Author's Note: So, I decided to make this an epilogue to Telanadas after all. It can also serve as a backdoor plot to any future work in my Naruto/Dragon Age 'verse if I ever get around to it. I also changed the original version a bit, adding some more details and switching Rin's participation to Kakashi's. It just felt weird to me that Rin suddenly showed up when she had not been a part of the original story. Besides, the possibilities with Kakashi being the one to approach Sakura...it could make for some interesting interactions in the future. :)

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It starts with the wedding.

Well, no, that's not right.

If Sakura thinks about it (which she has actively avoided doing, since thinking about it leads to reliving a slew of unpleasant memories and what Kakashi calls post-traumatic stress), she supposes it started with the night before the potentially world-ending battle.

Staring down the stark reality of either or both their inevitable demise the next day, there had been a pressing need to steal a few final moments together. And there had been the desperate and rough (and amazing) "we're probably going to die tomorrow" sex.

She doubts Sasuke would call it that, but that is what it was.

That bleak night, as they lay pressed together and pretending to sleep while in reality they counted each others' breaths, Sakura felt the first lingering sense of disconnect. It was a looming unease and primal fear, and yet she did not feel it toward her own death.

Which, as it turned out, had not come to pass.

No one knows why, either.

Nagato, the older Warden that arrived from the Empire, said such a thing was impossible. Killing an archdemon could only be carried out by a Grey Warden, since the destruction of its taint had to be channelled through a living vessel. The Warden that struck the killing blow was destined to perish.

"I will do my best to perform this feat, but if I feel, you or Naruto will have to carry it out," he had said, grave and apologetic at the ill tidings. What neither of them said out loud, because they knew Naruto would argue, was that if Nagato failed it would have to be Sakura.

The human prince was newly seated upon a throne that was far too easy to lose. His untimely death would inevitably cause the civil war she and her companions had tried so hard to stop.

Naruto had to live, and it would fall to Sakura to kill the giant, Blight infested dragon if Nagato died prematurely.

Which he did.

Sakura shivers at the memory.

She and Sasuke did not speak of her dark fate before the battle, and they did not address it afterward. In fact, they have hardly exchanged a handful of words in the past weeks. She knows, because she has spoken to everyone else at length and despite their preoccupation with other affairs.

Naruto is learning to be king, with Yamato acting as one of his advisors. Obito and Sai spend most of their time in the city, supposedly listening for signs of trouble for the new king's reign, while in reality competing at who can get in the most tavern brawls. Kakashi and Rin spend their time pouring over ancient texts on loan from the Circle of Magi, trying to figure out what happened that day to grant Sakura her life. Meanwhile, Sasuke...

Sasuke seems to be trying to retreat from Sakura.

She doubts his feelings for her have ebbed—he is an elf, and she has learned that sort is exceptionally and almost fanatically monogamous—but there is a constant sense of expectation lingering around him. It is as if he expects her to drop dead any day now from some delayed effect of her encounter with the archdemon.

It is a fear she can understand, really, even if she does not appreciate or give it any credence.

She has become so used to sleeping in his embrace in the past months that her empty bed seems too large for her now, human-sized or not. He still comes to bed, she knows, because the sheets and bedclothes always smell of him, but it is only after she has fallen asleep. He always leaves just before she wakes.

By day, Sasuke treats her as delicate as a spider's web; he says it is out of deference to her injuries.

But it's been weeks, damn it, and I've been healing!

And then there is the wedding, on top of the official coronation, which was completely bollocksed up from the beginning.

Naruto, kind-hearted dimwit that he is, also appears to be a romantic. He insisted that he and Hinata marry before the coronation, so that under Konoha's law, they can be crowned sovereign together. She is a teyrn's daughter, after all, and that apparently once meant something close to a king to the humans. At any rate, Hinata is not the complete backstabbing lunatic that Danzo Shimura's daughter is (and that bitch is spending the rest of her days in a cold toward somewhere in the Land of Iron, by the Stone!) and so Sakura can see the value in her fellow Warden's plans.

The usurper himself has been executed for treason, and that was a head Sakura certainly had not minded seeing chopped off. She would have done it herself, except the man had information about Itachi that Sasuke needed to extract from him.

(By whatever means necessary.)

Sakura had made herself sit through that, if only to remind herself that she had vowed to stay with the elven assassin in his dark moments as well as his light. It had not lasted very long, thank the Ancestors, and she suspected that Sasuke may not have wanted to prolong the task more than necessary.

It had yielded results, thankfully.

Itachi was still alive, and abroad in the land across the sea from Konoha.

That is where she and Sasuke will go, once Sakura has fully recovered and once this wedding trouble is over.

Hinata, poor girl, has no female friends, and so before Sakura knew what was happening, she and Rin were coopted to act as bridesmaids. The female mage is human, and so it was no trouble to make her look dainty and delicate in the Konoha fashions, but Sakura felt ridiculous in the corseted, silken garments. Women among the dwarves marry in white mithril tunics or whatever well-made cloth they might afford. They go to the Shaperate and have their bloodlines entered into the archives, and then go on their way to the reception.

Which usually lasts a week (and sometimes outlasts the marriage itself!

But the human celebration is much longer and more complicated, and involves speeches and a ritual to the human gods and more walking than she would like in the ridiculous silk shoes she was given. By the time it finally ends and leads into the feast, she is very glad.

Her feet ache and her breasts are damnably confined by this human torture device called a corset, while her stomach growls for something less pretentious than the arty food served at the banquet. At the same time, the idea of food makes her want to throw up.

She wonders if it is lingering effects from killing the archdemon, but she doubts it.

None of the other dragons I killed made me feel like this. It has to be the corset. I suppose human women are used to not breathing. That's why no one else is ill.

"Oh, good, you're here!"

Sakura glances up as Kakashi sweeps into the room, looking as uncomfortable in the formal robes of a court mage as Sakura feels. Still, he looks like he fits in better than she does, the only thing marking him as different from the humans teeming in the palace hallways being the staff he carries.

"I take it Obito is still stuffing his face?" she asks cheerfully.

"Yes. I believe he is trying to out-eat Pakkun," Kakashi agrees, though there is a little less humour in his usual tone. "It is upsetting Rin. She is worried he will give himself food poisoning."

"I have no doubt she can wrangle him to bed."

"That is not in question. I just hate it when she works herself up over Obito making an arse of himself."

Sakura smiles, a little sadly. Kakashi's protective feelings of his fellow mage go beyond that of a mere friend, but will forever be kept at bay by his loyalty to Obito and his honour as a man. She wishes he could find someone to lighten his inner burdens.

"Speaking of Rin," he says, possibly to forestall any suggestion she might make to that effect, "she thought of something that might suggest why you are taking so long to recover."

"You've run all the tests already," Sakura complains.

"Well, we did not run this one yet," the mage replies firmly, bringing out a flask with a bright yellow liquid in it. "No one thought it was the sort of thing to bring up, but I suppose that is to be expected."

His mouth twists ruefully, as if he is making a joke she cannot understand.

"Why?"

"I will tell you once we do the test."

Sakura knows better than to argue. Being a medic herself, she knows the stubbornness engendered in healers.

"Fine. What do I do?"

"I need a drop of blood in here," Kakashi explains, uncorking the flask; a thick smell somewhat like rancid butter makes Sakura's stomach flip and her head spin.

"Give me a warning next time!" tshe complains, taking a beat to ensure none of her food comes back up. Then she reaches to the dagger in her breast band—because there was no way she was going to be around drunk nobles without a weapon—and uses it to prick her finger. Then she squeezes that into Kakashi's mystery concoction.

"If it turns purple or green, I will know the cause of your long recovery. If nothing happens, we will try something else," the mage says.

"It's too late to be dealing with cryptic mages," Sakura grumbles.

"And you are too nice a person to be adopting your lover's surliness about mages," Kakashi rejoins, stoppering the potion and then shaking it continuously for several minutes. Then—

"It's purple," Sakura points out, somewhat pedantically. "What does that mean?" Kakashi does not answer right away. He has the startled look of someone who shot an arrow in the dark and somehow speared his target. "Well?"

Kakashi squints Sakura, then back at the potion, and then to Sakura again. Then, his cheekbones and nose turning pink beneath his mask, he clears his throat. "I should go fetch Rin for this. It really should have been her here to begin with—"

He begins to turn away, but Sakura snatches her hand out and grabs him around the collar. "Spit it out!"

Kakashi looks as if he would rather be anywhere but there, and then with obvious effort, composes himself.

"When was you last moon time?" he asks in a voice she knows he is trying to keep steady.

Which catches Sakura off-guard, because what does that have to do with...?

Her eyes widen.

"You can't be serious," she deadpans.

"It is the one thing we did not consider," Kakashi says, defensive.

"Because it's not possible!"

"Apparently it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is. I asked Naruto a while back, and he mentioned knowing Wardens who had fathered children. It is rarer if both parents are Wardens, but entirely possible," the mage explains stubbornly.

Sakura is unmoved. "That's not the issue. Dwarves and elves can't reproduce."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone."

"Oh, really? I would like to meet this 'Everyone'. They are almost always invariably wrong.'

"Don't be stupid!" Sakura snaps, frustrated. "It's a known fact. There aren't any half-elf, half-dwarves!"

"That you know of."

"That anyone knows of!"

"See, the funny thing about negatives is that they are pretty much impossible to prove."

"I am not pregnant!" Sakura says stonily. She does not know why she is abruptly angry at Kakashi—and even Rin for suggesting this idea to him in the first place—but she is. Perhaps at defending something that is so impossible she has never let herself think it. "It's something else."

"Fatigue, nausea, headaches—"

"All of which are things you said were because I was recovering from the battle!"

"—tender breasts, you have skipped your period—"

"I never told you either of those things."

"I travelled with you for a year, I know you," he dismisses. "And even if you had none of those symptoms, it would still be true, because that particular potion does not lie."

"It could. Magic doesn't affect dwarves the same as it does other races."

"That potion works on any species that has a female," Kakashi retorts firmly. "And based on the colour: congratulations. You are having a girl."

Which shuts her up.

Sakura stares for a while, not knowing what to say.

"But that's not..." she falters on the word 'possible', because she's beginning to think maybe there's something to all that Kakashi is saying. She tries instead: "It can't be. That's not...we didn't..." She stops talking again and then abruptly fixes Rin with an expression of horror. "But that's not the plan!"

Kakashi blinks and then his facial muscles twitch the way they do when he is smiling wryly. "It rarely is. And if it was not something you wanted—"

"That's not it," Sakura whispers, panicked. "We're supposed to be travelling once I'm healed up. Sasuke has business abroad, and we're supposed to find..." She trails off and swallows before continuing in an uncharacteristically trembling voice. "I can't be pregnant."

Somehow this one thing is more terrifying than all the monsters she has faced since leaving Iwa's underground kingdom.

Kakashi finally realises that Sakura is seriously upset about this, and he reaches out tentatively to press a hand to her shoulder. He is as reserved as Sasuke in some ways, and she knows the gesture is tantamount to the comforting hug any of her other friends might offer her.

"Sakura, do not worry," he tells her quietly. "If this is not something you want, there are options."

The dwarf nods numbly. She knows what those options are; hell, several times she helped other girls in Sasori's clutches deal with the unwanted results of his subordinates' assaults. It was a necessary knowledge for a woman to have, especially a woman who lived and fought amongst men. Even the most decent male might carry things too far, and childbirth is dangerous everywhere in the world.

And really, she never considered the idea of becoming a mother before. Why bring a child into a world destined for pain and suffering? Dwarven nobles saw their children as bargaining chips, and the casteless saw them as another demanding mouth to feed.

But Sasuke...his people valued children. He had told her as a much.

Would he still value a child that was not an elf?

She immediately feels bad for thinking it. Sasuke lost his entire family but for the one estranged brother. Certainty he would feel very strongly about protecting any child of his.

His child, she repeats to herself, and her hand creeps to her abdomen.

"You're absolutely sure?" Sakura whispers to Kakashi. "There's no possible way you could be wrong about this?"

"Well, nothing is ever certain in life, but this I would say, yes."

"Can you, er, tell how far along?"

Kakashi studies the potion once more, and then nods. "Based on hue and opacity, I would say not more than twelve weeks."

Sakura's mind races back, counting weeks and days and hours, and her heart skips a beat.

"That was the night before..."

She trails off, unable to speak of it yet. Still, Kakashi realises it at the same time she does, and suddenly any of his humour at the situation vanishes.

"We had been wondering how it was you survived," the mage says slowly. "With the archdemon's taint seeping through you at the moment of its death, you should have followed it."

Sakura licks her lips. "Are you saying...?"

"Such a thing might certainly explain how an elf and a dwarf might conceive."

There is a tense quiet.

"We will have to look into it," he says at last, when it becomes clear Sakura is still trying to come to terms.

"Don't tell Rin."

Kakashi's face shows undisguised sympathy. "Of course. I can research this myself easily enough."

"Don't tell anyone," Sakura implores more firmly. "Not until...not until we know more."

Not until I know what I'm going to tell Sasuke, she adds.

The future has suddenly become a lot more complicated.

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Phew! That took a while. So much for writing this to be a one-shot!

It's pretty much complete, though maybe an epilogue or stand-alone one-shot at some point in the distant future where Sakura and Sasuke get a nice, should-be-impossible surprise...?

I hope you all enjoyed this one, even if Dragon Age isn't everyone's fandom (and for those of you who follow Dragon Age, hopefully this wasn't too far a stretch for you to read). Thanks for taking the time to read my work, and if you left comments, then a big round of applause to you guys, because you kept me motivated to finish this.

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