A/N: Hi XD!

Sakura laughed as Uchiha-san writhed on their living room floor after Mari did a brilliant quarterback's throw at his privates with her favorite wooden bowl. Luckily, said bowl was already empty of Mari's favorite cereal, but Uchiha-san wasn't so lucky as he was standing only a few feet away from her and took full brunt of the hit.

"I'm sor–hahaha–I'm really am–haha–I didn't mean to–haha!" Sakura couldn't stop laughing long enough to explain that she was laughing at his facial expressions and not his pain.

Sasuke glared at her, which only made her laugh even more; Mari's high-pitched baby giggles and babbles sounded alongside hers.

"Okay, whuuuuuuuu, okay, I'm okay now." Sakura reached down to give him a hand up from the floor. "Really, I didn't mean to laugh at you." She struggled a bit to pull him up. "But your face–ha!"

The face he was making right now wasn't helping one bit. It consisted of a glare with a bit of a blush and tussled hair from his sudden meeting with the floor.

Sakura laughed even harder when Sasuke wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, lifted her up, and spun her around.

"Kya! Uchiha-san, stop! Hahahahaha! Put me down!"

"No, not until you apologize."

"But I already did! Hahahaha! Stop! Sorry! Sorry! Put me down! Hahahahaha!"

Sakura's feet finally touched ground again and she almost lost balance from getting dizzy. But good thing Sasuke foresaw that and didn't let go of her just yet, or else Sakura would've timbered over onto Mari in her little baby walker, which would've hurt Sakura more than it would hurt Mari.

"Oh my god. Whew, I'm tired." Sakura plopped down onto the couch after Sasuke set her free.

It was Saturday and Sasuke was over at their house to hang out and to have lunch. Both their brothers were busy at work. Sakura's brother-in-law was at work on the weekend only because he was recently assigned a huge project, just two weeks after his promotion, so he was doing his best to prove his worth. Sasuke's brother was at work on the weekend because he was always at work. And so, the two of them had come to terms with that and started arranging days where they could just be not alone.

Though, technically, Sakura wasn't alone since she had Mari, but Mari wasn't yet capable of conversation, so it was still the same as being alone. And though Sasuke didn't mind being alone, after meeting Sakura, he felt like he wanted to be with her more. Especially after two weeks ago, when her brother-in-law gave her the go-ahead to cry and to let it all out.

Since then, Sasuke's been watching her closely, waiting for her to reach that breaking point and to finally let go of all the pent up frustration, grief, anguish, and heartache. But so far, it looked like the only thing Suigetsu's little push did was push Sakura to hoard even more of her negative emotions away into her body, not letting even a bit of sadness, tiredness, or anger seep through.

That it, until now. Not saying that Sakura was showing any of said emotions right now as she pulled a sleepy Mari out of her baby walker to take her to her crib for her afternoon nap, but Sasuke was going to provoke her and he was going to purposefully poke at all her sore wounds and bruises.

Sasuke followed Sakura to her room to put Mari into her crib. As he followed her, he examined her from behind. He could see the protruding vein from the back of her neck from the lack of rest, the strain in her shoulders from not resting properly and having to carry Mari everywhere she went, if Sasuke looked hard enough, he could see how skinny and slightly bony Sakura was through the back of her shirt, and he could see the dry skin on the bottom of her ankles from not having time to pamper herself.

He stopped at the doorway as Sakura continued into her room and set Mari into her crib before raising the guardrail.

Sakura reached into the crib and smoothed out Mari's bangs before saying. "Can you please stop staring holes into my back?" Her tone taut and slightly harsh.

Sasuke fought the urge to look away immediately. Her tone kind of scared him a bit. But he was doing this for her own sake, and so he looked on and didn't lower the intensity of his gaze. He was already getting some kind of reaction out of her. This should be a good thing.

Or not.

Sasuke took a step back when Sakura whipped around, her eyes silently blazing, testing his resolve. Oh she knew what he was up to. And she didn't look one bit happy about it.

Yep, definitely a reaction. And the type of reaction Sasuke was looking for.

"And what if I say no?" Sasuke straightened up a bit to strengthen his slowly crumbling resolve. He didn't want to make her mad but if that was what it took then he had to do it. Though this was probably not the best way to go about it, he felt like this would be the fastest and most effective. And so, he continued his attack. "What if I said no?" he repeated.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at him as she brushed past him to go back to the living room, she didn't want to disturb the baby.

Sasuke rubbed his lightly injured chest. That was going to bruise later. Who knew that Sakura was prone to violence when she was angry? After closing the door to the room, he followed Sakura back to the living room. Once he got there he saw that she was cleaning up Mari's toys which she had also launched at him earlier.

It seemed like violence ran in the family as little Mari laughed her pretty little head up everytime one of her toys hit its target. Sasuke.

Maybe Sakura let Mari do that because she knew that Sasuke was going to try and get a reaction out of her later.

"I know what you're trying to do." Sakura picked up the last of Mari's toys and dropped them into her toy bin. "Please stop."

"Why?"

"Please. Just stop."

"No." Sasuke's voice was firm. He wasn't backing down now. "I need to do this."

Sakura kept her back to him as she turned her head over her shoulder to look at him in the corner of her eye. Her body language screamed "defensive!"

"I'm doing this for your own good."

Sakura didn't know why, but she was irrationally angry at that one phrase. She spun around and started throwing her anger at him before she even knew it.

"For my own good?" She looked at him with enraged incredulity. "For my own good?" She repeated. "What the hell do you know what is good and what isn't?"

"You need to release all of your pent up emotions. You've been through a lot, I know that."

Sakura scoffed. "You do not know what I've been through." She turned back around. "And I don't want to be told to 'release all my pent up emotions' by someone who's even worse than me at expressing any emotion at all."

Sasuke gripped his fist. This wasn't about him. This was about her. So he had to hold back the urge to defend himself. "This isn't about me. This is about you."

Skaura whipped around again. She scoffed. "Of course it's about me. Let's all talk about this little messed up girl who lost her parents and then her sister. Let's talk about the orphan who has to take care of a baby who isn't even hers!"

She marched up to him and jabbed her finger into his chest. "I'm sick and tired of people saying that their concerned about me. They want nothing to do with me. Not my aunts or my uncles. Not my cousins. Not any of my shitty relatives! Not any of my 'friends'."

Sasuke tried his best not to flinch at the finger jabbing into his chest. That was definitely going to bruise later. It didn't help that she was jabbing at the same spot that she had shoved him earlier.

"Look. I can take it from my brother-in-law because he's going through the exact same thing that I am. But I don't want to hear it from a stranger that I've only just met."

Ouch. That stung a bit. No. A lot. Sasuke thought they were friends. Maybe even something closer than just friends.

He inwardly shook his head to clear it. She didn't mean these words. He should've been prepared for them since he purposely provoked her anger.

Sakura let a loud breath out through her nostrils as she gripped her fists. "I think you should leave now."

Sasuke slowly nodded. He was about to turn away when his hand reached for the back of her neck and pulled her closer. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

"Know that I care. I really do."

Sakura closed her eyes tightly and kept her head bowed as she nodded slightly. She was already regretting her words.

"I'll see you at school."

"Yeah," she all but whispered.

Sakura sunk down to the ground as soon as Sasuke closed the door behind him, She buried her face in her hands.

"Why am I like this?"

A/N: Yo yo yo! As I promised, I'm raising the tension! Raise the roof! *cough* Okay, I'll stop now.

We're almost there, I promise!

How was it? Did you guys like it? Please let me know!

And once again, thank you to those who left a review for the last chapter! I love love love reviews (hint hint)!

Thank you for reading and please review!

Updated – 9/9/2013

EDITED – 9/6/2014 (Oops...took me so long to go back over and fix all the grammatical mistakes...my bad...XD)