Chapter 7: Newsflash

One month later…

Everything was back to normal with the Uchiha couple. Their relaxing days were replaced with hectic and tiresome schedules.

Sasuke has been into three missions just a week after their wedding. It seemed like the black ops couldn't fully function without him.

His anbu squad, Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo, along with Naruto's squad had been assigned to a mission with double objectives. One was to spy on some radical group residing in Mist Country and the other was to acquire information from the Raikage of the Land of Lighting, one of Konoha's allied country. There had been rumors circulating among the five great nations that the Mizukage was plotting against the Hokage of the Fire Country.

A few months ago, Kakashi was sent by Tsunade to represent Konoha in a peace treaty negotiation with Mist.

Most of the countries were already striking deals with Konoha after the war against the Akatsuki and Sound, the only one left was Mist.

Tsunade believed that the reason why the current Mizukage refused to sign her proposed treaty was due to the fact that the notorious Madara Uchiha was once their Mizukage. Somehow, Mist Country worshipped the late Akatsuki leader and modeled all their political views on his twisted mind.

Since, the Mizukage sided with Madara, she guessed that the country couldn't accept defeat and its Mizukage was feeling bitter towards her. After all, she was the one in charged with the destruction of Akatsuki and the rest of the world was very much aware on how Konoha's elites destroyed Madara.

Sakura also got back to the hospital and once in a while was sent into scouting missions across the village's northern borders.

The hospital has been pretty busy. Shinobis and civilians were coming in and out of the hospital every second of the day.

She had to go over tons of medical records which filed and stacked up while she was on her wedding vacation. At the same time, she also tried to catch up with her work as the head doctor of the hospital's west wing.

Shizune was a big help but she was also busy running the hospital's east wing.

Sakura would sometimes work for a sixteen hour shift in one day just so she could fully attend to all her patients.

In this past month, Sakura could probably count the times she spent the night with Sasuke in just one hand.

Every morning, she would wake up next to her exhausted husband, prepare breakfast for him, and leave early before he was able to wake up. They would be lucky enough if Sakura's lunch time was available, only then, Sasuke could pick her up so they could eat lunch together. However at night, it's either he was on a mission or she was working late at the hospital. Their schedules prevented them from having some quality time together.

"Yuki, can you follow up with the laboratory about that test for my patient." Sakura yelled through the opened door to her assistant nurse who was across from her office.

"Yes, Sakura-sempai." The startled nurse quickly wrote down the patient's name and code number.

"Thanks." Sakura said without even looking at her office door where her assistant nurse was standing. She was busily scribbling down diagnosis and footnotes on her other patient's medical records.

Once she was done going over the records, she leaned back on her leather chair and rubbed her temples. She supplied healing chakra to her head. She couldn't afford getting headaches for she still had a lot of things to do.

Sakura checked the clock. It was already passed two in the afternoon and yet she hasn't even stopped working to eat lunch. As a doctor, she knew it was bad skipping meals but it couldn't be helped since the majority of Konoha somehow decided to get sick at the same time.

She looked outside her window and saw the drizzling of snow flakes all over the streets. Well, it was probably the weather that caused many people to get sick. It was flu season after all.

Her thoughts were interrupted by someone barging inside her office.

"Hey Forehead." Ino walked towards her desk and dropped a plastic box in front of Sakura.

Sakura raised her eyebrow as her best friend comfortably sat down in one of the chairs in front of her table. "What do you want, Pig? And what's that?"

"Well, I knew you skipped lunch again so I decided to be a darling and bring you some edible lunch other than that Ichiraku ramen Naruto brings you all the time. You know, you shouldn't skip lunch in your condition, some doctor you are." Ino rolled her eyes at her. Ino shook her head at Sakura's bad habits, took out a pair of chopsticks, and opened the bento for her. "So here, eat up."

"Thanks Ino, you're a life saver." Sakura's mouth watered at the food before her.

Inside the bento were rice balls wrapped in seaweed, shrimp tempura, pork katsu, fried eggs, and pickled vegetables. She really praised Ino for her cooking skills. Many people didn't know that Ino always spoiled Sakura when it came to food.

"So, when will Sasuke come back?" Ino asked her. She smirked at how Sakura quickly devoured her lunch.

Sakura gulped down the rice ball she was chewing before answering her, "Ummm, I think he's gonna be back from his four day mission before midnight."

Sakura resumed eating, greedily vacuuming through half of her food.

"Sooo…. Are you gonna tell him the news?" Ino once again interrupted her.

Sakura stopped eating and thought about Ino's question.

A few days ago, she discovered changes happening to her body. She knew the human body inside-out. If there was something wrong with her she could easily detect the illness and cure herself. Being a doctor, she first analyzed her symptoms and waited for the next three days to confirm what she had suspected.

The first symptom was her irregular mood swings. Even at work, she would snap easily which was not normal considering she had always been cheerful and attentive when it came to her job at the hospital.

The second one was morning sickness. At exactly nine every morning, she would feel butterflies in her tummy and it was not the good one either. She even left that time free in her schedule so she could go to her bathroom with no trouble. Although, vomiting was very troublesome on her part.

The third symptom was a weird one. She somehow felt disgusted with the color purple. Sakura would feel sick whenever she saw anything of that 'hideous' color. She even went as far as buying Ino a whole set of wardrobe just so her friend could change her purple outfit.

The fourth symptom happened only once. She fainted when she was in the middle of attending to her patient. The poor old lady panicked when her doctor suddenly dropped to the floor and lost consciousness; she almost had a heart attack right then and there.

The last symptom was a total give away; she missed her monthly period. Some causes of missing monthly period would be stress or damage to the body. But, she was as healthy as a horse, her body was built and trained to endure the harsh and rough conditions caused by her profession. She never, ever had irregular period in her life.

So by the end of the third day, Sakura grabbed a home pregnancy test before she left the hospital. Once she was at home, she quickly went straight to the bathroom and ran the test. The whole five minute waiting time greatly agitated her. When it was time to check the results, Sakura held the little stick in one hand and its box in her other hand. She stared back and fort between the result and the box's guidelines.

Her frown immediately switched to a wide smile once she found out that the test result was positive. She was indeed pregnant.

The following day Sakura broke the news first to Ino which was a big mistake on her part because before the end of the day the whole village knew about her pregnancy.

Shizune suggested and offered to conduct a laboratory test for Sakura just to make sure she was really pregnant. After all, most pregnancy tests were only ninety nine point nine percent accurate. There was always that point zero one percent error in there. So, Shizune and Sakura ran a test in the lab and it did confirmed that she was now a hundred percent pregnant with the Uchiha heir.

When she told Tsunade about her condition, the Hokage couldn't help but be happy for her apprentice. Tsunade examine her thoroughly and instructed her to take it easy from now on. She wouldn't want her first grandchild to be in danger just because of Sakura's stressful workload.

Sakura's mind was brought back to her office by another question from Ino.

"How are you gonna break it to his frail heart?"

She answered her question with another question. "Frail?" Sakura's face was etched with confusion.

Ino widely grinned at her and said, "Well, you know how he had always wanted this. Hope he doesn't drop dead and faint on you."

The girls looked at each other and suddenly burst in pure laughter.

They giggled at the idea of Sasuke fainting like a girl.

Once Sakura calmed down, she smartly replied, "Pssshh… I don't think so. It was one of his goals after all."

"True. So, seriously how are you gonna tell him? Some special way?"

"Wouldn't you wanna know, Pig." Sakura sarcastically replied and jokingly teased Ino, "Sasuke's right. The best kunoichis out there are a bunch of nosy hyenas."

"Hey!!! No name calling please" Ino retorted, then pointed at Sakura's face and smirked. "And wouldn't that include you too."

"Ey, don't count me. I have a life, unlike 'some' people." She snorted and went on finishing her lunch.

Sakura left the hospital early in hopes that she could prepare something before Sasuke's return.

She borrowed Ino's cookbook and prepared a candlelight dinner with a meal consisting of beef yakitori, tuna onigi, tomato soup, sake for Sasuke and water for her.

The door to their apartment opened and came in a haggard-looking shinobi.

Sasuke got home a bit earlier than expected. Upon entering his home, his nose was assaulted by a delicious aroma. He took off his shoes, walked towards the kitchen, and found Sakura reaching for a glass up in the kitchen cabinet.

Sasuke swiftly walked behind her, casually reached for two glasses, and handed it to her.

He placed his arms next to her sides, trapping her in between, and nuzzled on her neck. He inhaled softly against her and thought how he missed her lovely scent. He was gone quite long and he didn't get the chance to properly say goodbye to her before he left because she had already went to the hospital.

She was not startled at all when he came up behind her for she already felt his chakra before he even opened the door.

Sakura turned around, tip toed, and lightly kissed him on the lips. Sasuke held the back of her head and deepened the kiss.

She pulled back and whispered against his soft lips, "Okaeri, Sasuke-kun."

"Hn"

She took his hand and led him to the dining table.

The couple ate quietly. Simple conversations were started and abruptly cut short.

He noticed that his wife was very fidgety tonight. She would look back and forth between him and her plate as if she was hiding something important from him. Sasuke did not know how close his assumption was to the real thing.

He sighed, placed down his chopsticks, leaned on his hands, and pointedly stared at her. "What is it?"

Sakura suddenly dropped her chopsticks, snapped her eyes to his, and 'smartly' replied, "Huh?"

"Is there something wrong?" He asked her.

Her lips formed an O when she realized why he would ask such a thing. "Nothing's wrong. In fact it's quite the opposite."

"Hn" A deadpanned reply came from her husband.

Sakura's left eye twitched in irritation.

She took a deep breath before replying, "Well, Sasuke-kun… How would you like to have a clone?"

"A clone?" He simply raised his left eyebrow and continued, "Sakura, I know how to do the shadow clone jutsu. I don't think I need a clone of myself right now."

"Not that kind of clone, you dummy." Sakura smiled at his silliness.

Sasuke sighed exasperatedly. He was tired from his mission and did not have the patience to play one of her guessing games. He looked back at her and found her still widely smiling at him and for some reason her eyes were sparkling with joy as well.

It was now or never. Well, in her case later because sooner or later he would find out.

"I'm pregnant." She loudly blurted out and eagerly waited for his reaction.

Silence.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Sasuke's chin slipped from his hand. He closed his eyes and shook his head. His ears were ringing due to her shrill voice and for some reason he thought he heard her say that she was pregnant.

Once the ringing stopped, he looked back at her and found tears were falling down Sakura's face.

Here she was telling him that she was pregnant with his child and all he did was shake his head.

Didn't he want the baby?...

Wasn't restoring his clan his dream?...

Didn't he want her to be the mother of his child?...

Sasuke dashed to her side in a flash. Worry etched on his handsome face.

"What's wrong?" He gently raised her face to look in her eyes.

She saw how worried he got and couldn't help but hug him. Tears continued on falling from her eyes.

"Sakura?"

"SasukekunItoldyouI'mpregnantandhereyouhavenoreactionwhatsoever" Sakura exclaimed without pausing.

Even though she said it too fast for normal hearing, his trained ears caught every single word that came out of her mouth.

Shock went through his spine.

Pregnant.

His Sakura.

A baby.

For the first time, Sasuke smiled broadly. Not a sexy grin or a conceited smirk. A pure and happy smile that was utterly new and unfamiliar to this one Uchiha.

He pulled back, cupped her face with his calloused hands, and kissed her.

No words were necessary to expressed what he was feeling.

Later that night, Sakura prepared a relaxing bubble bath for the both of them.

The couple were currently relaxing in the bathtub. Sakura had her back to Sasuke's chest while one of his hand was around her and the other rested on the edge of the tub.

"When did you find out?" He broke the comfortable silence. Another first to be added on Sasuke's list of new found abilities.

"A few days ago, right before you left."

Sakura stated while playing with the bubbles. He simply stared at his wife. She sure was acting weird. One moment she was happy, the next she was crying, and now she was being childish. Must be those mood swing thing he heard about pregnant women.

"So… What do you wanna name our baby, hubby?"

"Hubby?" He asked Sakura.

She raised her head and looked back at him. "Yeah… Hubby's my new nickname for you. I think it suits you." She playfully winked at him.

"Senri's a good name, 'Wifey'…" Sasuke replied.

Sakura crunched up her nose at her given nickname. "Ewww… so not you Sasuke-kun… From now on just leave the name calling to the expert." She mischievously stuck her tongue out at him.

Her playfulness caused Sasuke to laugh. Pure, uncontrolled laughter echoed in the bathroom.

After his laughter settled, Sasuke absentmindedly played with a strand of her hair and gently stated, "Whatever you say mommy."

"Hhhmmm… You think I'll be a good mom?" She was clearly worried. Sakura knew that having a family included having children but she just realized now how much responsibility was placed upon her.

"Being a mom is like an inborn trait you have." He sighed at how lame he sounded. He knew that he was really not that good when it came to giving comforting and encouraging words. Especially someone as emotionally-challenged as him.

The public saw Sasuke as the perfect Uchiha prodigal.

Guessed he really was perfect after all, because right now he perfectly sucked at this.

"Awww… Thank you daddy." Her emerald eyes misted with unshed tears.

"Daddy? What happened to hubby?"

"I don't like it anymore besides you're a daddy now" She giggled and blew kisses to his direction.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at her childishness. It was clear now, mood swings were definitely driving his wife crazy.

A/N:

Bento means boxed lunch.

Okaeri means welcome home.

I know Sasuke was a bit OOC in this chapter. But it's really hard not to have him act this way especially when he just found out that he's going to be a father and besides this is again after Shippuden, so he somewhat changed already.

Don't forget to leave a review… Thanks everyone…

Now, here is something to look forward in future chapters…

Plot Preview:

"Time of death?"

The nurses fussed around the operating room trying to find the clock.

"Three thirty pm." Someone scribbled messily on the medical records. Blood tainted the name of the patient.

"No…" An anguished scream echoed throughout the hallway.

DUNN DUNNN DUNNNN….