Phantom Pain

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He's heard that amputees can often still feel their missing limbs, and this is usually painful. Sasuke can understand that, even though he's physically healthy and whole. Sometimes he'll think, Okaasan will be so proud, or I wonder if Itachi will have time for me today. Before he remembers that his mother is dead (slaughtered) and his brother is a murderer. That the best parts of his life have already been cut away.

This is always painful.

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There's nothing as loud as the quiet of an empty house.

He lies on the floor, breathing in the scents of dust and death. The room where his parents died has been thoroughly cleaned, and there's no visual trace that two people were killed there. Why, then, can Sasuke still smell the blood?

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She's watching him again. All of the girls in his class are watching him, really, but the only one he ever watches back is Haruno Sakura. It's because of her hair, he thinks. It's an eye-catching color. There's nothing more to it than that.

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Team 7 must be the most difficult squad Konoha has seen in generations (mostly thanks to Naruto). The blockhead is always getting into some kind of trouble. Then there's Sakura, who's too busy fawning over Sasuke to focus on becoming a more skilled kunoichi. He's no better than his teammates, though, because the only thing he wants out of this village is to become strong enough to kill his brother.

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The colors of the world have been reduced down to two: black and red. Shadow and blood. Corpses litter the streets, the bodies of family close and distant. His aunt Yuka with her throat slit, a crimson smile. Cousin Saiyuri with a kunai lodged between her pretty dark eyes. She was nineteen, a newlywed, the best kunoichi of her year. All of that talent and promise wasted, stolen.

Sasuke wakes to darkness, sobbing, trying to catch his breath. Slowly, reality reasserts itself, and he understands that he is in his apartment, alone, far away from the place where his family died. It doesn't matter where he is, though, because these memories are branded on his heart and he carries them with him.

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He leaves Konoha behind—leaves Sakura with a "thank you," Naruto with bruises and a scarred hitai-ate—but there are nights when he's alone in his room at this hideout or another that Sasuke allows himself moments of weakness. Just a few seconds to remember his teammates. Sakura most of all, but he doesn't like to consider why that is.

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Sasuke survives his fight with Itachi, but it isn't how he thought it would be. Everything he knew to be true, everything he's worked toward and fought for, is a lie.

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She confesses her love for the second time, and it takes everything he has not to say that she is special, important to him in a way no one else is. In a way he doesn't even fully understand, because he won't let himself examine his feelings for her. So instead he rejects Sakura, puts her in a genjutsu.

But later, when he's flat on his back, bleeding to death, he finally finds the courage to apologize. For everything.

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He lies on a bed in the Konoha hospital, weak but alive (thanks to Sakura), feeling phantom pain in an arm that isn't there. Recovery is slow. That's what the medics keep telling him anyway. Some days he thinks his fingers hurt. Some days he half-expects to see Itachi walk around the corner. Neither figment is real, both products of his imagination, grief and body memory playing with his head.

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He leaves Konoha again, but this time Sasuke knows he'll be coming back someday. That hopefully his travels will help him find some kind of redemption, and he can return home a different man. A better man.

When he says goodbye to Sakura, he taps her on the forehead with two fingers, the same way Itachi used to do to him. He understands, finally, that she is his and he is hers, no matter how far apart they are.

This is good to remember during his years away. When he misses her with an almost physical pain, like the ache in the arm that isn't there. The empty space where Sakura belongs hurts just as much as his missing limb.

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After Sasuke comes home, he and Sakura do their best to make up for lost time. They watch movies together and spar and drag Naruto to restaurants besides Ichiraku. And every evening, he goes to sleep beside her. When the nightmares come, she holds him and whispers soothing nonsense until he calms down.

He's loved her for years, maybe since they were genin, he knows that now, but he can't find the words to tell her. So instead, he kisses Sakura. Tries to convey through actions the things he cannot say out loud.

Kisses turn to touches, first over their clothes, then under them. They take things slowly, until one night Sasuke and Sakura run out of patience. She straddles him, naked, limned by moonlight. When their bodies join, he bites back a groan, wrapped up in the feel of her body sheathing him and the sight of her, bare and taking her pleasure. She is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

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They marry on a warm spring day when the cherry blossoms are blooming. It's a small affair, just the two of them and their closest friends and family. Sakura smiles brighter than he's ever seen, and Sasuke is glad to bring her this happiness. She deserves it, considering the contentment she's given him.

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His left arm aches, a reminder of the mistakes he has made. There are still nights when gets lost in the grip of a dream, and days when he wishes to be held by his mother so badly that he can almost smell her jasmine perfume.

Sasuke wakes in the early hours of the morning, certain he has blood on his hands. Sakura hugs him and soothes him and turns on the light so he can see that his hands are clean. Her touch calms him, and her love helps him find a place of peace in the middle of the chaos.

Recovery is slow, he remembers. Slow, but not impossible.

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Author's Note: This is my submission for Day 3 of SasuSaku Smut Month! I'm looking forward to doing more.