Chapter Text
Warning(s): T, genocide mention
It had been three years since then. Three arduous years of hardship and recovering from the times of chaos and war. Things were more peaceful, true, but it hadn’t been an easy road getting there. Sasuke was perhaps the most difficult uphill battle, with months of internment in prison before speaking with Kakashi—now Hokage—had convinced him that what the teen needed was therapy, not bedevilment. Naruto had been in complete agreement, spending time with Sakura as she worked hard to establish Konoha’s first children’s mental health clinic and blindly trying to root through old Anbu psychological torture methods to build therapy from something so destructive. Clawing blindly through the darkness, years of Sasuke’s own unaddressed traumas had bled into Naruto’s and they’d discovered his own difficulties with anxiety, among other things. Sakura, too, had issues she hadn’t even been aware of.
Team Seven reunited again. Forming a support group instead of a ninja squad, together they dredged through the darkness of their pasts and through that, Sakura began building a rubric of methods, Naruto helping her the most while Sasuke took a little longer to be willing to partake. Not that either blamed him. Of anyone in Konoha, he was among those who needed therapy the most, imperfect and basic as it still was.
Slowly but surely, Team 7 had become a team again. More than that, even.
Sakura was an early riser. Normally, Sasuke would be, too, but he’d been sleeping easier in their arms. The young woman couldn’t help but smile a little at the sensation of Naruto’s bare chest pressed against her back, of his arm extending over her and around Sasuke’s waist. Facing her, his forehead just barely pressed into Naruto’s while their blond and black hair bled into her own, three bodies warm against the beginning winter’s chill; the three of them slept better like this. Through all the difficulties that came with their mutual therapy, of rebuilding themselves and the village, the idealized stranger Sasuke had once been was a man now, a person she was learning to know more and more. A flesh and blood person she didn’t have to chase after anymore.
Sakura still remembered crying when Naruto and Sasuke had told her about their time in the afterlife. Despite all her anger at Sasuke’s treatment of her during the war, something she’d been able to address once they started their group recovery after Sasuke’s trial after prison, she finally felt like she could begin forgiving him. Seeing him for what he’d tried to do, trying to tear down the flawed shinobi system was something both she and Naruto began understanding was important to do despite how his methods hadn’t been the best.
Sakura perked at the soft keening of an infant’s cries that saw Sasuke’s eyes snap open, up like a shot and bolting awake as the telltale chirping of chidori and the crackling of lightning in his intact hand emanated throughout the trio’s small, shared room.
“Sasuke-kun, hey—what’s wrong?” Naruto beckoned softly as he sat up too, cupping Sasuke’s face while Sakura eased up as well, placing a soothing hand over Naruto’s. Breathing hard, perspiration dripping down his brow, Sasuke glanced between his teammates and lovers, breathing slowly as his initial panic dwindled and evaporated into a reluctant calm.
“Nightmares,” Sasuke answered tersely as he sagged into Sakura’s embrace, resting his cheek against the crown of her head while Naruto quietly enveloped them both. Sarada’s cries alerted him again, wrenching his head towards the door with wide eyes. “Sarada’s awake.” Carefully extricating himself from his lovers’ embrace, pulling a robe over his boxers and up in a flash across the hall, they saw a single dim light turn on in Sarada’s room while Sasuke dipped into her crib to cradle the babe against his chest, his back to them while rocking her slowly and humming.
“He’s a good father to her,” Sakura quipped while she scooted into Naruto’s side, the blond watching with fondness as he couldn’t take his eyes off of Sasuke with his arm draped over her shoulders, as enamored as Sakura was by the sight of him. “Sasuke-kun’s a little nervous, but he’s good to her. Sometimes, I feel like he thinks Sarada might crumble if he’s not careful.”
“Ah, but don’t you remember how I was a few months ago? I was a nervous wreck at the hospital. Karin almost strapped me to a bed herself,” Naruto recalled with a chuckle, Sakura ribbing him playfully. “After the lives we lived, I think Sasuke-kun is worried he might make a mistake. She’s the first Uchiha since the massacre, you know?” Sakura nodded knowingly, sighing. Though Sasuke’s exterior was much cooler than Naruto’s, even doped up on painkillers between the contractions had she recognized the anxiety and pensiveness in him. Though Naruto and Sasuke were equally Sarada’s fathers, biologically she was Sasuke’s. All resulting from years of pent-up feelings between the three of them they’d been forced to deny and convolute because of the chaotic circumstanced they’d been in.
“Maybe I am a bit of a worry-wort, huh?” she said with a sad smile. “I just worry about you two all the time. Even with work really mounting with how successful we’ve been, it never really ends. Sometimes, I wonder if what I’m doing is really how it should be done. I don’t want to see another kid suffer with what we did. Hell, I especially don’t want Sarada to ever have to grow up the same way.”
“Yeah. I feel the same as you, Sakura-chan.”
Quietly did he nudge Sakura who glanced at him, nodding towards Sarada’s room. Both pulling on robes of their own, they quietly crept into Sarada’s room, Sasuke peeking at them through his long bangs and stifling a pleased smirk at having calmed Sarada down so quickly, the infant always calmed by Sasuke’s quiescence. To Sasuke’s sides did they flank him, Naruto reaching out to soothe an errant lick of black hair on Sarada’s brow.
“She’s so beautiful,” Sakura whispered, leaning into Sasuke’s side who reciprocated it. “I think she calms down easier around you.”
Though he didn’t say anything, he did smirk a little.
Naruto poked Sasuke’s shoulder. “Hey, let me put her back to sleep. You two need to rest for the big day ahead,” he insisted quietly while Sakura stood apart as Sasuke carefully deposited Sarada in Naruto’s arms, the baby cooing in her sleep while the blond practically melted at how adorable his daughter was. He seemed reluctant to return to bed just yet, standing vigil over the crib while Sasuke and Sakura returned to their room.
Nestling amid the sheets, Sasuke’s arm curled around Sakura’s shoulders and brought her into his side, sighing contently. Everything seemed so perfect between the four of them. If she could bottle this moment, she would. Hell, sometimes she caught Sasuke’s Sharingan activated in times like these, glancing between the two, others when he was with Sarada. Trying to memorize every moment.
“Are you going to be alright today?” Sakura asked of Sasuke, feeling him stiffen somewhat. Concern evident, both knew why.
Sai, as Head of Anbu, and Kakashi, now Hokage, had both agreed and worked tirelessly to help unearth Konoha’s dirty secrets and publicly denounce and make amends for them. The one their sensei had worked the closest with Sasuke on was that of the Uchiha Clan Massacre, doing whatever was necessary to tell a coherent story to the public that didn’t hold back on the truth. How the village had forced a young Uchiha boy into a corner and had groomed him through his place in Anbu to massacre his own clan with the help of another Uchiha accomplice the world hadn’t even known was alive. Because of it, of unearthing so many dark truths, a memorial day had been instated set for the anniversary of the clan’s demise. Today was that day and the first time the village would congregate together at the cordoned gates of the Uchiha compound to hold a memorial service. One Kakashi believed Sasuke should speak at.
“I don’t know,” Sasuke admitted honestly, eyes fixated on the ceiling. “I want the village to acknowledge what they did, what they forced my brother to do. But… I don’t know.” His brows furrowed, sighing again. “I thought I wanted this, that the village would own up to what they did. And it has, but… it won’t bring them back. I even wonder if any of them are really sorry, or if they’re just doing it so I don’t ‘lose it’ again.”
Sakura grew quiet, understanding him. For all Kakashi and others had done to make amends for the clan’s massacre, the scars were still there. New ones being discovered everyday now that Sasuke had returned, the peace and rehabilitation forcing him to reflect, to dredge up everything that had boiled before. Being branded a madman and crazy when he’d been coherent and heartbroken, betrayed by the village his brother had loved so much. If Sakura had known what she did now, the lovesick girl at thirteen might have really meant her defection. That she would’ve abandoned the Leaf out of a deep want for justice as much as her juvenile love for him.
“Hearing about it, it makes me worry about Sarada,” Sakura admitted as they both turned to watch Naruto soothingly caress his hand through his daughter’s surprisingly thick hair. “We know that so-called ‘curse of hatred’ is complete horseshit, but… I worry.” Feeling tears brim within her eyes, she added, “Sasuke, is it selfish that I don’t want her to become a kunoichi? I’m afraid that someday, if she were away, we’d hear about some news about her gravely injured, or worse. I used to think my parents were so overbearing when they worried about me, but now that we are parents ourselves, I understand. I just want to keep her close to us in a peaceful little world where she doesn’t have to fight. Where other children don’t have to, either.”
Though Sakura wasn’t a messy crier, Sasuke pulled her close to his chest to let her, those quiet sobs wracking her shoulders. Though things were better than they had been, with the people he loved most at his side, his gaze was faraway and haunted. Sakura and Naruto often caught him staring into oblivion, looking like a phantom in their own home or at the Konoha Mental Hospital when they went for weekly therapy sessions, but he never said how he saw them looking similarly when Naruto and Sakura thought he wasn’t looking.
Sasuke hadn’t realized he’d dozed off moments later before he felt Naruto gathering him near, Sakura still tucked into his side. Though he still had difficulty getting used to the proximity between them, slowly did he ease into Naruto’s arms, meditating on the warmth shared with his lovers. Sparing a glance towards Sarada’s room, assured that the people he loved most in the world were still by his side, was he able to finally fall fast asleep.
Morning came, the rest of the night blessedly uneventful. Naruto and Sasuke were in the bathroom while Sakura was in Sarada’s room nursing the infant, getting her ready while Naruto helped Sasuke. Though Sasuke was extremely dexterous on his own, there were some obnoxious, little things he still sometimes struggled with.
Sasuke mutely watched as Naruto affixed the prosthetic arm Dr. Kakasuke had made him awhile ago, Sasuke helping him make sure it was in place properly. Toothbrush still dangling from his lips, Naruto caught his stare and kissed the corner of Sasuke’s mouth, the foamy toothpaste lather catching the corner of Naruto’s mouth, too. Though otherwise too preoccupied to snark him, Sasuke uttered a vague, amused sound that had Naruto grinning.
“I’m going to make breakfast this morning. Can you help Sakura-chan get Sarada ready?” Naruto asked of Sasuke after the latter had finished getting dressed, the blond having helped him button up his vest before soothing down the fabric.
“Yeah. Just make sure the eggs aren’t so runny this time, Naruto,” Sasuke reminded him as Naruto practically bounced down the stairs, waving a hand dismissively at Sasuke. While Naruto prepared breakfast, Sasuke peeked into Sarada’s room where Sakura had just finished nursing Sarada, the infant on her changing table where Sakura was currently attempting to buckle a pair of shiny black Mary Jane shoes on the baby. Sasuke couldn’t help but linger in the doorway, Sakura utterly beautiful in a black silk qipao and slate trousers, with black wedge shoes and her hair pulled into a loose bun fixed in place by white kanzashi.
Sarada herself wore a simple black dress, the infant craning her head towards Sasuke and smiling.
“You look beautiful,” he commented softly while kissing Sakura’s temple, the woman smiling while she succeeded in her task. “You both do.”
“Thank you, Sasuke-kun. Did you see what Naruto-kun is wearing? I think he looks almost as cool as you do,” she said with a knowing look while carefully moving Sarada into her arms, Sasuke leaning in to kiss her head, too.
“Almost,” Sasuke conceded before Naruto’s cheerful announcement of breakfast being ready brought them both downstairs, equally famished.
After a hearty breakfast, the four of them set out with Sarada in her stroller, all bundled warmly against the cold, falling asleep on the walk there. Thankfully, the powdery dusting of snow had been cleared from the roads as hoards of people swarmed towards the Uchiha compound, Naruto holding Sasuke’s hand while walking aside Sakura. Though it was unspoken, at some point, the village had stopped questioning the nature of the trio’s relationship. Likely the first real visibly poly-amorous relationship the villagers had witnessed, it simply became quietly accepted that the neo-sannin trio were together. Some village women stopped to croon at little Sarada, some awestruck by the handsome men and their equally attractive female counterpart, but the somberness of the day blinkered their eyes from really caring much about those stares.
Sasuke paused before the Uchiha compound and the crowd spanning before it, a restless feeling of frustration welling within him despite his stoic expression. Having detached from Naruto’s hand awhile back, not really one for public affections, both noticed when Sasuke took his pause. But, they knew why. In all of the three years since the war’s end and Sasuke’s official return, he hadn’t come to the Uchiha compound. Though the entrance had been fairly well-maintained, the buildings within were falling into disrepair. His eyes narrowed at the sight of it, but he adamantly said nothing and continued towards the stage and podium that had been set up before the massive crowd of spectators.
Neither Naruto or Sakura had to really intuit that Sasuke wasn’t comfortable. For so many years, his grief had been a private, lonely thing he barely had received any sympathy for. His clan’s name besmirched, more people had questioned whether if he was a turncoat or would succumb to the Curse of Hatred than if he was okay, if the lonely little boy needed help or not. It was something like this that Sakura had decided to dedicate the children’s mental health clinic to, expanding for adults, but the cause remaining the same: that no lonely children would be left with their grief and loneliness like that again.
“Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun, Sakura-chan,” Kakashi addressed as he brought the trio into a hug behind the stage curtains, dim and private compared to the sea of faces outside. It was a little difficult in his formal Hokage attire, but they managed. Though Sasuke stiffened, Naruto and Sakura received the embrace warmly. Beneath his face mask, he crouched down a little to smile at Sarada. “And you must be Sarada-chan.”
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura greeted back, Sasuke lingering back to hover protectively over Sarada’s stroller while Naruto and Sakura spoke with their old mentor. “And it’s so gray out, too. It’s almost like the whole world is mourning with us.”
Kakashi flashed Sasuke a concerned look, the male feigning obliviousness while he stooped down to let Sarada chew on his finger. “There’s a lot of people here today, but with everyone knowing the truth, their hearts are with us. Especially with Sasuke-kun.”
Naruto glanced towards the crowd beyond the curtain. “It’s about time they did, huh? D’ya know when it’s gonna start, Kakashi-sensei?”
Kakashi took his chin thoughtfully. “It won’t be much longer. They have coffee.”
“Thanks. Maybe we’ll get some later, Kakashi-sensei.” Patting their shoulders, deciding it better to leave Sasuke be with his daughter, he disappeared beyond the curtains.
“We don’t have to sit out there if you don’t want, Sasuke. I don’t think they’d make us stay, either,” Sakura ventured with Sasuke who was finished playing with Sarada, the infant vigorously sucking on her binky.
“No, I want to stay,” Sasuke said, voice brokering no argument. Sakura glanced at Naruto, the blond then leading them towards the stage curtains as Kakashi was announcing the opening statements. They took their seats before thousands of people, Sarada cradled in Sasuke’s arm possessively, as if the curious eyes of the onlookers would spirit his daughter away from him.
It was a somber memorial service. For what felt like an hour did Kakashi candidly and bravely reiterate the beginnings of the Uchiha massacre to its end, outlining Sasuke’s own fate and the reason why he had defected from the village, to why he’d temporarily wanted to destroy it. It was hard for Sasuke, hearing his old wounds torn open and bleeding for people it didn’t really effect, some with children too young to remember and had been born long afterwords. Though flanked by his lovers and with his precious daughter on his arm, the anchors keeping him rooted to this world, he wanted to disintegrate. He didn’t want this private misery exposed to ungrateful masses, filled with some people who had believed it justified.
Keeping his beloved daughter close to his chest kept him balanced, from the devils of his memories coming back to haunt him viciously.
At some point, it was his turn to speak. Ruefully relinquishing Sarada to her mother, Sakura gave him a wry, small smile for encouragement he didn’t have the heart to return, Naruto’s hand on his arm before he departed. He loved them, but he didn’t love doing this.
His speech was formal and sanitized, having to rewrite it several times before Kakashi, and the PR committee that handled the Hokage’s public image, were satisfied. Sasuke reiterated everything that had happened to him in brutal honesty, from his brother psychologically torturing him with the Tsukiyomi as a small boy after his parents’ slaughter to the final moment of the Fourth Shinobi World War when he and Naruto had clasped hands in the seal that undid the Infinite Tsukiyomi forever. He left out the years after and the love he found with his old teammates, a part of his heart the world didn’t deserve to know.
Then a bow. An apology, a tired promise he was seeking redemption and healing in the name of his clan. That he learned from his mistakes and hoped for a brighter future, said without light or passion in his eyes.
What he learned was that Konoha hadn’t really changed. That for peace, children little older than Sarada were still being told to become great shinobi and that they should one day want to die for the sake of their village. It burned his heart wrathfully that he couldn’t say anything about it, but these had been part of the conditions of his parole; that he wouldn’t rock the boat like he’d tried before. People could understand him hunting down Itachi, but the mention of wanting to destroy Konoha had made them stony with defensiveness at the way of life they never really questioned.
When his speech was over, Sasuke bowed and immediately departed from the stage as other people began making their own speeches of apology and remembrance alike.
Sakura and Naruto were quick to follow with a sleeping Sarada in Naruto’s arms in tow. They just barely caught him in time as he stalked off the set and past a few members of the police division who called out warnings against Sasuke trespassing on the Uchiha compound before recognizing who he was when he glared at them cuttingly, enough to make them shut up while Sakura and Naruto walked briskly to keep pace with him.
The din of the speeches and the subdued applause from the crowd after each one was made seemed to fade almost completely the deeper they trekked into the hamlet, Naruto and Sakura exchanging looks as they gaped at the ghost town, remaining close while Sasuke stormed ahead that saw them almost breaking into a run to keep up with him. He only began letting up once he came to what both recognized as being the clan leader’s estate, Sasuke’s childhood home. The sprawling grounds and high courtyard walls encompassing it loomed enormously against the barren trees and embankments of snow, like a tomb.
They didn’t slow until they came to the gate that Sasuke wrenched open, Sarada whimpering and huddling into Naruto’s chest as her father soothed her. Neither needed to speak, knowing why Sasuke had come here after years. Their footfalls creaked on old floorboards as they entered, navigating quietly and reverently through the oppressive gloom of a place abandoned for almost a decade. Sakura tapped Naruto’s shoulder as she nodded ahead, both stopping short of what appeared to be a kitchen, Sasuke standing statuesque over a low kitchen table… where it had happened.
Sarada’s soft cries and wriggling in Naruto’s arms elicited in him a reaction to incline towards the sound, but Sasuke didn’t turn. His hand was clenched in a hard fist beneath his heavy black poncho. Just as Sakura opened her mouth to say something, Sasuke beat her to it.
“They didn’t mean it. Their sympathy, knowing the truth; they didn’t mean it. Everything is still the same. And it won’t bring them back!” Sasuke railed passionately as he smote his fist against a wall, rattling it before his fingers loosed and fell back to his side. “I could see it. They grew up thinking the Uchiha were going to rebel against the Leaf. They don’t care. They’re glad we’re gone. And they probably wish I had died with them!”
Stunned speechlessly, Naruto and Sakura glanced at each other, at the old, rusty bloodstains still imprinted in the tatami mat floor that denoted where Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha had fallen. Pursing her lips, Sakura was the first to gently place a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, his tensity barely easing away at her touch, but… it was something.
“I’m sorry, Sasuke. I’m sorry you have to go through all this again,” Sakura said as she gradually hugged Sasuke’s arm to her chest, Sasuke resignedly relaxing into it. She didn’t know what else to say, not when it was all true.
Nudging Sasuke’s spare flank, Sasuke started to see Sarada first cooing at him, then at Naruto. “We’ll get through as a team though, won’t we? It won’t be like last time.”
Unconscious of the tears building within his eyes, Sasuke's head bowed and let them silently wash down his cheeks, able to grieve again for the first time in what felt like years.
This time, at least, he wasn’t alone.