Slightly AU; ignores/doesn't mention the light novels (since I haven't read them lol oops) and plays a little loose with the canon timeline. In fairness, Kishi never does give us an exact time frame for the Blank Period...
This is my first foray back into writing for a while (thanks, college/depression!). I think I did alright. It was originally going to be for SSM 2018 (Day 3 - Restless), but I lost direction on it and only just picked it back up and finished it.
Sakura notices it almost as soon as Sasuke leaves the hospital. He seems almost jittery, like his own skin is too tight for him. There's a distance in his eyes whenever he looks out over the village. It's there when he interacts with Konoha Eleven too, like he doesn't quite know where to put his gaze so he settles for the horizon. He stays on the fringes, avoids any attempt Naruto makes to draw him into the conversation, and seems generally content to be an observer. It's almost sad, watching him watch everyone else, avoiding their eyes whenever they look over to him.
She's used to seeing him more confident, self-assured, a quiet force of nature in his own right. Naruto's foil, who doesn't need anyone else's approval to validate himself. That Sasuke...she hasn't seen him since they were Genin. She expected him to come back from the war, to rise to the surface once Sasuke stopped repressing himself and let himself integrate into Konoha life again. Sakura was stupid, she thinks, because of course Sasuke wouldn't be the same. None of them were. She just didn't expect it to hurt so much, watching him wither within the village's walls.
Konoha Eleven really doesn't seem to care. Sure, she and Naruto are worried, but everyone else had given up on Sasuke a long time ago. It's easier to forget he's there then to acknowledge him and, by proxy, all the chaos and heartache he's brought to their doorstep over the past three years. Choji and Hinata, ever the bleeding hearts, ask after him sometimes. They stop after a few months, when neither Naruto nor Sakura can offer them anything beyond "He's alright, I think."
She's equal parts relieved and terrified when Kakashi gives him leave to wander the world, because Sasuke and stagnant have never, ever mixed. She's worried that once he leaves he'll be lost to them, to her, forever, but maybe it's what he needs. Konoha is her home, but for Sasuke it's a tomb. Maybe he's better off beneath the open sky. He's always been a little feral, always seemed to chafe under authority; Sakura loves him, but she won't keep him locked in a cage.
That's why, six months after the end of the war, she shoves her heart into a tiny box in her chest and waits near the village gates alongside their sensei. Kakashi has his hands in his pockets, his silver hair swaying slightly in the breeze. Her fingers twine together quietly, crooked in places where they've broken over the years and just interesting enough to distract her from the silence between them. She doesn't know how long they stand there before Sasuke appears, slipping from the trees like a wraith, all dark clothes and dark hair and dark eyes. A shadow made flesh.
His gaze meets hers and time stops. Sakura can hear the beats of her own heart, feel the blood pulsing through her ears and face, and she drinks in the strength of his jaw and the sharp angles of his cheekbones.
"You know, normally we'd have put you away for life," Kakashi says conversationally. The moment breaks. "But the only one strong enough to enforce that kind of sentencing is Naruto, and since he's all for letting you go my hands are tied. Just don't go killing any more kage."
It's that kind of black humor that startles a snort from Sakura, because only Kakashi would joke so cavalierly about something that nearly destroyed all three of them. Sasuke's lips quirk up into a barely-there smirk. "Yeah...sorry," he says quietly, with just a touch of amusement. Kakashi chuckles back at him, and Sasuke sort of nods and turns to leave.
Suddenly Sakura can't bear to let him go.
Before she realizes what she's doing, she's moving after him. Kakashi fades into the background as she cries, "Sasuke-kun, hold on!"
He freezes, and cocks his head just enough to eye her over one shoulder. "...Take me with you," Sakura breathes, almost too quiet to be heard. Sasuke turns around fully then, facing her like he never has the last few times he's left her behind, and for a moment Sakura dares to hope that maybe this time things will be different.
"Sakura," he begins, and trails off. His one visible eye flickers to the side, fixating on something over her shoulder. "It's my road to redemption. My sins have nothing to do with you."
This journey is my own. Don't follow me.
Sakura thinks they can both hear her heart crack, because in the next moment Sasuke's face skews in what can only be described as a wince. It's subtle, and if she weren't used to finding expression where there seems none she wouldn't have caught it, but it's enough to give her pause. He takes a breath and steps towards her, closing the distance between them.
Warmth radiates off his body in waves, and Sakura's head spins as his countenance softens slightly. In the next moment, his fingertips tap her byakugou seal and she's frozen, frozen, frozen. "Sakura," he says, and she blushes just from the way he speaks her name. "I'll see you soon."
And then, even quieter: "Thank you."
The pads of his fingers trace down her forehead as he withdraws his hand, a gentle caress that seems more like a dream than reality. Belatedly, Sakura realizes his cheeks are dusted with pink ever-so-slightly as he steps back, holding her gaze a few moments more. He only breaks it to nod over at Kakashi (whom she'd forgotten was there), before turning on his heel and striding down the road, feet falling into a familiar pattern that seems equal parts comfortable and comforting.
She doesn't even hear the teasing her sensei directs her way. Sakura is in another world entirely, divorced from her body to fly among the clouds, replaying his words, his actions, his smile in her mind over and over until she's certain even a Sharingan couldn't memorize them better. She'll wait for him, however long it takes, because for the first time in a long time there's life in his eyes and that touch was a promise of more to come. That alone is worth the intermission between their interactions.
Sakura goes to sleep that night feather-light and unable to stop smiling.
It is three years before Sakura truly sees him again. She's heard of his exploits; who hasn't, at this point. His work around the nations is nearly legend. There's something romantic about a lone wanderer, dressed in black, dropping in where he's needed and vanishing without a trace afterwards, working to repair the deep wounds he's rent across the land. A lot of the distrust has vanished, replaced by a wary acceptance. Sakura's caught glimpses of him, snatches of his chakra signature flickering at the edges of her awareness before vanishing like dust in the wind. But he hasn't set foot in the village since he tapped her forehead and disappeared over the horizon.
Until now.
Sakura's pen skids across her paperwork, leaving a long blue streak. She'll have to redo it later, but right now that's the furthest thing from her mind. Because Sasuke's energy, strong and static like lightning in a bottle, glimmers by the gates. She's out the window in a heartbeat, feet finding purchase on the nearby rooftops with ease, and races towards his presence without a second thought.
The two-minute dash to the village's western entrance feels like an eternity and an instant all rolled into one. Sakura skids to a stop, hair in disarray, hardly breathing for exertion and excitement, and there he is.
His hair is longer than hers now, half-covered with a bandana to keep it out of his non-Rinnegan eye. He's wearing a ragged-looking gray-brown poncho over his travelling clothes, and somehow he pulls it off. He stands taller, chin high and spine straight. But most importantly, he's breathing easy. Like the weight of the world, of the war, no longer rests solely on his shoulders.
Sasuke, her Sasuke, the one who'd left at 13 and never returned, is finally back.
And then his eyes meet hers, and he smiles at her. Lightly, shyly, something that no one else would be able to recognize, but it's Sasuke and Sakura and she's always been able to read him better than anyone's given her credit for. "Tadaima, Sakura," he murmurs, and takes a step towards her before stopping abruptly, waiting, unsure.
She can't help it. Before she knows it, Sakura's strong arms are around him and her head is pressed to his chest, and she squeezes him like he'll vanish if she lets go. He's stiff beneath her. "Okaeri, Sasuke-kun," she whispers with her nose in his cloak, red with embarrassment and hoping dearly she hasn't overstepped her bounds. He smells like spices and smoke and something else, something uniquely Sasuke. A beat passes, then two, and Sakura begins to regret her obvious miscalculation until he relaxes in her hold. His arm comes around her back and he embraces her in turn, face coming to rest softly in her hair. There they stay, breathing each other in, basking in the warmth of a homecoming long overdue, disparate from the rest of the world because the only thing that matters is here between them.
Sakura's certain it was worth the wait.
edit 11/28/18: formatting and a few typos