A/N: Hi everyone! I have decided to upload another story. Actually, this was written a long time ago. I think now is the time for this to be posted. Hope you guys will like it.
Disclaimer:I do not own Naruto. The only character I own here is Uchiha Kenji.
Rating: T for Teens (Ratings may change)
Age of Characters: Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke – 21 years old.
Uchiha Mikoto – 40 years old
Summary:Non-massacre AU. Sasuke had been missing in the forest for 2 years. When he returned, Sakura had just gotten engaged to his best friend. The years apart had changed them both. Could they make their marriage work again?
The air was clear and the moon over Konoha was new, but there was a tangle of cobwebs in her mind. Sakura couldn't seem to think her way out of the confusion. She shut her ears to the voices quietly celebrating in the other parts of the house and stared out the window.
A shudder passed through her. It couldn't have been from the night's chill, since the house was comfortably heated. Her emerald eyes slid to her arms, crossed in front of her, hugging her middle. Perhaps, it was the cold weight of the precious metal around her finger.
Sakura turned from the window. Her restless gaze swept around the library, noting all that was familiar. Interrupting the dark, richly paneled sides of the room was a wall of bookshelves, floor to ceiling. A myriad of deeply toned bindings formed rows of muted rainbows. A sofa covered in antique velvet faced the fireplace, flanked by two chairs upholstered in a complementing patterned fabric. In a corner of the room stood a mahogany desk, its top neat and orderly.
The door to the library opened and Sakura turned. Her hair shimmered in the dim light. A pang of regret raced through her that her solitude had been broken, followed by a twinge of remorse that she had felt the need to be alone this time.
Closing the door, Naruto walked toward her, smiling despite the faintly puzzled gleam in his eyes.
"So this is where you've got to," he murmured, an unspoken question behind the indulgent tone.
"Yes," Sakura nodded, unaware of the sigh in her voice, or how forced her smile looked.
As she came closer, her gaze made a detached inspection of him. Unlike hers, his coloring was fair, sandy blond hair falling rakishly across his forehead, always seeming to invite fingers to push it back in place. His eyes were a cerulean blue, shining like hers.
At twenty-one, a contemporary of Sasuke's, there was a boyish air about him that was an integral part of his charm. In fact, it was with Sasuke that Sakura had first met Naruto. The cobwebs spun around that thought to block it out. Slim and supple, Naruto was only a few inches taller than she in her heels.
He stopped in front of her, his intent gaze studying her expressionless face. Sakura was unconscious of how totally she masked her inner turmoil. As his hands settled lightly on her shoulders, she was passive under his touch.
"What are you doing here?" Naruto cocked his head slightly to his side, his gaze still probing.
"I was thinking."
"That's forbidden." His hands slid around her and Sakura yielded to undemanding embrace, uncrossing her arms to spread them across his chest.
Why not? His shoulder had become a familiar resting place for her head, used often in the last two and a half years. Her eyes closed at the feathery caress of his lips over her temple and cheek.
"You should be in the living room noisily celebrating with the others," he told her in mock reproof.
Sakura laughed softly in her throat. "They're not 'noisily' celebrating. They don't 'noisily' do anything, whether it's rejoice or grieve."
"Perhaps not," he conceded. "But even a restrained celebration should have the engaged couple in attendance, namely you and me. Not just me alone."
"I know," she sighed.
His shoulder wasn't as comfortable as it had seemed. Sakura turned out of his unresisting embrace, nerves stretching taut again as the niggling sense of unease and confusion wouldn't leave. Her troubled gaze searched the night's darkness beyond the windowpanes as if expecting to find the answer there.
With her back turned to him, she felt Naruto resting his hands on either side of her neck, where the contracted cords were hard bands of tension.
"Relax, Sakura-chan. You've let yourself get all strung up again." His supple fingers began working their magic, gently kneading the coiled muscles in her neck and shoulders.
"I can't help it." A frown puckered her forehead despite the pleasant manipulations of his hands. "I simply don't know if I'm doing the right thing."
"Of course you are."
"Am I?" a corner of her mouth lifted in a half a smile, self-mocking and skeptical. "I don't know how I let you talk me into this engagement."
"Me? Talk youinto it?" Naruto laughed, his warm breath fanning the pink strands of her hair. "You make it sound as if I twisted your arm, and I'd never do that. You're much too beautiful to risk damaging."
"Flatterer!" But Sakura felt old, old beyond her years.
"It got me you."
"And I know I agreed willingly to this engagement," she admitted.
"Willingly but hesitantly," added Naruto, continuing the slow and relaxing massage of her shoulders and neck.
"I wasn't sure. And I still don't know if I'm sure."
"I didn't rush you into a decision, Sakura-chan. I gave you all the time you wanted because I understand why you felt you needed it," he reasoned. "And there won't be any marriage until you set the date. Our agreement is a little more than a trial engagement."
"I know." Her voice was flat. Sakura didn't find the necessary reassurance in his words.
"Look–" Naruto turned her to face him. "–I was Sasuke's best friend."
Yes, Sakura thought. He had been Naruto's right arm; now he was hers. Always there, ready to support her decision, coaxing a smile when her spirits were low and the will to go on had faded.
"So I know what kind of man your husband was," he continued. "I'm not trying to take his place. As a matter of fact, I don't want to take his place any more than I want you to take his ring from your finger."
His remark drew her gaze to the intertwining silver band and diamond solitaire on the third finger of her left hand. The interlocking rings had been joined by a third, a diamond floret designed to complement the first pair. It was Naruto's engagement ring to her.
He curved a finger under her chin to lift it. "All that I'm hoping is that with a little more patience and persistence I can carve some room in your heart to care for me."
"I do, Naruto," Sakura stated. "Without you, I don't know how I would have made it through those months when Sasuke was missing – when we didn't know if he was alive or dead. And when we were notified that he'd been kil–"
The rest of the words were silenced by his firm kiss. Then he gathered her into his arms to hold her close, molding her slender curved shape to his lean, muscular body.
His mouth was near her temple, moving against her silken hair as he spoke. "That's in the past. You have to forget it."
"I can't." there was a negative movement of her head against his. "I keep remembering the way I argued with Sasuke before he left for his mission," she sighed. "He wanted me to stay but I refused. Then he used his sharingan on me and I fall unconscious. And he left me." Another sigh came from her lips, tinged with anger and regret. "Our quarrels were always over such petty things that seem so stupid now."
"The strong vying with the strong." Naruto lifted his head to gaze at the rueful light in her eyes. "I'm partial to strong-minded women."
His teasing words provoked the smile he sought. "I suppose I have to admit to being that, don't I?"
A fire smoldered in his look, burning away the teasing light. "And I love you for being strong, Sakura-chan." His hand slid to the small of her back. "And I love you for being all woman."
Then his mouth was seeking hers again in a kiss that was warm and passionate. She submitted to his ardor, gradually responding in kind, reveling in the gentle caress of his hands that remained short of intimate. Naruto never demanded more from her than she was willing to give. His understanding restraint endeared him to her, making her heart swell with quiet happiness.
When he lifted his head, Sakura nestled into the crook of his arm, resting her cheek against his shoulder, smiling with tender pleasure. That lock of his hair, the color of sun-bleached sand, was across his forehead. She gave in to the impulse to brush it back with the rest, knowing it would spring forward the instant it was done. Which it did.
"Feel better?" His fingers returned the caress by tracing the curve of her cheekbone.
"Mmm."
"What were you thinking about when I came in?"
Her hand slid to his shirt, smoothing the collar.
"I don't know. I guess I was wishing."
"Wishing what?"
Sakura paused. She didn't know what she had been wishing. Finally she said, "That we hadn't told the others about our engagement, that we'd kept it to ourselves for a while. I wish we weren't having this engagement party."
"It's just Sasuke's family and friends. There's been no official announcement made," Naruto reminded her.
"I know." She usually had no difficulty in expressing herself but the uncertainty of her own thoughts made it impossible.
Something was bothering her, but she didn't know what it was. It wasn't as if she hadn't waited a proper time before deciding to marry again. It had been two and a half years since Sasuke had disappeared and a little more than a year since the Anbu had informed her that they found the group Sasuke was in and there had been no survivors.
And it wasn't as if she didn't love Naruto, although not in the same tumultuous way she loved Sasuke. This was a quiter and gentler emotion and probably deeper.
"Sakura-chan–" his smile was infinitely impatient. "–we couldn't keep our engagement from our family and friends. They need time, too, to get adjusted to the idea that you're going to be my wife."
"That's true," Sakura acknowledged. It was not an idea that could be implanted overnight.
The door to the library opened and an older woman dressed in black was framed in its jamb. An indulgent smile curved her mouth as she spied the embracing pair. Sakura stiffened for an instant in Naruto's arms then forced herself to relax.
"We've been wondering where the two of you had gone," the woman chided them. "It's time you came back to the party and received some of the toasts being made."
"We'll be there in a minute, Mikoto-san," Sakura replied to the woman who was Sasuke's mother, her mother-in-law.
Uchiha Mikoto's role in life had always been the traditional one, centered on her home and family. With her husband dead and both of her sons M.I.A., she clung to Sakura as her family and to her home as security.
"If you don't, I'm afraid the party will move in here and there's hardly enough room for them all."
"We'll be there in a minute, Mikoto-san." Naruto added his promise to Sakura's. With a nod the woman closed the door and Naruto glanced at Sakura. "Do you suppose you'll be able to persuade her to wear something other than black to our wedding?"
"I doubt it." She moved out of his arms, a faintly cynical smile curving her lips. "Uchiha Mikoto likes portraying the image of a tragic figure."
Within a few weeks after Sakura's marriage to Sasuke, Uchiha Fugaku, his father, had died unexpectedly in an ambush and Mikoto had purchased an entire wardrobe of black. She had barely been out of mourning when they received the news that Itachi's group was missing and believed were ambushed. Instantly, Uchiha Mikoto began dressing in black, not waiting for the notification that came a year ago declaring her son to be considered officially dead.
"She approves of our marriage. You know that, don't you?" Naruto asked.
"Yes, she approves," Sakura agreed, "for the sake of the company." And for the fact that there would only be one "widow" Uchiha instead of two – but Sakura didn't say that, knowing that it would sound small and unkind when her mother-in-law had been almost smothering in her love toward her.
"She still doesn't believe you're capable of running the company after all this time," Naruto concluded from her response. He shook his head wryly.
"I couldn't do it without you." Sakura stated it as a fact, not an expression of gratitude.
"I'm with you." He curved an arm around her waist as she started for the door to leave the room. "So you won't have to worry about that."
As Naruto reached forward to open the door for her, Sakura was reminded of that frozen instant when Mikoto had opened the door seconds ago. She wondered if the same thought had crossed her mother-in-law's mind as it had her own. She had recalled the numerous times Mikoto had opened the library door to find Sakura sitting on Sasuke's lap locked in one of his crushing and possessive embraces. This time it had been Naruto's arms that held her instead of Sasuke's. She wondered if her mother-in-law was aware of the vast differences between the two men as she was.
In the last months, after the uncertainty of Sasuke's fate had been settled and there had been time to reflect, Sakura had tried to imagine what the last two and a half years might have been like if Sasuke had lived. Theirs had been such a brief, stormy marriage, carrying the possibility that one battle could have ended the union permanently.
Naruto, on the other hand, was always predictable and the time Sakura spent with him was always pleasant. Under his supportive influence she had discovered skills and potentials she hadn't known she possessed. Her intelligence had been channeled into constructive fields and expanded to encompass more knowledge instead of being sharpened for warring exchanges with Sasuke.
Her personality had matured in a hurry, owing to the circumstances of Sasuke's disappearance. She had become a very confident and self-assured woman and she gave all the credit for the change to Naruto.
Some of her misgivings vanished as she walked out with Naruto to rejoin the party in the main area of the house. There was no earthly reason not to enjoy the engagement party, none whatsoever.
The instant they returned to the spacious living room, they were engulfed by the sedate gathering of well-wishers. Each seemed to display a reverence for the antique furniture that abounded in the room, beautiful Victorian pieces enhanced by paintings and art objects. The atmosphere decreed formality and behavior.
"I see you found the two of them, Mikoto," Uchiha Kenji announced belatedly. His voice had a tendency to boom, an abrasive sound that drew unnecessary attention to their absence from the party. "Off in some secluded corner, no doubt." He winked with faith suggestiveness at Sakura. "Reminds me of the times you and Sasuke were always slipping away to cuddle in some corner." He glanced down at the brandy in his hand. "I miss that boy." It was an absent comment, his thoughts spoken aloud.
An awkward tension charged the moment. Naruto, with his usual diplomacy, smoothed it over. "We all miss him, Kenji," he asserted quietly, his arm curving protectively around Sakura's shoulders.
"What?" Kenji initial reaction was blankness, as if unaware that he said out loud what was on his mind. He flushed uncomfortably at the newly engaged pair. "Of course, we do, but it doesn't stop any of us from wishing you much happiness together," he insisted and lifted his glass, calling the others to a toast. "To Sakura and Naruto and their future together."
Sakura maintained her façade of smiling happiness but it was an odd feeling to have the celebrants of their engagement party consist of Sasuke's family and relatives. Without family herself, her parents having been killed in an S-Class mission the year before she had met Sasuke, there had been no close relatives of her own to invite. Her friends are all out in missions so she doesn't have any friend to invite.
When Mikoto had asked to give them an engagement party, it had been a difficult offer to reject. Sakura had chosen not to, finding it the easiest and quickest means to inform all of the Uchiha family of her decision to accept Naruto's proposal. She wasn't blind to her mother-in-law's motives. Uchiha Mikoto wished to remain close to her.
But the engagement party had proved her to be more of a trial than Sakura had thought. The announcement had raised too much inner restlessness and vague doubts. None of the celebrants could see that. She was too well schooled in concealing her feelings. When the party ended at a suitable hour, no one was the wiser. Not even Naruto suspected that she was stiff plagued by apprehensions when he kissed her good night. It was something Sakura knew she would have to work out alone.
Well, that's the end of Chapter One. I hope you enjoyed reading this story. So what do you think? Do you want me to continue or not? Let me know what you think. Please review.
~fallenleaves142~