Naruto, who seems to have worked a ridiculous number of odd jobs to finance his trip and Jiraiya-san's perversions, takes charge of the rebuilding project.

Sakura doesn't protest. She's learned not to doubt him when he says he can do something -- it's easier now that he doesn't boast so much, of course, but she reminds herself over and over again that even three years ago he always came through when it counted. She refuses to judge him by outward appearances anymore. That didn't help any of them.

So she puts Tsunade-sensei's lessons to good use and does most of the heavy labor -- digging out rotted foundations, uprooting scraggly trees and bushes trying to grow through fallen ceilings, and hauling stone and lumber to places Naruto marks out. It's hard work, she's sweating like a pig, her feet are caked with mud and unmentionable bits of fungus, and her hair straggles across her face like limp seaweed, but Sakura doesn't really care. There's something immensely satisfying in being the strongest one for a change.

Sasuke doesn't complain either, oddly enough, and only makes one token protest at taking Naruto's orders. Sakura suspects he'd be a lot harder to convince if they were organizing a fight rather than a construction job, but it probably helps that he almost had no idea which end of a hammer is which before Naruto demonstrated things. He's still having trouble with his saw -- keeps getting the teeth stuck in the wood as he pushes too hard or at a bad angle -- and his muttered cursing rises and falls in a quiet rhythm whenever she passes by him.

He's cute when he's pretending not to be out of his element, and careful concentration looks a lot better on his face than a scowl. What would it be like to have him concentrate on her...?

Sakura squashes that thought.

"Hey, Naruto?" she asks. "I'm done pulling up plants. Should I start mixing the mortar?"

Naruto looks down from his perch on a roofbeam, letting his tape measure roll back with a rattling snap. "Yeah, might as well, if you've got the first row of stones level in the trench. Just don't mix too much -- we'll have to break for lunch in an hour or two." He grins. "Hey, it's Sasuke's turn to cook -- you think I can get him to make ramen?"

Sakura rolls her eyes. "What is it with you and ramen? And no, I don't think he'd listen to you."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Go make him help you with the mortar instead. I'd rather have those walls done than a bunch of boards lying around when I can't use them yet." Naruto waves her off and pulls out the metal strip of his measure, squatting to hook it through the hilt loop of a kunai stuck into the wall. Then he stands and walks along the beam, paying out the tape as he goes.

He's taken off his jacket, and Sakura can see the play of muscles in his legs and back, and the trained grace that lies underneath his careless walk.

She notices herself wondering what it would feel like to run her hands over his shoulders and butt, and squashes that thought too.

Teammates, she tells herself fiercely. They're her teammates. They're like brothers. And anyway, Sasuke doesn't like her that way, and Naruto really deserves someone like Hinata, who can manage him with kindness instead of losing her temper when he's an idiot.

Inner Sakura firmly suppressed and a cheerful smile on her face, she grabs Sasuke's hand and hauls him over to the piles of stone that mark the soon-to-be-reconstructed bathhouse. He flinches at the contact, but he's not pulling away and that, Sakura thinks, is definitely progress. His hands are tough and callused, like all ninja's hands, and she can feel the oddly smooth and shiny patches that mark old burn scars scattered along his fingers and down his wrists.

He always did like fire jutsu, and she's willing to be that some of those are electrical burns from learning Chidori.

The only reason Naruto's hands aren't equally marked -- from knives and wood and the tearing winds of his Rasengan -- is the Kyuubi's healing power.

Sometimes Sakura feels a little useless around Naruto since he so rarely needs medical aid, but she reminds herself of her strength and her skill with seals. Now she's starting to wonder if Sasuke usually needs a medic-nin. His bloody nose didn't heal any faster than normal, but he doesn't have the new scars three years of intense training should leave -- she's pretty sure she remembers all the visible ones from before he left Konoha -- and she wonders if it has something to do with his curse seal.

They mix the mortar in silence and start laying stones on top of the bathhouse foundation.

Ten minutes later, wiping sweat and damp hair from her forehead, Sakura can't stop herself from asking anymore. "Sasuke, does the curse seal help you heal?"

He twitches.

She takes that as a yes.

He isn't glaring at her or stalking away, so she pushes on. "How much do you know about the seal's mechanics? I talked to Kakashi-sensei, and I've looked through records of what they found in Orochimaru's... laboratory... when he left, but I still don't have all the pieces. I can't figure out where the power comes from -- it can't all be from you, or from Orochimaru. Do you know?"

Sasuke looks blank. "...No," he says eventually. "He wouldn't tell me. But he knows when anyone draws on a seal."

"So the chakra either goes through him, or he's woven an alert into the seal," Sakura muses. "Aha."

"Aha?" And now Sasuke's glaring, turning those unnerving red-and-black eyes on her with every bit of his attention behind them.

He's looking at me! Inner Sakura yelps. What do I do!

Three years ago, she'd have squeaked from fear or fainted from excitement. Now Sakura meets his gaze calmly and says, "Not now. But in a few weeks, I may have something worked out." She squashes the tingle that threatens to sweep over her body. Brothers, she reminds herself. And he isn't interested -- he made that very clear when he knocked her out and ran away in search of power.

"Worked out what?" Naruto asks out of nowhere, bending down to run his fingers through her hair, mussing it further. Sakura shivers. "How to make the old pervert stop leering at you? A jutsu to turn leaves into ramen? What to tell your parents when we get home?"

She twists and glares at her teammate; beside her, Sasuke seems to be wavering between masked amusement and a glare of his own. "If I'm not telling Sasuke, I'm not telling you either," she says. "I'm through playing favorites."

"Aww, come on, Sakura-chan! Tell me -- I can keep a secret! Besides, you owe me at least a few favors for all the times you used to chase after this bastard," Naruto whines, his blue eyes twinkling. He dodges her punch, dancing sideways and sticking out his tongue. "Nyah, nyah, can't catch me!"

"Oooh! Uzumaki Naruto, you get back here!" Sakura lunges after him but he slips through her fingers again, hands folded behind his head in the most nonchalant pose imaginable.

"Nope! Not until you tell me a secret."

"...You want to know about her dream wedding?"

Sakura freezes just as she's about to bring her fist down on Naruto's head, and turns toward Sasuke with wide eyes. Did he just make a joke? She looks at Naruto, eyebrows raised -- he nods, wonder painted all over his face. Yes, Uchiha Sasuke, the untouchable ice prince himself, actually deigned to join their endless teasing squabble.

He looks faintly surprised himself, and he's starting to pull defensively inward, blanking his face, so Sakura blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, anything to keep him from closing off again. "He already knows. And it's not what I told you before you left, not anymore. That was when I was twelve and I was an idiot. All I want now is to have both of you there. Because we're family."

Silence.

Then, quietly, he says, "Oh." And he turns around and picks up a new stone, setting it into place on the wall and making minute adjustments until it's perfectly level and perfectly square with the other stones.

Sakura looks at Naruto. 'Where did I go wrong?' she mouths. Sasuke can read lips, but right now he's trying so hard not to pay attention to them that she thinks he wouldn't notice a conversation even if he looked right at them.

Naruto sighs, an invisible weight settling on his shoulders. 'Family,' he mouths, and shrugs.

Huh? ...Oh. Damnit.

'Hey, he's not running away,' Naruto mouths, touching her shoulder companionably. 'He's been with the snake-freak for three years -- he's gotta be screwed up even more than he was before. We'll pull him through.'

Sakura nods and squeezes Naruto's hand. Damn right they will.

They're a team. Whatever happens, they'll be facing it together.

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