Hi, Reader-chan here!

Thank you all of you for reading this story and even bigger thanks to people who read the previous one. Whew! this was long and having written it through the night, i can tell you for a face(...for a fact...see how sleepy I am), I don't need eyeliner to look like Gaara before.

BLAH's over

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did why would I be writing fanfiction? seriously, this shit right here would have been canon.

Renewal

His yearlong probation is over and now and, ideally, he's a free man. He probably got off easy because of his contribution to defeating Madara and Obito in their crazy plan and more importantly because his best friend is the Hokage. Naruto is waiting for him looking as enthusiastic as ever. In fact all of Rookie Nine is here, even that annoying man who replaced him, Sai with the fakest smile he has ever seen. She, of course, is missing…but then she always is. He thinks nothing of it. It is simply an observation made subconsciously because he's a shinobi. There was nothing more to it. Nothing at all…right?

He ignores the tiniest flicker of doubt that has started flitting around his thoughts whenever she is the subject because it is irrelevant whether he wishes them to be better teammates again or not because no matter what he does now, it's over. She doesn't want to see him and he tells himself if that is what she wants he'll give her that. He's the one who screwed everything up and took all the wrong decisions so if this is all he has left to give her, he owes her that and that he will give it to her.

He does see her anyway, walking home from work the next day. Her beautiful pink hair is tied up in a loose messy bun which lets some of her hair out of it and lets it drop onto her eyes. She looks tired but her smile is brilliant and beautiful as she talks to the throng of children she is walking home with.

He almost scowls reflexively to shoo her away until he remembers that it isn't necessary. She doesn't want to talk to him anyway. It doesn't really sink in until he sees her take a sharp turn away from the rooftop he was watching her from because she doesn't even spare him a glance.

-X-

When he sees her again a whole year later, he is unprepared for the regret that hits him almost physically. She looks a lot thinner. Almost anorexic, in fact, and it scares him. The children still flock around her like they did when he last saw her and though she looks more tired than he ever remembers seeing her, she smiles at the children anyway. It is a feeble imitation of what it once was, but it is still beautiful and feels oddly out of place on her beaten down frame.

Naruto had been telling him nearly every time they met, which was a lot considering he was Captain of an ANBU squad now, that she isn't taking care of herself and as her teammate, he should feel obligated to back him up while he tells her to start eating and sleeping. So to speak he should have expected her to be looking unhealthy, but she doesn't look unhealthy, he thinks as he gives her a once over and her wobbly steps move towards her apartment. He's seen that look on his own face when his parents died. It's deathly.

A week in he finds himself at the hospital. He's avoided this place like the plague since he got back because he doesn't want to bump into her. In fact he has managed to escape nearly all his missions unscathed or with injuries he could look after himself and the few times he did visit the place, she was otherwise occupied. In fact, he thinks it's the universe laughing at him that he managed to get hit by Naruto during a spar as hard as he did to have broken his arm, no, destroyed the entire bone structure of it.

The moment he entered the hospital, he is immediately rushed in by the nurses and he sees them actually raise an eyebrow when they see it, which is probably the most he's seen them react. He hears alarmed whispers of among them and nearly bolts because he is not prepared to be fawned over by a ghostly looking Sakura. She doesn't fawn over him. At all. She gives his arm a once over and immediately sets to work. It actually feels nice, how her chakra seeps into him gently mending what is broken in him.

He has an urge to tell her he is sorry. He doesn't. It's not about his stupid Uchiha pride anymore; it's the guilt. Crushing ever present guilt that glues his mouth shut as she dexterously works on his arm. A strand of hair escapes her ponytail and he almost reaches out with his good arm to push it back but he doesn't.

He thinks of the flinch that had followed the first time he'd touched her by accident before his probation and the calmness her chakra had been inducing in him making the pain go away bit by bit is suddenly swallowed by dark guilt and regret. He never really thought it would end up like this. She looks up from healing him with a frown on her tired face, as if she sensed that change in his mood.

She is beautiful. Tired, broken and scarily thin, but it can't take away how beautiful she is and for the first time, he is hit by a tidal wave of longing, an urge to reach out and will her to come back, so it could be like it used to be and his hands weren't stained with the blood of so many people and that she could fix him and he could fix her and everything would be okay again.

"Is something wrong, Uchicha-san? Perhaps you would like me to dull the pain receptors of your arm a little more? Am I making it hurt more than it did before?"

Uchiha-san.

She called him Uchiha-san… it hits him harder than he expected. It felt like being dumped in an icy lake on a cold winter night. He supposes he deserved it so he swallows the lump that has formed in his throat and shakes his head and again when she asks him if he is sure.

-X-

"A mission with Sakura?" he repeats to Naruto almost too surprised to respond in the yes-or-no fashion he expected.

"Yes. So will you do it or do I have to hunt down another fricking ANBU's ass to do it for you?" Naruto responds testily. He is late on his paperwork and despite help from the Hyuuga girl whom he's dating; he is rather slow at it and is not in the best mood.

"Hn."

"I'll take that as a yes."

The change in demeanor is suspicious. Naruto is probably attempting for the twentieth time in fifteen months to get him and Sakura to talk again. Plans with the same motive had often been jeopardized by either one or both of them via absence. This time, it turns out, she has agreed.

The mission is relatively difficult which is why he has a medic nin by his side. Sakura is the epitome of professionalism as she patches him up first and herself after in spite of his protests.

She collapses just a few hundred meters from the Konoha gates. He loses his cool. He thinks for a few horrible seconds that she is dying. It takes a few minutes for the fact that she is simply unconscious to sink in. He cusses at himself for not noticing how tired she was while he's been sneaking glances at her for a crack at the reason for her sudden weight loss or why she isn't taking care of herself or how Tsunade-sama is allowing it.

In an instant, she is in his arms and he is speeding towards Konoha hospital. He wonders how someone who was as good a medic as her allowed this to happen to herself. He thinks back on when he had seen her a few weeks ago looking frail and thin…he should have done something. He should have told her to look after herself, force her to look after herself. She is an integral part of his small world that has been healing slowly since the death of his family, since realizing Itachi's only crime ever had been to love him. He can't lose anything else. Not her. Not now, not ever.

Tsunade-sama tells him and a worried Naruto that she hasn't been eating properly for almost two months now. Her sugar is low and she's low on vitamins. It isn't life threatening yet, and can be fixed via chakra almost instantly or by adopting a healthier lifestyle. However, she thinks Sakura needs to learn the hard way how important it is for her to learn to take care of herself and gives her a three week leave and suggests it be under his supervision apparently because she does not wish to lose any nurses on her now and because he clearly knows how to take care of himself apparent by his lack of visits to the hospital. Naruto smiles conspiratorially and agrees right away.

-X-

Three days later he finds himself walking home a healthier but not quiet healthy Sakura carrying her bag of clothes simply because he wanted to, and a paper with instructions on it from Tsunade-sama. She was ticked off by him picking up her bag before her. It is obvious by the scowl on her face. Or perhaps she is ticked off because she has to stay with him and the thought stings more than he thought it would. After all, they've nearly killed each other a few times now and he's tried to do it more than her. He's the one who needs to back off and wait for her to accept him again, but for some reason, he wishes that she would talk to him again, that they could be a team again, that she would not ignore him at all possible chances to do so.

"Sakura I-"he begins but is cut off by a sudden horror as he sees blood on the floor.

She looks up at him with a scowl prepared to respond sharply until she sees the horror on his face and instantly, she is near him, her hand on his arm and a comforting "Sasuke?" out of her lips. He's still frozen rigid staring at that same point. She follows his gaze and figures it out.

"It's not human blood Sasuke…it's-"

"No," a strangled whisper escapes him. Without thinking, her arms are around him and there they are sitting in the middle of the street with her holding him and keeping him from breaking while he's pulled her to his lap and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

It takes a lot of "It's okay's" to convince him that it in fact is okay and in half an hour, she found herself sitting on the bed in one of the many guest rooms of the Uchiha manor.

She wondered what happened to the idea of "avoiding him means you'll get over him". It scares her how instantly she responded to him.

It's because you're a medic.

But for the first time in months and months of telling herself she's over him, she is doubtful.

She begins talking to him again after that.

-X-

She is the most annoying house guest ever. In fact, even though it is her who is sick, she is constantly forcing him to make healthier lifestyle changes.

"Two cups of coffee is all you should have in a day Sasuke."

"You need to eat more vegetables Sasuke."

"It won't hurt you to go easy on the tomatoes so you can eat other things Sasuke."

In fact she takes it upon herself to teach him to cook, mainly because she can't go train in the training grounds. Normally that would do nothing to restrain her but the threatening letter from "Tsunade and the Hospital" as it said is still on the bedside cabinet about the terrifying consequences of not resting for these few days that she has off and she will not risk it.

That is how he finds himself standing next to her on Friday night when he was supposed to be training. Naruto had barred him from the training grounds after 6 p.m. and those idiot guards made pretty damn sure that he didn't stay longer. He thinks she is rather uncomfortably close. So close in fact that he can smell her lavender scented soap and see her long pink eyelashes and…He needs to stop this. His heartbeat is speeding up and no matter how hard he tells himself to stop thinking and just to follow her instructions; he finds that his pulse is unwilling to listen.

Strangely, for the first time in so long, he is thankful for her presence, thankful for her words that have started being directed towards him again after so so long. He wonders if it's because of pity that she is talking to him again, because she saw his breakdown a few days ago. He wonders if she cares at all anymore or if she is just being polite.

They make curry. He can't remember the last time he's had curry. It's delicious as her presence in his dark dark world. She makes him feel like he deserves happiness. Like he could grow to become the man she deserves. Then again, he probably won't be that man, ever.

-X-

He is surprised the next morning when he opens his door to a man with short electric blue hair asking for "Sakura-san." He doesn't like this man; he doesn't even know the man but something about his tone as he says her name makes him uncomfortable. Before he can so much as turn, a blur of pink and red rushes past him straight into this man's arms as they both tumble down to the ground.

"Takeshi-kun!"

"Konichiwa Sakura-chan. I was wondering how you're doing." He says as he sits upright with Sakura on his lap.

"Oh I'm sorry to have worried you, I'm as fine as ever, dying of boredom, but as fine as it gets." She responds with a nervous chuckle.

Sasuke finds himself waiting for the man to make a move to get her off of him but he seems comfortable and content on the ground with her on his lap. This scene makes him uncomfortable for reasons beyond him. Or maybe for reasons he knows of but is unwilling to accept. Either way, he is pretty sure that this Takeshi and Sakura are going out or soon will be and he should be content to be a part of her world even if he is in the background. But for some reason, this hurts and he wants to be anywhere but there.

As if the heavens realized his plans of escape, Sakura turns to him just then and gets up and lends Takeshi a hand to help him up as well and turns to him.

"Sasuke, this is Takeshi-kun, he works with me at the hospital," she says looking at him and turns around her short hair whipping after her head leaving him in a world of lavender and vanilla. "And Takeshi-kun, this is Sasuke, he's my teammate."

"Yes I've heard of him." Takeshi says with a slight narrowing of his eyes.

"Hn, I'm going to train." He says quietly in a flurry to escape.

"But Sasuke, don't you want to have tea or anything with Takeshi-kun?" Sakura asks him. He shakes his head and marches off in the direction of the training grounds as fast as he can without looking like he's running. Something about the way Sakura talked to Takeshi pissed him off. She called him Takeshi-kun, he was just Sasuke.

It doesn't matter. Shut up!

Oh but it does….

-X-

He's just had a nightmare. One about Itachi and his family and he is pretty sure he didn't scream but she is there and she is right next to him holding his hand whispering comforting words when he wakes up.

In his flurry of pain and fear of losing everything again, just seeing her makes him lose his long built self control and his arms are around her in seconds. He doesn't even think as he pulls her close holding her to him, breathing in a scent that is so Sakura and he is comforted by the fact that an integral part of his small healing world is safe.

She doesn't protest. She just puts her arms around him and allows him to pull her closer still and keeps murmuring comforting words as she quietly sends calming chakra to help soothe his nerves. He almost scowls and flinches away the moment he has calmed down enough to form coherent thought but he remembers Takeshi and subconsciously pulls her closer still and for the first time in a long, long time, he is at peace.

His mind, however, being the twisted, psychotic thing it is reminds him a few moments later, how she warmly held Takeshi. Unexpectedly, or maybe expectedly, it upsets him and in a few moments he forces his arms to let her go and she slowly shifts away from him. He regrets it instantly and misses her warmth. That is when he realizes that he needs her. Rather desperately.

The admittance doesn't shock him or leave him in self pity. He thinks it is probably because he has known it all along, probably since the first time he noticed her absence after his probation ended. Or maybe even earlier and he was too dense to notice. He realizes that he has to take what she will give him even if it is only so little. He will be content. With that he murmurs a whispery "Thank You" and finally, lies back down on his bed. He does, however, see her shocked face and tiny hint of a smile on her face before he does.

-X-

By the end of the second week with Sakura, he has learnt to cook a lot. Curry, something else with a gravy, stew, onigiri, fish soup, tomato soup (because he insisted that he wouldn't learn anything else until he learnt it), other dishes that involved cooked food and not just roasted or raw vegetables. Today, she insists on teaching him how to cook ramen.

"Hn."

"Sasuke this is not the time to be throwing a temper tantrum. Come on everybody loves ramen."

"Sakura, no."

"Look, Sasuke if you refuse, I'm going to Naruto's right this instant and telling him that you promised him three months of ramen for free, and Ino told me he's a bit stressed these days and we all know what he does when he's stressed."

She wouldn't.

"That's right he goes on a ramen rampage."

She wouldn't….right?

"All right then, I'll just go tell him."

That's when it hits him.

"Sakura, you are under my care."

"So?"

"The instructions specifically say avoid strenuous exercise."

"Yeah, and Naruto is five minutes away."

"No, he isn't."

"What?"

"He's fifteen minutes away."

"No, I'm-"

"The only way you are getting there in five minutes is if you run with your chakra boosting you."

Checkmate

He allows himself a smirk. There is no way she can talk herself out of this. In fact she knows as well as him that Tsunade-sama's letter spoke of grave consequences for both of them in case the instructions are not followed.

She seems to realize there is no way she can talk out of this…which is probably why she decides to run straight past him out the door with a rebellious smile on her face. She, however, has underestimated both his speed and strength and her own residual weakness. On a normal day, Sakura was probably faster than him if not as fast, at this point, she was sluggish in comparison and she wasn't even halfway into the living room when he collides with her and pins her to the floor a smirk on his lips and on hers.

Suddenly they are both aware of how close they are to each other and how his body is pressed to hers and how they fit into each other like puzzle pieces. Breathing progressively gets harder and he is getting more and more aware of all the places he is touching her at…which is a lot of places.

She doesn't even struggle. She is just there under him breathing him in after what feels like forever. He has a distinctly masculine musky smell and it is comforting and exciting at the same time. Her heart is pounding away and it surprises her that he can't hear it. At that moment she realizes, Takeshi would never compare to him. He can try but Sasuke is too ingrained in her. And it scares her.

Sasuke finally gets up and offers her a hand to help her get up. She doesn't take it and shakily gets up.

"I'm sorry Sasuke, I'm not feeling well, and I think I'll go to bed now."

She rushes past him towards her room. He tells himself that it doesn't hurt that she's running away like he did once upon a time. He tells himself he deserves it. But that doesn't stop it from hurting. It doesn't stop him from realizing that he's fallen for her. He doesn't want to let it show, but his head hangs anyway and his hand falls back to his side, and that is all he has to show for his heart breaking.

-X-

Their last week is nothing besides uncomfortable. She doesn't insist on teaching him anything anymore. He thinks he likes it better that way. He doesn't even bother to argue with the voice in his head that calls him a liar because he knew he was lying even before he started telling himself that he doesn't miss her smile. Because no matter what he tells himself, he misses her talking to him, her smile, her lavender-vanilla scent. He misses it already, and he misses it a lot.

She beats him at waking up for the first time the day she has to leave. He wakes up to an empty house with her gone and her stuff missing and only a note in her beautiful, beautiful handwriting to justify their absence.

He has never been a sentimentalist but he goes to her empty room anyway and sits on her bed. He can still smell her lavender-vanilla scent and it scares him how soon it will be gone now that she has left.

He stares at the dresser where he imagines she must have done her hair for so many days. He wishes she never started talking to him again. That she never gave him what he had been missing for so long only to cruelly take it away. He supposes that's what she must have felt like when he left. So when his brain vindictively tells him he deserves it, he lets it. He doesn't even try to pick up the broken pieces of his heart.

Within an hour, he decides, he has wasted enough time. He can't force her to love him and he can't force himself not to love her. So he'll just have to live with it. He'll have to be the other guy, the one who loves her but she doesn't love. He will have to be okay with it because he's been too late and now he has to deal with the consequences.

He goes to the Hokage Tower and asks Naruto for a mission, the most dangerous one he has. Naruto looks at him rather surprised and asks him an immaculately phrased question only he could ask an Uchiha and get away alive.

"What's got your panties in a twist this early in the morning?"

"Dobe, if you value your life, you'll give me a mission and hope I kill someone who needs to be killed in your place."

"Puh-lease teme. You couldn't kill me if you wanted to."

About forty seconds of your death glare seems to make a light bulb click in the idiot's head.

"What did you do to Sakura-chan?"

It hurts to think about her and you really want to think about anything but her. So when the thought translates to a frown on your face, Naruto hands you a scroll.

"Good luck teme. I just gave an A rank mission to Sakura-chan a while ago too. Too much sexual tension isn't it?"

Naruto looks conspiratorially at him and wiggles his eyebrows. Sasuke doesn't dignify that with a response and instead proceeds to swiftly hit him on the head and leaves.

-X-

When he is back, sweaty and slightly bruised, Naruto doesn't even allow him the common comfort of even a shower. Naruto is freaking out. That wouldn't annoy him if he was doing it somewhere else. Like the Hyuuga compound where he knows for a fact that he hangs out more than the Hyuuga who pretends to be his rival likes. It makes him happier than he thought it would.

"What do you want dobe?"

"Teme I don't know what you did in the three weeks I gave you with her but she is-Oh God, she won't really do it will she?"

"Do what?"

"Leave Konoha. She said she wants to train the medics in Suna because we finally have the hospital in running condition."

The wind is knocked out of him. Did she really find him that repulsive that she felt the need to seek sanctuary in a different village? Was he too forward?

"I can't send her away and she won't listen to anything I say. Or anything Ino says. Or anything Sai says. Or anything Kakashi-sensei says. Or-"

"Hn. I get it dobe."

"So will you talk to her?"

Him? Hadn't he proved his ability to screw things up enough? What more was left of them for him to destroy? He has nothing left to break between the two of them and he doesn't want to face her and he almost says no with his regular scowl in place but Naruto beats him to it.

"If you don't tell her, she never will know will she?"

He doesn't expect Naruto to know and it unnerves him.

"What?"

"Oh come on, normal people think you don't feel anything but us unfortunate bastards at Team 7 have been stuck with you since forever. I know for a fact that you are in love with Sakura-chan."

For a minute, he is too surprised to say anything.

Then all at once, he is hit by a moment of understanding.

The idiot knows.

For the first time in his life, Sasuke finds himself unable to deny something that ha been staring at him in the face. So, he doesn't bother.

"How long is she leaving for?"

"A year….but that is hardly the point teme!"

"No it isn't dobe."

If she wants to go, she should go…even though he can't remember anything that hurts half as bad as this. In fact he sees Sakura's rash decision for what it really is- a last ditch attempt to get away from him. He's pretty sure Naruto knows too. And he can't for the life of him bear to hurt her anymore, he will let her go because she deserves better. She always has. He realizes that she probably never will love him again, in spite of how much he does and will love her. So he doesn't think about how much it hurts and how much more it will after she leaves as he turns away from Naruto.

"I won't talk to her about it."

"Why?!"

He almost winces at how loud he is. People from Suna can probably hear his disagreement with Sakura's choice.

"Because she doesn't want me to."

For the first time in a long time, Naruto is speechless. Once he does recover himself, he realizes that his friend is too into Sakura to care how much he hurts anymore. He walks back to his chair chuckling with a bounce to his gait as he thinks about how Sasuke didn't even deny being in love with her.

Heh…he's smitten. To think he thought that I wouldn't notice. The teme.

The smile stays on his face until a clerk walks in with a fresh pile of paperwork in hand.

"EH? I HAVEN'T EVEN FINISHED THE LAST THREE PILES YET!"

"But Uzumaki-sama, it's on your schedule, see-"

"I KNOW IT'S ON THE DAMN SCHEDULE BUT GIVE A MAN A BREAK! AND HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO CALL ME NARUTO?COME ON, LETS JUST GET EVERYBODY IN THE OFFICE AND GET SOME RAMEN!"

"Sorry Uzumaki-san, but we are busy at the moment. Perhaps we'll go another time."

Satisfied, the clerk walked out of the office primly leaving Naruto doubting, not for the first time, the "awesomeness" of being Hokage.

-X-

OVER! Finally! People let me let you in on a secret. There will in fact be a chapter 2 to this. Yes. Thanks for reading again. Do favourite or follow if you liked it whatever your thing is. Now if you really liked it, please please please review. Yup press that button under this. I would love to hear your comments.

I hope you have a great day..and if the day's almost over when you're reading this, I hope you have a great day tomorrow.

Love,

Reader-Chan