Naruto came first. Sakura answered her front door to find a very sad-looking blonde ninja moping on her front steps.

"Oh, Naruto," Sakura sighed. She opened the door.

Sakura had prided herself on her apartment, its neatness and cleanliness, ever since she got it. She was happy she'd moved out of her parents' place before Sasuke came parading back into town, so he could she was independent and resourceful now –

"Don't leeeeeeeeave," Naruto bellowed, grasping Sakura by her tunic. "Sakura, we need you. What would we do without you on the field? We need your ramen and your-"

"Naruto-chan," Sakura gently pried him off of her. "I already talked to Tsunade-sensei. She says if you and Sasuke pass the jounin exams this week, she'll take me on as a full-time student."

Naruto, if possible, became even more dejected than before. His voice changed, becoming soft and sad, devoid of its usual overeager bluster. "Don't do it, Sakura-chan," he pleaded.

"Naruto… Tsunade-sensei herself said her team could never have stuck together all these years," Sakura said, trying to reason with him. "They had to break up sometime. That's just happening to us, too, okay?"

"But their teammate went evil and CRAZY!" Naruto yelled, looking outraged. "Sakura-chan! We're the BEST team to ever come out of Konoha and…"

She tried not to show how much his begging was affecting her. What good would it do either of them if she just broke down all the sudden, like he was? "Come on," she said, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Let's get you some ramen."

Sasuke came second. Sakura nearly chucked a bowl of cold noodles straight at his head when she walked into her dark bedroom, only to see his svelte silhouette against the window.

"Sasuke!" she cried out in shock. "What in the gods' names are you doing?"

"This window provided the easiest ingress from the side garden." Only the moonlight illuminated how he shifted from one foot to the other.

Sakura gawked. She flicked the light on. He stood slouched with his hands in his black trouser pockets, but watching her with that calm attentive stare he always had. Sakura stared right back.

"…What?" she said finally.

Sasuke didn't actually roll his eyes, but somehow gave the appearance of doing so. Sakura never knew how he did that. Here they were again, Sasuke putting up with Sakura's silly antics, except this time Sakura wasn't being silly and it pissed her off that he would think so. He climbed in her bedroom window, the weirdo.

"You shouldn't quit the team," Sasuke said at last.

Sakura took a breath. She was torn between gratitude, that her teammates cared so much, and annoyance, that they kept barging in on her to tell her so.

"Sasuke, you know I'd love to stay, but…I just – Team 7 isn't what it used to be, you know?" She saw her teammate react to those words, a sudden fire banked behind those deep black eyes, but she didn't know why.

"We can be."

Sakura sighed and tried to sound like she had made her mind up. "We've drifted apart, Sasuke. You, me, Naruto… even Kakashi. It's time Team 7 accepted that. There's no harm in moving on, is there?"

She tried not to fidget in front of him, but her fingers kept twisting her chopsticks around in her cold ramen. Even now, after all these years, she couldn't quite stop the fidgeting that was triggered by Sasuke's attention on her. Especially when his attention was really intense, like it was now.

"We're supposed to support each other, Sakura," and she knew she detected anger behind his words this time. "Teams operate in threes for a reason."

"Well you weren't thinking about that when you and Naruto signed up for the jounin exams without telling me, were you?"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "You can't just walk away from a team. Ninja don't just leave their missions, Sakura."

"I'm not walking away from a mission!" Sakura tried to stop the conversation from devolving further into outright argument. "Tsunade-sensei needs me. Konoha needs a medic-nin. Team 7 doesn't need me," her voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying.

"Don't be so sure," Sasuke replied ominously. After a beat: "Naruto needs you."

And he was out the window before Sakura could form a response. Drama queen.

Kakashi came last. At least he knocked. Sakura pulled the door open, grumpy but not surprised. "Come in, sensei," she sighed.

She walked into the kitchen and turned to face him. "I know why you're here. You want me to rethink what I said about leaving the team."

Kakashi crinkled his visible eye. "No, Sakura. I came to tell you about the procedures we take when a Leaf Village shinobi leaves their team. There are a few protocols to follow, you see."

"Ah." Sakura slumped against her counter.

"First, a team is always strongest when it has three interacting shinobi. The diverse skills of these shinobi create the team's structure…"

Kakashi droned on and Sakura found herself thinking instead about her history with Naruto and Sasuke. The first, crazily lovestruck years; the desperation when Sasuke left them; her and Naruto's burgeoning teammanship.

No, she didn't want to leave – didn't they all realize that? – but there was no other option. And besides, she shouldn't be the one defending herself here. If you were being fair, Naruto and Sasuke were leaving Team 7 as much as she was. She was just… taking the final step, Sakura reassured herself.

The jounin exams came, and all of Konoha was abuzz. Well, the shinobi quotient was, at least. No amount of resentment could keep Sakura from supporting her teammates in the most important exam of their careers.

"Heya, Sakura-chan!" Naruto came bounding out at her from the crowd, exuberant as always. He didn't show a trace of the sorrowful state she had last seen him in on her doorstep two days ago.

Remembering their last conversation, Sakura felt bad. "Heya, Naruto-chan," she called, catching him in a one-armed hug as he reached her in the crowd. "Are you ready to take on these weakling-nin?"

He grinned and hooked a friendly arm around her waist. "Sakura-chan, we'll take these losers out faster than your Thousand-ton Pounding Fist! Remember when I sprang on that Akatsuki so fast we flew right over that cliff and you had to jumpstart my lungs pumping again?"

Sakura laughed despite the dire story. "You're lucky I was there, baka," she said, slapping him lightly upside the head. "Without me you would've still been gasping on the ground when Sasori showed up."

Naruto looked more serious. "I know, " he said, looking her in the eye. "I wish you could be there with us today, Sakura."

She looked away. This wasn't something she wanted to talk about when she was trying to be supportive for Naruto and Sasuke. Speaking of –

"TEME!" Naruto yelled out. Sakura looked up to see Sasuke sauntering toward them, looking intently nonchalant.

She smiled. "Hey, Sasuke. Break some limbs today."

He nodded curtly, taking in her and Naruto's intertwined arms. "Naruto," he said rudely, "don't you need to sign in?"

"Gah!" the blonde cried. "I forgot! See you later Sakura-chan!"

"Good luck!" she cried again as he darted off. Sasuke was staring at her. "What?" she said.

He turned and started again for the stadium, Sakura following. From his gait Sakura could tell he was angry, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. She was tempted to just let him stew in whatever tragedy he was suffering now, but she wasn't that girl anymore. She sighed. "What's wrong, Sasuke?"

He was silent for a moment, preparing himself for something. "I came back for you," he said curtly.

Sakura stopped momentarily. "What?"

"I came back for you and Naruto." He refused to look at her.

Sakura stayed in place, being pushed around by the jostling crowds passing her and Sasuke. On some level, she had always known - known why Sasuke had returned to the Leaf Village after killing Orochimaru. She had known it from the respect and affection he had grudgingly shown herself and their teammate, and from the fact that he bothered to come back at all. Still, at that moment she didn't know what to say.

"I… thank you, Sasuke."

He looked at her, still intense and slightly angry, like he was every time he got even the tiniest bit emotional. He seemed to be waiting for something else from her. "You shouldn't leave," he said sullenly.

"I need to train with Tsunade-sensei," she replied, surprised. "Sensei says I can start in the hospital and work my way up once we start training full-time next week. Konoha needs more medic-nin, Sasuke."

The stream of shinobi and civilians rustling past them made Sakura felt like she and the former love of her life were encapsulated in a bubble. With a last intent gaze, Sasuke swept away into the crowd, disappearing before she could ask him why he had finally decided to tell her all this.

Tsunade-sensei had said Sakura's medic skills showed promise. It wasn't until her own team broke up that Tsunade was left with the time – and the lack of purpose, Inner Sakura supplied – to refine her own medical jutsu.

Sakura thought about a future for her in Konoha's hospital, tending to the wounded. A wounded Sasuke or Naruto, brought in from a mission where she hadn't been in the field to help them…The past few days, Sakura had been ruminating unhappily on how much Team 7 didn't need her.

But did she, Sakura thought, need them?

Her thoughts were still running in circles as she watched teams competing from her seat in the stadium's front row. Her heart began racing as soon as Sasuke and Naruto's names were announced. And there they were, Naruto bursting out in an exuberant sprint and Sasuke at a tense jog.

Kunai, jutsus, sharingan; the battle was raging within minutes and Sakura's heart remained in her throat as she gripped the balustrade before her. At one point, Sasuke was poised on Naruto's shoulders for some move Sakura didn't recognize, but he was knocked off by a single blast. It reminded her of something Kakashi had said last night - something about the structure of threes.

But Sakura's train of thought was cut off abruptly by the sight of Naruto flat on his back and gasping for air, furiously clamping down on bloodflow oozing from below his ribs. She leapt to her feet and grasped the rail even tighter, barely restraining herself from leaping to him and calling a healing jutsu.

His opponent came racing down the arena to take advantage, too fast, and Sasuke was too far away, he was too fast, and this guy was already preparing a chakra ball, and it was too strong for –

"Suiton: suijinheki no jutsu!" she roared, throwing caution to the wind and hoisting herself over the rail and into the arena. Water blasted from a nearby puddle to Naruto's side and formed a wall between his prone body and the opposing chuunin, just barely diverting the blow he'd been aiming at Naruto's side.

Naruto looked up at her, shocked. Sakura was standing, arms aloft, holding the jutsu beside him. Even the other chuunin looked momentarily stunned.

Sakura's eyes met Sasuke's across the field, and with a moment's clarity, she knew: she had just disqualified her teammates from the jounin exams. She looked down at Naruto. All three knew it.

Despite the shock and disappointment, Sakura couldn't help a crazy grin spreading across her face. Here she was again, thrown into the fray with these two crazy idiots she called her best friends. She could see a grin spreading on Sasuke's face across the arena.

Sakura hoisted Naruto to his feet. He looked like a balloon about to burst with excitement. "Let's show these weaklings how Team 7 works," she said. And she fell into stance.

A/N: Why yes, I did just finish a fic I started writing four years ago. Happy NaNoWriMo, everybody!