A/N: Thanks to QianYun, who beta'd it, and my wee sister who gave suggestions even though she thinks my unwavering love for Naruto is strange.

Disjointed

She can't breathe. The setting sun is staining everything red. Everywhere she looks, blood is all she sees. Sasuke's skin, usually so pale, is blood—but he isn't bleeding. Her body is slowly numbing; it feels like the wind is washing over her, but the grass isn't swaying and she knows, without looking, that the wind is blood too.

When she calls his name, it comes out as a whisper. It holds no hatred, no remorse. The corner of her bloodied mouth twitches and it's as if she's laughing. He looks at her slowly, his Sharingan blood-red eyes unreadable. His dark hair is falling like rain against his cheeks, midnight strands hanging limply about his pale face.

He doesn't question her amusement, doesn't ask her to explain her dying thoughts. Instead, he watches dully, feeling somehow that he's overstepped a barrier and gone too far to repent.

("Naruto," she says, smiling; her fingers lace through his.)

Blood trickles down from the corner of her mouth and suddenly she's smiling, lips curving into a full-fledged grin. Red-stained teeth gleam a pale scarlet that's beyond rose-pink and there's something teasing about the slowly fading emerald of her eyes.

"Come closer," she says.

Sasuke remains impassive but allows himself a step forward. He can tell she is no longer a danger; even her fists, once raised so proudly, remain broken at her sides. Pastel pink tresses splay across the dusty ground, tips tinged bright red from the crimson lake of blood that pools about her right shoulder.

The sky is blurring beyond him; everything is in twos. "Come closer," she repeats, amidst gasps. Her breathing is steadily getting shallower and each shuddering mouthful of air she so carefully draws in leaves her more breathless than before. "Come closer."

("I won't say it again," she murmurs, her breath warm on his ear. "And I most certainly will not beg.")

Sasuke watches her evenly for a fleeting minute; it takes him a moment to register the deep impatience hidden inside his heart but he passes it off as nothing. She is hanging between life and death, but she won't let go; her talking is senseless and unreasonable, each word spoken in vain.

He won't listen, he won't.

But still, he kneels down slowly, face betraying nothing. Onyx eyes run slowly over porcelain-white skin, slowing to a halt on the rose-red lips that smile even in the face of death.

(Naruto lies dying, but he's smiling that same smile. "Sakura-chan," he says hoarsely, "Do you know when you're ready to die?")

"Sasuke-kun," she manages, eyelashes fluttering low over fading green orbs. "Don't you find this ironic?" Her lips stretch into that wide, teasing smile once more and he finds himself frowning down upon it, wishing it away, wishing for her to just die and take with her all those naive words of teamwork and comradeship.

That smile, that accursed smile that screams of a truth he has spent so long running from—he won't face it, he won't.

She can't see anything anymore save the occasional flicker of Sasuke's face. He's so close, just as she has wanted all these years, but still so far away. If she wanted, she could touch him, but really all she'd be touching is the cold façade he has perfected over the years.

"Do you know when you're ready to die?" she whispers, her voice fading into nothing more than a mere breath. Sasuke needs no urging to move closer. "It's when you can smile at death."

And once more, that captivating, bloodied smile captures her lips. "And right now I am smiling at death face-to-face, and I just can't stop."