Stay

He had needed her, even through his cruelty and apathy. Sakura had understood that, and willingly walked into the chill of his existence.

They all said she was the one who chased him, but the night she met him on that road, it had been he who came to her. (She was weaker then, and knew it would’ve been child’s play for him to slip by undetected, but he just walked by, unafraid and untouchable.)

Even as he left, she still couldn’t do anything for him.

Who is hiding?

Who is seeking?

And now it’s three years later.

It’s her, she’s still ducking under tables and crouching in ditches, concealing bruises no make-up or healing jutsu’s can dispel. (She knows- she’s able to use both masterfully.)

Gaara is under her hands, every line in her palm a lesson from the greatest medic nin of her generation, but he’s not breathing. She wants to brush the tears from her eyes, but she can’t, her fingers are too desperate to stop pumping charka into Gaara.

“Victim of circumstances.” Gai mutters, but all Sakura hears is-

VICTIM.

VICTIM.

VICTIM.

That’s all anyone she ever loved was, prostrate and vulnerable to the flick of fate’s wrist. Even her. She detests the helplessness, the weeping she did, and how her last glimpse of him was of his back.

BREATHE.

She needs him to live because the other could be dead, needs him to open his eyes because his could’ve looked like that if he had tried, needs him to breathe, NEEDS HIM TO.

BREATHE GODDAMMIT.

Sasuke is drowning her, but as Gaara’s eyes shoot open with gasping breaths, she’s finally surfacing.

Even as he clutches her hand, she feels a freedom, an absolution from inadequacy.

This one she kept at her side.

----

you’re a clumsy girl, but you love like a pro