Errands were boring. Madara could hardly find it in himself to think that he actually missed being at home, being at war. It was dangerous and grueling and painful. Sakura was not there. How could he miss a place like that?
But he kind of missed it. He hadn't fought anyone or sparred or trained in over a week. He could feel his muscles weakening from disuse, and he missed the fast pace and excitement being on the battlefield had to offer. While there were certainly some mental benefits to taking a break from all that, the physical aspect was starting to get to him.
As of now, the only exercise he'd gotten was carrying Sakura's shopping bags through the market. It was almost humiliating being her pack mule, though he knew that she was buying things for the both of them. He had no money and she was being generous to purchase clothes, food, and lodging for him.
And she was carrying her fair share, too, so he couldn't really blame her. After buying clothes, they'd headed to the market where Sakura had stocked up on all kinds of groceries, many of which Madara had never seen before – brightly colored packages of food that almost seemed inedible in their strangeness. Everything here seemed so vibrant, a little too vibrant. It was unnatural.
"Okay," Sakura said, adding her latest parcel of wrapped vegetables to Madara's pile. "Now all we need are some medical supplies and some writing utensils."
She glanced around the street, pausing when she caught her eye on a small clinic tucked away on the closest corner. "I'll just run inside and grab what I need really quick," she said. "You stay here with the bags."
Madara grumbled an affirmative, feeling rather grumpy now. He found a nearby bench and sat down, depositing the packages beside him. He watched Sakura walk to the clinic, his eyes lingered on her legs, her ass, that sinful little curve of her waist…
A sharp prick at his ankles drew his attention away from her. He glanced down at his feet and saw a little girl pulling on his leg hair. She had brown hair and eyes and impossibly pale skin. She looked no older than three or four, Madara thought.
"You're hairy," she said.
Madara shifted his feet away from her, letting his eyes spin to scare her away. Didn't she have parents or something?
But she didn't budge. She crouched down to the ground, inspecting Madara's ankles closer. She tugged again at his hair. "Why are you so hairy?" she asked.
"I grow one hair for every little girl I kill," Madara supplied.
The girl, lacking in any kind of self-preservation, stuck her tongue out at him. "You're a meanie," she said. "You need to go to time out."
A slew of stinging retorts flurried through his mind. He knew better than to say them aloud to a little girl, but he wasn't able to hide his scowl of irritation. He glanced back at the clinic. Sakura was nowhere in sight.
"Where are your parents?" he asked her.
"Where are your parents?" she parroted.
Madara's scowl deepened and he was aghast to feel the dark cloud rising up in his head. Surely that was a bad sign that a mere child could evoke that feeling. It was no wonder he'd eventually succumbed to the curse.
At a loss for what to do, Madara reached into one of the paper sacks beside him and pulled out a peach. "If I give you this will you go away?" he asked.
The girl nodded eagerly, reaching for the peach. Madara handed it to her. She took a huge bite with her tiny little teeth and crossed her legs underneath her in the dirt.
"No, you're supposed to leave now," Madara said.
"No, you're supposed to leave now."
Thoroughly irritated, Madara crossed his arms and remained silent. The girl kept picking at his leg hair as she ate her peach, and Madara did his best to refrain from kicking her.
When Sakura finally emerged from the clinic, Madara stood up to greet her. The girl at his feet yanked hard on a leg hair, pulling it out at the root.
"Hey," he snapped at her. "What the fuck are you—"
"Oh my god, are you yelling at a little kid?" Sakura asked, giving him a reproachful look.
"She stole a peach," Madara said defensively.
"You gave it to me, hairy," the girl said, taking another generous bite.
Sakura tittered and picked up the bags on the bench. "He is pretty hairy, isn't he?" she asked the girl, much to Madara's displeasure.
"And mean, too," she said.
"Oh, you have no idea," Sakura said. "This guy is a stone cold killer. You'd best stay far away from him."
The girl's eyes widened a little bit. Though she'd felt no fear at the sight of Madara's Sharingan, she seemed sufficiently afraid of Sakura's harrowing warning. She gave Madara a wary glance before she dropped her peach into the dirt and began to toddle away at as quick a pace as one can toddle.
"What did you tell her that for?" Madara asked grumpily, wondering why Sakura's warning had worked when all of his menace hadn't.
"I can't have little girls fawning all over you while you're here," she answered. "It's best if they give you a wide berth. I don't know how intense this process will be and I don't want to take the chance of you hurting any civilians if things go awry."
Madara blinked, a little perturbed by that notion. He could control himself just fine for now, but was she implying that it might get out of control under her research?
"I think you're just jealous," he said as they began to walk back to the cottage.
"Oh, yeah," Sakura agreed teasingly. "So jealous."
/
Back at the cottage, Madara helped Sakura put away all their purchases. It felt rather strange to being doing such domestic things with her in such a romantic place, but rather than feeling weird about it, Madara decided to just enjoy it. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, after all.
When they had finished, Sakura suggested they begin working on his brain.
"It won't hurt or anything," she said, seeing the look on his face. "I'm kind of sluggish and tired so I won't do anything that requires a lot of precision or focus just yet. I just want to test the waters, see what I'm working with."
"Okay," he agreed begrudgingly. "Can we do it on the bed?"
She gave him a stern look but there was a ghost of a smile on her face.
"How about we go outside?" she suggested instead. "We haven't checked out the balcony yet. We're supposed to have a good view, remember?"
He didn't argue only because she seemed genuinely excited to see the balcony. He followed her through the bedroom to the double doors that led onto the balcony. She drew the curtains away, allowing a flood of warm afternoon sun to pour through the glass.
Some kind of noise escaped her throat, and Madara pushed the doors open, shoving her out onto the balcony.
As far as the eye could see were rows and rows of sunflowers. They spread across the horizon, yellow and tall and vibrant. Beyond them were a cloudy blue sky and the orange sun that hung low in it. Madara laughed, leaning over the rail to peer down at the sunflowers down below. He was amazed by their sheer size. Some of them appeared at least ten feet tall.
He stood up and whirled to face Sakura, grinning from ear to ear. "If this isn't a sign from the universe, I don't know what is," he said.
Sakura scoffed. "Yeah," she said dryly. "I love remembering that time you punished me with sunburns."
"Ah, come on now, Sunflower," he said. "You love it. It lights you up, remember?"
"Shut up," she said with absolutely no animosity. She pointed to the chaise that sat near the balcony's rail. "Let's get started."
Obediently Madara sat down and reclined back, propping his head up against his hands. Sakura sat down beside him on the chaise, her hip warmly pressed against his ribs. Her fingers came to his temples, and maybe he imagined it, but he could have sworn she rubbed the pad of her thumb affectionately over his brow.
"It's not going to hurt," she said, "but it'll feel strange. Don't try to fight me, if you can help it."
Madara tensed, unsure he was prepared for it.
Sensing his trepidation, Sakura funneled soothing chakra into his head first. It pushed back against the bit of darkness that lurked in his head and alleviated the pressure that was building against his skull. Her body was perfectly still. She closed her eyes. Madara clenched his fist at his side, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her.
Then he felt a sharpness, a prickling in the back of his brain. It sent a violent, uncontrollable shiver down Madara's spine. Sakura's right hand slid down the back of his head and brushed his hair aside so she could cup the back of his neck. He felt a tingling sensation down the entire length of his spine, electric and bizarre.
She abruptly pulled away and reached into her pocket. "I need to put your hair up," she said. She yanked on his hair until it all fit nicely into her hand and then roughly tied it with a red ribbon.
"Why don't you braid it, too?" Madara muttered.
She glanced up at him, her eyes filled with mirth. "Could I?"
Madara couldn't speak for a moment, captivated by her gaze and her closeness. Her eyes glimmered in the golden sun. Her hair rippled in the warm breeze. He could see the reflection of fields of sunflowers in the glass door behind her.
Sakura took his silence in stride. She closed her eyes again and cupped the back of his neck with one hand. The other came to his temple, her palm resting on his cheek.
The tingling returned to his spine so suddenly that Madara winced in surprise. Sakura's thumb brushed the side of his neck, and he felt another flush of cooling chakra in his head.
Her chakra felt awfully invasive, and they were sitting so intimately close together that Madara felt a sudden urge to push her away. It was too much, too close. He felt bared to her, completely vulnerable in every possible way. He could feel that prickling feeling in his head now. It felt like his whole body was lit up with an impossible to describe energy that was slowly building inside him. He would burst at any moment if he couldn't move.
Parts of his brain, little chunks he didn't know how to identify, jolted and exploded. It was as if she funneled chakra directly into specific sections to light them up, and maybe that was exactly what she was doing. He wanted to ask her, but when he opened his mouth to speak he found that he couldn't move his tongue.
His hands came up instinctively to hers, cupping her elbows with near bruising force, ready to push her away.
Sakura made a cooing noise, which prompted Madara to glare at her, though she didn't see it with her eyes closed. The hand that rested against his neck was achingly tender. Her fingers delicately massaged the base of his neck while her thumb rubbed soothing patterns against his skin.
"Almost done," she murmured softly. He felt her breath against his cheek and loosened his grip on her elbows.
The tingling in his spine stopped and Sakura moved her hand from his neck back to his temple. Madara relaxed. He let go of her arms and dropped them down to his sides.
"Could you deactivate your Sharingan?" she asked. Madara obliged.
Her chakra surrounded his eyes again, creating that familiar feeling of them being dunked in cold water. He sat up a little higher, pulling away from her grasp. She made another cooing sound, but Madara wasn't feeling it anymore. He turned his head away from her. His eyes were starting to go numb, and there was an awful pulling sensation behind them as if she were trying to pull them back into his skull.
The connection broke as he pulled away. The feeling dissipated, but Sakura seemed undeterred. "It's okay," she said soothingly, her eyes still closed as she shifted, too. She flung one leg over his waist to straddle him and grabbed his face with a little more firmness. "Just hold still." Her chakra returned to his eyes, a little less cold this time.
Madara did still beneath her, not because of her command but because he could feel her feminine heat now pressed against his stomach. She looked so unguarded like this, which seemed so bizarre. Did she realize how vulnerable she was, too? He could see her pulse in that beautiful neck of hers. He reached up and cupped her neck like she had done to his. He pressed his thumb to her pulse point, half to warn her how fragile she actually was, half just because he wanted to touch her.
Sakura, ever oblivious to the warning in his touch, leaned into his hand, perhaps without even meaning to. She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and bit down, eyes still closed in concentration.
His vision began to swim, blurring the shape of her face until she was nothing but a pink and beige smudge.
"Sakura," he said, unsure of how to voice his concerns to her.
"I know," she said, and quickly after, his vision returned to normal and she pulled her hands away from him.
She was completely still on top of him, her expression warm and tender as she gazed down at him. She was a different creature with her eyes open – no more beautiful, but somehow more ethereal, more nymph-like.
"Interesting," she muttered to herself. "Madara, how often do you get those cloud-like headaches?"
Madara thought back to his regular life, which seemed so distant now though it couldn't have been more than a couple weeks that he'd been there. That Madara had been constantly plagued by the dark cloud.
"Every time I'm in battle," he said. "Or if I feel angry. It compounds and gets worse each time I feel rage. It's near constant."
For some reason, this made Sakura grin. "You haven't been feeling much rage lately, have you?"
"No," he agreed. "Not that much."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you kind of like it here," she teased.
Madara smirked and brought his hands to her hips. She seemed then to realize their risqué position and her cheeks reddened. "There's a lot to like about this place," he agreed.
She leaned forward, bracing her little hands against his chest. "Like what?" she asked.
His hands travelled along her hips to her waist, pulling her down closer to him. She pushed her hips back so that she could press her chest closer to his. It caused delicious friction, dragging her heat across his stomach.
"These long legs," he said, grabbing onto her thigh and giving it a firm squeeze. "And that sexy little mouth." He reached up and thumbed her lower lip reverently. "And those gorgeous green eyes."
Said gorgeous green eyes widened, though Madara detected her hesitancy and a sudden anxiety on her face. She demurred, turning her face away from him toward the sun and the sunflowers below.
"I don't want you to feel rage or pain, Madara," she said softly, "but if my presence affects you like this, it might hinder my research."
"Well, that makes me pretty angry," he said. "Maybe you should check my head again."
"I've checked your head already," she said, "and I have to admit that I'm a little confused by what I saw. This might be more complicated than I thought, and I was prepared for some pretty complicated stuff."
Madara was intrigued. "What did you see?"
"Threads of chakra that connect your eyes to every single part of your brain," she said. "There's a lot to explore there, and I think there are a lot of possibilities. I'm pretty excited to delve a little deeper tomorrow and learn what I can."
"Tomorrow?" he asked. "So we're done for the day."
"I don't want to be poking around your head in anything less than perfect condition," she said. "I need to eat and take a nap before I can do anything else productive today."
Her stomach growled, punctuating her point.
"Don't forget to cry," he said.
"Right," she said, giving him an adorable half smile. "I forgot I wanted to cry."
Her smile faded, her fingers curling loosely in the fabric of his shirt. She seemed to remember then all the reasons she wanted to cry. Madara didn't like that. She was sad that Sasuke had come and gone, and it was such a silly thing to cry about. She was here with him now, and she was fine. Sasuke was alive, thanks to her, so what exactly did she had to be so sad about?
"Even if I fix the curse," she said, "I don't think it will make Sasuke want me."
Madara furrowed his brow. "So what if he doesn't?" he asked. "Look at everything you've accomplished without him. Whatever clan you marry into will be lucky to have you. Sasuke would be a fool to look you over. It would be his loss, not yours."
Sakura didn't seem appeased by this, which made Madara want to shake some sense into her. Yes, it would be nice for her to be the Uchiha matriarch, the person who helped redeem the forsaken clan. She was likely the only person even capable of such a thing, and that was enough reason to go shake some sense into Sasuke, too, to force him into understand how crucial she was to his future.
But even if that never happened, a woman like Sakura couldn't possibly end up alone and miserable. Someone so accomplished, so beautiful would be snatched up the moment she decided to let go of Sasuke.
"Why are you so determined to be with Sasuke, anyway?" he asked. "You can save him without marrying him."
"I know," she said. "And I will save him. I just… I don't know. It's what I wanted from the moment I first laid eyes on him. I worked harder to be a better shinobi just to impress him, and it never even seemed to faze him. He and Naruto were always so much stronger than me, and I just…"
She closed her eyes, and he thought for a second that she might start crying. It certainly wouldn't do for her to cry over Sasuke while clutching at Madara's chest. Madara wasn't selfless enough to allow that.
"Just what?" he asked.
She opened her eyes. "I just want to be good enough."
Madara laughed. Sakura glared at him, which only made him laugh harder. He swiftly flipped her onto her back, pressing her down against the chaise. He pushed his knee between her legs and lowered his face to hers, close but not quite touching her.
"Find me someone who you aren't good enough for and I'll pluck my own eyes out and give them to a Senju," he said.
Sakura beneath him, her eyes suddenly heavy-lidded and dark. His knee was pressed close to a sensitive part of her anatomy now, and he could see the effect this position had on her. Her pulse quickened – he could hear it if he listened hard enough. Goosebumps erupted on her arms and raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
"You're too good for Sasuke," he said and lowered his face to her neck. He didn't kiss her there, but he pressed his face against her skin, blinking so that his lashes brushed against her. He felt her shiver and smiled into her skin.
"You're just saying that because you want to fuck me."
Madara paused, a little amused and a little disappointed that she had come to such a crass conclusion. He pressed a chaste, tender kiss to her neck and reached for her hand. He leaned back away from her so he could single out her ring finger and began to stroke it gently.
"If we weren't transcending time and space to be near one another, I'd do a hell of a lot more than fuck you," he said. "I'd put a ring on this pretty little finger," he said, kissing her fingertip and then giving it a quick, teasing bite. "And then I'd put ten babies in your belly."
"Easy for you to say," she snapped, though he could see heat creeping down her neck, and he could feel the way she tightened her legs against his thigh. "We are transcending time and space. Besides, we still barely know each other."
"I'm not a fool, Sakura," he said. "I can recognize when I've stumbled onto something special."
She sighed and it seemed so heavy that it made Madara's heart feel like it was stretching down to his stomach. "Why couldn't it have been you?" she asked in a whisper. "You should be here with me instead of him."
He was horrified to see tears pooling in her eyes. She blinked, and some fell. Some clung to her pink lashes, creating a glittering halo around her eyes, which were already too pretty to be looking at.
"I am here with you," he said. "See?" he asked, gesturing to the sunflowers below. "This is fate. If I had been born in Sasuke's place, and he in mine, then I'd be the same as Sasuke is now – ruined by my curse. That's why what you're doing is so important. Be with Sasuke or don't, it doesn't matter. You just need to fix the curse and save us. That has to be why I was brought here."
"An interesting hypothesis," she said with a watery chuckle.
"Until the correct answer comes along, that's what I'll choose to believe," he said, "especially if it keeps you by my side for longer."
Sakura sighed again. "I thought you didn't trust me."
"Yeah, but then you touched my dick."
"Oh, is that the secret?" she asked, laughing a little bit in spite of her tears.
He pulled her hand against his chest, flattening it over his heart. "I have to trust you, Sakura," he said. "Saving the Uchiha clan means saving Izuna, too. Nothing is more important to me than that, and I need your help to do it."
Sakura frowned and he felt the fluttering of his pulse beneath her palm. "What if I can't do it?" she asked softly, blinking a few straggling tears out of her eyes.
He cocked his head. "What happened to all that confidence?" he asked.
"I just don't want to disappoint you if I can't figure it out," she said. "Tsunade-sama doesn't believe it's possible."
"Well, she's a fucking Senju."
"And Sasuke doesn't seem interested in fixing the curse at all, whether with me or anyone else," she continued, ignoring him. "But you…"
"I will do whatever it takes to save Izuna," he said again. "If the universe put me here with you, then I have to believe that you can help me do that."
"But what if it didn't?" she asked. "What if this is all some kind of cosmic accident?"
Madara didn't want to think that. That meant there might not be a chance he could return to Izuna and save him. It meant he was stuck here in a place he didn't belong. It meant that he had no purpose, no chance to redeem himself for all the atrocities his future self would commit.
"No," he said. "It's isn't."
Sakura's stomach growled again. Madara felt compelled to lift her little red vest and kiss her smooth, flat stomach, but the air seemed too heavy for that.
"You won't disappoint me, Sakura," he assured her, because he knew she could do it.
"You're only saying that because I touched your dick."
Madara chuckled. "I'm only saying that because you are an incredibly accomplished kunoichi and medic," he explained. "And that I somehow ended up right next to you… well, that sounds a lot like fate to me."
"Or a miracle," she suggested.
"A miracle," he agreed, because that was the same thing, wasn't it? He let go of her hand, but she kept it against his heart. She looked radiant in the sunlight, pressed against the chaise beneath him. She was the miracle. Or maybe a siren who'd lured him into her trap, but he found himself not even caring if she was.
He leaned down and kissed her. Her lips trembled against his, and he was slow, gentle, testing the waters with her. She wasn't experienced with this sort of thing, and he knew that he wasn't exactly her partner of choice. He also knew that this felt right, that kissing her like this was something he was supposed to do. He felt it everywhere in his bones.
She kissed him back timidly, a little unsure of herself.
But then her stomach growled and she froze. Madara pulled away from her, a little amused, a little fuzzy.
"Alright, Sunflower. Let's get you something to eat."
/
AN: First of all, bless your face if you're reading this. I love you and thanks for reading. Second, I feel compelled to tell you all that I want this story to have the HAPPIEST of endings. That's not usually my style, but that's what this fic is telling me to do, so...
What I need from you guys is to know whether you prefer this MadaSaku happiness to be continued in Madara's time, or Sakura's. You know, like, where do y'all want them to live happily ever after?