She doesn't know what she'd expected, agreeing to be Kushina's bridesmaid. Maybe she'd hoped that Kushina would realise, or maybe she'd hoped that Minato wouldn't turn up; dead on some mission far from the village and leaving Mikoto to pick up the pieces.
(She'd never hope for that—she loves Kushina, sees that Minato's perfect for her, and she could never wish that on her best friend. Never.
Not even as she stares at whirling tomoe in the mirror, thinking about how easy it would be to arrange an accident. No.
Never.
Kushina deserves better than her.)
Regardless, as she stands at Kushina's side—two steps behind, closest bridesmaid to the bride, with Tsunade giving her away because she's the closest thing Kushina has to family—she wonders what it would be like to wait at the end of the aisle. To be the one Kushina is walking towards, red hair bright and gorgeous against her white dress, that loving, loving smile on her face.
But Mikoto takes that, takes every indecent thought she has and locks it in a box, never to see the light of day again. She pastes on a smile, follows the woman she's in love with down the aisle and pretends she's happy for her.
(She is. She is happy for her, she has to be, because what kind of friend is she otherwise?)
And Kushina is smiling, and it's like the sun is shining on Mikoto (on Minato), and she can't decide if she wants to laugh or cry. She's perfect, and god Mikoto loves her.
So she smiles through the ceremony, sits perfect and polite as she was taught as eldest of her family, daughter of the son of an elder, and she acts.
And if she's screaming inside, desperately hoping that Kushina won't ever forget her, well.
That's for her to know, and no one else to ever find out.
"We've chosen a candidate for your marriage," the elders tell her, and she wants to scream. She'd been prepared for Kushina's marriage—she knew it was coming, knew that with every moment they spent together, she fell more and more in love with him.
But this? She never wanted this.
"Uchiha Fugaku is to be your husband," they tell her, and Mikoto swallows her voice as it rises and bows, a jerky, broken thing. She doesn't say that she doesn't want this, that she's in love with her best friend—that she's in love with the Yondaime's wife.
"Yes, sir," she says instead, keeps her head bowed, and bites back each word that tries to force its way from her mouth.
She asks Kushina to be her bridesmaid, and ignores how her eyes burn when she agrees. Instead, Mikoto smiles, thanks her, and lets herself be dragged into a conversation about husbands—about married life, whether they'll want children, what the housings like.
Mikoto listens, and doesn't say how she won't be allowed to go on missions anymore, doesn't say how she'll be a housewife to the Clan Head and nothing more, doesn't say that she'll be forced to offer him heirs.
Instead, she bites her tongue and she smiles and she thanks the gods that she's always been good at acting.
Mikoto says 'I do' when she is asked, raises her veil when she is told, and she doesn't let her face scrunch up in disgust when Fugaku kisses her. She holds his hand at the reception, smiles and laughs and talks about how happy she is, and when they sleep together on their wedding night, she hopes more than anything that she's already pregnant, so that he never has to touch her again.
(She is. He does.)
Uchiha Mikoto gives two children to Uchiha Fugaku—Itachi and Sasuke, bright lights in the pitch-black midnight of what passes for a life.
She loves them, but she can't help but hate the circumstances that gave them to her.
And then the Kyuubi attacks.
She remembers red chakra, lashing through the air, remembers Fugaku yelling at her to take care of the kids. She remembers running, leaving the Uchiha compound with Sasuke in her arms, with Itachi on her back, because she may be retired now but she never really stopped being a ninja.
She remembers being told, by Sarutobi Hiruzen, wearing the Hokage's hat once more—and that in itself weighed heavy in its implications—that Uzumaki Kushina didn't survive the night.
"No," she says, and it's soft, breathy, heartbroken, revealing everything she's locked away for years, "No, she can't-"
"She is," Sarutobi interrupts, soft but firm, "Minato too."
(She remembers her knees hitting the floor, remembers hearing her name in frantic, terrified voices. She remembers an ache in her eyes, burning, and it doesn't feel like tears but she'd never told Kushina that she loves her.)
Mikoto is slowly going blind. She's disproved the fact that you need to see it happening—even though she had, oh she had, she'd seen the Kyuubi and she'd known what it meant; known that it's removal meant Kushina was dying.
(She'd seen the Kyuubi rampage through Konoha, and through that, she'd seen Kushina die.)
She's slowly going blind, and she has the most advanced form of the Sharingan, but she's a branch family's daughter and she will never be the most powerful of them.
She's an Uchiha Kunoichi, a housewife, and she has no family to give her their eyes.
(She will go blind.)
When she sleeps, she watches the Kyuubi rampage, and she wakes up screaming.
(When she sleeps, she watches her best friend the most important person in her world die, and she wakes up crying.)