A/N: Wrote this in two parts. First part was after reading some oneshot that sparked this off, but I don't remember what it is. Then I stopped, forgot about it, and found it again and tried to finish it. The style of the second half was influenced by the fact we were reading Wuthering Heights at the time, so yeah…

Homecoming
by Pleasantries and the Aftermath

When Tsunade tells her that Sasuke is back, Sakura has no idea what to think. The first things that rush through her head are obligatory—where is he? Is he alright? What happened to him?—things like that, before they lead to the question of why.

Tsunade has the answer before the question even reaches her eyes. "Naruto brought him back."

Naruto. He brought him back. He brought Sasuke back. She has to thank him, but the homecoming of Sasuke is a mixed blessing. She has no idea how she will react. On one hand, she's ecstatic to see him back. Her heart flutters and sings and she feels happy and alive for the first time in years. But on the other hand…

The other hand is more realistic. It accepts the first, but realizes it's a lie. She is happy but not at the same time because she doesn't know what to do. She does not know what to do or say to the man who broke her heart all those years ago, the man who left them—their home to chase the shadows of a man he called 'brother.'

"Sakura…"

"Where is he?" she asks, her tone a bare whisper. It's as if any louder and something will break. Sakura has no idea what it is—her dreams, her lies, her heart—but she feels as if something is bubbling within her body and ready to burst.

Tsunade sighs, "In the interrogation cell at Anbu headquarters."

And she makes for the door when Tsunade's voice stops her.

"But Sakura…"

"Yes, shishou?"

Her teacher sighs tiredly, sadly. "You need to know a few things before you go."

When Sakura enters the interrogation cell, it is exactly as she imagines it. It is small, dark, and dank. Water leaks from the ceiling and the sound it makes as it splashes on the ground echoes ominously. The rats scurry the walls. An overhanging light dangles and sways on a metal chain and below it, in the moving yellow circle of light, is the man whose back haunts her to this very day.

"Sasuke…"

Sasuke sits with his head forward. His hair is longer than it was the last time she saw him and it shadows his eyes, hiding them from view. His arms are bound by a straitjacket and held firmly under his arms by the worn beige fabric. He is strapped to a chair bolted to the floor and the only thing he can move other than his head, are his legs.

"Sasuke…" she says again, softly, quietly, musically. "I know what happened to your clan."

This garners a response and she watches the tendons and muscles in his legs raise and his jaw lock. "You know nothing," he grits out between his teeth.

"Sasuke, I know about Itachi."

At his brother's name, his head snaps up and his eyes are blood red, whirling slowly with his rage like a deadly lullaby. "No, you don't," he seethes. "You don't, you don't, you don't!"

He is thrashing in his seat. His legs pound the floor beneath him, stamping his anger into the ground. His expression is feral. He looks like he is throwing a temper tantrum and in any other setting, it would've been laughable.

But it isn't.

"Sasuke, stop it. I'm not here to fight you. Do you know how hard we've been wishing to come back—how much I've been wishing for you to come back?"

"I don't care. I told you people to leave me alone. I left. I didn't want to come back. What didn't you understand when I left those gates and almost killed Naruto?" His tone is dry. A sneer is on his face, mocking her, and the urge to wipe it off his face causes Sakura's fingers to tick. He continues.

"You should've left me there. I was happier there. I learned the truth there and you think after hearing my brother sacrificed our family and himself for this pathetic village, that I'd really want to come back?!"

His screams reverberate off the walls and it takes all that Sakura has not to wince. His words, scathing and angry, are all true. It's a hard fact she has to swallow and even though the Hokage herself has told her this, it's hard to believe. She always knew that people use dirty politics to protect what's theirs, but to kill an entire clan with one of their own? That was just cruel.

"I'm sorry," she says at least. Her apology is soft. Her voice is cracking and strangled, belying the fact she doesn't know what to say other than a meaningless apology, but she feels as if she has to say something—anything.

"Sorry doesn't bring people back from the dead. And unless you're going to kill me now, I'd like you to knock me out. I can barely stand the fact that I'm here and I don't want to realize I'm in this repulsive scenery more than I have to."

"But Sasuke, this is your home—"

"Was. Was my home before your stupid council thought my family was too much of a threat to live. If your Hokage told you everything, you'd know I'm not even supposed to be alive right now. Do you realize how much it hurts to be here and still be breathing? I'm the only one alive. I'm the last of my kind. I spent so many years chasing my brother just to kill him, thinking I was right and he was wrong. He was even dying when we fought, but he kept acting like he was strong just so I'd go all out on him. Do you even know what it was like to kill my own brother? Even before I found out the truth, it hurt. There was no sense of joy or relief. It's just emptiness."

His eyes are blank, staring at the point just behind her shoulder, but she knows he is staring off at a point far away in his mind. He seems lost and alone, not the strong, confident boy she has grown up with. But this exposed side of him quickly disappears as his red eyes snapped on her figure, lips curled in a fierce snarl once more.

"And you…you think that just because you brought me here that it's going to make it all better? That I'll magically forget everything this place has done to me?

"But Sasuke, this is your home! Konoha—"

"Is your home," he finishes in an uncharacteristically calm voice, before breaking his gaze with her, "It means nothing to me now."

And realizing she wouldn't be able to change his mind, she leaves the cell, feeling as sad and disheartened as if he had never come back in the first place.