Surrogacy

-chapter 8-

rated for language / adult themes


The days following Sasuke shoving money through her door slot went as normal as could be. She picked up some shifts at the hospital, casually went shopping with Haru and Ino, had a nice long chat with Lady Tsunade about what was happening (excluding the Sasuke and Karin part), and made sure she got the rest she needed before Tuesday morning. Sasuke's money still sat on the wooden end table beside her couch, sealed up again. She was still debating on what to do with it. Accept it because she knew Sasuke wouldn't stop sending it back and keep it as her rainy day fund, or fight back just as hard and keep on returning it?

She slipped it into her messenger bag anyways on her way to the clinic.

She thought Sasuke was the lucky one today. All he had to do was provide his sperm. She scoffed. She had so much more that had to be done today.

Sakura silently passed through the bustling crowds in the streets, all buying groceries, herbs, clothing items, ninja tools, and scrolls. She would get the occasional bump to her side from women who weren't watching where they were going and children that bounded through the crowd blindly. Finally, the sign over the clinic caught her attention and surprisingly she grew more nervous than ever before.

"Ms. Nao is ready for you in her office." The secretary never lifted her eyes off the computer and Sakura gave her a nod, leaving off down the hallway. Nervously, she tapped her fingers against the wooden door which slowly leaned open, revealing the face of the doctor before her.

"Ah! Sakura, you're here. I can bring you right to the laboratory." Ms. Nao stepped away from Sakura and into the hall, immediately making her way down the next turn and through the large glass automatic door. Everything was so pristine and white, clean as can be, surprisingly smelled lovely compared to the hospital's off brand cleaner, and looked completely unused. "We can start whenever you'd like."

"Shouldn't we wait for Sasuke?" Sakura questioned as she slowly placed her messenger bag onto a stainless steel rolling cart, still dazed and amazed at this place. Boy, the hospital could use some upgrades. "I mean we kind of need him as well."

"I had Sasuke come in a little earlier, actually. Here, you can sit here. Okay, I'll give you the run down on what's going to happen - and I know you probably already know but just to be certain you're comfortable with it I'm going to do it anyways. So it'll start with an injection of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin that has high levels of progesterone which will make the eggs grow and mature. We've carefully timed this so it has to be done rather soon. You will be sedated so you wont feel any pain, otherwise it will be incredibly uncomfortable - I trust you haven't eaten in eight hours?"

"No I haven't."

"Alright good. After that, a needle will be attached to an internal ultrasound probe which will then be inserted into the vagina. I'll be using the ultrasound to view the ovaries and locate the ovarian follicles. The needle will then puncture both follicle and will have a very gentle suction to remove the egg and the fluid within the follicle. Mrs. Hataya here, who is our local Embryologist will evaluate the fluid and the egg. Afterwards she'll then mix both parties, you'll wake up, go home, tell me if you have any symptoms of infection. Then in maybe six days you can come back and we will implant the zygote."

It all sounded rather disgusting to be quite honest, even if she was a doctor the talk of all these fluids sent a chill down her spine. "It sounds fine." Well she was going to be under, right?

"Good. Alright you can just lay down.."

Sakura carefully laid down against the grey pleather chair, fluorescent lights beaming down into her eyes causing immediate tears to well up. She watched cautiously as Ms. Nao held a plastic oxygen mask in between her dainty little fingers as she adjusted a valve behind the chair to Sakura's appropriate weight. "I'm going to give you the shot now." Ms. Nao announced as suddenly a small syringe with yellow liquid appeared before Sakura's very eyes. She dreadfully watched as she brought the needle into her flesh and pumped the HCG into her arm and she could feel the pressure immediately. When she was done Ms. Nao placed the small syringe onto a silver platter and brought up the face mask once more. "Now the anesthesia." Gently she pressed the mask so it covered Sakura's nose and mouth and in an instant the gas flooded her airways, within eight seconds she was out like a light.

...

"Mmmmm." Sakura groaned to herself gently as the drugs began to wear off, her brows furrowing and her brow had a slight trickle of sweat decorating it. All through her drugged induced sleep she hallucinated of the weirdest things, which as why she was having such a time waking up. It consisted of people she knew and people she only knew because their name was commonly passed around. The first half of her dream had giant yellow caterpillars slithering across the village rooftops then the next thing she knew she was meeting Sasuke's parents, which by the way, were made up from her own imagination. "Ughh." She groaned once more and felt the presence of a hand upon her shoulder.

"Sakura? The procedure went just as planned."

"Mmm. That's good." Her watery jade eyes were just slights, protecting her eye from the blaring lights above her. Luckily Ms. Nao's face covered half the lights. She took a quick breath in and looked around for a moment before slowly sitting up in the pleather chair, curiously glancing at the Embryologist who was standing at the opposite counter. "So the um, egg, has been fertilized...?"

"Yes."

Sakura snickered to herself. "I fertilized an egg with Sasuke."

"Clearly I gave you too much drugs." Ms Nao stated with an amused tone as she scribbled some things down onto her clipboard. "On that subject, I'm giving you a prescription for some antibiotics to keep infection away, and I advise you to take some regular pain killers. Once the drug is out of your system in probably half an hour you'll experience some cramping, much like menstrual cramping. Yes?"

"Yes, that's good."

With a playful roll of her eyes, Ms. Nao handed her a small piece of paper.

...

When she returned home she began to notice the cramping. She was a lucky girl, not ever having to experience these pains but now that she has them she wasn't a happy camper. It made her knees want to buckle, curl up into a fetal position on her ed, and cry tears of absolute sorrow but she did as her doctor said and rummaged through her medicine cabinet. She held a small light blue bottom in her hands and eyed it carefully making sure it was a low dosage. Satisfied, she popped two into her mouth and gulped it down with a small sip of water.

"If I'm going to be pregnant in six days I might as well have a drink or two before then." She wasn't a usual drinker. She was a social drinker and when she socially drank it wasn't much. So if she was going to be outed in her friend group for the next nine months then she wanted to have a couple drinks to ease the pain. So she pulled her messenger bag over her shoulder and left her house.

"Let's see here. Where do I want to have a few drinks." She asked herself as she roamed the evening time's bustle in the streets, lanterns were beginning to be lit, the scent of delicious foods were wafting through the streets, coaxing shoppers to spend a few bucks on dinner, and down the street there was an orange lit sign advertising happy hour. "And that is where I will be going." She announced to herself as her pace quickened through the thicket of people and toward the entrance of the bar.

She checked the place out before she settled on it. It was clean and the people weren't old and dirty gang members. It sounds fine to me. She clapped her hands together with a bright smile and took a seat at the bar, sitting her messenger bag on the counter in front of her. She didn't pay attention to the person who was seated to her right but when they faced her she let out a ridiculously angry sigh.

"How did I manage to run into you, here."

"I was here first." He stated wryly, tracing the rim of his cup with his thumb to pass time. He was never much of a drinker so she was surprised he was even here.

"Aren't you tired? You just got back from a mission - a mission with Naruto nonetheless, you should be exhausted."

Sasuke gave her a half shrug as he took the smallest sip from his drink. "They forced me to come here for a celebratory drink."

"Then where exactly are they?" Sakura glanced around the bar suspiciously. "I don't see any of them."

"They ran off about a minute ago most likely leaving me with the bill." He watched as she gave him a somewhat evil looking smirk and dug through her purse. She smacked something hard down onto the table. The envelope.

"Oh, they left you with the bill? No worries, you can pay for it easily." She stated as a 'matter-of-factly,' taking a big swig from her small glass in front of her. "Right, Sasuke?"

He placed his hand atop the envelope and slid it back over to her. "I can pay for it from my own wallet, Sakura, I don't need your charity."

"It's not charity when it's your own money, Sasuke! Take it!" He still had his hand over the money and his angry eyes glared at her darkly.

"Don't you have bills to pay at home?"

"..Well, yes."

"And once you're heavily pregnant, I doubt the hospital will let you take shifts."

"I suppose so..."

"Then keep it to pay your bills, Sakura, that's what a surrogate's money is meant to go to."

"..." Sakura stayed quiet and took another sip of her drink, her eyes focused on ahead. "I guess you're right."

"Hmph." Sasuke smirked that infamous Uchiha smirk and took yet another tiny sip of his drink. He too looked straight ahead and she could only imagine what in the hell he was thinking about.

To aid the awkward quiet tension Sakura decided to pipe up. "Well it's done, for your information. And in six days it'll be 'officially' done."

"Hn. Did it hurt?"

They both still looked forward as if they were never exchanging words in the first place. "A little bit of cramping, nothing medication couldn't help with. So I've been wondering." She already regretted letting the words slip out of her mouth and immediately blamed it on the alcohol in her system. "What in Karin interested you. When I was formally introduced to her she didn't really seem like your type of woman."

Sasuke snorted which left Sakura completely flabbergasted. "Because she isn't." He took a small sip.

"So, what then?" She raised a delicate pink brow in his direction.

"It isn't that hard to figure out." She still stared at him for an answer. Hell, she was drinking, right? He could just go on and tell her because she wasn't going to remember any of it. "I knew she was most likely the only woman in all of the countries that didn't hate me, leaving her as the only option for a wife."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "There's still tons of women around the village that flock around you in the streets. I'm sure one or two of them would catch your eye."

"None of them are kunoichi, so no."

"Why do they have to be a kunoichi? Apart from the clan traits that would have been passed down to your child."

"Well if I'm away on a mission I could have some peace knowing they could protect our child."

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense." She nodded slowly, resting her hand son her interlaced fingers. Knowing Sasuke's background he would never let anything happen to his family, not ever. "You know Sasuke, for the record, I think you're going to be a good father and this just isn't coming out of a drunken stupor."

Before the dumbfounded Sasuke could even think up a reply, Naruto and a good handful of the friendly ninja that were celebrating their mission threw themselves through the door and crowded around the bar. As they all ordered whatever drinks they desired, Sakura slipped through the crowd silently and without letting Naruto get a peek of her face. Sasuke's eyes darted through the crowd of people to the chair next of him but saw a chubby ninja took the seat and slid her glass away to the side. He groaned to himself when Naruto threw an arm around his shoulder.

When Sakura finally arrived home a little later due to having to stop and chat with Hinata, she let her coat and bag drop to the floor before collapsing onto her bed.


SO CLOSE! They're almost there to have a little baby inside of Sakura! :) Thanks for the reviews! As for length, wit this story I was trying to go with minimalist to keep my attention on it. With my other stories I had the chapters absolutely so dense and long it was killing me to write chapters. So when I write short chapters like this it keeps me wanting to go + I can update quickly. Sorry if that's bugging you guys.

Also if there's something you guys want to see you can tell me and I can try and work it in if it doesn't clash with the major things. :) Keep reviewing + thanks for the follows/faves.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto