In light of the most recent Naruto S. episode, I decided to try and find some justice for Sakura when Sasuke was being an asshole and punched her through the chest, sigh. Bear with me as I try to find some release in this one shot. And most of all enjoy! This one shots not really coloured in the lines but I liked the way it turned out-it was written on a whim. Don't take it too seriously haha.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Theory

"Sakura, I told you I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I heard you. I still don't care."

The boy with dark hair scoffed then crossed his arms across his chest.

"You were a jerk in the war and after the war."

"Sakura," he said looking at her with contempt, "you know I wasn't myself. I—I can't even explain it but my travels across the world did me good."

It was two years after the fourth Shinobi war and Sakura was pissed and Sasuke had finally returned.

They were seated at the local bar, the one with grills to cook meat and taps for drinking alcohol. The rest of rookie nine (minus Neji*) had occupied a large section of The Grill. And they were loud and happy and drunk.

Many of them had gone on to become Jounin, having executing the professional skills of genjutsu and taijutsu, whilst crafting their elemental chakra to perfection.

One of these Jounin was seated across from a particular outcast named Uchiha Sasuke who looked at the pink haired medic with bewilderment. He was flabbergasted by how much she changed on the inside and out.

Sure her outfit had changed, but it was still essentially the same red piece. He couldn't believe it either, Sakura was near him, vanilla perfume and all but she was mad. Like mad, mad. And it had only been five hours since his return; the dobe had welcomed him back as the brand new Hokage with the Byakugan girl at his arm. Sakura met him only two hours ago; she kind of just half smiled and sent him on his merry way to be examined by the other health care professionals.

Now that they had gotten off the clock—he would have sworn the Naruto singing drunk in love was a clone but whatever, his obstacle had pink hair and she was pissed.

He couldn't lie, he would have expected her to welcome him with the most open, wide arms he could imagine. So wide, his genjutsu vision wouldn't even have imagined it. But he was dead wrong when she simply tossed his folder over her shoulder for a student nurse to catch clumsily as she left the room to have lunch with the Yamanaka.

Okay, he would try a different approach.

"You look different, Sakura."

"Sasuke, who gives a fuck if I look different."

Okay, that backfired. He was already imagining himself back in one of the third world countries, lying on his back on a gondola in a sinking city. Konoha was his home, but damn, it was harsh.

Truly and honestly, he didn't know what to do.

He had tapped her damn forehead before when he left two years ago and she was still pissed. Didn't she realize that he had actually meant to choose her as his forever girl?

She sat there on the cushion, looking off and acting as disinterested in him as she possibly could. It was weird but intriguing. And he kind of liked it but not really. Haruno Sakura was an enigma. Her short hair wasn't spiky anymore, it was nice and it kind of just fell where it needed it to be. She pulled the long bangs behind her ear and showed off the purpled diamond of the hundred seal mark or whatever it was called.

Her green eyes seemed bigger and brighter, her face matured, slimmer. But her crossed arms at her bigger chest imitated him.

"Are you really not going to talk to me?" He tried, once more.

She exhaled in length, the type of exhalation where you try to prolong an inevitable conversation.

"Well I would," She replied, "but I'm probably just going to be annoying."

He started laughing then and it happened so abruptly that she actually was caught off guard. The blush staining her cheeks. He watched her scramble to keep her angry composure and realized it was much more fun finding the words to break down her walls than to keep his up.

"Sakura," he said again.

"What?!" She snapped.

He stared at her for a long time and even though she was looking back at him with fiery sass, he knew she was still thinking what he was thinking.

"I told you I'd be back… for you."

"How long is that going to last?" She spat.

Ouch.

Sakura raised a pale hand to alert the waitress. It seemed she ordered another bottle of sake.

Sasuke hid the smirk behind the collar of his tan poncho. He knew he also had too much to drink and so did she.

To his surprise she had also filled his tiny cup up to the edge and without waiting for him, she took hers back… and then another. Before she did a third, Sasuke caught her hand cautiously, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

A flicker of surprise flashed before her eyes followed by a look of subtle embarrassment. She placed the cup down with ease and proceeded to run her hair back with her fingers.

"I should really get going now," she said.

Purple and black eyes stared wordlessly at her for a moment. This new insatiable appetite he had for pushing the rosette's buttons was about to be unsatisfied. So Sasuke watched her rise unsteadily to her feet. He mimicked her in cautious motions, probably hoping that if he at least walked to the door, maybe she'd have a change in heart.

"No… Stay. Enjoy." She said, "The others are just meeting up now and I have to get up early so…"

"Where do you think you're going forehead!" Ino yelled, "Get your ass back to your seat!"

Sakura groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

You know Ino was in the proximity when you could smell her baby prostitute-like scent cascading over you.

Sakura was blinded by the white of Ino's bare tummy, as her friend acted as a barricade between her and the door. The amount of annoyance Sakura felt destroyed her patience one calm thought at a time.

Sasuke looked as satisfied as he suddenly felt. She looked off again, biting her nails uninterested.

"What should I say?" He said.

Her eyes traced the wood rings on the table top for a second before the light shone into them.

"Would you… care to sing me a song?"

"No." He immediately said.

"Fine," she agreed. "Maybe I do prefer the silence."

Uchiha Sasuke rose to his feet, scoffing in discontent. The mystified green eyes watched his determined steps reach Naruto. Words were exchanged, and large blue eyes suddenly flowed with as much excitement as they possibly could.

"Hey guys! Sasuke and I are going to do a duet!"

She couldn't believe it as Sasuke and his best friend took center stage on the platform. His face was inscrutable, eyebrows angled in determination.

Whoops and yelps were heard across the bar…

Well, that's what her imagination cooked up. She merely took another swig, slammed the cup down on the hard table, and exhaled slowly through pursed lips.

"Sasuke, you can't just come back and expect me to forgive you with open arms. You have been such a source of emotional and… psychological trauma! Even now I still can't sleep and when I do I just… I just lay there and I'm not sure what happens until the sunrises again. Now you're back and you have the power to just up and leave again—who gives a fuck about what I think or feel! It's never been easy for you, I know, but ever since I've known you, it's never been easy for me either!"

And suddenly all the eyes of her friends, coworkers, and civilians were on her. However, the most important ones were purple and black, and deep and suddenly warm. The rosette crossed her arms at her chest as she huffed haughtily. She felt a new found appreciation for her emotions as they took over her and suddenly she felt immensely better.

"…But," she continued, "When you tried to kill me, I know it was because I went after you with the intent to kill you too. I—I'm sorry, too. Can we just leave it at that?"

"You're right," Sasuke said smirking until the sky fell. "You tried to kill me too. Can we call a truce? At least just for tonight?"

"Sasuke you're so… annoying." Sakura grinned, suppressing a laugh that was suddenly trying to leave her. "You stupid annoying little jerk."

He closed his eyes in affirmation, his own chuckle threatening to leave him, "I'll take it."

"Now…" The rosette rolled her eyes, "Tell me more about how you came back… for me."

It was a little over two weeks since his return. He used his time volunteering, running laps, and serving his probation under the ex-Hokage, Hatake Kakashi.

At nineteen, the once-avenger had no qualms about doing the time. He knew he had to pay and thankfully those enforcing the rules around him were the very people he had grown up with. They understood—some would take longer to convince but with time, forgiveness in his favour would be granted and he could start to build the life he newly imagined, filled in with familiar things: the home that was left behind, the crumpled journals of his childhood depicting honor and prosperity, a family—particularly with a certain girl. One with short pink hair and beautiful green eyes ablaze. It would take time to win her over again, not with alcohol and flirty innuendos but with strength and patience and even—he'd hate to admit it, a little romance.

For Uchiha Sasuke it hadn't always been the right place at the right time, but he'd never really make a change if he didn't try at the here and the now.

His target was walking through the market place wearing a white summer dress, her hair a little longer than at her shoulders. She had grown considerably, not length-wise, he'd admit, she wasn't all that tall but her hips rounded out more in silhouette from the white dress in the bright sun and as she held Kurenai's baby boy, gentle balls of fists grabbed the strap of her dress pulling it off her shoulder as the mother took him back.

She giggled and reached for the string to pull it back over her white, sparkling shoulder.

After waving goodbye to the kid, Sakura was on her merry way.

It was about ten minutes after that and Sasuke was still watching her weave in and out of the stands. He had executed missions faster than this and yet his feet remained glued by Ichiraku's shack as Naruto and Sai conversed over bowls of pork ramen.

But when she looked up from the expertly sewn gloves, ones that looked similar to the ones she used for punching, her eyes met him and unlike the smile he was thinking he was going to get, he was met with an angry face, one that was approaching him with steps at a hundred miles per hour.

"Sakura," Sasuke addressed plainly.

"So it was you, wasn't it? Just because I told you I still needed some time to forgive you does not give you the right to break into my house every night and leave these flowers on my coffee table.

She pulled out a shriveled rose and shoved it in his face. "Sasuke, that's creepy as fuck."

He explained, "...I think someone's been breaking into your house, Sakura."

Her face went white as a ghost, "S-So it wasn't you?"

He watched the flower fall through the space between her finger and thumb and land softly on the dirt floor.

"Fuck." She cursed and then stormed off.

When the Uchiha froze with the intel that someone had repeatedly broken into her house, the boys eating ramen watched his eyes narrow. He swore. Sasuke dug his heel into the flower and it disintegrated into dust. Then, he flash-disappeared.

Naruto and Sai looked at each other grinning and then high-fived each other.

That night, Sasuke was on a mission. He was sitting on the roof of his only female teammate's home waiting for the reverse burglary to happen. If this freak of a soul decided to come terrorize his female friend with flowers then he might as well prove his worth to her by catching the dipshit himself.

The lights in her windows turned off and he believed by now she had probably gotten to bed with some kind of makeshift trap set, but he was pissed off because he had a feeling she would react so over-confidently about it. One simple trap would not do. She need something stronger, something smarter, she needed him. And he took it upon himself to do just that.

It was a cool summer night and his midnight hair swayed to and fro as the wind swept by. But he was far from relaxed, his patrician features molded into contempt as he racked his brain thinking who it might have been. He knew faces, faces of the people who lived in the village. Names would be lost in his memory but he neither cared nor found importance in them. He was frightening aware of how pretty his teammate was. Having thought before that in their youth she had had the potential to blossom into something prettier but not like this. His imagination lacked the vivid light and colours that the current, real life Sakura had possessed. She was ethereal. And it was something about the pink and the green and the white of the skin. And the connecting red of her body and white circle and her voice.

He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was that made her so all that but he wasn't surprised about it either.

Even her group of friends had beauty like the band of ninja cheerleaders they were.

The day of his return, he watched them hug together and sing nineties pop songs into the one lone microphone on the poor excuse of stage, drunk and hilarious and clumsy. But they had attention and now that attention was manifesting into something unsafe, haunting and lingering, that required the use of shadows and silence to execute. He would willingly snap their neck for her safety.

Whoever the fucker was that snuck into her home was only a few moments from being dead.

Suddenly a crunch of gravel from below alerted him. He reacted by turning the colours of his eyes in that direction. He wouldn't move just yet.

A figure, expertly concealed but not completely invisible, caught his eye.

This was it; the walking dead. When it emerged from the alley of her house and the next, he had pivoted his crouch in that direction examining it once over again before lunging at it with force.

He grabbed it and it hit the floor with a loud thud and then he suddenly regretted it.

"Ow, fuck! Sasuke is that you?"

Sasuke immediately recognized the voice.

"…Sakura?"

"Yes… Sakura," she seethed, "I knew it was you! How dare you!"

His eyes widened, a terrible misunderstanding unfolding just like a tsunami that couldn't be stopped.

"Sakura, I—I thought you were—

"I was trying to figure out who was breaking into my house and look who I found!"

"It's not what you think!" He hissed, losing his cool, "I was waiting for the creep who was breaking into your house—

"Sasuke—

"Let me explain!"

He had never been in this situation with her before and he hated it, he hated not being the one in control. And he pressed harder, his frustration anchoring her to the ground, her back pressed uncomfortably into the gravel beneath her.

"Sas—

"Sakura, I'm sorry! Okay!? I didn't mean to hurt you and it sucks knowing you're giving me the cold shoulder, on purpose. I know what I did to you and I get it, it fucking sucks I—

"Sasuke!" Sakura yelled, pointing a finger in a direction, "The creep! He's getting away!"

His eyes widened and he was on his feet in half a second chasing down the hooded figure.

And when that person went down with Sasuke on it, it exploded into smoke. A clone.

"Fucking shit!" Sasuke hissed. He turned around and suddenly Sakura was on her feet being helped up by another hooded figure.

"Don't touch her!" Sasuke yelled. But then it simply raised its arms, palms showing at the sides of his face, Naruto laughed.

"Chill out, man. It's just me!"

"Naruto!" Sasuke yelled, "What the fuck!"

"Don't flip shit okay? Sai and I had a theory and you guys just proved it."

"Excuse me?" Sakura huffed, "What theory?" She bit out.

"I was the one who left the flowers those past few nights and Sasuke came to your rescue, Sakura. Sai wanted to see it happen but he thought in the end Sasuke wouldn't." Naruto explained, now turning to his best friend, "Sorry Sasuke, Sai thinks you're 'terrible and incapable of showing affection to others.' And also—

"He's right," Sasuke snapped, his feelings all hurt but he would never admit it like that. "It was a mistake coming here."

Sakura frowned, worry suddenly etched into her features. When Sasuke stalked away, Sakura chased after him immediately.

"You idiot, Naruto!" She yelled.

A second later, Sai poofed beside him, high-fiving Naruto again. They both looked off dreamily and satisfied with the results and findings of their so-not-needed theory.

"Of course, she'd go running off to chase him. They're always going to chase each other, aren't they?" Naruto asked rhetorically, sighing like he'd just witnessed the most romantic moment in all of history.

"You're smarter than you look." The boy smiled with crescent eyes.

Naruto sweat-dropped, "Gee, thanks Sai…"

-x-x-x-x-

Part two of their theory was taking place a moment later, this time in the streets of the marketplace.

"Sasuke!" Sakura yelled.

He made no inclination to turn around.

Was he embarrassed? Hell yes. And pride was a huge thing to Uchiha.

He wandered around ignoring her momentarily before he reached a pond and stared at his reflection in the water.

She reached him; breathing labored having trying to keep up with his swift steps.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke." Sakura said, "I really am. I'm not sure when all of this turned into a huge guilt trip but I guess when I drink I get angry and I stay angry and—

"Sakura."

She acknowledged his call by stunned silence.

"I was really trying to prove something to you back there. But I want you to know that regardless if it is just a stupid prank by the dobe, I will be there to protect you. You—This really had me worried."

He hated to admit it but hiding his feelings now seemed much harder then exposing them.

Then suddenly, his heartbeat quickened by the feeling her arms wrapping around his trunk from behind. She breathed in the scent of him, his back and neck and hair with a content sigh. And he was so warm. Sasuke stared straight across the water, desperately wanting to see her face. But she back-hugged him on purpose. If he saw her crying, she knew it wouldn't be the first time, but she'd rather him see her smiling instead. She wanted to convince him now that she was happy. Happy with him and all that he was. She wasn't sorry anymore and he didn't have to be either. She quickly wiped her tears away as he turned around to face her.

A sunny smile in the night prompted him.

"Thank you." She whispered, her eyes sparking in the moonlight.

He took her shoulders and slid his hands up to her neck and caught her jaw. He kissed her then, hard, and she kissed him back with the same vigor.

And somewhere in the dead of the night, the sound of Naruto and Sai high-fiving was heard… even till this day…

notes: Thanks for reading friends! Let me know how I did! I don't usually write oneshots so feedback is appreciated in terms of pacing and length and such.

And please don't be mean!

*Neji...sadsad.

Autumn Letter