No Longer Weak

Happily Ever After

"Yamanaka. Do it again. Right this time. We can't redo everything." Sakura said in clipped tones and turned around, leaving the room and the snickering medics behind.

Ino started redoing the bandaged. The patient was comatose since "Dooms Day" as everyone had dubbed the day Akatsuki attacked. There was hope yet. And because of that Sakura wanted him just as pristine as everyone else.

It had taken weeks until Sakura had finally nodded at her and told her "Good work." But those weeks were worth it. "Hey, guys!"

"Ino!" Everyone greeted back. Sakura smiled at her when she leaned down to hug Choji from behind. "You wanna dance?" she whispered. Shy and sensible Choji nodded and pulled her towards where Neji and Tenten were dancing.

* * *

Naruto slowly made his way towards Sakura with Sasuke following behind. As he had known months ago that everything would be better, it seemed to finally happen. Since working under Sakura, she loosened up a bit and finally, a few weeks ago they had their first ramen together.

"Sakura-chan, please! One ramen! You have to eat!" The blonde begged her and followed her on his knees. "I will pay for you!"

Finally, she stopped in her tracks and turned around to him. Frowning at him, she looked into his hopeful eyes.

"Yeah ok, but you are going to pay!"

The blonde jumped up, held back on hugging her and just showed her a thumbs up. "I promise!"

When the walked into Ichiraku, Sasuke was already waiting for them. Sakura stopped for a second, and Naruto thought she would turn around again and walk away. But she nodded at the other man "Uchiha" and settled down. Leaving one chair open for Naruto.

Finally, he thought. They were making progress.

"Naruto, Sasuke", she nodded at them. He smiled and pointed at Sasuke. "Teme finally found a girl!"

"Shut up Dobe!"

Sakura scrutinized the black haired man. "How old?"

"Two years younger."

"Occupation?"

"She works in a kinder garden. She is a normal civilian."

"Fanclub?"

"No."

She nodded and smiled for a bit. "Those meetings with the therapist finally showed that you are normal. She sounds nice." He shot daggers at her and dragged Naruto away, who was laughing his head off.

* * *

"Kakashi is looking this way again." Sakura sighed and smiled at her old teacher. Standing up she kissed Shikamaru and walked towards the Copy-nin. "Since when are you that shy?" she asked bluntly when she reached him. "Didn't want to break up you two lovebirds. You could have been making plans for your own wedding. "

She smirked at him. "And you didn't jump over tables to stop it. You're finally learned your lesson."

He just nodded and took her hand in his, leading her towards the dance floor. It had been a hard talk between them. Bitterly and accusingly on both sides. But they made up. She finally could make peace with herself and her old team.

"You left me first!" Sakura shouted accusingly and pointed her finger at Kakashi. "It was to protect you! We were in so many fights!"

"I can defend myself! I always could! You just never recognized it!"

"Of course I did," he said softly and watched her falter for a moment. "But you never said anything! I was always left out. You trained everybody but me! We learned to walk trees and on water! I did that before those two! But you never followed up with anything! You have never thought me even one jutsu!" She said bitterly.

Kakashi swallowed heavily. Finally, she was getting through to him. He had always wanted to protect her like he should have protected Rin. But she had felt abandoned. And then they had left. To fulfill a promise Naruto had made her. A promise that had held no meaning to her anymore. He understood how deep that had cut. They had taken Ino with them, where she was the better one.

"I'm sorry Sakura. I had seen your potential, but I also thought you could do best by yourself. The other two needed guidance and..."

"I needed that too! As if I would know how to start being a Ninja with twelve years!"

"I understand, now."

Her lip quivered for one second, then she molded her face into a passive expression. "A bit too late. You have left before and I looked for a new Sensei. I found Shishou. When you left again, I went and looked for new teachers. I found many and I succeeded all of them. You come back and accuse ME of betraying you. And you know what had hurt the most? What cut the deepest? My father never understood what I was doing. So I looked for somebody else to be part of that role. Somebody I wanted to make proud." She laughed bitterly. "I wanted you to be proud of me. But you never were. You left me, and I had thought I was done with you. But nothing cut deeper than you accusing me of betraying you when I had shown you how talented I had become. I just wanted a few words of appraisal. Nothing more." She swallowed heavily. And he hung his head in shame. He had no idea. "And I was still waiting for you to be proud. I was a grown up, thought to have left that part behind. But here it was and it felt like it was eating me alive...." She trailed off and looked at her fingertips.

"I.." He cleared his throat. "I have always been proud of you. I was mesmerized when you charged our reserves with your natural chakra extraction. I was so pleased that you were the first one to balance on a tree or water. But words were never my strong point."

"I will always be proud of you" he murmured and touched her hand. She grabbed his hand and held on tightly.

* * *

Shikamaru watched Sakura and Kakashi dancing, before walking over and sitting down beside Tsunade. "Hokage-sama" he greeted.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Turning around she watched Sakura again. "She finally found her peace" Tsunade murmured. He nodded and looked at his fiancee. "I was worried when everyone cheered on Naruto for defeating Akatsuki" he answered just as quietly. "She stood back. For Naruto. Making way for his dream. But she did it willingly. And that's the difference."

Tsunade nipped at her sake and nodded. "It was her starting point to get better. Leaving all the demons of her past and her power behind, was the first step to utter satisfaction with herself." Suddenly smirking, Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at her. "You were the second and most important step to satisfaction." Groaning at her blatant sexual indue, he rolled his eyes.

"You're drunk again Hokage-sama. Otherwise, you would have been funnier" he countered and received an evil eye.

"You two aren't fighting, right? I don't want to ruin this Celebration because I have to bring Shishou home!" Spluttering into her cup Tsunade slanted the evil eye towards her apprentice. "You know better! My Anbus bring me home!" she cackled.

Shikamaru pulled Sakura down into his lap. "Just thanking the gods for making you happy."

She blushed and hugged him fiercely. "You are all that I need to be happy."

Raising her hand towards her lips he kissed just beside his ring on her finger. "You won't be getting rid of me anytime soon."

"You promise?" she asked cheekily and leaned her forehead against his. "Forever" he answered.

~ The End ~

~SilviaStoll~