title: where the light enters
prompt: #22 - baby shoes
summary: lights, quiet heartbeats, and tiny shinobi sandals.
a/n: halfway inspired by hemingway's "for sale: baby shoes, never worn." this was probably my favorite prompt.

The first lights of the day have barely streaked across the sky when Sakura shouts for Sasuke. He wakes immediately, alarmed by the nature of her voice, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he tumbles out of bed to find her. She is seated by the small window of their bedroom in the humble cottage they secured for themselves at the edge of Iwagakure, where they are close enough to taste the sea.

Once Sasuke's vision clears, he notices Sakura clutching her stomach and rushes to her side in a heartbeat, his own pulsing in his ears. The swell of her baby bump has grown in the past few months, but her hands can still fan out over its surface.

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura says, and her voice is unlike anything he has ever heard. She beckons him closer. "Come here…"

Sasuke kneels beside her, letting her take his broad hands in her smaller ones to place them over her belly. In silence, they wait.

Slowly, and then all at once, Sasuke feels movement beneath Sakura's skin, and his eyes are wide, and Sakura is smiling and crying all at once, her hands just barely trembling on top of his. "The baby is so alive," Sakura breathes, and Sasuke inhales her words, unable to move. "You and I, I think we have a little shinobi on our hands."

Sasuke tilts his head to peer up at Sakura, welcoming the way his heart swells with happiness at her words. He pulls her hands into his. "How are you feeling?" he asks her, thumbing circles into her skin.

She smiles at him, face damp but tear ducts empty. "I," she says, "have never felt better."

—

A month and a half later, Sasuke and Sakura begin their journey moving south, bound for the Konoha border. Home has never been so far away, but home has never felt so close.

They follow the sound of the sea as they move down the coast of Iwa, Sasuke adopting a languid pace of travel for Sakura's sake, only to have her laugh and assure him she is absolutely capable of a more reasonable speed. Thus, Sasuke takes her hand, and they fall into step, making for Konoha, but in truth, there is no reason to rush—Sakura estimates her due date to be in approximately four months.

They wander into a modest village near the water's edge, where it seems visitors are rare, and they are welcomed warmly by its citizens, who fawn over Sakura's growing belly. The hubbub catches the attention of the village doctor, who offers a check-up and scan, which Sakura graciously accepts.

The doctor smiles and presses a rice cake into Sasuke's nervous hands as she helps Sakura onto the bed, and they spend the next minutes examining the illuminated screen centered over Sakura's feet. They come to the unanimous decision that a boy should be expected, and Sakura is all smiles when she looks to Sasuke for his reaction.

A laugh escapes the doctor as Sasuke is at a loss for words.

Sakura reaches out for him. "He's happy."

—

When they reach the broadest outskirts of Konoha, they have a small house built by people who do not recognize them. They don't move to the heart of the country, where they were both born and raised, just yet. Soon, they agree, soon they will return. The baby would grow up in the same place his parents did.

But for now, they shop at another small village whose citizens know not of their names. Sakura picks out paint in a shade of forget-me-not blue, and they build their first nursery together, buying the sturdiest of cribs, the softest of baby clothes, the brightest of toys and plush animals. There is a wide window that they always keep open to let in the light, and they fill the nursery with everything that is warmth and familial and home.

Sasuke displays the few pictures he brought with him where the baby's bedside is to be, and Sakura fills a large, clear vase with fresh flowers from the fields behind their home, arranging them in a way that would make Ino proud.

One day, they set out to buy the last finishing touches for the nursery, and Sasuke stumbles upon shinobi sandals small enough to be worn by even a newborn child. He picks the shoes up gingerly and places them in the palm of his hand, looking over them wordlessly, wide-eyed.

Sakura smiles and plucks them from his grip, dropping them in the shopping basket he's carrying.

"I love them," she says.

Sasuke inhales softly. "Me, too."

—

Sakura's water breaks two months too early, and Sasuke's mind is blank and screaming all at the same time as he gathers her in his arms and rushes her to the local hospital.

He has enough composure to notice how pale Sakura looks laid against the hospital white of the bed, but he is numb even as her grip is unworldly strong around his hand as she goes into labor. All he hears is Sakura's voice screaming out in pain, the voices of the doctors and nurses slipping past him.

When Sakura finally has their son in her arms, Sasuke regains heightened senses, feels the warmth of his son's skin, the pulse of his heart quietly beating.

The first lights of the day are slowly making their way across the sky as Sakura cradles their son to her chest. "Satoru," she whispers to him, "written like daybreak."

"Satoru," Sasuke repeats, nodding.

Satoru stops crying at the sound of his newly christened name and stares at his parents with wide, dark eyes. Sasuke's eyes.

The boy blinks a few times before his lips curve upward in a smile. Sakura's smile.

Moments later, the smile fades and Satoru's eyes darken and close, and the doctors whisk their son from their grip, even though Sakura had been holding on to him so protectively and so close to her heart. Sakura is sobbing, and Sasuke feels time tick by without him.

—

"I'm sorry," the doctor tells them, later.

She must have said those words a million times because by now, they hold no meaning, and Sasuke and Sakura can barely comprehend what she means.

All they hear is what she does not say: he's gone.

—

Sakura is perhaps the strongest person Sasuke has ever met, but she cries for days, as if her heart has become an ocean, and nothing has ever pained him more. They sit at the floor beneath the windowsill in their bedroom, together, in silence.

Sakura's ear is centered at Sasuke's chest, where his heartbeat sounds, and Sasuke's fingers are curled at Sakura's neck, so he can faintly feel the rhythm of own her heart beneath her skin. Sakura's tears are steadily dripping onto the fabric of Sasuke's shirt, but it is reassurance that she is alive.

They have lost their sense of time once Sasuke has reclaimed some control over his voice, so they are unsure of how long they have been grasping onto each other when he finally speaks.

"I'm sorry," Sasuke says. The words are heartbreaking this time around.

Sakura pulls away, gripping his shirt. "Please, don't be," she chokes. "It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry," Sasuke repeats. It becomes a mantra until he's uttered the words more than the doctor ever will in her entire career: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

(I'm sorry I did this to you, I'm sorry I did this to him, I'm sorry I did this to us.)

She clenches her teeth, quivering, but the tears still flow.

Sasuke catches a glimpse of himself in the sea of her eyes, and he realizes that he, too, has been crying the entire time along with her.

—

Eventually, they close the door of the nursery and learn how to walk again, step by step, but they don't forget Satoru, his first daybreak, and the light in his eyes.

—

It is another two years later when Sasuke helps Sakura into the hospital bed, her belly swollen a second time. Her trembling hands slip out of his shaking ones, and Sasuke nearly misses each time he attempts to grab them again. He hovers over the bed, the chair behind him pushed aside, and Sakura smiles up at him nervously, pressing her lips together.

"I'm – okay," she whispers, between a wince, but her voice is unsteady, and Sasuke is not convinced. He meets her eyes, saying nothing, and Sakura manages another smile, reaching up and pulling him toward her. She brushes her lips against his cheekbone, and Sasuke stills.

"I'm okay, really," she says again.

Karin is there to help deliver their child and Sasuke trusts her with everything he has, but he can barely move from Sakura's side, his fingers locked with hers.

Sakura places her free hand atop her belly. "She's going to be okay, too, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke closes his eyes and tells every fiber of his being to believe her.

—

Sakura perhaps crushes every bone in Sasuke's hand, but he does not wince, not once.

—

When Sarada stops crying, Sakura passes her to Sasuke, who holds her so carefully that Sakura is warmed just by looking at them. They both keep their eyes locked on her during each second that passes, monitoring the curves of her face, the redness of her cheeks.

Sarada rubs a small, closed hand over her cheek, and smiles up at her parents.

"She has your eyes," Sakura tells Sasuke.

"And your smile," Sasuke tells Sakura.

After a beat, Sakura says, "She looks just like him."

Sasuke pulls her closer to his chest and silently agrees.

—

When they take Sarada home, Sakura opens the nursery door for the first time in years and pulls open a drawer, reaching inside for the little shinobi sandals they had bought years ago. Sasuke enters the room after her, Sarada still in his arms, and sits down at the couch in front of the crib.

Sakura takes a seat beside him and shifts Sarada's blankets so that her tiny feet can be seen. The shoes fit perfectly, and Sakura beams at her shinobi daughter.

She will be strong like her father, lionhearted like her mother—a light like her brother still is.

She looks so much like him, and Sasuke and Sakura hope that one day they can convey to her that Satoru would have loved her more than anything, had he had the chance to see her smile just once.