"Crap!"

Haruno Sakura loathed Monday mornings.

"Shit!"

She loathed them more than she loathed any other undesirable time when she had to wake up from her beautiful dream world and attend to the harsh reality.

"Oh, what the fuck?!"

She loathed them with every inch of her remarkably big and kind heart.

"Good God, how does this always happen to me?" she whined to herself as she stormed through her apartment, clad in a simple pair of black jeans and a suspiciously sexy lace bra, and wearing only one brown boot. "Where is it?!" she muttered, bumping into her couch with a grunt.

"Aha!" An exclamation of triumph escaped her lips only seconds later, and she immediately bent over to pull the previously missing shoe on her right foot. "Right. Shirt. I need a shirt."

Looking around her small living room, she winced at the mess that had quickly accumulated over the past weeks that she hadn't lived in it much. There were clothes strewn everywhere, laundry piles in every corner, random cushions thrown here and there, all in different places and none on the couch, where they belonged. Her hardwood floors were hardly visible beneath all that assorted mess, and her wooden coffee table had long since been swallowed up by empty takeout boxes, thick textbooks, and random patient files.

"This is so not me," she groaned, hurrying to the other end of the couch, where she spotted a sweater she couldn't remember wearing in a while—which made it, by default, the cleanest one around. "I am so doing laundry tonight!" Throwing it on, she barely spared herself a single glance in the mirror, before she abruptly grabbed her worn leather bag and keys and rushed out the front door.

"Oh, fuck!" she hissed as she locked it. "I can't do laundry tonight! The gala's tonight!" Turning around, she hurried down the stairs and out of the building, narrowly avoiding slipping on the thick ice covering the front steps as she dashed towards her car.

The day had barely started, to the point where dawn had not even broken yet, and she was already buried in over her head in ticking time problems.

"Crap," she cursed again as she slipped inside and slammed the door behind her. "My dress! I have to pick up my dress!" Groaning, she banged her head against the headrest in frustration, closing her eyes and allowing herself a short minute to send her complains to all the Gods above that could possibly be looking down upon her in that moment—the more, the merrier.

It wasn't as if she couldn't use an entire army to keep her on track on Monday mornings.

Turning the key in the ignition, she clicked on her seatbelt, blasted the heat on high—painfully aware that she'd foolishly forgotten to grab a coat—and put the car into reverse, swiftly pulling out of her parking space. She gasped when she unexpectedly hit a patch of ice, causing the vehicle to swerve dangerously and her hands to tighten on the steering wheel in a—thankfully—successful attempt to keep it under control.

"Fucking winter," she cursed under her breath, annoyed, and carefully eased forward, onto the main road.

Oh, she loved winter. She loved the snow. She loved the holidays. She even loved the cold, preferring it to the heat of summer.

…But she loved them all when she was at home, in her small, but clean, apartment, on her old, but comfortable couch, with at least three cushions and two blankets, with a cup of hot chocolate on her coffee table and a good book—or textbook—in her hands. Not when she was on the road, late to her shift, and speeding away, praying hard for two scenarios to avoid her: getting pulled over by a cop, which would result in her being even more late, or slipping on a patch of ice and wrapping her car around a street pole.

Of course, she should have learned, by now, that luck simply wasn't on her side at the very start of the week.

Rummaging through her bag as she impatiently waited for a traffic light to turn green, she found her phone and placed in the holder, dialing the now familiar, dry-cleaner's number.

"Damn it," she muttered when she was almost immediately greeted by the answering machine. "Hi, Sue, it's Sakura," she began a message as the traffic started to move again. "I was supposed to pick up my gown yesterday, but I got hung up at the hospital." She sighed, rolling her eyes at herself. "The usual, right? Anyway, I'm going to come by later tonight, so pleasepleaseplease have it ready to go, as I'm probably going to be running late—I can already feel it! Thank you, bye!" Ending the call, Sakura furrowed her brows at the neat row of red tail lamps aligned in front of her. "Oh, come on!" she whined, resisting the urge to slam her hands onto the horn, as she knew all too well it wouldn't do much, other than bring upon her a couple of ugly, disgruntled stares.

Of course she'd tried it before.

"Oh, great, clearly, this will be my life from now on," she said to herself. "I'm going to be late to work, and on the rare days that I am not—which will probably be after an extremely fulfilling, except not, nightshift—I will pull some unauthorized crap in the OR and get kicked off Tsunade's service anyway, and spend all my time doing rounds and prepping patients and never actually getting to hold a scalpel in my hand. Just what I wanted. Just what I dreamed of when I started med school. Actually, this is exactly what I had in mind when I said I was excited about my residency starting. Yep, that's my dream, right there," she continued to mutter to herself as traffic slowly, very painstakingly slowly, inched forwards. "And that's me, living it. Check out that happy look on my face. Totally—"

Her speech was interrupted by a familiar, muted beeping sound coming from the passenger seat.

"Oh, God, tell me it's not Tsunade paging me to tell me to go to Hell," she whined, slipping her hand inside her open bag in search for her pager. Finally grabbing a hold of it after a minute of fumbling around, she peeked at the screen.

It wasn't Tsunade.

"911!" she exclaimed, surprised. "What could have possibly happened for them to forget what—"

Her words caught in her throat and suddenly jumbled together, pushing past her lips in the form of a small, shocked scream as her car came to an abrupt stop and she was unexpectedly jolted forwards in her seat.

Snapping her head to face forward, green eyes widened, mouth dropping open as the realization of what had happened—of what she had done—suddenly hit her.

"No way," she gasped. Hands trembling, she turned off the ignition and unbuckled her seatbelt; blindly, she reached out to open the door and, once she managed, still holding onto her pager, she stumbled outside.

The door to the car in front of her—the luxurious, white Range Rover she had just unceremoniously slammed into—opened just as her boots sank into the dirty snow packed onto the surface of the road.

"Oh God, I am so, so sorry!" she gushed, before the—undoubtedly angry—owner even left the vehicle, much less had a chance to express his feelings. "I am so sorry! I wasn't looking—which, I know, is stupid, because that's exactly what you're supposed to be doing behind the wheel, but I got a page and I was really surprised, and—ugh! I am so sorry!" she repeated, re-opening her car door and reaching across the driver's seat into her open bag. Taking out her wallet, she plucked out a business card, wincing when she turned to find the other driver inspecting the dent she'd made in his car. "Obviously, I'll pay for the damage! I—" She abruptly stopped, the breath leaving her lungs in a rush of condensed air, as the man finally straightened and graced her, for the first time, with a full, front view of his body.

He was gorgeous.

She'd expected the black, conservative suit, perhaps even before she caught a glimpse of him when he gracefully slid out of the car. She'd expected the perfectly matched tie, the platinum watch, and the shoes that looked too expensive to be touching—much less sinking into—the mixture of snow and dirt currently covering the city's roads.

But she hadn't expected the deep, onyx eyes, the perfect lips, the high cheekbones and strong jawline, the beautifully mussed, spiky black hair and flawless, pale skin, or the body that filled out the suit in all the right places.

He was the most stunning male specimen she had ever laid eyes on, in reality, in magazines or on television, and that was quite a statement to be made, because, although Sakura didn't have much in terms of a social life, Konoha General was the largest hospital in the country, and she interacted with at least fifty people during a double shift.

Briefly, the young medic considered her black jeans and old sweater and desperately tried to remember if she'd had time to brush her hair that morning.

A car honked loudly behind her, snapping her out of her daydream, and she moved closer to her own vehicle as the driver in question quickly moved past them.

Ahead of them, traffic seemed to magically clear—and with it, so did her uncharacteristic dizziness, once again making place for the realization that she still hadn't made any progress on her journey and the reminder that she'd been late since before she left the house that morning.

"Oh, crap," she muttered, the panic returning, hitting her with as much force as she'd hit the car in front of her. "I'm so sorry!" she apologized again.

The mysterious man's brows were pulled downward in a frown, but his expression wasn't as angry or as hostile as she'd imagined it would be, considering the dent she'd left in his new-looking Range Rover, while her old, battered Jeep looked as if it had almost escaped the incident unscathed.

Of course, she supposed, that could have much to do with the fact that it hadn't been in the best of shapes in a long, long time, to begin with.

"I'll pay," she repeated, holding her business card out to him. "However much is needed for your car to look as good as new!"

He narrowed his—beautiful, mesmerizing—eyes at her, and when he opened his mouth and finally spoke, Sakura thought she could have melted in a puddle of hot caramel right there, right at his feet, despite the freezing wind and the snow falling from the sky. "I don't think you understand." The words rolled perfectly off his tongue, materializing in a rough, low voice that sounded calm and soothing and frustrated all at the same time.

She saw his lips move, shaping a new sentence, and swallowed heavily when she realized that she couldn't hear, much less understand, what he was saying.

Snap out of it, Sakura! she mentally yelled at herself. He's so out of your league you couldn't reach him in a hundred years, and as if that wasn't enough, you just smashed his new baby!

Thankfully, she was saved by the sound of her pager going off, for the third time, in her hand, and brought back down to Earth.

"Oh, God," she groaned.

Tsunade would torture her for being late on a normal day, but she would murder her—dismember her, and donate bits and pieces of her body to science—if she was late when she was paged 911.

"I'm so sorry! I'm being paged and I really, really have to go because I'm really, really late!" Stepping forward, she unceremoniously pushed her business card into his hand, forcing him to accept it, before running around her car and wrenching the door open. "I'm sorry! Call me and I swear we'll sort this mess out!"

"What—" she heard him say just before she slipped inside and started the engine. She backed away swiftly, but carefully, not wanting to slam into another vehicle and put an end to her career and everything that she had worked so hard for so far, and rolled the right window down to yell out another apology as she drove past him.

"Sorry!"

She left him standing beside his car, her business card in his hand and an incredulous expression on his face.

Ungluing her gaze from her rearview mirror and setting it firmly ahead, she bit her lip.

Had somebody ever tried to tell her that a person could look as gorgeous as he did with that expression on his face, she would have laughed in their face and reminded them that she had gone through med school with an unblemished, straight-A record and that she'd instantly been accepted into the country's best residency program.

As it was, though… She probably wouldn't be able to do that ever again.

A little over fifteen hours later, Sakura almost tripped over her own feet as she finished the last flight of stairs leading up to the ballroom that traditionally hosted the hospital's annual fundraising gala.

She wasn't used to long dresses and high-heels, and she definitely wasn't used to having to look graceful in them.

In a familiar effort to calm her nerves, she brought her hand up with the intention of brushing her hair behind her ear; her best friend's angry voice inside her head made her rethink her decision, and she swallowed thickly before letting it fall back down at her side.

Ino had spent—and she swore—hours pinning up her thick, pastel-pink hair in what she'd called a 'messy up-do' and smoking out her green eyes and ensuring every inch of her was perfect. She couldn't ruin it—not knowingly, anyway, especially since she was quite sure her snarky mouth that knew no filter would probably do the job instead.

She just wasn't at her best in these situations. She wished she would be, but then again, she supposed that, with how much time she spent in the hospital and how little sleep she got, her social skills couldn't exactly be amazing.

Taking a deep breath, she channeled prom and graduation and distant memories of college nights out, stiffened her back and tipped up her chin, and walked the rest of the way to the open double doors of the ballroom with dignity. She knew how to walk in high-heels and she could be graceful. It just didn't come naturally, and that could be fixed.

That being said, she had to fight hard to keep her mouth from dropping open at the sight of the rich Christmas décor that adorned the giant ballroom, but she was proud to say she managed. Everything was red and gold and doused in glitter, and she had never seen anything so extravagantly beautiful in her entire life. She supposed she shouldn't have expected anything less, but she still allowed herself a brief moment to bask in amazement.

Konoha General organized a fundraising event every December, but interns weren't invited, and the year before—the first year of her residency—she'd been too busy trying to prove herself, for the umpteenth time, to Tsunade, which was the reason why she only now got to break out her dress. Watching the array of formal tuxedos and long, sequined gowns, she was suddenly glad she hadn't listened to Ino and gone for a short cocktail dress that was, according to the blonde, 'sure to attract donations with its sexiness'.

Instead, she had invested in a deep green gown with short sleeves and little gems adorning the neckline and the low-dipping back in a simple, yet eye-catching pattern; it was just tight enough to show people that she had curves and went all the way down to the floor, even trailing behind at the back in a small train. She felt classy and elegant in it, and as comfortable as she was sure she could be, considering her everyday get-up consisted of a top and scrubs.

Scanning the room for her mentor, Sakura found her easily, and immediately began to weave her way towards her.

She frowned, feeling the gazes of various people upon her. She should have checked her make-up before she left the car, she internally chastised herself. Or had her dress creased on the way over?

She'd looked like a completely different person when she left Ino's apartment—surely, she still looked different enough to blend in with these people, didn't she?

"Excuse me," she murmured, brushing past a pretty couple, approaching Tsunade where she stood, clad in a black gown with a sequined bodice featuring a low cleavage, and talking to a tall man dressed in a formal tuxedo. "Dr. Tsunade," she greeted, swiftly announcing her presence, before shifting her gaze upwards, ready to politely introduce herself to her companion.

That intention soon went out the window, though, as she blinked, frowned, and instantly, without thinking, blurted out, "Why are you here?"

She cursed her quick mouth in the very next second, but it was already too late.

Yes, of course she would eventually take care of ruining her prim, elegant appearance.

When her gaze flitted back up to his following her self-directed grimace, however, she was surprised to see that his eyes weren't annoyed, angry, or insulted, like she would have expected. Instead, a mixture of amusement and intrigue was swimming lazily in them as they quickly, yet carefully, appeared to roam the length of her body, before resting on hers once again.

"Dr. Haruno," he greeted smoothly, before Tsunade could open her mouth to reprimand her for her manners—or, better said, lack thereof. "You never did allow me to introduce myself this morning."

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek in shame, forcing out, "I was… in a bit of a hurry." The absolute last thing she'd needed tonight was for this issue to come up in front of her mentor.

An ordinary smirk looking positively sinful on his lips, he held out his hand. "Clearly," he deadpanned. "Uchiha Sasuke."

"Oh," she gasped, green eyes widening in what she was sure was an almost comical manner, realization dawning on her just as she languidly accepted his handshake.

Inwardly cringing, she averted her gaze to the side, feeling a thousand times smaller and more awkward under his scrutiny than she'd felt that morning.

Swallowing, she cleared her throat. How much more could she screw up when it came to this family, anyway?

"Would either of you be so kind as to let me in on what's going on?" Tsunade asked from beside them, watching their interaction with suspicion.

Sasuke seemed to allow her the courtesy of telling her mentor, if the amused glance he sent her way was any indication. "I… kind of… smashed into his Range Rover on my way to work this morning."

For a moment, Tsunade was silent, honey eyes wide with surprise.

Then she threw her head back and roared with laughter.

Eyeing the glass of champagne in her hand, it occurred to Sakura that she should have figured. People always told her she had picked the worst person as a mentor. While the blonde was absolutely ruthless and completely unforgiving in the hospital, outside of it—especially when aided by a glass of any type of alcohol—she turned into a mean, self-assured woman that mocked you for pretty much everything you did.

"Well, Sakura," she gasped, "Aren't you the luckiest resident I've ever had."

"I bet I am," the pinkette muttered dryly under her breath.

Still laughing, Tsunade pressed a hand to her right shoulder and moved to leave. "Well, then, I'll leave you two alone. Enjoy your evening—and, by all means, do feel free to use it to sort out insurance papers," she cackled again before she left them.

Sakura winced, looking down at the floor. As she started to chew on her lower lip, she thought she had never before been in a more awkward situation.

…And, being who she was, she'd both created and stumbled upon more than her fair share of awkwardness.

Knowing that she'd crashed into this gorgeous man's luxurious car was one thing.

Finding out that he was single-handedly running the country's most prosperous IT company was another.

Realizing who he was and on how many levels he actually related to her current predicament was a different thing entirely.

She chanced a glance at him, but instantly re-averted her eyes as soon as they met his own over the rim of his champagne glass.

He stood there, one hand in his pocket, the picture of relaxed, confident sophistication.

She shifted, uncomfortable in her high-heels. "I'm sorry," she finally said, gaze fixed on a spot behind his head, hands twisting together nervously behind her back. "I… I'm sorry about this morning. I will pay for the damage, of course, but… it looked like a new car. And I know that… it probably won't feel much like one after this. I'm sorry. And…" Stopping, she took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and was surprised to feel tears prickling her eyes at the inevitability of the second half of her apology. An apology she'd refused to make until now, to anybody but, apparently, him. An apology that could or could have not saved her a month's worth of rounds and whispers and humiliation. Swallowing thickly, she finally met his gaze, and said it from the heart, "I'm sorry about your brother."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow in response, appearing surprised. "My brother?" he asked for clarification.

Sakura nodded.

He elegantly took a sip of the fizzy champagne, regarding her carefully. "You saved his life."

"I did, but…" she hesitated. A war had been fought inside her, and she felt that the final battle was now in its throes. "…I shouldn't have been in there," she finally admitted.

"Well, if you hadn't been in there, he wouldn't be alive right now," he replied, without thought or hesitation.

Taken aback by his stance, Sakura looked up at him, unsure of what to say.

Yet Sasuke seemed to read her mind to perfection.

"Come," he beckoned, placing his now empty glass on a passing waiter's tray before offering her his arm.

Sakura blinked—and she was sure that, for a second or two (or more), she looked nothing short of an idiot, standing there, eyeing his arm as if it had suddenly grown a head. Who could blame her, though? she tried to reason with herself as she finally slipped her hand in the nook of his elbow, following his lead, trying to keep her gaze low and her blush to a minimum.

Sasuke nodded and murmured greetings to more than a few people as they passed them, and Sakura tried not to imagine the confused expressions on their faces at the sight of her plastered to his side.

They walked outside, the large balcony adorned with the same lavish decorations as the room itself, complete with a medium-sized Christmas tree in a corner and small space heaters lined up against the wrought iron railing. The cold still largely permeated the air, though, but Sakura welcomed it, feeling it sober her up.

As she made her way towards the edge, she felt him follow her. The view was absolutely beautiful, a skyline of the city lit up against the night sky, yet the balcony was strangely empty.

"Talk to me," he encouraged, coming to a stop beside her.

Sakura heaved a sigh, fingers dancing nervously onto the cold railing as green eyes watched them intently. "I… shouldn't have been in that OR. He… came to us… shot and bleeding and coding… Everybody was busy, the ER was a mess because of the fire… it was a commotion that I believe he caused himself?" She looked at him for confirmation, but he gave her none. She shrugged. The police hadn't been exactly forthcoming with the details of Uchiha Itachi's undercover assignment that had led to him almost bleeding out in her OR a little over a month before, either. "His time was running out and I had to do something, so… I took him to that OR myself. Nurses told me to stop, interns told me to stop, people paged Tsunade… but I didn't listen. I ignored them all, and I didn't wait. It was stupid of me."

Sasuke leaned with his elbows on the railing and tried to catch her gaze, looking for reassurance, "But you knew what you were doing."

Sakura remembered herself repeating the very same statement to Tsunade, and the chief of surgery, and the board of the hospital, and the hoard of lawyers they brought in—and to everybody who was interested in listening, everybody who did as much as bring the subject up or look at her in the wrong way.

"I did," she repeated it now, once again, but without the same conviction. "I… I thought I did. I… had this idea of what I should do to… fix him. I had a procedure in my mind… except it wasn't. It wasn't a procedure. It had never been done before, but I was confident in it, and, I see now… that was wrong on so many levels it would literally take the entire night to list them. So many things can go wrong in an OR, and you'd think I'd know that, but… I—" She choked on her own words, and stopped. She shook her head. "I was lucky. Your brother was lucky. And I don't think I fully realized, until today, until I saw you… until I realized how much you two look alike… I don't think I realized the extent of my mistake. I… can't imagine what would have been like for you, for your family, to find out that your brother had died… that a resident had botched an experimental procedure and killed him… that he didn't even get the best care he could have gotten in his last moments…" She turned to face him, finally looking up at him as he straightened himself. "I didn't think of all that. And I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry. I think…" Trailing off, she averted her gaze to the side once again, her hand gripping the railing tightly. "I think I did the one thing I swore I wouldn't do, at the beginning of my residency. I think I forgot to think about my patients and their families… I thought about medicine only. Like all residents end up doing. Chasing after surgeries and thinking they're Gods… when in reality things are so ridiculously easily knocked out of their hands, it's not even funny."

Silence descended upon them, and Sakura wondered when exactly this awful, fast-paced day that had started with this man and his smashed car, had ended with her having the time to peacefully stand there and pour her heart out to him.

Soon, he was the one to break the stillness of the moment. "I was led to believe that Dr. Tsunade was in surgery at the time that my brother was brought in."

Sakura nodded. "She was."

"An attending wouldn't have made it in time."

"Probably not."

From the corner of her eye, she saw him give an elegant shrug. "From where I'm standing, you made the right call. You acted quickly and you saved my brother's life."

Heaving a sigh, Sakura turned around, facing the ballroom, filled with people and glittering with Christmas lights. "For the longest time, that was also what I thought. I refused to apologize to anybody." She snorted in an unladylike fashion. "You should have seen Tsunade's face when I told her that."

He smirked in response, and her skin suddenly felt strangely warm and tingly, despite the chill lingering in the winter air.

"But… they put me on rounds for a month. I've been changing IVs and urine bags for a month. I haven't seen the inside of an OR for a month. I haven't even been paged to ER! I think… there's a lesson to be learned here. They wouldn't have been this keen on my punishment otherwise." She finally gave in and tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear, wrapping her arms around herself as silence descended upon them once again.

Not surprisingly, he was, again, the one to break it. "I'd assumed they were trying to teach you discipline, but I see they're starting to destroy your confidence instead."

Sakura gave a small bark of laughter. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, watching him weirdly. As much of a klutz as she was in other areas of life—and especially during certain parts of the day—Sakura was a Goddess, completely in her element, in the hospital, and she was well-aware of that. Perhaps a bit more than she should be, in the light or recent events and circumstances.

He shrugged. "It's probably not my place to tell you this, but you shouldn't be surprised to learn that my family followed up on the… incident."

"Of course," she agreed.

"Dr. Tsunade was quite apologetic—I'm now assuming that was partly because you weren't willing to be," he added, and huffed an amused breath at her responding wince. "But she investigated the case intensively. She agreed that my brother would have died if you hadn't acted when you did and in the manner that you did. She agreed that you did an excellent job. And, perhaps more importantly… she agreed that she couldn't have done it any better."

Sakura's eyes were wide as her brain struggled to catch up with everything that he'd said. "…What… what do you mean?" she stammered.

"You put my brother through an experimental procedure. Dr. Tsunade doesn't know if you thought about it on the spot or if you'd toyed with the idea in the past. Either way, it matters less."

Sakura blinked.

"She admitted that she probably wouldn't have known how to handle the situation. That your procedure baffled her and amazed her at the same time. That she probably would have wasted precious seconds gathering her bearings and formulating a plan that was, perhaps, doomed from the start, while you seemed to know exactly what to do and how to do it." He paused, allowing the information to sink in. "You saved my brother's life, Sakura."

Sakura couldn't respond. Her mouth was dry, and her mind was empty. "How… how is he?" she ended up saying.

"He's doing great," was Sasuke's answer.

She leaned her weight against the railing behind her, having absolutely no idea how to respond.

But Sasuke beat her to the punch. "Which is why Uchiha Enterprises is sponsoring your cardiothoracic department this year. From what I've gathered, you're finishing your residency in a couple of months. We'd like you to develop your technique—make it a proper procedure; save other people in my brother's situation."

If she'd thought she'd felt shock before, she was an idiot, because now she could hardly even breathe. "W—What?!"

"Tsunade wouldn't have told you about it yet. By her own admission, if I recall correctly, she also claimed she liked to see you squirm. And learn from what she calls your 'mistakes'."

"Oh my God," she gasped.

Sasuke smirked. "Exactly."

"You—you mean—" Straightening, she looked up at him with wide, excited eyes. "You mean… my own experimental trial? I'll have my own experimental trial? I'll get sponsored to do this procedure? This procedure that I've been punished for? You mean I'll get to actually hold a scalpel in my hand again? And not have everybody look at me as if I'm crazy for it? You—" She stopped, saw his nod, and squealed, throwing herself, without thinking, into his arms. "Oh God, thank you!" Then, realizing what she'd done, she instantly pulled away. "Oh God, I'm sorry! Still, thank you!" Bringing both hands to her mouth, she covered her blinding smile, but she was sure her eyes gave her happiness away, her excitement nearly palpable in the chilly winter air.

Still smirking, and seemingly unaffected by everything that had just transpired in between them, Sasuke nonchalantly buried his hands into the pockets of his pants. "You will still have to pay for the damage done to my car, I'm afraid," he told her.

"Of course!" she instantly agreed. Still high on the news he'd given her, though, she apparently couldn't help but ruin a perfectly normal reaction after a moment. "But if you think about it, it was partially your fault."

"Oh?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, black eyes dancing with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

"Because of your brother, I was stuck doing rounds for an entire month. No OR time, no ER time—like I said. It was traumatizing. And today, the day my punishment was officially over, while I was driving to work, I got paged 911. Understandably, I was very surprised." Pausing, she linked her hands behind her back and smiled guiltily. "Which is why I failed to look back at the road in time."

"I see," Sasuke said, bringing his hand up to fix his bowtie. "Well, then. We will just have to settle this over dinner, won't we?"

Sakura blinked, completely taken aback and once again rendered to a sputtering mess.

He smirked. "I'll call you," he announced, starting to make his way across the patio. Before he walked through the double doors and rejoined the party, however, he threw her a sinful smirk, complete with a smoldering look, over his shoulder. "You did, after all, leave me standing in the middle of the road with only a business card in my hand."

Date: o1/12/2o14

A/N: This was supposed to be like 1000 words long, max. What is it with my mind and plot bunnies, really? *insert long-suffering sigh here*

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed—if you had the patience to read 'till the end! And if you did, thank you! Please drop me a review to tell me what you thought, it means a lot to me! :)

Otherwise, let December start!