Just a little take on how Sasuke and Sakura fall in love and start a family. Leave a review! Critiques welcome.

Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Not me. No copyright infringement is intended.

Playing

Sakura stood there, oblivious to his inner quandary, eyes green, and lips red, slender fingers drumming the counter top. Impatient as always. Some days he hated her for all the reasons he wanted her. She was different than the rest of Konoha. No one else believed that he was truly reconciled, that he wasn't still a traitor. Without the assistance of stubborn blind faith, but Sakura had reached her conclusion through knowledge. She saw underneath his skin to the humanity he really did have, beneath all the bad blood and fresh pain and querulous frowning. She clung to it like it was all that held her to the earth. After all, if a man like him could really love, he would do it as extraordinarily and without abandon as he hated.

They were alone now, and she could flirt and tease him as she pleased, and no one would criticize her for being so incorrigible. Sakura smiled. "Aren't we wretched today? Staring out the window as if the world is on fire outside."

Sasuke hummed in response, and cast a glance at her briefly, then back to the snow assaulting the pane, and continued to outwardly ignore her.

"I mean it," she pressed, stroking his hair. "You look like you're trying to see a mile away. Having trouble with those special eyes of yours?"

Sasuke did not find this funny. He swatted her away, scowling at her mercurial humor. She was never serious, this was another thing he hated. She joked about whatever she pleased, a habit he guessed she picked up from Naruto. The both of them, always playing their stupid games, even after she began at the hospital and Naruto became the Hokage.

Darkness rose again from a corner of his brain He preferred to keep tightly under lock. He could play a game with her, he supposed. Teach her a lesson, maybe even make her cry. That would keep her out of his hair, and more importantly out of his sight, for a little while. He just had to wait for her to say the right thing.

Sakura didn't just shrug off his coldness, she embraced it as another cherished piece of him, and continued to push her luck. "Oh, don't be so reticent," she purred. "Tell me how intolerable I am, how unsavory my presence is. Just don't be sweet to me, you know I couldn't stand it after all the indifference." She was speaking loudly and melodramatically, but with a bitter edge. "Come on Sasuke, aren't I annoying?"

Perfect. Sasuke stood and took her hand. He rested his forehead against hers, gazing into her wide green eyes. He tilted his chin, leaned in, and kissed her. His hand clutched hers, cautious and gentle, controlled and deft as he knew she had always imagined.

Sakura pulled back and stared up at him. Years ago, as a lovelorn schoolgirl, Sakura would have been breathless, but ages of waiting had made her levelheaded. She bit her bottom lip to restrain a knowing smile. "Don't make light of me," she warned quietly, lifting her hands to his neck and massaging it affectionately. He felt her chakra, flaring from her ungodly strong fingertips, on his spine, reminding him that as a medic, she knew exactly where to apply pressure to kill him instantly, and how little she would have to apply. He wouldn't feel anything, and neither would she. "I am an adult now, not a plaything, and I wish that you would act like one too." She nipped his lower lip wantonly and stepped out of his insincere embrace. "I love you dear," she added fondly.

He could see how much she had learned. That, as much as she still desired him, she wouldn't allow herself to be hurt by him anymore, but as she walked away, he caught sight of her twisting the ring on her left hand, the way she had made a habit of doing when she was distressed.

Look now, you've upset your wife, his compassion piped up for the first time in ages. You had best make it up to her, if you want her to play with you again, it pointed out to stifle his more spiteful side. He moaned inwardly.

"I love you too," he piped up. Sakura looked back at him, hands fallen limply at her sides, and smiled.

"Get away from the window, it's cold. I'll fix you something warm to drink."

Sasuke let her kiss his forehead and treat him like a spoiled child, and resolved to one day grow out of his wretchedness and deserve her for a wife. Despite not letting him hurt her, as he so often tried to do both consciously and otherwise, she would settle for whatever form of love she could get from him– romantic, platonic, or practical– with the same contentment.