Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Summary: Sasuke and Sakura and a marriage so full of love that neither can see it. In which Sakura hopes, Sasuke tries, and a cold heaven is a bad heaven.
Goodnight
It has been a good night, she thinks, because nothing bad has happened yet, and Sasuke-kun isn't mad at her, and he actually talked to her at dinner, which (almost) nevereverever happens. So it is a good day, mainly because it isn't a bad day, and maybe tonight will be a good night, too.
But she hardly dares to let herself hope, because she let herself hope on the evening of their wedding, and she let herself hope when he proposed to her, and her hopes have, each time, been shattered and ground into the cold, dark earth. She thinks, almost bitterly, that she has been standing on the shards of broken dreams so long that she can hardly feel it anymore.
But this is an untruth, because she can still feel it, can still feel the sharp edges digging into her feet (heart), can still feel the dust when she walks (breathes). And she knows that she will never get used to the feeling, just as she knows she will never stop trying to love him, no matter how much he hurts her.
Maybe, she thinks, she is a masochist. Maybe she likes the pain. But maybe she just loves him too damn much. More than he deserves, she thinks sometimes. And other times, she thinks that, yes, he deserves this – he deserves to feel love because he has not felt it in so long, and if she is not enough for him, that does not mean she cannot try.
"Goodnight, Sakura," he murmurs at the door of his room, just as he has every night that he has been home for the past seven months.
"That's all?" she asks softly, and he turns toward her in surprise, raising one dark eyebrow. "That's all you have to say?"
"Hn," he mutters, and turns back to his door, turning the knob. "Goodnight."
She grabs his sleeve almost frantically, HER PLEADING GREEN EYES RAISED TO MEET HIS. "Sasuke-kun… I love you."
There is a pause, and then he gently but firmly removes her hand from his arm, as though her words mean nothing to him. "I know."
And then he pushes open his door and walks inside the room, the door clicking quietly shut behind him.
For a moment, she pauses in the doorway, hoping beyond hope that tonight will be the night; that tonight he will open the door back up and invite her – his wife – into his life. The door doesn't open, and ten minutes later, she steps away and towards her own room – the door on the left, at the end of the hall.
She slides open the door, and whispers her greeting to the empty room. The door swings shut behind her - the defeat in that sound is almost enough to make her cry. But she has cried too much this last half-year, and she is sick and tired of waking up with swollen redpurple eyes and mussed hair and wet cheeks.
And so she does not cry, does not weep, does not break down and shatter the way she wishes she could – because she is Uchiha Sakura, and she is proud and strong, dammit. She does not need him.
But that is a lie, because she does. She needs him so bad. She needs him more than she has ever needed anyone, has ever needed anything, not air or water or food, and she swears that she will die without him. And maybe she will. And maybe she is – dying, that is. Maybe she is falling into pieces and breaking and shattering, and maybe the purple training bruises on her skin are really bruises on her heart.
She wonders what she is here for, what he is here for. Because he does not need to be here for her. He does not need to come home, he does not need to sit at the table with her and eat her food and listen to her chatter and let her tell him that she loves him.
She does not cry herself to sleep, but she allows herself to daydream – daydream that Sasuke-kun would love her, would care for her, would be everything in the world there is, everything that she has ever needed. She leaves the window open that night, through the storm that she does not know was coming, because the cold air feels good, feels real.
The next morning she gets up in a fog, and showers in a haze and brushes her teeth and cooks breakfast. He is sitting downstairs by the time she is up, and reading the newspaper – it could almost be a domestic scene, she thinks. If only he would ever look up at her and smile. Just a little, little smile.
She makes him pancakes, and slices tomatoes into eighths and places them on a plate. The plate, she muses, is inordinately heavy. Stupidly, stupidly heavy. And she is carrying them over to the table when the floor rushes up to meet her.
(Later, she thinks that she might remember panic in Sasuke's voice, and gentleness in his touch. Later, she thinks that she might remember fear in his eyes and shock in his grip.)
For now, all she is aware of is cold. "Don't," she murmurs. "Cold." She tosses her head, almost spasmodically, trying to escape the wet coldness that insists on finding her. "Cold," she croaks. "Dammit, Sakura," she hears, and her eyes flutter, blurring and focusing. "I can't take care of you if you don't let me."
"Sasuke-kun?" she murmurs, and the endearment that he has not heard for so long shatters in his heart, driving its edges deep into his soul. "Yeah," he manages, and she turns her face to nuzzle against his wrist. "Sasuke-kun," she murmurs, and this time when he reaches out to touch her face with the wet cloth, she lets him.
"This," she tells him, tiredly, "is a very bad heaven. It's cold. But…" she trails off, for a moment, and then she focuses on him, "It must be heaven. You're here. And you're caring for me. I've been waiting for this, you know," she finishes. "I've been waiting for you to love me. This means you love me, right?"
She is asleep before she can see the pain crossing his face, the desperation in his eyes. "I love you," he says, pleads, and the words echo in the room, the words that he has never been able to say before. I love you I love you I love you I love you.
That night, he crawls into bed beside her and holds her tight against him – like he is neverneverever going to let her go – and he sleeps the best and the worst sleep he has had for a while. He is on a plain, and the grass is rippling and the world is changing and this is better than the dreams that had him screaming and flailing and forced him to lock Sakura out of his room no matter how heartbreakingly she looked at him.
But even he can tell that the world is not changing, it is dying. And he is alone. He has not been alone since he has had Sakura, and this hurts, being without her. Because he may kick her out of his room and his missions, but he hasalwayswillalways need her, and whyisshenothere?
He wakes up panting and sweaty, his arms tightening around the form that is Sakura, and he is impossibly happy that she is there. Impossibly. She is no longer feverish, he thinks, and is relieved.
And then he stands, and he leaves, because being here when she awakens is a promise that he cannot give her, because he cannot keep it. So it hurts to walk away, but what of it? This is pain, and he can deal with pain. But then she stirs and coughs and murmurs his name, in that desperate little voice that is so different from the defiant, proud one he has heard so often, so like the voice that tells him that She Loves Him nightly and wishes he would say the same to her.
The pain in her voice only magnifies the pain in his so long inactive heart, and he wonders – he wonders how much she hurts, how much he has caused her to feel, and why she will stay by his side even though he is cold and bitter and harsh.
Sakura awakens to emptiness and the memory of warmth, the memory of another body close to hers, of another person's breath whistling through her hair, the tickle of his ebony strands against her neck. But she is alone in her bed, she thinks, and she knows this only because there is an empty space besides her holding the faintest vestiges of the warmth that she is sure is Sasuke's, is all that he has left for her.
And this is pain, this is disappointment and horror and loneliness and despair, because he is not here. And she wonders if she dreamt it all, that he was never here, that he never held her and cared for her and touched her so, so tenderly and let her believe – for that one shimmering, bright moment – that he loved her.
Twin tears form their bitter, salty tracks down her cheeks, and she turns her head, hating her own weakness as she stretches out a shaky hand, fumbling for the box of tissues. It is not there, and she remembers taking it downstairs and writing a note to herself to buy more.
She wonders if it is truly a pitiful sight she makes (does not know that his heart is bleedingbleedingbleedingbreaking just looking at her), and then there is a handkerchief at her face, drying the tears and wiping her nose and a hand, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
"Sasuke-kun," she whispers, with something like wonder in her voice, something like awe in her eyes, and he almost flinches – does look down, look away, because he cannot understand why she can still look at him this way, still speak to him this way, when he will not let her sleep with him, will not let her touch him, will not even smile at her and speak with her and be everything and anything that she needs.
"Sakura," he says, and the harshness, the anger slips out into his voice. He can see the light dimming in her searching eyes (whatwhatwhat is she looking for?), and he can feel her turning away from him, and he tries, he tries so hard. "Sakura," he says, again, as softly and gently and carefully as he can, and he almost succeeds – almost, but not quite, because he is not used to this.
But he thinks she can hear him trying, because she has always been able to hear everything about him, see everything about him (except maybe not his love, but that's his own damn fault, isn't it). And he can almost feel her returning.
She's pushing up against his hands now, trying to sit, and he almost moves away and lets her before he realizes exactly what it is that she's doing. "Lie down," he says (commandsorderspleads). He is sure it hurts her, and he is even more sure that she should not get up yet, cannot get up yet.
"Hospital," she tells him, tiredly, and the panic rises again – I thought she was fine, what's happening? and Is she going to leave me? But she is continuing, and when he hears what she says next – "I have to work today" – he is almost furious with her, wants to slam her back into her bed and hold her there and feed her sleeping pills if he has to.
And he nearly does, is perilously close to doing so. But she is broken enough, he thinks, and he has broken her enough, and so he only watches worriedly as she laboriously slides out from under her blankets and brushes her hair, slowly, as though resting her arm after each motion. He watches her as she dresses and washes her face and brushes her teeth and walks out the door and down the stairs for breakfast – half a handful of cereal, half an orange, half a glass of milk.
She is almost listless as she reaches for her leather messenger bag, and scuffles her shoes along the floor as she leaves – a sure sign that she is tireddrainedexhausted because he has never seen her do that before. Always, her step is self-assured and bright and cheery, except for now.
And he doesn't know (okay he does know) why he's following her, but he does, follows her as she checks in and walks into her office, and he sits on her couch and crosses his arms and watches her as she digs through that magnificent pile of paperwork and drags herself out on her rounds.
Ten hours later, he picks her up from the desk she has fallen asleep at and carries her home, snarling at the nurses he passes, and glaring the receptionist into obedience. He wonders how they can call this safe, if the personnel is so cowed by him that they simply allow him to leave. He does not notice until later that the curse seal is swirling under its double seal, and the Sharingan is churning in his eyes.
And so this night, too, he allows himself to sleep beside her and hold her and dream of her, or of a world without her. Because he thinks that he sleeps better with her, and because he doesn't know if he can stand being alone right now, and he knows sureashell that he isn't going to let her sleep alone right now.
So he tucks her head under his and wraps his arms around her carefully, carefully because she cannot wake up to see him doing this. He dreams that night of fire and a whirling Sharingan and death and pain and destruction. And always, always, an apparition he is afraid to reach out to, a vision he knows can save him if he would only let go. Because we all get lost, Sasuke-kun. The problem is, we can't unlose ourselves. We have to let someone else do it for us.
But he does not know what the cost is, does not know the cost of letting go, of letting her save him, and so he does not, because maybejustmaybe the price is too high to pay. And he would like to save himself, but he isn't sure (but he is, he is so sure that he will never let her pay the price for him) whether he will let her save him.
He wakes panting and clutching at the soft body entwined with his, with the wind rustling through the trees and the soft stillness of sunrise. And he thinks it is a wonder that she has not awakened, a testament to how tired she truly must be. And he draws a finger across that wide forehead, down that creamy throat, because he likes feeling her pulse, and because he likes feeling her breathe, likes knowing that she's alive.
She wakes in that moment, with his forefinger on her pulse point, and stares at him with those big, frightenedtrusting eyes, and he says the first thing that comes to his mind. "You are not going to work today," he tells her. He regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth, regrets the tone he said it in, but it is too late now. He can see the anger, the fury rising in her eyes.
"What do you mean," she is opening her mouth to snap, when a cough forces her to curl up on herself, hacking. When at last her body allows her respite, she finds that she is already sitting, his hands on her back, rubbing soothingly. For one unguarded moment, she looks up into his eyes and sees worrylovelovelovelovelove, and the sight takes her breath away.
"You are not going to work," he repeats, and the wonder that she saw is hidden away again, somewhere deep behind the coldness and the darkness and the stoicism, and she is left to wonder if it ever existed. But it did, she is almostalmostalmost sure of it, and she hangs on to that hope as though no one will ever wrest it from her. But as much as she wants to give in, to hold on to him and let him protect her and hold her and take care of her as he (might) will, she has duty to think of.
"I," she says, and pauses for a moment. "I choked," she finally concludes, and his eyes flash. "On what?" There is another pause, and she can hardly think of an answer. Again, those dark eyes flash with something like anger (disappointment) and annoyance (worry).
She is caught now, in a lie so obvious she is disappointed in herself for thinking of it. "I have to work," she says, and it is a whisper, a plea, and even though he wants sobad to give in to anythigneverything she wants, he knows that this is something that he cannot give in on.
"I forbid you," he says. It is an order, a command, from a husband to his errant wife, and she is furious at him for this – for what right does he have to command her anything, to treat her as a disobedient wife when it is he that has not been here? There is rage bubbling up now, delicious, intoxicating rage, and she welcomes it as she has welcomed nothing before.
"How dare you," she seethes, and moves to clamber out of their bed. Her way is barred by his arm. "How dare I what?" he goads, and the anger and ice in her voice is enough to make him wish himself leagues and leagues away.
"How dare you act as thought you are some sort of loving husband, disciplining his, his, his beloved, disobedient wife? How dare you think that I would simply sit here and obey, when you have done nothing to warrant that obedience? That respect? Not even that love! When have you ever acted like a husband to me, Sasuke? Hm? When have you ever done anything to indicate that I meant something to you, that you loved me?
"From the day we were married, I have done everything I could to make you see me. Me, Uchiha Sakura. I have cleaned your house and cooked you food, I have done everything to make this huge, empty house a home, even though you never talk to me, even though you don't sleep with me, even though you don't talk to me or look at me, even though we haven't even consummated our marriage. I've never even seen you naked!"
His anger rises to meet hers, a forest fire in the face of a rising tornado, but there is nothing he can say against this. Because everything she has said is true. Except one. "I have loved you."
It does not sound as strong or as true as he had hoped, but he wonders if it is enough. There is a flash in her eyes, doubt and maybe an answering glimpse of love, but then she grins, a triumph in ice. "I'm sure," she says, "but you have to say that, don't you? Or do you not want your darling Uchiha heirs anymore?"
The very next thing she knows, she is against the wall and he is kissing her, kissing her as though this is the one thread that connects them, the one thing that is holding them together, and though at first she resists, she could never develop immunity to him. And this is the first time, and it is beautiful.
Finally, they pause for breath, and he looks down at her with those dark eyes that give nothing – and, tonight, everything – away, and says, voice hoarse, "Fuck." She cringes away from him in that moment, against the wall, but he picks her up and tosses her into the bed and… Tonight? she wonders. Tonight will I finally be able to love him?
He follows her in, and… and he takes off his shirt, and helps her with hers, and her pants, and his own – he lets her keep her breast bindings and underwear, and does not even move toward his own, and then he pulls her in – carefully, carefully – and holds her.
"I didn't marry you for heirs, Sakura," he tells her. "I didn't marry you for that. I married you for me." And maybe that isn't a confession of love, but he had already given that and had it thrown in his face, so maybe he'll be a littleittybittybit more cautious now.
And then he tucks her head under his chin and she – tentatively, carefully, blindly – wraps her arms around his chest. He is still speaking, over her head, hesitantly. "I… I dream, at night," he says, and she stares at his neck as he swallows. "If you hear anything… if you feel anything… I would not hurt you," he says, at last.
"Of course not," she tells him, and maybe there is a glimmer of hope in her eyes, or maybe it is her fatigue that allows her to forgive so easily, but he has given her more than she ever dreamed she would receive, and so she gives him one last gift, too. "You know that I would love you, even if you did."
And then she curls up and sleeps, ignoring the sunlight streaming in the window; ignoring, too, the fact that his breath is tickling her hair, and that the covers are in a pile at the foot of the bed.
She dreams of a world where there are flowers and butterflies, where Sasuke-kun is the way he was tonight for always, where Sasuke-kun had held her in his arms for ever night of their marriage. A world where she has always believed in his love, never needed to pretend and cry and smilesmilesmile even when she doesn't want to. That world doesn't matter, though, because right now everything is okay and everything is alright and Sasuke-kun is holding her tighttighttight and it is warm, and everything is beautiful.
When she wakes up, she thinks that she'll kiss him, and if he kisses her back she'll punch him. And if he doesn't, she'll punch him harder. Because he deserves that, at least. And then he is going to take her out for dinner, and she is never going to let him say nononono again. Because he's too good at saying no, at convincing himself, at doubting, and she will show him that he can trust her.
And maybe, maybe he already should have, because what has she done to make him doubt her? But somewhere in the haziness of dream, where ideas and thoughts and things she would normally despise come across as acceptance and love and joy, she understands him, she thinks. She understands that he isn't so very good at loving, but that he tries. For her? Maybe.
And maybe it will never be enough, and maybe it will be, but tonight… but this day, sleeping with him, sharing a bed with him, it is beautiful.
And so she dares herself to dream.
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So I'm really very sorry that this took so long, but it was a lot more difficult then I though it would be. Thanks to Neon Genesis for betaing this, and for providing the summary – I was absolutely stumped, I swear. It was a moment of true distress, and she was amazing. Thanks also to everyone who reviewed when this was a drabble in Rainbow – still posted, and I plan to remove it and write a new one very soon – and supported me in making this a full fledged oneshot. I'm far too lazy to go and look everyone up right now, but thank you all so much.