Chapter Text
It doesn’t quite feel like home. Not really. Exactly why, she can’t really pin down in any meaningful sort of way. Maybe it’s the almost sterile feeling of the countless mass-produced wooden houses, courtesy of one Captain Yamato. It’s like everyone involved in the rebuilding of Konohagakure, her loveliest Village Hidden in the Leaves, has tried to recreate it in a way that feels like it once was – except it doesn’t. Not really. With everything all new and unspoiled, where have all the memories gone? Where are the stalls that her parents took her to for her first market visit? There are stalls still, but they certainly aren’t the same. Those stalls were blown to pieces at the whim of one man. Blown away forever, together with the alleys her and Ino would creep around in as they tailed Sasuke throughout the winding streets of their village all those years ago. Blown away with the school that raised them as shinobi, and the houses that raised them as children.
Or maybe it’s because so many are gone now. They went out to defeat the enemy, and so many did not return home. It still stings to think about, even months later. The scale of their collective loss still hangs over the village, in every word and every step and every smile of every villager. The world was forever changed at the whim of a few men and a crazed goddess, and it took so much from them. From her. But maybe that’s not it, either.
Maybe it’s the fact that it was impossible for them to return home. How could they? How could they return home when they left so much of themselves on the battlefield? She feels it in her bones every night when she tries to sleep, and then she feels it again every morning when she rubs that lack of sleep from her eyes. She half expects to step out of her door and onto the broken plains of war, the corpses of her friends scattered at her feet.
No, Sakura Haruno never returned from war. Not really. But she’s home now, or at least her body is, and she has to do her best to help put the world back together. For many, that means returning to their daily lives as well as they can. For others, it is endless diplomacy and general ass-kissing, trying to ensure that the alliance formed between the great nations has what it takes to hold itself together. Even after banding together against a great evil, there are reparations to be made. Debts to be settled. But one Kazekage from Sunagakure is doing more than enough to oversee the talks, and Sakura is anything but nervous. It will hold. She’s sure of it. A friend of hers took great personal care to see to that.
For her, putting the world back together means putting her people back together. There was no shortage of injured after the war, and even two months in, there are hurts that need tending to. There are, in fact, things that can’t be fully fixed by chakra healing, even if that would make everything a whole lot easier.
Sakura turns around on her little stool as another ninja, quite a bit older than herself, steps into the examination room. She’s been tucked away into an almost entirely empty room at the hospital which is still very much under construction, not so much in need of any surgical tools with the kind of work she’s doing these days. The man sits down on the only other stool in the room, his regular visits having taught him what to do without being told.
“Alright, let me see,” Sakura says with a polite smile, burying her hands in the pockets of her white lab coat. The man nods, and then he stretches his leg as far out as he can get it, which isn’t very far at all. She doesn’t even speak, just beckons him with a raise of her eyebrow, and he tries his best to stretch it out a little more. He sighs, and elicits a small grunt, and Sakura stands up. “Hey, you still have the leg, and you’re gonna have it for the rest of your life, so hang in there. Just keep up the exercises, and that thing will straighten right out.”
“I just…” He sighs again. “I don’t understand why it’s taking so long. I’m doing my exercises, and then some.”
“Well, I’m not so sure you should be doing too much of those ‘and then somes’. Push it too far, and the leg might push back. Remember, we did some pretty extensive surgery to make sure you kept the leg, so it’s going to take a while to get it back in working order. Don’t forget, you–”
“Yes, yes, I got kicked in the leg by Madara Uchiha.”
“It’s a hell of a thing,” Sakura mumbles as she walks over to the window in the far end of the room, pulling back a curtain to allow the early afternoon light to filter in. She turns back around and catches a glimpse of something in his eyes, a kind of hopelessness she finds herself far too familiar with, and she’s angry with it because it has taken so many and it has taken her, and yet a pair of blue eyes in the back of her mind reminds her that the world can always be put back together. And if she’ll listen to anything, it’s that. She gives the man a gentle smile and quickly scribbles something on a little notepad she has tucked away in her pocket, tearing off the small slip of paper and handing it to him. “Here. Recipe for a foodpill I developed. Eat one every morning and you’ll be right as rain before you know it.”
His eyes light up as he accepts the note, and he stands up almost a little too quickly and begins to nod furiously. “Thank you, Miss Sakura! I’ll see you next week!”
“Same time, mind you!” she calls after him as he heads for the door, and he waves back at her and then he’s gone. She stands there in the middle of the room for a moment, trying to revel in the feeling of working against the darkness that so often wants to spread throughout her. A darkness that would never be allowed to take hold. There’s someone out there that simply would never let it. She smiles to herself, a strange and misplaced kind of smile, before checking her list to confirm that her next patient for the day is a homevisit. The one she does daily. She grabs a medium-sized shoulder-bag from next to the door and leaves the examination room with as much of a pep in her step as she can muster up.
Walking through the village continues to be a strange feeling, an amalgamation of emotions that flow over her as she passes buildings that are kind of familiar yet also somehow not. She’s happy to see so many people out and about, and yet she can’t fully shake that weight that hangs over her. Over them all, she thinks. But she keeps her head held high, and she smiles and nods and waves at all the villagers that greet her as she passes – she’s become quite familiar with quite a lot of them now, and she doesn’t really know how she feels about suddenly being recognized as something of a figure, one that fought on the front lines and healed the wounded, one who was trained by one of the three great Sannin and who was on the same team as their esteemed hero – and before she knows it she has reached a building that somehow feels more familiar than any other. The strangely shaped, almost oblong wooden building stands just as tall as it always has, and although it lacks that worn down charm it once held, it still looks far from flawless. The wall at the base of the apartment building is filled to the brim with colorful quotes and squiggles, the handwriting varying from clearly childlike to clearly adult. She’s seen it a hundred times by now, and yet she still can’t help but chuckle at the sight of it.
WELCOME HOME NARUTO
GET WELL SOON NARUTO
NARUTO ROCKS
Paired with several childlike attempts at recreating his likeness in graffiti, the whole mural is a sight to behold, and Sakura finds it still gives her vertigo. Little Naruto who fell out of trees, who pissed everyone off, who couldn’t even answer a single question on the written test of the chuunin exams – now the hero that everyone looks up to. She shakes her head and begins her ascent of the apartment building’s stairs. The village had demanded Naruto’s old apartment be recreated exactly as it was, as it now held a kind of historical significance that no one wanted to see lost to time. It was all quite endearing, but it hadn’t seemed like anyone was prepared for Naruto to in turn demand that he got his old apartment back. Why he’d want to move back into that cramped little place was beyond everyone, but he had been quite insistent.
As she reaches the apartment on the far end of the balcony on the top floor, Sakura firmly raps her knuckles against the door and waits for the familiar and muffled sound of Naruto welcoming her in. It’s become a daily thing at this point, and she enters his home without a second thought. She sees him right away, dealing with something over by the kitchen counter. In the split moment before she turns around to remove her shoes, she sees the faintest glimmer of orange disappear from above his eyes. She doesn’t bring it up.
“Late breakfast again, is it?” she questions as she turns back around, adding a tiny tinge of strict mom to her voice in order to remind him not to sleep his entire day away. Naruto turns to her with that goofy smile on his face, and Sakura can not for the world of her suppress the twinkle in her eyes. The blonde responds to her criticism the way he usually does; a hand coming up to his head to awkwardly scratch behind his ear. That of course doesn’t work out quite the way he plans, seeing as how his left hand is holding a bowl of food – instant ramen, she assumes – and his right hand is, well, rotting in a river somewhere if not disintegrated entirely.
“Oh, crap,” he mumbles upon the realization that his stump won’t reach his head, and then he proceeds to do the second most logical thing, which in Naruto terms is to free up his left hand to scratch at his head with that instead. But for all the genius this boy might display in the heat of battle, he still moves his non-existing right hand to grab the bowl from his left hand to free it up. Sakura sees it coming from a mile away, and doesn’t bat an eye when the bowl clatters to the floor and… a bunch of vegetables tumble out? Naruto is still as a tree, his left hand stuck halfway on its way to his head. His grin somehow grows even more sheepish, as if that’s even possible. “Good morning, Sakura-chan.”
“Good afternoon, Naruto.” She sighs softly as she enters Naruto’s kitchen, immediately crouching down in front of him to scoop the vegetables back into the bowl. “You know, I keep thinking you’ll have gotten the hang of it, but I see we still have a ways to go.”
She can practically feel his insistence on picking up the food himself just from the way his feet shuffle, but she just motions with her hand for him to keep a lid on it before he even has time to start speaking. “I– Yeah, it’s slow going.”
There’s shame in his voice, and Sakura won’t have it. Standing back up, she puts the bowl down on the kitchen counter and looks intently at her blonde friend. “You lost an arm. It’ll take time.”
His expression changes to something more akin to confusion, which she finds much preferable to shame, and then he cocks his head to the side in question. “Then why are you givin’ me a hard time about it?” he kind of whines, and Sakura can’t help but chuckle as she pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and motions for him to sit down, which he does obediently despite the fact that he looks like he wants to cross his arms – arm, she corrects herself mentally – across his chest.
“Oh, don’t be such a crybaby.” She pulls out a chair for herself and sits down so she’s facing his right side. It’s a practiced routine by now, Naruto holding up his stump so that she can roll his t-shirt sleeve up and over his shoulder. He doesn’t even dare to protest when she props her medical bag up in his lap for ease of access. “You’re still trying to use the arm. Does that mean you’re still experiencing sensations of pain as well?”
Naruto furrows his brow in thought. “I mean, the wound kinda aches still, y’know, but–”
“Not the wound. The arm.”
“The, uh…” He scratches his cheek with his left thumb. “Ghost pains?”
Sakura nods as she starts to undo the bandage that is tightly wound around Naruto’s stump arm. “Phantom, but yes.”
“Sometimes. Not as much, I guess.”
“That’ll persist, but we’re hoping it’ll go away with the new arm.” She sighs softly as the bandages come off and she gets a good look at what remains of Naruto’s arm. “You’ve been bleeding again.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I–”
“Idiot. It’s not your fault,” she lies, because she’s certain it is. The place where his arm was severed still looks almost like an open wound, the tissue surrounding it all red and swollen and bleeding. She administered chakra healing after the injury took place, and he had proper treatment later on. Not to mention the nine-tailed fox inside of him should have fixed him up long ago. With that, she can only conclude that he’s doing it to himself, somehow. She doesn’t want to dig too deep into why lest she make her own heart break in the process, although she suspects she already knows, and therefore her heart has broken either way.
“D’you… D’you think he’s the same?” Naruto asks, looking towards the far wall while Sakura applies a new layer of special ointment to his now cleaned stump. “His arm… is it as bad as mine?”
“I don’t know,” Sakura mutters, pretending to be lost in concentration although the truth is she doesn’t want to get into it. Not with Naruto. Not with the way he is right now.
“I hate it, Sakura-chan,” he continues, and he’s turning his head now and staring directly at the side of her head. She swaddles his arm in a new bandage, and she does so as slowly as humanly possible if it means she can avoid having to look at him. “He’s there all alone with the same injuries as me, and they’re interrogating him. I’ve talked to Ino, y’know, so I know the kind of techniques they might be using. Isn’t that just too messed up? He might be bleeding too, and you don’t even get to go help him! Meanwhile I’m here, getting daily visits from our best medic, like–”
“Naruto!” Sakura is stern, and she is clear, and she firmly holds onto the bandaged stump while she meets his gaze. The building energy in Naruto deflates instantly once he sees the watery beads forming in the corners of Sakura's eyes. “Sasuke is there, and you’re here. I know you’re frustrated, and I know it hurts, but that’s just the way it is.”
“Sakura-chan–”
“This is not something you get to beat yourself up over. I mean, seriously, did you think he’d get to come home and it would all be smiles and flowers right out the gate?” It’s Sakura’s energy that’s building now, and she’s too busy lecturing Naruto to notice how he looks more and more nervous in the wake of her budding anger. “He put himself in this situation, Naruto. If he has to suffer a little for it, so be it. I’m worried about him too, you know I am, but you have to focus on yourself right now.”
Naruto scoffs, and it feels like she’s about to lose her temper in a bad way. “That’s the last thing I need to do.”
“Naruto Uzumaki!” She’s on her feet now, dropping his stump so it kind of swings back and forth a little. Naruto stares up at her with huge eyes, but she does not let up. It’s anger, and it’s heartbreak, and tears and frowns and teeth on show and everything she can muster. “Your arm will not get better unless you let it! Sitting in here and beating yourself up over something you currently have no control over won’t do a damn bit of good for you or for anyone!”
“Calm down,” Naruto tries as calmly as he can, although he quite clearly can’t suppress the faint look of terror on his face as he stands up to be level with her. “Sakura-chan, please.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” she yells, but she closes her eyes and tears fall onto her cheeks, forcing her to bite her teeth together in a sorry attempt to make it all cease. “Damn it, Naruto.” She soon feels a finger brush her upper arm, but she quickly swipes it away, wiping at her face with the heel of her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry.” It takes a moment, but she finally collects herself enough to open her eyes and look at him. Bright blue eyes look back at her, and her chest hurts. “I need you–”
She stops herself.
“We need you to be okay. To get better. Okay?”
“Then…” She can’t quite decipher the look on his face, but he soon wears his trademark smile as if nothing’s happened. “Then I’d like to start coming to the hospital for check-ups again. Not like I don’t have the time, y’know!”
“No,” she says simply, and Naruto practically guffaws at her rejection.
“But, Sakura-chan, why am I the only one getting home-visits? It ain’t fair! Not like I can’t move or anything!”
“You know why,” she groans as she begins to gather up her medical supplies, though in her mind she’s thanking Naruto endlessly for his ability to change the tone. He sees when something gets to be too much, and he just switches gears, and she can never thank him enough for it. It gives her the space she needs to wipe at her tears and clear her throat and pretend everything is fine. “Last time, you almost sparked a riot.”
“That wasn’t my fault!”
“You’re everyone’s hero now, Naruto, people crowding you kind of comes with the territory. But until the villagers have learned to act normal around you, I can’t have you causing an uproar at the hospital every single day, you hear me?” She’s stern enough that Naruto can’t help but let up.
“Damn it, okay, fine,” he huffs, clearly not happy about it when he slumps back down on his chair. “Just sick and tired of being stuck in here all the time.”
“Then don’t be,” Sakura says matter-of-factly where she now stands in the hallway, pulling on her shoes. “I’ll take you to dinner.”
Although she can’t see his face at the moment, she can clearly imagine his expression in her mind. “What?! When?!”
“Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up, okay?”
“But, Sakura-chan–”
“See you tomorrow, Naruto.”
She leaves before he gets another word in. With every fibre of her being, she still wants to cry. After everything that’s happened, the boy in that cramped apartment still can’t help but care so deeply about pretty much anyone but himself, so much so that he’s somehow halting his own healing. And so, if he can’t care for himself, someone else will have to. Of course that someone will be her. Of course it will. She wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it.
So the least she can do is buy him dinner, right?
— — — — — — — —
When she finally does fall asleep, her dreams are the same as they’ve been for a long time. Oftentimes she can’t remember what actually happens in them, but it’s always that same feeling that lingers once she wakes up: a deep aching in her bones, and a feeling that her insides and her outsides are in different places altogether. And accompanying that feeling is always the same, nagging voice in the back of her mind.
What right do I have to come home?
She wants to shake it away, but how can she when a part of her knows it to be true? Because how can she return home when so many did not get that privilege?
“Yada yada, war is hell, we get it,” she mumbles to herself in a deflated sort of way where she sits upright in her bed, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes. “Time to get up, Sakura.”
Yet she doesn’t. In the back of her mind is a voice saying ten more minutes, and her eyes close and she snuggles back into her blankets, and behind her heavy eyelids are dancing images of a figure much like the sun, only brighter and even warmer, somehow. It embraces her, and a warm sensation unfolds beneath her ribs. The heat cuts through the aching pain inside of her, and just as with the few other times she’s been lucky enough to have this half-waking dream, she welcomes it like an old friend and thinks:
Oh, if only it could always be like this.