a/n: Drabble series because I can't seem to stop writing right now and I want to ride this wave for as long as I can before it eventually runs out of momentum. I have plotted the entirety of this series, but I have not written it. I'm aiming to update once a week! Every Monday (: We'll see how that actually goes.

Nocturne Interludes

Absence.

—

What does Uchiha Sasuke expect when he finally returns?

Haruno Sakura eagerly awaiting him at the gates? Waiting all day every day of the suspected week of his arrival? Perhaps a selfish, childish part of him expects such a thing, but his older and wiser self balks at the notion. She isn't that twelve-year-old genin anymore.

What he isn't expecting is the absolute lack of fanfare when he does finally step through the gates. Not that he wants to make a fuss, but it's so unlike his teammates. He isn't sure why this bothers him (his traitorous brain whispers of replacements, betrayals, change, and how he has taken too long and taken them for granted and it's too late now they've all—)

A blond blur greets him first, the loudest, most obnoxious (and resilient and loyal) excuse of a shinobi barreling through the streets to welcome him home. When they reunite, it is as they always have, as brothers, with meaningful forearm grasps and quiet but heavy expressions preluding an eventual tactless comment by the blond.

Other friends make their appearances, all smiles and happy to see him. But one presence is distinctly missing—

"Sakura-chan is on a mission," Naruto says, as if reading his mind.

They are at Ichiraku, and Naruto—Naruto—treats him to his first meal back.

Sasuke eyes the bowl before him. "I didn't ask."

"Right," the blond agrees with a rude slurp of his noodles. "But I could see it written all over your mopey face."

Sasuke scoffs as he breaks apart his chopsticks.

It's wrong, he thinks—the scene. The stool to his other side is empty, waiting. The sound, when he mutters itadakimasu, lacks its accompaniment.

.

.

Surprise.

—

The Uchiha has been back for a month.

Even so, he still has not returned to the Uchiha Compound, deciding to take smaller steps to assimilate to life in Konoha—the village that turned its back on his family, the village he abandoned, the village that was cleansed of the lurking evil, the village that forgave him. Konoha is his home, but it is also the root of his rage and his anger and his vengeance and it will take longer than a month within its gates for him to truly accept it, welcome it as it has welcomed him.

His inheritance is released to him and, with a small portion of it, he rents a nondescript apartment. It is on the third floor, facing the eastern hills, and exactly what he needs.

It is in that apartment where Sakura finds him.

He is surprised that she manages to startle him; one moment he's tugging his shirt over his head, the next the vision in white and black perches threateningly on his window sill.

At first he thinks it is just an Anbu coming to deliver a message from the Hokage. But then he feels it, the familiar wash of her chakra. She strengthens it, as if she wants him to recognize it's her, and then the owl mask tilts—he gets the sense she is smirking behind it.

Many years ago, the sight of him undressing would have undone her, but this Sakura is older, wiser, and fiercer. She just stares, expectant, through the black holes of her mask.

He scoffs, crosses his arms over his chest, and levels her with his signature glower.

A sound between a laugh and a snort comes from behind the porcelain face and the Anbu steps down with a grace he has never associated with the overly-self-conscious-Sakura in his memories.

She lifts the mask—it is in slow motion that his eyes take in her features as they are revealed: a chin, pointed and more angular than he recalls; lips, dried and cracked and bleeding; a nose, freckled and crooked (broken?); eyes that are more astute but still as verdant as ever; and a forehead that she always insisted is a little too wide (But he thinks her whole face is just heart-shaped, what's wrong with that?).

"Sorry I'm late," leaves her lips (Cracked and swollen, why is she so beat up, isn't she a medic, can't she heal it all?).

He half expects her to throw herself at him but she refrains and he admires her restraint (and resents her for withholding her warmth, her adoration, her comfort).

Of course she speaks again, as unsettled by silence as ever. "I got lost on the road of life."

Sasuke snorts, unable to stop himself, and her timid grin widens into a dazzling smile.

When he falls asleep that night, after she recounts her mission (and really, should she be telling him any of these things, isn't she a professional?) and disappears in a puff of smoke to report to the Hokage, he does so with two things fighting for dominance in his mind:

First, Sakura went to see him before even seeing the Rokudaime.

And second, had her smile always been so—?

He obliterates the thought. He is still Uchiha Sasuke, afterall.

.

.