She was certainly no expert in construction, but the walls looked strong enough. But as she continued to walk, she spotted a few roofs that had fallen in. She peered into a window, squinting through layers of grime and dirt for a glimpse of molding floors. Every now and again, she would look through a broken window and gaze curiously at the dusty furniture inside. Bookcases stocked with hardbacks and board games. Dishes in the sink.

Sakura stopped dead in the middle of the street. The eerie silence of the district swallowed her.

I can't do this, she said over and over again in her head. This was not right. She had no right to be here, to be seeing the family photos on the wall, some crooked, some fallen to the floor.

Sakura nearly turned around to find Lady Koharu and say that she changed her mind when the sound of shattering glass cut through the silence. Sakura jolted and careened around the corner to find two kids crunching through broken glass to pick up a ball.

"You shouldn't be here," she sputtered, stunned. "Go!"

They didn't need any prompting from her. They immediately scrambled through the nearest alley back to the main entrance.

Sakura stared at the broken window, fixated on the ragged, splintering edges and the scattered shards on the ground. If she did nothing, the Council would tear it all down and leave a gaping hole where someone's home should be. Everything that was left of the Uchiha was right here. In these homes, in these photos, in these broken window frames. Everything left of Sasuke's childhood was right here, ready to be bulldozed.

Sakura found her resolve again. She walked back to the entrance and took another look at the perimeter walls, which needed repairs but were still standing. They were fine for now. Her first task was to add gates to close all the open entrances.

And if she had any luck at all, Sasuke would respond to Kakashi's next message and approve the repairs. She knew the Uchiha estate still had plenty of funds—especially considering the years of his absence—to take care of the property.

"It's only for a couple of weeks," Sakura tried to comfort herself. "How hard can it be?"

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Pretty hard, it turned out.

Sakura glared at the instructions in front of her, which were laid out carefully on the grass.

She had acquired the instructions, as well as the materials, from a village woodworker who was a friend of her mother's. After a long shift at the hospital, she dropped by his home and picked up the sturdy wooden gate. She was convinced it would be a simple task. She was a quick study with top notch comprehension skills. She was a jonin, for goodness' sake. She could certainly handle an amateur construction job. She had instructions. What else could she need?

Sakura looked from the diagram to the gate. Then from the gate to the diagram.

The gate was backwards.

Without no one around to hear her, Sakura gave a wordless grump of rage and tossed the instructions aside. She dismantled the gate and the locks, switched everything around, and began again.

By the time she finished this amateur construction job, it was already nightfall. She had chosen a small back entrance to start with. The gate was barely wide enough for two people to enter at the same time.

Sakura mopped the sweat off her forehead. It was early summer in the Leaf. With satisfaction, she appraised her work by opening the door, closing it, locking it, and then unlocking it with the utmost seriousness in her expression.

Light footsteps came up behind her.

"Thought I'd find you here, forehead," came the subtle, silky voice.

Sakura spun around. "Ino? What are you doing here?"

"I heard an interesting rumor today," Ino replied breezily, flicking her long blond hair over her shoulder. "And I wanted to see if it was true. Have you really volunteered to save the Uchiha district?"

Sakura frowned at the description. She could see the skepticism filling those blue eyes. "Not exactly."

"Sakura, you realize that you are, as we speak, building a gate?" Ino scoffed.

Sakura bent down to gather her things and messily folded up the instructions. "It's just for a week or two," she said. "Kakashi has already sent another message to Sasuke, but the Council wants to see work being done."

Ino crossed her arms. "So why do you have to do it?"

"Who else is going to do it?" Sakura said, becoming testy. "If you have suggestions, please, Ino, I'm all ears."

Ino held up her hands. "Okay, okay, I get it," she said. "I just mean that you already have enough on your plate with the hospital and the children's clinic. I don't see you enough as it is. We haven't been to the movies in ages."

Ino's appeal mollified her. "I know, you're right," Sakura responded. "But it's just a week or two, and it's worth it to buy Sasuke a little more time."

The blond stood there quietly for a moment. That was always a sure sign that Ino was about to say something that Sakura would decidedly not like.

"Sakura," she said in a gentle voice, "I understand your reasons, I really do. It doesn't feel right to let the village tear it down while he's away. But"—inching her eyes up to Sakura's face—"wouldn't Sasuke have said something if it was so important?"

A double meaning hung heavy in the air, one that Ino hadn't intended. For Sakura, it hit too close to home. She struggled to keep her composure as she thought of all the implications of that question. If Sasuke wanted to come back to the village, why didn't he?

Ino continued innocently, unaware of the direction Sakura's thoughts had taken. "All I'm saying is that I don't want you to wear yourself out. Okay? You're still young, Sakura," she said smiling. "You should act like it for a change."

You should give up on him. That was the message resonating in her mind. One day you'll be old, and you will have wasted your life waiting on him. He is not the kind of man to live a normal life, to marry, to settle down. Not the kind of man to love you.

Sakura slung her bag over her shoulder. "I'll keep that in mind, Ino," she said mildly, getting better every day at hiding her feelings of longing and frustration for Sasuke to return. "But for now, we'll keep waiting for Sasuke's reply. I know it'll come soon."

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A week later, Sakura was back in the Hokage's office, standing in front of Kakashi with total disbelief.

She stared at the note uncomprehendingly. The words sat in a neat little row, written in clear, crisp marks. No sign of hurry. No reason to question.

Do what you want.

It echoed in her ears.

Do what you want.

Somehow she felt so betrayed. They asked for one thing. One simple question, and he couldn't even give them an answer.

The nerve.

"What does that even mean? Do what you want," Sakura bit out, thinking to herself that Sasuke was the most horrible, selfish man who ever existed. She looked at Kakashi in exasperation. "What do we do now?"

Kakashi scratched the back of his neck. "Well, I think this counts as written permission for us to make repairs," he said, trying to make the best of it. "And to use Uchiha funds."

"But is that what he wants?" she asked helplessly.

"Who can say what he wants, Sakura?"

Kakashi shook his head.

"But I think this is the right decision," he said. "I think Sasuke will feel differently about the situation whenever he comes back."

Whenever.

Was that the timeframe they were operating on now? Whenever Sasuke comes back. If he ever comes back. And in the meantime, they will all just wait for him.

Do what you want.

Maybe Ino was right. Sakura crumpled the note in her fist.

You're annoying.

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At home in her apartment, Sakura sat cross-legged on her bed, glaring at the wrinkled note pinned above her desk. Sasuke's clean handwriting mocked her. She was still so angry with him. She knew that he was out in the world protecting the village. But these days it felt less like atonement and more like indifference.

In the beginning, she felt content with his absence. Her heart was still full from seeing him back in the village and reuniting with Team Seven for however briefly. Just those small moments were enough. It was more than she'd ever thought possible.

And when he told her goodbye, he looked at her with an expression she had never seen before. In that moment, heat rose to her cheeks as she gazed into his softened charcoal eyes. For a long time, she could still feel the way his calloused fingers brushed against her forehead.

But that was two years ago. Now all she had was a distant memory, and doubt.

Sakura's irritation swiftly turned inward. What did it matter if she imagined that moment between her and Sasuke? It should make no difference. He was a childhood friend, a former member of Team Seven. If it were Naruto or anyone else, she would help however she could, no questions asked.

It was Saturday, her day off, and Sakura climbed out of bed and got dressed. She pulled her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail.

Yamato and Naruto were back from their mission. It was as good of a time as any to finish those wooden gates.

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"Not bad," Yamato said, nodding over Sakura's work. She had built two gates in the week they waited for Sasuke's response and simply used yellow tape over the other entrances.

"I figured if they weren't good," Sakura shrugged, "you could just rebuild them. In fact,"—grinning—"you can feel free to build the others right now if you want."

Yamato gave her a generous smile. "I think I can manage that for you, Sakura."

Meanwhile Naruto stood with his arms crossed, eyeing the compound, nodding his head as if making a plan.

Naruto had taken the news of Sasuke's response much better than Sakura had. When she found them earlier, she recounted, with lingering frustration, Sasuke's curt reply. Naruto merely laughed. "That bastard will never change," he remarked, chuckling like it was all a good joke amongst friends.

Was that a good thing, Sakura wondered, if he never changed?

"Are you having any brilliant ideas?" she called out to him, propping her hand on her hip.

Naruto pushed out his chin and thoughtfully stroked it. "I'm thinking," he said, "that this is a lot of work."

Sakura and Yamato gave each other a look.

"Yes, it is," Sakura consented graciously.

"Where do we even start?" he asked, eyeing several rows of streets and houses.

"We'll hire professionals to do the work," Sakura said, just as much at a loss. "It's obviously more than we can do ourselves."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto scoffed. "You have me. I'll be the muscles of the operation."

Sakura gave him a very pointed, disbelieving look. "If anyone's the muscle around here, it's me."

Naruto carried on. "And Yamato will just rebuild everything," snapping his fingers, "like that."

Yamato interjected. "You're forgetting that neither of us are in the village very often, Naruto. Our help would be pretty unreliable," he said. "And I assume our goal is not to bulldoze the compound and then build on top?"

"Yes," Sakura said. "We should keep as much of the original structure as we can."

He nodded. "Yeah, so even if I help rebuild, you have to go through the process of removing all the rotting wood, broken windows, you name it. I can only fill in the gaps."

Sakura hadn't considered that. When Yamato helped rebuild the village after Pain's attack, he was building fresh on flat ground, not trying to salvage damaged buildings.

"That's okay," she replied. "The contractors can do the repairs. Kakashi said we can use the funds from the Uchiha estate to pay for it."

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about, Yamato," Naruto cut in, throwing his arms behind his head in his customary pose. "I have plenty of time to help."

"No, you don't. You're on a mission more often than not," Sakura remarked.

Naruto started to protest.

"And you've got Hinata now."

He fell silent.

"You can't spend all your time here with your wife home alone."

Naruto raked a hand through his hair and turned back to look at the property. "Yeah, but how are we going to manage this while Sasuke's gone? You can't do it all alone, Sakura."

"I won't do it alone," Sakura insisted. "I'll find some contractors. I'll check on the progress from time to time. It's no big deal."

"Yeah, but that's still a lot of work."

"Who else is going to do it?" she returned, tired of repeating the same sentiment to Ino and now Naruto. "I'm the only one staying in the village right now."

Naruto looked ready to interject, but Sakura persisted.

"Look, we're getting ahead of ourselves. We came here for a job, remember?"

She toured Yamato around all the entrances. Except for the main entrance, they were just openings in the outside wall, large enough for two people to walk through. She pulled the hinges and locks from her backpack, and Naruto cracked a joke that she would quit her job to become a landscaper before it was all over.

Finally they circled back to the front entrance. Tall trees lined the stone walkway, leading up to a gateway with a peaked roof. Tattered banners with the Uchiha emblem hung from the eaves, rippling with breeze.

"I'm not sure how to close up this one," Sakura said, looking to Yamato for suggestions.

The structure stood at least 15 feet tall.

"I don't want to board it up completely," she explained. "The other entrances probably aren't big enough to bring in larger equipment."

Yamato laced his fingers together to prepare his jutsu. Wood cracked through the stone walkway, and in a blink, Yamato closed the entrance with two towering doors. "You'll need to buy a bigger lock for this one," he joked.

"This is perfect, Yamato," she said.

One item checked off the list, Sakura thought with satisfaction.

Now all that was left was, well, everything.

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A few days later, Sakura visited the second floor of the Hokage Tower, where she handed over a formal document sealed by the Seventh Hokage. In return, a middle-aged woman plopped a thick manila folder in Sakura's hands.

"You can sit over there," she said, gesturing at a tiny desk cramped between a bookshelf and another filing cabinet. "You can take as many notes as you like, but the documents stay here."

Sakura thanked the woman and sat down at the desk, shuffling a few papers around to make room. She opened the manila folder and scanned the fragile, aging papers on what was left of the Uchiha estate.

With a start, Sakura motioned the woman over. "I'm sorry, but am I looking at this right? Why are the cash holdings nowhere near the bottom line value?"

The woman looked over Sakura's shoulder with a sigh, her glasses sliding an inch down her nose. "This line shows the value of the estate, dear. Most of this is tied up in the property." Pointing to a considerably smaller figure, she clarified, "This is the actual amount of available funds."

"Oh." Sakura had little else to say. "Thank you."

She quickly took out a notepad and wrote down the allowance.

We'll hire professionals to do the work.

Naruto always had a knack for guessing. Maybe he was right when he said she would become a landscaper by the end of it.

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As the weeks went by, Sakura scoped out all the construction companies in the village and found one that was willing to bargain with her.

Sakura found that she didn't really mind the work. It felt a lot like school. Because she was never at a loss for questions, she picked up information so fast that Michio, the lead on the project, often joked that he'd take her on as an apprentice if she wanted.

"You're strong," he said one day, crossing his tanned arms over his chest. "You can lift better than most of the men working for me. And we could use a medic around. Think about it?" he laughed.

Sakura made a plan with Michio about which parts his men would handle, and which parts she would do on her own. She would remove the furniture from the houses before work began, making sure that none of Sasuke's family's items were thrown away or damaged in the process. She could tear up rotting floors and paint walls.

Just pitching in here and there, she reasoned to herself.

But she didn't tell anyone about the money.

On a typical day, Sakura arrived at the hospital in the early morning when it was still damp and chill. When her shift ended, she stepped out into the hot evening air, squinting at her first look at the late afternoon sun. The summer heat helped dispel the sterile, medicinal scent of her clothes.

Every time Sakura left the hospital to go straight to the Uchiha compound, she felt a self-conscious burning in her gut. Every time she perched on the back of someone's deck, nibbling at whatever takeout she picked up on the way, she heard an embarrassed voice inside her that said this was too much.

It was hard enough that her entire village knew she loved a man who didn't feel the same way.

Her feelings were on constant parade. All the sympathetic looks, the way people changed their tone around her when they mentioned Sasuke, as if apologizing. It was torture. Even if she wanted to move on, she felt sure that no one would let her.

So whenever she could, she lied. When Naruto ran into her after a mission, she said she was headed to the hospital for a late shift. When she saw Ino leaving the hospital, she said she was on her way to visit Hinata. But most days she was at the compound.

Today she walked through the open main entrance, carrying an extra-large takeout bag.

Michio was hauling lumber from the back of a truck when he stopped at the sight of her. He grinned, emphasizing the smile lines around his eyes. "What have you brought us this time?" he asked.

"Dango," Sakura chirped.

"That's not food," Michio replied, as he took the bag of syrup-coated anko dumplings regardless. "Those are sweets."

"Sweets are food," she maintained. "And don't eat it all. It's for everyone."

Hiroto, Isami, and Koya made up the rest of the Takahashi Construction crew. As unlikely as it seemed, Sakura almost preferred their company over anyone else's these days. Maybe it was the carefree way they sat around between projects, talking about anything, their wives, their kids if they had any, their weekend plans.

Sakura experienced a marvelous absence of pressure around them. They had next to no previous knowledge of her. They knew people often addressed her as "Lady Sakura," that she had formed a much-praised program at the hospital, and that she was once in Team Seven. They did occasionally ask questions about what Naruto was like as a kid, if all the stories were true. But for the most part, shinobi life was a distant thing to them, something to consider curiously from time to time.

And sometimes she felt the same way. Less like a shinobi and more like a civilian. It was a relief to shed her shinobi fears, to cast off memories. It was an escape.

The four of them gobbled down the sweets. "These are good," Michio admitted, polishing off the sugary residue from each fingertip. "But I think we deserve to go out tonight."

"Oh no," Sakura protested. "I should get home. I have an early shift tomorrow."

"You always have an early shift," they chorused.

"Sakura, lighten up," Michio encouraged. "We should celebrate. In three months, you've learned your way around a staging area. You can patch a roof. You can install drywall now." Lowering his voice to the others, he conceded, "Sure, she almost killed you in the process, Isami, but still," raising his voice again, "you've come a long way. And the offer for my apprenticeship still stands."

Sakura pretended to consider the offer. "It's a great opportunity, but I think I'll have to pass," she said, scrunching her nose. She stood up and patted the dust off her shorts. "But you convinced me into dinner at least."

At the mention of dinner, they all jumped to their feet. Sakura had never seen them pack up so quickly. As they left the complex, she looked over her shoulder at the progress they had made.

It startled her, how different it looked. You could plainly see the new wood where walls were replaced and decks were rebuilt. Sakura had a startling thought as she pictured Sasuke walking into his clan's district, not recognizing it, seeing smeared village fingertips over every surface.

Where she had once longed for Sasuke's return, now she felt anxiety.

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Three months in, and there was no more avoiding it.

"We've got a blown-out back door on another one," Michio said one day. "We should take care of that before there's any more water damage."

Sakura immediately perked up. "No, not that one," she said, seeing his direction.

She sprang from the back deck where she had been hammering down loose nails.

"I'll handle that one," she insisted. "You can leave that one alone."

Michio quirked an eyebrow but said nothing.

The next day, she made sure none of the guys were working. Sakura stood in front of the only untouched house in the district. She stepped inside, alone and hesitant, into Sasuke's childhood home.

It felt like any other house when she walked in. Several layers of dust lay on the floor and furniture, undisturbed since the day he left. The silence felt permanent, and the house was full of it. Sakura tried to focus on the task at hand. She moved through the front room to the back of the house, where she knew a sliding door had been thrown off its track. The floor there was weak with water damage.

But it was impossible to keep her eyes from wandering. A picture frame on the credenza made her pause. With the heavy silence of the district at her back, like a thousand eyes, she picked up the frame with a guilty heart.

She never met Sasuke's parents. She looked at their faces with amazement. Fugaku stood as tall and proud as she imagined, but with a softer look in his eyes. His mother Mikoto was all loveliness, with long black hair and a radiant complexion. That was who Sasuke got his looks from, Sakura thought. Itachi stood next to them, just a child with a sweet face. Sasuke slept in his arms, bundled, blissful.

She lingered over Sasuke, trying to find the chiseled features of his adulthood in that plump, cherub face. In the end, all she could recognize was the unruly tuft of jet black hair.

Over the course of four days, Sakura moved furniture out of the back room, taking care with the vases and dishes that she imagined were Mikoto's favorite. She replaced the broken sliding door, tore up the damaged floor, and put down new hardwood. She drained the neglected koi pond in the backyard, wiped down the sides, and closed it with a plain wood cover.

She dusted the front room and mopped the floor. But she didn't enter any of the other rooms. When everything was done, she left the house, pulling the door softly shut behind her.

Sakura looked up at the evening sky, streaked with orange and red. She released the breath she'd been holding all this time.

Stopping and starting, she told herself she did a good thing.

She walked home pulling cobwebs out of her hair.

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All things come to an end, Tsunade used to say.

She quoted the saying as it related to death. In her early days, Sakura could not bear the thought of losing a patient or failing a treatment. It was her naiveté. She couldn't face the world for what it was.

One afternoon as a younger Sakura fretted over an extremely ill patient, Tsunade took her aside. "If you're going to be a medic, Sakura, I need you to remember this," she said firmly. "We will all die one day. And no matter how long we put it off, one day it will come."

As summer turned into fall, Sakura became quite used to her new routine. Long, early morning hospital shifts and evenings spent at the Uchiha compound with the Takahashi Construction crew. On her days off, when she wasn't reading or studying for a patient, she might grab a cup of tea with Hinata and Ino, or a cup of sake with Tsunade if she was in town.

Occasionally she and Lee sparred. He was the perfect sparring partner for her, for a number of reasons. No matter how many missions he went on, he had unlimited reservoirs of energy and was always willing to spar. And as a fellow taijutsu specialist, he challenged Sakura to become not only stronger but also faster in her movements.

His sensei had a different view than hers.

As silly as she found Lee and Gai's green jumpsuits, she had to admit that there was something in their fanatical "spirit of youth" dogma. Both of them had borne physical tragedies that another patient wouldn't have survived. With their impassioned optimism and love for life, they often overcame impossible circumstances.

By saying the words, by dwelling on them, she believed you could bring it into existence and make it true.

Every day Sakura visited the Uchiha compound, helping Michio and the others finish the last few projects and pack up their equipment. She would do the rest herself. There were only a couple doors to install, a few windows to replace, and a lot of painting.

Every day she sat on one of the house's decks, legs hanging over the edge, soles of her shoes just skimming the long blades of grass. The warm, humid breeze rustled through the trees and gently ruffled her tresses, now several inches down her back.

Every day she looked around and wondered when Sasuke would be back, when he would see it, what he would say, how would he feel when he saw her. Would he be irritated? Would he look at her with that expression she thought she'd imagined?

She spoke it into existence. That was all she could think.

Her hands trembled when one of her nurses burst into the break room and said, "Have you heard? Sasuke Uchiha is in the village. Aiko saw him just now at the Hokage Tower!"

Sakura placed her clipboard on a stray table and removed her doctor's coat. She pushed open the hospital doors and, with every step, she walked faster and faster until she was running, heart galloping.

She traced the well-known path to the Uchiha compound. Intuition led her there. Fear stopped her at the main gate. The double-doors were open. Hesitating, feeling the painful pounding in her chest, she walked through the entrance.

Sasuke stood on the other side.