It's back! A huge thank you to the people that have reviewed, it's greatly appreciated.
Enjoy :)
Trigger Warning: discussions of miscarriages
Sasuke drags her to a bar later that week. It's a popular one with Shinobi, he doesn't usually seek social activities, and it really should have been the first thing to tip her off, but he reasons that it's for her sake, that she should get out of the house, and she's so touched and convinced by his concern that she agrees.
I can't have children.
He was quiet for a long while after her confession. He understands exactly what that means, especially for a family like his. Itachi's an heir, and he'll need to produce another. There's a long list of criteria for what makes an acceptable Uchiha matriarch, and non-negotiable is the ability to produce children.
He can't imagine, really can't begin to wrap his mind around how this must be hurting her. After everything she's accomplished and fought for, she deserves her happiness.
So he leads her through the door and directs her to the bar, where his brother is sitting nursing a whiskey and waiting for Shisui to return. He looks up at his brothers entrance, and his eyes immediately fix on the spot of pink behind him. He doesn't show his surprise, but there's a sudden tension in his jaw and around his eyes that wasn't there a moment ago.
She feels her breath catch in her throat, tangled with words she wants to say and the wisps of smoke in the air.
"I need a moment, please," she says breathily, turning quickly on her heel and exiting the bar. She feels more than hears Sasuke follow quickly behind her, and she spins to face him,
"I cannot believe you would interfere like this," she whispers to him harshly, hurt and accusatory.
"If you two just sit down and talk-"
"Talking will not change anything about this situation, Sasuke."
"How do you know if you don't-"
"Don't insult me," a biting accusation.
"Jesus, Sakura, I'm not-" but she's on a war path.
"Do you think I haven't gone through every possible option, Sasuke? Do you think I ended things because it was the easiest way out? That I didn't try to find some way of making this possible for us?"
He feels ridiculous, suddenly. Humiliated and completely helpless. Of course, she has. She wouldn't have just thrown Itachi away. The shame creeps up his neck, feeling foolish for thinking he could have somehow saved them.
She sees this and softens, feeling the full weight of his concern for her. Touched, despite how much she wants to kill him.
"I know," she begins, swallowing back her anger, "that you want to help us. But there isn't anything to be done." She seems to be telling herself this as much as him, and she sets her shoulders, a new determination in her eye. She surprises him and pulls him in for a hug, "Thank you, Sasuke."
He returns it awkwardly after a moment, ending it just as quickly.
Sakura steps away from him and pulls her hair back into a ponytail, as she does when she sets to work on a problem.
She goes back in alone, but Sasuke waits outside a few minutes more, quickly joined by Shisui.
"Hey, little cousin," he says gently, forgoing his usual cheer. He offers a cigarette from his pack, but Sasuke just shrugs in refusal.
"Sakura'd kill me."
Shisui sighs in response, "Good."
She walks back into the bar with a newfound determination. She can do this. She can keep him, even if it's only partially, even if it's only as Sasuke's brother, even if it's just a coworker she sees in a bar. It's a small village. She'll have to see him eventually. She should do this now. Stomach in knots, heart beating so hard she feels it in her throat, she hoists herself up onto the barstool next to Itachi, who has been staring into his whiskey in a rare moment of paralysis. He can't possibly stay, he can't bring himself to leave. He knows, instinctually, that until she tells him she wants him to go he will be rooted to the barstool.
"How are you?" It is the most painful question she's ever asked him. How is he supposed to answer? That he hasn't slept in a week, that he is taking every mission he can to get out of the village, that he thinks she looks beautiful but incredibly tired and he is worried for her? None of that will help her.
He doesn't want to make small talk. He can barely tolerate it with coworkers, avoids it entirely with strangers, the last person he can do this with is her.
"Well." It's more than he usually gives strangers. It's the least he's given her since their first mission.
It hurts her in a way she isn't prepared for, cuts through her like a shard of ice, and immediately she realizes what a ridiculous idea this was, and why she'd avoided it until now. She's quiet for a moment, and sighs as the tension leaves her body.
"This won't work either, will it?" He knows she doesn't want him to answer. She feels like she's about to cry. They sit side by side for what might be an hour, the silence heavy and suffocating. Their arms brush a few times, and they immediately retract as if they've been burned. Both feel words catching in their throats, and they steal glances at each other every few minutes. She wants to lay her head on his shoulder, take some kind of comfort in him, but holds herself back. She can't look pathetic, not now, not to him.
But still, neither of them can leave. They feel every exhale, just as painfully aware of the other as always. She looks to the bar, to the bottles lining the shelves. There's a bottle of bright green melon liquor she'd bullied him into drinking once. She looks down at her hands. They're crossed with slim silver scars, she wonders how many of them came from a one of their training sessions. Idly, she wonders if there's anything in the world she couldn't find a way to connect back to him. She feels his eyes on her occasionally, but doesn't return the glance until she's certain he's looked away.
She looks exhausted, truly. He takes in the circles under her eyes (always just under the surface, rarely this prominent). She's slouched and moves with a slight lag he doesn't see often. Some hair escapes her ponytail and brushes her neck, and he almost moves to brush it aside out of habit, but holds himself back. It occurs to him that he's only told her she's beautiful a handful of times, and always in halting, nervous language. She had never seemed to desire the assurance, but he remembers now the way her whole body would hum with delight from the few compliments he had given her, the way her eyes would light up, and he wonders why he didn't tell her every day. He then wonders if he'll ever be able to see that expression again.
The way she had spoken was so careful, too similar to the carefully constructed medic persona he's seen her adopt when trying to comfort patients, particularly the ones she had no strong attachment to. It had almost disgusted him, the idea of simply pretending nothing between them had ever occurred. It was why he made no effort to further the conversation. He would have all or nothing, when it came to her.
A fight breaks out a some point, nothing serious, an arm wrestling match ending poorly for one person, but there's an outcry loud enough to draw them out of their bubble.
A new wave of sadness washes over her, and she forces herself to stand.
"Take care of yourself, Itachi," She says, desperately wishing she'd said anything else. She just wants to talk to him, to hear his voice, but suddenly she's in a hurry to exit, and it's the first thing she can think of.
He looks almost confused.
"And you, Sakura." She exits quickly, rushing past Sasuke and Shisui, who are still waiting outside the bar, not giving them the opportunity to ask any questions. How to explain how profound an hour of silence had been?
A minute or two after her exit, Itachi emerges as well, looking almost lost. His expression doesn't invite questions, and Sasuke and Shisui both give him a slight nod before going into the bar themselves, leaving Itachi to his sudden solitude.
In the quiet of the night Itachi suddenly feels the weight of his isolation. Despite his relatively lonely childhood, he's never been alone. His clan is omnipresent. When he is - was - with Sakura, he'd experiences his few moments of reprieve, and he'd become selfish. He'd wanted that reprieve for the rest of his life. He'd wanted that freedom, that comfort, that blissful solitude he only felt when he was with her, and he'd wanted it binding. He should have realized from the beginning, from the moment he met her, that she deserved more than he could offer. His clan wasn't an added bonus to her. At first he'd thought she was merely indifferent. But it had gone deeper than that, and he hadn't realized until he was too in love with her to even think of ending it. His clan was a nuisance, an enemy combatant, and something she tolerated for her love of him and his brother. His family she liked well enough. Mikoto was kind and nurturing, even Fugaku was appropriately respectful once she had come into her own, but they were still Uchiha. Proud, ambitious, and sometimes cruel.
Of course she wouldn't want to marry into that. Of course she wouldn't be willing to put herself through a lifetime of having to constantly defend herself. They would have allowed her, because she carried political leverage and could pass on useful genes to the next generation, but they never would have accepted her. And then...
An ectopic pregnancy. She'd stopped the bleeding and halted the damage, but that afternoon, after she'd woken up and regained her usual medic's poise, she asked him to transport them to the hospital, and Shizune had had to perform an immediate surgery as Sakura's chakra gave out and the bleeding started again. They'd removed a Fallopian tube. She could still technically have children, Shizune had haltingly explained, but it would be difficult, and likely a lengthy process, and they couldn't rule out the possibility that it could happen again, and this time with more dire consequences.
They'd stayed together for five more weeks, Sakura becoming more and more withdrawn, more and more nervous at each mention of his family. She'd stopped by for dinner one night, officially in the capacity of Sasuke's teammate, as, officially, she had yet to be recognized by the clan, and Mikoto had started gently hinting at the what Sakura could expect as matriarch.
That had been too much, and Itachi mentally berated himself for not pulling her from the conversation earlier.
This is what she could expect as his wife; constant needling and hinting. It would be subtle at first, but she was already 25, and as far as the Uchiha were concerned, already late in fulfilling certain obligations. The hinting would become reminding, would become outright harassment, and would likely follow her the rest of her life. She would be branded a failure, they could demand he remarry, and she would live surrounded by hostility.
He couldn't ask it of her.
But selfishly he had left it for her to decide, and when she had handed him back the simple ring he hadn't been able to fight her, and had to remind himself of how utterly selfish it would be of him to do so.
But now, after reveling in the glory of her presence for a whole hour, pained and stilted as it may have been, he is overcome with selfishness.
He will defend her. Protect her. Even if it is from his own family.
He will give up his position. She's never cared about it anyway.
It's all or nothing.
Hello, hello. It's finals so I finally got back to this in order to do some productive (?) procrastination. As with last time, this is still technically finished, but I sincerely hope to add to it.
And, as always, feedback is more than welcome.