Naruto shifted, tapping his foot on the floor. "Why are you here again?"

The woman perked up a bit. "To find my husband." She held out a drawing of him, the exact same motion she had used the last three times. Naruto just stared, expectant, and the woman went on. "I miss him," she explained, "so I want to—"

"Yeah, you've already told me that. Why are you here, though? I've never seen that man in my life."

The woman blinked, emerald eyes showing nothing but confusion. "But he lived here."

"No, he didn't. My family has owned this house for the last fifty years."

Stubbornly, the woman barreled onwards. "He lived here," she insisted. "He liked the view from that window." She pointed at the window she was referring to, and Naruto glanced out it. He found exactly what he thought he would—a wonderful view of the graveyard that lay behind the manner.

"Your husband liked graveyards?"

"No," the pinkette said, "he liked the field. The graveyard wasn't there."

Naruto snorted. "Please, that thing is at least a hundred years old."

"He liked the field," she insisted.

Naruto briefly considered just kicking the woman out, but then realized that his conscience would never let him do it. Her clothes were tattered and her hair matted, her skin caked in mud and blood. When she had knocked on Naruto's front door, the blond had looked upon her in horror and immediately let her in and offered to clean her up. The woman had just refused, instead demanding that Naruto take her to "Sasuke"—her husband.

Sighing, Naruto said, "Look, how about I get you a change of clothes? You can wash up and then you can eat."

"No."

"...No?"

"No."

Naruto scowled. "Fine. Whatever. Do you have anywhere to go? I can call someone up if you need me to—"

"Call?"

"Yeah, the phone is down the hallway—"

"Ah, yes, the hallway. What happened to it?"

Naruto paused, then looked back at it, wondering what the woman could possibly mean. He was half-expecting a broken vase or some sort of crude graffiti, but instead he got a perfectly normal hallway. Turning back to the woman, he said, "What do you mean?"

"The painting. It's gone."

At first, Naruto didn't understand. Painting? There had never been a painting—oh. "You mean the one with that old guy?"

"Well, it had a man in it."

Naruto nodded, considering his options. He could take this probably crazy woman deeper into his house, or he could keep her here. Well, Hinata and the kids wouldn't be back until next week, so he didn't have anything else to do. "I think I know what you're talking about."

As he walked through the many hallways, he could hear the woman mumbling about something. Faint words drifted to his ears—"light," "odd," and "phone" being a few of them—but she was ultimately very quiet until he finally threw open the doors to the living room. He could feel the woman freeze behind him. "Well, here we are."

On the far wall, there hung a painting twice the size of Naruto, depicting a man long dead. He was wearing a suit, cane in his hand, his gaze piercing. Ah, those eyes. Naruto used to be terrified of this picture—when he was five, he thought those rust-tinted onyx eyes followed his movements. Now, though, he could appreciate the beauty of it, the regal figure that the man imposed. "My old man liked the original painting so much that he convinced someone to make a larger copy of it to hang here. He donated the original to a museum."

He turned back to the woman, and she stared in awe. He could understand, people always seemed to be amazed by—wait, why did she look like she was about to cry? "I-I don't know what you mean," the woman said shakily, "he isn't old."

Floundering a bit, Naruto replied, "I mean, I guess? He died like two hundred years ago, though—"

The woman cut him off. "It's him."

"Who?"

"My husband."

Naruto stared blankly. "...Ha. You actually got me for a second!"

The woman frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're not two hundred years old—"

"I don't think so. What year is it?"

Something in Naruto's stomach dropped. "Uh—"

"Wait, I remember. Yes, I'm not two hundred years...maybe one hundred ninety-three? I'm sorry, I was never that good at math."

Naruto pursed his lips. His first instinct was to check that she wasn't crazy, but all the ways that he could think of doing that were pretty rude. He could always call the cops later—they'd know where she could go. Until then, he just had to humor her. "I see."

"Now, where is he?"

"Uh, he's dead. I just said that."

"Oh. But—"

"Wait, do you want to see his grave?"

She perked up. "You know where it is?"

"Yeah. It's the oldest one in the grave—"

"Take me to him."

"Are you sure? It's a pretty long way."

The woman just hiked up her tattered skirt, a fire burning in her eyes. "I can make it. I'm stronger than I look."

And, well, Naruto had many reasons to not take the crazy woman to the grave of her supposed husband—what if she was trying to murder him? Or what if the sight of her "husband's" grave made her start crying again? And, really, she looked like she needed a bath. Maybe he could just—oh, he was already leading her there. Well, that put a bit of a damper on things.

He marched through the uncut grass, the woman following him closely. The grave was still a bit of a ways off, so he said, "When'd you meet your husband? Sasuke, right?"

"Yes! We met at his boarding school! I went with my mother to pick up my cousin and then...oh, our eyes met! It was love at first sight!"

Naruto bit back the Isn't it always? "What was he like back then?"

"Oh, you know, he was pretty mean. Full of himself, too. But he was also so nice sometimes. Randomly, out of nowhere, he'd give me a present—he gave me a beautiful locket once. I lost it, though."

"Did he ever stop being full of himself?"

"Definitely. It took a while, but he just had to grow up a bit. Honestly, I needed to, too. My whole world had been Sasuke, I didn't think of anything else. I love him, I really do, but there's more to life than love, you know?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

"So, do you love someone?"

Naruto didn't even hesitate. "Yep. Her name is Hinata."

"Oh, that's a beautiful name!"

"Right? Honestly, she's the best."

"Are you married?"

"Yeah, and we have two kids. I'd never give them up for anything."

"How old?"

"My oldest is thirteen, my youngest is nine."

"Ah, they grow up so fast, don't they?"

"They do."

They passed ten minutes like that, mindlessly chatting about their family and friends and, by the time they got to the grave, Naruto wasn't so sure about her state of mind any more. She seemed to utterly confident in all her answers—in how she met Sasuke, how she fell in love, and even the name of their children. It was hard to connect the man that he had supposedly spent the last ten minutes getting to know with the old, cracked grave he was now standing in front of.

"Well," Naruto muttered, "this is it."

The woman didn't answer, instead staring at the grave, a wide grin on her face. "I've made it, Sasuke!"

She got no response, but she still sat herself down in front of it, stroking it. She continued to talk, expressing no concern at all with her lack of answers. "It's been too long. Do you know how long it took me to get here? Honestly, my clothes look terrible. There are the ones that you bought for me, too! I'm sorry for ruining them, but they were the best suited ones for the journey."

She stayed like that for five minutes before Naruto had finally had enough. "Hey, how about we head back? It'll be getting dark soon."

"You can go ahead," she said. "Don't worry about me."

"No, I can't just—"

"I'll be fine."

Naruto could recognize a fellow stubborn human being, and it seemed that she had never learned to compromise. Naruto sighed. "You remember the way back?"

"I do."

"I'll leave the door unlocked. You can get in whenever you want."

"Okay."

Giving in to defeat, Naruto turned around to walk off. If she didn't come back inside in twenty minutes, he'd come and get her. Besides, she was a grown woman, surely she could—

"Sasuke, my love, I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, Sakura."

Naruto whirled around at the unfamiliar voice. He found no stranger...and no woman. She was gone without a trace.

...Had he imagined the whole thing? After all, he hadn't been getting much sleep lately. Yeah, that was probably it.

(Sakura smiled as Naruto walked off. "He's a good one, you know," she said.

Sasuke didn't let go of her, his hands still tied tightly around her waist. "A good what?"

"A good person. They're hard to come by."

Sasuke laughs softly. "I know. Why do you think I wasn't haunting him?"

"You never seemed like the haunting type, my love."

"Fair enough."

There was a small pause before she finally whispered, "I'm back."

Sasuke pulled back. "No," he corrected, "you're home."

And she was.)

THE END

-

Guys, I have yet again screwed up. It's kind of a theme with me, isn't it? I wrote this is one hour right before I posted it, so expect a sizable amount of errors. So, yeah, in case you're confused: Sakura and Sasuke are ghosts and Naruto currently owns the house that Sasuke used to live in.

I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment.

Maybe next month I wont be this way...unlikely. :(

SSSRHA2