Just something small that has been dancing in my mind for weeks. And I need to get this out before I continue writing Kurayami and In the Name of Life. Happy reading!

Delivery

It is then that Sasuke realizes he loves her.

He sees her with her hands covered in blood.

The sound of a wailing newborn ringing in his ears. The panting, the sweat, the accomplishment it brings.

It is her first, he knows.

But Sakura handles it like the professional she is. And he cannot help but give her a large amount of respect for that. Delivering a newborn without proper aid, all natural, is a process that has taken many lives in the past.

But there he is, standing beside Naruto and Kakashi, observing as the only female member of their four-man trekking group successfully performs her first delivery.

They are all inside a small hut in an impoverished town. Their travels around the world led them there after days of finding a quiet place to take a break. Kakashi's idea of team rebuilding seems appropriate for Naruto and Sakura, who are eager to see what the other countries have to offer to some of the most powerful shinobi of their time. Sasuke, on the other hand, is slowly getting used to the idea of rebuilding bonds with the people he tried so hard to leave.

The impoverished town they are currently staying in shows them the aftermath of the Fourth Shinobi War. Townspeople wander around the streets selling the few scraps they can find and orphans gather around in hidden corners to stay warm during the night. Sakura was the one to propose the idea of staying back for a couple of weeks and help these people resettle themselves in what is left over. Kakashi and Naruto agreed. Sasuke had no say. Though he secretly is glad they can take a break from traveling.

One of the few people Sakura befriends is a young woman, less than twenty five, whose partner abandoned her after the town crumbled and left her with child.

And now, Sasuke has just witnessed how his teammate delivered the woman's baby.

By her expression, Sakura is still stunned by the last twenty four hours of labour. The woman, who Kakashi renders unconscious to let her rest, is lying on her blood covered bed. Her long black hair shoots up in every direction, and her usually dark skin is now several shades lighter from exhaustion. Sasuke doesn't even know her name. He never felt like he needed to, but now he sees this woman's significance in his teammates' life and regrets not being so involved.

Naruto awkwardly takes the crying baby from Sakura's hands who, in turn, takes a clean kunai and cuts the umbilical cord. The girl's arms return to her front torso, as if they are missing the small bundle they were previously holding.

"It's a boy," she mumbles so lowly that Sasuke barely hears her.

Sakura hasn't washed her hands yet. He looks down at his own. Whereas his hands have brought destruction and death into this world, Sakura is capable of bringing life. During their years apart, Sasuke only thought of how to kill the next person on his hit list. Sakura, on the other hand, learned how to heal, mend broken bodies, witness deformed corpses, and deliver babies.

"Go wash yourself, Sakura. We will take care of him," Kakashi instructs his former student.

Sasuke watches her exit the room while the other two men head over to the small lavatory and clean the baby's soft skin. The child stops crying after they wrap him up in an old grey blanket.

Though Sakura may be in a different room, and with a talent that contradicts his, Sasuke has never felt any closer to his teammate.

He exits the room, leaving the unconscious new mother with a knucklehead ninja and the perverted future Hokage. And a baby, of course.

In the small kitchen adjacent to the woman's room, Sasuke finds Sakura sitting on the floor against the wall. Her hands -and clothes- are still stained in red, yet she isn't moving from her place. Instead, tears are falling down her face. She wipes them away when she realizes Sasuke is looking at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just... first time, you know," she tries to explain. Silently, though, he can tell how afraid she was about it.

Even after years of training, surviving a war, being declared a Sannin, and wandering around along with three of the most powerful ninja alive, Sakura is still afraid of failure.

She ought to be, Sasuke recognizes. Losing a life on her first real delivery would have been catastrophic to her reputation and self-esteem. Yet the baby and the mother are alive and well, both of them one room away.

Sakura is still wiping away her tears, which do not seem to stop, and she leaves behind smudges of blood on her cheeks.

"I better go back."

Before she can stand up, Sasuke finds himself kneeling in front of his teammate, preventing her from moving.

"You need to rest as well."

For the past couple of months, neither of them have had time alone. Maybe it was because there was a lack of trust between the two, or because Sakura's last confession was met with a worse reaction than her first. But after the war was all over, and that Kakashi convinced the Kages that team rebuilding while travelling was the best choice to evaluate if Sasuke was a safe ally, he has not spent a single moment alone with his only female teammate. Naruto or Kakashi were always present, starting up a conversation, proposing what to do and where to go next.

Sasuke notes this is the first time that he wants to stay with Sakura alone. He wants to give her something, anything, yet he does not know how to express what she needs.

And so, he tears the fabric of his shirt and cleans her cheeks. The simple motion catches Sakura off guard. She is so invested in her emotions from the past twenty four hours -desperation, fear, failure, expectations, reputation, hope, success- that the last thing she expects is for someone to be present for her.

Much less if that person is none other than Sasuke. Her old teammate. The boy -or man- who almost killed her, betrayed her, hurt her to almost no repair, and yet still she held on to the hope that Naruto keeps babbling about. That Sasuke is changing. This soul searching wandering adventure with her team is to rebuild bonds and trust, to find themselves. Sakura has been lost for a while now, and not just because of Sasuke. She is lost because of herself, because of the things she witnessed during the war, the things that happened during the war.

But here, on this dusty uneven floor, she is sitting in front of the one individual who has no emotions left in him yet who makes her feel everything. And he is, in his own manner, going out of his way to console her messed-up self even after not knowing how to deal with his own issues without breaking others apart.

The fabric against her skin, which is completely bloodstained, is disregarded. Instead, Sakura feels Sasuke's thumbs press on her cheeks as they continue to clean her trail of tears. Without holding back, she welcomes his touch and extends her arms, wrapping them tightly around his torso. She buries her face on his chest, fully aware of the mess she is causing on his clothes but without the care of what he may think. Sakura realizes that she needs the contact, the catalyst back to reality that is Sasuke.

And he lets her in. He lets Sakura hold her grasp on his shirt, too scared to let go. It is not a moment to console for sadness; it is a moment to share her relief for the lives she could give. Sasuke does not mind that tomorrow he may have to shop for new clothes. He does not mind that it may be the last time they touch in such an intimate, personal, emotional way.

Sakura does not need to know that he finally reciprocates her feelings. Not now, at least.

Yet here she is, almost eighteen, crying her eyes out after finishing her first delivery. Still afraid of failure. But maybe not as much as before.

"Rest," he says and taps two fingers on her forehead. Though there was no genjutsu at play in this action, it works as magic on Sakura, for she closes her eyes and slumps her head forward.

Like many years ago, Sasuke picks her up and carries her to the low leveled dinner table, which is the only decent and clean place in the kitchen. He slowly places her on it, without trying to awaken her from her much needed sleep. He recalls that the last time Sakura closed her eyes was two days ago when he and Naruto were sparring in a nearby river and she and Kakashi took in the sun under the trees.

He watches her steady breath for a moment, noticing that, yes, he indeed loves her. Where the feeling came from, he has no idea. Maybe it was hidden beneath all the hatred and revenge he craved, and it took this moment for it to surface. Seeing Sakura in such a vulnerable state, giving all of her mighty power to bring life to the world, is what shakes Sasuke's insides. It gives him... emotion. It gives him a reason to continue. To stay. To ensure that she is able to deliver more births so that the world forgets the pain he felt for years.

Sasuke turns around and catches Naruto leaning on the doorway, looking at him with a feral-like side grin. No words are exchanged. There isn't a need to. His friend already understands what's going through his heart. Heck, for someone as thick as Naruto, he probably called it way before Sasuke even realized what loving another person like this meant.

Later on that night, Sakura wakes up. She sees Sasuke sitting on the same place she was in earlier, his face contoured by the moonlight entering through the small kitchen window. He is awake, but she knows that attending to her duties is priority to figuring out what went on between the two of them.

She heads over to the woman's room and finds her sleeping on clean bed sheets. Kakashi and Naruto, both sitting on a chair facing the bed, are sleeping with their heads resting on their arms against the mattress. The baby boy is resting in a small basket on his mother's right side. Silently, Sakura makes her way to the basket and finds the small child breathing steadily. She sighs of relief; it is all reality.

With care, Sakura picks up the baby and readjusts the blanket around him before going back to the kitchen. She does not want to wake up the room's occupants, and much less if the baby starts to cry in the middle of the night. A candle is lit up, she places the baby on the kitchen table, and concentrates chakra on her hands to scan over his tiny body.

All his vitals seem to be in good condition. Aside from the faint wheezing sound he makes while sleeping, the baby is healthy. There is no liquid in his lungs left, no signs of a heart murmur, has all ten fingers and toes. His head is lightly covered by thin black hairs, similar to the mother's, and his skin is a few shades lighter than hers. Sakura can already see some of his mother's features manifest in the baby boy's tiny face.

Although the child isn't Sakura's, she still feels pride swell up within her at looking this new life. After war, destruction, and its aftermath, one needs to find the silver lining in everything.

She picks up the baby once again and rocks him back and forth, all too aware that Sasuke is silently watching her from his sitting position. A small smile appears in her lips. This is the feeling she has been looking for for months. The relief, the last held breath that comes when all is said and done. The chance of hope after losing so many lives.

The baby's head rests gently on her hand, while her other arm is wrapped around his tiny body. Sakura turns around to face her sitting teammate with an idea in mind.

"Sasuke-kun, do you want to hold him?"

He is the only one who hasn't had the honours yet, she reckons. Sasuke seems hesitant at first, but still stands up from his spot and walks over from where she is. Silently, and with a similar awkwardness like Naruto earlier, he takes the bundle from Sakura's arms.

"Hold his head with your hand. Yes, like that. Now wrap your other arm around his body and hold him close. You're doing it better than Naruto." That last comment seems to have boasted Sasuke's confidence in holding the baby boy.

There is something about this scene which also feels awfully personal and intimate between them. Sakura doesn't want to think about it too much, though passing a black-haired baby from her arms to Sasuke's brings makes her imagination run wild. It must be the lack of sleep, she tells herself.

Seeing Sasuke hold a new life with the same hands that killed so many in the past is a contradicting picture in Sakura's reality. The person who once declared to uphold all the pain and hatred of the world so that no one would suffer again is now touching the symbol of hope for the future. Maybe the baby will grow up to become another respectable shinobi, or maybe a well-mannered civilian who puts his town back in order.

"Sasuke-kun," she hesitates at first, "do you... want children?"

This situation already feels strange enough. To have the man who almost killed her long ago hold the newborn she helped deliver to this world is something Sakura would think impossible. Yet here he is, still willing to give life with Team 7 another chance. Willing to take this indefinite team rebuilding time until he is ready to go back to Konoha.

And when that happens, all of them would walk in through the gates together as a family. As the Second Sannin and the Sixth Hokage.

Sasuke does not know what to answer at first. Before the war was over, the thought of reinstating his family was long gone from his plans. Now the world around him is changing once more and Sakura is the personification of all he wishes for the future though he has no idea what that is.

"I think so," he answers, because the thought of Sakura passing him a baby that is -hypothetically- his comforts the dormant torment in his chest.

He thinks that, maybe, one day he would be ready enough to confess that tonight is when he began to love her. Because Sakura brings life into this world. And he wishes to help her in bringing that.

"Me too," she says.