Prologue

"Please, just tell me..." she sighed almost ready to give up, almost being the fundamental word. One last try...and another one if that try didn't work.

She could sense her eyes getting bigger and slightly watery, just enough to burn holes into his soul, but to not be completely obvious about it. She had a mission...

"Just tell me..." she repeated, but before getting an answer she remembered the power of words and every cheesy movie plot she knew about. "And please don't give me the 'because she was smart, funny and beautiful' thing. That won't work. Plus, it just means that now she is stupid, boring and ugly."

Her voice was calculated but also demanding and he noticed that extremely well as he rolled his eyes for the hundredth time.

Sasuke knew that a question of that type would appear once the divorce was finalized. He blamed it all on that stupid teacher though. Who explained those kinds of things to children that were practically still fetuses anyway? It was illogical...and stupid.

Sarada had always been a curious child and the whole growing up phase didn't help at all.

"You are barely 12 years old...basically a toddler." he said in his usual cold tone while they were passing the library on their way to the hospital. "What can you possibly know about love?"

He could already see the frown which was starting to take shape on his daughter's face and he knew she was getting ready for a comeback or something like that. Her face wasn't that hard to read. Not yet at least.

He had never been really good at being a father and, to be honest, neither was his wife (ex-wife) at the mother thing, but the shared custody and the stupid schedule had made everything worse than before because when you have a child, you actually have to talk to him/her by using actual words and sentences

"But papa at school we..."

"At school you learnt about sex" he interrupted her not really believing she wouldn't have already realized how weak her argument was. "I thought you were smart enough or you watched enough TV to know that sex and love are two different things...Plus I don't think you know that kind of love yet" he said knowing exactly what his new step would be.

"Or is something I don't know?"

His question was casual like a simple 'good morning' but it stroked the girl like a lightning. Sarada's cheeks turned red and she tried fixing her glasses in an attempt to avoid the question. Sasuke was completely aware of that, but he didn't know if she acted that way because her intelligence was insulted or because the weird thing she most likely had for Naruto's son, as Sakura told him. That annoying woman couldn't keep a secret to save her life. Anyway, judging by her facial expression, option number two was the most viable. It wasn't his favorite option, but from what he gathered from that blabber-mouth she was oblivious about it so it wasn't a complete catastrophe.

He felt almost disgusted about how immature he was getting. He had spent too much time with Naruto lately...

"N-no..." he heard her attempt of an answer interrupting his thought. "And I didn't ask you about love papa. I asked you about you and my mom."

She was determined to find out and Sasuke noticed that. Sometimes she was too much like him in her quests of obtaining something.

He had to find a solution. Looking at the hospital's gates he came up with the weirdest of them all. He would be extremely honest and extremely secretive at the same time.

"Okay, you win" he said giving her at least the idea of victory while they stopped just before entering the hospital. He leaned toward her so they could at least seem to be at the same height and looked into her eyes. They were as black as his. His hands were on her shoulders feeling the soft fabric of her shirt. "But you are going to find things under my conditions, understood?"

Her breath got stuck in her throat at that specific moment. She never won, not against her father. The puppy dog eyes or trembling bottom lip had never worked on him and he had always seemed to have better arguments than her. Not finding her words she just nodded almost desperately.

"I am going to tell you about 3 women I..." 'loved' didn't sound like the right word in that case. 'women I thought I loved' didn't sound right either. It sounded rather stupid. "I am going to tell you about 3 women I had feelings for at some point in my life" he said finding his words. "But I'm warning you: I'm going to change their names...I might not even give them real names. I am not going to tell you every detail and I may or may not change some facts and I'm not going to tell you who is who. You'll have to figure that out on your own. I don't really care, it's up to you. Do you get it?"

His voice was serious, maybe too serious. They were making some kind of deal though and if Sarada knew something about her father was that he always kept a promise, a goal, he always completed his missions. So she nodded again, a smile almost appearing on her face.

"Let's get in then" the man said opening the door for her as he usually did and she entered the building she knew all too well.

"Hello Sarada. It's good to see you again." the woman from the main desk said given her a warm smile. Her eyes and hair were black and a set of bangs were framing her face.

"You see me all the time Shizune-san. I'm surprised you haven't got rid of me already." she answered smiling back. For some reason she had always liked that woman, for as long as she could remember.

"Nonsense" she said picking up the phone near her. "I'm gonna let her know you are here. She must be out of surgery by now."

Her voice was a little colder and more serious when she said the last sentences so Sarada knew she wasn't talking to her.

Her father just nodded his face as frozen as ever. Her papa wasn't much of a talker and Sarada could relate to that sometimes.

The woman hung off phone after a short conversation Sarada hadn't paid attention to.

"She will be here shortly" Shizune-san said.

That could have meant seconds or hours and both of them, the father and the daughter were aware of that.

Sasuke hated the hospital spell. Actually he had an aversion for hospitals in general. They were, in his opinion horrible places where time always stopped.

Sarada didn't have that problem, but to be honest she would have rather chosen other places.

Fortunately for them, after about 5 minutes they saw a woman walking towards them. She was wearing scrubs and above them a white lab coat with her name engraved on it. Her eyes were green and tired and her almost solder-length hair was a complete mess, tied up in an attempt of a ponytail with a few strands falling down her face.

"Can you please send a resident to 207? Mr. Tanaka hates me, but he won't take any other doctor and he needs a consult. At least in this way shishou may consider it a learning technique or something."

The woman laughed as she signed a chart, while Shizune was paging the poor, unlucky soul that was going to do the consult.

"Hey" she said softly looking at her father after finishing with Shizune-san. She gave him her usual smile and at the same time she was trying to fix her hair somehow. Then, she turned to her.

"And how are you weasel?" she asked hugging her.

The woman was a hugger, no matter if you liked it or not or if you hadn't seen her for 10 years or 2 days.

'Like a damn dog' Sasuke thought sometimes

Sarada hugged her back rolling her eyes. She kept repeating her to lose that nickname, but there wasn't much hope for that to happen.

"Guess what?" Sarada asked without wanting an actual answer. Sasuke already had an idea about what the following topic would be. "We learnt about sexual intercourse today at school and they told us the boring version of what you had already told me 2 years ago."

"They did?" she asked in an almost squeaky voice, giving Sasuke an 'I'm so sorry' look. If you looked closely you could have seen the fear and embarrassment in her eyes. She wasn't sure whether Sarada spoke without thinking or the girl was looking forward to seeing the expression or her face. However, she was sure that Sarada never spoke without thinking.

"Yeah, and I kind of freaked papa out with the details" the girl said again, not being able to forget her father's face when she had told him about her day. It wasn't a noticeable expression, but Sarada knew better, even though she wasn't as close to him as she would have liked. He had been a little shocked most likely, but he would have never admitted it.

"You did?" the woman asked again with the same voice and the same look on her face.

She was probably cursing her big mouth or the day she was born. Most definitely one of the two.

"How about lunch break kid?" the soft voice asked, obviously, changing the subject.

"But it's 5 PM. You can't have a lunch break in the afternoon" Sarada said knowing the woman was up to something. There was nothing unusual with that, by the way.

"You know me, I'm a rebel. Come on, go to the cafeteria and I'll be right behind you"

Subtlety wasn't her best asset, but nobody could beat her at bluffing.

Sarada just rolled her eyes still looking at her. She would have raised one of her eyebrows if she could. Instead, she just started to talk.

"You know I'm not exactly stupid, right? If you wanted to talk with papa alone you should have said so. You don't have to bribe be with lousy hospital food, you know. I'm not Boruto...or his dad."

She didn't stay around for an answer. She just walked away imagining the day when adults would actually act like adults.

"Hey" the woman said again standing in front of the man now. She could feel a shade of red creeping under her skin and taking life on her cheeks. She tried looking him in the eyes, but that was a hard task for everyone with a half of brain.

"Hey" he answered in his low voice, like it wasn't awkward at all between them.

Sakura tried not ramble, she really did. She wanted to act like a grown-up person, but who was she kidding? Of course she couldn't hold it in anymore and she started to talk extremely fast...

"I'm so sorry Sasuke-kun!" she began without warning. "I know that was the type of conversation a girl should have with her mother and it's a really, really important conversation, but she came to me like 2 years ago and she had all those questions, and I'm a doctor, and-"

"Sakura stop talking" the man said like he was tired of hearing her voice. She immediately obeyed. His voice was as cold as ever and as demanding as usual. "I'm not mad at you, even though a warning would have been welcomed."

There was a short pause after that, but as it was mentioned, Sasuke had never been much of a talker.

"Listen..." he tried to form some kind of sentence. "...Thank you for agreeing with this. Something came up and Hinata and Naruto are busy, plus this week is my week so I can't call-"

"It's OK!" the woman cut him off. "It's a slow day anyway and between listening to Ino talking about how my eggs are dying and how I'm gonna be a cat lady and hanging out with Sarada...well, there's no real choice here."

Her laugh was as soft as her voice and she was good at over sharing.

"Really...don't worry about it..." she said with a small smile on her face. "You know I love the kid. The fact that she peed on me when she was a baby created an unbreakable bond between us"

And her attempt of being mature and...normal was a waste of time, especially when the thing that was supposed to be a dialog, turned out to be her talking like a stupid person and being fully aware of that.

Sasuke waited patiently for her to stop though, like he was used her being all awkward and stupid.

"You just go and catch the bad guys, detective" she said with a big smile this time.

He just mumbled something that sounded like a 'thanks' and then a 'bye' before heading towards the exit, while the woman with pinks hair just wave her hand at him as a 'goodbye'. As the spring's chilly air surrounded him, Sasuke could only think about how he was going to go through with the story he had apparently promised his daughter.

"How come you don't get in trouble for having a non-doctor here?" Sarada asked while cleaning her glasses, wondering about how that question hadn't popped into her mind sooner.

They were in the locker room and Sarada was waiting for Sakura to finish changing. That had been a slow they indeed and the cafeteria's tuna sandwich hadn't been that bad.

"Well, I'm pretty good at what I'm doing" the woman responded as she pulled her T-shirt down over her head. "Plus the chief really likes me."

As the words left her mouth she pictured Tsunade giving her 'the look' every time Sarada was with her. Yes, she had warned her all those years ago not to get too attached to another's woman daughter and yes the warning was in vain, but she was getting so tired of her 'I told you so' face. Of course she could have lied and said that Boruto and the other kids were the same to her, but that evil woman was a damn polygraph test.

"And, in addition to that, my papa can be extremely scary when he wants something...scarier than usual I mean..." the girl said standing up and giving the woman her bag and jacket. Of course her father was late, there was no surprise in that...

"You know Naruto told me I'm a lot like you the other day?" she asked wanting to change the subject apparently by using the most random thought that came into her head.

"Really?"

Sakura seemed not to pay attention to what she was saying, mostly because she was trying to find somebody. Of course Ino had already left, so she had to take a cab.

"Yeah, he said I asked a lot of question like you and I'm warm and kind, obviously not like papa. He also said I have a hot temper and a mean punch too, but I suspect Boruto had a part in that. Man, hit a boy once..."

"Tell me about it" Sakura chuckled thinking about the bruises Naruto had had because of her.

"Well he has a point though. I'm the only one in my class who know what exactly a Whipple is."

Sakura took a deep breath enjoying the cold air now that they were outside.

She just laughed again.

"That just means we spend too much time together and that I should stop talking about my job with a 12 year old."

It was weird how a so-called grown up with and a so-called kid were getting along so well, but that was probably because they had a big thing in common.

"Papa!"

The girl spotted the dark haired man almost running towards him. She didn't know if she was more eager to see him, or to finally hear the story.

"You have a story to tell me, remember?"

Yep, that was her answer.

"I do" the man sighted as they reached his car.

Opening the car's door he let his daughter in. It was pretty cold for that time of the year. Looking at Sakura he noticed how lightly she was dressed. He also hadn't noticed her car wasn't there.

"Do you need a lift?" he asked even though he knew her answer.

The woman got rid of a strand of hair that was on her face by putting it behind her ear maybe just to pass the time, or to find an excuse.

"I...a...actually have a date" she lied. 'With the cab driver' she thought. "He is going to pick me up in a few minutes"

She wished she would have missed the look on the girl's face when she said that. She didn't say anything though and neither did he.

"Tell me the story papa" said the girl with black hair opening the door of her room after getting dressed in her pajamas. Everyone could have noticed that the girl was too old for a bedtime story, but it wasn't like she cared about their opinion.

"When did you become so obnoxious?" he asked stepping into the room.

The girl didn't mind the question because she knew he wasn't really serious.

"Move over." he demanded seeing how she was already in her bed. "That's my side of the bed."

Sarada chuckled moving to the other side of the bed, while her papa sat next to her. She was completely aware of the fact that when he moved out, the man looked for a place with a bedroom just for her, almost exactly as her old one. He would have never admitted it though.

Looking at him, she was glad he wore comfy clothes. It made him look more human in some weird way. That night he wore that dark blue T-shirt that he had had for as long as she could remember and that he knew she loved so much.

"So the first girl I'm going to tell you about is The Rose Girl. She..."

"You gave them flower names?" Sarada interrupted him. Her eyes were sparkling.

"Yes I did. Now stop talking and let me tell you the story" he said, not sounding mad though. "So, as I was telling, this girl was..."

Hey guys! Here's a new story. I intended to be a one-shot, but my imagination didn't agree with that apparently.

I've just re-watched the movie 'Definitely Maybe' a few days ago and I thought "What If?"

I know that some of you may be mad that I didn't make Sakura Sarada's mom in this story (sometimes I'm mad about that too), but I think that makes the story more special somehow. Anyway you'll find out if you keep reading that I'm probably going to use some scenes from the movie (more or less, I don't know yet), but I'm also going to change the story to go with my ideas.

You'll most likely figure out who is who in Sasuke's stories, but please just go with it.

I hope you'll enjoy my story. If you have any question or opinions or just wanna say 'Hello', you're all welcomed to review it.