Joy of joys, I have updated yet again. This will be the final chapter of the ever so controversial (seriously, just read some of the comments) Pity series. Well, final unless I get very, and I mean very, compelling, inspirational reviews that cause me to write another chapter. My thanks to all those who have reviewed, I believe I have replied to everyone one of your reviews if you were a member on this site, and if I haven't I deeply apologize. Special props to Chelsea-chee and NarutoHasYou for the ever so entertaining insulplimentary reviews. Seriously, they made my day. (Insulplimentary is not a real word, but a mix of insult and complimentary.) And so, cutting my ramblings short, here is the last chapter, though I might fiddle with the ending later. I didn't really like it, but I've been sitting on this for a while trying to think up something - without success, might I add. So enjoy.

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Sakura hadn't slept in quite some time. Not since she had extracted her revenge on Naruto. Her eyes bagged over in an obscene way and when she went into work yesterday she had four people ask her if she was alright and another three cringe at the sight of her.

She sighed wirily and made her way to the liquor store. Sakura had heard from her boss at the hospital where she worked that alcohol was the best way to get to sleep and, from the way her boss always seemed to be caught snoozing on the job, Sakura believed her.

Her boss took one look at the tired girl and proclaimed that she needed a night out on the town, but a night out on the town was exactly the thing she didn't want to do. A night out meant she would have to go to a crowed bar in order to get the prescribed booze and watch men pick up women, or women pick up men, and the whole scene would be too familiar for her liking.

Naruto's face of rejected had burned unto her eyelids. It was all she could see when she closed her eyes to sleep at night and all she could think about during the day. She was just in her actions: she thought this with conviction when the feelings of guilt would claw their way through the lining of her stomach and cause the bile to rise to the top of her throat. She had to constantly remind herself of the conviction, though.

Her friends tried to help her; tried to understand what was going through the previously energetic woman's head. On the first day Ino tried to perk her up by getting her riled up, throwing some harsh comments about the quality of her hair across the hall towards her. Unfortunately Sakura merely replied by picking up a strand of her pink locks, glancing at it and letting it fall limply back as she shrugged lightly and walked away.

On the second day an energetic Ten Ten bounced up to her and began fervently talking about interesting items she spied on her last trip to the mall and asked if Sakura would like to come shopping with her later that day. Sakura replied with a damp no and said she had some work she had to catch up on.

On the third day Hinata quietly moved over to Sakura, asking her if she would like to join her for tea this Friday and maybe go watch a movie which promised crushes, tears, problems, and finally solutions. Sakura twitched her lips into what she hoped was a passable, albeit small, smile, lightly shook her head and declined the small, but meaningful, offer.

Hinata smiled a smile of similar proportions, nodded, and left. If anyone knew about heart break it was that girl and maybe, maybe if it had been any other boy besides her best friend and possible lover, she would have taken her up on her loved. If it had been just Sasuke breaking up with her she would have taken her up on her offer and taken Ten Ten up on the shopping trip and retorted to Ino's barb on her hair.

But it wasn't and she just wanted to go home and lie on the bed where she and he once laid together.

It probably didn't help that Hinata's smile reminded her of her own and that even if she did wish to take up the gentle girl's offer she couldn't as the same boy caused both of the girls' pain and that she probably had some hand in Hinata's heartbreak the way a bystander who had witnessed a bus hit a man had a hand in the man's most unfortunate death.

If only the bystander reached out and pulled the man out of the way instead of being blinded by the shiny sports car in the other lane; if only Sakura had realized that she had liked Naruto while Sasuke would never return her feelings.

On the fourth day Sakura drifted through the day, changing IV bags and taking temperatures became a second nature to her much like breathing and bathing. No one said anything of notable quality to her aside from the fact that Naruto seemed to have faded into a shadow. At least her revenge worked, even if the cost was her liveliness.

Much of the same occurred on the fifth day and Sakura couldn't even remember attending work on the sixth.

Today was the seventh day: happy anniversary to her and her revenge. She couldn't remember when she ate last, though it didn't matter as she only required one thing at the moment: alcohol. Maybe something hard and sharp so it would burn on the way down, closing off her wounds much like you would with a recently amputated limb to cauterize the wound and save the person.

A bell chimed cheerily above the door as she entered the shoddy, run down liquor store. It was a misplaced sound in the dim light and seemed to reverberate off the many bottles all lined up on the shelves in their multitude of colors.

The shelves were high and, though there were only three aisles, there were many types of hard liquor to choose from. Who would have thought there were twenty-three different brands of gin and seventeen different brands of vodka to choose from? Sakura normally was not a heavy drinker, much preferring to stay sober when at all possible.

She strolled down the towering lanes of the aisle, glancing to either side of her when a bottle shape or color caught her eye. Blue, green, orange, clear, burgundy, and red liquids flashed on either side of her, making her feel in some strange fairy tale involving wide-grinning cats and marching cards. Sakura half expected a rabbit to pop out from behind the larger bottle of liquor (which she assumed to be the economy sized ones which you could buy in bulk to save money) and chide its-self about being late.

Sakura turned the corner quickly, still unsure of which beverage to choose (her boss suggested her drink of choice: sake), running flush into a hard body.

When he first felt a small, compact body hit his and begin its downward decent in the direction of the floor, instincts took over and he grabbed the thin arm to stop the girl from falling further.

To say that he was in shock when he saw her was an understatement. He was speechless, quite literally, and awkward to boot. He hadn't washed his clothes in a few days and was currently garbed in grey sweat pants and an orange t-shirt which, ironically, sported the logo for laundry detergent and had a few small holes and random stains throughout the fabric.

He stared at the woman, not sure of what to do, what to say, how to say it. He blinked, finally realizing that, now that she was fully balanced once again, his supporting grip was no longer needed and quickly, almost to the point of being uncoordinated, removed his hand. She blinked back; her green eyes seemed dimmed slightly, though whether it was due to the poor light quality or her frazzled appearance, he wasn't sure.

Her eyes had widened a fraction at the sight of him. He supposed it was from his own horrid appearance from his wild hair, the stains adorning his shirt and baggy sweat pants to his own similarly shaded eyes. Though, he never thought that it would actually cause someone to refuse to look at him.

Naruto half expected her to flee as soon as she was sure she wouldn't fall back over, but she stayed. Sakura looked half torn between running away and staying, choosing the latter almost as an obligation or acknowledgment to the friendship and bond they once shared, one that he sorely missed.

Naruto took this borrowed time as a way to observe her health: he had heard she wasn't doing well. Her sick was a sickly color and looked as if he touched it would stick to his skin, her eyes were dimmed, as he mentioned before, but this time he was sure that it wasn't just due to the lighting. Sakura's hair lay limp on her head, having neither the normal bounce nor flip that it normally did. She looked drained of life and was noticeably skinnier than before and seemed to have developed a habit of biting her chapped lips.

Naruto's stomach sank as he thought about the possibility that his actions caused her appearance. Guilt settled heavier in the pit of his stomach, churning like the sea during a category five tempest. He needed to say something, anything, before the guilt consumed him entirely.

Sakura couldn't look at him. She didn't need to because her eyes already had burned how he looked at that exact moment into her mind. His golden hair, while still in spikes, seemed to be slightly wilted at the top, and his lips were curved into a small frown. Bags, much like her own, adorned his eyes and his skin was a tinged a sickly grey pallor underneath his usual tan. His blue eyes seemed dead in comparison to the normal amount of emotion which normally filled them and his grip burned her arm as he helped steady her.

She wanted to flee, to run from the place. Sakura couldn't face him. She couldn't look into his dead eyes, in powerful and dominating the way she was before, and feel fine. Inside her body began trembling, her stomach tying itself into tighter knots and her eyes avoiding contact with his, though longingly wanting to stray to his body and take it in, no matter how much pain it caused her.

Finally, just when she couldn't take it anymore, just as she was about to turn and flee, he said something.

"Sorry, Sakura, I'm so, so sorry." Her eyes flashed to him involuntarily, his head was bent down, his body already moving past hers in an attempt to leave. His statement broke her heart. Her resolved fell.

"N-no," she stuttered out, tears once again infiltrating her eyes, "don't go. Not again. Don't leave me again." Her hand reached out to find his, to grab on, to keep him with her.

She didn't understand: why did he look so guilty? He had done nothing, she understood now. It was her, she was the horrid one: she was the one who should be apologizing. Not him; never him.

Sakura needed Naruto, more than he needed her. Without him her days were cold and monotonous. Without him there was no sun, no rain, and no moon. Without him she was dead. Sakura could face any number of challenges, the break-up with Sasuke, the termination of her job, the death of a family member, as long as he was by her side.

Sakura clung to Naruto's hand with desperation, hoping that he wouldn't shake her off, hoping that the wounds she had inflicted upon him were not so deep that he couldn't look past them to see how much she needed him.

His fingers wrapped back around hers. Naruto now stood, facing her, his face questioning.

When he felt her hand grab his Naruto paused in his tracks. He never dreamt that he would feel her hold him again, to touch his hand, or to even acknowledge that she could just reach out and grab him.

Her grip was firm, contrasting greatly to the current state of her being, and seemed to be full of conviction to never let go again. He grasped her fingers back, turning to look at her, take her in. God, he missed her and, while he still didn't understand why she clutched his hand, he didn't question her grip or her words.

She still refused to look at him for longer than two seconds, and while he was happy she was looking at him, he couldn't help but wish she would look at him like she used to. Her eyes still held tears, and, finally, she broke the silence that surrounded the two. "Please," she paused, lifting her eyes to finally meet his, "don't leave me again. I, I understand now. You just wanted to make me happy. You thought that you had made a mistake; you thought I would think you used me and that I was going to hate you in the morning. You thought it would be better if you just left, so I wouldn't have to see your face and remember what had transpired and hate you. So you left, thinking I would see that you used me during my most dire need of comfort.

But the thing is," she paused, stepping closer to him, "I didn't hate you. I was happy, happy that I finally realized that I liked you, that I always liked you. Happy that I found someone who loved me, someone I could, in time, love to the same intensity that they loved me with. I was happy that I found you. When you left, I couldn't understand. I couldn't process what was happening and…"

He cut her off, pulling her into a hug, one arm wrapping around waist for the first time in a week, the other reaching up and cupping the back of her head. Naruto closed his eyes; for the first time he understood what was going through her head last week. He had pushed it off, her actions to him, thinking it retribution for his sin against her; he was wrong. Naruto gently placed his head on her shoulder, still embracing the thin woman against his fuller frame.

"I missed you." She said, finally laying her head on his warm shoulder.

Naruto clutched her tighter to him in a silent promise. "Not as much as I missed you."