Title: Midnight Chat
Rating: K+ for mention of sexual refrenses
Summary: This is how it should have gone the first time around. It would SO have worked.

Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto… but I've never wanted anything so badly in my entire li- OMG look, shoes! Must have…

Prompt 3- change


It's a cold night, and there are more than a dozen things Sakura can think of doing that don't include walking around in the freezing cold looking for him.

She can't help but think them up as she goes to the one place she knows he'll be.


Midnight

Chat


Finishing up Dr. Takashi's Working's of the Familiar Human Body Volumes One-Four.

Nearing the village's massive gates, the pink-haired kuniochi can't help but let out a sigh of sadness. She had hoped it wasn't true. But faced with the reality, she can't deny it to herself anymore: Sasuke was going to leave the village for good.

Preparing for my medic finals nearing the end of fall.

His back was facing her as she stood a few feet away. And even in the chilliness of the morning air, he wasn't wearing a jacket. Sakura's hands involuntarily dug in deeper into the pockets of her own jacket, watching as the set of his tense shoulders alerted her to his knowing of her presence.

Drinking hot chocolate with pink and green marshmallows.

Figuring she would get nowhere if she left it up to him to start off the conversation, she said, "Lovely night for a stroll, wouldn't you agree?" in the most detached voice she could manage. Even though she felt anything but.

Mastering Tsunade's Skin Stitch jutsu. At last.

The response was one she had so clearly expected: "Go home, Sakura."

"Home?" She said, pretending to get a feeling for the word. Like foreign wording, or new territory. "What home? What makes up a home? If you think your home isn't here, in this village, and you'll find it out there, beyond Konoha borders, perhaps it's no home to me, either."

"I said, go home."

Risking dark circle under my eyes for watching late night television.

"Who's going to make me, you?" Sakura feels like she was mean with her statement, but doesn't let up. Instead she follows up with: "Isn't that why you're leaving? Because you're not strong enough to bend people to your will?"

"You don't know what you're talking about." She can practically hear his molars grind into dust now.

I know probably more than you, jerk. I know what makes up the human body and how to infiltrate it with fast-dissolving poisons. Oh, which reminds me -Number Six: create antidote for Sai who unknowingly ingested some in his juice the other day at training.

"No. It's true I don't know all the details. But I know enough to see that you're not… what's the word I'm looking for… satisfied? Yes, not satisfied here. So then, leave. It seems to be a natural conclusion."

That's it. The bug has been planted. It's now up to Sasuke to either take or leave her suggestion. She turns on her heel to leave.

It's getting colder by the second, she thinks.

Calling Ino for a girl's night, after all.

"Sakura," he's getting frustrated. With her or the situation, she doesn't know.

His voice carries well over the gust of wind that just sent chills down her spine.

She doesn't turn around as she says, "If you're worried about Kakashi or Tsunade or Naruto or anyone else going out after you, don't. They won't know because I won't say anything. You should leave," she continues, picking up distance. "Kakashi has been known to harbor a fondness for walks at dusk. The weirdo."

Finding out where the hell Kakashi goes whenever he shows up late for training.

"Sa-"

"Leave already!"

It's so unexpected, Sasuke literally halts in his words. She turns around and her face is slightly blurred by pink hair strands that escaped the bun at her nape.

"This is no longer your home, your choice is obvious. Nothing is worth to you here." And turns around once more to resume her walk which she's trying not to let manifest into a sprint.

Blocking out memories of the times you and I shared together. They were clearly a lie.

A silence.

Then. "I know what you're trying to do, Sakura."

This stops her. She can't help but ask. "What are you talking about?"

"It's not going to work."

Fixing the dripping in my bathroom. Third time this month.

"Wha-"

"You think you can…manipulate me like you do that loud blond-"

"Ino?"

"-dobe-"

"Ah. Naruto."

"-to make me stay?"

Organizing my scroll collection. Fifth time this month.

Sakura's head swings back and forth, slowly. "You should really leave if that's what you're still planning on doing, Sasuke. Seriously. You may never get a second chance like this again." She turns to walk away again. Hoping this is the last time she does so.

She hears something faint in the background.

The winds carry it to her.

"Think she can order me around. I leave on my own terms, not hers. Tch, annoying. If she wants me to leave, then I'm staying."

Gaining back memories of what it was about you that made me fall hard for you in the first place.

Followed by faint footsteps.

What are you doing? The exit is that way," she says pointing to the gates.

"Shut up. Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"You ask too many questions."

And all talk ceases.

Hopefully to a room where the lights dim all the way to nothing.

To a place where it's safe and warm, surrounded by comfort and memories and talk and love and playful banter.

A place where it's filled with soft moans and electrifying touches.

Under hot sheets and steam-filled windows.

Beneath an air-light mattress.

Where feather-light caresses and no barriers between us no matter how thin the fabric of our clothes are.

The place we call home.