Girl in the Window

There he was, out in the rain. He walked the muddy road, his hair soaked down and his eyes trained on the sky. It was raining, and he couldn't help but remember his old friends. It had taken him a long time to realize that they were his friends, his comrades as ninja, but eventually he did. Now he walked, he wandered, he was alone. There were one night stays at a strangers home, and naps on the roadside.

Hot meals came only once in a blue moon, being that the only people who had it in their hearts to let him in were the poor with very little food to spare. He wasn't the great, wealthy child prodigy he once was. He left all that behind, back at that place where his parents' blood was stained into the floorboards. He took no money when he left, and he rarely bought new weapons. He did small tasks for those who needed it, and in return he was rewarded with food or clothing, and sometimes the only thing that the person could spare was a thank you, but it was enough.

He left that greasy, twisted snake years ago, even though no one knew it. They all thought he was still out there, training with the gold eyed psycho path. But he wasn't, he had had enough of the creep, and just walked out. Of course, the loser thought he'd be back in a day or two, returning for more power when his attempt at his brother's life failed. But he never went back, and in turn Orochimaru, the sick bastard, came after him in hopes of bringing him back.

He would not return, and Orochimaru threatened his life if he just walked away again. Well, he ended that shit real quick like. No more body stealing psycho, and that left his brother, Itachi. But he wasn't out to kill, he wasn't looking. He knew that the sorry excuse for an Uchiha would rear his ugly head once he had heard of Orochimaru's death. But no one knew he was dead yet, except for one. Himself, Sasuke Uchiha.

No one cared to wonder where the snake had disappeared to, so he wasn't missed. But Sasuke refused to return to the village of his birth, Konoha. There was nothing for him there, which he had discovered a week after the death of his disgusting teacher. His reason to go back had left. She no longer resided in the leaf village, and that's why he traveled. He was looking for her, hoping that he would find her one day before it was too late.

The rain pounded down harder, splashing up around his feet. He peered into the distance, searching. He really didn't want to have to sleep in a tree or under some rock outcropping tonight, not in this weather. As he walked a small house appeared in the distance. And when he approached he noticed it was painted a soft spring green with dark blue shutters, a strange sight in a land such as this. It was a normal farm house, which didn't pop up often these days. Most people preferred the safety of an apartment in the city or a ninja protected estate.

He walked on, and he sighed in relief when he saw the warm glow of light from the upstairs window. Perhaps this person would let him stay for the night; perhaps they had food to spare. The house wasn't anything fancy, but it was no where near a poor ramshackle like most of the places he had stayed in. Or maybe these people didn't like to show off their wealth from the outside and alert rough ninja of any valuables inside.

He shrugged and slowly made his way down the walk, staring at the door. It was white with a cheap gold knocker, not showing any hint of money flaunting. Hm, these people were probably your average family, or maybe it was just one person. But, it would be lonely living by yourself in a roomy house like that, and he of all people would understand such a thing. Perhaps it was an old lady, enjoying the last of her days in the peaceful countryside. Maybe it was a hermit of a writer, looking only for quiet in his home to write tales of lost castles and slaying dragons, or famous ninja who saved a damsel in distress.

He arrived on the doorstep and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to rid it of excess rainwater. He didn't want to look like a total bum, or some shifty thief out for a good steal. Adjusting his pack and shaking his head to get rid of the wet one last time, he took hold of the knocker and let it hit the wood once…twice…three times before standing back.

He heard the rush off feet down solid wood stairs, but they were quick and light. His ears trained in fighting and the way of a ninja without belonging knew the sound of a fighter well. These steps were the steps of another ninja, and judging by the way they moved it was a female. He almost amazed himself sometimes, thinking back to how weak he was before he left the village and how strong he had become. But rummaging through the past wasn't something he enjoyed doing, so letting himself reminisce was a rare occasion.

There was silence in the house, and he stepped back to get a look in the nearby window. A womanly figure stood there, and it appeared as if she were trying to get a look at him. He ducked back towards the door, not willing to show his face to the girl in the window unless she came to invite him in. He heard more movement from inside, and the thud of a well thrown kunai hit the door. He could tell by the restrained force in the blow that this girl was holding back, and she was trying to warn him to leave.

Looking back at the rain soaked sky he took note of the lightning ripping across the clouds. He had been thinking about just leaving like the girl in the window wanted him to, but then again…..BOOM……eh, he'd rather beat her door down. He never liked being out in thunder storms, it always seemed to bring back the memory of his lost clan. It had been storming like this the day of the funeral.

Turning back to the door he knocked again, and he heard a muffled groan from beyond the door. Strange, it almost sounded familiar to him. There was silence, and he figured she was trying to see if she kept quiet he would go away. That was stupid, he already knew she was there. Knocking more persistently another roll of thunder shook the clouds, and he became even more insistent on escaping the weather.

He was not, in any way, a fearful man, if that's what you're thinking. He would just rather be in a safe, dry place out of the storm so painful memories wouldn't come to break down his well built wall against emotion. And even more so…it had been raining the day he went to find her after Orochimaru was dead, and she had left. For some twisted reason, he felt as if she had abandoned him. But, that would make sense, seeing as how he had abandoned her all those years ago. It had been a long time since he had seen that smile, which he foolishly took for granted when he was twelve. Now he was twenty-three, and he missed his old team, his comrades.

Again he knocked, becoming very impatient with the resident of this house. If she would just open the door and give him a logical explanation as to why he couldn't come in, maybe he would be a little more understanding. But this was ridiculous! Any second now his annoyance would push him to break down the door, and she surely wouldn't enjoy that. This time he knocked with his fist, and next time, it wasn't going to be just a knock. He might just have to put a little chidori behind it to make her understand he did not want to be out in this storm!

"Go the hell away!!!" Screamed the girl from the window, and he heard the crack in her voice. Had she been crying?

Again, a sense of familiarity struck him, and it made him want to know who this girl from the window was.

"Open the door." His voice was a bit more annoyed than he wanted it to be, but maybe that way she'd get the hint.

"Why in the heck would I open the door to a complete stranger?! Do you think I'm that stupid?!?" She shrieked, her restrained sobs betraying the anger she forced.

"I just need someplace to stay over night, that's all I ask." His voice was monotone and back under control.

It annoyed him that he couldn't keep his emotions under control like he used to be able to. Something about training with a creepy snake guy that wanted to molest you made his emotions a little insecure. Hn, if it had been anyone else with the freak they would've had a mental breakdown and gone insane. But he was Sasuke Uchiha, and Uchiha's just didn't work that way.

He snapped back to attention when he heard the movement of a deadbolt lock as it was pulled out of place. He quirked a brow and couldn't help but smirk when the sound of three more locks clicked and the turn of a key. This had to be some paranoid chick, and he wondered how she had ever made it as a ninja. The door swung open swiftly, and there stood the girl from the window, disheveled and sobbing.

Sakura, girl from the window.

Sasuke stared at her for a minute, his eyes wide with disbelief. Both of her eyebrows shot up, and she drew in a sharp breath. They stood for a long time, just staring at each other. He had been looking for her ever since the demise of body snatcher, and on this day of all days he had found her by accident and caught them both unawares.

"Holy. Shit." Sakura breathed, and it snapped Sasuke back to reality.

He slowly raised an eyebrow to her statement, and she seemed to drift back in as well. In an instant she was angry, no, furious, and she yanked the kunai out of the door.

"Why the hell are you here, Uchiha?" She hissed dangerously, grip tightening on her weapon. "What gives you the right to come on a visit in the middle of the night after all these years, huh!? Answer me, damn it!!" Tears betrayed her fury, and he felt something ache deep inside of him.

"Sakura…." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, still staring at her. "I finally found you again." He smirked slightly, and she raised her eyebrows at him.

"I refuse to listen to you unless you answer the question, snake scum." Her voice was hard and sharp as flint, and Sasuke frowned slightly at the comment. But he didn't choose to react to it, he knew he deserved it.

"Sakura, I guess I should explain myself. You see, Orochimaru, well he's dead. He's been dead since I was…what, twenty? I went back to the village to find you, and you had left, so I figured I didn't belong anymore. I've been traveling since then, hoping to find you." Sakura dropped the kunai, her face disbelieving.

"You…you killed him?" She whispered, forgetting about the fact that he had still betrayed the trust of Konoha those many years ago.

"Yeah, the asshole thought I still needed him after I walked out, so when he came to force me back into his hellhole I killed him. Damn, it felt good." He smirked again, and Sakura just blinked a few times.

"How come…how come no one knows? Didn't anyone wonder what happened to him?"

"No. Who would worry about a shitty bastard like him?" Sasuke shrugged and looked deep into her green eyes. God, he missed those eyes.

"I could say the same for you, Uchiha. How dare you come looking for me, because I could care less if you were still breathing or not!" She hardened again and stomped her foot childishly. He could tell by the look in her poorly concealed eyes that she was lying. He could tell she missed him after he left.

"Sakura, can I come in?" He ignored the fight she was trying to stir up and gestured inside the house.

She scowled at him, her stubborn face looking terribly cute to him. And then to her shock he stepped forward and grasped her upper arms, pulling her close and into a hug.

"I'm sorry, Sakura. I didn't know how stupid I was being back then when I left, and I know you're angry. But I've been looking for you, and now I'm just not going to walk away because you want me gone. It's time to talk." He let her go and studied the shock n her face and the tiny blush that stained her cheeks. "Now, can I please come in?" He quirked a brow and she frowned at him, but then she sighed and turned to walk back in the house, waving for him to enter.

He shut the door behind him and followed the pink haired kunoichi to the kitchen, where she seated herself at the table and watched him sit down at the opposite end, a scowl frozen on her face. And for some reason, Sasuke figured a cheerful smile looked a lot better on her.

"Well?" Sakura said flatly, outwardly not interested in what he had to say. But down in her heart, even though she refused to listen, it was pleading for him to talk, to tell her it was all a mistake and that she had missed him more than anything in the world.

"Well what?" Sasuke quirked a brow at her, and her frown deepened.

"Well, start talking. You said you wanted to talk, so I'm listening." She sighed and watched his onyx eyes gaze emotionlessly back at hers.

"What do you want to know?" He folded his hands and rested his chin on them, a common pose that he had since childhood.

"Why you stayed away for so long."

"I had been training with Orochimaru since the day I left, and about eight years later I walked out, refusing to be his play toy any longer. I killed him….then went back to Konoha to find you. I thought, maybe you would understand. You weren't there, so I figured there was nothing in Konoha for me anymore. I left again without letting anyone know I was even there, and have been searching for you ever since. That was about three years ago, so that covers about three years of my absence that wasn't staying away at my own will." He was staring at the table, remembering the events of the past eleven years.

"You didn't answer the question, Sasuke. Why did you stay with him?" She pressed, her eyes sharp and searching.

"He was the only one that I thought could offer me enough power to beat my brother. He was the only one that wouldn't hold back and take everything so slowly like our sensei of Konoha. I wanted to be stronger faster." H looked back up and met her eyes, and noticed they weren't as hard and mistrusting as before.

"Why did you stay so long?"

"I never realized that he was only offering me the hate fueled way of becoming stronger because I was so focused on my goal. It took me eight years to fully comprehend his intentions, and that's when I left."

Sakura watched him for a minute, searching for some sign of betrayal in his words. She closed her eyes and sighed, dropping her face into her hands.

"You'll never understand how painful it was to know that you preferred his company than ours, Sasuke. You'll never know how much we hurt after you left." He realized that she was talking about herself and Naruto, maybe even Kakashi too.

Silence hung thick in the air, and it was almost suffocating to the Uchiha prodigy. He stared at the tired Haruno girl, and she lifted her gaze to look at him with sad, broken eyes. She was finally showing him what she really felt like, and there was that strange aching from deep inside him again.

"Sakura….why were you crying?" She tilted her head slightly in question, forcing him to elaborate if he wanted an answer. "When I first got here, you were crying."

"Oh….that." She looked out the kitchen window, her eyes distant. "Naruto called to tell me he was getting married to Hinata in a couple months, and he wants me to be there."

Now, this confused Sasuke. Wasn't that something to be happy about? Really, the news sounded pretty good to him, and he inwardly smirked at the thought of the dobe proposing to the shy Hyuuga.

"But why were you so upset Sakura, that's what I want to know. I would think it would make you happy." She turned her eyes back to him, and he could see the tears threatening to fall.

"Because, Sasuke. Every one of my close friends have someone, Naruto and Hinata, Ino and Shikamaru, Tenten and Neji, and even Kakashi-sensei told me a while back that he found some girl while he was out late one night. But I have nobody, and the only one I ever cared about left to train under the watch of a disgusting sanin. Do you realize how hard that is? Standing by and watching your friends get married off two by two while you're all alone, putting on fake smiles for them at their wedding? I don't want to have to be fake, Sasuke. I want to be happy for them, and have someone there beside me that I can share the happiness with."

This made Sasuke feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, and Sakura could no longer hold back the tears that burned in her eyes. She stood from the table, brushing her tears roughly away.

"I'm going to bed. You can sleep on the couch if you want, but when I come down for breakfast I better not see a trace of you still in this house, got it?" She sniffed and headed out into the hallway, and a few moments later Sasuke heard her ascend the stairs.

He stayed sitting at the table, contemplating what she had just told him. It pierced right through his cold shell, and it made his heart ache for her. The only thing that had ever been able to do that was the memory of his dead family and the betrayal of his brother. But one rainy night he just happened to encounter her trying to find a place to stay, and he was falling apart all over again. That's what he was trying to avoid, and instead the hurt was worse than the memory of his family.

Sasuke pushed back out of the chair and retraced his steps back the door and hung a left, arriving at the pale blue living room. He had dried off since coming into the house, and he lay down tiredly on the plush couch. In minutes he was sleeping deeply, the best he had slept in years. Perhaps he slept easy knowing that after so much searching he had finally found the one thing he was looking for. His reason to keep on living.

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Sasuke stretched lazily on the couch and stared up at the ceiling, momentarily forgetting where he was. The night before played over in his head, and he sighed. She looked so broken, and there was no way in hell he was leaving without trying to make things better again. He didn't want her going on like that, a hollow shell of what she once was. He actually missed the old bubbly Sakura, the one that fawned over the very ground he walked on.

But what she had become because of him….he didn't like it, not one bit. He refused to leave her just like that, and when he was gone she would probably be worse than before. And on top of that, he wouldn't have a good reason to live anymore. Yes, he still had the desire to rid the world of his treacherous brother, but that need wasn't something that brought up good memories. He would go on living a negative life like before, and he didn't want to go back to that.

Sasuke stood up from the couch and silently made his way through the house, ascending the stairs with all the stealth of a ninja. The sun hadn't come up yet, so it was still the wee hours of morning. Peering into each of the upstairs rooms he searched for the one that contained the bubblegum haired kunoichi. He discovered her sleeping place at the end of the hallway, and snuck in quietly. She was sleeping peacefully, snuggled deep in the covers of her bed.

He marveled her face just then, taking notice of how calm she was, and how much she looked like her old self. She sighed contentedly and whispered his name. He quirked a brow and smirked, feeling smug at the thought of her dreaming about him. Sasuke crept over to the king-sized bed and wondered why she needed so much space to conk out in. Maybe he would ask her when she woke up. He gently slipped under the sheets next to her and wrapped his arms around her body. In response Sakura snuggled back against him, a soft smile twitching up the corners of her lips.

Sasuke buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, enjoying the fresh scent of cherry blossoms. He pulled her closer to him and he noticed the smile on her face widen slightly. That pleased him to no end, and he stayed there with her until the sun began to peek over the horizon. Sakura shifted in his arms, and it bought him out of the semi-asleep state he was in. The sunshine filtered in through the white lace curtains, leaving golden patterns on the bedspread and lighting up the hair of the girl from the window.

She groaned softly and rolled over, burying her face in his chest. It wouldn't be long now. She was going to wake up, and he would smile just for her. Sakura pressed herself against his warm body and he smirked down at the small girl. Even if she was the same age as he, she was still much smaller than him. That was what made her fit so perfectly in his arms. She shifted again, and her eyes began to work their way open.

She blinked the sleep from her eyes and turned her head up to him, still stuck back in dreamland.

"Sas…Sasuke?" Her voice was warm and soft, and Sasuke let a small smile break his features.

The golden sunlight played off his face and hair, and for a moment Sakura felt as if he were an angel with her there. Sasuke watched the light glitter in her deep emerald eyes, and his smile widened. She was stunning in the morning, even if she did have a little case of bed head. It was then that her eyes widened to an impossibly large size and she gasped, fully grasping the situation.

"Sakura….before I go, I just wanted to ask you if you still want me to be that one person that you could share the love with at dobe's wedding. So how about it?" He tightened his grip around her waist, the smile still casually breaking him from his normal self.

"Er…uh… Sasuke!" She blushed fiercely and averted her gaze, fumbling to regain the composure and confidence she had the night before. "Why would you ask me? I thought I was just a weak little kunoichi!" She steeled her gaze as much as she could, but it was hard to stay that way when he was smiling at her.

"Maybe so, but that's even more of a reason for me to stick around. I mean, you need somebody to protect you, out here all alone in this house built for a family." He gazed down at her, the walls that he had built up around his heart completely shattered, exposing his tender side.

He was vulnerable, and Sakura realized this as she stared at him, still shocked. Her mind was reeling with the fact that she had woken up to his embrace, and that he had a smile on his face just for her. There was no mockery, no deceitful intentions, just his exposed emotions. He was letting her in, and she had the chance to completely break him or give him a chance.

"Sasuke….." Her eyes lost their steely look as she watched the sunlight dance across his warm eyes. "I think….I think I would like it if you came with me."

Sasuke felt his shattered heart mend and fill with gladness. All these years….ever since his parents had been killed he had been broken and hollow, missing out on all the emotions that he thought were weak. Now he knew better. He knew what it was like to care…..to love. His smile broadened, and he felt utterly content with staying by her side the rest of the day.

"Sasuke?" Sakura laid her head against his chest, sighing softly.

"Hn?" She giggled when she felt his own preferred word rumble deep from inside of him.

"You won't leave again will you?" She glanced up at him and he looked down at her, his gaze soft.

"No, I promise I won't ever leave again. I think I'd enjoy life a little bit more if I was here with you and got to watch the dobe's kids when he and Hyuuga go on missions." He chuckled slightly, and Sakura loved the sound of his laugh. She had never heard him laugh before, and it delighted her to no end.

"I think I'd like that. But do you think….do you think we'll always just be watching their kids?" He raised a brow at the meaning of her question.

"Hn. I don't know, maybe we'll have to watch Nara's kids sometimes too…..and maybe even the other Hyuuga, if he isn't too proud for that."

"Sasuke, that's not what I meant!" She shoved him as best she could from where she was and laughed.

"Oh, I guess there could be a few more Uchiha's……three or four would be nice." He laughed again, and Sakura buried her face in his chest.

"Sasuke!!" She squealed like she did when they were twelve, and it made him laugh even louder.

He never thought that he would end up here after he saw that girl in the window, but he was glad that things turned out the way they were. And Sakura was happy too, of course.

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Okay, I seriously enjoyed writing this! Ah, now my mind is cleared and refreshed, and I can get back to finishing my chappie fic!! I feel very satisfied with the way this turned out, and I might just write a little sequel thingy when I finish my other fics. I think it would be interesting to find out what happens at Naruto's wedding…..hm. Anywho, I hope you liked it!! Ah, any comments, questions, or advice will be accepted and analyzed in a review, so please tell me what you think! I always love hearing from my reviewers, and sweet reviews always make me want to write more…..so that means I'll be prompted to finish my other fics!

It's the weekend, so I'll probably have the next chapter on my Inuyasha fic up for any of you who were wondering when I would update. So, if you read this little authors note, please put 'Extraordinary' in your review! Thanks a bunch for reading, and until next time, valete!

Mistoffelees Shadow