Chapter Text
“I’ll be honest, you’re still on probation. The council won’t let me give you important missions before they rule on your case again. I know it's not-"
"It's fine," Sasuke cuts in. He doesn’t need a long explanation from Kakashi to know that him coming back to Konoha is a sensitive subject. His release from prison two years earlier had been the result of months of painful negotiation, and the only thing that had eventually convinced the elders to let him go was the assurance that his travels would keep him away from the village.
Kakashi seems relieved that Sasuke is sparing him the long talk. He sits back in his chair and resumes more casually. "Come back tomorrow for the briefing. Shikamaru will update your record and give you your first assignments."
Sasuke nods and turns around to leave. Kakashi calls him when he opens the door. "Sasuke?"
Sasuke looks over his shoulder. Kakashi’s eyes smile.
"Welcome back."
The idea of returning to Konoha had slowly grown in Sasuke’s mind for several weeks before he decided to make his way home. Kakashi had mentioned the possibility of his return in the last mission scroll he had sent him. Several letters from Naruto had told him about the life in town and how he should be there to see it. He himself had started to consider taking a break from his constant travels and settling down in the village for a while.
After two years, it felt like spending time on the road wasn’t helping him anymore. He had come to terms with some things, and accepted that others would take more time, and being away from everyone he cared about made less and less sense for him. Eventually he finished the last mission he had on the road, and packed his things to head back.
The streets of Konoha feel both familiar and different as he walks through the village after leaving Kakashi. The Hokage tower, the hospital, and the academy are still where they have always been, but the village has become much more modern and dynamic since the reconstruction after the war.
After spending several months alone in remote areas, he is not used to crowds and agitation anymore. It feels like things are buzzing around him. New stores attract lines of eager shoppers, trendy restaurants spread spicy aromas in the streets, large colorful banners announce the next festival in town. Kids run down the streets without a care in the world and several jonins are having a beer at the counter of the local bar. The atmosphere is much more cheerful than it was the day he left the village.
The Uchiha district was never rebuilt after the war, but during the several months of his trial he didn't have to worry about housing since he was sleeping in jail. Now he has not had a permanent residence in the village in over a decade, and he needs a place to sleep until he can find long-term accommodation.
Finding a place to stay, however, quickly proves to be harder than he thought. The first place he tries is full. The second one too. The third receptionist blurts something about the upcoming festival and the visitors who booked all the rooms, but Sasuke can feel that something is wrong. Finally one hotel doesn’t reject him right away and confirms that they have available rooms for an extended stay.
“Name?” the clerk asks as he opens the reservation book.
“Uchiha Sasuke.”
The man is about to write it down but stops with his pen mid-air. He looks up from the desk and stares at Sasuke. He looks like he has seen a ghost. He remains paralyzed for long seconds before he slowly closes the datebook and steps back away from the desk.
“We have no room left,” he says in a breath.
His change of attitude is so sudden that Sasuke isn’t sure how to react. “Sorry?”
“We don’t want any trouble,” the man adds. He avoids Sasuke’s gaze and moves back as far as the wall behind him will allow.
For a second Sasuke wants to insist but the surprise leaves him speechless. He knows that the man is lying but he cannot wrap his head around the idea that the reason for his accommodation problem is simply himself. He had not realized that his reputation had spread and that random citizens knew about him. What do they know? Is it just because of him? Is it the whole clan?... The receptionist is still tucked against the wall, looking at the ground like he is going to die if he meets the eyes of his guest. Humiliation rises from Sasuke’s chest to burn his cheeks. He clenches his teeth. He could threaten the man into giving him a room. He could genjutsu him into doing it. He considers both options but Kakashi’s words echo in his mind and interrupt his anger.
“You’re still on probation.”
Making a scene two hours after coming back would be ridiculous.
Without another look for the receptionist, he turns around and heads out.
The idea of asking someone to have him over comes through his mind but is quickly dismissed. He has never been close to any of his classmates and most of them have been openly cold towards him in recent years, for good reasons. The only one who still counts him as a friend is Naruto, who got married a few months ago, and Sasuke has enough tact to give the new couple the privacy they need and not impose his presence on Hinata.
When the night falls, he settles for a shady hostel on the very border of the village, where the street lights don’t work and the gutter smells like urine. The place is seedy enough that they don’t ask any questions. His black cloak blends perfectly among the other patrons, who come and go in the shadows without making eye contact. He gets the key to a squeaky door at the end of a long corridor. He thought he was used to minimal accommodation, but the room is so small and humid that he begins to question his decision to come back to the village. It hits differently to be in these conditions in such a familiar place.
His thoughts keep getting darker as the night advances. The mat that serves as a futon is thin and lets the cold from the hard wooden floor spread into his body. The place is noisy, the air moldy, and wind comes through cracks in the walls. He doesn't sleep a second. When the first lights of the morning come up he realizes he should have gone back outside and slept on a grass bed. He picks up his belongings and doesn't leave anything in the room when he leaves for fear someone might visit his room in his absence.
He is still brooding over his bad night when Shikamaru meets him at the Hokage tower and drowns him in rules and guidelines that he couldn’t care less about. Shikamaru seems colder and more stressed than in his memory, and Sasuke wonders what brought the change of attitude. He knows Shikamaru doesn’t like him much, but his behavior is unusually curt. When they have gone over the paperwork, Shikamaru shoves a mission scroll in Sasuke’s hand and leaves without more words.
“Shikamaru will have to leave for a little while,” Kakashi says, before Sasuke leaves. “I’ll need you to pick up some of the work he’s leaving behind.”
Sasuke doesn’t waste time on politeness. “What’s wrong with him?”
To his surprise, Kakashi smiles. “Temari’s pregnant. She’s expected to give birth any day now. He’s been a bit… on edge.”
Sasuke suddenly feels deeply stupid that he thought Shikamaru’s attitude was about him. Years have passed since he left, Shikamaru had many reasons to be upset that had nothing to do with him. He briefly wonders if Shikamaru actually wanted a baby so early or if it was an accident. He is smart enough not to get into this kind of trouble, but Sasuke still struggles to take in the idea that his classmates are becoming parents.
The mission he was given is a humiliating D-rank one. He knows he has to lie low for a while, so he forces himself to swallow back his pride and be done with it as quickly as possible. The task takes him about fifteen minutes, fourteen of which are spent running after a chicken that he struggles to catch with one hand. It turns out that chickens are too simple-minded to be caught in a genjutsu and he quickly has to hold back so as not to roast it on the spot. He is glad that no one was there to see his struggle, and he is so relieved to be done that he is actually nice and polite with the farmer who contracted the mission when he brings the chicken back to the henhouse.
He is back at the tower before lunch to report. When he walks into the Hokage’s office his brain briefly blanks and he almost bumps into Shikamaru in front of him. Someone else is already in the office. He recognizes Sakura's pink hair right away, but he briefly doubts himself. It’s probably someone else. The woman standing next to the desk is taller than Sakura, her hair is longer, and her outfit is different. Her hair is tied in a low ponytail, the ends curl in the middle of her back. Shorter strands frame her face and she tucks them behind her ears over her red headband. Her mission outfit is tight around her waist and his eyes linger on the curves of her chest and her lower back. The hem of her shorts is high on her thighs and reveals the pale skin of her legs just above her thigh-high tights. Something in the way she holds herself, the way she bends to talk to Kakashi and she nods when he replies is new.
She doesn’t look like the girl he used to train with. The mental image he had kept of her, of the last time he saw her before leaving, is completely outdated. For two years he has remembered her as a young teenager, with round cheeks and short hair, a bit too loud, slightly clumsy, often annoying. The woman in front of him doesn’t match this memory.
She turns and gives Shikamaru and him a brief smile. She puts down the paper she was holding on the desk, says goodbye to Kakashi, and slides past them to walk out of the office. Sasuke watches the door close behind her. He expected her to talk to him but she didn't even say hi. She barely looked in his direction. She looked like she was in a hurry to leave. When Kakashi calls his name he is taken out of his thoughts and forces himself to focus on formal affairs.
He sees Sakura again in the evening, from afar across the main street, as she is chatting with friends over a beer after work. In the shadows he walks slower to look at her longer. She's talking with Ino. She takes a sip from her glass and laughs. The more he looks at her the more he remembers the Sakura he left two years ago, without really seeing her anymore. Everything about her seems the same, and yet her aura feels different. How can someone change so much in just a couple of years? Was she already like that when he left? He had not paid enough attention to her to remember these details. When she looks in his direction he realizes that he has been staring too long. Their eyes meet, just a second. She briefly pauses, and looks away to speak with someone else. Something strange spreads in his chest. She used to blush, squirm, and squeak every time he was remotely close to her. She would go out of her way to see him or to touch him. When they were kids she would get excited if he just talked to her, to the point that it was annoying. He glances at her one more time before she is out of sight behind him. She is not looking at him.
His following night is not better than the first. He is in a terrible mood that doesn’t improve when he gets physically attacked on his way to work.
“SASKE!”
The impact of Naruto’s body against his makes them stumble and Sasuke hastily pushes himself out of his embrace. “What’s wrong with you?”
Naruto’s grin doesn’t falter. “Kakashi said you were back! I was on a mission yesterday.”
Sasuke tries his hardest to be pissed off but it feels good to see someone who’s happy to see him. He nods.
“Where are you staying at?” Naruto asks.
Sasuke’s mood sours again. He is ashamed to say it. “... The place down the onsen street. It's temporary.”
Naruto’s smile fades as he understands. “I could ask Hinata if… I mean just for a few days… You know?”
Sasuke shakes his head. “Don’t bother.”
Naruto knows not to insist. “You think Kakashi will send us on missions together soon?”
“I usually work alone.”
Naruto grabs his shoulders again and laughs. “You traveled all this time and you didn’t even become just a bit nicer? You wanna grab a beer? I’m off tomorrow.”
Even Naruto has changed. He is all the same, but it seems that marriage, short of making him wiser, made him slightly calmer. Over a drink he talks about Hinata and his missions and how he is working hard to climb his way up. He is involved in just about everything he can, sometimes in several things at once with different clones, and he seems to take on big responsibilities. It is unusual to see him so serious and organized. Once again, Sasuke has a hard time believing all of this happened in the two years he was gone.
The following days confirm that Sasuke is not exactly welcome in the village. All sorts of rumors have spread about Naruto’s missing arm and the worst of them is probably the one that is the closest to the truth. People whisper that Sasuke Uchiha tried to kill their beloved war hero but Naruto overpowered him and protected the village at the cost of his own arm. People also whisper about Itachi, about Obito, about Madara, and everyone makes up their own idea of what happened. The fact that most information surrounding the clan is classified and only accessible to a very small number of people leaves room for gossip and sketchy theories. A lot of elders don’t hide their relief that the clan is gone, and see Sasuke’s return as a bird of ill omen.
It seems, however, that the hatred of the village for him is inversely proportional to the love they have for Naruto. They wave at him on the street, young students thank him for his help, shop owners give him gifts out of the blue, and people still talk about his wedding with Hinata like it was the event of the century. It’s impossible to walk down the main street with him without being interrupted.
It feels like things have completely shifted around them. Sasuke used to be the top student from a large clan and Naruto the troublesome kid to avoid, now it’s the complete opposite. People flinch when they see Sasuke’s rinnegan through his bangs, they back up when they see that he is actually missing an arm like the rumor claimed. Groups whisper when they see him and he is positive that he has seen a mother hide her kids from him as he was walking down the street.
His attempts to find a better place to settle are unsuccessful. Those who don’t know him are wary of renting to an intimidating stranger, and those who do know him are scared of his name and prefer to rent to other tenants. He becomes painfully aware that, in the eyes of the average villager, he is an ex-convict from a dangerous family.
That night Sasuke lies on the smelly mat of his hostel bedroom and the images of Sakura, of all people, avoiding him keep showing up in his thoughts. The last time he saw her she had asked to come with him on his journey. He thought she'd be happy to see him back. He thought she'd be the same as she was before, a bubbly girl who always tried to catch his attention. What happened since he left that made her change so much? A voice in his head tells him that, just like Shikamaru and Naruto, she grew up and changed while he was away. She lived her life and moved on. He wraps his cloak around himself tighter and turns on his side to sleep.
He sees her again the next day when he walks by the hospital. She's at the front door, talking to someone. She glances in his direction but quickly looks back at the person she was talking to and walks back into the building with them. Is it because he didn't write to her during the years he was away? What would he even have told her? She didn't write to him either. He did exchange messages with Kakashi and Naruto but he never got news from Sakura unless she was mentioned in Naruto's letters.
“Are you still talking with Sakura?” he asks Naruto the next time they meet, while they wait for Kakashi in front of his office. Waiting for their chronically later teacher, it reminds him of their time as a genin team.
Naruto raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. I mean… I see her, sometimes. She works at the hospital with Hinata.”
“Hinata works?”
As a Hyuga princess, it would not be surprising for Hinata to be a stay-at-home wife, especially with her husband on his way to becoming Hokage.
“Part-time as a nurse,” Naruto says. “She says she’d be bored staying home.”
“... I've not talked to Sakura since I came back.”
Naruto nods. “She works like crazy.” He looks behind Sasuke when they hear Kakashi arrive. “Night shifts and all. Your best chance to see her is to make a doctor’s appointment.”
Sakura disappears from his sight and his thoughts for the rest of the week. He didn't think coming back to the village would require such a long adjustment but Shikamaru always has something to do for him and Kakashi keeps calling him in his office, to the point where Sasuke suspects that he's just trying to keep an eye on him everyday.
On Sasuke’s first weekend in the village Naruto takes advantage of a day off to take him to the training ground.
“I want to show you some stuff I’ve been working on,” he says with enthusiasm. “I bet you have new jutsus too.”
Sasuke has a side smile. “No.”
“C’mon! I show you mine, you show me yours!”
“Why would you say it like that…”
Naruto ignores his bad grace. “I gotta show you something else anyway.”
He drags Sasuke down to the basement of the Hokage’s tower. The place is buzzing with scientists and technicians. The blue glow that surrounds the experiments and monitors reminds Sasuke of Orochimaru’s lab. Machines beep and blink regularly. Naruto seems to know the place and Sasuke follows him, until he stops in front of a window and looks at the shelves inside. He grins and points at a set of artificial arms. They are all right arms, except one, which is a left arm.
“I asked them to make one for you,” Naruto says with excitement. “Now that you're back you can try it on!”
Sasuke hesitates. He wasn’t expecting this. He has never managed to get used to a replacement arm, a part of him has accepted that the loss was just who he is now, with his past and his mistakes, and he has learned to live without it.
“Just try it,” Naruto insists, when he sees his lack of enthusiasm.
Sasuke does try it. Partly out of vague curiosity, but mostly because he knows firsthand that Naruto won’t drop the issue until he agrees to do what he wants. He watches the white substance of the prosthetic merge with his own arm when the two are put in contact. He tentatively opens and closes his new hand. The feeling is foreign. He has gotten so used to not having an arm that the artificial one feels like an extra weight that hinders his movements. When he gets up he feels lopsided. Everything about the shape and the size of it feels wrong. He moves his artificial fingers and it seems completely unnatural.
“You’ll get used to it," Naruto says.
“I don’t need it.”
Naruto shakes his head seriously. “I can’t fight you with just one arm,” he says. “It’d be cheating, you know?”
Sasuke cannot believe the audacity. He looks back at Naruto. “I could take you on with my feet stuck together.”
Naruto’s compassion vanishes immediately. “What!?”
Sasuke turns around to leave the lab. Naruto catches up to him.
“SASKE!”
“Hurry up loser, we don’t have all day.”
Sasuke expected a good training session, but he loses his excitement soon after they reach the training ground and start sparring. The prosthetic arm gets in his way every time he moves. He doesn’t remember how to do signs with two hands. He struggles to keep up against Naruto, even when they start slow, because he is too focused on learning how to use his left arm again.
And Naruto doesn’t hold back. Sasuke is probably the only person he doesn't have to hold back against and he clearly takes advantage of this opportunity. During a fraction of a second Sasuke hesitates, Naruto attacks, and it’s too late to dodge. Sasuke blocks the blow with both of his arms. The prosthetic deforms on impact, bends, and suddenly shatters under Naruto's strength. Sasuke's only arm absorbs the shock to protect his face and he feels his bones vibrate under the pressure. His elbow snaps. The hit throws him back and he rolls on the ground several feet away from Naruto.
When the dust settles around him, his breath is short and his arm is throbbing. Flashes of pain radiate from his wrist to his shoulder and just sitting upright is a struggle.
Naruto stops when he sees that Sasuke is not getting up. They both glance down. Sasuke's elbow is bent at an unnatural angle and it's uncomfortable just to look at it.
Naruto has an embarrassed smile. "I had never tested the arm against myself, I guess now we know they're not strong enough, you know?"
Sasuke gives him a glare so dark that Naruto quickly adds, "They’ll fix you in no time at the hospital!”
Sasuke swears between clenched teeth. He can't even pick up his sword, he now has zero working arms and his helplessness is humiliating. Naruto notices. “Do you need help?”
“No," Sasuke grunts bitterly.
He briefly tries to put his elbow back into place himself by pushing it against his knee, but the pain makes his stomach turn and he quickly loses his determination. He begrudgingly lets a lab technician wrap a sling around his arm and refuses to be carried away on a stretcher.
He does his best to ignore the throbbing ache that paralyzes his joint as he walks to the hospital with Naruto, who insisted on carrying his sword and his cloak.
“Do you want me to stay with you?” Naruto asks when they walk into the lobby of the ER and wait for admission.
“I didn’t even want you to come with me in the first place.”
Naruto seems to feel guilty for the accident. He waits with Sasuke until they are in front of the reception desk, and Sasuke doesn’t protest. While he has had more severe injuries, the pain in his elbow is making him hiss at the slightest movement and it is very impractical not to be able to use his lone arm. When they reach the desk Naruto drops Sasuke’s belongings on the counter and turns around to leave. “You should ask for Sakura,” he says with a wink as he walks away, and it's loud enough that the hospital staff hears him.
The receptionist looks up at Sasuke and the sling around his arm. “Dr. Haruno’s busy," she says without enthusiasm. “Someone else will see you.”
Sasuke quickly considers the info. He wasn’t even thinking about seeing Sakura before Naruto mentioned her, but now a part of him wants to see her. It’d be so much easier if it were her. She won’t be afraid to see his name on the hospital form. She won't be surprised that his medical file has not been updated for several years. She won’t ask questions about his rinnegan or his missing arm. Sakura already knows everything.
“Ask her anyway,” he says.
“... You could wait several hours.”
He ponders the pain in his arm versus the annoyance of seeing another doctor. He should be seen by someone else, but after Sakura’s strange behavior of the past few days, he doesn’t want to miss an opportunity to see her.
“I’ll wait.”
The receptionist couldn’t care less. She looks at him for another couple of seconds to see if he will change his mind, and turns back to her computer. “Sit in the waiting room, we'll call you.”
Sakura has not sat down in three hours and her shift is nowhere close to being over. The ward is particularly busy and she has not had a break since her morning coffee, far before sunrise. She is not looking forward to the remaining eight hours on the job before she can go home. She is barely finished with a patient when the intern she supervises runs up to her in the hallway.
“We have a new patient with an injured arm.”
Sakura is already checking the file of another case on her clipboard. She replies absentmindedly. “Did the nurse see them?”
“He asked for you.”
Sakura sighs. Patients always want to be seen by the doctor, as if nurses and assistants were not good enough to deal with common injuries. “Tell him the doctor will come and see him later.”
“No, he… He asked for Sakura Haruno.”
Sakura looks up from her papers. The intern looks terrified.
“Is there something wrong?”
“The patient… I had to fill in the form for him, he’s missing his other arm. And one of his eyes is weird, I think he might be blind in that eye.”
Sakura takes the clipboard that her intern is holding. Her heart twitches when she reads the name at the top of the form.
“He can see perfectly well, don't worry about him. Tell him someone else will take care of him.”
The young intern shivers. “He said he’d wait. He's been waiting for an hour already.”
Sakura frowns at such stubbornness. She thought he would have waited to avoid seeing her, not the contrary. He probably thinks that she will hurry to see him. That he will get special treatment. That she will take care of him and then he can tell her that she’s annoying and never talk to her again. She looks back at the clipboard bitterly.
“Send him for X-ray.”
Sasuke straightens up when the door of the exam room opens and Sakura comes in. He is sitting on the exam bed, his legs dangling off the side, his arm in a splint. He wasn't sure she would actually come. The pain and the boredom of waiting over two hours vanish when she closes the door behind herself and he finds himself alone with her. She’s wearing a long white coat over her civilian clothes. He is not used to seeing her like this.
His throat feels dry when he speaks. “Sakura.”
“Hey,” she says, but she barely looks at him. After not seeing each other for so long and finally being together in private, it feels a bit short for a greeting. She checks the clipboard she is holding and puts it down on the counter. She looks at the X-ray on the lightbox.
“You only have one arm left, I thought you'd take care of it,” she mumbles after a moment. He is almost glad to hear her scold him. This tiny bit of familiarity is the first normal thing she has done since he came back to the village several days earlier. Her tone reminds him of the time they spent as kids when she berated Naruto and him for being careless idiots. The idea of telling her that she is annoying comes through his mind but he forces himself not to say it. It took him several days to have a chance to see her, he doesn't want to risk making her leave.
He watches her wash her hands and cannot help but notice once again how much she has changed. There is something about her coat that makes her look older. Her hair is pinned up in a messy low bun. His eyes follow the curve of her neck, her back, her waist, and down to her sneakers.
When he looks up her face is serious. She comes over to him. With him sitting on the exam table their faces are at the same level. They exchange a glance. After a short second of hesitation, that he wouldn’t have noticed if he weren't himself on edge, she extends her hands towards him.
“Do you mind?” she asks, before she touches him. He nods to consent. He vaguely remembers times when she jumped on him to hug him or hold him and she had not asked for permission.
She takes off the splint that the X-ray technician had attached, rolls up his sleeve a bit higher on his upper arm, and takes off his glove. Despite her care the action makes his arm move a little bit and he tries his best not to wince at the pain.
He watches her silently as she looks at his arm from different angles and feels around his elbow with the tips of her fingers. Her touch is delicate and professional, and yet every time her fingers brush against his skin he feels strangely self-conscious. He had not seen her this close since he came back. Thin strands of hair have come out of her bun and are falling around her face. She looks a bit tired. Lines under her eyes show how hard she has been working. It doesn’t take anything from her looks.
When she is done examining his elbow she straightens up in front of him. He expects her to say something but she simply slides her hand into his. The direct contact makes his heart quicken. No one has touched him in quite a while, not even just the hand, especially without his glove. He didn’t expect her to do this. Her palm is warm and soft, her hand feels small under his fingers and he gets weirdly hot in the chest. She gently squeezes his hand. Her other hand wraps around his bicep just above his elbow. Her touch gives him goosebumps. She is really close to him, he can smell… is it her shampoo? A pink strand of hair is loose over the seal on her forehead. He looks at her eyes but she is not looking at him. She has a focused frown as she adjusts her grip on his arm.
He understands too late why she grabbed his hand. Before he can react, she firmly pulls on his forearm and pops his elbow back into place with an audible crack. The jolt of pain makes him see white. For several seconds his eyes go wide, his jaw clenches, and his mind blurs like he's going to faint. The air is knocked out of his lungs and his voice gets stuck in his throat. He blinks but the world reels. He needs a long minute to start to recover and relax. He is vaguely aware of the green glow of her hand seeping through his joint. He does his best to compose himself as the pain slowly fades under her chakra.
"Sakura!" he grunts in protest, when he manages to breathe again. She's not just annoying, she's downright vicious. She doesn't seem to hear him. She carefully bends and extends his arm, and feels his elbow to check that everything is in place. She seems satisfied and lets his hand go. She's away from him and back at the lightbox before his brain functions properly again. She slides his x-ray into his folder and scribbles on the clipboard.
"You should be good to go," she says, and he needs to make a great effort to pay attention to her words after the shock. "Just try to be careful with it in the coming days,” she adds. “You can see the front desk to be released."
She puts her pen back in the front pocket of her white coat. He realizes that she’s going to leave.
“Sakura-”
He doesn't even know what to tell her. He doesn't know why he wants to talk to her after her brutal care. She doesn't stop on her way out anyway. The door closes behind her and he is left in the silence of the room. The pain in his elbow is gone but the humiliation is blistering. Sakura couldn't have been more indifferent. It hurts even more since a part of him knows that he shouldn't have expected anything more and that he can't really be mad at her for despising him.
He needs several minutes to gather his thoughts. He carefully checks if he can move his arm. He can still feel the touch of her hand and the warmth of her chakra on his skin. The goosebumps on his forearm at this thought are in total conflict with the frustration he has towards her. The pain is completely gone. Everything feels normal. He grabs his things and heads out.
Sakura practically runs to the bathroom after leaving the exam room. She locks herself in the farthest stall and leans back against the cold tiled wall to calm her heartbeat.
She wasn't ready to see him. She knew he was back, she had seen glimpses of him a few times, but she had not fully taken in the news. She thought he might have sent a clone to see Kakashi or he was only there for a short time and would leave on a long mission again quickly. She didn't think she would find herself alone with him in a closed room.
The sight of him in the exam room is printed in her brain. He has changed a lot during his travels. He is taller now. His hair is longer. His voice was different when he said her name. His tone was different. There was restraint in his attitude. But the second she walked into the exam room, all her memories of him came back and she lost her focus. Seeing him so close, talking to him, touching him, it brought back everything at once, after she had spent so long trying to forget.
She remembers the day he left. After the war, when they all had to mourn their dead, tend to their wounds, and rebuild. He was gone and she was left to herself, rethinking everything that had happened, realizing with time that loving him had only ever brought her pain and disappointment.
She spent the next two years going over and over every interaction she had ever had with him and eventually, after too many evenings spent complaining over drinks with Ino, too many nights spent crying into her pillow, and too many days waiting for him to come back, she forced her brain to realize that her feelings were unrequited. She accepted that he only felt contempt and annoyance for her, and she should move on to something else. And she did, eventually, she focused on her career, she started seeing other people, dating even. It took her two years to have an almost normal life again, and now not a week after his return her defense is already shattering. She doesn’t even clearly know what she is feeling. She’s angry, and upset, and sad, but also hurting because she missed him and he is finally back, but she knows she shouldn’t have these feelings for him after everything he has done.
She needs a moment to remember that she has a shift to finish. She gets out of the stall and walks to the sinks. She runs her hands under cold water and presses them against her cheeks to try and compose herself.
She manages to throw herself back into her work and push the image of Sasuke out of her mind while she takes care of her patients. It works, at least until the late afternoon, when Shizune comes up to her and corners her in the breakroom.
“Sakura, the file says that Sasuke Uchiha came with a dislocated elbow and you dealt with it by yourself...?”
Sakura avoids her gaze. “It was an easy one, the x-ray was clear, I was fine on my own.”
She recalls how it felt to see him, to hear his voice, to touch his hand. She tries not to let the feelings boil over.
Shizune is still frowning. “The report doesn’t list any medication.”
Sakura feels embarrassment rise to her face. They usually get their patients completely high on pain meds before they touch a dislocated limb. She got so upset seeing him and was so eager to be done with it that she skipped that step. She did use chakra to heal the trauma, but it'd have been easier on him to go the traditional way. She shrugs in a poor attempt to look indifferent. “He’s seen worse.”
Shizune shakes her head in disapproval. “I know you have… history with him, but now he's a regular patient, he should be treated like one.”
Sakura puts down her clipboard on the counter and finally faces Shizune.
“He showed up out of the blue and demanded that I was the one to see him. He could have been seen by anyone else but he expected me to drop everything and deal with his problem.”
Shizune’s features soften as she understands the reason for Sakura’s behavior. “... Maybe he wanted to see you?” she says quietly.
Sakura shakes her head. She doesn't want to let herself believe that. Obviously he just thought that if he asked for her he'd skip the line and get a better treatment, and then he’d be off again ignoring her for another ten years.
“Why would he want to see me?" she blurts angrily. "You know he doesn’t- he thinks- he doesn’t care about me.”
Shizune gives a side smile. “I’m just saying that he was in a pretty awkward situation with his only arm injured,” she says, “and he asked to see you.”
Sakura hmphs with a shrug and looks away. She won’t let herself fall back into delusion because Sir Sasuke Uchiha wanted to cut the line in the ER.
“Just treat him like any other patient,” Shizune says more seriously when she sees that Sakura isn’t taking her teasing. “You shouldn’t let your feelings get in the way of how you do your job. If you can’t do that then it’s a problem for the hospital.”
Shizune leaves but her words hit Sakura hard and guilt creeps up on her. Professionally speaking, it was the most terrible patient care she has ever given. While she doubts that Sasuke will sue the hospital over it, it was clearly malpractice. She knows she was rude with him but at that moment it didn’t matter. For a minute she was so upset that it seemed reasonable and after he made everyone suffer for years, she gave him a little taste of it back.
Now that she has cooled down and Shizune put her priorities back in order, she realizes that he just needed help. He was in pain, and she took advantage of his helplessness. She would never have done that with another patient, not even an enemy of the village. Plus, if she goes by what Ino told her, his return to the village is not easy for him. She herself has tried to avoid him but Ino has feasted on every bit of information she could hear about him and reported it to Sakura as soon as she could. She knows he is limited in his missions and he struggled to find a place to stay after most places in town refused to house an ex-convict. She has forced herself to remain indifferent but now that she has seen him, she can’t help but think she didn’t need to add to his problems.
Her remorse gets worse in the evening and makes her stop by the front desk when she has a minute.
“The man who came with the elbow problem,” she asks over the counter, “did he leave? The one with a black cloak.”
The receptionist nods. “Yeah, he signed the release form a bit before noon.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No.”
Sasuke stays out late that evening. He is not looking forward to going back to his humid room in the hostel. He was already perplexed by Sakura’s attitude before, but now it feels like he has never even known her. He keeps wondering what he did to deserve this attitude from her, and every time his brain gives him a short but relevant summary of all the terrible things he did while she begged him to see reason.
When he finally comes out of Ichiraku's the night is dark and the fresh air feels good on his cheeks after the warm and greasy atmosphere of the restaurant. He feels better after eating, and he is looking forward to sleeping to stop rehashing the day in his head. He is halfway down the main street when a voice breaks the silence.
"Sasuke!"
Sakura is behind him. Her badge is still around her neck and her work bag on her shoulder, she looks like she was walking home from the hospital. She stops a few feet away from him in the yellow circle of a streetlight. Is she going to be rude again? What does she want?
She cuts his thoughts short. "I'm sorry," she says. "About this morning."
He looks at her carefully. Her attitude is completely different than it was earlier. The harsh streetlight glow makes her look more tired than she seemed at the hospital, and she is struggling under the weight of her bag. She looks almost shy. She seems sincere.
"... It's fine,” he replies.
For a moment only the soft sounds of the night are between them. She hesitates.
"I heard about the hostel," she says, and he feels humiliated to learn that everyone knows how his reputation is treating him. "I-erm," she adds as she looks at the ground and adjusts the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “I have a spare room if you still need a place to stay."
He stares at her while her words sink in. It is quite unexpected after the cold treatment she gave him since he arrived. He briefly wonders if she's making fun of him, but she doesn’t seem to be joking.
Instead it is offered so simply. There's no anger, and no fawning or blushing either. She said it as a matter of fact. She does look like she feels guilty for their earlier encounter. She also looks like she had a long day. And now she is standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the night, waiting for him to accept or refuse her offer like she doesn't mind either answer. She is offering it like a friend to another, knowing that he has no good place to stay for the night. Her attitude is so unusual that he takes a while to think about an answer, and seeing that he doesn't reply, she takes a step back to turn around.
"I start early tomorrow so..."
"Yes," he says before she starts walking away. "Yes. For the room. Thank you.”
He wouldn’t have accepted but her attitude makes him curious and the room he is currently staying in is worse than sleeping in the forest. He is tired, the night is getting cold, he could use a good night in a warm place, even if it's just on the couch.
She seems briefly taken aback. He starts thinking that she might actually have been making fun of him, or that she might change her mind and pull back her offer. But she nods and starts walking ahead of him.
Her apartment is close to the hospital, on the top floor of a small building. It's a bit messy, but clean and welcoming. Her kitchen is open onto the living room. A slight smell of medicinal herbs floats in the air. She opens a sliding door to a spare room that is barely larger than a closet and used as a storage space for piles of cardboard boxes. She turns on the light and pushes a box with her foot. She glances around the room and fiddles with her hair in embarrassment. “It's not much but…”
“I've had worse.”
Her shoulders drop in relief. “... I thought so.”
They exchange a look, and for the first time since he came back, Sasuke catches a glimpse of the Sakura he knows. In her apartment, without her tight mission outfit or her intimidating white coat.
She pushes another couple of cardboard boxes aside to clear a space on the floor and pulls a futon out of the closet at the back of the room. She unrolls it and grabs a blanket and a pillow. She fumbles in the closet again and sets up a small night lamp on a cardboard box. Within a couple of minutes the storage room becomes a guest bedroom. “There are more blankets in the closet if you need.”
Sasuke was still hesitant but now, seeing a fresh, clean bed in a room where the floor isn't sticky is a luxury and he is glad he accepted her offer, no matter how awkward the situation is between them.
She piles up two cardboard boxes and picks them up before she steps out of the room.
"The bathroom's on the right," she says as she nods at the next door. "Good night."
He closes the door behind her. The room is a mess but it feels good to have some privacy. Their interaction was so short that they didn’t have time to make it embarrassing. He is thankful for that.
He hears her spend a few minutes in the bathroom and then the door to her bedroom closes and the night becomes quiet.
The futon is comfortable. The sheets are clean and the pillow is firm. He closes his eyes, hoping to fall asleep quickly, but his brain is awake. The sheets smell like Sakura.