Sakura Haruno was looking forward to a quiet day off. She had nothing to do all day and had decided to spend her afternoon in the coffee shop with a new book and although part of her was looking forward to a lazy day, another fairly large part of her was hoping that Sasuke had listened to her when she said she still went to the coffee shop and that he would find her there.

Sakura still lived in hope and she still missed Sasuke's company, but now all she felt she could do for him was wait until he came back to her and if he didn't the she'd eventually be able to move on.

She spent the morning in her small house, cleaning and tidying and in no time at all in was the afternoon and after gathering her belongings she turned off the television that she had on for some background noise as she did her chores. By this time the news was on and Sakura paused slightly as the newsreader began to introduce a new story that was apparently "breaking news" when she realised it was something about the business world Sakura rolled her eyes and turned the television off as it wasn't anything that interested her and headed down town.

Sakura walked down town wrapped up in many layers to ward off the cold. It was fairly busy in the coffee shop but there were still a few empty tables about and Sakura settled herself on a small table by the window with a large coffee opening her book to the first page with some excitement.

As the minutes passed Sakura became absorbed in what she was reading and forgot all about the possibility that Sasuke could arrive as she became drawn into the interesting new world the book offered. Sakura was so intent on her book that she didn't see the young man pause at the window outside the coffee shop taking in her appearance, a small smile on his face as he saw how interested she seemed in what she was reading. After a moment's thought he moved over to the doorway and Sakura didn't even look up as the bell above the door rang as he entered.

The dark haired young man hesitated slightly in the doorway pausing momentarily before moving over to the table to join the lone girl reading by the window. Sasuke looked down at Sakura as he rested his hands on the back of the empty chair and cleared his throat. Sakura jumped.

"Sasuke," She said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" Sasuke looked slightly awkward as if he wasn't sure how to answer her question before he asked one of his own.

"Can I join you?" He asked and Sakura gave him a welcoming smile.

"Sure," She said and indicated for him to take a seat.

"How have you been?" Sasuke asked and Sakura carefully placed her bookmark in her book before closing it.

"Alright really. Nothing interesting has happened since I met you last week, works been busy and I saw Sai again."

"Did you?" Sasuke said flatly and Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Jeez, I ran into Naruto that day as well I don't understand how he took a sudden dislike to him as well. It's not like you've even met him anyway." Sasuke shrugged slightly refusing to say that he didn't like the idea of her being so friendly with Sai in case the other man ended up replacing him in Sakura's life. "Hinata and Naruto seem to be doing well." Sakura added trying to move the conversation into more common grounds.

"Yeah they are," Sasuke said quietly. "She means the world to Naruto."

"They're quite sweet really." Sakura said with a smile and Sasuke nodded only half listening as his thoughts turned towards the real reason he came to see Sakura.

"What did Naruto tell you?" Sasuke asked suddenly, "You said everything."

"Naruto told me you'd been in hospital." Sakura started hesitantly as she realised that this was probably the reason he came to see her, "and that Itachi had been the cause. He said that just recently you broke his nose before you quit your job." She said with a brief smile, "and I saw you probably doing it again a few days ago." Sasuke looked down at the table tracing the lines of the wood with his finger.

"Right." He muttered and Sakura cautiously reached out a hand to lay it over Sasuke's and she was faintly surprised when he didn't shake it off although he still seemed unable to meet her eyes and instead concentrated on their two hands.

"I do forgive you, you know," Sasuke said and she saw Sasuke frown slightly. "I cried when you broke up with me at first." She continued. "I was upset, angry even, I couldn't understand why you did it but everything's fine now."

"Is it?" Sasuke muttered to himself and then he looked up at Sakura, he turned his hand round on the table to he was grasping her fingers. "Why? Why would you forgive me for that?"

"Because I know you cared enough about me to let me go." She said with a small smile and Sasuke looked down at their joined hands again.

"That doesn't make sense." He said and Sakura shrugged and looked down at their entwined hands as well, enjoying the feel of his hands in hers.

"Yes it does." She said and this time it was Sasuke's turn to shrug, "maybe this show's that I'm just a much nicer person that you anyway." She saw Sasuke frown slightly and added, "well more forgiving anyway." Many patrons of the cafe watched the young couple that used to be familiar to the place, first coming to the cafe on their own and then together. Two of the staff stood whispering to each other as they enjoyed a lull in the amount of customers coming into the coffee shop, they watched as an awkward silence seemed to have fallen between two of their old customers.

"Sakura, I really need to talk to you." Sasuke said finally pulling away from her and linking his finger together in front of him, Sakura gave him an inquisitive look.

"Then what were we doing beforehand?" She asked with a smile that Sasuke didn't respond too, he didn't even notice that she had attempted to make a joke. "Okay then," Sakura said after a moment's pause. "What do you want to talk about?"

"The stuff that Naruto told you," Sasuke began hesitantly. "I want you to know what really happened and not just Naruto's guesswork and ideas about it." Sakura nodded unable to speak in case he stopped and changed his mind.

"There's always been some sort of competition between Itachi and me especially as he was so academic at school and my father didn't help as he heavily favoured Itachi and always compared my marks at school with his. My mother always tried to smooth things over although it was obvious to everyone that Itachi was the golden child in the family." Sasuke continued as he looked down fixedly at his hands on the table.

"My father loved what Itachi could do for the family and put a lot of his hopes for the company in him and when Itachi went away to university he'd changed, things were different je seemed, I don't know really, at first he seemed really sad and then it was more anger than anything else.

"Before he went away, Itachi used to try to get my father to acknowledge me as well, he stuck up for me and offered to go to school events in the place of my father but I think I heard from my mum that he fell into a bad crowd and since then he wasn't the same, he was less talkative and kept to his self and I was still young thenI wanted to know what had happened to him." At this point Sasuke seemed to struggle with what he was saying and Sakura reached over the table again to place her hand over his to offer him some reassurance. Sasuke seemed to gain strength from her actions and looked up at Sakura as he continued.

"One night when my parents were away, I think they were celebrating and anniversary or something Itachi had a visitor, and this is something that Naruto couldn't have told you." He added with a wry smile. "I overheard them talking when I went downstairs to try and talk to Itachi and see what had made him so different.

"From what I heard there seemed to be some ideas to improve the shares of the company somehow and there was an up and coming company that was threatening the Uchiha Company and in time they could probably take over our market, I can remember my father being worried about it. I think that the people Itachi was spending time with were used to underhanded dealings and I heard them talking about ways to sabotage the company so all of its investors would lose faith in it and withdraw all of their money making it go bankrupt." Sasuke frowned slightly.

"It was something about irregularities in their accounts and planting false evidence. It was already done when they were talking about it and they were waiting for news to get out and I heard the man congratulating Itachi for doing it so well.

"When Itachi showed the man out he saw that I was standing there and was furious, maybe he thought I would ruin everything for him especially as I didn't know what it meant back then, I thought it was just a normal business transaction. He said it was something I should never have known about." Sasuke said shrugging slightly and he could see Sakura looking at him with such concern in her eyes, "there was a storm that night and well, it seemed like he was taken over by another person I couldn't believe that the person doing it was my brother. When my parents came back I was still in hospital but the bruises had faded except the ones on my ribs and when they visited Itachi had already told them something about an accident. Of course by then the company had gone bust and all their custom and investors had moved over to us. Father was overjoyed but every time that company was mentioned Itachi made it clear that I wasn't supposed to say anything, besides why would my father believe me over Itachi.

"Since then Itachi began discrediting me when he could, no matter how hard I worked at school of university he always found a way to suggest I could do better and my father never expected anything much from me, just to work in the family company under my brighter and so much better brother for the rest on my life." At this point Sakura felt she should speak up as Sasuke seemed to be lost in his own world filled as he lost all sense of his own self worth, falling back into some half belief that his brother and father were right about his potential.

"Temari tells me that you've been doing wonders for the Sabaku Company," Sakura said and Sasuke looked at her blankly. "No really, she's Gaara and Kankuro's sister so she gets to hear all sorts of stuff about the company. Even Gaara's impressed with what you've done and he's apparently very hard to please." She smiled at him. "You've made things more efficient and apparently you make a good team when working with Naruto." Sasuke gave her a half smile as he acknowledged her attempts to make him feel better and gently squeezed her hand.

"I'm fine, I suppose I should know better by now," Sasuke said and Sakura shook her head.

"It's stupid, although I don't know much about business at all, to be honest it doesn't really interest me, but I can tell just by knowing your personality that you could have done wonders at your family's company it's their own fault for not recognising it and a large gain for Gaara and Kankuro instead."

"Do you not know anything about the business news then?" Sasuke asked and Sakura frowned thinking that it was such a strange turning the conversation.

"No not really, there was something on the news today wasn't there? I didn't really pay attention to it," She said and Sasuke studied her carefully.

"You know lots of people kept telling me to be happy, you were one of them," He said and Sakura nodded.

"After everything I think you deserve to be happy," She said firmly and Sasuke smiled.

"I sold Itachi out to the Uchiha's shareholders." He said and Sakura stared at him.

"You what?" She asked and Sasuke gave her a rueful smile.

"I left an anonymous report of what Itachi had done then and there were other cases of causing rival companies to make massive losses and he's been questioned about this, it's meant that the Uchiha corporation has made massive losses and the stocks plummeted." Sakura blinked at him.

"You've lost me," She said and Sasuke sighed.

"There's a girl, Matsuri, who I met at the Uchiha offices that used to work for the Sabaku Company. I asked her if she could get me into the Uchiha building and she kept a look out as I got into Itachi's office with Naruto who insisted on joining me. He'd left documents about what he did, contact details and how he sabotaged each company," Sasuke added and Sakura gave him a small smile "Itachi was always very thorough in recording his work" He said with a strange smile on his face "it was his one of his redeeming qualities."

"The next company he was aiming for was the Sabaku Company so that was lucky I guess but now Itachi's got a lot to answer for there's plenty of angry people out there who lost jobs, businesses or even money by investing in an up and coming company that Itachi destroyed." Sasuke gave Sakura a very melancholy smile "I sold out my only brother and I've caused considerable damage to my family's company I don't know how they'll recover, although I think Gaara was thinking about offering them a merger, partly to salvage what was left of a great company and I think he wants Matsuri back working with him."

Sakura was silent as she gently squeezed his hand in a reassuring manner as she tried to gather her thoughts. Its seemed so unreal to her to hear what Sasuke had lived through, she knew situations like his existed but they seemed so far away, so unimaginable to her as Sakura had lived a quiet but happy existence with her two loving parents. And yet there was still something of the young Sasuke that remained, a childlike innocence that had only emerged when he didn't want Sakura to leave late at night and the soft, wondrous smiles they had shared.

"Is that everything?" Sakura asked gently trying to piece together all the pieces of Sasuke's life that he had told her with the things she had heard from Naruto and her experiences with Itachi. Sasuke shook his head and Sakura wondered what else he had to tell her. He removed his hand from hers and buried his head in his hands with a soft groan.

"He'd left it all out on his desk," Sasuke said and Sakura frowned at him.

"What?" She asked.

"Itachi. It was all there, laid out for anyone to see like he expected us to do it." Sasuke said irritably "No, I know he was waiting for me to try and get into his office, he'd left a damned post-it note on it telling us the best way to tell people about it all." Sakura stared at him, she was even more confused than before.

"What?" She repeated blankly.

"It's like he wanted us to do it, to publically disgrace my family's company. If you look closely at the files it looked like Itachi was acting on someone else's instructions when he did this. So maybe, I don't know. I just don't know what to think anymore about him."

"Okay," Sakura said after a while. "Well, take your time I guess, this sounds like a lot to take in."

"There's something else," Sasuke muttered and Sakura began to wonder what else he could throw at her today.

"Alright, what is it?" She asked cautiously and this time Sasuke was determinedly not looking at her.

"Sakura," Sasuke started hesitantly looking through his hands at the empty cup of coffee on the table. There was a faint flush on his face but Sakura dismissed this as from the warmth of the coffee shop as she looked at him curiously.

"What is it?" Sakura asked as Sasuke kept looking determinedly at the cup.

"I think I love you." He said quietly as Sakura stared at him wondering if she had misheard she leaned forward slightly to try and hear him more clearly. "I mean," He continued desperately, "I can't stop thinking about you. I miss talking to you and I hate not being with you even though you talk way too much, you babble about anything when you're nervous and I don't know why I just do." He finished lamely.

Sakura stared at Sasuke too shocked to say anything, off all the things he could have had left to say she never expected this. She looked across the small table at his wary expression and knew that this man who had just pored his heart out to her, shared his most intimate secrets was everything she wanted right now. Sasuke watched apprehensively as Sakura stared at him, and then she smiled.

"Sasuke," She said softly before leaning over the small coffee table they sat at. She reached out, tilting his head up so he was looking up at her a wary look in his eyes. Sakura smiled at him once again and, in front of all the customers and staff who had watched them come and go throughout the year, she pressed her lips against his and kissed him.

They broke apart and Sakura smiled again and just as Sasuke was about to smile back at her a voice shattered the blissful world they had created around themselves.

"Does this mean you're back together?" They turned to see a group of their friends behind them, it was Ino who had spoken and Naruto was slightly behind her with a knowing look on his face. They blushed suddenly aware that they had gained the attention of almost half the cafe as well.

"Uh," Sasuke started and then Ino interrupted him.

"Well why not," She demanded with a glower on her face. "We all know you like her and you're brother's not an issue anymore." Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Naruto who attempted to hide behind Hinata.

"Naruto just how many people did you tell?" He asked and Naruto gave a sheepish laugh.

"Not many, only when it seemed to come up in conversation." He said and Sakura glanced at Ino.

"I think between Ino and Naruto you know that they'd manage to broadcast it to everyone we know."

"You didn't have to say anything," Sasuke insisted and Naruto peered around Hinata looking indignant.

"Of course I did I was happy for you, I thought I'd spread the good news."

"So you can ask Sakura out now." Ino said pleasantly but there was an underlying 'or else' in her tone of voice..

"Just leave them alone Ino," Shikamaru sighed which made her turn on him.

"I don't see why you're butting in so suddenly," She said and Sasuke groaned.

"Why aren't they all at work at this time," He muttered and Sakura giggled.

"It's funny," Hinata said suddenly. "I can remember them trying to warn Sakura away from Sasuke several months ago," Naruto grinned at this and Neji shook his head.

"This is why I will never understand women." He muttered, "they always change their minds so quickly."

"What was that?" Tenten asked and for a moment they saw fear flash across Neji's face as she turned her attention to Neji after watching Ino shouting at Shikamaru with some amusement.

"Sasuke." Sakura said softly drawing his attention away from their friends who were all bickering and making a scene. "For what it's worth I think I love you too." He smiled at her and glanced back at their friends who were still arguing with the exception of Hinata who was being used as a shield by Naruto as Neji began arguing with him.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" Sasuke asked looking back at her.

"Now?" Sasuke said.

"Why not?" Sasuke stood up and offered her his hand and Sakura paused for a few moments.

"Sure," She said and reached out to take his hand, Sasuke pulled her to her feet and waited as Sakura gathered her belongings. "Where are we going?" Sakura asked and Sasuke shrugged.

"I'm not sure yet," He said. "We'll have to see." Sakura smiled at him as they left the coffee shop hand in hand unnoticed by their still bickering friends.

She thought about the future knowing that they'd probably argue and annoy each other, that there would be times that she'd spend the whole day in Sasuke's company wishing it would last forever and never want to be anywhere else and times that she'd not see him and have to make do with just a phone call. They'd have their ups and downs but this time Sakura felt confident that it would last.

Sakura leant over and kissed Sasuke on the cheek and he frowned at her.

"What was that for?" He asked and Sakura smiled.

"Nothing." She said innocently as she looked up at him, glad that she would be sharing her future with him. Sasuke gave her a considering look before leaning down and cupping her face in his hands as he kissed her properly forcing the people on the street to move around them.

"That was nothing too," He said and took her hand again.

And who knew what the future could bring as long as they could face it together.

END

That's it! This is finally over, thank you to everyone who's stuck with it so far and to those who have read, reviewed or favourite this. The song at the bottom is the reason I thought of doing a sequel in the first place so I should give it some credit for giving me the original ideas even if the story's taken on a different shape than I originally intended it too. I'm glad I wrote this all the same as I think it turned out a lot better than Coffee, probably because when I started it I had a rough outline with what I wanted to do with it, but now I'm going to start working on something completely different

"Hold your head up and face the day.
Seems like everybody's got a way
to say "I'm doing OK."
I'm OK as long as you're happy-
Without me.
Without my hand- to hold.
Without my jacket- to keep you warm when you're cold."

~Bowling for Soup "Love Sick Stomach-ache (Sugar Coated Accident)"