WARNING(S): N/A

A/N: Love me some amicably-divorced SasuSaku finding each other again years later a la a more tame/less dramatic Parent Trap situation.

"Do I look alright?"

"You look really nice, Mama," Sarada answered, looking up from her phone to smile at her mother's visage in the mirror. "I've never seen that dress before."

Sakura popped the cover back onto the tube of lipstick, set it down on the armoire, and glanced down at herself. The sparkly little number was a cherry red, something that Ino had helped her pick out forever ago. "Oh, I've had this… goodness, years at this point. I don't think I've worn this since before you were born."

"Really?" Now the teenager was standing, an impressed glimmer in her eyes as she cupped her chin in one hand and moved this way and that.

"Mhm. Auntie Ino picked it out for me." Sakura took one last glance at her reflection and a wry smile spread across her face at the memories of youthful days. Post-divorce, Ino had proudly said once, her life would only get more exciting from there. Of course, she wasn't wrong - raising a child by herself had certainly been exciting enough.

"Well, whoever you're meeting is gonna be blown away."

The woman's eyes softened, and she reached over to give her daughter a tight hug. "You're such a sweetheart."

As she pulled away and glanced at the clock, her eyes widened. "Oh shoot, I need to go! Honey, where's my purse…?"

Heaving a quick sigh to ground herself, Sakura adjusted her shawl and gripped her purse tighter in her hand,

The restaurant she was meeting him in was warm, inviting, and the hostess smiled brightly at her as she entered. "Good evening, ma'am. Do you have a reservation?"

"Yes," she responded, "um… under Uzumaki, I believe…?"

"Let's see, Uzumaki… Uzumaki…" Narrowing her eyes, the hostess typed something into the computer.

Sakura waited as patiently as she could, glancing past her into the dining hall. It was nearly full to capacity, and she added a mental note to thank HInata and her husband for arranging this.

"Ah! Yes, right this way. Your date is here already." With a wink, the hostess grabbed a menu and gestured to follow.

Sakura walked behind the pretty young woman, glancing here and there at table after table. While most were full of convivial conversation and high spirits, others were empty or only occupied by one or two. Her heart pounded in her chest each time they passed a table with one occupant. Would this be her date? Or would this?

Finally, the hostess paused at a table, and that's when Sakura's eyes widened.

Oh he did not. He fucking didn't.

Her date was as wide-eyed as she was, lips parted as if to say something.

"Alright, enjoy, you two! Your waiter will stop in shortly." Oblivious to the tension that suddenly engulfed the table, the hostess walked away, leaving Sakura to stare at the unmistakable face of her ex-husband.

"Um," she started, looking around, "you… you're the guy? That Hinata told me about?"

"I should've known Naruto was gonna try something," Sasuke groaned quietly, covering his face with one hand.

Now her heart was pounding, but for another reason altogether. It had been years since she'd last had contact with him after the divorce. Whenever he saw their daughter, it was a woman who came to pick her up, not her ex - a coworker of his, she'd claimed, but Sakura was sure he'd rebounded by now. The fact that he was supposed to be her date…

Realizing people were starting to look over, she slowly took a seat.

"Good evening, ma'am, I'll be your waiter for the evening." A young man came up to the table, all polite smiles, even as he seemed to clue in on the awkwardness hanging there. "What can I get you to start with?"

Glancing through the menu for a second, Sakura responded, "A Bellini, please."

"I'll… take a beer, Guinness," Sasuke answered hesitantly, glancing over at her before looking at the waiter.

"Alright, I'll be back when you're ready." Nodding, he turned and walked off in the direction of the bar.

Now that he was gone, it was harder to ignore the reason she was here in the first place.

"Sooooo…" Sasuke began quietly, catching her attention. "How is Sarada?"

"Fine as always." She answered curtly. "She's going to try out for the debate team next week for an extracurricular."

"Oh. Well, good for her. She'd excel in that..."

This was too damn awkward. Where were those drinks?

"Look, Sasuke… I'm… I'm sorry about the blind date." She gestured vaguely to the table. "I know we made up our minds years ago that we were a bad match, and honestly I only agreed to this because Ino said I was too boring now." Taking a sip of water, she added, "Don't you have a girlfriend now? I'm surprised."

A frown creased his brow. "I never had one. I've… been busy."

Oof. Well, way to overthink that situation. She hated the brief seedling of relief that sprouted in her gut before she squished it dead. "Ah. Yeah, I have too." Raising our daughter, she wanted to say, but at this point any hostility she might have had was gone. She at least counted herself lucky they'd split on amicable terms.

"... Are you disappointed that it's me you're meeting?" He asked hesitantly.

Sakura hummed quietly in thought. Was she? "I mean… I wasn't exactly looking for a boyfriend in the first place… but mostly it feels awkward. I don't know what they were thinking, trying to set us up again."

Naruto had been there during the divorce. She remembered not-too-fondly how upset he was that their short-lived marriage had ended so soon, but he hadn't blamed her. He never blamed either of them. (Well, Hinata had mentioned he was pretty hard on Sasuke for a while, but she chalked it up to him being upset due to him being her high school sweetheart.)

Hinata had been nothing but supportive for the last fourteen years, and for that she was immensely grateful. The first weeks and months after the divorce had left her numb and aimless, going through the motions at the hospital until Tsunade forcibly gave her a vacation to shape herself up. She had been there through every low, through every long night wondering just what went wrong, why she couldn't love him anymore, and if she had been stupid for thinking she would be an outlier to the warning that young married couples couldn't last long.

Glancing to the side, she could see their water coming. Oh, thank God.

"And here you are," he announced to them, balancing a tray in his hand. "One Bellini for the lady, and a beer for the gentleman. Now. Have you had the chance to look through the menu? Any appetizers I can start you off with?"

"Ah, appetizers…?" Sasuke and Sakura glanced at each other. Sakura shrugged, and he shook his head. "No appetizers, then."

"Alright, nice, going for a main course. What did you decide on?"

Sasuke paused, looking at her. "Do you…?"

Sakura nodded, pointing at the menu. "I'll take the salmon filet, medium, please."

"Alright, and what would you like on the side? We've got coleslaw, seasonal veggies, a baked potato, mashed potatoes, and rice pilaf."

"Seasonal veggies, please."

"Very good, very good…" The waiter turned to Sasuke. "And for you?"

"I'll have the ribeye, medium rare, with seasonal veggies."

"Sounds good! I'll have that out for you shortly." Accepting the menus back, the waiter walked away from the table.

Sakura wasted no time taking a sip of her drink. Alcohol tolerance be damned, she wanted to be at least tipsy if she was gonna get through this.

Sasuke looked up at her for a moment, before sipping his beer. As he set the glass back on the table, he commented, "I'm not upset."

"Hm?"

"About… about the date. I'm more surprised than I ought to be, considering Naruto's…" he grimaced, gesturing with a wave of his hand, "... tendencies, but in some ways I'm… kinda glad it's you."

She remained quiet. The little cherry floating in her Bellini was suddenly very interesting to look at. It bobbed freely in the liquid, even as she swirled the glass this way and that.

"I know things ended… poorer than they should have." Sasuke bowed his head a little, and his dark hair fell over his face. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen his hair that long. "And I'm sorry. I really am."

Sakura sighed quietly. "Ah, hell, you're gonna make me feel bad."

"That's not what I want to do."

"Well, if you're gonna start getting all apologetic and regretful, I'm gonna feel bad if I don't apologize too." Her cheeks flushed pink, and she looked away pensively. "Part of that was my fault. I was so sure we were gonna prove everyone wrong and stay together despite the odds, and on top of that I know you had to leave. I was bitter, but I really should've known that was gonna be a part of it."

"It's not your fault I went into the military, you know." His gaze was intense, even despite the neutral expression on his face.

"I know that." She took another measured sip.

"So then why do you feel bad about it?"

"Because I was young and dumb with something to prove." Her cherry-red lips pressed into a line as she leaned over the table, chin resting atop her knuckles. "You know what they say about military wives. You know what they say about deployment. I heard all of these crazy stories, and I refused to admit that could happen to us. I got so obsessed with being the only woman in your life that I lost my head."

Sasuke took a pause. Then a soft chortle escaped his throat. "I can't blame you for that, I suppose. There were many times I worried you would find someone else while I was away. Plenty of senior officers I met had stories about being the 'other' in their own relationships."

A weighty silence enveloped the table. Sakura tapped her nails on the table, their bold color catching the light off of her glass of alcohol. The gel shimmered, and she turned her thumb back and forth, raptured with the way the light bent and curved around the nail.

"It's surreal."

"Hm? What is?" She looked up.

"Seeing you again." His chin rested in his hand, and a faraway expression coloring his face. "You've… not changed a bit. You've aged well."

Her face pinkened, and she had to look down to avoid the undeniable warmth in the barely-there smile that threatened to curve his lips. "Y- you have too. Are you still, uh, a military man?"

"Nah, I got out about a year or so ago." He shrugged. "I'm tired of it. I wanted to get back to the real world."

"Oh." She nodded, her reaction succinctly summed up in that one word. "Well. Uh, good for you. I'm glad you're back. Does that mean you're ready to see her?"

Sasuke hummed. "Does she want to see me?"

"She… I don't know," the woman answered slowly. "She's a teenager now. Sometimes I can't get a read on what she actually wants. She says she doesn't care, but… sometimes I worry about her. She doesn't bring up the idea of having a dad, but when I told her I was going on a date tonight she seemed so happy for me."

Bobbing his head up and down, her ex murmured, "I see."

"If she does want to, I'm not going to stop her," she continued, glancing up at him before taking a sip of her drink.

There was something in his tone that made her heart clench a little. "I… I would like that."

A half-smile tugged at her mouth, and she belatedly noticed the same on his as he drank his beer.