Date: 5/5/13
Rating: T
Genre: Angst, Drama, Time Travel
Prompt: Present-Sasuke gets teleported to the day right after past-Sasuke left the village, and he has to see how deeply it hurt Sakura and such, but can't say anything to her.

Sasuke put his kunai away; he was alone now. What the hell? One minute he was battling a shinobi, and the next he found himself being pulled in every direction before landing on the ground with a thud. But he wasn't at the battlefield anymore. No, this place seemed familiar. It didn't seem possible, but it almost felt like he was back …

… Sakura?

He was right. Sasuke was back in Konoha. But it was the Konoha of the past, of a memory far away. It had to be the shinobi he was fighting, Sasuke realized. Somehow he must have used a jutsu to send him to the past, but Sasuke couldn't understand why he was brought here. Sasuke sighed and looked back at the twelve-year-old Sakura in front of him, sitting on a bench. She was crying. But she wasn't crying in the obvious sense, in the way he always remembered. This was different. She stared into the distance. Her face showed no expression. The tears flowed down her face, but she was silent. And her eyes, Sasuke noted, they looked so … hopeless.

Where was Naruto?

Where was he?

"What are you still doing here, Forehead?" Ino asked when she appeared behind her, prompting Sakura to quickly wipe the tears from her face. She took a seat next to her best friend and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Everyone's been looking for you—"

"I told him," Sakura mumbled, ignoring Ino's question.

"Told who what?"

"Sasuke-kun." She kicked a pebble that landed a few feet in front of the bushes where Sasuke was hiding. Sakura looked up; Sasuke's heart stopped. It was almost as if she was looking directly at him. "I told him I loved him."

Both Sasuke's and Ino's eyes widened in shock. "You did?!" she exclaimed. "What did he say?"

"Does it really matter?" Sakura snapped and looked down at her lap. She sighed, shoulders slumping forward. "It wasn't good enough. He still left." Sakura finally lifted her head to look at Ino. She was shaking now, tears welling in her eyes. "I can't breathe, Ino. I can't—breathe. Everything hurts. I feel like I'm going crazy." Beat. "Love's not supposed to feel like this, is it? Love's not supposed to—" Sakura buried her face in her hands and began to sob. "But I can't explain it. I love him. I love him so much, Ino. But now he's gone, and it hurts. And I can't breathe."

Sasuke turned away. He had enough; he couldn't watch anymore. But that didn't mean he couldn't hear Sakura sobbing into Ino's arms, blaming herself, hating herself, loving him. Something in Sasuke's heart ached. He just never realized … Had he really hurt her that much? No wonder Sakura hadn't spoken to him since he returned to the battlefield. He couldn't blame her.

The urge to go up to Sakura and say something—anything—to make the hurt disappear was tempting, but Sasuke knew that that wasn't an option. Whether this was the actual past or some well-developed genjutsu, Sasuke couldn't risk being seen. But the longer he stayed, the more his heart ached. He knew he should have just left to escape the guilt he felt, but he couldn't. It was as if this was something he was meant to see. So Sasuke stayed, waiting for the sobs to stop, waiting until he was sent back to the present.

And when Sasuke found himself back in front of the shinobi that sent him there, he didn't even waste a second to kill him and run back to the medic camp.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura exclaimed when Sasuke burst into her tent. "What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Are you injured? Shouldn't you be—?"

However, Sasuke didn't allow Sakura to finish her sentence before he took her into his arms. He buried his face into her hair and closed his eyes. Even during war, he said to himself, she still smelled like home. "I'm sorry, Sakura. I didn't know," he paused. "I didn't know how much I hurt you. And I'm sorry."

Sakura gasped. She didn't know where this came from; it was so sudden. Something must have happened. But at that moment she didn't care. "It's okay, Sasuke-kun," she said gently, slowly bringing her arms around him to return the embrace. Sakura felt him relax. "It's been okay for a while now." She looked at him and smiled. "I can breathe again."