#ns1shot

Their mission was deceptively simple; they had a lead on Akatsuki and they were to investigate it. Sakura hoped that it wouldn't pan out. The memory of her battle with Sasori was still fresh in her mind... as was the fact that before that fiasco was said and done the Kazekage was dead. Gaara was alive now because of Chiyo, but the fact remained. Akatsuki was after the Tailed Beasts and if they could, they would extract them from the shinobi who served as their jailers and rob the vessels of their lives in the process. Sakura turned on her side and watched morbidly as Naruto's chest rose and fell while her own tightened around her heart.

There was nothing fair left in the world.

“You should sleep, Sakura-chan.”

The croaky announcement came from Naruto himself, who in her preoccupation with his respiration had slowly cracked open an eye. They were sleeping on pallets that were entirely too close together but in the wild it didn't feel intimate to Sakura. She just felt kind of vulnerable and maybe like it wouldn't be so bad of an idea to close the five inch space between them.

“I can't sleep,” she whispered back.

He rolled over to face her and she could hear his perplexed expression in his queried, “Why?”

“I'm... worried.”

“...If it's about letting my shadow clones keep watch so we can all rest, it's safe, y'know.”

Sakura smiled. Yes, that was scary, but it was nothing to keep her up at night. “No, I trust you.”

Because she did. Implicitly.

“Then it's those Akatsuki guys,” he said fiercely. To be so thick-headed he was awfully perceptive, or else he was just as worried as her. Her brief smile faded as quickly as it appeared, though she doubted he had seen it at all in the dark.

“Yeah.”

There was a bit of huffing from his pallet, as if he were shifting and moving. “You – you don't need... to be worried,” he stopped and wrestled with his blanket, chased a brief tangent of why was it so hot, and unzipped his jacket before finishing his thought, “about that. You don't need to be worried about that.”

Sakura knew he was right. She didn't need to worry about Akatsuki – that organization would soon have the weight of all five Great Countries pressing down upon it, if it didn't already. That was why Akatsuki itself wasn't the cause of her apprehension... that honor was reserved for the doofus who was busily folding his coat into a pillow and whining about the heat. Sakura opened her mouth to remind him that they were near the borderlands and were probably closer to the equator than he had ever been when another, more pressing thought occurred to her.

“...You weren't sleeping before, were you?” she asked skeptically.

Naruto whipped his blanket up and down, trying to make a breeze. “No,” he answered miserably, “I just thought you might be, y'know? So I tried to be quiet...”

How sweet.

“...but then you were just staring at me, so I figured something was wrong.”

Oh, oh! She should have known. In retrospect Sakura realized that she had never seen Naruto sleep so peacefully as previously observed and now, he had caught her staring. The only appropriate response was to smack him silly.

“I was not staring!” she hissed. He caught her fist in the dark.

“Sakura,” he whispered. “Look, I know you're scared, but trust me. I'll handle everything.”

Sakura's fist melted into his palm until their fingers were locked and she squeezed, hard. The gesture wasn't inherently romantic, nor was it plainly platonic. Instead it was a third thing for which Sakura had no name, marked by desperation and earnestness and more passion than could truly be conveyed palm to palm. She just knew that it was important;Sakura's will was and had been slowly consolidating in a perfect storm of regret and necessity and absolute, purely requited affection, and this was it. She held his hand and felt every callous between them, each crack in the skin, every pass of his cautious thumb trailing over her knuckle. Naruto's words sounded suspiciously like a promise... and Sakura wasn't sure if she wanted to burden him with any more oaths on her behalf. She detangled and retracted her hand from his.

“We should sleep, Naruto,” she said softly, rolling onto her back. “Mission and all that.”

He was silent for a long moment during which she could feel the weight of his gaze, heavy and unmistakable even through the darkness. She wanted to meet it, to reach for him again and not let go come hell or high water, but she couldn't bring herself to move. When he finally spoke again his voice sounded dull and perhaps a bit unhappy as he told her that yes, she was right. They did need to sleep, which was what he had been trying to tell her in the first place.

“Sleep tight,” she urged weakly.

“Mmmm.”

There was a slight commotion as he turned over, too, and then they were quiet. On the opposite side of the clearing Sai and Kakashi-sensei were just darkened lumps and despite his closeness, Naruto might as well have been just as far away now. She was so very good at keeping her distance from him for reasons that escaped her, and now five inches felt like miles.

Soon Naruto's breathing evened again and just as she began to wonder if he was truly asleep this time, he confirmed it by flailing over onto his stomach. She was appalled how she ever could have believed his earlier charade for even a second. Naruto was an ugly sleeper, what with his sprawled limbs and the drool that was almost certainly trailing from his open mouth. Stars twinkled above her until a pale cloud rolled in to block them from view, and though she didn't know quite why, it made her sad. Sad like the fact Naruto felt the need to handle everything, to look out for everyone and keep them all safe. It was terrible and Sakura was reminded of her previous sentiment that nothing at all was fair.

Who would handle Naruto? Who would keep him safe?

“I will,” she resolved in a faint whisper to no one. I will, I will, I will.