A/N: Hello everybody!! This is my new fanfiction!! I hope you like it. Before I submitted this one, I let my two of my best friends read it first. (Hi Nonna! Hi Monica!). They weren't too specific about their comments (which were mostly squeals of delight, or so I think) but they said it was nice. I hope you'll also feel the same. Hehe…

Chapter one:

It's a sad story my dear Sakura, of misguided interference. Of lies told and believed. Of squandered opportunities and broken hearts. And love unrequited and true love lost…

Sakura surveyed the crowded ballroom before her and tried to push the words of her late husband to the back of her mind. The lines had burned themselves into her memory the moment she read them this afternoon—in a letter delivered now two years after Kakashi's passing.

She moved through the crowd with a nod here and a smile there, confident that no one would suspect her thoughts were on anything but Konoha's annual New Year's ball and anywhere but the New Year.

Would he be here tonight? It was entirely possible. She had heard he had returned to Konoha this very week, and she had steeled herself for the inevitable confrontation. After all, Uchiha Sasuke was her husband's former student. With any luck, she could avoid him entirely which had been her plan since the day of Kakashi's passing. A plan shattered along with everything she'd based her life on the moment she read his letter.

A waiter offered her a glass of wine and she accepted it with a feigned air of indifference.

Dear God, Sasuke thought I was dead!

The revelation still stunned her. Kakashi's letter explained her father's part in the deception. Her hand tightened on the stem of the glass and a wave of bitterness swept through her.

Her own father. Even on his deathbed he had not sought reconciliation or forgiveness. Betrayal? She sipped the wine in an effort to wash the taste of the word from her math. As brutal a word as it was, it still was not harsh enough. Her father had made certain the man she loved would never so much as write her a note of regret. Or seek out to explain his abandonment. Or ease her pain.

No, her father made certain all Uchiha Sasuke would leave her with was a broken heart, bittersweet memories, and half a gold coin…

Ten years earlier…

"Is anyone there?" Haruno Sakura peered into the dark stables, pulling her cloak tighter around her against the chilly December night. She stepped into the ancient building cautiously and shivered, as much with excitement as with the cold. She'd become quite adept at slipping out of Haruno manor late in the night. The threat of discovery and ever-present possibility of danger only added to the thrill of the adventure.

The moonlight cast her shadow and she paused to allow her eyes to adjust. Here and there, brightness fell in shafts on the straw-littered floor from holes in the roof that grew larger with each passing season. Her father had built a new stable several years ago and planned to tear this one down. Until that time, it served for little more than the occasional storage for hay.

But it was the perfect spot for her purpose. She bit back a smile. If her father only knew what use she had found for the place.

"Is anyone there?" she called again, and strained to hear a sound in the dark shadows. Was she indeed alone? She took a step. Straw crunched beneath her foot. She took another. Was that a noise? Behind her? Fear shot up her spine. Perhaps she had tempted fate once too often. Her heart pounded in her chest. Perhaps—

Without warning a hand covered her mouth and strong arms pulled her back against a hard body. She stuggled but the grip tightened.

"Quiet", a voice murmured against her ear, and she stilled. She jerked free to swivel in her arms. "For a moment, I thought you weren't coming, Sasuke," she said. "I thought you'd forgotten."

"How could I forget? You've been forcing me to train you against your father's wishes." She ignored the teasing tone in his voice. Her father would probably explode with anger if he would find out what she's been doing. Sasuke had introduced her to the world of the shinobi and they've been training secretly ever since. Training and more. She'd certainly had experienced a great deal in a few brief months. Not the least of which was the excitement of loving Uchiha Sasuke. And knowing as surely as she'd ever known anything in her seventeen years on this earth that being together was as necessary to his life as it was to hers.

Sakura's gaze skimmed over the deep shadows of the stables. She would remember this building with fondness long after it's gone. Here was where they discovered love and planned their future. This was the only place they could be together without the prying eyes of servants, all, no doubt, eager to report back to Lord Haruno that his only child had defied his wishes and continued to see the penniless apprentice of his neighbor, Hatake Kakashi. Konoha was a village of shinobis and in her heart; Sakura knew she wanted to be one. But her father detested ninjas and flew in rage when she asked permission to enter the academy.

"Sakura? There's much we need to discuss." Sasuke's voice was abruptly serious. "I've booked passage on a ship bound for the Wind Country."

"When?", she said quietly, the realization of the impending plan sobering her mood.

"It sails early on the first of January."

"The morning after Konoha's New Year's Ball." She blew out a long breath. "Then our plan will work, wont it?"

"With any luck."

"We have love, Sasuke. We don't need luck." She forced a light note to her voice, but she knew as well as he that the possibility of success hinged as much on chance as anything else.

He paced before her, his hand falling in and out of the shafts of pale moonlight with his steps. "It's a relatively simple plan. You'll slip away during the ball—"

"And meet you in the garden."

"I'll horses waiting for us to ride to the docks."

"Hired horses?"

He nodded. "I wont risk using any of our Kakashi's. It's a slim possibility, but they could be recognized."

"And we would be found out. I would be dragged back home and more likely be the center of scandal. And my father…" she blew a long breath. "Even to save my reputation, he would never allow us to marry."

"Why?" Sasuke stopped and frustration rang in his voice. "Why does he dislike me that much?"

"Because I've never defied him in any other matter other than you. I've been a good daughter in every other way."

He snorted. "I can hardly believe that."

"It's true." How could she explain? Even when they were children she had always been free to speak her mind with Sasuke, to follow what impulses seized her. But she couldn't remember a time when the presence of her father hadn't filled her with fear. "He has always terrified me."

"I know," Sasuke said softly, "but let's not linger on that. perhaps a gift will make it easier to bear."

"A gift? For me?" she lifted her head and looked up at him. He stepped into a beam of light and held out his hand. Something twinkled on his palm.

She stepped closer. "What is it?"

"It's a coin. Actually," he said wryly. "It's two halves of a coin. I split it using a technique that Kakashi-sensei taught me a few days ago."

"Sasuke, you split a gold coin?" she shook her head. "But why? You can't afford to be—"

"I can afford this." He shifted the pieces in his hand and they glittered in the moonlight. "This was given to me by my father on my last birthday before he and my mother were killed. I've always cherished it in the belief that it kept them close to me even in death." He chuckled. "Foolish, I know."

"Not at all," she said, touched by his words. She took one of the halves, still warm from his hands, and closed her fingers around it.

"I'll keep this forever." She kissed him lightly on the cheek and ignored a tiny feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that such sheer happiness was far too wonderful to believe.

Or to last…

A/N: I swear i'll encode the second chapter as soon as i can. so please be patient. maybe i'll submit it tomorrow.