This was not what he had expected when he returned back to the village where he had grown up, six years after he first left it. Betrayed it. The village looked the same, sure, there was the same grey/brown houses, dusty windows; there was new buildings, and new cracks in the street that were unfamiliar to him, and yet it was so much the same.
But under the surface, nothing had stayed the way he remembered it.
Had he still been the young man he was, he probably wouldn’t even had admitted to himself that what he had expected was a pair of blue eyes. Burning and angry – but still somewhat happy; yes, he could admit to having expected that - blue, blue eyes, a mouth curved into what could’ve been a growl just as well as a happy grin, blond hair tousled from a fast run to the Tower…and a good beating.
He had expected yelling, trial and punishment.
Maybe even forgiveness.
And. He had expected overflowing teal eyes, too full of emotions to be able to hold the tears in. He had expected her to try to throw her arms around him and hold him, and to be honest he had been himself to let her.
Because that would all be them. It would have been Home.
And Sasuke was so tired.
This…this was new. Unexpected, unwanted, making him wonder what the hell was going on, making him think that maybe he’d gotten lost and stepped into the wrong village.
From the moment when he was escorted into the Godaime’s office, there was intense silence.
He had not expected silence. He had not expected the ice that froze Sakura’s eyes the moment that she turned around to lock her eyes on him. He had not expected her jaw to tighten, her fists to curl into balls, shaking with fury.
And he had not expected the place beside her to be empty.
The Hokage had just stared at him, face unreadable. Dead. There was no air in the room; as if something very important was missing.
Something was missing.
He had realized it about one hour later when he sat in his isolated cell in the Tower, surrounded by ANBU that no one had said a word about Naruto. Nothing. Surely someone would have felt obligated to tell him about the idiot; tell him that he was lucky that Naruto was busy, or on a mission, or sick, or anything at all, otherwise he would have already been there to beat the living daylights out of him.
But all he got was cold, empty silence. No one came to see him, to tell him, not once during the fifteen days he was kept imprisoned, waiting for his trial. Not even Sakura. It didn’t surprise him all that much, really, because during the few seconds they spent together before she strode past him, head helt high and eyes hard, he had seen that she had changed. She wasn’t the same as he remembered her.
Not even she had stayed the same, in the end.
And the fact that he’d expected her to – really expected her to – made him disappointed with himself.
It made him wonder just what had changed her? The last time he’d seen her, only two years ago, during that weird confrontation, she hadn’t been like this. What had really happened while he was away?
Where was Naruto?
The trial came. He stood in front of the council and told them everything about the years he had spent away from Konoha, about how he killed Orochimaru after having him teach him all he could, and then moving on to find someone else who could grant him power. There had been no one like that, and so – after years of searching and a final try to kill Itachi – which had left him broken and near death on some godforsaken place far away from Konoha - he had returned.
Of those he knew – had known - Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba and Ino testified against him. He couldn’t say that it surprised him.
Hinata stood on the side that defended him.
The small Hyuuga looked at him only once during the trial, and he knew in that moment that no matter what had happened during these years it had not crushed Naruto’s faith in him. Because he could see it mirrored in her pale eyes. They seemed to speak to him, telling him what he needed to hear all along; As long as Naruto-kun never lost his trust in you, I will not lose it either.
He knew he definitely didn’t deserve something like that from her.
The fact that Sakura were one of his defenders as well surprised him, however. She didn’t say much when standing in front of the Council. Her head was still being held high, and her eyes were still cold and full of spite when she looked at him. Because of her stance and attitude towards him, her words were actually a shock to him when she finally spoke.
“As your next Hokage, I demand that this man go free.” Her voice was strong, clear, proud, and so very different from what he remembered.
He - and an entire hall of people - stared at her as she continued her speech.
“I suggest you put him under constant supervision until he has proved himself to no longer be a traitor to this village. But if you lay your hand on him, intending to do harm when he has not directly threatened you, I will personally see so that you are arrested.”
At first, people seemed too shocked to speak. Then a low buzzing sound rose in the room as people whispered to each other, staring just as widely at the young woman as the traitor, clearly disturbed. Behind Sakura Ino rose from her seat, her face read in fury.
“What the hell, Sakura!?” she yelled, her eyes shooting lightning at the other woman’s back. Sakura didn’t even glance at her. “Are you defending him?! Did you forget everything that happened? It was his fault, wasn’t it?!”
A soft sob broke from her throat. “Did…” Tears filled her blue eyes. “Did you forget Sai?”
Sakura didn’t move, didn’t take her eyes off the members of the council. After having been standing there for a minute or so she cocked her head, making her hair flow out behind her in a smooth motion. It was longer then it was the last time he’d seen her, he noticed, at the same time wondering why the hell he mind bothered to register something like that.
“That is all I have to say,” Sakura said. “Weather or not to stay loyal to me is up to you.”
And they obeyed her.
Three months after Sakura had taken over the position as Hokage, Sasuke was finally allowed to visit her. He had to wait for an hour in the tower, were everybody who passed by glared at him; strangers that he didn’t recognize, strangers that thought that they knew enough about him to be able to hate him, before he was permitted a meeting.
“The Hokage is very busy, so please cut it short,” Shizune snapped at him as he walked past her on her way out. Hn. He hadn’t even noticed her before she spoke, but now that he thought about it; she had probably been one of those who spoke against him in the trial too.
Whatever… He didn’t care about those people. Strangers with hateful eyes. Before you hate me, at least make sure that I’ve earned it from you.
The only one he cared about right now was Sakura, and the information he was absolutely sure she held.
The first meeting was indeed cut short.
“Why did you defend me?” he asked.
She didn’t look at him. She didn’t answer.
“Was it because he would have done the same?” he asked.
She flinched. But she still didn’t answer.
“What happened?” he asked. Having built walls around his heart for years, working with every detail in the fences that held his emotions in check, he trusted himself to be able to keep his stance relaxed and his voice bored as he spoke. He chose that voice because it was familiar to him. Something to rely on here, where nothing seemed to follow the same rules he’d been a part of creating, anymore. “Did the idiot finally manage to get himself killed? Or did he run off with some woman or something? Did he…”
Sakura probably used most of her power when she let her fist connect with his jaw, breaking it easily and sending him flying through the room, and through the thick wooden door.
It hurt, damnit! He groaned, where he lay on the floor, rolling around onto his stomach to not let the blood flowing down his throat choke him to death.
Then she was standing over him, grabbing his collar and lifting him off the floor, her face barely an inch from his own. Her eyes burned, burned with a strange, yet familiar, fire, belonging to someone else, her jaw clenched, belonging to someone else, hair tousled, belonging to someone else.
Just as he had expected him to look like.
“You,” she growled, and yet again she sounded so much like him. Too much like him. This is so wrong. “You have no idea what we’ve been through after you left. No idea at all. So before you come to me and try to apologize, or what the fuck it is you think you’re doing, you’d better earn my time and attention, many fucking times over.”
He glared back at her, blood dripping from his mouth, his jaw feeling like it had been completely pulverized.
“And…”
There! There were the emotions he had been looking for! It was reflected in every one of his former comrades faces every time he ran into one of them, only to have them turn around and refuse to let him see, refuse to tell him what he wanted, what he needed to know. This was what he had come to see.
“And don’t you ever come to me asking about him.”
She let go of his collar and dropped him on the floor, turning her back at him.
And when she slammed the doors to the office shut behind her, the crack in the wood was just enough to let him see the angry tension in her shoulders drain away. It transformed into trembles, and then quick, harsh sobs, before she disappeared out of his view completely.
It was so weird, how it happened, and it was nothing of what he’d expected if her, of himself, of them. And yet…
Yet it felt like it could’ve happened no other way.
It was one of those times he had managed to fight his way through the entire Hokage Tower – or at least that was how it felt like to him – to have another short meeting with her. He did that from time to time, when the questions once again begun to roar too angrily in his head, when his own breaths once again begun to wake him up from his sleep.
Why couldn’t she see? He needed to know. He needed to know why everything wasn’t the way he had left it.
And over again, she told him that he wasn’t worthy of knowing the answers. It was frustrating, it was maddening, it was…
And so it happened.
The fight started out differently this time; she didn’t just end it right away, by throwing him through the doors and almost breaking his spine. Maybe she had finally gotten complaints from the workers because of the scattered doors? He never got around to asking her afterwards.
He was so confused, when he looked down into her eyes, green fires full of… of what? It wasn’t just anger – why hadn’t he seen it before?
It was… grief. Regret. Longing for something he didn’t know – did she even know herself?
Just like his eyes had always looked like.
And he missed it. He missed it, damnit! Things weren’t supposed to change. Not like this.
So, he forgot. For one moment, while looking into those eyes, he allowed himself to forget.
The fire disappeared at once, as her eyes widened impossibly, staring up at him, her arm, that pushed him up against the wall, relaxed a little. But not enough for him to get away.
“Wh… What did you just call me?” she asked, her voice trembling ever so slightly.
“What?” he asked, voice mocking. “Oh, I’m sorry, Hokage-sama, did I disrespect you?”
She gaped at him. Then she released him, backing away from him abruptly and turned away. Sasuke stood still for several moments, looking at her with narrowed eyes, wondering if he should brace himself for another attack. Then he realized that she was shaking.
“I… Sasuke… I’m…” Her voice was thick. “I’m not him.”
He frowns, annoyed. Because he knows that. Really. He knows it very well.
Then why is it so easy to forget it like this?
“Then you should stop trying to be,” he says. And he knows as soon as he can smell the salt of her tears in the air that he is right.
“I’m not!” she says, her voice high pitched and trembling, almost cracking completely. “I. Am. Not!”
He looks at her silently.
“I…” he begins, attempting to swallow his pride, a pride that still is much bigger than it should be allowed to be. He would have thought that he’d lost it, thrown it away, now after everything. He fails the first time, and takes a deep breath. “I miss him too,” he then manages.
She doesn’t move.
“Sasuke… Just go,” she says. “Go away.”
And she both looks and sounds like he has been expecting her too. Like he’s been wanting her too, the whole time since he came back, and even though a little part of him is sad for her, the biggest part is still happy, because there’s finally something going on that he can understand.
And he can’t help but to oblige. So he goes.
In the end, it was Hinata who told him the truth.
It is a simple conversation in her pretty, pretty garden, she is the one who invites him, because he would never had thought of going to her himself. She makes tea, and behind the excitement that he’s barely able to suppress – how could a few months of silence break his control like this? - Sasuke wonders faintly why it is so quiet in the Hyuuga compound. He doesn’t ask. She tells him anyways.
“My husband has fallen ill,” she says, smiling softly at him, as if he can read the confusion in his eyes, even though he is certain that he doesn’t let it show there. That is explanation enough, really, she didn’t have to tell him more.
But Hinata is still smiling, and her eyes are warm behind all that that white. “And our sons have taken the habit of sneaking away to train in the afternoons. They think that we think that they’re doing homework in their room.” Her smile widened, became loving, and it hurts. He hasn’t come here to have a conversation with her; he came here for answers.
“I didn’t come here to ask about your family,” he said coldly, looking at her. Her smile didn’t falter, but it changed, into something so more sad, so very very sad, sad for his sake; pitying. And it hurt even more, because he doesn’t understand why. He needs to know why!
“I know, Sasuke-san,” she said, lifting her cup to her mouth, sipping the liquid slowly. “You want to know about Naruto-kun.”
He didn’t answer.
“He left,” she mumbled around her tea-cup, staring down into the smoky liquid with equally smoky eyes. “About two years ago. He left, and they hunted him down, Sakura and Sai-kun. I… I’m sorry; I don’t know exactly what happened, because it’s confidential, but Sai-kun… she said that Naruto-kun… snapped…”
She looked up, and despite the hesitation in her voice, her eyes strangely warm and tender – as if she wished to sooth him, sooth the impact this will have on him - as she gazed at him, “Sakura was the only survivor.”
It takes a moment for him to understand, but as the realization hits him, it gets too much, and the delicate cup breaks underneath his fingers.
It isn’t until later, when he stands in the old training grounds, eyes surveying the chaos that had been a pretty forest only hours earlier, that he finally understands. He understands that the memory of Naruto’s blood on her hands is just as unbearable and impossible to Sakura as the memory of his family’s blood on his brother’s hands is to him.
And.
And he understands why Sakura hates him so much. And he understands that she really doesn’t.
And. He understands that he is – in fact - the lucky one.
Because he has someone to hate that isn’t himself.
The next time he sees Sakura, it is outside of the Tower, in the city. It is a complete coincidence.
Sasuke watches her as she stands still in front of the shelves at the back of the grocery store, humming lightly to herself and looking for some particular treat. She seems very different now from how she usually is when being with him.
He wonders if it’s just him. Is it only him that makes her act and react like that? Is he the only one who brings out the memories that hurts her so much? If he stepped up to her now, trying to start a casual conversation – this would all be so damn much easier if her knew how to start a casual conversation - would her shoulders tense the moment that he approaches her, will her jaw once again tighten and her mouth become that grime line of anger?
He finds himself thinking that he would like them not to.
But his wish isn’t granted. When she turns around and spots him, that glare is back at one. He almost sighs of relief. Relief?
It isn’t until later that night, when sitting alone by the table, looking down into his food, that he realizes that he wants Sakura to stay the way she is now. To keep hitting him, screaming at him, hating him. Because as long as she is, there’s still a part of him there.
When Neji dies, Hinata invites Sasuke to the funeral.
He has no idea why. It feels strange and wrong to be standing there with everybody he used to know, trying to pretend that he is mourning the loss of someone else that he hasn’t even met for years.
Hinata isn’t crying. She stands silent and proud – when she grew up to be the perfect leader and ruler of her clan, he doesn’t know. It’s just another aching question, that he knows probably will never be answered.
Her two sons are standing beside her, and they are crying violently enough for all three of them. Hinata waits until the ritual is over, then she bends down to lay her arms around them, comforting, allowing them to bury their little faces in her chest, sobbing as they clutches her clothes and each others.
Sakura is the one leading the ceremony.
Sasuke finds himself wishing that there was someone else up there. Someone else having to care the burden of being the Hokage, the burden of having to say the last goodbye to the fallen. To her fallen comrades.
He wonders if she can do it because she has already had to say goodbye to everything she had so many times. He wonders if that is why she seems so strong. Because she has already gone through the biggest test of them all.
He wonders if that is why she seems so fragile. Because she is missing a peace that she can’t have.
He knows how that feels. He’s always known how that feels.
So the next day, he goes to the Tower again. This time, he doesn’t ask about Naruto. And Sakura doesn’t hit him. They sit and talk for a while, just talking. As much as he usually talks, anyways. She seems unwilling to open up to him, but that is probably something he should expect. He has never opened up to her either, after all.
When his time is up, he stands silently and leaves. She says nothing.
But he can feel her eyes on his back as he walks away.
oooo
It’s an accident, that makes the wheel turn around for them, forces them to chose how to take the step that will end this silly dance of theirs, once and for all. And a completely riddiculous one, adding to that.
He’s been granted the permission to move about without the guards, only just the day before. He’s been given his first mission as a Konoha shinobi. It’s a D-rank mission. Paint a wall.
It is boring, sooo boring. Useless, stupid wall. Obviously, it’s been vandalized, there are ulgy words and obscure drawings pained all over the place. He clenches his teeth and keeps painting.
Her voice once again sounds enough like his to startle him. No one else can do that but him.
…and now her. Obviously.
“Oi, teme!” she calls. Her voice. His words. It makes Sasuke flinch. Hard. Hard enough to step to the side and accidentally kick the jar with paint.
Sakura yelps a little. And then she splutters. Her whole front is white. Even though her shirt is originally blue.
He stares down at her, blinking. She stares up at him, eyes wide.
“I told you not to…” he begins but she cuts him of.
“I didn’t! I just… wanted… I didn’t mean to sound like him.”
He puts the brush down, and jumps of the stand, landing beside her. He eyes her, looks down her chest and stomach. He wants to say that it doesn’t suit her, that she has her own strength, that she doesn’t have to borrow his. “White looks good on you,” he says instead.
And there’s something in her eyes, strange, unfamiliar, even though he thinks that it probably used to be familiar, in another time, another life, when they were three, and there was a dobe there with them, helping them to remember how to laugh. That something spreads over her face and down to her mouth. He frowns a little, wondering if she’s going to hit him again – why is it so hard to understand her when she is like this? – and then she’s smiling.
It is the first time she smiles at him in the nine months that has passed since he came back.
White paint can clean a soiled surface, so that those who remain get another chance.
You can make a new painting, struggling, forcing your hands to move, even though the swipes of your brush hurts you, because even though the picture is gone and wasted, lost forever, you will never stop wondering what it would have looked like.
You can make a new painting, and though it hurts, you will have to keep your hopes up, try to think that it could become even better than the last one. It could.
Even if a colour – a colour made of blue eyes, laughter and sunshine - is missing.
AN the second: I know that there are a lot of things that are left unanswered here, because I meant this to be a multi chaptered fic from the beginning, but in the end, it didn’t want to have more chapters. Just to answer three questions that I know will probably come up sooner or later:
1) Naruto tried to run away from the village to find Sasuke on his own after having been forbidden to leave because of the growing threat that Akatsuki made towards him and the Bijuu. Sai and Sakura followed him to bring him back. Naruto snapped, went Kyuubi-crazy on them and killed Sai.
2) Sakura killed Naruto. How the hell she managed that is a mystery even to me… Desperate people can manage amazing feats.
3) Sai was Ino’s fiancé; thus the explanation to her outburst in the court.