I don't own Naruto, but it means a lot to me.


The night wind is like ice when it rushes past her face. She doesn't remember what time she leaves the office, but it was sometime between midnight and sunrise. There should have been stars up ahead, but the heavy cloud cover that had permeated the day lingers. The sky was inky and black.

The only light guiding her path (not that she couldn't have done this walk home blindfolded, like the thousands of other times she'd done it) was the small drops of dull, yellow streetlamp light that buzz softly in the night. Before the invasions, the wars, this walk would have taken nearly an hour. What were originally winding roads through the forest rarely had efficiency in mind, after all. But two destructions and decades of construction later, the path was down to a brisk fifteen-minute straight shoot with lighting on the path.

Sakura misses the forest.

Longer? Sure. But the concrete jungle that had risen in its place felt cold and distant, a far cry from the Konoha that existed in her dreams. Wooden frame houses were replaced by towers of steel and glass, and the memories Sakura had of her home seemed less real by the year. She was having trouble remembering if all of it, the humble village she used to know, was even real.

She wishes the city didn't have to grow and expand. It was great, and the people were happy, but there was a time when she knew every person that lived on her street. A simpler time when...

Sakura freezes, her breath hissing behind her teeth as she plants her feet in the ground. She'd been so lost in thought; her mind only barely sensed the shadow that didn't move in the lamplight behind her. Still as stone and didn't flicker and fade as she continued her march. Her hands, buried inside her pockets, clench into fists and she can feel tingles like needles flush across her hands as chakra laces her knuckles.

"Whoever you are-" she growls into the darkness. Better her words, threats of a pain promised, deter any assailant fool enough to mistake the Neo-slug Sannin for a mark.

Better threats than her fists, that is.

"I am in no mood, tonight." She vows, the unspoken promise of retribution drifting into the night. The shadows make no reply, and Sakura scowls, shifting her stance and preparing a single, only nearly lethal warning strike.

A sudden warmth envelops her shoulder, and Sakura's tension dissipates like the winter winds rushing by her. Strands of her hair brush against her cheeks, and her scowl morphs. Her lips turn just slightly upwards.

"You didn't have to". She says softly. Beside her, a shadow ripples, and the lone scion of the Uchiha family is suddenly walking alongside his wife, his obsidian cloak wrapped tightly across her shoulders.

"You were late." He replies, both his voice and his eyes motionless, staring down the road ahead. There's no need for words, and Sakura pulls the cloak closer. They fill the silence with their footsteps, now locked in tandem as the slip down the alleyways of the city.

"Hinata, again?" He asks. His words are less question, more confirmation to things he already knew. Sakura grimaces, but nods without a word. The air is heavier when he's not speaking, she decides, and the weight of something akin to judgment suddenly joins Sasuke's cloak on your shoulder. She didn't ask for that, she thinks, but her mind tries to remind her he's just concerned. It took years for Sasuke to show concern for anyone, after all. Far be it for her to deny all the backup concern his heart needed to express after all these years.

"You can't keep staying out this late." He says, like it's that simple.

"I have to do something." She answers, because it is.

The Uchiha snorts, and Sakura marvels at how utterly patronizing her husband manages to be with nothing more than non-verbals.

"Working yourself to an early grave will not cure her."

Sakura nose wrinkles, her amusement with his concern suddenly flatlining.

"And inaction will damn them both." She replies pointedly, biting her lip as her eyes snap forward. She hadn't mean to share that part, and a part of her kicks herself for the slip. For the briefest of moments, Sasuke's foot falls behind hers, a moments discordance amidst the cadence of their march. She doesn't turn, and he's by her side as if it never happened.

"Them both?"

It's the only response he gives. The air isn't heavy anymore, but it's not the wind that brings a chill down the back of her spine. Being the good doctor she was, there were parts to her patient's lives even Sasuke didn't know. Sakura chides herself for the slip, and they walk in silence for another block, then two. Sasuke only speaks again when they leave the business district.

"You took the long way home?"

When Sasuke doesn't know what to say, he changes the conversation. How like a man.

"It makes me remember what things used to be like." She answers, grateful for the change. "Back when everything was easier."

Sasuke exhaled, and Sakura feels the amused smirk that he only gives when someone says something exceptionally foolish. It was usually reserved for literally any time Naruto opened his mouth, but her nostalgia earns as special pass.

"At no point," he retorts, "Has everything ever been easier."

She rolls her eyes, a vague wave to the sprawling metropolis surrounding them both.

"Back when we didn't have problems like these. Back when I didn't have to worry about nuances or feelings or the complex family dynamics impacted by debilitating illnesses." Sakura frowns, a light grind in her teeth. "It's frustrating."

"You sound like Naruto, wishing he could solve every problem to exist by beating it into submission."

Sakura's lips turn, and a smirk etches across her face while her fingers lace between her escort's.

"A good beating solved you."

Sasuke snorts but doesn't press the matter any further. It's another 10 minutes of walking before they make it to more familiar territory. The doors to the Uchiha compound look like a relic trapped in time. Ornamental trim and design clashes against the surrounding modernity. The entire complex more resembles a museum than a residence. Sasuke's hand glows a deep purple chakra, and the doors swing wide into the main courtyard.

Sakura squints, and then blinks.

"Sarada?"

On the porch of the Uchiha home, two figures break apart in a flurry of limbs. Flush and breath ragged, Sarada Uchiha jumps forward, frantically ironing invisible crinkles from her blouse. The other figure careens into the bushes, disappearing in a rustle of leaves.

"Mom!" Sarada's voice shakes, and Sakura has a mental image of the first time her daughter had been caught sneaking dango after bedtime. Jet black hair and onyx eyes staring back in a wide-eyed horror at as tiny feet scramble and tiny minds try to make an alibi.

"You...what are you doing out this late?"

"Oh," Sakura answers slowly, struggling to focus as her daughter shifts between the five-year-old she once was and the twenty-five-year-old on her porch. Sakura misses the five-year-old. "Your father just came to walk me home from the hospital."

It's hard to see under the glow of her porchlight, but Sakura can see color drain from her daughter's face. Dark eyes slowly veer to Sakura's left like watching for a train when you're tied to the tracks.

"D-dad." The girl squeaks. Sakura leans forward. Almost a grin.

"Mhmm." She hums. "Maybe we should be asking you the same question."

Sarada's face looks like Sakura's hair in the moonlight. A brilliant, almost scarlet flush. When she was five, Sarada had always wanted hair like her mothers. Damn Sasuke and his dominant hair genes. At least the girl hadn't gotten Sakura's hairline.

"Ah, well," she fumbles, "I was just out and wandering..."

Her daughter trails off, and Sakura nods with a deep and flowing support. Her daughter is flustered. Lying to your parents this late at night could certainly cause one to lose one's cool, after all.

"Uh-huh." The medic wonders. "And where, exactly, have you been wandering to this winter evening?"

Sarada fidgets like someone sincerely hoping a big gaping hole would just appear in the ground and swallow them. She rocks on her heels, hands twisting into aimless knots and brushing imaginary wrinkles out of a crimson blouse with a frantic fidget.

"Well, you see, Mom. I was actually-"

"I do not know why both my wife and my daughter saw fit to wander outside tonight." Sasuke's voice cuts through his daughter's stammering like a Chidori, and the red of the sharingan flashes beneath the light. Sarada can't repress the chill that runs up her spine and down her nerves.

"…But someone will explain why Boruto Uzumaki is currently kneeling on my flower garden."

Like a rocket, a blond, twenty-something bursts from the bushes, face aglow like the petals of the rose bush he leapt from. The thorns scratch and pull and yank parts of his jacket off in the movement, and Sakura idly wonders if she's ever seen someone turn as red as her daughter. The blond flails, attempting to coerce the threads of his clothing back into order, and his hand brushes against Sarada. The romantic in Sakura would be audibly swooning if the tired grown up inside her didn't want to gag.

"Master Sasuke, Aunt Sakura!" The blond's voice squeaks, and the situation reaches critical mass. He caught deep and hard and fake, and his voice drops two octaves. "I was just...err...making sure Sarada got home safe!"

"My daughter is a jounin, Uzumaki." Sasuke's voice is ice, a polar vortex slicing and shattering the babble spewing from his apprentice's mouth. "Are you implying she would be unable to defend herself? Inside the city gates?"

It takes all the self-restraint Sakura has to not bust out laughing watching Naruto's son contemplate the tactical merits of turning tail and running like a kicked puppy.

"Uh," Boruto stammers. "No, I mean. Sir, no. I mean- yes, but. Sarada-chan can..."

"Sarada...chan?"

There's a moment, a brief and fleeting silence, in which an Uzumaki male is left without the right words to say. Sakura wishes she could have captured the moment in a bottle, rarer than gold. When the cogs of the young boy's brain finally find words to respond, his feet are already in motion.

"Ah, you know what? It's late." He tries to laugh — it's a poor attempt. "I'll leave you to your evening!"

If she had blinked, she would have missed it, but the blond has the audacity to leave with a small wink towards the Uchiha heiress.

"ByeMasterbyeAuntSakuraByeSarada"

There is a swirl of leaves, and the Uchiha family is alone, again.

"Oh, god, kill me." Sarada moans, earning a pitying squeeze from her mother.

"Oh sweetie, I can't let that happen." Sakura is only barely not laughing. "You've got so much more embarrassment to look forward too, one day!"

"There will not be another day." Sasuke interjects, "Because there will not be an Uzumaki heir or patriarch come tomorrow." Sakura's hand dismisses her husband's primal protectionist notions with a wave.

"I hope, dear, you have learned an important lesson about getting cozy with the Hokage's son on your parent's front porch." She lectures, wrapping her mortified daughter around her arm. "I understand the burdens of young love, but discretion is key with boys."

Both father and daughter make non-verbal noises at the statement. Sarada's a mortified melt of emotions and Sasuke's a barely restrained promise of future pain. Sakura clings to both tight, a cackle on her lips as she pulls them both out of the cold and into their home.


This was fun.

- Free Drinks