Chapter Text
They only broke up in the first place because of Sasuke, but it was Sakura who made sure it would stick.
She refused to let someone who didn’t put her first come back into her life.
Until now.
She carefully reviews the paperwork at the artificial insemination clinic one more time. The doctor – someone she did not attend medical school with, she made certain – asks again if she has a donor in mind or if she wants a random one assigned to her. Sakura wets her chapped lips, not caring that it will only make the stinging worse. “Let me think about it.”
On an otherwise normal Thursday evening, Sakura unblocks Sasuke’s phone number and gives him a call.
Sasuke is mildly alarmed and has half the mind to wonder if her number has been reassigned to someone else. He answers immediately anyway. “Hello?”
“Hi. It’s me.”
“I know that. Why?”
“I have something important to ask you, but I think it might be better to talk in person. Can you meet me at the pizza place after work tomorrow?”
“Okay,” he says, like it's totally normal for the woman he dated for years and has been no-contact with since the breakup to call him out of the blue and ask to see him.
“Great, I’ll see you then,” Sakura replies like she had expected him to say yes, like she wasn’t sweating bullets mustering up the courage to press his number. She hangs up before more words can be exchanged.
She breathes in deeply. I am totally in control, she thinks to herself.
He spots her quickly in the dim pizza place they used to frequent as graduate students. It feels like oddly neutral ground despite how much time they spent here as a couple.
“Thanks for coming,” she says as he slides into the booth.
He eyes her with caution. “Is something wrong?”
She starts shredding the cheap paper napkins to give her something else to focus on. She begins carefully, being intentionally vague, “Not really, but there is something you could help me out with.”
He’d be exasperated if he weren’t too busy drinking in her appearance after five years of successfully avoiding each other in their shared city. Her hair was longer than the last time he’d seen her. “I assume you’re getting to it.”
She meets his eyes now, and he notices hers are red rimmed. “You know how I always wanted to be a mom.”
His throat goes dry. “I remember.”
“Well I’ve decided to have a child. On my own.” He remembers how she insisted she would never want anyone else when they broke up. He assumed someone as sweet, lovely, smart, beautiful as Sakura would have found someone by now. There’s no ring on her finger indicating otherwise. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about who the sperm donor should be, if I should even know anything about them at all. And it just made me think of you.”
He raises a brow. “Me?”
Her cheeks go scarlet. “I’m not asking to have sex with you, just to be clear,” she squeaks out. “I would like you to consider being my sperm donor.” The words come out faster. “It just makes sense. There’s a lot of research coming out about the health of the father affecting the pregnancy and I know you’ve always been disciplined about taking care of yourself. I’m familiar with your family health history.” She’d seen so many patients who would have benefited from earlier treatment if they’d only known what to test for. She breathes in deeply. “I just..want to be prepared.” She’d already started combing through the most recent literature on the blood disease she knew was common in Sasuke’s family. Just in case he said yes.
Those were the reasons she could rationalize, at least. Whenever she had pictured having a baby, it was always Sasuke’s, all dark hair and dark eyes and fine features. She leaves that part out.
“And if I say no?”
She shifts her weight in the booth. “They’ll use a sample already in the sperm bank. Plenty of people do it that way.”
Sasuke nods slowly, taking it in. The thought of Sakura having someone else’s child disturbs him even though he knows he has no right to be upset. They’ve been broken up for years. And he knows this will be her child, regardless of the donor.
But she looks so damn hopeful and the part of him that will always care for her, buried deep in his ribs, flares to life.
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
They fidget in the waiting room with an empty chair between them. It’s awkward, sure, but they’re mostly bored; the clinic is running at least an hour behind. When Sasuke notices the person who was standing in the check in line before him gets called back, he finally turns to Sakura.
“So, what do I have to do exactly?” He’d blown through the paperwork, signing and initialing without paying attention to the fine print.
“Um,” Sakura looks up from the parenting magazine she’d unsuccessfully been trying to study. “The doctor will walk you through it.”
“You’re a doctor.”
“Yes, but not the doctor.”
Sasuke rolls his eyes. Her sweet appearance often belied the sass lurking underneath it all. “Well what about your part? What happens when they get the sperm?” He’s going in basically blind, but Sakura always had a way of making him trust.
She launches into an explanation of artificial insemination that is somehow highly technical and much more understandable than what he skimmed on the internet. He just nods as if that’s what he was thinking all along.
When the doctor finally calls his name and leaves him alone in the room with those disgusting magazines, Sasuke closes his eyes. He lets himself slip into his most indulgent fantasy, the one where Sakura is making him feel good and warm and loved. The whole thing is over quickly, but he stays in the darkened room a few minutes longer so he can collect himself. He doesn’t think Sakura will appreciate seeing him flushed and panting.
He avoids eye contact until they part ways in the parking lot and he gives her a terse nod. They’d taken separate cars. She at least offers a soft, "Get home safely," and a wave. He drives to his apartment in silence, lost in his own thoughts about how to fix what’s been broken into a million little pieces
.