(now)

Papers, papers, papers. It's all Sakura Haruno seems to be seeing much of lately. The sound of shuffling papers has become like a second heartbeat. After having been appointed by the Board to take on the title of Chief of Surgery after her very own mentor Tsunade Senju retired, Sakura has barely seen the inside of an OR. Instead of scalpels and clamps, all she's been holding in her hands are pens for signing. When she was younger, she'd been told over and over that she had beautiful, delicate hands; most said they belonged to a pianist, while others argued that they were a doctor's hands. She opted for the latter. Four years of high school, four years of university, nine years of residency, and at the young age of 35, she's already at the very top.

She should be pleased and proud, and she is. But what she truly yearns for is the feeling of warm flesh under her palms, cold and sterile surgical tools in her fingers, the sight of blood and the sign life−life that she herself is preserving (a heart in her hands, beating because she wills it to)

Her dream was to be a healer, to actively save lives, not to be holed up in an office from days on end with nothing but papers of financial and legal matters.

"Haruno-sensei." Three curt knocks interrupts the silence of Tsunade's−eh, no, Sakura's, now−office. The doctor barely looks up from what she is signing as her assistant pokes her head into the room.

"Uchiha-san has sent the papers you were waiting for," Shizune says.

Some of the residents, and even most of the attendings, would have blushed from the embarrassment of handling the chief's personal life and delivering messages from her husband, but Shizune is able to keep her face straight as she set the folder on the desk. She understands that Sakura Haruno has a life outside of this hospital, even though it doesn't really seem like it. "He also said he wanted to talk to you personally but he has an urgent meeting at 5, so he will see you at 8."

"Tell him I'll just mail it to him−"

"He said you might say that, so he wanted me to say that he really does insist on meeting up and talking face-to-face."

Sakura groaned. What is he thinking, arranging meetings when he knew damn well how busy she already is? "Did he leave an address or something?"

"He said you'd already know." This prompts her to finally look up, the point of her pen digging into the paper as she paused. The ink bleeds slowly and she's reminded of veins popping and blood squirting out of them. She nods slowly and indicates for Shizune to leave.

Once the door is closed and a new kind of silence hung in the air above her, she pushes away the contract she is currently on and opens the one Sasuke had sent her. She flips through the pages, scans the words she's too nervous to read and understand. She sees his neat and elegant and perfect signature at the bottom of the pages. She traces them with her fingertip, and she knows. She is reminded. That she loves him. So much that it hurts, so much that she couldn't breathe, loves him in such an all-consuming way that just tears her apart limb by limb, until there is nothing left of her to save.

But she's barely seen the inside of her own home the whole week. She hasn't spoken with him in so long, could barely even remember the sound of his voice and yet…

she loves him all the same.