Redemption |complete| (SasuSaku)

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Tuesday, 31st of March.

"Happy birthday Sarada!"

Sasuke watched his daughter clap her hands while her mom was blowing out the candles for her. Her little laugh filled his heart with happiness. Two years, she was turning two years old today.

"Sasuke?"

He looked at his wife with a little smile. She laughed and told him to come over. He walked over to their side of the table and Sarada screamed to go in his arm. He picked her up and placed her on his hip.

"Birthday, birthday!" her voice sounded excited as she was bouncing up and down on his hip.

"Yes, it's your birthday" said Sakura as she walked over her. She bumped her little nose with her index. "You're two years old today."

"Birthday!"

He felt Sakura's green eyes on him and he looked at her. She offered him her brightest smile and passed her arms around his waist. He froze for a second not knowing how to react to these many gentle attentions. It was a lot to take in so he just stopped moving to wait until one of the two was going to stop touching him. Sakura laughed and backed away from him. "Got it, we're making you uncomfortable."

He blushed slightly and looked at his daughter to avoid Sakura's eyes. She laughed again and swirled around the table to go back to the cake. He watched her as she cut it into smaller pieces. He was about to tell her that he wouldn't be having one but he decided that he needed to make an exception for her. She had spent the entire day baking something that Sarada would be able to eat.

"Hinata, Naruto and Boruto are coming here. Are you happy with that?"

He ignored her question thinking that she was asking Sarada. He looked around the room when Sakura called his name. He turned around and interrogated her with his eyebrows.

"Were you asking me?"

"Well who else is antisocial in this room?" she winked. "Are you ok with them coming over?"

"Hn."

"What is up with you today?" she stopped her movements and stared at him worriedly. 

"What?"

"Your mood is weird. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

She squinted her eyes and judged his reaction for a second before she frowned her eyebrowsand looked away. "Just so you know, you can talk to me if you want to."

She was right, there was something going on with him. The fact that it was Sarada's birthday made him realise that there was a big chance that he wouldn't be here for the next ones and even if there was no reason for him to think like this, he was still fearing it. He was trying to enjoy all these moments that he was spending with his family, but lately the feeling of emergency that he used to feel started to possess his mind again. It felt like something was going to happen soon but he didn't know what exactly.

As he watched his daughter, he tried to imagine a life where he would be away from her again and away from Sakura. The feeling of feeling dependant was still relatively new to him so he still struggled with coming to terms with it. Never in his life had he imagined that one day he would have been so attached to someone, especially not to Sakura nor Naruto and especially not to a baby that would be his, but now that these people were in his life, he couldn't imagine things to be different.

Things had happened so fast since he came back to Konoha, the year when he turned 20. He got married in the same year, Sakura got pregnant shortly after, she gave birth and now he was 22 with a 2 year old baby. He was about to turn 23 and he already felt like most of his life was accomplished which was a bad sign. It seemed like things were happening so fast because his life would be short and he couldn't get that thought out of his head.