SasuSaku ch.2

Four months later:

Naruto slid open the door to his apartment and crept inside. The plastic bag in his hands swung at his side as he tiptoed through the small living room into his kitchen. From here he could see the bedroom, the curtains were drawn. She must be sleeping. He moved forward as stealthily as he could and slipped around the door. Hinata was lying in bed with the covers thrown back. Her usually pale face was pink and her breathing was laboured. Her thick silky hair stuck to her perspiring forehead and fanned across the pillow. Naruto marvelled at her. Flu and she still looked beautiful to him; maybe that was a little perverted but he didn’t really care. He made to back out of the room but his foot caught on the ripped floor mat and he tripped, grabbing at the door for support. With a huge crash he fell to the floor and lay there slightly dazed until he heard a tired voice croak.
‘Naruto the mat is loose.’
He chuckled, sitting up then shuffled forward to sit beside the bed. She slipped her hand over the edge to hold his. Naruto laced his fingers with hers and kissed them. On the bed Hinata coughed.
‘I’m sorry.’ He whispered ‘I didn’t want to wake you up.’
She squeezed his hands weakly.
‘I wish you would go for a check up.’
Hinata shook her head.
‘I’ll be fine like this.’ She whispered. ‘It’ll wear off.’
Naruto sighed planning secretly to have Ino come and look at her. They had been having this argument for three days. It started as a fever; she had gone to bed early and had a fitful sleep. At about two a.m she had been curled up beside Naruto when she suddenly shot bolt upright covering her mouth with her hand and running for the bathroom. She had spent the next twenty four hours face down on the toilet floor occasionally pulling herself up to throw up in the basin. After the initial vomiting stopped she had been carried back to the bedroom by Naruto who had stayed with her all night. From then until now she had stayed in bed with a raging fever and headache. It was a constant struggle to keep her comfortable without her becoming too warm. She was so weak, Naruto badly wanted to hold her close to him but she was in no condition and he was sure it would just make feel worse.
Instead he stood quietly and released her hand. It hung limply over the side of the bed. She hadn’t the energy to lift it.
‘I bought you chicken soup.’ He said quietly, she moaned lightly in response.
He went to make it. In truth it was something he had bought from Ichiraku’s but it was the best chicken ramen around so surely it didn’t matter? There was a soft knock at the door and he went to answer it glad that the person had only tapped quietly. He opened it a fraction.
‘Shizune!’ he gasped ‘Come in.’
Shizune smiled at him but it looked a little strained and shook her head.
‘No Naruto, please don’t worry.  I’m here to deliver a message. Tsunade-sama wants to see you.’

Sakura lay on the bed quietly staring at the ceiling. Her curtains filtered the sunlight to a soft yellow and she was thankful for it, it dulled her sight. All her senses, though still heightened were returning to normal but she was still able to pick out an abnormal amount of detail. A crack in the wall, a fly on the ceiling; she could hear brilliantly too. Footsteps in the streets, voices, clatters of vendors setting up stalls, all layered over one another it was quite irritating like a bug buzzing in her ear. She sighed and shut her eyes. But that wasn’t any good either. She could see the translucent lids, every vein and mark was visible to her.

She liked this apartment. Her mother hadn’t been thrilled that she was moving out but Sakura had insisted. It wasn’t as if she didn’t see her mother but she didn’t want her parents to discover the extent to which she had changed. Would they still see her as their little girl if she told them what had happened to her? And she had the constant unwavering feeling that she was endangering them by placing herself anywhere near to where they were. Not that she hadn’t been reassured by Tsunade and the convict, but she still couldn’t help but remember the casual ways she had ended that small creature’s life for the sake of ending it. A knock at the door didn’t make her jump and nor did the voice calling. Maybe now she would have something to keep her mind off things.

It was peaceful up here; that was why he liked it. The wind wasn’t harsh but cool and soft and he could see for miles. The mountains that surrounded the palace, rising even higher than the one the mighty place had been built upon, were bright purple in the mornings like sharp splashes of ink against the white sky. Below were the mists and the rivers in the valleys. Looking down from this guard post the drop was at least three miles. Slowly the sun inched over the horizon turning the sky briefly from indigo to pink to orange and to the white it always became when the clouds swirled protectively around it. And so they should keep it away from this poisonous place. Sasuke inhaled deeply feeling the cold air sting his nostrils and fill his lungs.

‘You three have a mission.’ Said Tsunade her eyes fixed carefully to Sakura.
Naruto, for once, said nothing. Tsunade looked at him.
‘Naruto?’
‘Tsunade baa-chan may I be excused from this? Hinata is very sick and I just want to stay with her until the worst has past.’
Tsunade’s expression softened a little, Sakura noted the slight pull at the corner of her mouth and the opening of her previously tense eyes, something no one else could see.
‘She’s only got stomach flu Naruto; if it makes you feel better I’ll check in on her while you’re away.’
Naruto’s jaw hardened.
‘If it’s all the same to you I’d really-‘
‘It isn’t all the same.’ She cut across. ‘I need you three in on this.’ And she began to explain.

‘So they want Sakura’s medical experience?’ Said Hinata chewing on a piece of dry bread while Naruto munched his instant Ramen. ‘Then why do you two have to go?’
‘Beats me.’ Mumbled Naruto through the noodles. ‘I asked to stay but she refused.’
‘What?’ asked Hinata alarmed ‘Why did you ask to stay?’
He looked at her as though it was obvious.
‘Because you’re sick why else?’
Hinata looked surprised then smiled at him.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Sorry, I can’t quite get used to you doing that.’
‘What?’
‘Caring.’
Naruto put down the empty bowl on the night stand and lay down, rolling over to face her. He rested his head on his hand as he looked up at her.
‘I feel much better anyhow.’
She snuggled down beside him. ‘I’ve stopped throwing up and my fever is lower.’
Naruto instantly touched the back of his hand to her head. She was right, it had gone down.
‘I’m back to normal.’
Still he looked unconvinced. She rolled her eyes and then smiled mischievously.
‘Here I’ll prove it to you.’
She leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips, her tongue slipped into his mouth and touched tentatively until he began to move in response. He pushed his tongue between her lips and felt her intake of breath before she put her hand behind his head and pulled him on top of her. He ran his hand up her leg pulling her negligee up above her hip then suddenly stopped and dragged away.
‘Hinata we can’t.’
‘Liar.’ She whispered and slipped her hand quickly down his chest into his pants and stoked him. He jumped and grabbed her wrist.
‘Hinata.’
It was meant to sound threatening and firm but it came out pleading. She chuckled stroking softly. He shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut.
‘We can’t.’
‘Oh Naruto.’ She sighed softly, ‘that’s okay, I’m sorry.’
He felt guilty but she hadn’t yet removed her hand, she made to draw away but he let a little grunt escape him and she paused. All she had to do now was settle back up on the pillow, gaze up at him, true to form she sank back and looked up from under her long dark lashes.
With a low moan of defeat he dropped on to her and, kissing her hard, parted her thighs.

‘You’re late.’ Griped Sakura.
Naruto apologised but it seemed less sincere as he delivered it with a big grin on his face.
The mission was to north-west. Still in fire country but close enough to the border that they still had to be on their guard. There was a sickness spreading there. The official report said plague but an unidentifiable source and the fact that the town’s folk were apparently completely unable to fight the disease and so were easy targets for bandits meant that they had stay on their guard.
They ran all day; their instructions were to get there as soon as possible so there were only short breaks. Naruto seemed tired so they had to take more breaks than usual. This resulted in Sakura being in a truly foul mood come mid-afternoon. Sai was his usual cold self and watched indifferently as she yelled at him for being so self-indulgent. Naruto had never been able to conceal when he was getting it; Sai couldn’t for the life of him understand why exactly it was that the beautiful Hyuga princess had married his comrade in the first place. ‘But then,’ he mused, ‘that was love.’
Sai also couldn’t help but note, despite the foul mood she was in Sakura seemed different to how she had once been. Her hair was longer and she had dark circles under her eyes but it wasn’t a physical change. In the three months that she had been off duty he hadn’t seen her much but he had seen her that day after she had been bitten just after she had woken up and the way she had looked just before her collapse.
Her eyes had blackened around the edges, it was too dark to be blood but maybe it would have been better if it was. And one other thing he hadn’t missed was the one single black line that had snaked over her shoulder before she had shuddered and collapsed into Naruto’s arms.
They had watched helpless as all the blood drained from her face and she began to tremble. Suddenly Tsunade was beside them and made them leave. They hadn’t been allowed back in for nearly three weeks. When they did Sakura looked tired and upset but somehow different. Not physically weak just different, strained, different. She had stared at the covers as they talked to her reacting politely but seeming distracted, it was as if she was trying not to be herself. Only when the nurse came in to usher them out and Naruto had stood did she change. She looked afraid, she had reached out and grabbed his hand, and he had turned and looked at her. She didn’t look apologetic or embarrassed she looked like a scared little girl. Naruto had leaned down and kissed her forehead wrapping his arm around her, she had whimpered and clung to him. They sat that way for minutes until the nurse had placed a hand on Naruto’s shoulder and motioned for him to leave. Sakura had watched them resentfully after them as if it were their fault that they were going.
Now as she stared furiously down at him she showed no sign of weakness or fatigue. Naruto however was slumped against the base of the tree chuckling. Something she was saying was making him laugh, he watched as her angry expression wavered a little and a smile fought its way on to her face. Naruto pushed himself up and stretched.
‘Come on Sai.’ He called and they leapt into the lower branches of a tree to wait for him. He packed away and stood. Still unable to shake the feeling that something was not quite normal.

The first night they camped was chilly, Naruto huddled in on himself, prodded the fire into life, finding that he already missed the warmth of his bed and of his wife’s arms around him. He wanted her skin, soft and smooth, her warm scented hair pressed to his lips while she slumbered peacefully. Her chest pressed to his, her breathing interrupted occasionally by little murmurs as if she was dreaming. Sometimes she said his name, usually in reverence and he had to work hard to concentrate on something else instead of waking her up, but sometimes it was a little sigh of happiness or a whimper of fear. He once tried to ask her but she had said she could remember what she dreamed of. He remembered the way her tummy pressed against his as she breathed in and out, the way her hands skated unconsciously over his back, the way she always smelled a little different, sometimes of jasmine, sometimes of lilac, sometimes of lavender. Sometimes, times after they had been wrapped in each other’s arms sweat turning cold on their skin she had smelled more like him but still she had a musky, exotic scent that he found almost irresistible. After nearly a year he still wanted her whenever he saw her, and when his mind began to wander it usually found his most recent memory that had her in it. They even argued like a proper couple despite Hinata’s shyness she found she wasn’t scared to take him on any more. They could yell and scream at each other, both secretly loving it because they knew that the other was never really all that serious and because they knew where it would lead.
One afternoon they had got into an argument over something trivial he couldn’t even remember what it was. Naruto had been shouting at the top of his lungs while she yelled back he had finally started calling her names. She had begun to laugh at him and outraged he had leaped on her pinning her down. She had looked up for a second the chuckles dying in her throat then lain back and stared up at him daring him to do more.
That particular argument had resulted in sex on the floor, on the sofa, and on the kitchen counter.
Across the fire Sakura stood.
‘I’m going for a wash.’ She said and threw her tea into the fire; it hissed and crackled as she walked toward the large lake. It was broad and long, it looked as if it had been cut out of the rock. Sakura looked over the edge, it was a long drop. She smiled, perfect. Standing on her toes she spread her arms wide and threw herself into empty space. She whooped as the air tore past her whipping her hair around her face, stinging it. But she loved it, it made her feel alive. The water was coming up fast to greet her and she straightened her body out, the splash was loud but silenced almost immediately by rush of freezing water past her face.

Far away Sasuke shot up in bed, sweating. What had he just seen? Was it what he thought?  Already the details were hazy; a woman stuck her head around the door.
‘Uchiha-sama?’ she asked, she had sandy hair and icy blue eyes. Another woman peered inside; she had short dark hair and dark eyes.
‘Get out.’ He whispered hoarsely.
The two looked affronted but he shot them a look, they jumped and quickly backed out. His gaze drifted to the piles of photographs sitting on the desk across the room. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed he went to look at them. Konoha. They still didn’t have the resources to finish them. Silently, guiltily he shifted the upper photo’s aside to look at ninja profiles. There she was. He damned himself silently. Hating that he had looked again and again since he first received these. He couldn’t help it. The photos were black and white but he could imagine the colour of her hair and clear green eyes. He could remember the excited twinkle that the photo had failed to capture as she laughed with Naruto. This was from their last mission. She looked, beautiful and vibrant. Sasuke’s hand balled into a fist as he stared down at the picture. No! He didn’t need her! Flat and lifeless, it was just a photo. But now she was coming here. What then? Nothing. There would be nothing. For soon she would be dead.