And I still see your reflection

Inside of my eyes

That are looking for purpose

They're still looking for life

It was after the fighting had ceased that Sakura's real battle had begun. She stood inside a room in one of the medic barracks, green glowing hands hovering over Sasuke's broken body and attempting to mend it. Tears were sporadically streaming down her face, but she didn't lose focus. Naruto looked on devastatingly, but silent, as did the rest of the Konoha shinobi and medics.

"Stay with me, Sasuke," she kept murmuring every so often.

Sasuke stared up at her sleepily, breathing shakily.

He'd never seen her look more beautiful.

Her hair was pulled back messily into a knot, her face was blotchy and red as if she were about to burst into tears at any moment, and her face was an awkward grimace of fury and torturing fear. Sasuke felt her tears splattering onto his cheeks every few minutes, and before his vision started to blur, he could almost feel the tension of her teeth grit anxiously behind muscles and pale flesh. But her uniform made her shoulders look wider, stronger, grounded. Her eyes were ferocious, the bottlecap green pools standing out against the pale expanse of her face and fluttering pink eyelashes.

There was something more than attractive about her unwavering strength, the determination tethering her to his side. As he contemplated death in a myriad of pains, the strange boiling of his chest that set fire to his heart, his panic had been long since laid to rest.

Her eyes stood out clearly against the world of marred colors and shapes, still sharp and focused.

If she was going to be his last sight, then it wouldn't be so bad. This view wasn't so bad. This ending wasn't so bad. Everything burned and ached and pinched, but it wasn't so bad. It would stop soon. Maybe his brother would have been proud for protecting these people and this village. This pain would be worth it. 'You hear me, Nii-san? I did it. I hope I did okay. I'll see you soon. You hear me Nii-san? I love you. I did this all for you.'

He felt lighter than he had in a long time.

Sasuke anchored his consciousness onto her eyes, just barely blinking.

"Don't close your eyes, Sasuke. Please don't close your eyes," she croaked, bottom lip trembling carelessly. Sakura had long since tuned out the stares of the medics and friends surrounding her. Even Naruto's protests had fallen out of her sight. The tears fell fasted, and she grimaced harder. "Poisoned. Heavily poisoned. Concussion. Three broken, four fractured ribs. Various cuts and abrasions. Critical."

He took a shaky breathe, tasting smoke and sweat on his lungs. "Let me die, Sakura."

"Shut up," she hissed.

He tried shaking his head, but hissed at the strain of his muscles. "Leave me be."

"No. I won't. Shut up, Sasuke. Shut the hell up." Her steady stream of chakra pouring into his veins fluctuating angrily had evaporated into his body as energy to fight off the poison. "I can't. I never could."

Sasuke closed his eyes, breathed in all the charred things, more scars he'd brandished onto the world, and reached out his hand to clasp against her pants, spastically clenching. "Wasting...chakra. Stop...stop it, goddamn it."

Sakura glared at the pale, shaking boy that looked closer to a corpse than anything living. "I hate you so much," she choked quietly, grimacing in what looked to be physical pain. She was just barely shaking, but her arms kept still. "You don't…get to do this. You don't get to end this way. Not after everything. So shut up and let me save you."

A small smirk pulled at his lips, and her chest ached a bit more. She could see the uncomfortable pinch of pain on his face. The poison was boiling his insides, and it was spreading too fast for her to handle. It was hard to sink a concentrated amount of chakra into several different places to pull them out of his system. It had long since taken it's toll on the both of them. But Sakura sweat through it.

"I have sins…to atone for," he murmured, voice cracking. "The pain...is nothing. Let me die already."

As she felt his skin grow cold, his convulsions harder, the green glow of her chakra had turned brighter. Sakura started shrieking commands in a voice that had set everyone's hearts into shock and had the medics scrambling about. "Someone fucking get me Shizune! I don't have enough chakra for all of this! Yamaken, work on the blood clot in his leg and the fractures! Hiro, morphine! Everyone else leave!"

"Sasuke!"

Sakura looked up, meeting eyes with Naruto, who was pushing aside a medic administering the pain killer. His sunkissed skin had paled considerably, but not nearly enough to match the Uchiha laying on the bed.

The pink haired girl stared continued to work, locking her jaw. "Naruto, get out. And take everyone else with you."

"I'm staying!" the blonde insisted.

"Shikamaru!" Sakura shrieked again. "Get Kakashi and Yamato to take Naruto out of here! Now!"

The world around her began to fade away as Naruto was forcibly dragged away, Ino and Shikamaru walked out hesitantly. She didn't watch them leave.

Sakura focused on Sasuke's dark hair falling over closed eyes. Bloodstains marred his cheeks from his overexertion of his Sharingan, and more blood was beginning to pour. "Hang in there, Sasuke. You here me?" she snapped, kneading his chakra so that his blood cells could replenish themselves. "I'm going to save you this time. So just stay with me, okay?"

.

.

.

She woke up sitting next to a patient's bed, leaning against the side on a chair.

As her eyes fluttered open, she felt the bed shift. "About time."

Sakura looked up to see Sasuke boredly staring down at her from an upright position, legs crossed, tucking the hospital blankets at his waist. They couldn't have been more than inches away. She sat up straight as if burned from the proximity, attempting to work the kinks out of her neck and rub the sleep from her eyes. "Sorry, Sasuke," she muttered quietly. "I was doing a vital check up and sat down...and I was really tired."

He grunted, nodding slightly. His eyes trailing around the room. It was well past midnight, but outside the small room, everyone else was still working fastidiously.

"You saved me," he murmured. Sakura looked towards him, raising a brow.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I?"

"It was too late."

Sakura shrugged, brushing her bangs from off her forehead, but they fell back into place. Sasuke's midnight eyes turned onto her. She sat tiredly, not a hint of fidgeting. "It doesn't matter. I told myself that I was going to save you. So I made sure that I did."

Suddenly, she smiled, reaching over the bed to brush the dark haired boy's hair away from his face as well. He blinked at her owlishly. "I couldn't lose you, Sasuke."

Before she pulled her arm away, he grabbed her wrist, fingers curling delicately around the pale skin as if he'd break her too easily. Or maybe because he didn't really have the strength to grip her any tighter. "I want to say 'thank you', but it would sound pretty weak."

"How about you let me say you're welcome this time?" Sakura said, smiling sadly.

They sat that way for a moment, hands dropping to the bed. She stared at him until her heart beat fell into a loud, sluggish stacatto that drowned out the noise outside their room. She subtly leaned in, taking in a heavy breath into his space. Unconsciously, he followed her lead. Their foreheads bumped together, noses brushing together as their eyes fell closed. Sasuke timidly lifted an arm to cradle Sakura's jaw when her eyes snapped open again.

She jerked away from his grasp.

"Work to do, Sasuke-kun," Sakura trilled daintly, snatching her forgotten clip board from the small desk next to his bed. "I'll see you tomorrow."

And she'd damn near sprinted out the room.

Sasuke was left staring around dumbly.

"Sasuke-kun," he muttered, as if tasting the syllables on his tongue.

His grin was quiet and soft.