I wrote 95% of this listening to Film out on repeat.
(From all the memories stored in my heart
I gather up the ones of you, link them together)
—
—
In the aftermath, what is there to say?
She keeps seeing his face—the way the pain had twisted the familiar features into something weathered and unrecognizable. There is no metaphor about beauty and sadness to be had, just his grief, laid uncomfortably bare at her feet.
Sakura leans back against the examination bed, still wearing her smoke stained clothes. The doctor has left, but she knows there are probably no less than three agents outside her door. Swallowing, she draws her knees up to her chest, pressing her face hard against the torn fabric of her pants. There's an absence of relief, of any sense of safety or escape. The kidnapping had felt like a dream, the Akatsuki's insistence that the lack of Sasuke's signature on the divorce documents had been proof of his care absurd.
She'd walked away, but Sakura has known Sasuke since she'd been a child, has loved him for far longer than she'd been in love with him, and she can't pretend she hadn't seen him; she can't pretend that—
"Haruno-san? Hatake-sama is waiting for you."
Ignoring the way every single one of muscles are screaming in protest, Sakura refuses the officer's extended hand and hops off the bed. Well, she thinks, from the fire to the frying pan.
—
—
6
—
—
"So, this is what it takes to see my favorite student."
Kakashi, unfailingly inscrutable, smiles at her gamely from behind his customary mask.
Sakura knows why he does it, but she has exhausted all of her patience for the same tricks—the same tired dynamics.
"Don't lie, Kakashi. Sasuke was always your favorite and I was never officially your charge."
"Nevertheless…" Kakashi shifts back in his chair, papers and files piled haphazardly on the rickety card table the hospital staff had dug up for him. "Itachi-kun and his unit has briefed us on the situation, but I wanted to corroborate his intelligence with your report."
"Kakashi-sensei, I know you read my statement thirty seconds after I finished giving it," Sakura sighs. "I assume Danzo's faction of the gang is getting desperate now that Pein and Konan have carved out so much territory. They really thought they could use me as leverage in return for Sasuke-k—Sasuke's support."
The man she'd called teacher (he'd tutored Itachi, and then later, Sasuke, as the men had clawed their way up the beaten path of Japan's special forces) looks at her, and for once he seems a little less ageless, a little more appropriately rough-hewn and beaten down for the life he'd carved.
"I'm glad you're okay, Sakura-chan, I really am."
There's the beat of a pause, and Sakura feels overwhelmed suddenly by the gulf of years between them. This is a man she'd once looked up to and idolized. And then he'd left her behind as he finished ascending the ranks of Sousa Ikka Tokushuhan-Sousa-Kakari.
"The Uchiha are a little more involved than that…" Kakashi pulls one of the slimmest files from the pile and slides it over to her.
—
—
She takes her time reading the heavily redacted papers, and Sakura doesn't know what to say when she's done. The magnitude of Fugaku's duplicity—
She aches for him: for all his sleepless nights after his mother's death and the silence that'd made itself at home in him after his brother's perceived betrayal.
"Sasuke's furious with himself. He would drag himself over broken glass for what happened to you if we'd let him."
The penitence, Sakura knows, is not the point.
(Neither is the pain, neither had been the love.)
She'd seen him, after all, on his hands and knees for her. She'd knelt herself, folded her soul into the exact shape that she thought suited him best.
Rubbing a hand roughly over her face, Sakura nods. The adrenaline is finally crashing, and in addition to the physical pain and exhaustion, she feels mentally drained, battered by a wave a year in the making.
"I know, Kakashi. It's Sasuke-kun, there's no question about it."
"For what it's worth, you really were my favorite," Kakashi tells her with a regretful smile.
—
—
Kakashi had apologetically informed her that she would need to go to the station to tie up some loose ends, and despite managing a tight smile and no complaints at the time, Sakura wishes she'd begged off now that she is sitting next to Sasuke in one of the gray, cramped offices at the precinct.
He looks no better than the last time she'd seen him, no less flayed raw—the open mix of hunger and shame that'd played across his face when she'd walked into the room something that she might have once found empowering.
But Sakura is tired, now; she just wants them both to stop hurting. She wants to no longer feel so hollowed out.
(She keeps her eyes on the detective, but there is no ignoring Sasuke's presence or the elephant of his guilt.)
She gives her statement again, and the older, fatherly man eventually leaves the room to process the documents.
Then the silence.
Sakura had seen his white knuckled grip on the armrests of his chair as she'd described her kidnapping, sweat beading his forehead. She'd tried her best to keep it dry and matter-of-fact, and when they're finally left alone, she nudges an unopened bottle of water towards Sasuke.
He doesn't take it, and when she chances a glance in his direction, Sakura is pinned by the weight of his stare.
(She doesn't take it. She doesn't want his guilt or his sorrow. That is not the same as consideration; that is not the same as love. And even then, she knows—)
"I'm sorry—"
Sakura shakes her head, the movement exacerbating the pounding at her temple, "It wasn't your fault."
Sasuke clenches his jaw at her discomfort, his face still worryingly wan, still looking shell shocked, stricken, like she could be snatched away again at any moment.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura says, "I'm fine."
He jerks, makes an aborted gesture towards her arm until he seems to think better of it.
This, more than anything else, rattles her; Sasuke has always been about the follow-through.
"Aa," he says, the rasp of his voice so bad that she picks up the bottle and thrusts it into his face.
(He was screaming your name, Sakura-chan.)
"Please," Sakura says, and the terrible fluorescent lights only throw the bleakness of his expression into sharp relief.
Sasuke takes the water, staring unseeingly at the bottle for a long moment before drinking. The long line of his throat as he tilts his head back is pale and vulnerable, and Sakura has to press herself into her chair to fight the urge to bridge the gap between them, to not give into the desire to fall back into an orbit that is as familiar to her as the moon's is to the Earth.
(The urge to save him, to be what he needs—)
"Sakura—" He tries again, and she feels the break in heart like it is brand new.
"I can't do this, Sasuke-kun. Not here, not now."
(It is not about penitence. And it had never been about love.)
Love, she knows, she has in spades.
Love, she knows, does not always mean things work out.
—
—
Mebuki calls her almost the moment that Sakura steps into her apartment, and she wonders not for the first time if her mother had had a hidden camera installed when she moved.
"Hatake wouldn't let me see you."
Sakura sighs, toeing off her shoes and looking longingly at her bathroom, "I'm sorry, okaasan. It was protocol, but I'm fine."
Her mother is silent, and Sakura can picture her standing at the end of the hall with the pale gray wallpaper (still wedded to the idea of a landline), her lips pressed into a thin line as she marshals her plan of attack.
"He said that it was the Akaksuki."
Almost to her bedroom, Sakura pauses in the middle of shrugging out of her clothes, phone pressed awkwardly between her ear and her shoulder, "Yes...it was."
There is a ragged breath on the other end of the line, "I should never have let Kiza agree to go along with Uchiha Fugaku's scheme."
She had not expected that, and Sakura slowly sits, "What's done is done. I've always been close to Sasuke-kun, so who knows…"
Her mother's voice sounds very faraway when she speaks again, "No. Kiza and I have made a lot of mistakes, but I never want you to think the family's reputation was more important than you, Sakura-chan. You're my daughter. Mine."
Sakura swallows the sudden lump in her throat, "I know, okaasan."
"Good...good."
—
—
Exhausted, Sakura dozes off on her couch following a much needed shower, and wakes up to no less than thirty texts and a loud banging at her door. Ignoring the sudden burst of adrenaline and anxiety, she quickly scrolls through the progressively more belligerent messages from Ino, Naruto, Tsunade, and Hinata of all people, rolling to her feet with an audible pop of her back.
"I'm coming!"
The banging doesn't let up, only making her persisting headache worse. Sakura half-wishes that the police had kept her recovered phone for evidence, but the annoyance vanishes when she opens the door and sees almost all of her friends piled in the hall.
"SAKURA-CHAN! You're okay!"
"Don't tackle her, you idiot!" Ino screeches from behind the onslaught of Naruto's flailing limbs, and Sakura laughs helplessly, finally feeling some of the ice thaw as people spill into her apartment in a rush of chatter and food and concern.
Later, sandwiched between Naruto and Kiba's warm bulk as Ino and Hinata putters around in her tiny kitchen, she briefly wonders who had visited Sasuke. Was he with Itachi? Had someone called and sent him tomato onigiri, the fresh rice still warm?
"Whatcha thinking so hard about?" Naruto asks softly, looking down at her tucked under his arm.
"Nothing really, just spacing out."
Naruto rolls his eyes, "Yeah, like I don't know your something's-wrong-and-I'm-the-only-one-who-can-fix-it face by now."
Sakura snorts, "I don't have a something's-wrong-and-I'm-the-only-one-who-can-fix-it face."
The blond waits, and she relents, "I was thinking about Sasuke...Check in on him if you haven't yet, won't you?"
Naruto gives her a quick squeeze, "Whaddaya take me for, Sakura-chan. Of course I will, someone has to keep the bastard on his toes."
Ino and Hinata are back from the kitchen bearing trays laden with food then, and Naruto's attention is captured by the steaming takeaway ramen, his arm slipping from around her shoulders as he fights Kiba for the biggest bowl.
Smiling, Sakura settles back into her couch and lets the warmth of her friends wash over her.
—
—
That night, after her apartment is empty and quiet again, Sakura dreams of the last time they'd touched each other, of his fingers at her throat—his body warm and close, the space between them diminishing like miles receding in the rearview mirror.
They had been in the darkness of their bedroom. She hadn't been able to meet his eyes, afraid that one day she'd look up and the soft way that he'd always had of looking at her would be gone. Maybe she would catch it leaving his face for the final time.
The dream lingers even as Sakura wakes up alone, chasing her through her day, step by step, until she's sitting at her sun-warmed kitchen table and staring at her copy of their divorce papers.
Her phone sits next to it, screen-side up.
Please. Meet me at the gazebo in the park.
(Please.)
Okay, she sends, tomorrow.
—
—
The day dawns gray and unpromising, and it only grows progressively cloudier as Sakura takes great pains to pretend that her stomach isn't tied up in knots or that her heart hasn't been dancing in sporadic double time since the day before.
It shouldn't hurt the way it does; she has already seen him. She has already walked away, again and again. The need should dull. The need is dulling.
(She needs it to dull.)
It's a weekday, and coupled with the dreary weather the trains are blessedly empty. She takes the Keiyo line out towards Hatagaya, and despite everything, seeing the sight of their old high school rising into view makes Sakura smile.
The rain starts to come down in earnest when she's almost at the small park across the street from the school, and Sakura runs the rest of the way, her shoes squelching uncomfortably on the path that she still knows by heart, even a decade later.
By the time Sakura's safely under cover from the rain, doubled over and panting, Sasuke is already there, sitting on the stone bench at the center, his head hanging low. He looks up the moment she nearly trips into the rotunda, and she's—she's relieved that he looks a little better, a little more alive than the last time she'd seen him.
"Sakura."
The rain is coming down in a torrential downpour, but in the small space it is so quiet that she hears the little intake of breath before he speaks her name. Sakura straightens, but she doesn't step any closer. She can't bear to; she can't bear this.
"You came."
"I came, Sasuke-kun."
They had both been seventeen the last time they'd been here, and the hunch of his shoulders reminds Sakura of the teenage boy he'd been then, angry and sullen and heartbroken.
But they aren't seventeen anymore.
"Sakura, please."
(Please.)
Sasuke stands, and through Sakura's blurred vision (by the rain, by her tears), today could have been any number of other days, and this Sasuke could have been fourteen or sixteen or seventeen. Except he'd said please.
He comes to her, and Sakura thinks she could be crying in earnest now, because the rain had been cold and this is not—
Sasuke stops in front of Sakura, and even in the gloom she does not have to look to know his face, to know the slant of his brows and the shape of his mouth. Before everything else, they had been best friends first; they had been each other's inside-and-out.
What did they have now?
He reaches out for her, and Sakura shakes her head. She doesn't try to hide her tears; she doesn't pretend that she can't see his own.
"We can't, Sasuke-kun. I can't."
She'd said the same thing to him when they'd been at the precinct, and she still means it now, because—
"Nothing's changed."
He jerks back, his open hand falling to his side. She braces herself, looks at his clenched fists and clings tight to the resolve that had helped her walk away.
"I'm sorry," he whispers (Sakura forces herself to look him in the eyes), "I love you. Sakura, I love you."
(Years ago, she'd said: I love you.
He'd said: Think of your family.
She thinks of being Haruno Sakura; she thinks of being held in that room, and the way you could feel trapped even when you're free; she thinks of the way she feels when she sees the dawn after a long hospital shift.
She thinks about Sakura—eight twelve thirteen fourteen—showing Sasuke—eight twelve thirteen fourteen—the same dawn, of the way it would feel to uncomplicatedly smile at him and say look, we made it, we're okay.)
"I know, Sasuke-kun. I'm sorry."
I love you too.
Sakura opens the bag that she'd brought with her, and takes out the carefully bound papers, pressing them into his hands. His hands—well loved, familiar—are freezing, and she fights the urge to prolong the contact, to press closer and lean into him and end the way she knows they're both hurting.
"This doesn't have to be the end," she whispers, and Sasuke closes his eyes, turning his face away, expression crumpling.
"This doesn't have to be the end," Sakura says, her voice stronger than before. "But I can't—it wasn't working, Sasuke. We weren't happy. I want us to be happy."
She does take his hand this time, because he deserves this much, because they both deserve this much, because she's sick of being in the cold:
"I want us to be friends again, Sasuke-kun, and I can't get in a life threatening situation every time you need a reminder about what a jackass you're being."
The humor is forced, but it does the trick, and he's looking at her again—they're both finally looking at each other again, and his fingers wrapped around hers are both too tight and not tight enough, but it's not nearly as painful as letting go.
"Aa," he finally says, and Sakura gives him a watery smile, scrubbing her face with her free hand.
"I'll see you around, Sasuke-kun."
She doesn't cry at all the entire train ride home.
—
—
Her attorney lets her know that Sasuke has signed the papers the next day.
—
—
A few days after that, she sends him a picture of the sunrise from the roof of her building: Look, isn't it beautiful?
He texts her back a few minutes later, a photo of his bleary face pressed cheek to cheek with Naruto's, the same sunrise in the background.
Thank you, he follows. Sakura smiles, and looks back to the sky.
—
—
fin
note: There's an epilogue, I swear.
(*Sousa Ikka Tokushuhan-Sousa-Kakari, aka SIT, aka Special Investigation Team, is a specialized detective unit within Japan's criminal investigative bureau. It has SWAT-like capabilities and deals with serious crimes.)