Title: Whiskey Lullaby

Inspired by the song of the same title

Disclaimers: Naruto AU, the characters are property of Masashi Kishimoto

This was going to be short and sweet but it turned into a monster

I

He returned to his dorm later than usual; the sun was all but gone and, unfortunately, so was his dorm mate. It wasn't as though he didn't know where he was, he just wished Naruto could have waited. Without him there, the blond was more than likely to get into a brawl before the stars even appeared.

Depositing his books and shrugging into his jacket, he grabbed Naruto's as he hurried out the door. The weather report that morning predicted rain, and the gathering clouds agreed with that.

Just as he reached the campus entrance, he saw her. She was laughing lightly at something her blonde companion had said, but the sound faded when she spotted him.

"Hey, Sasuke," Sakura greeted hesitantly.

"Hello, Sasuke-kun!" Ino was less reserved. "Where are you off to?"

He leveled them both with a cold glare and walked past without a word. It was her fault he had to chase after Naruto almost every night anyway. She had ruined him.

First he checked at Ero Sannin's and discovered he'd already been turned away. It wasn't that late yet so the next place he'd go would be Otogakure, who never kicked anyone out unless they were a serious threat to other patrons.

The bouncer on shift, Jirobo, glanced him over as he always did, but said nothing. The pair had an unspoken agreement about Naruto and when he needed to leave or when help was needed to get him out. They had never, in fact, said a word to each other.

Kabuto, the bartender, as less neutral in his gaze as he registered Sasuke's presence, but he pointed to the other end of the bar anyway.

Sasuke sighed when he saw Naruto hunched over a glass of no doubt potent alcohol. Kabuto was not sympathetic to Sasuke's cause and gave Naruto whatever he asked for. It was clear tonight would be one of depression, as opposed to rage, which Sasuke almost preferred because he could guiltlessly vent his own anger alongside Naruto. Sometimes his furious words registered, but usually they didn't.

"Didn't have the courtesy to wait, did you?" Sasuke remarked, dropping onto the stool beside his friend.

"I wanted to be alone," Naruto muttered.

"You always do," Sasuke replied, almost light-heartedly. "Yet somehow you never are."

"I saw Gaara today." Sasuke stiffened, not sure which way the night would swing now. "He was with some girl I've never seen. I don't know if he saw me, I didn't stick around."

It was as he swirled the contents of his glass that Sasuke realized not only was it mostly full, but Naruto was just about as sober as he'd been in a while. "Is that a good thing or not?"

Naruto shrugged. "Am I the only one still stuck on it? I never really thought about how pathetic I'm being."

"How could you? You're always drunk." Sasuke struggled to keep things carefree, but it was hard.

"Yeah…I'm always drunk. It's easier, you know? Something to blame."

"You've mentioned."

He tapped the side of the glass and then stood. "I don't want to be here tonight," he said suddenly, tossing a couple bills on the bar. "C'mon. Sorry I dragged you all the way out here."

That was the first time he'd consciously acknowledged the trouble Sasuke had gone through to keep him sane and out of serious trouble. The night's half-carrying him out of brawls, frantic trips to the hospital after he got his ass-kicked in a bar, early-morning drives to get him out of jail, hangovers and the messes that came with those. Notes hastily shared, the occasional peek at a test, copied homework and presentations stumbled through.

"No big deal. I'm glad you're alert for once," Sasuke answered sincerely. "Did you…have somewhere else in mind?"

A slow smile curled Naruto's too-often frowning mouth. "How about the pier?"

His friend smiled gladly in response. "That sounds good," he nodded, not sounding too eager.

The pier was roped off now that it was dark, but they ignored that and strolled down it, watching the clouds roll in and blot out the stars. The ocean was crashing against the cement base of the pier, spraying them with the salty chill, but they didn't care. They talked about classes that they didn't share, reminisced moments of mischief from their days at the orphanage, laughing at Naruto's solo tricks that often left him waist-deep in trouble.

With engrained skill they avoided mentioning her, but it wasn't easy. She had been such a part of their childhood, it was hard not to talk about.

Sasuke didn't know if seeing Gaara living his life had broken Naruto's self-destructive will, or if it was something else, or if he was finally getting over her betrayal, but he was glad for it and prayed to the gods he didn't believe in that he continued to come out of it.

"Why do you think I'm so lame?" he asked abruptly, his smile cutting off like a snapped branch.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"I mean…why she…and I…still trying to…" He couldn't quite say what he meant, but Sasuke was no friend if he didn't know what he meant.

He sighed; he couldn't count the number of times Naruto caused him to sigh with a mix of frustration and pity. "I don't think you're 'lame,' I think something happened beyond your control. And, Naruto, you did with her what you had done for everyone you knew until that point. You gave her all of yourself, like you had for me, and Iruka, and Konohamaru, Hinata, Kiba, Shikamaru, all of us, even Gaara. I won't pretend to know why she did what she did…you know how I am, Naruto, and I thought you two had something that would last forever. I really did."

Naruto stared down into the black water, leaning against the chains of the guard rails. "Me too." His large sapphire eyes glittered in the night. "Maybe someday I'll be able to face her and ask her. Then at least I'll know." He turned to face Sasuke.

Something in the still white face made the taller man pause, and a worry unfolded within him.

"You still love her? Even after all this?" he had suspected it, but Naruto had never said anything and he was too preoccupied with other things to ever ask.

"Yeah. I think I do; if I always love her…I always will till I die…"

"Now you're being lame." He felt panicked for some reason. "I mean, I thought it was the perfect love, too, Naruto, but clearly it wasn't. I mean she…" She cheated and everyone knew it but no one told you.

No one could bear to darken the bright smile he turned every time she was near, not even Sasuke, who never had a problem telling it like it was. He had feared losing him for being the bearer of bad news and almost had when Naruto discovered he had known.

"I know…" Naruto smiled very sadly. Sasuke wondered if he would ever laugh or grin like he used to. Even their teachers had admitted—privately—to preferring him as a troublemaker than the solemn young man he became.

The awful part was she had been the first one he forgave, and then Gaara, and everyone else. Sometimes Sasuke wondered if Naruto had forgiven him at all, his best friend. That look in the wee hours of the morning as Sasuke dumped him in his bed, wiping vomit from his cloths. Sasuke felt it on his own face sometimes when he thought of his brother.

"Let's go back," Naruto murmured, but his gaze was far away. "I'm sober right now, so you wouldn't have an excise for being out after curfew."

"Neither do you," Sasuke pointed out.

"Eh," was the only response. Naruto used to bluster about his ability to never get caught, though he often did. Now he just shrugged.

Sasuke was almost dizzy with the differences between the Naruto who left the pier with him now, and the one who had dashed out their one afternoon to drag him into a game of tag, back when he had been the quiet, hurt one. Naruto hadn't known the pain of losing everything then, though Sasuke had wished he had sometimes. Now he did, and he hated it.

Had Naruto felt like this when they were children and the blond worked each day to drag him out of his vengeful shell?

Naruto didn't sleep well that night, listening to Sasuke breathe steadily in his dreams. He didn't have alcohol to put him under that night.

A few weeks passed and everyone noticed. Naruto wasn't drinking, he was there for classes, he wasn't hungover in the school hospital, his grades crept up.

II

Sakura looked out of her dorm window on the commons. A ring of boys, most of whom she knew, were kicking a hacky-sack around. Kiba, Sasuke, Naruto, Lee, even Shikamaru had been drawn into it. Another clump of students watched; Neji, Hinata, Tenten, Shino and Chouji, books spread around them forgotten.

Ino watched her, seeing her itch to go down and join them. Years ago she would have without hesitation, and even now they would have welcomed her. Except, this one time, Naruto was with them. Any one of them, even Ino sometimes, would rather have Naruto playing like a shadow of his self, than her cheering them on and idly reminding them to study.

"You gonna go down there?" Ino's voice startled her.

Sakura turned and shook her head slowly. "No, I don't think so."

"Why not? Everyone but you and I are there." She knew perfectly well why not, but sometimes playing dumb got Sakura to act.

"I like watching them from here," she murmured, looking out the window again.

"You like watching Naruto." Years ago, many years ago, she would have said Sasuke, but that crush and rivalry was so far passed, it was barely a memory. "He looks happy."

"Yes, he does." Her slight smile vanished. "I don't want to ruin that, too."

"It was his own fault for being so delusional," Ino defended, but she didn't actually believe that. She had to say it, though; Sakura was her best friend, not loud-mouth, hyper active Naruto. Not drunk and depressed Naruto. "And for clinging to you like there is no other girl." She posed for effect but Sakura didn't notice.

The next day Sakura was making her way to the library, thinking about a report due in a few days. And the fact that Sasuke had looked at her without making her feel like gunk on the bottom of a shoe the other day. Naruto still avoided her gaze and her, not that she blamed him, but she wished he wouldn't. Maybe then—

"Oh!" she turned a corner and slammed right into someone. Her books went flying. "Damn," she scrambled around, picking them up, glancing at who she'd hit. "Oh, it's you."

Naruto stared at her as though not quite sure if she was real. He grabbed a couple of her books and handed them to her. Their fingers touched very minutely, and he flinched away. That hurt.

"I'm not poisonous, you know," she snapped thoughtlessly. "Or are you sick and courteously wish not to pass it?" She couldn't believe herself and immediately wished she'd kept her mouth shut. The dead look in his azure eyes cut to the quick, but she couldn't find her tongue to apologize and make it right. He was frozen for the longest time, as though waiting for her to say something.

And then he stood and walked away. Her numb mind watched through jade oculars in slow motion. Without prompt she looked to one side and saw Sasuke there at the corner of an intersecting hallway, scowling at her. For once, he could make her feel no worse than she did.

"It might be easier to hate you if you were poisonous," he snarled. "For him at least." Then he stalked after his friend, leaving her in a mess of meaningless papers.

III

Damn her. He had always credited her with being, at the very least, a calculating girl, who thought before she spoke. It was all he could do not to ring her neck as he chased after Naruto. His first face-to-face encounter with her in years and she blew it with curt words.

He was Naruto's best friend, but without being there she held so much power over him. Her words, her actions, summed up his worth. But he was his best friend. He knew where he hid, surrounded by the memories of the men he looked up to, or used to, before she tore his world and his beliefs down in one blow.

He rounded the hedge gates, breathing hard as he hurried down the twisted paths, too familiar to be confusing. He was right where he'd suspected, sitting cross-legged under the graven image, staring at it as though it held the answers, it must hold the answers.

"Naruto…" he panted.

"Sasuke, can I ask a favor of you this time?" his voice was oddly strained.

"What is it?"

"Can you leave me alone, right now?" The request quavered just slightly. Sasuke realized Naruto had known he would come, and had held back his tears until he could be alone. "Please?"

Naruto had made it a point to never ask for anything, though he had simply accepted what Sasuke gave after a time, as Sasuke had as well.

His better judgment screamed against abandoning him to his self-imposed torment, but he couldn't say no, either. "I…sure, Naruto."

He backed away, but not fast enough; his heart seized at the smothered sob that ripped through the greenery. He dashed away as fast as he could, bumping into people and walls before slamming the door shut on the dorm he shared with his oldest friend. His fist met the wall beside the door first, again and again, harder each time.

What was he supposed to do? What could he do? Naruto had spent years drunk, but there had been a time before the booze when he grieved in raw pain. Sasuke had tried to hook him up with other girls, had tried to make him angry at Sakura, at Gaara, at Sasuke, at everyone, but even after being betrayed his heart was too kind to hate. He blamed himself for not giving or not doing whatever Sakura needed or wanted, whatever she had sought from someone else. He couldn't see that she had simply done it, that there was no reason.

A final punch and Sasuke slid down the door, cradling his broken and bloody hand. Lee and Neji, Shino and Kiba, who roomed on either side of them were converged outside the locked door, trying to get in to find out what was going on.

Regaining control of his breathing, Sasuke stood and opened the door. "I'm fine. Sorry about disturbing you."

"You broke you hand," Neji observed quietly. His sharp gray eyes missed nothing. He was not particularly close to Sasuke, but he knew Naruto well, or had, before what she had done. Even so, he and Sasuke were similar enough that they got on easily.

Sasuke sneered bitterly. "It's nothing. I'll get it taken care of later."

"You won't want to wait," Lee replied, nodding from experience. "C'mon, I'll take you down there."

He wanted to deny his sometimes rival, sometimes friend, but his hand did hurt, so he followed quietly. He didn't feel his pain could be any worse than Naruto's.

In the weeks and months and years to come he would regret not being in the dorm when Naruto returned; he would regret a lot of things that he hadn't done or been for Naruto.

IV

Sakura and Ino looked around curiously. Elementary school, even high school, it was one thing for an assembly to be called, but they almost never were in collage.

"What do you think happened?" Sakura whispered to her blonde friend.

"I have no idea." Ino murmured back. "Hey, have you seen any of the boys? Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, Lee, Chouji, Shikamaru, Shino, and Kiba have all been missing for a couple of days. Hinata's been absent as well, and she's always on time."

"You mean you haven't heard?" A girl they barely knew was staring at them. "I thought for sure everyone knew."

"Or maybe we don't eavesdrop, Kin," Ino retorted acidly. "Do share your depthless knowledge, if it please."

Kin frowned at her but said, "One of the boys from Dorm 7 killed himself the other night. That's—"

But the sudden roar in Sakura's ears drowned out the rest of the gossipers words. A haze fell over her eyes and she swayed. It wasn't Sasuke, she knew, though she almost wished it were. Sasuke had no reason to kill himself, but Naruto did.

"Saukra! Snap out of it!" Ino was shaking her friend roughly, pinching her cheeks, slapping her, anything to bring her out of this upright paralysis.

"Not…Naruto…oh, my god…"

"Sakura, wake up! Sa—"

But the young woman chose that moment to fall away in a dead faint.

She woke up with the scratch of hospital sheets on her bare arms, the sanitary scent stinging her nostrils, and a too-thin pillow beneath her head.

She sat up slowly, looking around. The room was full, but they weren't people worried about her well being. Hinata was curled up on a bed across from her, and Neji sat despondently in the chair beside her; she gripped his hand as though it was a lifeline and he barely seemed to notice as she wept over it. Lee was hunched on the next bed, long legs hanging over the edge, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. Shikamaru was leaning against the windowsill of the only window in the room, face numb even as tears slid down his cheeks. Chouji was not eating, but looking at his empty hands as though they would reveal something, looking somewhat small for such a large guy. Kiba and Shino sat back-to-back on either side of the same bed. She couldn't see Shino's face, but Kiba's eyes were puffy and red as he cradled his puppy Akamaru.

"Wh-what happened?" she asked hoarsely, knowing by the grief-filled faces around her.

"Naruto is dead." She looked to her other side.

Sasuke had his back straight against the wall, arms crossed defensively over his chest, staring straight in front of him. Even Neji looked as though he'd been crying, but Sasuke face was too stony, too controlled for tears to have ever glistened in the obsidian eyes.

He turned to her and she could sense how badly he wanted to tear her to pieces; they, too, had once been friends. But he didn't say a word and looking around she knew the others had no idea of her last encounter with Naruto. No one but she and Sasuke knew.

She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as she wept very quietly.

V

Later she learned that he had shot himself in the head. Neji and Lee and Sasuke were coming down the hall from getting Sasuke's hand splinted when they heard the gun fire. No one knew where he got the weapon. Kiba, Shino, Shikamaru and Chouji had come running when Lee had cried out in horror. They had all been pressed by the school into grief counseling and therapists. Hinata had seen Sasuke being ushered from the room when she went looking for Kiba for a presentation they were doing together and that was how she found out. She had never quite let go of her crush on Naruto though she'd had a few boyfriends.

No one blamed her, or looked at her as though she had caused this. Except Sasuke. How could they know?

But Sakura did blame herself; had they looked, they would have guessed and Ino knew without doubt she was sinking into a pit, but she could do nothing to pull her back. She even beseeched Sasuke at one point, daring to mention him sticking to Naruto all those years for a way to pull Sakura back. To her shock Sasuke had punched the wall right beside her head, denting it and breaking his newly healed hand. He never said a word though and left her shaking and horrified.

At Naruto's wake were more people than any of his friends ever would have guessed. Even in the deepest parts of his depression, he had a kind word for people, and a memory of a happier time to inspire them. But his funeral was limited to his close friends. There was nothing that could be said about him that they didn't all know, and he was buried beneath a struggling willow without fanfare.

Most of them had beautiful bouquets of flowers to lie around the grave. Sakura laid a bundle of daffodils right in the center. But the flowers they all considered most important, the ones from Sasuke, was only one, a tulip bud. Sakura bit her knuckle to keep from crying out. Tulip buds had been Naruto's favorite, yet unopened to something beautiful and pure.

One of the last things Naruto had done for her before discovering her betrayal was to rent a private pavilion in the park, proceeding to fill and surround it with hundred of tulips, daffodils and interweave them with roses. Sasuke knew because he'd helped and Ino knew because Naruto had bought the flowers at her family's shop. The dinner he put together had been splendid.

Sakura could count on one hand the people who resisted tears: Neji, Tenten, and Shino, who had the easiest time concealing their emotions. Sasuke didn't look as if he'd express anything but a frown for the rest of his life.

As she drove to her parents' home—she couldn't go back to the collage yet; the radio played softly in the background. It flipped to a song she barely knew, but the lyrics caught her attention.

…you've built a love, but that love falls apart
Your little piece of heaven turns too dark

Listen to your heart
When he's calling for you
Listen to your heart
There's nothing else you can do
I don't know where you're going
And I don't know why
But listen to your heart
Before you tell him good-bye

Her gaze was too fogged by tears to see and she pulled into a parking lot, hands covering her face as the song washed through her. The tears were endless.

In another direction, Sasuke also heard that song; they had been friends, they listened to the same station. He did not pull over and made it to his destination calmly. His was not moved to tears, but his frown was a little deeper as he cut the singer off.

And there are voices, that long to be heard
So much to mention, but you can't find—

He got out, slamming the door and locking it. A bell jingled as went into the tiny shop. "Hey, old man."

Teuchi, the middle-aged owner of Ichiraku Ramen Bar, looked up and smiled, even if it was edged with sadness. "Hello, Sasuke. What can I get you?" Teuchi had liked Naruto quite a lot, and only partly because he spent so much money on ramen.

Sasuke ordered, noticing Teuchi's face grow a little pinched and ignoring it. When the bowl was put in front of him he thanked Ayame quietly, digging into Naruto's favorite dish. It was hard to swallow around the knot in his chest but he did, slowly and steadily. The whole time he ate his left hand never came out of his pocket, where a note burned his fingers.

He finished and paid for the meal. The sun was going down when he went back outside, but he didn't go to his car, walking along the strip where he and Naruto had spent hundreds in pocket change.

I'll love her till I die.

The words were emblazoned in his mind's eye, written in Naruto's hand, folded on his bedside, a single speck of blood on one corner. Only Neji and Lee had seen it, with him when it was discovered. He would never know what bound Naruto so much that he went so far. He didn't think he ever could if he wanted.

Maybe in time he would speak to Sakura again, and the others, but they would never be the same. Naruto had drawn them together; who would keep them together now that he was gone? All of them, not the close friendships that were outside his influence, but Chouji to Sasuke and Shino to Lee and Hinata to Tenten, and Neji to Ino and Kiba to Shikamaru? They were all his friends.

Time would tell, Sasuke lowered his gaze. Time always did.

VI

He let the door slam shut, cradling the single stem reverently. She watched him from the passenger side, knowing better than to come with him; whenever he visited his friend's grave she was an unwelcome entity.

He passed between the stone markers without glancing left or right. The willow had managed to survive all these years and the tailing branches were almost a curtain of privacy. He laid the fading tulip on top of the gravestone, standing back. Words were never needed, rarely had been and were now useless.

"We meet again," he heard a hyper voice overhead. Looking up he recognized the green eyes peering at him through a tangle of light hair. "How ya doin' Sasuke?"

"Sakura? What are you doing up there?" he demanded angrily.

"Oh, whilin' away the hours on my day off." She smirked.

Sasuke frowned. "You're drunk."

She held out a bottle of whiskey. "Cheers. Want some? You might smile more."

Sasuke refused to dignify that with a response, and turned away. "Bye-bye, Sasuke. Good to know some things never change. You still hate me."

He stalked away silently, running into Ino at the entrance.

"Is she in there?" the hassled blonde asked breathlessly. She didn't need a response, gauging his face before rushing past. He glanced back; he almost felt sorry for Ino and he could certainly sympathize.

"How long has she been like this?" Sasuke called before she was too far away.

She paused. "I never noticed until a few months ago, but…a while, I think. Maybe…maybe this whole time. She was evicted from her apartment in April, and has been living with me, and working in the shop since she got fired a couple weeks ago."

Sasuke looked away. "She's gone to shit, hasn't she?"

"Completely," Ino sighed. "Honestly, Sasuke, I don't think you could hate her any more than she hates herself."

Sasuke smiled very slightly. "I don't hate her anymore, Ino. How could I when he loved her so much?"

Ino's smile was a little warmer. "You two were friends once, too."

He jerked his chin, not quite agreement and returned to his car. She didn't say anything as he started up the car and pulled away. She had recognized Ino, but didn't know what they talked about.

"Sakura, come down from there," Ino called tiredly.

"But it's nice up here," Sakura giggled. "There's no one to hate me."

"Sakura, the only person who hates you is you and when you're up there that's all you have. Please come down before you fall."

"Do you think I'll die if a fall?" she asked, suddenly very pensive.

Ino's heart nearly stopped. "No. I—"

"This wouldn't be a bad place to die, you know." She mussed, leaning over on the branch she perched on. "Do you know why?"

"Sakura, don't do anything stupid!" Ino shouted.

"What's it matter?" she let go of the branch and slipped forward.

"Sakura!"

She woke in a hospital, a stink all too familiar. She looked to her left and saw Ino glaring at her. "You are a complete and utter nutcase," she snapped, tears glistening in her blue eyes. "Do you remember what you did this time?"

Sakura turned away. "Yeah. I guess I'm not dead."

"No, thank god. You landed on me, thank you, but you still hit your head on the way down. You just have an ugly scratch." Despite her anger, Ino was immensely relieved. With her father dying just after the new year, her divorce just finalized and finding out Hinata had cancer, she didn't think she could survive losing Sakura. The worst part was her friend had been quite set on dying when she fell from that tree.

Sakura winced. "Doesn't feel like a scratch."

"That would be the hangover," Ino growled. "Sakura, since I have you sober listen to me. If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will kick you out. I don't want you drunk around my daughter; I don't care if you are my best friend."

Sakura let her gaze fall to the thin blanket she was covered by. "I'm sorry. I didn't…"

She started when Ino suddenly wrapped her slender arms around her thin shoulders, pulling her close in a hug. "Sakura, please. We're grown now, it was years ago. Can't you let him go?"

Tears jumped into her eyes. "He always loved me. And I couldn't see it. I…"

"You refused to see it, I know," Ino quoted dully. "We were children, Sakura. Please."

Sakura nodded very slightly.

VII

Whatever she nodded too, Ino still found empty bottles of whiskey, tequila and scotch under the guest bed and in the garbage bin behind her apartment building, but could only catch a whiff of it around Sakura. She worked unobtrusively in the Yamanaka Flower Shop, played with Ino's daughter calmly, but she always woke bleary eyed and stinking of drink.

Ino knew she was not letting go of her guilt, she was only hiding it better.

The two were shopping for birthday presents for Ino's daughter when they ran into the man they hadn't seen in years.

"Gaara," Ino gasped when she spotted him, stopping just in time so she didn't crash into him. Sakura froze.

Uncertainty edged his controlled features. "Ino…Sakura."

"Er, it's nice to see you, but we've got to go," Ino said hastily, pushing Sakura ahead of her, past Gaara.

Sakura's face was perfectly blank when Ino pushed her down on one of the benches. "Sakura? Sakura, are you alright? Sakura?"

She dropped her face to her hands. "I'm such an idiot," she laughed mirthlessly. That was all she said and Ino could pry no other words out of her the rest of the day. Sakura didn't speak much at all for the weeks afterwards.

VIII

Without Ino for once, Sakura found herself at Ichiraku's Ramen Bar with the rain pounding the pavement outside. There were two other customers, one looked at her and looked away but the other paid her no mind. She noticed him, though.

He glanced over when she ordered, hearing the familiar voice. He was looking at her when she turned around and said not a word when she sat across from him. Ayame delivered her bowl, glancing worriedly between the two of them.

After a few minutes of slow eating and tense silence, Sasuke said, "So you're sober for the moment."

Sakura lowered her gaze. "For the moment."

"Then I want to ask you something." His face was hard and unreadable.

She took a breath. "What?"

"Why?" The single word was like a punch to her gut. "Why did you betray him instead of simply telling him you didn't love him?"

She swallowed very hard, losing her minimal appetite. "It would have been a lie."

His triumphant smirk was bitter. "I thought so. Still; why? You had a perfect love, I know you did."

She stirred her spoon through the bowl. "He loved me so freely, so gladly. How was I supposed to show I felt the same? I was intimidated, to say the least, and I…god, I must sound so self-centered…"

"You do," Sasuke shrugged. "What else is new?"

"I'd look at other girls, even Ino, sometimes, and see how much more worthy they were for him than I was."

"You are a damned idiot," Sasuke hissed, keeping his voice low to not alert the others in the vicinity. "You were the only girl he ever saw, and you should know it. It frustrated the hell out of me that he couldn't even look at another female without thinking of you and feeling guilty. As though he were the one doing wrong, after you two were over. If you hadn't ended it when he found out, he probably would have taken you back, in fact I know he would have."

"If you were anyone else I'd ask how you can be so sure." She sighed. "But I…after what I did how could I go back?"

Sasuke pressed a fist to his mouth, biting his knuckle to keep from shouting at her. "You are unworthy of the love he gave you," he finally growled. "But there was no one more worthy, either. I wish you could have seen that." He stood, throwing something onto the table. "Good day, Sakura."

It was a worn piece of paper, folded on old creases. There was a brown spot in one corner. She picked it up and looked at it. She gasped , covering her mouth with her hand. She hurried out of the shop, racing to her car where she could cry alone.

How could she not know that hand writing? She had a box of notes from him from when they were still pure, and even before he knew.

I'll love her till I die.

And he had done just that.

IX

She gripped the photo, the only one that had survived her drunken purge one night. The edges were slightly burnt, but his laughing face was still there, blue eyes gleaming, the sunlight glinting in his golden hair. His strong arms were wrapped around her younger image, and though most of her body had been eaten by the flames, her smiling visage rested against his shoulder.

Tears dripped from the end of her nose to land on the picture, and she scrubbed them away.

With her free hand she picked it up.

When Ino came home from grocery shopping, her daughter's hand linked in hers, she was hours too late. Her only blessing that day was that her daughter never saw what Sakura had done. The room stank of blood and alcohol when her body was taken out and ever after Ino could smell that whenever she went in there.

Her funeral was attend by many of the same people as Naruto's had been. Hinata's had to lean on her cousin through most of it, too weakened by chemotherapy to stand on her own for long.

There was no question about where she would be laid, beneath the willow, with the man who had killed himself over her, after whom she ruined her life.

Sasuke and Ino were the last ones there, and clouds gathered over head, refusing to release the cleansing rain.

"Do you ever cry?" she asked quietly, her eyes over-bright as she stared at the newly turned earth.

He shrugged. "Not really. It's useless, usually, and too hard when it would mean something."

"It's never useless," Ino disagreed, clenching her fist around a wrung out tissue. "But I guess tears are different for all of us. Drive safe, Sasuke."

He turned and left her alone. Sakura was once his best friend but he wasn't the one who'd been there as she ate herself away. Naruto had been lonely, and confused, but Sakura had self-condemnation and guilt to live with.

The radio played quietly, the only noise in the car. He pulled into Ichiraku's, but didn't shut the car off, listening to the song.

…she broke his heart; he spent his whole life tryin' to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night

He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I'll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby

The rumors flew but nobody know how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night

She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby

He turned the car off, swallowing hard against the emotion that beat at his chest. He swiped at his cheek and got out, standing in the sprinkling rain for a moment before going inside.