A/N: Found this while dorking around my dropbox at 6:00 AM. Chasing made me post it D: And hey, it's not that bad. She says I have a creative view on the Uchiha. I like to think of it as 'rebellious' :) 'Cause hey, I figure Fugaku had to have led an almost normal ninja life pre-clan leadering. Also, Mikoto makes me laugh.

E a r l y . R e t i r e m e n t

Fugaku snapped his fingers again, blew at the sparks fruitlessly as they fizzled in the rain.

"You'll never get anything to start out here." Mikoto said from behind him, her voice tired and strained and a little bit thick, as if the cut on her lip had reopened and was spilling blood onto her tongue.

Fugaku didn't answer, just growled in annoyance, before snapping his fingers again.

"Will you stop it! I hate it when you do that, it does nothing for the jutsu, just use handsigns like a normal person."

"Urakami used hand signs."

Mikoto grew silent, and all of a sudden the extra pack around his waist felt a lot heavier.

"You told me your leg wasn't injured."

Fugaku slowed in his running, almost to a walk, and Mikoto came into view beside him, her long black hair slick against her back and red dripping down her chin with the rain. It was only as he stopped running he noticed that he really had started to limp.

"It didn't seem bad at the time."

"And now?"

Fugaku almost glared at her. "Now we get back to Konoha, and deliver the documents."

Mikoto stared back, her charcoal eyes slightly narrowed, before turning and starting off. It took Fugaku almost a whole minute to pass her again, and by then he could feel the deep slice into his thigh more than before.

"What will you name him?"

"Hmm?" Fugaku grunted, not turning to Mikoto but giving a quizzical look to the air.

"Our first son."

"Our first what?"

"Don't tell me they haven't told you."

Mikoto's voice was half-joking, and almost half-worried, as though she could hardly believe he hadn't a clue.

"Told me what?" Fugaku asked cautiously, telling himself it was to talk that he slowed down, not because he was having trouble breathing now.

"They're retiring us. Next week. We're getting married."

"Why?"

Mikoto's hand touched his shoulder lightly, slowing him down even more, so again they were walking. "Your uncle died the night before we left."

"My…" Fugaku waited only a heartbeat before jerking away from the woman's hand and forcing himself to run again.

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew."

"I hated the bastard."

Silence reigned for another ten minutes, twenty, forty-five.

An hour passed before Fugaku collapsed against a tree slick from the rain, unable to hold back a wince and grunt of pain as his leg fell awkwardly with him.

"Do we need to stop for tonight?"

Fugaku wanted nothing more than to shake his head, but now that he was standing still everything started hurting more, everything was more tired, everything was more hungry.

Fugaku nodded.

"Housewife, huh?"

Mikoto sat down beside him delicately, her hand outstretching to rest on his good leg's knee.

"Hn." Fugaku grunted, tilting his head up to stare into the grey-blue sky, too cloudy to let any stars show.

"I was never a good ninja anyways." Her laugh tinkled, as if she could almost cry. "I mean, seven years and I've never once come back unscathed."

"You're still beautiful." Fugaku said, because it felt like the right thing to say, and his eyes were slipping shut, and his stomach still burned.

Mikoto laughed again, more heartily, and a little less falsely. "You too. But we're not old, that's why. Eighteen, and I'll have to start up a family. I never- I wasn't going to have a family. Not if I could help it."

Fugaku shook his head slowly. "No."

"At least you're good at diplomatic things, it was inevitable you were going to lead the clan someday, but I have nothing. I can't cook, I can't clean, you've seen my apartment before, I can't… raise kids."

"I'm sure you'll do fine." Fugaku found himself laughing as well, no doubt more evidence that he needed the sleep he wasn't going to get unless the patter of rain slowed down. "Obito likes you."

"Obito likes everybody."

"That's his problem. He'll die young, he's too reckless."

"And you aren't?"

Fugaku let the silence continue on, and closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but ten minutes later he opened his eyes and stared up at the stars.

"Itachi."

"What?" Mikoto asked after a pause, her voice was sleepy, and Fugaku noticed her head on the grass beside him, she was using her small pack as a pillow.

"My first son. You can name the second one."

After a moment she smiled. "Sasuke."

"Sasuke?"

"Yes."

Fugaku found himself smiling. "Itachi will be my son, Sasuke can be yours. That way you won't get overwhelmed."

Mikoto laughed, and it was bird song in the darkness.

"But you'll have a magnificent clan to look over."

Fugaku nodded. "Magnificent."

Mikoto kicked her legs up, stretched her arms above her like a sleepy kitten, before curling into him. "G'night Fugaku. Don't die before I wake up."

Fugaku didn't answer, and three minutes later he heard her breathing even out.