Naruto 1. one

**note:** I know I said 'never again'. _I know_.

* * *

Her father looks ashamed, but she knows her mother suffers the worst—even under that iron mask.

Uchiha Fugaku narrows his eyes, looks her over like he can measure her worth in those three seconds alone. Sakura swallows but refuses to look away.

"We will finalize the papers tonight."

Sakura's father breathes a sigh of relief, there's the shuffling of clothing and paper and the dull thud of the heavy oak chairs sliding back across the carpeted floor. The two men in the room stand, shake each other's hands. Sakura sits just long enough to catch her mother's eye—dark green, green like moss, not the green of Sakura's own—and wonders what she is apologizing for.

**—**

**—**

**1**

**—**

**—**

She'd been thirteen then, used and bargained away to keep her family's pride intact. _I'm a cliché_, she remembers thinking after walking out of Uchiha Fugaku's office on the forty first floor. She knew of her future husband—quiet and serious but good, _capable_. Sakura had wondered if their marriage would be cold too, and how many more years she had left before she became Uchiha, before she became theirs.

The Monday afterwards she found Sasuke after fourth period biology and said, very casually, "So I'm engaged to your brother."

His expression had almost made it worth it.

**—**

**—**

But _the best laid plans _and _Murphy 's Law_, they still apply even if you're Uchiha, and in the end Itachi's gone, Mikoto's dead, and Fugaku passes her down the line to his second son.

It's Sakura's wedding day and the first time she's seeing Sasuke in a year—the first time she'll say anything meaningful to him in two. She'd been picked up by an escort of Uchiha at eight in the morning, a hand-off from her mother like a package. _Make me proud_, she'd whispered, and Sakura wishes her mother hadn't, because she's already halfway terrified and that doesn't help at all.

She looks at herself in the mirror, the bride with the beautiful dress, the glowing skin and the perfect hair, and sees her reflection as everything people will come to expect from her in the future. The weight of the trailing veil bows her head, and one of the women helping her clucks, tips her chin up and warns her to not falter again.

"You are Uchiha now, and Uchiha never look down."

Sakura wants to laugh, because looking down on others is something that the Uchiha have always done. She thinks about how nineteen years ago all she'd ever wanted to do was marry Uchiha Sasuke, how she'd been convinced that it was the greatest love in the world. Seven years old then, and it'd taken her nearly a decade to realize that reaching him was something that she would probably never be able to do.

Sakura doesn't want to marry Sasuke, not like this; but if this is the best ending that they'll get—she'll make do. She has to, because it's never been her choice to make.

**—**

**—**

She's walking down the aisle, rose petals crushing beneath her feet, and Sasuke is a dark blur on the other side. The lights, the crowd, the organ music in the background—none of it feels real to her; it's an out-of-body experience, and Sakura can't shake the numbness in her hands or the buzzing in her head. Years and years of building herself up, of college and medical school and residency, of making friends and making a name for herself, all of it to culminate to this.

The organ grinds to a halt, and Sakura looks up as a pair of hands lifts her veil. The minute their eyes meet, the second she sees herself reflected back in the black, she's not the bride anymore; just herself, Haruno Sakura staring back scared and alone, stripped of everything but her insecurities.

Sasuke's always been good at that.

It makes her wonder why he'd chosen her at all.

**—**

**—**

They're quiet on the way to the airport. Sasuke doesn't touch her, but he does sit next to her even though there's plenty of room in the limo.

"I—Naruto's been doing well."

He considers her for a moment before replying, "And you?"

Sakura blinks, opens her mouth and closes it again. And her?

_She's been great, had actually been part of a fascinating case study on the effects of utilizing hormones and specific enzymes to regulate genetic abnormalities before being pulled from the project to marry someone she hasn't seen in a year. How about you, Sasuke-kun?_

She thinks she could've said that to him two years ago, with a raised eyebrow and snark coloring her voice. She thinks she could've teased him. She might still have been able to if she'd never crossed that line.

But she had, and now here they are; _so_.

**—**

**—**

Sakura had been with him when he heard the news. They were in his room and working on their respective projects, the comfortable quiet punctuated every now and then by her asking a question and his answering.

There'd been quiet knock and Fugaku on the other side of the door. Sasuke had gotten up, and in the space of the minute, minute and a half that it took for his father to say whatever he had to say, Sakura watched as Sasuke changed: the telltale rigidity of his spine, the slow rise of his head and the way he'd looked at his father's retreating back, the blankness to his eyes when he turned around again.

Sakura hadn't known what was wrong, but she'd known exactly what to do: take his hand—cool and rough and so much bigger than hers— without a word, and sit.

**—**

**—**

They've been friends for a long time, and she has loved him, Sakura thinks, for even longer. Different kinds of love, with varying strengths, but love nonetheless. From loving him as an idea, as her prince, as something that Ino couldn't have to loving him as a person, a friend, and then the wild wanting as she grew older, the kind of thing she tried to attribute to growing up and out and his own dark, good looks. It all settled into a sort of love that she would rather ignore: a quiet thing that meant she would always be aware of him and where he was, his voice and the way he took up space in a room.

Even when she had been engaged to his brother.

Even when so much of their friendship had hinged on the fact that Sakura would never, ever be one of _those girls_.

**—**

**—**

They have their own private jet.

Well, of _course_ they would have their own private jet. It's the Uchiha—nothing but the best for the governor's son and his new wife.

Sasuke and Sakura sit across from each other, still in their clothes from the reception. The top two buttons of his tux are undone, and the bowtie hangs loose at his throat. She looks at the pale skin, the shadow in the hollow of his throat, and imagines dipping her fingers there, leaving a kiss, leading the line down south.

"If you're not sure, we can still annul the marriage."

It takes a second for Sakura's scattered thoughts to catch up to his words, "But my family—"

"It's fine. Your father has reformed; I'll make sure his secrets stay his own."

She doesn't know what to say to that, except why tell her now if not to air his own regrets?

(But she loves him, and love is sometimes selfish.)

Sakura makes sure she's looking at him, right into his eyes as she says, "I'm sure."

Even though she isn't, she isn't sure at all because this is the worst way possible to marry the man you love, and she's not sure she can live up to Uchiha expectations, she's not even sure if she wants to. She's already taking an extended leave from her residency for this, for him, for the Uchiha and their skewed sense of opportunity and for her hapless mother and father, and she sort of knows that this is all wrong, that one of the hallmarks of an unhappy marriage is an unequal one.

But.

Even if she actually believed him, that he could override his father and set her own family free, she would stay with him. Because he'd been given a choice, and he'd chosen her, and Sasuke doesn't make choices that he doesn't believe in.

**—**

**—**

They stay at a big house by the French coast, high enough on rocky bluffs that impracticality would have made living there impossible if it weren't for the helipad on the roof. Her room—their room—has a big bay window overlooking the water, and Sakura is kneeling on the window seat like a kid, bare knees pressed to the expensive silk upholstery, trying to make out the bottom of the cliffs and the crashing waves.

Sasuke makes a half amused noise behind her, and it's almost as if they're teenagers again, him shaking his head at something she's done or said.

"Sasuke, aren't you ever afraid that the house is going to tip over the edge? Sasuke-k—?"

She doesn't have to hear his footsteps to know that he's moved closer, that he's so near now that just a careful inch or two separates their bodies. Sakura quiets, freezes, stops breathing. She hears his exhale and then, one word: "No."

Sakura doesn't know if she moves back or if he's the one who closes the distance, there's only that indefinable something that's filled her chest ever since she was young expanding, expanding until it feels like it's going to break her ribs, split her skin and seep through her pores—she doesn't even know what to call it, love or another name more primal, but she just knows that it's what propelled her all those years ago and what's propelling her now to push closer, to bite back a low sigh as her hands grip his shoulders through the layers of fabric and he slides down, down, pressing her back against the cool glass.

She thinks she might be repeating his name, like a mantra, like a prayer, but she's not sure, she couldn't separate the sensations if she tried. There's Sasuke's mouth finally slanting over hers, and their hips pressing together, the pressure there, the wetness of their kisses, the taste of his skin under her tongue, and then they're stumbling to the bed, and his weight over her, the quick way he gets rid of their clothing, and the feel of him, all of him skin to skin—

Sudden and quick and nearly violent, without warning—that's how they come together, and that's so like them, so like this marriage even though they've both known for years, and he's the one that said _yes_ when Fugaku asked him, three years after Mikoto's funeral and a week after Itachi's gone, if he wanted to honor the deal with her parents, if he would take her as his wife; and Sakura still has no idea why, because he's never shown the slightest inclination of looking at her the way he does now, and if his eyes had ever lingered she's never known.

And now she's Uchiha. Now they are husband and wife.

**—**

**—**

Sakura wakes up before first light.

She leaves the warmth of the their bed, untangles herself from Sasuke's long limbs and wraps a thin robe around her body, nearly stumbles in the dark on her way to the same window where they'd kissed. The stars are unbelievably bright here, away from the lights of the city, and Sakura watches them, opens the window a crack until she can hear the lull of the waves below. A cold wind blows in, chases shivers down her skin, but a look over her shoulder and she sees Sasuke, still sound asleep.

She remembers him as a light sleeper, as someone who would wake at the slightest shift, and wonders what's changed, if marrying her had tired him so that he would sleep like the dead.

Will this be their marriage? Something heavy and draining that will exhaust him—exhaust the both of them? She hopes not—hopes that the fact of her love will be enough for them both.

**—**

**—**

Sitting here, cross-legged and looking at the stars, Sakura feels so, so young; twenty six and still too young for marriage, too young for any sort of lifelong commitment.

But he's Sasuke, she's Sakura, and she has belonged to him since they were seven years old, and at least in the eyes of the public, in the eyes of whatever god he may or may not believe in, he belongs to her now, too.

So.

They are married, she will try to be the perfect wife, and they will make do.

_tbc_

* * *

**note:** But they're just so damn easy to write for!—or so my thinking went. Nope, in reality my Sasuke/Sakura skills are so very, very rusty. Um, will be a three-shot (probably), and things will get less confusing as we go? Hopefully? As always, thank you so much for reading, and any and all concrit, thoughts, or suggestions offered would be great.


	2. one point five

**1.5**

Sakura loves mornings the best, when the sun's still low and the light is just beginning to peek through the heavy drapes in their room. She gets to study Sasuke then, without reservation or the distraction of his hands, his mouth, his eyes.

He always manages to wake up a few minutes after she first moves, no matter how early it is or how late they stay up the night before. But there's a moment—just a moment—where he's asleep and she can press a quiet kiss to his forehead or the jut of his cheekbone, and imagine that this is what their life will always be like: the dawn, the sound of the waves, the brief brush of her lips against his skin. Even amid their clashes of teeth and tongue and his hips rocking down against her own, these are the things that she will take with her. These are the things she will remember.

**—**

**—**

"What are you reading?"

"O—Sasuke-kun! I thought you were out on your walk?"

"I came back early. What are you reading?"

"Welcome back. This? It's called _The Little Prince_."

"I've never heard of it."

"It's about…it's about a lot of things. Loneliness. Love. Ino bought me a copy last summer, and it's my favorite book now. I wish I could read it in French though; you always lose something in translations. You know, it's strange that it's categorized as a children's book, but it's still so _sad_ and you don't really appreciate everything the author's trying to say until you're an adult—ah, sorry, I'm rambling again."

"…no. Tell me more."

"Really? Oh, ok. Well, sit down then and have some tea with me."

"Aa."

**—**

**—**

Other times:

She stumbles in the loose sand, and his arm is around her waist in an instant. He steadies her, and even when she regains her balance the heat of his hand doesn't leave her hip.

And:

On a particularly clear night, she drags him up to the roof for stargazing. They're lying on an old blanket she'd found in one of the closets, and she's halfway through explaining all the constellations to him when he quietly takes the hand she has been using to point out the different stars and moves it a little to the left.

"That's the third star in Orion's belt, the one you were pointing to doesn't belong to a constellation."

Sakura blushes, because of course Sasuke's right and the whole time she thought she was showing him something new, he'd known everything all along. She falls silent then, unsure of how to proceed.

"Keep going."

She can hear him even over the break of the water below, and smiling, Sakura begins again.

And another:

It's market day at the local village and they're in the thick of it. Sakura loves the bright colors, the clamor of vendors haggling with potential customers and the smell of good food in the air. She loses Sasuke for a second in between one crush of people and the next, but before she can begin to worry there's a tug on her wrist and he's beside her again.

He keeps his hold on her hand loose, but he never once lets go.

**—**

**—**

They leave the house on the cliff after two weeks, even though Sakura wishes they could stay there forever. She doesn't know what to expect when they're in Japan again, especially with Fugaku around. Sometimes, she's still not sure if he's just going through the motions. Maybe even as a sort of apology for what their marriage will become once the honeymoon is over.

But there are marks from him on her thighs, the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and she owns the scratches on his back; that's proof that will last beyond the plane ride back. She has a conch shell too, that he'd found for her on the beach. Sakura doesn't know how he'd done it, the only shells she'd found in the sand were broken, their edges too sharp to handle. The shell isn't perfect, and there are chips along the edges of the whorls, but she keeps it anyways, because he's the one who had given it to her.

And later, when she takes it out from time to time, she'll press it to her ear to hear the ocean and remember the warmth of his fingers as he handed it to her.

It will be a reminder.

**—**

**—**

She takes his hand in the middle of the car ride home because she wants to see if he'll let her. He does, but just as the limo reaches the driveway, pulls away.

That, Sakura thinks, tells her all she needs to know.


	3. two

It's like there's a veil, and he'd drawn it up for her in France. Now, he's back to half-sentences and agitated stares. She wants to shake him and yell at him and ask him _what's wrong_, what has she done to warrant these silences?

But there's Fugaku's watchful eye (_he's staying with us, Sakura. He's my father. It's business. And none of yours, she thinks he must have added in his mind_) and she can't, it would be too _unbecoming_ of her.

He's never unkind, never hurtful beyond what she's come to expect of him, but he's not _there_ anymore. They could be eating breakfast at the same table and she might as well be all alone.

"Sasuke-kun. Sasuke—"

Not alone, because there Fugaku is, and he looks at her like she is doing something wrong.

_Why can't I talk to my husband, _she thinks balefully, _isn't that my _right_?_

Sakura spends enough of her days alone wandering the Uchiha estate that she starts to feel like a ghost—like one of those women in stories where loss touches them young, taking husbands, sons, daughters away and leaving behind grief. Except her husband is here, _right here_, and there's nothing tragic about her situation. Sakura doesn't wear tragedy well; she just feels pathetic.

She briefly thinks about returning to the hospital again; she misses being a doctor—being able to make a difference, the steel of the operating room and her fingers wrapped steady around a scalpel and saving lives. But she never mentions it to Sasuke, not even when they're alone.

Sakura knows the long hours that someone in her profession keeps, and doubts that they'd be suitable for someone married to Sasuke. Rumors would start about the Uchiha wife who stayed out late into the night, coming home rumpled and exhausted. _Sure_, they would say, _she says she's a doctor, that she's just doing her job, but who knows? She's already filthy rich, what does she need to work for? She's a liar and a whore, that one, a liar and a_…

And that, Sakura thinks, would be unbecoming indeed.

Besides, Sasuke's going to start taking her to society functions and work functions and charity functions and why-the-hell-not functions soon, and if she'd kept to her old schedule it would never work.

She has to prioritize.

**—**

**—**

**2**

**—**

**—**

The dress she wears is too thin in the cold of the ballroom, and Sakura shivers despite the sheer wrap around her shoulders. Sasuke stands next to her, talking to one important person or another, she can't remember. These things—the dresses, the dinners, the balls and the quiet way she has to always trail behind her husband—has started to all blur together. Sakura's starting to feel indistinct too, and it scares her; she's fought all her life for recognition, to stand out and be more than just an accessory to her brilliant best friends, and for it all to fall through now?

She wonders how much you're supposed to give up for love.

"You have a beautiful wife, Uchiha-san."

The words finally break through to her, a second before a large, beefy arm is settling itself around her shoulders. Sakura freezes, not sure what to do, caught between flipping the stranger onto his back and enduring it, statue-still.

A few months ago and there would've been no question as to what route she would've taken. A few months ago she would have broken this man's nose with no hesitation. A few months ago, she would've bristled that she had a name, and it wasn't _wife_.

Now, she stands and she's still and she wonders if this—this manhandling—will be part and parcel of being married into the Uchiha too; if she is expected to take being treated as little more than decoration without a single complaint.

"Take your hands off of Sakura."

Sasuke's voice is cooler than usual, and harsh. The man splutters, and his arm slips down her side with a small thump; the feel of it leaves her disgusted. More than that though, her name rings in her ears; he'd called her Sakura, and what used to be cursory and routine now holds a special sort of power over her. She's so used to being called _Lady Uchiha _or _Mrs. Uchiha _or _Uchiha Sasuke's wife_ that she can't remember the last time anyone's used her name.

Her name buoys her through the rest of the long night, and Sakura can't help but feel like she's grasping at straws.

**—**

**—**

"Oh, sorry Sasuke-kun, I didn't know you were in here."

He looks up at her from his place on the library sofa, books and papers scattered around him, reading glasses perched on his nose. Sakura hovers in the doorway, and just as she decides that she'll take her reading to her room, Sasuke shakes his head and nods at the space next to him.

She sits next to him gingerly, and is a good few pages into her book when she finally notices that he's still staring at her.

"Am I bothering you? I really can just go read in my room—"

"It's fine. Just stay."

Sakura wants to believe him, and she tries to go back to her reading, but when she peeks at him from under her eyelashes he is still looking at her. The stare unsteadies her, makes it impossible for her to concentrate on the words on the page, and even then she had always hated when people hovered as she read.

"Are you sure I'm not annoying you? Really, I know you have a lot of work Sasuke-kun, it's fine."

She's halfway off the sofa when he interrupts her with a _sit_, and she can't ignore the irritated tone of his voice. Sakura bites her lip, not knowing if she should stay or leave. "If I was bothering you, you can just tell me…I'm your wife, I'm supposed to be making this easy for you."

Sasuke exhales through his nose, the noise harsh and angry. The library is filled with midday quiet and the force of his contempt.

"It's not your job to make it easier for me Sakura."

She nods and sits back down, but her spine is stiff and she feels like she's just failed a test. She can't concentrate on the book, much less actually enjoy what she's reading, and after about five minutes of tense silence, Sasuke is the one to finally stand and leave.

"Next time, just speak up."

**—**

**—**

She was in her second year of med school at Columbia when Itachi disappeared, and she didn't hear about it until a week after the fact. It was her fall break and her first time in Japan since the summer, and Sasuke and Naruto had greeted her at the airport like always. She'd sensed the difference the moment she spotted them across the baggage claim; Naruto's face with a pinched smile on it, and Sasuke looking so tense that she was afraid he would snap.

"Your fiancé ran."

Later, she would think about the way he'd said _fiancé _instead of _my brother_, but in that moment Sakura had mostly been trying to sort out the relief she'd felt at the possibility of being free, of cutting herself loose from the expectation of a future filled with being Lady Uchiha, and worry for Sasuke. She'd felt awful with herself afterwards, because with Itachi gone all the responsibilities of being heir fell on the second-born—Sasuke, who'd quietly idolized his perfect older brother even though he never said as much. Sasuke, who Itachi betrayed in the worst possible way.

He was different after Itachi left: quieter, less prone to smiles and smirks, more serious than she'd ever thought possible. Sometimes, Sakura thought that maybe Sasuke would've been happier if his older brother had taken him too, if he'd at least bothered to leave a note and a half-assed excuse. Because then it would've meant that Itachi had at least cared enough to try.

That would've made all the difference in the world, Sakura knew as she ignored the urge to go to him during those first few weeks. She wouldn't have been able to say anything of real use anyways, at least nothing that would've made it any better for Sasuke. In fact, it would've been worse, because of who Itachi had been to her, and the things she'd said the last time they'd talked.

And because Fugaku wasn't the sort of man who let go, because he's never let her father forget what he's done for her family, she had wondered where that left her.

**—**

**—**

"What are you reading?"

His voice startles her enough that she nearly drops her book, and she looks up sheepishly to find Sasuke leaning against the doorway. He has his papers with him again, and she wonders if he's heading to the library or if he wants to use the study. "Nothing that would really interest you, Sasuke-kun. Do you need to use the…?"

Sakura pauses when she notices the tic in his jaw, that little jump that's always told her when he was annoyed. Swallowing reflexively, she tries to tell him again that it's fine, she could go to the living room or the bedroom if he needs the study, but he's gone again before she can get the words out.

**—**

**—**

Her husband's just asked her if she would like to go to the Autumn Hachiman Matsuri with him a minute ago, and Sakura's still looking at him like an idiot.

Sasuke has to raise an eyebrow bemusedly at her before Sakura finally snaps out of it, "Well, of course Sasuke-kun! Is it for work again?"

"No, but I can take some time off," he says over his pancakes, like it's no big deal that Uchiha Sasuke is talking about a vacation, let alone one right before an election year.

"But you can't—it's ok. We can go to the festival some other year; you can't take time off—not now." _And besides_, she adds ruefully in her head, _you don't even like festivals._

He looks up briefly and agrees _some other year_, but his voice is considerably cooler than before. Sakura clenches her fingers around her mug of tea and tries to figure out what she has done wrong.

**—**

**—**

His fingers are slip-sliding over her hips, and she nearly manages to huff a laugh before his lips are slanting over hers again for another open-mouth kiss; she feels like she's suffocating in the late August heat, or maybe that's just the effect he has on her. Her fingers flex around his sweat slicked shoulders and she pulls herself closer to him, breaks away from the kiss to press her mouth against the base of his throat. He makes a noise, hums, and she can feel the vibrations move through her. She answers in kind, pants his name in one strangled cry as he murmurs his approval. He moves under her, over her, and then his body is pressing against hers in a wall of heat and hardness and she feels like she's on fire, that maybe she _is_ on fire, that she's burning up in the feel of him and the friction they create. He pushes against her again and again and _there_—he's repeating her name low under his breath, and the intensity in those three syllables leaves her aching, even past the sensation of his hands mapping and memorizing her body as hers slide over his own.

And then there's an instance in the aftermath where she's nearly brimming with what she feels for him, when he's too tired to move away from her and they lay flushed together, his head pillowed on her chest, his breath raising goose bumps along her skin despite the heat. The feeling's nearly painful, but it's not bad at all. She wishes they could stay like this, make these few minutes into an eternity and live in them forever, because she's forgotten how to reach him in the same way during the day, outside of moments involving lips and teeth and tongue.

**—**

**—**

_You're not good enough for either of my sons_, Fugaku had told her once.

_I want her_, Sasuke had said.

**—**

**—**

It's like a switch flips again, and he's cold and distant—brusque. He barely talks to her and never looks at her, and even when his hand is at her elbow or the small of her back to guide her—to _corral_ her from place to place during fundraisers or some other obligatory event, his touch is light, negligible. Except at night, when he pretends that nothing's changed, that he isn't treating her like something dispensable, like something that he wants gone but can't be bothered to throw away himself, and that she isn't looking at him all the time, trying to hold his eyes with her own and a thin, wobbling smile.

Sakura feels like Sasuke's waiting for her to crack, to get angry and yell and maybe even throw things like she might have once, except no, she won't give his father this, she won't let her family down—she can't. And most of all there is her husband; there is Sasuke and there is Sakura's need to be good for him, because he'd chosen her even though he'd _known_, even though she had been second—

**—**

**—**

She thinks about love, and how to be the person he wanted her to be. She wonders if it makes a difference that she was supposed to be Itachi's first, and she wants to tell Sasuke over and over again that no, it's always been him.

**—**

**—**

_I love you, I can't—I can't marry your brother, Sasuke. It's too—_

_Think about your mother and father._

_But—_

_They're your family._

**—**

**—**

"Sasuke-kun, do you want to go out for dinner tonight? Or would you rather stay in?"

"Either way is fine."

"Are you sure? Then I guess we can go out…which restaurant should I make a reservation for?"

"…what do you want to eat?"

"I'm pretty low maintenance in the food department. You've been working hard on those reforms; we should eat what you like—"

"Sakura, it's fine. We can just stay in."

"Oh…but still, what would you like to have? I'll go ask the chefs to—"

"Surprise me."

"But just what do you think?"

"For once I'd like to hear what _you_ think."

**—**

**—**

He bends down to kiss her, and she turns away.

Sasuke freezes like that, one hand planted beside her head, the other loose at her waist. They had been getting ready to go out, and she'd come down in a long, slinky red dress with a thigh high slit up the side. He'd frozen when he first saw her too, and when she finally made her way down the stairs he'd walked over to her with a kind of dark intent that she had recognized.

Then he'd bent, and she'd turned her head, and now here they are.

Sakura's heart stutters to a stop, but she can't find it in herself to regret it, not when his kisses these days made her feel slightly used and so wrecked on the inside.

She expects him to back away, to leave, to spend another night filled with tense silences, but Sasuke doesn't. Instead, his hand does a slow slide down her side until it's resting at her hip, his thumb moving back and forth over the thin fabric there, and suddenly Sakura's finding it hard to breathe. Her face is still turned away from him, but a finger lightly taps her chin, turns her head until she's looking straight into his eyes; the pupils are dark and blown, and she can make out the normally imperceptible ring of grey rimming his irises.

Sasuke doesn't try to kiss her again, and she wonders what he wants, wishes that he would let her go before her heart explodes from her chest in a hammering mess. She thinks that she looks afraid, but never of him, just his ability to make her lose her head and to deconstruct her into her most basic of parts.

She counts seven exhales of warm air across her cheekbones before he finally pulls away, and it takes another five shallow breaths of her own until her legs feel steady enough to support her again.

**—**

**—**

Sakura sits on the veranda in the middle of the compound, legs swinging over the edge like she's still young, and counts the red leaves falling from the maple trees.

_He's not happy_, she realizes.

_And neither am I._

**—**

**—**

"Are you ever going to come back and finish your residency?"

Sakura looks down at the drink in her hand and avoids Tsunade's stare. "I'm not sure. I just—Sasuke's been really busy, and next year's an election year. I'll…I'll ask about it the year after that."

The café is bustling, and she almost misses her old teacher's snort.

"You shouldn't have to _ask_ for permission. You love medicine, and you've actually got a knack for it; your fool of a husband knows that. You've been working for this for years, Sakura. Don't waste it—your time or your potential."

Sakura hums in vague agreement and Tsunade drops the subject—instead, the woman makes her laugh with clinic stories and Jiraiya's latest escapades. Sakura almost wants to cry, because even though she loves Tsunade and she's grateful that she could find the time to meet the older woman at all, the visit reminds her of all the things that she's had to give up since marrying Sasuke.

She doesn't regret him, but sometimes, sometimes she just wishes that someone would call her _doctor_ again, or even just _Haruno-san. Uchiha Sakura_ still doesn't taste quite right on the tongue.

(When they finally say their goodbyes, Tsunade pulls Sakura into a tight hug—a rare occurrence for her—and whispers into her ear, _I know you'll make the right choice_.

And she wants to ask:_ But haven't I already?_)

**—**

**—**

Sakura knows that love and happiness doesn't necessarily have anything to do with each other, but she can't stop wanting both anyways, because wasn't she trying hard enough? To both be a good wife to Sasuke and meet every expectation that Fugaku and the rest of the clan have set for her?

If she's already given up her dreams, her name—have effectively become _his_, what more is there?

Her father had signed her away, and Fugaku was the one to attach a price to her name, and then there was Itachi in the shadows and always Sasuke up in front, and her trying to chase him, to chase Naruto and Ino and everyone else who had been so extraordinary without having to think about it.

_Don't waste your potential_.

How much of it did she have, if she couldn't even make her husband happy?

**—**

**—**

The door to his study stays shut, even after she knocks on it twice. Sakura frowns and turns the knob, pushes it open and—

Sasuke looks back at her, his eyes dark and impassive, the _business_ associate that he was supposed to meet earlier today attached firmly to his arm, pressing wet kisses along his jaw.

There's a beat of silence before the brunette woman notices her, and even though he hadn't been touching her back, even though he'd showed no sign of pleasure on his face at all, Sasuke still hadn't pushed her away.

"Oops—I'll see you next week, Uchiha-_kun_."

The honorific starts a slow buzzing in Sakura's stomach, in her head, and she stands rooted to the spot even long after the door closes behind the other woman's back. She _wants_ to move, she wants to run actually, toward him or away from him she can't tell—run away or run straight at him, attack him, because he _hadn't pushed her away_ and he's still not saying anything, his face is still blank and she has this urge to _smash_ that careful composure, to smash his heart and pulverize his face and run him through a meat grinder, but all these thoughts are coming from a place far, far away, and mostly there's just this static in her head and her body, leaden and heavy and stuck in this one place.

_If he even acts remotely sorry_—

But his face, Sasuke's goddamn face is like stone, like polished granite or bullet proof glass, and his eyes are killing her because she can't read anything in them and there's not a trace of the regret that she wants so badly to see, nothing like love or grief or even guilt.

He hasn't even blinked, and the red of _her_ lipstick still shines wet and slick against his skin.

**—**

**—**

Sakura closes her eyes and counts to ten, ignoring the roaring in her ears.

And when she's done, when she's looking at his inscrutable face again, she says—

**—**

**—**

"I want a divorce."

**—**

**—**

She can't tell if walking away is the hardest or the easiest thing she's ever done.

_tbc_

* * *

**note:** Sorry, this chapter's sort of a mess. Thank you for all your reviews, and any thoughts or suggestions are always appreciated!


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