#ssm15d25

You were left flabbergasted, and not in a good way. You knew, already, that his intentions were not good – not for the world, not for himself. You tried to ignore it at first, to fool yourself, to have a little faith, but your gut was always right when it came to him. You knew him too well. And later, when your suspicions were confirmed, you felt broken.

Many things happened after that. You were a little more broken, but eventually, you got fixed; you all did, and that's what truly matters. The past is the past, after all. This is the present.

This is the future.

How long has passed since that moment you have briefly recalled? You were seventeen back then, and you are now forty five, which means it's been twenty eight years. What a big number. Time has flown, hasn't it?

Everything has changed greatly now. The people, the village, the world... The memories of your teenage years seem like some distant bad dream, or someone else's backstory. You can barely believe that that hard-working, heart-broken girl was you, and that that ruthless, vengeful boy was the same man currently standing at your side, a protective hand on the small of your back.

“It's ironic,” you voice your thought, only for said man, your husband, to hear.

“What is?” he asks.

“Twenty eight years ago, under much different circumstances, this could have been you.”

He is quiet for a few moments, thinking.

“I'm glad that it wasn't,” he replies at last. “I'm glad that, after all this time, it's her instead.”

You are, too. You believe that she will be wonderful at this new job. You know her better than anyone; you raised her, and you watched her grow into the woman she is now, so you are utterly certain that she has the potential to change the shinobi world as much as, or even more than, Naruto did. She carries the same Will of Fire, after all. She is strong, honest, kind, intelligent, beautiful... In her hands, the village can only go forward. 

“The second female Hokage,” your husband muses then, “and the first Uchiha Hokage...”

You look up at him, grinning. “She's one hell of a girl, isn't she?”

Her hand squeezes his, as if to ward all the evil memories that inhabited this home. With Sakura, though, he feels safe. This house is pure again.

“Ah, your mother had a beautiful garden.”

Sasuke remembers having the duty of watering the plants with Itachi and Mama while Fugaku made tea for everyone. He still thinks of how heavy the full watering can was, and how Itachi and Mama laughed when he fell over and spilled it all over himself.

Sakura brings out the small plant and releases his hand to hand him a shovel and some soil.

“Ino gave this to us, for our wedding gift.”

Sasuke scoffs. “Doesn’t Yamanaka—“

“Ino,” Sakura scolds. “Call her by her name.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes. “Doesn’t she own a flower shop?”

“Yeah,” Sakura says. “But she gave this to us because she knows it’s going to last a long time.”

Sasuke is fine with this explanation, and begins to dig. The whole is deep enough for the tree to sit rooted in damp dirt. Sakura lowers the tree into its whole, and pats the soil around it to secure. This, of course, is her job—Sasuke doesn’t have enough hands to pat evenly, and Sakura teases him for it.

He brings over the watering can and watches the trickles of nourishment blanket the tree and its tiny leaves. The liquid wets the tiny trunk and soil, seeping down into its roots. Sakura leans her head on Sasuke’s shoulder.

“It’s going to grow up big and strong,” Sakura says. “It’ll be beautiful.”

“Aa.”

“This is it,” Sakura continues. “The start of our new life together.” She glances up at Sasuke with a smile and presses a kiss to the corner of his lips, much to his embarrassment at her public affection. She giggles. “Just like this tree, my love for you will keep growing and growing until it can’t possibly get any bigger.”

He smiles. “Aa.”

“Hey, Sasuke-kun, I thought I told you to water the whole garden! What are you doing—“ Sakura calls out from the back door.

She sees him standing in front of their tree. His back slumps, only the slightest. The watering can has fallen to the grass, its contents spilling near his feet. He doesn’t move.

“Sasuke-kun?” Sakura calls. “Are you okay?”

She joins him, standing by his side. His eyes stare at the tree, much taller than it was when they first planted it together only months ago.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“You said you would keep loving me more and more as long as this stupid tree grew.”

Sakura ignores his derogatory insult at the gift her best friend had given her. “Yeah, so what? You think I’m going to go back on my word?”

“No,” he says. “I’m just thinking how long it’ll take before it’s fully grown.”

“Probably forever,” Sakura responds. She grabs Sasuke’s arm and tickles his chin with her finger. “Why, you can’t wait for the full extent of my professed love?”

Sasuke has gotten bolder. He draws her into a kiss, but the blush is still very much there and will most likely be there to stay—after all, it’s Sasuke.

“Just like this tree,” he murmurs, letting her wallow in her shock. “Our love will live on, growing strong, even after this plant turns to dust and ash.”

The last time they were here together, they were twelve, and she asked him on a date. He remembers only because he remembers everything about that journey: the needles piercing his body as it “moved on its own,” the idiot crying as he slept, the other idiot crying as he woke.

He’d said no, to her offer back then, and this memory brings a smile to his lips. An earnest Sakura, who badgered him to no end, her face dismal at his refusal.

They were so young back then, he thinks; he was a Sasuke who didn’t understand bonds and why, when he woke from Haku’s poison, all he could feel was heavy warmth and soft hair tickling his neck. His smile disappears at this, and his thoughts run:

She was a Sakura who didn’t know heartbreak yet (his fists tighten at this), whose throat he hadn’t felt in his own fucking hand yet (his nails dig into his palms), who hadn’t put everything on the line for him—exhausted all her chakra, from the seal lining her skin—, who hadn’t saved him from the brink of death with the morning sun surrounding her like some halo and—

“What are you thinking about?”

Sasuke shakes his head, but these memories—the histories between them—are hard to repress. There is always the good, but there is always the bad too.

He takes a breath.

“You,” he answers, simply. She smiles up at him, and he looks away. “How annoying you are.”

“That’s not very nice,” she says softly, after a beat, and he watches the way she tosses stones into the water below. He watches the curve of her wrist, the bright green eyes, the proud Byakugo seal on her forehead, the softness the strength the kindness—

and he knows in that moment, how intertwined their stories are. And he wonders if this Sasuke, the Sasuke he is now, would exist without this Sakura.

No.

And then, with a breeze sifting through the ends of her hair and her eyes wide, grinning because her stones hit a seventh ripple (“Did you see that?! Did you see that?!”) , he knows: