The face he couldn't forget

Summary: Naruto's plane is shot down, and he goes missing. Sasuke refuses to accept that he is gone. When the conflict is finally over, Sasuke tries to find answers.

Author's note: I had a terrible dream last night. It involved real people I know and a much less happy ending, and I need to purge it from my system and turn it into something happy. UN-BETA'd. And probably temporary. Ugh, I feel so queasy just thinking about this.

Kiba looked over at the dark-haired man sitting at his bar and sighed. Back in high school, he had hated Sasuke Uchiha from the first day he'd met him. The boy had been arrogant and good at every fucking thing he tried his hand at. And all the girls had been crazy for him from the moment he set foot in the school until the day he graduated.

But now Sasuke was simply… broken.

Kiba pulled out his phone and called a familiar number.

"Sakura? Yeah, he's here again. He'll need some help finding his way home. Can you come get him? Thanks. Yeah, I know." He ended the call then walked over to where his former classmate was leaning heavily on the bar.

"Almost closing time, Sasuke. You've gotta go home now," Kiba said the last words gently. He knew what Sasuke was avoiding. To be honest, none of them had really gotten over it. But Sasuke had taken the news the worst.

"What do you mean his plane went down?" Sasuke's voice was sharp and angry, but no one was fooled by it. His eyes were dark wells of pure panic. "Go send a team and find him!"

"It's not that simple. Captain Uzumaki was on a recon mission. He was flying over airspace that technically we weren't supposed to -"

"I don't give a FUCK of where you were allowed to fly. You sent him in. You bring him back."

"Mr. Uchiha, I know it is difficult in these circumstances, but you have to understand the delicacy of the situation."

"That's something you should have thought of before you sent him there," Sasuke's voice shook, his finger unconsciously moving over the gold band on his left hand. It was still new… Don't Ask, Don't Tell had only just been repealed that year.

"Mr. Uchiha. I know how difficult this is for you. But you have to understand that the plane was shot down in enemy territory three weeks ago. If there had been any survivors, Captain Uzumaki would have tried to make contact, or we would have been informed about the capture of an American soldier on foreign soil. I'm very sorry for your loss."

Sasuke had stood there numbly as the uniformed man had left.

Sasuke lifted his head from the smooth surface of the bar, feeling the room spin as he looked blearily at the pink-haired woman who was saying his name.

"Sasuke. It's time to go home now. Here, let me help you." Not waiting for his permission, the surprisingly strong female slid her arm around Sasuke's waist and pulled his arm over her shoulder, levering him up and guiding him to the door. It was a routine they'd had a lot of practice on over the past three years.

Sasuke said nothing as she opened the back seat of her car and guided him in. He lay there, staring up at the beige ceiling of her sedan listening to the sound of her heels clicking on the pavement as she walked around to the driver's side and got in. He knew that she was looking at him in the rearview mirror and noting that he didn't bother putting his seatbelt on. But at least she had stopped commenting on it.

They arrived at his apartment building, and he heard the sounds of her heels clicking back around to his side of the car to open the door.

"Come on, Sasuke. We're home."

Except it wasn't really his home. Not since three years ago. Now it was just the apartment that held all his shit. But he couldn't move out and find someplace new. Because it also still had all of Naruto's things as well.

He let Sakura help him to the elevator, and they rode up in silence. Sometimes she would just see him to his door and leave him to sleep it off in peace. Other times, she would come in and give him a piece of her mind. He could already tell that tonight was going to be the second kind and he sighed, leaning back against the wall of the elevator and trying to remember if he had a fresh bottle of ibuprofen because he sure as fuck was going to need it.

Sakura shot him a look, but the determined set of her jaw didn't diminish.

When they got inside, she went directly to the kitchen and started making tea. Sasuke staggered over to the couch, waiting for the lecture he knew was coming. He didn't have long to wait.

"It's been three years, Sasuke. You need to move on. You need to face that he isn't coming back."

She'd said the words so many times before. His answer was always the same.

"No." His voice was low, but firm. There was no wavering in it. There never was.

"Sasuke…" Sakura's voice was desperate. She had already lost one of her best friends. She wasn't going to just sit by and lose the other. "Sasuke, if Naruto were able to, he would have swum across the Pacific Ocean to get back to you. There is nothing that would keep him away from you. He wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want you to be slowly killing yourself over him."

Sasuke scrubbed his hands through his hair. He knew this. He knew all this. "I would know if he were dead, Sakura. I would know. I don't care what his commanding officer said. Naruto is alive. And if he's been held captive somewhere, he wouldn't be able contact me no matter how hard he tried."

Sakura looked at him, her clear green eyes filled with pity and understanding. Sasuke had to look away. They'd had this argument so many times. It didn't matter that the fighting was over, that all the prisoners of war had been returned home. It didn't matter that they both knew that - if Naruto had been found in the territory of another country where the US was not supposed to have been - it would have been all over the news.

"You should go there," Sakura said, finally.

Sasuke's head snapped up. "What?"

"You should go. They lifted the travel ban to the country six months ago. You could go." Sakura's voice was soft and low.

Go and make your peace. Go and say goodbye.

Sakura didn't say the words, but they both knew that was what she meant.

She set the hot cup of black tea gently on the coffee table in front of him. "Think about it. I'll come with you if you want."

Sasuke didn't say anything. He simply stared at the steam rising from the cup of tea. He heard the soft click of the door as Sakura left.

Sasuke stepped out of his hotel. This was the third city he'd been to in the country where Naruto had gone missing. Of course, they had never told him exactly where Naruto had gone down, so Sasuke was traveling around. Grasping at straws. He didn't know what he was looking for. He just knew he needed to be there.

It was the closest he'd felt to Naruto since he'd gone missing.

The streets were full of cars that ranged from brand-new Mercedes to some that looked like they had been built out of parts in someone's garage, held together by string. The constant sound of horns and shouts and dogs made his head spin. The blazing heat and dust didn't help, either.

He'd arrived in the country ten days ago, and each day he followed the same schedule. He'd have a quick breakfast in his hotel room early in the morning, then spend the rest of the day walking around the city before returning late to have a room service dinner then fall into a restless sleep. Twice, he'd taken a bus out into the rural areas, but he didn't speak the language, and the second time he tried it, he almost wasn't able to find a way back to the city.

Sakura had offered to come again when she'd driven him to the airport, but he'd declined. This was something he needed to do on his own.

He was walking past what appeared to be a school of some sort… probably a high school judging by the age of the kids walking inside. A group of boys in white short-sleeved, button-down shirts and dark maroon shorts were walking past, laughing and jostling each other.

One of the boys happened to glance over at him. He had been mid-conversation with his friend, and was in the process of turning back to continue talking when suddenly his eyes widened in recognition and his head snapped back to look at Sasuke.

He began speaking excitedly in his native tongue, pointing to Sasuke and looking at him expectantly.

Sasuke shifted, glancing towards the school and wondered if the kid were accusing him of something. It hadn't been that long since the fighting had stopped, and even though Sasuke looked more Japanese than American, he didn't really know what to expect from the locals.

The boy approached him, still speaking and grabbed Sasuke's hand, tugging on it.

Sasuke scowled, deciding this had gone far enough and jerked his hand back.

"English?" he asked the boy, not expecting any response.

Comprehension lit the boy's dark eyes. "Sorry, sorry! English, yes! You come! I take you. You come to no name."

Sasuke wondered if maybe this was a school for 'special' children, since the boy was making no sense. But the eyes that looked at him were sharp and intelligent.

"You Sasuke, right?" The boy asked, his grin wide and bright.

Sasuke froze.

"No name sees you. You no name Sasuke. I take you. Wait here, I tell teacher I go."

With that, the boy raced off into the school, shouting excitedly to his friends.

Sasuke stood in the middle of the dirty sidewalk, feeling slightly dizzy. As though something had just been set in motion that he wasn't quite ready to assess with his highly analytical mind. He couldn't face the disappointment if it led to nothing. So he stood unmoving on the spot, his mind carefully blank as he waited for the mysterious boy to return.

After about fifteen minutes, he began to feel stupid. Was it some sort of prank? Maybe the boy's father worked at Sasuke's hotel and the boy had seen him there and learned his name. Maybe this was just some game to make the foreigners look like idiots. Sasuke had to admit it had been rather successful based on the number of glances he got from passers-by, wondering what he was doing standing in front of a school and staring at it blankly. He supposed he was lucky it wasn't back home, or someone would have called the cops for a possible pedophile alert.

He was just about to leave when the boy reappeared, grinning happily and motioning for Sasuke to join him.

"Teacher borrow me bike. We go. I take you." The boy looked at Sasuke with all the bright confidence that only a teenager could pull off.

Sasuke looked somewhat skeptically at the ancient moped that the boy was pushing. It didn't look like it would even start. Not to mention the fact that he had nearly had cardiac arrest in the car on the way from the airport to the hotel. If there were any traffic rules in this country, they appeared to be more like… optional suggestions rather than something anyone appeared to actually obey. The few streetlights he'd seen that had actually been operational had been completely ignored by the cars, truck, and bikes moving through the intersection. Traffic tended to be guided more along the lines of a massive game of chicken and who had the loudest horn.

Looking at the confident grin of the teenage boy who was motioning him to get on the back of his moped, Sasuke wished he hadn't been a confirmed atheist, since praying seemed like it would be a useful investment at the moment.

Three years ago he would never have considered doing something like this. Now, he barely gave it a second thought as he climbed on the bike, gripping the metal bar of the back-rest behind him and hoping vaguely he wasn't about to be taken into some dark alley and robbed. Or worse.

He revisited the wisdom of that decision about three hours later. They had long-since left the city behind them when the boy turned down a trail (Sasuke was not feeling generous enough to call it a road) and headed towards what Sasuke was quite sure was the exact definition of 'middle of fucking nowhere'. He would have been more worried about being robbed, but the boy had already made him use most of the local currency he had brought with him from the hotel that morning when they had stopped to fill up the tank of the tiny vehicle not long ago.

Sasuke's long legs were basically asleep and he wasn't sure if his back would ever be the same, but they kept on.

It was late afternoon when they finally reached a small village. The boy leapt off the bike, calling out and waving to a group of older women who were hanging brightly colored clothes on lines strung outside of a small cluster of houses.

Sasuke was slower getting off the bike, rubbing his hands along his hamstrings to try to get some feeling back in his legs. Seemingly unconcerned with Sasuke's ability to move, the boy began tugging his wrist, gesturing down the street and nearly bouncing in his excitement. Several of the people who saw them did a double-take when they caught sight of Sasuke's face before joining in the procession, making Sasuke nervous and slightly uncomfortable. But there was a growing coil in the pit of his stomach that told him to keep following the young teen.

They stopped in front of a small cinder-block hut. There was a heavy blanket that covered the doorway, and Sasuke vaguely wondered what it would be like to live in a place where the doors not only didn't lock but weren't really even… doors.

The boy pushed the fabric aside and tugged Sasuke into the small dwelling.

There wasn't much in the way of furnishings. A crudely made table and chair that appeared to serve the dual purpose of both desk and dining table based on the items strewn about its small surface. A small orange rug covered the dirt floor. The only other item of furniture was a mattress tucked into the corner, the blankets folded with ruthless precision.

Military precision.

But it was the sketches that filled the walls of the room that caused Sasuke's breath to freeze in his chest. They weren't of such extreme skill that they would have drawn his attention if it weren't for the fact that they were all quite unmistakably of him.

His name was spelled out both in English and Japanese Kanji on several.

"No name teaching! I go get. You wait here. Surprise him. We think you not exist!" The boy happily fled, leaving Sasuke in a room filled with people he didn't know, all of whom were looking at him oddly. A few of the girls blushed and giggled, but there was an almost celebratory feeling in the place that made Sasuke's palms sweat and his pulse race. He wondered if he were trapped in some sort of alcohol-induced dream, except he hadn't had anything to drink since he'd decided to come here two weeks ago.

A few of the gathered spectators asked him a question, but he couldn't understand what they were saying.

"English?" He tried again, wondering if it would work a second time.

But this time, there was only a shaking of heads, accompanied by some of the younger ones excited chattering as they peeking out the door with anticipation.

Sasuke heard voices approaching, speaking the local language. The words were - as usual - incomprehensible to him.

But one of the voices was one he recognized immediately.

His whole body seemed to freeze, and a wave of dizziness washed over him. If his body weren't so rigidly frozen, he might have stumbled. The curtain was pushed back, and the young boy raced in, his hand clasping familiar tan fingers as he tugged his reluctant follower inside.

Sasuke's throat closed up as he looked into achingly familiar blue eyes. Eyes that widened in shock then disbelief as they locked on him.

"Sasuke?" Naruto's familiar voice whispered almost in wonder as he said the name. He slowly walked across the small room to stand before him, tan fingers tentatively reaching out to trace along Sasuke's cheek. "You're real?"

Sasuke closed his eyes at the touch, then frowned slightly as he realized that Naruto had asked him the question in Japanese. Being second generation, Sasuke still spoke some of his parents' native tongue, though English was still his first language. They had always spoken English at home.

"Dobe," Sasuke breathed out, stepping in and wrapping his arms around Naruto, afraid if he let go, the mirage would disappear and he'd be cast back into the hell he'd been living in for the last three years. "Why are you speaking Japanese?" he asked in English, ignoring the way his throat constricted and the burning in his eyes. Naruto had always been good with languages. It was part of why he was chosen for recon. He spoke eleven fluently, including Japanese.

"I… because you're… Japanese?"

Slowly, things started to click into place. Sasuke gripped Naruto's shoulders and stepped back. "Do you know who I am?" He desperately needed the answer to be yes.

Naruto nodded, a lopsided smile twisting his lips, an expression of sadness and pain. "Your name is Sasuke. You love tomatoes. You hate sweets. Your favorite book is The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I thought I knew you were Japanese," he laughed slightly nervously. "But I know that… I loved you," he said the last words on a whisper, his eyes showing the uncertainty of possible rejection.

At this, the young teen who had brought Sasuke whooped and started shooing everyone out of Naruto's house. "No Name! You get him name you!" The boy called over his shoulder after shoving the last (slightly indignant) matriarch out the door.

"No name?" Sasuke asked, his eyes moving over Naruto's face. There was a scar just above Naruto's temple that disappeared into his hairline. Sasuke traced his fingers delicately over the raised mark, feeling that it extended up nearly halfway across Naruto's skull. He thought sickeningly of how big a wound it must have been to have left such a mark. How much of a miracle it was that Naruto was standing in front of him.

"Yeah, that's what they call me. No Name. There's some kind of custom about only family members or loved ones being able to name you here. And I didn't… I don't…" Naruto paused, clearly trying to gather himself as nerves and excitement raced over his face. "They took me in, and built me this house. In return, I teach English in the village to some of the kids. I know lots of languages. It's actually one of two things I really seem to know. Languages and… you." Naruto blushed, rubbing his hand over the back of his head in a way that was so achingly familiar that Sasuke almost had to look away.

But the vulnerability in Naruto's voice had his eyes searching Naruto's, seeing the uncertainty and anxiety that was in their depths. How long had Naruto been alone? The thought twisted in Sasuke's stomach. But he was here now. He wouldn't let Naruto go through this on his own anymore.

"What happened?" Sasuke asked.

"I was found about a mile from here, in the jungle. I was… wounded. I had a broken leg and a broken collarbone and a big-ass hole in my head," he laughed nervously, but it was clear it was not a fond memory. "I was stripped down to my boxers, all my clothes and any money or papers I had on me were long gone. Someone from the village was out fishing and found me. Luckily they realized I wasn't quite dead yet." Sasuke flinched visibly at Naruto's words. "They brought me back and patched me up. I guess I'd been robbed and dumped. A few people thought maybe someone in the government had tried to get rid of me for something, so they kept me here, and one of the local midwives took care of my injuries. Several of the village elders had been executed by the authorities about a month before they found me, so the villagers had no loyalty to the government. They had assumed I was a foreigner until I regained consciousness and spoke the local dialect like a native. But I couldn't remember anything about who I was. I have no idea what part of the country I'm from. Just… all I could remember was… you."

Naruto's eyes searched Sasuke's. "I remembered you. I was going crazy. I knew I needed to get back to you I… I tried everything. I want to the Japanese consulate, and tried to see if there was anyone named Sasuke registered in the country, but they had no record of anyone from Japan with that first name even having been here recently. And I didn't know your last name. Do you know how many Sasuke's there are in Japan?"

Sasuke's throat was still working convulsively, taking all of this in. Naruto wasn't dead. He wasn't dead.

"So…" Naruto hesitated, looking up at Sasuke. "You know… could you… at least tell me my name?"

Sasuke cleared his throat. "You're Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto Uzumaki Uchiha. My full name… is Sasuke Uzumaki Uchiha."

Naruto's eyes widened.

"We…" Sasuke smiled slightly, despite the spasming of his throat. "We argued a lot about whose name would go first on the marriage certificate."

"Then… then we are… you are…" Naruto's hands were shaking, fragments of memories of the man in front of him kaleidoscoping through his mind.

"Your husband," Sasuke murmured, wanting so much to pull Naruto to him and kiss him and show him all the ways he so desperately had missed him but he wasn't sure what to do. How much Naruto would be comfortable with. "I am your husband, Naruto."

Naruto solved the issue, sliding his hands along Sasuke's jawline and pulling him gently down into an achingly soft kiss. "Thank god. Thank god you're real. You were the only thing I remembered. But I couldn't find you… I…"

Sasuke pulled Naruto close, feeling the way the body of the man shook in his arms.

"We'll get you home. Get you help. It will all come back."

Naruto drew a shaky breath, trying to get a hold of his careening emotions. "Yeah. I… how did you find me?"

Sasuke blew out a shaky breath. Maybe he would revisit his diehard atheist status after all. "Luck. Sheer, blind, stupid fucking luck."

And the thought of that shook him to his core. He tightened his grip on Naruto. Whatever happened, he was never letting go again.

The End.

A/N: If anyone other than the anon reviewer 'Nicky' is confused, the Japanese government is NOT executing their citizens in this fic. This story doesn't take place in Japan, but in an unnamed country that is in the middle of a war. That's why Naruto went to the Japanese embassy to look for Sasuke. And as for the rest of the 'comment' there ARE fics with Naruto as Russian (Beyond an Identity) and Brazilian (Heat Stroke) and even where Sasuke is a British nobleman, so... yeah, that is kinda the point of AUs. That's why authors specify when it's canon vs AU.