Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any character appearing in the series.

The Difference

Sakura Haruno (now Uchiha) never had any problems expressing her feelings. She laughs when she's happy, she can throw you a punch in the face when she's angry (better not to see her angry) and when she's sad or upset she cries. Sometimes she cries a lot. She cried when Sasuke left, she cried when after the war he apologized to her, she cried during their wedding in Suna and when Sarada was born (happy tears, but tears after all). She has no problem talking about her feelings, telling Sasuke how much she loves him (although Sarada is now the number one on the ranking of Sakura's attentions and love declarations). Sakura usually talks a lot.

On the other hand, Sasuke is a man of few words. The few times he used a compound sentence Sakura widened her eyes totally shocked. Everyone who knows him, believe his favorite words are probably "Aa" and "Hn", since are the ones he uses more often (He would never admit it but his favorite word combination ever was the first day he said "Sakura Uchiha"). He usually rolls his eyes or grunts and sometimes he even chuckles, but he rarely talks a lot. And there's no need to talk about expressing his feelings. He learnt too soon to hide them, to deny the chance of loving someone after losing his family, he learnt to transform sadness into anger, any sign of weakness into fury. Sarada and Sakura have changed him. Especially Sakura, of course, and not too much, just a little bit, but he's different. Now he's not afraid to feel, just afraid to express it. Step by step, he thinks. And step by step he changes.

But today, something is different. When Sakura arrives home she kisses him and Sarada briefly and heads into their bedroom. She usually babbles a lot about her day at the hospital. Today she's quiet. Sasuke notices she's sad. But she does not cry. Just goes straight to their bedroom and closes the door. Sasuke stares at her daughter who innocently giggles and claps her tiny hands in his dad's arms, unable to understand what's going on, and he caresses her cheek softly.

After a few minutes Sakura re-enters the living room.

"It's Sarada's bedtime." She says.

"I'll do it." He replies.

"No. I want to." She extends her arms and the baby automatically wants to go with her mum.

When Sarada is asleep and Sakura returns to the living room for the second time, Sasuke offers a hot cup of tea to her. She takes the cup and starts reading a book. Sasuke just stares at his wife in complete silence. After a while, he asks:

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I lost a patient today. A young one." She replies not taking her eyes off the book.

"I understand." He says.

He places a hand on her knee and remains in complete silence.

She can feel a tear running down her face. She is feeling stupid. Of course it's not the first time she lost a patient. As a medical ninja she has seen a lot of people dying, some of them, very close friends. Death is always a tragedy, she thinks. This will not be the last time she will feel so angry, and disappointed and frustrated, ans she's positive about it. This horrible part of life, is a part of her job. Just history repeating.

But this time there's one big difference. She's not alone. She has Sasuke's hand on her knee. He is quiet and he's not even moving his hand, not even a bit, but somehow the warmth of his hand on her knee comforts her. He will not try to push her, to make her talk, he is just sitting there by her side, quiet.

The difference, is when she finally stands up and says that she's going to sleep besause she's tired, he says nothing but follows her.

The difference, is that she doesn't spend the night crying alone with her face against the pillow. She cries against Sasuke's chest while he is holding her tight and running his fingers through her hair until she falls asleep hours later.

Maybe she still cries a lot and he doesn't speak too much, but he's there. He's always there, like she was always there for him, and most of the times they don't even need to speak to understand each other. And this… this makes a big difference.

Probably lots of mistakes. Really short story this time, I'm sorry but I'm quite busy.

Would Love to hear from you! Don't be too hard on me...I had a tough day... Or just be hard, it makes me try to improve harder.

many thanks in advance for reading and reviewing!

Aliciadiez3 you were my first review in spanish! ;)

Twiggysyndrome and Lady Rini it's always a pleasure hearing from you!