Title: And Their Unsaid Words Became Their Silence
by Raina1
Series: Naruto
Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura
Theme: August 28: This conversation never happened.
Disclaimer: I no own, you no sue.
Rating: M for mature, though not graphic.

She came alone, as he knew she would. He had requested she come alone in his note, and when an examination of their surroundings proved his good faith in her, he knew that for all the years that had passed between them, some things never changed.

She seemed withdrawn, almost afraid. He could see how she curled her fingers into tight fists, the way she bit the corner of her bottom lip. When he melted from the shadows, and she saw his pale form in the moonlight, her green eyes, gray in the moon's glow, shifted away from his. He might have frowned if he didn't already understand why she would be so hesitant around him. After what had occurred between them the last time they saw each other, it was to be expected. They were, after all, on opposite sides.

Affecting a casual front, he put a hand on his hip. "You told no one."

"No." Her eyes finally rose to his. He could detect a faint arrogance in her tone when she added, "I can handle you."

Was that right. He tilted his head to the side, slightly. "You look well."

"What do you want?" He barely had had time to finish the sentence before she fired off that question. She continued on, agitated. "Whatever it is that you think you can get out of me through some form of blackmail, it's not going to happen. You should know by now where my loyalties lie."

This was not going well. He should have expected it, but somehow, he found himself withering internally all the same. "I know that," he replied, his tone neutral, his expression the same blank slate it always was. "The reason I asked you to meet me has nothing to do with my conflict with the village. Our meeting will not change what happens on the battlefield. It will not change anything."

"It does for me." Her answer was soft, distant. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you, but it's always going to mean something to me." Suddenly all the years of fighting, the battles, and the nightmares she had suffered showed in her eyes and face where they never would have appeared on his. "I wish… you could understand that."

"I do."

A fierce pain lit her then. "Why did you ask me to come here tonight? If you understood, you'd… you wouldn't do this." Anger flashed in her eyes and she held up both fists, her gaze hard, almost as if cut from glass. Her stance shifted, widened. She seemed determined to prove her point.

That ended when he appeared behind her, palming her tense elbows. He did not restrain her by digging his fingers into her arms. If she intended to attack him, that was her prerogative. He only intended to show her how close she always let him get… and to call her bluff for what it was. Judging by the bead of sweat running down the side of her face, he was right. He moved close in her ear, his heated breath warming the delicate shell of her ear. A contradictory shiver prickled her skin. Unseen by her eyes, he smirked. As he had thought.

"Please," she whispered. "Tell me what you want."

"What makes you think," he spoke as if he didn't have a care in the world – she flinched - "I want anything from you?"

She jerked away from him, turning around. He let her. "You told me to meet you. That implies there is something you want from me, something you probably think I'll give you. Something that you think by playing on… on whatever affection you think I still have for you will allow you to gain it." She narrowed her eyes and stepped into his space, challenging him. "Well, you're not getting it. I'm not that same little fool you left on that bench all those years ago…. What?"

His mask slid back on smoothly. He gave himself an inner rebuke, yet he didn't berate himself so harshly, for he should have expected her to elicit some sort of reaction out of him. That she still could after so many years of not being with her… Yes, she had that power. Once he had hated her for it, almost wished her dead because of it. Now he felt only amusement. An honor he allowed no one but her and she didn't even know it.

She calmed down evidently having decided that trying to get him to answer for his slip was fruitless. It was another sign how his absence all these painful years had simultaneously strengthened and weakened her sense of resolve at the same time. When he was sure she was not going to snap at him again, he made a suggestion with a slight jerk of his head to follow him.

Wordlessly, she did, although she did so reluctantly.

They walked silently side by side, across a dew-filled field of grass. Fireflies surrounded them, their soft lights fading in and out of the darkness. A bright crescent moon shone overhead, providing only enough light for them to see each other. He was aware that he made her nervous. He could tell that from the occasional aversion of her eyes she was very aware of his steady gaze. Her fingers came together against her stomach almost twisting around one another, yet not quite. Her shoulders instinctively hunched together. She was waiting for him to make his move, he realized, and was at war with the emotions going on inside of her.

"It was like this, you know," she began softly, looking up, a gentle, not-smile tugging at the corners of her mouth yet not reaching her eyes. "The night you left."

"Hn." Now it was his turn to avoid looking at her.

Her smile changed and became real, if faint. "You remember." He looked back at her again, hearing the certainty in her voice. "You… always look away from me when I say something you pretend not to remember." She let her gaze linger on his. "I guess some things don't change."

He dipped his head involuntarily. It was the only acknowledgement they both knew she was going to get.

He was surprised when he felt her hand touch his cheek, which forced him to flick his eyes up to hers, his own wide. He caught her wrist in his hand but he didn't remove it, though he knew he should. Urgency bit his insides and twisted them into knots. Things inside his head screamed at him to leave right now, get away from her right now, because what he thought could not happen again, what he was so sure would not happen again, was starting to happen again. The ifs and maybes and could-haves, the shadow of what he had seen yet not acknowledged, had viewed from afar yet chose not to explore. It was the thing he left with her because he was sure it would not become because he had killed it before it had a chance to have life inside of himself.

This was not what he came here tonight to confirm.

He removed her hand and gently pushed it back at her.

She removed her hand from his, staring at him, staring at him as he would not at her. For several tense moments, they stood before one another, her watching him, him not watching her.

As if she could see everything he was she held the hand he had touched close to her breast. He could see it in her face, and in her eyes that she was starting to see something she had not seen in him before. It filled that expression of hers with that annoying kind of hope he wished with all his might he could physically grab and just shake out of her. What the hell kind of right did she have thinking… thinking… and yet she did.

Once you surrender power, it is impossible to get it back.

He was only aware of the slight tug of her arms as she wrapped them around his neck, the faint press of her small, pliant body against his chest, and the tug of his neck as she pulled his face down toward her. Her mouth brushed his once, captured them, and then he felt delicious pressure as her tongue tapped against his still lips.

He broke, seizing her in his arms, and viciously took what she gently offered as a depredation. Her fingers grabbing, grasping through his hair went answered by his own carding through her soft, straight, rose-colored locks. They met again several times, barely pausing for breath before capturing one another again. Then, with her face between his hands, he told her with darkness of intent in the way he held her, he was going to take more than what she was offering him in that moment.

She answered with a sharp digging in of nails in his shoulders, in her eyes a quiet strength he never knew she possessed. Whatever he chose to take, she would give him, and she would give it to him, daring him to refuse what she could offer without shattering under the intensity of what she felt for him. What had broken him had made her stronger, more than she had been, could have expected to be.

Are you strong enough to stand where I stand? Can you hold this as we hold each other without fear of what it could destroy?

It will never get its chance, he tried to tell her, pulling her down with him between the grasses, hiding them from the sky. It can be stolen and left in pieces. It doesn't have the power to keep me here… nor do you.

It already has, she replied, her fingers slipping beneath his, sliding under him easily, finding his mouth again, even as he began to search for a way inside. It was born when you thanked me… when you hesitated the first time I came at you without fear… when we were forced to see each other as enemies… when I watched you try to take everything I loved from me…

He found what he was looking for, earning him a soft cry, as he gave her a thin, dark smirk. I can break you now. I can leave you here and never give you what you want.

She reached back and he grunted, startled, realizing he'd been thwarted, looking back up at her. She smiled, though, without a hint of challenge as he came back up to face her again. She caressed the side of his face and kissed him again, gently.

You can never break me. I know that now. Each time you abandon me, think you abandon me, I find what you leave in me. I find it every time you show me your back, you show me that damn symbol of your pride, the mark of your arrogance. I find it in the eyes of the one that we both love, though you'll never admit that you love him.

He devoured her, pressing her down into the earth, his hands purposeful, hunting, removing the barriers keeping him from what he sought.

What makes you think, he reached under her leg and pinned her, so she could not move, that I won't do something worse? What assurance do you have that I won't take this, take everything, and leave you cold and alone?

You won't. She smiled up at him, into his lustful gaze, his ferocity encumbered by a mixture of wonder and uncertainty, seizing beyond his own barriers. You know too well that hell and you won't let it happen to anyone else. You can't escape who you are, no more can you escape the fact you know you can never drive from me the very thing you've been running from all your life. What I embrace freely, you shudder at the very touch of, because you know you've already embraced it long ago.

He took her then, capturing her cry against his own, keeping it between them. They lost themselves beneath the darkness, drowning, disappearing, and their unsaid words became their silence.