DISCLAIMER: I do not own the 'Naruto' or 'Naruto: Shippuden' series or characters!

SONG THAT SHOULD BE PLAYED DURING THIS CHAPTER: 'The Only Exception' by Paramore.

NOTE: With the exception of the prologue, all the titles for the chapters will be the titles of songs and the chapters will be somewhat based on the lyrics. If you don't know the song, after reading the chapter, look up the lyrics and listen to the song and hopefully it will make sense.

Constructive criticism and ideas are WARMLY welcomed! No flames or mean comments, please. Saying 'No offence' only intensifies the offence felt.

Enjoy :D

BROKEN HOME

"I've got a tight grip on reality,
but I can't let go of what's in front of me here.
I know you're leaving in the morning when you wake up.
Leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream."

CRASH! BANG!

Raised voices and sounds of broken crockery arouse me from my unsuspecting slumber as I groggily opened my eyes, adjusting to the dark stillness of my bedroom – illuminated by soft, flickering candlelight. My room was, as usual – thanks to my anally retentive mother – completely immaculate. Not one of my belongings were out of place. You could practically eat off the floor.

CRASH! BANG!

Loud, unintelligible cursing told me that my parents were fighting again - a regular occurrence, unfortunately. I sighed, rejecting the pointless emotion of sadness and feeling the burning, yet satisfying wrath of resentment and fury coursing through my veins like a deadly poison. I wanted more than anything to scream and hit something to vent my mounting frustrations as I stared morosely at the glittery hot pink and baby blue butterflies dotted randomly on my lilac painted walls, realising for an instant that I really needed to pee.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I swung my legs over the side of my bed and heaving my heavy body from it, I stumbled my way across my room and out into the hallway where I headed bleary eyed for the bathroom, a hop, skip and a jump away from the living room where my parents were currently having their 'discussion'.

The fighting started when I was only four years old.

Back I was I was naïve enough to pretend that my parents' fights didn't really upset me, and that things would miraculously get better, and secretly hoping Mommy and Daddy would kiss and make up and we'd go back to being a happy, functioning family. I'm eight now, and obviously to even the most dim-witted person, the situation has not improved.

I remembered the first fight my parents had. Like most toddlers, I had woken up after a bad dream and feeling vulnerable, sought out comfort from my mother's arms and to inhale the lovely jasmine scent of the soap she loved to use. However, when I had reached the living room door, blinking like a newborn and had fresh, frightened tears leaving wet trails down my cheeks, I narrowly missed a flying projectile that careened through the door into the hallway and exploded at my feet into a million pieces.

It was Mom's favourite vase.

Eyes out on stalks, I peered cautiously into the room and saw my father slumped down on the couch with a bottle of Sake clenched in his hand and was glowering darkly at my red faced mother who was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"I am astounded, that you have the arrogance to lie to my face about what you have been doing these past few months!" Mom had snarled while Dad flinched at her words and had his face in his hands. The empty Sake bottle had been abandoned on the coffee table in front of him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for things to go that far. But believe me that it was a once off thing." He had promised. It was then that I chose to enter the room and speak.

"Mommy? Daddy?" I called, timidly. I tripped slightly on the hem of my pink nightdress. Startled, both my parents immediately stood at attention as the anger and remorse evaporated from their faces as they both looked at me with thunderstruck expressions on their faces.

"Sakura, honey?" Mom rushed over, and knelt down to my level to look me in the eyes with her large brown ones. "What are you doing up this late?" She asked, gently cupping my cheek and wiping away stray tears still leaking from my eyes with her smooth well manicured thumb. I blinked up at my Mom and frowned at the frustration and hurt on her face.

"I had a bad dream." I mumbled quietly, feeling my lower lip trembling. Mom flashed a warning glance at Dad before turning back to me and picking me up.

"Well, that's not good." Mom replies to me in honeyed tones. I wrapped both my arms around my mother's slender neck and snuggled my head onto her shoulder, breathing in her scent. I felt my mother rub my back soothingly.

"Do you want me to sit with you until you fall asleep?" asked Mom. I nodded and then felt a strong yawn pass through my lips. Seeking my Mom's embrace had done what it was supposed to do and I was content enough to sleep, provided Mom stayed with me for awhile. Mom made her way to the hallway and was about to pass through it and head towards my bedroom when she paused and turned back towards Dad who wilted underneath her steely glare.

"We'll talk more about this later on." Mom's sharp voice had a finality in it that caused me to open a sleepy eye for a second to look over her shoulder at Dad who was looking remorseful. But I learnt later on that expressions can be deceiving, and whatever my Dad had told Mom after I had been put back to sleep went out the window as nothing changed for the next four years.

Now, it is four years later, and I'm currently leaning over the hand basin having just finished washing and drying my hands and had gripped the sides of the porcelain bowl as an uncontrollable and highly unladylike yawn escaped from my lips and threatened to pull me head first into the basin.

"HOW DARE YOU!" came my mother's outraged cry.

I jumped, startled, and turned my attention to the closed bathroom door where behind it, World War Three was commencing. This time, the argument my parents were having was the most heated one yet. Normally, I would've simply retreated back to the refuge of my warm bed and pulled my pillow over my head while I cried myself to sleep.

Not this time.

Instead, I flicked off the overhead florescent lights, silently opened the door and tiptoed to the living room door like I did when I was four. Opening the door a crack, I pressed my ear to the opening and listened as my parents went into it hammer and tongs.

"You lying bastard!"

Uh oh... I winced at my mother's low voice. The dangerous kind that she used when she was royally pissed off with someone. I silently thanked the gods that she wasn't directing this towards me.

"I cannot believe that I actually fell for your 'grovelling' apology!" Mom's voice was icy and I shivered (no pun intended) from her words. I wished that I could feel sorry for my father, but having been disappointed by him for so long, it was hard to be sympathetic. Harsh coming from an eight year old isn't it? It was increasingly hard to stop myself from tearing into that room and wiping the floor with my father's face when I chanced a look at the smug, superior expression on his face and I felt a corrosive hatred bubbling up within me.

"Well, it wasn't like you gave me much choice. You haven't touched me for nearly three months."

A look of complete disbelief appeared on Mom's face.

"Oh? So you're suggesting that this is my fault?" she retorted, incredulously. A stray strand of my long pink hair detached itself from my ponytail and tickled my nose. I impatiently brushed it around my ear as I waited for my Dad's answer.

"If the fucking shoe fits!" snaps Dad, an ugly scowl appearing on his face. He started advancing menacingly towards my Mom who stood defiantly in her place, seething.

"The only thing I can assume here is that you're suggesting that I'm not good enough for you. Would I be right in saying this?" Mom clenched her fists at her sides, shaking with uncontrollable rage at my father's insensitive words.

Ewww... I pulled a revolted face. Mom had only just recently told me all about sex and puberty, and it was one thing to actually sit there and be told all about it and ask questions. But it was absolutely gross to hear that my parents had had sex. It just seemed so... wrong, in so many ways.

"That's exactly what I'm saying." was Dad's blunt reply.

Ouch! That's a slap to the face... I thought as his cruel words hit home on my mother's face.

"How can you even say that to me after I gave you a child?" breathed Mom, obviously stunned by how quickly Dad had agreed to her rhetorical question.

"An eight year old daughter, who's now sleeping in her bedroom unaware, thank Kami, that her lying, cheating lout of a so called father, is going out behind my back whoring?" I felt my jaw drop open in shock.

"Because I'm bored of this relationship where a guy can't get in a good lay to release his tension!" He bellowed back at Mom, who had been brandishing her index finger at the seemingly closed door that I was crouched behind, eavesdropping on their argument and wishing I had just chosen to go back to bed and buried my head in my pillow – drowning out their shrill voices, instead of hearing this.

A loud clapping noise told me that my sweet, kind, loving mother had just slapped my father across the face. I looked back into the room, being careful not to be seen and saw Dad clutching his face and glaring at Mom in anger. A thin line of blood dribbled down his chin. I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand in shock. Mom had struck Dad with so much force that it appeared that he had clashed his teeth together violently so that blood and spittle flew across the room.

Mom had tears in her eyes and was staring at Dad with contempt and condemning.

"I have waited a long time to say this." her voice broke. "But I have refrained from doing so because of our daughter." Dad didn't say anything. He just stared at Mom waiting to hear what his wife had to say. A stray tear fell down Mom's face as she uttered the unspeakable statement.

"I want a divorce."

Shock reverberated off Dad's face, and tears sprang to my eyes. But they weren't because my parents' marriage had crumbled away like a cliff-face, just like my childhood I later realised, but because it was causing my Mom great pain to say this to a man she thought she loved and trusted enough with her life and her child.

"I've had enough. And I want you to leave Sakura, Konoha and I and never return." Mom ordered in a quiet voice. Then without speaking another word, Mom beat a hasty retreat towards my hiding place.

Eeep!

Quickly, I darted into the bathroom and closed the door behind me, silently praying that she wouldn't suddenly have the urge to use the toilet. But was saved when I heard her determined feet walk past the door. When I heard her bedroom door slam, I let out a relieved breath and squeezed past the door to see what Dad was doing. But he wasn't there.

Dad had disappeared.