1.
Everyone assumes Naruto doesn't remember his parents. These assumptions are only partially wrong. He doesn't remember what his mother looked like or how she smelled or sounded. If he's feeling particularly honest with himself, he'll admit that he doesn't remember how she sounds either.
What he does remember is this:
Her hands –rough, he thinks, and calloused- on his body, rubbing soothing circles; in his hair and tugging at its perpetual knots. He recalls the sensation of being rocked and held, something that happened all too infrequently in his earliest vivid memories.
It's the sensations he remembers most, the lingering effects of touch and sight and sound that he remembers and sometimes he still feels them whispering in his head, ghosts in his memories, and he clings to it jealously in his solitude. The rational part of him sneers at this, says it could easily be some nanny who had been forced to look after him – he'd had one before they got fed up with his antics and stuck him in the Academy, hadn't he? Naruto ignores this rational part of him -has for a long time- because, honestly, what good does it do?
He isn't sure if it matters, really, if it was his mother or not. What matters is that he remembers and that it comforts him.
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2.
After what was to be known as the Uchiha Massacre, the village had buzzed, all gossip and sympathetic voices, about how the boy –the one Lone Survivor- would grow up motherless and what a pity that was, what with no one to tuck him in a night and kiss his nightmares away, but wasn't that just the way Shinobi ended up?
At the tender age of 7, Naruto is absolutely confuzzled by these concepts. No one tucked him in at night, though his nurse or whatever you wanted to call her, yelled at him to go to bed. He was motherless -and hated, but he won't think of that- and yet… as much as he didn't want to admit it, Sasuke had always been a better student than him. They weren't Shinobi -not yet- but it was Sasuke who they said held the most promise.
He figured the villagers had gotten it all wrong, that maybe it was because of their parents –their mothers- that everyone did better than him. This conclusion led to a thought, one that he didn't feel comfortable asking anyone else: What exactly was a mother?
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3.
When he's 10, Naruto begins the quest of finding his roots. No one had bothered to tell him exactly where his parents were buried, but now that he could actually write out his name (and in Kanji!) he figured that it couldn't be that hard to find the plots with their pretty headstones –or as pretty as grave markers could be.
At first, he's excited and anxious as he goes row by row, studying the names from the time he woke up to when the groundskeeper shoos him away. The excitement gives way to frustration soon enough, after enough visits without ever finding the name Uzumaki (and it was so hard for him to remember where he had left off; he's sure he's been by a few of those rows more than a couple of times).
He finds his first unkempt grave around the twentieth row, looking dark, shadowed and forbidden. He kneels before it carefully, as if afraid the ground under him would give way and swallow him up whole for daring to trespass upon the grave- why else would it look so neglected?- and brushes the dirt and moss away from the name. It's not what he's looking for, but he can't help but keep his hand on it and wonder. He sits like that, he's not sure for how long, and the groundskeeper is there behind him and very annoyed.
"Come on, brat. You need to get out of here."
Naruto turns to look at the man, but doesn't move from his spot. "Why's this one so dirty, old man?"
The man bristles, but answers the question anyway. "Probably has no one left." He reads the name, looks to the boy and scowls. "Nakamura... I think the last relative in Konoha died during the Kyuubi attack."
There's a note in his voice, like Naruto should feel ashamed for something or guilty. He's not sure what to make of this tone and the unvoiced accusation, so he ignores the statement. "So… if there's no family members left to take care of the grave… they get dirty and forgotten?"
"Yeah, that's right. Now get the hell out of here. I have half a mind to get the Hokage next time I see you."
He left, head full of thoughts and hands covered with dirt and grime. He walked with no real direction in mind, looking at his hands. If no family member lived to take care of the graves of their loved ones… then the graves got neglected and mistreated. Since there were no other living relatives for him, that probably meant that his parents' graves were dirty and forgotten, too.
The next day, the grave of Nakamura Ayame had fresh flowers (mostly of the weed variety, but they were flowers nonetheless) and one less grime of dirt on it. Naruto still searched for his parents' resting place, but he always made sure to pay respects to at least one forgotten grave before he started his search.
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4.
As a genin, he has accepted that he may never actually find the grave of his parents. If it is there, it is well hidden and probably for a good reason. No one had ever told him the names of his parents, no one talked about them, and after finding out that he held the Kyuubi, he thinks he sees why this might be so.
But it's all right, he consoles himself. This just gave him more time to watch after some of the neglected graves –or the ones he could remember, anyway. Even then, training and the dumb ass D-rank missions Old Man Hokage kept sending them on didn't leave much of a window to do even that.
It's not long before his visits are limited to mother's day, father's day, festival days, and Christmas. So was the price if one wanted to be a great ninja. Naruto thinks that maybe he's starting to get what those villagers had meant.
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5.
After returning from the Tenchikyou, Naruto finds himself in front of Sakura's place, flowers in one hand. When she opens the door, he holds out a hand to her before she can raise any questions or objections.
"Come with me?"
She looks at him and the flowers wearily before taking his hand. He is glad- she trusted him enough for this- maybe for only this.
He was sure that she wouldn't want to go here- not yet, not so soon after seeing Sasuke- but he felt it was needed. They needed to see his family, the ones he left behind and abandoned and maybe… maybe she could understand a bit more… or maybe they both could. What they needed to understand, he didn't know, but there was something.
And so, he took her there to the Uchiha family graveyard, and stood quietly before the filth-covered graves of what was once a great family. With her hand still in his, he knelts before one grave in particular, tugging to get her to kneel beside him. It's not until she does that he lets go of her hand and wipes the dust off, placing the flowers carefully before it. Her eyes are on him as he bows his head and he allows her a moment to take in the name of the person they're paying respects to: Uchiha Mikoto. He swallows as he feels her tense and hears the name slide off her lips in a slight horror.
"…We couldn't bring your son home for you this time, baa-san." His voice is quiet, remorseful and maybe a little bit guilty. "But we won't give up. We can't. We'll knock some sense into him and you won't be neglected anymore."
Naruto knows that Sakura won't understand the last part, but he says it anyway, because they're teammates and it's time for them to share a bit of themselves –because Sasuke never did and Sakura had never seemed to want to know Naruto before. They don't need to understand, but they need to feel, to mull, and resolve themselves to their goals.
They would share this moment first, and then if she wanted to know the "whats" and the "whys," he would answer. Maybe Naruto could hear about her mother and they could bring Sasuke back to his.