A Measure of Solace

Slender, strong fingers brushed her wide forehead as she quickly checked herself for a fever. A name was on her lips. A name she hadn't spoken aloud for six years.

His eyes met her grass-green ones, and for a moment time seemed to stand still. Broken images of the past cascaded through her muddled memory. She relived every joy, every sorrow, every waking moment of her abiding, unrequited love. Her throat immediately dried up, and she found herself unable to speak. After all this time he still had that kind of effect on her.

She played once again the overly-rehearsed dialogue she had formulated carefully on long, sleepless nights, but such an effort was futile. She found said dialogue lodged tightly on the tip of her tongue, each precise phrase full of emotion stilled by the moment, each carefully concocted syllable of longing consumed by shock, each painful word she had longed to speak falling dead as it reached her mouth. Her contrived scene of confrontation, with each second planned out, lay shattered in her mind, nothing but a pile of what might have been now fractured into pieces so miniscule that "what might have been" was no longer recognizable.

A fluttering out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She blinked rapidly, trying to figure out what it was.

(snow)

It was snowing again, just as it had been doing for the past seven days. Perhaps it had been nature's way of warning them of his return? She didn't think that the weather would have such clairvoyance, but at the same time a slight doubt lingered in her mind…

A warning or not, it certainly did make quite a picturesque vision.

He was stark black in a field of white, like some sort of apparition clad in death come to reality out of her deepest, darkest dreams. He was taller, older, and behind his eyes, his deep, chaotic, sharingan eyes, there was a kind of cruel amusement that was foreign to her, and that shook her to the very core of her being. On his face, a face delicate yet ineffably masculine, was a half-remembered smirk full of unbridled arrogance. Changed, yes, in ways she could never imagine, but she honestly couldn't say that no matter what changes were wrought in him that she wouldn't love him any less. She supposed that she was naïve that way, and probably always would be.

A chill breeze, almost imperceptible, began to flow around them in gentle eddies. Time still remained unmoving as a chaotic miasma of inner turmoil raked her mind. The silence the flowed between them has a tangible feel to it, a viscosity similar to that of blood. Time remained stationary for yet another fraction of a second and then it began to march inexorably forward once again, as time tends to do.

The first thing that escaped the newly mobile flow of time was a single, whispered word. A name. "Sasuke."

He could have reached out and touched her, they were close enough, and for a moment one of his hands twitched as if he was going to do so. But his hand remained at his side, and he did not move if from that place to touch, or to hit, her.

She gave a nervous laugh from the higher register of her voice. "Well, it's been a while, eh?"

There was no response to that. Sasuke's eyes still held hers, completely void of emotion except for that horrifying expression of cruel amusement. Sakura knew where he had learned that expression. She paused as a glimmer of irritation began to tickle the edges of her consciousness. She wanted him to react, to call her weak, or stupid, or…something! She wanted to see Uchiha Sasuke, and not Orochimaru's prize pupil.

"Is that all you're going to do? Stand there?" Her voice held a snappish tone that was completely unintentional. All of her carefully cultivated self-control came crashing down, unraveling rapidly, like a faulty tapestry made improperly. Warp and weft. Weft and warp. Thread by thread. Over and over again they went until finally there was nothing but piles of string made of silly ideals like bravery, honesty, and forgiveness. A maelstrom of emotion

(hatred, love, betrayal, annoyance, longing, pain, fear, anger)

began to well up in her mind.

He finally moved. Showing his hands into the pockets of his dark pants he turned around, leaving his back facing her, making him appear more distant than he already was. And then, a pause. And then he began to walk away, slowly.

She clenched her small hands at her side, her neatly clipped nails biting into the soft center of her palm. No. She couldn't let this happen. A quick decision was made, and before she had the chance to consider just how ridiculous such a decision was, her legs had already moved of their own accord.

She hooked her leg over his while simultaneously grabbing his shoulder, managing to flip him over and pin him to the ground. His eyes were wide with shock. Sakura smiled inwardly. That disgusting expression was gone. Granted, she couldn't have ever managed to get him on the ground like this if she hadn't taken him by surprise. She brought in her face close to his, her green eyes boring into his own. "If you're going to walk away like that, at least say my name once. Sakura. It's simple. Just say it." Her whispered words were full of vehemence and completely unlike her, though at the time they somehow felt right, as if those words were things that needed to be said.

With a sigh he let his sharingan go. Two black orbs remained now, overflowing with emptiness. She now understood why he had been using his sharingan. It was to hide what he was, what he had become. Slowly, pained tears filling her eyes, she reached out a hand and touched the pale alabaster skin stretched taut over the refined bones of his face. His skin was so cold.

A hand reached out and soon she found her hand sandwiched between his own hand and his face. He took a deep breath and then, "Sakura."

It was like a sweet caress, hearing her name from his lips, being caressed by his deep voice. It was enough to her eyes fill up with tears. She bit her lip, urging the tears not to fall, but fall they did. He shifted underneath her, slowing standing up and pulling her up along with him. Brushing the snow off his back with one hand, he held her up by her arm with another. "I didn't mean to come back like this," he muttered under his breath.

She stopped and looked at him in surprise. His face was turned slightly away from her, giving her a clear view of his profile, a profile which would've, had she known how this man looked, reminded her strikingly of Uchiha Itachi's. As it were, she could see the lines of pain that had been etched into his face over the past six years.

"If you didn't mean to come back like this, did you mean to come back at all?" Softly, she didn't want to frighten him away again.

He turned his head to glance at her in surprise, which was quickly overtaken by a rueful smile. "I didn't mean to come back. You're right." He withdrew his supporting arm from her and turned to face her completely once again. "When I left I intended to never return." A cynical laugh escaped from him. "Funny how things you intend never actually happen." He spread his hands out before her and shrugged in helpless surrender.

Sakura frowned in thought. This wasn't the Sasuke she remembered. He would never speak with such ease, or with such bitterness. "What happened to you?"

Obsidian orbs burned into her own grass green ones. "You were right. Revenge didn't make me happy. I thought I was prepared for the emptiness afterwards but…."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, and then he began again, this time in a much softer, and more timid voice. "I don't think that it was "revenge" that I wanted. Truly, what I wanted was someone to "save" me."

Let me save you is what she wanted to say, but to save a soul as dark as his, laden with sins unmentionable, was a task that she wasn't sure that she could handle. Oh, and he did have sins, she could see them in his ebon eyes. Instead of making promises she couldn't keep, she merely smiled and said the only words that came to mind. "Sasuke, six years ago I told you I loved you. Sasuke, I love you still."

The expression on his face was such that she had never, even in her wildest dreams, expected him to have. She could see various questions soar across his face like distant shadows.

"I can't promise that I can save you, but at least you won't be alone."

He looked at her, puzzled. "What exactly are you saying?" He was tired of being alone, he was tired of being an avenger, so he had come back here to this place that reminded him of that blissful time with team seven. He had never expected to find her here, he had never expected to find any amount of compassion.

She shook her head in amusement. Had he been alone so long that he had forgotten simple words of beauty and love? She took his hand in hers and smiled. "I'm saying, take me with you. Perhaps you can learn to be yourself again. Perhaps I can heal your wounds. Perhaps I can save you."

There was a slight hesitation, and then, "You know what you'll be giving up. You're betraying Konoha."

She waved a hand negligently, and her eyes overflowed with sincerity. "I told you I'd do it all that time ago, I'm telling you now. This is what I want."

Although there was still a slight glimmer of doubt in his eyes, he seemed to accept it. "Thank you," he whispered. And though that doubt remained, it was okay. Sakura knew of the hardships that would face them both, and she knew of the betrayal she was committing, but she couldn't say she was regretting it. A new path stretched before them both, a path that could be Sasuke's path to safety, and path that could be Sakura's eventual downfall, but the future didn't matter in that snowy moment. What did matter was that in their world of frozen beauty, Sakura and Sasuke had found a measure of solace in one another.

N o t e s

It's a bit out of character, and I took some liberties with the time jump, but otherwise it turned out relatively okay. Critiques are appreciated.