Surrogacy
-chapter 29-
rated for language / adult themes
He felt slightly embarrassed when he had to buy the list of specific food Sakura required at the hospital.
What was more embarrassing for him was when he returned to her hospital room and watched as she piled everything in between two pieces of bread and took a bite.
He cleared his throat with a curiously furrowed brow. "I didn't know cottage cheese could be eaten with pickles." His curled curled downward in disgust as he took a seat on the chair beside her bed, watching her carefully. It wasn't just those two ingredients she stuffed in there. There was also a stick of milk chocolate and peanut butter.
"I'm just so hungry for everything and I can't live off the dull hospital food until I leave, I just can't!" Sakura stated dramatically between mouthfuls of her rancid sandwich and took a delicate sip of her water. "Besides I can barely taste it."
"Then what was the point of making me go out and buy all of that?" Sasuke snarled as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Couldn't you have just eaten a hospital sandwich and pretended all of that was in there?"
"It's not the same Sasuke. I can still taste the underlying horrid tuna taste of those sandwiches." She shuddered to herself and took another chomp of her sandwich then laughed at Sasuke's still disturbed face. "Thank you, though, for getting me these things."
"Hn." He seemed to settle into the red hospital chair and as he did so, he pulled out a small white book. He opened it up silently and flipped open to the page of WEEK 18. Your baby is five and a half inches long and weighs about five ounces, and at this much, you now may able to even fully feel them kicking around! Not only that, but they are now developing the skills to yawn and hiccup, and even their own unique finger and toe prints! He continued reading on, then looked up to stare at Sakura for a moment. "How much does your back hurt?"
She scoffed as she finished off her sandwich and clapped her hands over the bed to rid them of crumbs. "A lot. My uterus is like, the size of a cantaloupe now so all that weight is causing my center of gravity to change and ugh - it's the worst ache I've ever had. Don't worry anymore than you have to Sasuke I'm not dying because of it."
She giggled when he just looked back to his book stubbornly.
"Anyways.. I've found two names for either a girl or a boy once it's born."
"What are they?"
"Well you aren't telling me yours, so like hell I'm telling you mine." He scoffed with a hint of frustration and looked back to his book. "But they'reeee gooood, don't you want to know?"
"No."
She rolled her eyes playfully. "Give me a hint at your names and I'll give you a hint."
"You're not going to know what it is."
Sakura sighed dramatically and flopped back against the bed. "So, what's the situation at your house?"
"I'm letting Karin stay until she finds a place, but she has a few more days left until I'm kicking her out."
"She doesn't know.. About us, right?" He shook his head. "Once she's out, then what?"
He gave her a light shrug. "Move you in?"
"Sasuke!" Sakura shrieked. "I'm not living in the house you two lived in together!"
He looked quite taken back. He already had the nursery painted and he was not doing that again!
"You'll have to find a new house for us." He gave her that look, the one that read 'are you serious?' "It's bad enough that we did this behind her back.. But to kick her out of her house then I mystically appeared all moved in.. I'll feel like an even bigger home wrecker!"
"I like my house." He closed the book as he stared at her with a stern look in his face, hoping that this alone would persuade her to move in with him. "We can even just switch bedrooms."
"If you're not moving then you can get me that real estate magazine and we can be together from different locations." She smiled innocently at him then something hit her. "Oh jeez, what about Naruto? He's going to freak out! Oh he's going to be so angry with you!"
"Naruto didn't even know Karin was his cousin until five years ago-"
"-no not that, when we, you know, go public, he's going to kill you. And he'll be so disappointed in me.."
"Who cares what that dumbass thinks."
She sighed and curled up in her bed facing him, her bambi like eyes growing serious. "What if Karin takes the baby." Her voice wavered with slight fear. "She will get custody, at least shared custody just to spite you."
"Sakura you don't have to worry about Karin."
"I do have to worry about Karin, Sasuke." She sighed gently. "Legally she can do whatever she pleases with this baby, she signed for it. So I will worry."
Sasuke looked deep into her eyes for a brief moment, his serious face never once fading. "Karin has no interest in this baby whatsoever. Not even once has she shown any remote interest in its well being. Like hell she's going to take the time to raise a child on her own without help. She even said it herself that she had no connection with the baby since it wasn't hers. She wouldn't take a baby she has no connection with."
He could still see the worry in her beautiful green eyes and the only thing he wanted to do was erase it. The worry and hint of doubt he saw manifested into tiny little tears that she looked frustrated about and began to wipe them away in an embarrassed manner. Quickly, he gently had her wrists seized in his hands and pulled them away from her crying eyes. She would always try and hide her tears in embarrassment. It stemmed from him being a jerk about her emotions showing through so he vowed never to judge her human emotions again. Her face was red and blotchy from the tears that rolled freely and from the blood that pooled in her cheeks, ripe with embarrassment. He leaned in and gave her a subtle kiss.
"I will do everything in my power to keep her away from our baby."
...
Sasuke tapped on the Hokage's door and without permission, he twisted the doorknob and entered. He saw Naruto behind the desk half asleep with drool dripping from his mouth and a stack of paper work half finished. Sasuke smirked and crossed his arms, waiting for the lazy man to awaken from his slumber. When he didn't and as Sasuke lost his patience, he paced over to the desk and slapped his hand against the wooden desk.
"S-Sasuke! Dammit, you can't just walk in here like that!"
"You weren't doing anything."
"You didn't know that when you walked in, asshole!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes and took a step back. "I need some papers."
"Do you see all of these freakin' papers, Sasuke?! I'd be glad if you took them off my hands." Naruto sighed heavily and wiped the few stray papers off of his body and onto the floor then kicked out his legs dramatically.
"Not those kinds of paper, I need legal documentation."
"Yeah, like what? I have no idea where that Grandma kept everything!"
"I know where she kept them." Sasuke stated and paced over to the right where a large grey metal filing cabinet was. He opened up the second from the top and carefully rifled through them with his quick fingers. Finding the papers he needed, he pulled them out from their appropriate tan folders and closed shut the drawer. He wasn't too keen on letting Naruto know what they were, but he needed that signature on the bottom. He paced back over to the desk and slid the papers in a spot that wasn't occupied by stacks of papers.
Naruto sighed and leaned in, his tired and glossy blue eyes slowly scanning over the words.
"Wha?" He picked up the paper between his fingers and squinted at the tiny printed letters.
Sasuke stood there in front of the desk threateningly, not in the mood for Naruto's game of questions. Naruto; however, was not in the mood either, so Sasuke was surprised when Naruto slid the papers back over to him. "It's about time, geesh." Sasuke's brows furrowed but he didn't speak as Naruto fished out a pen from the drawer and began to etch his name down. "I don't even know how you could get married in the first place! She's as loud as me, but then again, I'm not putting all of the blame on her. I bet you did your fair share of being an asshole." He snickered and dropped the pen, showing he was finished.
Sasuke smirked. "And here I thought you'd be angry."
"Well I sort of am. I knew this wasn't going to work in the first place! You should have listened to me!" Naruto laughed to himself. "Karin told me you guys got a surrogate, though, so what's the deal with that? What's gonna happen with that baby?"
Sasuke clenched his teeth and swiped the paper away from the desk while Naruto held up his hands defensively. "I'm just joking around. I wonder if your surrogate knows Sakura, I mean there's only one clinic in this city, right?" The new Hokage didn't even get an answer as Sasuke stormed out of the office.
...
When Sasuke returned to his abode, he burst through the doors to see Karin reading a real estate magazine with a phone in her hand. She stared over her shoulder to him for a split second before her face turned soured and she looked back to her work.
He angrily paced over to the kitchen island and slammed the papers down before her. "Why did you tell Naruto that we hired a surrogate?!"
She scoffed in his face and dramatically flipped the page over. "Why not?! He's my cousin and my only family, I can't tell him whatever I want!"
Sasuke groaned and rubbed his face. "Sign these." He told her and was about to walk away when she pursed her lips together.
"I don't want to sign them, I don't want to sign anything."
"Well you're going to have to." He bit out harshly and shoved the papers closer to her. "No man will ever marry you if you're still married to someone else. So sign them and be off."
He was almost halfway down the hallway before she piped up again. "You know I used to think I was the luckiest girl in all of the lands." He didn't have the patience to stand there and listen to her, so he left her with the final words of 'sign them' and left the house promptly after.
...
Back at the hospital, Sasuke silently slipped through the window in the blackness of the night to see Sakura sleeping soundly in her bed. Those heated blankets surely did wonders for her sometimes restless pregnant nights and he was thankful for it. He could watch her all through the night as she slept without disturbance, her chest slowly rising and falling, the slight hint of a smile that crept upon her lips, the slight twitch of her brows in her dreams, he loved it all. Whenever she wasn't in pain or being blanketed in worry he was a-ok.
Carefully, Sasuke climbed into the large hospital bed alongside the woman he loved and let out a long sigh he needed to let loose. He didn't know how he could bring harm to a loving woman like her throughout most of his life but then he thought maybe through the suffering she and him and both endured it only ensured a stronger bond in the end. He wrapped his left arm around her shoulders slowly and held her body close to his, feeling the pumping of her heart against his side.
In that moment he made the second pledge to himself. His first was earlier when he promised he would do everything in his power to keep their baby safe, but now he made a pledge that no harm would ever come to Sakura from his doings nor someone else's.
omg do you guys know how much strep throat sucks? It sucks a lot. I added some more more sasusaku as the hospital environment lets me, so when she gets her butt out of there there will be more, I promise!
Do you guys have any idea as to the names Sasuke has? I want to see if anyone guesses right! They are of somewhat significance, but that's all I'm leaving you! I don't want to spoil the gender by somehow letting it slip! hehe
Thanks for the reviews, follows, faves! They're fantabulous!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto!
