#there will be more angst before comfort to buckle up

Not the Only One

The long awaited chapter 2. Now that this story is becoming a small ficlet, I have renamed it to “Not the Only One”. Enjoy!

Chapter Two
Into the City
MadaSaku/TobiSaku

This was not supposed to be happening.

That single thought had rolled through Sakura’s mind many times in recent weeks, but never as strongly as in this moment.

From her place on the witness stand, she couldn’t hide from any eyes. Not the judge. Not the jury. Not the lawyers. Not Tobirama.

Not Madara.

He had always been a hard man to read. Even after nine years of marriage, there had still been moments when it was impossible to tell what was passing behind those black eyes. Like a statue sculpted from ice, Madara sat unmoving. The coldness he regarded her with was nothing she didn’t expect. Having disappeared on him nearly a year ago she hadn’t anticipated a warm welcome back. Even less so when her return had been prompted by a court subpoena.

“Answer the question, Miss Haruno,” the judge demanded.

Sakura didn’t blink. Her maiden name having become so familiar to her as the months passed since the divorce papers had been signed and mailed. Her identity returning to her.

“Miss Haruno, would you like me to repeat the question?” the prosecutor asked.

Even without looking at him, Sakura could feel Tobirama’s eyes on her. They had spoken a few times since that fateful day a year ago, but not about the reason she was here in court today. This had completely blindsided her.

“No, I heard you,” Sakura said, not quite coldly. But there was a bite of something in her tone. “You asked if I had even been aware of Madara embezzling funds from the Uchiha-Senju Corporate while married. My answer is no. Madara and I never discussed business when we were together.”

Calm and professional, Sakura answered the prosecutor’s questions. Her gaze never wavered from him as she spoke. Each question he asked attempted to chip away at her a little more. Break her down, destroy her testimony and her character. The demeaning questions, the lack of respect shown to her was obvious, even if he poised his questions in a seemingly innocent way.

“Let’s discuss your marriage, Miss Haruno,” he continued.

Sakura felt her spine stiffen defensively. “What about my marriage?”

“Was it happy? Were you happy?” he asked, his expression turning vaguely sympathetic.

She saw through his false sense of pity. “I fail to see what purpose that question serves,” she said, her gaze briefly flickering to the Judge.

The older man behind the high bench beside her looked ready to intervene, but the prosecutor stepped forward. “I promise my questioning has a reason, your Honor.”

The Judge looked doubtfully but he nodded nevertheless, silently granting his permission.

The prosecutor returned to her. “Miss Haruno?”

Sakura held his gaze for a long moment, weighing how much she could still conceal. How much of her dignity the courts would allow her to leave with. Her red lips twisted into an ironic smirk as she realized they intended to strip her down bare. Her eyes briefly dropped to her lap.

When she raised her gaze again, the look was gone. “Are you married, Mr…?”

“Tanaka,” the prosecutor provided. Then he smiled, “And yes, I am.”

“And is your wife happy?”

“She is. Very much so.”

Sakura simply eyed him. The prosecutor was in his late forties. He was dressed well in an expensive suit and a pair of shoes that gleamed in the bright courtroom lights. He obviously had a successful career with a hard-earned reputation. Tobirama and Hashirama wouldn’t have hired him otherwise.

“Are you certain?” Sakura asked, her voice soft, almost as if she were speaking to a lover. Still, it rang out clearly for everyone to hear. “You must spend plenty of late nights at the office. What time do you get home? Nine or ten? Maybe later? That gives her plenty of time to pay the bills, order the groceries, make dinner. Touch up her make-up after she realizes just how cold and lonely such a big house is. It only takes two hours for the swelling of her eyes to go down. After so much practice, a fake smile becomes her normal smile eventually.”

The following silence was echoing. The prosecutor eyed her for a long moment and she wondered if something she had said struck a nerve.

Then he swallowed and his expression cleared. “You left Mr. Uchiha quite suddenly, Miss Haruno. Why was that?”

That familiar feeling of betrayal rose within her as she recalled the night she realized Madara was having an affair. It burned within her, tearing open the old wound, but she kept her cool façade. Every eye rested on her. Their pressure almost physical as they all waited to hear what she would say.

None, however, was as penetrating as Madara. His stare was piercing. Like a physical weight, he held her in place.

Sakura purposely avoided his gaze. Some part of her still stung that he hadn’t come after her after she had left. She had sent the divorce papers and he had simply signed them. As if she had been nothing to him for last decade. That almost hurt more than the fact he had found another woman’s company more pleasurable than her own.

Still, Sakura held her strong guise. There wasn’t any question the lawyers could ask her that could make her feel small or insecure. She had felt plenty of that in the last year on her own. And she had worked hard enough to rebuild herself from nothing to fall back on those self-doubts.

“Because he was having an affair,” Sakura eventually answered, her voice threatening to waver.

Mr. Tanaka was either unmoved or unconcerned. “Not because Madara had asked you to move a large sum of money for him?”

“No,” she shook her head.

The questions turned less personal after that. The prosecutor wrapped up his questioning before the defense took their turn.

By the time the courts had let out nearly five hours later with the jury coming back with a guilty verdict against Madara on all counts, Sakura was exhausted. She had sat stone-faced through it all. Unmoving, she watched from the public benches behind the defense’s desk as Madara was escorted out of the courtroom. He was far too wealthy and held far too much power to be removed in handcuffs.

Still, Sakura’s heart felt like it was breaking all over again. For though they were divorced, Madara had been an important person to her for a big portion of her life. Someone she had planned on spending her life with, someone she had once thought would father her children. But that future no longer existed and that knowledge left a hollow ache in her heart.

“Sakura,” a voice called softly. She glanced at Shikamaru, her lawyer and longtime friend, as he squeezed her arm gently. “Are you ready?”

Pursing her lips, Sakura swallowed hard to keep her emotions from showing. She glanced back towards the courtroom doors as another attendee exited, allowing the loud chatter and flashes of photography from the press to slip through. The idea of having to push through another gauntlet of reporters made her stomach roll.

Automatically her gaze fell back to Madara, only he was already gone. She was alone. Just as she had been for these long months since leaving.

Inhaling a steady breath, she nodded. “Yeah.”

With Shikamaru at her side, Sakura pressed through the courtroom doors. Immediately, the press was on her, shoving microphones in her face and flashing her photograph. She kept her head held high, her mouth firmly pressed shut as she marched through the throngs until they reached the back of the courthouse where the reporters weren’t allowed.

Once the heavy doors had closed behind them, Shikamaru told her, “There will be a sentencing trial in a few weeks. The jury will decide Madara’s punishment then. You’re not required to be present, but if you want to go, let me know and I’ll accompany you.”

Sakura nodded numbly, her mind still reeling from everything that had happened that day. She didn’t know yet if she wanted to be there for that. To watch if Madara would not only lose everything he had worked for – and stolen – but potentially his freedom as well. It was all overwhelming.

However, before Sakura could begin to process everything, she heard the clack of expensive shoes echo on the tiles behind them. “Sakura,” someone called.

Both Sakura and Shikamaru glanced over their shoulders to find none other than Tobirama hurrying towards them. Hashirama and their lawyer, the asshole prosecutor, were a small distance behind him, their eyes tracking Tobirama’s movements as he descended the few steps that led to the courtyard and the private parking lot just beyond.

Upon sight of him, heartbreak and resentment swelled within her. She didn’t know if it was justified and frankly, it didn’t matter to her right now. He was one of the ones responsible for all of this. For Madara potentially going to prison, for tarnishing her name and leaving her feeling as if she had just run from home and her husband all over again. It left her with a strange conflict of emotions.

Without pause, Sakura continued on, pretending as if she hadn’t seen or heard him.

Tobirama’s pace increased. “Sakura, please wait.”

She was angry and hurt and upset, but even still, she found her pace slowing. If only because Tobirama had been the one to help her out nearly a year ago.

Beside her, Shikamaru’s hand slipped her to elbow. “I have to advise against you speaking to him,” he murmured in her ear.

She pursed her lips together before her gaze flickered up to meet his. “I know. Just give me two minutes.”

A frown crossed his face but he nodded minutely before he stepped away to a respectable distance. Sakura watched him go before she turned to meet Tobirama, her expression guarded and her shoulders stiff.

He stopped before her. He looked impeccable in a three-piece designer suit with gold cufflinks and a navy blue, silk tie. His white hair was pushed back away from his face, and though the trial had been in the headlines of the news for the last month, she couldn’t spot one line of stress on his handsome face.

“I’m sorry,” Tobirama said after he had caught up to her. “I didn’t want to drag you into this. This trial wasn’t supposed to involve you.”

“But I was involved,” Sakura retorted coolly. “My name has been dragged through the mud on every front page of every newspaper. My reputation has been shredded, my morals questioned and my career threatened.”

He shook his head. “I tried to talk my lawyer out of calling you to the stand. I never wanted any of this for you.”

Sakura laughed without humor. “But it still happened, didn’t it? After I left Madara, I had to work for everything. I built myself up and just when I thought I could move on, I get subpoenaed. The media has called me everything from a gold digger to a manipulative whore. I’ve been accused of marrying Madara for his money, using my body to steal tens of thousands from the corporation and then divorcing him once I got all the cash I needed. So tell me, what exactly did you think would happen to me when I get dragged into all of this?”

Tobirama didn’t immediately respond but the guilt was clearly visible in his face. It was enough that it looked like it physically pained him to hear everything she had gone through, but she didn’t feel any sympathy for him. In the end, she had suffered more than anyone. Even Madara hadn’t been slandered to nearly the same extent as her.

“I am so sorry, Sakura,” Tobirama murmured. He reached out towards her. “Please, tell me what I can do.”

As if he was poising to strike, Sakura flash-stepped back out of his reach, a threat and a warning apparent in her expression. “You can leave me alone,” she said, her words dripping with venom.

She didn’t miss the pained look in his expression before she turned her back and crossed the courtyard. Shikamaru followed behind, only briefly tossing a glance back at Tobirama before they headed towards their cars.

And as Sakura walked away, she pretended not to notice the pair of eyes that tracked her every movement until she was in her car and on the road, making her way back out of the city that had only ever chewed her up and spat her out.

tbc…