PART THREE

Warnings: Infidelity and major character death

Pairings: SasuSaku and ItaSaku

Notes: This is the final part of Tribute, and I hope all of you find it to be a satisfying ending, if perhaps bittersweet. Thank you for the many thoughtful responses! I love all of the favorites and follows, but especially the reviews, and I appreciate every single one.

Now, moving on to For Everything There is a Season!

Itachi knows something is wrong. He looks at her oddly and asks leading questions, trying to get her to open up to him. Sakura smiles and pretends innocence until she can't stand herself. Part of her wants to come clean and confess everything, but she doesn't have the courage to do it.

Three months into her affair, Fugaku-sama sends Itachi and Sasuke south to make an alliance with Hyuuga Hiashi. Itachi insists that his wife come, that Sakura's bright, diplomatic nature will help them when it comes time to negotiate. Fugaku-sama agrees, and so Sakura spends two hellish days traveling with her husband and her lover. On the second night, inside the flimsy privacy of their tent, Itachi kisses his way down her stomach, to between her legs, and Sakura does her best to stay quiet.

The next morning, Sasuke can barely look at her and hardly speaks to anyone. He keeps his face carefully blank, but she sees the fury just underneath that cold expression.

At the Hyuuga village, Hiashi greets them respectfully, if not warmly. Negotiations prove difficult. The man is stubborn, and he wants to keep his clan independent from the Senju and Uchiha. Only with the promise of open trade, access to allied resources, and shared intelligence does Hiashi finally agree to perhaps bind his clan to theirs. As a token of his faith, he offers his elder daughter as a wife for Sasuke.

No, Sakura thinks, but she keeps her expression as tranquil as still waters.

Sasuke says, "With all due respect, Hiashi-sama, I have no intentions of taking any wife."

For a moment, Sakura breathes easier—until Itachi says, "Excuse my younger brother. We'll give this matter the proper consideration it deserves."

Later, alone with the two brothers in her borrowed quarters, Sasuke says, "I'm not marrying her."

"This alliance is fragile," Itachi says patiently, "and if you refuse Hinata, it may crumble altogether."

"I don't care," Sasuke says.

"Stop being so selfish, for once in your life," Itachi snaps. "If we don't bring the Hyuuga to our side, it could mean war a few years down the line."

Sasuke glances at Sakura, and Itachi asks, "Why are you looking to her?"

She hopes he can think of a good lie, and quickly.

"If anyone in this room knows what it's like to be sold, she does. And how happy has that made you, Sakura?" Sasuke's look is challenging, heated.

Sakura lowers her gaze, angry that he would ask her such a thing. No matter how she answers, she'll hurt one of the men she loves, so she doesn't answer at all.

"Get out," Itachi says, and Sasuke leaves, slamming the door behind him.

A heavy silence echoes in the room, oppressively quiet.

Itachi sits next to her on the edge of the bed and asks, "Is he right? Do you feel like you were sold to me?"

When Sakura can't find the words to respond, her husband sighs, sounding impossibly weary for such a young man.

Itachi argues with Sasuke again in the morning, but his younger brother will not bend. He flatly refuses to marry the Hyuuga girl. Hiashi is displeased, tells the Uchihas they have worn out their welcome, and sends them back to Nanmoku with no alliance.

Okaasan's latest letter is lively and entertaining as always, but at the end, almost as an afterthought, her mother mentions that there has been some unrest in the clan. A man named Danzo has half the Senju wanting to break the peace with the Uchiha, but she promises he'll be dealt with soon.

"What have you heard about it?" Sakura asks Itachi. "Is this Danzo dangerous?"

"He's a formidable ninja," Itachi says, and from him, that certainly means something. "His politics are brutal, as are his methods. He's not the sort of man you want in a position of power."

Sakura frowns and sits by the window. "How serious is this? Is my clan looking at civil war?"

"I won't lie to you," Itachi says. He approaches her, takes her hands. "It could come to that. But if it does, we'll support your mother and the Senju who have remained loyal."

She nods, then rests her head against his chest. "I wish things were different," she whispers. "I wish this wasn't the world we lived in."

News travels slowly from Rokagita, but at least Okaasan sends her more straightforward letters. She reports that Danzo has been imprisoned for trying to start an insurgency, his closest comrades as well. This was an unpopular move, apparently, but the Senju accept their matriarch's will all the same.

Life in Nanmoku continues on. Fugaku-sama is most upset with his younger son for refusing the match with Hinata and commands him to relent and accept the Hyuuga girl, but Sasuke holds his ground. He won't be married; not to Hinata, not to anyone.

A few weeks after the fruitless trip to the Hyuugas' village, she, Itachi, Sasuke, and Mikoto attend a party at the daimyo's palace. Most of the guests are wealthy civilians, but there's a handful of other high-ranking shinobi present. Rice wine flows as if it is endless, and Sakura indulges in a cup or two.

After dancing with her husband, she sits beside Mikoto, drinking her sake. The older woman has always been kind to her, but tonight she keeps her distance, cool and taciturn. It's uncanny, really, her resemblance to her younger son when she decides not to show any emotion.

"Is something wrong, Mikoto-san?" Sakura asks.

Her mother-in-law fixes her with a flat stare. "My husband has never liked you, Sakura. He says you're too much like Tsunade, too self-centered and temperamental to be trustworthy."

Sakura feels her cheeks grow warm. "I'm sorry he feels that way."

"I've always defended you," Mikoto says, "because you seem like such a kind girl. But now I don't think there's much kindness in you, after all."

"Why do you say that?" Sakura asks, but her stomach is twisting, because she understands that somehow Mikoto knows.

Her mother-in-law looks around, then whispers, "My niece Saiyuri says she saw Sasuke sneaking out of your house after midnight, the last time Itachi was gone."

Sakura takes a drink of her sake, makes a puzzled face. "I'm sure she was mistaken. Sasuke and I rarely even see each other these days."

"Oh, don't playact with me," Mikoto says, and now she sounds downright disgusted (same as Sakura feels with herself). "We both know you've pined after Sasuke for years. Fortunately for you, Saiyuri is a discreet girl, and she told no one but me. And I won't be sharing this information with my husband or Itachi, because I have no desire to see the alliance between our clans collapse."

Sakura has never felt more embarrassed, more ashamed, in her life. She will not cry in front of Mikoto. She won't.

Just then, Sasuke returns to their table and asks Sakura if she would like to dance.

Mikoto turns her hard look on her younger son and says, too quiet for anyone else to hear, "Have some decency."

It's the only sharp thing Sakura has ever heard Sasuke's mother say to him. He frowns, starts to talk back, but Mikoto holds up her hand. "You disappoint me, Sasuke. I thought you would grow into a better man than this."

Mikoto stands, leaves the table, and goes to socialize with some diplomat's wife or another, now smiling pleasantly.

After the confrontation with Mikoto, Sakura and Sasuke stop seeing one another. This resolve, borne from shame and fear of discovery, lasts all of two months, and then they're sneaking around again (albeit more carefully).

At the end of September, Itachi takes a short mission to the Wind Country, four days away at most. He hasn't been gone an hour when Sasuke shows up. He kisses her fiercely, like half a lifetime has passed since they last made love. Then he picks her up, bridal style, and strides toward the master bedroom.

"Sasuke," Sakura says, and she means to protest, she does, but then he has already kicked open the door and dropped her on the bed without ceremony. She watches him undress, takes in his broad shoulders, flat stomach, strong arms. There's even a certain beauty to his scars, those marks that show how close to death he's been.

Then Sasuke takes off her clothes, kissing soft skin wherever he bares her, until she's naked and he has his mouth between her legs, working her sensitive flesh with his tongue. Sakura thrashes, grips the sheets in tight fists. He teases her until she can't stand it anymore, until she begs him to take her. Then Sasuke gets on his knees, fucks her hard and fast. The mattress creaks beneath them and the headboard hits the wall, making an awful racket and reminding Sakura of exactly where she is (the bed that was supposed to be hers and Itachi's alone). Sasuke whispers words of love between endearments, and she can't help it, she comes, crying out his name.

"I'm not nearly done with you," Sasuke says, and he must mean that, because he keeps her up all night, using her in every way they both want (and after so many weeks apart, they want a great deal).

Sakura finally closes her eyes as dawn breaks. She sleeps until the early afternoon, and when she wakes, she finds that Sasuke is still there beside her, hair mussed, breathing evenly. She feels sore all over, tender after the evening they shared. Sasuke is always passionate, but last night was something else. He took her, over and over again, like he was trying to prove she belonged to him.

When Sasuke stirs and sits up, Sakura asks, "Are you happy now?" He doesn't answer, so she presses. "Well, are you proud? Did you get what you wanted?"

"No," Sasuke says. He leaves the bed, starts dressing. "I'm sick of this," he says. "The lying, the subterfuge. Having to pretend like I don't love you when I do."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" Sakura asks. She understands—even feels the same way herself—but they have no good choices.

He shakes his head, pulls his shirt on. "I don't know."

"Neither do I." Sakura gets out of bed, strips the sheets off it; they'll need to be washed before Itachi comes home.

"What is this?" her husband asks.

Sakura is lying on her stomach, naked, and Itachi has his fingers pressed lightly to her shoulder. Her heart beats faster, and an excuse catches in her throat. Could she have missed a bruise when she healed herself, some mark from her long night with Sasuke?

"I don't know," Sakura says, trying to sound disinterested. "I probably bumped into something."

Itachi doesn't say a word, just gives her cold silence. When she chances a look at him, she sees that his Sharingan is awakened, his mouth a flat line.

"Do you think I'm a fool?" he asks.

Sakura sits up, holding the freshly laundered sheet to her breasts.

"I know a love-bite when I see one," Itachi says, voice steady but hard. "And I haven't been home to give you one in days."

No, no, this can't be happening. Her lies are catching up with her, and she doesn't know what to do.

"Well?" her husband asks. "What do you have to say?"

Sakura finds that she can't look at him, can barely even speak her apology. "I'm so sorry, Itachi." She closes her eyes, feels hot tears sliding down her cheeks. She hears him stand, and then the sound of a chair being thrown across the room. Sakura startles at the noise, hugs the sheet closer to her nakedness, and looks to see Itachi pacing. He moves like a wild creature thrust into captivity, something dangerous that has been confined against its will.

Her husband glares at her. "It's Sasuke, isn't it?"

Sakura can't find the voice to answer, so she just nods.

"How long?" Itachi asks.

"I don't think we should—"

"How long?" he asks again, this time more forcefully.

Sakura takes a deep breath and says, "Six months."

Half of their short marriage.

The expression that crosses Itachi's face is one of pure hurt, and Sakura has never hated herself as much as she does in this moment. But then the pain is gone, and he simply looks angry, furious. Itachi pulls on his clothes, quickly and purposefully.

"Where are you going?" Sakura asks.

"To visit my little brother," Itachi says.

Sakura stands, the sheet trailing after her. "What are you going to do?"

He throws a dress at her, which she catches by instinct alone, and says, "Put that on. You're coming with me."

Sakura follows him across Nanmoku, trying not to cry any more, terrified that Itachi will hurt his younger brother.

She need not have worried, however, because when Sasuke opens his front door, Itachi simply takes Sakura by the arm and pushes her forward. "You want her so badly?" he asks. "Then take her, keep her. I have no use for an unfaithful wife."

Sasuke steps toward him, anguished, and says, "Nisan, I'm sorry—"

"Don't call me that." The look Itachi gives them both is cold, unforgiving.

Word quickly travels around Nanmoku that Sakura is not living with her husband, although the reason why remains unknown. She uses her savings to rent a hotel room, far from both Itachi and Sasuke, and considers the consequences of her own poor choices. She has nobody to blame for this predicament besides herself.

Sakura waits one week, then two, half hoping that Itachi would change his mind and allow her back home, half relieved that she is free for the first time since she was twelve years old.

It's only a matter of time before Fugaku-sama and Mikoto hear about the separation, and on the fifteenth day after Itachi kicked her out of the house, she and her husband are summoned to their estate for dinner. To her surprise, Itachi actually shows up.

"I don't know what's come between you," Fugaku-sama says, "but whatever it is cannot be more important than the alliance between our clans."

At first, Itachi argues, but she can see right away that he'll give in. Her husband has always understood the importance of peace, valued it more than anything else. By the end of dinner, he has grudgingly invited her to return home, for the sake of his village if nothing else.

"I'll come back," Sakura says, "but first I want to visit Rokagita."

"No," Fugaku-sama says. "Your clan is on the brink of a civil war, and you're far too valuable to be risked."

Sakura frowns. "I need to see my mother."

He shakes his head. "The answer is no."

It turns out that Fugaku-sama's verdict doesn't much matter, because Sakura receives a letter from Nawaki the next day. She can see the grief in every pen stroke, the way her uncle's hand shook as he wrote to her.

I'm so sorry, Sakura, but your mother is dead.

She reads enough of the long letter to understand that Danzo and his comrades were broken out of prison. Shortly thereafter Rokagita erupted into battle, and her mother faced Danzo and a half-dozen of his lackeys. She died fighting to protect her village.

Now Danzo rules Rokagita, and he plans to dissolve the alliance with the Uchiha Clan.

Sakura goes straight to Fugaku-sama, Nawaki's letter still clutched in her fist, and finds him already in a council with his sons and advisors. "What are you going to do about this?" she asks.

"That man's rule will not be tolerated," Fugaku-sama assures her. "He must be removed from power before he plunges our clans back into war with one another." Then he looks around the room, at the shinobi, young and old, gathered there. "I want this Danzo assassinated. Who volunteers to eliminate him?"

"I want to do it," Sakura says. "He killed my mother. I deserve the chance to face him."

Fugaku-sama frowns, but says, "I'll allow it, Sakura, on the condition that three of my clansmen support you on your mission."

"I'll help," Sasuke says, and she doesn't meet his eyes, can't, not right now, with the letter spelling out her mother's fate still held in her hand.

"Count me in," says Obito-sensei.

Sakura looks to her husband. "Itachi?" she asks. If he joins them, she knows that Danzo's death warrant is all but signed.

Itachi nods and says, "I'll help you, too, Sakura."

Danzo has taken up residence in her mother's estate, the home where Sakura spent her early years. Her team infiltrates the grounds in the dead of night, quietly incapacitating the masked men guarding the perimeter. There are more bodyguards inside the grand old house, and it grieves Sakura, but she's forced to destroy some of her childhood home in her pursuit of Danzo.

Itachi, Obito-sensei, and Sasuke are outnumbered three to one, but these men are the finest shinobi of the Uchiha Clan, and Danzo's subordinates are no match for them.

She finds her target escaping out the back of the house with two guards, but he makes it no further than ten feet before Sakura shatters the earth around him. One of the masked shinobi hits his head on a rock and lies still, either dead or unconscious, and Sakura doesn't quite care which right now.

"You must be Tsunade's brat," Danzo says.

She burns the second bodyguard with the fireball jutsu Itachi taught her so many years ago, and the man falls to the ground, screaming.

Sakura looks to Danzo and says nothing; after all, what is there to say to a dead man?

Sasuke, Itachi, and Obito-sensei find her kneeling over the thing that used to be Danzo (before Sakura caved in his skull with a chakra-enhanced punch). He's been dead for a good ten minutes, but she wields a kunai, her careful medic's hands easily pinpointing the most vital spots. Once she hits all of those, she continues to stab his chest and stomach indiscriminately. She's red all over, covered in her enemy's blood. Distantly, she feels a man's strong hands pull her away from Danzo's corpse, help her stand. The slick kunai slips from between her graceless fingers and falls to the ground.

"It's over, Sakura," Sasuke says, and he hugs her, anchoring her to the earth. "You killed him."

She nods numbly, and in an instant her shock gives way to grief, and Sakura allows herself to cry. Only in Sasuke's arms can she let herself fall apart like this.

They stay in Rokagita long enough to ensure that her uncle is safely instated as the new Head of the Senju (a title that, in a different life, would have belonged to Sakura). Her team leaves the village as morning sunlight appears just over the horizon, makes the long journey back to Nanmoku. She thanks these three men—her husband, her teacher, and her love—for helping her save Rokagita and avenge her mother.

It isn't until her feet have carried her back to the house she shares with Itachi that Sakura realizes her presumption. "I know you only agreed to let me come back for the sake our villages," she says. "Are you sure you want me here?"

He nods. "You're my wife," Itachi says, as if that answers everything simply.

Both of them are bone-tired from the journey back to Nanmoku, but neither can sleep. They sit up at the kitchen table, drinking tea and making small talk. Until Itachi sets his cup down and asks, "Have you always loved Sasuke? You said his name when you were half-asleep, the morning after our wedding, and I've wondered ever since."

So he had heard that. Sakura lowers her gaze. "I've loved him for years," she says, "but that doesn't excuse what I've done. I'm sorry that we hurt you, Itachi."

"I'm sorry I couldn't make you happy," he says.

"You're a good husband," Sakura says, and she reaches across the table to take his hand. "There's nothing you've done wrong, nothing you should apologize for."

Itachi sighs. "There's something I need to tell you, Sakura. I hate to do it now, so soon after you lost your mother, but it needs to be said."

"What is it?" she asks, too puzzled to be nervous.

He looks at her steadily and says, "I'm sick. Dying. The medics say I have a few months left, as many as four or five if I stop going on missions and rest more."

Sakura takes a shaky breath, closes her eyes, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what he has just told her. "Who all knows?"

"Only the medic-ninjas on my case, and now you," Itachi says. "I'm planning to tell my parents and Sasuke together, tomorrow."

Sakura can't help but cry. Whatever mistakes she's made, Itachi is still her husband, and she loves him. Five months is nothing. It will be gone in the blink of an eye, and she can't abide that. "Maybe the medics missed something. You should let me look at you, see if I can formulate a treatment—"

Itachi shakes his head. "I'll let you look me over, if it will set you at ease, but I don't want you to get your hopes up. I've been assured that my illness is fatal."

Sakura refuses to believe it until she sees the damage herself. The next day, Itachi allows her to examine him, and what she finds makes her want to scream. There's something in his blood that does not belong, a million microscopic cells that are out of place in the human body, so small that even with the finest precision of her chakra, Sakura can barely sense them. Except for the fact that this disease is already spreading into his major organs, he is relatively healthy—strong heart and lungs and liver—and it grieves her, because if not for this, he could have lived to be ninety or more.

(They could have grown old together, but Sakura forces herself not to think on that.)

She tries to explain her findings, but for some reason her voice doesn't seem to work.

"It's all right," Itachi says. "I already know. Will you come with me to tell my family? I don't think I can do it by myself."

Mikoto cries and Fugaku holds her, his stern face twisted by grief, but Sasuke's reaction is the worst part by far. He screams, rages, sobbing all the while, and then when all the fury seems to have abandoned him, he hugs Itachi. Only Sakura is close enough to hear Sasuke whisper, "I'm so sorry, Nisan."

Whether he's referring to the illness or their transgressions, she isn't sure.

Sakura watches her husband die by inches, all of her medical knowledge useless in the face of this disease. Itachi no longer takes missions, but he refuses to stop training, and every day she sees him slow a little more, tire a little faster, until the morning comes when he says, "I think I'll just rest today." There is no training again after that.

He takes medicine to manage the pain, and although she knows he must be weary and hurting, Itachi never complains.

"You know, you don't have to stay by my side for this," he says.

"There's nowhere else I want to be," she says. "I don't want to miss any time with you."

She and Itachi go to a festival together, enjoying the lights and laughter and sharing sweet dango. They hold hands wherever they go, like lovestruck newlyweds, and kiss under the shade of an old oak tree.

Sakura doesn't know it yet, but this is the last good day Itachi will have.

They play shogi all the time now, because it's one of the few things he can do while sitting that doesn't bore him. He's a much better opponent than his brother (as Sasuke has little patience for strategy), and Sakura loses as often as she wins.

It's a Sunday morning, and they're playing their third game when Itachi says, "After I'm dead, my father and your uncle will want to keep the alliance tied together by marriage. You know what means, don't you?"

Sakura understands precisely what he's getting at, but she can't think how to answer. That's just as well, though, because Itachi hasn't finished speaking. "They'll want you and Sasuke to marry," he says bluntly. "Not right away, of course, that would be unseemly. But after a few months have passed—"

Sakura shakes her head. "Stop it. I don't want to talk about this."

"Too bad," Itachi says, in a tone that tolerates no argument, "because I do."

"Why?" she asks. "Why would you possibly want to discuss this?"

"You need to accept that I'm going to die, and you should be prepared for the consequences you'll face once I'm gone," Itachi says. He reaches across the board and touches her cheek. "I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'm jealous, because he'll get to spend the rest of a long life with you. But, Sakura, I love you, and I love Sasuke, and I don't want you to feel guilty for the rest of your lives."

We deserve it, Sakura thinks, for betraying a man as good as her husband.

Itachi's last words are to Sasuke. He pokes his little brother in the middle of the forehead, the way he used to do when they were younger, and says, "We'll talk later." Then he falls into a deep sleep which he never wakes from.

Sakura is just barely nineteen, far too young to be a widow, but here she is just the same.

The funeral passes in a haze of grief, and then Sakura is left alone in the home she shared with her husband. She finds that she can't sleep in the master bedroom, where she once let Sasuke use her so roughly, and tries to steal what rest she can in the guest room. This whole house is a reminder of her betrayal, and if it wasn't also full of memories of Itachi, she would happily burn it to the ground.

She sees little of Sasuke. Perhaps, like her, he feels too sick with guilt to take comfort in each other. Sakura still loves him—wouldn't know to quit even if she tried—but the hurt they caused Itachi, that is a burden they'll have to carry for the rest of their lives.

Itachi's prediction soon proves correct. Four months after his death, Fugaku summons her and Sasuke and explains the importance of keeping their clans bound together. If they both consent, he hopes to see them wed this winter.

Sasuke nods, but he won't even look at her.

Sakura's second wedding takes place on a cool morning in December. Frost coats the leaves and grass, and the winter sun is high and white overhead. She and Sasuke go through a ceremony nearly identical to the one Sakura shared with Itachi not so long ago. After the reception, they retire to the fine quarters they've rented for the evening and help each other undress. She half expects to spend a sleepless night back to back with her new husband, but once she's naked, Sasuke can't seem to keep his hands off of her. They kiss and make love, slow and gentle, and it feels so good to be touched by him.

The next morning, she wakes to Sasuke watching her, playing with her long hair. "You're so beautiful," he says. "I can't believe you're my wife."

She feels much the same. After so many years spent yearning for Sasuke and loving him despite the futility of it, Sakura can't quite accept that he's hers.

Every month or two, Sakura visits the polished stone that bears her first husband's name. She brings fresh flowers, lilies or roses, usually, and takes a moment to remember him. He was the first person in Nanmoku to show her kindness, the first man she made love with. She misses Itachi, his soft smile and careful hands, and there is a part of her that will forever wish he was here. Whatever grief and guilt she carries is nothing next to Sasuke's, though, so she keeps these thoughts to herself.

Slowly, the seasons turn, one after another, and life goes on.

(They do not discuss the empty room on the second floor, a nursery-in-waiting, but Sasuke and Sakura both know they'll be expected to fill it soon all the same. That every time they make love there is a chance a child will come of it.)

Sasuke takes on new responsibilities, preparing to lead his clan someday. He brings Sakura to every council meeting, and when faced with difficult decisions he always seeks her advice.

"You should have been Head of the Senju," Sasuke says. "You have the right mind for it."

They're in bed together, naked but not touching, enjoying their nearness to each other.

"Maybe," Sakura says, "but I accepted my place here a long time ago."

She's given up so much to be a dutiful wife. Except, of course, when she and Sasuke risked everything to sate their own selfish desires.

"I visit Itachi's grave," Sakura admits. "Not all the time, but often enough."

Sasuke moves closer to her, runs his fingers through her hair (which he seems to have a particular fondness for). "I wondered who was leaving those flowers," he says. "I knew it wasn't Otousan and Okaasan."

She hugs Sasuke, holds him close. "It's stupid, isn't it? It's not like going there will bring him back to us."

He kisses the top of her head. "I miss him too," Sasuke says, and she doesn't remark upon the catch in his voice.

If she could turn back the hands of a clock, Sakura would do many things differently, but this is not the way the world works. She has to live with her mistakes, same as everyone else.

"What are you thinking?" Sasuke asks, as he runs his fingers up and down the smooth plane of her back, tracing nonsense words on her skin.

"I regret so much," Sakura says. "But not you, Sasuke. Never you."

She takes comfort in the warmth of his body, the strength and beauty of this man she has loved since childhood. He's hers, for the rest of their lives, and Sakura knows she can only treasure this gift all the more, because it came at such a high price.