Decennial
adj.
Relating to or lasting for ten years.

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"I… I love you with all my heart!"

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Chapter Five

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Epilogue
(The present– 24 years old. This is where Sasuke and Sakura end and begin.)

The Uchiha compound was covered in pink– the pink of cherry blossoms that serpentine the long corridors and the gentle pink of his bride's hair as it cascaded in soft waves over her shoulders, brushing against her hips. Pink. His cheeks were turning pink too and his heart beat was quickly escalating. He tried to calm himself by focusing on the rhythmic beating of his pulse, attempting to count them in order to steady himself but the incessant hammering and loud thuds of his own heart distracted him.

Badump. His heart was braving through the rocky turbulence of nervousness. Sweat trickled from his hairline and he swept back his fringe irritably. The thick fabric of his kimono was sticking to his skin and the gel in his hair seemed futile against his best efforts at taming the wild tangents of his hair. A moment ago, the mirror had told him he looked like a presentable groom but now under the glaring sun as he battled tides of anxiety and his unruly hair, he felt ill-prepared. His jittery nerves were turning him into a jittery mess. A real mess of worries were beginning to bubble under his cool pretense of pressed lips and downcast eyes.

Dark eyes took in pink again. He tried to focus his attention on Sakura's back– the curve of her taut shoulders and cherry strands obscuring the small square he had reinforced in his mind, time and time again. When Sakura turned to face him, he instinctually turned away, as though suddenly conscious of how awfully close they were (he can imagine her breath on his neck, her lips on his, her fingers weaving through his hair), even if they were not standing close at all.

His eyes darted awkwardly to the crowd of people chattering impatiently as they waited for the ceremony to begin. The ruckus only unnerved him even more and he played with his fingers, a nervous habit he had inherited from Sakura who had a tendency to bite her fingernails. Sasuke remembered this same distinct mix of trepidation and nervousness when he had approached Itachi years back. He had been ready to slaughter his brother, coal eyes burning at the thought of fulfilling his goal as an avenger.

Now, he had no brother and no family in blood. He had a past written in blood; unforgettable even to those who desired to forget and he had a future before him– a new family not of fire and blood, but of earth, wind, water and his own fire. He had Sakura and he would officially have her, in the following exchange of rings that would happen later on. He had Sakura. He had his future.

Sasuke walked closer to Sakura, inching forward to a future, his feet were moving one step further away from the past that had incised itself on his skin, like shackles that had kept him captive. He noticed Sakura's hands covered in customized gloves of a sheer white lace variety. The gossamer fabric were misleading, imbued with connotations that Sakura's hands were fine, thin or flimsy but Sasuke thought otherwise.

Her hand, her fingers, Sakura, was not like the fragile thread that broke or wore easily. The texture of her hands was something he could bring to mind instantly. These were hands he had held for countless times. A lover's hands that gripped his tightly and stubbornly, a medic's hand that had wrestled with death and a fighter's balled fists capable of crushing bones and shaking the earth.

When she turned to look at him, he refrained from averting her gaze. Emerald eyes hold him steady and hold him still. He saw her lips break into a wide smile, teeth pearly white and lips shiny with a thin layer of pink gloss. Her eyes were accentuated with a dash of dark green. They were closed and crinkled, emerald orbs hidden behind long creases and light eyelashes.

Sakura is unbearably beautiful, even if her sea-foam green nail polish shone a little too brightly for his preference.

She extended her hand to him (like she had done so many times in the past) and the sunlight caught her skin at the exact moment he took her hand. It was the stuff of fairytales and clichés, the kind of novels Sakura would find herself endlessly engrossed in. This was Uchiha Sasuke accepting her hand and her heart, once and forever. The light illuminated her skin and dipped it in sunny golden hues.

Sakura's golden hand was the silent invitation to a future that Sasuke had always been uncertain about. When Sasuke finally held her fingers in his, he silently accepted the invitation that accompanied it. Sasuke lets her in. He really lets her in– unlocked the door to his innermost chamber and the core of his being, an organ pumping the same Uchiha blood he was born with and that he had seen slain and disappeared from the world, his heart, Uchiha Sasuke welcomed Haruno Sakiura in his arms.

He imagined how her cheeks would feel cold against his skin, the image of her breath coming out in white swirls also appeared before his mind. She had made camp outside the door of his heart, holding his hand through the door flap, waiting for the day where he thawed enough, where he felt strong enough to love someone else with the same ferocity as he did before. She had waited outside the drab door that divided the walls of his heart and the empty corridors of snow-white coldness. She waited in the cold to return home to where she belonged, in him and with him. She was here to thaw his heart, which even in its natural fire, was still ice-covered and frozen. And she was as cold as someone who had played in the snow for hours. Hours spent waiting in cold corridors while she held his hand, warm from his typically high body temperature. And still, she managed to warm him, to stir something quiet and profound within him. It did not took long for warmth to finally spread itself through his entire being.

He let her in fully into his life, as though she hadn't already permeated his entire being. But this is official, this is real and he needed to remind himself too that this was thought put into action and this was not just him loving Sakura in mind and in heart but him loving her in everything, in every waking moment he woke up to pink tresses, pale shoulders and open lips and in this life. A raw surge of wild emotions rumbled within him, elicited just by the weight of her hands in his. He felt warm now and contented, but there was something bristling in the surface. Sasuke forcefully chased away the dark thoughts that crept at the corner of his mind.

He knew the risks of letting someone so fully into his heart.

And–

Right from the very start, his heart had always leaned towards Haruno Sakura. He had listened to her offer tears and promises of an undying love to him when he could have walked away from her and her heart. He had been willing to trade her life for his, against a monster that he could not defeat. He was willing to stop, to wait and to be patient, when he had been anything but as an avenger. For her, he had given her a goodbye (the closure she so desperately sought and he presumed to have given), when he could have left her gasping on a cold night. Thank you, he had said. Steady words that had bounced off her quivering back. Had he mixed up gratitude and goodbyes or were they one and the same in the dictionary of a 12-year old Uchiha Sasuke?

Sasuke knew now that he had spiraled into yet another kind of madness, a lunacy so common and celebrated, that he did not recall his family's darkness instead, he thought of colors, bright bursts of brilliant color. He was slowly beginning to measure his life out in colors (and black was not a color, Sakura had insisted).

He was falling.

Plummeting.

Hurtling.

Crashing–

Falling in love.

There was the blue of Naruto's eyes– a beautiful topaz that shone vividly with conviction, the sunny yellow of his best friend's unruly mob, the navy blue mask of an instructor that felt more like a father, tufts of spiky silver hair that reminded him of the sky when it rained and the unforgettable cherry blossom pink of the girl he loved, emerald eyes that watered too easily, the stark white of her lab coat and her Haruno circle, and red– not of blood, of death, of fire and of a clan, but of Sakura's back.

Sakura's grip on his tightened and Sasuke matched his own hold on hers.

They have held hands multiple times before– on walks, in their sleep or in dangerous situations where pain took over and her hand was the only thing that secured him. He enjoyed her reassuring hold. It anchored him to the terrifying reality awaiting him (newness scared Sasuke, newness was terrifying, newness was unimagined, a future had been unimaginable before)— of marrying Sakura, the promise of happiness, of making a new home and family, of new beginnings and of a family (a brother in blond hair and blue eyes, a surrogate father of sorts in a mask, silver hair and creased eyes and in Sakura, the girl whose hand he doesn't tire from holding), the possibility of letting sunlight fill in the dank darkness of his home, letting it illuminate the cobwebs in the corners of his past and to welcome another Uchiha home after so long.

Sasuke remembered years before when physical contact with Sakura ended up in a strangled scream, the deadening sound of screeching birds and a poisoned kunai. She squeezed his hand when she saw him drifting. Sakura needed him to know that she was not thinking of the chidori that almost killed her or Sasuke's venomous words in the past. She tried not to think of how she had also tried to kill him. They had killed each other before (Sasuke had killed her many times) – one in hatred and another in love but it was never out of indifference.

Now, they stood beside each other, fingers that had been poised to attack the other before now lovingly entwined– inseparable and together – a quiet union before their solemnization.

There were a few things Haruno Sakura knew with certainty– she would always be curious and an avid reader, cooking was not her strong suit, she was forever indebted to Tsunade-sama, Team 7 was her second family, her home away from home, Ino was the sister she never had, her parents loved her dearly and she loved them too, she was proud of being a "Haruno", not a clan, just a family of unruly distinct inidividuals, her hair would always receive curious questions and–

She would always love Uchiha Sasuke. Even with bloodied wrists slashed viciously, with vicious eyes ready to kill, with a soul broken from having gone to hell and come back, with wrecked sobbing and rabid hallucinations, with the weight of his entire clan on his shoulders, with a graveyard of relatives and with…charcoal eyes smiling at her, with hands that grasped hers forcefully and with a smug grin that made her heart ached with nostalgia.

The feel of Sakura's strength, of her hand and of her so close beside him was a reminder that she was here.

They were here.

And they will always be Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke– no matter how many years they had spent apart, no matter how they had tried to end each other, no matter how long he had spent pushing himself into the abyss, no matter how long she had spent getting used to absence in the form of the boy she loved, no matter how her back changed and how she was no longer behind him, no matter how he started off maintaining his distance from her before moving closer to protect her, to watch over her and then a little closer because he had wanted to kill her once.

Now, he jerked even closer, close enough to slid a ring into her finger. Her hands felt calloused from work, from being a ninja, from loving, from being Sakura.

They were Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke, who always had a way back to each other, like a thread, a red thread from her kimono, like the blood that streamed from his eyes when he summoned black flames, like the Uchiha symbol and like her red blouse, a thread that connected her to him.

She was there, she is here and she will always be by his side.

This is where they end and begin.

Sasuke was not the same as he was before. He had always been known as the sole survivor of the Uchiha clan– the only one alive in a sea of corpses, of tombstones and of the smell of powder white bones, the cremated remains of bodies whose wishes he had finally honored when he found his strength. But, the cadence of his life and its nuances were slowing changing before his eyes.

Another Uchiha– one whose title had been inherited, who was not birthed in fire and blood and who did not possess dirty blood of hatred, of obsessive love, of a ceaseless hunger for power and of revenge running through her veins would come home with him. She would sleep on the same bed as he and they would resume. They would begin again.

(Sakura would inherit his last name but she would not inherit his demons, his burdens or the madness inherent in his blood– he would not let her.)

Uchiha Sasuke slipped the ring into his wife's finger and kissed her, gentle at first and then hard. The ring was a silver band of white light on her finger with a little fan engraved on it. On the inside, a tiny circle had been engraved personally by Sasuke but the detail would only come to Sakura after she had the time to think. She had not noticed yet, her eyes glimmered at the beautiful thin ring that adorned her fingers. He wanted her to find out herself.

Inscribing the Haruno symbol on her ring, along with the Uchiha fan, was their beginning.

Because it was not about the Uchiha anymore.

It was about her and him and their future together.

Their faces were still close when he felt something liquid slid down her cheek. Tears shed by an Uchiha with a clan but no family and a pink-haired kunoichi with no clan but a loving family. They were one now and the sound of her name, Uchiha Sakura– cherry blossom petals paired up with the fire and blood of the Uchiha clan felt like a beautiful contradiction. It matched the scenery and place they had chosen for their ceremony.

When Sasuke looked up, he saw the Uchiha compound with cherry blossom trees in full bloom. The sight of cherry blossom petals blending in with the landscape of the Uchiha compound left Sasuke wrung with emotions and another tear fell. Sakura wiped it, a soft giggle escaping her lips.

"Haruno Sasuke, you must not cry or I will too." She whispered into his ear before bursting into fits of giggles. It was an inside joke between the two, shared between late nights in bed when the crescent moon was up and sleep was far in their minds. Sakura had teased him on taking on her family name while she took on his.

Sasuke laughed too but it was not because he thought his name sounded funny with hers.

Inside jokes, casual hand holding and being happy still felt a little surreal to him. He recalled years spent training, fighting and planning, there had never been time for anything other than revenge. But now, he had time for other small things– mundane, common and even banal– still, they were moments he treasured and found himself laughing at.

He was laughing at himself, at how tense he had been, how unwilling he was to relax into an easy lifestyle– the sunrise and sunset seen through bleary eyes, peeking through Konoha's rooftops instead of a blanket of endless sky set against the training field, a vision he had before taken in drained red eyes. Waking up to Sakura, groggy in bed, rather than waking up alone in a training field, his body sore and pained from overexertion.

Insignificant things, habits, patterns and falling into a life that did not revolve after mindlessly chasing goals– these were things he appreciated. And then there was also holding Sakura's hand on rainy days, when they took strolls or reaching out to touch her without needing reason. He was holding her hand out of his own desire to, a personal urgency. There was no need for any justification.

He used to run in such a utilitarian fashion, every action he did and every step he took had a purpose and contributed to the final goal and now, all of those had withered away.

Sakura beamed at him and Sasuke focused solely on her. His own eyes were reflected back in her emerald ones and he never saw the darkness of his clan or the infamous curse of the hatred. He saw himself happy, in love and ready to begin.

"I don't think of dying anymore," Sasuke choked out and Sakura's hand held the side of his face, warm and tender, a flicker of surprise crossed her features for a split second but she listened, caught off-guard by Sasuke's confession. "I think of the future."

They embraced and the world watched.

When they finally parted from each other, Sasuke's eyes followed Sakura as she jumped into the loving embrace of her teary parents, her father breaking into loud wrenching sobs and her mother smiling with tears in her eyes.

He then saw Ino, Hinata, Ten Ten, Karin and Shizune gathering close to Sakura, smothering her with happy words, tears and hugs. Naruto tackled her roughly, his weight and strength causing her to lose her balance and they both tumbled to the ground, laughing as the blonde cried in her hair and Sasuke grunted, displeased with the scene. Kakashi helped Sakura up while chastising Naruto for dirtying Sakura's lovely kimono (the kimono that he had paid for). The blonde's expression soured slightly as he wiped away the remnants of the tears that were nested in his cheeks. He found his place back by Hinata's side as the two chatted about something that Sasuke could not discern.

Sasuke noticed now that Kakashi was hugging Sakura, the copy ninja had rested his chin on her head and he was murmuring quiet words of affirmation that Sasuke could not pick up. Sakura's smile and tears were hint enough that Kakashi had said something sentimental (typical of his old age, Sasuke thought). But, her tears were not salty pain-ridden ones. They streamed down messily, as she blew her nose into a tissue that was shoved to her by Ino. Sai stood by awkwardly, uncertain whether to embrace the pink-haired girl. On his pale skin were lips stretched tight in a wide smile, he was rambling on to fill up the silence that was growing between Sakura and him when the pink-haired medic interrupted him, pulling him into a rough hug, her arms reached to yank Yamato close as well.

Sakura was well loved by many. The sight of people continuously making their way to show Sakura their affections made his heart clench. There were faces he recognized from his generation of ninjas, there were the jounin instructors and then there were genins, young and rowdy, as well as civilians who Sakura had grown close to during her tenure as a trainee under Tsunade. She had kept in contact with them all through her years of working in the hospital and even now, as she went into her second year of being head doctor.

Even Gaara and his siblings were here, having made a special trip down to Konoha to attend the wedding ceremony. The sight of Gaara this close to Sakura made Sasuke's eyes grew alert, his mind replaying memories of their past encounter with the beast that had before threatened to consume Gaara's sanity. But, he relaxed after receiving Sakura's exasperated stare, she had noticed his death stare and he was observant enough to recognize how fond the red-haired Kazekage and his siblings seemed to be of Sakura. The trio surrounded her with hearty greetings, congratulating her repeatedly. Kankurou seemed especially grateful to Sakura, even years after his incident with Sasori's lethal poison that had left him dangling precariously close to Death's hook. They offered her an abundance of gifts, specially delivered from Sunakagure and Sakura's joy at seeing some of her favorite sweet pastries made her emerald eyes glow even brighter.

He understood why people warmed up to her because he did too, she was warm, he thought, not like Naruto's sun but like...fire.

(And it did not surprised him later when he produced a piece of paper to Sakura whose immediate contact with it turned it into ashes. Fire, he thought. Her affinity is fire. Kakashi and Naruto had betted on water. They were half-correct because her other elemental affinity was water. In fact, Sakura's delicate and unrivalled mastery of her chakra meant that she could effectively oscillate between the various elements, but she did not possessed Naruto's unending reserves of chakra so she had her limitations. But, her affinity was still stated in stone. It was decided by fate. Fire first. Water was next. Sai had insisted earth but Sasuke knew that she was fire– warm and brilliant, daring and brave. One day, he would teach her his clan's technique. He would watch bright flames escape from her lips and Sasuke would think to himself that Sakura was more an Uchiha than she ever initially let on.)

Sasuke received his own barrage of tears and hugs. Naruto squeezed him a little too tightly for comfort, tanned fingers clutching his shoulders and then, the blonde begun to wail loudly, unafraid of embarrassment or causing a scene. Sasuke returned the hug and tears. The two of them only separate when Kakashi came around and gifted the Uchiha with another suffocating hug and even the masked man was crying now, tears staining the fabric of his mask. Sai patted the Uchiha gently on the back and Yamato grinned at him from afar.

Suigetsu and Juugo had made a trip down from the neighboring villages (where they had gone on a 'tour' with Karin who came home earlier in preparation for the wedding). The duo had arrived late to the wedding despite Juugo's insistence on punctuality. Both enveloped Sasuke in a tight hug, even if Sasuke tried to shrug off the emotion emmiting from his former teammates. Suigetsu was grinning and Juugo's face was scrunched up in clear discomfort as he tried to hold back his tears.

Karin seemed oddly quiet, unlike her characteristically chatty self, she had one arm looped around Suigetsu and another around Sasuke. She struggled to find the proper words to say and Sasuke could sense the uncomfortable situation she had found herself in. Instead of saying something sentimental, she threatened him, in true Karin style, a fiery Uzumaki red-head through and through.

She chewed on her lips, tears welling up in her eyes before she finally found the words to say. Instead of flaky and flirty confessions he was accustomed to receiving from her years ago, Karin had warned him to take proper care of Sakura (she had made extremely good friends with the Konoha ladies, especially Ino and Sakura, Sasuke soon realized that Karin and Ino acted like Sakura's own defense squad, ready to jump on him should anything befell on their favorite pink-haired medic).

Sasuke was going to be enlisting the help of his former teammates to revive the Uchiha Police Force. They were going to be its first three members.

Just as Sasuke was ready to make his way back to Naruto who was hollering at him, Gaara waved at him, approaching him swiftly. The dark-haired Uchiha greeted the Kazekage with a slight nod and waited for Gaara to talk, sensing the words left unspoken on Gaara's lips.

"I still remember them." Gaara spoke, after clearing his throat.

"Remember what?" Sasuke questioned harshly, his defensiveness kicking in.

"Her eyes." Gaara replied. When he noticed Sasuke's defensiveness, he elaborated, hoping that the Uchiha would not misread his words. "Sakura's eyes. Her face when she protected you with her life...after I tried to kill you. I still remember it vividly even after so many years." A clipped laugh escaped his throat as the red-haired Kazekage tried to dispel the rising tension.

"Why are you telling me this?" Eyebrows narrowed, frown set on his lips, Sasuke looked his usual wary self, his voice was dripping with suspicion.

"Sakura made me remember what it was like to love someone so fiercely and fully. I won't forget her eyes." Gaara offered Sasuke a smile. "I knew that this day would come. I knew she loved you. I– we were just waiting for you to return her feelings. And you did. Not surprising but surprising all the same." He continued, cool even under Sasuke's scorching stare.

Sasuke's features softened. "Aa." It was the only words– sound would be more accurate– he could force out of his lips after hearing all that Gaara had said.

Gaara laughed. Sasuke was back to his usual charming self, full of monosyllabic quips. "You don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know. I wish you both happiness. She deserves it." He said and Sasuke was caught by surprise at Gaara's careful omission.

"You noticed?" A smile played on the kazekage's lips. "You do too, Sasuke. You deserve happiness with her. Remember our battle years back when I tried to convince you that revenge was a lost cause? That yours was a quest doomed to fail and that you best give up and return home with Naruto?"

Sasuke nodded, bits of the fight resurfaced in his mind, although the exact details were blurry.

"I should have mentioned Sakura too." Gaara muttered.

"What matters now is that I'm here." Sasuke replied curtly, brushing off events of the past and still feeling slightly suspicious about the Kazekage. "I'm here to stay."

Gaara smiled and excused himself shortly, returning back to his siblings who were engaged in a conversation with other ninjas.

As Sasuke parted after being tackled by Naruto for the second time, his eyes took in the crowd. The typically empty corridors of the Uchiha compound were bustling with life and chatter. It reminded him of his childhood, where most nights felt alive and noisy, where he associated home with the ruckus, the heat and the bright lights. Sasuke took the chance to properly take in the mass of people who had gathered for Sakura and his union. He wanted to thank them personally but he did not know where to start. Gratitude did not come easy to the Uchiha whose only words of thank you had only ever been uttered to the back of a pink-haired girl. Numerous chairs had been lined along the long street of the Uchiha compound and he recognized some faces but the figure seated in the far back brought him face to face with his past.

Dark hair and fair skin with a gentle smile, the image assaulted him. Sasuke was crying again, this time a little uncontrollably and uncharacteristically.

The figure he saw in the back was Uchiha Itachi.

The sunlight hid Itachi's face and Sasuke could barely make out any of his features in its glaring light except for the familiar crooked smile that graced thin lips. When Sasuke closed his eyes, he imagined Itachi's smile widening and he even heard his brother's voice– a soft "Congratulations" that made his heart tightened even more. Part of him knew that this was just a figment of his imagination, a hallucination he had conjured in his overwhelming happiness but he wanted it so desperately to be real.

Sasuke finally opened his eyes again to find that Itachi was gone. In his place, only a soft patch of sunlight remained. He tried with his might to conjure up the image of his brother again but he failed, nothing materialized and the rays of sunlight that occupied the lone chair at the back only seemed to intensify. He attempted to seek for his parents in this crowd, to pull them from the memories swirling in his head but nothing materialized. But, he saw no one. He could not see them, even as hallucinations. A thought flashed in his mind as he dwelled on his parents. His parents would not have been too happy with Sakura and his union. He grinned a little, remembering how traditional and strict his parents used to view weddings in their clan.

When he found his way back to Sakura, he noticed her back, not surprisingly. She was chatting animatedly with her relatives, resembling her in light hair and fair skin. Sasuke's eyes zoomed in on Sakura's back, his eyes taking in a fan– a small symbol sewn on the kimono of his wife accompanied by the circle of her family. Sasuke had requested for it to be sewn along the Uchiha fan. It was a symbol of a new beginning for his broken clan. Sakura and her family mattered because they were his family too.

From the corner of his eyes, beside him, staring just as intently at Sakura, he made out the figures of two people he had missed before. He saw his mother– long ebony hair fashioned into a neat bun that complimented the elaborate kimono she was decked out in. It was Sasuke's favorite kimono on her. A dark red kimono patterned with Uchiha fans and stylistically rendered flames that seemed like it had been customized especially for her. Mikoto's eyes took in Sakura, her eyes were guarded and cool, his mother was judging his blushing bride and Sasuke felt himself growing nervous, like a young boy who waited nervously for his mother's important verdict.

Sasuke wanted to let his mother know everything about Sakura but he stopped himself. He was afraid to say one word, one word was all it took to break the spell and this delusion could stand to last a few seconds longer. He kept silent as he waited for his parents to finish taking in Sakura. The look of understanding that surfaced in his mother's eyes moments later, as she saw Sakura, told Sasuke everything he needed to know.

He had their approval. They knew.

Mikoto's lips turned into a smile when she faced her husband who had his arms across his chest. Fugaku wore the same dark blue kimono as Sasuke. It was a simple kimono with no patterns, styled only in the varying shades of blue. The only image was that of the Uchiha symbol visible on the back collar. Sasuke's kimono, unlike his father's which only bore the lone Uchiha fan, had another symbol embroidered on to match Sakura's. It was in the shape of a small white circle that he had memorized by heart. He had it sewn on his father's kimono.

Sasuke was broken out of his reverie when Sakura hugged him roughly from the back, seizing him and forcing him to release the breath he had held in surprise. Mikoto and Fugaku faded before his eyes, like a bright flash of lightning. His eyes watered even as he fought to keep them from falling. This sensation of losing and simultaneously finding was familiar. He had lost the ghosts of his parents and he had found Sakura.

He reached to touch her hand which had been crossed over his chest. His fingers worked to pry her hand apart because he wanted to hold her fingers. He held them tightly, enjoying the feel of her ring pressuring against his skin, leaving a slight imprint.

Sasuke refused to let go of her hand. Not even when the guests made their way to the food and they both began to eat, seated just beside one another. His hand held hers under the table as she smiled and chatted away with her relatives. Sasuke was seated on a table full of Sakura's relatives and he was not frightened because he had her hand in his and she was wearing his ring, they were one and together.

His hand in hers was also his way of telling her that he was here, beside her, that he was no longer an avenger, a forlorn Uchiha, or the absence in her heart...and of the last fact that the history books will forever remember — that he loves her.

"I… I love you with all my heart!… If you were to stay here with me, there would be no regrets… because every day we'd do something fun, we'd be happy I swear!… I would do anything for you! so… Please just stay with me!"

And he stayed.

For the next ten years of their lives.

The following ones and the ones another that.

For this lifetime and all eternity.

–

– fin –

–

Notes: EDIT. Thank you Lenneth for creating such a beautiful graphic of my fic, you can check it out on tumblr here– alexbenedetto (tumblr) /post/71935503073/sakura-always-made-sure-to-remember-him-of-a-few. Alternatively, you can get a direct link from my profile. Thank you SO much for all the support, reviews, follows and favorites, I appreciate it immensely. Writing Decennial was both joy and heartache– revisiting painful scenes between Sasuke and Sakura, having Sasuke go through harsh turbulent times and putting him under such pain felt like taking a stab at two of my favorite characters, but it was rewarding to know that in the end, they got the happy beginning they so deserved. As 2013 comes to a unceremonious end, Decennial also comes to an end, which I found strangely poetic and fitting.

I had to put off editing this because I was so afraid that this was not the best finale and ending I could give to Decennial. And it's always sad to see something come to an end. As much as I would have loved to write more for them in this anthology of sorts, I think from here on out, our imaginations could do the work. Sasuke and Sakura will always be bound to each other, red thread of fate or not, I'm sure they will find their way back home and back to each other. Let's hope Kishimoto gives us that.

As of now, I have a few other story ideas swirling in my mind, nothing concrete yet, but who knows how soon inspiration will strike me? Please support me on my future endeavors! Happy New Year's in advance and lots of love! Arigato gozaimasu!

You can hit me up at thegoldengirl (at tumblr) if you ever want to talk or leave me a message :)