Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A lot of things had changed for Sakura Haruno since the end of the Fourth Great Ninja War.

About a year and a half had passed since that final battle, and Sakura was now a few weeks past her nineteenth birthday. Over that time, Sakura’s responsibilities in the village—specifically at the Leaf Village Hospital—had grown exponentially. Especially since the now-retired Lady Tsunade had stepped back from her duties overseeing the hospital, passing down her responsibilities to her pupils.

It was hard work. But Sakura adored every single second of it. In many ways, she was living the kind of life she’d only ever dreamed of having. After nearly a decade of blood and sweat and tears and heartbreak, she had earned the recognition she’d always wanted. She was one of the top medical ninjas in the village—and arguably, the shinobi world. She got to help the people of the village every day, got to help fix what years of war had broken. Plus, she got to refine her skills and use her talents in a way that made the world better and safer, and she got to teach the more junior medics on her team. It felt like all of the work she’d been doing since she made genin at age eleven was finally paying off.

Things in the village were changing, too. Kakashi—Lord Sixth—had spent the past year and a half rebuilding the village from the ground up after the war. That meant taking a more formal approach to some of the work Lady Tsunade had started to reform the village, like installing more systems of accountability and building more social welfare systems.

He would have done this work anyway, Sakura knew. There was nobody who knew better than him—one of the many orphans the village had left to fend for themselves, one of the many traumatized kids who had been shoved into the ANBU—the ways in which the village had let some of its children slip through the cracks.

But it was important to do the work publicly, now that the truth about the Foundation had come out. Every day, it seemed, more and more shinobi were coming out with stories about things that Danzo had done. The horrific ways in which he’d systematically abused the village’s most vulnerable children, exploiting them, turning them into weapons for his own ends.

Kakashi was going to make sure that none of that ever happened again.

And so was Sakura. Which was why she and Ino had started pursuing their passion project: building a wing of the Leaf Village Hospital specifically dedicated to children’s mental health.

The horrors of the Fourth Great Ninja War had left behind so many traumatized kids who didn’t know how to cope with what they’d been through. And Sakura had spent her entire life thus far as a shinobi watching what happened when children didn’t think there was a way to heal the sadness inside of them. Frequently, in her experience, it ended with an adult handing that child a weapon and whispering an extremist ideology in their ear.

Time and time and time again, Sakura had watched the cycle perpetuate itself: bloodshed, trauma, exploitation, violence. That wasn’t going to happen in Konoha anymore. Not as long as she and Ino had anything to say about it.

The war had changed Sakura. And she was going to make sure that it changed the village for the better, too.

The bad news was that social reform meant more bureaucracy, and more bureaucracy meant more paperwork, and more paperwork meant more deadlines.

All of the village’s budget plans for every department needed to be turned in by a certain deadline, so they could all be reviewed by the Feudal Lord and he could make decisions about what got funded. Sakura and Ino had done as much planning and fundraising for the clinic as they could on their own, but now it was time to beg the Feudal Lord for some sweet, sweet grant money.

Since the children’s hospital was a side project of Sakura’s and Ino’s—something they’d worked on during nights and weekends, apart from all of their other jobs and missions—they had spent almost every free moment during the two weeks leading up to the deadline putting together all of their documentation for their proposal. Now it was the night before the paperwork was due, and they still had a few hours’ worth of work to do.

That meant spending the entire cold, rainy day holed up in Sakura’s office (because Sakura was important enough to have her own office in the hospital now) putting together binders full of written reports and statistics and budgets, explaining why building a clinic and having fewer traumatized children among the village’s ranks of soldiers was good, actually, and also way cheaper than trying to wrangle the traumatized children back from the influence of extremist groups later on.

To make matters worse, Ino—one of the de facto leaders of the Yamanaka clan since her father’s death during the war—was supposed to lead a clan meeting tonight. She and Sakura had been working together all afternoon, but once Ino had to leave, Sakura was on her own.

“I’m sorryyyyyyyyyyy,” Ino whimpered for about the ten thousandth time.

The two of them were seated at a little table in the corner of Sakura’s office. Ino leaned out of her chair to sling her arms around Sakura’s shoulders.

“It’s okay!” Sakura said, laughing. “I told you, I’m not mad at you! You have to do what you have to do!”

Ino sighed. “I still feel awful. I owe you, Billboard Brow. Big time. I’ll pick up a shift for you. And/or I’ll buy you dinner. You want to hit up Ichiraku this weekend?”

Sakura scowled. “Ugh. Please, anything but that. I’ve had enough ramen third-wheeling with Naruto and Hinata to last a lifetime.”

Truthfully, if it had been anybody else bailing on her for any other reason, Sakura would not have been anywhere near this understanding. But Ino was still struggling with the grief she felt about her father’s passing, and with the role of clan leader, which had been thrust upon her in such a horrific, sudden way. Every clan meeting was not only a test of Ino’s leadership skills, but a reminder of the reason why she was clan leader in the first place.

Ino wasn’t blowing her off for no reason. She was trying to figure out her role in this new village, the same way that all of them were. And it was Sakura’s duty as Ino’s best friend to support her. If the roles were reversed, Ino would have picked up the extra work for her, no questions asked.

Besides . . . it was for the children’s ward. And Sakura would do anything to make sure the children’s ward was successful. So staying late and working hard to finish these plans for her dream project was not, in Sakura’s mind, the worst way to spend an evening.

As quietly as anything, someone emerged from the hallway. Sai, their dutiful errand boy, who they’d called about an hour ago to ask for favors.

He nodded at them. “Ladies.” He walked over and held out the goodies he'd brought for them. “As promised. Dumplings for the hard-working doctor, and a raincoat for Little Miss Wears a Crop Top in A Downpour in April.”

Sakura took the takeout bag from him and thanked him, while Ino snatched the jacket from him, playfully scrunching up her nose at him.

Sai turned back to Sakura. “Kakashi wants me to remind you that he knows you’re working on the paperwork, and he can buy you the extra time in the morning to keep working if you need to go home and go to bed.” He paused, and then he added, “I also want to remind you as your friend that you can go home and go to bed, because you seem to have not been doing that much lately.”

Sakura waved her hand. “I got it. I’m almost done. It won’t take me that much longer.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay here and help you?” Sai asked. “Naruto and I are both around.”

She smiled. “It would take more time to explain to you guys how to do it than for me to just do it myself. But thank you. I appreciate the offer.”

She did, genuinely. She was so lucky to have the friends she did.

Sai seemed hesitant, but he didn’t push it. “If you’re really sure . . . .” He tuned back to Ino. “Don’t you have to leave for your meeting soon? I’ll walk with you.”

That was, of course, the only reason he’d answered their phone call and agreed to be their errand boy in the first place: to have an excuse to spend time with Ino. Between her deadlines with the children’s clinic and his recent mission load, there hadn’t been a lot of time for the two of them to hang out lately. Even a ten-minute walk through the village in the rain was better than nothing.

“Yeah,” Ino sighed. “I should hit the road.”

She stood up to put her jacket on, and then she gave Sakura another hug.

“Thank you,” she said again. “Love you, kid. I really owe you one.”

Sakura leaned her head against Ino’s. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. More earnestly, she added, “I love you, too. Good luck with your meeting.”

Sai and Ino headed towards the door.

At the doorway, Sai glanced over his shoulder. "If you want someone to walk home with you—"

"I don't need a bodyguard," Sakura interrupted. "I fought in the war, too. And you can tell Naruto and Shikamaru and whoever else is worrying about me the same thing."

"I know," Sai said patiently. "But if after what happened—"

"I don't need a bodyguard. I will be fine." She shooed him and Ino both out of the room with a wave of her hand. "Go have fun."

Sai and Ino exchanged a glance, but didn't say anything else before they walked out of the room. As they did so, Sai reached out for Ino’s hand, interlacing their fingers.

Even as Sakura felt joy on Ino’s behalf, her heart panged with loneliness while she watched them.

It made her happy that her friends were finding happiness with each other: Naruto and Hinata had finally hooked up after years of pining, and now Ino and Sai were spending more time together, too. Nothing made her happier than seeing the people she loved being happy together.

But at the same time, it made her feel strangely isolated. She was a little sad that all her friends were growing up and getting partners without her. Especially since there was a non-zero chance that her own great love story was never coming to fruition.

Sakura knew that her life was perfect on paper, and she should be grateful. She should be happy. And she was, generally. Everything about her life was better than she ever could have hoped it would be.

Except for the one part.

She stood up and went over to her desk. Leaning against the edge, she picked up the picture frame she kept on the corner of her desk and stared at it. The old portrait of Team Seven: her beaming in the middle, Sasuke and Naruto glaring at each other, Kakashi holding both of the boys’ heads in place to make them stand still.

The little girl she’d been at the time the Team Seven picture had been taken was so naïve. She’d told everyone that her biggest dream—over anything else in the world—was for the big, strong, handsome Sasuke Uchiha to fall in love with her. She would have done anything to get him to pay attention to her.

And then, seemingly overnight, everything had gone to shit. And on that cold, dark night, he’d left her on a bench and deserted the village.

When that happened, she’d put away her childish dream of marrying him. Instead, she’d prayed to whatever deity might be listening, offering up everything she had as long as Sasuke could stay alive and come home safely. In her most hopeless moments, that prayer changed to wishing for his seemingly inevitable death to be quick and painless, for him to be granted one final act of mercy in his painful life.

Once the war ended, the simple fact that both of them had survived felt like a miracle. Even if he had been arrested, and she spent every day sick to her stomach imagining him in that jail cell.

And then he was pardoned. And before he’d left on his travels, he’d poked her in the forehead, with a quiet promise that someday he’d come back for her.

He hadn’t. Not once. She hadn’t even heard from him—nobody had, except for Kakashi, who sometimes got a status update via delivery hawk.

She knew that she should just be grateful that Sasuke was alive and healthy. To ask for anything else was selfish. After all, he’d been right when he’d said that he wasn’t ready for her to travel with him yet: He needed time to grieve, to find his old self again, to get his head on right after years of unimaginable suffering. He needed time before he was ready to let her in. And there was a chance that after everything, he would never be ready to let her in.

But her heart ached for him. And when she couldn’t sleep at night, she felt his fingers touching her forehead, saw him smiling at her.

She still missed Sasuke so much.

On the outside, she seemed like she had her life together. But on the inside, there was a part of her that was still that little girl, standing there on the road leading out of the village, crying her heart out for him and begging him not to go. No matter how good the rest of her life was, there were some days when it felt like that little girl in her heart was never going to stop screaming.

At around ten o’clock, she finally finished up all the paperwork, all organized into two neat little binders. She packed them up in her backpack, intending to bring them to Kakashi’s office first thing in the morning, and then she left the hospital and started to walk back towards her apartment in the rain.

It was later than she usually liked to be out walking by herself. Not because she couldn’t handle the kinds of cowardly pervs that went after girls who were walking alone at night—she could beat them to a pulp. The problem was that she had gotten in trouble for doing exactly that.

A couple of weeks ago, a guy had tried to grab her while she was leaving the hospital. He hadn't succeeded; she’d broken his nose, both of his arms, and several of his ribs before turning him over to the Leaf Village Police Force. But he had turned out to be the son of a wealthy financial advisor to the Feudal Lord—specifically, the one who was arranging for some kind of weapons contract with a manufacturer in another nation on behalf of the Leaf Village. And after a few phone calls to the village elders, Daddy got his son released and sent home, with his son crying the whole time about how that crazy Leaf Village bitch had snapped when all he’d done was try to compliment her.

When Kakashi had refused to reprimand Sakura for what she’d done, the elders did instead. Tsunade and Kakashi were both called into the council room, too. Sakura could practically see the phrase This is such bullshit written on Tsunade’s and Kakashi’s faces.

“You’ve embarrassed the village in front of our allies,” Homura had said. “You know better than to use force against civilians.”

“He attacked me!” Sakura had shouted back. “I was defending myself!”

“You are a soldier, and he is a civilian. The rules are different. Especially in times of peace, and especially when it comes to high-ranking—”

“What if it hadn’t been me? What if he’d attacked a civilian who couldn’t defend herself? Or would we be letting him get away with that, too, because we can sacrifice one of our own citizens for the sake of this stupid contract—"

“Civilian girls who can’t defend themselves shouldn’t be walking around alone late at night,” Koharu had said. “And for that matter, neither should you. This wouldn’t have happened in the first place if you were behaving like a respectable young woman instead of being out all night, wasting your time with that nonsense about the children’s center. Do you see the girls from the great clans carrying on like this? No, because they know that they represent their families and this village, and they know the politics that are at play. They understand that not everything is about them.”

Tsunade had scoffed. “I dunno. I would’ve done exactly the same thing.”

Koharu had rounded on her. “Oh, trust us. We know exactly who Miss Haruno learned her attitude from.”

Sakura felt her blood boiling about it even now. She was furious that there was a price at which the elders were apparently willing to sell the health and safety of their own citizens. That apparently, buying the weapons was more important than actually protecting anyone. She was also livid that she had been trained to be a soldier since she was a little girl—told that it was necessary to learn to kill to save the world from evil—and yet the elders were mad at her for using her abilities to defend her own life.

And it annoyed her that they fixated so much on her background: Now that Sakura was arguably one of the most high-profile young women in the village—famous for helping to defeat Kaguya and end the war—they wanted her to behave like the nice, well-heeled heiresses from the great clans who had been trained in this shit since birth. Not like the common girl from a common family they were all too eager to remind her she was, whose rise from obscurity perplexed and irritated them.

And of course they had snuck in a little remark about the children’s clinic. They had been against the idea since day one, the same way they’d been opposed to every single social initiative Kakashi had proposed. Almost universally, everyone who had a problem with the idea of the children’s center was someone who somehow profited from the current shinobi system. People like the elders saw no benefit to a system where children were emotionally healthy, because broken children were easier to rebuild into war machines.

That was exactly the kind of village Danzo had wanted to make. That fucking piece of shit.

“HEY, SAKURA!”

Sakura jumped about a mile in the air before she realized that that raspy, boisterous voice was all too familiar to her. Maybe the whole being-grabbed-in-the-dark-by-a-strange-man thing had rattled her more than she’d realized.

She started to whirl around, her hand curling into a fist. “NARUTO, YOU BLOCKHEAD! What did I tell you about sneaking up on me while I’m walking alone—”

She froze.

Naruto was a few yards behind her, standing under a streetlight with a huge, shit-eating grin on his face. Kakashi was there, too, with a sparkle in his eyes.

But she barely saw the two of them. Because she was focused on the pale, handsome, dark-haired man in a black travelling cloak standing between them in the glow of the streetlight.

“Sasuke?” she asked hoarsely.

His mouth twitched into a small smile. “Hi, Sakura.”

It didn’t seem real. It felt like she was dreaming. Because she’d spent so many years of her life wishing that he would be there, hoping he would turn up out of nowhere . . . and now he was just here all of a sudden.

Before she even realized she was moving, she’d dropped her bag on the ground and started running to him. She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.

The relief hit her so hard that she was crying immediately, silent tears streaming down her face.

“I told you she’d be happy to see you,” Kakashi said to Sasuke, the amusement clear in his voice.

Sasuke pulled Sakura close to him. He was rubbing her back, his fingers delicately brushing against her shirt like he couldn’t believe she was really there under his grip.

Holding him felt so good. It felt exactly the way she remembered—no, it felt better. The last time she’d held him had been after the war, after the surgery he’d undergone to salvage what was left of his arm, and he’d been so tired and sad and wracked with guilt.

Now . . . she could already tell just by looking at him how much happier he was. So much happier than she’d seen him in such a long time. And he seemed so much healthier and stronger.

And he smelled so good. Like the outdoors. Like a campfire.

“Hi,” he said again. In that quiet voice that he used to use sometimes when it was just the two of them. It was about three levels softer than he ever spoke to anybody else.

“Is this a dream?” she asked through her tears. “Did I fall asleep at my desk, or is this real life? Are you really back?”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “This is real. I’m only back for a few days, but yes, I’m really here. This isn’t a dream.”

She looked up at him, suddenly panicking. “Did you come back because something bad happened? Is everything okay? Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. His mouth was stretched into a small, sad smile. “No. I’m just here to visit. Everything’s fine, I promise. Please don’t cry.”

She smiled self-consciously. “You know me. I cry about everything.” With a little sniffle, she let go of him and pulled back so that she could wipe her tears away with the back of her hand. “They’re happy tears, though,” she added. “I promise. It’s just because I’m so happy to see you.”

“I’m happy to see you, too,” he said softly.

She couldn’t stop staring at him.

She couldn’t believe he was really there.

She couldn’t believe how beautiful he was.

Kakashi put his hands on his hips. “So, here’s the deal. Sasuke just got in a few minutes ago. We just went to Naruto’s apartment to grab him, and I assumed you’d still be at work, which is why we came this way. Do you need to go to bed after your long day, or are you up for a Team Seven reunion?”

“Oh, my God, of course I’m up for a Team Seven reunion!” she exclaimed. “Are you kidding me?”

Naruto raised his arms in the air. “Hell, yeah! I bet Ichiraku’s still open—”

“Oh, God, no,” Kakashi interrupted. “No more Ichiraku.”

While Kakashi and Naruto bickered over where they should go, Sasuke turned back to Sakura.

The tears were like a faucet she couldn’t shut off. With a little, forced laugh, she kept wiping them away. “I’m so sorry. It won’t stop—"

“It’s okay. You have nothing to apologize for, Sakura.” He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s really nice to see you again,” he said softly.

She smiled. “It’s nice to see you, too. Welcome home.”

Chapter Text

They decided that the best place for their little reunion party was Sakura’s apartment. After all, Kakashi would have to leave to go to bed early since he had to deal with Hokage Stuff in the morning, and Naruto’s apartment was getting to be too small for group hangs now that they were all full-grown adults.

“You don’t live with your parents anymore?” Sasuke asked her.

She shook her head. “It was easier to get my own place closer to the hospital. My parents’ place is too long of a walk, and I kept waking them up coming home from late shifts.”

Then there was the matter of where Sasuke would stay while he was in the village. Sasuke’s apartment had been considered abandoned when he left the village all those years ago, and he never signed a new lease after the war. It had never occurred to Sakura before today, but she wondered how much of Sasuke’s reluctance to return to the village had been because he had no home in the village to return to.

That was why, as soon as he’d requested to make a stop at a hotel to book a room, she immediately offered up her place instead. “I have been told that I have a very comfortable couch,” she said. “And since I’m so close to downtown, people crash at my place all the time after nights out when they don’t want to walk home late. It’s no big deal. And you’re going to be there anyway—you may as well just stay over.”

“You really wouldn’t mind?” Sasuke asked.

“Of course not! That’s what teammates are for, right?”

“Besides, you can’t stay at my place,” Naruto added. “You haven’t been in it since you were twelve. It’s not as big as you remember it being. If you and I have to be constantly on top of each other like that, we’ll murder each other. And I can personally attest to the fact that Sakura’s couch is extremely sleepable and nappable.”

Sasuke hesitated, then glanced at Sakura. “If you’re really sure, then . . . thank you.”

“Sure thing!” She was trying to act normally, casually. Not to expose her inner twelve-year-old, who was losing her fucking mind that she was having a sleepover with Sasuke fucking Uchiha.

Even walking through the village with him, she wasn’t completely convinced she wasn’t dreaming. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d walked through the village like this, just hanging out. Not on a mission, or in the middle of a crisis, or while he was saying goodbye.

She kept glancing over at him to make sure he was really there. Most of the time, he was facing forward, and she stared at his face in profile. But sometimes, when she glanced over at him, he was watching her, too, and he’d look away with a little self-conscious smile that gave her butterflies.

Sakura had thought she was exhausted after all the overtime she’d been putting in on the children’s clinic. But Sasuke’s arrival had shocked her awake. She couldn’t be more awake if somebody had thrown her head-first into an ice bath.

As had been the case for most of Sakura’s life, there were two competing voices talking in her mind at once. The first was that boy-crazy twelve-year-old girl: Oh my God Sasuke’s looking at me he’s so fucking CUTE oh my GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE HE’S HERE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH—

But she was older now, and an elite shinobi. So the cold, calculating, logical part of her brain was puzzling out what could have brought Sasuke Uchiha back to Konoha for the first time in his redemption arc after he steadfastly refused to do so for over a year. He kept insisting that he was only back for a few days, and it was just a visit, and everything was fine. But nothing about Sasuke Uchiha had ever been that easy, and she wasn’t about to get her hopes up that it would be now.

A few minutes later, Sakura unlocked the door to her apartment and gestured inside. “Here we are,” she said, mostly for Sasuke’s benefit.

Her apartment was in the center of the village, and it was nice-ish. Nicer than the single-room barracks that most of the other jonin lived in, certainly, but . . . what a nineteen-year-old on a budget could afford. It was a one bedroom, but her bedroom was so small that her double bed took up the whole thing. And it did have a balcony, like her room in her childhood home had, but it overlooked the construction of the new railroad line that was being built in the village—the Thunder Rail or whatever—so it was loud as hell. The kitchen was so tiny that only one or two people could comfortably fit in it at a time, and the bathroom was itty-bitty and poorly lit.

But she did have a spacious living room, large enough to fit a big, comfy sofa, a recliner, and a small dining room table. Having the space to entertain her friends was the main appeal of the apartment.

Sasuke asked to take a shower to wash the road off of him, so Sakura directed him to the bathroom and loaned him some towels. She also loaned him the only clean clothes she had that would fit him while she put his clothes in the laundry—namely, the standard-issue dark blue sweatshirt and joggers that all chunin and jonin received to wear on missions. (Sakura’s were still new in the bag; with all of her duties at the hospital, she hadn’t had a combat mission outside of the village since the end of the war.)

While he was in the shower, Sakura grabbed some extra pillows and blankets from the closet and dumped them on the living room floor. Then she went to her kitchen—she’d delegated the task of putting together snacks to Kakashi and Naruto, so they were both crammed in there, gathering up whatever she had left for food after two weeks of working overtime and not having time to go to a grocery store.

“Okay,” she said, “so what the fuck?”

They needed no clarification on what she meant.

Kakashi shrugged. “You have about as much information as the rest of us do. He just showed up at the village gates an hour ago.”

“You didn’t know he was coming?”

“Nope. I mean, to be honest, I had suspicions that I didn’t want to share in case I got anyone’s hopes up. Things have been slow for him lately, based on his status updates, and the letters were coming from areas closer and closer to the village. But he just showed up, checked in with the guards at the gates, and said he wanted to meet with me.”

“What’d he say?”

Kakashi shrugged again. “We had a debriefing, basically. The gist of it was that things have been quieter lately, so he’d figured he’d take advantage and take a couple days off at home.”

Sakura felt her heart sink. “So he really is only back for a couple days? He’s not back-back?”

Naruto smiled at her. “That’s what it sounds like, but the important thing is that he’s here at all, right? If he’s here, that means he’s feeling better.” He looked back down at the plate of cookies he was putting together. “He said he needed to leave to ‘atone’ for his sins, right? He wouldn’t have come back unless he felt like he’d started atoning.”

“He does look and sound a lot better,” Kakashi added. “Even when he was a kid, you could tell how much he was struggling. He seems a lot more relaxed now.”

So they’d both noticed it, too. There was a kind of lightness and easiness to Sasuke that she hadn’t seen in years. He wasn’t that boy from the war anymore. He was so different.

Naruto carried his plate out to the living room and set it on her coffee table. Sakura followed after him.

“You can stay tonight, too, if we’re up late,” she told Naruto. “If you don’t feel like walking home.”

“I might take you up on that, to be honest,” he said. “Thank you.”

The shower turned off. Sakura lowered her voice in case Sasuke could hear them through the door. “I should thank you for letting me take him. He’s your best friend. I know you wouldn’t have minded the time with him.”

Naruto snorted. “You try having two hard-headed assholes living in my tiny apartment and see how long they stay best friends for. Hinata and I get on each other’s nerves if we spend too much time in there. Sasuke and I would draw blood.”

Sakura smiled.

He flung himself into the armchair—his favorite spot in her apartment—and looked up at her. “Besides, I figure Sasuke and I already hugged it out. You guys might have a little bit more to talk about. So either I was going to have to keep finding excuses to disappear to leave you two alone, or I could just shove you two together to begin with.”

Sasuke had apologized to her—multiple times over—but the two of them had never really gotten their chance to fully clear the air about everything. They hadn’t had longer than a minute alone together since the night he deserted the village. Even after the war, there was always something going on or somebody else in the room with them—like that day at the gate, when Kakashi had been there.

She sunk onto her sofa and crossed her legs under herself. “Thank you, Naruto. I appreciate it.”

He flashed her a small smile.

Before they could keep talking, the bathroom door opened. Sasuke walked into the living room, his hair still damp. He was wearing Sakura’s mission wear, and he smelled like her body wash.

Sakura imagined trying to explain this moment to a twelve-year-old version of herself: You are going to live through horrors that you cannot even imagine yet. But also, someday, you’re going to watch Sasuke Uchiha walk out of your bathroom after he takes a shower in your apartment, and he is going to use your shampoo and wear your clothes, and everything is going to feel okay.

Out loud, she just asked him, “How was the shower?”

“It was nice,” he said. “Your water gets very hot.”

Naruto snickered. “Better than bathing in a cold lake with the fishies and the woodland creatures? Or whatever you’re doing on the road?”

“I get hotel rooms when I’m close enough to civilization,” Sasuke said defensively. “It’s not like I live in the woods all the time.”

“But you do live in the woods some of the time?”

“If it’s faster than getting back to town, yeah.” He sunk down on the sofa next to Sakura, and Sakura felt her cheeks start to flush.

Kakashi emerged from the kitchen, carrying a plate of sad-looking jam sandwiches that he put on Sakura’s table.

“Well,” Kakashi said, “I’m sure Sakura would be pleased to let you use her shower and crash on her couch any time you’re in town.”

Sakura smiled. “Of course!” She looked at Sasuke. “By the way, do you know how long you’ll be around for?”

Sasuke thought about it. “Um, two or three days, maybe? If that’s okay? I figure I shouldn’t be off the road for too long.”

Her inner twelve-year-old was losing her goddamn mind. A multi-day long sleepover with Sasuke~! “Yeah, that would be great! I’m happy to have you. And I’ll go grocery shopping tomorrow and pick up some food for us, so you don’t have to eat . . . jam sandwiches the whole time.” She gestured to the table, feeling a little pathetic.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry to surprise you like this.”

“You should give her notice the next time you’re planning on coming home,” Kakashi interjected. “So she can plan for you the next time.”

Sasuke just nodded without saying anything.

Sakura waved her hand. “It’s really no big deal,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay with me whenever you want to show up in the village. I would love to have you any time.” It was important to her that he knew it was an option. She wanted him to know that her home was always open, a safe place he could come to.

“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“So . . . does this all mean you’re going to come home more often now?” Naruto asked him.

Sasuke shrugged.

“What does that mean?” Kakashi asked.

“It means that it depends,” Sasuke said shortly.

“On what?” Naruto asked.

Sasuke shrugged again.

“Guys, leave him alone,” Sakura said impatiently. “He’s only been here for ten minutes. Give him some time to get situated before you have him start writing an itinerary.”

She looked at Sasuke, who flashed her a relieved, grateful glance.

Kakashi, for some reason, seemed to be watching the whole interaction very carefully. Like he was looking for something, or fishing for something, although Sakura wasn’t sure what. She was still puzzling over what his deal was when he stretched his arms up over his head, and yawned. “Well, anyway, as long as everyone’s all set up for the sleepover . . . I’ll catch you guys tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving already?” Sakura asked.

“Wasn’t this reunion your idea?” Naruto added.

Kakashi waved his hand. “I’ll let you kids catch up on your own. I have budget meetings all morning, so I have an early bedtime.” He nodded towards Sakura. “Speaking of which, did you finish your paperwork? I’ll bring it home with me so you don’t have to worry about submitting it in the morning.”

“It’s in my bag. The blue binders. I love and appreciate you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kakashi said, but his eyes were twinkling. He knelt down by the bag she’d left on the floor near the doorway, rifled through it, and pulled out the two blue binders she’d spent all night putting together. Then he headed for the door.

“Tell the Feudal Lord to give me a lot of money, please!” she called after him.

“That would be favoritism!” Kakashi responded.

“That wasn’t a no!”

Kakashi tucked the binders under one arm and gave her a little salute before heading out.

Once Kakashi left, Sakura and the boys stayed up for hours. First they updated each other on everything that was going on in their lives—Sasuke told them about the nations he’d been to, Naruto talked about his various missions and diplomacy trips as The Hero of the Ninja World, and Sakura talked about all of the new things going on at the hospital.

When they ran out of new things to talk about, they started replaying all of their old memories from when they were kids. From before everything had fractured. They talked about the Academy, about Kakashi’s bell test. They talked about Haku and Zabuza, one of their very first missions. They talked about the time Naruto and Sasuke’s hands got stuck together, the time they had to escort an ostrich. They talked about all those days they’d spent waiting for Kakashi to show up two hours late to a mission, those nights they’d spent at Ichiraku when they got home from work, those midnights spent staying up late by campfires.

It was just like their best days when they were genin. No, it was better than their best days as genin. Because Sasuke was so genuinely relaxed and happy now, and he smiled so easily. There wasn’t the looming threat that if someone said one wrong word, it could trigger something in him that couldn’t be fixed.

She was so drunk on it—on staring into Sasuke’s eyes while he smiled at her—that she didn’t notice as Naruto got quieter and quieter.

“Do you remember all the tricks we used to play on Kakashi to try to get him to take his mask off?” Sakura asked. “That was some of the most fun I ever had as a kid.”

“Me, too,” Sasuke admitted softly. “Do you remember when that journalist showed up, and we tried to raid the personnel files and got busted by the ANBU?”

Sakura grinned. “Of course.” She had long since figured out the truth about “Sukea,” but Kakashi had sworn her to secrecy. It’s more fun this way, he told her.

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. “Have you ever seen him without the mask on? You are a medic.”

“Mayyyyybeeeeee.” Of course she had, during his medical exams. He’d take his mask off for exactly as long as someone needed to actively be looking at his mouth, and then it went right back on.

“Have you?” Sasuke asked. “What does he look like?”

“The boring answer is that he looks like his dad, if you ever have the chance to go through some of the old village rosters. But I’m gonna be honest with you: He’s smoking hot.”

Sasuke snorted. “Really.”

“Oh, yeah. Remember how we all thought he was hiding something under there? He’s not.  He’s really cute. It’s almost a shame that he keeps it covered up.” She thought of Sukea again, and her grin got wider. “I’ll tell you guys a secret, though: You two have also seen Kakashi without his mask on.”

“What? When?”

“I’m not telling!” she teased in a little sing-songy voice. “I’ll give you a hint, though: He has a move that he uses on missions sometimes, and he used it in front of us once or twice."

Sasuke thought about it, and then he turned to the armchair. “Do you—?”

He stopped, which made Sakura look over, too.

Naruto had fallen asleep—he was curled in a little ball on the armchair, and he was clutching a pillow tightly to his chest.

“Is he really out?” Sasuke asked.

“Almost definitely. The boy loves to sleep.” She grinned and whisper-shouted, “Naruto!”

He didn’t move an inch.

“Hey, dipshit,” Sasuke said, still keeping his voice low.

Naruto stayed sleeping.

“Hinata just showed up naked with a buuuuunch of ramen,” Sakura said.

Nothing.

Sakura picked up a throw pillow to chuck it at Naruto’s head.

Snickering, Sasuke put his hand on her wrist. “No, don’t actually wake him up.”

Why not? Sakura almost asked. But then she realized: If Naruto was truly fast asleep, it meant that she and Sasuke could truly be alone together. For the first time in years.

And Naruto was right: She and Sasuke had some things to talk about.

Feeling her cheeks turn a little bit pink, Sakura put the pillow in her lap. Sasuke let go of her wrist.

For a few seconds, they stared at each other silently.

“I guess it’s been a while since it’s been just the two of us, huh?” she asked softly.

He nodded. A flicker of guilt passed across his face. “It has. I forgot how much I missed this.”

“Missed what?”

He paused, and then he admitted, “You were always the easiest to talk to.”

She felt her face turn pink. “Really?”

He nodded. Some of the joy, the easiness, in his expression faded. “I’m sorry, Sakura.”

“For what?”

“All of it.”

She suppressed a smile. “I think we’ve done this part already.”

“I have new things to apologize for. Like how long I’ve been gone.”

She was fussing with a loose thread that was poking out of the pillow. After a second, she curled her knees up to her chest and turned so she was facing him fully, hugging the pillow to her stomach. “Why were you gone for so long?” she asked. “And what made you come back now?”

He thought about it. “There were a lot of reasons why I thought it was better to stay on the road. They weren’t always the same reasons all the time. But none of them were anybody in the Leaf Village’s fault. As for why now . . . I don’t know. I finally started to feel like myself, for the first time in a really long time. And for the first time, when I thought of going home, I didn’t worry that it might make life harder for everyone if I showed up. The thought of going home felt like a relief. And I thought maybe I’m okay enough now that I can just go home and have a nice day off with my friends. Instead of . . . you know, showing up out of nowhere, getting upset about something, taking it out on you, and then bailing again.”

Sakura snorted.

“Sorry. Was it insensitive to put it that bluntly?” he asked.

“Actually, it’s kind of refreshing.” Everyone else used a lot of euphemisms when talking about the hard parts of her and Sasuke’s history. Somehow, hearing him say it so directly made her feel a little better. She paused, and then she admitted, “To be honest, I didn’t think I was a factor in your decision.”

He stared at her silently for a few seconds. “You were one of the main factors in my decision, actually.”

Her face turned red. “I was?”

He rested his elbow on the back of her couch and rested his head in his hand. “Back then, when I felt unsafe, I would push you out to try to protect the both of us. I tried to sever our bond because if we didn’t have one, then we couldn’t hurt each other. But none of that kept either of us safe. It just made us both lonely and more miserable. So I decided that I wouldn’t come re-insert myself into your life until I could promise to never do that to you again.”

She stared into his eyes. One black, one purple. Finally, she said, “Well . . . thank you for thinking about this. And apologizing. But I know that a lot of it wasn’t your fault. You were just dealing with everything the only way you knew how. Besides, we both know that I wasn’t perfect, either—”

“Don’t do that,” Sasuke said immediately. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do. What you needed was a friend, and what you got was someone who was constantly hitting on you and making it all about herself. I wasn’t helping. I didn’t even realize how badly you needed the help until it was too late.” Her voice started to break. “I wasted so much time as a kid trying to make myself small so you would feel big and brave for coming to rescue me. You didn’t need that. You needed somebody to come rescue you, too.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Sasuke said firmly. “We were kids.”

Sakura leaned the side of her head against the back of her couch. “I know, but . . . I have a lot of regrets.”

“You shouldn’t. You of all people . . . really shouldn’t.” He cleared his throat. “I haven’t forgotten that you were the only one who knew me well enough to come after me that night and try to stop me from leaving. I know I didn’t listen at the time, but . . . it matters to me that you tried. So thank you.”

She let out a long, slow breath, willing herself not to cry. “So . . . .” she said slowly. “What now?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I still don’t know if I’m the guy you think I am. But I can be the kind of comrade now that I couldn’t be before. I could maybe be in your life again, sometimes. If that’s what you want.”

She smiled. “I do. I’m happy to have you back, Sasuke.” After a moment, she added, “But for what it’s worth, I don’t think of you as any kind of guy. I just want you to be safe and happy.”

“I’m pretty happy now,” he said softly. “Tonight’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

Sakura was about to respond, but suddenly Sasuke’s eyes darted towards the armchair. Wordlessly, he nodded his head towards it.

She turned around and looked at Naruto, who was now suspiciously motionless on the armchair.

She smirked and said loudly, “Well, Sasuke, if you really want to have some fun, we could go re-enact my favorite scene from Make-Out Tactics as a welcome home present.”

Naruto’s forehead wrinkled, and he opened one of his eyes a tiny smidge.

Sakura grinned. “Stop eavesdropping and go back to sleep, you little shit.”

He opened both eyes, peering at her and Sasuke sleepily, and smirked.

Chapter Text

When Sakura woke up in her bedroom the next morning, she could hear Naruto and Sasuke’s voices from the living room. A pleasant, friendly conversation, from the sounds of it—for once, they weren’t bickering with each other.

She could only hear the quiet tones of Sasuke’s voice without being able to make out what he was saying. But Naruto didn’t have an indoor voice, so she could hear him pretty clearly.

“You know what I really want to do?” he was saying. “I want all three of us to do the bell test again. Just because I think it would be funny.”

Sakura didn’t hear what Sasuke said in response, but whatever it was made Naruto crack up laughing.

“Dude, that’s why it would be awesome!” Naruto said, half-yelling now. “What if we—”

“Oh, my God, stop shouting,” Sasuke finally said, sounding both impatient and amused. “I forgot that you don’t know how to whisper. You’re going to wake Sakura up.”

“She can’t hear us from her room.”

“I promise you she can. Everyone on this block can hear you.”

Sakura grinned.

It was like when they were kids on missions. When they woke up in hotel rooms or at camping sites next to each other, everyone still a little sleepy and a little bit quieter and cuddlier. She’d missed having these little moments with Team Seven, when they could be together without having to be soldiers on a battlefield. When they could just be family.

Suddenly, Sakura’s landline started ringing. She had two phones in her apartment—one on a side table in her living room, and one on her nightstand, in case she needed to be woken up and called to the hospital late at night.

“Well, I guess she’s awake now,” Naruto said pleasantly from the living room.

With a groan, Sakura reached for her nightstand, grabbed the phone, and answered. “Sakura Haruno.”

“Hey, it’s Ino. Is everything okay?”

Shit. She was supposed to have called Ino when she got home last night, and again when she turned the paperwork in in the morning.

She glanced at the clock. It was almost 10 AM.

She sat up in bed. “Hi! Sorry! Yes, everything’s fine, don’t worry.”

“Did I wake you up?” Ino asked. “Are you feeling okay? It’s not like you to go quiet or to stay in bed this late.”

Sakura rubbed her eyes and yawned. “I’m fine. I just had a late night. Don’t worry, though—I saw Kakashi last night, so he took the budget forms with him and is turning them in for us.”

Ino let out a sigh of relief. “Good. Not that I doubted you, but . . . when I didn’t hear anything, I got a little nervous.” She let out a little laugh. “Sorry you were up so late with the paperwork, though. I feel awful.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. It wasn’t just the paperwork.”

Ino snorted. “What, did you and Kakashi go out drinking to celebrate the deadline?”

“Not exactly.” Sakura ran her hand over her face. She lowered her voice. “If I tell you something, will you keep it on the down-low for now?”

Ino’s voice got serious. “Oh, God. What happened? Was it that guy—”

“No.” She was so sick of everyone fussing over her after what had happened outside the hospital that night. She was doing her best to pretend that night had never happened, and she couldn’t do that when everyone was fussing over her. “Uh, nothing bad happened. Actually . . . Sasuke’s back.”

Ino paused for a full five seconds. “What?”

“He showed up last night. He and Naruto are in my living room as we speak. But keep it to yourself for now, okay? I’m suspecting that part of his motivation for coming home without warning in the middle of the night was so that this wouldn’t turn into a spectacle.”

“Understood.” She could practically hear that Ino was grinning. “Sakura . . . holy shit.”

Sakura smiled, too. “I know.”

“How is he?”

“He is . . . surprisingly good, actually. I think maybe taking the time to himself did him some good, after all.”

“That’s good.” Ino’s voice went up an octave. “So you two had a late night, huh?”

Sakura snorted. Apparently, Ino had given up on Sasuke for good once she’d gotten together with Sai. “We just talked. That’s all. And Naruto was here the whole time, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Speaking of which, I should go let him and Naruto know I’m awake so we can all eat breakfast.”

“Fine. Let me know if you need anything, okay? And thank you again for handling the paperwork last night.”

“Of course. How’d the clan meeting go?”

“Fine. Boring. Whatever. Sasuke being here is wayyyyyyy more interesting. Tell him and Naruto I said hiiii!”

Sakura grinned and hung up. Then she pulled on a hoodie and some slippers, and she headed out into the living room.

“Good morning, Sakura!” Naruto called out.

Sasuke had already made up his bedsheets and folded them and changed back into his now-clean, all-black travel clothes, and he and Naruto were seated at her table. They each had a takeout breakfast bowl in front of them, and there was a third, unopened bowl on the table, too.

Sakura yawned again, stretching her arms over her head. “Good morning. Ino says hi. Did you guys pick up breakfast?”

“I did,” Naruto said proudly. “It’s no fun being the first one to wake up at a sleepover, so I figured I’d do something to pass the time while I waited for you two lazybones.” He pointed at Sasuke with his chopsticks. “I forgot how bad he is at waking up in the morning.”

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me? I’m not the one we had to pour cold water on and drag out of bed by the ankles on a regular basis.”

She watched them sitting there so calmly, playfully sniping at each other. She saw Naruto’s bandaged right arm—artificially generated from Hashirama’s cells—from under his short-sleeved shirt, and she saw the empty left sleeve of Sasuke’s long-sleeved shirt.

And for a second, she saw the two of them laying on the ground at the end of the war with their arms blown off, saw the river of blood and gore that had convinced her, at least until she got up close, that there was no way either one of them could have survived a wound like that. She saw their pale faces, bloodied and bruised and just barely clinging to consciousness—and the relief that had washed over the both of their faces when they realized that she was coming to help them, that they weren’t going to bleed out and die there after all.

She realized that she was staring at them in real life, and that Sasuke was staring back at her. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, of course!”

Pull yourself together, she told herself. The war is over. Everything’s okay now.

She walked over to the table, and before she sat down, she put a hand on top of each of their heads and ruffled their hair. With the most cheerful voice she could muster, she said, “I’m just happy to see my two special boys here this morning, is all!”

Naruto grinned at her. “Awwww!”

Sasuke was watching her, seeming like he bought the act a little less than Naruto did.

Sakura took a seat next to Sasuke, not looking at him. “Thank you for the food!” she said, as she pulled the breakfast bowl closer to her and pulled off the lid.

Sasuke was still watching her.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “Eat your breakfast.” She looked him in the eyes and shoved some eggs into her mouth, as if eating would prove how very fine she was.

Naruto glanced between the two of them. “What?” he asked, his mouth full of rice.

“Nothing,” she and Sasuke said in unison, and Sasuke pulled his bowl closer to him and kept eating, too.

Sakura had the day off, so her primary chore for the day was to pick up groceries to feed herself and Sasuke. Sasuke decided to go to the marketplace with her—apparently he was in need of some new clothes, since his were getting shabby from all the time he’d spent on the road.

Naruto, who had nothing better to do, invited himself to tag along. So did Kakashi—he saw them out his office window, and he’d immediately decided that chaperoning his pardoned pupil was a great excuse to not be in his office now that his budget meetings were over.

She and Kakashi led the way through the village, with Sasuke and Naruto following in the back.

“This reminds me of being a genin on missions,” she said to Kakashi. “The three of us following you around like a bunch of little ducklings tailing after their mama.”

Behind them, Naruto and Sasuke started to bicker in low voices.

“Oh, yeah, just like when you guys were genin,” Kakashi said flatly. Sakura smiled.

The bickering turned into the sound of fabric rustling, followed by a quiet thump. “Ow!” Naruto said.

Sakura turned around in time to see Naruto and Sasuke each land one more smack on each other.

“Naruto, stop hitting Sasuke,” she snapped.

Naruto’s mouth formed a perfect outraged circle. “Sasuke started it!”

“Sasuke never starts it. It’s always you.”

Sasuke smirked.

She turned her back on Naruto’s angry sputtering and kept walking forward, fighting off a grin of her own. She’d missed this so much: her and Sasuke taking each other’s sides just to rile Naruto up.

Kakashi chuckled. “‘Let’s team Sakura up with the problem children,’ Lord Third said. ‘It will help bring her out of her shell,’ Lord Third said.”

“Is that how I ended up on Team Seven?” Sakura asked. She’d never heard this story before.

Kakashi nodded. “He always knew you had the potential to be great. He just thought you needed a push.”

Sakura felt her cheeks turn a little pink. Even back then, when I was such a weak, useless little crybaby . . . Lord Third saw potential in me?

“Although let me tell ya,” Kakashi continued, “putting the smart girl with the rowdy boys is a real rookie mistake. You always think the girl is going to be the good example and get the boys to behave. That’s never how it works. The boys just drag the girl down to their level and make her realize that she can be feral, too.”

Sakura raised her eyebrows. “It got me out of my shell, didn’t it?”

Kakashi’s eyes crinkled with a smile, and he put his hand on top of her head. “And we’ve been trying desperately to put you back in ever since.”

She snorted and pushed him away.

They walked past a food cart, and Sakura felt the eyes of the vendor—and of the three customers in line—as they all watched her and the boys walk by. It wasn’t the first time that day that she’d felt eyes on their group or heard people whispering—mostly seeming excited, sometimes seeming suspicious.

There was a period after the war where she couldn’t go anywhere without being stared at. Especially if she was with Naruto or Kakashi or, really, any of her friends. Being a hero of the Fourth Great Shinobi War would do that to you, after all. Over the following months, though, as the novelty wore off, the staring started to drop off, too.

But the stares were back now. And why wouldn’t they be? Sasuke Uchiha—a figure of modern mythology, the tragic son turned shadowy hero of the Leaf Village—had suddenly returned. Of course people would talk once they realized. This was turning into exactly the scene he’d probably been trying to avoid.

“Are you noticing, too?” Kakashi said in a low voice.

“Yeah,” Sakura murmured back. She glanced back at Sasuke.

His Rinnegan was hidden behind his bangs, but his black eye was watching everyone they passed by, clearly on alert, clocking everyone who did a double-take when they noticed him.

But then his eye met hers.

She stuck her tongue out at him. And her heart skipped a beat when his lips twitched into a little smirk.

They stopped by the clothing shop first. Kakashi and Naruto were also on the hunt for clothes for Sasuke,  but Sasuke—to Sakura’s surprise—mostly stuck by her side.

“Kakashi only wears sweatpants,” he explained, “and Naruto only wears bright colors. But you’ve always dressed nicely.”

Feeling her face turn a little red at the compliment, she looked at his current outfit from head to toe. “Well, what are your feelings about any color besides black?”

“I like black,” he said defensively. “Would you rather me wear orange and be visible to everyone in a five-mile radius?”

“No, but you at least used to wear blue when you were younger. That was cute. What happened to that?” She grabbed a blue sweatshirt off of the nearest clothing rack and held it up to him.

He shook his head. “Too bright.”

She put that one back and, just to be a dick about it, held up a bright pink one.

He smirked. “It’s too close to your hair. People are going to think that we’re trying to match each other.”

“Fine.” She grinned and put that one back, too. Trying not to think too hard about the fact that in this little scenario in his mind, the general public thought of them as a twosome, which meant that some part of him must think of them that way, too. She kept looking through the rack for more options.

Two aisles over, two men in chunin vests were whispering. It took Sakura a minute to pick up on their voices.

“Isn’t that Sasuke Uchiha?” one of them said.

“Holy shit, you’re right,” said the other. “I didn’t know he was back.”

“Me either. It’s pretty wild that he’s allowed to just, like, walk around after everything, you know? We don’t let Orochimaru just walk around.”

“Sasuke got pardoned,” the second one pointed out.

The first man scoffed. “I guess coming from one of the noble clans and being well-connected helped with that. Do you think the rest of us would be pardoned if we did shit like that?”

“I don’t know. I still kind of feel sorry for the guy. I would go crazy too if my piece-of-shit brother—”

It was only by the time they mentioned Itachi that their words started sinking in for her. Uh oh.

She didn’t know if Sasuke had heard them, but she didn’t care. She put her hand on his back and pushed him in the opposite direction, down several aisles. Anything to get him as far away from there as possible.

“Hey, look at these,” she said, without even knowing herself what section they were in. She realized belatedly that they were in the dress clothes section, which was not something Sasuke wanted or needed since he lived in the wilderness now. But it was too late now to back out of the bit.

They had stopped in front of a rack of dress shirts and vests. She grabbed a dark gray shirt and a light gray vest and held them up to him. “What do you think of these? These would look good with your skin tone—”

She stopped as soon as she saw him. He had his arm crossed over his chest, holding onto his opposite shoulder. His gaze was unfocused, like he was miles away.

He had definitely heard the two chunin talking about him, and the change in his demeanor was immediate. This was the closest he’d come to Genin Sasuke since he’d been home, and even on his best days, Genin Sasuke had been emotionally withdrawn, stone-faced, keeping the world at an arm’s length.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

She put the clothes back on the rack and stepped closer to him. “Do you want to get out of here?” she asked quietly.

He hesitated, then nodded once.

She put her hand on his back to gently guide him away. On their way out, she made eye contact with Kakashi. He glanced between them, and then he nodded at her, understanding.

At first, she and Sasuke wandered down random side streets in silence. And as they did, she thought about Itachi.

Itachi Uchiha had been the boogeyman of her childhood. He had murdered Sasuke’s entire family in cold blood, even his own parents, just to see if he could. He psychologically tortured Sasuke for years, and he joined up with the Akatsuki to take over the world.

He was a monster. Evil incarnate. Since the massacre, she’d met him exactly once, when she was about fifteen years old, and she still saw those emotionless red eyes in her nightmares.

Sasuke had been terrified of his brother; when Sasuke was a kid, nobody could even say Itachi’s name in front of him without him having a panic attack. Sasuke’s entire being had been consumed with his hatred for his brother and his desire for vengeance. It was why he’d left: because Itachi had taken away every single support system Sasuke had ever had, and because the trauma had hijacked Sasuke’s decision-making.

Sakura would never, ever forgive Itachi for what he’d done to the person he was supposed to love more than anything in the world. She didn’t care that he’d stopped the Reanimation Jutsu during the Fourth Great Ninja War, as Naruto and Kakashi were sure to point out every time the issue came up. It didn’t fucking matter. Itachi had massacred dozens of innocent people—his own family members—and he’d abused and isolated and traumatized a seven-year-old. There was no making up for that.

After a few minutes of wandering, she and Sasuke got to the playground, which was pretty much empty. They both seemed to realize at the same time that they wanted to sit down, so Sakura led them to the double set of swings. She took a seat on one of them, and Sasuke sat on the other, rocking back and forth on his feet to swing himself a tiny bit.

“Thank you,” he said, without looking at her.

“For what?”

“For handling that the way you did. For not drawing attention to it or making a big deal about it.”

She shrugged. “Well, you’re such a private person. I figured fussing over you would make it worse.”

He kept rocking back and forth. “This is what I was worried about,” he admitted softly. “It’s not like other places, where I can just blend in and be anonymous. Everybody here knows who I am. Everyone’s staring at me. It’s like when I was a little kid, after . . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. “For such a long time afterward, I could feel everyone watching me and talking about me. Talking about it and him all the time when they thought I couldn’t hear.”

She felt her heart break for him.

“But I can’t blame them now,” he said. “I know that they don’t want me here after everything—”

“Sasuke—”

“I know that they think I don’t deserve a second chance—”

“Nobody thinks that—"

“I do,” he said, his voice pained. “I think that.”

She stayed silent for a moment, thinking of what to say. “But you have a second chance. And in the time since you got your second chance, you’ve saved the village multiple times over. You’ve saved other villages and freed countless people from suffering. You have shown us who you are, over and over and over again, and that person is good and smart and brave and selfless. So who cares what a couple of fuckheads who have never met you think? Don’t let them trick you into believing that nobody wants you here. Because I do.” Her voice started to break, too. “Okay? Don’t you ever think for a second that nobody is happy to have you home. Because I am.”

He was still staring at the ground. He took a couple seconds to collect himself. “Thank you, Sakura.”

“Of course.” To lighten the mood a little bit, she smiled and teased, “Besides, I’m sure the only reason people are looking at you is because of how handsome you are. You must remember how all the little girls used to fawn over you back in the day. I bet you still turn heads everywhere you go in the world.”

He still didn’t look up at her, but a ghost of a smile appeared on his face. “Not so much these days, now that I have one arm and a weird eye.”

She stared at him— the most handsome man she’d ever seen in her life, who got more and more gorgeous every time she saw him. “Liar.”

He finally looked over at her, and his smile grew a little.

A voice suddenly called out from behind them. “The swings are my thing. Stop impinging on my personal brand.”

Sakura and Sasuke turned to look over their shoulders in unison. Naruto and Kakashi were walking up the sidewalk to meet them, and Kakashi was holding a brown paper bag.

“Since when do you care about your personal brand?” Sasuke asked Naruto.

Sakura rolled her eyes. “Some brand consultant from a big corporation in a different part of the Land of Fire tried to piggy back off the war heroes’ fame to get us to be brand spokespeople. Especially Naruto. But then he got mad because Naruto was going to endorse everything blindly and wasn’t developing a ‘cohesive personal brand’ or whatever.”

“What’s the problem with endorsing everything?” Naruto asked. “If all of it is useful products that were made by nice people who worked really hard on it—”

“Why would you want to endorse anything?” Sasuke interrupted, incredulous. “You really want to be in commercials? I wouldn’t.”

Kakashi nodded. “That’s exactly what I told the marketing guy when he begged me for your contact information to try to get you endorsing stuff, too.”

Sasuke’s lips twitched.

Kakashi held out the bag. “I owe you a few years' worth of birthday presents, so . . . here you go. Black shirt, black pants.”

“Thanks.” Sasuke took the bag from him.

“You doing okay?”                                                            

Sasuke nodded. “Better now.”

Kakashi crossed his arms over his chest. “At least everyone knows you’re here now. We ripped the band-aid off. Today was as bad as it’ll be, and by tomorrow, everyone will have moved on to gossiping about something more interesting. Besides, those two guys in the shop are trouble, anyway. They run their mouths constantly, but they're barely fit to handle gate duty.”

Sasuke sighed. “Couple of fuckheads,” he muttered.

Sakura smirked.

Naruto put his hand on Sasuke’s shoulder. “I feel bad that you left because of those guys, because you missed this little group of Academy kids in the aisle next to me all trying to psych themselves up to go say hi to you and ask for your autograph.”

Sasuke raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

Naruto nodded, grinning. “Of course! And two civilian girls who thought you were cute who were debating how to make a move on you.”

Sakura immediately turned to look at Sasuke at the same time that he turned to look at her.

“Told you,” Sakura said simply.

Sasuke’s lips twitched.

After all the excitement, Sakura and Sasuke never actually made it to the grocery store. Instead, they decided to have a quiet night in.

Sasuke bought their dinner—burgers, shakes, and an order of fries to split from the new fast food joint Sakura had been meaning to try out—and they ate on her living room floor while they watched TV. It was their first time being honest-to-God alone in her house, now that Naruto had finally gone home, and the difference in Sasuke—now that they were out of the gaze of the villagers and he could be himself again—was obvious.

And Sakura could have been given a thousand guesses as to what Sasuke would want to watch, and she never would have guessed correctly.

“You watch soap operas?” she asked him, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice.

“I watch this one soap opera,” Sasuke said, not even removing his eyes from the television, where the opening title sequence of Dagger to the Heart was playing.

Dagger to the Heart was an infamously cheesy drama about the love triangle between a princess named Ayame, her bodyguard Kenta who was trying to protect the royal family from a coup, and Tamaki, a servant in the castle who was secretly the lost heir to a rival kingdom.

“I can’t believe you watch Dagger to the Heart,” Sakura said. “My mom watches Dagger to the Heart. It’s on every time I go visit my parents.”

“It’s on all the time everywhere,” Sasuke said, exasperated. “Every time I stay in a hotel, this is on. I’ve developed an encyclopedic knowledge of this show completely against my will.”

Sakura decided against pointing out that he had put the show on right now completely of his own free will. She grinned. “So which side are you taking in the love triangle? My mom is rooting for Ayame and Tamaki.”

“I only care about Kenta and Princess Haruhi. I only want Ayame and Tamaki to get together because it lets Kenta and Haruhi get together.”

“Princess Haruhi is the younger sister, right?”

Sasuke nodded and pointed to the television, where there was some kind of training montage happening. “She’s training secretly with Kenta to join the royal guard to stop the coup. She’s smart and strong and capable, and she’s the only one of the sisters who is invested in the politics of what's happening. So she’s obviously better suited to be his partner.”

On the television, Kenta was training Princess Haruhi on how to use a sword. There were plenty of shots of Kenta’s arms wrapped around her waist, their faces so close together. Princess Haruhi’s long, long, long rose-gold-colored hair glistened in the glow of the sunset. No wonder she’s Sasuke's favorite, Sakura thought.

“Do you really prefer girls with long hair?” she blurted out.

Sasuke turned to her, perplexed. “What?”

“There was a rumor at the Academy back in the day,” she said, feeling her face flush. “That you liked girls with long hair.”

“At the Academy?” Sasuke repeated. “I wasn’t really thinking about girls that way back then.”

“What about now?”

He shrugged, his face turning pink. “I don’t get a say in how long anybody grows their hair. It’s not my head.”

“But do you have a preference about other people’s heads?” she asked. “Do you find longer hair more attractive?”

He shook his head, his face turning even pinker. “The length of the hair is not the factor that’s going to make me notice it, no.”

Her heart swelled with an embarrassingly strong degree of relief. “So rumor debunked, after all these years?”

“Rumor debunked.” He took another bite of his dinner. “How did anyone even come up with that? Is it because your hair was so long when we were little?”

Sakura felt her face turning red. Partially at what he’d once again accidentally let slip—that somewhere in his mind, he still thought of them as a twosome. But mostly because of the absolutely mortifying truth she was about to have to admit.

“Other way around,” she said sheepishly. “The rumor came first.”

His face turned even redder, too. “But you cut it all off during the chunin exams so easily. And you never grew it back out afterward.”

She shrugged, grinning. “Well, everybody’s gotta grow up sometime. I’m a shinobi. Sometimes battle strategy has to win out over getting attention from cute boys.”

She took another bite of her burger. Sasuke watched her with a small smile on his face.

“Wha’?” she asked, her mouth still full.

“I don’t know. I was thinking that I guess I don’t know that much about who you are as an adult.” He nodded towards the TV. “Like, I keep thinking that the younger version of you would’ve loved a show like this.”

She swallowed. “She probably would have, but the younger version of me was a lot. I think I’ve calmed down a little bit in my old age. Thankfully. I was actually thinking about how much the little kid version of you would’ve hated a show like this.” She could picture twelve-year-old Sasuke with that adorable little scowl in her mind’s eye.

“That’s because the little kid version of me had a real shit attitude. I don’t know how you guys put up with him.” He rolled his eyes. “Thankfully, I have also done a lot of growing up.”

She looked over at him. “You have. And I guess I don’t know that much about the adult version of you, either. But I’m really glad I have the chance to get to know him. I'm glad that we get to just hang out at home like this and be friends this time around, you know?"

Sasuke met her eyes and smiled. “Yeah."

That smile put happy butterflies in her stomach. But she didn't want to admit to herself what she knew those butterflies meant. She didn't want to get her hopes up again. Because all those other times when she'd tried to tell him in words how she felt about him, it hadn't been enough to stop him from leaving, and she wasn't ready for him to leave again. So instead, she picked up another fry and munched on it, content with what they had for tonight: happiness and peace in their own little world in her apartment, just the two of them.

Chapter Text

Sakura was rudely woken from her sleep the next morning by the sound of her phone ringing on the nightstand next to her. Her room was still completely dark, so for a few seconds, she groped blindly for the phone until she found it and answered.

“Sakura Haruno.”

“Heyyyyyyy thereeeeee.” It was Shizune, using her light, high-pitched, I-Have-Bad-News voice. “Sorry to wake you up so early.”

Sakura glanced at the clock, but her eyes were so blurry from sleep that she could barely see. She rubbed them and checked again. It was a little past four A.M.

“It’s okay,” Sakura murmured, sitting up in bed. “I know you wouldn’t do it if it weren’t an emergency. What’s up?”

“So you know how those two rookie genin teams were on a joint mission? Apparently they got in a little over their heads, and apparently the gangs outside the village have invented some fun and innovative new poisons. We’re short-staffed, so we could use some more sets of experienced hands on deck if you can get down here.”

“Got it. Give me a couple minutes to wake up and get ready, and I’ll be over there.”

Sakura hung up and rubbed her face. She did not love being woken up at four in the morning on a day that she was supposed to have off. But she knew that Shizune truly would not have called her if it weren’t an emergency. If somebody’s life didn’t depend on it.

She got dressed, and then she ducked into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

She was preparing to tip-toe through the living room in the dark to not wake Sasuke up, but when she left the bathroom, she saw him sitting up on her couch, fully wrapped in a blanket, looking like he was only barely awake.

“Shit, sorry,” she said. “Did I wake you up or did the phone?”

“The phone, but I didn’t want to go back to sleep until I made sure everything was okay. Was that the hospital?” His voice was tired and raspy and sleepy. Which Sakura thought was kind of hot, but now was not the time for that.

“Yeah. I got called in.” She made her way over to the front door and bent down to put her heels on. As she did so, she added, “Sounds like some rookie genin got pulled into a higher-rank mission they had no business being on. Not that anybody in this room can relate to that.”

Sasuke smirked.

“I could be there for a while,” she added, “so don’t feel like you have to wait around for me, okay?”

He got to his feet and walked over to the doorway, pulling the blanket with him. “Well, can I do anything to help out around here? I owe you for hosting me.”

She straightened up. They were standing so close together.

Impulsively, she wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled in for a hug goodbye. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, enveloping her in the blanket, too. It was so warm and comfortable and nice that she could’ve stayed there forever.

“Just go back to bed, okay?” she said softly. “And then go have a nice boys’ day out with Naruto or something. Enjoy your time off. I’ll be back in time for dinner, so maybe we can go shopping and make something then.”

“’Kay,” he mumbled.

Sakura could have fallen asleep again standing up, as long as they were both in that blanket, and he was holding her like that, and her head was resting against his chest like that. But after a few long, delicious moments, she forced herself to let go of him and head out into the cold to go to work.

Stabilizing the genin took a few hours, but eventually, Sakura and the other top medical staff were able to extract the poison, heal the damage to the kids’ organs, and get them awake and responsive again. She made sure that they were all resting in their hospital beds before she finally—for the first time since the sun came up—went to her office to take a break.

She was only somewhat surprised to see Tsunade already there, sitting in Sakura’s chair, with her feet propped up on Sakura’s desk.

Even though Tsunade was supposed to be retired, she frequently snuck her way into Sakura’s office and made herself at home. About one-fourth of the time, there was an actual reason why she was coming to see Sakura. The rest of the time, it was mostly to gossip and be a distraction until it was an appropriate time in the afternoon for Tsunade to find Shizune and go out drinking.

And, given recent developments in her personal life, Sakura could guess the reason for her mentor’s visit.

“Hey, kiddo,” Tsunade said. “I heard about your houseguest.”

Sakura sunk into one of the chairs in front of her desk. “What exactly did you hear?” she asked wearily. “And more importantly, who did you hear it from?”

“Kakashi, so you know that my intel’s good. He told me that Sasuke Uchiha made a surprise appearance at the village gates, and now he’s staying at your apartment for the foreseeable future.”

“For a couple of days,” Sakura corrected. “It’s not like he moved in with me. He’s just crashing on my couch while he’s at home.”

Tsunade sat up straight, putting her feet on the floor, and rested her elbows on Sakura’s desk. “So, is he doing okay?” she asked earnestly.

Sakura smiled. “Yeah. Actually, this is maybe the best I’ve ever seen him.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I mean, he’s still a little bit nervous about being home after everything. But . . . he’s a completely different person from who he was in the war. It really feels like we got Sasuke back now.”

Tsunade was smiling. “That’s great news. I’m glad to hear it.”

Everybody thought that Tsunade didn’t like Sasuke. And Sakura couldn’t really blame anyone who thought that way. After all, Sasuke been at the center of nearly every crisis during Tsunade’s tenure as Hokage, so he certainly hadn’t made Tsunade’s life any easier.

But as much as Tsunade grumbled about Sasuke having been a little “punk ass,” in her words, she’d never actually hated him. Maybe she’d been frustrated with or disappointed in him, but mostly, she’d been frightened for him. Worried about him. Like Kakashi, Tsunade understood that Sasuke had fallen through the cracks. It was why she’d stuck her neck out for him and protected him, even after he’d deserted the village. Why she kept shielding him for so long, way longer than other people may have, up until she literally couldn’t anymore. 

Sakura felt her cheeks flush a little from happiness. “I’m glad, too,” she admitted softly. “It’s really nice having him home again.”

Tsunade rested her chin in her hands. “Just . . . please promise me you’re going to be careful, okay?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’ve been your mentor since you were twelve, and you are one of the most intelligent, rational, hard-working, take-no-bullshit women I’ve ever met. And all of your common sense goes right out the fucking window when it comes to that boy.”

Sakura scowled. “That’s not true.”

Tsunade just raised her eyebrows without saying anything.

Sakura’s temper flared. “First of all, nothing is even happening. He and I are just friends—”

“Uh-huh,” Tsunade said knowingly.

“And second of all,” Sakura continued, pointing a finger at her, “even if there were something going on, I know that I’m not about to get some kind of purity talk about being a good, chaste little girl from you of all people.”

Tsunade grinned. “Oh, trust me, I wish you would take a fucking night off and get into some trouble every now and then. With one of the nice boys around here. Not the boy who has inspired every single one of your stupidest decisions.”

“I’d also argue that he’s inspired some of my best decisions,” Sakura pointed out. “He and Naruto both helped me realize how much more potential I could realize if I worked harder. I only accomplished half this shit because I was trying to keep up with Sasuke.”

Tsunade made a disgusted face. “I understand your point, but never give a man credit for your success, Sakura Haruno. You did not earn that seal on that forehead of yours for a guy."

Sakura smirked.

Just then, Ino came in from the hallway, carrying a giant box. “Hey, ladies! Sakura, I have a delivery from the front desk for you. And Lady Tsunade, if you’re here to bug Shizune, she just woke up from her power nap.”

Tsunade wiggled her eyebrows mischievously. “Excellent. Shizune owes me a poker rematch, and she’s not getting out of it today.”

She got up from behind Sakura’s desk. As she walked to the door, she paused to put a hand on top of Sakura’s head.

“I’m not kidding,” she said. “Be careful. He’s a good boy, but this isn’t a romance novel. Both of you guys have been through some shit. Independently and with each other. So just . . . please take care of yourself.”

“I will,” Sakura said.

Tsunade winked at her, and then she headed out the door.

Ino glanced at Sakura. “Was that about Sasuke?”

Sakura sighed. “Yeah. Cat’s out of the bag, I guess.” She got up to take her own seat behind her desk. “Is that from Iruka-sensei?”

“Yup! He brought over the stuff from the Academy that you wanted to borrow for the class tomorrow.” Ino put the box on the desk and started holding things up: a megaphone, some clipboards, a couple of plastic cones. “He also enlisted some genin to bring over some punching bags tomorrow morning, so you should be all set.”

The next afternoon, Sakura was leading a free self defense class for civilians on the hospital lawn.

That little incident with that man outside of the hospital—and the little meeting with the elders afterward—had pissed her off more acutely than anything had in a long time. But if there was one thing that Sakura was good at, it was channeling her rage into productive, actionable plans. So within twenty-four hours of that meeting with the elders, she’d worked together with Tsunade and Shizune to get the class set up.

She would be the leader, with Tenten and Hinata as her assistants. Naruto had volunteered to be Sakura’s demonstration partner/punching bag (“I feel like I owe some kind of cosmic repentance on behalf of the Pervy Sage,” he’d said), so Lee was going to be Tenten’s, and Kiba was going to be Hinata’s. They were going to be walking through basic hand-to-hand combat moves—the things that even an untrained civilian could do without infusing chakra.

Because Sakura was going to protect the people of the village no matter what it took—and sometimes, instead of intel missions and shadowy work, all it took was a free community class where she could share her expertise.

Ino leaned over Sakura’s desk. “I have a proposal. Since everyone knows that Sasuke’s home already—and Temari and Karui are both in town—do you think Sasuke’d want to go out with everyone tomorrow night?”

“Like, out to dinner?”

“Yeah! We could all have a night out with the whole gang. Not that I ever need an excuse for us all to celebrate, but . . . I know people are gossiping, for better or for worse, so it might be good for all of us to present a unified front to the rest of the village. Show that we’re all back together and things are all back to normal.”

That actually seemed like a pretty good strategy to Sakura. Hopefully it would get people like those fuckheads in the market yesterday to keep their mouths shut. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll ask him.”

“Perfect!” Ino grinned. “Yakiniku Q's probably the best restaurant for a group that big, right? I should still probably call and make a reservation, though. Including the out-of-towners, that’s . . . what, fifteen people?”

Sakura counted off the names in her head. “Fourteen, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” Ino said. “It’s fifteen.”

Sakura checked the math again. “Fourteen,” she repeated. “Is somebody else coming?”

“Sai,” Ino said, as if that were obvious.

“No, I know Sai is coming,” Sakura said. “I’m already counting him.”

“But since Sasuke’s here, we finally have all of the OGs back together. So twelve plus Sai, Temari, and Karui makes fifteen.”

It suddenly hit Sakura so hard that she felt sick to her stomach.

Neji. The extra person Ino was counting was Neji.

She swallowed hard. “Sweetie, it’s not . . . We still don’t have all twelve of us.”

And we never will. Not anymore.

Ino opened her mouth to fight Sakura about it.

And then it hit her, too, and her face fell.

“Oh. Right.” She brushed some hair out of her face. “Uh, so . . . fourteen, huh? I’ll, uh, I’ll go make the reservation.”

Sakura went up to the hospital roof, which was where she went when she needed privacy. She sat underneath one of the water tanks, with her knees curled up to her chest. And for the first time since four in the morning, she let her façade of bravery falter.

She missed Neji.

As they’d gotten older, he’d become the big brother of the entire group. He’d been so smart, and such a stabilizing, rational presence. And he’d been kind to Sakura. He looked out for her, and he stood up for her when people underestimated her. More than once—especially during the period when Naruto had been out of the village training with Jiraiya—Neji had been the one to find her on her lowest days and give her a pep talk. They’d gone on more than one joint mission together, had more than one deep, intellectual conversation beside a campfire late at night.

He'd been a really great friend. And now he was just gone.

She’d grieved for Sasuke while he’d been away from the village. There was a very long time where she was convinced that he would never make it back home alive. But at the time, he was alive—there had still been a chance that all of them would be together again.

But it wasn’t possible anymore. Their whole group would never be whole again.

She sniffled and wiped the tears away from her eyes.

She really fucking missed Neji.

It surprised her that even now, a year and a half later, it still felt so raw. She could have so many days that felt so normal, and then the grief would hit her like a train out of nowhere.

For a while, she let herself feel it all like it was new again. And then, once she’d cried herself out, she dried her tears, got to her feet, and went back inside.

Sasuke wasn’t in the apartment when she got home. She assumed that he was out with Naruto, so she left him a note. And then she went to her bedroom. Between the healing and the crying, she was so exhausted that she fell back asleep for several hours.

When she finally woke up, it was past 6 PM, and she could smell the delicious scent of dinner on the stove.

Surprised, she went to the kitchen and saw Sasuke stirring some vegetables in a pan, while some noodles boiled in another pot. Every single square inch of free counter space was already covered in other food—bowls and plates of rice, fish, crabs, dumplings, tomatoes.

“Good morning,” he said.                                                                   

“Hi,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “You’re making dinner?”

He nodded. “I still owe you one for letting me stay here, so I wanted to do something that would help you out, and I thought it would be nice if you had a big dinner when you woke up.” He nodded his head at the various plates. “I might’ve overdone it, though.”

She smiled. “No kidding. Do you want any help?”

He shook his head. “It’s kind of cramped in here, and you’ve had a long day. You can go sit down if you want. It’s almost ready.”

She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to hang out with him. And she wanted to watch him—he seemed so at ease in a kitchen, so much more than she was expecting.

She leaned against the doorway and crossed her arms. “I guess I didn’t realize you liked cooking so much.”

“I do. I just don’t get to do it that often these days—I’m usually eating at restaurants or cooking over fires.” After a moment, he added, “It kind of reminds me of my mother. I always liked helping her in the kitchen when I was little. I used to follow her around all the time while she was cooking or doing chores.”

It had been a long, long time since Sakura heard Sasuke talk about his mother. She watched him for a second to see if he was okay, if she should change the subject to more comfortable ground. But he seemed fine. In fact, he was smiling.

“I can definitely picture you being a momma’s boy,” she teased lightly.

He shrugged. “My father didn’t have much time for me. There really isn’t a use for the second-born son in a big clan like that, you know? My father was more focused on . . . his legacy. And he was so, you know . . . .” He put his hand in front of his face with his fingers splayed wide, seeming to indicate seriousness. “Things were kind of easier with my mom.”

He had danced around mentioning Itachi. Even yesterday, when Itachi had come up in conversation, Sasuke had refused to say his name. So Sakura made a note of the rules: Sasuke was comfortable talking about his parents—and maybe even wanted to talk about them, to be able to chat about the good memories. But his brother was still off-limits.

“Your mom always seemed really nice,” Sakura said. “When she used to come to things at school. I always thought she was so pretty.”

He looked back down at the pan, but his lips twitched. “She used to think that you were really cute.”

Sakura felt her face burn with a flush. “She did? I didn’t even think your parents knew who I was.”

“You drew me a picture or made me a card or something when we were really young at the Academy, and my mother found it in my backpack, so she made a point of figuring out which one you were. I remember her telling my father about it at dinner. She was crying laughing because she thought you were so cute with your little bow in your hair, and she was joking about making my father go arrange the marriage right then.” His face was bright red, but he was smiling.

She grinned. “What did your dad say?”

“He just wanted to know if you were smart, because he was only going to let me marry you if you were at the top of the class. I don’t think it was completely a joke. He couldn’t even talk about stuff like that without turning it into a lecture about the clan’s status.”

Sakura heard a slight note of resentment in his voice, which surprised her. “So what’d you tell him?”

He glanced over at her, smirking. “The truth. That you were the smartest girl in the class, but that I didn’t even want to marry you, because you were annoying.”

Sakura gave him the finger. His eyes sparkled with laughter.

Grinning, she straightened up and went to the cabinets so she could get some plates to set the table.

While her back was turned, Sasuke said, “I think my mother would’ve been glad that we were friends. If she got to know you now. I think she would’ve liked you.”

Sakura knew that her face was bright red, and she kept her back to him. “What, not Dad?” she teased him.

To her surprise, Sasuke thought for a second before answering. “You’re very opinionated. My father only got along with opinionated people as long as their opinions aligned with his.”

“‘Opinionated’ is a very polite way of putting it, so thank you for that.”

He snorted. “Well, it’s not like it’s a bad thing. You have the courage of your convictions. It’s an admirable trait in a shinobi.”

She fought off her grin. “Well . . . thank you.” She grabbed a couple of plates. “Still. I bet I could’ve won your dad over eventually. We’re all Leaf Village shinobi at the end of the day, right? It’s not like he and I would have disagreed about anything important.”

Sasuke stayed silent for a couple long moments. Longer than she would’ve expected. She glanced over at him.

“Probably not,” he said finally, still looking down at the pan in front of him. “But being challenged every now and then probably would’ve been good for him.”

Once Sasuke finished cooking, Sakura helped him carry all the plates out to the table. They took their seats on opposite sides. Sakura had never felt so much like a grown-up, as if she and Sasuke were a married couple having dinner together.

“Were those genin at the hospital this morning okay?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah. It was kind of a tricky poison extraction, which is why I got called in. But luckily, everyone is happy and healthy now.” She nodded at him. “What’d you do while I was gone?”

“Naruto and I went to Ichiraku for lunch. Because apparently I’m the only one who isn’t sick of it, who will go there with him willingly without complaining.”

“How was it?”

His lips twitched. “It was actually really good,” he admitted. “It’s still the best ramen I’ve ever had. I think maybe everyone started taking it for granted when he started dragging them there every week, but it deserves all the praise Naruto gives it. Don’t tell him I said that, though.”

Sakura grinned. “Oh, no, of course not. We’d never hear the end of it.”

Sasuke’s eyes lit up with silent laughter again.

The little boy-crazy voice in Sakura’s head said, I want to spend the rest of my life doing whatever it takes to make Sasuke Uchiha keep looking at me like that.

“Naruto said something about a self-defense class tomorrow?” Sasuke asked.

“Oh, yeah. Hinata and Tenten and I are hosting one at the hospital, and Naruto’s helping out. You can come, too, if you want. I don’t know if I can use you for the class, but I could probably find some work for you to do in the children’s ward. I’ve certainly made everybody else do enough free labor for me at this point.”

“I’d be happy to help.”

“Thank you. Oh, and speaking of the class, Ino’s inviting everyone out for dinner after, and she wants to know if you want to come.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Who’s ‘everyone’? All the usual suspects from when we were kids?”

“Yup. And Sai. And Temari and Karui, who are going to be around. Ino suggested it might be a good idea for all of us to make an appearance together from a public relations standpoint.” She shrugged. “But obviously, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

He thought about it. “I’ll do it.”

“Really?”

He cleared his throat. “I, uh, probably owe everyone else some apologies, too. It’ll be good to . . . clear the air with everyone.”

Sakura felt her heart hitch. She said softly, “That’s not why she invited you, Sasuke. She just misses you and wants to hang out with you. So does everyone else.”

He shrugged. “I’m excited to see the children’s center. I’ve heard a lot about it.”

She didn’t miss the fact that he was changing the subject. But, frankly, he'd already opened up to her way more that night than she'd ever expected he would, with all of that talk about his parents. She didn't blame him for wanting to be done talking about his feelings for a little bit, for wanting to have a normal, easy night.

Instead, she asked, “You have? From who?”

 “Orochimaru, actually. Orochimaru’s the one who first told me about you opening the children’s ward and Kabuto running the orphanage. And the Sand siblings—they were working on their hospital the last time I was over there, and they just kept talking about how much of the work you had done first and how helpful you were.”  

Sakura looked away from him, trying to hide the flush in her cheeks. “Well, Ino and I have certainly been working very hard on it.”

Sasuke watched her for a moment. “It does seem like they’re keeping you pretty busy these days.”

She started to poke at her tomatoes with her fork. “Things are just crazy right now. It’s hectic because the village is still in a rebuilding phase after the war, and someday, things are going to calm down, and it’s not going to be this hectic anymore. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.”

He let out a soft little snort. And then he asked, with a voice that was soft and careful, “But you’re doing okay with all of it, right?”

She smiled down at her plate. “Of course. I really am happy. It’s busy, but it’s important work, and it’s for the sake of the village. And besides that, I genuinely love my job. It’s just . . .” She hesitated, and then she admitted, “I feel like I have the opposite problem that you do with the Rinnegan. It feels like there’s always a reason to have to stay in the village and stay at the hospital. The village needs me here. And it’s not like I’m unhappy or ungrateful for the opportunity, but . . . I miss travelling sometimes, you know? I miss all those missions we went on as kids, sleeping out under the stars, going to new places. It was fun.”

Sasuke stayed silent for a moment. “Then you should come on the road with me some time for a mission. When things slow down at the hospital. If you still want to, I mean.”

Sakura was so surprised she nearly dropped her fork. Her eyes shot up towards him.

She remembered that day at the village gate, when she’d asked to travel with him, and he’d poked her in the forehead and smiled and said so gently, Maybe next time. Thank you, Sakura.

“Really?” she asked. “You really want me to go with you? You meant it?”

“Of course I did. And I still mean it now.”

She was grinning like a little girl on her birthday. “I would love that. That would be so much fun, Sasuke.”

His face was a little bit pink, too. “Let me know when things calm down enough in the village that you can get away for a little bit, and we’ll figure it out.”

Her cheeks hurt from how much she was smiling. “I will.”

Chapter Text

The next afternoon, Sakura and Sasuke walked over to the hospital for Sakura’s self-defense class.

The novelty of having Sasuke home—of spending normal time with him, of walking around the village together—hadn’t worn off yet. She just kept glancing over at him and smiling. It felt really good to be with him.

“Hey, Sasuke, will you play a game with me?” she asked him. She was thinking of a game that Ino and Temari had apparently played with Shikamaru and Sai. Apparently it had inspired a spirited discussion amongst the boys, and she’d been curious about what Sasuke’s answers would be ever since the girls told her about it.

“Sure,” Sasuke said. “What kind of game?”

“Which wild animals do you think you could take in a fight?”

He looked concerned. “Am I going to have to fight an animal at some point today?”

“No, it’s just a thought experiment. It’s hypothetical.”

“I wouldn’t fight an animal, though. I like animals.”

She let out a playful little scoff. “Pretend the animal is going—”

She cut herself off. She nearly said, Pretend the animal is going to kill everyone you love.

“Pretend there’s a small child,” she said instead, “and they climbed up a big, big tree because an animal is coming to get them. The only way to save the child’s life is by defeating this animal. Which animals could you fight?”

He thought about it. “Do I have to survive the fight, or does it count as long as the kid makes it to safety?”

“For the purposes of this experiment, you both have to survive.”

“What counts as winning the fight? Do I have to kill the animal, or subdue it, or can I just outsmart it and take the kid and run?”

“If it will get you to play with me, then I will accept outsmarting the animal as a victory condition.”

He kept thinking. “Am I allowed to use chakra?”

She grinned. “No, because then you’ll just genjutsu the animal, and that’s not a fun way of playing the game. I know your tricks, mister.”

His lips twitched. “Am I allowed to use weapons?”

“No.”

“Is the animal rabid?”

“No, but it hates you specifically.”

“But it can be reasoned with.”

She grinned. “Sure, yeah. It can be reasoned with.” She realized, to her absolute delight, that he was taking the game one hundred percent seriously now.

He kept thinking.

“Alligator,” she proposed.

“I could fight an alligator.”

“Elaborate.”

He was staring into the middle distance, gesturing with his hand. “I get on its back and wrestle it, I hold its mouth closed, kid gets out of the tree and runs. Then I get off the alligator’s back without it biting me—”

“How do you get off its back without being bitten?” she prompted. “Show your work.”

He glanced at her. “ . . . Carefully. That’s how.”

She snorted. “What about a snake?”

“Oh, easy. Befriend the snake, get it to let the kid out of the tree.”

“Befriend the snake?”

“It’s not that hard. I’m friends with Aoda.”

“Your summoning snake?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You just have to talk about things that snakes like. Like mice and interesting smells and taking naps in sun spots.”

Her cheeks were starting to hurt from how much she was smiling. “Okay. Wrestle the alligator, befriend the snake. What about a goose?”

He smirked. “Geese are assholes. That kid’s on their own.”

She giggled.

Just then, the elders passed them by on the opposite side of the road.

Homura glanced at her and Sasuke, meeting Sakura’s eyes. He didn’t seem too surprised to see either of them, but he certainly didn’t seem that thrilled about it. Koharu finally noticed them, too, and she simply gave both of them a glance with those dark eyes of hers before picking up the pace a little and continuing on her way.

“And good morning to you both, too,” Sakura muttered under her breath.

After a moment, Sasuke said quietly, “I don’t think they ever really agreed with the pardon.”

Sakura remembered. After the war, there had been so much discussion about Sasuke being pardoned. She and Naruto, as Sasuke’s teammates, had both vouched for him. So had Tsunade, as the Fifth Hokage, and so had Kakashi, as the incoming Lord Sixth.

But the elders had objected. At least until Kakashi, Naruto, and Yamato had a separate meeting with the elders and got into some kind of screaming match with them. And after that, the elders withdrew their complaints, and the pardon was approved.

None of them would explain to Sakura what the fight was about. Not even Naruto. The only thing that he would say was: “Sasuke has owned up to all the things he’s done wrong. It’s not fair that the elders get to sit there and pretend like they handled everything perfectly when we all know how the village used to treat the kids that fell through the cracks.”

Sakura shrugged. “Well, if it makes you feel better, at least fifty percent of that stink eye was geared towards me.”

Sasuke glanced at her. “What’d you do?”

After a split second of indecision, she decided to tell him the truth. He was her teammate, after all, and if she couldn’t talk to him, then who could she talk to? “It’s budget meeting time, and they’re mad at me because I had a little tiff with some financial advisor’s son the other day.”

He raised his eyebrows, looking slightly amused. “What’d he do?”

She swallowed hard. “He, uh, tried to grab me when I was walking home from the hospital a couple weeks ago. So I broke a bunch of his bones.”

All of Sasuke’s amusement vanished in an instant. He stopped in his tracks. “What? Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.” She pulled on a brave face and flexed her muscles. Trying to be flippant, to act like she didn’t care, like it hadn’t been a big deal. “You think I can’t win in a fist fight against some sniveling little rich kid? I didn’t get a scratch on me.”

He still looked concerned. “I’m sure that you handled it easily, but it’s not okay that it happened.”

“Trust me. I’m a kunoichi. Getting manhandled by creeps is in the job description.”

This had the opposite of the desired effect. Instead of looking calmer, Sasuke looked lost for words. Finally, he said, “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”

Something about the concern on his face, in his voice, made her tough-guy act crack a little. “I appreciate that. But trust me, this prick does not even crack the top ten of worst people I’ve had to deal with.”

He glanced back at the elders. “But why are they mad at you? Do they know that this guy deserved it?”

“Oh, yeah. I reported everything in, exactly like I was supposed to. But his rich daddy threatened to rip up a contract for a bunch of weapons and surveillance tech if we pressed charges, so the elders wouldn’t let Kakashi or Lady Tsunade pursue it any further. I think the elders did the math and decided that it was better to protect more villagers by getting the weapons. So . . . they’re mad at me for causing all the drama and making this an issue in the first place, I guess.”

Sasuke looked livid. “So that guy’s not even in jail?”

“Nope.”

He was still glaring back at the elders. His voice was quiet and angry. “What if it hadn’t been you? It shouldn’t have been anybody, but the only reason this wasn’t worse is because he tried to pick a fight with you. What if it had been a civilian? He could have killed someone.”

“Trust me, I pointed that out, too. It didn’t change anything. There’s a reason why we’re hosting self-defense classes.”

The fury was clear on Sasuke’s face. “Where is he now?”

“No,” she said immediately. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it. It’s not worth it.”

“I think it’s worth it,” he muttered darkly.

“It’s not. I got in trouble, Sasuke. And honestly, you can’t afford to do anything stupid right now. You don’t think that there are some very powerful, very corrupt people who would love an excuse to get you taken off duty and keep you sidelined before you can start digging around in their shit? Because that’s exactly what they’re going to do if you try to go vigilante about this.”

He looked defeated. “But—”

“The rules are different for stuff like this,” she insisted. “Political stuff in the village.”

“She’s right, you know,” said a voice from behind them. “Not every problem can be resolved with brute force.”

Sakura and Sasuke turned.

There was “Sukea”—Kakashi in disguise as a freelance journalist, just like when they were kids and trying to see under his mask, with the camera and the face paint and the wig and everything.

Sakura smirked. “I haven’t seen you in a while!”

“Sukea” smiled, too. “Oh, you know me. I only appear when there’s a story worth chasing.” He turned to Sasuke. “How are you doing, young man? I haven’t seen you since you were twelve!”

Sasuke spent a few seconds just staring. He opened his mouth a few times, but couldn’t get any words out. Finally, he said, “Are you fucking serious?”

“Whatever could you mean, young man?” Kakashi said, although his mouth—visible for once—had stretched into a shit-eating grin.

Sakura started to giggle.

Sasuke was trying to look angry, but his eyes were lit up with laughter. In a low voice, he said, “I need you to know that I told other people about that day. I told Orochimaru about Sukea. Orochimaru was trying to get intel out of me and asked me if I’d ever seen your face, and I said, ‘No, but we tried, and one time this journalist even helped us—’”

“Oh, Orochimaru knew it was me as soon as you told that story. Come on, now.”

Sasuke made a show of rolling his eyes, but Sakura saw his lips twitch.

“So why are you gracing us with your presence?” Sakura asked “Sukea” with a grin.

Kakashi shrugged. “Well, I had some free time today, so . . . what else is a journalist to do but investigate? Unfortunately, ‘Kakashi’ has been instructed by the elders not to intervene, but that doesn’t mean a journalist can’t do some digging. The new Feudal Lord and most of his advisors are actually pretty decent people, so if a journalist just happened to hear about a representative abusing his power, and happened to be researching that for a story, and word happened to get back to the Feudal Lord . . . .”

Sasuke nodded. “You’re your own informant. You ‘leak’ information to yourself so you can get it out—or threaten to get it out—without anyone knowing it originated from you.”

In his little, folksy voice, “Sukea” said, “I don’t know about all that. I’m just saying that the press is a very important and useful tool.” He winked and put his hand on top of Sakura’s head. “Thanks for taking this mission as far as you did. I got it from here.”

She smiled. “Tell Kakashi I said thank you.”

“I will. Well, have fun at the class, children!” He saluted them and then sauntered down the street.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Sasuke muttered, shaking his head.

“I told you you’ve seen him without his mask on before,” Sakura teased.

She started walking again, with Sasuke keeping pace beside her.

After a moment, Sasuke cleared his throat. “So, uh, are you sure you’re all good?”

“Yeah. Are you sure you’re good?” She could still tell that Sasuke was upset. She’d forgotten how easy it was to read him, once you knew the subtle cues.

He paused. “It bothers me that there isn’t anything I can do about what happened. For you personally, or . . . to fix the whole thing.”

She bumped her shoulder into his. “Well, I really appreciate your concern.”

He didn’t look at her. But he said softly, “I’m here, you know. If there is anything I can do. Or if you need to talk or anything. If it’s bothering you.”

As she kept walking, she crossed her arms over her chest, looked down at her feet.

She kept thinking about it.

The scariest part of that night hadn’t been realizing that the guy was behind her—she was a highly-trained killing machine, so she’d sensed somebody behind her and reacted automatically. It wasn’t like she’d ever been in any real physical danger.

The scary part had been looking at him on the ground and realizing what was going on. And once that part of it sunk in, she couldn’t stop shaking with adrenaline—not when she flagged down some Leaf Village Police officers, not when she helped escort the guy to the station, not when she put in her official incident report. She was a professional, and she’d been in battles that were a thousand times scarier than that . . . but there was some illogical fear and shame that she couldn’t shake.

It all started pouring out of her, all at once. “I’m just so mad. And so embarrassed. I feel silly that it’s even bothering me, because I did handle it, and it could have been so much worse, and there are so many bigger problems to worry about. I hate that this asshole is even getting an ounce of my brain space when I fought in a whole-ass fucking war. But it just sucks, you know? I feel gross. I know it’s not my fault, and I know exactly what I would if this happened to somebody else—that it wasn’t their fault, and they didn’t do anything wrong. But I just keep thinking of all the things I could have done differently—”

“No.” Sasuke stopped in his tracks and turned to her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. That guy was just a monster. When other people mistreat you, it’s a reflection of them. It’s not a reflection of you.”

She didn’t answer right away. Just kept walking and staring at the ground below her feet.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Look at me for a sec.”

She stopped and looked up at him. He bent down, so that he was looking directly into her eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Sakura,” he told her. “And there is not something wrong with you that caused this to happen or made you vulnerable to it. Other people’s cruelty is not a reflection of you or your worth or your intelligence. This is not about anything that you did. It’s not your fault. Okay?”

She believed him. The way he said it, the hurt and the understanding in his eyes . . . she believed him. In a way she hadn’t been able to believe it when she’d been trying to console herself on her own.

A part of her wondered how long it had taken him to really believe that when it came to the things that had been done to him.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Okay. Thank you.”

He took his hand off her shoulder and started walking again. After a moment, he said, “So. Kid’s stuck in a tree. The animal guarding it is a bear. How do you win the fight? Show your work.”

She smiled. And she blinked back the mistiness in her eyes as she fell back into step next to him. “That depends on what kind of bear it is.”

They got to the hospital a little early, so Sasuke asked to see the new children’s clinic. Sakura couldn’t show him the patient rooms—they already had some kids in the program, and Sakura wanted to protect their privacy—so instead, she took him to the clinic’s new welcome area. It had, at one point, been a giant storage closet for some of the old paper files and scrolls that the hospital had to keep around. But now that the hospital was switching to a digital archiving system and consolidating the paper storage areas, Sakura had gotten permission to repurpose the room into a lobby and an office, the center of the children’s clinic.

“We’re still renovating it,” Sakura said as she gestured around the room. “We had to knock out a wall, and Ino and I painted all the walls this blue color. We bought a bunch of cute little toys to put in the toy bin, in case any of the kids need a friend to snuggle with. And we’ve taken any free furniture we can get a hold of from around the village—that front desk was a teacher’s desk from the Academy that Iruka-sensei was going to get rid of.”

 Sasuke looked around silently for a few moments, looking at the baby blue walls, the purple couches, a green child-sized play table with yellow child-sized chairs. “It’s colorful,” he said finally.

Sakura smiled. “I wanted it to feel welcoming. I know hospitals can be kind of sterile and scary, so . . . I wanted this to feel accessible. I wanted kids to feel comfortable coming here by themselves to ask for help.”

“Have you been getting a lot of kids?” Sasuke asked softly.

Sakura nodded. “Yeah. They’ve been showing up at the hospital since the end of the war, because it was the only place they could think of to go for help. Even if they weren’t physically injured, they had been orphaned or traumatized. And you know . . . when we were younger—even when Kakashi was younger—the village just wasn’t equipped to help kids with stuff like this. Usually the only person in any position of authority who was paying attention was a squad’s jonin leader, who was usually also traumatized and didn’t know how to help. At worst, you had people like—"

She just barely stopped herself from saying Danzo's name. She wasn’t sure if Sasuke wanted to be reminded of that day, in the height of his grief and madness, when he’d killed Danzo.

Instead, she said, "We have to be able to send these kids to someone who doesn't make a profit off of sending orphans to war and re-traumatizing them. Think of how many people we’ve encountered who ended up doing horrible things because of the terrible things they went through as children. Think of Gaara, and Obito, and Kabuto, and Orochimaru, and . . . .”

She let her voice trail off. They both knew she was including him, but she didn’t say it out loud.

“So,” she said finally, “why treat the symptom when you can treat the cause? It’s not going to fix everything, but maybe if we get some of these kids the interventions they need in the first place, right when they need them . . . it’ll help. Maybe having a place to go that's safe will make a difference."

“It will,” Sasuke said, his voice soft.

Sakura turned and looked at him. He wasn’t looking at her—he was staring at the welcome desk—but his voice was so quiet and vulnerable.

“It would have mattered,” he said softly. “If something like this had existed before. So many things could have been avoided.”

Sakura swallowed back a lump in her throat. “That’s the goal,” she said weakly.

Sasuke turned towards one of the walls, which had a mural painted on it. A landscape with a beautiful tree, where all of the leaves were handprints. “Did Sai paint this?”

Sakura smiled. “Yeah. He did. Everyone’s helped out a lot, and . . . Sai wanted to add something. We all did.” She pointed over towards a little cart in the corner of the room, with all the paints and art supplies that they'd used to decorate the room. Some of Sai’s nice art supplies were still there, like his fancy inks and brushes and his cleaning rags, but there were also the bottles of child-friendly paint they’d used to make the handprints and some plates.

He took a few steps closer to the mural. “Whose handprints are whose?”

She stepped up beside him and started pointing them out. “Here’s Kiba and Akamaru, obviously. Shino’s next to them. Here’s Kurenai and Mirai. Guy and Kakashi and Tsunade. Shikamaru is over here. Tenten and Lee are this whole branch.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m in a few places. I have one up here with Ino, and one over here with Naruto and Hinata. And one over here all by my lonesome, because we had some blank space to fill up.” She pointed to a single red handprint, alone on a branch at the bottom by itself. And then she looked at Sasuke. “There’s still some gaps we need to fill in. Do you want to do one?”

He smiled. “Sure.”

Grinning, Sakura went over the cart of art supplies. “What color do you want?”

“Is black an option?”

“It is not.”

He thought about it. “Purple.”

She grabbed a bottle of purple kid-friendly paint and poured some onto a plate. Sasuke lightly planted his hand in the paint, and then he pressed his hand against the wall, on the same lower branch as her lone handprint. When he pulled his hand away, his purple hand was printed next to her red one.

Sakura looked at them, smiling, her face turning pink.

And Sasuke went over to the art supplies cart, grabbed a rag, and tried to wipe the paint off his hand. “I think this is only making it worse,” he said after a minute.

Sakura put down the plate and walked over to him. “The darker colors have been kind of a bitch to wash off.”

After a few more moments, he seemed to give up on trying to wipe the paint off. He looked at her and held the rag out, silently asking what to do with it. Sakura took the dirty rag from him and—not knowing what to do, either—put it on top of the art supplies cart.

He was holding his hand out, his palm still tinted light purple.

Impulsively, Sakura took hold of his hand, cradling it in hers, under the guise of inspecting the paint on his palm. “We can find a bathroom so you can wash it off,” she said softly. “Your hand still might be a little bit purple for the rest of the day, though.”

“That’s fine,” Sasuke said quietly.

Sakura didn’t look up at his eyes. She stared down at his hand, thinking about how big and strong it was. How long his fingers were, how she could feel the callouses from years of training. And she tried not to get flustered by the fact that she could feel his gaze on her face, watching her.

She could feel herself blushing. “Anyway, we should probably . . . .”

She started to step back, to pull her hand away. She ducked her head and tried to turn away without looking at him, because she didn’t know what she’d do if she looked into that handsome face, those gorgeous eyes.

Sasuke took gentle hold of her wrist. “Sakura.”

After a moment, she looked at him. Saw the way he was staring at her. Saw so many emotions—some that she understood, some that she didn’t—etched into his face, shining in his eyes.

“Sakura!”

Sakura and Sasuke both let go of each other in unison, quickly putting a foot of distance between them, as Konohamaru—one of several genin who had been drafted into helping out with the self-defense class—emerged from the hallway.

“What’s the hold-up, Sakura?” he was asking. “There’s a whole bunch of people—”

He stopped short when he caught sight of Sasuke. His expression was some mix between surprised, worried, and star-struck. “Oh,” he said. “Uh . . . Sasuke. I didn’t know—”

“What’s up, Konohamaru?” Sakura asked pointedly.

It took Konohamaru another second to pull his eyes away from Sasuke. “Uh, we have a bunch of people here for the class already,” he said. “Big Brother Naruto told me to come find you and to say that you should probably get started soon.”

“Got it. Tell him I’m here, and I’ll be along in a second.”

Konohamaru’s eyes flickered between Sasuke and Sakura, as a smirk slowly stretched across his lips. “I’m sure you will be—”

Sakura grabbed the dirty, paint-covered rag and threw it at him, but Konohamaru yelped and ran out of the room before it hit him.

“He’s such a little shit,” Sakura muttered. She turned back to Sasuke, who was smirking at her.

She felt the craving inside of her again. To make sure that Sasuke was always looking at her like this, smiling at her like this. For him to think she was cute, important, funny.

“Should you go outside now?” Sasuke asked her.

“I guess.” She nodded her head towards the doorway. “Let’s go check out the crowd.”

Chapter Text

When Sasuke and Sakura got outside, there were already at least thirty people standing on the hospital lawn. A couple of stragglers were still waiting to check in with Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon, who had been volun-told by the Hokage's office to work the check-in, and who were holding clipboards and trying to look official. (The poor genin, Sakura thought. I do not miss these busywork and manual labor missions that they always stick the genin on. But it sure is nice to be on the other side of it and just make the genin do stuff for me.)

Sakura recognized a fairly decent number of the people in the crowd. It mostly seemed like civilians—some teenagers whose families had moved to the village after the war, some young housewives, some older aunts and grandmothers. But there was even a handful of Academy kids—Sakura recognized them from a special lecture Iruka had asked her to give—who were treating the class like serious business, stretching like they were about to do a rigorous combat lesson.

“Are they all here for the class?” Sakura muttered. “Holy shit.”

Sasuke smirked. “Your name’s on the poster, isn’t it? Who in their right mind is going to turn down the opportunity to take a hand-to-hand combat class with the woman who punched a god in the face?”

Sakura felt her face turn red, even as she grinned. “Valid point.”

The genin had set up some punching bags on the lawn for her. They'd also set up a little folding table at the front of the makeshift "classroom" with a pink plastic tablecloth on it. The giant box of supplies that Iruka had loaned Sakura was tucked underneath the table.

And the rest of her teaching assistants were already there, too: Lee and Tenten, Kiba with Akamaru at his feet, and Naruto and Hinata, leaning against the table. Naruto had his arm casually slung around Hinata’s shoulders, occasionally giving her a little squeeze.

It always gave Sakura a little feeling of warmth in her heart when she saw Naruto and Hinata together, taking care of each other. She felt like a proud big sister watching her little babies flourish.

But when Naruto saw Sakura and Sasuke approaching, he grinned and straightened up. “I thought we were going to have to start the class without you!”

“We’ve been here!” Sakura insisted. “We got here before all of you! We were just inside!”

The others turned, too, and all their eyes immediately locked onto Sasuke.

Sasuke didn’t even flinch, but Sakura felt her pulse quicken with nervousness for him. After all, welcoming Sasuke back into Team Seven was one thing. Welcoming him back into the inner circle of the Konoha Eleven—who had all once decided that he was too far gone to save, that killing him was the only way to save the village—was another.

But Hinata and Lee smiled at him immediately.  Hinata’s cheeks were flushed pink. “It’s so nice to see you again, Sasuke!” she said.

It took Tenten a second, but she quickly pulled on a smile, too. “Yeah, long time no see! How have you been?”

“I’ve been well,” Sasuke said. “How are you guys?”

“We are better now, seeing the original Team Seven back together again!” Lee said. “This is certainly a sight for sore eyes!”

Kiba had been watching silently for a few moments, scratching Akamaru behind his ears. After a moment, he finally—somewhat begrudgingly—gave Sasuke a little nod. “It’s good to have you back, man.”

Sasuke nodded back at him.

Akamaru came forward to sniff Sasuke's hand, and Sasuke let him. After a second, Akamaru gave his hand a little lick. Sasuke's lips twitched, and started to pet Akamaru's head.

Naruto turned to Sakura. “This is a great turn-out, huh? This is awesome! Are you excited?”

Sakura grinned. “Very! We might have to make this a regular thing if there’s this much demand for it.” She elbowed Sasuke and added, “Good thing I was able to rope in an extra teaching assistant.”

Naruto perked up. “You’re going to be Sakura’s punching bag with me?”

“Yeah. So try to keep up, okay, loser?" Sasuke teased. "Don’t slow me and Sakura down.”

Naruto let out a little pretend, world-weary sigh. “‘Sasuke should come home more,’ I said. ‘It’ll be just like when we were kids,’ I said—”

“What part of this isn’t exactly like it was when we were kids?” Sakura teased Naruto. “Isn’t this so fun? I’m having so much fun—”

“You know what else is exactly like we were kids,” Naruto interrupted, “is you taking his side for no reason and the two of you ganging up on me—”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sakura said innocently. “We’ve never ganged up on you. You’re my two special boys, and I’ve always loved both of you equally, and I’ve never played favorites between you two.”

“Never,” Sasuke agreed. “Not once.”

Naruto shook his head. “I can’t fucking stand you two.”

Hinata giggled. Sakura saw the joy in Tenten’s and Lee’s eyes, too, and even Kiba’s lips twitched.

“Oh, God,” Tenten said, grinning. “I suddenly feel like I’ve been transported back in time to when I was thirteen. This is worryingly familiar.”

“It is kind of nice,” Lee said. “Like we are children again.”

Sakura met Sasuke’s gaze. He was giving her that soft little half-smile of his.

“Anyway,” Sakura said, “we’re all set, right? Now that those last few people are checked in for the class, let’s get started.”

As Sakura led the class in some stretches and warm-ups, she made her  introductory speech.

“Today,” she said, “we’re going to teach you some very basic self-defense techniques. Hopefully you’ll be able to feel a little bit more confident going about your daily life with these in your back pocket. Obviously, I hope that you’ll never need to use them. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t ever come to that. In a perfect world, these men would understand that they don’t have the right to put their hands on us. It wouldn’t be our job to defend ourselves—it would be these creeps’ jobs to be better.”

She hadn’t intended to get emotional, but she could hear the edge in her voice, feel herself starting to get warm with anger. One of her hands curled into a fist.

“But we don’t live in that perfect world, and these creeps may not listen to appeals to their decency.” She cracked her knuckles. “So if that won’t work, we’ll appeal to their fear instead. If they put their hands on us, we’re going to make them bleed. I’m going to teach you how to make these jerks regret so much as looking twice at us.”

There was a glint in the eyes of all of her students—no matter what age they were, no matter how much experience they had coming in. Sakura recognized the looks in their eyes, because she saw it in her own eyes, and the eyes of every kunoichi she knew. These people were angry, and they were tired, and they were ready to fuck some shit up.

Sakura was happy to be the one to teach them how to do it.

To start, she taught them all the basics of situational awareness:

To be aware of all entrances and exits, to not let anyone get between them and a door, and to watch out of the corner of their eyes.

To listen to their gut if something felt wrong, even if it felt silly or like an overreaction, and to leave a situation that made them uncomfortable, even if they couldn’t enunciate why it did.

Not to be afraid to be a bitch or make a scene, because the people who were harassing them certainly didn’t care about being polite, and because it was better to be rude and alive than civil and dead.

To never be taken to a second location, to scream and fight and draw attention and do whatever it took.

To fight as dirty as they needed to, because this was not an honorable battle, and these creeps were not owed decency.

Then Sakura taught them some of her basic, but most effective, hand-to-hand combat techniques. She used Sasuke and Naruto as her human props—she’d gotten Naruto’s permission to hit him at full strength a couple of times for demonstration purposes, but mostly, she just had them demonstrate how an attacker might approach, so she could demonstrate where and how to hit back. She didn’t use her chakra—and had Lee help her demonstrate, too—to show that with the right technique, there were no special ninjutsu skills needed to defend yourself.

Sakura was surprised by how fun it was. It was clear that the girls in the class genuinely looked up to the kunoichi of the Leaf Village and were eager to learn from her, Hinata, and Tenten. Plus, Naruto and Kiba were both jokesters, and Lee was so kind, which helped to keep the mood light, and Akamaru made his way through the class to ask for pets and belly rubs from anyone who started to get too frustrated or overwhelmed.

But what surprised Sakura the most was what a good teacher Sasuke was, especially towards the Academy kids. For some reason, she wasn’t expecting him to be—maybe because he’d never been good at being a kid himself, and he’d never gotten along with other kids when he was one. But he seemed to adapt to being a teacher right away. He was able to give the kids good and clear feedback, but he didn’t coddle them, either, and the kids seemed to like the challenge of trying to impress him. Sakura couldn’t help but smile whenever she saw the big, strong Sasuke Uchiha helping some ten-year-olds out with their combat techniques, or how ecstatic the kids were when Sasuke praised them.

As the class went on, a crowd of spectators started to gather. Most were civilians who were curious about what was going on, but there were a few genin and even jonin lingering around—maybe hoping to get some free tips. Sasuke was right, Sakura thought. A free combat class from war vets is going to draw some attention.

But Sakura tuned the crowd out and stayed focused on her students. She could see them getting stronger and more confident before her eyes.

It reminded her of when she’d first started training with Tsunade. For some reason, before that point, it had never even occurred to her that she could be physically strong in the way that Sasuke and Naruto were. Even once she’d made genin. She’d been smart and analytical, but she wasn’t strong or powerful. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could ever play anything besides a backup role to the boys on Team Seven.

And then she’d met Tsunade, who was mouthy and smart and tough as nails and possibly just a little bit insane—and who was the most powerful and most respected person in the village.

Suddenly, a new world opened up. All the parts of herself that Sakura had tried to keep quiet in the name of being a demure, out-of-the-way little sidekick suddenly became assets. She stopped pretending that she didn’t know she was smart, and she stopped pretending that she was physically weak. She stopped trying to make herself worthy of getting a powerful man’s attention, and she got a better dream: making herself powerful beyond measure.

It was like a drug. She wondered why she’d ever wasted a single second of her life worrying about being pretty or popular when she could have power.

She could see that realization hitting the women in the class now. As people who had probably never even thrown a punch in their life landed hits on Naruto in pretend spars, and their faces lit up with glee. As they realized that they had power in their own lives, that life didn't just have to be something that happened to them. They could fight back.

Sakura couldn’t fix every problem in the world. But if she could help these people feel empowered—if she could teach them to trust themselves, to be confident, to feel safer in the world—then that was worth something.

After the class ended, quite a few of the students lingered behind with questions for Sakura, so she hung back to talk to them. When she did finally send the last student on her way, most of the post-class cleanup was already done—the folding table had been put away, most of the supplies that had been borrowed from Iruka had been packed up, and Udon, Moegi, and Konohamaru were loading up the punching bags on a wagon to schlup them back over to the Academy.

Sakura went to go join Sasuke, who was folding up the plastic tablecloth that had been on the table.

“Sorry for sticking you guys with most of the clean-up,” she said. “Thank you for the help.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s good that you could answer their questions. You’re a great teacher.”

She felt her face turn a little red at the compliment. “Thanks. Well, so are you.”

He shrugged and held out the tablecloth. “Where does this go?”

“We borrowed it from the hospital’s supply closet. I’ll go bring it to the front desk.” She took it from him, holding it bundled up in her arms.

“Will you show me what some of those punches look like with chakra sometime?”

She raised her eyebrows. “The ones I demonstrated on you? I’ll break your ribs if I do it for real.”

“As long as you put them back together afterward.” He had the smallest smile on his face, and he shrugged again. “You have such precise chakra control. The way you utilize it is interesting. I’m thinking about possible ways I could apply it to how I use the Sharingan.”

She grinned. “Tell you what. We’ll find some time before you head out on the road again, and we’ll train together and compare notes. Like old times. Okay?”

He nodded. “Great.”

She stopped herself from asking the obvious question: When are you heading back out on the road again?

He had said he was only going to stay in the village for a couple days, and it had already been a couple of days. But he didn’t seem to want to leave yet. And Sakura didn’t want him to, either.

So maybe it was better if she didn’t ask. Maybe she shouldn’t remind him that he wasn’t supposed to be staying. Maybe as long as neither of them brought it up, they could both keep pretending that this vacation didn’t have an end date.

She held the tablecloth tighter in her arms. “I’m going to bring this inside,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She brought the tablecloth—and some other things they’d borrowed from the hospital—inside to the front desk.

When she came back out, the sun was starting to set, and most of the rest of the group was sitting together on the hospital lawn. Hinata, Kiba, Akamaru, Tenten, and Lee had formed a little circle in the grass, along with Shikamaru, Choji, Temari, and Karui—the latter two of whom were supposed to be on Serious Village Diplomat Business, but who had apparently come to watch the back half of the class.

“That was great, Sakura,” Temari called out to her. “I keep thinking that we need to do more stuff like that in the Sand.”

Sakura went over to the circle and took a seat between Temari and Karui. “Thanks! You’re welcome to steal the idea. I’ve stolen plenty ideas from you and Kankuro and Gaara over the years.”

Sakura was used to seeing Temari around the Leaf Village—Temari found literally any excuse she could to come visit the Leaf Village, and Shikamaru invented literally any excuse he could to hang out with her. Temari was basically a member of Leaf Village Kunoichi Girl Squad by now.

But now Karui was starting to come around more often, too. How Choji and Karui had gotten together was an utter mystery to Sakura, but based on how often Karui was in the Leaf Village with Choji, or Choji got sent on missions to the Cloud Village, Sakura suspected that Karui wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. So Sakura was doing her best to include Karui in the Squad, which meant doing whatever it took to move past the war as quickly as possible.

Karui was watching Sasuke and Naruto, who were on the other side of the lawn by themselves, going around and picking up the little plastic, multi-colored cones that Sakura had put down during the class. It seemed mostly like an excuse for the two of them to have a side conversation away from the rest of the group.

Sakura wondered if Karui was thinking of what had happened during the war. Karui had cornered her, Naruto, and Sai, demanding information about Sasuke’s whereabouts. Naruto had refused to crack. So—Sakura learned later—Karui beat the shit out of Naruto until Sai intervened.

Sakura wondered what Karui thought now, watching the boys. If she understood now why Naruto had refused to sell Sasuke out.

“Are you okay?” Choji asked Karui softly. Seemingly thinking along the same lines as Sakura.

Karui nodded. “I’ve just never seen Sasuke Uchiha in his domesticated form before. It’s kind of strange.”

Kiba snorted. “We haven’t seen him in his domesticated form in, like, six years. Trust me, it’s weird for all of us.”

Karui looked surprised. “What do you mean?

“This is the first time that he’s been back since the war,” Shikamaru said. “Hell, you guys have probably seen more of him in the Cloud Village over the past year and a half than we have. This’ll be the first time we’ve all hung out as a group since we were genin.”

Lee looked at Karui. “He will be coming to dinner with the group of us. Is that going to be okay for you?”

Karui shrugged. “Well, Lord Raikage forgives him, and I trust Lord Raikage.”

It wasn’t really an answer. But . . . it was progress.

Temari looked back towards Sasuke and Naruto. It seemed like the clean-up process devolved into a competition to see who could pick up the most cones. They were playfully trying to trip each other and steal the cones out of each other’s hands.

“God,” Temari said with a grin, “they really are like brothers, aren’t they? I know they’re two of the most powerful living shinobi, but you put them in the same room, and suddenly they revert to being eleven years old.”

Sakura smiled, too. “This was every single day of my life when we were genin. This pissing contest between the two of them.” She felt something pulling at her heart. “I never thought I’d miss it as much as I did.”

“He has been staying with you for the past few days,” Lee said to Sakura. “How has that been?”

“It’s actually been great. It’s good to just hang out with him normally, you know? We haven’t been able to do that for so long. It’s like old times again, like when we were kids.”

Tenten smirked at her. “Oh, like ‘old times,’ you say?”

Sakura’s smile got bigger, even as she rolled her eyes. “Stop it.”

Tenten leaned towards her, wiggling her eyebrows. “I’m just saying. You two staying together in that apartment of yours—”

Sakura felt her face turning bright red. “Oh, my God—”

“Okay,” Kiba said, sitting up straighter, “I’m glad someone finally brought this up. Does that mean we can talk about it now? I’ve been dying to talk about it—”

“Me, too,” said Shikamaru. “You owe us some details, Sakura.”

Karui glanced back and forth between them, her eyes wide. “Wait, what?”

Temari grinned at Karui. “What, did that little bit of Leaf Village gossip never make its way over to the Cloud Village? That Sasuke and Sakura used to be a thing?”

Karui’s jaw was on the floor. “No, it did not! What?”

“We did not used to be a thing!” Sakura insisted. “We were twelve!”

“But you always had that special little bond when you were kids—” Choji started.

“Special little bond?” Karui asked incredulously. She turned and looked at Sakura. “I thought you guys were just teammates!”

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. She could feel that her face was still bright red. “I had a big ol’ one-sided crush on him when we were at the Academy, and then we got put on the same genin team. It was just normal preteen drama. That’s it.”

Shikamaru leaned over to Karui and stage-whispered, “It wasn’t one-sided.”

“Yes, it was,” Sakura said. “Don’t start rumors.”

Tenten shot her a disbelieving look. “Everyone knew he had a little soft spot for you.”

Kiba turned to Karui. “Look, if I’m being honest, the guy was kind of a prick when we were kids. Which I understand and am sympathetic to now, as an adult, knowing what was going on in his life. But he was an asshole. He didn’t like anyone, except for Naruto maybe thirty percent of the time, and Sakura maybe eighty percent of the time.”

Karui looked dumbfounded. "I can't picture that at all," she admitted. "Having not met you guys until so much later, during the war. It’s weird even thinking about you guys being comrades on the same team. I can’t imagine Lady Tsunade’s apprentice and Orochimaru’s apprentice being linked together like that.”

Lee nodded. “It is true. Sasuke and Sakura were always especially protective of each other.”

“Even once Sasuke stopped getting along with everyone else,” Shikamaru said, “he still listened to Sakura. I mean, if I’m being perfectly serious for a second, that’s how I knew we were in deep shit when he deserted. When I first heard about it, I kind of just thought he was throwing a little temper tantrum, and it was going to be a drag, but we could get him back and knock some sense into him. It didn’t sink in until Lady Fifth told me that Sakura tried to talk him out of it, and he wouldn’t even listen to her. That was the thing that made me realize that he meant it, and he really wasn't coming back.”

Temari turned to Sakura, her face soft. “I never knew you tried to talk to him.”

Sakura felt her throat stinging from holding back tears. She didn’t want to think about that day—waking up on that bench, seeing that the sun had come up, realizing that he was gone.

She looked at Karui and shrugged. “To whatever extent me and Sasuke had a ‘thing,’ we broke up when he left.”

Hinata was watching the boys. “But he’s back now.”

Sakura turned and looked at the boys, too. They were practically wrestling now—Naruto started to reach for Sasuke’s cones, and Sasuke held the cones over his head and planted a foot on Naruto’s chest, trying to push him away.

“Yeah,” Sakura said softly. “He’s back for now.”

Choji was grinning. “I gotta say, though, this is the happiest that I’ve ever seen Sasuke.”

“Me, too,” Tenten admitted.

Temari snorted. “He’s not even smiling!”

“Is there a chance that they’ll actually start fighting?” Karui asked.

Sakura got to her feet. “Probably not, but I'm gonna go end this right now. Watch."

She walked over to where the boys were roughhousing and clapped her hands to get their attention. The boys’ heads whipped around to her instantly.

“Sakura, tell him to quit being a dick,” Naruto whined.

“Tell him to get away from me,” Sasuke said.

“What’s going on?” she asked, in her gentlest, kindest, sweetest, talking-to-little-kids voice. "There's no need to fight, you guys! What’s the rule, whoever has the most cones wins?”

“And the loser has to buy the winner's drinks for the whole night," Naruto added. "This is a very high-stakes situation!"

"There's no need to fight, though! Listen, I'm gonna make this fair and settle it, okay? I need both of you to give me your cones.”

She held out her hands. Without question or hesitation, both boys handed over their stacks of cones.

Sakura stacked the cones all together, and then she bent down to gather up the last few remaining cones off the ground.

“Wait,” Sasuke said, realizing belatedly.

She grabbed the last cone off the ground. “Hope you brought your wallet, babe,” she said, and then she turned and walked off with every single one of the cones.

“Hey!” Sasuke called after her.

It took Naruto another second, but then he started to cackle. “That’s cheating!”

She raised the cones up in the air as a kind of salute without turning around. Mostly, she was thinking about how easy it had been to call Sasuke “babe.” It had slipped out by accident, but it had felt so right when she was saying it.

She called over her shoulder, “Finish cleaning up! We have a reservation, and you’re going to make us late for dinner!”

“Why are we cleaning up when this was your class?”

“Because I got all the cones and I won! Now get to work!”

“This isn’t fair!” Naruto called.

But Sasuke just let out a little snort. And as Sakura walked back over to the cackling group at the other end of the lawn, her cheeks hurt from how much she was smiling.

Chapter Text

As the sun set over the village, the gang walked as a group to the restaurant.

Naturally, the sight of all of them together—the Konoha Eleven, Naruto and Sasuke in particular, plus the Kazekage’s sister and a member of the Raikage’s entourage—generated stares from the villagers they passed. But this time, Sasuke seemed a little more at ease about it. Seems like Ino was right about us presenting a unified front, Sakura thought. Sasuke hung towards the back of the group, by Sakura’s side, but he made small talk with the others, talking with Temari about the last time he’d gone to the Sand Village, or exchanging playful banter with Naruto, like in the old days.

In the village center, they all passed Kakashi and Guy, who were sitting out on a restaurant patio together eating dinner.

As soon as Guy saw them, he gave the group a huge thumbs-up and a somehow even huger grin. “Now, that’s what I like to see! Look at this tremendous group of young people ready to go live life to the fullest! What a celebration of the bonds we share!” His gaze—and his smile—focused on Sasuke. “It’s so wonderful to see you here again, Sasuke! Your presence was certainly missed in the village!”

“It’s nice to see you again, too,” Sasuke said. With a little smile that made Sakura realize that he meant it.

Kakashi’s eyes were lit up with amusement. “Have fun tonight, kids! Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!”

“Or do!” Guy added, slamming a hand on the table for emphasis. “You should celebrate! Embody that youthful spirit for the rest of us!”

Sakura smiled. All of Guy’s little speeches, which had been so cringey when she was a kid, were so endearing now. Maybe it was because she was old enough now that she didn’t feel like she had to pretend to be too cool to give a shit, or maybe living through the war had made them all see things a little differently.

She gave them a little wave. “Have a good night, you guys!”

As the group kept walking past, Naruto said, “Man, their friendship is so wholesome.”

“Their rivalry has certainly mellowed out since the end of the war,” Choji added.

Naruto looked around the group. “Why can’t any of our friendships be that nice? All of you are supposed to be my best friends, and none of you have ever been that nice to me except Hinata.”

“Haven’t all of us saved your life multiple times over?” Shikamaru pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean that you’re nice to me.”

Sakura exchanged a glance with Lee and Tenten. Tenten just raised her eyebrows and stayed silent, and Lee just smiled and shrugged.

Admittedly, neither Guy nor Kakashi had said anything explicitly about what was going on, but they’d dropped enough hints to Lee, Tenten, and Sakura in private. (And Naruto, who, naturally, was not picking up on any of them.) Besides, when you did the math on two “single” men in their thirties constantly having sleepovers at each other’s houses and going on dinner dates together, it wasn’t hard to figure out that they were a couple.

But they hadn’t said anything publicly yet. And so, although Sakura had compared notes with Lee and Tenten, the three of them weren’t saying anything to anyone else for now, either.

She glanced over her shoulder at them. Kakashi and Guy were leaning towards each other, and Kakashi said something to make Guy laugh. She saw the way the two of them were staring into each other’s eyes, as if the whole rest of the world had completely stopped existing.

She was so grateful that Kakashi and Guy had gotten their impossible love story.

Sasuke noticed her staring, and he turned and looked over his shoulder, too. “What?”

“Nothing,” Sakura said. She elbowed him and added, “Mind your own business.”

Sasuke glanced at her, and then watched Kakashi and Guy for a few seconds more. And then he frowned thoughtfully and turned his attention forward again.

The restaurant had been able to push two of their largest tables together towards the back. When Sakura and the others got there, Ino, Sai, and Shino were already seated.  

Ino’s face lit up as soon as the crowd walked in. “SASUKE!” she shouted.

“Oh, yeah, the rest of us are doing great, too, Ino,” Shikamaru said. “Thanks so much for asking. Don’t worry about us—”

Ino ignored him completely. She jumped to her feet, ran over, and gave Sasuke a big hug.

“How are you?” Ino asked. “It’s been too long, Sasuke!”

Sasuke let her hug him, like a cat who had learned to surrender to being cuddled by its human, and he even gave her the smallest hug back. (But Sakura noticed—to the satisfaction of the part of her that was still a petty twelve-year-old—that it wasn’t anything like the embrace she and Sasuke had shared when they first saw each other again.)

When Ino finally let Sasuke go, the whole group took their seats around the tables. It was a tight squeeze with fourteen of them, but they managed. Sakura ended up between Sasuke and Rock Lee.

“Where were you today?” Lee asked Shino, who was sitting across from him.

“Babysitting Mirai,” Shino said. “We had a very fun day at the playground practicing our ninja skills, by which I mean Mirai went down the same slide twenty times and then climbed halfway up the jungle gym before she got too scared and I had to rescue her.”

A waiter came by to take their drink orders. Sakura smirked as she pointed out her drink choices to Naruto and Sasuke, who both made a show of rolling their eyes at her.

“This shouldn’t count,” Naruto grumbled. “That was cheating.”

“Don’t hate the player,” Sakura said sweetly, “hate the game.”

Sasuke’s lips twitched, while Naruto made a show of muttering more pretend-angry things under his breath.

Naruto was sitting on Sasuke’s other side, with Hinata on the other side of him. Once the waiter left, Hinata leaned around Naruto to look at Sasuke. “So how is it being back home?” she asked him.

“It’s strange,” Sasuke admitted. “Half the time, it’s like I never left, and the other half of the time, I’m getting lost going down the same streets I used to walk home from school every day when I was little.”

“That happens to me, too, even now,” Shino said. “The reason is because so many things were rebuilt in new places after Pain’s attack. My brain will turn off while I’m walking, and before I know it, I’m halfway to a corner store that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Ino leaned forward. “You’ve done so much traveling, Sasuke. So tell us: Which village has the prettiest girls?”

“And why is it the Sand Village?” Temari added, grinning.

Sasuke shook his head. “That’s not the sort of thing I pay attention to on missions.”

Tenten smirked. “I forgot that you’re no fun.”

“Right?” Ino said. She nodded her head towards Sakura. “How are you going to be at a table full of beautiful girls—have Sakura fucking Haruno seated right next to you—and not give a straight answer to that question?”

Sakura felt her face flushing. She appreciated Ino’s attempt to be her wing-woman, but it wasn’t exactly subtle.

Sasuke’s cheeks flushed a little bit, too, but he smirked as he answered. “I’ve been a shinobi for long enough to recognize a trap when I see one. I'm not picking one village specifically when the most powerful women from three different villages are sitting here.”

Shikamaru snorted.

Ino grinned, but she was undeterred. “Fine. But speaking of the beautiful and strong women seated at this table, how is it, staying with the lovely Sakura?”

Sasuke glanced at Sakura. “It’s been nice,” he said. “I’m very grateful she’s letting me stay with her.”

He was spared from having to elaborate any further by the arrival of the group’s drink orders. (Most of them had ordered beer or cocktails, but Sasuke, Shino, and Lee had all stuck with water.) Once everyone had their drinks, Naruto lifted his up.

“A toast,” Naruto said. He lifted his glass towards Sasuke. “To old friends.” He lifted it towards Karui. “To new friends.” He lifted it up higher. “And to the friends who couldn’t be here with us. Neji, we miss you, brother.”

“Cheers!” Sakura said.

“To friends!” Choji added.

“Love you, Neji,” Lee mumbled under his breath, as Sakura clinked glasses with him. She felt a little lump forming in her throat, and she swallowed it back.

Once Ino took a sip of her drink, she looked at Karui. “Speaking of new friends . . . how’s your trip to Konoha going, Karui?”

“Oh, it’s great!” Karui said. “I love coming to the Leaf Village. I’m very grateful that Lord Raikage has chosen me to be his messenger to the Leaf during all the post-war rebuilding.” She was leaning closer to Choji, and she glanced at him and smiled as she said that last sentence. “It’s a way different experience being here in a time of peace, though. Like, I don’t think you guys fully appreciate how weird it is from an outsider’s perspective that all of you world-famous shinobi are all childhood friends. Like, Ino, I knew that you and Choji and Shikamaru had that connection because of your clans, but I didn’t know until super recently that you all grew up together.” She pointed her chopsticks around the table.

“We did!” Ino said. “Tenten, Lee, and Sai are a year older—and so was Neji—but the rest of us were all in the same class at the Academy.” She glanced across the table at Sakura. “Sakura and I have been besties since we were, like, six.”

Choji grinned. “What were those two nicknames you used to call each other?”

Sakura and Ino smirked at each other. “Ino Pig,” Sakura taunted, at the same time that Ino said, “Billboard Brow.”

Karui’s face lit up with amusement. “I’m sorry, Billboard Brow?”

“Yeah, because she used to have a big-ass forehead when she was little,” Ino said, gesturing with her hands.

Sakura flipped her off.

Sasuke smirked into his glass of water. “I completely forgot about Billboard Brow,” he muttered, just before he took a sip.

Sakura looked at him with her eyebrows raised.

He caught on, and he swallowed and put his glass down. “I’m not calling you Billboard Brow. I never really got where it came from in the first place. I don’t think your forehead is that big.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Oh, you don’t think it’s ‘that’ big?”

He opened his mouth, and then he closed it.

The boys at the table—all of whom had been on the receiving end of Sakura’s temper—smiled knowingly.

“Wrong move, Sasuke,” Kiba said.

“Don’t do it, man,” Naruto told Sasuke.

“Do yourself a favor," Shikamaru said. "Just give her some of your food and stop talking.”

Sasuke obediently picked up the best cut of pork off his plate, dropped it onto Sakura’s plate, and then became laser-focused on his own food.

Across the table, Temari and Ino were snickering.

“I forgot that even Sasuke is also a little bit scared of Sakura,” Tenten said, smirking. “It makes me so happy.”

Karui looked over at Sai. “So then, did you go to school with Tenten and Lee and Neji?”

Sai pulled on that perfect, practiced, polite little smile of his. “No, I was actually a Foundation kid. In the ANBU Black Ops.”

Karui’s polite smile faltered. “Oh—like—?”

“Yeah, one of Danzo’s.” He just shrugged, like he was saying, What can you do?

But the air left the room a little bit, the same way it always did when Danzo’s crimes came up. Especially since Sai, who had been abused by Danzo, was sitting across from Sasuke, who had killed him.

Ino put her hand on top of Sai’s and gave it a little pat. “Fortunately,” she said to Karui, “Team Seven happened to have a temporary vacancy for a tall, broody, handsome man a few years ago, so Sai got the part. And what good fortune for us that we have the both of them now!”

Naruto scoffed. “More like a vacancy for a pale, weird, antisocial pain in my ass. It sucks for me that there’s two of you now.”

Sai blew him a little kiss from across the table. The same way Ino blew kisses at Sakura when Sakura was annoyed with her.

Shino glanced back and forth between Sasuke and Sai. “I’ve never thought about how similar you two are, but I guess that’s kind of true.”

“It is a surprise to me that you two do not pair up on missions more often,” Lee added. “Considering how similar your specialties are. I would think you two would be a perfect team!”

Sai looked across the table at Sasuke. “I guess it’s because we both specialize in covert ops. We both do a lot of solo missions. But it is weird that we’re both technically on Team Seven, but have never really gone on a mission together outside of the war.”

“That’s true,” Sasuke said.

Sai flashed him that little plastic smile. “Let me know if you do ever need help on a mission, though. I owe you a favor.”  

Ino clearly pinched him under the table, because he flinched and looked at her.

Sasuke just focused his eyes on the plate in front of him and didn’t answer.

And Naruto immediately dove in to change the subject. “You two are real peas in a pod, I’ll give ya that much. You really put Sakura and me through the ringer. Sakura, do you remember when we went on that mission with Sai and Captain Yamato, and Captain Yamato almost murdered all three of us?”

Sakura leaned forward and looked at him, eager to go along with it, to get the topic off of Danzo. “I do remember that! It was because we wouldn’t stop bickering, right? It was just like Kakashi yelling at us when we were kids. What were we even fighting about?”

“I think it was because—”

But Sai turned back to Sasuke. “Why did you go after Danzo?”

Ino lightly swatted his arm.

“Sai,” Sakura warned. She felt her pulse start to quicken with anxiety.

“What?” Sai asked. “I’ve always wanted to ask him. Danzo hadn't even been named the next Hokage yet officially. Why target him first? Did you know something about what he was doing in the village?"

“Sai,” Sakura repeated. “This is not the venue.”

She understood why Sai wanted to know. He needed the closure. After all, Sasuke didn’t have a monopoly on suffering; Sai was obviously processing what had happened to him, and he wanted to know who had known what about the Foundation, when they’d known it, and if they’d been in a position to do anything about it. She even understood why everyone else at the table was curious, too—Danzo’s legacy was a stain on the village, including all of the shinobi who served it, and there were still so many unanswered questions about how Danzo had been able to get away with so much for so long.

But this was not the time or the place for difficult conversations about Danzo's abuse or Sasuke's break from reality. Not when they were trying to have a nice, normal night for once in their fucking lives.

Shikamaru, who had been observing the scene silently, piped up. “For what it’s worth, I’ve always wondered that, too. Funny coincidence that the man who turned out to be the symbol of corruption in the Leaf Village was the only one who—”

“Guys, that’s enough. Drop it.”  Naruto was using his I Am Not Joking Anymore voice—still mild and calm, but careful, without a single ounce of humor, almost hurt.

He almost never used his serious voice, and the effect was immediate. The whole table went silent.

“Sorry,” Shikamaru said to Sasuke.

Sasuke cleared his throat. “Uh, no, it’s okay. You guys have the right to ask questions. I won’t pretend like the I’ve never done anything wrong. If it will help put everyone’s mind at ease, I’ll answer what I can.” He focused his attention on Sai. “It’s pretty pointless to try to assign any logic to anything I did back then. If I’d been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have done most of it. But . . . yes, I did hear some rumors about Danzo while I was out of the village, and some of them turned out to be substantiated.”

Sakura hadn’t known that. She glanced at Sasuke, but he was still looking at Sai.

Sai nodded. “Well . . . did you know that he put seals on our tongues? None of us would have been able to say anything until his death. He would’ve become the Sixth Hokage, and none of us could have done anything about it. So.” He shrugged.

And there was the secret thing that none of them, being good little Leaf Village soldiers, could say out loud. They all knew what their position had to be publicly, as some of the most high-profile faces of the Leaf Village’s shinobi force: that it had unquestionably been wrong for Sasuke to do what he’d done, and that by acting outside of the Leaf’s judicial system, he’d undermined it, and that they were all very horrified and outraged over one of their leaders being targeted.

None of them could admit out loud that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that the Danzo situation had been tied up so neatly. That maybe the village was better off with Danzo gone, and that maybe he’d had it coming.

To change the subject, Sakura accidentally-on-purpose back-handed her cocktail, knocking what was left of it onto the table. “Oh, shit! Sorry, guys!”

She hastily started to clean up the mess with her napkin. Sasuke, Ino, and Lee all pitched in their napkins, too.

“Thanks,” she said. “I guess I need a new drink. Tenten, what are you drinking? That looks good!”

This was an old-school trick Tsunade had taught her. Sometimes, especially as a kunoichi, you needed to sweet-talk some information out of targets over drinks, and being a silly little klutz who accidentally knocked her drink over was an easy way to deflect attention and pivot from the current topic. It worked especially well on creepy, stupid men—who dropped their guard when they thought the women around them were silly little airheads instead of threats—but it also worked in large groups, like this one, where there was too much going on for anyone to pay too much attention to what anyone else was doing.

(It helped that the only other person who knew the trick—Hinata—didn’t call her out on it.)

Once Sakura had gotten the conversation completely off of Danzo and onto everyone’s opinions about their drink orders, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Sasuke leaned towards Naruto, who seemed to be muttering something in Sasuke’s ear.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sasuke said to him.

Naruto put his hand on Sasuke’s shoulder and kept muttering.

“It’s fine,” Sasuke said.

Naruto gave him a supportive little bro-clap on the shoulder, and then they both turned their focuses back to their meals.

When Sasuke saw Sakura watching him, he picked up a piece of beef and put it on her plate.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“To make up for your drink,” he said in a low voice. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “Well, don’t get too excited. You’re still going to have to pay for my replacement drink.”

That brought the smirk back to his face, and he playfully rolled his eyes.

As the night wore on, the drinks and the conversation kept flowing.

Eventually, Shikamaru stepped out for a smoke break. Naruto and Sasuke went with him—neither of them smoked, but Naruto usually went along to keep Shikamaru company, and she was guessing that Sasuke needed a little break from the crowd.

So Sakura enjoyed some more time with her other friends. And when she finally got tired, she excused herself and headed outside.

Naruto and Shikamaru were sitting together on a bench under a streetlight, while Sasuke stood in front of them with a hand on his hip. Naruto said something that made the other two snort.

Sasuke noticed Sakura coming first, and he gave her a little nod. That made the other two turn around.

Naruto raised his hands up in the air. “Sakuraaaaaaa!”

Shikamaru was reaching into his pocket, pulling out his pack of cigarettes. “What’s up, Doc?” he asked. “Did you miss us up there?”

“Oh, of course I did. It’s not a party without you guys.”

Shikamaru snorted. He put another cigarette between his teeth.

Sakura sat on the arm of the bench and wrapped her arm around Shikamaru’s shoulders. “Have I told you lately that smoking kills you?” she asked innocently.

“Oh, not for at least a week, I think?” Shikamaru said dryly, with the cigarette still between his teeth, as he pulled his lighter out of his pocket.

“Okay, well, just so you know, smoking kills you.”

“Thanks, Doc.” He lit the cigarette, took a drag, and put the lighter back in his pocket. “Don’t tell Temari.”

“I got some news for you, my dude: you reek of cigarettes. She knows. Everyone knows.”

Naruto snorted. Sasuke was watching them, too, smiling.

She straightened up and looked at Sasuke. “How are you doing? You ready to head out?”

He shrugged. “I think so.”

“Already?” Naruto asked.

He just shrugged again.

Sakura let go of Shikamaru and went up to Sasuke. “I gave Ino money to cover both of our shares, so . . . if you want to sneak out, we can.”

“I’m supposed to be paying for your drinks, aren’t I?”

“You can pay me back.”

He nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

Sakura waved at Naruto and Shikamaru. “Have a good night! Get home safe!”

Naruto waved back. “See you guys tomorrow!”

“Have fun, you two,” Shikamaru added, with that knowing, amused little tone in his voice. Sakura rolled her eyes, and then she and Sasuke started to head home.

For a while, she and Sasuke walked up the street in silence. Sakura was still a little tipsy from her drinks, and she was just enjoying Sasuke’s quiet company. They walked up a few blocks, and then they rounded a corner, which put them on Sakura’s street.

“I really don’t think you have a big forehead,” Sasuke said suddenly.

It took her a second to remember what he was talking about. She’d already forgotten about it. She felt her face flush. “Oh, sweetie, I know. I was teasing you.”

He shrugged. “I kind of always thought the kids in class picked something at random to tease you about to knock you down a peg, because they didn’t actually have anything to tease you about. Like, appearance-wise.”

Her face got even redder. “That seems like an incredibly roundabout way of saying you thought I was pretty when we were kids.”

He was staring resolutely at his feet. “You knew that,” he said softly.

She grinned. “I most certainly did not.”

He didn’t answer. Or look at her.

Sakura elbowed him. “Well, I always thought you were pretty when we were kids, too. But you did know that.”

He let out a little snort, but he didn’t say anything else right away.

They made their way up another block.

“Are we okay?” Sasuke asked her.

“You and me?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Of course we are. You wouldn’t be sleeping over at my house if we weren’t okay, right? What makes you ask that?”

He paused again before answering. “I don’t know. I’m thinking about that conversation with Sai. About that time in my life specifically.”

Sakura sighed. “Don’t worry about Sai. He didn’t mean anything by it. He just doesn’t know how to phrase things tactfully, or when it’s in his own best interest to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t trying to be an asshole. If you can believe it, that was his way of expressing that he's on your side.”

Sasuke stopped walking. He seemed to be putting a lot of thought into what he wanted to say. “I’m just frustrated. There are parts of what happened that I’m not ready to talk about, or that I can’t talk about. So how are we supposed to be okay if . . . . ?” His voice trailed off.

“I mean, there’s stuff that happened that you and I should definitely talk about.” They’d never fully talked about that day on the bridge. Sakura understood that that was included in his apologies—that it was one of the main things he was apologizing for—but . . . they hadn’t talked about that part specifically yet. She didn’t even know if she was ready for that conversation. “But,” she continued, “I’m not naïve. I’m not going to pretend like I understand all of what you went through, but I know that some bad things happened, and it might take some time before you feel ready to talk about them. So you don’t have to talk about anything before you’re ready to. And when you are ready, I’ll be here.”

“But what if there’s parts of it that I can’t ever talk about?” he asked quietly.

She thought about it. “Is it that there’s stuff you feel like you can’t talk about it with me specifically, or that you can’t talk about it with anyone?”

“Anyone.” After a moment, he added, “I . . . want to talk about all of it with you. Or as much of it as I can. But . . . .”

Sakura nodded. “It’s okay. I understand what line of work we’re both in, Sasuke. So if there’s something that you really, truly cannot tell me because it’s confidential, I get it. I won’t be mad. But . . . for that stuff, can you talk to Kakashi about it, since he’s the Hokage? You don’t have to keep it a secret from him, right? Or . . . like, can you talk to Naruto? I’m not trying to pry—it’s just that I know there’s parts of what happened that only you and Naruto went through, and sometimes he gets cagey about stuff that happened during the war, even with me. Is it related to stuff like that?”

Sasuke nodded.

“Then that’s okay! As long as you’re talking to someone about the stuff that’s bothering you. Like I said, you don’t have to tell me anything that you’re not ready to tell me, or that you’re uncomfortable telling me. But whenever you feel ready to start talking about what happened, I’m here.”

He nodded. But he didn’t seem to be convinced. “I just don’t want you to think that I’m making excuses, or trying to gloss over any of it.”

Sakura closed the distance between them. “I know. Trust me, if you were still acting like a fool, like during the war, we would be having a very different conversation right now. But I can see how hard you’re trying to make things right. So I’m not worried about us, and you shouldn’t be, either.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know," she murmured. "You don’t have to keep apologizing, hon.”

“Sor—” he started to say, and then he cut himself off.

She smiled into his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “We’re okay. Don’t worry about it.”

He wrapped his arm around her, squeezing her tight. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

When he finally let go, Sakura started to walk backwards up the street, so she could stay facing him. She spread her arms out wide. “Anyway," she said, "I'm not worried about any secrets you might be keeping from me, because I already know your deepest, darkest secret, which is that you're a die-hard fan of the television soap opera Dagger to the Heart."

Sasuke smirked. “I feel like I’m really going to regret telling you that I watch Dagger to the Heart.”

“I’m only going to tease you for about it for a little bit longer—”

Her sandal caught on a crack in the road, and she tripped and stumbled backward.

In an instant, Sasuke was behind her. He caught her, grabbing onto her arm and pulling her against him.

Like during the war, she remembered. When he’d teleported through that portal and caught her right before she collapsed from exhaustion.

“Be careful,” he said, smiling.

“I’m fine. Takes a lot more than a crack in the sidewalk to get Sakura Haruno!”

“I don’t know. It seems like that crack made very easy work of you,” he teased. “Am I going to have to put you on my back and carry you home?”

Sakura grinned. “You’re saying that as if there haven’t been plenty of instances of me needing to carry your sorry ass home.”

Sasuke’s smile got bigger. “I don’t remember that ever happening.” Lying blatantly.

“You don’t?”

“Nope.”

She wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled his arm all the way around her shoulders, holding onto his wrist. “You don’t remember a lotta this between the ages of eleven and thirteen?”

His eyes were sparkling. “Nope.”

“That’s very convenient for you.”

“Hmm,” he said simply.

“Hmm,” she said back at him.

But he didn’t pull away. And she didn’t want to let go of him, either. So they walked the rest of the way home like that, with her arm around his waist and his arm around her shoulder.

They were back at her apartment getting ready for bed.

Sakura went first—she brushed her teeth and did her skincare in the bathroom, but she left the bathroom door open behind her so she and Sasuke could keep talking. She was still putting away her skincare products when Sasuke came up beside her at the sink to brush his teeth, too.

Sakura couldn’t help but watch the way he moved. He was almost like a dancer, the way all of his movements were so precise and graceful.

Even with all the little adaptations he’d had to make since losing his arm. She’d noticed the workarounds he’d developed in order to do the little everyday tasks she took for granted—like now, when he held the handle of his toothbrush between his teeth so he could squeeze the toothpaste on with his hand. All of his movements were so precise, so intentional, the way they always had been.

But then he caught her staring, and she almost felt him put an emotional wall up. She realized that he thought she was gawking at his arm.

“Wha’?” he asked, the handle of the toothbrush still clenched between his teeth.

“Nothing. I just like watching you sometimes. Like, you've gotten really good at using your mouth, and—that’s not what I meant,” she added immediately, feeling her face turn bright red, as Sasuke’s eyes lit up mischievously.

“’Scuse me?” he asked.

She started to giggle. “No, I didn’t mean it like that—”

Grinning, Sasuke put the toothpaste down and pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth. “I’m pretty sure you have to buy me dinner before you can start asking me how good I am with my mouth, Sakura Haruno.”

Still giggling, she covered her bright-red face with her hands, peeking out from between her fingers. “That’s not what I meant!”

“Uh huh.”

“It isn’t! Stop staring at me!”

“You’re the one staring at me and talking about my mouth! Go away!” He put his toothbrush down on the side of the sink and—playfully, gently—put his hand on her whole face, like he was pushing her away.

She was laughing so hard that she was doubled over. She grabbed his wrist to try to pull his hand away from her face, and she put her other hand on his upper arm.

“And now you’re feeling up my muscles.”

“Oh, my God, stop it.” She gave his arm another squeeze, because obviously, that was exactly what she was doing.

He pulled his hand back from her to pick up his toothbrush. “Go away,” he teased. “Go to bed.” He stuck his toothbrush back in his mouth, bristle side in this time. “G’night,” he said.

They were still staring at each other. Sasuke leaned against the sink and held her gaze while he brushed his teeth. After a few moments, he raised his eyebrows.

“Fine,” Sakura said. “Goodnight, Sasuke.”

She went to her room and shut the door, still grinning.

As she drifted off to sleep, she thought: I wonder what he actually knows how to do with his mouth.

She wasn’t expecting that he had a ton of experience in that arena. It wasn’t like she had any, either, but . . . she’d read Make-Out Tactics. More out of curiosity than anything, because eventually she’d always think about either Jiraiya writing them or Kakashi reading them, and having her two surrogate uncle figures in her brain while she was reading smut immediately made it stop being hot.

But . . . the books were a hit for a reason. And the men in Make-Out Tactics were nothing if not generous.

I wonder if Sasuke’s read those books, she thought.

She snuggled up under her blankets, trying to tune those thoughts out. She was still tipsy from the bar, and she and Sasuke were both safe and snug in their own beds. This was not the night to act on any stupid impulses.

But she did wonder.

Chapter Text

When Sakura woke up the next morning, she tried to wait to get out of bed until she could hear Sasuke making noise from the living room, so that she wouldn’t wake him up. But her bladder had a different plan, so she gave up and made her way to the bathroom as quietly as she could.

Then she tiptoed out into the living room. Just to check on him.

Sasuke was still curled up on her couch, the blanket pulled up to his chin. He looked so young when he slept, like the little boy he had been on missions. Sakura felt a pull in her heart. All she wanted was to protect him, to hug him in that blanket and keep him safe from everything.

But Sasuke apparently wasn’t sleeping very deeply. As Sakura walked over, her ankles cracked the way they always did when she walked around in bare feet, after too many years of abusing her joints with training.

An ordinary civilian wouldn’t have even heard it. But Sasuke Uchiha wasn’t a civilian, and he wasn’t ordinary. He snuggled a little deeper under his blanket, and then he cracked opened his Rinnegan eye and searched around until he found her.

“Morning,” he mumbled.

Sakura crept a little closer. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

He shook his head and shut his eyes again. “You know when you wake up and then you doze off for a couple more minutes? I never fell all the way back asleep.” He rubbed his face, clearly trying to wake himself up more.

Sakura couldn’t help but grin. He’s so fucking cute, she thought.

Out loud, she said, “You can go back to sleep for a few more minutes. I’ll start making us breakfast—”

That woke him up. “No, I can make us breakfast.” He pulled the blanket down to his waist.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes again. “You’re hosting me. I want to pull my weight as long as I’m taking advantage of your hospitality.”

“You aren’t even awake yet.”

Instead of answering, Sasuke slowly sat up and got to his feet. He stretched what was left of his left arm up in the air as he yawned again. The bottom of his shirt rode up, and he scratched the exposed skin of his stomach.

Sakura tried as hard as she possibly could not to stare at him. But as much as seeing him sleeping made her think of Sasuke as a little boy, seeing that little glimpse of his abs and his hips made her very aware of Sasuke as a man.

Oblivious to all of this, Sasuke puttered towards the kitchen. “What do you want to eat?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure. Pancakes?”

“Pancakes it is.”

She followed after him.

As he pulled a frying pan from the cabinet, he glanced at her with a little smirk. “I’m actually surprised you were up first, after the big night last night.”

Sakura smiled, too, as she pulled a box of pancake batter out of a cupboard. “I will have you know that I’m a very responsible drinker.”

“You are,” Sasuke said. “Which was kind of a surprise, honestly, after everything Orochimaru’s told me about Tsunade.”

“Well, between me, Shizune, and Lady Tsunade, one of us had to be the responsible one.” She put the pancake batter on the counter next to him, then got some milk and butter out of the fridge. As she placed them on the counter, she added, “Truthfully, I think Lady Tsunade’s a little worried about passing her bad habits on. So as soon as all of us girls started turning legal age, she was telling us all that we should learn what our limits were with alcohol. As soon as we all turned eighteen, we had a big girls’ sleepover at the Hyuuga mansion. Hiashi even bought the booze for us. It was the first time I ever got drunk. It was fun.”

Sasuke smiled, but he stayed silent. He grabbed a mixing bowl and a whisk, and he started to mix together the batter and the milk. After a few moments of quiet, he said, “The first time I ever got drunk was with Obito.”

He said it so casually, but he wasn’t looking at her, keeping his eyes directed down at the mixing bowl.

Sakura felt her heart start to race. But she did her best to keep her voice calm, because if she knew that if she reacted too strongly, he’d shut down. “You got drunk with Obito?”

“Yeah. Well, it was more like Obito getting me drunk, because the whole thing was his idea. He took me out to a bar with him.”

“Just, like, for funsies? He just wanted to go out drinking with you?”

“It was after . . . uh, it was right around the time I joined the Akatsuki.”

She knew what that meant, what he couldn’t bring himself to say: It was after I killed my brother. She felt the dread growing in her stomach.

“I think it was . . . very intentional on his part,” Sasuke continued. “I think he wanted to take me out and get me drunk and rile me up so he could talk me into his stupid ideas. And obviously, the drinking made me feel better, right up until I sobered up and it all came back, so . . . ..”

She swallowed hard. “That must have been scary,” she said carefully.

He shrugged. “I mean, it wasn’t the worst part. And the war started right after that, so at least there wasn’t a ton of time after that for him to keep getting me drunk and for it to turn into an actual problem. Can you pass me the spatula, please?” When he asked the last question, his voice was mild and flat, and it clearly indicated that he was changing the subject.

“Sure.” Sakura went digging in her drawer for a spatula while she quietly reflected on the horrific little nugget of information he’d just dropped.

She thought of what he’d said yesterday, on their walk home, looking so helpless: What if there’s parts of it I can’t talk about?

If this was the shit he was ready to talk about—if being plied with alcohol by a grown man who was trying to take advantage of him and manipulate him into committing acts of violence wasn’t the worst part—then how much worse did it get?

She pulled the spatula out of the drawer and handed it to him. She watched him flick his long black hair out of his eyes, his gaze locked onto the pancake batter in the bowl in front of him.

And she realized that maybe, this was how he could talk about it. Maybe he couldn’t open up and describe all of the horrors at once. Maybe that was too much. But he could open up to her, in little pieces at a time, in moments where it felt safe.

And little by little, they could work their way to the middle ground together.

Once they finished eating breakfast, they spent a few minutes tidying. Sasuke was folding up the sheets on the couch, re-making his makeshift bed, while Sakura swept the floor.

While they worked, Sakura noticed that Sasuke kept tossing his head to the side, trying to get his hair out of his eyes.

After the fifth or sixth time, she asked him, “Is your hair getting in your face?”

“I’m fine,” he said. Two seconds later, he tossed his head to the side again.

Sakura grinned. “Hold on. I can help.”

“I said I’m fine—”

She was already walking away. She scurried into her bedroom and grabbed two hair clips off her dresser. They were her most adorable little clips from when she was a little girl that she’d saved even into adulthood, with sparkly green butterflies on them.

She brought them back into the living room. Sasuke saw her, and, with a small, resigned smile, he straightened up.

Grinning, Sakura went over to him. She stood on her tip-toes to brush Sasuke’s bangs back, and then she clipped his hair in place.

She stepped back to admire her handywork, clasping her hands together in front of her heart. “Cuuuute!”

Sasuke was clearly trying his hardest not to smile. She stared into his eyes—one so brown it was almost black, one a purple galaxy.

“Isn’t your life so much easier now that your hair is out of your face?” Sakura asked him.

Sasuke sighed. “This is almost as bad as when Naruto’s right about something, and you don’t even want to admit it to him—”

Sakura giggled. She took a seat on the couch. “You know, you may as well get a haircut while you’re home.”

“I wouldn’t know where to go these days.”

“The Nara clan has a barber they go to. I can ask Shikamaru.” She sat up straighter. “Or I can do it.”

His eyes sparkling with laughter, Sasuke opened his mouth and then closed it again, clearly weighing whether or not to respond. He apparently decided to risk it. “You remember that I was there when you cut all your hair off during the chunin exams, right?”

Sakura flipped him off. “I’ve gotten better! I’ve had several years of practice, and also, I’m not doing it while being held at knifepoint anymore!” She put her hands under her chin, doing a little pose. “I cut my hair now all the time, and it doesn’t look that bad, right?”

His cheeks turned a little pink. “No,” he said. “Your hair looks . . . fine.”

She scoffed. “’Fine’?”

He turned even pinker. “Nice,” he corrected. “It’s pretty.” After a split second, he teased, “You’ve gotten better at cutting it since you were twelve and were being held at knife point. You still aren’t allowed to cut my hair, though.”

It didn’t undercut the compliment at all, and Sakura felt her cheeks flush. Still, she made a show of rolling her eyes. “When was the last time you got a haircut, anyway?”

He thought about it. “Probably not since before the war. Orochimaru used to get annoyed with me for not cutting my hair. He would get so snarky with me about how my specialty is a visual prowess, and how am I going to be able to use my abilities if I can’t see because my hair is in my eyes?” His voice had slipped into a familiar little hiss.

Sakura smirked. “That was actually a really good Orochimaru impression.”

“Thank you,” Sasuke said mildly. “I had a lot of down time to practice while I was locked in the hideout. Anyway, he told Karin to cut my hair for me a couple of times, which I think was just sexism—like, he expected that Karin would inherently know how to cut hair because she’s a woman. She did not. Jugo had to fix it.”

Sakura felt the tiniest twinge of jealousy. Karin, his old partner in Taka, was everything in the world that Sakura wasn’t—while Sakura was a goody-two-shoes who could only ever be described as cute at best, Karin was hot and worldly and had an edge. Not to mention that Sasuke had let Karin in during a period where he’d considered Sakura an enemy.

 “Oh, so Karin can cut your hair,” she said. She said it like it was a joke. She tried to pretend it was one, and she hated that it kind of wasn’t.

Sasuke looked puzzled.

“I’m not allowed to cut your hair,” she continued, “but your hot girl best friend Karin is, while you two are alone in a dark, secluded hideout.”

Sasuke’s lips twitched. “No,” he said, “my friend Jugo was allowed to cut my hair in a very sterile laboratory setting, and my platonic friend Karin was also there sometimes.” He looked down at the blankets he was folding. “Aren’t you the one who was getting marriage proposals during the war?”

Sakura snorted in disbelief. “How did you hear about that?”

He didn’t look up at her. “You would be surprised at the shit that used to get whispered in my ear to try to get a reaction out of me.”

She wondered what that meant. “Well, I got marriage proposals from complete strangers during the war,” she said. “And I was only seventeen. None of those were ever real options.” She gestured broadly. “If I had a boyfriend, don’t you think that would have come up by now?”

“That thought did occur to me,” Sasuke admitted. “I assumed you didn’t have a boyfriend, since nobody mentioned it, but I didn’t think I had the right to ask you about things like that, given . . . .”

He didn’t finish the sentence. But Sakura knew what he meant.

Given the fact that you’re the reason we never dated?

Given the fact that you walked out on me?

Given the fact that I begged you to be with me, and you left me on a park bench?

She felt an emotion flaring up that she hadn’t felt towards Sasuke in a long time: Resentment.

What she wanted to tell him was: There could never be anybody other than you. But she’d tried to tell him that multiple times. And every time, it had ended with him turning her down and leaving her.

So instead, she finished by saying, “. . . Given the fact that I’ve been on more dates with Naruto than I have with you?”

Sasuke turned around to look at her, his forehead wrinkled. “When did you and Naruto date?”

“I didn’t say I dated Naruto. I said I went on dates with Naruto.”

“That’s a meaningless distinction.”

He wasn’t even bothering to pretend he was still folding blankets anymore. It felt good, in a twisted way. To watch him trying to hide that he was squirming. To watch the realization sink in that her life hadn’t been on pause while he’d been gone.

“We went on a few dates when we were genin,” she explained. “Like, a few scattered ones from ages twelve to sixteen. They weren’t even really dates. It was more like . . . you know how he used to make a big thing about having a crush on me, but it was mostly because he thought if he went out with me, it counted as beating you at something? We were together literally all the time anyway, but if I let him call it a date, he would pay for my food.”

Sasuke snorted.

“And you’re one to talk,” Sakura added, pointing an accusatory finger at him, “when you’re the one running all over the world, meeting all kinds of girls.”

“Are you implying that I’m leaving some kind of trail of broken hearts around the Great Villages?” Sasuke asked, sounding amused.

“Or that you have a secret girlfriend hidden in a village far away. Or in a hideout far away,” she added pointedly.

He leaned over the back of the couch, looking down at her. He had his arm braced against the back of the couch, and Sakura could see his muscles flexing. “There’s nobody,” he said softly. “Not Karin. Not some kunoichi in a village somewhere. Nobody.”

Sakura swallowed hard. “Good to know.”

Sasuke was still staring at her. “And there’s nobody in the Leaf Village who’s going to mind that you’ve been letting me sleep on your couch?”

Sakura shook her head. Feeling her cheeks turn red. “Nope.”

“Good to know,” Sasuke said softly.

She and Sasuke stared at each other, and Sakura felt her face flush even redder.

She wanted to keep flirting with him. She could have pushed it farther, and based on how Sasuke was acting, it probably would have led somewhere that she really wanted to go.

But . . . in spite of herself, she found her thoughts drifting back to Karin.

Sakura and Karin had only met each other once. That day on the bridge, when Sakura had resolved to kill Sasuke herself, to put an end to both his suffering and everyone else’s before the situation could escalate any further, only to get there and learn that he had killed Danzo and tried to kill Karin. He’d had a complete break from reality.

And then he’d tried to kill Sakura. Twice. And he would have succeeded, if Kakashi and Naruto hadn’t intervened.

Sakura had healed Karin’s injuries—the ones Sasuke had caused—unable to stop bawling her eyes out, so heartbroken and in despair. And then Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto, and the others had escorted Karin back to the Leaf Village after they arrested her.

Sakura wondered if Karin thought about that day as much as she did. She wondered how long it took Karin to forgive Sasuke. If she'd forgiven him at all.

“So . . . you and Karin are still friends, though?” Sakura asked him lightly.

Sasuke understood. Something about him changed—he swallowed and looked away from her, and his voice got a little heavier. “Yeah. Uh . . . . She’s still working with Orochimaru at one of the hideouts, but . . . you know. They all got plea deals, and it seems like she’s having about as good of a time as someone can have under home confinement.”

He sunk down on the couch next to her. He started to pull the butterfly clips out of his hair, seemingly to distract himself, and put them down on the couch cushion beside him. “She . . . uh, wanted me to thank you. She feels bad that she never got the chance to thank you properly after . . . what happened. So she asked me to say thank you the next time I saw you. So. She says thank you.”

Sakura felt her heart twisting. But she kept her voice light. “Of course.”

Sasuke cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that I ever thanked you properly for that, either. So . . . thank you for saving her. She was a really kind friend to me at a time in my life that was really hard. And you didn’t have to save her, but you did. And I don’t know what I would do if I’d hurt Karin that day.”

She felt a hitch in her chest.

“And I’m sorry—” he started to say hoarsely.

“Sasuke,” she interrupted.

“—for how I treated you that day, too,” he continued. “I’ve regretted it every minute of every day since it happened—”

Her eyes were already welling up with tears. “It’s okay, Sasuke. We don’t have to—”

“Sakura, I need to say this,” he said, sounding hoarse. “Please.”

Sakura stayed quiet. There was so much adrenaline coursing through her body that her hands were shaking.

“I wasn’t in my right mind,” he explained. “A lot of things happened right before that day. I . . . I can’t talk about them all. I wish I could, but I can’t. But . . . a lot of really horrible things happened in a short amount of time, and I was barely holding on.”

She hesitated. And she decided that if they were going to have an honest conversation, they couldn’t keep dancing around the heart of the issue.

She broke the rule. She said his name.

“Itachi had just died, right?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “I can’t talk about what happened after my brother died. But the important thing is that I was scared and paranoid. It might not make sense right now, but . . . I thought that everyone in the Leaf Village wanted to kill me, and so I was planning on bringing the whole village down with me. My talk with Danzo only reinforced that belief, and I was still dealing with that when you showed up.”

He paused again. Sakura reached out and took hold of his hand. She’d let him take however long he needed to get the words out.

Sasuke squeezed her hand. “Even after I left the village, there was a part of me that was still eleven years old and wanted to believe that everything would be okay if I just went home. To do what I did, I had to shut down the part of myself down. But that part never fully went away—I just had to keep it locked away somewhere. And the couple of times that I saw you or Naruto or Kakashi, it always made that part of me panic, and I would spiral even more out of control.

“So that day that I saw you on the bridge, I was already out of my mind because of my brother, and I was out of my mind because of what Danzo said about him, and then I was panicking because you were there. And you were saying that you’d leave the village for me, and that you still lov—” His voice hitched. He squeezed her hand again and took a breath. “I could tell that you were lying—there was something different about your voice. I knew you were lying. I knew you were there to kill me. And I couldn’t take it. I thought the whole Leaf Village hated me and wanted me to die, and I couldn’t handle the idea that even you hated me and wanted me to die. You were one of the only people who I ever even remotely trusted, and it felt like you were lying to me the whole time and laughing at me behind my back and waiting for your opportunity to get revenge. And if even you weren’t a safe person for me anymore, then I was never going to be safe again. I didn’t know what to do. I lost it.” His voice got quieter. “And now I have nightmares about what would’ve happened if Naruto and Kakashi hadn’t stopped me on time. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. I wouldn’t be able to survive if I had actually gone through with it.”

Sakura felt tears streaming down her face. “I know. That’s how I felt about you.” She wiped more tears away. “I didn’t hate you, Sasuke. I’ve never hated you.”

“I know,” he said hoarsely. He started to rub the back of her hand with his thumb. “And I don’t blame you for doing what you did. You were a soldier, and I was a threat to the village. I understand that I made a bed and then I had to lie in it.”

Sakura sniffled. “I didn’t hate you,” she repeated. “Things changed for us around then, too. Tsunade protected you for as long as she could, but once you went after Killer Bee . . . the Raikage declared you a criminal. The Cloud Village was going to come after you. So the Leaf Village had a choice: Either we could defend you, and go to war with the Cloud Village if they acted on their threats, or . . . the Leaf Village could clean up its own messes.

“And  there was a lot going on with Naruto at the time, too. Sai pointed out to me that I—all of us, really—were putting the entire burden on Naruto, and that Naruto was getting hurt trying to uphold that promise that he made to me when you first left. He made it clear that he was going to bring you home, or he was going to die trying. And I couldn’t ask him to die. I couldn’t lose him, too. Not when it was my fault for not being able to talk you out of leaving in the first place—”

Sasuke squeezed her hand. “Sakura, it wasn’t—”

“I know. I know there was nothing I could have said or done. I know I wasn’t the only one who tried. But it took me a long time to actually accept that.” She felt her throat constricting even more. “So . . . the order was for you to be killed on sight. It felt like there was no escaping it. It wasn’t a matter of if anymore. It was a matter of when.” She let out a sob. “And if it had to be somebody, I wanted it to be me. I wanted it to be somebody who loved you, who could give you one last ounce of compassion and mercy. I didn’t want it to hurt, and I didn’t want you to be scared. I didn’t want you to have to face it alone. I didn’t want the last thing you saw to be somebody who hated you—”

He pulled her into his chest as she started to sob. And while she cried hysterically, he held onto her. As tightly as she’d held into him in the hospital when he’d woken up from getting his arm amputated, as he sobbed about everything that had happened during the war.

She curled against his chest, bawling in a way that she hadn’t since she was a child.

It all still felt so fresh. The fear of losing him, the fear of what he’d become during the war. But she had to remember that it was over now. That Sasuke was here now, and he was holding her, and the war was over.

“Can we just promise to have a very normal and boring relationship for the rest of our lives?” she asked him through her tears. “I know we can’t control what happens in the world, but at least when you’re home, and it’s just the two of us . . . let’s just be normal and boring and have an easy life, okay? Can we just keep watching soap operas and eating take-out and making each other laugh and keep the rest of the world out of it?”

“Of course,” he said softly. “I may not always physically be able to be in the village, but . . . I'm here, Sakura. I'm not going anywhere. Not like when I was a kid. I promise."

She nodded. “Okay.”

Then the phone started ringing.

“Fuck. Sorry. Hold on.” Sakura pulled away from him and wiped at her eyes. She started to stand up.

“You don’t have to answer the phone if you’re crying—” Sasuke said.

“It might be the hospital.” She tried to pull herself together, to be the calm, collected Dr. Sakura Haruno that the hospital would need her to be. But she couldn’t stop crying. She let out another sob and wiped at her eyes.

“Sakura—”

“I’m fine,” Sakura insisted through tears. “It’s fine.” She was fanning her face with her hand to dry her tears, trying to slow her breathing down enough to be able to talk on the phone.

Sasuke got up. He beat her to the phone and answered it first. “Sakura Haruno’s residence,” he said shortly.

His eyes were still red, but it was like he’d put on a mask—his voice was perfectly flat, cold, stoic. This was the character that Sasuke had learned to play over the years to keep everyone at an arm’s length, to keep his emotions suppressed.

He paused to listen, and his lips twitched. “Yes, Kakashi, I am still here.” He listened a little more. “She’s here. But she’s doing dishes, so she told me to answer for her,” he lied. “What’s up?” There was a beat. “Why were you looking for me?”

He listened silently for a few moments. Sakura wondered what Kakashi was saying to him. She was still wiping her tears away, trying to collect herself.

“Do we think that’s a good idea?” Sasuke asked warily. After a moment, he said, “Okay, well, do we think the Uchiha clan deserves . . . ?”

He let the sentence trail off, and apparently Kakashi answered on the other end of the line.

“I’ll ask her,” he said. “I’ll go if she’ll come with me. Bye.”

He hung up the phone.

“What happened?” Sakura asked.

Sasuke stepped closer and pulled her in for another hug. "Nothing important," he said. "Are you okay?"

She nestled into his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you."

“Is there anything we still need to talk about?” he asked. “About that day, I mean?”

She shook her head. “No. We're good.” She closed her eyes. “I’m just really glad to have you back, Sasuke.”

For another moment or two, they held onto each other silently. 

"What did Kakashi want?" she prompted.

He pulled away from her and ran his hand over his face. “Apparently there’s a meeting tonight with the Hokage and all the great clans? And Kakashi asked if I wanted to go and represent the Uchiha clan.”

Sakura raised her eyebrows. “Do you want to do that?” she asked.

“Nope,” Sasuke said immediately. “But . . . it seems like something I should do. To take responsibility for myself and the clan. It seems important to show that I’m planning on sticking around and doing good for the village. I don’t know.” He put his hand on his hip. “But he said that I could bring you, since you used to sit in on those meetings with Tsunade, and you know more about village politics than I do.”

“Yeah, I used to go to those all the time. I can go with you if you want help.”

Sasuke sighed with relief. "Yes, please. I would truly rather face a thousand white Zetsu clones alone than deal with a government meeting alone,” he admitted.

"Happy to help."

Sasuke stared at her for a few moments longer. "I am techinically the head of the Uchiha clan," he said after a moment. "So . . . I can appoint you as an official clan advisor, right? If you want."

Sakura smiled. It felt like a little bit like being a kid playing pretend, being an “official advisor” to a clan that only had one person in it.

But she also knew it was important. It mattered that Sasuke was reclaiming his stake in the village in whatever small ways he could.

And it mattered that he wanted her input.

“Of course,” she said. “I would be honored.”