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Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.

--C.S. Lewis

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Aurora

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She wakes to see hues of fire and gold, the colour of passion. It’s soft to the touch and she buries her face into the coat. Her dog—it is such a surprise to even consider that this beautiful creature is hers, that this dog will soon help her when the world is at its darkest.

“Kyoko-chan, is it time already?” There is a whine in response, the dog pressing closer to her master, and Sakura sighs. “All right, let’s go.”

As she gets off the bed, shooing Kyoko off her, she notices that the sky is dark still. Tiny pinpricks—so tiny, she can barely notice them, the moon a blurry picture, alert her to the fact that the sun will not rise for some time.

“Why do you need to go for a walk so early?” Sakura half-pouts as she quickly dresses. There is a soft body brushing her legs after, twirling around her as smooth as silk, and she wonders if Kyoko is part cat. She acts like one, with her soft padding and quiet afternoon naps.

After hooking the leash to Kyoko and locking the door behind her, Sakura closes her eyes. A practice run, to see if she can get used to following another creature, to start trusting her guide to help her.

A few steps of blindness, a sense of disorientation. It feels like walking through eternity, unable to know if minutes or hours have passed. She can’t tell what direction they are traveling, can’t recognize the street she has memorized since childhood.

It’s frightening and too much to bear. Immediately, she opens her eyes only to find she’s moved three houses away.

(Three houses? A five minute walk at the slowest pace? It felt like an hour, like forever, and if this is what it will be like after, she is no longer sure she wants to face it.)

Kyoko tugs eagerly at the leash and Sakura lets her lead the way.

Her eyes remain open.

-x-

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto looks around the house, calling for the girl. “Sakura-chan?” Turning to his companion, he wonders aloud, “Do you think she got lost?”

Though he would rather refrain from speaking, Sasuke gives a cool look to Naruto. “She’s not blind yet.”

“…still…”

Kakashi appears at the doorway, a smile in his eyes. Naruto sometimes wondered how people could do that, smile with the littlest parts of their body. A talent, he is sure, and Kakashi has mastered it.

(What Naruto doesn’t realize is that he smiles with his whole body, with every part, and that is an even bigger talent.)

“Sakura went for a walk with Kyoko.” Walking in, he sits down. “She should be back soon—Kyoko doesn’t need a really long walk. She’ll be doing that all day from now on.”

Sasuke slips into a chair of his own, closing his eyes and leaning back. Watching him, Naruto realizes his approach was wrong.

His plans always involved changing Sasuke back. To turn this man into a boy of smirks and faint smiles, of constant competition and bickering. He wanted to turn Sasuke back into the boy who wouldn’t mind protecting a friend, even if it meant his own death, even if he would never admit to doing it.

The problem with that was that Naruto and Sakura would have to turn back too. They would have to turn back into the naïve boy and the foolish girl.

Adaptation is now the key—they will have to adapt to this new Sasuke and see if any of the old remained. If so, they have a starting point. If not, they just have to start over.

And, in a sense, they are already starting over.

-x-

Ino wakes up, a warm feeling enveloping her. She turns to her side, snuggling deeper into the pillow. If she goes deep enough, maybe she won’t find her way back. She could just stay there, stuck in this land between dreams and reality and never have to choose between them.

She feels the soft comforter covering her shoulders, the hard mattress beneath her, and keeps her eyes closed. She knows where she is.

Then it crosses her mind, a stray lamb of thought and fears (of fading light, of shadows creeping, of loss and a permanent twilight) and Ino jolts awake.

She should be in the library. She should be lying on a desk, the ink from her book imprinting on her cheek.

She should not be home, resting as though she has this time.

Jumping off her bed, Ino dresses quickly. If she is quick enough, she can make it there in ten minutes.

-x-

Sakura spends hours with her pet, her new friend, her lifelong ally. Training, bonding, they do the exercises that Kiba gave her.

Kakashi stands in a corner, lewdly giggling at his book. Giving him a dirty look, she moves Kyoko a little further away. “Can’t have you picking up his habits.”

Naruto hovers over her shoulder. “Wow, Kyoko-chan is big.”

“You just noticed that?” She gives him a pointed look. Kyoko is a little below her shoulders, as broad as a horse, and to think he didn’t notice that from the start…

Well, she has to wonder if she’s the only one going blind here.

“I noticed it before!” Naruto hotly protests, “What I meant was that she’s bigger than Akamaru.”

“Hmm…” Looking at her once more, Sakura nods. “You’re right. Apparently, she isn’t the runt of the litter. And she’ll grow a little taller until she gets to my neck. She still has a month to go.”

Sasuke is in the background still, she notices from the corner of her eyes as she continues to groom Kyoko. Naruto insisted on helping—he’s never had a pet before and she didn’t have the heart to resist him.

There is a soft snort behind her, barely audible over Naruto’s yelp when his hand got too close to Kyoko’s mouth.

It’s not much, really, but she takes comfort from it all the same.

-x-

When Sakura’s parents return, she receives their anger in a calm manner. She deserves it, she knows that, deserves the loud exclamations and panicky berating.

They are worried over her, worried for what will happen as a result of her actions.

And this time, it isn’t a scrape that can be kissed away.

“Sakura, were you even thinking? Wasn’t there some other way to do this?” Her mother asks, pleading.

It still hurts, when the anger cools off into a resigned sorrow and all she can feel is that she’s let them down again.

-x-

Sakura thinks she might be getting better at this. Maybe not a lot, it would be too much to expect a drastic change in the two months that have passed by, but it is a change nonetheless.

“Hello, Sasuke,” she greets him, giving him a brief smile before moving past him into her house. Unhooking Kyoko’s leash, she hangs it before rubbing her dog to see if any burrs are caught in her fur.

“…hello.”

Not as jilted and awkward as before, she acknowledges. It’s more comfortable, at the very least, a calm conversation, a boat on a lake.

The only problem, though, is that she doesn’t know what to talk to him about. They had nothing in common before he left (and it is only now, when she can look at it objectively, that she can admit it.)

Naruto’s not with him today and she seizes that opportunity. “Where’s Naruto?”

“…He will be coming later.” He doesn’t explain further. She’ll have to wait till Naruto arrives to find out.

“Oh.”

“…”

Once again, Sasuke killed the conversation. She ponders it for a few minutes, puzzles out anything that they could possibly talk about, and gives it up for a lost cause. Those conversations she had in the garden, not too long ago, haven’t amounted to anything.

He still seems like porcelain, untouchable, and any progress they make will break if she tries.

Instead, she chooses to talk idly about whatever comes to her mind. It makes the house less silent, less ghost-like (she wonders if this is how Sasuke feels when he goes to that abandoned compound, if he hears the remnants of voices that never finished what they had to say).

“There was this adorable kid playing ball outside today,” she starts. Sasuke’s wandered off to her living room, lounging on the couch. It makes her nervous, the idea that he might or might not be listening, the idea of him judging her.

She babbles when she’s nervous and she wonders if he’ll think the worse of her for it.

He’s probably not listening. He’s Sasuke, after all, and why would he be interested in her walk?

She chatters away anyways.

If someone asks, she can always say she’s talking to Kyoko.

-x-

“Did you really have to do this?” Sakura’s father asks her, finally, the steam released. He’s slouching in his chair, an empty glass at his hand. There is something defeated about his position and she fights back the guilt and tears.

She caused this and she has to face it, has to show that she did what she had to. If she doesn’t, they’ll never accept it. They’ll eat holes in her defense until she doubts and she doesn’t want to doubt. She doesn’t want to be bitter and hateful to her reasons when she is the one who chose.

(And yet, at night when it is dark and the only sound left is her breathing, she hates her teammates. Hates them in a small part of her that she is disgusted of and relishes at the same time.

It’s only here, when she’s all alone, that she admits to herself that maybe she did make a mistake. Maybe she didn’t look through all her options.

Then she banishes that thought because they are still here and that is what is important.)

-x-

“Sasuke, do you want a book?”

“…No.”

“…” She frowns, unsure of what to do. Naruto still hasn’t arrived, two hours later, and Sasuke still hasn’t moved from his spot in the living room.

Her mother would be angry, she thinks, about her being so rude to a guest.

“Something to eat then? Drink?”

He gives her an annoyed look and continues. “I’m fine.”

She should have been proud of herself for getting that reaction. The only problem is that she has prodded and asked the same things over and over for the last hour.

If he didn’t act annoyed, she would have been worried.

“Ok, if you’re sure.”

She knows she’ll be back in a few minutes to ask again.

-x-

“Ino, you’re eating now.”

She tugs her arm, trying to get it out of his grip, but it is hopeless. Choji is always determined when it comes to eating.

“I’m busy, maybe later.”

“Troublesome woman,” Shikamaru brings the rear in this distorted parade, carrying her bag in one arm. “Don’t bring everything with you.”

“Then why don’t you let me stay back there with my heavy bag?” she hisses to him, irritated that she’s not reading right now.

She only had a few more pages left in that book and it looked so promising…

“Tch. Stop protesting so much.”

Choji chooses to pipe in, “You can’t miss lunch!” He normally isn’t this forceful and Ino realizes that maybe she has been spending too much time in the library. When was the last time she has actually talked to these two?

(If she lets herself think about it, the answer comes out far bigger than she likes.

She chooses not to remember.)

Still, Sakura could be blind in a month, two at most, and that need is more urgent.

She can’t fail her friend, not now, not again.

-x-

She frowns as she searches around the kitchen for something to do, something to keep her occupied. Something red catches her eyes and she smiles.

It isn’t obtrusive and Sasuke won’t mind (that is, if his tastes have not changed too much over the years, at least not here) it.

Hopefully, it will make up for her other attempts at hostess.

Slipping back into the living room, she ignores how he watches her move toward the table in the center. A small plate, slices of tomatoes covering the entire surface transfers to it from her.

Then she quickly disappears, hiding in the kitchen once more.

Sasuke’s her teammate, she reminds herself. Just like Naruto. And if Naruto were here, she would have given him ramen in a heartbeat.

She hums to herself as she finds a book to read, squinting to make out the words. Glasses would be useful here—she was supposed to pick them today but she forgot. And tomorrow she can’t, training with Kyoko and Kiba more important than temporary devices.

Her steps click and clack as she dances out familiar steps on the kitchen tiles. When she was a little girl, she always wanted to be a dancer. The steps she learned back then hadn’t left her and though she isn’t graceful in her moves, she still does them all the same.

Pretend Sasuke’s Naruto, Sakura tells herself as she dances a little more. If she treats him like she treats Naruto, maybe being teammates will come easier, maybe conversations will flow smoother.

At the very least, she won’t be as self-conscious. When it comes to him, she still worries over her actions. It hasn’t changed too much, especially during this transition stage between strangers and comrades.

She hopes that friendship is the finish line, at least.

-x-

“Is this even worth it?”

She doesn’t care who asked it, she just bites her lip angrily. This is the question that she feared the most, unsure of how to respond to it.

Now that she’s faced with it, Sakura sees the answer staring her in the face, her personal monster rising out of the lake.

This doubt will never leave her and for the first time in many, she squashes it down.

“It will always be worth it.”

-x-

Ino sullenly sits there in the booth, pressed in a corner with Choji on one side of her and Shikamaru across from her.

“I do not want to—”

Shikamaru sighs, putting his chopsticks down as he waits for the second batch to cook. “We know already, woman.”

“Then let me go!” She half screeches that, half pleads, but it still amounts to nothing with them.

“Sakura wouldn’t like you in there like that.” He’s always the voice of reason and while that is good during mission, she silently curses him for it.

“It’s for her.”

Choji gulps down a glass of water. “but Ino, Tsunade said—”

“I don’t care. She can say that—”

Shikamaru stares at her, point blank, and she feels uncomfortable as he speaks. He sounds irritated. “Ino, we have gone through those books. There is nothing to be done.”

“Heh, like you would go through books.”

There is a soft sigh from Choji. “We did. We’re your teammates, Ino, your friends. We worry about you.”

He’s getting soft, she thinks spitefully. Immediately she feels ashamed of that thought. This is Choji, after all.

“…There still could be something out there.”

“If it is, it won’t be found in time.” Shikamaru picks up his chopsticks once more.

She thinks she should feel angrier about this, after spending so much time trying to find a cure, find something. And she does, enough that she pushes past Choji and leaves the booth.

But she’s tired too, the days and nights spent straining her eyes to read fine print taking its toll on her. It’s hard to keep up hope, harder still to do so when everything is telling her not too.

This is the last straw, though, and the determination holding her afloat suddenly snaps.

Ino leaves the restaurant feeling weary and when she gets home, she collapses on her bed and falls asleep immediately.

The crying will come later.

-x-

Naruto doesn’t come that day, a messenger from the Hokage telling Sakura that Tsunade is ‘teaching the brat a lesson’.

She doesn’t really want to know what Naruto did this time or if this was just the result of months of suppressed irritation coming out.

When she enters the living room to tell Sasuke this, she finds him lying down on the couch. His eyes are closed, though she doubts he’s sleeping.

That comes with trust and she thinks it will be some time before they earn that from each other.

It is his attempt though (she isn’t sure if it’s from resignation that he will be stuck here or something else) and she smiles at that.

Her smile broadens when she sees the empty plate.

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A/N: It’s longer than my last chapter and I was going to keep going but I decided this was enough for one day.

I’ve come to the realization that my style in this story has changed again—this chapter is a bit more quiet, contemplative than the other ones. At least, I think so.

Is the progress good? I’m going to keep asking these questions—I tend to doubt myself.

I hope this change isn’t too bad, though I’ll try to pick it up a bit. Next chapter will have a SasuSaku (if you look for it) moment.

Maybe two. I need to think of his reaction to her wearing glasses.