askerian | Teamwork 3 - chapter 9

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Teamwork 3 - chapter 9 - scene 2

I've been tweaking this one for a month and I don't think it's going to help if I keep tweaking. But aaaaa so nervous about it. .__.;;;

Previous part.

The medic-nin had tried to chase Sasuke out of the room at first, but Sakura shrugged and said she didn't mind, so Sasuke spent a half-hour watching an old guy lift up his teammate's shirt and feel up her stomach and belly. At some point he even pressed a palm down her shorts, against her pubis. Sasuke just watched.

The guy was from Konoha, cleared by Tsunade, so he had some idea of the state of Sakura's health, the whole situation. About the fetus.

The baby.

'The rumors were wrong. It isn't Naruto-kun's. It's yours.'

He knew why his brother believed it. Because he assumed Sasuke believed it, from the way he'd thrown himself on Sakura to shield her.

Sasuke didn't believe. He didn't have enough luck to dare.

He just... hoped.

But hope was too nice a word, too soft. Yearning, maybe. Craving. It was the kind of wanting that hurt.

He shook his head, closed his eyes for a few long seconds, opened them to stare at Sakura so his mind wouldn't drift again. She was getting dressed with quick, short gestures, jaw twitching every time the cast on her arm got in her way. Her eyes were still flat, still walled off.

'Charge', he'd told her, and she'd attacked Kisame, outclassed as she was.

"So?" she said, not looking at the old medic-nin.

The man was frowning, looking at his chart. Not a deep frown, but not an optimal expression either. Sasuke fisted his hands deep in his pockets.

"The fetus is alive and healthy enough for now, but there is no telling whether it was altered and how." A short, irritated sigh. "Just the sort of problems we were trying to prevent in the first place... At any rate, whatever happened, it's too late to fix it. Just mind you don't make it worse. No more of that chakra."

She gave a terse nod, rolling the waistband of her shorts back up one-handed. Sasuke stepped up to her and tugged her tangled t-shirt down, so it would cover her hip under the cracked arm where she couldn't reach easy.

"The bone?" she asked.

"It's not good for your calcium levels if I speed it up any more. Double your daily supplements and come back in a week."

"Alright." A nod. A perfunctory "Thank you." She turned to leave. Sasuke followed.

Down the corridor, and to the staircase. This floor had been blocked for the second test's casualties, preventing anyone but teammates and teachers to come in, but nothing stopped them from leaving. Naruto would be in debriefing for another forty-five minutes at the very least.

She went. Kakashi was with Naruto, so he followed. Out in the street, and up the hill, and up that cliff path they'd raced down, back from the first test, a few centuries ago. White and purple flowers dancing in the wind, spilling all over the rocks, the sea unfurling blue-green as far as the eye could see.

He could see rage in every line of her body, the set of her shoulders, how straight and proud her spine was. He'd never seen it from the outside, but it was familiar anyway.

She stopped at a little bend in the path, the jutting rocks hiding them from view. She turned to face the sea.

Picked up a loose rock, and hurled it as far as it would go. Sasuke didn't track its fall. She was already bending down to pick up another.

He stood on the path and watched her throw rock after rock. At some point she started to grunt with the effort, a quiet little noise with each throw that grew progressively louder; after that, it was her lip, curling up from a pressed-down line into a snarl.

"Shit."

Throw. She was a little unbalanced by the cast, movements too wide and not efficient enough, but it wasn't like she was bothering to aim anyway.

She was so angry. He had nothing against that fact, didn't begrudge her it; it was just strange, that rage, the depth of it.

Sasuke wasn't angry. He'd tried to be, at Naruto for being so listless, at Sakura for leaving them alone together, at Kakashi because he was there and then because he wasn't, at Kon. He wasn't angry. He wished he was.

It would have been easier to handle than the nameless thing churning in his guts, the terrifying thing he'd been trying to ignore since the jounin-sensei arrived on the battlefield and carried them back out.

Sakura's anger took up all the space, and he couldn't hold onto his own anymore. Couldn't fan it huge and roaring until he could pretend anger was the only thing he felt, until he was deaf to the things it covered up.

"Did you see him?" asked Sakura. She stared at the horizon. Her face was still hard, but there was a pinched, brittle look at the corner of her eyes which told him that she didn't want to cry, that she might anyway.

She meant Naruto, of course, and of course Sasuke had seen him, and it made him sick with frustration and denial, he couldn't stand it. Naruto wasn't allowed to be broken.

"He'll be better when he has things to do," he said, parroting Kakashi and not believing it any more now that he was the one saying it. "He's had nothing to do but brood. He needs to move around."

Sakura didn't even look like she was paying attention. It was a little strange not to have her hanging on his every word.

"If I'd been stronger," she said.

He fell silent. He knew where this one went.

"If I'd been faster. Known more jutsu."

She lifted her chin, eyes glittering with rage and tears.

"If I wasn't so weak, wasn't a toy, wasn't someone you can ignore!"

She was screaming now, until her voice went raw.

"I will never freeze up again. I will never be too slow or weak again. I will never be ignored again! Never, never, NEVER!"

Sasuke watched her, and... He didn't know. He didn't know what he felt there. Something soft, that ached a little. He stepped closer, shoulder to shoulder. Standing with her. He thought he could do that from now on. He thought it would be fine by him.

She trembled with a swallowed sob, chin still up, eyes glittering with more than anger now. He was the one who touched her first, his hand on her back. She turned in his arms and burrowed there and he held on.

He could understand that feeling, that need to make oneself into someone who could never be dismissed.

He caught the word emerging, floating there, in a corner of his mind. 'My wife.' He weighed the word, the notion.

Alright. Yes.

Despite the still-unnamed thing curling in the pit of his stomach he didn't think he had ever thought so clearly. He tilted his head, rested his cheek against her hair as she fought not to cry, as a few hot tears slipped through anyway. He could see hardy little flowers, and torn rocks, and the sea.

The thing was, when he stopped lying, stopped hiding...

He already knew how it would all untangle, once he grabbed the end of the string and started following it. When he'd faced his brother, when Itachi had moved to destroy the pipeline -- to kill Sakura -- he'd already chosen. He'd chosen again when he thought he wouldn't mind if Naruto hated him forever for trading him against Gaara. It was just a matter of allowing it all to unravel, now, to make himself push away the last of the fear and admit it.

He already knew.

His brother. His revenge. His family, waiting, betrayed and ended, waiting for him to even the score, to make sure their murderer didn't get away with it. All that he owed his parents.

All that he owed his brother. ('and when you have the same eyes as I...')

His... maybe-child. Maybe Naruto's child.

His wife. His future children -- the ones that might come after this first one. The ones he'd have with her, and the one they'd have with Naruto, and.

Their future children.

He closed his eyes, turned his face into Sakura's neck.

His brother.

'You and I will always be brothers. I will always be there for you, even if only as an obstacle for you to overcome.'

'Even if you hate me. That's what big brothers are for.'

"You and I will always be brothers..."

"--Sasuke-kun?"

She pulled back a little bit, blinked at him with eyes reddened but stubbornly not crying. His whisper had been too quiet; she hadn't caught the words. Sasuke shook his head slowly, unwound his arms until only their fingers were touching.

"Come on. Something I've got to tell the two of you."

He led her back down the path, fingers interlaced with hers in a white-knuckled tangle.

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*giddy, happy sigh*

It always makes my day when one of these comes out. Even as it hurts me so. Achingly beautiful, thank you.

._______. ♥♥♥♥♥ *lovesquishes* thank you, hon.

Huh, don't think that's what Sakura wanted to hear: 'So, I'm like a brother to you...?' (ộ___ộ) Hope she doesn't hold that against him too much. Psst, blame your confusion on the childhood trauma, Sasuke!

Jokes aside, I love how Naruto's not just bouncing back, Saskura's getting her determination in gear and Sasuke's finally starting to accept that the present is more important than the past. *Squishes opening up!Sasuke* ^_____^

*... gigglesnort*
(man, those crying Os are really neat. What alphabet are they from? never seen them before.)

yayyy so happy it works for you ^o^~ thank you.

I was playing about in Open Office then copy+paste hey presto. Latin Extended Additionals under the Special Character toolbar. o^_^o

Wow, just ... WOW!!!

This is Sasuke at his richest as a character and so incredible vulnerable. And, Sakura, I love, love, love Sakura. So stronge. Wow!!!

You may not be happy but ... wow ... This is amazing!

#^__________^# ♥~

It's not really that I'm not happy with the scene, it's that this scene and the next are incredibly important for character development and if they come across as too abrupt or otherwise not believable then it means I've messed up the whole point of teamwork 3. So i'm stressing out about it XD;;;

Your Sasuke-voice is amazing, no need to worry about it, seriously!

i love how he slowly comes to realize what it is that he feels, and his mind works in concepts, not images or words. Very Sasuke-like to catch himself feeling, and to work hard on clearing out his emotions, not liking ambiguity and tangled thoughts.

Sakura finally gets ambitious, that's also nice. I was wondering how you would recreate the emotional shock that was Naruto's failure to bring Sasuke back in canon. Being there, and aware of what's going on (as opposed to passed out), and a helpless witness to her teammates nearly getting killed while trying to protect her, seems like an even stronger push in the direction of her deciding to train hard and become a reliable partner.

Your chatacter-building is very logical and sometimes seems almost geometrically structured, with action-reaction and levels of reverberation laid out neatly for us to read trough. The switching of povs between the main characters helps play out this display realistically, without forcing tedious explanations of character evolution. My mathematical mind approves :)

♥♥♥♥♥ #^___^#

It's gonna be hard not to have Sakura too much of a hard-ass right away... Hmm. Right now she's still very, very pissed and it's stil mostly words so I'm giving myself a pass on potential badassery. XDD

ooh, geometry. That's one way I didn't see it before, but yes, I like action-reaction-consequences XD maybe that's what it is... I'm glad to hear how you see it, it's very neat.

Amazing, as always <3 So excited for whatever comes next!!

^_________________^ ♥♥♥

Will try to write moar today! Roarr. >:E

Oh, Sasuke.

And oh, Sakura. Her rage is so palpable, and ragged with pain and self-hatred. At least it's directed toward protecting living people rather than avenging the dead, but that kind of strangling, slashing emotional weight can eat a person alive -- as Sasuke can attest from personal experience.

I like the way that Sakura's anger sort of drains his, and lets him... I dunno, move on? And admit that he's moving on, which is perhaps more relevant.

♥

I find it hilarious in an ironic way that Sasuke gets all "ooh, I can relate to her. ... for the first time in my life I really, truly GET her... bwee *__*" over Sakura going REVEEEENGE and being obsessed/furious/protective about Naruto. It's extremely amusing to my twisted mind that he likes her just as she stops worrying about him and goes RAAA MINE over Naruto. ... then again Naruto first fell in love with her because he could relate to her desire to be acknowledged by Sasuke. So. XD Obviously they're all made for each other, so entangled.

Woohoo sasuke character development, i'm glad you approve. Man but I'm so scared it won't work for everyone. It's where teamwork 3 has been leading all along so if it fails here I'll be cruuushed. XD;

I think it works excellently!

For now! It's the next scene that's really stressing me out. @___@;;;;

omg that stood out so much in the scene, yet I only got it after you spelled it out here... feeling kind of stupid now, but YES, so much love!

*sniffle*

Didn't realize I'd missed the first part of the 9th chapter so I got double the Teamwork with half the wait!

Love it, can try and be patient for more.

... XD;;;

I'm sorry hon, next time I'll pull out the flashing fonts. XDDDDD

Glad you like!

'Charge', he'd told her, and she'd gone, outclassed as she was.

I completely do not get this sentence, sorry. Charge what? Is it part of the flashback still? Cuz it seems kinda unrelated to the doctor thing.

He'd never seen it from the outside, but it was familiar anyway.
Took me a couple of read thrus before i connected the dots. >.< could just be me being slow tho.

Still in the solemn mood! I like how you did it, still. ^_^

Aha, that is a very good point. *goes to fix* He's remembering when he told her to attack kisame as a distraction to get Gaara back, but yes, it's way too vague. *adds ref in*

The second one, hrrm, will try to tweak the sentence so the subject of the "it" is closer. u.u

Thank you very much for the help, and i'm glad you like it!

I agree with flourite_roses about the 2 sentences that took me longer to process ^^; But once I understood the second, I felt amazed *o* For some reason I really like that he can "see" someone behave just like he felt.

I'M TOO SPEECHLESS TO COMMENT. NOT LAZY, JUST SPEECHLESS. How can you write Sasuke so well?
It would come natural to think of 'my love' but with Sasuke, 'wife' comes to be accepted first, and then the tender feelings evooooolve huhuhu. Is it pointless to repeat I look forward to what he has to tell them in the next part?

Alrighty! *copypastes like a lazy thing* He's remembering when he told her to attack kisame as a distraction to get Gaara back, but yes, it's way too vague. I fixed it. ^^

Huhuhuhuhu I'm so glad you approve of the sasuke evolution. bweeeeeee. Sooooo glad. *loves on*

...oh man. He's going to tell them about the conditions for Mangekyo. And possibly the other Uchiha secrets he learned at the family shrine.

That will be interesting.

This is a wonderful scene, just so you know. Especially the part where he tries to be angry, he wants to be angry, and something else is getting in the way. But I think probably my favorite part was when he realized he was thinking of Sakura as his wife and Naruto as... well, something like that; lifemate, perhaps. And he just sums it up with, "Alright. Yes."

...thus implicitly deciding that they are more important than Itachi.

Eee.

(Two quick stumbling blocks: you're angry at someone, not against. And I think "All right" is technically supposed to be two words, although I've never been quite clear on the specifics there.)

"All right" is indeed two words, but people are so determined to collapse them into one -- "alright" is, I believe, the most common spelling (though that's sometimes shortened even further to "aight" or "aiight," both of which make my soul scream, or occasionally misrendered as "alight," which is a different word altogether) -- that lexicographers will probably give up and acknowledge the shift sometime in the next... thirty years? *sigh* Until then, I will continue writing the phrase with two words.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/alright

I'd give you the OED, but that's behind a pay-wall.

He's going to tell them about the conditions for Mangekyo.
... Oh hey, that's an interesting idea. XD

I'm really happy you like the scene.

... damn it, i know that angry thing, why did i forget. ~_~ *goes to edit* as for the alright/all right, apparently it's an american english versus british english thing. I was taught british english at school and some words stuck, and since my spellcheck doesn't pick it up I never really bothered to choose one or think too much about it; it's interesting to see the debate online.

I'm not sure if I want to change it. *ponders*

the medic-nin told Sakura "no more of that chakra" - does he mean kyubii?
i wonder how this will affect Sakura? (wasn't her chakra "not enough" to keep both her and the baby healthy?)

loved the way you described Sasuke. As somebody already mentioned it was great to see him live in the present right now and not in the past (took him long enough) - and the part where he thought that MAYBE he could be the father of this child made me sigh - great written.

great Sakura development!!!

thanks for writing =)

Hee. Nice that you noticed. But she can handle it for a week. It was the long-term drain that was really bad for her. ^^ She'll just be tired.

Thank you very very muuuch~ *lovelove*

sorry, confused.
does that mean she's just not allowed to use the chakra until she's in a healty state again?
how far along is she now? (can't really remember the "timeline") - can't wait for her to start showing and maybe having other typical "pregnancy signs" =)

yeah, she can't use it. ... gah! Oh, I see what you mean now. Damn, this is a very good point, without the seals to limit the flow she would keep getting new kyuubi chakra anyway... I need to either make the medic slap on a quick stopping seal (can he do seals? would it even work against kyuubi chakra? wouldn't it make the mess even worse? gah.) or make him mention the fact that the flow will be continuing anyway but they can't do anything about that. Blargh. It's easily fixable though, and either way it wouldn't have had a big impact on the plot... Making a note to edit that later. Thanks for pointing it out, hon. .__.;;;

As for how far along she is, um, let me look... *ponders*

Teamwork 2 started when she was just barely 2 months along... then there's seal research that takes up several weeks, and after the seal there were two weeks... Teamwork 3 is the chuunin exam, so even tho it's very long on paper the first and second tests actually only took, what, maybe five days total? I can't remember right now, damn it, I should keep better track of it.

Anyway, there's a month-long lag between the second and third exams, so she'll be, let's say, in the middle of her fourth month by then and there's time for more baby-related stuff to happen, yay. ^^ I need to count more precisely, and I'm sure I messed up at some point, not planning in enough detail, but ... four-five months or thereabout is what it SHOULD be. >__>;;;

Then she should start showing very soon. Which means they need to get back to Konoha quick-like. Otherwise they may as well paint a huge target on her.

It's not like it's going to be a free for all where she suddenly gets targeted by ten guys, it's a tournament, her enemies are chosen for her and outside of the tournament naruto and sasuke are close by to keep an eye on enemies. A little baby bump won't slow her down too horribly much. Besides if they turned tail and went back home in the middle of the chuunin exam and failed it, she'd kill them herself. XD

I was going to do my best to leave a long review, you know, copypasting my favorite bits and commenting on them, but it's all so very important and well-written that I wouldn't know where to begin.

I do know the feeling of not being entirely happy with what you wrote, because you want it to be perfect, but as far as I'm concerned this is plenty perfect already. It's sweet and it's powerful and it made me squee, and it's really damn ironic that Sasuke gets all mushy and soft-eyed at Sakura going all *RAGE*... It's wonderful.

woe! My long review! *wails, cries, sobs, etc.*

XDDDDD nahh. ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thank you very muchly, dearest. It's a perfect review as it is. i'm glad you liked it that much :333

Nice! I love how you balance character development with action in this fic, it seems like its hard to have both in most fanfic now days. Your characterization is perfect. I just re read the whole teamwork series, and I gotta say, the pacing of the storyline is wonderful.

... by the way, this "Their future children." purrrrr

Heres a random thought too, how is Nekobaa going to react to Sasuke having the Cat summon contract? Or are her nincats different?

#^____^# thank you thank you.

Oh man, nekobaa. I don't even know if she exists in teamworkverse, I found her hilarious and very fun in the manga but the fact that we had no clue a friend of the family existed for a bazilion chapters (and sasuke knew she was still around too! so he wasn't THAT isolated?)... ehh. I didn't know how to take it. I don't think she's going to be a factor. then again, maybe a fun way to include her will pop up and OH GOD AT THE WEDDING XD she could be sasuke's personal guest! XDDDD

*ponders this most seriously* u.u-b

fufufufu and my evil plan to get Asuka to write more Teamwork dabbles begins....

DDDDDDDDDDDD: SO SNEAKY. *shakes fist at you*

Damn, i have to say, the bunny where Nekobaa opens the letter and reads it and it turns out she was having tea with itachi is really nagging me. I have no clue how he'll react or how i'll conclude that. XDD;;

Yearning, maybe. Craving. It was the kind of wanting that hurt.

Nice. When I read that I thought, 'Yeah, that's Sasuke right there.' How'd that saying go, that he was built for the pain?

He wants so many things, contradictory things, but he's lived without hope for a long time... I think you did a fine job expressing the tangled mess that is Sasuke.

-- Guile

I'm really glad to hear that you think that. :) *relieved!*

Ahh poor Sakura. I really like how you segued from Angst/Guilt-ridden Naruto to Angry/Greiving Sakura with Sasuke as POV. Great! And EEK! I see a SERIOUS TALK in the offing. What new problems will Itachi's knowledge of the situation deal them? And I would wonder if Itachi's going to tell Kisame ... in the manga they seem close (as much as any two cold-blooded killers can be) but it becomes obvious that Kisame doesn't really know much about Itachi at all. Would some sort of clan loyalty keep Itachi from revealing what he knows?

Not only that, but look at this from Itachi's POV. It is painfully obvious he LOVES his little brother in the manga. I can see it being absolutely possible that Itachi would leave Akatsuki to protect the baby. 'Course, I don't know how close you're going to follow the manga/anime. Obviously, orochimaru is still alive, since Sasuke was successfully brought back by Naruto, so that is also a problem.

Anyway, my point is, manga-verse Itachi did everything he did because he learned what Madara was planning. The only person he couldn't bring himself to kill was Sasuke. Ergo, much love. However, I also concede that Itachi had an alterior motive; he believed only an Uchiha was capable of defeating Madara, leaving Sasuke alive garuanteed that there was an Uchiha alive to finish up if he failed.

So regardless if what you do, Itachi himself has an interesting dilemma to deal with. Must have been quite a shock to discover what was really going on between Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto.

oh yea. I've always loved this icon of yours Asuka. I really hope you don't mind that I borrowed it.

I'm not sure Kisame would care much either way XD sasuke's always been Itachi's target/prey/concern/toy, so the particulars of his situation might not be especially fascinating. Then again seeing as it might influence the kyuubi thing which is very mich kisame and akatsuki's business, itachi might end up sharing the info anyway. I haven't decided yet.

Orochimaru is dead in teamwork actually. He died a lot earlier than his canon counterpart, too, and I even gave him a much better last fight than canon bothered to XD;;

Leaving Akatsuki and teaming up with his brother for the kid would be pretty IC if this was canon!Itachi (and also very full of "yay! uncle itachi!!" potential XD X3), but you've got to keep in mind that Teamwork was started several years ago and when I planned the fics Itachi's motive was still assumed to be "to test out my own power", "because i felt like it" and/or "because the uchihas were disgusting me with taking their sharingan for granted and not doing jack shit with it, so sasuke, you better work your ass off because I have Expectations". A "he secretly loevs his brother!!" motive was pretty much seen as mary-sue fantasy, unless it was twisted into creepy obsession. I have no idea how much my Itachi will differ from this, seeing as most of his scenes in the plot weren't more than vague ideas when the reveal came out and even now there's still lots of leeway, but I'm not going to graft recent canon into the fic where it doesn't fit, either. I'll see what happens.

As for the icon... It was made by a friend for me especially, but so many people have borrowed it that I've given up trying to tell them no. At this point telling one person not to use it would be like locking the barn after the horses were long gone. It dates from a few years ago anyway... eh.

It's great! can't wait for more :p

:3 huhuhu. Thank you, dear~

You are a queen of raw emotion. This is super intense, both on Sakura and Sasuke's parts.

"If I wasn't so weak, wasn't a toy, wasn't someone you can ignore!"
"I will never freeze up again. I will never be too slow or weak again. I will never be ignored again! Never, never, NEVER!"
*claps for Sakura* She's doing the best she can, and still struggling... I can feel her rage and frustration.

I adore Sasuke's protectiveness of his future offspring, and his new family. I'm nervous about the conversation that will come next...

(wow, I keep having to use this icon... poor Sasuke's wrist, to go along with poor Sasuke's emotions)

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Teamwork 3 - chapter 9 - scene 2

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they already have (in part)

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