Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Force it everyday

Ino showed up the following weekend with a small cake in her hands and a sincere smile.

"Sorry if I overstepped the other day." It took every inch of willpower for Sakura to not slam the door in Ino's face. But she was starting to come to terms with her condition and she had to take what she could get.

"I apologize for overreacting want to come in for some tea?" Sakura said with a slight bow of her waist.

Ino took a sigh of relief as she made her way through Sakura's small living room into her kitchen placing the bright pink cake on her glass table.

"So, how have you been?" Sakura smiled as she cut the cake Ino had presented her. It was certainly a strange peace offering as far as she knew Ino had no reason to even try to get on her good side. She had all the information she wanted at her disposal. She had spent weeks trying to understand why. Could she just be nothing besides a primary source?

"Don't get me started, works been a mess ugh. Do you see the bags under my eyes?" Ino exclaimed pointing at her eyes.. Sakura tried to search for even an indent under her eyes or anything that would indicate lack of sleep but unlike her Ino would always look glorious despite how she felt.

"Oh, really…I thought the past few days were really dead." Sakura recounted thinking of the past few days 'Unusually dead too' Sakura mentally added having had nothing but a follow-up appointment with a patient in between mountains of paperwork and studying.

"Well um, it's complicated…I just had to do a lot of paperwork…you know the other doctors here have us do their work."

"Oh really? Your nursing program must be so much more advanced." Sakura said amused, having never seen Ino get caught in a lie before.

"Really did you not have nurses do that for you before?" Ino seamlessly stammered.

Shaking her head Sakura bit into the cake, feeling her sense's fill with the sweet, yet bitter, taste of sugar. Trying to hide the need to turn her facial expression into the telltale sign of displeasure

"Nope, it was a lot more intimate I guess." She chimed.

"I'll tell you what was intimate, last night with Sasuke," Ino leaned back in her chair to emphasize her point.

'Bingo' Sakura thought, as she knew the direction that her conversation with Ino was heading. Ever since the night, Sasuke showed up her mind raced with questions about him. She knew she had to do everything to get the upper hand.

"Well, are you going to keep me waiting or are you going to spill it?" Sakura faked her enthusiasm by taking another spoonful of her bittersweet cake.

"You're going to have to share too." Ino taunted with a slight glint in her eyes.

"Done." Sakura faked her smile.

"What do you want to know?" Ino asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Everything, you don't talk about him much besides mentioning that you're going on dates with him. Just start from the beginning."

"Beginning hmmm...Well, we went to school together. He was always the cool, bad boy when we were growing up. He joined ROOT after graduation, I went to school to become a nurse. A few years ago he started talking to me and you could say that the rest is history." Ino said in a rush but with dreamy eyes, making her love for Sasuke so apparent to Sakura.

"Aw, a childhood romance. I'm sure you're close to his family." Sakura said knowing better than to press her for questions.

Sakura was shocked when Ino's face dropped. "Well you see-" she began.

"His family is a really influential family and so is mine but we never made things official… and his dad is like, really really strict. So, he'd never approve of us, I think he's trying to keep it on the down low for now. " Ino looked at the rest of her untouched cake, no longer feeling hungry

"Well, Sakura what about you?" She asked trying to lighten her mood.

Sakura offered Ino a sincere smile before she began talking. "I met him when I was in my first year of medical school. He was updating his prosthetic and ended up taking me out for coffee to 'celebrate' his new arm. A few years later we got married." Sakura felt her cheeks redden as she finished summarizing the events that led to her marriage. Her heart swells at the recollection of how happy he had made her.

Her eyes met Ino's intrigued stare.

"How boring you missed all the details, anyway, how'd he lose his arm?"

"A firework accident." 'But I knew that was a lie, the burn marks didn't match.' She added mentally.

"Oh, Sasuke lost his in a fight the other guy obviously died! I didn't know you were involved in prosthetics."

Sakura then explained to Ino the way her the system of her medical education worked, where she was able to learn a lot of basics on a lot of things and how that happened to include prosthetics. She mentioned her passion for toxicology and lied about how pediatrics and general medicine superseded it.

"Naruto, please you have to understand. It's not just an obsession I'm good at this." Sakura remembers the way those words spilled as she begged Naruto to give her one more chance.

"I just don't know how I feel about you working with this. What if you make the wrong antidote or accidentally get poisoned. I worry…plus you don't know when to stop working, for all I know you can work yourself into exhaustion. Knowing that doesn't make me feel any better, ya know." He used to place his hands on her wrists during these types of conversations.

"I promise you that would never happen," Sakura said blissfully unaware of that fact that she'd break that promise in the upcoming months.

"Well did you try to have any kids?" Ino asked bringing Sakura out of her daydream.

"No." She lied, forcing the most realistic fake smile she could make.

Sakura was enjoying her bedtime tea on the engawa of her small house when Sasuke came for the second time making his presence known by wordlessly sitting next to her.

"I was beginning to think I made thing whole thing up," Sakura mumbled as she made her way for a second cup, he had been lucky she always made too much water.

She handed him his cup of tea, "I can tell you right now that's a sprain and nothing but time can heal that."

Sasuke looked back at her with a stoic expression before tasting her tea. She knew it wasn't much but it was all she had been able to grow in her small garden.

"Aa, you're right it happened last night"

She had to admit he was ridiculously good at hiding his injury. The way he rested his weight on his food with each step was almost seamless. She wouldn't have recognized it if it wasn't for the slight wince.

'He's never been good with pain,' she recalled.

"Do you have anything for the pain?"

Sakura raised her brow at his question, wondering if this whole arrangement was just a ploy to get drugs from her. "What are you taking right now?"

"Nothing." He told her with a serious expression.

"You know simple over the counter pain medication would do the job." Sakura was shocked at his reply, how babied where ROOTS members when it came to simple self-care.?

"Doctors are the only ones who are allowed to prescribe any type of medication. Unless I'm deployed."

"Oh…" She replied slightly ashamed. This type of information was common knowledge. Another blow to her self-esteem about her current situation.

"Let me go get you your medicine then." She told Sasuke as she made her way to her medicine cabinet.

"Just take two every 6-8 hours as needed."

Sasuke nodded placing the small jar in his pocket.

"Now-" Sakura started sitting on the very same table as she had been when she talked to Ino earlier in the day. "-about your end of the deal."

Sasuke finished taking the small white pill before asking, "What do you want to know?"

"I want you to tell me everything you've found out so far."

"Everything?" He snorted taking a drink of his tea.

"Yes." She reaffirmed.

"This might take some time then," Sasuke remarked as he pushed his cup towards Sakura as an indication for more.

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