Crazy Paint
The rumor of Mikoto's second pregnancy wove itself throughout the rows of gossiping mothers like a snake, slithering low to the ground and passing with a quiet danger, coiling and uncoiling to hide and reveal secrets.
Itachi was three years old, and the highlights in his hair were apparent as he sat at the top of a steep silver slide. His eyes were glazed a muted black, and the occasional gleam in them was so bright that they could have been lit with the moon.
His cheeks were flushed with red, and he slipped down the metallic surface gracefully, landing in a neat heap at the end of the slide's tongue. She imagined him to be like water, calming the fierceness of the yellow July sun as it beat down on everything below.
As she watched him, her heart swelled with love and surged with affection she wasn't allowed to show. It beat and filled with such intensity that she worried it might split down its seam.
A careening child sped her as she immersed herself in thought, and his skin was tanned and scarred; his shirt was green. She wondered, as the trees seemed to close in around her, if she should start buying green baby clothes.
The boy's mother opened her arms and crouched in the dirt so that she could easily lift him when he came within her grasp. Together they spun around, a kaleidoscope or merry-go-round of laughter and arms and legs, and Mikoto became dizzy as she squinted to follow their wild movements.
Finally the only color she could see was black, the soft, midnight color that existed only in Itachi's empty smile. He waved a hand in front of her face—she was on the ground, the rocks were pointed and sharp—but it looked so much like a white star that she let strained giggles bubble out of her chest and up into her throat.
She pulled his head closer, and then, her lips a few inches from his, she whispered, "Ice cream, Itachi-chan. We'll get you some ice cream later."
He pulled back, startled and alert, as she slipped into unconsciousness.
She woke surrounded by dull gray walls and people that called themselves family. There was a cool, damp rag resting on her brow, and the first thing she did when she felt it was lift it away.
Her husband was by her side with an arm on her stomach—he knew, somehow—and she put on a demure face for him.
"In here," He said softly, "is the next Uchiha."
She nodded numbly and scanned the room for her son. He was folded over, curled in a chair near the door, half-asleep, wearing green sandals.
She turned away and then told the room, "Green," and closed her eyes peacefully. "Green for the nursery."
A doctor, clutching a clipboard in the hallway, steps across the threshold and demands to know if paint colors were what had her spinning out of control and into the dirt.
…She says yes.
She says yes, and then she asks for ice cream.
Fin.