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Callista Miralni
The first of three one-shots for SasuSaku Month 2012! I started writing this back when sign-ups opened, knowing that when May came around, I'd be too busy to write regularly. I was waiting until yesterday, the day of the prompt, to publish this here.
Prompt: Thunder
in media res._fleeting
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He watched her methodically slice tomatoes and arrange them on a plate in a circle. Wordlessly, she set the plate before him before taking her own seat and raising her tea cup to her lips.
He loathed to start conversation, but with her, it was necessary. His wife would sit in awkward silence, never speaking like she did with her friends and their peers.
Sometimes, he wished Naruto lived with them. Then, he would hear her voice more often.
"I know you hate this," he said in a low voice. "But I'm glad it was you they chose."
Startled, she finally looked at him. He didn't give her another glance as he rinsed the plate clean and left the house.
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introduction._a tale from the abyss
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They were six.
He showed her the uchiwa fan his parents kept at the shrine. The bamboo fan, painted cream and vermillion, breathed the small spark into a roaring fire.
"Can I try? I want to light up the world like you do!"
He told her no. Little girls can't light up the world, unless they're Uchiha girls.
She pouted before declaring she would show him.
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They were eight.
He spotted her among the crowd. Pink hair was a distinguishing feature, a genetic rarity among the dominating genotypes. She held in her small hand a painted uchiwa.
The basket held the names of all the eligible females in Konohagakure. In the most ancient of ceremonies, his bride would be chosen and then bonded to the clan until death.
His father drew a slip from the basket. Uchiha Fugaku cleared his throat and read her name out loud.
Stunned, her mother pushed her toward the dais. She struggled to maintain her balance in her formal robes.
Whispering his name, she begged him for this entire spectacle to be a dream. He turned his gaze from her, the sinking feeling in his stomach intensifying as he reached for the cup of sake.
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They were twelve.
Assigned to the same Genin squad, they hardly looked at each other. Memories from their betrothal ceremony were still raw, still fresh in their minds. Despite their best efforts to return to their normal, playful relationship, one thoughtless comment from someone passing by put them on edge.
Nothing was the same after sharing that cup of sake.
He quietly told her that his mother wished to see her after their training. She nodded before walking after their teacher.
Hatake Kakashi knew who they were and what their relationship was. He knew they would make a good match on the battlefield. She had the potential for powerful genjutsu; he had the ability to see through the illusions.
Together, they would be a formidable force.
But in marriage? Kakashi wasn't so sure. The domestic world was, in some ways, even more dangerous than the battlefield. Politics was a messy arena. She lacked control over her emotions and he lacked the honeyed tongue necessary for persuasion.
Would they even survive?
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They were fifteen.
The Uchiha elders nodded in approval at her skills. Since she started her training as a medic under the new Hokage a year before, every thing about her was perfect.
She was the perfect match for the youngest son of Fugaku and Mikoto.
Her fiancé observed the spar against their Genin squad instructor with a cool gaze. The elders' obvious approval gave him some relief but he scowled anyways.
What superficial people. Didn't they see that the girl with their stamp of approval is the same girl whose name his father pulled out of the basket years before? Nothing about her has changed; if anything, she's only gotten more beautiful.
He sighed. Beautiful and distant. He couldn't remember the last carefree afternoon they spent together. Was it when they were eight, after their engagement was announced? Or was it the afternoon before that?
If anyone asked him honestly, he didn't mind marrying her. She was every thing he could ask for.
At the same time, he didn't want to marry her. Their impending marriage changed every thing he loved about her. The smiles she gave him were empty.
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They were eighteen.
She lowered her eyes as she reached for the second cup of sake. Her shishou never understood her aversion to her favorite liquor, but the woman disliked sake for its uncanny ability to distort the relationships she held dear.
Tsunade pronounced them husband and wife. The bittersweet sake slid down her throat, reminding her that every hope and dream she had was now dead.
Duty. Honor. Power.
Those were the things her husband's family cherished. Why else would they betroth him to his best friend?
She had all three.
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present._let the flames begin
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She pulled on a pair of latex gloves, preparing herself for surgery. This procedure was the most difficult thing any one could have asked of her, but she knew why she was chosen.
There were two. Shishou had one. Only she could help the other.
Refusing to see her patient's face, she ordered a cloth draped over it before she entered the room. Hiding the face hid the wounded's identity; only then could she work with clinical detachment.
She held down the bile rising to her mouth and assessed the situation. Torso ripped open with brutal force, crushed ribs, a lung threatening to collapse, bruised liver. She was amazed he was even alive.
Barking orders with a serene calm, her team taped the ribs together, healing the broken parts halfway and binding the fractures. They stabilized and re-inflated the lung. There was nothing to be done about the liver except to let it heal naturally.
They stemmed the bleeding and started to mend the skin tissue. Halfway through the process, the patient's heart rate plummeted.
She worked frantically to restart his heart, compressing his chest for a moment before realizing that with a newly healed ribcage, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. A green hand pressed on the skin above the heart and she sent a surge of chakra through the tissue.
She didn't dare to breathe until the steady beep of the monitor reported normal heart rate.
Hoarse, she ordered her team to finish what they started and wrap him up. She left the operating room, sliding down the hallway wall and taking deep, shuddering breaths.
It wasn't until the patient's heart rate crashed that she knew who she was treating. The cool metal ring, carefully inscribed with rolling flames, hanging on a necklace near his heart matched the one on her finger.
She almost lost both her husband and her best friend today, but for some reason, the latter didn't even cross her mind. As she glanced through the viewing window and watched her team dress his injuries, she found herself desperately praying for her husband to never leave her alone.
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A storm was rolling in over Konoha.
She entered their bedroom with an armful of fresh bandages, a bucket of warm water, a bottle of antiseptic and a washcloth. Her husband was sitting on their bed, watching the dry storm through the open window.
She started unraveling the old bandages, dropping them to the floor.
"Do you remember when we first met?"
He was startled by the sound of her voice. He couldn't even remember the last time they properly talked to each other.
"Aa. The day at the shrine."
She laughed softly, now cleaning the healing tissue with water. "At six years old, you had such a pull on me. You could ask me to do anything and I'd gladly do it, no questions asked."
He wondered where she was going with this conversation but he didn't voice his thoughts. Instead, he replied, "I miss that. Especially the no-questions-asked part."
A hiss escaped his mouth when she suddenly put antiseptic on his injuries. "I'm sorry—did you say something? I was too busy patching up my idiot husband."
The thunder boomed through the sky, resonating deep in her skin. Lightning flashed across the dark clouds and in the distance, she could see the first of many rain clouds approaching.
"You know what it reminds me of?"
He tilted his head towards her, silently asking for her to continue. She tied off the the last bandage before looking at him fully.
"The day we met."
He scoffed. "A thunderstorm reminds you of the day we met. It wasn't even raining then."
She waved her hands impatiently. "No, no, no! Not like that. It's just... whenever I see the lightning flash, it reminds me of that small, fiery spark. I always think of the way you breathed that small spark into a flame using the uchiwa. And then I told you that-"
"You wanted to light up the world like I did," he softly interrupted.
Taken aback, she stared at him for a moment before a small melancholic smile settled on her lips. "Yeah, I did, didn't I?"
He studied her defeated form with cool eyes before he impulsively leaned forward and kissed the top of her head.
"Only Uchiha girls can set the world aflame."
Her confusion made him chuckle.
"That's what I told you before you ran off and said you'd prove me wrong."
"The Uchiha clan superiority complex disgusts me sometimes." She wrinkled her nose. "I will not tolerate such bullshit from my husband of all people-"
"You were right, you know."
Her heart stopped again. "What?"
He leaned against the pillows. "When we were kids, a few hours playing with you after a bad day made everything bearable. I lived for your smiles. Now that I think about it, you lit up my world long before you were an Uchiha."
"We're not six and innocent anymore, Sasuke," she quietly reminded him.
"No, we're not," he agreed. "I'm going to come home, drenched in someone else's blood. I'll have nightmares about my failures and worst fears. We're shinobi—emotionless tools to be used by our Kage. Our world has gotten darker, but smile for me, Sakura."
Smile and chase away the darkness.
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They were twenty-one.
Sasuke never said it, but Sakura knew he loved her.
She couldn't say the words either. After so many of years telling herself Sasuke viewed her as nothing more than an obligation, it was difficult to break that mindset.
But they're trying. Slowly.
On New Year's, he handed her the painted uchiwa when they visited the shrine.
"Light up my world, Uchiha Sakura."
She smiled.