Testing Fate: A MadaSaku Love Story

Chapter 7

Four days passed since Sakura began staying in Madara's apartment. It was Tuesday night. The woman stayed true to her word, made sure the place was spotless each night before going to bed, and prepared at least one meal daily.

Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, so she paused her job of folding the clean laundry to check it. Then she sighed with a frown. Madara would be getting home late again. Last night, he was gone when she woke up and only returned after she fell asleep. This morning, she saw him for maybe five minutes, enough to hand him a cup of coffee and a lunch box.

'I was being spoiled when he wasn't working. I got to see him anytime I wanted.'

A pretty blush colored her cheeks as she realized she must look like a housewife, cooking, cleaning, and pining for him when he was away. She shook the thought away and returned to folding the bath towels.

Before bed, Ino called her, and the two spent a couple of hours catching up. Sakura didn't tell her how awful Sasuke's been but did break the news that they'd broken up. Guiltily, she confided in her best friend that she had a crush on someone new but explained that it was one hundred percent impossible for it to amount to anything. If she let Ino get her hopes up, it'd be a mess if and when she next visited.

Feeling a little better since she got to have some honest-to-goodness girl talk, Sakura fell asleep with a smile tugging at her lips.

A loud knock came at the door in the middle of the night, startling the poor woman awake. Scrambling to her feet, she tiptoed quickly toward it. Another loud thumping came against the door, and she bit back a terrified squeal, rising to look through the peephole, only to gasp and wrench the door open. Madara leaned heavily on the doorframe, an arm around his middle, bloody, and his face white as a sheet.

"O-Oh, my God! What happened?"

The tall man stepped forward and nearly tumbled to the floor, but she ducked under his free arm and helped him into the room, kicking the door shut behind them.

'That's a lot of blood! He might die before an ambulance arrives.'

She helped him into the living room, "Let me call-" He passed out. Somehow, she managed to not let him fall as dead weight to the ground, easing the descent before quickly shoving his shirt out of the way to see what she was dealing with.

'Is that a... gunshot wound?'

She looked at Madara's pale face in shock before gritting her teeth and rushing into the bathroom to find his first aid kit. With shaking hands, she sterilized a pair of tweezers, glancing at Madara every couple of seconds to make sure he was still breathing.

She couldn't call an ambulance, that much she knew. Due to the nature of his wound, she could potentially get him in trouble. Whatever mess he was mixed up in, Sakura knew one thing: Madara was a good man. Because of that, she narrowed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced herself to recall all her medical training.

The woman's hands were coated in blood and severely trembling by the time she removed the bullet. There was no time for formalities, so she quickly continued. She cleaned it, stitched it with the fishing wire she found under the bathroom sink, and carefully bandaged it so no bacteria could infect it.

Sakura wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand, breathing slowly out of her mouth as she tried to remain calm. He was still breathing. That was a good sign.

Since she'd done all she could to treat him, she tried to make sure he was as comfortable as possible, given that she didn't have the ability to move him from the middle of the living room floor. She cut his shirt off with scissors, cleaned all the blood she could see from his skin, and placed a pillow under his head. That was when she found it: a gun. It was tucked into the back of his jeans, where a coat'd easily hide it. When she gingerly picked it up, she turned it over in her hands to see his initials engraved into it.