Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

I meant to do this last week, but then I got distracted and I also meant to do it yesterday, but I got distracted again. But today I woke up with a plan to get this done because it's been… almost half a year which is really bad. I was watching this movie on Lifetime (there was nothing on t.v) and the girl was in an abusive relationship and she refused to look at the mirror which is what finally got me over my writer's block to write this chapter.

Get Out, Get Away

Chapter 10: Ugly

"…and I think we've come to some sort of understanding," Sakura told Daisuke after her first week at work. "We're not… friends or anything, but he's not glaring daggers at the back of my head anymore." Sakura found herself smiling as she thought back to the indifferent look Naruto gave her yesterday as they wiped down tables together. It wasn't the bright, charming smile that she loved to see when they were friends, but it wasn't a look of hate mixed with large amounts of disgust. "I think that's a good start. It is a good start, right?" Sakura asked her therapist for reassurance.

"Of course," Daisuke assured the pinkette, offering a small smile to help ease away Sakura's insecurities.

"Oh. Good," Sakura laughed sheepishly at herself, tugging at the sleeves of her shirt out of habit. "I'm glad to know I'm not hallucinating that things aren't as bad as they were."

Daisuke gave a sad smiled that went unnoticed by the woman that sat across form him. She was finally loosening up, not tense in front of him and actually willing to share. She was finally opening up and he hated that he was about to take that small opening and rip it wide open and pry her for information. He didn't want to push her, but they've been together for three weeks and haven't even touched base on the big problem here. Yes, her conflict with Naruto was a problem, but he wasn't called about Naruto; his job was to help her deal with the reality that she was, in fact, in an abusive relationship. How could he help Sakura come to grips with her current situation if they completely avoided the issue? What kind of therapist would he be?

"Tenten says that we'll be friends again by the end of the month," Sakura continued, "but I don't want to push my luck and jinx myself." She laughed sheepishly to herself, smiling down at her lap. "I'm just glad he doesn't hate me."

"That's great." Daisuke said, preparing himself for her reaction when he brought up the subject. "It's also good to know you don't get uneasy around the opposite sex."

"What?" Sakura asked her smile replaced with a look of confusion.

"Oh, well, a lot of women don't like being around men right after they get out of an abusive relationship." He watched Sakura freeze up. He officially felt like an ass.

Sakura sat frozen, staring at her therapist. For the past three weeks she had seen Daisuke as just a person she could talk to about Naruto without being judged—simply listened to. A friend. A friend that cared so much about her the he would write down some of the things she said so he could input it in his long term memory. Daisuke was just supposed to be another friend, but he reminded her of his role as her therapist with that one statement. That one stupid statement.

"I wasn't in an abusive relationship," Sakura mumbled, knowing she was in denial even as she said it.

"Sakura," Daisuke started in a soft voice, approaching the topic with caution, "it's normal to be in denial at—"

"We just weren't compatible," Sakura cut him off, her hands beginning to tremble in her lap and she tugged harder at her sleeves. "We just didn't work well together. It's normal."

"Sakura." Daisuke leaned in closer over his desk. "Do you really believe that? That getting hit by the man who is supposed to love you is normal?"

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Sasuke pulled hard at her hair and yanked Sakura off the ground and glaring into her bloodied face. "God damnit woman, open your fucking eyes!"

Sakura gave in and cracked her eyes opened and whimpered at the furious look on Sasuke's face. He didn't even transform. He was doing this all on his own will.

"Y-you're hurting me…" Sakura whispered, her scalp screaming as Sasuke gave her hair another pull.

Sasuke smirked. "Really?" He threw her against the wall harshly and pressed his body against hers before she had a chance to fall to the ground. "How about that? Did that hurt?"

"S-Sasuke…" Sakura pleaded weakly. "I-I'm sorry. Just stop… Pl—"

His fist slammed into her gut and Sakura lurched forward and threw up blood, gasping for breath.

"Did that hurt Sakura?" His fist connected with her gut again and she was in too much pain to scream. He pushed off her and she fell to the ground, clutching her stomach. He kicked her hard in her side. "How about that?" He kicked her again. "Do you feel the pain?"

Sakura curled herself into a tight ball trying to stop the pain even as he continued beating her already battered body. She didn't get it. Why was he laughing?

She looked up at him through the hair that fell over her face.

Why was he smiling?

"Sakura," Daisuke called out to her, saving her from the torture of her past. She looked up at him startled and he felt an intense pang of guilt hit him when he saw the pained and tortured look that she tried to control. He shouldn't have pushed her. "Talk to me, Sakura."

"I don't have anything to say," Sakura whispered.

"Nothing? Let's start with some basic feelings, maybe?" Daisuke tried to coax Sakura. "Are you relieved that you're out of the relationship? Confused? Scared?"

"Why would I be scared?" Sakura snapped, her sleeves now covering her entire hand.

"That… that he might come back for you." Daisuke watched Sakura's sharp intake of air and knew he had hit the nail on the head. "How does this make you feel, Sakura?"

She didn't answer. She fixed her gaze on the wall and picked a spot to stare at for the rest of the session. She kept her lips sealed shut.

Tick.

Tock.

~0~

"Revenge. It's the first step to mending a broken heart."

"I don't have a broken heart," Naruto scoffed as he juggled two oranges in his hands. "And that revenge stuff with all the scheming is for girls. It's why I like being a guy—just have a good fist fight and the problem is basically resolved."

"But you can't punch a girl," Kiba told his friend as he dropped three boxes of cereal in his cart. "Only pricks do stuff like that. Then again, you have been an asshole for a while now."

Naruto stopped juggling the oranges and chucked one at his friend's head and Kiba ducked, just barely saving himself form a headache.

"That was a perfect example!" Kiba exclaimed, looking to Sai who had his nose in a book. "Right, Sai?"

"His temper is more flamboyant than usual."

"I'm not about to hit a girl," Naruto sighed, rubbing his temples as he dropped the other orange in the cart. No matter how much Sakura pissed him off the thought of hitting her never crossed his mind. Just the thought of doing something like that made him sick.

"I read in a book once that the best way to settle problems conflicting with the heart is to sit down with that person and talk about it."

Kiba and Naruto exchanged a look and laughed. "And that is why you're here to help carry bags and not give advice," Kiba said, pushing the cart out of the cereal aisle.

"I wouldn't be here to begin with if Hinata didn't have you so whipped. You're not even married."

"They're not even engaged."

"Shut up!" Kiba shouted, taking the orange Naruto had dropped in the cart and threw it at Sai who just moved his book to block the blow. "You have just gotten yourself uninvited to Poker Night."

"Don't do that, Kiba," Naruto warned. "Sai is the only other person besides me with a decent amount of money to put on the table."

Kiba grumbled under his breath before snatching the shopping list Hinata had given him from Sai's hand that wasn't holding his book. "Sai, go get the milk, cheese, and stand in the long deli line and get some smoked turkey."

Sai turned left without a word towards the dairy section, not once looking up from his book.

"Now that he's gone," Kiba started, taking a pen and marking items off his list, "let's get back on topic; revenge."

"I don't want to get revenge on Sakura," Naruto sighed. "I just want…" To change the past? Stop being affected by her presence? Stop caring about her? "I want to forget her. Just completely wipe her existence from my memory." All twenty-four years of it. Good and Bad.

"That is harsh. But it's easy to do." Naruto raised his brows in interest. "You just need to find another girl. Someone amazing that makes Sakura pale in comparison."

Naruto rolled his eyes and bit back the sigh that was threatening to surface. As if he didn't already try to replace Sakura with random girls he ran into at bars. That girl doesn't exist.

Of all people to give his heart to, he had to choose a bitch.

"Like Kame," Kiba said, turning down the spices aisle. "I think your personalities go well together. You know, with your new, brooding, assholish personality," Kiba clarified. If Naruto was still the guy he used to know that would laugh and smile to brighten the mood in even the most serious situations the image of him and Kame together would be all wrong.

"I don't want to date Kame." Naruto didn't have anything against Kame, but she could be annoying and she was still at that age where she needed more maturing. And Naruto just didn't like Kame that way. "I don't want to date anyone! I want to forget."

"No need to cause a scene," Kiba mumbled, looking around at the few shoppers that had stopped their carts to glance in the direction of Naruto's outburst. "That was just the easiest way to forget about Sakura."

"Easiest? As in there's another way to forget somebody, but it actually requires effort?" Naruto just realized how desperate he was to be asking Kiba, idiot of all idiots, for help with his dilemma.

"In order to forget Sakura you have to forgive her so you can move on."

Naruto just started at Kiba. Was he serious? First Tenten taking Sakura's side and now Kiba, one of his best friends, was telling to just… just forgive her. Why the hell was everyone against him?

"Are you being serious?" Naruto asked, hoping a shit-eating grin will form on his friend's face.

"Uh, yeah. You know, forgive and forget." Kiba looked over his shoulder to his friend. "Once you forgive her you'll no longer have a reason to hate her, meaning you no longer have a reason to keep her on your mind."

Naruto still stared at his friend, waiting for him to yell "psych!" or laugh in his face.

He didn't.

"Fuck you, Kiba."

~0~

"Two beers and some hot wings. And can you change the channel to a good game. These guys are getting killed."

Sakura complied to the customer's request without a word, doing her job as if in a trance. Ever since she got out of Daisuke's office she had been in a daze, chilled to the bone. She hadn't lingered on the thought much before today, but now she was even more paranoid that Sasuke was after her. Every time the bell over the door chimed, Sakura would look up expecting to see Sasuke there wearing that cold smile that held a promise of pain.

Sakura's hand started to tremble and she curled it into a fist in an attempt to stop the shaking. She needed to relax. If she didn't relax people would start asking questions and worry and the last thing she wanted was to be assigned more hours with a therapist, classified as a nutcase.

"Hey Sakura!"

Sakura turned to see Kame now waiting at the bar and made herself smile. After Kame had discovered the scar on her back she found Sakura interesting more than an annoying newcomer. She decided to look over the girl's shyness as an effect to the trauma that was caused after being attacked.

"You do know you're underaged," Sakura said as an attempt to lighten her darkening mood.

"Has never stopped me before," Kame waved off, leaning forward over the bar a bit. "I'm actually here to ask you for help."

Sakura's brows rose. "Me?"

"Yeah. I was talking to Sanya during my shift earlier this morning and she told me how you were some super genius in high school and college so I was just wondering if you could tutor me in math."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty shitty with numbers." Kame shrugged. "I wasn't going to take math at all, but my mom said that I should take it since I'm undecided on my major and a bunch of jobs require you to be good with numbers. So, can you help me?"

"As a tutor?"

"Yeah. I'll pay you twenty dollars an hour and that could accumulate to a good amount of pocket money considering this is me you're tutoring."

Sakura laughed a bit, almost relaxing. "Okay. When do you want to meet?"

"We can work here tomorrow around noon."

"That's…" Sakura trailed off when she realized she would have to visit Daisuke again tomorrow at noon. "I can't. I have something to do."

"What is it?" Kame asked, fingering the piercing in her brow. She looked up at Sakura and saw her tense and figured she hit a sensitive topic. "It doesn't really matter. We'll meet around… three then."

"O—" The bell chimed above the door and Sakura jumped, snapping her gaze to the door. A burly man carrying a passage stepped through the threshold and Sakura calmed down a bit. "Okay," she said to Kame. She tried to smile but the corner of her lips twitched. "We'll meet here tomorrow at three."

Kame studied Sakura carefully, not missing the way her hands shook as she tugged at the cuffs of her sleeves. She knew Sakura wasn't attacked by a bear but—despite popular belief—because she wanted to be nice to the new fragile girl, Kame faked ignorance. It was insulting to know that some people thought she was that oblivious. She wasn't that good of an actress.

"Okay then, I'll see you tomorrow." Kame slid off the bar, knowing that her curiosity would get the best of her if she stayed any longer and it was more than obvious that the woman before her was a bundle of nerves. "Thanks."

"No problem," Sakura mumbled, turning her attention to the man who had walked in with the box.

Naruto watched from a distance in a booth. It was a quarter until closing time so no more customers were coming in and his section was empty. He watched Kame wave goodbye to Sakura and walk out the door. Kame. Even Kame was warming up to Sakura. It was fucking ridiculous.

And they all wanted him to forgive her. She made a mistake, she was trying to repent, it was only four months—the reasons to forgive her were all the same. People don't understand how much it hurt that she ran off with a guy she knew for maybe a year and leave him, best friend for years, behind in the dust. It really makes you wonder how much you meant to someone when that happens.

He didn't hate Sakura, he sure as hell didn't like her, but he didn't hate her. He did hate how everyone just welcomed her immediately with opened arms. It was as if Sakura could do no wrong. She left all of them behind, not just him, so why were they all so quick to forgive? Especially Tenten. She was like his sister; how could she just side with the enemy so quickly?

Naruto's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he watched Sakura nearly drop another glass for the hundredth when the bell chimed. He rolled his eyes at the almost panicked look Sakura gave the door before she went back to filling a customer's glass and tugging at her sleeves. She was paranoid about something and at the same time it intrigued him (he refused to use 'worried') it also annoyed him. It was just a bell. It wasn't that scary.

Naruto's eyes zeroed in on the cuffs of Sakura's shirt. Over the past week he realized that when she was nervous she tugged at her sleeves as if to hide something. She tugged her sleeves a lot.

Parnoia. A nervous habit. The complete personality change. Something had happened in those four months Sakura was gone and Naruto was getting tired of being out of the loop.

~0~

It was finally closing time and Sakura was able to breathe again. Everything was locked up so she didn't have to worry about anyone else entering. And there was Naruto there to stop anyone who tried to come in. Sakura looked up from the counter she was wiping to watch Naruto sweep the floor. She had complete faith in the fact that, no matter how horrible she had treated him, he would protect her.

Sakura frowned at that thought. I'm such a bitch.

It has to be Sasuke, Naruto thought to himself, as he pushed dirt around the floor. She wouldn't be back without him if there wasn't something wrong. I'll start there and then— Why do I care so much!

Naruto wanted to slam his head into a wall to try to regain his sense of self pride. He was still running back to her and it pissed him off. He looked over at his shoulder at Sakura as she began filling the sink with water. If she wasn't so different he could forget her, but she comes back as fragile as fine china and he had too many questions to just walk away from her.

He stopped sweeping for a moment to look back at Sakura. She wasn't near as jittery as she was when the customers were around and she actually seemed relaxed. It almost made him happy to know his presence didn't stress her out. Almost.

Sakura shoved the sleeves of her shirt up a pit to keep her cuffs from getting wet as she began cleaning a few glasses. She dropped a few glasses in the soapy water and grabbed a dish rag and got to work on making the spotless. She wanted to busy herself in hopes that it would keep her mind on her work and not therapy or Sasuke.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Sakura was just rinsing off her third glass when Naruto appeared in front of her. "I'm washing glasses."

"That's what the dishwasher is for."

"Well it's already started so I just figured I'd get these done instead of waiting to put them in the dishwasher." Sakura took a silent deep breath to steel her nerves so she could look him in the eyes without stuttering. She now knew he hated stuttering. "Are you done sweeping?"

"Yeah." Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Hurry up with the dishes so we can close up and go home. I'll start overturning the chairs."

"I'll help," Sakura insisted, picking up a towel to try her hands. "It'll be faster. More efficient."

"I forget how you have to make everything so efficient," Naruto mumbled, rolling his eyes. "It was annoying."

When he looked back at Sakura she was beaming so brightly it almost creeped him out. For Sakura she was nice to know he was still able to remember how she used to be. That last sentence had almost sounded like a joke.

Damn, Naruto cursed himself. Now she thinks I forgive her or something. He was about to say something to erase any thoughts of friendship she might have floating around in her head, when Sakura lifted her hand to brush her bangs out of her face and the discoloring of her wrist caught his eye.

"What the hell is that?" Naruto asked glaring at Sakura's wrist.

"What?" Sakura asked, searching for something like a deformed bug. "What is it?"

"That thing on your wrist." Naruto took a step closer to the bar and pointed at the yellow bruise that still wrapped around Sakura's wrist, taking its sweet time in fading away. "It's fucking ugly."

"Oh." Sakura stared down at the bruise—the fucking ugly bruise—for a second before tugging her sleeve down and she clenched her cuff in her sweaty palms. She had bruises like that all over her body. She was fucking ugly all over. "I'm sorry. I'll wait for the dishwasher."

Naruto's brows furrowed. "That's not what I asked. What is it?"

"It's a bruise," Sakura mumbled, looking down into the water. "I… I fell a while ago."

She's still a crappy liar. "How do you get a bruise that wraps around your wrist by falling?"

"I'm going to overturn the chairs on the left," Sakura said, changing the subject. Her hands were trembling again. She looked up at Naruto, her expression blank to hide her emotions. "You can get the right and we'll be out of here faster."

Naruto stared after her and almost demanded to know the truth before he realized that it would make it appear that he cared about her. He was just… curious. He watched as Sakura began lifting chairs and didn't miss the shaking of her hands as they wrapped around a chair's leg.

He'll just ask Tenten.

~0~

Sakura stared into the mirror that was positioned on the back of the door of her room. She stood in boy shorts and a sports bra, grimacing at the number of bruises and scars that mutated her once flawless skin. They were reminders of how weak and stupid she had been. She was hideous. Fucking ugly. It made her sick.

She took a long black sheet and tossed it over the mirror, tacking the corners to keep it from falling. She then placed a covering over the mirror above her dresser and one over the bathroom mirror. She stood back to look at her work and didn't see her reflection anywhere which was good.

She could no longer stand to look at herself.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Hmm… not too sure if I really like this chapter because I got a bit lost somewhere in the middle so I just typed the first thing that came to mind, but I hope it's not TOO horrible. I get my own laptop next month so I am pretty sure that will help updating b/c one of the main reasons it takes me a while to update is b/c I hate sitting at the desk in the computer room typing. Please don't hate me TOO much for taking so long to update (WRITER'S BLOCK!) and please REVIEW!

Happy Thanksgiving!

~Kimiko888~