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21.

breaking point

.

He has known her, this girl of seventeen and green eyes and pink hair, for long enough to not be surprised when he feels her presence walk the path up to his house.

Still, where there is not shock, there is anger. She should not be here, now pushing open the ancient door of his home, walking softly down the hallway. She should be in the hospital, resting, being cared for, and staying far, far away from Sasuke and his tangled storm of emotions. Stay away, he commands silently, glaring at the wooden door of his room and listening to the approaching footfall. Leave.

He does not have the strength to face her. Not now. Not when his fingers are still trembling in residual terror and his heart throbbing as though it has been scrubbed raw with metal coils. To see her face, healthy and smiling, will undo something in him; to see her any other way (he fights back the look of her face in dim light, speaking through bloodied lips) will be worse. Not ok. Horrible.

But, of course, he is not given a choice. As the door swings in, Sasuke turns around, eyes riveting to the smooth expanse of his blank wall, desperate in ways he doesn't understand, only sure he cannot face Sakura. Now it is more that her footsteps that tell him where she is; he can hear her breathing, the soundless shifting of her body. She is too close.

"Sasuke?"

Tensing, Sasuke almost closes his eyes against her voice. Without conscious consent, his fingers curl into tight fists.

"Sasuke?" Her voice has taken a new lilt, one that wavers in the space between curious and annoyed, questioning and demanding. Sakura takes another step into the room, lessons the precious distance between her and the tense, silent figure of Sasuke. "Can you hear me?"

Go away, he begs, scared for reasons he cannot grasp, only appreciate the terror of.

"God damn it!" She is upset and he is grateful for her anger; this will be easier if she is mad at him. "Sasuke!"

Then her hand is suddenly on his arm, fingers tightening, and she is pulling and Sasuke isn't quite ready for the way she forces him to turn around. For all the time he has spent with this Sakura – the one that shatters mountains and flings trees – he still forgets what she can do. And despite all his careful efforts, despite the terror suddenly gripping him with icy, bitter claws, he is looking down into a face that is drawn in anger. A face without any bruising, not cuts nor scrapes nor injuries of any kind. For a fragile second, the fear is replaced with bright relief so great that his fingers literally twitch with the desire to reach up and confirm that the perfect, healthy skin is real.

Then Sakura speaks.

"What's the matter with you? Didn't you hear me?"

"Go away," he says, because he desperately wants her too, and those are the only words that will form in his mouth. "Go home Sakura."

There is tightening in the already wire thin line of her mouth; her eyebrows cut a terrible line above her glare. "What?"

Sasuke hears the threat, plain as day in her single word, and chooses to ignore it. "Go home." And then, because he cannot, for the life of him, help it: "You need to rest. You need to heal."

"I do not! I'm fine." In her anger, she has raised one hand, pointing a single accusing finger in his face. Despite her harsh tone and the way she is scowling at him, her animation – she's alive, she's alive – relaxes the tight coil in his stomach. "I'm only here because you helped save me and I wanted to thank you and to tell you … well, to thank you. But now you're acting like an ass!" As her speech closes, she shoves her hands to her hips.

But the action is too harsh, too hardy, and it rustles the mostly-healed injuries that lurk beneath her skin. She winces minutely. Sasuke's hands are like those of a willful stranger; they shoot out, fingers splayed, intent on steadying this girl, this child from the night before, with bruises and blood and foggy green eyes. Though her stance now is steady, his hands and heart remember too well the shaky, fumbling movements of before, the dead weight of her body in faint, and it is suddenly desperately important that he keep her this way, alert and awake and standing tall.

But he catches himself. His hands stop, hovering just inches from the peach-pale of her shoulders. Eyes widening, Sakura looks from them to his face. There is surprise in her 'o'-shaped mouth and terrifying understanding in the way she looks at Sasuke, as though suddenly seeing him. Behind the surprise, there is a blooming of knowledge so clear, something in Sasuke quivers in absolute fright.

"You need to go home. You're hurt." Sasuke's voice is hard to find and harder to steady. His mouth is dry and his throat hurts something awful. "You need to go home."

When she speaks, it is in a voice much softer, much lighter, and so, so understanding. "I'm fine, Sasuke. Really, I'm ok. I'm fine." The smile on her face, careful and encouraging, is too much. The tiny bruise he can see now, faint and ghosting, curling out from the hair at her temple, is too much. This feeling – this ache, pounding in his chest and reminding him of anger, hate, protection and devotion – is too much.

"You're not." He cannot believe the words that are coming from his mouth, but he cannot stop them either. They rush, fast and furious, now released and beyond his control. "You aren't now and you weren't then. You were hurt and you were bleeding and I thought – I thought you were… You might not have been ok, Sakura, we might not have come in time and they might have hurt you worse and – And what were you thinking? Why would you go by on that mission alone? You need to be careful, Sakura, and you need to stay safe and, please, don't get hurt again, and don't – don't leave m- don't leave."

He hears himself, suddenly. Hears all the confessions, all the truths, all the weaknesses he has, lain bare and plain before Sakura. Ashamed of his openness, and of the admissions he has made, but also simply because he is tired, spent, Sasuke lets his head and hands (which still hover, awkward) drop. Beneath him, the floor is steady, despite the spinning of his world.

And then Sakura is there, her feet in his field of vision, and there is something small and warm catching his hands, bringing them up. Sasuke looks at Sakura as she places his hands smoothly on her shoulders, where they would have fallen earlier. She smiles at him. He sees blinding, breathtaking trust. Adoration, too. And understanding. And green eyes, as familiar as anything in his life has ever been. But it is the smile, and all the care it contains, that is enough to force those last, strangled words.

"I was so scared."

"Oh, Sasuke." Her expression is mixed and jumbled, half overjoyed and half unbelievably sad. She raises her hands to either side of Sasuke's face, and pulls until he is looking right at her. Her thumbs glide over the hard angles of his cheeks in a slow, steady rhythm. Briefly, Sasuke thinks that, away from this moment and this storm of emotions rolling through him, the intimacy of the action would send him running. Not now. Now, it just fits. Sakura continues to speak in a soft, full voice.

"You don't have to be scared. I'm not going to leave you. Naruto isn't going to leave you. Kakashi won't and Said won't. We won't." She pauses and looks into Sasuke's hard, solemn face. Her smile take a new, honest lilt. "Love doesn't always have to hurt."

I don't love you, he almost says, on reflex.

But then, he catches himself. He thinks about Sakura, twelve years old and running at him, declaring herself, begging him to please, please stay. He thinks about the twist in his heart, the pain of knocking her unconscious and turning his back from the village and her. He thinks about her face, livid and snarling, the day he returned, and her punch, sending him flying into the earth. And then he remembers her understanding smile, her patient, slow touch in the face of his cold indifference. He didn't deserve that, did he? Neither did he deserve her care, her forgiveness, her help and her love. He thinks about that. He has never deserved even some part of what her and Naruto give, and yet, he's taken it and he's – he's treasured it. And, maybe, if the warm contentedness of now and the cold terror of last night (just like ka-san just like nii-san please no please no) are to be believed… Maybe he loves them too. Maybe there's no maybe.

So instead of denying, Sasuke does what feels most natural. He takes the hands that rest on his shoulder and he pulls them; pulls until Sakura is right there, right against his chest, and she is looking up at him with eyes that gleam wetly in the light and she is smiling and he feels himself smiling back because this is Sakura and she is ok and she is here, right here. Before he can think it over another second, before he convince himself that this is a bad idea, he wraps his arms around her and holds on tight. Around his own middle, two arms squeeze and there is a breathy, wet laugh coming from somewhere against his chest.

Thank you, he tells her. Thank you thank you thank you.

Sometime (he has no idea how much) later, Sakura pulls back. Not far, not away, just enough to look up at Sasuke. He smiles down, encouraged by the sudden joy rushing through him like blood, at Sakura. Sakura, who is loud and foolish and has eyes the color of new life.

He is aware of her arms, unwrapping themselves from around him. They are back on his face, directing his gaze. Sakura looks at his mouth, them once more into his eyes, and Sasuke knows what it going to happen. He does nothing to stop it.

Sakura kisses Sasuke.

And it feels like he's on fire, like he's drowning, like he's dying one thousand different deaths. It is more than the pressure of her lips on his; it is more than the way he clings to her, desperate and afraid and terribly, terribly happy. It is like breathing, and crying, and laughing, and smiling, and shouting out for nii-san and punching Naruto in the face and performing the perfect jutsu and everything in the whole entire world, all rolled into this one moment with this one girl.

It feels like life – and he is finally living.

It doesn't hurt at all.

END

… but not really. Epilogue will be up later tonight.