Her hair was pressed against her face, her eyes were red with anger
Enraged by things unsaid and empty beds and bad behavior

-Maroon 5 "Goodnight Goodnight"

Chapter 7: Regret

x-x-x

Years ago she wanted to someday have a family of her own. She would become an academy teacher and would end up marrying the man of her dreams, Uchiha Sasuke. She dreamed that the curve-less, lanky sakura blossom would flower into a beautiful young woman. She dreamed of having a son and a daughter who would possess their father's talents and mother's brain. Sasuke, of course, would head the police force, like his father, and soon the clan would be revived once again.

Though time and time again, she wondered if any of her children would receive the recessive pink hair that would pop up along the Haruno family line. She wasn't quite sure she wanted a son with rosy locks…her grandmother's sister's son was born with pink hair and ended up dying it on a bi-weekly basis before deciding to just shave it off. But in her dreamy fantasy, it was a minor glitch that could easily be over come.

Today, she looked at those dreams and laughed. For a medical ninja who faced death on a daily basis, a steady-home life was impossible. She had made her way as Tsunade's apprentice, so academy teacher was out of the question. And marrying the cold bastard Sasuke was a pathetic hopeless dream. She really was just a stupid girl in her younger years.

And now, she didn't even want a child. In fact, she wished more than anything that this pregnancy test would yield negative results, and should it come back positive, she would be lying if she said she hadn't thought about abortion. Without realizing it, she had gone over various plans into making Sasuke think that the fortune teller was mistaken and just getting the procedure done behind his back, though there was a part of her sickened with the thought of killing an unborn child.

17 year old Haruno Sakura and 13 year old Haruno Sakura were two vastly different people. And vaguely, she wondered if she was partially at fault for this. Was it time? Was it experience? Was it the choices she made in life? The deaths, the hardships, the pain she felt through these years that suddenly turned her life in a completely different direction? Or was it him…?

As she laid on the examination table with Tsunade's glowing hands roaming over her stomach, she exhaled deeply. This is not the life she had planned at all. After an in-depth and terrifying interrogation by none other than Morino Ibiki, the one who first granted her access into her life as a shinobi, she had become tense and shaken. Breathing was now a manual process.

Tsunade scrunched her brows together as she ran her palms and different types of chakra over the young girl's stomach. Her body is undeniably changing in order to prepare for a child…I just can't believe it…

"Sakura…" she began, causing the pink haired girl to lift her head and look up at the Sanin, "while it seems that you might be pregnant with this test, I'm going to have you do a blood test as well. I have a feeling your nerves may have something to do with this. If you're stressing too much, your mind will trick your body into showing signs of being pregnant. A blood test is the only way around it."

The pink haired girl nodded. Great. Needles. Just what she needed to add onto her massive pile of stress. Oh well, perhaps it might serve as a bit of calming acupuncture. That is, until the test came back positive; she had no doubt it would.

Tsunade left the room and another nurse came in to take care of the young kunoichi. The thin metal slipped under her skin as the woman extracted a syringe-full of blood. She had felt pain before, and though a minor cut to the skin was nothing into comparison to some of her previous wounds, she still couldn't help but hate needles. Watching her empty the blood into a small test-tube, Sakura felt a little comforted by knowing at least she could stand the sight of blood, unlike a certain blonde haired "legendary" Sanin. The nurse left after screwing the lid on the test tube, leaving Sakura to meditate in the warm sun filling the room through the window.

She waited anxiously for the nurse to inject the blood with the reactant formula; if she was indeed pregnant, the mixture would turn blue. If not, it would stay the normal dark red color of her lifeline. Sakura sighed as it seemed to take the woman forever; normally she would have had the test done in three minutes, but she was the patient here and she was the one subjected to the competence, or lack thereof, of the hospital staff.

By fifteen minutes, Tsunade came back with a clenched fist. Within it, Sakura knew she was holding the small test tube and the results that could either take a load off her shoulders or add a whole lot more. Literally. Wordlessly, the woman opened her palm up to Sakura.

The blood had turned blue.

Sakura visibly blanched. As all color drained from her face, she looked up at Tsunade with a shocked, helpless expression that seemed to plea for her to take it all away and make it all better. Though this was a mother's job, Sakura was never very close to her mother and only saw her about once a month now. In truth, with all the days of training and her service to Tsunade, the sanin woman had become more of a mother to Sakura than the one who brought her into the world.

She wondered if the same would be true for her son.

"Start thinking of names." Tsunade finally spoke.

"I already have one…" Sakura clenched the edge of her skirt, pulling on as she wrestled with inner turmoil. "If it's a boy… I'm naming it Naruto."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, "Wait, so this is Naruto's child?"

Sakura visibly blushed brightly, "No! I mean…it's Sasuke's…but…I want my child to be strong and optimistic like Naruto. I don't want him to turn out like his father."

Tsunade sighed as she sat down next to the girl on the examination table. "Why did you have sex with Sasuke if you're really in love with Naruto?"

Sakura shook her head, "I'm not in love with him, he just means a lot to me…" she looked up at the hokage, daring to enter a realm of sadness in order to relate, "like you and Jiraya-sama."

Tsunade looked down and smiled bitterly, "Well, I wouldn't say that's the best example"

Sakura's eyes widened as she knew what the woman was going to say, "You mean you really did love him?"

The woman chuckled, "I told myself time and time again that he was just a very close friend, that I could never deal with his perverted ways, writing those stupid books and invading privacy for research." Tsunade rolled her eyes, thinking of the man's goofy, conceited atmosphere.

"I wonder if Naruto will be the same way." Sakura asked rhetorically. "It seems everyone has kind of turned out like their teachers, don't you think?"

"Indeed. It's an amazing thing you can see from the centuries of student/pupil relationships we have. Kakashi is a lot like his father, but more so like his mentor, Yondaime. You have no idea how much of myself I see in you." Tsunade said with a creased-eyed smile, "And my god…looking at Naruto I can see Jiraya when he was Naruto's age…Especially the relationship you have with him."

Sakura let out an amused snort, "Well at least you didn't crush on Orochimaru."

Tsunade nearly gagged at that one, "no, more often than not, that man gave me the creeps. I didn't even like being alone with him when we were in a team. Don't get me wrong, I could have easily defended myself, but I felt a lot safer when Jiraya was there…He would always try to protect me…" She trailed off as she hung her head, blonde hair shielding her face from Sakura seeing the sadness in her eyes, "even to this day, I wish I had at least told him how I felt. I was just afraid of losing one more person, after I lost my first love, Dan. I figured if I distanced myself, it wouldn't hurt when he left..." It was the first time Sakura had ever seen the strong woman cry, "But it hurt that much more because I never said anything."

Sakura looked at the woman with empathy, and she knew so well what Tsunade meant. There was so much about Naruto that she loved, and though some things about him irritated her, she knew he would never leave her, never hurt her, always protect her, and treat her the way she desired to be treated. Because inside, there was still a little part of that 13 year old Sakura left in her, hoping for a happy ever after. And she knew, if she ever wanted those dreams to come true, the picture would be minus one Uchiha and plus one Uzumaki.

But that's now how this picture was painted.

It had been a month since that fateful day.

Sasuke had been imprisoned under strict ANBU guard, his life filtered with interrogations that lead Ibiki and his team to assume that indeed, the talented Uchiha was back for good. Time and time again Danzou would warn Tsunade that it was a part of a ploy to destroy Konoha from within and tried to persuade her to kill the boy while they had the chance, but the fifth shook her head in fervent opposition. He was much more valuable alive, she would say, and such a move would create a nine-tailled opponent for Konoha.

Not that Naruto was entirely pleased with Sasuke's return. Sure, the sunny blonde was glad that his old comrade had given up his traitorous lifestyle and returned home, but Sakura's stories had left the young future-hokage with the desire to punch the living daylights out of their old comrade. And this was even before she told him the worst part…

Things on Sakura's end seemed to return to normal. Since the verdict remained that she had been taken against her will, she was not subjected to the same lifestyle as Sasuke, although she felt like she was getting away with murder by being able to walk the streets freely. On the surface, everything seemed to be the same. She had yet to tell anyone the news, not even her mother, who at this point, would be more than happy to strangle the Uchiha if given the chance.

"Honestly, Saku-chan, I don't see why you ever liked him to begin with." Her mother said one night while peeling potatoes and preparing for dinner, "those Uchiha have been snakes from day one. Always have been."

Sakura's anger swelled a little as she cut the peeled potatoes into quarters. She couldn't understand why she was getting so defensive of the one she had desired to punch on numerous occasions; perhaps it was from the years of defending said Uchiha. Yeah, that was it. She was trained to defend him. "Well, Kakashi-sensei's old teammate was an Uchiha, but he was really easy going and carefree, like Naruto. I don't think they're all bad."

The aged woman sighed, shaking her head as she moved to peel the squash, "Perhaps, but I've seen a lot more bad come from them than good. We could have lost our first Hokage if he didn't defeat Uchiha Madara, who challenged him for power."

Sakura flinched. Madara. Surely that wasn't the same man Sasuke mentioned when he announced his plan to revive Itachi. He mentioned about not being able to look Madara in the eye. Was that because he was an Uchiha and possessed the Sharingan? She had been told not to look Itachi in the eyes because he could trap her under genjutsu that way. Is that why Sasuke couldn't?

"Did Madara die?" She asked.

"So the story goes. Though ironically, no one knows where he was buried. Some say it was at the Valley of the End."

Valley of the End. She had heard that name somewhere. Was it in her early history lessons at the academy? It sounded…Wait! That's where Kakashi found Naruto after his last fight with Sasuke. Well that's ironic! "So he could still be alive, say by teleportation or an illusion?"

Her mother raised an eyebrow at her, "I suppose…why do you care?"

Sakura looked back down at her chopping, feeling like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar. "Well…when I was with them, Sasuke mentioned a person in charge of Akatsuki named Madara…it just seemed uncanny…"

"Wouldn't surprise me. Those Uchiha are never up to any good. Always killing, killing, killing." She turned, waving her peeler at Sakura as she spoke, "and look where it's got them! If Sasuke doesn't breed, and lets hope to god he doesn't, it'll be the last of them!"

The medic-nin felt her stomach drop six feet beneath her. She looked down, continuing to chop the potatoes wordlessly, growing silent. Finally, after a tension she could no longer stand, she spoke up, "Ka-san…there's something I need to tell you."

"hm?" The woman seemed to suspect nothing as she continued to prepare dinner."

"Kaa-san, I really think you should sit down for this…" Sakura urged

The woman placed her peeler down on the counter, turning to look at her daughter with dread only a mother could show. "Just tell me…"

Sakura continued to look down as she struggled to get the words out of her system. "I…when I was taken…" she looked up at the worried woman, unable to fluff the words and make them sound lighter, "I'm pregnant with his child."

If the horrified, silent, yet all-too-powerful blank look on her mother's face was anything to go by, Sakura felt that she might had been better to ease the woman into the conversation, preferably over a nice cup of tea, and not when sharp objects were near by.

"I'm sorry, I…I didn't think it would happen…I was caught off guard and…" Sakura tried to fill in the tense air while her mother recovered from the shock.

"He didn't rape you did he?!"

"No! I mean, well, I wasn't exactly expecting it but…I could have gotten away if I wanted…" Sakura bit her lip as she looked away, the peeled potatoes suddenly becoming very interesting.

The woman finally closed her mouth, a firm frown gracing her aged-face. "Well do you regret it now?"

The words bit. They stung, they penetrated, they permeated every cell in her young female body and they poisoned the nucleus. She felt herself grow weak in shame but strong in anger. "I don't…" she trailed off, looking away. "I don't know."

"What are you going to do with the child?" the woman asked.

"I'm going to keep him. I have a feeling Sasuke would kill me if I aborted it."

"He knows?" Her mother asked, a little bit calmer at this point, though only by milli-bits.

"He knew before I did."

"How is that possible?" the woman asked, "Wait, let me guess, Sharingan right?" the woman rolled her eyes. " That godforsaken keki-genkai."

"Fortune teller." Sakura had to laugh when that came out. It sounded stupid, but if it hadn't been for the fortune teller, she wouldn't be here.

"Wait, so have you had the test done? Because you can't rely on a fortune teller." The woman sounded hopeful.

"I did it the day I got back. It came back positive, and I missed this month's period." Sakura sighed, "I suppose I regret doing it so soon. I had hoped it would have been under circumstances where I was ready, married, settled and all that wonderful stuff, but as I look at a shinobi's lifestyle, look at Kurenai-san, that's just not the way things go."

Her mother, a stay at home mom born in a smaller village in the fire country, never understood why her daughter desired to be a kunoichi. She had tried to persuade her little cherry blossom to stay a genin and stay at home, but the young girl wouldn't have it. Fueled by her desire to win against her rival, Yamanaka Ino, and chase her childhood crush, Uchiha Sasuke—who at this point was ruining her life—Sakura wouldn't allow anything to stand between her and her dreams.

The only thing that prevented her was her mother. But as a ninja, her father agreed it would be good for Sakura to become a strong kunoichi so she could protect herself in the face of danger.

That was when he was still alive.

Killed in action by a fatal miscalculation during an attempt to ambush one of Orochimaru's old hideouts, Haruno Ichibou left behind a wife and a daughter the day before her fourteenth birthday. Though Naruto had only been gone for a few months with his training with Jiraya and she knew he would be back, Sakura still felt completely alone. The days since, Sakura had become closer to her mother, though not completely, with the fact that Haruno Homura wished that her only daughter would give up her shinobi liftestyle and settle for being a stay-at-home townsperson. Sakura refused.

"It could have been that way if you hadn't become a shinobi." Her mother shook her head, resuming her place at the kitchen sink, peeling carrots now.

"I don't regret that though." Sakura sighed, "Becoming a shinobi, getting to know Naruto and Kakashi sensei…they've taught me so much. And from seeing life from the aspect where it could all be your last breath is just something you don't understand unless you've been there."

"Doesn't seem worth it to me."

"Well it is." Sakura argued calmly. "I wouldn't trade anything for the ability to protect my village, my friends," she smiled, "even my dear nagging mother."

Homura smiled slightly, "Endearing, but don't think you're off the hook. How are you going to take care of a child while being a shinobi?"

"I'll have to take a leave of absence. Kurenai-san just had to do the same thing, so maybe we can help each other out or something. Though she's much further along than myself."

"How far are you?" she asked quietly, seeming to finally come to terms with the idea.

"Only a month." She responded nonchalantly, surprised at how well her mother was taking this.

"Have you thought of names?"

"Welll…" Sakura began, "this is going to sound silly, but the fortune teller told me that I should name him Naruto to 'keep him safe'. I'm not sure what that means, but I really don't want to risk it."

"Sasuke isn't going to take lightly to that, you know…" Homura warned, tossing their chopped up vegetables into a boiling pot of water.

"I know…but I really want my son to be safe and, god, I just want him to be happy. I don't want him to have a tragedy like Sasuke's, or grow up never knowing his parents like Naruto. I want him to have a good family, a promising future, for him to be strong but kind…"

Homura smiled, "every mother wants that for her child, Saku-chan."

Sakura sighed, "I just hope I can do it for him." She looked down, pausing her cooking and growing silent, "I'm just so scared…what if I mess up? How am I going to get through the pregnancy? I'm only seventeen!"

Her mother looked at her with pity, "Just one day at a time, saku-chan." She smiled warmly, "Why don't we talk about this later and just focus on getting dinner ready for now?"

Sakura smiled weakly, "alright." Perhaps things would be okay....

Three months had brought a change in climate, the leaves on Konoha fallen off their trees, bare branches now covered in white dusty snow. Having been in prison under strict ANBU surveillance, Sasuke still managed to sneak out five times with a simple bushin, sharingan, and an illusion. But no one noticed, not even the young female he watched. Sometimes he even walked out in daylight, amidst the common people of Konohagakure. Masking himself as a common carpenter, an old man, his last venture out, he decided to go a step further—he decided to transform into Naruto.

Of course he had been careful to watch their interactions. But he had obviously missed something within the time he hadn't gone out. Knowing that Tsunade had plans to send him on a mission, he figured he would be careful and meet her somewhere out of the way, but not too far from the public eye. The place: Team Seven's first training ground.

When Sakura finally found him there minutes later, he was pleased to find her looking perplexed. "I thought you went on a mission with Team Gai?" She asked, her cherry pink hair now reaching her shoulder blades and she tilted her head sideways.

"Tsunade baa-chan decided I need to stay." He explained, "There have been rumors that Akatsuki's on its way here. She already sent out a team to search them out just in case."

Sakura thought this was strange, but didn't question her master, "Well I suppose that's better for us…" she smiled deviously, catching Sasuke off guard.

Playing along, he smirked (a feat that was all too easy for the Uchiha) and asked, "Oh? And why is that?" pretending to feign an ignorance that was actually real.

Lowering her eyes, she walked closer to him, her voice husky and ark, "you should know…" she began as she lean forward to kiss him. She was viciously stopped by his hand pushing her away. "Naruto…" she looked at him confused

Narrowing his eyes, he released the transformation jutsu, revealing his true identity. Sakura let out a yelp.

"Sasuke!" her eyes widened "What, how…you're supposed to be in prison!"

"I am. Those ANBU guards are obviously newbies though." He frowned even more than his usual scowl, "Sakura…since when did you become such a slut?"

She gaped like a guilty child then glared, "Since you used me." She growled. Sasuke raised an amused eyebrow, "And besides, why should you care? It's not like you love me or anything. It's not like we were a couple. I'm just a tool for reviving your clan, that's it." She slammed her hands on her hips in fury.

"A damn good thing that's all you are." He bit, "wouldn't want to date someone who'd spread her legs for just anyone."

Sakura snarled, "You fucking bastard!" she glared, "You have no right to say that! Naruto actually loves me, unlike you. All the time that I've needed someone, needed you, you were never there. But you know who was? Naruto. He always loved me from day one, but I was too blind chasing after you, you fucking arrogant asshole that cared about nobody but yourself. Realizing this and realizing how much Naruto means to me is not something I'll let you chastise me for. If anything, I should, I should…I should be ashamed that I ever wasted a second on you and let you do this to me!" She nearly screamed, the fury in her eyes all to evident for her words to be taken with a grain of salt.

"Did you forget though?" Sasuke smirked.

"What?!" she snapped through clenched teeth.

"The day you let me take you was the day you pledged yourself to me. You. Are. Mine." He walked up to her and held her face in his hands, eyes growing red to capture her in a tsukiyomi of that night.

Watching herself, she was disgusted at the weakness in her actions. She regretted ever letting him touch her, the moans she made, the words she pleaded for him to take her. She bit her tongue harshly in order to draw blood and pull herself from the genjutsu.

"I never pledged myself to you. I am NOT yours."

Looking back at his slightly surprised face with ferocity, she slapped him across the face, watching as his body disappeared into a puff of smoke. But she wouldn't let him get off that easy. Oh no, not now.

Haruno Sakura was more than infuriated.

RA: I am so sorry that this took so long to update! I actually wrote chapter 7 but then completely re-did it after I decided to take the plot in a different direction. I apologize to you sasusaku fans for the implied narusaku at the end. But you've got to admit, there's posibility for relationship on either end, and I really thought that getting her stuck in the middle would add to this story, especially for future events.

That being said, WOW! Thank you everyone who has reviewed this far. I will promise I will be updating more frequently now, despite school. I will make it my new years resolution!