The Runaways

Characters/Pairings: Sasuke/Sakura, Boruto/Sarada, Inojin/Sarada

Summary: While facing the brink of her parents' separation, Sarada Uchiha suddenly disappears.

Notes: Basically because I wanted to read Sarada getting kidnapped and Papasuke/Mamakura had to go save her. Considering the conditions of Team Seven being OP these days, I've opted to write in the alternate universe.

Chapter 1

It has only been an hour since she arrived, but she already feels a reflexive urge to leave. Though aware how futile of an attempt that will be, Sakura avoids his gaze, deciding it is what's causing her uneasiness. And she is right, except it gets harder when the man keeps looking at her like she's the newest prized specimen in a high school science fair.

In dire need of distraction, she thinks about sutures again, holding out the patient's arm, patching up scratches: the cut bloodied her hand gloves, soiled. The procedure has then not been the easiest, since she is to deal with a child – who, after being brought to the emergency room, wails persistently about the accident. His mother is rushed to another corner, needing the most attention, but she distracts him (as she insists this event will distract her from what's in front of her now), repeatedly telling the boy of seven all will be fine, all will be fine, until the boy sleeps through surgery.

Tsunade relieves Sakura of her duties afterwards, faithfully reminding the younger medic that she is seeing her husband today. The latter replies with an unsolicited (or really, Tsunade must have saw it coming) swearing. Not in total spite, because Tsunade is still her boss, the head doctor, a mentor and senior – and Sakura can't afford to lose her job.

And now she's here, her index finger monotonously tapping the armrest as she listens, her eyes constantly, and quite unabashedly scrutinizing him. Admittedly, she still finds her husband's appeal unchanged since the first time. And that's what worries her.

Maybe because at some point she's forgotten, repressed somewhere in the back of her head, the first time her heart drummed frantically at the sight of him, how it felt then to be his. All shelved in the abyss of her subconscious, slowly resurfacing at the sight of him.

He is here now, in the flesh, still composed, aloof – pitch-black orbs nonetheless staring at her blankly. When he's taken notice that they are having a silent death stare game, he is first to shift and look away.

He looks disarrayed. Needed a haircut even, Sakura almost suggests. He's developed heftier creases under his eyes, weighed with stress, darker than the last time she's seen him. The rest of his features remain attractively chiseled, marred now with time yes, but like wine, the Uchihas age with divine exquisiteness.

His attorney, the redhead, meticulously discusses the protocol during proceedings, and occasionally Sasuke Uchiha throws his signature eye roll to show his impatience. Sakura Uchiha notices this, and had it been five years back, when he had yet distanced himself to take over the family business, she will have willingly remedied it with some bedtime shenanigans.

She's extra careful not to entertain those ideas when she's inches away from him.

"Uzumaki," the woman beside Sakura drawls. "First of all, I skipped lunch thinking we'd have something to eat in this little goddamn meet up. Second, we're not getting paid for this so please, calm the fuck down. Lastly, giving them the rundown is a waste of time. This is not the first time they've had court hearings. Besides, isn't mediation done to avoid exactly that?"

"I was also told the lawyers aren't supposed to butt in during mediation," voices the oldest one in the room, his hair still the same shade of gray since before but thinner now, a part of his scalp briefly exposed if one stared long. "The sight of you ladies came a little of a shock. I thought I was going to have a reunion with these kids alone."

Squinted bleary eyes, he looks at both parties: his former students back when his profession had been worth passing time and the bones in his knees allowed him to climb until the fifth floor of the school building.

He shuffles the documents he scanned earlier in the session, face scrunched together as though thinking of a befitting solution to the predicament, other than the small talk between the spouses forcibly exchanged. He's been otherwise terribly unhelpful and facetious, that Kakashi. Sakura knows he would rather indulge himself in an Icha Icha book than be stuck as a mediator in this division of marital assets and, dare she agrees, child custody.

Sasuke's counsel clears her throat and pushes her glasses up to focus on Sakura. "The pre-nuptial agreement is up for review, if you wish to read it, Mrs. Uchiha."

"Karin," intones Sakura's lawyer, rubbing her temple. "Please, can we just let them talk?"

"They won't talk when we don't address them questions and topics to discuss, Temari-san!" Redhead says, crossing her arms.

"You're worse than those baby prosecutors."

Sardonically, Redhead smiles. "You can say I've grown quite a bit into adolescence, hm?"

"A wayward little cunt," Temari mutters with a darker smirk.

Kakashi props an elbow on the table, chin supported by his left knuckles. "I don't really care whether or not you two should pursue this divorce, but I'm impressed you had a pre-nuptial. Makes everything so much easier." The derision leaking in his voice makes Sakura inwardly gag.

After a minute of standstill, Sakura takes one deep breath, and says, "I'm not settling with this."

She checks Sasuke for a reaction but he offers nothing but an indifferent scowl. Temari however leans back in her seat with a smug smile and Karin, though notoriously known for her reputation of 22-0 as a rookie lawyer before, turns to Sasuke for a rebuttal. Yet, again, he stays unfazed.

With this, Sakura picks up the white hospital coat folded on the armrest, stands and then slips into it. "If you'll excuse me, I have an appointment at five o' clock."

Peeved, Redhead – Karin, was it? – gets up as well. "No one's asking you to settle. Reconsider the fact that Sasuke only wants what's best for your daughter, too."

Sakura adjusts her collar, pulling down her medical robe as if lowering will completely shroud her out of their sight.

"Look, can we schedule another session? I promised Sarada I'd be home early." Everyone in the room is aware she's addressing this to Sasuke, but her sea green eyes instinctively search for something else in the room.

Her resolve? Maybe. Dwindling now at the sight of her husband after months of his absence.

Sasuke's lips part as if to say something and then closes. Karin's hand falls on his shoulder, before he hums an affirmative reply at Sakura. Silence ensues but Sakura turns for the door, Temari already at her heels.

"Tell Sarada Happy Birthday," Sasuke says –audibly at least– at the last minute, just when Sakura moves for the knob, a wife catching her husband's voice lightly jarring at the name of their child. She looks over her shoulder, but as expected, his facial features provide nothing but the usual.

She leaves with a nod, a dissatisfied one, and they are at the medic's car when Sakura exhales out the air she unknowingly held the whole time, an inflated balloon as she sags into her seat. Temari can swear the other woman's eyes have started to leak before her lids shut them tight.

"They're screwing."

Despite understanding how sensitive divorce cases are, the blonde lawyer chuckles at Sakura's expense. "With your head? Yeah, I've noticed."

"You know what I mean," Sakura exclaims mildly, settling herself behind the wheel and lowering her window. "Can't she get disbarred for that?"

"Sexual relations between counsel and client, huh? Not unless it's grossly immoral or made known to the public," Temari responds. "I mean, if it's just hunches from an ex-wife, I don't think that's enough proof to win a disbarment case."

Sakura snorts, unconvinced but thankful. An eventual smile curves across her face. "Thanks for today. What would I do without you?"

"Get fucked over, that's what," Temari shakes her hand, shrugging. "Mediation setups don't need lawyers so when you called that Uzumaki was appearing, I just had to make sure Karin's not gonna say anything that will upset either one of you. She's tolerable though, so don't let her get to you."

Sakura squeezes the hand brake, tugs, and reverses her Chevrolet sedan in the parking lot, hand out and waving at the attorney seen from the side mirror. Her phone ceaselessly beeps a familiar tune as she drives west, racing for home in hopes the sight of something domestically friendlier will ease the otherwise unpleasant day.

"You sure you don't want one?"

"Shikadai, these things will kill you."

"And yet my old man's still standing on both of his two feet."

The cigarette in between his lips tips a little with his smirk, the excess falling off easily at the end. The bigger between the two girls pretends to gag but accepts from him a lighted one then puffs. The school roof deck is a haven in its own merit, a place to smoke and watch the sun coat the sky in pigments of orange, pink and blue. Without the interruption of nosy homeroom teachers, peer counselors, or even the student police, the afternoon reeks of rebellious teenage souls and cheese flavored potato chips. The floor is damp, from the afternoon rain, but bearable.

"Sarada?"

The girl hums a response, a stick offered in her direction. She shakes her head, pulls out her glasses and wipes the lenses with the hem of her shirt, a smile replacing her refusal. "No thanks, Chocho."

Shikadai, hair tied up in such a prominent shape of a pineapple's crown, grimaces. "I bet Boruto didn't mean to. Come on. You don't need to get all mopey around here."

"I'm not mopey," says Sarada, attaching back her specs to deliver a restrained glare at her tall friend. "I'm just… you know. We're friends. We ended it on good terms – " she fidgets a little before grabbing a stick and lighting it. She blows one controlled huff, then two more, letting a few minutes pass them in silence.

"It's just not fair how he can walk right past me at lunch without even greeting me. He owes me fifty bucks from the last time I covered for his ass for driving him to the football game. And yes, I'm very sure he knows it's my birthday," Sarada inhales the last one, and then breathes it out. "He spent the entire morning with Mitsuki. The fact that today was my birthday not being slipped into one of their conversations is highly doubtful. What kind of -"

Stopped midway, Sarada looks down at a new stick balancing in between her teeth. Chocho flicks a lighter over her mouth for convenience.

"Boyfriend?" she chimes. "An Ex, 'is what he is. Since, oh I don't know, like six months ago? Girl, you gotta move on."

Dryly, the Uchiha exhales a drag before she drops it entirely – pressed embers by her heel. "I'm meeting mama in a bit, I can't smell like my funeral."

"My mom says it'll bite me in the ass one day, but that never stopped me," Shikadai adds, replacing his burnt stick with another.

"She won't like it either knowing you finished an entire pack. Again." A third party privy to their little hideout emerges from behind the water tank, frowning and crossing his arms as he approaches them. His platinum blonde hair stands out amongst others, tied in a fashioned ponytail, sticking against his awfully paper white skin. Shikadai's glower proves the visitor he's right.

"Yeah, but some of us here are old enough to tuck ourselves in without mommy's good night kisses. Thus we get away with it."

Exchanging a shake with his pal, Inojin grins. "You're gonna hold that against me forever, aren't you?" To which Shikadai meekly replies with little buzz. He moves on to Sarada, his hand snaking to the small of her back before he presses a kiss against her forehead. She doesn't move away from his ministrations, exceeding her kind of affection, but Inojin's Inojin, and Sarada knows how lucky she is to have him.

"Got caught up in the labs because the inter-school math decathlons are coming up," he announces. "We're heading to Iwa this year."

Inojin then focuses on meeting her gaze. "Hey."

"Hey, yourself."

Chocho snorts. "God, get a room."

Chuckling, Inojin nods at her. "I'll be taking her home now, you guys mind?"

Shikadai shrugs and waves dismissively, before both hands drown in the deep of his pockets. Chocho ramblingly gurgles something about her closest friends being in love, clasping the two of them in her arms in a tight embrace.

"Happy birthday again, Sarada!" Chocho squeals in delight. "Oh and wear protection, Inojin, I ain't ready to be an auntie."

"Like he forgets about that," Shikadai bets, to which his two friends blush full red. Although Shikadai protests slightly of his inclusion, Chocho already extends her arm to pull the grouch into the group hug, defeated by the sappy crew.

She rolls up her sleeves while he rolls down the window of his dad's old blue Mustang. Sarada, with her glasses and her hoodie and her hapless untied shoelaces, bends down to look at Inojin, as he cracks a smile of his own.

"I got you a present," he says.

Sarada eventually slips into the shotgun seat, sporting a vanilla-musk scent that sticks to the car. Cloaked by linen, the said birthday gift peers at the back seat, to which she lets out a soft giggle. A portrait. Hand-drawn like always because sepia artistry with blacks and whites and grays, has been Inojin's favorite.

He doesn't ask for a thank you, because her excited grin loosely denotes pretty much the same thing. He doesn't press the accelerator as soon either, when he sees she hasn't buckled up her seatbelt yet, and much like a father to a daughter, Inojin stretches across her, neatly tucking Sarada back. Before he could settle behind the wheel however, a finger hooks his chin towards her face and her lips crash over his.

She's been smoking again, he tastes, but it does not deter his excitement. Short lived the kiss may have been, Inojin does enjoy her spontaneity so he pulls back to say something but realizes the tears welling up in her eyes and for once Inojin draws back and starts the car, letting the silence envelope the twilight.

When they pass the bridge to the residences, she sighs and leans against the glass. He smells the dryness of spring, crisp and fine as it wafts against their open windows.

"It's going to be fine," he begins, apprehensive. "You don't have to face it alone."

"My parents are getting divorced," she squeaks, but in a firm tone, the way she always speaks after a storm. "I think I'm failing one of my classes. Boruto still won't talk to me. I doubt I'll get into a good college. Summer is three months away and nothing's going right. I turned fucking seventeen today, why isn't my life the shit yet?"

Inojin extends his free hand to get a hold of hers, then squeezes. She's looking at the road but she can feel him smile from the way he tells her, "It'll get better." Like a damn promise. And Inojin's consistent with never breaking those.

"Wanna bet?"

"I bet you'll get into Konoha National University," Inojin asserts, encouraging, before adding in a whisper, "We'll both get in."

"I bet…" she pauses, then smirking at the possibility. "I'll get picked up from a gay bar two months after graduation but it's okay 'cause it's not like my parents care. The last time I saw my dad was five years ago, and he doesn't bother to stay in touch. Mom, on the other hand, doesn't even give a fuck about whether or not he's coming back so I guess their separation was inevitable. All they needed was some finality. And viola, you got yourself two thanksgiving events to attend every year!"

He turns at a curve towards another lane, less traffic, less people; the streetlights aren't blinding his headlights and the sky appears softer than velvet. "I'll be at that gay bar all the time, if that's the case."

Suppressing her laughter, she hits his shoulder, her other hand covering her mouth. "You'll fit right in looking as gorgeous as any girl I know." Both of them start to snicker it off imagining, for nothing, for whatever it is that hurts, for whatever is that may still live on hurting.

"Part of my job description," he responds, as though reading her mind.

She looks outside now, still beaming. "What is?"

"Make Sarada laugh, duh."

No matter how many times she's used to the amount of tacky lines he throws, she gives him credit for taking her aback sometimes, now feeling her face tense and hot. She prays he doesn't notice, because he always takes advantage of such petty butterflies. She can't remember the last time he doesn't, though. Perhaps it is the way he has been brought up, showered with Aunt Ino's unfading adoration and Uncle Sai's careful guidance. Inojin's spoiled with much affection (and naturally he gives it back in every possible way to other people), but he never takes any of it for granted.

The guy's a walking perfection, the one in every high school girl's wet dreams, and he belongs to her. Even when she's messed up and damaged. Then again, who else isn't?

"Thanks."

"It's part of my job," Inojin says once more, eyes curving along with a smile. They pull over in front of her house, and he hands her the portrait. "It took me a week to get it done. I hope you like it."

Sarada bites her lower lip, staring at her shoes instead. "You know I like everything you do." When they decide to part, he shifts forward uncomfortably, as if there still some words left unsaid or things not yet done, a hand rubbing the back of his neck when Sarada turns again to see eye to eye.

"Driver needs to get paid."

Taking into account that her mother is already home before she is, Sarada rushes back from the front porch to peck his cheek. She disappears through the front door and he ends being behind the wheel once more. Inojin beats the horn with two pumps as he exits (she hates that because the noise scares the quiet neighborhood), his car disappearing at the bend. Her onyx eyes modestly follow him before allowing reality to kick in.

She bets on him a lot.

"Did you burn something in here?"

Caught half-trying to save the cake from a disaster out of the oven, half-twisting a smile to greet the young girl walking into the kitchen, Sakura starts to feel her age. She's in her late thirties now, which is never really an issue when you're a doctor and still following a strict healthy regime to staying fit.

But assessing Sarada's looks now reminds her of Sasuke in so many ways, not just in how she predominantly inherited most Uchiha features. Her jet-black hair is cut hanging just millimeters above her shoulders, curves now more pronounced than they have been in the last years, height even standing few centimeters taller than Sakura herself. Other than these, her fondness for black doesn't go unnoticed either – black nail polish, black phone case, black backpack.

This is what seventeen looks like. Gone are the dolls and the bedtime stories and the fright from the monsters under her bed and the starry camp outs with family. Family, excluding Sasuke and more of Itachi or Shisui, or even Ino or Naruto – whoever otherwise has been available then in the duration of Sarada's childhood, to fill in the gap her husband's been making.

She sets aside Inojin's gift, her mother locating her seat in the lengthy uncrowded table. "Mom."

Sakura gulps before erupting into her most festive cheer. "Happy birthday, my Sara-chan!"

There is blueberry cheesecake, fresh from the oven. Two boxes of, from the smell of it, Teriyaki Chicken and Sliced Bacons pizza. A bowl of mashed potatoes on the side. Sakura's knack for sweetness matches Sarada's to a leveled degree and they always end up on the same page when it comes to food. Even though half of the time her mother cooks the most terrible of dishes.

"Mitsuki gave me his collection of Disney movies. We should start loading up the old DVD and watch some tonight."

Sakura attempts to avoid her daughter's stare. "I'm afraid we have to postpone movie night, honey."

Her guilt bubbles out faster when Sarada pursues her lips, already grasping what she meant by that. "You promised me you'll stay the night, Mom! Or did you just happen to forget?"

The rosette-haired woman guiltily slices the pizza open, hoping at some point, it will placate Sarada like how food always does. Maintaining composure, Sakura exhales wearily.

"Sweetie, something came up at the hospital and they really need me. They called an hour ago, and I told them I'd need to have dinner with my daughter first. They can't perform the surgery without me. I promise as soon as the amputation is over and I've completed the procedure, I'll be here."

"Yeah, what else is new?" When she passes the box to her, Sarada seem to have toned down, calmly shaking her head and refusing to show her disappointment, other than the very evident pout. Sakura's been a mother for seventeen years – she prides being able to read her daughter well.

They sit in silence indulging in the pizza, slice after slice, before Sakura notices what Sarada came in with earlier.

"So you and Inojin started dating," Sakura says, more of a statement than a question, eyeing the portrait.

Sarada swallows, hardly looking up. "And you're divorcing my father."

It takes a minute for the words to register in Sakura's head. Her forehead creases at Sarada's knowledge. Either she's concurring for or against, Sakura can't quite discern. So she replies with, harsher than she has hoped to come out, "You can say it's getting there."

"How's Papa?"

Both her hands fall rather heavily, impatient, trembles like a mini earthquake across the dining table, glasses nearly knocked over at the shock.

"Really, Sarada. You want this conversation?"

The peal from her cellphone saves them both from a rather unquestionable skirmish, pleasantly a tune from ten years ago that Sarada has heard but never liked. She glares at her mother before equally tipping her chair back.

"You better go," she says in defeat, taking now Inojin's gift by her armpit and swinging her bag over her shoulder. "I'm not that hungry anyway and they need you at the hospital."

When Sakura picks up and Shizune demands for her presence as soon as possible, Sarada disappears back to the bedroom she almost never leaves. Only when she hears the engine out of the garage and into a good distance does she bawls like a child, muffling the sobs into her pillow. She stares back at Inojin's art, leaned against the back of the door for now, a portrait of Sakura with long tresses in her apron, and herself at age seven, entering grade school at the Academy.

Ten years back, when things hadn't been as fucked up.