Redemption |complete| (SasuSaku)

The bird without a letter ("soft lemon")

!!!WARNING!!! very soft lemon like I don't even know if you can call that a lemon.

Sunday, 28th of March. Sarada is 1 year old. Sasuke left 13 weeks ago.

"So how are you getting on?"

"Good. Come in and sit." Sakura moved away from the door to let her best friend in. Ino was carrying a cake.

"Living room?" Sakura nodded.

After serving a piece of cake to her friend, she sat on the sofa as well. The two friends were next to each other. She didn't get to hang out with Ino as often as she used to because of work and Sarada. Thanks to Sasuke, she had enough money to stay home if she wanted to. Even if that was an option she still wanted to go to the clinic every now and then to see how the children were doing. The money left by all of the Uchiha was huge but he also decided to give her and Sarada the majority of the money he was making during his missions.

"So," Ino started. "How's life? I haven't seen you in like a month."

"We were busy at the clinic... sorry."

"How are you getting on Sakura? How are you handling it?"

"Not too bad actually. Things could be worse. He writes me a letter every other day so I know that he is fine. He doesn't say much in them other than giving me information about his mission, his location and how things are."

"Does he really write a letter that often?"

"Yeah... but all the letters I sent were brought back. It feels like he concealed his presence and even the Konoha's birds can't find him. I tried to talk to Kakashi-sensei to ask him how he communicates with him but he told me that he didn't. Same thing... Sasuke is the only one sending the letters."

"That's odd. Maybe he is surrounded by enemies and him receiving letters could be too dangerous." offered Ino. Sakura knew that she was probably right but a part of her had a strange feeling. There was this little voice telling her another reason why he wasn't letting anyone contact him.

"Maybe but my other theory is that he simply wants to avoid what I have to say to him because he knows that it will hurt him."

"What do you mean?"

"If I tell him all the things that he is missing... he will get hurt."

"Well... I wouldn't be so sure about that. Maybe it will help him to keep going?"

She appreciated this version of Ino. Since she had married Sai, she had matured a good bit. She was more calm and more serious as well. She needed the both sides of her personality but right now she really needed someone who could listen to her.

"Mh... you know the day he left I told him that he will be here to see Sarada eat proper food and he wasn't there when it happened. I took a photo of her and her face covered in food to send it to him but it was sent back."

"Speaking of photos, Sai told you right?"

"Told me what?" she turned her head towards Ino. Her friend looked back at her.

Ino shook her head angrily. "He promised that he would tell you! I just can't trust him with these kind of things!"

"What did he forget to mention?"

"Ok so..." Ino leaned closer to Sakura. Her face got mysterious. "The night that Sasuke left, he came to our house. He asked Sai, in front of me, if he could paint a portrait of you for him."