If you can't hold on, hold on
Chapter 15
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When you spend a lot of energy trying not to think about something for a long period of time, generally, the thought doesn't go away. It dunks beneath the surface and becomes a subconscious undercurrent at all times. For two years, Uchiha Sasuke has been the undertow Haruno Sakura intrepidly avoided. She'll get caught for a moment, but she's experienced at escaping the pull.
The truth is, Sakura used her team as a crutch in the months following her parents' murder. They became her life and her family, then all of a sudden they were ripped away too and she found herself bleeding on the floor. It severely undermined the lessons she learned during that time in her life: to rely on others, to open her heart, to stand her ground, to process her anger. She's still so angry, about a lot of things, but it's better than it was. She lances the infection every so often, cleans and bandages her heart, but the sickness returns. It's maintenance at this point.
Naruto, she understands. He left because he saw it as the best way to bring Sasuke home. He's pursuing his dreams and she can't begrudge him that. Even if she feels a little hurt and left behind.
Kakashi is another matter. She wonders if he ever loved her at all.
Obviously Sasuke hurts the worst. She never would have predicted how they fell apart without him. She loved him so much, but by letting her into his home, he'd become essential to her. Sasuke was not an easy person, but he loved them enough to try. He understood her to a deep degree that no one has since. The world spun around their little family and Sasuke's betrayal changed the axis. She's seasick and heartsick all the time. She wishes he trusted them more and loved them better than he hated his brother.
Sakura does not hate him, though she wishes she could. If she's honest with herself, she just wants to bring him home. She gets it. She totally understands wanting vengeance—wanting to make a broken world right again by any means necessary.
"You don't have to be alone. You don't think we would help you? Naruto and I would do anything for you. Why won't you let us?!"
Why couldn't they be enough? Why didn't he think they were strong enough to help him achieve his goals?
"Don't you understand that I'll kill you if I have to?"
She's had a lot of time to reflect on his words. She doesn't believe he would have killed her. He couldn't have. Despite everything, she believes he loved them too. He gave her and Naruto a home. He fought with them, protected them and sat thigh-to-thigh while she cried in her grief.
In the academy, Sakura had a crush on an unattainable boy. When they were put on the same team, he felt just a little more attainable. He wasn't, but that hardly mattered to the stupid, silly girl she used to be. When they were in the Forest of Death, she wanted to protect him; she thought maybe she could love him. When he gave her a home, she loved him with the fierceness of family. When he left, she knew.
It's different with Sasuke. She does not love him in definable parameters. She cannot think of him the way she thinks of Naruto. These loves are different beasts even as they feed side by side on her heart. Alongside Kakashi, who makes her hate him just as much as the opposite.
Does love make everyone this weak? To forgive them all, without apologies.
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Everything is weird. Sakura's weird, Kakashi's weird and their new teammate is very very weird.
Sai is rude. And Naruto does not like the way he looks or talks about his penis. His penis is his private business and he should really just shut up about it. He's also taking up a spot on a team, where there is no vacant spot. Sasuke's coming back. They don't need a replacement.
Except they kind of do. For numbers reasons. It'll be short lived. They're going to get him right now. Adjusting isn't necessary. He doesn't need to learn to work with him if it's just for this one mission.
With that problem solved so simply in his mind, Naruto switches his focus to Sakura and Kakashi. Whatever happened between them undid all the stuff that got fixed way back from when Sakura was pissed at Sasuke for being a jerk and Kakashi talked her back around. Naruto doesn't know what they talked about because Sakura yelled at him when he asked and told him it was none of his business. But he knows that he fixed her, because she started talking to them again. Kakashi was always able to fix her. He knew what to do the night they found her parents. He knew to ground her when she started messing up on missions. He knew what to say to her when Sasuke upset her.
Kakashi's a pervert, and kind of a weirdo. He's lazy and late and is always concocting annoying lessons. But he's usually right. He's a really good teacher.
So why can't he fix this?
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The ceiling of Sasuke's bedroom has a series of cracks that he has memorized over the course of countless sleepless nights. Someday, he's sure, it will crumble around his ears. Like his secrets. Like his life. There are lines like a map of the rivers in the east of the Land of Fire, right over his dresser and some nights, he wakes up and could swear that a face emerges from the textures right above his bed.
He will see familiar faces again soon. Too soon. He's never been more ready, and yet more unprepared for anything in his life.
Sasuke is a black hole of missing. He misses his parents. His cousins and aunts. He misses Konoha. He misses Team 7. His heart is a yawning maw of hunger for any news of his remaining loved ones. Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi are not beyond his reach. They're alive and only a border away.
He thinks of their faces. He thinks of the message. He thinks of his mission.
And wonders: should he let them take him?
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They stop long past a reasonable hour, all of them desperate to get to the base even moments sooner. Except:
"Why have we not made camp yet?" Sai asks in a tone that is not complaining. It's hardly even a question.
"Am I pushing you too hard?" Kakashi replies, dodging the question with a challenge. This was a technique he used to use on them often. Sasuke and Naruto would instantly stop their complaining if it was framed as a challenge to their strength or manhood or whatever. Sakura rolls her eyes, seeing right through it, just like she used to back then. Naruto snickers and makes taunting faces at Sai behind Kakashi's back.
This trick doesn't work on Sai because Sai does not have a functioning Id, let alone Ego.
Sakura finds herself smiling to herself as she thinks this. It's a joke Sasuke would appreciate. And if he were here, she could mumble it out the side of her mouth, just for his ears. He wouldn't laugh. Wouldn't crack a smile. He wouldn't give any indication that he'd heard anything at all. But they'd make eye contact and she would know. She would know that he understood and that would make her laugh.
How is it that it's almost three years later and she's still looking around, expecting him to be there.
"No, I have very good endurance. I was asking because it is past dark and we will have a tactical advantage of we are well rested." Sai is not wrong but Sakura still wants to knock him unconscious and leave him in a ditch.
"Fine," Kakashi concedes in his usual lackadaisical manner. "Let's stop in that clearing up ahead so Sai can get his beauty sleep."
"I would have no way of knowing what I look like when I sleep, however I have been told that I am a very attractive person, so it is likely."
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"Blood pressure is 140 over 90," Kabuto removes the Velcro cuff and puts his stethoscope in his ears. He presses the other end against his back. "Breathe deeply." Sasuke does as he's told.
He's naked except for his underwear and it's uncomfortably cold in the basement laboratory. He watches Kabuto examine him passively. Not him. His body. A body that Kabuto does not expect to belong to Sasuke for long.
He's running out of time, but he's not strong enough yet. He hasn't learned enough.
This was not the Hokage's plan when she stationed him here. He was to be a mole. But Sasuke always knew that his time here would end in Orochimaru's death or his. Sasuke doesn't intend to die here.
He just needs a little more time.
"Tip top shape Sasuke, that's good." The supercilious tone Kabuto uses, as if he's a real doctor and not a torturer, a monster, makes him sick.
"Hn," he gets up without asking and dresses. This is an opportunity, but not one he relishes. He glances around, looking for anything he can get his hands on that wouldn't be missed. Kabuto's work could have serious ramifications for the Leaf and he wants to get out in front of it, if he can.
"If you're looking for notes or vials to steal, you should know that they'll be useless to anyone but me. They're written in a cipher that I created."
"Excuse me?" Sasuke demands, coldly.
"If you're looking for something to pass along to your friends, might I recommend one of the notebooks? They'll spend years on those and get nowhere. It will be a wonderful waste of time for us all."
His guts lurch.
"I have no interest in your experiments."
"You may not, but your little friend might. The pink haired one? Tsunade's apprentice. I hear she's quite talented. But not as talented as I am, I'm sorry to say." Sasuke does not freeze. He does not rise to the bait. The urge to maim Kabuto is still almost irresistible.
He's been made. He wonders how. Kabuto must have followed him to the rendezvous with Kakashi. Sloppy! Sloppy sloppy sloppy. He can't believe he let this happen. Of all the people who could have left the message, he is the most dangerous.
"I'm leaving," he'll decide if he's leaving the room or Sound between here and the door.
"Don't leae on my account," says Kabuto, "You're welcome to try your luck. I've been meaning to have a chat anyway."
"What do you want?"
"Hm," the pretense of thinking about it is just to toy with him, there's no way Kabuto doesn't already have a plan. "Well, the only thing I want from you is for you to kill Orochimaru, "he sighs theatrically, "But you aren't strong enough for that yet, are you?"
"Then we're done here." Sasuke pulls his clothes back on and carefully avoids the medic's gaze.
"But there is something I want from your friend. Get her a message for me, won't you?"
"I don't have any friends."
"Sure you do," he tilts his head to the side, regarding Sasuke with the same faux cheeriness that fooled them all as twelve-years-olds. He knows better now. "Sakura Haruno is a very important person now; with access to very important information. But you knew that."
"I am not in contact with Sakura Haruno."
"No," Kabuto considers him for a moment. "I'm sure you're not, but you're in contact with someone. I want Tsunade Senju's Creation Rebirth technique. I don't care if she has to steal it, or come here herself to teach it to me, but she will get it for me or her precious Sasuke-kun-!"
The rest of his sentence chokes off as Sasuke grabs him by the throat and slams him into a nearby gurney.
What threats can he make? Kabuto holds all the power here. Unless Sasuke wants to end his mission. And Kabuto knows it.
"Take your time." He offers.
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They're not in enemy territory yet, so it's okay to make a fire. Sakura and Naruto take first watch, Sai and Kakashi take the second. Usually there'd only be one person awake at a time. No one needs to tell Naruto that it's because Kakashi doesn't trust Sai yet either. So he and Sakura sit, aligned from shoulder to hip, staring into the fire and listening to the night.
"You wanna talk about it?" he asks tentatively.
"Not really," Sakura replies.
Maybe he shouldn't have asked first. Now he feels like a jerk for the follow up questions he can't hold down.
"But what's up with you and Kakashi? Did you have a fight?"
"Drop it Naruto."
"But-"
Sakura takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I know that in your world, friendship trumps everything and we're a family so we're supposed to love and support each other no matter what or whatever, but sometimes people don't deserve it. When people don't love and support you back, you don't have to forgive them. It's great that you never get mad at anyone and never hold grudges. I wish I could be like that, but I'm not. So just- drop it. Please." She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on the left one. "I don't know why I always have to be the bigger person."
"Can he fix it?"
"He hasn't tried." This doesn't surprise Naruto. Kakashi has been known to let them stew. That's how they got here isn't it? Letting Sasuke stew in his grief for far too long. "You all abandoned me. But Kakashi, he never left. He was right there, pretending I didn't exist. Without you two, he didn't want to be my teacher anymore, so he pawned me off on someone else."
Naruto glances across the fire, where Kakashi lays on his side in a sleeping bag. His eye is open, staring at Sakura. His gaze slides to Naruto. His expression doesn't change, but Naruto feels like he understands. He may see, or he may imagine all the sadness and regret that he finds in their depths.
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In the morning, everything feels a little bit heavier. Sakura's leaden feet carry her closer to Sasuke. She can be angry later. She can miss him later. For now she needs to muster the determination she felt on the night he left. In the morning after, in the Valley of the End.
They're so close and they're almost out of time.
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Orochimaru is visiting another base, the bastard. So all Sasuke has to do is wait.
Team 7 is coming and he has to decide what he's going to do.
He could go home. The burning, thrilling joy he feels at the prospect is terrifying, because joy is to be avoided. He knows that anything that makes him happy can't be the right thing to do. Sakura would call him dramatic. Naruto would call him an emo bastard. And they'd be right. But so is he.
Sasuke makes bad decisions. He's learned that about himself. He has to triple check his gut because it's only ever brought him trouble. He let Naruto and Sakura move in with him, and he got attached. He went after Itachi and relived his torture. He decided to become a double agent and now all his plans are derailed; his vengeance, his training, all put away in favor of a fool's errand. And now he might not get to complete it.
Because the smart thing might be to go home. Pack it in. He's failed.
They're coming to get him. Stay or go. Fight or run.
He still hasn't made a decision when they arrive; tripping the alarms and shouting his name through the corridors.
He meets them above ground. The cliffside arching up around the bowels of the base like a coliseum.
He'll know what to do when he sees them. Right?
Right?
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"How many more times are you going to betray us before you-!?" Sakura furiously shakes a stranger with dark hair, screaming in his face and… it's been three years.
"Sakura."
The first time he sees Naruto and Sakura, it's from a high vantage point. There are lots of things he can't make out from this distance. Is he finally taller than Sakura? Have Naruto's whisker-scars faded? But he can see the garish orange. Their more mature features. The fighting stances.
When he leaps, the swooping sensation in his gut is not from falling, it's his very core rebelling against what he's about to do.
He lands with a hand on Naruto's shoulder. It's almost a hug. "What are you doing still chasing me?" he asks, almost murmuring in his ear. "Don't you have better things to do? Didn't you want to be Hokage?"
Stiff all over, Naruto's voice is as steely as Sasuke's sword. "How could I ever be Hokage if I were the type of person who could leave his friend behind."
"You didn't leave me behind, you moron," he goes for Kusanagi. Block me block me block me now! "I abandoned you. I don't need anyone. And I am not your friend."
The stranger is the closest. Snakes made of ink wrap around Sasuke's sword arm, blocking his strike. Thank you.