disclaimer I don't own Naruto

notes Ok this is one of my ongoing things. Takes place in and after the three-year gap. A bit AU. There are five years (duh) and this is the prologue (of sorts) and the first two. It's supposed to be the first part of the first part of a four part story, which means that after Sakura finishes having her say it should rotate to the rest of them. Only, I haven't finished anyone else's point of views (not that I don't know what's going to happen) so I'll just leave this one alone (after I get the second part up) until I do.

pairings the pairings don't become apparent (really) in this first part at all, so it's up to you. Once they do, later on, I will mention them.

warnings Nothing, really. Uh, crappiness? Swearing, probably. Tediouseness? Errors-full-of-ness? (OK, now I'm just heading into the territory of Making Up Words) Incoherence certainly.

Spring Keeps Ever Close

I hope you find out what you want.
I already know what I am.
…you are so fragile and thin,
Standing trial for your sins.
-"The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot" Brand New

"Strength," Naruto once told her, grinning widely in the way that he had when he wanted you to think he was just being an ass again, but was actually talking about something that mattered to him, "means that everyone acknowledges you for who you are."

She is waiting for him to start on some Hokage speech, but he doesn't. Just turns his head and grins into the night sky, and she thinks that he's shining very brightly. Too brightly for the village.

She didn't really expect to understand his answer, they are too different for that. No matter how much Naruto wants them to be the same, he is one thing, and she is another. She didn't expect to understand him, but it soothes her nonetheless when he talks, because when Naruto opens his mouth, suddenly everything in the world falls into neat little boxes, and there is only black and white. She doesn't understand because she knows that every box is just apart of another box, and nothing in this world is only made up of two colours.

She did not, however, expect to feel sadness welling up inside of her, because for once, Naruto gave her a serious answer. It was not a serious question; she had just asked it because she was feeling low, and she thought that he would just say, "The Hokage." And she could smack him and everyone would be happy again. But Naruto cares, she realizes, and his tone makes her care too.

She doesn't know why he's sad, but there's something in the way that he won't meet her eyes that suggests that he's remembering the past.

"You're an idiot." She says quietly, because that is all she knows how to say to him. He turns and smiles at her brightly. "You will never be that popular."

His answer isn't right, she realizes later. Or, maybe it's right for him. But strength shouldn't be about changing yourself to meet other's expectations; it should be about changing other people and the way they look at you. She is too tired to put that thought into clear and concise and complete sentences (she does that during all the tests, and her writing is neat and cute and easy to read. Good marks just fall into her lap.) She never bothers to tell Naruto.

---

"Strength," he once told her, all dark dark hair and dark dark eyes, "is about being able to beat anyone, and never being beaten again."

It is a textbook answer, and he is not really paying attention to her question, but she is happy that he answered it for her nonetheless. She is watching him train, all fluid grace and deliberating detail, and for a second, she realizes how wide the gap between them yawns.

This is Sasuke. She realizes, looking at him from the other side of the cliff. And this is me.

Sasuke doesn't shine. He is the opposite of that. He is the black hole swallowing everything that comes into its path, and she is just far enough away to have to orbit him forever.

Take me with you. She wants to tell him. Take me where you are going because—

He turns then, and gives her an unreadable look.

"If you have so much time," he suggests, "why don't you go and train?"

Very much later on, she will wonder what his answer means.

---

"Sakura." She mentally marks her place on the scroll that she was reading, and looks up at the call of her name. The Hokage is drinking her afternoon tea, which, as the older woman explained to her dryly on her first day there, was like her afternoon booze break But Shizune thought that leaders of Hidden Villages shouldn't take booze on a regular basis, bad role model for the kids and all that, and somewhere along the line, 'sake' became 'tea.' Sakura had nodded and smiled at that explanation, because while Shizune-san looked as mild as a leaf, she was really very scary when riled up, and Sakura didn't blame the Hokage for giving in.

"What is the meaning of strength?" the question comes out of nowhere, and she is caught off-guard. The scroll she was reading was a rather long and boring one explaining the history of the deer, and why their antlers had medicinal benefits. It was the kind of scroll to even make the really juicy bits, like the carnivore deer and rabid deer, sound dusty and as boring as the history of the word 'deer'. (She would never be able to look Shikamaru-san in the eyes again, especially not after the illustration of the deer family tree dipped briefly into human territory. She does not even want to know how this is possible.­

Strength…she searches her mental dictionary, thinking that Tsunade-sama might have forgotten something again in her paperwork, and recognizing the look in her eyes, the Hokage chuckles.

"No, Sakura." She says again, "Your definition."

The Hokage was rather fond of doing things like that. Asking questions that didn't really have right or wrong answers, and doing so out of the blue. Sakura supposed that by answering the questions, she would be able to understand life, and her role in it easier, but sometimes, she thought that Tsunade-sama was just having a bit of fun. Especially after that time she asked her to describe the colour blue to her as if she were a blind woman.

She still wanted to give the right answer though, even though there wasn't supposed to be one.

"I don't know." She admitted. One of the Hokage's eyebrows went up. "Strength, to me, is just something on the way to what I want."

"And what is that?" another sip of the tea. Another not-so-subtle wince.

"Never to be left behind again."

Year One

This year is the hardest she's ever worked. In between scrolls on healing and practical applications of healing (every week or so Tsunade-sama made a pointed visit to the hospital to inspect the treatment of the patients within, and from the outset, she had included Sakura in them, just to observe, if not actually help. She said that it was good practice for the real world and Sakura supposed that she was right; the first time she saw a shinobi getting stitches she had retched into the basin that the Hokage had thoughtfully provided despite the fact that the wound wasn't that big and the man was alright enough to make jokes all the way through. She didn't retch the second time, however, nor the third, and the first time she saw a big flesh wound she was able to swallow the bile) she trains until her muscles are limp and she's seeing double. Then she goes home and memorizes far into the night. Sometimes she wonders when she'll have time to sleep. But when she's training or reading or holding the sides of a gash closed so she can dip her needle between the folds of flesh, she doesn't think of Naruto, or Sasuke, or not having a team, and waiting for a sensei they all knew was going to be late anyways.

It was funny, because she had only really barely known them, but Tsunade-sama tells her that this was the way all teams worked—you had to know everyone inside and out in order to survive, but if one of you didn't then it was worse than just never knowing them.

Being a medic nin, she finds out also, is a lot more than just applying chakra cleverly in some hidden part and wishing something healed. It was bloody and messy, and most of what she's going to learn, Shizune told her, just involved the proper application of a bandage, and when that failed, a needle. Most ninja with wounds worse then that don't make it anyways, and healing them would just be a burden.

It's a tough decision, she realizes, when you're the one who's going to be deciding when it's worth it to try to get someone to live.

It's like this, Tsunade-sama tells her, you're going to hear this a lot anyways, so I might as well tell you straight out. Each of the three sannin went their own paths but now they've all got prodigies and the way everyone sees it, you're just going to be a miniature me. Well that's fine. It's not unexpected—you're very talented. But to be a miniature me, you have to survive your training first. only, that description doesn't seem quite right. Tsunade-sama had almost been grown up when Orochimaru had flipped, and they were only teenagers. And Sasuke-kun…he wasn't like that. (She just wishes she could be like Tsunade-sama, who she still regards as the Coolest Person Ever, despite the fact that she's not perfect, like Sakura previously thought.

This is the year that she learns that Lee should have died, and that it was a miracle he was not. With this realization, she goes out and bought a huge bouquet of flowers for him, not really thinking about anything but the fact that he's still here, and only a few blocks away, and she should be thankful for that. She walks with the same daze that she had been in the first time she had gone for ramen, and realized that Naruto was not there to order for her. She feels the same feeling in her heart as when she sees a blue sky, and is reminded sharply of Sasuke-kun. (She cries, the first few times, when she remembers him) Ino, of course, asked, and by the time Sakura's done explaining, (though she doesn't do a very good job of it, she barely understood Tsunade-sama's explanation, but Ino sees the look in her ex-friend's eyes, and they had breathed together far longer than they had breathed apart, so of course she understood) Ino had invited Shikamaru and Chouji, and Chouji needed food, which sparked another impromptu shopping spree, (Tsunade-sama paid her, but it was no more than the wages of any other genin, and Ino pays for some of the food) and by the end of it, she arrives at Lee's house with two huge bouquets (she gets him another one as an apology for the extra people) a cartload of food, and all of the rookie genin. (Konoha is a large village but gossip travels faster than the people it involves, it seems, and at the checkout counter she turns around to ask if it was really all right for Ino to spend that much money and faces a veritable crowd instead.)

It's admittedly the best party of the year, and she loves the feeling that she got organizing it, and somewhere between the part where Shino collapsed, dead drunk (Shikamaru had produced a shitload of booze, rather slyly, from up his sleeve, and with the same bored look that he always wore, and Sakura never looked at him the same again, which, with the deer thing and all, made for some pretty weird sidelong glances) onto Lee's table, and Lee was too happy to care, and where Neji (he and Tenten had shown up just when the party got underway, claiming to be "in the neighbourhood", but Tenten, when Sakura asked her later, smiled a little and mentioned the springtime of youth) became fed up with Lee's attempts of making conversation with Sakura, declared loudly, "This is how you kiss a girl" and kissed Tenten rather publicly, (to no one's surprise) somewhere between those two events, Sakura, giggling between Ino and Hinata, realized that she isn't so alone after all. She feels like her heart had healed a little bit, and realizes that this was a precious memory, and that these are her precious people, and she realizes what it's like to serve her village. (It almost made up for the fact that Naruto was not here to enjoy Shino getting drunk, and Sasuke-kun not here to brood with Neji. Almost.)

When Kiba cuts his hand on a piece of glass (once part of a cup which had shattered when Ino had thrown it at his head—it served Kiba right, she told everyone later, for not-so-subtly trying to cop a feel) Sakura gets up quite matter-of-factly, feeling all those nights of memorizing scrolls and endless training had been worth it, and heals it for him. He immediately tests out his hand's mobility by reaching for Ino again, though this time she recuperates with a slap.

Her friends cheered, and she had smiles her first real smile all year.

Year Two

Tsunade-sama throws a party for her. Officially, it's a Congratulations For Surviving One Year In My Tutelage party, but Sakura knows her well enough by now to know that the Hokage just wants to get drunk and gamble.

Shizune-san tries to interfere, of course, but Tsunade-sama just glares scarily and mentions her Number One pupil a couple of times, and in the end Shizune just throws up her hands and decides to turn a blind eye. Though, she declares, glaring, she is not going to provide any hangover treatments the next morning.

It's a fun party, even if she's too young to drink. She is the only one. Tsunade-sama invites all of her favourite shinobi, and neglects to remember that Sakura might have friends her own age.

Kakashi is there, and Sakura has no idea what to say to him. He's no longer her sensei, and from the office gossip, she learned that he was reconsidering ANBU, and after a year learning in the Hokage's office, she realizes just how good he was.

He waves to her and heads over, and she stumbles over his name, and choked on her soda a little, until he smiles, and told her that just 'Kakashi' was fine. She blushes hotly, but not enough not to notice that his mask is still on.

It is a grown-up party in many ways, and one of the most important ones is that by the end of it, only Sakura and Kakashi are sober, and because of that, has to make sure that everyone gets home safely. By then, she loosens up enough to comment to her former sensei dryly that she's sure that he's the kind of person to get blazingly drunk at these kinds of parties and end up dancing with a lampshade on his head or something. He smiles at her cheerily, and tells her that he had held back for her sake. And besides, Gai did a much better job of dancing than he could ever do. (Gai wakes up at this point, long enough to declare another victory, before falling back into unconsciousness. When Sakura asks later, he has no memory of the incident.)

Team 7 had been gone for a year now, and she never felt it more than she did that night, trying to manoeuvre Shizune-san onto the bed. (It turned out she drank the most.)

That year, Stone hosts the chuunin exams, and she heads off with Ino's team, feeling self-conscious and awkward with people that moves in ways she was not familiar.

She envies Ino, who knows when to dodge Chouji, and when to send out her attack. She watches, impressed, as Chouji catches Ino flawlessly, even absentmindedly, every time.

But the individual rounds are easy for her. Strange. She did not know that she was that strong. Neji passes as well, along with Chouji, Shino, and Kiba, and she goes home tentatively proud.

The first time she puts on the flak jacket, it feels weird and confining, and she feels like a little girl trying on her father's clothes. Tsunade-sama sees the look of discomfort on her face, much as she tries to hide it, and tells her that the jacket is optional. It just made holding scrolls easier. She laughs a little, a shaky laugh, with a little bit of a sob mixed in, and thinks of how ironic it is that she is the first of Team 7 to get promoted.

A week later she gets her first command position. Strictly intelligence collecting. They were short on shinobi at the moment, so they made a medic the leader, because the mission really was that simple. In and out, hide in the leaves for a bit, and in the mission information that she gets, it said that the most danger was someone falling out of the trees because they fell asleep.

She has nothing to worry about. She is still telling herself that when a Sound jounin arrives, and by the time she gets herself untangled from the mess, she has a kunai stuck in her arm, one of her subordinates (a trigger-happy genin who had wanted some action and reminds her of Naruto, only not as lucky) had a finger cut off, and the jounin is dead rather messily all over the forest floor.

She returns feeling like a complete failure, even though technically the mission is a success because no one was dead except the enemy, and the arrival of the jounin means that that particular patch of ground has something to hide. Her arm is treated, but the finger is lost for good.

She falls asleep on the couch of her house, and wakes up to her parents gathered around her, hushed and whispering, and wondering what to do about the daughter that had apparently fallen into depression. She decides right then and there that she is going to move out, and turns a deaf ear to all of her family's pleadings.

She borrows a shit-load of money off of the Hokage, and calls Kakashi because she heard that he has experience with finding apartments for people, and is silently glad that he doesn't ask any questions.

It takes her about a month to move into her rather small apartment, but it feels roomy and new to her, and every time she realizes how silent and alone she is, she smiled. (A little sadly)

She learns that everyone is connected, and that power flows through everyone, and is no longer ashamed to be a medic-nin. There are different definitions of strength.

The Hokage draws her aside, and gives her a book, and tells her that in there is the information for reattaching a finger, or any other body part, theoretically.

She nods at the theoretically, and gets to work memorizing.