Prologue
零
"You're pregnant."
Mikoto's head snaps up at the comment. Sure she hasn't been making a concerted effort to hide it but surprise still colors her thoughts. Fugaku has practically been living at the office for the past six months, how did he even notice?
Seeing the question on his wife's face he looks away before mumbling, "You're eating nattō."
A smile blooms across her lips at his statement and she finds herself barely managing to bite back a squeal. Sometimes, she muses, her husband is just the absolute cutest.
Fugaku had missed much of her pregnancy with Itachi due to being sent to the warfront but he'd never forget the first four months. They had found out about three weeks into her pregnancy when Mikoto was scheduled for her monthly check-up with the iryō-nin. It was a hectic time in between deployments for the both of them but Fugaku had wasted no time in dumping his responsibilities on his subordinates when a courier was sent for him.
Though he denies it to this very day, Mikoto swears she saw some tears in his eyes when she gave him the news.
She was immediately rotated out of combat and Fugaku was mercifully given a few months time to rest. Ignoring the constant pressures for a psych eval along with his more urgent duties with the police, he spent the majority of his time waiting on her hand and foot. And she had zero compunctions about running her husband ragged.
He'll forever relate nattō and grapefruits with that wonderful time in his life.
Unfortunately, the temporary peace they had managed to carve out was quickly dashed to pieces when Fugaku was called back to the front-lines. Mikoto found herself alone, pregnant, and with all the duties and responsibilities of the clan head with none of the respect. She's never figured out how she managed to survive it all but she likes to think it was her little boy looking out for her even then, a rock in the gushing rapids of her life.
Still, the pressure pushed her to her breaking point and just as she was on the cusp of lighting one of the elders on fire, she felt it. Her water broke.
It was a hard, brutal labor that nearly broke her in two. All she remembers is the sheer agony of being ripped apart at the seams and being yelled at to push, just keep pushing. It was hours of this and just when she thought she couldn't do it anymore, she heard Itachi's wails.
There was no sweeter sound.
Deliriously, she held her hands out for her baby; desperate to see what she worked so hard for but she was denied even that simple pleasure. A hemorrhage, they had said, emergency surgery. And so she was whisked away without even getting a look at her boy, unsure if she would ever even get the chance.
When she woke up she found herself stuck in a hospital room receiving lecture after lecture on the effects of stress on the body. She's not sure which disinterested expression did it but the iryō-nin had grown fed up and placed her on bed-rest. By the time she was well enough to move around again she had lost out on the first few months of Itachi's life.
And with them, she had lost her son to the elder's clutches.
Oh how she tore Fugaku apart when she found out; for all his genius he was absolutely terrible at politics. A part of her still writhes with unbridled resentment when she thinks of the what could have beens.
This time, no one will touch her baby.
It's a foolish dream, she knows, but she refuses to allow her child to be lost to her again. To be forced to bear the burdens of a clan so wrapped up in its own ego that it's two seconds away from suffocation. She can't have that. Won't have that.
She thinks about Fugaku and his older brother. The Uchiha that had never awakened his sharingan. How their father and the elders pit them against each other under the guise of "training". How he was slowly cut out from the main family until he was nothing more than a pariah. How he died thinking his life meant nothing. Thinking that his younger brother didn't care about him.
If she has a son, so long as Fugaku is head, he will never know peace. Her boys will never be able to rely on each other; forced to become the benchmarks that the other has to surpass. They'll be torn from one another before they even get to develop a bond. Itachi, sweet sweet Itachi who's already being labeled as "other" by the kids his age, will have no one at his side. So long as she has a son, her family will be destined for sorrow.
And so, she prays.
She pours all of her will and determination and spirit into it and prays every morning and night for a girl. She's willing to stake everything she ever has been and will be on this one factor. Hell, she's even willing to sacrifice her career as a kunoichi.
As for what Fugaku wants, well, there's very little a mother wouldn't do for her child and Mikoto is no ordinary mother. She's an Uchiha.
With that in mind, she smiles blithely at her husband and nods.
"Yes, I am."
〆
I can't believe this plot bunny actually got written lmfao...anyways! This is one of my first forays into writing fiction so if you have any criticisms lay them on me!