What We See
Chapter Two: Right
By Dreaming of Everything

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything connected to it. This AU is of my own creating, however, as is the story. Please do not use them without my permission.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the wait, everybody! I needed to do some major revamping to this story, and then I lost my inspiration for a while and decided to abandon it, then decided that I couldn't, then changed my mind, then re-changed my mind, and then had to actually write this chapter. But I've got outlines for all the rest of the chapters (it's planned to have ten, but that number's highly liable to change) so the rest shouldn't take this long.

Thank you very much to my three reviewers, Hebi R., MYZ-chan and silver-eyed!

oOoOoOo

Sakura was curiously calm the next morning.

She methodically pushed the bed away from where she'd used it to wedge herself in a corner, facing outwards at the world in case he returned for what's his in case she had another visitor a visitor, so that she could see them. Not that it was likely to help.

She wiped away some of the blood that had caked onto her from where she'd clutched her arms too hard, nails digging into and through the skin, and from where she had bitten her lips, and then washed away the salt-trails her tears had left.

Next, she left a note for her current psychologist—the same harmless, helpless, honestly well-meaning woman she had met with the day before, who had asked her questions about whether she remembered—

Funny, how things could happen after all this time. Was she still alive? Yes, she thought so.

And then she dragged her blankets and pillows off of the bed, lay them in the corner, curled up on them, carefully, because she was stiff, after everything that had happened, and slipped into her other world.

Various counselors had tried to convince her that her world wasn't real, that it was a hallucination, something she had created, but that made no sense; it was the place that felt more real, made more sense, where she felt closer to who she should be, not who she had been born as. It was where her friends were, and there wasn't anyone in her family she was particularly close to, now, not since— Not since.

It had been a long, long time since her parents had involved themselves in her life. That had really hurt, in the beginning, but she had found a new family, different important people.

oOo

Normally, visiting her world was a comfort. It was like going home.

It was different this time. She didn't feel safe, because of what had happened. It wasn't that she had had an unexpected visit; she'd known that he'd come eventually, really. But she had expected to die; she hadn't expected to be forced to return, when she knew that he was still out there. Waiting. Possibly even watching her—she was far from being one of the worst ninja in their year (although she was a lot further away from being the best, what with everything she ended up missing because of her obligations in the other place) but Gaara was enough to kill any one of them: Sasuke, Lee, Naruto.

So she entered hesitantly, this time, walking through the gray space that delineated the two worlds.

She came into Konoha in a deserted training field, and walked faster than she normally did into the village.

There wasn't anybody at Naruto's apartment or in the Uchiha compound, or in the training area their team normally gravitated towards. Sakura smiled with sheer relief when she finally saw the two of them, eating ramen at a stall, just another ordinary day.

"Oi! Sakura!" Naruto yelled out as she approached them. "Good morning!"

"Geez, Naruto, you're so loud!" she yelled back, feeling the tension dropping away from her with each step she took closer to her team. "Don't you know how to act like a normal human being? Good morning, Sasuke."

"Awww, you're so mean, Sakura! What'd I do this time?"

"Hmph. Idiot. You're too loud."

"Nobody asked you, Sasuke!"

oOo

Technically, the psych. center was a 24-7 operation. There was a list of patients considered 'serious cases,' requiring constant observation to keep themselves from hurting themselves and others. The list was divided into two subgroups: the people requiring constant human observation, someone literally in the room with them at all times, and those who didn't need the physical presence.

Sakura had originally been labeled as unlikely to be a threat—someone who was observed, but didn't need to have the camera constantly watched, or even always turned on; an occasional check-in would suffice, and it was fine if she went all night without someone looking in.

But then that mysterious attack had occurred: she had turned up in the morning shell-shocked and panicky, and with painful, self-inflicted wounds scraped into her flesh. She'd had her status switched to "constant watch—remote observation" within fifteen minutes of discovery. The institute took the health and safety of its patients very seriously.

Years had gone by without another incident, and her status had been reexamined, but not changed. The general agreement had been that Sakura still posed a danger to herself, assuming that the mysterious 'person' who had set her off the first time reappeared. Her psychologist even set out a yearly bulletin, as the anniversary of his appearance approached, warning her nightly watchers to be extra observant.

The minute Sakura had opened her eyes that night, she should have been watched, the night warden assigned to her room zeroing in on the irregular behavior. During the entirety of the ten-minute period of severe hallucination she had experienced, and the night's worth of paranoid behaviors that had followed, someone should have noticed and pressed a button that would summon people to deal with the situation.

Nothing had happened.

The Institute began its daily wake-up at eight in the morning, when the day shift began to arrive. Sakura's psychologist arrived early; she wanted to review how Sakura's night had been. There wasn't any note attached to the tape (she had asked that it be saved, so she could view it) so she simply stuck it in the player and pressed the fast-forward button, not bothering to watch a full night in real time.

She almost didn't catch it: it was at least part blind luck that let her catch the sudden movement on the tape.

She rewound the tape, and re-watched the part she had missed. Part way through the event she dropped the remote she was holding and headed towards Sakura's rooms at a dead run.

oOo

The girl wasn't responding. "Fuck!" she whispered vehemently, under her breath. She should have known something like this would have happened! Isn't that why she sent out that damned memo every year? Did the night staff think she did it for her own amusement?

The psychologist needed to follow the protocol for this sort of situation. It was forgetting the correct procedures that had caused this in the first place—she would find out who had been 'watching' the camera feeds that night, and make sure they were never put in charge of anything more important than managing the janitors ever again. She fumbled for her cell phone, pressing her quick-dial keys—3 for the central database, 2 for medical assistance—before turning her attention back to Sakura.

She was sprawled out, half on and half off of her bed, as if she had fallen, or been laying on it and thrashed so violently she'd mostly fallen off. There didn't seem to be any wounds on her, but that didn't mean that she hadn't tried to hurt herself: there were plenty of other ways a patient could damage themselves, and all her talk about being 'ninja' was worrisome. The ones with ideas were always worst.

Support arrived within seconds. The psychologist moved to the side, to let the medics at the girl.

oOo

It was nine o'clock, and the psychologist was trying to focus on new case she'd been assigned. It wasn't working.

She dropped the file with unseemly haste when her computer beeped at her, telling her she had a new email. She scanned the email quickly and concernedly, breathing a sigh of relief when she was finished.

There was nothing physically wrong with Sakura, at least. All the tests had come back clean. She hadn't ended up swallowing half a bottle of drain cleaner in an attempt to kill herself, at least, like she had been half-afraid had happened—Sakura's behavior was always slightly concerning, and she'd been far more erratic than was normal the night before.

On the other hand, a condition that was purely psychological could be much harder to treat. She frowned.

Sakura was currently in the medical bay, waiting for a scan to check for brain tumors; she was still non-reactionary, despite appearing to have nothing physically wrong with her. She'd been given a heavy dose of sedatives to help control the apparently subconscious fits of thrashing she had been experiencing. Now, she was fully still.

"Finish the report and you can go down to check up on her," the psychologist said firmly to herself, bending back to her work.

oOo

The three of them were waiting at the bridge for Kakashi, who was an hour and a half late and counting. Sakura yawned loudly, despite her attempts to cover it with a hand.

"I'm bored," said Naruto emphatically. The other two ignored him.

The mid-morning sunshine pressed down on the three, warm and sleepy. Naruto yawned, and Sasuke tried to pretend he wasn't trying desperately not to.

The lazy mood was broken by Sakura's broken scream. She fell heavily, clutching blindly with one hand at the bridge railing, body flailing helplessly. She screamed again, then fell limp, one hand trailing off the side of the bridge, blood from the thick splinters she'd forced into her fingers dripping down into the river below.

oOo

Sakura awoke a few minutes later, extremely disoriented by the blur of scenery rushing past her. She tried to raise her head, and shook with the effort. "Wha—?" she managed, thickly.

"Sakura!" yelled Naruto loudly, directly into her ear. She was set down abruptly, and the world spun alarmingly before it settled down.

"Urgh," she said, looking around herself. They were on a roof…? Why had he been carrying her?

"Why were you carrying me?" she said. It seemed like a good place to start.

"You just collapsed!" said Naruto, looking frantic. "We had no idea what was gone. We were going to the emergency medical center. Sasuke went on ahead to make sure someone was available. I was taking you there. What happened?"

"I have no idea what happened," muttered Sakura, wincing at her growing headache. "It feels different, though…" She looked up, eyes wide with growing understanding. "I'm myself," she said, her tone making that sound like a revelation.

"Uh, yeah," said Naruto. "Sakura? Are you really okay?"

"No, I'm myself," she said. "I'm who I'm supposed to be!"

"Sakura, I really think you should go to the med center," said Naruto.

"No, no. I've never felt like I've been who I'm supposed to be, back in the other world—not here, but the other place—but I've never really been myself here, either. I've never really been a part of the real world, but I am now. I can feel it!" Sakura laughed for the sheer pleasure of it.

"Oh," said Naruto. "I still really think we should go, Sakura."

"Okay, fine," she sighed, rising to her feet. She grinned at the feeling, more natural than any movement had ever felt, to her. "I can't believe you've always felt like this!" she shouted at Naruto over the rushing wind of their trip.

"What?" said Naruto, looking concerned.

Sasuke was next to them the instant they entered the hospital lobby. "Are you okay?" he said to Sakura, voice low and worried and urgent.

"Yes," said Sakura, voice jubilant, and for once it didn't have much to do with Sasuke showing that he cared for her.

"No," said Naruto flatly besides her, and then she was being ushered into an exam room, her two teammates waiting anxiously outsider her door.

And, for the first time, the world was right.

-End Chapter 2-