homecoming

so tell me why my gods all look like you

and tell me why that's wrong

-king princess, 1950

It was cold.

It was fucking cold.

Sasuke frowned as he looked over the dark, snowy landscape that would be his home for the next six months. If one could even call it a landscape, really - it was an ugly conglomeration of cinder block cabins and barracks, protruding starkly from a deep layer of snow. The occasional solitary tree stood detached from the buildings, their thin branches drooping from the weight of the ice.

It was completely flat for miles, although a mountain range rose starkly in the distance; nothing to see, nothing to do, and perhaps most importantly - nowhere to run. It was a far cry from the balmy greenery of Konoha. But that was what he wanted, wasn't it? A change of scenery?

All things considered, it was a truly miserable scene. Although he didn't know what else he had expected from the Anbu base in Ice Country.

Maybe it would look better in the morning. The temperature had dropped steeply as the evening had rounded off into the night; he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them warm.

You could stay, you know, Naruto had told him when Sasuke had first been offered a position with Anbu. You know I can't, Sasuke had replied.

A man was waiting to greet him. He had a familiar face that took Sasuke a few seconds to place - Morino Ibiki, he remembered after a moment. He had aged significantly since Sasuke had last seen him - to be fair, that was ten years ago, at the chunin exams. If anyone had aged since then, it was Sasuke. The Anbu commander frowned at him.

"Uchiha. You're early," Ibiki said gruffly. "And alone. You were supposed to come in with the other rookies."

"They were going too slow," he answered shortly. "And I like to travel alone."

"That's not really how it works here," Ibiki grumbled. "We already got enough lone wolves. And we aren't ready for you yet. Everyone's out on missions. How far back is the rest of the group?"

"At least a day, if they didn't pick up the pace." Sasuke had left the rest of the new recruits behind a few hundred miles back. They were a chatty bunch and Sasuke was not conflicted about moving forward on his own. He didn't like chatty; if something had to be said then he would say it, otherwise there was no need to clutter the air.

"Well, can't be helped now," Ibiki sighed, and gestured toward the the circle of small cabins in the distance. " Those are the barracks. You can start getting settled in. You've got the pick of the rookie cabins, since nobody is here to fight you for it. First thing in the morning, head over to the medic cabin to get cleared for active duty."

Sasuke nodded curtly; Ibiki dismissed him with a wave of his hand and a mutter about the godforsaken cold and needing to get back to his office. Sasuke was glad to take his leave, and set out in the snow toward the circle of cinder block buildings.

If anything could be said about Anbu, it wasn't that they were wasteful.

He found a suitable cabin without much effort; they were all the same. A small gray affair with two small windows and a small porch with three steps leading up to the door. A key was already in the lock, waiting for him. He let himself in and took in his surroundings: a bed, a pillow, a blanket, a wood burning stove. A table with a single chair. Not much else.

Sasuke started a fire in the wood stove and found that it heated the small cabin to a livable temperature rather quickly. He unpacked the sparse belongings he had brought with him: his weapons, a single set of civilian clothing, and the picture.

He paused, running his thumb along the faces in the glossy photograph. He had debated with himself whether to bring it for a long while, ultimately stuffing it in his pack just moments before he left.

Team 7. Of course, they weren't much of a team anymore. Kakashi was now hokage, and being hokage in a village still recovering from a devastating war was sure to be busy. Naruto was frequently sent away on diplomatic missions, in preparation to take over for Kakashi someday. When he was in the village, he spent most of his time with Hinata, with whom he had cultivated an unexpectedly productive relationship. There was talk in the village of marriage. And Sakura had disappeared years ago, unseen and unheard from, at least to Sasuke. He was sure that she kept in touch with at least some of her friends, judging from the way no one was all that concerned by the way she seemingly evaporated into thin air.

No one would speak of her in his presence. Even Naruto would laugh nervously and clumsily change the subject when her name came up in casual conversation. It was like she had never existed. After the first year, he got the hint: she wanted nothing to do with him.

Sometimes he wondered about her, if she had found whatever she was looking for. She must have, if she hadn't returned to the village. He had only been out of the hospital for a week before he heard of her departure. She'd healed his arm and left before he could seek her out to thank her, to apologize again for all of his wrongs, to try to set things right.

She could've settled into his heart as easily as she had the rest of the village's, as she'd been threatening to do since they were genin, if he would have let her. He wouldn't have pushed her away forever, he was certain of it. He had never been anything but selfish, had never been all that strong a proponent of delayed gratification. And he'd craved her love and warmth as much as a man could crave anything. She would have grown comfortable in his silences and he would have begun to listen to her neverending chatter.

Maybe it was for the best that she had gone.

But still, despite the many degrees of separation between them all, Sasuke had brought the photograph with him. He'd had it since he was a young boy. As a child, he'd looked at it often, and when he'd left the village, the image had regularly entered into his mind in spite of himself. The three of them were as close to a family as he would ever get, and they had fought tooth and nail to bring him home, to pull him from the hatred that had engulfed his younger years. They had forgiven him entirely despite his crimes. The photograph was a reminder of the good in Konoha. The part of the village he wanted to protect.

Now he slid the photograph under the rather deflated-looking pillow and pulled off his clothes, wet with melted snow.

The fire crackled as he slid into bed. It was too cold for him to dream.

When he awoke, it was late morning; the one window in the cabin faced west, so no sunlight had filtered in to wake him at dawn. He'd have to get used to that - in Konoha, the first light had served as an adequate alarm.

The fire had burned itself to nothing but embers during the night, but the cabin remained livably warm. Sasuke rolled out of bed and pulled on his uniform.

He remembered Ibiki's instructions from the night before: Head to the medic to get evaluated for active duty. Sasuke didn't need to be told twice - active duty was exactly what he wanted, sooner rather than later. Immediately rather than later. He was sick of sitting around.

He left his cabin to find the medic.

As he walked, he wondered what type of woman the medic would be; she must be at least somewhat strange to have chosen to be posted out here. Kakashi had told him that there was only one woman in the entire Ice Country base. So few men became medics that Anbu recruited women for the sole purpose of staffing the foreign bases to treat their injured. It must be a strange kind of loneliness, he thought, to be the only woman in an encampment of men who hadn't seen another female in months.

Sasuke was able to easily identify the building from the large red cross on its otherwise unremarkable door. He knocked loudly, willing the medic to come quickly and not leave him waiting out in the cold.

A part of him thought that it might be her, that he might find her here in the snow, healing frostbite and hypothermia. He didn't allow himself to dwell on that thought. Impossible.

A large, gruff looking man with a thick walrus mustache opened the door, rubbing his eyes. "Who're you?"

"I'm looking for the medic. Is she in?" Sasuke asked rather brusquely.

The man chuckled, his grin making the ends of his mustache curve upward. "You must be one of the rookies. It's me you're looking for."

Sasuke scowled. "You're the medic?"

"Come on in. I'm Yuuto. And unfortunately, I'm the medic at this camp. I know, I know. Not who you were expecting."

Shaking off his surprise and disdain, Sasuke entered the building. A fire crackled cheerfully in a fireplace in the corner, casting a warm glow around the cot-filled room.

"You can sit on that cot right there and take off your cloak. Ibiki send you for your clearance physical?" Yuuto asked, snapping on a pair of gloves.

"Yes." Sasuke sat on the nearest cot. Yuuto pulled a stool in front of him and sat his rather large body on it.

"Liking Snow Country so far?" Yuuto asked conversationally as he shone a bright light into Sasuke's eyes.

He shrugged. "I'm not here to enjoy myself."

"No, I guess you're not. Take a deep breath for me - good, now exhale. Lungs alright. Heart sounds good. Doing the usual rookie rotation?'

"Six months." The cold stethoscope on Sasuke's back made him wince.

"They tell you that, but it'll be closer to nine. They're pretty short staffed out here. Only got a couple of regulars. Even Ibiki's only out here because he drew the short end of the stick."

"Why do people stay?" Sasuke asked, curious. After rookie rotation, an agent could request which base to be sent to. He couldn't imagine any agents asking to remain here - but if there were regulars, then there had to be some redeeming quality of this wasteland.

"Nothing and nobody waiting for them back in Konoha, usually. The agents who stay usually do it as a sort of self-imposed penance for whatever they've done in their past."

"Hn," Sasuke murmured. He knew the feeling that Yuuto was talking about.

"Not me, though. Been an agent for almost eight years, only came out here because they're offering good money. You see some bad injuries out here. But once my year's up, I'm out of here. No way, no how am I staying in this shithole."

Sasuke didn't reply to this. Yuuto continued his inspection, his eyes pausing on Sasuke's new arm.

"This isn't the arm you were born with, eh?"

"No. I lost it in the war," Sasuke said, smiling wryly. It was the truth, if only part of it.

"Whoever put it back did a hell of a job. Usually impossible to do. Do you remember the medic who did it?"

The smile faded from Sasuke's face. "A girl I used to know."

Yuuto nudged Sasuke, a knowing look in his eyes. "We all got one of those, eh? Well, she's a damn good medic, looks like, if she can regrow an arm from scratch. Maybe we'll get her out here one of these days."

"She disappeared years ago," Sasuke said flatly. He did not wish to spend any more time that day dwelling on Haruno Sakura. She took up far too much real estate in his mind as it was.

"Too bad. The boys out here would love to have a female medic," Yuuto sighed. "But women disappear as easily as anything. Haven't seen a woman in months."

"I was told there was a woman at this base," Sasuke said, noticing the faraway look in Yuuto's eyes.

"Oh, there is." Yuuto grinned. "Been out here for years. I heard she started out as a medic and Ibiki nixed that. Had her on combat quicker than he could throw a kunai. Now she's one of the best we've got, S-rank exclusively. But you might not ever see her."

"What's her name?" Sasuke asked curiously. He didn't know Anbu currently had any women in combat roles.

But Yuuto shrugged. "It's none of my business. The girl is never around long enough to share that much information. She's been on a mission for a few months now, but we got ten or so guys coming back tonight. I think she's one of them. No doubt she'll be back on the road tomorrow, if she is."

"Hn," Sasuke intoned. In spite of himself, he was curious about her. He wondered if he could procure a similar deal - solo work, gone for months at a time.

"You've got a bit of a fever. Do you feel sick?"

"It's normal," Sasuke assured Yuuto. His temperature had always been a few degrees higher than what it should be. His mother had proudly called it his will of fire when he was little, the sign of a true Uchiha.

"Well, if you say so," Yuuto shrugged. "Everything looks good. I'll bring your official clearance to Ibiki this afternoon. You're good to go. I'll see you at the rookie tattooing ceremony tonight."

"Ceremony?"

Yuuto laughed at the panic in Sasuke's voice. "Not one for a party, eh?"

"Not really," Sasuke grumbled.

"Well, it's mandatory, so that's too bad. They gotta get that tattoo on your arm some time, and you'll also get assigned to a mentor."

"Mentor?"

"Yeah, an older, more experienced operative. It's tradition! You rookies need someone to show you the ropes. And someone to do your evaluations, since Ibiki's too busy to do it these days."

Sasuke bit back a sigh. He did not like compulsory, he did not like jumping through hoops, and he certainly didn't like mentors. But he supposed that if obedience was the quickest way towards taking missions, then obedience was his new middle name. "Who's my mentor, then? Can't I just go meet him now?"

"Dunno," Yuuto shrugged. "Only Ibiki knows. He picks them randomly and then the both of you will find out tonight. He likes a bit of pomp, that old man. A little mystique."

Sasuke hated both of those things.

Yuuto handed him a soft stack of folded black cloth. "This is your new uniform. You won't be needing the Konoha threads you're wearing, so you can toss them if you'd like."

Sasuke took the bundle of clothes wordlessly and stood, preparing to face the biting cold once again.

"I'll bring your clearance to Ibiki this afternoon," Yuuto called after Sasuke as he left.

The rest of the day passed without much excitement. Sasuke changed into his new uniform, feeling remiss without the Uchiha fan on his back, before going to the mess hall for breakfast. Sometime after lunch, the rest of the recruits made it to the encampment, and from their glares, Sasuke could tell they harbored some resentment over his abandonment of their little group. He simply rolled his eyes; he had not joined Anbu to make friends, and there was no reason to travel at as slow a pace as they had been, unless the reason was incompetence.

He learned that the snow rarely stopped, if ever. He was told by two separate operatives that he was lucky. If he'd arrived a week earlier, he would have found himself in the midst of a icy flurry. A week later and he would have been smack in the beginning of blizzard season.

An hour before dinner, operatives who had been away on missions began to roll in. A few came in with teams, but most of them were alone. They were all dirty and tired-looking as they headed straight for Yuuto's cabin. But they seemed to be in good spirits by the time they reached the dining hall.

"Is the lady back yet?" Sasuke heard one tall, light-haired operative ask his companion, a tinge of hopefulness in his voice.

"Naw. Ibiki said she'll be back for the ceremony, though. She's got a rookie this time around."

"Bad luck. Bet that has her in a mood."

"She's not as superstitious as you, Hiroto. Besides, look at Shota. He got a rookie last time around, and he's still alive."

"Shota also lost his right hand a week later on a mission with Aoi," grumbled Hiroto. "I'm just saying, if I got drawn to get a rookie, I'd fucking quit. I'd be back in Konoha before Ibiki could throw a kunai at me."

"What's so bad about being a mentor?" asked the man sitting next to the operatives. Sasuke recognized him as one of the rookies who had come in today.

"Nothing," grumbled one of the older shinobi, but Hiroto shushed him.

"Rookies always get their mentors killed." Hiroto said imperiously. "Although most operatives only make it a couple of years anyway."

"That's not true," said his friend grumpily. "Stop scaring them."

It looked a little late for that, though. The rookie had turned white as a sheet. Sasuke smirked. What had he thought he was in for, a bunch of D-rank missions? Finding old ladies' cats? It was common knowledge that over half of all Anbu operatives died within their first two years. There was a reason that Anbu recruited largely young men with no family left. Of course, that was not the case for every operative; many came because of the thrill, or because it was a way to travel, to get out of their villages, to earn respect. But the best operatives were the ones who had no one waiting for them to come home.

"She'll be fine, though. So you don't need to worry about anything until the next batch of rookies," Hiroto said encouragingly.

"Who is she?" asked another rookie excitedly. "I heard there was a girl here. I thought that she was gonna be the medic, but instead it was some fat guy with a mustache."

"Go easy on Yuuto," warned the older operative. "He'll save your life someday. The girl is one of the hokage's shinobi. She takes missions directly from him, no one else. She's not around much, because as soon as she finishes one mission the Hokage sends her another one. But she's been out here for years."

"How long have you been here?"

"Eight months. They said I could go home after six, but then they took it back, bunch of assholes."

Sasuke turned away from the men, no longer interested in their conversation. He finished the rest of his meal in silence, tuning out the chatter around him. He did not try to make friends: what good would they do him? He planned on only taking solo missions.

The evening passed this way, with idle chatter between operatives and recruits, punctuated by the occasional return of agents. They would stumble into the base, weary and forlorn, for Yuuto to intercept them and Ibiki to instruct them to wash up and report to the firepit by nightfall for the tattooing of the rookies.

Sasuke found that Anbu was a tight-knit operation, heavily steeped in tradition but also in loneliness. Yuuto was right; everyone was looking for a reason to celebrate.

Dusk fell early in Ice Country; the sun set and the temperature dropped swiftly, leaving the operatives to rush to their cabins to pile on layers before the ceremony took place.

Agents slowly began to filter into the clearing that held the fire pit in the center of the base. Sasuke followed them out, finding that the flurry of snow had only increased. The warmth from the large fire was hardly enough to stave off the cold. He looked around the gathering curiously; there were no women in sight, but many new faces. He wondered which one would be the unlucky soul assigned to babysit him.

..

..

..

Sakura arrived back at the Ice Country base with water squelching in her boots and ice forming on her eyelashes. It was late evening and the sun was down, but there were still a few minutes left before it would be completely dark.

It was almost beautiful, the soft, dusky blue light on the silent white snow. It glittered sweetly around the smattering of cabins, and the warm glow coming from the mess hall lent itself to an ethereal, almost cozy atmosphere.

Almost.

She knew that everyone would have been filtering back into the base today; Ibiki had put out the call for all operatives that could return to do so, and do so quickly, in order to attend the rookie tattooing ceremony.

The Anbu tattoo on Sakura's own shoulder tingled uncomfortably under the layers of clothing as she remembered her own tattooing ceremony and her own mentor. She shivered.

She had arrived at this cold hour because she knew everyone would be in the mess hall having dinner, therefore there would be no welcoming committee camped out to herald her return.

No, this way she could go straight to Ibiki. Keep the old man unaware, ambush him in his office, look him in the eye and lay it on thick. That was the best way to get him to acquiesce, Sakura had found over the years. A little feminine charm went a long way out here in the ice.

"Looking for me?" a voice growled from behind her.

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin and turned to see Ibiki ankle-deep in the snow, arms crossed over his chest.

"Thought you could sneak up on me because I'm getting old, eh?" Ibiki asked, eyes narrowed.

"Um," Sakura said, biting her lip and thinking it unwise to lie.

Ibiki waved a dismissive hand in the air. "You never change, do you?"

Sakura smiled, sensing she wasn't in any real trouble. "You tell me."

"You got Kakashi's scroll, I take it. Unless you're here just to visit me."

"I got his scroll," Sakura confirmed, the smile sliding off of her face. "Look, I really don't think this is a good ide—"

Ibiki raised a hand to stop her. "I don't want to hear it, Haruno. You've been Anbu for long enough now that you know how it works, and you can't shirk your duties to the brotherhood forever."

"I haven't been shirking my duties," Sakura snapped, stung. "I've been turning out missions just like the rest of you. Including the six you saddled me with the last time I saw you, so you're welcome, by the way."

"No need to get snippy," Ibiki said placatingly. "A lot of men are here tonight because they didn't die on those missions that you took."

"So let me keep working," Sakura pleaded. "Don't make me do this. I don't want to be a mentor. I don't want a rookie, I just want to work."

"It's too late now. Besides, we're short staffed, and we can't release a troop of green-bellied loose cannons on the world without having someone show them the ropes. There's a way we do things around here, and you know the code, so bring up a new recruit. Show 'em what you wish you'd known."

Sakura grumbled something under her breath about the things she'd wished she'd known. Ibiki decided he didn't really care to hear what she'd said - he could guess.

"So get to your cabin, get cleaned up, and figure out what you're gonna say to your rookie, because I'm going to go get the ceremony started. We'll be at the fire pit. Try not to be too late," Ibiki warned. "I don't want to have to come looking for you again."

He began to walk away, but Sakura reached out and grabbed his sleeve to stop him.

"Something is coming, Ibiki," she said quietly. "Something is coming and it's getting closer every day. Don't take me out of the field now."

Ibiki paused and studied her for a moment before sighing. "I know, kid. And I know that's what you've been dealing with out there. Think of it this way: don't let our new recruits go in blind."

Then he turned around and stalked away, leaving her standing in the snow alone once again. She squinted after him, hoping he could feel the holes she was trying to burn in his back. He didn't turn around.

That didn't go well, she thought to herself as she stomped away to her cabin. She wasn't sure that she had expected anything else; she had known that she couldn't keep using Anbu resources and claiming Anbu immunity without having to participate in Anbu customs.

As she changed into fresh tactical gear, she felt a twinge of pity for whoever her rookie was, sitting out there around the fire waiting for her. They probably didn't think they needed a mentor – they thought they were already the best of the best, the hand-picked jonin elite who had been selected by the hokage himself.

She didn't know what she was going to teach them when she herself was so lost in this world. She didn't know how she was going to guide them through the violence and field of bodies that this job turned up, didn't know how she was going to explain who she was and where she came from and why she couldn't go back there. Why she couldn't sleep at night with the heavens looking down on her for all she'd done.

She sat at the tiny table with a pen and scribbled a few words on a napkin. When she finished, she read them back to herself.

They weren't beautiful, lacking elegance and polish, but they were true, and true was the best she could give. She didn't want her rookie to expect anything she couldn't give them.

She glanced out of the window; it was completely dark by now. Ibiki was going to have a cow. The ceremony must have long since started while she was dallying over pretty words. She lit a fire in the tiny cabin before venturing back out into the dark – she might as well have something warm to return to after this nonsense was over. She hurried across the snow towards the warm light emanating from the blaze, tucking the short speech she had written into her pocket.

Let's get this over with.

a/n: sometimes i don't post updates because I get really anxious about response, even though you guys are incredible and kind readers. You know how it is. Thanks a ton for reading.