Author's Note: This one-shot takes place in the same universe as my KakaSaku story "Against the Sky". I don't think it would be completely confusing if you haven't read that yet, but I'd recommend reading it first. Otherwise, enjoy!
Finitude
I am tired now and love hurts
But even if that time is just a memory,
I have to give my final greeting.
I love you.
I love you.
~Insa, Kim Jaejoong
Sakura is thirty-nine the next time she runs into Sasuke. She's the team leader of a trio of newly-minted jounin, and they are only an hour away from Konoha when she feels him. It takes her by surprise, and she stops mid-air, landing neatly on a branch. The rest of her team is surprised and quickly backtrack to her side, but she smiles brightly and tells them that she just remembered she has something important to take care of, and that they should go on without her. They do so with nary a shrug – having been under Haruno Sakura for the greater part of ten years, they know she is perfectly capable of watching her own back.
The youngest one can't help but look back as she and her two teammates start to pick up speed again. The forest behind her is as empty of human presence as it had been before their arrival.
Sasuke is looking across a clear lake. His clothes are simple and devoid of any clan insignia, and Sakura can see that his silent arrogance has mellowed into a quiet grace. It fits him, she thinks, and her sandals crunch across gravel as she makes her way to him.
When he finally turns to face her, she sees that he is as good-looking as ever. Maybe even more so. Sasuke is older and more scarred – if his arms are any indication of the rest of his body – but there is no longer a sense of heaviness around him.
Sakura, too, has aged gracefully. Thirty-nine isn't very old at all, but Sasuke knows that only the most elite of ninja make it past their teens. If a ninja can survive the ups and downs of adolescence while trying to make life-altering decisions in split seconds out in the battlefield, then there is a good chance they will make it to see their younger siblings grow up too. Not everyone is that lucky, but Sasuke doesn't believe in luck. He only believes in skill, and it is possibly the only thing that hasn't changed about him since he was twelve.
Her hair is as pink as ever, although it is much longer now; she is still slender and gently muscled, but her bright green eyes have softened – deepened – into those of a woman who knows that her life has been a good and full one.
"Have you been well?" she asks, softly. His lips quirk upwards in a small smirk – smile? – and she knows he has been okay. She also knows that he thinks it is a stupid question to ask, but she can see he expected it all the same. He has never been quite as good as her in pleasantries, but he gets by.
"Naruto's Hokage now, but I expect you know that already," she continues. Sasuke nods, once, and she takes it as an indication that she can continue. "Neji's his chief advisor, and was his head of ANBU until Konohamaru took over several years ago."
Sakura knows that he still doesn't care very much, but the Sasuke in front of her now is older, and will not scoff at her words as easily as he once did. She opens her mouth to keep going, but tenses at a second chakra signature that she notices just then.
A small figure peers out from behind Sasuke's legs. It's a little girl, Sakura dimly realizes. One who looks exactly like Sasuke.
It is difficult to describe the menagerie of feelings that Sakura is bombarded with in that moment, but even she is taken by surprise at the sheer amount of love that she suddenly feels for the little girl she has never seen before. Something about the child wreaks havoc with Sakura's maternal instincts – something she thought she had successfully quelled the first time Kazuki goes out on a mission away from Konoha.
She crouches down and waves enthusiastically at the child, a wide smile on her face. The little girl reddens and tries to hide again, but Sasuke gently grasps her shoulders and steers her to face his ex-teammate fully.
She's not completely Sasuke, Sakura realizes. The hair colour and eyes are completely him, but her lips are a little fuller and her nose is definitely from her unknown mother.
"What's your name, sweetie?" Sakura has wrapped her arms around her knees and is looking quizzically at the child, who squirms slightly from the attention.
Her eyes travel upwards to her father's face, and then back down to Sakura's green eyes. "Rei," she whispers. The sight of her adorably shy face is enough to make Sakura want to swoop down and cuddle the little girl, but she manages to rein in her excitement as she replies, "Hello, Rei-chan! I'm Sakura, your father's old teammate."
Rei looks up at Sasuke again, and then back to Sakura. Hesitantly, and still keeping a rather firm grasp on her father's pant leg with one hand, she takes a step toward the older woman.
Sakura is delighted. Struck with sudden inspiration, she reaches inside the pocket of her jounin vest and pulls out two dog-eared pictures. She shuffles close enough to Rei to show her the people in the photographs, and Rei's eyes widen in surprise as she recognizes one particular figure.
Wordlessly, she points to the sullen-looking genin in the photo, and looks up at Sasuke again. Sasuke's lips quirk upwards again in an unmistakable smirk, and he nods, as if to say, "Aa. That was me."
Letting Rei study the old photograph a little longer, Sakura stands up to show Sasuke the second one. If the man is surprised, he hides it well; Sakura points to the two young boys in order and says, "That's Kazuki, my eldest, and Naoki, my youngest. This was taken around three years ago, when they were eleven and eight."
Sasuke nods, and turns to look at her. "I've never seen Kakashi unmasked before."
Sakura laughs, and takes the picture back from him, replying, "It took a lot of effort, trust me." A small tug on her pants alerts Sakura to the little hand reaching to give the photograph back to her, and she smiles. "How old are you, Rei-chan?"
"Eight," is the answer, her voice a little stronger than before. Still, it is easy to see that Sasuke's daughter is terribly shy.
Sasuke takes Rei's hand then, and Sakura knows that their encounter is reaching an end. She smiles fondly at the duo, if not a little sadly, because she has never seen this side of Sasuke before and a part of her wishes that she could have discovered the source of his growth and happiness. She wonders when he had let go of his hatred. She wonders when he had realized that life is too short to let it wilt away in anger. She wonders about the woman who gave him this child – a child who is obviously loved.
"Sakura," he says. It is the first time since forever that he has said her name. "If, in the future, anything should happen to me…"
Sakura is shocked. Shocked, but terribly, terribly happy as well and she feels a slight stinging sensation at the back of her throat. Only Sasuke has ever been able to induce such a reaction in her, and it is something that hasn't changed throughout the years.
"What's this," she teases, "the great Uchiha Sasuke acknowledging the possibility of death?"
Sasuke snorts. "I've always known that death is a possibility. A certainty, even."
Her lips twist into a wry smile. "I know. Don't worry. Even if I die before you do, there will always been someone in Konoha who will take her in. That's a promise."
Sasuke nods. He turns to go, Rei's hand swinging lightly in his.
"At the same time though," she calls out, and he pauses. "I have no wish of seeing her on my doorstep any time soon."
He understands. Sakura allows herself one last moment to watch the serenely departing backs of the father and daughter before turning on her heel and taking to the trees.
What Sakura doesn't know is that Sasuke is already dying. He is already dying and in three years time a chuunin will knock on her office door and bring to her a black-haired child who is holding a sealed scroll in her small hands, and she will be too late to save him.
But that isn't for another three years. Right now, Sakura is jumping from tree to tree, thinking of the soft sheets and warm embraces back at home and she is only wondering whether or not Kakashi will have mustered the initiative to have dinner on the table by the time she lands on their doorstep.
It is cancer. By the time Sakura and Naruto, followed by Kakashi carrying a silent Rei on his back, make it to the small and quaint house that Rei had been raised in, Sasuke's body is already cool to the touch. He has been gone for hours.
It upsets Sakura. Not to see him dead – because she always knew that death was the only certainty in life – but to see him so pathetically dead. She had always thought that Sasuke would go out in a blaze of victory, or something similarly flashy. Not because the man himself was particularly flashy, but simply because his level of skill indicated that nothing short of a major calamity could faze him – and if he had survived Gaara and Akatsuki and Uchiha Madara and Naruto, then logically speaking there should not have been much that could have stopped him. Reality is a little hard to swallow, but a lifetime of battle and near invincibility in the field is finally repaid by a quiet disease that he had no hope of winning against from the very beginning.
They bring his body back to Konoha. His body is set ablaze on a funeral pyre and as Sakura cries silently into her hands, Naruto holds her close to his shaking body. They can't leave his corpse intact – the temptation brought by his prized Sharingan would have been too great for some villages to bear.
Standing slightly behind Sakura is Kakashi; their two boys have been left at home and Rei is the only child in attendance. She looks up at the man she is standing beside, and remembers stories that her father had told her, stories about a boy who just never knew how to give up, a girl who learned how to grow up, and a man who tried and tried and tried to get through to him before it was too late. Rei knows that Hatake Kakashi is incredibly well-known and respected; being the Rokudaime Hokage, the tales of his power and strength scare her a little, but Rei can see that he's about the same height as her father and her father had always taught her to be brave. Her small hands are uncertain but steady as she grasps his pant leg, and Kakashi wordlessly places a gentle hand on her dark head.
The flame burns well into the night.
a/n: And here's the closure piece I've been yapping about for ages. To be honest, I think I had this in my head from the very beginning of my trying to write Against the Sky - it was definitely taking shape around the same time I wrote about Sakura and Sasuke's encounter in AtS. Which basically means this has been written and sitting on my HD for almost 4 years, haha! (This obviously means NOT CANON COMPLIANT esp. on the issue of my second favourite character EVER in this entire series CRYING FOREVER AND SHAKING MY FIST AT KISHIMOTO). Of course, I re-worked some of it and did some editing/revising, but it stays true to my original piece. For those of you who are English/philosophy buffs, I actually came up with the title for this in my grade 12 English class when we were discussing existentialism, and the idea of "finitude" had come up and I couldn't help but think of the tragic triangle that is Team 7. Anyway. Just as FYI:
Hatake Kazuki, Hatake Naoki - Kakashi and Sakura's two boys, born 3 years apart; Uchiha Rei - Sasuke's daughter, born 3 years after Naoki, whose mother was a green-eyed civilian who died in childbirth; in my head, Sasuke did have feelings for this woman, but as to their extent/how they compare with the intense ambivalence he had toward Naruto/Sakura/Kakashi, I'm actually not really sure/haven't quite thought through it. Rei goes to live with Kakashi and Sakura after Sasuke dies. Kakashi was Rokudaime Hokage at some point, but has since given the position to Naruto.
Cheers.